He woke up at 6:45. I carried him downstairs and he fell back to sleep on the couch until 7:45. We discussed Carly’s fake birthday. I suggested something amusing, and he said, “Dada, you know one of those toys that has a clown that pops up? We will get one of those.” He meant a jack-in-the-box. A great idea, but might have to wait for another year.
We read the first 50 pages or so of Monsters Beware again. I was hungry for breakfast so we paused. I got him frozen mango, and he told me he needed the Apple Pencil. He had invented a symbol for agorot and wanted to draw it. He drew that, then watched an episode of Wild Kratts. We then went upstairs and played Brother and sister games. Brother discovered another animal “Mannakin tiger…it’s the most beautiful thing on the planet.” It was his third new species, after the Blue Mook and the blue-footed, blue-beaked woodpecker. So the next one Sister found first, when they found a spotted bird stuck in plastic on the beach when they were on vacation. Sister had to perform CPR, then they took it home and cleaned it and bandaged it and then took it to the vet for further care.
We didn’t go down until after 10. He watched another Wild Kratts, then we played some Prodigy Math. He has gotten down telling time in 5 minute increments pretty well, and was converting between time units (years, weeks, days, hours). I wrote the rates on the whiteboard as a reminder, although he knew some already. He was also estimating months based on number of weeks quite well.
For lunch he had a slice of pizza, several carrots, and I made a mango and strawberry smoothie that was really good. When he finished all of his lunch he had one of the coconut cookie things.
We played our few minutes of Green Planet, and at some point he randomly asked “What does ‘on the double’ mean?” I think he heard it from me or Carly, as he specifically said “get washed on the double.”
Outside, I stretched more paint out of the tubes and managed to just cover all the visible parts of the chair.
He made Tabletop on my iPad, then we got ready to go. He asked, “How many elements are there in the book of elements? You know, the periodic table?” I told him it was 118. He then told me about the three he discovered: EP(PS), septon, and tython (30 times the strength of steel). It keeps explosions out of the house. Then there was a fourth called magnathon.
We drove down and parked in the Tiv Taam lot. We walked up to Max and were quite successful shopping. For Carly we got a green bag, then all sorts of green-themed fun things: a bag of marbles, a bag of bouncy balls, a rubber-band powered plane launcher, a pinwheel kit, a green squishy frog, and a handheld thing that launches balls up in the air and then you can catch them. We got two of those, so we could try to play catch. We also got a big bucket of the fast fuse beads. I had told August he could choose one item. He looked at some odd porcelain llama piggy banks, but settled on a pack of 6 colors of decorative tape.
We headed home. At home I ironed the fabric for the chair and got it set up outside. August and I then made a ‘Happy Fake Birthday’ sign for Carly. August chose the colors, and then used a marker to add to the bottom, making shapes. He then wanted to use the things from Max to decorate. I went up and got the bag, and he glued on the little balls and flowers.
We were still working on that when Carly was walking home. August said he would call her and tell her to wait outside until we were done. So he used my phone to do that. He was hungry, so was actually eating a piece of pizza and more smoothie when Carly got home. I took out the food from Younes to her, along with some smoothie.
We finished the sign, and hung it up on the freezer. He went and invited her in. She looked at the presents. They started with the airplane, and took it outside. They then opened the bouncy balls and were bouncing those around. He was tossing them off the slide. I went inside, and he started playing with the hose on the slide. He got totally soaked and kept playing.
When they came in she got clothes for him. I went upstairs and rested. They played Prodigy Math together, and soon after I came down Carly skyped with her parents.
After that, Carly went up for a shower. He ate carrots, frozen strawberries, and oatmeal for dinner. We discussed the terms double, triple, quadruple, etc. after he asked what the word was for ‘four times’. He wanted to know what was past that, so I looked it up and found them for up to ‘eight times’ and for ‘a hundred times’ (centuple). I wrote them out in a chart for him. He also asked “What’s ‘heroic’ mean?”
As he went to the bathroom he told me he has classes in his lab: 2-yeae olds running and getting cookies. Hard math for older kids. He calls PE classes ‘PC classes’. A nice quirk.
He read Play Ball to me and we read Come In together. We went upstairs for brother and sister games. Brother was hurt by tigers and pythons and Sister saved him. A 24 hour timer went off on my watch, which he had set yesterday, and he set another one. Another quirk is that he says “tomorrow after that” for “the day after that”.
He told me all about different kinds of portals that he can make. And he asked, “What does ‘I’ll pass’ mean?” It’s fromMonsters Beware.
Carly gave him a bath, after he was out playing with the guitar for awhile. She got him some Cheerios as a snack, then decided she wanted to go to sleep when he did, so she convinced him with a little chocolate. I said good night to them about 9:10.
Making music 1:
Making music 2:
His new elements:
The popper things:
Mama’s fake birthday:
The airplane launcher:
Bouncy balls:
