He called out once during the night. I went in and he lay back down. I then remembered to just go back to bed and that worked just fine. He was up at 7:50 and just came down the stairs without saying anything. I went and turned off the heater, then we read the Roald Dahl poem “The Toad and the Snail”. He had wanted Minecraft so I gave him his iPad. He just sat there a minute though and asked, “Really, in France they eat toad meat?…What about snails?” We played Minecraft. He decided he really wants a saddle, which you can only find. So we made that our long term goal, although he wants it right now. He had oatmeal for breakfast, and updated his Christmas countdown. We had skipped 9 and 8, so he now did 7.
We got ready and went to Shani’s. He jumped right in the arms and legs swing. We decided the next session would be next Tuesday, the 24th, at 9. He swung around, then for the task he mainly got out of the swing and sat and did it. It involved putting pegs in a pattern, then weaving. He was very focused on it, particularly weaving through the string, which he said was like sewing.
The next activity was drawing. He did a drawing and added what Shani called “texture”. She was excited that he is automatically using the correct grip. She was copying things that he did, and discussed alternating “free” drawing with “specific” drawing. He talked about how he liked the free drawing more, but at least said he was open to alternating. He was really focused on his drawing, so they skipped making a pattern with stickers and would save that for next time.
He was tapping the pencil like drums. She asked if he was playing with Minke and said she thinks he needs some sort of music activity or lessons.
He chose to go back on the swing for the last ten minutes. She was pushing him to knock over the tube further away. Kind of ended on a down note, as he gave up on where she had it. But he didn’t seem too bothered. He sang on the way back to the car again, and we headed home. There, he did alone time and I got ingredients out. We played Minecraft, then made cookies. Along the way he got his second half hour of Minecraft and made a really cool sculpture, making use of symmetry and matching colors and textures.
When the first batch of cookies was ready we each had half. We made them really big, for sharing purposes. I wrote names on all of the bags, and started filling them. We were delivering to Jeff, Or, Alex, the Kerns, the Potwins, Ms. Andrea (August’s choice), and Natalie and family. And all four of the librarians. I totally forgot to make a bag for Jonathan.
He had a late lunch of carrots and apple and a little peanut butter and honey sandwich. He sang along to “Soothe My Soul” by Depeche Mode. We had another half cookie (and milk) then did a Brother and Millie games. She was fooling him. He would take animals home and they would be her. The first was prairie dogs, but there were others.
I also called iDigital and it turned out my phone was ready to be picked up. Judging by the paperwork I got later it looked like it may have been sitting there 5 days or so, ready to go, but they didn’t contact me. Can’t complain though, as they fixed it, didn’t find anything wrong, and didn’t charge me a shekel for it.
Anyway, we headed to school just before 2. We first went to Carly’s classroom to deliver to her (August had written “Mama” on a bag) but she wasn’t there, so he set it on her desk. We then found her coming out of the office. Carly then delivered the bags to Alex and Or (the MS secretary). August got to shy to deliver them with her. We then went around delivering the rest. Jeff had left early to catch his flight to Paris, so we couldn’t do that one, but we did the rest. We first went to the library and delivered all of those. He did some art on the computer while I checked out a book called Golem, a King Arthur and His Knights (there were so many different versions to choose from), and Genies, Meanies, and Magic Rings: Three Tales from the Arabian Knights. August was excited by my choices. We had left Ilana’s on her desk, and she came and thanked us, and talked about heading to New York for the break.
From there we headed to deliver the others: the elementary school and preschool were having their parties with families. We talked to Sharna, but Natalie wasn’t there. Over at the preschool August took cookies in to Andrea. She gave August a hug, and August did his turning his back to her for the hug thing, which I haven’t seen him do much recently; don’t know if it is just I haven’t seen him get hugged as much recently, or if that was just a remembered behavior and how it was comfortable for him to receive hugs back in preschool. We also saw Rena. August said, “It’s Ms. Rena!” I talked to her about how August has gotten into meditation/mindfulness and she was very excited. I had August ask her his question we’ve been wanting to ask her: What was the smell that she had for them? It turned out to be lavender oil and they talked about that and how calming it is. We’ll have to get some at the health food store.
We saw Eve but not her mom, and bounced back and forth to Heather’s room a couple times. We left them on her desk, then ran into Heather a minute later. Last on our list was Natalie and family. She still wasn’t at the party, but I saw Corinne, so we went and I was explaining to her that there was a cookie for everyone in her family, when Natalie showed up. We gave her the cookies. They are headed to Chicago for the break.
We got going right before 3 and headed down to the mall where my phone was. We listened to Story Pirates. We parked and headed right up to the store. That went pretty quickly. We then sat at the tall table and he played with the voice transcription feature on his phone (transcribe was a word of the day), then played a little Polytopia as I made sure the phone worked and started setting it up. I was hoping their internet was faster than ours and I could do a restore from backup there, but it was being too slow so we got going home. We listened to more Story Pirates, and he loved the line “Sheep get out of here, we’re trying to finish a story.”
Google Maps took us on a short cut through Udim, but traffic wasn’t too bad over all and we were home at 5:30. I gave him 15 minutes to show Carly his sculpture in Minecraft. She was finishing up a book and it involved the Philippines. August asked, “What role do they play in the world?” I then read The Golem and part of King Arthur. We then did music and worked on the Mr. Minke Song. Then songs of his own.
For his dinner I whipped up a grilled cheese and avocado sandwich and broccoli. He really liked the sandwich and had enough broccoli that we had another half a cookie and milk. We went upstairs and did a Brother and Sister game where they end up in a void. It turns into torture as Baby Sister keeps watching Barney on a big screen. He washed himself in the bath. Made lots of suds and used a ton of soap. He told Carly the spooncil and Dumb Dot story from The 117-Story Treehouse. He was then singing about Minke: “Minke…and guess what, he was using teacher tricks to get the funky students to play…to make them practice in the rehearsal for the band…”
Carly had checked out a Magic School Bus chapter book and August told her, “I just don’t feel like Magic School Bus is for reading; it’s for watching.” We got him ready and said good night to Carly. We listened to the Circle Round story “The Tug of War” and then did two meditations in Ninja Focus. He was asleep at 10.
Some time earlier he had talked about another machine he made to study synesthesia. He used CRISPR (which he’s now learned about in a few videos) to remove the gene and study it. Also earlier we’d been talking about some king, and he talked about the king using “kinging tricks.”
Singing “Soothe My Soul”:
Delivering cookies to mama, sort of:
A cookie delivery:
Piccolo songs 1:
Piccolo songs 2:
His free jazz:
