They arrived at 5:04. August woke up before 6 and Carly got him back to sleep. He was then back up at 7. A little shy to see Cherie, but warmed up quickly. She gave him ‘Zinnie sleep mode’ pajamas, then he made her food from his kitchen. Cherie mentioned needing to learn his words and he taught her words: “picture…mug…light table, spring”. He then covered her with pillows. Carly headed to work and he played a song for Cherie. He made it up and called it “Abstracto”. He explained how the piano works “They pivot on those points…”
We did the rhythm game and he explained the internet routers and the AC remote to her. He had her play the rhythm game with him, then drew an “On Beyond Zebra” letter for her “I use it to spell Smudgamufudge”. Which meant pillow. Then it was off to playing dominoes with her. He told her about his powers “claw power…killing power…but I just kill bad stuff that isn’t humans…” “There’s no button that makes information come out; just a button that makes the information to IN…There’s a magic thing about my computer: it never gets full.”
He paused and ate some strawberries and Cheerios for breakfast. He turned into a drain fly when he had a slightly green strawberry.
He talked forces with Cherie and they used Peter Rabbit to experience centrifugal force. He got out the Magnet Science box and she read the instructions for the experiment that is also a game. he said “No winners. I make everything no winners. Just for fun.”
Cherie headed up to bed. He did some Musyc and GarageBand, then watched one Magic Schoolbus episode, about a bakery. We then headed out to do recycling. He peed at 10 for the first time this morning. We walked up and did recycling, which took awhile, especially as we had to walk back to the house when we realized the water bottle had fallen out of the back of the bike when it had tipped over, then went in the park and exercised in the exercise area. He was a spider monkey climbing on the equipment and also just exercised. He was doing pushups using a bench. He had me take a couple of making mama nervous photos and said “I love these making mama nervous photos.”
We were home at 10:45. He started banging on things in the house so I had him do that outside and told him we could make music out of the sounds. We did a bunch of samples in GarageBand, recording things like ‘grass scrape’ and ‘teeter totter’ and several others. He then made a song and called it “Monster music”.
Inside he wanted some frozen mango. He ate that out at the table. Concerned when his paper towel blew away. He asked “Why do people sometimes sneak art into a museum?”, Referring to our discussion yesterday. Of the Visa sign he asked “Did we think the sign in the museum was good? … yeah, I really liked it too.”
We vacuumed out the car and the vacuum cleaner turned off a couple times. We paused and made raspberry iced tea for later, then water drink for now. As he sat drinking some of that at the table he called to me “Maybe the bag is full.” Indeed that was the problem. He was then being a cat.
Chuck and Cherie were up after 12:15. I took him up to see Opa and August quickly started playing with him and I went and finished the car. August came down and got his new green tractor and took it upstairs and I heard hm showing it to them. He then came down with a case from the plane that Chuck had given him and another one of those brush/comb things. And I got my new iPad keyboard and set it up.
Back upstairs he was doing laps around Cherie as he told her things, then came down with her and they went out to the”Poop yard” for a bit. When Chuck sneezed he counted his sneezes, then explained to them “I count cats and sneezes with dada.”
We had all cycled through to get showers (August got to skip today), then we headed to school at a quarter to 2. We first headed to Dvorah, who was helping set up a cell phone for them. We saw Ada and August really liked her necklace with big plastic circles on it. Cherie liked Ada’s hair with metallic pieces weaved into it. August told Cherie he likes her hair just the way it is. While Chuck did that, the rest of us ended up in the library.
In the library a student had a mannequin in pieces in chairs. August really liked it and shook hands. He played in the stuffed animals with Cherie and was a worm eating a hole though her. He sort of introduced Cherie to Liz. With Cherie we went back to the kids section and they played games (Cherie would tell him which square to jump on next) on the squares rug and I looked for books. Got Magic Treehouse #15, The 52-Story Treehouse, Young Cam Jansen and the Lions’ Lunch Mystery, and Thump, Quack, Moo. August took them to check out, then he and I did a little chess.
The bell rang at 3 and we took Chuck and Cherie over to Carly’s classroom. Hard to get him out of there, but after a couple potato chips we headed over with Carly and Cherie to the preschool. Class was rambunctious at first so we hadn’t missed much yet though we were a few minutes late. I sat in the room and Cherie sat out in the hall at first. Earlier, when August and I had talked about plans for the day, he a couple of times said “But Oma and Opa won’t be at the preschool, right?” But he was fine with them being at activity class. I think he is starting to pick up on the fact that the other kids don’t have family at those classes, but they do at the activity class. Of course, he was just fine with Cherie being there once it happened.
Mariam sort of told the story of Pesach (most of the kids were interrupting and distracting, but she had August’s attention; “What IS Passover?”0, then they started coloring. He asked for my help with that and he was coloring every petal on a flower a different color. Cherie came in and we switched for the rest of the class.
After class we met Chuck and Carly downstairs and we all went out next to the water tables with the water beads. August played with Tomaso there. Carly took Chuck and Cherie in the car back to the house. August and I stayed a bit longer. It was only as he and I cleaned up, right after Tomaso had to go, that he told me they had been squishing the water beads. Sounded like Tomaso had started it.
We walked up to class. Just him and one of the new girls, Adele. They were so cute together, especially when they were crawling like snakes. Another boy (Lahvi? Levi?) showed up a bit later. The three of them had a ton of fun. August needed a pause when he fell over and hit his face on the plastic tubs but he was right back to it.
He was pointing things out and explaining them to Chuck and Cherie all day. In the car he had asked Cherie “Are you trying to learn English words?” as she was actually trying to understand how he says them. As we drove down the street he pointed out the exercise equipment he likes to play on and said “I know you have exercise equipment in the country you live in but…”
We got to Younes, the Arab restaurant, at 5:45. We had a wonderful full meal there. August ate some corn and carrots and really liked the taboon bread. Of the meats he didn’t eat much, but liked the chicken, I think. And he liked the lemonade with mint. After dinner he first was crawling under the table, helping pick up food we had dropped as Carly and Cherie packed up the leftovers. We then stood and watched a guy making the taboon bread. We first saw him putting it in the taboon oven and taking it out, then making the round balls out of the dough. August named him “Stickyhands”. Finally, the guy let him touch some of the dough and August took big bites out of it. The host gave August a lollipop.
We got his hands unsticky while Carly took Chuck and Cherie over to the gas station to get water. August agreed to save the lollipop for later in exchange for ice cream when we got home.
We were home close to 7. The excitement continued as Dee’s package had arrived. August and Carly opened it. He got a nic
e shirt, a box of Lego Cars, and a Cars Track Stars! book. Cherie had also brought him a digital microscope and a Countries of the World card game.
We then had a little ice cream along with the biscuits they had brought from England. August wanted to nurse, but for the first time ever said “Okay, I can wait.” We were all impressed and Cherie taught him the term “delayed gratification”. August and I made one of his Lego cars, then i went up to kill mosquitos in our room.
He had been playing and talking to Chuck and Cherie on the couch – there was a pulling her hair game. I got him to calm down and he wanted to read Dr. Seuss on my iPad. I took him upstairs and he took a very long time going to the bathroom. He told everyone “If you need to go to the bathroom you can go downstairs.”
He wore his new pajamas and Carly cut out the tags. Then went to bed at 8:40. He did a little science experiment to see how far away the bookmark could be from the fan and still flutter in the wind. He told me “I’m adjusting to having them over.” Earlier he had done a good job explaining why he doesn’t want his hair cut – because he doesn’t want to be cut.
I left them at 8:50. I was up about 9:40. He was still awake – just couldn’t shut off after such an exciting da. I asked if he wanted to get up on the bed with me. He said yes and climbed up. He kneeled and looked out the window, then put his arm on the head of the bed and rest his head on it and closed his eyes. It looked like how he would sleep in the backpack. After a few minutes he lay down on the bed. A couple minutes later I moved him to the wall side and he was asleep at 9:55.
Rhythm game with Oma:
Push-ups: https://youtu.be/QeaG0QjdKPI?rel=0
Monster music:
Making iced tea:
Being a worm eating Oma the apple: https://youtu.be/39OwJFfFoGg?rel=0
Square jumping game with Oma:
Playing at the water table with Tomaso:
Activity class – snake crawling:
Activity class – rolling the big ball: Activity class – beanbag throwing:
Presents from Dee 1:
Presents from Dee 2:
Presents from Dee 3: