Monday, October 2: Early morning, a long nap, and a couple of walks

He woke up at 3:50 and couldn’t get back to sleep. I took him downstairs at 4:20. He asked for something to eat and I got dried cheerios. He then wanted to read Charlie Cook three times. I then got him some apple and let him watch Peg + Cat while I pulled out the bed and rested. He’s still stuffy and now coughing a bit.

Carly came down about 6:15. She had overslept a bit. August nursed after she made quesadillas, then said he wanted to play with the blueberry math blocks: “Race you!” and ran over to them. He was frustrated when Carly couldn’t play with him but then played with me. He suggested we make groups of 7. We did that, then he made a long string of them and counted all 32 of them. Then he added one more and counted them all to 33.

Carly said goodbye close to 7. He huddled on her feet and said “keep me”. Then he pretended to be a parasite and did just fine when Carly left – he wanted to go learn more about the immune system, so we did that. He loves the How the Body Works series from kidshealth.org with Chloe and the Nerve: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRmb5AxU-JXgajvrrcozhkhMeSWa0XI0Z

I fell asleep for a just a little bit before he woke me back up. He wanted some milk, and I let him choose from his three different sized cups. He said “small, medium, large…Huge…Super huge…Can you think of other kinds of bigging?” So we discussed words like enormous and gigantic. He got a little upset when mangos not ripe and I realized there was only one banana.

Upstairs where he played Big Dragonbox Numbers and I took a shower. He was showing me his planning/impulse control in Dragonbox Numbers as he showed me he had enough apples for getting gold, then showed me he could get stone, but if he got the stone he wouldn’t have enough left for the gold, so he went back and got the gold. He was then a machine: “I’m a really lour machine that makes cups out or old cups.” More math thinking in hundreds: “We need 600 apples to get 6 cupcakes.” And more machines: “I’m a machine that can make magical music from nowhere.” “That means it gets sound all the way from in Venus…Say ‘whoa’”.

Downstairs I made us French toast and a little banana and mango smoothie. We were listening to Mermaid Avenue Volume 3 and he added the song “Chain of Broken Hearts” to his playlist. As he drank his smoothie he said, out of nowhere, “Dada. Sometimes mama gets a bug in her mouth and she closes her mouth and she eats it…Silly mama.” Turns out this was based on a conversation he had with Carly yesterday after a bug flew in his eye. He also randomly asked “Why did our vacuum cleaner turn off on its own in Korea?” He then speculated “What if all the vacuum cleaners in the world were turning off on their own and getting too warm?” He then acted this out on the couch.

We went and wrote our options for the day on the whiteboard. He drew a machine on the chalkboard, then erased pictures I drew on the whiteboard, first of an ant and then, at his request, a millipede. First thing we agreed to do on the list was water the plants. He ran outside in his pajamas. I got him changed into some shorts, and we went outside and I first put down some ant poison. As we walked to do that he asked “The company that made my shoes is called Crocs?” He then played with the hose in the dirt after scraping some old glue or something off of the boards near the faucet. I did most of the watering and some sanding on the swings while he was playing over there. He got his shorts wet and took them off, having some naked time outside.

Back inside he only wanted to play on the iPad on the couch. He lay on the couch trying to convince me – smurf village, make things, etc. Lots of rubbing his eyes. He switched to being a worm hibernating for winter “This is where I come out from underground…In the steps that aren’t painted…The non-painted platform.” He was talking about the steps in front of our house. Wasn’t interested in doing other things on our list – he was tired and just wanted to play onthe couch.

We went upstairs at some point and he talked about how we have 17 stairs. I said that was good as it was mama’s favorite number. He got a little upset as it wasn’t his favorite number. He surprised me by going to the top of the steps and pretending to take away 3 steps to make 14. He was still hungry so he ate some more of his french toast. He then played with the Hebrew magnets and we spent a good amount of time with the alphabet. He raced me to the bathroom, then had a breadstick as we went walking at 12:50.

We took the big stroller, hoping he would fall asleep for a nap. We walked over to Jack’s house and I quickly checked in with him about going to the guy’s night thing tonight. He said he was going but not driving. So I planned on riding my bike this afternoon to meet up at the school. But Carly’s Hebrew class ended up being cancelled so I had enough time to walk.

After we left there August wanted to go across the street to the park and see the drinking fountain where he had played the other day, spraying it into the dirt. I turned it on and he watched for a minute from the stroller, just staring at the water as it made a stream in the dirt. I asked if he was ready to go for a walk and try to fall asleep and he said “Okay”. We started walking to the south, then back home, and he fell right asleep.

I pushed him into the house and he slept in the stroller until 1:06. He woke up at 1:48 enough that he wanted out of the stroller. I took him out and put him on the couch. He was upset at first, and I wasn’t sure he would fall back to sleep. When I said something to him he was swiping at me and telling me to go away. So I was just quiet, and then he turned over and curled up against me and the back of the couch and fell back to sleep. It’s the most awake I’ve seen him be and be able to fall back to sleep. Impressive. After awhile I tried to start waking him up. I tried several times. He would sit up with his eyes open, then throw himself back down on my lap or the couch and close his eyes, back asleep. Finally, I got him awak at 2:52. He lay on the couch for a good ten minutes before asking “Can I have Cheerios?” Finally, he got off the couch about 3:05.

I got him some Cheerios and milk. He ate for a minute at the table, then asked “Can I watch Peg + Cat while I eat?” He then asked for more milk for his cereal, as he had drank it all with his spoon. So I got him more. He drank all of that, then wanted even more milk, and he drank most of that. He paused watching Peg + Cat to pretend to be a present that is too heavy to pick up – he had watched a Christmas episode of Peg + Cat that, I think, involved sorting presents by size and weight. I then had the box of coins out and he was playing with the coins and pretending to be a coin sorting machine, taking coins off a conveyor belt.

Carly was home a little after 4. At the end of one episode, as he sat at the table, Pig sang “I still like triangles” and he turned to me and giggled, knowing that I really like that line from a different episode.

I took off about 4:35 and walked to the school. Met the other guys at the gate, then we got in two cars and headed over. We first went to a place called Beer Shop which was a decent beer place and had a beer. We then walked over to a falafel shop and had a wonderful falafel sandwich. They put whole eggs in their falafel as well, which I am told is a little unusual.

Then across to the movie theater where we watched It. Definitely a good one to see on the big screen. And a good film. Felt much like Stranger Things (since one of the actors is the main boy in that not surprising) or Super 8, or Goonies or E.T. I kept waiting for the 27 year jump to when they were adults, concerned as I didn’t know how long the film was. Turns out it is just part 1 – there will be a sequel.

While I was gone they went back over to Jack and Celeste’s and got some trimmings from t
he bougainvillea and came back and put them in water and dirt. August helped pull all the flowers off, then wanted to do experiments with the petals, putting some in vinegar and water and others in honey and water. They also ate some dinner, played with blueberries, took a shower, and he was asleep at 9:15.