He woke at one point in the morning and fell back asleep with his head on me. He was up at 6:53. He went down to Carly. I heard laughter, and he had oatmeal and they read Captain Underpants. I finally made my way downstairs. He watched a dominoes video then Wild Kratts. I was then holding him upside down, at his request, and he took his shirt off. Carly said he had done this with her the other day, also taking off his pants. Sure enough, he managed to get those off as well. He had energy, and Carly took him upstairs to wrestle. He ended up making a potion with a ton of ingredients in it. He called me up and showed it off to me. Downstairs, he did some satellite work (typing in Pages to control his satellites) and then they went for a short walk and I took a shower. They got back 10:50.
He had some of the “yummy noodles with tofu” and made yummy noises throughout. He then asked, “Can you shake me fast with two pillows?” We went upstairs to do that, and at one point he fell off the bed again as he rolled away from me. He didn’t hit the ground as hard this time. And when he was still upset he asked me to shake him. It then turned into the time machine game, where he leaves the time machine when he’s not supposed to. He got out of the time machine back when there were other species of humans. He had armor that kept him safe and he stayed in the past and said he invented this like beds and concrete that he needed.
We got going to Tel Aviv at 11:40 with Carly driving. August told me at some point, “Dada, did you know the smaller a car is, the faster it goes? So an SUV is slow. So I like our car.” He didn’t want to read in the car. He listened to music and pointed out the fruit billboard to me and a train that went by. He fell asleep at 12:14 and had a nice ten minute power nap.
Cassie was in a conference call, and so after I pulled Cassie’s car forward so we could park behind her we went over to the park, where Taya was with her babysitter. August played on the teeter totter first and was shy to go over to Taya. When she spotted me she then spotted August and ran over to him. And they were off.
Taya introduced us to all of the gan kids that were there with their teachers. I think we met about 7 of them. Carly went to get coffees for me and her, and when she came back she found me surrounded by 3-year olds who were chattering away, particularly a girl named Emily who was telling me everything. August climbed on the benches with them and Taya, then he wanted to show me the merry-go-round. They all followed and got on as well. I didn’t have to push, as there were two boys that did most of that. Taya then wanted on the kid swings and the preschoolers followed, and I was pushing all of them and also August on the merry-go-round.
It was time for lunch, and we followed Taya and her babysitter back to the house. Taya was grumpy as she was hungry, and it went back and forth as to whether we were going to go out, or eat food there. In the end we ate there, and Cassie had made chicken soup and put out things like cucumbers and hummus and tuna.
Taya and August had fun with temporary tattoos. I ended up with two cats on my arm and Carly had something on her hand. August played a lot with a big helium balloon from her birthday that was losing its helium. There was also a big tube with art supplies and stuff in it that we opened, although neither of them really used it. They ran around crazy for awhile as well.
We ate, and the kids interacted a bit more, but there were signs that they’d had enough. Taya had taken something away from August and put it in her room, followed by all of the things from the tube and a few other things. She had then set up a store. He and I bought a few things from her.
Then, August found a karaoke microphone that needed new batteries. August has been wanting a microphone for weeks and was really excited about it. The screwdriver they had wasn’t the right size, but I got it to work. August knew where they kept batteries and he got them. Taya came over and was interested as well. As soon as I got it back together and working Taya grabbed it and wouldn’t give it to August. August lost it, and Carly took him to Cassie’s bedroom. It was a rough one, and the first time Carly’s seen him really lose it. She had me come in after a couple minutes.
He calmed down enough eventually to get going, and we left at 3:30. Cassie was taking Taya to a science class. In the car he fell asleep around 3:50. I carried him in and he kept sleeping on the couch. We let him sleep until Carly woke him up at 5:40.
He woke up with a lot of energy, and was really on for the rest of the day. We made him oatmeal. I tried to talk to him about what happened and he told me, “I’m not ready to talk about it.” He chose to do it after his bath in his pajamas. They read a little “Pippi Stinkstockings” and he asked, “Can I clean the floor with my feet?” They made pads for his feet, but I’m not sure if he actually skated with them.
He went to the bathroom and told me, “I force-ed my body not to poop at school. Cuz I need a check and I heard my teachers say they don’t do that. So I just pee.” So we agreed that he needs to work more on wiping himself, wiping at least twice before he asks us for help. He seemed happy with that idea. When he was getting dressed he walked over to me and asked, “Can you put those on?” as he pointed to his pants. He then wiped his wet hands on me and said, “Just kidding. I can do it myself. I just wanted to do that.”
And he said, “Dada, I already told you that everything in our house is part of a soap delivery system.” For some reason we said something about soccer, and watching it with Paul. He said, “Remember how I was afraid of uncle Paul? I’m still afraid of uncle Paul.” “I’m just afraid of him upstairs. When he is downstairs I’m not.”
We built with Legos and he supervised as I built a skyscraper out of them. He told me, “You must be a brave dada” to build that tall and we talked about how I had built a lot at Gramma and Grampa’s house. He talked about how we have invisible elves in our house (like in Hilda) and said, “That’s the elf uncle Paul. There’s an elf named uncle Paul.” He asked “What’s a vent?” and that became a word of the day as we talked about different kinds of vents. He said,”I invented a binifroscope.” “It can see the stuff that is in empty space that’s so tiny.”
Carly and August inspected his soup from yesterday before she dumped it out. He decided it was thick from the molasses. He then said, “I need to go back to work.” Supervising me, that is. The instrumental version of the Hebrew song “Endencino” came on and he complained that he didn’t like the Hebrew songs anymore. I pointed out this version didn’t have words. He replied, “It doesn’t have words. That’s a problem with it. I like songs with words in it.”
We went upstairs and there was more elf talk: “I need to get Rimono, another elf in our house. Rimono likes water. I’m going to put him here. With his family. His whole family likes water.”
I gave him a bath. Afterwards he talked more about elves: “A bad elf, but it’s not trying to be better like me, stole a raspberry, so I put it in the sticky timeout room.” “Marlaco. She just wants to get a cake from the store room for her next birthday.” “He’s called Vehicle becuase he likes inventing new kinds of vehicles.”
We processed on the bed and he did a great job talking about it. He said that he didn’t mean any of the mean things he says when he’s upset, and he said he doesn’t like being held. That we should just block the door so he can’t get out. We went downstairs to where Carly was talking the Cherie and Chuck and he talked to them.
We then made popcorn and all three of us watched episode 4 of Hilda. I got all three of us half a cookie. He did a good job of apologizing to Carly for earlier. We took him up and got him ready for bed and I left them 9:30 and I went for a walk.
Ingredients of his soap creation:
Playground with Taya:
With the gan kids:
Merry-go-round with the gan kids:
Crazy with Taya:
A tune before bed he wanted recorded:
