August slept the entire night in the big bed with me. Generally sideways, curled or stretched on top of the cover. Four times he sort of got up and asked for Mama. The first time he stood up and started walking across the bed, tripping on me ad falling on my stomach. He then lay back down and fell asleep. I repayed him a few minutes later when he said something and I started to roll towards him, not knowing he was sitting up. I elbowed him in the forehead. He put his hands on his forehead, curled up on his knees with his face on the floor, and fell right back to sleep. Twice more he said “Mama” but I just told him to lay back down and he did.
He woke up right after me at 6:40. Carly was feeling well enough that he could hang out with her. he played the Earth app and later watched Sarah and Duck. He thought he deserved cinnamon sugar toast as a treat for sleeping through the night with me, so I brought him a piece, then a second.
Before we left he was doing a funny “googey-goo’ dance and song. Carly didn’t want her picture taken so she pulled the covers up. He hid under it with her and sang his song. After he did the dance for me out on the floor I suggested he show it to his teachers. He said “I don’t know. Pretty baby-like.” And “Well I call it the baby dance.”
We left at 8. we saw a black and white cat by the gate and I talked about how I heard a cat fight last night and he asked why they would fight. He suggested “Maybe cats just don’t like sharing. Like me, right?” On the way to school he had me ask his machine inside him more questions, like how many seeds there are in Israel, how much garbage is dropped on the ground.
We got to school
Tech department and the “That was easy” button. In the classroom he started building with the colored stick blocks, then there was lightning and thunder. They all went out, and Marion made mint tea with mint from the garden. August insisted on a straw so we got the one from his water bottle. We sat outside for 15 minutes or so watching the rain and having tea. Back inside August went back to the sticks and Selma and Hanako joined him.
During morning meeting they read the birthday book that Candy had brought. They were talking about museums and August said “I know museums. They have OLD things from the PAST.”
They had snack inside due to the rain. There was pizza bread that PKA made. August insisted on eating his with a fork, although it was hardly necessary. He saved the rest of it for lunch.
After lunch they went to the small playground and got out the toys. He wanted me to spot him on the hoppity horse and . Ended up playing with the ramp thing and putting random things down it. Then switched back to the big playground. He played on the teeter-totter with a teacher and kids, then we pushed kids on the round swing together. He wasn’t happy about my phone call with Seth, which only lasted about 5 minutes, and started hitting my chair with a big piece of wood.
Then, Nicholas found some slugs and we looked at them with him. Marion came over and was teaching them about slugs and picked one up and showed them how slugs breathe through a hole on the side of their body. August ended up holding the slug. He then was picking blueberries and playing kitchen with Reia. I was able to sit and read The Paper Bag Princess with Selma, who asked me to read it.
They then went in and Marion read a story. Then did a little art. A few flowers had been set on the table as inspiration and I suggested to August that he could draw a flower. He got the idea of drawing the shapes of them, and he drew a couple in his notebook that they have for him, changing the colors to be purple and red flowers. Reia then came over and wanted to use scissors. She started cutting up her notebook and I got them scrap paper to use instead. August said, in his Waze voice, “Careful, sharp scissors reported ahead.”
The class then sat around the whiteboard with Anna and talked about beekeepers and their trip tomorrow. Marion then had everyone trying the ricotta cheese that she and some of the other kids had made yesterday.
August started talking about the slug and said “Why was that slug totally adorable?” Then, reading my mind, he said “Could you say ‘only August could think a slug is adorable’.” Maaian then took the 5 kids that have joined the class since the beginning of the year out and took another photo for the yearbook. He tried to do a silly face at first.
For lunch he ate the rest of the pizza bread and insisted on a fork again. He was then eating grapes, but told me it was “solid purple air…it grows on chains. So it’s not grapes. Purple biological air.” At the end of lunch Blanka took grass and was putting it on her hair so August started doing it to himself.
Then in for rest time. He told me “You should turn my volume and movement settings down.” I read Seven Little Mice Go to School, poems, Max the Brave, and Chimp & Bunny, to August and other kids. The video story was a book about Joshua Bell, a violinist, called The Man with the Violin. Then one that was Marsupial something, then Little Oink. He and Reia were then looking out at the playground and pointing at it, and he followed her around, playing.
Outside at 2 he played on the seesaw with Reia and others. We then helped push kids on the round swing. He wanted to go over to the kitchen but he didn’t like a blueberry making his hand dirty. He went to try to do clay but they hadn’t put extra out. He ran up to me and said he was tired. Picked him up and he probably his head on my shoulder for a couple months. I asked if it was because there wasn’t clay and he said “No, I’m just tired.” Ori spotted a ladybug so they watched it crawl through the grass.
They called them over for a second snack of apple and strawberries. He ate several pieces of apple. Then, a little progress as he went outside on his own while I put books away.
After school he went to the bathroom and asked me “What does metamorphasize mean?” We walked home and I sang Cada Semilla for the first time in a long time. We were home by 3:30. He was hungry so I got him an enchilada. He started eating it and said “I’ll get you, cheese.” He then got frustrated trying to get it on his fork without it falling off the plate.
We were then talking about our real dinner, going over to the mall for pizza. He said “Let’s do that after we check in Mama.” We went up to check on her and the first thing he said about the slug was “I got yellow slime on my hand.” Not what she had wanted to hear. She had had to turn on her show when she heard us talking about food downstairs. He then did more of his funny dance from this morning. And he asked me “How are things elastic?”
We left at 4:20 and went to the mall. He wanted pizza first. We got one slice of cheese and one with onions. Their two slice options. And a watermelon juice. He liked the garlic powder mix and the oregano. And then it happened: he wanted a second piece. He is no longer a one slice of pizza date. So we got another slice of cheese and refilled the watermelon juice.
Carly texted, asking if she should pick us up. At the same moment, August pointed up at the skylights and asked “Do you think it’s pouring outside?”
We played in the indoor play area, playing the pattern colors game where he runs from one color to another. And he had an invention: “I have the unsickininator…I’m as sick as mama.” That last sentence surprised me because it seemed backwards in a couple ways. We worked on handstands, then he was doing bigger and bigger forward rolls, copying another kid. He called it an “Unstoppable forward roll”. Finally, there was a little kid running around going “Whoooaaa!” August didn’t understand at first until I said he was just having fun. So then August ran around like that as well.
I eventually pulled him away and we went to Tiv Taam. Just picked out yogurt flavors he would like
(strawberry cheesecake, strawberry, and peach) and got a loaf of bread. I was looking for snack things that might work for lunch and found sweet potato chips, then he spotted the rice cracker mix that he ate with Cherie so we got that. When we were leaving at 6 it was raining, but just slightly. We put on our coats and made it home okay. No need to get picked up.
At home he went upstairs with me to take the lint out of the dryer, which he really likes to do. We then said hi to Carly, who was still laying in bed. We went and filled his bath. He said “Let’s get in my bath.” Which really struck home how much his opinion of baths has changed. He played with the bar of soap and had a good bath. Asked lots and lots of questions. He was still sitting in the bath after the water was all out.
He went in to Carly for a bit. He wanted her to keep taking sips of her drink to stay hydrated. She mentioned cutting his hair and he said “But I LIKE long hair.” She asked why and he said “Because it’s so beautiful.”
Downstairs we talked about something and he said “Well even I can do that with my everything breathing lungs…even pollution…and I can breathe up smoke.” I let him try a sweet potato chip. He said he liked it, then immediately bit his tongue. Then declared “I’m not gonna eat potato chips anymore.” He recovered enough to drink some honey milk.
Went upstairs and got him ready for bed and we read two chapters of the Magic Treehouse book. He asked if their country (Ireland) is still dangerous and we talked about how things have changed. He asked if any other countries weren’t safe and we talked about the war in Syria. Also, I had bent a page as a bookmark. He saw the bent page on the library book and didn’t like it at all. I had to go get a bookmark to mark our new page.
Carly was feeling just well enough to put him to sleep, so I left them at 7:50. He fell asleep soon after that. Carly later moved back to the other room to sleep on the sofa bed again.