He got up just before 8:10. I was getting up in the other bedroom, having had my book group meeting during the night. I greeted him, then he went down with Carly and I went back to rest longer, coming down again around 9. They had been reading the Minecraft zombie book, and were finishing up his iPad time, playing Minecraft. He had a hard time putting it away though. He did, but then swung the iPad away and hit me with it. They were able to talk about it after a few minutes.
I read a few of the I’m Just No Good at Rhyming poems to him, then went to get my iPad to read to him more. They decided to play with Legos though and did that for several minutes. He destroyed the structure we’d been working on for the last couple days and started something new. He was doing a lot of rhyming again this morning.
I made oatmeal. He requested cinnamon. He talked about having syrup in it “yesteryear.” As he at he requested a tornado video, then I showed him the Dominoes video that Cherie had sent (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO3do77Y9cY) and he watched another.
I then read the first two My Little Pony: Friends Forever comics, then we did music time. He did some drumming, then had me playing keyboard along to his digital drum patterns on his iPad in GarageBand. He was doing the drum programmer, and making shapes and pictures. He said, “No no no Picasso. You can’t make music AND art. But Picasso said ‘Yes!’”
Carly was communicating with Tessa about swimming together at the pool. She got ready, and they left at 12:50. As he was getting ready, August said, “When it’s cool and not rainy I’ll ride my bike to school.”
They went swimming. Carly said it was still enjoyable, but that she never really warmed up. Pool season is about t its end. At some point, they saw bird poop and August told Tessa how the white part of it is acid. He told her he was 90 percent sure, so she might want to look it up. Apparently he and Carly had learned this the other day, as birds don’t pee, so that is the acid that would otherwise be in the urine. He also took a picture of a cat under a table.
They invited them back to the house. Carly called to ask if I could get some food started. I went down and started cooking pasta with pesto and cheese as they got back. They also brought a can of corn to heat up for the kids, and I cooked a couple of the chocolate pancakes for snacking. We also had fruit. We threw together quite a bit of food given that we didn’t have anything much planned.
The kids kind of all did different things much of the time, but it still went well. When August didn’t want to play with them outside, he started playing by himself inside. He set up his drum kit on his own and was playing. Nava got the doctor kit and I got the stuffed animals for her. Apparently she’s really into playing doctor with animals. They got August’s attention when they played with the My Little Pony dolls and he talked about them. August got out the keyboard and GarageBand and played that a lot as well.
And he found the little foam ball and he and I were playing catch in the living room. Suddenly, he was catching this little ball several times. Just suddenly clicked; not something we’ve been working on. Once when he threw it it went up above the refrigerator and I had to use tongs to get it out of an odd open space up there. Succeeded eventually though. This was after we had also all had pie. He wasn’t entirely happy when the kid went upstairs and were looking at the cardboard fort, but he allowed it. Apparently, Carly said, he’s a little embarrassed by the fact that it is falling down.
Tessa was talking about the destruction of her kids as they left. August matter-of-factly said, “Take about a week to re-repair…re-repair our house for a playdate.” They left at 5:40.
We played his Minecraft time. He asked, “What’s modern mean?” A word of the day. We read a My Little Pony: Friends Forever. #6 or 7. Then watched episode 3 of season 2. We went upstairs for a Brother game where he finds a big egg and takes it home. The resulting bird destroys the house. Then one in which he finds a new kitty cat, leading to lots of chaos.
Carly came up at 7:40 and we switched. I went for a run, and he did some alone time then Minecraft, since he hadn’t during the day. Carly made him oatmeal with cinnamon again. He again got upset about the idea of a bth, and we discussed why it is so hard for him to take a bath nowadays. He said there is so much in his brain to do. I was having this conversation with him in the bedroom. I then convinced him to head into the bathroom with Carly for his bath. He told Carly “His parenting trick was…” I think I had given him some sort of choice about what to play in there, or of what to do after.
We Skype with my parents after his bath. He said, “I want to be an astronomer when I grow up.” And he talked about how “I’m studying a squished sandwich I found in the road.” He talked about the spoiled cheese.
He said good night to Carly, and she left by 9:45. He likes the mantra, so I found a version of it to listen to on YouTube, and he was asleep by 10:30.
A food delivery machine:
Drumming on his drumkit:
Music during a playdate:
Drumming during a playdate:
