He was up nice and early at 5:40. When I was up a bit later he was working on counting by tens with Carly using the blueberry cubes. Carly left for work, and he worked on When Johnny Comes Marching on the piano. He had the last of the banana bread for breakfast, then played GarageBand. On Word Wagon he continued adding a definition after sounding out some of the words. Carly noticed this when he was doing it yesterday, and I’m not sure where it comes from. For example, he said “train…something can drive…” He played more piano and did more of When Johnny. Then played music on Figure.
We sang When Johnny and Yankee Doodle, looking at the lyrics to learn a little more of Yankee Doodle. Suddenly, he said “Wait! I have an idea! Let’s count by 70s!” We went in and actually ended up counting by twos using the blueberries. He is starting to be able to do it on his own. An announcement came on and he didn’t like it, so we went into the reading area and closed (and locked) the door. We made a nest and read The Hole in the King’s Socks three times. He was singing and making up random words for the jumping game song, then writing uppercase and lowercase letters on paper, then tried writing some cursive. He needed the Cursive app to show him, then he ended up playing in the app. I took a shower.
When I came out he was doing some math, and talked about doing math in his head, and joked about it: “In your brain? In your skull? In your humerus bone?…Say yes.” As we wrote on the paper, he broke apart one of the pencils which had been slightly broken, then needed me to tape it back together. We went back to the reading area and read Kiss Good Night three times. The first time, he said he was afraid of the “AGAIN!” part. I was talking to him about it, and figured out that he didn’t like when I said it too loud. Once that was out, he loved it, and actually made a game out of reading the book really quietly or loudly.
He then was singing something, and hit upon his “Shovel cave it out” song again. So we figured out how to play it on the piano.
A delivery guy came to the door to deliver a package from my parents for his birthday. A nice surprise, as they were afraid it was going to be late.
August wanted a snack, so we had crackers. He has started to pretend that the non-letter crackers have things on them. Started with letters, but progressed from there. Today it was “Is this a brain wheat thin? Is this a humerus wheat thin?”
Finally, he spotted one of his fish oil vitamins under the couch. He couldn’t reach it, so I got down and got it. I held it out to him and told him not to eat it. Big mistake. He took it and ate it. I asked if it was an old one, and he said “Yeah. It was squishy. It was an old one.”
We left at noon. He was singing “Shovel cave it out” as he walked. He started saying “Yo mas” and asking what it meant. Told him ‘I More’ but that didn’t make sense and that we’d have to ask Carly if she says something like that to him. Finally, he was working on finger math on his own on the train down, and doing problems like 10-2, 10-10, and 3+2.
At Children’s Grand Park we walked to the playground. I had told him what food we had (half a sandwich, strawberries, string cheese, rice curry) and he had said that was enough – no need to stop for kimbap, etc. Empty today. Not a holiday, but also chilly (36) and a bit windy. So he wanted to go on the swings. He went briefly on the round swing and the relaxing swing. Put his sunglasses on for that one. But spent most of his time on a regular swing. Then was walking around and playing around. Seemed tired, and at one point twice tried to lie down on the sand. But then didn’t like sand all over himself. He was then pretending to be a skunk/electric eel/octopus and spray/zap me.
He ate somewhere in there, then were ready to leave as it was chilly and past time for a nap. But he played on the hopscotch, went on the turning thing, climbed the hill, went back to hopscotch, etc. Eventually I picked him up and we headed out.
We went to the bathroom, got in the backpack, then started walking. A nap didn’t happen though. He was just too hyped up; his brain was too on. He was talking and singing constantly: “I can change O to P, I can change P to R…” Lots of stuff that I would have found really amusing if I wasn’t carrying him on my back for a half hour. And in the continuing construction drama of Children’s Grand Park, the new playground doesn’t look any different BUT there were a couple guys starting to work on something. Also, August and I had been predicting for a couple weeks that soon the new escalator from the station (the one that took nearly two years to install, and has been out of commission multiple times already) would break down, as it has been extra squeaky. And indeed today it was closed off and the panels were all open.
Anyway, after a half hour we headed home. Considered children’s museum, but August didn’t seem excited about it. And the weather was just too cold.
On the subway home I asked him about a music teacher again. He said “I want a cello teacher. Electric guitar is my second choice. And buzzerbass. And guitar. And autoharp. And upright bass. And last but not least….harpsichord.”
At home we read a new book on the iPad called Also an Octopus, which is a story about how stories are structured. We then played piano. He wanted to wear it, so I put it on him. He was then turning around and bumping it into the table. He had the good idea of taking it in to the parlor, but as he excitedly ran off I called after him to stop, so he didn’t hit it on the other table, chair, door, etc. He broke out crying, upset that I’d raised my voice. Took some consoling, then we went back to mandolin.
From there we went back to the couch and watched music videos of instruments he didn’t know. First, lute. Then ukulele. For that we watched the Amanda Palmer Tiny Desk concert: https://youtu.be/LRix5o2-fiU He liked that, although for much of it she didn’t play ukulele. We also watched some theremin, and then he ended up on the marble machine again and a video of covers of the marble machine song.
Around 5 we headed back outside, as we needed to get bread and we were going to the book store in the pink building to get more pads of paper. We stopped to leave the bike at the top of the stairs in the pink building, and as we walked away he said “I’m concerned.”
In the book store we found pads of paper. I also let him get a notebook with lines in it for writing, and another notebook that said ‘Funny Mathematics’ on it. It was really busy in there, and August said “Excuse me…I said excuse me a lot.” He also looked at pens that he thought looked like toothbrushes.
As we left, he ran ahead, kind of flapping his arms and singing “De de de” As he ran he looked to his right and saw a woman eating soup. Without slowing, he pointed and said “That looks spicy” and went back to singing “De de de”.
We went to Tous Les Jour. Right before we went in, Carly called, from home, asking where we were. She asked where we were, and August said “Home”. Which was sort of true, but not. Then he said something like “We are at the bread store and are going to buy bread.” We talked about not touching before we went in and it went well. He had trouble picking one treat, but decided on a honey bread thing. We were home at 5:45.
They nursed, then he ate dinner with chopsticks. Watched some tabla, then marble machine. He played GarageBand, then we shared the honey and cheese bread Carly gave him a bath and I did dishes. She was doing something as they went in, and he signed ‘more’, using his open left hand method. In the bath he was singing Itsy Bitsy and putting in random words. Straight to be after that, and asleep at 7:15.
Photos. Playing on the chair and looking at photos:
Children’s Grand Park. Swing:
Skunk:
Home. Resting and reading books:
Mandolin:
Toes:
Book store. Looking at pencils:
