He went back to sleep once. He’s been turning sideways in the bed again, feet towards me, and I had to straighten him up a couple times. He woke up at 7:10. He told me, “I’m going downstairs. You go back to sleep.” I came down before 8. They had read I Been There. He was watching Pink Panther. Carly went out to enjoy the sun, which is back for at least a bit. I got tea and cereal and vitamins for August. He stopped watching and asked for oatmeal with date syrup. I asked if he wanted strawberries too and he said yes, but then wasn’t impressed when he saw the final product.
We sat and ate together. He didn’t complain about the strawberries anymore, but he didn’t eat a whole lot. He got his shoes on and went out with Carly for a minute, then asked me to help him find his scissors using his echoy voice: “Can you find them-em-em-em?”
I then couldn’t keep up with him: he wanted to hang up our art from yesterday, then wanted to push toothpicks through paper, then wanted to cut a styrofoam ball in half, then wanted to paint a piece of cardboard to make a table out of it. I got the art up, cut a piece of cardboard, and he painted it.
Carly came in and a minute later I found the putty container in the middle of the rug by the heater. It was upside down, and had stuck to the rug. Carly did her best to pick it off, then we followed instructions online and put ice in a plastic bag to try to freeze it. We will see how it goes. The rug is ruined otherwise. August knew we were upset and curled up on the floor. I said to Carly that at least it hadn’t been the couch. He told me “There are more important things than a rug.” Eventually he watched a few minutes of Pink Panther. Carly came in and he stopped. He started playing with her, asking her to be his seal mom, etc. He told her, “My feetsies are cold.” She said, “You should put on your socks.” He immediately replied, “I won’t.” They then went up to wrestle on the bed.
He played in the sink and made a hair cleaning potion out of hair gel, water, and soap. I let him out someone me before my shower. I took a shower, and when I came down they were outside. August came in and told me he was earning an allowance: a half shekel for weeding. We rearranged his treasures and used the middle-sized container for his savings. I found a half-shekel piece for him Nd also gave him eight 10 agora pieces. We counted it up. He said that when he had enough he could buy something in the store on his own, like an apple.
We read some Nimona, and there’s a reference to Robin Hood so I explained who Robin Hood is and made it the word of the day. The third Shivers book came out today, so we started reading that. We started getting ready to go to a new bakery for lunch, and August got a big cardboard box (the one his electronics set came in) and packing things to take. I don’t remember what all was in there, but it included books for us to take and toys. He said, “I like to carry lots of stuff around with big boxes.” We left at 12:45.
He was quiet on the way up after he had requested we listen to “Better Not Wake the Baby”, and I read a book by myself for awhile, but then he closed his eyes. I got his attention again by reading Shivers 3. We got to Elhanan Bread Culture and went inside. A decent place inside, but a rather small sitting area, and nothing fancy. Their breads looked amazing though. A guy translated the menu for us, and we stopped him after a couple items. Their specialty is a big spread of food on a butcher block board: scrambled eggs, potatoes, quiche, salads, fruits, tahini, cheese, and of course big slices of bread. And Carly and I got a cappuccino to share.
It came pretty quickly and we ate and ate. Very good. I think it was about $35, but not bad as it fed three people. We could have had another adult with us and I think we still would have eaten enough. August liked the eggs and potatoes and bread. He also ate a radish and a half, saying it didn’t have much flavor, but was too lemony. Of the quiche he said, “I’m terrified of that” because it had big chunks of something in it. I had thought garlic at first, but we then thought it was a kind of mushroom.
I had told him we could get a dessert afterwards, so I took him up to choose. The first thing to appeal to him had been the lemon custard pie. We pondered a couple other things now, but went with the “crown cake” as he called it, because the peaks on it reminded him of a crown. It was a big piece, and again enough for the three of us. It took some time to order it, and August got to see how they slice the big loaves of bread. I thought about buying a loaf, but figured we had spent enough so decided against it.
We stopped at the bathroom and then went for a walk into the kibbutz of Mishmarot. We were walking at 2:45. August had developed a new noise he could make without opening his mouth, and he made it as we walked, and said he could communicate with all the animals using it. We passed a dog, walking on its own, and I asked what he said. He said, “What I said was ‘Good morning dog.’” He spotted a stump and ran over to it and started a sort of performance. In a loud voice he said, “Ladies and gentlemen! We have time for one more question!” But then wouldn’t really answer my questions or fulfill my request for a song or dance.
We looked for another bakery in town but couldn’t find it, then circled back past a school and to the playground. He was concerned it belonged to the school and we couldn’t play on it. I assured him it was okay. He went on the swing and I pushed him. We played around, then went over on the bench with Carly. He asked what ‘terrified’ meant, and that was another word of the day. For one of the words today he said he wanted to stop doing words of the day. It turned out to be one of those things that he wants to have control in though, because he said we’d still do it for two more years. He just didn’t like me saying I’d do it as long as I felt like it.
He and I read more of Shivers as we sat on the bench. We then got going just after 4. Stopped at the bathroom again, then drove home. He asked out of nowhere “What’s the difference between locate and identify?” And said he wanted to know “because I’m a scientist.” Carly had music playing, and he told her “Mama, remember, no playing sleepy types of music. This is sleepy music…Play something loud. I know, play Michael Jackson!”
We listened to a couple tracks off of Thriller, then he wanted me to read Shivers. We got about two-thirds done with the book by the time we got home.
I went up to work for awhile. When I came down an hour later August had drawn dots on his foot and there was a spicy Zinnie soup boiling on the stove. And Carly had washed the putty spot and it had come out, much to our surprise.
I took him upstairs, with a lollipop, for his bath. He developed a game where other kids were jealous of his lollipop, so the teacher let everyone have one. He then had a second, and they all wanted a second. Mayhem ensued, with the kids going crazy and destroying everything. He asked, “Can we do that chaos thing again?” Which shows he knows what ‘chaos’ means, as we hadn’t used that word the first time around. I washed his hair and he made it through, but with the usual screaming.
He had put some of his concoction in his hair before we washed it. He now wanted to use it more often, and when I said he could only use it before washing his hair he decided we should wash his hair more often. He excitedly went down to Carly and asked, “Can we change up to three times a week to wash my hair, since I’m using that chemical?”
Downstairs he had Carly take the egg out of his soup. He then smashed it up in a bowl, getting it out of the shell. He and Carly had eaten dinner earlier, now I was having mac and cheese and broccoli, and August wanted me to try the egg. I did, and he helped by fishing out the pieces of shell. Basically a hard-boiled egg, sort of tasting like egg drop soup. He told me, “Here’s a school manner you should follow: Always eat all of your school snack and lunch.”
We then read Ramona the Pest. We almost finished, getting halfway though the last chapter. He was bouncing on the couch, off my hand. We then went upstairs and got him ready for bed. I brushed his teeth and left them at a quarter to 9.
I went for a walk, listening to The Mere Wife. Back at home I watched Bandersnatch on Netflix, finished reading The Fall by Albert Camus, watched some Indy Car (I’m mid-season), and finished with reading some of Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending. Which, car race aside, I realized was a kind of dark way to end the year.
Packing his box:
Our big lunch:
His new noise:
Presenting from his stump:
Swinging his stick:
His egg soup:
Bouncing on the couch:
Putty on the rug
