I had my book group meeting from 1:30 to a little past 3. I got up at 1:20, got dressed, and went downstairs. Not ideal to get up in the middle of the night for a meeting, but there was no distractions or noise from August, so I was able to pay more attention than usual and we had a good discussion of Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman. A little hard to get back to sleep though, and it was close to 4 before I did.
He woke up at 6:45. Played on bed and then they went downstairs about 7. I was up at the same time but slower to get up and head down. I heard one motorcycle scream down the highway. When I went down I found the reading Charlie Cook’s Favorite Book. He was then walking in circles on the square rug and said “I’ve been spinning for awhile so could you check my oatmeal?” He went outside to check on the tomatoes and told Carly “Say ‘I don’t speak robot language.” as he was making robot sounds. Back inside he was being a crab and pinched me, saying “I like to pinch people. That’s what crabs do.” They did some math with the blue blocks, then I took over and we were counting by 6s and he was making 6s form 2s and 3s and 4s and talking through the math problems as he did them himself. We did robot cleanup to clean them up.
They went for a walk. He ate breadsticks and was reading off license plate numbers, almost entirely correct. Israeli license plates generally have a 2-digit number, a 3-digit number, and a 2-digit number. He sometimes stumbled on the 3-digit numbers. Carly spotted a couple of discarded chairs. They walked in the street a bit, but mainly stayed in the shade. They were back at 9:35.
He did some typing on my iPad, then he and Carly planned on going and doing recycling. He told me “We’re gonna go to the cages while you keep typing, dada.” He had wondered if I had thrown anything away while they were gone. They walked up to the cages and I was in the shower when they got back. Came down and August was playing Elements. He was asking about the names so we pulled up the actual table of elements and looked at the names.
We all went outside and did some sanding and watering, then went inside and they nursed. We were then wrestling and being silly – he was trying to get to Carly but she was making soup. We looked at the Hebrew flash cards and he wanted to look at numbers. But he really wanted to learn million, billion, etc. He found a vitamin from this morning on the ground and ate it. Then he played a long game on the couch of him pretending to eat millions and billions of vitamins.
He did some Dragonbox Numbers, then more blueberry math, then he wanted to record himself playing piano, so we did that. He raced Cary to bathroom and won. I joked “Was that Vivian?” Then while he was on the toilet he joked about how I could tell it was him – not a pink shirt, ringing a bell, making machine noise. The racing to the bathroom thing has now made a comeback, with him racing Carly to the bathroom whenever she needs to go.
We ate Carly’s yummy soup and breadsticks for lunch, then he played Elements with Carly. While he was watching or playing something on the iPad, Carly got the scissors and approached to cut his hair. He looked at her and flatly said “Put the scissors away.” He went to the bathroom, and Carly said she needed to change his shirt. From the other room I said “poop?” She had actually said ‘soup’ was on his shirt. August said “Dada’s joking? Why dada like to joke so much?” He came out, and I was cutting up apple for our trip. He asked”Is that apple all for me?” When I said it was he replied “Yay! Thank you!” He was then acting out (or having both of us act out) Gargamel spells.
We left on another walk at 2:40, all of us. We basically retraced their earlier walk, and I carried the two chairs. After the second, he first stopped to look at and smell some pink and orange and yellow flowers we stopped at the pine tree park and August wanted to go down the slide. Before we got there he was asking why the people had gotten rid of the chairs, and suggested “I think they said ‘Time for a change ‘“
We got to the park at 3. He climbed to the top of the slide and spotted a brown spot on it. He talked for a few minutes about how he didn’t think it was bird poop, as bird poop is white, before he finally went down. He then went down several times, hitting his feet on the side of the slide as he stood at the top in order to get the sand out of his shoes. He said it reminded him of the sand and tires and the teeter totters in Korea. I remember the teeter totters on the tires in Korea, but don’t remember hitting his shoes to get sand out on them. Then again, it seemed like he was talking about tires around a play area, which sounds vaguely familiar. He was pretty sure though.
He was talking about sand falling out or blowing away or something and having an adventure and told me “You’re sand saying ‘Me too. I want to go for adventure.” At one point, he said something like “I was Vivian hearing you to slide.” Sadly, that’s how I had it written in my notes, and it doesn’t make sense. Can’t remember what he actually did or said – maybe something about hurrying? But then a few minutes later I heard him say to himself “August, there’s a rock in your shoe.” in a familiar voice. I said “Wait, was that voice Vivian’s?” He looked at me, grinned, and said “Yeah.”
He then went over to the other little sand play area with the rolling thing (this is where he and I once played and he was concerned about poop in the sand and thought he saw a dung beetle). I sat on a bench, reading, and then I heard them talking about nutrition. They had a long discussion as he sat on the bench about vitamins and different foods and protein, etc. It was really cool. Later, on the way home, he was closing his eyes to sleep and saying things like “I was trying to close my eyes but I couldn’t cuz I had a lot of sleep and I was getting a lot of vitamin D.” Which is some odd logic, but interesting.
Before we left the park he was finding little cones and wanted to plant them. I said they were open, and didn’t have seeds in them, but then we got some green ones off the tree and will try those. He also looked up and identified which trees the big cones were from. Carly and I also marveled at what appeared to be an odd growth at the bottom of the drinking fountain.
On the way home, about 3:45, he worked on reading license plates and we found some being seed pods that we took with us. Really walking down the middle of the street this time and enjoying all the kids riding by on their bikes. We were home at 4:10. Outside we washed the chairs and used a hammer to open one of the seed pods. Bright yellow seeds inside, although we found out that the material around the seeds was scratchy, kind of like fiberglass. August was the first to complain about it itching. We washed our hands and he did okay.
We planted the seeds from the seed pods, then my cilantro seeds, and then his carrot seeds. He kept asking things like “What does cilantro give you?” We would look it up and tell him vitamins A and K, etc.
Carly then made the banana drink/smoothie. August was then a bit restless, and I suggested riding his bike. I meant the balance bike, but he was excited about going out on his orange bike and going for a long ride, and even wanted to check my phone to see how far we were going. And he said we could go without Carly and she could stay at home.
We left at 5:25. Right before we left he had a slice of apple and told Carly “Mama, I think apples help the stomach acids break down the food.” Outside I decided to make it a Zinnie walk and reminded him what that meant. He directed us west, then around some streets and eventually across the foot paths to the park by Jack and Celeste’s house.
He said “That’s a park I always see.” He climbed up the ladder thing and went down the helter skelter, then went on the merry-go-round. He went on
the motorcycle ride thing, and would get off and spin in circles and discussed getting dizzy and how it was an optical illusion. He then played with the water fountain, which flowed into the dirt, talking about making weeds grow. Then he said “Dada, let’s ride a little bit more on my bike.” It was now 5:50.
We kept going, covering the last of the streets in Even Yehuda to the south of us that we’d never been on. He spotted some seed pods in a tree, somewhat different from the ones earlier. He said “They’re not zucchinis cuz zucchinis aren’t straight.” He read off more license plates, then spotted an Israeli flag. We stopped and discussed flags, and looked up the German, Korean flags, etc. He was asking me what the blue, green, and yellow flag is that we’ve seen, but I’m not sure what he meant. He said it was in Korea, but it wasn’t the Korean flag.
He spotted the sunset and admired it, then interrogated me about my watch and phone, asking me how long I had had each and where I got them. I said The Apple Store. He didn’t believe me, saying “No, the apple store sells apples.”. I reminded him they have apples on the back, but he didn’t seem convinced.
He was then asking how how to spell words – crack, roots, zebra, car. And then said “When we get home I want to learn all the letters in Hebrew.” And then observed “I see the moon starting to come up. It’s a half moon right now.” Finally, he was asking how windshield wiper and what they’re for. He wasn’t looking at a car at the moment, and I’m not sure where that came from. Don’t think he’s seen them in use anytime recent.
When we got home he ran inside and said “Mama, we did a sunset walk and theres a half moon.” We were home at 6:25. Had some soup, then Carly went up to take a shower. He and I were going to do Duplos but then decided to go upstairs to get paper for Hebrew. Didn’t do that either. He ended up on the bed in his room and said “I was a whale and I ate the biggest dada in the Mediterranean Sea.” He was really comfortable in his bed and we were talking about him sleeping in it sometime. He then was pretending to sleep. I was giving him some advice on how you go to sleep, and he described to us he sometimes falls back to sleep when “Mama and Dada are downstairs.” He then wanted to practice falling asleep and told Carly”Mama, you go do laundry.” He wanted me to watch him though. He picked up Carly’s bear and said”I call this Scrappydoo.” Carly and I had been trying to remember what he calls it. It has had a few names, but this sounds familiar.
I gave him his shower and washed his hair, then on the bed he said “I have a machine that figured out the names of numbers after nonillion.” He came up with all sorts of names for numbers, even those beyond infinity. He was asleep about 8:20.
Riding in the street with Carly:
Getting off the sand:
Little cones:
Helter skelter:
Merry-go-round:
