A Visit to the Space Center

Sunday the Perry's were back in town and we went to the Allison's house to visit with them over dinner. Jade and Andrew were sitting together at the table.  Andrew asked her why she moved to Michigan and she just shrugged her shoulders. Then Patty piped up, "Yeah, especially after you two got married? You just up and left him behind."  Andrew leaned toward her, "Would you marry me again?"  We all laughed and Jade got up and left the table with a bashful smile. Andrew said, "Awww, come on!"  We just laughed harder. It was so cute.
They all had a blast being together and playing all evening.

Monday morning Andrew quietly snuck up behind daddy who was in the kitchen and tapped on his rear. When Ted turned around, Andrew lifted his own shirt and then let out an audible and smelly toot and then walked away.

Monday evening we all went to Amigos for dinner. Someone dressed as Santa came in. Later I hear Jade tell Lauren Milke, "Look! There's Santa!"  Andrew yelled, "That's not Santa! That's just someone's dad!"   I was so proud.
After dinner, several of the kids were using quarters to buy candy and toys in the vending machines. All on his own, he turned down the M&M's with food coloring, but he asked if he could at least get a hard toy.  Amber gave him some quarters so he could buy some silly teeth to wear. All of them bought silly teeth and had fun trying to wear them without laughing hysterically at each other.

Tuesday he got to play Gran Turismo with daddy and Cole Vaal. Andrew actually won one round. He also read (very well!) the story of the Israelites creating and worshiping the gold calf to Jamie and Alli.  In the evening he played Boxers or Briefs with us and Charles and Marion Hailey who were visiting. He held his own there too and had a wonderful time.

Wednesday morning when I got up he had a huge smile on his face. "Mom! Do you know what today is?!  Christmas!!"  I said okay and he said, "Aren't we going to the Space Center today?"  I hated telling him that we were going the day after xmas and it'd be tomorrow.  He said, "Oh man!" all disappointed.  He was a good sport though.  He did had an emotional breakdown after losing the game of Sorry. He threw the board and got in trouble. I was so proud of what happened next. He went to the bathroom and cried, then yelled, then screamed, hit things a few times. I had run the Bars therapy on him yesterday and evidently he had some emotions that needed to come out. I was proud of him for letting them out instead of suppressing them. Then he and daddy talked about why throwing the game wasn't a good idea and they talked about feelings and everything got worked out.
Later daddy told him he wanted to reward Andrew for saying no to the colored candy at Amigos (apparently he had promised treats at home at a later time and it hadn't been fulfilled yet.)  Andrew voted for ice cream - strawberry and chocolate.  I had fallen asleep in Andrew's bed and he woke me up when it was time for him to be getting in for a nap. I stayed to cuddle for a few minutes and he told me that after nap, he was getting a huge ice cream and it was going to be ten scoops with a pattern of strawberry and chocolate, strawberry and chocolate.....  , and all with a cone on the bottom. He asked if I'd like that and I said no - because ten scoops of ice cream would make my tummy hurt. 

Wednesday night at the meeting, he was very hard on himself. He dropped his songbook and started trying not to cry. I took him to the back and we sat on the floor by the water fountain finishing the song. Then he told me that he was upset because he couldn't read the words and keep up with the song to sing, so he didn't get to sing. I told him we could practice the song at home sometime, but that it's okay. We all have trouble sometimes and none of us do a perfect job.  He drew a picture and was trying to color it in and got very upset that he didn't stay inside the lines perfectly. I kept trying to tell him it was good enough but he didn't accept it.  Then he got upset that he couldn't write a letter S perfectly. Again, I tried to tell him that it was still obviously an S and it was a very good S and it doesn't have to be perfect. He didn't like that answer either.   Then he had an answer prepared and didn't get called on, so we prepared two more and got missed on those too.  He asked, "Why does everyone keep taking my answer?!"  Finally he got to give one but he sounded disappointed by then.I asked him why he answered like that and he said, "Because I'm sad. I'm sad that I'm not ten like Cole."   We also realized his shirts are getting too small. The sleeves were too short on his arms. He asked me to unbutton them and roll them up, but then he got cold. Time to start shopping for 5T dress shirts I guess. Some of his regular 4T shirts are getting small too.  And he just moved up a shoe size. When we were at Bess' house last week, I realized the seams at the toes of the shoe were separating and sure enough, his toes were at the very end. I felt bad that I hadn't noticed his shoes getting too small! Thankfully I already had the next size up in the closet ready to go!

Thursday we took him to the Space Center in Huntsville, AL. He was so excited, especially when you could see one of the rockets from the interstate. We decided to watch one of the IMAX movies about outer space which showed how a telescope was built and used in the desert to capture images of galaxies and stars and nebulas, etc. He wasn't too sure about it (and this was his first experience in a theater), especially when the optics made it feel like the room was moving. He decided it'd be more secure to sit on a lap. And before the movie was over he told us he thought it'd be a good time to "find the exits and use them."   He stood in line to wait for a moon rover simulator, but decided not to try it at the last minute. He enjoyed pedaling pretending to be in a lunar bike race, and attempting to simulate landing a shuttle, and he liked watching astronauts training underwater. One lady was playing basketball underwater using a bowling ball and she waved to Andrew anytime we were standing at the window watching. We were all disappointed that there wasn't a rocket to go inside, but there were a lot of displays to look in. The highlight for him was a small kids play area where he could pretend to pilot a rocket and run around and slide on a moon rock.  All in all it was interesting. The last thing we did was tour one of the traveling exhibits that were a lot of little handmade machines, gears, pulleys, etc - all out of wood. One was building a bridge out of round wooden stakes - Ted and Andrew successfully built one before Andrew cheerfully knocked it back down.Upon leaving we asked what was his favorite thing about the space center and he said, "all of it."

Friday morning daddy finished the painting in Andrew's room so now one wall is red, one is superhero blue, one buttery yellow, and one lime green. By nap it still hadn't aired out all the way so we let Andrew nap on daddy's side of the bed while I sat and studied on my side. I tried to take a nap but I couldn't stop looking at Andrew sleeping next to me. He's getting so big.
Friday afternoon we played the games Sorry and Life. He does a good job keeping up with it all. In the evening, the Chumleys came over. At one point Andrew asked, "Am I really married? .... I must be because everyone kisses on me!"

Saturday we played board games with him again. I found a Disney version of Sorry in the closet and thought it'd be fun to try. He immediately claimed "the bad guys" and sounded evil through most of the game. We tried to explain to him that the bad guys never have true friends and they are the ones that usually die at the end.  Then we made pizza together and watched an Ice Age movie where there was a bad pirate ape and we were able to tie that in to the previous conversation since the ape had no true friends and ended up dying at the end.

Lego Space Station

Sunday December 8th. 
Annelise had a dance expo Saturday night and due to expected inclement weather and our exhaustion, we didn't get to go. She got home really late and still had her make up on Sunday morning and it was really dark around her eyes.  Andrew and I were playing Flippity Frogs at the table when she came in. He stood next to her asking her some questions. She made some expressions on her face like she was wondering why he was asking these things. He then backed away and said, "you look kind of creepy."  We all got a good laugh.
Later Andrew told her, "If you use your imagination, you will be smart too!"  She said, "I think you're smarter than me."  He said, "Yeah, I think so."

After breakfast, Andrew decided to get the erasable crayons and do most of the pages in the workbook he likes that practices drawing lines and shapes and following paths. When he was done he said, "I need to show this to mom! She will be so proud of me!"  I just love him! 

At the meeting, he was very proudly drawing beautiful pictures. He drew a flower, a boat, played tic-tac-toe by himself. Then he drew a snake and wrote the word "snake" under it with no help at all.
When the talk was over, Brian Stockholm announced that we won't be here next Sunday, we will be in Cookeville.  Andrew piped up really loudly, "We won't be here? We'll be in Cookeville?"  Brian smiled at him and said, "yes, we will be in Cookeville for our Special Assembly Day." 
He had his own Watchtower with his answer underlined. He looked like such a big boy. After his comment, he rolled up his watchtower like a telescope and looked around, then came and crawled into my lap. He curled up and fell asleep. As his body relaxed, his face fell further and further into my stomach so that for most of the lesson, I had to press down on my side and pull my belly away from his nose so he'd have a pocket of air to breathe!  I was too afraid of waking him up if I tried to move him.  At one point we noticed that his hands were in tight fists, so daddy reached over and tried to pry his fingers loose to relax - it was not an easy task. He slept through the song and prayer and I did shift him so he could breathe easier. Even after waking up, he chose to stay cuddled for a while. He asked me if we could go out to eat and I said I'd mention it to daddy. Then he heard Ann Arnold invite us to Amigos and he hopped off my lap to talk to her and made it very clear to us that he wanted to go to Amigos because he likes Ann.  We opted for Frankie's Pizza and Grill  (which made him grumpy for a bit) but we let him have a strawberry milkshake and he ordered a pineapple pizza and enjoyed being out.

Once home daddy announced that he was going to put mouse traps in the attic. That unleashed a barrage of questions from Andrew about "where is daddy going? why is he laying mouse traps? are they the same traps as in the house? is the attic under the house? is he going under the house? do we need to call a fire truck to use their ladder? ...." I finally got so overwhelmed because he was firing the questions so fast, I told him to go follow his daddy around and find out.

Tuesday he got to stay home because of icy roads closing most schools and they'd be coming home early for his IQ testing anyway. Daddy worked from home.  While I was eating breakfast and studying, he asked me if I had any muscles he could color. So daddy printed off a human body showing the muscles. Andrew started coloring, "Is this the rectus femoris mom?"  He even pronounced it correctly.  Later daddy introduced him to "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" which he loved.
At 2:30 it was time to meet for his IQ testing at the elementary school. I met them there since I did have school and Andrew and I built with blocks for a few minutes. He told the psychologist "just 1-2 more minutes and then I'll be ready."  He placed two more blocks and then marched over to her table and sat down ready to go!  He sat for almost an entire hour to complete the testing. She was impressed that he sat that long. She really couldn't predict how he did on it and said there was really only one area that he seemed to not excel in - but was at least average if not above still.  It was looking at a picture and recognizing what was missing from it.  The problem is, he was picking out things that would expand the photo rather than find what was missing IN the photo.  One was a photo of a girl writing on a chalk board, but she was missing the chalk in her hand. It was zoomed in to her waist up.  So he was saying that she was missing legs, that the chalkboard was missing the border/frame around it... things like that. He never noticed that her hand didn't have something in it.
   Once he was done he told Ms. Casey  "we're going to eat at Logans after, you're welcome to join us."  She thought that was really sweet of him.  We did enjoy dinner at Logans - he loved the fact that he could crush the peanut shell and just throw it on the floor.

Tuesday night I was putting him to bed. He got settled and then reached up and grabbed my neck to squeeze. I giggled and then he giggled, I giggled more and he giggled more, then he giggled harder and I did to.   He said, "WHAT are you laughing about?"  I told him I was laughing at him and asked why he was laughing. He said, "I'm laughing at you laughing." 
Then I asked who was saying the prayer. He said, "We have a pattern going. Daddy, me, you, daddy, me, you.  It's your turn."  I laughed and complied.  Then during my prayer he speaks up, "and pray for those who do not have houses and only eat oatmeal."   We've had a couple of conversations lately when he complains before he even tries something that he should be glad he has food to eat and a place to live because not everyone does.  And the oatmeal I think came from when we were trying to tell him to be thankful he doesn't have to eat the same food for every meal every day like the Israelites did for a time and I likened the manna to having oatmeal every meal.  Hey - it's a start.

Wednesday his new Lego set arrived (a day early). I didn't have a chance to go get a cake and balloons and make a big deal out of all the hard work he's accomplished lately. So I baked a gluten free chocolate cake mix I had in the pantry and melted chocolate chips on top of it for icing.  When the boys walked in, Andrew was mad and tried to slam the door on daddy.  He saw that I was making a cake and I told him I was making it for him: that we have been so proud of him and how kind he's been, cooperative, and working so hard on practicing violin, working with Ms Casey (testing) and even workbooks and projects on his own.  But he wasn't  getting any unless he shapes up and acts nicely the rest of the evening and reminded him he owed daddy an apology.  He went to daddy and said he was sorry and when daddy opened his arms out wide for a hug, Andrew swung his arm out wide and hit daddy (for the third time since he was picked up from school.)  He sat in time out for two minutes. I told him again how proud we've been of him, but that behavior is not acceptable and he should be respecting daddy (and I listed a bunch of reasons why.) Then I told him he was going to get one more chance, but I needed two things from him. 1) apology to daddy 2) telling me why he was so upset.  He told me he was disappointed that things did not go well at school. Something about kids at the yellow table being not nice and going "naa naa na naa naaa" and it really upset him. He wasn't at that table but he somehow got in trouble or felt like he was in trouble because of those kids. But he was taking his frustration out on daddy.  So I told him I'm sorry that happened and I would be frustrated and upset too, but suggested maybe next time he TELL daddy what happened to make him feel disappointed and frustrated and ask what they can do to deal with it (like punching a pillow or his punching bag, or yelling outside, etc.)   He clearly felt much better, went and hugged daddy and apologized, then came running to me and said, "Thanks for talking to me mom!"  He was good the rest of the evening. 
Thank goodness - because I really wanted us to enjoy cake and his surprise!  So after dinner we had cake and I told him as soon as he was done with it, there was another surprise for him.  "What is it?"  I told him it wouldn't be a surprise if I told.  After another reminder to finish his cake he said, "Is my surprise my new Lego set?"  I didn't even answer and just smiled at him.  Then when he was done, daddy told him to go look on his bed. He ran down the hall to find a large box holding the Space Station Lego set.  He squealed and jumped up and down on the bed for a minute and then did a face plant into the mattress (and then did it again asking us if we saw it.)  Then he sat discussing the picture on the box for what felt like an eternity.  He had less than an hour to get started on it before bed.... he built the control tower and the shuttle carrier all by himself (and it's for ages 6-12!)  Daddy only turned the pages in the instruction booklet and helping get the pieces ready.

Saturday we had to get groceries. He wrote out the grocery list on the way.

Sunday the 15th we were off to Cookeville for the Special Assembly Day. He did really well considering it was a long drive and a long day of sitting. He had a blast running around with other small children on the arena floor.  He wrote a note to Nana saying, "I lofe you"  It's the first time he's ever spelled love incorrectly.

Wednesday I let Andrew use my new Red Light Therapy tool on acupressure points on himself for Wellness and also the Common Cold to see if it will help release him of the sniffles he's had for the past month. His nose doesn't run.. he just sniffles.  Earlier a friend was here with her daughter to tell me more about the red light therapy and Andrew was taking her around showing her all the mouse traps and spider traps he knew of and told her not to touch them because they could really hurt her and take her finger off.

Thursday Ted opted to work from home so Andrew will be home on winter break until January. He enjoyed being home.  I learned a new therapy called Bars on Tuesday and practiced it on Ted for the second time and the first time on Andrew.  Later Andrew and I played 'baseball' with a tennis ball and racket because we didnt know where the bat was. He's pretty good!  While I was making dinner, daddy played with him and helped him climb a tree too.
I don't know if the Bars therapy played a roll in this or not:  For the last several weeks, when we say it's time to brush teeth he'll fight us one way or another. He would tell us he's still hungry or thirsty, or he'd fall to the floor moaning and drag out the time, he'd not cooperate with brushing or getting pajamas on.. it felt like a battle every step of the way every single night.  Not this night. He and I were playing legos and I said, "okay, it's that time. Let's go brush teeth."  He said, "Okay!" tossed his legos into the bucket and headed to the bathroom asking for no toothpaste. Then he asked if he could try the cinnamon toothpaste in our bathroom - which turned out to be the peppermint one, not cinnamon.I thought the wintergreen would be less intense but he didn't like it much, but there was no battle. No battle getting pjs on or getting into bed. No requests for food or drinks or toys.
  Well after we'd put him to bed, he got up and opened his door. I went in and he was sitting up in bed.  We talked for a little bit. He told me he needed a massage so I massaged his back and legs and had him turn over so i could do his feet and scalp. I started singing Dream A Little Dream to him and he sang, "Close your eyes..."  so I switched to the Beatles song instead. I sang as far as I knew and he asked me who sang that song. He thought the Beatles was a silly name for a band.
He also told me that when I'm sleeping and I hear a knock at the door that it will make me happy. I told him I don't need to hear a knock at the door - all I have to do is think about him and I am happy. He told me, "I'm going to think about Meemaw and Bebop because they're nice to me sometimes."  Hey - whatever works to have sweet dreams.

Friday Andrew and daddy got to see the new school I'll be attending. Since we were in Nashville, we had lunch with Grandma Bess.  We all sat down in the living room and Andrew sat in his seat and crossed his legs like everyone else had. Then he bashfully asked me if she had any toys and if I would ask her about them. They found a tiny wagon and a couple of stuffed animals. "Do you have any other hard toys?"  I thought that was a cute way to ask for something other than stuffed animals. He also wanted a tour of the house, so Bess took him downstairs and then upstairs. He liked that. 

Several nights lately he has pretended to be a horse pulling a carriage that you have to ride in to take him to his room or bathroom for the bedtime routine.

Saturday he was pretending to be the pilot of a plane taking Bess to Maryland (she leaves to visit family on Sunday).  Then on the way to service he was telling me how he wanted to arrange car groups. He wanted Rick Mann and Delilah and Kelly Pingle and Samantha to come in our car and told me where each of them would sit. He did get half of that - Rick and Delilah came with us and they played beautifully together all morning.
On the way home he said he wanted to build a cave in the backyard by digging a hole out of the dirt. Instead, Daddy clamped a large blanket over his entire bed so he could take his nap in a pretend cave. He loved that... slept all night in it also.

Also Saturday night he decided to write up his own menu.

Practicing for Legos

Sunday night, I used Andrew's markers and made a sign that says I Love You Andrew  then a heart and mommy.  When he wasn't looking, I taped it to his wall next to the light switch. I was washing my hands in my bathroom when I heard him read it outloud and then he yelled, "Mom!!" came running to me "Mom! I found something! Come see! It's beautiful and has beautiful words!"  He took me to his room and showed me the sign. He read it to me again with a big smile on his face and said, "I love you too mom. Why did you put this here?"  I told him I just wanted him to know that I love him.  I got him settled into bed and before I left he took my head and kissed my cheek, then forehead, and other cheek and gave me a hug.  He's so sweet when he wants to be.

Monday I picked Andrew up from school early - right after nap time. He was very surprised to see me and gave me a big hug. Once we got home, he pulled a toy out of his pants pocket and told me that he accidentally brought a toy home. I inquired further and he said that he found it on the floor during nap time (and because I picked him up right after, he'd forgotten and didnt get a chance to put it away.)  He asked if the teacher was going to be upset.  I told him he didn't mean to take it home and that he can just return it to it's place in the morning. He asked for a baggie to put it in and put it in his backpack. 

Tuesday Andrew told us that Elf on the Shelf believes in Santa. Daddy asked if Santa was real and Andrew said that his teacher told him Santa is real. So daddy asked, who are you going to trust - your teacher, or your mom and dad?  He said mom and dad and that Santa is not real. I have a feeling he'd like to believe he's real. He has such a great wonderous imagination, it'd be easy to believe in all of that. 

Who knew Math would get Andrew to eat his dinner?  Tuesday night he went through what is becoming a routine for him. Announcing he doesn't like dinner (even before knowing what it is) and saying, "well, I'm not going to eat it."  Once at the table with his pouty face, he'll maybe take a bite of something and then leave. I asked him if we needed to go to his room and talk and he nodded yes. We sat on the bed where he tried to play. I finally held up my hand and said to imagine you only have five minutes before bed.  You can take 1 minute to eat (as i put one finger down) and have 4 minutes left to play which is what you really want to be doing. Or, you can take one minute to pout, another minute fighting us, and spend three minutes sitting at the table and have zero time for play before bed. Which one do you want?  He got the point right away and agreeably joined the dinner table and ate his dinner. He still took a while to eat, but he got it done and was happy and still had plenty of time to play!

Wednesday - Annelise was on the couch wearing socks with a tootsie roll character. Andrew leaned against the couch and said, "I like you're socks."  Annelise asked him if he knew what a tootsie roll is and he went over to examine the socks closely and said, "Hmm, they are a cylinder with a head, arms, and feet."  We all got a chuckle over that. 

Thursday he had his final assessment at the Elementary School (next week he starts his IQ testing). Before we got started he needed to potty so I walked him across the hall and waited outside. Another boy walks in and asks him how old he is. Andrew says 4 and the boy replies,"oh that's cool."  Andrew asks the boy how old he is and he's 6.  Andrew says, "In two weeks I'll be six!"  (two years)  The boy was trying to figure out if Andrew was in Kindergarten at age 4. Then I hear Andrew tell him "you know what? In ten weeks I'll be 18!"  The boy thought for a second, "What?! No that can't be right." 
  The teacher said his assessment will be really easy for him, but it's a basic standard test for 4 year olds. She said during the test, Andrew got bored with it and started making his own game out of it. She'd ask a question and he'd say a wrong answer and then make an "eennnhh" sound like a wrong answer buzzard. Then he'd say the right answer and say, "Ding!" like a bell.  Although she found it amusing, she did tell him that they'd be done faster if he just gives her the answer, and then he complied.
  The two things he missed were that he saw a photo of a hinge and he knew it belonged on a door and allowed it to open and close, but he didn't know what to call it. And he said the compass was a clock.  She said he was unique though in that other kids get the answer wrong and don't care - Andrew wanted to know what was the right answer so he could learn it. And he asks a lot of questions and listens trying to understand everything fully.  She said he's truly an exceptional child, and so well rounded. She likes that you can carry on an adult conversation with him, and he's so personable and kind.  He scored above the 99.9 percentile again on this test.
  At bedtime, in his prayer, he thanked Jehovah for "endurance in the tummy"  which I can only guess was on his mind because his tummy hurt after dinner. I massaged his stomach in a clockwise motion and then he went running to the bathroom a minute later which helped.

Friday daddy worked from home due to expected inclement weather in Nashville. I came home from school to them playing Yahtzee!  He said Andrew was doing pretty well at it too!

Andrew was slightly upset that I wouldn't let him have a popsicle. He picked up some of the trio blocks that he'd built into some interesting form but he was making what sounded like machine gun sounds.  I asked him if he was shooting something and he said no. He then proceeded to tell me some story about how it was a spaceship and it made that sound to pick up people in space.

Andrew saw a noisy fire truck toy once that he has his heart set on. I think it was at Kohls. Anyway, we'd been giving him quarters anytime he practiced his violin, but he has since decided it's not worth it. However, this morning he asked me "if I put my socks on all by myself, can I have a quarter?"  I look at him, "you want a quarter for putting your socks on all by yourself?  How about a nickel?"  He starts bargaining, "how much is a nickel?"  I tell him it's worth 5. He decides that is acceptable and tells me excitedly he'll get five and asked me if I'll be buying him anything at Kohls. I told him no and he said something about that noisy firetruck. I told him I don't want him to have that noisy firetruck because it's loud and I don't want to listen to it. He said, "you don't have to listen to it! I can play with it in my room!"  By that time he was done putting his socks on. So I lay out five pennies and one nickel and tell him the nickel is the same as five pennies. He opted for the pennies.

We also finally told him that once he has 24 stickers on the calendar for practicing violin - we'd let him have a Lego set.  It was hard for him to understand that he'd probably still have to wait to get the prize. He only had three practice sessions left to earn a lego set (of 5 minutes each) and wanted to do them all in one day.  Yeah... he barely made it through five minutes. He doesn't want to practice the same song over and over again - he wants to play it well enough one time and move on. 

Smarty Pants

Andrew boggles my mind. Tuesday morning he had his third special education assessment, the last one before the IQ testing.  The educator was sitting on a bench in the elementary school hallway showing me the results of the first two assessments. She was drawing a graph describing the scores and that curve that everything measurable for children seems to fall under - age, height, weight, assessments. The middle is 100, the 'average' where most children fall near that high part of the curve.  Then there is the start of the curve where educators are concerned about the children who score there - they are educationally behind and usually have difficulty learning. Then on the opposite side of average are those kids who are a bit more advanced in their education.  For the special education, they are looking for the students who typically fall between 119-130 I think.  The scoring only goes up to 145 on the chart so very few people are on that end.
    Then she shows me on the graph where Andrew is. I look across the hallway at this very small, still child, bundled up in his brand new winter coat that he doesn't want to take off, hood still buttoned around his face covering his mouth. His feet are together, his hands in his lap, as he's just leaning on the edge of the bench and gazing down the hallway of the school quietly.  I feel that warmth behind my eyes... you know, the warmth you feel as you are overcome by emotion but it doesn't quite break through into tears.  Who is he??  I know I have raised this child and spent a lot of time with him, and yet for a moment, he feels so distant and like a stranger to me. I cannot even comprehend his intelligence and how frustrating it must be for him to understand so much and not be able to do all that he wants to with it.  To have so many questions he is eager to learn the answers to, and be stuck with parents whose mind and ears are exhausted by the constant barrage of curiosity that we actually ask him to stop talking.. a lot.We used to joke about how he seemed to understand what we were talking about even before he had words formed with his own tongue, but only half believing it ourselves and thinking it must just be coincidence - and yet here we are, it really is reality.
     I tune back into the teacher showing me her graph drawn on the back of a paper .... remember the assessment score graph only goes up to 145.   He scored 156 on his reading.  He's not even ON the graph. No one scores that.  She said she's never even seen someone score that high on it before.  There isn't even a percentile for him to fit into on that. All they can put is 'above 99th percentile.'     "Well, I know he is good at reading, but he's not likely to be that smart in all the different areas, right?"    She replied, "Well I told you he did really well on Math too." She showed me his score. I don't remember it exactly, but I want to say it was somewhere around 136. Still very high and above the 99th percentile.  That's when I felt so overwhelmed by my duty to this child and feeling like I'm really not the best person responsible for him. Not sure I know anyone who is, but still. I feel unworthy of such a gift in a little human, and so inadequate. 
     Soon he was walking down the empty hallway with her, disappearing to a warm cozy room to do the next assessment. I sat on the cold bench learning anatomy. I only got through eight flash cards twice and they were back again. This time it was general knowledge and she said the test is a bit outdated (what little kid these days knows what a typewriter is?) but that he still did really well on it. She said there are other assessments in this category that she'd like to give him, but this one was required first because of his age, but she thinks he'd do even better on others.  Anyway, she had gone ahead and scored this one and I dont remember the number, but it fell in the 91st percentile I think. 
      We are already scheduled early December to meet with the school and start the process of having his IQ assessment done, and there will be a few more steps after that. The end goal is that we sit down with several educators and school board members and come up with what courses he needs and can take, and possibly that he can start Kindergarten next fall. She said he could already pass the Kindergarten curriculum as he is right now, but apparently it's required.  Anyway... I knew he was smart - but I really haven't comprehended just how smart he is and I'm intimidated.

One day recently Andrew was walking away from us and we overheard him say, "I just love you guys" or "I just love them"   - I can't remember now which it was, but it was sweet.

Thursday morning Andrew yelled, "Mom!! I found a paper dollar! It has a face on it!"  He found a $5 bill sitting on the table. 

Friday Andrew was an absolute angel all day - cooperative and polite! Nana and I both had appointments with Adam Roberts. Andrew cozied up to Papa on a couch and had him read books while we waited.  Then we were off to Red Lobster to get free lobster tails. Andrew made sure he could sit next to Papa and he tried to carry on conversation with everyone at the table. Papa finished some crab legs and played with the claw which got Andrew very interested and excited. Once he learned how to make the pinchers move, he went around the table pretending to pinch each of us.
On our way out, someone pulled out a lobster and offered to let Andrew touch it. He was too nervous, but he liked seeing it.  Then we were off to Costco. Andrew was a big helper - even carrying heavy items to put under the cart. He got to taste a smoothie and he drank a sample of regular V-8 Juice and claimed to like it (wow!) but he didn't like a cracker with cheese and sweet/spicy sauce on it. Nor did he like the dried coconut; he very politely waited until he found a trash can to spit it out.  He tried to help unload the cart onto the conveyor too. He had a bag of gluten-free penne pasta and it fell, split open, and scattered dried pasta all over the floor. He was mortified and wanted to know why and how it happened. I assured him it was totally okay - that it happens.  The rest of the evening he was still being kind and polite.  I gave daddy my first attempt of a hot stone massage, and Andrew came in at the end (knocked on the door and waited first) and wanted to help. He enjoyed rubbing daddy's face, hands, and feet with hot stones.

Friday night he was giving me his wonderful goodnight hug.. I told him how wonderful he is and thanked him. He gave me a kiss on my cheek and then looked at me with a great smile. Then kissed my other cheek and smiled at me. He threw his head back and laughed and then said, "arrrggh" with a smile on his face when I told him no lips.  He's always trying to sneak that one in.

Daddy put some new educational games on Andrew's ipad. He brought it to me and said, "Mom, can you punch in the code, it's ####." I looked at the screen and it was for parents to access but it gave the code in written words - so any child that can read, could tell you the code too.  "Why don't you put in the numbers?" I ask. He replies, "I can't! It's for parents."   He's such a good boy.  He's done that more than once now. 

Saturday night we sent him to pick out jammies to wear to bed. He came back a minute later with 13 hangers of pajamas asking which one he should pick. I took them from him and held them out and told him that it's not about which ones we pick - it's about which ones he likes to wear and finds comfortable. He's so silly.