He was up at 7:12. He turned off the fan and at first seemed pretty awake, but then took several minutes on the couch. We played a few rounds of Hey, that’s My Fish! Then I made him oatmeal and he watched Smurfs, then StoryBots. We went upstairs and started the seal game from the beginning. He talked about another medicine he’s made, which is “4 percent of it is ontobix…14 percent is…” And ‘century’ was a word of the day after he said that is how long the expiration date is and he wasn’t sure how long it was. We played more of the seal game, then he made the beds.
We went downstairs and he read most of The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! We stopped to go listen to the sirens for Holocaust Remembrance Day. He finished reading the book. Shmuel started calling, trying to figure out the air conditioner. August handled the phone calls okay, but got upset about me going upstairs. Finally, Shmuel said he’d come at 11 tomorrow with a technician.
Downstairs, we did the store game, but he now had me buying stuff from him for my “thingamajigger.” After that he did a few levels of the coding app. He worked on that as I made lunch.
We then got going and drove to Ra’anana Park. We were there early enough to see the zoo, but of course it was closed for the holiday (which seemed symbolic, as there were multiple zookeepers walking around, and opening the zoo basically just involves opening a gate so you can walk down the single walkway).
August asked to go to the bathroom first. We did that, then as we were walking to the playground area it started to rain a few drops. August said it was lucky that it was a little and he could handle it. We went under a big tree, and August spotted insects swarming the ground. He thought they were ants at first, then spiders. They were tiny. The rain stopped while we looked and the ground didn’t even look wet.
We continued on to the playground. We had the whole place to ourselves. I pushed him around in the acorn spaceship, he climbed on the fake rocks, and then went in the hollow log and rested in there. He had me push him like a baby in a baby swing, before eating our peanut butter and honey sandwiches.
He drank a bunch of water from my water bottle and had fun spilling the last drops on my legs. We then headed out, stopping first at the exercise equipment where he exercised for a few minutes, then at the water bottle to refill. We then went to the book thing and I found a copy of The Hobbit.
We got going and drove over to Gaby’s office for our first meeting with him. We parked by one of those big bushes with pink and yellow flowers that smell really good, and August picked some and I put it on a strap of the backpack. I could still smell it later.
August was happy to meet Gaby. The session was basically just playing with games so he could get to know us. August chose one game that involved me trying to guess which colors August had chosen. It was a sequence of four colors, and August would tell me which ones I got correct each time. We did that twice, and August didn’t want to switch roles. August looked around the office at things for a couple minutes, and opened the door to see what a noise was. He then chose Connect 4 after I had suggested it and we played it for the rest of the time. August wanted me to play against myself when he found it was a winner game. We played with Connect 4 for the rest of the time. August would control one color, but then remind me that he wasn’t actually playing the game. And at one point I was a computer player, with my eyes closed, randomly dropping checkers in. Before we left, Gaby gave him one of the little biscuit cookies.
We drove home, and stopped at the strawberry stand. August stayed in the car while I went and bought two packs. We sat and ate a few in the car. He said he called the really good ones “supergoods.” As we got driving, he told me he wasn’t buckled. I went slowly up the entry road to town while he tried to do it. He’d buckled it himself earlier, but couldn’t do it now, so I pulled over once I could.
We were home at 3:30. He was chanting “I’m the king of the castle”, which came from the kids on the playground the other day. I joked about deposing him, so ‘depose’ became a word of the day. We then worked together to make banana bred, then went outside to do compost, and to have him running round to touch invisible animals to get his exercise minutes.
We were playing outside when Carly got home. I was sitting on the grass when he played with the hose. He then came and thought it was funny to threaten us with it. I wasn’t happy when he sprayed me after we told him not to. I went inside and Carly talked to him.
They did the store game. They were working on subtraction. He was getting it pretty well, but not the part about breaking up a shekel into 100 agorot.
I was up working, but came down when the banana bread was ready. He was building with the magnet blocks. He randomly asked what being afraid of heights is called. So ‘acrophobia’ was a word of the day.
He ran around and was dancing to PJ Harvey’s “Sheela Na Gig” to get his last minutes. We then talked about his allowance stuff and played today’s move in the game. He talked about wanting to earn a drone.
He played with the audio recorder on his iPad, singing really loudly. Mandy came over, and she and Carly walked up to a talk by a holocaust survivor. August and I went outside for several minutes. He picked a little broccoli for a snack. Back inside we played Wizard School, sending messages to each other and Vivian.
We went upstairs and he was testing himself in the dark some more. He pushes open the shower, and now told me it is because the shower is scary and there could be a monster in there. We also went in the Zinnie room with the windows closed.
He played in the sink with the wet cardboard: “I’m trying to make it decompose as fast as I can.” I washed him. He was reciting big numbers, and now has quadrillion, trillions etc. down. He asked if he could ever take my phone apart, and I said, “if it’s toast.” Another new phrase for him. He was asleep by 9:55.
Carly was home and told me about the talk. It was the first time (second, after doing it earlier in the day for a town event) this guy had spoken about his experience in the holocaust. He was an orphan that was passed from person to person and country to country before he was taken to Israel.
Listening to the sirens:
Tiny insects 1:
Tiny insects 2:
In the acorn ship:
Exercise:
Making his audio recording:
