Category: Daily

I had thought about going for a walk in the morning, but decided to leave it for later in the day when places like Wi’am and the natural history museum might be open. But it turned out I wouldn’t have any time. Omar called, saying he and Marc were running late, and asking me when things started (he’d never given me a program) and asking me to stand in for him). Today was a smaller group, about 60, and the session was taking place in my hotel. It was now sort of a leadership conference, with representatives of the various organizations taking part. It was just intros at first, and as we got the tables set up I was sitting next to a guy named Peter, from FOSNA. Mitri Raheb spoke first, and Omar and Marc showed up during his talk.

Omar wasn’t impressed with how things were going, and I think he was focused on how today was his wife’s actual due date, so we decided to leave around noon. All in one car this time, and we drove first to Sabeel. My car was blocked in by someone else in the building, so while Omar sent a message to figure out who it was and get the car moved, he showed us the field at the end of the road. It turns out it is the battlefield of a major battle of the Third Crusade, and took place near well that is still there. And the road, the dinky little alley, is actually what used to be the main road between Judea and Sumeria. The burial site of a French prince or king was found by the battlefield a few years back. This is while the alley is in such bad shape—it can’t be touched pending archeological investigation.

Anyway, the car was moved and we parted ways. A straightforward drive home, although there were patches of heavy rain (it had been sunny when we left the hotel) and I was home by 2:30. They were upstairs and heard me, and he came down the stairs and said, “Dada!” He then told me that they had had brownie ice cream. I also learned that they had watched Shrek 2 today. He calls them Christmas movies, because Carly had been talking about watching a Christmas movie with him, and they watched a short with the first one that was actually Christmas related.

He then wanted to wash the walls. He said he had a chemical that changes things and is dangerous. Changes you into an animal. He critiqued me still wearing my business attire: “Why do you have these cloths on? I hate these clothes. Take these clothes off and put on your normal clothes. (Sigh) Srupid clothes.” He wanted a sponge, but ended up choosing a cleaning cloth like we use in the kitchen. He cleaned things with that, and the tile in the bathroom with q-tips, and then with the scrubbing toothbrush. He came down and scrubbed things with it, getting it wet in the sink. We were listening to John Prine and he started dancing around to the music.

We then played the tiger game, then he was a seal and we played a seal game. And then it was a beaver. I was reading on the bank of a river, etc. and would take the animals to the Audubon Society. Carly left to go to work to set up for tomorrow. He was a different beaver, and now the animals were coming into a house and the kids were keeping them as pets: “You give it your old blanket from being a baby because you’ve outgrown it and you put food at the entrance…” “And you see your sister coming in from playing hockey in the school…and you let her see it.” Some of the idea came as we watched a video with the woman from SciShow Kids to find out about baby beavers, and she had it with a blanket. In our game the beaver was lethargic and that was a word of the day. So they took it to Audubon.

When I objected, saying I was getting worn out with the games, he said, “There’s always new kinda of games in my head that I haven’t played…can’t we play one?” So it was preschool rest time. A beaver comes in. The class is upset but the teacher intervenes. Takes it to vet who takes care of it. The beaver ended up playing on the iPad during coding time. But August then requested a new game, saying I hadn’t gotten him a new game recently. And he said it needed to be harder. Then he decided it should be a music game: “It needs to be complex. Not complex: lots of features.” We tried Mindful Games, then a music app called Blocs Wave.

He then wanted to watch Coyote Peterson and chose a Brave Wilderness on tiger sharks. Carly got home, talking to Chuck and Cherie. I was making the spaghetti, and I told August his was on the table. He tasted it and it was hot. He complained: “You didn’t cool them down at all. What kind of person are you? You’re not my dada anymore!” Cooled it down and he ate most of it. Carly then went up for a shower. We played more beaver games, then he was turning into a chameleon, then a snake. It was more kids hiding the animals from their parents, then getting to keep them as pets.

Carly got a message saying that Taya had been sick and they weren’t coming tomorrow and August was upset. He started by saying he wasn’t going to be her friend anymore. Which reminds me that the other day he told me that while he would play with the other kids at school, including Eve, he had decided that the only real friends he needed were me, Carly, and Taya. He was then being a snake and pretending to eat me.

It was a hairwashing day, and he was going to get a lollipop. He was being slow going up though and I said, “Lollipops won’t like themselves.” He thought that was funny and he and Carly pretended to be lollipops licking themselves. Then, when he wanted my attention he said, “Pumping more listening-to-Zinnie chemicals in you!”

I took him up to the bathroom and he played in the sink. Sang a poop song and played with the eyedroppers, making his chemicals. I washed his hair, and as he couldn’t handle it anymore Carly sowed up with the lollipop.

He wanted to hear the poem from Shivers 2 and was reciting parts of it. But downstairs he decided to read Harry Potter with Carly. From that they chose ‘enraged’ as a word of the day. When Carly read the word ‘stupid’ he said that adults had to apologize every time they say an inappropriate word, while kids only have to apologize once a week. They then switched to Captain Underpants.

He went to the bathroom at 8:10, then we got him ready for bed. He was a little upset that I wasn’t putting him to sleep, but Carly was tired and wanted to go to bed. He got over and I heard a good amount of giggling, and he was asleep by 9.

Cleaning with the toothbrush:

Dancing to John Prine:

A new music app:

When Skoda Mama will defend herself with spikes:

It was made of… Song:

Quite an unusual day for all of us. I went to Bethlehem for the Kairos Palestine conference, Carly had to supervise for the sports marathon in the evening, and August played with Eve after school and had Gabby and Jill as babysitters while she did supervision.

He came down at 6:50. He and Carly were lizards on the couch, then he watched one Berenstain Bears. He was then making pink thread that he said could before spiders’ homes. I was frantically getting ready to go, and we were a little slow getting out the door and in the car. I had aimed for 7:15 and it was about 7:20. In the car Carly reminded me that it was culturally appropriate to be late here. August asked what ‘culturally appropriate’ means. I called it the word of the day and Carly explained. August then clarified, “You mean ‘phrase’ of the day?” Because just four days ago I explained that ‘Flipping the entire industry on its head’ was a phrase, not just a word.

He did a school game scenario in the car with Carly and said he had blue hair. He said he decided to have blue hair now. He had seen Jill in his classroom yesterday after school with her blue hair. Carly asked if Jill still had blue hair and I said it was fading as it wasn’t permanent. As we got out of the car August explained that “I invented permanent dye and permanent tye die shirts.”

Heather and Eve and Zoe were walking in as I dropped them off, and as I got back in the car he was excitedly saying hi to Eve. They went to her classroom for awhile and August had fun sitting on a student desk, eating oatmeal with her, and greeting middle schoolers as they came in. It was pretty amusing.

I got to Sabeel right at 8:30. Omar, Marc, and I met for about 30 minutes to plan our presentation on Kumi Now for later in the day, then we drove to the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, me with Marc following Omar in is car. I helped them set up the table with the books, then we went downstairs to the conference hall for the last of the morning talks. There was then a coffee break and I started getting introduced to people. Nice to put faces to the names that I see on email or on articles/books.

Then to a breakout session on the political situation. They were supposed to be feedback groups on various topics, and the question was basically ‘How do we keep the question of Palestine on the agenda?’ I understood why Omar has been saying about how people like to analyze and make reports, but action is actually hard, as even though the moderator asked for specific action ideas, the first 10 minutes was people giving philosophical answers about where the answers should come from, or one versus two states, etc. I spoke up to give a plug for Kumi Now.

My group got done a little early, so I decided to head out for a little walk. Marc had put my coat somewhere, so I went out without it. I was heading out with a woman from Sri Lanka, who had been in my group, and thought I was crazy for not having a coat. I explained I had lived in Korea. On my little walk I saw a comic scene. Three guys were pushing a huge pellet laden with boxes of fruit down the street. But it was starting to twist and lean (definitely squishing fruit at the bottom). As they stopped in the street it held up traffic. After there were about three cars stopped the honking started.

After that it was upstairs for an excellent lunch. And got introduced to more people, and others pointed out to me, like Mitri Raheb, and Angela, from Jahalin Solidarity (whom I have talked to on the phone).

During the day Vicky sent an email about the Week of Code in preschool this week. She included a reflection from August: “Signals in our bodies are like codes, they tell us what to do with our body. The code goes from our brain to our body then we move.”

After lunch Omar, Marc, and I planned our presentation a bit more. Then it was back downstairs for a panel discussion. We then gave our 10 minute presentation. I outlined what a weekly entry looked like, what sort of advocacy actions we have, the website, and how organizations can get involved with year 2.

There were then reports on the recommendations from the small group meetings, closing remarks, and then it was over. Marc had gotten hit by a trunk door while putting books in Androus’s car and he and Omar went to get plasters (err, bandages).

The full Sabeel delegation, including from the different ‘Friends’ groups (with people from the U.S., Belgium, Norway, and UK), of about 12 people then walked a few blocks to a restaurant for dinner. Plenty of good food. I mainly talked to the woman from England. She used to be a defense attorney, then stayed at home to raise her kids for 10 years, and now works with/in Romania, I think it was. We talked a lot about American and British politics and lack of hope thereof, about places in England, and British television, and August and raising kids (and Sir Ken Robinson etc.).

I also met Tarek, the director of Friends of Sabeel North America today. He was studying in Austin when Carly was. Funny moment when he started to ask when Carly was there, but then he said “Well probably not because you’re so much younger than I am.” I was like “How old are you!?” Because I was thinking the exact same thing about him. We each thought the other was in his mid-20s. Turns out that he is 41. I think Carly would like him. He’s a gay man living in Houston. Which reminded me of Paul and Caleb living in Nashville and Atlanta—not exactly bastions of gay culture.

Anyway, Omar talked to him after dinner, and he verbally agreed to putting me on staff through FOSNA and then deducting my salary from their Sabeel contribution. They will talk details tomorrow. It will work out well for all involved, as Sabeel has to pay double taxes on me here in Israel due to my visa. Like 45%. Whereas through the U.S. it will be much less for me and for them.

A bit after 8:30 I called Carly (not enough signal to skype). August was busy doing something. I think he said I was interrupting something—his cutting or gluing or something. Oh, and he called me ‘Ryan’ at first. I think he said I was ‘Ryan’ when on a trip or working. Talked for a few minutes and said good night.

Walked back to the cars, then Marc realized he forgot his bag at the restaurant. Followed Omar and it was a convoluted drive back to the restaurant. Then on to the Paradise Hotel, where I was checked in by 10:30.

I talked to Carly the next day to find out more about his day. She had arrived to pick up him and Eve after school. It was just the two of them there. It seems like they are the only kids that never ride the bus now. They were hyper and in trouble a few times for saying things like poop. They went to the library so that Carly could start to set things up for Sunday. Ilana got Legos out for them and they played with those. Carly then took the two of them to Heather’s classrooms. They set up easels and paint and put on aprons and painted together. From there they said goodbye to Eve and went to get a hamburger for dinner, although August mainly ate the bread. They watched some of the middle school hockey, and she said he was mesmerized by it for about ten minutes. Someone had slime that looked like hamburger buns, but I’m not quite sure what that is.

They walked to Carly’s classroom and set up painting supplies. They had a few minutes and walked around. When he saw Gabby and Jill he ran off to them. They watched him in Carly’s classroom while Carly went and did her supervision from 6 to 8. She returned to her classroom in the middle to get a different book, and he told her “You’re not supposed to be here yet!” They apparently painted/drew a “nubby machine” together.

The room was completely cleaned up when Carly came back. Rob gave them a ride home. It was pouring by then, and they had to step through deep water just to get in the car. They skipped a bath, and I called to say good night just after 8:30. He was asleep a little father 9.

Watching Berenstain Bears:

Dropping then off:

His glued creation from yesterday

Dropping them off

A real book!

Marc selling books

Hanukkah sticker August had put on my watch yesterday

Bethlehem

Working on the presentation during lunch

Omar during the presentation of Kumi Now

Waiting for Gabby and Jill

Friends of Sabeel dinner

Don’t know if this is what he painted with Carly and Eve, or with Gabby and Jill

Drawings with Gabby and Jill

It was hippie day for Carly. August came down at 7:10. Watched Max and Ruby and ate Cheerios and apple. He looked at the prehistoric book again and found the page about the Hobbit people. He told me, “They live on tree bark and leaves, for the moisture, and the moisturest one of all: poop. Shake your booty butts, guy!” He was then chanting, including “shake your booty butt…The biggest booty butt of all, the reptile!” Think he got the shaking thing from a kid at school, perhaps Omri. And the reptile part came as he looked at the cover with a dinosaur on it.

Carly had found a break in the rain and decided to walk to school. August and I weren’t so lucky. It started raining hard about the time we normally left. I had been entertaining the notion of actually walking, but that idea vanished. I then figured we could wait a few minutes to see if it let up to make getting to the car easier. It did not. Instead, it got heavier and heavier. We had to leave, so with him with his orange umbrella and me with my black umbrella we hurried to the car.

Things were only worse on the other end. We parked behind a woman who has a son in PKB and they were doing the same thing. Although I had time to tell August I heard the song “Walk the Dinosaur’ playing in their car. I got August on the sidewalk with his umbrella and pointed the right direction and he started making his way to school. I realized I had left my keys in the car and had to get them. He just kept heading to school on his own.

He did amazingly, and seemed to enjoy watching the water as he walked all the way to the classroom. His pants were absolutely soaked. He wanted them changed, but wasn’t too upset. I dried out his shoes and changed his pants and underwear and was able to leave.

I had worn my Tom’s, which I thought was a mistake, but any shoes I had worn would have ended up soaked. Already drenched, I figured I might as well walk home. That was an experience. I learned first hand the drainage routes of rainwater through town. Since there are no drains it all runs down the roadways, thus making stepping from a crosswalk onto a sidewalk impossible without stepping in water up to your ankle. Probably had to step in water so deep 6 or 7 times on the way back. There was also som good thunder and lightning, although luckily none as close and scary as the one crash that sent me diving into the car later.

I worked until about noon, then was going to go get a haircut. Carly called and said she was sick and coming home. She drove home, and it started raining harder, so I figured I’d use the car to go to the mall. As I got into the car there was a bright flash. I literally had just enough time to think ‘Well i didn’t get hit’ and then there was a shotgun blast of thunder and I crumbled into the car.

I drove to the mall. No one waiting at the barber so I got my hair cut, then grabbed a few groceries since I’d be taking the car the next couple of days. Also got more toothpaste for August. Going back to an earlier brand as he finds the newest one too spicy.

Carly had been nauseous, mainly, and rested at home. But luckily didn’t get worse. I got back, then a bit later went and picked up August. Andrea told me they had spent a lot of time indoors today, but had gone over to their usual area for lunch, and had been able to go for a little walk near the end of the day. August was walking around, finding scrap paper and things to cut with a pair of scissors: “I’m really into cutting.” While I was there he told Andrea all about permanent tape that he had invented and how most people shouldn’t touch it, unless they really are careful with it. They have a full shelf of organized doctor tools and August had made a couple things out of paper. He had made a new reflex hammer out of paper—apparently of his own volition, as Andrea was surprised—to replace one that had been lost.

He picked up a picture on the table and started cutting it a bit. I asked if it was his picture and he said it was. I asked what it was a picture of and he said, “Mama, Dada, baby trapped in a dungeon.” I think I was doubtful it was his because he hasn’t pictures with a lot of writing on them before. I took a photo though, and realized later it said ‘Mama Dada Baby’ in his handwriting. Sadly, we had left it on the table and it is probably gone. We were distracted by Eve taping a stick up in the doorway so no one could come in. August helped, and they were getting hyper. When first her parents, then Marion came, the adults removed the stick. Eve had a meltdown over this. August wasn’t happy, but handled it, but then had a bit of a meltdown when he insisted we go to the cafeteria for a treat and I said now. He started to walk away, telling me, “Dada, come HERE!”

Eventually we sat on the bench and had a snack. I opened the banana for him that was in his snack. He said, “What kind do of person are you?…Dadas are supposed to give boys bananas! Girl kids like bananas.” But he ate it all. He also joked, “Bananas don’t grow on trees! They come from factories.”

He didn’t want to go to the library, so we headed home. At home Carly got him to tell her one things about preschool: “I drawed a lot.” He wouldn’t tell her any details about his picture, but eventually told us that Mini helped him spell the words.

Carly went upstairs. I made hot chocolate for August and me, but he decided he wanted his Halloween treat first. So he helped clean up pieces of paper on the floor to get that. He chose sour Skittles, and promptly put them in the hot chocolate. He told me, “I won’t do that thinking game with stickers today.” Not quite sure what he was talking about. And he told me, “You make a great cup of hot chocolate.” He said he liked it with the skittles in it too, although he didn’t eat them, nor did he eat the ones left in the bag. He said he didn’t really like the sour ones.

He had fun putting a bunch of stickers on me. We started reading a graphic novel on the iPad called Nimona. He liked it, but it is a little too much on the dark humor side of things and I changed a couple words as we read. We could keep reading it, but I’ll probably switch us back to Shivers, etc. if I can. We chose ‘infiltrate’ as a word of the day.

He watched some Berenstain Bears, then went to the bathroom. When he came back he then scratched his menorah decoration. He held the scratcher like a pencil: “Ms. Vicky really wants me to do it the way she does it. But when she’s not looking I do it the wrong way.”

He ate noodles with shrimp for dinner. He’s growing tired of the dinners though. Carly had some plain toast and butter. He then wanted some of his own toast. He got upset when I said he needed peanut butter on it though and he hit me. So I said no toast. We read more of Nimona, then we switched to Shivers. He then ate a whole banana, so I then made him toast with peanut butter and he ate it. It started pouring outside. He said he had another word of the day: ‘alternate’ versus ‘ultimate’.

He got his scissors and went around cutting everything I’d let him cut. I then heard David outside shouting “Hello! Neighbor!” It turned out that they have water coming in there house from where it connects to our house. I let him in and we went up and he saw that there was no water on our side. He then headed back. August had found one of those tiny sour oranges and cut it neatly in half with his scissors and offered them to David and myself. I licked it to be kind, but it may have been the most sour one yet.

He did more cutting. Carly had been resting upstairs. She came down and I went upstairs and started packing. She made him more toast. He spent a long time in the bathroom. He found a clean q-tip and I let him clean the wall with it: “You said it. These are really good for cleaning…I’m making the walls Mexico-y, like Oma does.” He then had his spray bottle and was spraying things with mist. He said, of the bathroom, “So please start calling it the Mexican room.”

He went downstairs with a flashlight. He told Carly, “You’re school appropriate. What’s ‘appropriate’ mean?” Discussed the meaning. He got my phone and sat on the couch with us and recorded himself telling hero stories (where they’re never heard from again). He told me about a constellation: “The big yawn. That’s actually a constellation.”

He said goodnight to Carly and we headed upstairs. He told stories as he jumped around on the bed. He asked for a preschool story and I told a story about a preschool where it rained so much that the preschool floated away and it went down the highway like a waterslide and ended up in the sea, where everyone was rescued. We turned the lamp off. He then requested a visualization of a girl going on an adventure and never finding her way back home. That went on for several minutes. There was a lot of lightning that we kept seeing through the window. He was then trying to go to sleep, but kept having thoughts. He asked, “What’s the smallest thing you know?” I talked about quarks, then the Planck length. We argued about Planck space, as he argued there was no limit to how small something could be. He loves the idea of infinity, and couldn’t understand a finite smallness. Not sure if I also talked about how the size of the universe is also finite, or if I decided to leave that for another day. He was asleep at 9.

Walking with his umbrella to school:

Blocking the doorway:

Finding things to cut:

Making the walls Mexico-y:

His superhero story, version 1:

His superhero story, version 2:

Performing his plays:

His superhero story, version 3:

Mama, Dada, and Baby trapped in a dungeon

Carly on twin day

Hippie day

He was up just after 6:30. When I came down from my shower a couple minutes later he was playing on PowerPoint. He watched Max and Ruby and we got ready to go, nice and on time. I had set an alarm on the HomePod to go off at 7:40 to get us out the door. When it went off I commented on it being a nice alarm sound. He said, “I hate that sound!” Because it told us we had to go to school.

He and Carly both wore their tie dye shirts to school today, and we paused to take a photo of him in it on the porch. We walked to school, and he stopped in the sidewalk in the middle of the big roundabout and pointed to a spot of weeds growing through the bricks. He said it was the shape of the paddle in Max and Ruby—the kind with the red ball attached that you keep hitting.

As we got to the block of the school there were a bunch of people, mainly older men, standing in the sidewalk, as they do, waiting for rides on the busses. As we pushed our way through August was being silly and said, “I hate pizza men and creepy men standing on the sidewalk!”

He was really excited about sharing Cubetto. Before we got to school I talked to him about sharing. He was dismissive, saying “I do that in coding class!” I pointed out it was actually his toy and that might feel different. When we got in the classroom he ran and told Andrea. I gave her the bag and she put it away. We’ll see how it goes. Meanwhile, Marion was out front with a bunch of kids, petting a cat that had shown up. It was very friendly, and not one of the usual cats. August asked if he could pet it, then asked if he could touch the tail. I let him do both.

I went home and did some work, then had a quick lunch and headed to the mall. I was getting some dress clothes, since I haven’t really worn any in the last four years. I got rid of much of what I had when we left Korea, and what I have left doesn’t fit all that well. I took a systematic look at the mall. Urban Outfitters and Fox will work for more casual pants, and I ended up getting one pair of pants from Renuar and a pair of pants and two shirts from Zara. I took some convincing from a salesman to get tighter slacks, but the shirts were an easy choice, as they fit better than anything I’ve had before.

I had told August I might be late, and he said he was fine with that, but I got to the school before dance class. In fact, I had time to get a cappuccino and a cheese pastry and a small one with chocolate in it. We shared the cheese one and he had the other. August rolled up a painting he had made and used two pieces to tape it into a tube. He then gave it to Simona’s mother. She said it would go on their empty walls. August has talked to her a few times before and seems to like her. I think he said the picture was a princess, and I think in a castle. And Heather gave us an invite to Eve’s birthday party, which is unicorn-themed and on the first day of winter break.

He went up to dance class and stayed the whole time. When they came out Amelia was asking if he was having fun. I’m sure he is, or he’d be coming out to me. But apparently he was pretty distracted when they were playing a game. She asked if he had any favorite songs they could dance to in class. He had told her about Chemical Brothers. I told her the CB song he really likes isn’t really school appropriate, but maybe he could think of a song or two to send her.

It started pouring as we waited for Carly to come over. It calmed down a bit and we walked home, August carrying the orange umbrella. We took the car home. There, he looked at the prehistoric animals book with Carly and was different animals with her. We talked about evolution, as he was looking at the human precursors and the ‘hobbit people’ and wondering when we started wearing clothes. I tried on my clothes and showed them.

Carly headed upstairs with a stomach ache. He watched Max and Ruby and some Berenstain Bears and I cooked some shrimp to go with the pasta. He ate some shrimp and noodles, but not much, then strawberries, apple, cheerios, and toast with peanut butter.

We read The Butter Battle Book and then Daisy-Head Maizy. I don’t think we read much of that though. He got distracted and started cutting things up with his scissors. He had plans for making something out of the invite to Eve’s party, but I couldn’t find the glue stick and he really got into cutting up the bags from my clothes and then the bag from his Hanukkah present. That led to him having me scratch the second menorah while I was in the jungle and we played the full tiger cub story. He then started putting the menorah and Hanukkah stickers on things.

I started to take him upstairs and Carly intercepted me and said she’d do his bath. She took him up, and he ended up playing a lot. He put a lot of the stickers on Carly’s tie dye shirt and came back down for another sheet. As he walked back up he said, “More dreidels, mama!” He then was working on a sort of mask while Carly worked on her hippie outfit. I think Carly had cut out the eye holes for him. He was trying to use tape to tape it to his face. I told him we could use string sometime. He did some more stickers, then Carly gave him a bath.

He got the idea of having a lollipop after his bath into his head and got upset when she said no. I took over to read to him while she went to take a shower. We were on the bed and he gave me a scenario for a story: “You’re Teegan. And August. Going into a tree world. And you look down. And see an emmo. It goes “Skee, sleep.’” He was then reciting lines from Aardvark and Ant, which he hasn’t watched in quite awhile: “I have a feeling I need speed…giddy up, giddy up, neigh.” We read Shivers, then he was jumping on the bed and saying “Intergalactic space move!” Carly came in and said goodnight and left them at 8:45.

Petting the new cat:

Talking about his cutting project:

Working on his mask:

Intergalactic space move:

Picture he gave to Simona’s mom

Watching the rain

Hannukah stuff

He came out at 6:55. I picked him up and took him downstairs. He lay on me for a few minutes with his head on my chest and send to be chanting or singing something under his breath. He watched Berenstain Bears. We finished reading Shivers, and as we got ready to go he had me be Mustardio making a trap the size of the Statue of Liberty. I taught him ‘replica’ as a word of the day. As we got going he was singing a song, loudly, as he played with his stick outside. There were more words, telling a story, but I caught “Then he took a giant (something) and felled in a volcano. So hot! So hot! Mustardio…hot dog factory!!” None of which happens in the book (except for the hot dog factory).

He wanted to drill the mushrooms again but we got going. A quick walk to school, and he was right in to class, after going in first to see what they were doing. He wanted to take a container of the sourdough, so we did and I pointed it out to Marion. She said he had shared the bread with her and Andrea yesterday. He had said something about “My dad said this is for you!”

I know they played with the bee bot robots for coding time, but not much else about the day. when I came back, riding the bike, after 2, he was completing an abstract shape of tape on the table, colored with marker. He said, “Dada, why are you here? It’s not library day!” But it was. He said he didn’t like Lydia’s shape, similar to his. I told him it wasn’t nice to say that. Lydia took it in stride though, saying hers was something about a princess, and he was a boy so didn’t like it. He didn’t actually like it because here tape was messy in one section, coming off the table, but that worked.

We went to library time, and Ilana read Click, Clack, Moo! Cows that Type, and a second book by the same author about the animals singing in a talent show. He then checked out a book called The Night Before Preschool.

We headed back to the preschool and got Taya. Actually, he ran ahead and was picking her up by himself by the time I got his stuff. They went on swings, then we went and had a snack. They shared the banana and Cheerios from his snack. They played with the teeter totter and big swing. He told me a story about school, about how Hector and Reia had had a disagreement. August overheard the teacher talking to Hector: “Told Hector that disagreeing is okay. I listened and that’s how I learned that.” Which is a good lesson. But when he told the story on the way home to Carly he explained that it was about something that actually had a correct answer.

Anyway, they played in the kitchen area. August poured the rest of his Cheerios in the recipe: “I love wasting food…it’s my favorite thing!” Cassie arrived and they ended up inside. Taya and August started to make a mess of some letter squares, so we headed them back outside. We played at the empty water table with the tubes and the balls that fall through them. Cassie came out and we had more snack. She gave August a Clif Jr. bar, then a hard candy, which he crunched pretty quickly.

They headed home, then Carly showed up a few minutes later and we walked home. August was at maximum craziness. He was loudly singing “I want to sing and dance…” When dogs barked through fences he yelled, “I hate you dog! I’m not your friend anymore!” And as we got close to home Carly was telling me something about work, and he was repeating everything she said, using echo mode.

We were home about 5. We played out the tiger cub and tiger preserve story, then had pasta for dinner. He watched Berenstain Bears, then got upset, probably about not getting more time, and we went up and did a timeout. We went down and played with Cubetto. It worked for a couple minutes, then stopped. We figured out the robot needed batteries. He then played with Cubetto and did the classroom game with Carly

She went to take a shower and I made him peanut butter and honey toast. He remembered the word ‘revolutionary’, I think from the headphones commercial, and that was the word of the day. We read Shivers, volume 2, and there was a joke about Franks/francs, and we made those words of the days as well.

He was upset about not reading more and Carly took him for a timeout. She then gave him a bath. I then did the full tiger story with him. He added the details of me picking dandelions at the beginning and the tiger cub missing a tooth. Then, it is the daddy tiger that saves the cub and takes it to the mama, as opposed to just the mama tiger.

We had a funny discussion at the beginning of how both he and Mama we’re telling me important things at the same time, and he needed to tell me the scenario again. He said when two people are telling me important things that I need to listen to him because “I never get any attention.” Ha!

After that he tried on his tie dye shirt: “Wow. Tie dye shirts is really cool. Oh, tie dye shirts is like regular shirts. Wow, kind of kitchen-y like. Kind of like an apron.”

He said good night to Carly. He went downstairs to do it, and she had the lights off except for the Christmas lights. That made him want to watch a movie. Back in bed he had a scenario where he was one of 14 by dragons. I stumble across their cave and get eaten by them and the mama. Then, as he was going to sleep, he asked if dragons are real. He told me that they are on his planet. A lot of tossing and turning before he was asleep at 9:10.

Crazy boy with a stick:

Teeter tottering:

Trying to be funny:

Yelling the brown platypuses song:

Cubetto with mama:

I baked a loaf of bread in the morning. It turned out the best one yet—roundest and most risen. He was up at 6:30. Between finishing the bread and getting ready and it being a Monday we got out a bit late. He wanted me to take a full container of sourdough bread but I didn’t have time to slice that much. I just put two extra pieces in with his snack for him to share with Marion and Andrea When I dropped him off I told him about it but didn’t know if he’d remember.

Drop off went quite easy and I walked home. When I picked him up it was just him and Eve left. It was coding week, and they were playing with the bee bot robots in the maker space. They played with those for a few minutes. Andrea told me that during a class discussion the word ‘malfunction’ came up and they asked August to define the term.

Carly had told me that Liz had a Hanukkah present for August and we needed to go up to the library at 3:15. We headed up there, but ran into Ms. Rena, the yoga teacher, on the way. She asked him to tell me what they’d done in class today. He said, “Well, nothing new.” He remembered most of the things: flower breathing, sun salutation, jumping, something I don’t remember, and namaste. He then told her that she shouldn’t have earrings because earrings hurt you. She talked about how it just felt like getting a shot. And he told her that he never wants to have earrings.

We got walking again and he told me that “You should meet Ms. Rena more.” He said he would turn me into a student.

We got to the library just in time. Both Liz and Lillian were there, and Lillian gave him a small bag. We also talked to Lillian about how much we loved the play. We went out and sat on the bench and opened the bag. There was a dreidel, a lovely note from Liz, a bag of chocolate coins, and some dreidel and menorah shapes with paint you could scrape off, along with stickers to put on them.

August spent a lot of time scratching off the paint part to reveal the shininess underneath. He also was talking about Hanako, and I realized it was because Hanukkah sounds liked Hanako. He kept calling it a “Hanako present” after I explained the difference. He said that the sound of the scratching was a carpety noise.

He then started a tiger cub game and we developed a full story that we acted out. I was in a jungle and a tiger cub came up to me and started cuddling. I was afraid that the mama tiger was going to attack me, but when it never came I concluded that the mother had been attacked by hunters. I took the cub to a nature preserve. He was happy there, but then it turned out that the mother had evaded the hunters, then went looking for her cub. She tracked him down and was able to jump over the fence into the preserve. She then dug a hole under the fence and they were both able to escape and go back to their cave.

We went into the library to use the bathroom, then August found a Book of World Records on the free shelf. We went out and found the page about the smallest mammal and he was then a bat. Carly showed up, and he played with his dreidel and was then telling us all about the letters (making stuff up, but Liz had told us why one letter is different from in the U.S.).

We left after 4:20. He was pretty crazy on the walk home, which was a sign of things to come. He was using the dreidel as a laser, making laser noises as he blasted everything. Then he told another one of his superhero stories where there the hero is “never heard from again.” We were home before 5.

This morning, as Carly went to leave, the key wouldn’t come out of the door. I had figured out to make it happen, but the lock was acting weird and I now tried to spray it with WD-40. August was needing 100% attention. He got the broom handle thing and was riding it like a horse, then wanted me to ride it behind him, calling it a “pony tail ride.” He was then chanting “Pony tail ride is the best.” He wanted to be the tiny bat again and we got the records book out. He was asking words, and reading random words when I asked him to. He kept wanting me to play with him.

Carly played tigers with him, and suggested they play school. He said, “Tigers don’t go to school. They learn from the mama.” He watched part of an episode of Max and Ruby, then had pasta with salmon, then seconds. He was then amping up the crazy. At one point I told him he was getting out of control and needed to work on calming down. He was a robot and responded with,’Turning off out of control mode.” He then took the switch for that mode off of him so it couldn’t accidentally get turned on again. But a couple minutes later he was jumping all over Carly and she said he was smothering her. He said, “Turning off smothering mode.” But a couple minutes later he was jumping on her and hit her in the face. She headed upstairs for a minute and he huddled in the corner of the couch, knowing he hurt her, and was sort of whispering/chanting “Turning off”

I was cooking more broccoli and mushrooms to make more cream sauce and he came and helped me use the hand blended to slice the mushrooms.

Carly came back down and bought the first Harry Potter book and tried reading it with him. He lasted a few pages, but it wasn’t grabbing him. A bit over his head still. He finished the rest of Max and Ruby, then we read more of Shivers. Words of the day were ‘shiver’ and ‘ecosystem’. We watched a couple of SciShow Kids videos, trying to figure out why you get shivers, but they only mentioned the cold-induced kind.

We got close to the end, but then he had an idea, and we were acting out the meat grinder story from the book, and a pirate ship that sinks into a volcano at the bottom of the ocean (not from the book). I had made the sauce, but Carly made the noodles. August was now eating noodles, pretending they were worms, and having me act out being the worms getting eaten.

Eating oodles which were worms. I was acting out the worms. I took him up for his bath. He played in the sink a bit, and said, “Flipping the entire industry on its head!” I explained what it means and he said it could be a word of the day. I called it the phrase of the day. I think it is from the ad for Shvr headphones that he’s been seeing recently.

We then went in on the bed. We talked about school, and I asked if all the kids know that he’s a scientist, like Eve does. He said, “Yep. I’m a scientist. And all the kids at school know I’m a robot…that can do anything.” He was then talking about Andrea a lot. He told another said super hero story and told me, “You’re supposed to clap every single time.” He had me tell them a bit earlier too. I had a hero that wasn’t very smart and didn’t take anything with him. He liked that one. I said we could do a whole book about superheroes that fail. Each story could have a moral. He liked that.

Earlier, I had asked what his favorite part of the day was and he said having their snack in the nature reserve. They had then collected snail shells and had been cleaning them out back in the classroom. We did our gentle head butting/pushing thing. He said it was ticklish on his forehead. Earlier, with someone, he had said that even thinking about tickling is ticklish: “it’s ticklish in my head!”

I took his full photo, and we got to talking about what it was for, and we watched the full video, at 4fps, of him from birth to now. In discussing something I mentioned the idea of best friends, and he said, “No! I will never be someone else’s best friend. Dada and mama are my best friends.”

Carly was coming up to go to sleep with him, but was taking a bit long. He was ready to sleep, and I lay with him and did a river visualization with him, imagining flying over the river. Actually, at first the visualization went over everything, but he requested the river go on forever, so we went back to a river. He was almost asleep when Carly came in.

When she came in she took him to the bathroom, as he had gotten up at 2am to use the bathroom last night. She told him she’d love him forever. He asked, “Even when you’re dead?” When she said yes he replied, “No you can’t. When your brain is dead it doesn’t work and you don’t have feeling.” And then he told her “The afterlife isn’t real!” And, “Soon, bacteria will eat you up and you won’t be seen.” Memories and thoughts, “those are lost.” I do not know where he got all of that, as we haven’t talked about this sort of stuff.

I got to see their tie dye shirts, which are now drying. They turned out quite well, particularly August’s. I left them just before 9.

Actually, in thinking about his ideas about death, I do know I’ve discussed it with him. But not for a long, long time. I only remember it when the issue first came up—way back in Korea. I told him death is like the opposite of being born. There was time before he existed, and there will be time after he exists. Maybe he’s held onto it since then, then added what he knows about bodies decaying, etc.

The preschool robots:

Chocolate coins:

Carpety noise when scratching the dreidel:

More dreidel:

Dreidel laser:

Telling another superhero story:

Ponytail craziness:

Stealing the patients’ medicine:

He was up just after 7. I was already awake, but he told me “You can go back to sleep.” He came back in though, asking for help finding Carly. I went down with him. She was outside, so he put his shoes on and went out with her. I went back upstate for a few minutes, and when I came back down they were decorating Carly’s glasses, trying to make something for her meme costume for the middle school dress up day. They were trying surgery things, and he said, “Now that I think about it, they look like…” He really does like his transitions.

He went to the bathroom all on his own. But he didn’t pull up his pants. He says he doesn’t have to because his home is public. He for private and public backwards, but had the concept down, talking about how people can only come in if we invite them. Carly told him to push his hair behind his ears to keep it back, and said he’d been doing it, like when he came in from outside. But then he remembered that he was to just be able to doing his hair back (like Eve).

We skyped with my parents. He was playing with a tube of taped together toilet paper rolls, which were the start of a bridge. He told them he wouldn’t show them his bridge until it is done. When he saw Paul, the first time in a couple months, he said, “That’s not uncle Paul!” He said the muscles looked different. We decided he was an alien imposter. I told them about how he was building a lot of stuff at school, and I asked him what else he had built. He said he had also built a “germ sucker upper.” He was typing things back and forth with them, and after they sent a picture of an octopus he went over to Carly and was a baby octopus and she was the mama. I told them about how Carly had thought he had smelled like incense, and I asked him what his favorite scent was. He said, “fresh and rosy fingered like the dawn.” He learned that from Carly. I remembered how I had heard the phrase during the coverage of the 24 Hours of Le Man. When it came time to say goodbye he objected: “Octopuses don’t talk!” He wrote “I love you” with “sprayed ink letters” since he was still an octopus.

August them made puzzles for us. Totally his idea. The first was a black piece of paper that he cut up, mainly with square lines. I was not successful. He did a second one, but this time drew a picture on it, and i was successful. We talked about making boxes for them and taking them to preschool.

He ended up on the couch making mandalas and humming. I realized he was humming “Joy to the World.” We were then battling over controlling Apple Music. Siri played a couple random songs, based on mishearing August. He liked them though, and added “Dirty Window” by Metallica to his playlist, after dancing to it in the chair. He also added a second random song.

He was then pretending to be animals, and wanting me to take care of them. A little more difficult than the kinkajous and kittens and squirrels, as he was now being plankton and slug. He helped me in mixing the bread, then outside he had the idea of using the drill. We got it, and he had fun drilling holes in the mushrooms and old roots of the tree. Back inside, he played the animals game with Carly and they were yeast.

We all headed to Tiv Taam in the car. He told us how “Slowly slowly, by weather, the Earth is breaking apart.” He said there would be no more humans unless they figure out a different place to live. He used his blue light video projector to show me. We talked about this much of the way. But Carly had music playing and there was a Josh Ritter song, “Harbortown”, that he asked me to add to his playlist.

Carly parked behind Tiv Taam. We avoided the mud on our walk out. Carly went to Tiv Taam to get snacks for her Compassionate Listening training next Sunday. August and I made it as far as the playground. We were first cats, and the structure was our house. He sat and ate part of. Bar, but then he mainly looked around for treasures, as there was a lot of garbage on the playground. He found lots of little bits of wire. He found a couple of very sticky gummi worms, and got one on a piece of cardboard, then went and was hanging on the bench of the picnic table. He said, “Dada, I just discovered something. Ants are really attracted to this. And they get stuck on it.” He found more wire treasures, and twice, when his hands were dirty, he washed them off in the puddle at the bottom of the slide.

He then developed a game on the rocking horse thing. At first it was a business where I charged a thousand dollars per rock. He would then pay, but keep rocking past how much he paid for. So the business model changed, and the horse was attached to a generator, and people that rocked on it created power and got paid a little money for it. When I paid him for his first stint on it, he acted like he was throwing it and said, “Teleporting this to someone who doesn’t have much power…boom!”

Carly had finished at Tiv Taam, then gone to the art store to get tie dye materials, including blank shirts. When she was done she came to us. We left at 1:15. He was very excited to get to tie dying, but first we were going to the school. He offered to help her with her work “so you can get done faster.” While we were driving he told a story about how he planted a seed and it grew into a giant fan. It took 25 years. He then planted a seed that turned into one of his wave monitoring machine (I reminded him he had invented those when we were playing in the Mediterranean).

We got to the school. As we walked in he said, “When we get back, let’s get our house back on its feet…I added steel feet on it that can get to a different universe in ONE STEP. It’s giganticer than you think.” Which seemed to be a sort of play on words of ‘back on its feet’, and also a reference to both Amulet and Hilo, both of which have houses that are able to walk around on giant legs. He was also talking in his echo mode, which is a switch he can turn on and off.

Carly took some of the snacks to the staff lounge, where August helped her put them in the fridge, then we went to her classroom. Carly headed back to clean the popcorn maker, and he used tape to tape the stool that goes up and down. It is falling apart, but he doesn’t want her to get rid of it. “It’s kind of a puzzle, cuz I have a picture in my brain of it before” “Cuz I’m trying to fix Mama’s chair, and this is special for mama.” He fixed it with a lot of tape, then we went and found her.

We went back to the classroom and had a Ferrer Rocher chocolate, which someone had given to Carly, and I stayed there and read while August went with her to return the popcorn maker and to look at the costume room. Carly was looking for stuff for the dress up days. He tried on lots of stuff, like a pink wig, and lots of pink and purple stuff. When they came back he told me, “You missed some beautiful costumes.” And he asked Carly, “Tomorrow, can we go to costume room again?”

As we walked to the car, Carly said she needed to eat first when we get home. August said he wanted to do the tie dye first, “Because I’m interested in art!”

We were home after 3. He initially was frustrated that we wanted to eat first, instead of doing the tie dye. He decided to watch Berenstain Bears, and he ate two bowls of the pasta. They then did their tie dying, much to his relief. He was being quite grumpy about having to wait, and wasn’t being too patient with her. He told her his favorite colors: “pink, purple, peach, lavender, and silver.” He has that down. I heard him recite the exact same list to Eve the other day.

I worked on the bread, listening to Cargo by Men at Work. When they were done with the tie dye they played Dragon Box Big Numbers.

I then walked over to the mall to get a few things at Tiv Taam and more toothpaste for him. When I got back he was watching Magic School Bus while Carly vacuumed. He didn’t like us moving into evening routine, and was upset about something (not going outside, I think) and said, “I hate Mama’s brain…it doesn’t think of the right choices.” He got over it and played with tape. He asked, “Hey Siri, do you want me to put tape on you?” Siri replied, “I’m happy with what I’ve got.”

We at strawberries and read Shivers. I had to go cut more. We chose ‘grouchy’ as another word of the day, and talked about how he had been grouchy today. We had a few minutes, so I let him take the drill out and do some more drilling.

She took him up for a bath. He was playing in the sink and asked me to bring up the droppers. A long time playing. She washed him, then I took him up for bed time. He said he wanted to tell a story, and told a story about a superhero that went to fight a monster, but “Was never seen again.” We traded stories, all of which had to end with the ‘superhero’ getting killed. He requested I tell one about an alien doing the same thing.

We brushed his teeth and I turned on just the lamp. He insisted on a preschool story, and I started telling a story about an actual school building, and how it was getting old, but they decided to remodel it instead of building a new one. He insisted there should be him and and asteroid in it, so I was going to have it almost hit by the asteroid but he would stop it first. He disagreed, and just wanted the asteroid to hit the school. The end. Don’t know where his love of dark endings suddenly came from. Well, there was The Gingerbread Man.

I sang “Imaginary Bars”. He was curled up, but not falling asleep. At 8:45 he turned over and claimed that my hand tickled him in the process. Several minutes later, me basically asleep, he said, “Hey dada, I changed myself…” He was now running on magic, not science. A couple minutes later he asked, “What is magic?” We sort of discussed that, then he finally fell asleep right at 9.

Humming and mandalas:

Dancing to Metallica:

Fires in his laboratory:

Drilling the mushrooms:

The erosion of the earth:

Attracting ants with the gummi worm:

Tie dye:

His story of the superhero:

He woke up at 6:20. I was awake but still in bed. He told me “You can go back to sleep.” He then left the room and as he closed the door he said, “Good night!” A few minutes later there was some good thunder. When I came down they had been experimenting with putting together cardboard with nails and screws and were now making a river out of blue paper to put a bridge over it. August said he could put garbage in the river.

It started pouring and we had the sliding door open for awhile, watching it. Carly thought August smelled like incense, but August said, “Metal! I smell like iron…iron and steel.” They kept adding to the river scene. They built a portal at the end, so that people going down the river would go to another world. August then built what he said was a catapult: “The river is in another world. The portal goes to your world…the portal is good. The catapult throws you away…these are obstacles.” He then decided that the catapult was bad, and flung you to where there were bad things that you could defeat with the right equipment. He said you could get killed if you didn’t: “Natural consequence.” Carly thought he was inspired by the books (Monsters Beware! Etc.) that he’s read with me. I said no, I think he was inspired by the commercials he sees but I’m not always able to skip on YouTube for these fantasy battle games. He agreed, and Carly asked if he was saying yes to me just so I’d be right. He said, “No, I’m actually inspired.”

They kept adding, but he told her “You need to stop making spiral thingies.” They built a bit more, and Carly called it ‘menacing’ and said that was the word of the day. August then wanted his iPad to make mandalas. He was making black and white ones, and I suggested that Carly could print them out and he could take them to preschool so kids could color them. He had a different take: “Mama! Can you print these out and take them to your class so your students can color them?” Carly said she could as long as he also made a video explaining what they are supposed to do. He kept doing mandalas, humming as he did so.

He switched to the synthesizer app and had us play the teasing game, where I tease that it’s just a boring keyboard. Carly went outside, and we read some of Shivers. Carly cooked some of the potato bun things. August had the idea of using matches to set things on fire and drop them in water and see what happens. I was about to say no, but then figured it would be a good experiment/lesson. We got a big bowl of water and did it on the stone floor. We talked about what fire needs to burn, and about fire safety. He went and got things from the yard. We dropped just a burning match in, a tree thing, and a leaf.

While I cleaned that up he went and added to the paper scene he’d made with Carly. He used the bathroom, then asked for the measurement app on my phone. He did that for awhile. He was trying to talk to me and was being hyper and I tried to get him to slow down. He said, “But I’m in super fast thinking mode!” We did a preschool game were he built a teleporter in the safety room. Carly peeled a grapefruit and he ate a bunch. we then did another emmo game: “Skwee! Skwee!”

He ate some oatmeal, and Carly opened the windows to water plants. He climbed up with her. “I’m so sensitive I can feel a photon of light going by me.” He then had the idea of making a card for Mikaela, and while he made a picture he turned on Josh Ritter. I asked what the picture was, and he said, “Different patterns of shapes, of colors.” He also sent her candy, putting in a bag of Skittles. He had a purple bag of Skittles and made up names for the different kinds. He cuddled on my lap, eating Skittles, as I sat on the floor and added to the shopping list.

Popcorn together. They were cats as I left to do the shopping at Tiv Taam.

While I was gone they watched Shrek, beginning to end. It is the first full movie he has watched that way. The only ones that came close are Alice in Wonderland, which we watched in two or three chunks, and the Curious George Christmas special, which is just under an hour. I can’t remember if he’s ever watched that beginning-to-end.

The went outside for awhile, and tried to get the microscope working with her computer, but couldn’t get it to work.

I took a lot of time at Tiv Taam, figuring things out. As I got to the door he asked me to let him watch more YouTube. Carly had just said no. He ended up upset and Carly took him upstairs. I unpacked, and took his new bento-ish lunch box up to show him.

They then skyped with Vivian and Colin. A lot of hyper by the time they were done. We learned that Jeff would be coming to Israel for work in a couple weeks. He sent things to Vivian on Wizard School, and at one point he was singing “I love you pivot point.” Colin got more and more hyper, and ended with “Stinky cracker!!! You’re a Stinky cracker!”

After that, August did more mandalas and ate strawberries and pita. Carly skpyed with Cherie. He was talking and playing by himself, and said things like, “Here you go, land lady! Your chemical!” He was making more chemicals. And ‘Land Lady’ is the name of the ship in the Shivers book. He did a decent job of talking to Cherie and Chuck. Although he was mainly lying to them when they asked questions about preschool.

I was then making broccoli and mushrooms in a cream sauce with linguini. August played in the main kitchen drawer and made a mess of it. When it was all ready we ate together. Carly then read him The Gingerbread Man: “I love The Gingerbread Man!” Carly finished reading and thought it was morbid.

August was saying “As a matter of fact…” a lot today. He told me about “The centenic and oceanal parts of your brain…” Robots have them, but humans do not. He went to the bathroom and was in there for a long time.

Carly gave him a bath and washed his hair. She called down to me to bring up a lollipop. They were a new kind that Carly had bought at the store, and he ended up really liking them. He licked it as she finished washing his hair, then blowed it dry. I was cleaning up the kitchen. Downstairs, he continued with it as she trimmed his hair. We then read more Shivers. He was hungry, and asked for food. He ate the rest of his dinner and told me “You’re good at making this.”

We discussed what we could do if we didn’t have muscles or bones, and I demonstrated on the floor. I said you wouldn’t be able to breathe, and we talked about the diaphragm. He said, “I actually have a compressor that compresses the air…” He then had some toast and peanut butter. He talked about worms eating wood. He said he saw it at school. We made up Gaston verses. He then asked to read one of the children’s dictionaries that we have, but when he spotted a nautilus on the cover he started a game where he was a nautilus and I woke up to find him on me. Next, he asked “Can I be a lizard? Can I be a hummingbird?” In the next game I found a hummingbird in my house.

I took him upstairs and we read a little of Shivers and brushed his teeth. He was really tired, but insisted on a preschool game before he went to sleep. We did a short game, then when I went and turned off the lamp he curled up on the pillow I’d been using. I crowded in next to him, and he was asleep by 9.

Watching the rain:

Humming and mandala making:

Waveform slo-mo:

Straw slo-mo:

Window box gardening:

Making time:

Haircut:

Explaining his projector machine:

August had perhaps his fullest day of interacting with other people, outside of family, ever.

He came down just before 6:45 and cuddled on Carly’s lap. They played the vet game and he was animals who had lost their parents (this comes from the Emmo game, as he was the baby emmo after the mama was eaten). ‘Orphan’ became a word of the day. He watched one Berenstain Bears about the changing of the seasons. He went to the bathroom, then changed the temperature on Carly using his powers. In a robot voice he said, “Shooting out ice leaves…each one exactly 40mg.” Eve had written random letters on the chalkboard and Carly noticed. August said, “amnecacogs…that’s one of my words!” He had some chocolate milk before we left, and told me how he can use his powers to make things warmer or colder and he also had “thickanator…thinanator.” They could make things like soup or milk thicker or thinner.

We drove to school and I parked outside the gate to let them out. It was close to 8:40. We discussed the schedule one more time: Carly dropping him off, half day, lunch with her, an hour with Gabby and Jill, then me. I drove to Sabeel to meet with Marc and Omar. Meeting went well, and we clarified a lot of the year 2 process and timeline. I left there right at noon, and got to the school right after 1. Friday traffic is wonderful.

When Carly picked him up, he was gluing things into big letters that made ‘MAKER’ with Eve to decorate the letters. They had had something on skewers for their snack today and one of the things they were gluing in was the skewers. That was his idea. Carly asked if he wanted to do this sort of thing at home and he said no. But he suggested cutting his hair and gluing that. Before they left the classroom he went and got a strip of paper, drew a pattern on it, and hung it on one of the strings from the ceiling.

They went to the cafeteria for lunch. The cafeteria was out of the pizzas they were supposed to have. He had a cheesy bread thing instead. Carly needed to go to her classroom to get her lunch, so Cassie sat with him while she did that. Then, he talked to Mikaela, mainly about the art he sent to her. Said he couldn’t tell her because it was abstract. She said, “That’s my favorite kind of art.” He told her he would sometimes tell her and sometimes not. He also saw the preschool teachers eating lunch and wanted to go over to them. Carly said he could just go say hi, and that’s what he did.

She then took him to Gabby and Jill at 12:30. I got to campus at 1, and was near the entrance when Dana, a math teacher, came in carrying her 2-year old son. She asked where they were, as she was switching off with the babysitters when August was done. I went down with her to the playground but they weren’t there, then they weren’t in Carly’s classroom. We headed over to the cafeteria, and found them on the other side of the fence, outside the high school, looking at plants and stuff. His first reaction was that I was early. “It was supposed to be an hour!” When I explained that they needed to watch the other kid, August said I should watch the baby and he would stay with the girls. The boy (Yoder?) wasn’t doing well with separating (reminded me what August was like) and we left Gabby with August and Jill and I went with her back to Carly’s classroom where we tried to tempt him with Puffin Rock on the iPad. He went into full cling-to-mommy mode. She didn’t know what to do, as she was supposed to be at a meeting. I said we could handle a sad child, but it was her call. Eventually, she couldn’t do it and Jill and I went back to Gabby and August.

We found them in the Nature Reserve, looking at a tortoise. Gabby spent about 20 minutes teaching us about the tortoises (they were tagged, and are about 5 of them, which they call all of ‘Frank’), and papyrus, and an endangered type of date tree. About 1:50 we headed back with them over to the middle school and said goodbye.

As we were walking, August said “Hey, Gabby. What does the tortoise do when no one is taking care of it?” He thought it might be lonely. And, actually, it was cute as he kept calling them Grace, but Grace was gone on the camel trek.

After we got our stuff we took some time deciding what to do. August had wanted a Dada Zinnie adventure, but he wanted to get a treat, and we couldn’t decide on a place, since most things were closed or about to close. In the end we went to our bench to have some of our snack. He spotted the big jug for donating money for diapers and wanted to put in the 10 shekel piece he was carrying (part of the money for snacks that Carly had left but they hadn’t used). I let him donate that, then when he wanted more I found two 10 agora coins for him to add.

He then started a game where he was an orphaned emmo. We the read more of our re-read of Amulet. A little before 3 we went into the library to check out volume 2 for the weekend. Liz showed us the dreidel collection they had out, and came and spent about 15 minutes on the floor with us playing with them. August asked her to spin the dreidel on his back, which is funny as he is so ticklish. I also got to use the word ‘contradictory’ with him, as he simultaneously asked us to spin as many as we could, but was then chomping them up as soon as we spun them.

He requested we buy him a dreidel: “One with candy in it.” He had been paying attention when Liz mentioned all the different kinds of dreidels they sell here (she also explained why the letters are different on dreidels here as opposed to in the U.S.). We also talked to her about the musical, and that Ivan book that both her and her daughter Eve (not the one in his class) had recommended to us. As we walked out the library, August was saying “Have a good weekend, door.” And to other objects.

Back on the bench we played a preschool game, during which he decided, as robot Zinnie, that there should be glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling of the preschool so they have something to look at during rest time. It reminded me that we’ve had a couple other ideas for things they should do at school: take in pond water, other things for the microscope and draw/color mandalas.

The teachers finished their meetings and Dudley walked by and asked August if he wanted some chocolate. A minute later he went in the library and came back out with two small Twix and a chocolate ball for him. Carly came out, and August played with the big cylinders that are new and meant for recycling. Carly went to go pack up. We went back to the memos/silkworm game, with a class having both as class pets and keeping the worms in a terrarium, which was a word of the day.

Carly came back and we left. At the guard station he stopped at the window and chanted “uba shaka lala” to the guard, then gave him a high five.

At home he watched Berenstain Bears. I put the za’atar pizza, left over from my meeting, in the oven. He ate a couple slices, but then got a bite with too much za’atar. He said he’s never going to eat za’atar pizza again, and only have it on popcorn. In Berenstain Bears there was a commercial for a coloring app—featuring drawing mandalas. We downloaded it, and read some Shivers while it did. He then played with it until we reached the end of the free trial. It then appeared to be a rip off ($6 a week), so I found another app that was just for mandalas.

He played a couple of music apps, mainly doing the synthesizer, and had me copy the waveform/rhythm. Then he had me take a slo-mo of the waveform. He said, “We’re the Slow Mo Guys.” He then made more mandalas in the second app.

I took him up for his bath and he did a lot of playing in the sink. Carly came up and actually washed him. After his bath he played with the ball of string, then we went upstairs. I let him do a few more mandalas up on the bed. He told me, “I’m exercising my brain.” We read more of Amulet, but didn’t finish the first volume. He was still hungry and we decided on peanut butter toast. I got up and plugged in his iPad. He then asked, “Have you finished making my toast yet?” I literally had not left the room yet.

We went down and got his toast, then read some of Shivers and ate his toast. Brushed his teeth, he said goodnight to Carly, and we played an emmos game. He was asleep at 8:50.

Carly and I talked about how he doesn’t talk bout preschool, and how he compartmentalizes what he will do there and here (like the art things he will do there, but not here, and vice versa). I said his rules on preschool are ‘What happens at preschool stays at preschool.’ And ‘The first rule about preschool is you don’t talk about preschool.’

And at one point he had complained about pinnochio/the bowl and about how we got the better gift. He then recited everything I had told him about pinnochio. Like, one time, many weeks ago.

Wanting to stay with the girls:

The tortoise:

Opening his bar:

Dreidel on his back:

Wanting to take a slo-mo of the waveform:

Waveform slo-mo 1:

Waveform slo-mo 2:

Drawing a mandala on the iPad:

I went up at 7:20 and he was just starting to wake up. We went downstairs and he watched one Berenstain Bears story. He was fine with just one, but asked for a story next. We read How to Find an Elephant, then got ready to go and took the car, since we’d be bringing Eve home with us after school.

I dropped him off, easy peasy, then rode my bike home.

Worked, then walked back to pick him and Eve up at 3. Got the two of them, and they went in to look at the old speakers that were in the maker space for taking apart, then we were soon out on the playground and to the swings. Eve pushed August on the big swing, then she was on a regular swing and talked about how she flings her head back to get the hair out of her eyes. August was standing up on the swing, and declared, “I hate hats!” And threw his hat on the ground. He then went on to state in no uncertain terms that he would never wear a hat again, etc. This was all because he wanted to do what Eve does. Ten minutes later he had forgotten, and was wearing his hat again.

The topic of Lunch Robot came up, and he told Eve, “Eve, you know what you should do? Ask your momma or dadda to write a note for your lunch.” And in discussing backpacks (I think Eve asked if he had one) he said, “Can you buy me a pink backpack that I’ll use?” She asked me, “What does August do at nighttime.” She was referring to the evening. He matter-of-factly stated, “I sleep.”

They went and ‘cooked’ in the kitchen area on the playground. I had a few minutes to myself as they played without me. A couple times, once on the playground and once back at home, I heard her calling him “Honey”, trying to play house. She also a couple times referred to August as “a scientist.” So clearly he talks about himself that way at school—enough for the kids to know it. And once, after having a long discussion of our names and names of our family members, during which I explained why I often call him ‘Z’, she called him ‘Z’ as well.

They went in to use the bathroom in PKB once. When they came out Eve grabbed a paintbrush and added some paint to a big artwork they were working on. August started to get a bit upset, saying he should be able to do it as well, but I told her she shouldn’t have done it, as it wasn’t her class, and he got over it.

A bit after 4 we headed home, as they were hungry. Eve sat in the booster seat and August used the vest. At the house Eve wanted to play outside. August stayed out there reluctantly for a few minutes. She took his tricycle and balance bike for a spin around the yard, and they got silly with the yellow tubing that he has. A few times she was tickling him and I had to remind her how ticklish he is.

We went inside so I could make them a pineapple and mango smoothie. They started playing with the doctor equipment on the couch. When they got the smoothies she declared, “It’s so good!” We played the doctor game on the couch. They kept putting me to sleep with anesthesia, taking out my bones, waking me up, putting me back to sleep, etc.

He then turned into a squirrel and was cuddling with me. I suggested music, and Eve suggested Michael Jackson, so we listened to Thriller. I went up to plug in the Christmas lights on the stairs and Eve came with me. Heather and Zoe knocked on the door as we came back. They came in for a few minutes. Eve didn’t want to leave, but Heather was able to get her to go at 5:15.

Carly was home a few minutes later. They were discussing something, and Carly taught him the word ‘contradictory’, so that was a word of the day. He ate soup and watched Berenstain Bears. Still hungry, so I made us toast and peanut butter and honey. Then a second piece. Out of nowhere he remembered the video version of the Butter Battle Book. So I let him watch it. He had seen it at the Dr. Seuss museum. I was thinking he had watched it once after that, but once we started watching it I started to question that. I know we read the book several times, but I’m not sure if we ever searched for the video.

We read the sample for a book called Sir Lancelot the Great, then one for Shivers, the Pirate Who’s Afraid of EVERYTHING. We bought that one. While it downloaded we went up and did his bath. He played in the sink. He made a water, lotion, and soap mixture that he wanted to take to school tomorrow to look at using the microscope.

Carly then took a shower, and August started putting tape on a used plate that was on the coffee table. He told me, “I can touch the plate without touching the dirtiness.” We went up and read a few chapters of Shivers, which is pretty funny. I brushed his teeth, then Carly came in and I said good night and left them at 8:20. He had to use the bathroom, then before going to sleep he said his favorite part of the day is bedtime. Carly said that seems contradictory, since he fights it. He said he doesn’t like school, but he does like the end of the day, yoga, all the kids, and the teachers. He was asleep by 8:45.

Eve pushing him on the swing:

Deciding he hates hats:

Cooking with Eve:

Farming show and music:

End of the drumming:

Laughing over the tube:

Being my doctors: