Author: Ryan/Dada

He woke up at 7:30, just as I was going up to wake him up. Downstairs he found a one shekel coin on the couch. A few minutes later the first thing he said to me was “Dada, can you put this coin in my treasure box?” He watched Max and Ruby while I got ready to go and had dry Cheerios. I brought down a couple of new shirts. I compared them to the white shirt he’s been wearing and they were no bigger. So I put the green shirt from Thatcher on him, but then realized the sleeves were long. August really liked it though. It was soft and he also thought he looked like a big kid in it. So I let him wear it. He also took his bracelet and wore it the whole day.

We were walking right at 8. He sang a “How did you fix my bracelet?” song. I explained that I had transferred it to a new string. Dropping him off at preschool was smooth, just before 8:30. He was happy to see Anna and she commented on his shirt. He later said she and Ms. Karen commented on his bracelet, but Ms. Marion didn’t. He wanted to look at the calendar before I left, but was then okay.

I went to the library for a bit and did some work, then walked home, sometime after 9. As I walked past the preschool, I spotted him over by the bushes pulling some berries or leaves off. He then ran under the cover of the play structure and I couldn’t see him.

I worked at home – all Sabeel today – then walked back to school at 2:30. I sat down for just a minute ended the elementary building, then took my headphones off and realized August was crying. He came out before I could go in. I didn’t think anyone had spotted me, but the door was open so maybe another kid told him I was there. He said he had just been upset for a little while. Held him, and after a couple minutes went inside. He told me he had made a piece of art – a chocolate chip cookie factory – and was looking around for it. Anna told me that it had really started during rest time. He would start to get upset if he was alone or bored. They could redirect him and he would be okay for awhile. But I think at the end, when he knew it was time to get ready to go, it was too much.

Still looking for the picture, we went over to the art atelier area in PKA. He said that was where he made his picture. We found them and he explained his picture to me, and that the cookies had honey and brown sugar and a little white sugar.

He said he didn’t want to go to coding class, but we went out to the big kid playground for a few minutes. He ate a couple of the nut treats (almost out of those) and he felt better. He told me he ate bread, apple, and cucumber for snack: “I’ll show you how how long the stick of cucumber was…” He marked it out on the playground: about 12 feet long. We went up to coding class and he had fun there. He called me over to choose which game he should play, but otherwise played on his own. He also brought me the picture he drew at the beginning. He had folded it and told me it was like an invitation.

At the end he told me he had invented an “Unstickifier” that unstuck all kinds of things: glue, stickers, magnets. Carly showed up as we were still in the room. We headed home. Slightly long, as August kept stopping along the way. Near the house he found a long bean pod sort of thing that he was able to open up and examine. We was calling Carly Ms. Seechin, one of the PKC teachers, and he was Lana

We were home at 4:30. He sang the full coffee song for Carly. They went outside and I heard them playing red light, green light. I got him soup and stirfry noodles for dinner. He ate a good amount and then had the mango popsicle we had frozen a few days ago. Ended up getting the mittens, then putting it in a cup and using a spoon. There was more mango juice left, so we froze another popsicle when he was done.

He accidentally popped a balloon. Then Carly mentioned my parents babysitting when we are in Chelan. He didn’t like that idea. I taught him the game ‘Would you rather?’  He wasn’t amused by it at first, but started to warm up to it a bit, as we asked questions like “Would you rather eat a spider, or a slug?”

I took him up to his bath. He played and played. Listened to Erasure. Carly took over after awhile. They came downstairs and we were asking him about school. He also had the puppet time today. Carly asked him if he asked any questions at school and he said no, and seemed to think that the other kids didn’t ask questions either. Carly said there should be question time and he liked that idea: “Can you be the teacher and say ‘Okay class, it’s time to ask questions about time?’” He then asked “How fast does time travel?” He was then asking questions of Carly, and it turned into a big Q and A session, and the balloons were other students. At one point he told Carly “You’re a good, good teacher.” Carly said thank you, but then he added “I turned you into a good, good teacher.” One of the students was a Duplo he grabbed. He said the student’s name was “Duplo McMarshmallow”.

Carly went up for a shower and I made him crackers and peanut butter. He ate them in the squirrel nest I built, then we did one hibernating season and ate nuts. We went upstairs at 8:20. Brushed his teeth and I read My Preschool twice. He really likes the book. I left them before 8:55, but heard him for quite awhile. He was talking to Carly about how the kids don’t play with him. He was saying how he doesn’t like the games the boys play. And how the kids won’t let him play with the gears. He did say he plays kitchen with the girls sometimes. Think it was closer to 9:30 by the time he fell asleep.

Carly woke him up after 7. I heard a lot of laughter and when they came down he said “Watch out, I’m throwing up everywhere!” “I threw up on the Christmas tree!”

Carly headed to work. I got him some dry Cheerios. He wanted a fort and we first made one out of just pillows, like our old Flynne dens. He wanted it bigger though, so we made a squirrel den using the chairs and blankets and played the nut gathering and hibernating game. We then read Kiss Good Night in the fort.

He spilled out the balloons and I ended up blowing up about a dozen of them to play with. The coffee maker was sitting on the floor from when Carly brought it back from school on Friday. He put a balloon on top of it, but then started singing a song about coffee that followed its journey from becoming a liquid in the coffee maker, into your mouth, through your body, out the penis, into the toilet, through the sewer system, through the waste treatment plant, and then back to our house. He kept adding more stops along the way, all on his own, like mouth and kidneys.

We somehow got on the subject of how many feet animals have (I think he made a monster with three legs on the fridge). He was then “I’m a tricapod…I’m a tonapod.” Lots of feet. He watched Max and Ruby, then accidentally broke his bracelet. Luckily, they didn’t fly everywhere and we set it aside so I could fix it later. I took a shower and he watched on the bed. When I was done with my shower I heard him calling to me. I went in and he said “Dada, look at me! I have nursings!” He had Carly’s bra wrapped around him. Yesterday he had been joking about actually growing “nursings”. Downstairs he got meta: “How much times does people think?…What things are thinking?” Sang the coffee song again. Went to the bathroom and was crouching and being silly and somehow got poop on the seat.

Shmuel came over just as we were getting ready to leave. He had brought us a couple of plants to match the other ones he had given us. We said we could plant them later, but he said he might have time to do it. They were planted by the time we got back. As we got in the car, August said “We should talk to him about the black stuff from the refrigerator…we don’t want it to happen again.” He also noticed how dirty the sidewalk still ws, despite his spraying yesterday. I suggested he needed a broom too. So he invented the “Hosebroom”.

We left at 10:30 . I’d packed three of the energy balls, so he did an “experiment” to see how messy they were in the car. They were fine, but had just come out of the freezer.

August wanted to go to the beach first, so I agreed to that. We got to Jaffa and parked in our normal lot. Just a couple blocks to the south end of Alma Beach. A small beach here, and the tide looked high. Carried the bike down and found a spot. Put on sunscreen and mainly played burying his feet and legs, then him breaking out. The tide was still coming in though. One wave got pretty close and I remarked it might fill up the hole I’d dug next. But a couple minutes later the next big one came and almost got us. August jumped up and scampered back. We moved several feet back and thought we were safe, but the next big one came even further. August stood up and I picked him up to ‘save’ him.

One more move back, so he was sitting on the bottom of the sea wall with his feet in the sand. Kept playing. The tide chased everyone else who had been on the sand away at the end of the beach. We were fine though until the little white dog came sniffing around. August has been more scared of dogs recently. Don’t know why it has come back/gotten worse. No dog incidents. He’d been doing okay with Nellie and had started counting non-barking dogs, but he’s been really hesitant as-of-late. There was a small black dog running around on the beach when we got there and he almost didn’t want to go down on the sand at all. Got him on the sand though and then he was okay watching it and a larger dog running back and forth on the beach, as they stayed away from us.

But the white dog came close a couple times and he was not having it. No barking and no licking. It never touched him. It came back again when August was sitting on his bike to go. I petted it, but he just started yelling and getting really upset. I had to pick it up and hand it to the owners to hold while I got us going.

We got up the stairs and walked to across the roundabout to Cafe Bistro Rogette. We had a seat outside in the shade. Went in and used the bathroom first, then ordered a pizza with mushrooms and cheese, a cappuccino for me, and a forest berry milkshake. Not sure what ‘milkshake’ meant, as it often means smoothie here. Haven’t seen a proper milkshake. But the other flavor options were vanilla and chocolate. When the waiter brought the drink it looked brownish, and August realized it was chocolate. The best mixup ever, in his opinion.

We read a chapter of Oliver and the Seawigs, which is looking really good. Then the pizza came and we ate. He didn’t eat a lot, but joined me in eating the green olives. I broke pieces off for him and he ate probably two olives worth. He was pretending to have a chocolate egg that I couldn’t have and held out his hand. I pretended to eat the pretend egg he was pretending to hold and he let out the loudest scream I think I’ve ever heard. Luckily we were outside, but I still expressed my displeasure with that.

It was mid-70s, but August said was cold, so put on his light blue coat. A few minutes later he said he was still cold. Didn’t have pants with us, so he used the extra shirt as a blanket for his legs. We talked about Palestinians and the government and immigration and being luck and inequality.

We went inside to pay and August had fun playing along the bar. He was reluctant to leave, and one of the waiters patted him on the head as he played there and I got an awesome shot of it.

We left after 2. We walked to the parks to the southwest, where we’d been with Carly before. I didn’t remember a playground, but thought it was worth a shot. And also a nice walk. We wandered through Hamuze’on Garden, past the theatre, and through Abrasha Park. Found a little fountain and he played there, and smashed a nice big olive on the sidewalk. I talked about doing more walking, and he said “Yeah! A dada and Zinnie adventure! Without mama…so we can explore some more.”

We kept walking and tried to follow signs for a bathroom that took us across to square by St. Peter’s Church. No luck, but we went to the ones that we’d used when we were in the are with Carly. It was 2:40. Then walked back to the car, stopping to admire a handmade motorbike/sidecar, and then looking at a metalworking shop.

Got driving about 4. Listened to Story Pirates and finished episode 20. We heard “Peter McNurney” listed in the credits. He got excited and pointed it out. It’s a name he’s been repeating recently and asking about, but we had no idea where it was from. At least I didn’t. Tried to keep him awake with music, but he fell asleep from 4:21 to 4:45.

Got home and woke him up and took him in to Carly. She told us about her day and I made a rice thing and mushrooms for his lunches and got his lunch together for tomorrow. He played with the balloons and one accidentally popped. He liked it and wanted to pop all of. He then sang the “…bowl of jelly…Santa’s belly” lines from “My Christmas Amoeba”. Don’t know when we listened to that last, and don’t remember him singing it before.

He ate an energy ball and his hands were messy. Washed them in the kitchen sink, then spent a lot of time playing in it. When he was done I took him up to his bath. On the toilet he sang a “Oliver and the Seawigs” song. Carly took over – they played red light green light and Simon says (which he pronounces funny). They were back down at 7:45 and he turned on all the lights. He played Tinybop Earth. I made myself some tea, then another fort, which he reques
ted. We did a couple of squirrel winters – lots of nuts and seeds talk, and our winters, where we pretended to sleep and wake up for nuts, were really long and quiet. Nice calming activity for him, I think.

We also read another chapter of Oliver and the Seawigs. I took him upstairs and we read a few Frog and Toad stories. Brushed his teeth, but wasn’t happy when he reached over and squeezed the toothpaste in my hand and toothpaste went everywhere. Luckily not on the bed, but had to clean the iPad. He talked about how he liked to sleep up on the bed with me, but wanted to fall asleep with mama. He said he’d “try to remember” to climb up with me. Carly came up and I left them at 9:40 and he was asleep after about 10 minutes.

He was up at 7:20. We had to go to the equivalent of the DMV and renew our licenses, which we have to do every 6 months. We got going and left the house by 7:30. He and I looked at the activity book in the car, identifying differences. He spotted some dark clouds and said “I think it’s gonna rain in Jordan again.” Snacked on some of the last of the nut treats on the way.

We were meeting another teacher and her family at the office they were going to. Last night we had asked why that office, and not the one I had gone to but hadn’t gotten an answer. Traffic was heavy and we got there just after 8 and parked. They had gotten there before us and found out it was the wrong place. They gave us a new address over the phone, so we got back in the car and drove there. It was the office I had been to before.

Things went smoothly there. Their daughter is Maya, who is a year older than August and in PKA. She is also in his Hebrew class and is the one who always asked me how my hand was doing. They started playing iPad together and caught fish in Toca Nature. They then switched to Animal Hospital but just watched the intro before we were already done. We then went and spent a few minutes in a little coffee shop buried in the building. Maya got a grape juice and shared it with August. I got a cappuccino and a cheese turnover that I put in the backpack for the ride home.

We had to actually go pay for our licenses at the post office, so we drove there, having some of the turnover on the way. I told August how we used to get apple turnovers in Chelan and we used his time machine to go back and get one from the Judy Jane Bakery. He got “one of everything” they had in the store.

We parked and Carly headed to the post office and I took him to the bathroom in town. We then met her at the post office. Just took another minute, then we headed home.

We were home at 10. I had August give Carly her bracelet, then the present that was actually more for both of them; the Spirograph thing, the robot magnets, the rest of the beads, and a couple bars of chocolate. They ‘snuck’ some chocolate, then he and I did some of the Spirograph. Carly was teaching August the word “evasive” again. Despite all the presents and chocolate, a few minutes later I heard him say “I hate mother’s day. It’s not for kids.” Think he was hungry, and he had noodles and stir fry for lunch.

I vacuumed out the car while they were out in the yard, then he came and helped me wash it. He had control of the hose the whole time and we gave Skoda Mama a good wash for Mother’s Day.

Carly then took him to school with her to deliver the white table. They were gone a long, long time. They got back at 3:25. I did a lot of reading, mainly the Echo Spring book. August asked “Did you miss me?” And he told me “We goed on the new high school swing that were not supposed to swing on. And we swinged on it.” He just loves Carly’s classroom. They practiced reading. He knew cat, wall, tree, trunk, grass, and Earth. They cleaned and recycled. She did computer work while he drew. And he played with a balloon. It was his idea to put it in a bag to bring it home so it wouldn’t blow away. And he threw leaves around to confuse the students. And spent a long time in the bathroom.

We all ate some soup outside. Back inside he sat on the balloon until it popped. We got ready to walk into town and go to a coffee shop. I had the idea of making the bracelet for August at the coffee shop. August was looking at the beads and said his favorite colors are”lavender, peach, pink, and purple…and turquoise.”

On the walk up a couple stopped and asked for directions to the post office. We got to Malkin, about 4:30, and found out they were closing. They serve until 4. August was quite upset by this – he was very set on hot chocolate. But I checked the menu online and Gutale had hot chocolate. We walked over there, seeing Abigail and Daria’s mom on the way, and sat in the comfy chairs outside the front door. August got his hot chocolate and Carly and I each got a cappuccino. And we got an order of the cauliflower and mozzarella latkes with a quinoa salad to share. August and I made his bracelet. And we read some of the Home Sweet Motel book I’d bought on the iPad. He seemed to like it well enough.

We left at 5:50. I took a photo of their bracelets together on their wrists and he said “I don’t think anyone else does this for Mother’s Day.”

We stopped at the grocery store so Carly could get ingredients for an energy balls recipe she’d found. Then headed home. He wanted to stop and play so we left Carly at 6:15 at the Snakes and Ladders playground and she continued on home.

August told me “Here’s how you make energy balls…extra sugar, extra honey, extra pollen, extra petals, extra stems, extra roots, extra rectums, extra atoms…” We played a little shop, then he had me climb up on top of the structure. A girl holding a stuffed dog came and stuck her tongue out at us. She talked to me in Hebrew. I understood some things about her stuffed dog. Then she ran off, came back a minute later, and started talking in English. Her mom came over and I met her. The girl’s name is Lori and her mom is Limore.

August ended up playing with Lori, and a bit later a boy, Ben, who she knows from the gan, joined them. The three of them played hide and seek and did a lot of running around. And went in the spinning thing. At first when they started to run off a bit August told me “Stay right here.” When I was talking to Limore too much, even though he was playing, he stopped a few times and told me “You’re not giving me enough attention.”

Things they mentioned we should check out:

Book: Shark in the Park

Song Steve and Maggie English TV

Show: Gruffalo’s Child

Finally, August was open to going home and seeing if Carly was done with the energy balls and they were leaving as well. We were home at 7:30. He ate an energy ball (oats, chocolate, dates, honey, etc.) and then made monsters on the fridge. After the energy ball he said “Now I’m energetic!” Then he ate noodles and stirfry and asked me “Dada, what’s good about force?” “Like move water bottles? And close refrigerators?”

I took him up for his bath. A lot of playing, then washed his hair. A lot of whimpering. When done we blow-dried his hair and hands. we got him ready for bed and I left them at 8:50. He was asleep pretty quickly.

He woke up at 6:20. Carly came in and got him back to sleep. He then woke up at 7:20, right after me, and asked me to carry him down. I took him down, and they went out for a bit. They came back in and were looking up how broccoli grows. I started some laundry. He was then using a bit of clay to put it on textured things and see the texture. Then he pretended it was a finger puppet and started to chant “Na na na na na, I have a finger puppet and yooouuuu don’t.” I joked he couldn’t go to school anymore as he clearly learned that there. He had some pizza, then I got him another piece. I then went up and took a shower. They went out and put one more coat of paint on the white table. He came in and had some naked time.

We did some Duplos. A spiral, then he asked for the “Zoo mat we used in Korea.” We started on a zoo. He asked Carly “Mama, can you teach me something?…Why you running out of things you know?” Carly drove into Netanya to get a set of shelves from a teacher that is moving. She then took them to her classroom. When she started driving she must have listened to music, as the music we were listening to stopped. We only have the one device plan for Apple Music. He was upset by this. I switched to some music on Bandcamp, but he wasn’t too happy with leaving the new Horse Feathers album (Appreciation) which he’d been liking. But then we listened to A SENTENCE, the new album form Component #4 and he really liked that.

We got out one of the packets of beads I had gotten at the art store and made a green bracelet for Carly. August liked making the bracelet, but generally doesn’t like the idea of Mother’s Day because he wants things too. I said we could also make a bracelet for him, although we ran out of time and he got distracted. As I tied it he started watching videos on my phone, starting with the one he liked about the size of things, then watching one on how long you could live on each of the planets.

He was playing with the pink clay too, and we had an unfortunate clay on the couch incident that I had to clean. We were getting ready to go on a Zinnie walk when Carly got home at 11:10. One minute too early. He told her about the bracelet. When I denied knowing anything about it he said “I didn’t know it was a secret.”

I still convinced him to head out for a walk and we left before 11:20. He chose the bath and had us halfway to school. I suggested we walk a different street and he liked the idea, taking us north for “more exercise”. He invented a machine: “Oaielectron…it regrows dead plants, animals, humans…”

We got to the Pine Tree Park. He went on the rolling walking thing, then on the swings for a bit (he said it was the first time he’s been on those swings). A lot of discussion on which ways the park was good or bad, as there isn’t much playground there, but there are nice trees. He asked “Why when it’s shady you still get a good dose of the stuff that gives you a sunburn?” Clearly using some phrasing that Carly or I have used. I was able to sit on a bench while he played around for a few minutes. He said “Let’s get more exercise then head home.” But then he discovered the big moss ball thing at the foot of the drinking fountain. Except now it is all brown. He said “That smells like a bear’s fur.” He spotted a dog and came and sat next to me. I told him about how he first became afraid of dogs licking him when he was licked in Korea. We found out that the drinking fountain doesn’t work now, so we speculated that the moss had died because it no longer has its water source. He was spitting on it, trying to give it some water. Nice, but a lost cause, I think.

We walked home, going the long way to Kibuts Galyout. At home I made him oatmeal. Carly had gone to the store. He was now upset to find that I couldn’t add the Component #4 song to his playlist as it wasn’t in iTunes. So I downloaded it and added it using Carly’s computer so I could do so.

Carly came home and he got the keyboard out and we set up GarageBand. Didn’t play for long though. He was playing around with the pink clay on things he wasn’t supposed to again so it got taken away. Carly was cooking soup and a noodle stir fry dish and I took him upstairs to look at toys, as he was complaining about nothing to do.

We played with the bingo blocks with animals on them and made it into a cooperative game. Then played with the Korean Monster Mix card game. He made a monster named “Ay-ooh-ah”.

Then, we played with the Zoo on the Loose game. My parents had gotten it for him a couple years back. We’ve played with the stuffed animals that came with it, but not the actual game. We set it up and first played the on-the-mat version, then the version where you move the animals around the house. It was really cool as August could read most of the words, or could figure things out with just a small hint. He did almost all of the reading of the cards for both of us.

I went out to do laundry and he came out and found a ziploc bag. He filled it with water in the outdoor sink and played with it until it popped rather dramatically. He liked that. Apparently he’d played with it before with Carly like that.

We went downstairs and he ate lots and lots of soup. Kept asking for more. I suggested he could be a zookeeper in the future. He disagreed and told me “My job is to invent things and solve problems…” He saw Carly open a can, then got upset when there wasn’t another can to open. Carly took him upstairs to calm down. A minute later he asked more for my iPad. He came down and played Toca Robot Lab. He’d been talking about how he hasn’t played a Toca game recently. Which is true. Very little games or watching times now.

He had more soup, then more soup, while sitting outside. And some cherries. He started playing with the hose as Carly and I both sat the table with our computers. at first he was pushing the boundaries with the hose, spraying towards us and the open windows. I got him on watering the plants and then he did a great job, watering the plants and cleaning off the slide, and then spraying his Zinnie house. Minor tragedy as he got the coin box wet. One more Korea item gone, not that it was fancy or anything. It was a nice tea box that I’d cut a hole in the top of. “Saturday’s our cleaning day, so my shop is closed. So don’t buy anything in my shop.”

Got a message from Sara, Ella’s mom, and we headed up at 4:45. We had to wait a few minutes and August and I were playing with the drinking fountains. When they showed up Ella came running; “August!” They played on the exercise equipment, then ended up in the swings for a long time. They held hands for a minute, then Ella was watching English children’s songs on her mom’s phone. August started making music of his own and kept going and going and going and going. He was a very happy boy.

They got out and went over on the spider web swing. Stood up, sat down, etc. Carly headed home. We stayed another 20 minutes or so. We all left at the same time – ready for dinner.

We were back at 6:20. He ate lots of noodle dish for dinner. We then made a for and almost finished The 72-Story Treehouse. Carly then skyped with her parents while he was in the fort. Got him a flashlight. He wanted to hold a conversation like Vivian can, so they asked him about preschool. He told them he went to kindergarten and changed teachers. Think he said he went to chemistry class. Not quite Vivian level yet. He and I finished the book.

And he told me “I’ll tell you how long I’ll be inventing inventions: past me dying.” And “I discovered an intergalactic chair that rescues universes.”

After skyping, Carly took him up to his bath. He then wanted to sleep with me on the big bed. Although the key part was “for a couple minutes”. He asked me to sing songs, but after just a minute said he wanted Carly now. I sang a couple more songs, but he just whimpered. I agreed to go get Carly. She asked me to try
a bit more, but he was having none of it. She heard him and came up, about 9, and he was asleep soon after.

He came down at 6:43. Took several minutes waking up on the couch, then ate his vitamin and the last of the zucchini bread. He then watched a Llama Llama episode. He paused to tell me he had a machine with a wheel on it that measured things: “I can measure size, weight, wind, speed of wind, water weight, sound…” Then back to the episode.

We left the house right at 7:40. Talked about preschool and the meetings and schedule along the way. He said something about learning at school without realizing he is learning. I listed some things I’ve seen him learn recently, like standing on one foot, walking on the cup things, using scissors, how to work with clay, and about bees.

On the way to school we talked about how he didn’t have school on Monday and it would be a Dada and Zinnie adventure day. He was excited about that. When I asked what he wanted to do he immediately said “Coffee shop!” We settled on going to Tel Aviv and playing at the beach and finding a coffee shop. 

We got to class at 8:05. Before we went in he asked to look at the schedule. But when we went in the door he immediately saw the set of blocks with gears. Boom, hooked. Marion and I asked if he wanted to set up the schedule, but he just wandered back to the gears and started playing.

I worked in the library until 9:30, mainly on Sabeel stuff. At 9:30 I went to the gym where Carly’s meetup event with students from the Even Yehuda middle school and two middle schools in Tira was happening. I took photos and videos there, then followed them back to Carly’s classroom where they did some circle discussions and I took more photos. I helped get the pizza at the gate, then stayed for lunch. Told Fatin that August said he wants to go back to her house again.

I left about 11:30 to head home. As I walked towards the library I saw August exiting it with Marion and Maaian. I thought they may have been looking for me, but didn’t know if I should let him see me. The custodian who always hangs out by the library, and who doesn’t speak English, started talking to me and had me hide behind a post as August stopped to throw leaves or something down through the railing. My interpretation of what she said was that he had been crying but was okay now.

After he went around the corner I followed a bit and could hear them going down the stairs and he was okay. So I headed to the car but texted Maaian to see if everything was okay. Turned out they had been delivering a tea party invitation to Alex the fix-it man (that’s what August called him later) in the library. August hadn’t been upset. So maybe the custodian was actually telling me she thought he would cry if he saw me.

Anyway, I went home, then came to pick him up at 2:50. I first sat down on the bench outside PKA and started studying some Hebrew. But then I heard August crying in the PKB classroom. I went in and Marion and Myriam (Anna was gone again) told me that he’d just had had enough school and had been sad for the last half hour our so. When he saw me he ran to me and the first thing he said was “You weren’t in the library! Where were you?” So I think he hadn’t gotten upset at the time, but had obviously been thinking about how I wasn’t in the place where I was supposed to be. That combined with basically his first full week of preschool made it too much.

He calmed right down though and he went to the bathroom. He played with his hair in the mirror, and told me “I want my hair to grow until I die!”  Or until it reached the ground, at least. I had brought the swim bag, but even after he calmed down he just wanted to walk home. We saw Marion as we walked up the stairs and she was impressed that he was singing the school bell. She then told me about how they delivered the invite, and I told her my funny story about hiding behind a post. She then told me that earlier August and Reia had been holding hands and fell and he scraped his knees (and apparently the inside of his left elbow, although we didn’t realize that until later). He acted just like he had with me on Monday. Would let her even look at it and was upset for a long time, sitting in her lap. Finally, he calmed down a little and she asked what would make it better. He said “sugary stuff”. She offered him a spoon of honey. He asked “How big?” So he and Reia both got half a teaspoon of honey.

We walked home. Stopped at the bushes on the street side of our park when he saw spider webs in the bushes. He spent several minutes picking bits of weeds and putting them in the webs, “feeding” the spiders. I saw Carly driving by and he said “Skoda mama!” He then said she was driving really fast. She wasn’t, but this morning on the way to school we had seen a car actually pass another car and speed right through the crosswalk. I hadn’t said anything, and he asked “Is this a highway?” He had clearly noticed that the car was traveling too fast.

We headed home and met Carly at the gate at 3:40. He asked her “What did you teach your students?” She told him she had taught them the words ‘monotonous’ and ‘evasive’. So she taught him what they meant as well, and for monotonous he said “Like Max and Ruby?” That was a good connection, as he knows I’ve called it ‘repetitive’. We then discussed the nuance between ‘repetitive’ and ‘monotonous’.

Carly had brought home a bunch of the leftover cheese pizza. We all ate some, and we asked him about school. He talked about playing with the gears, which apparently wasn’t too great as some kids didn’t want them takin things apart or something: “Mean kids” He said he responded: “I jumped on the table and sitted on it and crushed it.” They had carrot cookies at the tea party and Ms. Ilana came. Carly told us that there was a new middle school bench swing, but that the email that announced it then immediately said that no swinging was allowed. August and I found that funny and he had her make up other announcements, like a slide you couldn’t slide down, and a playground you couldn’t play on.

He played with the highwire, figuring out how to spin it like a jump rope. For some reason flour came up, and August said he liked plain flour. So Carly got him a little bowl with four in it and a spoon and he ate some. Went outside and made mud where he wasn’t supposed to. Carly brought him in the house and he was upset. He tripped on the kitchen rug, which was kind of rolled up, and fell down. On his own. He accused Carly: “You threw me…why did you drop me?” When he calmed down they learned about how stars are born. He was a nebula. Carly asked if he knew how black holes are made. He said “When stars die…I knowed that!” He and I did rubber stamps and I did names of his teachers, other students, etc. Carly was outside in the yard. He started playing with the vacuum cleaner and pretended to suck things up with it: tables, pillows, etc. He wanted to suck things up outside so I carried it behind him and he sucked up plants and trees and everything else.

Carly took him up for bath. We switched and I finished it. We talked about preschool in the play area and he told me that his favorite part is yoga class. We went downstairs. Carly had gotten a photo from the art teacher of August making his plate. It was the art room that he had gone to to do that.

He wanted a popsicle and first we got out one that we had made. He tasted it and said it just tasted like water. We got it to thaw a bit so it would actually come out, and it was indeed jut a water popsicle. I then remembered that last time he had had one of our popsicles he had wanted to just try a water one. He was disappointed until I told him we also had a berry popsicle from the store. He actually ate a few bites of the ice one and then of course devoured the beer one.

We had talked about the schedule and how he didn’t have school for three days. He said “Mama, let’s go to sleep, wait until the morning, and have three days off!” He and I read Big Dog, Little Dog a
nd a couple chapters of The 78-Story Treehouse. We took him up and got him ready for bed. I left them at 8:50 and he was asleep after a few minutes.

He slept with me for a long time before going down to Carly on the lower bed. At one point he laughed in his sleep for a long, long time. In the morning he came down at 6:33. Carly was in the bathroom, so he came and climbed into my lap and was there for several minutes. Carly snuck upstairs, then came back down, at which point he wanted her. When she set him down on the couch he lay on his stomach and was literally falling back to sleep right as Carly left and unlocked/locked the door. He slept until 7:40. After a couple minutes, the first thing he said was “Dada, where’s that Bat-Chen car?”

“Why is it at school the teacher is normally the boring part and the students is th fun part?” But when I asked him to explain he said something like “The teacher is always doing stuff and doesn’t learn and the students get to learn.”

As we walked by the retirement home, a car stopped with a guy driving, and a teenage girl with him. He asked if there was a coffee shop nearby. I directed him towards downtown. rather surprised that they didn’t have a smartphone between them. Oh, and August asked what the retirement home is a couple days ago and we talked about why people might move there. he has since called it “the place with extra doctors”.

When we got to his class at 8:25 they were sitting down for an early morning meeting: “Morning meeting? Yuck!” But I explained it was (as Marion had just said) because they had a busy and exciting day today so he should listen to find out what it was. I was then able to wave goodbye and walk out.

I went to the library and worked. At 10:30 his class showed up. This time he ran in and knew right where to find me. I went back with him, but then for most of the time he actually sat several feet away from me. Ilana read the third Orq book and then a book titled something like Ugh. The connection was that it was the word that Orq said in the first book. During book check he walked around and found a book called My Preschool and said it was going to be another really good book.

I walked him back after library time. We were sort of walking with Omri, and as we went down the stairs August got upset that she had beaten us down the stairs. Not sure why. Then in the classroom they were sitting down for another quick meeting and he didn’t like that. Nor did he like the idea of looking at his book, saying he’d only read it at home. So I thought I might have some difficulty leaving him. But he grudgingly headed to the meeting and I left.

I went down to do some shopping. Carly needed grapes and soda for her event tomorrow. I tried to park at the Ace complex but couldn’t find a spot. Worse, it was difficult to get out as one of the exits stopped working and there was a huge backup getting out. Finally managed to get out the other exit and drive over to the Tiv Taam complex. Parked and first went to the art store, where I got some beading supplies, a Spirograph sort of set, and a cool monster making kit that uses optical illusions to make it look like they move – all art things that Carly can do with August. Her Mother’s Day drift.

Then went to Tiv Taam and got what she needed, and a few other things, like tofu for lunches.

I went home until 2:30. Then drove back to the school and dropped of Carly’s stuff in her classroom. Then picked up August from his yoga class at the end of their school day. He played on the preschool playground. He was loudly singing the school bell and said it was the bell of Disneyland. And that it was GarageBand breaking the speakers. We had talked before about how it wasn’t real bells, but a recording of a bell. We talked about his day and he told me he made a plate of clay in a teacher’s office but he didn’t remember the teacher’s name. He also told me that he and Reia made another kid upset taking apart a gear structure.

We then went up to Hebrew class. He and Lana had difficulty sitting still for the beginning part. August would copy whatever Lana would do, which was then encouraging her more. She got them calmed down eventually. Then, they made caterpillars with all of the things it eats on it. He had me help him with putting that together. There was a sheet with the names of the PKC students on it and he read then kept repeating “Lana”.

After class we sat out on the bench by the PKA door and had a snack. He was shrinking things and said “I’ll make the whole school as small as a proton.” We left at 4:20 and walked up towards the studio. We stopped and he played on the exercise equipment for a few minutes. We heard the ice cream truck and he got excited. It stopped near us and initially I told him we weren’t going to get anything. He just put his head down on the bench and was sad. He then got sadder and said he just wanted to go home. He had been happy about class a minute ago. So I told him we could get something to share. We got an Oreo ice cream sandwich and it was very, very good.

We ate it quickly and walked up to class. We were a minute late and it was very quiet, so we speculated there was no class. He suggested it was “Because Sigal is sick.” Turned out we were the only ones there so far. Sigal had him go look in the mirror to see the ice cream left on his face. I washed him off and he went to the bathroom, then Etai and his mom showed up and they were the only ones for class.

He had fun the whole time, and at the end Sigal was helping him learn how to walk on the cup stilt things. She said he could practice more outside the studio, as it was time for the next class. He did for a couple minutes, then spent another 10 minutes or so playing with all the little baby toys and things in the boxes. I made coffee that I then took with me.

We got going and stopped at the playground. He spent several minutes spitting in the dirt and saying “seep, seep, seep.” There were a couple of dogs and he said “I want those dogs to leave with their owners.” We ended up going up in the play structure and pretending it was the space station and we were doing experiments: “I made it so the cactus grows tomatoes…I’m seeing what happens to my cactus OVER TIME…It’s like a crystal.”

We left the parks at 6:30. As we walked to the car he saw a woman with a small child on the other side of the street and said it looked like Ms. Vicky. I said it wasn’t her and he said “Well it looks like her. She has puffed up nursings. Right?”

Got to the car and were home at 6:45. We  listened to the song “Like I Used to Be”, which we was really liking for awhile but we forgot about. He asked “Dada, what’s allergens?” Suddenly, there was water leaking out of the air conditioner on the inside of the house. Turned it off and emailed Shmuel. Would later realize that the hose outside was bending up and full and the water washing going out.

Talking about rest time he told us he mainly stayed on Candy’s bed. Then told us he was on everyone’s bed. And said he stood on people during morning meeting.

He had some oatmeal for dinner, then I was cooking tofu for lunches and he ate a piece of raw tofu. They read My Preschool, then he ate rice and mushrooms and sauce. Carly went to take a shower. He was still hungry so had some apple sauce and cinnamon. He was on a roll, talking about black holes and which objects could defeat/suck up others. He made up “A zakzillion…it’s a zebra that bigger than the Earth, bigger than a star, bigger than all of space.” He talked more about flubong: “It’s a liquid with no surface tension and it feels like gel and you can make buildings out of it and it’s strong in all ways.”

Carly took him up to his bath. I had bought him underwear at Carter’s and told Carly how stereotypical it was, with sports and trucks being the only options on the boys. August heard and complained “I don’t like sports and trucks…that’s not fair…let’s sneak and get girls underwear.” She dried his hands with the hair dryer. He said “I’m trying to get as much water to
evaporate to the clouds as possible to make a downpour.”

Got him ready for bed and I left them at 9:05 as they finished the preschool book. Asleep a bit later.

He came down right at 7, but then lay down on the couch and I thought he might fall back to sleep. He didn’t, and a few minutes later got up and had his vitamins and some zucchini bread. We talked about school today and he said “80…mama will be at work 80 percent long.” I put on music and realized the first song I had him hear today was “Jesus Shooting Heroin” by The Flaming Lips. I was looking at their preschool calendar and realized that it says that yoga is actually on Tuesdays. I asked him about that and he said “You’re telling me nonsense.”

On the way to school he asked “Are wars a rare thing?” We drove, so he still had his mango candy as we got near the preschool. As he got to the bottom of the stairs he crunched the rest of it so it would be gone when we got to class. We walked in and looked at the schedule, then I left him as he started to build with the color blocks next to Blanka.

I got in the car and headed to Sabeel in Jerusalem. Took an hour and 45 minutes. So much traffic.

Carly picked him up at the end of the day. She taught until 3, so ran right over after that. He was sitting on the waiting bench and ran to Carly when she picked him up. He was a little sad as to him she seemed late.

They hung out in her classroom. He did art. He painted. He got to blow a whistle that she doesn’t let her students blow. Four times. Played with the chairs. They did math problems on the board. And they played some darts.

They came home and they did another layer of paint on the table together. When I called on my way home, stuck in traffic again, he was pretending to be Lana from PKC. He then had oatmeal for dinner.

I got home at 6:40. She got his bath started, then I played with him. Did the bladder game, then he asked what people do if there isn’t enough water. We talked about water tanks and rain collectors (like at Tent of Nations) and bringing water in trucks. This then turned into a game with me using up water, then having to go get water in a truck, or waiting for it to rain.

When he was done he wanted to hair dryer his hands because he likes how it feels, even though we didn’t wash is hair. We did that and discussed how hair dryers work. He created a system where the air goes to the sun, gets heated, and comes back to dry your hair.

We were downstairs at 7:40: “Mama, I invented a magic hair dryer…there’s a big steel pipe that goes through the sun and the cold air goes through it, gets heated by the sun…” “It’s pretty unusual, right?”

He then asked her “Why doesn’t a scientist want another scientist to know what they’re doing?” This was a big discussion yesterday, I think, on our way to school or back. Basically, the difference between scientists who work on open science and scientists that work for companies that are trying to get patents.

He said that at school for snack he had corn flakes and milk. And crackers. And an apple. Carly went up to take a shower. I made his lunch. He had some apple sauce and cinammon. We discussed what ‘phrase’ and ‘term’ mean, then discussed temporary exhibits again. He then had some crackers and peanut butter. He had another garbage power plant and described a human-sized slingshot. I asked where he got that idea and he said it was from Story Pirates.I discussed the roadrunner cartoons and said he might like the funny inventions that the coyote uses. “Dada, here’s how you can catch a roadrunner.” He was then talking to Carly about her students and asked how she would give them a time out: “How would out give them a time out? Throw them over the edge of the walkway?” They read Perro Grande, Perro Pequeno. He said he had lots of dreams about monsters. But he said it was good monsters.

We were all in bed 9:25. He discussed why he was sad mama was late picking him up. He told us “I rocket blasted to Leonard to play with the puppet.” And he said he played with Reia and Selma. I forgot to mention that last night, when he was up late, he started to do a voice impersonation of Selma. Which was surprisingly spot on. Then, he simply did a ‘different’ voice. That was even more shocking, as he suddenly sounded like just a different kid.

And he was a bit worried about water truck thing – a truck had gone around a bit later with a loudspeaker to tell people that water might be interrupted tomorrow due to work on the water main. He was asleep at 9:40.

He slept between us on the big bed. I squeezed in next to him when I went to bed, so he was right up against me. Sometime around 2 he woke up and asked to go to the bathroom. I took him, then Carly put him back to sleep on the lower bed. He was up at 6:35, right as I went in to take a shower. I came downstairs to find him asleep again on the couch.

He slept. And slept, and slept, and slept. I was afraid he had a cold. Finally, I started waking him up at 8:10. It took him a few minutes, but then he was full of energy and feeling fine. I got him ready to go quickly and we walked to school. I dropped him off about 8:50. We met the sub for Anna, another teacher named Ms. Karen. He wanted to look at the schedule, then he needed something to do, and I walked him around. The purplish clay was out, and I suggested he make a monster. He wanted me to help, but after half a minute he was working on it and I was able to leave. Blanka went over to talk to him as I left. It was the first time I’ve left and he hasn’t been with a teacher.

I went to the library and did a couple of things, then Carly came by at 9:15. We had a meeting in the elementary office with Shary, the principal, and Maaian, the preschool director. The meeting went well. They were open to more volunteering than 40 minutes a week, but just weren’t (mainly Maaian, was my impression) with how to do that. We came to some agreements on how to do so, which was good. Left unexplained was how, after being very clear with how we wanted me there for the transition, and Maaian being very clear about how I could be there weekly/daily from the beginning, we are now three weeks into his actually schooling and she hasn’t given me one concrete way to do so.

After the meeting I took the car down to the complex where Ace Hardware is. I went to the Apple retailer there and got a new charger and cable, and went and shopped at Fox. I thought I’d drive the back north way into town. The shortest route that way has been closed via court order for a couple months, necessitating a drive through north Even Yehuda, which is longer. Well, I get to that intersection to find that that one other road is now also closed due to construction. The short route is also closed, requiring that you drive a couple miles farther south again to get to the highway that I took in the first place. To make things even better, the street from our place up into town is still closed, making it harder to get to downtown for us.

I stayed at home until going to pick August up. Dealt with condo stuff, as our current tenant is moving out. Went to pick him up and got there a little early, so I sat on a bench in the tunnel area through the elementary school. It was one of the students that was getting ready to go to the bus that spotted me and told August I was there. He came out, nice and happy. Myriam was reading a story to the kids that weren’t going to the bus, but he wasn’t interested. Karen said he’d had a really good day. So we packed up his stuff and got a glue and glittery thing picture that he had made. We helped spread out the rest so they wouldn’t glue together.

We then went over to Bat-Chen’s classroom and had a Hebrew lesson. He had a lot of fun. His favorite part was a toy phone thing that would play back your voice to you. And the cookies, of course, which he said were a real treat. She asked him about school and what he did and he said he played “learning games”. She did a toy guessing game with him, which he didn’t quite understand at first. We need to play 20 Questions, I think. The toy was a little green and purple car she had in her hand. He liked getting it dirty in the marker on the board, then cleaning It with the eraser. At the end she gave him the car and we put it in his shorts pocket (mechonet ba kis – car in pocket) and then she wanted a hug. He gave her a good hug, and he said “That’s another present: love!”

לנו

We went to Carly’s classroom. He told her “I get really excited about little toys.” “Bat-Chen gave it to me as a present! I can keep it until it breaks!” We discussed preschool and he said “It was hard for me to stay on my bed.” And “I did end up getting two blankets for awhile.” When we asked how he got another blanket he said “They put it on the floor and left it…I sneaked and got it.” Carly asked if anyone got upset about him taking it: “Nope. I didn’t hear anyone cry.” “I had it for awhile. For a fair amount of time.”

We were in her classroom for a few minutes then got going. I realized we didn’t have his artwork so we headed back to Bat-Chen’s classroom. On the way we saw Jill, the youngest Kern sister. August was shy with her, and was whispering, although we don’t know what. The art wasn’t in the classroom. While Carly talked to her about the upcoming event on Friday August and I continued on to his classroom and found it. We left school at 4:30.

At home he had lots of energy. We played with a balloon. More talk of school: “I made a big star heart…I picked up a lot of clay.” He said they made invitations. They said “Please come to a tea party.” They talked about it in morning meeting. All the parents are invited and it will be June 1st. He was then going “Nah nah nah nah” He had learned that from Sophia when they were playing on the playground once. I was hoping he hadn’t paid attention to it. He hadn’t done it at the time, but he apparently remembered. Or heard it again at school. Also about school he said “One time, I played with Selma a fair amount…outside…we beed-ed kitty cats.” He said he didn’t ask any questions today but “I still learned…I forgotted it all.”

He then asked “Why is glass fragile?” “Why do different materials feel different?” We watched a video about why glass breaks when it is hot and you put water in it, then he asked about the size of particles. He also asked “Why can’t science tell us everything?” Size videos we watched were https://youtu.be/WK2uPF0t98w and https://youtu.be/isppUA0MZmw and we  discussed testability in science.

He then had some oatmeal and watched Max and Ruby. Carly and I were using the microwave and water kettle and he got really upset he couldn’t hear the show. He finally was appeased when I let him restart the episode from the very beginning. In the bathroom he told me about the imaginative movement class (with the puppet). He said “We goed-ed to imaginary land.” And “Class is short now so we don’t have much time.’ They’ve divided them into two groups so they are smaller, but now only have 20 minutes with her. They started that last week.

Carly had gone up to rest and came back down and made him peanut butter honey toast. He asked about Jewish and Arab schools and then different cultures.

They went outside. He sprayed her. His consequence was coming inside and he was upset about that: “And besides, you can’t give more than one consequence!” When he calmed down a bit h went out on his own and didn’t want us to follow. Went to the hose at first, but then was picking up tree things on his own, then told us he’d been doing something nice. They did that a bit more, then it was up to a bath. Carly started. I finished dishes. I went up for a few minutes so she could do laundry, then she washed his hair, which didn’t go horribly.

He came downstairs with pink clay. Carly went to shower. We developed a game where one of us (first him, but then we switched) would hide an object in the clay, then the other person would dig it out. He had a museum exhibit going with several objects by the time Carly came down. He told her “We’re playing archeologist. Dada’s the erosion burying ancient things and I’m the archeologist digging up the objects and studying them.”

He said “Presenting…” several times today and we asked where that came from. He said Max and Ruby. Carly went up to bed. He ate some crackers and peanut butter. We talked about field trips, and that led to a d
iscussion of summer. I said some people do summer camps, but I think we’ll just be traveling and visiting people during his summers. When I mentioned visiting people, he said “Bat-chen?” I said no, in the United States. He was fine with that, but said “But no place with tornadoes.” I assured him it wouldn’t be the season. There was then lots of talk about black holes and galaxies etc. We read Sally’s Room. Discussed dolls and toys getting old.

Brushed his teeth and flossed. He went up to Carly at 9:21. But a bit later she got up to go to the bathroom and he escaped downstairs to me. He was ready to go up again a bit later, but Carly then brought him back down. I got ready for bed and went in with them. He was cuddled in my arms for awhile and quiet as I was falling asleep. He was really swiping at my alarm clock app and managed to share random text to Twitter. He went down with Carly and finally fell asleep about 10:30.

Leaving him at preschool:

He went until 2 at school today, and likely could have made it to the end, no problem.

When I went to bed last night he was on the bed with Carly. But he was sideways, right by my pillow. So I took my pillow and slept on the lower bed for the first time.

He was up just before 7. Closed the door behind him. He was quite stuffy as he woke up on the couch. We thought maybe it was the cold, but he cleared up during the day. He watched a Max and Ruby and ate some oatmeal and mango at the table. We got going at 7:50 and had a nice walk to school. Rain was coming, and you could see the big clouds approaching. When we parked the bike I said we had made it. August sprinted under cover to make sure.

When we went into the preschool he complained there were too many kids. We could shoot for getting there a few minutes earlier before the bus kids arrive. He needed something to do before I left, and we found the new activity over on the light table: insects encased in plastic with magnifying glasses to look at them with. Nicholas, however, was protecting them, saying only he and Emmitt could use them. Marion came over and Nicholas got upset. August got a scorpion and was studying it when I left. He let me walk out for the first time without him being with a teacher.

I went and worked in the library. Will probably start heading home, at least some days, when he is going full time.

I went and picked him up at 2. When I went in they were sitting around the pottery tables, watching a video storybook on a laptop (projector not working?). Derin saw me and told August. He smiled, then kept sitting at the table. I gathered my stuff, and Marion came and told me that Anna would be gone tomorrow. Then Anna came and told me myself, then she went and told August. August got up and came and told me, adding the detail that she had a doctor’s appointment.

August was ready to go – all we were skipping today was Playball – and we walked out the side door. He showed me where the dead baby bird was on a chair, covered by a cairn of small rocks and stuff. He said the flies were eating it. We walked up to the library and were going to start reading when I realized I had left his bag of stuff at the preschool and we also needed to get the bag of swim gear from his bike. All was well (although he accused me of “always” forgetting things, but couldn’t come up with an example besides the bag) until we left the school and were walking to the bike. He started twirling in front of me. I had to stop, then kept walking. Somehow he twirled around me and stepped on my heels from behind and fell. I picked him up and carried him and pushed the bike over to the bench in front of the school entrance. He said “You knocked me over!” His knees were a little red, but not deep enough for there to be any blood. It was still very, very traumatic. He kept saying “Dada, don’t look!” When I said it would go away soon he said ‘No, it goed away! Dada, make it go away!” And kept repeating the second sentence. We sat on the bench for about half an hour. He eventually was hitting his knees and said it was to make the color go away. He calmed down, then just rested his head on my lap. Started talking a little before 2:40.  Started making things things up. Still upset though. He told me “Put me in a bag.” And he decided he didn’t want to swim. Probably because he was afraid of the water on his knees, although he wouldn’t say it. Clearly I should have just picked him up after school.

He cheered up as we walked home and he told me he had a song we hadn’t sung for a long time. It turned out to be ‘never’. It was a song he had learned in class today. He remembered the tune, and sang “Friday is fish…all the hungry children come and eat it up.” We paused to record it so we would have something to go on in case he forgot more.

We kept walking and he stopped me when he spotted a cylinder and a black rectangle on top of a house. It was a water tank and solar panel and we talked about those. He wanted me to compliment his spotting.

He then wanted to stop at our park. We started by playing spider store. Although he also told me “If you dig anywhere in the Earth, you will find a big puddle of flubong.” I was the shopkeeper and he was buying things and I would add up the total cost. He bought sugar-coated flies, pillows, etc. He bought Pepsi: “I’ll tell you why I need Pepsi. I have a little problem…I’m sniffly.” He was then removing spiderwebs from my ‘store’ using a stick and I told him he’d get a discount. He also got “Chocolate chip, pineapple, strawberry ice cream.” He also had a machine that “changed its mouth feel.” Can’t remember what it was changing the feeling of though.

We paused and sat on the alligator bench to have a snack. He asked “Isn’t it not fair that animals only see a few colors and we can see ten million?” Ate a little couscous and then granola. Lots of discussion of iHerb and shipping costs and weight. Then a lot of playing the pee and poop game, where I would forget to go to the bathroom before going to sleep, then have an accident, then wake up in the morning, go play, then go back and make the same mistake.

We saw Holly and her dog Doby. She asked if he wanted to say hi to Doby, but he ran to the top of the structure to be safe. He did eventually agree to count Doby, as he doesn’t bark. After they left there was a girl about his age. she made a funny noise at him. Apparently this is a real thing. They ended up playing together on the teeter totter thing for a couple minutes. August then came and played more with me.

He was excited when Carly came into view. “Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!” She asked what we were doing. He said “We’re playing bladder…and rectum.”

Carly asked him what the best part of the day was. He said “Preschool”. Then, when she asked what part, he said “everything.” He told her about looking at the insects with a magnifying glass and drawing what he saw. They made a connection to the spider I caught and he studied. “They teach-ed me about worms but it was a diffent day.” He was talking about the slug. About rest time he said “just walked around, being loud. Waking people up with hammers and chainsaws and stuff.” Pretty sure that one wasn’t true.

At home he went outside with Carly. I made mushrooms and risotto. He must have done something with his long stick, as he got upset when she put it up on the planters where he can’t reach: “Give me my stick back!”

He had rice and lemon chicken and broccoli for dinner. He spilled some rice, and even though there was plenty left he got upset and wanted new rice, just like what happened with the yoghurt. Carly was nice enough to take it away and come back with ‘new’ rice. He then ate it all, and even more veggies with it.

He asked how big the largest power plant was. Carly clearly didn’t hear the question, as she thought I was crazy when I started reading out stats on power plants a minute later. August said “Is it pretty cool that sometimes we’re a power plant for like a hand mixer?”

He stepped in the rice mess, then didn’t want to stay out of it when Carly asked him. I got him upstairs by showing hm the little charm he had gotten from the church in Jerusalem. We went up and put it in his small treasure box. He remembered the small sticker jewel thing he had found at the play area of the mall and I showed him where I had put that as well. He got out his bouncy ball and said “Let’s experiment in my lab.” The bathroom, that is. He bounced it around, and behind and through his bathtub. He sang more of the song from school and we found it on YouTube. It is the “Today is Monday” song from the book by Eric Carle. When we had first visited the classroom they had told me they had read the book and were having snacks each day that week to match the book.

He started playing with the scrub brush and knocked everything on the counter over with it. He was upset when
I took it away and he headed downstairs. Carly read Sally’s Room. August had said he had been looking for his blanket during rest time, so maybe that’s what he wanted instead of a sheet, so we got out the brown blanket Andrea made and he cuddled in it while she read.

He then cuddled in my lap and we talked about things. He didn’t want to wash his knees and we talked about the reasons you wouldn’t go in the pool if you were actually bleeding. This ended with him spraying blood out of this hands with his magic, all over the kitchen and everything else.

We went upstairs to his bath. More blood on everything. I joked there were sharks in his bath and then he was spraying sharks out of his hands. We played more bladder game, then bubble town. We were downstairs at 7:50. He was hungry so had some of the risotto and mushrooms and then crackers and peanut butter.

He blew his nose again and said “It’s fun for me to blow my nose.” He’s been asking me to blow up a balloon until it pops as an experiment. So I did one. Really loud, and made my ears ring.

We went up and got him ready for bed. I left them at 8:45 and he was soon asleep.

He climbed up on the bed with my at some point and spent much of the night with me. Right at 6 he woke up. I asked if he wanted to go back to sleep and he clearly said no. He went downstairs to Carly and told her the same thing, but when she got up to get tea she turned around to find him asleep on the couch. He slept on the couch until 7:30 when he sat up for a minute. But then he lay back down and fell back to sleep. He laughed in his sleep once. I eventually went up to take a shower. He woke up about 8:50 and when I came down they were setting up the keyboard with my iPad. I skyped with my parents using Carly’s computer and he had fun showing off his lunch box.

After Skype he went outside with Carly. Carly got him crackers and peanut butter and melon. I started setting up for zucchini bread making.  Had asked if we do that or the mall first today and he was adamant about baking bread. Carly was then inside and he called in “Mama! I thought you were going to teach me!”

He helped make zucchini bread. We were able to kind of multitask for the first time, with him doing much of the peeling of the zucchini while I did other ingredients. He was then able to grate the zucchini pretty well on his own.

While I finished up the pans he went over to Carly. She was feeling pretty sick, and I got him watching Max and Ruby. He was pretty stuffy today.

Carly headed up for a shower and he and I put out ant poison. He asked about the purpose of war. He was upset by the idea of childproof lids and tried giving me a punishment for it. He was hungry cranky. Inside we started to get food for lunch. They played war the card game “Dont make this a winning game.” I put his allergy pill in his water and he was excited about that. He gave me a thumbs up for allergy medicine

Carly read Sally’s Room. He asked “Why does she have so many not doing toys?” He meant dolls. He also asked “Why’s she look like a teacher?” There’s a picture near the end where he thinks she looks like a teacher.

Zucchini bread was ready so we had a couple slices. He said “Dada, this is the goodest zucchini bread we ever made cuz there’s no bits of zucchini in it.” He was looking at the Sally’s Room cover with Carly and asked “I thought apostrophe goes at the end of the word.” Then more punctuation questions: “What’s a comma?” “What’s a dash?” He helped me make more iced tea and sang “cinnamon and honey tea”

He then did a reading lesson with Carly, and told her that his words had silent letters: he said flubong has a silent ‘h’ and ion has a silent ‘b’. Both at the beginning. He made crumbs with his zucchini bread and wasn’t happy when Carly made him clean it up. He was then asking what tiny rocks would be and he said “Microrocks” when I said sand. I got an “Oh, dada.” for simply stating that fact. He was also saying “You know? You know? You know?” a lot.

August and I headed to the nursery to get a little plant and pot for his classroom (every child has one) and also potting soil and compost. He hummed the school bell as we left the house. At the plant store he wandered around looking at all the little plants. He said it was hard to choose. He chose a plant, and then a turquoise pot, which he said matched his Crocs. We found the other stuff and then headed home.

We got home and he was excited about transplanting his plant into the pot. He and Carly did that, him doing much of the work.

He and I then walked to the mall at 3:25. Went first to Tiv Taam. He saw the drinks and said we should get some for mama: “Any liquid counts!” He got her a Coke and a Sprite. We got a few other things and paid. As we were leaving he asked “Why do funny noises make kids want to play with me?” He was referring to Ella yesterday.

We stopped at the toy store. Got balloons for Carly’s event. Looked at swim goggles for August but he was adamant that he didn’t want any. Got him a frisbee with Winnie the Pooh on it.

Then down to the indoor play area. Played there about 10 minutes, with the squirrel trying to eat me. We stopped and had a snack bar thing that I’d gotten somewhere. Then into the pharmacy. He convinced me to get hi some chewy multivitamins while we looked for contact solution. Running low on cold medicine, so had to stand in line for that. There was a smaller girl, probably 2. August was standing close to her. I don’t know if he made faces at her first, but she stuck out her tongue. Very funny. We also got a couple of nut/protein bars.

We ate the protein bar one on the way out. We sat in one of the houses in the outside play area and got out our other snacks. Didn’t really play, and he sang a “What should we do?” song. We ended up leaving, and he chose the long walk home. Along the way we spotted Israeli ladybugs, snails, lizards, some new flowers, and I saw my first snake in Israel. Didn’t get a good look, but seemed reddish and was pretty long.

We were home just before 5:30. He talked about smelling popcorn, and it reminded me that yesterday he had an invention that changed what he smelled like – if he thought about ice cream he would smell like ice c ream.

Carly made him popcorn. I was in the kitchen when it started popping, and they pretended it was me, so I acted like popcorn was popping inside me. He laughed a lot.

They went outside and tried out the frisbee. Carly was teaching him how to throw it. They then set up for painting and used the white paint to paint the little table for Carly’s classroom. I sat and tried the Valencay cheese that August and I had picked out at the store and white wine while they painted.

Carly took him over to wash paint off him with the hose. He observed that paint really gets everywhere. Inside, Carly noticed a bruise on his forehead. He reenacted what happened to him with the metal water bottle. He said he was running inside the classroom and fell and hit his forehead. Later, he told me that it was before the tea party. They had picked flowers and needed people to put them in water and that’s when he ran to do it. He also told me about rest time on Friday: “Dada, the second time they made me be on my bed.” And he asked me “Why don’t we do dada/Zinnie adventures anymore?”

He asked why iherb has a weight limit. Our discussion then ranged to where a rubber band would break when you pulled on it (he then kept suggesting other materials and also theories on why things would break) and back to cinnamon sticks in the hold of a plane. Carly came in mid-discussion and said we have some weird discussions.

I took him up for a bath. He wanted a balloon, so yelled down to Carly asking for a new one. I then found the red one. He played the bladder game with the balloon being the bladder. We did that for quite awhile until I convinced him to play with bubbles instead. He said he likes being bored and we talked about the importance of boredom for creativity.

Out of his bath at 8:20. We went down and he saw Carly typing on her phone and he wanted to send messages. In Skype on his iPad then he typed messages to Cherie in mooka mook. He then told Carly what he had typed and she translated: “Hello, I love you” “How are you feeling?” “Hi” “Do you have any plants in your yard?” “How are you doing?” As she typed he said “Wait, I just seed something I want you to teach me about” It was the parentheses. Then “Wait, why are they facing different directions?” He also asked “Do dashes have powers?”

They ate some artichoke together, and he asked “Mama, why do you like it when I ask cool questions?” He was then asking her about war and Carly asked if he knew what ‘peace time’ was. Some he asked “So we have a lot of peace time, right?” “Do Palestines get into wars?” “Do they use guns or do they just say you can’t have electricity?”

He and I then read Sally’s Room. He remembered his heart sunglasses from last summer and wants them again. I took him upstai
rs and he said “I hate etcs.” That’s a line from a Smurfs comic, which we haven’t read for months. 

I left them at 9:20. Carly texted me about 10 minutes later saying he was really blowing his nose. A big milestone. Must have fallen asleep soon after that.