He was up about 7:55. I went up and he had laid on the couch, his head under the blanket. We went downstairs and read a few poems in Where the Sidewalk Ends before switching to Minecraft, our survival world. When he went to the bathroom he said he had taught Carly that e isn’t a variable. He had learned more about it on one of the VSauce videos he had watched yesterday. He then sand an “x times x to the power of x” song.
We played Minecraft, then he had oatmeal and watched the VSauce video on the Birthday Paradox. He played a little piano, singing along to the notes he was playing, then switched to the synth app for more music. We had a Brother game with the ugly goose being indestructible. I think it was ‘imperishable’ that I used that August asked what it meant. A word of the day.
He did graphing and figured out how he could do diagonal crossing lines two different ways, applying the absolute values to either x or y. I was amazed by a graph he was able to make and he replied, “What? It’s just complex calculus.”
I tuned the guitar and he played that. He played Yankee Doodle in D sharp. Hungry, so he had a strawberry yogurt. Randomly he asked, “How does humanity make these things? Like this house?…It just seems impossible.” He did more guitar playing and was figuring out the pattern of how notes repeat, as well as octaves. We continued the Brother and Sister games with Bar trying to destroy the ugly goose, and with her breaking Pluto with a strong rock thrown at it at light speed. Humans then panic, and think she is planning to destroy Earth. I had a TV reporter keep exaggerating what she said and August was getting hilariously frustrated for her.
As we got going to school August said, about something, “Better safe than sorry…like that folk tale…” He was remembering Icarus flying too close to the sun.
At school we went and got Eve, then Zoe. We talked to Heather and August told her all about antibodies for her fact. On the way out to the car he found a chocolate coin on the ground and gave it to a nest of ants. On the way to VIPizza he was telling Eve and Zoe all about division and multiplication and exponential growth. We ordered a half-corn/half=olive pizza. They each got a juice pouch and I got an iced tea. August said there was something in it, and indeed there was: A big blob of mold or…something. It had a white center part that almost looked like an orange seed or something. Luckily, I didn’t open it. I told the pizza guy about it and got another one.
Pizza came and August talked about the bubbles in it, and sang: “I love you cave. I’m gonna munch you up. I’m gonna eat you up…I’m a germ, I’m a germ, I’m a germ…” He and Eve stopped first, at one slice each, and kind of wandered around a bit. August started drumming on things and said, “I want a drum kit. To keep my rhythm.”
We left there at 1. Had totally meant to then get strawberries, but forgot until after we were home. Eve and Zoe wanted to go to the park, but August had really wanted to show them Sprouts. So the plan was to stop at home for paper, etc. then go up to the park. When we got here though Zoe and August started playing piano and Eve started taking care of the baby. He tried to show them sprouts, but that didn’t last long.
He and Eve took care of the baby and asked Zoe to play quietly. A bit later he played piano and said, “Sorry if that disturbed the baby.” Zoe found the microscope and they were all using that. August realized they weren’t getting things really focused and made it better. At one point he said, “Stop, stop. Don’t give up. I know how to focus it.”
We finally got going to the park. I took the microscope in a bag, as well as my sweatshirt as August wanted a blanket there. August pushed Eve on the red bike and Zoe took the balance bike. At the park August wanted to work on his paper blanket for the baby and I realized I’d forgotten the markers/tape/paper. He was fine with me running back to get them. When I came back he had the sweatshirt out and had it over his head. He pretended to walk into me, then put the sweatshirt over me. He was then working on his blanket, but the wind picked up, blowing papers away from him. He was saying, “I hate it! I hate everything! Oh my goodness!” I helped him grab everything.
They kept playing. They climbed on the play structure, all went up on the pirate ship, and pushed Eve around in the bike. They were hauling the baby around, supposedly taking care of it but dropping it a lot and sliding it down the slide. August and Zoe played with the microscope for quite a while, and Eve and I went over to the exercise equipment area. At one point August needed to go to the bathroom and Zoe said she was fine staying with Eve. August and I started to go, but then had him pee in the bushes and surprised them by being back so quickly.
Eventually we headed back to the house. I made snacks, cutting up some halva for them, making crackers and peanut butter, slicing an apple, and opening the dried apricots. It all disappeared.
They were outside for a bit, then all went upstairs and were taking care of the baby and each other. They came back downstairs for a little Candyland and August was being driven crazy by the Old MacDonald song thing. They went back upstairs and Zoe was a teacher, teaching how to use a microscope. August was a baby. A little later I heard him tell Zoe that he can’t spell his name. Need to work on that.
Carly got home and they all went outside for a while. They made a sort of fort area under the slide with the pillows, then there was a lot of yelling when they found a big green spider by his house. I took photos, then got it on a stick and dropped it over the fence. A bit later August asked, “Is the arachnid gone?”
Heather got here a bit after 4. August told Heather more facts, after telling her all about antigens earlier, and stayed out in the yard yelling goodbye to them as they left.
Back inside he did his alone time, playing some piano, then cuddling next to/behind us as Carly and I talked about using Comic Life with her class. August and Carly started to make a comic about poop, then he remembered Minecraft. August played 15 minutes of Minecraft with her, then me. He never did his second round today. Skipped around on educational videos before settling on the VSauce one about a missing dollar. We watched that as we ate nutty noodles.
We then watched an Odd Quartet video about minor scales. Once we understood what a melodic minor scale was he went to the piano to learn it. He showed off to Carly. He is getting some crazy fast fingers.
He taught Carly how to play the “First Serenade” piece, then he switched to his iPad and Notion and recorded one of the fast pieces he’s been playing on the piano. He kept recording a few other things and I found a promising app called Notes Trainer for practicing sight reading.
They did some math together, watching some Khan Academy on slopes of lines and doing story problems together, turning them into equations. He was then graphing, figuring out now how to get individual dots to bounce around: “Dot circus.”
Carly was watching teaching videos and he watched with her as they ate artichoke and spaghetti. She then took him up for a bath. I did dishes. I came up and read How to to him on the couch bed, finishing the chapter on making a swimming pool. He went to the bathroom and asked why multiplying by a decimal makes a smaller number. We went through that and kept going to why dividing by a fraction is actually multiplying. He ran with it and understood that dividing by a decimal would make it bigger.
As we went back in the bedroom he said, “Here’s à problem with the word sorry: you never know if someone means it. But anyway, who cares about it? I’m being a dumb guy.”
We listened to the Stories Podcast story “Belly of the Beast”, then listened to the second Bedtime Explorers meditation. August interjected with a couple of random things, like “The chromatic scale has 13 notes…” And said it had the 8 notes of the C scale plus the pentatonic scale on the black keys, for a total of 13.
When I asked what kind of music he wanted to listen to as he went to sleep he said ukulele music, as that’s what Zoe plays. There had been an elementary school talent show today that we missed because I didn’t know about it. She had played a song in it. I put on the album Ukulele Songs by Eddie Vedder. He heard a few songs before falling asleep at 10:30.
X to the power of X song:
A piano song:
Microscope with Zoe:
Riding bikes to the park:
Being driven bonkers:
A nice piano line:
Another fast one:
Playing piano with Carly:
Crazy dots graphing:
