Thank you for your thoughts on my previous post. After I speak with Iliya's teacher (like yesterday's conversation), I am often tempted to over analyze and worry that something is not normal. But when we picked Iliya up from school, yesterday, I was reminded how normal he really is. He is a very routine-oriented child, and when his routine is off, he is more likely to be "off" at naptime. I also do think that the screaming he has been doing at naptime seems to be an effort at manipulation...and I suppose should be glad to know that he is learning to think for himself...and maybe I can think of these "episodes" as his emerging problem solving skills (I can imagine him laying there, wanting to get up and play with the children who are outside, waiting to be picked up, and thinking, "Okay...how can I get out of this nap thing, today?"). I can't expect him to be a perfect child all the time, and if screaming and acting out at naptime is the worst thing I can say about his behavior...then we're really doing pretty well.

Anyway, as for the screaming when he becomes frustrated... Iliya's brain often gets going faster than his words can keep up, in any emotional state he's in: happy, sad, mad. I've noticed it most, when he's in a state of excitement. There are times that he's so excited to tell me something, that his words get completely jumbled, and he has to take a breath and start over slowly. I imagine that in a frustrated state, the same thing happens, but it only frustrates him further, and he forgets to take a breath and commenses to screaming. I have a feeling this is what happened yesterday, and the whole episode was exacerbated by the fact that he knew he would be (and was feeling uncomfortable about) going to the doctor....and when we picked him up, his teacher assured me that it wasn't long before he calmed down after his screaming episode. It could be that we don't see these episodes at home, because of small differences in the way that we (Nathan & I vs. school) handle situations...or maybe, because we only have the 1 child, we are more equipped to keeping his frustration level down, than if we had 15 children together in the same environment...or even more, as I mentioned in the post yesterday, he doesn't have to compete with anyone else for our attention.

In any case, I do think that he truly benefits from all the experiences he has! And I do appreciate those of you who emailed or commented to give me your ideas!

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So on to the weekend...

Whew! What a busy weekend! One day, we're going to slow down and do nothing for a weekend. Just 'cause we can! Until then, we'll stay busy, I suppose. And I'll throw in the occasional blog post as I can. So here's the latest......

We are starting Week 2 of being in big boy underwear, all the time (except at night time). Last week went remarkably well...no accidents at school! So we are hopeful that this week will go just as well!

Here, you see, they caught a fish! Nathan said it was a brim fish and was colorful. As he pulled it out of the water and held it for Iliya to see, Iliya screamed excitedly, "NEEMO!!!!!!!"

Setting the fish free!