He slept until 7:33. He watched Shaun the Sheep, then switched to YouTube for Wild Kratts. He had oatmeal in there. We watched a long commercial for a Sky Valet suitcase together, in which a guy has his suitcase stolen, then recovers it, and he now wants us to buy that kind of suitcase before this summer. Surprisingly, he let me go upstairs to take a shower while he stayed down on the couch. He finished up the Wild Kratts video he was watching, then we were discussing how we could do literacy group at home. He said that Ms. Vicky had all sorts of supplies for literacy group, so we couldn’t do it at home.
We played with the blocks for awhile, and made some abstract mazes. I started paying attention to what letter sounds and what irregular verbs and adjectives he mispronounces so we could start talking about them. As we built, I made up a song where we repeated ‘We made…’ and ‘We built…’ to work on those verbs. I noticed, through the day:
‘r’ sound versus ‘l’ or ‘w’ (bar vs ball, car versus cow)
maked-ed instead of made
buyed-ed instead of bought
steal-ed instead of stole
build-ed instead of built
gotted instead of got
comed instead of came
was instead of were ‘The security guards was there.’
goed instead of went
gooder instead of better
He played with the kalimba. Yesterday we had unscrewed it to see how it works and put it back together.
For literacy time we pulled out a big sheet of paper, then took turns naming numbers for the other person to write down. I got to see his pinch fingers on the marker, and he is doing just fine. His numbers are clearer than they used to be, particularly his 3s. We also did a joint piece of art. And while he went to the bathroom he made up words for me to write on the paper. He then worked with the scissors on how to cut out all of the numbers and words from the paper. For science we then set up the microscope, and we were looking at the edges of the different kinds of knives, which was pretty cool, to see how rough they are in places. And we looked at the wheat, where we discovered that the long things on it, while looking very smooth, are actually covered with little barbs along their edges. ‘Barb’ was a word of the day.
We then made a smoothie together for lunch, with fresh bananas and strawberries and frozen mango. He squished the banana and we talked about how it gets more liquidy when is is smashed. We drank that at the table, then he came and sat on my lap and discussed electric fences and non lethal guns as we listened to Ian McCullough albums. He said he invented a gun that didn’t kill people and was used for being in charge of a place. Pretty sure he hasn’t overheard anything about Israel’s use of rubber bullets, and it turned out there was something like that in the Monsters Vs. Aliens movie we watched.
We moved to Skybrary and read Umma Ungka’s Unusual Umbrella, then Oliver Otter’s Own Office. I wanted him to read me a Bob Book, then we made a deal that I would read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and he would then read. When it was his turn he first claimed that he had fooled me, but I said he couldn’t get away with lying. So he agreed and read Plums, only needing help in a couple places. He was randomly quoting Hilo books during the day, including, “In my house we’d be hitting each other with sticks right now.”
We did some exercise, then he wanted to use the string as a leash again. We got it tied on his wrist, then he needed to go to the bathroom. After that, he lost interest and had me take it off.
I realized we could make a big pyramid with the magnet blocks, and we ended up making the largest tower possible with the blocks we have, with a pyramid roof.
We then headed outside. Looked around the yard a bit and he spilled some of the fluid out of his rotting pasta experiment (which actually doesn’t look that bad or moldy at all, after a couple months, which is kind of surprising) so I sprayed it with the house.
We got walking at 1:40. We walked over past the mall and on into Bnei Dror and to the park in the center of it. We had fun spotting all the big pipes through the village (I don’t know why their water pipes are so exposed in places) and sang a song about how “We went…” by things (as opposed to ‘We goed…’).
So all was well until we got to the park. We got to the playground and he spotted one of those rolling slides, like a conveyor belt sort of thing. He got as far as saying something about how he didn’t know this park had one before he tried walking up it and fell flat on his face. This was his one difficult moment of the day, as he tried taking it out on me, saying things like “You’re the worst dada ever.” I was clear with him through the day that there was a zero tolerance policy for the mean words/behavior now, and it worked pretty well. Here, it meant I would keep him at an arm’s length and not comfort him until he apologized and said he’d make good choices and then I’d pick him up again. It took him several attempts here, although through the rest of the day there was never more than a small slip.
We spent some time playing on the merry-go-round. He was pushing me first, then I was pushing him and he was lying down on the bench. I was doing 10 minute of Hebrew while he did this. Then he spotted a dog. It was an old, calm dog that didn’t come close, but he wanted up, and the park was over for him. We left the park at 2:35.
We walked back to Tiv Taam and he sat in the cart and we did grocery shopping. The first time I’ve gone grocery shopping with him in quite awhile. We’ve gotten in the habit of usually Carly going on the weekend. It went really well, with us agreeing on some new foods to try (he picked out a sausage, Cornflakes (which he remembered from Gramma and Grampa), some healthy-looking coconut and chocolate bite things, a pack of cracker and cheese sandwich things (like from when I was a kid), and some crackers. Oh, and we got a peach Snapple, as it was the perfect bottle for his timer. He also wanted a different kind of cracker, but it said they were ‘spicy’. I got it for myself though.
After Tiv Taam we went back out to the stand right outside where we had seen tea infusers on our way in. We chose one with green on it for Carly, then had to wait a few minutes for the woman who runs it to come back. He spent this time by running around, and running into me. She came back, and I also got some ‘black tea’ from their bulk container. I’ve been looking for a bulk tea place. They only had ‘black’ and a ‘chai’. A good start.
On the way home he found a stick, which he said was a spy camera. In the yard he showed me how it worked, and explained how it had a camera at the end, then projected the image in the air. We were home at 4:05.
We had some Snapple. He was excited about having some caffeine and told me he fooled me because he also put coffee in it and was having a lot of caffeine. Carly got home and he showed her the new infuser. He then made tea for me using the new infuser, the new black tea, and a cinnamon stick. Turned out quite well.
They played the preposition game and I cooked the chicken with taco seasoning, cooked a pepper, and heated refried beans. We had burritos for dinner. Well, August just ate the refried beans. He went to the bathroom, then told both of us about the depth of the ocean. He said it was up to 40 skyscrapers deep (probably from Wild Kratts—he’s also been talking about their submarine), then he had made a stack of skyscrapers that went all the way to the sun. He had glued them together so they wouldn’t float away. And he had taken them from towns, and the towns weren’t too happy about it.
I went upstairs to work for an hour, then we switched and Carly took a shower. She had given him a bath and he’d played with stuff in the sink. He filled it with bottles, and the faucet was hitting them and splattering lightly out of the sink. He had me experience it. He needed pajamas, and I said they were downstairs. He said something about the bear pajamas “Again?” When I asked if he wanted to wear a different pair, he said yes, and exasperatedly explained, “That’s what having more pairs of pajamas is for!”
In on the bed we read Corky Cub’s Crazy Caps on Skybrary. We then discussed his cookie plans. He wants to make little cookies out of quiche dough tomorrow, and I suggested we make cookies on Sunday and take them to his teachers. At first he said not Marion, but then he changed his mind, and said he wanted to include a poem that rhymes. Which seemed promising, although he didn’t explain what he wanted the poem to be about.
He read the Bob Book called The Trip, then we read a few chapters of volume 4 of Hilo. ‘Brimstone’ was another word of the day. Carly was ready for bed, so I left them just before 9.
The kitchen was a mess, so I listened to the Jerusalem audiobook and listened to a good chunk of it while I cleaned.
Destruction slo-mo:
Trying to sweep:
Picking yellow things:
Running to me in the mall:
New tea infuser song:
Splattery sink creation:
