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.