I read, typed, updated the blog, and watched the entire Sweden versus Switzerland match while August still slept. Carly had tried to wake him up a couple times but he would go back to sleep. We finally woke him up at 9:30. About the first thing he said was “Can I have a cookie?” Then, after I said we were going to have breakfast first, he reasoned “Next year I’ll ask Gramma to make apple cookies…with chunks…So I can have a cookie whenever I want.”
Upstairs he and Carly played a little chess, then the pancakes and bacon my parents made were ready and we had breakfast. In the middle of breakfast, he remembered the beer can that he’d asked Paul to save for him to crush. He asked, and luckily Paul had a few soda cans downstairs that needed crushing. They crushed the cans together. August wanted more syrup, and was eating a baby carrot to earn it, but he decided he didn’t want more syrup, but ate most of the carrot anyway.
He took out the compost, then played a game of solitaire with my mom. He then watched Dad spray the bees nest, then I got his car seat moved and the car packed. We had realized we might not get our car back until Thursday morning, so Carly hurried the car up to Les Schwab. Luckily, they weren’t busy, and were very fast, and she was back quickly. Already had the X-Type packed though so we still took that.
While we waited, he had watched some soccer with Paul, then played with the ship models up on the shelf. He took. Smaller one and said “This is a submarine trying to sink that ship, alright?” He then acted it out. Dad had been watching a black and white movie last night or a couple days ago and August had asked what was happening and that’s what dad explained.
We got driving and stopped at Wells Dam at 12:30. We just looked at the displays there. August really liked a button that he would push and it would play rock music and show a video of construction in the dam. August would dance to it. He also had some story where he was explaining “Now the propellor is covering up the entire world.” As we started to leave, August called everyone by name to make us stop and explained that the music was on (“I just buttoned it!”) and he wanted to stay and didn’t know how much longer it was. I picked him up and we went and listened to a little more, then he was okay with leaving.
We got to Chief Joseph and went through their odd security setup and had about a half hour to wait. We ate some of our lunch and snacks. There were two other groups on the tour, a total of 12 of us. Theresa, our guide, showed up, and it turned out she was the one I had talked to on the phone earlier when I’d finally tracked down a phone number.
The tour was fun, and August loved it. She was a little quiet, and tired, so no Sydney from two years ago, but still good. And she took us around more than two years ago, going out to see the pin stocks and walking much farther down the row of generators. We got to touch a shaft between a turbine and generator, although August was a bit too nervous to touch it himself. He wore a blue helmet during the tour. And tried out the quiet telephone booths.
Finished the tour and had some time to look at the displays. He liked the electric truck she drove us in on and we talked about how it worked. He was very concerned about making sure he had a seatbelt on.
We left there and went across to the fish hatchery. Looked at the dam from there and tried the two numbers on the door for a tour but didn’t get an answer.
We then drove across to Berryman Park in town. It has an old metal play structure from the 80s or before. Two years ago, with a two-year old, it looked insanely dangerous. Now it just looks dangerous. He went on the swings with her, then when she said I had to go on the structure with him, he called “Ryan Niman, stop!” She had told him the sign said ‘Designed for ages 7 and up or accompanied by Ryan Niman’. Went on it a little, then he headed over to the war memorial full of random military equipment with almost no signs. August walked over there, carrying a stick and humming to himself. I mainly carried him as we walked around it.
We ended up at the swings. He asked “What’s the biggest star in the universe?” He ended up swinging and playing on the swings, singing about Rigel-5 and the multiverse. Mom came over and played with him on the swings, putting something on his back.
We then started to head out. He found a piece of metal and asked Grampa if he could do something with it in the garage. August managed to get it all the way home and we left it in the garage by the lathe with the other pieces of metal.
We got driving, and August spent the first 15 minutes serenading us with a song he made up that went “Sidewalk sealant, sidewalk sealant, don’t ever forget about the sidewalk sealant.”
We got to Howard’s at 5:30. When we went in there were containers of candies, and I told him he could have one when we were done with dinner. He was excited, and told the waitress all about it on our way to the table. He was excited about the coloring stuff again, and he ordered the halibut for us. After he ate he was playing iPad under the table. Grampa said something and he said “Grampa! Don’t make fun of me like that!” Carly took him outside as we finished eating, and I saw her laughing as they walked along the path.
In the car on the way home he was dramatic when he dripped some water on himself after drinking from Carly’s water bottle. Made it home though, a little after 7. In the garage he talked about the shock absorbers on the doors, and at some point he mentioned that the back door should be one too. I told him to tell Grampa that but I don’t know if he ever did.
The three of us went for a walk up the hill at 7:30, all the way to our lookout over the hill. As we walked he said he had a machine called the “3 to 2 2000” . It turned 3d objects into 2d objects. A nice walk, but up at the top he had a stick and he couldn’t help swinging it around and almost hitting Carly in the face. She eventually stowed it in the back of the stroller and gave it back to him at the house, at 8:20. He was then in my way and as I tried to maneuver the stroller around him I hit the end of the stick and it broke off a few inches. He decided he didn’t want it anymore and rather casually said “Dada, I’ll never have a stick like that again!”
Carly gave him a bath and quickly took away the next stick he had been playing with, the dowel from Grampa. I watched the end of the World Cup match, the penalty kicks. I came up to wash him, including his hair, but Carly was letting him out of the bath. He had gotten out of a hair washing. He said nice good nights to people, then we got him ready for bed and I left them, around 9:10, I think. I went in at 9:45 to sing to him, then we ended up talking about counting sheep. We changed it to counting fish in the fish ladder. He liked that and we were counting. Occasionally a fish would go backwards and we would subtract one, and sometimes there wouldn’t be any fish for while and we’d stop. Carly came back in, and he explained that to her. I left them at 10:10 and he fell asleep soon after.