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He came down at 6:45. They nursed, then were talking about the keyboard on her computer, which led to a discussion of typewriters, then videos of how a typewriter works. They were then typing and reading big numbers. They did something in the millions and August said “And that’s how many treats I have in my storage place where I store treats.” He walked little circles on the carpet for awhile, then I got him vitamins and banana bread. He and I then read Home and Mr. Brown’s Fantastic Hat. He went to Carly to nurse over in the red chair and I jokingly asked Carly, holding up Mr. Brown, “Isn’t this a sad book about losing a hat?” Carly looked at me confused, then August added “Because his hat turns into a tree.” Excellent timing.

He watched an episode of Wanda and the Alien, then went outside with Carly watering plants and playing with sticks. Playing with the trees made him want to play Namoo, so he did that while sitting outside at the table. I went and took a shower. When I came down he wanted his water bottle and chanted “is it in the backamapack? Is it upstairs? Is it in there? Is it out there?” Carly was making him a pancake and he ate that. We read more of Shel Silverstein’s Every Thing On It and he read in made-up languages that he was naming. They nursed then he went to the bathroom and asked about sharks:”What ‘man eating shark’ mean?” We discussed that and how there aren’t many animals that eat humans, then he thought of a lot more: “I’m a man eating brick!…Eats things with its tube.” “I’m a man-earing goldfish.”

We left for a walk at 10:30. One mission today was to get my hair cut. Stopped at the place by the pharmacy, but she was only doing nails today and didn’t seem to know English. As we kept walking August stopped to pull some weeds, and he also solved my problem by creating a machine that made a hair cutting place for me. I joked about whether it met code and how well it paid the workers and he said “My money process is broken.” and went on about how it couldn’t pay the workers. There was a place at the little mall, Shohan Hairdressers or something to that effect, and I stopped and got my hair cut there. They went on to Bachar Garden, the park by the library. They played a game where a tree was home and he ran around touching other things and getting points and then they would add up the points. Getting my hair cut went smoothly and then I caught up with them at 11:30.

He was up on the play structure and hid in the tube when I got there. He liked me drumming on the tube, but when I just peaked my hand around the end of it and waved, not touching him, he was afraid I was trying to tickle him. Even after I agreed to not tickle him and we shook hands on it, he called to Carly: “Mama! Come watch so dada doesn’t tickle me!” Did some more drumming, then he was done on the play structure and we got going. We walked around the block, finding a new kind of seed pod to take home, then headed to the coffee shop/cafe down the street, מלכין (Malkin).

We found out they actually have a full menu (when August and I peeked in it looked like just a coffee shop and some pastries). The waitress explained the menu to us as August started to play with all the toys. We got the tofu sandwich and cauliflower mashed potatoes with roasted veggies (onion, zucchini, spinach, and broccoli), blended iced coffees for me and Carly, and an orange and carrot juice for August. Carly and August played in the toys (mainly sorting out things that were in the wrongs spots – August’s idea) and I translated the menu.

The food came and August got upset that there was no ice in his juice. Carly took him out of the restaurant. When they came back, calmed down, they asked for some ice. He was happy once he put some pieces of ice in it. The food was wonderful. August ate some tofu, but mainly ate the cauliflower mashed potatoes and several bites of broccoli, and a couple bites of zucchini. And one bite of spinach. He claimed he got a bite of onion in his first bite of potatoes that I gave him and didn’t like it, but he kept eating them after that, so he wasn’t that bothered.

After eating he sat on my lap and we read The 13-Story Treehouse. We read the last few chapters, then started again at the beginning. About 1 they went to find a bathroom – apparently there is one around the back of the shops next door. Good to know, as we hadn’t found a bathroom downtown before.

We went over to the toy store. The woman remembered me from when I bought the bug viewer and stuff. She handed August a kaleidoscope. He spent much of our time in there trying out the different kaleidoscopes and also found an octopus magnifying glass he liked. It started raining while we were in the shop and the woman ran out to get the displays inside. The rain only lasted less than a minute, but it broke our 2+ month streak of not seeing rain.

In talking to the woman, August understood her English and answered her questions about his age and his name. He had answered the name question a couple days ago as well, so nice that he is answering people again. I bought the kaleidoscope (he had chosen one with no beads in it, with a picture of a person with a telescope on it) and we got going.

We went to the hardware store and Carly went to the post office to mail a postcard to her grandma. At the hardware store August walked around looking at everything with the kaleidoscope. We got masks and eye protection for sanding, and a saw, a paper towel holder. We went next door and looked at the produce store for the first time. They have spices in English, for future reference. We walked across to show Carly the other coffee shop/restaurant, then started walking home the back way, past the hardware store. Just as I pointed out the shortcut path from the small grocery store, August asked for food and we realized we had left the snack bag at the restaurant. So we used the shortcut to head pretty much straight there and it was still sitting by our chairs.

So then we walked home. We stopped to look at some low palm trees with big bunches of fruit on them. He read license plates, I got a few paperback English books that were left on a paper recycling bin, and we looked at a lot of interesting houses and yards.

Home at 2:45. As we got there he was saying things like “In 200 meters, go inside.” Carly then headed to the mall to look for some pants and do some grocery shopping. He watched an Ask the StoryBots and ate banana bread and apple, then played the sick baby chipmunk game. Carly was home at 4. She did some some cooking and we kept playing.

I then made a sun-dried tomato, red pepper, onion, and zucchini quiche. They played outside. Carly had brought a small wooden box for the small stuff on our big table. They painted that together, watered, and August picked a bunch of the sap off the tree. Inside she made him burrows. He was at first skeptical of her techniques and ran over to ask me how I make them. She got the yoga mat and he gave her a skeptical look and asked “exercise mat?”

We ate dinner (stir fry and the last of the pasta stuff) while the quiche cooked, then did more burrows. I told him it was hair washing day. He asked “Does that mean I will cry?” But I gave him a shower and washed his hair and he did really well. He was a rocket on the bed, then we heard someone drilling outside. He said “I think it’s a hurricane destroying our home.”

We went downstairs and he wanted some quiche. We ate some. He kept joking about his schedule being full and having to poop. Not quite sure what that was about: “My schedule is full. Poop!” Carly went upstairs for a shower. We read some more Shel Silverstein. Poems he particularly likes are: “Turning Into” (where ‘wow’ turns into ‘mom’), “Mistake” (with a snake coming out of someone’s bottom), and Tic-Tac-Toe (where someone gets a tack in their toe).

He then developed a random typing game where he was the typewriter hitting the paper a
nd I was typing random letters and numbers and punctuation, which I would call out as I type. He said “The more you type, the more mail you will get.” I would type a bunch, then send it in the mail, then he’d bring me back some mail. He then requested Mr. Brown’s Fantastic Hat. He speculated on why some of the fish closed their doors “why are the doors closed? I think they’re going to the bathroom.” He then played at being a bird flying away to go to the bathroom and come back to his nest. He built nests for both of us next to each other on the couch. Finally, he was being cells again: “I’m a sytotoxic (sp?) T cell.” Then made-up cells: “I’m an outlet cell.” That one zapped bad plugs to destroy them.

We went upstairs and looked at his glowing stars and planets in his bedroom, turning off the light while Carly skyped with Glecy. He was intially shy with her, hiding in the corned of the office by the chair, but then went back and said “Hi Glecy!” He helped me start to put the stickers on the back of the stars and planets so I could hang them up.

As we were headed to the bed, he said something about “Point turns to line turns to triangle turns to square.” Not sure where that came from. I’m pretty sure I used to do that while drawing shapes with him a long time ago but would be surprised if he remembered it. I left them in bed about 8:25 and he was asleep a bit after that.

Sometime around 6 August spoke up very clearly in is sleep:

“That’s a monkey… There’s a lake with magic water right there.” Although Carly said she thought it was about a magic tree. I thought water, and it reminded me of the Ask the Storybots episode where the water evaporates and becomes rain. He came down at 7. Nursed and cuddled with Carly. About 7:20 he asked “Can I do something fun?” I said “No having fun on Saturdays.” To which he said “Mama stays home…That’s kinda fun.” I liked the inclusion of ‘kinda’.

We let him watch Storybots but he made deal with Carly – episode and banana bread on couch, book, vacuuming. They shook hands and said “Deal”. He watched the Why do I have to brush my teeth? episode. He and I then read Mr. Brown’s Fantastic Hat, then he was bacteria attacking my teeth and he was doing a germ dance each time. We then read Peach and Blue. I took off his clothes and he said he wanted to stay naked as bacteria don’t wear clothes. He likes to walk circles in the kitchen and did some circles. He was walking circles around me yesterday when trying to tell me something.

We let him watch another Storybots and I took a shower. When I came down he was really upset: the deal had been that they’d go do recycling after the show, but now he didn’t want to go. I caught up and went with them, and he calmed down once we were at the cages and he helped do all of the recycling. On the way back he started walking towards the pathway back so we went that direction. Carly and I watched a hoopoe in a tree and he was pulling weeds. He kept pulling weeds as we headed home and were home at 11:10.

Inside for a bit, then went outside at 11:40. Pulled weeds in our yard, played with the bamboo sticks, and I brushed his hair, much to his chagrin. We left ten minutes later, headed to Tiv Taam at the mall. He was upset about not pulling weeds in middle of parking lot but settled for weeds by the Aroma coffee shop. Carly went on ahead to start shopping. We caught up and helped with shopping. Sort of. August saw kids riding in the actual basket of the carts and wanted to try it and got upset and Carly took him outside for a bit.

We finished up and came home about 12:30. I read some Shel Silverstein, which he was opposed to at first, but then got into. He then went and played with the blueberries by himself for several minutes. At one point he said “I’m M cells capturing germs.” He then wanted to play the germ game with me. Carly then made popcorn and zaater and we sat on the couch and ate it. She said it made her want to watch a movie, so I pulled up Blue Planet and we watched the deep sea episode. August was intrigued by every animal they introduced, asking “What’s that? What’s that? What’s that?” At one point, as he was climbing on Carly, he said “I’m a Diana fish”. He wouldn’t tell us where he got that one, but he said it several times.

Carly made banana milk. He asked”Can we play the stealing honey game?” I asked how that had started (he puts a spoon in the stream of honey and gets some – he told me about it a few days ago). Carly wasn’t sure, but he said “When we made the honey water for the flowers.”

Carly Skyped with Cherie, and I had brought down the mandolin. August helped me tune it and we played around a bit and he played Dragonbox Big Numbers. Carly then made stirfry for dinner. He was then a sardine: “I’m a sardine that’s been taken out of the water.” And he was calling Carly ‘Mama sardine’: “Nurse, mama sardine.”

We left at 5:45 for a walk. We walked to pine tree park. When he wanted to play there he said “Say okay. Say okay mama.” He was really doing the “Say okay” thing a lot today. He’s done it with me regularly for a few weeks, but it was in overdrive today. I helped him do the barrel walking thing and we discussed RPMs. He played in the sand for awhile. A couple dogs came along with an owner and he called “Dont hurt me!” They were quiet and left him alone and kept going, and August said a couple more things about not wanting to see dogs and not liking them.

We were home before 7. When I went to take him up for a shower he really started screaming. In the bathroom he went and huddled in the corner of the shower farthest from the water. So we skipped his hair. He was so upset when he was done that he didn’t go and get the bed wet; he just wanted to go downstairs to mama. They read 13-Story Treehouse together. He has the first few pages pretty much memorized and was able to ‘read’ much of it. He then switched to a nonsense language and kept ‘reading’ and turning pages. She went to take a shower and he kept doing it with me.

We then played the germs on my teeth game, then put on his pajamas. He wanted to be covered all over (I had gotten a long sleeve shirt), so I suggested a balaclava for his head. He didn’t know what that was so I looked up photos. Took him up for bed and he got to the bathroom first and asked  “So I can have 2000 strawberries now?” The idea that the winner to the bathroom gets strawberries as an award is one he made up today.

They tried for sleep. He was upset when she stopped nursing:  “Help me, mama!” They tried again and I thought he was asleep, but at 8:15 Carly asked to switch and told me to bring a book. He and I read Fall Festival then Pablo and His Chair. He was hungry, so we went down and I sliced apple for him. We went up and he ate that and we worked on our Hebrew numbers. We are working on 11 to 100 now. We then read Pablo and His Chair again. He wanted water, but first watched the clock click to 9:00. Carly and I then switched and she read some BFG to him after he went to the bathroom.

They were quiet for awhile, then he was really upset when he couldn’t get to sleep: “Can you make me better? This nursing makes me better! Make me better mama!” They were nursing again at 9:50 and he was finally asleep.

He was up about 5:55. He looked around and asked where mama was. I told him she was downstairs and he asked if it was a holiday for her. Carly came up and they nursed. They came downstairs a few minutes later. He walked around, turned on the fan light, then went and sat in one of the red chairs for several minutes, just resting there. He then got down and did some math on his own with the blueberries before turning his attention to the number line. He really wants to write on it with the blue marker line mama, but if he does it will end with him being upset about it, like when he did the 3 on it. So he just looked at it for a few minutes, then went outside with Carly for a few minutes to look at plants. Some of the carrots are finally popping up. Still no cilantro.

Carly left and we read 13-Story Treehouse, about half of it, and ate Cheerios and apple. I then made some pancakes but he didn’t really eat his. We did some math on the number line and he used the bathroom, then played Human Body and Earth while I typed.  Then played May getting sick and did some number line. He finally got around to eating his pancake. In Dragonbox Big Numbers he found a weird glitch where the number 100 sort of followed him around. I got ready to make banana bread.

We went outside for a bit and looked at the plants and the pitch. There was a little string of pitch hanging down that he decided to break off. Back inside we made banana bread. He kept being overly enthusiastic with his stirring so we ended up with a pretty messy counter. Shmuel called, saying he was on his way to plant the papaya plants. He arrived about 10:15.

August was a little weary at first, and then David, our neighbor who we’ve not yet met, also came in the gate to say hi and August didn’t like that at all. He was also not thrilled about Shmuel using his hose. But when I asked him to tell Shmuel about what we have planted, August went to each and every pot and said what was in it. But then he retreated inside for awhile and kept playing Dragonbox Little Numbers. Shmuel and I took a break and sat and drank coffee.

After that, August came out more and was really watching what Shmuel was doing. Shmuel was really saturating the ground before putting the papaya plants in each spot, and so we talked about infiltration and why Shmuel was doing that. Shmuel asked August a question, and August tried to tell him about the showers at the Mediterranean and watching the water go in the sand. Shmuel rather missed the answer, and started talking about the Mediterranean instead. Then, August was getting really comfortable with Shmuel, and there were actually a couple minutes where I went in and did some dishes. When I came back out, August was sitting right next to him and they were talking. But right as I went to take a photo August got up, and I realized he was starting to get upset. There had been a big block of soil/clay that August had initially thought was a brick. Shmuel had told him what it actually was, and that it would dissolve with water. August and I were waiting to dissolve it when Shmuel was done with the hose, and August was waiting pretty patiently to do it (in the meantime he had been picking at it with his spade and shovel). But now Shmuel had started to dissolve it himself. August was upset and told me “He’s not letting me do it!”

Took him in and he had some more banana bread. I realized another aspect of August and language is that people rarely understand what he is saying, as even when they speak English it is their second language, so find him difficult to understand. So the exception was when we got in the car with Carly and Mandy and he was telling them about the smoothie and cookie and too much sugar, etc. and Mandy understood what he was saying.

Anyway, Shmuel left at 2:20. August and I did some more Dragonbox Little Numbers. Then I captured another of the big bees in the kitchen. Then I realized it was the one I thought I had killed earlier when Shmuel and I were having coffee. August and I looked at it, then I let it go. I made cheese and olive pizza for lunch, then he watched Ask the Storybots and I finally took a shower.

We were planning to go to the school again (I would have liked to have gone swimming), but he wasn’t into the idea of leaving. Seemed nap-bound. He started doing some imaginative play on the couch. He had watched the Storybots episode about rain formation, and said he created “Not r-a-i-n, r-B-i-n….It floats higher…” I got him to contemplate books to return to the library and he wanted to return Du Iz Tak and Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book. He said “I want to return it cuz it’s short…I want longer books you can read to me.” He also spent a lot of time explaining to me which stacks of books were books he wanted to return and which he wanted to keep longer. Then, he was back to imaginative play: “I’m making something up…wzitgb…Then all our best molecules turn to wood, then they just disappear!” From there he started to be “billions” of heat molecules, going up into the air. It was sort of based on the rain episode of Storybots, with the molecules going up and down.

That went on for quite awhile, then he was over counting the blueberries and Duplos: “Dada, I was counting those by hundreds and I soon got up to thousands.” Nice use of ‘soon’, but I kind of messed him up with the counting song, where you jump from 10s to 100s to 1000s, etc. as that’s what he generally does.

We got out for a walk at 3:10. I figured he was probably going to nap, as he didn’t object when I put him in the big stroller, and when I asked if he’d rather use his orange bike he said he wanted to stay in the stroller. We wandered up north, then took some back streets. At one point we went through a little path and came out at a little park area and realized we were surrounded by cats. Someone feeds the cats there and there were a good dozen there.

We got up to downtown and decided to go to the grocery store. But being Friday the doors were already closed at 3:40. Customers were still coming out, but no more allowed in. We got to the park by the library and August got off to play. He went up and down the stairs, then climbed the spiral thing. He also remembered pretending that there were raccoons in the helter skelter. I tried to grab him through the bars at one point and he said “Don’t eat me!…You eat food. You know, like I eat…Larabar and apples and cakes… Chocolate cakes and other cakes.”

Carly told me she was leaving work. At first August just wanted to keep playing at the park, stepping on berries. But he was done a minutes later. So we hurried off at 4:06 and caught up with Carly, who waited for us by Vatikim Street. We walked with her, then stopped at the Tal Garden park – the one by Jack and Celeste. He played around for fifteen minutes or so. He put leaves in a cup of water that someone had left on the ground, then kicked it over. He turned around and walked back to the playground but missed the step and fell down, scraping his knee. He ran off towards the other end of the playground, and Carly went and comforted him.

We saw the neighbors on the way home. August was still upset, and didn’t enjoy meeting David again for the second time in a day. We were home after 5. They nursed, and apparently Carly gave him some chocolate since his knee was hurt. Later I had joked about something, saying I hadn’t given him chocolate before dinner, and he excitedly told me that mama had in fact done just that because his knee was hurt.

Anyway, he went outside with Carly for awhile, then they came in and nursed and she read him some of The BFG. I had wanted to get some Roald Dahl books for him, so when we decided not to go I asked if Carly could. She got that and James and the Giant Peach. He ate some banana bread and I made a banana and mango smoothie. He played some GroGarden and was very excited when he figured out on his own that 3+19=22. Carly took him to the bathroom and he was excitedly talkin
g about sparkly paint for some reason – I think it had to do with the color of the pot. We thought he would go to sleep early, but then he and I read Pablo and His Chair and the first 100 or so pages of 13-Story Treehouse. Carly took him up for a shower, then we played a little on the bed. He was asleep about 7:30. Right before we went to bed we heard him really talking and thought he was asleep, but he was only talking in his sleep. Sat up, then flopped over.

He was awake at 3:50 again. Actually, Carly said he started waking up a half hour earlier. They went downstairs a little after 4 and read some 13-Story Treehouse. I tried to get some more sleep but went down an hour later. Carly went up and he watched Peg + Cat and at 5:50 I made eggs with tofu and cheese for breakfast and toast. August ate half a piece of toast but wouldn’t try the eggs, so I took the rest of the toast away. He was done for the moment though.

We had done some blueberry math, then he was a rocket and invented wireless power: “This rocket doesn’t need rocket fuel” How? “My machine that gives it power without using any wires.” He was remembering the watches from yesterday and said “5 quadrillion 2 thousand…Thats how much my phone’s cost.” We read a lot of 13-Story Treehouse, then built rockets. He decided that patterns made them strong, and when we broke a pattern it would make the rocket break or fall over. He then had a machine: “It’s parachuting the tutti-frutti onto the moon.” And told a long story about cards that he made go away when we broke a pattern (they were cards that checked to see if there was a pattern), then a machine that made black smoke so you couldn’t see ad the cards were in the smoke and someone had taken the cards and the police got them in trouble. He told another story while he was in the bathroom about how cars with 10 numbers on them were destroying his storage area with all the treats in it.

We built a house and some crazy rockets, then Carly came back down at 7:50. We went outside to check on tomato plants (there lines on the leaves, so he said he was going to pull out his tomato plants), sap, and pick off flowers. He found a feather and took it inside to show mama. Back inside, Carly was upstairs doing something and he said “Is mama still sleeping? Is she an owl?” We switched and I went upstairs and rested for awhile and took a shower.

He played GroGarden and wore headphones while Carly vacuumed. He then finally ate most of his eggs. He heard us talking about the ants and poison and August went and opened the door and headed out to check on them. Back inside, he requested the Hokey Pokey and they did that. We then played the May and a tree game, where a tree falls over and hurts her. She was then being sleepy. I turned on Dan Bern’s 2 Feet Tall, an album of children’s songs, and August stood and watched it play and hummed and sang along to some of the songs (“Cabin in the Snow” is the one that really caught his attention). We added a couple to his playlist, and he didn’t want to stop listening to go on our walk.

But we got him out of the house and over to Tiv Taam. He was acting sleepy and impatient though, so we made it a pretty quick shopping trip. Came back and they tried for sleep, but he came back down. I made peach pancakes as lunch/second breakfast. While I did that, Carly made a number line and he helped. Think they also played with blueberries. We ate pancakes, then they tried for a nap again, but surprisingly he didn’t fall asleep. Came back down and he and I read Five Minutes Peace, then Little Critters Fall Festival (new book we got on iBooks) twice. Back up again and he slept from 1:10 to 2:50. I went and rested on his bed and fell asleep for a few minutes. Carly woke him up and he wasn’t to happy about it.

I went downstairs and finished reading Homegoing while they nursed and he watched Peg + Cat. Carly was working on hanging up her tree (the one she had painted for him before he was born) in the landing/play area and also hung up parts of her balloon/goose painting in the office.

They came down and he was still cranky. She got apple and peanut butter for him. He wanted to see her get the peanut butter out of the container. I asked if there were still zookeepers in there and he said no. But that there were pipes mixed in. He explained that the zookeepers had disappeared in black smoke from someone cooking. He sat, making yummy noises the whole time he ate.

We went outside and planted his flower seeds and he watered them and the weeds that we discovered starting to grow by the water faucet. He’s been asking how to spell words, and was asking “How do you spell read? Picking? Arctic? iPad? Zero?”

Back inside we finished 13-Story Treehouse and started again at the beginning.

Then, a major life moment: breakfast for all three meals. Having cooked eggs for breakfast and pancakes for lunch, Carly actually suggested French toast for dinner. Actually, this was apparently something she and August had discussed at some point, the idea being to use pita instead of regular bread. Since it wouldn’t be ‘French’ toast anymore, Carly had asked what it should be called, and August had reportedly said “Dead Sea Toast”. Or “Red Sea Toast”. I was rather confused by the whole thing. But now he was calling it “Bread Sea Toast” and so that is what stuck. And it is nice and punny.

Anyway, they had the idea and I implemented it. Just a normal egg/milk/vanilla/cinnamon mixture, but the I cut up the pita into quarters, got the mixture inside as well, and stuffed it with banana, then served it with banana on top. It turned out surprisingly well, although Carly liked it more than August, who declared he liked French toast better.

He played Dragonbox Big Numbers and I impressed Carly with my punning skills. He then remembered The Owl and the Pussycat from Peg + Cat so we read the book version. He was excited to find that we actually owned a version of it, and told Carly about it later. We looked up ‘runcible spoon’ and found out that Lear made it up.

We got out for a walk at 6:15. We took Carly down to the streets south of us that she hadn’t been on. He pointed out the big Israeli flag. A nice evening walk in the neighborhood and we saw Holly near the beginning. We were back a little before 7.

At home we read books: Suddenly, Happy Birthday, Peppa Pig Christmas, and all of Frog and Toad Are Friends. It was time for a shower, and he lay on the floor and told me”I’m playing that game…avoiding picking up game…” And then proceeded to try to wriggle out of my hands when I tried to pick him up.

Did get him upstairs and he had his shower, then played on the bed for awhile: first with Carly too, then him and me while Carly went downstairs. Brushed his teeth, then played more of the germs, etc. game. Went downstairs by 8:15, then he was being a machine inspired by the ice cream robot in 26-Story Treehouse: “I’m a tutti frutti, bubble gum, winding road, rocket road, flying monkey, falling coconut….dispensing machine.”

Ate some wheat thins, then he and Carly added to the number line and used it. Went upstairs and he was asleep about 9.

He came down at 6:33, as Carly was still closing the gate. He was really quiet though and went over to the cough and curled up on it for several minutes. At 6:44 he finally got up and went and turned on all the other living room lights (two of them), then came back and sat on the couch. A couple minutes later he said he wanted to do something. That was watch the Care Bears. When I went to the bathroom he sat in his car seat on the floor. Then played with blueberries, comparing stacks to him and me (we were taller than his stacks), then making rockets out or Duplos. He started making stairs of Duplos but was frustrated when they were falling down. I showed him how to make a new column every few steps to support it and he was impressed with that and seemed to get it. Made it bigger, and he said it was his 13-story treehouse.

We got to the bus stop at 9:25. But then it said it would be 30 minutes. I explained that and he said “So that means we can play for that many minutes!” But then he didn’t really want to play in the playground and said he wanted to wait at the busstop. But then he found a piece of chalk. At first he just wanted to break it, but it was too small to easily break. I wrote ‘Zinnie’ and he wanted a ‘Q’ as well so I wrote a Q after it and called him Zinnie Q and asked if that was his superhero name. He asked what a superhero was and I was explaining that. He then took the chalk and  drew Qs, then said “I want to cut open a Q.” He drew lines in a Q, dividing it into fourths, then further dividing it with straight grid lines. But then back to ‘Zinnie’ he started to add different lines coming of the letters, as if he was turning them into a new language: “Now my letters all make different sounds…You’re the letters playing a piano.”

We then sat on the alligator bench and read some 13-Story Treehouse and when he was done with the piece of chalk he threw it into the bushes. It was getting close to bus time, so we went to the bus stop. August made circles with his fingers and put them together and said “That’s infinity.” Not sure how he thought of that. He then said “Infinity is launching into space.” The bus came at 9:58. As we drove away he said “Bye park.” and as we drove by the school he did his usual “Hi, mama!”

We read some 13-story Treehouse on the bus and he ate Cheerios and a whole Larabar. He then talked about having an air conditioner that worked underwater: “I bought a sea remote that can work underwater for my underwater animals because they were warm.” Still hungry, he ate some of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

We got off in Netanya at 10:50. We started walking, and he smelled something and said “That smells like the school sandwiches in Korea.” We then had a long discussion where I tried to figure out what he was talking about. And as I did so and I was carrying him in my right arm he was giggling and burying his head against my chest. Finally, I realized he meant the Tospia sandwiches that we would get and eat in Carly’s classroom when we went to concerts, etc. Really cool that he had a smell-related memory from Korea.

We stopped to get in the backpack and he was calling out patterns from flower colors, then reading number signs on shop windows as we walked. He saw a rotating watch display and asked how you buy the watches. I said you’d have to ask someone who worked there. He still didn’t understand it: “Do they break the glass‽” We paused to watch an accordion player, then got walking. He now had a watch store: “Mt watches cost 2 million, 18 thousand…Say ‘okay’! That’s expensive!”

We passed our smoothie shop, עולם הפרי (which means Fruit World), and decided to get a smoothie on the way down this time. He saw ginger and said “I don’t like raw ginger. It’s gonna be spicy.” He was intrigued by passion fruit, but we settled on mango and watermelon. We sat at a shaded table and drank it.

We went down to the beach and went to the bathroom, then found a spot on the left beach, a little after noon. There were a lot of holes/castles left by other kids, so he started by destroying one of those. He did pretty well with me putting sunscreen on him, but he didn’t want his floaties on and was reluctant to go in the water at first. We played together on the beach, making sandcastles and crushing them. I snuck into the water to get wet a couple times. A woman found a little toy car on the beach and gave it to him. August played with it a bit, but then the steering wheel broke off. He decided he didn’t want it any more, and we decided to put it in a hole and bury it as a treasure for someone else.

He played a little with the water on the edge, then I carried him out, above the water. He wanted to touch the breaking waves, so I put his legs in. Eventually, he was okay standing in it a bit, and he sat on my lap and played in the water as I also sat in the water.

He asked where we had buried his car and at first I thought he was going to be upset that we couldn’t find it. But then he excitedly related the story of how someone had found it and given it to him and we had buried it and hidden it for someone else to find as treasure.

He spun around and said “I’m pretending to be a record player.” I asked “How do you know about record players?” He said “Curious Geroge Goes to the Hospital.” Which we only read a couple times. He wanted to bury something else, so he found a straw and buried that.

As we were getting ready to go, a woman came up and asked to borrow our shovel. He was not happy to see me give it to her – he thought she was taking it. They gave it back, and we left the beach at 1:15. He then played at the shower stream until 1:50. He would dig the sand, making a stream channel for it, and seeing how far the water would go when people started showering again. He looked at the water and said “It looks like a huge animal…Why’s it going farther than we’ve ever seen? It’s soaking into the sand…Evaporation?…Amazing…”

I couldn’t remember the word for water going into the sand so looked it up and taught him ‘infiltration’. But I told him I wasn’t sure if that was the right word for it soaking into his skin. So he called it “soakintration”. In the bathrooms I helped a man find the shower room. Both with him and the woman borrowing the shovel I couldn’t remember how to say ‘You’re welcome’, but now have it down.

We left at 2:10. We counted the steps on the way up: 154 steps. He said”When we get home I’ll tell mama that was 154 steps.” We walked back to the station, stopping to look at the bumpy green fruits on sale. He had wanted one on the way down, but now he wasn’t as excited about buying one, so we didn’t. The drinking fountain at the bus station didn’t work, so we went into McDonald’s and used their sink. We were at the station, waiting, at 2:35.

Last time, the bus had come at 2:50. And before that had been a later bus. So we sat down and started waiting: “I want to sit on the dirt ground and read 13 Story Treehouse and eat apple. Okay?” He pointed to something: “But don’t sit on whatever that is…Or touch it, or eat it, or smell it…”

So we sat. And read. And read. And ate the rest of his sandwich. And all of the apple. And the other granola bar I had. The station was getting emptier and emptier. It was clear that the busses were on a different schedule as the holiday starts in the evening. But I couldn’t believe there wouldn’t be a single afternoon bus back to Even Yehuda. And at one point a guy assured me a 48 would be coming. But around 4:10 two 471 (or something like that) busses came and the last people around climbed on those and left. A few times August said “We’re stuck in Netanya!” But he handled it all really well and was in a good mood.

Carly called Mandy and I sent her a pin of our location. While we waited we went to a bakery shop that was just closing (McDonald’s already was) and bough
t ten cookies and a pizza-ish thing. I let August choose a cookie while we waited and he chose an all-chocolate cookie. We talked about how that was it for him and the cookie with a red dot would be for tomorrow and the rest were for Mandy and her family (and one for mama).

They picked us up at 4:40. As we got in August excitedly told them how he had had a smoothie AND a cookie and it had been so much sugar, and about how a woman had given him a car and he had buried it on the beach as a treasure.

But then in the car Carly sat next to him and he was immediately grumpy and tired. He wanted more cookies, despite our discussion. He calmed down for the last few minutes though.

We were home at 5. He asked to watch something and said he wanted to watch Ask the StoryBots. He watched the French fries episode. He sang along to the theme song, which he has been singing parts of. I took him up and gave him a bath. He played with Carly and they read some Bob Books and Home and the hats book from the library. He was asleep at 6:40.

Stairs to his treehouse: 

Infinity going to the moon: 

Smoothie: 

Pushing me: 

Holding the car and about to stomp an abandoned thing in the sand: 

More disturbing than any shirt in Korea: 

Reading in the bus stop: 

Chocolate cookie:

He was up a little after 6. At first he lay back down for a few minutes, but then got up. He stayed with Carly upstairs for awhile while she got ready. He was sad to see her go, but in a grumpy way. We spent some time doing math with the blueberries. Really cool to see him talking his way through math problems on his own. He then pretended to be germs, which made him what to watch How the Body Works videos. We did that on the couch and he ate Cheerios and apple. He then wanted to watch Puffin Rock. He chose one and told me “This is the one where Flynne’s lair is messed up with fur.” I said “full?” and he said “No. With fur. Not full. You know, fur.”

He wanted to send emojis to someone and chose Vivian. He then made a made a machine with his bowl and apple cup and tore up his tissue and put it in the bowl. He then lifted this machine with his feet. He asked “Why is the first word ‘Care’?”, referring to ‘Care Bears’. I explained it was because they take care of each other and other people. He replied  “I want them to just be called ‘Bears’…That means they don’t help people out then?” He watched a little of the Jealousy Tea episode (one of his favorites), then said he was done. We played catch with Peter Rabbit after he threw it to me and then when I threw it back he caught it. He was into ‘catch’, although he declared himself the winner when he caught it. Tried to explain it was a cooperative thing.

He went to the bathroom and noticed the toilet paper was new: “flowers and spiraly things.” He spotted a scrap of toilet paper on the ground and said “Dada, I’ve seen that toilet paper for ages.” He then counted the feet on the pattern on his stool. We headed to Duplos where we made rockets and he worked on trying to say patterns of colors. He was then a sick baby squirrel, but when I went up to get the doctor tools it destroyed the hospital bed. He then watched Peg + Cat while I took a shower. He’s really started singing the theme song.

We went downstairs to take care of baby squirrel, then went outside and painted his pot pink. He helped with most of it, then wanted to watch Ask the Storybots. He watched the episode about French fries while I finished the pot and then made pizza. When that episode ended he said “Ask the Storybots wanted me to watch another show.” I realized that both Peg + Cat and Ask the Storybots have albums on iTunes and added them to our library.

We went outside and watered, and August played with the hose. He was spraying the lawn: “Dada, the sun is making it hot there so I’m making it cool there.” Back inside we did some Hebrew letters on the pad of paper before he turned to drawing maps on the paper. He then said it was a machine: “This is a machine that moves planets.” He was then being silly with Duplos and markers. We then looked at books and decided to return 4 to the library (26-Story Treehouse, Berenstain Bears, the ABC book, and something else) and then read Du Iz Tak, which he still decided to keep.

We left at 1:50. Carly had said it would be fine for him to take a nap, and he fell asleep at 2:05 as we got close to the school. We had taken the small stroller at his request. I sat in the library and read while he napped. I also got a couple more books for the little library. Carly came in and started to talk to me, but he started to wake up so she left. He woke up at 3:05, and I asked if he wanted to look at books or go swimming. He said “go swimming” so I pushed him over to the bathroom by the pool. But now he was pressing his eyes shut. I got him in the bathroom, but he didn’t want to change. I managed to change into my swimsuit, but then he suddenly started calling “Mama! Mama! Mama!” and crying.

We ended up walking around the campus, trying to not bother people, as I tried to get him settled down. He’s not really used to naps now, and has never woken up from a nap at school, where he knows mama was at. He finally calmed down around 3:40 as I put him back in the stroller. He ate Cheerios outside the library in their ‘Library Cafe’ area. At 3:55 I asked if he was feeling better, and offered him thumbs up, thumbs down, or thumbs sideways. He did thumbs sideways for getting there. He ate for a couple more minutes then wanted to go in the library. Once he finished off the Cheerios we went in. We went and got four books to check out: 13-Story Treehouse, Home by Carson Ellis (same as Du Iz Tak), Mr. Brown’s Fantastic Hat, and one he spotted called Peach & Blue.

We walked up to the studio for his dance class. He went to the bathroom and played on the couch, but when the time came for class to start he was having none of it. Carly went back and forth with him to the door a few times, and inside once or twice, but he would immediately want back out. When he started to participate once he almost immediately had his foot stepped on and started crying. August said at one point that he thought we were going home (we’d talked about the class earlier, but probably not since he woke up) and at another that he didn’t like all the kids in there (it is a much bigger class than the Thursday one). It was also difficult because the area in front of the door was full of other moms sitting around and talking. Not a lot of space down there. He and Carly read the Home book and Mr. Brown’s Fantastic Hat, which he found pretty funny.

So we headed home. He cheered up on the way. We stopped at the school so Carly could go to the bathroom. He sang a colors pattern song and had a couple good patterns going. He seemed to listen to his container of apples slices at one point, which was pretty fun.We got walking from there at 5:15. He was singing a counting by tens song that he seemed to have made-up and he read a few license plates.

He wanted to stop at the park by Jack and Celeste’s house at 5:30. Carly went on home and we played with the drinking fountain first. He then found a branch from a thorn bush and handed it to me. He then decided it was too dangerous for me to hold and told me to put it down. He went and got on the merry-go-round and offered rides “Who wants to ride?…Well you’re just in time.” He then surprised me by counting backwards from 20 – something he’s gotten from watching those Space Shuttle launches. He turned me on the merry-go-round, first sitting in it with me, then getting out and running along beside it, which was rather impressive as well as it wasn’t something I knew he could do.

We got home at 5:50. He got out of the stroller and went around the side of the house and checked on the pink pot to see if it was dry. We got Carly and she came out to see it. He told Carly the table was her favorite color and the pot was her favorite color. They nursed, then we did some more Hebrew, then had some dinner. He was then making silly rockets out of Duplos, and laughing a lot as he had them fly into space.

On the couch I showed him the Peg + Cat and Storybots music on my phone and we listened to some of our favorite Peg + Cat songs (the theme song, the circle one where Pig sings “I still like triangles.”, Sorty Sort Sort). We read Grade 2 at the Zoo, then the start of 13-Story Treehouse, then Grade 2 again, which is quite funny. I gave him a shower, then they tried for sleep a little after 8. He was back down at 8:35.

We mainly read 13 Story Treehouse and he went back up at 9:20 and soon fell asleep.

Photos. Lifting: 

Painting the pot: 

Playing in the library: 

Growing: 

He woke up at 3:50 and couldn’t get back to sleep. I took him downstairs at 4:20. He asked for something to eat and I got dried cheerios. He then wanted to read Charlie Cook three times. I then got him some apple and let him watch Peg + Cat while I pulled out the bed and rested. He’s still stuffy and now coughing a bit.

Carly came down about 6:15. She had overslept a bit. August nursed after she made quesadillas, then said he wanted to play with the blueberry math blocks: “Race you!” and ran over to them. He was frustrated when Carly couldn’t play with him but then played with me. He suggested we make groups of 7. We did that, then he made a long string of them and counted all 32 of them. Then he added one more and counted them all to 33.

Carly said goodbye close to 7. He huddled on her feet and said “keep me”. Then he pretended to be a parasite and did just fine when Carly left – he wanted to go learn more about the immune system, so we did that. He loves the How the Body Works series from kidshealth.org with Chloe and the Nerve: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRmb5AxU-JXgajvrrcozhkhMeSWa0XI0Z

I fell asleep for a just a little bit before he woke me back up. He wanted some milk, and I let him choose from his three different sized cups. He said “small, medium, large…Huge…Super huge…Can you think of other kinds of bigging?” So we discussed words like enormous and gigantic. He got a little upset when mangos not ripe and I realized there was only one banana.

Upstairs where he played Big Dragonbox Numbers and I took a shower. He was showing me his planning/impulse control in Dragonbox Numbers as he showed me he had enough apples for getting gold, then showed me he could get stone, but if he got the stone he wouldn’t have enough left for the gold, so he went back and got the gold. He was then a machine: “I’m a really lour machine that makes cups out or old cups.” More math thinking in hundreds: “We need 600 apples to get 6 cupcakes.” And more machines: “I’m a machine that can make magical music from nowhere.” “That means it gets sound all the way from in Venus…Say ‘whoa’”.

Downstairs I made us French toast and a little banana and mango smoothie. We were listening to Mermaid Avenue Volume 3 and he added the song “Chain of Broken Hearts” to his playlist. As he drank his smoothie he said, out of nowhere, “Dada. Sometimes mama gets a bug in her mouth and she closes her mouth and she eats it…Silly mama.” Turns out this was based on a conversation he had with Carly yesterday after a bug flew in his eye. He also randomly asked “Why did our vacuum cleaner turn off on its own in Korea?”  He then speculated “What if all the vacuum cleaners in the world were turning off on their own and getting too warm?” He then acted this out on the couch.

We went and wrote our options for the day on the whiteboard. He drew a machine on the chalkboard, then erased pictures I drew on the whiteboard, first of an ant and then, at his request, a millipede. First thing we agreed to do on the list was water the plants. He ran outside in his pajamas. I got him changed into some shorts, and we went outside and I first put down some ant poison. As we walked to do that he asked “The company that made my shoes is called Crocs?” He then played with the hose in the dirt after scraping some old glue or something off of the boards near the faucet. I did most of the watering and some sanding on the swings while he was playing over there. He got his shorts wet and took them off, having some naked time outside.

Back inside he only wanted to play on the iPad on the couch. He lay on the couch trying to convince me – smurf village, make things, etc. Lots of rubbing his eyes. He switched to being a worm hibernating for winter “This is where I come out from underground…In the steps that aren’t painted…The non-painted platform.” He was talking about the steps in front of our house. Wasn’t interested in doing other things on our list – he was tired and just wanted to play onthe couch.

We went upstairs at some point and he talked about how we have 17 stairs. I said that was good as it was mama’s favorite number. He got a little upset as it wasn’t his favorite number. He surprised me by going to the top of the steps and pretending to take away 3 steps to make 14. He was still hungry so he ate some more of his french toast. He then played with the Hebrew magnets and we spent a good amount of time with the alphabet. He raced me to the bathroom, then had a breadstick as we went walking at 12:50.

We took the big stroller, hoping he would fall asleep for a nap.  We walked over to Jack’s house and I quickly checked in with him about going to the guy’s night thing tonight. He said he was going but not driving. So I planned on riding my bike this afternoon to meet up at the school. But Carly’s Hebrew class ended up being cancelled so I had enough time to walk.

After we left there August wanted to go across the street to the park and see the drinking fountain where he had played the other day, spraying it into the dirt. I turned it on and he watched for a minute from the stroller, just staring at the water as it made a stream in the dirt. I asked if he was ready to go for a walk and try to fall asleep and he said “Okay”. We started walking to the south, then back home, and he fell right asleep.

I pushed him into the house and he slept in the stroller until 1:06. He woke up at 1:48 enough that he wanted out of the stroller. I took him out and put him on the couch. He was upset at first, and I wasn’t sure he would fall back to sleep. When I said something to him he was swiping at me and telling me to go away. So I was just quiet, and then he turned over and curled up against me and the back of the couch and fell back to sleep. It’s the most awake I’ve seen him be and be able to fall back to sleep. Impressive. After awhile I tried to start waking him up. I tried several times. He would sit up with his eyes open, then throw himself back down on my lap or the couch and close his eyes, back asleep. Finally, I got him awak at 2:52. He lay on the couch for a good ten minutes before asking “Can I have Cheerios?” Finally, he got off the couch about 3:05.

I got him some Cheerios and milk. He ate for a minute at the table, then asked “Can I watch Peg + Cat while I eat?” He then asked for more milk for his cereal, as he had drank it all with his spoon. So I got him more. He drank all of that, then wanted even more milk, and he drank most of that. He paused watching Peg + Cat to pretend to be a present that is too heavy to pick up – he had watched a Christmas episode of Peg + Cat that, I think, involved sorting presents by size and weight. I then had the box of coins out and he was playing with the coins and pretending to be a coin sorting machine, taking coins off a conveyor belt.

Carly was home a little after 4. At the end of one episode, as he sat at the table, Pig sang “I still like triangles” and he turned to me and giggled, knowing that I really like that line from a different episode.

I took off about 4:35 and walked to the school. Met the other guys at the gate, then we got in two cars and headed over. We first went to a place called Beer Shop which was a decent beer place and had a beer. We then walked over to a falafel shop and had a wonderful falafel sandwich. They put whole eggs in their falafel as well, which I am told is a little unusual.

Then across to the movie theater where we watched It. Definitely a good one to see on the big screen. And a good film. Felt much like Stranger Things (since one of the actors is the main boy in that not surprising) or Super 8, or Goonies or E.T. I kept waiting for the 27 year jump to when they were adults, concerned as I didn’t know how long the film was. Turns out it is just part 1 – there will be a sequel.

While I was gone they went back over to Jack and Celeste’s and got some trimmings from t
he bougainvillea and came back and put them in water and dirt. August helped pull all the flowers off, then wanted to do experiments with the petals, putting some in vinegar and water and others in honey and water. They also ate some dinner, played with blueberries, took a shower, and he was asleep at 9:15.

Photos: 

Erasing the millipede: 

Cozy: 

Watching the water:

Not waking up: 

Falafel:

He started waking up around 6:30. I was already downstairs and heard them playing. He was being a cold virus, then making mucus, etc. in bed. They then came out and put together his name train and the letters argued about the order they to in. They came down and August watched the rest of Formula 1 qualifying with me. Pretty stuffy this morning.

I made French toast for breakfast for us all and he had a pretty bad bite on his tongue. He then watched videos on the immune system and was calling out “C cells!…M cells!” I went and took a shower, and Carly cleaned out the car. We got going and left at 9:20, Carly driving.

In the car he sang a numbers in Hebrew that he made up, going up to six. Looking out the window: “I see a crane off in the distance.” When we stopped at a light off the highway he asked if he could open his window. I said yes and he asked “Cuz were going zero kilometers an hour?”

Our first stop was ACE. This time, I found the smoke detectors. August watched a show on coral reefs on all the TVs, and we also got an Allen wrench set and a can opener, which we had somehow overlooked purchasing until Carly needed to open a can of beans for the soup yesterday.

We then drove over to the big Tiv Taam. But first we walked around the rest of that little complex and went in the art store that August and I had spotted but never been in. It turned out to be a really cool store, with all sorts of stuff for kids. We got a pack of glow-in-the-dark stars and planets for August’s room, a volcano thing, a crystal growing thing, and a Hebrew workbook. There was a pink cup with flamingos on it that he really wanted. I said no to that, but when he saw pink glitter glue I let him get that. He played a game of finding me in the store.

We then headed to Tiv Taam and concluded that Sunday mornings are definitely the time to go. The emptiest we have seen it. We got a good load of groceries, then headed out. Finally, we stopped at the nursery. August chose a rectangular pot for painting pink and Carly got another pot and a couple plants to put in it. We got home at 11:30.

As we were unloading August was playing hide and seek, sort of, hiding right out in the open. I asked if he was in a bag and he said “I’m not in that bag cus I’m not a grocery.” We had some lunch and he played Dragonbox Numbers. They were outside planting plants when I left at 12:30 to drop off the car.

Dropping it off was much easier than getting it in the first place. Dropped it off and then started walking home, right at 1. Took exactly one hour and was 3.8 miles. Listened to much of a Billy Bragg live album along the way. Stopped and looked in a little grocery store we’ve only drive by, and realized the doors in small concrete structures are entries to underground shelters. I was able to cut across one field on a dirt road, which was nice; the rest was on regular roads.

I was home at 2. They had planted plants, watched more germ videos, and nursed and read some books. They had also opened the stars and planets and looked at them. And Carly had put out some of the ant poison that Cherie had sent.

When I got home they did the little volcano with baking soda and vinegar and had a lot of fun with that. We then read Peg + Cat, which led to him wanting to watch the show. He did that, and I started making a pasta and veggies dish for dinner. They went for a short walk, basically their walk yesterday, and were back at 4:15. He was shocked that dinner wasn’t done yet.

I finished dinner and Carly did some grading while he played Toca Blocks on the floor. Carly asked if he was ready for dinner and did a thumb in the middle, something he had developed with Carly earlier: “Thumb in the middle means almost ready.” We ate dinner outside, something we can now do as we have three chairs. The black cat came and visited. The water was out so I went and filled it. The cat retreated behind the little house but then came and drank.

August checked the spots of ant poison several times, and he questioned why there was a pile of borax on the patio. He helped Carly sweep it up, then wanted to vacuum what he couldn’t sweep and he actually did some vacuuming when I got it for him.

We were going to go get a branch of bougainvillea from Jack and Celeste but we didn’t end up doing that today. He watched more health videos. Appropriately, the last one he watched was on brushing his teeth, so he did a great job letting me brush his teeth.

He got upset though with the idea of a shower. I got him upstairs, but Carly gave him a shower. When he wanted to nurse he said “I’m air beuh-being”, which is better than grabbing her. Said goodnight and he was asleep before 8.

A couple times now he has gone into the bathroom on his own, turning on the light and everything. In the past he would want me to turn on the light. Still needs one of us in when he is done though.

Watching sharks at the hardware store: 

Pink paint: 

Cheese: 

Eating outside: 

I had my book group meeting from 1:30 to a little past 3. I got up at 1:20, got dressed, and went downstairs. Not ideal to get up in the middle of the night for a meeting, but there was no distractions or noise from August, so I was able to pay more attention than usual and we had a good discussion of Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman. A little hard to get back to sleep though, and it was close to 4 before I did.

He woke up at 6:45. Played on bed and then they went downstairs about 7. I was up at the same time but slower to get up and head down. I heard one motorcycle scream down the highway. When I went down I found the reading Charlie Cook’s Favorite Book. He was then walking in circles on the square rug and said “I’ve been spinning for awhile so could you check my oatmeal?” He went outside to check on the tomatoes and told Carly “Say ‘I don’t speak robot language.” as he was making robot sounds. Back inside he was being a crab and pinched me, saying “I like to pinch people. That’s what crabs do.” They did some math with the blue blocks, then I took over and we were counting by 6s and he was making 6s form 2s and 3s and 4s and talking through the math problems as he did them himself. We did robot cleanup to clean them up.

They went for a walk. He ate breadsticks and was reading off license plate numbers, almost entirely correct. Israeli license plates generally have a 2-digit number, a 3-digit number, and a 2-digit number. He sometimes stumbled on the 3-digit numbers. Carly spotted a couple of discarded chairs. They walked in the street a bit, but mainly stayed in the shade. They were back at 9:35.

He did some typing on my iPad, then he and Carly planned on going and doing recycling. He told me “We’re gonna go to the cages while you keep typing, dada.” He had wondered if I had thrown anything away while they were gone. They walked up to the cages and I was in the shower when they got back. Came down and August was playing Elements. He was asking about the names so we pulled up the actual table of elements and looked at the names.

We all went outside and did some sanding and watering, then went inside and they nursed. We were then wrestling and being silly – he was trying to get to Carly but she was making soup.  We looked at the Hebrew flash cards and he wanted to look at numbers. But he really wanted to learn million, billion, etc. He found a vitamin from this morning on the ground and ate it. Then he played a long game on the couch of him pretending to eat millions and billions of vitamins.

He did some Dragonbox Numbers, then more blueberry math, then he wanted to record himself playing piano, so we did that. He raced Cary to bathroom and won. I joked “Was that Vivian?” Then while he was on the toilet he joked about how I could tell it was him – not a pink shirt, ringing a bell, making machine noise. The racing to the bathroom thing has now made a comeback, with him racing Carly to the bathroom whenever she needs to go.

We ate Carly’s yummy soup and breadsticks for lunch, then he played Elements with Carly. While he was watching or playing something on the iPad, Carly got the scissors and approached to cut his hair. He looked at her and flatly said “Put the scissors away.” He went to the bathroom, and Carly said she needed to change his shirt. From the other room I said “poop?” She had actually said ‘soup’ was on his shirt. August said “Dada’s joking? Why dada like to joke so much?” He came out, and I was cutting up apple for our trip. He asked”Is that apple all for me?” When I said it was he replied “Yay! Thank you!” He was then acting out (or having both of us act out) Gargamel spells.

We left on another walk at 2:40, all of us. We basically retraced their earlier walk, and I carried the two chairs. After the second, he first stopped to look at and smell some pink and orange and yellow flowers we stopped at the pine tree park and August wanted to go down the slide. Before we got there he was asking why the people had gotten rid of the chairs, and suggested “I think they said ‘Time for a change ‘“

We got to the park at 3. He climbed to the top of the slide and spotted a brown spot on it. He talked for a few minutes about how he didn’t think it was bird poop, as bird poop is white, before he finally went down. He then went down several times, hitting his feet on the side of the slide as he stood at the top in order to get the sand out of his shoes. He said it reminded him of the sand and tires and the teeter totters in Korea. I remember the teeter totters on the tires in Korea, but don’t remember hitting his shoes to get sand out on them. Then again, it seemed like he was talking about tires around a play area, which sounds vaguely familiar. He was pretty sure though.

He was talking about sand falling out or blowing away or something and having an adventure and told me “You’re sand saying ‘Me too. I want to go for adventure.” At one point, he said something like “I was Vivian hearing you to slide.” Sadly, that’s how I had it written in my notes, and it doesn’t make sense. Can’t remember what he actually did or said – maybe something about hurrying? But then a few minutes later I heard him say to himself “August, there’s a rock in your shoe.” in a familiar voice. I said “Wait, was that voice Vivian’s?” He looked at me, grinned, and said “Yeah.”

He then went over to the other little sand play area with the rolling thing (this is where he and I once played and he was concerned about poop in the sand and thought he saw a dung beetle). I sat on a bench, reading, and then I heard them talking about nutrition. They had a long discussion as he sat on the bench about vitamins and different foods and protein, etc. It was really cool. Later, on the way home, he was closing his eyes to sleep and saying things like “I was trying to close my eyes but I couldn’t cuz I had a lot of sleep and I was getting a lot of vitamin D.” Which is some odd logic, but interesting.

Before we left the park he was finding little cones and wanted to plant them. I said they were open, and didn’t have seeds in them, but then we got some green ones off the tree and will try those. He also looked up and identified which trees the big cones were from. Carly and I also marveled at what appeared to be an odd growth at the bottom of the drinking fountain.

On the way home, about 3:45, he worked on reading license plates and we found some being seed pods that we took with us. Really walking down the middle of the street this time and enjoying all the kids riding by on their bikes. We were home at 4:10. Outside we washed the chairs and used a hammer to open one of the seed pods. Bright yellow seeds inside, although we found out that the material around the seeds was scratchy, kind of like fiberglass. August was the first to complain about it itching. We washed our hands and he did okay.

We planted the seeds from the seed pods, then my cilantro seeds, and then his carrot seeds. He kept asking things like “What does cilantro give you?” We would look it up and tell him vitamins A and K, etc.

Carly then made the banana drink/smoothie. August was then a bit restless, and I suggested riding his bike. I meant the balance bike, but he was excited about going out on his orange bike and going for a long ride, and even wanted to check my phone to see how far we were going. And he said we could go without Carly and she could stay at home.

We left at 5:25. Right before we left he had a slice of apple and told Carly “Mama, I think apples help the stomach acids break down the food.” Outside I decided to make it a Zinnie walk and reminded him what that meant. He directed us west, then around some streets and eventually across the foot paths to the park by Jack and Celeste’s house.

He said “That’s a park I always see.” He climbed up the ladder thing and went down the helter skelter, then went on the merry-go-round. He went on
the motorcycle ride thing, and would get off and spin in circles and discussed getting dizzy and how it was an optical illusion. He then played with the water fountain, which flowed into the dirt, talking about making weeds grow. Then he said “Dada, let’s ride a little bit more on my bike.” It was now 5:50.

We kept going, covering the last of the streets in Even Yehuda to the south of us that we’d never been on. He spotted some seed pods in a tree, somewhat different from the ones earlier. He said “They’re not zucchinis cuz zucchinis aren’t straight.” He read off more license plates, then spotted an Israeli flag. We stopped and discussed flags, and looked up the German, Korean flags, etc. He was asking me what the blue, green, and yellow flag is that we’ve seen, but I’m not sure what he meant. He said it was in Korea, but it wasn’t the Korean flag.

He spotted the sunset and admired it, then interrogated me about my watch and phone, asking me how long I had had each and where I got them. I said The Apple Store. He didn’t believe me, saying “No, the apple store sells apples.”. I reminded him they have apples on the back, but he didn’t seem convinced.

He was then asking how how to spell words – crack, roots, zebra, car. And then said “When we get home I want to learn all the letters in Hebrew.” And then observed “I see the moon starting to come up. It’s a half moon right now.” Finally, he was asking how windshield wiper and what they’re for. He wasn’t looking at a car at the moment, and I’m not sure where that came from. Don’t think he’s seen them in use anytime recent.

When we got home he ran inside and said “Mama, we did a sunset walk and theres a half moon.” We were home at 6:25. Had some soup, then Carly went up to take a shower. He and I were going to do Duplos but then decided to go upstairs to get paper for Hebrew. Didn’t do that either. He ended up on the bed in his room and said “I was a whale and I ate the biggest dada in the Mediterranean Sea.” He was really comfortable in his bed and we were talking about him sleeping in it sometime. He then was pretending to sleep. I was giving him some advice on how you go to sleep, and he described to us he sometimes falls back to sleep when “Mama and Dada are downstairs.” He then wanted to practice falling asleep and told Carly”Mama, you go do laundry.” He wanted me to watch him though. He picked up Carly’s bear and said”I call this Scrappydoo.” Carly and I had been trying to remember what he calls it. It has had a few names, but this sounds familiar.

I gave him his shower and washed his hair, then on the bed he said “I have a machine that figured out the names of numbers after nonillion.” He came up with all sorts of names for numbers, even those beyond infinity. He was asleep about 8:20.

Riding in the street with Carly: 

Getting off the sand: 

Little cones: 

Helter skelter: 

Merry-go-round: 

He was having bad dreams and was sort of up at 12:57, so kind of correct when he said he’d wake up in the 12s. Carly got him back to sleep, then he woke again at 2:30 and I got Carly. He was stuffy through the night, and talking in his sleep a few times. A bit of a cold, it seems. He was up at 6:12. He lay on the bed and played around a bit. He looked at the clock and said “I woke up in the 12s….no, it was 21.”  It was now 6:21. Carly asked if she could cut his hair: “Nor now. Maybe later cuz it’s still shady out there. Say ‘okay’.” He was then pretending to be a Venus flytrap again. He’s been doing that for a couple days.

I spent some time cleaning upstairs, emptying one box that hadn’t been emptied and organizing the shelves in August’s room, then I went down at 7. A little cooler in the mornings now, so Carly had all the windows and doors open. He was looking at my bike, then we heard “Its starting to tip!” It had fallen/slid over. He wasn’t hurt, but it was rather scary. They nursed and read Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book. He then went upstairs and sat on his bed and watched one Care Bears episode while Carly vacuumed. He called down for food and water. I got him dried Cheerios and water once he asked politely. Carly went upstairs and I went downstairs with him. We read Charlie Cook again, then played owl and shrew games with the pillows. I then made him a couple pieces of French toast. He sat at the counter and ate it all save one bite, of course. He then played the Little Caterpillar app and I took a shower. Downstairs he played a little of Elements, then acting them out as he heated or spun or electrified them.

We were talking about going to the store and he was discussing the Tiv Taams – “little one at the mall” and the “Ikea one”. He went to the bathroom, then was talking about his hotel, which apparently had 200 stories. He was the elevator going up and down and taking Marshy or me to the different floors. He said one floor had hundreds of pieces of art that I had to set up. He was also talking about the Care Bears cookie episode: “Say some Care Bears making cookies”

We left at 11:05. We first drove to Ein Vered, a town a couple miles to the west on 553. Found a nursery there and a little store. Forgot to check on the swimming pool though. Then we went to the mall. Carly ran into start shopping while August and I parked. It was very busy, but we found a spot in the big south lot. We went in and helped with shopping. Got some za’ater and popcorn to try it on. We went to the other end of the mall so Carly could get something in the pharmacy. August started playing in the little play area, hopping around. I went into the crafts store to look for paint. I came out and August was running all over, touching the different colors in the play area: Carly would tell him which ones to go touch and he’d run to them as fast as possible. He took a break from that to go in with me and choose a pink color he liked. Carly saw a stand run by a woman with a headscarf. She was making something that sort of looked like a savory crepe. It was Druze bread, with za’ater and sesame seeds, cheese, and parsley in it. We got one, then went out the back entrance and sat on steps and ate it. August liked it and ate several bites.

From there Waze found an odd backroad that took us north to the gas station. I needed to ask another guy for help getting gas started, but I think we’ve got it now.

At home we put away groceries. Shmuel had called while we were at the store. He had left the papaya plants in a box and told me he would be back to plant then. He also planted two mystery plants, one at each end of the dirt strip along the house. August spotted the breadsticks we got awhile go and we ate a couple. I told him he needed to eat it outside due to the crumbs. He thought it was funny to run inside. He kept doing it after Carly said she’d have to take it away. He was quite upset when she did so. They read the Alphabet and Cat books, then he watched a Peg + Cat and ate an apple. Then another half of an apple. He and I read They All Saw a Cat a couple times. He then saying things like “Which constellation has more stars?” They were questions from the quizzes in Star Walk Kids. He was also quite stuffy at this time. We did some Star Walk Kids and Carly hung pillow cases upstairs.

We went for a walk at 5:20, him on the bike. He said “Now, take the exit.” Then he sang an ‘exit’ song. A short walk, down to the southwest. Maybe 20 or 25 minutes. As we came home he and I played I Spy. Back at home they went outside. Carly doing some sweeping, and he went down the slide. Carly made him oatmeal for dinner, then took him upstairs for his shower. Back down he ate dinner, then we read They All Saw a Cat a couple times, a new book called Pablo and His Chair (plot is very similar to the Bear and a Piano book), and part of Hilo. We were discussing routines as I had him guess what we hadn’t yet done today. He was very cuddly with me as I brushed his teeth. On the bed he had some machine time until he wanted to nurse, and was asleep about 7:20.

Yom Kippur began at sundown, and groups of kids started riding around the streets in the dark, loudly. Kind of odd, given the otherwise silence. The house across the street was also having a gathering out in their yard. I heard a woman loudly saying “I’m not afraid of anybody. I say what I have to say. I’m not diplomatic.” 

I went to bed a bit earlier than usual in order to get some sleep before having to wake up at 1:15 for my book group meeting to discuss Norse Mythology.

Plants from Shmuel: 

Druze bread: 

Interesting tree: