Monday, September 17: Netanya Beach

He woke up at 7:30. He watched Smurfs for awhile while I did some work. He told me “When I’m a grown-up, I think I’ll make a lot of rules.” He then wanted to play with the Makey Makey. We did an art app, a pizza one, and others. I was looking for a sort of set of projects to do with the Makey Makey to actually learn things, but he was impatient so we settled for the little apps. He took a macro photo of the Makey Makey and a burst photo of me moving around, then we got going.

We had planned on Tel Aviv, but when we got going he said he wanted the shorter drive. I didn’t have a compelling argument for Tel Aviv, so we switched to Netanya. He wanted to make sure it was the protected beach though so there’d be less waves. As we drove down he said he thought I was going the wrong way.

We parked at the beach (only cost 15 shekels) at 11. As we got out of the car he told me about a computer currency that was on iPads and computers. It was like he knew about Bitcoins. As we walked to the beach he spotted a place with slurpee drinks. We got a strawberry one and sat at a shaded table and drank it. He asked me, “Do you know why sugar dissolves?” And then explained why sugar dissolves. He stood up and was using his arms to show the bonds breaking. Don’t know if he has learned about that one somewhere or just thought it through. He then invented a machine to make things less liquidy.

We got down to the water and put on sunscreen. He started to wade right in. Near the shore he commented on all the “microgarbage.” We spent the next hour or so in the water, going far enough out that the water was calm, but he could stand if he wanted to. A guy, British, I think, came over and warned me about burning the top of my head heatstroke. He said he’d been playing at that beach last year with his grandkids and had that problem and just wanted to warn me. He was quite nice. We saw several small fish. The largest was about 5 inches long. And it kept nibbling at my feet. Which was quite annoying, although I told August it was just tickling a bit. He did his wave tickets thing again, and we headed in from the water about 12:20.

As soon as we were on the shore he was fussy about being wet and said his neck was itchy. We’d gotten hit by a big (for that spot) wave on our way in and it had splashed his face and neck and he blamed that (and me) for his itchy neck. We had discussed the waves, and he reminded me he knew all about breakers and waves and it getting calmer past the breakers from reading that Magic Tree House book set in Hawaii. He kept quoting from the book: “’I’m paddling out to catch big waves!’ said Nava.”

So he wanted to be changed right away. Changed him into his dry clothes, then he played with a shovel in the sand. He had me write words in the sand and he erased them with water as fast as possible. He got soaked doing that, so changed into his backup shirt as we left. We stopped and rinsed off our feet, then walked over to the beach elevator that took us to the top of the cliff. I realized we should have stopped at the car and dropped off our beach stuff and gotten his bike, but he said he could just keep walking.

We walked a few blocks north, him walking all the way, to the Rhythm Cafe that we’ve been to before. We got a green mojito smoothie, a cappuccino, and shakshuka. The shakshuka was too spicy for him. I thought he could eat the egg, but I didn’t think about how they had put black pepper on top of it and I gave him a bite. He then refused any more even after I took the top of the egg off. He liked the bread though and ate a small loaf of that and drank the smoothie. I felt a little bad and let him watch the Curious George Christmas on his iPad.

We left about 2. On the way back we stopped in the park and he took some photos. When we had left the cafe he talked about a green cloud, and when the cloud rains on you it tires you out. After he took some photos he said, “Remember the green cloud?” It kept raining on him and he was acting more and more tired. Think he really was a bit worn out. we spotted a cat and he said it was #82, but I later figured out it is #88 or so. He now blamed me for green cloud. He explained how I had accidentally cast a spell that made it.

In the car he watched the rest of the Curious George show, which kept him awake. It was just after 3 so we stopped at the school. We parked in the parking lot for a few minutes, but Carly was in a meeting so we headed home.

We were home at 3:30. We did more Makey Makey, and were listening to Public Enemy for our albums countdown. He heard the word ‘terminator’ and said “Terminate! Word of the day!”

There was a knock on the door. It was our new neighbor from across the street. They were actually trying to reach Mikaela as, for some reason, they need access to a pole in her yard to hook up internet. I did a phone number exchange for them and we chatted for a minute. The woman’s name is Yael, while her husband is Gil. Three kids, two of which are 8 and twins. Aton and I forgot the girl’s name. Then a 2 ½ year old named Abigail.

He did Dragonbox Big Numbers, then made up a song with some good rhyming: “Trunks is trunky, bumps is bumpy, skunks is skunky.” He wiped himself in the bathroom so got a piece of mall candy. Carly started the bribery but it is working. He ate some dinner, and talked about about the chewing and liquids in his mouth: “It makes a liquidy substance.” We read one Skybrary book, What a Treasure! We made a squirrel nest, then Carly got home, close to 6.

I went up to do some work and they continued the squirrel nest. He came up to say hi and she started his bath and washed him. I asked about washing his hair. He said something like, “I supposed we could give it a try.” He talked about the lollipops and how we should buy more butterscotch ones. He sang a song that went “Do fish know it is Christmas?” From Curious George.

Downstairs, Carly cut his hair. She told him he needed to be more still so he said, “Okay. I promise I’ll be really frozen.” In Skybrary we read What Does it Mean to be Green? and the Gertie Gorilla book. And a math adventure book called What’s Next, Nina? about a bead necklace that breaks.

Carly took over reading it and I went for a late run at 8:55. He was asleep sometime after 9.

While we have a strawberry slurpee: