He was up around 6:30. When I got up I heard him playing chords and saying numbers on the toy piano. When I came down he was in the bathroom. As I helped him he said “I’m never going to give you your iPad back…I’m going to remodel your iPad.” (A reference to Fortunately, the Milk). He had used it to watch Sarah and Duck. Carly was drinking her coffee outside and he went out with her for a few minutes, eating his oatmeal, then came in and used my iPad to play Wizard School. We sent each other things for quite awhile. He then nursed and played Scratch on Carly’s computer, then wanted to read Berenstain Bears and the New Baby but only wanted Carly to read it, not me. He ended up watching a video about jail with Carly and had good questions: “What are other really bad rules they could break?” “Are they stuck in jail forever?” “When the person goes to jail does the person that got the iPad stolen get it back?” “Can we watch a better video of someone breaking a really bad rule?”
I took a shower, then Carly headed to the plant store and I took him up for his bath. He was throwing the letters out of the bath and said “They’re sea sponges!…You can scrub me with the sea sponges.” We were listening to Christmas music, mainly the new Minus 5 album. He then spent a lot of time watering the toys in the basket (kind of looks like a flower pot) with the water can. I commented on how I needed to do the silicone to try to reduce the leaks under the barrier that Yve put in. August said “Silicone? Is that an element?” “I turned into silicone.” When he was out of the bath he was then the silicone, blocking the water. Naked, he put up his arms and a leg to block the water from going to the other end of the bathroom.
Out in the play area we were now listening to Moby and the Void Pacific Choir. He started dancing, so we had a little Moby dance party. I picked him up and he said “Are you using your watch?…But dancing is exercise too.”
Carly was home 10:20. We heard a noise and investigated. She was bringing all the plants and pots in. She’d bought a couple of big pots, then za’ater and flowers and other plants for one side of the kitchen boxes. August asked for popcorn so I made that. He wanted the plain so I could put za’ater on it. Carly remembered how he used to flap his hands when he was excited. He tried it, but said “I don’t do that anymore.” When I made the popcorn I asked how much za’ater Carly usually puts on it. She said just a little. He said “You don’t want to waste the za’ater.” Then told me “When I had oatmeal mama almost putted on all the honey container!”
I also had out carrots and pesto vegenaise to dip them in. August kept eating carrots, even as the popcorn was available. He ate a lot of them. He told Carly “Mama! You should have some popcorn! It’s SO good.” We took the carrots and popcorn out on the outside table and ate there.
He was then playing in the Zinnie house. Carly was doing the plants and I was working on the library, putting the glass in, the plaque on, etc. August started a shop out of his Zinnie house, selling things to Carly and me. Carly went and got coins and we used those. Carly replanted his carrots to a bigger pot and he got to pick one and eat it and the greens: “It’s the tiniest carrot I’ve ever seen!”
In his shop he offered to sell Carly some cardboard, which I needed for painting the board for the library sign. I told him I’d give him twice what the other woman was willing to pay. He said “Actually the other woman really wants it but you can borrow it anytime.” I had the two pieces of cardboard to use under the painting, but when I went to get something I came back to find it missing: he had reclaimed it and it was now back in the shop. He had earlier done the same thing with the broom Carly was using and she had to repurchase it.
He helped me paint the sign green. He was talking to the paint and the boards, asking them how they felt about the process. We finished that and went inside at 12:30. I put a frozen pizza in the oven and while he waited he ate beet greens. We ate, sitting at the table and listening to Christmas music, and then got going up to the Ilanot arboretum.
We got walking a bit after 2. We had taken apart his orange bike and figured out it could fit in the trunk of the car so he rode that around Ilanot. He liked the hills, and got pretty good at rolling down the hills. Also, he realized there were QR codes on all the tree signs, so wanted to scan each of them with the phone. He wanted to do all of them, so then I told him he could only do it on trees he really likes. So he was asking “Do I really like that tree?” Or asking Carly if she liked that tree, then if she said yes he’d say “Okay, let’s scan it!”
We got back to the beginning around 3, but then we spent several minutes repeatedly rolling down a hill on the bike. Carly got a couple minutes to sit and read. We went over to the picnic table area and he started playing in the pine needles. Carly skyped with her mom. Last time August and I were here we skyped with Cassie. While they were Skyping August and I played around and I realized that some of the pine trees above us (the Turkish pines (pinus brutia) or the stone pines (pines pinea) were showing crown shyness, which I’ve been wanting to see since I read about it.
We got going and from Ilanot you have to travel north on the highway and turn around. Got stuck in traffic a bit. We made it to the Tiv Taam at the mall and Carly went in to shop. August and I stayed in the car. He got in the driver’s seat and played the whole time. He was doing a lot of singing to “Jingle Bells”.
We got home after 5. We were dipping some of the new oval-shaped crackers and carrots in yogurt and vegenaise. He did a couple of puzzles with Carly: the undersea one and Peter Rabbit. I thawed the soup, did some dishes, and made us grilled cheese sandwiches. We ate and August got us all playing Wizard School. Carly sent him a picture of a menorah. He then asked for a picture of 3 candles, since he is three.
Carly cooked the beet. She put some in the freezer to cool it down for him. He asked me “Could you be somebody taking something into a freezer?” He has me act out things all the time, but this was an odd one as I just put something in a freezer. Earlier we had been acting out getting tattoos again. He gave a piano lesson to Carly, then we were trying to figure out the little tune that he was playing and often hums. Pretty sure it is from some app we’ve used, but not sure which one. We looked at a few but couldn’t find it.
We also had the Hanukkah donuts that Carly got at the store. In the car when we were guessing what she had purchased that was Hanukkah related, August said ‘dreidel’ and ‘menorah’.
He was ready for bed, and laid out the order of things: “Number 1 is brushing my teeth, number 2 is going to the bathroom, number 3 is nursing, number 4 is going to sleep…” Before I even asked he said “I’m going to dream about machines and squirrels and mice.” I left them at 7:55.
New plants:
In the Zinnie house:
First carrot:
Arboretum:
Skyping:
Crown shyness:
Singing in the car:
Menorah picture:
