Author: Ryan/Dada

I started waking him up at 7:30. He did not want to wake up. I eventually carried him downstairs and he lay on the couch for a few minutes. Ate his vitamins but didn’t say anything. He watched one Ollie and Moon. On the couch he asked me “What’s negatives and positives?” I asked what kind of negative and positive and he said “In your brain…emotions.” Before we left he had a complaint about school, about how he doesn’t get to do as much as the other kids: “They make stuff out of clay that gets fired faster than mine.” I explained this was because they did a lot of it before he started going, and then he missed glazing his teacup when we left early one day. I told him he could ask one of the teachers about when he’d get to glaze something.

We left at 8:15. At one point we heard a dog barking repeatedly, “every second”, so August meowed every second. And then talked about how it was less annoying than barking, right? This was a conversation we had once, where I said meowing sounded better to me because it isn’t as loud and it sounds nicer.

At school we asked about the glazing and found out one of the other kids had glazed his teacup for him. He was happy about that. He wasn’t entirely thrilled with me leaving, but for the first time this week I left without him having to be held or yelling. He was standing close to Anna in the clay area.

I picked him up at 1. He gave me a “scribble paper” he had drawn and a nice flower. We decided to leave the flower in his cubby and pick it up after the tea party. As we walked out he said to it: “See you after tea party!” As we were out front of the classroom Myriam walked by and he loudly said “Hey, Ms. Myriam!” He so seldom goes out of his way to say hi to people, so still notable.

We walked up to outside the library and sat at what’s becoming our regular outdoor bench. He did a science experiment, ate a bunch of his fruit, and lay on the bench across from me for a little rest. I asked if he was a baby squirrel, then a couple minutes later when I asked about going into the library he said “Yes, dada squirrel.” He told me that today he had played with Reia with the light blocks. He said there were no challenges on the playground today. Anna had told him to do something else. He had done some yesterday though. After another question he said “Ehh. Let’s go inside. I’m a sleepy baby squirrel.”

In the library he played on the stuffed animals. He asked “What’s ‘serious’?” Then asked for examples and added “I like examples. Why?” We played the squirrel game for awhile, with me just sitting next to his pillows and refilling his nut supply when he asked me to while trying to read a little of my book.

Then took him back to the tea party. He got to sit next to Ms. Michelle. I don’t know who that is though. We got August his short straw, which I’d brought for him today, and I went and sat in the staff room. He first came in after the tea party about 20 minutes later. Got him to go back out to play, but then Omri and Ori then came in. Marion then had them sitting down for a meeting, and it was clear August was going to keep getting distracted by me, so we headed out. He said to Marion “Happy three days off!” And they had a conversation about how it was only two days. But later I realized that his ‘free’ and ‘three’ sound similar and he seemed to say that she had misunderstood him, as he does call them ‘free days from preschool’.

As we walked out he said “By plants! Bye preschool!” We paused to look at the baby falcons (we’ve noticed they look like they might be flying, or close to flying, as they keep flapping their wings) and he said “Hey chickity chicks!”

We went to the entrance to the library and had a snack again. Shary introduced me to Leslie, who used to work in a preschool and is another parent volunteer. Didn’t learn anything more than that. August was talking about Uijeongbu and we pretended to ride the u-line. In the library we did a little reading of the Magic Treehouse book.

After the bell at 3 we walked over to Carly’s classroom. He was singing the bell to students. He told Carly “I’m ringing the bell for all the students but not the teachers…I was ringing the bell for your student.”

The plan was to go swimming with Carly. I had brought her suit, but mine wasn’t in the bag. Got him changed, then we all walked over to the pool. On the way we found Omri and her mom and siblings sitting at a picnic table by the cafeteria and eating pizza. They asked us to join them. August ate two pieces of pizza and he and Omri had a lot of fun.

Then on to the pool. Omri came with us while her mom got changed. Started out well enough. Bar was also there, and so was Ms. Myriam. August didn’t believe it was her at first, until she was close. But then he kept getting splashed. Then the worst one: A kid jumped into the pool on the steps, right towards August. That made a big splash of water go all over him. The wettest he has been. We had to get him out of the pool and took several minutes to calm him down. He was furious.

We packed up and he calmed down, but then as we left he lamented “Why were we at the pool for just like a second?” We all walked home, but he was having problems with mean words and hurting plants along the way. At our park I had to switch with Carly and let her push him. He then had a meltdown with Carly upstairs at home. A few minutes later he came down and apologized.

He spotted his vitamins and said “Let’s take extra and see what happens to me! An experiment!” We told him we would not do medical experiments on him. We then taught Carly the teasing game, or at least how it was supposed to be played. We ate dinner, then he went outside with Carly and was happy wasting water and was then raking, sort of, with the broom with a stick though the handle.

I took him up for his bath and he spent a long time in there. He was then in the bedroom with Carly, and was practicing tying knots with a red and a white piece of yarn that came from somewhere. He came downstairs and she took a shower. We read The Chicken Problem and Lulu Witch. He ate several peanut butter and crackers, then finished the apple and grapes from his lunch. I went to get him more food, and saw a lizard chasing a white moth outside our windows. He told me “You’re distracted.” But then we saw the lizard actually catch and eat the moth.

Headed back upstairs, and he finally fell asleep close to 10.

He was up at 7:05. I came up and he quietly said “Turn off the air conditioner.” We went downstairs and he lay on the couch for a few minutes. He realized he had wet clothes, although they were pretty dry now. He said he hadn’t had an accident: “I think it was from when I was the plants.” He watched some Ollie and Moon before we left. At school I was able to leave him about 8:45. We had done the dance from schedule to benches outside to looking to see what was available. At one point August said “Tell Ms. Anna to come out.” But she was dealing with multiple kids a she was helping them make mugs in the pottery area. We got a chair for him next to her, but then when I tried to leave he slid on the floor and made it hard for me to pick him up: “I’m heavy!” She held on to him as I left and he told me “You can’t do it!” But he quieted down as soon as I was gone.

I stayed in the library and he ran in a little before 10:30 saying “Come with us!” She read a story called Bubble Trouble for story time, then August chose another school-themed book to checkout: If You Take a Mouse to School. Then Ilana blew bubbles for them out on the lawn and they had a blast runnng all over the lawn popping bubbles.

I walked with him back to school. The other kids sat on the floor and started looking at their books. I took August’s book out but he dismissively said “Why did you take it out? I don’t want to look at it myself!” He let me take it back out a minute later though and actually read it.

I then had my first stint of volunteering, working with August and Emmitt to make a page about how to not spill your tea. It went well, although the conversation part stretched their attention spans. But that was partly because I hadn’t anticipated being in the same room with all the other kids, and how many would come over to us and be distracting. Then, Emmitt started running over to the rug and back. August would of course follow. We did some of our talking over on the rug. They came up with good ideas for how to not spill, and we took some photos of them holding teacups with the handles turned to the side. I then showed them drawing on the iPad with the Pencil. Just introduced it for now, and the two of them and Nicholas played around for a few minutes. I then left them to be babies, I think it was, with Selma and headed back to the library.

I went back to pick him up at 1. We went to the library, and he played in the stuffed animals. He wanted me to a bird “Please? With sugar on top?” I had us move outside as he wasn’t treating it like a library, more like his own play area. We went out to one of the benches on the path across the lawn. He told me “These are the times I went to the bathroom at preschool: before snack, in the middle of lunch with Hanako.”

He was then in elementary school and told me “Doing science experiments is the most exciting thing you can do in elementary school classes.” “Like mixing chemicals.” He said it was more exciting than book reading or writing. He did a few experiments, using random ingredients that I would pretend to give him. First he made electrical slime, that would shock you if you touched it, then “I’m going to make a fertilizer that makes plants grow at the speed of sound!” He had a suit that he wore the entire time that would protect him from the chemicals and the electricity.

At about 2:15 I took him over to his yoga class. we were a little early, so we sat and read the mouse book. Yaya showed up a couple minutes later, well before the class. He had apparently gone ahead on his own. When the previous class left Ms. Stacy invited them in. He was reluctant to go in, but when it came to Anna closing the door he went in. When they came out he and Selma came and talked to me. She told me that they did ABC poses. August added “And we did lion breaths.” Selma the said to August “That was fun, August.”

We walked back to PKB and had a snack on the bench outside the classroom. There is a plastic yellow chair next to the bench that is wet almost every single day. No obvious source of the water, so August has been speculating about it. My best guess is a sprinkler pops up and gets it. He’s said maybe a leaking roof or pipe. Anyway, he went in and asked Ms. Anna.

We then went up to the classroom for Hebrew class. Myriam clearly wasn’t there. He walked around the room, loudly asking “Ms. Miyriam? Where are you!?” When she came up he and the two girls (Maya and Ledu) hid under the tables. He let me sit out in the hall, doing some work. I went in when they got booklets. She was teaching them body parts and possessives today, as in ‘My nose’. She said that earlier he had been the first to understand and find ‘black’ in the classroom. She said he could draw a self-portrait on the cover, and had him go and study his face in the mirror. He listed what he saw and said cheeks, and chin and eyebrows and hair and nostrils…nose was actually the last thing he said. Maya asked what ‘nostrils’ were and Myriam had August explain to her: “Two holes that you use to breathe.” He then drew his self-portraits, giving it lots and lots of hair as he likes his hair. It turned out really well.

After class we went downstairs and he used the bathroom in PKB. Then walked to Carly’s classroom and he sang Down by the Bay and did a monster science experiment the way. In her classroom he ate a little of her leftover pasta from lunch, then she put him in the green screen she had set up for the video her students are making. They went downstairs to play with the hula hoops for a few minutes, but got distracted by Mandy who let them play with some science things – one was something that you held and a red liquid went up a tube.

August and I then headed to activity class and Carly headed home. Class went fine except for near the end when he fell of a cushion thing and said he wanted to go home. Made it to the end though. When he was picking up the half-sphere berry looking things, he held one near each side of his head and managed to give himself a good tickle with them. That was pretty funny.

We hadn’t taken the car, so we had the whole way to walk home. Stopped at the park near there though and played for about 30 minutes. He was being grumpy when kids wanted to go through the tube that he uses as his space station. With his science experiments he first made a baby, then made a cushion for a couch.

Finally headed home about 6:20. He was saying he hates dogs, and I explained that was probably overdoing it, and we discussed the spectrum of words from love to hate. He then put it in his own words and did a pretty clear job of reciting a spectrum of words. He was still being pretty negative and I told him he could choose to be happier. He said he couldn’t, that that wasn’t possible, and I told him if he kept talking like that I was going to sic Oma on him.

We were home at 6:50. He had picked a lovely little white flower on the way, and as we went in the yard he said “Wilting flower, you can make it!” But then he picked up a tree thing in the yard, and a few seconds later realized he had lost the flower. He must have dropped it down through the cracks. He was so frustrated by that: “But we picked the best flower ever.” He wanted to pick a flower from the yard, but I wouldn’t let him do it. Carly said he could though. He told one of us “I will just spit on you.” Back inside Carly wanted to give him a raspberry on his tummy, which he doesn’t like anymore, but he agreed to let her do one more ppppt on his tummy for the rest of his life.

She took him up for a bath. He told Carly what hypothermia was. Played in the bath for a long time. We got him ready for bed and I left them at 8:40. He wasn’t falling asleep though so I was up before 9. We read If You Take a Mouse to School and Where is My Emalee Green? I left them again about 9:15. He was asleep before 9:40.

He was up exactly at 7. As I went up he asked “Is this a free day of preschool?” I said yes and he asked why and I started to say “Because it’s my bi-“ And he said “MY birthday.”

He watched two Ollie and Moon stories and said he was done watching. A minute later he saw that his iPad had restarted. He called it something like “bad iPad” and said he was being mean to the iPad I said to be nice, because he should think of the iPad as being sick and we need to be extra nice to things and people when they’re sick. He asked “When can you NOT be nice to someone?” I said well when someone else is being mean to you or another person. But I explained you can just ignore them – so you’re not being mean to them either, just not nice. But then I didn’t want him to think you should just ignore when someone else was getting bullied or hurt so I talked about when you or a teacher should intervene.

That led to him wanting to practice, particularly the line “You have five seconds to be nice and walk away!” Of course, it turned into a big game for the day, escalating to him using his rockets to intervene and stop mean people, up to: “I can defeat any war!” “I’m so powerful I can turned you into a dead fish that’s just bones!”

My parents and brother left a skype message saying happy birthday, so we then skyped with them for about 10 minutes. August wanted to get going to Haifa though, so it was short. August suggested a couple of experiments: he wanted to leave out his leftover Cheerios to find out how stale they would be when we came back. I explained we’ve already done that one and it would be a waste of Cheerios. He also described hanging string by both ends from the side of a table with tape and putting wooden beads on it to see how strong the string is: “like an arch.” Carly sent a photo of a barn owl that had decided to sleep by the middle school office. She suggested we come see it on our way, but August said “I don’t want to take time out of our Haifa trip.” We ended up driving about 8:40. On our way out the door he suggested Haifa would be cool, and clarified, without me asking, “I didn’t mean cool like a lot of interesting things, I meant cool weather.” Impressed that he could explain the different meanings and also that he knew it would be cooler. Perhaps Carly had said something about the weather last time we went.

Listened to music on the way up. Right at the end he started throwing Cheerios around the car because he was bored. He was pretty proud of that. The street we usually try to park on was closed, so we got shuffled up this other street, but it worked out as we found parking at the end of a dead end up a hill. Walked to Madatech and were soon inside, parking the bike, going to the bathroom, then up to science.

Spent a little time in the energy room, mainly with the thing you can spin to see how gas and petroleum separates from rock. Then upstairs to the microscope and telescope room: He read Venus, Neptune, Sun, Uranus, Mars, and Mercury on his own. in the teeth room we discussed Ph. Then to the planets room where we did moon phases and our weights on planets. Big bubbles in the chemistry room and August pointed out that there are no scents left in the scent area. A rather sad display. In the magic room I did the bed of nails and August then played with the floating ball trick. Got some funny shots of him breathing in the “fresh air” as it blew his hair everywhere. Then the optical illusions room where we saw some optical illusions we haven’t seen before. And the air room, where we launched the bottles with air and played with the other beach ball Bernoulli’s principle thing and a couple of the other displays.

We went outside and had a snack at 11:40, and our cookies. August had us sit on the Pi bench. He sat on a 6. Then the outside area – Archimedes screw, the pulleys, and then a long time with the globe you can sit in, then using a lever people can lift you. A woman with two kids came, and we took turns lifting the woman, or her and I lifting the kids, etc. August and I went up to the sun that you sit in and spin. He then found little beads of rubber on the ground.

We discussed leavin and how it would be our last time here for awhile. He said he didn’t want to go to the da Vinci room. Once back inside though he did want the sound room. He spent a lot of time watching the binary machine and played with a couple of the other exhibits. Mainly he sat on the bench for the stereo sound thing and started making rhythms using the drum stick sort of thing. Maybe he needs a drum set… He also sang “do re mi” into the oscilloscope.

Headed back downstairs, but then he decided to play in the play area, first with the blue blocks. He wanted to make sculptures, and he asked “Do you think I should knock it down like we did in Korea?” He knocked one down on me and I taught him ‘avalanche’. When he finished with that he went into the water area, which was now empty. He played around on his own for a few minutes and I was able to read. But then he wanted to make a water system on the big board thing at the end. He would direct me where to put the faucets, etc. as it is too splashy for him. Made a pretty impressive system by the time we left.

We went to the bathroom. Along the way he told me “When I was sleeping mama thought I was too excited about the science center and coffee shop cuz I was being squirrley and stuff.” Back out, he decided he wasn’t done yet. He wanted the rest of the play area, where we walked through the tall grass stuff and did the hall of mirrors. He climbed in the big dodecahedron thing and called it a bird nest. He called it “birdie Philadelphia”. I had mentioned the Alice in Wonderland hall of mirrors area at the children’s museum there when we were doing the mirrors area.

We finally left at 1:45. We walked up the hill (we had his bike) to go eat at a place called Lucca that has waffles. Sadly, it was closed. We went a little further up the hill to Rai. August wanted the last outside booth and proceeded to play with tree bits on the ground. We ordered a focaccia pizza thing with cheese and a kind of pork. I got a cappuccino and August got a hot chocolate. We read a few chapters of Magic Treehouse #18. Not as stressful as the Titanic book, at least not yet. August asked “Isn’t it crazy I get chocolat ham (hot chocolate) when it’s not winter?” The food came. It also had olives and cucumber with it. Where we were August could look over a low wall at a walkway below, He was talking/yelling at some dogs that went by. He and I were then playing the mean game, where I would act as the mean person and he would stop me. Usually first with a verbal warning. But he’d want me to do meaner and meaner things, so then he was more like a superhero stopping me from destroying the planet or universe.

We went inside and used the bathroom. Posters on the wall in Arabic, and the bathroom doors were decorated with comics in Arabic. Hadn’t been sure since the menus were in Hebrew, although the pork option had suggested it wasn’t a Jewish place. So likely Arab Christian. Anyway, we got walking and to the car and were driving at 3:25.

He played some Todo Math and then some of the Earth app, but then started falling asleep. Got upset when I tried to wake him up. But I got his attention back when I started saying I could destroy the universe with my machine once he was asleep. So he was zapping my machines. Managed to stay awak all the way home and were were home after 4:30.

At home there was a white-throated kingfisher out on the power lines, making its call over and over. First time I’ve seen one. August was acting crazy, and Carly took him to the store at 5. They walked over there. She at the security guard asked him his name. “August Zinnie Zinn…and some other names.” They were back at 6. They went outside for a few minutes, then he came inside to the bathroom. He then had a grocery bag and was spinning things in it. Mo
re hyper from him. She ok him upstairs to calm down.

Back downstairs he ate some curry, then he and I went up to the bedroom for the snail nest and birdie game. Then in to the bathroom and bathtub where we did the peeing game. Got his to switch to playing with bubbles and he had me be Leonardo da Vinci inventing an agitation machine (like a washing machine).

I washed his hair, then we went in to the other room and blow dried his hair. Carly took over. He had just found a Halls cough drop on the ground and started to unwrap it. I told Carly he had it, and she took it away from him. He was shattered. I think because he was so close to getting to taste it. He was inconsolable. Carly agreed to let him have a couple of Smarties or whatever they were, which she had gotten at the store for her students for something (August had had some earlier). He agreed, but he wasn’t impressed. When we were trying to convince him that it would have been too strong for him and he wouldn’t like it he wailed “I didn’t even get a chance to try it!” And he talked about how much he loves lemon things, and chewy lemon candy. Although I don’t know if he’s ever had any.

We got him calmed down I left them at 8:20. He was asleep pretty quickly.

He slept on my side of bed, so I slept in the middle. He was up at 7:25. He mentioned again how he’s run out of good shows to watch, so I found something new on Netflix. The first one looked promising, but is just in Arabic, but then we found the Ollie and Moon Show. He watched the first 11 minute episode. Funny, and with a global/friends focus. And a snail as a character. He asked what ‘energized’ meant, then asked what not energized is. So I taught him ‘lethargic’. He asked “What’s the god of weather called? Zeus? That throws the lightning bolts?” He then asked who the god of the sea is, and I could just name Neptune. I blanked on the Greek name.

We got walking about 8. He spent much of the time talking about dozens or hundreds of fans drying zucchini bread. At preschool he didn’t want the extra cookie I had brought to make him feel better. We sat outside at the elementary school bench for a bit. Inside we found the goggles picture of Ms. Stacy he had mentioned – it was the picture for the schedule, with her and the students pretending to make goggles with their fingers. He didn’t want to let me go, but so much better than yesterday. I handed him to Anna inside, and this time he just loudly said to her “Let’s go for a walk in the yard! Let’s go for a walk outside!” I left at 8:45.

As I was walking up the stairs I saw him leaving with Anna and Emmitt for a walk to the garden. I later found out that they picked a bunch of carrots (white, orange, and purple today) and more strawberries. When I came to pick him up at 1 he was playing with a big ball of clay, hitting it with a rolling pin. He looked up and was surprised and asked how I got there so soon. He showed me a picture that Omri had given to him. He was happy about that. Anna gave me a thumbs up, and August and I headed out.

We went upstairs and sat at a picnic table outside the elementary office. He said “Ms Leron had the first shirt I’ve ever seen. It makes me want to wear it.” He said because of the colors, at least purple and pink. We heard the bell and he sand along, then said “At preschool they asked me to times to sing the school bell two times.” And “Library time is my nother best time cuz I get to see you.” We saw Bat-Chen and she talked to us for a minute.

We then went to the library and he returned the Perlutsky book and Zita. We went and sat out in the lobby and had a snack. Debbie, the registrar, came and talked to us. She was really nice to him. Knows how to talk to kids. She asked him about preschool and he told her “Preschool is the funnest class.” She asked who his teachers are and he named everyone except Marion and Anna – Vicky, Myriam, Ms. H, and probably someone else. She said she wished she could go to preschool instead of work. After she left he said “Why does she want to go to preschool and not work?” Ada then came by, and she talked to us. She talked a little about the intern moving in downstairs and how she wants to start setting up the apartment for her.

We had a couple tic tacs, then went in the library. We got a couple books, then read them on beanbag chairs: This Book Just Ate My Dog! and Magic Treehouse #17: Tonight on the Titanic. This one proved too scary for August. I had to go to the end and show him how it ended, then he was still covering his ears at point and I skipped several pages. We put it back and got #18 and a book called Has Anyone Seen My Emily Greene? We read the latter, then checked both out. Went to the bathroom after the bell rang, then Carly found us and we headed to the preschool.

Carly stayed with him during coding class. He ate pretty much every last bit of food we had with us. And he let Carly sit outside the door. I was next door, meeting with Anna and Marion about how I can help with tea party book project. Still seems odd that the simple answer isn’t ‘help with the kids in free time while a teacher pulls one or two away at a time to work on the project’. Instead, they’re having me do some of the pull out to have kids work on their pages for the book. But I get to start with August and Emmitt and work on a page about how to not spill at the tea party. They showed me a video of the class discussion they had about tea parties, and August sat their patiently with his hand up for about 4 minutes waiting to be called on. That was amazing to see, since at home it takes about 10 seconds of me and Carly talking before he’s shouting “I’m not getting any attention!”

Anyway, afterwards Carly headed back to her classroom. August played with some horseshoe magnets in PKA, figuring out what they attach to.

We then walked home. We stopped to see what food was left and I found a picture of his name in his lunch box. I was confused at first, but then figured it must have come from coding class and Ms. Karen. He claimed Bat-Chen had done it. He sang Down by the Bay most of the way home, making up verse after verse. a few of them rhymed: “stick eating a brick” “goose drinking some juice”.

We were home at 4:40. He asked “Dada, what’s Poseidon?” I realized that’s the name I couldn’t remember this morning. He was then singing a snippet of a song about Poseidon. Seemed to be just enough to make me think it was a real song, and he said it was from music class. We were then trying to list the students in his class alphabetically. We realized the first 5 letters are all covered: August, Blanka, Candy, Devin, Emmitt. We were most of the way through the alphabet when Carly got home at 5:20. He was then asking her to list her students’ names.

He made up ‘weframium’: “another substance to make houses out of that is stronger than concrete.” We he dinner (curry) inside, then a cookie. He then went outside with Carly. Took him up for a long bath. We were talking about field trips and we were kids from his class. He was then asking “who’s Ms. Amelia? Who’s Ms. H? Who’s Ms. Seechin?”

We went downstairs, and I was carrying the iPad. We were listening to the Jimi Hendrix album that just came out, and he said “I’m going down the stairs the rhythm of the music.” We read a couple chapters of Magic Treehouse #18. Then had energy balls, then mango. He almost spilled the mango juice on the couch, intentionally, when he was done. He was upset when I snatched it out of his hands.

Upstairs, he was a little upset it was my birthday and not his tomorrow: “I’m mixing a potion to make it my birthday too!” “In my birthday I go around the world in FIVE seconds…it’s funner” “My power comes from every dam in the universe.” “When it’s daytime, remember to say happy birthday.”

He found his little car (from Bat-Chen) next to the bed and I told him how I was going to sleep a couple nights ago and found out I was lying on it.  Carly spotted a mosquito, so we had a mosquito hunt. He reminded us of the bug zapper light. Left them just before 9. he was down at 9:20 for water bottle. She tried again with him. Got quiet around 9:40. But she said he didn’t fall asleep until about 10.

He woke up right at 7. Downstairs he lay on the couch and I got his vitamins and some banana bread. I got his iPad and saw that he had last watched some Puffin Rock. He must have watched it while I was taking a shower or before I was up sometime. He didn’t think it was yesterday though. He watched some more until I got us going.

The preschool protests started as soon as I started to put clothes on him, but I was able to get him out the door right at 7:40. A good walk to school, then at his classroom things went as expected. A little interest in the toys, but then he wanted to sit at all of the benches outside. He ate some of the nut treats, then Anna came out to us on the bench. He got really upset and sad and was clutching to me. As I held him he said “Squeeze me tighter. Why are you not squeezing me tight enough?” He mumbled “I hate you” a few times, either to me or Anna. It was a difficult one. I handed him to her at 8:25. As I left him he yelled “You stupid thingie!” Harder too because he had more language to talk about when I could pick him up and why and everything. I hung around up by the elementary school office for a minute and I think he quieted down pretty quickly, although I wasn’t sure if they went for a walk or went inside the building. She was going to call me when he’d had enough for the day.

I worked in the library, and that call came a few minutes after 1. I picked him up about 1:10. He was sitting on Anna’s lap, facing her, out in the snack area. He wasn’t crying, but was clearly sad. They had been talking about the things he was going to tell me about. He had picked a big white carrot and some strawberries with Anna after I left. August later told me they were going to have a special strawberry snack for the kids before meeting, but forgot. He also made a “special mug”. It was the third technique the kids were learning to make mugs. When August told me about how he did it he whispered, but it was a long explanation involving cardboard and plastic and a snake of clay. Before we left he asked Anna if he could take home a round piece of blue plastic he had found on the ground as one of his treasures. It appeared to be a sort of bottle cap. And he asked for a ball of clay she said he could take home. She said yes to both, and he told me the clay was the scraps from making his mug.

We got going, and headed up to the library. He played inside the entrance to the library with the stuffed animals as we talked more, and he returned a couple of books (78-Story Treehouse and the Magic Treehouse). He talked about a photo he saw of Ms. Stacy wearing goggles – think it was the family photo with Emmitt in the preschool.

As we hung out in the ‘cafe’ area of the library building, he spotted Carly walking across the grass, away from us and wanted to follow her. We lost her after she went in the auditorium/art building. He and I looked around at some of the art, then she showed up – she had been getting a costume for a video her students are doing.

A couple minutes with her, then she left and he had me pick him up so he could touch all the pottery shapes on the wall, then he played with the dirt in the big pot of porcelain and metal flowers outside.

We got walking and were home after 2:30. He was talking to me the whole way home but it was hard to respond as it was so hot. At home he told me there was one song in morning meeting and hummed it: Down by the Bay – but he told me not a silly version like me because you can’t be silly at school. The silly line at school seems to be one he’s trying to figure out, because on the one had he seems disappointed that he can’t be sillier at school (they’re always wanting kids to be quiet, etc.), but on the other hand he doesn’t like the silliness of the boys he says are silly because they are too loud and scary (today he told me several times about how the boys were in trouble for throwing all the plastic animals down from the treehouse).

We talked about his music class and he said there was “Chickity polka dots tails song, bunny rabbit song, scarecrow song, a whale and snake song, a country song, and a language game.” He seemed to know what he was talking about, because he sang good chunks of at least the first three through the rest of the day. I was trying to find the first song on YouTube, but only came across Down by the Bay, and he really liked this version: https://youtu.be/uSq6dLrdh4M. “Why do I feel safe with you around than without you and mama?”

While at school he had told me that other people had better lunches because they had cookies in their lunch. Normally I wouldn’t take the bait, but I wanted to continue this positive day at school thing and suggested we could find a healthy cookie recipe at home. And we had extra time. As it turned out, we had just enough ingredients to make chocolate chip, banana, and peanut butter cookies: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/vegan-egg-free-chocolate-chip-peanut-butter-and-banana-cookies Substituting almond butter for peanut butter.

So we were making those when Carly got home at 4:30. We finished making cookies, then had rice and curry for dinner outside. I taught him how to negotiate when he wanted a cookie. I started by saying he needed 40 more bites, he said 1. He was a good negotiator and got me down to 5. He chose a cookie, then ate a little more than half before handing it to me and saying “I can’t finish my cookie because I’m full.”

He was asking her about her students. And he asks her to name the off so he can choose a name. Or today he said “I’m one of your students that’s Japanese…Today I’m named sunburn.” He had a special chair that was taller than her classroom. Carly and I were talking and Carly got him to go break up the roots of the dead broccoli plant and water plants. He went down the slide and was singing a Friday song, which I think may have been from music class.

Inside he got his clay from school wet, then we read a bit of Oliver and the Seawigs. August was then a student (Lillian) and misbehaving. He got distracted by taping a piece of paper to the table. After several pieces I realized he was was using the tape dispenser all on his own.

I took him up to the bath. He wanted the Julius Jr. song with “Knock Knock” in it. We listened to a lot of Julius Jr. songs but couldn’t find it. Then it was more peeing game with Hanako peeing during nap time. Apparently this really happened, as he says she had to change clothes during rest time once.

We went downstairs and he was singing going to the bathroom songs with Carly. He sang a song about two people going  to the bathroom and taking up the two stalls and another person pees her pants because she can’t wait. He said it was Omri and it actually happened.

For some reason, a discussion of synesthesia came up again and he claimed that  4 is turquoise, 7 is red, 10 is black, 1 is yellow, 2 is grey, 3 is yellow also, 4 is green. We discussed ‘fair’ and played a fair game with the kids wanting a fair amount of sparkles.

I carried him up and Carly got him ready. I left them right at 9 and he was soon asleep.

He woke up at 6:55. Another good night sleeping between us. He had sat up once in the middle of the night and sat there with his head back, rocking back and forth, sleeping sitting up. Finally looked around and then threw himself down on the blanket against Carly’s back. He got up and headed downstairs to Carly. I read in bed for awhile. When I went downstairs they were outside. He unfortunately knocked over a pot and it cracked.

He asked for Coyote Peterson and ate Cheerios with milk and mango while he watched some Brave Wilderness outside. Inside he saw Carly with her purse. He asked “Can I have some question time and nursing time before you go?” When she reminded him she wasn’t going to work he said “Oh! Then can I have a LOT of question time?”

He played with the salad spinner and was using it as a centrifuge. The idea of a centrifuge had come up at the pool yesterday when he had been spinning. Carly had then emailed Cassie and Jeff to ask what a centrifuge was used for. Anyway, he was drawing blood from me and then putting it in the centrifuge so he could then test it. I joked that Oma could buy him his first centrifuge on Amazon and that he could learn how to draw blood with Tia Cassie this summer.

Inside they read Go, Dog, Go and ended up being silly, andding the words “poopy” and “throw-ups” all over. August told me “Mama scratched me on the foot!” And then did a lot of whining. I finished reading the book with him.

Carly went up and did some working. August and I put up a nail where the embroidered bird picture had fallen. We then put some more poison out for ants that were coming in the other end of the sliding door this time. And then we played with the magnet set. He was making sort of magnet sculptures, connecting magnets to the side of the metal end table. He had had enough of letting mama work so he went up and got her. Unfortunately, he was then not being nice to her and she left and I kept him with me. He had a major meltdown. After I got him calmed down and he apologized, they got out a book of science experiments. When I went to take a shower they were testing the strength of hairs. And when I came back down they had been making paper airplanes. August was now taping one to the floor. They were also talking about a cheese holiday. I didn’t understand.

They then made slime outside, then I got him ready to go to the pool. All went fine until he went to put on his shoes. He said “Wait! My scratch! I can’t go!” And he backed away from the door. We tried to convince him it was fine. Carly filled a pot of water and had him put his foot in it to show it was okay. But then he argued it would get worse.

I got him to come with me, reluctantly, and we talked about just playing at the playground at school if he didn’t like the water. We got there, and stopped at the couches to have some banana carrot bread before going in. Omri and her family came out of the pool – we had just missed them. Omri gave August a sesame cookie thing. He did a good job eating most of it. I tried it and it wasn’t very good and then he said he’d had enough.

In at the pool, he let me get in and he sat on the edge and played with the watering can. Good idea of Carly’s to take that to the pool yesterday. But after awhile he was getting his legs and feet and swimsuit all wet and he agreed to get in the pool. Put on his floaties and got him in. He said the pool was a ton of fun and more fun than the playground. Junyeok was at the pool. Talked to him just a bit. Mainly August wanted to just stay away from the other kids and not get splashed. He did do some of his centrifuging with the watering can.

We thought the pool closed at 2, but we got out at 2:20 and there was no sign the lifeguard was closing it anytime soon. August started talking about immunizations and diseases and he invented “Rayjeon. It’s the worst disease ever.” We went and changed his clothes, then went to the nature reserve. Walked around there for awhile and played in the hut. August mainly wanted to take snails off of plants, etc. and put them other places though. I let him do it a bit but then said that was enough. We stopped and used the parabolic sound reflectors, then August wanted to go play darts.

He never really played the darts much, but we spent a lot of time in the area by the middle school office. Had some snack, he threw some leaves down from the railing, I played darts, he told me “pretend you’re in a dance” competition and he danced himself (he said it was from the creative movement class: “But it’s not really a winning game”). He also talked about his ion substance and silicone gel: “If you go to the bottom of a lake or a river or a pool of ion you’ll find silicon gel.”

We headed home well after 3. He was in a good mode until we started to get in the car and he first poked his head in the front and felt the air vents. He doesn’t like that we get all the air. He said things like “Stupid car” and wanted a new one. He got even whinier in the back seat: “Just plug me I to the wall and electrocute me…chop me up…just kill me.” I don’t even know where he comes up with language like that.

At home he cheered up after I handed him to Carly. They skyped Cherie and Chuck, or actually used FaceTime this time. I mixed up water drink and he told them about it: “sand but it’s not sand”. He then played with water in the pots. Took them outside, and he sat in the water and got nice and soaked. Took his clothes off and had naked time. Was then out with Carly doing plants. Brought in some flowers to me and said “Happy birthday, dada!” But then said “Nah nah nah nah nah we had a popcorn cracker!” He also got flowers, but then got sad when he stepped on his. I gave him mine and he was very happy.

He and Carly then did a science experiment with Carly about surface tension. It involved putting different cleaners on cardboard and then seeing how water drops respond on them. When he washed his hands at the end he said “I want to make sure there’s no deadly things on my hands, even things that make me dead over time.” He was also asking about drinking too much water, so we watched a video on water poisoning: https://youtu.be/t1nwSuWr_q8

He and Carly then did more experiments: taping paper to the edge of the table to see how it curled with and against the grain, and getting different types of paper wet and then putting them in the oven to see if they’d curl. He wanted to do more, and Carly said they could do more tomorrow. He said “But tomorrow’s not my free day…Mama, I need more free days, like 11 or 12.” Then got really sad and we both had to comfort him and talk about how preschool can be fun.

He was definitely looking quite tired too. Carly took him up to his bath, then I read Magic School Bus in the Earth. He had said he wanted a science book, so we looked at our science books and he said he wanted one with a character, so that’s what he chose. He was hungry though and we then went downstairs and got crackers and peanut butter.

I realized we hadn’t skyped with my parents this weekend, so we looked to see if they were online. At first it said they weren’t, so we left them a video message. August was all talkative, telling them about his science experiments. But then it did say they were online so we called them. Now he was quiet. Just skyped for a few minutes, as August said he thought he was ready for sleep. Up in bed he went crazy saying “Hello everybody, I just wanted to say that I peed in the pool!” in a funny voice. He had said this at the pool as well, and said that Carly let him say it. She explained that what happened was that Omri’s little brother was just peeing in the drain area of the pool. And Carly explained it was okay since it went to the filter. August was then asking what happened if people pooped or peed in the pool itself. For the pee she said you wouldn’t know, as it isn’t like someone would say “Hey everybody, I just want
to say I peed in the pool!” So August of course found that funny.

I left him and Carly at 8:40 and he was asleep within 10 minutes.

He woke up at 7:10 as I was reading in bed. Downstairs he and Carly ended up doing math problems in Excel, taking turns typing in problems. I got him his vitamins. The chocolate omega-3 ones are totally melted. We scraped one out on a spoon. Put the rest of the packs in the fridge. I went and got my iPad to listen to music, but he wanted to play a music game. I set it up for him, but he first wanted to sweep the bottom of the black chair with his hands: “But I haven’t cleaned it for days! Or weeks!” He’s been cleaning it for weeks, off and on. Played with Musyc for awhile. He was then excited about my idea of a list of our house mysteries, things that have already gone missing: my purple metal coffee mug, a blue hand towel, my swimsuit, a green potato peeler, the lowercase z stamp. He made up the case of the missing iPad, claiming we used to have four. Carly got him some Cheerios and he ran around excited that he had his hand fan and Cheerios. He used “In the meantime…” while talking to Carly.

He wanted to watch Brave Wilderness and while Carly set it up he sang “Coyote Peterson is an animal scientists / He always tries to get pinched.” He watched a monitor lizard episode. A Volvo ad came on and he said “Don’t skip it! I like the music!” Then said “It’s for cars…Pretty useful. If we ever need to buy a new car we could go to that store.”

I made them some eggs and cheese and he ate that. There were tiny ants on the counter again so he and I investigated, using flashlights, and followed them outside. Really difficult to spot. We found where they were coming from – the broken spot in the tile at the base of the one step outside – and put down some poison. Our assault on the ants coming in the sliding door went really well and so I think we have the ant problem figured out. Seems like we have an ant season, a drain fly season, and a mosquito season.

They then got ready to go. As they left August said to me “Hope you had fun ant investigating!” And then “Yep! Teamwork!” They left just before 11. I got some Sabeel work in, and they were back after 12. They shared a veggie burger, then he and I made a squirrel nest and played one winter. He asked Carly “What are sattlelites for?” She got him dressed for the pool and put sunscreen on him. When she went upstairs he was trying to wipe himself off using Bluie. And he asked her “Ms. Althauser, why do we have to do this?”

They left about 1:20 and were back right before 4. I would have liked to go swimming, but since I didn’t get much work done Thursday or Friday it was good to catch up a bit.

They had seen Omri at the pool. Omri had been excited and had apparently told her mom that August would be there. Think that had come from me actually telling Omri on Friday morning that we might be at the pool that afternoon. Of course, we hadn’t ended up going. August hadn’t taken his floaties off at all. And his name was now Rainedon. Didn’t catch where that came from.

They went outside for awhile and I kept working. He was getting grumpy hungry and they came in and he had some apple and crackers and peanut butter. He then helped her make energy balls. He took the pits out of the dates and also helped make the balls. I then helped him play sink or float in the kitchen, then he took the parts outside and was pouring water through them.

I was trying to get him to go do recycling with me. Took awhile. He started spinning in the living room. And spinning and spinning. He would say something like “More optical illusion!”

I finally got him to head out with me. We went up to recycling. I did most of it, while he explored all the little bits of garbage he found on the ground: screws and sticks and pieces of wire. A guy came up on his three-wheeled bike/cart and had some yard waste to throw out. I was talking to August, but he thought I was talking to him and he pointed me to the plastic bins for my bags of plastic. I got August’s attention and we headed over. We had left August’s bike sitting over there, and I realized the guy was checking it out, testing the steering and bell. I politely called to him. couldn’t remember the plural possessive, but could at least say “excuse me, bicycle” in Hebrew and point to us. He got the idea and left it alone.

August and I finished up (he did glass, as usual) and then went on the playground. Only two other adults and two kids when we got there, as August pointed out. We played on the exercise equipment. August told me which machine to do next, then he went around showing how he could exercise on each machine, except for the one that is just too big for him and he can’t reach at all. Then over to the play structure and we played the digestion game. August pointed out we were the only ones in the park. Rather odd, really, as it was 7pm and cool enough after a really hot day, and after the sabbath was over. Would have thought the families would be coming out. August also sang hickory dickory dock, a few verses of it.

When we were done we got on the bike and went for a walk. He went down the back path, then past our house and towards the pedestrian bridge. Up the Holly block, then up a second block, then circled around to the left and back south through the park to home. He was talking about getting extra exercise.

We were home at 7:30. Carly had made the curry dish while we were gone. They read the Berenstain Bears book in Spanish. Carly had cut her finger a little on a can and had gone to get a bandaid as it was still bleeding a bit. August said “Hope it’s fine.” While reading they had a discussion of past tense: “Stinged” versus “stung”. He’s resisted saying them the right way, even when he’s shown interest in the past. This time he seemed interested in getting it right. He then said “Here’s another way of saying ‘squeezed’: ‘smooshed’.” Then a discussion of synonyms.

Carly took him up for bath. I went up and washed him. He was rinsing himself today, which was a nice development. He was also not opposed to me cleaning behind his ears – a spot that has always felt dirty/dry but he’s resisted. In fact, he spent a lot of time doing it himself. We went and he used the blow dryer on his hands. I got him in his pajamas and brushed his teeth, then Carly took over at 9. He was asleep soon after.

He slept between us for a third (at least) night in a row. He slept all the way through the last couple nights. Tonight he did wake up sometime around 5, but it was because he was really stuffy. Carly got him back to sleep. A little before I got up I heard him loudly laugh and say in his sleep “…mashed potatoes and rocket ships in it.”

He woke up at at 6:50. Brought him down and he was fine. But then he started to get upset when his vitamins weren’t the right shape (the chocolate one came out) and I thought it might be a tough day. He calmed down went over and sat on the stool by the plant that is now taller than him. He was then asking interesting questions: “How old do you get to be?” “Are humans lucky to see so many colors?” “What travels the speed of sound?”

He watched a little Llama Llama and ate banana bread and Cheerios. But the second I started putting his clothes on he got upset about me leaving him at preschool. “Pick me up after lunch!” was his first request of the day. He wanted me to promise to pick him up early. I told him we should talk to Anna first.

We had started getting ready early, but it took longer, so I decided to take the car instead so we could get there before the bus kids for once. Still didn’t manage that as we walked in right at 8. Negotiations began right away. Anna was more involved in trying to get him to stay today. I first sat down with him and played with the cube blocks with Blanka. She was asking him to play with her and she wanted to show him how she made a house thing. He got involved in that and I stayed for several minutes, but he wouldn’t hear of me leaving.

We spent three big stints sitting out on the benches. After the first Anna tried to get him doing something with her. He liked the idea of glazing his tea cup and other things. But when he was sitting with her and glazing his tea cup he still came running after me. We sat outside, moving over to the elemetary school bench for awhile. There was a plant falling over in tire planter and asked me to “Stable that plant.” He wouldn’t explain anything about why he didn’t want me to leave. But finally he came up with a counter plan. He would let me go if I promised to just stay at the library and I would come back after snack to check in – at 10am. We went in and he started to tell Anna the plan, but then he just wouldn’t let me go again. He was holding tight to my fingers or legs. I finally got him to stop with that.

I then got him involved in cleaning up all the blocks before morning meeting. He wanted to do robot cleanup and so we did that, and Emmitt said he was a claw truck doing the clean up. I still couldn’t leave at the start of the meeting though. He refused to hold hands or stay with Anna anytime I tried that. Finally, we went back out to the bench by the door again. Finally, I got him to more directly state what he was afraid of: “You might go home.” He has asked me to not go to mama’s classroom (where I was on Friday when he went to the library) and home (where I went on Wednesday to get swim stuff), but this was the first that he’s directly said that that was what was bothering him. I promised him I wouldn’t and that I’d stay in the library. He said I don’t believe you.”

Soon after that I gave up and we headed home. We stopped at the bench by the guard station and he ate his banana bread, then we tried to leave. They asked if I had a leaving pass. They’ve never asked for that before. Went to the elementary school office and got one.

We walked home, leaving the car for Carly as it was supposed to get over 100 today. We were home 10:30 or so. We made some tropical punch water drink, then he was pretending to be a lobster. He wanted me to be Coyote Peterson, experimenting to see under what conditions the lobster would pinch, and then how hard. Straight out of the episode we had watched. I was letting him pinch and made the mistake of letting him pinch my right hand on the little finger side – where I had broken it. Not horrible, but seemed much more sore than it should be. He was then a snail. Then wanted another animal idea.

We discussed me going to school and teaching/helping out. He really liked the idea and instantly picked up on how three teachers would be better than two because of more attention: “And if another teacher like Karen was in there it would be four. And that would be EVEN BETTER!”

We watched Brave Wilderness for more ideas. Skunk was next. When Coyote Peterson talked about stinking for days, August said “I know how to make something that will make it go away in one day. You mix baking powder, baking soda, flubong, alcohol, wood chips, block of iPads…” After a few minutes he said “We watched-ed enough for me to get a new idea.” Now he was a skunk; “Bother me and you’ll get a FULL DOSE!”

He went to the bathroom and sang “today is Friday, Friday vacuum cleaner, all the hungry children come and eat it up…” He then told me “Bad words is funny!” We read some more of the Magic Treehouse. We ate lunch and he watched Llama Llama. He looked on Amazon with me and we found a nice iPad case to get for his iPad this summer (although he doesn’t know we’ll probably get a new iPad as well). He had some difficulties and time outs of sorts as he kept saying ‘stupid’ to bother me, and at one point brought the tree things in from outside.

Watched some more Llama Llama and ate Peanut butter and crackers. He talked about his concerns about preschool: “No one takes care of me” “Give me not much love.” “They don’t let me lick spatulas.” “Attention” We played the smoocharoo and headbutt games. We then started playing Musyc. He needed to go to the bathroom and told me “Dada, delete the shapes. I don’t want to miss your music.” He then sang a pretty good song: “Go to the bathroom twice a day, go to the bathroom twice a week…” He used all of his time words: month, year, hour, minute, second. Back with Musyc he said “That’s energetic!”

Had more crackers and peanut butter and talked about how he doesn’t playing with some of the boys: “Emmitt, Leonard, Junyeok…They laugh at everything…and they say poopy.” He talked about how they are funny but he doesn’t like their kind of funny. He was saying stupid again, so I took him upstairs for a consequence. We then played on the bed and he burrowed in the pillows. It was his shell at first and he was a snail. I was a birdie: “Hey little birdie who only eats fish.” Carly was home at 3:10. He told her we had come up for a consequence. We played more snail, then went downstairs.

We discussed what had happened at school today with Carly. He said he wasn’t a student, just a kid. He said he’s not a student until year two of preschool. Pointing at Carly’s clothes he told her “Your small, not-very-strong bladder is there.”

I went up for a rest. When I came down he was eating Cheerios and mango. They went outside and were working and playing with the hose. I did dishes. He spilled some dirt on the fake grass. He came in all wet and I took him up to get changed. He told me he deserves a timeout. We sat on the couch upstairs and he said he wanted two chances to apologize to mama. He went downstairs. The first one was a yelled “Sorry!” But after another minute he said a nice full sentence to her.

He ate spaghetti (left over from Carly’s lunch) for dinner, then watched a Brave Wilderness about sea cucumbers. He was getting wild so Carly went upstairs. We played the virus and bacteria game, infecting each other and being immune systems, etc. He asked me “How did I learn enshumgedorflug? Because my brain gets smarter and smarter?” He then wanted to play Human Body on his iPad.

Carly came down and spotted a praying mantis out on the outside of one of our kitchen windows. She went out to get a better look. It was windy today (and up to 42 or 43 celcius). Suddenly she heard the birds squawking in the tree. Then she heard crashi
ng. A branch, about a meter long, fell out of the tree, along with about 10 of the spikey green fruit things – which we’ve never actually seen on the ground. They fell right next to her.

August and I came out and stood at a safe distance and looked at one of them. Back inside he sat on the couch and said “Criss cross apple sauce, fishies in the pond”. Ilana, the librarian says that.

Carly took him up for his bath. Back downstairs he had an energy ball. He was then practicing saying “Oh my gosh!” phrases: “Oh my gosh! I thought our house didn’t exist…we didn’t have a glass table to set my water bottle on.”

Had some banana and carrot bread, then we finished the Magic Treehouse book. He made up a word, “Earsight”. I took him up to bed and got him brushed and dressed. I sang to him but he wanted Carly to fall asleep. I’d heard enough of the whiney-ness today so didn’t object too much. I got Carly, and he was asleep about 9:20.

He was up at 7:15. He watched a little Sarah and Duck. We got ready quickly and drove to the school. We walked to the preschool, then the trouble started. I got him playing with clay, but when I said goodbye and got to the door he jumped up and said “Oh no! Dada!” We sat on the bench and had a tic tac, then I got him back in playing with clay again with Reia, making a sculpture sticking all the tools into the clay. But again, when I left he chased out after me. Third time I thought I could leave he was playing with the gears with Reia. This time I was halfway up the elementary school stairs and he came out the door and running after me.

I went back in and ended up staying through morning meeting. He stood, but was getting involved in meeting, then was excited when they called blue and green first at the end – both colors he was wearing. After meeting, I was able to leave him with Anna. She wasn’t holding him, and he sounded upset, but he didn’t chase after me.

I then saw him at library time. He ran in and said “Dada! Come with us!” Ilana read a book called Little Grunt and the Big Egg. He then went and checked out a book called Preschool to the Rescue. He wanted me to walk him back, which I expected. Back at the classroom he put the book in the cubby. He doesn’t like looking at books if we can’t read them, unlike most of the other kids who were sitting and looking at their books. He asked me “Can you stay for a minute?” I ended up reading the book to him, but then couldn’t leave after that. Things didn’t go well. We ended up sitting on the covered bench. Ms. Karen came out and he tried to run away from her, even though she was the one he made apple crumble with before library time (it is for the tea party tomorrow). She went back in, then Anna finally came out. She hadn’t tried much with August, which was understandable as Marion was gone. And so was Myriam. There were subs, but Anna was stretched thin. August didn’t seem to be recovering, and after a minute she said we could choose to do what we wanted. So we headed home.

Got here right before noon. He lay on the floor and held a balloon for awhile. We made water drink and ate some of his lunch stuff. He watched some Sarah and Duck, then several of the How the Body Works videos. We discussed pollution, and he asked me “Dada, what would happen if you missed your meeting with Maaian?” I told him how the meeting was about how I could spend more time in his classroom. He asked “Because you miss me?”

We had forgotten his bracelet this morning, but now he wore it as we drove back to school, leaving at 2:45. I dropped him off with Carly in her classroom. I went and met with Maaian and Marion and Anna. I just wanted to hear the idea. Maaian gave me the option of teaching a little project, three days a week, on praying mantises. And gave me a couple books to borrow. I thought it was a rather strange option at the time, but later was even less excited about it. If the idea is to figure out how to get parents involved in the classroom, having me actually be a teacher and do something that required extensive planning doesn’t seem like the right approach.

I went back and checked in on August and Carly. As I went all the kids from the Hebrew class asked where August was. August and Carly were playing school He said “My name is Icon and she is Ms. Althauser.” I walked home, leaving the car, and they were going to play hide and seek. They found new toys for August: there are hula hoops hanging up downstairs at the middle school, and they brought the big Jenga sort of blocks into her classroom. Oh, and they also played some chess. They played move-your-pieces-wherever-you-want chess and also started playing checkers. She said that he’s on his best behavior when he is playing in her classroom as he wants to be like her students, so when she says “My students would…” or “My students wouldn’t…” he really listens.

They were back before 5:40. He ate a bunch – soup and noodles. I started laundry. They then read Preschool to the Rescue. He spent a lot of time playing in the sink. All the dishes were washed and in the drying rack, so they ended up back in the sink. He drank warm water out of his straw bowl, and then used a straw to drink out of a bowl. We then made a new batch of iced tea. I was listing the kinds of tea we had and said spearmint tea. He heard that and said “Experiment tea!” So we decided to combine flavors and see what happened. We combined spearmint green tea, winter tea, white moon, and lemon and ginger.

I started my research on praying mantises with a Brave Wilderness video. August watched with me, then we watched a video on lobsters and one on bloodworms. he said “I have tin can foil in me.” after he found out bloodworms have copper in them. “So I’m an animal that sees very differently from every other animal.”

I took him upstairs to his bath. Bladder and rectum game. I washed his hair. Then dried it with the hair dryer. We discussed electricity. We went downstairs after 8:30. He was using all sorts of lightning bolts and stuff to destroy Carly, who was the impossible mud puddle from the Preschool to the Rescue book.

She took him up and got him ready for bed. I left them at 9.

When I went to bed last night he was sleeping sideways where my pillow should go. I squeezed in and kept trying to turn him around, but he would turn back. Carly woke up and saw how he was sleeping and grabbed him and straightened him out between us. Then, at some point in the night I heard him loudly say something in his sleep about carbon dioxide.

He was up at 6:45. I went up and he had me carry him down, then he lay on me for a few minutes before moving to the couch on his own. Lay there for a few minutes and agreed to oatmeal. Made sure I was bringing him a vitamin too. As I was making oatmeal he told me that he was now Blanka. He said it was going to confuse the teachers when there were two Blankas. He sat at the table and ate his oatmeal.

He watched Llama Llama while at the table. At the end he told me “I heard ‘hate’ in this episode” (Llama had had a tantrum in the store and said he hated shopping.) “You get a consequence for letting me watch it.” I started to say “But it was actually teaching you…” And he interjected with “No buts!” (Which is what Llama’s mom says to him when he doesn’t want to clean up his mess.)

He was humming and singing “Always” by Erasure as we got ready. He said he wanted to drive to school today. After he spilled the cards and we picked them up, we listened to the song, and then he was okay with walking. Left right at 8:40.

As we walked in, Nicholas, Blanka, Selma, and Omri all said hi or called to him. I told August he should work on actually answering. He wasn’t sure what to do (and rejected playing with the gear things, which weren’t being used), so we looked at the schedule first. It said they had music today. He asked where I would be and I said the library, but then he asked if I’d be there all day and not go to mama’s classroom. I said, well I might go to the store. Wrong thing to say as he got upset and ran out. We sat on the bench and ate some nut treats and talked. When he was feeling better we went back in. Something was happening up in the treehouse area and I pointed it out. He said “I can get a better look”. He was off and I said bye and headed out.

I walked straight home today, then after lunch walked over to the mall. Got different omega-3 vitamins for August, got a hair cut, went to Delta and got him more underwear, then went to Tiv Taam and got a few things.

When I picked him up just before 2:50 he was crying again. They said it had been hard for him since 2:30. I saw some big drawing things hanging from the ceiling and asked if he had done part of that. He said “I was doing funner stuff than just writing.” Then listed “Bikes, buckets, pogo sticks, making water bottles, explosions to make water, making a treat dispenser…” I got that he’d been over on the Dion playground. Anna said he’d been doing challenges on the big playground with Selma, Blanka, and Derin. She’d say things like “Sit on every blue chair on the playground.” He told me they hadn’t had music time. It turns out they had had carrot cake with frosting for Ms. Vicky’s birthday.

For rest time he told me “I snuck to PKA and played with all the toys and maked a mess, then to PKC…kindergarten…high school…” “This one will be true…I snuck up on the roof. I used my rockets to break the roof. Then…” He then said he had been on Blanka’s bed before saying he’d been on everyone’s bed. He repeated the Blanka part later in the day, so it seemed the most true. He said he played with Selma most today, and that at the Dion playground he had gotten to ride a tricycle that he said was really easy for him to pedal and steer.

He was feeling better but still rejected the pool. He was still concerned about his scraped knees, although I told him they were pretty well healed. He noted I had gone to the store when he told me not too. I told him I had run home to get the swim stuff and then also gone to the store. He wasn’t upset, as I’d gotten a yummy protein bar thing, then on the way home we had some string cheese and he was happy about that as well.

We stopped at the drinking fountain on the way out just after 3. A woman who I don’t really know, but might be the other PKA teacher or an assistant, stopped to tell me how beautiful August is and that he should be in magazines. August then noticed that the big big small patter on his bracelet didn’t go all the way around – I’d had to alter it to make it fit his wrist. He was a little upset. He also saw Grace again, and this time noticed her shirt, and asked why everyone wore shirts with letters on them. Yesterday he had seen grace and admired her big goofy green plastic sunglass things.

We started walking home. He spotted a plant and jumped off and picked a small green tomato off of a random tomato plant near the big roundabout. We paused along the way and had string cheese, which he was very excited about. There was a house alarm going off on the way and he was curious about that until it stopped. And he noticed a tilted light cover on a streetlight.

We were home at 3:40. He shook his head like he likes to do in the mirror and said “My body just does it.” We then started making banana carrot bread. Carly got home as we started and he ran to her and asked her “What did you teach your students?” He and I made the banana carrot bread and got it in the oven. He then talked about Ms. Michelle – who he said was a teacher in PKA. He went outside with Carly and they had school time. I spied on them discussing what a democracy is. He played with the hose and came in with wet hands at 6:25. I had done the dishes.

When the bread was ready and cooled a bit we tried some. He then had noodles and stirfry. We read My Preschool then went up to his bath. He said “I don’t like to play with Junyeok. Why’s he always mad?” “One time at preschool we got into a fight scratching, laser beaming, polo sticking…” That wording was inspired by one of the Treehouse books.

After his bath we used the blow dryer on his hands. Went downstairs and read 3 chapters of Maguc Tree House #15: Hour of the Olympics. In the book they use the word ‘tunic’ and August thought I meant ‘too-sic’, which is the word that Dion, the play ball teacher, uses for ‘bottom’.

Carly was messaging with Megan in India, who recently found out she’ll be having a boy. So August was suggesting names, like “Concrete building son” and “Baby bBoy August Junior”. There were a lot more. I told him about his dream last night where he talked about carbon dioxide. He was then being a plant and wanting me to breathe on him: “More carbon dioxide. Ahh, that’s better. Now I can do my growing.”

Carly took him up and got him ready for bed. I left them at 9 and he was soon asleep.