Waiting for Savta

Right about now, I told him, Grandad is probably dropping Savta at the airport we'll be at in a few days. "And then he'll go back to Boston because he has to teach, right?" Why yes. That's ... exactly right.

"Is Savta flying on her plane now?" he asked a few minutes later. I said I thought so. "And when I wake up then I'll see her right?"

***

This morning, Zack cheerfully marched up to the school building, his hand in mine. It was a refreshingly far cry from yesterday morning, when he'd broken down into sobs as I dropped him off and attempted to leave.

"Daddy I like the lunch you made me," he said as we walked up to the door. "Even though I haven't tasted it yet."

And we're off to Massanutten

After dinner tonight with Po Po and Kun Kun, we drove here to Massanutten, a Shenandoah resort area. Zack had some trouble on the drive, demanding first that we help him get the "stuff" out of his nose (several tissues failed in this quest, and were returned to me, wadded up and unwanted). Then he wanted to take his sweatshirt off and then to put it back on and then he again complained that he couldn't get the stuff out of his nose. Long car rides are tough ...

Luckily, Sam slept through most of it and, when she did awake, allowed me to sit next to her and stroke her face with my hand, lulling her to sleep with poems. I was eventually able to hypnotize Zack to sleep by slowly counting 99 consecutive road stanchions. Amie, meanwhile, drove the two and a half straight hours without a break and got us safely to our destination. We look forward to exploring our surroundings tomorrow.

***

Tidbits from earlier:

"Daddy! Daddy! There was a monster In Sammy's room but then it disappeared! You know why?" I allowed that I did not. "Because it was in our imagination!"

As I took leave of Zack last night, I said,
'I love you, Zack. Sleep well. I look forward to making you breakfast and playing with you in the morning.'
"And then I'm off to Boston," he said matter-of-factly.

Reading shapes and animal names

Zack has been reading to himself from a book called Color Zoo, which uses various brightly colored shapes, mostly polygons, to construct somewhat Cubist animals. He sounds out the letters and then proclaims, “Diamond,” or, “Deer.” The familiarity of the shapes and biomorphs assists him, of course, but he really does seem to be focusing on the letters and their sounds.

 

This morning, he read from one page with three shapes, first sounding out “Square” with minimal help (I said only that it had a silent final ‘e’). Then “Triangle,” which he’d figured out the other day. And finally “Circle.” He commented that ‘c’ sometimes sounds like “sss.” Yes, I said, that’s a good word to practice because it has a ‘c’ that sounds like sss and also one that sounds like k. And it also has a silent final ‘e’, just like the other words on the page.

 

“There’s only one ‘e’,” he gently corrected me, pointing back to Square. “You said it was the ‘last e’.”

 

Touche.

 

"Wo ai ni"

This morning, Sam added another expression to her repertoire of fare-thee-wells.

 

Amie, preparing to leave for work, said, “I love you” to me and “Wo ai ni” to the children. “W’ai ni,” Sam answered. We gaped. She said it again. And again.

 

She used it to greet Po Po, too.