He was up at 7:30. He went outside with Carly and I went up to take a shower. I came down to August eating oatmeal and really excited about giving me a consequence: “Your consequence is not reading any books at all” “Mama, we really need to give dada his consequence.” Turned out there was no reason to give me a consequence; he just wanted to. Carly got him dressed and got out some pants that she remembered as being too big last time she tried them. They fit, but were now on the tight side. We went downstairs where Cherie was and she mentioned being from the 50s. I don’t think he really has much of a grasp of years, much less decades, but he caught on to what that meant and asked “How old ARe you?” They discussed generations, then he was a being a baby. They did “Spidey spidey boop” – something that Carly did with him as a baby and Cherie used to do to them.
He was acting like a baby after that, then asked me “What’s balance beam mean?” He said “I think…” When he didn’t continue I asked “I think what?” He said “I think…that’s all you get.” We then discussed the difference between a high wire and a balance beam. He also made up a “swuggly bug” song.
We got ready to go and I told him to go put on his shoes. He then went to his shoes and told himself “I have five seconds to put my shoes on. Five, four, three…” We left right at 9.
Once we got going he asked “Do you have any Oma treats?” She had something and was trying to get him to guess what it was. She asked “Can you think of something yummy that starts with ‘rice’?” He thought about it and shouted “Rice cream!” Nice one. But it was rice crackers. We listened to Story Pirates for the first time since Chuck and Cherie have been here. Episodes 15 and 16, mainly. August and Cherie sang “Where is Thumbkin” and he’s really getting into the words of it. I got a video of them doing the Sugar Baby song together earlier in the trip, but should have gotten videos of the other songs, like the Thumbkin one, as well.
We got to Haifa and bumbled around a bit finding parking. Found an old, tight, underground lot. The guy wanted us to back in, so Chuck switched with Carly and he did it. We walked up to the science center, and Carly kept walking, up to a coffee shop to have some alone time. The Tea Pool Cafe, I think.
We were in the science center by 10:40. Stopped at the bathrooms, then August chose to head up to the science stuff. No play area. First to the da Vinci room. He started by going to the sets of gears and giving them a very complete explanation of how the sets of gears work and how they are for going different spends in a car. He explained other thing as well, and we were remembering the names of the gears from The Way Things Work. And he noticed that the ball bearings were turning more slowly than the stick he was turning. Out in the hall he demonstrated the lift thing, then we headed over to the sound room. Played around in there, then went up to the puzzle area. I solved two of the wooden puzzles that I hadn’t solved before. Back down in the sound room the three of them spent a lot of time watching the binary counting machine.
We wandered down the hall and looked at the birds for a few minutes, then across into the power plant area. August and I did the pedaling while Chuck and Cherie wandered around the rest of the room. August then wanted to show them the video screen with a delay. We played with that for a bit, then went upstairs, past the most out-of-control class of students we’ve seen there. August led us to the room with the planets in it. He sat in the phases of the moon seat that spins around and we discussed the different phases. Wandered around looking at other stuff and seeing how much he would weigh on other planets.
Then on to the magic room. Sadly, the beach ball was missing. He and I went to check to see if there was an extra me in the other room with the floating ball thing, but there wasn’t. Cherie lay on the bed of nails and August got to turn it on. Into the chemistry room to play with the big bubbles, then briefly to the dental room to brush the big teeth, then we finished up in the dark room, where August went straight to the one that you spin to see the picture projected on it. He is no longer afraid of that room – he ran right in and wasn’t bothered that I got stuck holding the door for a bunch of people. We also spent a few minutes looking at the bubbles form and catch each other in the tube of thick liquid.
We went outside and found Carly sitting on a bench, reading. We walked to the car, then I drove us down to the German Colony area where I lucked out finding a parking spot on the street. We walked up to the restaurant Douzan, mentioned in the Palestinian guidebook. Sat outside. Carly and I ordered a couple of the Arab dishes, while Chuck and Cherie got two of the salads. August mainly ate the teriyaki salad that had noodles and chicken. He was hungry when we got there so Carly was letting him ‘sneak’ apple slices under the table. He thought it was hilarious to let me catch him. Think he bonked his head or something and Carly tried to kiss it. He told her “Kisses don’t magically make this better.”
He had a religious discussion with Carly and Cherie, which started when he asked “Can you teach me something about Muslims?” She talked about Ramadan, which led him to ask “What brings you closer to God than fasting?” And then “How do you get to God.”
We left at 2:20 and walked down the hill, towards the port. He was discussing religion with Carly as we walked. She taught him the term ‘agnostic’. We saw the cranes at the port, then turned right and saw all the birds flying around the huge building. Circled around to where the car was and I drove us up to the lookout point over the Baha’i Gardens. On the way up “Rocket Man” came on and August asked for the volume up. Walked up a couple blocks to get there. We spotted some cooling towers and a guy heard us and said they were for a refinery.
We walked across the street and up to the Louis Promenade park area. There’s a playground and we played there for about a half hour. He mainly played with Carly. He was a baby-talking spider on one thing and they spent the most time on one of those big logs suspended by ropes that swings back and forth. There was a big rope sort of structure but the ropes were rather loose, meaning it was harder to climb. August wanted to play on it but thought it was too hard: “Mama, they should have made that easier.” They sat together and she said he was as cute as something. He got cuter by saying “No, I’m as cute as one little bit of light.” And he put his head on Carly.
Stopped at the bathroom, then we walked back to the car about 4. On the drive back we listened to more Story Pirates, then read Seuss on his iPad: You’re Only Old Once, Oh, the Places you’ll Go, and The Zax. When we got home Chuck said “Let’s go straight to bed.” August responded with “Oh, Opa.”
We were home by 5:30. Carly went upstairs with a little headache. August said “Dada, I’ll invent a way for sound to go upstairs to the bedroom mama is in.” We watched the Magic Treehouse Lost in Space episode together. He ate nutty noodles for dinner using the stool as a table again. Cherie used her reverse psychology one more time: “Dont eat that cauliflower!” We got dinner, and August came to Carly and asked “Mama, do you want to go outside? It’s so beautiful out there…fresh and rosy fingered.” We ate outside, and August went down the slide several times, playing with and taking instructions from Chuck.
After dinner he played GarageBand with Cherie again. He went to the bathroom and decided it was time for us to read The Way Things Work. And he had some Cheerios. We read about pullies, cranes, screws, escalators, elevators, screws, faucets, and drills. Carly took him up at 8. He and Cherie did “Where is Thumbkin” again. Had a good goodnight to
Oma and Opa, then in the bedroom was joking about “I love the name Poop Poop” He brought the name up a few times today – it was a name the boy in his coding class called himself yesterday before class. And I pointed out that August liked to change his name too (right before that, going up the stairs, August had told me he had a screen on him where he could change his name). I left them at 8:30 and they fell asleep together.