Monday, November 5: Carly sick and to Haifa with my parents

Carly got sick overnight with the same thing August had. She was downstairs when he came down at 6:50. She had a grey pillow against the end of the couch, and he kept wanting her to put it back where it belonged. She eventually headed upstairs to rest. He watched Julius Jr., then we got ready to go. A little upset when he had to turn the iPad off. But he then told me “If I wanted more iPad time I can just use this machine that makes time to slower.”

We walked to school, and he was humming a tune, changing chords in a pattern, much of the way. We got to his class at 8 and he went in to check out the classroom. I said goodbye and walked home.

My parents and I then got in the car and drove to Haifa. We were on time to make the 10am tour of the Baha’i Gardens, but close to Haifa traffic suddenly came to a standstill. Turned out to be closing a lane for construction. Our ETA suddenly shifted 16 minutes later. So we decided to go have lunch at Douzan first. Took a long time to find a parking spot, but finally found a garage under a small mall down the hill from Douzan. We walked there and had a nice table inside. The only people until a couple went into the smoking room. We ordered a plate of pastries and an order of the wrapped grape leaves. Dad and I had Turkish coffee and mom had a latte. We ate, then headed back to the car and up to the top of the gardens. Parked in the lot and joined the tour at the entrance just before noon.

The tour was good.About 25 minutes in it started to rain and for one stop the tour guide had us under a palm tree for cover. It let up a bit after that, and we got to the middle of the gardens, where the tour ends, about 12:40. It ends in the corner of the gardens that are open for wandering around, so I left my parents there to look around and I walked up the hill to the car. I went up a stairway along the way and through an apartment complex. At one point a dog came running around the corner of some stairs and chomped on my shorts twice before it reached the end of its tether.

I had time to walk to the bathroom at the top, then back to the car, then drove back down and picked them up in the tunnel area. We drove back to school, and delivered the canvas to Dorene, the art teacher. She’s talkative and we talked to her for several minutes. We picked August up and he sat on the bench and ate a couple apples to finish off his lunch. A couple of kids came by and left hula hoops on the ground and August played with one. We then went up to the cafeteria. August got a chocolate muffin and the rest of us got cappuccinos. August told the guy working there that he wanted a cappuccino as well.

As we sat at the table we were discussing something and Mom asked him, “Did you get that ?” He replied, “No. Cuz I come from another dimension.” He also asked, “Did you know I can sleep when I’m eating?” And, “Tell me about your planet. On my planet everything moves.” We then argued about whether particles are always moving. He pretended to not like the muffin: “What is this? This is disgusting!” And randomly told us, “I found a haircutting place in Turkey. It’s a 100,000 miles away.”

It started raining, quite hard, and it was an adventure getting to the car. Got him to a covered spot at the entrance, then I ran and got the car. Got his bike, then picked him up and carried him to the car. In the short distance he got some water on his shorts and got upset and wanted them changed. Finally got him to just take them off until we got home, at 4:10.

I mentioned our new sleeping arrangements (he and I were going to sleep in the office, since Carly is sick) and he said, “Arrangement. Word of the day!” He had fun taping Dad to the floor, and chanted “Little tapey bang bang.” I asked if he wanted to pick leaves for Carly’s tea. First he said no, but then I told him it had stopped raining: “Oh, I’d love to!” We made tea (mint and lemon for him, just lemon for her) and he went up and sat with her on the bed and they drank tea together. He came down and asked about a flashlight. Carly had asked me to move the lamp into that room, and she had sent him down to ask if I could do it now. But he had gotten the idea in his head that they could use a flashlight instead, and forgot to ask me about the lamp.

I moved the lamp in, and he taped it down, then asked me to close the door. He came down a bit later and watched BrainPop Jr. videos. Mom and Dad were making lasagna. We read two Ajay books on Skybrary, then Hilda and the Black Hound. We then played his science room (building something and making noise) and nisse games (from Hilda).

I went outside to lock the gate, and August came with me. He spotted a bug moving by the book case outside. I used the flashlight on my phone and it turned out to be a cockroach. He sort of played with it, using a leaf, until it ran underneath.

He convinced me to give him a dry lasagna noodle. He broke it into pieces and started taping pieces together into a bridge between the coffee table and the couch: “The noodle bridge. You can eat it too if you want to.” “You’re someone crossing the bridge and someone takes a big bite out of it.” He ate several bites, then of course didn’t eat the actual lasagna when it was ready.

I gave him a stool bath, then we did the storytelling dice. He gave me 13 dice, in a U shape, so it became a long adventure. He was then chanting “Pollyndra Pack Wallace” Which is from Hilo. We were quite before 9, with just my phone on as a lamp. He asked me to tell him about when I was a kid: “Saturday of the third week of January…17.” Very specific. Best I could do was when we once went inner tubing in the snow, I think senior year. He turned it into a story where he was doing tricks…swirls, running on it… Then a crazy preschool game where he was making noise from the top of the school but the principal had asked him to do it. He went to the bathroom, then back in the bedroom he needed to finish a more normal preschool story, with, I think, a happy ending for an adopted deerfox or nisse in the classroom. At the end he announced “The end” and threw himself over with his head on my shoulder and his arms wrapped around my right arm and was asleep within a couple minutes.

Awhile later Mom saw a cockroach in the bathroom. We caught it and I threw it outside.

Morning tune 1: