He woke up during the night, stuffy, and I went in and we both fell quickly back to sleep. But then this morning (6 or so? Doubly not sure because of the time change) he managed to fling his legs over the side and kick me in the chest. I got up and went back to my usual bed and fell asleep again. So hard to get up this morning, and I heard Carly starting class before I managed to get out of bed.
August was even worse. I finally went up to wake him up about 9:40. He rolled over a couple times as I poked him, and one time actually sat up, then flopped back down on his pillow he finally got up just before 10. He went down to Carly and talked about the time. He said, “Yep, it’s TEN o’clock in the morning,” putting air quotes around TEN.
He did some very cool piano improv. I asked if he wanted to play with Gilad, possibly, this morning. He said yes and talked about how that gives him extra time: “Thank you Gilad, and thank you Minecraft.”
We went outside for a little while. August was shocked about how warm and bright it was this early, and marveled at how the fabric of the chairs was almost done and said “Thank you spring for evaporation! And condensation!” And chanted the water cycle.
Back inside he talked about white dwarfs and how neutron stars can gain mass: “according to the laws of, I think, quantum physics.” He was in a science mood so we read How To. He observed that, “If I was born in 4000 CE I could have a cell phone charging ancestor.”
He played some more piano, we watched the newest Stressmonster video, and had oatmeal for breakfast. Gilad was then available to play Minecraft, so they played in the Washington D.C. world. After a while they switched to Gilad’s Way of the Bee world. Carly got the message that they are locking down campus but could go in today. So I sent her all of the music for the songs August wanted printed, along with some circle of fifths charts.
When Gilad logged out August went to another one of the free worlds, this one about fractals. We started talking about that, and ended up going through the Mysteries of Fractals app, learning about the Julia Set. We learned about convergence and divergence and made fractals like juliaset://?code=8FDD603D62686CE9B81FC3FE.
We listened to the new Pearl Jam album today. In bits. He didn’t seem too impressed as he turned it off a couple times. One other time he started to play piano “with” it so I couldn’t hear it. First impression is that it is better than their last album, but don’t know if it will grow on me much.
He asked me how big a circle would have to be to have an area of 64. I worked on it in my head and decided on a radius of 4.5. When we then checked and I was correct with rounding (it came to 63.6) I was very excited, but he gave me a grade of B since it wasn’t exact.
Carly headed to school. I made lunch. He typed in Drafts and found calculus symbols using keyboard shortcuts: “I found the cosmological constant!” Carly came back for a thermometer. They won’t let you on campus without taking your temperature and writing it down…but you have to provide your own thermometer.
We ate outside (tuna melts and rice milk). He keeps using his numbering system and now expanded it: couple is five, a few is four, someone (his new one he added today, since he claims ‘some’ is two and this adds one to it) is three, some is two, once is one, zedaph is zero. He asked about Eve and her cough, and it was the first time he’s asked when he gets a play date with her. We discussed that. Carly and I later discussed it, and realized that since they are moving at the end of the year anyway that he might just not have any more play dates with her.
He told me, “Just so you know, I hate the mountains on the globe. Know why? Exaggeration.” Inside we started on Minecraft Math. He was really into it. He worked on a rectangular solid, which was doable for him, but also a challenge, then we did a couple of pyramid shapes. We took a long time on those, then built them in Minecraft, as a sort of sculpture across from the White House. The big ah-ha moment for him was understanding that every bigger pyramid had the shape of the next smaller pyramid as a hollow space within it.
He randomly asked, “What’s a bag of bones?” And scrawny. I think from a Circle Round or the such. I then made a page with the sphere equations. We didn’t use them now, but they’ll now be in his line of sight. We started to look at the music that Carly had brought back, and he looked at “Run”. We were listening to KEXP and the DJs were talking about how they are broadcasting from separate booths and cleaning everything. Having been listening on and off for the last few days it has been interesting to hear how people are taking comfort in KEXP and how the station is responding.
We went for our daily walk. Basically, I’ve found I can easily get him out in the afternoon when he needs a snack by incentivizing the walk with one of those chocolate snack bars. He ate it as we walked up the back path and across the park, then up and around the Holly block. He spotted ants along the way, which he was both interested in, but also surprisingly scared of.
Back home he noted it was bright for calling Vivian and Colin. Carly asked if they should push back the time, and he responded, “No, no, no. I’m respecting the time change. I’m respecting the clocks.” We looked at new piano pieces, then they called about 4:45. August wanted to learn about statistics and Carly found a lesson that involved counting cars of different colors on a bridge in London and making a tally chart.
I went for a short run around the neighborhood. We aren’t supposed to go more than 100 meters from the house, so I ran in circles up the back path and around the block to our west and around the Holly block, although that might be stretching over 100 meters.
I got back and they were having problems with Minecraft, as Vivian couldn’t connect. Eventually they all ended up in Colin’s world. They made a slime house together. Cherie called and Carly read them a lot of Junie B. Jones. August had bowl after bowl of dinner. I came down after 7:30.
We tried the Duo ABC app, but August thought it was too easy. He wanted me to install the regular Duolingo app, and while that downloaded he did a little graphing. Carly was roasting beets and August ate some.
We then went upstairs. Carly gave him a bath. When I told them how he had woken up last night and then, as I was sleeping, kicked me in the stomach, he didn’t believe me at first and asked, “Are you telling tales?”
In bed we read some How To. We listened to Circle Round’s “One Speckled Hen”, then Peace Out’s “Neptune”. Looking at the feelings poster he asked, “What’s joyful? Grateful?” I knew we were in bed early when he whined a few times “I need something to do!” He also needed some extra Cheerios. We listened to some Philip Glass solo piano, then a new (to us) Reich/Glass piano album called Music 4 Hands. It took a while, but he was asleep around 11:20.
Morning improv time:
Minecraft Math learning 2:
Minecraft Math learning 3:
Statistics with Vivian:
