He woke up a little before 7:40. Curled on the couch for a good ten minutes. We read My Little Pony #72. We then played Minecraft. He made some string art in it, and then what was sort of a performance piece, filling a whole area with witches. At the end we started building a big house hanging off a point of rock.
I surprised him with a cookie and milk, then he had oatmeal and mango for breakfast. He had a Brother game where Brother was trying to invent something like Bar. He decided to build wings made out of rock, since that had never been done before. Bar eventually, after a few falls, helped him make the stones much lighter with a ray of some sort. Still didn’t work, until Bar pointed out the wings were too small. Brother had made them bird sized, not thinking about how he is bigger.
We talked about our plans for the day, and he again insisted he wanted me to get the exact same color band on my watch. I showed him the Apple store to show him that they don’t even sell that color any more, and he quickly decided I should get the rainbow band instead.
He then wanted to help me get my exercise goal; I thought he meant by exercising or walking with me, but he meant by wearing my watch and exercising. So I put the watch on him and he ran around for a full 7 minutes. It said he burned 60 calories.
He then went to Legos and I went up and got ready. He added a song to his playlist that he heard. He was then asking Siri random things, and we learned about the Monkey Tree Phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_tree_phenomenon?wprov=sfti1
He got going, and said, “I don’t believe in God, but I believe in aliens, and mathematical spaceships that nobody invent d before…and supernova black holes that can travel at the speed of space…and exoplanets that could explode at any second now…and tons of aliens might be at your door, ready to kill…” “Isn’t it cool that I believe in crazy stuff that no one believes in?” We discussed belief versus thinking something is possible. He replied, “I believe they are out there to discover…”
He was grumpy about getting ready to leave. He kept having things he wanted to do first, like watching My Little Pony. He finally changed his clothes. Grumpy about leaving. He asked, “What’s a phenomenon?” And he got Siri to play a song called “Tomatoes” https://music.apple.com/us/album/tomatoes/600713348?i=600714153 He had some crackers and meat, then noticed colored reflections in the sink, first off the red cutting board, then went and found other things that were other colors. He got the blindfold we had made last week and had me put it on. He immediately started doing the clicking, which Carly has taught him about.
As we headed out he ws running around and did a few laps of the yard. Shmuel had left two awful fake tree things at our gate. August had “planted” one yesterday, and we now planted the second one. He found gum on the sidewalk and got a stick to poke it with and declared it his gum stick, saying he would take it everywhere. We checked on the bucket we had put under the pipe leak. As we got going, we heard a Storybots version of “Rain Rain, Go Away” and August exclaimed, “What!? They’re inviting it to come another day?” Rain song
We drove down to Petah Tikvah Park. Traffic was bad on the way down. I had let August play his iPad on the way down, and he played Minecraft part of the way before putting it down. Parking was also horrible; all of the parking around the park seems to be taken by people going to the mall. And the big dirt lot is a free-for-all, with people parking wherever they felt like it. I saw a guy on his phone; I’m pretty sure he had been blocked in.
I headed to the first street to the north and found a street parking spot. August thought I was being picky about my parking, as I was trying to make sure I didn’t have one tire on the curb.
We took his red bike; the first time this year, I think, and walked to the park. He found a little merry-go-round and played on that. He made a game based on the colors around it, and each was a different temperature. He asked me if I preferred boiling hot or freezing cold, and we got into a discussion of why I would prefer freezing cold, and pain versus cold.
We went for a walk around the park, taking a look at the new pond area where there used to be a dirt field, and discussing several of the music-themed sculptures. Most of the gates were locked, so we had to walk back up close to where we came in in order to exit and head across to the mall.
We parked the bike at the entrance of the mall, then walked around the mall. Finally found the iDigital store. On the way, August talked about how he had an “everything store” in the mall and that it was really busy; he also had secret passages to it. At iDigital they only had watch bands in pink, black, or too expensive. So we left and went down to Rebar. August got a raspberry bowl, which he really liked, but was more of a cup, and looked much more impressive on the menu.
We walked back to the car, then drove to the little Tiv Taam. It was a big shopping trip, as we hadn’t gone to the store yesterday. He handled it well. He remembered salmon with lemon on it, so we went and found that salmon was on sale.
At home he wanted to watch educational videos, and watched videos about vaccines, phages, and AI. Carly got home, and they played Minecraft together. I started making a peanut sauce noodle dish, and while that finished up, Carly took August up to one of the stores in town. She had to buy a bunch of candy for a school thing, and August got one piece. August was being hyper in the store, and a woman said something to Carly, probably about the candy. Carly thought she probably thought the candy was all for him.
They got home and dinner was ready. He really liked it. At least once. A little more, as he had earned some time after she got home. When going to the bathroom he debated me on something, and I said “Grant you…” about something. He asked what grant means, and asked “Dada, why do you always use big words I don’t know?”
While playing Minecraft he used a potion, and started to ask what it was, but then read “weakness” on his own. I baked the last of the cookies. He was fine with having one of them from yesterday, and ate it with milk. He then grabbed the strawberry yogurt thing from the fridge and demanded to have it. He’s never insisted on having a treat like that before. It took him a few minutes, then, as I calmly talked to him on the couch, him still clutching it, I reminded him of his mind tricks. Totally worked. He said he’d put it back, and he asked Carly for carrots instead. He asked her to cut them as coins and said, “I’ll imagine they’re chocolate coins…pretty cool I have a mind trick.”
He ate the carrots and we read My Little Pony #73. We then started to read the Myths and Legends one again. He was set against going upstairs, but then persuaded him to go up. We did a Brother game on the bed. It was the sewing the shirt story. We were supposed to do that, then go in for a bath, but he kept having an “And then…and then…”
Got him in the bathroom and he played in the sink. Let him do that until 8:45, then washed him. He did his own face. We went down and he had some frozen mango for snack. We discussed whether it was okay to eat burnt marshmallows. As he ate mango he told me about his marshmallow treatment plant, for getting rid of burnt marshmallows. It was based on a waste water treatment plant and included UV rays and other things he had recently heard about (don’t remember what that was in).
It went on and on, getting more extravagant. He increased the size of the Earth, then was putting everything in it, like everything from Minecraft and all of Pinkie Pie’s crazy ides. I got him upstairs and he wanted to tell Carly all about it: “I feel my head getting bigger…Do you know what’s going on in my brain?”
I left them at 9:25. I fell asleep on the couch for a bit, then went for a short run.
Running laps for exercise:
Funny bunny song and Legos:
Clicking with the blindfold:
Little merry-go-round:
Singing about the cat in the mall:
Discussing his recycling machine:
All the craziness for the giant death stream for burnt marshmallows:
