He was up at 6:54. The first thing he said to me was “anesthesia” to give me a shot to put me to sleep, then as he closed the door he said “wake up shot.” Downstairs they read Captain Underpants. I came down and we played the sleep/wakeup shot game, then he had a swedish pancake.
I went upstairs and did laundry and typed and they did more reading, then went outside. I saw him walking around with the bug catcher. I did dishes.
They went over across the street to look for insects. He came back with an ant. He asked me to look up what they eat. We decided on giving it some leftover apple. He told it “Don’t worry, ant. We’ll at least give you apple to eat…sorry, we fooled you, using a clear thing…”
He asked what ant poop looks like, and we ended up watching parts of
. We learned that that one species at least is known to chew through plastic.
He watched a Berenstain Bears. About a pumpkin contest. I read We Are in a Book and he played around with the ant. He then sang a “we are being read” song to the tune of “This Old Man”.
He went to the bathroom and said he wanted to go for a walk. And he also wants a terrarium like they have at school. I got him clothes and Carly got ready. Space came and I told him about the Vrigin Galactic flight. We watched a video of it, and he asked if it had parachutes for landing like an airplane. He was thinking of the Space Shuttle, but I found videos of 747s landing to show him. As he and Carly headed out the door I heard him ask, “Are rockets that carry people bigger than airplanes?”
I took a shower, then went to meet up with them. They were already walking back though and I met them on the path. They had released the ant on the way over and caught a caterpillar but then let that go to catch “A giant ant. I love it…it has giant legs.” At Aroma he had had a cookie. Carly got the Israeli breakfast and he ate some of the potatoes and stuff from that.
At home we took apart more of the microwave. I used the word ‘kept’ and August misheard me and thought I said ‘cut’. I talked about how it is pronounced, and how it is kind of odd (the ‘p’ is a guttural stop), and told Carly, and we discussed similar words. Made it a word of the day. We took apart more of the microwave. We tried to light up the bulb with a 9V battery, but it was a 220V bulb so didn’t work. He got upset by that and needed a timeout. Carly took over and I went and made myself lunch.
They went for a walk towards the fields. They left right at 1, and were back at 1:40 with three ants and a ladybug: “And they’re interacting fine with the different species of animals.” He sang a “I am a very small robot” song and we made a shopping list.
He and Carly then went to the boardwalk in Netanya. I got the job of grocery shopping and carrying everything back. I got to listen to my book (The Tomb of Atuan) so I didn’t mind too much. They left at 2:20. I did a little typing, then walked over to the mall. Loaded up just about as much as I could carry. Made me miss Korea, where the grocery stores were even closer.
The walked along the waterfront. August did a great job of patiently letting her look out at the sea. Although, at home he cast a spell on Carly so she wouldn’t stare at the sea anymore. They then went to school, where packages have piled up for August’s birthday, and August filled the bug catcher with caterpillars near the middle school office.
They got home a little after me. A friendly grey and white cat followed them in the yard and hung around outside the house, sleeping by the kitchen door. It followed us around outside. I petted it a little, and August giggled a lot, and he especially liked it when it rubbed up against Carly and got cat fur on her pants.
Inside, Carly and August played with the electricity set. He told us, “Robots have twenty nerves in their hairs; humans don’t have any.” He was playing with the set on his own, and switched out one kind of switch for another. He was really excited that he had made it work differently and showed us. We realized that if you hit the fan blade upwards when it is spinning fast it will fly like a helicopter. He read my mind, suggesting we do a slo-mo video of it.
August wanted to go with me to Sushi Ishimoto again to get dinner. We left at 5:55. We started driving, and I noticed a flashing light on the sidewalk. I told him I’d be right back and quickly jumped out to see what it was. It was the broken part of something, involving a little battery pack, and some wires that led to a red, a blue, and a green light, which flashed. Don’t know what they used to be in.
He played with it on the way up, realizing that if he touched the broken wire to certain spots it would complete a circuit and light up the blue light, but that it wouldn’t work in other places.
At Sushi Ishimoto we got the iPad menus. He got one, and got to reading it. He read ‘Rice Dishes’ and wanted a rice dish. We got the same orders of sushi as last time, the shrimp stir fry, and the classic noodles with tofu.
As we walked to the car he realized we could see stars, and he said we could see “My Planet”. He then made a joke and confused me, as when I said “Your planet” he said I was wrong, as his planet is actually called ‘My Planet’. We joked about that as we got in the car. He remembered when we had to jumpstart someone’s car, wondering if we’d ever have to do that to our car. He then joked about destroying power plants: “Dada, did you know I’m breaking down all the good energies…I’m just making coal ones. I like coal ones.”
At home we had dinner. He was talking like crazy, and Carly and I were quite amused. Carly remembered it was the 10th anniversary of our first date. We had remembered our anniversary season before it started, but had then not thought about it much until now. August asked what a ‘date’ was and she talked about how we had eaten dinner together. Since we were sitting there eating dinner together, he asked, “So this is a date?”
We ended up talking about squid and crab a lot. In part because Carly had had squid in its own squid ink in Spain. And she remembered that August had liked crab meat in Korea. We haven’t looked for that here, although I haven’t seen it. I told August I’d gotten sticky rice today at the store. He made me show him, so he could see how it looked different from our usual jasmine rice. He was excited about it, and Carly is excited about making sushi.
She gave him a bath. We needed to get him to bed as we had our consultation with Dr. Postma at 9:15. He went and started playing with the electricity set all on his own though, and I didn’t want to interrupt that, even though I had popcorn ready for him. He probably spent at least 15 minutes playing by himself. Perhaps a new record. He came over and we watched an episode of Hilda (about a ghost that cleans a bedroom) and had popcorn. Carly put him to sleep, and he was asleep a little before 9.
She said he’s showing awareness of his own interests: He asked her earlier, “I’m really into bugs right now, aren’t I?” As we try to figure out what sort of things trigger stress in August, one thing that happened today (overall he had quite a good day though) was that Carly dropped her water bottle and it rolled under the car. He was able to calm down when she talked about how it wasn’t really important, and that they could try different things to get it, and buy a new one instead if need be.
Our consultation with Dr. Postma went well. We’ll probably consult with him twice a month or so for the next few months. He was impressed with how much progress we’ve already made in a week, and how well August is able to talk about things.
Fooling the ant:
Ant and apple:
‘We are being read’ song:
Ant with a stinger (he thinks):
A visiting cat:
Experimenting with the switches:
Propeller slo-mo 1:
Propeller slo-mo 2:
Planning to attach the blade to the food processor:
The lights thing:
Playing by himself:
