He was up between 6:30 and 6:40. Carly was upstairs when he woke up, and I went up a bit later and found him awake. Carly left at 6:50 and he handled that just fine. He played Gro Forest and ate dried Cheerios, then decided he wanted them with milk. I suggested he type to someone on Skype and he decided on gramma and grampa. He said “I used to do it all the time but now I don’t…Why?” He watched Wanda and the Alien while we waited for Eve to come and install the strip for the shower. The show has grown on me a bit; he certainly found it very funny in parts. Eve came and August did just fine with him. August said something about calling him “another grampa” after he left. I’m not sure where that connection came from. Playing Gro Forest: “Any of the fruits the bunny can’t eat…Because they’re just for the neighbors at my house.” And he kept talking like he was a robot: “My sensor told me to touch the flowers…the sensor actually sent a message.” I took a shower, and as I was still wet I heard him getting really upset. Eve was supposed to come back, but not until the afternoon, but I thought he may have come early. I rushed down to find that the iPad had restarted.
We went outside to check the soy milk experiment. It has gotten more wrinkly and gross, but not clearly moldy. He said “I want to see if water makes it liquidy again.” We also watered the plant. He said he didn’t want to do it because he wasn’t good at it. I convinced him he could do it. Up in his room he put all of the Korean coins in my pocket and we took them downstairs. He kept saying he wanted to use them for something. We made some of them shiny using vinegar. On the coffee table he used the coins to make a shape, and I asked if it was a snake. He said “I’m not making a snake, dada, I’m making a little nest for my screw.”
I tried to make sandwiches, but he went to the bathroom and wanted me to wait for him. I finally gave in and got one of the white chairs to sit on. Him: “Not that one…the poop chair…Mama’s poop chair.” We finished the sandwiches, and he let me just cut his in halves (well, quarters as opposed to eighths) today. He said “I need lots of jam to make my skin tasty.” He’s used variations of that line several times now.
We then took the club soda and raisins outside and did the sinking/floating experiment. We also used olive oil and he saw how olive oil and water don’t mix. He tried a raisin again, then changed his mind on them: “I started to like them!” “The spicy ones are for me.” And he tried drinking our water/oil/raisin mixture. Of the floating raisins he said “I’m going to make hose raisins sink by putting more raisins on them.” And it worked. For each thing I asked him to do he would say “Only if I eat one more raisin.” And at one point he realized the air conditioner was on and thought that mama might be home, as when we’ve been out and come home that’s an indicator that she got home before us.
Back inside he spotted a big line of ants going across our kitchen to the rugs. Think there were some crumbs on it, possibly from where he had eaten his sandwich standing at the counter earlier. We repelled that invasion, using a broom, cleaner, a mop, and our fingers. Back inside, he noticed some more ants over by the easel. Suddenly, twenty or so popped out of a tiny hole in the corner. Killed them and sprayed there and they stayed away. Going to talk to the guy at the hardware store about filling holes and keeping out ants. Ada and the landlord both said there’s pretty much nothing we can do, but it seems like closing up all the cracks would help…and be better come winter. On the bright side, haven’t seen any spiders since the first couple days we were here. They weren’t that bad, anyway, but maybe they stay away now that people are here.
We played with the cotton balls, then he wanted to see how candy was made. We watched a couple videos, and during one he pointed and asked “Is that extruders?” It’s a word he’s heard several times on these sorts of videos. He then had me carrying him around on his stool. I then got out the Hebrew rubber stamps, which he was excited about. Except for him it turned into covering his hands with ink. Also, we discovered that one of the rubber pads doesn’t match the letter on the back. It is one that is close though, so we might just live with it.
I had decided to hang around the house as Eve was supposed to return in the afternoon. Thought about heading over to the mall to get some lunch and play there, but August wasn’t excited by the idea. But about 2:30 he decided he wanted to go on a walk. In part because he wanted a Tic Tac. So we went out on a Zinnie walk bout 2:45. He chose our paths, and had us go around to the right and up the little path, through the park, and along the paths to the second park. He wanted to keep going along the road towards the school. I said we needed to stay close in case Eve came. When we were out in the sun August said “I just turned on my machine that makes more clouds.”
We went back to the house to check. No Eve. Kept walking, as he still wanted to, to the NE this time. He was quiet, and said he wanted more numbers songs. I was singing the one to the tune of ABC. We stopped and watched a couple cats, and I gave him some Cheerios to snack on. He asked if they had honey, then said “If they don’t have honey I call them mama Cheerios.” Which comes right from Vivian. We ended up at the playground and he finished the Cheerios as he sat in the stroller. He dumped out the crumbs, calling it “seasoning”. He then called the container a shell – first a crab shell on his finger, then a “frog shell”. Later I realized he meant like an egg. He was still hungry, and I pulled a carrot cake Larabar out of the backpack. He said it was “disgusting”, but I reminded him how he had tried raisins again and liked them. He then ate the entire Larabar. Except for the very last bite, which he said was “gross” and gave to me.
He went on some exercise equipment and got really sad when I said that one of them was just too big for him as it was for older people. I got him to go on one of the swinging ones though, like the kind he first knocked himself over with when he was just a few months old. Now, he could hold onto the handlebars and everything.
We got home at 4 and did a lot more with the Hebrew stamps. I did all of our names in Hebrew, which surprisingly are all the same number of letters, despite (generally) a lot of vowel sounds not being represented in written Hebrew. He got more ink on his hands, and in his ear, and on his cheek. Carly got home at 4:20 just in time to see him all inky. She turned the air conditioner cooler and August said “When I’m really sweaty my hair feels gross.” He was getting rough with Carly, so we went upstairs to wrestle on the bed. I stayed for a few minutes, but then went downstairs in case Eve showed up. He didn’t.
Back downstairs he played some of his airplane app and kept wanting to show things to Carly, who was starting to cut up veggies for stir fry. He switched to an art app before I left to go to the store. I walked over to Tiv Taam. As I walked there the song “Big Hard Sun” played on my playlist. Seemed very appropriate. Was able to stock up a little on soy milk and juice so we aren’t always running out. Tried asking for ‘One bag, please’ in Hebrew, as I knew all the words. But she needed it repeated, then thought I meant one of the reusable bags. Should have asked what they call the regular grocery bags.
At home I got some dinner. Carly had found frozen seitan and basmati rice – with all our rice in Korea none of it was long grain. August wanted to brush his teeth, then he wanted a new show. We found Ask the Storybots, a Netflix show. Only six episodes, but it turned out to be perfect and August loved it. The first episode was ‘Why does night happen?’ And the second was ‘What makes an airplane fly?’ August loved that it
was about robots and had pipes and machines and everything. And he liked the songs. I liked the jokes and the special guests – Jay Leno was in the first, Kevin Smith in the second.
I took him up for his shower after that, then we went down, intending to read stories. Carly came down though and he was jumping on her. We went back up to play on the bed. At one point he said he was safe next to Carly, then asked me “Can you unsafen me?”
I left about 8:20 when he seemed to be slowing down a bit and Carly took him to the bathroom. He was asleep about 8:30 or a little after.
Pretending to drink our oil, water, and raisin mix:
Blue:
Cat:
Exercise equipment:
Cotton ball:
Ink:
Jumping:
