He was up at 6:44 today, his earliest yet. I asked if he wanted to go back to bed and he returned to the bedroom for a second, but then decided he wanted to go downstairs before he got on the bed. He watched a little of the Le Mans race I had on, then we read Seuss’s “Too Many Daves” before we played Minecraft. I made French toast for breakfast and we watched a little of a Minecraft video as we ate.
He played with Legos while I exercised and made a microscope out of Legos (inspired by seeing them at the store yesterday). He had Brother, Sister, and Baby Sister look at a bacteria. During the game he asked, “Do you want me to make the infection even more chaotic?” Then he had Baby Sister lose a tooth in a popsicle. He told me this was based on his own experience, but she didn’t lose hers, and they studied it under the microscope.
We played 30 minutes of Minecraft. Not so good with letting go this time, and he was a bit too fixated on it when it was over. He ate some mango and we went and made the beds while a schnitzel cooked for him. We then ate lunch. He asked, “What’s epilogue?” A word of the day. Then a Brother game where he was trying to build a Lego house. Baby Sister Kept destroying it, getting in the room different ways, just before Brother could take a photo of it. Then, for the last time, after she had promised not to do it, the Dad did it on accident: “barbecue go boom!” He was eating at the time and almost choked on it as he laughed so much.
August was then jumping on couch and had me to it as Brother, which led to him getting hurt. August went to the bathroom, and wore the Lego box on his head. I said “Oh my.” He asked, “Why did you say oh my? Because I’m Pinkie Pie? Hey, that rhymes!” We discussed why fresh air could get in the box on his head, and then all the invisible air currents in the house and outside.
We then went up and vacuumed the whole bedroom. He really worked to get the vacuum under the bed. Downstairs, we read about body language, viruses, and the dark web in the Discover magazine. He asked about Bassem in the Bil’in book, after picking it up again and looking at the photos. Bassem was the one that was killed by a tear gas canister and is in the documentary 5 Broken Cameras. I explained what happened to him, and August talked about making a better tear gas sprayer that didn’t involve shooting canisters.
He has been asking for a “space Minecraft” and we found a space station world for free. He played in it, and was really happy with it for about 20 minutes, before deciding it wasn’t what he really wants. He has this vision of a great game where you can go to different stars and planets.
He asked “What’s subconscious?” Not sure where he had heard that. Maybe the Discover magazine. He had a juice popsicle (strawberry banana) and then we read My Little Pony, finishing volume 14. Only one more left. He said he now wants a birthday cake that says “Minecraft” on it. The third kind of cake he has wanted for his next birthday. The last one was something impossible, that required cake suspended in the air, like helicopter blades or something like that.
Then Brother games. One where Bar discovers a new swimming power that she has, then one where Brother finally discovers he finally gets powers. August’s idea, but I don’t know if he’ll let it stay in the canon, as he likes the idea that Brother keeps meeting friends that have powers but he can’t have them. He also used the word epilogue at the end, saying, “epilogue…Brother’s asleep.”
We went to the school to pick up Eve and Zoe. We met Eve’s teacher, and Eve told us Zoe wasn’t coming today. We went to say goodbye to Heather, but she wasn’t sure about Zoe not going. So we all went down to get Zoe. Turns out she was having some worries about going, as August is Eve’s friend. She started crying, and we left her with Heather, and I took August and Eve to the covered area by the preschool, where they played with the water table stuff that was out. Not a lot of water, but we went and refilled our water bottles a few times. My new wireless headphones arrived (the old ones developed a short) and I figured them out while they played.
Zoe decided to come to us, and we played there until close to 4:30. They played with the magnetic things that go on the wall to make a path for the balls, or water, in this case. August tried to put one upside or something and Zoe asked, “August, why are we out thinking that?” August replied, “I like to think funny!” Zoe set up a “Pose drawing” stand, and drew a picture of August standing with his arms flung wide. Eve drew a picture of a ballerina and August liked that, and tried the pose. He also did some silly dancing (his term) for Zoe.
They kept playing with the toy whale in the water toys, giving it a home. I got a bit frustrated, as all three of them kept just dropping stuff on the ground and not putting stuff away, and I had to do it. August didn’t want to put something away at the end when I asked him to, as the girls weren’t putting anything away. We’ll have to discuss the rules before we play in the preschool area again.
I finally got them to go to the car, although they were doing fine there, as I knew they’d be upset if we never went to the house. We got to the house at 4:40 and they had about a half hour before Heather got here.
They each had a popsicle, and sat around quietly eating those for several minutes. He was then telling Zoe about Minecraft, and she said she didn’t like it. He said, “You can’t not like something if you don’t know what it is.” Zoe replied, “True”
Zoe wrote on his arm with the invisible pen. After they left, he and I looked up how black light works. We looked up black light later. As we said goodbye he called “Come back anytime!”
We had dinner, and he had the last of the chicken dish from Sushi Ishimoto and a schnitzel. Carly read a book to him, then I read him more of My Little Pony 15. He also had mango and oatmeal. He talked about a car crash and said “The car lost downforce.” I had been telling him about downforce on race cars. Carly read to him again while he ate, then he had even more mango.
I was sitting on the couch, working, editing the book in PDF. He wrote in the book with the Apple Pencil, and also circled things for me when I pointed to them.
I gave him a bath and Carly did dishes. He talked about inventing things like wooden wheels. It was all from the Caveman book Carly is reading to him today. He was talking about something and said “And the reason it is blinking is that when it spins around you see the brightest part of it.” He was using what he knows of pulsars. “This is actually the moon’s partner…It’s called the lavis planet.” And he asked, “What’s an automatic F?” Not sure what story that is from.
I left them at 9:15. He got really sad, telling Carly to never marry someone else. He has asked about ‘step’ families a few times, and a couple days ago asked about how many people you could marry. I had explained, and only came up with one of his friends, who just lives with her mom. He hadn’t expressed any concern, and that was a couple days ago.
I went out for a run. I took a new street and kind of hurt my left ankle hitting a speed bump I wasn’t expecting.
Flying slo-mo 1:
Flying slo-mo 2:
Vacuuming under the bed:
Cleaning by the preschool:
Making a water slide:
Fighting moves before bed:
