Tuesday, June 23: Maya and Benjamin come for a playdate

He woke up just before 9:10. He went to the bathroom, then we sat on the couch and read a couple stories from Sideways Stories from Wayside School. Downstairs he went out and said good morning to Carly and asked her her opinion on mornings. In Minecraft he did a lot of exploding, in Survival Trival, then we started watching educational videos. Only watched one though, about robots being programmed to do science experiments, “Inside the Lab Where Robots Run Their Own Experiments”:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1UgdoP2aeg

Assay was a word of the day, and he understood the Battleship analogy that a guy made as he recently learned to play Battleship. We would have watched more videos, but when that one was over he said, “I have an idea for a brother and sister game now!”

We went up and played, and we developed a long story arc, with Sister meeting a scientist in the park using robots for science, then going to college early to get away from her crazy family. Brother and Bar and the magic girls try to stop her.

We went downstairs and he did a little coding, working on the next puzzle on his own. I made us tuna sandwiches and chocolate milks and we watched Hermitcraft Recap #2 and ate on the couch. He played a little piano, then listened to “I’m Bored” for alone time. He pointed out where he learned about Crazy 8s in the story, and realized he knows 5 card games: Crazy 8s, War, Slapjack, Cribbage, and Go Fish.

We listened to “Daniel and the Lion” as we started to play. legal scholar was a word of the day from that. August declared that he was ready to play Minecraft in survival on hard from the beginning, and we started a new world, beginning in a bamboo jungle. We survived by making a treehouse in the top of the trees. We also listened to the story “Animal Jam”, one of his favorites.

Carly had taken all of the donations she’s gathered and bought to the gan in south Tel Aviv, and now got home. We played outside for a while, and then he went in and used five stars to play Minecraft. He started with Carly, in the hard world, but I took over and finished for him.

Sharna and her kids Maya and Ben came over at 2:30. August was shy at first, and in advance he had said that we all needed to stay outside. He warmed up after a couple minutes and we all went outside. Maya and I sat on the blanket and played a card game that she sort of remembered. August sat next to us and played War by himself. Maya watered plants, and Benjamin mainly sat on the swing next to his mom. Carly made a strawberry smoothie for everyone. The kids weren’t entirely happy just staying outside, and August agreed when Carly suggested they just go inside to look at toys to bring outside. But once they were inside he was fine with it. He played piano for them, and Maya asked “How does he play so good?”

They ended up playing on the floor inside. Carly built with Legos with Benjamin, and August and Maya actually played chess on the real board. A full game, which August won. It was really nice to see both of them focused for that long and both handling it well. Carly then played her. I got out some snacks, and before they left they were still hungry so Carly got them fruit. They left at 4:20.

August and I watched the newest GoodTimeswithScar. He has been sick, as has Jellie, his cat, so it was good to see him back. Carly placed a fruit and veggie order. I got dinner together for us: hotdogs, dolma, and nectarines. I then headed upstairs for work, which lasted from 5:30 to close to 8.

I know they played Minecraft. Well, sort of. August had Vivian go in his hard survival world. She died after a couple minutes and got upset and just left. But then apparently she came back later during the time and apologized and they played together in something else. When I came down he and Carly were playing chess. He was making mating problems. He’d eaten the rest of his dinner but was just now finishing his hotdog. He was hyper so I took him upstairs. He asked, “What’s a legal scholar?” So scholar was a word of the day. When I explained he said he wants to be a piano scholar. He wants to know everything about its history. I told him I actually have a book about the history of piano, so maybe we will start reading bits of it. He randomly quoted, “At first it was sort of fun: we had home arts and crafts and home just about everything.” From the story, “I’m bored”.

We wrestled, scoring points, then there was something about being fish. He asked if there is any animal that can’t hold its breath. We went to the internet for help, and read that basically every mammal can hold its breath, but actually some marine mammals just breath out when they dive: https://www.aquaticape.org/bhdr.html He was then a mammal that could hold its breath for a long time and kept jumping in the water, but couldn’t swim, but only sank. I was a shark that found they didn’t taste good and didn’t want them polluting my sea, so I kept pushing him to the surface, only for him to dive in again.

He then went and had his bath, then picked out clothes. In bed he listened to “Narcissus and Echo”, then went to the bathroom. He asked, “What’s special treatment?” We discussed examples of both good and bad special treatment. He was quoting another story, “Animal Jam”, saying, “I play the ba-boombas. Then she started to bellow…”

We brushed our teeth, and on the way back to bed he said wants to be a professional Minecrafter. He said I should change my job and do Minecraft videos. I asked what my approach would be, and we came up with HistoryCraft. We talked about resetting the Nether, and I talked about how I had realized we could ask Uncle Paul. Finally, he asked what “Not three days earlier” meant, from “Monkey Mayhem”, I think. I asked if he had any music requests today. He usually doesn’t, but today asked for Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. He was asleep by 11:20.

Playing for the guests: