Category: Uncategorized

He was up at 7:20. I took him down and gave him the card and big chocolate egg to take out to Carly, who was outside. He did that, then inside they opened the chocolate egg and put together the penguin toy. I gave him the ‘Robot Day’ card I’d made last night. He had requested I make a card for him, and the idea of having the robot give him a card came to me last night. They did math and I made french toast. We ate, then I went up to get ready to go to the licensing office to renew my temporary license. The were reading a Dogman book as I left.

While I was gone they did an egg drop. It was basically all his idea. They put the egg in a cup, then taped balloons to the cup. He helped tape. It worked from the slide and from the office. I was afraid the office would be busy, as it had been closed this last week. Once I found the entrance to the building (which has changed due to the renovation of the building) it went smoothly. I got my new license, but then as I left I realized it had the wrong town in the address (it also said ‘Yehuda’ in it). I went back and he changed that. That’s why my license never arrived.

They were making a solar oven when I got back. He told me how he had made some sort of freezer that was all white, then a cooker out of black tape that was even better than the one they were making. They put the solar oven out with chocolate in it. He and I then looked at the remains of the hard drive. We did a little of the store game, then checked on the chocolate. We changed the countdown to summer on the chalkboard, then left at 11:20. August and I were playing at Gabi’s office today. As we drove, August controlled the car as we went through space (he had talked about how he had made it so we could go really fast). Listened to Moby on the way.

We got there a bit early. I had him pick another one of those smelly flowers to put on my backpack. When we went in, about 15 minutes early, there was a dad sitting with a boy who was watching an iPad. I held August for a couple minutes, then when we sat down I was looking for a book to start reading on my phone, so I didn’t pay attention. A girl came out of the office, then they left. August said, “Why did I just see Judson?” The boy had been Judson from his class, and the girl was Judson’s sister (who had once talked to August on the stairs about being Judson’s friend). We read the start of a book, but he wanted Polytopia. We played a few rounds of that, then Gabi was ready.

In the office we played Monopoly and Connect 4. Lots of math and strategy talk. He showed me how he and Carly had play Monopoly, so we did the same.

From there we drove up to Wiz Kids. We talked about getting another word game for Carly. We found something called ‘The Busy Day Dominoes’ which he chose, and which is perfect as it is about verb conjugation, which he still struggles with a bit. We also got a Bug Bot kit from the clearance area. August had set a 5 minute timer when we went in, so that was how long we spent looking before we went to pay. There was also another set of Story Cubes that we might get sometime.

We drove home, stopping at the strawberry stand. He went in with me, and we bought a Large box, 8 containers of them, for 60 shekels. The idea is to freeze a bunch of them. At home I had a headache so went up to rest for a bit and they started the robot. When I came down we switched. The motor wasn’t working, so I took the enclosure apart. the soldering had broken from the motor. I was able to fix it, and August and I finished putting it together. August put the stickers on, making it as scary as possible.

When we had it going, August had us put it in the bathroom, still moving, and when Carly came down he ‘scared’ her with it. This became a big thing. They had something to eat, then upstairs he had me put it in the bedroom to scare her. He then repeated this a few times, closing her in the Zinnie room, blinds closed, with the robot. He was getting pretty hyper.

We figured we needed to get out. We also needed freezer bags for the strawberries. So we walked up into town for popsicles. We went to the health food store and he chose banana strawberry and Carly had coconut chocolate. As we sat there, August asked me, “Are we seeing you live?” Which is what he asks when we are watching a video and he wants to know if it was recorded or live. We played a little Polytopia and Carly headed to the pharmacy and store. We caught up with her at the pharmacy. We then went down to the new grocery store.

We walked home, taking a slightly longer loop to do the Holly block, and were home by 6. He thought it was funny to throw his shoes again, which Carly had told him he couldn’t do anymore, as he was kicking them off across the room and could hit something. Carly took him upstairs for a little timeout. He then did find it funny to just close my shoes in the bathroom. He had me do the maze in his dry erase book, then I went up to do a little work.

Carly he made nutty noodles earlier, and we had had some after Gabi’s, and he had more for dinner. I came down, ate, and then we skyped with my parents. He was typing math problems (and their answers) to them, and figured out the + sign. He had me help him put in the commas so we could figure out enough zeroes so he could send them a nonillion.

When he got hyper we said goodbye. Carly took him up for a shower, but then decided she was tired. So we switched and I washed him and she got ready for tomorrow. When he talked about using too much soap we discussed the word ‘excess’, so that was a word of the day.

Washed him, then as we went in the bedroom he was doing. “I’m the world’s greatest mom” chant. Don’t know where that came from. I left them before 9:10.

More store game:

Checking the solar oven:

Humming and stickers:

New robot:

Scaring mama with the robot:

Crazy time:

August was sleeping right next to me. I thought he’d wake up if I moved. At 7:15 he opened his eyes but went back to sleep. So I read my book, and was almost finished when he finally did wake up after 7:50. He went to the bathroom and then we went downstairs. He found Carly outside and went to her. I finished my book, then made the last of the pancakes.

They came in and we ate. August said he couldn’t taste the allergy medicine in his water. “But I can if I put my super mouth on!” He then talked about how his super mouth could taste they dust in water.

They read some of Where the Sidewalk Ends. Boa constrictor, sardines, etc. They went back outside and Carly was watering plants. August caught another one of the cockroach-beetles. He said he knew it could fly because he saw wings, and he also observed the hook things on the ends of its legs. He played with it inside and gave it a 10 agorot coin and the metal tube piece from the mechanical pencil. The beetle was trying to get into the metal tube, so I asked if August could figure out a different way to give it some darkness.

He then did some Dragonbox Big Numbers. He left it with me to get some bees for him, then when he came back and did a math problem I saw that he was now drawing his 8s figure eight style, as opposed to two circles. Totally an influence of the game, as I’ve not pushed it at all.

We played Robot Factory. We figured out the test track better than before, and he was now into designing a robot that would do better on it. After awhile Carly took over. They then played outside.

I went up to work. Carly brought up smoothie for me after he came up and asked if I wanted some. I came down and he was telling me about his communication system: “820 billion people on it” He could communicate with everyone on his planet.

I started hot dogs. Upstairs he had found Carly’s 2 dollar bill, and wanted her to give it to him and got a bit upset that he couldn’t have it. I think she took him upstairs for a minute. He came back down and played a few minutes of the PBS Science game then he and I ate hot dogs and milk. He ate it, but told me he wanted it long and skinny next time and not side-by-side. I tried to get him out for a bug or flower walk.

He was looking at his coins and found his old 10 agorot coin, that has a different design on it. He questioned whether he could actually spend it, and we talked about how it was still “in circulation”. We then read and almost finished Amulet #8. He next had me play chess because of ‘pawn’ in the book. I played a game, then we went back to the book and finished it. The end tells us that the story will be ‘concluded’ in volume 9, so that was another word of the day.
He was running around so Carly took him out to touch imaginary giraffes.

Gabby got here at 3 and watched him until 4:50. They painted rocks for Carly and delivered them to her. Gabby had brought a puzzle of the Earth. August wouldn’t help, but would set timers for her to do it. I heard him telling her how he would live for millions of years. They played some soccer, and she shared Mentos with him. There was a lot of playing with the hose. Later, he told us he had gone to the bathroom when Gabby was here, and not only done everything on his own, but she didn’t have to come close to the scary bathroom with him.

I paid Gabby, then went back up to work a bit more. Carly made him oatmeal. I came down, and he picked up tree things. He got a little upset again when he found out he couldn’t make the beds because Carly had already done it when she put on new sheets.

We wrestled on the bed, Robot Factory style. When he went to the bathroom he asked what a ‘cockpit’ is and about ‘sound barrier’. Carly skyped with her parents, and when he was talking to them he randomly said, “I’m at full capacity now, bub.”

He and Carly did math for a long time. Carly went to the shower. He read Ten Men to me and we figured out the last bits of his watch, including the toe-to-toe challenges. He had me do a toe-to-toe challenge, holding his watch, which involves seeing how many steps you can get in two minutes. He then did one. We then got the Mother’s day card out and added to it. He told me what to write inside and he signed his name, and he also decided we should trace coins on the front.

Carly give him a bath, then they had toast. I read Monster Party and “Too Many Daves”. I left them at 9:30 as she read “What Was I Afraid of?”

Picking up tree things:

Store game:

Step challenge on his watch:

YouTube https://youtu.be/F_fLlGb3gP8

Dance walking:

He was up at 7:20. He called me up and he went to the bathroom. We came downstairs and finished reading Amulet #7. He got the scale out and weighed things as I made oarmeal. He asked me if a worker could park at the natural history museum for free. Actually, his question was broader, asking if workers that had to come to places with paid parking lots would have to pay. From there we also ended up discussing how credit cards work. And he told me 20 shekels was 2000 agorot “becuase a thousand is ten hundreds and a shekel is a hundred agorot.” He ate oatmeal and we played Polytopia. He started the Chemical Brothers. He danced to “Don’t Hold Back” again so I added it to his playlist. He read Ten Men to me and I read Let’s Go for a Drive! We then did the pirate store game again, first with me selling things, then with him being the shopkeeper.

I tried to get him to focus on planning time and we made an agenda for the day. We discussed Mother’s Day and he also wanted to go to Herzliya Park this afternoon. He made the beds, then he had iPad time. He played Dragonbox Big Numbers and watched some rocket launches.

For lunch we had crackers and meat and cheese and strawberries. We started a card for Carly, but didn’t get to writing on it. He had some more food, then we did a Brother and Sister tiger game. He remembered wanting to hook up the guitar, so we got the iPad and did that for while. We then started to decorate the card. On the back of it he drew a video game: “You roll a ball around, and that’s the entrance way, and you have to figure out how to get out of it.” On the front he wrote ‘August loves Mama’. Didn’t have any luck getting him to decorate the inside at all, or use markers, for that matter. This was all in pencil, as he loves my mechanical pencil.

He changed his mind about the park and decided to get his exercise in the yard. We went outside and played around. We looked at all the tomatoes. August wanted to tie up the tomatoes, but Carly is letting them sprawl out of the pots. I gave in and we used a stick to stand up one of the vines. He played on the slide for a long time, trying to climb up it and sliding back down. He kept repeating things like “Please, pick me up!” and “Somebody help me!” although he was just playing and didn’t actually want my help.

We went inside after 20 or 30 minutes. I made popcorn and we finished the first episode of Our Planet and got about 20 minutes into episode 2 before he ran out of popcorn. We got ready for swimming, and headed to school. We got there early enough to go to the library and exchange volume 7 of Amulet for volume 8. We had a few minutes until the bell rang, so we sat on a bench and started it. We kept reading for a few minutes after the bell rang, then went and delivered Carly her swimsuit. I spotted her walking down below and August went and excitedly met her on the steps.

We got to her classroom, which was dark and warm. She said it is how the high schoolers like it when Chris has his class in there. We had to wait a few minutes for Carly, and August said, “Why am I in this warm and stuffy room?” We all went and changed, and got in the pool. Probably the last sort of cool day until summer. It was rather breezy. We played in the pool; he’s moving around a lot now. Need to work on getting the floaties off. He started talking and acting like Carly, using what I called his mama voice: “It is the coldest thing ever.”

We got out, and were home by 4:30. As we had left the school he’d looked in the box that was mainly full of all of our discarded printer parts that hadn’t yet been picked up. But he also found a hard drive. It turned out to be an old 20gb drive from 2004. It was clearly broken. At home he got to work taking it apart. It was a really fun one to do and think about how it works. He then wanted to find that 5 shekel coin he had put in his basket last night. Only now he couldn’t remember where he’d hidden the basket: “That’s why I hidded it so well even I couldn’t remember where it is.”

He played with the app for drawing mandalas on his iPad. I taught him what ‘opacity’ meant, so a word of the day. We had more of the noodles for dinner. August made sure I got him milk. After dinner he played some Khan Academy with Carly, then GarageBand. They read some Dogman, finishing one of them. Carly went up for a shower. We wrestled, then he had more mango pops on toothpicks, something he had done before we left for school. He spilled some of the toothpicks, so I put those in one of his little art supply drawers for playing with.

We went upstairs and he wanted to do more Brother and Sister game. I suggested Story Dice instead. I told a story about a missing brother and a talking sheep. Back downstairs he read The Old Truck and Bump! to Carly. He then got one of the ice cream sandwiches. He started saying lists of random rhyming words and wanted me to repeat what he said. I pretended a few times, then suggested turning it into a game where he starts with one, I repeat it, he adds a second, I repeat them, etc. and we see how long we can get. We did that a little.

We looked at the hard drive parts a little more, then sorted out all his coins by country and asked Carly where the big of pennies was so we could give him 6 pennies so he would now have a full dollar. As we were figuring that out he was adding up the coins he had and added 35 plus 25 in his head.

Carly took him up and washed his hair and had him brush his teeth. I came up and we read some of Amulet #8. He sang a tune based on “Animal Life”. I sang a few songs and he fell asleep at 9:50.

Guitar time:

Writing a card for mama:

Playing on the slide:

It’s like a megatub:

Opening the hard drive:

Word games:

Music before bed:

He woke up enough at 3-something for me to have to get in bed with him. I was then awake when he got up at 7:05. He went to the bathroom and we went downstairs together. He cuddled with Carly on the couch for several minutes, then they went outside to check the tomatoes. I made pancakes, and we all ate pancakes and strawberries for breakfast. August then sat at the table making up music. He stacked up all the magnet blocks, then played with them with Carly. They were making planets out of them. August made a planet that moves around on wheels.

They then did an art project with a cardboard box and glue and string and the tile-like things from Max. Carly got cotton swabs for the glue, and got extra, so August of course asked her why, which she had predicted he would do. He was then making fun of her for getting extra: “There’s a cotton swab emergency!” I said I didn’t know where he learned such behavior, and blamed it on the cartoons these days. I then joked about how cartoons when we were kids were wholesome. August asked what ‘wholesome’ meant. So a word of the day. And he presented his really soft yarn, which he’d chosen at Max, but hadn’t yet used, to Carly and told her she could have it.

We played Hey, that’s My Fish! We then sorted the Bob Books so he could choose them in order and he read Ten Men. It is interesting, because all of the books he has already mastered (he has 4) are from the ‘Sight Words’ set, while this was from Set 3. He does seem to learn the sight words more easily than a book like this, which has a lot of rhyming words that look similar (like tent, went, and sent).

He then wanted to do the balloon egg drop again. He wandered off as I made it, so didn’t really help. They then watched as I tossed it out the window. This time, we moved it to the grass and popped the balloons one at a time. The egg was just fine. Success!

Inside he started to do big addition on his own: “30 plus 30 is 60, 60 plus 60 is 120, 120 plus 120 is 240, 220 plus 220 is 440, 440 plus 440 is 880.” We read the Elephant and Piggie book Let’s Go for a Drive with him doing a few words. He asked me to wrap a present for him. I agreed and figured I’d wrap one of the Max art supplies. He liked my wrapping job (in the foamy stuff he’d gotten at the junk pile) but wasn’t impressed with the gift itself. It was the colorful popsicle sticks, notched so you can build with them. I built a little, but he decided he’d use one to make a mango popsicle. We thawed mango pieces a little so we could stick them on, and he’d eat them. He wanted it really hard, so we put one in the freezer, and he set timers on his watch to remind us to take it out.

We ate some pita and hummus. He put pieces of the soft yarn (he had wondered how they make it so soft) between my ears and glasses and said that I look like a poodle. He wasn’t quite sure what a poodle was though, so we looked at photos of them.

He had caught what looked like a sort of small cockroach outside earlier, and it was moving around.

We read Gaston, as the talk of poodles had reminded me of it. We realized that we know 3 characters named Gaston, as he thought I was talking about Dragons Beware. And of course there’s also Beauty and the Beast.

We then read parts of the DK Space Travel book. He’s never really been into nonfiction books, but he responded positively to this, and they’re only 99 cents. So we also bought Solar System and Energy and will probably buy a bunch more. We watched a few videos of rocket launches and discussed the size of the space station.

I then went up to work. He was helpful with Carly. He did dishes for a point and watered plants. Carly made sushi for lunch, and he helped bring everything up to me.

They then walked to the mall to get a healthy snack. Aroma was closed, so they went to the other cafe near it, which we’ve never been to, and had lemonade. As they were leaving, I was taking a break from sitting at my desk to rearrange the office. I switched the wardrobe and the chair, so that when you walk in you now see the chair and not the side of the wardrobe. It looks nicer, and now Carly doesn’t have to look at my back when we’re both working in there.

They also went to Tiv Taam and got toothpicks, which I had suggested. August keeps remembering we don’t have toothpicks. They were back at 3:20. They were in the yard for awhile so I kept working. They came in, but then were back outside for quite some time. They had toast, and August yelled up from the yard through the window to ask if they could use the bread we had chosen for hot dog buns for toast. They also looked at the new Energy book and learned about heat.

I came down and August and I shared some tonic water. He was counting by 11s and doing other math problems. He went to the bathroom and I watched some videos of him at Children’s Grand Park. I had randomly remembered the day we had bought a spray bottle at Daiso and played with it. Thanks to locations, I was able to find it easily and we watched some videos from around that time.

He’s been playing a game with Carly where he rushes to the bathroom before her. Sort of a reverse psychology thing to get him to go to the bathroom when we need to go somewhere. Carly told him it wasn’t a game though that he could play with other people when there was just one bathroom, thinking forward to this summer, particularly with Vivian. He said it was okay though as he had put Vivian to sleep for a few years. When I said that didn’t seem desirable as then he couldn’t play with her, he first asked what ‘desirable’ meant, then agreed to wake her up.

He then put all of his coins in two plastic bags and gave one to me. We were then pirates stealing money from each other. Which was mainly him stealing from me. I gave up being a private and stated a pirate supply store. He used his money to buy things like parrots, rope, figureheads, etc. from me. a twist to the game was that I was still a pirate so I’d try to cheat him on his change, and he had to double check it to make sure I got it correct.

Carly had gone up to rest, but eventually he wanted to go to her. She said he could come up so he was with her for a few minutes. I then came up. He told me “You’re a poodle. An extra disturbing poodle.” Even though I didn’t have the yarn on me anymore. We wrestled and he did math and we started a brother and sister whale story.

I remembered I was going to make the sesame ginger dish for dinner. We went downstairs and I did that. He went outside with Carly to do a photo scavenger hunt out on the street. He found about 20 things and got 22 million points or so. For a lemon he had taken a photo of a broken one, but then said he could have taken a photo of an “intact” lemon.

The dish, mushrooms and broccoli in a ginger sesame sauce over egg noodles, turned out quite well. August either really liked it, or didn’t. He didn’t eat a lot, and said he tasted the pepper. He drank a lot of milk though, and said he liked the mushrooms, which he hasn’t liked for weeks and weeks.

He did some tracing of our words of the day on the iPad, then we read more of Amulet #7. He went upstairs to Carly for a bath. He told her about how boys are tougher, and she talked to him about stereotypes (a new word) and how ‘tough’ isn’t really important.

Carly actually decided to put him to sleep, so I gave him a bath. We then read two of My Very Own Fairy Stories. We brushed his teeth, and he found a 5 shekel coin in Carly’s little treasure box. He claimed it as his own. He wouldn’t part with it downstairs, but he handled it well and didn’t get upset and we agreed we could make a plan for earning it tomorrow.

Back upstairs I read “Too Many Daves” and “Pale Green Pants” from The Sneetches. Carly came in and I left them at 9:35.

Checking the egg drop:

Unimpressed by the gift:

Addition:

Checking my change giving:

Toothbrush music:

Counting songs 1:

Counting songs 2:

Counting songs 3:

All the old posts should be imported. A couple wrinkles to work out, but you can click on the month labels to the right to look at old posts. Let me know if there are any problems.

All the old posts should be imported. A couple wrinkles to work out, but you can click on the month labels to the right to look at old posts. Let me know if there are any problems.

All the old posts should be imported. A couple wrinkles to work out, but you can click on the month labels to the right to look at old posts. Let me know if there are any problems.

All the old posts should be imported. A couple wrinkles to work out, but you can click on the month labels to the right to look at old posts. Let me know if there are any problems.

All the old posts should be imported. A couple wrinkles to work out, but you can click on the month labels to the right to look at old posts. Let me know if there are any problems.

All the old posts should be imported. A couple wrinkles to work out, but you can click on the month labels to the right to look at old posts. Let me know if there are any problems.