A busy afternoon, and he was pretty worn out by the end of activity class.
He and Carly had a restless night. He was up at 5:55. I was awake but slow to get up. Carly brought Cheerios in to the bedroom for him, then he moved up on the bed with me. He then lay down next to me and put his legs under the cover. We stayed there a good 20 minutes before I finally got up. They nursed, then played snakes and ladders. The started to make up crazy rules in snakes and ladders, like goin up the snakes and down the ladders and being able to steal the other person’s roll. Carly headed to school a bit later than usual, taking the car to take the rocking chair to her classroom. August played Toca Blocks. He was asking my help for somethings, but a theme started for the day started: “I can do that myself…I already knowed that.” He told me “I don’t remember if I sleep-in.” And “You shouldn’t set alarms cuz I always hear them.”
He ate some peanut butter crackers. He said “There should be a limit to how many blocks you can use in Toca Blocks.” I said “But that would make it hard.” Him: “Then it would be a challenging game.” Me: “Dada doesn’t much like challenging games.” Him: “But then you get to learn from your mistakes.” Me: “That’s true.” A bit later, after I told him we’d discovered everything I knew about in the game, he said “Can you delete Toca Blocks from my iPad? I don’t like it anymore.”
He sang “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream… microscopic dreams.” I was updating apps on my iPad, and he was afraid that an update would change one of the apps he dances to: “Don’t ever install (update) apps I dance to…cuz I like to dance to them a lot.” We tried toSkype with my parents but they weren’t online. He played Fox and Sheep Music Box and I exercised.
We then went upstairs and I introduced him to Wild Kratts, the other show that Derek reminded me Thatcher loves. As we watched episode 1 August said “I love this…as much as Thatcher does.” I liked that he didn’t say “more than”. I watched a little, then took a shower. After my shower I finished episode 2 with him, then he wanted to play with the Smurf figures. I used them to tell a story where Gargamel kidnapped Baby, but the Smurfs got Azrael, then traded to get Baby back.
We did his shower, then went down stairs where he played with his pivot point and lever. He said one of those was the word of the day, and I suggested ‘water pressure’, which he had loved from Wild Kratts: “Yeah, that’s the word of the day.”
We left at 11:30. We saw David next door, and he pointed out that there was a guy working on our water pipes (they are connected), installing a new meter he said that would make it cheaper. Didn’t quite understand that. On the way to town August pedaled fast and I called it Mach speed, so we ended up discussing the speed of sound and the sound barrier. We got to the hair place. It was open, with two people cutting hair, but they said they were booked today. Odd, as the first time I walked in it was just one guy working and not busy. I put my hat on August, backwards, and he got on the bike and wore it much of the way into town before saying “I like your hat but you can have it back.” He pointed to where they’re installing a new sidewalk and said “They’re making progress on that.” He then said it for the new mall across the street, and later for a house we saw on the way to school.
We went to the coffee shop and got our usual table. I had told him I knew what we were ordering for lunch, but that he could have whatever drink he wanted, and of course it was the hot chocolate. I had a latte. He was surprised when it had marshmallows on top this time. When the server noticed my hand and asked about it August commented that everyone notices it and asks.
I heard the Beatles’ “Blackbird” playing on the stereo and pointed it out to August he said he liked it. When the next song was “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” I said something about it and he started talking about how he wanted to point out the songs. We practiced some Hebrew using the popsicle stick things from class last week. Then our green shakshuka came. It was spinach in a cream sauce with Bulgarian cheese and an egg. And it came with a little loaf of bread that we used to for dipping. The side was roots salad, with skinny sticks of beets, potatoes, and carrots. August asked “Why if you have a mustache you get egg in it?” And said “That’s spinach-y goodness.” He ate a lot of all of it, including the spinach.
He was generating power from the fans overhead and also said “I use a lot of power. That’s why I made a lot of hats for everyone to wear that provide me power.”
We heard U2’s “Moment of Surrender” and I pointed it out. He liked it and wanted it added to his playlist and said “I call it a better name…’The life of breeze’.” Then “Dada, you don’t really let me point out songs. I want you to let me point out songs all the time.” He then played with the abacus and tilted it to make an included plane. We discussed friction, and winding inclined planes, and he was a winding inclined plane winding up a rope. We then built a raft and a magic treasure box out of some plastic building block things.
We got going and walked to the park by the library. We went on the merry-go-round. We’d seen a few babies in prams, so he pretended to be a baby now, sleeping in a pram. I had heard Elton John’s “Rocket Man” in Everything Sucks! on Netflix the other day and thought he would like it since he always has rockets. I played it. He didn’t like that I know more songs than him: “Can you let me listen to more songs than you? Please? Can we please listen to songs you’ve never heard? But you need to not watch it.” I suggested he listen to some new music with Carly when I wasn’t around and he could tell me about it. I asked how that sounded: “Not so good. I want to listen to music by myself.” He then broke out crying.
He sat in my lap for a few minutes and we got going. He insisted on going home as there were fun things there that would make him feel better, but when he calmed down he was okay headed to school. There were some loud mynah birds that flew by. He didn’t see them and I said I could point mynah birds out to him sometime. He grumpily said “I’ll point out minah birds to YOU.”
We were walking at 1:50. Stopped at the construction site to watch the work and he pointed out the rods and I told him it was rebar, which we’ve discussed before, but not while seeing it, and we discussed what it is for. As we got walking he lifted up his shirt and said “Dada, I want to tell you something…see that little system? It beeps whenever there’s an earthquake.”
A few times he mentioned wanting to get a new handle for his bike to replace the right one, as it is kind of scratched up around the edge. I told him to not think about it and he said “It’s messed up…I can’t stop noticing it.”
We were at the WBAIS library after 2. We returned 5 books. They have things up for the lunar New Years and he learned he was born in the year of the horse. He didn’t like that I was year of the dragon and Carly was year of the goat. He wanted us to have the same one. He started crying again and we sat on a bench. We went back to the book area he did a little art on the computer. I found 4 books that he liked the look of: The Sound of Silence, My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss, Great Day for Up by Dr. Seuss, and a Thea Stilton graphic novel called Mystery at Sea.
He needed the bathroom so we went. He saw a pipe coming through the wall and we followed it to the drinking fountain. Back inside he took the books to Liz to check out. He told her and Amanda “I’m in a do it by myself mood.” I told them about the I Can Do It Myself book. And he asked me “Can you let me do everything on my own?” We went back into the kids book area for awhile and did
treasure hunts, using the books on the shelves and beanbags and squares on the floors for clues.
At 3 we headed to the preschool. We stopped by Bat-Chen’s classroom but she is still not back. At the preschool we had a few minutes to hang out downstairs. Bar asked him to come to her house again. They were all discussing ages and August told the director he is a 5-year old now. We went up to Hebrew class, which was all about the story of Purim. She told it with hand puppets. Then they cut out pictures of the characters and glued them on paper and colored them. August had a lot of scissors practice, with me holding the paper. They then finished with listening to a song which we’ve heard before: “My little little clown, why won’t you dance with me?” They danced around to it and August had a lot of fun with that. I sneaked down the stairs for a minute. He saw me going down. I came right back up and he wasn’t upset but wanted to know what I was doing.
Words: king, queen, the end (hasof?) Who is he? Who is she? People: Haman, Esther, Mordechai, King Ehash Verosh
Other girl: Leduh
He had played at the kitchen stuff outside and we were outside discussing how he felt about me not being there all the time when Carly showed up. She had driven to Ikea after school to get more stuff for her classroom.
He said “Oh no” when he saw Carly. He still wanted to play. We went over to the playground and he played on top of the car, then we played on the teeter totter, and he had to go cook in the wood chips area for a minute before we left.
Drove up to activity class. Carly tried to start class with him but he just wanted to nurse. I took over. There was a new girl and mom in class today. August did fine through the animals part and then we played with plastic squares. We were taking turns being horse and rider with it when he hit his mouth on it going in. We went out and took a break with Carly. We went back into class for a few minutes, but then when they were picking up the squares he was upset when Yav got some of the yellow squares.
He was still upset as she got out the parachute. But he loved the parachute part, which he called a tornado. He liked picking up the balls and throwing them back on top of the parachute. They picked up the balls, then he wanted his water bottle. He was drinking from that and walked behind Sigal who was walking backwards. He was really upset and I was about to take him out but he said “I don’t want to miss the tunnel part!” He did the tunnels part for a couple minutes, but kept being upset. He said “This is not good!” We headed out, leaving just a couple minutes early.
At home he was still having a hard time. Carly told him his dinner choices and he wanted me to change the dinner choices. He played Duplos with me, then Carly and I switched and kept playing Duplos. I went up and did some work. They also read some of Thea Stilton.
He came to see me. He excitedly told me about eating dinner and eating enough that Carly gave him dried cheerios. I said we had had a busy day and he said “That’s why I was wored out at activity class.” And he told me that the most upsetting part of the day was actually when they were picking up the balls after the parachute was over and he didn’t get to pick up many of them. I hadn’t even realized he was upset about that.
I took him in to bed and he practiced putting on his own shirt and pants on his own. He’ll get both those down pretty quickly if we have him practice. We brushed his teeth. Carly came up and he started a little competition on who loved whom the most. I said we all tied and all won, and he said that mama said that mamas win. To Carly he said “I love you more than any mama or dada has ever loved anyone.” As I left he said “I hope dada doesn’t need a lot of work.” I left them at 7:25. I heard them come out a few minutes later as he had to get a drink of water. He fell asleep without nursing. He suggested they do the timer thing that I do. It took him a few minutes and was asleep a little after 7:45.