Our first family trip to Jerusalem!
He was nursing around 5:20 and almost got up but fell back to sleep until 6:50. At one point he said “Why aren’t you nursing me?” after they had been nursing, but then fell asleep on his own.
They read some of Thieves of Ostia, which Carly is reading for school. Then he was quite upset when he couldn’t nurse again right away. We were getting ready to go and I went and took a shower. He was then watching Peg + Cat, including “The Beethoven Problem”, which I watched with him. Carly made him some of ‘my’ oatmeal for breakfast (the instant kind). He was keeping it a “secret” from me and kept saying things like “Keep watching and you’ll see! Keep watching and you’ll find out!”
He was then singing the ZYX song phonetically, all the way through, following up doing it with the Hebrew alphabet song as well. This is something that is pretty much his own invention, although a couple of the alphabet songs we know, like A Ah Apples and the A Makes Ah songs have a phonetic component to them.
A bit rainy out as I started to take things out to the car. There was a little plane flying really low, and doing circles around the area so I told him about it. He came out and watched the plane with me and walked to the car with me. He was then humming Eine Kleine Nachtmusik fast and slow.
We left around 9, Carly driving. We stopped at the bank, parking in our usual spot around the corner. The ATM worked! Back at the car August wanted to show Carly the sculptures at the house and was upset when we drove away.
We played some GroGarden along the way and read some of Magic Treehouse #6. He found he had control of the window and asked “Why do I have control?” Carly: “I guess because I trust you.” Him: “Well, okay. We’ll see about that.” He also sang his sofit song. As we got to the parking garage west of the old city there was a big traffic jam getting into it. We finally made it in and parked around 11:30. We stopped at a bathroom in the mall area and as he came out he sang a “I shake my hands at home” song.
We walked west through the mall area, then into the old city at the Jaffa Gate, past the Tower of David, and straight to exploring the market streets. August was pretty much in control. He liked the steps and the little ramp things, and when we came to a fork he often chose the direction that seemed busiest. We meandered north of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and then to the east, then back south and east, eventually stopping at the Al Burma restaurant for lunch. Very cool underground interior. We got hummus, Turkish salad, and a shawarma plate. The hummus was green with likely pistachios so Carly skipped that.
We continued west and found the Western Wall. We watched there for several minutes. August was interested enough. He and I wandered around a bit. Before we left we stopped for the bathroom. I took him in, and he was fascinated by all the toilet stalls, which were numbered. He let me close the door to his stall while I went to the bathroom, and I heard him start to sing a “I’m going to the bathroom in toilet 19” song.
We walked south out of the Western Wall area at the Dung Gate, where a Jewish man put his hand on my head and said a prayer for us. We then walked along the city walls to the south and through the area around King David’s tomb, before walking back up along the walls on the west side. We read a couple signs about the history of the wall, but then it started to rain heavier. I was carrying him from the steps to the south, and continued carrying him as we made our way back to the Jaffa Gate.
We looked at rugs at a shop we had seen at the beginning, but couldn’t decide on anything. While we considered what to do next, August walked in circles in front of a shop, singing London Bridge. It was 2:30.
We decided to try to find the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by taking a street. We walked up the Greek Patriarchate Street, but it went down stairs and back into the underground market streets we had been in before. We found a rug and jewelry shop and found a rug we liked. Will looking at the options the salesman asked August which he liked and he replied “I really like all of them.” We bought a rug for 450 shekels. He also had a lot of Roman glass silver jewelry and I looked at that for a bit. We walked a little to the south and August spotted some candied fruit that he wanted for his treat. We got some papaya, kiwi, mango, and a couple other random ones. Then made one more attempt to find the church taking a little side street on our way back, but then realized it too headed down underground eventually, right back to the candy place.
We headed out, leaving 4ish. August was looking at Waze and telling Carly which direction to turn next, and in how many meters. We sang “We all sing with the same voice” and asked, of one line in the song, “Why they have two dadas?” He then sang “I’ve got three dadas, I’ve got a billion dadas…I’ve got seven Mama’s…I’ve got infinity sisters…” We then played with the calculator on his iPad and kept multiplying bigger and bigger numbers. When it got to over 300 digits it would give an error message that said “Infinity Duck”, which August found very funny. We then read a bunch of books: Oh Daddy, Loch Mess Monster, Click Clack Cows that Type, Peppa Goes to the Pool, Would You Feed It to the Monkey?, and Gaston. He watched a few Kipper stories and Timmy Time and we stopped at a gas station for a bathroom stop and were home after 6:50 as it rained.
We came inside. I think Carly and him had talked about Thanksgiving because he said “I’m thankful for you.”
Watched one more Timmy Time, then we read Edgar and the Puffin Rock moon book. He then played with the pillows and rugs as if they were pizzas and plates. He said “There’s a lot of pizza cutting going on here.” “I call them square pizzas” He was cutting the pizzas into all sorts of interesting shapes: “Sometimes I do rectangular shapes.” He then had a pizza shop and had me buying pizza. At some point he said “Dada, now you’re a crayon…yarok…it’s a color in Hebrew.” He remembers green.
Went up to the bed and brushed his teeth. He was then playing zombies: “I punch them to Neptune then when I’m on Neptune I punch them to the sun and they burn up.” He was then being a catepillar and turning into a butterfly. I told him to dream about catepillars and butterflies. He said “Caterpillars and butterflies is really cool.” I left them at 8:30 and he was soon asleep.