He was up just after 7:30. I was downstairs and heard him, but Carly was still upstairs so she got him. They went in on the big bed. I quickly made coffee and grabbed some pie and had just a few blissful minutes alone by myself, eating pie and listening to podcasts, before they started coming downstairs. I had to hurriedly early the last couple bites, but they were a great few minutes.
August was taking photos and videos with her camera. I found out that he had been insisting on taking vertical videos the other day and let out an exaggerated gasp, which he found funny. But he also said he’d try to do horizontal. We talked about how he is sleeping less than 9 hours, and I looked up articles about 6-year olds and sleep. The given recommendations/averages are comically wide (one basically said between 7 and 12 hours), but he seems to be on the low end.
We read a little Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang. Then had oatmeal. We played Minecraft in the broken snow world and our creative world. After that he moved to piano and was remixing “Hacked”. We then actually made a little more progress in learning “Hacked”. He now nows on to the second page. Not actually much more to learn, as sections in page two repeat.
Rather randomly he went over to one of the red chairs and was lightly tapping his finger on it. He called me over to tell me how he found it really satisfying. Quite interesting. He went up with Carly for awhile. Think they did some exercise. He came down as I was doing some typing and went back to playing piano.
He watched a couple of the Ants Canada videos and finished his lollipop from yesterday and I submitted our tax return. We did more Brother games along the way. We then did more piano and Supersonic Piano. I’m finishing page 135, “Finger Twister”.
We watched a StressMonster video. Revolting was a word of the day. For lunch I made us hot dogs and soup. He showed Carly his progress on “Hacked”. I went for a run. He was typing and converting binary numbers as I left. He was looking for bee attack photos when I got back. I took a shower. He listened to But Why? “Why Do Baby Teeth Fall Out?” for alone time. But he played some piano, then was doing 3D graphing while we listened. After that was over he asked to listen to a story for alone time. He chose “The Four Musicians” on Stories Podcast on his own, then ate more soup while he listened.
We played in the Spring-a-Majig world. Started it again, but it was broken in the same spot, and also kept freezing for him. He was hungry, so I got us some small pieces of pie, with ice cream, and we ate it outside. He was asking for definitions of random words. Don’t know where they came from: “What’s disappointed mean?” “What’s galore mean?” “stock still?”
Started the game where Brother meets the person from the future. I tried to get him to play outside. He didn’t want Carly to hear though, so we ended up inside. Didn’t really do the Brother game much, and we ended up doing some piano, then he ended up doing Supersonic Piano. He asked for an educational video and watched another ant video, where the fire ants attack a worm. He asked what immobilize means.
We then played pictionary. I drew things like blood cells, face, math, and sledding for him to guess. When it was his turns he drew X to the infinity power, and a specific ad he’d seen (one of the line runner games, but with music symbols on it). I didn’t get either. Our game ended with Colin calling. The three of them then played Minecraft. I started making the noodle dish with shallots and soy paste, with mushrooms and broccoli and tofu. A bottleneck on the stove cooking everything, so it took quite a while.
Also, as I was cutting the green onions at the beginning Ilana showed up. She was borrowing my copy of Infinite Jest for her son. He had been studying in New Zealand and that program was cancelled. He had been about ⅓ into the book when that happened and had to return it to the library. They then had a two week odyssey trying to get him home. He’s 21, so they had difficulty getting him to Israel, since he doesn’t live here. He went through the U.S., where he was denied on a Turkish Airlines flight as they said he didn’t have the proper permission to get into Israel. Ilana spent a whole week contacting different consulates. Finally, he made it in and spent two weeks in quarantine in their house. It is my first copy of IJ, the one I bought when it was new in paperback at the University Book Shop. It has all of my annotations in it, and was autographed by DFW when I met him at the University of Washington. But I figured it should be read, and it was the safest time and safest person for loaning it: not like it’s going to be taken to a beach or lost in a restaurant, nor are they going to move and never give it back. And Ilana is a librarian, so I’m sure they don’t abuse books.
Anyway, we talked to her for about 30 minutes, with her standing outside the gate and us in on the lawn. August liked seeing her, but he was in the middle of Minecraft, so only gave her a quick hi and bye. Back inside I kept cooking and they finished Minecraft and Carly read some Clementine. August got Cherie and Chuck to join the meeting, and Colin was delivering mail again.
When dinner was ready I gave August a bowl. Carly pointed it out to him, and he responded with “I have dinner, eh?” As he was eating it he assessed it as “Decent” with a big grin as he did so. Not sure where he learned that. He also asked, “What’s an autograph?” He says it was from a Story Pirates story, but I had also recently used the word when talking about my copy of Infinite Jest.
He took a long time in the bathroom, then asked, “What’s right up in your grill mean?” He remembered it from Hermitcraft a few days ago when Grian and GoodTimeswithScar went up to BDubs. I read him more of Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang. He wasasn’t interested in my asides about being in Canterbury and Dover and Calais.
We then Skyped with my parents. He of course started by going and playing piano for them. We then had some pie and ice cream. He was still hungry, so had some crackers with peanut butter. Got him upstairs to the bathroom at 8:50. Carly gave him a bath then we brushed our teeth and then had fun annoying Carly with competing over who gave her the last kiss.
He had shown her the satisfying thing of tapping lightly, on a door, I think, so in the bedroom I took a video of him showing it to me on the sheet. We listened to “Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox” and “Peter and Penny Rabbit” on Stories Podcast. August asked, “What’s moxie?” He talked about the emotions poster and which ones he thinks aren’t categorized correctly: “And I hate to be excited…I have to wait.”
In Peace Out we listened to“Little Money” and started the one about “ Trees“. She talked about COVID-19 and the impact it had on the episode and we were talking so I thought it was a good opportunity to bring up the idea that we might not be able to go to the United States at the start of summer. He got upset, but only for a couple minutes, and not overly so. He didn’t want to listen to the rest of the episode though. We put on Brian Eno’s The Ship and he was asleep by 10:35.
Song improv:
Zoom time:
Pictionary:
Nana:
The satisfying thing:
