He called me up at 8:03. He was kind of stuffy. We brushed our teeth and he told me, “I want mama to teach me how to sew.” As we walked downstairs he told me, “I’m moving in a knight pattern.” He was stepping in L shapes. He told Carly he wanted to learn sewing, and it kind of sounded like he was talking about embroidery.
He played Minecraft on his own while I finished watching qualifying, then I played with him the rest of the time. He made an SOS transmitter and receiver, and automatic launchers, which we first used with fireworks, but then had fun by putting magic arrows in them. They would rain all over, which looked funny and caused some lag until you picked them up.
He had a quesadilla for breakfast and Carly read Joey Pigza to him. Carly and I were discussing a Tiv Taam order and he was grumpy we wouldn’t get the sugary cereal for him. I went outside for a while to enjoy the morning as he sat not he couch. I came in to find him making a bit of a fort over in the play area. He put that away, then asked me to do Earpeggio, so we did a little of that. He then wanted a big piece of paper and taped it to the ground, and used a pencil on it. He told me, “I’m doing statistics as a kidding plan.”
After a few minutes he wanted to play Guess Who. Carly started doing some cleaning, and we took down the paper calendar stuff from the windows, since I haven’t been using it since COVID. It turns out the glue on the velcro tape is really, really sticky and Carly had trouble getting it off her hands. She then went upstairs t a meeting and August and I watched GoodTimeswithScar. We were then wrestling on the couch, and I made a nest for him. He then started a game of I Spy. He sang a “I spy something white song.”
I went and started making our lunch. Carly came down, and he drew from the basket. He drew ‘Reversi’ and agreed to read a book. He played one of the family games with her, battleship maybe, then had a hard time getting off the iPad. He managed, and started reading a book with Carly. I was cleaning the book shelves and asked about the Bob Books, and he came and read Max and the Tom Cats after we ate our chicken sandwiches.
He had made a sort of fort area under the black chair to store his iPad. He had wanted a container of beads turned upside down on top of the stool as part of it, and I’d shown him how to do it while Carly was upstairs. I’d left it that way for a few minutes, but was afraid it would get knocked off at some point and we’d have hundreds of beads all over the floor. He saw it wasn’t upside down and wanted it flipped again and got grumpy when I said no. What broke the ice was when I changed my estimate from 200 to 300 beads. Carly joked that there were more, then each time one of us mentioned the number of beads it got a 100 bigger.
So we got over that, then I was taking extra books upstairs and organizing his shelves and closet. I found the old Larva matching game from Korea and brought it down and we played a few rounds. He totally gets the game now. While cleaning out the bookshelves downstairs I found the ‘First 100 words’ list I’d used with him. He read through the whole thing, and I think there was just one or two he needed help with now. During his alone time I started writing a story using them all, at his request.
We did more playing and wrestling on the ground and couch, CPR shots, etc. He listened to “The Magic Bowl” for alone time. We then played Minecraft in a lucky block world. He gave himself a very post-apocalyptic skin, and tweaked it with an eye patch, etc. And was saying things like, “I’m a survivor of the great lucky block explosion of 96.” I don’t know where he got this dystopian idea. We haven’t really read books in that vein. I’m sure it will happen at some point. I said something was “Like from my youth” He asked what youth meant, and that was a word of the day.
I went for a run when he started playing Minecraft. We let them go long, as they were doing an amazing job of talking to each other and working together. He did a great job with Colin, talking about being nice to him. Really seems to have turned a corner of sorts recently. He had a full bowl of dinner.
Cherie called at 7:30, and he played a long time with Cherie. I brought up crackers twice, his phone (he listened to stories at the same time), and an apple with peanut butter and honey. They will soon be traveling across country, so we don’t know how much time Cherie will be able to play with August after this. And in Pennsylvania she’ll be busier with Vivian and Colin at that time.
Carly gave him a bath, and he was singing “I am the stupidest tiger in the world.” He was then telling her all about Minecraft. He told me, “White glass blocks and sandstone go together…it’s pretty obvious.”
In bed he listened to “Bending and Breaking”, and then cuddled with me and played around before we went to brush our teeth.
He then talked about a food world/add-on he had created in Minecraft: “And at the end you get enough material for a pizza…” “and a five star rating” “ones a smoothie, ones a pizza, ones tomato soup, ones a fruit salad.” “There’s frying pans and everything.”
We listened to the Ambient playlist. He asked me why the one game is called Minesweeper, and minesweeper is a word of the day. He was asleep at 11:40.
Transmitting SOS in Minecraft:
Arrow fountain in Minecraft:
Song of the day:
Bedtime sillies:
