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He got up and went to the bathroom at 4, then was up about 7:30. He told Carly “I’m gonna be a third cat at gramma and gramps’s.” When she didn’t understand ‘third’ he explained “You know, third: one, two, three.” He wanted to go outside and make a dirt concoction: “Can I make another combo cuz yesterday I hated my combo?”

They went outside for a bit, then came back in and Carly went up to get ready to go. I got him his vitamins and Cheerios and I realized there was most of a season of The Magic School Bus Rides Again that he hasn’t watched. So he watched one.

Watched a second and I took a shower. When I came down he was playing with Duplos and she was giving him challenges. He got a bit stressed out about our upcoming trip after that. He told me “Teach me something cool about Palestinians.” When I started to say something he said “Pffft. Boring. Not cool.”

We left before 10:30. Carly was driving. I asked August if he had any music requests for the radio and he said “Do that uncanny song. I love uncanny.” He meant the Conor Oberst song “A Little Uncanny”. He then asked “What’s uncanny mean?”

Drive went smoothly and we got to Sabeel. Parked in back and went up and found Omar in the office. Omar kept commenting on how August has changed since he last saw him. August was quiet that time, and now was talking up a storm by comparison.

First order of business was getting the rental car, since our car isn’t insured in the West Bank. I took over driving and Omar got in the passenger seat and directed us up north to the rental place. got the rental car, and he went with me and we led Carly back to Sabeel. We moved our luggage to the rental car and said goodbye our Skoda.

We first drove north and stopped at a pizza place where we got a pizza and some za’atar bread things. When we talked about what we were doing next, August was excited to hear that Omar was coming with us: “Are you going to our hotel room?” “Yeah!”

Omar went into tour guide mode and directed us up 443 and off an exit to a settlement, then through a small checkpoint that led us into Ramallah. We first drove through what used to be a bustling neighborhood, but is now cut off between the highway and the wall. There was a donkey hanging out there and not much else. We got out and took some photos, then hopped hack in the car and drove a bit north to a spot where 60-some houses were destroyed in an operation that was called Operation Aleppo.

We continued on, twisting and turning into Ramallah. He pointed out some of the older, traditional houses. We tried for the Mahmoud Darwish Museum. August was ready for the hotel and did not like that idea. The museum was closed though, and as I got back in the car I whipped the lollipop from Omri’s goodie bag and that cheered him up. He sucked on it until the hotel, then saved the rest for later.

The hotel was actually a guesthouse at a Christian center. An empty one, as it was just us and a volunteer, Simon, that were there. Omar helped check us in, then gave us some time to rest and settle in before dinner. He then sort of mysteriously disappeared to we knew not where. Carly rested in the room, and actually fell asleep, and I took August back down to the activity room we had seen. There were yog Amat’s and other things in there, and we made a big walking path, like in his activity classes with Sigal. We stood up three of the big squares and leaned them against each other and made a nest. He was then a baby birdie and I was getting him worms. He was then practicing flying “I practiced during the night…I’m putting padding down…Is that safe?”

We made a bigger nest against the piano and he used that for awhile, but then there was a shape on the floor, from old tape or something, that he said looked like an alien and he was scared of. We moved the nest and made an even bigger one with more and more of the big squares.

After more than an hour we went back up. Carly realized she hadn’t packed his pants, and some of the toiletries, but it ended up not being an issue as we never needed our sweatshirts. He “Hickory Dickory Dock”: to “My mouse went up the clock…” It had different verses for each number, and he seemed to remember it quite well. Must have been from meetings or music class at school. He kept going to ten = “no more please”.

Omar was going to get us around six, so we went out for a little walk. There was a cafe called Jasmine Cafe. Couple blocks away. We didn’t expect it to be open, due to Ramadan, but it was. On the walk there August was impressed by a little tree that he called the tiniest tree ever. He then found a yellow tube from a pipe on the side of the road that he really liked. I put it in the backpack for the cafe.

In the Jasmine Cafe we sat right in front of the waterfall feature. I had a sahlab, August had mint lemonade, and Carly had a coffee. August was singing the Jason Webley song I’ve sung to him forever for the first time: “We say, that the world isn’t dying…maybe she’s heavy with child…” He spotted the little chocolates that Carly and I got and he shared Carly’s. He said “I’m enjoying the aftertaste.” Apparently he had learned that from Carly.

On the way back he was doing funny math: “Omar plus cactus equals watering can.” “Nine plus a branch equals…”

We met Omar back at the guesthouse. He had gone to hang out at a friend’s house nearby. He got in the car and directed us east and south through Ramallah, to his house on the road between Ramallah and Jerusalem, technically on the Jerusalem side.

We met his wife, Heba, and daughter, Rada. August wasn’t sure of her t first, and he started sliding on his back in the living room and went into a space in the corner. He noticed that Rada was copying him and following him, and they were instantly best buddies. He said “Take a picture of us!”

We went outside onto the deck and spent most of the rest of the evening out there. Omar cooked chicken and veggies on the grill and August and Rada spent much of the time throwing a ball back and forth and laughing and laughing. Rada knew what she wanted, and even though she was a couple months short of 3, she led August around. If she wanted August to stand up and play ball she would grab him by the hand and pull him up and over to the ball.

August and Carly spotted a light in the sky and I used an app to tell it was Jupiter. They sprayed some pesticide over by the door where there were a bunch of bugs gathering and the two kids of course then wanted to hang out by the door. When dinner was ready we ate outside. They kept giving me more and more of the chicken, which was really good. Carly and I drank ouzo – I think it was from Lebanon. The kids drank some sort of juice, for a sippy cup. It was some Palestinian juice they only have part of the year.

August was pretending to spit at the sun, Venus, Mars, etc. Inside, they took Rada to a bath. The kids played with a toy together, then we got going. Omar got their car and he was going to lead us back to guesthouse. We managed to pull out into crowded Ramandan traffic and just managed a u-turn when the car died. And died again. Cars were honking. Some guys noticed and helped push us to the side. Carly said it it appeared they were telling the cars behind us to stop honking, as there was a problem. Omar had stopped and came back. Took us a few minutes to be sure, as the gas gauge design was awful – at empty or full the gauge pointed to both and was just a little longer in one direction. I had assumed the rental car was full when we got it, but we’d been driving this whole way on E.

August was stressed out. Running out of gas has been perhaps his worst fear this year. Omar went and came back with some gas. While he was gone, August fell asleep, about 10. Put in the gas and the car started. We drove on to the gas station and put in some more fuel, then did the drive back to the guesthouse. Went smoothly, but s
eemed to go on and on and on.

We got to the guesthouse and I carried him up and lay him on the third of four beds. We pushed the beds on either side together so that he’d be in the middle and we’d be on the sides.

Tiny tree:

With Rada:

Saved by Omar:

He was awake at 7:28. On the way to school we were singing counting by 2s, 6s, etc. songs. He asked how it was possible to donate hair, and how did other people wear it – was it glued onto a person’s head? He had found out that Teegan had donated her hair, and Carly told him why. Said he is growing his hair to push behind his ears.

I lleft him at school as Anna was telling Nicholas and Blanka something about being dogs. I had a short time in the library, then came back at 9, as that was when their water party was supposed to start. They were on the playground for a bit and I played with Selma. They had the sugary Cheerios and milk for snack, and I poured milk. August then went and ate some dino kale. They had a short meeting, then got water shoes on. This time, Anna asked if Yaya could wear his extra shoes. August agreed, nicely, then asked me “Do I get a treat?…If I don’t share, I don’t get a popsicle.”

The water party was divided between two areas: the mud area on the grass, where kids could paint and body paint with mud, and then the Dion playground area where there were the clean water tables and the new hand pump. August played with the pump area the entire time. For like an hour. He had a few turns actually pumping it, but he was also very content scooping water into the bucket for it, and directing the water out of the two outlets, and tilting them so he could pour water in one side and it would come out the other side.

I went to the library to work, and was back at 12:45. They were having pizza. Marion complained to me, saying that they had all the food up at the pool where the two older classes were, but everyone had forgotten about PKB. Maaian had just been enjoying the moment. Marion eventually had to walk up there to get their attention. PKB got the leftovers, but it was just enough.

They were having kind of a late lunch, so I hung around as they finished eating. One student handed out chocolate-covered cereal things to everyone. At one point I moved around August and he started to panic, thinking I was leaving. He told me “First of all, I thought you were leaving. Second of all, you moved like you were leaving.”

We left and walked to the water fountain. We realized that they never had popsicles, which was also a promised part of the party lunch. We talked about options for getting a popsicle or something, and we magically heard the ice cream truck out on the street. He was traumatized by that one time we missed the ice cream truck, I guess, as he didn’t want to go and try and catch it. He wanted something from Tiv Taam instead.

We walked home. He stopped at a tree that had an old gash in its bark and we discussed bark and its layers. We also discussed how skin cells protect us and die. We were home before 2. Mixed up some water drink, then made August vacuum up his crumbs when he made a cracker mess. We read some Magic Tree House and left for Tiv Taam a little before 3.

At Tiv Taam we first went to the bathroom. It was crowded on a Friday afternoon, but August didn’t want to get in the cart. At all. He wanted to walk ahead and steer. This caused problems at first, but eventually worked out. We got ingredients for the berry brains and zucchini bread we plan to take to the end-of-year part next Thursday. At the end we looked at ice cream options and got Oreo ice cream sandwiches. Perfect, as they were smaller sized than the one we ate together from the ice cream truck.

Out in the car we each had one of the ice cream treats, then we drove up to Ace to get roach killer, as I saw two, one upstairs and one downstairs, last night. Unfortunately, it was already closed.

We drove home and he was falling asleep right at the end. We were home around 4:30. Carly then drove to the Even Yehuda school she worked with to drop off certificates and also got gas.

August was making a concoction outside, then studied the cockroach. For dinner he was taking tiny bites of food, then coming and resting on me between them. Carly asked him to tell her about preschool and he said “I’ll tell you at nighttime… That’s when I tell stories.” They threw out the fig experiment, which had gotten impressively moldy. He told me, about something, “Let’s go to my bath and see if I can sneakily do it.”

I gave him a bath, then downstairs he had crackers and peanut butter. We read some more of Magic Treehouse #20 and he started asking if kangaroos could jump over different things. He then had the idea to watch the size video on YouTube and used the persuasive argument “Science! Better to learn than not learn!” https://youtu.be/isppUA0MZmw

After that it was up to bed, and he was asleep about 9.

He was up at 7:30. I heard him whispering something. I went up and turned off the air conditioner and he threw himself back down on the bed. He lay there for a couple minutes. I asked how he was doing and he gave me a thumbs up.

One Ollie and Moon (about the Grand Canyon). He then hid from me as I tried to comb his hair. He got a straw and played it like an instrument. He asked me “What’s volunteering?”

While walking to school , he started counting backwards from 30 on his own. That led me to sing our ZYX song, which then reminded him of “the other letters”. He meant punctuation, and after we named off most of them we started started making a punctuation song.

Dropping off August went okay. He eventually went and sat next to Anna. Nicholas was on her lap and the were reading a book about chameleons. I left him before 8:50 and went and met with Hilla, the new HR director (they didn’t have one before). She still has a temporary office in a conference room. Good news, as her reading of the situation and SOFA is that I do, indeed, have a working visa and can go ahead and get a job.

I then went to the library and worked until his class showed up at 10:30. They returned their books, and then crowded into a spot between the shelves (like where August and I will sit and read or do art on the ipad and read stories. August had trouble with wanting to play with the pillows and roll around on the ground, so a couple of times I had to take him away from the group. No Ilana with them today, so it was Myriam and one of the subs. Blanka and Emmitt are both moving away, so Myriam had the whole class walk around and say goodbye to the library and Ilana.

I then walked back with them and had fun volunteering while they played with water stuff. Talked to Marion a lot. They have two Arab Israeli students next year and she’s excited about that. Told her about Ramallah and she said that as embassy staff she can’t even visit Tent of Nations.

She also told me that one day there were boys playing a game at the light table and August came over and wanted to play. They said they didn’t want him in the game and August said “Oh yeah. Well I’m the size of a molecule. You can’t even see me! I’m already in the game.”

This came after Anna told me that on Friday they are going to sneak around the PKA and PKC classrooms while they are at their pool party. She said the kids like to sneak and I told her about the stories he tells you of being a molecule and sneaking around.

Oh, and the best moment, as she was talking about making independent kids, was when she said “maybe we are making kids that are pains in the neck” and then couldn’t remember the English word for ‘grade’, which shows you what she thinks of assigning grades.

When I left, August told me to “Run” – I think so it wasn’t as hard on him. I was back at 12:50. He was outside, finishing lunch, and he was singing for/with Omri. He also sang “Hurray it’s your poop poop, we’re happy you poop.” to the tune of “Hurray, it’s your birthday…”

We went to the big playground at one point he initiated a conversation by saying “Think of all the kids that don’t go to school.” “I’m lucky to live close to a school, right?” We mainly played the tiger trap game, where I would be the trap capturing the tiger, then we would act out the Magic Treehouse scene where they find the tiger and free it. We did this many times, then left after 2. Played around with the water fountain, then he saw Mike and ran to him and asked if he’d seen the elephant. August said “I saw it with my supersonic eyes.” And he asked “What’s a thousandth of a second?” We’ve discussed milliseconds recently.

We headed to the cafeteria to get some pizza. In the entrance to the cafeteria we talked to a tall woman who knew who he is, but I don’t remember who she is. We talked about learning Hebrew and he said “Lehitra Oat! That means see you later!” Told her how he was four now and liking preschool. She said she had a theory that we turn into real people at four and she could see that with him.

We got a small pizza with olives on it and I got a cappuccino. We sat at a table and ate our pizza. We discussed Yaya’s nickname and Opa’s, and discussed our upcoming visiting this summer. He asked how fast rockets travel, and just as we started discussing the slingshot effect Mandy and Matt showed up. He told them about his country of tontilifon and his other universe, after discussing multiverses. Mandy told him about a tornado machine she has in her classroom and he was intrigued by that.

When we were done, we walked back to the preschool. He saw Omri walking up to go to the bus and he yelled “Omriki!!!” and ran over to her and she gave him a hug. Marion told us there was something in his cubby and we went down and found the party favor bag from Omri’s birthday. I let him have part of the Twix in it. He said “That was really nice of Omri!” We looked at the art they had hung on the wall – his digestive system and wind gauge (the compass rose thing). He then found a wire with a couple beads on it that someone had left. It ends were simply wrapped around each other and came apart. He then practiced twisting wires together.

For Hebrew class it was just him and Maya with Myriam. They stayed downstairs in PKA. I did some work on my iPad until Myriam gave us all popsicles and we ate them outside. We sat in the grass, but then the two kids went and sat on a picnic table. I mentioned to her how he was really into names and nicknames now and she said she once called him ‘sweetheart’ and he looked at her and asked “You call me sweetheart?”

They went back inside and did a little more class, and I talked to Maya’s mom about teaching history (she’s also a high school history teacher). I put a new water think on the cooler and we filled his water bottle. We then forgot his bottle and we went back a minute later. He wanted to play with the K’Nex, but I told him the preschool was closed. Maaian told him “The preschool is going to sleep.” He liked that and kept repeating it and asking how that was possible.

Back up the stairs he saw Mike walking across the grass and August sprinted out towards him to ask if he’s seen the elephant. Carly was supervising the 8th grade lock-in, and we went and found her on the way to the field. August found a little pointy broken tip to a mechanical pencil and was using it and dry leaves to destroy spider webs. Spent a few minutes with her, then we headed to activity class.

Class went well. The owner’s two kids were there, along with August and Etai. I had August’s re-enrollment paperwork to fill out, so I sat and did that most of the time.

After class we walked to the park. He blew the bubbles that were in the gift from Omri. A kid was chasing them, and August liked that. August then went up and was blowing them off the play structure. There was a girl that he was trying to get to play with the bubbles, but she apparently didn’t like bubbles as she kept ignoring them. He found a couple rocks that broke easily, and we had fun smashing them. The best was dropping a brick on one to break it apart. He went in the round spinning thing and I rocked him back and forth and we talked about ball bearings. He was then hitting a tree with a rock and realized he could break through the soft bark to see the green layer underneath. He wanted to keep doing it, but I wouldn’t let him.

We finally left after 6:15. He kept playing with his little poker thing, pushing it into the handles of his bike. At a vacant lot, he jumped off and started playing with some old flower pots. He dumped the dirt out of one and it was solid as a rock nd he was trying to break it apart. He started singing “Im a poop, I’m a poop, I’m a big brown poop…” Instead of bear. He found a leaf from a plant and said “whoa, that’s a succulent… It’s juicy on the inside so that’s a succulent.” At one point
he told me “I want to play here forever.” He then was making a cake: “I’m so happy when I find ingredients.” He got a tiny sliver in his hand. We washed it off with water, but then he was just getting muddy. We left after 6:45.

He had been noticing when he saw older kids walking by themselves and would ask “Where is that boy’s mama and dada?” So he decided that “When I feel okay to walk up to the park by myself I’ll be 26.” As he got older he would feel okay to walk farther – to the mall, to Tiv Taam, to Ikea, until eventually the other side of the world. But that would be when he was 988 years old or something like that.

We walked by the treasure hunt park, and about a block past it he counted another cat, 4. A few seconds later he said “That’s Shmorgadeboop!” It was, as you can tell by the damaged ear.

We were home at 7:20. The last few blocks we talked about expectations when we went in: not crazy, nice to mama, and inside voice. He had them memorized, but then he was crazy when he went in and had to do it again.

For some reason we were talking about love and I told him the things I loved: reading, etc. He said “and learning?” We ate veggie burgers and he wanted me to teach him about Palestinians: “how they live?” I taught him about the border wall and how we’d see it on Saturday. He wanted something else interesting and when I took a few seconds he said “You’ve read a lot of books about Palestinians. Did you forget?”

He was also asking “Who’s Zohar?” (Omri’s sister) and we read some Magic Treehouse.

Carly took him up to his bath. He made a map of Israel on the floor out of towels and socks and random things. It even had Omar’s house on it. Out at the guitar he ws strumming all the calls on it and filling our house with animals, etc.

I left them at 8:55, then I went up at 9:20. Sang to him, then he wanted Carly. She was up at 9:50 and he was asleep soon after.

He was up just after 7 and called me up to turn off the air conditioner. Downstairs, he watched a couple Ollie and Moons (I keep almost typing Holly and Moon, as that’s how he pronounces it) and ate his vitamins. Didn’t really eat anything though, which has been par this week.

We left right at 7:40. Watched a claw truck on the way to school.

Coffee filter drawing, then a digestive system with the squishy string things, and then a direction pointer (like a compass rose) where the line would light up to tell you which direction you’re going.

Left him 8:35. He was very clear about what he needed: He wanted Anna to hold him. She sat down and he curled up in her lap – I think so he didn’t have to actually see me leave. Then, as I walked up the stairs I realized I still had his water bottle. I’ve always feared that one. I snuck back, and placed the water bottle in the holder. August was trying to stick the compass rose on his cubby again – the top pieces had come unstuck. He spotted me and said it wasn’t working. I quickly said it was okay if they weren’t all sticking and took off. He seemed okay, and from the stairs I could still see him back inside the classroom.

I picked him up at 12:45. He was still outside at lunch so I helped him pack up. He then went over to the big dino kale plants and ate some, right off the plant like a rabbit. Other kids do it as well, and the plants look like they’ve been attacked by three foot tall rabbits. He ate a bunch, actually. Marion told him that what she does is take salt and “give it a massage” (in her french accent) to make it soften up and puts it in a salad. So he picked a piece and wanted to take it home and try that. There was also a carrot that someone had pulled but not eaten. We took that with us, then walked upstairs and rinsed it off in the drinking fountain and he ate it. He saw Sveta, the cleaner for preschool and gave her a thumbs up. I asked how his day was and he said “Not so good. I asked them to call you multiple times.” But he seemed fine, they didn’t say anything, and he never brought it up again, so pretty sure that wasn’t the case.

We sat on our bench, and at one point saw Lillian and Teegan, his two favorite 6th graders, walking from the library, back to middle school. Unfortunately they were too far away and didn’t see us. He said he was hungry, but was being a slow eater. He said he wanted to go to the cafeteria and get a treat instead. We moved inside the building it and it continued. He kept moving his chair around. He went to the bathroom. He likes the wheelchair handhold tubes, but the one that moves. As he told the one fixed to the wall, in a funny little voice, “I don’t like you, tube…Cuz it’s a boring old dumb tube.” Back in the entryway he sang “You’re a bear, you’re a bear, you’re a big brown bear, walking to your house, to comb your hair” When asked, he said it was from morning meeting.

We went in the library, and he wanted to do art. While charging the pencil he played a couple levels of Lightbot Jr. Clearly he learned something at coding class, as he passed a couple levels on his own, easy peasy. But he then turned to making a big pile/chair/sculpture of pillows and stuff. He would have pulled all the books off the shelves if I would have let him. I didn’t, but he used the books and water bottles, etc. from the backpack. He said it was  bigger than the chair he made with the girl (he said Bar, but it was actually a different girl). We then did some art on the iPad.

We went back to the kids area and he sang “every single cell in my body is well.” He said it was from yoga class. He played with the legoes, putting them in the big plastic ship. He said they were all wanting to steer the ship. Juhyeok and his sisters and mom showed up. He climbed on the seats and sat on the edge with him. Juhyeok’s mom had set down a stack of Scaredy Squirrel books, and August wanted to read Scaredy Squirrel Goes to the Beach. We read that, then he was up looking out the window again and asked about the outside path around the library. I said we could walk around it if he wanted.

So we did. On the way out he and Amanda were calling each other funny names, and he said “Bye, pumpkin berry” to her. We then saw Ilana and he told her how we were going to walk the circle. We walked the circle, then sat on our bench and ate a granola bar. He made a lot of yummy noises. He was then asking me ‘What happens when your muscles get tired?” This comes from when he was making a bridge of his body between the couch and the coffee table, and we talked about how he couldn’t stay like that forever because his muscles would get tired.

Carly drove home, but August wanted to walk, so we did. we sang Down by the Bay most of the way and were home at 4:50. He was hyper. We salted his dino kale and he ate it. He was then Teegan and Carly was Ms. Althauser. Carly was trying to get him to read something, and he said he was reading it so fast we couldn’t understand it. Carly said “Doesn’t count.” He said “Aargh! I’m in charge!” They went outside, and he accidentally sprayed himself with the hose and got upset. Still grumpy, when he guessed what Carly was having for dinner he said “Boring, old, dumb salad?”

I got us food for dinner. We still do the joke about how he can only stare at his milk and he asked for “staring milk”. I made a joke about the milk starting at him, and then he pointed out that there were two cartons in the fridge: “That’s the milk that stares at me and that’s the milk that I stare at it.” We ate spaghetti outside. He sort of threw a clod of dirt at my bowl. Luckily I was done, but we went inside. He wanted to take a tissue out of the box with his teeth, which Carly didn’t like because of the dryness of it. We read a chapter of The Magic Treehouse #20. He then noticed the sticker on his water bottle wearing out, so he took it all off. We went outside and ate more of his dinner. Played with his stick and found the plastic eggs in the vase.

Went inside and I took him up to his bath. He sang “Im a bear, I’m a bear…” And this time he said he learned it from Omri. That made sense, as I’ve heard her sing it. After his bath he strummed the strings on the guitar. He said that each string called a different thing: “This is the mermaid, gorilla, sheep, horse, sand, seahorse call.”

Downstairs he ate a piece of toast with honey and peanut butter and watched Ollie and Moon. We then skyped with my parents. Paul answered, and August sang the Ollie and Moon song to Paul, then to them again a few minutes later. He was wild but calmed down and talked for awhile. Carly took him up about 8:10. He was asleep about 8:30.

Earlier, he had asked Carly if there was a black hole at the center of the multiverse. I had told him about the big one at the center of the Milky Way. Carly said she didn’t know, so they wrote an email to Mandy and Matt. He said “Hi science teacher, is there a black hole at the center of the multiverse? Not the universe, the multiverse. That’s more than one universe…That means I taught her something, right?”

He was kicking me in his sleep during the night – like lifting up his legs and bringing him down. The second time, as I woke up flailing and talking, I took my pillow and blanket and went and slept on the lower bed.

Then in the morning he kept sleeping and sleeping. Tried waking him at 7:20, but no luck. I let him sleep until 8. We got going quickly. Looking at the drops in the sink he sort of sang/chanted about rain: “Every drop was falling down…getting bigger until gravity pulls them down and they turn to rain…”

On the walk to school we hit the broken sidewalk by where they’re building a new school and stopped abruptly. They’re almost done with the building, but haven’t fixed the sidewalk. I mentioned that we haven’t seen anyone working there in a few days, either. August speculated in song/chant:

“Maybe they died

Maybe they got hypothermia

Maybe they got poisoned by Mercury”

There were other lines as well. We got to school a little before 9. Anna was back, and they were glazing their latest mugs. I stayed and helped him glaze. He made his a combination of purple and pink, with some orange around the handle. I left him at 9:20 when they were starting morning meeting. I had to hand him over to her as she was sitting in the circle, and I heard a little cry as I left, but I stood outside the door and he was quiet right away.

He was being loud when I picked him up. Marion was back. August and I had brought banana carrot bread in the morning, and Marion took the last couple of pieces. We went and played on the playground. He asked what ‘fair’ meant and we discussed it, and he said “Okay, let’s act out not fair.” We were talking about going to the United States (I was putting the flight info into Kayak) and I mentioned we’d be in Chelan in a couple weeks from today. I then mentioned how we were leaving on Monday, but would get to Seattle on Monday as well, just a few hours later. He said “Huh? But it’s an overnight flight.” So then I was explaining time zones to him. He was sitting on the spinny thing and had a wonderful thinking face on as he tried to understand it. Got a photo of that. I told him not to worry, as it was confusing to adults as well.

He wanted my attention at one point and said “Dada…Ryan, Mr. Ryan.” We saw Alex the fix-it man, so I know who he is now. We had a snack, and he said everyone liked the banana bread. He said it was yummier than the Logan bread. He said it was the last class with Ms. Leron today, and there was no puppet. Another special they aren’t having next week.

He then found a pink sweater on the bench, and really, really liked it. He wrapped it around himself and tied it around his neck. He kept playing with it, and was upset when I said we couldn’t keep it. A kindergarten class came and it included Ben, Bar’s brother. Ben called him cute, and another boy liked August’s moon shirt.

We went to the library, and August spotted Carly, returning books. Talked to her for a minute. We went in and read some of Magic Treehouse #19. He wanted to act out the saving the tiger prat (they release it from a trap on its leg) so we did that several times. He called Liz and Amanda Anna and Marion, and they started calling him funny names as well.

A little before 3 we walked out to the car and got our swim stuff. On the way we saw Holly’s daughter, Hanna. He called her Ms. Stacy. I think he recognized her, but didn’t know who she was.

We headed to the pool and changed and got in. He told me when it was time to take his floaties off. And he told me “I’m the sneakiest boy in the multiverse.” We got out just before 4 and changed and met Carly.

We drove to Ilana and Howard’s house for the going-away party for Holly. When we set down our fruit he excitedly held up cherries to show everyone. He then got right down to the food. Got him a plate and he started eating. He and I worked our way down the table, especially trying all the sweet things, of which there were several: “Can I you get me something that looks sweet and looks yummy?” When he was done he went and played with the sticks and rocks and stuff. He had some sort of hollow-ish stick or seed pod thing and was hitting it on the ground: “I managed to break it.”

We left at 5:20. We took took Naomi, a spanish teacher, to the train station. When he saw her in the car he asked “Why are you in here?” But then he was happy she got to ride with us. August had an itchy spot on his left arm – he said it was from the stick thing. Later I would remember those seed pod things we broke open last summer/fall and how they were sort of like fiberglass inside. I had itch cream with us.

Dropped her off and were home about 5:40. Carly and I joked about which of us was the nice one and he said “You’re both nice.” He played outside, making a soil concoction for the plants (he calls it a “combo”). Inside with me we managed to untie one of the big balloons, which was almost flat. we blew it up and let it go several times. He then had a cardboard tube and was working to stand it up (“stabilize”) it on the cutting board. We shared some water drink, then he was being one of Carly’s students. He told her “Joanie and Franka aren’t listening!”

I took him up for a bath. He had just gone to the bathroom, but he wanted to try again. He said “There’s some more pee my kidneys pushed in there.” He’s been using ‘compared to’, as in “well compared to the multiverse…” He wanted to practice talking about sharing blocks. For some reason the imaginary blocks ended up getting stuck to something with “unruinable super glue and suction cups and tape.”

Downstairs we played the saving the tiger game, many times. We finished Magic Treehouse#19. Carly showed us a gift from a student. It was from Egypt and was a picture on papyrus. He said he was hungry, but wasn’t really. He refused our options. Had some water, then took his Cheerios upstairs and had some.

We all took our time on the bed. As I left them at 9:10 I heard him ask her “Can I tell you a preschool story?” After awhile Carly asked me to switch. I went up and Puff the Magic Dragon and Animal Life. He rolled over right at 10 and fell asleep.

He was up at 7:05. Very calm. Brought him down and had his usual vitamins and Cheerios and Ollie and Moon. I was wearing my blue shorts. I had let him choose the colors for me yesterday, and gone with the brighter blue at his suggestion. I asked how they looked, and he said “Good, but not as good as the green. You should wear the green more than you wear the blue. The more you like something the more you should wear it.” He sang the entire Ollie and Moon song on his own as he walked around the living room.

As we got going I asked if he wanted to wear his Crocs or sandals. He said “My sandals are too regularly not powerful. My turquoise shoes are laser powerful…” and talked about how he could control his lasers with his toes in the Crocs. As we stepped outside he said “Fresh and Rosy fingered.”

On the way to school talked about all the things he could defeat, like in a movie. I would then announce them in a movie announcer voice: He was then humming a song and then singing a song and pointing – something Ike “If you go that way, you’ll go over there…”

At school we found out that Anna was sick today. Ms. Seechin was here as a sub. This threw off August, and it was hard to leave him. He kept asking “What will the teachers do to me?” He played with shells and rocks and wood on the light table with Reia, then helped crush dried bread into bird feed. Finally, I left him after 8:50. I tried to get him to hold Marion’s hand, but as I left he started crying, so she picked him up. I paused outside though and think he calmed down right away. I saw Seechin later, and she said that he got a little sad, wondering when I’d be back, a bit later, but then was okay.

I went home (seeing rabbits just sitting next to a motorbike on the walk home), then returned. Making good progress on listening to Naipaul’s In a Free State on my walks back and forth. Then picked him up at 12:50. When I came in he showed me the big structure he’d built on the light table, out of the little people, the shells, rocks, and pieces of wood. He told me “I built the whole structure… It’s a house.”

We got going, and he found a green hair band thing on the ground. We sat at the picnic table outside the third classrooms. A second grade class came up the steps and he kept asking them “Does anyone own this?” He did the same thing with a pencil he found under the table. He ate some egg and kept asking people as they walked by.

He saw Ms. Stacy and said “Hey, Ms. Stacy!” She asked “Having some lunch with Dad?’ He replied “Yep. Going back for Playball.” In the lobby of the library building he sat and ate more. He was also saying “Saturday at 12, eat a nut, Sunday, look at you.” This is from the Scaredy Squirrel book, although it is actually “Look at view”. He decided ‘you’ is funnier though. And Debbie, the registrar, brought out a couple of wood game things for him to pay with. He liked them both, but especially the one with the magnet to move the little balls around. We went into the library for a short time and into the children’s area and he invented the big bladder game. He started a new game with the librarians, calling Liz the wrong name on purpose.

We then went back for the Playball class. It was the last one of the year. Don’t know why they aren’t having any specials next week. Going to be a rough last three days for the teachers. I sat on the grass and had a phone call with Omar to discuss our plans for Ramallah this next weekend.

After class, we went back to the library. We read some of Star Wars The Clone Wars R2 to the Rescue, then he built a bridge out of the big bookmark things they have kid use on the shelves nowadays (I’ve seen these at multiple libraries, but don’t remember them at all from when I was a kid). he had stuffed animals on it. We then checked out Magic Treehouse #19 and #20.

After 3:15 we went down to the preschool to ask Marion about bringing bread tomorrow (when I’d mentioned making banana carrot bread August had the idea of sharing bread with his class again and was very excited about it). She wasn’t there, but we saw Myriam, who offered us cookies. She said there was white chocolate and brown chocolate ones. August thought about it and said “Well, I have always had brown chocolate, so I will try white chocolate!”

On the way home he stopped to look at a lot of things. And a screw had come out of one side of his sunglasses. Luckily, they would still hold together okay and he could wear them.

We were home at 3:50. He played with the screwdriver set (later, after he was asleep, I would find the little screw to his sunglasses in the pocket of my last pair of shorts). We made water drink and had crackers and peanut butter, then started the banana and carrot bread. Carly got home. She had gone to the toy store to get toys for their class visit to the gan to read stories, and she’d brought back a new pack of the soft pink clay. They played with that, but then August was having problems, and put clay on her.

We finished the banana bread and he licked the spatula. He said that Ms Anna was a better teacher than me, but wouldn’t sy that anyone was better than Carly. Played more with pink clay, then I got him spaghetti. Ate, then he had fun telling Carly she should try white chocolate, which she refuses on principle.

She took him upstairs to his bath. I took over to wash his hair. Downstairs he ate banana bread and cherries – lots of yummy noises. We read through chapter 5 of Magic Treehouse #18.

Took him up to bed and I left them at 9:10. Asleep after a bit.

He woke up at some point and was afraid that it was a school day or mama was leaving. Something like that. got him back to sleep quickly. At 6:40 we heard him yell upstairs. Carly went up but he was asleep. She came back down, then we heard the door a few minutes later. After a few minutes of being quiet, he suddenly started singing his “I found a nut, but I think it’s a butt” song that he had made up on Friday. He was really giggling. He was also tapping out the rhythm with his need and foot on the couch, so his rests were properly timed and in rhythm.

Carly took down the string in the kitchen after August ran in the kitchen and almost got clotheslined by it. A few minutes later he asked her, very nicely, to hang it back up, so we tried to figure out another option. She ended up hanging it from the front door to the always-closed door to the garage.

I took a shower and got ready to go. Left right at 7:20 and drove to the Interior and Population Ministry office in Netanya. I was line in the stairwell right when it opened at 8. Got my number at the visa office, V146, which didn’t sound too bad, and sat down and started reading The Last Bus to Wisdom, our book for book club this coming Friday. So far, I was only about 25% done. I left over 80% finished. The office only had 2 people dedicated to visa issues, so it moved very, very slowly. Finally, 3 hours and change later, I had my first meeting. At issue is the fact that I have a B-1 visa, which is a work visa, but the status of forces agreement says I can only work for U.S. military, the school – those sorts of things. It says I can’t otherwise work without “permission of the authorities” or some language like that. So the question is who do I get permission from.

They said they’d have to talk to a manager, and sent me back to wait. And wait and wait. I asked a couple more times, as the office cleared out (they close to people between 12 and 2:30), and eventually it was just me and an African couple – a son and mother, I think, waiting for a ‘manager’. Eventually, the manager took my passport and disappeared for awhile. She came back and made a copy of it. More waiting, and I got to see things get pretty heated between the officials and the woman that was waiting. Eventually, I was told that they were trying to check with the foreign ministry office, as this was the first time they’ve had a question like this. So, clearly the answer to my question was that I was asking the wrong people here. I sat down for another 15 minutes or so. The manager walked by again and asked me “Why are you waiting here?” I said because they were checking. She said no, they couldn’t do that today, and I asked well, then how are you planning on contacting me with an answer? She wrote down my number, and I got at least her first name and a phone number for her. She didn’t give me a foreign ministry contact though.

So I headed home. While I was gone they cooked energy balls and spaghetti. He was pretty helpful, or did a good job of playing on his own. He did break one of of our grey bowls, and helpfully used tape to fix it. He did one of his hanging magnet sculptures, and in the process dropped the horseshoe magnet twice. Both times they glued it with superglue. They did some Spirograph, and he played with the bowls and water outside. And he watched plenty of Ollie and Moon – he covered his ears for the one where they have to find a bathroom, and eventually Carly skipped that one for him.

When I got home, he was out in the garden doing some naked gardening. He was digging holes, and they had been transplanting plants. Back inside he wanted to watch Sarah and Duck. He got upset when we said no to that, and Carly took him upstairs. When he calmed down and they came down they were talking about death: “Well, it will. Everyone dies, right?…So when I die I don’t have powers.” “Well, I definitely know you can’t move, cuz all the things in your body are dead, right?” “…bones dead, muscles dead, digestive system dead, every system dead…” And he said he wouldn’t nurse for four days. He had turned a consequence (starting at just a few minutes) into a game, and kept increasing the time himself until he got to four days. But it turned out there was a loophole:  “I’ll throw a chemical on you that makes you not remember one thing I don’t want you to remember.” So then he was throwing chemicals on us and we were pretending to forget.

Eventually, I got us going and he and I headed to Winter Lake Park to play at the playgrounds and do some challenges. He had tons of energy and was running back and forth in the house. Of course, on the 15 minutes drive to the park he managed to fall asleep. Just a couple minutes, but still.

We got to the park at 4:10. We parked on the west side, then walked to the spider web playground on the east side of the swamp, err, lake. I gave him challenges, like “Step on ten shadows” and “Turn something five times.” We did some shopping for the spider web and pretended to sleep under the web. We played around more and had a snack in the shade under the web. There was a small ‘Happy Purim!’ metal bucket that he picked up and was using as a shopping basket. There was also some sort of afterschool activities sort of class set up, and a bit later I realized the bucket we had taken was actually one of theirs. They had replaced it with another bucket. When I pointed this out, August at first said he really liked it and wanted to keep it, but then suddenly, he changed his mind and wanted to give it back. He got up and walked over on his own to where a couple of adults and a bunch of older kids were playing and he set it next to them. When they didn’t notice him or the bucket he tried a couple more times, moving it closer. He finally came back to me, happy, and said “I donated it.”

He then wanted to go over to the exercise equipment. He said “Exercise is a kind of playing, right?” We were over there for a short bit, then he needed to use the bathroom. We got on the bike and walked around the north end of the lake. He sang butt and dumb songs as we walked. He got off the bike to watch a big beetle on the ground and got it to walk over a piece of plastic and a leaf.

We made our way back to the car. The lot was now more than packed due to some sort of party in the park. We drove to the mall and parked, then went in and looked for shorts for me at Fox. I got two pairs, then we went right across to the Rebar stand. While in Fox he was excited to see a new Rebar video (commercial) that he liked on their big screen. We got the banana chocolate peanut butter one and sat at the counter and ate it. We then looked around the mall for one of those blow up cubes you can use on an airplane to fill up the foot space so that a kid has a flat area to sleep on. Ordered on on Friday from Amazon, but it is doubtful it will get here in time. Waiting for the elevator, he called to a couple “Hi Jack and Celeste!” It was not Jack and Celeste. The guy at the outdoors store suggested Ace. We’ll look there sometime, but seems like a long shot.

Walked around the whole mall looking at a few other stores that had stuff for children or luggage, but no luck. Headed home. On the way he explained all about a country of Tontilifon that is ‘only’ a couple overnight airplane rides away (6, he said, arguing that is a ‘couple’) that has really bad weather, and only he can live there. He was also singing some of the “Erasure” song we had heard earlier on his playlist. Not a song by Erasure, but a song called “Erasure” by Superchunk that’s pretty catchy: https://youtu.be/Ci-MGpBvUko 

We got home at 7:30. We looked at all of the transplanted plants that Carly had finished up. We heard barking and it was the little dog from the neighbors that had crawled under the fence into the yard below ours. August looked through the fence at it and called “Hey dog, can you bark at me?…Good! I like barking!” I went in but they stayed out un
til 8. He was making a “concoction” of dirt for the plants.

Inside he had some spaghetti for dinner, then they checked on their date-left-in-water experiment. He then wanted some plain noodles to eat, saying they looked like aliens with gears. She took him up to a bath, and he bit his tongue. She did his bath and got him ready, and I said good night at 8:40. We switched a little after 9. I tried singing to him but he just sang “butt, poop, penis, pee, concrete…” I stopped and said he could just sing on his own for awhile. I was just lying there, falling asleep on his own, when after a couple minutes he got quiet, said some random word and made a noise, and rolled on his side and fell asleep, about 9:15 or so.

He woke up about 6:40 with a bad dream: “No! No!” Carly came in, but he didn’t go back to sleep. Downstairs he watched Ollie and Moon on the iPad. It restarted on him, but he handled it well. He wanted to watch on Carly’s computer, but said he wanted to watch outside so he wouldn’t see his iPad. They were outside when I came down. I took a shower, then downstairs he asked “Dada, what are feelings for?…like happy, sad, angry…” Carly liked discussing that with him. He ate an egg, then he played with his doctor kit. He squeezed the stethoscope into an X shape and said “My Dr. X Wi-Fi is for in case I have to cut someone over…I have to cut open Monkey Nice Banana.” He also asked “Mama, what is dreams from?”

Carly went outside, and I got screwdrivers out to open up one of the doctor tools that had a dead battery. He was then using a screwdriver to fix things. Then “Now I’m RoboZinnie X”. I had been a robot as well, and he had been fixing me with the screwdriver. He also fixed his balance bike, so then we took it out and he rode it around, pretending to be RoboZinnie X. He wanted me to ride my bike as well, but when I got on it out in the street he left me and went in, trying to find Carly.

I got us ready to go and we went for a walk so Carly could do some grading. We got to Treasure Hunt park at 10:20. Had a snack, then he wanted me to do Eeenie meanie. I chanted it several times, pretending there were 6 or 7 people choosing who was it. I was just pointing at the platform area, making shapes: a hexagon, then a pentagon, etc. as people were eliminated. We had just started doing treasure hunts when Shmorgadeboop showed up at 10:40. August was first alarmed, screaming and saying “Oh no! We were having so much fun without Shmorgadeboop!” and “I’m afraid of Shmorgadeboop!” When the cat started rubbing against him, August was telling the cat to go away and said ‘I’m communicating!”

But a couple minutes later August spilled some Cheerios, and the cat started eating them. This was a lot of fun, and August started picking up the Cheerios and feeding Shmorgadeboop. We did a treasure hunt, then went and played with the swings. August was winding one up and letting it go. At the end it would re-wrap itself the opposite direction: “That was so much force!” I sat on the ground and Shmorgadeboop was next to me, and August was a cat in my lap. I had my phone out, and they were both playing with the handle on it. We went to the bench and had some apple. He found a little pearly bead but then dropped it in the grass. He wanted me to find it, and remarkably I spotted it after just a couple seconds.

He sang the school bell when he was done with the park, and we left at 12. We headed towards the school and swimming. Before we got to the main street, he spotted an old tire from a kids bike and got so excited “I will take it home. I will take it home. I will take it home…” He decided that it could be a backup in case he ever gets a kids bike but then needs a new tire. He told Carly “I’ll tell mama.” He had it around him on the bike as we walked and said “I’m like a delivery truck.”

We almost got to school, we were at the corner of it, but then decided he didn’t want to swim. He wanted to head home and tell Carly about the tire as soon as possible. I reluctantly gave in, but wouldn’t let him have more of the lemon mints, as he had already had one after we left the park and had gotten very demand-y with them. He got really upset about that. This made for a really long walk home. We stopped a few times to comfort him, but then he kept rubbing his eyes and I realized they were bothering him. I asked if they were itchy and he said “Yes!” They were also getting very puffy. We hadn’t washed his hands after the cat, and his hands were also all dirty from the tire, covered in dust. His face was streaked with dirt. We washed his hands off, and he put water on his eyes, but that just made water drip on his shorts. Disaster all around. He kept stopping, but the best thing was to get home, so then I was forcing us to keep going, making him upset.

We were finally home after 12:45. He was saying “Stupid allergies…idiot allergies.” Calmed down a little, but then had a meltdown. I stayed with him in the bedroom, then we came down at 1:40. He seemed okay, but back downstairs he pinched his foot moving a chair and got upset. Carly took him back upstairs. We thought he might take a nap, but no luck.

When they came back down he had some water drink and offered some to Carly. He asked her “Why don’t you love water drink‽” He told Carly about “Eenie meanie…” She asked “Who taught you that?” He replied “The eenie meanie singer: dada.”

Ate some veggie burger, then used a safety pin to pop a nearly-dead balloon. He made up a song: “pin, pin pin, I love you so much, you can stand like an archie arch.” Then a “I washed my hand, and dried my hands, I went to the bathroom and washed my hands” song.

I took him out agin a little before 3. Carly was also dealing with a cold, so could use the rest time. We walked over to the mall to do our grocery shopping. He didn’t like that the playground was busy. We went inside, but the inside play area was gone. Or more correctly it was taken apart and stacked in a corner. Not sure if it is being taken out, or it was just being cleaned.

We went shopping. I let him choose a choose, and he chose the herb cheddar in the green wax, which we’ve had before. He had fun the rest of the time scratching up the wax. We paid and got going. Still didn’t want to try the playground. On the walk home we ate some sweet potato chips and saw a lizard. We were back by 4:30.

He was covering his ears and acting strangely. Carly came down and thought he was sad, or that his ears were hurting. He said he was just doing it for funsies. A little out of character. He asked me a couple times to open the cheese, as it was our plan to try the cheese with crackers when we got home. But I couldn’t find it, and it didn’t look like we’d paid for it. He claimed he had dropped it in the cart when he was done scratching it, but I think it may have missed. Felt a little bad, as it was pretty scratched up, I’m sure.

He wasn’t upset about the loss of cheese. He drank the water from his ice experiment – before we had left he had put some ice in a cup to see how it would melt. In the bathroom he showed me how he figured out he could pull apart the sheets of toilet paper, then asked for a piece of paper towel to do the same. Not sure how he learned to do that, but it is a nice little piece of fine motor work. Of course, then a bit later, he had a cup of milk and brought it over to the coffee table. He went to set it down and I don’t know what happened. It didn’t seem close. It spilled. He helped her clean the carpet and I grabbed the green painted box and washed it off. Carly hung up another string in the kitchen, and he got right to taping – mainly the string at the door end.

Carly skyped with Chuck and Cherie, then August and I got going to dinner, leaving after 6:20. We drove up to Sushi Ishimoto in town. He sang a “dumb’ song on the way up, and I told him to get it out of his system before we got there. We sat at our usual table and got our usual: the pad thai with shrimp. He ate all the shrimp. When I ordered (off the hebrew menu, I was able to do) I got a dish for Carly to go, and I also asked for water with lemon. When she brought the water there wasn’t any lemon with it. August tried asking her a few times, across the dining room, “Could I have some lemon, please?” When she actually came back over to us he was too shy to ask himself. She brought him four or five slices of lemon. He was very happy about that. He put all the lemon in, squishing it with his hands. He said he really liked it. Although, later, when it had soaked for awhile, he said it was too lemon-y, even when I poured more water in to dilute it.

Anyway, we als
o read a few pages of Oliver and the Seawigs. Soon before we left, August tipped his chair backwards and fell. He was okay though. When we left at 7:10 he said “Feels nicer out here!” We decided that the next time we come in the evening we should sit outside. We got to the car (just across the street in the dirt lot) and realized we didn’t have the book, so walked back and got it. August spent some time playing with a stick, pushing it into the holes in the rocks in the wall along the sidewalk.

We were home at 7:35. I think he tasted the noodle dish we got for Carly, then she took him up for a bath. Downstairs, we had the last berry brain and ice cream. When I brought it to him he told me “Don’t be scrap boy now!” He let me have a bite though. He ate it all, then when I mentioned he had a stuffed belly he stuck it out and looked at it. Apple Photos told me we had a new ‘memory’ called ‘Growing Up 2017’ and we watched that. Kind of cool.

Carly kept asking August “Can I cut your hair?” We took him up and got him ready for bed. I left theme a little before 9 and he was asleep a little after 9.

6:10. He called “Dada” with the door still closed. Carly went in and got him back to sleep.

I went to wake him up at 7:20. It took a couple minutes and when he opened his eyes he gave me a startled look. He had kind of cuddled up next to me and knew someone was there, but I think he thought it was you. He asked something like “Why isn’t Mana up here?” He was a little upset to find you were at work. He asked for a treat and I offered him Logan bread, water drink, oatmeal, etc. I said peanut butter and honey toast and he rejected that. But then he got a big smile on his face and giggled and said “Cinnamon and sugar toast.”

So I agreed it was a cinnamon and sugar sort of morning and we went downstairs. As I made it I joked about putting other things on it instead, like paprika. I asked if he wanted cilantro and he gave me the biggest exasperated “Ugk”. So funny and teenagery. I then joked that I put snail slime on instead of butter as we were out of butter. He said that would be gross and I told him everyone knows that snail slime is a good butter substitute. “No. I’ve tasted snail slime 200 times and it’s always tastes bad to me.” Me: “Wait, of it tastes bad to you wouldn’t you stop after two or three times?” Him: “No, I’m a special person. And I was trying different kinds.”

For a his second piece of toast I played it straight, stating only the actual ingredients. He said “Make jokes!” He was on a roll this morning. As we were getting ready to go he said “Stop brushing your teeth; we have other things to do.” As we went out the door and I checked to make sure we had everything he said “We have everything we need? We have the most important thing of all, me? Were pretty lucky that we have me.”

We left at 8:12. He got a lemon mint and told it “Come out of the mint, oh flavor!” On the walk he told me he knows another universe exists, and he proved it to me by taking me there. He said I could tell it was a different universe because everything was pink, except for the humans and aliens, which were peach. And he told me “I know how to moisten noses.”

At the school he went and explored the roundabout in the parking lot. He found a broken snail shell: “I think it was destroyed by a war. A snail war. I’ve heard of snail wars sometimes. In snail wars a couple snails get killed. I’ve heard of snail wars in books.”

In the classroom we looked at the schedule, and there was a blank spot in the morning. He had to know what it was, so went and asked Anna. She said the schedule had been chosen by kids for today, so they’d discuss it in morning meeting. He was okay with that. And he was okay with me leaving as he stood by the clay table. Candy had just come in with her mom, upset, and as I walked out I found out why as I almost slipped in the throw up all over the floor just inside the door.

I went home and worked, then walked back to get him at 12:50. Got him, as there was a video story of Frog and Toad playing, but he didn’t want to watch it. Outside, Hector’s and Yaya’s moms were putting together presents for the teachers. It involved putting fingerprints of the kids on three pictures of trees (for the two teachers and Myriam, I assume). Two fingerprints on each, so six total. When it was done, August said he really liked that.

We went up to the library and sat in the red chairs and had a snack. He said “It’s our last day in Korea.” I asked if he meant the day we left, and he said no, the day before that – full day. Telling me about his day he said “I played with Reia with the little Legos. Leonard and Emmitt destroyed it…I said to Reia ‘Let’s do more nos….No, no, no, no, no…” He talked about them not being friends for awhile after that. A woman came out of the library and he said “Hey, Ms. Michelle.” Turns out it was Ms. Paris. Not sure what her job is, but she knows August by name. He ate more egg and apple. And I had to shut down the “tusic” thing as he kept saying the word.

We walked back to the preschool before 1:30. The bell had rung and there were big kids everywhere. I heard him saying hi to students as we walked down the stairs, and he told me “I was saying ‘hey big students!’”

We went in for the tea party. We were sitting with Emmitt and his big sister, Teegan, who Carly has in two classes (she’s in 6th grade). And it turned out that their mom, Ms. Stacy, could make it. So it was the five of us. We had a lot of fun. There were cookies and bread with honey and apple crumble, all made by the students. Emmitt poured the tea. August said it was too full for him, but he could practice when it was emptier. Emmitt barely sat there, so it was mainly August talking to Ms. Stacey and Teegan. He sang Down by the Bay for them, making up funny verses, and asked Teegan (when I reminded him she was mama’s student) how her reading was, and she told us about the book City of Embers. And he told Teegan all about flubong.

All the kids were then heading out to the playground. I went out and gave him a couple challenges: find three interesting noises by hitting things and then find three low noises. He ended up in the kitchen area finding most of the noises, then was making stew in the kitchen. Omri came along and asked August if he wanted a carrot. They went over and were looking through the carrot patch. Cute, until I realized she was just pulling out all the carrots, looking for a big one for August. I rinses two little ones off and he ate them.

Back at the playground, he watched as Emmitt, Leonard, Nicholas, and another boy or two chased Teegan around. He seemed confused at first, but then joined in the chasing. It seemed to click for him why the chasing games were fun, although I think he’s a long way away from wanting to just play with the boys like they normally do, especially if he might get chased himself. When he had a chance he told Teegan about his super lasers. She said “Super powers? Oh no!” August kept asking me “Why’d she say ‘super powers? Oh no!’”

When there was a pause in the chasing August a couple times asked me things like “When it’s the end of the day and we can do anything can you be Teegan and I can defeat you?”

August was casting all sorts of spells on her, like “Impossible to melt icebergs!” The other boys were all being different things (bears, vampires, monsters, etc.) as they attacked her. At one point they were all casting spells on her and she was actually acting out being all the things they changed her into: “Abracadabra! A marshmallow!…Earwax!”

Teegan kept it up for a good half hour, and I told her mom when she came back to pick them up that she should grab an extra cookie for her. She said “Probably slip her a few shekels, too!”

After they left, August asked again “Can you be Teegan and I’ll be the boys chasing you?” He needed to use the bathroom so we went in and did that, and I congratulated Anna and Marion on the tea party. He played on top of the car and we played rhythms on it, then after the bathroom we went to the Dion playground and did more rhythms and played with some other things, like spinning wooden balls in a colander.

We headed up to the library to sneak and find Carly, who was scanning things. Going up the stairs he spotted ants carrying a much bigger dead ant up the wall. We watched them, then found Carly in the library. One of the children’s books her students had made wasn’t scanning correctly, so I helped with that, and she walked around the empty library with August. He then sat at a computer and pretended to be Lillian playing a big kids game. He had me sit next to him and I was a student named Jack.

We went outside and Carly went to pack up. August grabbed the back of our usual bench, and it fell over on him, hitting his knees. Looked much scarier than it was. He told me “Next year I’ll change my name.” Like Lillian. He then found one of these hard little seeds he keeps finding everywhere and star
ted a song/chant that he was very, very proud of: “I found a nut, but I think it’s a butt.” Carly arrived, and we went to Ayal’s classroom to see where the falcon nest is. You can’t see in the nest, and we didn’t see any falcons coming or going, so we headed out.

On the walk home he said “I’m a narwhal. Can’t catch me! Super shy!” Which he reminded me is from that Narwhal and the Jellyfish book from February. He did watch a video about Narwhals a few weeks ago though. He also asked “Why is a spiderweb super strong, but to us it’s really weak?” So we talked about relative mass as we got home at 4:50.

He ate a hard boiled egg and watched Ollie and Moon. He then got the dowel from the paper roll and knighted me, then Carly reluctantly let him knight her as well. He ate some mushrooms, then oatmeal and mango. Then we had a berry brain and ice cream. I ate a little of it, but let him have most of it. He enjoyed that, and said “I shouldn’t have had that taffy.” He meant yesterday, when he chose the taffy candy in the office over a blueberry brain.

We finished the Magic Treehouse book, #18. In it they are on the Great Plains and meet Native Americans before the arrival of the settlers. August asked why that was important, and after I explained he was saying “White people are stupid. I hate white people.” We read a little Over and the Seawigs. He was then talking about preschool and the possibility of me not being at the library, but at home, especially next year. He turned it into a game, where I pretended to be at home but then drove to preschool really fast if he was sick, etc.

Took him up for his bath, then we got him ready for bed. I left them at 8:40. He wasn’t going to sleep, so I took over at 9. Finally, at 9:30 he wanted Carly back. She came in and he went to sleep right away.

He slept a long time, but was rather restless. He said “blueberry brains” once in his sleep.

I woke him up at 7:25. 12 and a half hours of sleep. He went to the bathroom right away. Got his clothes off, and as we left the bathroom his first words of the morning were “I want some naked time.” Downstairs we took a photo of him with a vitamin on his head for mama. He then told me “You should count my yawns, too.” He watched one Ollie and Moon story (honey from Scotland) and then got ready to go.

Stepped outside to realize that Carly had accidentally taken his bike with her in the car when she drove to work (she was taking fruit for a party after school). Considered getting a stroller, but he wanted to walk, so off we went, at 7:57. Along the way we tried out some lemon breathe mints that we had bought some time ago. He liked them, and kept wanting more. August walked from home all the way to the end of Vatikim. I then carried him up the hill, then he walked down most of it. I picked him up when a dog was coming, then carried him a bit further across the street at the big roundabout. He then walked the last block into school.

The whole walk took 45 minutes, but only partly because of his walking speed. He also found and did things: he stopped at the little park (Tal Garden) and rode the motorcycle thing and talked about dog poop, dragged a big stick along the road, found a piece of garbage, found a flower (“best thing I found on  our walk”), stopped for some Logan bread (“Can I have some Logan bread made from the friend Logan?”), played with a wire, made up a song about the wire (“what did you do, when I didn’t find you?…made that up. About the broken wire.”) and found various rocks which he then said were the hardest things in the universe until he blasted them with his laser rockets – he said he’d been blasting one of them for two years.

On campus we saw Airport Megan outside her classroom. She asked if August wanted to see her students – they were in practicing typing on computers. She opened the door for him and he was excited, but he was too nervous to get any closer.

We got to his classroom and I was able to leave at 9:15. We looked at the garden and it said library time in the morning and garden time in the afternoon. He asked to come back for garden time, saying “I love garden time.” He went and sat next to Ms. Anna in the pottery area and I was able to leave.

I worked in the library. At 10:30 they showed up for the final library time of the year. I got his “Come with us, dada!” on video this time. Ilana showed them a website called bookflix, then they watched a book called Scaredy Squirrel and a nonfiction book about squirrels. They then checked out books. No books about school this time, so he got It’s My Birthday.

Walked them back to the classroom and sat on the floor and read August’s book to him and some other kids, and then Selma’s (something like Black and White Bunny’s ABCs). Hanako was looking at her book and saw the word ‘A’ and pointed it out to August, as his name starts with A.

They didn’t need me to help with the Tea Party book, so assigned me the table with Zingo – a sort of Bingo game. Had 4 to 6 kids there constantly for an hour: August, Derin, Emmitt, Juhyeok, Reia, Omri, etc. August eventually lost interest and went and was making a ball track with Emmitt and Yaya when I left at noon. The kids had finished up a round of Zingo and Reia and Juhyeok, all on their own, cleaned up the entire game and put it in the box and put it away. I told Marion how helpful they had been.

I went and ate lunch and got a little work in (reading reports of mental health issues in Gaza) and picked him up at 12:50. He was already in the classroom, and he was being silly with Emmitt – they were talking about a potty, although I didn’t catch much. Later August told me he likes Emmitt except when he’s doing chasing games or being crazy in the treehouse.

We went up on the bench and kept eating. August eats really slowly at school. He was hungry at the library even though they had just had snack (and we had brought a loaf of the Logan bread to share for snack) and he’d barely touched his lunch. He now continued to very slowly eat more of it – mainly the granola and grapes. He refused to touch the apricot again. He didn’t like that it had been cut in half and the pit taken out. He wanted to be able to bite into it until he reached the pit, then have a teacher take it out.

He did some experiments, making “a new Mike” and a “nutting machine”. That is, a machine that made nuts. We saw Israel Cassie and I reminded him she had given us the lollipops. She was talking to someone else though, and when she was done a few minutes later he ran over to her and shouted “Thank you for the lollipops!” We talked about what he had done today and he said “This day I made that track with Yaya and Emmitt and I did that potty with Emmitt.”

He wanted to go inside to air conditioning, so we went inside the building doors, but he was still eating so we sat in the lobby. We discussed our day in Korea again, going to the children’s museum, then a coffee shop and getting a strawberry smoothie. We went inside for a little while and set up a chess set. He then used extra chess pieces and checkers pieces to fill up the whole board: “We’ll have extra pieces on here. Funny chess.”

We got to the yoga room a little early and sat outside and read his book again. He went in when his class got there. Ms. Stacy said he had the perfect shirt on (his sharks shirt) as they were going to be doing ocean stuff today. When class was over he ran out to me saying “I got a sticker cuz I did so well and I was a helper!” He wanted me to put the purple heart sticker on my shirt.

We went down to the preschool and to the Dion playground. He made rhythms on the instrument wall and then I would copy his rhythms. Maya came along and saw the sticker on my shirt and was in awe. She said that Ms. Stacy gives out those stickers for being a helper. I told her August had been the helper today.

Up at Hebrew I sat outside the room and did more reading. Hebrew class was fine. The second half they were making booklets with different pictures and words in them. He did some cutting on his own, then I helped him. He got a little upset when he had cut into one of his hats. He wanted to use the glue stick to fix it, but didn’t like my answer that it wasn’t possible that way.

Got that put away though and he rebounded. He wanted to go take a look at the PKC classroom. I was picking him up to see over a door into a storage area when Carly came along. He told her we were “Investigating” PKC.

We went to her classroom for awhile and they were acting out vocabulary words and having me guess them. Carly took him to the bathroom, then we walked to the car and got the bike. She drove home and we walked to his activity class.

He was the only kid for about 10 minutes, until Lavid showed up, along with his little sister. Before he showed up, August had heard the ice cream truck and started to get sad. I reminded him we had blueberry brains at home. Technically he had already chosen a strawberry taffy as we had walked through the middle school office with Carly. But I would have shared a berry brain with him, but we never got around to it.

At the end of activity class August saw the kids for the next class standing outside the door and he was saying things through the glass to them, like “Come in big boys and girls!”

We started walking home and stopped at the exercise area. He played a little there and we had more to eat. Then across to the busy playground for about 15 minutes. He went up to his space station area and played in there, and was impressed by the kids climbing on top of it. He was saying things like “Shalom!” through the window thing, and telling them to climb up again.

We left there, him reluctantly, at 6:10. I spotted the ice cream truck
outside the community center and I tried to be sneaky and walk around the back of the center. Almost worked, but the gates were locked on the other side. We had to walk back around, but I was able to walk close to the doorway of the building. August could have looked to the left and seen it, but he didn’t. As we walked by the treasure hunt playground he was working on remembering the number sequences: ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, etc. up to nonillions. He told me to correct him if he got it wrong.

At one point he asked me “What’s precious peace?” Later I figured out it was from Ollie and Moon and he meant ‘precious piece’ of something. By the Israeli school he found a pencil and took it home. At home he said something about the dog poop that had been by our gate for a few days. He had noticed yesterday that it was gone.

We were home at 6:45. Carly had started boiling eggs for us as we walked home, as he said that was what sounded good. He ate an egg and mushrooms and milk for dinner. He watched two stories of Ollie and Moon.

I got him in his bath then Carly took over. Carly had made him oatmeal before his bath as he said he was still hungry, and he had a little more after. He told me “Ms. Anna said she’s bored giving me challenges. Now I get challenges from Ms. Marion.” We read chapter 8 of the Magic Treehouse book.

He was tired and as I carried him upstairs he talked about having “Tapuz” – the first time he’s referred to ‘apple’ in Hebrew, I think. I left them at 8:55. She brushed his teeth and he was asleep in ten minutes.