Author: Ryan/Dada

He called me in at 6:30 and I pulled the blanket over him. For several days now when I do go in I just leave right away and he is fine. I plugged in all the lights and everything, and Carly added the artichoke to the stocking, which I’d forgotten last night.

He was up a little after 7, and it wasn’t long until we got to Christmas stuff. But, first, as he said last night, he went and changed the countdown to 0. He started on his stocking and we skyped my parents and brother.

Cherie and Chuck:

• microscope

• Just Ask! book

• Apples to Apples

Mom and Dad:

• posters

• Soldering iron

• Star registry

• microphone

• Laser pointer

Dee and Grant

• card

• Mastermind

• Kandoodle

• two Magic Tree House books

• clothes

Us

• toy robot

• No Thank You, Evil!

• melodica

• artichoke

• purple cape

He was really into both the melodica and the microscope, although they were all very thoughtful presents and will get a lot of use. In playing the melodica he was making up a lot of tunes, but also surprised me by playing the full chorus of “Always” by Erasure. We said goodbye around 9:30 when the iPad battery was running low.

Carly had made pancakes—regular ones, as that had been his request last night when I mentioned a yummy breakfast in the morning. So no swedish pancake tradition for us. I had done most of the looking with him, then he told Carly, “Mama! Visit microscope land with me!” He got dirt and leaves from out yard and also looked at soap, then they went on a short specimen-gathering walk at 9:55. He said, “I want to start taking notes on what I find.” And, “I’m a scientist rediscovering what other people have discovered.” He asked what specimen means, and it was a word of the day.

Then the three of us went on a short specimen gathering walk, just across the street and up. More microscope, then we went out again to this time get a bit of one of the cacti. It was raining though, so he stayed on the porch while I went and cut off a piece of a cactus. I sliced a piece of it and it worked really well on the microscope, as did looking at the little spines. HE and I then went up to the playground for more specimens.

When we returned I made lunch, making grilled cheese and turkey to go with Carly’s soup. I had found a series of free leveled readers on Apple Books from Read Hat Reading, so we read a couple of those together, alternating sentences, starting with one about microscopes and then a couple others.

He finally realized he’d never done his morning iPad time, but first we discussed expectations and strategies for when it was over, and that his ability to learn more time later in the day depended on handling the end of this time well. We played Minecraft and it went well, and he got his two chocolate chips. He then did more microscope time on his own, looking at different spices and taking photos. And he played more melodica before having us do a Sister and Brother game on the couch as Bar and Sister operated and put things in him that would make noise, and giving him microscope eyes as a joke

Carly went for a walk, and when she got back the Skyped with Colin and Vivian, who had finished opening their presents. She had a microscope (just like August’s, from Cherie), and Colin had a scooter and a remote control Ghostbusters car.

August wanted shaving cream on his hands. He got it on his arms, then when I went for a walk they made slime. Sort of. It was gel, and Carly things they put in too much of the shaving cream. It was still fun to play with and look really interesting. They then did his alone time and 30 minutes of Minecraft. He did more microscope, then ended up Skyping with both families of cousins at the same time.

August then got out the Kandoodle toy/puzzle and did a couple of the puzzles. He ran to show Carly, declaring, “It’s a good brain exercise!” We were going to go to Giraffe for Christmas dinner, but when I suggested we take something small with us to the restaurant to play with (like Kandoodle) he first insisted on taking the microscope, then the melodica. I said he could take his iPad with GarageBand, and he had the idea of using the sampler to get the sound of the melodica, but he wasn’t entirely happy with the results. Finally, he got over it and we left before 6.

We drove over. On the way he told me, “And I loved what you gived me.” “I was talking about artichokes two days ago. You learned from me, great.” At Giraffe we ordered two dishes, and Carly read to him after he was done coloring the placemat. We left after 7.

He told us how he can have pictures in his mind: “I can be on Pluto and not die. I can be atom sized. I can do anything.” We were then talking about which countries have the least rain, after he said he wants to move to an even drier place, and we looked at list of countries with rain: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Geography/Average-rainfall-in-depth/Mm-per-year

As we got home he talked about wanting to look at poop in the microscope. We said no. He said it would be nice to the poop, giving it the gift of light: “It doesn’t get to see light in the body unless the nurses are doing surgery on someone’s butt…”

Carly made popcorn and they started a brain documentary but it reminded him of music and he used the big keyboard with Notion. We then played with other music apps, including Sound Forest and Bloom. We then read part of The Soul of an Octopus

I got him upstairs and Carly gave him a bath. They did some microscope upstairs, then she read to him as I took a shower. I then put him to bed. We listened to “Three Wishes” and pleasure was a word of the day. He needed Cheerios, and asked, “What’s the brightest light humans have ever made?” We listened to music and he was asleep at 10:30.

Countdown to zero and starting on the stocking:

Presents 1:

Presents 2:

Presents 3:

Presents 4:

Presents 5:

Presents 6 – melodica:

Presents 7:

Presents 8:

Presents 9:

Presents 10:

Melodica:

Microscope 1:

Microscope 2:

Collecting specimens:

He called me in at 5:30. He was up enough to be sitting and say something to me. I asked him how he was doing. He said something but I didn’t catch it. I asked what he said and he just repeated the end: “and waked up.” I let him go back to sleep. He then crawled in with me at 7:30. Didn’t fall back to sleep this time, and we got up a few minutes later. He cuddled with Carly down on the couch. They were joking about the branches he had grown inside her (part of the placenta) and prune ended up being a word of the day after we joked about having to prune his branches when he was born.

They went outside for the “fresh and rosy-fingered morning” then I read him Prelusky poems. He played Minecraft with Carly and sang a funny song: “The only answer is…” When he was done I made us cereal and then we did a Brother game: he was supposed to be playing “Go” (in Minke’s room, he said) but wanted calm music instead. It turned into free jazz when playing with Bar. He remembered clicking on a track last night that he wanted to listen to. It was Mint Royale’s “Time”.

Carly was going to take him to Shani’s at 9:30. Suddenly he demanded a cookie, and almost didn’t go to Shani’s. I almost took him, but then he agreed to go with Carly. He didn’t do great there; he didn’t talk about the cookie, but he couldn’t let it go. He spent much of the time just doing stuff on his own, and not really listening to Shani, although Carly said he got better at the end. They then went to that park that Shani had told us about (August now associates it with seeing her). I think that went fine, but he got really whiney about the cookie when they got home. He did a good job of taking a break outside and spinning the top on the table. But then the big dog from across the street came strolling through the yard. I chased it out. But the damage was done. August had a big meltdown inside.

When that was done I read him poems. Carly finished making the hummus sandwich she was making for him. He ate that and they read the first Captain Underpants book. His idea. She headed to the mall. While she was gone I got out the calming strategies posters and cards. He took videos as we did so. He is all fine with that, but then still rather resistant to making/revising/practicing the plan for himself. We were setting up the new calm space when she got back. It was next to the black chair. I made his personal poster of his calming strategies, which includes spinning the top and “thinking about my inventions and discoveries.” I got him to practice going there once, pretending to be Baby Sister, but it needs more practice when he is calm or just a little frustrated in order for him to get used to it.

He then did satellite work in the graphing calculator. We figured out how it cycles the colors of the equations it plots. He had me write down his recipe for quiche dough donuts. I pointed out he needed to change his countdown to one and told him it is Christmas Eve. Eve was a word of the day. He found a chain in his graphs. He had another pita sandwich and I read Prelutsky. More new words: nearly and pestiferous. It somehow also moved to a discussion of bodily fluids, and amniotic fluid was another word of the day.

We were all heading up into town to get a few groceries. Carly stated walking first, as we were going to ride my bike. It took me a few minutes to get the bike ready and we did some sort of Brother game. He then insisted on updating his countdown before we left, to 1. We got going, only to realize after a couple blocks that he didn’t have his helmet, so we went back for that. We rode into town and found Carly at the park outside the library.

I stayed in the park while they went over to the bakery and got sweet and savory pastries. We came back and ate those in the park. Carly called something “chewy” and he incredulously said, “Okay, so let me get this straight: it’s chewy? It’s chewy.” Carly headed to the grocery store and he and I played in the park. I pushed him on the swing, then we went over to the merry-go-round. There were two bigger boys next to us, and after a few minutes they asked for my help. They had a bright green beetle and asked if I knew what it was. We looked at it with them and some searching and were pretty sure it was one of these scarab beetles: http://www.nature-of-oz.com/cetoniinae.htm

We headed home soon after that. We actually beat Carly home. We did a Brother game for a few minutes until Carly got home. He then chose some containers out of recycling to use for bug catching. Carly was trying to decide whether she should make lentil or tomato soup first and asked August: “Lentil…I was just thinking about how much I hate tomatoes.”

We went out across the street and caught a couple ants. He let those out though when he spotted an Israeli ladybug and we caught that and took it home. We were rhyming ‘-ot’ words while we were out there.

Back inside he listened to the Circle Round story “Curious Boots,” then played Minecraft. Before we started he had another question for us to answer sometime: How was Minecraft made? Despite our discussions and prep work and reminders near the end, the end went badly and he got upset. He ate some dinner, but threw his broccoli when I said we weren’t going to watch Charlie Brown now.

He recovered by making a fort over in the corner by the red chairs. He said, “I love my kidding fort.” And we looked at his photos from the day of the Artisan Fair, which I finally posted. An impressive day of work. I went for a walk. It was warm and windy. The storm is coming. When I came back I found he had made a storage fort in the kitchen that he told Carly he’d take down in the morning. They were reading Baby Aliens Got My Teacher! by Pamela Butchart. I made him oatmeal.

We did a Brother game with Sister and Myna. They were having another Minecraft war. He accidentally hit my funny bone, which was funny because I just taught him that word and told him it had been a long time since I’d done that. We then did reflexes on his knees. He was hungry so had toast and strawberries. He was then playing on his toy piano, and explaining, “This chord has some dissonance.” Of one chord he said, “I also used this for a horror movie and a haunted house when the main character stepped in.” Another was “…the scary ghost that was playing the organ.”

I got him upstairs and washed his hair, really well, and scrubbing his scalp a lot. He went along with it well. Carly then took over and put him to bed, and I think he was asleep somewhat earlier, by 10.

The answer is lipety doo song:

Funny eyes:

His video of the time in posters:

Discussing zoom lenses and the cards and stuff:

Yankee Doodle on the slide:

Zinnie cam: buttering toast:

Dissonant chords and movie sounds:

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:

He woke up once during the night, 4:30 or so, and called me in. He asked me to turn the heater on. I told him it was already on, but put the blanket back on him instead. He said, “That’s good” and fell back asleep.

I had a headache in the morning and took some Advil and fell back to sleep until after 8. I woke August up at 8:15 and brought him down. I went back upstairs to get stuff, so Carly found him swathed in his fuzzy blanket on the couch. They eventually played Minecraft. He wouldn’t do survival with her anymore. They did creative, and Carly couldn’t figure out what kind of block she had used before. And when you break a block in creative mode it just disappears. She asked him if he could help, but he initially said no, but then went into serious problem-solving mode. He changed her to an operator in the game, allowing her to change her personal game mode to ‘Survival’. Then, he gave her a pick ax so she could break the block and find out what it is, then she could change back to ’Survival’.

He then told her, “This is a lesson you learned: Always trust your friend.” Carly said something about asking him for help instead of me, and I said something about not having to help her anymore. He replied, “Oh, dada. You’re so corny.”

They played, and Carly went upstairs to get ready. After a while August asked, “Why do you have to leave out cookies and milk when Santa isn’t real? The milk will get old and the cookies will get stale.” I led him to figure out the parents eating the cookies part and he told us we could never do that. I suggested he wouldn’t be all that concerned about a couple cookies in the morning when he would have a bunch of presents to open, but he wasn’t convinced.

He had a piece of french toast and some strawberries (I think) for breakfast. We did a couple of Brother games: one where Bar put him in a school for learning how to be a bully. Brother didn’t like that, nor did I. Then one where they were in the jungle at Greena’s for Christmas and Brother was upset they couldn’t bake cookies for Santa Claus. Bar eventually played a trick on him, pretending that Santa came and was upset that there weren’t cookies so he didn’t leave presents.

Heather arrived with Eve and Zoe about 9:45. Zoe was feeling tired and ended up resting on the couch and doing art by herself for a while. August had been composing music in Notion when the got there. I said he could finish the song he was on. He took it outside and sat on a chair by the slide while Eve played with a balloon and the hose, then we got started on a fort. I got the sheets and clothes pins. Carly got August off the iPad and he helped Eve set up the sticks. He tried to convince us to let him use the hair cutting scissors to cut the string, but Carly talked to him about it, and besides Eve took over cutting the string and could use the yellow ones. When she cut a string she would say “Order up!” August found that funny because it sounded like “Order in the court.”

I went inside and Carly worked outside. I helped Zoe find word magnets as she was making sentences on the fridge, then she went outside with the other two. August was singing music out there, a bit to the chagrin of Eve, but he eventually calmed down. He came in and spent a good ten minutes drawing a picture of a house to use as decoration in the fort. He recognized the jazz version of “Little Drummer Boy” when it came on.

August was getting hungry, so they each had a yogurt. Eve had the idea of going to the park, so I walked them up there. I took a couple of the paper airplanes, but I ended up being the only one to fly them after August tried one a few times. They played on the pirate ship and went on the spinning things. August said, “I’ve had enough of this panicking game!” He didn’t like being the brother, and Zoe had had enough of being the mom. So that was the end of it. I had had a few minutes of swinging in the round swing and reading while they’d been on the ship.

They went over on the exercise equipment and we all exercised. Zoe and Eve dropped down from the chin up bar a couple times. Heather was supposed to bring back pizza around 12:30. We finally headed back at 12:45, having not heard from them yet.

When we got back we found that Heather and Carly were taking a couple cheese pizzas out of the oven. VIPizza had been closed, so she had gotten frozen pizzas from the grocery store. And our timing was perfect. Eve sat on the chair and told August, “You need to tape me!” He “replied, Yeah! That’s like my middle name!” We ate pizza first. Eve and Zoe had a little routine where Zoe would introduce Eve, the famous recorder player, with the microphone thing, then Eve would play. August then got presenting duties as she was then a famous singer (after we didn’t want any more recorder playing at the table). He would say, “Presenting the famous singer, Eve June!” August requested milk, and Carly got milk for them all. One of the girls started blowing bubbles in her milk. Heather got them to stop, but August wanted to do it. Carly took them to the special milk bubble blowing area (the Zinnie house) and they all had a blast in there. We also ate almost all of the huge strawberries that they had brought from the strawberry stand.

They all ended up back inside. There was some taping up of Eve. We adults talked outside. Heather told me about the documentary Turtle Odyssey. We also tentatively planned to do this again on Monday. Before they left, Eve was baking potatoes (pieces of paper) for August. He kept saying he wanted more, as he really liked potatoes. We did some clean up, and they left at 2:35. A great play date.

After they left he asked Carly to paint with him. When she agreed he exclaimed, “That was a kidding SUCCESS!” As they walked outside he asked, “Mama, could you tell me the story of the guy that had a bullet in his abdomen?” He was referring to President Garfield.

They painted outside at the table. August did videos and mixed colors. I realized there are two new Josh Ritter songs we haven’t heard and we listened to them on repeat. Through the day we’d been listening to. Family Christmas mix I’d made of some of our favorite Christmas songs, the Sesame Street Christmas, the Bruce Cockburn album, and a couple songs from Frozen. When he got hungry he agreed to a bowl of broccoli and leftover cheese pizza from yesterday and today.

He came in and did his alone time. He drew, and sang a “I’m a silly little fish…” song. He sang about how he had a shell that couldn’t be broken, then about eating something and it going through his digestive system and getting broken down. He then got eaten by something that got through the shell through a hole drilled by a human. He then sang about going to heaven when he finished filling in the blue dot.

I went for a run, then took a shower. When I came down he was composing music. When he was done with that he had a Brother game where Bar blew up India because she didn’t like the country. I wasn’t a fan of the story and taught him the word xenophobia. Carly headed out for a walk, and I made dinner. Pasta, with cilantro tofu, parmesan, and olive oil. He told me about his machine that shoots pollution into space. He told me about other inventions. I put on the video of Billie Eilish performing for Apple. He watched that for a while, then requested a video of “Always” being performed live. I first found the video for the Erasure song “A Little Respect” on Apple Music, then we turned to YouTube where we found the video for “Always”, then Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence.” We paused at one point to do a Brother game with him not knowing the notes to “Go” when they were performing it for a concert. It was a bad dream.

Carly got back at 6:45 as we were rewatching a 1994 performance of “Always” by Erasure on Top of the Pops. We were talking about how the smoke machine worked. He initially said he did that by having a room full of smoke and turning the gravity on and off. He took her to the couch and told her about his scream machine. “I make songs for complex songs and how do I do it? I’ll tell you…” He talked about how he gets tons of sounds to use. I told him about sound engineers and foley artists. Another word of the day.

He then had a Brother game where he meets a girl recording sounds in the park. She was initially recording everything, like the sound of Brother screaming, to use in movies. Brother was initially fascinated but didn’t like her making a mouse scream by poking it with a pin. They then collected avalanche songs on Mt. Everest. She was going to use the sounds for a meditation soundscape (another word of the day).

We had a bit of a pillow fight over in the play area. I said something, and he said “That just got me into math.” He ran to get his scientific calculator and we did story problems. Carly took over for a while when I couldn’t come up with problems. He was then really into the graphing calculator and wanted to figure out how to do things with it that I had no ideas about. We eventually got upstairs and I gave him a bath. Carly got him ready for bed. He was still doing things on the graphing calculator. I talked about learning more about math and graphing by using a Khan Academy or Brilliant course. In bed, we started a principles of mathematics course together in Brilliant. I was really explaining carrying in addition/multiplication problems, and drawing in Paper to demonstrate. He started off really confused, but seemed to be getting it well by the end. We worked through the first two kinds of problems.

We then listened to a Circle Round story with lights off. It was “The Happiest Person in the World”. At the end of the episodes they always have some big question and small activity for kids to think about. This one was basically “What makes you happy?” I asked August, and without hesitation he said, “Mama and Dada.” We put on the Circle Round soundtrack and he was asleep at 10:45.

Investigating and shaking his presents:

Working on the fort with Eve:

Potions time:

Paper airplanes 1:

Paper airplanes 2:

A flight:

Spinning and climbing:

Singing narration of his drawing:

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:

He called out once during the night. I went in and he lay back down. I then remembered to just go back to bed and that worked just fine. He was up at 7:50 and just came down the stairs without saying anything. I went and turned off the heater, then we read the Roald Dahl poem “The Toad and the Snail”. He had wanted Minecraft so I gave him his iPad. He just sat there a minute though and asked, “Really, in France they eat toad meat?…What about snails?” We played Minecraft. He decided he really wants a saddle, which you can only find. So we made that our long term goal, although he wants it right now. He had oatmeal for breakfast, and updated his Christmas countdown. We had skipped 9 and 8, so he now did 7.

We got ready and went to Shani’s. He jumped right in the arms and legs swing. We decided the next session would be next Tuesday, the 24th, at 9. He swung around, then for the task he mainly got out of the swing and sat and did it. It involved putting pegs in a pattern, then weaving. He was very focused on it, particularly weaving through the string, which he said was like sewing.

The next activity was drawing. He did a drawing and added what Shani called “texture”. She was excited that he is automatically using the correct grip. She was copying things that he did, and discussed alternating “free” drawing with “specific” drawing. He talked about how he liked the free drawing more, but at least said he was open to alternating. He was really focused on his drawing, so they skipped making a pattern with stickers and would save that for next time.

He was tapping the pencil like drums. She asked if he was playing with Minke and said she thinks he needs some sort of music activity or lessons.

He chose to go back on the swing for the last ten minutes. She was pushing him to knock over the tube further away. Kind of ended on a down note, as he gave up on where she had it. But he didn’t seem too bothered. He sang on the way back to the car again, and we headed home. There, he did alone time and I got ingredients out. We played Minecraft, then made cookies. Along the way he got his second half hour of Minecraft and made a really cool sculpture, making use of symmetry and matching colors and textures.

When the first batch of cookies was ready we each had half. We made them really big, for sharing purposes. I wrote names on all of the bags, and started filling them. We were delivering to Jeff, Or, Alex, the Kerns, the Potwins, Ms. Andrea (August’s choice), and Natalie and family. And all four of the librarians. I totally forgot to make a bag for Jonathan.

He had a late lunch of carrots and apple and a little peanut butter and honey sandwich. He sang along to “Soothe My Soul” by Depeche Mode. We had another half cookie (and milk) then did a Brother and Millie games. She was fooling him. He would take animals home and they would be her. The first was prairie dogs, but there were others.

I also called iDigital and it turned out my phone was ready to be picked up. Judging by the paperwork I got later it looked like it may have been sitting there 5 days or so, ready to go, but they didn’t contact me. Can’t complain though, as they fixed it, didn’t find anything wrong, and didn’t charge me a shekel for it.

Anyway, we headed to school just before 2. We first went to Carly’s classroom to deliver to her (August had written “Mama” on a bag) but she wasn’t there, so he set it on her desk. We then found her coming out of the office. Carly then delivered the bags to Alex and Or (the MS secretary). August got to shy to deliver them with her. We then went around delivering the rest. Jeff had left early to catch his flight to Paris, so we couldn’t do that one, but we did the rest. We first went to the library and delivered all of those. He did some art on the computer while I checked out a book called Golem, a King Arthur and His Knights (there were so many different versions to choose from), and Genies, Meanies, and Magic Rings: Three Tales from the Arabian Knights. August was excited by my choices. We had left Ilana’s on her desk, and she came and thanked us, and talked about heading to New York for the break.

From there we headed to deliver the others: the elementary school and preschool were having their parties with families. We talked to Sharna, but Natalie wasn’t there. Over at the preschool August took cookies in to Andrea. She gave August a hug, and August did his turning his back to her for the hug thing, which I haven’t seen him do much recently; don’t know if it is just I haven’t seen him get hugged as much recently, or if that was just a remembered behavior and how it was comfortable for him to receive hugs back in preschool. We also saw Rena. August said, “It’s Ms. Rena!” I talked to her about how August has gotten into meditation/mindfulness and she was very excited. I had August ask her his question we’ve been wanting to ask her: What was the smell that she had for them? It turned out to be lavender oil and they talked about that and how calming it is. We’ll have to get some at the health food store.

We saw Eve but not her mom, and bounced back and forth to Heather’s room a couple times. We left them on her desk, then ran into Heather a minute later. Last on our list was Natalie and family. She still wasn’t at the party, but I saw Corinne, so we went and I was explaining to her that there was a cookie for everyone in her family, when Natalie showed up. We gave her the cookies. They are headed to Chicago for the break.

We got going right before 3 and headed down to the mall where my phone was. We listened to Story Pirates. We parked and headed right up to the store. That went pretty quickly. We then sat at the tall table and he played with the voice transcription feature on his phone (transcribe was a word of the day), then played a little Polytopia as I made sure the phone worked and started setting it up. I was hoping their internet was faster than ours and I could do a restore from backup there, but it was being too slow so we got going home. We listened to more Story Pirates, and he loved the line “Sheep get out of here, we’re trying to finish a story.”

Google Maps took us on a short cut through Udim, but traffic wasn’t too bad over all and we were home at 5:30. I gave him 15 minutes to show Carly his sculpture in Minecraft. She was finishing up a book and it involved the Philippines. August asked, “What role do they play in the world?” I then read The Golem and part of King Arthur. We then did music and worked on the Mr. Minke Song. Then songs of his own.

For his dinner I whipped up a grilled cheese and avocado sandwich and broccoli. He really liked the sandwich and had enough broccoli that we had another half a cookie and milk. We went upstairs and did a Brother and Sister game where they end up in a void. It turns into torture as Baby Sister keeps watching Barney on a big screen. He washed himself in the bath. Made lots of suds and used a ton of soap. He told Carly the spooncil and Dumb Dot story from The 117-Story Treehouse. He was then singing about Minke: “Minke…and guess what, he was using teacher tricks to get the funky students to play…to make them practice in the rehearsal for the band…”

Carly had checked out a Magic School Bus chapter book and August told her, “I just don’t feel like Magic School Bus is for reading; it’s for watching.” We got him ready and said good night to Carly. We listened to the Circle Round story “The Tug of War” and then did two meditations in Ninja Focus. He was asleep at 10.

Some time earlier he had talked about another machine he made to study synesthesia. He used CRISPR (which he’s now learned about in a few videos) to remove the gene and study it. Also earlier we’d been talking about some king, and he talked about the king using “kinging tricks.”

Singing “Soothe My Soul”:

Delivering cookies to mama, sort of:

A cookie delivery:

Piccolo songs 1:

Piccolo songs 2:

His free jazz:

He was up just before 7. He seemed pretty awake and I took him downstairs. He spent 5 or 10 minutes on the couch before starting to talk. The first thing he talked about was he and Carly’s mineshafts in their world. We then read several poems in Vile Verses before turning to Minecraft. We played in our survival world. We ate breakfast and watched a couple videos. We found Life Noggin, and watched “What Eating Rotten Food Really Does to Your Body,” “What if a Bug Gets Stuck in Your Ear?” and “What Is It Like to Be Deaf?”

He had a Brother game where brother had “epieitis…the fear of epic stuff.” Sister was fighting the dragon in Minecraft and he was afraid of it. August then worked on his paper factory (as it now is called) using the recycled materials. The company is called Frog so he taped the wooden frog on.

We got driving to the train station, listening to “Always” on repeat. We parked in our usual spot by the park. August played by a tree with a stick, flipping it across the ditch area. He used it like a cane and said, “I’m a Grampy.” We were walking at 9:40. He asked how aerodynamics help a plane, and invented “Splashydynamics” for submarines. He spotted pointy palm leaves and said he used those to help make the pointy tips of airplane wings, and he talked about making rockets.

We just missed a train, so had a half hour on the platform to wait. We played Polytopia, of course. He was right about having to transfer, and was happy about being right. We played more Polytopia along the way. He didn’t finish the first game, and talked about how it gets boring once you know you’re going to win. A good step on the way to accepting competition, I think.

We got off the train and started walking. We looked for places along the way, but he wanted a cafe/coffee shop over pizza. We kept going. August walked much of the way, only having me carry him a couple times, mainly up the hills. We walked by the big park in town, which we hadn’t seen before. He played a minute but we kept going. At some point along the way he saw ants that he thought had killed a worm or something and said, “I see how that emergence video is right…” and talked about how one ant couldn’t have done it.

Finally, he wanted to look at Google Maps as we walked, following the directions to a place called Tails. We were there at 1:10. The woman was Russian and spoke Hebrew but now English. And they didn’t have a menu that was current, for some reason, so was trying to tell me the menu in Hebrew. I caught ‘salmon’. She snagged a woman who was on her way out and she translated. I quickly ordered a cappuccino for me and a hot chocolate for him, and I said she’d mentioned salmon. It was salmon blintzes, so we ordered that. The hot chocolate came with a bowl of marshmallows for him to add, and we loved the blintzes.

Tails is just a block from the science center, so we’d basically walked a mile to get there. We then headed to the science center. We spent a few minutes in the play area and he asked me what the periscope was called again, so a word of the day. We went up and spent our time until 3 just in the building. We never made it to the outside stuff, or to see if there is a special exhibit (I don’t think there is). They have a projector going in a room and it was showing the NASA channel. We watched the end of a show about the MAVEN Mars probe, then just some of the view from the ISS. We talked about how the projector was chopping off pixels and just zooming in on the center of the picture, as compared to the TV on the wall which showed the full thing. This seemed to click with him, as later, when we left the museum he understood my explanation of optical versus digital zoom. But that later.

First, we went up and spent some time in the dentist room. We talked about he parts of the tooth, and enamel, dentine, and pulp were words of the day. We then went to the microscope and telescope room. He talked about how we should get a microscope. Just a few days… From there we went in the planets room. Talked more about the phases of the moon and the seasons and compared our weights on different planets.

We spent some time in the magic room. He briefly sat on the chair of nails, I worked on my ability to pull the tablecloth out from under the plate, and he played with the blower that levitates the ball. He started a Brother and the bullies game over the box that you can’t lift because of a magnet, then continued that in the next room when he did the bubbles demonstration: Brother and the Bullies all got soap suds in their eyes, which made them cry.

We left right at 3, after using the bathroom. He took some photos outside and we discussed the digital versus optical zoom thing, and why I tell him he shouldn’t go past 2x zoom on my phone. We then were able to demonstrate how digital zoom cuts off pixels and makes the squares bigger: I took a photo on full digital zoom, then we took the same photo without zoom, and manually zoomed in while editing the photo and it looked the same, and he could tell how both were blurry. It was a cool ‘getting it’ moment for him.

On the way back down we stopped at the big park and played and played. He did some climbing, and we watched a cat siting right by the pond. Didn’t look comfortable, but it wasn’t leaving. We looked at the view of the harbor and the big container ship. He had a Brother game where he was stung by ants. His parents wanted to take him to the hospital, but he argued he just needed candy. His parents then argued whether that was okay. He went on the merry-go-round and two bigger boys started spinning it really fast. August was hanging his head over the edge and I was concerned it was too fast, but it turned out he really liked it.

I had to convince him to get going, as it was getting dark. We played more Polytopia on the way back (I forgot about the words cards and books I had brought) and luckily I figured out we were on an express and we switched in Hadera West as opposed to continuing on further, or we would have ended up in Tel Aviv.

We got of the train and walked to the car. On the way he talked about wanting one of the apps he’s seen advertised that analyzes your palm and tells your future. We talked about astrology and its different forms, and why people might believe fortune tellers and how they might actually be useful, even if they can’t tell the future. We decided on a sort of scientific experiment where we could see if we could get multiple palm reading apps (free ones) and see if they tell us the same or different things.

He fell asleep in the car, listening to “Always”. I carried him in. A very smooth day until he woke enough to ask for Minecraft. I had already talked about how he had had extra time playing Polytopia, but he could do one earning session at home. Now he got upset and melted at the suggestion he needed to earn time. He had had a long day, and also hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. I’d mentioned snacks a couple times, but he never wanted them, although he did point to a vending machine at the Haifa station. Unfortunately, it was as our train was pulling in, so we didn’t have time.

He did calm down and had a few good moments through the evening. Carly had given a slippery slope argument about just giving him extra time leading to shorter and shorter earning times. He picked it apart, saying “You’d never let that happen! (get to 1 minute or so). And stated, “I used my kidding antibodies to make your argument useless.” He also used his facepalming a couple times to good effect.

He was also crawling around, wrapped in his blanket as I got him some food. He said, “I’ll get back in my slug suit. It looks like a slug suit. You’re parents. You should know that. I’m a kid. I use kidding tricks.”

He sat and listened to “The Lion’s Whisker” on Circle Round and ate his yogurt and a little food. He apologized for earlier, but got upset about something again. Carly read him the Parasites book, then about bacteria. He wanted her to watched the Kurzgesatz Malaria video so they watched that. Then he was upset yet again. She went up for a shower and we read Dahl poems. He started arguing about eating veggies before having cereal and milk, but eventually settled and ate broccoli and tofu. He had a Brother game where the bullies are trampling flowers in the park and he calls Bar to stop them.

I got him upstairs and his bath went really well and he had some of the mint-flavored (they think they’ve been infused with mint from my toothpaste in the same cupboard). I brushed his teeth, and he said good night to Carly. We listened to “It Could Always Get Worse” with Jason Alexander on Circle Round and then he chose to “Dance Party” track on Ninja Focus and he fell asleep by 10:15.

The paper factory:

Stick flipping and being a grampy:

Climbing up the bonds:

Music in the planets room:

Fast on the merry go round:

He slept through the night, but got up at 7. I took him in his room and he lay down with his head towards the foot of his bed, despite me pointing out his pillow was at the other end. I covered him with the brown blanket as he was laying on the other one, and then went back up at 7:45 to wake him up. I carried him downstairs where he back asleep under the grey blanket.

Our plans for today included:

Research kaleidoscopes

Send video and photos to Mr. Minke

Ingredients for Cookies

Make cookies

Deliver cookies

Library

Play after school

We worked on several of those, but didn’t get cookies made or delivered, and didn’t quite finish things for Minke.

He finally got up about 8:15. We took a few minutes, then played Minecraft. As we started to play he said he had just made up a poem called “The boy who loved boys”. It went:

Once there was a boy

Who loved a boy

Who loved a boy

who loved a boy

Who loved a boy

Who, surprisingly

Loved a boy

Who loved a boy

who loved a boy

…that smelled like the ugly goose

He sang tunes as we played on our survival world. When we were done I made cereal and strawberries. As he waited and ate he watched educational videos: Kurzgesagt on the moons of Mars and on organic food, and CGP Grey’s “Fable of the Dragon Tryant”. Which is an allegory about how humans should slay death/disease/etc. but we didn’t really discuss that at the end.

Instead, we moved into Brother stories, with Brother working in Bar’s lab. Then, he wanted to do some of our old stories, explaining: “It’s like a mixtape of stories we’ve already done.” I do not know when/where he learned mixtape. He wanted a new version of meeting Millie. This time, instead of meeting her in the park he’s playing Minecraft and Millie is a lizard 🦎 in his house.

He then wanted his iPad time before he did alone time. We entered into long negotiations which involved him getting a calculator and doing lots of math, trying to divide things in half and thirds, etc. Eventually, he offered to do 20 minutes of alone time, as long as he could divide it into 5 minute chunks with breaks. So he did 5 minutes, then we spent some time hanging up art in his gallery together. 5 more minutes, then we did KN words using the Preschool Prep video for it and our cards. He was hungry so we took extra time to eat crackers and pate. He was looking at the Vile Verses book and we read from there, starting with Mr. Unworthy, then worked backwards from the end. He then did 5 more minutes of alone time.

That brought him to 15, and I let him off of the last 5, give how late it was already getting. We played 30 minutes of Minecraft, and he then watched Kurzgesagt videos on the moons of Neptune and on designer babies while I cut up an avocado and strawberries for lunch. He had a Brother and Bar game involving some elevator space ship and orbiting really fast. He was comparing it to the spiral ladder at the playground.

We left at 12:55. On the drive up to town we listened to “Rocket Man”. He said he remembered that song, and asked if it was a remix. When I said it wasn’t he said, “Oh. I didn’t remember the grand piano.” We parked behind the small grocery store next to VIPizza and went in. He of course saw the donuts right by the front door, and I told him he could choose one when we left.

We got to shopping. He said he remembered getting us back into pomegranates after seeing the pomegranates on a juice carton. We finished shopping and he chose a beautiful donut. I asked if he was eating it right away or save it for the park or something and he told me something about how he was a kid and of course he was going to eat it.

Back at the house he played in the yard and we looked at plants. We got rid of the little weed branch that he had brought from across the school a couple months back and we had planted but it didn’t make it. So with a small pot full of dirt he suggested we go find another random plant to plant. We went across the street and dug up an interesting-looking plant that was sprouting. We planted it, and he watered it. As we went inside he said, “My strategy is cooler than mama’s for getting plants.” Because his is more of a surprise and doesn’t cost money.

We then spent a long time on music. It started with him wanting to review his songs he recorded for Mr. Minke to choose which to send to him. But then he had the idea of me writing notes for him to play on the piano. We were out of the paper that Carly had printed, so I was going to use the Notion app, but then he decided we should sort of switch, and instead of me writing notes for him to play, he would sing and I would transcribe them. And as we started that he decided this would be for Mr. Minke. It went really well and we worked on it for a long time. He had a piano melody with bass drum backing. He then added another instrument, an organ. I had to do a little more with that one, as he liked chords but doesn’t know how to add them. What I did was simply have the organ play the bass note of each chord. We were very close to finishing, but he decided he was done for now, and we could finish later.

There was also a snack and Brother game in there, I’m sure, and we finally left to head to school around 4. As we walked out he saw weeds on the edge of our fake grass and said, “Look, weeds is sprouting in our grass. It’s so silly.”

At the library we returned the Prelusky book and I grabbed a bunch of mythology-related graphic novels and chapter books and another Prelusky book, Something BIG Has Been Here.We spent a few minutes looking at the books and ended up with Stickman Odyssey, Have a Hot Time, Hades!, Zeus: King of the Gods, The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy Tale Detectives, and Beasts of Olympus: Hound of Hades.

We went to check those out. August had been asking how many books the library has, and I told him he should ask Ms. Amanda. So he did. She invited him behind the desk (it was interesting to see how reluctant he was to go to the other side; it was like he knew that was off-limits, but I don’t remember ever telling him he couldn’t go back there) and showed him on the computer screen: Carly has 147 books checked out right now (most for her classroom library, but we probably have about 20), there are over 33,000 titles, and over 41,000 books in total. He was impressed.

Carly showed up as that was going on, and Amanda also gave him a couple bookmarks that smell like candy canes. Carly had checked out a bunch of books about the immune system and August got very excited about those as we walked towards the exit. She got Parasites, The Immune System, Why Do My Eyes Itch?, Your Body Battles a Stomachache, and Your Body Battles a Cold. August exclaimed, “This is as good as a squirt gun on my birthday!” Apparently he wants a squirt gun for his birthday.

Carly headed home, walking, and dropped some stuff in the car. August had wanted to go down to the playgrounds to read down there and see if there were any kids. There wasn’t though, and he decided to just head home. As he talked about Carly getting immune system books he said, “She like readed my mind!” She had also checked out a book for her students called Shipwrecked! The True Adventures of a Japanese Boy. We looked at it in the car and he was really interested in it, and didn’t believe it was about a real person being shipwrecked.

While we were down on the playgrounds he also found a soccer ball and kicked it around a bit (and set it on a bush) and requested a soccer ball for his birthday to kick around. That’s a change.

We drove home, and Carly walked up at the same time as we got out of the car. Inside they read Your Body Battles a Cold and part of another book. He did his alone time, and paused his timer to do a few things, like try out the new hair cutting scissors, and we worked on his composition for several minutes, adding a new section at the end. He finished his alone time and played Minecraft with Carly. He said, “I’ll just modify it…” He had learned modify but then also asked what it meant, so a word of the day.

He ate some dinner, then started making a whole set up in the kitchen where he was falling on pillows. It turned into an acting thing, where he was tripping over something to fall. He added pillows to the size, and decorated the floor with blankets. He had me take videos of him falling to see which looked best.

He then had the idea to make something out of recycling. We all cleaned up the falling arena first. He was also misinterpreting Carly’s tone a couple of times, thinking she was being critical when she was joking about something. He then got started on his plastic creation. He asked us to save more recycling for him and ask him before we recycle it. He told us it was a device that separates liquids. Where the liquid came from is a mystery.

They then read Your Body Fights a Stomachache. He tried the cracker getting sweet trick, but it didn’t work with our crackers. Feces was another word of the day. I then read him much of the Stickman Odyssey book, where prophecy and odyssey were new words.

We went upstairs at 9. He spent a long time in the shower making suds and washed himself. Said good night to Carly, had his Cheerios, brushed his teeth, and was in bed at 9:35. We did Brother games, another with Tigey liking french fries, and one with Brother having athletes foot. We listened to a Circle Round story, “Maushop and Grandfather Sun”, I think, and then a Ninja Focus track and he was asleep around 10:15.

Singing and Minecraft:

Dancing in the grocery store:

Listening to his work in progress:

Jumping on the couch chant:

His tripping station:

Improving his tripping: