We were all up about 7:30. We stayed up in the room until close to 9. He watched one Max and Ruby, then a lot of Julius Jr. I updated the blog and read and got him his water and dried Cheerios. He climbed up on the bed and looked out the window and said that everything looked smaller. He made a machine that made things bigger. When we went downstairs he asked “What does snow taste like?” He wanted to find Carly and had me open the sliding door and he spotted Carly sitting outside. He and Carly played with the globe and he said he was bigger than the world and had a lot of parts: “If you read the dictionary you’ll learn from me.”
They then played with Duplos and Carly mentioned that he had woken up a lot last night. I asked him why he didn’t sleep well last night and he said he heard noise downstairs. We were skeptical that he heard any noise and he joked “Maybe David was chewing gum again in our house, right?” “He’s putting it on our pictures, and my kitchen, and the flowers outside!” He said there was no blue gum though. We discussed eye colors and he said my eyes were “boring”. He went and inspected Cherie’s eyes, then went to Carly. I went to take a shower. He showed Cherie GroRecycling, then I took him up for his bath. Washed his hair and he insisted I blow dry it. I blow dried it and brushed it in the bedroom. He asked Cherie if he could have one of the nut treats. She let him have two to help him recover from the bath. He said “Warning, warning. Not mama food.”
We went downstairs, and a bit later Chuck was teaching him about ‘suggestions’. August caught on and offered Chuck suggestions: “I suggest you wear that shirt every other day.” “I suggest you eat cereal twice a day.” August then wanted to play with the alien, so we had a mystery to solve. Today we talked about how solving mysteries is more than just finding clues, but also finding things that aren’t clues – that is, ruling things out. He found the alien in the toy box, then took the time machine to dinosaur times.
We left at 11:25, driving to Tira to see the Saturday market. August joked about Cherie’s fat, and she pointed out he had fat on his body too. He responded “What do you mean? I don’t have any nushy gooshie…I’m not as old as you!” He ate more of the snack mix we had bought before our Jordan trip. It seemed like there were more and more peanuts and Cherie joked that they were reproducing. But August decided “Well, peanuts can’t make babies so I guess we’re gonna run out.”
It’s only about 10 kilometers and 20 minutes to Tira. But you have to drive south, then loop back around to the north as there’s only one paved road into the Arab town. As we got close to town traffic stopped. So we parked at the edge of the road and walked. We hadn’t brought a stroller so I carried August most of the time.
He was singing the Smithereens song “Top of the Pops” on his own as we walked. He’s asked about what the song is about a couple times. When I was getting tired he said he was a generator that made every kind of power. I said I operated on pizza, coffee, and tea power, so then he was generating pizza.
We couldn’t find the market and wandered through town. Sort of headed towards a green area on the map, then east to a roundabout. Found a shawarma place and ate lunch there, getting shawarma pita sandwiches. August liked the meat and ate the chickpeas from the plate of hummus. I got him an orange juice. I asked the guy at the counter where the market was and it turned out we had basicallly walked by it early in our mile+ walk into town.
Chuck and Cherie had decided to walk home from there. So we walked west together for a bit, then Google Maps took them north and we headed west and south.
We found the market and wandered around. Kind of a normal household goods market, but still interesting. And with a couple of food places. August stopped to play with bath toys and a spinning sea monster toy at one place, then was playing along to some super music (a song called “Bababa”) at a CD stand. Finally, Carly stopped to get a shrak bread sandwich to take back. August watched the woman baking the bread and in particular the bubbles forming. August then saw the sample sandwiches and the one made with Nutella. I could sense what he want, although he hadn’t asked yet. When I said we’d get one sometime in the future but that for now we had pie and ice cream at home he was disappointed.
As we headed out we saw a little girl crying. I then saw the mom looking at the girl’s foot and I said “Oh, she hurt her foot.” August was excited and said it was the first time we knew why a kid was crying. Not entirely true, as we’ve seen kids get hurt and cry, but he was on to something; Usually we don’t know and he wants us to speculate on why the kid is crying.
On the way to the car he was chanting “pizza power generator” so I chanted with him. We got driving at 2:10. We listened to “Top of the Pops” twice, then “Go”. We were home at 2:35.
Carly was making watermelon juice and he wanted a water and watermelon chunk experiment. They put chunks of water melon in water in a plastic container to see what happens. They got out the number line and did some math.
I learned about airwander.com and Carly and I discussed possible stopovers on future summer travel. Alas, too late for this year. August got the musical instruments out, but then found the stick to the frog instrument, but no frog. It was a mystery. We searched some more downstairs, then he and I went upstairs to investigate in the drawers. No luck. But he did find the squishy balls from Gramma and Grampa and the smiley face he bought at the park. He threw them down the stairs.
Carly started hiding eggs for him outside. Carly’s started correcting him on verb conjugations of irregular verbs, as sometimes he seems receptive. Not this time: He said “I seed you hide it.” “Can you say ‘saw’?” “No. Cuz that’s not the word I use.”
I had told him earlier that “Top of the Pops” was the first Smithereens song I had heard, and it was as a video. I found a video for it on YouTube (although I’m not sure it is the correct one) and tried to show him. He was intrigued, but eggs being hidden was more intriguing.
She hid eggs eggs for him twice. I helped him find eggs. We went in and he requested water drink. We made it and he drank it outside. He went in to the bathroom, and they ended up discussing sukkot and why some people don’t have money. When I came around he switched to me getting upsidedownia. One of the cures involved eating rocks. I said that rocks were hard, and he made chewable rocks: “Apsacapsabillia” – rocks that are softer than water. He had a very specific pronunciation for it, and taught it to me until I had it down.
Chuck and Cherie made it back. They had stopped at Tiv Taam and brought me a bottle of port.
August and I did rubber stamps and he had me spell ‘upsidedownia’ and something else. He said he wants the teachers and kids at school to call him August, but he was indifferent to learning how to spell his name.
We then read the rest of The 13-Story Treehouse. Chuck and Cherie started dinner time. I got August a dish of the cheesy noodles and cabbage and carrots. Cherie brought him a bowl of broccoli and cauliflower. He ended up eating a bunch of veggies – more than the pasta. Chuck got him pie and ice cream, then played a little game with August, circling the table while he waited for August to sit down. As he was eating, August pointed to a berry and asked Chuck “Are you gonna tell me that has my name on it?” Earlier in the day when August was eating Cheerios Chuck was telling him which Cheerio had his name on it.
Inside, Carly started some cleanup. August said we had “The mystery of the missing lowercase Z” as that letter was missing from the rubber stamp set earlier. He helped Carly roll up the number line. The splat balls are gettin
g old and seem to be dissolving. He poked one on the top of the pokey plant and it started leaking. We took it outside and he squirted most of the water out of it.
Carly took him for a walk to do recycling and they went to the park for a little bit. He told me he did the shaky thing and went on the spiderweb swing. He told Carly “The password for the locker thing is 14 14 14.” They were back at 7:45.
He ran in and told me I had a consequence for reading the words “stupid” and “idiot” to him in The 13-Story Treehouse. He has picked up on the words and started using them with Carly. He said my consequence was that I couldn’t have any work time or use my iPad for the rest of the evening. Carly read Thump, Quack, Moo to him, then parts of Z for Zeus.
I took him upstairs at 8:20. His mind was really racing and he was doing a lot of talking: “thread power” “smelling generator”. He said he wanted to sleep with me in the bed, but then changed his mind and wanted to be on the floor. We called Carly up to say goodnight, and he sad he changed his mind and wanted to go to sleep with her. We gave it a try though. He said I could sing 3 songs. He was very nearly asleep and couldn’t keep his eyes open. He got sad and I said I’d go get mama. He said “Thank you”. She came up and I still lay next to him and he fell asleep after a couple minutes, about 8:55.