He called out 3 times during the night. Always right back to sleep, but I could tell he was stuffy. He was up at 7:30. We played Minecraft in a couple different worlds (first in his bird world, working on his cool sculpture by himself, then with me in one). He changed the countdown to 6 days, and we listened to an “Acoustic Christmas” playlist on Apple Music.
I made us French toast for breakfast and slice up strawberries. August had one slice of french toast, but only one strawberry. He wanted another slice but I said he needed more strawberries first. He never ate more strawberries or french toast and didn’t even ask about food through the rest of the morning.
He then brought up abortion (although he doesn’t know that term yet, just ‘terminating a pregnancy’ from the Kurzgesagt “Designer Babies” episode) and how he once had to perform an abortion when the baby was bigger than just a mass of cells, and he gave it anesthesia so it wouldn’t cry. He had also thought about how it could be done without hurting the mom, and needing special needles. Kind of crazy how far he had thought that through. From that we went to a Brother game. It involved meeting Millie again. This time she learned how to give her powers to other people and she gave Sister her shapeshifting powers first.
We listened to a Jazz Christmas playlist. He really liked the Count Basie version of “Little Drummer Bot” and added it to his playlist. We then were listening to a Jarrett/Peacock/DeJonette track and he requested to play music in Notion.
So he did that for quite a while. At one point he sang along to what he was playing: “Tick tock goes the train, across the window pane.” He went outside with Carly to take photos with my camera, and I went upstairs and wrapped the last of our presents: the last package from Amazon had finally arrived yesterday, with the melodica, purple cape, and conductor’s baton. I wrapped those and the Don’t Be Evil! game. I wrapped the smaller items separate for stocking purposes, and also wrapped the replacement robot toy we had bought last year but never given him.
Outside, Carly had painted and he did videos, like for his YouTube audience, of her painting. We quickly got ready to go and were driving at 11:30. He did another video on the way in the car: “He everybody…” Along the way we discussed animal versus organism, clarifying what organism meant for him.
We got to Herzliya Park. He pointed out the plant to Carly that’s like one we have at home, and he rode his bike into the park. We had time to ride around and go to the snack place. Carly was going to get some food, and we were going to do a smoothie. August insisted on an ice cream and got grumpy when we said no to that. He went off and started playing on his own. Which was nice. And he really liked the smoothie when Carly got it. Even though it was after noon they didn’t have sandwiches, etc. yet—they said maybe in an hour.
Lauren and Gilad showed up. August and Gilad hung out, talking on the liittle kid stuff. He was climbing around on stuff and climbed on the bench, asking Carly, “Does this make you nervous?” When Carly asked if he wanted his helmet off he said, “It’s for safety.”
Gilad wanted to go up on the slides. August eventually agreed to the merry-go-round and I pushed them on that. Gilad went up on the play structure and slides, and eventually I got August to follow me up. He needed the bathroom, so I took him to that, then when we came back we were able to go up to the top. August went right across the shaky bridge he hadn’t wanted to do last time, and we did one of the tall slides three times. I went with them twice, then stayed on the bottom to take a video as he made his own way up there and came down.
August seemed worn out after that and was ready to go. He had been pretty stuffy, and his nose was starting to look dirty, too. As we said goodbye he had me ick him up and he put his head down for a couple minutes. He was able to ride his bike to the car though.
From there we drove to a downtown part of Herzliya and went to Celeste Pizza. We sat out at a table outside. It was warm enough to be really comfortable. He had a Brother game where Brother fights off bullies and they leave him alone. When looking at photos of the place on Google Maps I saw a photo of Eve—Dave had posted it.
We got a large pizza. I got a beer (a Spanish IPA that was really good) and August wanted a drink too, so ended up with a bottle of strawberry juice. The pizza was really good, a long rectangular one, and we ate most of it. A little dog came by and August got down and petted it. I was impressed. He talked about how it felt like cotton and said, “Dada, it was a cute little dog.” He asked how he became afraid of them in the first place and I told him the story of the off-leash area in Korea. He said, “5 year Oma August would know better.” He also said, “This is the first time I’ve seen someone throw a cigarette on the ground!” And he pointed out the woman he’d just seen throw a butt on the sidewalk.
We left there at 3. As we got in the car he asked, “Why do men not have babies?” And “Why if you crouch you’re less likely to fall off?” He was referring to Minecraft, I’m sure.
I drove on the way home. They ended up discussing India and who we knew there. He wants details of Anneka’s falling in the mud story, and also Oma getting peed on by a cow. He talked about having a picture of each one in his mind.
I drove the back way to our house, over the paved road we never take. We came out by the strawberry fields and I pointed out the crane that is stored in a random spot. August said, “I stored it there…walls for the next war that’s coming.” He was also quoting the “Eyeballs for sale” poem by Prelusky as we got home at 3:45. He went straight to composing music. I was impressed with how he was including rests in his music today.
They then painted. He did another video, and wanted to show his color mixing. He asked Carly more about the people that wear veils so as to not hurt any insects. I can’t remember where they first learned about that. He didn’t understand why they cared about bugs like that, and Carly tried to build some empathy by making a connection to a human getting killed. Didn’t quite engage his empathy though, as he said he still wasn’t upset, saying, “There’s 7 BILLION people.”
Carly moved the presents location to over by the red chair and hung up his stocking from the light switch. August taped. Carly then headed to the grocery store. He ate a full bowl of broccoli and some of the left over pizza for dinner, then had milk and half a cookie. We then did Brother and Sister games. Sister was arguing with Baby Sister about using her pacifier for Baby Brother, but then he woke up anyway. Then Baby Sister was upset that her iPad time ran out and she hit her mom and dad. He said, “An hour later you get out and you have to say the grossest words in the world: I’m sorry.” At some point we had also started to read “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.”
I went for a run and took a shower. He listened to two Circle Round stories. The second was “The Armadillo’s Song”. He was cuddling with Carly and listening to the end of it as I came down. He asked Carly what cease means. That was a word of the day. When he was done he said, “Those two I listened to was very good.”
He asked, “When are we going to the beach house again?” “That family that owns it really made it look good.” I took him upstairs for his bath and he did most of the work. Carly then put him to sleep and he was asleep by 10:30.
A morning composition:
Singing a song about Minke:
Recording me singing the Korean song:
Mama waving:
Time lapse of mama:
Me reading Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves:
Zinnie cam: putting on his shoes and mama raking:
Zinnie cam: snail shell in the yard:
Zinnie cam: setting up to paint and mixing advice:
