Dragon sneak peek... :)

I finished embellishing the dragon for the mummers play this Sunday. Here are Brendan & Charlie modelling for a sneak peek photo. It really takes 4 people to fill it up, though, so they're doing "dragon lite" here. After I took the picture Brendan insisted that I get in too & we walk around the house with it on :) So I became the dragon's butt-end & looked after the tail...

We had received an email yesterday from Paula, friend & director of Brendan's school, letting us know that both his teachers would be out most of this morning for a CSE meeting for another child in his class. They had subs for both, but since Brendan has been having a lot of trouble with anxiety lately she thought it might be good to have one of us stick around & get him settled. Charlie has not scheduled himself in the office any Wednesday mornings this month because he's doing 3 Wednesday afternoons of teaching physical exams to medical students (normally he's off on Wednesday afternoon). After comparing notes on our morning plans, he decided he'd be the one to hang around at school & make sure Brendan was ok. I took off to JoAnn Fabrics because I had run out of rotary-cutter blades in the middle of cutting out 60-odd polar fleece scarves for costuming the Sunday School classes for the mummers play. Charlie had been intending to go to the post office & buy stamps so I added this to my list, since he was hoping to do errands in another part of town after he was done at school. I worked on the costumes the rest of the morning & waited for him to get home... which didn't happen until just before noon. I guess it had been a really good idea to have one of us there this morning. Brendan had a couple of anxiety-driven head-banging incidents & neither of the subs knew him well enough to help out. His poor teachers had left for their meeting at 8:45 & didn't get back to school until 11:30 (that was some meeting...) so Charlie just stayed until lunchtime. As we were eating lunch together at home I remarked that Brendan had had one of the highest-paid one-on-one aides in the city this morning, if you take into account Charlie's regular hourly rate as a physician... :)

I went to get Brendan at school this afternoon, since Charlie was still trying get stuff done before he left to teach. Brendan had had a good afternoon, even though they'd had PE & then the younger kids came upstairs to their floor for reading buddies (something he doesn't cope well with). I found him hanging-out in the recycling bucket as a joke, since he'd told me he was a "1, 2, or 3" (in terms of recycling numbers) on Monday after having taken refuge in there. He was in good spirits all the way home & grabbed a bowl of peanuts for snack before getting on the computer to play Adventure Quest for a bit. I told him I'd be interrupting his game for help putting the wings & spines on the dragon & also so he could finish the last 2 holiday presents he was making for his teachers, & he cheerfully agreed. Lately he's been getting really angry & upset during his AQ game, which has prompted me to request that he either approach it with a more pleasant attitude or take a break. He began to descend into nasty-temper mode at the beginning of his game, but it just took a couple reminders to get him back to a happier place. He kept his good mood for the rest of the day- through modelling the dragon costume so I could pin embellishments onto it, beading gifts (we rehearsed his lines for the mummers play while he worked), & dinner after dad got home. He mentioned during dinner that he couldn't believe there are only 4 days of school left this year :) I remembered that he'd been in a good mood this morning, too, when he woke up & never once grumbled that it was a school day. I thanked him for starting the day out so pleasantly & he looked surprised & pleased. Positive feedback- it's a keeper :) He & Charlie watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" while I finished sewing spines on the dragon -our tv room is so tiny the yards & yards of costume won't fit in there, so I listened to them laugh & the Who's haunting melody wafted down the stairs while I stitched. Then they did the photo shoot for me & Brendan played AQ until bedtime & I read more Eragon to him. Hmmm... we must be on a dragon roll these days...