Carly got him up about 6:45. I made him oatmeal, and after he cuddled with her for a few minutes he went and ate. He went to the bathroom, and Carly headed to school. He was then playing with the walking stick from Korea and gently swinging it around and singing a song, presumably about it. It was a more graceful, high-pitched melody than he usually sings. I think I caught “we don’t use it anymore…” I recorded some, but it was after the best part.
He got his iPad, and told me that he invented an iPad that you could open and could be fixed. Little did he know that he was reflecting the thoughts of lots of people who think such things should be more fixable. I noticed that Shaun the Sheep is on Netflix for us. A couple weeks ago I was mentioning to Carly that he might like the Aardman movies. Anyway, he watched an episode and did a lot of laughing.
It was supposed to rain, so Carly wanted us to drive. We left by 7:50. I commented on the rain smell as we left. He said, “and that only happens when it’s rained a little and there’s still some drops in the air that haven’t settled down.” As we got in the car he told me the fence across the street should have been made out of polished wood or metal or concrete. He’s afraid it will rot because it was getting wet.
Drop off went fine. The bus kids were there, but hadn’t started meeting yet. I walked home and worked primarily on the website, then got a call from Vicky about 10:45. I walked to school and picked him up. He had had an issue in Ms. Liron’s class. He said she didn’t want him to play with the carpet. Vicky said something about how she wanted him to cross his legs when he was sitting. He had gotten upset and left the room, which Vicky said was a good thing, and gone downstairs. From there it gets hazy. Marion took him into the atelier (which I later learned August knows how to pronounce, and Andrea calls it the ‘calm room’, but he knows to switch the name based on which teacher he was talking about). She was holding him and not letting him leave that room to go out into the empty classroom. He ended up scratching her wrist, and threw a play dough container that gave her a cut above her lip. So, clearly should have talked to Marion yesterday to see what had happened with her.
She was back from the nurse when we went downstairs. He said sorry and we headed home, taking the car.
At home we discussed gluing or taping together plastic tube pieces he had outside, but did neither. We then read some Skybrary books:Write On, Carlos! and Great Choice, Camille!
For lunch I only let him eat things out of his actual lunch. He started with the bar, then ate the banana. Later he would eat the chopped carrot, string cheese, and tuna. We went back to Skybrary and read Percy Gets Upset and Gertie Gorilla’s Glorious Gift. He told me about a drill bit that he invented that lets you make straight lines in wood. He then talked about how he thought a pizza cutter could cut wood, so I let him take it out and try it and he realized it didn’t work so well. I also let him hammer away at the circuit board (goggles on this time) for awhile, before remembering there were a couple components on there that I wasn’t sure about. I talked about “worrying” and he kept telling me not to.
Inside, he talked about how he has an electric fence around his lab, or a “toxic flame”. He explained what ‘toxic’ meant. We did the brother and sister imagining game. He created a scenario where they were running away and living on their own. They found an abandoned house to live in, and the people left money there so they went to the store. In character, we made things out of magnet blocks that were also left in the house.
He wanted to make a timer. That is, a bottle with water and glitter in it that sinks to the bottom. We didn’t have any bottles, so we walked up to recycling and fished a good bottle out. He also got a spray bottle. We went back and made a timer. We experimented with oil and water, and he liked the oil. He used his sequin things, and put in some food coloring as well, that especially looked cool at first. He managed to play on his own while I wrote emails to Vicky and Dr. Aviv. We then went upstairs for a pillow fight, then came back down to eat his string cheese. Still hungry, he ate the carrot, then wanted his tuna in a sandwich. So I made a tuna and teriyaki (he was the one that remembered we used to do teriyaki sandwiches) sandwich and he ate most of it.
I did a little more work on the website, and he played for a few minutes. We ran around the house and were acting like the brother and sister on and off. The timer rolled off the table and the lid broke, but luckily only a drop leaked out.
Looking in the utility drawer he found an old almost-empty tube of sealant. It was all dried up, and he used the bread knife to cut up the dried sealant. We washed it, then he sawed a carrot into chunks. We each ate part of it. For some reason, the word ‘foible’ came up and was the word of the day before August declared it wasn’t.
We went back and read more Skybrary: The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse and we had started reading Your Guide to Superheroes when Carly got home.
She talked to him about the day was of course upset. He wasn’t able to admit that he felt bad for Marion, but he was clearly troubled. She was sitting on the black chair and he lay his head in her lap, his feet still on the floor, and ended up falling asleep at 5:15. She picked him up and he woke up a bit, but he fell back to sleep on the couch. We let him sleep, and I tried waking him up at 6:25. He just didn’t seem like he was waking up though, so I got ready for bed, being exhausted myself. I figured I could try to get some sleep with him, so that if he woke up in the middle of the night I could get up with him.
Well, Carly carried him up to the bed and cuddle with him, but he never fully fell back to sleep, and at 6:50 he got up, quite awake. I was ready for sleep.
Downstairs on the couch they read I Really Like Slop! a couple times. Or maybe three. He really likes the funny ending: “Dont push it, Bub!” I took over and we finished reading the superhero book. We started to read Izzy Impala’s Imaginary Illnesses. But he said he didn’t like it becuase she lies. So we moved on to Dilly Dog’s Dizzy Dancing, then Emma’s Friendwich. We then red more of Hilo, volume 3.
He was hungry, so ate a good bowl of shredded carrots, then had a bowl of oatmeal. I read more of Hilo 3 to him at the table, then we finished on the couch, and started volume 4.
Carly took him up for his bath. She told him about the 6th graders who are running an experiment trying to turn guinea pig poop into paper. They talked about this a lot. I came up and was on the bed with him for a few minutes. He talked about how when he drinks from his water bottle he is “Constantly delivering it to my stomach.” He said with his pink water bottle (from Korea) he would drink just for the fun of delivering the water like that, and not becuase he was thirsty.
Carly was tired, so we left her by 9. Downstairs, we read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, then Breathe. We discussed Marion (he still wasn’t too repentant) and the possibility of baking cookies. It was too much for him and he hid behind me and cuddled for a few minutes.
He then had a mystery song he was humming. He could only tell me we listen to it in the car, but not recently, and it is a guy with a lower voice. Finally, I figured out it was “Hey Man” by the Eels. We listened to it on my phone. Finally, we read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and went upstairs at 10:15. He snuck away from me and went and cuddled next to Carly on the little bed. He wasn’t too bad though. He was taking a long time to fall asleep, and at a quarter to 11 I pulled him up to the big bed. He was asleep a few minutes later. He had rolled over and was actually lying, stomach down, on top of a pillow.
End of his walking stick song:
Experimenting with the pizza cutter on wood:
Hammering the circuit board:
Destruction slo-mo:
Mystery Song (“Hey Man”):
