Wednesday, April 1: Day 23 – virtual party for Colin and Cherie

Third night in a row of sleeping straight through without calling to me. I woke him up just before 9. The first thing he said to me was, “Dada, what do you buy if you’re a billionaire?” We talked about that on the way down. He cuddled with Carly and then me, then went to play piano for a while. He listened to a couple songs on Supersonics Piano, then was doing Desmos graphing. Something about a series of sine equations using pi.

We next played Minecraft. In the world where we’re doing all the effects and fills. We listened to Brains On! about plants feeling/communicating and Wow in the World about laughter. Irreversible was a word of the day. We were then listening to a Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child as he ate oatmeal and heard the song “Stay on the sunny side”: “But it’s physically unpossible to always make it day.”

We had oatmeal for breakfast, then did piano time working on his pieces for a bit. We went outside. He hadn’t heard it rain, but said I had been reading How To in his dreams. We went back inside and learned about counterfeiting money:https://youtu.be/j0ZhqStOwhc

and Genuine was a word of the day. Thenhttps://youtu.be/Xa8SHubMjGw

. He then talked about how “I use statistics to predict how likely it is something will get hacked.” Back to the piano and we watched a couple of counting videos in “Two Minute Music Theory”. He was trying to work in odd time signatures, but his natural sense of rhythm is of course 4/4 so I think he was frustrated when I kept pointing out that what he was coming up with was 4/4. Trying to get him to start with a slower sense of a 3/4 or 6/8, but he wants to go fast.

We next watched the latest StressMonster video. He then typed on my iPad as I got lunch ready. He was figuring out keyboard shortcuts, and now knows how to use them to move the cursor around. He had me do a video of the tons and tons of slashes that he was copying and pasting. We had hot dogs and corn for lunch. He had a game with Brother doing Minecraft building competitions.

Carly came down, and August wanted to go upstairs to combine playing Swift Playgrounds and a Ms. Safe game. We went up and started that, then came back down and helped with groceries when they arrived. We finished another level in Playgrounds. August wanted to do another before we were interrupted. We did Brother and Millie games, then he played some piano for alone time, followed by listening to all of “The Search for Rain”, the newest Circle Round. We played Minecraft in the flat world.

After that I got him outside. We kicked the ball around. He knocked a flower off and thought that was pretty funny. He had his chocolate snack bar. We sat on the bench swing and read the How To chapter about getting places quickly (commute and fortnight were new words) and saw the kids across the street exercising out on the sidewalk. He also had us doing some Brother games about having to share limited water in a drought and the kids not wanting to share their water.

Back inside what we had read reminded him of Kurzgesagt and he watched a couple videos. He then was doing math. Carly came down and started to paint a picture of a truck for Colin. He was finding all sorts of solutions to sine, etc. functions that found the limits at 1s and zeros. He told her, “I’m obsessed with undefines…” They went outside to exercise for a few minutes. He came back in and said, “Tell me what you’ve learned about sight reading…” We did some piano, then he went back out with Carly. He came back in saying, “I got to be going inside; a storm’s coming in, I think.”

They then called Vivian and Colin. When he went to the bathroom he showed more modesty than he ever has, closing the door and not wanting us to tell them he was in the bathroom. After that he was saying, “Just so you know, it’s a well-known fact that foxes can’t fly.” It’s a variation on a story about a turtle wanting to sing, and the other animals tell it that everyone knows that turtles can’t sing.

I went for a run as they played Minecraft. After getting back and taking a shower it was time for the Colin and Cherie birthday party over Zoom. Derek and Andrea and the family were on from Seattle, and a few of Jeff’s relatives were on as well. So that was a new experience. Carly had painted a truck for Colin and he really liked that. August had an opportunity to play his music for everyone.

August requested a Circle Round after that and listened to “Nilsa and the Troll”. I then got him upstairs. We read some How To. Almost done now. I got him Cheerios. He placed Cheerios on his tongue: “It’s awkward tongue day, so I’m decorating…” It was crazy hair day for Carly today so she had ribbon in her hair. Then on the Zoom call Carly had learned today how you can change backgrounds and put on virtual masks, etc. so he had had a lot of fun with that. At one point we both had dinosaur skulls on our heads and could chomp each other, virtually.

Carly gave him a bath, and he asked her, “Isn’t it funny that there used to be chicken pox parties?” I was whistling and he was asking about it, so then I was whistling faster. He was in awe: “What? No. This must be a dream.” I had him brush his teeth at the same time as me. Not that that really worked. It was still a ten minute process.

We got in bed and listened to “Curious Boots” on Circle Round, then the next Peace Out. She mentioned superheroes and August went on a rant: “I hate superheroes cuz they’re not explained by science…The things I love are the things explained under physics.” I was in the middle of doing the meditation/falling asleep and he reached down to just lift my shirt but startled me and tickled my ribs. I let out a sort of yell and involuntarily whacked his hand. Kind of funny, actually. We listened to Beethoven’s First. He again said he couldn’t get to sleep at one point and I sang “Driftin’” to him. He was then asleep about 11:10. Maybe a couple minutes earlier today, but not much.

So many slashes: