Thursday, December 6: rain and more rain

It was hippie day for Carly. August came down at 7:10. Watched Max and Ruby and ate Cheerios and apple. He looked at the prehistoric book again and found the page about the Hobbit people. He told me, “They live on tree bark and leaves, for the moisture, and the moisturest one of all: poop. Shake your booty butts, guy!” He was then chanting, including “shake your booty butt…The biggest booty butt of all, the reptile!” Think he got the shaking thing from a kid at school, perhaps Omri. And the reptile part came as he looked at the cover with a dinosaur on it.

Carly had found a break in the rain and decided to walk to school. August and I weren’t so lucky. It started raining hard about the time we normally left. I had been entertaining the notion of actually walking, but that idea vanished. I then figured we could wait a few minutes to see if it let up to make getting to the car easier. It did not. Instead, it got heavier and heavier. We had to leave, so with him with his orange umbrella and me with my black umbrella we hurried to the car.

Things were only worse on the other end. We parked behind a woman who has a son in PKB and they were doing the same thing. Although I had time to tell August I heard the song “Walk the Dinosaur’ playing in their car. I got August on the sidewalk with his umbrella and pointed the right direction and he started making his way to school. I realized I had left my keys in the car and had to get them. He just kept heading to school on his own.

He did amazingly, and seemed to enjoy watching the water as he walked all the way to the classroom. His pants were absolutely soaked. He wanted them changed, but wasn’t too upset. I dried out his shoes and changed his pants and underwear and was able to leave.

I had worn my Tom’s, which I thought was a mistake, but any shoes I had worn would have ended up soaked. Already drenched, I figured I might as well walk home. That was an experience. I learned first hand the drainage routes of rainwater through town. Since there are no drains it all runs down the roadways, thus making stepping from a crosswalk onto a sidewalk impossible without stepping in water up to your ankle. Probably had to step in water so deep 6 or 7 times on the way back. There was also som good thunder and lightning, although luckily none as close and scary as the one crash that sent me diving into the car later.

I worked until about noon, then was going to go get a haircut. Carly called and said she was sick and coming home. She drove home, and it started raining harder, so I figured I’d use the car to go to the mall. As I got into the car there was a bright flash. I literally had just enough time to think ‘Well i didn’t get hit’ and then there was a shotgun blast of thunder and I crumbled into the car.

I drove to the mall. No one waiting at the barber so I got my hair cut, then grabbed a few groceries since I’d be taking the car the next couple of days. Also got more toothpaste for August. Going back to an earlier brand as he finds the newest one too spicy.

Carly had been nauseous, mainly, and rested at home. But luckily didn’t get worse. I got back, then a bit later went and picked up August. Andrea told me they had spent a lot of time indoors today, but had gone over to their usual area for lunch, and had been able to go for a little walk near the end of the day. August was walking around, finding scrap paper and things to cut with a pair of scissors: “I’m really into cutting.” While I was there he told Andrea all about permanent tape that he had invented and how most people shouldn’t touch it, unless they really are careful with it. They have a full shelf of organized doctor tools and August had made a couple things out of paper. He had made a new reflex hammer out of paper—apparently of his own volition, as Andrea was surprised—to replace one that had been lost.

He picked up a picture on the table and started cutting it a bit. I asked if it was his picture and he said it was. I asked what it was a picture of and he said, “Mama, Dada, baby trapped in a dungeon.” I think I was doubtful it was his because he hasn’t pictures with a lot of writing on them before. I took a photo though, and realized later it said ‘Mama Dada Baby’ in his handwriting. Sadly, we had left it on the table and it is probably gone. We were distracted by Eve taping a stick up in the doorway so no one could come in. August helped, and they were getting hyper. When first her parents, then Marion came, the adults removed the stick. Eve had a meltdown over this. August wasn’t happy, but handled it, but then had a bit of a meltdown when he insisted we go to the cafeteria for a treat and I said now. He started to walk away, telling me, “Dada, come HERE!”

Eventually we sat on the bench and had a snack. I opened the banana for him that was in his snack. He said, “What kind do of person are you?…Dadas are supposed to give boys bananas! Girl kids like bananas.” But he ate it all. He also joked, “Bananas don’t grow on trees! They come from factories.”

He didn’t want to go to the library, so we headed home. At home Carly got him to tell her one things about preschool: “I drawed a lot.” He wouldn’t tell her any details about his picture, but eventually told us that Mini helped him spell the words.

Carly went upstairs. I made hot chocolate for August and me, but he decided he wanted his Halloween treat first. So he helped clean up pieces of paper on the floor to get that. He chose sour Skittles, and promptly put them in the hot chocolate. He told me, “I won’t do that thinking game with stickers today.” Not quite sure what he was talking about. And he told me, “You make a great cup of hot chocolate.” He said he liked it with the skittles in it too, although he didn’t eat them, nor did he eat the ones left in the bag. He said he didn’t really like the sour ones.

He had fun putting a bunch of stickers on me. We started reading a graphic novel on the iPad called Nimona. He liked it, but it is a little too much on the dark humor side of things and I changed a couple words as we read. We could keep reading it, but I’ll probably switch us back to Shivers, etc. if I can. We chose ‘infiltrate’ as a word of the day.

He watched some Berenstain Bears, then went to the bathroom. When he came back he then scratched his menorah decoration. He held the scratcher like a pencil: “Ms. Vicky really wants me to do it the way she does it. But when she’s not looking I do it the wrong way.”

He ate noodles with shrimp for dinner. He’s growing tired of the dinners though. Carly had some plain toast and butter. He then wanted some of his own toast. He got upset when I said he needed peanut butter on it though and he hit me. So I said no toast. We read more of Nimona, then we switched to Shivers. He then ate a whole banana, so I then made him toast with peanut butter and he ate it. It started pouring outside. He said he had another word of the day: ‘alternate’ versus ‘ultimate’.

He got his scissors and went around cutting everything I’d let him cut. I then heard David outside shouting “Hello! Neighbor!” It turned out that they have water coming in there house from where it connects to our house. I let him in and we went up and he saw that there was no water on our side. He then headed back. August had found one of those tiny sour oranges and cut it neatly in half with his scissors and offered them to David and myself. I licked it to be kind, but it may have been the most sour one yet.

He did more cutting. Carly had been resting upstairs. She came down and I went upstairs and started packing. She made him more toast. He spent a long time in the bathroom. He found a clean q-tip and I let him clean the wall with it: “You said it. These are really good for cleaning…I’m making the walls Mexico-y, like Oma does.” He then had his spray bottle and was spraying things with mist. He said, of the bathroom, “So please start calling it the Mexican room.”

He went downstairs with a flashlight. He told Carly, “You’re school appropriate. What’s ‘appropriate’ mean?” Discussed the meaning. He got my phone and sat on the couch with us and recorded himself telling hero stories (where they’re never heard from again). He told me about a constellation: “The big yawn. That’s actually a constellation.”

He said goodnight to Carly and we headed upstairs. He told stories as he jumped around on the bed. He asked for a preschool story and I told a story about a preschool where it rained so much that the preschool floated away and it went down the highway like a waterslide and ended up in the sea, where everyone was rescued. We turned the lamp off. He then requested a visualization of a girl going on an adventure and never finding her way back home. That went on for several minutes. There was a lot of lightning that we kept seeing through the window. He was then trying to go to sleep, but kept having thoughts. He asked, “What’s the smallest thing you know?” I talked about quarks, then the Planck length. We argued about Planck space, as he argued there was no limit to how small something could be. He loves the idea of infinity, and couldn’t understand a finite smallness. Not sure if I also talked about how the size of the universe is also finite, or if I decided to leave that for another day. He was asleep at 9.

Walking with his umbrella to school: