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He got up about 7:45. Downstairs, Carly read some space world records to him, then he wanted his iPad. It wasn’t plugged in last night though, so while it charged up a bit I read the first chapter of The Nebula Secret to him. He then played Minecraft by himself. Afte a bit he asked me to play with him, and we chose a house in a village we found and mined down to the bedrock to get redstone.

I asked what he wanted for breakfast and he said swedish pancakes. Carly said she’d make it, and she also wanted to teach August how to play My Little Pony. August totally okayed her “Okay. Okay.” But then asked “How do you play with My Little Pony? I don’t know how to play with ANY doll.” And he chose to do that first. They played with them for a few minutes before asking for food.

He ate a total of three Swedish pancakes. While he ate those I showed him a video Cherie sent where a guy builds bricks and then a pyramid by hand, using old techniques. He watched that whole video, then part of one where he builds a pool and waterslide. He informed me, as Carly was about to leave, that he had “gotten away” with not saying please when he asked for his water bottle and for pancakes. We told him his tone must have been really good

After Carly left we read one story in My Little Pony, then he wanted to earn his half hour, so he built with Legos. He randomly asked “Dada, why would digging a deep hole be for summer? That would just be boring.” I had joked earlier that it would be a good activity to keep them busy.

He earned 25 minutes, and we were playing Minecraft when Carly got back just before 11:30. He got her to do Legos with him (they ended up building a house that rotates at some point that he was pretty proud of and ended up showing off to Cherie). He also ended up playing on his own a good bit.

We got ready and left before 12:30. We saw David on our way out, the first time he’s seen August since we got back. He commented on August getting taller, and also said his sunglasses (the white ones) reminded him of the Blues Brothers.

On the drive I was talking about Seoul and he asked about the name. He said, “It’s also named after the bone of your brain.” And he told me “Did you know math is based on time?” I read to him about viruses from the Discover magazine. He then processed what he had learned: “Did you know that back in the old days I made my first theory about why people got sick…virions…burst out of your body…”

At Gabi’s Carly and I talked to Gabi today. August got to watch things, and watched Inspector Gadget, although he had had me download NextGen. He finished watched the episode on the way home.

At home, Carly and August were outside together for a while, I think watering plants. I went up to do a little work. They did a word time thing choosing words out of a book that he knew, and others to work on. She used one of the whiteboards to teach him about some words. He also earned time with Legos and played some Minecraft. Carly tried to download it on her phone and play with him, but couldn’t get it working.

I came down at 4 and made shakshuka, rice, and tofu for dinner. They did a globe game.We ate, but August decided he didn’t like it. He did sit on the floor though and poke raw rice into the tofu and eat a few pieces.

Carly washed the car, then we did his evening Minecraft time. Outpost was a word of the day, as was annotate. We read more My Little Pony. He said that he wanted chocolate milk, and Carly said that sounded good, and he got excited: “This is great: a parent wants chocolate milk and is letting me do it!”

After he washed his hands he dried them on Carly, which she doesn’t like. He said he was doing it to prove that he washed his hands. I talked to him and came up with an alternate plan of showing her his hands instead.

I vacuumed the air filters for the the air conditioner, then Cherie called. Cassie had run a half marathon (and carried Colin for a short kids run the day before that Vivian ran), and Cherie had fallen while walking to the car and got a cut on her thumb that required stitches. August was very interested in it: “What did it feel like when you got cut? Was it pure pain?” He showed off his Lego creation that rotated. Cherie told us about her fall, and adrenaline was another new word.

We went upstairs and into the office. He did a Brother game with the green table by the chair. It was for catching rain water and other things. Carly brought him up some oatmeal. He wanted more milk in it, as he likes it a bit runnier now. Carly gave him his bath, and I think he got a little water in his eye. There was a lot of screaming. I said goodnight and left for a run at 9:20.

My Little Pony with Carly:

Tofu and rice creation:

Round table invention game:

He woke up at 6:30. I tried to get him back to sleep. He lay in bed about ten minutes, then went downstairs to Carly. I slept until 7:30. He had used his iPad before I was up. We had breakfast tougher, then did a Brother game where he was playing with Baby Sister’s play kitchen and arguing. August had a pretty full story about how Bar lifted the whole house with a tornado and flung it into space “And then it was just a piece of space junk, flying through space.”

We read My Little Pony, then the Discover Magazine article about the sun. He then talked to me about the sun for a long time: “The sun was formed by a big storm of asteroids hitting a big star and the big balls of magma made the sun…” walked in circles and told me about an asteroid storm. We played Blue Apprentice, learning about photosynthesis, and ‘endurance’ was a word of the day.

Carly gave August a big envelope from Vivian. It included a card she had made for him, a page of handwritten instructions, and a bunch of little gems and foil things for him to decorate with. We went upstairs to do a Brother game. I took my coffee up, and he made fun of how I let my coffee get cold: “Because you like cold coffee?” We did the Tigey game where they get the baby tiger for the first time, after doing a game with the gems.

Downstairs he did some alone time, playing with the Legos, then doing art on the whiteboard. He told me “Its swirly stuff in your nightmares…actually, fungus language.” He did 15 minutes, so we played 15 minutes of Minecraft together. We ate crackers and meat and read more My Little Pony, finishing volume 11.

He did some math with Carly after she came down. She was fine this morning, but then wasn’t feeling well, and had been resting upstairs for quite a while. She was now feeling well enough to take him to the pool, but he was really reluctant to go. Finally, I talked him into it just before 3.

It was a good thing that they went, as he had fun, and there were a good amount of people there, including Omri and her family, and Cassie with Taya and Kai. They decided to come over to the house for a visit, Nd so they call got here just before 5. I had been working.

Kai did some crying, and August said “Now I know what it sounded like when I was a baby and I cried.” He also helped Cassie when she changed Kai, and when she said something a little teasing to Kai he was concerned it might make him upset.

He and Taya played pretty separately for a while, with Taya playing with the water balloons outside, but then she got the doll, Baby Q. She asked if it was a boy or girl, and insisted it was a girl because the doll had a pink bottle and pink on the outfit. We never gave the doll a gender, and August stuck to that, looking at it and telling Taya that no one knows. Then, when Taya found the My Little Pony set he sat down with her. He told Taya “You’re a good hair fixer.” And said of Rarity “She’s SO picky about her hair…I hate Rarity in the show. I LOVE Rainbow Dash.”

Carly made a mango lassi for everyone, then got a bunch of snacks out, and made schnitzel for the kids. They grazed and played. When Cassie said they would leave soon, August at one point said that was good because he could play Minecraft sooner. Carly told him something that would be politer to say, and he said something along the lines of “But then I’d be sadder that my friend is leaving.”

When they left, Taya insisted he walk her to the car. He wasn’t having any of that, but then did come out with us, and was interested in how Cassie had to close her door before Taya would finally get in the car. Taya was talking about doing a sleepover again, and August likes the idea. Also, at one point he was trying to give something to Taya to take home, and Cassie reminded him of her rule about no presents. August was insistent she could take it, until Carly talked to him and explained why, and reminded him of how Taya had gotten upset about the giving of the rings last time.

After they left August did have his Minecraft time. We then read My Little Pony. Accord and discord were words of the day. He had oatmeal, then we went upstairs and finished reading the story. I got him in the bathroom, and while he went to the bathroom and played Carly took over. I went for a run, right at 9, and was then able to say good night to him right around 9:20.

Getting the glove:

Whiteboard art and humming:

My Little Pony with Taya:

Got him up at 7:45. He inspected the new tissue box, then stumbled out of the room. Took a few minutes on the couch. I used the Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie figures to say hi and he grinned. He played with them a couple minutes, and told me about a world record pool he made that is four kilometers deep and had a steel wall around it, then I started reading the Minecraft graphic novel. He was skeptical because it didn’t look like Minecraft when the character goes in the game. But when we got back to it we read the whole thing. He was then telling me about something, but I missed what it was. But it had material from the sun and showed the whole solar system and involved lots of arrows.

He then watched a video on Minecraft and I exercised. I then played with him for a few minutes. I then made breakfast: oatmeal and mango for him, an egg and yogurt for me. He then showed me what he and Carly had made from Legos yesterday and added to it. I made legos too. We then went and looked at our agenda for the day and did reading time. He played with with his ponies, then we read My Little Pony. When his time was up, he snuck to my iPad; I had stopped playing at the same time, but had left the app open. He got upset when I made him stop and started to kick at me, but stopped himself and clammed on the couch.

He had some juice, then as we were getting ready we were rhyming everything we said, as per the zebra in My Little Pony. He also ended up using the padded envelope from the shaker from Cherie on his head and bonking it against the door. He told me “Dada, anger is just a fear that lives inside you.” Not sure where that is from.

He had a good case of the giggles and asked “Did you know that a sadypus is a platypus that’s always sad?” He was also using the plastic rectangle from the My Little Pony box as a frisbee.

We got walking at 12:20. August agreed to the bike right away, which was really amazing.

Over at the mall he looked at jewelry. He wants a fancy necklace now; beads don’t do it now. He led the way to Tiv Taam, where we bought some Bubble Tape. Outside the store I got him some, and as he walked back through the mall he sang “Bubble tape for the second time.” Which was both cute, and news to me. I thought he hadn’t had it before, but he had had it with Vivian.

He looked at the candy counter and found egg toy things with counterfeit My Little Pony on them. It looked exactly like them, but was called ‘My Little Horse’.

We went to the Druze stand and he got a lafa with labaneh and oil, and we got a regular one for Carly. We walked outside and he ate on the plane in the playground. It was still hot today, but just a couple degrees cooler and a bit breezy, so it was actually comfortable to sit outside in the shade. He spotted a girl with a My Little Pony shirt

He asked “People in books don’t age much, right?” He had noticed that in the Caveman Kung Fu book they actually do, and that is unusual. He told me “Here’s a theory: when the sun dies away, people will have invented a way to live without the sun.”

We walked home, then got ready with our swim stuff and drove to school. We went to the library first. He hid under a table and was spying on the librarians, then looked at the magazine table. I found a Discover magazine he was interested in. I then found a Lumberjanes chapter book that looked interesting, and he found a young adult novel called The Nebula Secret. We went back to the kid area, and I looked at the magazine. There was an article called “How to Build Aliens in the Lab” and he asked me to read it. He started making a sculpture out of the shelf bookmarks as he listened to me. Ilana came in and was curious what we were doing at one point.

I read most of the article before needing to go check out the books. I did that, then went back and we cleaned up the sculpture together. We then went to the pool. Omri and family were there, although August didn’t interact with them much at first.

Instead, he played by the stairs. When I suggested taking a foam thing out he was excited about it and let me take out two. He then spent 15 or 20 minutes trying it out and also using the vest as a kickboard instead of wearing it. He then wanted the foam pieces back in and was using it as a xylophone when Carly showed up.

We swam with her there, then Zohar invited August to have snacks with them. He went out and gorged himself on Doritos, then we ended up in the shallow pool. He threw the ball around with Zohar and Omri, then got a blue chair and put it in the water and sat on it. Eventually he had three of them and was really focused in moving them around into different shapes. He had Zohar and Jonathan using them as a fort at one point.

We stayed until the pool closed, then were home at 5:15. He brought a stick in, and was upset about taking it back outside. But eventually he made the right decision and decided he didn’t need it. He had frozen mango, then leftover lafa. He asked “Did you know stuff always tastes better if you have a friend?”

I watched videos of one year old August saying “Hi camel” and other things, then Carly played Minecraft with him. He had a hard time stopping at 30 minutes. He then earned time with me with math, counting by 2s and 3s. He wanted to use his time after just 3 minutes. So he played 3 minutes of Minecraft.

He then played with Legos and sang. He earned 11 minutes. He also told me “After I get upset good things happen…this time I did the counting thing.” Although to be clear what happened was he was only frustrated, and was able to talk to me about earning time, as opposed to just getting upset.

So he played for 11 minutes. Finally, he did math with me for 16 minutes. He was able to count by 99s, figuring out the pattern pretty well, and I wrote numbers on the iPad and he picked out the odd and even ones (he referred to the odd ones as the “ones with middles” because a few days ago he told me that odd numbers always have one in the middle, whereas even numbers do not.

We played the last of his Minecraft time. He did a good job of stopping at the end. ‘Nomad/nomadic’ were words of the day. We then read My Little Pony and had mango, then he finally had his quiche (he had been pretty full after all those Doritos and a few apple slices at the pool). We read about an upcoming drone mission to Mars, then started to read the Horrible Harry book before he decided to do a Brother game with Bar making sonic booms (like Rainbow Dash in the recent story).

We then went upstairs and he had his bath. Carly was nice and let him have Cheerios with milk, then I left them at 9:40. I was going to go running, but instead fell asleep on the couch downstairs.

His helmet:

Rectangle frisbee:

With the floaties removed:

Playing with the ball:

Chairs in the pool:

Singing and Legos:

Math time:

Finally got him up just before 8. He went straight into the bathroom. Downstairs we read Bone. ‘Reflex’ was a word of the day. He told me that 120 shekels isn’t actually a lot of money. He then imagined overpaying stores for things and being rich. He wants to play cards, adding the 8 of diamonds he found on the ground the other day. The rich thing turned into imagining a ball fight in a store, and the kids crying in the chaos.

We looked at our agenda, and he started to draw arrows. When he took the pencil he immediately started using pinchy fingers and asked if he was doing it correctly. His pointer finger has a tendency to work its way up the pencil, but he was doing a great job, and it was cool to see him defaulting to it.

We did some Minecraft, then I exercised. Had a few minutes to play more Minecraft with him after I was done. I made french toast for breakfast, then we went outside for a couple minutes. We then started volume 10 of My Little Pony. Next was a Brother game where Bar had inifinite hair; she could pick things up with it. He had a little script:

Bar: “I’m ready to right!”

Brother: “What? We’re making a pillow fort!”

Bar: “Oh, I thought that was the plan.”

We went upstairs and made a pillow fort, then went down and did his reading time. We went back upstairs for a Brother game where Millie was a snake, squeezing Baby Sister. Then it was Brother’s birthday party and Baby Sister was getting upset.

I did laundry and he put undewear on his head. It was all black. As he played in the sink he asked “Can I use this underwear for my halloween costume? I’m going to be a bat…I need fabric wings so I can fly.” And he asked “How do you make a slingshot? I want to make a slingshot sometime.”

We went downstairs and looked at library books to decide which to keep and which to return. We read some records from the Guinness Book of World Records. He then told me about his records, which include playing Minecraft for 17 days straight and marking the deepest underwater vehicle: “A world record in a world record cuz the rover took the most efficient fuel ever.” “Also, most goodest jail.” He then explained why soap might hurt a plant. He was doing his walking in circles this whole time. He was then my germ teacher. We had saved some of his words to do, and we finally finished those.

Before we left the house he caught a fly outside the kitchen door. We finally left for lunch at 2. I had been starving for lunch for a long time, but as he’d been walking in circles he was telling me he wasn’t hungry.

We parked by the house with sculptures and walked to VIPizza. We each got a slice of corn and he got a drink pouch. As we ate he asked what the first Brother and Sister game was. I found it, from January 2 of this year:

“He worked on the “quilt” then said he could do it on his own. He immediately asked me to do “a imagining game.” Carly protested, saying he just said he was going to sew. He replied, “The sewing will be part of the imagining game. You got it?” So I was his brother and he was my sister, and I was going to get dressed and he (she) was sewing my shirt into a blanket and I was upset about it. Eventually, he put it on my legs as I typed as a blanket….He wanted to continue with the imagining game and we called each other “sister” and “brother.” If I forgot and talked in my normal voice he’d say, “Talk in your boy voice!” He watched one of those balancing game videos on YouTube, then one on how clay is made. He then had the idea, still in character, to go out and find more greensand and put it in water to see if it would dissolve and make sand.”

He noticed that there was no music in VIPizza today. They usually have some sort of classic rock or blues or something playing. Once it was Supertramp, once Ray Charles. We started to read a paper book I’d brought, Horrible Harry and the Mud Gremlins. ‘Fibber’ was another word of the day.

We stopped at the bank, then went to the Stop City grocery store, then stopped at the pharmacy. August has been asking to get a soft sponge to wash himself with, and he chose a nice pink one.

Carly said there were packages at the school, so we swung by there on our way home. We picked them up and got home at 4:30. There were some very scraggly plants from Shmuel waiting by the gate. August watched a big line of ants outside our gate.

When Carly got home we opened the packages. One was a shaker for cinnamon and sugar. The second was for August: collection of the Mane 6 ponies from My Little Pony. He was pretty happy about those. It will be interesting to see how much he plays with them.

He told us he’d teach us to survive in a war: “Step one: avoid the pointy parts…Step two: run to a nearby store. Step three: steal some stuff. Step four: Throw…You can break conditioner on the ground to make it smelly for the people fighter. And if you find jewelry please throw it to gross out the boys…Also, in a war you’re allowed to do anything to protect yourself…” The pointy parts stuff was from one of their books. He had talked about using things in the pharmacy as weapons. And at the car he had said he knew everything about hurting people so that he could survive in a war.

He did his Minecraft time and I taught him to teleport. He asked “What’s flesh?” A word of the day, as well as ‘papyrus’.

He went over to the Legos and Carly took over and I went up to work. A bit later he came up and got me. Wanted me to see a world in Minecraft. He had had quiche and rice, and now had more rice. He then had a Brother game where Sister set Minecraft harder for him and he was scared by all the monsters. The world he had wanted me to see was in the expansion app. It was a giant Pokémon you could explore. We did that for a few minutes.

I got him upstairs with his new sponge. He played in the sink, and made an instrument from the sponge with the eye dropper he found at recycling on top of it. The water hitting the eye dropper made a rhythmic pattern as it it it. He asked “Did you know that love means letting go?” Which is from My Little Pony. We talked about how it is true and not true, and I mentioned letting him move away when he was older. He said, “No. I want to stay with you until you die.”

We got him ready and I left them a bit after 9:30 and went for a run.

Walking in circles and explaining his world records:

Being my teacher:

Opening the present from Oma:

Musical instrument on the new sponge:

I started waking him up right at 7:30. He was really tired though. He rolled over and cuddled against me for a while. He finally got up right at 8. Downstairs we finished reading the Redwall graphic novel. He then wanted Minecraft time. We did that, and I made lunches. We got ready to go, which took some time. August played with his yarn bridge sort of thing up from the toilet paper thing to his cardboard house, humming a tune as he did so.

We got driving at 10, and parked at Ra’anana Park. We walked from there over to the big covered playground. On the walk over he told me of a maze he had made: “It’s a maze to get to the other side of death island. It takes up the whole savannah desert.” We were meeting up with people from the homeschooling group. There were just two families there today: Lauren, with her son Gilad, and Elana (the Korean woman I had talked to at the house) with her kids Sophia, Josiah, and Miciah.

The four of them were on the big swinging log thing. We did introductions, and Gilad invited August on the “ship.” August was playing on the little spinning thing though and declined. Gilad got off and came over and got on it with him. A cat was near us and Gilad called it a lion or tiger. August commented on the color of it, and they were off. They played for the next 30 minutes or so, running all over the playground, and August didn’t say a word to me once. There was talk of an airplane taking off and that was about all I caught.

We then decided to walk over to the zoo area, which Elana had never seen. But first, August was telling Gilad about his favorite things in the park, and he pointed out the big disc things that you’re supposed to be able to hear each other at. We went up there, but they found the pivoting blocks of wood in the ground that make music first and played on those for a few minutes. We then tried out the things August had pointed out but couldn’t get them to work properly. they don’t have the focus parts that tell you where to talk/listen like some do.

We then headed over to the zoo. Elana turned back after a way, as her kids, particularly the youngest, were done. We spent 20 minutes or so at the zoo. August found a couple feathers that he kept. Lauren pointed out that in Hebrew the Sika deer are called ‘Nikud deer’, as the spots on them look like the vowels in Hebrew. We also liked the degu, a small rodent. The kids noticed that all the straw was moving, and Lauren at first said it was the fan that was blowing, but then I realized actually was little insects crawling through it all as well.

Lauren was needing to get Gilad home for some math, but was persuaded by him to let them play at the playground for a while. We went over there for another ten minutes or so. It ended when August said he was ready to head home. Gilad is ten, but Lauren commented on him being a young ten, and that there is another 5-year old that he gets along well with. I would have guessed he was 8.

We headed home. August got 15 minutes of Minecraft, then figured out how to play with the water balloon thing we had just bought. He played with that while I did a short exercise. August told me that he had discovered that you could hear someone’s hertbeat really well when he was cuddling with Carly. So he cuddled with me and listened to my heartbeat when I was done.

He had pesto pasta for lunch and requested “lunch entertainment.” I read my Little Pony. He then had a Brother game where they were drawing their world with a pencil, which goes back, I think, to a Treehouse book where Andy and Terry have to redraw everything.

On the iPad we did some word time, with him reading random phrases I wrote. He was circling the words as we read them, then started drawing it all into a picture of a bug. He spent several minutes humming and drawing, and said “Now we have to do some details. It’s a robot bug.”

We got going to school and saw the kindergarteners on the way to the busses. August called out hi to several people, by name, and told me “Everyone I know I’m gonna say hi.” Which is quite a change for him. We saw Simone and his mom outside the kindergartens. A bit confusing, as we were there before 3, but no one was in Eve’s classroom. It turned out her teacher had had to go somewhere, so they were in the other kindergarten classroom. We went in and found her, then walked down and found Zoe.

Zoe is like a little adult. I saw shake hands with one of her friends as we walked away, then a little later as we walked to the playground she asked me “So how are you doing?”

We found Heather, then August was studying part of a plant, then we headed to the big playground. They played there, doing different tricks. August was standing on the swing, hanging from some ropes, and stretching across between two structures “like a hammock.”

They were all ready to go about 3:30. On the way out, Eve and August inspected a fire extinguisher outside the guardhouse and a pipe out of the ground. They all went over to the flag area to look at snails and the flagpoles, then headed to the car.

Got the three of them in the car, Zoe in the middle, and headed home. On the way, August told them he had two projects involving bubbles to do. One was colored bubbles; the other one wasn’t clear. August noticed the gate to the carport open, and he and Zoe looked at the trash. He found an old snorkel in there. He was excited about that.

In the house I mainly got them playing outside for the whole time. I brought snacks out on the table, including a bowl of popcorn. They did some soap mixtures, coloring the bubbles like August wanted, and poured them down the slide.

Carly got home, then Heather picked the girls up just after 5. Inside, we all picked up the pillows together, and Carly talked about the short meeting about seizures that she had after school. August asked what a seizure was, so a word of the day, then asked what she learned to do and wanted her to show him on him. So she did that.

He was then saying “Asmodeus!” to Carly, which was really funny. She didn’t know what it was, but it is from Redwall. He then joked to me “I want to read I want to bend a peg leg.” He ate a ton of fresh mango as Carly cut it up. She asked “Are you going to become a fruititarian?” He replied “Maybe! Maybe I’ll be a mangotarian!” And “I want to send out tons of mango ads…even to New Zealand. Even though New Zealand doesn’t exist!”

He played Minecraft with his evening time, then was a “Mango zombie!” Had quiche for dinner, then we read My Little Pony. I then went up to work. Carly gave him a bath and cut his hair. I went in to read to him before bed. We finished volume 9 of My Little Pony and read a new book I got called The Dreamer, which he quite liked. He was then doing head stands and kept himself up for a few seconds. I left them at 9:30 and went for a run.

Humming and string:

New friends at R’anana Park:

In the zoo:

Pumping up balloons:

Humming and drawing his bug:

Being a hammock:

Searching through junk:

Headstand 2:

Headstand 1:

I woke him up at 7:35. We read a lot of Bone, then he wanted to do Minecraft with me. We did Minecraft and I exercised. He had oatmeal for breakfast. We watched a couple of videos about zombie insects (https://youtu.be/9-QsT-U2d4k) and a Minecraft video. We then did a Baby Sister games where Brother and Sister argue over saying happy birthday to her first (she was turning 2) only for the dad to do it. Then he had Bar inventing a cyborg beetle that they controlled. This somehow led to Baby Sister stealing Brother and Sister’s embarrassing memories.

We then looked at our agenda and read My Little Pony. I made egg salad and we had that for lunch and he had a popsicle. He invented a scenario where Brohter is really bad at bowling. We ran with that, and everyone else was really good, but he always managed gutter balls. It turned into things exploding, of course.

He did Legos by himself as I started to make the quiche. He made a car thing. He earned one video, and watched a Minecraft video. He asked what ‘shears’ are, so a word of the day. He then was asking how you can make a completely empty world in Minecraft. We watched a video of how someone does that. That led to a Brother game with Brother dreaming of a scary world. That turned out to be a nightmare, and when he woke up he got in trouble because he was caught staying up late plying video games. ‘Spawn’ became another word of the day, from ‘spawning’ in Minecraft.

He also asked “What’s contamination?” Not sure what that word was from.

We left at 2:30. As we went out, the kids across the street were walking home, and Nomi said hi to us. She’s one of the twins, maybe 8 or so.

We went to the toy store by the train station to look at swim stuff. Found a cheap set of snorkel and mask and tried on the few flippers they had, but all too small to him. We walked around the store, with August saying “What’s this?” many, many times. He really liked the big robot statue made out of parts and electronics pieces. A very random thing to be standing in such a toy store. We got the red snorkel set and I let him get a water balloon pumping thing with balloons.

We parked at the school and before we got out he said “A quiz…one question…which is grosser? Eating a slug or eating this thing on my shoe?” Great delivery on the whole thing.

We met Taya and Cassie as we went in. They were headed to the pool as well. Took a while to get there as Cassie kept talking to or getting talked to by other teachers, much to Taya’s chagrin. Omri and family were also there.

In the pool we tried out the snorkel and mask. Unfortunately, the mask is too big for him. He ended up sharing the snorkel really well, as Omri, Taya, and Jonathan all wanted to use it.

Carly showed up as well, and we swam until 4:30 or so, then headed home so Carly could eat and stuff before she had to come back for the back-to-school night.

We had the quiche for dinner and read My Little Pony. Carly headed back to school. We had some special Minecraft time, then I made popcorn and put on the first episode of My Little Pony. He hasn’t wanted to watch it, as he didn’t like that the voices would be different. But once I had it on he found it hilarious.

We then read part of volume 9, then went upstairs for a bath. He played in the sink, and started taking the hair off of Carly’s brush, getting it wet, and hanging it over the faucet in a sort of sculpture. He said he was doing her a favor by cleaning her brush.

We washed him, then he caught a tiny cockroach out on the floor. We were in bed when Carly got home. She came in and said good night. He tried to convince me things don’t wear out in real life because you could fix them. I told him two stories from my life. One was when the foam soccer ball burned. Can’t remember the other one. He was asleep by 9:55.

Being a zombie:

Coughing up some water:

Balloon pumper:

Hair sculpture:

He was starting to wake up when I went in at 7:40. the first thing he said to me was he asked to add to our house in Minecraft. We went downstairs, and I read the first two chapters of Bone.

We then played Minecraft, then I exercised. He got extra time because of that, but he did a good job stopping before his time was even up. I made fried eggs for breakfast. He had a second. He had some of the new strawberry banana apple juice and said it was really good. I said I wasn’t particularly fond of banana taste in juice and he responded incredulously: “What are you even saying? Why are you saying this? That is crazy.” He had his second egg, even though I broke the yoke.

He made up a black hole toilet, and we discussed discussed how scientists study black holes even if they can’t see them. He then talked about a “colored telescope” that is 19 stories tall.

We read volume 7 of My Little Pony. We discussed our agenda for the day. I had the idea of writing that each day on the iPad as well, and writing down his ideas, so he could read along. That worked well, and he decided to do some alone time, making a pillow fort/sculpture over between the red chairs. We started with that.

He made a fort, then we started to take apart the blender, then put it back together (we hadn’t gotten really far) when I realized it was a juicer, which August wanted to buy at Ace. Jeff just got rid of this one because the plastic pieces are wearing out. I figured we could at least try a juicer with this one so we wouldn’t have to buy a new one.

He was going to do more alone time, but found his kid chopsticks first. He practiced with them, then took them apart and used them for a Brother game: they were extendo fingers, a locator, and musical fingers. Ended up with doing dangerous things with Baby Sister. They went in the Spaceslug, Bar’s spaceship, and he made it slimy after Baby Sister suggested it. We were listening to the newest Joe Strummer album.

We went back upstairs and he told me the story of a dog that broke it’s foot. “The end. I mean, to be continued.” Told the creepy photo story as well. We went downstairs to do some math on the white board. We did fraction addition and subtraction, and ‘Numerator’ and ‘denominator’ were words of the day. We had a good talk about visualizing numbers in our heads: “So I wrote 24 in my head, mysteriously.” “I can actually visualize pictures from the past in my head…it’s amazing.”

He also talked about how he could feel something like the door, then walk and feel something else, like the table, and still be feeling the first thing: “I can feel two things at th same time…Can anybody else do that? Cuz I have spefial mind powers.”

I made egg salad during this time and we had sandwiches for lunch. We read My Little Pony and ‘celadon’ was another word of the day. He said “I’d say you’re the greatest man, and mama’s the greatest girl…we’ll, I mean woman.” And “Did you know if you killed your ancestors, you’d fade away?” Turned out it was from the caveman book Carly is reading to him.

We went out and cleared out the blue shelves, taking out the books. We might still get something smaller to put out there, or not. He had a fruit roll up that showed up from somewhere and declared it the best thing ever.

We went up and made the beds. He kept playing with chopstick inventions and showing them to Baby Sister. We started My Little Pony #8. We then did reading time. He did quite well, despite doing lots and lots of walking around and me telling him he had to come look at the words.

He asked “What’s a hanky?” From My Little Pony, I think.

We then walked up to do recycling. He found a big walking stick while up there. He had wanted to do the Wizards Unite game, so we sat in the park and did that, first at the exercise equipment, then up at the alligator bench. When he sat on it he asked “Remember the alligator bench?”

We then walked south for a couple blocks to play a little more. It was nice to hear August talking about walking down more streets again, even if it was for a game. When we got back to the house at 5:15 he commented on how he had chosen to go on a walk, and that he trusted me about the weather.

He checked on the vines by the Zinnie house, then ate a full banana. Carly got home. We had also put down more ant poison. He told us “We should move to a new house cuz there’s so many problems with this house. I can list them for you: 1. The vines…”

He went out and did three plant chores with Carly, then came in and played Minecraft. I was making dinner. He chose the big shell noodles and I just put pesto on them. He had that, and seconds, and a schnitzel and carrot and mango.

They FaceTimed with Cherie and Vivian and Colin. Colin kept saying “Ketchup farted” and bit tongue. August told them at length about how his iPad time has changed.

He was then still walking in circles and talking about how his planet used to be made of cake but now it’s all covered with trash. “…a ton of trash flying through the cosmos…Isn’t that a nice ending? Then the aliens flew through space to become humans for ever.”

We played the extra 30 minutes of Minecraft he had earned, then read My Little Pony. He took a long time on the toilet, then we went upstairs and he played in the sink. I talked to him about a possibility of a martial arts class for Krav Maga (the Israeli take on them) that one of the homeschooling moms was suggesting on WhatsApp. I went in the office to talk to Carly, and he called “Maybe I could try it.”

I washed him, and Carly brushed his teeth. He remembered the bug video Carly had mentioned earlier, about a fungus that controls the brain of insects. He said to her “You know how sometimes when people are talking to you they want you to look at them? Could you do that?” She was looking for the video at the time. They watched the video about cordyceps from Hostile Planet by National Geographic. I went for a run. Left them just before 9:30.

Building a pillow fort:

Explaining the fort:

Extendo-fingers:

Telling a story:

Poking the plastic:

Explaining his iPad time to Vivian:

He was up a little before 7. I couldn’t get him back to sleep. Carly got his iPad and he started watching Minecraft videos. I went down, and he wanted to do stuff, like fishing, that he saw the guy doing, but then didn’t want to stop just flying around, etc. So instead he went back to watching the videos again.

He went to the bathroom, then while putting clothes back on sang “Squirt guns in the garbage, squirt guns in the garbage…baby hits everyone in the pool, baby hits everyone in the school…astronauts…”

He played with Street View on Carly’s computer, then moved back to the couch with it. He found an elementary school in Austria that you can do Street View through (German Czeck understanding or something like that). He said “There’s really cool pictures…they’re amazing” as he looked at kid art in the school.

We got some cleaning done, and he did a little vacuuming. He as trying to earn more watching time, but initially didn’t want to do more, and he curled up on the couch while Carly did more. The hose to our showerhead has started leaking, and I investigated. Turns out we need a new hose.

August got his extra iPad time somehow, and I went to do some work. They then went to the pool, and got back after 12:15. He quickly ate a fried egg and frozen mango, then I drove us to Gabi’s office. Had to drive around block to get to the parking lot as there is some street work going on. Still made it in time though.

As we walked in I asked him about swimming. He said there wasn’t anyone he knew there, but he had Carly introduce him to a woman who had a baby who was almost a toddler. There was a brother who he thought was in fifth grade (Carly later said fourth) and is named Shark. The other boy was older than August but younger than Shark. He didn’t remember his name.

I initially went in with him to Gabi’s, but was quickly able to leave. August gave me one of two stone pyramids to use as telephones so he could call me if he needed me. He then tried it out and I yelled back that I could hear him. I then heard them having fun, first with the swords. He spent the entire time with Gabi. I got to study Hebrew. I heard them having fun with the swords, then at the end August called me in to show me what he had made. He had used a variety of items to make a sort of sculpture. A red string went from Gabi’s wrist over to the main structure. He said it was a tourniquet. August had also made some sort of magical creature, I think it was, out of popsicle sticks and clay and stickers and stuff. August helped clean up after I suggested a robot clean up. He then continued to clean up on his own as a robot, breaking down at one point, but then when I repaired him he did a super fast cleanup as a robot.

We headed back to the car, then drove to Ace Hardware in Netanya. We spent some time looking at the fans, microwaves, garbage cans, and kitchen gadets. I was looking at coffee grinders, but August was most interested in a juicer. We found the hose part we needed for the shower, and went for the 8 year fancy one with the smooth aluminum hose. On our way out August spotted sets of small grinder tools and suggested it as a present for Grampa. I reminded him that Grampa already had a set like it on his upstairs workbench.

We then walked over to the iDigital store. I told August we were just getting a plug adapter and headphone adapters, but then found that they had watch bands (mine started to break) and reasonably-ish priced wireless headphones (mine did break a couple days ago). August reminded me I promised it would be quick. I couldn’t decide on things, there were a lot of people waiting, and they didn’t have the plug adapter anyway, so we left.

We drove home the north way through Even Yehuda, which threw August off as he didn’t recognize things. As we got to parts he recognized, he was being a robot saying “100 percent recognized, 90 percent recognized…” He broke a couple times and was saying “0 percent recognized, 0 percent recognized” when we were close to home.

We got home and Carly read to him. The internet had gone out right after they had left earlier. Still not working. I fixed it by plugging a cord back in. Weird thing to have happen. I also put the new hose on the shower.

August realized that the tape on the floor for the degrees of a circle was missing. He asked to have it put back, as he couldn’t do his jumping game between the lines anymore.

Carly headed to the store. I read some My Little Pony, then started setting up Minecraft so we could both play together. This was a long process which required setting up a Microsoft account for him, then linking it to mine in a family account because of his age, then giving him permission to play in a shared world, then having Minecraft on his iPad glitch in a way that finally required us to remove it from his iPad and reinstall. Sheesh.

But at the end of it, after Carly got back, we were ready, and we generated a world in Minecraft based on his initials (AZAN) and started playing together, each on our iPads, sitting next to each other. We started on building a house. We had a lot of fun, and I think there will be a lot for us to do. August learned the word ‘username’ in the process, and his is ‘AugustinoMaster’ in Minecraft.

We had the leftover pasta that Natalie sent back with us for dinner. I went up and worked. They FaceTimed with Cherie, who was teaching August how to do a stand with his head on the floor and back against the couch, then read The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cvemen from the Future. She took him up for his bath, and August came into the office to show me his foam machine.

I got him dressed and teeth brushed, and he made a yarn zip line for his scissors. He wants to learn signing words like ‘Space time continuum’, ‘Waxing crescent’, and ‘Waning gibbous’. I was trying to remind him of Hadera science center as we were discussing future field trip plans. He was trying to remember by himself and said, “I don’t need any outside information.” I left them at 9:30 and went for a run.

Using his new walking sticks:

First crafting in Minecraft:

Instructions from Oma:

I had my book group meeting at 1:30. I stayed up for it this time, then went to bed afterwards.

I think I heard him get up and go downstairs about 7:20. I got up at 8 and went down a few minutes later. They were trying to figure out how to do Street View on his iPad. I helped figure it out, then he played around with that for a bit. I had him looking at places in Paris. He went outside with Carly for a few minutes, then came back in and did his watching time.

He switched to Minecraft and went outside with Carly. I got coffee and went out with them to type. August kept talking to me, so Carly headed inside. I wanted to go back in after 20 minutes or so, but he was the one really enjoying being outside now. He said he liked the breeze. He found elevated train tracks in Minecraft and when I said that was what they are he asked what ‘elevated’ meant. A word of the day.

Carly and August headed to the pool. There was someone there that he knew. They spent quite a while there, then went to the grocery store for a quick trip to get veggies for the dinner tonight. They got back, and August waited pretty patiently for me to finish up the email I was working on. We were going to watch Minecraft videos together, as before they left we had watched a couple ‘Parent guide to Minecraft’ sort of videos, then found a really good channel of a guy showing kids how to play Minecraft. We had watched the first one (https://youtu.be/NAI5ZXY_tkk) together, but now August didn’t want to watch them in order. So he watched some random one, and I did a little more work. Carly cut the veggies for later.

He had some mango, and Carly made him an egg. I read my Little Pony, and he had a second egg. At 2:30 he asked “When are we going to the play date. I’m dying for it!” He then had the idea of saving bottles to make music with, and said the idea was from Mac and Ruby: “See, I told you noneducational videos teach you stuff.” He then told me about what things would be like in the future. At one point he saw me with Facebook open and there was a video of people shoving to get on a subway car in India. He watched that, then told me about Mubea Island that he found. Which I think also had some sort of shoving to get on the subway, but otherwise was a very nice place.

We headed over just before 4 to Natalie and Ben’s house. Elise greeted us with handwritten menus. We had brought Candyland, and Carly thought to bring the straw building set and the Snap Circuits sets. That was really good thinking, as those were the two main things the kids would play with all evening.

We had also brought the dolmas and chickpeas thing I had bought and added those to their appetizers spread. All of us had appetizers, and Elise wrote down our orders for dinner.

August got right to work playing with them. They had the electrical set out, and I showed Corinne, and then Elise, how to build with it. August started making an abstract sculpture out of the straws, and said he knew I’d really like it because I like abstract things. He then let Elise help add to it. The three of them got really into making a line of straws that stretched all the way up the stairs, then lowered all the way to the ground. It would, of course, at some point break, and they’d have to repair it.

Dinner took longer to cook than Natalie expected, but it was fine as the kids were doing so well. August also made a sculpture in the living room out of pillows and other random items. We talked to Ben about his job with the Chicago Stock Exchange, and to Natalie about growing up in New Brunswick, and her adventures with border patrol to the U.S.

When dinner was ready, the kids had their own table. They had Schweppes raspberry lemonade and August really liked it and requested that we get it sometime. After dinner, Elise served up the sundaes for dessert. August was in heaven. He got really concerned when Elise and Corinne got upset when Corinne thought that Elise got more ice cream than her.

They recovered from that, and we finally left at 7:50. August did a great job of leaving when it was time. In the car, he was being funny, saying “I’m picturing what a zombie apocalypse would look like.” “I’ll picture people drinking cocktails at a beach all day…humankind hasn’t invented that world ever.” This seemed really odd at first, but it is from the Super Tony video about possible virtual realities. He then said he was picturing “Tanks, bombers, people shooting arrows, spiders everywhere.” “Now I’m picturing what a volcano would look like.”

At home he used his evening time to watch a couple more of the Minecraft videos, we did a little more reading, I got in a little more work, and I left them around 9:30.

Cleaning out the cupboard:

Dancing to a new song:

Dancing 2:

Dancing 3 – to Bad Religion:

Dancing at our dinner party:

Straws:

He was very kicky through the night. Got up and got him socks at 4-something, but it didn’t seem to help much. Then, he woke up at 6:24. I rushed up to put him back to sleep. He was very talkative, first telling me he wanted to go downstairs, then saying something as he changed his mind and climbed on the bed. He sat there, and said something about “You put me to sleep, I slept in the night, and now it is morning” with a grin on his face. But then he lay down, near the foot of the bed, and fell back to sleep.

He got up at 7:13. He sat on the couch for a few minutes, then wanted his iPad. He objected when I went to read a book first, but then I found a book on Skybrary called The Case of Vampire Vivian. It was about bats, and at the end they watch bats leaving the bat house attached toVivian’s house. He said he wanted to read more books like it, but first, his watching time.

I exercised, and he watched Max and Ruby. August managed to fit in the small iHerb box and I said he looked like a cat. He asked “Could I be brother’s little kitty that he bought with his allowance money?”

He ate frozen mango, then oatmeal. We then played with Legos. He wanted to make a plane, and took apart the boat he had made with Carly yesterday. He said that we’d make something out of what he had made, then tonight she would make something out of what we made. I made him a little plane. He immediately started to play with it, saying “Ground control, ground control. Emergency. We are out of fuel and need to land.” Which I think is from watching a Bright Side video about a plane that ran out of fuel and made an emergency landing. He kept calling me “Ground control” I then converted it into a sub for him enclosing the pilot: “This is perfect!”

I wrote his reading pages, then we read My Little Pony. They mentioned thesaurus a few times, and he wanted me to look up words in one. He said “hat…Oh, I know one, cap.”

He ate some mango, then had a pomegranate popsicle. He talked about how he wants to bowl again next summer. He asked “What’s a magical council?” So ‘council’ was a word of the day. He then came up with a Brother story with him bleeding from the face unexpectedly. Don’t really know where that came from, although he talked about how it had happened to someone at preschool.

We went upstairs, and ended up building a pillow mountain for him to jump onto. He wanted to argue, and it turned into an argument about arguing. I need to show him the Monty Python skit.

I agreed to drive over to the mall. We were heading over for lunch. The parking lot was complete madness. I almost gave up, but then thought maybe I could find somewhere outside of the mall to park. And then I drove around to the back of the mall and found the second dirt lot. There were only about ten cars there and plenty of space. Perfect.

We went to the Druze place. I got a lafa for Carly, and August got a triangular meat pastry. I got containers of things for dinner at Natalie and Ben’s tomorrow. I got the grape leaf dolmas and a chick pea thing. They then gave me a cabbage leaf dolma. August ate it and liked it, so I bought a container of those.

We went out to a bench by the playground and ate. He ate part of the pastry and about five of the dolmas. He played around a little, using a stick to try to reach an ant nest on the other side of a low fence.

We then went into Tiv Taam and did some shopping. We left through the back exit of the mall, right to our car.

We drove home and I put groceries away and we got ready for swimming. We drove to school and went to the library. We checked out the first two Bone books, as he had seen a Bone poster last time we were there and said he wanted to read it again, and The Adventures of Ook and Gluck for him to read with Carly.

We went to the pool after 3. Ben was there with the girls, and Natalie was at the grocery store. They had a Minnie Mouse inner tube that they let August use, so he was lounging in the pool with his vest on, the inner tube around him, and his feet up on the kickboard. Carly showed up a little after 4. He also tried out their flippers (which made him quite fast) and snorkeling mask and snorkel.

As we got out and headed home, he asked “Is there any goggles at the library to see from an ant’s perspective?”

When we got in the car Carly was surprised when I asked August to close his door, then get buckled. He’s started doing both himself. The door thing started today.

At home he wanted to eat the pomegranate we had bought today. I cut that up, and he ate a bunch of it. Took a long time. He told Carly “When I grow up I want to be a professional cupcake taster.” From My Little Pony. He told me “Even if you don’t like something if you keep trying it you will.” And he sang about pomegranates staining clothes.

We read My Little Pony. ‘Chapeau’, which I had read off as a synonym for hat earlier in the day, so another word of the day. ‘Continuity error’ was another word of the day after we discussed them somehow. He told me “Here’s another theory of the universe…” We are inn a computer. If you keep going you’d find a huge version of yourself becuase you’d get out of the computer. He quoted a joke in My Little Pony: “Broom? Closet? Who knows what that even means?” We watched Marble Machine X #89, then he did his evening iPad time. He was then being grumpy sleepy with Carly. I got him some crackers and meat.

As I took him up to bed he asked “Will dada and Zinnie always be a team?” I brushed his teeth, then left them at 9:30. I went for a run.

Floating the plane:

Floating the plane 2:

Pillow mountain:

Singing about things:

Enjoying the floaties:

Trying the snorkel:

Spin jumps: