We woke him up 6:30. Everyone was up a little earlier today, and Chuck and Cherie, of course. Vivian was up as well to wish August goodbye. They had a little time playing with an RC car before we left, then we were out the door before 8:15. Carly sat up with Jeff and I sat with August. He ate some apple and played Toca Plants. We were talking about our journey today and he made “Atlantic Ocean” the word of the day.
We were to the airport at 9:45. Took us awhile to figure out where to check in, but it went pretty smoothly. We got to our gate area and got coffee drinks and they played hide and seek. I downloaded some books on his iPad. They went and did challenges, then went and filled up their water bottles. There was a place with fake grass for service animals to go to the bathroom on. August would point it out to me when I took him to the bathroom. I took him for awhile and we looked in a little convenience store. There were plastic candy containers with different characters and features on them – he particularly liked the ones that were electric hand fans. I convinced him we didn’t need one, but he spent several minutes testing them all to see which worked. We also found a TV at a restaurant that was showing some transatlantic yacht race. August quite liked that and we watched it for quite awhile. We ran around during commercial breaks.
We boarded about 1. And then sat. And sat. We were told we were delayed for “some weather”. August played Toc Plants and the new pirate app. He handled it pretty well, although at one point asked “Are we over the Atlantic Ocean?” About 2:45 they made a general don’t-know-how-long-it-will-be announcement and let people out of their seats. But just a few minutes later they announced we were leaving and people had to scramble to their seats. I think we were first in line, as we were suddenly taking off. We were off at 2:55. We were also sitting in the middle seats of a 787-9 so didn’t have a view. August was disappointed to hear that, but was then fine.
As we took off, Carly said, “It would be good for him to stay awake 5 hours.” August responded by immediately falling asleep. He slept until 4:20. They had recently delivered dinner and he liked the chicken and rice. He ate some of mine, then somehow flipped Carly’s on the floor. I took him to the bathroom. He played various apps, then watched some Sarah and Duck. Carly ordered more chicken for him. Carly was watching I am Legend. August thought that Will Smith looks like Derek. I think because of the hair.
He looked up at the bright light over him and said that it looked like a radar or compass. He sang “Dont want to waste, a cannon ball.” as he played the pirate game. He watched a half hour or Curious George but wouldn’t watch any more. He had been laughing the whole time, but said it got scary. Several times they would walk around the plane and he would laugh as he passed me. Carly finally got him to watch Magic School Bus.
Breakfast came and August didn’t eat any. As I tried to eat, I was most annoyed by the woman in front of me. Second flight in a row where someone in front of me put their seat back for the entire flight, even when she was sitting forward watching the video. When she was lying back, she would reach up and hold onto the top of the seat. Twice she grabbed my hair as I leaned for word on my pillow against the screen. And as I was trying to eat it put her hands literally four inches from my face. I remember a few flights back an airline that made people return their seats to the upright position during meals. Now my favorite airline.
He set a timer on his iPad so he could look to see how much time was left on our flight. He used the screen several times to look at the path of our flight. He told me “You know my Magic School Bus maker? I packed it in a suitcase.” That was something from earlier in the summer.
August was getting really tired. We landed at 8:10am on the 2nd, Israel time. Made it through immigration and got our luggage. He fell asleep as we went to get a cab. Got him in a cab, and he slept on the cab ride. I fell asleep for about 20 minutes. I carried him up to the bedroom and lay him on the lower bed, about 10:30. He was very asleep, and didn’t seem to move a muscle for at least an hour.
I had barely slept on the flight. Not sure if Carly got much more. She was ambitious though and wanted to go shopping. So she went and did that. I did a little unpacking, and set up the Apple HomePod, and tried to sleep, but no luck. I took a shower and Carly woke him up after 3:30. He was quiet on the couch, and the first thing he said to me was “Remember my coins up there? Can we play hide and seek?” He was then cold, and I covered him with pillows and stuffed animals. They talked about the yard and he asked “Can I grow tomatoes?”
Carly made a mango lassi for us all. Good to be back to Israel, at least for the mangoes. Carly liked the HomePod, saying it was my best speaker purchase ever. Carly mentioned skyping with Oma and Vivian, etc. and August got sad about not being with them.
I got August’s treasure box and he looked at his stuff and we discussed the coins. I then hid a bunch of them under things on the couch. He found them, but then remembered he’d been wanting to play Toca Elements. He had requested it a couple days ago and I’d forgotten to put it on his iPad. He requested it on the plane, then again once we had landed. I had installed it in the airport as we waited for luggage, but then he had fallen asleep.
He played that, then went outside for a bit with Carly. Our watering system had been turned off. Some plants had made it, others hadn’t. I talked to Shmuel at some point, and he said he’d turned it off because it was leaking too much. He says we need a filter and pressure regulator. He had watered the plants three times over the summer though. The papayas have grown a lot (except for the one stunted one) and one is almost as tall as I am. The cactus she left in the window box was doing great, so maybe a few more cacti this year.
Back inside we made a full squirrel nest. He then played Math Tango on my iPad in the squirrel nest.
Carly took him to her classroom. They left at 6:55, and were back by 7:40. I slept a bit. They brought back some of the plants she had taken to her classroom. He lay on the couch and put his feet on the wall. When I told him not to do that he said, “It’s not even your wall.” For dinner he ate carrot, the rest of his smoothie, and some potatoes and mushrooms. I had a veggie burger.
We read a Captain Underpants book. We made ‘underestimate’ the word of the day. He then asked “What’s red handed mean?” As an aside I wondered if it was a racist term and he asked “What’s racist mean?” (I looked it up. It is not. The red is a reference to blood.)
We all went for a walk at 8:55. Stopped at the park and played a minute of the shopping game. He said he had to buy new stuff for his spider web because it was all moldy. We walked north a bit, then circled back around to our house. Carly realized we need to work on crossing the street with him, which is going to be hard as I’m so used to strolling across our streets as their is no traffic. We were back at 9:20. He said “You know what? We haven’t played with out piano.”
We read some more Captain Underpants, then he played some of the Monster Learn reading app. He asked “Are we staying here for the rest of my life?” We took him up and brushed his teeth. They were reading, more Captain Underpants, I think, when I left them before 10:40. He fell asleep pretty soon.