He slept through the night again! And I realized I hadn’t turned the heat back on last night, after he requested the fan mode when he was falling asleep. He looked nice and cozy with his furry blanket, but I turned it on when I got up, although reduced it to 24 degrees.
I got him up at 7:45. He was totally cuddled in his blanket, the soft purple one from Max, which has now become his. We read half of a Dahl poem about the tortoise and the hare, then played Minecraft. When it was done we had cereal and strawberries for breakfast and he had us play Brother games involving Minecraft. He had a scenario where Brother added one more horse and it crashed the server. When I had Sister or someone ask, “Why’s the server so slow?” He laughed and spit out his cereal.
We finished Dahl’s “Tortoise and Hare” and he then remembered to change to countdown to 12. We were then Brother and Myna the cat. I suggested a Circle Round story so we listened to “The Drum” and he drew a picture in Procreate, starting with just a blank canvas. He had the idea of turning a photo into lines, so I downloaded Inkwork and we took a photo of the living room and he put it in Peocreate and colored it.
He liked the idea of quesadilla for lunch, and as we ate he requested an educational video and we watched a Smarter Every Day video on golf balls. He loved that, and we learned about elastic deformation, plastic deformation, and failure. August excitedly told me about a golf ball he shot in space. We then watched a Mark Roper video about planting 20,000,000 trees. August learned about how the mass of a tree comes from the air, and when talking about using drones to plant trees the video taught us the word biomimicry.
I got him upstair to change. He had another Brother game where Brother took Baby Ssister for show and tell. Bar took them on crazy field trips and showed the class a time loop machine. And Bar brought a bullet ant colony to the class.
We got going to the mall. Before we went out he said we needed to drive as he doesn’t trust the forecast in the rainy season (valid point). But I got him in the yard for a few minutes, then when we got walking he was telling me about something and just kept walking. We got to the base of the stairs on the bridge before he said “Wait, why are we walking?” But then he chose to walk the ramp route, saying he liked the path. Once on the bridge I carried him; the wind was bothering him and he put his head down on my shoulder. His eyes were also seeming to be a bit itchy earlier. Could be allergies, and we’ll start on the allergy medicine again, but we also learned later from Carly that the pollution was really high today. August commented on how hazy/foggy it looked, and it could have just been all the dust in the air.
As we got to the mall August pointed out a dead cat a few feet from the parking lot. We talked about that, and he handled it well. The mall was really busy, and I wondered why I had thought I’d be able to get my hair cut. First, we stopped at the candy stand (we’d also discussed the Arcaffe to get another donut, but he decided to go with the candy stand) and he chose two red licorice rolls. It was a total of 3 shekels. He then told me one was for me. I told him that was very nice. I had a little, and let him eat the rest of it.
And then the luck; at the barber the guy told me I could wait. There was just the guy he was finishing up, and a woman waiting. She was taking up the entire bench with her and her stuff, so August and I sat down outside the doorway and he finished his treat and we did a Brother game where he gets a robot from Bar to program himself. I was in quick enough. The woman working there filled August’s water bottle for him, and he watched while I got my hair cut. When it was done August told me I looked like a librarian or teacher or professor or principal.
He had suggested we got something at the druze place again. I said we were going to Giraffe today, but that would be a good idea next week with Carly so she could have a fresh sandwich from there. But then I remembered the dolma. August didn’t know what I was talking about. She was out of them, but the Israeli place next to her did. We bought a container, then went to walk outside to sit and eat some. I remembered the shoe store though and we stopped to look at rain boots. Being Friday, and the beginning of the rainy season, everyone else was doing the same. They had August’s sizes in the rocket rain boots, and he tried the 29s, 31s, and 30s. The 31s were too big, then he had the idea of trying a 29 on one foot and a 30 on the other. A great idea. He chose the 30s. We had to wait several minutes inside the busy store to pay. August sat on a store chair and looked at baby shoes. He said, “It’s hard to imagine feet that small.”
We then went outside and sat on the bench and ate some dolma. He ate a bunch, then said we should go in on the airplane, and he ate some more. We then went to Giraffe. We got the menu and I found the pad see eu that Carly had mentioned wanting and we also got shrimp pad thai. They have lime-infused water and August wanted some. We used one of our straws. We went outside and drank that and read The Last Kids on Earth and he ate more of the dolma.
When the food was ready it came in a big plastic bag. We had done our best to refuse plastic on this trip but still ended up with tons. We headed out the back of the mall and home. We said goodbye to the dead cat. He had me carry him again over the bridge so he could put down his head.
At the house he put on his boots and coat to try them out walking around the yard. We then did 15 minutes of Minecraft (what he had left) and read more of The Last Kids on Earth. We had chocolate milk, then we did a Brother game with each of them having a bad dream, then needing to pee. Sisters Minecraft worlds were missing, as were her backups, their Mom’s research materials and notes were missing, and Brother’s involved painting the castle that Bar and Sister were making in Minecraft with every color imaginable, only to find it didn’t end or something like that.
We were then trying to use Hooked on Phonics, but the internet was reeeaaaallllly sssllllooowww and has been recently. I did speed tests on it, and August loved doing the speed tests over and over, seeing the exact numbers he would get for the upload and download speeds.
Carly got home, and we used the cellular connection on her phone to download the Hooked on Phonics files. We found August’s sweet spot, around level 13 or 14 of the app. He found the word activities quite easy, involving SH and CH and the such, but said the reading activities with sentences were hard.
I was tired and rested on the couch for a few minutes, then had dinner. They started painting, and August was saying/practicing “yellow” and doing pretty well. He’s moving on to the medial L sounds. I went for a run. They did art and were reading Clementine when I got back.
I showered and switched with Carly. He and I left a skype video for my parents then sent messages to Vivian on Wizard School. He sent her a lovely video, and did some art. My parents were then on and we skyped with them for about half an hour. Dad had just had an MRI on his knee today. Paul studying a lot. Bunco party the night before and they left with the Frangos they came with.
We said goodbye, then did a Brother game and he ate crackers and pate. Carly took him up to a bath. Don’t know what assassination attempt they discussed tonight. I had promised him a full Brother and Sister game after his bath, so we went in his room and did the Tigey/Cheetey/and Tigey-ey story line. We distinguished that they would have different origins: Tigey was found alone, Cheetey was caught in a trap, and Tigey-ey initally attacked them.
Instead of fighting the Cheerios every night I’ve decided to embrace it, as he seems to do most of his eating in the evening. So I had brought up a full bowl of them for him. August asked two questions for us to look up later: Why do you get allergies? and Why do Cheerios go stale? We listened to the Circle Round story “Three Wishes”. August pretty randomly asked, “Could you estimate how many punctuation marks you have used in your life?” We listened to Beethoven’s First Symphony (his request) and he was asleep by 9:35, a full 50 minutes to an hour earlier than he has been doing.
Launching a golf ball:
Trying out rain boots:
Using Hooked on Phonics:
