A Work in Progress

I’m thirty minutes into my return flight to DC. Originally scheduled to return on Thursday morning, I changed my flight to Wednesday night all so that I can wake up at 0600 tomorrow and attend a Microsoft Launch event that will net me a free copy of Microsoft Office Professional 2007. Never mind that I just purchased a copy of Office Professional 2003 at a banging deal from work; this is $500 worth of software we’re talking about and I can’t pass up $500 of anything free. We all have these little peculiarities – things we’ll do that the next person would simply scratch their heads at in amazement. Among my many interests, including guns, good combat boots and Audi related stuff, is a burning interest in anything gizmo related. It’s the reason I’m in the process of selling a laptop (interested? Shoot me a comment with your email address for the specs and price), will soon be selling our desktop and will eventually purchase a smoking laptop to replace both as my single “home” system. It’s also the reason why despite rarely using Office, I’m forsaking a good night’s rest at a hotel in Detroit to get back to DC and an appointment at the crack of dawn. Whether Ami’ will exhibit similar idiosyncrasies remains to be seen – but one can only hope the boy will be normal like his momma.

I neglected to mention yesterday that report card number two arrived from his daycare recently. Here are a few of the highlights:

"To feel valued and attached to others (example: infant smiles or shows pleasure when talked to)." - Mastered;

"To express their feelings in appropriate ways (example: while crying, the infant lifts arms to indicate the need to be picked up and comforted)." - Mastered;

"To demonstrate caring and cooperation (example: infant lifts bottom, in response to caregiver's actions, when being changed). - Mastered;

According to the report card he has mastered skills associated with the following milestones:

Learning about himself; learning about his feelings; learning about others; learning about communicating; learning about moving and doing; and acquiring thinking skills. But not ever box received the "Mastered" check. According to the report he is still working on:

Feeling competent and proud about what he can do; communicating a broad range of emotions; trying out roles and relationships through imitation and pretend play; and identifying with a home language (incidentally, since none of the people working there are Jamaican, and since the only other language spoken in the house other than patois is English - what the hell are they talking about?!?).

I disagree with the statement that he can't communicate a broad range of emotions. The example they use is: "the infant cries when he hears sudden loud noises and laughs while playing peek-a-boo." Ami' does both on a consistent basis! I'll wait until the next report card before having a chat with the teacher, but overall he's moving along quite nicely. Of course, no report card would be complete without a comment from the teacher and I think this just about says it all:

"Amiri continues to develop everyday. Amiri will often cry when playing alone but stops when you show him attention. Amiri has a beautiful smile."