Saturday, November 24: bakery at the mall

He woke up once and Carly got him back to sleep. He was then laughing in his sleep before I got up. He came down at 7:25. I got him vitamins, and he told some story that ended “…and there were no more vitamins. The end.” He was a bit silly, and then they started reading more of The 91-Story Treehouse. I took over reading for awhile.

Then he wanted to check the string to see if Mikaela had gotten the art. She had, then he was excited about sending her more stuff. He suggested strawberries and said the note should say: “From August. I thought you would be hungry, so I delivered you strawberries.” We were trying to convince him to wait a few days until we made cookies or something, but he decided we should send her some of his Halloween candy. Carly relented, and he chose a Tootsie Roll and a piece of gum. He then made her a piece of art to go with it.

He then wanted a treat himself and we told him he could have one if he cleaned the toilets. We put the cleaner in, then read more of the book. ‘Boast’ became the word of the day. He was then having us pretend to be tigers. We scrubbed the toilets, then he was able to have a ready (Kit Kat) as a test. He said”Now I want a hamster.”

He taped up the empty crackers box. We typed on my iPad for a bit, sending satellite messages, then he was sucking knowledge out of my brain (as happens in The 91-Story Treehouse). First he sucked out knowing how to ear crackers (I was still supposed to know what they were, just not how to eat them). Then everything I knew but he didn’t.

The leavening, which I’d had on warm in the oven, was getting close to ready to use. We had Andy Bell music playing, and August added a song to his Zinnie’s Songs playlist all on his own. And he had me lower the music earlier so he could listen to the gurgling noises of the fridge.

Carly came in and he wanted to play seals, so I went and took a shower. They then went for a short walk together. They went to the west, and found a couple of kumquat trees. They came back, and asked if I wanted to go to the mall with them. He sang a song that went, “I hate turkey. Turkey mashed me sick.” Don’t know why. I had to turn the dough with my hands, and August helped. When he stuck his hands in he got upset and had to go wash his hands. It hurt the tiny cut he had on his thumb yesterday. He came back and used just one hand. He was then outside, making a sculpture out of sticks and other objects on the swing. He had trouble with some things falling down, so I taught him ‘tenuous’ and that was a word of the day.

We got walking about 11:15. We stopped at the lemon-orange tree and he picked a couple,. We then stopped in the big dirt field by the mall parking lot where he played yesterday. Less muddy today, but he had fun playing with sticks in the mud and a long piece of tubing he found. Carly and I were able to go sit down for while and read. He came over and there was a sort of cave in a bush that he invited me into. He played for several more minutes, picking interesting leaves for Carly. We then headed on to the mall. We went to the bathroom so he could wash his hands.

At Arcaffe we got a brownie and two of the pizzettes – one spinach and one onion. And a cappuccino. We sat at the table on the mall side. He was talking about someone stealing change from a lemonade stand “Keep the change!” Think it is from one of the Hilda books about the meanagers.

Carly headed home to do some National Boards work and August and I stayed to play on the playground. He found a string and a washer and made a necklace of it, then played on his own for a couple minutes. He then asked to use my phone and took photos. We played a bit and he had me take a photo of a little collection of leaves he made on the ground.

We headed home at 1. Saw two lizards sitting on a post. We started to walk the long way, then he decided to turn around and go the short route. As we went we did the preschool game where he makes an amulet again.

At home he watched one episode of Magic School Bus (about ants), then we he had us playing preschool games and the such: one bout a giant, galaxy-sized bird that broke apart spaceships and planets, and preschool ones where the kids are skipping out on rest time to go do science in his lab. Then there were rants and he teleported everyone to his house. To save them he then had to change them all into robots and teleport them to his world.

I formed the loaves, and they went outside to do some glitter art. He did a spiral picture, then had fun putting glitter in water. Carly suggested we go to the playground by the Netanya waterfront for sunset. I finished forming the loaves, then we left at 3:40.

In the car he had raisins and ate a corn thin. We listened to “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” because I had remembered Carly he liked the Crash Test Dummies way back when we were in Lynnwood. She basically just put this song on repeat though. He looked at Google Maps on my phone, and pinned a hotel in Ghana.

We parked really close to the playground and were walking at 4. He spotted a ship and said he had a scanner that can tell kind of ships – coal ship, search ship, pirate ship, etc.

We got to the playground and he had us do the preschool game about the amulet. Carly suggested he go ply by himself, and he went for a minute or two. He came back and wanted to play the seal game. He has primarily only wanted to play the seal game with Carly, as in the video they watch it is just a mama seal and baby seal—no dada. He relented today and said I could be the dada seal. I grunted once, and he said, “No! You’re not a polar bear! You’re dada seal!”

We played that, then he and I played a silly tag game while Carly read. He was then holding onto my sweatshirt at the cuff so that I couldn’t run away. He then switched to the tiger game, and I was the dada tiger.

As we left we spied a bundle of balloons floating through the air and I got out the binoculars to look at them. August was then looking at things with the binoculars. We stopped to look at the waves and sunset as it got dark.

We were home at 5:30. They talked with Cherie and Chuck. August played the kinkajou game, where he was on the sidewalk and tired, with Cherie. Hard to do over FaceTime. He was then a seal. I put the first loaf of bread in the oven, and Carly made him a smoothie. We finished reading The 91-Story Treehouse. When the loaf of bread was ready I took it out, started the second loaf, then sliced us some. I told August, “watch out for the knife, although it isn’t the sharpest thing in the world.” He quickly replied, “No, the propeller coming out of my head is the sharpest thing in the world.”

The bread turned out really well. I started him on doing some art on the big rolled paper. He finished one piece and had me cut it off, then worked by himself on a second. Carly had fun putting August’s hair up in a ponytail. He had been talking about wanting to look like a girl earlier, and that really does it. I took him up for his bath in the sink. He played with Carly’s hair clips and had me take a photo of them. He had some more bread, then when it came time for bed he wanted me to do it. Carly was ready to go to sleep though. I told him we could do story dice during the day. He was asleep around 9.

Art for Mikaela: