Friday, August 9: banana bread, grocery store, and swimming pool

He woke up once and lay back down on the very edge of the bed. I was sitting on the lower bed, typing. Had me worried as he kept rolling around right on the edge of the bed. Woke up at 7:48 and took a few more minutes on the lower bed, stretching.

We went downstairs and read My Little Pony, reading 4 and 5 and starting 6. We ate breakfast and kept reading.

We headed upstairs for a Brother game. He took the titanium disk with him and said “It c’ANT teleport. Get it? Ant pun?” August had props and the story was about Bar’s summer inventions: super juice (his water bottle), super seeds (two seeds he found a few days ago), infrared security camera (a Wifi router), spy tube (yellow tube from Ramallah), black hole maker (mouse), and the globe tracker (titanium disk) from last summer. They made a small back hole and trapped things in a black hole by the door: ice cream truck, Sister, dogs, squirrels. Of course with increasing levels of silliness and mayhem as those things then popped out the white hole inside the house.

We went downstairs and took things apart a bit. Then back upstairs for another Brother and Bar game where Sister was upset she is only in them as a supporting role. These don’t last long, as he just wants them to keep getting mad or fighting, and I tell him there’s only so much of that that is fun.

We went back downstairs to make banana bread. He said he discovered a substance named ‘silicon’ named after silk. “I’m Siri-ous?…get it, a Siri pun.” We made the banana bread. He wasn’t totally excited about helping, but used the masher on the bananas (definitely worth it) and did some of the electric mixing. He used his iPad time to watch a few of the Bright Side, etc. videos with survival riddles. I tried to watch them with him as much as possible, but they were okay. Later in the day he said he liked educational videos better than the non educational videos now. I think because of the riddles. He asked “What’s the zombie apocalypse?” There’s a word of the day for you.

He then told me about making electro balls in his lab. For some reason I speculated about his vocabulary and wondered how many words he knows. I Googled, and found that “The 6-year-old child typically has a 2,600 word expressive vocabulary (words he or she says), and a receptive vocabulary (words he or she understands) of 20,000–24,000 words.” I’d say his expressive vocabulary is closer to his receptive vocabulary, but have no idea on numbers.

For lunch we had crackers and the new meat options and banana bread. We read chapters 3 and 4 of Bodie Troll. August had had the idea of making popsicles (when he played with the containers while I did the banana bread) and we filled one of them with vanilla soy milk. It was ready now, so he ate it and said it was really good.

Then more Brother games: downstairs, he met a girl that controls the weather. Upstairs he had her meet the digital girl again. A character from spring/summer. I asked her name: “Zero! Of course I’d remember it since there’s billions of zeroes going through me all the time!”

We got out of the house around 2. We drove up into town and went to the new grocery store. I realized we need to know the actual names to make it easier to explain where we’re going, so this one is called Stop City. We wanted to get juice and soy milk so we could make more popsicles. The main reason was so we could have popsicles ready when he had friends over again, but also I’d prefer these popsicles for his sweet tooth to distract from ice cream, etc.

While in the grocery store he started finding all the interesting dark spaces behind the products on the shelves. He called them “bubble spaces” and “Nisse spaces” (from the Hilda books). He commented on how much he likes shopping now. I reminded him he also had fun yesterday, and I need to remind him of this when we’re trying to get going so we have more time at the grocery store and I don’t have to hurry him. Anyway, we got one big bag full of groceries (he also got one mystery fruit to try) and we headed to school.

We first dropped off a couple of bags of parts from our taking apart stuff in the electronics recycling box, then went to check in with Carly. I had found the passport photos for our Visa renewals and we dropped off her swimsuit. We went to the pool and got in. Carly showed up about 20 minutes later. August, now the extrovert, wanted me to go start talking to everyone else in the pool. After Carly showed up, Natalie and her two girls and her husband, Ben, got there. August was doing something new, climbing on my back and jumping off. He did a little on Carly, then went back to mine. Once, off of Carly, he went completely underwater. Not entirely comfortable for him, but he didn’t get upset, and asked how far he went under. He also said something about fish not biting him.

Carly took him to the bathroom, but they were taking a long time. Carly finally came over. He had been distracted by the little wading pool. The rest of us had started to get out as the online schedule said the pool closed at 5. But then the lifeguard said no, it was 6. So we all went over to the little pool. Natalie and Ben and Elise and Corinne played for a while, then left by 5:30. August was having a blast though.

Jonathan, the band teacher, was there with his 2-year old daughter. Jonathan, and his wife when she showed up, started giving us a bunch of advice on things like cherry picking and beaches. August was playing with Jonathan in the pool. Jonathan challenged him to a race across the pool, walking like a dog. August won by standing up, and declaring “I’m a dog with feet!” Playing with Jonathan. Jonathan was then a shark. At one point the little girl got back in the water and was splashing August and he handled it really well and didn’t splash back or get bothered.

Jonathan was parked in the sort of back area, so we walked out the gate just for the fun of it, since we’d never been that way. We got our iHerb box, then headed home, just after 6.

We had also gotten pesto for his noodles for dinner. He had noodles and pesto and broccoli, then more banana bread. He used his watching time to watch some Super Tony videos (another channel he found that he likes).

He wanted to go upstairs for a Brother game with a girl that was virtual. He was excited by the idea, but it didn’t go far and he wanted a new kind of Brother game. I suggested like the Magic Treehouse, with them finding a time machine of some sort and going on adventures through time. But he wanted me to come up with a full story. He then suggested they spy on people. They spied on Sister and found out she was hiding the chips in the kitchen out of Brother’s reach. competition ensued as they stole the chips and other things back and forth.

I went down to go for a run. Carly and him called to say happy birthday to Chuck. They were calling as I left and skyping with Cherie and the kids (they’re in Pennsylvania now) when I got back. He was basically trading nonsense with Vivian and Colin, then sang a “Colin put your toe in your nose” song (something Colin he actually done while we were there). I went and took a shower, and August showed them a fogged glass experiment and a balloon experiment, making his hair stick up. Cherie said that if you rub a balloon on your hair you can get it to stick to a wall or shirt. Carly tried, but couldn’t get a balloon to attach to anything. At one point August said “While mama gets a balloon I’ll distract you with some silliness.”

They hung up and Carly took hm up for a bath at 8:30 and washed his hair. He came down afterwards and we read a good chunk of Astro Boy as he ate some Cheerios. Got him ready for bed, and I left them at 9:30.

‘issue’ was another word of the day as I was talking about how the My Little Pony volumes were compilations of multiple issues. He said there was another kind of issue, like a problem.

I watched episode 2 of Black Mirror before heading to bed.

Even electricity – song: