He slept straight through the night. He was sitting up and stretching when I went up at 9:10. He listened at the office door to Carly teaching, then we went downstairs and he cuddled under the blanket. We started the “How to win an election” chapter of How To, then watched the last few minutes of StressMonster before playing Minecraft. We worked on the jungle treehouse and made a path down to the mine and down into it. After that he looked at Supersonic Piano. Carly took him up to say hi to her students. They were having a pet day, and she had also borrowed his stuffed Puff the Magic Dragon. But one of her students had brought his 4-year old sister, so Carly brought August up.
We had pancakes for breakfast. Lasted a few minutes until he saw a crane fly. We then went to the piano and worked on “Hacked”. Then upstairs for a Ms. Safe game. He was Millie again, and this time he wanted ‘bathroom’ in another language to confuse her, so we looked it up in Maori. The story then focused on the Ms. Danger students trying to kidnap her again.
We went downstairs to the piano. Carly came by so he had a competition with her as he showed her what he could play of “Hacked”. I got him outside for a minute and we did a little catch with a tennis ball. Until crane fly.
Inside I got him to ease into recording videos for Eve and Zoe. First he just played music. Then I had him do a fact for Heather (he told her how to do 2020 in Roman numerals). Then he at least said a little to them and played piano for them. We did more piano practice, then he liked the idea of me practicing with Earpaggio to improve my chord recognition. So we did that for probably half an hour. He did some of it on his own, or would help me by repeating what the app played on the piano.
He did alone time as I kept doing it, although he kept checking in with me through it, but it was kind of a sneaky way to get him to work on it as well. We then played in the flat world and I finished filling the big lake and started putting dolphins etc. in it. After that I started watching a video about whether any pop songs us the Locrian mode. August watched a bit, but then watched Brave Wilderness, about fire ants and when Coyote falls in a cactus. He kept calling out facts to me as I got lunch together.
Lunch was crackers with cheese and meat, the rest of his tuna sandwich from yesterday, yogurts, and chocolate soy milk. We ate outside, and I saw the big flower drop from the bush behind August. He talked about Minecraft, and more and more and more. He went in for the bathroom and kept talking, then he agreed to do an exercise video outside. But once we were out there he said that he had never gotten his afternoon walk chocolate bar yesterday, and that was why he had exercised with Carly. So now he refused to do it unless I give him that bar first (later, Carly said she had said no such thing…)
But I was then bouncing the tennis ball against the wall, and also off the ground. August was really interested in both and we talked about the physics involved and how your brain figures it out (and I pointed out that his brain does similar with piano playing). So August started practicing throwing the ball against the wall. Went well for a minute, until one of his throws went wide and bounced onto the kitchen roof. He was immediately inconsolable, first in the outside chair (“I’ll never throw a ball again!”), then in on the couch, covering his head with the pillows. Carly came down and took over comforting him, and I went down into Shmuel’s junk yard and borrowed a ladder. It got me, using just three rungs to be safe, just high enough to reach my hand into the gutter. I couldn’t see the ball from the upstairs bedroom, but I now used the selfie camera on my phone and was able to find it. Used a small shovel to help, and managed to get it.
At the very end I got a little sliver, and asked August if he wanted to see it: “Yes. I would LOVE to see splinters. I wouldn’t want to GET one…I could look up millions on Google…” We then went to the piano and now he decided we should start working on “Agent X”. I got the first measure down. He did more listening to songs on Supersonic, and was watching a boy playing most the most advanced piece of the curriculum.
After some more piano time we watched Iskall’s latest video. Carly came down, done with work, and made a salad. He complimented her on her salad and said it was beautiful. He didn’t want one himself, but asked for cucumber and hummus. He and Carly were doing piano together and I went for a run, then took a shower. We spent some time putting together parts of the song.
They then were on video with Vivian and Colin. Think they did some math, and I was working at the table. They were then playing Minecraft, and August was trying to build beacons. Vivian and Colin didn’t want him to build a beacon in the house, so then he was building one on top of the house. Vivian told him he couldn’t do that either, so he said fine, he was logging out. He turned it off and ran upstairs. He closed himself in the bedroom. I got him to unlock the door, and he sort of came in and out a few times, and eventually was talking to Carly at the top of the stairs. He kept insisting he wanted to just delete the world, and their work with it.
Eventually, he came down and had 15 minutes of iPad time left. I went upstairs to work for an hour. He came up just as I was finishing for the evening. He asked what the “weird” music was—it was some ambient music playing on my phone and he liked it. I went downstairs with him and we watched about ten minutes of a documentary I had just bought called Since I was Born about growing up in a refugee camp. It was all in Arabic, and August did a good job listening to me read subtitles, but eventually wanted something in English. So we switched to a documentary on YouTube called The Palestinian Kids Crossing a War Zone to Get to School. We watched about 30 minutes of that—enough to get understand what it was saying. We talked a lot about the situation and occupation and settlers, etc.
I then got him upstairs. He was talking about wanting to be able play like the boy playing “Antimelancholicus”.
Carly washed him and I started trying the Superpharm order. It took forever as the website kept resetting and freezing and whatnot. But finally, success. We ordered allergy medicine and toothbrush heads for August and some tissues.
Somehow they were talking and the idea of God came up, and August was arguing that he doesn’t believe in god because magic doesn’t exist and he believes in science and physics. The funniest moment was when he sarcastically said, “What does god do? Give you money? I’ll check my pockets…nope…”
We went to bed and listened to the newest Stories Podcast about bees (“The Bee’s Sting”). We then listened to a Peace Out about constellations. unfortunate was a word of the day. He questioned why we even have constellations if they could be connected in an infinite number of ways.
We put on Reich’s Desert Music and he liked that. Twice he said he couldn’t get to sleep. The first time I suggested we change the music but he said no, as he liked it. The second time was about 11:15. He said, “I can’t sleep.” I went to put on the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth, but I think he was already asleep.
Meeting mama’s students:
Working on “Hacked”:
Music for Eve and Zoe:
Fact for Heather:
Message and music for Eve and Zoe:
Ear training:
Working on “Agent X”:
