He woke up before 6 but fell back to sleep until 6:40. Downstairs he was having a tough time until we got some oatmeal in him. He was upset that Carly’s bag of Cheerios was bigger than his and she got two yogurts. He watcher the Magic Schoolbus but then we had to take a timeout when he was trying to squish his vitamin and hit me when I stopped him. He apologized and I then got him toast with peanut butter and honey and he watched some more. Carly helped make his lunch then took the car to work.
We left right at 8. He spent the first half of the walk talking about all the things he could eat: cars, the highway, steel. He did a great job steering, navigating Vatikim as there was a ton of cars on the narrow road going both directions. He would know which way the cars were going to go and turn to the side. I complimented him on his steering. He asked what the weakest thing was and we talked about surface tension. He made up the word ‘flubond’, which either means no surface tension, or a liquid with no surface tension.
At school they had a cool set of K’nex sort of wooden building blocks out. I tried to get him to build with the other kids and I went in the break room. Maaian asked me to help change the tub on the water cooler, and he liked seeing that done finally. He played a little out with the blocks and came in and showed me a couple of things with solar panels. But then he insisted I got out with him. I explained how I was tired and getting over being sick and he tried to generate power for me. When I said it wasn’t working he said “But my generator’s not working?” in a sad voice.
Carly called and told me that she was feeling dainty “Oh-no! What if she throws up befor she gets home…But what if she throws up and it gets all over her clothes because she doesn’t have a bowl?”
I went out with him. He wanted to cut with scissors. At first he refused to try using one hand, saying both hands was the most fun. But I cut some shapes and we discussed them, then he suddenly figured out how to do that on his own. He did a bunch of cutting, then wanted me to cut more shapes. I did more shapes and we started talking about lines of symmetry. We used these cool blocks on the table to yeah rectangle versus parallelogram and square versus rhombus. We folded up a square of paper and drew the lines of symmetry. He realized he could keep folding the triangles and make more lines of symmetry. A group was making bread and he heard something about scoops. He said “Everyone’s going to do two scoops, but not me, cuz we’re having too much fun.”
At 9:30 they had morning meeting. He said “Morning meeting is the worst part!” but he sat through the whole thing for the first time this week. He hasn’t liked it since I tried to leave last week. Then the bathroom and out to snack. He washed his plate and everything while I sat and read. They were then looking for volunteers to go with the PKC class to the nature reserve on campus. August went up with Omri, Candy, and Blanka. We had some time in the upstairs classroom before we left. He sat down with Ms. Seychen and learned how to put beads on a string. He was really into it.
We then walked over to the nature reserve. August didn’t like standing in lines on the way over. There we saw tadpoles and August liked exploring the little paths. He played in the yurt for a bit, then we went and explored more, finding flowers and snails and a bee. He and Blanka climbed on the old tires that lined the path. He asked me what “Draw from” means. I explained, then he said “So the spit glands draw from the water you drink to make spit?”
We were there for 30 or 40 minutes, then headed back to class, joining back up with PKB. He went outside with Marion and helped water flowers using a cup and a bucket of water. He then went in and played with the block things with Blanka. At one point she handed him something and said “I made it for you.” I watched for a few minutes then I went and typed. August came in in a couple minutes and said “okay” then ran back out to play. Such a relief. A couple minutes later he came in and asked “Is anything ever going to happen to me?” Then he asked what the schedule was, before deciding he could go and play some more. Didn’t really happen though, as then Nicholas came in the room. I had to go back out with both of them.
They had a brief meeting where Anna talked about the tea party, which was going to be early today. The kids were in charge. Three or four of them did most of the work of picking things for the tea, getting out the mugs, organizing chairs. August took out a chair but then didn’t know what to do so he sat there waiting. He was hungry for bread and honey but did a decent job of waiting until the tea was ready. He got a second big piece of the bread and honey when Nicholas didn’t eat his.
Lunch was immediately after, so not surprisingly he didn’t eat a lot. Blanka got him his water bottle. I went inside to get something and August came in. Blanka came in too and they played with the blocks up on the table this time. No rest time today. They just watched the video story about the bear and the bees. August ate his Cheerios during that.
Then it was over to the auditorium for Peter and the Wolf. I sat between him and Nicholas. As the auditorium filled up with the elementary school, August said “We’re all working together to make as much noise as we can!” On stage August noticed that the wolf was lit in red and the other animals were lit with yellow. We talked about the symbolic meaning of the colors. Later, during the performance, he noticed that the lights on the players turned red when it was the wolf’s music. The program was designed for elementary students, so pretty entertaining. The conductor demonstrated what a conductor can do and how the instruments sound. August was excited to recognize the first piece, the William Tell Overture. They played a Western-themed piece that I should know the name of, then Peter and the Wolf. August needed to go to the bathroom in the middle so I took him. He had gone right before we had left the preschool too.
We went back and made it to the end. It was really cool to see some of the students, like Omri and Ori and August, really getting into the music. Others were getting squirmy or tired (like Yaya, who clearly wanted to fall asleep). As we headed back to the classroom they realized that Emmitt was missing. He had been with Maaian, so they figured she had taken him, but August and I went back to look, just in case. August had fun looking, and joked “I’m not Emmitt, right?”
As we walked back he talked more about his substance with no surface tension: “Do you know what flubong is used for?…Its really clumpy stuff…you make houses out of it.”
They went out on the playground. He played on the seesaw and did some cooking. Inside they did a couple of songs and I read a poem by Jack Perlutsky about flying without a plane for Poem in Your Pocket Day (a day late, but the preschoolers didn’t know this).
I did the dishes as the other kids left. August ate some of his snack mix and wandered around. He also helped me look through cupboards to figure out where things went. He came over to me and said he had been reading the names on the mugs. I went over and he showed me. He read Selma, Hector, and Juyeok. Despite not really seeing the names in other places.
He wanted to play on the big playground so we went there. He was imagining at first: “Under my shirt…Magnetic blades that can stick to any material, including burning magma and burning fire…” Selma was there, and Sophia from PKC. He turned into Selma, then the three of them were pretending to be each other. They then played hide and seek, and August counted and found them a few times. Sophia was funny as she was the main one that wanted to play, but just kept spinning on the spinny thing, saying we couldn’t see her because she was spinning.
When they left so did we. We went
to the car. August asked if he could rip the tag on his vest and I said no. He ripped it anyway. I threatened a timeout at home and he got upset. We sat and talked about that. We left after 4:10. He wanted Story Pirates so we started episode 17. He asked “Is barf real?” Somehow we ended up talking about doctors getting sick and he was surprised: “Huh? Doctors get sick?…But they wear those special clothes.”
At home we checked on Carly, who was feeling better. He played with the old slime, out at the table. As he started playing with it he chanted “yes, yes, yes”. We then spotted several parakeets in the bushes across the road. He talked more about flubong: “very coisonous…only birds can eat it.” He did some sweeping with the broom, then he found a slug and picked it right up and Carly how they breathe.
He had a piece of cinnamon sugar toast to hold him over until dinner. I got him a plate of cauliflower and a corn schnitzel, cut up and with his pesto veganaise to dip it in. He started to eat and said it was really good. I was happy, as he hadn’t eaten the schnitzel when we first got it. But it turned out he meant the cauliflower. He ate all of it, then all of mine. When he tried the schnitzel he choked on the first bite. So still no schnitzel for him. but then he also ate Carly’s quesadilla.
David brought over a 4-month old baby to show us – his granddaughter. So cute. He noticed mosquito bites on August and said he’d give us a bug zapper. He doesn’t like them but his wife has several of them. He came back a few minutes later and told us to keep it. Very funny.
Carly took him up to his bath and I did dishes. She started cleaning though and eventually had to go lie down. I took over the bath. He was talking more about flubong and about how there is so much of it in the world. He also said that it can’t go through liquids, but it can soak through solids. So if you pour it on the ground it will keep going until it hits the water table. He asked a few times today what “super stumpers” are. It was from a gameshow thing on The Magic Schoolbus. I ended up asking him random trivia questions. He was asleep by 8:10.
Tea party:
Bread and tea cup:
Ready for the concert:
What happens when I leave Carly in charge for a minute:
Slime:
