He was up at 9:20. I went up and we read Tristan Strong for a good 20 minutes. We brushed our teeth and went down and played Minecraft, working on Redstone. We finished our first two-sided piston door. We were watching the “Declassified” concert thing, hosted by Ben Folds:https://youtu.be/5ntOLLzYtTo
We kept watching that and played a few rounds of Mastermind. The performance of Wu Man made him remember GarageBand and he played with that.
We then listened to the Sault listening party on NPR and played on the couch, pretending to box and be boa constrictors. Carly had been talking to Tessa outside, then came in and played chess on the board with him.
They went to town. I went up to work. They got a pastry at the bakery for Carly and August got a chocolate egg at the convenience store next door. It turns out the guy that works at the bakery lives just across the street to the south of us, as he recognized Carly. They went over to the park by the library and Carly sent me photos of him running. They got home about 1:30 and Carly brought me up a pastry. I came down a few minutes later and August was listening to a story called “Hey Little Mouse!” He started “The Firefly Queen” and then listened to that while he played Minecraft with Carly. He then listened to “A Bone to Pick” and most of “Rumpelstiltskin”.
Carly had him doing math problems with decimals at some point, and I gave him some problems as well. He would do a math-solving dance while he did them. Carly showed him a John Medina video, the guy who wrote Brain Rules, about how exercise helps the brain. He then did running math, answering math problems as he ran around the house. He’s getting pretty good at two-digit subtraction problems in his head (like 15-8). They went outside, then came in and he used 5 stars to play Minecraft with her. I started to make food. I made a peanut sauce, then cooked a bunch of broccoli, tofu, and mushrooms. And noodles.
August and I did some of our snake wrestling, then went out for a run. Just a lap, since he had been running earlier. We checked in on Green Planet, then we sat on the swing and he ate his bar and I read from What If? He asked about the longest someone has jumped, and we watched the world record high, long, and triple jumps.
Back inside, he kept saying “Strongs keep punching” to Carly. Finally told her it is the mantra from Tristan Strong. And he asked, “What’s rapscallion mean?” We read the definition and it as a word of the day.
At 6 he started playing Minecraft, sans Vivian and Colin as they were busy again today. I went for a run. After I got back and took a shower, we all went out for a walk. We headed our usual direction, to the ant area, and a little further. He initially agreed to do the Holly block, but came up just shy and we turned back. He found new ant colonies along the way and said he could watch them all day. Back by the big rock he watched beetles and ladybugs. Carly stayed with him, and I went back inside. They were out for another 20 minutes or so, and ended up doing a lot of walking. They saw a white rabbit for several minutes and walked around the Holly block and across towards Vatikim before heading back.
Carly had also cooked up the spinach for him, and he seemed to like that better than the rest of the food: “Mmm. Nutritious. Yummy. Plain.” He was at 80-some minutes of activity on his watch. He’s been wearing it again to track his stars, and has also been interested in the health stuff as well. I suggested he could get stars for getting to 90 or 120 minutes, so he ran in circles to get 90 minutes and a star. Before our walk he had been at 52 minutes, so had wanted to do an 8-minute walk to get to 60.
He and I played battleship and he ate more dinner. He found a board game on there called goose and we played 3 rounds of that. Entirely a chance game based on die rolls, so I wasn’t going to play more with him. We eventually agreed on one game of connect 4.
It was getting towards time to go upstairs, but he wanted more spinach. Carly got him more. Then he called us “Bad parents. I can’t believe I’m getting away with it.” I asked getting away with what: “(Not) Going upstairs.” So I said, “Yes. I can’t believe we’re letting you stay downstairs and eat spinach.” He commented on the spinach: “That’s pretty yum. Delish.” “It has no flavor though.”
He was then looking at my phone, and realized I was 3 minutes short of my exercise goal of 30 minutes, and told me I had to finish it. So he and I went upstairs and ran around and did jumping jacks. He got over 100 minutes on his phone.
Carly came up and gave him a bath. They were talking about mango prices and supply, and he made an analogy: “Basically it’s an equal and opposite reaction.” (As supply goes up, prices go down.) He also compared it to the peaceful warrior, because you’re going forward and backward at the same time. He observed: “Here’s a very peculiar thing: why I like spinach so much. Because it has no taste.” We also ate a couple of peaches I’d cut up before heading in to bed.
He was singing a song that went, “You nursed me back to health, so I give you this seed.” It was based on a song from the “Pumpkin Seed” story, but he was adding his own words. He told me the plot of the story, and how the girl “Shared it with her brother who’s not that content.”
He listened to the end of “Rumpelstiltskin” and then the next story. We brushed our teeth, then listened to a Peace Out before putting on Beethoven’s First. He was asleep around 11:40. I was surprised he made it that long, given his short night last night.
Time for another run:
Sing reading:
A little piano tune:
Singing math:
Running math:
New ant nest:
Running in circles:
