Author: Ryan/Dada

He was up by 7:30. Cuddled with Carly, then on his iPad looked up the Rube Goldberg videos, then watched Wild Kratts and Aardvark and Ant, then a couple of BrainPop Jr. videos. He went outside with Carly and hot glued parts of the toner cartridge together. He told her about how he wants a soldering iron. Carly called the hot glue gun ‘precarious’ and that was a word of the day.

We spent a lot of time packing throughout the morning, then Carly and August went over to the Kerns’ house with some plants for them to take care of. Back home, he started making a path across the fake grass with the boards. He had me get 4 more for him from the junk area. They were paths across water with crocodiles in it. One board had nails in it, and we used the hammer to get them out. He wanted me to play with him, but then got distracted with the parts of the toner cartridge, and played in the dirt making a mud stew for quite awhile. He asked for spices, and I got him flour and oatmeal to put in his stew. He wanted the oatmeal ground up, so he used the food processor to cut it smaller.

I made a frozen pizza for lunch. We ate that and I ate some of the leftovers as well. They went outside and I did some work. Back inside, we read more of Amulet #6. We were planning to take the car to school and then walk back. Throughout the day August kept asking how much longer until we leave for Athens. We had originally planned on leaving at 5, but changed it to 4:30. Anyway, August was a little upset about taking the car and walking back. It turned out he was afraid we’d get rained on. We looked at the forecast, full of 0% rain, and was then okay.

As we got ready to go I picked up August’s hat, which had been lying on the floor by the door. There was some slug slime on it. Don’t know if it was the escaped slug, or one that had snuck in through the door. We drove to school and walked home. Along the way August found two Hebrew cookbooks and wanted to take them to write it. He’s been wanting to write in discarded books, so Carly carried them home.

We got home at 2:20.We read more Amulet, and he asked what ‘riveted’ and ‘overheard’ meant. We set the gecko free out in our yard. August had fun doing that. We then finished Amulet #6 and started #7. As we waited for the cab, he wondered “How many cool projects?” had he done with us.

The taxi was there right on time. August sat in the middle and liked seeing the meter and the driver’s phone and called it really comfy. He spotted cell phone towers. We got to the airport and did the usual airport lines. Only hiccup came and we were told that August’s visa had expired last week. That was when his original passport expired. Oops. We could take him out, but then he’ll have to come back in on a tourist visa when we come back to Israel. We got through security and made it to Camden Food Co. just after 6. Got a broccoli quiche and iced tea and two cappuccinos. As we sat there I asked him where he would like to visit next. He thought, and Carly suggested Egypt. He asked, “Are there tornadoes in Egypt?” When she said no, he agreed we could visit there next. Carly gave him challenges, running to different places and back. He did tons more running today and as we got to the food place he was showing off his galloping. Carly gave him challenges to spot words on signs and he spotted words like ‘free’ and ‘coffee’ and a few others.

We walked down to our gate, D9. August looked at a plane and asked what it was. We went through the process of looking at Google Images and comparing and identified it as a Boeing 737-800. I then realized it said as much on the side of the plane. It was a good exercise though. Carly Skyped with Cherie and Chuck and August told them about going to Athens. After that, Carly gave him challenges, they ran around, he went with me to fill the water bottles, they played some I Spy, he played with Codesparks a bit, and we read some of Nick and Tesla #2.

He was anxious to line up for our flight as soon as possible. As we waited in line and started to walk down to the plane he hummed and made music, stopping only to point out his stroller on the way. We sat near the back right of the plane. No one behind or in front of me or behind August. He sat in the window seat and I was in the middle. We discussed takeoff together as it happened—all the sounds and science of it. He watched some Inspector Gadget cartoon, laughing a lot. He got sleepy and we got him a blanket. We had some turbulence. He was asking how fast we were going. He said, “Faster than a peregrine falcon, faster than a cheetah, faster than motorcycles, faster than race cars, faster than bullet trains…faster than the fastest robot ever…” He got a little bottle of water and drank from it, and when done said, “Goodbye, cute little water bottle!”

They brought warm sandwiches for snack. He and I got one corned beef and one egg one to share. He ate a lot of the egg out of that one and part of the other sandwich. He fell asleep at 10:10. Slept through landing, and woke up at 11:15 after we got off the plane. We went through the airport, went to the bathroom, and were outside at 11:40. He said, “It’s not below freezing, but pretty cold.” We got a taxi (54 euros) and he fell back asleep after 12. We got to the hotel just after 12:20.

The room was tiny, and they had funnily put a sort of crib bed up at the end of the bed. We put it out in the hall and called the front desk to tell them. There wasn’t room for our stuff with it in there. We we quite cozy in the bed. August was being hyper for awhile, playing with the lights and TV, but then fell asleep about 1.

His walking path:

His stew 1:

His stew 2:

Bike music:

Releasing the lizard 1:

Releasing the lizard 2:

Running through the airport:

Skyping in the airport:

Walking to the plane:

He was up at 6:28 and Carly took him back up to try to get him back asleep. He was up though, and quite awake, and they were back down at 6:40. He was pretty hyper. Started with Dragonbox Big Numbers, then switched to Codesparks. Made progress in the puzzles, and he had a couple great moments of figuring things out on his own.

He watched Berenstain Bears. We ate breakfast together. Him with his mango and then oatmeal and me with cheerios. I worked on the couch for a few minutes, then he paused and came over to me and asked, “Did you know that egg shells are healthy for plants?” He had learned that on Berenstain Bears. We haven’t been putting our egg shells in the compost, but we read an article and agreed we should start rinsing them and adding them to the compost.

He asked if I wanted him to build anything in his laboratory. I said a solution for mosquitoes, and suggested a laser system. He told me he’d think of a better solution, and came up with a cream that lasts years. The mosquitoes still bite you, but you don’t feel it. I said the buzzing would still wake me up: “Don’t worry. I’ll put in a solution that makes you not hear mosquitoes. But you’ll still hear other things…It will cost you the same as sunscreen. Pretty cheap.”

He did some typing on my iPad, watching the character and word counts go up, then he decided to let the spider go, so we took it outside. I then put on the Books and we started Table Time. We read the words ‘wonder’ and ‘bread’. He needed help with the first, but not the second. He was distracted by the circuit set and discovered the fiber optic light would light up a little if he was holding the wires, completing the circuit with his body. A really cool discovery on his own. We were distracted with the circuits for awhile.

He made a paper thing. We took a time-in when he got frustrated he had taped a piece with a twist, and he took it out on me. Back downstairs we fixed it, then went back to the circuits, discussing path of least resistance (water and gravity, electricity and resistance). We looked at out calendar and planned the rest of the day. He chose to take a walk in the afternoon for our exercise, before then driving to school. We read The Pigeon wants a Puppy! twice. He read one page, then two.

We switched to machines time, and started with an animated video of pointless, but soothing machines that Cherie had shared with us on Facebook. August really got into analyzing which machines could actually be made in real life, asking, “what about that?” for each one. We watch it twice. I asked him what the machine he had drawn during alone time yesterday does. Inspired by the video, he told me, “It cuts beefaroni into strings…It cuts pillows and makes them into ice cream cones…” We then went and counted machines in our house. He identified 44 things that he identifies as machines in our house. We then read about microchips and motherboards in The Way Things Work, then I introduced ‘Rube Goldberg’ machines, and we watched

(which includes the OK GO video) followed by a few of the videos from Joseph’s Machines, starting with

. We talked about building one ourselves, but that might be a future project.

For lunch he ate a banana, then had some pizza. He played the Green Planet game while I prepared it. He asked me which was heavier: a blue whale or a 747 Looked it up and a 747 is about twice the weight. We went back to the circuit set, finishing #42. We discussed the terms input and output, and earlier I had been teaching him how to read the ‘grid’ to better understand how to build them. Word of the day. He then sang a “Output, input, processor…troubleshooting” song, which then changed to include, I think it was, ‘microprocessor’.

We went upstairs to finally get him clothes for the day, then downstairs he did alone time, drawing another machine. He told me, “It’s going to be a complicated machine, so don’t make your brain explode…No brainius explodius.” He requested a treat from his bag instead of an Oreo. It was a second one that turned out to be gum when we didn’t realize it. He was excited by that.

We got off on our walk. He steered us round to the little path, then straight north towards town. As we walked it was warm, but windy. He put his hat over his face and called it his windshield. I had to lift the front of the bike to steer. We got close to town and turned around. He spotted a Fiat 500 and called it a “Cute car”. He asked, “What’s combat?” I asked how he knew the word, and he said it was from Hilda. He spotted a new beetle on a wall and we caught it.

At home we read some of Amulet #6, then he looked at the reptile and amphibian booklet and we discussed biting size and weights.

Just before 3 we drove to the school. He had decided he didn’t want to test batteries. We parked across the dirt, and on the ground he found a tiny green worm that he had crawling on his finger. He released it when we got inside the school grounds. He told me that he has cameras with special wi-fi that let him find animals and things. He said they were really expensive. Carly had told me there was a bat sleeping outside her room. We went and saw it and said hi to her.

She walked home, and we went to the pool. We saw Mike Shappell and talked about my email, asking about robotics etc. He said we’re happy to come visit the robotics team after their competition in a couple weeks. He said he also things he might have a full set of Lego Mindstorm in storage and I said we’d love to buy that off of him.

We went in the pool for a good half hour. We floated around and had fun, then August was the one that decided it was time to get out. He spent a few minutes pulling grass through the fence and looking at it. I learned he had learned about Disneyland from the Kerns. That’s what the little 900 dollar ticket that one of them had drawn was for. I joked with Mandy about it on WhatsApp.

We got home and he and Carly did electronics sets and went outside. I made rice and went up to rest. He showed her how he draws circuits and they did that for quite awhile. They finished his basket. He brought it upstairs to me in the bathroom as a delivery. He was then delivering things to Carly in it, and told her, “I’m collecting blood…you’re the queen mosquito.” “That bottle has one whole gallon of blood in it.”

We ate dinner. He ate his bowl, then he had corn flakes with milk. Carly took him up and washed his hair. He got gum as a treat on purpose this time. We played the car game on the floor. He was going faster than light, which eventually destroyed the universe. We then discussed how everything came from the Big Bang. He said he discovered things faster than light and spied on aliens and was making intergalactic spaceships. He said he would give me a ride, but that one of them was too expensive for me to buy. He held the ends of the multimeter and tried to sing to make it do something.

We headed upstairs and read Creepy Pair of Underwear, then two Skybrary books: Write On, Carlos!! and Percy Listens Up. We did a tiny worm visualization, did some singing, and he was asleep at 9:35 again.

His electricity discovery:

Analyzing the animated machines video:

Counting machines in our house:

Output input troubleshooting song:

Input output processor song:

Spinning mama:

Broom timelapse:

Cold air getting out of the pool:

Running:

Drawing machines 1:

Drawing machines 2:

He came down at 7:25. He sat on the couch for a few minutes, then I started reading Nick and Tesla #2. He listened and asked several questions as he started playing with the soft tape measure. He quickly figured out how to roll it into a tight spiral. His next move was to unroll it, feed it through the slot as on the coffee table, then taped the other end to my forehead. He went and opened the kitchen door and made sounds like he was surprised by something. When I asked what was outside, he did a funny dance over to me and said, “Fungus.”

He watched Wild Kratts and I worked. He stopped when he wanted to do an imagining game based on Wild Kratts. Similar to the blue mook story, but I find an aardvark in the jungle, and it digs a big burrow in my yard. We then worked on the iPad and got out the main circuit board. He played with the circuit set and hummed while I made mango and oatmeal. He decided to eat his oatmeal cold and raw today, and ate most of it, but then told me, with a smile on his face, “You can eat the rest of my oatmeal, scrap boy.” That turned into a game of him wanting me to eat all the cardboard and paper in the house and we went around and ‘ate’ it all.

For table time he used the light table app I had used for Lunch Robot and he traced a picture of Ruby from Max and ruby. Next we read Can I Play Too? and he read a few words, then we practiced 6s. He initially said two of them but did a lot more. We talked about pinch grip and he practiced it, doing a whole line of increasingly big 1s. I talked about the fingers working ‘independently’ and that became a word of the day. We watched the Hebrew numbers videos, then transitioned into ‘Coding’ time. We looked at the coding apps I’d downloaded, and he wanted to start by trying CodeSparks. So we started a trial with that. We played around with the scene maker part then switched to the puzzles part. This is the usual algorithm creation part, which August is familiar with from coding class and the Nancy Drew app. He really liked that, and worked through them quite well, with some help.

Somewhere in there Shmuel had shown up, and then the workers. Early, as he had said they would get there at noon. August and I went down and saw the new tank and panels that would be going up. August later told Carly he was glad he is doing homeschool or he wouldn’t have been able to see all of that.

I went to get us lunch (I made a pizza and got out some sushi) but kept coming back to help him. Eventually, time was up on coding, but I let him watch a BrianPop video while I finished lunch. We ate and watched a little of the race. Shmuel asked for some water, so we delivered a pitcher of water and glasses. We looked at the old and new solar panels and discussed why the new ones would work better (not dirty, black, not all rusted) and saw them haul a new one up the ladder.

We talked about going for a little walk to look at the garbage piles, but August wanted to take the car. He said he likes sitting and listening to the music. I suggested we could do that on the couch, but it turns out he really likes the car because he likes his car seat: “But I don’t have my comfortable carseat…I seed Skoda Mama out there so it’s possible.” He talked about it keeping him warm. I finally got him out on the walk, but as we were just a house or two away Shmuel called to me. He needed us to turn on the hot water. We went in and turn on the sink. A lot of rusty water and sputtering for a few minutes. Interesting for August to see. While we waited, we then watched Wintergatan #76.

Once the water was up and running, we went out for a walk. Only got as far as the recycling bins when he found a dead beetle. It was a species we haven’t seen before. So we took that back and put it in a bug catcher. We then went for a walk around the Holly block. At the northeast corner he found a toner cartridge for a laser jet printer. We came home and took it apart. We started inside, but as we started to get screws out and I was worried about toner leaking we moved outside. We got it all apart, and some toner was coming out. August had fun washing it off with the house, and used his spraying modes “super spray, light shower…”

He cleaned off the wall and porch, then went inside and went to the bathroom. We were wondering if it was his first time in the bathroom today, which would be crazy as it was after 2. Then I realized that I think I remember untangling his pajama pants this morning, but I think he forgot to wash his hands, as I don’t remember him using the water from the jug by the kitchen sink.

He had taken his watch off to go to the bathroom so it wouldn’t fall in the toilet. He told me of a super fast machine that runs on celery.

We got headed to school to play with Eve. He had really wanted to go swimming as well, so I took our stuff. As we got walking though, I realized I’d forgotten the floaties. We weren’t far away, but he decided to save it until tomorrow instead of going back.

He hummed his new tune that he’s been singing the last few days. At school we dropped off money for Shani at the elementary school office, then went down to get Eve. Eve and August ran off to the playground, and Heather showed up a minute later. The two of them and Zoe played with the scooters, riding down the sidewalk hill. August rode down once, but otherwise spent all his time running back and forth, trying to run as fast as they rode. He’s really been into running lately, and trying to go faster. I think he realized he wasn’t as fast as other kids and has been trying to get faster, although I also don’t think he would admit that.

Amelia was leaving, so asked the kids to help put away the scooters. They took them over to the sheds, and we saw that they are putting rocks down like a stream bed in the water pump thing.

Back at the playground, they played on the swing. August and Eve were small one-eyed animals that I carried over to the play structure. I can see how August and Eve are friends, as they come up with the same sorts of games. They then went over to the kitchen area, where Zoe was playing restaurant and played there the rest of the time.

Heather went to get her bag from her room, and I saw someone stop and talk to her on the way. When she came back she gave me the good news: Shary, the elementary school principal, and just announced to the elementary school staff that she is leaving at the end of this year—not next year, as previously planned.

They had to leave about 3:45. August and I headed up to the library. We talked to Liz for several minutes and August sharpened pencils. I told her I was homeschooling August now, and she talked about how the preschool was half-day when her Eve was going a few years ago, and when Eve went to kindergarten they thought Liz was crazy for asking if there was a half-day option.

We went and looked at Elephant and Piggie books and chose four. We ended up reading them all there in the library. I didn’t check them out, as I figure they’ll make good Table Time reads. We looked at graphic novels and got a couple of the Amulet books (6 and 7), The Big Bad Fox, and Monster on the Hill, and I found The One and Only Ivan, which Liz and her Eve have both recommended to us in the past. I also got The Pigeon Wants a Puppy!, and I told August to find a book on the ‘New’ shelves and he found Creepy Pair of Underwear, which is by the same author/illustrator pair as the Creepy Carrots book that we have on the iPad. A nice find.

We went up front and Eve checked out our books and she and Liz noticed that they are all their family favorites: they also like Amulet and the Creepy Pair of Underwear. On the way in, August had found a battery pack, maybe for a robotic vacuum cleaner, in the recycling bowl and I agreed we could take it home and test it. On the way out he added two D batteries. I suggested that tomorrow we could bring the multimeter to school to test all the batteries.

Carly had already walked home. We walked home and I got to work making another dish of the coconut curry with mushrooms and tofu this time, and no actual green curry. Turned out perfect for the two of them, and I added curry into my bowl. We ate, then he played with the circuits on his own and made his own circuit and showed us. He was really proud of it. He had connected both battery packs, then the motor to them, not using the board at all.

I went upstairs to work, and he did alone time and Carly brought him up for a shower. I went in with him at 8:30. I read Creepy Pair of Underwear and part of Amulet #6. He told me, “When robot babies are born they start at 100 and count down to zero…they die.” But it wasn’t years, and actually took billions of years. As we were going to sleep, I rolled with my back to him. He told me I could lie on my back and have my head pointed away from him, but I couldn’t have my back to him. I actually fell asleep before he did, and he woke me up saying he wanted the covers on him. He finally fell asleep at 9:35.

Tracing Ruby:

Pinch grip 1s:

Trying Codesparks:

Turning the hot water back on:

Taking apart the toner cartridge:

His recent tune:

Riding the bike thing:

He was up at 7:07 and came down. I picked him up and held him for a few minutes, then he sat on the couch for a few more. We read all of Short Stories for Little Monsters, then he played Dragonbox Big Numbers. He ate thawed mango with a spoon, then had oatmeal with maple syrup. Asked me what I wanted from his lab. I requested a machine that would make a lot of noise and move around a lot and have flashing lights, but not actually do anything. He told me he uses the money from us for treats “and 60 percent of that is gumballs…I eat 3 gumballs in each bite…I swallow them whole…I have a superpower that lets me eat gum…I have teeth in my throat…” He kept explaining.

He wanted to get to table time, so no work time yet for me. At table time we read a new book called Big Bunny. ‘Abominable’ was a word of the day and he read a few words. We practiced the number ‘9’, and he made a sculpture out of modeling clay and called it a play structure. It reminded me of Gaudi’s Park Guall, so I showed him photos of that.

For project time we moved to the light kit. He told me he discovered a new color:”Awkward blue…light…it only goes down…even if you point it up it will go (makes motion of an arc to the ground).” We made circuit #181. It involved infrared light, which we discussed, using the chart we’ve looked at before, and the AC remote worked on it, which was very exciting. And we measured resistance with the multimeter. We then moved to circuit #180.

The neighbor called, saying she could see water leaking from the hot water tank on the roof. August and I went out to investigate, having to use Mikaela’s keys to get into her yard, then going into junk space #2 to actually see it. Sent Shmuel a photo, and he said he’d fix it tomorrow. August and I found a stack of little pieces of wood we might use for our bird house.

Back in the house, he randomly asked, “Dada, you know the trip to Disneyland when you were a kid? Since Mama makes hundreds of shekels a month, do you think we could add up enough to go to Disneyland?” It’s been a long time since I told him about going to Disneyland, and I’m sure I didn’t actually explain what was there. So I don’t know where that came from.

We had a cookie. He then wanted to restart the blue mook game. This time, he was a girl, and ended up being called Lightning because she was so fast. Shmuel called and after that we went out to turn off all the water. Couldn’t figure out which line went where, so just turned all the water off for now. August found a roly poly and had it climbing over his fingers. He asked, “Why do you think roly polies are different colors?”

Upstairs I found the half-disassembled iPad in his room. We took it downstairs and tried the new screwdrivers. I could get a few of the screws out, but not many. August persisted, and managed to get some of the buttons out and covers over the circuit boards off by prying with one of the little ones. He was really proud of himself for figuring that out after I’d given up. I also ordered a full set of small tools on Amazon.

For lunch he initially rejected the options I offered. He told me, “Well, my stomach asked for exciting stuff.” But then we had a good full lunch of soft-boiled eggs, watermelon, crackers, meat, and some carrot. He requested a race while we ate, so we watched the 1000 Miles of Sebring. at the end, I realized he had plugged a headphone cord into the side of his leftover egg.

Plugged the cord into the egg

He played a little Dragonbox Big Numbers, then Endless Wordplay (which I was happy to see), and I allowed one level of Angry Birds. He then did alone time for 20 minutes. He played with a pink piece of wire for awhile, then ended up by the coffee table, taping the loose tape measure to it. I got a little work done, at least.

We had a little time for some balloon science experimentation. We blew up one balloon and measured its circumference, then put it in the freezer to see what would happen. It seemed like it got a little smaller, but just barely. He wanted to put a little soy sauce in a balloon, so I allowed that, as long as it stayed outside. It was interesting to see the soy sauce inside of it though. When I went to put the balloon in the freezer I had to clean things out. His experiment where he dissolved four lollipops in water and then froze it was still in there. I asked if I could get rid of it. He said yes, then “Wait, I need to say goodbye.” He played around with it and tasted it a bit before being done. We are starting to see a few drain flies now. He saw one and thought it was a mosquito. When I said, “That’s a drain fly” he replied, “Nice!”

We left at 2:30 to walk up to Shani’s house/office for his OT session. Along the way I realized I hadn’t brought the snack bag. He probably would have been okay, but we were also going to stop to get crackers, so I suggested we hop in the store (the basement one called ‘Mega’) and get a snack and crackers on the way. August said he wanted a snack like the Kerns had got, in a bag, and he ended up in the chips section. I relented, and helped him choose Cheetos in the shapes of Xs and Os.

She lives just a couple blocks to the northeast of there. We were a couple minutes late. August had fun. He played on a big platform swing, adjusting the side handles, then trying to stand and knock over a cylinder, which after a few knocks August was saying was really hurt. They then went to the table where they dug in a sand thing for treasures. She was exploring his sensory reactions. He was pretty excited by all the stuff and hard to keep focused on one activity. He crawled into the little tent thing and got the big bouncy ball out. We ended up playing with a smaller ball and working on catching. He did surprisingly well, I thought and caught a few of our throws. She had him do one of those puzzles where you fish with a magnet, then put the pieces back in. Not sure what the point was, really. Finally, she let him choose a toy from the cupboard, and he chose a red box that turned out to be the robot set that he’d played with when they had their one session at the school.

It was about 45 minutes. August had been talking to her about her job, and how she gets to play with children. This had started when he wondered how she could afford so many toys. When she said it was how she makes money, he said, “You get money for playing with kids? Then you should pay her.” I indeed, needed to pay her.

We did that and got going. He had had fun, and it is a good experience for him. I’m not sure about the methodology though. She seemed impressed when he was standing on the swing and started to do the proper leaning, as he hadn’t done it at the beginning. She seemed to think this was new, but it’s exactly how he stands on the swing at school and makes it go; he was just being cautious at first (and her swing would also go in circles, making it a bit more difficult—it had also made clicking noises, so he had gotten off and looked up and studied how it moves at one point). And she talked about how he is ready to play with balls, and needs some of that full-body stimulation/deep feeling of the impacts, etc. Which I kind of get, thus having fun with wrestling, but after we left I suggested getting some balls like she had, and he gave me an emphatic “No.”

We walked home, and August walked back and forth with me as I tried to figure out which water line went where, so I could maybe not turn everything off. As we went past the yard (and as he played with a paper airplane a kid had dropped on the sidewalk), Carly called “August” from inside the fence. August screamed and jumped. I figured out that we could turn on water to Mikaela’s apartment and to our laundry room, but keep everything else off. Inconvenient, but much better than no water at all.

Inside he was his normal hyper evening self. At one point, when I asked him why this happens, he did give a very sweet answer about being excited that we were all together. But he also got one timeout for continuing to bother and grab Carly when she was getting food. We finished circuit #180 and he showed Carly that the remote worked on it, then we started yet another. He put a random piece of paper standing up on part of his electric city project and said, “It’s a huge, huge sign. It’s an ad for speakers.”

Carly made sushi for dinner and we all ate. August didn’t like his little sushi with mushroom, but asked for avocado and cucumber and liked that. He also asked for even tinier sushi. He then had this whole playing with my toes thing, where he was sort of tickling me, but I was tickling his palms with my toes. That lasted several minutes and moved around the house. He next made a creation taping things to the tissue box as Carly made the even tinier sushi.

We read a couple chapters of Nick and Tesla #2. He told me, “So dada, when robots lose their teeth they just fall out and they spit them out… three times every nine years. Isn’t that crazy? then you get a coin.”

Carly went to take a bucket bath and August wanted to see how that works, so he went with her. After that he spent several minutes making a big wall out of all of the bottles, etc. in the bathroom, and things like the guitar stand, dividing the bathroom in half. I gave him a bath, then he did a good job of cleaning up the wall when Carly asked him to. We went down and had peanut butter and honey toast. When I got out the peanut butter he told me he wanted to fish for zookeepers in there. Amazing that that joke has lasted for so long (since he was 2?).

Got him ready for bed, and I left them at 9:10.

Clay sculpture 1:

Clay sculpture 2:

Circuits project with remote:

Bug on his finger:

Taking apart the iPad:

With the OT:

Goodbye apple torso:

Toe silliness:

He woke up at 6:35 and came out. Carly got him back to sleep. She doesn’t have school today, but went in to work on her National Boards renewal. He got up at 7:25. Cuddled on the couch for more than 10 minutes, then asked for an imagining game. We spent the next hour or so on that. He was a “New blue kind of animal that’s smaller than that…and the nametag says ‘endangered.” He then game me a backstory, saying I was a kid whose parents were dead so I could go where I wanted. I was finding him in a jungle. We ended up basing his animal on a coati, but a distant cousin in Africa. So its scientific name was nadia mookima, and the common name was blue mook, but he said his individual name was Leaf. As we played we went up and then down stairs, and listened to Eno’s Music for Airports. We talked about ‘conservation status’ and searched for the chart and discussed what it all meant. I wrote a scientific paper about his species and he had me buy more equipment to expand my lab.

We then made a tent out of the pillows and chairs. He ate strawberries and had oatmeal for breakfast, then we did table time. Well, we don’t actually have a low table for table time yet, so we got the wooden cutting board and put a piece of paper over it.

First, we spent just a few minutes on writing numbers, starting with the stencils. I modeled how to write 1 to 5, then ‘5’ was the hardest number for him on Dragonbox Big Numbers so I asked him how many he wanted to practice, and he said five 5s. So he wrote those, no problem.

I then got out the pack of clay and we had fun rolling little balls of clay—an activity that uses the fingers you hold a pencil with. He caught on pretty quickly. My thought had been to then see how high we could stack them, but August also had the idea of making the tiniest balls possible. He said, “I make balls, like, oh-my-gosh small.”

We had listened to Ambient 2, and were now on Ambient 3. I went up to get our swimsuits, and when I came down he was dancing to it in the kitchen. He did that for a couple minutes then asked for electronic music. I put on Underworld’s Born Slippy single/album and he started dancing to that. He’s got all sorts of moves that I have no idea where he came up with them. By the end of the evening we’d finished listening to that as well.

I packed a lunch, but he saw the little sushi and wanted some now. So he ate a bunch of sushi and a cookie. We changed our park plans to a more nature-y place after he wanted to take the net and binoculars. So we went to the Udim Nature Reserve. I said we’re ready to go, and he said, “I haven’t washed my hands.” Points for the cleanliness, but then he got the slightest bit of water down a sleeve and went screeching out of the bathroom flailing his arms, and quickly had his shirt off. Had to get another one.

As we got in the car he asked, “Can water go through steel?” ‘Permeable’ was a word of the day. We got to Udim and parked on the street, then took his bike down a hill, past an equestrian center (August spotted the horses), then were stymied by a closed gate. The Israel National Trail was right on the other side. The gate wasn’t locked, but was big and heavy, and as I worked to open it August was afraid we were trespassing. So we turned around and went back to the car. We drove a few blocks south and parked, then walked down that we. It required heading north, crossing at a bridge, then walking south again. There were some good patches of mud that we had to push the bike through. When a car came I pushed the bike off the side into some bushes that scratched his legs a bit.

He was also getting a bit allergic, so he wasn’t too fond of the trip at this point. The path improved though, and we saw a beekeeper’s hives. We then got to the olive grove that is now a sort of picnic area, with people driving their cars to it and having barbecues. The olive trees are likely remnants of the Palestinian village that sat to the south. Today was the big election day (I don’t want to look at the results) so it was a holiday and there were a lot of people out. August stayed on the bike. I told him I felt like his butler as I served him lunch. He didn’t know what a butler was, so I explained. He that it was really funny when I mentioned butlers answering the door for you and thought I was joking. Anyway, he had remembered to tell me to bring a metal spoon and a stand for his soft-boiled egg, so after he played a little Dragonbox Numbers, I served him his egg. I had the lunch box on my knee as a table, then held the egg steady on top of it. He told me, “You’re acting like a table for tables.”

When he was done eating he saw a face on a tree, so went and took a photo of it. He poured the leftover soy sauce (from a packet) on the ground, and speculated on evaporating soy sauce, then a soy sauce rain. When he asked if that could actually I didn’t tell him the answer, and said we could make a soy sauce evaporation experiment sometime.

He started using the binoculars as we headed back, and we practiced focusing and zooming so he could do that on his own. He had it down pretty well.

We got to the car and started driving. As we headed east through town I stopped as there was a crow in the street dragging a still-living snake. And it was a big snake. I let August get out of his seat and come up to the front seat and we watched it for a minute. Really cool. Our second Israeli snake. Later, I figured out it was likely the largest snake in Israel, although a small one at that. Still, one of the largest snakes I’ve seen.

We got home, changed into our swimsuits, and all three of us (Carly had walked home awhile ago) went to the school. Before we left, August had been playing with the rolling pin and rolled it on his chest and stomach, saying, “Funny? I’m a bunch of dough.”

We got to the pool about 2:30 and stayed over an hour. It was easy to get in. August was a little nervous at first, and in fact earlier had been worried that he would sink more since he is bigger. I tried to convince him that as he’s putting on muscle he’s actually now getting less dense, so would float slightly more. It took him a few seconds in the pool to be convinced, but then was hooked. I got out first and did some reading, and he kept playing with Carly. In the pool I had made up a Grumpy Grandpa Fish voice and said things like, “They don’t call me grumpy grampa fish for nothing.” August was then copying the voice. He changed my line of “In my day, you couldn’t swing a tuna around the reef without hitting 5 or 6 six of them (sharks)” to “In my day, you couldn’t swim around the tide pool without finding a billion of them.”

As we got out he asked me why there weren’t any fish in the pool. That led to a discussion of where fish came from, and he asked, “Where’d the first fish come from?”

At home he played Dragonbox Big Numbers and I went upstairs to work. While I was up he did alone time and taped ribbons together, had a timeout for something, and they read Captain Underpants, almost finishing volume 8 or 9 or something like that. When I came down he was throwing the ball of ribbons at me and I was taking photos. He wanted to store the mess of ribbons up in his “gallery” (as he is now calling the Zinnie room, after I suggested he could show off all his art there), and when I objected he said, “What do you mean? It’s art. I call it art.” I said it was hard to argue with an artist, to which he said, “Yeah, cuz I’m an artist.”

Carly had headed upstairs now, and I got him sushi for dinner, then we shared crackers and cheese and sausage. The latest sausage is called ‘France’ and we both really liked it. He said, “I call it smokey sausage.”

We read three Skybrary books: Tessa Tiger’s Temper Tantrums, Dizzy Dog’s Dizzy Dancing, and Yoko Yak’s Yakety Yakking. Carly came down and got us moving on cleanup time. She took charge of the ribbon and we worked together pretty well, although I had to take August up for a timeout when he kept running across the floor after we told him not to because Mikaela was home.

He had requested that today be a hair washing day, so he chose a treat. As I washed him, it turned out that the treat was actually gum. He did a good job chewing it, and was excited to have gum for the first time. He went and showed Carly. As I dried his hair he told me about a gumball machine he made. “Sorry, but each gumball costs one shekel.” He also made a chemical to dissolve the gum. You could drink it and it would dissolve the gum, and it was safe. It was optional whether the chemical would come with your purchase from the machine. He asked me if I wanted him to make anything in his lab. Earlier I had asked for a 100-foot mechanical snake to slither around, and I had also asked for a huge mechanical bird, and a collapsible water park that would fit in our yard.

We got him ready for bed, and I left them at 8:50.

Rolling playdough balls:

Rolling playdough balls 2:

Dance time 1:

Dance time 2:

Tune on the way back to the car:

Riding down the path:

In the pool again:

Being Grumpy Grandpa Fish:

He was up right at 7:30. He took awhile to wake up, then played Dragonbox Big Numbers. Not much though, then he went and did some metal origami and tried out the new paper airplane that I had folded for him right before the Kerns had shown up, and he had never tried it. He watched an episode of The Magic School Bus about poop. I went up and took a shower, but didn’t make it down before he had started another one, about the ghost farm. So I let him watch that. We packed up to head to Jerusalem. He wanted his plastic box with headphones attached so he could listen in the car. We couldn’t find it, so we got another pair of headphones and another plastic container and made another one. I closed the box, and he told me he had to put the wires and stuff in it. I said I didn’t realize he had done that with the last one. He replied, “That’s becuase I did it in my laboratory.”

We headed out around 9:30. He wanted to listen to music on the way down, so that’s what we did. He wore the headphones most of the way. I turned the music down and asked him something a few times, but he was in a listening mode and didn’t talk much. When we got to the museum we didn’t think about it being crowded. It’s never been crowded before. I think today is a no-school day for the elections tomorrow, and there were lots of camp groups here. So it took us awhile to park, but squeezed into a spot and were into the museum at 11:20. As we walked up, he saw a group leaving and said, “That was nice timing.”

We started at the coin spinning thing. I gave him two one-shekel coins, as we can never remember to have 10 agorot coins on us. He happily did his two, then there was suddenly a lot of other people dropping coins as well, so he got to watch a lot of them.

We wandered into the museum. There is a hall of mirrors place and I wanted to go in, as I hadn’t done it. He at first said it was scary, but when I said he could stay out and I just wanted to see it, he said he wanted to go in with me, as long as I held him. So we went and did that. He made it through, then we played with the fun mirror that makes you fatter as you walk away, then flips the image, so that August was now on my right. He wanted to take me up to his favorite part, but the very top part, that had the paper airplane station and shooter, was closed. He was kind of bummed by that.

We went to the big metal ball machine thing. He again said that the thing in the corner was too scary but he wanted me to go in. He looked through the different peephole things at me, and when I came out one end he screamed in surprise. We played with the ball thing a bit, and the microscope. He talked about the money back in the spinning thing, and said they would be rich. We talked about what the money was actually intended for and why it would be bad to take it. ‘Unethical’ was a word of the day.

I mentioned we could have lunch, and he remembered getting a snack from the snack shop—it was a mango juice we planned to get this time. I gave him the coin and let him buy it, then we went out to the orange bench. As we approached it, I called it comfy. August reminded me that they were hard, and we remembered that we had both been fooled by the appearance of them last time. We had soft-boiled egg, sushi, and gingersnap cookies. August needed a stand for his soft-boiled egg, so we improvised with the holder from his straw. When he was breaking a cracker for his egg, he asked, “Why does it keep breaking when I just do one?” ‘Shatter’ became a word of the day.

While we were eating, a group of kids went by us to play on the outside portion. August said he was lucky not to be in the class, as he wouldn’t be able to eat right now. When we were done, August started to say he was ready to go home, saying he always intended for it to be a short visit.

We went inside and rode the elevator up to the top portion. Played with the drum that causes air movement, and tried to find the eavesdropping one that played “Robots”, but this time it was playing a different song. And he played with a laser thing.

Back on the main floor, we had fun with the optical illusions, particularly the spinning black and white wheels that make color, the spinning goblet that casts silhouettes that look like people talking, an arrow that is difficult to cut in equal halves, and a color one where you see a cat or a dog.

Back in the ball area, we played with the machine a bit, then the scale that you lift with a rope. We turned some cranks and things, and I explained one worked like a piston in a car, while another was like the jack that Grampa used to lift his car. Finally, as we were about to go, I realized they had moved the paper airplane machine down to the edge of the big activity space. There was a school class at the tables now, however, and the airplanes would shoot right at them. We talked about waiting until they were finished, but decided we could do it on our next visit. The class then got up to start doing the paper stuff. As we went to the bathrooms, several of the students did as well. August noticed, and asked me, “Wasn’t it funny that in the class ALL of the girls were going to the bathroom and none of the boys?”

We stopped on the way out to buy memberships. It costs us 90 shekels to visit now, as now that he is 5 August costs 45 shekels, as opposed to free. So, for an additional 200 shekels (290 total) we could be a membership. The membership also gets us a discount at the Haifa science center, and free entrance into a ton of museums in the U.S. So definitely worth it.

That took awhile, and while he waited August played with two paper clips we had found on the ground. We got to the car and headed home. No time for the big park this time. I had thought about starting an audiobook, like a Ramona book, on the way home, but August said just Story Pirates. So we listened to a bunch of Story Pirates. #18 and a bunch of their older stories. In one of the author interviews a 5-year old girl tells a corny knock knock joke where the person at the door is the person she’s talking to. August found that one hilarious. There was a lot of laughing overall. After one of them, about bank robbers who rob for charity, he asked, “What’s a charity?” I explained, and reminded him of beet picking. He remembered the giant beet we took home.

I had left my iPad at home, so we went there and I left the doors open while I ran in and grabbed it. We drove to the school and parked and were going in as all the preschoolers were heading out to their busses. August got a great welcome, and Marion and Michelle complimented him on his haircut. We first went to Mandy’s classroom and dropped off a bag of cookies, then headed to STEM.

Outside the preschool they have a new water station that Ofir made in the shop at school. It has a pump, and the water circulates after going down a ramp to a bucket. August was able to distribute the other cookie bags to Andrea, Vicky, and Marion. I had labeled the paper bags, and August was easily able to look in the cloth bag and find which was for which person.

In STEM, they played with corks and water, then went out and played with that new contraption as it was so irresistible.

Carly walked home, and we got home a couple minutes before her. When she got here he was being smothering, so she went in the bathroom for a short break. He crawled under the table and curled up for a few minutes. He was better when she came out. I don’t remember what started it, but he started to turn what I said into a song. So this became a sort of game where I would say something new and he would sing it.

He said, “I haven’t had oatmeal…I thought I woke up a little while ago.” This time, I discussed the concept of ‘flow’ with him. I then told him we’d read Nick and Tesla after I’d made coffee. This turned into a game with him asking “Can you read Nick and Tesla?” and me grumpily replying “After my coffee!”

Carly made sushi and they ate it together (I had leftover salmon, rice, and broccoli). August didn’t eat too much, and said it was too messy. We read Nick and Tesla. When Carly asked if he would eat smaller sushi he said yes, and said he just wanted broccoli in it. So she made some, and he ate all of it. And then the next plate, and the next, and the next. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him eat so much at one meal. We finished the book, and started the second.

He then did alone time. He started by painting his haunted house, but then basically sang for the whole thing. Much of it was a “mama” song. Afterwards, as he ate his Oreo, he asked if I was impressed, and explained that he had a main tune, which he hummed, and mixed in other songs. He said he was a better singer than other kids in PKA: “They don’t take singing lessons all the time. I did in my world.”

He started talking about how fast he is. To the speed of light. He asked me to explain how fast 300,000 km/s actually was. So I was trying to give him an idea of that, then we talked about quantum entanglement, and how crazy that is, and how little i know about it. After my explanation he told me, “They’re wrong. It takes time. It goes so fast scientists can measure it. Faster than light…” And went on to explain just how fast the information moves.

We needed to clean up the house, and Carly got him going by giving him challenges. We did a pretty quick job of straightening everything. He was hyper, and was running through the house and I was timing him. We heard Mikaela get home, so Carly got him to run outside a bit. They then finished the card to her and lowered it and a bag of cookies down on the string.

He started singing again, and asked Carly, “Are you entranced by the music right now?” She had used the word after his singing earlier. He then asked, “Since I want to stay here three more years, do you think that guy will give us the blender in three years?” Apparently he and Carly had had the years discussion earlier, and he’s referring to the juicer that Jeff said we could have to take apart when it broke.

I took him up to take a bath. He kept doing a good job of stalling. First, he had me go in the bathroom and wanted to turn the lights out on me: “I want to show you how dark it is…” When he turned off the light,s he then started running down the stairs: “I’m stalling my bath!” I got him back up, and then he discovered a tiny spider by my neck. He got it on his hands, and it was running all over him. He excitedly took it down to show Carly. Third time was a charm and I got him washed. In on the bed he made up tongue twisters, and we read more of the second Nick and Tesla book, then two Skybrary books: Ted’s Surprise and Tessa Tiger’s Temper Tantrums. I noticed him sucking on his finger again. I had first noticed this in the car, then at home he had been chewing on the yellow tube attached to his city. He said it was his itchy tooth. Seems like it is acting up again, although he says it doesn’t hurt.

He brushed his teeth and Carly put him to bed. I left them just before 9.

Paperclip thing:

Big ball:

Laser:

Water pump during STEM:

Humming and spotting a Fiat:

Turning what I say into songs and dance:

Singing and painting during alone time:

Mama song during alone time:

Running through the house:

Little spider on his hands:

He came out about 7:50. Carly was upstairs. she brought him down and he was sleepy and smiley again. They went and started working more on the card for Mikaela. I went up to take a shower. While I was up there one of his strings came apart into curly threads and Carly said it could be spider web in a haunted house. So August wanted to build a haunted house out of paper. They were doing that when I came down. August said he had invented special rebar for paper, but it is only sold in “art stores. Crafts stores” so we don’t have any. He spent a good amount of time painting it.

I was preparing ingredients, then he helped me make the gingersnap dough. Carly made him oatmeal and mango (eaten separately) for breakfast. He went outside with Carly for awhile while I worked on the fresh ginger. He was shocked that I was using fresh ginger. I think because he’s seen me use ginger in savory things, so he doesn’t think it should taste good in a sweet thing. He also kept calling it garlic.

He came back in and we finished and made one tray. We read Nick and Tesla and had a cookie when the first tray was done. From the book, ‘silver dollar’ and ‘ransom’ were words of the day. We forgot to put sugar on the top of the first batch, but remembered for the rest. Carly had gone to the store, and now got back. August was most excited by the half of a watermelon. While she cut it, he used a straw to suck up the pools of juice. Carly said, “Its a good day for watermelon.” I replied, “Unless you’re the watermelon.” She said, “That’s an oh dada.” August initially said “Oh, dada” but then sided with me for once: “But he’s right. If you were the watermelon you’re getting eating.Well, that’s some good thinking.” Or something of the sort.

I finally changed him into clothes. I put shorts and short-sleeved shirt on him. He put on a sweatshirt. He then took his shorts off and then the sweatshirt and shirt. He ended up in pants and a long-sleeved shirt. He tied a bag shut with his shoes and Carly’s sandals. He and Carly then watched the rest of Up. It was the suspenseful, scary part at the end. August had a styrofoam tray that he was thinking about using for an art project, and was nervously nibbling at the edge of it. Carly kept asking if he was okay, and he kept telling her to keep the movie going. I actually watched the very end with him when she got up to make food.

We finished the movie, then he talked me into opening the rocks and tile things that we had bought at Max. We had initially planned on going swimming today, but then checked the pool schedule and it was only open until 2pm. So Carly was going to take him to the beach and I was going to work. I was working on writing the calendar signs. They took quite awhile to go, as August kept playing with things. He set up a string across the living room and into the hall and taped a chair and objects to it. He sat and played with his Lego spaceship for a few minutes and flew it around the house.

They finally left at 2:40. I spent a lot of time working on the calendar and homeschooling stuff, then spent an hour on work. They were back at 5:30. They had gone to Poleg Beach, the closest one, and been close to the stream. He told me, “There was a huge muck place.” He gave muck to Carly to build with and it hardened in the sun. He ended up wading in the water and walking across the stream and wasn’t bothered by one of his pant legs getting wet.

He played a little Dragonbox Big Numbers. The bigger math is really taking hold. I think he had 11-5 memorized now. We then worked on the calendar together, discussing it and starting to put things on it. Carly made sushi, and we all sat at the table and ate. When he was done eating he started playing with the box of metal connectors from Max, bending them into different shapes: “It’s like metal origami.” He had me superglue a bird one made out of three of them. We did a little more with the calendar, and Carly blended watermelon juice for him. He drank more, and was saying she should get a full watermelon next time.

He was hyper, so I took him up and we wrestled and did the car game on the bed. He wanted to do an imagining game, and it was the one where I help a baby tiger, but this time I get eaten by the mother. He tied clothes together and onto the door knob again as a sort of lock or something, then I gave him bath.

We skyped with my parents. He was quite hyper, but did a good job of showing them things, including how he does his metal origami. And he joked about dad saying “handy.” Upstairs, he was looking out the bedroom window several times, and he looked out as he brushed his teeth. I left him and Carly at 8:40.

Making gingersnaps:

His string creation:

Playing with his spaceship:

Metal origami:

He came downstairs just after 7:20. I was on the couch and Carly was outside. He stood at the entrance from the stairs and gave me a smiling, just-woke-up look for a few seconds, then came and lounged on the couch.

He played Dragonbox Big Numbers and we read a good amount of Nick and Tesla. He asked about a lot of words: steepled, airlock, meddling. We played with the circuit they had made yesterday (#95), where a bright light can override the effect of the music. ‘override’ was another word of the day. We then cut cardstock for our calendar signs together, then we decorated a bunch of bookmarks after he cut a bunch more (he and Carly had decorated several together yesterday). I would start the decorations, and he would finish them. He talked about wanting to hand them out to the preschoolers.

I made him oatmeal after he ate strawberries. He wanted me to not mix in the brown sugar, then tried to only eat the parts with the sugar in it and leave the rest of the oatmeal. I mixed up why remained though and told him he had missed some of the sugar and he ate the rest as he played a little Dragonbox Big Numbers. He was now confidently figuring out some of the problems with grouping (like 9+3) in his head. Carly came downstairs. She had been up early and had now taken a nap.

I went up and took a shower. When I came down they were making folded paper things out of strips of paper, like Carly used to make from the edges of paper from the old dot-matrix printers. I helped with paper mache flower thing – he was making a card for Mikaela. He asked how thick tissue paper was and we looked it up. I talked about the density of paper, and he asked, “What’s dense mean?”

We had crackers and cheese and meat and watched Wintergatan videos – 71 and 72. We then did some more hot gluing of things on his city. The gold hot glue was coming through now. He did an 18 minute alone time, choosing to play with his magnet kit, and had an Oreo.

He ate his Oreo, then we talked about going outside. He wanted to play a little more Dragonbox Big Numbers, so I let him, as I was working on something. He sat next to me on the couch and leaned against my right arm while I tried to type. I scooted away once, and a few seconds later he scooted over and leaned on me again.

We tried the tiny screwdrivers on the printer. No luck. Carly came down. We were getting ready to go for a walk and Carly and I changed into shorts. He didn’t. We suggested he could wear short sleeves tomorrow s it would be even warmer. He skeptically said, “Oh, I will see.”

I went up and did recycling while they sat in the yard, then we walked up into town, taking the back roads. He did the radio station thing and I sang a couple songs, including our “Juicy Juice” song. He was then singing it to himself. Our initial goal was the snakes and ladders playground. We stopped in the park area before that to look for bugs. Not much luck. Carly suggested we keep going and head over to the park with the orange trees. There, Carly sat on a swing and gave August challenges to help him find bugs. He wanted me to go with him at one point close to the corner, as there was a dog behind a fence.

He found a roly poly and then sat with Carly on the swing for a few minutes, then we got going. He’s not really into playing at playgrounds nowadays. Carly suggested we go to a coffee shop, so we walked north into town and went to the new one in the new mall. August remembered he wanted to sit in the elevated portion inside and they let us go up there. They ordered a real strawberry milkshake to share, and I got a mint lemonade. It was a little hard for August to actually share the shake, as it was so good. He sipped my lemonade and at first said he didn’t like it, but then he kept drinking more and more. He missed the memo that we weren’t going to get food and crawled under the table for a minute.

They headed home as I did the whole waiting for the check thing. I paid and caught up. On the way I found the bit of packing strap that August had found earlier. It had fallen out of the bike, so I delivered it to him. He had found it on the way to the coffee shop. He was humming a tone, then put it in his mouth. Yuck.

At home I cut more signs and we added to the city. I started rice for dinner to go with the curry. Mandy Kern and all three of her daughters arrived about 5:15. He was a little overwhelmed by the crowd, but was soon loving the attention.

We went upstairs and had a Skype consultation with Dr. Postma. That went quite well. He reassured us on homeschooling being good for August, and stressed that social interaction is best with like-minded kids, and doesn’t have to be the same age. He did that before we really raised that concern, and it goes against what pretty much everyone here has told us (psychologist, OT, preschool director, etc.) who have basically said that he of course needs to be in school and socializing with kids his own age a lot. He said gifted kids usually have 2 or so close friends. He then suggested finding interest groups and mentors. We immediately had the idea of seeing if we could hang out with the robotics team or GAIA club. And as we were discussing having all of these sessions with Postma earlier in the day, I realized that Gabby, the oldest daughter, is great with August as a mentor, taking him to the butterfly garden, teaching him about the tortoises, etc. So we are doing just fine with the social piece.

We came downstairs to find them gone. Carly texted Mandy and she said they’d be back in 15 minutes. It turns out they had gone up to the playground and played with the exercise equipment. “Mandy really doesn’t like pollution,” he told me later. They then walked over to the mall and told him he could get one treat. It was a Kinder egg. I think he now wants to collect all the toys. He had told them about his planet (which apparently has a name with a bunch of numbers in it) and that he is a robot. And he had walked the entire distance on his own. As they approached the house I heard them discussing the rain, and one of the girls said to us, “He really doesn’t like the rain.” As they left and I noted they had to walk down the street to their car, he said, “I hope they don’t get rained on.”

He would keep bringing up the rain as we ate dinner. I asked Siri if it was going to rain. She said no, but he said, “Well I think so. I felt a couple little drops.” I served the curry again but he said it was too spicy this time. He had a bowl of broccoli and rice with soy sauce and a piece of salmon instead. I asked if he wanted more, and he replied, “Okay. Just because it has a lot of fat to keep you warm.”

He ate his chocolate egg and Carly talked to her mom. We put together his toy of a Minion on a bicycle. More talk of the rain. As he went to the bathroom we discussed the differences between a laptop and iPad, and I mentioned dictating your writing. He asked what ‘dictate’ means.

I asked him what he would do if he could do anything. An idea from the Brave Learner book I’m reading. He said break things, like walls and windows. He started describing breaking the preschool, so I thought it might just be expressing frustration with school. But then he clarified he’d like to break our house apart too. Basically, he just likes to break things. So, don’t know how I can turn that into a homeschooling thing, but maybe we can see a building demolition. Also, he has talked about wanting to break concrete with a hammer several times, and was talking about sledgehammers fairly regularly for awhile.

We then hung up our whiteboards. I had thought of his as not one to hang up, but he insisted on it being part of our schooling area. So we hung it with a nail to the left of the windows. He had school ideas for it, and we got all of the magnet letters from the fridge and put them in a cup by it. I suggested I start putting a word up on the board each morning for him to read and he liked the idea. He was saying “nice” to things a lot today; a phrase he gets from me.

I was trying to call my own parents, then Carly came down with Cherie on the computer. August was busy tying a box of pushpins to the nail, but when he was done with that he started explaining everything to her, including his electronics part city. We talked about how a slug had escaped in our house, and Carly said something about all the insects in our house. August said, “I like all the bugs in our house. Peaceful.”

I took him upstairs and after some initial fighting against a bath, got his hair washed just fine, after he had chosen Mentos from the treats. August asked, “What eats bones?” So we looked it up and discussed bone decomposition.

He brushed his teeth and we got him ready for bed. I left them at 9:05. We had also read more Nick and Tesla sometime during the evening. About ¾ done.

Paper mache flowers:

On the swing with mama:

Humming and plastic in his mouth:

Explaining his city:

Tongue twisters:

He was up at 7:20, as I was getting dressed. Carly was staying home today, and I mistakenly sent him downstairs, thinking she was down there. I heard him open the door downstairs to look outside. I met him coming up as I walked down and he told me, “She isn’t.” We found her in another room upstairs. He was a little upset, but handled it okay.

When they both had to go to the bathroom he raced her to it. As he washed his hands: “Why do germs think of water and soap as enemies? Predators?”

They read Fix It, Sam and then I read him part of Cycle City on the iPad. He didn’t want to finish it, and asked to play Dragonbox Big Numbers. He then played the new belly button snack game where I tried to fool him into eating something gross, but then he turns out to be an animal that likes the food I describe (worm cookies, etc.). I mentioned ‘symbiotic relationship’ and that became a word of the day when I told him about fish and whales, and microbes in his gut.

He spent a long time outside with Carly. He was finding slugs and they put them in a big bucket. He found a butterfly wing. He came in with a big stick singing a stick pony song. I made calender signs for our homeschooling and he played more Dragonbox Big Numbers. He played with his food machine and told me, “With just the red plugged in it makes the most nutritionist food.”

He came up to the bathroom with me while I took a shower. Downstairs he went back outside. He taped up the slugs after feeding them some plants. He then played with hose, having different spray settings with his finger. He had ‘supersonic’ mode and started watering the plants: “supersonic to the cactus, supersonic to the mint…”

Back inside Carly asked if we could take down the yellow string from the kitchen. He said yes, then said, “Could I say one last goodbye to my string? Goodbye string!” We then realized that the slug we had taped up last night had escaped through one of the bottom holes of the pot. August and I looked under the couch with a flashlight, but didn’t find it. We found his watch, lots of beads, and other things though. He randomly told me,”So for my birthday I want a big helium balloons that says 6 on it.”

He looked at the thermometer and I said the temperature was pretty consistent inside: “What’s consistent mean?”

We got going, and drove to Planetanya. Carly stayed home to work. This time, success. The security guard recognized us from yesterday. We got our tickets, and looked at the fish in the indoor pond. August said it looked like a little swamp.

We talked about how the building was big but didn’t have much in it as we walked out to the outdoor science playground. I guess I agreed to much with him too much, because once out there August was convinced and he wanted to leave and go to a real science center. We did end up spending about 30 minutes though, so give that the whole thing only cost a little over 5 dollars it wasn’t bad.

we looked at the optical illusions, and his favorite part was the fun mirrors. He spent a lot of time dancing in them, and getting closer and farther away. Skipped the music, and then spent time at the solar power area, aiming the mirrors at the panels.

We did the bikes that power things, and the big hamster wheel, which August had done a video of me walking in last year. This time, he sat on the ground and had me gently walk forward and backwards.

Finally, in the gravity area he rode the bike with the rotating flywheel, and we played on the spinning disk where you move in and out to change the speed. A little more time in the gravity area, then we headed out.

We drove to the Tiv Taam parking lot and walked to Max. There were a couple specific things I wanted: white board for writing down project ideas, and a paper trimmer that August could use and I could use to make all the signs I want. I told him he could get one thing, and he knew exactly what he wanted: the white-out tape things that he had considered but passed on for his one item yesterday.

We found the whiteboard. August wanted a magnetic one as well, so I got him a slightly smaller one in addition to the wood-framed one that I got for the wall. he found his white-out tape pens and I got one more set of drawers, and he convinced me to get a set of small bottles for his potions.

We asked about a paper trimmer, but they didn’t have one. So we stopped by the art store on the way back to the car. They had one for 99 shekels. A lot more than everything we had bought at Max combined, but still only 25 dollars.

We drove home, getting here at 2. We started with the paper trimmer, figuring out how it works. He then opened the white-out pens and we figured out how to work them. He was doing pretty well with them, and making random shapes that he said were kingdoms: “It’s the kingdom of Castilist.” Later, he wanted me to save one, telling me “people live there.”

He had pizza for a late lunch, along with some dried mango and milk. He went outside with Carly. They were pretending to be slugs. His idea; she was disgusted by the idea. He was joking around and said, “I’ll tell everyone in the world my mama has a penis.” They watered plants together. He then came in and told me, “I discovered a color: lightning red…a little visible to humans.”

I then took him to Tiv Taam with me. We needed ingredients for gingersnaps and a few other things. On the way he asked why motorcycles go fast when they take short cuts. I talked about how some drove too fast, and he said, “I don’t think Ms. Rena does that.”

Shopping went well. I got him a pack of cheese crackers and he ate them on the way home. We were home at 4:20. Carly was upstairs.

We were squirrels and made a nest out of the pillows and chairs. He then started a beaver imagining game where I found a beaver that had been flooded out of its home by a dam.

Carly came down and they went outside and were catching slugs again. I went upstairs to rest. When I came down they were making bookmarks with the paper cutter. He had also done most of a circuit project, and when he got frustrated he climbed into her lap for comfort. She colored on a bookmark and he said, “You’re writing DNA waves.”

He and I read Nick and Tesla. When it was time to eat he asked, “Dada? Could you read while I eat? It’s getting super scary and creepy.” He was then saying, “Something’s fishy around here.” Quoting the book.

We all sat on the table and ate together. I had made rice to go with the chicken soup. We then added to the sculpture and we started to call it a city and discussed what all the parts were, including power plants and train lines. He said, “People call this the Electrical City.”

Upstairs he taped up a cupboard so we couldn’t get into it. Luckily, one we never use. But then he kept going and taped up some of the drawers. He brushed his teeth, and Carly put him to sleep. I left them at 8:45. It was quiet around 9, but I don’t know how long it took.

I am Mr. Pony Stick song:

Hose fun:

Supersonic mode:

Fun mirror:

Spinning chair:

White out pen:

Silly time:

Drill slo-mo:

He came down before 7:45. He lay on the couch, with his eyes closed part of the time and his feet on my lap, until just after 8 when he aekes, “Can I play Dragonbox Numbers?” I made him say “Good morning, Dada.”

He played a little Dragonbox Big Numbers, then asked for a strawberry and mango smoothie before having oatmeal. He paused to eat the smoothie and his oatmeal. He asked me to bring his iPad and set it up for him and did so very politely. I complimented him on how well he’s using polite language recently.

He used some psychology to get me to shake something, maybe one of his shakers, that he was using as some sort of tester: “Dada, do you love me? Well, if you do you’ll shake this and I’ll believe you.” I shook it. “Done! I believe you!”

I went up and took a shower while he played the Lego game down on the couch. He switched to the Synth One app though and was playing really loud screeching notes and giggling to himself when I got out of my shower. We discussed the presets and ‘preset’ was a word of the day.

He then taped the multimeter to the top of his shakers and the whole thing was a machine that he said made what you wanted. It was a food machine. We measured the space under his art kitchen (63w x 19h x 17d) for storage purposes, me teaching him how to record and read the measurements. He then decided to release the beetle that we caught yesterday. We did that, and left at 10:30.

We drove to Planetanya and noticed it was overrun with students. The security guard told us it was closed for a special event today, even though it is normally supposed to be open on Thursdays. He said tomorrow it would work though. August spotted a building from the car and called it a little skyscraper: “But I don’t think it touches the sky.” I asked how tall a building needs to be to be called a skyscraper. He thought about it and said, “When the top can go in the clouds.”

We then drove to Max to get some supplies for homeschooling, namely the calendar and signs I want to make. He had ‘found’ a 5 shekel piece in the car, and I told him he could choose something to buy on his own at Max. His first choice was a fancy mechanical pencil. He changed his mind though after I mentioned he could write with them, saying, “Actually, I don’t want these cuz I don’t want to write my name.” We worked our way though the art department, getting all sorts of stuff. We also got a wooden thermometer for the Zinnie house. I figured it would be good for learning Fahrenheit and Celsius, and we also ended up discussing how it works and mercury quite a bit.

We quickly paid, him buying his set of drill bits on his own. He had gone through a few choices: white out correcting tape changed to a pack of 5 toothbrushes to play with, changed to the drill bits. There were a couple other in there as well, I think. We hurried back to the car to get back before we had to pay for parking (you get a free hour in the Tiv Taam lot now). We discussed skyscrapers and building materials on the way home, getting here at 12:25. As we drove he said, “Hey! Uranus is named after a body part!…a pee body part!” It turned out he meant ‘urine’. Ha.

For lunch we made two soft-boiled eggs and he had some of the pizza. The eggs were a little too hard for him—he likes his eggs runny for dipping purposes. We were discussing homeschooling, and he said he wants to change to weekend to be Friday and Monday. I pointed out that that’s not really what people do, and he said, “Yeah, but we can do it however we want. It’s not like you’re going to go to jail. It’s not illegal.” He asked whether eggs have different sized yolks, and I said they were pretty consistent. That was another word of the day. We then discussed herbivores and carnivores: “If I was an eagle I’d love to eat a baby bird egg. I’d sneak into the nest…” He then asked, “Can we do homeschooling?”

So we went down and got a big piece of paper and I started to write down all the subjects and things he is interested in down on paper. For everyone that he said he wanted to learn about I put a star next to it. We came up with 9 things that I’m going to put up on the wall as ‘August’s Subjects’. It was things like insects, nature, machines, and electronics, and also things like art and history. He told me that one time PKB made tea and let everyone have it and he used his straw.

We then experimented with the circuit set, testing the rechargeable battery from the solar light. Confused me by having a switch connected that still works when though the circuit was complete. We finally figured it out.

The alarm on my phone, that used to remind me to go get August at school, went off. August gave me a confused look when I explained what it was, and said “I thought I woke up just a couple minutes ago.” That is, he thought it was one of our morning alarms that he’s used to hearing. I reminded him of all the things we’d done today, and that if his day felt like it had gone quickly it meant he was having fun. I then asked how his school days had felt. He replied, “School was really, really long.”

We discussed the thermometer again and discussed what would happen if it was boiling. He then invented clear steel, so he could make a thermometer that couldn’t break when the mercury got hot. He then invented a clear steel skyscraper: “They’re popular. People seem to like them, actually.” We talked about how crazy it would be to be in an invisible skyscraper, and it got pretty silly with everyone being able to see in the bathrooms and walking into invisible walls.

I asked him what subject he wanted to start with, and one of the things he had chosen was ‘photography’. So we decided to go for a photography walk.

So we went out and took the bike. He immediately went across to the cactus area and started finding things to take photos of. We talked about landscape and portrait, and I taught him how to just the focus, which was entirely new to him. He made use of it to adjust focus on plants, and also on the entrance to an ant nest.

We then walked down to the old highway area, taking some photos along the way. He decided he was done though when he saw thicker clouds and decided we should head home. His idea the whole time was to go home and then change the photos on the iPad, using the editing apps. We were doing that when Carly got home. August also remembered doing it with screenshots of the astronomy app, so he went and was looking at satellites and galaxies.

Carly got home and we showed her, then she went upstairs and he did more editing, then watched some Max and Ruby. He then saw a Marble Machine X video we haven’t seen yet, and we watched #75. He remembered the tiny screwdrivers we bought and we started looking for the rest of the iPad to take apart, but couldn’t remember where we put it. We ended up writing down our photography words that we used a lot on our walk (landscape, focus, etc.)

He found the pet cage thing with the baby still in it, from his birthday party, and filled it with other things as well and took it up to Carly. He put stuff in the cage with the baby and took it upstairs, where he played around with it with Carly. He found some coins and put them in and asked, “Is that enough to make the baby like the cage?”

I then cooked dinner, making a coconut green curry with mushrooms. I put in 1/4th of the green curry. They both found it a bit spicy, but edible. They did movie time, watching Up. I listened to the movie while I reorganized our living room and started making signs.

Eventually we ended up upstairs, and he started tying pajamas together and tying them to the bedroom door. I gave him a bath, then he was working on the clothes bridge-fence. He asked me what I made as a kid: “Stuff like engineers make? Like I make?”

I told him about Odyssey of the Mind (making a structure to hold weight), and he asked about competitions I’d been in and I told him about math competitions. He asked if I learned to make knots. I told him about Grampa’s Cub Scout books and Grest Grandpa being his scout leader. And I told him things I made in school: pinhole camera, egg drop, soda bottle rockets, fishing flies, etc.

When I mentioned paper airplanes, he wanted me to make one. We did, and he was throwing it around the bedroom. He started declaring, “That was a smooth one, ladies and gentlemen!” He eventually took it downstairs, throwing it down the stairs as he went.

We went back upstairs and got him ready for bed, and I left them at 8:50.

The food maker:

New drill bits:

Watching Up with mama:

Paper airplane throwing:

Paper airplane slo-mo: