He had a tough bit where he woke up around 6 and called me in and said he couldn’t get back to sleep. I lay down in the lower bed. I think it took him about a half hour to go to sleep. At one point I closed the windows even tighter as I thought it might be too bright. Carly had said that yesterday he sat up in the morning and she got the message it was too bright when he put the pillow over his head.
I started waking him by 9, but he was truly asleep. Given his rough morning I let him sleep and woke him at 9:30. He sat up and said, “You can’t really do mining in the lucky block world. It’s death mining.”
He went to the bathroom, then downstairs to the piano and started playing. I suggested he play a song for Dalit, featuring his quieter side, as it’s been a month since we last sent her a video. He played a song and I sent it, and she responded, saying she just started piano lessons again yesterday. I’d talk to Carly about it later, and August later said “I NEED to see Ms. Dalit in person” when we talked about it before bed. So, we’ll see about getting that started up.
Eventually he wanted to play Minecraft, and we played in the lucky block world. He would end up never doing his alone time and extra thirty minutes today. When we were done he went back to piano and I finished making French toast and we ate outside. He gushed about how beautiful it was outside as we went out.
We went back inside and watched Israel. He asked, “What’s confession?” Other words he asked about were sidetracked and renovate. We then watched a couple videos about cerebral palsy, especially the one from Osmosis. Trauma was a new word. The video said that cerebral palsy isn’t progressive, and August piped in, “But FOP is progressive.”
We went upstairs and did a good amount of wrestling, then there was a new student, named Port, with cerebral palsy. The set of stories ended with a basilisk that was making statues out of students.
We went downstairs and did music time, watching “Microtonality in Western Music” from David Bennett (https://youtu.be/q1XOnIk2ai8). So microtonality was a new word, as was blue notes. He was inspired and played more piano. A new thing he started yesterday and developed today is passing the melody he is playing back and forth from the right hand to the left hand.
Carly got home around 1:30, and he instantly wanted to play her chess. She had to go back to work, but played him once, then I took over and played him. I was able to get him to checkmate me. We ate the last of the pasta for lunch, sitting outside in the chairs. We had a discussion about property rights and what if land borders move, which started with him asking what happens if you own a lot and there is a landslide and someone else’s property ends up on your lot. I then told him he should ask Opa. He compared it to how he asked mama teaching questions. I told him he could ask me too, and I pretended to answer his questions, but referring to him in the third person. “Oh, my student pretended not to hear me…My student is so lazy, he didn’t wake up until 9:30 today…” He found that pretty hilarious, and we’d repeat it for Carly before bed.
We then ate pie outside, and almost finished the Hades book we’re reading. August was inspired though, and had a new magic girl character for the Brother and Sister games: Arachne. Brother brought her home and she decorated the Family house, including a tapestry of Bar wearing a funny hat. August kept walking around the house as he narrated. He then got me upstairs to keep playing. Sister and Arachne then played a practical joke on Brother, filling his ears with silk to make him think he’s deaf. August had his hands talking to my feet, using a cute little voice, and they did a feet and hand dance together. I then remembered the song “It’s Okay” and sang it, and he started to dance around on the bed. We also listened to the listened to Radiohead song with microtones, “How to Disappear Completely”. I put on Steve Reich’s “It’s Gonna Rain” and August asked me if it was Reich’s “Piano Phase”, as he noticed the similarities. We finished our time upstairs with different animals (our hands and feet) and body parts meeting, and August being a person that was slow falling.
We headed downstairs, but first he eavesdropped on Carly and heard her say, “Oh my gosh, there’s so much.” Downstairs he told me, “I’d rather quarantine ourselves than not do summer.” His comment last night about being okay with having to quarantine made more sense: he was thinking about how we might not go to the U.S. this summer. We played chess and agreed to a draw. Carly came down and had some of her dark chocolate bar, which was a gift. August didn’t want any, saying he had dark chocolate before and that it was “flavorless.” He wanted to play chess with her. They went outside first, and talked about not going to the United States after he asked how long until summer. She said we probably weren’t going, but would have fun other ways. He handled it okay, but I think he’s sad about it.
They started playing, and I went for a run. I got back before they had started Minecraft. He had had Mac and cheese and broccoli for dinner. Vivian didn’t want to play with them because August had been putting beacons on her house yesterday. She had told him not to, and he had stopped. Not clear why she didn’t want him to, or why it was a big issue, as she had cleaned it up in literally two minutes. So Carly and August played together in Colin’s world. But then Colin didn’t want August destroying anything in his world (it was the Washington D.C. world). At least Vivian and Cassie were able to convince Colin to let them change August and Carly to operator, so they could build stuff. August got bored of just building though, and went into his own world and wanted Carly to switch to his world. So I played with him. Vivian didn’t play with either of them. August switched back to Colin’s world, and Carly and I were finally able to both log off, although it took me a while as Colin wanted me to keep playing.
Carly and August played chess, then Cherie called and we were figuring out ChessKid. Didn’t quite get it all figured out so they could play, but progress made, and Cherie should be able to play with him on Wednesday. August really wanted to play with her right now, but we convinced him to play with me when I used my silly mama voice and pretended to play like her, making silly moves. I moved my queen out and only moved it until August was able to trap it. He had fun checkmating me with three queens, I think it was. He played the computer several times on his own, then I got him upstairs and Carly gave him a bath.
August joked that “Dada’s being punky” so I threw his clothes on him and tried to teach him that people tend to act how you expect him to act, so he should say nice things to me so I act nice. In bed he listened to the new Stories Podcast story about “Wanda Walgood, Wandering Witch” and ate his crackers and peanut butter. We brushed our teeth and talked more about why Eve has to stay at home. He asked if he ever had playdates with just Zoe, but then agreed with me that Eve would be crushed if Zoe was able to play with him but she couldn’t. Carly and I both said we might be able to play with Gilad in the park again soon.
He went in to say good night to Carly and was asking her about her work, and how students could do art about COVID. Carly said something about vocabulary and he asked what that meant. We went in to bed, after doing the me pretending to answer teaching questions about my student, and he did a “punky student” dance. We had lights out by 11. We listened to “Piano Phase”. I said it was time to go to sleep and he said, “I like your voice when we’re going to sleep: ‘Alright little boy’…It’s like a sleepy fairy.” He then asked, “Are there girl fairies?” And added “People probably think girls are more graceful…” we talked a little more about that. We listened to part 1 of “It’s Gonna Rain” and then “Four Organs/1970” again and he was asleep around 11:35.
The spooky song:
Passing the melody back and forth:
Song of the day:
Hand and feet dance:
More piano:
Punky student dance:
