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He was up just before 7. They were outside for awhile. And did some Wizard School. I think I heard him singing about Pluto. And he watched some Timmy Time. He was lying on the floor and Carly was watching Nas Daily videos when I came down just before 8. He was asking if they had woken me up. They did glittery glue: “This is a card for the persons that doesn’t have very much food.” Carly had told him about getting food for the refugee preschool. Did that for awhile, then he asked to play the Monsters game he had wanted to play last night. Got out my iPad and he showed Carly how it works.

Talked to me about teeth falling out. “What if it happens to a grown up?” “How strong is the tooth?” I told him about Carly’s friend Paul falling on his bike and knocking out his tooth. He wanted to know “How big was the bike? And how tall was the bike? And how fast was he going? How safe was he, mama? What was he doing that made it dangerous?”

Carly was talking about meals versus snacks and August said “I don’t call them ‘meals’ cuz I think that’s a gross word to say…What ‘meals’ mean, actually?” He was being indecisive about what to eat. He had agreed to alternate popcorn and oatmeal, but then wouldn’t eat more oatmeal. He and I did some glitter glue painting, then he asked me to move the piano back over “where the friends are”. It’s been over by the Duplos for a few days. He was playing “Row your boat” He took his clothes off because he wanted to be cold. Then he tried to take a blurry photo of him on the couch. He said “I’m gonna get you in this magafan. It’s the sharpest thing in the universe.”

We went upstairs to get clothes for him as he said he wanted to go for a walk. He asked “What’s oatmeal? It’s a funny word to say.” He played music machine on drying rack. I put the blue like-grampa shirt on him and he said and he said “When you finish putting it on I’ll change into to a smurf.” His underwear was also blue. On the way down the stairs he pretended they were squeaking. I said our stairs weren’t likely to squeak, so he asked why stairs would squeak. We talked about wood stairs. He wanted to hear the explanation again so asked “Could you talk about that more?”

Carly had gone to the store to do grocery shopping for us. We read The Smurf Apprentice (him being a Smurf had reminded him) He then ate all his oatmeal, then I got the popcorn for him. We read the rest of the Smurf book. Carly was home at 11. August went to his piano: “I’m gonna take all the keys out except lower C. I’m gonna make a song with just one note.” He did that, then we put the keys back in and he played Row Your Boat. He turned to Angeles and said “Lets call this Merry. It looks like a Merry.”

Carly was trying to get him interested in going to the beach as I was going to have some work time. He wasn’t excited by the idea he said “Then we’ll go for a walk. I’m gonna be kinda lazy today.” I took a shower. He was playing with Legos, then I took him up to his bath. He asked how people went to the bathroom before toilets. I told him about chamber pots. Turned out to be the discussion of the day as he asked about them a few times.

We played two games of Snakes and Ladders. I won first, then he won’t be second. Each time though we said that everyone would win so we kept going with the second piece until it finished. He was giving me licorice when we were tied on square, knowing I don’t like licorice. Carly got him hot chocolate, then I went up to start working. They went for a walk and did recycling. They tried to go to a park but a dog was following them everywhere. They came back and played outside and I’m sure Carly took care of the plants.

They then went to the store again, to get food for the kindergarten for refugees in south Tel Aviv. August was very helpful in the store, then helped carry the groceries into the school. He carried diapers on his head. They got home at 4:15. I was working on reworking an essay on art as resistance. Didn’t finish it, but got most of it done and figured out how to finish the rest of the entry.

When they came in he said “Dada, you need to get me another bamboo stick because mama ripped mine.” Turns out the story was that he had poked his in cat poop and then poked Carly with it, so it got taken away and I think she broke of the end of it.

Carly was cooking spaghetti on the stove when the gas ran out. At first we thought it was completely out, but finally realized that we had to switch to the second tank. Carly got him peanut butter and crackers, but he didn’t like that she had broken the crackers into smaller bites. He said he wanted me to do them in the future. He was then a crazy marble machine on my lap, as his head was in my hand and I bounced his head on the couch. Also he has now started to claim that the peanut butter just soaks into his hands. He was going crazy on the couch and said “It’s because I had hot chocolate. Your plan didn’t work!” The plan being to give him hot chocolate earlier in the day so it didn’t affect going to sleep.

He and I read The Berenstain Bears and the Missing Dinosaur Bone, then had spaghetti. As some point we also read YoungCam Jansen and the Double Beach Mystery. Carly was cooking an artichoke, but he wanted to go to the playground with me. I suggested she would save the artichoke for him. When she said she would he said “Thank you mama!” and went and gave her a hug. He then told her “You keep watching that video.” We left at 5:30.

He steered us to the playground and to the exercise equipment and mainly played there. He was climbing on things and seeing what he could do, and trying to make me nervous. He asked “Why’s baby swings have ropes? So they don’t look up and get metal in their eyes? Like Colin’s swing they built him. It was ropes. I still remember that.” Moved around to different things, and he was standing with one foot out on something and told me “I don’t want you to miss it!” He was playing on the teeter totter sort of thing that you stand on and a boy came over and got on with him. After that August asked me “What’s Timbuktu? What’s Constantinople?” He was thinking of Dr. Seuss’s Hop on Pop. Which we read several days back.

On the way home we walked around the Holly block. He said “Timbuktu is a funny word… Constantinople is a funny word.” One of the street lights was out and he speculated on why. He came up with the bulb was out, it was out of electricity, a circuit is broken…”so many ways.” We were home at 6:05.

They shared the artichoke. Then he remembered the fan and wanted me to turn it on. We did that, and Carly didn’t realize it was on until a good half hour later. He went to the bathroom, and told me he likes sleeping next to me. Out of the bathroom he asked “Mama, do you always make noises when you wake me up to nurse?” At first we thought he meant in the middle of the night when he wants to nurse, and Carly was incredulous. But then we realized he meant in the morning when she gets him up before she goes to work.

He and I went and played with the Duplo “maze” he had built with Carly earlier. “Only animals can play in it. It has hay all over it. You can eat the hay.” He destroyed that, then he and I made a new structure.

Back on the couch, thinking of the fan, I think, he asked me “Do things wear out when you use them or when you don’t use them?” And asked “What’s the first square Berenstain Bears book we ever read?” Pretty sure it was Double Dare, which we got in Korea at one of the used book stores and Carly first started reading to him. We read No Girls Allowed, then Carly took him upstairs. He told her “You always drink alcohol.” Which a.) isn’t true b.) he said because the topic had come up earlier in regard to why her friend Paul had fallen off his bike. Also, this morning when she was watching the Nas Daily videos he heard the term ‘Zionist colonizer’ a
nd was then asking “Zionist colonizer? Who’s a Zionist colonizer?” and repeating it.

I came up and said goodnight and left them just before 8.

A big first for us: he had a play date with a new friend/family – not just family or someone we know through work.

He was up about 5:50: “Where’s mama?” Downstairs they got the heart model out to play with. He played with his bassoon and was humming a tune and asked if it was another mystery song. It was “She’ll be coming around the mountain”. He then was a fancy music machine with lasers and tubes and different levels. As Carly was leaving he sang a little “I love you too” song. Carly has an in-service day and I asked if she might be coming home early. August very politely asked if she could come home early. He then watched Timmy Time. After that he started making up games on the couch: “It’s impossible for my rockets not to destroy all the things that are scary.” “I haven’t use-d my rockets in quite awhile.” So then he had me finding monsters in the cracks in the couch: “But I heard some gurgling noises in there…In there. Go investigate.”

He and I then made banana bread. We got that in the oven, the ndid some Duplos. He said “I’m making a gravitational force thing.” “It’s in the tractor museum but you can still see how it works.” He played the mystery song on his comb. “Could you find that song? It’s on my playlist. I love that song…well soon. Solve that mystery. Why do I love mysteries?”

I took a shower, then gave him a bath. We took out the banana bread and waited for it to to cool a little, then had some. He told me”I discovered that when I eat popcorn I drink lots of water.”

We left at 9:25. Along the way he asked me “How can captains steer ships and hold cutlasses if they’re very, very sharp?” We also talked about Pluto and its planet status. He asked “Does it matter what I call Pluto?” He decided to call it a planet. This is a result of the Story Pirates story about how Pluto was sad when it was called a drawl planet.

We got to Bar’s house at 10. They live a block north of the Even Yehuda library. Bar let us in. They started out okay, and I talked to Ayelet, her mother, a bit. Bar gave him a vitamin C that he really liked. They played downstairs with the kitchen stuff. Then it was upstairs to the main floor. They watched some of the Troll movie and had snacks. Bar had some white chocolate chips and made him eat veggies to earn them. He had one piece of cucumber, then I got the carrots I had brought for him, as he didn’t like the peppers or tomatoes. But then ther were also those wafer cookie things with chocolate in them and he had a few of those. We had met Bar’s brother, Ben, who is in kindergarten. He has an extensive Lego collection and likes to keep them in sets. So touching the Legos was out of the question. August wasn’t too interested in them though. But there was also a set of magnetized building block things. Ben showed us a barn he had made out of them, but then also said we couldn’t play with that.

One of Ben’s friends came over, Diane, I think, and I got to use a little Korean with her dad. August liked the big TV and at one point told me “We should buy one of those”. But he lost interest in the movie and wanted to play with other things. We played with those magnet things, building a second building: “I call it a barn that was really old and the animals died.” Bar came and played with him a bit. I had made a hat of sorts out of this clay stuff they had, and Bar came and put it on his head. He said “Im listening to the sea.”

Bar then with her dad went upstairs and got upset about something. August wanted to go up and check on her, but then her brother told us that we should leave her alone when she is upset and that she had once scratched him. August then got upset – I’m not entirely sure why (because he had been told he couldn’t go upstairs, or that she might hurt him) – and I had to pick him up. He told me “You shouldn’t have bringed-ed me here!”

But then they both calmed down, and Bar took August upstairs. I had been talking to Moshe earlier during snacks/troll time. Now talked to Ayelet for awhile. But after awhile I heard August crying and he came downstairs. Bar had decided they were going to take a nap, and had changed him into Ben’s pajamas – even changed his underwear. But the shirt was too much, it turned out. He doesn’t like us putting shirts on, and he really doesn’t like them getting stuck on his head. When he calmed down he told me “I didn’t want to change my clothes. I’m used to mine.” Bar brought down a big elephant and giraffe, and they watched more troll movie.

They went downstairs and played with a light thing in the dark. Then it was lunch time, but August refused to eat anything. He had had so many snacks I wasn’t surprised. He told me “I’m having a little hard time.” But after lunch they all four went downstairs. Ben was in charge as they played chicken tag with the huge balloon chicken left over from Bar’s birthday party, then some sort of other tag. Ben got out snakes and ladders and it was August’s first big kind board game. I helped him, and he was okay with the not winning. It was Bar who wanted to cheat to win and got upset, and her mom took her upstairs. I stayed down with the three remaining kids and they played a hungry hippos sort of game, then Ben threw the marbles around, or hid them, and August and Diane would find them. And somewhere in there August had played with a light up sword and was talking about cutlasses.

August found a new musical instrument – one of those cheap harmonica/keyboard things. And he really liked it. Bar eventually heard it and came down and said it was hers and took it, but August didn’t complain. We went upstairs with her and the two of them sat in a seat together and watched the movie and played with toys. Finally, I dragged him away at 2:50. As we walked he said “Maybe we should visit her two times…just two.”

We stopped at the snakes and ladder playground and played there for awhile. He climbed up into the rope thing and took my hat and wore it. He then found he could climb under the big geometric shapes.

We walked home and were home about 3:40. Warm enough that I opened the windows. They had given us a leftover gift bag from Bar’s birthday: a snakes and ladders game, a pencil, eraser, glitter glue, and a squishy monster toy like he’d played with at her house. I did dishes, and we played a round of snakes and ladders. Carly came home. August  was lying on the floor playing with the squishy monster thing and listening to an Ian McNabb song called “You Stole My Soul”. August started singing along but changed the line to “Don’t you kow you stole my sock”. He told me “There’s so many things to post to the blog.”

He did a little glitter glue (and we sharpened the pencil at some point), then ate soup for dinner and had popcorn. He talked about how Ben wasn’t very nice; and how it wasn’t nice to knock down Ben’s toy (he and Bar had knocked down the bard with some fake flowers they were swinging around).

We skyped with my parents for 20 minutes and started to talk about plans for them to visit next year. He and Carly played snakes and ladders. And he told me he always wanted to sleep next to me. When he was tired he wanted me to carry him upstairs. When Carly tried to pick him up he requested I take him. She got him ready, then I went up and said goodnight and left them after 7:15.

He got up at 6:30. They nursed, then he asked “Where’s my bassoon?” He then played music with it, including his latest mystery song. He asked for crackers with peanut butter, but was upset when I said they had to stay on the coffee table. “You can call someone who can clean a couch.”

Finally, right before Carly left he was somewhat okay with sitting on the couch and keeping the bowl of crackers on the coffee table, with the table pulled close to him. But then he looked at them and said “They all look gross to me…Yeah, cuz they’re slobbery with peanut butter.” He looked at them suspiciously for awhile, then asked if I was making him eat the crackers. I said no, he was the one that had requested crackers. He finally chose one, after touching them a few times. He started by slowly licking it, as if he was unsure what it was. Finally, he just got around to actually eating the crackers.

He asked why zoos are closed sometime (e.g. at night) and I talked about peace for the animals. He said “But what if they hear a rocket blasting into the sky and it wakes them up?” I acknowledged that could be a problem, but not a likely one.

Some interesting conversations: “You know, how did people wipe away snot in the past?” “If they wiped it on their sleeves that’s kinda gross.” He made a Duplo sculpture and sang a “Caring for the leaf” song, then asked “Dada, how did people get to the Earth if there were no people to make other babies?” So a nice discussion of evolution. We got out the keyboard and played Dust Buster and Piano Maestro. He watched Animusic videos and I exercised.

I made a smoothie of all our leftover fruits: last of the strawberries, last of the blackberries, and last of the mangos. He played on the couch while I did that. Drank some smoothie, then he played the mystery song on piano. Randomly, he asked “Why’s bunk beds dangerous? You know, cuz they’re up high?” And “Why do some tape measures go up to a certain distance, then go higher than that?”

We went upstairs and I took a shower and he played GarageBand on his iPad. Recording samples and playing. After my shower he wanted to play TodoMath with me. He was doing the missions and on the barn activity he was acting like Cam Jenson: “Click. In my picture I see-d one pig about to go in there.” He was having difficulty with the matrix activities at first, but then was getting better and sort of chanted “I’m getting good with matrix.” He was then pretending to be a lamb and asked if lambs like baths. I said yes. But then he was getting upset in the bath when I washed him. I asked what was wrong and he said “I’m a special lamb.” That doesn’t like baths. He was pretending.

Downstairs he was talking about pencil sharpeners “Dada, what would a pencil sharpener do if you put your finger in it and turned it?” “Why don’t crayons need a pencil sharpener?” He ate crackers and peanut butter after having more carrots. We were then sitting on the red chairs. First separately, then he was on my lap, talking about electricity. We were talking about what would happen if someone touched electricity, and of course the possibility of it killing you came up. He asked “What does it feel like before you die?” He was then playing with Duplos again, making sculptures and sang a “Static electricity” song.

We left at 12:40, him on the bike. He was pedaling a lot on his own and making music as we went. He talked about how a baby couldn’t ride a bike because it would fall off and I said that’s why they need strollers with buckles. He asked “Is there airbags in case the baby falls out?” I told him he should invent that. We had a fine trip to Tiv Taam, then came home at 1:45. I commented on how warm it was and how I liked that for winter. He said he wanted a cold winter. I told him he was probably stuck with a warm-ish winter until he was 18. But he said he wanted me to move with him because he might get lost in Greenland. Then, as he rode on his own, he said “It’s funny how I can push myself now. I could ride away to Greenland. I could ride away to the ocean. I could ride away to the shore. I could ride away to the Mediterranean Sea.”

We were home at 2. He found the clay he had thrown out the door the other day and threw it away in the garbage can: “I’m tall enough!” Inside he said “It’s good I didn’t come out of my mama early…I was lucky.” He was asking for cracker and I said we could make sandwiches instead. He said “Oh no! I miss-ed my chance!” We ate peanut butter sandwiches. He was asking if I put too much honey in it, enough to make him sick. I said I had, but that I cast a spell so he wouldn’t get sick. I showed him the motion of my spell. He said my spell was tricky, so he might get sick anyway.

Randomly, he said “Dada, I can’t really get along with people…I think they’re mean.”

We got ready to go and drove to the school. Carly was then taking the car to go to a doctor’s appointment and we were walking to his class, using his orange bike. In the library we returned 2 Cam Jenson books. We checked out two more, Lost Tooth and Double Beach Mystery. We read Lost Tooth, then wandered over to the seating area when he spotted the chess sets. We set up a chess set and talked about it, then he spotted the big box of blocks on a table further down. We went over there and also found sets of those round ball bearing-type magnets. August had a blast playing with those: “series of magic pipes…but the magic force is getting old…So I put it to the series of magic pipes museum…they make new things.”

Ilana came over and told us there was a special week next week – Library tech or something – and the idea was to make videos like https://youtu.be/QQ9gs-5lRKc There is a board set at an angle on the ground next to the table. So then August and I were making paths for the balls to roll down. I found a book of 50 Israeli short stories and checked that out while he was playing. I finally got the little sets of marbles separated and pulled him away from the magnets and marbles and we headed to his class, but first went and recycled some cans we had brought with us.

He was the only person at class, and for several minutes he and Sigal did yoga positions using some cards she had of kids doing animal yoga poses, like a frog. He was really enjoying that, so that when Abigail and Daria showed up with their dad August actually got upset. He does like his individual attention time. But he ended up doing quite well in class. All the parents were in there, and I may have actually done the least redirecting, etc. of the parents. They started by pretending they were walking on the moon. And walking on their heels and toes. Also working on jumping off the mats with two feet (something he was also doing, while holding the arms, of the red chairs before we left home), hopping on two feet, standing on one foot, etc. And they did more of the yoga cards: he was a bear, tree, mountain, slide, and others.

His biggest difficulty in class might be waiting for her to set up the course at the end of class. Waiting is hard. Good practice for him. I basically had to hold him. But then he had fun with that, and as we left class he said “That was so fun!” He went and used the bathroom before we left (his idea).

We got outside and I had received a message from Carly saying she was on her way. August at first said he didn’t want to be picked up and wanted to walk home. But then he wanted to stop at the playground. He told me it was too dark for AR view to work in Drops. He got to play about 10 minutes before Carly showed up. His reaction when I said I saw her: “Oh no. No, wait. I’m not even finished yet.” We talked about class and I said “They did yoga poses in class” August finished the sentence with “and I was very good.” Carly told him she was going to teach him about humility.

Carly stayed and played with him for another 20 minutes or so and we left at 6:10. In the c
ar he asked her “What kids were in your class?” “How was class today?”

At home he had some noodles, then got angsty over his treat – he wanted hot chocolate but it was too close to bedtime. Finally he settled for candy cane. He happily sucked on it and hummed his mystery song. When he was done he said “I’m like magnets, but stickier.” Because things stuck to him. Carly had him say ‘simile’.

He was pretty quickly to bed after that. Hit his head on the edge of the bed a bit and was then ready to sleep. I left them right around 7.

Carly got him up right before she left again. Really groggy on the couch for awhile, then wanted to play Busy Gears. As he played, he asked “Can you do some laundry, please, dada?” Good remembering that he and Carly had told me before he went to bed that we should do laundry today. He had commented on the laundry basket being full. I started laundry, then came down and we read The Wing on a Flea. He then looked at the songbook and was making up music. He found in the back that he could rate the iBooks and he talked about how much he liked the songbook so he gave it five stars. He then opened other books and rated them.

We bought a new book, Sarah and Duck have a Quiet Birthday and read that. He then watched Animusic videos and played along as I made a smoothie. We discussed advertisements and Rebar. He talked about how he doesn’t even know what some of the ads are selling. And he told me that the Rebar ads are about 4 hot drinks. He then sang a “Mima mema more” version of his latest mystery song. And he asked me “Could you add that to the blog? It’s a lovely song.” He was then a space robot studying Mars and other planets.  I took a nice photo of him explaining that he could withstand any hot temperature.

We built a big structure with Duplos. While we were building he asked me why people get runny noses. When I did it helped protect against germs he told me “Oh, I learned that. I learned that in school.” He stood by the tall straight plant and it is almost as tall as him. He said “When two things are the same, you know…” Then turned into a plant. This is a running joke of his, that when two things are the same in some way they turn into the same thing.

We re-read the Cam Jenson Circus Mystery book. He then watched a couple videos of acrobats while I took a shower. He played his upstairs music machine, then I gave him his bath. I had made some falafel and french fries. He rejected falafel and when I asked if he’d eat french fries he replied “No, I’m more interested in physics…I’m more interested in physics and gears.” He had found a coin somewhere and threw it off the couch. He told me “I throwed the coin off in the distance.” And he told me “Dada, I really liked the background photo you had on your iPad before you changed it.” That was weeks and weeks ago. Can’t remember what it was before, although we looked through some of the photos to find it. He played some Monster Physics. Then he asked “What’s capes?…Why does superheros wear them?” I asked where he learned that and he said “It was in activity class.” And he added “Do capes look superhero-ish?”

He was having naked time as he hadn’t put clothes on after his bath. He pushed all the cushions and stuffed animals onto the floor and made a mouse nest. He was  also a sick mouse a lot today. Earlier he had been a sick mouse and was telling his “friends” that he couldn’t play with them for seven hours because he was sick.

We played some Dust Buster, then he did a little Piano Maestro. He passed the last chapter 1 song, and practiced a song with two notes a little. He drank the rest of the smoothie and asked for some thawed mango. He asked “You know, how do tight rope walkers stand on…” Lots of talk of tight rope walker discussions and questions today. He made up a song, then said “So much things to add to the blog. Could you take a video of the next song?” He was singing and hitting the toy syringe with a spring on it on the couch as a rhythm instrument. Soft couch, but surprisingly it broke the top off of it. I told him I’d try to super glue it later.

We went for a walk, finally, after 3. We stopped and did recycling, then went to the park. He said “Dada, I like living close to a park.” Of course, he’s always liked close to a park. In the swing he opened his locker and said “We’re out of milk and chocolate-covered flies.” We played around on the ‘store’ structure for awhile, then he hopped on the bike. Made it as far as the exercises equipment where he jumped off and we played for a few minutes. We then walked over to Tal Garden a little before 4. When I said where we were headed he asked “Do you mean the one with a helter skelter?” He played on the motorcycle thing, then went and spit on the edge. He said “I spitted! In PUBLIC!…I was doing some things we weren’t supposed to do not public.” He had been talking about peeing at the other park. Back on the motorcycle he randomly talked about all sorts of things. He asked why Jack lived at the house across the street. He then added “You know, it’s not a very nice house.”

Switched to the merry-go-round and we went really fast on it. He wanted to do that a few times. He then had an art supply store on the slide. He adjusted his sweatshirt: “Dada? Could you let me control how high and how low the zipper is? It was really high up. So I put it down.” He spotted Jack leaving his house and we said hi. Back in his art supply store he said that everything was magical so the pencil sharpeners wouldn’t cut his finger.

We left at 4:25. He asked “Can we listen to I’ve bee working on the railing road?” I sang it a few times, him humming along. Then he said “I said actually to listen to it.” We listened to the Pete Seeger version several times and took a walk around the Holly block, getting home at 4:40. He asked “Could we do an iHerb order?” We were looking at Larabar options when Carly got home.

He ate some soup for dinner, then Carly let him have a piece of the candy cane. He started playing GroRecycling and I went upstairs to the office to work. They took a long time getting ready for bed and played with the kaleidoscope cards. They came and got me and I went in and said goodnight and left them at 7:20.

Carly got him up before she left. When she left he wanted to play a shapes game. He started with a few minutes of Busy Shapes, but I think was finding that too easy. He tried to switch to RelationShape but realized he’d passed all the levels in that. We looked at the art he had made in the game. He said “You know, dada? It seems like you like all my pictures.” So we purchased Busy Gears, and it worked well: he hasn’t used gears before and it was a little more challenging than Busy Shapes.

We ate the last of the apple muffins. He told me “I LOVE the apple muffins you made.” He was humming a new mystery song, just a line really. No idea what it is. He was kind of stuck on the mystery song while I made sandwiches. He also mused on different subjects: “In Korea did we think the little water was for outside and the big water bottle was for inside?” “Now I love the rectangle crackers. Why do I love the rectangle crackers?” And he was a claw machine: “I was a claw machine that could do everything humans can do…Pretty impressive, eh?”

We went upstairs and he played with the pen light from his doctor kit and asked how the the switch on it worked. We talked about circuits.  And he asked how they animated the falling light video we watched the other day. He played GroRecycling and I took a shower. He had also played the drying rack as a music machine, so as we were leaving when I asked if he needed to play his machine before we left he said “I already did my music machine. It was upstairs, silly.”

It was so slow leaving with him, as he keeps wanting to do one more thing. I made things slower as well as I bonked his foot with the door as he was getting shoes on. He recovered from that and we finally left at 9:45.

With traffic it is close to an hour each way to/from the zoo. Made much more bearable/useful since Carly sent me that podcast article. We listened to Story Pirates going both directions. We caught up with the new ones, but have a lot of their older ones still available. And plenty of other podcasts to listen to.

As we got there I pointed out the big Ramat Gan Park, which we haven’t been to. He wanted to stop and go there. We parked and got out his bike. Immediately saw a lot of cats. About 10:40. Looked at a map and started off on a walk around the park. Nothing too exciting at first, and the gardens outside the natural history museum are fenced off due to work on the paths. But then we got around to a huge covered playground. Played on a big ropey/trampoline-y thing, then he found two of the green seats to lounge in for lunch. Played around a bit more and made our way to the other end, hoping on and off other toys: played with spinning platform things, down a slide, spin in a teacup, on a motorcycle, etc. But then he found a little area where a few other kids were playing with sand.

That was just before 11:30 and lasted until noon. He helped a girl put sand in a round thing. Told me “She’s putting sand in there. I don’t know why.” He was sharing sand toys and gave a shovel back to a girl when she asked. I asked if he wanted his coat :”Sorry, I’m too busy.” And he told me “You notice how we’re all playing together?”  Except they were apparently taking all the sand from the “Baby” sitting on the ground. Eventually, they were going back and forth between the play area and the sand area, getting more sand. This went fine until he stood up and clotheslined himself on the rope thing he was under. He was quite a ways away from me and I thought he was okay at first, as he was quiet as he walked towards me. But then when he got close he started crying and threw down the bucket thing.

As I held him and he was crying, a woman came over to me and, in English, told me that August should be wearing a sweatshirt. And socks with his shoes. Because he was cold. She pointed to his runny nose as evidence. I showed great self restraint as I told her flatly that it was warm for us (it was 18), and the reason he had a runny nose and was upset was that he had just gotten hurt. Then I ignored her. As Carly pointed out later though, it would have been more culturally okay to yell at her here.

Anyway, we got going at 12:15. We stopped for a snack, and August said “What would make me happy is you using a pencil sharpener.” We went to the bathroom. He used a regular stall, but when he was done he found a wheelchair stall with a sink his size and he said he could use it next time.

We got in the car and drove right next door to the zoo. Paid, make sure I’d taken away window control from August, and started driving through the safari area. I let August get out of his car seat so he could move around the car to look out the windows. He was supposed to sit while I actually drove, but of course liked to push that – he sat on the edge of his seat, holding the handle above him and the seat in front of him. Saw rhinos and zebras and gazelles and ibex. Then hippos and birds at the pond.

Parked in the parking lot at the zoo and walked in. First stop was a giant tortoise. August was whispering really quietly. In the car we had talked about how the rules on the big sign said not to startle the animals. He was taking that to heart. Then the playground. He climbed up a big rope ladder area, then was walking around up above my head. Definitely a making-mama-nervous playground. There were single log bridges with rope hand rails and big holes you could fall through. Then we realized there wasn’t an easy way for him to come down. The only slides were the two metal pole kinds, and he was starting up out of my reach. He ended up coming down the way he went up, and I got up a bit and helped him climb down backwards.

He climbed around a few other places. In one spot he said “I can climb up here without you spotting me is SO COOL!” He went down the two pipe slide a couple times, starting as high as I could lift him up. He said “I’m. Holding. On. As tight as. I. Can.”

We then got going. Looked at a tortoise skeleton display, then stopped to looked down at the crocodiles: “Good that we can’t get chomped since there’s a bridge.” He then said “I’m an animal cuz I’ve been driving that magical water bottle…a crocodile.” And he chomped me. We headed back towards the giraffes. Stopped at the children’s zoo. We watched a rat in a cool enclosure, then saw people in the pen with the sheep and goats. August told me to go in, but he was going to wait outside. So I went in and petted a goat. I got him to come in with me holding him. Eventually I got him standing on the ground, watching them eat (there was a zookeeper feeding them). But he was hesitant to touch them. Got him to pet a sheep a couple times, but mainly he declined. He was a machine not working right. As we left, he asked me “What happens if someone does something wrong at the zoo?…Like scrapes an animal?” I think he was afraid of hurting the animals. We left there at 2:10.

We saw an odd structure, with big trampolines suspended in the air. I said it looked like something acrobats might use. He didn’t know what acrobats are so we watched a few seconds of a video. We kept going and saw the elephants and giraffes. He was drinking from his water bottle and turning into things. Tried to find the Komodo dragon, but it seems the exhibit is being worked on. Saw the penguins being fed on our way back. We looked into the restaurant area to see what they have, for next time. He liked the gorilla statue out front and hugged it and gave it a kiss. Then we sat and had a snack. And discussed the wires “gymnasts”/acrobats walk on. He then climbed on a big tortoise statue. He said he was practicing climbing. Went fine until he slipped off. There are a couple steps near it, and he went down those as well. At first it looked like he might spin and go head first, but luckily went down feet first. He hit his left had a bit hard though. Had a small cut on it and treated it gingerly for awhile after that.

We stopped at the infor
mation desk to get annual memberships. The guy had a colorful little box on his desk and August kept asking about it. The guy showed us it was full of keys, then August asked what they were for. August also said he didn’t think the guy had a pencil sharpener.

We went and put the bike and stuff in the car. The guy from information caught up with us – the computer had had a problem and he needed the numbers on our membership cards again. August and I then went to the bathroom. August said “Maybe to sharpen a pencil you could just go upstairs.” It turned out that he was talking about the pencil sharpener at home, and was still concerned that he could get hurt by it. He wanted the sharpener itself upstairs.

We drove through the rest of the safari area. Lots of hippos and he liked the elands. Said the black spots on their knees looked like bandages. Then it was through the lions area. That was pretty cool. We stopped by some zebras for a snack. We were finishing an orange. I offered him a Larabar if he was still hungry. He told me “I always tell you: I am tired of blueberry Larabars.” 🍊

Listened to Story Pirates on the way home. Got here 5:15. Nursed, then he was hyper. He said “I’m a bunch of electrons jumping around.” Played some Busy Gears, then ate a good amount of noodles and veggies for dinner. While he ate he asked “How do you get treats on Halloween if you don’t have a costume?” I said you pretty much have to hav a costume: “Cuz people like to see you in a costume?” We then read Cam Jansen and the Circus Mystery. He had some soup, and we watched a couple of high wire act videos. After all of our talk today of acrobats we had then read the circus book. A nice coincidence. Carly let him have another piece of the candy cane.

He played with the pillows and said “You know I’m building a tractor, right?” THen he wanted popcorn. They had that and watched some Planet Earth. She took him upstairs at 7:30. I told him to dream about sheep, and he added “and lambs”. I left around 7:45.

Carly took the car this morning as it was raining. We could have driven her, but she had just brought August downstairs and he was still waking up. And I didn’t plan on using it for anything today. August asked for Skybrary. When I said we could do that he said “Thank you!” We read Scrubba Dub, Carlos (after which we started singing Row Your Boat or a made-up Scrubba Dub song everytime we washed his hands), Pig Pig Meets the Lion, and Nina Nandu’s Nervous Noggin.  During the second book August asked “Do Lions chomp and hurt you?…Then lets not have a lion in our house.”

He asked for his water bottle and for me to fill it, then said “Pink and sink rhyme!” We played some Seuss Band and were making a pretty good team on one of the difficult songs. He was just playing the low C and I’d do the rest. We were getting closer to 60,000 points on it. I got him to switch to Dust Buster and Piano Maestro for a bit, then we read more of volume 2 of The Sisters. I gave him peanut butters on his beloved rectangle crackers and he loved it.

He watched Marble Machine and asked if it was powered by air. I said no, and wondered where he got that idea. He told me of a dot painting he had done with Carly: “It was a dot painting and mama designed it to have air going in it to move the marbles.” I made a mango and strawberry smoothie. He was watching more music machines and asked “When did people first discover drums?” He was then a music machine: “The guitar still plays but the strings and bells don’t work.” “You better go to the store if you want to fix my strings. You need super glue and you’re out of super glue.” “You know, it’s funny that the batteries aren’t working. I think you got the wrong kind of batteries. These batteries are for a marble machine. This is a music box.” “Nevermind, I’m a paper machine. It doesn’t have many parts so it can play 19 BILLION songs in a row…It’s the same kind of paper machine I watch on YouTube or something.” He was thinking about another machine by the maker of the Marble Machine that plays a song on paper like a player piano.

Exercised and he watched Kipper, then I moved him upstairs and I took a shower. I took him in and found new Animusic videos for him to watch. He said “You should add this to our blog!” It was “Starship Groove” by Animusic. We also watched one called “Heavy Light”. Gave him his bath and washed his hair. Quickly, and with him not happy as I wouldn’t let him drain all the water out right away.

Out in the play area he played with the drying rack as a music machine and we pretended light was playing it like in the video. He then wanted me to play guitar along to it so I connected it to GarageBand on my phone. Eventually I wanted to get some lunch.

I made a pizza with olives and za’atar. He played Seuss Band all on his own for several songs.  He wouldn’t even consider my pizza and wanted more crackers and peanut butter instead. He told me he still liked pizza in a show though, telling me flat out: “I think so. Their pizza is better.”

For some reason he decided yesterday that he wants to break the small wooden giraffe. He was playing with it again today and kept talking about wanting to destroy it. So I put it up on a high shelf to protect it from him.  We read more of The Sisters. Then I got all of our library books. There was a Clementine, a Cam Jansen, two Magic Treehouse, and one Max Axiom Sound book that we’ve never read but had had for about 3 weeks. We decided to return them and get books he’d rather read. He said “Let’s not tell the librarian.” I said they wouldn’t care and didn’t think they’d even ask. But later when August set the big stack of books on the desk one of them said “You read all those books?” I just didn’t answer.

We did the Cam Jansen picture thing though in the book we were returning (the Summer Camp Mysteries), then we finished the Max Axiom Food Chains book. We opened the colored pencils and drew with those a bit. We discussed the difference between markers and pencils again, as they don’t have lids like markers. We also discussed what would happen if the world ran out of gas or food. He went to the bathroom and we did a washing his hands song. He was then humming “Dont Stop Believing” (which is on Piano Maestro) as we made a dog house with a slide for the Duplo dog. He then played a little on his own, then played GroRecycling and let me finish some typing.

We left at 2:05. As we left he told me “Next time we play the Dr. Seuss instrument and we have the same sound a couple times please remind me to change it. Cuz I might get bored of the same sound over and over.” As we walked by a barking dog he said “Everytime a dog barks at us a coisonous liquid senses how loud the barking is and it makes the barking go away.” A little disturbing.

We got to the school and went to the library. We read a Berenstain Bears detectives book, then checked out three Young Cam Jansen books (Ice Skate Mystery, Circus Mystery, and 100th Day of School Mystery), The Berenstain Bears and the Missing Dinosaur Bone, The Punctuation Station, and Under, Over, By the Clover: What is a Preposition? (which I knew Carly would like). And Mr. Bliss by J.R.R. Tolkien, which I had never heard of.

August put the big stack on Amanda’s desk. As we checked them out August was cautious or concerned about something and I explained it Amanda, and told her about how he was concerned about the pencil sharpener I had bought him. Just then I noticed August was looking at the electric pencil sharpener and he asked me what it was. He then got to use an electric pencil sharpener for the first time and loved it, especially when it just rotated the pencil really fast. Out on the free books stack I found a diamond in the rough: The Wing on a Flea: A Book about Shapes. It is from the early 60s, and on the inside it is dedicated to someone named Peter and signed by the author, Ed Emberley, with a little drawing of a bus with it. Sadly the dust jacket is missing andthe spine is pretty damaged.

We went to the playgrounds. First the preschool one, but no one was there. Then the larger one. He started playing and climbing around. I had brought 8 crackers and 8 slices of apple today. Starting with the walk, he said that he each one was magic and would turn him into something. I got to choose what, so he had been a jellyfish and and otter, among others. We sat on the little mushroom-shaped steps and ate an apple. I tried to turn him into a mushroom, but he said it had to be something that moved. Carly showed up at 3:40 as she wanted to head home a bit early. He said “Oh, no.” when he saw her. He still wanted to play.

So Carly walked home, leaving the car for us. There were two girls, sisters, also playing at the playground, and suddenly August was over on the teeter totter playing with them. He then followed them as they played on the big play structure. He ended up back on the teeter totter with them a couple more times. The younger one was crying at one point and he was pointing that out: “That person is crying”. They started to leave, so he was ready to go as well. He wanted to play school and asked me if I knew how to print things in Carly’s classroom. I said I didn’t have a key to her classroom, so he was ready to go home instead.

Stopped and went to the bathroom, then on the way out of the school we saw Bar and her mom. I talked to her and set up a possible play date on Wednesday. We left at 4:15. He speculated on what Bar’s house might be like: “Maybe Bar’s house is pink cuz sometimes I see her wear pink clothes.” (She was dressed in a tutu with a couple other girls.)

Randomly, he asked me “Does a two hump poop actually exist?” He was thinking about the Everyone Poops book, which he read with Carly a week or two ago. We listened to the rest of the Marshmallow Shooter Camp story on Story Pirates on the way home.

Home at 4:30. Before we went in the house he wa
nted to look at the power meters and wires and discussed how the numbers on the meters worked. After awhile I got him some of the noodles dish for dinner. I set it on the table. The pencil sharpener was somewhat close to him. He saw it and said: “No! Not that! I’m gonna put the pencil sharpener right there.” He set it on the corner far away from him. After a good amount of dinner, Carly let him have a bit of the candy cane (she had mentioned getting treats for her students, and the mention of treats had done it).

He then told Carly “Uh, mama. It’s not gross when tea is cold.” Carly tried to get him to go for a walk, but he wasn’t budging. He read Young Cam Jansen and the Ice Skate Mystery with me instead. Then showed GroRecycling to Carly. At one point he asked her “Mama, can you pretend I’m a black and white printer?”

He and Carly then did a pumping heart model out of cups and straws and balloons. He was very excited when they got it working: “Cool! We invented our first machine!” When she was fixing it she set the big scissors on the ground and they were too close to him: “Big scissors!”

They played with the model for quite a bit, then headed upstairs to get ready for bed. I took him the small water bottle before he went to sleep and told him it would turn him into a frog, bird and hippo during his dreams. I left them at 7:50.

He and I both got up at 7:15. They nursed then we played Seuss Band. I passed the “Cat in the Hat” song for him but then had to draw a line – the last two are just too hard and I’d rather spend my time practicing real piano than Seuss Band. Carly made spinach pancakes. The first pancake was fine and August ate it all up and wanted a second. But the second one seemed like the spinach had started to go – the spinach tasted real strong. We decided to let him try it anyway, but he had the same opinion and gagged on his first bite. Weird, as it was one batch of batter and Carly had tasted the first pancake too.

He alternated eating thawed mango and popcorn and Carly went to the store. Still on Seuss Band he told me “See, that’s the rhythm i was talking about.” We then switched and read sone Dr. Seuss: Happy Birthday, Daisy Head Maisey. I did some exercise while he played Seuss Band on his own.

Carly called from the store, then August wanted to send her messages. He figured out he could draw pictures in Messages through Sketches and drew her a picture and asked if I like it. I said I did, and he said “Yeah, it’s pretty abstract.”

He’s been interested in baby toilets since he sees one in the bathroom at activity class and he’s been acting like a baby. He asked “Dada, how can babies go on the baby toilets like at Vivian’s house?” And he told me “I don’t ever want you or mama to leave my home.” I asked what he meant and he said “To leave me. To go to another place I can’t go.” Turned out he was talking about a babysitter, as we were talking about the Kerns girls babysitting him sometime.

He dropped some books on the floor and I said I was sick of the mess-making game. He replied “I’m sick or washing my hands all the time. Why can’t my hands be dirtier and dirtier?”

He wanted to go for a walk on his orange bike. As we were getting ready to go he asked “What happens if the Earth has more and more people? It would be overflowing? People would die?” We discussed that, then he asked the big “What happens when I die?”

We got going at 10:25. Carly came home right as we left. We took recycling up and did that, then walked west towards Tal Garden. By the synagogue a dog started barking at us like crazy. It was loose on the other side of a short fence. We stopped and August finished his popcorn and had some water. Eventually it crossed in front of us and headed to the left down the street. August and I went to the right. It ignored us for a bit, but then started running back at us, barking. I had my dog rocks ready, but when I turned it scooted into a driveway and stopped. We continued up to the end of the block, then circled around to our park. I tried to get August to play, but he was bothered by one wet spot on the big teeter totter that I didn’t want to clean up. We went on the spider-web swing for a couple minutes. I lay down and he stood on the edge. He remembered the password for the locker I had installed on his web.

We were home at 11:10. He then tried out his music machine (stick) to see if it worked when it is wet (it does). They nursed, then August said “I want one of my friends to nurse.” He got the stuffed horse. Carly said no. They did more dot painting. Carly asked him something and he replied “I don’t know about that. Anything else you want to talk about?” They were making magical turbines. Carly said she was making Es for the electrons in her generator but August didn’t like that idea: “You shouldn’t have done that.” And got a little upset about it.

He ‘raced’ her to the couch. He said “I always win. Even when I visit Vivian.” Oh my. I took a shower. He was eating more mango and drinking water. They were magical: “I made the mango magic cuz it makes The Sisters come to real life.” “We need the mango meter to go up to 18 then that will happen.” He ate it all, then said “Poof!” The Sisters had appeared. For the next magic I said our yard would fill with cats. He asked. “What if all cats in the world come to our yard?” I said it would make Carly sneezy. So he finished his water and said “There! It’s all Sneezy!”

For lunch he ate some noodles and pesto. Carly let him have a bit of the “sugar plum” candy cane from Thatcher and family. He told me “You should have a piece sometime. Not a curvy one though.” He wants to save those pieces for himself. After he ate it he said “We need to brush my teeth really good.” I gave him his bath. He watched Animusic videos. Downstairs he made a sculpture for Carly out of Duplos. He said “I like pink and purple. Why are they so pretty?”

The noodles and veggies were done and he had some. He told Carly “Thie is good, mama. You should make it more often.” Played more Seuss Band, then read more Dr. Seuss: Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? and Happy Birthday to You!

We walked to the mall and went to Rebar to get a smoothie. August Said “I see the ad!” It was the Rebar ad from YouTube. Got the usual chocolate peanut butter smoothie. First ate at a table, then moved to a bench to stay in the sun. August asked “Mama, how many Spanish words do you know in Spanish?” And on the bench he brought up “I’ve seen a Kipper video of Arnold floating up to the sky to a mountain I think and he could eat it.” It got around to a discussion of how watermelon isn’t my favorite fruit. August said “You should because it’s all juicy.”

We then went in the mall. Found that the place that had been worked on was Now a pizza hut. And like other pizza places, the only meat on the menu is tuna. We were considering getting a wooden box to paint for him but in the crafts store he wanted to grab things. I said “Let’s skip it today.” They both heard “Let’s give it to Dave.” and were confused.

They went to the bathroom and I looked in the bookstore. August and I then went in Kravitz and found colored pencils, a pink see-through pencil sharpener, a green and pink eraser, and a little pack of modeling clay. He also really wanted a magnifying glass, which we noted for birthday time. Carly had gone to the health food store and gotten peanut butter and a couple things at Tiv Taam.

August wanted to stop at the playground outside, so we did and he ‘flew’ the plane, then was climbing on it and the train, trying to make us nervous. Carly had a headache, so on the way home we let her walk the short way home and we took the long way. Sort of. August had been fixated on mama having to pee all the time, but then when I explained that she had a headache he decided he wanted to be loud. He turned us around and we headed home, but I got him to walk up Kibuts Galyout a bit before going home.

We were home before 5. At the door, as I talked about needing to be quiet, he seemed stuck between not going in because he was afraid he’d be too loud and wanting to go in and be really loud to be ‘funny’. Being loud won out. I almost had to take him upstairs. He skyped with Vivian and Carly went upstairs. We played with the clay we had just bought. Vivian drew a picture of August that was really cool. We mixed red and white clay to make pink, and he made a solar panel. Eventually, Vivian disappeared so we hung up and August went upstairs to Carly.

They came down and Skyped with Cherie and Chuck. I had to take him upstairs for being loud. Came back down and apologized  we played the Seuss Band app and I got dinner for him while Carly talked to her parents. He ate two bowls.

I mentioned how he should watch Puffin Rock again. He said “I don’t like that anymore. I changed what I like. Now I like Kipper and Max and Ruby.” He watched a Kipper. He played with the clay with Carly and ended up smooshing it all together. Luckily, a pack is less than 3 dollars. “I like squishing things. It’s like we’re back in Korea.” Once it was in one big ball he decided to get rid of it: “Can we drop it outside and never notice it again.” He kept saying this, and eventua
lly we let him put it in a plastic bag and throw it out the front door. He was spinning something and I said “Good spinning” He replied “Why? Is it making Tic-Tacs?”

Derek and Andrea and family then called on Skype and they talked for a good while. August and I then read a bunch of books in Skybrary as they kept skyping:  Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, Albert the Fix-It Man, Freda Plans a Picnic, Hungry Fox and the Midnight Pies, Alphabet: A Zipping, Zooming ABC.

Carly took him upstairs and got him ready for bed. I said my usually “I love you a ton of Q.” He said I should love him more than a ton. Not quite the infinities he argues with Cherie and Carly about. That led to a discussion of why Q, and I explained it was a unit of love measurement that I made up. I left them at 8:50.

During the night he got up to go to the bathroom. Sometime later he was having a bad dream. He came down at 7:10. He climbed on the couch with Carly and said “I sleeped extra.” Carly asked if he remembered either going to the bathroom or his bad dream. He was quite for a few seconds then said “Actually Kan”. He repeated it a couple times but wouldn’t clarify. I asked if that was what his dream was about and he nodded. They nursed then Carly went out to try to save her broccoli in a pot that had been damaged by the rain or cats. August played with the frog, then went and asked if he could have the treat from Thatcher. Took him all of a minute to remember that.

He ate Cheerios and used Carly’s phone to send me messages, both the typed and touch kinds. He sent me a touch one that looked like a sun. Carly said something about it and he said “Actually I call it a it ball of burning gas and magma and stuff.” Sun message he sent on Messages as he ate Cheerios.

I left  at 8:15 for Jerusalem. Driving to Jerusalem on a Saturday was the best thing ever as there are almost no cars out. More bikes and runners than cars. Took just a little over an hour, taking the ‘long’ route. I got to Sabeel in Jerusalem about 9:45 so after I parked I walked around the block a bit. Seth pulled up and we met for the first time in person. I tried out some Arabic on him and found out that the Modern Standard Arabic I’ve been learning is rather different form the colloquial Palestinian Arabic. Meeting with Omar went well. He had brought breakfast foods. We met for three hours and got things pretty organized as to next steps and who is doing what. Before I left Omar let me take a copy of A Time to Remember: Palestinian Towns and Villages and a book called A Rhyme for Every Time.

I then went to the Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem. I was first confused, as I walked in and there were only books in Arabic. The guy was funny though and walked me across the street to their other location, which has English-language books and a coffee shop. Omar had called ahead and I could charge books to Sabeel if they were related to the project. So I got four books that way: Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature, Palestinian Music and Song, Inside/Outside: Six Plays from Palestine and the Diaspora, and Palestine’s Children by Ghassan Kanafani. And for myself I found a guidebook called Palestine and Palestinians. And I got some really nice postcards for Carly and a calendar of Palestinian authors.

Had a nice drive home and got here at 4:15.

While I was gone they had made orange eggs for breakfast, gave him a bath, and made popcorn in a pan and watched 40 minutes of Brother Bear. It started pouring, so they stayed inside much of the morning, but went for two walks when it was nicer. The first was just around the block, with him walking. They played I Spy and he did one that was “I spy something that goes up and down.” The answer was stairs. They got back and went back out for another walk on his bike. They did sort of a Zinnie walk, wandering around. Back at home there was a narrow window where it was sunny and Carly was able to go sit outside. They also read Curious George and the Aquarium and Berenstain Bears and the Big Road Race at some point.

When I got home they had been doing dot painting and were working on the rocket. He was hiding from me in the rocket. Their dot painting had been of a generator. He was talking a lot about generators. Carly and I talked about my meeting. August interrupted to ask “How was your meeting?” Carly went out for a run. He ate an apple muffin and we studied the Cam Jansen picture again and answered the questions. We then played Piano Maestro. After that he “tricked” me by putting food colony in my water. That turned into an experiment. He put so much cocoa and other stuff in that things were floating. So we got clean water and compared and talked about density and surface tension. At one point he said “There should be a good play area in a shop or something.” He wanted to go play somewhere.

We played the Seuss Band instrument, then read Hop on Pop. Went back to the instrument. In playing the songs we unlocked a clarinet part to the instrument. He really liked it and said “Add it to the blog. People should see those.” He was playing Mary Had a Little Lamb. He opened Skybrary and we read a book called Hungry Pie and the Midnight Pies while he ate rice and sweet potato. Discussed the five senses, as that was what the book was about. He liked the stickers in the Skybrary app and played with those.

For some reason we were talking about making lists of books. August said “Dada, you should make a list of the books you read to me.” We then read a book about Martin Luther King Jr. Day, then headed upstairs as he was getting tired. He went to the bathroom and was then a chocolate chip powered musical mechanical arm machine. He was singing a new song and asked if it was a mystery song. He could sing it again, so I took a video of it to try to figure it out later. In Skybrary we read a book called What Does It Mean to Be Green?, then a book about tools called Toolbox. There was a vice and I reminded him of using a vice with grampa this last summer. He said he wanted to do it again “if he still has it”. Brushed his teeth and got him ready to go to sleep. I told him to dream about “Tools”. He agreed and then said “and secret ones”. I left them at 9:30.

Between 12 and 1 at night he got up and went to the door. Kind of stood there, then Carly called him back. She asked if he needed to go to the bathroom and he said yes. So she got up with him. When they came back she tried to put him back to sleep on the lower bed. He sat up and said “Sleep up with dada. I like him.” So he climbed up on the bed and promptly fell back to sleep between us. Later there was a huge peel of thunder that woke me for a minute.

He woke up at 6:30. When I sat up for a moment he came up on the bed and stole my pillow. Downstairs he played with the frog instrument and said “Dada, I love this frog thing.” He used the stick like a magic wand and made me disappear and reappear.

Carly almost had a window for walking to work, but then it was starting to rain harder and harder. So we drove her to work, which was a good decision as it was pretty hard for awhile. Finished the Story Pirates episode we had started yesterday. Back home he was a bit grumpy. Managed to read A Snowy Day. Then he watched Max and Ruby. I heated up some apple muffins and buttered them but he only ate half of one. As we put Monster Physics on his iPad he said “I want to put monster physics on her work iPad so she can show her students that game.” He played that for awhile.

He told me “Today we should go to science center at IKEA. The one mama went to. You know. You know. You said that.” Confusing until I realized he meant ‘Haifa’, not ‘IKEA’. He ate noodles and broccoli for breakfast, then we did some Piano Maestro. We went upstairs. He asked “Dada, could you be someone playing with a giraffe made out of fragile papier mache?” He was referring to the little wooden giraffe what we weren’t sure what it was made out of yesterday. He watched Kipper and I took a shower. Gave him a short shower. After his shower he asked “When you and mama have jobs could you stay with me?” We talked about it and how preschool was still 7 months away and we could prepare for it in the meantime. I asked if he’d like to visit the preschool classroom a few times to see what it was like. He liked that idea. I also said I’d be volunteering at the preschool so I’d be there sometimes. He said “But mama said they’re only the same age”. I told him that just applies to the students.

Back downstairs he remembered Toca Store and we played three rounds of that. He went and played his piano and made up a song and told me “It’s called ‘Changes Automatically’” He did another one and when I asked what that was he made up a word. I asked what it was again and he explained “Its a French word.”

We left for town at 11:30. Parked just behind the library, which was nice as it was raining pretty hard. I carried him to the entrance to the library. It was closed. Supposed to be open until 12:30, but a sign said it closed at 11:45 today. It was 11:46. We looked at the gutter pipes and other pipes for a minute, speculating what they were for.

Then we decided to walk to Gutale for lunch. As I carried him he made up a song to the tune of “Skip to My Lou”: “Down through the pipes, down through the ground…” I think it was about the water, at first at least. Then it turned into “Up into the air, up into the sky…” and got more fanciful as it was up into other things. Finally he switched to “Right into…” and was going to all sorts of things that he saw and thought of: solar system, etc.

And then another shock: Gutale was closed. Under renovation. We decided to walk back to the other coffee shop, Malkin. Got our usual table and ordered the alfredo pasta, hot chocolate for August, and a latte for me. While we were waiting we went and looked at the antique sewing machine in the corner. August really liked it and I explained how it worked. We could turn the handle and see it go up and down. Anyway, he went back to it a couple times. The food was good and August loved his hot chocolate. He used a spoon to eat the foam off the top, then scoop out the chocolate at the bottom. Then we used the straw from his water bottle to drink the rest. It was so much that he had enough and let me drink the rest of it. He wandered back to the sewing machine and I was watching him gently play with it, turning the wheel. A woman that worked there though saw him and started yelling at him. Another woman joined in. When I got him and brought him back over to the table he looked at them in shock and then the woman rather patronizingly told him it was sharp, like a knife, and showed him where the kid toys were, etc. Rather scared him and he was ready to leave. Of course, the ironic thing was that there was no actual needle in the sewing machine, and apparently the women didn’t notice that. Also, I had already noticed a difference from Korea, where in coffee shops after we bought something we were almost always left along. Here they are always checking in, and a total of four people interacted with us. Good for learning some Hebrew (I learned “Is everything okay?”, which is just ‘everything’ and ‘okay’ together as a question. Both words I know, but hadn’t heard them asked that way), but not so good for a quiet, private moment in a coffee shop.

Anyway, we walked back to the car. Still raining. By the library we watched the water running off the paved area by the playground and then going into a small tree area where it was actually absorbing into the ground after making a little stream. Talked about runoff and infiltration.

Got to the car at 1:25. There, he asked “Dada, why were the Berenstain Bears written back before there were iPads?” Then a cool question: “What did people first invent?” Followed by “How can people study volcanos?” Because volcanos are so hot. We discussed and tried to answer each the best we could.

We drove a bit and listened to Story Pirates. He was then being a donut machine. We stopped at the school at 1:45. He looked up at the screen and saw the Story Pirates logo, which is a skull and crossed pencils. He asked “Is the pirate flag to say ‘Aargh, we’re pirates’?” Which is an awesome question. As we walked with the umbrella he was being a sunflower. He said he got his water through his hands as he held them out to get the rain.

At the library we went back and got a few books. He wanted to play on the computer but a class was coming into that room. We went out to a bench. Kind of loud as there were high schoolers in the library. He said “Please” and wanted to be picked up for a minute. He looked out into the center of the building and started talking about a solar-powered marshmallow machine. We read a Cam Jansen book (Pizza Shop Mystery). Then we did the study-a-picture-then-answer-questions-game at the back. He really got into studying the picture and talking through what he saw: people, what they were doing, their clothes, what they carried, colors of things, objects. We then got a second book and just did the picture thing out of that one. We realized we hadn’t really studied their faces, so we started doing that as well.

Suddenly, there was a flash of lightning followed by a huge clap of thunder. Kids throughout the library started screaming. Figured it hit the school someplace, and turns out Carly saw sparks off the fence outside her window. School got out and put the books away and played with a toy spider, then went and found Carly. Along the way he sang a new mystery tune. He said “I’m pretty sure it’s from Kipper when Arnold goes up to the sky in his balloon. I’m pretty sure he has ice cream.”

With Carly he asked “What did you teach your students?” They then played school, taking turns being teacher. He got her gavel and put it on a chair, then started hitting it and said “Order in the court! Order in the court! You stole dada’s workbook!” We had a trial and both presented our sides. He eventually let her off.

They played more school and printed things.

We got home at 4:10. He said “I want you to put me to sleep. It’s my baby’
s naptimes, remember?” I went up and had some work time as I wanted to finish some stuff before going to Jerusalem tomorrow. They did dot painting and made a generator. I came down to him at 7. We went upstairs and played with the kaleidoscope cards. He was saying things like “Do you like how the pink and the square things go to get her?” “Mine’e gonna be a nice complex one.” In the bathroom he had noticed the toilet paper holder under the roll was empty so he went and got three rolls out and filled it.

He also tried to convince me to let him have a snack: “Could I have a little snacky snack? I ate-ed SOME dinner. Talk to mama, please.” Carly came up and he was asleep by 8.

Earlier in the car he had also asked “Can we eat stars?” That led to a discussion of black holes – a new concept for him. He asked “Can a black hole fill up?”

6:05. Lots of laughter in his sleep. Then popped up and ran out “Dada?”

Took Carly to work. It was pouring as we left, and Carly covered August with an umbrella as I carried him. I drove around the block and we admired the channel taking water over to the highway. We had to drive about 25 km/hour there and back as the roads have inches of water on them in some places. Water was coming up from manhole covers in places.

Back at home August asked for hot chocolate. I made him some, and he said “Mama should try cold tea.” I had just sent an email to Carly joking that my coffee was still warm.

While I was in the kitchen and he was on the couch he asked “With so many people on the earth, how can the earth have so many?” We talked about sustainability and overpopulation – Agricultural Revolution for almost 4-year olds.

Today he wanted blue eggs. So we used blue food coloring. Of course, with the yellow eggs they still turned out green, but it was a darker blue-green. But the allure of colored eggs has worn off and he only ate a bite or two, then was upset when he couldn’t have other things. We played some Monster Physics together and finished the last four levels, then started over with another monster. Because it is so open we could use different strategies for passing the levels again. We ate carrots and veganaise and crackers. He passed a few levels on his own, then needed help to make a ramp up to a big bridge he had made on one level. I said it might be too steep of a ramp and he said “I can’t take apart my bridge! It’s the prettiest bridge I’ve ever made!” Out of nowhere he said “Mama should get her hair cut…cuz her hair is so long.”

We went upstairs and I took a shower. He watched one Sarah and Duck. We went downstairs and had a peanut butter and honey sandwich, then played Piano Maestro.

We then went upstairs for his bath. He asked “Can you help me make up a song about someone that is pooping in the kitchen?” He liked what I came up with and said “It was pretty good so you should add it to the blog.” He saw something that was pink and said that pink and purple are his favorite colors. I said I preferred blues and greens. He replied “Well you should totally like pink and purple. Those are the best colors. Do you know that?”

In the bedroom he tried picking more paint off the wall under the window. He explained “I’ve been chipping off the paint cuz when we move to another country the school is going to paint it.” I had to explain again that in the meantime we would have to deal with it, and we planned on being here for quite awhile.

He made a big pile of pillows and jumped on them from the bed. He wanted me to put a video of him doing it on the blog. He wanted me to pretend to be a little kid seeing a scary movie and he acted out the movie, full of monsters and robots and lasers. When I tried to get him to do another one he said he had frozen and his internet connection wasn’t working.

We went downstairs and made applesauce muffins. He started by getting all of his ‘ingredients’ out for them. He helped with the fun bits (e.g. honey). He told me “About the apple sauce: you got some on the flour container.” I let him lick out the honey cup. He kept saying that I gave him too much. We had to take off his shirt and he ended up with a sticky tummy. I think he was wiping his hands on it. Washed his hands three times.

While they baked he sang “Oh honey won’t you mow, oh honey won’t you mow my grass…” to “Oh Dinah won’t you blow your horn.” Not sure where the mow the grass idea came from, or which ‘honey’ he was referring to.

We read some of the new Sisters books. He said “I don’t really mind the presents I get. If I don’t get all the presents on my wishlist…” He was remembering one of the pages we read last night where the sisters make their Christmas wishlists. We waited a bit after the muffins came out to eat them. They were horrible stuck to the paper but were still good.

We then played more Monster Physics and did some Hebrew. He played his toy piano and was playing  “I’ve been working on the railroad.” Carly decided the weather was good enough to walk home. So he and I left at 4:25 to go to his activity class. I saw Carly walking the other way and waved.

We were the first ones there and Segal talked to him about it maybe being a private class today. She also talked to him about maybe her music being too loud. He had said as much early on in class, then one week her solution was just to not use music. Abigail and Daria showed up, and Segal said the parents could sit inside if they wanted. So I sat inside and was able to keep August in the full class. I could also redirect him when he just refused to sit by the mirror, etc. Really worked better, and I didn’t have to do too much. And despite her efforts to keep it quieter I still saw August cover his ears a couple times and she would turn the music down a bit. But then it would be louder again. I don’t know what was going on there. It was still incredibly loud.

Anyway, a fourth kid, יב (Yav), showed up as they did a Spider-Man game. They took turns showing what the Spider-Man doll was doing. August had his be a rocket. Segal protested, as his rocket (running around with the doll over his head, making a rocket noise) was basically what they had just done (running). I suggested a jumping rocket and that worked. After that they were snakes, then they were rolling on the floor. I haven’t actually seen him roll like that before. Ditto for walking backwards and then walking on their hands and feet.

Yav and Daria spent much of class outside the room, so it was a small class. All the others disappeared near the end of class, so at the end it was just August. And when class was over August helped her clean up. When he came out to me he was very excited about making it through class.

While he helped I went out and talked to Shiley, whose son is Ori in the next class. She had lived in Pittsburg for a couple years in high school but was otherwise born and lived in Even Yehuda. She told me of a Israeli show called פרפר נחמד (cute butterfly) that is sort of like Sesame Street. When August came out he saw that Ori had an eye patch and was concerned that he was hurt. We had to ask – it was for treating a lazy eye. We talked to Shiley a bit more and August went to the bathroom.

Then when we got home we had to drive around the block to find a spot. So we were a bit late. Carly came out and met us. A present from Andrea and Derek and the kids had finally arrive – they sent it in early December. We opened that. There was a book called The Snowy Day, which I had almost bought on iBooks at one point, and a frog musical instrument that August really liked. And a bag of chocolate coins and a Santa Clause.

They then Skyped with Colin. He got upset about his food choices. Carly took him upstairs, then they came back down for a little while before going up again. She said he needed to go to the bathroom. He said “I just went to the bathroom, silly.” Came back down again as he was finally ready to eat dinner. Carly got him rice and broccoli and seitan. I found a video of the פרפר נחמד show on YouTube and we watched part of it. He then went upstairs. When I asked what he’d dream about he told he didn’t want me to tell him what to dream. So maybe the end of that. He was asleep about 7:15.