He was up just before 8. Got him set up on his chair with his banana and english muffin, and surprised him with an Altoid for the nose. He asked, “How many seconds in 59 minutes?” We discussed how to solve it, then he asked, “50.25?” When he went to the bathroom he dragged me with him, then asked “Can you be Brother having a case of the ‘give-mes’?”
We went downstairs for a Brother game, where Brother had “A mathematical emergency.” We played for awhile, then he wanted to watch Wanda and the Alien. He leaned against me as he watched and I found some fractal and other scientific modeling apps to show him later. Carly came down, and I took a shower.
When I came up, I found his water bottle on the landing. He had fussed about carrying it up, and it only made it that far. He was sitting on his perch, watching Inspector Gadget. I sat in the chair and he put his feet on my shoulder as he watched.
Got him downstairs for some Brother and Bar game. More of the mathematical emergency, as Bar was doing “replays” so he could see the math test before he had to take it. Carly came down and he ended up wrestling with her. It turned out that we had competing plans for taking him on a walk: me to do geocaching, her to get popcorn. He chose geocaching. But first, we played with the laser pointer for the cats. No cats around, so we were pretending to be the cats and catching it.
The three of us left at 11:40. We walked into town, and August and I started looking for one of the geocaches by the wooden church and book store. Carly went on to Safeway to buy broccoli. August and I found it, and he signed a big ‘A’. We then went over and found a second one by the KOZI building. There was a farmer’s market in the parking lot across the street, and talked about going over there and looking for snacks. We walked over there, but no snacks. I called Carly and she was leaving Safeway, so she met us at the corner.
August didn’t want to go to the book store, and very reluctantly let us walk across the old bridge so I could see how it has been changed. At the other end he dug in his heels and refused to go around the park. We had to go back the way we came. That was rather frustrating.
When we got back Mom was talking to Dee. We played a little solitaire on their computer. We went out and tried getting Iris to play with the laser pointer. I picked her up and brought her inside, and he was hiding in the pantry, shining the laser pointer. She wouldn’t play with it though and eventually I let her head back outside. I was going out to the garage to work. August stood in the pantry and I told Carly I thought he was a little sad. She went in to him, and ended up pretending to be a cat playing with the laser pointer.
While I worked, he also ate broccoli and English muffin, did 5th grade story problems (that Carly simplified a little0, worked with her on understanding slope of a line (although he wanted her to explain harder graphs). And Mom got out the rock collection, but he wasn’t too excited about that.
I came in before 4. He was excited for a brother game: “I was waiting for you.” We went downstairs and we played with the laser pointer. He was the cat Silky. There was an Odesza song playing and he added it to his playlist, then claimed he made the music and explained how he made different sounds. We were then playing games where Brother found a baby dragon. But most exciting was finding out that the alarm clock in the room played sleep sounds. His favorite, of course, was the fan sound. And we found out that the alarm clock could project on the ceiling. We set the clock, and he played with it. We went upstairs after 5.
August saw the vacuum cleaner in the living room and exclaimed, “That’s why it’s so clean! They vacuumed!” He discovered the pantry and asked why there are chips in there. So we each had some Doritos. Outside I saw the rocks that Mom had gotten out earlier. He asked me to hide one with a note just for him. I did one, and just gave a hint and he managed to find it. I had written a note that said ‘I love you a ton of chips.’ But it was the wrong kind of note, as he meant one that he could redeem for something to eat. So for the second he could redeem it for two frozen strawberries. For the third I hid it under the leaking beach ball and for the hint said “psssssssss”. I wouldn’t tell him more, but said he should go ask people inside. He went in, and eventually came out with “leaking air” and found it. He got two Altoids with that one.
Iris was in the grass, and we got her to play with a stick and a string. Not as much as August would have liked, but a bit. He brought up ‘altitude’ and we discussed that again. Carly had cooked Brussels sprouts and he ate three of them right away.
I went downstairs, expecting him to follow, but he never did. I started watching some of the Formula E race from Switzerland. He ended up playing with a string and with Paul. Paul came down and watched some of the race with me, and we discussed Formula 1.
Went up for dinner. We had talapia, rice, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli. As we ate, outside, he said, “Food is the secret to life”. Somehow ‘pi’ came up and he started having Carly memorize it. He was a pretty good helper, for awhile, and she had 12 or so digits down at one point. He was then typing on my phone and trying to get Gramma to memorize a random number he typed. First he tried it with Carly, but he didn’t like it when she tried to break it into 2 number chunks on the phone.
Inside he went to the bathroom. Carly was with him and asked him why he got upset on the walk. He claimed that the reason he doesn’t like to walk is always because it might rain. He was then still hungry and had a second dinner of Brussel sprouts and rice.
I did some dishes then went downstairs for awhile, then when I went back up he was playing on the graphing calculator. Carly had given him a bath and washed his hair. He asked about one graph and we discussed ‘amplitude’ and ‘period’ as math words of the day.
We watched part of a ‘What on Earth?’ show and saw a segment about a big crack in the ground, which might be caused by groundwater depletion. He talked about that, and we went down and played a Brother game that involved a “hyperdrill”. He was playing with the alarm and turned on the fan noise again. Carly came in at 9:10. She liked the time on the ceiling (he changed it three hours ahead, and said it was the time on My Planet) and convinced him to listen to the thunderstorm instead. I left them by 9:20.
Remembering the geocache and throwing his shorts:
Finding a geocache:
Jumping off the bed:
Alarm clock on the ceiling:
Notes and rocks:
Playing with Iris 1:
Playing with Iris 2:
Singing in the dark and time on his planet:
