We watched some Winnie the Pooh the other day. Patrick and I enjoy the Enneagram test and we like to speculate on what the boys might be as their personalities form. (I’m a Three; Patrick’s an Eight.) But the other night we were watching WtP with the boys, and we could see pretty clearly that Gilbert is Tigger with a dash of Piglet, and Seamus is Rabbit with a dash of Owl. If you take the Enneagram, leave your number in the comments and whether you think it fits you. I love hearing other’s opinions on it too.
A friend of mine was telling me about her little boy who’s just recently started preschool. It seems like a rough and tumble place for him. Usually G & S like preschool, but they are very conscious of the teacher’s approval and want very much to please her. Seamus has several friends, but we’ve talked a lot about being nice to people even if you don’t really want to play with them. It’s ok to have a best friend but not okay to be mean. And so on. He’s a little oblivious to the kids when they say hi to him in the morning, and I have to prod him to say hi back. (This was a perennial problem for me as a kid, tween, and teenager; often people say they thought I was a snob for not saying hi, but I was really off in my own little world, or I thought I was smiling and greeting them, but I was only doing that in my head. Come to think of it, I still do this sometimes. Verbalizing is important!) Gilbert has a little friend now too. Just one. She came up to me and told me that she lives in a big tower! Then he “poofed” her in class and she fell down and cried. Poofing is the word the boys have for puffing up their chests and bumping into each other. I don’t know where it came from. So we had to have a talk about when poofing is appropriate.
We’ve been on a pretty good food kick. I write out the menu plan for the week, and then Patrick follows it. Except one day he said, “You had me making this soup that takes an hour for LUNCH! What was that about?” A terrific thing about his being home is that he does 85% of the cooking. We’ve eaten much less processed food or even convenient things like grilled cheese since he’s been home.
Academic Leigh Speaking 