He woke up at 6:04, just before my alarm. I got up on the bed with him and he rested until just after 6:20 and decided to go find Carly. She was in the bathroom and went in and cuddles with him for a few minutes. They came down as I was making coffee. He watched as she gathered Duplos for an activity at school, then watched Berenstain Bears.
After the one episode he wanted to try out the terraforming game. We did that together, and he told me all about trash: “Did you know garbage can tell you about the past?…Did you know you can find tons of treasures in garbage?” He had watched a StoryBots episode about trash.
He had a Brother game based on it, and he talked about making protective gear for each of us. I told him about HazMat suits, a word of the day, and showed him what they looked like. We went upstairs and played a game where Brother and Bar go exploring garbage, and take Baby Sister and Sister along.
Back downstairs we worked with the Eggs reading app. Definitely rough around the edges. One of the little games had its right arrow going off the screen, there’s no way to tell how far you are into a lesson, August could do the same easy lesson over and over to earn game time, etc. We will try a different one, Homer, in the future. It was good though to see how well he can in fact sound out parts of words and put them together.
He then had the Duplo house on the string and we revisited the story from last year where he was trying to take the horse home but it was on a string and kept getting pulled away. He then had a short game where Brother used gloves to touch poop, but then the baby sister doesn’t use gloves and gets sick, then he gets in trouble.
We had some banana bread, then did a story where Brother and Bar ended up studying dirt with his mom, who is a scientist. We made more popsicles, so that Eve and him would have a choice between vanilla, lemon, and mango. He had a pineapple yogurt and a lemon popsicle, so I made one to replace that. The suction cup broke off of the speaker thing. He was fine with that as the suction cup itself still works.
Then another Brother story, where he and Bar were doing an experiment, making crystals from different kinds of ice. Bar made science robots to do all of the lab work for them. We looked up ‘How long does it take the Earth to travel a light year?’ Then went upstairs and we did our Brother and Sister arguing over their stealing until it turned into chaos game. ‘Escalation’ was another new word. He asked about light saber and whether they could be real and so we watchedhttps://youtu.be/dK2ym66or6E
‘Antimatter’ and ‘plasma’ were more new words. We did the descending into chaos game again, this time with light sabers and antimatter thrown in for good measure.
We got ready to go, but before we left he connected his yarn, that starts at the toilet paper holder upstairs, all the way to the kitchen sink and said it sent signals. We left at 11:50, but I had to run back to get the vest. We got to the gate a couple minutes past 12, just as they were walking out.
We got Eve in the car, then drove up to VIPizza. Parking is tough in town now, so we parked in my side street spot by the mango tree area and walked to VIPizza. They were just opening. They each got a peach iced tea. Eve finished hers, then the last quarter of August’s. Perhaps too much, as she went to the bathroom at least four times back at our house.
On the walk from the car to VIPizza, they got into a discussion of “Is the future real?” Eve brought it up. After they got drinks and we ordered a half cheese, half corn pizza, Eve needed a bathroom. The one in back was locked, so we walked over to the one behind the new fruit and veggie place and she used that.
We got back just as our pizza was coming out. Too hot, so they spent a few minutes picking the bubbly places out of the pizza, and they did some dancing in their seats to “Superstition”.
Eve ate one slice and August managed one and a half. He told Eve his advice on waiting for things: “Sleeping…because if you’re sleeping time passes by infinite fast.”
Eve wanted to head to the house, but August said we were doing that last. I tried to convince them to go to the park. We started walking that way, after I had paid and they’d bagged the last three slices for me, and I heard August telling her about the slinky and rocks that she couldn’t play with at the house. She was fine with that.
They had decided to go straight to the house, so we turned around and headed back to the car.
At the house they started playing with the doll, Baby Q. August had to go find it in the drawer since he never plays with it on his own. They got out the medical supplies. August started doing CPR on it, giving it breaths. He must have seen that somewhere, and he checked her eyes with the flashlight. He said “There’s not enough water to lubricate her eye…that’s a sign of dehydration.”
Eve liked the string thing from upstairs, telling him “August! You’re awesome! You made an invention!” They took care of the baby and eventually had their popsicles. Eve had vanilla and August, who had declared on the way over that he wanted to have the same as Eve, actually changed his mind and went with mango. They made stuff for the baby, then went outside at 2:20.
I let them play outside on their own for quite awhile. They were in the Zinnie house, and August was signing, trying ti, then headed out with my iPad and the portable speaker. Just as they came in. So I sat outside typing for ten minutes or so while they were inside. August came back out, trying to catch a fly. Shmuel called up to me and I talked to him for a few minutes.
Back inside they played upstairs. I checked on them once and they were seeing how much weight they could put in front of the grasshopper robot to stop it. Downstairs they gave the baby a wig of purple and green play dough. They were the. Giving me sleep shots and shots to change my memories (has Eve seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?). I would say funny things as they put me to sleep.
They went back upstairs, then outside again. Then inside again, then had the idea of making a fort outside in the slide/tree branch area. Heather showed up at 3:40. Eve was upset as she didn’t want to leave, but went without trouble. I told Heather they’d just recently started to get hyper, trying to do all the things (fort, making a concoction, taking stuff apart) right at the end.
As soon as she was gone August declared himself bored. He told me “The only thing I like is play dates, okay? Nothing else.” We did a little more of the reading app, then he had a small bowl of oatmeal. He asked me “What’s instability?” Not sure where that came from. Then had frozen mango. We went upstairs for a Brother game where Little Sister stoke the chocolate and it turned into chaos again.
Carly was home about 5:05. We played for a few more minutes, then headed downstairs. I put dishes away and made coffee and she watered plants.
I had meant to get cauliflower when we were in town with Eve, but forgot. I now walked over to Tiv Taam and got cauliflower, frozen broccoli, and mangoes. Carly cooked the broccoli and he ate a good amount of that, then had more oatmeal. She had also made him a smoothie, which he was drinking when I got back. We read My Little Pony. Finished volume four, then the first issue of volume 5, which starts another big story.
Carly gave him a bath, then I put him to sleep. I told him to tell me a story of when he was a kid before he could tell me. He volunteered to talk about school, which he says he hates. I asked if he might want to go to school in the future, and he said no, because he would have problems. And he asked “Would you want to have problems?” He said his favorite parts of school were recess, choice time, and watching kids. We had a good conversation about how they hadn’t understood him watching and that it was unfortunate that they forced him to do stuff. We also talked about Simone, and it turned out he doesn’t want to play with Simone because of what happened. But after we talked about it he was open to a play date with him, although he was horrified of more people coming over to the house, unless they just stayed outside. Neutral ground or at their houses would be okay.
I finally told him stories, about going to a farm in 1st grade or so on a field trip and then how we tried to find it on our own but couldn’t, and about my first cat, Jupiter, and that turned into a history of all the cats Gramma and Grampa had had since.
He told me about the “Ancient rectangle…it’s bordered by four never melting icebergs…it’s mysterious.” Based on the Bermuda Triangle. He was asleep by 9:15.
His string to send signals:
Both dancing while having pizza:
Taking care of Baby Q:
Playing with the robot:
Big jumps 1:
Big jumps 2:
Big jumps 3:
Big jumps 4:
Big jumps 5:
