It was a rough morning – August was waking up around 4:30. He had nursed earlier as well, making it a really rough night for Carly. They got up by 5:30. I got up after 6:30. As I got up he was getting really upset because Carly wouldn’t let him have the noisy thing from the Old MacDonald puzzle. Carly tried to go to bed but couldn’t get to sleep.
Downstairs he calmed down when we pretended to be on Treehouse levels (the bed was out and it looked like a platform): chainsaw juggling, upstairs to ice skating, ice cream: “I’m gonna get monkey ice skating board…It’s a real ice cream flavor. It tastes like monkeys.” We then sat in the play area and read book: Biscuit Picnic, Opposites, Barnyard Dance, Happy Birthday!, Moby-Dick, Tickle, The I Love You Book, and a good chunk of The New Kid on the Block. We moved in on the bed for the last book. He was laughing pretty well at some of the poems. Then he got silly: “When I said muggle wuggle the sticks under there disappeared.” And “Everywhere I go, the calculator sews and sews…it seems our whole house up.” He was rhyming nonsense words, like “uppa moopa appa dappa”. We traded these back and forth as we walked downstairs.
They went upstairs to nurse about 8:15. Carly had cooked eggplant so I had a sandwich. He fell asleep but Carly didn’t. He came down at 9:40. When he saws Carly he asked “What were you doing down there?” We had been working on some errands: getting our 2000 shekels from Skoda (the other associate seemed to be cleaning up after our actual dealer again, as I had to resend him a voided check) and making doctor checkup appointments.
I took a shower. The silicone I put down last night didn’t completely solve the leaking, but it is better. When I came down he was sitting between the couch and the coffee table, with the books covering his lap. I then gave him a bath. We were spelling words and found 8 ‘ook’ words we could spell with them. He took the ‘k’ away from ‘brook’ and asked if ‘broo’ was a word. I said no, but that ‘bro’ was a slang word short for ‘brother’. After his bath he said “What’s the short word for brother again?” I told him and he said “Don’t EVER call me bro.” He said bye to the letters as we left.
Downstairs he played some TodoMath as we got ready to go. I had found Kadima Forest on Google Maps and it was less than 20 minutes away. Give how tired people were today we figured we shouldn’t go too far. He played outside a little before we left.
We got there about 1:15. A little tricky getting in as the maps led us to the east side of the park, but the road that seems like it should be (and used to be) an entrance is closed. Found a dirt road in, then eventually found our way to the playground and picnic area. As we left we found the paved road out the southwest side of the park.
It is a really nice pine forest, open beneath the trees. He climbed on a big rock, then we went over and he climbed up a rope climbing structure. Got up to the second level himself, then I helped him up to the third. Climbed around in that a bit, and he worked on lowering himself through the ropes to get down. Went over to the regular play structure for a few minutes and he went on a swing and climbed on it. Carly had gone and rested in the car.
We went and sat on a picnic bench and Carly came out with us and we had cheese and crackers. Carly had gotten crackers that were in all sorts of interesting shapes, including quadrafoils. August said “I don’t see any right angle trapezoid crackers”.
We then got out his orange bike and went on a walk on the dirt roads around the park. August liked the garbage dump, and on the way back he was singing a song about how he liked it. It ended when he smelled the garbage and said “Ewwww”. We also admired the big trees. August spotted a drinking fountain and commented that it was an old one, then played with it as it just went straight on the ground.
We left before 2:30 and stopped at home to drop off the bike. We had talked through the plan with August, which was to drop it off and then go to Ikea. He was fine as we dropped it off, and he and I read Berenstain Bears Think of Those in Need and Too Much Junk Food. But when we got to Ikea it was surprisingly full. Then, right after I got him out of the car he fell as he went to Carly and scraped his knee. Carly called off the Ikea trip and we headed home. A good call, as he then had a bit of a meltdown on the way home and had to apologize for saying mean things.
He had calmed down by the time we were home. Carly said something and he joked “With me, you never know.” Played a little of the shape matching game on the iPad, then he had dinner and he went outside with Carly and was doing more of the selling game. Only his business has evolved now to meet his customer’s (Carly’s) needs: he was now delivering. Carly would call him on the bowling pin phone, he would answer on his, tell her what he had in the store, and he would then deliver it to her at the table. He came in to go to the bathroom, and as he did he told Carly “Maybe YOU can sell ME things.”
August and I had started to play with Dino Walk (an app that shows how the globe has changed over millions of years, and has information about animals, etc. from different time periods). I wanted to go for a walk, but they were both too lazy, so eventually I went on my own. I walked for about 25 minutes, listening to an episode of Afghanada. I saw Holly walking her dog – she was surprised to see me on my own. When I got back they were playing Dino Walk. When I got back we switched to Earth Primer and we read/played through a lot of that.
He was seeming tired, and so was Carly, so we went up and got him ready for bed. I left them about 7:10. We decided he’d dream about erosion “and earthquakes” and the Zinnie shop.
I went downstairs and started watching Rogue One. Only got a few minutes in though as they came back down after 7:25. August and I read the rest of Plumdog, then Tallulah’s Solo, Tallulah’s Tutu, Pablo and His Chair, Biscuit Goes to School, Peppa’s Chrisrmas Wish, and Hug Machine twice. We had Cheerios and banana bread while we read. He then got down and sat and played piano slowly, doing big intervals, with his head resting on the couch. Looked very tired. Carly took him up at 8:45.