He was up just before 9. He told me he’d had a Minecraft dream. I read a couple Wayside School Is Falling Down chapters, then we went downstairs and played Minecraft, blowing things up. He had the last of the French toast and played a little piano. Carly came in (she’d been Zooming with Tessa) and he wanted to go straight to alone time to do a red stone competition in Minecraft with Carly after that. We talked about our concern that he’s really been focusing on screen time and we haven’t been getting other things done (like reading). Carly had the idea of putting things on paper and drawing them out. He liked that idea, and drew ‘reading’ first. He read the first few pages of Dirk Bones to her, really picking up on words like ghostly and ghoul that he didn’t get at first. When she pointed out how re-reading helps he read each phrase twice. He’d started saying he’d only read one page, but ended up reading about 6.
He next drew ‘piano’ so they went and did a piano competition. A couple rounds of that. He then wanted to draw another thing. Carly asked about adding a time for each of them. He taught her about major versus minor, and pointed out that the low notes are out of tune. Carly asked “You can tell?” “Yeah, it sounds horrible.” Next he drew ‘reversi’ so they played a few games of that before he drew ‘Learn about redstone’. So he did his alone time, listening to “Animal Jam” on Stories Podcast.
For Minecraft time they did redstone and watched redstone videos. August is figuring things out like pulse extenders and sending signals up and down. She read some Jake Drake at some point. He then came to me and we played reversi together on the iPad. I then taught him how to play battleship (it is an app with a bunch of family games) and he played against the computer, barely losing. We then played more of our two-deck War game of war. As we played we listened to an episode of Brains On about color, and why colors represent different things. August said, “I think of white as angry.” He asked for one cracker to lick and did his licking thing with it.
We went upstairs and wrestled. I was hitting him with a pillow and accidentally breaking things like a bed, tv, computer, etc. and he was laughing hysterically. We went downstairs. August said, “The silence is too much for me” and turned on the fan. Carly got him veggies and things for lunch, and he played chess by himself.
I went out and cleaned up the bike and did some maintenance, then got him out for a bike ride. We stayed close to the house. It was slightly cloudy and windy, and he was afraid of rain, although I convinced him through it. We rode in circles around the near blocks, and rode by Carly a few times, who was washing the car. August had found an advertisement on our gate, so hung it off his handle bar for people to see. He found a couple more of them on the ground a block away and added to his collection. It was then windy and they were blowing around so we swung by the house and he spent several minutes to figure out how to hang them up around our gate. We did a little more riding, and he was trying to spot Skodas. We found one, but he was also learning other makes of cars by their emblems. He spotted a different kind of ad on someone’s gate. I didn’t think they’d miss it so I let him take it home. He talked about having one a day hanging on a piece of wire by the gate, and having a supply of them inside so he could rotate the ads. As we were talking about all of that I taught him the word publicity as a word of the day.
He was outside with Carly for a bit and I was working. He piled up the tree things for her without being asked. Inside she cut up a mango for him, and he said, “When I grow up I’m going to be a mango hoarder.” He’s listened to a story that involves a man hoarding bread, and it doesn’t go well for him, and I reminded him of that. He was still hungry, and I said we had white tangerines. Carly cut one for him, and as he started to eat it he said, “Gorgeous! Wonderful!”
They called Colin, then started playing Minecraft with Vivian. I went for a run. When he finished with Minecraft I told him about the release of the Nether Update coming next week. He’s very excited. He then wanted to do the chess variation with Carly where you place your own pieces. It was too stressful for her, so I took over, and he and I did some good analyzing of what started as silly positions that he set up.
They called Cherie for a few minutes. They were on their way up to Seattle. We watched a few educational videos: “Why do we sweat?” from Ted-Ed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fctH_1NuqCQ), “What yoga does to your body and brain” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8kV4FHSdNA), “Where does life come from?” from It’s Okay to Be Smart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uAJY1mqtw4), and finally “The 12 Days of Evolution” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_jyHp3bmEw). He learned about primordial soup.
We then Skyped with my parents. He played for them and insisted we show them War when they weren’t sure they’d played it before. And they saw him eating a cracker using his technique. We said goodbye when the battery was almost dead and headed up for a bath. Carly gave him a bath, then he ate part of a full apple. I pointed out the shape his front teeth were making on it. He then listened to “The Great Ballgame” and ate his crackers.
Carly said something about not being happy with her boss, and he told her “You should appreciate everyone, even if they aren’t nice. You should appreciate your boss even if he doesn’t appreciate you.” And he sang a song about appreciating people.
We brushed our teeth. He then started being silly and laughing. I was doing something, and he said, “He’s so funny. He’s going bonker balls.” That’s from Wow in the World! I wasn’t being funny, but he kept laughing and couldn’t stop as he tried to do mouthwash: “Don’t laugh or I’ll laugh. Thanks for not laughing.”
We listened to a Cluster album, Sowiesoso, and he was asleep by 11:35.
Reading to mama:
A little piano:
Singing and playing chess:
Silly laughter:
