August woke up a couple times, I think with bad dreams, and there was a dog barking all night at a house across the street. Sometime around 4 August woke up, then the dog was barking and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Finally, it was quiet for a few minutes, but just as I was falling back to sleep the dog started barking again and August woke up again. When he was asleep again I got up and went out to figure out where the barking was coming from. It was coming from two doors up the street from the house across the street. It stopped as I got close, so I wasn’t exactly sure of which door. I headed home and didn’t hear another peep. There were lights on at the house too, so maybe they saw me coming.
I decided to just stay in bed until August was up. He got up at 6:25. We went down and saw Carly before she left. I rested on the couch and August chose to watch Phineas Rage Minecraft videos for his morning time. That worked well. He had some dry Cheerios, then frozen mango. Trying to curtail the eating of anything else on the couch, as it’s started to look pretty dirty.
When his time was up I let him finish watching the video he was on, which all went well. But after his time was up he started to demand that I let him earn time to watch another one. Before I could even say a single word he was repeating it for the fourth or fifth time, starting to yell it. Then when he did let me talk and I started to explain our schedule and said he had did have time, he demanded again and hit me in the arm, even though I had been in the process of agreeing with him. He curled up on the couch for several minutes.
When we got going again we got out his stack of art I’ve been meaning to hang up and we made a gallery up in the stairway. He hung most of the pieces up after I put tape on them. One of the things we hung up was his strength potion recipe and he wanted to make a new one, this time without paprika so he could actually make it and drink it. So he came up with a recipe involving vanilla and sugar and flour and we actually made it. It was pretty good, and he drank most of it.
We then did some music time. August wanted me to write music for him, and at first I realized we could use printed out paper to make it easier to actually write notes. So I had a template and sent it to Carly to have her print it. That didn’t solve the immediate problem though, then I remembered the Notion music notation app that he used to play with a lot. I used it to write simple lines, and then he played them on the keyboard. We then switched, and he was writing music for me to play. I was getting him to choose between half, quarter, and eighth notes so it was actually playable. Worked really well.
We got going to Ms. Shani’s. With the extra hour in the morning it made that quite easy. On the way he told me of a glider plane that was covered with microscopic things that provide lift and holds hundreds of people.
He had a great session with Shani. He was ready to go and had ideas. She had a hammock swing attachment on this time. First they went to the table and drew out their schedule of activities. He played around on the swing, then we sat on the floor and watched a video on noise overstimulation (https://youtu.be/K2P4Ed6G3gw) and discussed noises. She had the idea of him trying to slowly get closer to the blender, vacuum cleaner, etc. He talked about how it’s gotten better, and he doesn’t have to cover his ears for the blender any more. At one point he made an analogy of noises getting louder to a star getting bigger. He then acknowledged the limit of his analogy and how starts then turn into white holes or black holes and ws telling her about black holes. The only thing he said really bothered him was loud restaurants, and described the noise as “the blah blah blah.”
Back at the table they looked at their plan again. She told him, “You’re such a smart boy, so I want you writing soon.” They got the robot puzzle toy out of the cupboard and he remembered playing with it at school with her. For the third activity she was having him drawing circles and coloring them in. She was keeping his elbow on the table. She had made the hair band bracelet thing for him again and asked us to use the bracelet anytime he is writing or drawing. He seems open to it now, whereas last spring after she left the house he’d said he’d never use it. Finally, they played with the putty, stretching it to find the beads. She had said she would give him a little bit of the putty, as he had wanted to experiment with it (I think he wanted to put vinegar on it) but we somehow left without both that and the hair band thing. Oh, and when she’d first talked about overstimulation he had said overetimulation was like cubby and he didn’t like the word: “They’re both gross.”
August had wanted both oranges and avocados (we had smelled oranges, and he liked the avocado in the sushi) so we drove into town and went to Stop City! They had both of those there, and a couple other things we needed, like crackers. He also read “Oatmeal Squares” on a box of cereal and asked to get it, so we did. As we shopped he said, “I want to be a grocery person when I grow up.”
As we walked to the car I used the phrase homeward bound and he asked what it meant. As we drove, he told me, “Actually, I want to be a person who cuts down trees for safety.”
At home we tried the new cereal with milk. Nice and cinnamon-y, and not too sweet. We then had avocado and crackers and watched the last two episodes of season 2 of My Little Pony. We then played Blue Apprentice for science time, finishing the plants/carnivores/etc. chapter.
That was a lot of sitting around (although earlier I had pointed out to August on the way home that it had already felt like a full day) so we now got out on a bike ride. We rode around, venturing as far as the strawberry fields, but going no further from home; he says that’s the safe distance for rain.
We ended up over at the park on Vatikim. He wanted to get off and play, so we did that. He noticed that the ball chute thing was missing, and that the motorcycle thing was missing its handles. He also said that maybe he should be an electrician. I don’t know where this interest in jobs has suddenly come from.
Carly sent a messages saying that Shmuel had tried to call her. So we got on the bike and headed back to the house. On the way, August said he had learned that you should take notes as a gardener so that when you plant something again you know what happened before.
It turns out he had left a rose bush for us. We talked to him about it first before seeing it: it was a really tall, scraggly thing. We went riding some more, doing two and a half miles total. We were home after 3.
I made a smoothie to test his comfort level, after he said he found he could stand right by the counter with the te kettle on. He was comfortable with the blender while sitting on the edge of the couch, with his ears not covered. While we drank the smoothie we watched a Kurzgesagt video about Loneliness (https://youtu.be/n3Xv_g3g-mA). There was an ad for a meditation app. He said, “I actually believe the more you meditate the less you get stuff wrong.” He then watched the video about Optimistic Nihilism (https://youtu.be/MBRqu0YOH14). He was really interested in both. Somehow at the end of that one we ended up talking about his theory of multiple universes: “It’s not like it’s islands and you have to swim to the next one…”
He then talked about making a galactic empire, as he had thought that line in the second video was quite funny. He said, “And I’m going to make a flag for it.” He asked, “What is the meaning of life?” After I said something he added, “And to make a galactic human empire.”
He did alone time, making art with the correcting tape. Then he made drawings of solar systems, before switching to making a bunch of shapes with the stencils.
For his iPad time he watched some of Phineas Rage’s Vegetarian Minecraft videos. Shmuel came up and I talked to him for a couple minutes. Then August was hungry so we had more avocado.
Carly got home after 5:30 as he was eating avocado. She came in to hear him say, “If I was a mold I’d want to grow on avocado.” He got hair bands from Carly so he could use them for writing with. Carly had read a word, corumination, and taught it to us.
For his evening time he watched more of the Vegetarian Minecraft series. He says he wants to ask Phineas Rage why he chose that name. He only watched for 15, then we played Minecraft for the second 15. It was the updated version, that now has foxes in it. He didn’t handle the end of his time well and was hitting at the end.
When he calmed down he had some carrot coins, then more cinnamon cereal with milk. We then did the Brother and Sister game where they all have to use the bathroom at the same time. Then added to it, where they had installed a second bathroom and were having the extended family over, but one of the bathrooms ws broken. He then had a new game where Brother met a girl named Jessa out in the park. She had a big pile of equipment and paperwork in the park. At first she was too busy for him and told him “So too-da-loo.” But then Brother helped with her research on a meteor shower.
He then read to me in Rivet. He read a level 1, then a level 2 book called Little Rabbit is Sad. He then switched to the highest level and had me read a book on bullying. I read much of it, but then was starting to have a feeling that I was getting sick. I switched with Carly and she read the rest of it and then put of a Minecraft book while I went up to rest.
She gave him a bath after he got upset going up. While he was flossing he said, “The wrong way to take care of food in your mouth is let bacteria eat it.” I left them at 8:30. He was trying to bribe us to switch.
Hanging up art in the gallery:
Trying Strength Potion II:
Playing my composition:
Composing for me:
In the time machine:
Explaining the time machine:
His hypothesis on what particles actually look like:
Explaining what an atom looks like:
Stencil art:
Stencil spinning:
