During the night he got up to go to the bathroom. Sometime later he was having a bad dream. He came down at 7:10. He climbed on the couch with Carly and said “I sleeped extra.” Carly asked if he remembered either going to the bathroom or his bad dream. He was quite for a few seconds then said “Actually Kan”. He repeated it a couple times but wouldn’t clarify. I asked if that was what his dream was about and he nodded. They nursed then Carly went out to try to save her broccoli in a pot that had been damaged by the rain or cats. August played with the frog, then went and asked if he could have the treat from Thatcher. Took him all of a minute to remember that.
He ate Cheerios and used Carly’s phone to send me messages, both the typed and touch kinds. He sent me a touch one that looked like a sun. Carly said something about it and he said “Actually I call it a it ball of burning gas and magma and stuff.” Sun message he sent on Messages as he ate Cheerios.
I left at 8:15 for Jerusalem. Driving to Jerusalem on a Saturday was the best thing ever as there are almost no cars out. More bikes and runners than cars. Took just a little over an hour, taking the ‘long’ route. I got to Sabeel in Jerusalem about 9:45 so after I parked I walked around the block a bit. Seth pulled up and we met for the first time in person. I tried out some Arabic on him and found out that the Modern Standard Arabic I’ve been learning is rather different form the colloquial Palestinian Arabic. Meeting with Omar went well. He had brought breakfast foods. We met for three hours and got things pretty organized as to next steps and who is doing what. Before I left Omar let me take a copy of A Time to Remember: Palestinian Towns and Villages and a book called A Rhyme for Every Time.
I then went to the Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem. I was first confused, as I walked in and there were only books in Arabic. The guy was funny though and walked me across the street to their other location, which has English-language books and a coffee shop. Omar had called ahead and I could charge books to Sabeel if they were related to the project. So I got four books that way: Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature, Palestinian Music and Song, Inside/Outside: Six Plays from Palestine and the Diaspora, and Palestine’s Children by Ghassan Kanafani. And for myself I found a guidebook called Palestine and Palestinians. And I got some really nice postcards for Carly and a calendar of Palestinian authors.
Had a nice drive home and got here at 4:15.
While I was gone they had made orange eggs for breakfast, gave him a bath, and made popcorn in a pan and watched 40 minutes of Brother Bear. It started pouring, so they stayed inside much of the morning, but went for two walks when it was nicer. The first was just around the block, with him walking. They played I Spy and he did one that was “I spy something that goes up and down.” The answer was stairs. They got back and went back out for another walk on his bike. They did sort of a Zinnie walk, wandering around. Back at home there was a narrow window where it was sunny and Carly was able to go sit outside. They also read Curious George and the Aquarium and Berenstain Bears and the Big Road Race at some point.
When I got home they had been doing dot painting and were working on the rocket. He was hiding from me in the rocket. Their dot painting had been of a generator. He was talking a lot about generators. Carly and I talked about my meeting. August interrupted to ask “How was your meeting?” Carly went out for a run. He ate an apple muffin and we studied the Cam Jansen picture again and answered the questions. We then played Piano Maestro. After that he “tricked” me by putting food colony in my water. That turned into an experiment. He put so much cocoa and other stuff in that things were floating. So we got clean water and compared and talked about density and surface tension. At one point he said “There should be a good play area in a shop or something.” He wanted to go play somewhere.
We played the Seuss Band instrument, then read Hop on Pop. Went back to the instrument. In playing the songs we unlocked a clarinet part to the instrument. He really liked it and said “Add it to the blog. People should see those.” He was playing Mary Had a Little Lamb. He opened Skybrary and we read a book called Hungry Pie and the Midnight Pies while he ate rice and sweet potato. Discussed the five senses, as that was what the book was about. He liked the stickers in the Skybrary app and played with those.
For some reason we were talking about making lists of books. August said “Dada, you should make a list of the books you read to me.” We then read a book about Martin Luther King Jr. Day, then headed upstairs as he was getting tired. He went to the bathroom and was then a chocolate chip powered musical mechanical arm machine. He was singing a new song and asked if it was a mystery song. He could sing it again, so I took a video of it to try to figure it out later. In Skybrary we read a book called What Does It Mean to Be Green?, then a book about tools called Toolbox. There was a vice and I reminded him of using a vice with grampa this last summer. He said he wanted to do it again “if he still has it”. Brushed his teeth and got him ready to go to sleep. I told him to dream about “Tools”. He agreed and then said “and secret ones”. I left them at 9:30.