He got up a little before 8. I heard him go into the bathroom in his own. After a minute he called down to me. I started to come up and heard him close and lock the bathroom door. Very unusual. I sat out on the couch, waiting for him. He had apparently peer his pants a bit.
Changed him and he crawled into the couch bed. I then read a couple chapters of Shivers before we headed downstairs. Scout was a word of the day. Carly was working on a groceries order and he went straight to the piano. In a few minutes he had learned the fourth line of “Elevate: Two”.
For Minecraft he played a few minutes of the animals game on his own, then we played together in our survival world. When we were done he went and played piano. He was doing some amazing piano playing: using triple sixteenth patterns, four chord lines, and intentionally using things like dim e rit, accents, and legato. Not sure if I mentioned that last night, as he was doing the soundtrack to the book Carly was reading, he told us he was matching his piano playing to what was happening in the story last night.
For breakfast I made us fried eggs and toast. He had honey on his toast. He played more piano and did some composing, transcribing part of a song he knows, then played with Google voice search, which is great pronunciation practice for him. I discovered that Bob Mattson, a friend of a friend (Derek Jennings) has just posted a full Western State Hurricanes concert from the Tractor Tavern and I started watching that. He’s improved his concert videography, and must be working with the approval of venues/the bands now, as he has multiple angles and good audio. August watched several minutes of that with me, and said he liked one of the guitars the best.
We then headed outside. He showed me his weeds: “They just grew there…they looked like a grand entryway, so I decided to care for them.” We played with the soccer ball and he invented two competitive games: one where we took turns trying to kick the ball and hit the other person, and the other person could make one step and one step only to try to get out of the way. If you got one point you got to go a second time; otherwise it was the other person’s turn. And the second game involved throwing/rolling the ball to hit the person. This time they had 5 seconds to run away and you had to tag them in that time.
We sat in the chairs and started reading The Boxcar Children 2. I started counting how many times the book uses the word ‘laugh’ and it continued to be a lot like in the first one. Eventually we went inside. I started to get coffee, and Carly was grading. August wanted to do a piano competition with her, and when she asked to compromise he got upset and started hitting her. A big meltdown ensued and kept going, as he wouldn’t use his curling up strategy, etc.
When he calmed down I took him up to Carly, where he cuddled in the bed and they talked. I went for a walk, enjoying the now 500 meters we can go from our house, but also wearing a mask as now required—Mandy was walking alone and a police officer made her return home to get a mask. No fine, but it will be 200 shekels the second time.
I came back and took a shower. August helped me make the beds in his room, then Carly and I met with Gabi. August had been planning for some time now, that the next time that Carly and I met with Gabi and he had his extra watching time that he would start watching Mumbo Jumbo’s videos from the start of season 7. He did, and had started #3 when we were done, so I watched the rest of that with him. Daft was a word of the day. He and I then talked and made a plan chart of what we can all do when he gets upset. He did a good job talking about it, and I gave him back his evening time with Vivian and Colin.
In talking about playing with Vivian he said, “I’m going to chat slash Os…that’s her smiley face…” He meant Keralis, and seeing him type some sort of emoji in Hermitcraft. And he told me how he had learned to spell ‘sleep’ correctly from Vivian.
We went downstairs and he went out and talked to Carly while she was grading. Heard him talking to her about plagiarism. He asked insightful questions like “How do you know they copied?” Back inside he showed Carly his piano playing and what he’s learned recently, and I made more of the coconut rice for dinner. After going to the bathroom he a couple times today made sure the light was left on. Carly saw him turn the light back on after she turned it off and asked why, and he said, “So monsters doesn’t spawn in there.”
He went back out with her while she gardened. I went out and Carly was excited that the compost seems ready to use. He called it “chunky dirt!” They called Cassie for a minute, then Oma. He was hanging upside down on the stairs to the slide. He discussed losing teeth with her and Cherie said he’s the only kid she knows that has ever kept a loose tooth a secret. Of other kids he asked, “What emotions do they feel?”
Vivian called back, and they played Minecraft, then read one of the I Survived books. He had seconds and then thirds of dinner. We got him upstairs and Carly gave him a bath. In bed we listened to “The Money Tree” again and “Rice Cakes and the Oni”. We listened to a Peace Out, and ease was a new word. I had put some sort of calmer music on, and after a while he said he couldn’t sleep. I suggested he just use the time to listen to music, and asked if there was anything he wanted to just listen to, not just sleepy music. He first asked about the poster in his room, which is about a kid reading. He then requested listening to Underworld, and he was asleep before the end of first Underworld song, “Nylon Strung”, at 10:30.
A tune:
In the chairs with mama:
Hanging on the ladder:
