He came down at 6:33, as Carly was still closing the gate. He was really quiet though and went over to the cough and curled up on it for several minutes. At 6:44 he finally got up and went and turned on all the other living room lights (two of them), then came back and sat on the couch. A couple minutes later he said he wanted to do something. That was watch the Care Bears. When I went to the bathroom he sat in his car seat on the floor. Then played with blueberries, comparing stacks to him and me (we were taller than his stacks), then making rockets out or Duplos. He started making stairs of Duplos but was frustrated when they were falling down. I showed him how to make a new column every few steps to support it and he was impressed with that and seemed to get it. Made it bigger, and he said it was his 13-story treehouse.
We got to the bus stop at 9:25. But then it said it would be 30 minutes. I explained that and he said “So that means we can play for that many minutes!” But then he didn’t really want to play in the playground and said he wanted to wait at the busstop. But then he found a piece of chalk. At first he just wanted to break it, but it was too small to easily break. I wrote ‘Zinnie’ and he wanted a ‘Q’ as well so I wrote a Q after it and called him Zinnie Q and asked if that was his superhero name. He asked what a superhero was and I was explaining that. He then took the chalk and drew Qs, then said “I want to cut open a Q.” He drew lines in a Q, dividing it into fourths, then further dividing it with straight grid lines. But then back to ‘Zinnie’ he started to add different lines coming of the letters, as if he was turning them into a new language: “Now my letters all make different sounds…You’re the letters playing a piano.”
We then sat on the alligator bench and read some 13-Story Treehouse and when he was done with the piece of chalk he threw it into the bushes. It was getting close to bus time, so we went to the bus stop. August made circles with his fingers and put them together and said “That’s infinity.” Not sure how he thought of that. He then said “Infinity is launching into space.” The bus came at 9:58. As we drove away he said “Bye park.” and as we drove by the school he did his usual “Hi, mama!”
We read some 13-story Treehouse on the bus and he ate Cheerios and a whole Larabar. He then talked about having an air conditioner that worked underwater: “I bought a sea remote that can work underwater for my underwater animals because they were warm.” Still hungry, he ate some of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
We got off in Netanya at 10:50. We started walking, and he smelled something and said “That smells like the school sandwiches in Korea.” We then had a long discussion where I tried to figure out what he was talking about. And as I did so and I was carrying him in my right arm he was giggling and burying his head against my chest. Finally, I realized he meant the Tospia sandwiches that we would get and eat in Carly’s classroom when we went to concerts, etc. Really cool that he had a smell-related memory from Korea.
We stopped to get in the backpack and he was calling out patterns from flower colors, then reading number signs on shop windows as we walked. He saw a rotating watch display and asked how you buy the watches. I said you’d have to ask someone who worked there. He still didn’t understand it: “Do they break the glass‽” We paused to watch an accordion player, then got walking. He now had a watch store: “Mt watches cost 2 million, 18 thousand…Say ‘okay’! That’s expensive!”
We passed our smoothie shop, עולם הפרי (which means Fruit World), and decided to get a smoothie on the way down this time. He saw ginger and said “I don’t like raw ginger. It’s gonna be spicy.” He was intrigued by passion fruit, but we settled on mango and watermelon. We sat at a shaded table and drank it.
We went down to the beach and went to the bathroom, then found a spot on the left beach, a little after noon. There were a lot of holes/castles left by other kids, so he started by destroying one of those. He did pretty well with me putting sunscreen on him, but he didn’t want his floaties on and was reluctant to go in the water at first. We played together on the beach, making sandcastles and crushing them. I snuck into the water to get wet a couple times. A woman found a little toy car on the beach and gave it to him. August played with it a bit, but then the steering wheel broke off. He decided he didn’t want it any more, and we decided to put it in a hole and bury it as a treasure for someone else.
He played a little with the water on the edge, then I carried him out, above the water. He wanted to touch the breaking waves, so I put his legs in. Eventually, he was okay standing in it a bit, and he sat on my lap and played in the water as I also sat in the water.
He asked where we had buried his car and at first I thought he was going to be upset that we couldn’t find it. But then he excitedly related the story of how someone had found it and given it to him and we had buried it and hidden it for someone else to find as treasure.
He spun around and said “I’m pretending to be a record player.” I asked “How do you know about record players?” He said “Curious Geroge Goes to the Hospital.” Which we only read a couple times. He wanted to bury something else, so he found a straw and buried that.
As we were getting ready to go, a woman came up and asked to borrow our shovel. He was not happy to see me give it to her – he thought she was taking it. They gave it back, and we left the beach at 1:15. He then played at the shower stream until 1:50. He would dig the sand, making a stream channel for it, and seeing how far the water would go when people started showering again. He looked at the water and said “It looks like a huge animal…Why’s it going farther than we’ve ever seen? It’s soaking into the sand…Evaporation?…Amazing…”
I couldn’t remember the word for water going into the sand so looked it up and taught him ‘infiltration’. But I told him I wasn’t sure if that was the right word for it soaking into his skin. So he called it “soakintration”. In the bathrooms I helped a man find the shower room. Both with him and the woman borrowing the shovel I couldn’t remember how to say ‘You’re welcome’, but now have it down.
We left at 2:10. We counted the steps on the way up: 154 steps. He said”When we get home I’ll tell mama that was 154 steps.” We walked back to the station, stopping to look at the bumpy green fruits on sale. He had wanted one on the way down, but now he wasn’t as excited about buying one, so we didn’t. The drinking fountain at the bus station didn’t work, so we went into McDonald’s and used their sink. We were at the station, waiting, at 2:35.
Last time, the bus had come at 2:50. And before that had been a later bus. So we sat down and started waiting: “I want to sit on the dirt ground and read 13 Story Treehouse and eat apple. Okay?” He pointed to something: “But don’t sit on whatever that is…Or touch it, or eat it, or smell it…”
So we sat. And read. And read. And ate the rest of his sandwich. And all of the apple. And the other granola bar I had. The station was getting emptier and emptier. It was clear that the busses were on a different schedule as the holiday starts in the evening. But I couldn’t believe there wouldn’t be a single afternoon bus back to Even Yehuda. And at one point a guy assured me a 48 would be coming. But around 4:10 two 471 (or something like that) busses came and the last people around climbed on those and left. A few times August said “We’re stuck in Netanya!” But he handled it all really well and was in a good mood.
Carly called Mandy and I sent her a pin of our location. While we waited we went to a bakery shop that was just closing (McDonald’s already was) and bough
t ten cookies and a pizza-ish thing. I let August choose a cookie while we waited and he chose an all-chocolate cookie. We talked about how that was it for him and the cookie with a red dot would be for tomorrow and the rest were for Mandy and her family (and one for mama).
They picked us up at 4:40. As we got in August excitedly told them how he had had a smoothie AND a cookie and it had been so much sugar, and about how a woman had given him a car and he had buried it on the beach as a treasure.
But then in the car Carly sat next to him and he was immediately grumpy and tired. He wanted more cookies, despite our discussion. He calmed down for the last few minutes though.
We were home at 5. He asked to watch something and said he wanted to watch Ask the StoryBots. He watched the French fries episode. He sang along to the theme song, which he has been singing parts of. I took him up and gave him a bath. He played with Carly and they read some Bob Books and Home and the hats book from the library. He was asleep at 6:40.
Stairs to his treehouse:
Infinity going to the moon:
Smoothie:
Pushing me:
Holding the car and about to stomp an abandoned thing in the sand:
More disturbing than any shirt in Korea:
Reading in the bus stop:
Chocolate cookie:
