He was up exactly at 7. As I went up he asked “Is this a free day of preschool?” I said yes and he asked why and I started to say “Because it’s my bi-“ And he said “MY birthday.”
He watched two Ollie and Moon stories and said he was done watching. A minute later he saw that his iPad had restarted. He called it something like “bad iPad” and said he was being mean to the iPad I said to be nice, because he should think of the iPad as being sick and we need to be extra nice to things and people when they’re sick. He asked “When can you NOT be nice to someone?” I said well when someone else is being mean to you or another person. But I explained you can just ignore them – so you’re not being mean to them either, just not nice. But then I didn’t want him to think you should just ignore when someone else was getting bullied or hurt so I talked about when you or a teacher should intervene.
That led to him wanting to practice, particularly the line “You have five seconds to be nice and walk away!” Of course, it turned into a big game for the day, escalating to him using his rockets to intervene and stop mean people, up to: “I can defeat any war!” “I’m so powerful I can turned you into a dead fish that’s just bones!”
My parents and brother left a skype message saying happy birthday, so we then skyped with them for about 10 minutes. August wanted to get going to Haifa though, so it was short. August suggested a couple of experiments: he wanted to leave out his leftover Cheerios to find out how stale they would be when we came back. I explained we’ve already done that one and it would be a waste of Cheerios. He also described hanging string by both ends from the side of a table with tape and putting wooden beads on it to see how strong the string is: “like an arch.” Carly sent a photo of a barn owl that had decided to sleep by the middle school office. She suggested we come see it on our way, but August said “I don’t want to take time out of our Haifa trip.” We ended up driving about 8:40. On our way out the door he suggested Haifa would be cool, and clarified, without me asking, “I didn’t mean cool like a lot of interesting things, I meant cool weather.” Impressed that he could explain the different meanings and also that he knew it would be cooler. Perhaps Carly had said something about the weather last time we went.
Listened to music on the way up. Right at the end he started throwing Cheerios around the car because he was bored. He was pretty proud of that. The street we usually try to park on was closed, so we got shuffled up this other street, but it worked out as we found parking at the end of a dead end up a hill. Walked to Madatech and were soon inside, parking the bike, going to the bathroom, then up to science.
Spent a little time in the energy room, mainly with the thing you can spin to see how gas and petroleum separates from rock. Then upstairs to the microscope and telescope room: He read Venus, Neptune, Sun, Uranus, Mars, and Mercury on his own. in the teeth room we discussed Ph. Then to the planets room where we did moon phases and our weights on planets. Big bubbles in the chemistry room and August pointed out that there are no scents left in the scent area. A rather sad display. In the magic room I did the bed of nails and August then played with the floating ball trick. Got some funny shots of him breathing in the “fresh air” as it blew his hair everywhere. Then the optical illusions room where we saw some optical illusions we haven’t seen before. And the air room, where we launched the bottles with air and played with the other beach ball Bernoulli’s principle thing and a couple of the other displays.
We went outside and had a snack at 11:40, and our cookies. August had us sit on the Pi bench. He sat on a 6. Then the outside area – Archimedes screw, the pulleys, and then a long time with the globe you can sit in, then using a lever people can lift you. A woman with two kids came, and we took turns lifting the woman, or her and I lifting the kids, etc. August and I went up to the sun that you sit in and spin. He then found little beads of rubber on the ground.
We discussed leavin and how it would be our last time here for awhile. He said he didn’t want to go to the da Vinci room. Once back inside though he did want the sound room. He spent a lot of time watching the binary machine and played with a couple of the other exhibits. Mainly he sat on the bench for the stereo sound thing and started making rhythms using the drum stick sort of thing. Maybe he needs a drum set… He also sang “do re mi” into the oscilloscope.
Headed back downstairs, but then he decided to play in the play area, first with the blue blocks. He wanted to make sculptures, and he asked “Do you think I should knock it down like we did in Korea?” He knocked one down on me and I taught him ‘avalanche’. When he finished with that he went into the water area, which was now empty. He played around on his own for a few minutes and I was able to read. But then he wanted to make a water system on the big board thing at the end. He would direct me where to put the faucets, etc. as it is too splashy for him. Made a pretty impressive system by the time we left.
We went to the bathroom. Along the way he told me “When I was sleeping mama thought I was too excited about the science center and coffee shop cuz I was being squirrley and stuff.” Back out, he decided he wasn’t done yet. He wanted the rest of the play area, where we walked through the tall grass stuff and did the hall of mirrors. He climbed in the big dodecahedron thing and called it a bird nest. He called it “birdie Philadelphia”. I had mentioned the Alice in Wonderland hall of mirrors area at the children’s museum there when we were doing the mirrors area.
We finally left at 1:45. We walked up the hill (we had his bike) to go eat at a place called Lucca that has waffles. Sadly, it was closed. We went a little further up the hill to Rai. August wanted the last outside booth and proceeded to play with tree bits on the ground. We ordered a focaccia pizza thing with cheese and a kind of pork. I got a cappuccino and August got a hot chocolate. We read a few chapters of Magic Treehouse #18. Not as stressful as the Titanic book, at least not yet. August asked “Isn’t it crazy I get chocolat ham (hot chocolate) when it’s not winter?” The food came. It also had olives and cucumber with it. Where we were August could look over a low wall at a walkway below, He was talking/yelling at some dogs that went by. He and I were then playing the mean game, where I would act as the mean person and he would stop me. Usually first with a verbal warning. But he’d want me to do meaner and meaner things, so then he was more like a superhero stopping me from destroying the planet or universe.
We went inside and used the bathroom. Posters on the wall in Arabic, and the bathroom doors were decorated with comics in Arabic. Hadn’t been sure since the menus were in Hebrew, although the pork option had suggested it wasn’t a Jewish place. So likely Arab Christian. Anyway, we got walking and to the car and were driving at 3:25.
He played some Todo Math and then some of the Earth app, but then started falling asleep. Got upset when I tried to wake him up. But I got his attention back when I started saying I could destroy the universe with my machine once he was asleep. So he was zapping my machines. Managed to stay awak all the way home and were were home after 4:30.
At home there was a white-throated kingfisher out on the power lines, making its call over and over. First time I’ve seen one. August was acting crazy, and Carly took him to the store at 5. They walked over there. She at the security guard asked him his name. “August Zinnie Zinn…and some other names.” They were back at 6. They went outside for a few minutes, then he came inside to the bathroom. He then had a grocery bag and was spinning things in it. Mo
re hyper from him. She ok him upstairs to calm down.
Back downstairs he ate some curry, then he and I went up to the bedroom for the snail nest and birdie game. Then in to the bathroom and bathtub where we did the peeing game. Got his to switch to playing with bubbles and he had me be Leonardo da Vinci inventing an agitation machine (like a washing machine).
I washed his hair, then we went in to the other room and blow dried his hair. Carly took over. He had just found a Halls cough drop on the ground and started to unwrap it. I told Carly he had it, and she took it away from him. He was shattered. I think because he was so close to getting to taste it. He was inconsolable. Carly agreed to let him have a couple of Smarties or whatever they were, which she had gotten at the store for her students for something (August had had some earlier). He agreed, but he wasn’t impressed. When we were trying to convince him that it would have been too strong for him and he wouldn’t like it he wailed “I didn’t even get a chance to try it!” And he talked about how much he loves lemon things, and chewy lemon candy. Although I don’t know if he’s ever had any.
We got him calmed down I left them at 8:20. He was asleep pretty quickly.