August got his watch wet in the pool on Tuesday and it stopped working. I took it apart, and this morning it was working gain. He was up at 7:27. Very sleepy as he went to the bathroom. We read a chapter of Ramona Quimby, Age 8. The word of the day is ‘nuisance’, as Ramona’s teacher calls her one. He then watched Pink Panther and we ate the last of the carrot cake. We set a timer, and played the Green Planet game for 5 minutes. While I took a shower he played Dragonbox Big Numbers. When picking up the groups of apples he was practicing counting by 10s.
Somehow, he ended up wearing my watch, and found the Activity app, which shows your calories burned, exercise minutes, etc. He saw the exercise bar go up, then kept doing more minutes of exercise to make it go up. He would have me set a timer for 2 or 4 minutes, exercise, then look to see the meter go up. He really wanted to get it full before we left, so we were a little hurried when we finally left for his one-hour back-to-school thing.
We left at 9:37, so I walked fast to make it there by 10. He was still wearing my watch. We had agreed he’d take it off before going into class. On the ride he told me “Did you know some of my food is stars? I have a big tube and…” He went on to explain how his tube goes up to the sky and he sucks in stars to eat. Then I said he accidentally sucked up a planet instead, and that turned into a game where he was sucking up everything in the universe.
We got to school just as Juhyeok and his mom were arriving. We said hi, then passed them to go park the bike. She stopped me and asked if we’d been to Korea. She had spotted the Home Plus bag I was using to carry stuff. I pointed out that the bike was also a Pororo bike from Korea.
We then headed down to the preschool. They had a board out front with the class lists up. We found him listed first under PKA, with Marion and Andrea as his teachers. Either class would have been fine, but I had a slight preference for PKA as, personally, I would have felt a bit claustrophobic up in PKC. Also, it is great he gets one of his teachers again, and Marion and Andrea are a good combo: Marion with the gardening and food interests, and Andrea with the STEM background. She even mentioned maker spaces and robots in her intro. Oh, and is from Portland, Oregon before teaching in Norway. He has a lot of students in his class from last year: Reia, Candy, Derin, Leonard, Yaya, Juhyeok, and Hector, I think. Also Sophia, Nicholas’s sister, who he played hide and seek with last year. And 3 or 4 new kids. Omri and Selma are in PKC, which is kind of disappointing, as they were probably the most welcoming towards August each day.
Anyway, we went in and the first things to do were find a place for his plant and choose a cubby, or “box” as August insists on calling it. We then played with the magnetic blocks for most of the time. Juhyeok and his mom, Taeun, came over as well. I talked to her about Seoul. They had left in 2013. Mike came through and they talked about the elephant. Mike said the elephant has now turned blue, and August said it was hiding up in PKC right now.
They had an iPad set up for stop motion animation. Kind of funny, as both teachers, then Maaian showed it to August as something cool in the class this year. They also have a document camera.
For the last 20 minutes they had a meeting during which they introduced themselves. August sat on my lap, and Reia was next to us. We were right by a little tea set, so quietly played with that. On difference this year is that we have to bring snack Monday thought Thursday. When they were talking about drinking/snacks August turned to me and said “I can drink somebody’s blood.” After the stars and this there was one other thing a bit later that he joked about eating, but I couldn’t remember what it was later.
We were the last to leave. We got a calendar, but they ran out of the postcards. We headed to the bike and started walking up into town. We stopped on a shaded bench by the community center to have a bar for a snack. Up in town we found the pizza place closed. Disappointing, as pizza really sounded good to us. Also, the alternative, Sushi Ishimoto, was pricier. Should try to get him to like the Israeli place again.
We ordered our usual pad thai with shrimp and an order of the crispy roll. We made shapes out of the chopsticks, then he drew some art in Paper on his iPad. Made things pricier when they brought us the crispy salmon roll instead. But it was really good. He didn’t like the wasabi mayonnaise decorating the plate, but scarfed down two of the four sushi. I’m sure he would have done more, but refused more as it was too messy running down his arm. He then ate most of the shrimp, and some of the noodles. Slight mishap near the end when he was washing off his hand in his cup and spilled it. The waitress, who we had not seen before, was helpful though and brought paper towels. She earned her tip.
As we got walking he heard a pipe making noise near the hardware store. We went to investigate and he found the water meter was really moving, faster than he had ever seen. Pretty exciting. As we left, he asked, “Remember when we saw those sailboats going over the Atlantic ocean?”
We then stopped at the snakes and ladders playground. He was wearing my watch again and wanted to get more exercise minutes and fill the calories ring. So we went to the exercise equipment. I talked to him about ‘gamification’. We then went to do more exercise in the climbing area. I wanted to rest and lay on the ground while he curled up in the “hammock” area. I called it our siesta and he said “Siesta? I learned that in that Moon show.” He meant Ollie and Moon. I told him about Madrid, when Carly and I rested in a park during the heat of the day after going to a museum.
When done with that we went and played the plane and escaped luggage game and we went on the spinny thing. We then left at 1:40. He talked about watching “Pink Paddington”, his name for Pink Panther. Specifically, he remembered the one in which the slurpee machine fills up the building.
We were home at 2 and found that episode and watched it. I then gave us a few more minutes of playing Green Planet as we were close to finishing a planet. Did that, then went outside and did the Nature Cat daily adventures. we did more listening, and drew a picture of a papaya plant, and took a photo of things that could be recycled. A cool little app-aided daily routine.
Speaking of recycling, we then loaded up the bike and went up to do recycling. He talked bout his crunching powers as he helped do the cardboard.
We went back home and practiced rest time. He mainly lay on the floor, which is a good start. We then read more Ramona and a few Skybrary books: Yoko Yak’s Yakety Yakking, Umm Ungka’s Unusual Umbrella, and Scrubba Dub, Carlos. He was hungry and ate a whole carrot. Carly came home as we read the last one and we told her about preschool.
He added to his music composition and we worked on sort of adding chords to it. He then found the PBS Science app and did a little of that. Also a very cool find.
I initially made him peanut soup and rice for dinner, but then he requested pita and hummus. Carly had the soup, and I got him the pita and hummus and some milk. After he ate that he had his 20 minutes of iPad time and chose to watch the Pink Panther. I watched a bit of it with him, and he was a little frustrated when time was up, but I thought was okay. Carly was cutting up mangoes so we would use them up, and he wanted to go watch. I went up to start his bath. Things fell apart downstairs and I heard him screaming. I came down and tried to talk to him. He was still wearing my watch and wanted it off. I helped him take it off, but then he grabbed it from my
hand and threw it at me and it fell on the ground.
Carly gave him a timeout and I went up to finish the bath. I came down and took him up, then talked to him and calmed him down. He wanted to talk to mama and we went downstairs so he could talk to her and get a hug.
I gave him a bath. It turned into an art session. He used different soaps to make a picture on the door. I then had to go get Carly to do an rot viewing. He then made lots of bubbles and splattered them on the wall, Jackson Pollock style. I showed him some Pollock paintings on my phone. August seemed to like it, but asked if Pollock’s art was better than his.
Downstairs he smelled mango and thought there was a lassi for him. Carly made him one, then went to take a shower.
We tried to Skype with my parents, but they weren’t online. He typed some random things instead, and then also ‘I love you’. August had talked about sending things to Vivian on Wizard School when he was in the bath, but then decided he just wanted me to delete it from his iPad because he didn’t like that Vivian was sending him more stuff and her level was going to get higher. I told him he was the only one turning it into a competition. Now, we did do a little Wizard School on my iPad, sending her a couple things and watching some of her creations. He switched to art though and drew things in Paper.
We then turned to reading. We read some of chapter 4 of Ramona Quimby, Age 8. He was getting sleepy, so we went upstairs to read Dad’s First Day. Carly took over for me and they read that, then she brushed his teeth. I said goodnight, then they were in and out of the bedroom a couple times, getting ready, before they were quiet about 9 and then asleep.
YouTube seems to find this video of August smearing soap on the shower door breaks their guidelines, even though it only shows him from the chest up. I’ve filled out the little appeal form; we’ll see if they ever change it back:
