Friday, October 05, 2007

Improvement

Me: Know what we're going to do tonight, Monkey?
Him: What??
Me: Nuthin.

I told him this morning that tonight we were not going to do homework...we were not going to do physical therapy...we were not going to practice anything. Tonight (I said), we were going to curl up on the couch together and watch a movie and just relax.

And that's exactly what we did.

After he read for 20 minutes (because he didn't want to miss out on checking that block on his month-of-reading chart), we both squished onto the loveseat and watched Howl's Moving Castle (his choice, believe it or not). I tore myself away long enough to nuke macaroni and cheese, a hot dog and open a can of mandarin oranges. He kept looking at me incredulously and pointing out that it was dark outside and we were still watching TV. I told him it was Friday night after a long week...we could break the rules a little. He looked at me, all wide-eyed and sincere and said "Mommy, you're being so nice to me! Thank you!"

When the movie was over, we sat together on the couch and made faces to make each other laugh...and said nice, appreciative things to each other...and didn't think once about how hard it is to use scissors...or where the circle on the lower cased "b" goes...or making eye contact and following directions. We just watched a movie and enjoyed being around each other.

It was very good therapy....for both of us.

2 comments:

towwas said...

That sounds lovely! Although, personally, I would add chocolate martinis (and possibly a nap) but maybe that's not so much an option when one member of the party is five years old. Howl's Moving Castle was good, but definitely not my favorite Miyazaki.

Unknown said...

Weird - some sort of sand storm just blew through my apartment and I got a bunch in my eyes.