Category: Daily

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:

He was kicking me a lot in the night. Once, when I was fending him off, he told me to stop touching him. Think he was dreaming.

He and I were both up at 7:25. We went downstairs and he went to Carly. She told him about ideas she had bout finding stuff to take apart. When he needed to go to the bathroom she tried to get him to do it without her having to go watch him. He’s pretty insistent about it since we got back, even wanting to see our eyes. When I asked why yesterday, he said he wanted to ask what I wanted him to make in his laboratory. He said the same to Carly.

He and I got a lot of fish in Dragonbox Big Numbers, then while he waited for a tree to be made in the game we started Captain Underpants #10. We read a few chapters, and Carly, having received an email from Ofir, saying he’d like to help with getting stuff to take apart, etc., walked up to the school to talk to him. We read a little more, then August wanted me to tell the counterfeiting story again. This time it was a kid buying a watch instead of ice cream.

I did that, then he played with the circuit set on his own for awhile. We then worked on it together, then started another of the actual projects. We had strawberries and cereal for breakfast, and as I got it I heard cats fighting outside. We went outside and saw them staring each other down, down in Mikaela’s yard. He has, over time, made a spaceship out of the two dead D batteries that he got at the library. He first had Carly glue them together, then added a small circuit board from one of our projects. Yesterday, he had her add the nut he found across the street and the dreidel that he had found under the couch. Now, he took the headphones that he found on a walk and had me glue them, trailing out the back of the spaceship. He was calling it his “old fashion rocket ship.” He was talking about wireless and non-wireless, and I think that was part of what made it old-fashioned was because it was wired headphones, not wireless.

Carly got home and we opened the package and looked at the new tools. I had ordered a 90-piece set for working on electronics. He looked at them for a few minutes, then they went back to school using the car and brought back a monitor and two printers.

They started taking apart a printer. When they used one of the new tools to take out a part he brought the tool over to me and told me all about it. I went up to take a shower. Carly then headed to the nursery. She went over to the one to the east, only to find it closed. That is the second one that has closed. So she drove north to the one on highway 4. And she also bought a big container of beautiful strawberries while she was there.

August and I took apart the printer a little more, then he went and watched Hilda. We then took apart the monitor. He was remembering the first monitor and how we didn’t take it all the way apart because of a warning on it about electricity. I couldn’t quite remember what we had decided, and August said, “I swear you said it.” Carly had been looking into electrical experiments, and suggested they make a battery out of coins, saying that the agorot are copper. I doubted they were, and August defended her, saying, “Mama said we’d try it. So don’t be fussy.”

They walked to the store to get vinegar for their experiment, and were back at 3. August had been insistent that he would only walk to the store with her if they only got vinegar. I think she also managed to get milk and one other thing. They then made their batteries. They found they’d get a high voltage (like 2.2) but it still wasn’t lighting up the bulbs, etc. So we started to learn and speculate about amps and volts. When I came down Carly told me that he was a little afraid of one spot on the floor, where they had put their batteries together, because one of the snap circuit pieces had been wobbling funny and they didn’t know why, and he thought it was scary. They figured out that it rocks back and forth longer than you would expect if you bump it. He finally got over it later in the day.

I had finished an essay for work, and now made a shopping list. August got hyper, and Carly headed to the store at 4:45. He was hyper, so we went upstairs and played a brother and sister game with a seal. ‘Blubber’ was a word of the day. The game had the brother and sister (always both played by me now, with him being the animal) getting stranded on an island and befriending a seal, which they first intended to eat, but then changed their mind. It then helps them catch fish. When they are eventually rescued, after island hopping and finding ways to stay safe from a tiger, they refuse to go on the ship until the seal can come with them. Carly had gotten back, but we kept playing for several minutes.

Eventually, I wanted to go downstairs and make dinner—the coconut and ginger curry. I had found the bag of pennies, and they now made a battery out of them. As we ate, we talked about how August wanted to move someplace where it snows. We then talked about just taking a vacation to see snow. August got upset when Carly said she didn’t want to go to a snowy country over winter break, just someplace in Israel with snow. She took him up for a timeout.

She took a shower, and August finished his dinner, then ate three of the strawberries. We talked about them tasting like candy. Finally, he had toast and we read more of Amulet #7. We then Curious George Goes to the Bookstore, and ‘tier’ was another word of the day. Finally, we read more of Captain Underpants #10.

We went up for his bath, and he made up a really cool tune on the toilet. I gave him a bath and washed his hair. Tootsie Roll was his treat. In the bedroom he told me he had made a slicing machine that was totally safe for babies to use. And he talked about how he wanted to do sticker charts again, because he thought they would help him do better. He asked if there were yellow stickers, and said they could be for things that were between green and red. All his own ideas. The air conditioner isn’t working, and we were trying to figure out why. The plug worked, and so did the remote control. Might be a problem.

He was then jumping around and doing math problems on the bed and asked about counting by 11s. I helped him with it, then he did it on his own. He was then counting by 5s, figuring that out on his own. We brushed his teeth, Carly came in, and I left them around 9:15.

Making music with his noise circuit:

Opening our new tool set:

Looking at the new tools:

Taking apart the monitor:

Reading the circuit board:

Testing their battery 1:

Testing their battery 2:

Counting by 5s:

He was up about 7:35. He found Carly outside, then they cuddled on the couch. He watched Berenstain Bears, then switched to Hilda. He said it was “like switching planes…now I’m on the Hilda bus.”

Carly went to get the car. I let August watch an extra episode as I went and took a shower. That was a mistake, as when he was done he had a meltdown about watching more. I calmly took him up, and when Carly got home a few minutes later she stayed with him for awhile. He eventually apologized.

He did art with Carly, cutting up the Hebrew cookbooks. They made a card for Mandy, and August asked Carly to make a shield that goes on his arm. Not entirely sure how he came up with that idea. Think they also started a card for Mikaela.

They then walked to the grocery store to get a few things. They saw what he calls the “poop flowers” on the way—the big white flowers with brown/purple spots in the center. He ate two and a half bananas on the way back. They were back around 1:40.

He was grabbing at Carly so she took him up for a timeout, which I finished. We discussed his coins from Greece and ended up discussing making money, and ‘counterfeit’ was a word of the day. He asked for a story about counterfeiting. So I made up a story of a kid drawing a dollar bill and buying ice cream with it, then going to jail. He liked the story and wanted it again and again. Each time he would do a different ice cream flavor. I told it 4 or 5 times before saying that was enough. We read Nick and Tesla #2 and ‘congealed’ was another word of the day.

Carly made some sushi, but August is now less excited bout it. He and I went for a short junk walk, just up to the recycling area. Didn’t find anything, but across the street from our house he found a nice round nut. Back in the house it ended up under the couch. We moved the couch and recovered a lot of other things as well. He ate rice and soy sauce and cucumber sticks.

They then drove over to Mandy’s to pick up the plants and to giver her the card and the chocolate from Greece. They came back and I came down and he was testing batteries forCubetro. I did some Cubetto with him. He picked at the iPad we took apart and we discussed motherboards and daughter boards. He then was talking about “Titanium girl!” Like a superhero that he’s made up. We started a circuit, then he went to the bathroom and asked what I wanted him to make. He made a robot assistant for me, like in NextGen. We were listening to the new Chemical Brothers album. He did some dancing to it, then wanted me to pick him up. That ended up with me spinning him to get him dizzy. We did that until I had had enough.

He had fun piling things around my legs as I recovered. I needed to sit down, then he piled stuff around me. When I got too warm we put everything away and I took him with me to do recycling. He noticed the long shadows, and had his shadow out in the street where it got runover by bicycles. He was then tracking ants until I was done. He did help a little.

Back at home I did something I haven’t done in a long time: read Captain Underpants to him. It was book 9. Carly cooked fresh broccoli from the garden and he ate a bowl of it. She then made pancakes. She used the big salt though, and the pancakes had salt chunks in them. August liked it that way though, so we just ate them like that. I think he ate three of them.

We read some more, then Carly gave him a bath. I had a headache and lay down for awhile. In bed, I finished the Captain Underpants book. For a story I told him about my band trip to Disneyland. He kept interrupting, thinking it was illegal to go on a trip like that.

He told me he wanted to live somewhere where it snows in winter. But with no tornadoes or hurricanes. Discussed France etc. But he said he couldn’t do the language.

When I told him it was time to turn off the lamp he did his crazy kicking and accidentally kicked me. But then he said he didn’t care. Carly talked to him, then he apologized and I put him to sleep. I sang Sesame Street songs, then Skip to My Lou. He fell asleep as I sang Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. He was asleep at 9:40.

When will we?:

Finding a lot of dusty stuff:

Cubetto getting stuck:

Dancing to the new Chemical Brothers:

Circuit music:

He was up about 7:10. Carly was with him for awhile, then she got ready to leave. She was heading to the Ancient Agora today. He watched a few of the Rube Goldberg machine videos and I did a little work. He ate a couple strawberries and we both had a digestive. He watched a couple episodes of Hilda, and we played GarageBand. He asked about making a song, and we started to layer drums, bass, and a melody. He said, “It sounds like a real song.” Carly got back from the Agora. She had been the first person in. It wasn’t yet 10, and she suggested I had time to go for a walk.

So I downloaded the Rick Steves audio tour of downtown Athens (she had listened to the Agora tour and really liked it) and took the subway up to Syntagma Square and started there. I saw part of the changing of the guard ceremony across the street, with the funny stepping and skirts with 400 pleats on them, then walked west through town. I got a donut along the way, saw the church in the middle of the street, the cathedral and the older church next to it (with recycled pieces from the Agora and tombstones), walked to Hadrian’s Arch (which we’d been by before), then finally to the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, where my Greek was good enough to realize that one of the stones somehow commemorated a year that Byron had spent there. Turned out it used to be the site of a Capuchin Monastery where he stayed.

I hurried back to the Airbnb place, getting there by 11:40. I had planned to eat a little, but the cleaning woman had already shown up and was waiting for us. So Carly ran the garbage down, we went up and grabbed our stuff, and took off before 12. While I was gone they had finished packing up. August had vacuumed for an allowance, earning a total of 45 agorot, aided by the fact that he ate some crackers and then needed to vacuum again.

As we left I suggested he say goodbye, and he said, “Bye Athens hotel. You’re pretty fancy…bye balcony things.” The second was as we walked down the stairs and he looked out the window one more time.

We went and took the subway one stop north to Acropoli and walked to where there are a lot of restaurants. Busy now as it’s as lunch time. We squeezed into a small table at Spezie. We only had two chairs, and August sat on my lap when we ate. Carly took him to play across the street and I ordered our food: the mixed pita, a Greek coffee, and a melon and other fruit juice that August had ordered. They came back and ate, then while they went to the bathroom I moved our bags across the street. While I stood there, a few students came up to me and gave me a survey about our trip, and rewarded me with a bag of pasta.

Carly and August came out, and we walked to the subway and headed to the airport. When buying our tickets, there were two teenage boys ‘helping’ people with the machines. We had to shoo them off, as our cards weren’t working and it was taking awhile.

Finally, we got going. We rode an elevator up one level when we transferred, and compared to the elevator where we had stayed, this elevator was huge. August said, “I liked that huge elevator. It could fit the Kerns in all wresting backpacks, right?”

We took the long train out to the airport. He liked looking out the windows. We made it through all the lines, and got to our gate, A5, at 3:30. August randomly asked, “If you wanted to full an airplane with chicken, would you need thousands of chickens?” Later, when we were getting off our flight, he asked if a peregrine falcon could git in an overhead bin.

I took him to the bathroom, then went to fill water bottles. He was worried I was taking so long and Carly called me. She went to the bathroom. August randomly said, “I love you. I love mama. I love you dada.” We got in a little love battle, loving each other equally but acting like it was a competition. They have Greek books tied to some of the seats, and I read him the first page of Nikos Kazantzakis’s Freedom and Death.

Carly went to Starbucks. He went with, then they came back. She went and got us an early grey latte. And a chocolate muffin. He as getting worried about her and wanted to go check on her, luckily she showed up.

We saw our plane, and it was a 777, bigger than the 737 parked nearby. She had him run around and do jumping jacks. They finally started boarding at 5:20.

We read more Nick and Tesla, ‘minor’ being a word of the day. He then watched a few episodes of Dr. Seuss and I finished reading Frogs. As we descended he did lots of talking about temperatures and how many lights and cars he could see. He kept talking about temperatures around the world as we got off and waited for the stroller, which took an amazingly long time. As we walked through the airport and I pushed him he asked for “Military speed” in the stroller. That comes from knowing that military planes fly faster than commercial flights. August’s expired visa was no problem.

We got a cab and headed home. He fell asleep at 8:45. He was impressed with the cab. He called it an SUV taxi, although it was really just a big hatchback. We were home at 9:05 and I tried to take him up and put him back to sleep. He tried, and was quiet until asking for mama at 9:20. I had her come up, but he got hyper, so after a couple minutes they came down. He went outside with her to see the plants. There is a flowering broccoli, but new one as well.

Inside I did some reading with him, reading all of the Dr. Seuss book about the Kwuggerbug.

We then went upstairs, and I left him with Carly after 10:20.

Our GarageBand song:

Changing of the guard ceremony:

Playing on the subway to the airport:

Stretching at the airport and “I’m a Boeing 747”:

A song:

Watching the plane take off:

He was up about 7:10 as I took a shower. Full of energy from the start. He randomly said “Cock-a-doodle-doo” something. He saw a bug on the floor and said that bugs were generating power for him. As he ate strawberries for breakfast he asked for more points. I left at 7:35 for my own morning at the Acropolis.

I walked up to the west entrance and had about ten people in front of me. I had a lovely walk up. I was most impressed with the Theatre of Dionysius because of the birth of theatre. I spent my time there and with the Odeon of Herodes, then made my way up to the Acropolis. Still not very busy until I had made my way around the full Acropolis and got back to the north side. so I headed down, taking the west exit.

I then went up on Areopagus Hill, where Paul had preached, then walked over to the hill with the Pnyx (where Pericles spoke), seeing the small church along the way, then walked back east, climbing the path to the Monument of Philopappos and then finding my way down to the stairs on the east side, and took the straight walk back to our Airbnb place.

I was back by 10:40. He was playing Dragonbox Big Numbers and Carly was filing his nails. They had read a Skybrary book (Dizzy Dancing), watched a couple of the machine videos and an episode of Hilda, did a lot of imagining games involving his lab, and experimented a lot with the circuits.

While playing he sang a “One hundred and fifty apples” song. When he had enough apples to get rocks he said, “Enough for one rock feast.”

I helped him a little and he’s really working on his math. He then made a tape creation on the window, taping his shoe to it and filling it with leftover carrots.

Carly gave him challenges like touching his elbows and my toes before she let him in the bathroom. She then taught him how to use the key in the bathroom. He sang a couple of other songs he made up and kept saying “A bit dippy” from the Skybrary book. As we got ready to go he remembered buying his light up shoes for the archeological dig place last summer.

We walked to the subway and took it to Thissio, transferring along the way. We found a restaurant called Sin Athina and had lunch. We got a savory crepe with turkey and a wrap with salmon. We haven’t had a lot of success eating as much Greek food as we would like. Even though this place called itself Greek, most of that was the main entrees of lamb chops, etc. I got a mixed juice for August that was really good. He did some origami with the placemats before deciding to bite one.

We left about 2:15 and checked out the Herakleidon Museum. It didn’t sound very kid friendly though, and August didn’t want to go. He did, however, love playing with a rope between two poles outside, pretending it was a jump rope and having me pretend to jump it. We were going to take August to the Illusions Museum. I didn’t really have any interest in going there, so asked if I could go to the Ancient Agora. Carly agreed, so I took off for that. They played with the rope for a long time and he was really into it until a guy came out of the building to tell them to not play with it. August was upset and Carly scooped him up and took him away.

They went to the museum and had fun there. She sent me a photo of him standing on a ceiling. He really liked one of the spinning ones.

Meanwhile, I loved the Agora, and mainly followed the tour of it in the Rick Steves book. Again I particularly liked the remains of the old theatre, and also following in the steps of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, etc.

I met up with them at Pagotomania. August had had bubble gum ice cream and they were reading Captain Underpants. They were at an exciting point and he wanted to keep reading so I sat down and read.

Before we headed home I walked him over to one of the stands along the roadway and let him choose a set of Greek coins or stamps. He chose the coins.

We headed home, ate spaghetti for dinner, and made a circuit. He was climbing on my back while I was doing something and falling off. We then all walked down to the grocery store. He found another tiny worm along the way. He had twenty cents, so got two gums: a hamburger gum (with red stuff inside that looked like ketchup), then a peppermint gum. He liked the hamburger gum, but the peppermint was too strong.

Back at the apartment we watched most of NextGen. He didn’t want to watch the denouement. He played a little Dragonbox Big Numbers. Carly was skyping with her mom, so August talked to Oma for a minute. I read some Skybrary with him. First a little book about Athens. We were talking about flags and national anthems, and he asked about the songs, so ‘national anthem’ was a word of the day. We also read the Nervous Noggin book.

We were going to wash his hair, but he got upset about his choices for the tree for washing his hair. I got him calmed down and gave him a bath. He had some cereal and milk, and I reminisced about odd 80s cereals. He told me he made a cereal that has 2888 cups of sugar. Carly put him to bed, and I left them at 9:30.

View from the Acropolis:

150 apples song:

Tape creation:

Playing with the rope:

Illusions museum 1:

Illusions museum 2:

Illusions museum 3:

Mama reading to him:

Musician on the train:

Circuit and song:

Just making the circuit smaller song:

Carly headed to the Acropolis at 7:30. She got to the east entrance in plenty of time before it opened at 8 and had already purchased her ticket. So she was one of the first people in, and actually the first one up to the Acropolis. She saw the changing of the guard ceremony that happens.

August was up by 8:10. He cuddled on my lap for quite awhile and played the game where he eats my snacks but finds out they had something in them. ‘Carrion’ was a word of the day. He then wanted a brother and sister imagining game. They found an owl, and ended up naming it Swoops. When he had breakfast he wanted to add points for eating a bunch of strawberries. Brought him up to 50432.

We then watched more of NextGen. He stopped to go to the bathroom, and told me how he makes things out of all sorts of broken machines: refrigerators etc. He built me one of the robots. It cost me 4000 euros. He stood on the toilet and looked out the window for a long time and used infrared to track a thief. Like in the movie. He asked why our hotel was the “fanciest thing” then sang a “fanciest thing” song.

He was playing with something and I was about to take a shower when Carly called. We went down and let her in. It was 9:40. I took a shower. He played Infinite Arcade and Khan Academy Jr., and we watched the Marble Machine X video, #77. He ate the rest of my cheese and chicken sandwich from the grocery store, and we discussed our plans. He was saying “Next stop, Syntagma.” after I was trying to remember how to pronounce it. He really has it down. And he told me “I’ll climb the Acropolis with you, dada.” Later in the evening he told me he had just been joking.

We started to change him, but he put his pajama pants on like a cape, then put on his underwear and was being Captain Underpants. He was pretty hyper for awhile. He was jumping on Carly, who was on the bed. I reminded him of our family guidelines: “Oh, yeah.” On the bed he started chanting “The bunny scout guideline is useful, is useful.” The bunny scouts part is from Max and Ruby but he said he made up the line. It turned into a full performance art piece, as he put up the curtains into the door and turned off the lights, and got Carly to chant with him.

We finally got going after he made a chain of all the circuit parts. At the subway station he collected a few more receipts from the ground. Every time we get subway tickets or receipts when we pay for meals he folds the receipts into different origami shapes of his own making. We transferred and got off at Evangelismos. We walked north, up the hill and found a quiet restaurant called Filippou for lunch. We got an artichoke salad, tzatziki, and chicken souvlaki with veggies. Carly and I shared a Greek coffee. August and I played more Polytopia.

We then walked up all the steps to the funicular up to Mount Lycabettus. August had me carry him up the first two major sets, but then did the entire last set on his own. We had a few minutes to wait for the funicular, so we looked in the gift shop. August was picking up and looking at a lot of little things and did well.

He loved the funicular, which goes up through a tunnel. He stood at the glass and looked out the back. Up at the top we looked around and admired the view. It was really bright up there so we all put on our sunglasses. We went to the bathroom, then headed down on the next train. It wasn’t as crowded as the one up, and he asked why. I said, “I think most people walk.” He replied with, “Huh? Are you crazy?” We all sat on the front row, which made Carly nervous, so then August started singing a “We’re all gonna fall down” song all the way down and even as we got off.

We walked down the stairs and to the site of Aristotle’s Lyceum and the Ancient Gymnasia. Carly stayed out and read Captain Underpants while I went in. Not an incredibly exciting archeological site, but interesting to see. We then walked over to Yoleni’s, where we had eaten lunch a few days ago. August and I chose a jar of honey, Carly chose something for Mandy for watering the plants, and August chose an orange chocolate muffin for a snack which he ate as we walked.

We went to the subway and walked home. He sang an “Everybody breaks bonds with me” song. As we got close he recognized the street and we discussed ‘landmarks’. We have a couple on the way to our place: a Beetle under a cover, which hasn’t moved, and August pointed out the building that has circles in its concrete walls. We were back at 4:55.

We played with Infinite Arcade, actually changing it up and discussing how arcade games work, and Carly walked to the store for a few things. She also got him another roll of tape and AA batteries, as the ones in the circuit set are going dead.

She got home and we had carrots in the tzatziki and hummus. He liked this tzatziki. He played with circuits and made music. He had some carrots and drank strawberry juice. Carly made spaghetti for dinner and we ate.

August and I then went on a geocache walk, this one to a site a couple blocks south of the last one. He ran much of the way, stopping at each street. We found it pretty easily, and he had us sign it “Pee, Poop, and Boop.” On the way back we walked through a little park, then he found a tiny little worm. He talked about taking it back to show Carly, but when I asked what we’d do with it in the apartment he decided to just take a video of it, then leave it by some plants. He created a unit of measure called the “micrometer” to measure small insects, and told Carly all about it. It was pretty dark in the streets when we got back at 8:30.

He showed her the photos, then she gave him a bath. He asked if there were families with one dada, two mamas, and two sets of twins. He seemed mainly shocked by the idea of a family with seven people in it.

He wanted me to put him to sleep, saying “I would love that!” We read some of Nick and Tesla, I sang a little, and he asked for a story. He’d been asking about the radiators in the apartment, so I told him about the old ones we had in elementary and middle school, and how they would make noise, and how you’d be hot if you sat close to them but cold if you were on the other side. Lights off and quiet for several minutes, then, as usual, he had one last question: “Dada, do you think the strongest person in the world could bend a big block of steel?” He fell asleep at 9:52.

I forgot to mention that yesterday, on our walk back in the evening, the garage where we’ve spotted old Mini Coopers had its doors fully open. There was a car in back that looked like an XK140 at first glance. The guy was standing there and said it was from 1937 and used in WWII as an ambulance, then converted into a family car. Didn’t catch exactly what it was.

Looking out the bathroom window:

Tracking the burglar with infrared:

Captain Underpants:

Some music while he plays:

The bunny scout guideline is useful:

Silly faces at lunch:

Finishing the stairs:

Funicular 1:

Singing on the way down:

We’re going to fall down song:

Everybody breaks bonds song:

Running to the geocache:

Tiny worm: