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I woke him up at 7:50. I got our water and vitamins, then we did a lot of reading of My Little Pony, finishing volume 6, then starting volume 1 again and reading more than two issues. We ate breakfast along the way. Him with oatmeal and mango.

He then did a little Minecraft, then watched a long marble race video while I exercised. He created an invention by combining the baby bottle with a toilet paper roll. He then used it as a musical instrument and marched around in circles humming Pink Panther. When he saw me filming he did spin moves. He put down the bottle and showed them some more and said he could use the moves in his ninja routine with Vivian next summer. At least he didn’t say at winter break, which is what he usually mentions now.

We then talked about reading and homeschooling. He doesn’t want to read books, so I was asking him questions about it. He told me “When I can read stories I’ll read TONs of stories.” He explained that he just wants to learn by reading short words and phrases, like the funny ones I’ve written on paper and done out of the magnets. He said that reading is hard because he doesn’t know the individual words and needs to learn more of them.

So we decided to change direction. I got the Apple Pencil and made a notebook on the iPad. I am going to write words for him to read. I asked which characters I should write about when I do short sentences, and he liked the idea of hearing about Lunch Robot. That reminded him of having lunch at preschool, and he explained “I get grossed out by lunch…it makes me grossed out even thinking about it…it was so gross.” In particular was the infamous seeing a noodle on a chair and refusing to sit there incident he brings up regularly.

Anyway, I wrote a few sentences for him to read, and he said he wanted me to write about how Lunch Robot gets licked by a dog again, then the friends try to dry him out.

We then discussed his current interests, and I wrote the words down in the notebook for him to read. Some of the things he is interested in now include sign language (the first thing he said), chemistry, magic, digging for stuff, space, and being a teacher. We talked about how he could watch a video, then teach me about it.

A bit later he was talking about the atmosphere for some reason (something about balloons going up to space or the such) and where it reaches space and he said “Oh, the troposphere!” He said he calls it the “top-o-sphere.” And he noted he had taught me something.

We got ready to go to school. He asked Siri to play something nonsensical and he got a random song. He then wanted it added to his playlist.

In the car he told me that he only listens to music in cars, that it doesn’t go with things like planes. I asked “What goes with jet planes?” He replied “The sound of the engines…that’s the music…”

We got to the school and went to the library. Ilana had a class in the corner, and August was hesitant to go in and look at books at all. I showed him how the search works and discussed the Dewey decimal system. We looked at his list and started with books on sign language. I went in and grabbed a few, and he chose a couple to pick out. He also found a book about preschool he wanted to check out, and we also got a Guinness Book of World Records. We then got a couple books on magic as well.

We had a few minutes before we had to go pick up Eve. So we went out and sat on the bench outside: “Ah, my favorite bench!” He had a cereal bar. He told me more about lunch at preschool and

that at lunch time he would ask a different teacher every time he needed help. He said it was intentional: “I spread out the work.”

We picked up Eve. He was shy while we waited, and waited back under the stairs. We went to the big playground for a few minutes, but then bigger kids started to come out for their lunch recess. We headed to the other playground and saw Omri and Jonathan with Rita. I let them borrow our spoons as theirs had disappeared.

At the preschool playground there were several kids, including Taya. She started playing with them, and showed us her big toe, which is all dry and cracking and she’s been picking at.

They all went on the swing, and Eve seemed to think that a fan would help her toe. August said “A fan wouldn’t help Taya’s toe because it would evaporate more water and make it drier.”

They played around a good amount. August was ready to head to lunch but Eve wasn’t. She was making a medicine over in the kitchen. August went on the swings a bit more and was a good sport when she wasn’t ready to leave. I saw two incidents between preschoolers: one girl hitting another and getting hit back, then a boy throwing sand in the face of another boy.

They wanted to go straight home, so we cut our Sushi Ishimoto and headed home. August showed her the invention he had made earlier: he had taped the baby bottle to a toilet paper roll so it was easier to use. I made a grazing lunch: crackers, corn crisps, meat, fresh mango, grapes, and plums that I sliced up.

They played around and he showed her Minecraft. They played that up in the fort for about 20 minutes, then did some voice recordings. Eve talked about doing an experiment to bring June Carter Cash back to life.

They played outside and back inside started doing a variety of mixtures/experiments. They would take turns choosing ingredients to add. They put one thing out in the sun, then had a stale corn crisp that they wetted and set out. Then the big one was a pot full of all sorts of things.

They had popsicles, both choosing lemon, but Eve lost part of hers when it fell into their soup. They played back outside. Eve was leaving her son, August, in the house while she went and did things.

They came back in and both had a yogurt, then they shared watering all of the plants.

We walked up to the park at 4:10. She rode the balance bike up. August got to the park first because he took a short cut, and I sang a “It’s not a competition” song. Eve was singing my song a little later.

They climbed around a bit, then we all went on the exercise equipment for a good amount of time. Then it was over to the pirate ship, where I was a passenger. There was service like on an airplane. Then it was sinking. Eve was usually the captain while they were playing, but near the end she told August he was the captain.

Carly stopped by for a minute, then headed on home. We did more of the sinking. Eve knew that August didn’t know how to ride his balance bike and was trying to teach him. He was then practicing, and doing better than he ever has.

About 5:20 we walked home. There was a dog and August took a big detour to get around. I reminded him that “You sometimes like dogs.” He replied “Only if they’re adorable!”

Eve was picked up by 5:30. I realized she had left her shoes at the park. Heather stopped up there, and I realized I had Eve’s sunglasses, so walked them up to her.

Carly and August played evil wizard with the straws—something they had done with Vivian over FaceTime yesterday. He ate some lentil soup. Carly was then trying to read to him, but he was climbing on her and she had to take a break.

They read the Guinness Book of World Records. ‘Neutron star’ was a word of the day. I was looking up stuff for our reading time, and finally August spent several minutes playing by himself, playing with the kite string, which he was casting like a fishing lure.

We went up for a Brother game. He met a girl that had some new magic power. Randomly, hee told me “Another thing I’m interested in is controlling my dream…then I can just have fun dreams…then I’ll have way extra iPad time in my dreams…I want to play with Eve in my dreams, I want to make things in my dreams…”

I got him playing in the sink, then switched with Carly and I went for a run. I got back and took a shower. When I came down he was watching a Dr. Binocs video on emotions/anger. I took him up and brushed his teeth. He was asking me “What’s nine times three?” He’s been asking me and Carly that one for a couple months, even though he knows the answer.

He said good night to Carly. He was then telling me about his sight and hearing, and asked about how they test your vision. For my story today I told him about the time capsule we made in sixth grade. He liked the idea, and talked about how he had made time capsules, “presents for the future.”

He asked me if he could start watching scary movies once he can control his dream; then he won’t have nightmares. He told me that ‘Needros’ are the things that give people nightmares.

He had trouble switching off his brain, asking questions like “What’s hypothetical?” And ‘Why do you hiccup?” And explaining how “If you’re trying to fix a porch and you don’t have any nails left…” He told me more about fake trees (Carly had read about how there are now fake trees that can clean the air) and explained that “I have lots of gadets…” He was asleep at 10:30.

Marching in circles and playing with his invention:

Big spins:

On the big swing once again:

Fluid experiments with Eve 1:

Fluid experiments with Eve 2:

Fluid experiments with Eve 3:

Playing in the Zinnie house:

Exercising together:

Practicing on the balance bike:

He was up at 7:20. I was already up and went down with him. He went out and found Carly. Back inside he watched Julius Jr. and had oatmeal and mango. Carly started us on a big clean up. She had a bucket of stuff from outside to throw out and I helped him sort through it and he chose a couple things he wanted to keep, like his Hello Kitty cup.

We went upstairs for a Brother Game. There’s been a flatbed scanner, waiting to be taken apart, and we took it up and used it for the game. It was a Bar invention. At first it was a “laser reflector…it’s also a spy pager. It can print out a page on what people are doing.” He also used the new microscope on my phone. He said it was a “bioscanner” and asked “what’s ‘biomass’?” A word of the day.

Back downstairs he looked under couch with a flashlight and found a bouncy ball, then played with it. I decifered water and sewage bill, which had come to us instead of going to the business office. He ate some meat and crackers and we read My Little Pony and finished volume 5. He had more meat and crackers. Carly took over and read Dog Man. I went up to work.

I came down at 12:30 and took him to Gabi’s. On the way there we discussed elements and compounds, and he invented something called phosphofluoride.

Gabi had a pair of walkie talkies, but they didn’t have batteries. August went out with him to find a screwdriver, and told me to wait in the room. Back in his office August took the screw out and put it back in. While he did that Gabi suggested I got sit out in the lobby. I went about and they played on their own, with the swords, for about 20 minutes. August then wanted me to come back in when he wanted me to see the charades game. We played that all together for the rest of the time.

Outside, August played in a little bushy area. He had found ants on the way in, and now dug through some broken asphalt. We then walked a block to the west, to Pizza Rondo. On the way, he reached down and picked up a chunk of something from the ground. It was a chunk of metal. And at first it was hot, and he wrapped it in his shirt.

As we ordered a medium cheese pizza, he kept speculating on what kind of metal it was. He told me about some app he had seen advertised that identified objects. A woman pointed it at a coconut and it said ‘coconut’. I wasn’t sure what app he was talking about, and told him at best it would say ‘rock’, and not tell us what kind of metal it was.

We ate the whole pizza, half each, although I ate his crust. We then walked back to the car. He discussed how sweating and cooling off and keeping warm work. I saw a mural of a spider/octopus and we walked down to look at it, then walked around the block and up a path to our car.

We were home home just after 3. He went outside with Carly. There’s a hole by our kitchen door that looks like a wasp’s nest, but we’ve never seen anything by it. August said “If I see a bee, let’s pack up our luggage and go.”

Inside, he or Carly got out the magnet blocks. I did magnet blocks with him for a while. He had made a house with a carport on his own, then he had me build a car. He added to it. I went up to work at 4, but the car broke and he got quite upset about it; not something that has happened recently at all.

I came down and helped him rebuild it and played with him for a while long, then went back up to work. They FaceTimed with Cherie and Vivian and everyone. I came down at 7:10. He ate carrot, cantaloupe, and soup.

They were looking at something on her iPad and discussing bacteria and viruses and vaccines. He said he wanted to get tons of vaccines and said “I love getting vaccines.” We said we’d remind him of that next time he had to get one.

He also asked “What’s improvisation?” He had two bowls of oatmeal and we read volume 6 of My Little Pony.

I took him up for his bath. He was sitting in the shower and singing. He was playing with the small funnel and a small nozzle piece, putting them together. He was figuring out ways to squirt water out, and they were also timers. He found the electric thermometer and said “I can’t wait to get sick.”

I washed him and washed his hair. He had a lollipop, but didn’t use it much. He is quite fine with getting sprayed by the shower head over most of his body now, and doesn’t need his hair blow dryer. He did more singing after his shower, singing a song for me to record.

I left them at about 9 as she was going to put pajamas on him. I said good night and went for a run.

Playing with the scanner:

Explaining his magnet block house:

Lollipop song:

He woke up at 7:08. He’d already started to wake up once awhile before but saw me and went back to sleep. I went up and turned off the air conditioner, then had him go tell Carly that coffee was ready.

He watched the Animusic and marble race videos on YouTube, which he hasn’t watched in a long time. I took a shower, then went to work. They dyed eggs, but only the red and yellow paints were working, as the others had dried up. His two eggs turned out well though. I came down to see the eggs and I hung out with him for a few minutes, then went back up to work.

They then went to the big Tiv Taam. He did a great job. He got to choose one of the Russian candies but turned out to not like it, so he had a little chocolate when he got home instead. And he was able to point out the correct crackers for her to get. When they got back at 11:40 he came up to show me and have me taste his raspberry jello.

I went down a bit later. They were making the stacking shape cards. The ones that my parents had given us when we were in Korea, and that he played with a lot last year. He had found the boxes for them when Eve was here but I couldn’t find the cards. They had found the cards, and he was choosing designs for Carly to make. He then had me do a couple.

We went upstairs to play Brother chaos game. He then got his iPad to do math on it, and was teaching Brother how to use the graphing calculator. He wanted to blow a bubble with gum, so we went downstairs to practice. We each had a piece of bubble gum, and we watched a couple of videos about blowing bubbles. He was getting closer, but wasn’t quite there. He had schnitzel and mango for lunch. Didn’t eat much of it. He asked “What’s ‘embarrassing’?” A word of the day.

We had talked about going to the beach this evening, but he decided he just wanted to go to the pool. We left at 2:45. He came up with the line “You drive me crazy, super Daisy!” Not sure where from. When he pointed out something in the car and Carly said something bout it he told her “Just focus on driving.”

We got in the pool. Somewhat busy today, but no one we knew. He saw a vest on the side that he looked like his, but then when he got closer realized it was quite different. I taught him the phrase ‘at first glance’. Carly did a lot of swimming wearing his pink goggles, and eventually they were playing with some diving rings and rockets. They belonged to someone who worked there, and she let them keep them, then we put them in her mailbox when we left.

Right as we were about to get out, a mother came charging by and dove in the pool. Her son had tried to swim across the pool and apparently was struggling. She got him and he was fine, but it was dramatic.

On the walk out to the car, August talked about wanting an AIS shirt for homeschool kindergarten. I think he had seen Eve’s the other day. Carly said she could get him one.

We were home after 4. He accidentally knocked one of his bowls off the dining table and the corner broke. Should be able to super glue it. He had some frozen mango. I ate a carrot, and he ate one piece of it. He asked, “What’s semistructure mean?” But I wasn’t sure what he was referring to. He had a vanilla popsicle, then did some math with Carly to earn iPad time.

Carly made a quiche-like zucchini and bacon dish. He said he really liked it when she gave him a taste, but then decided he didn’t like it when she actually gave him a dish of it. We read My Little Pony. He ate a full carrot, then had crackers and meat. They went to do more math.

We tried the new little microscope thing that attaches to my phone. It had finally come in the mail. Works decent and will be fun. I then went for a run and he got his evening iPad time.

When I got home he was still playing in the shower. I took over. I took a shower first while he played in the sink instead, then I washed him. He had gotten play dough on his hand fan the other day, and we now went down and he used the tweezers from his tools to get bits of it out of the charging port. His first electronics repair!

We read some My Little Pony. He asked me “Dada? Do you ever feel relief when you’ve been inside for days and you go outside? I do.” I don’t know if he thought of that himself or what.

We got him ready for bed and Carly left us around 9. He was asleep by 9:30, but I fell asleep with him for a while. I told him stories about going to the Museum of Flight and to the Pacific Science Center around the time of Halley’s Comet.

Working on blowing bubbles:

Singing in the pool:

Suction cup in the sink:

He kicked me in the head in the middle of the night, then ws jabbing his feet into my side. I got up and got him socks and he was fine the rest of the night.

He got part way down the stairs and said “Dada” around 6:15 and I put him back to sleep. Then, at 7:20 he got up. I carried him downstairs, thinking he was awake now, but he fell back to sleep on the couch. I started waking him up at 7:55. He finally admitted he was awake at 8:15 and got up. He went to the bathroom, then we read Perimeter, Area, and Volume: A Monster Book of Dimensions. We played the terraforming game for a couple minutes, then he watched videos.

He watched Berenstain Bears and ate oatmeal. I exercised. We went upstairs to play for 30 minutes. He agreed to a timer. He played with the Shark Bite game, then it was a trap to catch sister. After which we did the whole chaos game. We were listening to the new Ride album.

After 30 minutes we went downstairs. He read the Dress Up Bob Book, then Gum on the Rug in Khan Academy Kids. He had tried to sneak outside without doing any reading time, even though that had been the deal. We now went outside to look for a bug, but ‘caught’ a line of some sort of sealant or glue that was out on one of the boards around our yard.

We then got going to the mall. He agreed to take the bike; the first time we’ve used it since being back. On the other side of the bridge he was pedaling on his own.

We had fun at the mall, although we weren’t too successful in our missions. The barber was still gone, but at least I learned that he will be back on Monday. August chose one of the strawberry marshmallows from the candy stand. He really liked it, and told me I had to have a bite.

We left the bike down at that end of the mall, as it was all very busy due to it being the market day. We stopped at the toy store to see if they had swim flippers. They did not. August, however, found plenty of other things he wanted, like a doll and a squishy ball that lights up and a tricycle. We then went to Tiv Taam to look for a spray bottle. No such luck. Nor did they have one at the health food store. Well, they had plenty of nice ones, but they were all full of stuff. Finally, we went to the pharmacy. They had different types of little bottles, like for shampoo, etc. but not spray bottles. Actually, they did have one set of little bottles, like for a bathroom kit, that did have a spray bottle, but it was more than we needed.

They had food vendors set up where the indoor play area usually is. We bought a lafa wrap with labanah from the Druze woman and a container of the dolma. We made our way out to the playground and ate the lafa while sitting on the plane. We then headed home.

It was supposed to be movie and popcorn time at home. August just wanted to watch Julius Jr. though, despite me showing him other movies and shows. We started with popsicles, each having lemon, then made the popcorn. He watched a few episodes of Julius Jr. and I studied Hebrew and Arabic.

We then went upstairs and did the Brother game where they are all stuck in a void. He had the baby sister being born while in a void. Then the baby sister chose to watch Baby Shark, which annoyed everyone else.

We got ready and headed to school just before 3. We met Carly outside her classroom about 3:10. She was actually standing outside Jeff’s classroom, talking to him. August recognized her and ran down to greet her.

I then walked home and worked. Rita was at the pool with her kids, including Omri. Omri and August didn’t play much, but at one point were looking at ants together. Omri had a bunch crawling on her hand and didn’t mind. Carly learned that Rita had been in Florida studying Scientology, and plans to take the four kids with her for four months sometime later this year.

They got home after 5, and Carly made cauliflower. I came down after a while, and she went up to rest. I read him part of the graphic novel of A Wrinkle in Time (liniment and tesseract were words of the day) and we then played with blowing up balloons. He finally ate enough cauliflower (he’s only eating the tips, so I had a lot of scraps to eat) and then had crackers and meat, then a small bowl of oatmeal.

He joked around, saying “This is August speaking. We’re at an altitude of who cares and headed to South America…marshmallows…Candy Land.” Apparently the ‘who cares’ line was from Inspector Gadget.

We went upstairs for a Brother game. The watching baby shark one again. Then back downstairs. Carly went for a shower. He was asking about nosebleeds, so we watched a video about treating nosebleeds in children. Then watched the Marble Machine X video, #88. He said he had a comment to write about it, so we submitted that. His suggestion is that he uses styrofoam or fabric to dampen the sound of the machine itself. He then talked about comments he had for other videos, but he didn’t want to submit them. For the nosebleed video he said “Another comment I have is if you have a nosebleed” you can get a container from the drawer in the kitchen and bleed into that, then “you even have blood to look at.” He liked the ad for Simple Piano app, but didn’t seem ready to use it again himself.

Finally, he found the egg dying kit that Cherie had brought for him. We talked about how it worked and about dyeing eggs this weekend. I got him up to the bathroom and gave him a bath. Went pretty quickly, after he played for a minute. I left him and Carly at 9:30. I thought he might be hyper for some time, but it seemed to go pretty well.

Ninja moves in the mall:

Roll onto the bed:

Playing with the shark in character:

He woke up at 6:04, just before my alarm. I got up on the bed with him and he rested until just after 6:20 and decided to go find Carly. She was in the bathroom and went in and cuddles with him for a few minutes. They came down as I was making coffee. He watched as she gathered Duplos for an activity at school, then watched Berenstain Bears.

After the one episode he wanted to try out the terraforming game. We did that together, and he told me all about trash: “Did you know garbage can tell you about the past?…Did you know you can find tons of treasures in garbage?” He had watched a StoryBots episode about trash.

He had a Brother game based on it, and he talked about making protective gear for each of us. I told him about HazMat suits, a word of the day, and showed him what they looked like. We went upstairs and played a game where Brother and Bar go exploring garbage, and take Baby Sister and Sister along.

Back downstairs we worked with the Eggs reading app. Definitely rough around the edges. One of the little games had its right arrow going off the screen, there’s no way to tell how far you are into a lesson, August could do the same easy lesson over and over to earn game time, etc. We will try a different one, Homer, in the future. It was good though to see how well he can in fact sound out parts of words and put them together.

He then had the Duplo house on the string and we revisited the story from last year where he was trying to take the horse home but it was on a string and kept getting pulled away. He then had a short game where Brother used gloves to touch poop, but then the baby sister doesn’t use gloves and gets sick, then he gets in trouble.

We had some banana bread, then did a story where Brother and Bar ended up studying dirt with his mom, who is a scientist. We made more popsicles, so that Eve and him would have a choice between vanilla, lemon, and mango. He had a pineapple yogurt and a lemon popsicle, so I made one to replace that. The suction cup broke off of the speaker thing. He was fine with that as the suction cup itself still works.

Then another Brother story, where he and Bar were doing an experiment, making crystals from different kinds of ice. Bar made science robots to do all of the lab work for them. We looked up ‘How long does it take the Earth to travel a light year?’ Then went upstairs and we did our Brother and Sister arguing over their stealing until it turned into chaos game. ‘Escalation’ was another new word. He asked about light saber and whether they could be real and so we watchedhttps://youtu.be/dK2ym66or6E

‘Antimatter’ and ‘plasma’ were more new words. We did the descending into chaos game again, this time with light sabers and antimatter thrown in for good measure.

We got ready to go, but before we left he connected his yarn, that starts at the toilet paper holder upstairs, all the way to the kitchen sink and said it sent signals. We left at 11:50, but I had to run back to get the vest. We got to the gate a couple minutes past 12, just as they were walking out.

We got Eve in the car, then drove up to VIPizza. Parking is tough in town now, so we parked in my side street spot by the mango tree area and walked to VIPizza. They were just opening. They each got a peach iced tea. Eve finished hers, then the last quarter of August’s. Perhaps too much, as she went to the bathroom at least four times back at our house.

On the walk from the car to VIPizza, they got into a discussion of “Is the future real?” Eve brought it up. After they got drinks and we ordered a half cheese, half corn pizza, Eve needed a bathroom. The one in back was locked, so we walked over to the one behind the new fruit and veggie place and she used that.

We got back just as our pizza was coming out. Too hot, so they spent a few minutes picking the bubbly places out of the pizza, and they did some dancing in their seats to “Superstition”.

Eve ate one slice and August managed one and a half. He told Eve his advice on waiting for things: “Sleeping…because if you’re sleeping time passes by infinite fast.”

Eve wanted to head to the house, but August said we were doing that last. I tried to convince them to go to the park. We started walking that way, after I had paid and they’d bagged the last three slices for me, and I heard August telling her about the slinky and rocks that she couldn’t play with at the house. She was fine with that.

They had decided to go straight to the house, so we turned around and headed back to the car.

At the house they started playing with the doll, Baby Q. August had to go find it in the drawer since he never plays with it on his own. They got out the medical supplies. August started doing CPR on it, giving it breaths. He must have seen that somewhere, and he checked her eyes with the flashlight. He said “There’s not enough water to lubricate her eye…that’s a sign of dehydration.”

Eve liked the string thing from upstairs, telling him “August! You’re awesome! You made an invention!” They took care of the baby and eventually had their popsicles. Eve had vanilla and August, who had declared on the way over that he wanted to have the same as Eve, actually changed his mind and went with mango. They made stuff for the baby, then went outside at 2:20.

I let them play outside on their own for quite awhile. They were in the Zinnie house, and August was signing, trying ti, then headed out with my iPad and the portable speaker. Just as they came in. So I sat outside typing for ten minutes or so while they were inside. August came back out, trying to catch a fly. Shmuel called up to me and I talked to him for a few minutes.

Back inside they played upstairs. I checked on them once and they were seeing how much weight they could put in front of the grasshopper robot to stop it. Downstairs they gave the baby a wig of purple and green play dough. They were the. Giving me sleep shots and shots to change my memories (has Eve seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?). I would say funny things as they put me to sleep.

They went back upstairs, then outside again. Then inside again, then had the idea of making a fort outside in the slide/tree branch area. Heather showed up at 3:40. Eve was upset as she didn’t want to leave, but went without trouble. I told Heather they’d just recently started to get hyper, trying to do all the things (fort, making a concoction, taking stuff apart) right at the end.

As soon as she was gone August declared himself bored. He told me “The only thing I like is play dates, okay? Nothing else.” We did a little more of the reading app, then he had a small bowl of oatmeal. He asked me “What’s instability?” Not sure where that came from. Then had frozen mango. We went upstairs for a Brother game where Little Sister stoke the chocolate and it turned into chaos again.

Carly was home about 5:05. We played for a few more minutes, then headed downstairs. I put dishes away and made coffee and she watered plants.

I had meant to get cauliflower when we were in town with Eve, but forgot. I now walked over to Tiv Taam and got cauliflower, frozen broccoli, and mangoes. Carly cooked the broccoli and he ate a good amount of that, then had more oatmeal. She had also made him a smoothie, which he was drinking when I got back. We read My Little Pony. Finished volume four, then the first issue of volume 5, which starts another big story.

Carly gave him a bath, then I put him to sleep. I told him to tell me a story of when he was a kid before he could tell me. He volunteered to talk about school, which he says he hates. I asked if he might want to go to school in the future, and he said no, because he would have problems. And he asked “Would you want to have problems?” He said his favorite parts of school were recess, choice time, and watching kids. We had a good conversation about how they hadn’t understood him watching and that it was unfortunate that they forced him to do stuff. We also talked about Simone, and it turned out he doesn’t want to play with Simone because of what happened. But after we talked about it he was open to a play date with him, although he was horrified of more people coming over to the house, unless they just stayed outside. Neutral ground or at their houses would be okay.

I finally told him stories, about going to a farm in 1st grade or so on a field trip and then how we tried to find it on our own but couldn’t, and about my first cat, Jupiter, and that turned into a history of all the cats Gramma and Grampa had had since.

He told me about the “Ancient rectangle…it’s bordered by four never melting icebergs…it’s mysterious.” Based on the Bermuda Triangle. He was asleep by 9:15.

His string to send signals:

Both dancing while having pizza:

Taking care of Baby Q:

Playing with the robot:

Big jumps 1:

Big jumps 2:

Big jumps 3:

Big jumps 4:

Big jumps 5:

He woke up at 7:55, saying something unusual, that I didn’t catch. He repeated it as he headed into the bathroom. From there he went and lounged in the chair in the office and we talked about our day. The first thing he asked was to do chores. As we talked, he casually got a candy from his stash from the summer and ate it before I realized it.

We went downstairs and he watched a couple of airplane videos on Bright Side (the one about the shortest commercial flight, and the one about landing in the Hudson). He ate mango, then oatmeal. I exercised. We opened up his new slinky. It was stuck together at first and he liked getting it apart. As he did he told me about a Bright Side video about hotels. The slinky has a pink color on it, and he said he “I love the salmon.” He said it was new favorite color. And he said “I’ve even made slinkies that can Slinky up, Slinky to the right, and Slinky to the left.” He said it was better than his old Slinky.

We went up and did a Brother and Sister game, with Sister stealing from Brother and vice versa. They each gave the baby sister treats and she was getting chubby.

He then did his chores. He cleaned the upstairs toilet, after having done the downstairs toilet yesterday. We made the beds, then went outside and he watered the plants. He liked making puddles of water in the dirt and said it looked like crops (somehow—not clear to me) and called them “Art crop” “Because it is art and it looks like a crop.”

We went back inside and looked for an open space adventure game for him. He has a vision of his head of being able to fly around from planet to planet and star to star, flying a space ship, but not having to worry about lives or being attacked. A great vision, but hard to find. I ended up downloading The Pack (from the New York Hall of Science), TerraGenesis (which looks promising and complicated, but not what he’s looking for), and Opus: The Day We Found Earth (which looks promising, but we didn’t get to today).

We played The Pack, which is both an adventure game and also an intro to coding game. He was playing on his own when he found that if you start walking into a dry area the character starts to need water. He turned off the iPad and declared he wouldn’t play the game again, as it was too scary. He let me try it though, and after confirming that you can’t die in the game he was okay with it again and we worked on it together, taking turns to control the character and discussing algorithms.

Eventually we got ready to go to the grocery store and drove up to Stop City. Dirt lot was full and the lot under it wasn’t opening, so we parked in the side street we often use, across from the house with all the sculptures. August saw a mango tree with really green mangos on it and I picked him one out over the sidewalk on the way back.

At Stop City we got some fruits and veggies and some ingredients for banana bread and a couple other things. He also looked for nisse spaces.

We went home and I got busy making banana bread. We had just enough time. We worked on the iPad game together. When the banana bread was done I took it out and put it in the bread box and we headed over to Natalie’s house. It is just north of the school, about a two minute walk.

We sat out back and had the banana bread, watermelon, and rice crackers for a snack. August and Corinne were spraying ants (August with his repurposed spray bottle, and her with a fan/squirt bottle they had actually found at Max) until Elise didn’t like that. There was enough time for a tour of their house, then we used their bathroom to change into swimsuits and we all walked over to the pool just after 3 to go swimming. As we walked I got an email from Carly telling me that Rita and Omri were going to be at the pool, and then a message from Rita saying the same thing.

So at the pool I introduced Natalie to Rita and we talked about favorite Arab restaurants, etc. Rita just had Omri and Jonathan with her today, and Omri bonded with Elise, in particular. So the kids played together well. August asked for flippers, but the lifeguard was locking the door as I walked up. He told me the flippers were just for the swim classes. As Rita said, what is available and isn’t depends on his mood.

August was really liking the pool and reluctant to leave. Finally, we got going after 4:30. We got towards the entrance of the school and Natalie realized that Corinne didn’t have her towel. The two of them went back, and Elise and August and I headed back to the house. We got the rest of the banana bread, and left a slice for Elise, who loved it and ate a bunch and kept talking about it, and Corinne.

I dropped August off at the house right about 5, asked Carly how her first day of school went, then dashed out to make a homeschooling meeting in Herzliya at 5:30. I was introduced to the group by Marka, as the woman hosting the meeting lives just a few doors from her. I arrived just a minute after 5:30. Just a few people there when I got in. After a few minutes a couple things became apparent: they were religious homeschoolers, all (or mostly) knowing each other from the same church, and it was a potluck, but I didn’t bring anything.

I had about 15 minutes getting to know a couple of them, primarily a woman, Elena, who is Korean, from New York, and whose husband is from Ghana. We then all sat around the big dining table that seats ten. That big because Kelly and her husband have 8 kids. They are also just in Israel for a year.

Not much to say about the meeting. People shared advice on homeschooling, then finally about 7:30 they started discussing doing things as a group. This was the most productive part, and at the end one of the women suggested a weekly get together at Ra’anana Park. Also, the woman that offered to coordinate field trips has two kids at WBAIS and the boy she is now homeschooling went to WBAIS but I think they were dealing with dyslexia and I heard her say she had issues with the administration.

The meeting broke up a little before 8. I got home at 8:30. They had tried out a reading program on the IPad. August had done really well on the placement test part of it, and was patient with it as it went on and on. He liked it pretty well, but Carly thought the whole thing overall was pretty glitchy. We have a one month trial though so will try it more.

He had just finished a bath, and asked me what I had learned about doing homeschool. He had a black rock that he had dug up sometime in Pennsylvania. I hadn’t seen it before. Definitely volcanic, but not 100 percent sure it is obsidian. That was our word of the day though.

We got him ready for bed, and I left the two of them at 9:15.

Watering plants:

Teaching his pool game:

He woke up from a bad dream at 6:20. He requested Carly so I went and got her. I then started trying to wake him up just after 8. He was really tired though and finally got up just before 8:30.

He started watching Berenstain Bears, the Slumber Party and Homework Trouble episode. I got him mango and he then needed to use the bathroom. He asked, “Did you know my laser sabers on my wall run on nuclear power?” “From movies.” I think he meant light sabers. He then asked about nuclear power and we discussed it again. He went back to his show and I exercised.

We then ate breakfast together and he watched the Case of the Gimmies episode. He was hungry and had thirds on oatmeal. We went upstairs for a Brother game. The front wheels fell of his metal John Deere tractor. We found the piece that came out, and I was able to mostly fix it, although it might need some more work. I was looking for another spray bottle for him, but couldn’t find it. Instead, he found the air blowers for cleaning camera lenses, and said “I’m shooting spy bullets to spy on Sister.”

He reluctantly told me about the bad dream that had woken him up. He said there was some toy that I wouldn’t get him and it made him upset. He wasn’t sure what the toy was, or didn’t know if it was real. Seems like he didn’t remember it well, just that it was a toy he really wanted. It was the first time he’s ever told me about one of his dreams.

Back to the Brother games. There was a new girl who shoots of the tips of her fingers and they fly around. They shot red out of them instead of smoke because it was blood. He used the fingers to spy. Shmuel called and I talked to him for a few minutes. He asked about the noise. I asked him what he was doing. He said they were adding space, like for a separate bedroom or something, but it was really vague on how. He did say he’d show us how sometime.

After that, August and I went down there to take a look, as I saw that the gate was open. It turned out that Shmuel had left his keys in the gate. I called and told him, and left them someplace he could get them. We didn’t look much, as August was nervous about going in the yard.

August and I discussed power surges when he was asking about the circuit box. He made an analogy to a dam breaking. I think he got that from Smurfs. We went upstairs for a bit for the Brother and Bar game. They were sending out the spy bullets and steering them around. I was spying on people in the neighborhood and we found people breaking into a house, then used his other inventions to stop them until the police could get there. We also stole cookies or chocolate from mom after she had stolen it from Sister.

We went back downstairs and played Blue Apprentice together, learning about different kinds of fire and what feeds or puts them out, and why. August asked “What’s interstellar spaceship?” We discussed ‘interstellar’ versus ‘intergalactic’. He didn’t like how the game doesn’t let you just explore, and decided that for his next iPad game he wants one that just lets you fly around space.

I reminded him of his chores system, and we went up and he made the beds. He then joked around with his clothes, half putting them on, and talking about the pee and poop recycling systems in them. We got him dressed in his new whale shirt. We looked for the titanium ring but couldn’t find it. He got his comb instead, saying it could accomplish much the same things. He remembered the fan we bought. We got it from the bag and took it up and plugged it in. He was excited to find it also had lights on it.

He wanted to play with credit cards. I let him use my wallet, and he also got the bus passes, etc. from the drawer. He played with them and sang a “there’s 14 credit cards” song. He wanted something to scan the cards. We went downstairs to get the fralshlight that slides out, making a bar. When I pulled it out the camp came off and a wire broke. We were looking for something else that would work for him, but he didn’t like the options. He had very specific requirements for what would work. I ended up making a paper straw at his request, rolling up half a piece of paper tightly and taping it all up, after he requested a cylinder to do the job.

He had fun flipping it in the air and we did slo-mos. We went upstairs for more Brother game – making cakes and treate and having a treats party with Sister. I figured out the battery in the fan wasn’t charging because there was a plastic piece in the way of the battery. Now it’s working. August asked “What’s a rodent?” I explained, and he added “Chipmunks?”

We went downstairs for some lunch, and he had some juice and crackers and pate. He got going and told me all about how something launching off a hill starts to go off the curvature of the earth. Of course, he had something that went farther and farther until he was going into orbit.

Upstairs, as I explained we needed to get going soon, he explained that he had thought that I had meant we were going to Maya and Ben’s house when it was dark, and told me his whole interpretation of “in the afternoon” versus “after noon”. He was wrong, but he was pretty convincing. The fan was partially charged now. We did a little of the Brother and Baby Sister game, where the dad does crazy math as he grounds Brother and Sister for arguing.

We then went downstairs and he read The Old Truck and The Jet, two Bob Books he knows well to get him back into the idea of reading. He read all the words, and added in his own words and ideas to make it better, he said.

Finally, he played with the big broken lock that he’d found near Max yesterday and we left by 3:40.

We parked on the street and went up to their apartment on the 11th floor, down near the Poleg Mall. We stayed a little over and hour and a half, getting there just after 4. They started with popsicles, and August got a bag full of tiny popsicles. He had a couple of those, then they got to playing. Looked around at the trucks and stuff, then Maya took him into her room. They came out with a penguin game. It was a tangram sort of puzzle thing. August helped a bit, but it was mainly me and Maya. When she walked away though he wanted to do one. We had to really convince Maya to not take control and take the pieces from him. It was similar to puzzles we’d done together back at the children’s museum in Seoul, but also right in his tough area of moving pieces in a 3D space. Anyway, he seemed pretty happy with finishing one of them. Might need to get him something like it.

They then played with the food. Maya was making the food, and August was delivering it to me. I also got a dog and supplies and a baby and a bottle for eating at the restaurant. August came and ‘stole’ my cookie by chomping at it. Ben picked up on this and started jumping on me.

Maya got out chess (“chest” as she called it) and played me. August helped us both. He was pretty engaged for a while, discussing the rules. He then was distracted by the balance board thing that Ben had been doing (they had also been going up and down a little plastic slide thing) and could do that quite well. He said he might be ready for a skateboard in a year. He then found a big bouncy ball that lit up when you hit it on things.

We only had one knocking-over-the-pieces incident, but then Ben came out and took over the bouncy ball. He knocked over pieces a couple times, then started trying to hit them on purpose. When Sharna told him not to do it again and he did he got taken to his room and had a meltdown. By this time I had played Maya to a draw, and it was getting close to time to leave, anyway.

August used the bathroom, then had the idea of going to say something nice to Ben to help him feel better. He went back to where he was with his dad and told him happy birthday (as we had found out today was his actual birthday) and goodbye.

On our way out we walked out the opposite side of the building. August found two little platforms to stand on, balancing, and asked me to take a photo, and a video of him flying. He was hungry, so we got out Ikea fruit snacks.

On the way home we listened to the “Electrostatic” song he had requested we listen to again. He then talked about having a secret for me when we got home, but I wasn’t supposed to guess, because I might guess it. I asked if I could guess impossible things, and he said no, as he had his lab: “Besides, I have a one time feather in my lab.”

We were home at 6:05. He also said he likes his white sunglasses the best because they’re his robot sunglasses that he made in his lab.

Carly said she liked his shirt “Dont like it. I don’t want you to like my shirt. Say it’s stinky.”

She as cooking tofu and broccoli and rice. August put things over the rice cooker: “Isn’t it cool how I catched-ed condensation?” Carly said he should say it again on a video as it was so cute. He kept saying it, but not when I would take a video.

Carly said his meal was very balanced. And I agreed, saying “It won’t tip over the plate.” She didn’t get it, but August said “Ha, I get it. Balanced, balanced.”

He got hyper with Carly after eating a little (well, the broccoli and a little rice and mango). I reminded him what I said he could say, and he said “Could you wrestle with me? I’d really appreciate it.” She agreed, but let out a big sigh. He then said “I really appreciate your whining.”

They went upstairs for a few minutes and then came back down. He was still hungry, and finally ate two of the lightly cooked tofu pieces. But he said he wanted raw instead. I cut some up for him. He started eating one piece, then had me smell it, as he thought it smelled lemony. He decided he didn’t want to eat that specific piece though as he thought I had breathed on it. He started nibbling on a second piece, but was walking around and choked on it.

He got a piece stuck in his throat. He handled it well, but was done with eating raw tofu, having only nibbled on two of the pieces. He also wouldn’t eat the mango that was still on his plate, as it had been out too long, he said. When the tofu was still stuck in his throat I suggested a few things, including gargling. He really liked that, and figured it out pretty quickly, and was doing it the rest of the evening:”Okay, but I like gurgling now.”

Carly had taken a shower, and now I went up to work and worked until 9. He was finishing mango ice cream when I came down.

I took him up and gave him a quick bath. He was washing himself, but I sped up the process, which inspired him to sing a “How dare you” song as I washed shin. He sang about lots of things, and included a line about killing. When I objected to that he changed it to negative killing, and kept singing “negative kill them means not killing them, in a mathematical way…”

I brushed his teeth, and as I said good night he said “I love you and you. And I love myself. I love everybody. Well, except for criminals. I HATE bad people…Here’s how I catch criminals…a long tube and I suck them into a cage in my lab…” Before the catching the criminals part I suggested that you could even love people who do bad things and it would help them not do bad things. Perhaps too much for a 5-year old. But he sat silently for a while before talking about how he catches them. I left them just after 9:30.

He had tons of energy though. They called me in as he was worried about getting possible gifts for Vivian and Colin but him not getting anything. We talked about that for a minute, then, as Carly needed to sleep, he came into the bathroom while I took a shower and got ready for bed.

He got upset when he was first joking about peeing in a cardboard piece, but then wanted to do an experiment to see how much water it could hold and whether it would soak through. I initially said no, as we don’t do experiments at 10. He was grumpy and told Carly he didn’t want to sleep with me. He was doing a great job of talking about it though, and said it would only take a couple seconds. I said I was listening now, and let him go back in and do his experiment. He was very happy about it, and now got up on the bed with me.

All of our talk about pee made Carly need to get up and go, which he thought was really funny. We did some more whispering, then he calmed down. He pressed right up against my back and fell asleep at 10:30.

The pink fan:

“So brother…”:

Straw slo-mo 1:

Straw spitting slo-mo:

Straw spinning slo-mo 1:

Straw spinning slo-mo 2:

Launching off a hill:

Reading The Old Truck:

Chess with Maya:

Flying in his robot sunglasses:

Catching steam:

Gargling:

He woke up right at 8, as I was about to go in and wake him up. I was sitting out on the couch upstairs, outside the room. We went downstairs. He turned on the air conditioner after a couple minutes on the couch and I got our allergy medicine and cleaned his water bottle. He wanted me to play chess on my iPad. I did that, and he took over, trying to play dumb moves so the computer would win. He hummed and he kept playing.

He ate breakfast and watched a couple plane crash videos on Bright Side. I was hesitant to let him watch them, but they turned out to be positive stories and really interesting and we watched them together. St. Elmo’s fire was the word of the day and he asked about it several times through the day.

We went upstairs for a Brother game. He said he was inspired by the video, but his inspiration was that Brother and Bar would steal from Sister using radars and stuff now. Sigh. They stole pizza, then broke into her secret fort while she was on an intergalactic mission.

He told me he had learned you should start the day by drinking a cup of water: “That’s why I only watch educational videos.”

I worked on the cardboard fort and he made a trip wire sensor thing out of the Bluetooth speaker, yarn, and toilet paper holder sculpture. We then played the Brother game where he plays with his baby sister (August) and they have a sheet cave.

We went downstairs and he asked “What’s a ‘local cave’?” ‘Local’ was the word he didn’t understand. The phrase was from one of the survival riddles videos, I think. I exercised and he watched a video. We ate crackers and meat and hummus for lunch and read volume 4 of My Little Pony, about them becoming pirates. He then had a robot suit and went in the virtual world as we got ready to go.

We headed to school and got in the pool just after 11:30. Rita showed up with Omri, Zohar, and Jonathan just as we were getting in. They came in the big pool with us. Omri and August chased me a bit and they talked some, but didn’t really play together a whole lot in the pool. Eventually, we all got out for a snack. They shared their snacks: a container full of fruit and chips. We shared our pretzels and cereal bars.

When we got out of the pool, August had shown me how he was practicing putting his tongue at the top of the mouth. Before we had left, maybe it was ‘local’, I had had a hard time figuring out a word he was saying that started with ‘l’ and we’d talked about how your tongue behaves differently for ‘w’ and ‘l’.

We headed over to the little pool after lunch. August and Omri first started doing what they did the other day, picking stuff and putting it down the hole. But then Omri had a stomach ache. Her mom took her back to the snack area and she changed and watched a video and rested. Zohar, who is in 4th grade, played with August for several minutes at the bushes. Rita and I watched Jonathan (who is starting at the preschool) in the little pool.

Then August and Zohar came and played in the little pool. I was able to read for a while. August said he was challenging himself and took off his vest and was trying to swim in the little pool. He was then jumping back and forth, making big splashes. Rita went to go swim in the big pool, and Zohar and August went with her. I stayed with Jonathan, playing with a ball and ring that were there. I practiced my Hebrew with him and helped him with English. I think the only English I’ve heard him say is “Oh my goodness”, which Omri says all the time. Sure he’ll pick it up quickly though at school. All 3 of his sisters are fluent.

At one point Juwon, who was in PKC, showed up. Omri took August over to the big pool to meet him, as August didn’t remember him.

In the little pool, Zohar, August, and I played with throwing the ball through the holes on the covering. We then ended up in a big sword fight with the noodles. Omri came and attacked me from the edge of the pool. It was basically 3 on 1. We did variations on that for a long time. We got a lot of exercise. August got hit in the head with noodles several times, and Zohar would say sorry and he would say it was okay.

They left about 3. August had me talk to a woman with two little kids. Her brother and sister-in-law are both subs at the school, although I didn’t recognize the names. He then had me talk to Juwon and his parents. That was fun, as we reminisced about Seoul. It turns out that Juwon’s dad lives in Nowon-go in Sanggye-dong and that he (Juwon’s dad) lived in Nowon-gu for 20 years. I was shocked to find I couldn’t remember the name of our subway station at first, but it came to me before I had to look it up on my phone.

We got going, and stopped at the senior lounge area (where the ping pong is) and had a snack before we drove down to Max, getting in there at 4:15.

August found mirrors sitting on the ground at a slight angle: “Do you know, if I go in this mirror I end up in the hill world, where everyone tumbles.” August spotted USB charging electric fans right away—what I thought was going to be the most difficult item for our AC system—right away. It was the spray bottle that proved difficult. We found a kitchen mister bottle, but it was glass. Finally, at the front counters they had full size plastic spray bottles with smelly stuff in them. August decided that was the sort of bottle he wanted, and we could just dump it out. In between, I realized we hadn’t discussed parameters for what we were getting, so it was slow going as he kept wanting more stuff. We got a couple funnels for him to play with and a new plastic slinky, and maybe a couple other things. I had said in advance that he could get a drink, and he chose a watermelon water. We actually got very little stuff for a trip to Max, but probably could have gotten more if we weren’t distracted by things. August also kept seeing things he thought we could send to Colin, little cheap plastic toys. Which was very nice, but we’d already found something on Amazon that was nicer.

We spent about 50 minutes there in total, and got back to the car in time for our free parking to not have expired. We had been listening to the “Afermath (Here We Go)” remixes from Andy Bell on the way down and he had me add one to his playlist. When we had stopped he had asked to listen to the same song on the way home, so we did.

We were home at 5:25. As we walked in he asked, “What’s a Jedi?” He was pretty crazy with Carly when he went in. Something she hasn’t had to deal with over the summer. They were working on the house again and there was really loud hammering and sawing noise, which August didn’t like. He ate some pasta and pesto. Carly made the cauliflower, nicely burnt, like he likes it, and while she did that we went upstairs to play a Brother game and get away from the noise. Still really loud though. We looked out the window, then he went back in the room and added pillows against the door to add “insulation.”

But when he asked me to get his water bottle and I came back in he somehow pinched his finger in the door as he closed it. He screamed really loudly and Carly came up. He didn’t get upset with us at all, which was really good. Carly cuddled with him on the bed, then she went down to check on the cauliflower. He continued to lay on the bed for several minutes. I checked on him to make sure he wasn’t falling asleep, but then he was.

I carried him downstairs and he just wanted to keep sleeping on the couch. Finally, we woke him up with the suggestions of yummy cauliflower and mango ice cream. He was incredulous when I said he had fallen asleep: “I didn’t fall asleep completely. What?”

We ate the delicious cauliflower. He wanted it even more burnt next time. I went upstairs, and Carly gave him a bath. I think they were also outside, as at some point they used my bike pump to blow up a balloon. While she was giving him a bath I heard her tell him about how she once got to paint on the walls of her apartment because it was going to be remodeled after they moved out. August made up some story about being able to take stuff apart or destroy it, and I heard him end with “It was like so fun, you know?”

We went downstairs and I made him oatmeal. He was playing with the string he has hanging up, and started running under it while flipping it over his head. Right as I started to warn him about it he ran under and missed it with his hand and clotheslined himself. It also brought the oven crashing open. He jumped up and said “It’s okay” and acted more worried about the oven. ‘Clotheslined’ was another new word for him.

We finished the second issue of the My Little Pony pirate story, then got him ready for bed and I left them at 9:40. I got a phone call a few minutes later; August was talking about how he was worried about kids destroying stuff when they came over. I assured him we could talk about it tomorrow and we wouldn’t have anyone over until he was okay with it.

His tripwire:

With Omri in the pool:

Slo-mo dive in the little pool:

Challenging himself without his vest:

Rubber chicken at Max:

Attacking the breaking light cover:

He got up at 6:50. I worked late and was still sleeping, and didn’t hear him until he called “Mama!” from down on the stairs. I got up, but he was already down with her. I went back to bed and hoped he’d fall asleep with her again, but he didn’t, as Carly came a bit later to get his iPad. When I got up after 7:30 they were talking about science experiments, but ended up hanging up a string from the kitchen door to the oven. They ended up upstairs for a while.

He came down and we finished reading volume two of My Little Pony. ‘facade’ was a word of the day. We had some banana bread, and would later finish off the loaf. Carly and I worked on a shopping list. He wanted to mine for green rock so I took him outside and he dug in the dirt and found several pieces of green rock and tile and a glob of something that he said was a bone but looked like a fossilized piece of chewing gum.

Back inside, August found a shekel and 10 agorot under the rug. Carly is reluctant to just let him have any money he finds, because sometimes we leave bigger coins sitting out and she doesn’t want him to just claim them, but I later decided they were probably his from when we had played with his calculator in that area in the spring. he was also figuring out how to shoot a rubber band, hooking it on the comb thing he found months ago.

Carly headed to the store. We went upstairs for a Brother game, but he wanted the beds made first, so I worked on that. His spray bottle was now an invisibility spray that Bar had invented. Brother and Bar turned things invisible. We ate Hummus and crackers. He asked, “What’s a shockwave?” More vocab picked up from the videos. She had also invented ‘supertape’ that wouldn’t come off of whatever it was stuck to.

We went downstairs and were using the mister for him to run through. We were saying lots of egg and mist puns and he said “Do you want me to mine for more treasures? You wouldn’t mine-d? Get it? Mine pun.”

Carly got home as we realized the floor was getting slippery and were drying it off. I put groceries away. He watched videos with the time he had earned digging on his own earlier. He showed me the Super Tony camping video (https://youtu.be/4f8HVkQsZj8). He wants to make the stove and AC system. He really wanted to do the AC system right away, but we would need parts. We instead got all the ice from the freezer and put it on a plate and found his hand crank fan and I blew it over the ice. It worked, and he relaxed on the couch with the cool breeze. He said “This is AC system 1.” And said that the next one would be AC system 2.

He went to the bathroom, then had a good phrase for getting us wet with his hands afterwards. Something like wet-inifier.

They left at 12:25. It went well with Gabi. August doesn’t want to play with him alone yet, but Carly said she tried to be as boring as possible, without just pulling out her phone. When they were back at 2:15 he told me they had played two games, and that he had played equally with Carly and Gabi. He wouldn’t tell me the games, but it was his Monopoly imagining game and some sort of charades thing. He also really liked some pretend phone thing that had a metal marble in it. He really wanted us to make one.

We discussed our AC plans and played with the tray of ice again. He had some of the lemonade, then we made a lemonade and a vanilla soymilk popsicle. Carly was making mango sticky rice and mango ice cream. He had some whipped cream, which was a little disappointing at first as he expected it to be sweeter, but then he had more. He asked about the dark web, another thing he had learned about. We ate the delicious mango sticky rice.

Then went upstairs for a Brother game. He was now the baby sister and Brother was cuddling with her. It became a competition of Brother and Sister competing for her affection. They started started fighting and were grounded by the dad, who didn’t know math and was giving outrageous lengths of punishments. August also had me putting my hand into the caves or the sheets and it was getting bitten by things. Finally, Brother was making inventions and Sister was seeing them when he didn’t want her to.

We were done at 5. August had had a couple crackers and was still hungry so I took him downstairs. I got ready for a run, and saw the structure that Shmuel is building out back. A two story addition? A garage? Really not clear what is going on back there. Carly and August came up to look.

I went for a run. They were out in the yard when I got back. I went up and took a shower. He asked Carly about hypothermia. When I went back down I read My Little Pony and he made the hot dog in a dough thing that Carly had made. I made broccoli. He asked what ‘numerous’ means. A word of the day.

We did some more reading. At some point he made a joke, based on a joke in Bodie Troll where a blacksmith keeps his dairy fresh above his fire because he likes his milk chunky. August talked about a”Fire to keep my milk fresh…anti-fire…” But his was cold.

Carly gave him a bath. We got him ready for bed and I finished reading volume 3 of My Little Pony. He then asked for stories from when I was a kid. I told him about playing with another kid when we were camping on the beach (Ocean Shores?), my parents sitting up through a storm to keep the tent up, how the water would run down the alley like a little river after a rain storm, and how we would sometimes have rainy day recesses in elementary school and I remember reading the stories in Ranger Rick magazines in 3rd grade.

He was asleep by 9:40, but had a big coughing fit right as I was about to leave. He sat against the pillow, then lay down the wrong way, with his head facing the end of the bed.

Digging and humming:

Abstract duck:

Number with hands to do the math for him:

What the antifire needs:

Watching the soap race:

Slo-mo bed roll:

Tired from the bed rolls:

He got up at 8:05. He found Carly outside and they cuddled on the couch. He didn’t want her to read anything. He showed her his counting trick, where he unfolds his fingers as he counts to 4, but ends up with 5 fingers. He then asked what a nuclear bomb is, and Carly looked up fission. August wanted to use his morning iPad time and he started with the Super Tony video about being swallowed by a whale.

He asked, “What’s a millionaire?” A word from one of the videos, and a word of the day. We had some banana bread, then he wanted to use my headphones for a Brother game. They started as a sort of sensor, but up on the bed he had the idea of setting up a full x-ray analysis station. We got the cardboard box from the IKEA box, then my keyboard for the keyboard, and the headphones were hooked to it. He really wanted printed out x-rays and diagrams like they had at IKEA. We played a bit of that, then it turned into a way of spying on Sister, then stealing her chocolate and other items. We were listening to the Stray Cats and I pointed out songs I remembered.

We went downstairs, and Carly read Dog Man to him. I worked for an hour. He had bought a bag of cotton balls at the grocery store yesterday, and now had fun dipping them in things. He put two in soy sauce and thought they looked like poop. He dipped others in things like flour and za’atar and made them different colors.

We left just after 12. At the school Carly headed to work in her classroom. August stopped by the corner of the auditorium. He was nervous about going to the party. Not entirely sure why. He said it was a party, and not a play date. He sent me down to take a photo of it. While I did so he got closer. He then agreeded to let me carrying him in, but I was supposed to set him in a hiding spot. Not many hiding spots around the pool, but I set him by the drinking fountain and he looked from there.

He had seen the food and decided he wanted to start there. Omri had seen him, and he was a little shy at first, and he went under the table for a minute. But then they found a common activity in grazing at the snacks. I steered him towards fruit, but there were also chips, a pastry, and havla, which they were both disappointed in, even when I let him open a second one that had chocolate in it.

He and Omri were then playing around a lot. They were picking nuts and seeds and dropping them down a hole. Omri did a dance performance that she knew and he watched. When pizza came they sat together. I felt like their servant, as first Omri had peach iced tea, so I went to get August some. He wanted a straw, so I went to get that, but while I was gone some of his spilled. Omri had also asked me to refill hers, so on the way back August was yelling at me to come and see the spill, while Omri was shocked I didn’t have her refill yet. Meanwhile, another kid was trying to get my help because another empty cup was blowing over.

Got through lunch, then he and I got in the pool for a total of three minutes before they announced cake. We went up and sang happy birthday, then he had cake. He did a good job waiting in line.

Omri’s mom had initially said they were leaving as August and Omri found a dirty, dead palm shoot bulb thing. She gave her ten minutes, and August and Omri went into the bathroom to wash it, which just made it very black and crumbly, which they liked. They then started to leave, and August ran quite a ways to say goodbye to her. Apparently, someone told them about cake though, as they were still there for cake, then left as we were eating.

Carly came by as I was getting him a second piece. He was happy with the second piece as it had one of the Paw Patrol characters on it, and his first had just had the chocolate cake. He ate that, but then was climbing on Carly and bonked his head on the table.

He was done with the pool and party and insisted on going home. Carly hadn’t even gotten in the pool. We tried to talk him out of it, but after several minutes it became clear. I told Carly she could go swimming and we could come back and pick her up, but she didn’t want to do that. Back at home he did tell me something about not going back because of the party. So I think there was a level of embarrassment, either for hitting his head or getting upset.

We were home at 2:40. He played with his cotton balls. He asked “What’s a tourniquet?” It is from one of the survival quiz videos he likes, and the question about a rattlesnake bite. I explained, and he said “That’s what I thought!” Another word of the day.

We went upstairs for another Brother game, stealing smaller stuff. Bar had invented the “eraser quintaser”, which erased things, like my watch, but they were still there. Carly went on a walk. More Brother game of spying on his mom and Sister and realizing. They had a secret pillow area they were going to. When Bar and Brother crashed the party it turned out it was supposed to be a surprise for his birthday.

Downstairs, he wanted me to make plastic shoes for him out of packing material from the iHerb box. He said “They were going to be a real upgrade.” I made one for him, but didn’t have enough material for two. I think it got recycled later though.

I went upstairs a little after 5 to work. He was starting Dr. Petplay as I left, where he was going to analyze the x-rays and Carly was going to be the people bringing in their pets.

I came down at 7:30. He had watched the horror stories video on Super Tony (https://youtu.be/G1159Ry6bPA). Luckily, it isn’t too bad, and ends with a funny one: ‘Day 326…and the internet still isn’t working.” Another favorite recently is the Be Amazed survival riddles (https://youtu.be/YK4fQTA2Eps)

He Told me about his laser knife, which toasts while it cuts. We made a laser knife out of a red straw and a wooden chopstick. He combined it with his chronometer, which was a green straw with the round scale from the broken tire pressure gauge, and which he said measured both distance and space time.

We wen upstairs and played. I had pita and hummus and he started eating hummus with his finger. Normally I would stop this, but it was the most hummus he has ever eaten. The game had Brother and Bar on an intergalactic adventure after they realized Mom and Sistet were already in other galaxies.

He went to the bathroom and told me about the concept of ‘Time length.’ “Time length is like the length that time reaches…to where there’s no time.” He asked me to fill up his water bottle, and the bathroom was dark so I turned on the light. But he told me “You can tell by the pitch. Use your sense of hearing, not sight.”

Downstairs, he was hungry and ate a bunch of raw tofu: “It’s really good when you savor it…that’s why I take tiny bites. I like it cuz it’s mild. It’s on the plain side.”

I washed him, making it a quick bath as I bribed him with one of the cookies Natalie had brought over. We got him ready and I left him and Carly right at 9:20. Right on time, as we try to move up his bed time. He came in to use the bathroom as I took a shower a little later.

X-ray game:

Dipping cotton balls:

Under a table with Omri:

Soggy plant thing:

Plastic shoe:

The toasting knife: