He was up at 6:35 and came into the bathroom, where I was getting ready, to use the bathroom. He dripped on his pajamas, so we changed his clothes before heading downstairs. He cuddled with Carly and was a little sad that she was going to work. He asked her to go with us to the science center. But we mentioned food and he cheered up and told her, “Remember, you need to share that free lunch with me.” Yesterday he had eaten her leftover cafeteria lunch after school. When she didn’t know if she’d be able to take extras today, he said, “Ask them.” “But not if there’s any spicy stuff or tomatooor peppers.”
After she left he got a plastic bag and asked me for two ice cubes, then to put a little cold water in it. It turned out to be the sort of ice that they get the kids at school when someone gets hurt. He helped chop the mango and we made oatmeal. He ate at the table, and asked Siri to play the song “The Cat Came Back”, which he learned at school. He got it, but it wasn’t the version he was expecting. We figured out he wanted the version by the Laurie Berkner Band and listened to other music from her as well.
He told me his trucks just take recycling to a field and dump it. we then went upstairs for a pillow fight and he turned it into a baby bird imagining game. We then went downstairs when he wanted to do a porcupine game. We looked up what they eat (trees, etc.) as part of the game. He also made rainbow slime for Green Monster, which I had mentioned that he used to do: “first I have to shop for moss and rainbow powder…now I put some ground up gooeyduck in it, then some powdered sugar…”
He watched some Wild Kratts, then we got ready to go and left about 9:45. We listened to the last Story Pirates of the season (18), then a couple of the early ones (2 and 3). He listened the whole way and looked out the window. He mentioned seeing a billboard or ad for fruit again, but I didn’t see it. He said he thinks it has a grapefruit and something else, and a person on it.
We were in the science center about 10:50. There’s a sundial thing outside the entrance, and he hopped a passcode on the way in, and later on the way out. We dropped one coin on the vortex thing, then wandered through the museum. He told me he made a “cryboceptor…it takes away electricity.” One exhibit has you vote whether you think that machines will be able to love. I asked him for his vote and he said, “I think they will, becuase I might invent a computer that learns to love.” In the food area he said he was the one that put the big pile of garbage in the center, and we learned about spirulina. We went in the electricity area and he played with the paper clips thing. There were few times I wanted to keep doing things, but he would want to go somewhere else. He gave me an exasperated “Yeah, I know. You can make lightning bolts,” as he pulled me away from the Jacob’s Ladder.
He showed me where he sent messages to other countries with Gramma and Grampa (when we first walked in he had said, “I went here with Gramma and Grampa.)
Then to the area near the entrance with the big metal structure with tracks for balls. He first played with the microscope thing, even putting his tongue on it, then we played with the ball machine.
We eventually headed outside. We sat and had some snack, then he took the Cheerios with him up into the big ply structure. He climbed up through a ladder/stairs thing, and I took the easy stairs to the top. He got me to crawl in for a minute, then he then climbed down. We walked around outside and looked a bit at the part they are working on. Doesn’t look like they’ll have the new/remodeled exhibit space done anytime soon. Rather annoying, with the Hadera museum also being closed for who-knows-how-long.
The cafeteria was open and he wanted food, but he was wary of going in. He wasn’t convinced it was open, even though the lights were on and there was a guy in there. He’s developed a sense of trespassing, and there were a few other times when we would be the only ones walking into an exhibit room and he’d be afraid to be there because he thought it was close.
But we went in and got a tuna salad sandwich. He wanted a chocolate pudding thing and commented on how he had had them before. I mentioned he’d gotten them a couple times at the grocery store in town. He added, “Yeah, and I had one when I moved in our house…and one was strawberry.” We sat inside and ate.
Around 12:30 he had said he was ready to go to the park and was done with science. But then we went back inside. We went to the very top, where we hadn’t been yet. He showed off the ‘atom translator’ and told me what a bunch of them were. There was a science demonstration starting down in the stage area, but when we confirmed it was in Hebrew he wasn’t interested. August was saying things in mooka mook and told me, “I think you should take a mooka mook class from me sometime.”
We went up to the very top, which seemed closed to him because no one was up there. There was a container of sticks, and August immediately thought of them as swords. He demonstrated his sword technique, which I think is a combination of influence from Shivers, Mighty Jack, and seeing kids at school. Then, we stopped at the drum that moves air to shake little disks. I really liked that. He was then back to the atom translator “that slow one is circulatatiin 5…” On an exhibit that shows how light can transmit sound, or maybe it was the one next to it, I used Shazam to identify the song, and it was “The Robots” by Kraftwerk.
And then, a long time making paper airplanes. He had me make one, but then he insisted that all of the flaps and things be taped down, and he carefully did that one. We held on to that one, as he didn’t want to lose it, and I made a second for him to shoot out of the launcher thing. We did that, and then were launching all of the random ones on the ground over the edge so they’d fly down below (which was okay to do).
We watched the wave machine a couple times, and the last thing he spent a long time on was the paper clips again. This time, he decided to make a paper clip chain out of all of them. He also insisted, after getting it half done, that they all be in the same direction. Cool to see him focused on it. Finally, he spent a few minutes on a couple of the other electronics things, like the one where you touch it and you are acting as an antenna.
There was the announcement of it closing at 2. He was reluctant to stop at the bathroom on the way out as he was afraid we’d be locked in. But we did that, then headed out. ‘Touchdown’ became the word of the day as we talked about a airplane or spaceship landing for some reason.
In the car we listened to “The Robots”. We got over to the park and I parked, but August wanted to keep listening to the song on repeat, and he said he had thought it would take a long time to get to the park. I looked at him and realized he was going to fall asleep in a minute, so we got going.
He was asleep from 2:35 to 3:30 and I was able to listen to the book on Jerusalem that I’ve been listening to on and off. He woke up as we got home, and I carried him in and he rested on the couch. He watched a Magic School Bus, and Carly got home. They went outside, and realized that he tomato plants in the shadier pots were actually bigger than the ones in the fence-top pot. August was going to take photos of them and Carly got my phone, but then he did something and she took him up for a timeout.
Back downstairs I got him noodles. We had a discussion of Japanese versus Chinese soy sauce and he asked good questions about why there are different foods in different places and why people like different things. It touched on culture and trade and globalization and ecosystems. When I talked about how people in different people had developed different cultures of food and what tastes good, he asked “Then why when we go to Gramma and Grampa’s the food still tastes good to us?” Which led to a discussion of how he’s been exposed to different food cultures, etc.
We then went and played with the magnet blocks. He was making a structure out of triangles and got a bit grumpy as his perfectionism was showing once again today and he wanted to make a roof for it that didn’t have any cracks. We discussed his changing birthday plans, and it is now much more doable: he wants Taya and Eve and her sister Zoe, and it is okay if their parents are all here.
He was then smothering Carly, then they went and he was building with the blocks with her. Something minor happened (he tripped over her or something?) and he dramatically said, “Mama, I almost died-ed.” Carly and I were discussing school and kindergarten etc. (based on discussions she’d had at her PLC meeting today) and I asked August if he knew the kindergarten teachers’ names. He didn’t, but he did remember Ramona Quimby’s kindergarten teacher’s name from the book.
Carly went upstairs and August and I ended up watching the latest two Marble Machine X update videos. Really like how August picks up on his learning from his mistakes and the perseverance and attention to detail. Also, he really likes all of the tools.
He took the silver paper off of the set of crayons from the goody bag from Taya’s party. He was then drawing with them, but frustrated when they were breaking. I glued a couple.
He ate more noodles, then was making a book with Carly. I went for a walk. They had completed a couple pages of the book, and she gave him a bath.
He looked in the fridge and accused us or just cooking more food and leaving food to rot in the fridge. Clearly an idea about not wasting that he got from school. He had even more noodles and veggies and talked bout how much he liked them.
I took him upstairs. He told me, “You’re magical, because you keep me safe.” And he said, “Ms. Rimona’s magical cuz she keeps everyone in the school safe…Everybody’s magical in some way.” He then decided, “I’m magical now! Not scientific…you don’t know how complicated my laboratory can get.”
We had the lights off at 9:10. We discussed our day and our weekend plans. For an experiment he suggested putting Cheerios in food processor, and he wanted to find a park with trees to climb and he wanted to find a place with good food. He twice rolled over and said something random to me when I thought he was about sleep. Second time was to tell me about the garbage at the science center again and how his trucks dump it in a garbage dump. He took quite awhile, but was asleep by 9:55.
Teuni Teuni song:
Dancing paper clips:
Sending messages:
Ball thing 1:
Ball thing 2:
Atom translator:
Sword technique:
Paper airplane blowing:
Pair airplane launcher:
Turning magical instead of scientific:
