Sunday, February 3: meeting for lunch at VIPizza

He was up at 6:40. He was finishing up a couple Wild Kratts episodes when I came down. Carly had been outside and came in and was talking to August. He said that an elephant can pick up a “cah”. A funny misunderstanding ensued, with her talking about cows are sacred in India. Turned out he meant ‘car’, but when he says them they sound exactly the same.

I went upstairs to scrub the bathroom ceiling of the mold. I’ve done it three times and never had problems with dripping. Today, however, I realized there were two pink blobs on my new sweatshirt. Carly made French toast while I did that. I came down and ate.

He and I made things out of magnet blocks. He started by timing me. We ended up with a pretty cool house with an escape pod on the roof and a playground outside. Carly then wrapped a couple of presents for him. They were things from Valencia. The first was a porcelain bird magnet for the fridge and the second was a notebook from the conference. He liked those.

We sat and finished reading Hil0: Volume 1 and read a couple chapters of the second volume. Carly startled by a lizard when she opened a kitchen window to water. August used his scanner to declare it wasn’t poisonous. I went up and took a shower.

Me to shower

He was hungry, so we went to make oatmeal. I had gotten a different brand, but they were also instant oats. But they turned out to be thicker, and ended up chunky. He said he didn’t like it, but he ate it anyway. Carly got home from going

August and I experimented with the oats. We used knives and scissors to break some into smaller pieces, then cooked those in the microwave. And I made a bowl on the stove. He liked the microwave bowl better. August had also used the food processor on his own to shred up a carrot and add lemon to it. We washed that out, and then used the food processor to chop up the full bag of oatmeal.

We played more with the magnet blocks, and Carly left to meet with teachers in Tira about the upcoming Get to Know You Day at the Jewish school. More blocks, and I was making hexagonal towers which he then destroyed (after my first one self-destructed dramatically on its own). We recorded them in slo-mo and it turned out really well. We went upstairs and did the brother and sister imagining game and had a pillow fight. He had the brother and sister destroy the house with the pillow fight, but then they found gold outside and it paid for the damages so the parents weren’t upset any more.

We got going and walked to town. He told me he invents magical things in his lab now, not scientific things. I figured Carly was probably close to being done so I invited her. We were a little early, so went to the park by the playground and played around there for a few minutes. I tried to get him to wave to Carly when she drove by, but he kind of hid and screamed instead, which of course didn’t work. We met her at VIPizza and we ordered a large pizza. Half mushroom, and half mushroom and olive. He randomly said “I hate my imagination” at one point. We sat at one of the outside tables for the first time. We ate, and when he was saying ‘poop’ or something we introduced the idea of other funny words. I came up with “Llama potato…potato llama.” He really liked that one. He tried to tell Carly he didn’t like her drink, and said, “I hate your coffee.” Realizing he had the wrong drink he continued, “I hate your tea? I hate your Coke?”

Carly left to drive up and get gas. August and I walked around the building after going to the bathroom and checked out the sandwich/hamburger place on the other side of it, which we’ve never been to. August liked the stools, which were made out of old bicycles, with the pedals fixed in place to rest your feet on.

We got walking home. At one point he asked what ‘instant’ meant (maybe from the oatmeal discussion?) and that was our word of the day (which he keeps claiming he wants to stop doing, but then he’ll chime in with his little tune). We walked a back street, and I bribed him with the promise of 2 Whoppers if he’d extend it a further block to check on the supposed site of a cafe that we’d looked for before but doesn’t exist. It has gotten a few more reviews since last year, so I figured we’d look again. Still not there.

We got back on the main road and Carly honked as she went by. August then found plants that looked like wheat and spent a few minutes picking a bouquet of them.

We stopped at our park, and we had us do the brother and sister bird game again. He played around on his own for a minute and I was reading, then he sat in my lap and I read a Donald Hall poem to him. We found another Allen wrench on the ground, then got a call from Vivian wanting to FaceTime. We headed home.

He talked to Vivian for a few minutes. One of them hung up and he tried to call back, but gave up and watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving instead. I squeezed the rest of the oranges and made a big bowl of orange juice. We finished reading Hilo 2 and started 3. He had a timeout when he got upset when I stopped.

Carly was making mac and cheese and broccoli. August had only had one slice of pizza at lunch, and absolutely nothing since then (he’d forgotten the Whoppers), but he didn’t eat more than a bite, saying he wasn’t hungry. Carly asked me to go to the store and mentioned chocolates for the session she was running tomorrow after school. When August was disappointed that he couldn’t have any, he hit Carly. Cherie called for a minute, and he yelled loudly. Carly said she’d talk later, and took him up for a timeout.

They played on the bed and I headed to the store at 6:20. I got back after 7.He had watched a Magic School Bus episode, and they were now playing on the upstairs couch. She gave him a bath. He came downstairs and was trying to scare me by yelling. He ran around a little, then I reheated his dinner and he ate the whole bowl.

We tried to Skype with Gramma and Grampa. They didn’t answer, so we left a video message and he improvised a nice song about wanting to Skype with them. We went up and read more Hilo 3. He saw my shirt, the one from Cherie, and said he wants to hang it on the wall when I get to big for it. Will have to see if they sell it as a poster, as he’s mentioned it before.

He said goodnight to Carly at 8:35 and went to the bathroom. He requested a visualization and this time he let me do the snowflake. It lasted until the snowflake melted on a cow. He was quiet for a few minutes, and asleep just after 9.

Blood from the gecko: