I heard crying and bonking at 4am or so. Both Carly and I thought it was Vivian bonking her head, but it turned out it was Colin bonking his head on the floor and being upset about the dinosaur toy. He had woken up because his diaper leaked. It had interrupted my odd dreams about someone ruining their car by overheating it and about mom being on TV.
I got up at 5:40, but not early enough. Cassie and Colin were up as I was making coffee. I listened to the long songs issue of Ball of Wax and read a few stories in the short story collection Stephanie loaned to Carly. I’m also making decent progress on In the Skin of a Lion, which I need to finish by next Monday.
The other kids slowly got up, and August was last, a bit past 7:30. General chaos after that, although not too bad. August was quiet and there was a lot of coloring going on. Colin and August pulled each other around by the jump rope.
I took a shower and they were playing on the bunk beds. August ran out to Cherie and said “Poopie!” Cherie said he could just ask for a hug “Instead of saying ‘poop’!?”
He played with a matchbox car and Colin came and asked for it. August shared it with him and Colin said “Thanks!” They then shared it back and forth for a couple minutes.
We played chess using the wooden chess set on the shelves. We had white win. He was then upset about Colin getting a chip. August hadn’t really had breakfast yet and had to eat something healthy first.
As we got ready to go for a walk we were in the bedroom. I took the robot from Spenser out of the backpack. He showed it to Vivian and Colin and said “Yeah! Spenser made it!” He hadn’t understood that the robot that Spenser said he was making, and would give to him when he was finished, was different than the toy robot he had given August. In fact, at the end of the day with Spenser August had thought he had to give the robot back to him so he could keep working on it.
August wanted to wear his tennis shoes so I got them out of the car and attached the crocs to the backpack. We got walking at 10:15. Derek drove the truck down as they were taking their boats. We went to the second beach entrance. The water was low, but a bit higher than the first time. So when Vivian and Colin tromped across the stream to the spit it was trickier for me to carry him across.
We ended up at the swings again with me giving him underdogs. He chose ‘mechanical’ as the word of the day. Colin went on the swing next to him. August then lay on the swing and played with the gravel below him. Each rock was an underdog.
We walked out on the west beach. Most of the kids ended up walking down the beach with Carly. Derek was out on his stand-up kayak fishing. Chuck’s friend Paul and his wife Marie came over in their boat. I talked to Paul for awhile and the cases he and Chuck worked on. He told me his version of the jackhammer story, where they settled a dispute between their clients by playing a round of golf to determine who would pay for the jackhammer (Chuck won on the 19th hole) and then spending 4 hours breaking up concrete themselves.
I then sat and read a story form Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist. The group came walking back along the beach. August, Vivian, and Thatcher were talking about what foods they would and would not eat.
Thatcher and August worked on the fort, finding wood and playing by themselves for awhile, then we worked our way back to the house. We had nutty noodles for lunch, then August and Carly played chess with Vivian and Thatcher. That went quite well. I went to rest and work, and they moved on to dominoes. Paul and Marie had come back to the house, and when I came out I saw someone else I didn’t recognize. Quite a full house. It quieted down and I finished up an email and came out to find Hank about to leave. Hadn’t even realized that he was here too.
August sat with Cherie and they played a game on her tablet. Lots of talk about achievements. He ended up using some word with her, ‘poop’ I think, and had a consequence. He said “Sometimes it just comes right out of my mouth.” He got really sad. Cherie taught him to say “Puppies!” instead, which seemed to work a bit.
Carly and I took him on a walk after 4. We took the stroller and walked to the right, doing the loop around the community center. We took a look at the pool. Carly said it was no Ramallah. tried the TV there, but no channels. Outside Carly pointed out a curvy tree and they talked about what trees need and why it may have grown like that. When they discussed sunshine August said “so maybe the computer inside it…” We walked back the west side and were back at 5.
We had a debate over ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’. Jeff was doing Legos with the kids but August wasn’t interested. Derek had made a curry for dinner. August gave it his seal of approval. Andrea taught August and Kayla “Zip a dee doo daw” as a replacement for ‘potty’. He then had a long discussion about nursing and how bodies develop with Cherie, sitting in the chair next to her. She thought he said “you da bomb” to her, but I’m pretty sure he was chanting “doo doo bom”. Carly, Thatcher, and August played with the dominoes again. General chaos for awhile. August had me work on the sphere thing and I got to 94.
We headed to the pool after 7. I walked, giving me some time to listen to some music. He was with Opa, doing tricks with the noodles and floating with them. Jeff asked Chuck to take the dinosaur, and August called Chuck “dinosaur parent”. He had August totally floating with a noodle under his arms and one under his feet. I got in for awhile. August asked “Where is that dinosaur I was babysitting?” He was also putting the noodles and dinosaur on “the spaceship” – that is, sliding them through the slot into the big pool.
We were back about 8:30. We had left first, with Carly and August driving and me walking back the long way. She gave him a bath and she took a shower. He was watching Puffin Rock, then the other kids watched with him. Then the kids (minus Kayla) were running around look for “Sho sho”. No idea what that was about. Oma offered them videos. They chose something with called Pokoyo but August got really upset about it. He wanted Wild Kratts instead.
Carly tried to put him to sleep but he couldn’t let it go. I watched an episode of Magic School Bus with him. About butterflies. Left them again at 9:45. I thought he had fallen asleep, but at 10:15 he was still crying. He ws saying something like “only way to live” and “I can’t live”. And that he’d never get to watch a video with Oma. I went in and sang some songs (“It’s Okay” and a couple others) while he was next to Carly and he fell asleep just after 10:20.
