He came down at 6:25. When Carly left he wanted to play with Duplos but first kept asking me questions, like “Could you knit a house?” Which led to a discussion of what houses are actually made of and why. We played with duplos, and the piece of twine became a high wire. To make the animals go on it, we would attach Duplos underneath them as a counterweight to hold them upright. Also a lot of discussion of pivot points and center of balance.
He watched one episode of Max and Ruby, then chose his wrapper treat for the morning, one of the mango hard candies. He said it had an interesting flavor from the beginning, and when he was done told me “The flavor was kind of grassy.” A good conversation on the way to school: He was asking about surface tension, which led to a discussion of mercury, but then to how it is poisonous, which led to mad hatters and Alice in Wonderland and how you can have problems with the brain. He pretended to be a mad hatter and was forgetting how to drive the bike, running us into a pole.
When we first got to the preschool I gave him his water bottle. Instead of walking inside he headed around the corner of the building and towards the playground. When I caught him he said “I’m not gonna do preschool anymore.” But I picked him up and took him in and he was okay. He tried to walk out the door one more time when I asked Anna some questions, but after we looked at the schedule I set him down inside the classroom and he told Anna they should work on their stream and I said bye and walked out. Easy peasy. I was out by 8:15.
They showed up at the library a little after 10:30. As they lined up outside the library I heard one of the girls say “This is my new friend August!” August later told me that Candy said it. When they came in he was happy and didn’t see me. Junyeok spotted me first and pointed me out to August. He was so smiley and cheery when he saw me.
I went with them to library time. He liked the songs and finger puppet parts, but was a bit squirmy during story time with Ilana. The read the book ORQ and the sequel. Candy sat on the stool and invited August to sit next to her. But he was then copying Candy and she was encouraging him. Good I was there.
For the preschoolers they set out books on the table for them to choose from, and they can check out one. He checked Sally’s Room by M. K. Brown
I helped walk them back to the preschool. When I dropped him off he didn’t want me to leave because he couldn’t read the book on his own. But he was okay with playing blocks with Omri and just let me leave. Told him I’d pick him up at 1.
I came back at 1. They had the lights out for the start of rest time. He was near the door, chomping away on Cheerios. We went outside and sat on the bench. Anna opened the window to the staff room and said he did great. And that he played with Reia, Derin, and Omri a lot. He told me he had snack today, a first. It was Cheerios. Honey Nut ones, it sounds like. He said he had milk with them, but no banana. And all he ate of his lunch was his Cheerios. Still, much better that he’s eating something. And he was in a much better mood.
We discussed Mercury poisoning and brain diseases and damage all the way home and were here by 1:30. He drank the rest of the smoothie from yesterday. He asked “Have you ever heard of a basil and banana smoothie?” Then told me “My tongue is six meters long.” “600 meters long.” and joked
“What’s an umbilical cord? Is it a cord with electricity in it that goes to a baby?”
We played more highwire. He sang an “All aboard the choo-choo train” song as they went down the line. He pretended the old pillow is a backpack again, and when I said he had a real backpack in Chelan he said “Well, I like pretending a pillow’s my backpack. I can take it to school with my stuff in there, right?” He then told me all the crazy stuff he carries in his backpack. He then sang several lines of “Animal Life” loudly while I made a pyramid.
The pyramid was then the bladder of a Duplo kid.
We drove back to school. Had a few minutes before his Hebrew class so played with some of the new blocks in the classroom. Upstairs there was a guy working on the door to Maaian’s office, so August watched some of the grinding and drilling. Hebrew class went fine. I sat near the door. He had me come over to help him color, but otherwise did fine. They reviewed their words from the hungry catepillar story. She had told them what ‘air conditioner’ was at the beginnng of class. At the end she was reviewing the sheets with each kid. When she finished with August he asked “What about air conditioner?” (Matzgan)
Carly had walked home, so after class we went to the big playground for awhile. He found a big hula hoop and we played with that. He was rolling it and would say “Make it nice and balanced and give it lots of umph.” He was getting tired of the playground so we got going. We headed to the car to eat some yogurt in the air conditioning. As we walked up the stairs he made a spotted some sort of connection, then said “I like connections.” They often point out connections they make in class by saying “Connection!” He told me that earlier he had walked all the way to the library.
In the car he told me “I really don’t want to go to activity class.” I gave in and said we didn’t have to go. He didn’t eat any yogurt or sandwich. We got home a bit after 4:50.
Carly read him his library book, Sally’s Room and he was laughing a lot. I got him mushrooms with cheese and peas with butter. He ate some, then said “Let’s eat outside.” Outside he did some watering and shared a little of my veggie burger, but mainly wanted bread. He got frustrated when I wouldn’t give him more.
He watered more and I did dishes. He came in and took off his shorts. Sang an awesome song that he later said was about books: “this one’s unusual…” He was then talking about/annoying Carly with poop and “spitland”. He wanted an “alternative” and he came up with cauliflower. He ate a few pieces of that. And he corrected Carly, saying particles are smaller than atoms. He then had crackers and peanut butter and we talked more about ways people can get brain damage.
He heard the Marble Machine song on the ipad and wanted to see the video. So I turned it on and he followed it up the stairs to his bath. He said he made a machine out of everything that had ever been made: “fossils…adio stations…narwhals…paper towels…” “It makes stuff for another universe to form that’s completely different!” A shorter bath without toys. He did an amazing job of letting me wash his hair. No complaining, then when we went to the other room we didn’t even use the hair dryer. He had been watching Animusic in the bathroom and now switched to KidsHealth videos.
We went to the bedroom and flossed and brushed his teeth. I talked about how well preschool is going but mentioned missing dada/Zinnie adventures. he got sad at that: “We don’t do dada adventures.” And put down his head. He had also told me “Don’t brush my teeth. This means you.” ‘This means you’ is a phrase he picked up, I think, from Max and Ruby and was practicing today.
We read two chapters of The 78-Story Treehouse. Carly came up and I left them at 8:20. She didn’t have any luck and they came down at 9. He kept saying he was hungry. He had a cracker with peanut butter, then two slices of apple with peanut butter.
He asked me to make chocolate cake with my mouth. I said the secret ingredients were “love and spit. And some of my dinner.” He liked that. Carly taught him the words ‘trepidation’ and ‘sustenance’. He asked “Can we listen to Josh Ritter?” and August turned on some music.
We all went up and he went in the bathroom and used the toilet while I got ready for bed. We were all in bed about 9:45. He climbed up on the bed with me, then slid back down with Carly for a mi
nute before climbing back up on the bed and falling asleep in her spot, his head facing the foot of the bed, by 10.
Library time:
His book:
Hula hoop:
