He called to me at 6:50. He was still in bed. I lay down on the lower bed and he fell back to sleep after a few minutes.He then called down at 8:05. I went up and he was still in his bed. So I lay down and rested as well for a few minutes. When he finally got up he lay back down on the couch bed while I got him clothes. I commented on how he couldn’t resist that soft blanket on it. He said, “If I’m ever punished by mama I’m gonna hide in the carpety blanket. Cuz she hates it. Pretty good kidding trick, right?”
Downstairs I read a lot of Where the Sidewalk Ends and he recorded me with Voice Memos. We then played Minecraft. After about a half hour Gilad called and they played together. August ate oatmeal while they played, and we said goodbye about 9:40. While they were playing August asked me, “What’s for the sake of argument mean?”
We got ready to go and headed down to Herzliya for the next playdate. We were going to the house of Sara, whose husband works for the embassy. They are new this year, and have three girls. One is a second grader, the middle girl is Eliza, who was going to kindergarten, and they have an almost-four-year old name Micah, who goes to a gan. Eliza went to AIS in September but has been homeschooled since. We were supposed to do our homeschooling get together at their house yesterday, but they had to postpone to the 20th, but they invited us over today instead.
So August and I got there about 10:15. August was shy at the door, literally hiding when they opened it, but the youngest, Micah, was instantly inviting, telling him she wanted to show him the play room. Their house is huge, but not necessarily in a good way. Three floors of stairs up, and lots of space to fill and clean. We went up to the play room area and they played around each other as Sara and I talked. They hung off of an exercise bar thing and played with toys like Legos and those magnetic spinny things (I think I remember one of the older style ones from my grandparents’ house or somewhere) and harmonicas (after August asked me to wash it off for him).
Eventually they were getting hungry and we went downstairs. She unrolled a big roll of paper and August and Micah drew on it. August was doing math, then got into scribbling. Eliza was keeping to herself much of the time. We ate at the table though (I had brought tuna sandwiches, yogurt, strawberries, and other things for us), then Micah was being a cat and Eliza and August sort of bonded together as they threw pillows at her to keep her away.
I found out that Eliza had had troubles from the beginning at kindergarten. She was is Allie’s class, then was kicked out the day after she went on maternity leave. They then had to go back to the States (with three kids) to get an ADHD diagnosis (the State Department wouldn’t let them do that in Israel) and she’s been doing quite well on medication.
They then made a sort of fort out of pillows between the couch and the dining table. Sara mentioned using the table for gaming, and I thought she meant with the kids and I mentioned that we got No Thank You, Evil! We started talking about games for kids and wend downstairs to look at their collection. Eliza turned on the TV and August was amazed by its size and analyzed the pixels.
They wanted play Minecraft, and Sara figured out how to play it in split screen and August and Eliza played together in a new world. First, Sara showed us a little of what she had built in a different world. Figuring out the controls was the hard part, but August got it down pretty well. Sara helped Eliza more and they ended up playing together, and really it was more like August was playing with Sara as they started to build a castle together. Micah was a cat for a while, did some drawing, then did ABC Mouse and watched Peppa Pig.
Close to 2 we got going, as Eliza wanted to watch Peppa Pig too (2 was generally when they get to watch). So August and I went back to the car (no rain now) and drove up to school. We were listening to Story Pirates, back on season 3, and finished listening to the end of a story in the car, then we went in. Hadn’t heard back from Minke about when we could drop by, so I figured we’d just drop by. It worked out though, as he had let his class go to some basketball game. He greeted August, who stood shyly by the door again, then did about 25 minutes of an impromptu lesson in instruments and their history. He started with the big long horn, and talked about how it was used to communicate danger, etc. so music is more than just about sounding nice. He then had August play a bugle, then try a trumpet. August got the bugle playing right away and was amazed you could only play three notes. So when Minke showed him the trumpet and explained the valves August saw it as a problem like the cubes in the blocks and said, “Oh, 3 factorial! That’s 6!” It actually isn’t a factorial problem exactly the same (there’s a total of 8 combinations) but I was surprised he thought of it so fast.
At one point, as they were talking, August suddenly got excited and pointed at the signs above the front of the room and said there was math and that those were variables. It was actually the scale of dynamics (a word of the day).
Minke then showed him the bass sax. August was amazed by it: the sound, the size, all the buttons. Minke explained how it was invented by someone named Sax and is the newest of the band instruments. He had me take a photo of August holding it up, and Minke played “Ode to Joy” at August’s request, then played “The Pink Panther”, which August recognized.
August asked if he could do some percussion. He played the bass dram for a minute, then Minke gave him an extra set of marching band gloves showed him the flexitone and let him play it. The bell had rung and we needed to get going. We said thank you and headed out.
We headed over to Carly’s classroom. August walked right in and said, “I’m ready for class, Ms. Althauser” without any prompting from me. Carly was finishing up and wanted a ride. He did some satellite work on a piece of paper, then drew on the smart board, intentionally calibrating it incorrectly so it was off, and scribbling over her “important” work. Carly printed out more music paper for me to use at home.
August was then ready to get going, so he and I walked up and sat in the chairs outside the library. He asked about the Oort Cloud, Kuiper belt, etc. and we had a few minutes to read about them, particularly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt?wprov=sfti1
At home he went straight to the piano. He played his chromatic piece for Carly, then was playing things along to the metronome when I put that in front of him. They played Minecraft. I had a headache and took Tylenol and lay down.
When done with Minecraft he watched “All the Bombs”. I then showed him “The Infinity Paradox” on VSauce. Didn’t watch all of it, but we had some good discussion. After we were both confused about why he was calculating a $1 value for each round I was able to pause it and explain it. August wanted to do math so got out his scientific calculator. I helped him under stand the ‘root’ button and why a zero didn’t work in the first position. We then did a Desmos activity called Function Carnival.
I got him dinner of rice and chicken and veggies. He didn’t eat much though, arguing that chicken might, in theory, be too fatty, and skipping the veggies. He spent some time copying equations. I was setting up template pages for music. He took over and did one piece of art on the iPad. He was then rubbing his eyes and told Carly he had had “too much screen time.”
She read Clementine’s Letter. He wanted Cheerios, but agreed to eat frozen strawberries. He had several of those, then Cheerios. I went for a run. Well, that was the plan. Carly had gone out earlier, and now I got all dressed to go. Then there was the rumble of thunder. So no run. The storm really hit, with lightning and wind and a downpour.
Instead, we practiced piano. He learned more of his piece. Once he understood the structure he got the first 12 measures or so. His eyes were still bothering him. He discovered a melodic minor scale again. We need to learn about melodic scales. He has been playing a riff that reminds me of the “Money, Money, Money” line in the song of the same name by Abba, so I played it for him.
Got him upstairs and Carly read to him, then read more of Clementine’s Letter to him while I took a shower. In bed, we listened to the Stories Podcast version of “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”. We listened to the sleep track of the meditation album we’ve been listening to. He talks about your happy place, and I asked what August’s is, and he said “you and mama.” In a meditation about calming your mind he popped up to ask, “Why doesn’t gas station food taste as good?” I then put on the cello album we’ve been listening to and he was asleep by 10:15.
Drawing with a new friend:
Playing Minecraft on the big screen:
Playing the bugle!:
Listening to bass sax:
Some piano improv:
