He got up at 7:30. I went up and got him and brought him down to Carly on the couch. He watched an episode of Wild Kratts, he favorite about the subnivean zone, then played a little Dragonbox Numbers. Done with that he walked around the room and then told me “Dada, I’ll tell you what ten to the 9th power is: a billion. Ten to the 7th power: ten million…” And a few more. He also told me “On My Planet time is slower…” and discussed that for awhile. He asked, “What’s alternate?” (From Ben Braver, where we learned about an alternate time line) and told me “My Planet has an alternate universe.”
I made the rest of the swedish pancakes for his breakfast and he had frozen mango. We read moreBen Braver. He walked around talking about his powers and photomiles and atomic explosions. “My third power, my last one, is to transform into a bird. Oh, and I give people rides for two dollars each. Crazy rides.” We did some taking apart (slow progress on the big printer throug the day), calculator math, then Green Planet. We made a list and Carly went to the store. We finished readingBen Braver. We did mango, crackers and meat, and his sandwich from yesterday for lunch.
Carly got back and I put groceries away. They were playing with the calculator on his phone, and Carly figured out that its limit was 160 digits. August said “That’s a googol and a nonillion and a nonillion.” He meant multiplication, but was basically correct, as a googol times a nonillion times a nonillion is 10^160. That comes from one day when he was figuring out these huge problems and really understood the math of calculating the number of zeroes.
He was then looking around on his map on the phone, finding places. He must have noticed the battery was down, as he then went and plugged in his phone. Carly tried a couple new chapter books on him. He said they sounded good, but wouldn’t let her read them to him at any point today. She also ordered the swim vest for the summer, after we all agreed on which design we liked best. Also, in playing with Siri he somehow added a random Natalie Grant song to our library.
They headed to the pool. They had fun, although it was rather chilly. He took bout 20 minutes to get in, so by the time he got in Carly was the first to want to get out. They saw Omri and her mom, and August got an invite to Omri’s party next Saturday. I looked over Carly’s paystubs for the year, trying to figure out if she got all of her reimbursements, then did some work. Working on family unification now.
They were back at 2:40. He watched a Wild Kratts. I let him finish the episode. He was hungry and I was in the kitchen to get him some food. When I said no to more time, or Polytopia or something, he ran over, upset. He seemed to be handling it okay at first, but kept melting down, then head-butted my chin quite hard. Carly took over and I went upstairs and worked. She made him a smoothie, then did some MathTango with him, 5 minutes at a time, with 15 minutes in between, timed. He was practicing being okay with turning it off. In between they were doing math on the floor, with numbers and symbols made out of paper. August thought the equals sign looked like a double minus, so he also made up a double plus sign, double multiplication, and double division.
He and I then played chess with the wooden set. We just started playing against each other. We were probably 10 or 12 moves in before I made the mistake and referred to “your” piece. He said “You’re not playing against me. NO COMPETITION.” And insisted we reset the game. So officially he was helping me play against myself. He reset again as he was trying to make a perfect pawn chain, but made a mistake. He was timing our chess time, and once when it went off he went outside for a few minutes. I got him back and we did a lot more chess, now on my iPad. He played by himself, seeing how quickly he could lose. He managed to lose in 6 moves, which was quite impressive, as the computer plays really easy. When he did another game he called it “Another dumb game of chess”
We then did a lot of taking apart. He was being lazy and watched me doing it, and said he was my boss. He then had an idea. We went outside and got a bamboo stick, then we went upstairs and found his big magnet from the set and he used scotch tape to tape it to the stick. He could then sit in the chair and I would put the screws on the magnet so he could get them more easily. A big printer/scanner/copier is amazingly complicated.
Carly was making spinach and chocolate pancakes, and he ate a couple for dinner. While he ate I started reading the first Ben Braver book to him again, at his request. We then went upstairs for a Brother and Sister game. He first had me take him into the bedroom, then close the shutters and turn off the light. A totally dark room. He tested himself in that for awhile, then we turned on the light and played a game where they found a lynx. They found it after Sister had lectured him about how their parents had said no bringing home animals no matter what. When they find the lynx in a trap it is then Sister’s idea to take it home, and Brother is upset because of how she just lectured him, but then changed her mind. We then replayed it, this time with Brother finding it on his own.
We took showers, and I washed his hair in the shower this time. This is such a great development. Carly took over drying his hair, and I went downstairs for a few minutes. When I came up he excitedly told me “In my lab I invented a game of tug of war. The losers get blown up by an atomic explosion. The winners get 300 dollars!” The tug of war and explosion bit is basically taken from the climax of the second Ben Braver book, but the 300 dollars, and turning it into a game as opposed to a struggle to defeat the villain, was a joke that he added. I left them at 9:20. He was chatty, and I think he was asleep by 10.
Negative math time:
Multiminus and multiplus:
Turning the gear with the drill:
