Good news was that he slept through the night. The bad news was that he was up by 8:25 before I’d even managed to make it downstairs. He cuddled on the couch bed for a couple minutes but wasn’t interested in going back to sleep. He was pretty stuffy too. He went downstairs while I gathered things and went outside to Carly. He was with her for a few minutes, then came in and played piano. He asked me to open the windows so that Carly could better hear him. He had some nice stuff going, and at the end he was playing with dissonance, he told me: “augmented, diminished…”
He came to the couch and logged in to his realm. As he played he asked, “Do armies have battle cries?” We discussed the Red Cross and read about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Red_Cross_and_Red_Crescent_Movement?wprov=sfti1 discrimination wotd We also discusses Dorothea Dix and Clara Barton: https://www.historynet.com/civil-war-nurses. And we listened to the rebel yell recordings:https://youtu.be/s6jSqt39vFM
I played with him for a few minutes, then he went upstairs with Carly to exercise. He came back down after a while and played on Musyc, then took it up to see Carly. It then got really quiet upstairs for quite a while. When he came back down he said he had been teaching her Musyc. He kept playing with that and watched some of By Jeeves with me.
We watched the new Grian, then went upstairs for a Brother and Sister game. A replay of where they get to go to an advanced civilization. This time Baby Sister doesn’t get to go and gets upset and turns everything into screens playing Barney.
We went downstairs to make schnitzel for lunch. Carly ran to school to get the masks she ordered from the woman who had been an art teacher at the school. They are quite nice, and August got a pattern with music on it. We did a piano competition and then a little Earpaggio. He listened to “Kiddo and the Fox” and then ate our schnitzel and veggies outside. He then listened to “The Silent War for the Open Door” (where he asked what Pakistan was). Then “Dog King Thanskgiving”, “The Narrow Bridge”, and “My Pet Fairy” as he sat outside.
We played in his realm, starting to make a house. Then got ready to go. August had, as we played upstairs, asked if we could not go for a drive today. But we convinced him to go for a drive and just get out for a minute. I think the promise of sharing the chocolate bar helped. I drove and parked near the north end of the Netanya waterfront. August and I have been through there a few times before, but always with one bike or another. This was our first trip without. We parked and walked across to the most northern park area. We sat on a bench and had some chocolate. We then convinced him to walk down the steps to the beach, and we spent just a minute down on the beach. People around, but not too busy, and most people doing a good job with masks and social distancing.
We went back up the stairs and walked to the north end of the park. August found ant nests, and did some spitting for them, figuring it gave them some water to drink with some chocolate in it. We sat on a bench and read The Hardy Boys and Carly walked around a bit. We had some corn crackers, then headed back to the car. He stopped again to feed some ants a bit of a corn cracker and talked about one of the ants putting out a pheromone saying “Food!” Finally, Carly saw a big ant carrying a sort of stick and called it ambitious. August asked what that meant, so a word of the day.
We drove through Netanya, something we don’t often do, on the way back. Listened to Josh Ritter. He started to fall asleep and Carly gave him some more chocolate to keep him awake. As we got into Even Yehuda from the north he told us that “Nature’s colors is beautiful.” And talked about how he likes every color in nature. We stopped in town so Carly could run into the pharmacy to get Tylenol, then were home by 5.
As we walked into the house I noted a stuffy smell in the house: the first time the house has even had an opportunity to get that smell, as there’s always been someone in it with windows open for the last couple months. He talked more about his favorite colors: “My list of favorite colors basically goes on forever…it’s basically an infinite roller coaster ride…as nature adapts to the wild…” He must have really been thinking in the car, as he walked around talking a lot. He discussed scientists studying poop for coronavirus and how microorganisms are his favorite organisms. He told Carly about water bears.
I went for a run. When I got back they were playing Minecraft. They were in one of Vivian’s worlds, but then Colin had set something on fire, so Vivian left that world. August couldn’t get in the next one. They finally agreed to go into the Realm. August flew 10,000 blocks away to be well away from things, but Vivian still took exception to him doing fill commands of air underground to make a big space he could fly around in, and she logged off and hung up without saying goodbye. Don’t think August really noticed, thankfully, as it was time to log off anyway.
I had turned on the charity livestream that Grian and Rendog were doing in Minecraft. It was for a South African charity, and August said we should donate, so Carly sent ten dollars. Carly talked to her Mom. Not sure where they were at the moment. August said “Happy Mother’s Day!” but also, “Happy annoyance day!” We watched a little more of the livestream, then he watched the last fifteen minutes of the Magellanic Cloud episode of the Cosmic Realm series he’s been watching and had some popcorn.
We all went upstairs and he got hyper, and did an annoyance dance. He went to the bathroom, and talked about the ads he’s listened to, telling us “We should buy socks from…” something. Carly gave him a bath. He spent a few minutes composing some Musyc for her.
In the bedroom we did a replay of the Brother and Sister and girl from another civilization story. He then listened to “The Golden Screw” on Stories Podcast, which was quite funny. We brushed our teeth, then read a National Geographic Little Kids magazine, basically doing everything (like the ‘find the differences’ pictures) and reading up through the piece about fennec foxes (which I wanted to show him because we used to see those at Children’s Grand Park). Right at the end of that he started to get upset: His wart was coming off, and bleeding. I put a tissue on it, and he started wailing and wailing. Carly came in. She got us a bandaid. It didn’t bleed much, but it was traumatic for him. I agreed to put the bandaid on after he was asleep. We listened to a new album called Trance Frendz that is from Olafur Arnalds. We quite liked it, but it helped calm him down. He calmed down enough to ask “What’s the opposite of serious?” When I suggested facetious he said “Ms. Facetious.” A new teacher for the games, I think. We finished the Arnalds album and put on the Johann Johansson album Last and First Men. We’ll have to listen to it tomorrow though as he was asleep at 11:25 just as it started.
Developing the triplets song:
Walking on the beach:
Giving the ants some spit:
Feeding ants:
A hyper dance:
