Tuesday, February 12: buying a coconut and playing with Taya

He was up at 6:50. I went up to greet him. He wasn’t happy that mama was gone and told me as such. He took a few minutes on the couch before he felt better. He asked for his iPad and watched a couple videos of Lego marble machines and one Berenstain Bears. We then had oatmeal and mango for breakfast. He then wanted presents and I wrapped his little broom. He liked that one, and really thanked me for it. He wanted another, so I wrapped a shell, a highlighter, and a few q-tips. His response was quite different this time though. He called it the worst present ever. But then proceeded to color his hand with the highlighter.

We read a little of The Witches, then he played a little with a new space app from PBS. Didn’t hold his attention for long though and he switched to the Berenstain Bears. He requested hot chocolate, so I said he could have some if he’d then read me a book. He agree.

He went to the bathroom, and told me of a scary machine he has: “Do you know that I have in my laboratory a machine that can cut a person in two pieces, fix them, then put them back together and they’d still be alive?” “It puts anesthesia in you and you can have fun cutting people apart” “remember the giant tanks you see attached to Ikea? That’s how big the tanks of anesthesia are.” “You could have a little fun with it, maybe. Well, I could.” “It even allows you turn the person into another type of human…someone with powers like me…I’m a robot and I can feel, learn, think…’

He had me show him the back of the toilet and asked if you could drink the toilet water in back. He then got the Brita filter pitcher and gave me a long explanation of how it works, but continued on to describe a machine with it that cleaned the water from the back of the toilet and made it so you could drink the water straight from the pitcher. Thankfully, he didn’t want to actually run water from the toilet through it.

I got him to dress himself. He’s generally been doing his own underwear and pants, but not his shirt (although he’ll do the arms). He was resistant to the idea, but when I got it into a circle for him he got excited and put it on himself. Just need to practice so he can do the circle part himself now.

We compared the speakers, as he’s been wanting to do. We hooked up our old set next to the Apple speaker and played music through each. He could tell that the Apple speaker is louder. We then got back to trying to read, and he said he had lied to me and wasn’t going to read. We went up for a timeout, but he agreed quickly, and then downstairs he read all of I Broke My Trunk! to me. He then watched a Shaun the Sheep and I took a shower.

I surprised him with a printer I found when I was out for a walk last night. “Thank you, dada. I love it…When you found it, did you think I would love it?” We started taking apart the printer, then paused for lunch. I made a salmon sandwich and we also shared the leftover eggs and cheese and tofu from their trip to Aroma on Sunday. As we ate he said, “I think grampa would prefer working with wood pieces…cuz he’s kind of a wood person. AND also he’d have to buy a lot of electronic tools.”

We went back to the printer. Of the flat plastic pieces with wire in them he said, “It’s wire tape…I learned about it at robot school…kinda boring. You shouldn’t go to robot school. Seriously. Do you believe me? Uck. It’s so stupid. I wished I never goed to it.” Unfortunately, we were using an Allen wrench to unscrew the star-shaped screws. It just barely worked, and about halfway into the printer it got just dull enough to stop working. He handled it well, and we talked about trying to buy the correct screwdriver later.

He remembered wanting to get a coconut, and I told him about drinking right out of a coconut in Indonesia. I explained that they had chopped the coconuts open and we drank right out of them. He was shocked: “No doubt!?” “Was your lips on it…was it rough?” He has this idea that coconut water should be stored in cans, as opposed to bottles, etc. and he said we could use a metal can to store it in when we get it out. It said we couldn’t, to which he responded: “But seriously, we have cans…you were wrong.”

At some point he talked about recycling paper, and we watched a video on how to do it. A video about restoring a rusty knife then came up, and we watched part of that (https://youtu.be/hS9PA6SuyyU). August kept pointing at the tools he was using and saying we should buy that. When I balked at committing to buy things like a lathe he got upset and we stopped watching the video, although we were able to finish it later.

We got ready to go, finally, and he put the long pink wire in the drill and was playing with it. We finally got walking at 1:30. A slow walk into town as he kept stopping (a broom/branch-looking thing, etc.) and dragging his feet. We went to the bulk foods store. He chose a coconut and also asked to get the toppings for his cake. He chose small pink balls and pink stars. The coconut was only 2 dollars.

We then went to the hardware store. Didn’t find the screwdriver/drill bit we needed. But he had fun looking at everything, and kept asking “What’s this?” He was disappointed that I wouldn’t let him buy anything. He wanted a new drill or a hot glue gun or something. He got over that and we were able to head on to toe school. Along the way I found a big calculator that we could take apart. He was excited by that. He then saw a piece of metal embedded in the dirt and got off to investigate. It turned out to be a good one. It was the metal part of an old hoe. August almost immediately said we could soak it in vinegar to get rid of the rust, which is what the guy did with the knife.

We got to school and went down to his classroom. They were at the library. No hat in his cubby. Hoping we can be reunited with that soon, as he walks around holding his hair back a lot. We went to the playground where he played on a scooter thing until PKB was done and we got Taya. On the playground they sat on the big swing a lot together and basically stared at each other and giggled. We got some snacks out and Taya had our Cheerios. August spotted an interesting beetle on top of the car and we looked at that. They went over and did some cooking in the kitchen, using some greens from the garden, until I said they’d taken enough from the garden.

Back at the car the beetle had moved, and we found it climbing down the car. We followed it across the ground, and eventually August and I got it on a big stick and he took it over and released it on the tree. Taya had disappeared and I found her in her classroom, getting her water bottle. We went back and saw it crawl up the tree, and August named it “Zorkinflox”.

We then all headed to the library. August and Taya found the little tent in the kids area, a new thing, and played in it. They got books to look at, but mainly pretended they were escaping the rain. The entrance wouldn’t really stay closed, so August went and got two pieces of tape and they worked for a long time to try to close it better. Cassie came about 4:15 and gave them each a fruit snack. We headed out so they could eat them. Taya checked out her books, and we went out in the lobby and they ate those. They left, and we went back in the library.

Carly had walked home, and August wanted to keep playing. He went and got the big ship, then spent a long time taking apart these colorful blocks things and putting them in the ship. Then disaster, as he went to take down the big box of them and it tipped towards him and spilled everywhere. He didn’t want to clean up at first (too big of a mess) but I did some, and he got into the rest of it. That took us to 5, then we went and checked out our books: Berenstain Bears and the Prize Pumpkin, two Elephant and Piggies (A Big Guy Took My Ball and We Are in a Book!), a poetry book about inventions called Here’s What You Do When You Can’t Find Your Shoe, Hilda and the Black Hound, and a picture book called King of the Sky that I found that looked interesting.

We went back down to the preschool playground to retrieve the Cheerios container that Taya had had. As we went down the stairs we saw Andrea coming up. She said hi, and that she would see us tomorrow. August didn’t really know about the meeting tomorrow, and replied with, “See you NEVER. Cuz I’m NEVER going to school.” But as we found the container and got walking home I talked about the plan, and he was quite open to going back half days. He sang a nice tune on the way home and we got here at 5:45

He showed Carly everything we had bought and found and done today. We then went in the kitchen and tried sawing the coconut open. That didn’t work too well, so we switched to the drill. We did 4 holes and got the water all drained out. August tried it with his finger and said it tasted bad. Carly and I both tasted it and it had definitely gone bad. Seemed fermented. August handled the disappointment quite well, and we had had fun opening it.

We went and took part the calculator. He then FaceTimed with Vivian and Colin for quite awhile, showing them what he was doing. Colin asked for the tractor and I brought it from upstairs to show him. He very excitedly told them about how he was taking things apart. He hung up the calculator’s printer ribbon, closing off the kitchen. He told me, “Sorry, it’s really hot, but the pool’s still closed.”

We went back to the calculator. Carly took him upstairs for a bath, and I FaceTimed with Peter, who is on snow day #4 in Edmonds. August came down and I went upstairs with him and we read The Boy with a Problem. He asked me to tell him a story from when I was a kid about school, and I told him about Lisa who was a frenemy in 1st grade (like him and Simone).

We had the lights out at 9:15. He was stuffy and took awhile to go to sleep. Asked me a couple questions along the way, and right before he went to sleep he asked if I still had the batteries in my pocket from the library and he wanted me to take them out. He was falling asleep but at 9:30 had a big coughing fit. Took a few more minutes after that for him to fully fall asleep.

Broom present: