Stevenisms: 6-5-01

steven still has not received his "6 inch mothra." we checked the mail last night. he looked by the door where packages are often left behind a bush. after we went inside he asked, "can i go search the whole front yard to see if they left it somewhere else?"

he is in tennis camp this week. i thought i would surprise him and pick him up early. he was surprised alright. he was dropped off at the YMCA in the morning. he rode a bus to seven oaks elementary where i was waiting to pick him up. he said, "how did you know where to find me." i told him that it said in the papers from YMCA that he would be going to seven oaks. i asked if he was afraid he would be left at the school because i couldn't find him. he said, "no. i wanted to play on the playground!" he wanted me to take him back and leave him so he could play. i tried to temp him with having ribs for dinner. (he has liked pork ever since he was 3 and we told him that it was jedi food.) he was not interested. he spotted a mcdonald's sign and excitedly made it know that he wanted mcdonald's. so we waited in a slow line of cars until we got to the microphone to order. as i opened my mouth to order, he cried, "there's burger king! i want burger king!" so we pulled away from our long awaited turn at the microphone and went to burger king.

i asked what he bought at the afternoon 'canteen' where he is supposed to get a snack in the afternoon. he said, "Barbie Q-tips." i was shocked that he wanted anything having to do with barbie dolls and even more shocked that barbie now has her own q-tips. i mean, can you imagine how small a barbie q-tip would be? so i repeated it back to him. it was his turn to be shocked. he said, "no! barbecue chips!!" oh.

the waiter asked if i wanted more rice for my curried chicken. i said, 'yes, please.' he offered some to steven who regarded him intently for a moment before nodding. when the waiter walked away, i told steven to eat his rice. he said, "i didn't really want any rice. i was just being polite." i laughed, and he said, "what's so funny?" again, i tried to explain that perfectly normal actions are sometimes funny when a child does them.

steven said, "we are supposed to wear light clothes to tennis camp. not what they weigh, but the color." i don't think he has much confidence in my intellect.

at a thai restaurant, he asked for a balloon. when he came back he said, "they speak a different kind of english. when i asked for a green balloon, he said that he didn't understand what i said."

"if the baby is a girl, will it look like you, and will it look like scott if it is a boy."

steven got up at 5 this morning and then asked me every few minutes if he could go the the park at seven oaks elementary school yet. i told him to go down and eat breakfast if he wasn't going back to bed. he went down and heated up a piece of leftover pizza. after he was dropped at the playground at seven oaks, scott told me that steven had thrown a slice of pizza in his lunch bag, no wrapping, no sandwich bag; just threw it in there. when i picked him up, the instructor told me that since they have their things outside, ants got into his pizza, so please make sure to wrap his food. she is obviously not used to adventures with steven. he had taken out the food i packed for him. so he didn't have enough to eat and was starving by the time i picked him up. i told him tonight to leave the lunch as i packed it. he answered with his standard, "why?" although he is very concerned about bugs getting in food now. he asked why semi-trucks carry those big loads. i gave an example of the truck hauling food from farms to the grocery store. he was concerned that it was dirty from being on the ground inside the truck. i said that it was in boxes or crates. he said that bugs would get to it. i said that they load it on the truck and then drive so no bugs get to it. he said, "what if a string is hanging of the truck and the ant runs and climbs up it and get in the truck and gets to the food." i said that ants don't really do those sort of heroics. he replied, "haven't you seen ants run? they run really fast." i said that the truck went faster. before he went to bed, he requested that i put his graham cracker in something so that bugs don't get it. he also asked me to tape his box of nerds candy closed so bugs don't get in it.

ahhh. the nerds topic. scott stopped at a convenience store a month or more ago. he bought some treats for me and a box of nerds for steven. not realizing that the nerds were for steven, i ate them. later scott joked that he would tell steven that i ate his nerds. i said, "i don't care. hey, steven, scott bought you some nerds, but i didn't know they were for you and i ate them." he asked if we would get him more. we said that we would some time. since then, when we went in grocery stores, he would ask to get candy and if he was denied, he would ask to get some nerds since i ate his box of nerds. weeks went by without mention of the nerds. then in wal-mart he asked scott for candy. scott said 'no,' so steven asked if he could get nerds 'since mommy ate my nerds.' scott said 'no,' and told me about it when i got back. monday morning, when scott dropped him off at the ymca, before steven got out of the car, he said, "thanks for getting me nerds scott. i'm sure i would have liked them if mommy didn't eat them. can we get more sometime." so, at the store today, we bought him a big box of nerds. hopefully, that will end the crusade for nerds.

due to some incidents at school, i have started taking steven to a counselor to work on his ability to do what he is told and to follow rules. the guy was stern with steven on the first visit. we had our second visit tonight. when i picked him up from the y, he threw a basketball at one of the coaches. in the car, i told him that he was not to do that. he said, "are you going to tell the doctor?" i said that i wouldn't as long as he didn't do that any more.

at the doctor's office, there are a lot of toys. while we waited for the doctor, we looked at the toys and commented on some of them. steven said, "i didn't expect that he would like dolls so much." i explained that they were for kids who had a hard time talking about how they felt. he reached out and touched a koosh ball that was on the shelf. i told him that the toys belonged to the doctor and it wasn't right to touch them unless the doctor gave permission. steven said, "are you going to tell him that i touched it?"

on the way home, i asked what he thought of the doctor. he said, "i think that he is a good doctor. but i don't like when he takes away priveleges." i asked why he thought he was a good doctor. he replied, "because he is right about things." maybe he was afraid i would tell the doctor if he didn't say something nice.

when he sat down in the office before the session, he said, "i don't want to talk about me this time."