He was up just after 6:50. He came down and was sitting on the couch for a couple minutes before he asked “Dada, can you have two pivot points in a machine, or just one?” He watched The Magic Schoolbus. An episode about flowers, which he had watched during my shower yesterday and was where he learned about stripes on flowers.
I made chocolate pancakes, but he wasn’t impressed; “You know, I REALLY want peanut butter and crackers” So he had crackers and I ate the pancakes. He then played with the alien and the alien brought rocks from moons of Neptune. August used his “bigger power” on the spaceship to make all its parts big enough to carry rocks from Neptune.
We went upstairs and I took a shower. I let him skip his bath today so we could get going quickly to the zoo. We listened to his music requests on the way down, and talked a lot about heavy traffic. He liked the idea that we were part of the problem if we were driving in the traffic.
We got to the zoo at 10:35. The song “Perfect Day” was playing as we got there. He said “Sometimes it isn’t a perfect day at first thenit turns out it is?” He spotted hippos hiding in the water on the first safari part, then we watched an ostrich drinking water from the pond and we named it ‘Drinky’ (like they name the animals in The Wild Kratts).
We were in the zoo at 11. We walked a path we haven’t been on before and saw a palm cockatoo holding and seemingly eating what appeared to be a rock. Need to figure out what it was doing. We sat on a bench and ate a snack – apple, raisins, and peanut butter sandwich. There is a little broken egg play area/photo spot. He got in and said “I’m the kind of bird that was all over th place in Korea.” A pedulgi (pigeon).
As we got walking again he saw a guy raking on the path in front of us and he said “Rake hazard reported ahead” in his Waze voice. We saw a school group entering the pin with the big tortoise. We watched the tortoise eating and little birds bathing in its pond. August saw the class in there and said “I hope they don’t disturb the tortoise.”
We went up and got a hotdog and an orange-colored fruit smoothie sort of thing (with seeds in it) at a concession stand. We got surrounded by a group of kids trying to get ice cream but managed to get our food.
We sat on a bench by the big pond and ate our hot dog. Then went to the playground at 12:10. Someone had left a hat on a hammock thing and August pushed the hammock until it fell off. He was then talking about how he was using his robot powers to push it. He wanted to go on the zip line things but didn’t like the idea of waiting in line. The zoo was the busiest we’ve seen – a lot of gan and school groups here now that the weather was nice.
He needed a bathroom so we got walking and the one by the entrance was the first we found. From there he wanted to do the rest of the driving part. So we got going. Took a lot of time on the driving part. We saw a zebra and gazelles running because they were startled by something. Then saw our first marabou. Finally, an ostrich stood right next to August’s window and we watched its feathers fluttering in the wind.
On the way home we listened to all the remixes of The Chemical Brother’s “Go”. He asked a lot of questions about pollution and asked if iPads, etc. make pollution. So a lot of discussion of being part of the problem/solution. He was talking to himself and playing with his water bottle. He was then calling to me. I turned down the music and he said “Right dada? I can see inside a dead hyena…when I look in this”.
He was talking about “I like pollution.” As we got to school before 2:15. He then laughed and said “I’m laughing about taking over the world.”
We first went to the library. Said hi to Amanda, then he crawled/sneaked through the stuffed animals to bump into Liz as a way of saying hi. Carly saw us and came into the library to say hi. He hugged her leg and said he loved her. We started to play with the chessboard, then he needed the bathroom. Came back and did a little more chess, then got going to the preschool.
At class I said I’d sit outside, then we compromised with me sitting inside. When Karen asked how he was doing he told her he was sleepy. But then when they did an activity at the beginning they were using the whole room so I moved back outside. He was fine for awhile, but then got upset when he realized he couldn’t see me. I came in and he was okay, but insisted I sit inside.
He was fine after that. He called me over twice to show/ask me something, but each time he then pushed my arm to push me away when he was done with me. So some progress.
After class Carly met us right outside the preschool. We headed home. In the car his water bottle got some water on Carly. He said “Bad water bottle that squirted on mama.” As we went in the house he was making little tunes, then saying things like “That’s the song for being done in the library” “…coding class”
He was talking about having macaroni and cheese when we got home and was calling it “Macaroni and…” as per my joke on Sunday. I joked about licking all the cheese off his mac and cheese.
I got him some mac and cheese and broccoli. He ate that, then Carly let him watch one more episode (the haunted house one) of The Magic Schoolbus. She then took him to the mall and grocery store to do some last shopping before her parents arrived. There, he played with a girl in the indoor play area, using the foam things. And they saw the Kerns. Did their shopping and came home. They were gone for close to two hours. I did work.
At home we got the presents from my parents out. He said they looked “Pretty amazing”. We skyped with them and opened the presents: a pink s’mores shirt from Chelan, a wooden robot, a metal tractor, a book called Because I had a Teacher, a board game called Before and After (that doesn’t have winners!), a wooden top, and some cow erasers and pencils from the pencil drawer in Chelan (including a Care Bears one that is a good 30 years old and never used).
It was close to 8 so we got off Skype and all went up to change the sheets and bedrooms. August helped, of course. We got set up in the office room and I left Carly and August at 8:15. Asleep soon after.
Following instructions while the teacher was hiding the iPads:
Playing at the mall:
