19.9.12

The Fantastic Day That Was

Not yesterday.

The Wife went to pick the kids up from daycare, as she normally does.  When she got there, she was informed by the director that Leonard had bitten another child and that Penny had been hitting other kids.  As far as we had known, everything had been going perfectly well at daycare and the kids were happy and well-behaved.  Obviously the hitting and biting were things that needed to be addressed with the kids, so we could try to convey the seriousness of their actions.  Generally when they get home, Leonard and Penny either watch cartoons for a little while or they play with their toys.  Yesterday, they got to do neither.  The Wife informed them that when they were ready to talk about what had happened, why it had happened, and why it was wrong, they could go play... but until then, they were not playing or doing anything else that could result in fun.  Penny was the first to start talking.  The Wife talked to her about how it wasn't nice to hit other kids, for any reason, and then they talked about what could be done differently next time (telling the other child how she feels, telling a teacher, etc).  Leonard was not so forthcoming with the talking and such.  Big shock to everyone, I'm sure.  When I got home, I found him standing just on the other side of his bedroom door.  I went in to attempt to get him to talk, but to no avail.  I then let him know that he needed to go sit on his bed until he was ready to talk or until he would answer my questions.  I told him how biting was not something he should ever do because he could get sick, he could make someone sick, or, if it continued, he would have to go to a different daycare potentially... without his sister.  I asked him one more time if he was going to talk to me about it and I got a head shake of "no".  Fifteen minutes later and dinner was ready, so he got to come out.

After Penny was done, since she's the fast eater, she played for a little while and then I decided that we might as well go take her bath.  Leonard was still eating.  About 45 minutes after starting dinner, Penny had bathed, brushed her teeth, gotten her hair brushed, and put her pajamas on... Leonard was still eating his cheeseburger.  For the record, eating his cheeseburger = wasting time to delay bath and bed.  While I was upstairs with Penny, The Wife went down to talk to Leonard about the biting.  He wouldn't talk, until she decided that the plate in front of him was a distraction and moved it, then he was an open book.  After their talk, he went back to his dinner.  I let it go until about 20 minutes before bedtime, then informed him that he was done.  If he was still hungry, he wouldn't be eating lima beans one at a time... almost an hour after he sat down.

When we found out about the biting and hitting, I sent an email to the play therapist and Marty.  We wanted them to know, since they are the two that would potentially be dealing with this, other than us.  I also called Marty just to let him know.  Marty thanked me for the call and the play therapist sent us an email back.  She told us that they daycare told her that Leonard had pushed another kid off of a bike and how he had been "irritable and disagreeable last week".  That was the first we had heard of that... from anyone.  I asked the daycare about it today when I dropped them off, but, other than a "we will let you know from now on", I didn't get much of an answer.

The play therapist also said that she's changing the times of her visits back to Tuesday afternoons instead of Monday mornings.  Her reasoning was that Leonard just started crying when he saw her and refused to come play with her and she thinks that he will at least see her in the afternoon.  She still hasn't figured out that he just doesn't like her I guess.  We've known for about six weeks.  Side note... she didn't even spell Penny's name correctly in the email.

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