He popped awake at 6:25, just before my alarm went off. I followed him down a few minutes later. Carly had gotten out the Wheels on the Bus puzzle, but he was just sitting on the couch playing with the music thing. He wanted to take off the battery cover to see what kind of batteries it took. He asked, “Can I do it myself?” He needed a little help opening the small case of screwdrivers and getting the screwdriver turning, but otherwise had fun doing it on his own. He got the cover off and spent another ten minutes playing with it and making it play.
Carly tried the puzzle with him for a few minutes but he wasn’t really interested. We finally gave him the iPad and he mainly played with the synthesizer as he sat next to me on the couch. He said it was the best app on his iPad. I got an email from my parents asking about when August put the flashlight back together. Mom reminded me that he’d spent a lot of time with Grampa in the garage testing the batteries in the flashlights this summer.
He switched to BrainPop and watched the video about determination that he’s watched before. It is about Mia not being good at playing recorder and almost giving up, but then she talks about grit, etc. It has a part about where she builds a birdhouse and it doesn’t come out right and she goes back to the instructions and realizes her mistake. At the end it has a moment when the robot’s recorder blows up and he watched it over and over again as he found it very funny.
He helped me make the French toast, being machine that mixed as I put stuff in and that then dropped each piece of bread in the batter. We ate, and he played with the straw things with Carly while I took a shower. He played with the anatomy app, and as he scrolled through all the systems he said, “Can you imagine ALL this being inside me?…Like, THAT is inside me right now.”
We got going just after 9:30 to the mall. We collected a bottle cap along the way. He wants to do art with them, having been inspired by the pieces hanging outside at PKA. Later in the day we also got a new StoryPark article with a photo of him doing a counting activity with bottle caps, so also an inspiration. He called the garbage-strewn dirt parking lot a good place to find bottle caps.
We got to the mall at 9:45 and went to wait for our haircuts. He started playing in the play area and had the elephant upside down and was jumping from it to the border cushions. He then made up someone named Junkin: “Junkin loves kitty cats. Junkin hates dogs. Junkin is ruler of that pizza place right there.” Carly went in to wait for the barber, and he played the game, like in the pool, where he had a machine that would take me to other parts of the world. Eventually, he was taking me around the world and running circle after circle to do so. He would also talk about how much he likes this little play area, even though it’s for babies.
He went into the barber when her realized Carly was gone. He watched as she got her hair cut. The barber gave him two pieces of candy, and he ate the strawberry one now, saving the apple for later. We went back out to the play area for a minute, but then the barber called me in. Carly got him his iPad for a few minutes.
She headed down to the art store to find more string/twine. We caught up, and I remembered we needed paint for the wooden chair. August initially wanted all sorts of colors, but we talked it through and he was very happy with the two tones of blue that he chose. We went in to find Carly in Tiv Taam but she was fast and finished as we got in there.
On the walk back I had mentioned the rainbow bridge in Seoul. He asked what we called this pedestrian bridge and I said it was just the white bridge. He then said no, it was the “Cloud bridge” because it was white like a cloud. I said that was a more positive take on it, and that he had also been optimistic about the bottle caps. I was talking about him being more optimistic than me, but he kind of ruined it by saying “Because my brain is goodest.” But he then said that we are better at different things and that changed it back again.
We got home at 11 and he played Math Tango on my iPad. He ended up finishing all the levels, on his own. His math has clearly improved over a few months ago, as he had been getting frustrated with the math as it was over his level.
I made him pizza with pesto on it and he said he liked it better than the piece without. He had also been looking at the anatomy app and made up “Ekdroke… It’s a system you get in your body when you’re like 19…well, it turns your water into pee.” He spilled his milk on the table but we got that cleaned up.
He then had pie with the brownie ice cream outside. He and I started painting the chair. He helped for about 10 minutes before losing interest. Carly was cooking the teriyaki tofu and veggies noodle dish.
He went in and played iPad. He came out and asked me to come play with him a couple times. I finished the first color then went in. He was playing the synth, but then wanted to play the teasing or baby waking up games. Put my foot down and said I wouldn’t do those as there are plenty of other ways to play with music. He switched to the anatomy app instead and we looked at things like heart valves and veins in the brain.
In the bathroom he became a big voltmeter: “I’m made of metal…I have a voltmeter in me…it senses the magnetic force…” To Carly he explained, “I’m made of voltmeters and there’s metal inside me and the magnet senses into the concrete to the wires and the electricity goes through me to my volt meters and it shows you how much energy the house is using.” He saw something stuck to my leg and said, “that’s the problem with your leg hairs. That why you should cut your leg hairs. Well, maybe they’re good for something so you shouldn’t cut them.“
He said that his right side voltmeter was for upstairs, and his left side was for downstairs. When he got out of the bathroom he got. Marker and he put marks on his leg and abdomen on both sides to remember which side was which and where the voltmeters were.
Back out on the couch we were talking about how you actually measure electricity and I pulled up videos about amps and volts. He had moved on to something else though, and Carly and I were more interested.
He did something on the iPad then I said it was time to put it away. He didn’t protest when I took it, but then got upset and hit me. Carly took him upstairs for a timeout and practiced saying he was frustrated.
We left at 2:40 to do some errands in town. They were putting in the metal gates across street. So much noise going on over there, but they are moving quickly, so hopefully not much longer.
We parked in the dirt lot in town. Carly headed to the post office and August and I went to check out the new cafe that opened in the mall. He wanted to go over to the post office and was sad when Carly came out, done already. He still insisted on going in, but then realized he thought this post office was boring. He was picturing one in the United States, which is more interesting. We tried to go to the pharmacy, but it isn’t opening for another week. We then walked down to see what is going on with the place that used to be Malkin. More packed up inside, but not very. Hopefully a coffee shop will reopen in there sometime, but it doesn’t seem like it might be anytime soon.
Back in the car August found his missing pair of dark pink sunglasses – they were in the sunglasses holder in the car. He had wanted to put them in there once, then we forgot about them. We left at 3:05 and drove northeast of Even Yehuda to another nursery Carly had herd about. Went down a junky dirt road to get there and almost gave up, but found it and it was quite nice. August had really been wanting to send Carly messages on my phone, and he was also seeming tired. So at first we stayed in the car and he sent some messages. Carly told us there were birds inside though so we went in. He had fun watching the birds. Carly got three plants. August brought up his pink cactus, calling it expensive, and we ended up talking bout how something could be more than we want to spend, but we could still afford it. We used the word ‘pricey’ and made that the word of the day.
At home Carly got to work on the plants in the window planters. We took out one of the screens we don’t use and she also cleaned the windows, so it looked really nice when she was also done with the plants and rocks among them. I got to work painting the second color of the chair. August didn’t want to join me. I had continued to listen to the Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums list. This morning it had been The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, then Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On as august and I painted, and now the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street. Listened to all of it and finished the chair right at the end of it. Took longer than I expected. Carly finished the new plants and rocks.
While I did that they had Skyped with Vivian a couple times, and also Cherie and Colin. Vivian said they had had a peach pie, so Carly was glad that we had just had an apple pie. And Vivian said they had bought two water bottles, and luckily we had bought two new water bottles as well. He watched some Pink Panther while I had dinner and made ravioli for his lunches.
I gave him a bath. I had turned on the switches for the hot water heater. He didn’t want his bath warm, so he used the stool to turn off the hot water. Carly got his lunch together while I washed his hair as it is picture day tomorrow. We then used the blow dryer on it. As he went downstairs he sang a little song: “Words are made out of letters, letters are made out of sounds, and sounds are made out of particles, and the particles bounce around and make more waves…” May be from/inspired by the Storybots about how the ears work.
We read Skybrary books: Mr. Mouse’s Motel, which we quite liked, then Gertie Gorilla’s Glorious Gift, then Dilly Dog’s Dizzy Dancing. Carly went up for a shower. We then called my parents and August asked why they weren’t on Skype. He was quiet on Skype though. Getting tired. But when I told him to say something about school he said “I love school!” He talked about wanting to do dizzy dancing on the bed before he went to sleep. Carly took him up and he did a little dizzy dancing, then she put him to sleep while I kept talking to my parents. He was asleep about 8:45.
Leaping:
Around the world:
Painting the chair:
Birds in the nursery:
Noise from across the street:
Doing it himself:
Marking his voltmeters:
Buying plants:
Finished chairs:
Carly’s beautiful plants:
