He came down at 7:10. Carly was outside so I picked him up and we went out to get her. He cuddled on my shoulder, and told her “I sleeped in.” They nursed and he requested Cheerios. He snacked on them, not doing anything else, and asked me “Why do I always want Cheerios and peanut butter crackers in the daytime?” He then watched Julius Jr. I did some work while they put keys in the piano randomly, then took out the insides of the piano. August ended up over in the red chair showing Carly how he uses the mop as a lever: “That’s a pivot point, and that’s a pump pushing it up and down. I’m teaching mama how a lever works…See, it’s harder.” I took a shower. They had been playing with the wood blocks as dominoes, making a tower, and making a playground. They had found that the cylinder ones don’t make good dominoes. When he finished his playground he said “Look, that’s a great challenge for kids.”
Carly didn’t leave for Model UN/Conflict Resolution until 9:30. As she left I got August to tell her to have fun. He added “But not much of fun cuz I don’t want to miss out on the fun.” Then “Mama! I want to come with you!”
We built a playground, then went up and did his bath. He scrubbed the shower, I started laundry, and we watched a couple Marble Machine videos. Back downstairs I made French toast and he ate two full pieces. He asked me to bring down the instruments container and we played those. He took apart the cheap tambourine. Then played some music apps: Auxy, Bloom, and GarageBand: “I like drum kits a lot.”
He ate four and a half strawberries and said he wanted pizza. I heated us up a couple of slices and took it outside to eat. We went out for a few minutes, but he barely tried his pizza. It was rather quick after breakfast, and he had also said he wanted to eat pizza at the shop. I got some of the books to put in the library and wrote a couple a couple numbers inside the covers. August got upset that he couldn’t write and stopped helping do the tape. Over on the couch he demanded crackers and threw his bowl. I went to pick him up and take him upstairs for a timeout and he untaped my cast and I stepped on one of the piano keys and cracked it.
We sat on the bed and he calmed down, then we went down and glued the piano key. He said unwrapping my cast had been my punishment for not letting him write. We then ended up acting out germs and white blood cells on the couch. He then sang the line “Emily Pearl is a big girl” to Old MacDonald. I realized it was a line from a Skybrary book called I Can Do It Myself! Which he only read once or twice.
He wanted to play Human Body but then found the Me app by the same company. We already own it but haven’t played it, so downloaded it, but then it froze. We went in the kitchen where I was looking for my drink mix stuff. He had gotten some random items out of the cupboards, then spilled the popcorn and some of it had fallen on the floor. He was first a Sweep-a-matic 3000. Then a Picking-up-machine 4000 (the new model). I looked behind the oven and took the microwave down to do it. He helped me clean the top of the microwave.
Carly got home at 1:50 as I was making the drink, having found what I wanted up on the top shelf. August excitedly told her about how the drink mix works, then drank a lot: “I like-ed that.”
I was sitting under the black chair and he crawled under it and swept with his hand. He played under there, pushing me from below. Then he sat in the chair and had me do it to him. He ate some more strawberries, then we got ready to go on a walk. He played with the Teuni Teuni Monster Drum and rolled it on the floor. He speculated on why it rolled back to him, and Carly taught him ‘hypothesis’: “My hypothesis is momentum.” He had also seen some tomato slime on the cutting board and thought it was ice cream. He kept talking about it: “Mama confused me once. I thought the tomato was ice cream.” We said he could eat his cookie on the bike. I put it in the snack bag and he wondered where it was: “I smell a cookie. That’s a hint.”
We went for a walk. We walked down to the tunnel that echoes, as Carly hasn’t been there yet. August showed her how we were magnets as we walked. Got done with the tunnel at 3 and headed back. August had wanted to go to the park by Jack’s house, but on the way back changed his mind. We had a good discussion on the way back about “rule party” and how he needs to be in charge sometimes.
We were home at 3:30. I was feeling tired, so Carly took him to the store. They drove to the big Tiv Taam at 4 and were back at 4:50. I watched some Altered Carbon and did some work. When he was home he was hungry and I heated up some peas and meatballs for him. He ate that, then he wanted to play blocks with him. He said “Oh, I have control but you can play with me.” A reference to our earlier discussion about being in charge sometimes. I asked him how shopping went and he said “I behaved 100 percent. But I lost Mama’s list.” They found it. I talked to Carly later and she said he stayed in the cart the whole time, then did most of the putting things on the conveyor belt and most of the bagging at the end.
We then did Duplos and made a structure: “We’re putting on the finishing touches then we’re done.” We had the zookeeper play on it and he said “It’s for acrobats.” Then he said it was a machine. We played part of a snakes and ladders game, then read Monster Party. He got the salad spinner out and played with that.
Carly made ginger peanut sauce and spring rolls and we ate some of those. August got to lick the spatula off, but then basically threw it at Carly when he was done. After a little timeout with her he went back to his Duplo machine. He said “This cord is called the umbilical cord.” He was then on the couch with Carly and they played out a little routine they’ve developed: Him: “Why do you always say…?” Her: “Why so you always say ‘Why do you always say?’?” Him: “Why do you always say ‘Why so you always say ‘Why do you always say?’?’” Etc.
Carly went up to take a shower and he and I read the Cat and Alphabet books. We then read two Bob books from the Sight Words collection. Or rather, he read them. We haven’t read anything from that box since we’ve been in Israel. We read book 17, “The Old Truck”, and I just read the first word of each page and he read the rest. Sentences like “Can Ted make the old truck new?” We then read book 20, “Before and After”. He read it almost entirely on his own, with sentences like “Before a snack, Peg will wash her hands.” Carly came down and saw the end of it. She then realized the books have little activities at the beginning. That book suggested using words like ‘when’, ‘while’, ‘until’ in sentences. Carly asked if he could do it, and he was just making up nonsense. Then I modeled for him, using a funny sentence. He caught on and we did several. He laughed a lot, and would ask if we thought his sentence was funny. We looked at the activities in a couple others and discussed those as well. One was listing adjectives. He did a pretty good job of listing adjectives, and came up with ‘unlovable’.
We played some more of the Me app, which had frozen earlier in the day. August made a cool picture of himself, then drew a picture of an alien.
Carly took him up and got him ready for bed. Did a little kaleidoscope cards. I left them at 8:15.
Word of the day was ‘Castledonia’, which is one of the places they go in Julius Jr.