Category: Daily

He was up about 7:40. He went out with Carly to the patio and sat on her lap and had a good talk while she had her coffee. He came in and talked about when he had looked at satellite pictures on Google Maps. He asked how to switch it to satellite images and I told him about ‘layers’ on a map. He built circuit #92 with Carly. One of the capacitors broke off its piece though, and he was upset about that. I made soft-boiled eggs. As he ate he questioned whether the eggs were chicken eggs, since they were brown.

I played in the bedroom with him. He closed one of the curtains in the door, and the other in the sliding door, making a sort of nest area. He called it, “The secret thinking spying room…so I’ll lay down this pillow so I can think about spying.” He decided we were aliens. He was a baby hatching from me, like seahorses. We were waiting to eat Carly as she came out of the bathroom. He played with her in the bedroom now for several minutes, the same sort of game.

He went to the bathroom, then was making stuff for us in his lab. I asked for a portable car that we could pack in the suitcase. We were planning on going up the funicular but Carly realized it was closed today.

We finally got going around 11:45. We walked to the subway and he was making food for us from flies along the way. We initially were going to take the tram, but the tracks are overgrown and it clearly wasn’t running. We later found it running farther south, but it now stops for some reason and doesn’t go any further north. So we took the subway, and got off at Evangelismos. We actually had a couple extra stops, as we went one stop in the wrong direction on the second line. He wanted to keep riding the subway though.

Outside the station he started playing along the edge of a path with an old piece of gum and a couple bugs. He ended up with a pillbug crawling on his hand. He took it with him as we walked, and let it go after a few minutes. We took the stroller today, and that made things easier. As we walked up the steps to the children’s museum he found some snails. We were in the museum right after 12.

It is free, which is nice. He was hesitant at first, thinking it looked like little kid stuff, but it turned out great. He started playing store with Carly, and I sat down and did some reading about homeschooling. They went through the grocery store area and wrapped up meat for each other and he weighed his groceries. Carly said there were a couple of English kids there but August wasn’t interested in playing with them. She often uses a British accent when playing with August, so had to be careful not to use it.

I caught up to them again in a room full of math stuff. He was playing with strings on a big geometric board thing. He said they were power lines. Carly was sitting and reading, and I did more. When he was done with that, I showed him the big compass with chalk on a blackboard floor. He drew curves, then was ready to get going for lunch.

We walked south to the restaurant Mavros Gatos. August was saying the phrase “Mind your own business, silly.” He learned it from Captain Underpants (they’re now on book nine, I think, and have also read book twelve, out of order), where it actually says ‘beeswax’. August insisted on going barefoot in the restaurant again.

We ordered the lamb chops, tzaziki, and a Greek salad. August tried the meat but found it too chewy. He mainly ate bread with a little tzaziki on it and french fries. He liked lemon squeezed on some of them. Not the healthiest meal, but he was really savoring it. Then, at the end, the waitress brought a little plate of free desserts, which August and I shared and Carly avoided due to nut reasons. We had played Polytopia while waiting.

It was raining lightly, so we put on our rain clothes. August was fine with it though, at least for a few blocks. We walked towards the Panathenaic Stadium, the stadium from the first modern Olympic Games. But the rain grew heavy as we got there. We stopped at the shelter of a newsstand across the corner. I ran across and looked at the stadium through the fence—at least a little history for today.

We waited several minutes as it seemed like a clear spot was coming, but it moved slowly, and the break in the clouds just filled with other clouds. We spent a few minutes trying to hail a cab, but they were all full. August was handling it well though. We decided to try to cross the street to catch a bus. We walked a block to a light, only to find there was no crossing. We tried to cross but got to the median and realized there was a fence on the other side. August wasn’t handling it quite so well now. We retreated across the street and got under cover of a building along with a bunch of guys waiting by their scooters. Carly was downloading the taxi app used here when I finally hailed a cab.

He took us home, where August went out on the patio with Carly for awhile as it had stopped raining, then played Polytopia with me. It started raining again, and August asked, “Is it duck and cover rain?” He’d gotten that from Carly. A bit later he asked, “It was a bad day, right?”

We discussed the phrase “mind your own business.” It is from Captain Underpants so I blamed it on Carly. He had different ideas: “Your fault actually. You’re the one that made it so I’m into learning words…word of the day and stuff.” He spent several minutes using his tape to make a spiderweb of it under the coffee table. He was then the spider and ate me, and sang “saving the rest for lunch. Saving the rest for dinner.” We worked on a circuit. For the next hour or so August had a tough time, getting stir crazy and hungry, probably. He had some cereal and milk (so his bones would be stronger, he said—and he had had carrot and strawberries when we got back) and we went for a walk at 7:25. Still nice and light out.

No stroller this time, and he did fine. He told us of his garbage car invention, which ran on garbage. We sort of did a random walk to the south, past the grocery store, then west to the main street. Saw some good graffiti, and the tram in operation. Went up on a little graffiti-covered pedestrian bridge then headed back. Stopped at the pizza place to get a medium pizza with meat and veggies and one of those sub-shaped cheese pizzas again. While we waited he counted pizza boxes. He counted 74 at first, then saw more. The other day he had counted to a hundred for the fun of it.

While we waited for the pizza we walked over to the grocery store. There’s a little park area so Carly gave him tree0-touching challenges on the way. He ran around a little in the store. While Carly finished up, I took him next door to the little shop to see about buying something with his 20 cents. I had him give a euro to the woman sitting outside. He had his money in one hand and the money for her in the other and was making sure he didn’t mix them up.

In the little shop he looked at his options, then bought a piece of gum for 10 cents. He was happy about that, then even happier when he realized there were two pieces of gum in it. We went back and found Carly and he chewed on on the way home. We went and got the pizz Nd headed home.

We got back at 8:25. He took the tower things from the pizza and put them together and said it looked like a temple. from the Polytopia game, that is. He had more strawberries, and eventually I was able to give him a bath and washed his hair with minimal fuss. Finally left them to go to sleep at 9:50.

Holding a roly poly:

Athens children’s museum 2:

Athens children’s museum 1:

Waiting out the rain:

Tape spider web:

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He was up at 7:50. He got his shoes on (he’s now refusing his Crocs, as he’s used to his Minnie Mouse shoes and socks) and went out side with Carly for a couple minutes. They came back in and I showed them photos of Notre Dame. They cuddled on the couch and I took a shower.

He watched Joseph’s Machine videos and had crackers and cheese for breakfast. We got going right at 9. He watched the Berenstain Bears where sister plants an apple tree, and as he went to the bathroom he told Carly about how he planted an orange tree where the junk pile is across from our house so no one can put garbage there. He had talked about that plan weeks ago.

On the walk to the busy street to the South he saw inside a car garage, then talked about how he took apart a whole car and used the parts for his inventions.

We caught a cab. After a couple minutes I saw a place called Kinky Opera. August heard me and thought the name was funny. The taxi dropped us off by the Blue Star office we’d seen on a map. They directed us to another place if we had a reservation. We looked around inside E8 and couldn’t find it, then Carly led us to another office she saw on the map. Success there. We stopped at a D’espresso and I got a sausage pastry and a cheese one (that turned out to also have ham). We walked to E9. No boat, so we sat outside the smoky sitting area and sat and ate some of the pastries. Then we were looking at the tickets and realized the vessel name was FDXVII. On our walk over I had seen the Flying Dolphin XVII and pointed it out. That turned out to be our ship.

So we walked back over to it. August asked how you get on. I said that workers might help. “By lying down and you walk on them?” He spotted a little olive tree and looked on it, then had fun climbing on the planter boxes for a few minutes.

We got on the boat and found seats at the front right. It took about 40 minutes to get over. August looked out for several minutes, then in open water played on his iPad. On the island we walked left from the dock. Carly suggested getting food first, but August said he just wanted a treat and I wasn’t yet hungry. We should have eaten first though and August was grumpy the whole way and didn’t want to spent time at the beach at all when we got there. He found some treasures though and insects along the way. In particular an earwig thing near the beach, then a beetle as we walked back through town.

We spent about ten minutes at the beach. We sat and he ate a Balance Bar, but still wanted to head straight back. Also, the Temple of Apollo archeological site was closed on Tuesdays. But we could see it through the fence. As we walked back he told me about his “Infrared defaus tracker”, which sprayed infrared ink on someone and then you could track them. We paused so August could climb in a tree, and I looked at n odd old Ford that seemed to claim to be a Taurus, but was older than that.

We made it to a restaurant called Rembe. Not very Greek, but we had a table on the edge outside looking out at the water. We got the Thai appetizers, and Carly got a chicken club. August ate some of both, but mainly liked the prawn and shrimp from the appetizer. I had a cappuccino viennois (with whipped cream) and let August help with the whipped cream. He got a taste of coffee and hated it. It was a beautiful clear day but he was still negative about rain, arguing, “Water is evaporating to make clouds.”

We got walking, south this time, at 2. We played at a little beach area. He found a bone, maybe 5 inches long. He asked, “You like how I’m really interested in wildlife now?” He carried it around for a few minutes before agreeing to take a photo of it and leave it behind. We started looking for a treat for him and walked back north, taking the narrow streets into town, window shopping along the way. He picked a flower head that sort of looked like fuzzy garlic and told us he makes cotton from them. He was then making articles of clothing at our request and charging us for them in Euros.

He caught a butterfly and had me do a slo-mo video of it. As we kept walking he talked about having a butterfly live in his hair and lay eggs there, then they would go and come back to his hair. Finally, he found a daddy long legs sort of spider and made it run.

We looked at the Tower of Markellos for a couple minutes, then headed back towards the water. We found an ice cream place called Dodoni back by the water and August got a small vanilla caramel brownie. We ate that out at a table. He reminded us of seeing cotton candy in Akko – we had told him the popcorn was better and got that, but he remembered the cotton candy machine and now compared it to the one at the International Day.

And I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that he’s been refusing to sit on any cushioned seat in restaurants. Here, that has meant removing or flipping up the cushions to sit on the metal chair. We used the bathroom, then headed across and out to the end of the docks.

Threw a few rocks. He looked at the big chain and anchor with Carly. We then went and found where the boat would be. He played with a couple of big ropes, then we started reading Nick and Tesla. One page in the boat showed up. While we waited to board, a big group of German or Scandinavian tourists walked right up in front of everyone. Led to some pushing and solving while boarding. We had our exact same seats in the exact boat, but August was convinced this boat was bigger.

We saw the church and lighthouse we would have walked to if August was back in the backpack days and easy to haul around.

He fell asleep after humming to himself for five minutes or so. He woke up as we got off the boat at 4:45. I carried him as Carly led us to the subway station. We got seats, and he watched our progress on Google Maps on Carly’s phone and we looked out at the graffiti on other trains. As we transferred he told me about a locking invention that could lock anything. We took the train four more stops, then as we walked to our place he was trying to spot Smart Cars and sang, “Come over here cute, cute car.”

We found an orange I could reach and picked it. We got back at 5:50 and Carly cut it up. Smelled better than it tasted, but he was happy about it and ate several bites. He made a circuit thing all on his own, then played Toca Plants with Carly. Had some leftover pizza. Another new phrase for August is “Ahem!” and he said it several times today. He also talked about how he and Carly had taken apart his soil and pH sensor thing at home the other day, since it didn’t work well anymore.

We left at 7:20 and walked down to the grocery store. As we walked down the street and he noticed the sun was low he said/joked that he had woken up a couple minutes ago and we hadn’t gone to the island yet. He claimed it was the morning.

He did a ton of running around the grocery store and outside in the open area. Carly had him give a woman sitting outside some money; I had had him give some money with me to a woman on our way back from the National Garden yesterday. Afterwards, he was asking if men/boys could be poor, as we have only seen women. And he wondered why they all use cups.

We got back at 8. He told us he was making a strawberry out of chemicals in his lab. “I’m gonna do what a plant does.” We taught him about ‘synthetic’ and that was the word of the day. “It’s for a competition. I’ll win a golden trophy.” Carly brushed a crumb or something off of him and he asked, “Was there a crane fly on me?” He played with the tape and put some tape on my forehead. We read some Nick and Tesla, then he had a meltdown when he wanted to keep doing circuits and it was time for a bath. Carly took him in to bed right before 9.It was a big, long meltdown. I went in at one point to try to help, but it wasn’t. He was finally asleep after 9:30.

Climbing on the dock:

Fast ferry:

Playing with a beetle:

Caught a butterfly:

Butterfly slo-mo:

Over to the chain:

Big ropes:

He was up at 7:45. We had a good first night. He had immediately closed his eyes and fallen asleep when Carly was done reading. Although Carly was awoken in the middle of the night by an alarm that he had turned on on his iPad. He watched a couple of the machines videos, then Berenstain Bears. I’d finished my journaling and put in some work before they got up.

He watched some things, mainly Berenstain Bears, then was outside with Carly. He found Avo, a new game I had put on his iPad, and started that. I went and took a shower. They finished the free portion of it as I got out, and he got upset when I said we could buy the rest later. After he calmed down he was playing with the circuit set and then remote controlled me with the TV remote. I had made scrambled eggs for breakfast and he didn’t eat much then. Now ate a couple slices of apple after I peeled it. I said it was getting late. He said it wasn’t. I meant for morning, “If you catch my drift.” He replied, flatly, “No, I didn’t.”

Carly and I finally did travel notices for our credit cards, and we got walking at 10:50. As we walked to the station, he and Carly were talking about the hills and the choppy sidewalks. Carly used the word ‘topography’. A word of the day. He said he liked the shapes of the cars in Israel better than here, despite liking all the cute cute cars. He tried sucking on Carly’s backpack strap but she wouldn’t let him. Yesterday, she had told him to stop doing that when he started doing it to mine. I told her she was about four years too late, as he’s always been doing that.

We took the subway, much emptier, up two stops and got off by the parliament building and walked up to the Museum of Ancient Greek Technology. He did a lot of walking today and was checking his step counts a few times.

The museum was pretty cool, although the written descriptions could use a lot of work. We first went up to the musical instruments part. Spent some time in the room where you can play the games, making things out of the shapes. August and I went back in and saw the first keyboard instrument.

We then went down to the technologies portion. August had fun with the Archimedes screw and the fire truck. A guy came and demonstrated the crossbow machine. Carly led us downstairs to the big model of a ship. That was one step too creepy for August, as it was kind of dark down there, and he turned around and headed back upstairs without us. We had also gotten a demonstration of the ‘miracle’ temple doors, that open because of a fire. I had read about that one a day before in the book from my parents. August now showed it to Carly. The woman also showed us the door bell that makes bird sounds, and August liked activating that one by moving the door.

He paused for a snack, then we looked at the other end. We used the pulley thing quite a bit, but another woman came along, and wasn’t fond of him pulling the rope end. I’m not sure why. That kind of ruined it for him. We went upstairs the the astronomy section. Played with a few things there, including a mirror that makes noise when you raise or lower it. One last demonstration, of a fountain, then we headed out. At the entrance though they said we could get a coin if we post a review on TripAdvisor. So I did that and August got the coin.

We left the museum at 12:50. He was unhappy because it looked like it might rain. Carly got him to put on his rain coat and he kept the hood up the entire time. We walked north a couple blocks to a restaurant, but it was too fancy. Contemplated a cafeteria-like place, but headed back south and found a shop called Yoleni’s that also had a restaurant. A good find. We ordered two gyros, one chicken and one with egg, and the tzaziki with bread. August made a joke, I think, calling it “Drizzlyland”.

We played Polytopia until the food came. August loved it. Oil dripped out of the bottom of the piece he was eating and he said, “I like how it’s filtering out the oil.” Then, “This is too good!” And then, “Like the goodest healthy thing I’ve ever had.” In his entire life. Then to Carly: “Actually, it’s not. I think some of your food is better.”

We played more Polytopia, then left at 2:20. As we walked south to the National Gardens, he pointed at a cigar a guy was holding and asked what it was. The guy said, “a cigar.” He was then asking me about the difference between cigars and cigarettes.

Our walk through the gardens was pretty quick. Outside of wanting to pick an orange for a minute he wasn’t interested in stopping and we made our way quickly south. We stopped to look at turtles in one spot for a minute, then for a couple minutes in another spot. Near the Temple of Olympian Zeus he examined some flapping bird toys hanging from a tree, then hurried us along.

It started to rain as we were literally five or six minutes from our place. He kept requesting a taxi, but did quite well with the rain. We watched from a dry spot, then moved a bit further. Then more rain. We were now right across from the Lostre Cafe as it started to hail. I carried him across the street and Carly covered him with the umbrella. We got in just as it started to get bad. Thunder and lightning and really heavy hail for ten minutes or so. We watched as the employees ran out in it to bring in the cushions from outside. Carly and I shared a cappuccino and August got a chocolate ice cream. August kept going to the door and reaching out and getting hail stones. He first tried putting them in our waters, then made a mixture in his empty ice cream cup. He said, “When it hails like his I call I marathon one.” There was a song playing that Carly recognized and August liked. It was “Rip tide” by Vance Joy.

The rain stopped and we hurried home in a break. Got here at 4:20, just in time as it started raining again. We bought the rest of Avo and he played a lot of that. I went and rested, then worked. Carly planned and booked our ferry trip tomorrow. And we listened to the new album of ambient works by Moby.

It was raining and we were hungry, so I braved the rain and walked down to Pizza Fan. I explored a little on the way and found a grocery. I bought a roll of scotch tape, which August has been wanting. It was pouring now, and the streets were turning to rivers. I had to go partway down a block to cross the street to the pizza place. There, I ordered two sub-shaped pizza things, a salad for Carly, and tomato garlic bread. It was really bad on the way back, and I had to duck under branches in tight sidewalks to avoid the rivers. Had to go through a river once and ended up with a wet right foot.

While I was gone they read books, drew machines, and did circuits. I got back after 7:30. We ate. It was all very good. Judging countries by their pizza franchises puts it above Korea and Israel. He stole Carly’s water bottle and poured it in his.

He basically finished Avo, and experimented with his circuit set. Carly took him to his bath. While they were talking before it he said “What is the what?” A Carly phrase. I took him in to bed. I read the first two stories, about Zeus and Hera, to him from a Bernard Evslin book, then we did a visualization of an ant riding a paper boat down a gutter and sewer, ending at a sea, in a rain storm. He did a lot of tossing and turning and fell asleep by 9:55.

I watched coverage of the Notre Dame fire, too much, before heading to bed.

Ancient Technology museum 1:

Ancient Technology museum 2:

Ancient Technology museum 3:

Ancient Technology museum 4:

Ancient Technology museum 5:

Fake birds:

Screech noise:

Watching the hail:

Watching from the coffee shop:

Hyper before a bath:

He was up at 9. We did pretty well scrunched in the small bed. He played Mammals while we got ready, mainly feeding the elephant and making it poop, and talking to Carly about animals.

We went out walking after 9:30. Smart Car “I call it a cute cute car.”A couple very closed blocks away we found Cafe Appolonia. August insisted on eating inside, but then didn’t like the comfy chairs and insisted on standing while he ate. Carly gave him some challenges, like walking up and down the stairs. Carly got a club sandwich and I got the eggs Benedict with salmon. We both had cappuccinos. Carly tried to take August to the bathroom. They were outside, around the corner somewhere. It was dark, with motion sensors, and August was scared and wanted to be picked up. Carly pushed on a door and a woman said something and August let out the loudest scream. They decided to go back to the hotel.

We walked back to the hotel at 10:40. August wanted to watch television. First we found the end of a marathon. August liked watching something live, and we saw a woman win it. He then changed the channel and ruined the Formula 1 race for me, as we saw Lewis Hamilton win. Carly and I were trying to decide how to get to the AirBnB place. August said, “Well while you decide I’ll keep watching the robot video.” “This graphic violence part.” He found a music video for “Ignis” by Rompasso and we added it to his playlist. “Watching complete non-educational stuff.”

We packed up and headed to our Airbnb place. It was about a 5 minute walk to the station. Along the way, August found a car covered in sequins, and a huge grasshopper about 3 inches long. We figured out the subway system, just missed one train, then took a packed train 4 stops south. I had the stroller and a couple backpacks and was taking the stairs to avoid the big crowds. Felt like Korea again, walking the stairs with August in the backpack and holding groceries.

We got to the apartment at 12:30. August spotted a bunch of “cute cute cars” along the way. I spotted lots of Peugeots, Citroens, and Renaults.

Andrew showed us around. August was calling it “super fancy” before we got there and Carly was nervous. She need not be, as August loved it. They sat out on the balcony for awhile. Inside, August ate a bar and I helped him build circuit #99. We threw the hedgehog pillow around. We left at 1:25 to find a grocery store. Most are closed on Sunday, but we walked to a small one called the OK Store. The song “Let’s Talk about Sex” was playing as we looked around. We got some snacks, cheese, eggs, apples, carrots, coffee pods, juice, etc.

We headed back to the condo. He found a cartoon called Leon and Cam. We tried the fruit drink and ate the package apple pastry that reminded me of Seoul (particularly the little shop in the Children’s Grand Park subway station with the guy that called August “Kimbop boy” where we would buy a similar thing). We opened his drink only to find that it was Paw Patrol branded water in a tinted plastic bottle. He thought that was pretty funny.

More circuit (he discovered that the different remotes make different noise patterns) and cartoons, although now he was watching Inspector Gadget on his iPad. We got going back out at 4. August was very negative about it, saying he was afraid of the rain. We talked a lot about the forecast and light rain versus heavy rain, but he wasn’t convinced. We got him outside, in part because I gave him Carly’s old phone, now set up as a camera for him with a wrist strap. He took a few photos on the way down, then outside.

He was reluctant to leave the awning of our building. We got him to, but then had to carry him the entire way to the park, Lambrakis Hill, that we were walking to. Then, when we were there, he had a sort of mini panic attack, not wanting to be set down, clamping his eyes shut, etc. Carly took him, and we headed back. On the way back though the sun came out and he calmed down and we were able to get him to walk. He found another dead insect. Along the way too there was a little dog backing at us from a balcony. There was a purple curtain hanging down and you just saw the curtain moving as it barked. We all found that pretty funny.

We walked right past the condo and headed towards the subway area. We decided to head north, past the Acropolis, to the Monastiraki Flea Market and Pittaki Street, which is lit up at night. We were ultimately unsuccessful with these, neither looking at the flea market nor seeing Pittaki, but we still had a good walk.

We did some window shopping both directions, saw our first views of the Acropolis, and went to a restaurant called Ather just north of Monastiraki Square for dinner. We ordered the spaghetti and the chicken souvlaki. While we waited we played some Heads Up! Kids on my phone, then the empire building game, Polytopia, that he’s been requesting. The food was good and he ate a good amount. Carly took him to the bathroom, and he was scared again and screamed because of the hand dryer.

We left after left after 6:40. On the walk earlier (grocery store?) he had seen a bunch of flies and said he made something to suck them up, and then made found out of them. He had been making things like fly soup and mosquito pie for us. He did more of that now. He found a few treasures along the way, include a plastic-y strip that he bent into a shape. We took a different street back part of the way with lots of shopping on it and Carly commented on wanting to buy everything. August said he had a ton of money and could buy things for us: “maybe a couple suitcases, some jewelry…some mosaics for myself…” Near the end he was simply buying everything with eyes on it for Carly.

About the halfway point back we stopped at Kayak Ice Cream. Quite a place. August chose cookies and cream, and while Carly got it he asked me, “Isn’t it funny I’m getting ice cream?… I’m getting away with some treats!” We went upstairs and he ate it, then we continued the walk home, stopping to look at some birds in cages. We also saw a funny looking brown dog inside a shop. It was cute, and looked out at us. August reached out and hit the glass door, and the dog suddenly jumped at him, barking. Startled us all. Luckily, he found it funny. He picked a couple of pine needles off a tree and said, “This is Mr. Long Legs” and played with them as Carly carried him. He dropped them a couple times and asked me to get Mr. Long Legs, using a funny voice. He asked “Why so many cute cute cars?” And, “Do you think Lydia when she lived in Greece had a cute cute car?”

We got back about 8. August found a cartoon with bees, in Greek, and I made Carly and myself coffees using the pod coffee maker. He volunteered that if it started raining he’d be hitting and hitting. Earlier I’d congratulated him on a great adventure and he said, “I still hate the rain.” He says he doesn’t like the wetness and the coldness. We all sat on the couch and were watching his cartoon. He didn’t like that: “We’re not ALL going to watch this. I’m going to turn it off if you keep watching.”

Carly gave him a bath standing in the shower area, then he and I played the blue mook game. I got the pullout bed ready. Carly was putting him to sleep and I was going to sleep there. I left them at 9:15. They read Skybrary books and I think he was asleep about 9:45.

Huge grasshopper:

Being carried in Athens:

Touching a dead bug:

Walking in Athens:

Buying us everything with eyes:

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: