Sunday, September 15: Mr. Gabi, and Natalie and kids come over

He got up at 7 when I was leaving the room. He went down and yelled “Boo” out to Carly. He had a brother game where where Bar had a jack hammer that steered the planet. I thought it may have been based on a dream, but he said it was from Inspector Gadget. It turned into a Minecraft planet with Baby Sister. He then said, “I should check on my baby scum.” We read a few of the funny poems from the book, then we played Minecraft. Carly headed to her dental appointment. I made french toast for breakfast and we ate. We looked up how to use vines in Minecraft, then how big stomachs are, after August asked.

He then wanted to be my doctor, and asked what my symptoms were. I said my eyes were tired. He went and got the heel from the loaf of bread and put it over my eyes as I lay on the ground. He then took me over to his Lego creation and studied my eyes with it and did something to them. Then a Brother game where he was getting hurt stepping on Legos. We went upstairs for more, and he talked about an underwater city.

Carly got home. He asked, “What’s anticlimactic mean?” Think he heard it in My Little Pony. He was then wearing her sweatshirt over his head. Very cute. I went up to work for a while. When I came back down I got him food and did Brother games until the left to go to Mr. Gabi’s. I worked, then got snacks prepared. When they got back, August and I made snickerdoodles. Well, he helped a little, then got distracted making a potion with soap in the sink.

Earlier, he and Carly had been talking about his “superpower” and she talked about his empathy. He disagreed, saying that his power was “seeing all the possibilities” with things.

He went out front at 3 to wait for them to get here. He sang a “Corinne and Elise are coming over” song. They showed up a bit later. When Carly was getting them drinks, August requested tonic water. I told him it was flat, and he didn’t know what flat means.

It all went well with Corinne and Elise. Corinne got out a small set of Jenga and August played with that a bit. They had Legos and My Little Ponies out. August was impressed with Natalie doing Rarity’s hair. There was a lot of parallel play going on, although they interacted pretty well over Legos, and then near the end we went outside and August and Corinne were trying to pull up the dead papaya tree together. That turned in to playing with mud, and Natalie talked about how, as a single child growing up in rural New Brunswick, she spent a lot of time playing outside by herself, finding things to play with, and making mud pies. August said she saw the possibilities like he does. Which was really insightful. He scooped up a bunch of mud and asked, “Natalie, is there anything you can do about this mud I’m digging up?”

A topic of conversation had also been peeing in the pool (I think based on a mishearing of “be in the pool”). We ended up learning about the blue dye myth: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urine-indicator_dye

Also, while they were inside, and after we’d had snacks, I finished up the cookies and everyone had one. August is suddenly really into savoring his cookies, and waited until everyone else was done before he ate most of his. It was really impressive.

After they got going we played Minecraft, then found a new My Little Pony to read. Something like Myths and Legends. Carly made a mango smoothie. We then watched episode 5 of My Little Pony. August was laughing hysterically at Pinkie Pies antics trying to chase down Rainbow Dash.

Carly took him upstairs for his bath, and I did the dishes. When I went upstairs they hadn’t done a bath yet. Instead, they had had a long conversation that she had taken a video of and wanted to send to Spenser, and he had made a structure out of tissues and other things on the floor. He was playing with the banana shaker from Korea when I went up.

We did his bath, then went downstairs and had a cookie. He was savoring it again, waiting until we were done with ours. I explained impulse control and told him about the cookie experiment. He said he was better than Carly in being able to savor. He told her, “It’s okay. If you want to catch up to me just savor, savor.” Carly told him he had crumbs on his face. He checked and said, “You’re right. Huh. Memory of when I got messy.”

He was a bit sad that I wouldn’t read to him and put him to sleep. He felt like I’d lied to him, because about 2 hours earlier I had said we’d read after his bath. That was before he took so long actually taking a bath. I left them just after 9:30 and went for a run.

His word stories: