Thursday, December 20: Eve’s birthday party

He was up at 6:50. He told me to go back to sleep. He went downstairs and I heard him start talking to her right away, I thought about sound in water. She said he didn’t spend any time cuddling and went straight to telling her that the reason the ocean was blue was because of a chemical reaction with the salt. But he said they couldn’t test it because you’d need as much salt as there was in the ocean and the government wouldn’t give you enough salt.

I came down and he was making a thank you piece of art for Mikaela. I got tea and turned off the go-to-school alarm and went back to bed for awhile. Still getting over the Benadryl that I took last night. When I came down again they were making wrapping paper for Eve’s present. August had said “I see you’re really enjoying working on that” to her. Sounded like something a teacher said. One of his pictures was “Signals going into the software.” We had a discussion of ‘abstract’ and how something could both be an object, like a person, and also abstract at the same time, as Carly was making an abstract person. He cut open the little bag of nails, but spilled them on the floor. I helped him put the nails in a cup. He said “It’s kind of satisfying…” to feel them with his hand in the cup.

We read the Lunch Robot from yesterday, as he hadn’t read it during lunch. He said that the upgrades the robot should get are breathing fire, shield protection, and being waterproof. I went up and took a shower. When I came down he was watching the Wild Kratts episode about Gila monsters. That morphed into an imagining game where he was a Gila monster. He asked, “Can baby gila monsters dig big holes?” We watched a video of a real one digging a hole, then he was pretending that he had gone out and dug a hole under a papaya tree and ruined the roots.

He went to the bathroom and told us about a “One eyed fish…it’s a machine that looks like a fish…one eye with a sensor next to it…it can survive running, walking, swimming…and climbing.”

We got going and went to the party. Kind of a comedy of errors getting going. I couldn’t find my keys, then Carly realized we’d forgotten the present while we were looking. Then we left again. I realized I didn’t have his sweatshirt, and when I went back in she told me to also get the present, which we had forgotten again.

We got there a little after 11. It had been planned for Herzliya Park, but because of the weather she changed it to her art room at the school. About 5 kids didn’t show up as a result, as it got farther away for them. So it was Eve and her sister, Zoe, Judson and his big sister, Candy, Yaya, and then a few parents and teenagers (although we weren’t sure what their connection was).

To start with they had apron decorating, face painting, storybook making, and snacks. August was cautious at first. He decorated an apron, then had some snacks. He wanted sweet snacks, and I told him to wait a bit. Carly headed off to do some work. He got more into it, and asked to paint up at an easel. I got paints for him and he intently made a painting. Sadly, we would forget the apron and the painting there. He and Eve then did face painting on my hands; he did the right and she did the left.

Pizza arrived and he was really happy about that. He ate a lot. He, Zoe, and Judson got silly as they played and danced with the skeleton. Then Judson fit back in a shelf area and was “Judson mail”. Next was the piñata. August got two rounds of swinging at it. Eventually, David, their dad, broke it open. August got a good bag’s worth of candy and I let him have a Starburst at the time. Next was the cake, which was quite a process, as after the singing of Happy Birthday David had to deconstruct his very elaborate unicorn cake. He’s a chef, and had made it all himself. August ate a big slice, then went back to get various chunks of the unicorn hair and other decorations.

Eve opened presents (lots of unicorn things, as it was a unicorn-themed party—the water bottle didn’t have unicorns, but fit very well. And Heather said that their markers at home were just wearing out, so the markers were a timely present) and then August got really into cutting off the tissue paper hair from a big part of the piñata, which had been thrown away. He was using different sets of the decorative scissors, and requested we buy him some of those. He got the hind end of the piñata and wore it on his head as a hat, and was carrying around the middle part like some sort of warrior. Eve wanted to keep the head, or August would have been parading that around, I’m sure.

Carly came back about 1:40 as the party was winding down. August had been pretty hyper, but when I picked him up he cuddled against my shoulder and yawned. Worn out. I asked him how late I could be picking him up at school without him being late and he told me I had to be there by “3 oh six or faster.” He got a blank book from Heather. It was an accordion book, and he turned it into all sorts of different shapes and decided it was his wind tester. Heather also told us about an exploding book and told us to google how to make them.

He played with his wind tester on the way home. We were home by 2. I found my keys in my bike helmet. I had set them down together, then hung up my helmet a few minutes later, forgetting the keys were in it. August was sitting on the couch with me and had his hand up for some reason. I called on him using my Ms. Marion voice and he thought that was funny and kept wanting me to be Ms. Marion. He then had fun ripping apart more of the unicorn. Carly showed him a card that came from Stephanie and her family. And a package had arrived from Derek and Andrea, which we filed away as a Christmas present.

August and I had a funny discussion about saying “a imagining game” which he kept saying because it sounded funny. I explained ‘an’ to him but he wanted to keep saying it that way. Carly wrote a letter to her grandma and went to the post office to mail it. He watche Wild Kratts. He asked me, “Dada, what’s the animal that’s the most sensitive to smelling in the world?” and I looked that up. When I said sharks he clarified “LAND animal.” He had brought home a bag of art from school yesterday, and he and I emptied out the bag and discussed it. We then read some more of Amulet 4. He had a bit of rope from school and tied our hands together. He convinced me to read some of Sisters. ‘Gunk’ became the word of the day from that.

I went up to rest and do some Sabeel work. When I came down he was watching the Wild Kratts groundhogs episode. Carly had been cleaning and I asked “Did we move?” August went upstairs with me and I had OMD playing on the iPad. He had us doing “dance mode” where he would hold onto my hands and make a shape, then I would copy the shape. He then helped me fold clothes. He did a good job with a towel and one of my shirts. He showed me his potions and how long they take to separate after shaking them up and said he really likes them. He was then destroying the piñata piece by throwing it at the wall and ground. It left pink marks on the wall from the tissue paper so I had him just throw it at the floor.

I gave him a bath and he started screaming the second water touched him. We got him dried and he was upset that he didn’t get a lollipop. Enough sugar for one day. Carly was putting him to sleep, and I left them at 8:45. I went for a walk and finished listening to Prelude to Foundation. He was asleep around 9.

Painting: