Got August up at 7:25. I had started at 7:10, but when I couldn’t get him to wake up, and I saw that he’d scratched his face in his sleep, I trimmed all of his fingernails and toenails while he slept. I read the first couple of chapters of Hilo 4 to him downstairs and we were doing well for a quick leaving. But then he felt betrayed that I wasn’t letting him watch Pink Panther. Should have told him in advance. So I let him watch one Pink Panther. Worked okay, as I realized I had to get the bike out of the car anyway.
When we got to school at 8:10 he saw they were going to divide into groups and Andrea took a group up to the center grass area to ride the tricycles. August said he hates when they do that, but eventually he let me leave. I think he just doesn’t like the doing things as a group/having to wait parts. When he talked about riding the tricycle around up there before he sounded like he liked it. He was standing at the foot of the stairs watching the kids playing down there. I watched him for a minute before leaving.
I worked on editing the book. Got that finished after close to 4 hours.
I picked him up at 2:55. Andrea said he had a great day. He worked on the pirate ship a lot, working with Millie and with Yaya for a long time. A lot of things that didn’t work, but good learning. For studio time they chose what they wanted for tomorrow. He chose maker space. Apparently they switched studio time to Friday for some reason. He said that the afternoon was “Just a normal day that PKB did last year…a little dance, a little bit more, then we went home.” Interesting that he remembers PKB like that. They only had specials after rest time twice a week last year, unlike this year when they have one every day.
On the bench I told him what Andrea had said about him playing with Yaya and Millie. He corrected me: “Actually, not playing, working. We were WORKING with the box. We weren’t pretending it’s a pirate ship. It’s real.” He was eating and spotted Dion running the after school class: “Oh! It’s Dion! I’ll watch them.” He went and sat on the stairs and watched for a few minutes.
He came back and we played some preschool game. I sent Carly a message, and so then he was sending her stuff. He typed ‘hi’, then I suggested I could help him type more real words. With my help figuring out and finding letters he typed all of ‘I am drinking water’. He went back and watched Dion a bit more. We played the preschool game, where he had the kids visiting his planet. He had them take a Magic School Bus to a structure made out of noodles and they were eating the noodles. That’s straight from a Magic School Bus episode.
He talked about wanting to do something on his iPad, but then changed his mind and said he wanted to go over on the playground. The weather has obviously cooled, as this is the first time he’s suggested we go to the playground. He went up on the small structure with a slide and was playing on it. Candy came around and brought a car over and asked him to play with her. She then went and got a plastic container and brought it back and asked him to play again. We started to roll the cars down the slide. But before I could really get him to play with Candy at all she disappeared. Headed home, I think.
He and I were then gathering leaves and berries for him to drop down the slide. He sang a little “Static electricity is really cool” song after a little twig with leaves on it stuck to the slide. He went over to the big structure and went in the tube by himself and was hanging out there when Carly called. I let him answer and he did the full phone call with her. They arranged for him to play 20 more minutes, then she’d come over.
He and I played a bit more, then we went over to the elementary school and used the bathroom. He had the idea of using a Pez as a bathroom treat, since we weren’t at home. He had a Pez as we walked back to the playground.
Carly came and we headed out, getting the iHerb box as we left and putting all the stuff in our backpacks and the back of the bike. I tried to find a recycling bin for the box but failed, but then remembered there was one along the street after a couple blocks. I caught up with them. He sang the tune, and sometime the words, to the “Runalong Jimmy…” song he learned at school. As we got close to home he had me stop at one point so he could see a number on the side of a garbage can. He explained “This is a game I play by myself.” It sounds like he spots something as we are moving, closes his eyes, then opens them and tries to spot the thing again. He played that for the rest of the way home.
We were home at 5:30. He wanted to make a big solar oven out of one of the boxes that he wanted to cut up. But then he was having a hard time. He used blocks to make a square to show the size he wanted. Carly was making some food for herself, and only barely pushed back on his idea, arguing they should make the big version (it would be a lot less cutting, for one). August was making his grumpy noises and said “If Mama’s not gonna do it I’m gonna do something else!”
Carly got a message from her parents saying they were headed to San Carlos despite a tropical storm (Sergio) was headed towards it, as they’ve never been there for a big storm. I told Carly to tell them we’d rebuild.
August was excited about the idea of a tuna sandwich for dinner. I made one, a melt with cheese, and he ate the whole thing. He said he wanted one for lunch tomorrow as well. We read. Few chapters of Hilo 4. He chose ‘positronic brain’ as the word of the day (they use it in Hilo 4). I was pretty sure that was made up by Isaac Asimov but looked it up to make sure. I told August it was, and also about positrons. He was then searching for random things in the Farlex Dictionary app. He found things like TH200 and the number 233. He kept asking “What does this mean? What does this mean?” And said learning words was fun. Carly told August that a cat had come in her classroom and peed on the floor, but he was too into the searching to be impressed: “Acronym! Word of the day!…Justice! Word of the day!…Institution! Word of the day!…Instruction! Word of the day!… Paragraph! Word of the day!” For one definition that Carly was reading to him (he had found some acronym for a government organization or something, he asked “Can I read it to you in mooka mook?” Which was cool because we haven’t talked about mooka mook much recently.
Carly was taking him up for his bath. He was stalling, and wanted some water drink. I told him I’d make him some and he could drink it upstairs. I brought him up a cup and let him drink it while standing in the bath. He said, “I can’t believe Im allowed to do this.” He was then setting it in the water and wondered it if would actually rest on the bottom if we added a little more water drink. I poured some in and it did. He then realized that if he drank some it would start to float again. I said I liked how he turns things into science experiments and he got a big smile.
Carly did his bath, and as they finished up she was asking him math questions and realized he could answer questions like 1000-2000, 1-2, 2-4, and 2-5 in his head. He has internalized the concept of negative numbers and the number line.
Carly tried to brush his teeth but he got really upset, saying I let him wait until after we read. I had let him wait until after he finished a snack. Which wasn’t needed today, since he’d eaten a big dinner. I went up and put on his pajamas and brushed his teeth. We read more Hilo 4. He had me re-read several times the part where Hilo and Izzy throw up breakfast burritos to get out of school and kept laughing at it. He then acted out throwing up breakfast burritos.
Out in the play area he took all the pillows of the couch and said he was dancing with them, using all the dance he’s learned at school. Carly was sending messages to Cherie and August wanted to pass along a message and chose “Poodle McButters.”
He went to the bathroom and wanted another treat, but I said no as he had already brushed his teeth. I told him he could have it in the morning. He eventually accepted this, although wasn’t happy about it. I left them at 8:40.
‘Graduate school’ was another word of the day. And he insisted on Carly writing it down on her phone. He had asked her to tell a story about 17th grade. He was also upset about his mistakes at school, particularly a tower falling down. And he said the teachers don’t talk about how mistakes are good. Which is clearly just a perception, as Andrea was just today telling me about how it was really cool that he and Yaya and Millie were learning through trial and error with the pirate ship. I also heard some crying and it was because he was sad about not being able to come down and see me. He was asleep about 9.
The names of the sheep:
Playing on the slide:
Stuff down the slide:
Singing the song in different keys:
The game he plays by himself:
Pillow dancing 1:
Pillow dancing 2:
With the sheep
Watching Dion
Resting on the slide
Another tube
Water drink in the bath
