He came down at 6:51 and queitly curled up on the couch at the other end from me. He watched a couple Pink Panthers and had some Cheerios. We got ready to go and were walking just after 7:30, getting to his class just before 8.
They are starting school outside each day, in the covered area next to PKA. I like that idea. August played with the magnetic blocks again, and Hector came and played next to him. August kept asking me to tell him what to do next, and saying “Convince me” to do it. He did go and talk through the schedule for the day with Andrea. She said they would play at the larger playground later and asked if he liked it, he first had to clarify which playground she was talking about, as he knew about both of the other playgrounds. When she said she meant the preschool playground she then asked what his favorite parts of the playground are. He replied “My favorite thing is the instruments and the wood.” Another good sign was when he let me go in to rearrange his snack bag. He did follow me in after a few seconds, but then he went back out and hung out outside, talking to Anna when she walked by.
I was the only parent that stayed. At all. I did see a dad sitting outside of PKB for awhile. I talked to August about me going to the PTA coffee at 9. He didn’t want me to leave. At about a quarter to, Marion suggested the three of us sitting together. We sat on the stairs so we could still see the rest of the kids. Marion talked about learning from Andrea, and I mentioned we were considering starting a compost. She said they were starting composting too at school, and that they would be getting chicks in October and that the preschool would help with them. Also, Candy saw that August was sad and came over to help.
There had been negotiations, and August agreed to let me leave for a half hour. He wasn’t happy when I left, but he wasn’t really upset either. As I ran up the steps I looked back and Candy waved to me.
The PTA coffee was just awful instant coffee and people standing around mingling when I got there. So I went out and sat on one of our usual benches and typed until I heard it get quiet. I went to the back of the library where they were doing the presentation and stayed until 9:30 when I went back to check in with August. They were just coming out after reading a story and were going to have snack. He was being grumpy and refusing to have snack, but Andrea said he had done fine. And when I said I wanted to go back to the presentation he volunteered I could go for another half hour.
So I went back. Nothing substantial to the meeting, although Anna, Tomaso’s mom, is pretty funny and made some good jokes about drinking. When she was done she said “That’s it. The power of my drinks is over.” I then headed back to the preschool at 10:06. August was going into the art room with Marion to find painting paper (although he later told me no one painted). He seemed fine, so I asked about leaving until the end, telling him it was about an hour and a half. A bit surprisingly, he just said “Okaaay” and let me go.
I went up to the library and worked, running into Tom Marshall, Shary’s husband, for a minute. August was standing at the doorway, holding his water bottle and snack bag, patiently waiting for me, when I got there a couple minutes before 12. Totally calm. Andrea said they had built solar panels together for the animals so they could get power.
He and I headed up and sat on our bench and ate our hard-boiled eggs, Cheerios, and apple for lunch. He wouldn’t tell me much more about his day, except for which blocks (the wooden ones with the plastic in the middle) he used for the solar panels. He also tried to tell me that he’d made a post to hold up the cover over the walkway. I mentioned we didn’t have a word of the day, and he thought of ‘instantaneously’, a good companion to ‘simultaneously’. We practiced what ‘instantaneously’ meant, then eventually went in the library.
We went and he first got Magic Tree House #22 and started reading that. Didn’t get very far. He wasn’t really into looking for books either, but he was intrigued that we were the first people to look at the new books. And he agreed to get The Case of the Hungry Stranger, another Crosby Bonsall book. For new books I found It Starts with a Seed and The Book of Mistakes, both of which have amazing art and I got Philip Pullman’s The Scarecrow and His Servant, which might work as a chapter book for him after we finish Ramona.
We went to check out the books and Liz told us about a podcast called The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian. She thought he might like it. Also, the author has his son on at the end of each episode and she said the son reminds her and her daughters of August every time they hear it.
We left at 1:20. On the way out he was wearing my watch again and was running through the school to get exercise. He stopped to look at a couple water meters, and sang a song based on “Change of Time”
At home I made a mango smoothie. August then wanted to finish the exercise ring on my watch, so we exercised. He wanted the yoga mat out to use and he exercised with his 1kg weight. We then did rest time. Tried the podcast but he wanted that off. We just lay on the floor, resting. He switched from the floor to the chair a couple times, but only talked to me a few times.
He then started a game of hiding the weight for me to find. He would leave a mark with a marker on the floor as a clue. He did a pretty good one where he dumped Legos out of a box and put the weight in instead. Eventually though he wanted my help finding good hiding places, which I explained wouldn’t work because then I’d know where the good places were. I suggested we hide it for Carly, and we hid it up under the dining table on a ledge.
We read The case of the Hungry Stranger, played some Piano Maestro, then Carly got home. We had her look for the weight right away. She tried to get more out of him about preschool today. The first thing he told her was that I left. Besides that he wouldn’t provide any additional details. He found Notion, the music notation app on his iPad and played with that a bit, then switched to PBS Science. We then did the Nature Cat daily challenges outside. Drew birds flying, animals at night, and took a photo of a plant that has grown indoors (the one that is taller than him).
With Carly he talked about a machine that would instantly change the floor:
“Floor changer…it turns the ground into different materials…glass, rock…iPads… they’re not bolted down or anything. You can just pick one up and play with it…now turn it into sausages…now turn it into hats…now turn it into water bottles with water in it…”
He remembered doing Hebrew in the Drops app. But he was disappointed to find that they apparently took out the AR mode in it, where he liked popping the bubbles. He then claimed he didn’t like peanut soup: “I don’t like how it is squishy in my mouth.” That’s from the Picky Peggy book. Can’t remember what she didn’t like. When it actually came he said “Yummy!” And he ate it.
For his 20 minutes after dinner he watched Pink Panther and laughed a lot. I went for a run. When I came back August was eating a root beer lollipop and she was cutting his hair more. I asked what had happened to the two weeks.
I read him some more Ramona, then he had peanut butter and syrup toast. On the couch he climbed behind Carly and said “I’m talking behind your back.” That was a pretty good joke. I’m not sure where he learned the phrase, although maybe in Ramon. I grabbed him and he told me “I really love you but you’re really sweaty, so you should drop me.”
I took a shower and she brushed his teeth and they read more Ramona. He then requested m
e. I went in and told an August story where he and Teegan get taken into the tunnel by Ms. Robin and meet the human on the other side of the door before they have to return. They are late getting back and Ms. Anna forbids them from playing in the trees.
I then sang to him. He did a lot of rolling around and I fell asleep too. I think he fell asleep a little after 9.
