Friday, June 28: breakfast at Apple Cup, me for a hike with Peter

August was up at 8:22. Peter had just come in. August wanted to play a Brother and Sister game after I was pretending he had super strength when he pushed me lightly. So there was a girl with super strength, then super hearing, then a stretchy neck. Brother was trying to get Sister’s diary and locket (not sure where he heard about lockets-Llama Llama?) and the girl could wrap around him like a snake.

When we went upstairs August went to his perch. He ate his English muffin and banana and watched a Cartoon. He went OT the bathroom, then was reciting random big numbers. I asked what he was doing and he said, “I’m just counting up to them.”

We got going to the Apple Cup a little after 9. August walked part way before realizing we didn’t have the stroller. I carried him on and off and he did okay walking.

I ordered the eggs bearnaise and Carly got the Swedish pancakes to share with August. He had been expecting waffles, but they were crossed out on the menu. Carly suggested the Swedish pancakes and he was fine with that, then halfway through eating asked what about the waffle. He put his head down on the chair for a few seconds, but handled it really well. I told Mom we should get the waffle maker out one day at home and surprise him.

The biggest surprise though was when I heard Gypsy Kyss’s “Somewhere with Somebody Else” on the radio system. I asked the waitress and she didn’t know anything about it, but apparently the boss/owner chooses the music.

We walked home. Carly sat in the sun and read. we stayed out on the deck and August discussed exponential numbers with Micah. ‘Exponential’ was a word of the day. Micah talked about exponential growth of germs, and August went and got his Human Body app—he remembered the germs and wanted to see if they divided (we also discussed ‘mitosis’) every minute like Micah described. They don’t in the app, but he played with that, then played CivRev by himself, on the deck.

I greed to go inside with him, and he was being picky about what we did and where. He eventually sat on his perch and played MathTango while I read. He then watched Wanda and the Alien. We were all going to go for a drive out to 25 Mile creek, but then it rained a little. August declared he wasn’t going, and Carly wasn’t excited about it either. We entered negotiations, and I got August out in the garage with Dad, watching him put some solder on the copper railings he is making for the porch stairs.

Peter drove, and we headed out to along the south shore. We drove out to the guardhouse, then headed up the Shady Pass Road. We saw the North Fork trailhead and stopped. Found some bones, and then some more at the trail. Took a photo of Peter holding a backbone in front of the Devil’s Backbone sign.

We didn’t know where we were going, and joked about how unprepared we were. There were a couple families coming down the trail though, so we figured there was something to see not too far away. We walked about a mile and a half until we got to where the first water system was put in. We looked around there, then continued on up the trail a bit, over where there are the concrete bricks in the path, then turned back as the weather was more threatening.

We heard several rolls of thunder on our walk back, felt a few drops, and heard a hawk or something. A nice walk back, and the rain never hit. Back in the car we drove down to the nearby campground. Saw some motorbikers, then when we turned around and came back one was on the ground. Peter stopped to see if they needed help. He had gotten nauseous on the drive down. Figured it was just vertigo and he seemed like he was doing okay, so they said we could go.

While I was gone they’d done a bunch of everything. Out in the shed, Mom later told me, he had been pretending to make things on the lathe. First he made a bowl for her, then she asked for a cup to go with it. He said something like “I put a picture of your daughter in it so you can remember her. She died.” And said it with a serious voice. Can’t figure out where that idea came from, although he had brought up lockets earlier, and I mentioned keeping a picture of someone in one.

We were home at 3:40. August had been asking when I’d get home, but then wasn’t worried about it once he knew, and when I came in they were doing something on the iPad and he told me “shoo fly.” But a few minutes later he wanted a Brother game. We went downstairs, and he decided that Zero’s (who is digital) weakness was electrical interference, so there were a series of scenarios of her getting too close to an electrical box and fainting. Her other weakness was tht she can’t touch things, so when Brother got hurt she couldn’t help him until she turned human again. He ended by talking about “No Power Day.” That sounded good, but then he extended it to No Power Week, then Month, then Year. Then he said that when you mange to use no power for a year, you then used no electricity for the rest of your life.

We went upstairs and read someThe 65-Story Treehouse. Peter and Micah took a walk to the book store. I had put the Desmos graphic calculator app on his iPad, and he got fascinated with that, and played with it with Mom. He called it his work, and when I told Carly they were playing with the graphing calculator he objected: “I’m not playing around! I’m doing my work!” And said, “It’s my iPad from robot school and it’s six and a half million years old.” Talking more about his work: “My work is mainly about integrated calculus.”

Carly mainly made the spaghetti and veggies for dinner, and we all ate outside. August was doing random math questions. Peter, Micah, and I talked about our hike and I mentioned the bones. August said, “Here’s the rule: if you see any bones in the wilderness, don’t touch them.” We had started dinner a little earlier so Peter and Micah could get going a little earlier, but Paul still got home as we were eating and was able to join us.

Peter and Micah left before 7. August did more math and watched some Wheel of Fortune. We played a Brother and Zero game downstairs, but it turned into mainly doing math and Khan Academy. He was then jumping off the bed.

I gave him his bath. He put all the toys in again, and it was his “International band”, fighting the water. We had time to watch the end of the murder mystery show (the Father something one) that my parents had been watching. He had been reluctant to leave it to take a shower in the first place. He had an english muffin and frozen strawberries, then peanuts after Dad had some.

He told Mom she could trick him to get a hug, so we did that, then ‘surprised’ Dad with a hug from both of us, then headed to bed. Downstairs he asked about the oldest and heaviest people in the world, so we looked them up. Got his teeth brushed, and I left them at 9:35. A little later I heard them talking about what he wants to be in the future. I heard Carly ask, “What about being a scientist?” He replied, “I already am a scientist.”

Coloring and favorite numbers: