He was up at 6:30 and just fine when Carly left. He and I read the three books we checked out from the library. Carly called to tell me that Shmuel was on the way to the house. I did some picking up and discovered that our yogurt experiment must have been a hit with a cat or a bird, as the container was empty in the middle of the yard.
Shmuel and Shy (the handyman) arrived a little later. August did a great job with them, although he still won’t tell anyone his name. He continued to watch Wanda and the Alien while they got to work. He was interested in what they were doing, and at one point we went outside to get a better look, and August used his tweezers to pull apart some of the tree pieces while standing at the top of his ladder. When they started doing some drilling though it was too loud for him so I let him go upstairs, where he sat on the couch in the office.
Then, Eve showed up to cut the drainage pipe for the washing machine. I stayed downstairs with Shmuel and Shy as they were showing me something. A minute later I hear knocking, and Eve yelling from upstairs. I went up to find the door closed and Eve locked out on the porch. August had come out of the room and closed it. Since the doorknob is broken and won’t turn you get locked out on the porch even if the button isn’t pressed. Shmuel and Shy had brought a know one to replace it,but hadn’t yet made it upstairs. Eve thought it was quite funny when he found out that August had locked him out, and said that he’d lock August out the next time he was here.
Shmuel and Shy were here until a quarter to 12. They fixed a lot of the windows so they would open and slide better and installed handles and new locks on several of them. They replaced the cracked grout along the edge of the kitchen counter, and fixed the door upstairs and several of the windows there as well. And they put outlet covers over the open boxes downstairs. Oh, and they also fixed the lazy susan in the cupboards and one of the broken hinges on a cupboard. Unfortunately, they missed one of those. But otherwise they did a great job and got a lot accomplished in that time.
They took a couple of work breaks, and I served them coffee at one point. I also put out snacks for them, then August and I made chocolate chip cookies, using the dining table as our counter as they were working in the kitchen. Cookies were ready right as they got ready to leave. I gave two to Shy and Shmuel (who says he can’t have sugar) took one for his wife. At one point August went to the bathroom and was asking why the ceiling wasn’t flat. He was then counting invisible babies on the stairs above us: “Ten babies standing on the upstairs stairs not holding on… they fell.”
After they left I finished baking the cookies and there was a lot of cleaning to do, between the baking stuff and all the mess they left. And while August and I were scooping out cookies he kept wanting more drops so he could eat the dough. When the cookies were done he had a cookie though and agreed it was better. He had the idea of dipping it in milk. I can’t remember if that’s something he’s done before or knows about. He was concerned though that Carly would want the dough too and even asked her about it in the evening. She assured him it was okay that she didn’t get any of the cookie dough.
Also, while they had been here and after I’d had an Israeli radio station, Kol Ha Campus, on. It had been Israeli music at first, then they were playing all English stuff: Rage Against the Machine, Beastie Boys, Jay-Z. It was all uncensored, which I wasn’t worried about, but I thought it was funny when I realized we were listening to Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff”.
And August found a line of ants coming in through the kitchen door and turned into an ant killing machine, spinning in circles and kicking and stomping with his feet.
We played some Human Body on the iPad and he did a pretty good job of putting together the entire skeleton puzzle on his own. Think he’ll be more into puzzles when they arrive from Korea. We talked about the party later and how it was for Celeste. He said “Who’s Celeste? Wait, is it a cat?” He did some playing on the couch, and asked why his stomach area is squishy. I told him it was because of bending and breathing and told him I’d show him. He asked “How are you going to do that? Are you going to cut me open?” He wanted to play the machine app (Simple Machine), so he did that and I took a shower. After his shower he told me about how Carly doesn’t have good apps on her computer: “She just has her boring videos and Puffin Rock…That’s all she has on her computer, dada.” He wanted to play the Mammals app so did a little of that. We then read parts of some of our paper books, although not a lot.
He had some peanut butter and jelly sandwich and chose cow’s milk to drink with it. He explained “Poop in cow’s milk I like because I love poop…I’m actually a poop machine.” He asked where his sandwich was and I told him I had set it next to his iPad: “Next to my iPad? THANK YOU, DADA!” He was then snacking on raisins, and a chewed little raisin bit ended up on the floor and then was on my finger. I said something about how no one would want to eat it, and he said “I would. Cuz I’m a compost.”
Finally, we did a lot of rocket time on the couch, going to different planets and “Time for liftoff!” Carly came home and rested for awhile and took a shower and got some food before we left for the party. While talking about treats at the party August said “My favorite thing is muffins. Chocolate muffins.” Funny because he’s never had a chocolate muffin.
He did some drawing with his chalk and was concerned when he would drop a piece of chalk and a little would chip off. He started smearing the chalk with his hand and wanted to know what it tasted like. I let him lick his hand once, but then he kept wanting to lick it. I didn’t think he would like it. He then threw all of the pillows and sheets on the floor and we moved back the coffee table and he jumped off the couch onto them.
Just after 5 we headed to the party. He slowly walked in but was bothered by how loud it was. It bothered him much less when we found some cheese he liked and then Susan brought us a piece of cake. Carly came over where we were in the living room and we went and got food from the table. August did some watermelon then treats, but then we found plenty of other things to eat. We tried different chips, had a couscous thing, a couple different kinds of sweet breads, a thing with grapes in it, etc. August kept saying “I’m going to try something else…I’m going to try another treat.” He was getting more and more bold, walking over to the table and through the crowds on his own.
He went outside with Carly for awhile, and they saw the dog poop. And Tom, the husband of the elementary principal, Sherry, showed August around outside. Inside, August patted the dog a few times and we looked around, and he spent a lot of time looking at the cake.
Carly and I talked to Chris, a high school Social Studies teacher quite a bit and found out his wife is from the Seattle area. I was talking to Jack and Heidi and told them about our plans to build a Little Free Library and put it outside our house, and I then met a high school science teacher who told me to talk to Ofir, the head of facilities at the school, as there might be old shelves/materials we can use.
Around 7 August really started to get silly outside, going back inside without us and telling us to stay outside, then looking out through the windows next to the door. He said he was going to sleep on the rug, then went in, closed the door, and lay down in the middle of the party. Back outside, with Jack and someone else, he started pulling his shirt up over his face and hiding. He tried combining his games, trying to open the door and go in while his shirt was still over his head.
Carly took him in to go to the bathroom, then we left a
bout 7:30. At home he did more jumping on pillows, offered Carly a green mango, and heard the downstairs neighbor’s motorcycle starting up. Carly took a shower and he went to the bathroom and played some Human Body. I took him up for his shower, and he went in and got the bed wet, telling me “I ALWAYS get the bed wet. REMEMBER?” Some more wrestling on the bed and he was asleep by 8:45.
Photos:
Jumping:
Party:
Home:
