7:08. Called for Carly, then stopped mid-stairs and sat down when I said she was at work. Asked “What you mean?” He had some excellent morning hair, then when I said to smile for a photo for mama he gave a good friend of sorts. He watched an episode of Wild Kratts (on spider monkeys – brachiating is likely to be the word of the day), then we got season 2 of Sarah and Duck. Sarah takes the shallots for a bike ride and as they ride by the bread shop they call out “bluebirds!” I asked “bluebirds?” And August said “It’s a kind of bread.”
He played Monster Physics and just made a couple of inventions: a claw machine one, then a rocket. He wanted a big cage to keep the rocket from going all the way to space, so we made a huge rocket cage and had fun with the rocket bouncing around in it. He wanted the song “Rocket Man” and was first humming it. We then listened to the real song and I picked him up and we were dancing around to that and Matt and Kim’s “Like I Used to Be”. He requested that song again, and twice when I set him down he asked to be picked back up.
He watched the Will Kratts giraffe episode while I took a shower. During his bath we watched a YouTube video called “The biggest Lego machine in the world”. He, being a machine, had all the parts: “I have that, I have that too…I have everything…including the Arctic Pearl.” He watched a second Lego machine video and started narrating it, and did it in song, singing something like “Then it goes down a winding inclined plane” to the tune of “Rocket Man”. He asked how smelling works, and we ended up watching two KidsHealth videos: smell and body shape.
He had naked time downstairs as I got snacks ready. He also requested to listen to “Electricity”. As he ate pasta he then had a mystery word that sounds like ‘quick’, but wasn’t. He came over to me, grabbed my head and pulled it down, and carefully said it into my ear. Couldn’t figure out what word it was. He asked “Why’s mama always want me to eat broccoli?” He was playing with the magnets on the floor and asked how magnets actually work. We watched a couple of videos about magnetism as we sat on the floor of the kitchen playing with the magnets. DUring the Dr. Binocs video it asks “Did you know that the Earth acts like a giant magnet?” August replied “I DID know that!”
He then ate all of his broccoli and got to have birthday cake. I told him we were done watching videos and were going to go. He said “But I like seeing things! … But you can learn things outside too, right?” We left at 1.
Outside, he discussed the difference between the words “Ultimate” and “alternative”. Both used in the song “Electricity”. “I’m the ultimate discovery…I’m an alternate discovery.” He was then poking his stick through the bamboo wall: “I’m gonna reach far into the deep blue depths!”
We drove to Kadima Forest. We had been there once with Carly. Found a quicker route this time as Apple Maps had led us wrong the first time. There was a big group of kids and parents there – some parents group thing. August was initially put off because he thought the playground was too busy. They were having some gathering though, so there were only a couple on the rope climbing structure. He climbed on that for a minute, then went over to the almost empty play structure and went back and forth on the bridge. But then he was ready for a walk.
We went and got the big backpack (the backamapack) out of the car. Went to a table and got him in it. He thought he was going to be too big, but felt just fine in it. We then wandered around the dirt roads in the park. He was in the backpack for 35 minutes and we did just over a mile. Just like it used to be. He hasn’t gained much weight, and I wasn’t carrying any iPad, etc. Along the way we spotted several flowers and some birds, and animal and human tracks in the dust. We found one place with a view across the fields, to the northwest, and he spotted the power plant off in the distance. He talked about having “eye power”.
I had found a decent walking stick along the way, which he held onto as we walked. When we got back to the playground area he stood on a couple of picnic tables and played with it, hitting the tables. He then started to draw pictures in the dirt and spin around with it. He asked me to translate a sign (where you put your ashes from fires), then he got to go to the bathroom outside.
We left at 3:10. Took the stick with us. He wanted to go to a less busy playground. We’d spotted a couple on our drive, so we drove back and stopped at one in north Even Yehuda, next to a synagogue. It was actually kind of taken over by teenagers when we got there, but he was intrigued that they were throwing around pieces of the broken ground cover stuff. And most of them took off soon after we started playing on the teeter totter sort of things. August then climbed up a tall ladder, and I’d toss pieces up to him and he would slide them down the slide. Played around like that for quite a bit. He also had me climb up in it with him, up the short ladders, then a tube you climb up. I didn’t fit too well, but made it, then we went down the big tube slide.
We got a drink, played with the broken buttons from an old cassette player, then he stacked pieces of the ground cover stuff on one side of a teeter totter thing and then shook them off by going on the other end.
We headed home about 4:15. Thought we were going to get home right after Carly, or spot her close to home, but actually got her just a couple blocks from work. I rolled down August’s window and he shouted “Hi Mama! Want a ride?”
We were home before 4:30. They played with magnets, then he and I read I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew. They then played with the Makey Makey and got into Tetris. I heated up dinner for him, and eventually they stopped. Well, August didn’t want to and had a big tired fit. He was crying “I’ll try to be good!” Carly got him calmed down. He ate his spaghetti, but skipped all the meatballs. When asked why he replied “No, because if I eat them it will turn me the size of a toe!” Carly mistakenly said something about him being a toe, and he said “No, the SIZE of a toe!”
When they had gone to the store yesterday, he had picked out one of those fancy cheese for me, the smoky yellow cheese. He spotted it and suggested we open it. We did. It reminded Carly and me of holidays and Hickory Farms. He and I played one of the new music apps a bit, then read some more of Sisters 3. When he went to the bathroom I finished his meatballs from dinner and joked I was the size of a toe. He joked that he actually was a toe and had fallen in the toilet.
Carly took him up 7:35. I went up about 7:50. Gave it a half hour with him. I was encouraging him to close his eyes and try for another minute at one point and he said “Why do you always suggest what I should do?” And he mentioned telling him what to eat, etc. He then asked “Can I suggest what you should eat?” I said yes, and he said “You should eat Crackers and cake and pasta and oatmeal and chips if you have healthy stuff…” He was very close, but wanted mama. I switched with her at 8:20 and she came back out after about 10 seconds.
Flowers:
Smokey:
“Seeing power”. Power plant off in the distance:
