Thursday, November 1: picked up by Carly

He got up at 6 with me. He watched Wanda and the Alien and played with the tire pressure gauge. We took the car, leaving by 7:45. We parked at the school and I took him in while Mom and Dad waited in the car. We parked his bike at the rack and I left a bag with his iPad and car vest in it. We asked Andrea what would be after rest time (she said it would be the open preschool thing they did last week) and I asked about the ‘special student’. It was a boy named Simona, and he is a new student.

I stayed for a minute outside while he got comfortable as they started meeting. Back in the car, we made our way to Jerusalem. A little over 2 hours, taking 4, 40, and 443.

We parked in the Mamilla parking garage by the Jaffa Gate. Once in the city we walked counterclockwise. By the end of the day we made a rough circle through all four of the quarters: Armenian, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. We saw the old Roman road on our way to the Western Wall. At the wall my parents went and touched it. We changed into pants, then got in line about 12:10 for the Temple Mount. They started security about that time and we were able to wait on the bridge looking down at the Western Wall area.

Once inside we headed straight back, past Al-Aqsa Mosque. We wandered over to the Golden Gate area, then walked up to the Dome of the Rock on the east side. Walked around that, saw the view of the Mt. of Olives, then headed out into the Muslim Quarter at 1:30.

We found the Al Buraq restaurant and sat in the downstairs section. We got the grilled chicken and the schwarma, and hummus, tahinis, and Turkish salad. I got a salab to drink.

After lunch we headed north through the Muslim Quarter. They mostly finished their shopping, getting a few things. We turned left towards the Christian Quarter and finished with a pretty full tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

We were all tired by then, and got back to the car about 4:15. Got driving, and were home just before 6:30.

Along the way I asked Carly to ask August what the word of the day is. He said “Hypofomicly…I made all the words, so there can’t be a word of the day.” “Hypofomicly is a type of chemical. It’s the chemical you get from the middle of the moon. Very dangerous. Koisonous.“

Carly picked him up after school. He was just out in the grass by himself when she got there. He wanted a treat, but he hadn’t eaten his lunch, and didn’t want to eat any of it now to get Mama-Zinnie cafeteria time. He seemed sad that I wasn’t there and she was trying to avoid a breakdown. They left the bench at 3:40 by trying to see if Mandy would give them a ride. She looked really busy though. Carly bribed him to walk home by promising a Halloween treat when they got home. He had Starburst.

Of school we learned that he hadn’t played with Simona today. Also, that students played after rest time when they weren’t supposed to. They were supposed to go outside but were being loud. He says he wasn’t one of the loud ones though. He also said they had read Muffin Man during Literacy Time today, but then expressed doubt about that.

When we got home at 6:30 he was playing Monster Physics on the couch. I made myself some water drink. As August played he wistfully said,”I think I smell water drink.” “Yeah. I was thinking about it.” “I can smell it.”

I saw they had an insect in the bug catcher. It had been on the floor and playing dead earlier. It was now standing up and August examined it. He let it go outside, then was putting other things in the bug catcher to look at them. He started doing concoctions of spices and food coloring and they actually looked quite cool. He accidentally spilled one and he vacuumed it up.

Carly took him up to do another stool bath. He played in the sink for a long time, doing an experiment that involved getting a toilet paper roll wet. He talked about being the only one that could touch it, because he had a special suit: “Just like an astronaut suit but more powerful. It has an entire computer in it.”

She finally gave him his sink bath, then out in the play area he sang a “Books, books, books” song as he danced in the mirror. He then described a preschool game scenario: “Scenario! Word of the day.” In it, he ended up making a robot that would tell kids when they were breaking the rules. He put it in a human body: “I killed a person for a good reason.” I suggested that wasn’t actually a good reason, and he changed his mind and said he had found a body when digging. I suggested grave robbing also wasn’t approved of, and we discussed donating bodies for science.

We went downstairs to say good night, and he told Gramma “You forgot to do a Zinnie hug!” I think he had told her the same thing in the morning. Also, I forgot to mention that sometime last night he fell down part of the lower half of the stairs. He sort of did a somersault down the first few stairs then stopped himself. Startled, but not really hurt.

Back in the room I asked what he wanted to read and he said, “Hilda. Because I like to sink into the book.” We read about a third of it. Turned on the ‘lamp’ and he chose a park game where I heard him building something in a park, and it turned out to be a machine to make you live 100 years longer.

He was trying a lot of stalling tonight, but fell asleep just before 9.

At the Western Wall: