Carly had the service day today, so she went with students to a daycare in south Tel Aviv.
August got up at 6 and walked downstairs to Carly. She made him oatmeal with mango and he watched Smurfs. She took the car to school and when my dad came down I went and took a shower. When I came down, August asked, “Did you know I discovered an animal that has its eyes closed it’s whole life, but when it’s eye are open it’s dead?” I don’t know where that came from.
I made the last of the pancake batter for breakfast. August then wanted to play an injured animal game. He wanted to be a cute animal, and nocturnal. We discussed coatis, then settled on a kinkajou. It had a hole in its stomach, and we made the word of the day ‘malnourished’. He went to the bathroom, then wanted to read Amulet, but we didn’t have time. He described a water filter invention that was a block of steel with a hole in it for the water. It then made coffee etc. at the push of a button. Then he described an invention that sounded like a scanner/copier.
Dad walked with us to school one more time. August was very quiet much of the way. Near the end he talked about shooting a small thing of steel at the Earth that would push it farther from the sun (he said past Neptune) so that it would get colder and we would have snow. For the last block we walked with Bar and her dad. Bar asked why August rides the bike and we talked about how long of a walk it is (1.6 kilometers).
We dropped him off at class and Dad and I walked home. He pointed out that they’ve seen August get a lot more comfortable with school just in the time they’ve been here; when he was first walking with us, August was still hesitant to go into class. Now he usually just heads right in.
At home Mom and Dad got ready for their trip. Taking it easy before all the travel. I made the zucchini cornbread as August and I weren’t going to have time to make it together. I walked back to school at 1:30 to go to library time.
The class was more rambunctious today, and when I talked to Andrea afterwards she said they had seen the same thing. Ilana used the finger puppets to tell the story of The Little Red Hen, then read an adaptation called The Little Red Hen Bakes a Pizza. During checkout time August initially chose the If You Give a Moose… book, but changed his mind and got Baby Bear’s Big Dreams. At some point I told August I had baked a special snack for him. I started to tell him what I made, and he said, “Don’t tell me!…But I know you made it, so it has your love in it, right?”
After library time we walked back to the classroom, then went outside. When he saw the bread he was at first disappointed. I said but it was the bread “That I made with love.” He replied, “Love doesn’t count.” After a few minutes we headed over and found Cassie picking up Taya at PKB. They then went over to the playground and played together. They worked together, bringing all of the chairs together and putting wood and stuff on them to make an obstacle course, or as Taya calls it, a “trick track.”
They had to go, then August was a kinkajou that was hurt. I carried him up to the vet and took care of him. At 4:00 Candy and Omri came out on the playground and were playing on the car. Candy called to August. August said he’d go over, but that he was a kinkajou that didn’t know how to play with humans. He climbed up with them, but they soon left. He then played on the car on his own, and said, “I’m a blue and white kinkajou trying to camoflauge.”
August then, still being a kinkajou, was in the back seat of the car, sleeping. Omri came by and touched his head, so then August set to creating a barrier around the car made of all the chairs. Just as he finished it, another boy, who I didn’t know, came over and got in the car. August was frustrated, but handled it really well. He climbed on top of the car, and they sort of played together.
August and I ended up back over by our vet spot on the play structure and had been making up Gaston lines, like:
No one ties shoes like Gaston
Eats glue like Gaston
No on hides behind houses and yells Boo like Gaston
Carly got their at 4:40. She went and looked at the garden, then we all walked on the elementary school texture path they had built. On our way back he picked up a big leaf. He then set it along the side of the trellis and the vine growing on it. Andrea came out as we walked by, and he excitedly took her to show her what he had done; the idea was to see if the vines would wrap around the leaf. She said it was a good experiment and that they could try to remember to put a ‘do not touch’ doing on it.
At home we read Amulet, then had stir fry for dinner. He was kind of grumpy, and we had a family hug. He knew that Gramma and Grampa were bout to leave. We read Baby Bear’s Big Dreams. Carly made a nest for him and he watched Smurfs on my phone, using my Apple headphones. He got the idea from seeing Taya watch something on Cassie’s phone: “If Taya can do it, I can do it.” At one point he got up and said, “I thought I was at Gramma and Grampa’s house.”
He went to the bathroom, and when I realized he hadn’t gone since I got to school for library time he then claimed he hadn’t gone to the bathroom during the day at all. He was then a bird, and Carly made him oatmeal.
My parents and I left at 7, after they had some good hugs and goodbyes with August. It went smoothly to the airport and back. He went to sleep about 8:30.
Their obstacle course:
Sleeping on the big swing:
His dream:
Climbing up with the girls:
Goodbye to Gramma:
On Gramma’s lap:
Hug from Grampa:
