He was up a little before 7. I heard him singing the Hebrew colors song downstairs. So when I came down and Carly was getting oatmeal for him I asked if he’d watched it recently. He then asked to watch it while he ate. Watched it several times, then we continued on to Arabic alphabet songs. We were watching one of his favorites and Carly, who was getting ready to sand the swings outside, realized it was the song he plays on the piano. I asked August if it was, and he said yes. He then went to the piano to confirm it, then said “So it wasn’t any app!” So Carly was correct, as she thought it was a Hebrew or Arabic thing.
We did Drops, although he found the word ‘beekeeper’ and instantly wanted to be a hive of bees pollinating fields. He would sit on the blanket (his hive) and I would carry him to a field (rug) and he was fly around pollinating it. We ended up upstairs doing this, then he was playing with the spaceship and we closed the windows in his room to see the glow-in-the-dark calendar and things on his ceiling.
Back downstairs I asked “Do you want to read a book, Z?” He had misheard me and said he said “I want a Pepsi!” We decided to read books on the iPad. He started laughing as I got the iPad. I asked what he was laughing about and he said “I don’t know, but you’ll find out!” He wanted to read The Sisters. We read some of that and we also read Pete the Cat Saves Christmas and the Pete the Cat Collection. He started playing Toca Plants and I went up and took a shower. When I came down I told him it was about time for his bath. When he finished doing something I started to take him up and he protested: “You said SOON it’s going to be your bath time.”
He played with the spaceship in the bath. Not a very long one today. Finished that and brought him down. Carly fixed up the last spinach pancake for him and he ate that and we listened to to Erasure and there was a song he liked. We were getting ready to go and he played some GarageBand, then was writing the first letter of words on the chalkboard. He’s been doing this since Carly turned the board around so the chalkboard is facing out. He did it with all our family the other day, with V for Vivian, Os for Oma and Opa, Gs for Gramma and Grampa, etc. and connected them all with lines.
I showed him my hat. He was excited and asked where it was found. I told him Carly had found it up on the office couch, under her clothes.
As we left at 10:50 it was really blowing. August said “I hope we’re not going to the sea. It will be windier there.” On the way up, as we stopped at a gas station, we named the car as Carly was filling up its tummy. We settled on ‘Carly Fabia’, or just ‘Carly’, much to Carly’s chagrin.
We finished reading Clementine on the way up. August then started an opposites game, asking me what the opposite of small, loud, etc. was. And I was asking him. We arrived at Ein Hod just after noon and parked in the visitor parking lot. We realized we hadn’t brought a stroller of any sort, but that was okay as there were so many stairs and dirt paths that it would have been a burden. We walked a path into the town, stopping to look at all the sculptures and down an old well. August really got into the art and taking photos of things: “That’s an interesting one.” We got to the main (small) square of the town and he started counting nice dogs and later added some cats to the counting. We walked through the Ein Hod gallery and he said he liked all of the art. He recognized a menorah, and we talked about what I meant when I said it was nice but “too much” (too decorative) for me to actually want.
Back out in the square he took more photos. He really liked a metal animal sculpture that was also a garbage can and a planter. We used ‘Portrait Mode’ and I explained it to him. He then excitedly told Carly about it and how the background was blurry.
We went down to the Art & Wear Gallery and talked to the husband of the husband and wife team that run it. He paints whimsical ‘visitors’ that come and I asked August which ones were his favorites. He gives tours of Ein Hod – definitely something we might do when we have visitors. At some point as we walked around August told me “The point is to follow mama.”
We considered doing the Dada museum, but a woman recommend the music box museum down the hill. It was a nice stroller-impossible walk down to it. We stoped along the way to look at and take photos of more sculptures.
The music box museum was also pretty cool. We didn’t do the historical part, as it cost money for a tour and we didn’t know if August would want to do it (later he emphatically said no, he didn’t want to do the tour). But we had a ton of fun in the gift shop, where you can play with tons of music boxes. We talked about how they work and played them and identified the songs. August recognized Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 on his own. And he got to he Hava Nagila for the first time.
We went back up to the square area and found the bathroom, then walked around a bit more before heading back to the car. A good mixture of carrying August and him walking (although I heard “I’ve got my dada!” plenty). He was walking as we got to the big sculpture of three musicians that we’d seen on our way in. As he passed he said “I really love that one.”
In the car, as we drove to Ein Hawd, August brought up Santa and asked if Santa was real. Back before Christmas we had just talked about it being a story. But it hasn’t come up for quite awhile. None of his presents said they were from Santa, although we’ve been reading a lot of stories that have Santa in them. In response I was asking who could leave presents in the house besides Santa. He thought about it and said “Mr. Toe”. I asked for clarification and he grabbed his big toe. Then grabbed the other big toe and said “Mr. Toe and Mrs. Toe”. Eventually got him to realize that Carly and I could leave presents, so didn’t outright tell him Santa wasn’t real.
To get to Ein Hawed you go down a short steep hill, then right back up a steeper hill on the other side. Luckily, all paved. Really nice area with lots of trees. We parked right outside of House Restaurant. The restaurant has an amazing view out to the Mediterranean. You don’t have to make any choices: it is a set menu at a flat rate. They just keep bringing out more and more dishes and you can ask for more of things if you like, but we didn’t need to do that. It started with a wonderful lentil soup, then involved a bunch of the smaller dishes (hummus, Turkish salad, rice in grape leaves, stuffed eggplant, etc.). Then came the entrees. Chicken, saffron rice and beef, a lamb dish. August liked the lamb but asked “But what is lamb from?” One small dish was liver. I tried it, but only ate one bite. August ate a bite too and said it was good, but didn’t want any more.
August was doing a great job of trying everything. He was talking about blowing up like a balloon. He ate lots of lamb. He was getting hyper, talking about “Im going to explode!” Carly took him out about 2:45 and I went to pay. I found out there was tea or coffee to come. I passed it up at first, but then Carly and August were at a table outside so we got one tea and one coffee. They came with little cakes with coconut. August shared the mint tea with Carly and I had most of the coffee. August was trying to get to my coffee. And he and Carly were doing a nice dance to keep the flies away from the cakes.
We left for real at 3:15. We read the Pete the Cat Collection and Peppa’s First Sleepover in the car. Carly had the idea of visiting a beach for sunset and we got off at Beit Yanai beach, just south of where the Alexander River flows into the sea. August was a bit concerned about going to the beach: “Okay, but it may be totally windy!”
At the beach August and I first started by following bird tracks as they meandered on the beach. Eventually we lost the track, but along the w
ay he noticed that it was digging in the sand. So then he was a bird digging holes, looking for insects to eat. He found a feather and played with that and put it in my backpack. Then we played in the sand. He wanted a moat and I asked what shape. He said triangle, so then we made an equilateral triangle moat.
August then spotted a playground on the sand and got excited. We went to it and he spent most of his time working on sliding down the fire pole. If it was a little closer to the platform I think he may have ended up doing it more on his own, but as it was he had to jump out pretty far and needed me to support him. He was getting pretty brave about it though and had the technique down. I would then let go of him as he hung on the pole and he was working on climbing and slipping down it.
We had fun watching the sunset, then went over to the bathrooms and then headed to the car, leaving just after 5. We were home at 5:30.
They Skyped with Vivian and Colin and Cassie. Colin is now sick. And we saw the two watches Vivian got from her grandmother. Carly did a pretty successful job of cutting his hair while he typed to Vivian. He had some harsh words for Carly though as she pressed her luck: “The POINT is to NOT do the hard ones!” And at one point with Vivian (they were typing long, long nonsense messages to each other) he got really excited about pasting ‘poop’ over and over.
After that we talked about making a rocket out of Duplos. So we watched a couple of Space Shuttle launches on YouTube. But then we remembered the Lego set from Paul. He and I put together the grey car together and he understood the process pretty quickly. He had fun putting the tires on his fingers and called them bandages. When it was done he had it be a rocket car: “Do you have your helmet on? Speeding off into the air…Can you be someone riding in a car up in the air?” And where was it going? “Into a museum, of course.” He also got the hologram thing and was experimenting with Legos of different sizes in it to see how well they would work.
We stopped playing at 8 and Carly took him upstairs and got him ready. He said he’d dream about “Rockets and cars and volcanos and monsters and music boxes and rockets…” I left them at 8:10.
Ein Hod. The musicians he loved:
Waiting for a bus:
His photo using ‘Portrait’:
Dinner in Ein Hawd:
The beach:
Down the pole:
Me helping him:
