He was up at 6:40. Down on the couch he looked out the window at the sunrise and said “Look at the purply sky.” A little later he spotted a Duplo across the room and wanted me to do robot cleanup with him. We did that and then went back to the couch/bed and he played with Melody Jams music app. He played Seuss Band and I started reading a new book I got, The Land Between Two Rivers: Poetry in an Age of Refugees. We then read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Strange Shirt Spot, Tadd and Todd, Too Many Daves, and There’s a Wocket in My Pocket.
August asked me “How do you close one eye and open the other eye?” And then he was trying to do it and couldn’t. He had to hold one eye closed. Later, he pretended to have an eye patch and asked if an eye patch would hurt. We did more Seuss Band and traded off doing songs. I made him a peanut butter and honey sandwich and exercised. He went into question mode: how many colors are there, how do iPad screens make color (he now knows ‘pixels’) and “How does faucets make water go up if there isn’t gravity?” There was a discussion and lots of nonsense questions regarding water pressure. More: “How can people make water?” “What happens if a person is really strong and they walk on glass?”
He was then pretending to be a sewing machine: “Dada, I’m an old sewing machine.” “What are you sewing?” “Nothing. I’m an old sewing machine.” But then he had me use him to sew different things. He asked me “Is Llama Llama repetitive?” Not the name, but the actual show. He knows I don’t really like Max and Ruby because it is so repetitive. Luckily, Llama Llama is much better. We watched Llama Llama. It showed Llama Llama falling to sleep in his own bed. August said “I don’t fall asleep like Llama Llama… because I like sleeping with you.”
I left him watching downstairs while I went upstairs to take a shower, but he followed me up and waited in the bathroom while I showered. I started talking about our day, and only got to talking about going to get pizza, which he agreed to, but then he said “I don’t feel like I’m good enough to go to school.” He was picking at a wall again and I told him we don’t need to damage the walls. He replied “What do you mean? That’s because I’m a mean person.”
We watched a little Adventures of Zee, then gave him a quick bath. He was then pretending to have an eye patch using his towel. We talked about going over to the mall and trying the new Pizza Hut: “It’s new, so I don’t feel like it.” He talked me into going to VIPizza in town. I put on his clothes – the long-sleeve green shirt with his stars over it and he said “I like my comfy clothes.” He then talked to Green Monster and told him that August’s clothes were comfier than his comfy caves.
As we got ready to go I could only find one of his turquoise shoes. He put one of his green Crocs on the other floor and said “I want to go like this. I want to wear not the same shoes.” I let him do it and he was like that for the rest of the day. Finally found his other shoe under the coffee table in the evening.
We left after 11. Lots of “I wonder why…” statements/questions on the walk into town: there are lines there (on the ground), that’s tied on (little Israeli flag banner), a cord is sticking out, that sign is there…
We got to the pizza place at 11:30. Think they were just opening as they didn’t have slices out yet. We ordered mushroom and a corn. He mainly ate mushroom. He said the juice was really good and said “Thank you for the juice you got me.” While we waited, then ate, we read I Had Trouble Getting to Solla Sollew and The Sleep Book by Dr. Seuss. We left there at 12:15. On the way to the grocery store he was talking about his alphabet that goes beyond “Q”. It covers every word in the world, I think he said.
We took the bike through the store. He was lifting the front of it up to show how strong he is. We saw packaged cooked beets and he wanted to buy some. Left with just the huge broccoli and chicken breasts for the nutty noodles Carly was going to make.
On the walk home he was talking about his parts and blasting monsters, which he noted he hasn’t done for quite awhile. We stopped at our park and played a bit. We went on the teeter totter thing and he asked “How does it shake? Is it a little mechanism?”
We were home after 1. On the couch he observed “Dada, I don’t really like playing with stuffed animals.” He watched Llama Llama for a bit while I rested, cuddled up next to me, then got ready to go to the school. Carly via text asked if he’d want to play school with her. He said “Actually I do! After we play with the magnets. Actually, I don’t. The magnets will be more fun.”
On the walk to school we learned left and right in Hebrew and he was making up a left and right song. He wanted to put it on the blog, and I said I had to take a video. He then spotted the picture on the electrical box and said he also wanted to put that on the blog. I mentioned how he had more energy and he said “I feel better because of that rest…I was a tiny bit worn out.”
At the library we found the marbles and blocks moved to the back. He made a magnet sculpture, then we mainly played with the regular marbles and wood blocks on the floor, making little paths for the marbles. Then we found the makedo toys, which are tools and pieces for making things out of cardboard. We had seen Ilana do a green screen thing with a student, so I installed the app on my phone and we did that, having August be a seagull in front of the Mediterranean. We also dug through the Legos a lot, but August’s favorite was the straws and connectors set. A big rectangular solid was already build and August wanted to be in it, then promptly destroyed it. He built a cube by himself, then wanted us to build a bigger one, saying “Next time I’ll be a dog that’s barking at you cuz I don’t like to be in the cage all day.”
Carly came and brought me a latte. I went out of the library and drank it and did some reading. I saw Bar and her mom go in, then I went and told Carly. They were playing with the Legos and gears. When they were done playing August wanted to go find Bar. We found them in the little kids book area. August and Bar were crazy together, climbing around the sitting area, standing on stools to see who was taller, jumping from the ledge across the reading carpet, and spitting at a fly to make it go away. Yes, you read that correctly.
Bar had to go to her dance class. We checked out our books: Berenstain Bears and the Red-Handed Thief, Young Cam Jansen and the Zoo Note Mystery, The But in a Jug Wants a Hug (which we’ve read before), and Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea, which Liz had recommended to us.
As we walked out, he said “I hope Bar has fun at her dance class.” They were actually close, so then he was able to tell her himself. He was a music machine on the way home. I had intended to drive, but when it got time to leave earlier he really wanted to ride his bike. So plenty of walking for me today. We were home at 5:05. His music machine broke: “No. My gears had broke. My gears that pluck the strings broke. Their teeth broke.”
With August and I both dealing with colds (I’ve just had a headache and a sore throat at night), I’ve asked him how he’s feeling on a scale. He turned it into a 0 to 11 scale. He was having a fought time now and I asked how he was doing. He said “On a scale of 11 I used to be 11 but now I’m zero.”
A bit later to Carly he said “Remember what I did with bar in the library? I stood on a stool on a high thing and I spitted at a fly trying to get it to go away…and I wasn’t supposed to do that.” He also turned the temperature nob on the oven to see what it would do when it is off: nothing.
Played Seuss Band. When I was busy he reluctantly let Carly play, but was then helping her and encouraging her. He ate a lot of cauliflower for dinner. At some
point, when he wanted to eat something messy on the couch, we joked about how it was hard to wash the couch, and to soak it you’d have to use a hose. Like Curious George does. August laughed and said “No, it’s impossible to borrow something from a farm.”
While I held him he spotted the measuring cup on his medicine and said “That gauge had been there for ages.” We read Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea and The Bug in the Jug wants a Hug. He then ate nutty noodles, then we read Young Cam Jansen and the Zoo Note Mystery. He totally rejected the Berenstain Bears book though as it was a chapter book and in black and white. He only does color.
He watched some Llama Llama. He brought up the fly thing again and Carly or I said “You like to break rules with Bar.” He said “Only when she tells me to!”
Carly took him upstairs. They played kaleidoscope cards. I left them at 7:45. SHe called me up at 8. He and I played more kaleidoscope cards. He told me “I like the symmetrical ones, but not TOO symmetrical.”
We read some of The Sisters 2. Almost done with it. Before he went to sleep he lay on the bed and said “You’re the best dada ever” Sweetest thing ever. But then he added “Except when you hurt me.” I think he was referring to earlier when I grabbed his arm to stop him from running around the ipad on the couch. And there was that nipping his ear with the scissors thing. And I’ve bonked him a couple times with the car door. We used to laugh about how Carly was the one always bonking him in Seoul, as he’d walk up from behind and she’d run into him.
I left them at 8:35. I later heard some crying and he didn’t fall asleep until 9:30.
Wearing my watch:
In the cage:
Building:
Gears:
Trying to be taller than Bar:
