He was up at 7:10. I had just gone in the bathroom and when he came down he saw Chuck and Cherie but not me. A bit upset by that. I held him a few minutes, then he sat on the grey carpet. He spotted the shark, which Carly had hidden as part of the Duplo hiding yesterday but apparently they had forgotten about. Took a photo of him with it to send to Carly as the good morning photo. He then ate Cheerios and watched a Julius Jr. sitting on the couch between Chuck and Cherie.
When the episode was over we read Sneetches and Other Stories and Wild about Books. He wanted to go upstairs with me during my shower, so he watched a Magic School Bus episode while I showered. Chuck had made hash browns so we went down and ate some of those. I cut allergy pills to restock the supply for August, then he had more hashbrowns and watched the rest of the episode.
Chuck and Cherie went up to watch Promises. He drank some water drink and got talkative: “What makes things go up if there’s not something pulling them up?” (He meant there’s a force pulling things down, gravity, but not clearly an ‘up’ force). He helped me brainstorm and we discussed ways that things go up: buoyancy, lift, bounce, suction, wind. “Dada, I’m gonna make everything connected…in the whole universe.” “Dada, how do scientists study animals but not get hurt?” Discussed cameras, tags, trackers, darts, etc. “what about if you’re studying a bee?” We looked up images of beekeeper suits.
Took him up for his bath. Listened to Chemical Brothers and played with bubbles. Same game as yesterday where I couldn’t see his hands through the bubbles so I couldn’t wash his hands. He was kicking his legs around and said “I can push/puss legs”. He said it was something Oma did/said.
After his bath he said “I’ll tell your something: jelly is between a liquid and solid.” He then asked how that could be if there were gasses, liquids, and solids. We looked it up but I don’t think I found a satisfactory answer for him.
He banged on their door and they came out. Cherie asked if he missed them and he needed attention. He said “I like to make noises through doors and interrupt people.” They went back to watching the movie and I hid the Duplos upstairs for him several times.
We went downstairs and he wanted to play with the rubber stamps. I did his full name out of rubber stamps. When they were done with the movie and Cherie came down we asked about the legs thing. He said “Puss legs…like pussapotamus.” We decided it was probably from “Roll em roll em sugar baby.” And he misheard her when she sings it fast.
It had started to rain earlier, and now there was another solid downpour. I went out and put grocery bags in the book shelves to protect the books. Cherie and August played with the rubber stamps and had a debate about words. He said “Castedonia…that’s the best word in the cosmos.” Cherie claimed that ‘Oma’ was the best word. They then had a competition to see who could reach higher to prove their word was the best. But then he changed his mind: “The best word in the cosmos is…Amazon.” The thunder had started after the last downpour and he now had an invention: “most lightning-proof thing available.” He went upstairs to do laundry with Cherie, then downstairs they put away the rubber stamps.
I asked about books to take to back to the library: Z for Zeus “Oh, I loved that.” And he gave me a thumbs to keep “The Artist and Me”. A minute later he said “I just discovered the carpet is warm and we don’t even have a floor heater.” He was sitting in the spot I had been when looking at books.
He played with the instruments with Cherie, then they played with GarageBand and the keyboard for a long time. He showed her how to use the sampler and explained ‘trim’. They kept playing with different sounds on GarageBand. For lunch I got him peanut butter and apple and made a smoothie. He ate an they went back to GarageBand. He paused and came and cuddled with me while Cherie got food for lunch. They then played Musyc and then the Earth app. He was really into the polluting part: “I’m trying to pollute as much as I can.”
We got going a little after 2. We dropped off Chuck and Cherie at Ikea, then drove back up to the school. We got to Carly’s classroom right after 3. I was bring her the blue table they had painted. I didn’t want August to go in the classroom, so I asked a student who was coming out if she could take the table in to Carly. Carly was amused by that. Turns out the girl is an older sister of one of the boys in August’s class.
We then went over to the coding class. August was a bit shy after not seeing people for a couple weeks, so it took him a couple minutes to get comfortable. He wanted me to stay in the room. The teacher suggested he sit at the end of the table and he could see me through the door. I went out the door to show him, but he got immediately upset even though he could see me the whole time. I sat inside, reading Eugene Ionesco’s Exit the King, and he did fine. They colored and put stickers on a piece of paper – a sort of algorithm, then played on the iPads. He needed some help with the stickers, but didn’t call me over at all during the iPad time. Except when he wanted some apple.
We went to the library and he returned some books, then we went to the bathroom and Carly met us at the library. We went and picked Chuck and Cherie up at Ikea. They’d also walked over to the Tiv Taam.
When we got in the house Chuck and Cherie had already gone upstairs. August joked “I thought Oma and opa were here. Did they go on that flight?” I got some nutty noodles for him and me. He sat at the table and asked “Could we listen to that My Baby’s Coming Back to Me song?” Yesterday, when we got in the quiet house, he said we should put some music on. He ate a bowl of nutty noodles and a full cup of the smoothie from earlier. For each song that came on he would ask “What’s this song about?”: “This Year”, “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?”, “Let’s Get This Over With”, “Hurt”. We read a Bob Book, The Old Truck. I started to read the one called Before and After but August suggested we play the game of the same name.
We played that and had a good story going. Cherie and Carly came downstairs. He then got the idea of playing with the vegetable steamer and pouring water through that. We did that, with the water going in the salad pinned. Still made a good mess of the floor though. He then did a pillow pile and had me hiding Duplos and things in it. After several rounds I was getting tired of that so suggested that I hide the Duplo eggs. Did that, then suggested it was reading time, at 7:30. I hid the Paddington book in the pillow pile and after he found it Carly read it to him. As they read it Carly asked “Strawberry tart…could you make me one of those?” He replied “I don’t have that power.” Carly was incredulous: “All your powers and you don’t have the power to make a strawberry tart?” I think he decided he could.
Carly said something about getting a stomach ache from too many treats, and he said “We’re in magic land! You don’t get stomach aches!” She took him upstairs and I took up Cheerios. He heard Cherie talking about her blister, and when he got to see it he was excited: “Oh goody, oh goody.” And he got his treasure baskets that Chuck and Cherie had gotten him at Ikea. He liked the ideas of those.
Carly was with him for awhile, then I went up from 8:25 to 8:55. Sang “Over You” “ABC Song” “Big Number Song” “Barricade” – songs I haven’t sung for a long time. He was tired but not gong to sleep. He told me “Yeah. My choice is mama.” We switched and he was asleep soon after 9.