Author: Ryan/Dada

During the night he was really laughing out loud in his sleep a couple of times. And nursing a lot. I got up at 6 but was really hot and achy. I took some Tylenol and went and lay down in his room. He was up at 7 and I was up at 7:20. I was feeling better as my temperature had dropped, but Carly had already called in for a sick day. We decided she’d at least stay home for the morning so I went to bed again.

 

He played in the iPad while she did sub plans then they spent most of their time outside. They went for a walk around the block and played at the park on the swings and in the boat area.  They came back and hung out outside. They did a lot of imagination playing – including pretending to be a baby.

I got up at 10 and took a shower. Feeling substantially better. When I came out August was upset that they weren’t nursing. Carly got ready to go. August played Metamorphabet, then the letter tracing app. I suggested he try Endless Reader again as he could probably start reading the words now. He replied “I still can’t read the words. I never can read the words.”

Carly left at 10:45. He did some cursive and we added numbers to the cursive app. He then did change to Endless Wordplay and had a lot of fun with that. August would pretend to be the robot “I might be getting a cold.”

I went upstairs to find the Tylenol but couldn’t find the open bottle. August told me I should just open the new bottle then. Back downstairs I asked why he was laughing last night. He said “I was laughing cuz of jokes.” Played more Endless Wordplay and he was trying to start from the opposite end: “I accidentally goed right to left like Hebrew.” After he went to the bathroom he claimed to see a lamed (Hebrew letter) in the black rocks in the floor.

He was eating an apple and calmly said “Oh no. I bited my tongue.” But then he started crying. Upset, he went and opened the kitchen door and went outside. He opened the door back up and threw the rest of the piece of apple across the kitchen. He went and cried at the gate. We went back in the front door together and I held him for a bit, then he said he wanted to go back outside. He went out the kitchen door and closed it, leaving me inside. He hung out outside on his own for a couple minutes before coming back in and ordering me to go out. He threatened to pour out the remaining apple “I’m going to pour these out.” Kept him from doing that, and he ended up eating them later.

We played more Sesame Street games – measured how long the couch was in Zinnie lengths, tried to walk to different places using a certain number of steps. Then he ‘read’ the instructions for the Submarine game “Everyone finds a submarine and breaks it!” We played the real version (I was the commander telling him when to dive and surface).

I cooked some mushrooms to make pizza. As I did he played with an egg carton. He came up behind me and said “This is a man-eating egg carton.” It then had a voice and said “I’m hungry.” before biting my leg. We had mushroom pizza for lunch, then played more banana magic game and watched Peg + Cat.

Started to leave for a walk, but he got sucked to art instead. Still in his red phase, only using a red marker: “That’s a walrus machine that eats other walruses.” Flipped to another page to do math. I started to show him even and odd numbers, but despite his frequent counting by 2s, 10s, and 5s, and working on 3s and 4s he looked at my lists of numbers and was incredulous I wasn’t counting by ones: “That’s not counting by ones…Why weren’t you showing me counting by ones?”

We left for a walk after 3:50. I had grabbed the bag of breadsticks that Carly had left on the counter. August wasn’t too happy with them as they were broken. He hadn’t eaten any pizza for lunch, and I took that with us, but it turns out he doesn’t like the new sauce I got. We just walked up HaHadarim and then over to Vatikim, then turned back down Vatikim and came back to our park. Along the way he got off to pull some weeds.

At our playground he was fascinated by where a hole had been filled in. There had been a random hole, about a foot and a half deep, in the dirt in the grass and now it was filled. He stomped on it and dug in it, getting nice and dirty. A kid came over to play by him and August retreated. He told me “That boy wanted to get dirty but I just wanted to get dirty.” From there we moved to the drinking fountain to wash off his hands, but ended up playing with that. I held the water on, and he watched it form a puddle, then stomped around in it. He only had one shoe on when Carly got there.

We were home by 5:10. They nursed, and Carly asked if I’d taken Tylenol: “Dada opened a new bottle cuz he couldn’t find the open bottle.” We played some Endless Wordplay then they went outside. They were apparently being hot air and cold air and doing a dance, in addition to doing the watering.

They came inside for a bit, then went back out. August came in and asked “Dada! Are you feeling better?” and gave my leg a hug. I assumed that Carly had put him up to it but she swears she knew nothing about it. We played the Cursive tracing app and added more numbers and body parts to the lists of words he can trace. He chose bone marrow and immune system.

He was then negotiating with Carly when to go up to shower. She said he had 6 minutes of playing left. He asked “Count backwards from 60 six times?” But then he wouldn’t practice saying “Okay mama” for when the timer would go off – instead yelling it a couple times, then bonking her with his head “But it was only a little bonk” – so she took him up for his shower right away. He was actually in a good mood, just being punky.

She gave him a shower then I went up and played on bed – she was being a spider and he first tried to stomp on her hand, then did Hilo-style Lazer beams from his hands. He was asleep by 8:30.

Toothpaste: 

Hiding the hand with a scraped finger behind his back: 

He came down at 6:40. Carly nursed him, then he wanted to play something with her on the iPad. He had to to with her when she went to the bathroom then went to wash her hands. He opened Namoo and said “You know what the sun does? It helps with photosynthesis.”

She headed to work and we kept trying to figure out the whole amino acid process. We understood how ribosomes and the gogli apparatus work, but not exactly where the amino acids come from. We went to Google, where we learned about nitrates and healthy bacteria in the roots, but then it just said that the plant concerts it to 20 amino acids. Might have to ask biology people for help. https://www.hunker.com/13428186/how-do-plants-get-protein

He wanted some dried Cheerios and then asked “Is this enough for two episodes?” of Ask the Storybots. I didn’t know he had a per-episode amount that he needed. He watched the rain episode. We read some Hilo, but he was asking what craters are so we switched to the Space app and did meteorite impacts on mercury. He asked “How do you spell ‘I want to go to the solar system’?” Then we spent a lot of time on the distance thing, where you scroll to see how far away from the sun things are. You can keep scrolling past Neptune to Pluto and the other dwarf planets, all the way out to Voyager 1. Did that in AUs and kilometers a couple times, then was play acting making space probes and baby squirrel and nest.

My stomach had been feeling bad this morning, but I thought maybe I just ate too much dairy yesterday. But now I realized I was cold and wanted a blanket. I took my temperature and it was at the high end of my normal. It would keep getting higher though, and I’d get achy, etc.

We talked about making bread, and he wants to make regular bread. We don’t have yeast though and discussed what yeast is. In Human Body we did the bones puzzle a couple times and then in the hearing section he was recording himself singing and listening to himself. During the playback he would dance and sing along to his own singing. Lasted quite awhile.

He watched one Peg + Cat and I started zucchini bread. He helped finish and mix it. I needed to sit down and rest after that and said I was definitely a little sick. He exclaimed “But I love you!” Very sweet. And then he hit me, as clearly it was my fault I was getting sick.

He pulled up the Sesame Street Play app and we played Floor Monsters from that. I got a basket full of his clean clothes and we made monsters on the ground. I needed to rest after that and he watched/played Lucy and Pogo. He also did Arabic letters and tracing; them worked on Hebrew letters and was copying all the pronunciation examples for each letter/vowel combination.

We went outside when we heard a chainsaw. There was a crew trimming bushes in the back walkway. Back inside we played more Sesame Street games: a tapping game where you tap on their back with a different number of fingers and they guess how many fingers you are using – this proved too ticklish for him, even when I moved it to his head, then a ‘Knock it Off’ game where I balanced a shoe on my hand and he tried to knock it off. Looking at his monsters from earlier on the ground he said”They don’t have a head so they’re actually a ghost.” He then came up with his own game: “Here’s the game: Some grownup has to build a monster, then a kid has to destroy the monster.”

But then the best game: We put objects on the table and he closed his eyes and I would replace one with a banana and he would guess which was missing. A tough game for him, particularly as he just wanted to skip to looking behind my back to see what was there.

I got the zucchini breads out and he hid things for me a couple times. The first time he had it in his hand. Then it took a few minutes while I struggled with the zucchini breads. He told me “I hid my shoe really well!” He was more successful with not giving it away after that.

We then ate some zucchini bread. He said “This makes me not want to eat the rest of my pancake.” Which was a measure of how he both really liked the bread and how he was getting tired of chocolate pancakes after a few days.

We then did more of the hiding game, and eventually it evolved to no guessing at all – one of us would hide objects between a couple pillows, then the other person would find them. He giggled a ton at this and thought it was great. We then ate our magic banana and I mentioned that bananas always reminded me of him first eating bananas, and I tried to describe the pacifier sort of thing that we used to feed him banana. He didn’t know what I was talking about so I found the photos and videos of when he was about 7 months old (October 7, 2014) and we walked the length of the stream in downtown Seoul and at the park at the end he ate banana from the pacifier thing. We watched that video, and also one of him bonking me on the head with a bottle and laughing like crazy – which made me realize he was very much himself even back then.

He then invented another game: “This game is I’m gonna go behind you and make a noise and you guess what I be.” First he was a baby squirrel, then other animals. Although most of his animals sound pretty similar, unless it was a bird. At some point we discussed sharks and wondered if baby sharks have teeth. He asked “Could you look it up?” We learned that not only are they born with a full set, but they have already lost baby shark teeth while in the womb.

We headed upstairs and on his bed took care of baby millipede, etc. He watched Wanda and the Alien while I showered. Out on the landing we then read some Bob Books: VW Book, Snow, Guessing Machine. After the VW book he was a walrus and looked up how big they are; we learned a walrus could weigh more than 4400lbs. He wanted me to take care of the baby walrus. He walked in circles as he explained some machine that would tell me what was wrong with it: “It it’s a blue dot it’s bone marrow, if it’s red…if it’s green…If it’s brown it’s nervous system…”

He played Metamorphabet and I rested. Then downstairs I was teaching him how to run on his toes. He kept saying he was slower that way, and I said he just needed to practice. He was then being crazy and said “The running machine broke down.” But then he hit himself on the coffee table and said “I bonked me” Instead of getting upset though he started saying “Im glass now”.

We left for a walk at 3:30. We walked up to the Citrus Garden park, the small park on the left as we go up to town. We’ve never actually played there as there is a bigger park on the right just before it. We played around though and he started throwing away garbage he found on the ground. The fun stopped when he was walking and fell on his knees and scraped one a bit. He then said he needed to go to the bathroom. He gave a thumbs up when I asked if he needed to go quickly, so we decided to go to the bathroom up in town.

From there we walked to the corner of Vatikim, where Carly had waited for us on a bench the other day. We sat and had a snack and he wanted to wait to see if Carly would come by. He’s been asking how you spell a lot of words, and he randomly asked “How do you spell ‘dance party’?” He started yelling at me about something though so we left at 4:40.

We walked down Vatikim and found that the small park there (Tal Garden) is closed. August assured me it was okay: “It’s okay if that park’s closed. I meant the other park by home…so it’s okay.” We then saw Celeste walking Nellie and talked to her for a moment before getting to our park at 4:50. At the park he played with the exercise equipment and was reciting “Force, drag, weight, and lift!” He ran away when a little kid tried to talk to him, then we played with the drinking fountain.

We headed home at 5:10 and stayed outside. He picked at the sap and I lay on the grass. Carly was home at 5:20. He told her about the closed and close park, which led to confusion as I
think he was using both ‘closed’ and ‘close’. They nursed and he played GroForest and Carly got him noodles. I went and lay down in August’s room.

I got up at 7 and found them writing a list of President August’s decrees: “Don’t ruin books if you want to read them more…Don’t ruin people’s houses when they still want them…Dont and touch outlets…Dont make people go to the doctor if they don’t want to go to the doctor.” There were 20 in all. Carly took him up for a shower and I did dishes. Said goodnight about 7:30 and he was asleep a little after that.

Zucchini bread: 

Exercise: 

1. Don’t destroy something if you still want it

2. Don’t make things moldy if you don’t want them to be

3. Don’t kill plants if they’re not dying

4. Don’t break glass things

5. Don’t take things from other people

6. Don’t destroy iPads

7. Don’t take out your teeth when you’re still not turning into a grown up

8. Don’t destroy water bottles if you want them

9. Keep pajamas

10. Don’t break shoes

11. Don’t steal clothing from people

12. Don’t kill people

13. Don’t hit people

14. Don’t steal water bottles from people

15. Don’t ruin books if you want to read them more

16. Don’t ruin people’s houses when they still want them

17. Don’t touch outlets

18. Don’t burn yourself

19. Don’t break kids’ marbles if they still want them

20. Don’t make people go to the doctor if they don’t want to go to the doctor

We all slept in today, which was good. He woke up a little after 7, then got up at 7:22. Because that’s what he read on the clock when he got up and what he wanted to tell me when they came down. He really wanted to turn on the air conditioner and was upset he couldn’t. Carly figured out he was just fine turning it on and then off. Problem solved. They built with Duplos.

They then went outside and discovered aphids, and ants eating those aphids, on the flower plant. August initially didn’t like bugs on the plants and wanted to destroy them. Came back in and Carly made some banana milk and we drank that, and while drinking it August requested “Fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth”. When he was done drinking he asked to watch it on the rug. He was then asking me what the notes were, then when it got to a loud part he said “I’m filling up with power.” as he spread his arms apart.

He then wanted to nurse and Carly set a 10 minute timer on her computer that he happily watched count down. When it went off his chocolate pancake was actually done so he ate that. He and I then read Oh My a Fly! (The pop up book of “There was an old woman who swallowed a fly), We haven’t read it in a long time, and now he was asking why she died, etc. and now seems to find it a bit disturbing. They then nursed as they hadn’t earlier after the timer.

Carly got out the vacuum cleaner and initiated clean up time. Got August to be a robot and he helped clean up Duplos. Carly then vacuumed and I did dishes while he watched the “How Do Airplanes Fly” episode of Ask the StoryBots using his headphones. I then finished reading The Wizard of Washington Square by Jane Yolen. It is the first book for the little free library as I had picked it up at a little free library in Stroudsburg this summer.

When he was done with his episode he then play-acted molecules and being a plane going from “China to Greenland”, but then it crash landed in Iceland. He FINALLY went to the bathroom after 10. That led to looking at Google Earth and Collins Atlas on my iPad. He found Gameti in the Northwest Territories and the Great Bear Lake: “I want to go there sometime.” We were looking at the different layers in Collins Atlas (population density, energy resources, etc.) and he was really interested in those (and their colors).

I went up and took a shower and they were outside. I came out and started clearing the dirt strip of garbage and the last of the tree things, and especially the cat poop which had been under the tree things layer and was now smelling up the front corner of the yard. August helped, using one of his little shovels as well. I then started hauling the stack of stones from the driveway area to place between the plants. August came and looked in the driveway area, making it past the small stream of water going into the street – it appears to be the runoff from the washing machine not draining properly.

We then got ready to go (plenty of hand washing) and walked up into town. First stop was the grocery store, where they did indeed have my debit card. So a quick end to that one. We then went to the department store where we got lightbulbs (I believe 6 of the old incandescent bulbs have burnt out since we’ve been here, so planning on the rest going soon) and twine for tying up plants. The guys were asking how much Hebrew we, and particularly August, know. August proudly recited the numbers to 10 for them.

We then headed to the pizza place. August remembered being there, as he said that we “always” get a pizza cutter to cut the pizza slices up. We got three: cheese, olive, and corn (the only three they had). August really liked the corn. We also got grape Capri suns with them (I don’t remember if that was part of the deal last time…I know we got one). We went to the little grocery store in town and got bananas and yogurt and a couple other things. August was looking at the soy milk section and wanted cashew milk. I said Carly would appreciate it if we didn’t get that. He didn’t like the other options though and threw his sunglasses. I picked him up, and he rested on my shoulder and feebly tried to be defiant “I’m…gonna throw…a whole box of…” But never finished the sentence and calmed down instead.

We then headed home at 1:30, going our back route. August requested we sing our Hebrew alphabet song, then wanted to stop at the little park we go through on Ha-Shalom Street. Carly sat and read. I sat on the bottom of the slide and he slid into my head. He did it repeatedly, shouting “Tzadi sofit” (the last letter of the alphabet).

We were home at 2:15. Carly went upstairs to do some work. He played around on the couch, making noise, and said”It’s supposed to play Beethoven but it only has Sentimental Wars on its storage.” He wanted to play Human Body so we did that. We put together the skeleton together, then was looking at the intestinal lining: “You’re the food breaking down… We’re gonna turn you into energy.” He was the intestinal lining and good germs attacking me.

He then played Toca Builders. I started reading a book. He then showed me what he was working on and had built all sorts of walls and stuff. He had really figured out a lot, as we hadn’t played this one much. He said one of the walls looked like a ‘U’ and said “I don’t mean ‘you’ like the you right here (pointing to himself) I mean the letter U.” I got a pita and we shared that, then we had fun making a colorful landscape in the game, using the builder that throws paint to throw colors all over the floor. I started falling asleep as we kept doing that.

We went outside and picked up more tree parts and I moved more stones. He went inside for a bit and spent a long time on the toilet (the first time in quite awhile) then nursed. They then came back outside. Carly did all the watering and August helped with that and first swept dirt off a big stone I had unearthed, then used the hose to wash it off.

Back inside Carly skyped with Cherie, who is now in Mexico and August figured out the machine for making food in GroForest and did that a lot. We ate spaghetti for dinner, then I took him up for shower at 7:10. Up in the play area, as I got him ready for his shower, he wanted to play: “You hit the dog…I want to play that for pretend…and I’ll be the dog killing you…Can I play that just for pretend?” Earlier, I think when we were in the yard (or perhaps when he was on the toilet), he had talked about how he doesn’t like dogs because they kill people. I explained that that rarely, rarely happened. He asked why, and I talked about how some people mistreat dogs and that makes them mean. He asked why they mistreat them, etc. So he was bringing it back now to play though it. I told him I didn’t like playing through sad games like that though.

He got sad when it was time for his shower and we had to power through that. He cheered up when he got the bed wet and was crazy on it. He was flipping his legs up in the air as he lay on his chest and kept asking: “What it exercise when I do this?” He would then change what he was doing and ask again. He was then a machine: “It goes to the cooling place where it stays for 224 days…the dough the machine burns…then it goes to the hardening process…I’m making jawbreakers…the dough is jawbreakers.”

We read Mr. Brown’s Fantastic Hat and he asked what ‘fussing’ meant. I talked about how mama and I make sure he brushes his teeth, takes a shower, etc. He said “I don’t like anyone fussing.” He wanted a nest and we went in on his bed to make it. I turned off the lights so he could see the stars: “Whoa! Whoa…Can I count them?…23.” Lights back on and playing with the nest, he sat up and lightly hit his head on the headboard. He quietly said “I bonked my head…go to mama.” He actually walked into the bathroom and stood on his stool and hid in his towel that was hanging there for several seconds.

He then went down and Carl
y came up. In bed he asked if she had to go to work in the morning. I left them about 8 and he was asleep about 8:10.

He got up at 6:05. I was up a half hour later. When he started to play around Carly took him upstairs. They were working on puzzles – the Old MacDonald puzzle and the Asia puzzle. I went up in time to help him follow the words on the Old MacDonald puzzle as he pushed the button on it a few times and help him with cleanup, and we were back down just before 8

Carly made oatmeal for him and he watched French fries episode of Ask the StoryBots. We then played with Duplos. He played with his play structure and also wanted to count by 4s so we did that. He got up and ate his oatmeal, then watched the Lucy and Pogo app. I did dishes and Carly was upstairs. We read some Hilo. Now past 9, he refused to go to the bathroom with me. Finally Carly took over and he went to the bathroom – first time since before he went to bed.

I took a shower, then Carly made chocolate pancakes. He asked to play Namoo to learn about roots. Then he was baby birds, and said it was winter so we migrated to the equator (over where the Duplos are). He practiced counting by 4s and he made a big tower. It was then summer again (according to him) and we migrated back to the nest on the couch, which he then had me destroying as a digger.

We went outside where we watered and he ate a chocolate pancake. Carly was resting in on the couch. August went and checked on her once and came back out to nicely let her rest. He then went in with her. She was going to go upstairs and take a nap but he insisted on going with her. He came back down at 11:21 (telling me the time) and she got a little nap.

He wanted to watch Peg+Cat, so we shook on a deal that he could watch an episode, then go for a walk. Carly came down at 11:50. We were talking about what we should get at the grocery store, and I asked August what we should have for lunches this week. He gave me a whole list of ideas: “Sandwiches and…sausages and pickles…and noodles and pizza and chicken and cow and milk and syrup…” He got upset when Carly tried going to he bathroom. They ended up going upstairs and nursing. I did dishes and read. They came back down at 12:35.

We got going to Tiv Taam. He rode in the cart, which was okay for awhile. He didn’t like Carly stopping though. Right as we finished it got too much and Carly took him outside and I went to pay. I realized my debit card was missing and had to run out to get Carly’s. On the way home August spotted a lizard near the path.

We were home a little after 2. They went out and did more painting for their art project while I put groceries away and looked for my card, with no luck.  Perhaps I left it at the grocery store yesterday.

I was sitting on the couch and August came in and told me to go to sleep. So I pretended to sleep. I thought he was going to wake me up, but he didn’t come back. Several minutes later he did, and said “Dada, I told you to go to sleep!” Then they did play the waking me up game.

All day he was singing a couple lines from the StoryBots song “Hooray, for A”, which I had played right before we left for Tiv Taam. We were listening to more of the letter songs later in the day and finding them funny.

We played with Duplos. He started making a big rectangle on the big green base piece. He was using only the small square pieces and counting them as he went – got up to 60-something. We then added a couple layers to it, making an enclosure. They nursed, then were birds. He was asking her to get birds of different colors and interesting tastes: “Mama, can you find 30 worms that are red and taste like purple?”

He went on a walk with me at 4. We first did recycling, as we had a nice full bag. Then by the playground he spent some time killing weeds. I went on the big round swing and he was a machine sort of singing the “Sentimental Wars” song to wake me up. He then made a game of hopping from white square to white square and said “The longer I do this the more mangos I get – for mama!” We were robots, and he decided our charging station was on the teeter totter thing. Finally, we spent some time playing and exercising over on the exercise equipment before heading home.

We were home just after 5. He ate a bunch of mushrooms and asked her “How do you pick them up without burning your hand?” He would eat a couple, then ask for more in a math problem, like “I want 2 times 2 pieces.” He then ate some of the spaghetti when it was ready, and we listened to the StoryBots ABC songs.

We were then being robots and and he said he had infinite batteries and I asked where he stored all those batteries and he said they were inside a computer and pointed to his storage unit in his chest – he’s getting to Rick and Morty levels of sci-fi there.

I made a nest for him, then I went and ate. He and Carly then went for a walk down by the fields to the southwest. The plants were small and low to the ground so they decided they might be strawberries. While they were gone I finished reading Turtles All the Way Down, the new John Green novel. Actually, I had two paragraphs left when they came in at 6:20. So close.

He had me counting by 7s and 36s and 105s before I could sneak a look and finish the last couple paragraphs. They painted with the dot paints and I did dishes. Carly took him up and gave him a shower and washed his hair. I rinsed him off. I read him some poems from Something BIG Has Been Here by Jack Preutsky which sort of was distracting him from the fact that Carly had gone downstairs for a couple things. He was really ready to go to sleep. He really liked Denson Dumm (about a boy who planted lightbulbs in his hair) and We’re Fearless Flying Hotdogs and had to tell Carly about them. He was asleep about 7:30.

August was up at 6:30 and came down on the couch with Carly and nursed. He was there until she left, then watched two episodes of Ask the StoryBots: How Airplanes Fly and Why Do You Have to Brush Your Teeth. He said he wanted “two episodes, two books”. He didn’t leave the couch until after 7:30. He then started playing at being a germ, and at this point he did run across the floor and back once as he attacked my teeth. I tried to keep him on the couch and he played at being a sick baby lizard, then the Flynne game, waking me up on the couch: “It’s a vacuum cleaner that can suck up foxes.”  But when he then wanted to be a chipmunk gathering nuts I took us upstairs. We were then playing upstairs on the bed in his room until after 8:10. He looked at Carly’s Q, 14, Z, and K paintings and asked “Why is there a K?”, since K wasn’t one of his favorite letters. I explained how he practiced writing it a lot and would say “Line down, sideways V turns to K.”

We did his car puzzle, then listened to StoryBots songs, including the airplane one. He then had an airplane: “My airplane goes two octillion seventy-seven miles an hour.”

We went downstairs and again straight to the couch where we read some Smurfs and then some Magic Tree House. He was hungry, so I got up and started slicing apple while August had started watching Beethoven’s Ninth.

While I was slicing apples, suddenly a broom handle was hitting our window. Our downstairs neighbor was hitting it from his yard. I immediately went out the kitchen door. He was not in sight, so I called “Shalom”. He came around the corner and was about ten feet away. He started telling me that August woke him up “at 7”. I apologized but said I wasn’t sure what we were doing wrong. I told him we don’t wear shoes inside.

I tried to talk to him about it, but he just kept saying “If he wants to run you take him to the garden (park).” I suggested he should call Shmuel. I meant to talk to him about something to do with ceiling tiles or lowering rent, but he cut me off and started talking about how he was going anywhere and we should move.

I offered to give him my phone number but he refused it, saying “I’m not calling you at 7am.”

Finally, as I told him I’d see what we could do he got threatening and was pointing his finger at me. He said “If I can’t sleep, you won’t sleep.” I said “Please don’t threaten me.”

He then left. I emailed Carly to let her know what happened and called Shmuel. Shmuel assured me his behavior was unacceptable and he would talk to him. I felt better for awhile, but don’t know how the neighbor will react to getting a call from Shmuel.

August had walked around outside in his socks while this was going on. We went inside and I talked to him about why the man had talked to us and how we need to be quiet in the mornings. He, of course, wanted to be loud. We went upstairs and he played GroGarden and I exercised and then wrote up what had happened. We played with the blocks, saying words for each letter, and he said “V is for vein”. With the smurfs he made a machine “to make a potion that turns clay into smurfs.”

I took a shower as he watched the how candy is made videos. He reported to me again as I showered: “Billions at Easter alone…a brush knocks off the extra starch…” I really wanted to get out of the house, just for a change of scenery and because we really needed to go to the bank to try to order checks and to get some groceries, but I couldn’t get him out of the house. He wanted to play with Duplos, kept distracting me while I tried to make snacks, etc. Finally got snacks made, then we played at being plaque attacking people’s teeth on the couch: “We’re making people’s breath stinky.” Then some more Duplos, and we finally left at 11:30.

Stopped along a rough stone wall on the way up as he wanted a snack, a Larabar. There was a short piece of rope attached to the wall and he pulled it and surprised me by saying “If I pull on it it makes a force at the end.” That’s mostly from that how airplanes fly episode.

We got to the grocery store and couldn’t find a basket, and I realized my coin thing was in the other backpack. But then I remembered we needed to go to the bank first. So we did that. Went upstairs and August sat and played GroRecycling. I first talked to a guy who told me I could order checks online and that it was actually the bank’s philosophy that customers should be able to do that themselves. He suggested I try it on my phone, and he would answer questions if I couldn’t. So I sat and tried – actually good, as I discovered there is an English site. The app is only in Hebrew and that’s what I’ve been using. However, I couldn’t find the check ordering option in English. Then a woman asked if I needed help. I told her I couldn’t find the right spot on the English site. She told me I could also order through the ATMs, and the woman downstairs could help.

I had just realized that I get an error message when trying to click on the link on the Hebrew site, but at that moment she took me to the woman to help me downstairs at the ATMs. But then I realized I had no idea what my PIN was. So ultimately unsuccessful, although closer.

August had done a good job of following us around, carrying the iPad with him. We got the bike, then went to the grocery store. Still no baskets and the place was busy. I just settled on getting a six-pack of beer, as Jack was coming over when we got home and that was all I could carry, basically.

On the way home August was asking for the Hebrew word for things and we would look them up: sand, brick, wood.

We were home right at 1. Talked to Jack and he said Rick ws coming too. I told August that Jack and Rick were coming: “But I don’t like anything coming near us…They hit other people, even me…” But I had told him he could have a popsicle later (at the store he had been a machine that led me to the bakery counter) and I now told him he could have it when they got there. So we hung out outside until they showed up. August had his popsicle, then watched Peg + Cat. I joked he is now going to love having people over as he got popsicles and got to watch extra shows.

I sat with them outside and we had a beer and discussed insects, people that ride motorcycles, and the little free library. They had some good ideas. They helped take apart the doors, then we painted the outside of it. I brought August out and he helped me paint a bit. Didn’t want him too close to the spray paint fumes though, so we hung back and Jack and Rick did the rest.

They left, then we ended up inside drawing on paper. He hasn’t really been into just doing art for quite awhile, but suddenly he was using the red marker to draw picture after picture, mainly of man-eating things: “That’s the man-eating fish…that’s the man-eating cord…That’s the safety sign.” “That’s the man-eating bubble…that’s its digestive system. Say ‘I didn’t know bubbles had digestive systems.’” “It’s actually a robot that takes care of people.” The last had been the progression of his drawing as it turned from a man-eating bubble into a doctor robot (with three eyes, one ear, and a bunch of arms and legs). When he showed it to Carly later though the two had been combined and it was a “man-eating doctor robot”.

When he was done drawing he wanted to watch something on his iPad. I said he had had enough and he got upset and started hitting me. I carried him to the couch and then he actually started hitting me with his head. I got upset about that, and then he really started crying and said “Sorry!” Took a few more minutes to help him calm down. We then read the Puffin Rock book Goodnight, Beautiful Moon (which we hadn’t yet read), then some of Gargamel and the Smurfs until Carly got home.

They nursed, then he showed her his drawings. He then started drawing again: “I’m gonna make another machine…This is
a man-eating jungle.” He continued to work on it for quite awhile, and Carly and I went outside. Carly asked “Can I have one?” August heard her as he drew and said “But then I can’t have another popsicle!” She had meant one of the beers I’d bought. He drew for a long time then came out with us, watering plants, and picked another ripe tomato. While out there he asked “Stars are bigger than rockets or planets? Why? Cuz they’re like huge?” He then asked where the red bag was and helped pick up some of the tree things. He ate apple and peanut butter outside and I put painting stuff away. He was asking about Hebrew teen Numbers. I called it an evening as the mosquitos were attacking.

Inside he was a garbage can and had me throw stuff in him:

“I’m checking the meter see how full the garbage is.” – a reference to GroRecycling. It was getting time for a shower, but we were playing with Duplos. He was starting to count them by 3s. Carly gave us a muffin that Holly had made as it had nuts in it. August and I talked about how it was good, but it wasn’t delicious as it didn’t have chocolate in it. We played a bit longer and he made a play structure , then Carly called to her. He knew it was shower time and yelled “No! Mama!” But ran to her. Then asked “Can I get the bed wet? Secretly?”

Carly took him up, then I gave him a shower. He talked about a machine to make the muffins so Carly could eat them: “I have a machine that turns muffins with nuts in them into muffins with chocolate.” “Mama would like that.” “Yeah, but it pollutes though…it needs garbage that it burns to burn the nuts…It burns the air people breathe.”

He then got the bed wet, secretly, at 7:05. On the bed he was reciting numbers and getting bigger and bigger: “7 is bigger than 1….16 is bigger than 7…70 is bigger than 16…and 277 is bigger than 70…” He was then a baby birdie. We then read the Mother Goose book. I asked him who Elsie Marley looked like and he said “Mama”, so he remembers that. Then when we sang our “Saw a ship a-sailing” song he held he last note really long, which I’d forgotten we did. We looked up the equator on my phone as he had talked about being a baby bird in the winter and flying south “To the South Pole?” He was ready for sleep and was asleep by 7:55.

It was sort of half a holiday for Carly. No school, so she was home until noon. But she and Mandy went to Jerusalem in the afternoon to meet with an organization that does outreach to Palestinian lands.

He had kind or a restless night. Carly thought he was going to get up at 1. He managed to go back to sleep and got up at 6:10. Carly has today off, so he went down to her and I stayed in bed a bit longer. They played “Map”, looking around on Google Earth. He surprised her by reading ‘Jordan’ on his own and being happy to see it. We discussed Jordan while over at the Dead Sea, but I didn’t know he could read it. He was also commenting on whether places had trees or not “There’s not much trees here.”

He ate the last of the apple bread (except th last couple bites), then I distracted him from Carly while she made some food with GroForest, where you can now fly a hot air balloon and do some composting.

We then went outside where the two of them were painting shapes cut out of milk cartons for a design on our bedroom wall. I measured the second shelf and started to saw it, before deciding to wait awhile as it was still a little before 9. When I started August asked “Have you been doing that all night?” Odd question.

Back inside Carly was getting oatmeal for him. He said “You’re the oatmeal say ‘Oh no! Let’s hide!” Then he made up an oatmeal dance as he lay on the floor and chanted “Ooo-ba, ooo-ba”.

Carly went upstairs to work and he and I read more of The Magic Tree House and looked at dinosaurs in our big Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life book. We did some math with blueberries and writing on paper, then played with Duplos. He then wanted to watch the KidsHealth.org videos about the body and watched a few while I took a shower. I came back down and they were nursing. August then declared that they were eagles and they played being eagles for quite awhile, having nests on the couch and in the red chairs and flying around to get fish. Although one time they got stuck in the stomach of a huge fish: “Let’s get in our fish bathtub and eat dinner…where we store our fish.”

I went out and worked on the sawing, then I prepared schnitzels and sweet potato fries for us for lunch. Carly got out a new set of paints that make circles that you paint with. August made a long snaking line in green and said “It’s a slithery snake…a machine snake…a road.” Playing on the floor, August found a small piece of popcorn that he said was a tooth. Carly told him him about the tooth fairy, and as she did I practiced my eye rolling. But then Carly told him the truth, and how we pretend to be a tooth fairy. Carly had to head outside to Mandy, and August and I played Tooth Fairy. He would pretend to sleep and I’d give him a surprise under his pillow. He would then request a new thing “Now, could you give me a toy train?”

We then played Toca Nature, actually figuring out how to get all the different plants to grow and which animals wanted which, and exercised. With Duplos I then made a series of rockets, and August was counting how many people could fit in each and adding them up and saying they were his friends: “I had seven friends but one of them went to a coffee shop.”

He watched the airplane episode of Ask the StoryBots. He really likes the airplane episode, and after it was over he was repeating “Thrust, drag, weight, and lift” as if he was trying to remember the four forces.

He ate the last of the sweet potato fries, then listening to music he really liked the remix of Mark Lanegan’s “Death Head Tattoo” and added it to his playlist. A version of Nine Inch Nail’s “Closer” then came on and he said he really liked it. I didn’t add it to his playlist though and distracted him by switching to Bjork. He then heard “Earth Intruders (XXXChange Remix)” and said “I love this”.

We went on a Zinnie walk at 3. First we did a clockwise circuit of our block, which we decided to call the playground block. He ate some Larabar along the way and we realized I’d forgotten his water bottle. He said it was okay though as we were going around the block and would end up at home. Very thoughtful reaction from him.

Got his bottle, then he decided to walk around the other block, which we decided to call the Holly block, since she lives up that street. We kept walking up the block though, all the way to the dead end. Someone had a bunch of dishes set out, and I grabbed a couple of good glass bowls as I need a second mixing bowl for baking. August had eaten apple with peel last night when he was having dinner, so I tried to give him apple with peel on it today. He took the cup and looked at all the slices and said “Umm…Why is there PEEL on it?” He was having none of it. So I had to bite off the peel for each slice. Ate that as we walked back.

He spotted a truck with Hebrew writing on it and wanted to know what all the letters were. So I was telling him. Then he was looking at the numbers on the phone number. He was trying to read it as a long number, from left to right. After I explained it was a phone number and went from left to right he still had fun pretending to read it the other way.

We then got to the small synagogue up that way. Spotted some junk furniture out back and went and looked at it. He got off the bike to walk in the sand and play. He wouldn’t go down the little slide though. Too sunny. But he pulled weeds along the wall of the synagogue. I sat and read, and he then walked the edge of the square in the bricks several times.

We went home because he said he needed to use the bathroom – it would be another hour before he finally went though. On the way home he was saying he was a white blood cell, but then giving a scary laugh. A surprisingly scary laugh. Maybe I can get him in a horror movie. I asked why he was laughing like that and we decided he was a virus pretending to be a white blood cell and attacking me.

We were home at 4:20. We played more Toca Nature. He said “I’m filling it up with snow like Greenland.” Carly got home a little later. We talked about her trip to Sabeel (they got to eat lunch with them and met with the director – might do some sort of tour with them around Thanksgiving) and were talking about work stuff. August was playing his game, but apparently paying attention and asked what we were talking about. He asked “Are you talking about the guy that kicks them out of school if they don’t have homework?” Got to be careful around him.

We went outside for a good amount of time, doing all of our watering. Carly and August picked the first ripe tomato off the plant from Ikea. I asked August if he was going to eat it, and he started to wind up to throw it away before Carly stopped him and said she would eat it. They did more shape painting outside, then back inside Carly Skyped with her parents. August and I used used Google Earth, so he could actually see the round earth, as opposed to just Google Maps. He ate some pumpkin seeds and Carly made banana drink. He drank that and watched the second movement of Beethoven’s Ninth before switching to the fourth.

Carly gave him a bath, then he was a candy machine on the bed. First it was a gum machine: “Cutting you into the right size and shape”. I’m sure that phrase came from the how gum is made video. Then he made jawbreakers: “hardening process…sweetening process”. He was ready for sleep and fell asleep just after 8.

Robot pajamas: 

Counting friends in the rockets: 

Ripe tomato: 

Painting outside: 

6:50. Quiet. I made a nest for him on the couch. When he woke up we read three Kipper stories, then he wanted a big rabbit burrow. We made that and played for awhile, taking turns being germs and taking care or him when he was a baby lizard, then he was hungry so I got him some apple bread, which he ate at the table while he watched the Storybots episode about rain. We then worked on Hebrew and he drifted to Hangeul. Don’t know what to do about that.

Outside to check on the tomatoes and do some watering. Back inside he played the Chordana app, then switched to Musyc and we had fun with that, making all sorts of soundscapes. He went to the bathroom, and declared that he wanted to watch a video about how gum is made. So we went and found a video on YouTube, and he watched a few on candies and cookies while I exercised. He narrated the videos, telling me every fact that he heard: “24 hours, dada…200 degrees Celsius, dada…” We moved upstairs and it continued as I took a shower. He was sitting on his bed, and I’d hear him run across the landing, then he’d yell “through the extruded, dada”. He would wait for me to respond, then he would run back, hear something, and come back and tell me.

After my shower we played in the toy room landing, first with the Smurfs. He was being Gargamel. He had the idea of Gargamel turning Smuefette back into clay. I turned on Storybots music on the iPad and at first he wanted to watch, but then he listened as we played, and hummed along at times. We then switched to the wooden blocks (first time playing with them since Korea) and made a house. He set a piece on top of one of the walls and said “It’s a fire alarm in case there’s a fire.” We recently got smoke detectors. He knocked down our house saying “I told you a truck would destroy our house…I told you water would flood our house.” When I said “No you didn’t!” he replied “Yes I did!”

With the letter blocks he was thinking of words for each letter, and said “P for poets.” We then watched the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. He didn’t want to watch Frozen or Symphony #5. Had to be the Ninth. I asked if he wanted a smoothie and he said yes. I went down to make it, and when the blender was on he yelled down “Dada! You’re keeping me from watching symphony 9!”

Drank the smoothie upstairs and then came down and played Gro Recycling while I got him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We went outside and I used the saw to cut one of the shelves for the library. We talked about the difference between a hand saw and a chainsaw and its parts. He thought for a minute and exclaimed “But dada! You don’t eat wood! But they’re called teeth!” It was a slow process, so he went and got the iPad and played TodoMath, calling out to me for help with math problems. He then switched to the My Body app and had me practice holding my breath. I did a minute and 7 seconds. He wouldn’t try it though.

We left for a walk by 2. We walked over to the school. On the way he stopped at the little park to pull some weeds. Then, closer to the school, he wanted to get off the bike so he could do the germ dance and attack me.

At the library we found the microscope in the ‘Maker Space’. There were about 6 compounds to look at (silicon, NaCl, etc.). I rather expected a bit more, but we had fun with it. We went to the little kids area and looked for books. He got sucked over to the computers where two kids were watching one of those awful, awful videos where and adult plays with toys. Got August away from that and we sat and read a few chapters of the first Magic Tree House book. Looking around, he saw a picture on something: “Those are Halloween pumpkins!” We checked out the Magic Tree House, Lucy by Randy Cecil, The Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl, and the August issue of Ranger Rick magazine. I was excited to see that they have Ranger Rick magazine, because I thought I had searched and found that it had stopped publication. While we waited for Carly to come we read The Magic School Bus Inside a Hurricane as we sat on the big stuffed animals.

Carly came by at 4:10. We stopped to get drink at the drinking fountain with stairs, then headed home, getting here at 4:40. We all went out watering and and Carly and I had pita and tea outside. Inside they did math with blueberries aand on paper (doing some pre-algebra with ‘X’), then were doing a mosaic on paper. August used the markers themselves to do some joke math: “Lowercase t times uppercase T equal broken case T.”

We watched some Beethoven’s Ninth, then August was being fussy about dinner. But I got some couscous and mashed sweet potatoes for him and we ate dinner at the table. He joked “Corncous…that’s couscous made out of corn.” I said he should have some milk, and a minute later Carly set down a cup of milk for him. I joked that when I said something should happen t magically happened. I then said I should get a massage. Carly told me I was losing my powers, but August got up and pushed behind me on the chair and massaged my back with his hand and head.

He continued to watch Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Wars pieces after Beethoven’s Ninth was over. Carly then noticed someone at our gate. It was the guy that lives downstairs. August didn’t give him a warm welcome, yelling “Go away!” Carly took August in and I talked to him. He was complaining about hearing August “always” running around. Told him we don’t wear shoes inside and he’s three and I tried to ask what times it bothered him/he was home, but he didn’t really help me out. Ah, all the inconvenience of apartment living as well. I was rather annoyed from the beginning to find that there was a downstairs apartment, as we were never told this when shopping for houses.

Carly read him part of The Enormous Crocodile and then he spent a long time pretending to read it in his languages. Then she gave August a bath and washed his hair. He didn’t complain too much until the rinsing. They read Mr. Brown’s Fantastic Hat and he was asleep by 8.

Watering: 

Smoke detectors: 

Watching me saw: 

Among the animals: 

He was up bright and early at 6:10. We played more Chordana and tried the Dust Buster app for learning piano again, but he wasn’t a fan of it. I mentioned reading some poems as we read some Silverstein and he asked what poems were. In the process I mentioned rhyming and he asked what rhyming words were. That reminded me of the Winnie the Pooh ABC episode that we had watched at one point, but then disappeared from YouTube. I then meant to buy it on DVD this summer (not available through iTunes, etc.) but didn’t, but it is now back on YouTube. So August watched that and started to watch the Shapes and Sizes one while I made French toast.

We ate French toast, then were robots for a long, long time, Starting with him making a little secret spot on the couch that became our private charming station: “Its a secret place cuz it’s just for these robots.” “That’s why it’s secret cuz the robots don’t want the power to be taken.” Eventually he had bad robots trying to attack us and we were destroying them. He was talking abou how the metal from the robots we destroy goes through a machine to break it down: “The metal gets turned into dirt to grow robot trees.” “The ones that aren’t made out of paper are bad robots and the ones made out of paper are good robots. We’re destroying the ones not made out of paper because they’re bad ones!” “Come on! Let’s both destroy robots!”

We paused a couple times to read Robot Kipper stories. That is, I read them in a robot voice and added ‘Robot’ before every mention of his name. After Robot Kipper had had a strange dream of climbing a mountain of cake, I asked if August ever had strange dreams. He said yes: “Climbing a mountain of cherries and candles.”

We built a bigger secret robot place, using two dining table chairs and his sheet from his bed. He also did more dances today: game dance, sleeping dance, reading dance…there were others.

Eventually he asked “Can I play Star Wars?” He repeated it several times as I was confused. How does he know about Star Wars? “I mean Star Walk…Star Walk, not Star Wars.” He played with Star Walk while I prepared to make apple bread. Chopping apples takes some time. Eventually I was ready and had him come over and help make it. A bit messy again. When we were done there was extra apple bits, and he stood at the counter, eating them and making yummy noises. Until he bit his tongue. Hewent and curled on the couch, but was okay. He joked about there being more than one of him: “Two of me…More of Zinnie than one.” But I’m not sure what he was doing or why.

I then made pizzas – one with olives and one with sweet potato. We ate those for lunch and I turned on the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. He watched all of it, humming along much of the time. Been too long since we’ve watched/listened to orchestras.

We went upstairs so I could finally take a shower. Hebrew, then  watched Peg + Cat. We went downstairs then I went up. He followed, joking that I’d gone down, not up: “This is down, not up…Down, farther than that…farther than the earth has ever been.” He also made a going home dance: “The going home dance for us was…”

We ate some apple bread. It tastes really good, but in adjusting the cooking times and temps to being a bread and not muffins, and for our oven, which seems hot, it didn’t cook through well. So while I put it back in to bake longer we continued with the robot game. He requested the Silverstein poem about a guy whose stomach literally talks to him, quoting the poem: “No more ice cream and sauerkraut!”

We got outside for a few minutes in the yard, then finally left on a little adventure at 2:40. We walked over past the mall and to the park in the middle of Bnei Dror, about 5 minutes to the east. As we walked he pointed to a huge plant and asked”Is that bougainvillea?” It was.

We got to the park and he started with the merry go round

– roll slide. He turned us around on that, then wandered to different toys. He was excited to find a rolly slide. There was one in Stroudsburg and before that I remember a play area in Korea. But they are far between. He went down that once, then he went down the regular slide while I went down the rolly slide. I rested at the bottom of the regular slide, but instead of sliding down on me he attacked me as germs. After awhile we switched places and I wasthe germs attacking a lizard.

We went over and looked at their free library for a few minutes. Almost all Hebrew. Some travel books (someone had gone to Madrid and Barcelona and west England) and a David Eddings book in Hebrew. A couple of English cookbooks, but no kids books. We saw a flock of birds that included a bunch of the green parakeets, then went and played tic tac toe on the turning things on the playground.

We finally headed out, first walking down to the east and looking at the little store down there that has household stuff, then looking at a sculpture and stuff. We then headed back through the park and stopped to fill his water bottle before heading home.

We got home at 4:45. Carly was home, but August first went to pull weeds along the side of the house, saying he wanted to plant his carrots there. We went in and Carly showed him the robot pajamas that Cherie had sent him. He walked on them to destroy the robot. He was upset when Carly got food for herself. He was hitting her and I had to take him for a timeout. They nursed and he was falling asleep. Got him to watch Ask the Storybots to wake back up.

Carly went over to the mall to do some grocery shopping and get diapers for some fundraising sort of thing at school. August and I went outside to move his tomato plants from the pot to spots along the fence. Planted three out there and left two in the pot. Don’t know how any of them will do though as the roots were hard to separate. While digging we found a two liter plastic bottle buried in there and he helped with watering the papayas.

Carly took him inside as I finished that so he could have some dinner. He had some sweet potatoes and fried rice, I think. She then took him up for his shower. In bed, we practiced Hebrew numbers together. He told Carly what 11 is. He was asleep about 7:30.

Photos. A big burrow: 

Slide selfie: 

Pajamas from Oma and Opa: 

He talked in his sleep again. Something about “millions”.

He came down at 7:15. Very quiet and calm. Sat at the bottom of the stairs for a minute, then came and curled up on the couch. We watched two episodes of Ask the StoryBots and ate the last of the banana bread. It started raining and got harder and harder and we watched together. He watched on his own, and declared “Clouds peeing.” We went upstairs and he helped put the stickers on all of the stars and planets. He had been taking the stickers off the paper on his own, but then got frustrated after a couple gave him troubles. It rained hard again so we watched from his bedroom window. He playe the Space app while I stuck them up. When he looked at Titan he said “Beautiful. That moon is beautiful.” Then, when I first closed the blinds and turned off all the lights he looked up and said “Whoa!…Look at it…So beautiful.”

We went downstairs and played some mandolin. I went upstairs and got a pick, and when I came down he was strumming it. He said “I was making music while you were gone.” He turned to acting out really hot steam molecules “And then we drop down into the ocean and burn it into steam.” Then was acting out regular water molecules evaporating and then coming back as rain, like in the Ask the Storybots episode.

We went outside and checked on everything as the rain had stopped. Didn’t need to water plants and August kept commenting on that. I spilled the water out of the bowl on the table and he said “The table’s peeing.”

Back in on the floor he played with the Kaleidoscope. He recited Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat when he saw the book, so we read it. Back to the kaleidoscope, he said “Next time I want the little one with colors.” He’s referring to one of the short kaleidoscopes that had beads in it (the one he got doesn’t have any). He then said “Big one for me, little one for baby.” I asked “Whose our baby‽” He replied “Me”.

Played lots of sick baby squirrel. He invented a machine that shocked germs. He asked about a StoryBots app, so we watched some of the free videos (the numbers ones) then played with the little dancing game, where you can take a photo of yourself, then have the little StoryBot version of you dance.

He switched to Toca Blocks as we went upstairs so I could take a shower:  “Then I’m gonna make the underwater sea…with jellyfish…whoa, really blue sea.” I took a shower, then we went downstairs and did more mandolin. At some point he dropped the pick inside and I showed him how to get it out. We read some Silverstein, took care of sick animals, etc. then got out some quiche for lunch and made sweet potato fries. He only ate quiche reluctantly, in a one bite of quiche, one french fry sort of deal. Although he kept trying to slip a second french fry.

We were going to do some Hebrew on paper, but he spotted the Chordana Play app on my iPad, where you try to play the piano notes along to the music, and we played that for quite awhile. There are no points or feedback, so August just had fun with it, choosing song after song. He would try to do the right hand and I’d do the left. We did switch to Hebrew and markers for awhile, but he was being rough with the markers. Making a marker blunt upset him, but then he took the next one and simply slammed it on the paper, forcing the tip back inside. I was able to fix it, but he was done with markers then.

Outside to scrape sap with stick. The tip of his long stick broke off, so then he broke the whole stick. We got another one (there’s a whole bundle of them). We took the tree things over across the street and dumped them out in the yard waste/garbage area. He had fun pushing them into the hole, but they were kind of wet so he wiped his hands on me, simultaneously asking “Do you mind?”

Back in the yard I ended up giving him a piggy back ride around the yard – something we haven’t really done. Finally, we got ready to go. We got snacks ready and took recycling with us and rode his orange bike up to the cages. Did recycling together, then started on a walk at 2:50. He requested a Zinnie walk, so we started with that until I realized he was taking us around the block to go home. So I suggested we head up towards town and go to the park on Ha-Hadarim Street that he wanted to play at yesterday. He agreed, so we headed up there.

We got to the park, and he hopped off and told another boy he wanted to look through the round window thing in the ship area. Luckily, the other boy was moving along. Went and played on the Jeep thing, which he pretended was an airplane, and that the battery was running out again. Then we went on the “spinner merry-go-round thing”. From there we spent a lot of time playing on the snakes and ladders board on the ground of the playground. He then sort of taught me the chasing game that he played with Carly, first with me chasing him around as he ran from base (100) around a pole, etc. then back to base. Then he chased me. He then headed to the swing and went on that for a few minutes until it started raining. Rained medium-hard for a couple minutes then stopped.

We then walked up to the grocery store and got cream cheese and eggs and he spotted the puddings. Haven’t gotten one there since the first couple weeks. I let him choose one.

On the way home we sang “Sentimental Wars” and when I asked what other song he wanted to sing he requested the OMD “Electricity”, so we listened to it on my phone. Along the way he ate more apple and a Larabar.

We were home at 4:25. I had suggested he do TodoMath, which he hasn’t done in quite some time, and he totally got into it, doing actual math and figuring things out. I was trying to do some dishes, but had to keep helping and coming over when he wanted me to see something. I asked a few times if he needed to use the bathroom, but he said he was just dancing to the music in the app. Eventually he admitted needed to go. He declared what he was doing a pee dance, then showed me the difference between that and his germ dance, then also made up a machine dance.

Carly got home and they did some TodoMath and nursed, then he switched to the Chordana app again. Carly got him some food – sweet mashed potatoes on one side and fried rice on the other, but he didn’t eat much, even though he’d wanted the potatoes for lunch but I couldn’t find them. He showed off all his dances for Carly, and added some new ones – at some point he added a nursing dance.

We all went outside for a long time. Carly and I had tea out there while he played with his sticks, etc. Carly was trying to remember the Hebrew numbers and he helped her out. He knows 1 to 10 quite well and is working on the teens. He came inside because he wanted to do more Hebrew letters. Did that for a couple minutes, then remembered the Hangeul app he used to use and switched to that. Kind of funny to see that again.

Read a little Shel Silverstein and he ate a little dinner. He found the pudding in the fridge at some point but couldn’t have it since he hadn’t really eaten dinner. Carly took him up for a shower, but at first he tried insisting on me doing it, which is a change. He said because I would let him get the bed wet – we’ve been joking that Carly doesn’t want him to. But he was fine with Carly once they got up. They read some Bob Books, then we went in and showed her the stars. Had them lay down and I turned off the lights.

They tried for sleep, but he came down at 7:50. As he came down he told me “Dada. I’m gonna wake up at 11:17.” We finished reading Every Thing On It, then went back up with Carly and was asleep before 8:40.