I finally managed to wake him at 9:30, after starting 15 or 20 minutes earlier. We read some more of Tristan Strong, then headed downstairs when Lauren said that Gilad was ready to play. They played for about 50 minutes, both excited by the Nether update. Initially in some world that Gilad had, then one of August’s world. He had oatmeal for breakfast, then went outside and played War with Carly on the blanket. I put in a little work.
Carly then headed to school, primarily to check out a few more books, as Ilana said she’d be in the library, but also to argue about the bills (the school owes us as we found out we’ve been paying for downstair’s water and electricity and taxes) and to try to figure out if/who/when is actually picking up the mail. August and I wrestled: being sharks with animals falling in the water, a bear hibernating (because he had the AC so cold), and penguins.
We went downstairs and August told me, “I think I had a dream…Grian looked into Grumbot.” I made a tuna sandwich for lunch. We ate that and grapes and watched the newest StressMonster. We then watched a video about Snowball Earth from the PBS Eons show. Dropstone was a word of the day.
He drew ‘Khan Academy’ and was at first against doing math, but Carly convinced him to do math with her. He then did Desmos graphing, and I had went upstairs to work. He came up to show me how, apparently on his own, he had used math to graph an animated line and circle that looked like a piston. He could explain pretty well what each part did. I was impressed. He also came up to ask me about his morning time and I went down to tell Carly he hadn’t done it. So they played, and they also did yoga.
I came down at 3:15. He had just done alone time, listening to a story, and was ready to play Minecraft. I’d forgotten to tell Carly that he doesn’t do the alone time thing on Fridays, since he has the Gilad time. But he could have used 5 stars anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal. I played in the new (ugh) flat world he had made with Gilad. He and Gilad had started to build a huge structure up in the sky. They talked about it at first as being an asteroid hitting the Earth. He and Carly had made a cool structure though to keep animals in.
When we were done I started reading the Perseus the Hero book. Carly heard, and yelled that that was hers (she’d been specifically looking for books for her to read with him) and took over. It was a choose your own adventure sort of book, with August as Perseus. Woo was another word of the day. And he liked going back and taking the different options. He then drew ‘Read a book’ and he read about half of Messy Bessy’s Famiky Reunion.
August and I were then going to go for a bike ride. But first he set up a random position on the chess board, and we invented the idea of a dragon piece, that could attack in a sort of 5 by 5 square. We then started playing from the random position, then paused to go on our ride.
I started to steer us across the bridge, but he wanted to go back and around the Holly block. We did that, and all the way up Kibuts Galyut and a bit further, then came back. Tried to convince him to stop at a park, but he just wanted to go back to our swing. We got home and I started reading Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger and he slowly ate his chocolate bar by covering his hands in melted chocolate and licking it off. Unprompted he said, “I think I’m a weirdo.” We read a few chapters, then discussed hypnosis and he asked, “What’s handicapped mean?” We watched a couple of ASAPScience videos about hypnosis.
He went in to use the bathroom, then requested new shorts. I went up to get a pair, and also grabbed my running shorts. When he saw both he said, “Thank you for giving me a choice.” He was still okay with it when I said one pair was for me. He was okay with the beige shorts I’d gotten for him, but he explained, “There’s a better combination…they match better.” August told me they’d finished the vanilla ice cream that had been in the freezer for a long time. Some of it was frosty, but the rest was good. Funny timing, as earlier in the day I’d remembered there was a can of root beer in the cupboard. But Carly said we should eat more ice cream this summer, so we’ll have opportunities.
August went to the chess board and said, “Let’s resume our chess game.” I won, as it turned out black had a big advantage in the random position. He played piano, and Carly made turkey patties and green beans for his dinner. He and Carly spent time together outside, I was in doing some work, and finally about 6:20 she reminded him it was past 6. He played Minecraft with the cousins and I went for a run.
After my shower August was being grumpy with Carly. He said it wasn’t because Carly had told him we weren’t going on our Galilee trip, but it seemed like that was part of it. He was kicking a pillow up in the air, and I said it reminded me of whack-a-mole, and I remembered playing it once in Korea. He talked about wanting to play whack-a-mole sometime to get tickets and buy things with them. It turns out he knows about it from Pink Panther, and he really remembers that episode, where the Pink Panther keeps earning more tickets, and the bad guy keeps raising the prices on the prizes. I told August we could go to Icicle Junction in Washington and earn tickets, next time we’re in the States.
August and I keep seeing ads for the Share-a-meal app, and I finally got it set up. Pretty cool, as it will be a good way to learn about refugees and giving and whatnot. August donated 50 cents for Rohinga, and I’ll let him donate 50 cents each day.
We then called my mom, after they weren’t online on Skype, and got her to log on. It took her a while to figure out how to find the chat in Skype to get to the link for our cribbage game, but she found it, and the three of us played through 4 or 5 more hands of cribbage. Carly kept bringing him more food: a full apple and peanut butter, grapes and a couple crackers and peanut butter, and peanuts and seaweed. He ate almost all of it. Mom told us they were going to take the cats to the vet for a checkup, so we’ll have to find out how that goes.
When we were done he went in to choose a good match of clothes for his pajamas, then he had his bath. I was downstairs, but I heard him tell Carly something about having a falling dream. They talked about why he sometimes calls us into his room, which is happening less and less. Maybe once, ever other night or third night. I got him three more crackers and peanut butter. In bed he listened to “The Spirits Move You” and “The Little Acorn”. We bushed our teeth, and he asked, “What’s _timid_mean?” We listened to the Kiln album Duster and he told me of his memorable cold things: finishing the ice cream today, having frozen watermelon, and eating ice cream at Uncle DD’s house. I reminded him about getting ice cream after his doctors appointments, and a few others.
He took a while to fall asleep. It was sometime around 11:45 when he did so.
Humming and eating:
Explaining his mathematical piston:
How he eats chocolate:
Piano time:
