Monday, January 6: bike ride in Tel Aviv and a treat in Beit Yehoshua

Carly headed to school early. I worked up on the bed and August woke up about 7:15 and came and crawled in bed with me. Took a while to fall back to sleep, but then I was having to wake him up at 8:30. Got him downstairs and we read The Last Kids on Earth. We then did random stuff on Minecraft. He then did the crazy Minecraft war story, with Myna overdoing the defenses and blowing up the other team’s base.

He made two Monday songs on the toy piano and had me do videos. I made oatmeal for him. He had Brother meet a new girl. Brother was confused at first, forgetting which month he was stuck. Girl who could duplicate things. Security system to protect Sister’s diary.

He added a couple songs from the Kraftwerk album Home Computer to his playlist. We looked at our plan for the day. As I was making sandwiches for lunch he was swinging around in a circle, holding one of the little pots from his toy kitchen. He noticed how it was trying to pull him, and how he was pushing against it. Counteract was a word of the day.

As usual, it was a challenge to get him going, as he kept getting distracted by other activities. He caught the light with the bottom of the pot, and had fun directing it around the room. He was then doing photography for a long time, messing with settings, and managed to make some quite interesting photos. He took a slo-mo of me blinking. I thought I finally had him focused on leaving, but then he wanted to go hammer some rocks. I finally got him dressed, and we went out and put the bike on the car and headed to Tel Aviv.

We were going to HaYarkon Park, with the intent of heading a little further up river and stopping for an ice cream at that outdoor place again. On the way down we listened to Story Pirates. I randomly chose an episode from the first season that we heard before, but they were good ones. As we got out of the car he said, “It’s funny that in the three stories we listened to there were two competitions and they both had moms…” One was a koala tree climbing competition and the other was Olympic gymnastics.

We got riding just after 12:40. He was humming as we went. We had parked at the far end of the parking lot (where you enter) so it would be closer to the upstream part. We rode trails through the park we hadn’t been on, found the river, and headed upstream. Signs of flooding around, with one area being a pretty big pond, and lots of good-sized puddles with birds around them. Sadly, the ice cream place was closed.

We rode further than before and got to a place where it came close to a major intersection. We found a nice bench and stopped there for lunch. He liked that there was a plant growing through the slats of the bench and spent several minutes talking about plants taking over, especially if humans were gone. We ate our turkey and avocado sandwiches and continued a series of Brother games today where Bar and Sister had set up elaborate defenses to keep Brother away from Sister’s diary. He kept getting further in, but there were always new things that would hurt him, etc.

I finally got us to switch to reading The Last Kids on Earth. While I read he found rocks in the dirt and knocked off the dirt. He took a few home with us. We left there at 2:10.

On the ride back we tried to ride a dirt road around the south end of the water park. A more direct route back to our car. It shows up as a road that connects on Google Maps. It was fine at first, but then we met some puddles. Okay at first, then right at the end hit a big slippery area. Shouldn’t have worn my nice shoes. We got over that only to be thwarted. There was a big puddle that August got off to estimate the depth of. Could have gotten by that, but the road led to a construction area, and the whole other side was one of those temporary white metal fences and a locked gate. Didn’t appear we could get through anywhere. Could have continued to follow the road to see where the big trucks were coming from, but that didn’t seem wise.

So we rode back the other direction, then back north around the water park, taking the roadway out and reconnected with the park trails. We stopped at a bathroom, and August spent 15 to 30 minutes photographing birds and other things, including me trying to fly like a bird. I had asked if he wanted to take a picture of me and he said no, he was only photographing birds. He also said, “I took a photo of my skin passcode.” He meant his fingerprint.

We got back to the car (where before we left he had stood on the railing for a Making Mama Nervous photo) and headed out. Stopped at the nearby Paz for gas and headed to Beit Yehoshua for a treat. Kept listening to Story Pirates. The outdoor place was open there—in fact, seemed to be just opening. Instead of a popsicle August asked for a baked treat and chose a M&M cookie. I got a cappuccino. We sat there as the sun went down and read more of The Last Kids on Earth. I had finally convinced August to put on a sweatshirt. Supposed to be pretty rainy the rest of the week, so it was nice to spend several hours of this lovely day outside. He wanted to keep going, chapter after chapter, but I finally got him to go close to 5.

We stopped at the strawberry stand and I ran in to get three containers. He was starting to get a little frustrated, but managed it and we got home. Think he was getting hungry, although he’d also eaten a total of 12 corn crackers, finishing off the bag. I tried to compliment him about handling his frustration well. He doesn’t like being complimented, and gave me an “Anyway…”

He and I played Minecraft. Carly got home as we played. When it was over I was making his spaghetti. He started to get frustrated again, and Carly started being a hugging machine. Think she started the hugging, but then I was quoting lines from the book Hug Machine and he liked both of those and requested she be a hugging machine a couple times. He ate the spaghetti and melted cheese that I’d found he liked yesterday. (he had requested melted cheese separate in a little bowl, and when I had overdone it he found he liked it).

He was mainly being silly at the table though and didn’t eat much spaghetti: “The twelve corn crackers I ate, is that what’s making me go haywire?” He was pretending to be a cat, after Carly had said she thinks she might have a mouse in a cupboard at school. He got a pot and wanted to make mouse stew: “I’m trying to be a proper cat.”

He made a fort out of the chairs. Actually, he started with other stuff but was getting frustrated when it didn’t work, and Carly helped him with the chairs and blanket. When it was set up he added the piano as part of wall, which he could also play. He did alone time in fort. He was an inspector of some sort. I went up to work.

I came down a bit later so Carly could call the dentist. August has an appointment on Wednesday. That took a few minutes, then I went back up to work. They spent most of their time “arguing” (with logical arguments) about his dinner and how much he should eat. In the end he ate half the spaghetti and three large strawberries. He also played his second half hour of Minecraft.

I came down at 8:10. Carly went up to take a shower. He was watching the Kurzgesagt video on neutron stars, then negotiated with Carly while I went back upstairs so I wouldn’t overhear. He then watched the Mars Base video. That led to a long Sister and Bar game about a Mars mission, and how Brother kept trying to be involved.

After that I wanted to read the end of Last Kids but he started playing the piano instead. He was figuring out “Just a Little Love” by Erasure. At first just the chorus, but then the verses and bridge as well. He also made up something that sounded like church bells ringing. Carly had brought the mail home, and my driver’s license had finally arrived. And expires in May. So it doesn’t even save me a six-month trip. Sigh. At least I have an ID I can carry around instead of my Washington license.

The piano ended up upstairs where he kept playing. Carly got him in and gave him a bath. I then took over to put him to sleep. He played with the laser pointer, shining it through/off a roll of tape and onto the wall. Then, in his bedroom off of different surfaces, and then he discovered he could supercharge the crystal we had grown with the light on it and it glowed really green when he turned it off. He also took some more photos, and I took photos of the crystal. We listened to Circle Round’s “The Great Acorn Robbery”. We listened to Lullatone and he went and lay down, actually crawling under his pillow, and fell asleep quickly, by 10:20.

Today’s song: