Thursday, December 5: car registration, with Gilad at Kfar Saba Park, and play date with Eve

He didn’t wake me up at all during the night, then was up precisely at 7. Took a few minutes on the couch, then watched Phineas Rage. He only did that for a few minutes, then decided to play Minecraft. We did that, then had cereal and milk for breakfast, then got going.

I had an 8:55 appointment at the Netanya licensing office. We got there right on time. The security guard joked about August being there to get his license. Went up, got August watching a My Little Pony, then I was called up. The guy initially questioned my paperwork, but then called over a supervisor. She asked if we were embassy, said a couple things to him in Hebrew, and ten seconds later he was handing me the new registration for the car.

I let August watch a couple more minutes, as he’d barely started. We then headed back to the car, joking with the security guard again. I told him August was driving home. August watched the My Little Pony episodes on the way to Kfar Saba Park. We got there with enough time (I’d said we’d be there at 9:45) for us to sit and finish the episode.

We got his bike out and rode up to the big playground. No sign of Lauren and Gilad, so we rode around in circles a couple times. He rode up a pretty big hill all on his own, although the next two times he did it he had me help him. It turned out that they had parked at the mall at the south end. August and I headed south and met them halfway. Gilad was very in tune to the bike and pedestrian lanes (which don’t actually make much sense) and whether or not August was riding in the correct one or not.

The trampoline place was closed, but the zoo was open. It costs money (not a lot), but August wasn’t excited by it and I don’t think Lauren wanted to pay. So we walked back up to the big playground. The kids mainly played on the sailing ship part. They got us up on it as crew. They were kind of debating whether they were pirates or not. When August was the captain he turned into a nice captain and got rid of their cannons and said they were going to do trading.

A little after 11 they got going. We all went up to the bathrooms, then said goodbye from there. August and I went to the cafe right by the playground. It it actually quite nice inside, and we got a small table outside next to flowers. August ordered a blackberry, raspberry, and strawberry smoothie, I got a cappuccino, and we shared a pizza with eggplant, cheese cubes, and mushrooms on half. August said he liked the pizza, but then noticed it was kind of spicy. So he just ate a few bites. That was okay though as he loved the smoothie and drank the whole thing. It was really good, and I told him next time I’d get that instead of a coffee. And there was enough pizza left over for Carly’s dinner.

We read some of 117-Story Treehouse while we waited and after we ate. He then had a Brother game where he was playing with Mumbo Jumbo, etc. from YouTube and they weren’t impressed with his dirt house. August told me, “Let’s always do a bunch of special Brither and Sister games cuz it’s close to Christmas.” And he asked, “What’s a hermit?”

We left there at 12:10. We were still playing when we got back to the car and I said something funny as he spit water. We drove to Max. On the way we listened to Story Pirates and their Circle Round crossover. Jeweler and tailor were words of the day.

We parked at Tiv Taam and walked up. Max had Christmas decorations, but no regular strings of lights. We also got another blanket, grey this time and a texture that Carly is more likely to like, and a couple of minor things. It was quite blustery when we walked back to the car and August wanted to walk around. We dropped off our stuff and walked around the new mall across the street, which we’ve never gotten around to doing. He did an extra, non-science, video for his viewers.

We drove home and had time for him to do 30 minutes of alone time. He wanted to use 30 now, then 30 with Eve. For his time he marked pages with post-it notes in the Earth book and cuddled with new the blanket. We did 30 minutes of Minecraft and then ran to school.

He talked to Reia’s mom on the way into school. She asked about homeschool, and August gave her a math problem with shekels and agorot. We picked up Eve, then went to the playground for a minute. Eve went to use the bathroom, then August was concerned about rain and wanted to get home for iPad time, so we got going. It started raining as we got to the library building (they wanted the elevator). I had to pick him up as we went through the building. But then he was okay, and the rain had stopped. They shared the umbrella on the walk out to the car.

At the house Eve requested cereal with milk. She ate that and we set up the two iPads for Minecraft (I had asked Heather to make sure it was okay). Eve lasted 15 minutes with it, but didn’t want any more. So he saved his final 15 for later. I opened the bag of marbles but they did have much interest in those. They started separately, with her out in the Zinnie house, and him doing a potion. She came in and joined him and they were finally playing together. He made a “Fire Resitance IX” potion.

It was then raining, and they took the umbrellas out in the rain together, August wearing Carly’s flip flops. Eve made lemonade out of lemon juice, brown sugar, and water and they both drank that. Quite a bit. I got one of the science experiments set up and we made a rainbow out of Ph levels. Eve and August made a little fort in the play area out of three umbrellas and pillows and wanted their photo taken in that.

Heather showed up then and talked for a few minutes. August took a long video of us all. They left around 5:30. August had been pretty hyper and kept talking really loudly. He asked for the tripod, at a yell, and I asked him to take 5 triangle breaths. It worked. He closed his eyes and took them and was able to talk at a normal volume.

He set up a long time lapse as he ate, then made a structure in the kitchen and performed on it. A bit upset when he tried to turn it to see me and Carly on the couch and the camera fell. He then had the camera set up pointing towards the ground and he did a timelapse of him drawing a picture.

We did 15 minutes of Minecraft, then watched educational videos. We watched a little about machine learning on a couple videos, then found the CGP Grey episode on “How Machines Learn”. That one worked really well and we talked about it a lot. He then watched “The Race to Win Staten Island” and really liked that. Getting into history now, maybe.

We did the Brother and Myna and Mumbo Jumbo Minecraft game, and when Brother asked if Mumbo had liked his house he had Myna reply, “He didn’t NOT not like it.”

We made popcorn and Carly asked if he wanted to read the Myna book: “Yeah, cuz I’m so caught up in Minecraft.” He choked a little at one point. He ended up making a sort of nest with the new blanket between her legs and the couch and the table, then turned it into a storage area for his musical instruments and other things.

We did a Brother game. At one point he said, “Bam. And here’s the parenting trick.” He didn’t like not having internet in the jungle and they went back and forth. The parenting tricks were stronger.

We got him ready for bed. Carly give him a bath and washed his hair. He told us, “A baby starts out as a single cell. So I was once a single cell in your tummy.” I asked how many cells he had now: 60 or 70? He did a facepalm and said, “Billions. Billions.” We remembered he hadn’t given Heather any facts, so he had me send a message in which he informed Heather that Eve had once been a single cell inside her: “And when she was multicellular, she yawned.”

Carly and I were debating something and he said, “I’m afraid she has the stronger argument.” When we went in his room he went and got the cream for his hands: “Doing some preventive medicine.” Carly had earlier shown him photos of collections of rocks and shells that Cassie and Jeff had collected on the beach in Mexico. He had like one better than the others, then had asked to see Oma, Opa, and Vivian, and Colin’s collections.

They had written back. Colin had been too busy getting upset, and I think there were now photos of Cherie’s and Vivian’s collections. He liked them both and tried to decide which was better: “Hmm, it’s hard to compete with that.” When I suggested it could be a tie he said, “I am NOT doing a tie.” “I like the textures…and they look like wild mushrooms…”

Going to bed he decided his pants are too short. I got a different pair and put socks on him too. He said he wants to try panamas with feet again. I showed him the video of him first walking in shoes at Seoul Grand Forest when he was 11 months old. He was asleep by 10:15.

Dancing to iPad music: