He was up at 6:10. He stopped to go to the bathroom on his way downstairs. He wasn’t clear on whether he wanted oatmeal or not but eventually he told Carly he did. While he ate he told me “You should put some music on.” Listened to Idan Raichel.
We played with Duplos when Carly went to work. He was making things that balanced. He played with his bassoon and contemplated moving infinitely slow and an infinitely slow rhythm. Then played with his lever in the chair.
He asked to play Robot Factory and did that for a short time before switching to Toca Nature. When he made a bunch of mountains and made it cold he said “I coldified it with my colder machine.”
When we Skyped with my parents he wasn’t answering questions with straight answers and everyone ended up confused. He invented Confused Day: “This is called confused day. Everyone gets confused. I should invent a non-confused machine…I’m being confused!” He was then pretending to be Cynde the cat for much of the call.
After Skype he wanted to play with Cubetto: “Let’s do the story of it. Every map has a story, right?” We played through the Cubetto’s First Day of School book. Back on the couch he said “There’s rules you have to follow when you’re an adult. Like not hurt people. It’s okay if it’s an accident though.”
He watched Wild Kratts and I exercised. He was then talking about the show: “I have platypus sensory power…electro-reception…I have that sense. It senses electrical charges.”
We went upstairs and I took a shower, then he had his bath. He played for quite awhile, breaking up a small piece of the bar of soap that had broken off. In his room he looked at the insect: “I’m looking at the little hairs. That’s pretty cool…I discovered there’s little hairs under it.”
We took it downstairs and he released it outside. It flew away after a minute. He was then watering plants with parts of the sprayer. I refilled the tube part several times and he could squirt water out of it.
He was singing rocket man and we figured out it was apparently one of the mystery songs he’s been doing, just with a simplified rhythm. He asked me to sing it several times, then wanted to listen to it on repeat. He was asking questions about what it was about and why the guy was lonely. He said “Well, lonely with people, but not with ALIENS!”
He ate yogurt and orange for lunch. Not much. He then talked about an “Organic shark”. I got the slinky that he got at the restaurant with lunch yesterday and he played with that.
We went out the kitchen door and were getting ready to leave. He was playing with something and I said I was going to open the gate. He didn’t hear me, and I heard him trying to open the kitchen door. He thought I was inside and had locked him out and he was sad.
Held him, then we left at 1:10. We were singing Rocket Man and Let it Be on the way up. I told him how I had sung Let it Be to him in Bangkok to put him to sleep. At the school I had my ID ready. Carly had forwarded an email explaining that they were getting stricter about ID cards and security checks.
We first went to the preschool playground. He at first thought I meant we were going to the big kids playground. He argued he was a big kid and so that was the preschool playground. I explained there were even bigger big kids there. He played on the playground by himself for a few minutes. He talked about some food that he and Carly like but I don’t (pickles? Mustard? Artichoke?). I said that was okay because he and I like salmon but she doesn’t. He said “I only like it when you and I like something and mama doesn’t.” And “I want you to at least try it.”
Then much of the PKB class (his class) showed up. They had been picking flowers for Selma’s birthday while some of the other kids took naps. They played on the playground and August kept a little distance, but followed them. One boy, who is also in the coding class, came over to him a couple times.
We then went in for the birthday party. They started with a circle on the floor. August went and sat in the circle and they introduced him and me to the class. They listened to a song and pretended to play instruments to it, which August loved. For her birthday they asked how many fingers is four and August held up four fingers. When they asked who else was 4 August excited joined in the “Meee!” and raised his hand. They did another song, “I can dance”, which has them starting still, then getting up and dancing. Finally, Selma’s mom read a book they had bought for the preschool and he listened attentively.
They then moved to the tables for snack time. He ate a little pear, but mainly the animal crackers, which he wanted to show me. Sang happy birthday, then there was a chocolate cake with blueberries on it. He got a big piece, and I ended up helping him eat it, it was that big. It was then time for kids to head to the busses. August helped me and Selma and her mom pick up a container of colorful counting sticks that had been knocked on the floor (perhaps by her little brother), then August had some time to go up and play with the blocks up in the loft area.
We went up to coding class. He was doing so well I thought I’d try to go back down and ask his teachers a question about when he should start. I explained it to him and he said okay. But when I came back a minute later Karen was holding him and he was crying. I took him and we went out of the room. He pointed to the tissues and then told me “That didn’t go well!” He wanted to go right back in though. He sat at the table and played Scratch Jr. and one other app the whole time. I read and he was asking Karen a lot of questions and patiently waiting for her when she was helping other kids. I spent more time trying to help another kid who was wandering off. I only went to August for a minute where he showed me the level he was on and I helped him figure out what a box did. He then showed me a different level and explained what algorithm he’d have to use – he’s really picking up the algorithmic thinking from this and Cubetto.
When class was over we went out to the small play area on that side of the building. He pretended to cook and we found a block he used to play the musical instruments attached to the wall. There was a platform thing on the ground and I played music and he danced, then we switched.
We went up to the library and he returned three books and we went and found the next Zita book. He was jumping off the reading area, all the way to the second squares. He called it his “performance”. We checked out the book and went over and looked at the chess set. There was a chess clock and I was explaining how it worked when Carly showed up.
He was reluctant to go but we got him out. Carly took him to the bathroom and we got going. We got to our park at 4:50 and wanted to play. Carly headed on home. He first played on the teeter totter thing: “With my hand tools I can do any kind of potion.” And we discussed his birthday cake. Basically, he wants chocolate and a number 4 candle. We went up on the play structure and were catching bouncy beans that escaped (from Julius Jr.): “There’s a lot more bouncy beans. I’m going to turn on my propellor. Can you push the button with a picture of a propellor on it?” He was then inventing: “Inner vision scope…it shows you how different animals see.” “This machine tells you how cool something is.”
I was getting cold and suggesting we head home. He finally decided it was time and we headed home at 5:25. He showed Carly the slinky and I heard him say “…and it’s a winding inclined plane.”
I made dinner – pasta with mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, etc. He was outside with Carly and they did school. She wrote sentences for him and he read them off the chalkboard. My mom had done the same thing with him earlier on skype. He came over to use the food processor to grate the cheese.
We ate dinner, then he
wanted to watch Wild Kratts with Carly. They watched the lion episode together. He then sat with me and we read part of the new Zita book. He made a shaker instrument out of his bassoon and a toilet paper roll.
He was sleepy, so I took him upstairs and Carly got him ready for bed. I came back up a little before 8. I told him about my friend Steven and baseball cards in elementary school. He wants baseball cards now. He then turned towards me and cuddled up and fell right asleep by 8:05.