He woke up just before 8:20. I went up and he was stretched on the lower bed. I read a couple chapters of Tristan Strong. We brushed our teeth and went downstairs. He went out with Carly for a couple minutes. Came in and turned on the fan and said, “She is WIRED. Meaning she has ADHD.” I asked what he was talking about and he sait it was from Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key. He then came and we played Minecraft.
Carly cut up a banana for him and made a hotdog for him for brunch. He then wanted to do addition and she was giving him even bigger problems, with three or four numbers to add, and he was carrying 20s. He was doing a math dance as he solved them.
They then went and played cribbage. They drew cards for the crib, but it was a tie, and he said they’d solve it like War, and all of the cards used would go in the crib. I think it was a triple tie before Carly won. When I came over he said, “She got a huge crib and got 174 points. She beat me. I added some new game rules.”
He and I played a lot of Mastermind, then he found Majong on the games app and I taught him how to play that. He played that and we watched some of the Formula 3 race. He then snuck some Minesweeper in, also in the same app, and I taught him how to play that. We had Schnitzel for lunch and watched some of the second day of Palestine Expo. Carly headed to the post office, but it was really crowded and she remembered she wants to send a letter, so she’ll try again tomorrow.
She got home and I went upstairs to work and watch Palestine Expo, including the Corbyn speech, as they played cribbage. When I came down I found out that August had developed a water challenge for us: they had put two and a half liters of water in a pot. We were supposed to take all of our drinking water from that for the day to see how much we drank. I was down a little before 4. He was listening to “Wexie’s Seascape” and eating a mango. He played Green Planet for his iPad time, and listened to “The Soothsayer’s Fire”.
I then got him to go on a run with me. We did our reverse lap, continued on to the corn flower area, and ran twice around the little island to extend our run. Along the way he reached down and picked up a couple feathers and was pretending to fly as we ran. When we sat down on the bench we realized there was still some bone attached to the feathers. We headed home, as I didn’t want him to eat his chocolate bar without a proper hand washing—he’d also been throwing the cones from the tree over the fence before we got running.
We went home, washed our hands, then sat in the swing and he ate his chocolate bar and I read Tristan Strong. Mantra, kinfolk, and haint were words of the day. We went inside when it was time for cousins Minecraft time. I went for a run.When they were done Carly had to say goodbye to Colin, who didn’t really want her to go. She was going to the dune nature area in Netanya for an evening walk. With the spike in cases we don’t know how long the beaches will be open, so best to take advantage of those things while we can. She said the beach was really busy, but the dune area was empty.
August and I did a few minutes of Green Planet until Cherie called. He had seconds on potato dinner as they went upstairs to play chess. I then brought him apple and peanut butter and then crackers and peanut butter. And then even more. I said that was all for today and he was fine with that. When they were done Carly gave him a bath. We had a nice family hug, then I realized we’d forgotten to cut our hair today. I suggested we do it now, but Carly didn’t like the joke, I think.
In bed he listened to “The Biggest in the World” and played some melodica and had some Cheerios. He made a ShareTheMeal donation, and we discussed why we don’t live in the U.S. And he brought up what he likes about planes and we discussed that. When we were done with that subject he asked, “What were we talking about before?” I remembered how we got from one topic to the other and he said, “I’m a good conversation starter.” In discussing my chess playing abilities he joked, “Your ability to play chess is litotes.”
We somehow got on the subjects of racism and then nationalism. He told me he doesn’t like New York though. I asked why, and it turned out he had the impression that it was full of amusement parks and the such. I’m not sure where this came from. We read a Magic Tree House book once that involved Coney Island, and I told him that was just a part of it. He said, “I hate Coney Island. It’s too much fun.” He specifically mentioned roller coasters a couple times, so I think he’s heard about them from a story (I know he’s heard the Disney one a couple times, but there might be something else as well) and doesn’t like the idea. He also said, “I also don’t like the princess make believe…it’s too fiction.” We both got a little frustrated when he was getting hyper and wanted to play our wrestling sort of games and I said no. It was getting on to 11:20. We listened to an album called The Meridians of Longitude and the Parallels of Latitude.
At 11:40 he woke me, saying, “Something on the speaker…it looks like a creature. It’s scary.” I turned on the light, and it was just the strap on top of it. I had turned the speaker to face him more, so it was new to him. Still, the first time that he’s been afraid of something like that. He slept soundly though the night though, so it didn’t seem to cause a problem. He’s sleeping through the night most nights now. I think he’s only called me in once in the last week or more.
Really really big math:
Throwing cones over the fence:
Another run and finding feathers:
“If you say” song while playing Minecraft:
