Just before 6:30 he woke up. When I went in he said something like, “Why did you get up so early?” He then fell back to sleep with his head towards the other end of the bed. I then woke him up at 8:05. He played Minecraft with Carly in Lonely Lands. He found a new spot he likes at 1785, 88, -610.
I got him oatmeal, then we got going as we had Shani at 9:15. He was explaining “That’s how I organize my Dewey decimal system.”
He was getting a cookie on the way, but decided he was going to savor it to make Shani jealous of the cookie, but then we agreed to surprise her with cookies. He didn’t eat his cookie at all until we got to Shani’s. I then had him giver her the bag of four cookies we brought. He went through the list, asking if anyone in her family was allergic to chocolate or gluten or milk. They had a great session. They started over at the table, doing a picture thing where you decorate it with these small sticker things, exercising the fingers. He had fun with that. Then she got him to try the stretchy swing again. Third or fourth time’s a charm, as he was able to stand in it and do some bouncing. He was very excited about accomplishing that. They went back to the table and did writing, and he did a lot of As, Bs, Cs, and Ds. It was funny because his best of each letter ended up being in the same column in the middle of the page. Finally, he played with putty, getting the beads out of it.
We headed home. He started playing music on the synthesizer and I went up to work. She cut his nails and hair. Lots of bribing involved with candy and a show, I think. I came down for lunch. He had me do a video of him showing his lagging equations. I asked him, “How do you keep coming up with these things?” “Experience. Or XP.”
Carly took August out. They went to Ilanot, the tree place and walked around there. August remembered it as the place where you can scan the QR codes on the tree signs. He did a lot of walking, although at one point he said there was a lack of seating. Carly looked around and counted nine benches. It was very green there, which reminded me that I had once talked to him about going to see it every few months to see how the trees change.
They got home at 3:30. He turned the water on full blast to show her how you can make a rainbow (which he’d done with Eve). Inside I picked him up and we were listening to the “Fascist groove thing” song. August said, “I’d rather play a Brother and Sister game” which is a joke on the line in the song: “Brothers, sisters, we don’t need no fascist groove thing…” He was then on the black chair and and had his shoes/feet dancing to the music.
He did a lot of music, then graphing. I was watching the Formula E race. He watched a bit as well, and disqualified was a word of the day. For alone time he played piano and then made some crazy music with the metronome. Carly had gone to the store. When she got back he showed her. We played Minecraft and he was messing around with the video options and opacity was another word of the day.
The two of them did a lot of Khan Academy together, learning about equation sets involving roasting coffee and their weights/prices and parabolas. Vertex was a word of the day. He then showed me a bat-looking equation he made. I asked how he came up with that, and he said, “What? I was just inspired by parabolas.” Such a great line.
We had a spaghetti dinner, then I went for a run. She read Astrophysics while he was doing graphing. After my shower we did more of the Brilliant Waves and Light class. He wants to keep going. We had a cookie and milk. About something he said, “You need my good friend, water. H2O.” We discussed chemical formulas and compounds and the little and big numbers before/after the elements and what they mean.
We went upstairs and he was dramatic on the couch but eventually went in for his bath. He was doing silly riddles after his bath. In the bedroom he asked the deep question, “Why do the equations…work?” and I talked about the philosophy of math and whether math is inherent in the world or whether it is a human construct to describe the world around us.
We listened to the Stories Podcast’s “A Bone to Pick”, then to a Bedtime Explorers episode before putting on some piano music. He just couldn’t get to sleep, saying something to the effect a couple times, and finally, finally drifted to sleep around 11, curled up with his bottom in the air.
Figuring out the bouncy swing:
Explaining his craziest graph yet:
Making a rainbow again:
Playing with the metronome:
Crazy metronome music:
The bat graph:https://youtu.be/W9-g5k44Ai0
Synth song:
