He was up at 7:22. I looked up the stairs and he told me not to come up. He was happy and took a slow walk down, spotting the light on the wall and discussing his favorite screws where the railing meets the post. Downstairs he played Human Body and ate Cheerios. We went upstairs to get him some clothes. His upper lip was dry and bothering him so I got chapstick. The first one was out, so I let him have it and he ended up licking and eating the last little bit of it during the day. And his current tube of toothpaste was running out so we went up and got his next tube to use. He wanted water and I said I’d go upstairs and get his bottle, and he said “But, I’m gonna miss you.” In Human Body when you tap on the word labels they fall to the bottom and you can stack them. He said “I love my word stack.”
For breakfast I made 4 kinds of toast and we shared them: with yogurt, cheese, peanut butter, and biscuit spread. We watched Care Bears while we ate and after. The episode about Scare Bear and the first one are his favorites. When he was done with the toast he used the plates as a hat, then told me to wash them. Used some chapstick, then spent some time on ants.
We read three of our new books: more of Don’t Pollute, Splat the Cat Fishy Tales, and Jumpy Jack and Googily. He said his penis was itchy again so we put on some cream, then did some exercise. Spotted some more ants and found a couple of raisins on the rug that he had apparently thrown there during breakfast for the ants. We were listening to Bjork through the morning, starting with her first album. It will take quite awhile to get through it all.
We made pizza for lunch, him helping most with the cheese, and ate that and watched more Care Bears. I then went up and finally took a shower and he played Gro Recycling in the bathroom. Back downstairs, he sat on my lap on the rug and we read the Bill Peet book Farewell to Shady Glade. He really paid attention and had tons of questions through it. He found yet another raisin on the floor. He was claiming that he threw the raisins to the ants during the night: “Yeah but it was when I waked from sleep.” He did some dancing to Bjork before telling me it was too loud.
He wanted to watch something and I told him he couldn’t and he complained that he couldn’t do “ANYTHING”. We turned that into a gam, trying to lay on the couch and do nothing. He was then a machine: “This part and this part were making boxes for sunglasses to go in.” We ate a few of the round crackers and he was getting crumbs on the floor of the kitchen. Did a thorough job of sweeping to make sure we weren’t leaving anything for the ants.
We got ready to go to do recycling. He went to check on the weed plants and if they were ready to pick (thinking of his Gro Garden game). We watered the weeds with the AC hoses, then I took him into the driveway area to see all the junk. Had fun looking around in there for a few minutes, then back in the yard we watched a black and white cat drink from the dish of water we put out and then sit in front of the playhouse.
Then, the ants. August noticed them first. They had come up right outside the kitchen, holes everywhere along the edge of the patio. Worse, they were close to the door and tons were exploring the house. We went into major ant mode, eradicating them from inside the house, then trying to drive them away from the house with vinegar and cleaner and water. During this, August started ending every sentence with ‘dada’: “there’s a spider, dada. It might get in the house dada…It’s a feather dada. Birds lose their feathers dada? Why, dada?”
We called it good and left at 3:15. We went up and he helped with recycling. He didn’t want to play in the playground and just wanted to head home, so we did a little walk around the block and were back at 3:40. The ants were still all over outside, but hadn’t returned to the house, instead forming a line up the wall to something on the roof. We went upstairs to make sure they weren’t going in the house somewhere, and we saw an all-black cat drinking from the water dish.
We went downstairs and played the Flynne game and were planting trees: apple, worm, onion. He was a cloud, raining on the seeds, and said the sun was on his back (behind him). Carly got home and he told her about the cats: “The Little house is for cats and kids…but dada says they’re not pets.” I finally used the sealant I had bought to close up some of the holes around the big sliding door and around an old wire that goes into the kitchen.
We had some dinner, then we read two Peppa Pig books: Around the World and First Sleepover. At the end of Around the World they end up jumping in a muddy puddle as the sun shined. August said “That’s silly cuz muddy puddles show up when it’s raining.” He then played Human Body and said of the white blood cells he was playing with “I love those, dada.”
At 6 we walked over to Holly’s house to pick up the garbage can and a few other small things that she’d driven over for us from the school (they were extra items that Ada had). She also had a wooden shelving unit she thought me might like. We saw her cats and met the dog. It backed at first, and August covered his ears. We went in and saw the shelves but weren’t sure if we had a spot for them.
As we got back to the house August said “When I go in I need that sweet, sweet, sweet stuff.” He was referring to the biscuit spread. He played a little Human Body, then we used Sesame Play to find a game we could play. It gave us a game where you whisper a word as quietly as possible, then keep repeating it slightly louder until the other person guesses the word. August really liked that.
Just past 7 we went out for a walk. We headed to the west and south. We found a house that had at least 3 tractors in the yard, and we found a couple of houses that had really interesting old stuff as decorations on the outside walls. Walking back we ran into Holly walking her dog. Convenient, as we had found a spot for the shelving unit (in our entry way for shoes, etc.) and were going to her house to get it. We got it, and she helped us bring them back.
I gave August a shower and told him two of my Puffin Rock stories – Baba swimming and Flynne stuck on a cliff. We haven’t done those stories for months. In the bedroom he asked why there wasn’t a grey sheet. Said he likes the smell of the pink sheet. He told me “My bottom and my penis get itchy every once in awhile.” Then he was a machine: “The machine was stacking up banana peels with no bananas in it.” “My outlets aren’t supposed to be washed so a part of the machine puts covers on the outlets…” We also did some reading: Oh, Daddy and some Peppa Pig, I think.
I was going to try to put him asleep again, so we went downstairs to say goodnight to Carly and get his water bottle. I then tried getting him to sleep. We used the timer on my watch to practice lying down. I also pressed the watch against his arm so he could feel it vibrating when it went off. We did pretty well, and while he would talk about wanting mama or going downstairs he wouldn’t try to leave. Finally, he got so close: He was silent for 30 seconds and almost asleep. Then he got sad and started crying and said “I can’t do it!…I need to nurse!” Carly came in and we told him he did a good job trying and he was asleep at 9:45.
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