He slid down to the lower bed at some point. Carly got him up at 8:10. He was really sleepy as he woke up on the couch. Carly went upstairs to do something, and he just lay on the couch for several minutes before declaring, “Oh yeah! Minecraft!” He logged in and there was some message about free stuff in the store. We downloaded a couple of worlds. The first involved bees. He tried that, but then Minecraft quit on him. Then he went in the other world. Something about a phoenix. I played with him a bit, then got up. He was outside and it turned out there were monsters and he was blown up by a creeper. He screamed, and said he would never play Minecraft again. That lasted as long as it took me to go up and brush my teeth. When I came back down he was eating grapefruit and quesadilla and playing in a creative world, adding redstone blocks to Carly’s house and singing about it: “Changing Mama’s roof to redstone…” Then something about her being cranky when she saw it: “There’s a lot of redstone on the roof / it won’t go poof”.
We were getting ready to go. Carly had made hummus sandwiches and I had a big stack of books to take. We left at 9:30. He was asking us, repeatedly, why we got a car. Carly and I had a faux argument about whether it was for grocery shopping or going places. August totally got it this time and was very amused. When it stopped he asked us again to get it going.
I finally convinced him to blow his nose in the car. For some cookie. We did a short Brother game where he had a babysitter and they were in the park with a friend named Weeny but only had painting supplies for one person. Brother got upset when the friend got to paint first, and Bar stopped the arguing with a zap.
He then requested Chemical Brother’s “Go” and we listened to a few versions of that. We read the Horrid Henry book that Liz had recommended to Carly. Not my favorite books in the world. Rampaging was a good word of the day from it though. Everything was fine until we parked at Aminadav Forest, west of Jerusalem. August asked for a cookie. When I said he simply needed to earn it or have some lunch first he got really upset. Definitely seemed hungry, and all of his times getting upset recently really seem to be when he hasn’t eaten. Unfortunately, he’s also asking for food a lot less when he’s hungry. Don’t know why that has suddenly changed, but we’ll have to work on that.
We parked at what turned out to be the Kennedy Memorial. We walked around to the other side where there are benches in the trees. August was pretending to mine, Minecraft style, in a wall. He then came and sat on the bench and ate almost all of the hummus sandwich Carly had made. Carly commented to me how he says “Yesterday or the yesterday after that” instead of “the day before yesterday.” It is a common phrase. There are also some other times where he mixes words like ‘after’ and ‘before’, but I think they are just conceptual things (I.e. when looking back through time he’s starting with today and going from there) and not misunderstanding the words themselves.
We read more of Horrid Henry on the bench. Carly had left her phone in the car and I went over to get it and also looked around outside, taking photos of the Kennedy tree planting area and other things. When I got back August was composing music and Carly was reading in the sun. I then asked if August wanted to go in the building. We walked over to the Kennedy Memorial, built in 1966. Reminded us of a dam visitor’s center, or world’s fair, with its curvy geometric concrete construction. The pillars are smooth and gracefully curve down to the ground. The other kids were all running up them and sliding back down. August was no exception. Carly stayed with him and did that as I went in and had fun doing some photography inside. I found the state seals for Washington and Alaska (to send to Peter).
We went to the bathroom and then got going. We drove down the hill and parked at a little parking lot and walked over to the Rubinstein Memorial, which is a viewing platform area. He asked about the memorial plaque, so we talked about what a memorial was. August found a bit of quartz in the driveway so was looking for interesting rocks. We then did the short little trail from there.
We also talked about plants and those that wanted to be eaten and those that were defending themselves with spikes, etc. On the way back he wanted us to argue about something, and I joked about making arguing of any sort illegal in the family. August took that to mean he’d always get his way and would play iPad for hours and hours because, “Arguing is the way parents keep their kids from getting aways with using their kidding tricks…”
We got driving, and finished the Horrid Henry before parking in Jerusalem. Of the book he said, “That’s a good kidding trick, I should use it…the diaperphobic.” The fear of diapers. We parked at 1:15. As we walked to the bird viewing area he was using the binoculars backwards and discovered that it looks really cool if you press right into a plant with them. We found the bird watching area and got in one of the viewing buildings. We were there for a good half hour. We saw a greenfinch, and August was really learning to focus the binoculars. There were mainly doves to watch (and they don’t move fast), and a great tit that was hanging upside down and breaking open the string of peanuts. There were also a few sparrows that came by, and August said, “The sparrows are very hoppy, I’ve observed.” And he said, “If I was a pigeon this would be my home” and declared “Bird observatories is so cool.”
After another 10 minutes or so wee went and found Carly, who had found a place in the sun to read. We then walked back, past the Knesset, and our car, and over to the Rose Garden. We did a loop in there. He stopped to look at a few things, including using the binoculars to watch a crow that was sort of acting like a woodpecker to eat bugs up on a tree branch.
He started to get tired and I had to carry him a little on the way back. We stopped at the bathroom and then got going at 2:30. He randomly asked, “What’s self esteem?” We read the first Horrid Henry story, then listened to a new podcast, called But Why? about ice and then looked at Google Maps. He also asked why snowflakes have shapes and we read https://earthsky.org/earth/how-do-snowflakes-get-their-shape
We got home and played Minecraft. He got upset at the end. I think because he wanted a cookie right away. He calmed down and ate his pasta for dinner. I talked to him about what to do when he is upset. He talked about how he should go to his lab, and decided the entrance to his lab is behind the black chair. I was trying to convince him it was in the corner of the couch.
We were going to read Shipwrecked! But Carly was reading Proust and the Squid and came over and gave August a letter test to see how quickly he recognizes letters. He did fine, but was confused by her lowercase L. As was I. It turns out she learned a different way of printing the ‘l’ than I did (curving it at the bottom).
They ended up on the couch, reading The Magic School Bus chapter book about germs. When she read that there are millions of microbes on the floor I was apologizing to them every time I took a step and squished them. I then went for a run at 5:30 and they read the rest of the book. When I came down from a shower he started reading to her in Rivet. He chose a level 4 book about play dough and worked through it. Carly and I were trying to discuss presents for August, without him knowing what we were talking about. He stopped, and said,
“I’m not going to keep going if you two don’t stop arguing.” I took over when he wouldn’t let Carly help him sound out words. So she went for a walk. When he was done with that he read a few level 1 books, which are very easy for him now, and he could tell.
We then made popcorn and watched the third episode of the Body documentary on Curiosity Stream, which shows the development of a baby from 1 cell through birth. We had a second bag of popcorn when Carly got back and joined us.
When that was over we had a Sister and Bar game with Sister in a sort of prank war in Minecraft. Bar helped with designing the defenses but overreacted in helping and blew everything up during the actual war.
I got him upstairs, then Carly gave him a bath. He was singing in the bathroom and asking Carly if she thought that Mr. Minke’s band could play them. He also had the water really cold when taking a bath, asking Carly to make it colder and colder.
When he was ready I took him in to bed. We read 26 pages of Shipwrecked! and he really liked it. Lots of new words in there, and he declared it was “Really good.” We then listened to the Circle Round story “The Gloomy Pine Tree”. We had lights out at 10:10 and listened to the PRISM Quartet’s “Red Pine”. He was asleep pretty quickly.
Kids running up the columns:
August sliding on the Kennedy memorial:
Hiking:
Bird watching:
