I had my book group meeting at 1:30. I stayed up for it this time, then went to bed afterwards.
I think I heard him get up and go downstairs about 7:20. I got up at 8 and went down a few minutes later. They were trying to figure out how to do Street View on his iPad. I helped figure it out, then he played around with that for a bit. I had him looking at places in Paris. He went outside with Carly for a few minutes, then came back in and did his watching time.
He switched to Minecraft and went outside with Carly. I got coffee and went out with them to type. August kept talking to me, so Carly headed inside. I wanted to go back in after 20 minutes or so, but he was the one really enjoying being outside now. He said he liked the breeze. He found elevated train tracks in Minecraft and when I said that was what they are he asked what ‘elevated’ meant. A word of the day.
Carly and August headed to the pool. There was someone there that he knew. They spent quite a while there, then went to the grocery store for a quick trip to get veggies for the dinner tonight. They got back, and August waited pretty patiently for me to finish up the email I was working on. We were going to watch Minecraft videos together, as before they left we had watched a couple ‘Parent guide to Minecraft’ sort of videos, then found a really good channel of a guy showing kids how to play Minecraft. We had watched the first one (https://youtu.be/NAI5ZXY_tkk) together, but now August didn’t want to watch them in order. So he watched some random one, and I did a little more work. Carly cut the veggies for later.
He had some mango, and Carly made him an egg. I read my Little Pony, and he had a second egg. At 2:30 he asked “When are we going to the play date. I’m dying for it!” He then had the idea of saving bottles to make music with, and said the idea was from Mac and Ruby: “See, I told you noneducational videos teach you stuff.” He then told me about what things would be like in the future. At one point he saw me with Facebook open and there was a video of people shoving to get on a subway car in India. He watched that, then told me about Mubea Island that he found. Which I think also had some sort of shoving to get on the subway, but otherwise was a very nice place.
We headed over just before 4 to Natalie and Ben’s house. Elise greeted us with handwritten menus. We had brought Candyland, and Carly thought to bring the straw building set and the Snap Circuits sets. That was really good thinking, as those were the two main things the kids would play with all evening.
We had also brought the dolmas and chickpeas thing I had bought and added those to their appetizers spread. All of us had appetizers, and Elise wrote down our orders for dinner.
August got right to work playing with them. They had the electrical set out, and I showed Corinne, and then Elise, how to build with it. August started making an abstract sculpture out of the straws, and said he knew I’d really like it because I like abstract things. He then let Elise help add to it. The three of them got really into making a line of straws that stretched all the way up the stairs, then lowered all the way to the ground. It would, of course, at some point break, and they’d have to repair it.
Dinner took longer to cook than Natalie expected, but it was fine as the kids were doing so well. August also made a sculpture in the living room out of pillows and other random items. We talked to Ben about his job with the Chicago Stock Exchange, and to Natalie about growing up in New Brunswick, and her adventures with border patrol to the U.S.
When dinner was ready, the kids had their own table. They had Schweppes raspberry lemonade and August really liked it and requested that we get it sometime. After dinner, Elise served up the sundaes for dessert. August was in heaven. He got really concerned when Elise and Corinne got upset when Corinne thought that Elise got more ice cream than her.
They recovered from that, and we finally left at 7:50. August did a great job of leaving when it was time. In the car, he was being funny, saying “I’m picturing what a zombie apocalypse would look like.” “I’ll picture people drinking cocktails at a beach all day…humankind hasn’t invented that world ever.” This seemed really odd at first, but it is from the Super Tony video about possible virtual realities. He then said he was picturing “Tanks, bombers, people shooting arrows, spiders everywhere.” “Now I’m picturing what a volcano would look like.”
At home he used his evening time to watch a couple more of the Minecraft videos, we did a little more reading, I got in a little more work, and I left them around 9:30.
Cleaning out the cupboard:
Dancing to a new song:
Dancing 2:
Dancing 3 – to Bad Religion:
Dancing at our dinner party:
Straws:
