He was up just before 6:30. Cuddled with Carly, had oatmeal, then watched Shaun the Sheep. Didn’t watch a lot, then wanted to thaw quiche dough and make the little cookies. He told me, “Did you know that hard plastic has a higher melting point that this plastic that moves around (bags)? I discovered it in my laboratory. I put it in a plastic testing machine.” He remembered the Keebler crackers so we tried those and we thawed some quiche dough and he made his tiny chocolate chip cookies. We continued listening to Ian McCullough albums.
We read Fox in Sox. Then he remembered the pate and we tried that on the new crackers. He liked that and was making lots of yummy noises. His cookies were done, and he ate a few. He initially wanted to give one to Carly, but they were too tempting through the day and he ended up eat them all. He then asked what moles on your skin are. I read an article about them to him, then he did a good job of explaining moles to me and how they get darker over time, like the one on my forehead. He then told me that hair doesn’t have nerves: “Only eyelash hairs and the hairs that are there (eyelashes) have nerves.”
For school time we worked on cutting curvy shapes with scissors, which is hard for him. Then we were writing out letters and funny phrases. He would write one or two random letters, then I would make a word out of it and he’d read the word. We’d make funny phrases that way. We did some GarageBand. He’s getting into the idea of a rhythm, and when I was playing a drum pattern on my iPd he was doing his keyboard improv to the rhythm.
We watched the latest Marble Machine video (which used the metaphor of slaying a dragon) and then looked up how elephant poop is made into paper. We found this good video on the process:
. He wanted me to drink the seed mixture he’s had in the tube up in the bathroom for a few days. It smelled odd, and he said we forgot to wash soap out of the lid. He agreed I didn’t have to try it if there was soap in it.
I found a bag upstairs that had some seriously moldy oranges in it and we took some photos and got rid of that. Outside he found a green tree thing and told me how the sap was “a super slow process.” There was sap around the base of it, and he claimed the sap came from the green parts and went back to the tree. Rather backwards there, but cool how he was inspecting it and trying to explain it.
He was going on about a sidewalk sealant he says he has and said it was permanent, but then he said “Well, but nothing’s really permanent…” But then he decided that ink on paper was, but then he invented something that would suck ink out of paper. He discovered a planet that has everything for life “in a megatelescope.”
A slightly rough spot when we were discussing celebrating something and he said he had had a celebration for hurting Marion. So a timeout and discussion for that. We exercised, then got ready to go. He wanted to try the other kind of ‘string’ cheese (think it translates as ‘valley cheese’ as opposed to mozzarella). But it isn’t stringy, and he didn’t like it. I offered to eat it for him and he could get another one, but he said he’d already started it and should eat it. Which was pretty amazing.
We left at 12:15. We were listening to his playlist, some of the newer songs he has added, and he fell asleep for a 10 minute nap at the end.
At the park we got the bike out and started walking. He directed us over by the playground and towards the food stand. He pointed to it, and I reminded him we weren’t getting a smoothie. We had talked about it at home. He accepted this quite well, so after we had eaten some lunch I decided we could get a smoothie. We went and ordered the ‘orange’, which was supposed to have strawberry and mango. The one we ended up with clearly only had strawberry. And not too sweet, but it was nice and creamy. He wasn’t too excited by it. He wasn’t too happy with the guy, but again handled his disappointment well.
While we had been waiting for the smoothie, he had looked in the ice cream freezers and seen the cone-shaped ice cream treats. I suggested he could convince Mama to come back here sometime for ice cream. He said the only time he has had ice cream like that was “when we went to the beach with Gramma and Grampa.” I also told him of a time, I think, when he was a baby when Carly got one like that (or something similar) in Olympic Park in Korea, but she probably hid it from him. He was okay with that as he had been a baby.
We rode his bike up the big play structure, halfway. He then climbed down the climbing ramp and said I could go down a different way and meet him. He was okay for the minute it took me to go around with the bike. He was then climbing on the rope structures, and asked a lot of questions about their metal parts and how they were anchored in the ground. Carly called and we talked about books from the library, as she was checking some books out for us.
I got a couple rounds of Hebrew in, then he wanted to move to the little kids area. He did this by climbing over the short fences to get there. Something new for him. He ran around, going down the hills in curves, and asked why he didn’t fall over like when he was on the bike. I explained center of gravity and pointed out how you naturally lean into a turn, and how you could do that on a bike as well. He ran around some more, then was the captain of a ship and truck that would drop me off where I didn’t want to go, like in the middle of the ocean. When I said that was too mean we switched to the brother and sister game. Slightly better, although he’s altered it to where we intentionally had a pillow fight to destroy our house, then we ran away, and he called our parents and they yelled at us for destroying the house. A rather interesting storyline he’s developed that doesn’t really relate to anything he’s read or seen, as far as I can tell. He was also using phrases like, “In good news…” and “Unfortunately…”
We started on a walk, and stopped at the little free library. He let me get a couple of Roald Dahl books (Glass Elevator and Maltilda), Freckle Juice by Judy Blume, and a book called Incognito Mosquito Takes to the Air. We walked to the south end of the park, using the western path. He headed for the sand area and played there, mainly with the conveyor belt. A girl found a big caterpillar and called it a snake in Hebrew. Her dad came over and told her it was a caterpillar. I understood both of those. August played with it, and I eventually had to talk to him and make him stop bothering it. We put it at the base of a tree, and later it was gone, one way or another.
He kept playing with the conveyor belt, and with a couple of girls made a big mountain of sand with it. We went to the bathroom and had some snack and he wandered over to the big play structure at that end, which he’s never actually played on. He explained how he enslaved caterpillars using machines he places on them, and they go around pooping to fertilize trees. He, all on his own, started trying to justify how what he was doing was okay (I think because he thought it was a good cause) compared to Zach on Wild Kratts who puts machines on animals to control them just for his own gain. He ate the last of the cheese cracker sandwiches, then commented on the playground: “So people put a lot of work into this.” Back at the sand area, he stood on a platform thing and said, “Today’s book group meeting: What do you know about frogs?” It was then a competition, with me playing both people. One knew all about frogs, the other said funnily inaccurate things.
He would have stayed at the park until after dark, but finally I got him going. Sort of. We walked up along the path area and stopped at the fish. Spent another 20 or 30 minutes here. He put his hand in the water and found out that the fish come up and tickle you, like the ones that eat the dead skin on your hand in the aquarium in Seoul. He managed to catch two fish with his bare hand. The second one he had out of the water for a few seconds and it jumped out of his hand when he was trying to have me take a photo of it.
Finally got him away from there. He went and scared a flock of parakeets, then we walked north along the east side of the park. He was talking about speaking through multiple megaphones to make it really, really loud. He wanted to tell people to catch fish. He wanted to stop at exercise equipment and play. We did stop at a plastic recycling bin, as he wanted to get a bottle to take home for something. He was indecisive, but ended with a Coca-Cola bottle, thinking it would be hilarious to tell Carly he had drank that much soda.
There was a small boxer sort of dog on the path and we rode around it. August was singing a “Sonic boom” song that he wanted me to record, then we were getting our stuff in the car and at the trunk, then went to the right side of the car to let August in. I opened it to find a dog curled up where his feet go. August was not happy about this. I managed to pick the dog up to take it out. It didn’t have a number on it. I held it and looked around for a couple minutes for someone who might help, like someone who works at the park. Then the dog trotted off on its own. It headed back into the park, so hopefully someone else would help. August, by the way, was very against helping it, and certainly never wants a dog or cat in the house. He says they will make a mess everywhere. He said, “Unless we get one from the store. For a little while. In a cupboard, locked shut…there’s no possible way I’d let you take care of a lost doggie. If I was a doggie I’d have a phone number on me.”
Finally, he realized he hadn’t found any treasures today. I said he had gotten the bottle. He dismissively explained, “That’s just something I found on the garbage! Treasure is cool interesting things I find on the ground!”
We were driving at 4:50. We listened to his playlist in the car. Made it home without another nap. He took the Coca-Cola bottle up to Carly, joking that he had drunk it all. Carly was changing at the time though, so we didn’t keep the video.
Downstairs we looked at all the books that Carly had checked out today. I read him part of Hilda and the Stone Forest, then got him to read the Mat Hid Bob Book to me. Carly tried to read Pippi Longstockings to him, but he was being hyper and rude to her and I had to take him up for a timeout at one point. I got him some dinner and we ate, then Carly took him upstairs for a pillow fight. They also skyped with Cherie and he played in the sink making concoctions.
He came down to me and she took a shower. We had some water drink, at his request, then he asked me why you would die in 2 seconds in space if you could live longer on Earth without air. I said I didn’t know where he got the 2 seconds thing, but I was pretty sure it was longer than that. But there are also the heat/cold issues of space. I asked if he wanted to be an astronaut. And he said no, because it is too dangerous. And that the rocket might blow up. I then asked what he wanted to be he first gave a rather pragmatic answer: he had a long time before he had to think about it so he didn’t have a choice now. Eventually he did say, “Probably teach. Like mama.” When I reminded him I had also been a teacher he said, “Huh!? Is that why you know so much stuff?” Then he claimed he wouldn’t have a job. When I asked what he would do he said, “Take care of someone…take care of a baby.”
We finished reading Hilda and the Stone Forest. Then we skyped with my parents. Talked about the snow in the U.S. and more to come. He was silly after the call. He went to the bathroom, then didn’t have his pants on and asked me to tie his shirt on as an apron. And was acting silly. He sang a song that went, “I’m robot apron, in robot apron…and I’m also poopy.”
I gave him a bath, then he was doing tricks jumping off the bed. He had a small box that used to have paints in it. It has random papers in it, and he said they were advertisements for events. He said, “New things come and old things go.” He took out the poop party ad (he’d drawn poops on a piece of paper) and said that was already past. He gave me a ticket for a different event: “This is the crown contest..and the winner has the gold piggie with a piggie made of gold.” It changed to a clown contest when he thought that was funnier.
He said goodnight to Carly. We did a butterfly visualization, and had lights off at 9:10. He asked me something at one point. I was half asleep, and when he started to lightly snore around 9:30 and I go up I couldn’t remember what it had been.
Choose-ed instead of chose
Buyed-ed instead of bought
Killed-ed instead of killed
Taked-ed instead of took
Put-ed instead of put
Meeting quiche cookies:
GarageBand tune:
Drill and paperclip slo-mo:
Climbing down the ramp:
Climbing the netting:
Showing his speed:
Phoning the parents:
Big caterpillar:
Comparing himself to Zach:
Nibbling fish:
Trying to catch fish:
Chasing the parakeets:
Sonic boom song he wanted to record:
