He woke up at 8:20. He decided to watch videos instead of Minecraft this morning. He watched one stickman Minecraft video, then discovered the Dear Blocko series of videos on Life Noggin, which were both interesting and pretty funny. Then Kurzgesagt: “Before Human History” and “All the Bombs”. He was then Bar making all those nuclear weapons and more. He then ate his quesadilla for breakfast. He started asking riddles, but ones he didn’t have the answers to, but they sounded nice, like:
Something that has three legs but can’t jump,
A mouth but can’t talk,
And a shirt that isn’t there.
He was talking steadily as we got ready to go. Right before we left I was looking for 10 agorot coins to use in the science museum spiral thing. And could only find four. I went in the Zinnie house looking for the change he would use for his store and calculator game, but instead found a bag with three rotting avocados. No idea how those got there, and I don’t remember buying three avocados at one time. Maybe at the fruit and veggie stand? But how would the bag have gotten there?
We left at 9:45. We read more of Shipwrecked! on the way there. Also on the way he talked about how he collected something “… for abstract art.” Can’t remember what it was though. He also used my phone to take photos and videos out
Carly dropped us off at the Bloomfield Science Museum. Since we would have to pay for her, I suggested she go to another museum. So she dropped us off and then went to Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum/memorial. It is Hannukah break, so everything is really busy. She said the main hall was really crowded, but the other areas/galleries were better. The science museum was busy too, but we’ve seen worse and it wasn’t too bad.
I think we may have sort of snuck in: I had our memberships out, and as we walked up there was a big line at the ticket window. I told August we could walk right by, expecting there to be the usual security person or someone checking memberships. Kept walking and didn’t see anyone until we were fully into the museum. So we may have bypassed a long line, but if so it is odd to not have two lines.
We first did the coin thing. I only had 4 coins for August, but plenty of other kids were doing coins as well. One little kid came over and gave August a coin, and I then gave the kid a coin that I had. We then wandered around. He ran circles through the door that count how many times people walk though. We then made our way up and he had me make a paper airplane. I think he only shot it out of the launcher once though. We spent a good amount of time in the room about electricity, lighting up the lightbulbs, etc. When he was playing with one thing he said, “ This is an alien messaging service.” There is one that uses electricity to pull heat up and down, making a copper plate warm and cold. He felt it and said, “LITERALLY cool.”
We went down to the new-ish da Vinci exhibit and played around with the big wings, then the one where you can try to fly yourself, standing on a scale and holding wings. He was happy still exploring, but it was past noon and I was afraid the snack shop would get busy. He agreed to go get lunch. We each got a packaged sandwich, and he got a chocolate pudding thing and we got a mango juice that we shared. We went downstairs and ate. As we walked down the stairs he remembered being there with Gramma and Grampa. He had a Brother game about Brother wanting candy, then he talked about how he built a website about predicting things. But they aren’t just random predictions, as he uses science.
Back up on the main floor he spent a lot of time playing in the mirror around a post. We then did the mirror maze. This was impressive as he’s always been scared of it and insisted I carry him. It was also busy this time, but he led the way and we walked through it three times. He said he could tell where the mirrors were because “there’s the oil spheres. Those don’t show up in thin air!” He then played in the big mirror outside it. We spent some time over in the optical illusions section, then he started talking, first about a crazy optical illusion he created, then about some system that used mirrors to move light to other houses or something like that, then finally he was talking about “positive” and “negative” eclipse points, like on either side of the Earth, but there was a lot more to it than that.
We looked at the little sample of moon rocks they have their from the Apollo 11 mission, and were up in the machines/gears area at some point. In the end we ended up at reading room, which we’ve never been in. We spent a few minutes looking at a big Science book. August then spotted books across the room and went to check them out. They were a series of books that tell stories from around the world that involve science, part of a big curriculum series from the Museum of Science in Boston.
We then headed out to meet Carly. Somewhere along the way he asked, “How does allergy medicine work?” We met her at 1:40. He had been telling me about a big Rube Goldberg-sort of machine he had made, and he now asked Carly, “Do you want to hear about the machine I maded? It starts with a toaster. A very powerful toaster.”
On the way home we read Shipwrecked! Almost finished it. And some Prelutsky poems. New words included brat, disputatious, and pestiferous. We were home after 3.
He described another Rube Goldberg machine as he sat on the toilet. He did a lot of tune making, then we went out to find specimens. Before we left he debated whether he liked the word specimens or something else better (like samples): “I’m picky about words.” We went and collected a few things, then came back and he did microscope time.
Carly had gone for a walk and made it all the way over by the school when there was a big crack of thunder. She started walking home, and it started raining pretty hard a couple minutes before she got her. A bit soaked, but she was dressed accordingly.
They did Minecraft. He was excited when I said he’d been playing by himself, with the microscope, for 15 minutes and had earned it without even realizing it. I went upstairs for a while.
When I came down they were painting. Somehow I got into changing Siri to his/her different accents, and August was asking each version (Indian, Irish, etc.) questions. That went on for quite some time. August ate more soup, then had some chocolate milk. He talked about making a frozen treat, and when I asked what he said “my ujh,” meaning “usual.” He made his treat, and told me, “I think you need more parenting tricks. I’m catching up.”
While it froze we Shipwrecked! We paused a lot during it to discuss different things. Carly had gotten the book for her students, so was surprised when he liked it. She asked how he’d liked it and he said, “I love it.” We checked on the treat but it wasn’t frozen yet.
He played melodica in his fort, then drew a picture. I heard him say, “She says no, but I say yes.” He then came and explained it to us. It was about him wanting something, like a treat, I think, and Carly saying no. Carly read Junior B. Jones to him. Racket was a word of the day.
I went for a walk and when I came back he had been making a series of picture charts in his kidding fort, each about kidding tricks. I asked him to explain them to me but he wouldn’t; he wouldn’t explain them to Carly either.
I got him upstairs and we did a Brother game upstairs, which involved asking Bar for help to make an intergalactic kidding community to help Brother get better kidding tricks. I gave him a bath, and then Carly put him to sleep.
Around the doors:
Big wing:
Big wing 2:
Trying to fly:
Amazed by the mirror:
Music in the car:
His kidding pictures from his fort:
His secret pictures:
