He called me up at 7:15. I came in the bedroom and he sat on the pillow on the lower bed. I sat on the bed and put the blanket around me, and he crawled in my lap. He then lay down on the pillow and rested. Thought he might go back to sleep. Instead, he asked, “Could you carry me?”
Downstairs we played with the money truck—the truck he designed yesterday with the magnet blocks and taught me and Carly how to make. It holds all of his coins. We then read the Elephant and Piggie book Are You Ready to Play Outside? and part of Timepocalypse. He then had a store where he exchanged different currencies. He said it was a “a going to other countries store.” He played a little of his train game and started watching something but then pancakes were ready. He ate two of my cinnamon pancakes, but had wanted Swedish pancakes.
Over on the white board he read my funny phrases out of the letter magnets: ‘smelly tooth’ and ‘mad donut’. I was still adding to the latter when he started to steal letters. We played with the magnet blocks and he wanted to build the big thing in the photo. It turned out we’d need at least two sets to do so, but we did a reasonable approximation. That ended with him knocking it over.
He then headed outside. He then showed me the “arcade” game he’d made with a string and broom under the slide. You had to pull the broom to you without it falling off and you got two lives. We did that, then he went in and got more string and added it. He kept adding more and more. He made another game where he tied a flower pot to a string and it hung from a stick suspended between the slide and fence and you were supposed to swing it back and forth without hitting the slide. He had me tie the end of one string to a branch of the tree. He spent quite awhile on it.
We went inside and he played with a circuit set. He did an entire project on his own, although he kept asking me if each piece was right. He just needed some confirmation, as I didn’t have to correct him at all. The final project didn’t quite work as it was supposed to, however, as he had had to substitute a capacitor for the one that was broken. He was okay with that, then proceeded to add every piece that is three dots long to it. He then hooked our two iPads together with the audio cord, then we watched a StoryBots video of songs about space (https://youtu.be/n1MaZRxWhbE)
He watched Smurfs, then finally went to the bathroom at 11:30. Shmuel called to talk about the air conditioner. We then played a Brother and Sister tiger game after he found the neck pillow. We played with the coin car again. For some reason the Peg + Cat 1 to 20 song was stuck in my head, so I was singing it, but intentionally messed up the words. That was driving August crazy and he’d say “No!’ and sing it correctly.
He made the beds and then read What Is That? for his chores. He then had oatmeal for lunch and I had cereal. He then asked about bank robberies, which led to asking about how wars start, which then changed to asking if the Titanic was real. And we looked up how many people it held and how many the biggest ships now hold. He said he had a huge cruise ship called the Crater, and asked what a ‘crater’ is and how they are made. So we discussed the possibilities.
We got ready to go and left at 1:30. He asked “Do tigers not liked to be shaved?” He said he had learned it from StoryBots. We listened to Odesza on the way, and it took awhile: traffic on the way there, then the west side parking lot was gated with guards, I thought for an event. We drove all the way around to the east side of the park and parked, only to find that the first two entrances were zip tied shut. Luckily, there was a third one close to the playground that had a guard on it, and we were let in. I assume it is just heightened security due to the Independence Day holiday. Mostly seemed for show, however, as all a terrorist would need to get to the crowded playground was a pair of scissors. We were finally in the park at 2:20.
We went to our usual game there of buying things for a spiderweb house. We would run back and forth between the spiderweb and the different ‘store’ areas. We would then rest in the spider web. There was sticky black stuff coming off of the posts and he stuck the fingers of my hand together with bits of it, then operated to fix my hand. I then did it to him. I pushed him on the round thing a couple times, once with a smaller kid who also got on. He went on the rocking toys, and asked to go to the bathroom. We had seen kids spraying each other with silly string, and coming out of the bathroom August found the cans scattered on the ground. When we had a snack he took the bar and divided it into nicely equal halves, singing a song about making the bar halves even as he did so.
We headed out, but stopped at the exercise equipment for a few minutes. When he wanted the elliptical I was on I made him ask politely and wait. He then wanted me to do the same with him.
We left at 3:30. He was shrieking when he posted a little dog between us and the car. As we got to the car (we got past the dog with me holding him0 he said, “Did you know I made a Dion ship?” “As tall as a skyscraper.” He said it was Dion shaped, but a ship inside. I seem to remember him making something else in the shape of Dion before.
We drove over to Tiv Taam. Good sign that the parking lot had lots of space in it, bad sign that there weren’t any carts out front. We had lucked out and gotten a cart by the car that someone had left in the parking lot. It was really busy inside. August handled it well, and it was probably an hour between when we got there and when we were able to leave. August did great, and as we circled back by the bulk Russian candies, I let him choose one. He had a lot of choices, and ended up choosing one that he said was pure chocolate.
We headed home and got here by 5:30. We stopped at the strawberry stand and got a couple boxes. They’re still going strong, although the season should be over soon. He went outside with Carly and I made dinner and put away groceries. Inside he read The Old Truck, What Is That?, and another book to Carly. We had our schnitzel and broccoli for dinner.
I delivered a strawberry as he made a ship out of magnet blocks for Carly at the table. We then finished reading Timepocalypse. Carly tried to read Dogman to him (they’d read a bit earlier) but he was being squirmy on the couch. He finally settled down and they did some reading. I went upstairs to rest for a few minutes. As I was coming down, I heard them talking about coming up, and heard him say he wanted Carly to carry him so he could be scared on the stairs. I turned the lights off, before they had started, but it startled them and he did a lot of screaming. I took hm upstairs and we wrestled and started the Brother and Sister game over again.
In the bathroom he asked, “what’s a deserted island?” So deserted was a word of the day. He made another drain fly potion and talked about how it was spreading away from our house. We washed him and he brushed his teeth. I read Paddington Bear and the Grand Tour and Carly came in and I left them at 9:15.
I think I forgot to mention that a day or two ago, in response to him asking about the disco dancing in Timepocalypse, we had watched some videos on YouTube. That led to watching John Travolta dancing in both Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction. His first Quentin Tarantino film.
His outdoor arcade game 1:
His outdoor arcade game 2:
New version of his game:
Some silliness: