He woke up at 8:08 and went straight to the bathroom. He was looking pretty tired, but when he came back out he was quite awake. The first thing he said was “At school Ms. Anna told me…” That pushing both buttons on the toilet made more water go in the toilet. He then told me about how in playing Minecraft “I’ve moved on to using the fill command with chests…I like looking at them…” With their latches and the lines on them. We got downstairs and he looked out the window and said, “That cat is on the roof again.”
I read a little of Shivers, then in Minecraft we explored the Hogwarts/Harry Potter world he had downloaded last night. He plans on exploring it with Vivian when it is his turn. We did that, and listened to a Four Tet album he liked, then had oatmeal for breakfast and watched the newest Iskall.
We went upstairs to the bedroom for a game. First we did the hands as dogs/cats fighting, and I had a dog fetching an invisible ball he would throw. Bar then deleted them all, and we moved on to the Ms. Safe games. We started with Tal, who has narcolepsy. He then wanted another medical condition that a student might have. I thought of epilepsy and we watchedhttps://youtu.be/MBfJozL7qHM
. The girl in that is named Elena and we used that in the game. We also updated our list of all of our Brother and Sister story characters, so we have a full list of the students we’ve come up with.
When we went back downstairs he listened to a Circle Round story, “Share and Share Alike” for alone time. He then played in Carly’s Minecraft with her for Minecraft time.
I started lunch and they went outside to paint. August told me “I have my plants their morning drink.” And a bit earlier Carly had witnessed some drama with a police officer inspecting the garbage pile, then talking to the neighbor across the street. My guess was that they were getting in trouble for dumping recycling there. Carly worked on her latest painting, and August gave her suggestions. He ate a tortilla with the egg and broccoli and turkey from yesterday. Carly told him about her jobs at World Wrapps and picking up garbage at a fair. He painted with her, very briefly, but mainly likes to watch and comment now.
He had me eat the rest of his asparagus, explaining how he doesn’t like the bottoms because they are stringy. I added some of the green sauce to it. August asked, “Why did you put asparagus with hot sauce? It sounds absurd.” We looked up if birds sing multiple songs. August had asked last night. We should watch the Puffin Rock “Dawn Chorus” episode and see what he thinks of it now.
Schnitzel was now ready and he ate that. Carly’s painting had one yellow leaf, and we (August and I) joked about the one leaf, and whether the painting was about being unique and standing out or whether she would paint them all the same and make it a painting about conformity. For his schnitzel: “I need a container that’s poisonous to flies but not me.”
Carly was trying to get him to fill his water bottle and talked about how it is for his future. He said, “Can’t I make my kids do it?” To which Carly responded, “How’s that working for us?” He then said, “Maybe I should rethink that.” They read a book (great fire? Volcano?). He has kept bringing up Krakatoa when they were reading a day or two ago.
I went for a walk. 40 minutes through Bnei Dror, exploring the north neighborhoods and empty lots. When I got back August was listening to podcasts in his room by himself. He hadn’t gotten upset about anything. That’s just what he wanted to do after they came inside. He was listening to a story about a boy putting salt on the tail of a bird. He came out about 2:20, then started playing piano. He said he had listened to three stories, and he told me he hadn’t been upset.
We did some piano playing and discussed Korea and North Korea. We went upstairs and watched the epilepsy video again and played with Elena again. Then there was a student named Bertie with insomnia who became friends with brother. They discussed Minecraft.
He talked about his coins and wanted to buy a treat from me. We found his coins and he looked at them and his rocks from the fair where he panned for stones with Vivian (coincidentally the second time that fair had come up today, as earlier he had asked what a fair was). I got the mandolin out, and we tuned it.
Carly made a smoothie and brought it up. We played for a while longer, then went downstairs. The volume knob on the mandolin has long been loose, and I tried to check it out. August helped me with the screwdriver. Didn’t really make any progress. They called Cassie to talk about playing Minecraft earlier. They agreed on a time, then August went upstairs with Carly to get his phone, then listened to “The Lamb with the Golden Fleece” on Circle Round. I made us chocolate milk. When it was over he asked how long until Vivian and Colin (still 20 minutes left) and then played piano. He then moved over and started playing with the mandolin, sitting in the red chair.
For the last ten minutes he did Earpaggio with me. We’re both getting better, but he’s better than me, and can identify intervals very quickly. I was surprised by how quickly and confidently he was identifying the sixths.
When it was time to call them, Carly asked him to envision ending Minecraft. He said, “This is so exhausting. Every time.” They called and the kids played Minecraft in a zoo world Vivian had downloaded. August was doing more fill commands and they ended with a big TNT explosion.
They then did a Zoom call with Cherie and Chuck. August wanted to use the Snap Camera app to do the animations and things, but it wasn’t working. Carly eventually found that that had been broken in the latest release of Zoom. August then figured out a workaround by sharing his full screen, and showing them the Snap Camera app. He ate schnitzel and broccoli and rice for dinner.
He played piano for them, then played pictionary with Cherie. They did a great job of that, and we are supposed to look up Ganesh. I also heard August correctly guess ‘Utensils’ and ‘Footprint.’ He was drawing things for her as well. I was working over at the table during this time, and Carly was outside. There was more piano playing, and August and Cherie then moved on to Legos. Cherie gave him instructions on how to build something, and August followed her commands—he referred to it as her writing code at the beginning, and was then talking about how he was following her commands. They were also discussing binary.
It was a great activity, working both on 3D spatial skills (and that went surprisingly well) and on language/direction following. She was also giving him sort of yoga instructions, on how to move his legs and feet to do a pose. Carly came in, and August did the same thing to Carly, telling her “Now you will execute my every command.” They were talking about graphing calculators and August was doing things on the graphing calculator. They had a debate about memories and where they are stored. August was convinced it was “Just neurons in the brain.”
My friend Peter was online, and asked to Skype. I went up and chatted with him for about an hour. They finished up with Cherie, and played around upstairs for a while before getting to a bath. I came out as they finished with a bath. He asked me, “Will you execute my every command?” August was still hungry and asked for crackers and peanut butter. I got him that, and brought up our devices. I handed August his phone for podcast purposes and he instantly put one on. He said, “To put on a podcast when I have my phone is my instinct now.” He first listened to “Share and Share Alike” on Circle Round. He had listened to it earlier. He then listened to “The Magpie with Salt on Its Tail” again, saying “I like it.”
He went to the bathroom after that and asked, “What’s outrageous?” And then, “What’s epidemic?” That led to discussions of pandemic and endemic and prevalent.
We brushed our teeth, said good night to Carly, and went in and started a Peace Out. August really wanted a Brother game with Nord instead so we did that in the dark (Nord is both blind and has seizures—Brother was being ‘helpful’ but kept doing things like trying to show him photos of Minecraft), then put on the new epic45 album. He really liked it, so I started a playlist of his favorite ambient albums. He was asking me more questions, and finally fell asleep by 11:20.
Playing variations on a song he knows:
Door game:
Mandolin noodling:
Song of the day for Oma:
Pictionary with Oma:
LEGO commands:
Yoga commands:
“Now you will execute my every command”:
