Carly was reading the Hilde book with Vivian when Jeff said “Guess who’s home?” As Colin ran towards the front of the house yelling “Mama! Mama!” August suddenly came around the corner the other way, and also shouted “Mama! Mama!” Luckily, they didn’t run into each other. It was 8:05.
I took a shower, then Carly had Vivian and August making art out of things from recycling while I played with Colin. Things went downhill though with the art, and August started needing the same things that Vivian had. When he got really upset over a spoon Carly had cut out of cardboard, I scooped him up and took him to the bedroom.
I talked about going on an adventure of our own. At first I included Carly, but when I mentioned a dada/Zinnie adventure he was excited about that, then when he was out of the bedroom with Carly he seemed excited about going without her.
So I got us ready to go and we were driving away by 11. I asked about a word of the day, and he thought about it for a minute and said “Melancholy”. I think he mis-pronounced the first syllable the first time, but he had simply remembered it from the one or two times Carly had said it a few days ago as a possible word of the day. So I defined it for him later, and used it several times during the day.
He decided he wanted to go to a coffee shop, then a park. We got to Stroudsburg and the first problem was parking. I didn’t have any coins, and beyond the coin parking it was all permit parking only. Eventually parked in the KFC parking lot. Walked across only to find that the first possibility, The Cure Cafe, was crazy busy due to brunch. Just to the east then was Sweet Creams Cafe. But they had a sign on the door saying they were taking a break from today through Thursday.
We got back in the car and I headed east, figuring to try Brodhead Brew near Dansbury Park, the park we were planning on. But it was simply closed. Didn’t get close enough to see if there was a sign. August was now set on Starbucks. I did see a coffee and bagel place, but he wanted Starbucks.
So we went and parked behind Starbucks. I said we were going to go in and get change. I knew he was going to not be happy about leaving the car as it was, but then I reached into the pocket on the door and found a single dime. 15 minutes. We went in and ordered: August got a chocolate milk, I got a vanilla iced coffee, and we got a vanilla yogurt and a fruit bar. We waited for my drink and claimed a table, then went back out and put a quarter in for an hour. Perfect timing, as it was on the last minute.
He asked what yogurt was from and we discussed it, and he then called it milk. When I called it yogurt he said “From the cow’s perspective it’s actually milk, right?” I don’t know how a cow would actually feel about it, but it was a good use of ‘perspective’.
We sat and ate and drink. The bar was too tart for him. He wasn’t impressed by the yogurt either, as it wasn’t very sweet either, but he ate about half of it. He had drunk the chocolate milk while on the other side of the table, then came and sat in my lap while he ate the yogurt. We then got out his iPad and played the Intro to US Montessorium app. The first set of states included Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, then he played part of the second set.
We went and got the bathroom code and he got to type it in at the door. He went to the bathroom, then saw the Braille on the baby changing table. He said he made a camera that could read Braille (like how my phone reads QR codes, I think). We talked a little about Vivian, although he didn’t want to talk bout it much. He said something about not liking how she is better at everything.
We got our stuff, threw way our garbage, and headed out the front. Walked out the front door at 1:15 and around the block. He asked about what coins the parking meters accept, and said “Maybe I should invent a parking machine that accepts every coin in the world.” As we got to the car he said “So that dime was useful.”
We looked at the geocaching maps and he now wanted to do that first. We chose the first one, which was at Bryant Park, actually in the little free library. August wanted to hold the phone, and watched the map as we got close to the green circle. He excitedly started telling me to stop here as I got to the park.
We parked and went in, and I found the cache in a hollowed-out space in a book called Inside the House of Cash. He set it on a rock on the ground and explored all the little things in it. There was a bus card in there with barcodes, etc on it and he pretended to scan the different parts, and each would have a message. A couple he made up were: “Thank you for finding this geocache. Come back again…” “Thank you. We hope you like all the flowers in this town.” There were also different things painted on rocks around the flower garden, and he had me read them to him. Some said things like ‘Mum’, while others were the names of plants. One was a “In memory of…” so I mentioned the one next to it might be a name as well: Aralia Cordata. But he realized that a painting of a leaf on it looked like the plant that was next to it and said it was the name of the plant. He was correct.
Finally, he went across to the park and looked at the big globe. He went around it, and sang a couple songs about airplanes flying around the world.
We then got going again, and headed back towards the house and looked for three geocaches all along the east fork of Martins Creek. We started at the south, and stopped along the road by the bridge. We crossed the road to where the cache was supposed to be, and spotted a big snake curled up under some branches a couple feet from me. Didn’t try to figure out what it was, and kept our distance. We looked for 10 minutes or so. Also saw a bunch of bones that I am guessing were a deer, and a lovely view of the stream.
We gave up on that one, and went to one on the next bridge north. More success here, as we found the magnetic case attached to the back side of the railing in a post. Signed our names (and Smokey), then headed north once more for the last one. This one was also supposed to be magnetic and had been recently found. But we couldn’t find it. He was disappointed about that, and now wanted to go a park, or at least do more geocaching. But there weren’t any close to us. He settled for a Zinnie drive, although I did most of the direction choosing. He sat, snacking on the cereal mix. We drove in a circle, south, then to the west and back around to the house.
We got back at 3:40. He had me programming him again to go all the way to the house and inside. Carly asked if he was ungrateful and he said “I’m full of snacks.” Carly took over programming him. He ate snap peas and watched Vivian play Magnus Kingdom. Earlier, as we looked for a coffee shop, he had asked “Why does Vivian and Colin’s house have so many trucks?” I said because Colin loves trucks. He said “But Vivian doesn’t.” Then, he had, on his own, the idea that they should give away some of the cars and trucks. He now told Cassie his plan: “Every time he gets a new one they should give a broken truck away.”
Carly and I decided to take the kids on a walk to the other side of the ‘lake’. But it was a downhill spiral. It started well enough, with August and Vivian pulling Colin in the wagon. But once we got on the trail, August started running. He was really happy about running in front. But Vivian saw him and took off after him. Once she caught up, she wouldn’t let him get ahead anymore. I was pulling Colin in the wagon, then mostly with Colin as we stopped and ran around in the grass, then went down into part of the drained lake. I knew August was trying to find the same number of shells and flowers, etc. as Vivian, but didn’t realize it was such a problem until he said he could never have as many as Vivian, and I then heard her say she had 11 things.
We started heading back, Vivian and Colin in
the wagon. Vivian got a little upset when she dropped one of her flowers on the ground. August was happy for the moment, running in front. But then she got out and grabbed the flower, then started running in front. She passed him, and he started yelling to her. She wouldn’t let him catch up, so I yelled at them both to stop. I made him get in the wagon and Vivian had to walk with Carly.
Back at the house, Colin got the drum and was hitting it loudly, much to Vivian’s chagrin. So I took it outside with him, along with a xylophone and harmonica. Vivian came out a minute later as I was drumming and asked if she could drum. I handed her the sticks, then turned to the xylophone. A few seconds later, Vivian disappeared with the drum, taking it back inside.
When Colin and I came in at 5:25, August was in the bedroom, seemingly grumpy. I went in with him for a minute, but then Vivian ran in and they started playing together. Cassie had made spaghetti for dinner, so we ate that. Vivian saw the artwork from earlier, and one of August’s pieces was stuck to one of her pieces. She got upset with him, but I pointed out that August wasn’t even in the room when the artwork was put away. He was upset that she now wasn’t going to play with him, and she was having difficulty saying sorry. And a bit later she was playing Magnus Kingdom on her iPad and he was watching. When she was stuck she asked Cassie for help. August got really excited and said that he could help her. When she refused his help he completely melted down and we grabbed him and took him to the bedroom.
He played Magnus Kingdom with Carly, then Green Planet. I played some Green Planet with him, then Vivian came in and wanted to play it with him. I wouldn’t let them, because a.) there’s no educational value and b.) I didn’t see it ending well.
It started raining hard, and they went out and watched rain from gutter together. Back in the kitchen, Cassie said something about the supply of food running out. August heard this and was concerned, asking a couple times: “Why are the food supplies running out?”
I went to do some work, on an entry about the environmental effects of the occupation, and they ended up playing on the iPad together. When I came out Vivian was doing all the playing, but August assured me they had been playing together and he was still having fun and learning.
Carly gave them a bath and played the tea game. When he came out he requested to be a superhero in his towel. Carly and Cassie had put in the window screen and we tried out the window fan but it wouldn’t work. While Carly went to ask Cassie, August and Vivian examined it together and cuddled on the bed, then snuck out on the porch, where the other adults seemed to have been hiding. When Cassie came in to look at it he said “Here’s my evidence…I pushed every single button and nothing happened.”
Carly brushed his teeth. He wore his s’mores shirt as it was warm tonight.
She read Two Dogs In a Trenchcoat to August and Vivian. They were laughing a lot. She stopped when August was too silly. He was in a good mood though.
I went in with him about 9:30. We did the world clock and timer and I sang some songs. I left at 10 when he requested mama. He was asleep a few minutes later.