Wednesday, July 10: to the pool on a rainy day

He was up at 7:45. I had been up, but came back in the room to watch something. August ignored me this time and went out to find Carly. He came back in a minute later for his hummingbird. He had Rice Crispies and milk for breakfast. I sat next to him as he ate and he said “You’d be thousands of years old right now if you were from a caveman.” I got him seconds. He was then looking for his hummingbird. Couldn’t find it, but it showed up somehow.

Carly was teaching him about circumference. Got out the rulers from my parents at some point. The other kids all wanted them so he and Carly took them into the bedroom. At some point Colin wanted to play hide and seek with Cassie. When August started to follow Cassie, Colin got really upset and chased August, which caused August to get upset. Carly took him into the bedroom. When talking about holding him, ‘restrain’ was a word of the day, as was ‘infrastructure’ a while later when he was trying to watch something on Netflix and it wasn’t working and we talked about internet infrastructure for the island.

He watched Craig of the Creek. It was the episode with the water fight at the creek, and a character says “What an aggressively sweet thing to say.” August chuckled and said “Ha. Aggressively.”

After a couple of those he wanted to go downstairs with the other kids. He just watched from the landing for awhile. Carly went down with him. He pushed Derek when he asked him to move something And Carly brought him upstairs. He was then drawing circles with her and said “All circles have 360 degrees, big or small.” He also drew different lengths of lines to show us different lengths. He then invented ‘tigonometry’ – the study of squares and had new names for sine, etc.

Chuck made milkshakes for all the kids and they loved those. He asked me “What’s ‘stickler’?” A word from Craig of the Creek. We then read Shivers book two on the couch, with most of the other kids listening. I read 3 chapters. He then wasn’t interested in the video the others were watching. That would happen a couple times during the day. We went in the bedroom instead. Did some scientific calculator and synth. Then a Brother game with a girl that could sense things.

We went out and he had some mixed cereal with milk, then we read chapter 4 of Shivers

Carly and Thatcher played cards and discussed school. August said his least favorite part was morning meeting. His favorite: “Choice time and recess time. Cuz you know what I do? Watch. I walk around and just watch…it’s my super favorite part…almost never playing…I’ve got a super time lapse…” When I asked if he wanted to play cards with me he replied “I’m card gamed out.”

When we said we were going to get ready for the pool August was ready to go; he instantly stripped off his clothes. When I got his swim shirt on he said “Comfortable shirt…it’s super satisfying to rub on.”

He then came up with a change to how math works: “Since ‘plus zero’ doesn’t do anything I made it so ten plus zero is a hundred…another way of saying times ten…it makes sense!” Outside, he asked me “What’s a sticker?” Being funny. When I tried to explain that it is something that sticks to something else he said “But everything’s possible: it’s possible to take it off, and it’s possible to not take it off!” And he laughed at that. He’s been joking with the ‘everything’s possible’ line for a little now. I heard him saying something to Thatcher along those lines earlier.

I walked down to the clubhouse. I left at 3:35 and they drove by a few minutes later. I worked in the clubhouse, researching Palestinian women leaders, and they went swimming. August spent his time in the pool. Carly was able to go in the hot tub for a while. It was raining, and they got out when it was raining hard.

We drove back, and Carly took the circuit set inside. The other kids saw it and August wanted to do it. He was a little unsure about sharing it, but I talked to all of them about how we were going to make one of the patterns, and they would have to give up the pieces that were needed, and I assured him I’d make sure Kayla didn’t lose any pieces. They did a great job together, with Thatcher, Vivian, and him making the battery charger. I figured out a bit a later that they had one piece backwards so they weren’t actually charging it, but after I fixed that they took more turns cranking it.

Carly had made mac and cheese for dinner, along with broccoli and there was a salad. We all ate, eating plenty. Then there were big discussions about dessert. August had asked me for a treat, so I was planning to give him one of the things from the egg hunts, but it turned out there was ice cream and cones. August first insisted on a bowl, telling Cherie “That’s the way I prefer.” I then suggested he put the cone on top, and he really liked that idea: “Ice cream and a cone separate.” Which Vivian and Colin then repeated, not really knowing what they were asking for, I think. For flavor he chose rocky road over vanilla. He had asked my opinion and I said I would go with vanilla if I was having ice cream. He went with rocky road and later told me he had made the correct decision as it had marshmallow in it.

I found him playing with a car on the floor later. He was saying “We winned, we winned-ed” clearly trying to find the correct word. I said “won” and he said “oh yeah” then practiced that: “We won.” He then switched to “losed” and practiced “We lost” instead. The first time he’s seemed to care about getting those correct.

The others were talking about going for a walk, and when I asked if he wanted to go he surprised us by saying yes. We got ready to go, and as we waited outside the front of the house he and Thatcher were daring each other to do funny walks and runs and the such. We were walking at 6:50.

He took the stroller down. They went down on the beach, and I sat on a bench overlooking it. They ended up roaming over to the tidal pool. Chuck and Colin had gone over to the rope swing area, then had an otter run in front of them, down to the water. They sort of followed it as it swam all the way over to the tidal area. I came down after them. The otter casually went up the tidal stream, going on shore a couple times, and was looking for food right in front of all of us and the other moms that were there with 5 kids and a big dog. The dog, named ‘Ettu’ (sounded like ‘Et tu, Brute?’) dove at the otter in the water once. The otter swam down the stream a little, but then turned around and continued on into the tidal pool. The kids did a great job of keeping a distance. They followed it out, walking out on the sand spit into the pool. In total we watched it for a good 15 or 20 minutes.

On the way back he asked me to pick him up, rather for a hug, and I ended up carrying him the whole way back. He asked when we were doing s’mores (tomorrow) and then we spent the whole walk talking about s’mores and his favorite parts. He concluded that “My first favorite part of making s’mores is eating them. My second favorite part is collecting wood.” He also talked about liking putting the sticks in the fire and putting it out with water, and how he likes burnt marshmallows. I told him we’d definitely plan to camp, etc. with my parents next summer as he clearly missed it.

Back at the house I got out the big bag of almonds. He, Thatcher, and Vivian all ended up eating a bunch. He was singing “Do the JP” and doing some dance moves from Craig of the Creek. He was joking with Cassie about being his mama. When she suggested hugging her, he at first refused, but then went up to her and gave her a couple of his signature arm hugs—the most he’s ever hugged her. He was afraid of her tickling him, and they talked about not liking getting tickled, so they made a pact not to tickle each other. ‘Pact’ was another new word.

Cherie and him and then Colin discussed their superpowers and were getting pretty hyper. Colin had the best line though: “My power is naked man!” When we got back from our walk he had greeted us from the deck, naked. August and Thatcher ate some apple slices, then Chuck cut some more.

I gave him a bath, which was nice and quick. August Sang to 20, then “decimal point, decimal point, negative seventy and you…”

In on the bed he did Khan Academy with Carly. Vivian came in and they all worked on subtraction with negative numbers together. Vivian left at 9:05, but came back after flossing. Carly was drawing a number line, and they were doing more Khan Academy. Cassie came and got Vivian after 9:30. I helped get August in bed and I left them for a while. Carly sung to him, and he was still awake when I came back in at 10, saying “Dada?” That was the last I heard from him though and he was asleep a few minutes later.

Drawing lengths: