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He was up at 7:05. Very calm. Brought him down and had his usual vitamins and Cheerios and Ollie and Moon. I was wearing my blue shorts. I had let him choose the colors for me yesterday, and gone with the brighter blue at his suggestion. I asked how they looked, and he said “Good, but not as good as the green. You should wear the green more than you wear the blue. The more you like something the more you should wear it.” He sang the entire Ollie and Moon song on his own as he walked around the living room.

As we got going I asked if he wanted to wear his Crocs or sandals. He said “My sandals are too regularly not powerful. My turquoise shoes are laser powerful…” and talked about how he could control his lasers with his toes in the Crocs. As we stepped outside he said “Fresh and Rosy fingered.”

On the way to school talked about all the things he could defeat, like in a movie. I would then announce them in a movie announcer voice: He was then humming a song and then singing a song and pointing – something Ike “If you go that way, you’ll go over there…”

At school we found out that Anna was sick today. Ms. Seechin was here as a sub. This threw off August, and it was hard to leave him. He kept asking “What will the teachers do to me?” He played with shells and rocks and wood on the light table with Reia, then helped crush dried bread into bird feed. Finally, I left him after 8:50. I tried to get him to hold Marion’s hand, but as I left he started crying, so she picked him up. I paused outside though and think he calmed down right away. I saw Seechin later, and she said that he got a little sad, wondering when I’d be back, a bit later, but then was okay.

I went home (seeing rabbits just sitting next to a motorbike on the walk home), then returned. Making good progress on listening to Naipaul’s In a Free State on my walks back and forth. Then picked him up at 12:50. When I came in he showed me the big structure he’d built on the light table, out of the little people, the shells, rocks, and pieces of wood. He told me “I built the whole structure… It’s a house.”

We got going, and he found a green hair band thing on the ground. We sat at the picnic table outside the third classrooms. A second grade class came up the steps and he kept asking them “Does anyone own this?” He did the same thing with a pencil he found under the table. He ate some egg and kept asking people as they walked by.

He saw Ms. Stacy and said “Hey, Ms. Stacy!” She asked “Having some lunch with Dad?’ He replied “Yep. Going back for Playball.” In the lobby of the library building he sat and ate more. He was also saying “Saturday at 12, eat a nut, Sunday, look at you.” This is from the Scaredy Squirrel book, although it is actually “Look at view”. He decided ‘you’ is funnier though. And Debbie, the registrar, brought out a couple of wood game things for him to pay with. He liked them both, but especially the one with the magnet to move the little balls around. We went into the library for a short time and into the children’s area and he invented the big bladder game. He started a new game with the librarians, calling Liz the wrong name on purpose.

We then went back for the Playball class. It was the last one of the year. Don’t know why they aren’t having any specials next week. Going to be a rough last three days for the teachers. I sat on the grass and had a phone call with Omar to discuss our plans for Ramallah this next weekend.

After class, we went back to the library. We read some of Star Wars The Clone Wars R2 to the Rescue, then he built a bridge out of the big bookmark things they have kid use on the shelves nowadays (I’ve seen these at multiple libraries, but don’t remember them at all from when I was a kid). he had stuffed animals on it. We then checked out Magic Treehouse #19 and #20.

After 3:15 we went down to the preschool to ask Marion about bringing bread tomorrow (when I’d mentioned making banana carrot bread August had the idea of sharing bread with his class again and was very excited about it). She wasn’t there, but we saw Myriam, who offered us cookies. She said there was white chocolate and brown chocolate ones. August thought about it and said “Well, I have always had brown chocolate, so I will try white chocolate!”

On the way home he stopped to look at a lot of things. And a screw had come out of one side of his sunglasses. Luckily, they would still hold together okay and he could wear them.

We were home at 3:50. He played with the screwdriver set (later, after he was asleep, I would find the little screw to his sunglasses in the pocket of my last pair of shorts). We made water drink and had crackers and peanut butter, then started the banana and carrot bread. Carly got home. She had gone to the toy store to get toys for their class visit to the gan to read stories, and she’d brought back a new pack of the soft pink clay. They played with that, but then August was having problems, and put clay on her.

We finished the banana bread and he licked the spatula. He said that Ms Anna was a better teacher than me, but wouldn’t sy that anyone was better than Carly. Played more with pink clay, then I got him spaghetti. Ate, then he had fun telling Carly she should try white chocolate, which she refuses on principle.

She took him upstairs to his bath. I took over to wash his hair. Downstairs he ate banana bread and cherries – lots of yummy noises. We read through chapter 5 of Magic Treehouse #18.

Took him up to bed and I left them at 9:10. Asleep after a bit.

He woke up at some point and was afraid that it was a school day or mama was leaving. Something like that. got him back to sleep quickly. At 6:40 we heard him yell upstairs. Carly went up but he was asleep. She came back down, then we heard the door a few minutes later. After a few minutes of being quiet, he suddenly started singing his “I found a nut, but I think it’s a butt” song that he had made up on Friday. He was really giggling. He was also tapping out the rhythm with his need and foot on the couch, so his rests were properly timed and in rhythm.

Carly took down the string in the kitchen after August ran in the kitchen and almost got clotheslined by it. A few minutes later he asked her, very nicely, to hang it back up, so we tried to figure out another option. She ended up hanging it from the front door to the always-closed door to the garage.

I took a shower and got ready to go. Left right at 7:20 and drove to the Interior and Population Ministry office in Netanya. I was line in the stairwell right when it opened at 8. Got my number at the visa office, V146, which didn’t sound too bad, and sat down and started reading The Last Bus to Wisdom, our book for book club this coming Friday. So far, I was only about 25% done. I left over 80% finished. The office only had 2 people dedicated to visa issues, so it moved very, very slowly. Finally, 3 hours and change later, I had my first meeting. At issue is the fact that I have a B-1 visa, which is a work visa, but the status of forces agreement says I can only work for U.S. military, the school – those sorts of things. It says I can’t otherwise work without “permission of the authorities” or some language like that. So the question is who do I get permission from.

They said they’d have to talk to a manager, and sent me back to wait. And wait and wait. I asked a couple more times, as the office cleared out (they close to people between 12 and 2:30), and eventually it was just me and an African couple – a son and mother, I think, waiting for a ‘manager’. Eventually, the manager took my passport and disappeared for awhile. She came back and made a copy of it. More waiting, and I got to see things get pretty heated between the officials and the woman that was waiting. Eventually, I was told that they were trying to check with the foreign ministry office, as this was the first time they’ve had a question like this. So, clearly the answer to my question was that I was asking the wrong people here. I sat down for another 15 minutes or so. The manager walked by again and asked me “Why are you waiting here?” I said because they were checking. She said no, they couldn’t do that today, and I asked well, then how are you planning on contacting me with an answer? She wrote down my number, and I got at least her first name and a phone number for her. She didn’t give me a foreign ministry contact though.

So I headed home. While I was gone they cooked energy balls and spaghetti. He was pretty helpful, or did a good job of playing on his own. He did break one of of our grey bowls, and helpfully used tape to fix it. He did one of his hanging magnet sculptures, and in the process dropped the horseshoe magnet twice. Both times they glued it with superglue. They did some Spirograph, and he played with the bowls and water outside. And he watched plenty of Ollie and Moon – he covered his ears for the one where they have to find a bathroom, and eventually Carly skipped that one for him.

When I got home, he was out in the garden doing some naked gardening. He was digging holes, and they had been transplanting plants. Back inside he wanted to watch Sarah and Duck. He got upset when we said no to that, and Carly took him upstairs. When he calmed down and they came down they were talking about death: “Well, it will. Everyone dies, right?…So when I die I don’t have powers.” “Well, I definitely know you can’t move, cuz all the things in your body are dead, right?” “…bones dead, muscles dead, digestive system dead, every system dead…” And he said he wouldn’t nurse for four days. He had turned a consequence (starting at just a few minutes) into a game, and kept increasing the time himself until he got to four days. But it turned out there was a loophole:  “I’ll throw a chemical on you that makes you not remember one thing I don’t want you to remember.” So then he was throwing chemicals on us and we were pretending to forget.

Eventually, I got us going and he and I headed to Winter Lake Park to play at the playgrounds and do some challenges. He had tons of energy and was running back and forth in the house. Of course, on the 15 minutes drive to the park he managed to fall asleep. Just a couple minutes, but still.

We got to the park at 4:10. We parked on the west side, then walked to the spider web playground on the east side of the swamp, err, lake. I gave him challenges, like “Step on ten shadows” and “Turn something five times.” We did some shopping for the spider web and pretended to sleep under the web. We played around more and had a snack in the shade under the web. There was a small ‘Happy Purim!’ metal bucket that he picked up and was using as a shopping basket. There was also some sort of afterschool activities sort of class set up, and a bit later I realized the bucket we had taken was actually one of theirs. They had replaced it with another bucket. When I pointed this out, August at first said he really liked it and wanted to keep it, but then suddenly, he changed his mind and wanted to give it back. He got up and walked over on his own to where a couple of adults and a bunch of older kids were playing and he set it next to them. When they didn’t notice him or the bucket he tried a couple more times, moving it closer. He finally came back to me, happy, and said “I donated it.”

He then wanted to go over to the exercise equipment. He said “Exercise is a kind of playing, right?” We were over there for a short bit, then he needed to use the bathroom. We got on the bike and walked around the north end of the lake. He sang butt and dumb songs as we walked. He got off the bike to watch a big beetle on the ground and got it to walk over a piece of plastic and a leaf.

We made our way back to the car. The lot was now more than packed due to some sort of party in the park. We drove to the mall and parked, then went in and looked for shorts for me at Fox. I got two pairs, then we went right across to the Rebar stand. While in Fox he was excited to see a new Rebar video (commercial) that he liked on their big screen. We got the banana chocolate peanut butter one and sat at the counter and ate it. We then looked around the mall for one of those blow up cubes you can use on an airplane to fill up the foot space so that a kid has a flat area to sleep on. Ordered on on Friday from Amazon, but it is doubtful it will get here in time. Waiting for the elevator, he called to a couple “Hi Jack and Celeste!” It was not Jack and Celeste. The guy at the outdoors store suggested Ace. We’ll look there sometime, but seems like a long shot.

Walked around the whole mall looking at a few other stores that had stuff for children or luggage, but no luck. Headed home. On the way he explained all about a country of Tontilifon that is ‘only’ a couple overnight airplane rides away (6, he said, arguing that is a ‘couple’) that has really bad weather, and only he can live there. He was also singing some of the “Erasure” song we had heard earlier on his playlist. Not a song by Erasure, but a song called “Erasure” by Superchunk that’s pretty catchy: https://youtu.be/Ci-MGpBvUko 

We got home at 7:30. We looked at all of the transplanted plants that Carly had finished up. We heard barking and it was the little dog from the neighbors that had crawled under the fence into the yard below ours. August looked through the fence at it and called “Hey dog, can you bark at me?…Good! I like barking!” I went in but they stayed out un
til 8. He was making a “concoction” of dirt for the plants.

Inside he had some spaghetti for dinner, then they checked on their date-left-in-water experiment. He then wanted some plain noodles to eat, saying they looked like aliens with gears. She took him up to a bath, and he bit his tongue. She did his bath and got him ready, and I said good night at 8:40. We switched a little after 9. I tried singing to him but he just sang “butt, poop, penis, pee, concrete…” I stopped and said he could just sing on his own for awhile. I was just lying there, falling asleep on his own, when after a couple minutes he got quiet, said some random word and made a noise, and rolled on his side and fell asleep, about 9:15 or so.

He woke up about 6:40 with a bad dream: “No! No!” Carly came in, but he didn’t go back to sleep. Downstairs he watched Ollie and Moon on the iPad. It restarted on him, but he handled it well. He wanted to watch on Carly’s computer, but said he wanted to watch outside so he wouldn’t see his iPad. They were outside when I came down. I took a shower, then downstairs he asked “Dada, what are feelings for?…like happy, sad, angry…” Carly liked discussing that with him. He ate an egg, then he played with his doctor kit. He squeezed the stethoscope into an X shape and said “My Dr. X Wi-Fi is for in case I have to cut someone over…I have to cut open Monkey Nice Banana.” He also asked “Mama, what is dreams from?”

Carly went outside, and I got screwdrivers out to open up one of the doctor tools that had a dead battery. He was then using a screwdriver to fix things. Then “Now I’m RoboZinnie X”. I had been a robot as well, and he had been fixing me with the screwdriver. He also fixed his balance bike, so then we took it out and he rode it around, pretending to be RoboZinnie X. He wanted me to ride my bike as well, but when I got on it out in the street he left me and went in, trying to find Carly.

I got us ready to go and we went for a walk so Carly could do some grading. We got to Treasure Hunt park at 10:20. Had a snack, then he wanted me to do Eeenie meanie. I chanted it several times, pretending there were 6 or 7 people choosing who was it. I was just pointing at the platform area, making shapes: a hexagon, then a pentagon, etc. as people were eliminated. We had just started doing treasure hunts when Shmorgadeboop showed up at 10:40. August was first alarmed, screaming and saying “Oh no! We were having so much fun without Shmorgadeboop!” and “I’m afraid of Shmorgadeboop!” When the cat started rubbing against him, August was telling the cat to go away and said ‘I’m communicating!”

But a couple minutes later August spilled some Cheerios, and the cat started eating them. This was a lot of fun, and August started picking up the Cheerios and feeding Shmorgadeboop. We did a treasure hunt, then went and played with the swings. August was winding one up and letting it go. At the end it would re-wrap itself the opposite direction: “That was so much force!” I sat on the ground and Shmorgadeboop was next to me, and August was a cat in my lap. I had my phone out, and they were both playing with the handle on it. We went to the bench and had some apple. He found a little pearly bead but then dropped it in the grass. He wanted me to find it, and remarkably I spotted it after just a couple seconds.

He sang the school bell when he was done with the park, and we left at 12. We headed towards the school and swimming. Before we got to the main street, he spotted an old tire from a kids bike and got so excited “I will take it home. I will take it home. I will take it home…” He decided that it could be a backup in case he ever gets a kids bike but then needs a new tire. He told Carly “I’ll tell mama.” He had it around him on the bike as we walked and said “I’m like a delivery truck.”

We almost got to school, we were at the corner of it, but then decided he didn’t want to swim. He wanted to head home and tell Carly about the tire as soon as possible. I reluctantly gave in, but wouldn’t let him have more of the lemon mints, as he had already had one after we left the park and had gotten very demand-y with them. He got really upset about that. This made for a really long walk home. We stopped a few times to comfort him, but then he kept rubbing his eyes and I realized they were bothering him. I asked if they were itchy and he said “Yes!” They were also getting very puffy. We hadn’t washed his hands after the cat, and his hands were also all dirty from the tire, covered in dust. His face was streaked with dirt. We washed his hands off, and he put water on his eyes, but that just made water drip on his shorts. Disaster all around. He kept stopping, but the best thing was to get home, so then I was forcing us to keep going, making him upset.

We were finally home after 12:45. He was saying “Stupid allergies…idiot allergies.” Calmed down a little, but then had a meltdown. I stayed with him in the bedroom, then we came down at 1:40. He seemed okay, but back downstairs he pinched his foot moving a chair and got upset. Carly took him back upstairs. We thought he might take a nap, but no luck.

When they came back down he had some water drink and offered some to Carly. He asked her “Why don’t you love water drink‽” He told Carly about “Eenie meanie…” She asked “Who taught you that?” He replied “The eenie meanie singer: dada.”

Ate some veggie burger, then used a safety pin to pop a nearly-dead balloon. He made up a song: “pin, pin pin, I love you so much, you can stand like an archie arch.” Then a “I washed my hand, and dried my hands, I went to the bathroom and washed my hands” song.

I took him out agin a little before 3. Carly was also dealing with a cold, so could use the rest time. We walked over to the mall to do our grocery shopping. He didn’t like that the playground was busy. We went inside, but the inside play area was gone. Or more correctly it was taken apart and stacked in a corner. Not sure if it is being taken out, or it was just being cleaned.

We went shopping. I let him choose a choose, and he chose the herb cheddar in the green wax, which we’ve had before. He had fun the rest of the time scratching up the wax. We paid and got going. Still didn’t want to try the playground. On the walk home we ate some sweet potato chips and saw a lizard. We were back by 4:30.

He was covering his ears and acting strangely. Carly came down and thought he was sad, or that his ears were hurting. He said he was just doing it for funsies. A little out of character. He asked me a couple times to open the cheese, as it was our plan to try the cheese with crackers when we got home. But I couldn’t find it, and it didn’t look like we’d paid for it. He claimed he had dropped it in the cart when he was done scratching it, but I think it may have missed. Felt a little bad, as it was pretty scratched up, I’m sure.

He wasn’t upset about the loss of cheese. He drank the water from his ice experiment – before we had left he had put some ice in a cup to see how it would melt. In the bathroom he showed me how he figured out he could pull apart the sheets of toilet paper, then asked for a piece of paper towel to do the same. Not sure how he learned to do that, but it is a nice little piece of fine motor work. Of course, then a bit later, he had a cup of milk and brought it over to the coffee table. He went to set it down and I don’t know what happened. It didn’t seem close. It spilled. He helped her clean the carpet and I grabbed the green painted box and washed it off. Carly hung up another string in the kitchen, and he got right to taping – mainly the string at the door end.

Carly skyped with Chuck and Cherie, then August and I got going to dinner, leaving after 6:20. We drove up to Sushi Ishimoto in town. He sang a “dumb’ song on the way up, and I told him to get it out of his system before we got there. We sat at our usual table and got our usual: the pad thai with shrimp. He ate all the shrimp. When I ordered (off the hebrew menu, I was able to do) I got a dish for Carly to go, and I also asked for water with lemon. When she brought the water there wasn’t any lemon with it. August tried asking her a few times, across the dining room, “Could I have some lemon, please?” When she actually came back over to us he was too shy to ask himself. She brought him four or five slices of lemon. He was very happy about that. He put all the lemon in, squishing it with his hands. He said he really liked it. Although, later, when it had soaked for awhile, he said it was too lemon-y, even when I poured more water in to dilute it.

Anyway, we als
o read a few pages of Oliver and the Seawigs. Soon before we left, August tipped his chair backwards and fell. He was okay though. When we left at 7:10 he said “Feels nicer out here!” We decided that the next time we come in the evening we should sit outside. We got to the car (just across the street in the dirt lot) and realized we didn’t have the book, so walked back and got it. August spent some time playing with a stick, pushing it into the holes in the rocks in the wall along the sidewalk.

We were home at 7:35. I think he tasted the noodle dish we got for Carly, then she took him up for a bath. Downstairs, we had the last berry brain and ice cream. When I brought it to him he told me “Don’t be scrap boy now!” He let me have a bite though. He ate it all, then when I mentioned he had a stuffed belly he stuck it out and looked at it. Apple Photos told me we had a new ‘memory’ called ‘Growing Up 2017’ and we watched that. Kind of cool.

Carly kept asking August “Can I cut your hair?” We took him up and got him ready for bed. I left theme a little before 9 and he was asleep a little after 9.

6:10. He called “Dada” with the door still closed. Carly went in and got him back to sleep.

I went to wake him up at 7:20. It took a couple minutes and when he opened his eyes he gave me a startled look. He had kind of cuddled up next to me and knew someone was there, but I think he thought it was you. He asked something like “Why isn’t Mana up here?” He was a little upset to find you were at work. He asked for a treat and I offered him Logan bread, water drink, oatmeal, etc. I said peanut butter and honey toast and he rejected that. But then he got a big smile on his face and giggled and said “Cinnamon and sugar toast.”

So I agreed it was a cinnamon and sugar sort of morning and we went downstairs. As I made it I joked about putting other things on it instead, like paprika. I asked if he wanted cilantro and he gave me the biggest exasperated “Ugk”. So funny and teenagery. I then joked that I put snail slime on instead of butter as we were out of butter. He said that would be gross and I told him everyone knows that snail slime is a good butter substitute. “No. I’ve tasted snail slime 200 times and it’s always tastes bad to me.” Me: “Wait, of it tastes bad to you wouldn’t you stop after two or three times?” Him: “No, I’m a special person. And I was trying different kinds.”

For a his second piece of toast I played it straight, stating only the actual ingredients. He said “Make jokes!” He was on a roll this morning. As we were getting ready to go he said “Stop brushing your teeth; we have other things to do.” As we went out the door and I checked to make sure we had everything he said “We have everything we need? We have the most important thing of all, me? Were pretty lucky that we have me.”

We left at 8:12. He got a lemon mint and told it “Come out of the mint, oh flavor!” On the walk he told me he knows another universe exists, and he proved it to me by taking me there. He said I could tell it was a different universe because everything was pink, except for the humans and aliens, which were peach. And he told me “I know how to moisten noses.”

At the school he went and explored the roundabout in the parking lot. He found a broken snail shell: “I think it was destroyed by a war. A snail war. I’ve heard of snail wars sometimes. In snail wars a couple snails get killed. I’ve heard of snail wars in books.”

In the classroom we looked at the schedule, and there was a blank spot in the morning. He had to know what it was, so went and asked Anna. She said the schedule had been chosen by kids for today, so they’d discuss it in morning meeting. He was okay with that. And he was okay with me leaving as he stood by the clay table. Candy had just come in with her mom, upset, and as I walked out I found out why as I almost slipped in the throw up all over the floor just inside the door.

I went home and worked, then walked back to get him at 12:50. Got him, as there was a video story of Frog and Toad playing, but he didn’t want to watch it. Outside, Hector’s and Yaya’s moms were putting together presents for the teachers. It involved putting fingerprints of the kids on three pictures of trees (for the two teachers and Myriam, I assume). Two fingerprints on each, so six total. When it was done, August said he really liked that.

We went up to the library and sat in the red chairs and had a snack. He said “It’s our last day in Korea.” I asked if he meant the day we left, and he said no, the day before that – full day. Telling me about his day he said “I played with Reia with the little Legos. Leonard and Emmitt destroyed it…I said to Reia ‘Let’s do more nos….No, no, no, no, no…” He talked about them not being friends for awhile after that. A woman came out of the library and he said “Hey, Ms. Michelle.” Turns out it was Ms. Paris. Not sure what her job is, but she knows August by name. He ate more egg and apple. And I had to shut down the “tusic” thing as he kept saying the word.

We walked back to the preschool before 1:30. The bell had rung and there were big kids everywhere. I heard him saying hi to students as we walked down the stairs, and he told me “I was saying ‘hey big students!’”

We went in for the tea party. We were sitting with Emmitt and his big sister, Teegan, who Carly has in two classes (she’s in 6th grade). And it turned out that their mom, Ms. Stacy, could make it. So it was the five of us. We had a lot of fun. There were cookies and bread with honey and apple crumble, all made by the students. Emmitt poured the tea. August said it was too full for him, but he could practice when it was emptier. Emmitt barely sat there, so it was mainly August talking to Ms. Stacey and Teegan. He sang Down by the Bay for them, making up funny verses, and asked Teegan (when I reminded him she was mama’s student) how her reading was, and she told us about the book City of Embers. And he told Teegan all about flubong.

All the kids were then heading out to the playground. I went out and gave him a couple challenges: find three interesting noises by hitting things and then find three low noises. He ended up in the kitchen area finding most of the noises, then was making stew in the kitchen. Omri came along and asked August if he wanted a carrot. They went over and were looking through the carrot patch. Cute, until I realized she was just pulling out all the carrots, looking for a big one for August. I rinses two little ones off and he ate them.

Back at the playground, he watched as Emmitt, Leonard, Nicholas, and another boy or two chased Teegan around. He seemed confused at first, but then joined in the chasing. It seemed to click for him why the chasing games were fun, although I think he’s a long way away from wanting to just play with the boys like they normally do, especially if he might get chased himself. When he had a chance he told Teegan about his super lasers. She said “Super powers? Oh no!” August kept asking me “Why’d she say ‘super powers? Oh no!’”

When there was a pause in the chasing August a couple times asked me things like “When it’s the end of the day and we can do anything can you be Teegan and I can defeat you?”

August was casting all sorts of spells on her, like “Impossible to melt icebergs!” The other boys were all being different things (bears, vampires, monsters, etc.) as they attacked her. At one point they were all casting spells on her and she was actually acting out being all the things they changed her into: “Abracadabra! A marshmallow!…Earwax!”

Teegan kept it up for a good half hour, and I told her mom when she came back to pick them up that she should grab an extra cookie for her. She said “Probably slip her a few shekels, too!”

After they left, August asked again “Can you be Teegan and I’ll be the boys chasing you?” He needed to use the bathroom so we went in and did that, and I congratulated Anna and Marion on the tea party. He played on top of the car and we played rhythms on it, then after the bathroom we went to the Dion playground and did more rhythms and played with some other things, like spinning wooden balls in a colander.

We headed up to the library to sneak and find Carly, who was scanning things. Going up the stairs he spotted ants carrying a much bigger dead ant up the wall. We watched them, then found Carly in the library. One of the children’s books her students had made wasn’t scanning correctly, so I helped with that, and she walked around the empty library with August. He then sat at a computer and pretended to be Lillian playing a big kids game. He had me sit next to him and I was a student named Jack.

We went outside and Carly went to pack up. August grabbed the back of our usual bench, and it fell over on him, hitting his knees. Looked much scarier than it was. He told me “Next year I’ll change my name.” Like Lillian. He then found one of these hard little seeds he keeps finding everywhere and star
ted a song/chant that he was very, very proud of: “I found a nut, but I think it’s a butt.” Carly arrived, and we went to Ayal’s classroom to see where the falcon nest is. You can’t see in the nest, and we didn’t see any falcons coming or going, so we headed out.

On the walk home he said “I’m a narwhal. Can’t catch me! Super shy!” Which he reminded me is from that Narwhal and the Jellyfish book from February. He did watch a video about Narwhals a few weeks ago though. He also asked “Why is a spiderweb super strong, but to us it’s really weak?” So we talked about relative mass as we got home at 4:50.

He ate a hard boiled egg and watched Ollie and Moon. He then got the dowel from the paper roll and knighted me, then Carly reluctantly let him knight her as well. He ate some mushrooms, then oatmeal and mango. Then we had a berry brain and ice cream. I ate a little of it, but let him have most of it. He enjoyed that, and said “I shouldn’t have had that taffy.” He meant yesterday, when he chose the taffy candy in the office over a blueberry brain.

We finished the Magic Treehouse book, #18. In it they are on the Great Plains and meet Native Americans before the arrival of the settlers. August asked why that was important, and after I explained he was saying “White people are stupid. I hate white people.” We read a little Over and the Seawigs. He was then talking about preschool and the possibility of me not being at the library, but at home, especially next year. He turned it into a game, where I pretended to be at home but then drove to preschool really fast if he was sick, etc.

Took him up for his bath, then we got him ready for bed. I left them at 8:40. He wasn’t going to sleep, so I took over at 9. Finally, at 9:30 he wanted Carly back. She came in and he went to sleep right away.

He slept a long time, but was rather restless. He said “blueberry brains” once in his sleep.

I woke him up at 7:25. 12 and a half hours of sleep. He went to the bathroom right away. Got his clothes off, and as we left the bathroom his first words of the morning were “I want some naked time.” Downstairs we took a photo of him with a vitamin on his head for mama. He then told me “You should count my yawns, too.” He watched one Ollie and Moon story (honey from Scotland) and then got ready to go.

Stepped outside to realize that Carly had accidentally taken his bike with her in the car when she drove to work (she was taking fruit for a party after school). Considered getting a stroller, but he wanted to walk, so off we went, at 7:57. Along the way we tried out some lemon breathe mints that we had bought some time ago. He liked them, and kept wanting more. August walked from home all the way to the end of Vatikim. I then carried him up the hill, then he walked down most of it. I picked him up when a dog was coming, then carried him a bit further across the street at the big roundabout. He then walked the last block into school.

The whole walk took 45 minutes, but only partly because of his walking speed. He also found and did things: he stopped at the little park (Tal Garden) and rode the motorcycle thing and talked about dog poop, dragged a big stick along the road, found a piece of garbage, found a flower (“best thing I found on  our walk”), stopped for some Logan bread (“Can I have some Logan bread made from the friend Logan?”), played with a wire, made up a song about the wire (“what did you do, when I didn’t find you?…made that up. About the broken wire.”) and found various rocks which he then said were the hardest things in the universe until he blasted them with his laser rockets – he said he’d been blasting one of them for two years.

On campus we saw Airport Megan outside her classroom. She asked if August wanted to see her students – they were in practicing typing on computers. She opened the door for him and he was excited, but he was too nervous to get any closer.

We got to his classroom and I was able to leave at 9:15. We looked at the garden and it said library time in the morning and garden time in the afternoon. He asked to come back for garden time, saying “I love garden time.” He went and sat next to Ms. Anna in the pottery area and I was able to leave.

I worked in the library. At 10:30 they showed up for the final library time of the year. I got his “Come with us, dada!” on video this time. Ilana showed them a website called bookflix, then they watched a book called Scaredy Squirrel and a nonfiction book about squirrels. They then checked out books. No books about school this time, so he got It’s My Birthday.

Walked them back to the classroom and sat on the floor and read August’s book to him and some other kids, and then Selma’s (something like Black and White Bunny’s ABCs). Hanako was looking at her book and saw the word ‘A’ and pointed it out to August, as his name starts with A.

They didn’t need me to help with the Tea Party book, so assigned me the table with Zingo – a sort of Bingo game. Had 4 to 6 kids there constantly for an hour: August, Derin, Emmitt, Juhyeok, Reia, Omri, etc. August eventually lost interest and went and was making a ball track with Emmitt and Yaya when I left at noon. The kids had finished up a round of Zingo and Reia and Juhyeok, all on their own, cleaned up the entire game and put it in the box and put it away. I told Marion how helpful they had been.

I went and ate lunch and got a little work in (reading reports of mental health issues in Gaza) and picked him up at 12:50. He was already in the classroom, and he was being silly with Emmitt – they were talking about a potty, although I didn’t catch much. Later August told me he likes Emmitt except when he’s doing chasing games or being crazy in the treehouse.

We went up on the bench and kept eating. August eats really slowly at school. He was hungry at the library even though they had just had snack (and we had brought a loaf of the Logan bread to share for snack) and he’d barely touched his lunch. He now continued to very slowly eat more of it – mainly the granola and grapes. He refused to touch the apricot again. He didn’t like that it had been cut in half and the pit taken out. He wanted to be able to bite into it until he reached the pit, then have a teacher take it out.

He did some experiments, making “a new Mike” and a “nutting machine”. That is, a machine that made nuts. We saw Israel Cassie and I reminded him she had given us the lollipops. She was talking to someone else though, and when she was done a few minutes later he ran over to her and shouted “Thank you for the lollipops!” We talked about what he had done today and he said “This day I made that track with Yaya and Emmitt and I did that potty with Emmitt.”

He wanted to go inside to air conditioning, so we went inside the building doors, but he was still eating so we sat in the lobby. We discussed our day in Korea again, going to the children’s museum, then a coffee shop and getting a strawberry smoothie. We went inside for a little while and set up a chess set. He then used extra chess pieces and checkers pieces to fill up the whole board: “We’ll have extra pieces on here. Funny chess.”

We got to the yoga room a little early and sat outside and read his book again. He went in when his class got there. Ms. Stacy said he had the perfect shirt on (his sharks shirt) as they were going to be doing ocean stuff today. When class was over he ran out to me saying “I got a sticker cuz I did so well and I was a helper!” He wanted me to put the purple heart sticker on my shirt.

We went down to the preschool and to the Dion playground. He made rhythms on the instrument wall and then I would copy his rhythms. Maya came along and saw the sticker on my shirt and was in awe. She said that Ms. Stacy gives out those stickers for being a helper. I told her August had been the helper today.

Up at Hebrew I sat outside the room and did more reading. Hebrew class was fine. The second half they were making booklets with different pictures and words in them. He did some cutting on his own, then I helped him. He got a little upset when he had cut into one of his hats. He wanted to use the glue stick to fix it, but didn’t like my answer that it wasn’t possible that way.

Got that put away though and he rebounded. He wanted to go take a look at the PKC classroom. I was picking him up to see over a door into a storage area when Carly came along. He told her we were “Investigating” PKC.

We went to her classroom for awhile and they were acting out vocabulary words and having me guess them. Carly took him to the bathroom, then we walked to the car and got the bike. She drove home and we walked to his activity class.

He was the only kid for about 10 minutes, until Lavid showed up, along with his little sister. Before he showed up, August had heard the ice cream truck and started to get sad. I reminded him we had blueberry brains at home. Technically he had already chosen a strawberry taffy as we had walked through the middle school office with Carly. But I would have shared a berry brain with him, but we never got around to it.

At the end of activity class August saw the kids for the next class standing outside the door and he was saying things through the glass to them, like “Come in big boys and girls!”

We started walking home and stopped at the exercise area. He played a little there and we had more to eat. Then across to the busy playground for about 15 minutes. He went up to his space station area and played in there, and was impressed by the kids climbing on top of it. He was saying things like “Shalom!” through the window thing, and telling them to climb up again.

We left there, him reluctantly, at 6:10. I spotted the ice cream truck
outside the community center and I tried to be sneaky and walk around the back of the center. Almost worked, but the gates were locked on the other side. We had to walk back around, but I was able to walk close to the doorway of the building. August could have looked to the left and seen it, but he didn’t. As we walked by the treasure hunt playground he was working on remembering the number sequences: ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, etc. up to nonillions. He told me to correct him if he got it wrong.

At one point he asked me “What’s precious peace?” Later I figured out it was from Ollie and Moon and he meant ‘precious piece’ of something. By the Israeli school he found a pencil and took it home. At home he said something about the dog poop that had been by our gate for a few days. He had noticed yesterday that it was gone.

We were home at 6:45. Carly had started boiling eggs for us as we walked home, as he said that was what sounded good. He ate an egg and mushrooms and milk for dinner. He watched two stories of Ollie and Moon.

I got him in his bath then Carly took over. Carly had made him oatmeal before his bath as he said he was still hungry, and he had a little more after. He told me “Ms. Anna said she’s bored giving me challenges. Now I get challenges from Ms. Marion.” We read chapter 8 of the Magic Treehouse book.

He was tired and as I carried him upstairs he talked about having “Tapuz” – the first time he’s referred to ‘apple’ in Hebrew, I think. I left them at 8:55. She brushed his teeth and he was asleep in ten minutes.

He was up at 7:05. He slowly woke up on the couch and watched two stories of Ollie and Moon, ending with the Smigus Dingus one (the Polish holiday where they throw water on each other), which he’s already seen. He would talk about it several times during the day. As we got ready to go he said “I’m thinking of made up rhyming words that make ing.” He also sang a little song: “I was running in a button store / I fell down and broke a button.”

We were walking right after 8:40. He joked he had cancelled school because peanuts had been found on campus. I dropped him off at 8:15. We discussed schedule and then when I was trying to leave he asked “Can a teacher hold me?” Anna came back with clay stuff and put it on a table and he asked her “Can you help me?” I sat him on a chair and was able to say goodbye and leave.

I talked to Marion about leaving him through rest time. She strongly thought that wasn’t a good idea, and in fact we decided I should pick him up a few minutes earlier so he isn’t wandering around at the beginning of rest time. She said she thinks the reason he is good/happy at that time is because he knows he is being picked up – that he’d go back to being upset again if he had to stay through rest time.

That works just fine for me. I just have Maaian’s voice in the back of my head and the insistence that he should go full time. But I’m much happier listening to the teachers and going on what they want. I’m curious what Maaian thinks about all this and if she’s said anything to them. Although I don’t really want to know.

I worked in the library, then went back to the preschool to volunteer at 11. They were finishing up a birthday book story from Nicholas’s birthday, which had been after snack. They then had me work with the word factory – having kids copy down words for the tea party book. Yaya and Juhyeok came and worked with me first, copying down words like ‘bees’ and ‘honey’ and ‘apple cobbler’. The two of them and Selma then copied the whole alphabet out, because they wanted to (Yaya started the idea). It was a lot of fun, and I used some of the same phrases to help them draw letters as I had with August when he was learning them. K, in particular, a couple had trouble with, so I wa showing them “Line down, sideways V, turns to K.” August, meanwhile, had a little difficulty as he wanted my attention, but he didn’t want to copy down words. He settled down pretty well to my right though, playing with the magnetic letters and making cranes and pulleys out of the strings and magnet pencil things for the ABC boards.

When it was time for lunch I got his lunchbox for him and told him I’d see him after lunch. He headed out the side door, I did a little cleanup, then left and went up to a bench in the center grass area and ate my own lunch.

I went back at 12:50 and they were still finishing up lunch. So I stayed outside with the ones that were being slow, which included August. They had introduced me as ‘Mr. Ryan’ today, the first time, I think, so it was funny to be called ‘Mr. Ryan’ about a hundred times. As we were finishing up, Selma called dome ‘Mr. Clown’. Anna thought that was funny, and Omri and August got into the act of calling each other funny names. August called me “Mr. root of a tomato plant.” Anna really thought that one was funny.

He and I got going at 1:05, and something he did yesterday was take water in his mouth with his water bottle and ask if he could spit it on the ground. I would say yes to the dirt, etc. I called it his water language since he could just point and mumble. So today he said “I will ask to spit in water language.”

We went up to our usual bench spot. August continued the silly name calling with random people as they walked by or he saw them off in the distance. He called out to some teenage girls walking by “Hey, Ms. Annas.” Others were “Hey Ms. Althauser.” “Hey, drinking fountain.” “Hey, Ms. Mike.” Then “Ms. Bat-Chen”. It was actually her. She stopped and talked for a minute. We discussed the Hebrew message and video that Shmuel had sent me on WhatsApp and she let August try the rice cake she was carrying. He said “It tastes like a rice cracker.” And didn’t like it. He was also wanting to call people “Ms. tusic” and other names like that, but luckily no one was close when he called those out, and I was able to stop him from using ones like that.

We went into the library, among the stacks again, and did some iPad art. Some more dot connecting, and some teasing game, then he drew a picture for Carly’s fake birthday. He drew a picture of a toilet for her, which was perfect, and filled it with pee. In explaining it he said “There’s a tank in the toilet to pee and poop in. I love you! Best friend! Toilet!” Wasn’t clear if he meant Carly was the best friend, or the toilet, and to whom. A class came in went in for library time. A girl gave him a high five. I thought it might have been one of the Kerns (well, Jill) or Omri’s sisters but August said it wasn’t one of them.

We then headed to the cafeteria. Got an iced cofffee for me, a hot chocolate for August, and a cappuccino for Carly. We took them to Carly’s classroom and as we went in he yelled “Happy fake birthday, Ms. Althauser!” She said it was good timing as she’d just finished an hour-long meeting with Ayal about the department next year. I told her about my volunteering and he said he wanted to learn how to draw a K: “I forgotted.” She showed him, and he made up some letters. I’d been reading (in the Already Ready book Maaian had loaned me) how kids normally develop writing skills, and one step is making up letters as they pretend to write. August was into making up languages for a long time (and still sort of is) and has made up some On Beyond Zebra letters, but I was wondering if he’d get into making up ‘real’ fake letters and now he sort of was.

He also told Carly about the crossing guards slowing down traffic on the way to school. He was then a student in her fake class. Carly named off some random names and he chose Hildegard. Carly tried to call him Hildy and he made it clear “Hildegard, not Hildy.”

A little after 3, he and I headed to the pool. Spent about 40 minutes in. He sat on the steps and played with the watering can for awhile, then I got him in with me. For the last 10 minutes or so I took off his floaties again and he played around that way. We went and changed in the bathroom, then stopped and were playing ping pong.

Carly had driven the car today so she could go to the store. By chance we were leaving as she was. He saw her across the grass, ahead of us and yelled “Ms. Althauser!” She didn’t turn around, and as she was about to go out the gate he started screeching “Mama!” She turned around, but didn’t realize it was August until she saw him.

Carly asked if he wanted to go to the store, so they left in the car and I walked home. They went over to the mall. They were back a little after 5:30. He had been upset about not playing at the mall after shopping, and I guess shopping wasn’t the greatest. He continued to have a meltdown as he remembered the blueberry brains and wanted to eat that – before dinner. Got him to eat some mushrooms and milk using the usual reverse psychology, then he had oatmeal and mango. He was now doing fine.

I took him up for his bath, then we were going to have the dessert. He threw a balloon of water on my shorts though after I told him not to. I switched with Carly and took over the dishes. Sadly, things continued to go downhill. He hit her, so she said he couldn’t have a blueberry brain. That completed the meltdown, as he pleaded with her: “I’ll be nice!” But then he fell asleep, naked, at 7. Really what he needed. We managed to get clothes on him later.

Earlier discussed what kids liked. He at first said there wasn’t anything specifically he liked. But then he said science. I asked about art and po
ttery. He said “Art and pottery…definitely.”

He didn’t want to wake up. I started waking him up about 7:20, then gave up and lay with him for a few minutes. Finally brought him down 7:45. Still no talking for a few minutes, although he ate his vitamins. He watched one Ollie and Moon, then we hurried off to school, taking the car.

I got there and volunteered first thing in the morning this time. Didn’t have much luck getting Emmitt interested in drawing a picture for the page, but August drew a picture of tea spilling everywhere: “The pink and the green is the persons, and the orange is the tea, okay?” I then helped Nicholas make a train, helping hold the paper so he could cut the pieces apart, then cut the tape to tape it together. Meanwhile, August was making big sculptures out of pieces of wood. I volunteered until after 9:30. They were having a late morning meeting. When August saw the schedule today he said “That’s easy!” Then he was getting to ring the bell for morning meeting and was just fine with me saying goodbye.

I drove the car home and worked and had lunch, then drove back. When I picked him up at one he was lying on the floor, resting: “not on a bed…the morning meeting rug.” As we left he said to Anna “Have a good rest time!”

I asked what the highlights of the day were, and he first said me picking him up. Then “Having you stay here for a little while to help with the tea party book…Why you always help with the tea party book? Cuz me and Emmitt couldn’t do it by ourselves?”

We sat outside library. He said they read Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You See? in Creative Movement class and acted it out. Then said “We did mindfulness and yoga with Ms. Stacy.” with a grin on his face. When I said I could message Ms. Anna and ask if that was true he said “No! Don’t do it!” As he snacked on his cheerios he asked a bunch of questions, like

– where are all the 4th graders?

– what does Mike do?

– what’s ‘k’ (sound)? What’s ‘sh’?

He was being totally social. He told the Shery, the ELL teacher, all about how he likes dry Cheerios and his other favorites snacks and sweet things like honey and brown sugar and white sugar.

Then he saw Mike and asked “Have you ever seen that elephant?…You know, the one you told me about…” “I think it was actually a joke!” They talked for a good minute. After Mike left he said “I don’t like Mike cuz he’s a government. A bad government that tells people what to do.” Later I would tell Carly it was her fault that he doesn’t like government, as she taught him about government. But then I realized I’d told him about Star Wars yesterday and this comes from my description of the Empire.

He also talked about “Dextra…he’s in 4th grade…he lives across the street from us. I seen him walk by. I say ‘hello, Dextra!…like juhyeok cuz he sometimes gets mad.” We then went in the library and I downloaded a few reading/word apps since he’s interested in letter sounds again. He played some Endless Wordplay and Intro to Words, then started some art. Ms. Amelia came by and we talked to her. He told her he was doing “two letter games and art game.” I asked if she also goes by Ms. H. She does not, and doesn’t know who that is. So still don’t know who Ms. H is, who August has talked about several times. In art I asked if he’d like to write some words for the tea party book: “No. We’ll do the dots game. I’ll do the dots and you connect them.” We talked about the symbiotic relationship of squirrels and trees, as squirrels spread the seeds.

We then walked over to coding class. It was the last session, so at the end he got a certificate. Later in the evening Carly was talking about how she was told that certificates are really a big thing in Israel. I got this one out and showed her. He had fun in class and let me sit outside and work. He spilled his granola and I went in and helped clean it up. Then he spilled it again.

After class we went down and he played with the ball and tube thing with the pieces that connect to the wall magnetically. We were playing with that and had a pretty good path going when Carly showed up. We stayed a few more minutes, then he was rather disappointed when we wouldn’t go back to Carly’s classroom to play there. I reminded him of the pomegranate lollipop, the second of the two that Israel Cassie had given us yesterday, and he was happy with that. Gave it to him when we left on his bike at 4:15. Ate it faster though, as it only lasted half the way home. He said it was because he liked it more than the peach one.

At home I got ingredients out and we started making the Logan bread. He was helpful throughout, and got to try the ingredients. First time using molasses, and he said it tasted like “metal balls”. I let him lick out the measuring cup that we’d used for honey, and he joked “Someone’s been licking honey.”

He talked about how he is a robot kid and asked “You think there’s any other robot persons out there? I don’t think so, on the Earth. I’m pretty special, right?”

He ate two hard boiled eggs for dinner “Where’s the smoke?” He meant the yolk, but that started us discussing smokyy eggs and Korea. He pretended we were in Korea: “Let’s go somewhere on the U-Line!” He was asking where we would go in Korea, and I said if we had one day we could go to Children’s Grand Park, but if we had two then we could go north as well. He said we’d have at least 3 days, so we started planning our Korea vacation.

We were then over in the kitchen, and he was playing with tape. He had already realized that if you get flour on the tape it isn’t sticky. But he discovered that if he put the tape in water it would start sticking again. he was excited about his discovery and told us all about it a few times: “I was doing a science experiment with tape and flour and water to see if it would stick…and the water wins to stick it with surface tension.” He then had fun pulling the sofa bed out, three or four times. He would pull it out on his own, then ask me to put it back and then do it again. We talked more about symbiotic relationships (bees and flowers). He then showed me lion, tree, and cobra poses from yoga class.

Took him up for his bath. Figured out that Dextra is from Hilo (Dexter). Played for awhile, and we realized that the pink clay he had gotten with Carly was some sort of magic clay that was still soft, even though it hasn’t been in a bag or anything for weeks.

Downstairs he shared the bread and milk with mama. I asked if he wanted to share some of the bread with PKB and he liked the idea. He was then a student from Carly’s class. He said his name was ‘Wizabel’. Carly went up for a shower and we watched the Hebrew numbers 1 to 100 video. He said the girl at 17 looked like mama again, and he said another girl looked like Bat-Chen. He spotted a Brave Wilderness episode, and we watched the whole 22 minute episode on warrior wasps. A very suspenseful one and we learned a lot.

Went upstairs with Carly. He wa upset we hadn’t read. I left them 8:40 or so. She was going to read to him – Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, I think. Took quite awhile. She said the only true thing he would tell her about school was about me volunteering. Everything else involved him being the size of an atom and sneaking around the school.

He told me nobody played with him outside now. The teachers haven’t been giving him challenges, and he doesn’t like the chasing games. Also talked about couple of other kids not being friends with each other for awhile, or the rest of the day, and he was wondering why. He said he hasn’t done that.

No Memorial Day off here, which makes me wonder just how ‘American’ this school is. I mean, Carly got Memorial Day of in Korea.

August was up just before 7. The garbage truck had helped, I think. I heard him call “Dada, come up!” I went up, and he was standing at the window, trying to see out. Sadly, can’t see much out of that window. Downstairs he lay on the couch for a few minutes. He watched some Ollie and Moon and was totally singing along to the “Opposites” song in it. Has most of the words down.

We got going, and on the way he invented “Infinity laser rockets.” Which are really efficient.

Took about 20 minutes to drop him off. Had to hand him to Anna at the end, but right before that he had re-read the schedule from morning to lunch all on his own and said “Oh, okay.”

I walked home then drove down into Netanya to find the Interior and Population Ministry office. I need to figure out if I can work in Israel or if I need permission of some sort. I have a work visa, but there is a line in the status of forces agreement that says I need permission from officials to work for someone besides the U.S. military, etc. A long journey that basically resulted in me finding out they only give out numbers until 8:30. I then filled out the online form to request a meeting, but there is no way to pick a time or date. Hadn’t heard back by the end of the day.

Drove back home, had some lunch and did a little Sabeel work, then walked back to school.

He was in a great mood when I picked him up. He excitedly showed me a structure he had made out of blocks and shells and rocks and things, and how he had put rocks on a certain part to stabilize it. The figures at the top he said were the PKB students. Outside the classroom he found a hula hoop on the ground. He played with that for a minute, then Myriam came by and hooked about hula hooping with him. He placed the hula hoop over her, then said “I captured Ms. Myriam!” As we were walking up the elementary school steps, he saw a woman coming down – the one that had said he should be in magazines. He said “Ms. Michelle!” She said he had made her day, because she didn’t realize he knew her name.

We went upstairs and had a snack outside the library. At one point he spotted “I seed Shary!” Then he pointed to someone else and joked “Another Shary!”

We went outside to the bench in the grassy area. He was doing fine until he had the idea of going swimming. I reminded him he had turned down the idea this morning, so we hadn’t brought the swim bag. He got upset and insisted we go get it. Then, he was playing in a puddle and I told him not to get his shoe in it. Sure enough, he got his foot wet and the two things were enough for him to meltdown. Israel Cassie saw him upset and slipped me two lollipops.

He calmed down, and we headed back to preschool. He had agreed to go back for Playball class. When we went in, Marion showed him his first glazed teacup. That was very exciting for him. It was a little past 2, but the lights were still all out. And 5 or 6 kids had fallen asleep during rest time. Dion showed up and was a little confused as well.

We went over for Playball and I sat on the grass. Only 7 kids for class. August came over to me a couple times – he refused to play the first game, because Dion said he was the big bad wolf and going to eat them. He watched, in suspense, from next to me and was gasping and waving his arms excitedly when Dion would catch someone. When I first started encouraging August to go back over he said “I don’t need a ‘come on’. No ‘come on’ or ‘but’ or ‘but still’” I got August to go back over after that for the cockroach game: They placed a beanbag on their foot then kicked it away, making a “Yuck” sound as if they were kicking a cockroach off their foot. August played the rest of the time. I didn’t really watch, but we later talked about what he was learning in the class and he talked about practicing kicking and throwing.

So the compromise we had come to involved walking home, getting the swim stuff, then driving back to school. We discussed the immune system on the walk home and got here at 3. He told me that Anna said he was ready for PKC. We made water drink, and he was concerned I got more: “But you got more…an entire KIDNEY full.” He then started singing a song about a germ getting eaten by a fish, etc. up to a whale. He then kept going, saying planet, “the place where the planets are” (solar system), galaxy, and universe. I thought the song must have come from music class, but he told me they actually hadn’t had music class today and that the song had actually come from Oma. Which sounds familiar, but he hasn’t sung it at all since they left.

We drove to school and headed to the pool. On the way we saw the custodian who is usually by the library. August initiated and gave her a high five. She was impressed by that. Omri and her family were at the pool. I got August in and he was rather jumpy about possibly getting splashed after his experience on Friday and screeched a lot. Calmed down a bit though and we had fun, and Omri played with him a bit.

Eventually he was ready to leave. We got out, and as we got ready to go he started talking to a woman who was sitting there, who he at first thought was Reia’s mom. She wasn’t, and instead she has a son who is in kindergarten. August was making her laugh with spit bubbles. He told her about the preschool teachers and she said she didn’t know them. I told him he could ask her about the kindergarten teachers and she said they were Ms. Amy and Ms. Susan. He liked learning that and kept repeating the names. As we left to go he was yelling “Bye!” to her and to Omri. I told him he needed to practice saying it nicely so we walked over to Omri so he could say it calmly.

We found Carly as we were leaving. He wanted to change in the bathroom, not her classroom, so I changed him, then we all went to the car and drove home. At home he had one of his flour-filled stress balls outside and it broke when he rubbed it on the wall outside the front door. Carly set up the vacuum cleaner and he had fun vacuuming it up.

Before we had left for school he had found a dead lizard on the ground by the door. We now studied it. He said it felt squishy, and pointed out its little mouth and little hands and feet. Eventually the tail came off, and we discussed that, then we went and buried it in a hole by the papaya plants so it could turn back into dirt.

We had dinner outside – he mainly shared veggie burgers with us, then ate an apricot. He asked Carly to cut open the pit, which she was able to do. They played outside and I started dishes. Didn’t last long, as they came in with him upset. He was yelling “Please let me knight you with a stick!” and kept screaming “Please!” She had knighted him with a stick, and he wanted to do the same to her, but she didn’t want the pointy stick around his head.

She took him upstairs, and I headed up and traded with her after a few minutes. He eventually calmed down, and we started being birdies on the bed. He said “I love you two enshumgedorflugs.” Back downstairs he got whiney about knighting her again. He had some peanut butter crackers, then dropped a cracker on his shirt, then the couch. Cleaned it up, then took him up to the bath. Let him play, then washed his hair.

We went in and dried his hair with the hair dryer. He wasn’t standing close enough at first, and when I explained it he said “Is it the problem of the burning ship thing?” A cool connection to make. He was talking about the Archimedes story/invention of using mirrored shields to set a boat on fire. And I’ve explained how it isn’t actually possible – in part because you can’t get enough shields to reflect on the ship. He has also talked about having tons of fans blowing on something, and I’ve talked about how you could only have 20 or 30 fans blowing on something, because the others would be
too far away to really feel.

Also, randomly, he just said “I feel like this used to be Dion’s house.”

We went downstairs and he had peanut butter crackers. He was then punching the balloon thing that Carly had bought him at the toy store. He was frustrated at first because she could do it and he couldn’t, but now he’s figured it out.

Carly was reading a book and mentioned the village of Abu Ghosh. He was asking about it and they discussed the 1948 war. She used an analogy of being forced to share a toy. He then asked her about positive and negative things and told her “Positive feelings is good feelings and negative feelings is bad feelings.”

We took him upstairs to get ready for bed. This time he told me he loved me 9888 enshumgedorflugs. I asked what it would take to get to 10000 enshmugedorflugs and he said “Go to Haifa.” He spent more time tying up the toothbrush, then I left them at 8:50. Took some time, as he was down at 9:20 to get water. Heard them for awhile after that before he fell asleep.

Carly woke him up at 7:20. Downstairs I got his vitamins and water for him. After a few minutes he said “Ollie and Moon, please.” He watched a few episodes of it, then said “Dada, I’m done with my show. What should we do with THIS free day?” He taped a couple things on his string, then asked “Dada, do you want to go on a dada-Zinnie adventure now?” When I asked if he wanted to go for a walk he said “No. Something in the car….You know, like we do.” “Where’s mama” “Then I will pop my shoes on and go outside…See, I’ve got my clothes on, my shoes on, and I’m ready to go outside.”

He went outside with her for a few minutes, but they then came back in. He said “I need some naked time.” He had gotten a little wet. He did some taping, then they did a catapult experiment together. I made us all some eggs for breakfast. He then had some toast, and said “I love carbohydrates!” Randomly asked “Whats a camel’s hump for?” And “Where does a camel get water?” He wrapped himself in the string and stuff at one point (he had taken down the line that had been hanging up in the kitchen) and had sat in the iHerb box, being a squirrel, I think it was. He rocked in it and fell over backwards.

We got going and left at 11:45. We found and stopped at a toy store with a red pirate on it, down in an industrial area by the train station that we’ve never been to. As we were looking for it he asked “Why can’t we drive cars in the building Haifa?” “Like up the stairs…” He meant the science center. No idea why this idea came up. He was frustrated from the beginning with the toy store as we said we wouldn’t buy anything today. We were mainly looking for a slide, as his is breaking. But inside, no slides, Carly got some art supplies and got a big balloon thing for him and one for her. And I got some pads of paper. She blew up one of the balloons there.

We then went to Tiv Taam. He rode in the cart most of the time and ate a granola bar. I ran around doing a lot of shopping. It was a big load. Just under 1000 shekels, so she had us throw a couple cans of tuna in to bring it over 1000 and we got a 10% discount. I took him to the bathroom, and on our way back he said “For future reference, I see mouthwash.” ‘For future reference’ is a phrase he learned for me, and I had actually thought the same thing in my head when we walked by the display.

We were home at 1:40. They had fun with the big balloon things. I did not. He was then having Carly be a scientist making mistakes, then they were silly on the couch. He did more taping, taping a string to a Cheerios box. They debated ‘teached’ versus ‘taught’. And he asked “How big is an inch of a minute?” We did the teasing game, which is back on track and about talking to the other person and getting help from the teacher.

He and I left at 3:20. We went up and did recycling, then headed onward to the treasure hunt park, which is one a block off the path to school. We got to the park before 4. There was a very friendly cat. It went up and was lying on the play structure. August was then being a cat and was pretending to sleep a few feet away. The cat got up and went to check him out. August was nervous when it got close: “I’m scared!” But after that I was petting it and it was rubbing against me and August got more and more comfortable with it. We talked about how to pet cats and how to avoid their tummies and how they mark territory, etc. August was eventually petting it and like when it would rub up against his legs. He declared “I’ll call it Shmorgadeboop.” We did some of our hunting for treasure, but he kept going back to the cat. He was rubbing his eyes, but wasn’t admitting his eyes were itchy. Back to treasure, we had a pirate ship but he said it did not have a plank: “This is a nice ship.” And when we sat on the three person rocking thing, the cat came over and lay in the middle when we shook it, then was rubbing against August again and then climbed in my lap. August then sang “Cat, cat, cat in a lap” to the tune of the Smithereens’ “Top of the Pops”.

We left at 5, saying goodbye to Shmorgadeboop. We then stopped at our park. He then had a candy machine or something and said he was giving some to everyone at school. But only two: “Everyone gets two pieces because you have to savor it.” Talked about it being fair. He was then exercising, and started calling me John, as that was my name in the teasing game as we had walked: “You can play the teasing game at home, John.” We left at 5:30.

At home Carly was skyping with her parents. He and I shared one of the berry brains that Carly had made to celebrate my birthday, with vanilla ice cream, of course. Carly was making a salad and he was intrigued by the green onion. He tasted it, then threw the rest of it back on the counter: “Not gonna eat this puppy.” He asked Carly about “three before me”, which he had asked me about but I didnt know what he was talking about. It is something the elementary teachers use, apparently, to encourage students to ask three classmates before asking the teacher. He told her to “Explain”. He was then practicing it with her. We ate outside, and Carly and I opened a bottle of moscato wine we had gotten at the store. August said “How about you, glass with alcohol in it?” Earlier had listed things that Carly liked and included ‘alcohol’ in the list, along with things like chocolate and tea.

Spent some time outside, then Carly took him up for his bath while I made his lunch for tomorrow: I had boiled some eggs and gave him one of those, along with half a banana (he ate the other half), grapes, etc. He and I then shared another berry brain. He was very polite about it, offering me bites. We got Oliver and the Seawigs out to read, but he liked the bookmark, which has three of the Star Wars droids (C3PO, R2D2, and another on it). He was asking about it, and I explained the droids, then he was wanting to know the story, so I explained Star Wars. Of course, that led to a discussion of the empire and the rebels, so then he was being a bad government and telling me what to do. We finally read a chapter out of Oliver and the Seawigs. August really liked the phrase “Scornful snickers” and repeated t a couple of times. We then read If you take a mouse to school.

We took him up and got him ready for bed. I left them at 8:45. It took awhile, but he got to sleep.

I heard the door open at 7:40. He called “Turn off the air conditioner.” I went upstairs and turned it off, then he went back in and lay on the bed. I lay down next to him. He asked “Is it a free day?…Let’s go on a dada-Zinnie adventure…like the one on your birthday.” I asked what about mama, and he said she could stay at home.

We then went downstairs and he went out to Carly. She asked how he was and he said “Good. And how are you?” I heard him explain which chair outside is his favorite and how he doesn’t like the cracked one because it is broken. As they came back in he asked her “Do you want to go on a Dada and Zinnie and Mama adventure?”

He wanted to play the teasing game while she made him oatmeal. I redirected the game back to its original purpose a bit, what to do when someone is teasing someone else, then he had his oatmeal, but got distracted with being a witch and making potions under the table.

We were debating something but then he said he had magic powers. I asked “How can I argue against magic powers?” He then said he would make a cow: “I’ll mix a special chemical to make two enormous horns growing out of its back.” Then made a hall of mirrors “I can protect you with my chains…when you feel lost I can pull them and save you.”

I went up and took a shower. When I came down they were doing a science experiment. they had a string hung up from the oven to the kitchen door and were shooting a balloon along it, learning about force and momentum. He then turned it into an experiment of seeing how much weight he could tape onto it: “My hypothesis is that when there’s too much force then the knots will break. Carly was talking about vocabulary and the book Crispin and used the word “Medieval”. He asked about it and a couple minutes later I heard him repeat the word to himself.

He was hungry so had some peanut butter and honey toast. He was then talking about Korea, and asking where we would go on a dada-Zinnie in Korea. We walked about Children’s Grand Park and Dobongon and Uijeongbu.

We left at 10:40, headed to Tel Aviv and the Eretz Museum. Carly drove and August had us pretending we were in Korea. We talked about going to Children’s Grand Park and I mentioned visiting the robot sculptures. He said “And you be the robots?” So seems like he still remembers that part.

Carly got the perfect spot on the street right outside the museum and we were in at 11:20. He was singing as we went in, a list of made-up words, and said “I’m singing all the rocks that hadn’t been discovered.” Carly spotted Ada in the gift shop and we went in there and said hi and looked for a few minutes.

We went through to the museum grounds and first walked over to Sundial Square and saw all the sundials. August learned a bit how they worked. We then walked to the glass building. August was hungry so he and I sat outside on a bench and had a snack while Carly looked around a bit. We then went in and Carly showed him the archeological glass furnace and the glass knight. August explained to her what the knight was, pretending he was an archeologist. Carly mentioned that glass wasn’t a solid and then he told her about jello. I remember that we had once had a similar discussion, but that was several months ago. A nice connection. He then said “Lets go dig some more!” They were archeologists a few more times, then we went across to the Nehushtan building and he showed her the Roman coffin he had touched.

Outside we stopped at the drinking fountain and while on the bike he sang a digging song and continued to be an archeologist. From there we went to the coffee shop. Rather pricey, so we got one cappuccino and one hot chocolate to share, and then a pasta dish with large shells stuffed with a spinach and cheese mixture.

Finally, we went to the Map: Reading Between the Lines temporary exhibit. Took the elevator up and down to that. August really liked the big robotic machine drawing a map of Israel in sand, and the video screen next to it where notes were played when metal disks on the video were hit with light. We looked around some more, liking the ceiling, which had different colored papers hanging from it in some approximation of a map of Israel, and some other pieces. But August had the idea of going home and making a surprise at home – drawing a map of Israel in some sand – and he even sang a “map it of sand” song as I carried him around. So he was ready to go.

He and Carly went to the bathroom and I look around the gift shop. He and I then sat in the lobby and read If You Take a Mouse to School while Carly looked. When Carly came back he asked her “What’s onomotopeia?” It’s a word I’ve mentioned a few times, and it is written on the chalkboard by the Mouse in the book.

We then walked down the block and turned and walked over the river and went to the big playgrounds on the other side. I looked at the free library thing (got Brave New World, The Island of Dr. Moreau and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) in wonderful old covers) and they played on the play structure. He apparently went down the slide on it. I pushing him in one of those hanging spinning chairs. Carly went and sat on a bench. August was complaining the playground was too busy so I pointed out that the big wooden structure, just to the west, was empty.

We headed that way, stopping at one one of those little merry-go-rounds. We sat on it and had a snack. We talked about our adventure and he said “With mama even gooder.” Up on the wooden structure he was an archeologist. He thought a king had lived there. He was then a king ordering me around. I brought the food up and we sat up at the top, having more snack. We were sitting up there when Carly came up.

We went across the path to Coffee Zoo and got a hot dog. Sat at a picnic table and shared that. Then back to the first structure, which was less busy. He and Carly took turns going down the elevator sort of thing.

We stopped at the bathroom and walked the same way back to the car. As we were leaving the playground he had found a small piece of sidewalk chalk. Back close to the car, by the museum, he got it wet in the big drinking fountain and was writing on the ground, making an experiment of how it changed when it was wet.

On the way home we stopped at a gas station. Carly ran in to get milk and a couple of things. When she came out I said she was fast. August said “Maybe she didn’t pay them.” Same joke I was going to make. I joked maybe she just came back with a bag and he liked that, saying “She just went in and said ‘Could I have a bag?’”

We were home after 5. He had been pretty messy with his granola in the car and I’d had to stop him from throwing it. As we got out he started throwing the ample amount in his seat all over the place and only stopped when I pulled him from the car. Took him in to Carly, then I set up the vacuum cleaner and brought him out to clean. He did a great job of that, vacuuming most of the back seat area all on his own. He said “I love cleaning up in cars with the vacuum cleaner.” He also did the trunk with me helping him stand on the back bumper.

Inside, he asked of Carly “Let’s play santin says.” That’s how he says ‘Simon says’. That’s how he always says it, but he says he’s saying ‘Simon’. He can also tell the difference when Carly says ‘santin’ or ‘Simon’. Very interesting.

We ate dinner outside – veggie burgers. He wanted to mix water drink and milk as an experiment so I got another cup and we did that. He said he liked it. Wasn’t bad, actually. After dinner he played around with dirt and helped with adding compost to some plants. Went inside to the bathroom and was a bit wet, so had naked time after that. Then more time taping things on the string.

Carly took him upstairs to his bath. He asked her about ‘symbiotic relationships’. I know we’ve used the phrase talking about animals and trees, and it has come up with othe
rs as well.

Downstairs we played on the couch. Ended up with me pretending to sleep, and he would poke me, and I’d talk in my sleep, saying random things I was dreaming about, like “giraffe hospital’. He found this hilarious. He did some as well.

I took him up to get ready for bed. Brushed his teeth and he tied string around his toothbrush. He said “I hate wars.” Agreed. “I hate dogs. Disagreed. We talked about the noise of the air conditioner and he said “I dream about that sound in my sleep all the time.” He was asleep around 9 again.