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He was up about 6. He woke up and Carly heard him and came in. After they nursed he asked her “Did you wake me up to nurse?” And seemed a little upset that she hadn’t. He watched Kipper until we gave Carly a ride to work. Back home he watched some more Kipper and requested sweet things for breakfast. Instead, we made green eggs with mushrooms, spinach, olives and za’atar. He helped put the food coloring in.

We ate our eggs, which turned out quite nice and green. Then he asked “Can I watch the seconds hand on your phone in the clock?” And he asked “How did the clocks work way, way, way in the past?”

We then started the crystal growing experiment that we’d bought at the art store months ago. Once that was started we played with piano and took it all apart. Then back to Monster Physics. He made an all pink monster. He made an invention, saying “My design’s gonna be complicated.” We had fun working through more problems and only have a few left.

I exercised, then made a strawberry and frozen berries smoothie. He made a Lego sculpture and then we put the piano together. We went upstairs and he played TodoMath. And wouldn’t let me take a shower. In fact, he was being rather needy and teenager-y today and it was hard to get anything done. Earlier, he kept needing my attention when I was making the smoothie. The first time distracted me from the fact that I hadn’t tightened the base. Then, I poured milk in, and immediately had to go attend to him. I came back to find milk all over the counter.

Anyway, I took a shower. When he went to the bathroom he suddenly started asking questions about surfing. He asked “Will you drown?” if you fall off the surfboard. We talked about how you could swim, how the surfboard is attached to you, etc. He kept calling me into his room to show me things. One was using the doctor tweezer things around his toe. He asked me if I could do it. It fit around my toe too. He said “It’s great that we can both do that.”

He took his bath. No hair washing today. He said we shouldn’t do it again “Until we visit Vivian…that will be a challenge.” Yes it would be.

On the landing he took the Christmas lights off the corner of the bannister and they started to come down. He said he wanted to take them down because it wasn’t Christmas anymore.

He played GarageBand while I made some lunch. He was figuring out The Farmer in the Dell. He then opened Piano Maestro and changed my icon in it to match the pink horse that he has: “Its cooler than the robot one.” We played some Piano Maestro.

We got going at 2. He wore his Minnie Mouse shoes and remembered Vivian giving them to him. He asked if that meant that when Vivian was an adult that he could get all of her kid shoes. In the car he was remembering the Magic Treehouse book we read a few weeks ago: “In the story how could the ice wizard take off his eye?”

We drove down to the big Tiv Taam. We put our money in and got a cart. We parked our cart by the kitchen supplies and walked over to look at muffin tins. August took the bags out of the cart because he wanted to carry them. It was just a minute, but when we went back to the cart there was a woman trying to take it. I said “Lo!” and went to take the cart. The guy with her, in Russian, joked to me about letting her take the cart. I just glared at him and took the cart. It’s not like they were waiting around to see if someone had abandoned the cart. And who would abandon a cart right there with $1.50 in it?

August wasn’t super into shopping, but got through it. He was entertained along the way by first watching a lift truck and asking how it worked. I told him there was a display in the DaVinci exhibit at the science center that we could play with next time. And he started to spot and try out all the steep ladders that were around the store. He tried three.

Back at home we added some of the glow powder to the crystal experiment. I put groceries away and cut up a carrot and got out veganaise for him. Carly got home. He remembered that we had downloaded more Arabic apps from the makers of Zee’s Alphabet. They weren’t too great, but there was a storybook one, in English, that was pretty good that he read/watched all the way though. For dinner he requested more green eggs. He ate two eggs worth, then still wanted more, but that was all I had made. Carly got out strawberries and yogurt and honey. They then skyped with Vivian and company for a long time. Vivian was showing them a scary picture she drew. August was making things out of Legos and said “I’m gonna make something with the Legos that’s more scary than the picture!”

Carly had thought he was ready for bed a bit before 7. But he then came to me and we read the zipper page of How Things Work (he had asked about zippers in the car earlier). We then bought the second Sisters book. While we waited for it to download we read some of the first Sisters book, then the Red book, about a crayon. We then read a little of The Sisters, book 2. We got him ready for bed, and I asked him what he was going to dream about. He was trying on my glasses at the time and said “Blurries”.

Left them just after 8. But he came down at 8:30. He said he had woken up from a dream. He said “I dreamed about getting in trouble in Thailand.” I asked what he got in trouble for. He replied “What do you mean? It doesn’t make sense.” When I asked WHO was in trouble he said “Just mama and me.” When I asked why he said “Taking the sink apart…it said ‘Warning, don’t take apart. A sign right on the table. Big piece of paper. Upper case letters. And a Big X mark. I think it was someone’s favorite sink.”

He then did a little mashup of songs and sang “Mary had a farmer in Dell…” We read Berenstain Bears and the Big Road Race and Young Cam Jansen and the Molly Shoe Mystery. Carly took him back up at 9:05. She took him to the “Upstairs cousin” toilet. Because the toilets talk to August and they are cousins.

He has been bothered by water down his arms when washing his hands the last couple days. I was being careful to make sure it didn’t happen during the day today and he said he still got water down his arm and wanted his shirt off. I felt inside the shirt after I took it off and couldn’t feel anything. It then happened with Carly this evening. He was also climbing on everything today. We were slow in the grocery store because he kept climbing on and standing up in the cart. At home it was the couch and the edge of the bed.

Pink monster: 

Tiv Taam: 

His find: 

Ladders: 

Skyping with Vivian: 

Added photos to Friday and Saturday. 

The rain started today and it is looking like the rest of the week will be rainy. He was up after 6. Watched Kipper, then we took Carly to work and listened to Story Pirates on the way. Wasn’t raining on the way there, but started raining pretty well on the way home. He watched more Kipper, then after I gave him vitamins he asked about them, then turned into a machine of turbines that were grinding up fish. I made eggs with mushrooms and olives and cheese and za’ater. He ate a good amount of that, then got stuff out of the cupboards for an experiment.

We did a mixing experiment, then skyped with my parents. We showed them some of out experimenting. He wanted popcorn, but started to get upset when I said one of the smaller bags. We said goodbye on skype, talked about it, and he agreed to the plain popcorn and we put some real butter on it. Watched a little more Kipper and I exercised. Went upstairs for a shower and he played TodoMath – making change, etc. I could tell he’s getting better, but he kept jumping to the highest levels and wanting help, even as I was trying to get in the shower. After my shower he asked “Can I play with the giraffe in my room?” He had it walking around the room and making little giraffe voice noises. And he gave it a name. He found the rest of his doctor supplies and we played with those a bit.

Then his bath. He watched Marble Machine and Animusic videos. He was really into them and let me really wash his hair. He then described his own music machine: there were lasers and solar panels and levers and all sorts of things. He was also letting me trim his ear, which went well until I was almost done and he twitched and I nicked his ear. There was a little blood, but more snot. I managed to keep him from seeing any blood.

We went downstairs and had a popsicle, then did Hebrew in Drops. We played Piano Maestro, and while practicing songs he started to play the melody up an octave. Progress. He was asking what was/wasn’t a children’s song and wanted me to call non-kids songs children’s songs. I sang and we listened to “Imaginary Bars”, which I used to sing to him all the time. He was asking what it was about and we talked about dreams not making sense. I asked him. He said “Sometimes they doesn’t. Sometimes my dreams make sense and sometimes they do.”

We played Monster Physics and had a ton of fun figuring out all the puzzles. We got to a hard one, and he made a big invention and had fun turning on the rockets and destroying parts of it.

We got going at 3, but were suddenly delayed when his trip to the bathroom turned into a long trip to the bathroom. As we headed to the car August said “I love ads…we should buy all the things they want us to buy.” He was specifically talking about the short ads in the Kipper videos on YouTube. And he had to do a little of his music machine before we left, and he asked “Do you think I like music or not?”

We got to school and Bat-Chen’s classroom just after 3:15 and she wasn’t there. We hung out there for a few minutes, then went up to the library. August was ready to find a book and grabbed the stepping stool and was looking up at the shelves. But I suggested we go look one more time. We went back downstairs and she was there. We figured out the miscommunication, but she went ahead and gave him a slightly-short lesson. They did more art and watched a song about the rain that he really liked, called גשם גשם משמיים. At the end she gave him another crem-bo treat like last time. I suggested he go and share it with mama, and Bat-Chen gave us another one for Carly.

We went up to her classroom and they had their treats. He wanted to print something, then wanted to play school. They played school for a long time. She asked him “Have people ever walked on the moon?” He replied “Yes, but they don’t want to fall down and break the air system.” At one point he said he wanted to be the teacher and he went up and was writing math problems on the whiteboard. They played for a long time. When they were done he came over to me on the beanbag chairs and we played dada and baby owl for a minute while Carly got ready to go. It was about a quarter to 6 before we left.

We listened to the end of Story Pirates 4 in the car and were home just before 6. At home he was playing a song on his ‘bassoon’ that we recognized and he wanted to know what it was. It was a new mystery song. I knew it was a Christmas song, and he said it had a ‘meba’ in it: “a germ”. He said it was a “Christmas intelligent song”. Which was a cool phrase for a Christmas song that taught us something. I search our iTunes library and found it: “My Christmas Amoeba”. He listened to that several times. At one point he laughed and asked “Dada, how can he even hold a microscopic candy cane?”

He then danced to the 12 Days of Christmas. We played more of Monster Physics, having way too much fun with it. We tried something out and he said “That’s a good experiment!” I got out carrots and veganaise and he ate a bunch. But I made the mistake of taking the second to last one. I saw him pick up the last one and set it down a couple of times. He seriously wouldn’t eat it, even after I talked to him about it. He wanted me to cut up more carrot. I did, and he ate a few more pieces.

Took him upstairs just before 8. He had his water bottle in his mouth, hanging from his mouth by the straw. He said “Actually, bathroom first.” and it sounded funny. Carly called him ‘straw boy’.

Carly suggested he dream about popsicle sticks “and popsicles, and sugar…and french fries with top on them.” Didn’t explain what ‘top’ was. He finished by saying “I love you dada “ in a scary voice. He was asleep around 8:20.

Hebrew: 

Carly’s classroom: 

Typing on her computer: 

Carly brought him down just before 7. He took over ring on my iPad. He informed me I’d forgotten the space after ‘Lego’ in the button he made yesterday. So I added that in. Carly headed to work. He told me the machine got enough sunlight inside to make music as it pasted/typed. He made his own music this time. Did that for several minutes until the app started to freeze as the document got too many characters (over a million). He then found Monster Physics, a game I purchased a few days ago on the iPad but we haven’t played yet. He created a monster, then we went through the tutorials and played a few levels. Very open-ended problem-solving game. I made him a peanut butter and honey sandwich for breakfast. He said “I like you cuz you got new games for me.”

We then played Piano Maestro for a good amount of time. He didn’t play on his own though as he said he didn’t want to make mistakes.

He was playing with his initials bracelet and we were talking about what to do with it once it was too small for him. I mentioned keeping it in a little box like Carly has. He liked the idea of a treasure box, and I mentioned that Carly could paint one, like she’d painted the green one on the table. He liked the idea and added “But she needs to make sure it’s pink.”

Then an interesting discussion. He asked “Why aren’t there evil knights anymore?” He had asked this question once before. We talked about knives and cutlasses and guns. He lay in a line on the floor and said “I’m an old gun that was used in the 1900s.”

I exercised, then he wanted to do another experiment. He got a bunch of things out of the cupboard. We spent a good long time pouring things in. He was doing a good job of slowly pouring in the spices, etc. so he did most of the pouring. At first we just made purple water, then added cinnamon and clove. I let him drink it with a straw before we started adding all the curry powder, etc.

He went and was playing toy piano. He asked “Dada, can you stay with me? You know, when you and mama both have meetings?” Turns out, I think, he was talking about not wanting to go to preschool on his own. We took the piano all apart, then he filled it with Legos, then we dumped it out. He did a little dance, being a motor, which was one of his coolest dances. Alas, I didn’t get it on video.

He was making a random thing out of little Legos and I asked if it was a sculpture. A minute later he said “Dada, why do you like sculptures so much?” I asked what his favorite kind of sculptures are and he said “abstract”. I asked why he likes abstract sculptures and he said “It’s good to have abstract things…they make it look cooler.”

We went upstairs, and the first thing he watched today was Kipper while I took a shower. He then had a quick bath. He was then a music box and he played Sentimental Wars, Skip to my Lou, and the Juicy Juice store song. He got off his bed and said “It can also walk and talk.”

We went downstairs and picked two books (Max Axiom Electricity and 26-Story Treehouse) to return to the library. Earlier I had hung the ‘Breathe’ poster on the wall above the couch by hammering in a nail. He had said it made a good rhythm. He played with the hammer on the couch, being a music machine that played Deck the Halls. He told me “You should make one up about candy. Cuz we get candy at Christmas.”

 

We were getting ready to go to school. Initially he had first wanted to walk up to the Snakes and Ladders playground, but then decided he wanted to go straight to school. He was still a music box: “You can wind me up at school. But not in the library. I like making music.” I got snacks and FINALLY convinced him to drink from the small water bottle – I made it all pink and that helped. We still took the big one with us though.

We left at 1. We went to the library first. I grabbed some Berenstain Bears books and a couple of mystery books while he did some art on the computer. We read Berenstain Bears and Too Much Teasing, The Berenstain Bears Don’t Pollute (Anymore), and The High-Rise Private-Eyes #1: The Case of the Missing Monkey. While reading the last book we discussed favorite books. He claimed “My favorite food is brussel sprouts and beans.”

In the middle of reading he wanted a snack and we went out to the table outside the library. While there the preschool class came and stood in line to go into the library. Bar was there and saw August and said “That’s my special friend.” August went over and we talked her for a minute. She was carrying The Jungle Book.

We checked out Young Cam Jansen and the Molly Shoe Mystery and The Berenstain Bears and the Big Road Race at 3 when the bell rang and then went to the preschool playground. When the elevator announced we were on the 0 floor, August said “Thank you, elevator.”

We played at the preschool playground for awhile. At first there were two girls there, one of which we had talked to when we saw Bar. August and her shared ways of going down the slides. But they left with their moms after just a few minutes. We played there a bit more, then went over to the big playground. No kids there at all. Played there until awhile after 4. Climbing, etc. and a lot with the teeter totter, as he is interested in why one of the tires is more broken than the other end.

We went back to the library and he did some more art, then we sat and read Berenstain Bears Count Their Blessings. We went to put that away and he found all the scissors, pencils, etc. left out from the preschool class. We’ve neglected teaching August to use scissors, so now was the day. I had him cutting scrap paper on his own after a few minutes. Earlier he had asked if we had any paper to recycle outside the library and I had said no. I now gave him the scraps and told him he could go recycle them. On the way he ran into Carly entering the library. He recycled the paper and we used the bathroom then headed home.

He and I stopped at Tal Garden at 5:10. Carly continued home. He was a music machine with the merry-go-round. Then played on the slide with another kid around. I heard the moms talking and realized they were talking about bears with the kids, and also recognized ‘apples’. August randomly asked “Dada, what’s a police sketch.” A reference to The Sisters, as one of them had drawn a police sketch when her stuffed rabbit went missing. He saw a kid with a toy sword (a cutlass, in fact): “I should get one of those.” “I bet everyone in the world has a sword like that.” Sounded right out of the Berenstain Bears Count Their Blessings when Brother and Sister whine about the toys their friends have. Although I don’t remember them using that phrasing at all.

He wanted to play store, and decided on a candy store. I realized he needs to try taffy at some point.

We left for home about 5:30. He was covering his ears and still trying to hear me. At home they nursed and he developed a little game of kicking one of her feet off the couch. He ate a little pasta, then was hiding under a pillow on the couch so I was sitting on him. He went and tried to sneak a cracker – upset and screamed when Carly said no. She took him upstairs, and it was clear he was ready for bed early. I told him to dream about telescopes and he gave me a thumbs up. I left them at 6:30.

Licking peanut butter off a spoon so it won’t drip on him: 

Balancing on his fingernail: 

School playground: 

Tal Garden: 

He was up a little after 7. They nursed, then Carly made French toast. When Carly was making him more he set his fork on the syrup on his plate. Carly washed it off for him, but August told her she should have dried it. He wouldn’t use it until I suggested he go and dry it off with the towel in the bathroom.

.

He and I discussed the north and South Pole and what languages people spoke in different people. We talked about how people survive at the north and south poles, and how you would save someone’s life by letting them into your research station. He put a paper towel roll on his arm and said “This is my armor!”

I got out one of his small water bottles to see if he would drink from them again. Only having one water bottle that he’ll drink out of is kind of a pain, as we have to take it everywhere, in and out of the backpack, etc. He said he wouldn’t use it, but was initially excited about taking it on trips. That turned out to not be the case.

He wanted to play Piano Maestro and got the piano keyboard. First just played in GarageBand. He played something new that I recognized. It was “Lightly Row”. A little mystery what song it was until he showed me it was from Chordana. We then played Piano Maestro. Mainly me again, but then he did a little, trying one with two notes. When we were done I went up and took a shower. They did some reading out on the patio (Amelia Bedelia and What Do You Do with an Idea?) and played with the kaleidoscope cards. When I came down they were taking pasta and spinach out and ate outside.

Carly was going to take him to the plant nursery and the tractor museum over in Ein Vered. I told him Bat Chen told us about tractor museum. He asked “Did she say it in Arabic or Hebrew?” I told him English. He replied “What‽ She speaks English too‽” I guess he has mainly heard her speak Hebrew.

Carly took him up for his bath. He said she doesn’t do ten second baths. So I explained. After his bath she made him popcorn. I helped him season it. We did a little translating in the shapes book we got from the library.

They left at 11:10. They went to tractor museum first. Parked at the end of the pavement and walked up the dirt road. At the museum they first showed him the toy trucks, which he didn’t care about. But then there was a display of old typewriters and he loved that. They tried to bring out markers and stuff for him at one point but he said he didn’t need to do that now. He liked sitting on the tractors and pretending. They were machines would pick the fruit and squeeze it into juice. The steering wheels had arms that handed you juice: plum and orange, carrot and orange, etc.

Then to the plant store. Carly said it is fun to go with him now as he’s interested and helpful. He chose a flat green plant. Carly got some other plants to fill in the pot where one was broken by the wind and got a new big pot. And plants to further fill in the kitchen window boxes. And a second plant for inside.

I worked while they were gone on Sabeel stuff. They were back at 2:10. He helped outside a little. He came in to use the bathroom. He heard the Strand of Oak song “Hard to Be Young” and said “Add this to my playlist…I like this band. It’s one of my favorite bands.” I asked what his favorite part of the trip was and he said “Sitting on those tractors was pretty fun.” He then typed and made buttons on my iPad, then measured things while I measured the wall for a picture.

He wanted food, but didn’t eat curry. He then Skyped with Vivian for a long time. They were being ghosts, putting blankets over their head. Played their turning off the cameras game. August said “It’s getting close to bedtime.” It was only 4. Vivian went to get something from her room, so August headed up the stairs as well: “I’m showing Vivian something from my room.” He came back with the bracelet we made this summer with our initials on it. She came back with books from school that she then read to us.

I talked about walking into town with him to mail Carly’s postcards and go to the hardware store to get nails. He said “I don’t feel like sending the postcard. I’m a little bit hyper.” Still skyping with Vivian, August wanted to do another experiment. So he got out a bunch of spices and we did another mixing experiment on the floor. Vivian asked if he liked it here and I asked what his favorite part of Israel is. He said “That we have a park close.” He played some piano for Vivian, with Ono three keys in it. He actually played a pretty cool song that got really intense, then slowed and faded at the end.

We said goodbye to Vivian and I eventually got him going out the door. He said “Dada, don’t forget Mama’s chocolate bar. Because one time we went to the library and I got some on the way there, and some when we were done…at the park.”

We left at 5:10. Outside, he played his music machine, then talked about how he was turning the rake into new levers to play notes like a typewriter.

He ate pieces of the chocolate bar along the way. He forgot at first, then was concerned that he wasn’t eating the pieces at the right spots. Convinced him that was okay. We got to the post office. The number machine was broken, so he wondered what our number would be next time. He lay across the seats and I quickly paid for the postcards. We went across to the hardware store, where he really, really wanted a pink-handled dustpan or broom or stool. He was okay when we didn’t get any of them. Got our nails and another set of Tupperware. 

We headed home at 5:40. As we walked he asked how they got the tractors to the tractor museum, as they were too old to work and too heavy to carry. Really cool questioning. He asked for water 4 times on the trip, but I had just taken the little bottle. He refused to drink from it. I tried to convince him that the small bottle was magic in different ways, but each time I said a way in which it was magic he said he added the same magic to his bottle at home.

We got to the snakes and ladders playground before 6. He finished the crumbs of the bar and then set about seeing if he could make mama nervous: “Well, the point is can I do anything that makes mama nervous here? Maybe I can’t; I don’t know.” He posed and said “Well go ahead (take a picture). Make mama nervous. I’m not being safe.” He asked for water again: “I want water. NO, I don’t want to.” When he remembered it was the small bottle.  He climbed a couple things, then up into the netting area. He was actually quite safe, and wanted to practice climbing up a little higher than he has before, but was asking how I could reach him if he did. He didn’t really go any farther, but thought about how to do it.

We left there at 6:15, then stopped again at our park. We went up into the ‘store’, but this time it turned into a space station. He said “Theres a cafeteria in here. Would you like something to eat? We have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches…” Got silly listing things, then said “Would you like one of each?” He had me go float out in space several times in my spacesuit. He was talking about/asking about going to the bathroom in space a lot. At one point he said he didn’t want to go to space because you couldn’t go to the bathroom in your spacesuit.

We were home at 6:50. When he saw his big water bottle he said “There you are!” It then turned him into a butterfly, which was one of the magic things I said the smal one could do. Carly made him a sandwich. It was peanut butter and honey. With broccoli. I later told Carly it was the most parent-ish thing she’s done. August didn’t fall for it: “Mama, it’s really just broccoli! There’s no type of green honey.” He wouldn’t eat it, and he wouldn’t eat the other food options and got upset. Carly took him upstairs and got him half-pajamed. He played a little with the kaleidoscope cards, then Carly went outside. We ended up following. She showed us how all of the sh
ade plants really curled up their leaves/flowers at night.

Back inside he asked me “What happens if someone doesn’t have a wife?” I said then they’re single, etc. He asked “Why is a lot of people single?” I said maybe they like being single, or maybe they haven’t found someone they love. He replied “We find-ed someone we love: mama.”

He went and played the piano. Suddenly, he played Ode to Joy, although I’ve never heard him practicing it. Surprised me. I took him upstairs and he did some singing from the songbook. We read some of The Sisters, and he really wanted to buy the second book. I told him he was going to sleep in a minute when Carly came in and we didn’t need to buy it today. He wasn’t happy with that answer. I told him to dream about typewriters. I left them just after 8 and he was asleep soon after. 

Tractor museum: 

Toilet paper he liked and wanted a photo of: 

At the park in the evening: 

He woke up a little after Carly, 6:15 or so. He asked for her a couple times, then went back to sleep on his own. He and I then both got up a little after 7. He lay in bed for a few minutes and I almost thought he was going to fall back asleep again.

We went downstairs and they nursed, then he played with the kaleidoscope cards. Carly made Israeli French toast. He had wanted crackers and was frustrated he couldn’t have them. Only ate a little. He asked “How do we buy more carrots at the (plant) store if they ran out (of seeds)?” “…At the carrot stand?” Not sure why he was afraid they would run out of seeds. He typed on my iPad and started by typing words and using some autocorrect. Sort of made a poem: “Him him palm him in his rear type him his” He and Carly then did Wizard School. Carly said the light bulb was out over the shower and asked me about it. I said we had extra light bulbs. To which August said “Oh dada.” Didn’t think I deserved that one.

I took a shower. They went outside and Carly scrubbed the cat poop off the lawn. (One of those sentences I never thought I’d find myself writing.) Back inside August and I had some cheese and crackers. August said “I didn’t like Liam so much…I don’t like the cheese so much.” Upstairs, avoiding his bath, he helped Carly take off the pillow cases. He was then putting things in his spaceship and “locking” them in there. He kept saying “Locked on target”. It is his favorite phrase nowadays, and I can’t figure out which story/show he got that from. I think Carly was wondering if I’ve let him see Top Gun.

I gave him a bath, which went fine. Carly then headed to the store. August was singing Mary Had a little Lamb. We went to play with Cubetto. He put his bassoon under the four Cubetto map boxes and said “I’m making a lever…a cannon…it’s shooting eggs onto your head.” We played with Cubetto using the space map for the first time. August followed Cubetto, and we did some good logical thinking. I was particularly helping him figure out when Cubetto needs to turn right or left.

We then switched to Piano Maestro, where I primarily worked on a couple songs. August did a little on his account near the end. Carly got home and unpacked groceries as we did that, then started cooking an artichoke. August asked her “How many are you going to buy?” “You think one a year?” He and Carly talk about how they are good but you get sick of them if you eat them too much, so she doesn’t buy them all the time.

I made a strawberry and mango smoothie for the three of us while he waited for the artichoke. I told Carly he wanted to move to Greenland. He said “I change-d my mind!” He says he still wants to move in a year, but now he wants to live by Vivian. I told them I’d visit on the weekends from where I would live in Philadelphia.

Shortly after he woke up he had asked Carly if she ever gets locked out of her school computer. It came up again, somehow. Seems like maybe he had a dream about it.

We did a little translating of the Hebrew poems in the book we bought. One poem is about a secret room. When the artichoke was done they ate outside. I heard him say: “The office upstairs I turned into a secret room. No parents allowed!” Of the artichoke: “I like it in mayonnaise. It changes the flavor. Why does it change the flavor?” They were then doing plants outside. He came in and we did more Cubetto.

He was then a space probe, studying the planets. He would act it out, going across the house to orbit a planet: “There, I did 19 BILLION photos of Jupiter, 79 photos of Mars…Scientists will be studying that for YEARS.”

Carly was making noodles and alfredo sauce. He tried noodles and lemon zest. He then played with two different pairs of tongs and picked things up, calling it “tonging”. I grabbed him with tongs and he said “Hey, I’m not a noodle. What do you think I am?”

I got him on a walk at 3:15 to do recycling. We went to the park first. On the teeter totter he did a lot of talking. Then, “Want to go in out shop?” In the shop he only had two chairs for me to buy. I said I thought he had six of everything, which is what he said yesterday. He told me “Spider supplies changes over time.” He climbed on the front of the ‘ship’ and asked if it would make mama nervous, then why. I explained, something about being concerned that he would fall. He replied: “Oh, goodie! I love concerns!”

He needed to use the bathroom. On the way, not related to anything it seemed, he asked “You mean a big field of lollipops? With cracks we can stand on?” We used the bathroom, then we went back and did recycling. He didn’t want to go for a walk, but I got us to walk around the Holly block.

We were home at 4. He played with the tongs some more, then ate some noodles with mushrooms and alfredo sauce. He then asked “Could I drink berry flavored mineral water?” He then wanted to do an experiment with mineral water. He wanted to mix food coloring. So we did that, then he started to get spices. He made up what each spice was. The container with a T on it was “tortillas”, V was “volcanos”. He kept calling himself a “Sneaky boy” as he went and got more things to sprinkle in. There was curry and cardamom. C was “Yankee Doodles”. Don’t ask me why.

We tried to read a Magic Treehouse book but he was hyper. I got ready to take him back outside, but he wanted to try the sweet potatoes (Carly was now making a curry dish). He ate a good amount of sweet potato and garbanzo beans. As he finished eating he told me “That’s fun that we made-ed our experiment, dada.” He was looking for his water bottle and when he found it announced “Mystery solved! I found it!”

He was hyper as we got him out the door. Carly said he needed another friend over to play with. He said “What friend? You mean Bar?”

We just went back up to our park. He started climbing on things, starting with the exercise equipment, and wanted a whole series of Making Mama Nervous photos. He spotted the sliver of a banana moon. Then asked “It looks like it is in the sky, but it is actually in space. Why does that happen?” I explained how we actually are looking at it through all that space, but our eyes can’t distinguish the distance. And about how much further the stars were away than the moon. He asked “How much light years?”

Playing on a spinning spiral thing he identified an optical illusion (how a corkscrew looks like it is moving forward when it is just spinning), and another on a thing he jumps up and down on (as it looked to him as if the center bar was also moving, although it was still).

We were home at 5:40. He used Carly’s wireless headphones to tap a rhythm on top of her computer. We read some of The Sisters, and he spent a lot of time jumping off the bed into the pillows and blankets. Carly took a shower. Glecy tried to Skype us. Told her Carly would skype in a few minutes when she was ready. August sent Glecy a couple of video messages. August and I read more of The Sisters as Carly skyped with Glecy downstairs. Glecy’s mother isn’t doing well, and keeps going into cardiac arrest. She has sepsis and her organs are shutting down.

In The Sisters there is one where the big sister puts her little sister in the washing machine. August and I have talked about how you can’t really do this, and it would probably break the washing machine, anyway. He asked how a washing machine works, and we found a video of a guy taking apart and explaining a washing machine on YouTube. And it was almost our exact washing machine. We watched that, then August wanted to watch more and more. We let him watch one of a boy doing a load of laundry, then it was bedtime.

When I asked August what he’d dream about he said “goo goo, gah gah”. He was back to being a baby. I left them at 8:15.

Making mama nervous: 

Tongs head: 

Experiment: 

More park: 

Spotting the moon: 

Flying: 

Jumping: 

We had some loud thunder sometime in the morning. Later, around noon, we had some more thunder that actually shook the house.

Carly got him up before she left. He was a little worried about the idea of people coming over this afternoon, and he just lay on the couch quietly as she left. He asked for Cheerios and Max and Ruby. During one of the stories there was a mention of bedbugs and he asked what those were. I explained, and he asked if we had them here. I said no. He said “Well, I don’t want to go to any country that has those.”

He randomly threw a water bottle at me, which resulted in pausing Max and Ruby for awhile. I think I just happened to be in the way, as later I saw him throw it into the pillows in the corner of the couch again after drinking. He watched a Max and Ruby story where they take care of a baby. A few minutes later he said “Well I don’t want to have a baby.”

We built a nice Duplo playground. He put a bed in and said “There’s a bed of nails!” We then went upstairs to okay with the kaleidoscope cards: “That’s a fancy one! It’s the best design ever!”

Back downstairs I exercised and he watched more Max and Ruby. We then ate crackers, cheese, and strawberries. We did Piano Maestro, then we went upstairs and he watched one Sarah and Duck while I took a shower. After Sarah and Duck he had gone into the bedroom and was playing with the kaleidoscope cards on his own, then brought his finished design into the bathroom for me to see.

We skipped his bath today. Downstairs he played on the piano and said “That’s the Hebrew song!” I asked him to play it again. He had figured out the tune to the Hebrew colors song we watch on YouTube. We added a little more to the maze: “We’re done with our Lego maze. It’s the Maze of Doom. Can you make a guy be lost in the Maze of Doom?”

Finally, I was trying to rehang a picture hook that had come down. He saw me scraping the wall with the screwdriver and said Shmuel wouldn’t be happy about that. I told him the school would repaint the house after we left. He said “Wait; so all my wall damages will be painted?” I stressed that wouldn’t happen until after we moved out – we’d have to paint the wall damage we can see on our own before then.

We left at 11:35. We were planning on the sushi place for lunch and picking up pizzas at VIPizza for dinner. But both were closed. We parked and walked up to the bank and got cash. Then walked over to make sure the pizza place was closed. It was just before 12 and there was a woman taking down chairs in the Sushi Ishimoto.

So we first went to the library until it closed at 12:30. We looked at a book about trees, and he played in the pillows on the couches. He found three clock books and we looked at those. We translated some words and he translated ‘הקטר’ (locomotive) on his own. We couldn’t check those out though, so went to look at other books. He found a Spot book with a clock (פנוקי, מה השעה?) and I got a book called צורןת (Shapes). We went to check out and told the librarian we didn’t actually know how to check out books, although we had registered. She found us in the system and gave me our account number, which I promptly lost in the next couple of hours. On the way out I looked at the book sale shelves and found a children’s book called פעם נצחתי שלושה ענקים (I Defeated Three Giants, I think). It was in great shape (new) and appears to be short poems about things like spaghetti and pizza. And the art is really cool. Anyway, I took it to buy it. The sign said books cost 5 or 10 shekels and I swear she told me 5. She took my 10 shekel coin and put it in the till. Then I stood there waiting for change. I would have paid 10 for it anyway, so when she said she didn’t need me anymore as she was writing out the record of the sale I headed out.

We walked to Sushi Ishimoto and it was definitely open. A couple teachers, Howard and someone else, were there. We ordered the pad Thai with shrimp again. Before we left home August had remembered that we should bring his chopsticks. We got those out and he practiced with them a bit. He liked the pad Thai and ate a good amount. We saw Gaby come in with about 10 other middle school girls – the school had a half-day today, with a staff training in the afternoon, which is why everyone could go to lunch. We also had water, and August liked the water in his. He was squishing the lemon with his straw and it slipped on him. The glass slipped and rested precariously on the edge. It didn’t fall though. August didn’t appreciate this remarkable event, however, as he was upset that some water had splashed on his sleeve.

He whined about it as we headed back to the car. He told me it was still wet when we got in the car (I had told him it would be dry by then), but it wasn’t bothering him anymore. In the car both directions we were listening to episode 3 of Story Pirates. We were home at 1:35. We spotted another spot of cat poop and discussed what it looked like. He said “Cat Poop-ish?” He was asking why that meant the cat might be sick. I explained, and he asked if it was the same for other animals. I explained yes, and he said “And trees!” I said no, but he argued that trees also ate, and when I said but they don’t poop. He said  “What do you mean? They could just poop out their roots!”

We got on the orange bike and headed to Tiv Taam. We had seen only small branches down in town, but on the way to Tiv Taam we saw whole branches ripped off of young, healthy trees.

Tiv Taam was busy, so luckily he sat in the cart. But he complained that the actual seat was too tight. So I let him sit in the cart itself. As we added groceries he stacked them neatly in the end. He had to go to the bathroom so we left the cart and walked down there. He told me “Dada, I was getting ready excited in the cart.” He explained it was the first time he had sat in the cart. He also liked the liquid soap in the bathroom: “It smells flowery.” We went back and finished shopping. He wanted to touch the cheeses, so I decided to get a nice aged cheddar for later. And I surprised him by getting the fruit popsicles again when we went to pay.

We walked home. I reminded him he couldn’t get off the bike or it would tip over backwards. At home he went to the bathroom again. He asked what would happen if the toilet paper holder, which is getting loose again, broke off. I said we’d have to fix it. He said we should leave it broken until we leave. I asked when he wanted to move again. He said he wanted to live here one more year. When I asked where he wanted to me he said “Greenland”.

He watched Max and Ruby while I did dishes and straightened up (Carly had done cleaning last night) for the guests. Carly and Tessa were walking, but got here at the same time as Ofer and the kids (Liam and Tava(?)). August hid under the pillows behind the coffee table at first. And the other two kids were shy at first as well. August warmed up by making a kaleidoscope design for them. He was then drinking more of the watermelon water we got at the store and asked me to move it closer to them. I got out the cheese and crackers and started making sandwich pizzas, strawberries, and apple sauce for dinner. Carly got him over with the other kids as they were starting to play with the Duplos and musical instruments. August had some difficulty at first with them playing with his toys. He let out a blood-curdling scream the first time. Carly took him upstairs. When he came back down he asked me if he could have his popsicle now as he wasn’t doing so well. He got upset one more time, and was also upset about waiting for the popsicle.

But then Liam wanted to play hide and seek with his mom and August really got into that. The two boys went and found the moms hiding upstairs. Then he and Liam hid once and the Carly and Tessa found them. August also played with Ofer, piling pillows on him.

Shay, downstairs, texted, saying he didn
’t like the running (which had just started with the hide and seek, and was mostly upstairs, but was downstairs a bit too). I explained we would have dessert soon, then they probably wouldn’t last much longer. He said he understood.

August kept asking me, every one or two minutes, what time it was, as I had said they could have popsicles at 6. So right at six I got out the popsicles. The kids sat on the floor together and ate their popsicles. They stayed pretty clean.

There was some playing after that (August and Liam were being pirates with the kaleidoscope and a piano key), but their kids were ready to go. August was a little concerned that they were going to take the kaleidoscope. They left about 6:30.

August did some Hebrew on my phone. Carly took him upstairs, then I switched with her and played with him on the bed. He wanted baby books, so we read Boynton’s A to Z and But Not the Hippopotamus and some of The New Kid on the Block. He acted out being a motor and a storm breaking plants and trees (after the party he and Carly had gone out and found that the big purple plant’s middle had all broken). I left him just after 8 when he said he was ready for sleep and sent Carly up.

Lunch: 

Broken trees:

Riding in the shopping cart:

Popsicles: 

Magic wands:

He was awake and, Carly thought, getting up a bit before 6, but then fell back to sleep on his own. He was then up about 6:45. Carly was going to get him up, but I don’t think she had gone up yet when we heard him coming down the stairs and asking to nurse.

He watched Max and Ruby. In one episode they go Trick or Treating and wear reflective bracelets. He declared “I don’t want to do that!” For some reason he really dislikes the bracelets they try to make us put on at the science center, etc. He’s never worn one. He says he only likes his bracelets up in his closet, but he won’t actually wear one of those, either.

We played Piano Maestro and Dust Buster. He did more on his own own. “Zinnie mode starts off not many wrong notes but gets more wrong notes OVER TIME.” As he spreads his arms out in front of him to demonstrate. Passed another song, and got to second level and second chapter. I made a green pancake for him after he suggested we try brown sugar on it sometime. He made music with his piano, using his “kickdrum” to keep the beat. He was stepping on the lid to the piano, which was off and on the ground, to make a noise against the floor (obviously the neighbor was gone). When it came to the pancake he only ate one or two bites.

I exercised and he built Duplos. There is a small round hole in one of the tile trim pieces near the kitchen door. It doesn’t go anywhere, and we didn’t realize it was there until a couple days ago. He said he wanted me to silicone gel the hole in the trim. I said we could do it sometime. In the meantime he covered it up with the blanket.

Back to Duplos. I made a new base for him. He told me that wasn’t how mama did it. “Do you mind me if…” I add another piece. “Look, that end part is fragile, so be careful if you add Legos. It’s the fragile-est part I’ve make-d.” Tried to have the motorcycle go in his mouth from the slide.

He discovered a tag in the shirt of the pajamas he’s worn for a long time and had me cut it out: “Look at this! There’s a tag. It’s not homemade! Cut it out…Good, now it’s homemade!”

More piano and kickdrum. Then he watched more Max and Ruby and I did Hebrew. I started making a mango and strawberry smoothie. He had to go to the bathroom. When washing his hands he put his fingers around the water in an O shape. He said “See, like that. That’s how you rope off metal.” Yesterday, at the science center, in the puzzle area, there was one where you took a loop of rope off of a metal structure. It had reminded him of this, as the rope was like his fingers makin a circle and the water was the metal in te middle. He had tried to explain it to me, but I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Speaking of the science center he said “What? Is it open? Then we should go there again.”

We drank the smoothie. He was then listening to his playlist, changing songs and singing and playing along to them. I then got out Hebrew notecards and was making notecards for words he learned in class. He was into this and found more words in the Hebrew book that he wanted me to do notecards for. We also got out the Hebrew notecard sets and magnets. That all ended though when he started to make a big mess out of them. First he tried to cover it up with the blanket, but then he was trying to bring Duplos over to add to the pile, and stepping on them, etc. Got upset when I made him stop and we cleaned up.

We went upstairs and watched a Sarah and Duck together, then I took a shower. Washed his hair during his bath. He handled it well and didn’t mind the water on his face as I did a fast wash as he let the water out of the bath.

Then he found the kaleidoscope cards. He said he’d play on his own while I went and started lunch. Worked a bit, then we moved the cards downstairs and he kept playing. I got mac and cheese for him and made a tuna sandwich for me. He changed his mind and wanted a honey sandwich, but I said that wasn’t an option. We did kaleidoscope cards together and he wouldn’t let me use a background on them, as it made the designs one-sided: “I HATE the solid ones.” He finally ate some mac and cheese, but not much.

He was then scooping Duplos in the cube pieces and carrying them over to the floor by the coffee table. We built a nice playground out of them. He was talking about something and said “Zombies…and blood everywhere…and teddy bears with their heads cut off.” He was quoting The Sisters and the older sister describing a scary movie. He was concerned about someone destroying the playground when we were gone. I asked who, and he said mama. So we sent her a message asking her not to destroy it when she was home and we were at his class. He then sent some text messages to her.

We went outside about 3:20 and he played with his beloved big stick. He said “Dada, the big storm wasn’t even big enough to get the sap off my stick!” There was some icky presumably-cat poop in the yard and he stepped on some of it while playing on the teeter-totter. He asked what it was and I told him. He got slightly upset and said “No. I’m sure it isn’t. Okay, I’m not joking. It’s a can of beans.” We found that if we sprayed the cat poop with the hose it dissolved into the grass pretty well.

We then went on a Zinnie walk. It was windy, but he said “The bike isn’t being a kite.” Referring to when he went on the beach with Carly. We talked about Larabars and he said he was sick of blueberry Larabars. He wants chocolate. Or peanut butter. We headed north, then cut over to the west past the cat-feeding spot. He kept heading west, saying he didn’t know what was that way. It takes us to the street to the school and I said we could go find mama walking home. Carly called, and it turned out we were really close. When we saw her, August put his head down and ‘hid’ on his bike until Carly came up and touched him.

We walked with her to our park and he wanted to stop and play shop. So we all went up the play structure. Down the slide (into me), then he found a little snail on the inside of the structure. Then more store. I asked what I could buy and he said “I don’t know. We have six of everything.” Then to the big teeter-totter where he did the prize-winning game: “Those black things are prizemen…they give you prizes…they come shooting out of their mouths.” He was then pressing all the ‘buttons’ (the plastic covers over bolts) to see what they would do and I’d make things up, like slime falling on his head, etc. A lot of laughing. He said the big one in the middle said “Danger, don’t press.” So when he pushed it I picked him up and was hopping while I held him. This was something new, and he laughed like crazy.

He and Carly then sat/lay in the swing together. I stood by them and he said “Dada, don’t look up. I’m afraid you’re under the metal.” He asked me to go buy things from the ‘store’ for him. I brought them back spider things, like bags of flies and mosquito juice. Carly was saying “Eww” to these things, so then August joked “Could you buy some cashew bars? Bring two.”

At 4:30 we walked home with Carly and said goodbye to her when she went in the house and we drove to class. As we got to the house he asked “Dada, how did someone teach me something when I was a baby and you and mama didn’t exist?” Tried to get some clarification on what he meant/believed, but he wouldn’t really add much.

Class was just him and Daria and Abigail at first. I told him to treat it like his Hebrew lesson, learning words and repeating things that Segal said. It worked a little, but he came out after a few minutes. He was in and out. He talked about not being able to do things. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a long setup time for the webbing thing and he didn’t like sitting on the bench. We went to the bathroom and came back and they were still doing sitting stuff. But finally the last ten minutes or so he was really into the playing and asked me a couple
times to watch him play in the web thing. Just a couple minutes before class was over I heard Segal talking to him. I couldn’t see them, as they were back towards the back corner. I don’t know what happened, but he came running out, upset. He tried telling me about it, but I couldn’t really understand. Something about just not being able to do anything. Couldn’t really talk to Segal at the end as she had her next class starting, but we stayed to say bye, then headed out.

In the car he asked “Can I have an extra tic-tac cuz I’m sad?” He sort of talked to me about it as we got home, but not specifically what had made him upset. He told me it was a one-time telling thing and wouldn’t tell me again. He said it was a secret.

Carly was out in the swing, watching the wind. He sat with her in the swing. There was more talk of metal in getting in your eye. I told them they talked about metal in their eyes about a million percent more than most people. At least.

Inside they nursed, then he had mac and cheese for dinner, but again just ate a couple bites. Carly found out about him being upset and asked if he was okay, then if he wanted a kiss. He said “Yes. But I’m still okay.”

He and Carly did a lot more building with Duplos. He was hungry, and finally said he wanted soup. Carly got him some and he had a lot, so then he got to have hot chocolate (we had all forgotten that he could have it on Wednesday, so had it today instead).

He drank that, then Carly asked if I could take him upstairs as she wanted to vacuum and August didn’t want her to. I tried to get him to read a book, but he insisted he wanted to do kaleidoscope cards. I’m getting kind of sick of them. We didn’t do any reading today as we did over an hour of the cards.

Upstairs at least, after initially telling me I couldn’t use background cards, I at least convinced him that they looked good and he let me use the solid pieces, and did some himself as well. We got him ready for bed and he said he’d dream about “Dragons, monsters, kaleidoscopes…monsters eating me!” He asked if that was okay. I said as long as it wasn’t scary. He said it would be. He was asleep about 7:40.

Wind: 

At some point during the night he got partially ttuck under the bed and Carly had to pull him out. Then, at 6 he had a bit of an accident and we had to change the sheets and his clothes. We all got up. He watched some Max and Ruby. I got lunches for us so we could try to get on the road early for the hour+ drive to Haifa and the science center. But when he was done he got upset when I said he couldn’t just have Cheerios and he knocked a couple books off the shelf.

We picked those up and went and made Duplo buildings as he was grumpy and wasn’t letting me get ready. I asked what we were making: “A fancy store” “Are you making a base? So we can add lists of fanciness?” Our big structure had animals all over it and he put a bed on it: “To get there the kids have to… Skip over the bed, boop, into bed. It’s not a very safe bed.” He found a Lego without a leg and asked what people who didn’t have a leg did if they didn’t have a wheelchair. We ended up watching a video of prosthetic legs.

We were talking about Max and Ruby and how I’m not a big fan of it. I said that Max is impolite. August asked “Can I turn into not doing please and I love you?” He was still having a bit of a hard time and asked “Dada, could you give me a treat cuz I’m sad this morning?” I think it was mainly because he didn’t get enough sleep last night. But later it also came up that he might have been upset that I didn’t want him to watch more Max and Ruby and he really likes it.

We did a little more Duplos, then moved to Piano Maestro. He insisted he wanted to do piano, which pushed back our departure. Apropos to nothing, he said “Dada, I still love sheep…I love sheep. I just love sheep.” I THINK he was thinking about the other day when I sang my “Itsy Bitsy baa baa” song to him and told him that sheep used to be his favorite animal. But that’s been a couple days. We moved to Dust Buster, then I got some mac and cheese and broccoli for him, after he hadn’t really eaten anything. He ate two bowls.

I exercised and we went upstairs and I let him watch Max and Ruby. He was happy about that. We skipped his bath for today. While going to the bathroom he asked “In Korea did I pee like a grown up?” Standing up, he meant. I reminded him of the kid-sized urinals at the children’s museum and other places that he used a couple times.

We got going about 10:40. Through Netanya he said he spotted a mineral water sign “Right out my window!” He was right, as I spotted it on the way home. We listened to season two, episode 1 of Story Pirates on the way up. He had me star it. We then listened to music. He didn’t play his iPad at all. He fell asleep at 11:40 with 10 minutes left, according to Google. By the time I parked, on the same street but a bit closer this time, he had about a 15 minute nap. When I got him in the stroller he perked up and asked “Do you want to go to the science center?”

At the science center we had a wonderful surprise: I went to buy an annual pass and were informed the museum was free every Wednesday. As we walked in (him without an armband, as he won’t wear those) he said “Maybe we should just come on Wednesdays from now on!”

I asked if he wanted the play area or the “more science-y stuff”. He voted for the “more science-y stuff”. He suggested we go to the bathroom (he used the Hebrew word). We did that, then headed up. First to the sound area, which was busy at first, but not incredibly busy. But then it cleared out. This would happen, as people seemed to be in groups (but not just family groups). Occasionally busy, but other times we’d have rooms all to ourselves. Given that the museum is probably busiest on a rainy day like today (the play area was filled with moms and toddlers), it wasn’t too busy for a free day.

We first went to the sound room, then up the stairs in that room to the puzzle area up on the balcony. We went to the energy room for a few minutes. August was having me carry him everywhere again. We had the energy room to ourselves. He then agreed to go outside and have lunch. We sat on a bench and ate, then headed back inside and went up to the second floor, which we hadn’t visited at all when with Carly.

The first room was all about mirrors and perspective. He was making me carry him, and finally I made him get down. He then pulled open the curtain to the dark room, and started to tell me I’d need to pick him up again to go in, but then he spotted something, ran in, and that was it – not a single mention of picking him up after that. All sorts of activities involving colored light, strobe lights, etc. On one thing that showed how light mixes to make white he said “I think it’s the primary colors. If you ever forget the primary colors you can do that.” There was a plasma sphere, and then we really liked the shadow wall, where the flash leaves your shadow on the wall. There was an activity where you could redirect light with prism, which reminded us of a similar thing at the children’s museum in Seoul.

From there we went to the room on dental hygiene and he brushed the huge set of teeth with a huge toothbrush. I told the teeth they weren’t brushing properly so he’d have to take control and do it. Also in that room he spotted rainbows cast on a chair and he took a photo. The next room was historic microscopes and telescopes and other instruments. We looked in a microscope and at a couple other things. Then a class was coming in, so we made our way out. Next was air and air pressure. And a surveillance camera you could control. The best were these wheels you could turn to create air pressure, then you’d press a button and it would shoot a plastic bottle up a tube.

And then to the optical illusions room and the astronomy room, which we didn’t spend a ton of time in, before getting to the magician room, where there were different magic trick things. He lay on a bed of nails, then I did. There was a bottle of liquid that would drain/fill when you put a hat over it, and he liked learning how that worked. His favorite though was the beachball that would float in the air when you stepped on a switch to turn on the fan. While in there I got a phone call at 2 from Omar to check on our work.

He needed the bathroom, so we went to the one down the hall. Oh, downstairs we had also played with a cool video installation that simply showed a video of yourself. But delayed it about 5 seconds. That was fun. Anyway, on our way back from the bathroom he started singing my Juicy Juice song, but changed it up, in particular changing it to “Mechanical juice store”. No idea where that idea came from.

We went back and finished up the magic room (entirely empty now) and did the bed of nails. He really liked saying magic words to make the fluid appear and disappear.

We then went outside and across to the temporary exhibit space, only to find it empty. But we played a little with the water stuff outside, then wandered the top part. We looked at (but didn’t try) the unicycle you could ride out over the water. I get that it is ‘safe’ in that it is counterbalanced, but it is still rather a fall to the shallow-ish water below. And August got to ride in the helicopter thing and I pushed him around. It started to rain as we headed back to the museum and it was close to closing time.

We stopped in the bathroom, then bravely pushed past the people waiting by the exit door, afraid of the rain. I had my umbrella up and we hurried the couple blocks back to the car. We sat in the back seat of the car and have a snack. Talking about Carly he asked “Did she go to the bathroom a few times?” Don’t know why he asked that. As we got in the car he was singing a “Please go away” song. It was quite nice, and entirely made-up. Well, part of the tune was, I think, based on the Poli English class song about crossing the street. But August’s song was about how he was shutting down and wanted to be left alone. Then, he was doing a really cool cha
nt, repeating each line several times: “You’re kidding me…you broke me to pieces…go away…I really mean it…please please please.”

On the drive back we listened to Story Pirates episode #2. Then he requested the monster story from episode 8, then the bath story/song from episode 1 again. He likes the Story Pirates. Then for most of the rest of the way home we listened to a longer one of the science podcast episodes about dinosaurs. August had all sorts of questions about dinosaurs and I would pause and try to answer them. The show wasn’t about how they were extinct, but August asked me “Why aren’t there dinosaurs now?” I answered the best I could. A few minutes later he asked “What killed the dinosaurs again?”

The show was discussing why dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals got so big, and it talked about eggs. August was then a huge snake that covered everyone and made us extinct. He then asked what would happen if everything on earth died off. And he asked what would happen if an egg hatched too early. I explained how developing babies have to be in their egg/etc. to develop. August joked “Same as couches”. He then kept asking about different animals “What about…” and listed different animals. We talked about what happens when things are born premature.

A few times August has caught me sort of sugarcoating things, I think, or avoiding his real question, when I say something about how science makes something easier, or there’s medicine for something, etc. I think he did that when I said that if a baby is born prematurely there are machines, etc. that we can use to help the baby. He says something like “No dada, I mean in the past.” And I have to explain that the baby would die.

As we got to Even Yehuda we stopped at the strawberry stand and got two cartons. He waited in the car. We were home at 4:50. He asked me to let him unbuckle himself (just the seatbelt button) and told me “I figured it out when you couldn’t figure out the gas pump.”

Inside they nursed and Carly told him not to fall asleep. He asked “Why don’t you want me falling asleep?” He ate soup for dinner and said “Dada, I’m rejected to noodles.” Another funny word mixup, as he meant ‘addicted’. I think I forgot to mention a conversation yesterday or the day before he asked what would happen when he ran out of words to learn. I talked about how many words there are, and also that there are other language and things to learn. He then said something like “I’m gonna know SO many words when I’m 100!”

I was getting dinner and needed a rest when he asked me to play Piano Maestro. I told him I needed to rest and he said “What’d ya mean? But I want you to be a better piano player.” Which is supportive and nice, I think.

He and Carly did a lot of building with the Duplos, then Skyped with Vivian and Colin. Colin was really into skyping and seeing ‘Ata’ (as he still calls August). They did more Duplo building with Vivian watching.

Carly got him ready for bed, and when I asked what he’d dream about, with no prompting, he replied “microscopic motors”. Don’t know where the concept of such motors came from. I left them at 7:10.

Off to Haifa: 

Our shadows: 

Floating ball: 

No pants: 

Back home: 

Carly got him up and delivered him to me before she headed to work. He just lay next to me in a daze for a few minutes. He then asked to watch Max and Ruby. An episode of that, then he agreed to try the new Magic Schoolbus and we watched one of those. We then read the Max Axiom Food Chains book and he was a mouse. We then got the piano and did Piano Maestro for quite awhile. When I got up and was getting him food he switched to Easy Music and was practicing “Mary had a little lamb”. He asked about the words and wanted me to write a new verse, so I added one where they head home.

He ate Mac and cheese for breakfast, as he is now rejecting every breakfast choice except for crackers and dry cereal. He played with the poop spinner: “Dada, I love this poop spinner…why does it spin?” He watched the Cover your cough song and a few other PlayKids videos while I exercised. On my phone we did some Arabic and August looked up Arabic words including ‘ok’. He then played with the Lego cars and requested that we throw away the throw pillow that is coming apart.

We read the first half of The 26-Story Treehouse. A few minutes after we stopped he said “Dada, don’t ever keep me too safe.” That happens to Terry, one of the characters in the story. I took a shower and he watched one more Max and Ruby. Then his bath. He arranged all the bath letters in what he said was a bassoon: “I’m gonna make a bassoon. It costs billions of shekels. It will cost so much shekels the world doesn’t even have that many shekels.” “Tada! A fancy bassoon!” At one point he started dumping water out of the bath too close to the edge and I threatened to take away the watering can. He then said “Dada, can I have the squirt car? Or is that going away TOO?” And since I won’t let him bang the rocking chair anymore to get chocolate he was now banging the shower door: “There! That’s another reason way of getting chocolate! Banging that door!”

Got him out of his bath and suggested pizza for lunch: “Pizza with broccoli? Ewww, disgusting.” “Maybe pizza with eggs and rocks and clothes. Does that sound good?”

Downstairs he started a big conversation when he asked “When you are sick and have to stay in bed is a parent there?” I explained that one of us would stay home with him until he was old enough to stay home on his own: “I want to stay with somebody at home until 19 BILLION years. Then I will want to stay by myself.” We ended up talking about the legal requirements of taking care of kids and how it would be the parent that would get in trouble. And I said that mama and I had to take take care of him until he was 18. He was sit/standing on the chair and in a very cute voice said “Thank you!”

He added a live version of “Given to Fly” to his playlist. I mentioned that I really liked Pearl Jam when I was younger. He asked why I liked Pearl Jam so much when I was a kid. We had some pizza, although he didn’t eat much. We played a little Dust Buster then I went to do dishes when he kept hitting the ‘octave’ buttons. He played a little more, then was lying on the floor. He said “we don’t know if Daria is going to give me cookies or not.” I confirmed that he meant Daria, the girl in his activity class. I think he was remembering when we took cookies and he gave a cookie to Daria.

He told me “Dada, when I’m four I’ll stay up at night.” He was then playing his bassoon and singing part of “The 12 Days of Christmas”. Speaking of his bassoon he said “Dada, you know I got this for free. Why’d I get it for free?” My reply: “Because it is a piece of garbage.” He talked about the plugs and which don’t work for awhile, then told me “Dada, I love the bassoon I found. It’s so frizpan.” (Maybe a reference to Plumdog when she describes the snow as something like ‘fritzy’).

We left at 1:50, walking with his bike up to the school. He asked “Can you sing I’ve been working on the railing road?” I didn’t know all the words, so we looked them up and listened to a version sung by Pete Seeger.

We got to school and first went to the library. A class was coming so we grabbed a big stack of Berenstain Bears books – the last 6 or 7 that we haven’t read – and went and sat in the corner with all the beanbag chairs. On our way in August had played with the sea turtle stuffed animal and brought that with him, adding to the pile. We read most of The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat and then he needed the bathroom. On his way back in he chose a different spot, which was good as we were whispering in the other room as Ilana had a class. We finished reading the book and then decided to go to the playground for a few minutes before the Hebrew lesson.

A short, quick play. He did some climbing, then went up on the big play structure where some bigger kids were playing. Didn’t really interact with them, but wasn’t afraid about going around them and waiting his turn on the slide.

He was ready for the Hebrew lesson and we got there right at 3:15. He went in and talked to her for a few minutes, then she needed to finish an email so we looked around the classroom at all the Hebrew alphabets. They then sat down at the desks together and spent the whole time drawing pictures and talking about them. But the best part for him were the erasers and the pencil sharpeners. Because we’ve sheltered him and he hasn’t really used pencils, erasers, or pencil sharpeners yet. So he learned eraser  מוֹחֵק and pencil עִפָּרוֹן and sharp חַד. She got him a bigger eraser to use and he erased things. He liked the eraser dust. Then he said “I really love the eraser.”

He first drew a sun, then he drew a machine מְכוֹנָה. Their drawings had lots of wheels גַלגַל, and when she asked what one machine did he said “It turns plants into crackers.” I think he was the one that asked about a pencil sharpener, and she brought him one. It was a little metal one, like the one he had found at the playground the other day. I showed him how it worked, and he had all sorts of questions. First he asked if you could get your finger in it. When we decided you couldn’t he asked what would happen if one was big enough. Then he was fascinated on how pencils get smaller, and he was asking how many times you could sharpen a pencil.

Near the end I took him over to the bathroom. On the toilet he said “I don’t think she’s gonna give me a treat.” and was fine with it. But when we went back she gave us each a crem-bo, which is basically a little cookie with a huge glob of marshmallow on top, all dipped in chocolate. She said it is called a winter ice cream and only available in the winter. August said it was better than the chocolate muffin from last week.

We took him over to rinse off his hands, then on the way back to the classroom he simply said “I’m tired of Hebrew class” and started walking away. The timing was fine, but the departure wasn’t. I got him to go back to the classroom and we got our stuff and said goodbye.

We went up to Carly’s classroom. He burst in and loudly asked “Are you ready to go home?” He was happy to hear she needed to go change as he wanted to play with the magnetic darts and dartboard by the office. We went and did that. He realized the darts would stick to other things and so was testing them out. They stuck to the bike, but when he did it on the handle (which has padding) it didn’t stick so well. He said “The black thing is semimagnetic”. I’m not sure where he got the semi- prefix from, but a good creation.

We walked home. When we got to Tal Garden August wanted to stop and play store. He and I stopped and let Carly keep going. He wanted to sing the ladybug song and told me “You can change up the body parts if you want.” Then “Dada, they don’t tell us how many spots there is. Could you put that in there?” So we figured out how to do that. The merry-go-round was a bus or something again and he said “We’re goin
g to Toys R Us” Earlier he had asked where his stuffed animals/dolls had come from and I had told him Baby Q was from Toys R Us. He has also asked about other toys in the past few days and I remember telling him the stroller was from Toys R Us.

Mainly we played on the spiral slide, climbing up and down it and sitting in it. We did a little store, buying all sorts of art supplies. Finally, he used the rope to pull himself of the ladder board thing for the first time. You can climb up them without the rope, but he’s never actually used the rope.

We left at 5:15. When we got to our park he wanted to stop to exercise. He spent 5 to 10 minutes going from machine to machine and playing/exercising.

We were home by 5:30. He had mac and cheese for dinner, then nursed. He was being a one-year old. He and Carly built a big Duplo house/building/something. He was talking about fires, and Carly asked where that came from, and if it was from a story. He said “Yes, 26-Story Treehouse.” He knocked that one down. Carly was giving him kisses and he said “I’m sick I’d smoocharoos.” The started making a new thing and Carly asked what they were making this time. He said “I don’t know. A fancy thing.”

She took him up to bed. He was being a baby, so I told him to dream about science centers. He came back down little after 8. We read Lulu Witch and part of Akiko on the Planet Smoo. He went and destroyed their Duplo structure. I took him up to the bathroom, then he was asleep by 9.

The bassoon: 

Library: 

Playground: