Mandy picked up Carly at 6 and they headed to Jerusalem for their West Bank tour with Saveel. I didn’t see her in the morning and kept sleeping. August woke up at 6:30 and asked where mama was. When I said she had left for work he wasn’t not upset at all and barely mentioned her. He headed downstairs before me and ‘hid’ from me on the couch when I came down. He was then trying out all the light switches. He asked “Dada, where should we go today?” He asked it again at least once later. He doesn’t usually show much initiative in thinking about leaving the house.
We read a lot of the Peppa Pig treasury then sent messages and video to Carly. We played MathTango and then he requested tea, so we drank tea together. He played Yankee Doodle on the piano. I played the CD collection of Hebrew children’s songs that was playing in the sculpture at Ra’anana Park and he sat, listening and playing/humming along. He wanted to find something by blasting, so we blasted upstairs to find clothes for going outside. He then asked “Can we sneak up on GarageBand?”Don’t know why. We played guitar and recorded him singing Yankee Doodle. Still upstairs we watched Arabic alphabet and Hebrew colors videos. We discussed doing a longer Hebrew song with the nikkud (vowel marks) but he specifically mentioned the mem sofit with a dagesh in it, which shows up if you press and hold on the iPad/iPhone keyboard. So we looked up dagesh in Wikipedia and learned all about it, but no mention of it in a mem. So still a mystery.
I took a shower and he watched the StoeyBots Christmas special that was just released. I watched the end with him. We read much of the Peppa Pig collection. Got his clothes off for his shower, but he cuddled with blankets in his bed. He asked for more so I got him the blankets off our bed. He asked for the lights of so he could see the stars.
Got him through his shower, then we were aphids eating things. Not quite sure how that one started. He was playing with the weights by the guitar and managed to scare the heck out of me by rolling it across the carpet. It kept rolling, then down the stairs to the midway landing. No damage, but plenty of noise.
We got going. First stop was at a McDonald’s north of Even Yehuda. He got his first Happy Meal. He chose the corn sticks (the vegetarian option), apple juice, the Powerpuff Girls toy, fries, ketchup, and the fruit squeeze. I got a fish sandwich and shared his fries. He was a little bothered that I was eating fish, as he was still being an aphid and wanted us to be eating all plants. We chose everything with one of those computer screens, but the staff still managed to screw up his Happy Meal three ways: first, no ketchup. I went and asked for that. Then his squeeze was missing. Went and got that. Finally, he got the wrong toy. Luckily, he didn’t care, and in fact quite liked what he got: a little microphone thing that makes your voice echoey. So he sang through that.
We then walked around the outdoor mall. He was blasting monsters everywhere. We looked in the bookstore for awhile, finding Frog and Toad, Not a Box, and several other books in Hebrew. August wanted to get some and translate Hebrew words, but we didn’t get anything. Went and found the bathroom before we left, then drove north to Alexander Stream.
We had walked along Alexander Stream with Carly back when it was hotter. We hadn’t gone far. I put in a park on the west side of the highway this time and Waze took me on backroads to get there.
We got out at the park at 2:15. August had been getting drowsy as we got there. Went to get him in the backpack and he was leaning on a metal bench. “No, I don’t want to do this. I want to rest.” He rested for a minute then we got in the backpack. The park was where we had stopped last time with Carly when we found the locked gate across a bridge. The pedestrian gate was still locked, but there was vehicle gate right next to it that was just latched with a chain, but no lock.
We got walking and went about a mile downstream until August decided he wanted to turn back and we were running out of time. As we were walking he was singing an Ants Go Marching song with decimals: “The ants go marching 1 point 3…” With lines like “…to plant a garden…to put down fertilizer.”. When we had smelled a field with fertilizer he said “I think I smell a poop monster.” He was also wanting to send messages to Carly and have her respond but I said she might not as she had turned off her phone because the battery was low. He said “I think it’s form my powers, my power to keep things safe…Sorry, I don’t have my own battery, so I have to be connected to other people.” And when we decided to stop for a snack he steered me by my shoulders and said he was using his remote control.
On the way back we found a really thorny plant. He said “It will pointify you…There’s more of the pointifying plants.” As we got close to the end we were walking on a path that is basically a sidewalk along a dirt road. A truck was coming towards us and he said “You know there’s a truck coming by, right?”
When we got back to the gate we had a problem: the chain was now locked. Would have been a good additional mile to walk around. Luckily, it was loose so just enough space for us to crawl through. August went through first and I lowered the backpack over the fence, then squeezed through.
In the car we took the highway back and went to the Drorim Mall. We bought slippers for Carly for pajama day at school and had free samples at the health food store and bought a bar of soap and chipotle veganaise.
We drove home, dropped off our stuff inside, then walked over to Jack and Celeste’s house, about 4:30. We got Nellie and took her for a walk. Nellie came to the door at first, but then when we came in she actually seemed a bit scared of us and ran into the living room. Got the leash on her though and she was ready for a walk. We walked her for about half an hour. It took some adjustment for her at first: she would get wound up with August’s bike and a couple times she looked over and seemed startled to see August next to her. And when we walked along the main street she tried to keep away from the bike and kept going down into the street, into the parking strip. August was concerned about her.
We walked down to the big trail and back. Along the walk August reminded me it was two scoops of food, although he said he didn’t know which size cup. Back at the house I had August put the scoops in the bowl. As we walked home I asked him if he wanted to walk Nellie again sometime. He had seemed to have a lot of fun. But he gave two thumbs down and said “I don’t want to hear that again for a very long time.” Earlier, at the end of the walk along the stream he’d given two thumbs up, although he later adjusted it to thumbs between.
On the way home he told me to go faster and I said “faster, driver, faster” His reply: “Dada, I don’t do that anymore.” It was dark as we walked down the path behind our house and we stopped to look at some colorful lights in a backyard that changed color. I picked him up to see them. As we left he said “Bye bye glowing things even though they can’t hear cuz they’re not people.”
Home at 5:25. August was a puppy and I put water in a bowl for him and he drank it on the floor. He then played with the Dr. PetPlay app and we put Peter Rabbit in it. I got other stuffed animals down, but we didn’t get around to adding them. We sent some messages to Carly and figured out how to send a GIF of August sticking out his tongue.
I got dinner ready as he played with the pet app and we listened to the new U2 album and ate dinner. He was still pretending to be a puppy and opened the kitchen door, pretended to pee outside, and came back in. He was playing chords on the piano and naming out the notes: “C E G” He started that without being able to see the letters on the keys, so he’s starting to get them memorized. He th
en took the board out so he could see the letters.
He requested tea so we made tea for both of us and sat and read Amelia Bedelia Under Construction as we drank our tea. Brushed his teeth and watched some Arabic alphabet song videos, then read Yertle the Turtle. Carly came in the door just as we finished the story. He wanted to nurse and Carly took him upstairs. He said he’d dream about turtles and walking dogs. I left them at 7:45 and he was soon asleep.
Making funny faces:
Slipping through the fence:
Feeding Nellie:
