He was up at 6:40. A little upset (“Only mama can help me” “Mama’s nice; you’re not nice” “I’ll just get worse!”) but not awful. He wanted to go ou side so I opened the door right away. He sat on his bike. I said I needed a sweatshirt if we were going on a walk and he wanted one too. We went upstairs and got them and when I put his on he asked “How do sweatshirts keep you warm?”
We ended up walking for 55 minutes, getting back at 7:45. First around the block, then I ran in to get snacks. He spotted more letters: “That’s a T out of the road.” He’s also been into declaring “That’s a three-way road” at intersections. We then went up to the dead end, then across to Vatikim. He didn’t want to play in the park so we kept going, down to the strawberry fields. Then down around on the trail and past the fields that way. He was ready to head home so we turned around.
For the first half we sang ABC songs we haven’t sung much of recently. He mainly supplied words he’s learned from Metamorphabet.
When we got home I introduced a 3 episodes per day limit on his videos and we talked about the various mathematical permutations of that with different shows and number of stories in each episode. He was happy with it, so we will see how it works in practice. Shouldn’t be too bad, although there were days when I was sick that he definitely watched more.
He watched one Wanda and the Alien, then we made banana bread. As we were getting out ingredients he grabbed out about a dozen spices that he said we should put in. When we were done with the dough he then pretended to pour them in. We had music playing, and he really started dancing to the demo version of Drivin N Cryin’s “Not Afraid to Die”. He also really liked a Lee Renaldo song. He inspected the brown sugar and said it was a light brown sugar, where before it had been a dark brown. At the end he was explaining how he didn’t want me to take too much dough off the spatula before he could lick it: “Don’t scrape it off. I’ll take care of it.”
He then played around with a little bit of the 14 material. He said it said 14 on it and he was wearing it on his foot.
Took care of baby spider. Made bed, for our doctor tools.
Baby squirrel. I went up and got the sheet and we made a big nest. Baby squirrel and dada squirrel then hibernated through the winter, then gathered acorns. I referenced Frog and Toad, saying I wanted to sleep another month. He then did it too, then discussed reading the story. He saw Toca Plants first so I let him do that for a few minutes while the banana bread finished. We had been checking on it along the way.
The banana bread turned out really well, and he ate some and watched Wanda and the Alien. He finished his last episode as I took a shower and was fine with no more watching for the rest of the day.
In his bed and the play area he pretended to be various sea creatures: crabs, whales, etc. We then read After the Storm, after which he was being baby animals needing me to build homes for them (which is what happens in the book). Moved in on our bed where we built more homes and a nest.
Downstairs we did some Hebrew on paper. I wrote the alphabet 3 times. Third time was in cursive, at his request.
We then read a few chapters of Hilo 2. He wanted to Lee rand adding but eventually I needed to make some lunch.
Requested backwards ABC song. He’s been requesting that.
He played TodoMath. I made eggs but then he didn’t eat any. Eventually he said he’d have some when Carly got home. It was only 1. He was making progress on the 100 Board Puzzle and we worked on it together, then on some other things.
Then back down to Duplos and making a rocket for the dinosaur, which he calls a monkey. On paper then we did more Hebrew, doing variations of his name and also finding words that end in tzadi sofit, his favorite Hebrew letter. He drew a machine/robot/town. It had a waste treatment plant and 15 eyes. He said it was a “man-eating alien town”.
We played some squirrels hibernating, then went outside to water and pull weeds and gather nuts as squirrels. Inside we went back to hibernating. Sitting on the rug, he looked at the cover of the Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life book and said of the dinosaur “That monster’s going to bite its tongue really easily.”
We then read the rest of Hilo 2. This one has a cliffhanger ending, which I had to assure him would turn out okay. He was ready to jump in and get Hilo 3 but I said we could wait for awhile. And it was time to get out for a walk.
But first we had music time. First he was walking around, sort of singing, and inventing new musical notes, like dotted 22nd half notes, etc. I got out the keyboard, then we played with GarageBand for about a half hour.
We finally got out on his bike and went for a walk. Basically up towards the school, as Carly was heading home a little early today. We met her halfway, singing ABC songs, then walked back with her. We all stopped at Tal Garden. Carly went on the swing, August mainly played with the drinking fountain before going on the merry-go-round, and I did a little reading. He also found a seed which, when he was done with it, he threw in the bushes. He said “Bye little seed.”
We got home about 4:45. They nursed, then he played Big Numbers, getting help from both of us at different points. We had dinner, sitting at the table, but then Carly decided to move outside. I had just gotten some seconds and was about to head out when he bit his tongue. Blood on this one. They went back in and eventually he could nurse. While nursing he asked me to add “Moon (the Slips remix)” by Bjork to his playlist.
We all went back outside and he played around, going down the slide. I had him tell Carly what he knows about the months. We recite some of them when we’re doing the hibernating animals, and today he recited December through May and we were working on the rest. He’d say “Dada, can you talk more about the months?” For July Carly said “That’s when I was born.” He said “Then I like that month.” He was playing with the dustpan and before I could tell him to be gentle with it he hit it on the patio and a small piece of plastic broke off of it. Hewanted to bury it, so we dug a little hole for it.
Carly had spotted a planet by the moon and I finally saw it too. I got out Sky Guide on my phone and found out it was Saturn. August then played around with that, and I pointed to where the other planets are. He played with that for awhile, then wanted the globe. So we used Google Earth as we sat out on the grass. He found an interesting abandoned spot on the island of Tanna.
We headed in and Carly took him up for a shower at 7. Afterwards, I got called up when they spotted a spider by the bed. Couldn’t get it before it went underneath though. He wanted me to take care of the baby squirrel, and Carly decided it had measles, so we told him about measles and chicken pox. He then said he had a package of chicken from the Everything Chicken store. That got us back to the Everything Tickly store from yesterday, and we played that for a few minutes.
We went down to get his water, then I left them about 7:40 and he was soon asleep.
Morning walk:
Playing on our slide in the evening:
