Category: Daily

Right at 6 he got up and hopped in bed with me without saying a word. He cuddled up with his bottom in the air for a couple minutes, then sat up but clearly wanted to lie down again. I pulled a pillow over for him, and he lay down and cuddled against me and I pulled the covers over his legs.

At 6:56 I heard the door and he came down. Lay on the couch for a few minutes, then asked to watch something. We found the actual Berenstain Bears YouTube channel and he chose an episode (where Hillary moves to town). Yesterday he talked about how he was going to just watch Berenstain Bears until he runs out of episodes and forgets about it. Should last him quite awhile.

We got ready to go, and he told me, “I figured out how to open my bar. You just twist it and pull.” He’s talking about the little cereal bars that I put in his lunch. He’s been struggling to get them open on his own for weeks.

I headed home, on my bike, and did Sabeel work and work on resume and a few other things. I rode back and checked in before dance class. I’d forgotten an extra snack for before dance, so I told him I could go to the cafeteria. I went and got a little croissant sort of thing. I thought it had a filling in it, but it didn’t. August was happy with it though. He had found a caterpillar at school and put it in a bug jar and showed it to me before I went. He and Candy were looking at it when I went. I got back and August had plenty of time to eat, as Amelia was a bit late in getting class started. August went up on his own once, and I heard him call down, “Simona! Class is starting!”

He came out at 3:55. He said Amelia was going to read one more book, but she knew I was down here and let him go. We went over to the playground. The kids had tied the ribbon and stick things to the car, and there were plenty more to add. He said it was Ms. Marion’s idea to bring the ribbons outside. They had been in the everything room (the upstairs room). It was Eve’s idea, yesterday, to tie them on, and August asked Marion if they could.

We did that, and August had to use the bathroom and went to use the PKB bathroom. I asked if being in PKB brought back memories, and he said he still had all the memories. Back out on the playground we played the silkworm game. He had a class of students collecting silkworms now, and feeding them mulberry leaves (we looked up what they ate). We then had them go on a field trip to see how silk is made. August said the class was taking along the silkworms in a cage, and I had to tell him how silk is actually made, as the worms die in the process. We watched a YouTube video about it.

We played a bit longer. Getting dark by the time Carly got there. He knew she was coming, but he didn’t respond very well, blowing raspberries. It stops his playing time. But on the walk out he saw Andrea in the room and slipped in with her. She was cutting out x-rays from a kit that was already in the storeroom. August got to be the first one to see them. I talked about printing out x-rays of my broken arm and August’s extra tooth.

We started heading to the stairs, me carrying him. Quite dark, and August asked me to set him down. He had to run back to touch the door, which somehow made his hand into a flashlight. Well, he told me it lit up like a flashlight, but was still useful like a hand. It didn’t actually turn into a flashlight. It was 5.

He was pretty silly on the bike. He talked about seeing his planet in the sky. He said it was purple with spots or something on it, and you could see it with binoculars, even though it is in a different universe. He was also naming the other things he saw in the sky.

At home he had soup and I made us pizza to use more of the corn and mushrooms, and to gauge his interest in pizza for lunch tomorrow. He watched Berenstain Bears, ending with the Double Dare story. He played a little school game with Carly on the couch, then ate some of her pita. He lay on her, on his back, lounging there as he slowly picked apart the pita and ate it. He then had Carly pretend to think he was eating playdough. That was from Taya and Cassie yesterday. Another parent had given them rolls. Taya already had white playdough. When she was squishing up the bread, Cassie thought she was eating playdough.

We read more of The 91-Story Treehouse. ‘Cryptic’ was the word of the day. Carly gave him a bath. Later, she told me that she told August we’d buy him girl underwear. He said he wants to donate the truck ones. He really doesn’t like trucks. Carly took a shower. He took the book and rubber bands from yesterday and added to it. He rubber banded a shoe and sock to it, then kept adding more and more rubber bands, and a marker. It was a musical instrument that he kept having me try. I was his assistant. “You can also tune it, like this.”

We went upstairs at 8. I brushed his teeth, then we did a storytelling dice story. He requested a quest. It was “The Planet Tarex Famine”, with someone having to travel to another galaxy to find plants that would grow back on Tarex. He told me which dice would be the “obstacles”. He then he requested an August and Teegan story as he fell asleep. I thought he was asleep at 8:45 as I finished the story. But a few minutes earlier he had asked me to turn on the air condition. Now, he sat up and asked, “Did you turn on the air conditioner?” I turned on the heater, then he lay in bed, eyes open. He looked up at his “Favorite piece of art” but then complained, “I’ll never make gooder stuff than that.” And told me, “You never teach me anything.”

I got him to lie back down and sang “Rock Me Momma” and part of “Common People”. He was asleep right at 9.

A new mode:

Today’s music on the way to school:

Twister mode song:

Getting sillier:

Eating pita on mama:

His musical invention:

Plenty of craziness and his square cylinders speaker experiment:

With his caterpillar

Waiting for dance class to start

Tying on ribbons

Silkworm eating mulberry leaves

Silkworm at school

Eating pita on Carly

With his invention

He came down after 6:20 and fell back to sleep cuddling with Carly. She pulled out the bed and he slept on the couch. He was up after 7:40 when I came back down with his clothes. “Big. Boom. Big. Boom.” He then asked, “can super slow motion slow down the speed of light?” Lots of silence for several minutes, then “You _could_ go faster than the speed of light but you can’t.” He never got upset, but he was slow to get going, and I felt it was best to not push him. He said he got to watch something in the morning, and I let him watch one Pink Panther. We then got going. He went to the bathroom and did his mouthwash, telling me, “Watch me.” And he told me, “Dada, you shouldn’t call my head a brain anymore. You should call it a computer.”

We left at 8:15 and drove to school. As we walked into the school he said, “Everyone in the school is a blockhead.” Seemed in a good enough mood though. I carried him as we got down the stairs, and I asked what his goals were at school today. I suggested talking to Lydia, building things, and being nice to people. He thought for a second, then set goals for himself in a robot voice: “In my box, in marker that will never come off: be nice to people, do things that I don’t like.” I liked his idea of writing the goals down in his cubby. Don’t know where he got that.

I went home and did Sabeel work and worked on updating all our account balances and started looking into other non-profits. Excitement though when I realized logging into our Raymond James account for the school allowed us to see all the financial information of three other people at the school. I called and left messages with the head of the business office at the school and the Raymond James representative and also emailed them.

I walked back to school and picked up August. Andrea said he had an awesome day and seemed really happy. He was adding shells and pieces to a house/scene that Sophia had made. He then took it apart when I said he could, and made one on the floor. He was then distracted by Eve and Candy over in the house area, playing with some new medical toys. Candy was having a baby, apparently. The main toy was a breathing mask, with a tube attached. August listened to the other end of the tube. After they were done with it, as they were getting picked up, he wanted me to breathe into the mask so he could hear me. I didn’t have any desire to put my face on a mask that had been used by a number of preschoolers.

He didn’t want to leave, but when all the kids were picked up I forced him out. We made plans to play with Eve Thursday after school. We were on the bench for a couple minutes, but then went out on the playground and jus sat on the ground. He ate some snack (he’d eaten a decent amount of the teriyaki salmon/broccoli/mushrooms/rice) and we started reading Amulet from the beginning. We got to the part with the pink crawly creatures, then he stopped the book and started a game where he was one of the creatures, which he named an emmo, and I found it in the forest.

We played that for awhile. I didn’t learn much about his day, except that he supposedly didn’t have yoga because the teacher was sick again. He was upstairs at some point though, because he had lost a treasure he had wanted to give to me and he thought it might be up there. And he told me he did a lot of building, but didn’t tell me what he built. Carly walked home, and we took the car home a little after 4. We listened to “Common People” and August was intently listening to it.

At home we found Carly outside, and he got pita and hummus from her. Me driving August home had been me taking the emmo to my home, so I then built him a house using the chairs. When he wanted to eat he got upset bout not being able to eat his soup on the rug. Carly took him upstairs, and they came downstairs as wolves. I went up and did a little wok on the computer. They read at least part of Welcome to the Symphony.

When I came down they were now “coisonous” spiders. He made me sick by spraying poison at me after I tried to call an exterminator. Carly made him chocolate milk. He wanted to watch something, and we watched a couple videos about the size of things in the universe. Then a couple of videos about black holes: “If I wanted to go in a black hole, I could DEFINITELY escape it.” He then acted out escaping from a black hole.

He went to the bathroom, then Carly was ready to give him a bath. I let him watch 6 minutes of a Berenstain Bears video, the episode on competition, and we watched together.

Carly gave him a bath and watched a few more minutes, to the end of the story, with him. She then read a few pages of the first Harry Potter book to him. He gave it a thumbs up at the end. They came down and he had oatmeal and mango, then I took him upstairs. We did a storytelling dice story, “Valian’s Quest for the Beetle.” He sang “I’m getting the treasure for my boss” song as he went to the bathroom. It related to the story I was telling. We went back in and finished the story, then he asked me to sing. I sang two songs (“Driftin’” and “Rock Me Mama”) and he was asleep at 8:40. Not quite as early as I would have liked, but better.

Medical stuff in preschool:

Couch silliness:

Bedtime dancing:

 

He sat up about 5:30 and asked for Mama. She got down with him and he fell asleep. She then got up and left the room. A minute later he sat back up and said, “Dada.” I got down with him and as I pulled the covers up he thrust his feet under it and curled up close to me. Carly had put socks on him last night, but he had pulled them off before going to sleep. Turned on the heater and left him with the covers on and he slept until I went to wake him up at 7:15. He watched the second story (“The Big Race”) in the Berenstain Bears episode and then we got ready to go.

We decided we had time to read How to Find an Elephant, then we got going. He chose to also return 7 Ate 9 at library time. He went to the bathroom, then I asked if he wanted to do his mouthwash. He said, “Okay. Since I’m in the library and buying books I need fresh stuff in my mouth to make the his fresh.”

We walked to school, getting to class a little before the bell. I reminded him and Marion that I’d be there for library time, and August said goodbye. When I left, I spotted him through the window, still standing, but in the circle. I think he spends a good amount of time standing up, at least at the start of meeting time.

I headed home, riding my bike No big security breaches today. Sabeel work and resume updating. I rode back to school a little before 2. I got to the classroom before library time and August told me he had “40 Years in the Wilderness” by Bruce Cockburn stuck in his head. Marion told me that he had been doing a lot of building, and that he had made a bag out of bubble wrap, complete with a handle, for Juhyeok so that he could take stuff with him as today was his last day. He apparently also took photos of Marion posing as a robot in different places. And she said every number he comes up with is in the millions, just like at home.

We went to library time. A little silliness at first when they were on the floor, with August misbehaving, telling me he could misbehave if Sophia was doing it. But then he came and sat on my lap and listened to the stories. Eve’s dad showed up, and sat up on the raised seats, which they aren’t supposed to do. August got upset about this, and I thought I might have to take him out, but then he settled down and listened to the story. Ilana read Olivia, and then a second Olivia book. August checked out The Gingerbread Man.

Back in the classroom he showed me the big castle he had made, Nd in it was a bug catcher container with two caterpillars and a moth, but he said the moth was dead. And leaves, of course. I had to rush him to get him over to PKA to pick up Taya. Myriam was there and didn’t know I was picking her up, but let me take her.

As I got Taya packed up, he disappeared. He had run back to PKA and was sitting next to Andrea as she read Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. He was pretty fascinated. I asked him what it was about and he said there was a girl and a bunch of kids. He was a bit torn between staying for more story and going to the playground with Taya but chose the latter.

They went on swings, but different ones: Taya on a regular swing, and August on the big round one. I ran between them, pushing them both, and they thought that was pretty funny. Taya then joined August in the big swing, and they had fun chanting “Higher!” Cassie showed about 3:20. We both got out the snacks we had and we all sat on the ground and ate snacks. August really liked a bag of Annie’s graham crackers that she gave him, and she (Cassie) really liked my banana bread, so I sent her the recipe along with the zucchini cornbread she’s been requesting.

They went into PKB and we looked around in there. August liked their collections of leaves, pieces of wood, etc. like they have in PKA. August was then looking at the PKB family photos and saw a family photo with Santa Clause. He asked who that was and I said Santa Clause. He said, “Santa Claus isn’t real…he doesn’t have reindeer to pull his sleigh.” I thought he was just being funny, but Carly reminded me that this is from the preview for Miracle on 34th Street. We thought he hadn’t been too interested in it when she showed him the preview, but he was obviously paying attention.

Back out on the playground August played with the ribbon things you spiral around in the air. Cassie and Taya headed out. August wanted to do a cooking project like we used to do last year, he said, and we made some cinnamon dish that did some sort of magic. August needed to use the bathroom and we went down to the elementary school bathroom. He then walked the sensory path, and told me “Look at those peach clouds.” It was indeed a very impressive sunset and we admired it on the walk home.

Carly was there when we got back and we walked home. At home he wanted to play a game where I found an animal that I didn’t like on a swing and ended up taking it home with me. He had done this earlier, at the playground. I’ve noticed that he’s started to develop more complex stories; in the past it was always cute animals, but this involved the main character, me, being conflicted and figuring out that I liked the animal. Last night, in doing the storytelling dice, we had talked about how the first dice represented the main character, and the last one was the thing they were trying to get. August said that the things in the middle were the obstacles. So this time he was a monster on a swing and I ended up liking him.

He put two rubber bands on a book, at angles, and said it looked like a volcano. He wanted a photo, so I have him the phone. He took a photo of that, and a bunch of others, including of spit coming out of his mouth. He was humming “40 Days in the Wilderness” some more.

We then read The Gingerbread Man. He reminded me that they had read The Gingerbread Man in literacy group, but it was “a different version.” And he pointed out what words were the same. As the monster he then ‘found’ my iPad and watched the Berenstain Bears story about envy. He watched another Berenstain Bears story and I gave him a few more minutes when his time ran out so he could finish it. When it was over though and I told him to turn it off he got upset and sort of lightly threw the iPad at me. Carly took him upstairs for a timeout.

Back downstairs he had soup for dinner. Then seconds. On Skybrary we read Good Job, Ajay!, Freda Stops a Bully, and Zachary Zormer, Shape Transformer. For words of the day we chose moebius strip and swagger.

I took him up for this bath, a quick one at the sink. Back downstairs he used the ruler to measure the height of his water bottle. I can measure things in inches and centimeters just fine now.

Carly took a shower and I did storytelling dice with him. He used 9 dice, so we divided them into groups of 3 and talked about the beginning, middle, and end of the story. He had a lot of ideas, and it was a really good discussion. He wanted a Dr. Fiegelmeister story, so it was “Dr. Fiegelmeister and the Alien.”

We got him ready for bed. I asked about literacy group. He told me he’s not in Ms. Vicki’s literacy group anymore. He said he was now in “the Hebrew teacher’s” (Ms. Myriam) group and he didn’t like her voice. When I said I could talk to his teachers to better understand what was going on, he told me he was just lying to me and it was supposed to be funny. We talked about the line between joking about things and when it just becomes a lie. It was a pretty complicated story he was making up.

When we said goodnight he was being funny: “Good night poopy dada! Goodnight strawberries coming out of your nose dada!” I left them at 8:20. Carly said she kept thinking he was asleep but he would sit back up. But he was asleep by 8:40.

Saying goodbye to Juhyeok:

His castle and caterpillars:

On different swings:

Higher on the swing 1:

Higher on the swing 2:

Ribbon spinning:

Singing 40 Days in the Wilderness:

I did not notice his face…

Castle and caterpillars

Together in the swing

Admiring the collections

Peachy clouds over the school

His spit

Measuring

The smoke detector in the kitchen went off a little after 6. Carly and I ran down, but there was no smoke. And it hadn’t woken up August. He then was up at 6:30. He watched Magic School Bus and one story of Llama Llama. When I came down he told me “Mama’s sick.” He smiled and I asked what was going on. “I’m making a lie at you.”

He had some bread, then talked about having digital math problems coming out of his head. It became a preschool game, with this happening during math time. He was then whiney about Carly wanting to be outside, as he wanted her to come in. He asked me, “Will you do Lunch Robot when I’m in kindergarten?…I want you to do Lunch Robot every day I’m in school.” We made a squirrel nest, but he instead decided to be a silkworm. Not sure how that was chosen. We listened to the new Steve Kilbey as he produced silk and I made clothes from it and gathered leaves for him. The game kept going, and he would switch, to be a new silkworm that I discovered or that showed up. My business grew, and I bought a shop, then hired a shopkeeper, planted my own fields, built a fence, etc. By the end of the day there were six silkworms.

We took little pauses from the silkworm game to do other things: I brought down the underwater puzzle and he helped with that, and a few times we looked at pages of the Children’s Illustrated Dictionary. He surprised me by reading drink, droop, drought, and drum.

I went and took a shower. He’s been regressing in the bathroom, wanting us to accompany him and watch him, and then was his hands for him. I had to convince him to turn on the water himself to wash his hands. I pointed out that he was acting grumpy this morning and asked him about it. He said, “That’s because you left me on grumpy mode.”

There was a piece of mail left at our gate. Our address, but not for us, once I translated it. Carly left for the store at 11:20. We discussed endangered species and overpopulation: “I know how to solve that… I’ll go back in time.” “I’m making better ways…like a hand generator. You turn a handle…” That transitioned to a game of stopping aliens from destroying Earth. We looked at the dictionary again, then told some stories. Earlier we had done storytelling dice and told “The Snakes of Smorf and Dr. Fiegelmeister”. Now we did “liens from Planet 9” and played a preschool game where it was music class and he taught them a new way to make music. He then sang an “I am Sleepy and I want to go to Sleep” song.

Carly got home at 12:25. She had bought an eggplant. We mentioned baba ganoush and he chanted, “Baba ganoush, baba ganoush! I love baba ganoush!” Getting pretty hyper. We had been about to head out the door on a Dada Zinnie adventure when Carly got home. Took some time now. Almost left, then he needed to use the bathroom.

Finally left at 12:45. Carly wanted us to pick some kumquats, so did that at a couple trees along the block. Got to our playground and didn’t get any farther for the next two hours. He went on the swing and used the binoculars. He then wanted to do a new game/story, and said: “The sad games is fun. The nice games is not fun.” The scenario would be that he was an animal running away from a war. He decided on a beaver, and we played this game for much of the next hour. I would find it, take care of it, then eventually it would live in my yard, or it would go back to the wild when the fighting stopped. We paused to go exercise, and he wore my watch. He was excited to find he could just lift the leg lift thing using his toes now. Couldn’t do that last year. He also ran circles and counted them.

He was the beaver again, and the pirate ship was my house, with a stream running by underneath that was where he would live. Finally, we went and did recycling. He found some treasures (there were letter magnets strewn around) and found a metal handle, like for a broom, and peeled the color off of it and used it to stab at the recycling. Then, he found a printer. No cord for it, so he was confused about how it worked. He put paper and cardboard in it, and decided it changed the color of them.

We got home after 3, after walking around the Holly block. He had asked for the ice cream in the freezer. It was the last of the vanilla. I put strawberries on it. He called adding the strawberries the “Baddest compromise ever” but promptly ate it all.

We went back to the silkworm game. He was #6. He decided that ‘microorganism’ was the word of the day. We read some 91-Story Treehouse. He then played some Magnus’s Kingdom but started from the beginning as the character from his other game was literally stuck inside a mountain as part of a weird glitch. He then moved to Human Body and was recording himself singing.

Carly had made vegetable soup, and he had some for dinner. He then found Berenstain Bears on YouTube, which I didn’t know existed, and he watch an episode where they take care of a squirrel baby. Carly made him a smoothie with mango and pineapple, and we read more 91-Story Treehouse. Looked at the dictionary again.

Carly went up to shower and he made banana bread with me. He likes using the electric mixer. More 91-Story, then they had popcorn and we watched super slo-mo videos (The Slo-Mo Guys), starting with popcorn popping (Carly had popped it on the stove), then hitting jello with a tennis racket, then paint on a speaker.

I gave him a quick bath at the sink, which he complained about, then we went down and had some bread fresh out of the oven.

As we headed upstairs we did a preschool game about the strict school again, His change was that he came out of a Tortuga ship (which is from Wild Kratts). He really wanted to fall asleep with me, but I reminded him we had done all sorts of stories today. I left them at 8:45. He was hyper and loud for awhile, but then went to the the bathroom and fell immediately to sleep when back on the bed, about 9.

Beaver resting on me:

New exercise equipment for him:

Running laps:

Stick in recycling:

Figuring out the printer:

Singing in Human Anatomy:

He woke up once and Carly got him back to sleep. He was then laughing in his sleep before I got up. He came down at 7:25. I got him vitamins, and he told some story that ended “…and there were no more vitamins. The end.” He was a bit silly, and then they started reading more of The 91-Story Treehouse. I took over reading for awhile.

Then he wanted to check the string to see if Mikaela had gotten the art. She had, then he was excited about sending her more stuff. He suggested strawberries and said the note should say: “From August. I thought you would be hungry, so I delivered you strawberries.” We were trying to convince him to wait a few days until we made cookies or something, but he decided we should send her some of his Halloween candy. Carly relented, and he chose a Tootsie Roll and a piece of gum. He then made her a piece of art to go with it.

He then wanted a treat himself and we told him he could have one if he cleaned the toilets. We put the cleaner in, then read more of the book. ‘Boast’ became the word of the day. He was then having us pretend to be tigers. We scrubbed the toilets, then he was able to have a ready (Kit Kat) as a test. He said”Now I want a hamster.”

He taped up the empty crackers box. We typed on my iPad for a bit, sending satellite messages, then he was sucking knowledge out of my brain (as happens in The 91-Story Treehouse). First he sucked out knowing how to ear crackers (I was still supposed to know what they were, just not how to eat them). Then everything I knew but he didn’t.

The leavening, which I’d had on warm in the oven, was getting close to ready to use. We had Andy Bell music playing, and August added a song to his Zinnie’s Songs playlist all on his own. And he had me lower the music earlier so he could listen to the gurgling noises of the fridge.

Carly came in and he wanted to play seals, so I went and took a shower. They then went for a short walk together. They went to the west, and found a couple of kumquat trees. They came back, and asked if I wanted to go to the mall with them. He sang a song that went, “I hate turkey. Turkey mashed me sick.” Don’t know why. I had to turn the dough with my hands, and August helped. When he stuck his hands in he got upset and had to go wash his hands. It hurt the tiny cut he had on his thumb yesterday. He came back and used just one hand. He was then outside, making a sculpture out of sticks and other objects on the swing. He had trouble with some things falling down, so I taught him ‘tenuous’ and that was a word of the day.

We got walking about 11:15. We stopped at the lemon-orange tree and he picked a couple,. We then stopped in the big dirt field by the mall parking lot where he played yesterday. Less muddy today, but he had fun playing with sticks in the mud and a long piece of tubing he found. Carly and I were able to go sit down for while and read. He came over and there was a sort of cave in a bush that he invited me into. He played for several more minutes, picking interesting leaves for Carly. We then headed on to the mall. We went to the bathroom so he could wash his hands.

At Arcaffe we got a brownie and two of the pizzettes – one spinach and one onion. And a cappuccino. We sat at the table on the mall side. He was talking about someone stealing change from a lemonade stand “Keep the change!” Think it is from one of the Hilda books about the meanagers.

Carly headed home to do some National Boards work and August and I stayed to play on the playground. He found a string and a washer and made a necklace of it, then played on his own for a couple minutes. He then asked to use my phone and took photos. We played a bit and he had me take a photo of a little collection of leaves he made on the ground.

We headed home at 1. Saw two lizards sitting on a post. We started to walk the long way, then he decided to turn around and go the short route. As we went we did the preschool game where he makes an amulet again.

At home he watched one episode of Magic School Bus (about ants), then we he had us playing preschool games and the such: one bout a giant, galaxy-sized bird that broke apart spaceships and planets, and preschool ones where the kids are skipping out on rest time to go do science in his lab. Then there were rants and he teleported everyone to his house. To save them he then had to change them all into robots and teleport them to his world.

I formed the loaves, and they went outside to do some glitter art. He did a spiral picture, then had fun putting glitter in water. Carly suggested we go to the playground by the Netanya waterfront for sunset. I finished forming the loaves, then we left at 3:40.

In the car he had raisins and ate a corn thin. We listened to “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” because I had remembered Carly he liked the Crash Test Dummies way back when we were in Lynnwood. She basically just put this song on repeat though. He looked at Google Maps on my phone, and pinned a hotel in Ghana.

We parked really close to the playground and were walking at 4. He spotted a ship and said he had a scanner that can tell kind of ships – coal ship, search ship, pirate ship, etc.

We got to the playground and he had us do the preschool game about the amulet. Carly suggested he go ply by himself, and he went for a minute or two. He came back and wanted to play the seal game. He has primarily only wanted to play the seal game with Carly, as in the video they watch it is just a mama seal and baby seal—no dada. He relented today and said I could be the dada seal. I grunted once, and he said, “No! You’re not a polar bear! You’re dada seal!”

We played that, then he and I played a silly tag game while Carly read. He was then holding onto my sweatshirt at the cuff so that I couldn’t run away. He then switched to the tiger game, and I was the dada tiger.

As we left we spied a bundle of balloons floating through the air and I got out the binoculars to look at them. August was then looking at things with the binoculars. We stopped to look at the waves and sunset as it got dark.

We were home at 5:30. They talked with Cherie and Chuck. August played the kinkajou game, where he was on the sidewalk and tired, with Cherie. Hard to do over FaceTime. He was then a seal. I put the first loaf of bread in the oven, and Carly made him a smoothie. We finished reading The 91-Story Treehouse. When the loaf of bread was ready I took it out, started the second loaf, then sliced us some. I told August, “watch out for the knife, although it isn’t the sharpest thing in the world.” He quickly replied, “No, the propeller coming out of my head is the sharpest thing in the world.”

The bread turned out really well. I started him on doing some art on the big rolled paper. He finished one piece and had me cut it off, then worked by himself on a second. Carly had fun putting August’s hair up in a ponytail. He had been talking about wanting to look like a girl earlier, and that really does it. I took him up for his bath in the sink. He played with Carly’s hair clips and had me take a photo of them. He had some more bread, then when it came time for bed he wanted me to do it. Carly was ready to go to sleep though. I told him we could do story dice during the day. He was asleep around 9.

Art for Mikaela:

Helping with the bread dough:

Swing sculpture 1:

Swing sculpture 2:

Mud swirls:

Long hose in the puddle:

Playing in the dirt area:

Steering with his toes:

His art for Mikaela

When the dough started to hurt his finger

Stacking his sculpture

Coming out of the cave with a leaf for Mama

His necklace

His photo of me

Another photo he took

His leaf sculpture he wanted me to photograph

Glitter art

Telling us about his ship detector

Playground

Looking out at the Mediterranean

Evening art

Ponytail

Loaves #1 and #2

He slept until after 8:30. Carly was upstairs at the time. They came down a bit later. He told me, “if you want to say something you have to rawr.” He was a baby tiger. They went outside for a minute. Carly got them some of the leftovers from yesterday and they ate at the table.

Chocolate milk. “With more milk and more chocolate than last time, cuz that was kind of funky…Word of the day!” He then requested to watch a nature show. So we started episode 2 of Frozen Earth, and watched part of it about the penguins and seals. He then headed back upstairs to Carly. We are trying to figure out how to pay for our highway tolls and I worked on that.

They made a paper chain while I went and took a shower. They turned on Christmas music, and when I came down Mariah Carey was playing on the speaker. And August added it to his playlist. An unfortunate turn of events. I’m mostly against the whole jumping into Christmas the day after Thanksgiving thing, but I got the Christmas lights and helped hang those up. August was coming up with an idea for another decoration, and said “I’ve got this.” He made a picture and explained that it meant that for his birthday Carly and I needed to make him presents. He hung it from a straw on the wall to the right of the stairs and said it would stay there until his birthday. And he talked about having a pet and how he liked their little dog. At the party he had asked me if he could pet it. I hadn’t actually seen him do so, but asked him if he had and he said he had. Also, Carly wanted to watch a Christmas movie.

Carly and August headed to the mall to look for a raincoat for him. He spent quite awhile playing in the dirt on the way over. At the mall they found a possible coat, but it was heavier, and they bought a small pineapple at the farmer’s market at the mall. He sang the Gaston song while coming back from the mall “No one pees like Gaston…”

They got back at 1:40. He came in with a little fruit and said, “Try this! It isn’t poisonous and it’s like a lemony orange!…You can lick it. Or you can get the juice on your shirt and lick your shirt!” It was a small orange thing, like kumquat, but round, that he had found on a tree by the parking lot on the way to the cloud bridge.

He wanted to get more, so they went back to pick some more. They came back, and then August had the idea of making a Christmas walrus. I said it should be a Christmas sea cow. It was from a Sarah and Duck episode.

They then headed to school, using the car, to make popcorn and clean the popcorn machine. Before they left he was sitting on his stool and said, “Christmas month is the worst. Can’t use the railing.” We had hung the second string of lights on the stairs.

While they were gone I did dishes, organized the cupboard with all the plastic bags in it, then went up and was still folding laundry when they got back.

They Skyped with Vivian and Colin and family for a long time. I was upstairs getting to work on paperwork. He taped the ruler and markers to her and she was taking them off when I came down. They had just finished skyping and were watching a video on how to slice a pineapple.

Carly sliced it, and we talked about a Christmas movie he might like, and she might like watching with him. He told a story: “A long time ago there was an abandoned castle and in the castle there was a picture. The picture of the ruler. It was a horrible, terrible, no good not letting anyone in beast.” He went on to explain that someone came and killed the beast. It sounded a bit like Beauty and the Beast, but he said it was from a StoryBots video, which doesn’t seem likely. Carly made a pineapple smoothie. I went back upstairs to do more work (filed insurance claim, scanning, etc.). He let her read The 91-Story Treehouse, then he watched Max and Ruby.

Me upstairs doing paperwork.

I came back down. August asked, “Did you know that if you tell a story often enough it can become the truth?” I’m pretty sure that’s a line from something we’ve read recently—I think Dragons Beware! He and Carly had done a bunch of art. Earlier he had drawn three pictures: one of computer code, one of a kite, and one abstract. And he had had the idea to use chalk on the darker pages. I got some food, then was looking at their stack of art. A drop of water fell from my plate and landed on the edge of Carly’s paper. His art was fine, but in my haste to wipe it up I wiped my dry hand across his chalk drawing, and part of it was slightly smeared. He wasn’t happy about that, and blew raspberries at me. Carly suggested he do the lines darker, and he took it over to the blackboard and added to the lines, and seemed happy enough about it.

He then decided he wanted to send his computer code, kite, and abstract pictures to Mikaela. When it came to writing a note to her though he decided “I want it to be what Mikaela thinks they are.” He drank the rest of his smoothie, then we played the seal game again. Carly convinced him to let us take down the structure made of the tissue box, tape, and other things on the coffee table. He said okay, “But before you do that…” Had to take a photo of that, and a bit later the bucket with his concoction in it upstairs.

I took him upstairs and he tied the ball of green string to one of the pieces of the railings. He put his hand in the mixture in the buck and said it was “All gooey and tickly because animals were wriggling around init.” We dumped it out in the sink. Carly had let him put a whole bar of soap in it, and that was pretty interesting. He broke it up until we could wash it down the drain.

I then gave him a stool bath, washing his hair. He wasn’t very accommodating. We dried his hair out at the couch with the hairdryer, then put on his pajamas. He threw the ball of string downstairs, then we went downstairs to it. He started pulling on it and chanting, “Fire alarm, fire alarm, fire alarm!” He rolled it across to the kitchen and played with it some more, then I had the fun job of rolling it back up and trying not to get it knotted up. As I did that he realized he hadn’t had his vitamins, and also got the cracker box out of the cupboard. He saw a spot of red on his thumb and thought it was marker at first. But it was blood. He had gotten a small cut from something. He handled it really well though and didn’t get upset. I got a tissue and he pressed his thumb against it as he ate crackers. He then had the idea of me taping it around his thumb so he could eat more easily. He had those and his vitamins.

Carly came down, and commented on him being fashionable. He then talked about how he designed even more fashionable clothes. It ended with, “Four layers of cheetah fur to cover the metal!” He was taking a cue from one of the antagonists on Wild Kratts who tries to make jewelry, etc. from animals (like coral). He then ate strawberries I cut for him, then some Cheerios. He then found a bag of oatmeal in the cupboard and wanted to eat some dry. Carly got some for him, and he ate a bit.

I brushed his teeth and Carly went to sleep with him, a little after 10.

Sour orange:

Oranges made him sleepy:

Skyping with cousins:

If you tells story often enough, it becomes the truth:

His soap concoction 1:

His soap concoction 2:

Breaking up the soap:

Fire alarm:

His fixed piece of art

He requested I take a photo of this arrangement

His bandage

He got up at 5:57. He turned on the lamp, talked to me for a few seconds, then turned it off and said “Good night!” and closed the door behind him. When I came down he was watching Wild Kratts and laughing hysterically. It was the same part of the Hummingbird episode that he was laughing at yesterday (where one of them blows a trumpet) and he watched it a couple times.

I got him vitamins and zucchini cornbread and he and I read Baby Bear’s Big Dreams and 7 Ate 9. He then wanted to play with Carly. When she walked over to him she leaned over nad clapped her hands. He asked, “Is it time for a bath?” Because that’s something she often does when she’s getting him for a bath. She suggested they go outside, and he said no, then: “Well, I do love nature. It’s just not the right time. I’m having fun with you at home.” “I want to cuddle with you, and do scientific experiments.” They decided on a tape structure with the cardboard stuff. Meanwhile, I was sending messages to Glecy about her vacation to Guatemala and so August learned about piñatas and decided that’s what he wanted to make.

We worked on that, then he turned into a cute animal that hibernates and eats plants and digs holes. We decided on a prairie dog. The prairie dog game went on for quite awhile, and eventually it was living in a strawberry shop and the owner was buying shipments of plants for it to eat. We then read about 60 pages of Amulet as we lay on the floor by the windows. He was hungry, so he had the last pancake. I went up to take a shower. When I came down they were both doing art outside at the table. Carly was making a hand picture and he was rubbing flowers on paper to make colors. Something he learned at school. He had the binoculars on and had been using them.

After awhile I heard him getting grumpy about his art: “No you don’t! It looks ugly!” “We’re doing a card for Mikaela, or we’re doing nothing.” He was being quite grumpy.

They went upstairs and rested.

He came back down and wanted to do”piñata work.” Carly fell asleep. We worked on the piñata structure, then he was a baby kinkajou: “Not hyperbole starving, real starving.” I asked August if he had watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving with the other kids yesterday and he said he had a bit. He wanted to watch it again, so I downloaded that and he wanted to watch it. But then when he was watching it he said he had already watched it. So he switched to A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Carly headed to the store to get carrots and for the dish she was going to make. And she stopped and got strawberries at the stand. August and I listened to Odesza remixes when he wanted to hear new music. He had me play a preschool game where I was a teacher watching maker time. August was a student that makes a jewel: “Tt casts a spell that makes your pupils red and purple…red with spirals…it’s swirling in a circle. You know, an optical illusion…” It was very much based on Amulet, but he extended it. After the jewelry he was back to being a kinkajou.

Carly came back. August initially wanted a smoothie, but then was happy to just eat several strawberries. I asked him what he was thankful for, and he said, “Yesterday I was thankful for you taking care of me. This time I’m thankful for all the treats you give me.” It sounded like they had talked about it at in their class.

August was finding it funny to say “I’ll kick your everloving…” and when Carly didn’t want him saying that he was acting sulky. I taught him what that meant and ‘sulk’ became the word of the day.

August and I got ready to go for a walk, and while we were out the door he said, “I’m gonna kick your everloving garbage!…Much nicer, right?” And had to share it with Carly. He then picked up the tire that he found last spring and water spilled out and into one of his shoes. We dried it out, and finally left at 1:45.

We walked to the south, him with the binoculars around his neck, stopping to look at things. He got off his bike and was looking for treasures. He spotted the big flag with the binoculars. We went up that dead end, then up the path to the stairs. At the top of them he played in the dirt and bushes, finding tiny snails for a few minutes.

We got going and he told me, “It’s the perfect time for a preschool game. I already thought up the scenario.” There was a giant plant attacking the preschool and he teleported the class to August’s house. We walked the path and spotted big ant mounds. He then spent several minutes playing with ladybugs, ants, and snails.

We got back at 2:45. Carly was done with the carrots and I baked the salmon. At one point he told Carly “Thank you for taking care of me, Mama.” After he went to the bathroom I told him he needed pants on. He asked, “What’s a special holiday when you can be naked at school?”

We left by 4. About 10 minutes into the ride he fell asleep. I woke him at 4:55 as we parked at their house.

We went into their house, and August and Taya took a few minutes to warm up. There were two other kids there, Liam and Zoe. Cassie said that Taya had been talking about August all day. They got wild, and eventually we decided to take them to the park. Carly and I took August, Taya, and Liam to the park at 5:50. Taya and Liam had baby dolls in strollers and pushed them. August wasn’t interested in them, but at the park he helped find little rocks to be food for them. He also went on the swings with Carly. Taya found a flashlight and they used that to find rocks. August also found an old remote control. As they looked for food he found some treasures: a hair clip, a little jewel, and a sticker that he put on the back of my phone. He fell off a swing. He wasn’t really hurt, but was upset for a few seconds and told Carly “Stop it! You’re never nice to me!”

When we got back to the house we were met by Liam’s dad who said, “This must be the famous August we’ve heard so much about.” August replied with, “Yep! I’m a scientist! I make machines and test them! And I have a secret underground lab!”

It was time for dinner. The three kids sat together at a small table in the kitchen. He ate pretty well. He then played by himself with the blocks that were on the floor. He made a structure out of them. He then played with the other kids, but was then getting really hyper with Liam’s dad. August made a big pile of pillows on the couch and was talking and singing about “Sailing the seven seas.”

We had plenty of pumpkin pie, then he watched Charlie Brown on his iPad with Taya. It was too loud in the living room so they went to the bedroom. Megan, who had shown up late, went to the bedroom with them and her little sister called on FaceTime and August was talking to them.

August had seen the ice cream, so also had to have some of that. We got going, and as we got to the car he was asking what ‘blockhead’ meant. So that became a word of the day. I realized we didn’t have his sweatshirt, so Carly yelled up to the balcony. Taya found it, and they threw it down.

He asked, “Do you know what blood is made of?…iron, water,…” and he had the name of something that he said made it red. As we drove he requested “This Year” “That song’s stuck in my head.” We listened to that and drove home.

At home it was pretty straight to bed. Carly brushed his teeth and then I put him to sleep. We read 7 Ate 9 and then did a short preschool story and he was asleep around 10. I’d put him to sleep on the big bed, so lifted him down to his bed.

Jump rope slo-mo:

Making a jewel:

Amoeba mistletoe song:

Walking and humming the Smurfs:

With Liam and Taya:

Walking to the park:

On the swings:

Whip cream:

His ship on the couch:

Sailing the seven seas song:

Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy:

His photo of the pinata

Ladybugs and ants

Getting food for the babies

He was up at 6:25 as I was done with my shower. When I came down a minute later he was outside, watching Carly water the plants. They came in and he said he had checked on the stick he had put in a tree. He took me out to show me, and it was the U-shaped metal piece, with the ends covered in sap and tree things.

Back inside he asked for his iPad and asked when he could watch something using my headphones again. I said he could use them right now, but he said it had to be part of a game and when I had built a nest for him.

He watched Smurfs, then we read Amulet. We got going and on the walk to school he was humming Josh Ritter’s “Change of Time.” He was then singing a song about loving something, but I don’t remember what it was.

He checked on me to make sure I was sitting outside for a couple minutes, then I was able to leave. I went home and did a little work, then rode my bike back for the preschool Thanksgiving lunch at 12:20. He got up and ran over next to me when I went in the room.

All three of the classes went over to the grass area by the playground and took turns singing songs. Marion was curious to know if I would recognize the “wa-da-lee-ah-cha” song PKA was going to sing—apparently her husband had remembered it from when he was four. I told her I had heard it when working at summer camp, and from August singing it, but didn’t remember it from my childhood.

Then PKA led the procession over to the eating area. August started to get frustrated with Hector for supposedly cutting. I took him aside, and we waited a minute to get food. We sneaked a piece of the squash bread to eat while we waited.

We got food and went to our spots, marked with the rocks. We were sitting with Nicholas and Sophia and their parents (Miles and Anastasia). Found out Nicholas really likes animals and I told him about Coyote Peterson. August ate a bunch of food (he loves buffets). He particularly liked the kimbap (as did I) and picked apart a few pieces but ate every bit of them. We also really liked the apple turnovers from PKC. We also sat with Marion, and had fun talking to her. When Carly got there after 12:50 we were talking about the play (and the French accents) and she told us how preschool hadn’t been invited but she forced her way in. Pretty awesome, actually.

Then the desserts were brought out. August had a chocolate brownie thing, then more snickerdoodle cookies than I wanted to count, sneaking one more after Carly left.

Most of the students left with there families. There were 3 or 4 other students left in PKB. He said, “Ms. Andrea! Your classroom looks so big!” The table were all outside. August wanted to stay, so I went and sat at the picnic table and typed. They had, I think, the Peanuts Thanksgiving video playing, but August was playing in the building area when I left.

He then came and found me when they started Playball and wanted to be with me. Simona was also leaving at the time. So we played outside. He played with the tubes and little balls from the waterless water table. And he sang an excellent “If you didn’t remind me…” song as he did so. He found a water bottle by the play structure (he was an injured animal again) and recognized it as Taya’s and took it into PKA.

He found the green cubes from the bottom of the cut flowers that kindergarten had had for some reason. He had looked at them yesterday, and they were in a stagnant dukes of water. We were speculating on what it was, and he told me”It’s compound fiber…little bits of plastic…dark green sand…”

He then told me “You see plankton…with tentacles out of its base…it speaks in colors…dark colors, like red orange, and yellow mean it doesn’t like something, and light colors mean it DOES like something.”

Back by PKB he saw Taya opening the blinds on the door. It was now close to 3 and they were leaving. I went in and asked Anna if it was okay for Taya to come out with us. She came out and she and August ran to the swings where I pushed both of them, which they thought was funny.

Cassie came and Taya got off, then they were both tickling August when he swung forward. He was laughing, but I could tell it was getting too much so I saved him by grabbing him off the swing. Cassie talked about how she was a bit stuffy, but that nothing could cancel Thanksgiving. August said he could, by making everyone forget about it. But he emphasized that he could but didn’t want to.

Taya grabbed Cassie’s phone, and August wanted mine. He wanted to take a slo-mo video of how the sand jumped when he stomped on the cover of the sandbox. We did that, then Cassie was getting ready to go. She offered August a lollipop and he chose mango. As he ate it he asked me if anything protected against lasers and missiles. I taught him about ‘armor’ and that became a word of the day.

To help Cassie get Taya up to the car August and I accompanied them. I had asked Taya if there were going to be any other kids at Thanksgiving. She named 6 or 7, which turned out to be fiction. But one was ‘Olivia’, and she and August ended up chanting “Olivia!” as we walked.

When we got to the car, at the far end of the parking lot, Taya said she needed to use the bathroom. So she walked back with me and August while Cassie drove.

August and I went to the drinking fountain, then Carly met us with us and we headed home, about 4:30. On the way he found a stick, which he was then running along fences as we went.

August was rather wired, telling us to “Stop talking!” or “Be silent!” to get our attention. He typed on my iPad in Pages, sending messages to satellites. He accidentally called up Siri, then told her “Siri, I wasn’t talking to you. I was just typing.” very cute. Then, “Siri, once upon a time there were two beasts…” We then played a game where he was a snake and I found him and took care of him. He then played with his tape. And he sang a song:

“Raise your hands

Take a deep breath

Repeat after me

Cock-a-doodle-doo”

He was then playing Simon Says with Carly and he still says “Santon says…” We then finished reading Amulet. Then he was back to being a snake and we added a lot to it. He had me make another nest for him today. I asked him about the Thanksgiving assembly they went to with the second graders. He said they acted out a story called “The Saddest Thanksgiving Ever.” In it, the food ran away. Back with his tape, he taped a bookmark on the couch, and taped his stuff animals in the nest. He was humming the Smurfs song. He then used my headphones and watched Wild Kratts in the nest, laughing hysterically to the hummingbird episode part where they blow a trumpet.

I took him up for his bath, and he took up some binoculars/a kaleidoscope that he had made out of toilet paper rolls and tape and construction paper. A quick bath, then he wanted the real binoculars. It was late, but I was reluctant to take him outside. He told me, “I want to see what I can see. You might be wrong.” We went outside and he had a lot of fun, looking off at the moon with the clouds moving in front of it and across at the bridge. He said he saw a big sign off in the distance, then described how he had invented. Big electronic billboard made with millions of lights.

We took him upstairs and got him ready for bed and I left them about 9:10.

Art on my iPad:

Humming Change of Time:

The PKA song:

Thanksgiving lunch:

If You Didn’t Remind Me song:

Swinging with Taya:

Sand slo-mo:

Silly with Taya:

His stick amplifier:

Talking to Siri:

Santon says:

Taping in his nest:

Using the binoculars:

The moon and August describing his electronic billboard:

Carly had the service day today, so she went with students to a daycare in south Tel Aviv.

August got up at 6 and walked downstairs to Carly. She made him oatmeal with mango and he watched Smurfs. She took the car to school and when my dad came down I went and took a shower. When I came down, August asked, “Did you know I discovered an animal that has its eyes closed it’s whole life, but when it’s eye are open it’s dead?” I don’t know where that came from.

I made the last of the pancake batter for breakfast. August then wanted to play an injured animal game. He wanted to be a cute animal, and nocturnal. We discussed coatis, then settled on a kinkajou. It had a hole in its stomach, and we made the word of the day ‘malnourished’. He went to the bathroom, then wanted to read Amulet, but we didn’t have time. He described a water filter invention that was a block of steel with a hole in it for the water. It then made coffee etc. at the push of a button. Then he described an invention that sounded like a scanner/copier.

Dad walked with us to school one more time. August was very quiet much of the way. Near the end he talked about shooting a small thing of steel at the Earth that would push it farther from the sun (he said past Neptune) so that it would get colder and we would have snow. For the last block we walked with Bar and her dad. Bar asked why August rides the bike and we talked about how long of a walk it is (1.6 kilometers).

We dropped him off at class and Dad and I walked home. He pointed out that they’ve seen August get a lot more comfortable with school just in the time they’ve been here; when he was first walking with us, August was still hesitant to go into class. Now he usually just heads right in.

At home Mom and Dad got ready for their trip. Taking it easy before all the travel. I made the zucchini cornbread as August and I weren’t going to have time to make it together. I walked back to school at 1:30 to go to library time.

The class was more rambunctious today, and when I talked to Andrea afterwards she said they had seen the same thing. Ilana used the finger puppets to tell the story of The Little Red Hen, then read an adaptation called The Little Red Hen Bakes a Pizza. During checkout time August initially chose the If You Give a Moose… book, but changed his mind and got Baby Bear’s Big Dreams. At some point I told August I had baked a special snack for him. I started to tell him what I made, and he said, “Don’t tell me!…But I know you made it, so it has your love in it, right?”

After library time we walked back to the classroom, then went outside. When he saw the bread he was at first disappointed. I said but it was the bread “That I made with love.” He replied, “Love doesn’t count.” After a few minutes we headed over and found Cassie picking up Taya at PKB. They then went over to the playground and played together. They worked together, bringing all of the chairs together and putting wood and stuff on them to make an obstacle course, or as Taya calls it, a “trick track.”

They had to go, then August was a kinkajou that was hurt. I carried him up to the vet and took care of him. At 4:00 Candy and Omri came out on the playground and were playing on the car. Candy called to August. August said he’d go over, but that he was a kinkajou that didn’t know how to play with humans. He climbed up with them, but they soon left. He then played on the car on his own, and said, “I’m a blue and white kinkajou trying to camoflauge.”

August then, still being a kinkajou, was in the back seat of the car, sleeping. Omri came by and touched his head, so then August set to creating a barrier around the car made of all the chairs. Just as he finished it, another boy, who I didn’t know, came over and got in the car. August was frustrated, but handled it really well. He climbed on top of the car, and they sort of played together.

August and I ended up back over by our vet spot on the play structure and had been making up Gaston lines, like:

No one ties shoes like Gaston

Eats glue like Gaston

No on hides behind houses and yells Boo like Gaston

Carly got their at 4:40. She went and looked at the garden, then we all walked on the elementary school texture path they had built. On our way back he picked up a big leaf. He then set it along the side of the trellis and the vine growing on it. Andrea came out as we walked by, and he excitedly took her to show her what he had done; the idea was to see if the vines would wrap around the leaf. She said it was a good experiment and that they could try to remember to put a ‘do not touch’ doing on it.

At home we read Amulet, then had stir fry for dinner. He was kind of grumpy, and we had a family hug. He knew that Gramma and Grampa were bout to leave. We read Baby Bear’s Big Dreams. Carly made a nest for him and he watched Smurfs on my phone, using my Apple headphones. He got the idea from seeing Taya watch something on Cassie’s phone: “If Taya can do it, I can do it.” At one point he got up and said, “I thought I was at Gramma and Grampa’s house.”

He went to the bathroom, and when I realized he hadn’t gone since I got to school for library time he then claimed he hadn’t gone to the bathroom during the day at all. He was then a bird, and Carly made him oatmeal.

My parents and I left at 7, after they had some good hugs and goodbyes with August. It went smoothly to the airport and back. He went to sleep about 8:30.

Their obstacle course:

Sleeping on the big swing:

His dream:

Climbing up with the girls:

Goodbye to Gramma:

On Gramma’s lap:

Hug from Grampa:

He was up at 6:30. We all got ready in the morning, as my parents and I were going up to the Sea of Galilee today. He talked about a Silo machine that was made out of concrete. We left, all in the car, and he played the injured animals game with Carly—he was a beaver that had lost its big teeth, then all of its legs.

We dropped Carly and August off, then drove north and east. A fun drive, into territory I hadn’t been to before. Israel is building a freeway up there, so it really messed with the traffic flow. We got to Capernaum at 9:30. This is the town where Jesus did much of his preaching and miracle granting and recruited his first disciples from the fishermen. We went in and down to the shore first. Then up to look at the archeological site. The new church is built above (literally, as it is suspended in air) above the ruins of the 5th century octagonal church, which itself was built over the remains of the ‘traditional’ home of Peter. We then walked through the ruins of the synagogue (built on the site of the synagogue that Jesus visited several times), looked at the mill stones, and headed out.

If time had permitted, we would have driven around the sea, but instead drove straight to Tiberias (which, I noticed, is actually Tiberia, no S, in both Hebrew and Arabic). We parked next to the remains of a 15th (or so) century fortress, which is now an art gallery. We walked down the hill, past other artsy places, and found the pedestrian promenade. We really only had some time to gaze upon the sea again before we headed out. I did, however, learn that the nikud vowel system of Hebrew was developed in Tiberias (Tiberias being one of the four holy Jewish cities, and where the Talmud was compiled).

We then drove to Nazareth. The highlight of the drive was when Waze first took us through an industrial area, then through the winding streets of an Arab town at the top of the hill. All sorts of vehicles going every which way, blocking traffic, etc. A bit stressful, but an interesting drive.

We got to Nazareth and parked a block below the Church of the Annunciation. It was a very quick visit: we went in McDonald’s and got a quick lunch (the right thing to do at the time, but it turn out that just around the corner the other direction were more interesting shawarma/burger places that would have been just as fast) and we went up to the church and they looked around and inside, then we walked up and through the market. We were keeping our eyes out for Christmas wrapping paper, but besides a few ‘Merry Christmas’ signs about and a few ornaments for sale here and there, the town isn’t really in Christmas mode yet. We got back to the busy main street (down a steep set of stairs by a school that had just let out) and even the shop that Carly and I had seen with all the Santa hats didn’t seem to exist.

We walked back to our car. Passed a guy selling fruit juice. Dad had been talking about having a pomegranate juice, so I got one. Really an honest business man, because I held out a 50 shekel note and asked him how much it was, after he had made it, and he said 10 shekels. Crazy, as the ones in Jerusalem are much more. And parking only cost us 15.

It was then a race back to school. Spotted the site of Megiddo, but no time to stop. Traffic was moving fine, but I was afraid it would back up at any moment. Luckily, it did not. Our ETA when we left was 2:45, and by the time we turned into Even Yehuda it said 2:46. One disappointment: I pulled into the strawberry stand, but there were no strawberries. They had probably sold out for the day.

We went and picked him up. They had made zucchini bread and zucchini soup today. He showed me the patterns he had made and was hanging up. I had Mom and Dad come in to see them. There was a structure on a table, and August spent several minutes adding to the “house” before he was ready to leave. We joked about getting him to leave and he said, “It no use…until I get my self out.” He told me they hadn’t had yoga today as the teacher is sick.

We then headed to the library. He meandered around the grass area, playing and singing to himself, for a few minutes until we got there. He and I went back in the kids area after returning the five books we had. We found the Amulet book and checked out that, and I found three picture books: 7 Ate 9, The Antlered Ship, and How to Find an Elephant. And August spotted The 91-Story Treehouse and wanted that.

August then did some art on the computer, completing a few shapes pictures to his liking. Mom and Dad had been sitting out looking at magazines, etc. but decided to walk home. We did more art, then checked out the books, and went outside on the bench and he had some snack until Carly was ready and we drove home.

We were home before 5. August was playing with his tape and started singing the Gaston song. He was making up words, but settled on “No one poops like Gaston…” as his favorite. In asking him about school he claimed he had seen the play again. They went right at the start of school – no time for morning meeting. Which was interesting, as Carly has some of the students in her homeroom.

He was cutting balloons and stuff with scissors, then we read part of Amulet. We played the injured animal game, then he read 7 Ate 9 with Carly. We had dinner, and Dad peeled the pomelo and we tried that. August was trying to keep some secret from me, and Carly almost gave it away, and he covered it up by explaining it had something to do with poop. He then said, “I’m always in the rescue when mama forgets to keep secrets.” He was talking about animals or something and we ended up talking about “Madagascar” and that became the word of the day.

He had eaten a good dinner, so I let him have a pancake that was in the fridge. At one point he said,”Oh jeesh.” He was copying Carly. Yesterday he had told Gramma she said “Nice” a lot.

We read The Antlered Ship and Carly went and took a shower. We then read How to Find an Elephant. I had previously asked him if he had a favorite part of Beauty and the Beast and he had said no, but he now volunteered “’If you don’t believe me, ask the dishes’…that’s my favorite part.”

He then typed on my iPad, changing font sizes, etc., before switching to do art. He made one picture that he said was a chicken bone container in the ocean and one which was a giant’s tooth. At some point he said he was doing abstract and I said that was my favorite. He dismissively said, “Yep. You Like Abstract.”

Carly took him up to his bath. As he went up he asked, “When can I read Captain Underpants again?” I was supposed to put him to sleep, but after his bath they were playing around. He was hyper one minute, but she started rocking him in her arms and suddenly he fell asleep, by 8:45.

House building after school:

Playing around the grass area:

Making art on a library computer:

Gaston song 1:

Gaston song 2:

Art on my iPad:

A surprise for mama:

Sea of Galilee

Caperneum

Hanging patterns

Building

He took the final photo

Computer art

Pomelo

Chicken bone container in the ocean