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I think they went to sleep about 10:30. I was up a couple times during the night, but slept okay. I got up at 5:20, feeling good. A little before that, August had started to get up, and I think said “Switch shoes”. Carly told him it was a dream and got him back to sleep. They then slept and slept. So no up in the middle of the night craziness this year. Carly was down about 7:25. She said he had actually woken up twice talking about his shoes.

Kayla and Thatcher were out about 7:30 and I heard them say something about August. Then I heard “Dada!” I took off running upstairs. Met him at the top of the stairs. I picked him up and said “Good morning, ZZ.” Kayla said “That’s not ZZ, that’s August.” Downstairs he started playing with the nesting dolls. Thatcher came and played with them too, then Kayla showed up too and they played around the coffee table. As part of a discussion carly reminded him “We don’t like competitions.” To which August honestly responded with “Well I do if I win in the end.”

They had breakfast and August and Kayla developed a full Abbott and Costello sort of routine:

Kayla: “Stop copying me, August.”

August: “Stop copying me, mama.”

Kayla: “That’s MY mama.”

Repeat. They did all of the people, then random things that Kayla struggled to pronounce: Scotland, flubong, escalator, Shmorgadeboop. They were also repeating things like “what the heck?” “oh my gosh” “oh my God” The first of which I think Kayla learned from Thatcher.

They left and took Thatcher to school and August played up in the play room with Cherie. I did some Sabeel work down at the table. They came back with Kayla, and then I left on my cell phone adventure. The plan was to try Verizon this summer. I drove the car Chuck and Cherie were using (actually Claremay and Steve’s) over to Northgate. I’d forgotten that the iPhone 5 was T-mobile/ATT only, so I left the Verizon store and headed to AT&T. Along the way I got on the free wi-fi though and realized I could do one phone on each just as cheaply as two phones on AT&T or Verizon. So I got Carly’s phone set up, then went back and did mine. Got back in the car and realized that data wasn’t working. On either. Went back to Verizon and they went to work on my phone. The only thing the phones had in common though was that they had both been used in Israel. No thanks to them (they were stuck on an error message in switching SIM cards at their end) I realized that there was a ‘Profile’ still on the phone for Golan, our Israeli company. Removed that, and each phone worked.

Got back at noon. While I was gone August and Kayla played together the whole time. August took a bath and she played with him from outside the bath. They ate tamales for lunch. August liked the pork or chicken one. When I got back they were playing in the play room. I got some lunch. At one point Carly and I walked up and August ran to us and said “Mama Dada! We’re playing in here.” And ran back. A little later the two of them were playing in Kayla’s room on what had been our bed with one of those basic wooden ramp and ball things.

Everyone got all ready to go and said goodbye. I heard some very sweet goodbyes between August and Kayla, who was holding a couple of her stuffed animals (a giraffe and something else). We left about a quarter to 1.

August sat in the back in the middle between Carly and Cherie. He was wired for the first hour or so, singing his “Eaten by a consequence…” song. he was also having difficulty controlling the spitting noises and with squeezing Cherie’s arm. Carly and I switched in Monroe when we stopped for gas. He and Cherie played a game on her tablet that involved saving cats. He had fun with that, but got a bit obsessed with it.

We stopped at the rest area at 3. He asked me to teach him how to use the water fountain, then was really excited about it, and said that it was the easiest water fountain he’s ever used. In the car there was more of the saving cats game. At one point Cherie said We’re not very good at the game yet. August suggested “We should go to coding class to do it.”

We got to Chelan at 4:40. He immediately said “We can see how big my maple tree getted.” I walked around the side of the house with him and he told me “Watch out for the sprinklers. Remember the sprinklers?” The tree was almost as tall as him, but not quite. Mom got Dad and they joined us at the tree. August wasn’t entirely sure they were who they said they were at first.

We saw Cindy outside, and inside he told Carly he’d just seen one of the cats. He played with a cat toy and then was rubbing his eyes. He said he was both tired and they were itchy. Washed them a couple times but no major reactions today. When he was asking about the layout of the house I mentioned the upstairs and the downstairs. He asked “What about middle stairs?” Pretty sure he was being funny, but there is the landing that goes outside there, so that ended up being the middle stairs.

I checked out the shoes I had ordered. We have a nice stack of boxes waiting for us. Chuck and Cherie had gone tand checked in to their hotel, then walked back. We then all walked to Local Myth, except for Carly, who drove. She was tired.

We saw Paul and got a table in back. August had fun playing with the Mr. Potato Head toys. He also liked seeing Paul a few times. On the way there he had pointed out he has three uncles and was chanting their names. While we waited, he ended up getting 4 straws and using them simultaneously to drink his water. I took him up to the counter and he stood there watching them throw pizza dough around. When a finished pizza came up, he said “Thank you, Uncle Paul” although he was in back the moment.

Paul brought out the appetizer plate. August ate the whole pickled asparagus, some bread, and tried one of the slightly-spicy olives. When pizza cme he had parts of two pieces. He was then done and tired and ready to head home. Carly took him home in the car. The rest of us stayed and finished off the second pitcher of beer (I’d also had a Boot Strap IPA). Lot’s of talk of upcoming trips to the Mediterranean, etc. Nice idea of all of us meeting in Mexico for winter break some year. I looked at flights though and that is a lot of travelling from Israel to there. Maybe with a stopover it would be doable. Or two.

At some point today (in London or Seattle, I think) I had another good talk with him about timezones, and how our Monday was actually 34 hours long, but would only be 14 hours long on the way back. It seemed to make a little more sense to him this time, probably because he was living it.

Carly got up first, then got him up at 5:30 while I was in the shower. She said the first thing he said was something related to poop – from one of their ‘games’, I think. I was hurrying right before 6 to finish the berry brains for breakfast and finished the dishes and tape the last drain (Carly had already done most of the roach and ant stuff – she had woken to a dead roach on the counter, being eaten by ants), and he was stressed about time. We were just fine though, and the cab was a few minutes early and we left right at 6. Carly said that while they were outside and waiting for me to come out of the house they did “mindful spitting” instead of mindful breathing.

The cab driver was great and the traffic was fine. Just over a half hour there. August asked about Groove Armada song “At the River” playing on the radio. He asked what ‘fond’ meant. And he liked that the car (a Skoda Octavia) had air conditioner vents in the back (his major critique of our car and the rental car). Of the switches/lights on the ceiling between the driver and me he said “That looks like a little alien face.”

Our usual critique of airports is how many freaking lines you have to go through. Today it became how many lines you have to stand in if you also don’t know what you’re doing. So we went to check-in first, where we were told we’d have to check one of our carry-on backpacks (which really seemed unfair, as there were 3 of us and we only had two carry-ons in the first place), but then told we had to go back and stand in a baggage security line first.

So got all that done, then saw Jack and Celeste and after we finished checking in, then we stopped to get a couple of breakfast pastries and a coffee and saw them again. This time, without Nellie. They were going through Germany on their wy to Florida and their 8am flight was already delayed to 9:15 and they were afraid they were going to miss their connection. Later, I found out that they got on their plane, only to wait 3 hours on the tarmac, poor Nellie underneath. And yes, they missed their connection. Weather related, apparently.

At the gate we did a quick Skype with my dad to say happy father’s day, then the two of them played hide and seek. Ended up boarding later than they told us. Carly took the stroller to see if she could check it in and August went with her. They were gone for a few minutes, and I realized the guys sitting a row over were American musicians, although I didn’t figure out who they were. I figured that out as a woman stopped to get her photo taken with one of them. I then heard them talking about finishing songs, and one was traveling with a guitar. Sent a photo to my friend Mark, but we couldn’t figure out who it was.

Got on the plane and August got to sit by the window. Just tall enough to see a little for takeoff. He was asleep at 10:05, right after takeoff. Woke up before 11. A happy boy. Carly looked at the map of our fight with him. On the first flight I managed to watch Stand by Me, broken into several pieces. Carly was in the middle, so she was with August most of the time. He watched a little Sarah and Duck, but it turned out the cord for his headphones is going bad. He also played Math Tango and Dragonbox Numbers. He switched to the middle and we read some of Sisters 3. He didn’t like his ears popping on descent and said something like “Stupid plane”. I told him it was science that was causing his ears to pop and he said “Stupid science.” He held Carly’s water bottle so we wouldn’t forget it, and made up a chant: “But the king wants it there. But the Israel wants it there.”

A bad omen in London: the stroller wasn’t waiting for us. They theorized that it had gone to main baggage claim and it would meet us in Seattle. We weren’t sure why they thought that, and that it wouldn’t just end up going in circles on the carousel until it missed our flight. Not much we could do about it.

August was a little worried about that. As we walked to our next gate in the same terminal we stopped at a customer service stand and Carly went to ask them about the stroller. August played with one of the line ropes again, letting people and imaginary animals go through. He’s also been saying “Hey goofball” the last couple of days, and I think it might be from my parents.

We stopped at Starbucks and he got a pineapple, apples & carrots smoothie juice box. I got my first caramel macchiato since moving to Israel, and Carly got a latte. First learned of our gate number when it ws assigned through a notification from Kayak. They went and ran around, and I sat and enjoyed my drink and read. They came back and August asked me to supervise hide and seek. He had also jus started rolling around on the terminal floor for fun. They were starting to load, but it was a 747 so we had some time and were in group 5. So I got him to run around a bunch, playing tag.

He was stressed out though when we started to board, and actually bit me on the shoulder. Pretty sure he was just trying to bite my shirt, which he’s done in the past, but actually scraped some skin.

We boarded at 3:15. He sang the tuna fish song, making the words more abstract: “Eaten by a consequence…internet…timeout.” He had, earlier, when they were playing around, pointed to someone and asked “Are you the backup captain?” Now, we heard an announcement that said there were actually two backup captains. he said “Three captains on this plane? Oh my gosh.”

We took off at 4. I sat next to him, with him looking out the window. We then did some popcorn cracker math. They had done this on the first flight, breaking them into fractions, which he is into. He talked about sitting out on the wing and we talked about the actual speed of the air, etc. so then he was putting crazy things on it, like a galaxy: “With my unweightifier I could do it.” “What would happen if I put 9888 suction cups on top and 9888 suction cups on the bottom?” They brought snack and he had yummy pretzels and apple juice.

He switched to the middle seat and gave Carly drawing challenges. He told her she had to draw alligators and gave her a certain amount of time. He then helped color. Dinner came. I got the chicken curry and they got the pasta. He then played Math Tango with me. Cloudy over Iceland, but then I saw ice in the water. Pointed it out to August, and we watched and talked for about 10 minute as we flew over the coast of Greenland. That was fun.

I switched with Carly when he was looking sleepy (she had taken him to the bathroom). But he couldn’t get to sleep. The lights were still on for one, although he was clearly sleepy. I switched and sang to him. He was cranky and actually punched me in the cheek, although luckily not too hard. After a cupole more songs we switched again, and she got him to sleep at 10:30pm, Israeli time. I listened to music, Wolf Hall, and did some reading. I looked out windows in back. Had fun looking down at Ellsmere Island and later the Great Slave Lake and iced in lakes before that. And what would be Wood Buffalo National Park.

He woke up 2:40 Israel time, 4:40pm Seattle time. We landed and deplaned. He didn’t like the idea of more lines, but it went really smooth and he was in a good mood. As I carried him down the hall he told me “Jump into my head.” I asked him to explain and he said that he had drilled a hole in the top of his head that I could jump into, then he would fill the hole with super glue, but it was okay because he could take the super glue out with something sharp.

We got to baggage claim and got our two bags right away. Carly walked over to the oversized luggage area and there was the stroller. We went out and up the es
calator and there were Chuck and Cherie. Before 6. Carly took him to the bathroom and he liked the paper towel dispenser, saying he’d never used one like that before. When we got out to the car he joked about riding on the top of it.

In the car Cherie had brought a big bag of dried mango. She couldn’t get it open, but I did. August claimed credit: “No, I did it with my super laser beams.”

He was a little frustrated by the car ride, but we made it, getting to the house before 7. Right before we got there he got nervous: “I don’t want to visit them.” When we got there he stayed in the car for a few minutes and I stayed with him. But Kayla can read people. She looked in at him and said “potty”. He laughed, so she said it again. And again, and again. We learned that Eddy is sick. Got August out of the car. He had me carry him at first, especially past Eddy. Got him inside on the couch.

They went upstairs to the play area for a few minutes, and he was now comfortable with Thatcher and Kayla. We went down and had dinner. Derek and made wonderful halibut, and a farro salad. August wanted to go upstairs, so I went up with the three of them. They played with the keyboard and microphone, then they got sidetracked in Thatcher’s room, looking at a spider he had caught earlier. Back in the playroom they were gathering blocks with the wooden trucks, then building a house out of blocks. I was doing all the building and asked August “Who’s building the house, man?” Kayla told me “That’s not a man, that’s August.”

We then went outside as they got ready for bed. Carly and I had taken turns taking showers). Cherie, Carly, and I went out front with August. He and I did some bubbles and he played around, then we all sat in the new sitting area (where Thatcher used to dig) and August made rock cake using rocks, etc. We moved to the back. I was ready to go to sleep and headed upstairs, about 9:30. I was asleep before 10, and they were up around 10:30.

He woke up just before 7:15. He sat on the stairs and tried to convince Carly to go up. Eventually got him downstairs. Had his vitamins and he and Carly built with the straws a bit, then they went outside to set up the solar oven and check the temperature. They were out a bit longer, then he came in and asked where his spider web poker (the little pointy metal thing) was. I told him he last had it outside after he had me wash it yesterday. He spent about five minutes whining about it as he lay on the floor of the kitchen, complaining that he might never find it. When I made it clear that I’d help him look, he got up and went out and immediately said “I found it!”

Carly went upstairs. For awhile I kept working and he played on his own. He sang songs about Judge Gavelhead and PKB. When I asked him about them, it was almost like he didn’t even realize he was doing it. I started building with him and we were building a house from the design booklet. Carly headed to school for an envelope for our car keys. We skyped with my parents as we built. At one point he was chanting “immediately”. Another vocab acquisition. We talked about our plans in Chelan and the idea of going out to pizza the first day so we could see Paul. He liked the idea of Paul serving us.

Sometime after we hung up he ran to the bathroom, which is where he’s allowed to say those words as much as he wants, and sang a poop song. Then ran back. Then he told us “In Emmett and Leonard’s chasing game they call the bad person ‘Buttman’.” He’s told us that exact sentence about a hundred times. They are also the source of his inspiration in this regard.

Looking at the house he said “It’s really gorgeous.” They worked on it and I took a shower.

Carly then took him to Poleg Beach. I stayed to work and type, but mainly ended up dealing with creating frequent flyer accounts and checking into our flight. They were back at 12. He told me “We got soaked wet…then we were pooping everywhere…hitting people…punching people…saying I don’t love you.” None of which was true, as his swimsuit wasn’t damp at all. They had played in the sand though, and learned about plastic in the ocean. When Carly was trying to get water for their creation, there were small pieces of plastic everywhere in the water. Like we’ve never seen before. Sounded awful.

We got our stuff together and headed to the leftovers party at Ilana’s house. We took the berry brains and ice cream and a bottle of wine. This party was inside. August had fun playing on the bean bag chair in the middle for awhile, then we got to eating. It turns out he really likes tuna casserole. When he was done eating, he and Carly played with the straw building set that we had bought (later, as we worked on final packing, he would be a little upset that we couldn’t take the set with us on the plane, as we had just bought it). We also had berry brains. August also had an interesting theory on his eating: “If I have another bite I will explode, just for your warning…a treat will make me a little less full.” They did grab some sort of treat for him to eat later, I think.

We got going about 2:30. Rebecca was there, and I suggested he go over and tell her he was a s’more. He was a little shy, but Carly went with him, then he was totally into it and got some great squeezes. He also impressed her by knowing her name. Then, right as we were leaving, Jack and Celeste got there. So we got to actually say goodbye to Jack as well.

As we walked to the car I mentioned needing to skype with my dad again as we’d forgotten to say “Happy Father’s Day”. Carly felt horrible as they hadn’t said anything to me, but I hadn’t even thought of that. She told August to say it to me and he said “Pfft. Happy Pooper’s Day.”

We swung by the store in town and I got a couple of things. When I came out, August was upset. He was upset about a timeout for saying poop, etc. and now couldn’t be quiet. He was horrified by the idea that he was supposed to be quiet and said he just couldn’t do that.

He had recovered by the time we got home. He was also more positive about Father’s Day: “Can I make a present for dada? For Father’s day?” He said “Snot snot snot” and ran and got his own tissue. Which was a first. I went upstairs to do some packing.

A bit later I had him come upstairs with me. I continued packing and we built with the letter/random blocks. A prison. His choice. He then got sad about not taking his straw toys. However, he convinced me to pack his blue fan from Korea (he’d really been thinking about it earlier in the day, before the party, and I found it) and as I cleared out our regular backpack he wanted to take the slinky and squishy ball (both from Bar, I think) and I fit them in as well.

Downstairs he asked “What’s influence mean?” Pretty sure from talking about how Emmitt, etc. have influenced his vocabulary. He was then talking about how he had eaten magic prunes. Then told a pretty cool story: “I sneaked into a scientist place then I found out that the scientist had a little bucket to poop in so I pooped in the bucket and when the scientist realized the squishy poop was there the scientist studied it.”

I then took him with me to park the car at the school over the summer. We took the bike for the walk back, and a box of recycling. We drove to the school and parked it in a nice spot by the tennis courts. I told him to give Skoda Mama a pat goodbye, and he also gave it a nice hug. Didn’t get a photo of the first hug, but then he was afraid the car alarm would go off. I convinced him it wouldn’t (not even sure if it has one) and he gave it some more hugs and pats.

We went to the guard station to drop off the keys, then in the school to recycle all of our cans. August then had the idea of walking around the “entire school” one last time. We walked over towards the fields. He saw the view and said “Ooh, let’s sit on the bench”. We sat there for a minute, then walked back. Didn’t do the whole school, in part because there were a couple of small kids – like barely toddler small – and he ran past them as fast as he could so they couldn’t get him. Funny boy.

Out in the parking lot, as we walked back to make sure we’d actually locked the car, he started pointing out car genders/sexes based on his dark=boy, light=girls theory. We checked on the car, then headed home. Always thinking, he asked “Why didn’t I go to preschool since I was three?” I talked about how we had just moved, he didn’t like the idea of preschool until recently, etc.

We’d forgotten to do the other recycling when we left (we’d also seen Panina again and told her we’d be gone for the next six weeks) so I’d transferred it all to an Ikea bag. We stopped at the cages and did recycling. There was a pink, well-used but function, scooter there that he at first talked about taking home. He then tripped over it and fell pretty hard. Don’t know if it was that, or he just forgot about it, but he didn’t end up taking it home.

We were home at 8. Carly gave him a bath and got him ready for bed. I left them at 8:40. He was telling stories. Carly said he kept using the phrase “It’s my last opportunity to…” He requested me and I came up at 9. He looked at the scab from his burn on his finger one last time, then was pretending to sleep on the bed. He said he’d get in his real spot, then I could turn off the light. He did that, he ‘pretended’ to sleep, and he was asleep just after 9:10.

He got up at 5 or so and went to the bathroom. He then got up at 7:15, turned off the air conditioner, and went to the bathroom again. He was outside with Carly when I went down.

We played the Green Planet app for a little bit, shooting comets, after he really, really got sad when I said I didn’t think we should play it anymore. I then went up and took a shower. When I came downstairs they were reading Go Dog Go with him practicing his reading. Then they read the Gravity is a Mystery book.

Carly went up to get ready. He spiraled one of the sticky string things from school and I said he’s really been developing his fine motor control since going to preschool. He asked “What’s gross motor control?” I’ve never discussed the difference with him, nor discussed gross motor control, so he learned that from someone else.

We got ready to go and Carly drove us south of Netanya a bit to a mall area. We first went to Toys R Us. August was surprised. He said he thought that Toys R Us was in Korea. We got some markers and crayons for the plane, and Carly saw a set of stray building block things, like the ones they had in the library for tech week, on sale so we bought the set. We went to the Ace there and got roach killer, then to the little Druze bread stand to get our lafah/taboon sandwiches. We got two, along with a container of yummy dolmadaki (the stuffed grape leaves things) and sat at a table outside and ate.

We then went to the big Tiv Taam. Carly hurried inside to start shopping and he wanted to go to the playground. We played there for a little while, but very hot. He liked a little “Little boy in the slide/little boy is inside” song I made up about him. We then went inside. He and I went and found some of the raspberry fig bars like the ones we had had at the WBAIS cafeteria the other day for the plane ride, and one to have in the car.  I then took him to the bathroom and we met Carly back at the car.

In the car he ate the bar and we were discussing travelling speed of light plus one (which happens in The Magic School Bus Rides Again). We were home at 1:20. He and Carly built with the straw building blocks we had bought at Toys R Us. I put stuff away, then went up for some work time.

I heard August screaming “Dada!” as if there was an emergency happening downstairs. Turned out Carly had just suggested some alone time. I ended up downstairs with him, making letters out of the straw things.

I went back upstairs and they made a solar oven. He called me down again when he couldn’t find his shoe inside and Carly was still outside. It was in the middle of the floor. At 4:50 I came down and Carly was cutting up the first mango of the season and August was eating it. I said we could go do recycling soon and go to a park. He said. “No! Having too (much) fun.”

Eventually I took him out. We had three big bags of recycling to do since we didn’t take any last weekend. So it took awhile. August mainly did the glass, but helped with some plastic as well. A small cat came by and looked at us. August responded by standing on the seat of his bike and putting his arms up in the air to make himself as big as possible and growled at it to make it leave him alone. That cat actually circled around and came back a few minutes later and he did the same thing. Then, a few minutes later a different cat, the same size and from the same direction, so probably from the same litter, tried to walk by. August did the same thing and this time the cat actually turned around.

When we were done we went for a walk. August suggested the treasure hunt playground. But then I suggested we go say bye to Jack and Celeste and Nellie. He really liked that idea, so we headed that way. Jack was gone, but Celeste was there. I held Nellie for awhile so he could see her, although he was too scared to pet her. Airport Heidi was helping move furniture out. But Jack was gone. So we said goodbye to them and headed home.

Close to our house I saw a tiny, tiny bird up on a wire. But before I could point it out to August there was a car behind us. I got us to the side, and it turned out to be our neighbor Panina. She talked to us about the heat, and when she left the little bird was gone. We were home at 6:50.

He went to the bathroom. There was water on the floor under the sink (Carly had cleaned bathrooms). He put his shorts in the water, and I asked him why. He said “My brain told me to, so I did.” He ended up naked, and then thought it was funny to put his shoes on. He then was singing “Naked boy with shoes with the penis sticking out, the butt sticking out…”

He and Carly then made tea with the plants from school, and he suggested “Let’s do a non-blinking contest.” He ate some more oatmeal, then I took him up to his shower. While in the bathroom he drank from Carly’s spray bottle but complained it was running out, saying “Somebody’s been using my spraying bottle to spray her hair.” Hilarious as it is, after all, hers. Played for long time in the tub, then asked to make a gift tea cup again. When I washed his hair he was very upset about it, saying mean things about me. But as soon as we were over using the hair dryer he was helping to dry my shirt and shorts with it since he had gotten them wet.

Carly took over and got him ready for bed and he went to sleep pretty quickly, at 8:50.

Carly had just said to me “I’m leaving now” at 7:07 when we heard the door and August call “Mama!” So she went up with him for awhile before she headed to work. He was coughing a lot this morning and then threw up in my hands at one point. Just seemed to be gag reflex, and he later told me he had a bit of zucchini bread stuck in his throat. He watched Magic School Bus and one Ollie and Moon. He remembered that claw toy form yesterday and requested a claw toy sometime. May a robotic claw… Carly suggested some Gatorade, so we got some. At first he was disappointed there was no blue, and we talked about going to Tiv Taam on our way to Ra’anana Park to get blue Gatorade. Eventually though he decided to have lemon, and the topic was dropped. We discussed when it is okay and not okay to say ‘poop’ and other such words, and he said it was “Still confusing.” But we ended up playing the poop tea game, from Vivian and Colin last summer, and he was laughing a lot. I ended up being dung beetles so they would like the tea. At one point he said “I have any time of disgusting tea, so I definitely have throw up tea. And I have stomach mucus tea!”

As we got ready to go he asked “Are there monsters in the house? That’s why I always go to the couch…every day.” Kind of odd. He then ended up playing with Green Monster and the friends. First holding all of them, then wrapping himself and them with stuff, and eventually pillows. He dropped his water bottle on his foot. Ended up doing a couple of time outs as he was in a bad mood. He told me “You’re just a stupid dumb old potato.”

We talked about getting to Ra’anana Park so we could go to the small zoo when it was open. Then he basically asked why we weren’t just going to the big zoo. So we upgraded our plans. On the way he fell asleep, from 10:50 until getting to the zoo at 11. I woke him up for the driving part.

The first animal he really studied was the eland, which was close to the car. He spotted the fur hanging from its throat, the fuzzy part on the back of its head, the black patches on its knees. We kept going, taking our time. At the zoo we walked in, got water, then headed straight. He drove us to the food stand for lunch. No hotdogs, so we got two pastry things. A rectangle with mashed potatoes in it, and a triangle with cheese. And we got an orange juice.

We sat on our usual bench by the pond and ate. Lots of crumbs from the pastries and the chickens were attracted. He had fun feeding them with the crumbs and bread. He noticed that one was chasing away other chickens, and that another chicken jumped on the bench as soon as we left. We ended up discussing the word ‘aggressive’ . He got upset when I talked about people pushing in lines sometime, and said he doesn’t like that.

From there he headed back and to the right. He stopped at a cage where we first spotted a sloth. Then he spotted a big turtle and a small turtle, then a really big lizard. No signs for any of them except the sloth though. He called it a mama turtle and baby turtle, but then we spotted even smaller turtles. And several more of the lizards, some eating some leaves. And we watched the big turtle drink from the water. He was then being the baby animals: “I’m the little baby turtle.”

We were there for quite awhile, and as we left I lamented the lack of signs for the animals. He had some invention that would solve that and tell us what they were, but it kept going and going: “It can tell you why there’s no oxygen in space…how the multiverse forms…everything!” We stopped to look at the Cape Hunting Dog, then went over to where the emus and kangaroos are. He said “Dada, I’m pretending to be something that eats bark. There’s bark there. Can I pretend to eat it?” He then wondered what ate bark and we looked it up, and came up with deer and squirrels in the late winter. We looked at the bats and watched them, then kept going.

Got back to the playground where he wanted to play the hungry squirrel game. Sometimes the squirrels would need to eat some bark at the end of winter, other times he would have enough nuts to make it. In our game I would be the cells complaining that we needed food, then his brain would decide to eat bark. The taste buds and stomach would complain though. Later he extended it to a human eating all sorts of things when they were starving.

He went to go climb on a structure, but realized he had a scratch on the back of his knee. No idea where it came from. But he wasn’t happy. He ended up sitting on/with me. We discussed preparing for nap time next year, and he liked the ideas of learning to read better so he could read books by himself, and also practicing listening to music and podcasts on his own using headphones. He gave a thumbs up to both.

We left at 1. He asked what “Jingle jingle with the keys” means. It is from Magic School Bus, when Ms. Frizzle suggests they can take the bus. So then he was repeating it and trying to use it.

We got in the car, and he was concerned when I didn’t buckle him. He buckled himself, clicking the big buckle for the first time, just to be sure until we got to animals. We stopped and watched Thompson gazelle under a big lovely tree with flowers. He spotted an even smaller gazell and said it was a gazelle “in PKB”. We got a call from Carly and talked to her for a minute, pretending he was out riding the animals, etc. Could tell she was amused. We stopped and looked at addax, then did the lion part. After that we discussed ‘aggressive’ more, then left and got to Ramat Gan Park at 2.

We started riding his bike through the park to the playground. Suddenly, the right handle came off. He must have been leaning on it, because he went flying off of it. A little scrape on his left elbow. Not bad for how it looked. He held the left hand awkwardly for quite awhile, but it went away as he played.

He asked how, when he coasts on the bike, pushing on the pedals slowed it down. He thought it had something to do with helping gravity. I tried to show him how he was applying a force in the opposite direction of how the tire spun.

At the playground he went straight to playing with the sand with a couple of small boys. There were plastic cups to use with the sand. He wanted me to go get more sand a couple times, but I was able to do a little reading and work. He road the motorcycle thing with another boy for awhile. Had to threaten leaving as he was saying his ‘bad words’ and joked about throwing a cup at a little kid. He was then singing a wonderful “I don’t want to go to Ace” song after I mentioned we were too late to go anyway. He kept developing the tune and starting again.

He opened a little shop for me for a bit. Selling leaves, a pacifier we found on the ground, etc. He was then asking “How many seconds in a year?” And how many minutes, hours, etc. We then looked up how many Mercury years in a Earth year, Neptune years, etc. He bit his tongue on an apple. Not bad, but it was time to go anyway. Left at 3:15.

He told me about Buttman, and that that is always the villain in the games that Emmitt and Leonard play.

As we got near the entrance, he pointed and shouted “Look! It’s that plant to make tea!” And it really was the scented geranium that they used for their tea. In the bathroom August decided to pee standing up, something he did once at home a few days ago.

On the drive home he started falling asleep, but then I started the poop tea game and that woke him right up. As we got close to home, having not spoken about the speed of light at all, he said “Dada, I know light is on fastest thing in the universe, but the universe is smaller than the multiverse. So there could be something out there that’s faster than the speed of light.” Which was some really cool logical thinking, and I explained that to him.

Then, he said he was faster than the speed of light, and from another universe. But I pointed out that he was now in this universe,
so his point about the fastest thing in the universe being light really wasn’t true. Eventually, he realized that he still had to be the fastest thing, and said “I’m faster than the thing that’s faster than the speed of light.”

To add to the paradoxes, he was then talking about how he had everything inside him, including tornadoes, and that a tornado sucked the car that he was in into him. We admired that one for a bit, then went inside.

Inisde Carly showed him a new app on her school iPad. Puppet Pals, I think it was. He made a ballerina and Abraham Lincoln say some funny things.

When she said she didn’t have students today he told a story about how he flew to her classroom and found her keys on the ground and unlocked the door and used his tornado power to suck her in. Then he used his tornado power to suck in her students and said “Okay, now it’s class time!” He also sucked in students from elementary school. Sounded like she had a pretty big class she suddenly had to teach.

Carly then took him with her to school to drop off our potted plants from inside. It sounds like the custodians will water the plants in her room over the summer, so they’re better off there. I went upstairs to do Sabeel work. They were gone for a good amount of time. Carly had leftover art supplies, including big tongue depressors sticks and thick stickers, and he made a big structure out of them. They got home, then went over to Holly’s as she had some plants to give away. Unfortunately, Carly saw the message a bit too late, as we now had more plants to drop off at school. August went with her, then they came back.

I was still working and Carly gave him a bath. When I came down he had eaten a variety of things for dinner. He showed me the structure he had made. He called it a giraffe. It was pretty cool. I taught him about 2-D and 3-D figures.

Carly went to take a shower. I asked him if he had ever met the other PKA teacher listed in the yearbook and we agreed we’d never met her. We looked at the preschool section, and he said “I think Ms. Amelia is the nicest teacher in the school…Because she has a smile.”

I took him up. We brushed his teeth and finished reading Cam Jenson and the Mystery of the UFO. He insisted he was falling asleep with mama tonight. I left them at 8:50. It took awhile though, and he was asleep around 9:10.

Car part of the zoo:  

He was up just after 7. Carly went up with him for a few minutes, then they came down and she went to work. He watched a Magic School Bus Rides Again. We got going to school and at school he wanted me to hold him. I said I needed to get to work, and he told me to hand him to Ms. Anna. I handed him over and he was fine. Easy peasy.

I went to the library and worked, then went back for the party at 10:15. They were having a meeting as the parents came in. They sang a caterpillar caterpillar song, then Down by the Bay. They sang along to the recorded version, then Anna said they needed to sing one more verse to include a rhyme that August had come up with: Lego eating a bagel. They had everyone gather around the projecter and showed a video/discussed the tea party book. August wasn’t too interested in that. Luckily, they had paper over the tables for drawing purposes and he did that. They gave out presents to the room parents, and gave me a tea cup, made by Blanka, for volunteering.  There was a little free time where he did more art, then all three classes went out and held hands with the parents and sang the goodbye song for the kids that were leaving.

Some words from Maaian, then it was time for the party. Kids played on the playground for a bit while the food was brought out. I told him I was going to go check on our food and make sure the signs, etc. went with them. He said a minute, 60 seconds was okay. I got stuck at a traffic jam at the door though, and as I walked back Marion came walking towards me, carrying him. She said 60 seconds had been okay, but 65 was not.

The next hours was basically spent eating. August had some carrot and watermelon in between his doses of multiple cupcakes, cookies, cake, and berry brains. When he got the chocolate cupcake he said “This is something to look forward to.” I said it would be, but he was actually eating it, so there was no looking forward.

It ws clear there was plenty of leftover food, so I made a plate for Carly and we went to take it to her. It included the last chocolate cupcake. He wasn’t excited by that, wanting another one himself. He’d literally had about 6 desserts by then. Got him to compromise/accept it. We took the plate to Carly, then headed back and he had one more small cupcake with just chocolate chips in it.

We went in the classroom to start packing up all his stuff (there were his mugs, sheet, change of clothes, etc.) and he gave Myriam the chocolate bar we had gotten. I’d had the idea of having August choose random funny things at the store for gifts, like a jar of marmite, etc., but he was asleep. Then I spotted the dark chocolate bars called ‘Merci’ and that seemed appropriate. Marion and Anna had vanished, so I wrote a note and left them on one of their laptops. August played with artwork on the wall for quite awhile, and adjusted some of it, adding a long yellow string to one of them.

We then walked to Carly’s classroom and she got ready to go. He was upset about not playing in her classroom until she suggested they were going on a field trip. They pretended to be on a Magic School Bus field trip to the tongue on our walk to the car.

We were home at 12:50. As we walked in he said “Dada, do you know I do it different on the west coast?” Which is from a Mountain Goats song we’ve been listening to and he was singing in the car a bit. He then was talking about destroying and then remaking the recycling bin, and he built my phone into it.

Carly mentioned that Anna and Marion had mentioned August’s Lego rhyme to her. He said “Have you ever seen an August, eating a Pogust?” He claimed Hanako says that everyday at lunch. Kind of hard to believe, because I’ve barely heard Hanako say anything to hm.

We looked at the tea party book and too out the mugs. When he heard that my gift mug had been made by Blanka he said he wanted to make me a gift mug as well. It started out sweet, but as it set in that he couldn’t easily do that he got upset and had a meltdown. When he calmed down they went upstairs and built a structure out of random things in the play area and I went in and did some work.

I came down at 3 and they were making oatmeal. He was singing “A Little Uncanny” “…was fair enough, about a perfect ten.” He then made a concoction in the kitchen. I eventually got him going and we headed to the pool at the school.

We ran into the tall woman again, who it turns out is Rebecca,  resource teacher at the school. We were riding his bike to the pool and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. She said he didn’t have his s’mores shirt on, but asked if she could squeeze him anyway. He thought for a second, then said he had a machine that turned him into a s’more. Then he was a s’more and she could squeeze him. She squeezed him for a few seconds and when she was done he said “I’m still a s’more!” So she squeezed him again. So cute. She talked about how she doesn’t have little kids now, so that made her day.

Omri and her family were at the pool. As we first got in he was basically yelling at her “Don’t splash me!” just to warn her. They had fun in the pool together though, and were both hanging off of me. He and Omri made up a song that they repeated a lot and laughed about: “I don’t want to be a chicken. I don’t want to be a duck. So I kick my butt.” When we got out he was then talking with Zohar, her sister. She was showing hm a clapping pattern, and they climbed on the fence together. Omri was out of the pool as we left and I suggested he give her a hug goodbye. He went and gave her a hug, then Omri said “Now, a kiss.” They kissed, and then she said “Agh” and wiped her lips. August later told me he had made it a spitty kiss.

As we walked from the pool we were by Mike, who had also been in the pool. I told him how we had had fun at the preschool and looking forward to next year. He is going to New England this summer. August talked to him about the elephant, and they agreed it had been swimming in the pool. August said it had said hi, and Mike asked what language it was in. August said “Like this…” and did an elephant trumpeting.

On our walk up to the studio, August said “Omri always pretends you’re at home. I think she doesn’t understand you’re at the library.”

We were 5 minutes late to class and were the only ones. She suggested we wait and join the older class today, at 5:30. August liked that idea. Etai showed up a few minutes later and got the same offer. So they sat in the sitting area and played with the toys with Sigal until the second class.

But when class started August decided he’d rather keep building with the pieces, and clamping things with the claw toy he was using. But I think he was also a little nervous about playing with the bigger kids. But after a few minutes I got him in and playing and all went well until the end.

Near the end he was chanting “I hav a piggy back; you have a stinky foot.” Not sure where that came from. We talked to Sigal for a minutes, saying goodbye. He told her he would make a machine that would have his picture in it so she could see it.

On the walk back to the car he asked something along the lines of “Being gone for a long time doesn’t mean forever, right?”  I thought he meant us and our trip this summer, but when I said he was right he said “I will shrink Blanka, Emmitt, and me and go back to PKB.” They are the two kids that are moving away. I didn’t think he’d really paid attention to that, but it clearly has made an impact.

We got to the car at 6:40. We got home and ate. He had the rest of his oatmeal. Went outside with Carly for awhile. He spilled some water in the bathroom but helped clean it up with paper towels. On Facebook I saw that NASA was broadcasting a spacewalk on the ISS live, so I showed him that. He wanted to watch a space shuttle launch video, so he watched a couple of those videos. Carly took him up and gave him his bath. I went up just before 9. He asked m
e again “Can I make a cup for you? A gift?” We read one chapter of Cam Jenson and the Mystery of the UFO. Sang a couple songs, including the big numbers song. He had me go all the way to nonillions, then to tontillions, which he says comes next, then infinities, then enshumgedorflugs. Amazing, he was still not asleep. and he decided he wanted mama. She came up and he was asleep about 9:30.

His self portrait:

Hug:

Kiss: 

A full day. Carly had middle school graduation in the evening. After school, August and I went to the grocery store, then walked to the mall and met people for ice cream. While Carly was at graduation, we did a lot of baking.

He was up at 6:05. Started to lightly kick me to wake me up, although I was already awake. He went out and Carly brought him back in. She was with him for a few minutes, then left, and he lay on the lower bed for several minutes. I went downstairs and got his vitamins for him, and he wanted to see a video on how vitamins are made. We opened YouTube and found one and I went up to take a shower. When I came down he was watching the ink video that he really likes.

He then explained the lever/catapult science experiment that he had done with Carly a couple weeks ago and got really excited about it and wanted to do it again. I cut some strips of cardboard out of a Cheerios box and he got markers for the fulcrum. There was a green marker without a lid and he wasn’t happy about it. We said we could buy new markers sometime, and he said we could take that marker with us to the store to make sure we got the same color of green.

He and Carly did the experiment. The cardboard was too bendy, so I got the metal ruler out and that worked. He and Carly taped multiple markers together so that the lever could travel farther. Worked quite well. His nose was a bit stuffy and when Carly tried to have him blow it he said “No, no, no! Let’s focus on the experiment!”

He asked if I would stay in the library and I said I might go home. He was okay when I went to Jerusalem yesterday since Carly picked him up. But now, knowing that I was picking him up, he didn’t want me to leave campus. He got kind of sad and kept repeating “Stay, stay, stay, stay.” He cuddled in lap. Sinec I am actually able to focus (and get to work faster, since I don’t have to walk) in the library, I agreed to stay there.

Carly left for school. We got ready and started walking. I mentioned that Ilana was having another party on Sunday and he said “I would love to go to another Ms. Ilana party.” We talked about parking our car at school over the summer, and August explained to me that Skoda mama would be using gas over the summer. To keep cool, I think.

He skipped the garbage cans today, but yesterday had had fun walking up Vatikim trying to drive us through every tight spot between the walls and cars or garbage cans. He was then talking about how he could make lightning bolts, and he developed the lightning bolt mystery, where he would make a lightning bolt and everyone would be confused where it came from. Scientists would try to figure it out, but they wouldn’t be able to do so. Eventually he would announce that he was the one who had made it.

We got to the top of the hill on the way to school and he declared a new landmark for the point we get to the top of the hill coming from the east. There is already a landmark (a pipe) that he chose when we come from the west. We also still often sing our “Now we’re going up the hill…now we’re at the top of the hill…now we’re going down the hill” songs that we started last August when it was so, so, so hot.

He then made up the Case of the Missing Shark and Case of the Missing Seahorse, to follow the Case of the Missing Walrus from a few days ago. Didn’t really develop the stories though. He spent the rest of the time humming a tune.

They were starting an early meeting when we arrived. He wanted me to hang around, but after just a few seconds told me I could leave by saying “Dada, pick me up after lunch.”

It was a good thing that I did, in fact, stay in the library.

11:20 they came running in to say goodbye to the library. Glad I actually stayed at the library. He just ran and said hi to me, then they continued on with their round of goodbyes, saying goodbye to Liz and Amanda, then heading out to find Ilana downstairs. They had a whole list, and he later told us that they had done a video for Dorin as she had had hand surgery.

Liz told me that Lillian brought home a picture he drew of her and signed with an ‘A’. A very 4-year old portrait, but I guess it had hair, eyes, etc. There were dots everywhere and those were the teeth.

I picked him up. He was looking at the pottery stuff. We walked up through the elementary and sw Airport Megan as we came up the stairs. She asked him what he did today and he said “Cool stuff.”

Carly had driven, and we headed to the car and to Tiv Taam at the mall to get a few things. August managed to fall asleep on the way there. When I took him out of the car he fell right back to sleep on my shoulder, so I just took a grocery bag and did the shopping with him on my shoulder. I tried to set him down at the produce once, but he looked back up at me and mumbled a couple things, then said “I want to sleep up there.” I picked him back up and he slept until the checkout line and I needed to put the groceries in the bag. I set him down and as he crouched on the floor, waking up, he asked “Did I move while I was sleeping?” I told him that I had done all the shopping while he slept. He was excited, and talked about how that made the shopping go faster.

The women at the checkout needed to borrow my Tiv Taam card for another customer. I was confused at first, but figured it out. She then taught me that the card is called mah-done, which I think literally means ‘membership’. So as we walked home from school August and I worked on putting it in our long-term memory, and also words for hill and sidewalk and tree.

So we drove back to school and dropped the car off for Carly. We were going to meet Bat-Chen for a Hebrew lesson, and she suggested the mall right as we were on our way. So we switched to the bike and walked home, practicing Hebrew along the way. He also said “I’m gonna invent something really cool for Bat Chen.” We dropped off the groceries at home, then hopped back on the bike an walked to the mall. August was singing a sort of duck song as we walked over there.

Got to the outside play area at 3:05. He was playing on the train when bat-Chen and Naomi arrived a few minutes later. He talked to Bat-Chen as he sat on top of the train, then she was asking him, in Hebrew, if he wanted ice cream. He got down and as we walked to the ice cream place he said something like “This is exciting…I don’t know what we’re doing, but she kept saying glidah a lot!” Once there he was excited by all the flavors and kept saying things like “I will share!” And was telling us what flavor we should each have. Finally, he chose two flavors: marshmallow and Oreo in a cup, and I got a cheesecake flavor and strawberry in a cone. Bat-Chen went and got a smoothie for herself and we sat down and ate.

He was very focused on the ice cream. But when he was done he wanted Bat-Chen to go with him to the play area and teach him words in Hebrew. this had been his guess on what was going to happen when I mentioned we were meeting at the mall. They played on the airplane for a bit, with him flying her to Seattle. They left by 3:50 as they had middle school graduation to prepare for. After they left, he found a candy on the ground that I wouldn’t let him eat and I explained why. He handled that by making it into the game. I would be the kid dropping the candy, then he would be a cat licking it, then another kid would want to eat it and he’d say “No no no!”

As we left he found two treasures: a green hair band and a broken paintbrush. On the way home he was asking about the tar in the cracks on the walkway, something that’s come up before. He was then talking to “cracky…you know, from our hotel room.” When he had complained about our hotel room in Ramallah because it had a crack in the wallpaper I had said that that gave it character, and had made up Cracky, the talking crack. So August talked to Cracky in all the cracks as we walked home.

Carly was in the shower, and I started getting stuf
f ready for making zucchini bread and berry brains. Realized we didn’t have zucchini, so Carly quickly drove us up to the store in town and I ran in and found it. Back at home August did a great job helping me make zucchini bread. Carly headed to graduation. He watched machine videos after we finished the bread and while I put it in the oven and prepared for berry brains. He watched on on a pulp mill, and there were other machines. He then helped me with the berry brains, and when those were done watched The Magic School Bus Rides Again.

I took him up and he wanted a quick bath, so we did a sponge bath of sorts. Back downstairs we had some zucchini bread and milk. He hadn’t drunk the water drink earlier and he explained it was because it had had a clump of milk in it. I looked and he was right – it hadn’t been cleaned well. He didn’t tell me at the time though.

We were making up a RoboZinnie has defeated… movie trailer when Carly came home at 8:40. When she came in he blasted her, then explained “I thought you were a monster. That’s why I lazer-beamed you.”

She took him up and brushed his teeth. He really wanted me to go to slee with them. But then he punched me in head as I lay next to him. He explained “Because I’m sad.” Carly said that either she or me needed to do dishes, and he let me go down. He was asleep at 9:30.

Napping in the grocery store:

Ice cream:

A hug:

He was awake at 6:40, before Carly left. He watched some Ollie and Moon, then as we were getting ready to go he was a bit stressed about the day being different, although he was excited about being picked up by Carly and the 6th graders.

We drove, and got to the classroom before the bus kids. Kind of lost the pre-busy time though as Marion and Anna, and then Emmitt’s mom, were all fascinated by August’s car vest. I left at 8:05, leaving him to look at/discuss the schedule with Anna.

I drove to Sabeel. Traffic a little better at first this time, but still got there right at 10. I delivered the pepper plant and card that Carly had gotten as a gift for Omar and his family. Met Maddie and Marie-Claire, the new interns and Omar came out and we got to work. Did sort of a late breakfast with bread and hummus, etc. The office all ate together, with Andraous and Dorothy, and the graphic designer (whose name I didn’t catch) all coming out. Dorothy is from Yorkshire, and we talked about the Moors, etc. and looked up her house on Google Maps. Omar was being very funny today, and did a lot of making fun of Andraous for his engagement to a woman from Colombia – his fiancée made her own dresses, which is very Un-Palestinian, as for the last 20 or 30 years or so it has really become the tradition for the man to pay for everything and have a big wedding.

For lunch we had chicken sandwiches from a place called Yerevan. Omar told us about Juha, and told us a story of Juha in which he and his family go on a trip with a donkey and everyone is unhappy with how they treat the donkey. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasreddin?wprov=sfti1

We had a full day of work, and I got home at 6:45. He greeted me, naked, at the door. He told me about his day. He first told me that he did art with Lincoln, one of the 6th graders, then other kids were surrounding him and doing art with him. Before that he had watched a couple Ollie and Moons in her room.

After class, he and Carly went back to the preschool for the tea party. August told Carly she could go to the adult room, but then Anna invited Carly to the tea party. He sat with Reia, and Carly sat next to Candy’s mom. They hadn’t been to the big tea party as Candy had gotten sick, so they came to this last one. They had cake with chocolate bits in it.

After the tea party they played on the playground. He and Selma played with the track thing, and did some problem solving to make pieces fit. Blanka came to play with them towards the end. Selma and August actually needed some encouragement to include her. When the other kids went in for the end-of-day meeting, August stayed out on the playground with Carly.

They went outside for a little while, then he came in. Carly had made some veggie burger for him for dinner and he finally ate some of it. But then he asked for a carrot. He was then bringing Edward, who is apparently a robot. Not sure where the name comes from. He went up the stairs and said to Carly in a robot voice “Hello, I am Edward. Who are you? Once I have the carrot can I have an entire kid Orea?”

He got whiney about the Oreo treat. Carly went up for a shower. But then he sat on my lap and ate and ate carrot. I let him have half of an Oreo treat, then told him to offer the other half to Carly. She said I could have it, so I gave him a bite of it. He was very excited about that bite.

Carly brushed his teeth, and he was ready for sleep. Still a bit stuffy today. He was asleep at 8:30.

With 6th graders:

At one point last night he sort of started to push himself up. got as far as on his elbows and knees, said “poop’, then lay back down and fell back to sleep. He was also a bit stuff, and stuffy in the morning. He was up right at 7. Didn’t hear the door or him say anything. Instead, I heard him sniffling as he was sitting on the steps. First thing he said, a few minutes later, was “Could you pick me up at the start of rest time?”

On our walk to school he started singing “Better Not Wake the Baby” by the Decemberists: https://youtu.be/cwqXNCl5-OM He had me sing the chorus over and over and over.

We got to school and walk in. By his cubby he started playing with the pottery objects on top of the cubbies, like he always do. There is one that is sort of rabbit head shaped, and when he touched it one of the ear parts came off. It was already broken, or cracked, as he hardly touched it. He was really worried about it though, and that it was his fault, and wanted to glue it. We talked to Marion, who was outside with some kids watering the plants. She said she lost needed to glue the handle on her cup, so she would bring in some super glue. Also, his glazed tea cup was finished and looks really nice. Got him to help with watering just a bit, and I was able to leave. He wasn’t really happy about it, but I don’t think he had to be held. I left by 8:40.

I worked, then picked him up before 1. We sat outside the library and he told me “I played with Hanako on the playground.” He said they did challenges, like getting pieces of wood and that Tomaso stole one from them.

We then saw Carly bringing her students to the library. And Teegan and Lillian walking together. In the younger section of the library he and I got a copy of Magic Treehouse #20 off the shelf and finished reading it. August was walking around and told me “The people that have dark skin is a boy, the people with light skin is a girl.” He was also happy that he had light skin because it meant he was a girl. I asked where that came from, and he showed me these signs/posters that Ilana has for how to behave in the library, and it did kind of hold up for those photos. A good example of faulty inductive reasoning.

One of Carly’s students talked to him at one point and gave him a Pokémon book. He was excited about that, although he didn’t like the book. He played with the Legos, putting them in the big ship again. After they had left, he had us out on the computers, pretending to be Lillian and Teegan and doing school work and playing games.

We went outside and sat on our bench and ate Cheerios and apple. He was watching a group of high schoolers who were loudly talking, standing in the walkway. Pretty sure I saw the high school principal catch them as one of them was loudly talking about cheating on a final that just happened. I think the principal said something like “Must have been easy for you, huh?”

Saw Carly again, then at 3 we went to the pool. We were there for about an hour. Floaties on at first, then he let me take them off. He was feeling more comfortable in the water, and spent the last several minutes playing with the floaties on the stairs and sort of using them as a kickboard and practicing his kicking. And before that he was letting me hold him while he stretched out more flat than he has before and kicked.

On the walk home he was winding around a lot. At home, Carly tried to get him to go with her to the mall to get a plant for a present for Omar and his family. He really didn’t want to go though, so he stayed with me. I was supposed to get a call from a financial advisor and he was going to watch something, but she never called. Instead, he made a tape sculpture and I boiled eggs. I got out ingredients for zucchini bread but realized I had cucumber instead.

I also baked a frozen pizza. I warned him it was hot, but he was impatient and he touched the tray it was on and got a decent burn on the knuckle of his right pinkie. Had him holding a frozen package on it as he watched Ollie and Moon when Carly got home.

He went outside with her, but was then upset when he saw that his finger was developing a blister. A little later he told us how they had cut down all the rocket kale at school and divided it into bags for all the kids…and then the realization set in that we hadn’t gotten a bag of rocket kale. Tough time for him.

He calmed down and I took him upstairs for just a sponge bath, as he was concerned about his finger. Got him to stand in water though and did a pretty regular bath. He was then drinking from Carly’s spray bottle, which he loves, and when I said it was time to go downstairs he said “Not until I’m done drinking from this precious water.”

Downstairs, naked, he told us “I’m not naked cuz I have my hair. It’s a kind of clothes.” He wanted to do more taping, and went looking in all the drawers and cupboards for it. He found it, but then as he was taping and ripped a piece off, the tape dispenser recoiled and hit him in the face.

He was then talking about his blister and knew that a wood sliver can cause a blister. Seemed to know the difference between a water blister and a wood blister. Not sure where his knowledge of blisters came from. We read more of Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the UFO. He stopped, telling me that that he didn’t have a camera in his brain, but he had a “A remembering process”. Think he had our short/long-term memory discussions in mind. He was then acting out remembering things. We read a little more, then Carly got him ready for bed.

He told her about ‘natural’ and ‘enforced’ consequences – a conversation we’ve had a couple times, recently on a walk home from school. 

He wanted to sleep with me. Did some singing and was with him for about 20 minutes before he wanted Carly. She was up by 9:10 and he was asleep after a few minutes.

His glazed teacup: 

His plant, blooming:

He was up about 7:20. They did a lot of joking about poop. He didn’t remember where he fell asleep. Carly said she had put socks on while he slept. He said “You did it sneakily?” We were talking about something, I think how many episodes he could watch, and he decided to change the definition of a ‘couple’: “With my powers I changed a couple to 1 2 3 4 5 6.” He watched Magic School Bus while Carly took a shower.

They went to the store and I took a shower. It was closed, but August came back with an OR treasure: a rubber end of a zipper pull with the letters OR on it. They ate the popcorn crackers and broken them apart into puzzles. He called it his volume changer. The O raised his volume, and the R lowered it. They were doing poop games, and I came up with “Ms. Poophauser.” He ate a popcorn cracker and broke it into pieces and made art out of it: “Ant with a stinger and no legs.” He ate the parts of the ant until there was just a last piece: “A stinger.” Then he made “A flying statue. An Owl!” Ate a piece. “Oh! One wing got cut off.” He sat onf a chair “criss cross apple sauce” and said “It protects me from scary noises.” Finally, he complained about the crack in the wallpaper and I had the crack talking to him.

We went downstairs and were waiting for Omar and his family. Our next destination was a pool. A Korean group started to come in for something nd he was calling women by different names. He had trouble turning off ‘poop’ and had to have a couple of timeouts.

They arrived a little before 10:10. In the car we turned the air conditioner to “Blast off hair mode.” His big complaint about the car yesterday was that he was too hot. The air conditioner didn’t work all that great.

We followed them to the pool. They stopped along the way and Omar ran in and bought a couple of floaty toys. The pool was technically built in Area C, without a permit, and thus under threat of demolition. And it was filled by tapping into water that was meant for a settlement. It was a wonderful pool though, owned and designed and built by Omar’s brother-in-law, who is an artist.

August was slow to get in the water. He played on the edge of the little pool, with the toys and cups. I carried him over to the the teeter totter at one point. Later, he went over to the big pool with Carly. He sat on the edge until I got in, and got him in the pool with me for awhile. He didn’t really float much, and ended up sitting on a submerged seat for a sort of in-the-pool bar area. He sat there and announced “Hello everybody, I just want to say I peed in the pool!” And said that he’d been doing it for years. We got out and had lunch: I had a burger, and we got chicken fingers for August, and there was pizza. Plenty of food. We had beers, and earlier August and I went and got him a watermelon juice.

As if that wasn’t enough food, we had to have some Palestinian ice cream before we left. So we went and got little pre-prepared cones of ice cream. When August was done but had some cone left, he told me to “Scrap boy my cone.”

We did some good talking while there. The night before I’d asked Omar what he does for fun, but he said he works all the time, which is also his fun. His wife backed this up, telling me he is often working in the evening at home. But todayhe talked about how much he likes history and we talked about our favorite periods of history, etc. He also asked us what Israelis say about the conflict, as he only ever speaks to Israelis that are supportive of the Palestinian cause.

We left at 1:40. We followed Omar and his family to their house, then Omar got in the car with us and accompanied us to drop off the rental car. August fell asleep about 2. Not much of a wait getting through the checkpoint on the road to Jerusalem. Omar, funny man that he is, was daring me to make a political statement to the soldiers, like “End the occupation!” I told him I’d settle for “Good day” as I wanted to get home before nightfall. The soldiers actually stopped our car after at first appearing to let us through, but the only looked at our 3 passports, and didn’t ask the Palestinian for his.

We picked up the Skoda at Sabeel and returned the rental car and transferred a sleeping August to the Skoda. We drove Omar up to the Qayalida (sp) checkpoint and dropped him off there.

On the drive home he practiced his time increments. He understands from seconds to years now: “I went from seconds to minutes to hours…” He was nervous about another Ollie and Moon episode and had to skip ahead. He finished the lollipop he had started yesterday, and we got home at 4:45.

He made a concoction outside, then I hid the eggs for him. He did a funny dance with his stick.They stayed outside and I went in and did some typing. He was then pretending to be Lulu flying on a broom. Been awhile since we read that. They came in and Carly Skyped with her parents. He tied a knot in the string and pulled around the Duplo container. Carly went back outside and he had some of the Palestinian juice – Omar had given us a bottle. He then asked about organ rejection in transplants and we acted it out.

We read some Magic Tree House, then he had a pouch like the kangaroo. He wanted a fake timeout. Still with a pouch, he remembered sea horses: “Why do seahorses have thousands of babies…they’re backups?”

We ate dinner outside. He dropped his veggie burger and was upset. I took him up and gave him a bath and washed his hair. We used the hair dryer. Downstairs he wanted carrot instead of veggie burger. He clarified his amount words, asking “One is less than a couple, and a couple is less than a few. Is that right?” He was then  a bunny eating his carrot. He then wanted some toast with peanut butter and honey. As I made it he said “Lets make jokes about the toast.” That is, make up gross things that would go on the toast. And he was singing “Better not wake the baby.” Finally, he wanted to experiment with the scotch tape: he knew that putting flour on the tape made it not stick to the counter. Now he wanted to try peanut butter. I put peanut butter on the tape for him and he tried it out. He concluded that it stuck better than the flour, but not as well as just the tape by itself.

Carly got him ready for bed. I left them at 9:30 and he fell asleep pretty quickly.

Lunch at the pool: