Friday, January 3: Minecraft with Gilad and to school with Carly

He got up at 6:15, after calling me in once around 4 when his covers were off. He almost walked right by me and went downstairs but I told him to get in bed with me and he did, falling right back to sleep.

Carly went to wake him up at 8:25. He lay on the couch for several minutes and they talked. They discussed why it was fresh and rosy fingered outside, and he argued there are still some UV rays at night because of “shockwaves”. When they came back down Carly looked it up, to see if some stray UV rays bounce around during the night.

He was then showing her how the seeding system works in Minecraft and she ended up playing with him in one of the worlds. She then started reading him a book, which involved science, and he started seeing if he could make a static charge by rubbing his feet on the rug. I told him it would probably work better with socks and I went and got him socks. I threw them down, then was making the beds and cleaning up.

When I came down they were taking apart some bits of wire as he had ideas for using batteries to see if electricity would go through things like a balloon. He also thought about taping one coin to the ground and another to a drill and rubbing them together. I think he is thinking of a generator.

He wanted Swedish pancakes for breakfast, so Carly took over with that. He then wanted to read Rivet books to drive Carly crazy, as he knows she wants him to work on sounding out the words instead of touching them to have the app pronounce them. He had the iPad read him the whole first book he looked at (about eggs) but then was reading books on his own. He ate a Swedish pancake while he kept reading, then was trying to have fun arguing with Carly about something. She pointed out that she doesn’t actually like to argue, and he reminded her of her slippery slope argument. He provided her with an argument for something, and asked “Why did’t you think of that argument?”

He had a second Swedish pancake and strawberry, then I told him he could play Minecraft with Gilad. I gave him an hour, but of course once he was on it turned out Gilad’s sister was on the computer. So August, who had an hour total, spent his time without Gilad starting a new world and gathering resources (after some suggesting from me) for Gilad. Carly made him a third pancake.

Gilad logged on and they played well together for about 45 minutes. After that he played a lot of piano and we figured out that his Creepy song is in F minor. He was having me look up the scales and chords he was playing with Piano Companion.

They then went to school to play and see if there was anything to take apart. They weren’t gone very long and came back with a scanner to take apart, which they started doing. I put in about 5 or 6 hours of work total today, getting a bit ahead on things.

He came up to ask if he could still earn time, as Carly wasn’t sure, after the time with Gilad. I came down for a minute to confirm that he still could, then went back upstairs.

I came down about 4:20. He had figured out his mashup of “Let It Go” and “Always” on the piano. Mashup was a word of the day. He kept figuring out more songs and also figured out “London Bridge” in C sharp.

Carly went for a walk. He kept playing. We looked up chords, and then it turned into a bit of a Brother game, with Bar playing chords and songs that either put Tigey to sleep or made him crazy or launching him to space (“the multichord”). “I have a Barring trick that will work.” Games got crazier and crazier, scaring other people and armies away that came to complain about the music coming from their house.

He made another pastry and I got it in the oven. Carly had come back, and he was doing alone time or something, so I went back up to work again. When I came down later they were finishing up a second documentary. One had been about how land had formed, and the other taught August about how rocks had started life. Not sure what they were. I started eating popcorn from the bowl and it took Carly a couple minutes to tell me that August’s foot had been in that bowl.

We went upstairs. He got a paper and marker and showed me how when he drew connected lines it looked like a dot-to-dot picture. I was going to wash his hair, so he got to choose a treat. He chose the huge candy cane. We talked about how he could lick it until we were done washing his hair and he was out of the bath. In the bathroom he asked me to explain what I had said before about mirrors making things backwards. So I showed him text on my phone and how it looked in the mirror.

I was explaining that when Carly came up. She had brought up paper to cover words for him to read. “This is a good way to read it!” Although then he said he could do the same thing without the paper: “I can use the microscope setting and zoom in on one word…now I’m looking at ‘A’ in my mind. It’s so giant.” But he seemed to like it well enough that we’ll give it a try.

I then gave him his bath. We washed his hair, which went well. We went into his room, and he kept licking his candy cane. Before giving it to him I had told him he could lick it until we were done with his bath and in his pajamas. He now started to break and bend the rules, saying he just wouldn’t dry off or put his clothes on. When I gave him a time limit and started timing it he then crunched off the entire top of the candy cane, which I had also made clear he couldn’t do. I was upset about the trickery and traded with Carly. She took over to brush his teeth. He came down and apologized to me, and then I went up to say good night, and left them around 9:30.

Minecraft with Gilad: