He was up around 8:15, a little after the other two. I said good morning to him, then he went in the other room with Carly. Jeff made pancakes, and while asking August what fork he wanted (or spork, as August wanted) August sneezed, twice, right on the forks. I washed all of those.
He ate his pancake, then a second. He discussed wearing pajamas in Greenland (which he called Greekland) with Cassie. Not sure the whole gist of the conversation, although it started with her commenting on how he was wearing pajamas now, and Colin won’t even wear them in winter. They watched Smurfs, and we got ready to go to the pool. Out in the garage August clipped the “safety ribbon” to the tricycle again. We finally left at 10:50.
I drove with Jeff and Colin. Colin wanted to see the digger, so we went by the road construction site and it was still there. At the pool, we all realized we hadn’t brought floaties for any of the kids. So I drove back and got them. I got back to the pool at 11:50. I tried to take out two of the foam floaty things from his vest, but he spotted it visually before Carly even put it on him. He tried it for a minute, but then requested them back, so I replaced them. I got in the pool and was just about all the way in when everyone else got out for snack time.
They went and just got french fries. I studied Arabic over on the towels and only had a couple fries. I did it so I wouldn’t be tempted to eat a bunch of them. But when they were done Jeff came over and gave me the fry container, saying they’d saved some for me. Luckily, I was able to get August and Colin to eat most of them. They then all got lollipop things for their dessert for the day. August claimed ice cream was a candy, not a treat. Colin wanted me to take a photo of him giving a kiss. He recognized “Pumped Up Kicks” add we added it to his playlist. We discussed why it is sort of an inappropriate song. Colin’s lollipop had a sugar powder with it for dipping. He didn’t do that, but then August pointed out “ he’s dipping his french fry in sugar powder.”
They saw the little train going around, and all of us except Carly went to take a ride on it. We got three full laps of the park area, as it started to rain on the second time around and when that happens the brakes don’t work, so he couldn’t slow down for the ‘station’. So some extra ride for us. Good timing, as they packed up after we were done.
Vivian was going down the waterslide today, many, many times. She went back in the water, as did Colin. August couldn’t be convinced to do so. He walked around bored for a while. Jeff took the red car over to the hardware store for a bit. I remembered I had a set of story dice with us, and August and I did one story, “Dr. Figlemeister’s Sense of Humor”, then Vivian got out of the pool a couple minutes later.
We drove home past the digger again. At the house they used up the rest of their iPad time, doing a bunch of games. I was fine with that, as I watched the incredibly exciting German Grand Prix. When I went outside, Vivian and August were sitting on the little bench swing. They were supposed to be on a calculator app on Vivian’s iPad, but she was on some game. When I pointed that out, someone told her to get off. Sneakily, she tried to go out to the bamboo forest. Colin heard Jeff calling to her, and Colin ran out and chased her around the yard.
I got them in the trampoline. That went fine, and August walked across the grass in his barefeet a few times today. Momentous. It was a lot of exercise, and I was holding Colin’s hands, or feet. But then he wanted to be upside down, and he kept trying to make me hold him just by the feet as I jumped, no hands or head on the trampoline. I had had enough, and Jeff and I tag teamed and he took over.
Inside August and Vivian set up the fort to defend against the evil wizard. Carly made dinner (spaghetti and broccoli/cauliflower and corn on the cob). I studied Arabic and did some work. Vivian sang a “The evil wizard’s stupid” song as they attacked Carly. August then sang through the micorphone thing as well. Carly used the broken burner, which resulted in smoke. August ran out the front door: “Vivian said!” He remembered when there had been the small oven fire at Harstine and Vivian had run out of the house.
We all ate outside. Jeff used the word ‘epoch’, which August didn’t know. I couldn’t remember the slight distinctions between the words (some of which August and I had run into when first talking about words like ‘eon’ and ‘millennium’ so I looked up the Eon->era->period->epoch (shortest) progression and that ‘eon’ can also be a billion years. August also asked what ‘second-to-last’ meant. When Colin wasn’t getting out of the way when August and Vivian wanted to do tricks on the trampoline, we implemented a 30 second turn system, which I timed on my phone. Worked pretty well. Also, August figured out that he can roll his tongue today. Had to stop him from doing it though while he jumped in the trampoline.
Done with the trampoline, Vivian went and was exercising on the pull-up bar. August had started to do “finger exercises” in the trampoline, and did more on the pull-up bar. I thought maybe this came from Cassie talking about gymnastics, but apparently it is from the King Flashypants book Carly has been reading to them.
Inside, August ate a banana at some point. I did a little work and Carly gave him a bath. I helped him brush his teeth out at the kitchen sink while Carly took a shower. August found something in the toy box, and it was a kid hand buzzer thing. Vivian showed him how it works and he really liked it. Carly read King Smartypants to him and Vivian. ‘Bum’ was a new word for him, it sounded like.
I started to put him to sleep. He reminded me of my bad parenting moments, but at least there is just two that he remembers: us getting stuck in the rain after the pizza place, and dropping him in the natural history museum. I read two Skybrary books to him: Good Choice, Camille and the one about the robot that turns everything to metal. Carly came in at 10:30 and put him to sleep.
Treats versus candy:
On the train 1:
On the train 2:
Vivian slo-mo on the water slide:
On the trampoline with them:
The evil wizard song:
August on the mic:
Quiet song:
Slo-mo on the trampoline:
