He was up at 7:38. I carried him down, and he sat on the couch for quite a while. He asked me to read the Redstone guide to Minecraft. He had seen it in the Libby app, checked out from the library. I read about 15 pages of it, then we played Minecraft. He applied some of it, using redstone blocks to power glow stone lamps. He also worked on building an aquarium.
He had oatmeal and mango for breakfast, then had a Brother game, based on redstone pieces in Minecraft: Brother used a trip wire to get revenge on Sister for selling their rocks (which they had gathered at the beach the previous summer). It sprayed rotten milk and raw eggs at her. August then brought back the stories where they got out of the car, both needing to go to the bathroom, but neither makes it in time and they both pee their pants. Bar was then doing different things that destroyed the toilet, etc. An alien invasion was involved, somehow. Then he expanded to having the grandparents and all the cousins there and needing to go to bathroom at the same time. Finally, a story where Brother finds a little ball thing with eyes on tubes in the forest. It multiplies when it eats bread. He reminded me it was a story from Smurfs, which he hasn’t watched in months.
We then watched an episode of My Little Pony. It was about Zap Apple Jam.
After that we did a lot of music time. He played Yousician, but is kind of stuck on Ode to Joy. He then played with the loops player in Garageband, which we had never done before. I was making salmon for lunch. For the cooking time I set a timer using Siri on my phone. There was a funny message, where she said the suspense was killing her. August asked what suspense meant. August pushed himself around on the floor on one of the couch cushions and said it was his Minecraft boat. We ate salmon for lunch, and I had combined the quinoa and corn and rice and added some garlic and butter and he really liked it and ate it all.
He asked if lemon was used for anything besides lemonade and adding to fish, and I told him about lemon pie and also that it is supposed to keep apples from turning brown. He suggested we do that as an experiment. So I sliced up an apple and put it in two containers and added lemon juice to one of them.
August asked something about black holes, and said “I like to have questions…it’s not because I get more iPad time. It’s because I get to learn.” We watched a few videos about black holes (https://youtu.be/PWx9DurgPn8,https://youtu.be/uRkn1c4mJNw, and https://youtu.be/UdUbpdzCdu8) and before that watched the TedEd video about Sacajawea, which he had watched twice with Carly already (https://youtu.be/PnT0k9wdDZo).
He spent some time working with the speech app, then ate a yogurt. We went upstairs and spent several minutes fixing the walls of the fort and added a lot of tape, but stopped short of working on the roof.
He then had a Brother game with a strange animal with two eyes. It turned out to be a bad dream. But he startled his animals, then they were bothering and attacking him and not letting him get sleep. After he went to the bathroom he told me about his country of Constapinion.
He asked about the “That’s one small step…” line from Neil Armstrong (which you hear at the beginning of, I think, the Crash Course videos), then wanted to see what it was like. So we watched videos on Apollo 11 and 12 (https://youtu.be/w4wx_3XOrns,https://youtu.be/gg5Ncc9GODY
,https://youtu.be/FBhIDjWaByg0
.
He did 15 minutes of alone time, then we played Minecraft. We then got ready and headed to school. We met Heather and Eve by the kindergarten, then headed to the library. I returned a bunch of library books, and August had fun identifying all of the Minecraft blocks around the sign on the wall. We went back and found Eve in the kids section. August said we should get more Elephant and Piggie books and I ended up finding three that we hadn’t read before: I’m a Frog, Should I Share My Ice Cream?, and Happy Pig Day! We sat on the floor and I read them all to both of them.
We then headed home. Eve talked about how our car is messy, and claims that she never eats in the car. At the house, that translated into August saying they should look for stuff under the couch, so he got a flashlight out. The bed part had been pulled out, and Eve put it down. She got a xylophone stick stuck in it, and August saw it below. He then got sticks and scissors and was figuring out how to make a contraption to reach it. Very much inspired by Joseph’s Machines. I got the tape to help him complete it, and suggested replacing the scissors with tongs. He then used it under the couch. It would have worked, but it turned out that the xylophone stick wasn’t loose on the ground, but had gotten stuck in the hinge part. It actually took me several minutes of reaching in with my hands and pulling on it to get it out.
Eve was playing outside now, playing with the hose. August went out to show her his invention. She was on the slide, and somehow drenched August with the hose, right in the face. I heard him getting upset, and since he had a stick in his hand he hit her.
He spent about 15 minutes in on the couch, covering his face with the towel I got him. Eve was okay, and apologized to him. While he was moping, I went out with her and I started picking up the tree things. She came over and helped me.
They got back together when she started making a mixture of lemon juice, water, and brown sugar. They both really liked it, and made a full second cup of it.
Eve got picked up, and August wanted to work on hammering. We got a couple pieces of wood from the junk area and he hammered. Rather hard wood though. We also got the bucket out from under the leaking pipe. Carly got home as we were talking about what to do with it. We ended up watering some of the plants with it, then taking the rest over to the cactuses across the street and watering them, as August remembered Carly saying they looked like they were wilting.
Inside the house he was in a kind of loud and obnoxious mood. He found an apple of Carly’s and asked me to cut it up and put lemon on it. He ate most of it. Carly cut up a papaya and called the seeds rabbit poop. He shared the papaya with her. He yelled in my face, just being funny, at one point. Part of his loud evening.
He played Happy Glass for 15 minutes, then we did Minecraft for the rest of his evening time. For dinner he ate the rest of the salmon and the grains and corn dish. We watched a SciShow video about animals that don’t need oxygen (https://youtu.be/zOUlHXsq2m0); then a MinuteEarth video about Cyanobacteria (https://youtu.be/CfNsGppB1Yw). We then read two My Little Pony: Friends Forever issues: Rainbow Dash again, and Fluttershy and the Minotaur. I had him run and jump on couch for a while to get some exercise, then we watched an episode of My Little Pony.
I switched with Carly and she read to him (a Minecraft book) and I did dishes. She took a shower. August and I did a lot of rhyming. I got out the Guess Who game and we played one game. He was fine with that, although near the end I had to assure him I’d let him win.
Got him upstairs, and we let him skip a bath. Carly brushed his teeth and I went down to get him a flashlight. He then turned the lamp off on his own and got in bed. Of course, the flashlight might have caused problems in bed, but it was cool that he was coming up with a solution on his own. I left them at 9:25 and went for a walk.
Making up a tune:
Playing with the loops:
More drum kit:
His Minecraft boat:
Planning his contraption:
Using his contraption:
Lemon drink with Eve:
Trying to get out a nail:
