He was up sometime after 5. Thankfully, he told Carly “Let’s go back to sleep.” He woke up at 6:54 and came down. Quiet for a couple minutes, then the first thing he asked was “What wrapper treat am I gonna get today?” He ate Cheerios and one watched one Magic Schoolbus, then part of a Max and Ruby. When he went to the bathroom to get ready for school he remembered and said “Don’t leave me at preschool!” We talked it through a bit then, then he was okay for the walk.
We left after 7:50. He had his small pink hard candy. He then asked “Why is the Earth big if it’s actually really small?” As part of our universe discussion last night we had discussed Carl Sagan and NASA’s ‘pale blue dot’ photo of the Earth and how it made the Earth seem small (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections). We now had a long discussion of ‘perspective’ and ‘viewpoint’ on the walk to school, and talked about how the earth must seem to a cat and an ant. And we talked about the book They All Saw a Cat.
He was fine until we got to the door of the preschool and then he started to get sad. He wanted me to stay and play with him. We looked at the schedule, and I said I’d come sometime after playground time. Told Anna 11. We sat on the bench just for a minute then I left him with Anna a little after 8:20. No holding onto my fingers this time. As I walked away I heard him say “What are we going to do out here?” to Anna.
I went up to the library and worked and read and studied Hebrew. No reports/photos from the teachers today, although when I was sitting in the adults room later Anna said that today he was playing on his own a lot, that is, without her having to be there.
When I showed up at 11 Derin saw me and said “August! Your dad is here! Your dad is here!” August was drinking from his water bottle and smiled when he saw me. His cheeks were red and he was sweaty and had clearly just been outside. He also clearly wanted to play more. He asked if I could go sit in the adult room. So I did, reading Returning to Haifa. He also told me “They said everyone would get a big pffff.” I didn’t know what he meant by that, but later in the day he explained that they were getting big drinks of water, and that was how to say ‘drink of water’ in mooka mook language.
At 11:20 he came in, showing me his empty bag of Cheerios, and said “That’s enough for today.” Marion was reading Green Eggs and Ham. I convinced him to go listen to the rest of the story. Although I then heard him say “I’m doing sound waves.”
He made it all the way to lunch, and wanted me to come out for lunch. It was going so well I thought maybe I’d be able to leave again after lunch. But things changed at lunch. Got him set up and he opened his strawberry yogurt. But then he dropped it on the ground. About half an inch of it spilled out and he couldn’t handle it. I cleaned it up and that didn’t help. He had wanted me to scoop it up – the sort of reaction he used to have. He wouldn’t eat anything, and ended up crying in my lap, demanding a treat to make him feel better. Emmitt had had a big meltdown right at the beginning of lunch when he didn’t get the chair he wanted, and this seemed Emmitt-inspired. At one point he said “Dada, could you just cut me in half?” and then kept repeating “Do something! Do something for me!”
So we left at 12:20. We got to his bike, and he actually said he didn’t want to leave school yet. We discussed the options though (library, back to preschool without me, etc.) and he chose to continue on to home. Before we got home he asked “What’s an arthropod?” Then “What’s busted mean?” When I explained ‘broken’ and ‘caught’ he asked “Does busted mean wrong?” I initially said no, but then he said “What do you mean? I heard it in The Magic Schoolbus…they were trying to make a map of the world.” I think their theory/hypothesis had been proven wrong, so in that case he was correct, it more accurately meant ‘wrong’ than ‘broken’.
And he also asked “How does your muscles move?” All these questions led to watching KidsHealth.org videos while he ate mushrooms and potatoes with melted cheese. He ate good amount of that, then we had crackers and peanut butter and crackers and Brie. He ate a lot more. He needs to start eating snack at school so he doesn’t get so hungry. Think that is why he was cranky. We also watched videos about arthropods. He was asking how centipedes defend themselves, and he decided he was a centipede with rockets so he could blast into space so predators couldn’t get it. He ended by watching a video about narwhals.
We got ready to head back to school and he talked me into taking his floaties. He talked about how he really likes them and that he likes be able to have control. And he told me that at school he had worked on his bridge but it kept falling down. When I put my swimsuit on he told me “That swimsuit looks great on you.” And admired its lava-ness.
We drove to the school and got to the pool right at 3. We had the pool to ourselves for awhile. He went in with the floaties and we were playing around. Then Omri, from his class, showed up with her mom and two older sisters and her baby brother. She wasn’t wearing floaties, but couldn’t swim, so August let me take his off and we tried that for awhile. He watched Omri holding onto the side and copied her. He didn’t like getting splashed by her, intentionally or not, although by the end of the time he was doing better about the incidental splashes. We got a kickboard and I at least introduced him to the idea of it and he played with it a little. Omri then put on floaties, so August’s went back on as well.
Carly came at 4 to check in. He wanted to stay as long as Omri. We had been in the sun since 3 though so I didn’t want to spend too much longer in the direct sun. August agreed to 10 more minutes so she left and came back. He was reluctant, but I got him out of the pool at 4:20. Carly was sitting and reading over by table tennis. August wanted to watch them play and asked about how points are scored. He said “I like watching winning games but not being in them.”
We headed home. On the couch he said he was an animal that sees hot things as red, warm things as orange, cool things as light blue, and cold things as dark blue. We’d been talking about that book They All Saw a Cat again.
He was whiney. Hungry again. He was rubbing his penis on things, but through his clothes. Carly was trying to explain why that wasn’t okay and I said “Uncouth”. He said “I don’t like that word.” Carly agreed that it wasn’t a great sounding word. He said he was going to hit me for hit and came and hit me in the leg. Carly sat him down and got him to apologize.
His mood changed when he sat at the table and ate his spaghetti. He came and helped me grate the Parmesan and wanted to do it himself and was doing pretty well. After he had a decent amount I made a banana, strawberry, and mango smoothie. We drank it outside. He was then watering plants with the hose and I went in to do dishes. He came in and took his pajamas off as he had gotten them wet. He had some naked time and a cookie. He took the cookies out to Carly to offer her one.
She came in and took him up to start his bath. I then went up. He was playing with the soap bottle but I thought it was the empty one. Suddenly he said ‘I’m pouring the pink soap in!” Most of the bottle went in. So he had a good bubble town today. He asked about guess versus hypothesis. We played guessing games and he liked that. Mainly with him thinking of a letter or number or animal or color and me guessing. He then asked me the difference between ‘tomb robber’ and ‘archeologist’.
Out of his bath he wanted some time with me in the bedroom, but then wanted to fall asleep with Carly. It was 8, so I told him he needed to get to sleep. He said a short book. We read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You
See? and Plant a Seed for Me. Neither of which we had read in awhile.
Carly came up and took over. As I left I heard him start telling Carly his story of what he did while I was gone: “I sneaked to the middle school and gobbled up the students’ castles. Then I went to the kindergarten and ate orange peel. Then I went to the preschool and did clay.” He was asleep by 8:30.
His smile when I returned:
Vase we found on the way home this morning:
