He was talking in his sleep when I woke up. A little after I was downstairs he came down, at 8:35. We read the New York chapter of What If? Prey was a word of the day. When it mentioned a billion years ago August said, “one fourth of the earths existence.” Descendants was another new word. He went out to Carly for a few minutes, then came in and we played Minecraft. That went fine, then Carly made him oatmeal. He watched an Ants Canada video. Carly came in and talked to him about a games swap with Tessa’s family. When Carly talked about them having a small apartment, August at first thought they were coming to stay with us, or swapping places to stay. So when she clarified it was just swapping games he was totally fine with it. He was also worried about us having to drive, and at first was okay with them driving to us to get the games. But then a minute later he went to Carly and said he was worried about them driving.
He did some piano time, then we had a Brother and a Sister game with future civilization. He went upstairs with Carly and did exercise with her, and I went for a walk. After I got back he came down and we started to read the new Shivers book, which is number 4. A lot of laughing. New words included socket and crook. August asked, “How did a person become a pirate?” And we talked about that.
For lunch I got out cucumber and hummus. We did a long story time: future civilization again, hologram archive etc. He listened to Story Pirates outside and is now caught up on the most recent episode (he has a few minutes of it left, I think). I had made him two schnitzels and he ate both of those, then Carly’s too.
He had done his alone time with Story Pirates, so we now did 30 more minutes of Minecraft. He helped me with the roof and beam and he made concrete. I took a shower and they did a little Khan Academy. Back down I started to learn a song on piano called “Elevate: Two” and August wanted to learn it. He then made up a song and pointed out it was in B Minor. His favorite scales are usually C Minor Blues or A Minor. He did some Supersonic Piano, then played more piano and did some Ms. Mean game. He was then learning “Elevate: Two” and surprised us with how he was actually sight reading to figure it out on his own.
I then started to get a MEL Chemistry experiment ready. I told him it was about diffusion. He asked what that was, then promptly walked outside to where Carly was doing some gardening. I ended up outside as well and we ended up with a long game of him telling the Romans about future technology.
I’ve been trying to get the Apple Card so we don’t have to deal with foreign transaction fees, but am having difficulty convincing Goldman Sachs that I’m who I say I am. So I worked on that, and was then making a lemongrass coconut rice dish for dinner. They were laughing a lot, and went upstairs, I think to wrestle. When dinner was ready they were nowhere to be found. I set up dinner outside and started to eat without them, then stopped and just drank wine and listened to my audiobook. They came back after ten minutes or so. They had gone on a walk where they saw an ant colony and he was digging in the dirt. They saw ants carrying eggs, and he was mixing different kinds of ants to see what would happen.
They got back and we all ate. Shmuel called to ask how August’s music is going and I sent him the link to the movie that August and Carly made. August was talking about gardening with Carly and asked some really good questions: “What’s it feel like when the plants die?…to you?” “And then, since you made a mistake you know how to make it last longer next time.”
They called Vivian and I went for a walk, then sat outside and read a little. Inside we all played a little Minecraft. When they finished (August did a great job of stopping), Carly read more of I Survived a Hurricane. Yesterday they had started a little thing where August would do a short musical interlude on piano between chapters and they did that today as well.
When they were done he went to the bathroom He did a Myna game on a braggy server. She built a “VIMB…very invisible mega base.” We were then discussing our castle and I talked about the beams. He didn’t know that definition of beam, so that was a new word.
Carly called Claremay and August played piano for her. Carly had thought that she could Zoom of FaceTime, but that’s not the case. August and I then watched the National Theatre production of Treasure Island. He liked that a lot and we watched the first half. We discussed longitude and latitude a lot and consulted the globe. I was explaining to him why longitude is hard to calculate, and why it requires clocks, and then actually how it is done (we had learned how to estimate latitude from the play). This was one time that August’s knowledge was a slight hindrance; he argued with me about time, and how it varies slightly from point to point in the universe. But he was getting it.
We went upstairs with some crackers and peanut butter and he ate those upstairs. August was asking about criminals, starting with why someone would become a pirate or criminal. He then had the idea that if he were a criminal (not that he would be, but if, he said) he could turn in his co-criminals. That led to a whole discussion of turning witness.
We were listening to the Deepak Verbera album from Botany, an album that Carly’s friend Paul has been listening to. August had his bath, then was quoting exercise videos, apparently: “Cardio cupcakes…my heart rate is going up!” And he asked, “What’s cheesy mean?
We brushed our teeth. He has that down now. He brought up slavery and asked if some people treated slaves better than others. That led to a discussion of Washington and Lincoln, and how they each responded to slavery. I taught him the concept manumission along the way. Finally, we joked about the three ways of making it so that February could have 30 days (slowing down the rotation of the earth during the month, slowing down its revolution around the sun that month, or convincing the government to change the calendar, were the three we came up with).
We said good night and listened to “The Narrow Bridge” on Stories Podcast, then a Peace Out. He commented on a word she used, and I discussed how he listens closely to words. He said he knows he uses why and how a lot. He brought up the podcast But Why?, and quoted their slogan, “We’re serious about being curious.”
We listened to the album, and he fell asleep by 11.
Cool rhythm:
Remembering his old toy piano song:
Experimenting:
A funny acronym:
Providing a soundtrack:
