He was up just before 6:30. Almost twelve hours of sleep. Nursed and hung out with Carly, then he lay on the reading area, pretending to draw on the ceiling. He got up and looked out the window and was asking about directions and wanted to see on the phone. So I gave him the old phone and he played with the compass. We discovered that it has a level function, so he was twisting all around to make that change. I asked what he wanted for breakfast. He answered “Candy…ice cream…snail poop.” We settled for our usual cereal and fruit. He then looked at instruments in Notion and we looked up videos of them on YouTube: water gong, slide whistle, etc. He played GarageBand and ended up sort of making soundscapes using Jet Stream etc and all the octaves – down to the negative octaves on the keyboard (which he really liked). We looked something up in the dictionary, and that led to looking up translations in Google Translate and then playing with different languages. We read Pete the Brave and A Violin for Elva and part of The Little Prince, then played Dragonbox Big Numbers. I exercised, then took a shower. We’ve been listening to a lot of Miles Davis. He was listening and asking “What those notes are?” He often does this now, where he wants to know what are quarter notes, etc. Miles Davis is a bit hard for that though.
He carried Marshy around with chin/neck, then had more Cheerios and part of the peanut butter sandwich I had made for later. We then finished the pizza, a slice each (his cold). He wanted to work on his W and R, particularly the word “water bottle”.
He was asking how many countries there are, and he asked “How many elements there are?” I downloaded a periodic table, and he spent the next half hour playing with that – he was particularly interesting in what each element is in (they have a picture of an example), and at which temperature they melt and boil. For hydrogen there was a video with exploding balloons. He saw the small one, but didn’t want to see the big one: “No, no, no, no, no!”
Finally, I dragged him away from chemistry and we left at 12:25. As we walked through the park he was making music and said “I’m playing a number line. I’m making up instruments. I’m going to play a tree.” On the train he played London Bridge with an interesting staccato rhythm. I asked what he was playing and he said “bassoon”.
At the park I tried to steer him to something outside, but he wanted the children’s museum. Last night, when Carly asked him what he wanted to do today, he said “Inside play area” and “Children’s museum”. He hadn’t changed his mind.
So we headed in. He went up to the space area, then into the spaceship area. He kind of wandered around a bit, then said “I don’t know anything at all.” We played with a couple things together, and he played with some switches, then his big break: the big group of kids around us left, and he was free to climb in the pilot’s seat for the first time and use the actual controls. We got a few good minutes, then another group came. I let August finish the game he was on, then we headed out.
He headed up the ramp to the construction area. There, he helped a smaller boy load bricks into the basket on the crane. He’s more aware of cranes now, and kept talking about the crane. He then headed up the next ramp and we ended up at the water area. He got an apron on and went at it. He did some fishing pole, then we spent a lot of time at the begging dropping balls into one of the stream things, then winding them up the conveyor belt part. He played with the water wall thing a bit, then the part where you can put the little gates in and make a path for the stream and put a ball in it. But then his big innovation: he got his hands wet and started making hand prints and stripes on the floor. The floor was soaked in areas and regularly being mopped, so his little water wasn’t a big deal. With all the chaos and noise around him, he kept this up for a long time.
About 2:30 he was done with that and we went to the bathroom then the cafeteria for a snack of letter cookies. He played in the lobby again, making music, then suddenly running over to me and doing a boa constrictor attack. We left at 2:50.
We went and did sidewalk chalk. He first pretended to be a seagull, then inspected the area we were going to use and carefully picked up some flower petals and removed them. He then wanted to draw a pizza. I drew a circle, and he drew mushrooms on it. He then said there was a telescope, then started to draw a line from it. I asked what the line was, and he said it sprays water. Then the line kept going and going. Right off the sidewalk chalk triangle and off across the playground. And it wasn’t straight – it was all curvy and twisty, and he kept running back to get a different color. He did a great job of not staying in the lines. We shared the chalk with other people. He started to object at first, but I reminded him we had done it before and he was fine after that.
About 3:30 he headed to the play structure. And he realized it looked like a pipe organ. So the whole time he was in it it was his pipe organ. He climbed up this step area without me, and a couple times caused a bit of a bottle neck, because he needed some help getting down, but all the other kids would just shove through, so I couldn’t get in to help him. Then he was going around pointing to all the pipes, and the controls to his pipe organ, and all of the buttons (screws and bolts): “I have all sorts of crazy switches.”
Then it was down to the ground level, where there are those pipes where you talk in one end and someone listens at the other end. We played with those for several minutes, then he just played them like instruments. Underneath the structure he got fascinated by a couple of the game things. Mainly the one he’s played with before, where there are shapes that move in tracks on one side, but from the backside you can also make them move. He played that with a few kids, and when there wasn’t another kid he would call me over to play.
There were a couple times what with the crowds and all our moving around where he wouldn’t know where I was (or vice versa) for a minute, but he handled those okay. Once, when we were underneath, he headed out to find me, not realizing I was a few feet away. When I got out I found him calling for me. Then at the end he climbed up the climbing wall. I told him I was going to the other side of the structure to get the backpack. I expected to find him on the structure, but he wasn’t there. I found him down by the sidewalk chalk area. He couldn’t remember how he got off the structure, but I think he got to the top, went right down the slide, then headed to the other end of the playground where the sidewalk chalk area is, as that was where the backpack was originally. Anyway, when I found him he was admiring his line and playing hopscotch.
He added a little more to his line, and we left at 4:30. We stopped at the bathrooms by the entrance, then headed home, getting off the train at 5:25. On the walk home I heard him signing the tunes to the Rabbit Dance that I made up with Bluie and “It’s OK” (that punk song).
Right before we got to Brownstone though I realized he was sounding a bit stuffy. He denied it, but once home he had a runny nose. Now he has a cold. Carly got home a little after us. For dinner I got him cold noodles with olive oil, olives, and cheese. He did some math on his number line. He was making music and told Carly “I played a baby…a cow. Moo, Moo, Moo.” She was confused by that until I told him he had been playing random instruments. Earlier it was a number line, zucchini, and boa constrictor. He also told her “I went down to low negative E flat.”
She gave him a bath, he watched some orchestras, and he was asleep at 7:40.
Photos. Using the level:
Children’s museum:
Snack time:
Sharing the chalk:
In his pipe organ:
In the way:
Instrument:
The sidewalk chalk at the end, with him in the distance putting finishing touches on his line:
Flower season:
