Category: Daily

I woke him up at 9:10. He barely opened his eyes and gave the cutest, most slurred “good morning” ever, then rolled away from me and went back to sleep. As he woke up he said, “Daddy, daddy” Then he said, “Did you know there’s two kind of writing…the simple kind…the kind where it changes over time because people have different opinions?” He was talking about prescriptivist versus descriptivist. Which we discussed months ago. He is still a descriptivist.

Carly headed to the pharmacy. I read a couple chapters of Sideways Stories from Wayside School. We took care of our teeth and headed downstairs. We played Minecraft, and Carly got back and made him some quesadilla. He then wanted more, so I made another. We then went upstairs to wrestle. Lots of laughing with the monster game. Then we did a Ms. Safe and piano lesson game, followed by Bar upset about her report card because she gets an F is ‘safety’. She then does everything she can to get an A in safety.

We went down and he went and played piano, then we watched the newest Grian before playing some War. He started winning again. I made an egg and turkey scramble for lunch and he played chess. Carly came down and he did some chess with her. He set up a position with a pinned queen where he had to keep checking so as to not lose his queen. He ate outside with Carly.

At 2 I realized he had a meeting with Gabi and he walked in just at the perfect time. We went upstairs and he had his meeting. I think they played tanks, chess, and reversi. He had just been eating, but came out to ask for crackers. Seems like it’s really a tradition for him now. Carly and I worked on a Tiv Taam order, then when August was done he wanted to wrestle.

We did that, then headed downstairs, where he drew ‘typing and vocabulary’ from the basket. I said words and he would guess on how to type them. That worked quite well. He would be sure to have his incorrect spelling, followed by the correct spelling. He next drew ‘Dada or Mama read outside’. We took the blanket out and I read 3 or 4 chapters from Sideways Stories from Wayside School.

He listened to a story for alone time. Then in Minecraft we worked on figuring out an add-on he had. It had a bunch of new mobs you could spawn, but for all the new items I had to use the command line to give them to him.

Carly made gnocchi and broccoli for dinner, and we all ate, then Vivian called about 5:15. August showed her the new world, and I knew they’d want the items, so I got them set up with stuff, then went for a run. When I got back they were outside playing cards again. Cherie played chess with him again. He again went up to the bedroom and turned the AC on cold. Carly took him popcorn. And I went in once to find him humming, eating popcorn, as Cherie played against the computer.

When they were done Carly came up to give him his bath. She got a message from Cherie, jokingly asking if it felt like he was babysitting her, since she was bad at chess. August was confused by the question: “No? She’s thousands of miles away…” August told Carly, “I’m gold…my name starts with the symbol for gold: AU.” He remembered that from yesterday when I was teaching him how to type his name, and he was sometimes spelling it ‘Ao’.

Carly put his bath soap in a regular soap dispenser, so he can get it himself; a great idea. He went and picked out his clothes, saying, “That’s a valid combination.” It was father’s day, so we tried to Skype with my parents. We left a video message at first, as it said they were offline. They then called back. Mom asked how chess was going, and he said, “Victorious”. We Skyped for 20 or 30 minutes. He then listened to “Mr. Rat and His Daughter” and had two crackers. We brushed our teeth, and he was Myna talking about Minecraft. I had sister use the word lackluster to be unimpressed by one of her builds, and that was a word of the day. We had lights off at 11:10. He used “lackluster” a few times. We listened to the CVLTVRE album New. He woke me a couple times. He told me he wants to watch clouds tomorrow. Still awake, so we listened to the Trance Frendz album. Asleep around 11:30.

Piano 1:

Piano 2:

Spelling and typing:

Shooting rubber bands:

Watching Oma play chess:

Squeezing the ball:

Father’s Day message:

I went in to wake him up right at 9. Took about 15 minutes. Carly headed to the pharmacy to try to get the wart medicine for August. We finished reading Wayside School Is Falling Down. We did our teeth, then headed downstairs. He said, “In the future there will probably be electric charging.” He made it sound like a type 1 civilization thing, and I told him that that should happen sooner than that.

We played Minecraft in our survival world. Carly got back and joined. He was adding details to our base area, like stairs made out of quartz. Carly asked if he had moved one of her chests. He said he had needed to and apologized, and pointed out that he had left a gift when he did it. And influence of Hermitcraft, I think, where players regularly do nice things for each other.

I cut up pieces of paper and wrote a bunch of activities on them; I had had a few new ideas for today. I folded the pieces in half. August couldn’t handle that, and needed them crumpled up. But he doesn’t like crumpling them himself. He likes uncrumpling them though. They were playing war, with Carly taking over my side of the battle.

For the first paper he drew ‘Ches on real board’. He set up a random position, and he and I played through it, analyzing it quite a bit. He next drew ‘Read a book’. He started Nick Bones again, but said he didn’t like it. He then read all of Biscuit and His Big Friend. I’m glad he’s back into those, as he had declared he didn’t like Biscuit books at all several months ago.

I started lunch (French fries, schnitzel, etc.) but when he drew ‘Sign language’ I switched with Carly and found the ASLRochelle videos. We finished the first video and started the second. For every new sign he’d run and show Carly. He learned two ways to say ‘I always love you’ and also learned ‘really’. Carly got him cucumber and watermelon as the other stuff cooked.

He next drew ‘chess on iPad’. We played in Chess.com on my iPad (on the app). We did several of the puzzles, which were perfect for him. We ate lunch together, inside. When Carly was getting out the fries he made sure she didn’t put a lot of salt on them. I started reading Sideway Stories from Wayside School. We read the first couple, then he went and played piano.

We went upstairs to wrestle. We learned about color blindness using Minecraft:https://youtu.be/YVQlbjHSrXc

after he asked about it. The pharmacy didn’t have his medicine earlier, but now they did, so Carly went and got it.

When she got back I went up to work. He listened to a story for alone time, then they played Minecraft. He next drew ‘Prehistoric Road Trip’ (we had seen a mention of it on Smarter Every Day or Brainscoop the other day). I opened that on the PBS app for him, and they watched the first half (30 minutes) of the episode. He next drew ’Yoga’. He didn’t want to use a video, and just wanted to follow Carly, and I think they went outside to do yoga together. He next used 5 starts and they did 30 more minutes of Minecraft.

He drew ‘Earpeggio’ and came up and got me. I took a break from work. As he ate dinner, we worked on interval identification, then started to do tempos, deciding if a rhythm was 60, 90, 120, etc. beats per minute. This had him walking around the room a lot, trying to decide how what we were listening to compared to his walking pace (this goes back to me realizing that my walking pace with him in the backpack was right close to 120 bpm).

Vivian called at 5:30 and they started early. I went for a run and showered, then did more work as Carly got the blanket and they went outside, Colin on the phone, and they played war outside. I went outside and worked in the chair as they kept playing. He drew the magazine activity at one point but went back to playing chess.

Then to Chess with Oma. He wanted to go upstairs to the bedroom. They played for a long, long time. Carly gave him peanut butter crackers, and at some point August called her in because he’d gotten a bunch on the cheap blanket. Carly cleaned it off, although it wasn’t ever clear how it had happened. He was still hungry, so he had grapes and cucumber. He went to the bathroom, and Cherie waited for him, and they were still playing at 9:30. When he went back n the room he said, “Zinnie the great chess master is back.” They said goodbye about 9:45.

Carly had him take his bath, and I cleaned up the cockroach Carly had smashed downstairs. I talked to August about putting on the medicine for his warts and he told me, “Don’t put it on when I’m moving around when I sleep; I’m known for my rolling when I sleep.”

He listened to the Stories Podcast “White Doe, Fairy Doe”, then we brushed our teeth. He had chosen his MATH shirt, and now, looking in the mirror, he exclaimed, “Hey! It’s that kind of shirt…” He meant an acrostic; I had just taught him about those when we were looking at the WBAIS CoronaZine.

Got the lights of and we listened to Rival Consoles. He explained why he likes two pillows, and sleeping upright. I remembered how, for his first three years, he only fell asleep upright, so I shouldn’t be surprised. He also described his snot like criminals in the morning; the dry snot is like the bars of the prison, and if it is removed the criminals escape.

He was finally asleep about 11:50, after which I put the wart medicine on his two warts on his feet.

War with mama:

Learning a new song:

War outside:

Chess with oma and sticky fingers:

I went up and got him up at 9:15. Took a few minutes, then gave me a wimpy shot. Then I read a few chapters of Wayside School is Falling Down. We went downstairs, and August wanted to play War. We played ten minutes or so, starting our very first hand of the day with a double war.

He then played Minecraft with Gilad. Gilad said he had 30 minutes, but they went more like 50. August talked about using his morning time after that, but then we got on to doing other things and he never brought it back up, but did have his usual alone time. He and I went outside and played with the soccer ball. There was lots of giggling, especially when he started throwing the ball away from me. He’s doing pretty well with catching, but the next step is catching a ball that is thrown up into the air.

Back inside he read a book about polar bears to me. It was his first level 5 book in Rivet and he did quite well. We moved to chess and analyzed positions and set up mating puzzles before watching the newest BDubs video. We watched a couple videos about Juneteenth (a word of the day), although didn’t do as much of that as I had planned as I got talking to Carly. She had been cleaning stuff upstairs and we switched and I finished that up.

They were playing chess on the iPad and he was eating quesadilla when I came back down. They had also played on the real chess board. They played a while longer, then he pulled ‘Mama reads a book’ out of the basket of papers. They read the class clown book outside. He next drew ‘Gravity Maze’ and he did that with me. He did an easy level, then wanted to jump to a hard one. We paused to each have a nectarine, then were distracted by a big fly/wasp thing. He ran upstairs, and I eventually got it out through the window.

Carly made him a hotdog and I read Wayside School Is Falling Down while he ate. There is a story about their nice teacher being mean, and August said he has a nice teacher. I said thank you, to which he responded, “I was talking about my preschool teacher. But you’re nice too.” Next is a lesson verb tense. We did the second Gravity Maze level together, then continued our War game.

He listened to “The Great Ballgame” for alone time, then we played in the survival world. He was adding to Carly’s base. He’s also started a long-term practical joke on her, removing one block from her bridge at a time, to see how long it takes her to notice. This is kind of the opposite of what he’s seen Grian do to MumboJumbo, where he is adding one random block at a time.

We got ready to go for a bike ride, and he found a dead mouse in the yard that hadn’t been there earlier. We speculated on how it got there. We got the bike out, and he then spotted ants carrying a dead bee on the edge of the street. We watched that for several minutes, and he helped by removing obstacles in their path. I asked if he thought they were trying to carry it up the edge or something like that, and he shot back, “Well, I can’t read ants’ minds.”

We went on our bike ride, going all the way down on the old highway to the spot where you can turn around (where it then goes through the tunnel). August was saying something about an explanation point sign, which I never saw, but then pointed out a big pile of glass lying on the ground. We stopped and looked at it. He said he wouldn’t get too close, but then I explained it was safety glass, and how it breaks. He collected some and we put it in my pocket.

We rode home, and he found the ants still carrying the bee. We watched as they attempted to get it in the hole to their nest, in the curb next to our house. We went inside the yard. Carly was outside, and he told her about everything. He showed her the glass from my pocket and said, “I got remnants…”

We then did a magazine activity. August had had the idea of an alphabetizing activity, finding words in a magazine. But when we started doing it he had a different idea: he listed off the first letters of all the words, and I did tally marks for each letter. He found that T was the most common, followed by S: “I’m learning the frequency…”

At 6:10 he went in and called to start Minecraft. I went for a run. When I got back and out of the shower he was finishing up and Carly cut up a mango how he liked. He was still talking to Vivian and told her it was the beginning of mango season here. She said they were getting peaches. He then ate broccoli and tofu. Then soup and more soup.

He next drew reversi out of the basket. He played some battleship first, then we played reversi against the computer. I took care of the mouse, disposing of it over by the ant nests. He then drew vocabulary and spelling. He liked my idea of typing, and we worked through his name. He typed his first name a few times. He’s getting close to memorizing it. Then his whole name, all four of them, but did so vertically.

I took him upstairs and had him do his bath. He washed his face in the sink. He turned on the AC in his room to make it really cold. Carly brought up his crackers. He complained there wasn’t enough honey. I pointed out he eats that part really quickly, then just licks and scrapes the cracker. He said that was a good point and decided it was okay.

In his room he told me, “Just so you know, my favorite story is “The Great Ballgame”.” Carly said good night, then he listened to “Two Daughters” on Stories Podcast. Maelstrom was a new word. We brushed our teeth, and he had the idea of taking one ant from each of the nests he knows about and having them fight: “TVIAOTY…The Very Important Ant of the Year” In his room he was walking back and forth making further acronyms. He was then hitting my knee to make it do a reflex. We’ve discovered it actually works better when I’m lying down, sideways.

We listened to the Cluster and Eno album. He analyzed his face in the mirror and made funny faces before coming to bed. He was pretending to be a silk worm, then asked, “Is there a dark side to having epilepsy?” I had lights off at 10:35, hoping he’d fall asleep sooner. That wasn’t to be. We finished the Cluster and Eno album, then I put on Philip Glass’s Solo Piano. He woke me up 5 or 6 times before falling asleep around 11:30.

Minecraft with Gilad:

Not throwing me the ball:

Piano experimenting:

Ants and bee 1:

Ants and bee 2:

Ants and bee 3:

Letter frequency activity:

He was up just before 9. He told me he’d had a Minecraft dream. I read a couple Wayside School Is Falling Down chapters, then we went downstairs and played Minecraft, blowing things up. He had the last of the French toast and played a little piano. Carly came in (she’d been Zooming with Tessa) and he wanted to go straight to alone time to do a red stone competition in Minecraft with Carly after that. We talked about our concern that he’s really been focusing on screen time and we haven’t been getting other things done (like reading). Carly had the idea of putting things on paper and drawing them out. He liked that idea, and drew ‘reading’ first. He read the first few pages of Dirk Bones to her, really picking up on words like ghostly and ghoul that he didn’t get at first. When she pointed out how re-reading helps he read each phrase twice. He’d started saying he’d only read one page, but ended up reading about 6.

He next drew ‘piano’ so they went and did a piano competition. A couple rounds of that. He then wanted to draw another thing. Carly asked about adding a time for each of them. He taught her about major versus minor, and pointed out that the low notes are out of tune. Carly asked “You can tell?” “Yeah, it sounds horrible.” Next he drew ‘reversi’ so they played a few games of that before he drew ‘Learn about redstone’. So he did his alone time, listening to “Animal Jam” on Stories Podcast.

For Minecraft time they did redstone and watched redstone videos. August is figuring things out like pulse extenders and sending signals up and down. She read some Jake Drake at some point. He then came to me and we played reversi together on the iPad. I then taught him how to play battleship (it is an app with a bunch of family games) and he played against the computer, barely losing. We then played more of our two-deck War game of war. As we played we listened to an episode of Brains On about color, and why colors represent different things. August said, “I think of white as angry.” He asked for one cracker to lick and did his licking thing with it.

We went upstairs and wrestled. I was hitting him with a pillow and accidentally breaking things like a bed, tv, computer, etc. and he was laughing hysterically. We went downstairs. August said, “The silence is too much for me” and turned on the fan. Carly got him veggies and things for lunch, and he played chess by himself.

I went out and cleaned up the bike and did some maintenance, then got him out for a bike ride. We stayed close to the house. It was slightly cloudy and windy, and he was afraid of rain, although I convinced him through it. We rode in circles around the near blocks, and rode by Carly a few times, who was washing the car. August had found an advertisement on our gate, so hung it off his handle bar for people to see. He found a couple more of them on the ground a block away and added to his collection. It was then windy and they were blowing around so we swung by the house and he spent several minutes to figure out how to hang them up around our gate. We did a little more riding, and he was trying to spot Skodas. We found one, but he was also learning other makes of cars by their emblems. He spotted a different kind of ad on someone’s gate. I didn’t think they’d miss it so I let him take it home. He talked about having one a day hanging on a piece of wire by the gate, and having a supply of them inside so he could rotate the ads. As we were talking about all of that I taught him the word publicity as a word of the day.

He was outside with Carly for a bit and I was working. He piled up the tree things for her without being asked. Inside she cut up a mango for him, and he said, “When I grow up I’m going to be a mango hoarder.” He’s listened to a story that involves a man hoarding bread, and it doesn’t go well for him, and I reminded him of that. He was still hungry, and I said we had white tangerines. Carly cut one for him, and as he started to eat it he said, “Gorgeous! Wonderful!”

They called Colin, then started playing Minecraft with Vivian. I went for a run. When he finished with Minecraft I told him about the release of the Nether Update coming next week. He’s very excited. He then wanted to do the chess variation with Carly where you place your own pieces. It was too stressful for her, so I took over, and he and I did some good analyzing of what started as silly positions that he set up.

They called Cherie for a few minutes. They were on their way up to Seattle. We watched a few educational videos: “Why do we sweat?” from Ted-Ed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fctH_1NuqCQ), “What yoga does to your body and brain” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8kV4FHSdNA), “Where does life come from?” from It’s Okay to Be Smart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uAJY1mqtw4), and finally “The 12 Days of Evolution” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_jyHp3bmEw). He learned about primordial soup.

We then Skyped with my parents. He played for them and insisted we show them War when they weren’t sure they’d played it before. And they saw him eating a cracker using his technique. We said goodbye when the battery was almost dead and headed up for a bath. Carly gave him a bath, then he ate part of a full apple. I pointed out the shape his front teeth were making on it. He then listened to “The Great Ballgame” and ate his crackers.

Carly said something about not being happy with her boss, and he told her “You should appreciate everyone, even if they aren’t nice. You should appreciate your boss even if he doesn’t appreciate you.” And he sang a song about appreciating people.

We brushed our teeth. He then started being silly and laughing. I was doing something, and he said, “He’s so funny. He’s going bonker balls.” That’s from Wow in the World! I wasn’t being funny, but he kept laughing and couldn’t stop as he tried to do mouthwash: “Don’t laugh or I’ll laugh. Thanks for not laughing.”

We listened to a Cluster album, Sowiesoso, and he was asleep by 11:35.

Reading to mama:

A little piano:

Singing and playing chess:

Silly laughter:

He was up by 8:10 to go to the bathroom. Carly found him when she walked up. He came down, and the first thing he said to me was, “Could you drown in the pool?” He then had a really cool design for a pool, with streams coming into it “like a tide pool.” Downstairs he played piano, then I read a couple Wayside School is Falling Down stories and he did a little Sound Rebound. We played Minecraft in a lucky block world, setting up a house, then tried to get sword add-ons that he downloaded to work.

He had oatmeal for breakfast, then walked around as Myna talking about her add-one in Minecraft and amusing himself. “A lava cannon…” We watched a Mumbo Jumbo, then a Ted-Ed video, “What is bipolar disorder?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrWBhVlD1H8) Elation, depression, and _pruning _ were words of the day.

We went up and did some wrestling, and that led to stories of a crazy old doctor who always amputated. Sepsis was another new word, and we watched a couple videos about bloodletting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ymSgO26YW8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owxXd9PJp2Y), including one about a vet using leeches on a cat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eSmRT6sLFQ).

We went downstairs at 11:40. Carly had gone to volunteer with Leket, organizing food, this morning and was now back. He listened to “The Mouse Tower” for alone time. I made coconut rice with peas and cut up a mango for lunch. We ate outside and discussed old medicine and amputations. He asked about wallabies, which I think is from a story, and so we looked up photos.

He played chess with Carly inside, then got upset when, since he couldn’t play with Vivian and Colin today as they were going to a lake, he couldn’t do his hour right now. He eventually listened to more stories and I went for a run.

When I got out of the shower he was upstairs, and walking back and forth, and told me, “This is the most efficient way to pass time: walking from point a to point b and starting conversation.” We went in the bedroom and wrestled, then after a while got a message from Israel Cassie inviting us over. They just moved to Even Yehuda from Tel Aviv on Sunday and have a small pool.

So we got ready and headed over there, all three of us. He was excited about going. Once we got there though he was really shy. Taya was in the pool with a neighbor boy, and Carly was talking to August. I went over and it turned out he had suddenly decided he didn’t want anyone seeing the wart on his foot, which is actually almost gone. Taya eventually got out of the pool, and broke the ice by showing him the “secret door” to the basement. They played in the house for a while, and I was out with Cassie and Kai.

Eventually they came back out, and when the pool was empty I convinced him to go wading in it. He went down the steps, and we figured out he could stand on the bottom, which was nice. He was then okay with Taya coming back in the pool. I got the kick board for him, and he started kickboarding, no vest, and went out to deeper water. He said, “I’m swimming! Are you proud of me?” And at one point he slipped off the kick board, and treaded water for a few strokes before Carly and I each grabbed an arm. Not his favorite moment, but he wasn’t traumatized.

The two neighbor boys had come back and joined them in the pool. The older boy speaks English, and the younger is 5 but doesn’t. Cassie got a delivery of cold brew coffee and I went in to see the house and she made me one. Taya had reached some sort of limit, and when August and the other boy didn’t like a bee flying by she started yelling at them and so we all left. August was saying mean things back, but wasn’t really upset, and said he didn’t mean the things he was saying and that he knew Taya didn’t either. Kind of odd, actually.

Carly is collecting donations for the gan/families in south Tel Aviv, and Cassie had a bag of groceries for us to take. August and I waited at the car while Carly went back to get them.

At home he did his Minecraft time, blowing things up, then had soup, then seconds. He then really wanted to play War with two decks, so we started and played for a while. He was pretty happy about that. We paused, and watched a Grian episode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKHFbeQmHQQ), learning the words chuffed and bail. Then watched a couple of educational videos, about blue in nature (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g246c6Bv58) and Multiple Sclerosis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzH8ul5PSZ8).

We went upstairs and wrestled, then Carly gave him a bath and Got in a little work. He got his own clothes, and told me, “Look what fabulous combination I made this time.” He got his clothes on backwards, and Carly called it “August cool”. In talking about his cracker-eating process he told Carly, “It’s pretty yummy when it’s your own spit.” And called it “Ultimate savoring. Ultimate savoring.” He listened to “Grahamquackers” on Stories Podcast, then wanted to see picture of a person dying. I told him I’d let him see photos of people in hospital beds, but they weren’t necessarily dying. He also asked about autopsies, saying he’d be okay seeing that.

We listened to Benge’s Meme Songs and he was asleep at 11:40.

Little birds in our bushes:

Ping pong:

Getting in the pool:

Kickboarding:

I’m swimming. Are you proud of me?:

His cracker eating process, explained:

I started waking him around 9:10. I kept poking him and finally he was awake after 9:30. Carly had gone to the licensing office to renew or driver’s licenses and was successful, and got back as we were still in his room. I read one Wayside School story, then he was looking up at the glow in the dark stars on his ceiling and started seeing pictures and shapes in them. A hat, presents, and then all sorts of shapes, like different triangles. We brushed our teeth, then I took a few minutes to move the desk in the office, just turning it to look out the other window. While I did that he sang words from his art on the stairway.

We went downstairs and he played some piano. Then spent his iPad time trying out different add-ons, trying to get them to work. The most successful one was a nuclear bomb add-on, that made a huge explosion which would basically freeze the game for a couple minutes and leave a huge crater. Carly got bad news about our health care options; they have a new plan, with Clements, that requires us to either just get travel insurance when we go overseas, or that includes universal coverage (which we’ve had up to now) for an extra $190 a month. And the latter is the only one that covers coronavirus. So we were trying to figure that out.

I got him some French toast for breakfast. The two of them played chess. We then played a bit of chess, then they went outside and played ball for a few minutes. Back inside I got his attention by suggesting I teach him the card game War. I don’t quite know why I did this, as I soon remembered I don’t like the game. But we played one game, with him winning, then watched a couple of educational videos: “How did giant Pterosaurs Fly?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b4kAycprQg and “Neutron Stars Keep Getting Weirder” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpE4A3-lo-M. We then watched a Stressmonster video, and he watched a couple of Bright Side videos while I did some work: One about not eating salt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssFiNIEfxy4) and one about wearing socks when you sleep (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTek4yvsVeg). He now wants to eat less salt and wear socks to bed.

It was time for Gabi, so we went up and he met with Gabi at 3. Gabi is in quarantine because his wife was exposed. August started by saying “Sorry you have to be in quarantine.” I heard them discussing ‘scared’ and ‘loving’. He typed ‘scared’ when Gabi didn’t understand what he was saying. They played chess, tanks, and reversi. At the end he said, “This is so amazing. I want to do more.” So we downloaded an app to play it and we played one game.

We got ready to go to the pool. Carly stayed at home. August and I drove there, and August even suggested we should start taking some of the float things out of his vest. But when we got to the pool it was too crowded for him. There weren’t really any more people in the pool than there was on Sunday, but there were a few more people out on the grass. I couldn’t convince him otherwise, so we headed home. As we walked back to the car he saw some ants that dart in and out of their nest really fast, and he wondered, “Why do they do that?” We speculated on why animals might move fast or slow. On the drive home he asked about color blindness and wants to do it as a Brother and Sister game.

We were home at 5. He didn’t really want to talk about why he didn’t want to go to the pool with Carly, but said it didn’t have to do with COVID-19. We placed a fruit and veggie order. He played piano, and wondered, “How do you play a carpety song?” And asked “Why are prices different?” for different fruits. I suggested a couple things, and he added, “Another is how rare it is?” He told Carly about not wanting to eat salt, and she mentioned how Cherie likes salt. He said, “Next time we talk to her I need to tell her it’s not good.”

I mentioned I was going up to work as we were doing the session on home demolitions. I had to explain what a demolition was, so a word of the day. I went up worked form 5:30 to about 7:30. He had his Minecraft time with Vivian and Colin. Vivian logged off again when she didn’t like something. He was playing chess with Cherie when I came down, and Carly had made spaghetti.

August and I went upstairs, and somehow childbirth came up and he asked why doctors and nurses are even needed, after it came up that most people are born in hospitals, but he was slightly different. We discussed that, and things like cesarians.

We did some wrestling, and he was laughing hysterically at my wimpy voice. He was different patients/people like, Flora Blora – paralyzed from tree, shot with arrow in hand, and Tanty Janty – shot by 100 arrows.

He went out to Carly for bath time, but they disappeared for a while. Then she gave him a bath. He told me the full story of “Cow wells and cow bells” and then listened to “The Werewolf at the Inn”. He wants the snack bars advertised – Perfect Bars. He asked what they meant by stock up — another word of the day.

We listened to a Rival Consoles album. He was then pushing on his loose tooth, his bottom right, and it hurt. Took a couple minutes for him to be okay with it. I fell asleep, and he woke me up at 11:10. He told me, “I can’t believe my Dada, yourself, worked at a summer camp.” I had mentioned that earlier, and he now asked me what it was like. He woke me again, and wanted to talk about Vivian getting upset. So we did that. He then woke me to turn off the AC. He told me, “I had a pretty weird dream last night: a video game w’ere in, fire ants… chaos…” At 11:40 he told me, “Here’s why I’m not afraid of medical conditions… I’m not afraid of developing one… it seems amazing, actually.” He then asked about handicaps in golf. I had mentioned them earlier, and apparently so had Carly. It was now 11>50. He was finally asleep right at midnight at end of album.

Picking out constellations on his ceiling:

Playing War:

Piano time:

The wimpy game:

Wimpy August:

Laughing at my wimpy voice:

Piano time:

He was up at 6:35, requesting new shorts. Got him changed and he went to the bathroom, but then he couldn’t get back to sleep. He lay in bed for a long time, and I closed the blinds on the windows and eventually put on the Philip Glass piano album we’ve been listening to and he eventually fell back to sleep. I then got him up at 9:10. Read I read a few of the Sideways School stories then we headed downstairs. He went outside with Carly for several minutes, then came in and they played Minecraft together.

We had french toast for breakfast, then they headed to the nursery to get some plants. It was a quick trip. Apparently there were lots of bees and August was quite scared of them. He chose one plant, then ‘let’, barely, Carly grab a few more plants before they got going.

At home we got ready to go to the pool. He got his swimsuit on backwards, and Carly called it “All the rage.” No kids at the pool today, but Ms. Myriam was there and we talked to her a bit. I asked her about Bar and Ben, and I was right about them not going to the school anymore. They are going to the Israeli school up the street. But she said she’d start bringing them to the pool when there school is out, so hopefully we’ll see them again. No other kids at the pool, or really anyone we knew. We played the kick board game again, using a chair to shoot at as opposed to the railing. He did more math. He also wore the vest today, so was more mobile in the pool and could chase us. Carly was teaching him averaging near the end.

We headed home, and I made us hot dogs for lunch. For alone time he listened to “Animal Jam”, which he really likes, then on of “The Wylderwood” stories as we started Minecraft in a lucky block world. We then went outside to see the plants, which Carly had been planting.

I had work to do so headed up for that. I came down a little after 5 and they were doing their Minecraft time early. I cooked broccoli for him, then headed back up and worked from 5:30 to close to 8. When I came down Carly was doing a lot of ripping of paper bags for the compost and watching Just Mercy. I played chess against August, and I had a pretty impressive checkmate against him, which involved a nice fork leading to a sacrifice, leading to a checkmate. August was just fine with being checkmate, then wanted me to set up a similar position for Carly to try to figure out. I set up a position with a revealed checkmate for them to figure out.

I started to clean up the kitchen, and handed August a piece of the leftover broccoli and pretended it was broccoli candy. He took it and ate it, then told Carly, “Dada called this broccoli candy and actually he’s right; it’s pretty good.”

I went for a late run and Carly gave him a bath, then they played chess while I took a shower. I finally remembered to find a chapstick for him, as his top lip has been a bit red today. He listened to a story about the first Phoenix, then I read a couple of Wayside School stories. Groused was a word of the day. We joked about everyone grousing, and he said, “Except black people…I’m giving them credit to balance it out.” An interesting way to try to make up for racism. I read the story about a boy chewing on pencils. He was laughing hysterically. I tried to video him laughing so insanely hard, but it turns out that the phone stops video recording when you switch to the book app. I switched to the iPad to read, and recorded the end, but really missed the parts where he was absolutely screeching and rolling around on the bed.

We went to the bathroom and brushed our teeth, and he was being silly as Bar. He asked, “What’s a Druid?” Another word of the day. He talked about an add-on he’d downloaded for Minecraft and is excited about. He says it has blue food. We listened to the piano music and he was asleep around 11:45.

Pool math:

Piano time:

Amused by Sideways School Stories:

A rough night for me. Around 2 or 3 I heard him talking in his sleep. Several sentences worth; enough that I tried to get up to go hear what he was talking about, but still no luck. Sometime later I woke up itching in several places. Wasn’t sure if it was mosquitoes, but then when I got up one buzzed in my ear. Went back to sleep, but August called me in at 5:10. He said something about time to wake up. I asked if he needed anything, and he said, “No. probably just a dream.” I went back to sleep again, but was twice more awoken by mosquitoes buzzing me. I was awake, so took my sheet and pillow downstairs, read for a while, and eventually fell back to sleep. When Carly got up I switched places, and slept in the bedroom until he was up at 9.

He went to the bathroom and started asking me about coronavirus graphs in his head. Downstairs he went traight to the piano. Some wonderful stuff, then a piano competition with Carly. He asked her, “Can I teach you the key to counting?” He was then teaching her about minor scales. He showed her the difference between C and C minor, and Carly asked if it was because he played the black keys. He replied, “Yeah, but not all minor keys use black keys…that’s A minor.”

We next played Minecraft, in our Creative world. I made a flat space in his huge build and set up an alphabet, and when our time was up he got some extra time alphabetizing al the blocks in Minecraft. I made French toast, and he stopped when I was done and we went and ate outside. He finished off the cantaloupe. We did the Sister game where she finds out they live in the simulation. As part of being in the real world she is taught how to control things with her mind. A bit of an extension from the original version.

Carly had a meeting, then went to help Jonathan’s mother. He’s the band teacher at school, and we’d been working to have him teach August piano. But then he had some medical news and just had surgery. Anyway, Carly picked her up and took her to downtown Even Yehuda, where she went to the fruit market, the health food store, and pharmacy and grocery store. Then when they were ready to go the car wouldn’t start. Carly called Mike and Kelly and they came and gave our car a jump, again. Carly dropped off Jonathan’s mother, then went to the car garage up across from Shabtai pizza. Kelly had told her about it, but I knew exactly where she was talking about as I’d spotted it from eating pizza at Shabtai with August (probably the time we got poured on getting back to the car).

The car people were really nice, and 200 dollars later she had a new battery. Back at the house August talked about his weed with berries: “This is a three part chain of good things: One, the bees get to pollinate it, the birds get to eat the berries, the plant gets to grow.” We talked about the fourth, that we get to enjoy it, and about how parks and green spaces have multiple benefits. I then had a bunch of books for him to choose from for what we should read next, and he chose Wayside School is Falling Down. We read the first 5 or 6 stories, and he did a lot of laughing.

He played with Sound Rebound, then played piano playing for alone time. He was playing in odd time signatures. 20/8 or 12/8 followed by 8/8. I didn’t get his amazing melody piece on video, and when I did ask for a video he did one-note versions of the rhythms. He pointed out out-of-tune notes on the piano as well.

We went upstairs and did more wrestling. I was a giant at one point. We read the anger chart. When we were done with that he told me, “I’m sorry, but I have new kidding tricks. I can’t tell you or you’ll adapt to it.” We went downstairs to find Carly home already. She told us about getting the new battery.

We made hot dogs and sliced up an apple for a late lunch and ate outside. He played chess with Carly. Then we got going to the pool. The swimsuit and shirt from Dee are perfect. It was the second time in 3 and a half month we’ve all been in the car. At the school they take your temperature, and you’re supposed to wear masks when not in the pool, so we wore them in. The first time August has worn his music print mask. He spotted an impressive ant colony on the walk to the pool and studied them for a minute. They made some impressive structures with the dirt.

The pool only had a few people. Sharna was there with Benjamin (who we’ve called Ben Ben in the past) and Myna were there. August was pretty shy though. But we’ll probably see them a lot through the summer. Ilana and Howard were there, and we discussed Ilana’s difficulties in planning her trip to New York to see her mother in July—not knowing if El Al will actually be flying then, and if she’ll be able to use her credit with them. August joined in a bit when discussing COVID-19 with Howard. I tried to remind August of the last time he saw Howard, discussing the picnic table with the periodic table on it outside his classroom, but August mainly picked up on the fact that Howard was wearing Crocs, big Crocs, and he’s never seen an adult wearing Crocs. Mike and Kelly also showed up.

August made up a tag game called Monkey Mayhem, based on the Stories Podcast story, then remembered the kick board game. He was adding points in his head quite well: like 8 plus 95 and 103 plus 99. He didn’t put the vest on today, and took his time getting in. He’d also sort of forgotten hanging on the edge, and also me holding him. When I convinced him to let me hold him he said something like, “Oh, this is nice!” Then, Carly started to teach him how to tread water, and he was getting down the idea of that, at least while he stood on the steps. Unfortunately, he can’t quite stand on the bottom of the pool.

On our way out he fed the big ant nest a piece of a corn cracker. We headed home, where we were actually a little past 6 and late for Minecraft time. They called Vivian and Colin and he started playing. I went for a run. After Minecraft he played a lot of chess with Cherie. He also ate a lot for dinner: corn, meat and crackers, rice and cheese and broccoli, then I got him crackers and peanut butter and honey. Cherie told him that his second cousin, Tristan, plays chess, and suggested they play together sometime. August’s response: “I do NOT want to play with that mysterious guy.” He was still hungry, so we shared a scone. They played until 9:40.

I talked about a clarification of something, which he asked about, then we discussed the difference between vague and clear. Carly gave him a bath. I cut up a small apple, that turned out to taste more like a pear, and he didn’t like that. He settled for a few Cheerios before bed. He listened to the story “Belly of the Beast”. We brushed our teeth and then listened to the Philip Glass album and he was asleep about 11:20.

Their Mr. Minke video:

Some piano:

Alphabetizing in Minecraft:

Playing crazy time signatures:

More odd time signatures:

Satisfying beach ball:

Treading water at the pool:

Chess with Oma:

He was up on his own at 8:55. A good start. We read more of the book about Apollo, then went downstairs and played Minecraft in our creative world. He started a huge build, and had me fill the roof in using a fill command. We had oatmeal for breakfast, then I found a copy of the levels of emotions, 1 to 10, chart that I had made with him last year. I thought I had recycled all the copies, and he had wanted to see it a month or so ago. We read through all of that. He was reading a lot of the words on his own at first.

He went outside to say hi to Carly, and then told me he was getting tired of cantaloupe. He’s eaten most of a whole cantaloupe on his own, so he’s done okay. We went upstairs for wrestling. After a long time of doing that and playing games we went back down and he did his alone time, listening to the “Snake Oil” story. Carly then helped him with the big build he was working on. He was reciting lines like “It ain’t never grew right” from the story he listened to.

He did some cool piano playing, playing with long and short notes. I made schnitzel for lunch, then I was cleaning upstairs, cleaning out his closet, making it so he can get his own clothes now. He played Sound Rebound and watched Carly paint. I think she’s painting Mozart in a balloon, like her John Locke painting. He sort of did a collage with her, but wasn’t really into that, not wanting to get glue on his fingers. He did a piece of art instead though using a pencil.There was also talk about him learning to write his name.

He then did a ton of cool piano, including a “Mozart” song (he sang the word). I got to hear this as I cleaned upstairs. They came up and I showed them my progress. We then did more wrestling and he sang a “You can never pin me” song. We went downstairs and watched the newest Bdubs video. We finished the Apollo book in swing, then inside he hurt himself a bit jumping on the couch. He had the idea of acting out the anger chart levels, so we did that for a while.

I had the start of a headache, so I rested and did some more organizing upstairs. They had a long Minecraft time together. Vivian got upset when August destroyed some trap doors to make something different. Carly started to have them talk about it, but then she hung up, later sending an email saying she didn’t want to talk to them. August and Colin finished their time just fine though.

I came down. He had a hard time getting off Minecraft, but then played chess with Carly. He had rice and broccoli and cheese for dinner and we ate outside. Carly went upstairs to talk to her mom and we played chess in the swing. Inside he wanted to listen to a story. He chose that over watching videos. He listened to a story called “With Our Powers”. Baleful was a great word of the day from that story.

He read a page of Dirk Bones but then wanted to do graphing. He had me try some graphs, and actually sighed at one of my attempts. He taught me how to use the ‘Mod’ function. I said, “That’s amazing” He replied, “That’s why I wanted you to learn.”

When he learned that Carly was up in the bedroom talking to Cherie he went up to talk to Cherie too. I went for a run. When I came back they were still in the bedroom, him playing chess. He was a bit rude about the end of chess and taking a bath. Carly got him in the bath though, and we had him choose his own shorts. He chose ones to match the blue math shirt. He asked Carly, “What is it when there’s no government?” He was thinking of anarchy “I’d like that…” But then he said he would steal though, since he was a kid. We told him about CHAZ in Seattle.

In bed he listened to both parts of “Acorn Milk and the Blue Fairies” and ate his crackers. As we went to the bathroom I found a pretty big black beetle on my bed and we caught it in the bug catcher. We brushed our teeth, then he was alphabetizing Minecraft blocks. “I really like alphabetizing things.” He then said, “I know a good alphabetizing activity…” He wants to find words in magazines and have us help him list them under the correct letter.

We went back to bed and he was looking really tired. He asked, “What’s expectantly mean?” He seemed half asleep as he talked as Myna pranking Sister. Then he said he had a prank with Mama where he would play a bit of StressMonster when she went in the house: “And mama freaked out!”

He seemed to be nodding off (listening to the album of Philip Glass piano), when suddenly we heard the beetle trying to fly. So we got up and released it out the bedroom window. It almost flew back in. August said goodbye to it a couple times: “Bye beetle!” The sleepiness of a few minutes ago seemed to be gone and he was talking a lot. He talked about being happy about not being in school because he doesn’t want to get grades. I agreed, explaining how formative feedback, like he gets directly from Ms. Dalit, is better than a grade. He was even more shocked, and declared, “I need to talk to mama; I hate grading.” Next, he saw a blue light, and it turned out to be the blue light from the fan unit reflecting off the plastic crown in the pile of stuff I had to get rid of. He said, “It’s cool” literally, as blue is considered cool a cool color. Next it was, “Here’s a question about getting upset…” and asked about the difference between being in control of our bodies and out of control. So I had to discuss that, and we talked about the parts of the brain and evolution and flight versus fight. He wanted to act out getting really upset, but found out it is hard to pretend to be really upset. He was finally asleep around 11:45.

Song of the day:

Focused on chess:

Mixing short and long notes, and probably time signatures:

I woke him up at 9:20. Finally, when I mentioned Gilad was ready for Minecraft he popped up and said, “Gilad? Thanks for telling me!” We went downstairs and he went to the bathroom. As he logged on to Minecraft he said, “I should grow up to be a coronabully…because I don’t like Coronavirus…I should grow up to be mean to Coronavirus.” They played in the Survival Trival world. Then switched to Gilad’s. When Gilad has to go, after not a lot of time, August and I played in the sky block world. We had pet donkeys that wouldn’t stay in their fenced area.

He had a scone for breakfast, then after Minecraft had a plate of cantaloupe and played with Sound Rebound. We went upstairs and wrestled, where we invented the everything shot (that caused him to alternate between asleep, hyper, paralyzed, etc.) and the ugly goose shot, which made him imagine ugly geese were everywhere. When I got a text message with the substitutions for our Tiv Taam order we went downstairs so Carly could see it. She had gone in to work, but came home around noon, before the staff party.

He played chess with her, then we ate lunch outside. Rice with teriyaki sauce, cantaloupe, and cucumber. We ended up discussing bell curves and standard deviation. Examples we came up with included flowers opening and closing, birds migrating, and winter and summer (solstice and equinox). It started when he asked why there are just a few mangos at first and we discussed how the seasons starts slow and then tapers off at the end.

He then started walking around as Myna, discussing Minecraft. She has a redstone shop and also a weekly sale thing, including bells. Myna and Sister were then playing pranks on each other. He was also talking about updates he’d like to make to Minecraft: a bathroom update, a stomach texture pack (to change the symbol for hunger), a rain and flood update, and ice melting, based on research he did in Alaska.

Inside we looked at the two boxes of chemistry experiments that have come recently. But one box, cyanotype, seemed better to do when it was darling, and he didn’t want to do either of the experiments in the other set because he didn’t like the idea of making gasses, even though they would be in bottles.

He played piano instead. He told me his favorite scale is A sharp minor, specifically in octave 5. He also has a 4 note that he really likes. He then read the rest of the Dirk Bones book to me and earned a star, then played more piano. He then politely asked me to let him do his Minecraft time first, before doing the alone time, saying we’d agreed to do it every few weeks. I also thought it would be a good way to make it so that he’d do the alone time part with Carly while I worked, so I said yes. We played in our survival world and I found the spawners and he took down his random cobblestone structure.

We then went out to play our ball game. The Tiv Taam order arrived, and Carly cleaned everything off and he offered to help carry things in. That worked really well. He then did his alone time, listening to “The Druid’s Harp of Ireland”, then a story called “Runaway Cats”.

I was working, and he cashed in 5 stars to play with Carly. I think they also did some reading, and had some dinner. He then played Minecraft with Vivian and Colin. Some conflict at first over which world to be in, but then they solved that and he and Vivian really worked together well on a big build. Lots of creativity too, using item frames with flowers in them, and planting flowers and things.

I went for a run and he played chess with Carly. When I came down he played by himself and ate a mango that Carly cut up. He then had me play chess. He randomly said, “Sustain a metabolism for over three years.” No idea.

We went up and wrestled, then he took a long time on the toilet. Carly took over, but he started to be kind of grumpy. Not sure where that came from. She got him to take a bath, then in bed we watched a video about how sunflowers follow the sun (a topic that came up earlier) and he requested to watch more running of the bulls, so we did that. We brushed our teeth, and he asked, “What’s cobble mean?” We discussed the various meanings.

We listened to Beethoven’s Ninth and discussed how dog catchers work and pet licenses and everything. He complained about not being able to get to sleep, but he was asleep at 11:15, the earliest in a long.

Everything shot:

Song of the day:

Water bottle on the swing:

Dizzy with the broom:

Big build with Vivian and Colin:

Some piano:

A message: