He was up with Carly’s alarm. They got out of bed a bit later. He was finishing a Timmy Time episode when I got up, then he watched StoryBots Christmas. They nursed before Carly left. When Carly said she had to leave soon he said “I’m gonna cancel that out.” Carly left and we read two Berenstain Bears books: Get in a Fight and Bad Habit. Zucchini bread for breakfast. We pretended to be snails hiding in a shell when it rained or someone walked by. He wanted popcorn so we made a bowl, then read Amelia Bedelia and the Cat
He watched Sarah and Duck and I exercised and took a shower. He then played GarageBand and was looking up chords in Piano Companion. We went downstairs and I made sandwiches for lunch. He wanted spoonfuls of things so had some peanut butter, jam, and honey.
Somehow, we then became water, I think the sewage overflow that was leaking out of the driveway/storage area (not sure if I mentioned that Shmuel had come and fixed it while we were gon on Friday and he now wants us to not put toilet paper in the toilets): “Come on dada, let’s flow into the street…Where should we go now, dada water?” We turned it into acting out the water cycle, using the couch and pillows as the mountains that we would then erode before flowing back to the ocean, etc. Then: “We can pee upstairs. We’re clouds; we pee rain.”
As we went upstairs he got creative with his weights and numbers: “Do you weigh negative (something)?” “Thats a number with 99 quafzillion zeros after it.” Made his own shower mildly more manageable by pretending he was a cloud soaking up more water. Afterwards we ended up singing the “Down by the Bay” song and making up new verses that end the line “My mom will say, have you ever seen a…” One of August’s best was “eagle pooping on a seagull?”
He saw the ‘On this day…’ notification on my phone and we ended up looking at Day One. A year ago today we had gone to the Seoul Grand Zoo and there was a photo of him on the wrong side of a sign saying the waterbird area was closed. There was also a video of him finding out that he liked carrots and telling us to grate more carrots. The bird flu photo led to us acting out a bird being sick with bird flu and a zookeeper (with mask, gloves, etc.) taking care of it.
We left the house at 10 and drove north about a half hour to the Technoda Science Center. We had tried to come by here once with Carly on a holiday but it was closed. As we parked and got out he said “I want to blast that monster but there’s a person in the way.” He had spotted the tower from the coal plant just to the north and I told him about it and that it ran on coal: “So it makes a lot of pollution?” He then said
“The power plant I get my electricity from for my rockets runs on coal, actually.”
Not a very inviting place. We had to be let in the gate, but the security officer wasn’t at his post at first. Inside, there was no info. We paid our 24 shekels and she told us to start in the outside portion. No flyer, etc. She had to buzz us to the outside area. We went out and started with the water stuff: pumps and one of the spiral things, and a water wheel, etc. We talked about all the different ways of moving water and why it was so important. Then he needed to use the bathroom. The door we had come out was locked, of course, but there was no way to alert anyone. Knocked on the door, but no response. We checked the other doors and found a different door unlocked. Found a bathroom. First toilet we looked at had a sketchy looking toilet seat, He refused it, and we went to a different one: “It’s not pinchy, dada…No, I will never want to go to the pinchy toilet. Not for NINETY NINE years.”
We went back outside and went to the musical instrument stuff. Okay, but nothing too thrilling. We stopped and sat outside and ate our lunch. Played around some more, then he was ready for the inside area.
But first, we had to ask to go in that part, as the door was closed. We had to wait while they got a key and came and opened it up. She then left it unlocked. The odd thing was that there was a mother and her son already in there. So I don’t know what the heck was going on.
Luckily, the inside stuff was well worth our time and we spent a lot of time there. He got really excited by a funhouse mirror that made him look really tall:”I’m as tall as a seven year old!” “I’m like a 9,000 year old!”
Although he liked everything inside, he was nervous and wanted me to carry him everyplace, and often didn’t want to be set down. I think it has to primarily do with all of the loud, odd noises. He was always bothered by them at the science centers in Seoul, as well. So I carried him around for the first hour. It was only when we started going over things for the second or third time that he relaxed and was running around on his own.
One of our favorite things was the tracks that had these cars that you set on them and watched the run down – gravity and all that. I was able to remind him of the Max Axiom book and Newton. In fact, in one area there were pictures of Einstein and Newton on the wall and we were able to discuss them: he identified Einstein from Peg + Cat and Einsteinium in the “Elements” song, and I reminded him of Newton in the Max Axiom book. He then really liked playing with the magnets: both magnets stacked on a post, repelling each other, and train cars with magnets on each end. We had read that Max Axiom book on magnets so he had an idea about the different poles and the attraction/repulsion. Also, then had a tennis ball shooting air cannon.
They kind of randomly have a section of historical ship models, which as admittedly more fun for me, although he could read the years of their operation in Arabic, which was pretty cool. Other cool stuff included fluids not mixing, a section on optical illusions, a place where he could make heat hand prints, a place you could control a surveillance camera in the center of the room (also had these in Seoul – what do they have to do with science???), a whirlpool thing, a couple kaleidoscope things, a periscope, etc.
Oh, and the chair of nails. He walked up to it and touched it with one finger and said it was pokey. I explained though that when you sat on it your weight would be distributed and it wouldn’t be pokey. Before I could actually test my explanation to make sure it was correct, he simply turned around and started sitting on it. A cool bit of bravery, and a sign he was feeling more comfortable.
He also liked the three dimensional puzzles, and made progress with actually flipping pieces, and not just rotating them, when putting together ‘H’ and ‘T’ shaped puzzles. He has always found that difficult in the past.
There was a sort of infinite kaleidoscope thing and he was excited that there were and “infinity” of stars in it. Finally, in the black light area he had fun with the Tesla coil thing (I think that’s what it’s called, although I might be getting them mixed up).
We went back and covered his favorite section again (hand prints, surveillance camera, rotating pen thing), then made sure we’d done everything: I lifted him with pulleys while he sat in chairs, etc.
We finished up, then wanted to do the spiraling coin donation thing. Didn’t have any agora coins (the partial shekels). In fact, only had 5 shekel coins. We got him a grape juice out of a machine and had a 1 shekel coin left. Asked at the desk for change. They didn’t have any. So he rolled the 1 shekel coin down the ramp. It fell over though and didn’t roll very well. He wasn’t bothered though.
We went and sat outside and drank the grape juice: “It’s really good, dada.” I asked how he liked the science center and got an enthusiastic thumbs up: “I’m gonna put a thumbs up on the building with my shooting thumbs up machine.”
We went back inside to use the bathroom before we left. As we went in he asked “Is there anything for me to blast? I haven’
t blasted anything in quite awhile.” I bought a drink for the road and had another shekel coin, so we did the spiral again. Entertained a bunch of kids with it. August had fun making sure he saw it drop to the bottom. Afterwards, he said he made sure he didn’t blink – a reference to the Garfield strip where Garfield is staring at a tree in the fall with one leaf left, and when he blinks the leaf falls and he misses it.
We left after 2, so spent 3 hours. As I put him in his seat in the car he did the head pushing game (head butt) that he insists on winning. So I then started kissing him a lot and declared myself the winner of the kissing game.
We were listening to the Tom Lehrer Elements song. August would call out element names when he recognized them, then say things like “I turned into Californium.” I had sent an email to Carly saying, cryptically, “Today August sat on a chair of nails. He’s okay.” She called for details and to ask if I was kidding. I had her on speakerphone and asked August if he had sat on a chair of nails: “Yeah!”
We got to Ace at 2:30. Quick trip in, getting one can of spray paint for the back of the shelves, a power strip, and a small thing of nails.
Then to Tiv Taam where we made a quick trip, getting two boxes of popcorn (one butter, one plain) so Carly wouldn’t be out, apples, and bananas. Both Ace and Tiv Taam are out of the big stick-on hooks I was using for our coat hanging nook.
Finally, we looked quickly at the art store. August didn’t really want to look around. We want a globe, but they just had one and it wasn’t too impressive.
I emailed Carly, asking if she wanted us to pick her up. We had some time, so we sat in the car and listened to more science songs I found in iTunes. We then drove up and picked Carly up and headed home.
Carly cooked the rest of the chocolate pancakes and August ate one. He and I read Berenstain Bears Get Into a Fight, Class Two at the Zoo, and Cat on the Mat Is Flat – he wanted to act out many of the stories.
Carly went in the bathroom with him, and he said something negative/mean. She asked “Why do you say those negative things?” He responded with “Because negative times positive equals negative.” Not sure where he learned that – maybe from us playing with the calculator when we got to Infinity Duck on our way back from Jerusalem.
He was then playing chords on the toy piano and would walk to the iPad and type in the letters in a document. We then switched to the ‘Reverse Chord Lookup’ in Piano Companion and he spent a lot of time playing the chords in there and asking about their names. Really cool. And when Carly came to see what he was doing he was teaching her how to do it and play the chords. And he was teaching her: he modeled it, then told her it was her turn. When she missed a note he encouraged her to try again. Even cooler.
We took him upstairs for bed, although he kept wanting to do more and more chords, even as he was yawning and rubbing his eyes. In the bed he was a squirrel, then we all were, and he wanted a squirrel family hug. We talked about dreaming about “nuts and acorns”, then he added “water wheels”. He was asleep at 7:30.
Reading Arabic numbers:
Counting reflections:
Dada-Zinnie monster:
Lightning:
Ace. Playing with a saw:
Reading time:
