Carly was up, jet lagged, when August woke up around 2am. He got up on the bed with me, and I was able to get him to fall back to sleep with me 2 or 3 times. Good cuddling time. He was restless though, and about 3:15 he woke up for good and Carly came and took him. I guess he needed to go to the bathroom, as that’s where he headed. At 6:30 he came running in to see me and woke me up. Carly and I switched. They had played Candyland, been hanging out in the small bedroom upstairs, and playing with the straw building blocks and playing DragonBox Numbers. Carly was able to sleep, sort of, for about an hour while he played on the iPad. She said it was painful though when he’d wake her to ask what something said. Brought back memories of when I was sick and on the couch with him and doing the same thing.
Candyland was a gift from Cherie. We managed to fit it in our luggage. I was initially resistant, as he now owns my two last favorite children’s board games based on chance: chutes and ladders and Candyland. I don’t have positive memories about those games as a kid. But as long as he and Carly like them, and leave me out of it… I’m more looking forward to doing puzzles with him, and more skill-based and cooperative board games. My parents still have games like The Farming Game and Sherlock Holmes that I’d like to play. Can’t remember if Clue is still up there, but that will be fun as well.
August and I went down and he really wanted to watch the Curious George Christmas episode with me. Not playable on Netflix anymore, so we bought it and watched it together on the couch. Watched the whole thing (no scary parts) and then went to play with Duplos. He asked if you could do diagonal lines and I said no, but showed him how to do diagonal lines in pixel art. After I made an X it turned into me being a pirate and hiding things for him to find.
Eventually, he wanted to go for a walk to find more treasures for his treasure box. First though he was hungry and I made scrambled eggs and mushrooms while he started Math Tango from the beginning on his own on his iPad. We ate together, then he played Math Tango while I got us ready. He saw the metal thing on the table “Can I have my setting changer?” He played with that, but then asked “Can I have my volume changer?” It was the broken zipper pull with an R and an O on it. He really wanted it, and he went to ask Carly. We went to look for it, but no luck. He explained what he remembered of it: “At the hotel with the lovely bathroom and two big beds…and with the wood…made out of concrete…it was a really special hotel.” He was describing when he found it in Ramallah, on a walk with Carly to the store. We showed him the little purse and that it wasn’t in there. He wouldn’t let it go, later asking me if I could make a new one, and if we could look in the vacuum cleaner for it. He only had it for a week before we left for the summer, unfortunately I explained it could be anywhere: still on the floor somewhere, mixed in with his Legos, dropped on one of our walks, etc. I remember him playing with it after we got home from Ramallah.
He went in with Carly a little after 9, as he seemed tired, but they came down at 9:30, him asking me to look for the volume changer outside treasure 📦 bowl (August saw me typing and put the emoji in there). We read the rest of Captain Underpants 2. Then he watched Carly make a lassi. He came to me and asked “Did you know it’s mango season?”
He then started playing with his Q robot. He was doing shows where I was the audience, unimpressed with just a Q, but then amazed when it turned into a robot. That turned into me being different monsters and he was Q Bot, fighting me. We wrestled on the couch doing that. I didn’t have much energy though, as I was tired.
He and Carly decided to head upstairs to try sleeping again at 11. That left me with the couch downstairs and I rested as well. At noon or so I went up and joined them. Carly and I slept until about 2 and came downstairs. I had some lunch and then went to tak a shower. Carly tried to wake him once but he wasn’t responding, so tried again about 2:30. She bribed him with a lollipop, then he ate that as he watched some Magic School Bus. He snuggled against me as he watched, Andi started to fall asleep again. I went upstairs. They had popcorn, then went to work outside. August started rolling the soccer ball down the slide as I came back out. And Carly met the new downstairs neighbor, Kayla. August and I played with the ball, rolling it up and down the slide and throwing it. He still didn’t have shorts on, and when he went down the slide he showed just how dirty it is. He got the hose and washed off the slide and did some watering. I helped clean off the chairs and table and did a full wash of the patio, which August helped with.
Inside, he said, “Put a reminder on your phone to only play Zinnie Songs…every year…on my birthday…” So I did. He played on his toy piano and made a game of playing a line that I then copied. He then requested Piano Maestro, but we were getting ready to drive down to the beach. We got driving and realized we had neither his bike nor beach toys. We decided to park up by the boardwalk and just do some walking.
We got walking at 7. He stopped and gave a Cheerio to some ants. As we walked he saw a little viewing loop and said “Let’s take the longcut.” We walked north to the place where the benches are and the ice cream shop. Watched the setting sun, then headed back.
We stopped at the playground we had been to with Chuck and Cherie. Carly read and I went up on the structure with him. He sat on the netting and wanted me under him, so I went down below. He had initially said the playground was too busy, even though there were only 5 or 6 kids. There were two boys though running around and he said they were being crazy.
After 15 minutes or so he ran over to Carly and wanted to play tag. We played tag. Initially I say on the bench, which was base, and would tickle them if they spent too long on base. Carly spotted a ship out on the water. August asked, “What do you think is on the ship? Pirates?”
We walked back at 8. We had started counting cats, and he spotted number 3. We decided to keep counting up, not restarting each day. We’ll see how that goes. We got back to where the Cheerio was. It had moved to the other end of the bench. No ants anymore. They had gone in for the day, apparently. A mystery on how the Cheerio had moved though.
In the car we joked about how you used to have to use lights in order to read books. He played the math arcade game and he’s starting to catch on to the speed of it. Sort of. “Obstacle” is the word of the day, based on discussing how to play the game.
Back at the house we had some of our raspberry iced tea, which he had helped make before we left. I made a frozen pizza, but he rejected that. We worked on reading after discussing preschool and our strategies for dealing with rest time. He only wanted to read Captain Underpants though, so we tried that a little. Then some of one of the iPad reading apps.
I took him up and gave him a bath. I’d forgotten how much I dislike how everything ends up wet in our bathroom. We took the straw building blocks downstairs and built the helicopter together. We drank more raspberry iced tea. Colder now.
He played Khan Academy Kids and ate a carrot. Khan Academy is a little on the easy side for him now, but really well done (and free). It will better fit him as he gets a bit farther. Unfortunately, it only goes up to basic math for now. Hopefully they’ll be adding to it.
He handed the last of the carrot to Carly, then bit his tongue chewing the last bite. He started howling, and there was blood. He sobbed, “Does anybody have a treat for me?” And then requested not brushing his teeth. Upstairs he refused to go to the bathroom. He finally calmed down and did so and we got him ready for bed. I left them at 11:25 and he fell right t
o sleep.