Poor Micah had a bad day

I thought he was in a good mood when he woke up; he was bouncing around with Sofia while I took my shower. But his mood rapidly deteriorated, and he was MISERABLE on the way to school. Remember, Micah is the kid who argues in his sleep! He's a pro at argumentative behavior.

So I dumped the boys at school, stopped for a bit of coffee with my friend, took Sofia to her school - and had to go all the way back to the boy's school because Sam forgot his lunchbox. And I'd already canceled a meeting with one of the teachers there because I didn't want to do all that driving. Sigh. But I ran a couple of quick errands while I was there, and then was back in time to walk up to Sofia's school for my meeting with her Speech Therapist.

That went well. Miss Sofia is really building on her verbal abilities this year. And apparently her attention and focus is fabulous also. So it was a nice meeting, and then I had the stroller with me to take La Principessa home after her PT session.

Micah's mood spilled onto Sofia, because she was out-of-sorts all afternoon, both for me and for E. But at least she went to sleep easily. I took the boys to TKD, and left them under my friend's supervision while I went to see my own therapist (whew!). Came home to both Sofia and Micah meltdowns.

Bedtime was tough. Both boys got angry at E, so I handed her a fresh-out-of-the-tub Sofia, who wailed "MAAAAAAAA-MAAAAAAAAAA" until she fell asleep. Then E read with Sam while I calmed Micah down. He was actually crying from frustration. Poor baby.

On a more positive note, however: Sam was among the kids picked to speak at the Winter Lights Gala! Over the weekend he had to write a short essay saying why he wanted to speak and why he would be a good choice. Last night, he had to write his thoughts about Reading Torah.

Since I didn't want the mechanics of writing (penmanship and spelling in particular) to get in the way of his thoughts, I recorded an "interview" with him, and then typed it out verbatim and then put it into paragraphs.


Here is the Verbatim from the Interview:

I want to talk about the time I read Torah.

I read Torah when I was in the third grade for the first time. I worked really hard on it. I was able to read and I read 4 pasuks [should be psukim, means the individual lines] and I read 4 more pasuks, then this time i read 2, and then I read 4

I like reading Torah because it is fun and i get to ex....to read from the Torah and most kids my age don’t get to do that.

It is very hard for me to read Torah because you have to read every line you have to do every word correctly or you don’t get it correct.

Reading Hebrew is still pretty hard for me.

I had to memorize the entire thing. I did it and I worked on it and I tried my hardest to do it and I succeeded

I got assigned a certain pasuk that I had to read from, so I did that pasuk.

I knew what it sounded like because i got a tape from my teacher and I practiced and I put it on my mp3 player and it’s really hard

I really liked doing it, it’s a lot of fun.

I read Torah at Temple Israel for Shabbat Yachad [the school's annual Shabbat together, last January], and I was very proud of that and I think I did really well.

I think in a little bit I will read again, at the next Shabbat Yachad and at my friend’s Bar Mitzvah I will read.

I am so proud of him! It really is tough for him, but he loves it so.

This afternoon, since Micah's piano lesson was canceled, I took Sam to buy a SUIT for the Gala! He looks so handsome (and short, but that's another story).

Ok. I think I finally found a topic for my paper for my class: something about Rashi's ruling to a man who wanted to divorce his wife when she was ill. Weird stuff. Should be interesting. Rashi was pretty harsh in his criticism of the guy!

Tomorrow Sam gets his Spacers on his teeth. Yippie.