Author: Ryan/Dada

He came down at 7:35. He told me he hadn’t turned off the fan, so I went up and did that. Then, when I was refilling his water bottle, I saw one of the jumping spiders by the sink and caught it in his bug catcher. We looked at it for a few minutes. He identified what looked like fangs, but I then figured out it was the ‘pedipalps’, so we learned about those. He then watched Smurfs.

For machines time I started to look through the Way Things Work book. We didn’t read any, but it got him talking about machines. He ended up talking about a time machine, and how he could time travel to his birthday and get cake. I pointed out that traveling to the past and taking cake would just mean that he got less cake. He then decided to travel to the future: “I can steal cakes from future mes.”

We watched a couple of Joseph’s Machines videos and made a list of some of the things he uses for his machines. I wrote them down as August watched. We then started to list things we had that we could use. We then started to think about what we could do. I pointed out the fan and he said, “Wait a second. I know what you’re talking about…” We then experimented with the fan, tying a string to it, and his bill of yarn at the end. We realized that the ball of yarn flew straight out, but that it was enough to slow down the rotational speed of the fan. August then got a plastic bag and we tried that at the end of the string. The fan went full speed, but the bag had too much air resistance and did a sort of spirally thing instead.

We next built a platform out of Legos and tied a string to it. August created a game where I was ‘Joseph’ and I was pushing a rock home and once I got it there the rock was suddenly pulled away. He thought it was hilarious and we did it over and over, calling “Pull, Joseph!” We got the drill out and tried using it to wind up the string. We were trying to figure out a good way to wind it up without having the string slip off the end or get wound around the drive rod.

We then went upstairs and made the big bed and he helped me pull the floor bed into the Zinnie room, so that Shmuel and the technician could walk on the floor. We also moved the big bed and put a chair below the AC.

Downstairs he wanted to take apart his toy from the candy stand to see how the pumps work. We managed to pry it open and see the little pumps on each time and talked about how it worked. He wanted to get the little rings out, and to do so needed to smash apart the main container. So he put on his safety glasses and put it on a brick and smashed it. He collected the rings in one of his little bottles.

Shmuel showed up and we took him upstairs and he looked at the AC. August watched him from the bed. We went downstairs and I got water out and made coffee and put out banana bread. Shmuel was great with August. He saw the emotions poster on the wall and talked to August about it, and asked August which one he thought Shmuel was. August ended up joking that he was all of them (angry, sad, happy, and something else). Shmuel said he needed a teacher like me. He also complimented August on his creations, and we talked about how August likes machines and taking things apart. Shmuel said August was lucky because you don’t get to do that kind of stuff in school. We talked about how we were homeschooling and August was playing with friends, etc. and Shmuel thought it was a good arrangement.

The technician was late. August and I started playing Hey, that’s My Fish! and Shmuel went down and watered Mikaela’s plants. He later called and said that the technician had cancelled and would try to come early next week.

We then did some GarageBand and the astronomy app. I made pizza and a smoothie. August just had smoothie. He wanted to take apart more of the iPad and he “mined” the glass, chipping off the broken pieces to get to a couple more screws and getting the smaller circuit boards.

When he went to the bathroom he asked me about building things, and he said his store had gardening machines on sale. He told me about them at length, including a powered shovel with a hinge, and a garden vacuum cleaner.

We made buildings with the magnet blocks. He delivered money as the tooth fairy, and judged the teeth as he paid out: “Nothing too exciting, one shekel…he has really good teeth, two shekels…” We were then building a big truck out of them, and seeing how high we could build it before it fell apart.

We got going, and he told me how “I set up a table and sell strawberries and stuff and that money goes to health care.” He’s making some connections there, as we were talking about insurance today and how it paid for doctor visits, etc. (we have to pay money to Shani, but I told him we’d get reimbursed) and the other day at the little mall we gave some money to a woman at a table collecting money for children with cancer. I told him it was for health care for kids that were really sick.

We drove to school, and he informed me that it was currently snowing really hard in Korea: “Snow in Korea…at this rate…44 miles of snow…” He send one of his spaceships to save the people. To see it he said, “sending out my extendo camera.”

We walked into school and dropped off money for Shani at the elementary school office. We then went to give Carly her swimsuit. She was in the middle school office and spotted us through the window. August and I headed to the pool, and were about to get in the pool when Carly got there. She thought it was going to be chilly, but it turned out the heater was back on and it was really warm. We got in and played for quite awhile. August was swimming around a lot, and his big step was doing a lot of big splashes with his hands to make bubbles that would tickle him—he also had me doing that to him a lot (I’ve told him how my uncle Dan could really do it well). There were some kids there that August knew, like Omri, but he wanted to stay at the other side with just us as they were too splashy.

When we got out we stopped by the staff lounge to see what PTA had done for staff appreciation. They had painted, put in new chairs, put in a coffee machine, and done a few other things. It was well done. Carly picked some stuff up in the office, then we headed home.

At home he watered plants and cleaned toilets to earn coins on his watch, then read The Old Truck to her. He almost has it down perfectly. He was then running round to get his 60 minutes. He played his new train game, then he and I played some Toca Store. Carly made him oatmeal, after he’d already eaten some carrots I cut up. He went back outside for his last few minutes of exercise. He was touching more invisible animals. Once he had his 60 he came in and we played the move on the game.

We read most of Hilda and the Stone Forest, then paused. We were listening to the Cure’s Disintegration and he danced to “Fascination Street”. He had more carrots, then had his oatmeal and milk. He told me “I made a way to make energy…12 iron rods, hot water, a thousand degrees EXACTLY, Sand, chemicals…”

We went upstairs to look for more U.S. coins and ended up wrestling on the bed. He found our old passport cards and played with them. He got the scale out of the bathroom and weighed himself (16.5kg) then tried to weight other things to see what would register. He then played in the sink with the little pumps from the toy he’d broken in “seriously cardboard-y water.” When I started washing him he asked, “Could you stop please? I’m doing some serious business here.”

Carly came in and got him to sleep around 9:30. We then watched the second episode of Game of Thrones.

Fan experiment 1:

Fan experiment 2:

Fan experiment 3:

Fan experiment 4:

Joseph game:

Figuring out the water pumps:

Some GarageBand:

The electric shovel and other equipment:

Dancing to the Cure:

He was up at 7:12. He turned off the fan and at first seemed pretty awake, but then took several minutes on the couch. We played a few rounds of Hey, that’s My Fish! Then I made him oatmeal and he watched Smurfs, then StoryBots. We went upstairs and started the seal game from the beginning. He talked about another medicine he’s made, which is “4 percent of it is ontobix…14 percent is…” And ‘century’ was a word of the day after he said that is how long the expiration date is and he wasn’t sure how long it was. We played more of the seal game, then he made the beds.

We went downstairs and he read most of The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! We stopped to go listen to the sirens for Holocaust Remembrance Day. He finished reading the book. Shmuel started calling, trying to figure out the air conditioner. August handled the phone calls okay, but got upset about me going upstairs. Finally, Shmuel said he’d come at 11 tomorrow with a technician.

Downstairs, we did the store game, but he now had me buying stuff from him for my “thingamajigger.” After that he did a few levels of the coding app. He worked on that as I made lunch.

We then got going and drove to Ra’anana Park. We were there early enough to see the zoo, but of course it was closed for the holiday (which seemed symbolic, as there were multiple zookeepers walking around, and opening the zoo basically just involves opening a gate so you can walk down the single walkway).

August asked to go to the bathroom first. We did that, then as we were walking to the playground area it started to rain a few drops. August said it was lucky that it was a little and he could handle it. We went under a big tree, and August spotted insects swarming the ground. He thought they were ants at first, then spiders. They were tiny. The rain stopped while we looked and the ground didn’t even look wet.

We continued on to the playground. We had the whole place to ourselves. I pushed him around in the acorn spaceship, he climbed on the fake rocks, and then went in the hollow log and rested in there. He had me push him like a baby in a baby swing, before eating our peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

He drank a bunch of water from my water bottle and had fun spilling the last drops on my legs. We then headed out, stopping first at the exercise equipment where he exercised for a few minutes, then at the water bottle to refill. We then went to the book thing and I found a copy of The Hobbit.

We got going and drove over to Gaby’s office for our first meeting with him. We parked by one of those big bushes with pink and yellow flowers that smell really good, and August picked some and I put it on a strap of the backpack. I could still smell it later.

August was happy to meet Gaby. The session was basically just playing with games so he could get to know us. August chose one game that involved me trying to guess which colors August had chosen. It was a sequence of four colors, and August would tell me which ones I got correct each time. We did that twice, and August didn’t want to switch roles. August looked around the office at things for a couple minutes, and opened the door to see what a noise was. He then chose Connect 4 after I had suggested it and we played it for the rest of the time. August wanted me to play against myself when he found it was a winner game. We played with Connect 4 for the rest of the time. August would control one color, but then remind me that he wasn’t actually playing the game. And at one point I was a computer player, with my eyes closed, randomly dropping checkers in. Before we left, Gaby gave him one of the little biscuit cookies.

We drove home, and stopped at the strawberry stand. August stayed in the car while I went and bought two packs. We sat and ate a few in the car. He said he called the really good ones “supergoods.” As we got driving, he told me he wasn’t buckled. I went slowly up the entry road to town while he tried to do it. He’d buckled it himself earlier, but couldn’t do it now, so I pulled over once I could.

We were home at 3:30. He was chanting “I’m the king of the castle”, which came from the kids on the playground the other day. I joked about deposing him, so ‘depose’ became a word of the day. We then worked together to make banana bred, then went outside to do compost, and to have him running round to touch invisible animals to get his exercise minutes.

We were playing outside when Carly got home. I was sitting on the grass when he played with the hose. He then came and thought it was funny to threaten us with it. I wasn’t happy when he sprayed me after we told him not to. I went inside and Carly talked to him.

They did the store game. They were working on subtraction. He was getting it pretty well, but not the part about breaking up a shekel into 100 agorot.

I was up working, but came down when the banana bread was ready. He was building with the magnet blocks. He randomly asked what being afraid of heights is called. So ‘acrophobia’ was a word of the day.

He ran around and was dancing to PJ Harvey’s “Sheela Na Gig” to get his last minutes. We then talked about his allowance stuff and played today’s move in the game. He talked about wanting to earn a drone.

He played with the audio recorder on his iPad, singing really loudly. Mandy came over, and she and Carly walked up to a talk by a holocaust survivor. August and I went outside for several minutes. He picked a little broccoli for a snack. Back inside we played Wizard School, sending messages to each other and Vivian.

We went upstairs and he was testing himself in the dark some more. He pushes open the shower, and now told me it is because the shower is scary and there could be a monster in there. We also went in the Zinnie room with the windows closed.

He played in the sink with the wet cardboard: “I’m trying to make it decompose as fast as I can.” I washed him. He was reciting big numbers, and now has quadrillion, trillions etc. down. He asked if he could ever take my phone apart, and I said, “if it’s toast.” Another new phrase for him. He was asleep by 9:55.

Carly was home and told me about the talk. It was the first time (second, after doing it earlier in the day for a town event) this guy had spoken about his experience in the holocaust. He was an orphan that was passed from person to person and country to country before he was taken to Israel.

Listening to the sirens:

Tiny insects 1:

Tiny insects 2:

In the acorn ship:

Exercise:

Making his audio recording:

He was up at 7:20. I got him vitamins and his allergy medicine, then he rested on the couch for a few minutes. I then read Creepy Pair of Underwear. He start d to look at his iPad, but then went to the bathroom. After that he ended up looking at some of this circuitry parts. He wanted to do the shopping game and I offered to sell him a blanket. He said, “I was thinking something on the electronics side.” I was then using fractions with him, asking for “3 and six-tenths shekels” and he had no problem figuring it out.

He played just a couple minutes of Dragonbox Big Numbers as I made him oatmeal, then he ate that, and sat at the table, first taking off one of the allen wrenches that we had glued on a circuit board, then analyzing the circuit board. He then shrunk us down, so we were 1000 times bigger than a germ, but still tiny on the circuit board, and we spent several minutes voyaging around the circuit board and through its parts. He then went over to the couch, and continued with the idea, telling me I could go inside his positronic brain, then his stomach, which could digest anything. When I pointed out that included me, he gave me a special suit. I then asked to see how his muscles and motors worked, and he described the motors pulling strings to make his arms move.

He then watched a few Pink Panther episodes. We started to head to table time, but he asked me to get his “musical sculpture” – the one made from pieces of wood with a straw on top of it. I brought it down and he plugged in the hot glue gun and we added several of the electronics parts and wires to it, and glued the straw on. A good alternative to table time. We eventually did head over, and I added to our odd/even charts. He wanted me to go to 100. I think we stopped at 50. He wouldn’t write any today, but he watched and helped me along the way. On the calculator he started at 95 and subtracted 5 over and over, getting to negative 1000.

We played the buying game and were working more on estimating. We went to the iPad and talked about his possible chores and rewards. He was excited by the idea. He then wanted to earn his first coins. He asked if he could tell me a story for one, so I let him do that for the ‘Other’ category. He told a story about a bug getting caught, then eventually released. He read a Bob Book to me for a second one, then we went upstairs and he made the beds for a third.

Downstairs we looked at the book about kites, then tried improving our plastic bag kite. we used a ring from a keychain to make it so we could attach the string to both handles. We took it outside and it worked a lot better. It wasn’t really getting lift, however, but was blowing well in the wind. We tried to address the lift issue by cutting 4 holes in it in + shapes, like August suggested. We tried it again. May have been on the right path, but they weren’t big enough.

He lost interest at that point though. We did lunch, him eating a bowl of the noodles and broccoli and sauce. He told me about his gum-diwsolving chemical: “Purealloy is actually edible, but it catches on fire really easily…if you drop it on wood. Cuz it makes a chemical reaction.” “Why doesn’t everything have a melting point? Wood doesn’t. It burns!” We didn’t answer that one, as he went on to tell me I was still in his positronic brain. This was all a simulation. He told me I was asleep, inisfe his simulation, and this was all a dream. It got pretty complicated and giggly.

We ended up upstairs, where we added up his Korean money. Back downstairs he danced to “Somethings are better than others.” We got ready, and headed out for a walk just up to our park to exercise and play. It had been his idea. He tracked his minutes on his watch as we went. It was mid-80s. We spent about 15 minutes in the exercise area, then he’d had enough and we were home about 1.

He asked what ‘million’ meant, as he knew that ‘bi’, ‘tri’, ‘quad’, and ‘quit’ mean things. I told him million literally means ‘thousand thousands.’ He was now practicing reading out large numbers on his calculator.

I tried to get him to do alone time, but he had a meltdown about the idea. He calmed down upstairs and was able to tell me that 19 minutes was too long. He agreed to 15, and we went down and did alone time. He was playing with the electronics set from his birthday. Right near the end he got shocked. I saw it happen and asked what happened and he said he got shocked. I thought he was okay, but a couple seconds later he jumped up and ran to me. He started crying, and eventually it turned into a reaction much like when he had been burned: a lot of screaming and hitting himself where he was hurt (his right hand) and rolling around on the couch and sliding off of it. Probably took ten minutes.

When he recovered we moved to nature time. I suggested we watch the first episode of Our Earth, the new series on Netflix with David Attenborough, and have some popcorn. We started watching it, and he was pretty hooked. When I went to make the popcorn he kept calling me back to see something. We watched most of the first episode and had popcorn and drank pineapple water.

When he tired of that we went up and did the Brother and Sister Seal game. I was getting tired and finding it hard to continue. We went downstairs, and he had me taking another voyage through him, seeing how his motors and muscles worked.

We then played Hey, That’s My Fish! on his iPad. We were starting to figure out the strategy involved and discuss it. August said we could start our filter experiment as one bottle was empty. So we cut the end off of it, and were starting by seeing if a paper towel would filter out any of the food coloring from green water. We were listening to electronic music, as we had been most of the day. Carly got home at 4:45 as we did that. We decided that nothing was filtered out, matching August’s hypothesis that the paper towel didn’t have small enough holes.

We then went outside and mixed up some dirty water. We moved our experiment outside, and concluded that a paper towel did, at least, filter out the visible chunks of dirt. He still questioned why he couldn’t drink the water, and didn’t entirely accept my explanation that bacteria etc. could still be in it.

I went upstairs to work. They did a bunch of the store game. They had also read some of _The Big Bad Fox _. I came back down as they were reading. I had lasagna. He had more pasta and broccoli for dinner, then I read some of the book to him. We ate the last of the digestives from Athens, then read part of Dogman. He was still hungry, so ate a lot of carrot strips, then had some Cheerios.

I took him up to the bathroom. He talked about transforming and teleporting me and sending me back in time. I couldn’t keep up with what was happening. He played with the soap, then sang a song about drain flies (“drain fly here, drain fly there, and there and there…”) that morphed into a song about shirts, then into a song about birds. He got the box to the magnetic blocks. It lists how many of each piece is in the box, and also that there are 110 pieces. So he said they should add up to 100 and wanted us to check. So he did most of the math and I helped him add them all up, and there are indeed 100.

Got him ready for bed, and Carly came in and I left them at 9:20. I still heard him at 9:40, but then it got quiet.

Trip to the circuit board 1:

Trip to the circuit board 2:

How his robot arms work:

The bag kite:

In a simulation inside his head:

Dancing to the music:

Exercising:

Traveling through his robot body:

Filter experiment:

Running to get his exercise:

Bird song:

He came down at 7:45. He rested on the couch for a few minutes, then watched Berenstain Bears. He re-watched the episode of Sister trying out for a soccer team. It’s a favorite of his, and he just watched it yesterday. There’s a moment where she almost gets hurt where he flips down the iPad and covers his ears. He did it yesterday as well.

For a field trip he rejected my outside options (Utopia Park, Hai Kef Zoo, Israeli Primate Sanctuary), and chose the natural history museum instead, as it was inside. He did the buying game, and was getting counting by twos. When he switched to counting by ones he called it “Changing gears counting.” He ate oatmeal and said, “Yum, oatmeal broth.”

He went to the bathroom. Today he made me cloth curtains that are screens and make it private inside. Talking about the circuit boards he invented “Kaiprochips” and “recovery chips” which fix glitches in the system. I had the song “stay” by Shakespear’s Sister playing and he started dancing to it. He was then running back and forth from the kitchen to the play area and asked, “Do you like how I run so smoothly in that curve?” “…how I kind of tilt?”

We got going, and left at 9:30. We listened to electronic music on Apple Music along the way and he added “Pull the Plug” by Joe Goddard to his playlist.

We got to the natural history museum and went in. Spent a few minutes walking up the ramp, looking at the animal displays, then went down to the insect area. We watched a video of a mosquito (and other animals) hatching several times. Another video showed close-up slo-mo videos of insects that spray chemicals at other animals. ‘Deterrent’ was a word of the day. We went back upstairs and through the first and second floors. We watched a video of decomposition of a dead mouse, and then after learning how humans use wheat, including in medicines, he told me that he had invented a medicine for animals and he listed all the ingredients and said you give it to sick animals if you see them. We also looked at the display of different kinds of dirty water (wastewater, raw sewage, industrial waste, etc.) and he talked about that through the day.

On the second floor we then found a collections room we hadn’t seen last time. ‘taxidermy’ was a word of the day from that. He had previously asked me how many animals I thought they had, dead or alive. I said 400 species. My estimate now went up to a thousand.

At 11:30 we took a break on some chairs. He took off his shoes and socks and played Dragonbox Big Numbers for awhile. Third floor was closed, so we took the elevator up to the fourth floor to the evolution of humans exhibit. We learned about the different species of hominids, their sizes, and brain sizes. He was particularly interested in a display of the bones of a woman who had been buried with a dog.

We headed out after that. We had checked in the gift shop, but no more of the guidebook things. I buckled him in the car. We had talked about this being better then school, and as we sat there he asked, “Why am I not going to school?” We talked about how he wasn’t liking things at school, and I assured him that it wasn’t his fault, that the school hadn’t been able to help enough. He talked about how he is doing better now.

We headed back north. All though the day he was reading the time off of his watch and comparing what it said to other clocks. He asked me to turn down the music and he played GarageBand on his iPad. As we got to Even Yehuda he talked about how I had taught him about landmarks in Greece, and he pointed out landmarks he knows here, like the school and the retirement home.

We drove up into town and parked in the dirt lot in town. I said we should stop and get pita. He told me, “First things first.” Pizza, that is. We walked to VIPizza. He had a slice of cheese and told me in advance he’d eat more than one. So we also got a slice of corn to share. As we were waiting he was surprised by the owner spraying down the outside area.

We ate, and were home by 2:10. He took apart the tripod, and then sang a “Be nice to dada, there’s no reason to annoy me” song after I had said something to that effect. We played the store game, and practiced pronouncing ‘thirty’ and ‘forty’. I was looking at what books to return to the library and we read part of The Big Bad Fox and thought it was funny so we kept it.

We then drove to school. Carly had loaded up the trunk with the printer parts to return to the bin. She returned them after school while I watched August.

August had a big long play date, mainly with Eve and Zoe, but also Taya. I watched Eve and Zoe while Heather was dealing with AP Art portfolios. I talked to Cassie about school stuff. When August was on the swing with Eve and Zoe and Candy he was adding up the ages of the people on the swing as they got on and off. When it was 17 and I asked him to include the person that was pushing he easily added 17+5 in his head and said 22.

We all moved to the big playground before 4. Cassie and Taya left after awhile. After awhile Eve wanted the snack her mom said she’d bring, so I reminded Heather and she came down with a box of granola bars. August was excited that she’d gotten the chocolate ones by mistake. She left for awhile longer, and they kept playing. The last thing was spinning the spinny thing and trying to swing by the hands. August wouldn’t do that, but was doing more hanging and jumping on other bars than he’s done before. Finally, they started breaking up the dry leaves and throwing them at the spinning person as confetti.

Heather showed up just before 5. August and I took a box full of items that was some kid’s time capsule project, but had been dumped in a corner, up to the elementary office and left it on the counter so it could find its way back to its owner. We then returned library books and headed home.

We were home at 5:15. As we came in the house Carly gave me a concerned look and asked if something was wrong. I was confused, because everything was fine. She said August had a grumpy face coming in the door. He had fooled her. Very funny. He ran to her, and she was giving him big hugs. He was then requesting “The second biggest hug ever…the millionth biggest…” He was hyper, and started chanting “I have energy I need to get out!” We went up and wrestled and added to the seal game. Downstairs Carly read some of the Fox book to him. He remembered the Vivofit Jr app on his iPad that goes with his watch and we did the game, catching up on the turns he has earned. He is excited about the chores and rewards part of the app and how you can track it on the watch, so Carly and I said we’d talk after he went to sleep and come up with lists.

He then helped me make more cheese sauce for the Greek pasta and broccoli. “There’s a noodle contest tomorrow at 5…for unique and taste…Here’s what you’ll be up against: Michael who has pretty good sauce, and Jennifer…” He was adapting the Berenstain Bears jumprope contest episode.

He ate two bowls for dinner. He and Carly then did the shopping game. I did dishes. She took him up for his bath and washed his hair. They were then doing all sorts of math. She was teaching him about decimals and halves and telling time.

I took over and we Skyped with my parents for awhile. He told them about his new tools, and we talked about summer plans. We read a little Dog Man, then turned out the lights. Our visualization was imagining a plane ride and looking out the window. He fell asleep right around 10.

Adding up the shekels:

Watching the dead mouse:

His animal medicine:

On the swing with friends:

He was up at 7:38. Took a few minutes on the couch, then we read the rest of Monster on the Hill. He asked for the other breakfast pastry from Omar, so we shared that. August asked me how I thought they make them. He then wanted to play Dragonbox Big Numbers with him. To be honest, I’ve grown pretty tired of that game. But he’s continuing to work on his math with it.

He watched Berenstain Bears and Llama Llama, then had oatmeal. We read a picture book called Hello Hello together, with him doing a lot of it. He told me “Did you know I made a robot that breaks gumball machines?” August then gets the gumballs. He wanted to do the filter experiment we’ve been talking about. I realized we could use two-liter bottles as our tubes, and we could get some at the mall. August has been asking for more fizzy water.

He then remembered the little phone stand/tripod adapter he had found upstairs last night. He wanted to try it on his phone, so we got it and found an allen wrench and he adjusted it for his phone. He also wanted to put it on the tripod, and played around with the tripod. He then set up the glue gun to glue allen wrenches on a circuit board like legs. We then caught a moth in the house, and later cut up a grape for it, and later saw it drinking from the grape.

We then moved to taking things apart and looked at all the new tools, speculating on what they were for. We listened to the new Guided by Voices. We discussed our schedule for the week, and he wants the field trip to be tomorrow. We then watched a Ted-Ed video about the domestication of dogs

. We had talked about animal domestication yesterday. He went to the bathroom and made art for the yard in his lab. We then worked on pronouncing ‘three’ and ‘free’, putting his tongue between his teeth for the ‘th’.

Back on the rug he made a cool cross sort of shape out of the Legos. He had destroyed the skyscraper, and we were finding pieces from the ‘rubble’. He asked what that means, and it was a word of the day. Later in the day he remembered ‘rubbish’, and we discussed the difference. I asked him if he could read the challenge word I put up on the whiteboard, and he looked over and immediately read ‘spider’.

I started making a little chart of odd and even numbers, and he needed help reading ‘odd’. I started writing the numbers, from 1, and placed them in the proper column. August totally explained that one is odd because you can’t divide it any more. I did 1 to 6, then he took the marker from me and completed the chart, writing 7 to 10 in the correct spots. The pattern totally worked with him, and later with Carly he was explaining how the numbers alternate back and forth odd and even.

We then did the Brother and Sister seal game. They were chased by tigers, floated at sea, and the seal fed them along the way and led them to a new island.

We got ready to go, and he drank a bunch of water. He showed me and explained how he could fill his mouth with water but then drink it slowly. As we put on his shoes, he asked me if I like them, or am impressed that he’s wearing them. He’s done this several times. I said something about his sandals and crocs being easier to put on. He said, “So I really like my tennis shoes. Please don’t stop me from wearing them.”

I was figuring out what we needed at the store, and mentioned raisins. I looked to see if we had any in the cupboard, but August asked to see his snack bag. He opened the bottom and there was a box of raisins in there. He said he remembered them from when he would look in his bag at snack or to get his straw and it would be in there.

Earlier, he had said we would walk to the mall, but then take the car to school. He changed his mind, and so we took the car. We got to the mall, and headed to the barber. I had prepared him in advance: the barber gave him treats last time, but I told him that if that didn’t happen and he waited patiently we could get a treat at the candy stand. And that’s what happened. He watched while I got my hair cut, and picked up handfuls of it and played with it. He said, “It smells like you.” When it was done he said, “You look like a different person!”

We went out to the candy stand and he took a few minutes to decide. He decided on a little toy that looks like a phone, but has two buttons that pump water to push little rings up to float back down on poles. Attached was a little package of candies. I thought he might lose interest in it quickly, but he assured me he wouldn’t, and we agreed it was a sort of a science experiment to figure out how the pumps worked.

As we were leaving he was playing it and saying, “Ready for some TV time.” He said that’s what other kids say. Not sure who he’s talking about.

We remembered we were going to go to Tiv Taam, so we walked back and bought a few things. Mainly, we were going to get the two bottles of fizzy water for our water filter experiment. He talked me into flavored ones, and we got strawberry and pineapple.

We drove home, him playing, and that’s when we found the moth feeding from the grape, as August tried the strawberry-lime fizzy water. We then turned around and got on his bike and walked to school.

We got there abut 3:15. A bit early so we went and sat on the bench for awhile. Bar came along and gave August a hug. I then took August over to Carly’s classroom, then I went and met with Vicky for about 45 minutes. It was okay, and she shared some stories of how she, and another family, hadn’t been treated well by the elementary school.

I went back and heard singing coming from the bathroom. very loud singing. August took a few minutes to finish up, then we headed home. On the walk home we first found a really interesting flower, then August picked some tiny pea pod sort of things. When he wanted to show me the plant it came from, Carly kept walking home, and we went back to find it. Then, walking back home he spotted a dead part of a bush, lying in the park. It looked like a crazy pair of antlers and we took it home.

We got here at 5:15. He said it was “Barnwood…wood that’s attached to trees in crazy pieces.” Inside, we had more strawberry drink. We discussed our possible filter experiment. He had some good questions and lots of ideas. He was then putting me in detention, for some reason. We looked at his coins, and he remembered the set of drachma we had bought. I got that and we looked at it.

He had lots of energy, and we went up and wrestled and played on the bed. He noticed the picture of the bear on the covers of one of the beds, and said it was a boy because it looked tough. We discussed that, and we looked at a photo of a mama grizzly bear to show him that ‘tough’ isn’t a good way to judge. We ended up discussing bear attacks. When I assured him that bears only attack humans for food if they’re really ‘desperate’, ‘desperate’ was a word of the day. I also showed him a picture of the god Atlas, and we also talked about and looked at a picture of Discworld.

We played a little more, then headed downstairs. He had lasagna for dinner, and shared an artichoke with Carly. I learned that they had done satellite work in the middle school office. They used pens that were attached to the desk in there, and August observed that they could be taken off as, “Everything has a breaking point.” Carly speculated on what was the fattiest vegetable/fruit. We searched for it, and found avocados and olives. August asked how many hairs are on our heads, and the answer seems to be around 100,000.

He went to the bathroom and made “supersonic sunscreen” for me. It actually cures sunburn. We played the shopping game while I cleaned up in the living room. He was really into the math, so I didn’t ask him to help.

I then took him up for a bath. He wanted the stairway dark again, then he turned all the lights off upstairs. He then huddled on the bathroom floor and asked me to turn the lights off. He’d wait a few seconds and ask me to turn the light back on. Then off. Then on. It kept going, with him staying in the dark for longer and longer. He asked, “Are you proud of me?” He went and had Carly come up to watch him.

He played with soap in the sink, then I gave him a bath. He got his old toothbrushes and was scrubbing things. When he wanted more to clean, Carly suggested his stool. The white circles have turned grey. He spent a lot of time scrubbing them and they’re white again.

I headed down stairs as he finished that up, and Carly took over. He got a bit upset, the first time today, when he found out I had left. He talked about it, and then I came up and agreed to read to him for a few minutes. We read a hilarious chapter of Dog Man, then Carly came in and I left them at 9:15.

Tightening with the allen wrench:

How he drinks big drinks of water:

His new toy:

Mouth drinking from the grape 1:

Mouth drinking from the grape 2:

Hug from Bar:

Music in the bathroom:

Buying stuff with his money:

Getting used to the dark:

He was up at 7:30. He cuddled with Carly and they read What Do You Do with an Idea? He watched Berenstain Bears and Carly headed to the store. I made oatmeal for him and he played Dragonbox Big Numbers and hummed tunes that he made up. We moved to the printer and took it apart more. We did a lot of little stuff on the iPad, then he moved to using the calculator. He was asking questions like “What’s 20 times 20?” and then answering them with the calculator. He said, “I could use this on Dragonbox Numbers.” And he asked me, “Want to do some math with me?”

Carly had gone to the store and now got home. Not a great time for grocery shopping, apparently, as right after the holiday they were out of stock of a lot of things. She went upstairs to call Gaby, who will likely be our new child psychologist (not to be confused with Gabby, who watched August yesterday). August and I did more math problems with the calculator and blueberries. I then remembered the beetle in his bug catcher. It had been going crazy last night before I went to bed and I almost let it go. We went out and let it go, then a couple minutes later checked on it and it was digging in the dirt. We watched it, and August got it some leaves to cover it from the sun. Over on the wall he found a green insect and was excited: “It’s a new species.” We caught it and he studied it for a few minutes, then let it go.

Inside he ate a banana. Then made some of his milk and honey drink. He asked, “When did people invent cups?” We discussed how and what people drank, and ended up discussing cows and ‘domestication’ was a word of the day. He then wanted to do an imagining game where he was a jungle animal. We were trying to decide what he wanted to be. He dismissed red panda because he didn’t want to be nocturnal.

Carly came though and took over and I went up to take a shower. I think this is the time that they went out and washed the car and he earned 50 agorot. Carly made french toast for lunch. He and I did some reading of Captain Underpants, then he figured we could cut and unroll the tiny coils of copper wire on the printer circuit boards. He said, “Do you like how I’m unfurling it?” “Unraveled, actually.”

We got ready to go, and he and I left at 1:05 for a little Dada-Zinnie adventure. We first drove to Ikea. We went to the ice cream machines. He had brought one of his own 2 shekel coins (after debating at home whether he should bring half shekel coins, 1 shekel coins, or a single 2 shekel coin) and bought the ice cream with chocolate in it. I decided to have ice cream as well and pushed the button for the one with strawberry syrup in it. I only got vanilla though. Fine by me, but August was glad he didn’t get the strawberry or he would have been disappointed.

We then went into the actual store through the checkout area and found the ziplock bag boxes. The only thing we were getting, so we stocked up with 6 boxes. We bought those, and were leaving by 1:55.

On the ground near our car when we got there I had found a kite handle with kite string wrapped on it, but no kite. August was now discussing ideas for making a kite. We drove north to the southwest corner of Netanya Stadium, where there are some fenced in ruins of a Palestinian village. We looked at the south side, but then realized we were supposed to be on the other side between the ruins and the stadium. In the car I had realized he had taken his shoes off. He told me, “I wasn’t surprised you were surprised cuz I thought you’d be surprised…that’s the surprise today.” We saw a car with its small spare tire on, and we discussed spare tire sizes. When we drove around to the other side August wanted to look at our own spare tire to make sure it was a full-sized tire. It is.

We got out and started looking for the geocache. Ultimately unsuccessful, But August found a plastic grocery bag and decided it could be a kite. He wanted to try it right now, so we went to the car and got the string and I tied it on. It worked a little, and he played around with it for a few minutes. He was pretty excited about finding a plastic bag among all the garbage. We walked around for a few minutes looking for the geocache and we discussed the Palestinian village and why they were kicked out. August said we were lucky to be American, because he knows it is easier for us to travel. While we were looking at the geocache app he read a couple words, including “terrain”, although he may have been saying train, I realized later. Still, not bad.

We took the north route back through Even Yehuda and stopped to get cash. He helped me at the ATM. We got home, and did math on the calculator. I got the blueberries and did math with those, but August made it clear he was doing the problems with the calculator and I was using the blueberries.

Carly had made vegetarian lasagna while we were gone, and he had some for dinner. He wanted to go out and wait for Mikaela, who was coming over at 5:30 to babysit him while Carly and I went to Ra’anana to meet with Gaby Johnson, a psychologist and play therapist that we will probably use as a replacement for both Dr. Aviv and, for now at least, Shani (the OT, who is now on maternity leave). While he waited outside, he realized he could rock the teeter totter on his own by sitting in the middle. He talked about how it was safer because it wasn’t coming off the ground like this, and that was because his center of gravity was over the middle.

Mikaela came at 5:30 and he was showing her the teeter totter as we left. Earlier the plan had been for him to come along with us and sit and watch something while we talked to Gaby. But he had agreed to stay home with Mikaela when he was reminded how much fun he has with her.

Our meeting with Gabby went well. He seems very nice, and August will connect with him a lot better than with Aviv. He doesn’t seem to have a lot of knowledge of gifted children, and Marka didn’t think he had a lot of strategies for working with schools, but otherwise he seems really good. And there was no nonsense about how older friends are bad for him or about how good sticker charts are or how we should withhold attention when he acts out at school.

When we got home Mikaela was making a tower of the blueberries that was as tall as August. She got it just to his height, with all of them, before it collapsed. They had also made the Lego skyscraper as tall as Mikaela. He had cut up his flimsy mask with his scissors, which was just fine, but she wasn’t sure, so she had hidden the scissors from him. Soon after we had left, Apple Music stopped working, telling us we were listening on another device. It turned out that August had turned on Josh Ritter on the HomePod and told Mikaela “I really like his new stuff.” They had also done some art, with her drawing a picture of him next to the Lego tower, and them doing a piece together. Oh, and he had had some of his milk and honey drink.

She left, and he asked me to fill his water bottle. I complimented on how polite he has been asking for that recently. He then offered to give me a massage. He had me take my shirt off and lay on the couch and he gave me a massage. Very sweet of him. A bit later he had Carly do her scary voice, which he found scary in the past, and said he liked it now. I asked if I could do the Jaws noises as well, and he said yes, and said he liked that now as well. Then, when I took hm upstairs, he had us turn off the lights in the stairway and he hid his eyes on my shoulder as we went up. He’s suddenly enjoying things that are a little scary.

Upstairs we did wrestling moves on the bed. At one point, after I got up from the bed and came back, I startled him and he screamed. Very similar to how sometimes I startle Carly when she doesn’t realize I’ve walked into a room. We played through part of the Brother and Sister seal game. When we got tired of that we went downstairs and read Captain Underpants #12. We finished that, then started their first Dog Man book. He had me turn off the lights on the way up, and told me, “Covering my eyes is the fun part.”

In the bathroom he made a comic book machine that would make comic books for us. He said it then makes a “Brilliant ball of blue light” (which is from Captain Underpants and the time machines) and teleports it on your iPad. We got him ready for bed and I left them around 9:15.

Beetle digging after we release it:

Unwinding the copper wire:

Plastic bag kite:

Plastic bag kite 2:

Center of gravity on the seesaw:

Making a tower with Mikaela:

He was up at 7:20. Carly read pieces out of the Seuss Kwuggerbug book, then Pippi Longstocking. He was doing his over-the-top cuddling though and she left for awhile. When she came back down a little later he apologized on his own. She had been talking to him yesterday about not using all of his iPad time in the morning, and they now strategized on how to use it. He decided to watch one episode of StoryBots and chose the How Do Airplanes Fly? episode.

He watched most of it, then went over to Carly and wanted to type big numbers in Excel. He asked about the symbol you use to put in numbers. I thought he meant hyphens, as we see them in parts numbers, etc. But it turned out he meant commas, and remembered you put them every three digits. He made huge numbers that Carly then had to read out. He called them “incredibly graphic violence numbers”, which is a based on a joke from the Captain Underpants books. He added 9+4 and explained to Carly why it equaled 13, “because one of the 4 goes to the 9.” That’s how I’ve explained it to him before, and he’s now internalized it. Carly was then doing the same thing with him, but applying it to problems with 8s.

August and I worked on our Lego cell tower, turning it into a skyscraper. It wasn’t yet tall enough for him: “It doesn’t scrape the sky yet, dada.” We listened to the new Cranberries album. He had oatmeal and mango for breakfast. He asked me to explain one of the printer circuit boards and we discussed the different kinds of plugs that the printers had.

I went up and took a shower. He was finishing the StoryBots episode. I came back down and we played Dragonbox Big Numbers. We then moved to reading Captain Underpants. ‘Odd’ and ‘even’ were words of the day and he started to explore what numbers are odd and even. We finished book 11 and started 12.

Carly made him French toast rolls with banana and peanut butter. He ate those and loved them, then we read more of book 12. As we got ready to head to the pool he started making things in his lab. He was making underground tunnels for us that we could drive our car through so there wouldn’t be traffic. He said the walls were covered with graffiti. We discussed train speeds and bullet train technology. We then watched a TED Ed video about how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, and the latest Marble Machine video.

When we got to the pool it was busier than we’ve seen this year. He was hesitant at first and wouldn’t enter the pool area. After a couple minutes Carly convinced him to come in. A few kids had already gotten out, and several more got out soon after. We had fun in the pool for about an hour, and got out a little after 2. As I was drying him he spotted a pigeon couple sitting on top of a post. He thought the smaller one was probably the girl. He told me he decides if they are boys or girls “By how tough they look.” He was now applying this to people and added, “And if they’re wearing dresses definitely a girl.” He speculated on why boys don’t usually wear dresses: “Why? Because they want to be tougher?”

We were home at 2:30. We did even and odd numbers outside and I taught him the pattern to the ending digits. I cut up carrots and strawberries as snacks and Carly made him a quesadilla. Gabby and Jillian got here at 3:00 and watched him until 4:30. Carly and I just went upstairs and had time to work. August also loves being with them, so we figure it is good mentoring for him. They played with playdough and art inside. At one point I heard him ask, “Ahem. Are we done with this?” And they went outside in the yard. When we came down August was playing music for them in GarageBand. They had also made him a robot hat, and drawn him a picture.

After they left he and I played the piano teaching app for awhile, then experimented in Infinite Arcade. He ate the carrot sticks, then asked me to cut more. We went upstairs and played the brother and sister seal game. Carly was skyping with Cherie and August sang a song for her. I chatted with Peter.

I made the Greek pasta with broccoli and a cream sauce for dinner. We all ate, and discussed our plans for tomorrow. Carly asked him if he wanted to earn money working outside. He responded with, “I don’t want to do that, but I’d be happy to play in my Zinnie house with you.” They went out and I did dishes. On the couch he made some music, singing to himself. They were also looking at coins, and August asked to clean them with vinegar, so they did that. He then had the idea for a sweet drink, and I let him combine milk, honey, and cinnamon and he loved that.

For some reason ghost peppers, the spiciest pepper, had come up in conversation the last couple of days, and he was asking about what they do to you. So we lay on the floor of the kitchen and watched a video of a tv reporter eating one, then a better video of an 11-year old eating a ghost pepper.

Carly took him up for a bath at 8:30. I heard him talking about a robot pterodactyl. I went up at 9. He told me about the challenges he had given Gabby and Jillian: one was a coloring contest, and the other was to make the best robot out of play dough. The reward was “A big air kiss from me.” We read until 9:10.

He was then talking about his spaceships that travel faster than light, and they teleport across the universe. He asked, “What’s a sequence?” For a story from my life I told him about playing baseball as a kid. He made more music before calming down, and was finally asleep right at 10.

Carly and I were able to watch the first episode of Game of Thrones, finally, tonight.

Getting in the pool:

More music in the car:

With the babysitters 1:

With the babysitters 2:

Calculator math:

Music on the couch:

Chant on the counter:

He was up at 7:30. I was getting ready to go to Jerusalem for a meeting at Sabeel with Omar and Marc. He was playing GroForest when I left at 8:50.

I got to Sabeel at 10. Omar had gotten egg pies with meat for breakfast, and pastries. We had a good talk about August and school to start with. Marc really understood gifted students, sticker charts, etc.

We did a lot of work. We decided to change the calendar to start with January 1. Will require a fair amount of work, but is a good decision. We also talked about the Al Jazeera that Omar was in, and how August asked if he was angry. Omar said his family thought he was too angry, and I said it was a “restrained anger.” Omar said he was going to quote me on that. I also decided that the way to solve the conflict was to give Trump land to build a golf course. That came after Marc pointed out that Trump loves Britain. And I realized that he would love any country he had a financial interest in. It’s an update of the old McDonald’s diplomacy idea, where no two countries that both have McDonald’s have been at war.

When I got home at 5 the house was very quiet. I noticed the speakers from the office had been brought down. They had had the sliding door to outside open, and August was amazed about that, then wanted to play music outside and they got the speakers.

The house was quiet because he was calming down in the bedroom from something. He was hiding under the blanket on the bed and would pop out and say, “That’s confusing.” Carly went down and I stayed with him. It took a good amount of time, but he was calm the whole time. He had hit Carly with his headphones cord when he was swinging it around after she had said they couldn’t go to a coffee shop today. We discussed other alternatives where he could have asked for something else to do.

He went downstairs and apologized, then we got out the Legos to build a tower. It was a sort of cell phone tower. He was then running around the house. Mikaela is home, so I got him outside, giving him challenges to touch invisible animals. He was using infrared vision to see them. He debated whether invisible squirrels produce x-rays or not.

We had french toast for dinner, then he was playing with one of his cords from a printer, and tied up my legs. He requested a poached egg, and Carly tried one for the first time and it turned out quite well. He did remember the poached eggs we had had in Athens, and wondered why this one wasn’t as tall. I told him we needed a poached egg pan for that.

We read some Nick and Tesla and ‘bric-a-brac’ was a word of the day, as was ‘coupon’. We had a long discussion about the value of gold, why it is valuable, and how that is different than money. I was rubbing his back and hitting it rhythmically and he seemed to like that quite well; not something he’s been fond of before.

He then calmly sat on the couch and ate Cheerios and listened to the new Mountain Goats album for several minutes. Earlier we listened to the new Josh Ritter album.

He requested to trim some of my hair to use in a potion upstairs. I needed to get a haircut, so said yes, as long as Carly supervised. So he trimmed a little off the back, and she straightened it up.

He made a mixture in a bowl, then was making things in his laboratory, like the perfect robot pet for me. Gave him a bath, then he laughed when I accidentally put my toothpaste on his toothbrush. I washed it off, but he said he liked the slightly minty flavor when it was added to his. We read more of Captain Underpants #11 and I left them at 9:40.

His fun mirror on the wall:

Running and touching invisible animals:

Humming and Legos:

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He woke up at 6:20. I escorted him downstairs to Carly on the couch, where he fell back to sleep until after 7:30. He read a Bob book to her, and I said good morning and went back up to work. He watched some stuff, and I watched a couple of the machine videos (including a ham slicer) with him while I had some breakfast. He played with printer stuff and used part of the yellow tube and dipped it in ink and made circles on paper, then brought it up to show me. I was working up in the office.

Carly told me that he asked about the difference between ‘synthetic’ and ‘sympathetic’, and also asked what ‘documentary’ meant, out of the blue. I herd him singing really loudly.

I went down at 11:15. Carly was resting on the couch. He and I joked he had worn her out. He told me he’d been outside to check the tomatoes and that wilting flowers on a tomato plant are good because it means a tomato is coming. He had finished the other printer and we now started on the smaller one. He randomly sang a “Stupefying number 6” song. As we got things apart he was saying, “Take a step inside circuitry.”

They drove to the school and went to the pool. It was cooler now, as the heater was off, and August was braver about getting in the pool then she was. He was really calm in the pool. They did a lot of relaxing stuff, and he’d lean his head back on his floaties.

They came back and he did more rock hammering. Inside I then helped him as he made a soup. He used his mixers that Eve gave him, putting one in the drill to turn it. He took apart the printer and I made an iherb order. I figured out that from the UAE (where it randomly defaulted me to) Israel doesn’t show up as a shipping location. Once I switched to the U.S. it did.

We discussed clouds and whether planes can be rained on. we determined that planes spend most of their time at 31 to 36000 feet and there are only cirrus clouds only at that height, which don’t really rain. He used a motor with the battery again. He was saying, “I’m waiting for delicious excitement.” His finger started bleeding. He wasn’t sure why, but I think he caught the fingernail trying to pull things apart. He handled it really well and didn’t get upset. I had him rinse it in the sink, and I went up to get a bandaid. I told Carly how he was responding. I went back down and put the bandaid on him, and I went out to the living room. He stayed in the bathroom, then. Minute later he came out and said, “My tummy hurts.” I picked him up, then he wanted to cuddle with Carly. She laid him on the couch and he lay there for several minutes, but then seemed okay.

We finished Captain Underpants#10, bought #11, then started #1 while we waited for it to download. He ate artichoke with Carly and she made a smoothie. We then went back to the printer.

We all ended up outside, and we ripped up newspaper for the compost. He found a round piece of paper outside and drew a monster face on it and taped it to a stick. He was going to make more as I went up and worked. He ended up doing a page of satellite readings and hanging it up. He read a Bob Book to her, then he got burned on his arm, near his elbow, when he bumped into the hot glue gun. This one was a lot harder on him. Luckily wasn’t a bad burn, but involved a lot of writhing around on the couch and hitting his burn with his hand. And he wouldn’t allow ice on it.

He eventually recovered, and Carly headed to the store. He played GroForest, then we went and wrestled on the bed. He was my bad pillow and I was returning him to the store. Near the end he was drinking from his water bottle and I said something that made him laugh and he sprayed water all over the bed. He was hungry, and didn’t want the curry. I suggested carrot sticks and he said, “That’s a great idea.” I was joking bout cutting them so thin that you couldn’t see them, and handing him air.

Carly was home at 7:10. She said that the sun was huge. We both hit her with jokes about how it is actually huge. I complimented him on coming up with the same joke as me, but he said, “It’s not a joke” and that it really is huge. Which itself seemed to be a joke, as he doesn’t really have a problem with taking things literally. Earlier today Carly had asked him what he was hungry for, and he replied with “I’m hungry for taking things apart” and laughed at his own joke.

He ate a good amount of carrot and I now made him oatmeal with mango. We were listening to the Chemical Brothers, and he danced on the couch and moved his arms to the beat and pointed out that he was doing it. He ate his oatmeal and we talked about going to Ikea sometime. We discussed airport security, and he had a theory that the reason you were supposed to move slowly at points was because they had extra scanners. He then asked me why they needed so much security, and I was trying to come up with reasons. When I couldn’t, he put “Thinking juice” in me.

Carly came down. We watched part of the the Al Jazeera document with Omar in it together. When August saw Omar he asked, ‘Is he angry?” We talked about why. A few minutes later we saw Omar again and August asked, “Is he still angry?” I said yes, it hadn’t changed in five minutes.

He wanted one of the new ‘magic’ lollipops that Carly had gotten at the store, so we made it a hair washing day. I gave him his bath. As we got ready for bed he had a lot of questions about who can see his penis and and also bullying. He asked if there were electronic bullies. He said, “I think it is cyberbullying.” He’s watched the BrainPop video on bullying a few times. We brushed his teeth, then I left them at 9:15.

Carly thinks he is dyslexic. She had him reading to her, and asked if they letters move around and he says they do. She was doing some sort of dyslexia checklist with him and said when she had him sounding out words to tell her what sound it started with, he did really well with a lot of them, but then had no idea about ‘map’. I have no idea what that has to do with dyslexia, but I also don’t know much about dyslexia.

Working on the next printer:

Stupefying number six song:

Gears slo-mo:

Breaking up rocks:

He came down the stairs at 7:25. Cuddled with Carly for awhile, then he and I read Monster on the Hill. Very funny. Carly made french toast. We ate, then I went upstairs to work. August was playing Dragonbox Big Numbers, but then I heard him singing loudly for a long time. Carly later said that it was a really cool song, but neither of them could remember what it was about. They then spent a long time outside. He was doing a lot of hammering. He was breaking rocks for the succulents garden.

I came down and they were taking the printer about. Carly Sid she had broken one of the new tools and he had handled it well, but he said he didn’t want to talk about it now. I continued to take things apart with him. I spent a lot of time exchanging messages and phone messages with Shmuel trying to figure out the air conditioner in the bedroom. No luck. We’ll have to have the technician out.

Carly baked a pizza and August ate a ton. He also ate a sort of lunchable lunch outside. And he found a big beetle in our yard and caught it. He let me let it go in the evening.

I gave up on the air conditioner and came downstairs. He went to the bathroom. He built a drinks machine for us, then it expanded to be able to make any food you want as well. He’s really into charging us subscriptions now, which I later realized was because of our discussion of how Apple Music works, after our discussion of how it worked versus a record player. He was talking and talking, and when I told him “Wash your hands” he said, “I was having so much fun.” I started using Siri to remind me to put lotion on his lip every hour.

He went outside with Carly and was squeezing the hose when Carly was trying to water. I went back to work. They walked up to town and went to the coffee shop. He had a small hot chocolate. They came back and I came down t 5:30. He was taking the printer apart on his own. He started singing a “could you please find me some fun?” song. We managed to figure out how to get the motors out and made them working using the 9V battery and wires. When we got one going he said, “Now we have some action.”

Carly made sushi for dinner. We ate a lot, but he didn’t, probably because of all the pizza earlier. We all went outside, and he was using the long stick to knock down the tree things from the lower branches. Carly had helped him extend the length of his stick by taping two together. I did dishes, then Carly went up to take a shower.

He played Khan Academy. When it came time to stop he had a hard time giving up the iPad, but reacted well when we took it from him. We all worked together to do some clean up. He then ran to the bathroom as he really needed to go. He now made a magic chair for Carly. The subscription model again. I talked about going for a quick ‘power walk’ while she gave him a bath. He said, “that word is disturbing.” He was doing something and used a very Eeyore-like voice to tell me, “Just go away. I have work to do.”

Carly and I were discussing summer dates. Upstairs, he found one of the sticky tags from one of our backpacks, and then a ticket-sort of thing. The sticky thing he put on my wrist as a bracelet, while Carly got the ticket. He had us write our names and birthdays and phone numbers on them. They gave us chess to his lab.

I went for a short walk while she gave him a bath. When I got back though I found they had been distracted by looking at coins. I ended up giving him a bath. He wanted points, so I said he got 6532 for the bath.

Downstairs he ate a bunch of strawberries. Carly talked to him mom, so August talked to her a bit. We read Captain Underpants #10. ‘Booby trap’ was another word of the day. They time travel in the book, then August said he time traveled back in time 55 years. I said he could meet Gramma and Grampa when they were 17 years old. We brushed his teeth, and I left them at 9:30.

We found out that Israel Cassie’s niece, who is a year old or something, has an aggressive form of cancer.

Rolling the printer part:

Squeezing the hose:

Spinning hose:

End of the find me some fun song:

Using the motor from the printer: