Saturday, December 7: Artisan fair and playing at the school

He slept until 7:30. I brought him down and he was groggy on the couch. Asked for Minecraft right away and was a bit grumpy when I said reading first. Carly came in and he cuddled with her. He played Minecraft with her, and started building one of our red chairs in Minecraft. I think there were a couple other things he did, like the cloth drawer thing we keep art supplies in. I made French toast for breakfast. He wanted berries on one of his, and helped mash the frozen berries after I heated them. He also had strawberry yogurt on them. Liked that, but not so much the berries.

We played through the Brother and new Baby Sister storyline, then got going to school for the Artisan Fair. Carly was staying home to work. Carly had replaced the dining room chairs inside, and placed the white ones outside to take over to the junk area. August asked if he could finally bite one. Apparently that has always been a temptation. I let him bite one.

He took a photo of his bite, then was the photographer at the Artisan Fair. He took tons, and also videos. He was changing the color settings and said, “With vivid warm it looks like we live in a more savannah country.” We did a loop of the fair and found Natalie working at the food stand, which was raising money for the gala and the charity it supports. We talked to her, and bought a chocolate muffin for August. We kept walking and went down by the preschool and looked at the gardens and the chickens, which are all grown up now, it seems. He played on the playground and took more photos and videos. I particularly liked his video of the spinning thing, and of me relaxing on the bench.

Eventually we went back up and looked at pillow cases and things at the Women in Hebron stand. We went back to the food stand and got a couple savory treats (one for each of us), two sweets (a chocolate ball thing for him, and a chocolate muffin to take to Carly, and two drinks (cappuccino for me, and a hot chocolate for me). We went down and sat at the top of the amphitheater and ate. Matt Kern came along and we talked to him for a few minutes. We talked about the number of cells in our body and related facts.

August loved the food, but didn’t think the hot chocolate was all the sweet. I told him it was because he had just eaten his very chocolate-y thing. As compared to my coffee it was really sweet. He also asked, “Why when you eat an orange and then you eat an Oreo the orange is really sour?”

We went back to the Women in Hebron stand. I was going to get two pillow cases and a pencil case, but they were more expensive than I thought and I had less cash than I thought I had. So I just got one for the pillow case upstairs. I suggested trying to find Corinne and Elise and he liked that idea. We found them with Natalie and Ben, and they went down to the playground with us. They didn’t play together much, in part because they started a hide and seek game with other kids and August had no interest in that. We got going, but then hung out by the elementary school for several more minutes as he took more photos, including me in a thinker pose.

We left at 1. It had been three hours. We noticed winged ants on the windows of our car. He added a couple “Complainer” remixes to his playlist, and sang “Every cloud is rainable / Every song is beautiful…”

At home we went right back out with his bug catcher so he could find insects. We went across the street, along the cacti, and ended up finding a bunch of ants. He started gathering some, and was surprised when one of the ground ants attacked one of the winged ants. The kids from across the street and another boy came by on their bikes and we let them look at the ants and they helped catch a bunch more. Eventually we headed home and he showed them to Carly. We didn’t keep them for a long time, but I think the two winged ones were dead by the time we let them go.

He introduced a new Brother story by starting, “‘Hey Brother,’ says Bar.” She gave him the choice of infinite Minecraft time or infinite YouTube time. I initially had him choose Minecraft, no contest, but August wanted him to be agonized by the choice. He then had Brother trying to cuddle with cute animals in Minecraft, but then accidentally hurting them and getting attacked by the animals.

I opened the box with presents from Dee and put them up. We haven’t had presents out in advance before, but I thought it would be a good experiment/practice for him. August reminded me, “Santa isn’t real.”

He did alone time, then we played in the mesa in Minecraft. He did painting with Carly. He mainly likes to watch her, and he enjoys mixing colors. He then helped Carly make paintings that she was going to use for cards for her students. He had the idea of setting up a timelapse of this, which turned out really well. He ate meat and potatoes and beets and chocolate milk for dinner. He asked me, “Could you tell me more about the people with the fascist groove?” And I told him more about East Germany.

He asked for a sliced apple. I did that, and we played Simple Rocket 2. I didn’t know if it would be too complicated, and it does have a steep learning curve, and I think we’ll be able to enjoy it together; once I get the hang of it. Basically, you build rockets and other space vehicles and try to make them work. He really liked it, and got upset when we stopped. But he then told me to think of the closest thing to what he wants to do that I would allow. That was a great idea. I thought of making paper airplanes.

He loved that. We spent the next half hour throwing my two main designs (well, the two I remember) around. We did a little Brother game, then Carly read a book to him. It is about a boy in a wheelchair. Handicapped was a new word for him. The narrator mentions the ‘fact’ that elephants are the only mammal that can’t jump. I immediately wondered about hippos and rhinos, so we looked it up. Turns out it is a common myth, and there are also others: like the sloth, for example (and probably koalas?).

I went for a run. When I came back they were still reading the I Funny TV: A Middle School Story book that she had started with him today. I took a shower, then gave August his bath and brushed his teeth. We said good night to Carly and went in to bed. We watched a little of the Nutcracker, then he wanted to go back to the beginning with the part with all the kids. He particularly liked that part. We did a lot of talking about it. He had me read some of the Roald Dahl poems while we kept it playing. We did one Ninja Focus track, then he fell asleep to Zoe Keating cello music, by 10:05.

His view on the way to school: