He was up at 7:30. He cuddled with Carly and they read What Do You Do with an Idea? He watched Berenstain Bears and Carly headed to the store. I made oatmeal for him and he played Dragonbox Big Numbers and hummed tunes that he made up. We moved to the printer and took it apart more. We did a lot of little stuff on the iPad, then he moved to using the calculator. He was asking questions like “What’s 20 times 20?” and then answering them with the calculator. He said, “I could use this on Dragonbox Numbers.” And he asked me, “Want to do some math with me?”
Carly had gone to the store and now got home. Not a great time for grocery shopping, apparently, as right after the holiday they were out of stock of a lot of things. She went upstairs to call Gaby, who will likely be our new child psychologist (not to be confused with Gabby, who watched August yesterday). August and I did more math problems with the calculator and blueberries. I then remembered the beetle in his bug catcher. It had been going crazy last night before I went to bed and I almost let it go. We went out and let it go, then a couple minutes later checked on it and it was digging in the dirt. We watched it, and August got it some leaves to cover it from the sun. Over on the wall he found a green insect and was excited: “It’s a new species.” We caught it and he studied it for a few minutes, then let it go.
Inside he ate a banana. Then made some of his milk and honey drink. He asked, “When did people invent cups?” We discussed how and what people drank, and ended up discussing cows and ‘domestication’ was a word of the day. He then wanted to do an imagining game where he was a jungle animal. We were trying to decide what he wanted to be. He dismissed red panda because he didn’t want to be nocturnal.
Carly came though and took over and I went up to take a shower. I think this is the time that they went out and washed the car and he earned 50 agorot. Carly made french toast for lunch. He and I did some reading of Captain Underpants, then he figured we could cut and unroll the tiny coils of copper wire on the printer circuit boards. He said, “Do you like how I’m unfurling it?” “Unraveled, actually.”
We got ready to go, and he and I left at 1:05 for a little Dada-Zinnie adventure. We first drove to Ikea. We went to the ice cream machines. He had brought one of his own 2 shekel coins (after debating at home whether he should bring half shekel coins, 1 shekel coins, or a single 2 shekel coin) and bought the ice cream with chocolate in it. I decided to have ice cream as well and pushed the button for the one with strawberry syrup in it. I only got vanilla though. Fine by me, but August was glad he didn’t get the strawberry or he would have been disappointed.
We then went into the actual store through the checkout area and found the ziplock bag boxes. The only thing we were getting, so we stocked up with 6 boxes. We bought those, and were leaving by 1:55.
On the ground near our car when we got there I had found a kite handle with kite string wrapped on it, but no kite. August was now discussing ideas for making a kite. We drove north to the southwest corner of Netanya Stadium, where there are some fenced in ruins of a Palestinian village. We looked at the south side, but then realized we were supposed to be on the other side between the ruins and the stadium. In the car I had realized he had taken his shoes off. He told me, “I wasn’t surprised you were surprised cuz I thought you’d be surprised…that’s the surprise today.” We saw a car with its small spare tire on, and we discussed spare tire sizes. When we drove around to the other side August wanted to look at our own spare tire to make sure it was a full-sized tire. It is.
We got out and started looking for the geocache. Ultimately unsuccessful, But August found a plastic grocery bag and decided it could be a kite. He wanted to try it right now, so we went to the car and got the string and I tied it on. It worked a little, and he played around with it for a few minutes. He was pretty excited about finding a plastic bag among all the garbage. We walked around for a few minutes looking for the geocache and we discussed the Palestinian village and why they were kicked out. August said we were lucky to be American, because he knows it is easier for us to travel. While we were looking at the geocache app he read a couple words, including “terrain”, although he may have been saying train, I realized later. Still, not bad.
We took the north route back through Even Yehuda and stopped to get cash. He helped me at the ATM. We got home, and did math on the calculator. I got the blueberries and did math with those, but August made it clear he was doing the problems with the calculator and I was using the blueberries.
Carly had made vegetarian lasagna while we were gone, and he had some for dinner. He wanted to go out and wait for Mikaela, who was coming over at 5:30 to babysit him while Carly and I went to Ra’anana to meet with Gaby Johnson, a psychologist and play therapist that we will probably use as a replacement for both Dr. Aviv and, for now at least, Shani (the OT, who is now on maternity leave). While he waited outside, he realized he could rock the teeter totter on his own by sitting in the middle. He talked about how it was safer because it wasn’t coming off the ground like this, and that was because his center of gravity was over the middle.
Mikaela came at 5:30 and he was showing her the teeter totter as we left. Earlier the plan had been for him to come along with us and sit and watch something while we talked to Gaby. But he had agreed to stay home with Mikaela when he was reminded how much fun he has with her.
Our meeting with Gabby went well. He seems very nice, and August will connect with him a lot better than with Aviv. He doesn’t seem to have a lot of knowledge of gifted children, and Marka didn’t think he had a lot of strategies for working with schools, but otherwise he seems really good. And there was no nonsense about how older friends are bad for him or about how good sticker charts are or how we should withhold attention when he acts out at school.
When we got home Mikaela was making a tower of the blueberries that was as tall as August. She got it just to his height, with all of them, before it collapsed. They had also made the Lego skyscraper as tall as Mikaela. He had cut up his flimsy mask with his scissors, which was just fine, but she wasn’t sure, so she had hidden the scissors from him. Soon after we had left, Apple Music stopped working, telling us we were listening on another device. It turned out that August had turned on Josh Ritter on the HomePod and told Mikaela “I really like his new stuff.” They had also done some art, with her drawing a picture of him next to the Lego tower, and them doing a piece together. Oh, and he had had some of his milk and honey drink.
She left, and he asked me to fill his water bottle. I complimented on how polite he has been asking for that recently. He then offered to give me a massage. He had me take my shirt off and lay on the couch and he gave me a massage. Very sweet of him. A bit later he had Carly do her scary voice, which he found scary in the past, and said he liked it now. I asked if I could do the Jaws noises as well, and he said yes, and said he liked that now as well. Then, when I took hm upstairs, he had us turn off the lights in the stairway and he hid his eyes on my shoulder as we went up. He’s suddenly enjoying things that are a little scary.
Upstairs we did wrestling moves on the bed. At one point, after I got up from the bed and came back, I startled him and he screamed. Very similar to how sometimes I startle Carly when she doesn’t realize I’ve walked into a room. We played through part of the Brother and Sister seal game. When we got tired of that we went downstairs and read Captain Underpants #12. We finished that, then started their first Dog Man book. He had me turn off the lights on the way up, and told me, “Covering my eyes is the fun part.”
In the bathroom he made a comic book machine that would make comic books for us. He said it then makes a “Brilliant ball of blue light” (which is from Captain Underpants and the time machines) and teleports it on your iPad. We got him ready for bed and I left them around 9:15.
Beetle digging after we release it:
Unwinding the copper wire:
Plastic bag kite:
Plastic bag kite 2:
Center of gravity on the seesaw:
Making a tower with Mikaela:
