He called to me at 4:30. I went in and he said, “I had a bad dream.” Went right back to sleep. He got up about 7:30. He went to the bathroom, and I helped him go downstairs, carrying his blanket down when he requested it, and he went and said “Boo” to Carly. I went back to bed and they played Minecraft together and he played a lot of piano and was playing when I came down. She’d gotten him oatmeal for breakfast.
I came down and we discussed my meeting, and Zoom in general. August and I then went up to the bedroom and played Brother and Ms. Safe games with the new students. The first was Nord, who was blind: “Nord, but people call me Flipper Flopper.” Usually the stories have focused on Ms. Safe, but August wanted it “from Brother’s perspective when he meets that person.” We played for 20 minutes or so, and there were several new students, all together, by the end of it, and Brother was talking about Minecraft and trying to help Nord play Minecraft.
We went downstairs, and I showed him part of the BDubs Minecraft video where they blow up a mountain with TNT cannons. We were then going to read The Boxcar Children, but August asked me to get his water bottle upstairs for him. I told him I’d go up with him, but I wasn’t going to do it for him. For some reason, this became a big thing. We got upstairs, and were even going to just read in the bed, when he got as far as finally picking up the water bottle from the counter, but then gave it to me to carry it downstairs for him. When I said I wasn’t going to carry it down for him he started hitting me. We went downstairs for a few minutes and I was trying to get him to calm down, but he refused to abide by the plan we had made. I started to get him back upstairs, but he refused to go past the halfway point and I called Carly to come and help. She took him the rest of the way up the stairs and talked to him.
I went for a walk, and he was still in his room when I got back. He was listening to the “Two Hour Road Trip” episode of Circle Round. When he came out he wanted Carly to carry down his crackers for him. She carried the crackers, and he had the bowl. He dropped it down the stairs, and broke a corner. He was very sad about that, and she consoled him. I took a shower, then downstairs he apologized to me. I made us hot dog bites and the asparagus and rice for lunch. We ate, but he walked around in circles talking about a huge machine in Minecraft that he can transport around between seasons. It uses all sorts of new red stone blocks that he was making up. “It’s a dream come true for the Boomers”, meaning BDubs and the others.
He played piano and sang a “I want to do alone time” song. For that he listened to the “Golden Fleece” story at end of the 2 hour episode. He asked about deny and fleece. He played Minecraft with Carly. I finally set up the speaker we have in his room properly, so it works over wi-fi and not just Bluetooth. We then figured out the lucky block add-on in Minecraft. We had to download another version from the internet and finally figured that version out. I let him play it for a few minutes, and he was really excited about sharing it with Vivian later.
We went downstairs and did some Earpaggio and then a Ms. Safe music lesson, where I was teaching him how to count rhythms. That went pretty well, as he was surprised to learn how some of it worked and seemed to be catching on. We then tried to do some Greek. We tried different apps. I think Mango, which is free through the Sno-Isle library, is the best for us right now, and I should start making little letter posters to teach us the Greek letters.
He went outside, and agreed to pick up the tree thingies for a star. I untangled the hose, and Carly pulled the car over and washed it. For his iPad time he played in the Lucky Block world while sitting outside. Back inside he asked me to do the attacking game, where when he gets close I try to grab his arm, etc. Lots of laughing ensued. He played piano, and then asked, “Does the king pat any taxes?…then that’s a royal advantage.”
We had some soup, then played Minecraft with Vivian and Colin in the Lucky Block world. He did some video chatting with Vivian and Cherie. Cherie left, and we were going to call her later when Vivian and August were done. I think Carly did some reading, and disperse and rash were new words. But then when August went to the bathroom Vivian hung up. August was very sad and upset about this, and didn’t want to call her back to find out what happened. And he didn’t want to call Oma.
Instead, he liked the idea of going up to his room. Carly came back down, and we heard him playing melodica up in his room. Sounded quite sad, and I said we needed to get him a harmonica. He listened to podcasts after that, and was probably up there for an hour total. He came downstairs to have more food.
He asked what bewildered meant. Not sure where it was from. Another new word. We went back upstairs. Carly had let him skip a bath, but he brushed his teeth and did all of that with me, and then we were in bed at 9:50. Spent a lot of time talking about Lucky Block, then I read “Snow White” in the book we’re reading. New words were vengeful and sprite. He went to the bathroom and then we listened to a Peace Out. I put on John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and he was asleep by 10:30.
Experimenting:
Picking up tree things:
Discussing Lucky Block with Viv:
A sad song:
