He woke up enough at 3-something for me to have to get in bed with him. I was then awake when he got up at 7:05. He went to the bathroom and we went downstairs together. He cuddled with Carly on the couch for several minutes, then they went outside to check the tomatoes. I made pancakes, and we all ate pancakes and strawberries for breakfast. August then sat at the table making up music. He stacked up all the magnet blocks, then played with them with Carly. They were making planets out of them. August made a planet that moves around on wheels.
They then did an art project with a cardboard box and glue and string and the tile-like things from Max. Carly got cotton swabs for the glue, and got extra, so August of course asked her why, which she had predicted he would do. He was then making fun of her for getting extra: “There’s a cotton swab emergency!” I said I didn’t know where he learned such behavior, and blamed it on the cartoons these days. I then joked about how cartoons when we were kids were wholesome. August asked what ‘wholesome’ meant. So a word of the day. And he presented his really soft yarn, which he’d chosen at Max, but hadn’t yet used, to Carly and told her she could have it.
We played Hey, that’s My Fish! We then sorted the Bob Books so he could choose them in order and he read Ten Men. It is interesting, because all of the books he has already mastered (he has 4) are from the ‘Sight Words’ set, while this was from Set 3. He does seem to learn the sight words more easily than a book like this, which has a lot of rhyming words that look similar (like tent, went, and sent).
He then wanted to do the balloon egg drop again. He wandered off as I made it, so didn’t really help. They then watched as I tossed it out the window. This time, we moved it to the grass and popped the balloons one at a time. The egg was just fine. Success!
Inside he started to do big addition on his own: “30 plus 30 is 60, 60 plus 60 is 120, 120 plus 120 is 240, 220 plus 220 is 440, 440 plus 440 is 880.” We read the Elephant and Piggie book Let’s Go for a Drive with him doing a few words. He asked me to wrap a present for him. I agreed and figured I’d wrap one of the Max art supplies. He liked my wrapping job (in the foamy stuff he’d gotten at the junk pile) but wasn’t impressed with the gift itself. It was the colorful popsicle sticks, notched so you can build with them. I built a little, but he decided he’d use one to make a mango popsicle. We thawed mango pieces a little so we could stick them on, and he’d eat them. He wanted it really hard, so we put one in the freezer, and he set timers on his watch to remind us to take it out.
We ate some pita and hummus. He put pieces of the soft yarn (he had wondered how they make it so soft) between my ears and glasses and said that I look like a poodle. He wasn’t quite sure what a poodle was though, so we looked at photos of them.
He had caught what looked like a sort of small cockroach outside earlier, and it was moving around.
We read Gaston, as the talk of poodles had reminded me of it. We realized that we know 3 characters named Gaston, as he thought I was talking about Dragons Beware. And of course there’s also Beauty and the Beast.
We then read parts of the DK Space Travel book. He’s never really been into nonfiction books, but he responded positively to this, and they’re only 99 cents. So we also bought Solar System and Energy and will probably buy a bunch more. We watched a few videos of rocket launches and discussed the size of the space station.
I then went up to work. He was helpful with Carly. He did dishes for a point and watered plants. Carly made sushi for lunch, and he helped bring everything up to me.
They then walked to the mall to get a healthy snack. Aroma was closed, so they went to the other cafe near it, which we’ve never been to, and had lemonade. As they were leaving, I was taking a break from sitting at my desk to rearrange the office. I switched the wardrobe and the chair, so that when you walk in you now see the chair and not the side of the wardrobe. It looks nicer, and now Carly doesn’t have to look at my back when we’re both working in there.
They also went to Tiv Taam and got toothpicks, which I had suggested. August keeps remembering we don’t have toothpicks. They were back at 3:20. They were in the yard for awhile so I kept working. They came in, but then were back outside for quite some time. They had toast, and August yelled up from the yard through the window to ask if they could use the bread we had chosen for hot dog buns for toast. They also looked at the new Energy book and learned about heat.
I came down and August and I shared some tonic water. He was counting by 11s and doing other math problems. He went to the bathroom and I watched some videos of him at Children’s Grand Park. I had randomly remembered the day we had bought a spray bottle at Daiso and played with it. Thanks to locations, I was able to find it easily and we watched some videos from around that time.
He’s been playing a game with Carly where he rushes to the bathroom before her. Sort of a reverse psychology thing to get him to go to the bathroom when we need to go somewhere. Carly told him it wasn’t a game though that he could play with other people when there was just one bathroom, thinking forward to this summer, particularly with Vivian. He said it was okay though as he had put Vivian to sleep for a few years. When I said that didn’t seem desirable as then he couldn’t play with her, he first asked what ‘desirable’ meant, then agreed to wake her up.
He then put all of his coins in two plastic bags and gave one to me. We were then pirates stealing money from each other. Which was mainly him stealing from me. I gave up being a private and stated a pirate supply store. He used his money to buy things like parrots, rope, figureheads, etc. from me. a twist to the game was that I was still a pirate so I’d try to cheat him on his change, and he had to double check it to make sure I got it correct.
Carly had gone up to rest, but eventually he wanted to go to her. She said he could come up so he was with her for a few minutes. I then came up. He told me “You’re a poodle. An extra disturbing poodle.” Even though I didn’t have the yarn on me anymore. We wrestled and he did math and we started a brother and sister whale story.
I remembered I was going to make the sesame ginger dish for dinner. We went downstairs and I did that. He went outside with Carly to do a photo scavenger hunt out on the street. He found about 20 things and got 22 million points or so. For a lemon he had taken a photo of a broken one, but then said he could have taken a photo of an “intact” lemon.
The dish, mushrooms and broccoli in a ginger sesame sauce over egg noodles, turned out quite well. August either really liked it, or didn’t. He didn’t eat a lot, and said he tasted the pepper. He drank a lot of milk though, and said he liked the mushrooms, which he hasn’t liked for weeks and weeks.
He did some tracing of our words of the day on the iPad, then we read more of Amulet #7. He went upstairs to Carly for a bath. He told her about how boys are tougher, and she talked to him about stereotypes (a new word) and how ‘tough’ isn’t really important.
Carly actually decided to put him to sleep, so I gave him a bath. We then read two of My Very Own Fairy Stories. We brushed his teeth, and he found a 5 shekel coin in Carly’s little treasure box. He claimed it as his own. He wouldn’t part with it downstairs, but he handled it well and didn’t get upset and we agreed we could make a plan for earning it tomorrow.
Back upstairs I read “Too Many Daves” and “Pale Green Pants” from The Sneetches. Carly came in and I left them at 9:35.
Checking the egg drop:
Unimpressed by the gift:
Addition:
Checking my change giving:
Toothbrush music:
Counting songs 1:
Counting songs 2:
Counting songs 3: