Carly got him up at 6:40. They played on the couch, then he watched Max and Ruby. We ate some zucchini cornbread and then he had oatmeal. On the walk to school he asked about how fast cars drove on the roads, and why they drive faster on the road down to the highway. I said there weren’t intersections, and he asked what that meant, so ‘intersection’ was our first word of the day.
When we got to school he talked to some one and called them “whackadoodle”, then me “Mr. Whackadoodle”. It’s from Hilo. I talked to Marion about a quiet place, and she showed me and August that they had a table under the stairs that he could climb under.
I went from there to the library and did some work. Marion started sending photos of August on our WhatsApp group. The big new thing was making long ramps with the blocks and rolling marbles on them. And when Judson bumped his head, August, on his own, drew a picture and gave it to him to help him feel better. Finally, he is really into the math/geometry boards where they make shapes with rubber bands.
At 9 I went to the PTA meeting. It was all about the cafeteria issues, and the place was full. Sat next to Sarah, and she asked me to make some discreet inquiries to find out how the staff would like the staff lounge improved, as the PTA needs ideas for a staff gift. At 10 I went to the cafeteria and edited chapters for Zoe until Marka showed up to discuss PTA website. We sat outside with Jessica and Misao, the co-secretaries and met. At noon I then ran to get August.
He was sitting down to the meeting and doing great. He ran to me to show me his sheet empty of red dots. Woohoo! He was so proud of it. He also told me how he had gotten upset once and went under the quiet area table. I tried to get him to go ahead and stay for the meeting, but he wanted to go get his reward—the treat from the Moto shop in town. As we were about to leave, Eve stood up in the meeting and yelled at Candy, then stomped out of the room. August watched this unfold, then rather loudly announced, “That is something I did NOT do.”
So we decided to walk up to town, and get VIPizza for lunch on the way. August stopped though at the NW corner of the big traffic circle by school and started finding black beetles everywhere. He climbed up the dirt hill, and explored for 15 minutes or so. He said, “This is something I like about doing half days at school…I get to see a lot of bugs when they’re out.” We took a lot of beetles with us, sadly they were looking pretty sickly by the evening and I let them out. As we walked north he stopped at another empty lot full of flowers and we decided to do a bouquet some day when we brought string with us (that’s from school). He was asking about the weights of different trees as we walked into town, and which I could pick up or not. ‘Sapling’ became another word of the day.
We stopped at VIPizza and the owner handed me a paper towel to clean August’s nose, which has gotten pretty bad. We each got a slice, and August asked, “Why does steam float?” We discussed bonds and atomic weight (another word of the day) and he asked “What does ‘embarrassing’ mean?” (Another). He requested a second slice and said, “I think I’m gonna eat all this.” He ate about half and I had the rest.
We walked over to Moto and he looked around. He had initially planned on one of the little umbrella looking suckers, but decided on a Kinder egg. I gave him the money and had him buy it on his own. He sat on the table outside and ate it. While we were in town he developed the grumpy game, where I was supposed to act upset that he didn’t get any red dots. I complained, saying I really liked red, and accused him and his teachers of conspiring together to cost me money and get him treats. He found it very funny.
We had stopped at the first grocery store to look for the bars he likes for his pre-STEM class. No luck. We now went across the street to the new one, and found them there. As he walked down the stairs there were a couple of women on break there. One has big long extensions in her hair and August pointed right to them and commented on her having long hair and a wig. She took it well, and on the way back she asked if he wanted to touch them. He declined.
We walked back through the residential streets in the middle of town. There was a lot of stopping to look at crane flies and snails on the way back. And more beetles by where he found the rusty hoe blade a few weeks ago. He also asked me to have big arms like David. I politely explained that bulk doesn’t necessarily mean strength, and that DNA has a lot to do with body shape. David was in the Navy, but is also a pastry chef, so didn’t pass judgment on his arm strength vis a vis mine, but was able to convince August I was strong from lifting him. This, of course, backfired, as August wanted me to carry him the last full block to school, telling me he was helping give me more exercise.
We got back at 2:50 and after stopping at the library to go to the bathroom, went down to the classroom. They played with the math boards for a few minutes then went into STEM. I went out on the bench. At 4 he ran out and excitedly told me that they had used the printer/calculator parts that we had given Andrea a couple weeks ago and put them in playdough. They had made the playdough, then made things using the parts. She said August’s started as entirely abstract, then turned into a satellite.
He played with the math boards until everyone was picked up, then I talked briefly to Andrea about when (assuming today is the start of something) about when to extend his time. She said we’d continue with the half days through the week. I’d like to push to 12:30 ASAP as long as he’s doing fine with the second meeting.
We went to the library and he looked at the electronic bits art again, wondering which parts were from the bag of parts he had given Heather. (She had particularly said that a student had found the right parts for the eyes of one of them.)
Bar came out and gave him a nice hug again. Probably the tenth of the year, but they are all very stealthy and I haven’t gotten one on camera. In the library we looked for a Bone book, but they still don’t have 3. He started setting up a big game on the rug of squares, which was cool. But he started to pull books off the shelves for it. I tried to stop him, and he immediately got upset. Carly arrived just at that moment and I picked him up and handed him to her. She took him into the empty classroom in the library and they spent a lot of time discussing how we treat books, and she called them the librarians’ babies. They spent a lot of time acting it out, with him being a baby book and her being a librarian. While I tried to figure out where they went I ran into Zoe and briefly talked to her.
We all walked home. He’s really into identifying cars now, by type. A new one is ‘sports car’. As we walked down Vatikim he saw a Mustang and said, “Sports car. Convertible.” As we walked the bath between blocks he said “Maybe a meteorite…” broke the street light. He brought up bullet trains, and Carly mentioned that he’d been in the womb when we’d ridden the fast train to Busan. That reminded me of a few days ago when he had spotted Ms. Rena getting on her motorcycle. She’d asked if he’d been on a motorcycle. He said “Well, maybe when I was in my mama’s womb…”
We got home and he watched something on YouTube. When we got dinner ready he chose to pause it and joined it. In the kitchen he then made a small soup or something and they had it warming in the oven. I was working on the PTA website. Carly took him up and he played and she gave him a bath.
I came up as he was going to the bathroom and explaining how you make pee. It had a lot of ingredients, including “distilled pollen” and lots of chemicals/molecules we don’t know.
He said goodnight to her. In bed he discussed his micrometer, which turned out to be able to measure really, really big things. I explained then name, and that that should then be called a ‘megameter’. He liked that. He got on the subject of his planet and said that people had tried to settle there, but had all died, because something about the air molecules: “It was a good try though.”
Carly had reminded us light off at 8. When it turned 8 I said I needed to turn the light off or I’d get in trouble. He then jumped on me so I couldn’t get up, and at 8:01 he was giggling like crazy and went to tell Carly that I should have a timeout because I didn’t follow the rule.
Back in bed he was talking about all of the world records he has: brightest light ever, etc. He ended with, “lotionest lotion ever.”
He asked me for story from school and I told him about getting to go, in 4th grade, to the Museum of Flight before it opened. I’d been meaning to tell him of this since we had made space suits, which looked kind of like his robot suit. I talked about how we had made a space constitution, and he asked if I had agreed with all the laws. I said I hadn’t, but then he asked what the rules were, and he got upset when I didn’t remember. He tried to leave the room, but I got him back on the bed and he rolled over and was asleep right at 8:30.
On the dirt hill:
Climbing on the hill:
His world records:
