Saturday, November 3: Beit Yanai Beach

He threw up twice during the night. The first was right before I was going to bed and Carly called me to ask me to bring up the bowl. He was then up at 6:45. I was still in bed, and got up to close the door after him. He heard me and popped his head back in the room and told me “You can sleep more if you want to.” And closed the door behind himself.

I came down a little later and when I came down he had had some chocolate milk. He watched Wanda and the Alien and I typed. I made a mango smoothie but he didn’t really drink much. He had me do a time lapse video of him drinking it though. He then did time lapse videos. He played with the tripod with Gramma. I set up a tripod and he did a long one of him playing on the rug. Kind of a new kind of performance art for him.

We sat on the couch and read Hilo. We read the last 3 or 4 chapters of volume 4, then started volume 2. Carly headed to the store. He wanted mango and I thawed him some. He ate that and I did dishes. He complained that the mango was too thawed and that he wanted it straight from the bag. I got him some more and he ate most of that. He then came up with a game where he built a diagnostic machine that could tell kids at school why they were sick and what they needed to do to get better. He diagnosed several kids. He started a new variation on the game by building a diagnostic machine in the park.

He played with the tripod and then wanted it folded back up to be small. I taught him how to fold up the tripod and how to fold over the rubber bands to make them tight. He then got his tape out and was taping the cracks in the kitchen door and taping up the tripod. I took a shower and he made things with the straws and tape with Gramma. He made a microphone and they made an abstract structure. Carly called and he answered and went and checked how many apples were in the fridge for her. He set down the phone, opened the fridge, saw two apples, and went and told her: “Can I hang up now?”

He did more building with Gramma: “This is mootiful!” Carly got home and found out that there were actually several apples in a drawer. He had just counted the apples that were on a shelf. So now we have plenty of apples. He played with Sound Rebound. Carly and I were trying to figure out which beach to go to. I was trying to figure out if one had a bathroom and August wanted to help. Helping involved using the phone by himself, however, and Carly ended up taking him upstairs for a few minutes.

Back downstairs he was taping lots of stuff. He had taped the straw things together into a microphone, and with Gramma had been taping their structure to the rug. He was then throwing the blanket to knock over the towers and we first did bursts, then a slo-mo of him doing it.

We got ready to go and left at 1:15 for Beit Yanai Beach. It is a beach we went to once when coming back from the north. On the way he sat between me and Dad. He started singing a song about making a tunnel that was blocked, then he was singing about how you couldn’t do that because the animals would just go back and forth. He was singing about the game Toca Blocks, which I don’t even remember him playing recently. We got into a “Hay!” exchange about something, then he said, “Hay…what horses eat.”

As we drove into the parking lot at the beach he saw a sign and said, “No horses or dogs. That’s the rule. Do we have any horses or dogs?” He then said he had a metal horse that gallops and sings in French (inspired by Izzy in Hilo). “But I think they’ll allow it.”

We got down to the beach. He and I dug a hole for awhile while everyone else waded in the water. He was finding rocks for Carly to use in the garden, then wanted to ask if he could collect shells too. I said he could, but he had to yell out to Carly, who was now floating on the kickboard, to get an answer from her. He let me carrying him out to a spot several feet out in the water where it was shallow again, just up to his ankles, and there were lots of shells. We used the bucket and collected quite a few, with Gramma and Grampa helping. He told me “I have a song stuck in my head.” It was the Alligator song we made up in Korea. He was then singing the entire Alligator song. That was cool to see, although I didn’t get a video of that.

He was now ready for ice cream, and I took him over to the little snack shack. He chose a Cornetto Vanil (וניל). He wanted to sit at a table there and ate it. I should have told him we were sharing, as it was quite big and I was afraid it was going to upset his stomach. He let me eat some of it though. When he was done he talked about how he could keep eating a lot more.

Back down at our beach spot Mom and Dad went for a walk up the beach. He played with Carly, making a big hole, and I did some reading. Carly took him up to the bathroom, and he came back with some sort of plastic stick thing that he used. He was then dancing around and yelling the words from Toca Band.

We got going a little after 4. In the car he played Toca Band and wanted it loud. Carly turned on music and he complained, saying people could listen to his music. We made it home at 4:45. When we got out of the car he used his iPad to record the sound of the wind and the birds, and wanted everyone to be quiet.

He and Carly picked a bunch of leaves to make tea. While the water was heating, I suggested he use the french press to make a pot for everyone. He said, “I want it the usual way with leaves at the bottom. It’s prettiest that way.”

Cherie called and they Skyped with her, sitting outside. I went for a run—straight up through town, which I’ve done before, but then to the left and back down a different street that comes back down through town—and when I got back they were just finishing up.

He then played on the floor of the kitchen. Intently playing with straws and tape and the salad spinner and cardboard tubes. He was taping shapes out of the straws and throwing them, etc. (one was a plane) and then made a cardboard mixture with water in the salad spinner.

He did that as we got dinner ready. Schnitzel for the rest of us and he had something else. He was talking about not liking food, which may be because he’s been sick, but he was chalking up to “I’m from another dimension so…”

He and I then sat on the couch and read more Hilo. We finished book 2 and gave in and bought book 3. We didn’t end up starting it today though. Carly took him upstairs for a bath. He played in the sink for a long time, then she gave him a bath and brushed his teeth.

I came in the bedroom and he wanted to do Storytelling Dice instead of Hilo. I told a story that continued on our last one about the octopus, in which they actually deal with the octopus this time. The solution, however, is a giant serpent, which then takes the octopus’s place in terrorizing ships.

Looking up at the light cover on the ceiling he said, “Thats the exact shape of my planet. All bumpy and stuff.” With just my flashlight on we played a science class game and he was building a machine in the safety room. It was a machine that does a diagnostic scan of the earth to find lost things. He was then finding lost things for people. He was asleep at 9:15.

Smoothie time lapse: