These are Henry's homework papers from last week. I'm not sure how well you'll be able to see them out there on the internet, but there is a whole lot of Henry handwriting on these pages!

He brought home a book about hibernation to read, and then was to complete these sheets. I was anticipating that he would dictate his answers and one of us would actually do the writing. But after one afternoon of Super Teenage Sister working with him, this is the result. He wrote every letter on his own, and did both sheets in one sitting.

Henry had enough good days in a row last week that he received a prize from his teacher on Friday. I'm not clear on the criteria for earning a prize- what constitutes a "good" day? And do you have to have a full week of "good" days to earn a prize? (Last week was a short week due to MLK day, but an admirable achievement, nonetheless.)

The prize was a small Fantastic Four puzzle. His other bottom tooth came out last week also, and his teacher found it by the computer and sent it home the next day. So at least I have one of his baby teeth to keep in my jewelry box forever.

Considering his great week, I was caught off-guard by what happened on Saturday. My parents came to visit, and I suggested we go to Henry's school and play on the playground. They had never seen his school, and I thought Henry might like to show them around.

I was way off with that one. Henry DID NOT want to go to his school AT ALL. He protested on our way out the door and all the way there. He protests lots of times, and if we just keep on moving he gets over it. But not this time. I even tried dragging him up on the "wobbly bridge" to play, but nothing would budge his mood. He kept pinching my arms, and a couple times my face. Finally I just sat down and squeezed him on my lap, rocking back and forth.

"It feels nervous," he said

"It makes you feel nervous to come to your playground?"

"Yes."

I can only surmise that the whole thing seemed wrong to him: going to his school when it wasn't a school day; bringing Grandma and Grandpa there, his little brother being there too...

I'm very happy that he came up with "it feels nervous." I hope he'll be able to build on this with time.

He pinched me quite a bit on Sunday also, but I think for a different reason. We went to watch Bill's team's basketball game. Henry seemed excited to be there and seemed to be enjoying himself. But he pinched my arms a lot. I am hypothesizing that he was feeling "nervous" in a different way- an excited way- and maybe the pinching helps release that energy? I wonder if I got him something else to squeeze if it would help.

He is really cute with the girls on Bill's team (6th graders). When he goes along to practice sometimes he runs laps with them! They all seem to really like him, and vice versa. Conversely, though, when one player's first-grader sister and her mom came over to introduce themselves to me, Henry didn't even give the girl a glance. When I tried to ask him about her, his only comment was, "there are 2 Graces" (in first grade). He seems to think it is so crazy that there are 2 girls with the same name. (This girl's name was not Grace, so I don't know what that had to do with anything? Maybe Henry likes one of the Graces.)