He was up about 6:30. I was already downstairs and first heard him at 6:50. They didn’t come down until 7:14. As he came down the stairs he was looking at the black rocks in the tile: “Im looking to see if there’s any dog poop…The black is dog poop.” We first went and built a Duplo zoo. He had Cheerios for breakfast, and we all ate together at the table. We then read the first four chapters of 26-Story Treehouse. Carly made mango lasse with the blender. We read one more chapter as we drank mango lasse. Carly took over and read chapter 6 and I took a shower. I came down and the “digger” destroyed our zoo. We were then building a house and he was destroying it mid-building. I talked to him about how that wasn’t really nice to the person you’re playing with. He asked “Can I destroy it at the end?” But then destroyed some of it soon after, using his “I’m remodeling!” excuse again.
We got ready to go and he get on the tricycle. We walked over to the mall and went to Tiv Taam and got a few things. Then Carly went to the plant store and got a gift for the woman she was meeting with today, and to Aroma for some coffee for someone else.
We got back just after 10. He built a rocket and then killed some weeds quickly before we left again, this time in the car headed for Ikea. We had just an hour to shop at Ikea and we finished in 55 minutes. We got a sheet for his bed, a set of bookshelves for his books, a couple of nice drawer organizers for the kitchen, a couple of plants (tomato and basil), and a few other small things.
We came home just after 11:30. We had some lunch, then they nursed, and Carly left at 12:30. We went upstairs. He played some Dragonbox Numbers, then came and helped me build the shelves. He screwed in six of the screws using the allen wrench, and he did some hammering. He then watched Peg + Cat and ate Cheerios and apples while I rehung the growth chart and hung up the tire swing piece of art and the dream catcher and put the new sheet on his bed. He got in the bed under the sheet and pretended to be asleep. Looks like quite a big kid. He then made a game again of messing up his bed and went and got all the dirty clothes out of the basket and threw it on his bed, then said”I’m living in a pile of rubbage.” (A nice combo of rubble and garbage).
We ended up playing with Google Earth after he requested to play with a map. He was starting at our house then swiping across the Mediterranean to find places we should visit. He found Greece, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, etc.
Earlier he had found his little Q robot in the bottom of his closet and asked where it came from. I had talked about Nathalie and Chloe and he had asked for a photo of Chloe. We didn’t get around to it then, but as he was playing with the friends on his bed he also asked about Angeles, the doll, and Turkey, the elephant. So I pulled up Photos on my phone, and as you can find photos by locating them on the map, I was able to find Nathalie’s house and the photo of her giving him the Q, a photo of Carly buying Angeles, and a photo of August sucking on Turkey’s trunk after we bought it.
We eventually headed downstairs. August wanted milk, so I got him some (he refuses to use any of his old water bottles or cups from Korea – he now only likes his “big clear water bottle” that he’s used all summer and the cups we’ve bought in Korea) and he sat on the floor and drank it and I had some pita and hummus. He had eaten some apple upstairs, and now ate some pita. He wouldn’t dip it in yogurt though once he found out it was plain yogurt. We practiced our Hebrew numbers, then opened the Hebrew Gus app that we had briefly played with months ago. We played that for quite awhile, learning colors and numbers and animals and body parts, etc. We were playing that when Carly got home by 5.
She had had a good meeting with a Palestinian woman who had had a student at WBAIS. She and Mandy had gone together to talk about ideas for school. They nursed, then he and I did more Hebrew on the couch. He kept saying “I give up” but then wanted to keep playing.
We got ready to go for a walk, but he wanted me to stay home – he wanted some alone time with mama. I talked to him and think he doesn’t like it when we are talking about things and he feels ignored. He was also keeping something from me, telling me “Sorry, it’s just the baby squirrel’s”. He ‘let’ me go on the walk though and was just fine.
We walked north to the north playground, then circled back to the right and back home, through the neighborhood where August and I had been chased by small dogs. We had seen a metal patio table along the way that would have made a good restoration project, if we could have gotten it home, and I found a wooden cabinet with glass doors that I considered for my little library. Might have been able to fit it in the car. Carly was concerned it was too big/heavy though and I didn’t go back for it. Don’t know what I’ll do now.
We walked back through the nearby park, which was the busiest we’ve seen it. At home, he and I read two Smurf stories. Carly gave him a shower, then on the bed he pretended to be a Venus fly trap, as there are flowers and plants on the bedspread and he recognized one that looks like a fly trap. He was hungry and Carly got him and apple. I held a piece up for him when he set it down and he was nibbling it from my hand. He was then a rabbit nibbling a plant and I was a plant. He ate most of an apple. He also talked about hunters, and I asked how he knew about hunters and he said “the story about the elephant and the mama gets killed by a hunter.” Babar, which we had only read once. And when he was a rabbit he had a magic hole in him through which we could see the food, poop, etc. inside him.
Carly had found a little Nebraska bell in her box of stuff and gave it to him to use in the bathroom instead of clanking the toilet paper holder. He used it in the bathroom before going to bed and sleep at 8:10.