I let him sleep until he got up right at 7:00. Carly had left a little early, with the car, for a training down in Tel Aviv. He watched Julius Jr. Nd he oatmeal. We got walking. Couple minutes late, then had lots of distractions along the way. Most notably a tractor pulling a trailer full of carrots up from one of the fields. He also stopped at the corner before school to look at flowers and insects. As we walked in the school we were next to Bar and Ben and their dad, with their dog dressed in a tutu. August got his Bar hug, and this time I was ready to take a photo.
We picked up his robot costume from the guardhouse, where Carly had dropped it off this morning. It was still before 8, but the preschool was out on the playground. One piece had come loose, so he had me tape it, then we took the costume to show off to Marion, then Andrea. Marion was very excited, telling all of the kids that this was what a costume should be like: homemade, and not bought at the store. That was what it had been like growing up in France.
It was close to 8:30 by the time I walked home. Worked for awhile, then packed a lunch for him and packed tape and aluminum foil for emergency robot repair and rode my bike back.
He had had a rough day, and when I got there was with Vicky. Surprisingly, literacy group went really well, and he did okay with Ms. Liron. It was between the two and after that he had problems. With Vicky he had done the running thing out on the grass. Since she didn’t know she was supposed to catch him, he gave her a big hug around the legs.
August was visibly down, which is a first. He wanted to head home, or alternately go to Sushi Ishimoto for lunch. I finally convinced him to stay on campus. He chose to go over by the cafeteria. He didn’t have any interest in eating with his class.
We went and sat at a table by the teacher lounge, then he agreed to stay for the Purim celebration. We went back to his class, got his costume on, and went out where the other preschoolers were. He was swamped by admirers.
On the walk up the stairs to the start of the parade he found a butterfly wing on the ground and I put it in the backpack.
We joined the parade around the quad. That was fun, but chaotic, with older kids pushing past and bumping into the preschoolers.
We ended on the grass by the foreign language classrooms. A performer talked to them all for a few minutes and had them play a sort of simon says game, then let them spread out to do the different activities.
August played around for the next 90 minutes or so. We watched the bubbles, then he played with the nuts from a palm tree, trying to throw them into the middle of it. He asked to look at the butterfly wing, but we couldn’t find it in the pocket of the backpack I’d put it in. When he spotted bubbles over by the soccer field we headed over there. It was a bubble machine and he watched and played with that for quite awhile, as did some older kids. He climbed a tree and took a making mama nervous photo, went on the field and played with the soccer goals (he wanted me to move them around and put them together like a tent, but I told him they were there in case anyone wanted to play soccer), and Shary talked to him about some insect. He wandered over to the busy big kid playground. We saw his friends (Eve and Candy) a couple times, but he didn’t want to go play with them. I think the whole thing was just too loud and overwhelming. He played on the playground for a few minutes, doing loops around the poles while he held on with one hand. He would go around one pole several times, then switch to another, etc. He found a piece of rope and played with that for the rest of the time: tying me up by spinning around me while I held it and tying it to my feet, then attaching it to a tree and having me hold the other end and he would stand on it.
Eventually, about 2:30, we wandered back to the classroom. There were about 5 students in there, watching alphabet videos from Alphablocks on the big screen. August sat on a table and watched. They were pretty funny.
Just before 3 we got walking home. Lots of butterflies on the way, and along the little path between blocks we tried to catch some, to no success. We were home at 3:35. He talked about how he likes his tape measure better: “AND it smells like hardware store.”
He ate some zucchini cornbread and we read a little of The 104-Story Treehouse. I then let him watch some Hilda. Carly came home at 5:30. She talked about the workshop she’d been at today and talked about liking the speakers. August was confused at first, until I explained this other definition of ‘speakers’.
He called for a “Family hug.” Earlier I had jokingly called a family hug without Carly there. He said, “That’s not a family hug. It’s just a hug.” They gave food and water to the lizard. I asked if it had a name and he named it Workenstocks. We had brought the orange and white pillow home from the classroom, and he now put it in the fridge to make it cold, and liked squeezing it when it was cold. He had me put it in the freezer to make it even colder.
Carly went out and found the broccoli plants being attacked by small caterpillars. He went out to see and caught a few. For dinner I put some mushroom on a piece of pizza for him and he had a bowl of corn with butter. He went to the bathroom, and from there I heard him yell, “Dada! I want to tell you my favorite kind of power…kind that turns heat into electricity.” He meant geothermal, and he explained how it was better than solar, because you don’t have to worry about adjust the panels towards the sun, or cleaning them.
Carly went to take a shower. He ate some of his frozen treat, remembering it was there from a few weeks ago. We went upstairs for his bath. He washed the walls with his electric toothbrush. Made sure he washed it good before using it. We somehow talked about the real bath, and he told me, “That one thing makes it so I never want to touch the bath again.” He explained it was when his foot hurt and he got in the bath. I told him that was only a problem if he had a wound, but he is clear that he doesn’t want a bath again.
Carly came in and I left them around 8.
Showing off his robot Purim costume:
Listening to the music:
Purim parade:
Carnival 1:
Carnival 2:
Bubbles area:
More bubbles:
Doing circles:
Tying me up:
