He was up at 7:07. Heard him call “Dada” upstairs, like he knew mama was at work. Went up and got him and brought him down. Eventually he watched an episode of The Magic Schoolbus. we then skyped with my parents. He wanted to watch the watermelon video of the girl who got hit – he really liked the phrase “Right in the kisser”. He watched that and some balance beam videos while we talked. I told my parents about the airwander.com website and I mistakenly said “stayover”. He corrected me: “You mean stopover.” We took care of Monkey Nice Bananas and MNB wanted his Cheerios: “I know Monkey Nice Bananas wants Cheerios, but I’m gonna put them on top of a tall coal plant.” We hung up at 9:10. He then wanted the iPad doctor game that we haven’t used in months and months – Pet Doctor Jr. and we put MNB in it and took care of her.
They weren’t down there, but he remembered Carly’s old bear and the one he got at the hospital and wanted to give them new names as he didn’t remember the old ones he gave them. He came up with Marshmallow Puffed Bear for the one from the hospital and named Carly’s Cottonball Stuffed Bear.
I asked him to get the peanut butter from the fridge and he found the chocolate pudding he’d gotten in town a couple months ago. I let him eat it. He said “Let’s not tell mama I ate this without getting my hair cut.”
We then went up and he watched Wild Kratts and I took my shower. He ate apples and peanut butter. When I was done with my shower he told me it had been pretty short because he had only eaten two and a half apple slices. Interesting insight into how a 4-year old tracks time. Sometimes he does indeed run out of cheerios and in the middle of my shower while he is watching a show and I hear him yell “Dada! I need more Cheerios!” He was then spraying me with a mixture of chemicals (he said it was 4) to get rid of skunk smell. Apparently the episode had been about skunks. He asked “What is your belly button for?…Catching dust?” I said I doubted that, and he acted out how you could lift up your shirt to catch dust with it.
In the room we had slept in he found a crack in Carly’s tissue stuffing into the window to keep out mosquitoes and he stuffed in a tissue and told me “If you ever get more mosquito bites just let me know…”
We went downstairs. I had caught one of those weird bugs earlier and he now really examined it in his bug catcher before we let it go. He told me “Dada, do you know I like living soap bubbles? It tastes like clear.” I said “Are you ready for one more Dada Zinnie adventure?” That was all I said, and we haven’t talked about our usual adventures coming to an end of sorts, but he asked “Why the last one in Israel?” We’ve been talking about starting preschool on Monday, so I don’t know if he was just being really perceptive or what. Before we left I filled up the cat dish with water and he watered some plants.
We left at 10:50. He was talking about skunks and asked if every animal has a way to scare off other animals. We talked about defense mechanisms and listed other kinds, like sloths and porcupines and turtles, that don’t scare off other animals. August then said that he had teeth that can eat steel. Before we left he confidently told me he didn’t need his iPad on the trip. He hasn’t used it in the car for quite awhile. He said he could look at things, and he spent the first 15 minutes or so giving me a running commentary of all the interesting things he could see. He remembered the sesame treat he had had from Jordan (the one we didn’t eat until he found it back here at home next to the backpack and Cherie tried as well). He talked at length about how it wasn’t really sweet but that it had an interesting taste that wasn’t just sesame and he wondered what made the interesting taste. And he discussed watering plants.
Got to the zoo at 11:50. Had a good look at elands, then we watched a zebra rolling in dirt. August asked how the animals are fed if they’re wild animals, and he noticed that the zebra poop was black and wondered why it wasn’t the color of hay: “Wait. Why is the poop black if the hay isn’t?” We parked and went into the zoo.
Skipped the playground at first and headed to the left. We got to the children’s zoo, but he said he didn’t want to go in: “it’s too smelly.” Looked at the camels (which he thought were monkey at first, they were so furry), then to the elephants. We watched the African elephant and he worried about it running out of food: “I don’t like it when things run out of things…like spaceships.” Running out of air or fuel, he said. We found this old treehouse sort of thing and climbed the stairs to it. He wondered what the thing next to it was. He said “Yeah. That’s still the question…It doesn’t look like much.” It was a stage area. Walked by the giraffes, then he was ready for a hotdog. He stopped to see the jungle cat though and we saw a zookeeper feed it a chunk of meat.
We sat in the same bench by the pond and ate our hotdog. He then wanted a smoothie, so we walked back over to the juice stand and he chose a banana and mango smoothie. We sat at a covered bench area and drank it. Saw little birds with nests up at the rooftop. Stopped at a bathroom. He was turning his head, saying he could turn his head more than other people. Not sure where that came from, but he was being like an owl, but we hadn’t seen any yet. On our way back we walked a path we hadn’t walked before and saw a vulture, then little waterfall feature that he played with. Then we actually did see owls. He said “I bet they can’t turn their heads like me!”
We found the snake and monitor lizard area. We talked about them, then he was being a guide, telling me all about the snakes and how they squeeze you to death.
We got to the playground at 2:45 and played for awhile. He found a shekel in the sand and wanted to put it in his treasure boxes at home. There was one of the tall, scary walkways that was closed and he speculated on why it was closed – part breaking, too dangerous, etc. I then found a little bow hair clip and it was a second treasure for him. He buried it as hidden treasure, then we would sail away, come back, and dig it up. He wanted to put it in his treasure boxes as well.
We headed back to the car. He fell down getting out out of the bike and scraped his left knee a bit. He wouldn’t let me see it: “Don’t look at it!” Luckily, no blood. We left at 3:10. The lion part was closed by then. He was a little sad we didn’t get to do the full outside part.
We had to stop for a little gas on the way home. As we drove he said “Is spit mainly bubbles?” He then pointed out it was the first time he’s used the word: “The first time I used ‘mainly’…Yes. I know the answer to that.” I thought stopping for gas would be quick. He stayed in the car seat and had the window open. I didn’t have a gas card so only got 4 liters to get us home. took longer to remember how to use a credit card though so August got out of the car with me. Figured it out and headed on our way.
He was falling asleep just before we got home. Listened to “Go” several times though and got him home awake. He searched for Carly and found her inside. He told her “You would like the weather outside. Come with me!” He asked us to use reverse psychology on him to get him to go to the bathroom before we left. We were being robots: “What do you mean? I emptied my bladder.” He asked “Dada, when you drink more water does that mean your spit glands make more spit?”
One of the ELL teachers at the school had arranged a little gathering at Poleg Beach. We headed down there, stopping at the gas station along the way. We got down to the beach about 5 and were the only ones there until about 5:40. August went straight to playing in the sand. I did a little reading while he and Carly played. Cherie, the organizer, and her husband and two kids arrived first
. Then the other ELL teacher, Alex, and her husband. the two boys are like 12 and 13. One of them started to bury August’s legs, and they did an awesome job of playing with August the entire rest of the time. I went up to the restaurant to get us something to eat – a chicken steak and veggies thing that was pretty good. While there, I met an Israeli guy who had lived in Lynnwood for 3 months before the rain drove him south to San Diego. And just before that I had found out that Cherie had grown up in the Okanagan Valley in Canada. Cherie had brought these big cushy red chairs that blow up with the wind and August enjoyed bouncing on.
When I got back down with the food, August was excitedly playing with the boys and talking to them a lot. They were digging a big hole, and later were throwing sand into the water. No time for eating. He ran over to me and told me he needed to go to the bathroom. As I carried him up he said “I hope those boys didn’t hear me say that…I always don’t want people to hear me say that…for funsies.” On the way back he ran across the sand and said “That mechanism allows me to walk on very squishy sand.” He spotted the boys climbing on the stacked beach chairs and wanted to go look: “I need to find out.” He called up to one of them “Be careful!” We went back to the gathering and he did an experiment, all on his own, where he spit on the dry sand, then the wet sand, and he noticed that it soaked into the dry sand better. We talked about why that could be.
We left at 7:30. He came up with a new word: “Icelogical” He said it meant wood chips. As I drove us home he asked why there were two lanes going into Even Yehuda, one for turning left and one for right, and couldn’t it be just one lane. I talked about when it gets busy and there are backups. We were home just after 8.
He had eaten some of the chicken in the car, and now ate more of the veggies. He asked “Why sometimes cars stop on the road to remember wars?” He then shared some pizza with Carly. We took him upstairs and got him ready for bed and we did some mosquito killing. Carly put him to sleep at 8:50.