He was nursing a lot at 3am. A restless night. Closer to morning he rolled against the headboard and threw his legs over my head. We both slept that way for awhile before he took over most of the bed and I moved to the edge of the pillow. Up around 6. We were upstairs and he said “Dada, go in there and turn the air conditioner on.” I went in the bedroom and turned it on. He giggled and announced “I turned it on 17!”
Downstairs he started watching Timmy Time. I was sitting next to him and he said “When I was sleeping back there, dada fish, I had a very bad nightmare.” I asked “Did real Zinnie have a bad nightmare too? Is that why you had a tough night of sleep?” He gave me a thumbs up. When Carly headed to work he said “I don’t love you.” Which is often his grumpy reaction to her leaving now.
We then spent awhile typing and copying and pasting on my iPad. He then started singing Ants Go Marching and walking around the house. He’s been adding verses himself the last few days. He started with one he’s done before “The ants go marching 90 by 90, the little one stops to break his knee, and they all go marching…” He expanded it, with verses like “The ants go marching 2 books by 2 books, the little one stops to smash a chair, and they all go marching into the underground, to get out of the rain…”
He wanted me to take a photo of him and he made funny faces. He then used the camera as a machine to scan Marshy and Green Monster. Took care of me as a syringe that turned into a flea comb and “coison” to kill fleas – based on the Animal Hospital app.
He played some Word Wagon on my iPad and was excited about silent E words, we then organized his apps and he had fun with that, and then finally he played with Comic Maker as I made a started making a lassi. He helped me put the ingredients together, and when we got to cinnamon he asked “Is this the last thing but not least?” (As in ‘last, but not least’)
He then used my phone to send messages to Carly. She actually responded, which we didn’t expect. We read Berenstain Bears Slumber Party and part of the Magic Treehouse #8 book, where they go to the moon. He was nervous about them running out of oxygen and we had to stop. We then had to act it out: “Can we be two blood cells not getting oxygen…can we be the two lungs not getting oxygen? Can we be bacteria? Dada germ? There’s ton of teeth here.”
We looked at some of the new Hebrew flashcards and used the translation app to figure some things out. We then shifted into being mice and hibernating. Next he watched Sarah and Duck while I exercised and took a shower.
Back downstairs he wanted a music app on my iPad and he found Bloom, a generative music app from Brian Eno that we haven’t used. We spent a long time on it, playing with the delay settings. He liked it on a long delay and waiting for the repeat. Really cool how he got into it. He the moved to the toy piano and was figuring out Yankee Doodle in the key of F sharp.
We then finished Magic Treehouse 8, but only after I looked at the end so I could assure him that the two characters were okay. This is the single most Carly-like thing about him, as she will do that for movies. Near the end of the book, when they realize the stars make a mouse shape and that Peanut, the mouse is special, August got excited. I asked “Why do you think Peanut is special?” He exclaimed “Morgan!” Morgan had been under a spell and was in the stories the whole time, transformed into a mouse. He got so excited when he figured it out.
I put a pizza in the oven and gave him his shower while pizza cooked. He stood on my feet again, something he’s done every day, while I gave him a shower. Makes it hard to wash him. Can’t tell if he’s bothered by the floor being too cold or too hot. He’s not very communicative about proper temperature.
After his shower we were “blasting” everywhere, me picking him up and him firing his rockets to move us around, trying to find Angeles’s socks. That mission accomplished, we went downstairs and he got really excited by a Bjork song, “Innocence” (Sinden Remix), and was dancing all over the downstairs. He sat and ate a piece of pizza for lunch.
He wanted to read the ninth Magic Treehouse book and said something like “I wonder what adventure…?” He was then excited by the beginning of it. We went upstairs and played some guitar, then read Peppa Pig Dentist Trip. Made a game of calling him the names of book and show characters (Peppa, Garfield, Oona, etc.) and he thought that was really funny and kept asking for more.
Finally, we got going and were out the door at 1:50. We drove down past Ikea and just across Highway 2 to the area west of the Poleg Interchange. There is a strip of parks at what’s called Zohar Square. Parked about a block away and walked in the stroller. Stopped at the playground area in the middle of the park and he got on a rocking thing. Then spent quite awhile blasting monsters and dragons and walking on the low wall around the playground. Eventually we got back in the stroller and continued walking.
There was a pedestrian path headed north, and we followed it, then up and across a big pedestrian bridge. Found a park area to the north and kept walking around as he didn’t want to stop and play. He wanted to keep walking but I told him we needed to get back to the car and go do grocery shopping and pick up Carly. He said he wanted to be late picking up mama.
We got back to the car at 3:10 and let him have an “extra mint”. He first said he would keep it a secret from Carly, but then said he could talk to her right now: “I can hear her cuz I have a power that when I say something it goes over to mama.”
We drove to Tim Taam. Should have been a quick trip, but took longer than expected. They’ve now torn apart more parts of the store. Then, I picked a bad line again: only one guy in front of me, but it took forever. Employee was on the phone a couple times, forms were being filled out. But at least I recognized a couple Hebrew words in conversation for the first time. August had put his head down on the cart again and told me he was tired. The guy behind us in line entertained him by poking his (the guy’s) stomach with his (the guy’s finger) and making a funny noise with his (the guy’s) lips.
Finally outside we returned the cart and got going. And hit traffic. I said something about how it would be nice to be able to rocket to the school because we could skip the traffic. He disagreed: “Dada, there’d still have to be traffic cuz there’s rockets in space.”
August had mentioned going to the bathroom before we got to the store, but once in the store he said he could wait until class. But then the slow line and traffic happened and he was saying he really needed to go in the car. I offered to pull over at a bus stop and he could go in the dirt, but he refused. When we got to the school I ran him in to the performing arts building and took him to the bathroom.
We got to class about 4:40, which normally would have been fine, but today it was starting at 4:30. We walked in with other people who were also late, but August didn’t like the slight extra busy-ness. Perhaps because we didn’t walk in with the teacher like usual, or because he was already tired, he decided he just wasn’t doing class today. Got him to look in for a minute, but that was it. He told us he was afraid of the teacher, even though this is the teacher he really likes.
We headed hom and got there at 5. He said he wanted to “Just lie on the couch.” When Carly pointed out that that meant not nursing he thought it was funny. They nursed. He was grumpy about having to stop and threatened to throw a pillow at Carly. She said he’d have to have a timeout. He thought about it and asked her “Can you throw this at yourself?”
Had some dinner, then Carly read him the letter from Josephine. He liked that. They then skype called me from the table while
I was on the other side of the room. We read half of the You Wouldn’t Want to Live without Bacteria book, then Magic Treehouse #9. He’s really getting into the predictions thing. When they got into the mini-sub he said “I think that will help them find the thing for the R word thing.” “R word” meant ‘riddle’ – he just couldn’t remember the word.
He was then pretending we were in a sub. He was pushing an ‘8’ button to steer us down: “I can’t see anything now.”
Did a lot of flops on the bed and he pretended to be the skipping CD player in the musical sculpture at the park. He was the laser and I was the disc. Brushed his teeth, and he was being a mouse. I suggested he dream about cheese and we agreed he’d dream about mice and cheese. He was asleep at 7:35.
Photos:
By Zohar Square:
Tiv Taam:
The closest he got to class:
