Category: Daily

He woke up at 5:35. I saw him get up, pick the lamp off the floor and set it on the end of the bed, turn it on, turn it off, put it back down on the ground, then look out the window. He was trying to decide if it was time to wake up. He decided it was, then went down to Carly, closing the door after himself.

He watched Smurfs, then Llama Llama. He went to the bathroom and asked me, “Did you know that bees have tiny lungs?” He then invented a machine to look at them. He had watched a Llama Llama about planning for Mother’s Day, and was inspired to have a pancake. He agreed to help me make them. He tried to request some song on Siri and ended up with a song called, I think, “Amigo Ghost Town”. He liked it and added it to his playlist. He helped make the pancake batter. We talked about how it would be fun to plan Mother’s Day. And yesterday he told me he wants to plan our days more, like he used to.

As we got ready to go he sat on the couch and looked at Giants Beware! on his own. I asked if he wanted to take it to school to look at sometime, and he said no, but I took it anyway.

Dad walked with us this morning. On the way August found several treasures, including a broken light bulb and a big set of broken plastic straw building pieces that sort of formed a pyramid shape. He said this was a sort of sensor, and used it through a hole in a wall to spy on a family. He said he could tell the kids there like pancakes and the yard was full of poop. As we got close to school he found a zip tie that he said looked like a Hebrew letter, a dalet.

As we parked the bike we sort of met Bar and Ben’s new golden retriever puppy and talked to Ben about it a bit. We walked the hummus over and August handed it to Lillian, and he asked what the big jar with money in it was for. It was for the “No tushy left behind” fundraiser. Dad and I both gave him some coins to put in. We then walked to his classroom. He took the bucket of bottle caps in to give to his teachers. They were in the middle of dividing up the group for something and when Dad and I left after waiting for a couple minutes (as August reminded us) I saw him still kind of wandering around the room holding the bucket. So I was a little worried about him.

Dad and I drove the car home and after a little while at home the three of us headed to the Binyamin art market in Tel Aviv. We parked by the big synagogue and walked north, finding the kombucha shop that sells metal straws along the way. Didn’t open until noon though, so we would come back later. We walked up into the market and spent the next hour and a half looking through it. For a few minutes we dipped over into the flea market area, more crowded, so they could get some of the eye magnets. My parents were successful at shopping, getting a total of, I think, 6 gifts that fit in a small bag.

We thought about going to the Druze place August and I had been, but their seating area was smaller and full. We walked to the kombucha place and I got a pack with two metal straws and a bottle of pineapple mint to try with August later. From there my mom remembered she wanted to return to a stand near the beginning of the market with metal jewelry. We walked back there and she got a necklace. Next, we tried to go to Port Said for lunch, but were sat in front of a big speaker surrounded by smokers. We left, and were hurriedly looking for another place to eat. We found a bar called Shpagat with nice seating looking out on the seat. They had a small food menu that looked good. So we ate there and dad and I got drinks. Our waiter was skipping around to dance music and I realized Carly, August and I would have to come back here as they would like it.

We headed back, taking a convoluted but interesting route through Tel Aviv to get on 20, and got to school comfortably in time to pick up August. Marion was gone today, so Vicki had done a lot of filling in. I first talked to August and he said he had a better day, but that he needed to give Vicki a punishment as she wouldn’t let him play with a stick that Nicholas had played with at lunch. I talked to Andrea and she did say that things had gone much better with her.

August went in the makerspace room with Candy and played with some play dough. He took a photo of his creation. He also had a watercolor painting that he had done to take home.

We headed over to Carly’s room and helped her clean up. August helped eat some of the leftover pizza (he had also eaten all of his lunch—he’s suddenly eating a bunch more) and kicked around balloons and helped pop them. We packed everything up and folded some things, then all headed to the car. Carly’s Get to Know You Day had gone quite well.

In the car, August was singing an “All I have to do is break you” song—which had some more words at the beginning and was about the broken plastic thing he was playing with. As we got close to home he was moving it too close to Carly. And when she stopped him he got upset, and at the house Carly had to take him upstairs as he was having a meltdown (although afterwards he claimed to me that it wasn’t a meltdown).

Back downstairs he built with the Legos with Gramma and Grampa, building a ship and a house. He wanted to float the boat in the bath so I filled that up. He floated the ship, then wanted to get other Legos as sea creatures. We went back down, built some sea creatures, and took them back up. Once they were in the bath, August took off his clothes and climbed in the bath as well. The first tub bath he’s taken in awhile. He had taped a piece to the side of the ship as scientific sensors to study the ocean, but it came off in the water. I went and got more Legos and made a rig off the back of the ship. He played in the bath, making storms to damage the ship, and Gramma came up to hang out with him.

He got out, and we put on his heavier snowman pajamas. He wanted me to take a photo of him being cute. August took the phone and took a bunch of photos around the house. And he told me “I invented a machine that will let you climb the tallest mountain in the territory.” And he said ‘Roman’ was the word of the day, then in discussing that we added ‘civilization’.

Downstairs he had more pizza for dinner, then a bowl of broccoli, shrimp, and rice. He said, “Hey. That was yummy.” I commented on him eating more and he said, “I like food again.” He and I then shared the kombucha, using the metal straws, and I was surprised to find how much he liked it, because it was both fizzy and sour—things he generally doesn’t like: “I love it…I love the sourness…It gives me lots of energy. I changed myself to run on sour. I run on soury.” And he liked the fizzy. He was disappointed to find out that kombucha actually has less caffeine in it than the tea it is made from. He said he wanted some coffee now.

Mom and Dad started putting together the Peter Rabbit puzzle. I helped, and August did a little, but he wasn’t too fond of the idea.

He said good night to them, then we went upstairs and did the story dice. A story called “Another Pirate Escape”. We brushed his teeth, then he was talking about teleporting things to Lydia to change her. He played a little of the tea game with Carly, then said good night. We went in and did a preschool game. He was really tired and wanted me to think of the preschool game. I told a story about a school with thousands of rules enforced by robots, then he destroyed them with an EMP. He fell asleep around 9:15.

Even if it would song:

Kestrel catching lunch:

The electricity show:

The underground tour:

The hug trap:

With Nicholas and Sophia:

Hide and seek:

Watering the plants:

Spying on the house

In the Binyamin Market

Lunch at Shpagat

In the bathtub!

Being cute

Metal straw and kombucha

Think he was cold last night, as he kept getting closer to me, sharing a pillow. Eventually, I gave it up and switched sides. He sat up around 6 but lay back down and kept sleeping. He then came down at 6:35 and cuddled with Carly on the couch. He then wanted to play with PowerPoint on her computer. She headed to school and he watched Smurfs. As we got ready to go he sang “Do you start the letter from the top?” to the tune of If You’re Happy and You Know It. He said it was from literacy group. He also asked, “Do you know this solar system is tiny? Tinier than a quark! And we’re tinier than it!”

We walked to school and got to class a little earlier than usual. Marion was busy though (talking to another parent) and we tried to talk to Lydia once but then she walked away and was in a crowd by Marion. August was finding it hard to say the words, so I talked to Andrea and suggested he might be able to try later. I said goodbye and left and started to walk up the stairs. August came out and called, “Dada! You forgot something… To sit on the bench for a couple minutes. Or are you trying something new?”

I waited by the bench, then headed up to the library until the PTA meeting started. My main goal in attending was to start to make connections and figure out if there is a sort of community of parents of gifted students, as there doesn’t seem to be anyone on the admin/staff side that is focused on gifted students/education. To do that meant sitting through reports on the Green Committee, what’s going on in middle school, the elementary social/emotional curriculum, and upcoming event planning and budget issues. All of it was fine, except the last thing, which involved way too much discussion of which snacks to provide at high school sporting events. I did talk to one parent, Sarah Grens, who was a history teacher back in Texas, but homeschooled her three kids until they moved to Israel. She said that the first grade here at WBAIS where parents seemed welcomed into the classrooms was 5th grade, which isn’t exactly what we hoped.

Carly had driven in the morning, and after the meeting I drove home. My parents got ready and we then drove up to Ilanot and had a lovely walk around, looking at all the species of trees. We also saw a kestrel, then saw it fly down and catch something in the grass—a mouse or something. We were planning on going to the Netanya waterfront and eating there along the boardwalk, but decided we were running too late as we drove into town. So we went straight to the Poleg Mall. No luck finding wrapping paper, then we got a slice of pizza each and ate in the food court. We went looking for a pan for bread baking and found a possibility at Fox Home, but was undecided. We went down to get grapes (Carly had asked us to get grapes for the event tomorrow) but they didn’t have any in the grocery store there.

We had just enough time, and we stopped at Tiv Taam on the way back. I ran in and spent a couple minutes trying to find grapes that weren’t squishy. Got four containers and paid a crazy amount for them. Apparently it is the end of the season and they are expensive.

We drove up to school and went down to get August. I heard screaming as I walked up, and it was August. He and Simona had been picking string or something up off the floor and something happened. We talked to Andrea about his day. It had been a rough one. No hair pulling, but he had been getting upset with the teachers and yelling at Marion, Andrea, and Mini. I was able to have him talk to and apologize to all three of them before we left. In talking to him, before we did the apologizing, I had asked where this idea that he could make the rules came from, and he said it was just an idea that he had had. I asked him how well this idea was working out and he acknowledged it wasn’t going so well. I suggested we come up with a new idea.

He went outside with my parents and I talked to Andrea for another minute. When I came out he was playing with Dad over on the ship thing. August said there was an electricity show. Then they moved over to the car thing and first there was an underground tour, then the were making wood. “I discovered a word of the day: warped…from Grampa.”

We headed up to leave, but we ran into Sophia and Nicholas by the exit. Sophia asked if he wanted to play hide and seek and he said yes. He counted first. Sophia then asked me to play and we spent about 20 minutes playing.

Carly had a lot of setup to do for tomorrow’s event, so we left before she was done. We drove home and he helped me clean off all of the lids he’s collected so he could take them to school tomorrow. He then used the lid to a paint can to water all of the smaller plants. Inside, he played with Legos with Gramma and Grampa and made a house. At one point Dad was laying on the floor and August cuddled next to him. Carly got home. For dinner I made him more shrimp and he had rice and broccoli and shrimp with teriyaki sauce. He bit his tongue and it bled and he had a big meltdown when we wouldn’t get him a lollipop after he ordered us to. Carly took him upstairs and handled that one. He came back down and ate the rest of his dinner. I was very thankful for that, as I was afraid he wouldn’t eat shrimp anymore. He then ate seconds. Still hungry, he ate toast with peanut butter.

He went up with me and helped me move the bed back into the small room so we could all be together again. I then gave him a bath on the stool. For story dice he wanted me to use the same dice as yesterday: “We’ll use that again but make different details. But we’ll use the same dice.” “The deeper it gets the sillier it gets.” So I told the same story, but this time it was from the point of view of one of the pirates that attacked. We then finished reading Giants Beware!

We then discussed school, and we discussed the idea of being a rules analyst, and not the maker of the rules. He liked the idea, and said he was already analyzing the rules. We then played a preschool game, then Carly came in to go to sleep with him. I left them at 8:30.

Even if it would song:

Kestrel catching lunch:

The electricity show:

The underground tour:

The hug trap:

With Nicholas and Sophia:

Hide and seek:

Watering the plants:

Ilanot

Their last batch of really sticky slime became truly bizarre after the rain. Carly said it looked like intestines.

August’s photo of Grampa looking at the map of Israel

He woke up at 6:50. I asked him about sleeping with his head on the floor. When I got up he had his head off the bed. He thought about and said, “Yep.” He then told us,”When I woke up, it was hard to stand up and I just smashed down again.” Carly headed to work and he watched Llama Llama. When it came time to get ready to go, however, he got upset and said he could also watch something on YouTube. After a bit of a meltdown he calmed down, and we practiced saying “Dada, I’m not ready to get ready for school. Can we do something first?” I agreed to read something, but then he decided he just wanted a preschool game. We did that, then Dad walked to school with us and dropping him off went just fine. We waited a minute, as August instructed, then left and drove the car home.

We took some time at home, then my parents and I drove down to the complex with Toys R Us. They were doing their Christmas shopping for August and got him a heavy set of the magnetic shape blocks, a six-pack of play dough, and a bag of the magic sand stuff (that he had played with at Toys R Us in Korea). We stopped in the Super Pharm and looked in a few places for kitchen stuff. Saw August’s friend Sophia with her mom. The Druze sandwich stand was closed, so we decided on McDonald’s for lunch. We then drove up to the art store by the big Tiv Taam. They got him a kit of bubble science there.

We went home for awhile, then Dad and I returned to school to check in with August before his dance class. I had Dad walk in first. August didn’t seem phased. He was playing with these natural blocks and wood pieces and Dad helped out. Candy had insects she was putting on them. Andrea said he’d been playing with a couple of other students, making things there and using the green screen to make it look like they were on water or sand.

He ate half of a Balance Bar and refilled his water, then went up to dance class. Andrea had asked if I had a minute to talk. Turns out he had been quick to anger today. One time he wanted to make an announcement to everyone on the playground. When Marion said they wouldn’t all quiet down for him he got upset with her and called her the worst teacher ever, or something like that. And at meeting time there was a piece of cardboard that someone was playing with that is supposed to be put away somewhere and he got upset that the rules weren’t being followed. The worst was when he was helping to hang up little books that they had made. He was doing it with Lydia and they got into an argument over something. That part wasn’t clear to me. But it quickly turned to him screaming at her and then pulling her hair.

The good news is that each time he calmed down quickly. After the last one he was then building something and asked Marion to take a photo of it.

At home Carly and I talked to him about it. He said, “Ms. Myriam and Ms. Vicki and Ms. Andrea and Ms. Amelia are the worst teacher.” When Carly asked “What’s a rule you would like?” he responded, “I’ll have to think about it.”

She was then trying to read to him but he wouldn’t let her, saying he prefers me. He finally tried the lasagna and liked it. Really liked it. He ate a slice of carrot, then I got him more lasagna. And after that he had some shrimp. He then sang the hokey pokey and said it was the first time he’d heard that song, in dance class. Dad asked if that was the stomping we heard, and August said no, that was from the teddy bear song. He wanted more shrimp, and ate some with teriyaki sauce.

We then sat down to read and we started Giants Beware! from the beginning. Dad was talking about something and used the word ‘occupied’ (as in busy with something) and that became the word of the day. We read some more of Giants Beware! Then he made a Lego car witb gramma. He got sad about his car breaking, and I helped put it back together. We started building what would become a plane that would study oceans.

Then, suddenly, he wanted to go to his bath: “Dada, you keep adding stuff like youre doing. I’m going to go to my bath. Mama, come.” He spent a long time playing with the spray bottle, and made a mixture of water and cream and lotion that he would spray on our dry skin. When he came back down he looked at our plane and said, “That’s so cool!” I had only added one part. He used my phone to take a photo of it, then took other photos around the house. He was then singing a song from school: “Everybody sit right on the floor, not the ceiling, not on the door…” Tried to get him playing with Gramma again, and finally he was. He called “Slowcoach!” So I called “Wanda!” back. We called names from Wanda and the Alien back and forth and he was being pretty silly.

He made a ramp out of Legos, then figured out how to make it taller and longer. We took slo-mo videos of him rolling things down it. He went to the bathroom, then sang more of the pirate song. Back at the Legos, Grampa helped him find pieces. This is when he told us that his plane had sensors for studying the ocean. 20 of them.

He said good night and I took him upstairs. We had talked earlier about being to watch a YouTube video this evening, and he even mentioned it soon before we headed upstairs, but then he forgot about it. We went into the office to do a Storytelling Dice story. He got in the green chair and lay across the arms of it, his back suspended above the seat: “Plank! Yoga poses.” We did a story, “The Bee Expedition”, then he said goodnight to Carly and we spent one more night sleeping in the office.

We had a long talk about school. We practiced saying “Sorry for pulling your hair” and “Sorry for saying mean things” to Lydia and Marion.

In discussing the incidents, a theme emerged, where they were all about (perceived) unfairness and rule breaking. When he wanted to make an announcement on the playground proved to be the most interesting and he got the most emotional over it. Basically, he is bothered by (and will explain how he has been bothered by it since PKB) the chasing game that Juhyeok, Leonard, and Yaya play. His perception is that they get away with making gun noises, chase people who aren’t playing, and keep people from using the swings. He wanted to announce a rule that said if people broke the rules on the playground then they would get fun stuff taken away—then proceeded to list every possible fun thing that happens in preschool.

And with Lydia he said she wouldn’t stop taking his tape (or whatever it was) down. He said he was “confused” by Lydia because no matter what he does (say something, scream, pull hair) she keeps doing what he doesn’t want her to do. He then specifically talked about the hat stealing incident and another time when she chased or hit him with a stick. He said, “They all clump together into one bigger problem.”

He was asleep at 9:25.

Humming on the way to school:

Grampa helping with the wood blocks:

Humming and Legos:

Legos with Gramma:

Everybody sit right on the door song:

Ramp slo-mo 1:

Ramp slo-mo 2:

He was very cuddly during the night. At 4:40 I heard him say “Are you making stuff (or this) up?” He repeated it four or five times in his sleep. He woke up with my alarm and sat up before I did and asked, “Are you going to leave now?” I tried to convince him that I’d lay with him for a few more minutes, but he insisted it was light out and he wanted to see Carly in the morning. He wasn’t convinced that he would be the only one out in the house. After a couple minutes Carly heard him and came and got him and took him downstairs. I got dressed and followed them down. He watched Pink Panther and I took a shower. As he was watching, apropos to nothing, he told me, 1“I want to try something: Dip carrots in butter and put salt on it. See how it tastes.”

We finished reading Hilda and the Black Hound, for our third complete read-through, at least, then turned to Hilo. We finished our fifth or so reading of Hilo 3 and read a few chapters of Hilo 4. He then wanted to watch something before we went. He tried to insist that it was a rule that he watch both YouTube and Netflix in the morning. I said that definitely wasn’t a rule, but he could watch one story on Netflix. He watched a Julius Jr. Mom asked him if he knew what time it was and when he said he didn’t know she said it was time for a Zinnie hug. He said “Oops” as she gave him a hug.

We all headed out to the car at 7:45 and drove to school. We walked him down to preschool. He thought it was a little odd that Gramma and Grampa were coming too. But as I carried him down the stairs I gave him a challenge to say three things to Lydia. He actually considered it, and we talked about things he could say and he liked the challenge. The first thing was going to be “Hi”. He then came up with “How are you?” and something else. We had taken a container of carrot bread, and he hid it behind his lunch box. I was hoping he’d remember it for snack time.

My parents and I went up to wait for the Even Yehuda art tour. There was time, so I went to the car and returned a few books to the library: Gay-Neck, which I just finished, the two Magic Tree House that he hasn’t been interested in, and Hilda and the Black Hound.

The art tour was a whirlwind. There were bout a dozen of us on it in total. One had a student in Carly’s class. Lydia’s mom was there. And the one other guy was Albert, from the Czech Republic. When I talked to him he really pushed Georgia as a good place to go on vacation.

Anyway, the first stop was the Even Yehuda history museum, which is across from the park by the library. I knew it was there, but we haven’t gone in yet, figuring it is all in Hebrew, which it is. It was interesting though. From there we drove to a house north of the school where we visited an artist named Ronit Schwartz, who paints mandalas (among other things) and is into rat therapy. Then it was to our neighborhood, where we went to the vintage clothing store, owned by Neva. She also has a nice backyard, and there were pastries. This was where I talked to Albert.

From there we headed to a place on Vatikim. I had guessed it was pottery, and I was correct. It was also right where August and I found one of our vases—possibly a discarded student work, as she teaches classes. She did a demonstration, and I took photos of the metal robot sculptures in her yard to show August.

Next stop was the house on the way up to town that has the mosaics on the wall outside, at Hahadarim 63. The artist (Ofra) wasn’t there due to health issues, but Ada had permission to take us into the yard to look around.

Next was another artist, Shmuel Slama (https://www.artavita.com/artists/15525-shmuelik-slama), northeast of the school, who has teaching studio in his basement. He paints, does papier mache, sculpts, photography, etc. He had one piece in Barcelona where he covered nude people with mud so they looked like sculptures, then he painted the floor around them. He had a wonderful house and was really interesting.

From there it was to north Even Yehuda where we visited the Spring scent shop that is actually in the industrial area, then to the boutique women’s clothing store right next door to Shabtai, then to Shabtai for lunch. I got a personal pizza with arugula and goose, while my parents got the Norwegian pizza. and we shared schnitzel strips and dad and I had a beer.

I talked a little to Zoe, who has two boys, about a possible writer’s group, and a little to another mom who has a first grade girl and is a Arab Israeli Christian from Nazareth. Didn’t get a chance to talk to Lydia’s mom, although I’d like to to see how Lydia is doing with August.

We went back to school and met the class as they left the library. I helped keep the line in order as they got ready to leave the library. Amanda had done library time as Ilana is gone, taking her mother back to New York. Marion and Andrea told me they kids really liked the bread, and were all saying thank you to August.

I asked August if he had done the challenge with Lydia. He said he had said “Hi, Hello,How are you doing?” but he had used his audio link to say it into her brain so she was confused by it. We sat on a bench and he ate some bread and carrot. He had checked out A Bed Full of Cats and we read that. He and I walked up to the drinking fountain and Bibo saw him and said, “That’s my friend August.” We met his sister, Lola, who is in 2nd grade.

August was interested in playing with Taya, so I took him down to Cassie’s room. But we found out that Taya had taken the bus home because Grace is sick. We then went to the library and got Hilda and the Bird Parade (a bit earlier, I couldn’t remember the name of the book we hadn’t read yet, but August did), a book called Giants Beware! and a book I found called The Last Giants by Francois Place. August spent a few minutes watching some elementary school girls playing games on the computer and I heard him laughing a few times.

Liz checked those out for us, then we got my parents and headed down to the classroom, where I was wondering if they’d want the book of photography from around the world that Shmuel Slama had given us. They weren’t there so we left it in his cubby.

We went to the car and drove up to the post office. August stayed in with my mom while Dad and I went in and he mailed a couple postcards and their ballots, which we made sure would be dated today.

At home, August had me read all of Hilda and the Bird Parade. He complained it was short. Then he ate some pozole. He did okay, although he picked the corn and beans out, saying that is all he likes. He went to the bathroom and asked me “Remember where I keep my inventions? In the couch.” I suggested it must be pretty full, but he said there was room for millions of people to store their inventions in there. He was then singing a song that went “The day I turned 2, I tied my shoe…A bottle of yum to fill my time and that’s enough for me.” He remembered the whole verse but said there was more. He said he learned it from Marion. We found it on YouTube as “Pirate Song” and he watched it a couple times.

We then read Giants Beware! The little boy in it used ‘savored, not scarfed’. So ‘scarfed’ became the word of the day. We read 50 pages, then he wanted a Halloween treat. He chose Skittles, and Carly, who had come down and was feeling a bit better, hid them for him while I went for a run. Apparently he doesn’t like the green Skittles.

When I returned I found them eating popcorn and he was watching a show about penguins. Carly went up to take a shower and then head to bed. We read more of Giants Beware! Around page 150 of a 200 page book. I had thought the library books would last longer.

We went up for his bath and he made a potion in the sink to slow down people at night time and make them sleepy sleep. We talked about wearing socks as I thought he might have been cold last night as he was so cuddly. He said it was okay as long as he could take them off during the night if his feet were itchy.

We got his pajamas on and brushed his teeth. When he said goodnight to Carly he told her he usually sleeps 9 or 10 hours and he wanted to see her in the morning. I took him down to say goodnight to Gramma and Grampa, then we went to our bed. We did one Storytelling Dice. He used a lot of dice, so it turned into a sillier one. Just after 9 I got the lights off, and for a preschool game he wanted me to come up with the scenario. He was really tired by this point. We had him be the deerfox, but this time he snuck onto the bus after the class had been on a field trip to a nature area. When they get back they make a bed for the deerfox out of pillows in the corner of the room. He was asleep by 9:15.

Museum

Ronit

Neva?

Sculptor

Mosaics Ofra 052-539-9139 Hahadarim 63

Shmuel Slama Thursday 7:30 to 10:30 054 599

Spring aroma shop

Art tour 1:

Art tour 2:

Watching kids play on the computers:

The pirate song:

Dropping him off at school

Mosaics

Mom shopping at the boutique

Lunch at Shabtai

After library time

Bench after school

Saying goodnight to Mama

Carly got sick overnight with the same thing August had. She was downstairs when he came down at 6:50. She had a grey pillow against the end of the couch, and he kept wanting her to put it back where it belonged. She eventually headed upstairs to rest. He watched Julius Jr., then we got ready to go. A little upset when he had to turn the iPad off. But he then told me “If I wanted more iPad time I can just use this machine that makes time to slower.”

We walked to school, and he was humming a tune, changing chords in a pattern, much of the way. We got to his class at 8 and he went in to check out the classroom. I said goodbye and walked home.

My parents and I then got in the car and drove to Haifa. We were on time to make the 10am tour of the Baha’i Gardens, but close to Haifa traffic suddenly came to a standstill. Turned out to be closing a lane for construction. Our ETA suddenly shifted 16 minutes later. So we decided to go have lunch at Douzan first. Took a long time to find a parking spot, but finally found a garage under a small mall down the hill from Douzan. We walked there and had a nice table inside. The only people until a couple went into the smoking room. We ordered a plate of pastries and an order of the wrapped grape leaves. Dad and I had Turkish coffee and mom had a latte. We ate, then headed back to the car and up to the top of the gardens. Parked in the lot and joined the tour at the entrance just before noon.

The tour was good.About 25 minutes in it started to rain and for one stop the tour guide had us under a palm tree for cover. It let up a bit after that, and we got to the middle of the gardens, where the tour ends, about 12:40. It ends in the corner of the gardens that are open for wandering around, so I left my parents there to look around and I walked up the hill to the car. I went up a stairway along the way and through an apartment complex. At one point a dog came running around the corner of some stairs and chomped on my shorts twice before it reached the end of its tether.

I had time to walk to the bathroom at the top, then back to the car, then drove back down and picked them up in the tunnel area. We drove back to school, and delivered the canvas to Dorene, the art teacher. She’s talkative and we talked to her for several minutes. We picked August up and he sat on the bench and ate a couple apples to finish off his lunch. A couple of kids came by and left hula hoops on the ground and August played with one. We then went up to the cafeteria. August got a chocolate muffin and the rest of us got cappuccinos. August told the guy working there that he wanted a cappuccino as well.

As we sat at the table we were discussing something and Mom asked him, “Did you get that ?” He replied, “No. Cuz I come from another dimension.” He also asked, “Did you know I can sleep when I’m eating?” And, “Tell me about your planet. On my planet everything moves.” We then argued about whether particles are always moving. He pretended to not like the muffin: “What is this? This is disgusting!” And randomly told us, “I found a haircutting place in Turkey. It’s a 100,000 miles away.”

It started raining, quite hard, and it was an adventure getting to the car. Got him to a covered spot at the entrance, then I ran and got the car. Got his bike, then picked him up and carried him to the car. In the short distance he got some water on his shorts and got upset and wanted them changed. Finally got him to just take them off until we got home, at 4:10.

I mentioned our new sleeping arrangements (he and I were going to sleep in the office, since Carly is sick) and he said, “Arrangement. Word of the day!” He had fun taping Dad to the floor, and chanted “Little tapey bang bang.” I asked if he wanted to pick leaves for Carly’s tea. First he said no, but then I told him it had stopped raining: “Oh, I’d love to!” We made tea (mint and lemon for him, just lemon for her) and he went up and sat with her on the bed and they drank tea together. He came down and asked about a flashlight. Carly had asked me to move the lamp into that room, and she had sent him down to ask if I could do it now. But he had gotten the idea in his head that they could use a flashlight instead, and forgot to ask me about the lamp.

I moved the lamp in, and he taped it down, then asked me to close the door. He came down a bit later and watched BrainPop Jr. videos. Mom and Dad were making lasagna. We read two Ajay books on Skybrary, then Hilda and the Black Hound. We then played his science room (building something and making noise) and nisse games (from Hilda).

I went outside to lock the gate, and August came with me. He spotted a bug moving by the book case outside. I used the flashlight on my phone and it turned out to be a cockroach. He sort of played with it, using a leaf, until it ran underneath.

He convinced me to give him a dry lasagna noodle. He broke it into pieces and started taping pieces together into a bridge between the coffee table and the couch: “The noodle bridge. You can eat it too if you want to.” “You’re someone crossing the bridge and someone takes a big bite out of it.” He ate several bites, then of course didn’t eat the actual lasagna when it was ready.

I gave him a stool bath, then we did the storytelling dice. He gave me 13 dice, in a U shape, so it became a long adventure. He was then chanting “Pollyndra Pack Wallace” Which is from Hilo. We were quite before 9, with just my phone on as a lamp. He asked me to tell him about when I was a kid: “Saturday of the third week of January…17.” Very specific. Best I could do was when we once went inner tubing in the snow, I think senior year. He turned it into a story where he was doing tricks…swirls, running on it… Then a crazy preschool game where he was making noise from the top of the school but the principal had asked him to do it. He went to the bathroom, then back in the bedroom he needed to finish a more normal preschool story, with, I think, a happy ending for an adopted deerfox or nisse in the classroom. At the end he announced “The end” and threw himself over with his head on my shoulder and his arms wrapped around my right arm and was asleep within a couple minutes.

Awhile later Mom saw a cockroach in the bathroom. We caught it and I threw it outside.

Morning tune 1:

Morning tune 2:

Baha’i Gardens tour:

Hula hoop:

Rain slo-mo:

Lasagna bridge:

Lunch at Douzan

Sheltering from the rain

His CD art

Picking leaves for tea for mama

Lasagna noodle and tape art on the table

His cockroach friend

Planning a long story

He sort of threw up a couple times during the night, the second around 5, but nothing really came up. It happened again around 6:30. Carly was already up, so I lay down next to him and he lay there for another 15 minutes before we made our way downstairs. He was slow, sliding down the stairs on his bottom. He lay on the couch for a minute, then went and got his shoes and went outside with Carly.

He came back in and watched Wanda and the Alien on the couch next to me as I typed. At 7:30 he threw up for real, right as we were talking about if he felt like eating. We read seven chapters of Hilo 3 and he ate two slices of peanut butter toast. He lay on the floor for while, then cuddled with Carly, then was silent on the floor again. Really thought he’d take a nap on the floor again. He had us play a science class game and was making a machine to find lost things. It took 3000 Saturn years to make it.

He and Carly then did a science experiment where they picked flowers, then put them in water with different colors of food coloring in it. He got some Smarties and Carly made him a squirrel nest and we were hiding each Smartie for him and he would come out of the nest and try to find it. We’d give him the beeping hints for how close he was. Carly was making pozole. August said “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit. You do what you do when you don’t have a fit.” He said part of it was from Andrea and he made the rest up.

Carly headed to the grocery store and Ace to get some groceries and supplies for her Get to Know You Day. August and I made banana and carrot bread. One loaf of banana, and one that was three carrots and one banana. That was a sort of compromise/experiment that August and I came up with after he didn’t want to make a second loaf. My parents went for a short walk over to the west, down the little path and past the bomb shelter. August helped me from time to time, and would go back to lying on the couch, resting.

My parents got back, then Carly. August was using the wand he made out of straws yesterday and casting spells: “Abracadabra, make mama my helper.” Eve, Dada, the door…my helper. Then he was casting spells on Gramma: “make your eyes fall out…make Gramma broken…make Gramma fixed.” He asked to use the “birthday camera”, my SLR, so I went up and got that and let him take photos. He asked for the fisheye lens and took more photos. He was then in his squirrel nest, before playing on the kitchen floor and taping up Gramma. At one point he asked Carly, “Do you have an extendo-toe?” He was making a long toe for himself, I think, and Gramma said they could make it more stiff for him. He asked what that meant and declared ‘stiff’ the word of the day. He had fun taping up Gramma on the kitchen floor, and taped a toilet paper tube to her, which he was then looking through.

It was getting windy outside, and August went out the kitchen door by himself and sat at the table. At first he didn’t want anyone following him, then he invited Carly out and asked, “Fresh and rosy fingered like the dawn. Right, mama?” He watered the plants. Mom had been sitting on the floor, and I asked August if it was okay for her to take the tape off. He said it was okay, as long as I had gotten a photo.

The banana and carrot breads were done and we had a little. They turned out well. We got ready and left at 2:25. In the car, August remembered he’d wanted to take his tape dispenser and I ran back in the house to get it. He spent most of the time in the car taping himself in his vest. Then, as we got to the art store off of 4, where Carly was buying a canvas for the art project at Friday’s Get to Know You Day, August fell asleep. It was 2:50 and I stayed in the car with him while the rest of them went in. She came out with one big canvas but realized we couldn’t fit it in the car. They went back and got the next smaller size and it fit perfectly.

August slept for about a half hour and we woke him up as we got to Wiz Kids. Carly carried him in, looked around for a minute, then went out and cuddled with him on a bench while we finished up. I got five Paddington books that were 40% off and two more sets of the Story Dice. Mom wanted to get him something for a Christmas present and I pointed out the hanging rods thing (kind of looks like a Calder mobile) and she bought that. Turned out to also be 40% off.

August was a bit hesitant about the whole staying with Gramma and Grampa thing, but that changed when I said they were going to take him for ice cream. We drove over to the street by her house with the grocery store, parked, then walked in a circle around the block so my parents could see the office, the playground, and then the grocery store. We left them at the grocery store where he was choosing ice cream. Ended up with one of those small dishes of some caramel chocolate kind. They bought that and took it to the park, ate it with the little spoon in it (which he didn’t like the idea of, but then it was just fine once he was eating the ice cream), and played in the park. He played a little, but it sounded like they mainly just talked.

After about 50 minutes he thought we should be there, and they got on the bike and walked past the office. He recognized where the office was, saying “I see it in my mind.” Pretty good, as it was dark by then. They kept walking a bit south, then headed back north to the park. He was relaxed the whole time. We caught up with them as they walked back in the park, Dad pushing him.

Meanwhile, the meeting with Dr. Aviv went well. In a nutshell, yes, gifted, 99th percentile. But she was also recommending him for occupational therapy to work on his writing, as he holds his pencil awkwardly. That’s something we haven’t pushed as he has resisted holding his markers that way, and we figured they’d teach in school. Not too worried about this one, as I think he’ll catch on once he’s taught it. His dexterity with tape and scissors is just fine. And she also recommended speech therapy for a few sounds (‘l’ and ‘r’, for example). There were also a few areas, not covered by the IQ test overall, where he wasn’t as strong, such as realistic puzzles. But he did quite well with abstract ones. This one is interesting, as he hasn’t been too interested in puzzles, but when he has, he didn’t seem to pick up on the visual clues/edge pieces/etc. like I’m used to him picking up on other skills. In math, she gave him 1st grade assessments and normed him that and he did really well. She talked about how he had internalized the number line and could subtract beyond 10, and also how he was able to talk through and solve types of problems he’s never seen before (like adding 4 numbers).

She related a couple of stories of him from her observations. He was doing some activity and said, “I’ve made a marvelous discovery.” Which she loved, but she also related as an example of how his advanced language skills can cause problems relating to his peers, who didn’t understand what the heck he was talking about. And when they were painting on a big long piece of paper the kid next to him put the blue brush into the yellow. August said, “Oh, blue and yellow make green!…But now we don’t have yellow. Should I get more?” Here she was pointing out both his language and how, while he doesn’t relate really well to his peers, necessarily, he responds well—he just as easily could have gotten upset that the other kid had ruined his paint.

She also said that when she had met with his teachers she had told them they needed to do more direct instructions with him for the social skills. For example, she saw one interaction between him and one of the teachers where she asked him what he wanted to do next, and he said play with the blocks. He did indeed go over to play with the blocks, and the teacher went somewhere else. He found two other kids playing with the blocks, stood there watching for a few minutes, but didn’t know how to join them, and then eventually walked off and started wandering around the classroom, which is what the teachers don’t want him to do. Instead, they need to go with him and facilitate the interaction and have him ask if he can join in. She also suggested they buddy him up with a leader (politely bossy kid). I think they may have started doing this, partnering him with Eve.

Oh, she also suggested an after school social skills group at the preschool. And she said she had talked to Vicky, who was open to the idea. I know the social skills are an area to work on, but I’m really not all that worried, as he seems to be making a lot of progress since 4 weeks ago. He’s talked about playing with Reia, Selma, Candy, Sophia, and Simona. And I know he’s interacted with Eve a lot.

That said, there were a couple things I feel she misread: she talked about how she saw him stare at his lunchbox during lunch, open it and get stuff out, put it back, open it again, put it back, etc. She thought he really wanted to eat, but was deciding to save it to eat with me. But my guess is that one time he was getting out the comic from me and looking at it, and another time he got out the bar and ate it. I don’t think it was quite the wrestling with his stomach that she thought it was.

We drove home. I read him two chapter of Hilo 2, as 3 wasn’t on his iPad. We were home at 6:10. He wanted to play with the story dice right away, but I needed dinner first. He finally relented and we got dinner together. He asked, “Did you know garbanzo beans bounce in your tummy?” The pozola for dinner was really good. He and I got into a debate about how much a ton is, after he was asking about how your body gets energy, stores calories, etc. and that turned into a discussion of weight. I reminded him a ton is 2000 pounds. He said, “No. A ton is 1000 pounds.” We’ve had this debate before and he claimed that Carly told him it was a thousand, so he’s sticking to it.

While she was up from the table he taped her spoon to her bowl. And he taped me to the table and my phone to me. Sometime earlier Mom had said something to him about being four and a half and he said, “actually a little more.”

I took him up to the bathroom and gave him his bath and washed his hair in the sink. Back downstairs, Dad started confusing me again by telling a cruise story and starting “On the ship…” I told him that my whole life when he’s started with “On the ship…” he was taking about the Navy.

Upstairs, he combined the story dice and chose two from each set for a story. I made up a story called “Signs point to…” We are starting to develop a world around the Nine Kingdoms, where science and magic hold different roles in the different kingdoms, and our different sets of stories (the apprentice, the adventurer) are set. Somewhere in the middle he asked, “Can a human make birth to a gorilla?” We discussed that, then finished our story.

I took him down to my parents and he said goodnight and got a Zinnie hug. He asked Carly why she irons her clothes, and he decide he wanted his clothes ironed: “But my clothes are bumpy. Please, mama?”

I went for a run around 8. He and Carly were both asleep when I got back. I took a shower and discussed the meeting with Dr. Aviv with my parents. As we did that we heard thunder. We got an excellent storm for the next hour or two. I went to bed and could see tons of flashes out the window, facing east. Our best thunderstorm since we’ve been here.

Casting spells:

Taping Gramma:

Zinnie hug:

Resting again

Science experiment

Helping with bread

Being dragged by Gramma

Bread

Tape on Gramma

Asleep in the car

Choosing ice cream with Gramma and Grampa

Finding them in the park

Our haul

He threw up twice during the night. The first was right before I was going to bed and Carly called me to ask me to bring up the bowl. He was then up at 6:45. I was still in bed, and got up to close the door after him. He heard me and popped his head back in the room and told me “You can sleep more if you want to.” And closed the door behind himself.

I came down a little later and when I came down he had had some chocolate milk. He watched Wanda and the Alien and I typed. I made a mango smoothie but he didn’t really drink much. He had me do a time lapse video of him drinking it though. He then did time lapse videos. He played with the tripod with Gramma. I set up a tripod and he did a long one of him playing on the rug. Kind of a new kind of performance art for him.

We sat on the couch and read Hilo. We read the last 3 or 4 chapters of volume 4, then started volume 2. Carly headed to the store. He wanted mango and I thawed him some. He ate that and I did dishes. He complained that the mango was too thawed and that he wanted it straight from the bag. I got him some more and he ate most of that. He then came up with a game where he built a diagnostic machine that could tell kids at school why they were sick and what they needed to do to get better. He diagnosed several kids. He started a new variation on the game by building a diagnostic machine in the park.

He played with the tripod and then wanted it folded back up to be small. I taught him how to fold up the tripod and how to fold over the rubber bands to make them tight. He then got his tape out and was taping the cracks in the kitchen door and taping up the tripod. I took a shower and he made things with the straws and tape with Gramma. He made a microphone and they made an abstract structure. Carly called and he answered and went and checked how many apples were in the fridge for her. He set down the phone, opened the fridge, saw two apples, and went and told her: “Can I hang up now?”

He did more building with Gramma: “This is mootiful!” Carly got home and found out that there were actually several apples in a drawer. He had just counted the apples that were on a shelf. So now we have plenty of apples. He played with Sound Rebound. Carly and I were trying to figure out which beach to go to. I was trying to figure out if one had a bathroom and August wanted to help. Helping involved using the phone by himself, however, and Carly ended up taking him upstairs for a few minutes.

Back downstairs he was taping lots of stuff. He had taped the straw things together into a microphone, and with Gramma had been taping their structure to the rug. He was then throwing the blanket to knock over the towers and we first did bursts, then a slo-mo of him doing it.

We got ready to go and left at 1:15 for Beit Yanai Beach. It is a beach we went to once when coming back from the north. On the way he sat between me and Dad. He started singing a song about making a tunnel that was blocked, then he was singing about how you couldn’t do that because the animals would just go back and forth. He was singing about the game Toca Blocks, which I don’t even remember him playing recently. We got into a “Hay!” exchange about something, then he said, “Hay…what horses eat.”

As we drove into the parking lot at the beach he saw a sign and said, “No horses or dogs. That’s the rule. Do we have any horses or dogs?” He then said he had a metal horse that gallops and sings in French (inspired by Izzy in Hilo). “But I think they’ll allow it.”

We got down to the beach. He and I dug a hole for awhile while everyone else waded in the water. He was finding rocks for Carly to use in the garden, then wanted to ask if he could collect shells too. I said he could, but he had to yell out to Carly, who was now floating on the kickboard, to get an answer from her. He let me carrying him out to a spot several feet out in the water where it was shallow again, just up to his ankles, and there were lots of shells. We used the bucket and collected quite a few, with Gramma and Grampa helping. He told me “I have a song stuck in my head.” It was the Alligator song we made up in Korea. He was then singing the entire Alligator song. That was cool to see, although I didn’t get a video of that.

He was now ready for ice cream, and I took him over to the little snack shack. He chose a Cornetto Vanil (וניל). He wanted to sit at a table there and ate it. I should have told him we were sharing, as it was quite big and I was afraid it was going to upset his stomach. He let me eat some of it though. When he was done he talked about how he could keep eating a lot more.

Back down at our beach spot Mom and Dad went for a walk up the beach. He played with Carly, making a big hole, and I did some reading. Carly took him up to the bathroom, and he came back with some sort of plastic stick thing that he used. He was then dancing around and yelling the words from Toca Band.

We got going a little after 4. In the car he played Toca Band and wanted it loud. Carly turned on music and he complained, saying people could listen to his music. We made it home at 4:45. When we got out of the car he used his iPad to record the sound of the wind and the birds, and wanted everyone to be quiet.

He and Carly picked a bunch of leaves to make tea. While the water was heating, I suggested he use the french press to make a pot for everyone. He said, “I want it the usual way with leaves at the bottom. It’s prettiest that way.”

Cherie called and they Skyped with her, sitting outside. I went for a run—straight up through town, which I’ve done before, but then to the left and back down a different street that comes back down through town—and when I got back they were just finishing up.

He then played on the floor of the kitchen. Intently playing with straws and tape and the salad spinner and cardboard tubes. He was taping shapes out of the straws and throwing them, etc. (one was a plane) and then made a cardboard mixture with water in the salad spinner.

He did that as we got dinner ready. Schnitzel for the rest of us and he had something else. He was talking about not liking food, which may be because he’s been sick, but he was chalking up to “I’m from another dimension so…”

He and I then sat on the couch and read more Hilo. We finished book 2 and gave in and bought book 3. We didn’t end up starting it today though. Carly took him upstairs for a bath. He played in the sink for a long time, then she gave him a bath and brushed his teeth.

I came in the bedroom and he wanted to do Storytelling Dice instead of Hilo. I told a story that continued on our last one about the octopus, in which they actually deal with the octopus this time. The solution, however, is a giant serpent, which then takes the octopus’s place in terrorizing ships.

Looking up at the light cover on the ceiling he said, “Thats the exact shape of my planet. All bumpy and stuff.” With just my flashlight on we played a science class game and he was building a machine in the safety room. It was a machine that does a diagnostic scan of the earth to find lost things. He was then finding lost things for people. He was asleep at 9:15.

Smoothie time lapse:

Rug time lapse:

Building with Gramma:

Destruction slo-mo:

Toca Blocks song 1:

Toca Blocks song 2:

Ice cream at the beach:

Toca Band song and dance:

Playing in the sand:

His secret photos of us

His microphone

Their structure

Throwing the blanket

Mom and Dad in the Mediterranean

Talking through his hat

Ice cream

Listening to his recording of birds

Playing on the kitchen floor

I heard a door upstairs but then thought it might have been my parents. But a couple minutes later, at 7:25, I heard a thud, thud, thud. I went up to find him lying on the couch, kicking the front of it with one foot. He ended up cuddling on my lap for a few minutes. When I asked how his stomach felt he said, “Not so good.” I carried him down, and he curled up on me on the couch. He wanted some water. Just a sip but then he coughed/threw up. Luckily I had brought down the bowl, although very little came up.

He then curled up by himself in the black chair for awhile. We moved to the couch and read the rest of Hilda and the Black Hound. My parents were up by the time we were done. He was then feeling good enough to eat his vitamins and the last of the zucchini bread.

He watched a StoryBots and I showered. He watched Pink Panther and ate some of the zucchini bread and Cheerios. We read more of Hilda and ‘snob’ was the word of the day. We read about the first third, our third full reading of the book. He played with his tape and grampa for a few minutes and I made french toast but then he just lay on the floor. I asked how his stomach was and he now said 3. It had been a 5 earlier, and a 1 when he threw up.

He felt a little warm and said he felt warm. We played around with the thermometers and batteries (he had dropped one of them in water awhile back and the battery corroded) andtook his temperature. 37.1. Not really high, but a bit high for him. He had wanted to experiment with the corroded battery, but didn’t have enough energy to get up and squirt soap on it. That clearly communicated that he wasn’t feeling well. He was out of time for watching Netflix/YouTube, but I let him watch some BrainPop Jr. videos—about Halloween, boiling and evaporating.

He lay on the floor again and played with the lotion container and pen. He then had the tissue box and tucked some under his chin, then fell asleep at 12:30 cuddling the tissue box.

I typed and read and updated the blog. My parents went for a walk. I exercised and switched to the Seven Brief Lectures on Physics book as I did some cleaning. I gently woke him up at 3:15. He lay around until 3:30. Took his temperature again and it was at least 37.6. He pulled it out when I said it was high. I gave him some medicine and he said it “Tickles my throat.” He talked about the vibration of the particles in his throat.

We talked about Gramma and grampa’s walk and dogs—they had been startled by the dog that jumps up on the fence up on Kibuts Galuyot. They were also followed by a couple of dogs for a bit. August said he had a dog rock throwing machine “You can borrow it…I can make it smaller so it fits in your pocket…a hundred times stronger than trees.” At first he said it was in a park in the United States, but then he brought it back here for them to use.

He Played with grampa’s watch and turned things digital—that is, he turned them into 1s and 0s so that you could just put your hand through them. We read three Skybrary books: Freda Stops a Bully, Freda Says Please, and Great Choice, Camille!

He then asked for a mango smoothie. He watched more BrainPop Jr. and I made a smoothie. Carly then got home, close to 5. He cuddled with her as he watched a bit more. Then they went out to get leaves to make tea for him. He had one pant leg halfway up as he did that and as he showed Gramma the bug catcher.

Carly made him tea and he drank his tea and stared at the ceiling in the kitchen. To Carly he said, “I love you ten infinities.” Then to the medicine: “I love you five infinities.”

He wanted more smoothie but settled for frozen mango. I thawed some, but he didn’t really eat it. He was then looking at the table with the flashlight and asked who made it dirty in a funny voice. He asked me what another student would say when he was gone and had me be Candy and Reia asking about him. He told me he and Candy had talked about a spider at rest time, although he said the teachers didn’t say anything to them.

We got all the options out for dinner, including the mashed potato pastry I got at the bakery the other day. August liked it, but it was too peppery after a few bites.

I went for a run, and when I came back he was eating popcorn and watching polar bears. He hadn’t wanted to read. Carly said that after having watched this video so many times she understood why polar bears were going extinct and that it seemed unstoppable. I then joked about what other species she would be willing to let go.

I took a shower, then we started reading Hilo 4 from the beginning. After a few chapters I took him upstairs and we brushed his teeth. We did a Storytelling Dice story called “Another Crazy Mission”. He wanted his photo taken of the face he was making in the mirror as he lay with his head in his hands.

I left him and Carly a little after 9. I thought they were asleep and when I heard a door at 10 I thought it was Carly still up. But it was August. He came down, very happy to see me. We read more of Hilo 4, and finished chapter 8. At the end of the chapter he was ready to go back to bed. He went in at 10:30 and was soon asleep. Carly said he really had been trying to go to sleep earlier, thus the quiet.

Trying to wake him up:

Google Docs song:

Adapting a song from dance class:

Sick boy

Sleeping with the tissue box

Drinking medicine

Showing Gramma the bug catcher

Being cute in the mirror

He got up at 6 with me. He watched Wanda and the Alien and played with the tire pressure gauge. We took the car, leaving by 7:45. We parked at the school and I took him in while Mom and Dad waited in the car. We parked his bike at the rack and I left a bag with his iPad and car vest in it. We asked Andrea what would be after rest time (she said it would be the open preschool thing they did last week) and I asked about the ‘special student’. It was a boy named Simona, and he is a new student.

I stayed for a minute outside while he got comfortable as they started meeting. Back in the car, we made our way to Jerusalem. A little over 2 hours, taking 4, 40, and 443.

We parked in the Mamilla parking garage by the Jaffa Gate. Once in the city we walked counterclockwise. By the end of the day we made a rough circle through all four of the quarters: Armenian, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. We saw the old Roman road on our way to the Western Wall. At the wall my parents went and touched it. We changed into pants, then got in line about 12:10 for the Temple Mount. They started security about that time and we were able to wait on the bridge looking down at the Western Wall area.

Once inside we headed straight back, past Al-Aqsa Mosque. We wandered over to the Golden Gate area, then walked up to the Dome of the Rock on the east side. Walked around that, saw the view of the Mt. of Olives, then headed out into the Muslim Quarter at 1:30.

We found the Al Buraq restaurant and sat in the downstairs section. We got the grilled chicken and the schwarma, and hummus, tahinis, and Turkish salad. I got a salab to drink.

After lunch we headed north through the Muslim Quarter. They mostly finished their shopping, getting a few things. We turned left towards the Christian Quarter and finished with a pretty full tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

We were all tired by then, and got back to the car about 4:15. Got driving, and were home just before 6:30.

Along the way I asked Carly to ask August what the word of the day is. He said “Hypofomicly…I made all the words, so there can’t be a word of the day.” “Hypofomicly is a type of chemical. It’s the chemical you get from the middle of the moon. Very dangerous. Koisonous.“

Carly picked him up after school. He was just out in the grass by himself when she got there. He wanted a treat, but he hadn’t eaten his lunch, and didn’t want to eat any of it now to get Mama-Zinnie cafeteria time. He seemed sad that I wasn’t there and she was trying to avoid a breakdown. They left the bench at 3:40 by trying to see if Mandy would give them a ride. She looked really busy though. Carly bribed him to walk home by promising a Halloween treat when they got home. He had Starburst.

Of school we learned that he hadn’t played with Simona today. Also, that students played after rest time when they weren’t supposed to. They were supposed to go outside but were being loud. He says he wasn’t one of the loud ones though. He also said they had read Muffin Man during Literacy Time today, but then expressed doubt about that.

When we got home at 6:30 he was playing Monster Physics on the couch. I made myself some water drink. As August played he wistfully said,”I think I smell water drink.” “Yeah. I was thinking about it.” “I can smell it.”

I saw they had an insect in the bug catcher. It had been on the floor and playing dead earlier. It was now standing up and August examined it. He let it go outside, then was putting other things in the bug catcher to look at them. He started doing concoctions of spices and food coloring and they actually looked quite cool. He accidentally spilled one and he vacuumed it up.

Carly took him up to do another stool bath. He played in the sink for a long time, doing an experiment that involved getting a toilet paper roll wet. He talked about being the only one that could touch it, because he had a special suit: “Just like an astronaut suit but more powerful. It has an entire computer in it.”

She finally gave him his sink bath, then out in the play area he sang a “Books, books, books” song as he danced in the mirror. He then described a preschool game scenario: “Scenario! Word of the day.” In it, he ended up making a robot that would tell kids when they were breaking the rules. He put it in a human body: “I killed a person for a good reason.” I suggested that wasn’t actually a good reason, and he changed his mind and said he had found a body when digging. I suggested grave robbing also wasn’t approved of, and we discussed donating bodies for science.

We went downstairs to say good night, and he told Gramma “You forgot to do a Zinnie hug!” I think he had told her the same thing in the morning. Also, I forgot to mention that sometime last night he fell down part of the lower half of the stairs. He sort of did a somersault down the first few stairs then stopped himself. Startled, but not really hurt.

Back in the room I asked what he wanted to read and he said, “Hilda. Because I like to sink into the book.” We read about a third of it. Turned on the ‘lamp’ and he chose a park game where I heard him building something in a park, and it turned out to be a machine to make you live 100 years longer.

He was trying a lot of stalling tonight, but fell asleep just before 9.

At the Western Wall:

Negotiating:

Monster Physics:

Examining the insect:

Making concoctions to look at:

Sink experiment:

Books, books, books dance:

Jewish Quarter

Photos of each other

Dome of the Rock

Lunch

Shopping

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

August on Monster Physics

Examining his concoction

Our path around Jerusalem

August was up early. At 5:35, just after Carly. She tried to see if he’d go back to sleep, but he didn’t. He shadowed her while she got ready, then was watching Wanda and the Alien when I came down at 6. When he was done with that, and had eaten first Cheerios and then his vitamins and zucchini bread, he wanted to do a stop motion animation. But when we went to set it up, the Big Fish project was missing from the app. They had been adding a bunch to it after making their own video yesterday. He didn’t get really upset, but he didn’t want to do stop motion anymore. Instead, he played with the light up beach ball. He had Grampa do something with it, then August was trying to take more air out of it by squishing it with different things.

He played with it a bit more, then I got us going and walking at 7:40. I put some lotion on his hand and he screamed and screamed about it hurting him. But when I explained we needed to do it to make the dryness go away and we should do it twice a day, he said, “Oh. Three times then.” On the walk we talked about what to do with his bottle caps. He said, “We could use them for a game. The big ones are easier and the little ones are harder. Like bottle cap catch.” He was then singing a wonderful “I’m a person that likes pollution” song. I recorded it. But after it was over he then told me why he likes pollution. It’s because he has a machine that makes good things out of pollution.

We got to class before the bell. But they were already meeting again. He knew we’d be back before dance and that he could make dance class shorter if he wanted. He talked to me outside though and told me “The whole preschool class needs to be shorter.” I got him to go to the meeting to hear about the day while I waited outside for a few minutes. He popped out after a minute and told me “Hey dada! They’re having a special kid over!” He was smiling, and ran back in.

I walked home, then my parents and I got ready and headed to Jaffa. We stopped at Ace on the way and got a tire pressure gauge as a low pressure warning has gone on in the car. We checked the tire pressures and they seemed okay, then headed on to Jaffa.

Took close to an hour to get there. Our usual parking lot is now a construction site, so drove around and found a spot on the street a couple blocks north of the market. Walked to the market and did some looking around. My parents got a couple things and I got a small wooden chess set as a Christmas present for August.

We stopped at Awni for lunch, all getting falafel sandwiches, then walked west to Kdumin Square where we saw the view and Andromeda Rocks. Then walked back through Abrasha Park, seeing the Wishing Bridge. Abouelafia Bakery and got some za’atar breads and a couple of other things. Back at the car we found a parking ticket, along with the other cars parked there. It was a delivery vehicle only area, but without a painted curb and no sign in front of us, only one behind that we didn’t see and couldn’t read. An Israeli woman returned to her car at the same time and read the sign to me and she was upset about it to. Meanwhile, there are cars parked all over the painted red and white curbs not getting tickets.

We drove back, a bit quicker this time, and had time to go into Even Yehuda and the bank so my parents could get cash.

We then drove to the school to pick up August. He went out on the bench and Andrea showed me that they’d put up an ‘I wonder…’ wall. August had put up ‘How does the universe work?’ Back outside, Anna told me about a recent article in The NY Times about restaurants outside of Tel Aviv. In particular a sourdough bakery she had just gone to and had thought of me, as Marion had told her I was working on sourdough starter.

August went up to dance class and stayed for all of it. Mom and Dad had gone to the library to look at newspapers, etc. and read, but the teachers were too noisy so they came back to the bench. At 4, when the teachers came back from their staff meetings, I told Anna that I had found the article and would visit the bakery. Cassie overheard, and asked me to give her some of my starter when it is ready.

We then headed to Carly’s classroom. There, August played school with her. He sat on the big stool and was of course distracted by it. They did math on the board, and August was trying to figure them out in his head, or whispering his thinking to himself as much as possible. For art time I drew a person on a boat with a sword getting attacked by two huge sea monsters. Carly then brought the plants over and he studied leaves, comparing them.

I asked him about the special student at school today, and he said it was a boy that liked to find treasures with him. And the boy was his age. Will have to talk to his teachers to learn more. We left at 4:45.

At home, Carly read Camille’s Team to him on Skybrary. He then watched Aardvark and Ant. I made raviolis and a rose sauce for dinner/lunches but we also had all the leftovers to choose from. August recited “Run, run, as fast as you can. You can’t catch me in the gingerbread man!” He said it was from literacy time with Ms. Vicky. I used the word ‘simultaneously’ and he said “Simultaneously! Word of the day!”

Mom and Dad gave him a couple more gifts, from the U.S. this time: a coin/medallion thing, and a shirt that makes him look like a robot. He then took care of Gramma and Grampa. He had them help him tape his flashlight to the side of the coffee table. He then had Gramma lying on the floor, reading a book, with her head on a pillow and her body covered with blankets. Grampa had things covering his feet to keep them warm. He kept asking what else they needed. He told me “I learned how to do that at preschool.’ Take care of people, that is, and he specifically mentioned taking care of Candy that one day after school.

Carly took him up and gave him his bath—a bath from the sink as he stood on the stool. He and I then read Hilda and the Black Hound (again). Now, ‘banished’ became a word of the day. We used the storytelling dice and told a story called The Making of a Jeweler. He went down and said good night, then we played a preschool game with a deerfox from a different universe that came into a preschool class. He was asleep at 8:30, seconds after complaining that he couldn’t fall asleep.

I’m a person that likes pollution song:

Starting class:

Math class with mama:

Studying plants:

I’m saving you from the Banobee song:

Showing us yoga:

Taking care of Gramma and Grampa:

Trying to get out the air

Shopping

Lunch

His ‘I wonder…’

Playing school

Taping the flashlight

Taking care of them