We were at the supermarket. Elliot was in the shopping cart — he still fits!
As I was unloading the groceries to ring them up, my hand got between Elliot’s winter fox boots and the inside of the cart. He didn’t see my hand and crushed his boot against it.
I was in a lot of pain and bleeding. He saw the pain and the blood. Even someone who worked there saw me in pain and asked if I was OK.
Elliot wasn’t afraid of me like I was of my father when I hurt his hand in the garage door as a boy. When I ran two blocks away and hid in the bushes in fear…
Elliot was apologetic and very concerned. He wanted to know if I was angry. In between expressions of pain, I asked if he would put a Band-Aid on it when we got home.
We got home and there was more blood. Not too much, but more than before. He helped me clean it with alcohol (I showed him how), and we put a bandaid on it.
He asked me again if I was angry. I said no; I know it was an accident. I know you didn’t mean it — the same things I’d said in the supermarket.
But then he tried to express something new. He didn’t know the words. He asked if I felt angry in the place in my head where I think alone. The place where no one can hear me think..
It was so sweet and dear.
I don’t know why this is here. Somehow it got inserted, and I can’t delete it!Sledding at the school. Elliot prefers the box to the toboggan!Play date at Ava Portnoy’s
The first night of Hanukkah at the Elster’s house with Maya and Ella’s grandparents. We lit the candles, sang Hebrew songs, gave presents, and had a large Hanukkah dinner. Elliot and I brought latkes from The Bagel Deli.
The first day and second night – Elliot with his 5th grade Hebrew buddy, Max. Elliot singing Hanukkah songs at Kabbalat Shabbat at DJDS. The two of us outside the school where there was a small fair. One of Elliot’s gifts – a punching bag that he wanted.
We went to the BV Overlook again in Buena Vista, but stayed in a yurt this time. Lots of visits to Mt. Princeton Hot Springs – including Thanksgiving lunch. We met a nice family from Denver staying in a cabin near us, including a Thai woman who absolutely adored Elliot and gave him donuts. Dealing with a near-dead car battery and a snowstorm forced us to leave a day early.
Watching Star Wars for the first time with Elliot, Elliot says “he said bilod!” — the Jawa spoke the Hebrew word for pink. The first time I watched this movie was with my father, too, in the movie theaters. It would have been 1977.
Playing air hockey in the BV Overlook community center:
Me: “what’s your favorite lunch” (using Elliot’s old distraction trick)
Elliot absolutely loves coming to school. He flies into the room. He loves to socialize and tell stories. He’s made so many friends. Heloves his time on the playground with them. He consistently polite and respectful to his teachers. If i say, “oh Elliot, you forgot to put your name on your paper” he says, “oh, I’m so sorry,” and I say he doesn’t have to be sorry.
One area we are working on, emotionally, is sometimes Elliot will talk about nightmares that he’s having. He’ll talk about some of the video games he watches, maybe with his older brother. One time i think we had called mom: He had presented weak, tired, just lying around, saying he was weak. He fell asleep in the nurse’s office. Karolina picked him up that day early from school. That happens from time to time. When he’s presenting tired or weak, it gets in the way of the curriculum. Keep an eye on what he is watching with his older brother at home. We wanna keep an eye on it. Elliot presents as very tired and very weak some days.
Elliot is empathetic. He says sorry too much. His heart is in the right place. He wants to please his friends.
Ms. Becca was there and commented on this and getting him play therapy.
Literacy (Carla Zimmer speaking again)
Elliot is doing a fabulous job in literacy. Upper and lower case recognition without hesitation. He has mastered all sounds. he is solidly established in phonemic awareness. He blend sounds well. He can isolate beginning sounds in CDC words (like “R” in RAT). He is beginning to isolate the last sounds (like “T” in RAT). He does a very nice job in reading.
Elliot is ready to move on to small group level reading books. When I assessed him on heart words (sight words), he knows all 10 of them automatically. So if you are reading to him, have him be a detective. Point to a heart word and get him to name it.
Elliot is in a really beautiful place for literacy.
In writing he’s doing a beautiful job. He is still working on his name. He’s able to copy sentences from the board. He’s able to write letters when I sound them out. He’s fun to teach and doing a beautiful job.
Math (Ben Huston speaking)
I did assessments on patterns, shape, matching numbers, writing and recognizing numbers – all of it was perfect.
He did 75% good on “adding”, which has not even been taught yet, so that is awesome.
Sometimes it is hard to read what he has written, but it has gotten significantly better since the beginning of the year. Now i can tell his numbers apart and his answers, which is awesome.
He’s doing really good in math.
He’s able to do almost any task we ask; sometimes we have to remind him of the task. He gets half way through and may ask again for the instruction (not right from the beginning). This is not uncommon for two-page assignments when the instructions are different on the 2nd page. It should disappear once he can read more.
Hebrew (Esther Bellinsky speaking)
Elliot enjoys the opportunities he gets to be in front of the class (like calendar helper), or just playing in games or being part of the classroom community. He knows 1-10 in Hebrew (actually he knows 1-12). He knows the weather in Hebrew. He’s been a sponge.
Elliot really likes his Hebrew name and is connected to it. He knows 7 colors in Hebrew. Letter recognition: we’ve done 4 letters so far. He did great. First assessment: 2.5. out of 4. Second assessment: 3 out of 4 (confused bet and vet which is very common). Elliot is very bright, as all the other teachers are saying.
Judaics (Rebekah Kochavi speaking)
I love having Elliot in my class. He’s enthusiastic. He loves to learn. he’s a joy to have in class. He asks questions. He’s engaged.
I feel like elliot really enjoys the Judacis part of the day. The community of it. After singing, we move on to a game (like a memory game). I hope you got the creation book he recently made. Elliot takes his time. He’ll ask friends or me what to do.
On Fridays, we have Kabbalat Shabbat in the classroom. That’s one of his favorite times, maybe because of the community feel.
I am not sure why the kids have to do this. It’s pretty funny. Elliot wrote his name correctly this time; often he omits the “i” but not here. “KA” means Kindergarten A class, as opposed to Kindergarten B.
Yesterday after school, I watched Elliot give his favorite Pokemon card to Oscar. I thought he was going to trade it but no, he just gave it to Oscar. It was so nice to witness. I saw Tali do this when Elliot had a playdate with her two weeks ago.
Elliot is in Kindergarten now, but I’m still in touch with Sam who was his preschool teacher for a year or two – at both the old then new synagogue. She sent me this today:
“I will share this funny one. One day we were having water play and didn’t have swim clothes for Elliot (or maybe he pooped on them I’m not sure). But we wanted him to have water time so we just used the random extra clothes so he had something to wear.”
Here are some other photos she sent. She recently just adopted a baby (or a surrogate?). She is also the woman from whom we leased Maggie the Horse and often cared for Kai since he was in the same stables.
I wrote to her, “Some of these pics are from the old building! Oh, the splash pad! And the eyedropper… You told me once how much Elliot like to mix colors with that… I went out and bought food coloring and various droppers and squeeze bottles for him to play with at home. He loved it. Thank you for sharing!”
Sam replied, “Oh yes, if you look closely at the pic of him and chana in the puddle that’s what they’re playing with, the eye droppers.”
I have been trying to get Elliot to sleep alone in his own room. I moved into the bedroom next-door. But he still can’t do it. He cries hysterically in the dark to the point where I think he’ll pee his pants although he hasn’t actually done that. He thinks a rabbi can get rid of ghosts in the house. There is a cleaning ghost who lives in the basement and possibly other ghosts too but definitely a cleaning ghost even though our house is always a mess. anyway, I spoke to the Rabbi today and explained the situation. He is also a father of young kids. He understands, he is coming over Sunday early evening to exorcise the ghosts. He said he’d be delighted to add another title to his name.
He also said Judaism believes in ghosts and that he grew up with stories of the Dybbyk and others (I will get their names later because I want to read about them). But he did say he didn’t know how much of it is actually real and how much “pop culture”.
We visited the Denver Botanic Gardens for their Halloween decorations. This year we went during the day. It’s better at night but much harder to get tickets then. There is also a video of Elliot rolling down the grassy hill. He enjoyed that very much.
