He got up at 6:15 and asked if it was time to get up. I said no and he seemed a little frustrated. I lay down on the lower bed and he fell back to sleep after a few minutes. He then slept until i went to wake him up at 8. The first thing he said was “How many days until my birthday?”
Downstairs we played Minecraft and had oatmeal for breakfast and listened to a Wow in the World! about asteroids and plans to keep them from hitting Earth. Tractor beam was a word of the day.
We got going to Ra’anana Park. Really warm today and supposed to hit 80 degrees, a touch warmer than yesterday. Before we left August had to have some piano time. And on the way down he wanted to listen to more of Rite of Spring. At Ra’anana we walked over and met Gilad and Lauren at the covered playground. No school groups at first. August and Gilad went on the spinning thing for a while, then moved to the plane game. August used my phone for a while, doing more calculations again. Eventually they were ready for something else, but school groups were starting to show up. So we didn’t head over to the big playground. Instead (after August went on a swing for a couple minutes) we walked (Gilad rode) around the lake to see the progress on the music area. They have the paving stones down. We kept walking to the tractor, but August was starting to talk about it being too hot for him and he wanted shade. We did stop at the tractor for a few minutes and sat in the shade and had some lunch. August pointed out to Gilad where the ants had been by the tractor. August was thinking about things from an ant’s perspective and asking for height analogies. We calculated that we are at least 550 times taller than an ant.
We then got going and walked over to the maze area. August needed the bathroom so we went down to that, then came back. August wanted to play hide and seek and we started, but then school groups started to show up. We found Gilad and then called it a day and walked out together.
We drove over to the art store right off of 4. We listened to the Wow in the World episode about boredom. He really liked it and we sat in the car to listen to the rest of it. Divergent thinking was another word of the day. Inside we got watercolor paints and colored pencils that Carly needed for school, and some wood options for making parts for the broken hammers in the piano. August picked out a couple tubes of paints: one color he thought went with Carly’s Ladybird Johnson painting and one that goes with her Oma painting. I also got a wooden board that will be a clipboard sort of thing for his music at the piano. As we were waiting in line to checkout August was watching a TV and saw a commercial for Rustoleum 2X paint. He told me that we should get it the next time we need spray paint.
On the way home I put on a Bill Nye show about carbon dioxide pollution and clean up. It turned out to be an interview sort of show and after a couple minutes I asked if he wanted to stop it. He said no, that he liked it, and we kept listening to it. It was about a woman who has a company that is working to harvest carbon dioxide from the air and then use it to make plastic and other materials. We stopped for strawberries and August came in with me and kept talking about it, and about how he would use it. He also talked a lot about “carbon nanotubes.”
At home I said we could play Minecraft first. We did that, then he watched Joseph’s Machines. He then did his alone time outside, listening to podcasts on the Bluetooth speaker. I was starting to make the piano pieces and was off to a good start. He sat on the lounge chair and held the speaker in his lap. He is really into listening to the news and we listened to a second Kid Nuwz, then listened to a Pants on Fire episode, I think the one about Peter Pan syndrome.
He went long on his alone time, so earned some credit towards his next set. We then we played Minecraft again, going on a big exploration in our creative world. He kept saying “Pesky parrot”, which he picked up from Grian. He next tried out the rotary tool on some wood I didn’t need, then we got going to town.
We drove up and parked in the paved lot and walked to the grocery store by VIPizza. August chose out a few bakery things and I got pita and a loaf of bread. We walked over to the library park. August told me, “A kilometer a second is 3600 km an hour…times two is 7200.” And he was able to explain how he had carried the one to get the 72. We sat in the park and ate some of the treats. One was like an apple turnover so I told him about getting those at the Judy Jane Bakery in Chelan.
We were home about 5. Carly was already there. He showed her the colors he had bought for her paintings and then admired one of her paintings: “It’s so cool.” He then said the sweetest thing: “I hate past August who criticized your painting, just so you know.”
For alone time he wanted more news and listened to the second one today. Then a Wow in the World on symbiosis called “Duck Duck Poop!” I went outside and was working on pieces. Carly talked to her mom and came out and was sitting outside to do that. They are now postponing their trip until some point in the future. That adds on to all of the Purim festivities being cancelled here and the Palestinian Festival of Literature.
August was alone inside and took the opportunity to create a big structure out of the pillows and everything else he could get his hands on over the couch and chair. It was quite impressive. A bit reluctantly he helped clean up, and he had a little more of the apple I had cut him a bit earlier. We then watched GoodTimewithScar’s Hermitcraft episode 2. He really wanted another after that, but I showed him Mark Rober’s“Car Vs. the World’s Strongest Trampoline” and then How Ridiculous’s version to see the rest of the drops. This really got him thinking and he made a connection to the podcast about stopping asteroids that we’d listened to earlier: “I made something for NASA … I made a giant spinning trampoline that always faces the sun…” “an asteroid that’s going to hit the earth…bounces it to Jupiter…” “That is how you do it.”
But then the evening took a rough turn. He insisted on watching more. He hasn’t been like this in quite a while. However, he threw a couple pillows at me as I went to get him food, but then went outside and sat by himself out at the table. That was a cool development, then he started to make something out there, putting the broom handle on the chairs and getting tape and other things. I was pretty sure he was quite hungry so made him a quesadilla and got a yogurt, and Carly made a strawberry smoothie. He politely asked Carly for tape – he’s been saying please and thank you a lot more recently. He said he was making a “Chaos machine”. He picked apart the quesadilla, taking off all the cheese, so no more quesadillas, I guess. I tried our new bread and it turned out to be walnut, so I got him a slice of toast instead.
But then he suddenly had the idea that the extra time he spent playing outside should count towards his alone time tomorrow. Carly considered, and said it, “Will set a precedent.” He asked what that meant, so another word of the day. We actually agreed to credit him 15 minutes tomorrow, but then he changed his demand and wanted more time tonight. He had a meltdown after that, throwing a small jar of vaseline at my back, then hitting Carly a bit later.
He calmed down enough upstairs to have his bath so he could still have stories. In bed he told me that “You should buy the 2x paint.” We listened to the Stories Podcast’s “The Sacred Squirrel”. Then Bedtime Explorer’s “Mind Broom” (or something like that). He requested Beethoven, so I put on piano music by him, and he was asleep about 10.
Finding Gilad:
Wood notes:
Trying out the rotary tool:
Trigonometric functions:
The chaos machine:
