He was up about 7:45. We went downstairs and he cuddled under the blankets for a few minutes. I then read some Where the Sidewalk Ends poems. He got his iPad for Minecraft, but spent time graphing. He’s a entered a new realm of creating graphs based on the circle equation (x^2+y^2=1). He made one that looked like a bow tie (using absolute value) and now can add the product multiplier (capital pi) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplication?wprov=sfti1) to a graph and have it work.
We had a good learning time figuring out why his function “the x root of x” looks how it does, it when he wanted to figure out summation it was more frustrating, as he just wanted to kept putting in random things everywhere and didn’t want to start with the basics.
He compared a function (x going in and and getting changed) to a character in a game getting upgrades or something.
At some point he told me I could tune the piano, and that became an activity throughout the day. He watched, then requested the tuner so he could play the synthesizer and mess with it. I installed the app on his phone and he spent quite a while playing music and creating new sounds. Hertz was a word of the day from that.
I made us a tuna melt and chocolate milk for lunch. He only ate half of his sandwich, which led to an early dinner. Omar called me to discuss planning, and I’m going to go down next Tuesday as Carly is off of work. August and I watched a video on semitomes and tones, learning they are just other names for half and whole step, after he saw semitone in the synth app. But good words of the day.
He did his alone time. Some piano, but he also created a sort of hiding fort on the couch today, hiding things under the blanket. It accumulated more and more stuff through the day. We played Minecraft, then watched a VSauce video called “The Dot Game that Will Blow Your Mind” (or something like that). The Yoda part was hilarious, and August loved the game. We then played with the game a lot, drawing it both on paper and on the iPad. Of course, not against each other, but he would draw through games, and he’d have me do it. He wanted me to do it as the class in the Brother and Sister games, but that was a bit too much.
At some point I brought down the guitar after August was talking about de-tuning a piano string for fun. I said he couldn’t do that, but he could on the guitar. Figuring out scales and songs. Made up a couple things that he had me record, and was also figuring out things like Yankee Doodle. I got the piano tuned up past middle C. Steady progress. August was paying attention to what I was doing and noticed when a note went in tune. I think he described it as the note not being “fuzzy” anymore. I’d like to finish a first tuning today, but don’t think it will happen. Maybe tomorrow. He was also figuring out how to dampen the strings.
I tried to get him outside at one point. It had looked like it was going to be a nice day today, but after being sunny in the morning it got rainy and was kind of miserable for the rest of the day.
He had me open the chord lookup app for guitar and was looking up crazy chords, and then had fun detuning some of the strings. He was hungry early, so had a bowl of nutty noodles around 4. And then a second bowl. Carly got home. He was going a little frantic at one point—not a lot of time spent getting the energy out today. He did alone time and was also a little frustrated that the piano was out of tune—the tuned piano reached up into the middle of where he usually plays.
I went for a run and they played Minecraft in the flat world. When I got back he was watching the VSauce video on the game Battleship. They then read the new Clementine book. Carly went and took a shower.
He played piano and was comparing things he would play to his toy piano. He told me how to calculate his rocket ship speed if we had infinite power. He was hungry, and had crackers and peanut butter, then more crackers and peanut butter. We started listening to another episode of Earworms, this time the episode on how we sense time.
I got him upstairs pretty easily, as he followed me up when I took up the blankets and iPads. But then upstairs he hid on the bed, then under the fuzzy blanket, like he had said he would hide from Carly. Eventually though we lured him into the bathroom and Carly washed his hair. I did dishes and tuned more of the piano. It went much faster now that I have the process down and when August was down here. I only have 21 notes to do tomorrow. I think they read a little more of Clementine.
I went up and we headed until his room. We read a little of Apollo, then put on a Stories Podcast story, “The Biggest in the World”. We next put on the last Andy Hobson meditation, “The Keeper of Dreams”. August tapped me when it was over as I had fallen asleep. I put on the first Beethoven string quarter, and he was asleep by 9:30.
A cool animated graph:
A dissonant piece:
Tuner freak out:
Playing sprouts:
Falling animated graph:
Playing guitar 1:
Playing guitar 2:
