November Art a la Carte

I arranged to have a day off today. Eric's art class was scheduled on a Monday for this month because they have parent-teacher conferences on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with early dismissals on those days. He of course wanted me to bring him some lunch--Wendy's spicy chicken nuggets and and a vanilla frosty.

I took a "selfie" of the two of us after he finished eating. He used to want me to put pictures of him on Facebook, but now whenever Patrick or I take a picture of him with our phones, he wants us to send them to Anthony. At first he was waving, with his hand moving, so his hand came out blurry in the picture. I convinced him to just hold his hand still and this is the result. My smile is way too big and I'm showing way too many teeth, but I couldn't keep myself from smiling so much because Eric was too cute. :)

Today's art project was modeled after Andy Warhol's style of making prints. I'm learning a little each month along with Eric. The teacher had styrofoam rectangles out on the tables for each child. They chose a holiday symbol (tree, ornament, Star of David, etc.) and "drew" them on the styrofoam rectangle. That resulted in an impression in the styrofoam that they then covered in paint. When they turned that rectangle over onto another piece of paper, their drawing became a "negative space" area that was white and the rest of the image was the color of the paint they used. Pretty cool.

In case you can't tell in the picture, Eric drew an ornament with a zigzag on one side and surrounded on the other sides by smaller circles. (The ornaments are sideways on the final paper.) Once again, it turned out better than I originally thought it would, when I saw him gouging his pencil into the styrofoam. I was worried that he would make a hole in the styrofoam.

After school, I met Eric at the bus stop. Per our routine, he was the first child off the bus, and as soon as he got off the bus, he ran to give me a hug. I told him that I was able to see him a lot today. He said that he had seen my "four times" today. I thought about it and sure enough, it had been four times. The first time was in the morning when I took him to the bus stop. The second time was when I brought him lunch. The third time was when I helped out in his Art a la Carte class. The fourth time was of course when I picked him up from the bus stop.

I had made some brownies, but they were not done yet, so I told him that maybe we could visit Starbucks to get him an afternoon snack and that maybe he could have the brownies for dessert. He loved that idea, of course. Usually I'm reluctant to take him to Starbucks for an afternoon snack, because he never just wants a drink. He always wants a blueberry scone also. That's a big snack. It was okay this time because he was going to share his scone with me and we still had to go pick up Alex from school and dinner would be later.

This is Eric at Starbucks, lounging on one of their chairs. He didn't want to sit at a table. He wanted to sit in one of the big leather chairs. I don't like how my iPhone brightened up his face so much here, but I didn't have another camera with me. He has a sweet smile on his face, as if he was really enjoying this position.

Unfortunately, they had run out of blueberry scones. Patrick and I often get their "Bacon and Gouda Artisan Sandwich", and recently, Eric has been asking for "bites" of our sandwich when he's with us. Interestingly, instead of a sweet snack/treat, he chose that sandwich. I hesitated at first, because the sandwich would be really filling and he wouldn't be able to eat dinner. Then I realized that didn't matter. It was better that he didn't have a snack with empty calories, and so basically, he ate dinner before 4pm.

I took this picture because he wanted to balance the plate on his lap instead of using a table. He was very neat about eating, though, so how could I complain?

We picked up Alex, came home, and the rest of us had dinner. Eric finished up his Vanilla Bean Frappucino with Caramel Drizzle, and he was good for the night. True to my word, I did give him a brownie for dessert.

We finished off the night with a makeup piano lesson since Halloween was on his piano lesson night last Thursday. Eric and I spent lots of time together today and I loved it. I think he loved it too. :)

Oh, and he wanted me to send that lounging photo to Anthony. I've been emailing my blog posts to Anthony so he can see what his siblings are up to. This blog post is probably way more information than he wanted. :)