I watched the British Grand Prix on their big TV. It finished just as Thatcher and Kayla were getting up and a bit before August, who was up after 8. Derek made pancakes for breakfast, then I took a shower. They were playing in the play room with blocks. Andrea told Kayla not to knock something down, but August had a positive attitude: “Then we could build it again!” He and Thatcher were then making sound machines, and arguing about how loud they could be, and how many eardrums they could break – getting up to their favorite ‘-plex’ numbers. August now says “ enshmugadorflugplex”.
He initially didn’t want to leave. He was having too much fun with Kayla and Thatcher and didn’t want to see new people. We got to Stephanie’s at 10:10. Outside, she let him choose a rock that had belonged to her great-grandmother (she had started learning geology late in life and then collected rocks all over Washington and Oregon). Got him inside and he played with their new piano that someone down the street had given them. He sang songs for them, then did a ‘poop’ improv on the piano. Just caught the end of it.
Played with a wooden car track for a bit, then outside he enjoyed picking alpine strawberries off the bush and eating them. Ruby chose Loyal Heights Park for our destination and we got walking. Left the stroller behind. August noticed cracks in the sidewalk that weren’t sealed, and we adapted his sidewalk sealant song. He started singing “Why did they forget about the sidewalk sealant?”
We got to Loyal Heights Park. They went on the teeter totter-ish rocking thing like in Israel and Korea. Then over on the swings. He was on his stomach and looking at the shadow of the chains: “It looks like the chain is stretching!…Like a slingshot!…Optical illusion!” Stephanie then had the idea of making gnomes out of pine cones and materials from around the park. He loved that. Used grass, pine needles, flowers, wood chips, etc. When Stephanie went to find a home for her gnome in the trees across the park he went with her, going out of view for a few minutes. When he really gets involved in something he doesn’t mind us being gone. In Chelan it was the garage with my dad and the birds/squirrels/gardening with my parents.
We did more gnomes together and went to hide them together, then even more and he went with Stephanie gain.
We then decided to walk up to Larsen’s Bakery to the northwest. On the way August started singing “Open the door, look at the floor.” I realized it was one of the songs from Ball of Wax Quarterly #50 (“More Bones” by Wiscon), which we had listened to in the car. I taught him the next line, “everybody walk the dinosaur” and he kept singing it over and over. I played the song on my phone so Stephanie could hear it, then as we walked August and I listened to the original Was Not Was song as well.
At the bakery, August chose an orange sugar cookie, Carly got a chocolate chip cookie, and I got a cranberry scone. Carly and I shared a latte. We sat inside and ate. Nate and Stephanie shared small chocolate cookies and brioche with us.
We walked back to the house and saw their backyard. They filled in the pond and made it into a sitting area, with a small fountain that flows into a rain barrel buried underground. August picked mother strawberry and we got going.
We stopped at Safeway after crossing the Tacoma Narrows bridge (August and I talked about the bridge and engineering as we crossed it). We got chips and beer and wine a few other things. August said “Fresh and rosy fingered like the dawn”, which is the full quote from the Odyssey that Carly likes. We left there at 4:20.
We got to the house. Chuck and Cherie were already there. August was instantly drawn to the bunk beds that were going to be Vivian and Colin’s. He could climb up in a second, but needed me to lift him down. We took the toy guitar out and tried to tune it, but it wouldn’t stay in tune. Levi and Sarah and the three girls (Cadence, Hattie, and Evelyn) were here, and the girls said hi, then were watching something downstairs. August and I played with the 3d sphere puzzle with a metal ball in it that you move along a path by rotating the sphere. He would watch closely as I worked on it. He got hurt once when he was holding it in front of his face to look at it and walked into the end of a couch.
Chuck and Cherie cooked up some lamb and beef patties for dinner and we ate those with a big salad she’d made.
I convinced August to come downstairs with me to see it. We went down and he immediately saw the vice on the bar/workbench and sat on the tippy stools. He only fell over twice, but landed pretty gracefully. He ended up playing with Hattie and Cadence. Hattie was pretending to be some sort of animal and August was copying her. He was then running around going “Nibble, nibble” at everything. He ended up chasing them around, saying “Nibble, nibble.” Eventually they had to leave and we said goodbye.
We then headed out for a walk. We went to the beach at the start of the lagoon. We saw a deer, then went down and saw the little crabs. Carly headed back to take a shower and the two of us stayed, doing a crab “scavenger hunt” and throwing rocks with barnacles into the water so they could get more food.
On the way back we took a slightly longer path. He told me, saying nice things, “Hey flower, love heart, fresh and rosy-fingered like the dawn…”
At the house he was hungry and ate Cheerios, apples, and milk. Got him ready for bed and I left them around 10. Asleep pretty quickly.