Sometime during the night I heard him clearly say something like “Ouch.” He woke up at 6:43. I went up and he got back in bed and pulled the covers up. He stayed in bed until 7:05. Still, barely more than 8 hours of sleep and didn’t bode well for the long day today. He lay on the couch until 7:20 when he finally asked for his iPad and Minecraft.
We played Minecraft, then he asked to make another YouTube video, this time about how elements are made. He used the MEL Chemistry VR app to demonstrate. That all went really well, but then he wanted to play Green Planet and immediately got upset when I said he’d have to do that during earned time. When he calmed down he had cereal, then did a Brother game where he was supposed to play “Jingle Bells” with the bad but didn’t know the music and was playing wrong notes.
We headed out and got to Shani’s a couple minutes early. He immediately asked her what the plan was. It was:
• swing
• drawing with stickers
• plasticine wotd
• August choice
He had fun spinning on the swing (the one with the arm and leg loops this time) then swinging forward and backwards. She suggested we’d have to get a swing for him at home. He covered his ears for a minute while he swung around. He asked for a challenge and they decided on the fishing magnet puzzle. He had ideas about flying through the air and getting them out, and her grabbing the fish from the fishing pole while he swung around. Both of which weren’t realistic/were dangerous. It took a few minutes for her to pay attention and get him to complete the puzzle in a calmer manner. “My technique didn’t work very good.” Shani said, “Think of a different technique” and he replied, “Go slower.”
They then for art with stickers. Actually, he used things that needed to be glued. He glued them in a circle and called it a bit of a bullet ant. Then there was green that was mold growing on the person. He then drew the ant. She got him to do another piece of art as he hadn’t done much drawing. He filled in circles with colored pencils. They then were drawing shapes for each other to trace. He of course took it immediately to 10, drawing crazy shapes for her to trace.
She noted that it was interesting that at the beginning of class he asked for a challenge when he got on the swing; in early weeks he would just want to do freestyle. We also talked about how the texture of the glue on his hands didn’t bother him now; his texture sensitivity seems to be doing better. We also told her about how he’s putting lotion on his hands, and the meditation he’s been doing.
They played with the plasticine, making outlines of their lines on paper, then he chose to spend more time on the swing.
He made music on the way back to the car again. We played more Brother games on the way to the park (the one from Shani again): making mistakes in a concert, saying the wrong lines in a play rehearsal (he was supposed to be the Beast in Beauty and the Beast but kept being a “nice” beast), then playing the wrong notes in a concert again. I joked that it was during “4’33”” and introduced him to free jazz. We listened to a little of the Ornette Coleman album before getting out of the car.
At the park we played on the merry-go-round and hd some snack. We had a Brother game where he was expelled from school (I can’t remember why), only to find out he was never enrolled in the first place and didn’t have to be going there. August choked on water when I said that part.
August then got into making slo-mo videos. We did them of him on the merry-go-round and of him spitting water. He played around a bit more, and told me about a “Earth Minecraft simulation.” And he had Brother skydiving with a squirrel suit, then taking care of Millie as a bird. As he played around he was having me help him slide down the fire pole, and was practicing it himself. Not really something he’s been interested in before.
He rode his bike back to the car, then we drove downtown. He wanted to eat lunch at Sushi Ishimoto, but it was closed and didn’t open until 12. We talked about doing our shopping and coming back. We went to Stop City for milk, then got strawberries at the fruit and veggie place. He decided he wanted a popsicle at the health food store instead of sushi for lunch. So he got a coconut strawberry one, and also tried the sample of raw honey. August had spotted the bench by the bank so we sat there. He had a Brother game where he was trying to get the next issue of My Little Pony, but kept missing it at the comic book store. Eventually the next issue was there and he had missed the one he needed, which was part 1 of a two-parter.
We got to the car at 12:10. We discussed the song “Fascist Groove Thing” and fascism. That led to a discussion of how people rebel against authoritarian governments, and how they can be punished. I used some examples from the Burning Down the Haus book about East German punk music that I’ve been reading.
At home we did our word time outside, reviewing our previous sounds and words and choosing a couple more sounds to add. I cut up the mango, and he played with the GarageBand sampler. He asked for it, describing how we had used it in Korea.
He then asked what chemical bonds are made of. We watched some videos about bonds, but they didn’t exactly answer his question well enough. He came up with a story of Brother putting his head in Bar’s “Duplicator collider” and then having to be put back together.
Carly got home as we were playing. He got upset with the idea of pausing. Took a while to get things back in order, but we ended up back with the game, then went outside again to do even more new words. We discussed the nutrition of mangos, then did more words before tracing each others’ hands. He added to my hand, calling them “crossbars.” We discussed why Oma is so healthy (we had discussed salt earlier, and mentioned that she really liked salt, but it was okay because she is healthy) and why McDonald’s is more expensive here in Israel than in the U.S. (he had said he wanted to go to McDonald’s for some reason and I had mentioned how it is more expensive here).
He had an ear of corn, then we headed to school. He was singing his new composition on the way there. He was excited as we went in and was running and high stepping. He had a cookie and we watched the caroling group in the lobby. We went in and sat down. He saw Minke on stage, setting up the electric bass and asked, “Can I yell down to Mr. Minke and say hi?”
The concert was quite nice. August recognized some of the music he had “conducted” and that it sounded better today. One of the highlights was Jonathan playing bari sax with the school saxophone quarter. They played “Just the Two of Us.” One of the bands also played selections from The Nutcracker and I’d show it to him later. At the end of the show I took him to the bathroom and he grabbed another cookie.
He enjoyed the cold on the way home and had the window open. At home we watched Kurzgesagt videos, one on a skyhook idea (payload was a word of the day) and one on the scale of time. We ate crackers and avocado and hummus.
Got him upstairs and did a Brother game, with Bar and Sister updating the Minecraft game on their server, which made Mynah upset as it got rid of magic, including potions. It was too complicated for Brother, and he quit and played vegetarian Minecraft by himself.
I gave him a bath and we watched part of the Nutcracker on YouTube. We had a debate over parenting tricks versus techniques, then said good night to Carly. He talked about treats in his lab, then had some sort of debate with me, pitting his kidding tricks versus my logic. I won, somehow, and he said, “How did you beat that? But that was my robot intelligence.” We listened to the Nutcracker and he fell asleep sometime after 10.
Starting another episode:
Episode 4: Atoms, part 1:
Episode 5: Atoms, part 2:
His favorite swing:
Spit and sand slo-mos:
Word time outside:
The extended L tongue twister:
Alien statues and singing Chemical Brothers and Fascist Groove Thing:
Saxophone quartet at the concert:
