Thursday, October 25: ice cream treat in Even Yehuda

6:20. He actually woke me up, as my alarm hadn’t gone off. When I came down he had a science experiment going on on the kitchen floor: they had cut a paper straw in half and put each half in a different pot of water, one cold and one hot. She left, and he watched Aardvark and Ant. He then wanted a storytelling dice story and I made up “The King’s Mistake”. We were walking at 7:40.

Along the way he asked me, “Did you know that before the dinosaurs there was a flood that covered the Earth for ten hundred thousand years?” Everything was fine until we got to the classroom. Suddenly, he got upset about the schedule and wanted a check-in. He kept saying like yesterday, but yesterday I came at the end of school and before dance class. He didn’t accept this explanation. His teachers were running the meeting but Michelle was there, trying to coax him in, which wasn’t necessarily helping. But after a couple minutes I told him I needed to go and he needed to stay. He was upset but let me go. I heard him complaining as I left, but I think he calmed down quickly.

I worked on the cover, then in the afternoon I drove down to Ikea where I got a glass mixing bowl and a digital kitchen scale for bread-making purposes and priced a Dutch oven for the same. I then went to the iDigital store to get some phone supplies.

I drove to the school and picked up August. Andrea told me he had been playing with Reia and Sophia and Judson today. She said in particular they had been playing with the “vines” – branches that Marion had put over by the playground for them to play with. August took me over to show me and we added more vines to the play structure. He sat on the steps of it, in the vines, and ate more of his food. We talked about Lydia. He hadn’t waved at her, but had ignored her “And she ignored me.”

He talked about the dinosaur liver he discovered at the archeology site and asked “What was before dinosaurs?” I told him about how amazing it would be to get dinosaur DNA to study. I told him about wooly mammoths.

He wanted his iPad and he played on that. He had asked me “What do I have after rest time” and I told him that he’d already had it—It was now after school. They hadn’t had studio choice time for the last two Thursdays either, so I went in and talked to his teachers. Andrea said he had told them about his experiment this morning. She said he should take before and after photos and share them with the class.

The big news was that they started literacy groups this week, Tuesday to Thursday, in the morning. Funny we hadn’t heard anything about that. Anyway, partly because of that they have been changing the schedule around and haven’t had the choice time per se. But this afternoon they sort of had an open preschool time, so there were PKC and PKB students down, etc. Selma had been tracing August in sidewalk chalk as he lay down.

I also asked Marion about breadmaking, and August showed up to find out why I was taking so long. We went back and he was now watching some Sarah and Duck. He also got up on the big round swing all on his own and got himself swinging back and forth as he stood on it. Clearly something he learned from the other kids and I’d never seen it before.

So the plan had been to go to Ikea to get ice cream as a reward for eating his lunch (he’d done okay, eating half of his tuna sandwich). But August wasn’t in a hurry to go anywhere. I suggested we go to the health food store in town and get something from their treat cooler instead and he liked that idea. Carly said she’d go with us.

We left at 3:50. Stopped by the library and he went to the bathroom. Played a preschool game about the goatdog. As we left the bathroom he said “The only rule is there is no rules.” And he told me “There’s no rules in war.” I said there kind of was, but it is complicated. He said, “Like, you can use hammers? Catapults?”

Carly was there and we headed to the car. As we walked he was sounded out his name “Au-gu-su-tuh…my name is four syllables.” He had been learning about syllables in literacy class. He said, “You should call me Augustino more.”

We drove up into town and parked in the dirt lot. We walked over to the health food store and looked in the cooler. August ended up getting a small container of lemon pie ice cream and Carly got a coconut chocolate popsicle like they have at the school cafeteria. We sat at the one table outside and as he ate he said, “It’s like crazy good.”

We headed home, getting here a little after 5. Outside on the teeter totter he discussed literacy group. He was reciting part of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Ms. Vicky leads his group. Selma and a few other kids from PKC are in it. It was unclear whether he likes it or not. He said “Definitely not fun” But “Yes it is.”

We put batteries in the kitchen scale and we learned how to use it and he made spicy soup. He and I then made yeast starter, mixing flour and water together. He wanted to taste water mixed with cinnamon, so he had some of that. Then I mixed him up some with milk and he drank that. I talked about the cinnamon overpowering the flavor of my coffee when I put just a little in and ‘overpower’ became the word of the day.

He kept repeating “The season is the reason” from Aardvark and Ant. Watched it again. His favorite episode is the one with the ant catching machine and they don’t catch any ants. He had a bowl of soup for dinner. Carly asked him more about literacy group. He said he didn’t like it “Because I have to think.” One activity they did was to write their names on paper, then someone else got their name. With the name he got “I cutted the name up…one by one…I tried to spell…” Selma is in his group, and some kids from PKC that I don’t know.

He did a slo-mo of the swinging bowl that he’s had attached with tape to the coffee table for a few days. He and Carly played Dragonbox Big Numbers. I then gave him a bath. Before he got in he did a time lapse video of him being silly in the bathroom and getting in the bath. We were listening to the new remix Vital Idol album from Billy Idol. August liked “White Wedding.” I washed August, then he played with the shower head for a long time. He then forgot that I had washed him. I told him to see if his neck and face were wet. “Oh! You’re right!”

We talked about the sleeping arrangements when Gramma and Grampa get here. He went in the small bedroom and claimed the bed for himself, saying Carly and I could sleep on the floor bed. He then wanted to make a sign that said ‘Zinnie’ on it and hang it on the bed. We got paper and markers and he practiced and wrote a ‘Zinnie’ sign. He did a few other things, including HO2 (meant H2O) and a page full of Zs. He used the tape to hang one up on the railing and asked me to do the rest. Kind of an art walk down the stairs now.

Downstairs, he wanted to go outside in the wind. We put on his pajamas and he got two flashlights and I got him some Cheerios. We walked around in the yard, then sat on the swing for several minutes and he attached one of the magnets to the swing (it has a magnet) and he ate the Cheerios.

We went in on the bed and read I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean (his library book). I left them at 8:20. It was really windy, and the downpour hit right at 9. He was asleep by then as he says he didn’t hear the rain at all during the night.

Showing me the vines: