Thursday, October 4: Mama still gone and to the mall in the evening

He sat up at 5:55. Then lay back down with his head at the end of the bed. I got up after a few minutes and went in the bathroom. He got up and came and got me. He huddled on my pillow and I lay next to him. This happened a couple times. Eventually I got up to take a shower and told him he could stay there and I’d leave the doors open. While I took a shower he moved to the couch in the play area and was there when I got out.

He went to the bathroom, putting me on the arm as he walked by, then we headed downstairs. He watched Julius Jr. and had his vitamins, some pizza, and slices of apple for breakfast. Then some Cheerios.

We drove as we’d forgotten the bike at school yesterday as he was doing his time lapse on the way to the car. We got to class and they were already starting a meeting before 8:10. Didn’t figure out why the early start. There were a couple of sad kids. He asked about the schedule. He was happy when I told him it was 4 choices day and he joined the meeting without knowing the full morning schedule.

As I walked outside Omri saw me and stopped me and asked if she could come over to August’s house sometime after next Wednesday. I talked to August about this later and he liked the idea.

I came back at 3, or a little before, and when I went inside he was working with Andrea on something on the floor. It turned out he had really gotten into these shape blocks and was making symmetrical figures. This one was a bat. He told me he had also made one that was two kids stuck together. He then took me outside to show me the big cardboard box that they, him included, had been painting brown to turn into a pirate ship. He told me they hadn’t done studio time (their name for the 4 choices time) today as they had forgotten, being busy with other activities. He didn’t seem upset about missing out on dance class again. Although he wasn’t sure what he’d been doing at the time, as he said the pirate ship was earlier in the day.

We took his snack and lunch and sat on the PKA bench. As he ate, Nicholas rode by on a push scooter thing. August said he had ridden it once upstairs, like through the elementary school hall, it sounded like. He assured me he wasn’t making it up, saying, “The teachers planned-ed that.”

Taya walked by, on the way home, and looked at August and said, “Hi, Mr. August!” August didn’t know why she called him ‘Mr. August.’ I realized that she may have been referring to me as ‘Mr. August’, but she seemed to be looking at him at the time.

We did some of his imagining games, including the one where he helps plants grow by shooting lasers out of his hands at them. He also had a glass crushing machine that crushes glass into glass fibers. He told me “Glass fibers is what they use to make light go through concrete.” Which I totally would have thought he was making up, but is actually true, or at least I think it is: He had watched a video this morning after Julius Jr. on how concrete is made and they were talking about a translucent concrete.

We left at 3:35. As we walked he said, “You sure work hard on that lunch robot comic.” In the car he told me he controlled everything with a computer inside him: me, the planets, the car, his teachers. He had started by saying everything was inside him, so I thought he meant everything was a big simulation inside him, but then it turned out he was just controlling everything.

We got home and he watched some Llama Llama. I got him going to the mall, reluctantly, after 4:30. On the way over he used my phone to take hundreds of photos. I didn’t realize he was constantly pushing the button and it took quite awhile to delete most of the photos later.

We first went to Rebar to get a smoothie. He was being quite grumpy about the wait in line, then the wait for the smoothie. We got the ReJoy, which is banana and chocolate. He was quite happy when we got it. We got a small, which was perfect for him to have what he wanted and then I had a little. In the mall we first went to the pharmacy to look for his vitamins, which are running out. They only had them in a dual pack with vitamin C as well. We went and looked at the health food store, but no luck. We went to Kravitz, the office store, and he helped me choose an eraser and I also got some markers and notebooks for making Lunch Robot and also for my Hebrew and Arabic practice. Then back to the pharmacy where we went ahead and got those vitamins and nail clippers for the backpack.

He then wanted to play in the play area. He was concerned it was too busy, but no one was playing with the squirrel. He went and got that and was going to be the attack squirrel again, but instead started to rock it while singing and counting and then on 10, or 20, he would flip over backwards. Did that several times and had me take a video of him doing it. We then played the imagining games. He was mainly a cat that I was finding in a park.

We left at 6:45 and he was surprised to find that it was dark outside. He had a translator machine and he told me that the birds over the outside playground (there were a lot of them in the trees) were saying “People, people, have fun.” And he told me “It’s the perfect time to translate crickets: Yeah yeah time to play!” Randomly, he asked me “Why’s Ms. Andrea ask so many questions?” He also noted the squinting optical illusion, where if you squint at the street lights it makes lines.

We were home at 7. We stopped at the corner of the house when he pointed out a planet. We got out the star app and identified it as Jupiter and talked about how Venus was just below the horizon. Mikaela parked and said hi to us and probably wondered why we were on the corner pointing at her. We also saw Mars and Vega, up above us.

Inside he watched one Max and Ruby and declared ‘troop’ the word of the day. Carly called and we briefly talked. They were having some excitement of some sort and she didn’t know if she’d be able to skype later. I made nachos and we had those for dinner. We were listening to the Clash and he asked me to add “I Fought the Law” to his playlist. That makes me proud. We went up for his bath and he asked what the longest distance measurement is. I told him about AUs and light years and we added those as words of the day.

After his bath we read Lucy Goes to Witch School and brushed his teeth. Carly called on Skype and we talked to her for a few minutes. He was clearly ready for sleep. We then read the Frog and Toad story “A List.” We did one round of the game. He was a cat that a teacher found on his table at home (he’d come in through the window). The teacher then took the cat to school as a class pet. Sang a couple songs (Yoshimi, It Never Was the Same, Fake Plastic Trees) and he was asleep just after 9:10. A little later than I was shooting for.

Video for mama: