I woke up around midnight being attacked by mosquitoes. Because August was with me I didn’t have the covers up as far as I usually do. Sleeping with August in the bed was fine, but the mosquitoes weren’t. It was also quite warm. So after awhile I moved him down to the lower bed and was fine for the rest of the night.
He was up at 7:40. Heard him coughing and went up. He had turned off the fan. Took him down to have some water. More coughing. Cherie gave him a new shirt with a piano on it. He said “Now I can play music when I don’t have my piano!” He played a song on the toy piano for her. It was quite a good song, with a nice ending. Cherie asked if it was a made up song and when he said it was she called him a composer. He said “But I still don’t call myself a composer, okay?”
We lost an hour during the night due to daylight saving time. So unfortunate that it was the first day we’ve actually needed to be somewhere in the morning. We got out of the house quickly though and headed to the school for his ‘interview’. Since they already know us it was more of just a trial run.
In the car “Go” was finishing up. He requested it again, loud this time.
Got to school at 8:30.
Ori, a student, greeted him, announcing “August is here!” and gave him a laminated paper leaf and invited him in the forest area. August didn’t want to join the group reading a story. We discussed what ‘free choice’ meant and he chose to play with blocks on the light table. I noticed his voice was starting to sound a little hoarse. He was doing a lot of yawning through the morning and rubbing his eyes and mosquito bites.
A group came from the library. Emmett gave us Corduroy, then when Omri came she showed us what was in her purse: nothing. Candy then came and played at the light table with him. Candy pointed out that her shirt matched Omri’s purse and August pointed out he had pink on his shirt as well. Candy asked his name and gave him a block. They built a tall tower until it fell. Mariam took kids out to feed the birds and she explained the bird restaurant to us.
Preschool has a relaxed start to the day and the last students showed up close to 9. Then it was time for morning meeting. I had told him I would be somewhere in the room while he played. He specifically told me I should be in the forest area. He sat with them for the meeting. They did a couple songs. He came over between them and told me something about “we’re going to plug in the computer now.” Don’t know what he was talking about. They discussed the schedule for the day and explained it to August. They went to wash their hands for snack and he ran over to me to tell me that he got to go with the first group because he had pink on his shirt.
He had two rough moments. He had asked me to come with him while he washed his hands. It got busy in the sink area though so I hung back. I didn’t realize they were also having the kids go to the bathroom. Mariam came and got me a minute later as he was in the stall but wanted me. Snack was amazing. They had fresh broccoli from their garden, white cheese, a graham cracker, and egg salad. He ate a good amount. There’s a boy in his class, Leonard, that looks a lot like Colin and seems to be a bit of a clown. There were 12 kids total today and it sounded like one girl was gone on vacation. Another 2 boys are coming after spring break.
August’s second rough spot was when they were done with snack. They line up and wash their own plates. He first wanted me to wash his plate. I said he could do it. But he didn’t want to get his hands wet. He reluctantly did it, then when she had him flip the plate over water spilled onto his feet. He wasn’t happy about the wet shoes. We dried them out and he calmed down.
The class then went out to the playground. August went out and got a pan and wanted to make a strawberry cake. Anna asked if he had had any of the strawberries from the fields around here and he gave a long explanation of how the strawberries at the store were gross so we get our strawberries from the strawberry stand and they are good there. He made some strawberry cake, then one of the girls found a blue bit of oil pastel on the ground. She gave it to August. He told me about it, then proceeded to get his hands covered. We went inside to wash his hands. He played inside for a bit but was coughing a lot and rubbing his eyes. He said he was sleepy a couple times and agreed it was time to go. We said goodbye to everyone and went outside to say goodbye to Anna. She told the kids to say goodbye to him, then August was giving them a “Bye, bye, bye, bye…” as we left.
As we got home he said his fan predictor said it was time for us to turn on the fan over the couch. We told Cherie about preschool and they did magnet science. She thought experiment #10 wasn’t very good. He said “Well, its still science. And science is cool.” I went up to take a shower and August came with me. I was looking for something and he said “In the Leonardo da Vinci room?” That is apparently the name of our bedroom.
He was wanting a treat and I said he could have a popsicle after I was done: “Nothing’s happening until dada takes a shower.” He said “What do you mean? I’m moving all the time.” During his bath he poured some soap in and made “bubble town” Cherie taught him the word “agitate”.
Downstairs he had the popsicle and I couldn’t remember if it was mango or peach. I told it was ant flavored instead. He told Chuck and Cherie “Dada says it’s ant flavor” “peach ant…it’s an undiscovered ant”.
He wore his nursing mittens while he ate the popsicle. We got walking to the mall with Cherie and Chuck and he finished it as we left. He wanted to keep his mittens on though and wore them all the way to the mall even though the temperature was close to 90.
We looked around the market a bit and parked his bike along a fence as everything was so busy. We all went to Tiv Taam he rode around in the cart. He liked the picture on our Trader Joe’s shopping bag: “I love that picture…it’s a Josh Ritter picture.” I think it reminded him of the style of art on our Josh Ritter poster. We found Chuck and Cherie and paid then headed out. We stopped at the music stand in the mall and the woman showed him a pink ukulele. She was convincing me that a ukulele is the easiest instrument for him to learn chords on… I asked which was his favorite and expected him to say the pink one, but he instead pointed to the one with Plants vs Zombies on it.
We were home by 2:40. Chuck and Cherie went up to rest. August had Mac and… and raspberry tea and pita and hummus. I went upstairs to do laundry and he stayed downstairs playing with his Legos. That doesn’t happen very often. We discovered there was an extra chain piece in our Lego set. August sat playing with them and sang a “Two chainies” song.
I offered to pick Carly up as it was hot and she was tired. She agreed so August and I headed to get her. He saw the seed pods from the art museum in the bike and asked “When’s the cone tree gonna be in season?” And he spotted the black cat sitting in our yard under the swing.
We picked up Carly, then on the way home spotted the pair of laughing doves, likely the same couple I saw by our window earlier, doing their dove dance together on the side of the street.
At home, August helped water plants out the windows. He then played with Legos on his own. I read and Carly finished watering plants outside. He and I then finished reading Hilo 1. Carly came in and they nursed, then I made a strawberry and mango smoothie and we had that. At the mall we had also gotten almond butter at the health food store and August wanted to try it. We liked that. He then went upstairs with Carly to do some “Exploring!” He called me up for questions about the tooth brush. Told him it was Chuck or Cherie’s so he should ask them. He later went up with Chuck and Cherie. Came back down wi
th his other pair of new pajamas, with a moon and space stuff on them: “They’re amazing!…I love them.”
Cherie said that was all of the presents except for the ball that was still upstairs. He went up with her to get it. She told him to be careful: “I already knowed that! I have that information in me already. I just haven’t told you.” It is a big blow up ball that lights up when you bounce it. He called me up and Cherie was closing the shades in the small room. Played with it up there for awhile then took it downstairs.
He then helped Cherie open the bottle of wine, doing most of the turning. The two of them then went out and she was teaching him about the parts of flowers and how pollination works. Carly went out as well.
He was getting sleepy so we took him up. He helped me and Carly try to get all the mosquitoes in the room. There was one stubborn one that we gave up on, but I think I got it later after he went to sleep. He was asleep about 7:30.