Category: Uncategorized

Monday, October 29: giving a school tour

He came down at 6:15. Not a long night of sleep. He was with Carly for awhile, then she headed to work and he watched Aardvark and the Ant, then a video on how ice cream treats are made. My parents were up before we left for school. He used my phone and was taking a long time lapse and he did a funny dance. I asked it was, and it is the dance that the bear does in the Loopimal music app. So now he’s learning dances from animated beers. My Mom mentioned that they were using Paul’s suitcase. August asked, “Where is Paul, by the way?…But if Paul’s suitcase is here, Paul should be here!”

We got walking at 8:45. He was worried about the schedule again. I appeased him by saying I’d wait outside for a few minutes to make sure he was okay. He went to the meeting and I walked home a few minutes later.

My parents did some laundry and got settled in and I set up my new phone and did one final, final, final review of the latest version of the Sabeel book. We then walked over to the mall after noon and bought a few things at Tiv Taam. Came back (tried to figure out the fruit in the little orchard near us, but no luck – breadfruit is the closest we can figure) and had some lunch, then drove to school before 3.

August didn’t greet them excitedly at first. But he then wanted to tell Andrea they were here. He went into the makerspace to tell her, but he got distracted by something they were doing in there. They looked around, and August came out and had fun tying his water bottle to the strings hanging from the ceiling to hold art. He sat out on the bench and ate a little, then we started on a tour.

August was into it at first: he pointed out the plants and a few other things. We looked at the herb garden by the playground, then he had us picking up branches on the preschool playground and putting them with the rest in the big swing, then looked at the bigger beds. He showed them the one plant the kids are allowed to eat right now. Looks like celery, and he ate some of the greens. The teacher running Gaia club invited us into the greenhouse and we looked around in there. August had some of the kale. The guy knows a photographer in eastern Washington that takes photos of wheat fields.

We ended continued on to the elementary playground. There, August played hide and seek with Mom, although he only wanted to do the seeking. He was getting grumpy about doing more of a tour and walking around the school. Finally coaxed him over to the echo area, where he had me do a time lapse again and a video of him making funny noises. We went upstairs and he used the bathroom. We went into the library, and he was grumpy towards Amanda. Back in the book section he chose a book called School’s Out, by Johanna Hurwitz and had me read the beginning of it. ‘Rambunctious’ was our word of the day. He then ran off to have it checked out by Amanda. He threw it in the return box at first. She checked it out, and we returned Hilda and the Stone Forest.

We walked over to by the pool and field, and Carly found us. We headed back to the car and to home. At home, Mom and Dad gave us some gifts. August got a cool wooden Pinnochio figurine. He only just recently learned about Pinnochio after seeing someone dressed as Pinnochio on Saturday. Later, I explained the basics of the story to him. Carly and I got a wonderful little bowl, and we got a magnet with a fish on it. August unwrapped that one, but he wasn’t impressed. But he liked the last gift: a couple of boxes of candy.

We ate the chicken and salad and veggies for dinner, then August and I spent a good amount of time doing art on his iPad. We found a few new ways to collaborate on art. He didn’t want to see what I was doing when I did my part, so he made himself a fort using the blanket on the red chair.

Carly took him up for a bath. He wasn’t fond of getting his hair washed, but at least it went better than yesterday. Back downstairs we expanded his fort and we did some more art. He was palying with a rubber band, then he was chanting the nonsense words from Toca Band.

I took him upstairs at 7:50. He wanted the lamp, but I suggested the flashlight that he likes and we used that instead. I asked him more about preschool and he said that the high schoolers, and a new teacher he doesn’t know, read them stories around lunch and rest time as part of the reading week. I asked what Lydia did today and he said, “Nothing. She just sitted and sitted and sitted until the end of the day.” We played a game where he was a deerfox walking into an art class after I had said they were imaginary, so then the class drew rel deerfoxes. He curled up next to me, and was asleep pretty quickly at 8:15.

Tying up the water bottle 1:

Tying up the water bottle 2:

Giving them a tour of the school:

Hide and seek:

Echo area time lapse:

Echo area sound:

Not excited by a present:

Rubber band slo-mo:

Toca Band noises:

On the PKA bench with Gramma

Eating from the garden

Kale

Spinning

Pinnochio

Showing her the art

In his fort

Asleep cuddled next to me

With a high school reading buddy. Photo taken by Marina.

Friday, September 21: school and pool

He got up just before 7:30 after I’d entered the room. He watched on Max and Ruby and then we got ready to go. Got to the school right at 8:10. As we did, August asked me how many milliseconds were in a second. I told him a thousand. He said, “So a minute is 60,000.” We dropped off the hummus, then headed to class. He had me pick him up and then joked that “dada” was across the commons, even though I was carrying him. It turned into a “Where’s a dada?” song. We reviewed the schedule with Andrea, then I was able to leave at 8:20.

When I picked him up I learned that he and Eve had done stop motion animation earlier using the table with the wood pieces on it, then they had done more with Yaya down on the floor. Eve wanted to show me and got the tripod and asked Andrea for the iPad. I got to see both their videos. In one they had used a string to show the lizard jumping or flying. He had also eaten focaccia today and for lunch had the cake and the cereal bar from his lunch. They had had a tea party and celebrated Miriam’s birthday.

He ate on the bench, then eventually we headed to the pool. But on the way he asked if you could make a photo lighter or darker. We started talking about how cameras work and ‘aperture’ became a word of the day. We stopped at the couches near the pool and used the Moment camera app to explore shutter speed and ISO and white balance. White balance was a fun one and we took a lot of blue photos that turned out pretty cool. Marion walked by with one of her daughters, Jill, and another girl and asked if we were going to the pool.

He was excited to see Marion at the pool so we went and got changed and got to the pool at 4:15. He found Marion sitting on the side and gave her a hug and told her he thought she’d be in the pool. She told him that by the end of the day she was exhausted from teaching and she was just supervising. She defined ‘supervision’ for him and that became a second word of the day.

Once in the water, Liz said hi to us. She was swimming laps in the lane next to us. He at first asked “Who are you‽” when she was in her goggles. As she started swimming he commented on how wet she was and said, “She doesn’t look like a librarian now.” Later, when she had gotten out of the pool and leaving and she said bye he called to her, “I love you!”

We also saw Ilana at the pool. He asked about getting water in your ears and whether it could get to your brain. We discussed ear wax a lot, and he asked if your brain could be hurt. Later I found out that he and Carly had watched a video of a brain tumor surgery. We talked about physical damage and I told him about the guy who got a metal rod through his head and we talked about the different effects that could happen when specific areas of the brain are damaged. We also talked about how the brain communicates with chemicals and discussed depression, etc.

We got out of the pool at 5. As we were by the grass a woman said hi to him. It kind of looked like Rebecca, and August asked her if she was the one that squeezes him as a s’more. It wasn’t. It was the woman that helped with Carly’s get to know you day, and she does look kind of like Rebecca.

We headed towards the bathroom and he asked about how the bladder can not work. He was then talking about his science lab by the preschool. It was at the water table where he had watched Dion’s class from. He developed a story about how he was making explosions in it and it was interrupting kids trying to sleep at rest time.

We were home by 5:30. He watched Llama Llama, then we put noodles in the soup for his dinner. He used the Voice Memo app on my phone and recorded a song about how he loves the number 10. He was then playing in his science labs behind the pillows and then showing Carly the “videos” (acting it out) of his science. We read some of Magic Tree House #30 and then I gave him a bath and washed his hair.

He really wanted to cut his hair and get a lollipop and kept asking Carly about it. She said he was persistent about it, and explained persistent. He was repeating, “Persistent about lollipop.” He settled for cake and doing lollipop and hair cutting tomorrow. He then took photos with the macro lens, then went upstairs to brush his teeth with Carly. I was putting him to sleep. We first looked at Flickr photos while on the Zinnie bed. He then went and said good night to Carly. We sang some songs on the Zinnie bed, then switched to the big bed. Took awhile longer, and he was finally asleep at 10:15.

Dada is right here song:

Zinnie’s blue exercises:

I love 10s song in voice memos:

Stuff in his science lab:

Science Lab 1:

Science Lab 2:

His electric lab:

Lookin at their time lapse video

Playing with the white balance

Thursday, September 20: school and library

He got up himself at 7:25 as I brushed my teeth. We read a couple chapters of The 13-Story Treehouse, then were able to get going by 7:50. So we walked. Spent a couple minutes in the classroom with him refilling his water, then Andrea told him the schedule. She asked about our break, and we told her about seeing the planets. He said something like, “The schedule’s easy enough.” I carried him outside and Andrea took him from me and was still holding him as I left. He was calm but apprehensive.

I went home, then was back to pick him up. He ran out to me at 2:45, then went back in for the goodbye time. When I went back in he ran to me and said “I eat-ed!” Turns out it was just two bites of cake in his lunch, but it is something. They had also done stop motion with a lizard toy during maker space and he asked if we could do stop motion at home. Actually, it turned out he did movement for choice time. The stop motion was earlier in the day. And he’d done a bunch of challenges with chairs, etc. during playground time.

Maaian walked by and showed us a photo of him eating cake at lunch. He went in to use the bathroom and ended up talking to Andrea and Vicki about microscopes. I reminded him why he had gone inside. I asked later why they had ended up talking about microscopes, and it was because he heard them mention microscopes. Back out on the bench he ate a bunch and talked about how he recognized Dion’s voice. He wanted to go watch the after school Play Ball class and went over and sat on the stairs. The kids said “Hi, August!” and Dion said hi as well. We also talked to Amelia when she walked by, about the dance class. August said he had liked being bees today in the creative movement class.

About 3:45 we headed over to the library. He reminded me “We need a word of the day!” We returned Magic Tree House #29 and eventually checked out Magic Tree House #30 andBeezus and Ramona. He lay on the library time rug and said that he turned into whatever he lay on. He said, “I’m like a chameleon, except better” because he actually turned into the thing and didn’t just look at it.

He did photography and macro photography around the library. He took a lot of photos of Bar, Omri’s sister, playing that egg first-person shooter game because he likes it. While he did that I was able to read a graphic novel by Øyvind Torseter calledThe Heartless Troll. We checked out the books (Eve checked them out again) and went out to have a snack. He had various things from his lunch and snack, then wanted to go down the elevator. We went down and he made some noise and then excitedly showed me that he had grabbed the Cheerios again.

We went back up and Carly told us she was getting ready to go. We headed over to her. He wanted to go down the stairs by the library, then back up the stairs by her classroom. He told me “Look how fast I can gallop!” as he ran there. There were guinea pigs in cages and we looked at them. He found that guinea pigs were easily startled.

Carly had already headed to the library and called us. We met up with her and he didn’t want to go home. He wanted to go to Carly’s classroom. He had told me he wanted to be a guinea pig startled by noise and hiding under desks in her classroom. So kind of a chore to get him on the bike and headed home. Carly had to start walking, and I sat with him on a bench for a few seconds. He agreed to get on the bike so we could catch up with her.

At home Carly turned around and headed to the store, taking the car. August watched some Max and Ruby and when he was hungry I heated him up some soup and pita. He ate all his soup and asked for seconds. After that he wanted some Cheerios leftover in a container from this morning, so I let him have those.

We read some Beezus and Ramona but he wasn’t really into it. Carly got home, and he got upset about not using the iPad. Eventually he ended up being a robot kitty again. We read some more of The 13-Story Treehouse and Carly took a shower.

She took him up for a bath. They came down to cut his hair. They had negotiated to not having treats, but then he was still trying to get a treat. Carly only pretended to cut his hair. I was confused as to what was actually happening, so I said I was going to go get cake. August and I had some cake.

She told me he now fully understands hyperbole, having used it with Carly upstairs, then was able to come up with another example. He told me “I solved the hair cutting problem…compromised.” We went back upstairs at 8:45. I brushed his teeth again and left them by 8:55.

He came back down, laughing, about 15 minutes later. He had been making Carly hit herself. We went upstairs and in on the Zinnie bed so she could rest. We looked at more photos of Bedouins, then I sang several songs and at 9:45 he was ready to go in with Carly. She had gotten up though so we went and found her downstairs. They went back upstairs. I still heard him awake at 10:05 but fell asleep soon after that.

Watching the Play Ball class:

I’m like a chameleon, except better:

In the echoy place, sneaking Cheerios:

Walking down to class in the morning

Watching the Play Ball class

Getting closer – he then called that spot his science lab at school

One of his photos of Bar playing a video game

Watching them play

On the table

Hiding

Guinea pigs

Wednesday, September 19: More walking on the highway

Carly went up at 7:45 to wake him up but found him already sitting on the edge of the bed. A bit later I said I would get him his vitamins. Carly asked what I had said and I said “orangutan.” August said “Thrn get me an orangutan.” Sometime yesterday I had said something along the lines of how he loved his iPad almost as much as me and mama. He said “More, actually.”

The two of them started reading the Space Exploration book. We marvelled at what has changed in 20 years.

Laughing from bathroom. “Dada, you found an empty cat that peed on you…empty except for pee.” He was then saying random things like “Grown up cucumber…”

He then wanted to take the Band-Aids off the animals: “I wanted to take these off after she was gone because it would make her sad.” He explained that he wanted them on yesterday though: “I wanted them on because I love-ed the word ‘plaster’.”

They read more of the Space Exploration book and he used a string and tape and fork to make a tether, tying a fork to the cupboards. We went up to get his iPad. He discovered the measuring app and was measuring everything downstairs. Last night I installed iOS12 and the measuring app was a part of it. It also includes the parental controls, so I put a timer on his iPad usage today. Measuring everything really taught him how to read feet and inches. Eventually I switched it to metric for him. I took a shower, then he ate some more apple and watched some Max and Ruby while Carly got ready to go for a walk.

They walked up to the snakes and ladders park but didn’t stay. They walked in the street. They were back about 11:10. He and I watched marble race videos together. We then made the yogurt cake from the recipe we got from Marion. He helped spray the Pam for the first time.

He asked what 90 plus 90 equals. I told him, and he said, “Oh yeah, that makes sense. Cuz you use those two things to equal ten, then you have 8 more.” He went and did several problems with Carly, like 8 + 4, and he would explain his thinking as he got the answer.

We read Math Curse, and he repeated the last line, about everything being a science experiment, several times through the day. Carly asked him to draw a picture for a card for someone, and he drew four pictures of a robot fish until he got one that he was happy with. The lines in the middle were its metal parts, and it had long beta-like fins and big eyes.

Carly and August then started a science experiment where they had a series of glasses with water in them and paper towels connecting them, and food coloring in three of the glasses. It would soak through the paper towels and the two colors would mix in the glass in the middle. That was the theory, at least. They worked on it through the day.

He was hungry and impatient for the cake, but it was finally ready and we ate some. Came out just right. He asked me, “What’s social studies mean?…word of the day.” Carly cooked corn and I made pizza for lunch. He ate some corn first, then we put it and mushrooms on the pizza. When the pizza was done though he just ate the veggies off of the top. He told us, “You know what’s cool about starfishes? When a starfish arm falls on the seafloor it can grow a new starfish!” Which is true for some species. Not sure which app or video he learned that from.

We read The Word Collector. He chose ‘delighted’ as another word of the day. He then wanted to type on my iPad. For a little while he had me type words as he said them. Then he wanted to type satellite language. So he played with typing on my iPad. He then did some art in Paper with both of us, doing the thing where we make dots, then connect them.

We left for a walk at 2:45. We took Carly up the way we’d gone last night, onto 553. Along the way he investigated where the blue drainage tunnel goes, as he could see daylight at the other end. He wanted to walk the other direction this time, west, so we did that until we had a good view of the chicken farm. We then walked back on the offramp from 4 and hopped the guard rail where he and I had hopped it. We took the long way home again. I mentioned how we could see more stars there because of the lack of lights. We discussed ‘magnitude’ and ‘apparent’ and ‘absolute’ magnitude and reviewed ‘lumens’ and ‘lux’ all after he asked how you measure how bright things are. More words of the day.

We got back at 4. August and I read Loch Mess Monster, then he and Carly did another science experiment, putting food coloring in milk and then adding dish soap, which makes the food coloring jump across the top. He was then a robot cat again and he and I went upstairs and played with the treasures. We were on the Zinnie bed and he found a roll of thread on the floor. He went and put it in the sewing kit for Carly.

He went to the bathroom, then cleaned the toilet, doing it all except putting in the Duck cleaner, which he left for me. He put on his own underwear, which he’s now getting down pretty well. He told Carly about cleaning the toilet and we joked he had used Carly’s brush to clean it.

Carly had made him a chocolate pancake and he sat at the table and ate it. He started telling us random jokes:

“Why did the banana drink all the water in the world?” “Because it’s the only banana in the world.”

“Why’d the clam eat the clam?” “Because it’s a clam.”

“Knock knock

Who’s there?

Hippo

Hippo who?

I would not like a hippo, but I would like a clam.”

“Knock knock?

Who’s there?

25 million chairs…”

He was the robotic cat again and he said I was a kid. He told me my name was August, and we decided he was RC for ‘robotic cat’.

We went back upstairs and did some of the puzzle. He did the orcas and part of the octopus. Out of nowhere he asked “What’s syllables?…word of the day.”

We headed back downstairs and Carly talked about the iPad, and said something about him not getting upset. He replied, “MAKE me get upset? You make me get upset all the time!”

I went for a run. Getting close to sunset, but the streets were all still filled with people. Ran up the road all the way up through town, past the library, then back home.

I took a shower when I got back. He had eaten dinner, then had cake. He told me about the time limit in his iPad. I had set it to two hours for a day, with everything shut off at 7pm, except for the book apps. You can extend the time though, and Carly had extended it for the anatomy and space apps. She went and took a shower and he and I read a bunch of Skybrary books: Rosie Raccoon’s Rock and Roll Raft, Emma’s Friendwich, Freda is Found, Dilly Dog’s Dizzy Dancing, and good Job, Ajay! We read some of Sisters, Volume 1. He requested popcorn and Carly made some. We then read The 13-Story Treehouse. He then talked about how he had millions of rules and was telling some to Carly. He was also quoting the Word Collector, repeating “My trip to Peru was perfectly pleasant.”

He spent some good time lying on the couch and being silly. I took him up and gave him a bath. We came back down and skyped with my parents. They were about to head to Wenatchee to check in with the travel agent.

Carly took him upstairs and brushed his teeth. I left them at 9:20. He seemed really tired, but it took until around 10 before he fell asleep.

He’s chewed on his water bottle so much that the spout is all disfigured. He asked me to fix it a couple days ago, but was okay when I said it couldn’t be fixed.

This morning he asked to take a photo of Carly’s “nursings” as he calls them. Carly told him that was inappropriate, then he got sad and said he was going to miss them when he stopped nursing. Likely one of those moments that, when he’s older, he’d find embarrassing (don’t worry, Z, I won’t be bringing it up at family gatherings) but was so touching in the moment.

Trying to measure up the stairs:

Measuring the bedroom:

Explaining his thinking on math problems:

Explaining his robot fish:

Cautious on the highway:

Speeding on the highway:

Silly on the couch:

Drawing robotic fish

Finished cake

Checking out the drainage pipe

Chicken farm

More science