I was woken by the light turning on at 4:48. It was August, leaving to find Carly. She came down and they were down stairs for a few minutes before leaving again. I was up at 5:15. They were reading one of the new books. They then went outside for a few minutes before returning. Carly went down for a break. August was fine for awhile. He was stacking stuff in front of the front door and we got his vitamins. We were going to play with the puzzle piece blocks when he asked where Carly was. He didn’t like the answer or the fact that I wouldn’t let him go downstairs with her. I carried him outside, where he quieted down a bit. Carly came and took him downstairs.
When they came back up he was carrying a Garfield book. We read some on the couch. He ws then in the kitchen with Carly but was pulling napkins out of the napkin holder and wasting them. When Carly took the dispenser away he couldn’t handle it and ended up going downstairs for timeout.
Carly had made him some eggs. She headed to Walmart to get an oil change and he sat and ate them. He was then asking me about fuel tanks on the big 747 we had been in. So I searched for a diagram and we talked about how the fuel tanks went through the wings. We went in and played with the puzzle piece blocks. He wanted to cover the cover of a book, but his first design had holes in it that he couldn’t fill. So I taught him an alternating pattern that would do it. We covered much of the cover.
He got tired of that, so I suggested a walk down to see the dam. He liked that idea, so we got going. No stroller. Just him walking and me carrying him. As we left he ws pretending to be some sort of time marching and said “Now I’ve got spider webs from ancient Africa.”
We walked down and looked at the river. By the baseball field there was a killdeer yelling at us and we watched it for a few minutes and speculated on where the nest would be. We walked by the playground, but there was water on the slide and August didn’t want to stop. We walked through the horseshoe area, then down by the dam to the waste treatment plant. We saw two marmots run across the ground below us. I saw a third on our walk back, right near our road, but it disappeared before I could show August.
August asked how the hillside by us stayed up and we talked about erosion and how plants prevent it. He worried that the wire on top of the fence by the dam had electricity in it and was warning the birds “Warning! Warning!” There was a bird down there that could almost hover like a hummingbird but was bigger. Didn’t figure out what that was. We walked down close to the fire department, then headed home. August was playing with the water thing in the backpack as I carried him and I eventually made him wait until we got home to play with it more.
We got home at 9:35. Carly had bought some squirt gun things at Walmart. they played with those outside, then he wanted peanut butter toast and honey. No honey, so we did syrup instead. He liked that. He wanted to wash off his sticky hands but didn’t like that he couldn’t reach the bathroom sink on his own. In the living room he said “Stupid house”. But then he disappeared. I went to find him and he was in the bathroom. He had gone back in and done some problem solving. He had figured out he could move the scale and use it as a stool, then reach it on tippy toes.
We went out and ate some blueberries. He was stuffing them up under his lips to make them look funny. Carly had rented a wet vac on her way back from Walmart, but it wouldn’t work. She now went back to get a different one. Turned out they had given her a wrong hose. She came back and started to do the wet vac. August and I had gone out there as well. When grape turned it on for just a second August got really upset. I carried him away, and he didn’t even want Carly and dad to use it. He was yelling “Everybody stop!” And telling me to go tell them to stop. But eventually he was okay with it and we walked around the other way, out into the alley, and he watched her using it.
Back in the yard he found the red watering wand. He remembered it, and we hooked it up and he did some watering, both of imaginary plants and real ones. Back inside he played on the typewriter and we watched some soccer. Carly took him upstairs and he had lamb and macaroni for lunch.
I came up and they were building a lego airplane. We were then getting ready to go. But dad went to blow air through the AC in our car and discovered that mice were in it again. He mentioned “Mouse poop.” August said to him “Did you say the bottom word?” “You get a consequence.” So Carly drove to Walmart to get a new one and do the grocery shopping. August chose to stay with me and the two of us and my mom walked into town to go to Bear Foods to look for fish oil vitamins for him and tea for me. He said a nice “Bye, grampa!” as we left.
He fell asleep right as we got there, about 2:45. So mom and I pushed him around the store. I got tea and an infuser and found vitamins for him. I had planned to get popcorn, but decided to save that for a time he was awake. We walked home, but stopped at the Habitat for Humanity store. Mom found a big XK restorer’s guide for dad, and I found a few books for August: Pirates Don’t Change Diapers, How I Became a Pirate, and a book of verse.
He woke up as I carried him in the house and took him to Carly, at 3:50. They were downstairs, then she brought him up for a bath. Did a lot of playing, but then he was furious about washing his hair. He shouted “Stupid you guys!” As we dried him, Carly asked about cutting his hair. He said we could cut it when it wrapped around the earth twice. And “Cut my hair when it’s wrapped around our planet like a ball of yarn.” A wonderful analogy, and very poetic. Out in the living room my mom said she liked his clean hair. He sarcastically said “Happy hoopity poopity.”
He then finished the book cover thing with Carly. We were then talking about when to have dinner. I said Carly was the biggest concern, as she got up earliest. August said. “No, I’M the biggest concern…Wait, dada’s the biggest concern. Cuz he has a couple more ages than you, right?”
I built Lego trucks with him after doing more sorting. He liked pulling out all of the wheels and axles and walkie talkies and steering wheels. Then we did all the heads. We sort of built part of a house as well. He was then pretendingto be Cindy and wanted me to sort of chase him with the lego truck. He would then hide, including under the kitchen table.
We had tacos for dinner. I went out and got a PBR to drink. Inside I said it reminded me of Ballard and Isakson. I did a “Leheim! Cheers!” with Carly’s glass, then August wanted to do it. He kept asking me to do it more with his cup: “I love that game!” “Leheim!…Prost!…Cheers!” After dinner he walked around living room making up and chanting nonsense words.
August and I and my parents went for a walk at 6:45. Carly stayed. There is music at the grandstand in Riverwalk Park every Friday for the summer. The band today was Polecat. A bluegrass, etc. group. We got there as the first set ended. Windy. We played I Spy, all four of us taking turns. When he learned there was music every Friday he said he wanted to come every week. He spotted a little bug crawling on my sandal. And he ate a variety of snacks, including one of our raspberry fig bars from Israel. Richard Uhlhorn came by and August got to meet him. We watched a few songs of the second set from up there, then I carried him down to the left of the stage. I held him part of the time, but also set him down. On the ground he walked around, looking down at the water through the railing, and he also did a lot of hair-waving dancing. There was a good crowd of other kids down there dancing.
We left as they played their encore song. Walked home and got here at 8:20. Gramma filled the water bucket at his request and he sprayed a little water. Inside we all sat n t
he living room and ate kettle corn. Plenty of it. Then he and Gramma played with Legos. She said her plane didn’t really look like Carly’s, but then August put a positive spin on it: “Oh, I know what it is. It’s a different kind of airplane.”
I brushed his teeth upstairs then I took him in to Carly at 9:10. He hadn’t really been looking tired, but when I asked he said he was ready to go to bed. Didn’t think about his pajamas. She barely woke up, and he must have fallen right asleep.
