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A little before 6 August started sleeping with his head against my back and I thought he was about to wake up. A minute later he did in fact sit up, but then lay back down, his head still against my back. When I got up at 6:15 he was still pressed against me and I expected him to wake up. Instead he scooted a bit more I to my spot and kept sleeping. He slept until exactly 7, or at least that’s when I heard the door. I met him halfway and he got sad and sat on the midway landing. Back downstairs he went to the door but didn’t want to go out. He eventually calmed down on the couch, sitting on my lap and giving me a frowny face. He then sat next to me for awhile, his legs stretch out in front of him. Carly emailed back giving him extra Os in “soooo much”. He typed some nonsense and a bunch of Os, giving her extra Os back. He told me to tell her that he loves to tear paper, as he was currently shredding his tissue. Also, I asked him what he did with his crusts yesterday and he said “On the floor”.

Dragonbox Bog Numbers and Google Maps while I tried to figure out what to do (and membership information for the big zoo in Tel Aviv). We had some banana bread, then while he watched the Space Shuttle I got some breakfast. “I can’t wait until it lifts off into space.” “But you can’t jump in the liquid planets?” We dealt with ants over by the sliding door and then made a big rocket, using a pattern. He then started robots cleanup to clean up the duplos. We then started to build a zoo but he wanted to be a millipede and destroy it, so it turned into me just making short patterns and him destroying them. He asked “How does a millipede see?” That was a reference to They Saw a Cat, a cool book on got on the iPad and we read last night about how different people and animals all see the same cat. August then started counting the fence pieces using Hebrew and we added pieces until we were up to 9 or 10.

He watched some Care Bears and ate apple and banana bread. I addressed more ants and pulled the unnecessary hose for a water purifier that was coming out of our kitchen counter. In the process I noticed a small leak maybe forming under our sink. Some exercise, then August switched to the Little Caterpillar app and I went up to take a shower. He came in before I could start and said something about the game being short “boop!” Then he was sad and said he wanted it longer. I went back out and we realized that you put the caterpillar to sleep, and it eat and play more, etc. until it becomes a butterfly. While it is sleeping, little colored circles come out of its head. August asked “Is that its dreams?”

We then went outside and painted the plant stand/table. Actually a long process: putting down the drop cloth, did some sanding and wiping, then got to painting. We did the legs first, then turned it over and did the top. August helped through most of it, until the top was all green. We went over to the hose and washed him off. His feet were pretty green, as were his arms. I had had him painting in just his underwear, which was a good call. He had bumped into the side of it and had paint all over his right thigh. He was still kind of damp, so I didn’t want him in on the couch, so I put my iPad in the kitchen doorway and he played it, naked, while I finished the sides of the table and did touchup. Used the whole can. Turned out quite nice, although it could use a second coat in places. Won’t be noticeable though with plants on it.

Inside I made some pizzas and ate a pita and hummus while I did so. August had some pita, then when the pizza was cooking he wanted more. I said no, he could have pizza when it came out. He was convinced I misheard him: “I didn’t say pi-ZZA, I said pi-TA…You know, the soft bread I was just eating?”

We started to get going, and the plan was to go to an organic vegetable store just west of the school, then going swimming at the pool until going to his activities class up at the dance studio. But he decided he wanted to go for a walk “around the block” and was upset when I said we weren’t doing that. He calmed down, but when we got outside at 2:50 he simply sat on the bike, then was asking me politely for just a short walk. He asked if we were going by the house we always see. I asked which house, and he said “The house we always look at…With the dog.” I asked “Do you want to go by there?” He thought about it and said “I think so. I think I feel like that…Yeah, I do.” Also, as we were leaving he was sort of swinging at me and I called him “hitty boy” and asked why. He explained “Every time I cry we’re about to leave home I hitt you…Cuz I don’t like leaving home.”

So we went for a walk around the block, just up past the pharmacy, around to the left, and then back south, using the back path. A couple times he asked “What are their names again?”, referring to Jack and Nellie.

We really left at 3:10. While the place we were going, in Bet Yehoshua, was just a little ways past the school, to get there on a paved road you have to drive around to the north or south. We took the north route, and as we got close I realized he was falling asleep. He was asleep about five minutes. Couldn’t find the veggie stand so I parked on the side of the road and got him out. He was still trying to fall asleep, and I carried him on my shoulder as we looked around. Saw some horses, then walked to the west. There was a place with some sculptures out front, but nothing that looked correct. We saw a few cats, then he said “I’m looking for cats in random places.” Back at the car I set him down. He found a cone-shaped seed on the ground, then looked up and he identified which tree they were from. He then spent ten or fifteen minutes digging just in the dirt behind the car on the side of the road. I let him throw a rock into the brush and then he asked “What if you could throw…To another country…Into space…Another planet…All the way back to earth.”

We left at 4, and drove through more of Bet Yehoshua. Found some bike trails and a park, then made our way to the school using the southern route this time. Picked Carly up right at 4:20, then drove up to the studio. He took a minutes getting dirtier in the dust where we parked, then when we got in we took his shoes off and washed his hands right away. He had said “Sorry, there’s a shoe in my rock.” to one of the other kids as we came in. Carly also pointed out that I’d dressed him in the light blue shorts, which fall down, so we changed him into the backup pair I had in the backpack. He said “Hey! I’m not supposed to be naked in classes!”

The teacher came in and we met her. She asked August his name, and this time he actually answered with “August”. She didn’t hear him though, and I asked him if he could tell her his name. He said “Can you tell her you love Qs?”

We were out of the room again during class. This class was more like a physical games class, like Teuni Teuni or the one we tried at the community center. There were 4 kids to start, but I think it got up to about 7. They had stools and hula hoops that they played with and climbed on and jumped off of. She had them duck walking in circles and running. He came out at one point and told Carly “The machine is rusting!” Another time “But the machine is broken! There’s a rock in it!” He was getting tired by the end, but went back for the final obstacle course thing.

After class we headed home and had dinner. He and Carly read The Alphabet From the Sky, then I went on a little bike ride to try out my bike. First rode up the street to the NE, then came back and took the path that goes to the bridge over to the mall but continued on the trail on this side and took it until it almost hit the road that goes up to the school.

Came home and gave him a bath. Then on the bed. He was talking about winning, and had been doing it with Carly and the alphabet book, wanting to turn each page into a competition. He hadn’t been doing it w
ith me in the library. We asked where it came from and he said “I start that!” I started to suggest it came from somewhere else and he shouted “Vivian!” I’d actually been thinking of the little horse racing mini game in the Hebrew app we play. He agreed, saying “No, that horsey game.” Although Vivian was also an influence.

We went downstairs and read Charlie Cook twice. He was then talking about a magical cake: “Luckily I put magical eggs in there that make it grow bigger and bigger and makes more cake pieces…Yay! I won the cake eating! Can you say “Ahh, I didn’t win.” I’d also reminded him of the Care Bears episode involving a cake eating competition and he was reenacting it.

We brushed his teeth, then in bed I asked him “What do you want to dream about?” He thought about it and said “Pianos, painting, painting pots, and making smoothies…Let’s go to bed!” Before I left he said “I think I’m gonna wake up in the…12s!” Which is a terrifying thought. I left them at 8, but he came back down at 8:10. As he came down the stairs he asked “Are you watching race cars? I want to see if any of them crashes into the wall and breaks.” It has been weeks since he’s seen any racing. He went and sat on the rug and looked at his socks. He said “My foot still hurts there…Accident…At dance class.” I asked Carly later if he had gotten hurt during class today and she said he had fallen down once.

He then lay on his back and held the vacuum cleaner nozzle above him. He said “I’m playing with my vacuum cleaner.” I asked “Who plays with vacuum cleaners?” He replied “Me.” I asked “Like tia Cassie?” And he said “Yep. When they were babies. When they were twins. They used to play with vacuum cleaners.” We got up and read They Saw a Cat Twice, then part of The Little Prince. He went up at 8:40 and was asleep soon after.

Paint on him: 

Finished table: 

He was up at 5:55. Carly heard him in the bedroom and came in with him. They came down awhile later. He found the fridge magnets and we spent a little time with those. He then requested some music. I started a song I was listening too last night by Drab Majesty and August liked it and wanted it on his playlist. A minute later though he paused it and said “A digger was going to destroy he music so I stopped it.” He then wanted the new space app (Star Walk Kids), so while I installed it on his iPad he took over mine and played Toca Plants.

A made eggs and he watched Space Shuttle launches. We ate eggs and cauliflower and zucchini and cheese for breakfast and he had some apple. We then read The Hungry Smurfs and part of Astrosmurf. I read some poems from Prelutsky’s Something BIG Has Been Here, then he ate more apple and walked in circles in the kitchen.

He then started playing Star Walk Kids and asked for a mango smoothie. I started making it, then he needed to use the bathroom. In the bathroom he was looking at the colors of the door hooks and talking about patterns. He was actually getting it, in that he was saying a sequence of colors and repeating it. In the past he’s been able to do some pattern completion in books or with Duplos, but hasn’t successfully made patterns on his own.

Carly called me saying they needed some of our car paperwork at school. So I scanned that and he went and played with the Hebrew letter magnets. He was sorting them by color and asked about a couple of the letters. I finished the smoothie and we drank that and watched space shuttle videos. He then played Toca Blocks and did more smurf storytelling with it. And figured out a few more things in the app.

We went upstairs and he watched Care Bears and ate banana bread on his bed while I took a shower. He was then a sick giraffe. Earlier I had mentioned that he had slept 11 hours last night. He brought it up, saying “I sleeped 11?” I was talking about how that was better than the previous night and he was asking why, so I was explaining how your brain processes things from the day and how he had been worn out by dance class the previous day. He said”Your brain is putting it together?” Then he acted out the previous day, having him and me make robot sounds for the processing sound: “Can you say beep boop…Hebrew…dance class…” “Your brain puts it together?”

He then went back to being animals, and acted out variations on stories he knows: he was a whale eating me and getting sick (like in 26-Story Treehouse), then he was making my room messy looking for one of my favorite things (like Cat looking for Peg’s favorite crayon).

Back downstairs he wanted to learn Hebrew numbers, so we did some Hebrew. While he went to the bathroom I looked for some more Hebrew apps. Found a good one on numbers, another Gus one that actually does stories, and a couple more to try out. Already looking like much better apps than anything I ever found for Korean, so very promising. So we did some Hebrew, interrupted by him spotting ants carrying a big crumb of banana bread that he had dropped. We watched them carry it to the door, then dealt with the line of ants remaining. He said “A piece wanted to fall down and attract the ants.”

Finally, we got going on a walk. Carly had seen another cabinet, smaller this time, that might work for a library. It was over near Jack and Celeste’s house. When we got over to the street the yard waste truck was driving up it, picking up yard waste. We followed it up, but no cabinet. But we were entertained by that and also a digger at a construction site. We went back and went to pay Jack and the dog Nellie a visit. We stayed maybe 15 minutes. The first thing that Jack said was that he had seen a cabinet just up the street a couple days ago and thought about calling me. I told him that’s why we were actually in the area but it was gone, but that I had gotten a different one. August did okay. Threw the toy for the dog a couple times, then sat on my lap eating apple and banana bread while Jack and I sat and talk. He was cuddling next to me being a baby squirrel getting everything slimy and gross. When Jack and I talked about the Dead Sea August chimed in with his opinion about how it was really warm. When I got up he continued to play in the chair. A couple of times he started to be a bit rude, saying “Stop talking!”

We headed home. I asked if he wanted to keep walking and go to a park. He didn’t want a park, but he wanted to do recycling. I left him in the stroller and went in. We had just done recycling yesterday, but there were 6 or 7 things to do so we went up and recycled those. Home at 1:45.

He played Toca Blocks and I got lunch together. He had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I had hummus and pita. He went out and checked on his tomato plants. Back inside he hypothesized “They have interesting leaves so maybe they’ll have interesting tomatoes.” We brushed his teeth and he stated “I want to stop learning Hebrew and learn some other language.” I pointed out that was rather impractical. More re-enacting, this time re-enacting building the rocket in Astrosmurf, complete with smurfs peeking through the fence.

We went outside and he found a feather in the yard and said “It’s pretty big. Maybe it’s from an eagle.” We added it to the ‘interesting bowl’ on the outdoor table that has all the stuff we’ve found. Then outside where we found a ping pong ball in the street. He wanted to put it in the interesting bowl as well, but I’d already locked the gate. He let me throw it over the fence to do later.

We left at 2:45 and went to the school. Got to the library just before 3. He realized he was thirsty and really wanted to go to the drinking fountain with the steps. On our way out the bell rang. He said school was over and seemed to like all the kids suddenly appearing. Got a drink, then went back to the library. Ilana let me grab a few of the discard books for our little library. August and I went back to the kids section and found The Alphabet from the Sky. He was pretty good at finding the letters, and we just got through the whole book in time. Carly found us at 3:30. We ended up checking out that and Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book.

We drove to the Skoda dealership. August remembered the pipe game and spinny chairs. And the chocolate cake. We were saddened to see that that whole coffee bar area was gone. Almost a good enough reason to cancel our car order… Carly went and worked with Shmuel on the paperwork/payment. August made pipes out on the steps, then we went in and played in the spinny chairs. Then “Come on! Let’s make more pipes!” He made pipe, installed it to the waste treatment plant, then acted out the whole going to the bathroom/through the pipes/to the waste treatment plant process. Back inside he ate some PBJ and banana bread and apple. He played some Hebrew on the iPad. Then we went and looked at the car. Looking underneath the back first for the gas tank. Then I figured out how to open the gas cover (on the passenger side – the worst thing about the car so far – can’t stand it being on that side) and hood and we looked at the engine. He was very interested in all the fluids and the radiator and fuses. When we opened the hood he remembered “in Chelan the mice in the car.” Back at the spinny chairs he was walking around, counting in Hebrew. He has 1 to 4 down, I think, and we were working on 5 and 6.

We left at 5:45. On the way back Carly was talking to him about having Friday off and holidays. He said “when you have honey bread?” Earlier I had told him that honey bread was for special days.

We were home at 6:15. Carly had a food cramp as she got in the house. August went up to her and asked “Are you okay?” Then he hit here and said “don’t be hurted.” Carly made more pasta – the fun pasta that he found at the store. He said”They’re all different things so they’re hard to chew.” “Mama! Why you think these noodles is h
ard to chew?” He ate all his noodles and then said “Hey! Did somebody take my noodles?”

Watched more space shuttle videos then I took him up and gave him a shower and washed his hair. In on the bed we skyped with my parents. When dad answered August said “Happy birthday! Happy birthday! Happy birthday!” over and over, and I was able to tell him happy birthday in Hebrew. Carly put him to sleep about 8 and I kept skyping with them.

After Carly went to bed I found ants on the counter and realized they had dug through behind the coffee maker. So I spent time cleaning that up and patching it. Then I checked on the sliding door area and found a big trail over to under August’s chair. At lunch I had thought he had eaten his sandwich crusts. He had not. There were two pieces of crust on the floor, swarming with ants. How we didn’t see this at dinner I have no idea. So I cleaned all of that up and did more patching under the sliding door.

Photos. Lazy time: 

Hebrew magnets: 

Visitng Jack and Nellie: 

Cuddling with a shark: 

Spinny chair: 

He was up at 6:50. Way too early, as that was less than 8 hours of sleep. He went to the front door and was whiny that Carly was gone, but didn’t want to go out when I opened the door, and didn’t really cry. He went and destroyed the zoo. When I walked to the kitchen he asked “Are you not going to like me?” I assured him that wasn’t the case, but I didn’t want to play Duplos yet. He wanted to read The Smurf King, so we read some of that. He was then a music machine, then we did more reading. Had some Cheerios and banana bread for breakfast, then read the entire Smurfette story, skipping all the really sexist stuff. He asked me “Can I play Big Dragonbox Numbers to learn about math?” So of course I had to let him play. We then read Pussycat Pussycat a couple times. He went over to the Duplos and picked up a big chunk of Duplos and said “This is a piece of a broke up cottage…This is a piece of an old broken up treehouse that I found in my yard…” He remembered ‘cottage’ from 26-story Treehouse.

Yve (as I now believe it is spelled) came over just past 9 to help move the bed and the couch. He came in and August started giggling at him. Yve joked about taking Duplos for his own kids and August said “Mama and dada got them for me…” August told him he was making houses out of Duplos. Yve and I moved out the couch, then the parts of the beds to his truck. August was getting upset as we got finished, and after Yve left I figured out why. He curled up on the grey rug and said “My houses keep breaking…every time I try to build it…” He didn’t want to go back to Duplos right now. Instead, he asked to play the app with the letters and they change into different things. He was referring to Metamorphabet. He played with that for a few minutes, then told me he was done with the iPad.

He came upstairs as I was rearranging the landing area and putting the books on his shelves. He looked at the Bob Books boxes and chose Jumper and the Clown. We went downstairs and read it a couple of times. He was then pretending that I was peddling a space ship and he was making the rocket noises. He pretended to be in space: “Some red rocks floated all the way to the moon from Saturn…that’s gonna make the moon red! I’m gonna show my friends all the rocks.” He wanted to watch Space Shuttle videos and said “I want to do the mama one again.” Meaning the one he watched with Carly last night. I then found a video of astronauts on the ISS, so he could see them floating in space. He asked “How do you go to the bathroom in space?” But before I could find a video that might explain he decided he wanted to watch candy being made. While watching a video about how jelly beans are made he asked “What starch is?…That thing you used with Vivian?”

I made the okra patties for lunch, then sweet potato fries. We ate that, then I finally got him out of his pajamas. Naked, he started playing with the piano and said

“I was thinking what song we could play with just those three keys.” Somehow it turned into him wanting me to sing a song as a robot, but the robot only had one note. He was then burning the robot up as I played a robot song. He was then giving me more keys, so I could sing more notes, and basically counting to 100. He was then counting all the keys, up to 25. We played “Sentimental Wars” and he did some piano improvs for quite awhile.

We went upstairs and I finally took a shower. He sat on his bed and played Toca Blocks. He was getting sad and tired. Totally seemed like he needed to take a nap. He didn’t like the idea of the old stroller at all, even though it would be more comfortable for him.

I got him some banana bread before we left and he was counting the bites. We looked at books to decide which to return to the library whenever we make it to the school library. For Tacky he said “I’m done with it cuz I don’t like those hunters.” We read Under the Sea with Me, then he looked at the Animal alphabet poster. He asked me “Can I learn the letters in Hebrew?” So we pulled up the Gus Hebrew app and had fun with that for awhile.

We finally headed out at 1:30. He whined and looked so sleepy in the old stroller. He was pressing his hand against the window in the cover and plaintively repeating “Dada, dada, dada…” I was touching his hand through the cover. He got quiet once, but then started crying and saying dada again. Then quieted, and was okay by the time we got to the mall. But not asleep.

We first stopped at the book store where we got a set of Hebrew flashcards, the Hebrew version of Spot’s Big Book of First Words, a book of animals in Hebrew, and a set of Hebrew magnets. We went to Tiv Taam and did some quick grocery shopping (as we went, he was pointing at things and giving them prices: “10 shekels, 8 shekels, 20 shekels” When I asked him to keep telling me prices he said he put stickers on them and told me to look at the stickers), and then stopped at Kravitz to get a tape dispenser since our first one was breaking. While in Tiv Taam August said “He clock in my bedroom is changing, dada.” He had said something like this earlier in the day as well. We then went to the bike store, where I got a helmet, pump, water bottle cage, and lock. I was carrying August in one hand and caught my toe on a bike in the aisle. Managed to awkwardly keep from dropping August and sort of set him down with one hand on a chair.

August still claimed he didn’t like the stroller, but there was no complaining. We were home at 2:45. We had some late lunch and August played Toca Blocks, pretending he was making a map to the Smurf village and that Gargamel was trying to find it, but then making blocks that would hide the village from Gargamel and telling him “You can never find the Smurfs, Gargamel.”

I loaded up the stroller with all the rest of our recycling – our regular recycling and also the last of the boxes and paper from the shipment. I remembered why I like this stroller so much – it can hold so much. We made a quick recycling run and August helped with the smaller stuff. We went back and dropped off the stroller and got in the car. As we did so he asked why I say I love him a ton of Qs. I reminded him about C turns to O turns to Q and how we would look for Qs in books and not find many. He said he still Qs things and so he did some Qing now, and also talked about Zing things, as he says that’s the other letter he likes.

On the drive over to the school he told me “I’m looking for busses with 11 on them. Cuz I love the number 11 too.” We picked Carly up at 4:10 and drove up to his dance class. He was talking about the couches in there that he likes. We were early, so there were just a couple other kids. He pretended to be a sick squirrel and said”Baby squirrel’s gonna feel well when there’s more kids there.”

When I walked him into the dance room as it was starting he said “My motor’s turning on.” and started making motor noises. Starting today the parents couldn’t be in the room with the class. Carly checked on him through the window a couple times. He was in there until 4:57 when the teacher brought him out, saying he wanted to go out. He walked up to Carly and said “I’m out of power.” Carly gave him power and she asked if he was ready now. He said “Yep” and she opened the door for him and he went back in and seemed to be just pretending to be a robot, doing his shutting down thing. He lasted a couple more minutes, then came back out: “Yep. I want to take a little break out here.”

They went upstairs for that break, then Shmuel from the Skoda dealership called back. Carly had been talking to them about some questions we have about paying for the car. While I now tried to wrestle answers from him, Carly tried to get August back in the class, but there were only a few minutes left and he was done. So we headed home. He still said he had fun, but that it was confusing and he was tired. In the car he said “The robot kept breaking down cuz
I didn’t have a place to charge.”

We got home and they nursed and I put the Hebrew magnets on the door. He watched space shuttle videos and I got his dinner ready. He ate a bit then Carly took him up to his shower and I actually gave him his shower. There was some playing on the bed, then he was asleep at 7:05.

Photos. On the floor: 

Greeting Yve: 

Beautiful, empty entryway:  

Landing area: 

His bedroom: 

We heard the door and he came down at 6:14. He sat and lay on the couch patiently while Carly finished preparing her quesadilla before they nursed. They nursed, then he played with Word and Excel on her computer. She said goodbye and left, then he switched to his iPad and did Sketches for the first time in quite awhile. We did some art together, then he drew what he said was a big cliff. It turned into an imagination game where I bounced down the cliff and ended up at the planets, which for some reason I was trying to destroy. At first I couldn’t because they were liquid and gas, but then I had a special rocket. He then pretended to be a planet and had a special “floaty, float, float” voice and dance and said “I hope nobody destroys me.”

I finally got him to go to the bathroom when he said he wanted to watch Puffin Rock. We came back out and opened Netflix. He touched his icon and said he wanted to watch his fun shows, not mine. He then said something about me watching race cars (the only thing I ever watch with him around). He said “I like to watch your race cars with you. To see if they make any accidents. Because I love accidents.”

I had found some new apps and we had fun with Solar Walk Kids. Then tried Toca Elements, which I didn’t like at all. We took a break to watch the garbage truck and then had more luck. With the Toca Robots, but not much. I headed out to clear space in the driveway/junk area for the couch. August came out and told me about the robot app: “I want you to play it. It’s really fun. Fire comes out of its feet; it’s like a rocket robot.” We then made banana bread and he watched Sarah & Duck while I cleaned up, exercised, and took a shower. He went up and watched and played in his bed in his room while I took a shower. When I went into his room he started being a fish that had eaten too much fish food. I asked what that was from and he remembered the Dr. Seuss book. The alarm on my watch went off, telling me the banana bread was done, and I told him it was vibrating. He said “Like the coffee shops in Korea.” He remembers the circle things that many of the coffee shops had.

We had one slice of banana bread, then I made pizzas for lunch. We then had this conversation:”Mama let’s me do things I can’t do right now.” “Like what?” “Like eat chocolate before dinner. Cuz she’s so nice. Nicer than you.” “Ha. I don’t believe that.” “Why? Because you love me a ton of Qs?” Carly thinks the chocolate before dinner thing sounds vaguely familiar – perhaps he remembers chocolate pancakes for dinner or something like that.

We talked about what we were going to do today, and then for some reason we talked about fire departments. I noted we hadn’t seen a fire station in Israel yet, and he remembered “With Vivian?” – that is, when we saw the fire truck at the market in Stroudsburg. I also reminded him of walking by the fire station in Chelan. We then made Duplo rockets. I asked how tall it should be and he said “Taller than monkeys can even climb.”

Finally, about 1:30 we got in the car and headed out. We went to check on the table and the bookcase we had seen last night. I’d decided we should take them. Sadly, the table was gone, but the bookcase was there. I left a note on it, then we headed to Ace Hardware. On the road, just a couple minutes before getting to Ace, he had been singing a “I see the sticks of a helicopter” song. I pulled into the parking lot and looked back to find him asleep. For the next ten minutes I tried to wake him up. He told me he wanted to stay in the car, then would giggle when I tickled him, etc. But I gave up and let him sleep.

He was asleep from 2:05 to 2:55 while I shopped. Got paints and supplies for doing the swings and the bookcase. And a cover for the black couch we are going to store outside. Looked at ant killers, for a watering can (none), and smoke detectors (none). And found a cover for one of our outdoor lights, which was a nice surprise.

He wasn’t happy with me waking him up, and we took a bit longer in the store after that. Finally, we headed out. He had earlier been excited about going to the nursery as well, but now didn’t want to go. Once in the car though he was feeling better and agreed to go.

At the nursery he chose carrot and flower seeds, and I got cilantro. And we got two pots from the used table. As we went to pay, a woman came and took over the guy. She immediately gave August a butterfly ornament to put in a plant and told us the used pots were 10 shekels each. We paid and took the stuff out to the car, then went back to the used table, since that was such a good deal. Took up a metal can and a watering can, but the guy was back and insisted the price on the bottom was the actual price. Said no thanks and put them back.

We were home at 4:45. He wanted to play Dragonbox Big Numbers and came to me and asked “Can you get 200 apples so I can get 2 apples at once?” Which was pretty cool because it was the first he’s kind of talked through a math problem like that.

A big scary looking bee thing got in the house and I caught it on the kitchen window with the bug viewer. We looked at it for several minutes outside. He was concerned it was going to die for lack of air and food. I had to assure him it had air holes. We left it in there until Carly got home to see it.

Once she was home I took the car and went to get the bookcase. I had measured it earlier, but didn’t take into account the curve of the car doors as they near the roof. I got it in the back seat, but just barely: both of the back windows had to be down and it just barely fit. I meant to take a photo when I got back but forgot. I also picked up 4 bricks from a stack of bricks nearby to put the couch on them where it sits outside.

On the way home another score: I saw a bike chained to a house fence, for sale. I went home and found Carly and August watching Space Shuttle videos, both a landing and a liftoff. He was really enjoying that. Carly helped me unload the bookshelves, then I walked over to look at the bike. It is a mountain bike, and pretty used. The older guy was in the yard and I talked to him. He kept telling me it was “new”, even as I pointed out rusty bits on it. Reminded us of the black couch and how Shmuel kept telling us it was “new” despite all the evidence to the contrary. Anyway, I think he wanted 350 shekels, but I told him I only 300 on me, so I got it for that. He also kept asking me if it was for me. I think he wanted to make sure I wasn’t someone trying to get it for cheap to turn around and sell it for more myself.

Got home, and outside Carly had planted the plants she got at Ikea in the new pots. We worked outside a bit, starting to brush the swings. She brought August out and they nursed at one point. We ate dinner, and Carly read the end of 26-Story Treehouse. At one point he looked sad and they took a break. He said he was pretending: “Make me pretend sad…for funsies!”

We then played with Duplos. He was counting all the bumps on them. Carly went to take a shower. He was wanting to destroy things as I made them for him (and being a millipede to do it – we looked at photos of millipedes the other day and somehow (because of all the legs?) he has decided they are destructive creatures), and I’ve been trying to tell him that he needs to get permission from the other person when you’re playing with someone. So I wasn’t letting him destroy the zoo and told him we were leaving it up until tomorrow and we finished it, and it worked for a good amount of time and we were playing with the zookeeper, having the Duplo zookeeper take care of sick animals (and August was being the sick animals). But then he suddenly was a millipede again and destroyed part of the zoo. I first set him on the couch, but then when I went to clean up some of the mess he came back over and tried to destroy some more. And at one point he was on the couch chanting “Destroying things is fun.” I picked him
up and told him we were going upstairs for a timeout. But he saw Carly in the kitchen and thought that I was punishing him by taking him away from mama and he instantly started bawling. Not my intention so I quickly gave him to Carly.

She took him up to a bath at 8:10. Then in on the bed (after he got it wet) we said goodnight and they tried for sleep. Not a surprise when it didn’t work. They came down and he and I read the Neil Gaiman children’s book called Instructions for the first time on the iPad. August was quite intrigued by it. Carly made him toast, but he was confused when he looked at the table and only saw a grey plate; he wanted a “Zinnie plate”. He was still hungry so we let him have some banana bread.

He picked up the Alphabet animals book and asked “Can I read that LARGE book?” We read it and looked at the poster, then read Under the Sea with Me a coupe times. Carly had gone to bed, but he was remembering the Biscuit book where Biscuit steals food (which is cool as we hadn’t read it since Korea) and wanted to find it. We went upstairs to the books there and I was listing the books as I pulled them out of the drawer. He made up some on his own: “Here’s Biscuit wants to steal food…here’s Biscuit wants to go on the roof and fall off.” We went back downstairs and Biscuit’s Picnic twice and then Biscuit Wants to Play. Sitting on the couch, he looked around at the art and pottery and rugs and counted, unprompted, up to twenty and then said “20 things I like about the house…pottery, rug.”

He was yawning a lot and I suggested we both get ready for bed and go in together. So we went up to the bathroom and I brushed my teeth and he used the toilet. We then went in. He looked at the clock and said “10:38”. He’s really into telling time suddenly and mentions it when we are out of the room: when they were outside he had told Carly something like “The clock is still changing.”

Carly was sleeping and let him nurse a bit, but then I was trying to get him to lie on the bed and fall asleep. He had his head on the pillow next to Carly, and I would stop him from getting up. He made a few good attempts at it, but eventually started plaintively wailing “Mama…mama…mama…” Still not sleeping, so just before 11 I had to try to pick him up to take him out of the room. He started to cry, and like since he was a baby once that happened and he went to Carly he fell right asleep, at 11:05.

Broken rocket: 

He was up about 6:30. I was already downstairs and first heard him at 6:50. They didn’t come down until 7:14. As he came down the stairs he was looking at the black rocks in the tile: “Im looking to see if there’s any dog poop…The black is dog poop.” We first went and built a Duplo zoo. He had Cheerios for breakfast, and we all ate together at the table. We then read the first four chapters of 26-Story Treehouse. Carly made mango lasse with the blender. We read one more chapter as we drank mango lasse. Carly took over and read chapter 6 and I took a shower. I came down and the “digger” destroyed our zoo. We were then building a house and he was destroying it mid-building. I talked to him about how that wasn’t really nice to the person you’re playing with. He asked “Can I destroy it at the end?” But then destroyed some of it soon after, using his “I’m remodeling!” excuse again.

We got ready to go and he get on the tricycle. We walked over to the mall and went to Tiv Taam and got a few things. Then Carly went to the plant store and got a gift for the woman she was meeting with today, and to Aroma for some coffee for someone else.

We got back just after 10. He built a rocket and then killed some weeds quickly before we left again, this time in the car headed for Ikea. We had just an hour to shop at Ikea and we finished in 55 minutes. We got a sheet for his bed, a set of bookshelves for his books, a couple of nice drawer organizers for the kitchen, a couple of plants (tomato and basil), and a few other small things.

We came home just after 11:30. We had some lunch, then they nursed, and Carly left at 12:30. We went upstairs. He played some Dragonbox Numbers, then came and helped me build the shelves. He screwed in six of the screws using the allen wrench, and he did some hammering. He then watched Peg + Cat and ate Cheerios and apples while I rehung the growth chart and hung up the tire swing piece of art and the dream catcher and put the new sheet on his bed. He got in the bed under the sheet and pretended to be asleep. Looks like quite a big kid. He then made a game again of messing up his bed and went and got all the dirty clothes out of the basket and threw it on his bed, then said”I’m living in a pile of rubbage.” (A nice combo of rubble and garbage).

We ended up playing with Google Earth after he requested to play with a map. He was starting at our house then swiping across the Mediterranean to find places we should visit. He found Greece, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, etc.

Earlier he had found his little Q robot in the bottom of his closet and asked where it came from. I had talked about Nathalie and Chloe and he had asked for a photo of Chloe. We didn’t get around to it then, but as he was playing with the friends on his bed he also asked about Angeles, the doll, and Turkey, the elephant. So I pulled up Photos on my phone, and as you can find photos by locating them on the map, I was able to find Nathalie’s house and the photo of her giving him the Q, a photo of Carly buying Angeles, and a photo of August sucking on Turkey’s trunk after we bought it.

We eventually headed downstairs. August wanted milk, so I got him some (he refuses to use any of his old water bottles or cups from Korea – he now only likes his “big clear water bottle” that he’s used all summer and the cups we’ve bought in Korea) and he sat on the floor and drank it and I had some pita and hummus. He had eaten some apple upstairs, and now ate some pita. He wouldn’t dip it in yogurt though once he found out it was plain yogurt. We practiced our Hebrew numbers, then opened the Hebrew Gus app that we had briefly played with months ago. We played that for quite awhile, learning colors and numbers and animals and body parts, etc. We were playing that when Carly got home by 5.

She had had a good meeting with a Palestinian woman who had had a student at WBAIS. She and Mandy had gone together to talk about ideas for school. They nursed, then he and I did more Hebrew on the couch. He kept saying “I give up” but then wanted to keep playing.

We got ready to go for a walk, but he wanted me to stay home – he wanted some alone time with mama. I talked to him and think he doesn’t like it when we are talking about things and he feels ignored. He was also keeping something from me, telling me “Sorry, it’s just the baby squirrel’s”. He ‘let’ me go on the walk though and was just fine.

We walked north to the north playground, then circled back to the right and back home, through the neighborhood where August and I had been chased by small dogs. We had seen a metal patio table along the way that would have made a good restoration project, if we could have gotten it home, and I found a wooden cabinet with glass doors that I considered for my little library. Might have been able to fit it in the car. Carly was concerned it was too big/heavy though and I didn’t go back for it. Don’t know what I’ll do now.

We walked back through the nearby park, which was the busiest we’ve seen it. At home, he and I read two Smurf stories. Carly gave him a shower, then on the bed he pretended to be a Venus fly trap, as there are flowers and plants on the bedspread and he recognized one that looks like a fly trap. He was hungry and Carly got him and apple. I held a piece up for him when he set it down and he was nibbling it from my hand. He was then a rabbit nibbling a plant and I was a plant. He ate most of an apple. He also talked about hunters, and I asked how he knew about hunters and he said “the story about the elephant and the mama gets killed by a hunter.” Babar, which we had only read once. And when he was a rabbit he had a magic hole in him through which we could see the food, poop, etc. inside him.

Carly had found a little Nebraska bell in her box of stuff and gave it to him to use in the bathroom instead of clanking the toilet paper holder. He used it in the bathroom before going to bed and sleep at 8:10.

He was up at 7:05. They nursed on the couch and he was being funny, growling anytime he stopped nursing. We got leaving early and were out at 7:50. We drove to Appolonia National Park, about 25 minutes away on the coast. August was being pretty grumpy about things. He usually perks up once he’s outside, or once in the backpack. But we got to the park, paid, parked, and got him in the backpack and he didn’t improve. Got out the Cheerios for him and he wasn’t happy when Carly held the container for him: “I love to help myself.”

Carly and I loved the park, both for the view and for the history. It is the remains primarily of a Crusader town and castle. In our time here I’ve thought of the Romans, Jews, Byzantines, Ottomans, etc. but hadn’t thought about the Crusades. Although August wasn’t too excited about it all we did spend a good amount of time there. On the way back we went down the beach trail, and then August did start to cheer up and become more curious. He asked what a few sites were, an a couple were big Byzantine cisterns. He was asking why they had to store the water, so I talked about the environment and reminded him of Masada. Then, he was being a machine and said he was a freshwater machine, spraying water everywhere. That changed, and he said he was a clam machine and spraying out clams. The rocks everywhere must have reminded him of clams, as he said they were all clams. But then I said that they were drying out. He turned back into a water machine, but this time he said, all on his own, that he was a saltwater machine, putting salt back in the water and spraying it on the clams. He knew that clams live in saltwater.

We drove towards home and stopped at the big Tiv Taam to get some herbs so Carly could make soy chicken. They stayed in the car and I went in with my phone and translator app. Unfortunately, I could only find one thing. Went back out and we headed home. As we got out of the car he asked me if I could like 17 on the air conditioner. We were home at 10:45. August was being Dragonbox Numbers building buildings – they would take 2000 or more days to build.

We ate some lunch. August had rice and mushrooms. The first one was too hot for him, but instead of just spitting it out he just sat there with it on his tongue for several seconds before spitting it out. They nursed, and he was sad when I turned the temperature up from 17.

They went and played with Duplos. First he said he was building a doctor robot. But when I went over and took Carly’s place he said”A robot. A robot that kills people.” “Can I build a machine that kills people?…Why?” “I’ll eventually have enough parts to kill people.” When Carly protested that she didn’t like that idea he assured her “I don’t yet.” For the record I did not, nor shall I ever, let him build a killer robot. I asked what parenting strategy I should use to get him to stop talking about making a killing robot and listed a couple (ignoring him, forbidding him from saying it, etc.) He came up with another: “The thing that makes me not say that is having treats every day.” He then sang a”I’m getting parts for our machine” song and seemed to be getting parts for a different machine. But then he added”I’ve got enough parts for a killing machine.”

Luckily, we built a zoo instead. But then he destroyed it and said “I’m remodeling it.” I built a rocket and he was sending me in the rocket to places. He asked something about how long people stay on the moon, so I looked it up and found that the longest mission was about three days on the moon. He spotted my kitty mug on the table, newly arrived from Korea: “Why you got your kitty mug‽ It looks sad.” Back to Duplos, he broke the rocket, then brought in a game from in the car where we have our car break down and we call someone to fix it: “Hello company that fixes rockets. Can you fix my rocket so I can go to the moon?”

We had been talking what it was like to walk on the moon and I realized a video would be better. We went to the couch and watched videos of astronauts walking, hopping, falling, and driving on the moon. He then played with Google Maps and was looking for doctor places and found a hospital, as he knows the symbols. We played some doctor game, then he was a hedgehog eating me as I was a worm. Carly then read him Jill’s Story in 26-Story Treehouse and read further on as well.

We all went upstairs and were cleaning/sorting/etc. He was messing up his bed/room and then cleaning it up. He would want me to give him a certain number of seconds and he would clean as fast as possible: we got into some silly ones, like Q seconds and door seconds.

I went out and took a few loads of cardboard to recycling and got August’s water bottle out of the car, where we left it. When I came back he had sorted his bed again: “Big things there, medium things, and small things.” He had sorted his room like Peg + Cat sort their room in an episode that is all about sorting.

Carly went downstairs and did some work and I put together the drawers while he watched Peg + Cat on his bed. I got him some dried cheerios, then some more, then some apple. About 3:40 we went down to get more apple. Carly made a mango smoothie and we read Pussy Cat Pussy Cat, But Not the Hippopotamus, Barnyard Dance, and Kiss Good Night, which reminded me that’s why I started to call his stuffed animals the ‘friends’.

He went to the bathroom and was saying things like “You’re the poop and pee again saying ‘We don’t want to be in the toilet…I think I’m done.” We went downstairs and made a house of Duplos. He said he loved purple more than pink now. I asked if he loved mama more than purple. He said “I love mama more than any color” Which sounded very sincere and emphatic until he added “I think so, yeah.” I didn’t ask about myself. They then nursed and read a bunch of 26-Story Treehouse. I took over and read more with him. He then wanted to play with Peter Rabbit and do the puzzle.

Carly Skyped with Cherie and Chuck as she made the soy chicken. August at first didn’t want to skype, but then changed his mind and did a fair amount of talking. We then did the full Peter Rabbit puzzle before he took it apart this time, then he watered the indoor plants. We went outside to water, then came in and ate the soy chicken for dinner. He and Carly then read the Willy;s Stories book. She asked him”What’s your favorite thing in the house?” He answered “All our stuff from Korea.” We all went outside to sweep and water flowers.

Carly took him up for a shower, and I went in to finish the hairwashing. He was then being a squirrel on the bed. The squirrel was getting hurt, and as usual he would describe a video of the animal getting hurt (which comes straight from the Animal Hospital app). His story was more elaborate this time, actually explaining who took the video: “It’s a video a worker made…The yard where I get nuts…The worker lives there. He made a machine that gives me nuts when I’m out of nuts.”

The baby squirrel then kept peeing in its nest, I think because it was too lazy to leave it: “I peed in a machine that takes the pee to a polluted stream…You’re the pee saying…You’re 2079 viruses…”

We read The Wind Blew twice. I got him some apple and he ate a few slices. He then forgot about the bowl on the bed and was jumping around and landed his face/head on it. Luckily not hard, but brought an end to the playing. Tried for sleep at 8:10 but didn’t work. He mainly followed Carly around while she got ready for bed and did some stuff, then they tried again and he was asleep by 8:40.

Appolonia: 

Home. Rocket with flowers: 

Reading: 

Curled up: 

He got up at 7 while I was in the shower. We were out the door quick, at 7:35. We headed over to Poleg Beach, the beach on the Mediterranean due west of us, but which we hadn’t yet been to. Along the way he was a machine that was turning the engine.

I drove this morning. We parked and were walking in through the bamboo village area. Carly went to the bathroom and August was fine, having fun, as we kept walking. I told him to wait, and then he got upset when he realized mama wasn’t with us. We walked down to the beach, then headed to the left (south). Went a quarter mile or so, then set our stuff down. There were huge raking lines across the beach – perhaps they rake it to get out garbage, etc.? As we walked he was drawing a road with his toe, then breaking up clumps. When we stopped they made sandcastles for the first time with our bucket set. Mainly Carly made them and he destroyed them. Often he was a machine that was breaking down and lifted the top off of them as a result. We watched a man go in the water next to us and work his way past the waves with his paddle board, then watched him out on the water. There were also surfers and sailboats to watch, then the paraglider things with motors on them. The ones farther north that August and I have seen were motorless.

August walked down to the water several times to wash off his hands. Didn’t really get the looking left and right thing, and ran right in front of a few people. He had quite the dramatic response to Carly trying to put on sunscreen: “You’re not nice to me. You’re not nice to me anymore.” Finally, he was pretending to be a plant broken in storm.

It was getting warmer and sunnier (there had been clouds earlier) and I felt like going in the water. We walked back north and went to the bathroom and I changed. We then found a spot at the lifeguard area and Carly and I took turns going out in the water. A bit stronger here than at the beach farther north. August put his feet under the sand and pretended to be a crab, pinching me. I got him to take his shirt off. He had his other swimsuit on and it was coming down. He said “I feel half naked.” He saw a dad and two bigger kids burying themselves in sand near us, so we buried my legs. He wasn’t into doing it himself. I got him to wade in the water just a little bit.

About 11 we went to wash off at the faucets, but the faucets didn’t work, just the big showers he’s afraid of. So I used my water bottle to wash off his hands and feet. He then walked right back into the sand, luckily not getting too sandy before I got him back on the boardwalk.

At home he stayed out and killed weeds. All of them along the edge of the house. Had intended to keep some of them, but that’s okay. He’s excited about planting seeds. Inside he and Carly read part of Merry Christmas, Amelia Bedelia. Carly tried feeding him some quiche with not much luck. They then had a banana smoothie and I took a shower. He was then pretending to be a squirrel, and still not eating quiche: “Squirrels doesn’t eat quiche…I just want to eat acorns from now on.” And the squirrel was sick: “Youre being 177 mold growing in baby squirrel’s lungs and digestive system and blood.” He was doing a lot of resting on the couch as a squirrel and seemed to be a bit sleepy. He sang a nice “new nah nee nah nee” song.

I did a couple of loads of cardboard to recycling, then we all got going and went to the big Tiv Taam, which was really busy. He was upset when he found out we weren’t getting a cart. Made it through shopping though, and did an excellent job of being a crane to help put things on the conveyor belt. I tried to give him the last item, which was small, but he refused, saying the crane only picks up heavy things.

On the way home we stopped at the grocery store in Tel Yitzhak to get some hangers as they didn’t have them at Tiv Taam. We were also working on some Hebrew.

We were home at 4. He played some Dragonbox Big Numbers and Carly went upstairs and was doing some work. We went outside and did some watering, and he spilled the dirt out of the pot that had had the mystery seed. He went down the slide for the first time since I taped it up weeks ago, and he talked about how he liked to see cat poop.

We were back inside after 6. I had said something about getting some food (Carly had rice and zucchini and mushrooms). He said “You have to go inside. Sorry, we don’t have a barbecue.” As we walked in he said “Smells so good!” We read The Grouchy Ladybug while food cooked. He ate a bunch of mushrooms, but then said he was too full for rice. We read After the Storm, then Carly gave him a bath. They tried for bed at 7:15. He came back down and I got him some apple. We then read Biscuit Meets the Class Pet, Kipper A to Z, Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?, and  Pussy Cat Pussy Cat (a few times). He went back up and was asleep by 8:15.

Photos: 

He was up at 6. Carly made them oatmeal for breakfast and they read part of A Busy Year. I came down a little later as he sat down to eat. Carly had hung Peter’s photos on the wall and he looked up and said “That’s mama and Dada” As the photo of me and Carly at a Mexican restaurant in Portland was in front of him. As he ate he said “Can you be the stomach acid…The food ‘It hurts! It hurts! when you eat me!”

We read half of Welcome to the Symphony before he turned into a spider jumping around on the floor and getting dead ants. That didn’t come from nowhere: the other day we found a small spider living in the roll of paper and below it were about ten dead ants.  Nursed and finished Welfome to the Symphony. He was really curious as to why you don’t clap between movements. We then read part off Go Dog Go! He kept wanting to go back to the engine part where a dog is fixing a car. I asked how his mouth is doing and he said it was a secret. He appears to have a bruise on his left cheek.

“Can you count how many pillows are on the couch counting by 160s?” He then chatted about pillows here and what was in Korea. He was then feeling the inside of Carly’s computer case and taking about the texture of his hand and feel backwards and bonked his head a bit on the table again. “I want honey bear to make the head feel better…I likes honey bear when I bonk my head.”

He went on a short walk with Carly to recycling. She said he whined on the way there and she had to carry him back. Watched one episode of Puffin Rock, then nursed. He kept talking about nectars and flowers. The ants have returned to the house, so we dealt with them a couple times. Carly tried a lot more of the borax outside. We had some quiche, then he wanted to play the “Is this Kayla?” game. Then there was an animal pooping everywhere, and a machine going fast. And at one point he told me “You ring a bell and say ‘Time for an adventure!’” Don’t know where that came from.

He played with Peter Rabbit and wanted to do the puzzle, but we were trying to leave. I taught him 1, 2, 3 in Hebrew, which he picked up pretty quickly. I suggested he take Peter Rabbit to show him Israel. He started showing him around: “bamboo house…Circles…” That refers to our house, which he calls the bamboo house, and the metal circles on the walls, which he likes. And he asked “Peter Rabbit, why were you locked in the dark?” Referring to his time in the boxes, which I had mentioned earlier. He was also pretending to dig and said”Out house is getting damaged with storms so we’re making a new house here.”

We left by 11:30 and headed up 4 to Park Italia on Alexander Stream. We parked and found a path along the stream and followed it west. It went under a bridge with some interesting art, through a grass field where there were a lot of dragonflies, then across a bridge, where it stopped at a closed park. The trail continues on west on the north side, and we’ll head back sometime when it isn’t so hot. We walked back and stopped where the trail goes under the bridge. August played there for quite awhile: pulling seeds of of weeds and making them dirty, pulling up the weeds, finding interesting things on the ground, etc. Also had some snack. We were there for over half an hour, then at 12:50 Carly mentioned going home. Another family had just started to walk under the bridge from the other direction and August said “Lets get going. There’s those kids trying to steal our food.”

We decided to go check on the Technoda science center since its Facebook page said it was open today. As we got driving August spotted another big flock of big birds out the window. He said “A whole dance together before bedtime” remembering the starlings in Puffin Rock. The science center was closed, so we went to the Habanim Garden park nearby with a really big playground.

On our walk from the car there was a someone playing a shofar horn across the street. Played there awhile, with him going down a green slide a couple times, and asking Carly to come up and play with him on the structure. Also went on a couple of teeter totter sort of things.

We left about 2:00. August said “Let’s just head home and dip apples in honey. Mama says there’s two more apples left.” Carly and I had been talking about the apples and honey but August was playing and I was surprised that he had been listening to all of it.

Carly drove, and on the way August looked at Waze with me, trying to understand the map and directions, but also excited every time it looked like our little blue car ran over one of the little characters representing other drivers. Getting into Kfer Netter, I spotted a big animal like a ferret on a rock. Carly drove back and it turned out it was dead.

At home, August and I worked on the Peter Rabbit puzzle with Peter Rabbit. We paused with 8 pieces left as he wanted apple and honey. He did a little honey dance, then enjoyed dipping apples in honey. He ate all his pieces, then left the last bite. Then, I was making a late lunch and did a small pizza and again he left the very last bite. I also made onion rings and roasted cauliflower. He played Big Dragonbox Numbers. We were acting out being the rocks and pieces of gold in the game, not wanting to be found and put in a bag. He said “I don’t know the buzz dance.” Upstairs, he started singing a “You can do Orchard” song to Carly, meaning he wanted to play the Orchard game on his iPad. But it was interesting because it was a kind of slow, high voice and tune, different from his usual. I worked on boxes and stuff upstairs, and they painted for quite awhile using one of the boxes as their canvas.

We went for a walk at 6. He was on the tricycle. Up past recycling Carly asked if he wanted to go right or left and he chose left so he could run over the berries on the ground. We saw people out and about for Rosh Hashana, including a man carrying a horn. He saw a pomegranate on the ground and sang a pomegranate song. He was also talking like the voice on Waze, which he has heard a lot in the car: “In 260 meters turn left. You’re home.”

We were home at 6:20. He stayed outside and killed some weeds. When he came in he asked “I got my hands dirty from the weed killing, so can I go on the carpet?” We read 26-Story Treehouse. After the part about the boy stealing food from the restaurant, August started a game of catching his friend or neighbor stealing from that restaurant. I gave him a shower. He said he was hungry, so downstairs he ate a little quiche, but not much. Took him up and Carly put him to sleep at 7:20.

Along the stream: 

Under the bridge: 

Park: 

Home: 

At the stream: 

Dead animal: 

Home: 

Peter Rabbit puzzle: 

Apple and honey: 

Evening walk: 

He was up at 6:25. One of the first things he said was “I want to play my piano downstairs.” But he then lay on and hung out on the bed until after 6:40. He was asking Carly for something and said “You don’t say finesy minesy ever again.” He did fine without a diaper through the night, although when we pointed that out he said he likes diapers. They went to the bathroom, then headed downstairs. I headed down a few minutes later.

Downstairs we played xylophone and piano and listened to Sentimental Wars on repeat. He then played Dragonbox Little Numbers. He has gotten farther in the arcade mode, and is now figuring out how to adde numbers to ten. I was trying to empty book boxes but wasn’t having much luck as he kept wanting me to see things or help him. But I can see a lot of improvement in his math. He asked Carly to fill up his water bottle: “Mama, can you fill up the water bottle for the flower?” He was being a flower from dance class yesterday.

I hung up our Buddhist lanterns outside the kitchen, then went up and took a shower. Carly made him a mango smoothie, then he played more piano with me. He then opened the doctor kit and we used it, mainly on Green Monster. Carly and I were talking about going to Jaffa today to do some shopping, walking, and sightseeing, so I was looking at Google Maps and he got involved. He lamented not going on bus rides: “I just love bus rides!” At one point Carly was having trouble getting moving and said “I can get going.” August told her “By yourself!” He wasn’t excited by going on an adventure. He and I read The Pigeon Finds a Hotdog, then we all got going after 10.

Once we were in the car and going though he was fine, and mainly looked out the window. We stopped by the closest gas station, but found out that the discount diplomatic gas cards that we now have only work at one specific chain of gas station, Paz. Which is a little inconvenient, but luckily there was one just off highway 2 on our way south.

We parked at the parking lot closest to the Jaffa Flea Market, then proceeded to walk around. We got an embroidered square cloth, about 3 feet by 3 feet, with flowers on it, for 300 shekels. More walking around and we got a bunch of small square pillow cases for decorating purposes and a ceramic hamsa. When August wanted another slice of apple he would poke his head out backwards through the hole between the back of the stroller and the sun cover. We then walked northwest, towards the coast. We saw a mosque and then walked up a hill to a viewpoint that Carly had seen when she was here in a bus. We stopped by the cannons and listened to a call to prayer that was coming from another mosque in front of us.

We walked a bit further and found a bathroom and they went in. We then, about 12:50, went across the street and past St. Peter’s church and found a small snack place and got a strawberry and coffee iced drinks and sat out in the square and drank them. August and I read a few of the books which we had brought along for the car, but that I’d forgotten to take out of the backpack: Suddenly!, Happy Birthday, and something else. The strawberry slushee was really sweet and he said “160 sugar!” 160 is his new favorite number. And he got up from his chair once: “I’m gonna go back to the sun and open my mouth to warm up my mouth!”

Carly went back up to the guy to pay after I reminded her we hadn’t paid. He’d forgotten as well and wondered why she was giving him money. Carly and August went back to the bathroom and I looked around the square. There was an art studio across from us that looked really interesting (http://www.ilanadar.com) but when we tried to go in it was closed. A sculptor by the name of Matanya Abramson had his studio there.

We walked across the Wishing Bridge and through the parks up on the hill, over the zodiac bridge and then down the north side of the hill and back through the flea market area, which was now deserted, having closed at 2 as tomorrow is a holiday. We got to the car and left at 2:15.

Vivian skyped us while on the drive back, and we skyped with them for a few minutes as Carly drove. We went straight to the Tiv Taam at the mall and did some shopping. Everything went well until August wanted to go to the treats section. At first this was really funny, as I pretended to not know what he was talking about and he was laughing and wanted to show me. But then he saw a Hello Kitty candy on a stick thing and got upset when I said he couldn’t have it. He wasn’t satisfied by the reminder that there were popsicles at home, or that we were also buying honey bread for Rosh Ha’shana and he was excited about that.

At home Carly started hanging things up, and at some point asked August “Do you like our house?” and he said “Yeah”. Carly Skyped with her parents, and after awhile went upstairs. August and I read Tacky, then played Big Dragonbox Numbers.

When Carly came back down I made quiche. A zucchini quiche this time. They went for a walk to the southwest for awhile and watched people go to synagogue. When they got back there was still 20 or so minutes left until the quiche was done, so Carly fried up some mushrooms and zucchini with rice and cheese for his dinner.

We played piano and he was humming along to “Sentimental Wars”, then was being my doctor, giving me a shot with “too much medicine” in it. He then climbed on the couch and had his hands on the coffee table and feet on the couch, facing the ceiling. I got up to go get him off, but in the time I took to walk over to him he had tried going on the side of it (the other part of the L shape of the couch), doing the same thing and fell, hitting his cheek and mouth on the edge of the coffee table.

There was blood, but not a lot. Seemed to be his lip, although he wouldn’t let us look. We got him upstairs, and Carly eventually got him to nurse a bit, but mainly he was upset. She ended up rocking him to sleep as she sat on the bed, something she hasn’t done in a long, long time. It was about 7:40.

Photos. A shot for Green Monster:

In Jaffa: 

Strawberry drink: 

Across the Wishing Bridge: 

Sign: 

Treate at Tiv Taam: 

Blood and bruise from his fall: 

He woke up a little before 6 and lay in bed, talking about his head screws being loose. Got up with Carly at 6 and she got him some banana bread. I was up a few minutes later. He asked to play Space as he says it is a nighttime app. He has started counting backwards from 10 on his own now. Carly went to work and he wanted some Cheerios on the couch. I gave him the multigrain kind, which Carly had gotten as we suddenly can’t find regular Cheerios. He said “Sugar Cheerios…Why’d she even get those kind? Silly mama!” He played a lot of Big Dragonbox Numbers, then he went to the bathroom and I took a shower – a lot of Big Dragonbox Numbers talk going on as we did so.

He was then being machines. They were going up to the attic and checking on the hot pipes, which were getting ants on them. Back downstairs the machines morphed into an elevator going up to the attic, then he said I dropped my phone down the crack (something I had mentioned at the mall as  happening to someone I knew). There was then a baby that kept dropping things down and the elevator had a tube that would give them right back. At one point he said to Bluie “You’re my best friend. Let’s get away from this elevator.” And he had a machine:”It needs a lot of bad chemicals and sprays out lots of oxygen!”

Our shipment from Korea was supposed to arrive between 10 and 1. A little before noon they called to say they’d be here in about an hour. After the call August asked “Were you taking to Steve?…And is IHerb coming tomorrow?” By ‘Steve’ he means ‘Eve’, the maintenance guy for the school. We read the book Tacky, about a penguin, twice, then watched some Peg + Cat. We found some ants and took care of them with him spraying cleaner for me. He was then a baby squirrel that I was taking care of. I used a funny doctor voice or something and he didn’t like it; he wanted the “dada voice” instead. He was then drinking his water, and wanted gravity upset that he was drinking the water up. He told gravity “Gravity! Suction pulls things up!”

Then, a slightly disturbing game in which he wanted pain (kind of like germs or viruses) to be put in the baby squirrel. And gravity was pulling him down. We found ants by the sliding door, then read part of 26-Story Treehouse. Getting closer to the end, although he keeps wanting to go back and read chapter 6 about Edward Scooperhands.

We then did the baby dropping things down the elevator crack again, and I was pretending I couldn’t see him in the dark and thought he was other people: Kayla, Vivian, Colin, Thatcher, etc. Talking about our stuff that was supposed to arrive, I mentioned Peter Rabbit. He said “And puzzles? We put the puzzle together with Peter Rabbit?” Cool that he remembers that. He was then Peter Rabbit taking my carrots when I planted them. He then pretended to be a rabbit with pets of its own:”The rabbit’s Guinean pigs. They pooped in my burrow. Yeah. They do that when they have to poop and pee…” And “My poop machine is making more mice. Yep. That’s what a poop machine does. It makes mice out of poop…snails out of bricks…”

Our stuff arrived about 1:15. They were quick and efficient, getting all 26 boxes inside in 15 minutes or so, then leaving quickly. We started opening a few boxes up. I took a few things upstairs but he poured on the charm to keep me downstairs: “But I love you so much. Just stay downstairs forever. With me.”

About 2:30 we headed to school. Carly had found out about a dance class he could go to, a few minutes north of school, and it was today at 4:30. So August and I first sat in the couches by the ping pong table and had a snack, then we went swimming. It has cooled off to the mid-80s, and suddenly the water seemed quite chilly to both August and I as we got in. August liked watching the swim lessons that were going on. We swam until close to 4, then changed and met Carly at the gate just after 4:10. The iHerb order had arrived, so we had that big box as well.

We drove up to the house that had a dance studio in the basement. A nice setup. On the way he had some of the sugar Cheerios and told her “Sugar Cheerios are sweet, seeet, sweet. And I love sweet things!”

This was the first dance class of the session, and parents could sit to the side. Next time we are supposed to wait outside. August did quite well, although after 15 or 20 minutes he did start going to Carly a few times. The teacher knows English, and would occasionally say thing for August’s benefit in English, but much was in Hebrew. I think that makes it a little difficult for him to pay attention, although he generally tries to copy what the teacher does. They did a flower thing where they were flowers that he really liked. And they got scarves that they got to scoot around on, then use as beds/blankets as they did a nighttime/daytime sleep/wakeup thing. She turned the lights off for nighttime, but still had colored lights on. He was confused though: “But, when it’s night it’s black.” He interjected some of our games into it, being the earth turning around when it was nighttime.

After class he said he wanted to go again. Have to get confirmation on cost, but assuming it is reasonable we will sign him up. Happy that we found a place that accepts boys. Both the community center and another place I found say that the 3/4 year old dance classes are just for girls. There are English ballet classes in north Tel Aviv but they don’t have classes until 4 years old.

We were home at 5:30. He plated on the Teeter totter and looked at plants. The mystery seed didn’t grow, and he kept saying “I give up.” He also did a “I give up” song earlier today when he gave up on a math problem, I think.

We had some dinner, him the last of the quiche, then he nursed and they read Suddenly! He read more of it with me. Then I took him up and gave him a shower, washing his hair. Back downstairs he wanted me to play a new song on the piano, and I pulled up “Sentimental Wars” on the iPhone and figured it out, with him sitting in my lap. We listened to it on repeat many times. We also listened to OMD’s “Electricity” and he banged away on the piano to it. Next was Tori Amos’s “Breakaway”: “I think we can learn this song cuz it’s so slow.”

With Carly on the couch he said “I love you so much.” “I love you a ton of Qs…cupcakes…honeycombs…punches…” Those are all things from Dragonbox Big Numbers. He was feeling a bit itchy, so Carly suggested he try sleeping without a diaper for the first time. He was asleep at 8:15.

Cuddling with me as a baby squirrel: 

Bluie and Green Monster: 

All our boxes: 

A snack: 

Pool: 

Dance class: 

Piano: