The rain and thunder really let loose this morning. August called down at 7:45. Carly went up to him. He told her he had had a dream. But all he would say about it was “crazy stuff.” I read some Prelusky to him, then they played Minecraft. He asked, “What’s a dingus?” I wondered where he had heard that, and he said, “My Little Pony…you know how good my memory is.”
I told him all the things we could do on this rainy day. He immediately said, “I’m bored.” But then he played more melodica and started looking at things with his microscope. Tomato, cucumber, and hummus were highlights of the morning. I made us pancakes and strawberries. He at least ate the pancake.
He did one puzzle of Kandoodle. His next project was making a new “kidding fort,” this time under the table. He moved his art kitchen to be part of it, and rather unfortunately dumped out the box of wrapping paper from yesterday to use the box. That led to a discussion of kidding tricks, and I mentioned walking over to see the water in the ditches at some point. I mistakenly said “rainbow bridge” and that led to a funny discussion of my mind being stuck in Korea.
August was hungry, and Carly made him a salad that he did a pretty good job eating. He had requested some of the chocolate Santa before that, so after he ate it he got a bite. He crammed as much as he could in his mouth: “kidding trick.” They were figuring out how to play Apples to Apples. They played against each other, but August was also the judge. After a few rounds, with August choosing his own arguments, Carly said, “You have to give one to me!” “Well, if you had the right argument…” She won when she was able to argue that dogs are more disgusting than classrooms. I also heard her explain what orderly (example: not our house) means, so a word of the day.
Over on the couch she read something to him, and he did a Kandoodle level. They then switched and he read a few stories on his own in Rivet while she did a level. He then discovered that Crash Course has books up on level 8.
Carly was starting a clean up but he was hungry. So he agreed on carrots with lemon and he wanted to make Eve’s lemonade recipe. He squeezed real lemons for it. He dropped the squeezer at one point and said, “I’ve never worked in a lemon-squeezing factory before.”
More microscope. He wore his cape and was another magical shapeshifter girl called “Hanukkah”. We played a Brother game while I fixed the cupboard door (again). He went outside with Carly for a few minutes in full rain gear and got specimens. He looked at those, then later asked me to go out to get sap, as it was now raining.
They played the hanging stick game. I also fixed my sunglasses, put a battery in a smoke detector, etc. Carly cleaned out the toy box and stocked it with new toys, and got him to take down the kidding fort he’d built earlier. He was then timing her to see how fast she could hang all of the sticks in the hanging game. For lunch he had his carrots that were already out, and a grilled cheese and turkey.
He asked about the green metal robot toy and we talked about it. He declared, “This is a pretty old fashioned toy.” Carly went for a walk and we talked more about the robot. I ended up finding the video of when he got the original robot from Spenser in Portland, two summers ago. We looked at photos and videos from around then, then he was taking videos as Carly got home, and I was cleaning off and reorganizing the book shelves and coffee table.
For alone time he listened to the Circle Round story “The Chattering Clams” as I kept working on the shelves. He then played Minecraft with her. When she got a phone call she went upstairs and I played with him for a while. Ending went fine, and they decided on popcorn and a documentary about robots in space exploration. He got upset though when he had to have something healthy before a second bowl of popcorn. When he calmed a bit he worked on his first calm area, the one by the black chair, and adding to it. He asked, “What does sheepish mean?” I explained, then he asked, “What’s not sheepish?” So I taught him brazen as well. I think he heard sheepish from Circle Round.
The sky lightened a bit, and I took my opportunity to go for a walk. I took some of the recycling up, then was walking down close to the strawberry fields when Carly called, saying she needed an onion for the tomato bisque she was making. So I walked over to the mall and got a big onion, a couple apples (August had wanted to look at one in the microscope), and a can of iced coffee for me to drink on the way back. It was raining pretty steadily on the way back so I was pretty wet, but my rain coat did its job.
When I got back August was Skyping with Cassie and the kids. He was playing a really cool song on the melodica, in which he was using B flat, and he played it a few times. I didn’t get a really great recording of it, as he stopped to ask Cassie “a medical question” about how fast a human heart can beat before a person dies.
Carly was also making the artichoke, so after they were done Skyping they ate that at the table, and talked about veganism, which led to a discussion of cooking techniques, the military, and Iraq. It started to rain really hard and August looked out. The lights flickered off a few times today, and August joked, “Maybe it’s the gods annoying us.”
August played more melodies, then he and I worked on “Ode to Minke”. So, so close to being done. He then was doing his own compositions. We found more glitches with Notion and I figured out Notion is pretty much abandoned. So we bought Symphony Pro. A bit of a learning curve to a new app, but looks like it will be less buggy and also easier to use, once we understand it.
He gave Carly arguments for why kids should read. He argued that school is about learning. And, “They won’t get as good of a job and won’t make as much money.” And, “They won’t be able to pay for good healthcare.”
Carly was working at the table and started watching a video with a young adult author (she’d used it last year too). He watched part of it with her, then got her to switch. He watched the Kurzgesagt video on building a moon base, which he’s seen a few (several?) times. He had eaten the last of the soup while I was gone, and now had some broccoli and couscous.
We then went back to music and finished “Ode to Minke”. Although right near the end he discussed starting over on a new piece, and thought about adding a bass clarinet part. And once he heard the finished product a few times he also said it needed more drums in places. He wanted to show the song to Carly, and she asked if she could listen to it while he went to the bathroom. He said sure: “It’s like my middle name: taking a long time in the bathroom.” We then tried out a couple of singing-related apps and Symphony Pro. He wasn’t yet convinced.
He had some crackers and peanut butter. He put his fingers in the slime, and talked about how difficult it was to wash off. Still hungry, so had Cheerios and milk.
Carly discovered that one of the bits of sap had somehow ended up on the rug. She was cleaning it every way possible, but not making much progress. So I drove up to the pharmacy and got a bottle of rubbing alcohol and brought it back. That seemed to work much better, but still not clear how well it will look.
She took him up and they did a bath. We listened to “The Banker’s Riddles” on Circle Round again, then he was telling me a riddle that started, “A candle that isn’t a candle…” Had the lights off at 10 and we listened to a Jóhann Jóhannsson album. He was asleep by 10:15.
Playing Apples to Apples:
Purple cape:
Zooming:
Zinnie cam: following me upstairs and down:
Time lapse around the house:
Zinnie cam: me being boring:
Skype and melodica 1:
Skype and melodica 2:
Skype and melodica – his new tune:
Melodica in his kidding fort:
Ode to Minke:
