He was up a little after 8. We watched another Canadian animated film called “Bus Story”. A little more adult than I expected, but pretty funny. Might have to prescreen them in the future. We then did Green Planet. He asked what ‘psychotic’ means. Can’t remember where he heard that. Ben Braver? Told him it basically meant crazy.
We read Ben Braver and he had strawberries and oatmeal for breakfast. At one point he whispered to me, “Dada, I’ll tell you a secret: my fingers is deadly.”
He then talked about his power of time travel. He was going to go back to the 10s. We discussed different calendaring systems. He wanted to go back before computers.
He asked, “Remember that outside timeout I had?” I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but then he told me Pennsylvania and said “Vivian was faster than us.” He meant when Carly and I took the three of them for a walk last summer and he got really upset when Vivian kept running ahead of him. He said he could time travel back and he’d be bigger than he was last year.
The time travel power led to him buying comic books in the past and selling them now. As for what he’d do with the profits he said, “Maybe I’ll buy another Korean fan.” He explained he meant the tall fans and he talked about the controls on them. Something he remembers from Korea.
We went upstairs for a Brother and Sister game. He was turning into dangerous animals and attacking them. A long time upstairs then we went downstairs to do lunch and Polytopia. I did the pancakes and slices of apple for lunch. He had Siri play Josh Ritter. The first song was “Annabelle Lee”. He listened to the opening and said, “This is like Magnus Kingdom…I made this…Apple remix…cuz Apple stands for app.” Not sure if he meant that, or was making a joke. It’s 50/50. I could understand thinking that though.
He brought up his cruise ship, asking, “Dada, you know Crater, right?…for food on it there’s a harpoon to catch whales.” He was then making up compounds and looking at the periodic table to decide what elements are in them. “It provides 346 years of power PER kilogram.” He added 346 plus 346 in his head, just forgetting to carry the 1. As we got going he told me Trutanium’s symbol is TRM. He was sounding out the word to figure out which letters it would include: “So it kind of lines up!
We were driving at 12. We drove down and parked at Max. He had fun choosing items for Omri. He got her clay, a big box of crayons, a ball of yarn, and a pack of post-it sort of things. I let him get something, and he chose a mechanical pencil, and I got him his own stack of post-its. I also let him get a juice down by the register, and he chose wrapping paper on the way in.
We then drove to iDigital, just a minute away. He was worried about it, because he thought he’d get upset about wanting a drone. I told him it would be quick and I just needed to get one adapter so we could watch things this summer. He agreed, and I carried him in. As I was looking, he told me “I’ve scanned the room and they don’t have drones anymore…I’ll scan again…” He was happy they didn’t. I got the HDMI adapter and we got in the car and headed to Herzliya.
We parked on the street south of the medical center. Almost full of cars everywhere. I think just beach traffic, as there was also a dirt lot that cost 40 shekels. There was still at least a little street parking, so they didn’t seem to be getting any business—our 2 hours of parking were less than 10 shekels.
We went in the medical center and did his paperwork. Yet again, the same woman made copies of his passport and insurance card, after Carly had to submit them online when she made the appointment, and once again told us we wouldn’t have to do this in the future and go straight to the doctor. A crazy system. Every single time it’s like we’ve never been there before. The doctor then had me sign the same form that Carly had signed online. Also, when we were done with the doctor he said something about calling him first next time to make it easier…which is what Carly did.
Anyway, we went to the doctor and played Polytopia while we waited. There was a couple with three kids there. The mom was in with the baby and the dad was with the boy who was about August’s age and a younger girl. August started by looking at the ads in a newspaper left on the seat, and telling me which things he was going to buy for his lab. We then played Polytopia until it was our turn.
It wasn’t pretty, but we got through it. August was okay for a couple minutes, until he saw the doctor taking the MMR shot supplies out of an envelope. August lost it, and started melting to the floor, trying to hid under the desk. He managed to throw his hat at the doctor, and knocked my glasses off at one point, but actually didn’t do much more ‘fight’. He was mainly in ‘fright’ mode. The big problem was that the doctor took insanely long to get set up. I was trying to get August on my lap, and after a couple minutes, as I was holding August as I stood up, he was saying “Is it done yet? Is it done yet?” We hadn’t even started.
Got him on the exam table, and I held his arms and chest, and the doctor had his legs. To the doctor’s credit, he wasn’t phased by any of it and stayed really calm. August screamed about it hurting as the doctor washed his leg, and was saying “I can’t breathe!” “You’re really choking me!” Once the shot was done though, he calmed right down. When the doctor offered him a sticker he said yes. As I got our stuff together August put it on the bill of my hat.
Later, as we walked back to the car, I talked about ‘panic’, a word he didn’t know, and how his body responded to stress.
We walked across to Glidha, the ice cream place. On the way across the streets the first time a bus had very politely stopped for us and another guy to stop as we neared the intersection. Literally less than 10 seconds later, as we were crossing the other side, a bus that was much further away scared us as it tried to dodge past us, despite us already being to the crosswalk. The driver then started gesturing towards us. Luckily, I had backup, as the guy walking with us also yelled at the bus driver.
At the ice cream shop August settled on dark chocolate pretty quickly. He sat inside and ate. The AC was on high, and the ice cream made him cold. He did some dancing to the music as well, then gave me the last couple bites and headed to the door as he was too cold.
We were driving at 4. As we got in the car I realized he hadn’t gone to the bathroom since we left the house. I figured we’d go for it and he’d probably just fall asleep in the car. Later, at home, he told me he realized he hadn’t gone to the bathroom at the ice cream place.
Traffic on the way home. About 50 minutes. Strawberry shop looks closed for the season, as the sign isn’t out anymore. August listened to music, and when it looked like he was getting tired I suggested his iPad. He played things, and stayed awake. A nice surprise. I thought for sure he’d conk out.
At home he greeted Carly. I got him to read The King to me, or large chunks of it. Lots of words, so long for him, so the sharing of the reading works really well. We talked about taking a few of the Bob Books with us this summer (the ones he hasn’t read yet, and some favorites) but then reading harder ones on the iPad, working on just a few pages at a time. He was doing quite well with it, and he chose it over the others, even though he knows it’s the last book in the set.
I had cooked a schnitzel and cut carrots so he and I ate those for dinner. And he ran across the room and was diving onto the couch. Carly then walked to the store. We went up to do a Brother and Sister game with a raccoon. Also more dangerous animals and Brother waking from an attack dreaming to find himself in another.
He went down to Carly after she got back and I rested. He was being her personal trainer again. I came down and we played chess, then checked in on Green Planet. I took him up and we both took showers. He asked me for the bike accident story again so I told him.
In on the bed he had us doing Brother and Sister games. Where Brother wanted the power to turn into animals. He was referencing the Israeli animal guides earlier to find animals to be. He repeated information from Wild Kratts a few times, like: “tiger beetle. It’s the fastest running insect on the planet.”
Brushed his teeth, and he asked if there was any animal with one lung, and I looked that up (basically, catfish and the like). Carly came in and I said good night to them at 9:05. He was really processing with her past moments when he got upset, like the national history museum and he wanted them to each say sorry to each other.
Partial bits:
Shopping from the Israeli newspaper:
Ice cream dance and too cold:
Jumping on the couch slo-mo 1:
Jumping on the couch slo-mo 2:
Noisy party across the street:
