I went up at 8:30 to start waking him up. He was quite asleep though, and I let him sleep until 9. Downstairs I encouraged him to play Minecraft right away, as we had Gabi at 10. He logged onto his Taiga world. Very frustrating to move from world to world, and yet he still wants me to play with him. We did work on our ice tower house together a bit, and he’s been changing his skin a lot, which is pretty funny.
He quickly had some oatmeal and then we went upstairs and got ready for his meeting with Gabi. He overheard Carly talking about passing a law, and as he went to the bathroom he told me what he had overheard (something about an idea dying if it isn’t passed), and said “That makes sense to me.”
He listened in on her a bit more and heard her saying they were out of time, and he said he knew it was just for the lesson and not her full day, because he remembers from before coronavirus that she works until the evening.
They started their meeting and Gabi asked him to point out some feelings he has had this week on the feelings poster. August was pointing and using sign language and they did some typing back and forth, using emojis. They mainly talked about being happy, but August couldn’t tell him what made him happy this week. August then came and closed the door. They played the tank game for most of the time. He called me in for something, when he thought there was a problem, then closed the door again when I left it open.
Downstairs he played piano and I made the rest of the Greek letter signs. He then started a game where the Mom and Dad meet another dirt scientist. Played one, then another way. “I heard you’re the Crazy family and you study dirt. It’s all over Wikipedia.” I used the word preeminent and that became a word of the day.
We went outside for a minute, then he went back in when he thought he saw a bee. I made him crackers with meat and cheese and went back outside and read while he played with a music app and ate those. We then read The Boxcar Children. Coward and FBI were words of the day. That led to a Brother and Sister game:
“You know how I take stuff from what I learn? This is going to be about the FBI.” It involved Brother meeting an FBI agent in the woods and the agent asked him if he had seen any evidence. First Brother told him about a metal box, which turned out to have been scientific equipment, then he remembered finding a million dollars in the woods. It ended up with the FBI agent catching the very inept criminalL “Spill the beans. You have spilled the beans, actually.” “There’s one more bean you have to spill…”
We went back inside and did some Earpaggio and piano figuring out seventh chords. We then continued the Brother game, with Brother admitting to stealing donuts. It turned out that they are free donuts, and Brother always thinks he is stealing them. He was hungry, so I got a bunch of things out, and taught him the word smorgasbord. We had tuna on crackers, asparagus, and soup. We kept going with the game of catching criminals: Ms. Serious and Ms. Danger teamed up as crime-fighting vigilantes, but had a falling out when Ms. Danger broke small laws like jaywalking, then Ms. Serious and Ms. Mean teamed up, which was more successful, as they enforced the small laws. We were then watching the Ólafur Arnalds visual EP re:visions.
Carly came down, and he was laughing hysterically, locking her out of the house. We did more reading, then he said, “I just thought of something to put in a Brother and Sister game: serial numbers. Like on cash.” Did some Brother and Sister game, then watched StressMonster (we’re a few behind on her channel) and had banana chips. He played some piano and I took a long video of him working through some dissonant music ideas, then he did alone time listening to “Peter Rabbit and Penny” (I think it was) on Stories Podcast. In Minecraft we played our creative world. He used a fill command to help enlarge the underground redstone machine area I was making, but then used another one on the surface that created a huge chasm that cut through a few rivers and looked ugly. He agreed to not do more when I pointed out he could delete our house and other things accidentally.
Then more piano. He had some really good stuff, and said it involved a formula for making sure the F key didn’t stick. We got outside and played our ball game, then got out on a walk. We walked the back path and up through the park, looped around, and came back down the path and sat at the bench and he had his chocolate bar. We were discussing the coronavirus, and how the restrictions were lifting. He did a great job talking about it, and he brought up how it didn’t affect him since he wasn’t in school. He also brought up memories from preschool, like when Simona had a nosebleed due to allergies. He also said, “So you know, I know I shouldn’t call you idiot when I’m upset.” We also talked about pets, and he definitely doesn’t want a pet, but if he did he said he would be okay with a mouse and a hamster, and wants them to have a wheel. He looked at the plants in the circular planter in the middle and said, “I like the terraforming they’ve done…I have ideas…”
Back at home we sat in yard and looked at coronavirus graphs. Carly came out and he showed her the graphs. He wants to tell Oma she should come to Israel because it is safer. Carly asked if he had watered any plants besides his two weeds, and he said no, saying “I LOVE my plants.” And told her, “Bugs is like coronavirus for humans, but not as severe.” As I went in he was telling her something about how it is satisfying when the water gets wet. They came in a few minutes later and we composed “Pattern” on Notion.
I read a few minutes of The Boxcar Children #3, then Vivian called and they moved to Minecraft. They had difficulty getting her connected to August’s world, which was the survival world they had started yesterday, so Vivian figured out how to make one, and eventually they all got into that world. I went for a walk, walking as far north as the Snakes and Ladder park, since, the the 500 meter limit on exercise has been lifted. I got back and took a shower, then he and Carly were watching a documentary about dark matter and eating popcorn. Xenon was a new word. They then moved on to a new episode.
I read to him while he ate some dinner. Cherie called and he talked to her. Told her she should move to Israel. Fortified, ammunition, and bindi were words that he learned from her. “It helps you remember you are god.” “I’m not god!” They then got into an argument about god.
When that was done Carly took him up and gave him a bath. They did a lot of laughing and were looking at her computer on the bed when I went up. We brushed our teeth and discussed CB language and technology: “over and out”, he kept saying. We listened to “How the Camel Got His Hump by Kipling on Stories Podcast. Then “Hansel and Gretel and the Apple Trees”. He had a Sister game which we did of Sister joining the Mynacraft server. We listened to Peace Out’s “Bike Adventure” and then put on the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brooks album Night Sound, which he really liked from the beginning. He asked, “What’s queer mean?” They use it a lot in The Boxcar Children (along with “laugh”). He kept trying to talk to me, and was finally asleep some time after 11.
Tank game with Gabi:
Locking Mama out:
Letting her back in:
Dissonant music session:
Material for composing:
Material for composing 2:
Examining the spider web:
