A rough night for me. Around 2 or 3 I heard him talking in his sleep. Several sentences worth; enough that I tried to get up to go hear what he was talking about, but still no luck. Sometime later I woke up itching in several places. Wasn’t sure if it was mosquitoes, but then when I got up one buzzed in my ear. Went back to sleep, but August called me in at 5:10. He said something about time to wake up. I asked if he needed anything, and he said, “No. probably just a dream.” I went back to sleep again, but was twice more awoken by mosquitoes buzzing me. I was awake, so took my sheet and pillow downstairs, read for a while, and eventually fell back to sleep. When Carly got up I switched places, and slept in the bedroom until he was up at 9.
He went to the bathroom and started asking me about coronavirus graphs in his head. Downstairs he went traight to the piano. Some wonderful stuff, then a piano competition with Carly. He asked her, “Can I teach you the key to counting?” He was then teaching her about minor scales. He showed her the difference between C and C minor, and Carly asked if it was because he played the black keys. He replied, “Yeah, but not all minor keys use black keys…that’s A minor.”
We next played Minecraft, in our Creative world. I made a flat space in his huge build and set up an alphabet, and when our time was up he got some extra time alphabetizing al the blocks in Minecraft. I made French toast, and he stopped when I was done and we went and ate outside. He finished off the cantaloupe. We did the Sister game where she finds out they live in the simulation. As part of being in the real world she is taught how to control things with her mind. A bit of an extension from the original version.
Carly had a meeting, then went to help Jonathan’s mother. He’s the band teacher at school, and we’d been working to have him teach August piano. But then he had some medical news and just had surgery. Anyway, Carly picked her up and took her to downtown Even Yehuda, where she went to the fruit market, the health food store, and pharmacy and grocery store. Then when they were ready to go the car wouldn’t start. Carly called Mike and Kelly and they came and gave our car a jump, again. Carly dropped off Jonathan’s mother, then went to the car garage up across from Shabtai pizza. Kelly had told her about it, but I knew exactly where she was talking about as I’d spotted it from eating pizza at Shabtai with August (probably the time we got poured on getting back to the car).
The car people were really nice, and 200 dollars later she had a new battery. Back at the house August talked about his weed with berries: “This is a three part chain of good things: One, the bees get to pollinate it, the birds get to eat the berries, the plant gets to grow.” We talked about the fourth, that we get to enjoy it, and about how parks and green spaces have multiple benefits. I then had a bunch of books for him to choose from for what we should read next, and he chose Wayside School is Falling Down. We read the first 5 or 6 stories, and he did a lot of laughing.
He played with Sound Rebound, then played piano playing for alone time. He was playing in odd time signatures. 20/8 or 12/8 followed by 8/8. I didn’t get his amazing melody piece on video, and when I did ask for a video he did one-note versions of the rhythms. He pointed out out-of-tune notes on the piano as well.
We went upstairs and did more wrestling. I was a giant at one point. We read the anger chart. When we were done with that he told me, “I’m sorry, but I have new kidding tricks. I can’t tell you or you’ll adapt to it.” We went downstairs to find Carly home already. She told us about getting the new battery.
We made hot dogs and sliced up an apple for a late lunch and ate outside. He played chess with Carly. Then we got going to the pool. The swimsuit and shirt from Dee are perfect. It was the second time in 3 and a half month we’ve all been in the car. At the school they take your temperature, and you’re supposed to wear masks when not in the pool, so we wore them in. The first time August has worn his music print mask. He spotted an impressive ant colony on the walk to the pool and studied them for a minute. They made some impressive structures with the dirt.
The pool only had a few people. Sharna was there with Benjamin (who we’ve called Ben Ben in the past) and Myna were there. August was pretty shy though. But we’ll probably see them a lot through the summer. Ilana and Howard were there, and we discussed Ilana’s difficulties in planning her trip to New York to see her mother in July—not knowing if El Al will actually be flying then, and if she’ll be able to use her credit with them. August joined in a bit when discussing COVID-19 with Howard. I tried to remind August of the last time he saw Howard, discussing the picnic table with the periodic table on it outside his classroom, but August mainly picked up on the fact that Howard was wearing Crocs, big Crocs, and he’s never seen an adult wearing Crocs. Mike and Kelly also showed up.
August made up a tag game called Monkey Mayhem, based on the Stories Podcast story, then remembered the kick board game. He was adding points in his head quite well: like 8 plus 95 and 103 plus 99. He didn’t put the vest on today, and took his time getting in. He’d also sort of forgotten hanging on the edge, and also me holding him. When I convinced him to let me hold him he said something like, “Oh, this is nice!” Then, Carly started to teach him how to tread water, and he was getting down the idea of that, at least while he stood on the steps. Unfortunately, he can’t quite stand on the bottom of the pool.
On our way out he fed the big ant nest a piece of a corn cracker. We headed home, where we were actually a little past 6 and late for Minecraft time. They called Vivian and Colin and he started playing. I went for a run. After Minecraft he played a lot of chess with Cherie. He also ate a lot for dinner: corn, meat and crackers, rice and cheese and broccoli, then I got him crackers and peanut butter and honey. Cherie told him that his second cousin, Tristan, plays chess, and suggested they play together sometime. August’s response: “I do NOT want to play with that mysterious guy.” He was still hungry, so we shared a scone. They played until 9:40.
I talked about a clarification of something, which he asked about, then we discussed the difference between vague and clear. Carly gave him a bath. I cut up a small apple, that turned out to taste more like a pear, and he didn’t like that. He settled for a few Cheerios before bed. He listened to the story “Belly of the Beast”. We brushed our teeth and then listened to the Philip Glass album and he was asleep about 11:20.
Their Mr. Minke video:
Some piano:
Alphabetizing in Minecraft:
Playing crazy time signatures:
More odd time signatures:
Satisfying beach ball:
Treading water at the pool:
Chess with Oma:
