He was up at 6:30. I startled him when he came out. He walked out, rubbing his eyes. Carly was in the bathroom, and I was standing by the couch. He walked by me, then turned to the bathroom and saw Carly. I patted him on the head and he jumped. We all went downstairs and he cuddled with Carly. The first thing he said this morning was, “Mama, it’s too late to hide treats from me cuz I know where all the treats are hidden. In the big mall…That way, in the corner…those little containers of treats Oma has that I need to buy.” He wouldn’t tell us if he had been dreaming about it, but that’s what it seemed.
Carly brushed his teeth because of his breath, then she headed to work. He and I read Hungry Jack, and I taught him the word ‘eclectic’ as I used it in today’s Lunch Robot. We were walking before 8:40. He wanted me to keep reading on the bike and I managed a few pages. Carly still had his hat in her classroom, so we went by her classroom before school. August asked why there were so many students standing around. It was really exciting for him to see Mama in her classroom in the morning. We got his hat and he gave her a hug and giggled a lot, then we headed to his class.
Drop off went fine. He still talked about Mexico, but it was more joking today. As we walked in the class he was laying eggs out of his bottom, and he said one had already hatched. I did not ask what was hatching out of the eggs. He told Andrea about it as he came in.
I rode my bike up to town to see if the ATM machine worked. They have power, but say they are out of service. So I rode home and started laundry, then rode to Tel Mond, the town to the southeast that we’ve never been to and where our new Leumi Bank branch is. It took me some backtracking to get there, ending up on a dead end east of the mall. Rode about a kilometer on the wide shoulder of the highway, then south through Tel Mond.
Found the bank and figured that out, then decided I’d ask someone about our checkbook and whether we needed new checks as the account and branch changed. Took about a half hour of waiting. Ordered a checkbook, and she realized that not all of our permissions for online banking were ticked. Furthermore, she gave me my own username and password, as I’d been using the one for Carly.
I walked around the town and checked out the different bakeries and restaurants. Then got on my bike and rode back to a place and got a shwarma sandwich, a mix of turkey and chicken. Listening to Forward the Foundation as I went. I took an alternate route home, heading south. I stopped at a park and sat and ate, then rode west, then north up a paved road that went under the highway and comes out by the open area by the mall.
I was at home for awhile, then went and picked up August. He was at the art table, putting beads on wire. He had made a ring and had me bend it together. We then made a necklace for him. Today was Sophia and Nicholas’s last day as they are moving. After rest time they had watched the video they had all made for them and had chocolate cake. Evidence of the cake was still on August’s chin.
We sat and read some Mighty Jack and finished it for a second time. He wanted to immediately go and check out the next one, but got distracted by a length of metal pipe that he found by the stairs. He was trying to stick in in the ground, then talked about filling it with salt and making a snail trap (in Mighty Jack there is a giant snail that attacks their house and they pour a bag of salt on it, so he was asking why that would work).
We went to the library and he set up a dancing game on the rug with all the squares. You danced on the empty squares, then when you stepped on the squares with a red shelf place holder you froze for a second. For other colors you called out the name of the color. He wanted his water bottle, and let me run up to the bike and get it while he stayed in the library. He told me to run as fast as I run when I go running though.
We cleaned up and got the next book, Mighty Jack and the Goblin King, and had almost finished it when Carly came by at 4:30. She went out and ate something while we finished up. August checked it out and returned the first one so we could read it again. In the book, the little goblins give Jack some goblin blood to make him strong, and they kill the evil Goblin King. August was then looking in the preschool books and saw a book about babies. He joked, “I’m going to get a baby, kill it, drink its blood…” I cut him off there and told him why.
And at one point we went to fill up his water bottle. Liz scanned his hand to check him out and told him he was due in three weeks. He was then proclaiming “I’m due in three weeks!” And he told me I could put him on a shelf at that time.
We all walked home and got here at 5:30. He told me, “There’s something I need to install on you: hydroponic gills.” He had told us that the first thing he wanted to do when we got home was to make a weed killer. In fact, he had told me the schedule was: make weed killer, spray it on the weeds, then we could take his bath. But he said you had to wear safety equipment to be in the room. Carly found the goggles, then we found his snow gloves. He was upset they weren’t waterproof though. He was grumpy about that, then went upstairs without them and made a weed killer in his spray bottle.
He went down and outside with Carly and sprayed it on the weeds. He came in and had some pasta for dinner, then seconds: “It’s really yummy.” We then read more of Bone, then played the brother and sister game. We pretended to sew, and made a song out of the brother poking his finger with the needle: “Up down up down poke oww oww oww oww.” We were sewing a (pretend) sword holder out of a (pretend) old shirt. He then played school, in the role of the sister, and pretended to write on the board: “Today’s questions ‘How does machines work?” We then watched the video for Nicholas and Sophia video, as it had been posted: When we got to his part he said, “That’s the part that is stupid.” He was reluctant to say more, but he said he didn’t like something about the teleporting part. In the video he says, “I hope you like where you’re going. I hope you like me when I teleport you back from the country you’re in right now to Israel.” My sense was that he didn’t like his wording, perhaps realizing he should have said “I hope you like it” or realizing that Sophia and Nicholas are actually still in Israel at the moment.
It was a hair washing day, so I got him a lollipop. I pulled out two green at first and he started laughing. He doesn’t like the green. He just kept laughing and laughing. At one point he said “I’m Mr. Giggles right now!” I called him that once, and he said, “That’s so a nickname.” But then made it clear I couldn’t always call him that. While on the toilet he told me Told me how many layers things have, starting with the toilet paper. He said he has infinite layers, and that his parts can go together like a puzzle.
He played for a bit, then as his lollipop was running out I washed him and his hair. As we dried his hair and got him dressed, he claimed the back pockets of my pants, claiming he could put things in them. On the bed we brushed his teeth and he quoted the whole Shivers passage about how he is afraid of clouds: “What? You mean those fluffy pillows in the sky with enough electricity in them to call a man? Yes I’m afraid of clouds!” He checked all of my teeth to see if I had any loose ones, and told me that if I had a loose tooth I had to give him the dollar when the tooth fairy came.
He said good night to Carly. He spent about 5 minutes of about complete silliness, sort of telling a sort of nonsense story a couple of times, then calmed down. We had lights out about 8:40. I sang a little, and he was asleep, I think, around 9. I fell asleep with him though and didn’t get up until about 9:30.
Trying to dig in the pipe:
Squares game in the library:
Pumping goblin’s blood:
Making weed killer:
Mr. Giggles 1:
Mr. Giggles 2:
Quoting Shivers:
Bed silliness 1:
Bed silliness 2:
