A Boy and His Blog

Archive for January, 2009

Owen had his first day of preschool on Thursday.  He is now enrolled in therapeutic preschool that serves children with mild anxiety and sensory issues, which makes it difficult for them to adapt to normal classroom settings.  They will use things like weighted vests, heavy balls, social stories, and picture boards to help the kids feel comfortable in school, learn to develop socially, and separate from their parents without to much emotional distress.  Owen will attend two days a week, on Tuesday and Thursday from 9:00 to noon.

As you can see from the photo, Owen was just thrilled to go   He is standing like R2-D2 here, but when we got to his school he decided to be T-800 (from terminator, and no he has NOT seen that movie, just pictures of the robot).  I imagine T-800 is a bit more brave and Owen was trying to pull from that on his first day of school.  Owen was a bit excited to go, but on the actual day, he had a change of heart and became angered at the prospect.  I told him we would just go try it out and see if he liked it.

When we arrived Owen was nervous and wanted me to stay by his side the whole time.  He liked free play the best, and disliked circle time the most.  He does not like singing or doing hand movements to songs, and he didn’t like sitting so that everyone could see him.  He kept scooting back to sit alongside of me.  When his teacher read a book in circle, he refused to look at it, and turned his head and looked the other way.  Before circle time I had left the room for 10 minutes, telling him I was going to use the bathroom.  He didn’t seem to care and just gave me a simple wave of his hand as I walked out.  He didn’t cry, but his teacher said he got a little nervous and asked where I was after a few minutes, so she waved me back in.  After circle time, they sat and did an art project, and I left the room then too, telling Owen I had to go to a little meeting.  I watched him through the window and he did great.  I stayed out for about 15 minutes.  When I came back in they had snack, which was a rice krispie bar that Owen took about two bites of and then folded up into his napkin.  He does not like sweet things like that.  He also had some juice, and then they washed up.

They then went into the big muscle room where they play with big balls, or cars, or a parachute, or climb a climbing, wall among other things, and Owen really loved that.  He really loosened up and played a lot, even interacting with the other kids.  At about this time I really felt like I could go, and he would be okay, but it was getting so late that it didn’t make much sense for me to leave at that point.  So, we went back to the room for some more free play, which Owen got really immersed in.  I then really had to go to the bathroom, so I left and when I came back I just stayed in the back of the room.  He didn’t see me for a really long time, and he was perfectly happy not having me there.  They have a closing circle time too, and Owen wasn’t thrilled about that one either, but did better then the first one.

Overall I think he did great, and I was really happy that he fit in so nicely.  All the other kids are boys, and only one of them had any noticeable issues, yet they all are said to have anxiety and sensory stuff going on like Owen does.  There are five other kids so far, all boys, so Owen is the sixth child in the class and there are only two teachers.  They are supposed to add six more kids and make it twelve, so eventually the ratio wont be quite as ideal as it is now.  I’m really happy to have found this preschool, and I am hoping it will be a spring board to being able to do a preschool in our city for three days a week next year.  This preschool is 20 minutes away, and the one near us is much closer, and is a nature based program and very montessori like which I really love.  We will see though how Owen does with preschool in general for the rest of this school year, and then decide what to do for next year after that.  But so far, he is doing very well.  On Tuesday I plan to stay with him until he is fairly comfortable and then try leaving.

The other day Owen and I were driving in the car. He suddenly yelled something really loud. I said “Owen! You scared the bejesus out of me!” He then said, “Mama, you scared the Jehovah out of me!”  He seems to think that one can’t say the word “Jesus” without also saying the word “Jehovah”.

Owen has some funny phrases he says lately.  Like he always asks, “what do you think?”  He says this when something is a bit peculiar and he wants to know what we think of it.  He also says, “what do you think of this?” or “how do you like that?” if he is doing something funny or strange that he wants us to take notice of.  He likes to hide now too.  He hides under blankets or he just hides his own face or head under a pillow or in the couch when one of us is coming home.  If taken off guard he will simply close his own eyes and he thinks this is hiding.  He then jumps up and says “ta da!”  He is also saying “I know” when we try telling him something.  He says it in an exasperated way like he is a teenager who thinks his parents are idiots.  Like we will say, “Owen, look, you pour this into here like this…” and he will interrupt “I know”.  He says this a lot these days.

Owen is growing very independent.  He is liking to do a lot of things for himself.  He will say, “I can do it” or “I do it!”.  He wants to cut his own food up, and zip his coat up, and do pretty much anything that he can on his own.  I think this is a bit of a delayed thing, because this is generally associated with the 2’s, but we are happy to see him wanting to do things for himself.

Owen is going through an angry phase.  He gets very scowly looks on his face and snaps at us a lot.  Sometimes he can’t seem to ask for anything without being mean about it.  I don’t think he is unhappy or angry, I think he is just having fun displaying this new emotion, so he is doing it all the time.

He is also happy every now and then too.  He likes to dance and sing now, but it is a very strange variation of what you would traditionally think of as singing and dancing.  I don’t even think I can quite explain it, but his dancing is just kind of bobbing up and down at the knees, and his singing is just him making some non-intelligeable noises in a sort of rhythmic way.  One day he even got up on his little table and was bobbing around and singing for me.  If he does actually attempt to sing a real song, it is just a very monotone shouting of the words.  I am really glad he has the confidence to try it finally though.

A couple days ago we had some friends over who had a one year old baby girl.  Owen had to be coaxed to play with her, and he would really only play beside her.  I didn’t know what he had thought of her since he rarely sees any babies anywhere.  That night while I was tucking him into bed I asked him if he liked the baby.  He said, “how about our next baby be that girl”.  I guess he liked her.  I explained that her parents wouldn’t like it we had her be our baby, so we should just have our own baby someday.  I guess he may be ready for a sibling soon.  Now if only Mama and Daddy were ready…

Lyric likes mermaids and Owen likes robots.  Owen is very confused over this strange thing.  He can’t wrap his mind around the fact that Lyric would like mermaids.  He says, “why Lyric like mermaids?” and “why Lyric not like robots?” and “who builds mermaids?”  He just can’t seem to understand that someone else could possibly like something different then what he likes.  He may be starting to grasp it because sometimes he says, “I like robots, and Lyric likes mermaids, what does Lucy like?”  We don’t know what Lucy likes, so I always tell him we’ll have to ask her.

Owen is really robot obsessed.  Day and in and day out, it’s nothing but robots, robots, robots.  He pretends he is a robot, he pretends we are robots, he talks about robots, thinks about robots, asks me why he is not a robot, asks me what is inside of robots bodies, etc.  One day he said to me, “why aren’t I a robot?”  I told him he was a person, and people grow in their Mama’s tummy’s and are born, and robots are made.  He said, “but how did I get in your tummy?”  I said, “well Mama and Daddy made you and put you in Mama’s tummy to grow and then when you got big enough you came out…”  He then got a scowl on his face and raised his voice and said, “well, why didn’t you make a robot!?”  I said, “well because, I didn’t want a robot, I wanted a baby!”  He yelled, “well I want a robot!”  I said, “well, you make a robot then!”  He got quiet and thought to himself for a minute and then he said, “I will make a robot, but Daddy has to help me because I don’t know all the pieces.”  He then went on and on about the robot him and Daddy will be making.

Daddy printed off lots of pictures of every robot he could find from TV and movies and we put them into plastic sleeves and taped them to his closet doors.  Every night now, we have to talk about the robots before he goes to bed.  He likes turning off his light and shining his night light on them and naming and talking about each one.  He knows even obscure robots, like we all know R2-D2 and C-3PO, but also from Star Wars he knows R4, R5, and TC-14 as well as pit droids and battle droids.  He knows pretty much every robot from every popular TV show or movie over the last 50 years or so.

When we ask him why he likes robots so much, he says, “because they clean up”.

Here are some photo’s of Owen and his robots:

This is the first picture of robots Owen had. I ripped it out of Entertainment Weekly and hung it on his closet door. I didn't realize the obsession it would spark.

This is how Owen's closet doors look now. Lots and lots of robots.

Here is Owen holding his robot, Tribot, and posing in front of all his robot pictures.