Carly got up at 5:50 and then August got up right after she left the room, saying he needed to go to the bathroom. I took him to the bathroom, and Carly switched with me so I could lay down for a few minutes. My stomach hadn’t been too happy with all the food last night and I woke up during the night with a stomachache. Felt better by morning, but lingered. Downstairs, August watched the Wild Kratts sperm whale episode, then ate oatmeal. We read Zita the Space Girl and finished it and planned to check out the next book after school.
We got walking and as we walked through our park he asked, “Did you know I can change the number of teeth I have and the pattern of my teeth?…so my teeth can look like a sucker thingy.” He said he could even have no teeth, and suck things in. I suggested like a sponge, and he said or like a seahorse. And when we saw a small dog he said he could suck in a dog and then kill it in his stomach with rattlesnake venom.
Eve greeted us at the door when we got to the classroom. We’d beaten the bus kids. He took his shoes and sweatshirts off and I said goodbye and I was waiting at the door to leave as Marion and the kids were coming in, when August came to me and told me he couldn’t go to school today. It took 5 or 6 minutes before he would let me leave, and that was with me telling him I’d come back to school and be out at the bench if he was having problems after rest time. He still wasn’t happy, but let me leave.
I worked on Sabeel work, and finally got back to research/website planning for the Consortium for Israel & the Asylum Seekers. I enjoyed the wind, watching the trees out my windows. I drove to school after 1:30. Then realized I’d left the bag of books at home. Drove back and got those. I looked down at the preschool and they were starting Play Ball. I watched for a few minutes and he was doing fine, so I went to the library to type. Watched part of the Cat Weatherill author session, then went down to August. It was starting to rain as I went down, and I thought about his bike. I told him I was going to run up and put it in the car and he let me do that.
Came back and got him. He seemed to have had a good day after I left, although I didn’t learn a lot of details. We went to the cafeteria. He got a chocolate donut thing that turned out to have a filling, and I had my cappuccino. Right at the end of school there had been an announcement that all after school activities were cancelled due to the windstorm. August had heard it and told me about it. He now asked me if Skoda Mama could handle this weather. I said cars were fine with this sort of weather and it was only a problem if you drove through a really flooded area, like a river.
He then took a long time telling me about his water car, which ran on water. It couldn’t drive on land because it had an engine that ran on water. He kept describing it, and by the end he decided we could install the motor in Skoda Mama and he’d use door paste (from Zita) to make a door in our car and you could put in the engine. And you could have a gas motor as well so you could use either. He then moved on to the “Best invention ever…It does everything you say” and has “90000 English voice commands in it.” Although, again, the more he talked about it, he decided it knew every language in the world.
We then headed to the library. He ran in, and Amanda reminded him to walk and be quiet, as the staff meeting was going on in the back. August complained that “Running is not noise.” In the kids room he invented machines that answer questions. Kind of like his mail-delivery dogs, but to answer questions, and there are billions of them deployed around the world. I think he was thinking about things like Siri.
He went to find the next Zita book on the shelf. Couldn’t find it, but came back with some other books instead. We tried reading the little pink book (Babymouse) he found, but didn’t end up checking that one out. We did check out Mr. Badger and Mrs. Fox #1: The Meeting and The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow. And I found The Legend of Zita and Monsters Beware!, which is new. We read part of that, and it turned out that he wasn’t sure which characters were boys and girls. It led to a discussion of names, and how there are different versions of names. We then heard Cat telling a story to the teachers, and August ran out there and stopped in the back. We heard the last minute of a story, then went back into the other room.
We read more, and ‘repugnant’ was a word of the day. We went and checked out the books, as I didn’t know how late the library would be open. All after school activities were cancelled, as was the high school choral concert. At one point, there was an announcement that any students remaining on campus had to report to the auditorium. August was confused and asked if he had to go. Anyway, we checked out the books and Liz told us about the natural history museum at Tel Aviv university. She had taken her kids this last weekend and we plan to go on Saturday. She said there were live insects, and August said he would steal some insects using door paste to reach through the glass. He also said he’d take bones from the museum to study in his lab.
We read a little more, then Carly showed up. She checked out a book, then we got going. It started pouring before we got out there. Missed our window. I went out to drive the car up to the school. Luckily, the rain had lightened. We got home at 4:50.
He had been in a good mood, but instantly had a meltdown over the ice cream stuff. He had remembered his ice cream mixture, which he had made last night with Carly while I was gone, and had had fun this morning scraping it with a spoon to eat some. I told him he had to have dinner first. Once he recovered, he watched a Wild Kratts.
When Carly asked if he wanted swedish pancakes for lunch tomorrow he said yes, if she “made them awesome and with extra cinnamon and sugar.” He ate spaghetti and broccoli for dinner, then scraped the ice cream stuff with a small fork while we watched a couple of Wintergaten update videos about building the new marble machine. August observed, “He keeps trying and trying.” And asked, “Is he learning this with his eyes?”
He asked if I wanted to make a frozen treat, then doubted I’d want to: “Cuz sweets is my thing…healthy food is your thing.” He went to cuddle with Carly on the couch and asked, “Could you be my mama particle and I’ll be you baby particle and we’ll be making up part of a fan?” I read the Superman and Bizarro book to him, then we played with the SLR camera. He had been asking this morning for a camera with a flash. Don’t know where that came from. Wild Kratts? So I got the flash out for it and we played with it. Did a slo-mo video of him making it flash and analyzed the couple of frames that had evidence of the flash. We then watched a video from the Slow Mo Guys showing how a shutter works.
He found one of the little SIM card tool. He was excited to do something with it, then switched to wanting to cut things, then talked about using the broken umbrella. He asked to do something, I don’t even remember what it was, and when I said it wasn’t possible he instantly got mean, and Carly took him upstairs. Eventually he came back down and went to the bathroom. He then was trying to give me a hairdo, putting beads and things in my hair. He decided my hair was too short, so told Carly he’d give her a hairdo, but would make sure the things (they were from his treasures) were clean first.
He did that for awhile, then found a key in his treasures. He wanted to melt it, so it would change the key pattern on it, and got grumpy again when I said we couldn’t do that. I talked to him about how he reacts to his teachers when they tell him things aren’t possible. He says he just ignores them. That would be an improvement over telling us we are mean and trying to hit.
We went upstairs and I straightened out the blanket on the bed. He excitedly jumped on the bed but hit his knee on the corner of the frame. He blamed me for it. He cheered up and we were discussing the door to the attic and that maybe it is a pirate house and the pirate treasure was either up there or in the basement. He said he could ask Mikaela if she could give him a pirate sword.
He said he could make loud noises like a “full grown bull whale.” That’s definitely Wild Kratts. I took a shower, and when I came out they were reading about worms in the book from Cassie and family. He told us, “I think I dreamed that we were driving home in Skoda Mama and it leaked.” Turned out he was actually quite worried about the car.
I took over and put him to sleep. He had me tell a story about a preschool that flooded. It kept raining and raining, day after day, until school was cancelled. Sang a little and he was asleep about a quarter to 9.
His water car and engine:
Flash slo-mo:
