He was up at 7:38. Took a few minutes on the couch, then we read the rest of Monster on the Hill. He asked for the other breakfast pastry from Omar, so we shared that. August asked me how I thought they make them. He then wanted to play Dragonbox Big Numbers with him. To be honest, I’ve grown pretty tired of that game. But he’s continuing to work on his math with it.
He watched Berenstain Bears and Llama Llama, then had oatmeal. We read a picture book called Hello Hello together, with him doing a lot of it. He told me “Did you know I made a robot that breaks gumball machines?” August then gets the gumballs. He wanted to do the filter experiment we’ve been talking about. I realized we could use two-liter bottles as our tubes, and we could get some at the mall. August has been asking for more fizzy water.
He then remembered the little phone stand/tripod adapter he had found upstairs last night. He wanted to try it on his phone, so we got it and found an allen wrench and he adjusted it for his phone. He also wanted to put it on the tripod, and played around with the tripod. He then set up the glue gun to glue allen wrenches on a circuit board like legs. We then caught a moth in the house, and later cut up a grape for it, and later saw it drinking from the grape.
We then moved to taking things apart and looked at all the new tools, speculating on what they were for. We listened to the new Guided by Voices. We discussed our schedule for the week, and he wants the field trip to be tomorrow. We then watched a Ted-Ed video about the domestication of dogs
. We had talked about animal domestication yesterday. He went to the bathroom and made art for the yard in his lab. We then worked on pronouncing ‘three’ and ‘free’, putting his tongue between his teeth for the ‘th’.
Back on the rug he made a cool cross sort of shape out of the Legos. He had destroyed the skyscraper, and we were finding pieces from the ‘rubble’. He asked what that means, and it was a word of the day. Later in the day he remembered ‘rubbish’, and we discussed the difference. I asked him if he could read the challenge word I put up on the whiteboard, and he looked over and immediately read ‘spider’.
I started making a little chart of odd and even numbers, and he needed help reading ‘odd’. I started writing the numbers, from 1, and placed them in the proper column. August totally explained that one is odd because you can’t divide it any more. I did 1 to 6, then he took the marker from me and completed the chart, writing 7 to 10 in the correct spots. The pattern totally worked with him, and later with Carly he was explaining how the numbers alternate back and forth odd and even.
We then did the Brother and Sister seal game. They were chased by tigers, floated at sea, and the seal fed them along the way and led them to a new island.
We got ready to go, and he drank a bunch of water. He showed me and explained how he could fill his mouth with water but then drink it slowly. As we put on his shoes, he asked me if I like them, or am impressed that he’s wearing them. He’s done this several times. I said something about his sandals and crocs being easier to put on. He said, “So I really like my tennis shoes. Please don’t stop me from wearing them.”
I was figuring out what we needed at the store, and mentioned raisins. I looked to see if we had any in the cupboard, but August asked to see his snack bag. He opened the bottom and there was a box of raisins in there. He said he remembered them from when he would look in his bag at snack or to get his straw and it would be in there.
Earlier, he had said we would walk to the mall, but then take the car to school. He changed his mind, and so we took the car. We got to the mall, and headed to the barber. I had prepared him in advance: the barber gave him treats last time, but I told him that if that didn’t happen and he waited patiently we could get a treat at the candy stand. And that’s what happened. He watched while I got my hair cut, and picked up handfuls of it and played with it. He said, “It smells like you.” When it was done he said, “You look like a different person!”
We went out to the candy stand and he took a few minutes to decide. He decided on a little toy that looks like a phone, but has two buttons that pump water to push little rings up to float back down on poles. Attached was a little package of candies. I thought he might lose interest in it quickly, but he assured me he wouldn’t, and we agreed it was a sort of a science experiment to figure out how the pumps worked.
As we were leaving he was playing it and saying, “Ready for some TV time.” He said that’s what other kids say. Not sure who he’s talking about.
We remembered we were going to go to Tiv Taam, so we walked back and bought a few things. Mainly, we were going to get the two bottles of fizzy water for our water filter experiment. He talked me into flavored ones, and we got strawberry and pineapple.
We drove home, him playing, and that’s when we found the moth feeding from the grape, as August tried the strawberry-lime fizzy water. We then turned around and got on his bike and walked to school.
We got there abut 3:15. A bit early so we went and sat on the bench for awhile. Bar came along and gave August a hug. I then took August over to Carly’s classroom, then I went and met with Vicky for about 45 minutes. It was okay, and she shared some stories of how she, and another family, hadn’t been treated well by the elementary school.
I went back and heard singing coming from the bathroom. very loud singing. August took a few minutes to finish up, then we headed home. On the walk home we first found a really interesting flower, then August picked some tiny pea pod sort of things. When he wanted to show me the plant it came from, Carly kept walking home, and we went back to find it. Then, walking back home he spotted a dead part of a bush, lying in the park. It looked like a crazy pair of antlers and we took it home.
We got here at 5:15. He said it was “Barnwood…wood that’s attached to trees in crazy pieces.” Inside, we had more strawberry drink. We discussed our possible filter experiment. He had some good questions and lots of ideas. He was then putting me in detention, for some reason. We looked at his coins, and he remembered the set of drachma we had bought. I got that and we looked at it.
He had lots of energy, and we went up and wrestled and played on the bed. He noticed the picture of the bear on the covers of one of the beds, and said it was a boy because it looked tough. We discussed that, and we looked at a photo of a mama grizzly bear to show him that ‘tough’ isn’t a good way to judge. We ended up discussing bear attacks. When I assured him that bears only attack humans for food if they’re really ‘desperate’, ‘desperate’ was a word of the day. I also showed him a picture of the god Atlas, and we also talked about and looked at a picture of Discworld.
We played a little more, then headed downstairs. He had lasagna for dinner, and shared an artichoke with Carly. I learned that they had done satellite work in the middle school office. They used pens that were attached to the desk in there, and August observed that they could be taken off as, “Everything has a breaking point.” Carly speculated on what was the fattiest vegetable/fruit. We searched for it, and found avocados and olives. August asked how many hairs are on our heads, and the answer seems to be around 100,000.
He went to the bathroom and made “supersonic sunscreen” for me. It actually cures sunburn. We played the shopping game while I cleaned up in the living room. He was really into the math, so I didn’t ask him to help.
I then took him up for a bath. He wanted the stairway dark again, then he turned all the lights off upstairs. He then huddled on the bathroom floor and asked me to turn the lights off. He’d wait a few seconds and ask me to turn the light back on. Then off. Then on. It kept going, with him staying in the dark for longer and longer. He asked, “Are you proud of me?” He went and had Carly come up to watch him.
He played with soap in the sink, then I gave him a bath. He got his old toothbrushes and was scrubbing things. When he wanted more to clean, Carly suggested his stool. The white circles have turned grey. He spent a lot of time scrubbing them and they’re white again.
I headed down stairs as he finished that up, and Carly took over. He got a bit upset, the first time today, when he found out I had left. He talked about it, and then I came up and agreed to read to him for a few minutes. We read a hilarious chapter of Dog Man, then Carly came in and I left them at 9:15.
Tightening with the allen wrench:
How he drinks big drinks of water:
His new toy:
Mouth drinking from the grape 1:
Mouth drinking from the grape 2:
Hug from Bar:
Music in the bathroom:
Buying stuff with his money:
Getting used to the dark:
