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He woke up once and lay back down on the very edge of the bed. I was sitting on the lower bed, typing. Had me worried as he kept rolling around right on the edge of the bed. Woke up at 7:48 and took a few more minutes on the lower bed, stretching.

We went downstairs and read My Little Pony, reading 4 and 5 and starting 6. We ate breakfast and kept reading.

We headed upstairs for a Brother game. He took the titanium disk with him and said “It c’ANT teleport. Get it? Ant pun?” August had props and the story was about Bar’s summer inventions: super juice (his water bottle), super seeds (two seeds he found a few days ago), infrared security camera (a Wifi router), spy tube (yellow tube from Ramallah), black hole maker (mouse), and the globe tracker (titanium disk) from last summer. They made a small back hole and trapped things in a black hole by the door: ice cream truck, Sister, dogs, squirrels. Of course with increasing levels of silliness and mayhem as those things then popped out the white hole inside the house.

We went downstairs and took things apart a bit. Then back upstairs for another Brother and Bar game where Sister was upset she is only in them as a supporting role. These don’t last long, as he just wants them to keep getting mad or fighting, and I tell him there’s only so much of that that is fun.

We went back downstairs to make banana bread. He said he discovered a substance named ‘silicon’ named after silk. “I’m Siri-ous?…get it, a Siri pun.” We made the banana bread. He wasn’t totally excited about helping, but used the masher on the bananas (definitely worth it) and did some of the electric mixing. He used his iPad time to watch a few of the Bright Side, etc. videos with survival riddles. I tried to watch them with him as much as possible, but they were okay. Later in the day he said he liked educational videos better than the non educational videos now. I think because of the riddles. He asked “What’s the zombie apocalypse?” There’s a word of the day for you.

He then told me about making electro balls in his lab. For some reason I speculated about his vocabulary and wondered how many words he knows. I Googled, and found that “The 6-year-old child typically has a 2,600 word expressive vocabulary (words he or she says), and a receptive vocabulary (words he or she understands) of 20,000–24,000 words.” I’d say his expressive vocabulary is closer to his receptive vocabulary, but have no idea on numbers.

For lunch we had crackers and the new meat options and banana bread. We read chapters 3 and 4 of Bodie Troll. August had had the idea of making popsicles (when he played with the containers while I did the banana bread) and we filled one of them with vanilla soy milk. It was ready now, so he ate it and said it was really good.

Then more Brother games: downstairs, he met a girl that controls the weather. Upstairs he had her meet the digital girl again. A character from spring/summer. I asked her name: “Zero! Of course I’d remember it since there’s billions of zeroes going through me all the time!”

We got out of the house around 2. We drove up into town and went to the new grocery store. I realized we need to know the actual names to make it easier to explain where we’re going, so this one is called Stop City. We wanted to get juice and soy milk so we could make more popsicles. The main reason was so we could have popsicles ready when he had friends over again, but also I’d prefer these popsicles for his sweet tooth to distract from ice cream, etc.

While in the grocery store he started finding all the interesting dark spaces behind the products on the shelves. He called them “bubble spaces” and “Nisse spaces” (from the Hilda books). He commented on how much he likes shopping now. I reminded him he also had fun yesterday, and I need to remind him of this when we’re trying to get going so we have more time at the grocery store and I don’t have to hurry him. Anyway, we got one big bag full of groceries (he also got one mystery fruit to try) and we headed to school.

We first dropped off a couple of bags of parts from our taking apart stuff in the electronics recycling box, then went to check in with Carly. I had found the passport photos for our Visa renewals and we dropped off her swimsuit. We went to the pool and got in. Carly showed up about 20 minutes later. August, now the extrovert, wanted me to go start talking to everyone else in the pool. After Carly showed up, Natalie and her two girls and her husband, Ben, got there. August was doing something new, climbing on my back and jumping off. He did a little on Carly, then went back to mine. Once, off of Carly, he went completely underwater. Not entirely comfortable for him, but he didn’t get upset, and asked how far he went under. He also said something about fish not biting him.

Carly took him to the bathroom, but they were taking a long time. Carly finally came over. He had been distracted by the little wading pool. The rest of us had started to get out as the online schedule said the pool closed at 5. But then the lifeguard said no, it was 6. So we all went over to the little pool. Natalie and Ben and Elise and Corinne played for a while, then left by 5:30. August was having a blast though.

Jonathan, the band teacher, was there with his 2-year old daughter. Jonathan, and his wife when she showed up, started giving us a bunch of advice on things like cherry picking and beaches. August was playing with Jonathan in the pool. Jonathan challenged him to a race across the pool, walking like a dog. August won by standing up, and declaring “I’m a dog with feet!” Playing with Jonathan. Jonathan was then a shark. At one point the little girl got back in the water and was splashing August and he handled it really well and didn’t splash back or get bothered.

Jonathan was parked in the sort of back area, so we walked out the gate just for the fun of it, since we’d never been that way. We got our iHerb box, then headed home, just after 6.

We had also gotten pesto for his noodles for dinner. He had noodles and pesto and broccoli, then more banana bread. He used his watching time to watch some Super Tony videos (another channel he found that he likes).

He wanted to go upstairs for a Brother game with a girl that was virtual. He was excited by the idea, but it didn’t go far and he wanted a new kind of Brother game. I suggested like the Magic Treehouse, with them finding a time machine of some sort and going on adventures through time. But he wanted me to come up with a full story. He then suggested they spy on people. They spied on Sister and found out she was hiding the chips in the kitchen out of Brother’s reach. competition ensued as they stole the chips and other things back and forth.

I went down to go for a run. Carly and him called to say happy birthday to Chuck. They were calling as I left and skyping with Cherie and the kids (they’re in Pennsylvania now) when I got back. He was basically trading nonsense with Vivian and Colin, then sang a “Colin put your toe in your nose” song (something Colin he actually done while we were there). I went and took a shower, and August showed them a fogged glass experiment and a balloon experiment, making his hair stick up. Cherie said that if you rub a balloon on your hair you can get it to stick to a wall or shirt. Carly tried, but couldn’t get a balloon to attach to anything. At one point August said “While mama gets a balloon I’ll distract you with some silliness.”

They hung up and Carly took hm up for a bath at 8:30 and washed his hair. He came down afterwards and we read a good chunk of Astro Boy as he ate some Cheerios. Got him ready for bed, and I left them at 9:30.

‘issue’ was another word of the day as I was talking about how the My Little Pony volumes were compilations of multiple issues. He said there was another kind of issue, like a problem.

I watched episode 2 of Black Mirror before heading to bed.

Even electricity – song:

Using the masher:

Breaking down the sugar contents – song:

Finding the bubble spaces:

In the wading pool 1:

In the wading pool 2:

Talking to Colin and Vivian:

Stick your toe – song: https://youtu.be/y9RCwZyrlzg

I was up at 6:30. Carly came in a couple minutes later to say she was going to work, and a couple minutes after that August got up and took a big jump off the bed and headed towards the door. I said “ZZ” and he swerved, lay down next to me, and fell right back to sleep. At 7:48 the reverse happens, as I was now sitting on the bed, working. He got up, I called to him, he came up and climbed over me, and went back to sleep again. Just before 8 he got up to go to the bathroom.

We went downstairs and finished issue one of My Little Pony. We got breakfast (oatmeal and mango) and started a second. He then wanted to play with the keyboard.

We took it to the bedroom and he played with it in the dark after we closed the window and turned off the light. He couldn’t think of how to use it in a Brother game so he changed his mind.

He played with the toilet paper holder sculpture and sang about how it produces four things that are important to living, but didn’t say what the four things are. We worked on the fort a bit, using tape to close the boxes and then taping the boxes together to make a wall.

We went downstairs and he wanted the fizzy water. It was pretty flat though. He put some in freezer to see what would happen. He made the table magnetic, then used his mouthwash. He then went outside to drink from the hose. Back inside he wanted to use his iPad time and he watched Dr. Binocs on diarrhea and hiccups, and then episode 7 of Berenstain Bears.

He helped a little with putting the box from Ikea together. Then we finally got going to the mall. We drove over. I had given him the same candy option for getting my hair cut. What I hadn’t anticipated was the barber being closed. He still wanted something from the candy stand. Luckily, I found the bins of 1 shekel candies and let him get two of them. They were tiny, but he was excited: “I get TWO bars!”

We went to Tiv Taam to get some grocery shopping. He chose dried apricots as a snack for when the girls and Natalie came over later. He did great in the grocery store but was enjoying it too much. I had to keep hurrying him as he was playing around. We finally paid and hurried back. He had wanted to eat a yogurt right away, but it was already 12:40 so I let him eat it in the car. He was a little disappointed in it. It had honey, along with nuts and stuff, on the side, so he expected it to taste more like honey.

We were home at 12:50. He found a seed on the ground and wanted to plant it. He got a little pot, we filled it with soil, and he planted and watered it. I was then putting away groceries and getting snacks ready. We hadn’t had lunch either. He was playing with his balloon with rice in it and he threw it at the floor. It popped, sending rice everywhere. It was pretty dramatic.

Natalie, Corinne, and Elise got here a little after 1. They had brought cookies from Gutale and we added them to the table. August didn’t take any time in warming to them and showing them around. He liked being the center of attention. We sat at the table and had the snacks. I was talking to them so wasn’t watching August, but I think he snuck several cookies—he wouldn’t tell me later how many he had had.

Eventually, August took the girls outside to show them something, I think about the plants. They went in the Zinnie house and sat on the bench. Which turned out to be really, really, dusty. We hadn’t been in it since getting back. They then played with the hose and Corinne got upset when Elise sprayed her. I wasn’t keeping track of who got upset, but August was.

Back inside they went upstairs and August explained the rooms and sleeping arrangements. They found the cupboard in his art kitchen with yarn, and started unrolling it, seeing how far it would go. After they stretched that all through the house and outside they got another color and tied it on and kept going. Four colors in total, all three of them working together.

Elise had brought a small spray bottle as a mister. August wanted his, but we couldn’t find the lid to his. He found the bottle of tea tree oil though, and we dumped it into another container to save it. I washed the bottle a couple times, with soap, but it still came out smelling pretty strong, as you can’t get in the tube. August and Elise had fun spraying all over though to run water through it, including misting me as I walked down the stairs. Elise and August also worked together making a table for the cardboard house out of the Apple computer/iPad boxes. Corinne walked up and picked it up by the pedestal piece and it came untaped. Elise now got upset and August pointed out that they had both been upset once.

We all cleaned up together. August didn’t help with the yarn, but then Corinne spilled couscous or something on the floor as she was trying to get some to put in a balloon. August chose to do the vacuuming as his contribution. We got all the yarn rolled back up, and it was rolled much tighter now. They left at 3:36.

August was immediately bored, so we played a couple levels of the new Inventioneers game I had put on his iPad. Like monster physics, sort of, where you’re given certain pieces and try to figure out how to use them so that an object ends up where it’s supposed to go.

He ate a bunch of the pate he had chosen at the store and crackers. He spilled water drink on himself and had to change shirts. He asked “What’s ‘time critical’?” So a word of the day. We read more My Little Pony, finishing 2 and starting 3. He vacuumed the rice from the balloon from earlier, and I made spaghetti. He wasn’t entirely happy with me being busy in the kitchen.

Carly got home around 5:30. We ate, and he wouldn’t tell Carly what was in his cup (vanilla soymilk) and we had fun pretending it was different things, like beetle juice. He then invented eye/face dances and asked me to take videos of him. He was a little disappointed though as he felt that his eyes were moving around more than they actually were.

He and Carly went out to water plants. He went to show her which ones he and Elise had watered earlier. My inside he was flipping over one of his new Minnie Mouse shoes and realized it always lands right side up. He sang a “High technology” song that was really cool, then wanted his “transporter”—the zipper pull he had found at the school, then left in the classroom. They had found it in her classroom the following day, but lost it again that same day. I distracted him by suggesting the disk of titanium that Jeff had given him.

We went upstairs and played a Brother game. Bar had the titanium for making a virtual globe to track anything, something else that made portals, infrared glasses, and magnetic shoes that we never used. Brother used the globe to find more Blue Mooka. It turns out they live in Antarctica, so the one they found in South America was lost. They then went to South America to study them in their natural habitat, taking their parents along. August asked about how thick and old the ice was, and he ended up studying the pictures/charts at https://lima.nasa.gov/antarctica/ There was also a story about rescuing the mother when she was lost. She was in the sun and they got attacked by aliens.

We went down to see if Carly was ready to go get our anniversary ice cream. August used a small balloon as a squeeze toy and said “I’m the reuse person!” We left at 7:10 and drove up into town and went to the new place. August got a scoop of the graham cracker kind and a scoop of cookies and cream. Carly and I shared a scoop of the cookies and the strawberry cream. We ate sitting up at the counter and took an anniversary ice cream selfie, which I don’t think we’ve done since Korea.

We went downstairs to the grocery store but the bananas were really green, so we walked down to the new fruit and veggie market and got bananas and broccoli there. The bananas were for making banana bread tomorrow.

Back at home August took Carly aside and told her he still didn’t like the iPad time limits. A good conversation overall, although he got upset when I ‘overheard’ (I was in the kitchen doing dishes) part of it when I wasn’t supposed to). I eventually joined the conversation. Mainly he is worried about not being able to watch the last couple minutes of an episode, so we made some assurances about that, and he made the rule that he could only watch the end when time run out if there was a couple minutes left, not if he’d just started something. When he was allowed to get his iPad to watch one educational video now he kissed it, but then said “You’re all my best friends.” Earlier, when we got home, he had said that mama was his best friend because Home had said you could only have one best friend. Carly watched the Bright Side First Aid Myths video with him as I finished the dishes, then she took him up for a quick bath.

He was still hungry, so Carly made him oatmeal. While he ate that I read My Little Ponies #3. We brushed his teeth, he said good night to Carly, and I finished the last couple pages in bed. Lights out at 9:35. Trying to inch it earlier. He wanted me to talk about times I had been sick or hurt. I told him about food poisoning in Vietnam. He already told him about falling off my bike. He kept talking, full of all sorts of ideas, as I tried to tell him stories. He insisted that Mama tells him two stories, so then I told him about being sick and (I think) Mom and Dee surprising me with a Garfield stuffed animal. When discussing food poisoning he talked about how he cooks in his lab and uses microscopes and things to make sure there is no germs. And he told me thatUV lights kill germs. That reminded me of the cupboards of metal cups in Korea that they had everywhere. He was asleep by 10:10.

Singing as he plays with the ribbons:

Keyboard in the dark:

Singing as he plays with the ribbons 2:

Yarn through the house:

Singing as he plays with the ribbons 3:

Playing with the mister:

Eyeball dance 1:

Eyeball dance 2:

I was in the room when he sat up at 8:04 and looked at me. He lay back down and slept until 8:28. We went downstairs and I got allergy medicine. I sat next to him on the couch and picked up a Paddington book. He took it out of my hands and set it down. So we sat in silence, his shoulder against mine. He finally said something after 8:40 when he asked “Can I go to the bathroom?” He had oatmeal and frozen mango for breakfast. And we read two chapters of Bodie Troll. He asked “Is fauns real?” I discussed ‘faun’ versus ‘fawn’, which was also a new word for him.

He found the mouse ball and we played a Brother game with it. It was the largest mosquito egg ever. It hatched and got bigger and bigger and destroyed the house. There was then a short one about finding a baby bat.

We went downstairs and he did his iPad time. Started with one of those marble videos I don’t like. Then “What if you didn’t drink water for 7 days?” From Bright Side. He turned to me and asked “Are you listening to this?” when it gave advise on staying hydrated. At the end it mentioned H2SO4, so we looked it up and that is sulfuric acid. We discussed what would happen if you drank sulfuric acid and also the little poem they shared about it. I exercised and he ate mango and crackers and meat. He answered the phone when Carly called to ask about our plans.

He never mentioned going to see Carly for lunch. So we discussed our plans, and he wanted to get to Ikea soon so he could have ice cream. But first he played with the little transforming plane/robot from a Kinder egg. It turned into a Godzilla/King Kong sort of game, with me as the monster. I also told him about the Rampage video game, which I remember from Yesterday’s in Chelan.

He then taped things to the multimeter, including his watch, which he then didn’t wear today, and made a magnetic-ifying invention. It made everything magnetic. We played with that, then when getting ready got a text measure for Ikea. We first found the small one, but then he wanted the bigger one from his set, out in the Zinnie house. He likes it better, and said “That’s something my lab robots always say: You should use the bigger one.” He also realized it has a clip, and had me clip it onto his shorts before we left.

We drove down to Ikea. For some crazy reason the store was packed, as in there were no parking spots and people were parking illegally and also circling around. Some nice guy flagged us down to give us his spot as he left. We headed in, and got to shopping.

We were looking for boxes for storage for his toys in the living room. Carly had found one option on the website, but then we found a couple more. We then used math on the calculator. He typed in the equations, and we figured out that the bigger, nicer box (50x50x50) had 3.6 times the volume than the smaller box that Carly had seen. It was more expensive, but turned out to be less per volume. It was also nicer and had a lid.

We stopped to look at desk chairs. August started trying them out, then he sat at the doctor’s desk. It is one of their desk mockups, and it has x-rays on the fake monitor, and then charts of bones and other x-rays on the wall and on the desk. He was the doctor, and I was patients coming in, injured, and he was telling me about how my bones were broken. That went on for a good 20 minutes. And was long after he was supposedly hungry for ice cream. We finally kept going when he pointed to the clock by the desk and said “I have a very high tech clock. See, it’s pointing to ‘hamburger’. That means it is time for food.” But then he decided he had time for one more patient.

We also looked in the closet area, and when I slid open a door but didn’t close it before walking on he told me “You should close it before you leave it. That’s the proper way to treat a store.”

He also told me “I write-ed a book called The Hungry Fly.” Can’t remember where that idea came from. We also discussed what n abacus is, as they have them, but didn’t buy one.

We found the box we were buying down in the warehouse, paid for our stuff, throwing in a box of plastic sandwich bags and 4 packs of fruit snacks along the way, then got food. He got a hot dog and I had falafel. The line was short, and the sitting area, while pretty full, started to clear out and we got the little kids table. And when we were back out in the parking lot there were tons of free spaces. No idea why it was so busy early in the day.

He ate a pack of the fruit snacks and half a hot dog. He sang a “I told you we didn’t need a backup plan” song, and sang about how it had been a waste of time to talk about one earlier when I was afraid the store/eating area would be really busy. He had eaten a ton of frozen mango back at home. He then got an ice cream with chocolate in it, and ate it as we walked out to the car.

As we walked back to the store he said “The little mall is our main grocery store. And the first store we went to in Israel.” Don’t remember how true that is.

In the car we were listening to Massive Attack, which we had also listened to at home. I asked if he wanted to keep listening to it, or something else, and he stayed with Massive Attack.

We drove up to school. As we went in the library both the custodian and Amanda commented on how tall August was. We read a book called Pigeon P.I. It is in the style of a classic detective story. August liked it, and said he wanted other detective books.

We went to Carly’s classroom at 3:30. Maya was already there. They played, decorating the large box with markers and paper. There was a lot of disagreement and negotiating, but they both handled it well. Maya, older, had strong opinions on the “rules” of their art. She agreed that one end of the box could be for imaginative stuff, but even then kept saying “No imagination!” to him and Carly, who was helping.

She left about 4:40. They both wanted to keep decorating it together sometime. August and I changed for the pool in the bathrooms next to her classroom. He was convinced they had rearranged the bathroom. I told him it was probably that he was thinking of the women’s bathroom, which was probably reversed, or a different bathroom in the school. Not sure he was convinced.

We discussed measures of light as we walked over. We know of 3 measures now: lumens, magnitude, and the Night Sky app measures light output of stars in comparison to the sun, so 50x sun, etc. We got to the pool at 4:50. Carly caught up a minute later.

It wasn’t very busy, but after a few minutes a woman showed up with two girls. They are new. Her name is Natalie and the girls are Elise and Corinne, 3rd and 1st grade. They got a house just across from the school. August was instantly about talking to them and making friends. It was the most outgoing I’ve seen him. Natalie asked us for advice on places to go. August picked up on this and really liked offering advice on things. He asked Natalie if the girls ever get upset, and why, and what happens when they do.

When they asked what grade he is in he replied “homeschool kindergarten”, which I thought was a great description. August wanted to ask for their phone number so they could have a play date. Carly asked with him. Then, as we were getting out of the pool around 5:15 he asked if they could play tomorrow. I talked to Natalie and we agreed to finalize over email.

When we were talking to them in the pool (they’re from Chicago) August talked about Gramma and Grampa (that’s where he had seen a Donald Duck cartoon and he told them about it after Donald Duck had come up) and when I said they lived in eastern Washington August said “That’s my favorite country, Eastern Washington. Because it has ‘Easter’ in it and that reminds me of Easter eggs.”

As he and I got changed he asked to buy a swim cap. The girls had them. I asked why he wanted one and he said “It’s super adorable.”

He was still thinking of advice, and remembered how if he really wants to do something the next day the best way to get to it is to go to sleep. He said he wanted to tell Natalie and the girls, and he went out when Carly got back (she had left a few minutes earlier to change and take more cardboard boxes to the car) and I heard him telling them. That ended up as a conversation about sleeping on airplanes. He said he didn’t like to sleep on planes because he likes doing stuff on them, and he told them “it was so funny” he missed a bagel on our last flight.

We headed home. Had mac and cheese and broccoli for dinner. He then watched a Berenstain Bears with headphones on, as workers were working downstairs. Sounds like they were literally taking out a wall down there. 7:15 seemed pretty late to be working, but luckily they stopped by 7:30.

Carly and I were cleaning up, and when he finished his episode he helped. He helped vacuum and also cleaned the toilets. He told me “Going to the pool for a long time really paid off cuz I made 30 agorot and I made friends.”

He then played with my keyboard in the office. He was Bar and it was some sort of echo machine that she used to send messages to other countries. He had me send messages with it as well. We went downstairs and read part of a My Little Pony comic from Hoopla while he had more mango and crackers and meat (after dinner and during cleaning he had also had two bowls of oatmeal).

I gave him a quick bath in the shower, then we got him into bed. I left them at 9:45. He was doing some last jumps from the bed.

Descending:

The magnetifier:

Ascending on the office chair:

X-ray game:

It was a waste of time – song:

Decorating with Maya:

Echo reactor:

He was up just after 8:20. He went outside and found Carly, then came in and cuddled on the couch with her. I got allergy medicine. He randomly reminded us “Remember to brush my molar.” He Looked at weather maps on my phone, then had oatmeal. He sang “Could you read to me at the table!” But got distracted when he asked Carly if they should play rock, paper, scissors sometime, then asked what it was. She showed him.

I went upstairs to work, and they headed to school at 9:40. He played with Eve and Zoe and Max and his sister until 12. They were mainly at the preschool playground, it sounds like. Zoe tried to lead them to her fort area, but couldn’t find it. She walked around the library, the space below, etc. Luckily, August wasn’t upset. Back at the playground, August came and got help when the other kids had taken apart part of the structure that Eve had made with the car, then was suggesting they take turns.

I got to school at 12:40. He showed me the obstacle course he had made in Carly’s room, then I took him outside to the picnic bench to eat his lunch. He ate the broccoli, but not much mac and cheese. He asked about the pipes coming down, so ‘downspout’ was a word of the day. He wanted to me to read to him, and we almost started reading Ben Braver on my phone. He told me that “9 times 9 times 2 is 9 times 9 plus 9 times 9…” on My Planet. Which was actually another real way to understand it, but he didn’t seem to entirely believe me. He wanted to drop something over the railing and we had a big long debate about where he could and couldn’t drop things down, luckily, we came to a good agreement, and he dropped a leaf down in a safe spot.

He examined the lockers, then when Jeff and Alex showed up after 1 to work with Carly he initially got a bit upset and wanted to go back inside. I was able to stop him though and he calmed down and after a bit we headed to swimming.

We got changed and he got in the water at 1:30. He was disappointed that there weren’t more people. At one point even we were the only ones in the pool. We played and played, nothing in particular. He started holding his breath, big cheeks, and swimming with his mouth in the water. Then he was holding his nose and putting it in too.

At 3 the Kern girls showed up with Max and his sister. Max said, “Hi, August!” I think they played together a bit more today. There were more people at the pool, which made August happy, as he likes watching them. Max had to stay in the shallow end, and it became a great spectator sport when he kept trying to get past the red line and Grace and Gaby were stopping him. August was rooting on Max, which I had to get him to stop.

Carly got there around 3:30. She changed and got in, and I got out. He and I had figured out the best way to put on his goggles (very loose, and back on first, then tighten them) and I had also taught him how to loosen and tighten them on his own. Now, he was showing Carly how he could swim with his mouth and nose in water. Carly said if he put his eyes under he’d be able to see really well. He did it and was amazed: “That was so good! That. Was. Amazing…I can see everything!”

Finally, got out of the pool at 4:30. I noted it was a record for longest time in the pool, at 3 hours. And Carly noted that he had been at the school for longer in one day than he had ever been before when it wasn’t a school day. It was 7 hours by the time we left.

On the way to the car he had me lift him up to pick a little fruit from a tree. He was hungry, so I gave him the last strawberry Altoid. He then used the can (“I reused something!”) and put the fruit in it, and called it a musical instrument. He was rather excited by this, and showed it to Carly as a surprise once we were home.

But first, there was a bunch of junk across the street. We picked up a wi-fi router and a computer monitor. Carly and August were outside for awhile. He found that ants had been attracted to the fig he left out. He moved it over to the garden area to lure them away from the house, then put down some more ant poison by the house. I finished the broccoli and schnitzel, then we ate dinner.

August wanted to play a Brother game, making use of the wi-fi router as a prop, but upstairs he saw the cardboard house and wanted to work on his expansion plan, which he had dreamed up yesterday. The big cardboard boxes that Carly had had had been picked up, but luckily she had just gotten an email saying there were cardboard boxes by the tech room. So we all got in the car and headed to school to get some cardboard.

We loaded up the back of the car and headed home. Upstairs, August and I started planning. We decided to incorporate the book shelves and a couple of the real walls, meaning less cardboard necessary. We used the existing box s the entryway, and were opening up the back of it to enter into the rest of the house. We went downstairs to get tools to take out the big staples. I found his lip gloss, Nd he put it on and asked Carly “Is it still princess-y?”

Upstairs he and I worked together to get out all the staples. a real team effort. He asked “What ‘diameter’?” And then “What’s ‘diametrical’?”

Carly switched with me as he was playing in the sink a bit, and I went for a bike ride. When I got back they were reading Dog Man. I took a shower.

I took over for his bath. He played in the sink, getting a plastic straw stuck in the spout. Luckily, it didn’t seem to affect the flow and I should be able to get it out pretty easily. When he went to the bathroom he asked “Dada, should I touch my pee again?” He also asked “What’s a lie detector?” We talked about how the work.

Eventually, I washed him. I then realized, in bed, that he had a big red circle on his forehead: he had attached the bluetooth speaker thing to it earlier. He rather liked the look of it, although he also said he didn’t want other people to see it. I said we hadn’t noticed it at all when his hair was down.

Carly came in to put him to sleep. I left him at 9:40. He was upset about her leaving in the morning, and initially tried to go downstairs. But he went into the bedroom to talk to her. Initially he wanted to take her to work in the morning, and visit her for lunch. Later, at 10:15, he said he just wanted me to be in the room when he woke up. I agreed to that. Think he was asleep soon after that.

Breaking open the palm nut:

Classroom obstacle course:

Putting his face in the water 1:

Putting his face in the water 2:

Putting his face in the water 3:

Carly woke him up at 9. He cuddled with her on the couch, then started singing “squirming on mama is the ultimate discovery” as he did so. I hunted all around the house to find his water bottle, only to find it a few feet from them hiding behind a pillow. She made him crackers and meat (his request) and some mango slices for breakfast. But first, they went out to the compost to see if they could see the grubs/maggots. He dug around in it with a shovel and found a lot, and back inside told me all about it, and a rotten orange peel he touched: “It wasn’t really gross to me because it was rough and brownish.”

He ran over to me and showed me a “finger language” with his hands, humming as he did so, although he said the song wasn’t part of the language.

He wanted to do his morning watching time, and watched Bright Side videos about what happens if you stay in a pool for two weeks, and what if the sun never went down (https://youtu.be/nmSH93wXbFU). He then watched a Dr. Binocs compilation of natural disaster episodes (https://youtu.be/HaEmIakO7f4).

He found the pump and speculated more on why a balloon loses air if you pump it up and leave it on the pump. He pumped up some balloons, and they made a big one. He played around with it, bouncing it in the air all over the house (something I distinctly remember doing a lot as a kid). I went up to start working, and when I came down for something they were using string to measure the equator of one of the balloons. We talked about equator versus circumference, and our ‘margin of error’ (although there may be an even better term for the limits of our measuring capabilities). August says he likes things precise to the nanometer.

I went up and worked. I saw them outside, him still with the big balloon. He had one of the fruit yogurts. He told Carly that new things fill him up faster. They got ready and left at 12:15.

It sounded like they mainly played in Heather’s room. The new kids, of Joe, the middle school counselor, were there. Max is 5 and seemed really outgoing in the pool the other day, but he spent his entire time painting and August ignored him. He, Zoe, and Eve spent their time playing some sort of make believe game with the computer, sending codes to each other. Zoe gave him her portrait of August. August kept calling Eve ‘Vivian’. Zoe told him where her secret hideout is, although it isn’t clear where it is. August got really excited by it and kept talking about it. They said there were pillows and all sorts of other things, and that it was under the library. August kept saying he wanted to go to sleep so when he woke up he could go play in it.

When that was over around 2 they went to the classroom and played there. He made some game with pieces of cardboard on the floor and using a ball. I finished work for the day and ran to school, taking back roads on the north side. I met them at the swimming pool and got changed and went swimming with them. Maya and Ben were there. We were invited to Ben’s 5th birthday on Saturday. Maya and August played ‘Hang on August’s Mom’ for a while. August got out to see what was in the shed. We got some rings and played with those, then played monkey in the middle.

August asked “What’s the ‘heebie jeebies’?” We got ready to go, and I ran home. When I got home I helped him use the cheese grater to grate open the little fruit he had found somewhere. I then went and took a shower. I made a plate of crackers and pita and hummus and meat and cheese and he ate with me. Carly went upstairs to rest. We read some of Munchkin. He asked “What’s ‘vulnerable’?” A word of the day.

We did some taking apart, then Vivian called on FaceTime. He had just gotten plastic bags for gloves to avoid the dust from the printer. He had me put on rubber bands to hold them. Of course, with Vivian the talk about the gloves turned to touching poop, and he went outside and found cat poop to pick up. We then went out on the street and he found dog poop. He crossed the street and looked over at the garbage area for gross stuff to touch. Plenty more dog poop, and he found a little treasure. The FaceTime connection was still working, and we were showing Vivian and Colin everything.

August wanted to walk further, but I didn’t have shoes on. We walked back towards the house. We were going to show them our car on the way. Colin got upset when our video froze and he couldn’t see the car. Vivian and August were both taking tons of photos in FaceTime. She said she took 58, then 61. He did the math in his head: “58 plus 61?…119.” Vivian tried to take us out to their garage to show us their dad’s flat tire a couple times, but of course lost the connection as soon as they got to the garage. We hung up after 6:30.

August went upstairs to find Carly. He told her he had a new tooth: his first molar is coming in on his bottom left. He came down and showed me. I got him broccoli and macaroni and cheese for dinner, then let him have a cup of chocolate milk.

We read a new book, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School. ‘Mistook’ was another word of the day. We saw an ad at the end of the Bodie Troll book for Over the Hedge. We had started reading that before summer, now went back and read more of it.

He had a big idea for making a cardboard house, so we went upstairs to look for cardboard. We got out the big pink box that he and Carly had worked on. He had a plan for making it much bigger, and tall enough to stand in. We went downstairs and he got all of the little cardboard boxes out of recycling; not nearly enough for the house, but he said we could make cardboard things for inside it. He had decided that the pink part would be the entryway where the shoes go, so we could make cardboard shoes. Although he said they would be “a hundred percent not water proof” and “As dry as the tip of my penis.” We also measured him in his room and he his a full inch taller than on his birthday.

He also decided that he was going to stay up late into the night working on the house with Carly: “Maybe mama can work with me using our jet lag powers.” Downstairs, I started making him shoes. I had flip flops done by the time Carly took him up for a bath. By the time they were done I had added an edge and front and strap of sorts to them, turning them into cardboard Crocs. He was very happy with them. He looked put his big toe in his nose as he sat on the couch and said “I put my daddy toe in my nose.”

I took him upstairs and we got him ready for bed. He was jumping off the bed. He said it would be easy for him to go to sleep since he had used so much energy and was tired, and because he wanted to go to sleep so he could wake up and play in the fort area. He was then telling me I could turn off the lamp. I sang “Meridian” and he was out by 9:50. He was clearly tired.

Balloon fun 1:

Balloon fun 2:

Monkey in the middle 1:

Monkey in the middle 2:

Bzaa:

Touching poop with his gloves:

Cardboard shoes:

Ninja kicks in the air:

He woke up at 8:40. He called down the stairs and I went up and he went back and lay on the bed for a minute. He then headed downstairs and lay on the couch, not saying anything, until almost 9, when he said he needed to go to the bathroom. He did that, then wanted his iPad. I got that and allergy medicine. He watched an educational video that YouTube recommended and I made oatmeal. He ate that and watched the Berenstain Bears, the one about enjoying what today has to offer, when the weather keeps changing on them. He finished the episode and turned his iPad off on his own.

He then came and asked if we could buy bubble water. I thought he meant to replace the bubble mix that spilled the other day. But then he asked if it was good at getting flavors out of your mouth. He then clarified that he meant fizzy water, and he said he could taste his breath. I reminded him about mouthwash, and he went upstairs and Carly helped him use his mouthwash. Downstairs he told her about how he wanted to buy fizzy water and do an experiment to see how it helps take away the taste of his breath. ‘Carbonated’ was a word of the day.

We were then talking about our plans for the day, and he got stressed out about watching stuff while we met with Gaby today. He talked to us about it, and eventually said he could try it.

He explained that on My Planet you can type 3 and a fish symbol on a calculator and it will tell you how many coins it is worth.

He brightened up with the idea of a Brother game. We went up to play. Brother was trying to figure out how to make money fishing, and Bar helped him with the fish calculator. Brother then tried to go fishing, but it didn’t go well. He couldn’t bring himself to keep the first fish, which was cute, then the next fish was too ugly. Then they got bite-y, nd got worse and worse. August had him fishing out at sea and getting attacked by sharks, etc. Eventually, we had him wake up from a bad dream, only to find a fish in the bed next to him. That was August’s dental and he thought it was pretty funny.

Back downstairs he told me how he had gone back to the science center and made a better rocket using the materials from the marble kit. He was then asking me what 9 times 3 is, then repeating it. He said “I really want to remember what 9 times 3.” He had a little crackers and peanut butter for lunch. When he got his underwear and shorts on backwards, Carly helped him think about which direction they go.

He only reluctantly ate broccoli. Carly and I were discussing insurance reimbursements, and he got stressed about us discussing health care. Carly soured him she was just worrying about the overall cost of health care, not something specific to us. August told her she worried when she didn’t have to. He said “I’d want you to worry if WE were running out of health care.”

We went out to see the new plant that Carly had bought at the store. We talked about the little bits of styrofoam in the soil, and looked it up and found out it is actually ‘perlite’. Another word of the day.

We got going to Gabi’s. August did a ton of sinning, starting with Dog Man and Captain Underpants. He kept singing about all sorts of things, and sang “flies out acid on your skin, then drink it up, look it up and see if Vivian was right.”

August sat and watched Home as we met with Gabi to discuss plans for this year. We heard him laughing a lot.

From there we drove to the school. In the parking lot he found the end of a zipper pull, and called it an ancient alien sensor thing. He said they only travel through portals and don’t use spaceships.

When we saw Eve, in the entry to the auditorium, he was initially shy, but then she ran over and gave him a big hug and lifted him up. He closed his eyes as she did it. It lasted a few seconds. Very cool.

We went to Heather’s classroom and they painted on canvases. August said his was a bunch of little pictures together. I heard him tell Zoe that one of them was a treehouse with legs. Zoe painted a picture of August, which was really cool. August was reluctant with cleaning up, but he liked the feeling of the paint as we washed it out and he used his fingers. And while they were painting Zoe and Eve were bickering about something and Heather told them to stop because they’d been arguing all day. August asked them “How do you argue all day?” And he had a conversation with Heather about is, suggesting it was because they told each other what to do, and Heather said she thought he was right. He was pretty amused by the whole thing, grinning as Heather and the girls talked about it.

The kids then went outside. They started in the bushes area that August had talked about playing in yesterday. Heather and I followed them as they went around the cafeteria building to over near the nature preserve. We then headed across the school to some place Zoe likes by the middle school. But August and Eve wanted to see Carly, who had gone to work in her room. We went in and found her opening big boxes with bean bags and other things in them. August and Eve hid in a big box and Heather called Zoe in so they could scare her. They played with the box and in the beanbag chairs, and August used scissors and helped cut open several of the boxes.

Heather and the kids left at 4. Back in Carly’s classroom August played with the handle to the cabinet with the AC in it. He was trying to remember a word, then explained it really well. He meant ‘satisfying’. He thought the handle was satisfying. There was a pump that came with the seat things. He played with it, and really wanted to take it home to use it to blow up balloons.

So we took it with us. August and I left. Carly was going to work until 6 and walk home. When we had gotten in the car earlier Carly’s key wouldn’t work. So we were going to go to the hardware store to get a new battery, and also the grocery store to get fizzy water for his mouthwash experiment.

We parked by the post office and went to the grocery store. We got a box of strawberry snack bars, then while looking for the water he saw chocolate pudding so I let him get one of those for his snack right now. We found the water, and also got some cashews. We paid and sat at the picnic table near the Moto store (where we once sheltered during a rain shower) and had our snack.

We then went to the hardware store. We got three CR2025 batteries for our car key remotes. We drove home, and August watched Home. Carly was back about 6:40. He had been getting impatient as I couldn’t find the balloons. She found them, and they blew up balloons. I got dinner for myself. August was being grumpy again, and he threw the bottle with the ants in it again. He got really upset when I said we needed to let them go, and Carly took him upstairs. He talked about it really well though and I came up and talked with him too. We talked about pets and pain versus killing (as he was confused about why we could kill ants inside, but shaking the ants around wasn’t okay).

Downstairs Carly made a mango lassi. When he was in the bathroom he talked about touching his pee. I was upstairs at the time, and when I came down Carly was telling him he couldn’t say “I’ll kill you” even if he was joking. He was pushing back though, and eventually explained that he had initially wanted to touch his pee, but then decided he wouldn’t, but then said “But I would do it if you said ‘I’ll kill you if you don’t do it.’” Carly had missed the context and just heard the “I’ll kill you” part.

He said “It’s okay to say something if you’re using it in a sentence.” And he referenced a conversation from a year ago where we had said it was okay to use the word ‘dumb’ if it was in a sentence about something else, and not just calling someone ‘dumb’. We agreed that he had used it in a way that was okay, and Carly apologized to him. He really did a great job of explaining himself.

We drank our mango lassis outside and Carly watered plants. August kinked the hose and made it squirt. They played that together several times.

Back inside we finished reading Bodie Troll. He said something that was rather demanding to me or Carly, and I explained once again why he needed to say it politely. He replied “Why? Vivian doesn’t have to.” That was a big a-ha, and I said that while Vivian is amazing and I love her very much, she also needs to work on being more polite, and that it would be awesome if August learned how to be so polite that next time they played together she actually learned how to be polite from him.

He randomly asked about animals that make light, and we discussed ‘bioluminescence’. We started Bodie Troll from the beginning and ‘tinkle’ was another new word. He also really liked the phrase “Hissy fit meltdown.”

He was hungry and ate a few pieces of fresh frozen mango. And more and more and more. A phrase he repeated a lot today was “At least you’re head is not being in the toilet.” It is from Home and the Boovs (aliens) say it. He asked why they said ‘being’ is there and I tried to explain the ‘to be’ verb and why they make mistakes.

We went upstairs and he played in the sink. The hand soap was almost out and he filled it with water. He studied the bubbles and made “soap eruptions.” He wanted to make a potion, mixing a bunch of things, but it was almost ten. Carly took over and got him washed and brushed his teeth. I read a little more Bodie Troll in bed, and said good night to them about 10:20.

Discussing his new rocket at the science center:

Singing about Dog Man:

Lots of singing in the car:

Singing about the SAP building and other stuff:

Painting with Eve:

Explaining his painting:

In a box:

Surprising Zoe:

I had slept with him the first part of the night, but at some point he sat up and asked for Mama. She and I switched spots. I then couldn’t get back to sleep so did some reading. I got up around 8.

Carly brought him down about 9:50. He lay on the couch for several minutes. Hard for him to wake up. But a good night of sleep.

When he was hungry he wouldn’t try a fig, so he had some toast and several frozen strawberries. He wanted to watch something, so I got his iPad. I told him we had changed the time on his iPad, so he could have a total of 30 minutes of watching in the morning, then we could use the iPad through the day for reading and educational games, and he can earn more watching time by doing independent reading.

He watched a new Storybots, as there’s a new season. Exciting news. A lot of laughing, and after one character used the word he said “Ha. Salutations.”

He handled it well when his time ran out. I made him oatmeal, and he went out and cuddled with Carly for a minute, then came back in and ate his oatmeal. It had been a bit windy and cloudy out there, and Carly, who had been sitting out there, said it was almost chilly for a minute.

They checked an experiment they had done with the freezer, putting in a piece of wet paper and dry paper. They had left it too long though and the wet piece was all dried out. She finished reading Dog Man #2 to him. She taught him the word ‘Epilogue’.

They finished, then bought book #3. Did some calculator time while it downloaded, but then he asked to go outside “Just to do some secret talk.” It turned out he wasn’t happy with the new limit on his iPad time and he did a really good job explaining that. They came in and we all talked about it. At one point he suggested dividing his time in fourths for every 6 hours of the day. We ended with giving him a little more time in the morning so he could finish a second episode of something, then dividing the rest of the time into a mid-day and evening chunk. He’ll only get the middle time if he does independent play first. And we reduced the overall time, but will make it clear that reading and doing educational apps, like for homeschool, don’t count towards his chunks of choice time.

He finished his episode, then Carly read Dog Man. I was upstairs, and he came up and put his coins in water again. He had left a bunch of coins in some concoction of soaps and water before we left for the summer, and one of the last things I had done before leaving the house was dump them out. The poop spinner wasn’t moving well after putting it in the water last night. He randomly asked what ‘psychokinetic’ means, so I explained. A word of the day.

We went down and fixed the poop spinner with WD-40. He then talked about WD-H, which he says helps plants. He saw a plane flying low and talked about the different heights of airplanes. He then had another chemical called WD-H392 that cleans rugs: “It seems like magic, but it isn’t.”

He helped me put down some ant poison and he wanted to catch ants. He decided on a plastic bag and we mixed up sugar water to put in it. He lay it out on the step. He used a two liter bottle to fill up with the hose and pour under the teeter totter, then watered a few plants with it. But then he wanted a dry bottle to catch ants in. He tried putting a paper towel in it, which didn’t work. So he wanted a dry bottle.

We walked to recycling. He walked the whole way. He did ask me once to pick him up on the way back, but I pointed out how he’d done so well on the way there, and that it was now clear that it was a short walk for him now, and he said it had been for a year. But it did the trick, and he walked back. The next big one will be when he considers a walk to the mall and back to not be a big deal.

Anyway, at recycling we found an old dishwasher. Which he wanted to take apart, but settle for just inspecting. I asked him if it looked like the one that Jeff had worked on at their house. I then found a metal box with a lid that latches shut. Kind of like a heavy duty metal lunch box. Perfect for treasures or for playing out in the Zinnie house or something. We walked over to the plastic recycling and he showed me his method for “walking” a plastic bottle out through the hole.

We went back to the house and he tried catching an ant. He thought he had trapped one, but then the bottle blew over and he thought he lost it. He then asked me to catch an ant using the lid and I managed that. It then turned out he had two ants trapped in the bottle. He was pretty excited about that. We put some bread crumbs in for the ants.

He talked about hydrogen and quarks and we got ready to go swimming. He wanted to drop the old camera to break it open. He took it out and dropped it on the boards. The batteries fell through the cracks. It did manage to break it a bit. He had put on his swim goggles as eye protection.

We got to the pool and swam for an hour or so. It was pretty busy today, but he was fine with it. It provided some entertainment too, as a volleyball got stuck up on one of the covers, and it was quite a show watching a guy use a long pole and kids using other balls to try to get it down. We played the kickboard game using the one rope set up to denote a lane.

We headed home at 4 when the pool closed. He was outside with Carly for a while. He then came in and went to the bathroom. He stood up to go, something he had done a couple times starting in Pennsylvania. He said it was the “Power of the penis.” As we went back out he asked me “You have a boyfriend, right? Omar?”

He then had a bunch of things he wanted to do: first he said he wanted food, then just a minute later he said he wanted the tire pressure gauge from the car, then a minute later to take apart the camera. So we started with the camera. He used the drill to try to drill through the plastic, then we used the screwdrivers and got it mostly apart. Carly took over for awhile, then I read some Bodie Troll. He ate a bunch of crackers and meat. Carly went to the store. When we stopped reading he said “I’m swarming with things to do.” And they didn’t involve the iPad.

We did a Brother game, where he found a new animal. Didn’t get far into it and he wanted to build a fort. We built a fort, listening to Yes, and he got up on the chairs and danced to it with his eyes closed. We did a little of the silk worm game. He said, “I love the evening…cuz I get to play with Eve tomorrow.”

Carly got home, and about 7:30 I went for a run. I got back at 8 and Carly decided it was too dark for her to go for a walk. She had made the seitan, rice, and broccoli for dinner. He was watching StoryBots, finishing a song about the planets. He asked me “What’s a planetesimal?” And we talked about that. He said “I still have a ton of things I want to do!” But then got a little upset about not being able to play Green Planet.

He made some sort of listening device with the stethoscope and tape. Carly said that was 4 minutes of iPad time as he’d played on his own. He said, “Oh! I didnt even notice!” He asked about trying out the speaker with a suction cup. Got a cord and plugged it into the computer, and it turns out it is actually a bluetooth speaker. Later, I would also realize that it has a rechargable battery and doesn’t need to be plugged in. Might be fun for playing music in the Zinnie house or something.

Carly went and took a shower. He had done more independent play, and I let him use his ten minutes playing Green Planet. When I had him help me clean up from our fort earlier he got really grumpy about it, then, when She told him he could get his stool to wash his hands he refused to do it and lay on the floor. He eventually told me he was just tired, then a bit later he had a good talk with Carly about what was fair and not fair.

He ate a banana, then went upstairs and played in the sink for a long time. He was still hungry, so Carly got him oatmeal, and we skyped with my parents for a few minutes. I then left them at 11:20. Carly read to him, and apparently could have put him to bed earlier, as when she went to turn the lamp off he said “No”, but by the time she turned it off and turned around he had rolled on his side and was asleep.

Filling the bottle:

Examining a dishwasher:

Getting a bottle out of recycling:

Drilling a hole in plastic:

Hands waterfall:

I saw them up at 2:45am when I got up to get some Advil as I had a headache. August was watching a video about black holes and Carly was reading. They were asleep when I left at 7:30 to head to Sabeel.

I had gotten a good amount of sleep, but was very disoriented when the alarm went off. Wasn’t tired on the drive, but when I walked in the office I realized I was feeling a bit off. It didn’t help that there were more people than I’d ever seen in the office on a Friday, and I hadn’t had any coffee yet. Luckily, Omar made us Nescafé, and then a bit later one of the women brought around Arabic coffees.

Marie Claire was there. She’s interviewing women connected to Sabeel for her PhD thesis, and is also helping with Kumi and the antisemitism work. So it was the three of us meeting, as Marc was gone picking someone up at the airport. We had a good meeting, then I hung around getting some work done, and helped Omar and one of the interns figure out some medieval historical issues about Umar and the Jews and whether he welcomed them back to Jerusalem or not (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar’s_Assurance?wprov=sfti1)

I was going to leave, but stayed when Omar said he was going out to get lunch. He came back and they did a big office lunch. There was a main dish, then yogurt and a salad and bread and small figs.

While I was gone August started waking up around 10. He had fallen asleep about 3am. Carly did a lot of yard work. August played around on the slide and cut the buds off the sides of the tree like Shmuel had told him to do. She sent me a photo of him using rulers and markers.

I left there and was on track to get home at 3:30, but there were two accidents on 4. One involved a semi and something that leaked or spilled and a fire truck was spraying down the roadway.

I got home about 3:45. August asked who was at the door. He then shower me his “materials” for a mosquito trap. He found some ants on the floor, and we took the figs that were overripe and bowl outside And it became an ant trap.

We finally headed to the pool. Carly talked to the guards on the way in. She had to be pushy about it, as they’d just keep checking the one drawer where the keys are supposed to be and saying “It’s not my fault.” She finally talked to the head of security on the phone, and the guys there finally looked through other drawers and found the keys. They had been taken out of the envelope.

August and I headed ahead to the pool when it was clear that was going to take a while. I talked to Mandy, who was there with Jill and Grace. We got in the pool and stayed until the lifeguard asked us to get out at 5:50. August had asked about ‘stratosphere’ earlier and also asked what ‘more than likely’ means. He taught Carly the game where you shoot the kick board out of the water and try to get it through or over the railing.

Headed home in the car he was asking for dessert and we suggested a mango lassi instead. He was excited by that and said “I can taste it!” He randomly asked “Who’s the god of time?” I told him Chronos.

At home he did more alone time, to add to the 7 minutes he did earlier. We’re trying having him earn more iPad time through independent play time. I let Shmuel know we are back and he called and I talked to him. He is renovating the back yard to make it appealing to renters. Carly made the lassi.

August repeated the line “Petunia, darling.” Not sure where he got that, but he’s said it several times. He ate some frozen strawberries, then finished making his “safety hotel” that had lasers to protect it. Earlier it had been a “global hotel” with a ball “representing” a globe.

He earned enough time to watch an episode of Home, then we read Bodie the Troll and had peanut butter and crackers and broccoli for dinner. Carly had done more work outside and taken a shower. He had also asked what ‘coupon’ and ‘scholarship’ after he heard the girls in the pool talking about scholarships for some reason while they played volleyball in the pool.

Cherie and Chuck had done a FaceTime call for a few minutes while they were eating deep dish pizza. August wants deep dish pizza now. We went upstairs and August played in the sink. He invented a “poop spinner waterwheel” that he wanted to show Oma, so I took a video. He then made a “Phenomenon 3000” by putting two straws in the faucet and turning it on. He said it made air from the water.

On the toilet he wondered where the toilet paper stand is. It has been in his room since he decorated it. He wants it back in the bathroom, so asked “Well can we negatively decorate it sometime?”

He took a shower bath, and asked “What’s ‘dinosaur diction’?” Don’t know what he meant by that. He played around with the settings on the shower nozzle, then had me turn up the pressure more than he’s had it before: “Even a little higher…Yeah, that’s the stuff!” He sang “Now I’m really getting the pressure…turned off, turned off…”

After his bath he really wanted to do bubbles, so we blew bubbles upstairs. He spilled some of the bubble mixture in the office so I cleaned it up.

Downstairs I read a couple more chapters of Bodie Troll and he had a few crackers and peanut butter. When I finished chapter seven we sat on the couch for a couple minutes and he kind of turned his head towards me and rested a bit. He then turned the other way and said “Mama” and crawled in her lap. He fell asleep a minute later, about 10:45. That was a surprise. I went up and took a shower, and she carried him up to bed.

Mosquito trap materials:

The global hotel:

The kick board game with mama:

Safety hotel:

Poop spinner slo-mo:

Poop spinner water wheel:

Started waking him up at what felt like, or was, 7:10 for us. He was really slow to wake up, and I finally used a lollipop. Still, he sat there licking it with his eyes still closed for a couple minutes. He ate a little of the rather disappointing breakfast they had brought, then watched more Home. I had gotten an okay amount of sleep, but Carly and I agreed that the seats seemed even more cramped than usual. And the family in front of us put their seats back right away and kept them back almost the entire flight. I had thought of doing some work, but there was literally no way the laptop would have worked for me.

Carly took him to the bathroom, and we landed just before 3:50, local time. August seemed to have a little claustrophobia, stuck in his seat when it stopped, but we let him stand in the aisle as soon as that was possible and he was fine.

We made it out, got the stroller, then our bags right away, and immigration was quick. We got a taxi in the queue and were on our way. Traffic was the slow part, and it took more than an hour and a half. We were in Even Yehuda, on the way to the house, when Carly remembered our car was at the school. The driver turned around and took us there.

The guards at the school couldn’t find the second set of keys we had left with them. We were home by 6:20. We looked at the plants, which had all not only stayed alive, but grown really well. Our biggest papaya is an actual tree now. August got right to taking things apart on the floor. Then he went to the couch and said “This is the couch of beauty. I love this couch.” Later he would decide it was the “safety couch” as it protects you from monsters.

He asked “What’s ‘reduce’?” Not sure where he got it. Carly headed to the store. We went upstairs and played a Brother game—the one where his whole family is on the beach and there is a big storm and they are in denial about it until the grandparents, etc. start getting blown away by the wind and washed away by the waves, then they are all saved by the Coast Guard. He was Bar, playing with a holgraphic machine (the wrist strap thing and circuit board), and not helping when they were in trouble.

Carly got home, and he had oatmeal and frozen strawberries. They went out and did some yard work (there are a lot of tree things to pick up) and I took a shower. We switched, and Carly took a shower.

He and I played a little Minecraft, then when I asked if he was tired he said “I’m tired on the inside but happy on the outside.” I read a chapter of Bodie the Troll and we had crackers and meat. I was falling asleep as I read to him, and I went to bed at 10:50, as I needed to get up to go to Jerusalem in the morning.

They were reading Captain Underpants or Dog Man when I went to bed. They came in at 12:45. Carly recommended I move to the other room, and I was half asleep as I did so. I remember hearing her tell him about a stuck contact, and something about anesthesia. She asked if he knew something, and he said “Dada told me. Dada teaches me everything.” As I left she was telling him about the air conditioner not working on a family trip.

Waking up with a lollipop:



Carly got him up about 8:30. Cassie was Then making waffle bowls for the kids. I picked August up and set him back in one of the butter chairs after a minute. Colin wanted me to do the same thing with him and I set him in the butter chair. August looked at him and said “I’m staring at you.” Colin thought that was really funny, and August kept making funny faces at him to make him laugh.

When August’s waffle bowl was ready we moved over to the table and they ate. I cut up banana to put in his. With syrup and whip cream on top. As he ate he said “Jiggle my jellyfish.” Said it is from some story that Carly read to him.

As he ate his waffle bowl he said “It’s Wikipedia good.” At least that’s what it sounded like.

Cassie was trying to shoot a fly with the air gun, which was providing some good entertainment, and I got ready to go work. August found his lethality coin and took it in the bedroom to pack. Carly took Colin out to water the plants with her. August started making egg puns again. “I’m going to egg-tact you…time to make my egg-scape.” I said “That’s really egg-ravating.”

I dropped off a package at the UPS place, then two at the post office, of clothes Carly was returning. Then went and worked at Empire Coffee one last time. It was around 10. I got the bacon and egg bowl again this time, but gave in and got a vanilla latte, which covered up the otherwise mediocre coffee. I remembered cash this time, so could actually leave a good tip in the jar, since I hadn’t been able to tip the first couple of times.

I worked for close to 3 hours, then walked up by the library to the barbershop, only to find that it closes from 12 to 3 each day. So I drove west to this Platinum Cutz place that has really good reviews. One of the barbers said hi to me as I walked in. A ‘walk-ins’ welcome sign by the door. There were two kids already in the two chairs, each with a barber. There were two people waiting, at least one waiting for one of the kids. So it looked pretty good.

After 20 minutes one of the guys told me that he had an appointment coming in, so I’d be second in the other chair, after the one other guy that was waiting. Again, didn’t sound too bad. I got my iPad and worked and read. And waited and waited. The guy doing walk-ins took over 30 minutes on the kid. The owner spent a good 25 minutes after finishing the kid he was on making phone calls for his tux rental business. When his appointment came in that was at least interesting as I heard some local gossip. It sounded like the guy that came in owns the Big Chair (that Cherie and I had once taken Vivian and August to) and that it had really been vandalized. They were also doing some sort of event planning—a town carnival or something—together, talking about the dunk tank and what not.

They walk-in guy finally started on the one other guy in line in front of me (the kid’s dad). After about 40 minutes, when he started trimming his beard, I gave up and walked out. I had waited well over 70 minutes and had only been third in line for two barber chairs.

I got back before 3. They had made muffins, with strawberries, from an actual recipe this time and they turned out much better. August told Cassie how he wanted to make lemonade with mint in it. Cassie said we should start a list for next summer. They were playing with a set of gear things. He heard them talking about their step-grandmother, and asked what the step- meant. I took a minute to think about how to explain it, and he had moved on by the time I tried, although I told him again later. A word of the day, sort of.

I took a shower. After I got out, Colin got upset over the gears. August was calm. But a bit later the roles were a bit reversed. Colin whacked/grabbed a part from August and he responded by throwing a piece at Colin, luckily missing. Took him int othe bedroom.

We finished packing up, and Jeff got home. We had intended to take a cab, but Cassie insisted on driving us, which was very, very nice. We left at 3:55. Vivian gave him an extra hug at the door, then he turned back, after looking outside, and told her “I’ll tell you one last thing: I think it’s going to rain again, because I see some really dark clouds.”

In the car he played one move on his watch game. He’s banked over 20 by not playing it over the summer. We then started reading Bodie Troll, which is from a Jim Henson collection of graphic novels I bought just this morning on Humble Bundle. He looked out the window while it rained and had a raindrop game and explained it. And he was looking for airport signs. He did some more singing and played with the middle seatbelt. He sang a “Magic can solve anything” song. We read a second Bodie the Troll chapter, then after a bit read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. He asked “What’s a code ring?” Which is from the story. I had bought actual bubble gum at the store, and he chewed a piece. While he chewed that I read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Chick!

Cassie dropped us off at Newark. We got an odd questioning at El Al. We got the line with two people; we think she was training someone, so they practiced on us. But it seemed to get us an extra sticker thing in our passport that then made it easier to get past immigration on the Tel Aviv side.

We were down in the same gate area as last summer, I think, where August and I watched the yacht race. We got a tuna sandwich to share. We sat at a table and ate, then he and Carly played hide and seek. They also went and looked at airplanes and just people watched.

The plane was late to arrive at the gate, so we didn’t get on our 9:15 flight until 9:30. We played with the rather old school wired remote for the displays, with me pretending to talk on the phone, then he would push the button that would pull it away. He took off his shoes and told me to “Smell my foot, please.” I used the word ‘odor’ and he asked what that meant. Another word of the day.

August and I started to watch the Home cartoon together, my headphones plugged into his. It is really funny. We paused when the plane finally took off over an hour late, then kept watching. After the second episode he fell asleep around 11.

Colin I See song:

One more strong rain before we leave:

Testing the rain:

The window droplets race:

Singing:

Hide and seek in the airport: