Sunday, November 11: Ein Hod/Hawd

In the early morning, after Carly had woken up, I got him back to sleep once. He woke up at 6:25. He told me, “You can sleep longer if you want.” Carly came in and they cuddled for a bit, then headed downstairs.

He watched Smurfs and Llama Llama and ate some corn flakes, then watched part of the Formula 1 qualifying (Brazil) with me. He told me, “I figured out a word of the day: radiation.” And he asked me if any plane flies over the speed of sound. We discussed these, then he asked, “Can I see a video of someone dying in a house?…like maybe they’re 143 years old.”

He started talking about his inventions and told me he sells his machines in stores around the world and told grampa he could buy machines. Dad suggested some kind of machine, and August said, “Oh no, no, no. They’re already invented. I just invent new stuff.” We sat on the couch and told the story about the school with too many rules.

I made pancakes. He ate two, but pushed the berries off his first one as they were too sour. Mom got him his second. He told grampa he sounded scary when he snores. I told him it was ironic since he had snored so loudly last night. I asked, and he said he fell asleep before the end of the story last night.

Carly came down and started to dance with him in the kitchen. He wanted to find a song to dance to on Siri and after a couple of attempts got Siri to play Chemical Brothers. He then played one of the math apps (Tiggly) with Carly. He was making guesses, but told her it was a hypothesis. He got into kind of a punky mood. He wanted to plan the day, as he has been requesting, and wanted to go to the science center in Haifa. He was appeased with the plan to get the music box combined with the possibility of ice cream.

As we got ready, he cast more spells: “Abracadabra I love mama more than I used to…mama and me love each other the same.” We left at 10:20, with Carly driving.

On the way up we read all of Hilda and the Bird Parade. He then did a preschool game with a huge bird making wind. We stopped at a gas station. Carly got gas and I walked around to find the air station. She pulled the car over and dad and I figured out how to use it and filled up all the tires. Back in the car h made another story combining Hilda and Giants Beware!, with a giant bird saving me from giants or a big attacking tree.

We got to Ein Hod at 11:40. August walked almost all of the time. First, we took the little path into it, and he had fun dropping things in the well/cistern. We then followed signs to Molikan, a pottery place. It was actually a long way, but it was a nice walk. August took photos along the way, and as we got close to the shop he found interesting bits of pottery and rocks and wanted to take photos of the different colors.

We looked around there a few minutes (August didn’t like it, as he couldn’t touch, although I picked up a few things and let him touch them—he seemed to think that was breaking a rule), then walked back through the ‘center’ of town. There was a yard with wooden sculptures and he quite liked them, although he was startled by a dog at one point. Mom said he seemed to love art. He said, “I love music.” We kept going, stopping at a bathroom, then looked in a place with paintings.

As we kept walking Carly was a bit faster than us, and stopped at a place and got some postcards. I was tempted to get a blank notebook. It was called NotaNota.studio.

August kept asking about the music box place. But he was being really patient. We got down to the Dada museum, and Carly suggested she take him to the music box place and the rest of us could do the museum.

That worked out well, as my parents and I had plenty of time in the museum. And it was quite worth it. We really liked the pieces made out of pencils downstairs, and peeked into the closed Dada Lab, which was actually the coolest space in the museum, full of stuff.

They had success finding the music box place. The nice dog that had followed us through the center of town followed them all the way down and Carly had to keep picking him up. He was carrying some plastic thing and the dog slobbered on it once and he didn’t want it anymore. At the music box shop he chose “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth. The guy glued it into a little box that he could paint later.

I called them, and met them where he was playing down the stairs a bit. My parents went to a couple other galleries. He showed me the music box, then was playing with a caterpillar. He was really into it, and kept carrying it around. He wasn’t bothered by the green slime on him. Eventually, he dropped it by an ant nest by a tree. Seemed like they were going to kill it. Carly took him to the bathroom and mentioned how this being into bugs and stuff was a new thing for him. He said, “I’m a nature person. I’m discovering nature.”

We drove over to Ein Hawd, the Palestinian village, only to find the restaurant closed. Or, sort of. He seemed to suggest there was a private event, and also told us we needed to make reservations. Which definitely wasn’t the case last year.

Carly had suggested we could walk around Zihron Ya’akov. So we headed there and ate dinner at the Tishbi winery restaurant. August was a bit hyper in the restaurant at first and Carly took him outside a couple times. I got the sweet potato and salmon raviolis to share with him, but he ended up eating more of Carly’s calzone, although he ate all the salmon I gave him. And the wine was good.

We then took our time walking north through town, on the pedestrian street. We watched a group of school kids doing a dance for some reason. And we looked in a couple shops. August was having fun dropping leaves into the drains. We stopped to study the old fountain/water system.

We got to the north end and crossed the street to Aldo, an amazing ice cream place. August, Carly, and I got a small scoop of the bubble gum and a small one of the salted caramel and shared them. August also managed to get several bites of both Gramma’s and Grampa’s.

We ate that at the shop, then walked back south through town. He was carrying his ice cream spoon much of the way before throwing it in the garbage. He was also dropping leaves in the drains.

We left at 5:10. He played his music box and I mentioned it was from Beethoven: “Beethoven’s Ninth? I didn’t know that!” He was then singing, “We all live in a banana submarine…sandwich submarine.” The song “A Little Uncanny” played, and he said, “Uncanny! Word of the day!”

We got home after 6. He hung out with Gramma for awhile. He talked about painting his box and I found our supply of paints outside. He chose his colors, but then said, “Let’s start later; I’ve got cuddling to do.” Didn’t actually end up doing any painting today. He sung the pirate song (“When I was one…”), then watched the video of it. We went upstairs and told the Preschool with the Most Rules while sitting on the couch.

He wanted a bath in the tub, so we did that. He added ‘database’, which I use in the preschool story, as a word of the day. He had seen the heater sitting outside the door and asked what it is, then wanted me to plug it in. I turned it on and he said he just wanted one of the bars on, but then when he found out the other one is broken he got upset and wanted me to fix it immediately.

Finally got his bath done, and he was talking about a power plant that burns plastic for power. We talked about the chemicals that are released and how they try to catch the bad stuff from the air. He wanted me to dry his hair with the hair dryer. I turned it on and he asked if it was on low, 1. I told him it was, but he didn’t trust me: “Okay. I’ll check.” He was being silly, etc. and I was pushing a button on him to get him to be nice or calm or something but he kept saying I pushed something else: “The crazy button!”

He went downstairs and watched Gramma playing a card game on the computer and talked about that with her. He said, “I think when you’re about to lose something you’re scared, and they produces juice in the body.”

I took him upstairs and got him ready for bed. Carly came in and I left them at 8:30.

Conducting with the plant: