Zeeke's wild new emotional displays are no joke. Wednesday, after school, he had his first serious temper tantrum. He and Steve were on the way to Purple Flower Mountain (see previous entries) with Sadie, Asif and Sofia, when Zeeke suddenly felt the need to call someone "Stupid" (not even sure if there was a who or a why behind it). Steve took him aside to calmly talk about it, but Zeeke refused to say he was sorry. He was sobbing and fighting, so we had to send the other kids on without us. As Steve started carrying him home, he really went into convulsions. He was crying, thrashing around, and screaming "No!" at the top of his lungs. Fortunately, they ran into Karen on the way back so that it looked less like Steve was kidnapping him. When we got home, he threw himself down in the foyer and sat there by himself, sobbing his head off and trying to get the front door open so that he could run away from home. Finally, after about twenty minutes, he wound himself down and poked his head out with a mischievous little smile.
We've been trying to offer him more and more choices about what he does, eats, and wears, which he likes. The hard part (which is so far eluding us) is teaching him to make those decisions in a reasonable amount of time and to live with them once he makes them.
Saturday morning, we had a long trip to the playground in the morning. Zeeke played with his schoolmates Amelie and Evan. Zeeke and Amelie were dawdling on the walk home, so Steve suggested they ride together in Zeeke's stroller, which they loved!
Sunday morning, we were back at the playground. Zeeke played with his schoolmates Zoe, Odin, and Amelie. Unfortunately, sharing the stroller with Amelie didn't go quite as smoothly the second time (too much elbowing and complaining). For lunch, we added a new food to the list of things he'll eat. He requested fish for lunch, but we all had was canned tuna so he had his first tuna salad sandwich. After nap, we met up Nick, Nadine & Zoe at one of the summer pop up gardens for dinner. Zeeke & Zoe had a great time playing with the blocks and hula hoops in the play area.