He was up around 7. They read Captain Underpants, then he was watching something when I came downstairs after 8. He stopped watching and wanted to do an imagining game. But he got distracted with the stapler and put staples into a plastic straw. He said it was a science experiment and that he’s “see how it flows into my mouth…my hypothesis is that the liquid is going to leak out of the holes.”
He decided he wanted to go play in Carly’s classroom. Right now. And was upset about not going. Carly was making pancakes. I had to take him upstairs and talk about how we didn’t want him cranky like that all weekend. Would have made for a long weekend. Luckily, he cheered up after that. We went downstairs and ate pancakes. In the bathroom he talked about a new machine: “I invented a machine that can make a comic book real.” But it sucks all the power out of the world. He was in funny mode after that and stole a bite of my pancake.
In discussing school he told me he normally sits with Eve and Judson. But said that Judson is the baddest person who told August not to talk to him ever again. He then wrote in one of the Korean notebooks while I made him another pancake. He said he was doing homework. He had asked for something to write with and I gave him the pen I got from the conference last week. It turns out that is what he meant when he’s been asking me for a “permanent marker.” When the pancake was ready he told me “Thank you for giving me that.” He clarified he meant the pen. After he was done eating he yelled up to Carly “Hey mama! Dada gave me a permanent pen to write with on a notebook!”
He sat next to me and wrote and drew in one of the music notebooks now. He said that Vicky wouldn’t want him to write with a permanent pen (sounds like they use pencils) and when he was tracing the letters he said he was doing homework for literacy group. Sang a “You’re the best in the world” song and said he was signing up for music class. He then got the notebook designed for math and said he was doing homework for coding class.
After that he had me play with the music apps on his iPad and he was tracking the sound in the notebook. He then wanted to go to Carly’s classroom. When I said it would still be awhile he said, “You are not nice. I’m going away from you now.” Carly said they could go soon after he had asked her nicely. I talked about going to the artisan fair, and when I explained what it was he said he could sell “This sparkly, glow-in-the-dark artwork.” The glitter and glue piece he had made with Carly.
They left a little after 10 and were home about 11:40. I finished up what I was doing and came down. I thought I had heard him getting screechy with Carly and I asked him what he had been grumpy about. He said, “I don’t think I had been grumpy. I don’t remember being grumpy.” He was now playing Toca Plants.
I asked what he had done at her classroom and he said he did a lot of “tracking” and also “I even made up a whole story on Mama’s computer. But not with words, just pictures. And you can think up words in your head.” He said it was about “A boy that lives in a magical world.”
He ate noodles, then added a song to his playlist after not wanting a Hebrew song. We were listening to his playlist and he asked Siri to skip the Hebrew song. He hasn’t liked them at all, even though he loved them last year.
He wanted an imagining game, and gave me a scenario where I came down the stairs and drank portal juice and it changed the color of my skin. Then I told my mom, and Hilo came out of the tube thing. Someone had been inventing in our house. We then took care of Hilo. He ended with “And then it is chapter 2.” Chapter 2 was taking care of him and figuring out he was a robot as he was heavy and didn’t have a heartbeat. It turned out his name was ‘I’ and he was from a different universe. And he runs on water. In chapter 3 we take him outside. He makes a hole in the ground and grows a flower.
We eventually got headed to the Artisan Fair. We had been missing August’s water bottle since yesterday, and we found it, along with Eve’s and Carly’s food container, sitting on the concrete wall next to where we had gotten in the car yesterday to head home. August had been keen on getting food at the Artisan Fair, and I soon learned why: he directed me straight towards Heather and David’s booth, where they were selling cookies that he made. Against my protests that we were ourselves going to make snickerdoodles tomorrow (so I was encouraging chocolate chip, or a different flavor), August choose snickerdoodles. And Carly delivered the water bottle. We sat on a bench and ate a couple cookies.
I walked around with August a bit more, looking at other tables. One woman made really nice clothing for kids, and there were a couple of tables with pottery. There was one table with little bottles of perfume, and August whispered to me that he could use some perfume for his potions. I thought about getting it for him for Christmas, but forgot later. Didn’t make it all the way around though, as Eve found us, and they were sprinting off and headed to the playground. I went down there with them.
They were silly together on the playground. On the teeter totter they chanted “We’re on the poop pump!” I was actually able to sit and do some reading. Eve said, “Lets go to the restaurant and poop on everything…” They ran around, over to the garden and back, pretending to poop on everything.
We wandered over to the big playground and Eve met up with her sister and another girl. They disappeared after awhile. August had gotten distracted with a pen and notecards he had found on the playground. He sat up in the big play structure, drawing. He was there for several minutes and just needed me when he wanted another notecard. He told me he was drawing cookie shapes. We then went back to the robot game from earlier and he was scanning everything, chanting “0511” or some variation thereof. When I asked “Do you want to get food, robot?” He replied “Affirmative.”
On our walk back we ran into Eve again. She came with us and we got Carly in her classroom, then went over by the amphitheater area. I bought a hamburger, falafel sandwich, and a bowl of sweet potato soup. It was really good, and fairly cheap. Carly and I ate it all, as August was having way too much fun with Eve, climbing around the amphitheater and drawing on the notecards, doing research together.
Before we left, August and I went over to one of the pottery tables and I got a tumbler/mug and he really liked these tiny pots, so we got one of those. Got a deal of 100 for the two of them, and she gave us a kumquat and an orange as well.
We got home about 4. He spotted a bunch of felt scraps and fabric over in the dump area, which was almost an awesome find, but some of it was getting dirty, and I convinced August not to take it, except for one piece of pink fabric with some thread sewn to it. Inside, he cuddled with Carly and joked about nursing. Carly and I were discussing grocery shopping, and I mentioned hot dogs. August said he didn’t like hot dogs anymore, and I simply commented on how he used to. He said, “Dada, I’m sorry. I’ll try hotdogs.” But then he adamantly said, “But NOT turkey and cheese.” Although he would try “Just stretchy and puffed up cheese.”
She headed to Tiv Taam. He was remembering Hilda and the Bird Parada and started to make up a game: “Remember the salt water blue animal with it’s mama…” Got distracted though and ate strawberries and Cheerios. He then ‘lied’ to me when he hadn’t actually eaten all the strawberries: “Dada! I ate all the strawberries!” Made ‘fib’ a word of the day.
We did some of the space Math Tango, and he told me he had made a frog with Ms. Dorene in art class. He also asked “Are electric eels real?” And we watched a TED-ED video about them:
And played an electric eel game.
He had told me yesterday that he was done with the monster magnets on the fridge and wanted them down. So I went and got the letter magnets and switched them with the monster ones. I was then making words for August. He wasn’t super into reading them, but he wanted me to make more and more words.
Carly got home and he ate more noodles and stir fry, then strawberries. He watched part of the Formula E qualifying with me. He then used his stick and was being a border guard with it as the barrier. He would let us through if we paid: “Cash, please.” I don’t quite know where he got this view of border guards (although we have discussed borders and restrictions on movement before. We were then back to the electric eel game again. He wanted me to buy something and told me it was a dollar. I tried to slip him just a shekel instead, but he said, “It has to add up to a dollar.”
He was then playing with straws in the kitchen and sawing one with a butter knife. He cut his left pointer finger a little. He was quite upset, but let me put on a plaster. As he was trying to calm down he asked me “Can we do a visualization?” It was a visualization of a tree and baby birds. I think he was talking about another visualization and said, “Oh, the character Pinnochio. Real, three dimensional.” He told me his version of Jack and the Bean Stalk: It ends with the giant climbing up. He sees the boy leaving with the goose that lays the golden eggs, and the boy gets away: “I think. I don’t remember the rest.” We then read Pinnochio, and read the first two chapters. He did a lot of laughing.
He got really silly as he wore a wire hanger (one he found as a treasure quite awhile ago) around his body and became “Captain Hook”. He hung grocery bags from it and was swinging around.
Took him up to his bath, then downstairs he had some soup, which Carly had finished while we were upstairs. First, “This is the best soup ever.” A couple minutes later though he said, “Worst soup ever…I lied. It was a joke. Funny to lie.” He ate the soup and was telling jokes, like “What did the mug go to the tea shop?” Each of them ended with the punchline “No thanks, I’d like a peanut instead.” He then explained that you should blink in your sleep to help keep your eyes moist. We went upstairs at 8:40.
I read another chapter of Pinnochio. I took his growing photos, which he is now really into. He asked if we would keep doing them when he was grown up: “Even when I’m a big brother?” Carly and I gave each other a look. Carly was going to sleep with him and I left them after 9.
Making music in his music notebook:
More music notebook:
Tracking the music:
Preschool humor with Eve:
Fighting monsters:
Captain Hook 1:
Captain Hook 2:
