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He woke up at 7:20: “Mama!” I ran up and he was still in the room. I picked him up and he flailed a bit and pointed towards the other bedroom and said “Mama’s out there!” We walked downstairs and he rested on my shoulder for a few minutes. We then rested on the rug and read Winter Days in the Big Woods a couple times. He then wanted to watch Puffin Rock on the couch and chose the “Puffin Practice” episode – which he seemed to read. It is also his favorite episode recently.

Had a breakfast of yogurt toast and two cups of milk. The first with his “something something” in it. He said “The more sugar I get the tastier my skin is.” And talked about that for awhile.

He played some Gro Garden, then I remembered that there is a Gro Recycling app so we downloaded that. Got going with that (he really likes that each kind of recycling has a different bin, and then also a different machine with switches and stuff) then I took a shower. I came down and asked him what he was recycling and he told me that “That one does all the people stuff.” It was kind of like the medical waste: toothbrushes, q-tips, etc.

We talked about what we wanted to do today, and then he wanted to draw on his feet again. I let him this time. He said “The more fruits you eat, the more colorful it is.” And “I hope mama will like it.” We had waited too long to skype with my parents and they were offline, so we left them a message, with him showing off his feet. He had gotten a little on the bottom of his feet so I wouldn’t let him walk on the rugs, which he did an okay job about.

We were waiting for the laundry to finish, so we went and watered the plant, and I let him have a couple of the small mints. He complained that they didn’t make his mouth minty enough. When the laundry was done it was still really wet and drippy. He watched me hang laundry, then walked in the puddles. He found the remains of a cotton ball that had gone through the wash and was concerned we had no more cotton balls.

Before we left he knocked all the shoes down from the shelves by the door and then put them away. Twice. I stopped him before it happened again. As we walked he said (on his own) that he doesn’t want to have a dog. He then said “and not a cat or a kitten.” When I reminded him that cats bury their poop he changed his mind and told me he wants a cat AND a kitten. As we got close to the top of the hill before the school he started singing “Almost to the top of the hill” – I had sung that a couple days ago and he remembered it. Then, as we got to the last roundabout he said “I have a better nose…I can smell sun sometimes.” Indeed, a couple days ago he had said “I smell the sun”.

We got to the school about 12:30. The security guard checked a schedule and told me the pool doesn’t open until 3. I assumed I had just read it wrong, so stood around for a couple minutes trying to decide what to do. I looked at the calendar again on my phone and it said 1. I went back and asked and he called someone and said I was correct.

On our way in we first saw Jill and Grace coming out. They asked August if he had eaten the mango. A couple minutes later we then saw Gaby and she asked the same thing. He and I sat on a bench under the covered walkway and ate our lunch. He had a good appetite today and ate most of his sandwich and a bunch of grapes and watermelon.

Looking up the path towards the pool he said it looked like it dropped off at the end and he wanted to jump off it. I told him it was probably an optical illusion and that was just the top of the hill. He liked being reminded about optical illusions and did the bigger/smaller thing when someone walked towards and away from us. He spotted what he thought was a piece of shell and said it was a seagull shell. Then: “I think a Puffin lives there…a tiny puffin.” When we were done we walked up the path and saw the soccer fields and went in to see the gym. It was then 1 so we went and got into the pool.

We had fun in the pool for about 50 minutes. Just us at first, then a group of kids came. There was a boy smaller than him with arm bands, but August didn’t express any interest in him except for comparing the arm bands to his floaties. He preferred watching the older kids as they played tag and another game. Stood watching them play for a couple of minutes before going to the bathroom.

After the bathroom we walked over to the playgrounds. Meghan saw us and invited us in to see her room. She had a shape stencil that she suggested August borrow, so we did. Before we left he wanted to feel how soft a rug was in her reading area. So he took his shoes off and walked on it. It had books on it with the names of different genres and I was reading them off: nonfiction, historical, science fiction… When I got to science fiction he said he wanted to read that. He wanted to read about people in rockets. He was upset we couldn’t do it right at the moment, but I suggested we could pretend to be in space at the playground.

We then stopped to fill up our water bottles, then as we completed our walk to the playgrounds he spotted the pictures down at the end of the lower hall so we went to see the kindergarten, 1st grade, etc. area and talked about how that might be where he goes to school in the coming years. Finally, he said he had a seagull machine: “I’m holding it and spraying seagulls everywhere.” And a “Super soup machine.”

At the playground he climbed up the big ladder and talked about how safe it was, then, after picking at some bird poop with a leaf, we sat in the big tube and pretended it was a spaceship and traveled to different planets. We then went to the preschool playground and I made soup for the astronaut. But he told me “Astronauts don’t like soup…astronauts don’t like bark.” So I made a pizza instead and they like that.

A little after 3 we headed back to the pool. This time he surprised me when I glance over once to see him kicking and swimming along side the wall, not holding on. He did it a few more times before we had to leave. We went and changed into our shorts, then went to Carly’s classroom. A little nursing and playing in the beanbag nest then we left at 4:45.

We walked up to town, checking out one park along the way. The library was open so we went in and looked. A nice kids area that he wanted to play in, but no English section. Then across to the second hardware store we had been to, which had nice bamboo bowls and cups for August. Also got a few other things, like gardening tools, a new drain for the kitchen sink, a flyswatter, and a big bowl. August and I went to look at the kids store, but it closed at 4. Carly had gone to the bank to pick up our cards. We met her there and I got my bank card as well. Finally, we went to the grocery store. After we had done most of the shopping August got out to walk around. Carly left the basket, which is a big plastic one with wheels and a handle that you can pull, and August started pulling it around and shopping. He would want to put something in and I’d explain we didn’t need it and he’d say “Oh. I don’t need that.” He saw Carly and told her “I’m gonna get a headache drink for you.” While we were checking out and bagging groceries he dropped the towel and something and was afraid he had dropped his water bottle. I went over and he was telling a story about it: “I dropped the water bottle and it rolled and went out in a car and it drove away.”

At the grocery store Carly had found a Spider-Man and a Hello Kitty water bottle. He chose the Hello Kitty. He thought it lit up somehow, as he thought he had seen the Spider-Man one do so. I told him it was probably just a reflection from the lights.

We were home by 6:30. The walk was kind of slow as we let August have a vanilla yogurt, stopping every few seconds so Carly could give him a bit. Carly made him an egg and cheese and he ate a bit. He played the recycling app a little, then we talked about how he had said he want
ed to learn more about trees and roots. We downloaded the Gro Forest app, then watched the Peppa Pig gardening video and a time-lapse video of roots growing in water. Didn’t play the app, as it was then time to go up for a shower. He did that, then sat on the toilet while Carly took a shower. I heard him say “I pooped in space.”

In the bedroom he stubbed his toe with the door, then went to sleep about 8:15.

Photos: 

Lunch at the school: 

In the rocket: 

Soup: 

Pointing: 

He got up at 7:20. Obviously still tired. Slid down the stairs one at a time on his bottom. At one point he said “Mama said something.” Got him to sit on the couch next to me and he played GroGarden and cheered up: “No you dont, bugs.” There was a big claw recycling truck outside and August said “I want to take a picture for Colin!” We got a photo and a video and then August waved as they left and they honked for him.

We had toast for breakfast. One with jam, one with cheese, and he suggested yogurt on toast, so we did that as well and he really liked it. Eventually, we were making our plans. He was in general not being good about answering questions this morning, so wasn’t as into it today. At one point he wanted to color his feet with markers. I said no and he said “But I’m not pretty. I want to be pretty.” He said he wanted to get nail polish – green for mama and purple for him. He eventually came up with “I want to go outside and visit someone.” And “Go to the high school and look around.” And he also said swimming, but I said we were going to wait a day due to our sunburns. So I said we could see if the public library has books in English.

He then came up with the idea of seeing robots break down, so we searched YouTube and watched a few videos of robot fails and talked about how balance is hard to program and how it is difficult to program robots.

Those videos led to a 100 year old mechanical violin machine which he really liked, and that led back to the Marble Machine, which he watched a few times.

A little after noon we got going. We stopped and ate our lunch at a spot a block or so northwest of us. It is a closed community center or something with benches and trees outside. There was a big ants nest coming out of the bricks close to us and August fed them a crumb from his sandwich. So we ended up learning about insects today as we discussed what their home was like. Later we’d talk about dung beetles and then flies.

He spent quite awhile looking at the ants, then we kept going and stopped in the sand/dirt (there’s no grass) park a few blocks north. He saw something interesting and wanted to stop. It was one of those barrels that you can walk on. Played on that a little. Then he wanted to play in the sand with bare feet, but he saw poop so he wanted me to carry him everything. He said he spotted a beetle and got really excited. I didn’t see it, but he thought it went in the sand and thought it was a dung beetle. So we looked up dung beetles and found that there is indeed a kind that lives in Israel (Scarabaeus sacer). He got a stick and dug for it a bit, but no beetle. He said he was digging a home for beetles. When he was done he turned to me and pointed and seriously said “There dada. Now leave it alone.” A few seconds later. “Okay dada, I’ll stop hitting you.”

I had said he could have a mint on the way and he wanted it now, so we sat on the bench and got one. After sucking on it for awhile he apparently got part of it stuck in his throat. He asked for water, but when that didn’t get rid of it he got upset and I had to hold him for a few minutes. He wasn’t having trouble breathing, but it was clearly uncomfortable and a little traumatic for him. When he was feeling better he was able to joke “Now it’s down to my leg.”

We headed on up to the library at 1:30. We needed more water so were looking for a drinking fountain. Went through the little park by the bank and found out the stroller doesn’t do well in sand. I had to sort of walk it on its wheels to get through. Turns out the library was closed. At first I thought completely, but later found out it is open in the morning and then 4 to 8pm. No water in the park either. We played a little on the merry-go-round and then on the little kid swings. He brought up visiting someone at home again, but he said no to going to see Jack and Nellie. He liked the idea of going to the school and seeing Holly or airport Meghan, but then decided he didn’t want to make the walk there.

We headed home about 2:15. We stopped at the little grocery store in town, which we haven’t been to. I got an iced tea and he got a strawberry and melon yogurt drink. We took a path and street south from there and found a street with some quirky houses. We stopped at yet another park, Motek Garden, and drank his yogurt drink. There, he saw both pine cone things that at first he thought were dog poop, then actually dog poop. There were flies on the dog poop so we talked about how they eat it and it turns back into dirt, etc. He watched them for a little then we headed home.

Got home just before Carly and Ada showed up for our meeting with the landlord. August turned on the air conditioner and then lay on his back on the floor right under it, arms spread and sunglasses still on.

Carly took him upstairs for a few minutes, then let him sit in his room and watch Puffin Rock. We heard him talk a few times from up there, but only had to go check on him a couple times. The meeting went pretty well, with the landlord, Shmool, agreeing to fix the windows so they all open and do most of the other minor things. He also said he’d bring us papaya plants for us to plant. We do have to keep the black couch that we don’t want as he says it is a nice couch and he doesn’t have anyplace to put it. We’ll put it up on the covered balcony. And Ada was very happy to see the plant from her party planted in a pot out on our table.

After they left August was being crazy on the new beds in the corner bedroom. We have shifted as I used the pullout bed from the kid bed and raised it with blocks of wood and books to simply extend the queen bed. We can now get rid of the blue bed and use the sofa couch as a couch. Eventually we’ll switch which rooms they are in so our sitting room and desk have more windows.

Come dinner August didn’t really eat anything again. He hadn’t eaten but a small peanut butter and jelly sandwich and his yogurt drink since breakfast. He saw Carly doing something in the kitchen and asked her “Do you have gloves? Because I don’t want you getting messy.”

Carly took the vinegar out and sugar to see if it would repel ants. She put it right on the sugar and it didn’t seem to have the desired affect, as ants still swarmed the area. Eventually though it seemed like it did work as advertised. We’ll start spraying outside the doors and along the kitchen windows.

We went for a walk and headed south and found the Agricultural Trail, which is the old closed highway that Jack had told me about. Walked that a bit, then a few different streets on the way back. Saw some cats. August ate some more PB and J and a couple of Carly’s mints. When we got home he ate some watermelon.

On the toilet he told me “I think the poop comes from mints. Cuz that’s what it smells like.” He took a shower bath, then played on the bed. I said our bed setup was now as good as in Korea. He said “I’m not loving it as much as the one in Korea; there’s not as much pillows.” He then got a little upset and said “I want to go pillow shopping.” I reminded him there were other pillows in the house and he went and got almost all of them – from the couch next door and from the couch downstairs. He made a nice nest for himself (he also did the nest thing in beanbag chairs at the Kerns’ house on Monday). He was asleep by 8:20.

He was up at 8:35. Held him for a couple minutes, then he just lay on the floor for several minutes before getting up to go to the bathroom. I noticed there was a strawberry yogurt missing and found out that Carly had let him have it last night. I told him that was nice of her. That led to “No, you’re not really as nice as mama because you don’t give me yogurt when it’s not breakfast.” He then told me “I don’t like your pants; I don’t like anything that belongs to you.” and “I want toast though. I hope I can do toast on the couch.”

We’ve gotten into a routine now where I make breakfast and he can watch a few stories in Puffin Rock or Sarah and Duck. Today he had the rest of the mango they had brought back from the Kerns’ tree, and we shared some toast with cheese and some toast with jam. I cleaned up and then he could switch to an app. I showed him GroGarden, where you plant seeds and make them grow, feed the veggies to animals, compost the leftovers, then put your compost on the garden. We played it together for awhile, then I went and took a shower and got us ready to go. We did our goals for the day, and he said he wanted to learn more about swimming. We put down going to the new playground we found yesterday, and then he said he wanted to learn more about gardening. He said he wanted to learn more things, and when I asked what he thought and said “going underwater in mama’s pool.”

We finally got going around 11:30 and got in the pool a little before noon, wearing his pink floaties. There were seven other kids there, from a baby up to big kids. August didn’t really play with them, but he liked the excitement of them. They were there with two grandmothers who I talked to a bit. August got right in the pool, walking down the steps most of the way. He then took right to the floaties. After just a couple minutes I had him holding onto the edge on his own and letting go a bit. Carly came and watched him for a bit, and for a little while he swam a few feet away from the wall on his own. He spotted bubbles on my chest and said “I see oxygen bubbles on you.” And when he saw the other kids with their noodle toys and other floats (he liked a tube with balls in it) he said “I want to go floaty shopping.” We stayed in the pool until about 1:30, then finally got out and went and sat in the shade.

There were quite a few birds around and we watched those, at one point he was telling one to “Stop squeaking!” He also found a little bump in the grass and thought it might be an anthill. Took quite awhile for lunch and then, after a lot of indecision on whether he wanted to go to the playground or back in the water, we got back in at 2:30. The extra pool time was probably what was too much for us. Didn’t think about putting more sunscreen on and in the evening realized we both had pink shoulders.

We also met Gaby, a new teacher, as August pointed to her and asked “Is that a kid?” She’s a teaching intern in HS social studies. He liked watching me swim to the deep end and back, and to put my head under water, which he kept asking for again and again. Finally, about 3:15, he needed the bathroom so we got out and went. He spotted a couple cats going by outside. After he was done we went and showered and then went to get ready to go. He touched his shoe to the water and then asked if he could put his shoe in the water. I said no as it was really dirty, and he got quite upset, thinking he had made the pool too dirty.

We went and followed where the cats had gone, and spotted Holly walking towards the exit with cats following her: “I want to follow them…Go where they are going.” She went out to the front entrance of the school, where she feeds the cats. We watched three cats eat for a couple minutes.

We left about 3:30 and walked home. At a construction site there was a big pipe coming out of the ground. I guessed it was the water pipe, but he said sewer and had a logic to it: “water pipes comes from something else…sewer pipes go to the ground.”

We walked to Tal Garden, the park we found yesterday. He played on a rocking thing and a merry-go-round. I spotted Jack, who I got a ride with yesterday, hauling branches out of his place. He brought his dog Nellie over for August. August fed Nellie a couple pieces of his cracker and petted her a bit. Jack said there were some parakeets living in the park and pointed out holes in the trees that are nests. August and I were finding more of them when Carly showed up. August had just been crouching between my legs saying “I’m a beetle and this is my hole…But it’s not Bernie’s.” I had asked “A grotto?” August was amused, saying “No! It’s not a grotto.”

We showed Carly the little path/shortcut that leads straight to our other park right close to us. As we walked he was making sure Carly saw the things he saw and said “everything I see mama has to.” Carly headed to the pharmacy, and we headed down another little walkway we hadn’t seen before. August sang a “I will see you at home” song after what Carly had just said. The path comes out behind our house, past another house. So we have another walking path.

At home we looked at our goals and then he wanted to watch gardening videos. We watched a Peppa Pig gardening video, then a video with kids gardening. Carly got home then. He got some milk with “something something” in it and I made iced coffees for me and Carly. We went outside and watered the plants and he hung out with Carly for awhile.

But then he was being cranky, not eating any dinner, and hitting Carly out of nowhere and having a timeout with me. He was being dramatic, saying  “I have to stay here forever.” Earlier, I was doing something upstairs on the computer and August thought I was doing something fun and wanted to come up, but wouldn’t come up on his own and he said he was “never see” me.

But we finally got ready to go and walked over to the mall and went to the grocery store. August had his shoes off and spent much of the time, after he got his foot pinched by the stroller wheel a bit, looking to see if there was blood and trying to pull himself around the store.

We then went out and got our anniversary ice cream. We sat outside under the huge trees that were full of birds. They were making a lot of noise. I got cookies and cream and Carly got two flavors, strawberry and chocolate. August had plenty of ice cream, but he still wanted his own.

At home we almost skipped a shower, but we had been swimming. He had fun playing in the shower though and then I took a short shower as well. They went in and he was asleep by 9:30.

Floaties: 

Watching cats: 

Playground: 

Watched by the dog: 

Anniversary ice cream: 

The bridge home: 

He was up at 8:08. Upset for a minute, and sat at the top of the stairs, crying.  But when I took one of his socks off he threw it through the railings to the stairs below and that turned into a game. I made him toast and watermelon and strawberry yogurt for breakfast. He sat at the table and watched Puffin Rock while I did dishes and took a shower. Every time a new story would start I’d hear him call “Another one!” While he went to the bathroom he told me “I want to go water table shopping.”

When I came down from my shower we finished the story he was watching then turned off the iPad. We used the whiteboard to list our goals for the day. He had told me he wanted to play with sand today. So I wrote pot the plant, go swimming, lunch with mama, and find sand. I then asked if he wanted to add anything else, and he said “learn about chalk”.

So first we went outside to pot the plant. There was a garbage truck working nearby though and he didn’t like the sound. He said it was “too wrinkly”. It moved on and we were able to pot the plant. He was able to see the roots and we talked about all the stuff he knows from the Namoo app about roots and leaves and water. After that he did an experiment with water and cotton balls and a tea bag but did it outside this time. He also looked at our ant experiment and added a little water to it.

Then we went in and watched a couple videos about how chalk is made. We found a good one about how to make your own sidewalk chalk. After, he said something like “everyday I want to watch vidoes and explore”.

We crossed off the things we had done from our list and got ready to go to the school and go swimming. We left at 10:45. Took some different roads on the way. August got a mint as we walked and he kept talking about “I want to get more mints for Vivian and me…And Colin…When Vivian is here and we run out of mints I’m going to buy big ones for us to share…Not expensive ones though.” Found a second park a couple blocks away that he said he wanted to go back to, and closer to the school we watched a guy trimming branches from up in a tree.

We got there about 11:15 and walked over to the pool. Matt was there with the three girls. August started talking to them right away and I put on sunscreen and he didn’t complain. We went to the stairs, and he was slow at first, so I simply picked him up and walked in as it was quite warm. He didn’t protest, and after a couple minutes I had him in up to his neck. He gave the girls high fives, we walked along a rope, he hung on the side of the pool on his own. For a bit we got out and walked over to the little kid pool. He was sitting in the water talking to the three Kerns girls and Matt and I went to get my camera. When I came back though he had said he needed to go to the bathroom. So I took him, and when we came back out we went back to the deeper pool. Jill showed him how to kick and he practiced that, and then Carly came out and visited for a few minutes.

She left to go finish lunch, we took a few more minutes, then went and got food and took it to her classroom to see her and to eat. Along the way we saw Holly and she took us in to see the office cat, Taylor, who doesn’t have a tail.

We ate in her classroom, and August ate a good meal: green beans, mashed potatoes, fish, chicken…everything on the plate. We also had a little cinnamon roll that he really liked. He played on Carly’s bean bags. He curled up on the big blue one and was really comfortable. He called it a nest, then wanted me to join him and he just spent a lot of time resting, making sleeping noises.

Eventually we left and went to find the preschool playground. Got there and looked around and started making soup with a pot in the sand/wood chip area. He needed the bathroom, so we found one at the end of the building, then went back to soup making: “The sand is basil and I needed more basil in there.” We mainly made soup, but also looked around at the other toys which were kind of in a mess. About 2:15 I said we needed to go back to the pool or we would run out of time. He was concerned about running out of time, so we got going.

Back at the pool there were just a couple of adults. We played around some more and he talked about wanting to swim like the adults. We worked a little on having him lay on his back in the water. Before we left we met Steven, the new elementary music teacher. I talked about bringing his floaties next time and August talked about bringing something else: “I have something that is waterproof…It is special and it is on the floor and next time I will bring it and play with it in the pool. It is special to Vivian and me.” Don’t know what he was talking about.

We went to Carly’s room about 3:45 and met her and walked home together. At home he watched some Sarah and Duck and I took a quick shower. We went outside and waited for Mandy and Matt to pick us up at 4:50. Mandy dropped Matt and I off at the school entrance for ‘guys night’ and took Carly and August on to their house.

When they got there Gaby came down and started playing with him and took him outside and he was just fine. He had a lot of fun with the three girls, and he was really excited about making lime juice (which were actually unripe lemons). The pizza was good, but Carly made the mistake of leaving the leftovers on our counter for a bit when they got home – we really need to fight the ants. She also thought he seemed ready to stay with the kids as babysitters. But when she talked to him about it before they left he got a little stressed because he thought she meant right now. They got home about 7:30.

He told her “I want to learn things…I want to go to preschool to learn things.” Which I think was an impressive idea drawn from different conversations: when talking to people at the party, etc. he’s heard us say he’ll go to preschool next year. And when we were at the playground today he initially said he was too big to play there, so I had to explain it was for the preschool and 4 and 5 years old. Finally, as we walked to Carly’s classroom one of the times we saw a little cart/truck with a trailer full of boxes that looked like books. He asked why it was books, and I explained you use a lot of books at school, then went on to explain you do art, write things, do experiments, exercise, etc.

Meanwhile, I rode in a car with Jack, who had previously lived in Turkey, over to the restaurant we were meeting at, a burger place called Black’s. We had a beer, a lot of starters, and a burger. Good overall, and the conversation was more mature (older group), worldly, and generally fun than what we experienced in Korea. Also, no complaining about the school, which was a plus. So that’s a good sign. It was Brian’s birthday, so there was also a tart at the end. We (there were eight of us) then went and saw Dunkirk. Glad I saw it in a theater, and definitely a good film to watch.

August was asleep at 9:15 and I was back about 10:30. On the way home we saw the partial lunar eclipse from the car and I told Carly about it so she could go out and see it.

Naked boy: 

Watering the plant: 

My sunglasses:

With me in the pool: 

Bean bag chair: 

Cooking at the soup playground: 

Towel: 

He was up a little past 10. We found ants in the kitchen and he helped kill some that were near the door. While he was in the bathroom he found a little piece of plastic on his foot, and asked “Can we please go plastic shopping when I run out of plastic?” To distract him from nursing, Carly gave him some warm milk with a little sugar in it. He drank it all and asked me “Fill it up and put a little something something in it…Some crunchy crunch in there…” The crunchy crunch was sugar at the bottom that apparently Carly hadn’t fully mixed in. I managed to get his clothes off him, but he was then naked for quite awhile. Carly asked if he wanted clothes and he said “I’m enjoying naked time.” I took a shower, and when I came back he was watching Puffin Rock and eating toast with jam. I then made him toast with cheese while Carly finished cooking the cauliflower and carrots. He ate some cauliflower when it was done but rejected the carrot.

Carly left around 11:30 and walked to work today. They had a tour of the medical center. While she was gone, August and I put out some jam for the ants, which they really liked, found sap on one of the trees, and we swept out the playhouse. He found a little yellow square bead that he liked and put it in water to clean it.

We then left at 11:45 to walk into town to the grocery store. There, he got to put a coin in to get a shopping cart, then played with a coin for much of the trip through the store. Got a full load (backpack plus a full bag) and headed out. He got to get the coin back out of the cart when we left. On the way back he sang a nice song about the shade and where dogs like to poop. And he almost lost the coin. He dropped it, we went back a little ways, then I realized it was under him in the stroller. We stopped at the pharmacy to get some allergy medicine for Carly and August remembered the cotton balls that he had seen last time so we got those.

We got home and he mixed water with some cotton balls, then added salt and pepper. Made a mess on the table. Then finished with a tea bag, which broke open while he was playing with it, adding the “crunchy”. I made a veggie sandwich and hot dog, which he promptly ignored. He then also decided to take a fair amount of time going to the bathroom. This was just as Mandy was supposed to be arriving. Carly had initially planned to meet her at the school, but Carly was dropped off at home, so Mandy came straight here.

She picked us all up a little after 2:30 and we headed out for car shopping and a trip to Ikea. Car shopping went okay. She drove us north of Even Yehuda to where I had found Kia and Chevy dealerships. She sat with August and watched Sarah and Duck as we looked. Kia apparently doesn’t have the hatchback version of the Forte in Israel, and Chevy has stopped shipping the Sonic here. Those were our first two choices. We have the Chevy Spark as a fallback small car, but in the evening I went back to the research and came up with three other cars that are the same size as what we want and appear to be available here.

From there we went to Ikea. Mandy went and got a coffee and we got shopping. August got through it eating about 20 mints and several crackers. He did okay, but got impatient and cranky. Probably in large part because he hadn’t eaten much. He also wanted to see how the big shopping cart machine worked at the end was upset when we didn’t spend time on that. We did pretty well shopping, though: two rugs, an easel for him like Vivian’s, a stool for the kitchen, small rugs for the kitchen, a dish drainer, welcome mats, a new pillow for me, some sheets, a pot and soil for our plant, a couple of light covers, a cutting board, and probably a few things I’m forgetting. We guesstimated just right as we got it all in Mandy’s car with very little room to spare.

We got home at 6:45. He went on the teeter totter, climbing on on his own (having always asked for help getting on before), then inside he said “I’m going ant exploring.” Luckily, I don’t think he found any in the kitchen. While I had checked out at Ikea, he and Carly had gone to the cafe area and gotten falafel sandwiches and an orange juice for him. He had been sitting in the middle of the floor, drinking his juice.

At home we started to unpack everything and also eat our sandwiches. Carly put hummus on her sandwich and August said “I don’t like hummus at all. I’m never going to like hummus.” August had fun playing with the new rugs and all the plastic. And he watched a little Puffin Rock. Carly cut up the watermelon we had got at the store earlier and he ate some falafel. We are pretty happy with the downstairs for now. I sat on the couch with August and asked how he liked the house now. He said he still doesn’t really like it, but that he might “When the toys are here and the books.” We read Dinos Love Underpants and Carly took him up to the shower where he played for quite awhile and I managed to give him a good hairwashing. He then went in and fell right asleep at 9:30.

Sleepy wakeup:

Sweeping: 

Pretending to drink his experiment: 

Car shopping: 

Ikea: 

Easel: 

Carly was coming down with his cold, so at some point during the night she went downstairs and started sleeping on the couch/bed down there. He woke up at 5:30 and I took him down to her and they both slept until 10. I had slept to 8. It was the first night we all had a full night of sleep. He had yogurt and mango for breakfast, then we went outside and added more water to the experiment, as the sugar had dried. We saw one ant check it out, disappear for a second, then suddenly there were a bunch of ants.

He was being a bit rough with Carly, who didn’t like it, as she was sick. We read books and watched Sarah and Duck with him. The internet wasn’t working well again, so no Puffin Rock. We read Dinsaura Love Underpants, Oh, Daddy! George Gets a Cold, Winter Days in the Big Woods. He helped Carly clean the floor a bit and we killed ant. Carly was trying to explain to him why we kill insects indoors. He kept asking “We’re trying to make them dead?” We went out and checked on the ants again, then came in and he played with the Namoo app (about plants) for the first time in months. But he remembered there was one about growing and salt water and was insistent about it. I didn’t remember what he was talking about, but then found it: the roots that you can change the salt level of the water for and see them grow.

I took a shower. Carly was then finishing up cleaning the floor, and August and I went on a walk to do recycling. We have to take our cardboard and plastic just up the street by the park. We actually saved a bunch of the cardboard so we can use it for projects. He carried a toilet paper roll, but decided he wanted to make something out of it (he was using it as a telescope) so saved it by wearing it on his arm. Part way there is a tree that has some sort of grape. The sidewalk was littered with the crushed ones but he wanted there to be grapes for him to step on. He said “Greedy people”. He has learned the word ‘greedy’ from Sarah and Duck and used it a lot today.

On the way back to the house we met our neighbor woman again. Her name is Simhach and her husband is David. At home I ate the leftovers Carly had brought from the dinner for me. August was being rough with Carly again, so this time she took him up on the bed and they wrestled around. He had a lot of fun. He went to the bathroom, and said “I love going to the bathroom.” Carly went upstairs to rest. August then wanted to take some of the pillows up to the big bed to make it comfy. Once up there though he wanted to go in with Carly and rest. He went in with her for awhile, then I took him downstairs and Carly rested for real.

August could now watch Puffin Rock, and I worked on some Hebrew, making flashcards. He wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich so I made him one and Carly took a shower. Carly called down the stairs to him and he hid. She came down and they tried Skyping with Cassie and family. Problems with Skype, but they got FaceTime working. At some point I heard August say “They promised to come visit us?”

A bit past 6:30 Mandy and Matt Kerns picked us up. Originally just Carly was going to go, but since he slept so late we decided to all go. The party was at Ada’s house, north of Tel Aviv University. It was pretty fancy, or at least well decorated. Ada is also a sculptor so there are several of her sculptures and then lots of other art and rugs. The party was mainly out in the backyard. Rather crowded, so we spent all of our time just inside or outside the back doors. It was catered, so we got some french fries for August. When dinner was served we got a table right by the door with the Kerns, Meghan (August calls her ‘Airport Meghan), and Ada. A couple of other people rotated through as well.

August did great. We had taken the iPads and the stroller in case we needed to take him for a walk, but we didn’t use either of them. He played with the rugs quite a bit, hiding his legs under them. He hid in an office room at one point and I went and told Carly he was hiding and she went and found him. I held him up in front of the big fan outside, and he spotted the lemons in the tree. When dinner came he ate a good amount. And Mike, the head of school, came and joked with him, trying to get August to believe there was a yellow elephant out in the street. August wasn’t falling for it though. He was sucking on his middle finger and I asked why, and he said “It’s tasty…Mama you can taste my finger.”

Carly and I took turns going down to see Ada’s studio and her work. Then dessert came. August agreed to eat fruit first, so I got a bunch of watermelon and mango. He then shared a couple of the lava cakes with Carly and then wanted more mango. He also ate some lychee, which I really liked. During the party I was asking August how he liked the house and he said he’d like to come visit “every once in awhile “

We left a little after 10. August was trying to figure out which car was there’s as we walked, judging cars to be too small. We were back by 10:35. On the way back we started to watch a little of Sarah and Duck to make it. And when we got out of the car I asked him to do his broken robot. He did it really well, doing a slow shutdown all the way to the ground. Then, when I turned him back on. it turned out to be a dancing robot.

At home we finished the Sarah and Duck we had been watching, then read part of Berenstain Bears Go to School. He tried to swing his feet with one hand on the couch and the other on the table, but the table moved and he fell and hit his head on it. Carly took him upstairs and he calmed down and took a long shower, holdingthe shower head and spraying himself for a long time.

He was finally in bed at 11:30. I gave him a kiss but he said “I want mama kisses because mama kisses are the best kisses in the world.” He was asleep soon after that.

Photos. Waking up:

Mop:

Pointing at the fan at the party. Part of the pointing series: 

Getting food. Disappointed the brown things were stuffed mushrooms and not chocolate: 

Earing his fruit: 

He had some big coughs in the middle of the night. Carly got up around 4 and August sat up in bed a few minutes later and said “Mama? Where are you mama?”  But then the miracle happened: he lay back down and went to sleep. 15 minutes later or so he woke back up and wanted a tissue. I went and got one and helped him with some snot, then he lay back down again and went back to sleep. Unfortunately, the cold just wasn’t letting him sleep. A few minutes later he sat up again and wanted mama. I told him to lay back down and I’d go get mama. He did. I went down and told Carly what had happened. He slept another 10 or 15 minutes before we heard to door open so we ran back up and this time Carly helped him back to sleep, I thought, at 4:45. He said “I don’t want to cough.”

I fell back to sleep, but I guess he never really did fully and they got up. I got up at 7:15 and Carly left for work a little while later. We watched a little more Puffin Rock while I drank some coffee and then took a shower. With the iPad off, he then wanted to play with the jar of coins. I put them in a plastic cup, and then he spilled them out and played with them and put them back in. It then turned into a science experiment, as he wanted to put in water. From there he added green soap, sugar, paper, and corn flakes. Oh, and a tea bag. We talked about diffusion and dilution and absorption.

We then did a second experiment, and decided to put some sugar outside to see what would happen. I had him make a hypothesis on what would happen, and he decided that animals would eat it, and the animal would be ants. In determining what to do we started to make our list of rules for experiments, which mainly was that we couldn’t hurt any animals. So we put sugar on a piece of cardboard and placed it on the edge of the lawn.

Back inside he helped me crush his allergy medicine and put it in his water. He wanted to put more in but I said too much could make him sick. I think he somehow misunderstood and thought we had put too much in and he got really sad and upset, thinking we’d done something wrong. He went to the bathroom and got him dressed, then he found the Smurf Pez dispenser and was giving me shots with it. We also listened to the new Arcade Fire album today and a playlist of 1991 alternative hits.

As we were getting ready to leave for a walk to the park, I realized that water was actually leaking through the wall from the bathroom to the bedroom, and had in fact started to damage the desk we bought. Let Carly know. She was with Ada, on their trip to Tel Aviv and Jaffa, and Ada contacted Eve (sp?), the school maintenance person who had driven us from the airport. He came in about 15 minutes. August and I played outside while we waited. He joked with August a lot, trying to take August’s coin (he was playing with a ½ shekel) and August put it in my pocket and kept telling Eve that. Eve decided he could install a marble edge to keep water in the shower, and he also looked at the washing machine and realized that the drain was clogged and that the pipe in back had to climb too high for the pump. He cleared the drain, and said he would shorten the pipe when he came back on Sunday or Monday to fix the bathroom. During this time August had been hiding in the corner bedroom, but peaking out and playing, and then came out to watch him clear the drain.

After he left August and I had some lunch. A PB and J for him and a sandwich for me. August was spitting in the grass, and he had also found a little screw in it and played with that, throwing it down the slide and also scraping the bird poop off of the slide. He tried to convince me to let him watch more Sarah and Duck or Puffin Rock: “The episode I’m going to watch is my favorite.” He remembered Colin sitting on my foot and Chuck’s foot and bouncing and wanted to do it. Turned into a rocket and we did that for awhile. We headed back outside, and as we did so he started talking about his beds and Vivian and finally said “Where will Vivian sleep?” I think I had mentioned that another kid could sleep in the second bed when we discovered the pull out bed. He had clearly been thinking about it.

We spent some time raking the lawn. The ants hadn’t come for the sugar, so we theorized they didn’t know it was there. He suggested we move it by the ants by the slide, as there were several there. We did, and made sure that there were some ants walking across the cardboard.

We finally left the house at 12:45. He played at the playground for awhile, mainly talking about which things were for babies and which were for big kids: “Babies can’t sit on that.” “Anything you sit on is for babies, alright?” There was a little toddler there, and they played close together. He started to climb a ladder, and the baby tried to climb the other side. They barely touched, and he got down and came over and told me all about it, and seemed to be relieved when I told him it had been a gentle touch. We played a little hide and seek and went on the teeter totter where you stand up.

We then went to the pharmacy and got bath soap for him and shampoo and conditioner. The woman spoke English and guessed we were with the American school. I grabbed a Zone Perfect bar for us to share and realized it was more than 3 dollars. Got it anyway, and we went and sat on a sad bench and ate it. August said “Dada…in going to get you something special. Just for you! Something round…” I reminded him about how he had gone back to sleep on his own without mama last night. He seemed to remember – I think he said something about me getting a tissue for him. He then decided he’d go to sleep on his own right then and there and lay down on the concrete by the pharmacy building: “I always sleep here. I’m awake until there’s an ant crawling on me.”

We headed home at 1:50. He put all the coins, now clean, back in a cup and added water. He said he was making something for me and mama. We then played tea game, or a variation there of, where he gave me a drink and there was something disgusting in it: “I made a drink for you.” When I wouldn’t let him watch anything he said “That’s mean.” We had planned to go to the pool at the school and swim with Carly after she was back at 3, but Carly asked if we could go to the grocery store since they closed early and would be closed on Saturday. So we did that.

As August put on his shoes he was having trouble getting one on, as the back piece was bending. He told the shoe “Stop playing that game.” Then he told me “I’m not coming with you…just stay here and play. That not the most fun thing.” We briefly interacted with our neighbor again as she was getting in her car. She said hi, and also said he should have a lot of water. So she speaks English as well. We walked over to the Tiv Taam grocery store. August was falling asleep as we got there. He said he wanted to go mint shopping, then fell asleep at 2:45. I was taking my time shopping, as it was easier with him asleep to figure out what they had. Then ran into the Kerns and two of their kids. We talked for quite awhile, about the bike shop, our houses, etc. August woke up at 3:35, a couple minutes after I left them, as he was facing the candy aisle, unfortunately. I went over and found the Kerns in line to checkout so he could briefly see them.

We then finished shopping. August had a couple mints as we did so, and he remembered that it was “English Breakfast” tea that Carly liked. It was sometime after 4 before we headed home. There, he got upset with Carly because he still couldn’t watch anything and was hitting her. She cut up a mango and I added it to yogurt and he ate a good amount of that. We all went outside and he used Carly’s spray bottle to add water to the sugar. That did it, as the ants instantly started coming. The two of them then cleaned the slide together and he played more with the little screw. When we went in we watched a couple videos about tetanus. He wanted to watch more, but they start to get
rather disturbing, and I said no.

They played for awhile and I went up and sorted his clothes and emptied one suitcase. We then went out on a walk. Carly’s first walk into town, and our first leisurely walk. We looked at the red sand along the way, and August enjoyed playing in it. We walked past the grocery store and then over to the playground by the park. They briefly went on the swings, then went on the merry-go-round together. There was another girl there that was interested in him, but he was being shy. He showed Carly how he could climb up the spiral and then step over to the play structure on his own. Played a bit more, then just a little of the badger in the slide game, which he brought up, before we headed out.

Getting quite dark at this point (8:15), and we took our backroads route home. At home he read Dinosaurs Love Underpants and Splat the Cat with Carly, and Sarah and Duck Go to the Duck Hotel (which we bought) with me. Carly gave him a bath. He was clearly tired, but was telling me he wanted to read more and also said he wanted to sleep in his room in his bed tonight. So interesting that he’s developed that idea – mainly comes from Vivian, I think. He was asleep by 10.

iPad on his head: 

Closing his eyes: 

Part of my pointing series: 

Outside the pharmacy: 

Napping in the grocery store: 

On the merry-go-round with mama: 

He was awake just after 7. Not much sleep. Carly took a shower and he joked about the AC: “I’m not gonna ask mama to make it colder until she comes out. I’m gonna ask her to make it colder so dada and I can freeze.” Carly let him mix some yogurt in with his milk and he was excited by that. Let him watch Sarah and Duck and he said “Yeah. The machine one. Because I LOVE ‘No More Wool’.” Thought we were about to hurry to meet up with Carly at the bank for account setting up purposes but then the plans changed. We mainly rested and watched Sarah and Duck and some Puffin Rock.

We walked up to the bank when Carly told me they were leaving met her there. The whole process took around an hour. We traded off with him and he was okay around people, although it seems like he’s decided to just not answer any questions while in Israel.

Left just before 11. Looked at a couple little shops and bought English Breakfast tea for Carly and Earl Grey for me.  Went to the playground by the library and played there. He patiently and slowly climbed up the spiral pole, going in circles up the spiral, even though there were lots of them. Played on the play structure, then we discovered the little merry-go-round where you turn the wheel in the center to make yourself go. He really liked it and did it a lot himself, then I got on and he spun me as well. Did some seesaw, he balanced and walked on some stones around a big wonderful tree. Also identified big, spreading Mediterranean pine trees. While at the park he said “Everything I see, I step on. That’s my rule.”

We left at noon and first walked up a street by the library to see a house we considered renting and then took a back streets route much of the way home, finding our first shortcuts through town. Say a cool crow/raven sort of bird with a grey body but black head. Hit one speed bump and thought we could go over it but came to a stop. August wasn’t happy about that.

He fell asleep at 12:20, just before we got home. I had previously pushed him in the stroller up the steps to our house to make sure I could get him back in asleep. He lay in the stroller in the house until 1:10 when he woke up. I napped on the couch.

Watched some more Sarah and Duck, then had some lunch and then played with all the coins we have. He realized that we could literally see through our kitchen door through a variety of little cracks to the outside. He found the tiny hole that one floor tile has and talked about a big hole in the floor: “a deep hole someone could fall in and never stopping. Yeah, not at all. Just keeps going.” We left the inside of the house at 3:15 but then played outside. He was holding a stick thing from the trees and asked, referring to the bird poop on the slide “Can I touch it?” I said “Yes” Repeat that line of questioning about a dozen times. Finally got on our walk at 3:40.

August knew that at this point Carly was with Mandy, who was taking her to do some shopping. We had compiled a big shopping list this morning, and then marked the most important items. August remembered this and asked “Mama has a few things that are important?” As we walked towards the mall I told him “You should look for cactuses.” He replied “No I’m looking for dog Poop. Dog poop is my favorite thing.” And then he sang a song about how he was looking for dog poop, which ended when he actually spotted dog poop.

We looked around the inside of the mall for the bike shop and a little bit at other shops. August grew impatient for a smoothie so we went to Rebar and got a mango mix smoothie – it also had melon, banana, cinnamon, and honey. We sat outside and drank that. An experience only slightly ruined by the realization that people actually smoke in these sorts of areas in Israel, and there were three smokers close to us.

We went inside and bought a pack of notecards at a store. August wanted to carry the orange bag and put it on his wrist and started walking through the mall. He then became Mr. Independent and decided he was going to explore the mall on his own, without me: “I’m going someplace by myself…I’m going everywhere…I’m checking everything out.” He got annoyed when I would follow him, but then kept talking to me as well. He decided the hair shop was just for adults and that he wants his hair cut in a small place that has chocolate ice cream. He spotted a big ‘5’ balloon and said “When I’m five years old I’ll get that balloon.” And he briefly took his shoes off and got in the indoor kid area and said he was going to stay with the other kids and parents and that I should leave. The independence game continued all the way back down the mall until we got to the backpack store, which is open to the mall. He could go all through the backpack area on the left side, and I could see him from the opposite side of the aisle. Eventually I went in, and he proceeded to tell me which backpacks I could look at and which I couldn’t. Oh, and he tried on some sunglasses.

He was a bit annoyed at leaving. I put him on a bench to get in the backpack and a woman talked to us about it. The woman at the smoothie shop had also spoken fluent English. This woman tried to ask him some questions, and at one point he said, to her or me, something like “No I don’t like anything because there’s nothing.” She said he was quite a philosopher.

Carly had told me the bike shop was out by the gas station. So we walked out to and around it. August had a strap and told me he was directing me where to go because he knew where it was. I asked him if he could tell me where it was then. At that moment a guy who worked at the gas station was walking by and thought I was talking to him. Fluent English again. I explained I had been talking to August, but would be happy if he could direct us to the bike shop. He did, so we walked over there.

At the bike shop we looked around. August wanted to try out the bikes and sat on the little kids bikes and tried the scooter. He also wanted to sit on a big kids bike. We also looked at helmets, and they have really nice kids helmets with monsters on them.

He needed to go to the bathroom so we went back in the mall and found the bathrooms. Took awhile. He told me “Vivian pooped in the motor home once.” In fact, he has mentioned this several times, and also keeps asking me where he can and can’t poop (when I say he can poop in any toilet he reminds me he couldn’t poop in the RV or in Colin’s toilet). So thank you, Chuck, Cherie, and Vivian, for introducing all of that.

Left about 5:40. He was getting tired on the way back. We had talked about a cactus we both saw and he called it a cactus fruit because it looks like it has fruit on it. And he said “If I want to step on poop I need boots.”

Home around 6. Carly was there before us and Mandy was still there. She left after a few minutes and we had fun setting up the coffee maker and putting other stuff away. He watched some Sarah and Duck and a little Puffin Rock to help keep him awake. Had some dinner, then he was being cranky with Carly so he went up with me to start some laundry and take a shower. Was just finishing up his bath when Carly informed me that the washing machine was leaking. We switched and I got a towel and tried mopping it up. It stopped after a couple minutes, then the rest of the cycle continued just fine. Carly contacted Ada about it.

August was quite upset about the washing machine leaking and the fact that we couldn’t really explain why. Carly took him to bed and he was asleep by 8.

At the bank: 

Merry-go-round: 

Teeter totter: 

A nap in the stroller: 

Reaching: 

Smoothie: 

Telling me to not follow him: 

Sunglasses: 

Bikes: 

In the backpack: 

I got up at 7:45 but went back to bed. I was woken up by “Mama!” at 9:31. That wasn’t good. I knew he wasnt ready to be awake. Spent the next half hour holding him. He wanted to go outside so I held him in the yard, and that helped a little. But eventually he said “I want the stroller.” We changed his clothes and left just after 10. Walked clockwise around a couple blocks and back to our place. He said he wanted to keep walking. So we went to the northeast. After five minutes or so I gave him his water and told him to drink. He did, then said he wanted to go home. Got back a little after 10:30. He cried once we got inside and he said he wanted to see mama. I held him on my shoulder and we stood in the air conditioning and he was asleep by 10:40.

 

I set him down on the couch (which I had figured out how to turn into a bed). He opened his eyes and looked at me for a bit but then closed them and went to sleep. Until 10:55 when he woke up, gave a cry of frustration, and said, I think “We’re not going to be there.” Perhaps referring to us going to visit mama at the school. But I told him to go back to sleep and, remarkably, he lay back down, turned on his side, and went back to sleep.

 

He was awake again at 11:35. Carly had said we could go to the school at any time, so we got ready and left at 12:15. It took less than 20 minutes to get to school, pushing the stroller. As we got near the entrance of the school, August pointed at a car and said “That’s the kind of car we’re going to get in Israel.” It was, indeed, a Chevy Sonic – the only kind of car we looked at with him.

 

We arrived at 12:35. Didn’t have long to look for her as we ran into her after just a few seconds. They found a bench and nursed and I grabbed some lunch. I ended up going up and getting my photo taken for an ID card, then August ate some watermelon and we looked a bit at the library. We then went to find a playground. Walked down the length of the elementary school, refilled our water bottles at a fountain, and left the stroller at the top of the stairs, and went to the big playground. Of course, the thing he most wanted to do was the biggest and most difficult for him, as it was crawling through these tire shapes that are hanging in the air and spaced wide apart. Got him over to the spider web thing instead, like that playground in Korea, and he asked “Can I go crazy?” Climbed up on the play structure, inching around in circles on the spirally pole, and was interested in the bird poop all over. I gave him a leaf that he could use to brush it off the play structure.

 

We went to Carly’s classroom a bit before 2:30. It is nice, with windows looking outside down both of its lengths. Hung out there a bit, then we all went down to the bathroom. He went in with me, and I found out his underwear was on the wrong way. I can’t even really explain how. I remember this morning thinking that his underwear was starting to get too small, and it was difficult to get down now. Obviously we were both really tired at 9:30. In fact, the plan was to go on the school trip to Ikea at 3. But first Carly was too tired. I still planned to go, but as we were playing at the playground I decided that rugs and sheets and whatnot could wait. Holly came by and we left at 2:50. She gave us a ride home.

 

We expected him to take a nap, but he didn’t. He occasionally starts singing our conversations now, and did that again. He watched some Sarah and Duck with me, and turned down more nursing at one point, saying “Nope. There’s not milk in there anyway.” I fell asleep, and got up before Carly left at 5:30 to go to the school dinner at a place down on the water in Netanya. When I had come out August was watching Puffin Rock. We watched the Dawn Chorus story together, then the one where they race. He wanted to pull out the other end of the table and he helped me do that. He was talking about Vivian pooping in the bathroom of the motor home and said “Sometimes I poop in motorhomes.” Which he never actually did. When he asked for a mint he started doing a whole happy mint dance and song, which was pretty cool. Then, as we put on his shorts or shoes, a “One foot and then the other” chant.

 

We walked up to downtown and the grocery store there. He had chosen it over going back to the other, and I thought we’d have good shade walking north in the evening. He was really tired in the grocery store, but did a good job of trying to not get frustrated and helping with the shopping. I had let him get another chocolate pudding thing, contingent on him helping, and when he would let out a small cry of frustration he would then check with me to see if I was going to put the treat back. He rode around in a cart and got out and walked part of the time.  The woman who rang us up was nice and commented on his nice blue eyes. We haven’t left those compliments behind in Korea.

 

On the way home I pointed out the moon. He asked if the moon talked – a reference to the talking moon in Sarah and Duck. So the moon talked to him, reminding him of calling it a banana and a D moon in Korea. We stopped at a park about halfway and sat and he ate a peanut butter sandwich. He didn’t want to play at all and we headed home. The town was quite lovely as the sun set, and I’ve noted that it all smells better than Korea where we would get some sewage smell and the smell of rotting ginkgo berries.

 

At home he watched some more Sarah and Duck and I cooked a broccoli veggie burger pattie that we found at the store. It is a nice green inside. I put it inside a warmed half of a pita along with some mayo and cheese and he ate almost all of it. Right before it was done he had wanted to call mama, so I had let him do that. But when we hung up he got upset and I thought he was just going to cry until she got home and wouldn’t eat anything. Luckily, I calmed him down and he ate a decent dinner.

 

Carly was home at 8:35. He was lightly hitting her and he said “I never do it on purpose.” Which was repeating something she had said to him, about how when she pokes him with a fingernail, etc. and hurts him it isn’t on purpose. But his clearly are.

 

Carly gave him a shower and he went straight to sleep after 9. But then he woke up sniffling a couple times. Clearly he was coming down with a cold. I had give him some allergy medicine right before bed and he said his throat itched, which he has heard from Carly and her allergic reactions. I check the ingredients on the burgers to see if there was anything unusual in them and there wasn’t. After a couple wake ups and as his nose got stuffier it was clear that he had been talking about a sore throat.

 

I, having napped earlier, now couldn’t really get fully to sleep and when he got up fully awake at 1:30 it did not feel good getting up with him at all. He watched Sarah and duck in his room and I slept in 5 minute increments. He was getting frustrated with the stuffy/runny nose and around and around 2:30 he broke down crying and frustrated, saying “The snot’s not going away…It’s not going to go away. Is it going to?” Took 15 or 20 minutes, but finally by 3 he was able to get back to sleep.

Nap on the couch: 

Playground at school: 

At the grocery store: 

View on our walk home: 

Broccoli sandwich: 

I was up at 8, Carly and August came down just after 10. Nursed, then they shared a strawberry yogurt: “I love it!” “Next time I want to shop for raspberry yogurt…And chocolate.” For the pristine white new table he said “I don’t like the scratchiness.” – echos of his complaints about the red chairs in Pennsylvania. He was then being silly in the bathroom: “How bout I pee out th window?” “I don’t think I’m going to stop peeing.” “I just love getting pee drips on me.” When he was done he said he wants a stool so he can reach the sink. Carly took a shower, then he wanted more yogurt and Carly suggested having grapes with it: “I love grapes and strawberry yogurt…Because I love mixing things.”

Then went and played out in the yard for awhile: he looked in the playhouse but didnt’ go in. Went down the slide once after we moved it into the shade although we realized the top of it is broken. Played on the seesaw some Moore, and then he found a nice nut on the ground. There were a few of them, but didn’t appear to be from the trees in the yard. I suggested that birds might pick up the fruits elsewhere and eat them in our trees. He came back to this idea several times through the day. He eventually took the nut he found (the shiniest of all of them) in to Carly.

Carly asked what he thought of the playhouse: “How was the playhouse?” “Good. I don’t like our home though.” He then decided to put the nut outside: “I want to put it back outside. Bye, nut!” But then he had a change of heart and it ended up in ‘his’ room on the windowsill. He was upstairs with Carly for awhile, then downstairs he had me pick him up so he could be right in front of the AC to feel the wind. He said “I want to stay here forever.”

We went for a walk at 12:30. We crossed the bridge to the mall on the other side. Right on the other side we saw a decent-sized lizard run across the path. We walked around, he danced in the little padded kids area in the mall, we did some shopping at the grocery store (pita, hummus, a knife, sugar to replace the ant-infested sugar at home, milk, soy milk…a few other things), he played briefly at the outside play area, we contemplated getting a coffee at the good coffee shop but decided against it, then headed home, getting back at 12:45.

Carly made spaghetti, but before we could have any her principal, Holly, who lives two or three doors down from us, said she could take us in her car to try to find a coffee maker and show us around. So she drove us up into town. We parked and went to one hardware store where we got a glass electric kettle – which is exactly what we wanted for tea, but not a coffee maker. But at least a success. We walked to a second place and saw a few shops along the way. She then drove us past the school and to the southwest to show us a couple other things (a nursery, another grocery store) and a restaurant where she needed to pick up a couple things.

She dropped us off and then we ate some spaghetti and soy milk and he had a pita with peanut butter and jelly in it. He played on our terrazzo (I would learn that from my dad later) tile floor, saying that the black stones were poop and that he was trying to not step on them. When that was too difficult he said he was vacuuming up the poop. Carly and I moved some furniture around – I like the idea of the dining table as a big table along the wall, and we created a couple of separate sitting areas. August liked the table against a wall, as it turned into a fort. We used all the pillows from downstairs, then he went upstairs twice to bring down a couple from the beds. He had a nice comfy fort and stayed in for awhile.

Eventually though he of course had to go to the bathroom and that took a good long time. Think this was the time that he wanted to look at the Human Body app while he was on the toilet, and Carly took one of the red chairs over so she could sit in the hall outside the bathroom. Carly went to the pharmacy up by the park and bought a few things and came back just as we were getting ready to go out to the park. So we waited for her, he played on the teeter totter some more, and we left at 6.

We walked the half block up to Bruner Garden, the park and playground a half block from us. He climbed around on this, talking a bit about how he wasn’t going to share things, although he then did share one panel thing just fine when a girl, Alma I think her name was (and mom was Eva), also wanted to climb on it. He played around on the ship play area for awhile, then rocked on a thing with Carly. Stayed about a half hour and left after 6:30. We stopped and smelled what we think was a sage plant – one we might consider having at home.

At home he ate some more spaghetti and sandwich. I got the green bouncy ball out (think he asked about it) and I got him to throw it halfway down the steps so it would bounce. When we got to the top of the steps though I couldn’t convince him to do it, and he wanted it back in my pocket instead. He nursed on the couch and was falling asleep. I said it was too early, so Carly woke him up. He startled and said “Wait, where’s the coin?” and kind of looked around for it by his hand and in Carly’s. He had been dreaming about a coin.

I gave him a little shower and he did just fine with it. He was then asleep at 8:30. Carly and I watched Game of Thrones, then were getting ready to head up when suddenly he appeared at the bottom of the steps at 11. Carly took him up, but he wasn’t falling back to sleep. So I called my parents and we skyped. Gave them the full tour and also talked about their three nights up in Holden. August ate a full peanut butter and jelly pocket sandwich. He played outside a bit with Carly, and was startled by a cat that ran through the yard. As he was being startled by that he backed up into the kitchen doorway, then I opened the door, startling him more. On Skype, he told grammar and grampa he wanted green nail polish.

My mom had mentioned the not liking cow’s milk thing, so after we skyped he wanted to watch cow milking videos. Watched a few, then he said “Can I have some cow milk?” While getting it he told Carly “I love your green shirt, mama.” At first he said he liked the cow’s milk, but then he said he didn’t. Went back upstairs with Carly and watched more cow videos and tried for sleep again. Long night short, at 1:30 Carly got up with him as she couldn’t sleep anyway. I fell asleep. They woke me up just before 3. He had been trying to sleep, but was now throwing the animals around, and still calls Green Monster Green Marshy, I took him into the master bedroom and Carly went to sleep. I tried to sing to him but he wouldn’t let me, saying “Your quiet sound is too quiet.”

We went into the little bedroom (his) and he looked at the now wrinkled seed and the paper mache ball from Vivian and his Israeli coin, He was’t happy that the nut is getting less shiny and wants to throw it out. He let me sing two songs to him, my usuals: Imaginary Bars and Idaho. He played with his cheeks in the mirror, then said he was ready to go to sleep. He went in at 3:20 and I thought he was asleep until, loudly, “mama, I want to switch.” We went back out at 3:35. We watched Sarah and Duck in his bedroom. He watched the No More Wool episode several times (he says he loves it and it is his favorite – calls it the machine episode), and the Christmas lights one a few times, and probably a couple others through the night.

He went back in at 4:15. Back out a few minutes later. We went downstairs and watched more Sarah and Duck. I would sleep for 4 or 5 minutes until the short episode was over, he’d ask for a new one, etc. We finally went back up at 5:55 and he was asleep just after 6.

The playhouse: 

A cat: 

iPad and bathroom: 

In his fort: 

At the playground: 

Sage: 

AC: 

Shower: