Carly woke him up about 8:30. They came out about 15 minutes later. He had some cereal, then sneezed a total of ten times as he was over talking to Cassie. He went out to get the mail with her. I was working. Back inside, Carly and Cassie and the three kids built things with dominoes in the living room. He was then going out to the bamboo area with Vivian and I helped him get his shoes and socks on. He explained how they protect from the pokies in the bamboo area. He also said that he’d mathematically figured out what words babies speak first (after we’d had a conversation of whether babies actually say ‘goo goo gaa gaa’ and what it means): “Most babies, there’s a 90 percent chance their first word is ‘A’” He then ran off and played in the bamboo area.
He and Vivian came back in and did iPad time. I made them a fruit platter with almonds, and then Carly made them a noodle dipping platter (noodles, sauce, and cheese). They then did scratch paper art. August turned his into an exercise in scraping all the black off of the sheet; something that Vivian had done. Carly did an alien, and a flying truck for Colin.
We got driving to the bowling alley in East Stroudsburg. I led this time. We got to bowling at 2:40. August asked “What’s Mx+b?” as we walked in. It’s the slope equation. He and Carly have been learning about it. Kids used the bathrooms, then got shoes on. The woman gave them one six pound ball to share. Luckily, there was another six pounder, and near the end I had Vivian and August experimenting with the seven pound ball. They were mainly using the ramp, and the seven seemed to keep its momentum better. I think August had the best single roll, an 8, but Vivian gets half the credit as she was helping him aim the ramp.
As we drove up to the bowling alley I was excited to see the Yeungling sign. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a beer at a bowling alley (seems like I once did late night bowling with the guys I lived with, or other employees from the Boys and Girls Club, but almost all my time spent in bowling alleys in Seattle was during the day for Boys and Girls Club trips). And seemed appropriate to have the local beer at least once while here. Alas, food and the bar didn’t open until later.
The kids, and I, were getting in a good groove (experimenting with the balls—I wasn’t actually bowling, as I couldn’t find my pair of socks before we left), when suddenly we were leaving after the fifth frame. We hadn’t put their names on the board, and they never noticed that they were one ball off, as Colin had rolled a ball down the lane before, and then after, I had started it, meaning they each took their turn starting with some balls already down, then bowling at all 10. Anyway, it was lucky they hadn’t payed more attention to the rules. Apparently, Colin was going to have a fit, so we cut things short. I felt really badly about cutting August and Vivian’s time in half though and lying to them that our time was over.
Then, the plan was for Carly to stop by Walmart to buy shoes for August and get some groceries. But the second that August and Colin heard that Carly wasn’t going with them they started to complain and Carly decided to switch. So I went to Walmart. In the confusion, I left my backpack and glasses case in their car. So they caught up to me at Walmart to give them back. I did the grocery shopping, then found 4 pairs of shoes for August to consider. I sent Carly photos. I don’t know why I included the fourth pair. They were cool underneath, but they had these Minnie Mouse things on them. Worst of all, they were shoelace shoes, which I’ve vowed to never buy for him. I was too distracted by the Minnie Mouse things and didn’t notice they were different from the other three pairs. Of course, that was the pair that Vivian chose, so that was what August chose. He’s kind of lost his ability to think on his own by now, deferring to Vivian on almost everything (always the same ice cream flavors, for example, although they had different lollipops at the pool).
I bought those, then had to walk back into Walmart when I forgot cash. I got home after 5:15. They were out at the playground. I gave Vivian the shoes to take to August. Inside, his balloon had wrapped around the fan again. I was able to stand on a chair and reach it and untangle it from the fan. I attached it to Colin’s soldier, like a parachute, and took it outside. Colin did not like what I had done to his soldier, spitting a raspberry at me. Carly switched the weight. August later was playing with it and it came off the string. He took it up to Vivian’s room as a safe place.
I switched with Carly and watched them outside so she could help with dinner. They went inside when Vivian wanted to make her own pizza. I then helped them as Vivian and August, and then Colin, did the spin art things using markers and paint. Mainly, I helped by keeping Colin from pushing his way in. One time, just as August stopped his spinner, Colin reached over and marked on it with a marker. I got stern with Colin, saying if he did that again he’d have to go inside. August handled it really well though, saying it was okay and then adding his own lines to it to make it a pattern. That was an amazing response. August made one using both markers and paint, and I taught him the term ‘mixed media’. A word of the day.
Colin did some too, then went to the side of the house to wash his hands. Suddenly, he was screaming. I ran around there, after removing art from my lap and getting up, to find him stuck, sitting down, in one of the vent holes by the side of the house. Not hurt, but very scary.
Back out back I was talking about favorite foods, and had Colin guess my favorite. He then joked about himself: “I eat chairs…sticks…phones.” Colin got in the trampoline and declared 2 minute turns. That worked well. After a while August noticed the little plastic car and ramp thing. He had me carry him over to it, and rode it down once. I pushed him on it a bit, then pushed Colin around the yard a couple times. Some good exercise. Meanwhile, August and Vivian got out the sprinkler to run through.
Dinner was ready, and we ate our pizza outside. August and Vivian played in the sprinkler more. Colin played with the truck from the firework, pushing it on the porch with a spray of water and pretending it was firing fireworks again. August joked to Carly “I’m brave enough to walk in quicksand…Well, I’m dumb enough.” In discussing dessert, August asked me “Can I have a bit of coffee cuz I need a burst of energy?”
We ended up back inside. August put an olive on his finger, then let Colin eat it. He was then feeding Colin olives from the can, then gave him the can: “I gave Colin the whole can because he’s an olive-eating machine.” Vivian wanted to watch Sarah and Duck. I said they could watch it since we own it. Negotiations broke down over who would choose episodes, with August claiming he was in primary control of his iPad. So I let her watch on mine instead. August watched Sarah and Duck on his iPad in the living room. Worked well, although seemed a little silly. August was hungry so ate more pizza and several slices of apple.
When their time was up the incentive of ice cream worked perfectly to get them off the iPads and outside to clean up the art mess. I then scooped up ice cream for the three of them. Outside with Vivian and Carly, August spotted a planet. They came in to get my phone to figure out which planet it was. It was Jupiter. I got bug spray on and joined them. We did a little astronomy with Vivian. When she spotted a satellite on the app, she ran out into the yard so that she would get her photo taken by a satellite, saying she’d never had that happen before. After a few minutes I broke the news to her that they probably weren’t taking photos of her in the dark, although I pointed out that there are satellites taking photos during the day and you just can’t see them.
Inside, August talked to me about voids and black holes: “a black hole is like a tub of nothingness…” “the Big Bang missed some spaces…” He talked more about his search disk that we saw (an airplane). It does scientific research, and was landing in South America.
They took baths, then Vivian got on her pajamas and put a shirt on her head to protect from mosquitoes. She was a ninja, and had learned how to do it from Wizard School. I looked up and downloaded an app that tells when civic, nautical, and astronomical dusk are, and August and I looked at that and talked about the differences. I took him and Vivian back out. Much darker now. We saw Saturn now, and they were both able to see the Big Dipper and the Milky Way. It was really cool when August looked at the picture of the Big Dipper on the astronomy app, then looked up and actually saw it: “I see it!”
Back inside Vivian and August were talking about space. It was a really philosophical discussion at first, with August basically using the socratic method to get her to think about the space between things and asking her what that thing was. The conversation had actually started with him arguing that time isn’t a ‘thing’, but moved on to space. It was cool to hear Vivian’s thinking change as well, as she moved from thinking that there is always something to contemplating an empty space. They then turned funny as they joked about the black of space being black crayon, etc.
They moved on to dreams, and Vivian talked about her sleep walking. August said he remembers one of his dreams, but didn’t want to tell it to us. He then said that he really sees his dreams, something he has told me in the past. Don’t know if he means regular dreams, or if they are particularly vivid for him. He never talks about what happens in them though. Jeff decided it was time for Vivian to head up, so we went in as well. I left them after 10:30. Carly and August are united in their dislike of bug spray. So maybe camping won’t be a really common activity in the future.
Scratch art:
First ball bowling:
Viv bowling:
Colin bowling:
August bowling:
Spin art:
Spin art slo-mo:
Catching the bugs on the trampoline:
Drinking from and playing with the sprinkler:
