He woke up at 8:20. We heard “I want to nurse” from the tent. Carly went in with him for awhile, then she came out and he just stayed in the tent. I went in and hung out with him for awhile, then we got out and I took him to the bathroom. On the way back I called him “my little Smokey ranger” and he laughed and said “I’m Zinnie…what a Smokey ranger is?” We came back and he was hungry, so I made us a piece of bread with jam and butter, which he didn’t want to hold because he didn’t want to get his hand sticky.
Carly headed to the showers while we ate that. She some back and the sausages and hash browns were ready. August liked them well enough, then had a few berries. He wanted in the car to play and found the black bottle of air freshener. I ended up teaching him how to use it and we squirted it together. He kept getting some on his hands and went and told Carly “My hands smell good.” Back in the car we listened more to the Posies CD at his request. My parents came over and August had fun talking to them out the windows. But then he politely told gramma “I want some privacy.” But he still wanted me in there with him. We kept playing and listening to music, and he started being a machine, moving his arms around, and said “I’m making power for the music. He wanted different music, so we put in the CD for Charles Vaughn’s Pylon Reveries, which we haven’t heard yet. Track 2 was kind of atmospheric and brooding and I said I liked it, and he said “Why, because it is a dark sound?”
Carly and I switched and I went and took a shower. I came back and got some coffee and August finally got out of the car, about 10:45. He wore gramma’s sunglasses, then ran over to visit the dog for a minute. He hung out with grampa and I went back to reading Eleven Prague Corpses. With grampa he asked what the bottle was that he was using and it was sunscreen with a Minion on it. Grampa said “Minions” and August corrected him: “One minion.” They played with the frisbee, then he wanted to read the Smokey Bear story, so I got the iPad, but he got distracted. He got his hand dirty in the dirt, and I washed that off, then Carly took him on his bike while I read for a bit.
I finished a story and went and met them as they finished a lap. Came back and they made a sandwich. We got going on a walk at 12:15. August talked about his sunglasses: “My heart sunglasses make things completely dark…my white and red ones are completely bright.”
We found the spot where the Heaton family had a house and looked at it as best we could, then kept walking. We got over to the second campground. He saw a donut float similar to ours: “That is a yummy donut that’s made of rubber?” Carly went in a few sprinklers to cool off, but he wasn’t too happy when I took us through one in the backpack. He saw a truck coming and going by us: “Bigger, bigger, bigger…smaller, smaller…It’s an optical illusion?” We stopped to reattach the drinking system hose so he could drink from it. We ended up sitting there for twenty minutes or so in the mist from a sprinkler. Mom and dad got a map of the campground and confirmed there was no playground. Carly found some horseshoes and threw those, then took him up to the bathroom. Got him in the backpack and we headed back.
He didn’t fall asleep on the way back. I took him over to the bathroom. He was looking pretty tired on the way back but he said he wasn’t going to take a nap. He and Carly nursed over by the stream, then he came and played with grampa. Dad put his leg up like a door, and I told August the magic word was ‘abracadabra’. So August kept going around in circles, using it and dad would move his leg. August asked if it was an electric machine, then he exercised dad’s leg to make the machine work better. They then found a caterpillar and looked at that, then I helped August set it free on a tree. We set up Paul’s tent after that, August helping with the poles and pretending they were vacuum cleaners.
About 2:30 we headed down to the beach. Carly went for a short float, but August wanted to play with everyone else’s toys and not ours or the abandoned ones. So we headed back to the campsite and got there a little before 3. Carly tried to nurse him again. No luck. She took him to the bathroom and we got in the car and went for a drive. We saw Paul driving in as we headed out. August fell asleep at 3:20 just after we had turned let on Chewuck. Turned around and we went back to camp. Opened the windows and Carly sat in the shade next to the car. I went and read a little and napped, and then we woke him up at 4:40.
Carly took him and nursed, and he came over to the table a little before five. Got a big grin when he saw that Paul was there. We got going about 5:30. Drove into town and got gas, then we went to the playground by the barn. My parents and Paul were already there. August went up on the play structure and played with some turning things with grampa, then I went down the slide with him. There was a boy just a month younger than him, and August went on the swing next to him. He loved this swing: “I go higher than the sky.” “This one I can never get out.” I pushed him at first, then gramma took over.
While on the swing he said: “I’m going to use a powerful vacuum cleaner to suck up those trees and leaves…rocks that couldn’t be carried by people” The last was a reference to my explanation of the glacial rocks that we saw along the Columbia.
We headed to the Old Schoolhouse Brewery for dinner. I got a mushroom burger to share with August. Before the food came I asked “How’d your face get dirty?” His reply: “I’m not going to tell you.” Carly tried to clean his face and he said “No more water! You’re wasting it.” When he got his juice: “Apple juice is WAY BETTER…better than the mango.” We enjoyed the restaurant. We sat right by the river and August asked if it was the one we saw at the dam. So we talked about tributaries, etc. I wandered into the restaurant with him once and he ended up using the bathroom. I had a couple of good allergy attacks but made it through.
We left at 8:10. Carly drove and I read Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones. My allergies were hitting me really badly. Back at the campsite, dad made a fire and we started marshmallows just before 9. He got to roast his own a couple times. Carly got to him first, so his preference for marshmallows is more roasted than mine.
He talked to Paul about how he requested milk, and referred to himself in the third person: “She gave me half a cup. He wanted it that way.” He blew bubbles in his milk and he talked about how no bubbles was Uncle DD’s rule. We saw the moon and was excited about it.
He then helped Carly wash out cups. We were then going to get him ready for bed, but Paul reminded us August could pour water on the fire. Paul said August had only mentioned it a dozen times. So he did that with dad’s help.
As we headed to bed he got a kiss from gramma and mentioned again how gramma could do real kisses, not just Skype kisses.
We read the Smokey story. He went back out with Carly for a minute. He saw a few stars this evening. Back in the tent they nursed, then read What Game Shall We Play? a couple times. He was finally asleep by 11:30.
Read ‘strawberry jam’ on a jar earlier in the day.