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He woke up at 6:55. Another good night sleeping between us. He had sat up once in the middle of the night and sat there with his head back, rocking back and forth, sleeping sitting up. Finally looked around and then threw himself down on the blanket against Carly’s back. He got up and headed downstairs to Carly. I read in bed for awhile. When I went downstairs they were outside. He unfortunately knocked over a pot and it cracked.

He asked for Coyote Peterson and ate Cheerios with milk and mango while he watched some Brave Wilderness outside. Inside he saw Carly with her purse. He asked “Can I have some question time and nursing time before you go?” When she reminded him she wasn’t going to work he said “Oh! Then can I have a LOT of question time?”

He played with the salad spinner and was using it as a centrifuge. The idea of a centrifuge had come up at the pool yesterday when he had been spinning. Carly had then emailed Cassie and Jeff to ask what a centrifuge was used for. Anyway, he was drawing blood from me and then putting it in the centrifuge so he could then test it. I joked that Oma could buy him his first centrifuge on Amazon and that he could learn how to draw blood with Tia Cassie this summer.

Inside they read Go, Dog, Go and ended up being silly, andding the words “poopy” and “throw-ups” all over. August told me “Mama scratched me on the foot!” And then did a lot of whining. I finished reading the book with him.

Carly went up and did some working. August and I put up a nail where the embroidered bird picture had fallen. We then put some more poison out for ants that were coming in the other end of the sliding door this time. And then we played with the magnet set. He was making sort of magnet sculptures, connecting magnets to the side of the metal end table. He had had enough of letting mama work so he went up and got her. Unfortunately, he was then not being nice to her and she left and I kept him with me. He had a major meltdown. After I got him calmed down and he apologized, they got out a book of science experiments. When I went to take a shower they were testing the strength of hairs. And when I came back down they had been making paper airplanes. August was now taping one to the floor. They were also talking about a cheese holiday. I didn’t understand.

They then made slime outside, then I got him ready to go to the pool. All went fine until he went to put on his shoes. He said “Wait! My scratch! I can’t go!” And he backed away from the door. We tried to convince him it was fine. Carly filled a pot of water and had him put his foot in it to show it was okay. But then he argued it would get worse.

I got him to come with me, reluctantly, and we talked about just playing at the playground at school if he didn’t like the water. We got there, and stopped at the couches to have some banana carrot bread before going in. Omri and her family came out of the pool – we had just missed them. Omri gave August a sesame cookie thing. He did a good job eating most of it. I tried it and it wasn’t very good and then he said he’d had enough.

In at the pool, he let me get in and he sat on the edge and played with the watering can. Good idea of Carly’s to take that to the pool yesterday. But after awhile he was getting his legs and feet and swimsuit all wet and he agreed to get in the pool. Put on his floaties and got him in. He said the pool was a ton of fun and more fun than the playground. Junyeok was at the pool. Talked to him just a bit. Mainly August wanted to just stay away from the other kids and not get splashed. He did do some of his centrifuging with the watering can.

We thought the pool closed at 2, but we got out at 2:20 and there was no sign the lifeguard was closing it anytime soon. August started talking about immunizations and diseases and he invented “Rayjeon. It’s the worst disease ever.” We went and changed his clothes, then went to the nature reserve. Walked around there for awhile and played in the hut. August mainly wanted to take snails off of plants, etc. and put them other places though. I let him do it a bit but then said that was enough. We stopped and used the parabolic sound reflectors, then August wanted to go play darts.

He never really played the darts much, but we spent a lot of time in the area by the middle school office. Had some snack, he threw some leaves down from the railing, I played darts, he told me “pretend you’re in a dance” competition and he danced himself (he said it was from the creative movement class: “But it’s not really a winning game”). He also talked about his ion substance and silicone gel: “If you go to the bottom of a lake or a river or a pool of ion you’ll find silicon gel.”

We headed home well after 3. He was in a good mode until we started to get in the car and he first poked his head in the front and felt the air vents. He doesn’t like that we get all the air. He said things like “Stupid car” and wanted a new one. He got even whinier in the back seat: “Just plug me I to the wall and electrocute me…chop me up…just kill me.” I don’t even know where he comes up with language like that.

At home he cheered up after I handed him to Carly. They skyped Cherie and Chuck, or actually used FaceTime this time. I mixed up water drink and he told them about it: “sand but it’s not sand”. He then played with water in the pots. Took them outside, and he sat in the water and got nice and soaked. Took his clothes off and had naked time. Was then out with Carly doing plants. Brought in some flowers to me and said “Happy birthday, dada!” But then said “Nah nah nah nah nah we had a popcorn cracker!” He also got flowers, but then got sad when he stepped on his. I gave him mine and he was very happy.

He and Carly then did a science experiment with Carly about surface tension. It involved putting different cleaners on cardboard and then seeing how water drops respond on them. When he washed his hands at the end he said “I want to make sure there’s no deadly things on my hands, even things that make me dead over time.” He was also asking about drinking too much water, so we watched a video on water poisoning: https://youtu.be/t1nwSuWr_q8

He and Carly then did more experiments: taping paper to the edge of the table to see how it curled with and against the grain, and getting different types of paper wet and then putting them in the oven to see if they’d curl. He wanted to do more, and Carly said they could do more tomorrow. He said “But tomorrow’s not my free day…Mama, I need more free days, like 11 or 12.” Then got really sad and we both had to comfort him and talk about how preschool can be fun.

He was definitely looking quite tired too. Carly took him up to his bath, then I read Magic School Bus in the Earth. He had said he wanted a science book, so we looked at our science books and he said he wanted one with a character, so that’s what he chose. He was hungry though and we then went downstairs and got crackers and peanut butter.

I realized we hadn’t skyped with my parents this weekend, so we looked to see if they were online. At first it said they weren’t, so we left them a video message. August was all talkative, telling them about his science experiments. But then it did say they were online so we called them. Now he was quiet. Just skyped for a few minutes, as August said he thought he was ready for sleep. Up in bed he went crazy saying “Hello everybody, I just wanted to say that I peed in the pool!” in a funny voice. He had said this at the pool as well, and said that Carly let him say it. She explained that what happened was that Omri’s little brother was just peeing in the drain area of the pool. And Carly explained it was okay since it went to the filter. August was then asking what happened if people pooped or peed in the pool itself. For the pee she said you wouldn’t know, as it isn’t like someone would say “Hey everybody, I just want
to say I peed in the pool!” So August of course found that funny.

I left him and Carly at 8:40 and he was asleep within 10 minutes.

He woke up at 7:10 as I was reading in bed. Downstairs he and Carly ended up doing math problems in Excel, taking turns typing in problems. I got him his vitamins. The chocolate omega-3 ones are totally melted. We scraped one out on a spoon. Put the rest of the packs in the fridge. I went and got my iPad to listen to music, but he wanted to play a music game. I set it up for him, but he first wanted to sweep the bottom of the black chair with his hands: “But I haven’t cleaned it for days! Or weeks!” He’s been cleaning it for weeks, off and on. Played with Musyc for awhile. He was then excited about my idea of a list of our house mysteries, things that have already gone missing: my purple metal coffee mug, a blue hand towel, my swimsuit, a green potato peeler, the lowercase z stamp. He made up the case of the missing iPad, claiming we used to have four. Carly got him some Cheerios and he ran around excited that he had his hand fan and Cheerios. He used “In the meantime…” while talking to Carly.

He wanted to watch Brave Wilderness and while Carly set it up he sang “Coyote Peterson is an animal scientists / He always tries to get pinched.” He watched a monitor lizard episode. A Volvo ad came on and he said “Don’t skip it! I like the music!” Then said “It’s for cars…Pretty useful. If we ever need to buy a new car we could go to that store.”

I made them some eggs and cheese and he ate that. There were tiny ants on the counter again so he and I investigated, using flashlights, and followed them outside. Really difficult to spot. We found where they were coming from – the broken spot in the tile at the base of the one step outside – and put down some poison. Our assault on the ants coming in the sliding door went really well and so I think we have the ant problem figured out. Seems like we have an ant season, a drain fly season, and a mosquito season.

They then got ready to go. As they left August said to me “Hope you had fun ant investigating!” And then “Yep! Teamwork!” They left just before 11. I got some Sabeel work in, and they were back after 12. They shared a veggie burger, then he and I made a squirrel nest and played one winter. He asked Carly “What are sattlelites for?” She got him dressed for the pool and put sunscreen on him. When she went upstairs he was trying to wipe himself off using Bluie. And he asked her “Ms. Althauser, why do we have to do this?”

They left about 1:20 and were back right before 4. I would have liked to go swimming, but since I didn’t get much work done Thursday or Friday it was good to catch up a bit.

They had seen Omri at the pool. Omri had been excited and had apparently told her mom that August would be there. Think that had come from me actually telling Omri on Friday morning that we might be at the pool that afternoon. Of course, we hadn’t ended up going. August hadn’t taken his floaties off at all. And his name was now Rainedon. Didn’t catch where that came from.

They went outside for awhile and I kept working. He was getting grumpy hungry and they came in and he had some apple and crackers and peanut butter. He then helped her make energy balls. He took the pits out of the dates and also helped make the balls. I then helped him play sink or float in the kitchen, then he took the parts outside and was pouring water through them.

I was trying to get him to go do recycling with me. Took awhile. He started spinning in the living room. And spinning and spinning. He would say something like “More optical illusion!”

I finally got him to head out with me. We went up to recycling. I did most of it, while he explored all the little bits of garbage he found on the ground: screws and sticks and pieces of wire. A guy came up on his three-wheeled bike/cart and had some yard waste to throw out. I was talking to August, but he thought I was talking to him and he pointed me to the plastic bins for my bags of plastic. I got August’s attention and we headed over. We had left August’s bike sitting over there, and I realized the guy was checking it out, testing the steering and bell. I politely called to him. couldn’t remember the plural possessive, but could at least say “excuse me, bicycle” in Hebrew and point to us. He got the idea and left it alone.

August and I finished up (he did glass, as usual) and then went on the playground. Only two other adults and two kids when we got there, as August pointed out. We played on the exercise equipment. August told me which machine to do next, then he went around showing how he could exercise on each machine, except for the one that is just too big for him and he can’t reach at all. Then over to the play structure and we played the digestion game. August pointed out we were the only ones in the park. Rather odd, really, as it was 7pm and cool enough after a really hot day, and after the sabbath was over. Would have thought the families would be coming out. August also sang hickory dickory dock, a few verses of it.

When we were done we got on the bike and went for a walk. He went down the back path, then past our house and towards the pedestrian bridge. Up the Holly block, then up a second block, then circled around to the left and back south through the park to home. He was talking about getting extra exercise.

We were home at 7:30. Carly had made the curry dish while we were gone. They read the Berenstain Bears book in Spanish. Carly had cut her finger a little on a can and had gone to get a bandaid as it was still bleeding a bit. August said “Hope it’s fine.” While reading they had a discussion of past tense: “Stinged” versus “stung”. He’s resisted saying them the right way, even when he’s shown interest in the past. This time he seemed interested in getting it right. He then said “Here’s another way of saying ‘squeezed’: ‘smooshed’.” Then a discussion of synonyms.

Carly took him up for bath. I went up and washed him. He was rinsing himself today, which was a nice development. He was also not opposed to me cleaning behind his ears – a spot that has always felt dirty/dry but he’s resisted. In fact, he spent a lot of time doing it himself. We went and he used the blow dryer on his hands. I got him in his pajamas and brushed his teeth, then Carly took over at 9. He was asleep soon after.

He slept between us for a third (at least) night in a row. He slept all the way through the last couple nights. Tonight he did wake up sometime around 5, but it was because he was really stuffy. Carly got him back to sleep. A little before I got up I heard him loudly laugh and say in his sleep “…mashed potatoes and rocket ships in it.”

He woke up at at 6:50. Brought him down and he was fine. But then he started to get upset when his vitamins weren’t the right shape (the chocolate one came out) and I thought it might be a tough day. He calmed down went over and sat on the stool by the plant that is now taller than him. He was then asking interesting questions: “How old do you get to be?” “Are humans lucky to see so many colors?” “What travels the speed of sound?”

He watched a little Llama Llama and ate banana bread and Cheerios. But the second I started putting his clothes on he got upset about me leaving him at preschool. “Pick me up after lunch!” was his first request of the day. He wanted me to promise to pick him up early. I told him we should talk to Anna first.

We had started getting ready early, but it took longer, so I decided to take the car instead so we could get there before the bus kids for once. Still didn’t manage that as we walked in right at 8. Negotiations began right away. Anna was more involved in trying to get him to stay today. I first sat down with him and played with the cube blocks with Blanka. She was asking him to play with her and she wanted to show him how she made a house thing. He got involved in that and I stayed for several minutes, but he wouldn’t hear of me leaving.

We spent three big stints sitting out on the benches. After the first Anna tried to get him doing something with her. He liked the idea of glazing his tea cup and other things. But when he was sitting with her and glazing his tea cup he still came running after me. We sat outside, moving over to the elemetary school bench for awhile. There was a plant falling over in tire planter and asked me to “Stable that plant.” He wouldn’t explain anything about why he didn’t want me to leave. But finally he came up with a counter plan. He would let me go if I promised to just stay at the library and I would come back after snack to check in – at 10am. We went in and he started to tell Anna the plan, but then he just wouldn’t let me go again. He was holding tight to my fingers or legs. I finally got him to stop with that.

I then got him involved in cleaning up all the blocks before morning meeting. He wanted to do robot cleanup and so we did that, and Emmitt said he was a claw truck doing the clean up. I still couldn’t leave at the start of the meeting though. He refused to hold hands or stay with Anna anytime I tried that. Finally, we went back out to the bench by the door again. Finally, I got him to more directly state what he was afraid of: “You might go home.” He has asked me to not go to mama’s classroom (where I was on Friday when he went to the library) and home (where I went on Wednesday to get swim stuff), but this was the first that he’s directly said that that was what was bothering him. I promised him I wouldn’t and that I’d stay in the library. He said I don’t believe you.”

Soon after that I gave up and we headed home. We stopped at the bench by the guard station and he ate his banana bread, then we tried to leave. They asked if I had a leaving pass. They’ve never asked for that before. Went to the elementary school office and got one.

We walked home, leaving the car for Carly as it was supposed to get over 100 today. We were home 10:30 or so. We made some tropical punch water drink, then he was pretending to be a lobster. He wanted me to be Coyote Peterson, experimenting to see under what conditions the lobster would pinch, and then how hard. Straight out of the episode we had watched. I was letting him pinch and made the mistake of letting him pinch my right hand on the little finger side – where I had broken it. Not horrible, but seemed much more sore than it should be. He was then a snail. Then wanted another animal idea.

We discussed me going to school and teaching/helping out. He really liked the idea and instantly picked up on how three teachers would be better than two because of more attention: “And if another teacher like Karen was in there it would be four. And that would be EVEN BETTER!”

We watched Brave Wilderness for more ideas. Skunk was next. When Coyote Peterson talked about stinking for days, August said “I know how to make something that will make it go away in one day. You mix baking powder, baking soda, flubong, alcohol, wood chips, block of iPads…” After a few minutes he said “We watched-ed enough for me to get a new idea.” Now he was a skunk; “Bother me and you’ll get a FULL DOSE!”

He went to the bathroom and sang “today is Friday, Friday vacuum cleaner, all the hungry children come and eat it up…” He then told me “Bad words is funny!” We read some more of the Magic Treehouse. We ate lunch and he watched Llama Llama. He looked on Amazon with me and we found a nice iPad case to get for his iPad this summer (although he doesn’t know we’ll probably get a new iPad as well). He had some difficulties and time outs of sorts as he kept saying ‘stupid’ to bother me, and at one point brought the tree things in from outside.

Watched some more Llama Llama and ate Peanut butter and crackers. He talked about his concerns about preschool: “No one takes care of me” “Give me not much love.” “They don’t let me lick spatulas.” “Attention” We played the smoocharoo and headbutt games. We then started playing Musyc. He needed to go to the bathroom and told me “Dada, delete the shapes. I don’t want to miss your music.” He then sang a pretty good song: “Go to the bathroom twice a day, go to the bathroom twice a week…” He used all of his time words: month, year, hour, minute, second. Back with Musyc he said “That’s energetic!”

Had more crackers and peanut butter and talked about how he doesn’t playing with some of the boys: “Emmitt, Leonard, Junyeok…They laugh at everything…and they say poopy.” He talked about how they are funny but he doesn’t like their kind of funny. He was saying stupid again, so I took him upstairs for a consequence. We then played on the bed and he burrowed in the pillows. It was his shell at first and he was a snail. I was a birdie: “Hey little birdie who only eats fish.” Carly was home at 3:10. He told her we had come up for a consequence. We played more snail, then went downstairs.

We discussed what had happened at school today with Carly. He said he wasn’t a student, just a kid. He said he’s not a student until year two of preschool. Pointing at Carly’s clothes he told her “Your small, not-very-strong bladder is there.”

I went up for a rest. When I came down he was eating Cheerios and mango. They went outside and were working and playing with the hose. I did dishes. He spilled some dirt on the fake grass. He came in all wet and I took him up to get changed. He told me he deserves a timeout. We sat on the couch upstairs and he said he wanted two chances to apologize to mama. He went downstairs. The first one was a yelled “Sorry!” But after another minute he said a nice full sentence to her.

He ate spaghetti (left over from Carly’s lunch) for dinner, then watched a Brave Wilderness about sea cucumbers. He was getting wild so Carly went upstairs. We played the virus and bacteria game, infecting each other and being immune systems, etc. He asked me “How did I learn enshumgedorflug? Because my brain gets smarter and smarter?” He then wanted to play Human Body on his iPad.

Carly came down and spotted a praying mantis out on the outside of one of our kitchen windows. She went out to get a better look. It was windy today (and up to 42 or 43 celcius). Suddenly she heard the birds squawking in the tree. Then she heard crashi
ng. A branch, about a meter long, fell out of the tree, along with about 10 of the spikey green fruit things – which we’ve never actually seen on the ground. They fell right next to her.

August and I came out and stood at a safe distance and looked at one of them. Back inside he sat on the couch and said “Criss cross apple sauce, fishies in the pond”. Ilana, the librarian says that.

Carly took him up for his bath. Back downstairs he had an energy ball. He was then practicing saying “Oh my gosh!” phrases: “Oh my gosh! I thought our house didn’t exist…we didn’t have a glass table to set my water bottle on.”

Had some banana and carrot bread, then we finished the Magic Treehouse book. He made up a word, “Earsight”. I took him up to bed and got him brushed and dressed. I sang to him but he wanted Carly to fall asleep. I’d heard enough of the whiney-ness today so didn’t object too much. I got Carly, and he was asleep about 9:20.

He was up at 7:15. He watched a little Sarah and Duck. We got ready quickly and drove to the school. We walked to the preschool, then the trouble started. I got him playing with clay, but when I said goodbye and got to the door he jumped up and said “Oh no! Dada!” We sat on the bench and had a tic tac, then I got him back in playing with clay again with Reia, making a sculpture sticking all the tools into the clay. But again, when I left he chased out after me. Third time I thought I could leave he was playing with the gears with Reia. This time I was halfway up the elementary school stairs and he came out the door and running after me.

I went back in and ended up staying through morning meeting. He stood, but was getting involved in meeting, then was excited when they called blue and green first at the end – both colors he was wearing. After meeting, I was able to leave him with Anna. She wasn’t holding him, and he sounded upset, but he didn’t chase after me.

I then saw him at library time. He ran in and said “Dada! Come with us!” Ilana read a book called Little Grunt and the Big Egg. He then went and checked out a book called Preschool to the Rescue. He wanted me to walk him back, which I expected. Back at the classroom he put the book in the cubby. He doesn’t like looking at books if we can’t read them, unlike most of the other kids who were sitting and looking at their books. He asked me “Can you stay for a minute?” I ended up reading the book to him, but then couldn’t leave after that. Things didn’t go well. We ended up sitting on the covered bench. Ms. Karen came out and he tried to run away from her, even though she was the one he made apple crumble with before library time (it is for the tea party tomorrow). She went back in, then Anna finally came out. She hadn’t tried much with August, which was understandable as Marion was gone. And so was Myriam. There were subs, but Anna was stretched thin. August didn’t seem to be recovering, and after a minute she said we could choose to do what we wanted. So we headed home.

Got here right before noon. He lay on the floor and held a balloon for awhile. We made water drink and ate some of his lunch stuff. He watched some Sarah and Duck, then several of the How the Body Works videos. We discussed pollution, and he asked me “Dada, what would happen if you missed your meeting with Maaian?” I told him how the meeting was about how I could spend more time in his classroom. He asked “Because you miss me?”

We had forgotten his bracelet this morning, but now he wore it as we drove back to school, leaving at 2:45. I dropped him off with Carly in her classroom. I went and met with Maaian and Marion and Anna. I just wanted to hear the idea. Maaian gave me the option of teaching a little project, three days a week, on praying mantises. And gave me a couple books to borrow. I thought it was a rather strange option at the time, but later was even less excited about it. If the idea is to figure out how to get parents involved in the classroom, having me actually be a teacher and do something that required extensive planning doesn’t seem like the right approach.

I went back and checked in on August and Carly. As I went all the kids from the Hebrew class asked where August was. August and Carly were playing school He said “My name is Icon and she is Ms. Althauser.” I walked home, leaving the car, and they were going to play hide and seek. They found new toys for August: there are hula hoops hanging up downstairs at the middle school, and they brought the big Jenga sort of blocks into her classroom. Oh, and they also played some chess. They played move-your-pieces-wherever-you-want chess and also started playing checkers. She said that he’s on his best behavior when he is playing in her classroom as he wants to be like her students, so when she says “My students would…” or “My students wouldn’t…” he really listens.

They were back before 5:40. He ate a bunch – soup and noodles. I started laundry. They then read Preschool to the Rescue. He spent a lot of time playing in the sink. All the dishes were washed and in the drying rack, so they ended up back in the sink. He drank warm water out of his straw bowl, and then used a straw to drink out of a bowl. We then made a new batch of iced tea. I was listing the kinds of tea we had and said spearmint tea. He heard that and said “Experiment tea!” So we decided to combine flavors and see what happened. We combined spearmint green tea, winter tea, white moon, and lemon and ginger.

I started my research on praying mantises with a Brave Wilderness video. August watched with me, then we watched a video on lobsters and one on bloodworms. he said “I have tin can foil in me.” after he found out bloodworms have copper in them. “So I’m an animal that sees very differently from every other animal.”

I took him upstairs to his bath. Bladder and rectum game. I washed his hair. Then dried it with the hair dryer. We discussed electricity. We went downstairs after 8:30. He was using all sorts of lightning bolts and stuff to destroy Carly, who was the impossible mud puddle from the Preschool to the Rescue book.

She took him up and got him ready for bed. I left them at 9.

When I went to bed last night he was sleeping sideways where my pillow should go. I squeezed in and kept trying to turn him around, but he would turn back. Carly woke up and saw how he was sleeping and grabbed him and straightened him out between us. Then, at some point in the night I heard him loudly say something in his sleep about carbon dioxide.

He was up at 6:45. I went up and he had me carry him down, then he lay on me for a few minutes before moving to the couch on his own. Lay there for a few minutes and agreed to oatmeal. Made sure I was bringing him a vitamin too. As I was making oatmeal he told me that he was now Blanka. He said it was going to confuse the teachers when there were two Blankas. He sat at the table and ate his oatmeal.

He watched Llama Llama while at the table. At the end he told me “I heard ‘hate’ in this episode” (Llama had had a tantrum in the store and said he hated shopping.) “You get a consequence for letting me watch it.” I started to say “But it was actually teaching you…” And he interjected with “No buts!” (Which is what Llama’s mom says to him when he doesn’t want to clean up his mess.)

He was humming and singing “Always” by Erasure as we got ready. He said he wanted to drive to school today. After he spilled the cards and we picked them up, we listened to the song, and then he was okay with walking. Left right at 8:40.

As we walked in, Nicholas, Blanka, Selma, and Omri all said hi or called to him. I told August he should work on actually answering. He wasn’t sure what to do (and rejected playing with the gear things, which weren’t being used), so we looked at the schedule first. It said they had music today. He asked where I would be and I said the library, but then he asked if I’d be there all day and not go to mama’s classroom. I said, well I might go to the store. Wrong thing to say as he got upset and ran out. We sat on the bench and ate some nut treats and talked. When he was feeling better we went back in. Something was happening up in the treehouse area and I pointed it out. He said “I can get a better look”. He was off and I said bye and headed out.

I walked straight home today, then after lunch walked over to the mall. Got different omega-3 vitamins for August, got a hair cut, went to Delta and got him more underwear, then went to Tiv Taam and got a few things.

When I picked him up just before 2:50 he was crying again. They said it had been hard for him since 2:30. I saw some big drawing things hanging from the ceiling and asked if he had done part of that. He said “I was doing funner stuff than just writing.” Then listed “Bikes, buckets, pogo sticks, making water bottles, explosions to make water, making a treat dispenser…” I got that he’d been over on the Dion playground. Anna said he’d been doing challenges on the big playground with Selma, Blanka, and Derin. She’d say things like “Sit on every blue chair on the playground.” He told me they hadn’t had music time. It turns out they had had carrot cake with frosting for Ms. Vicky’s birthday.

For rest time he told me “I snuck to PKA and played with all the toys and maked a mess, then to PKC…kindergarten…high school…” “This one will be true…I snuck up on the roof. I used my rockets to break the roof. Then…” He then said he had been on Blanka’s bed before saying he’d been on everyone’s bed. He repeated the Blanka part later in the day, so it seemed the most true. He said he played with Selma most today, and that at the Dion playground he had gotten to ride a tricycle that he said was really easy for him to pedal and steer.

He was feeling better but still rejected the pool. He was still concerned about his scraped knees, although I told him they were pretty well healed. He noted I had gone to the store when he told me not too. I told him I had run home to get the swim stuff and then also gone to the store. He wasn’t upset, as I’d gotten a yummy protein bar thing, then on the way home we had some string cheese and he was happy about that as well.

We stopped at the drinking fountain on the way out just after 3. A woman who I don’t really know, but might be the other PKA teacher or an assistant, stopped to tell me how beautiful August is and that he should be in magazines. August then noticed that the big big small patter on his bracelet didn’t go all the way around – I’d had to alter it to make it fit his wrist. He was a little upset. He also saw Grace again, and this time noticed her shirt, and asked why everyone wore shirts with letters on them. Yesterday he had seen grace and admired her big goofy green plastic sunglass things.

We started walking home. He spotted a plant and jumped off and picked a small green tomato off of a random tomato plant near the big roundabout. We paused along the way and had string cheese, which he was very excited about. There was a house alarm going off on the way and he was curious about that until it stopped. And he noticed a tilted light cover on a streetlight.

We were home at 3:40. He shook his head like he likes to do in the mirror and said “My body just does it.” We then started making banana carrot bread. Carly got home as we started and he ran to her and asked her “What did you teach your students?” He and I made the banana carrot bread and got it in the oven. He then talked about Ms. Michelle – who he said was a teacher in PKA. He went outside with Carly and they had school time. I spied on them discussing what a democracy is. He played with the hose and came in with wet hands at 6:25. I had done the dishes.

When the bread was ready and cooled a bit we tried some. He then had noodles and stirfry. We read My Preschool then went up to his bath. He said “I don’t like to play with Junyeok. Why’s he always mad?” “One time at preschool we got into a fight scratching, laser beaming, polo sticking…” That wording was inspired by one of the Treehouse books.

After his bath we used the blow dryer on his hands. Went downstairs and read 3 chapters of Maguc Tree House #15: Hour of the Olympics. In the book they use the word ‘tunic’ and August thought I meant ‘too-sic’, which is the word that Dion, the play ball teacher, uses for ‘bottom’.

Carly was messaging with Megan in India, who recently found out she’ll be having a boy. So August was suggesting names, like “Concrete building son” and “Baby bBoy August Junior”. There were a lot more. I told him about his dream last night where he talked about carbon dioxide. He was then being a plant and wanting me to breathe on him: “More carbon dioxide. Ahh, that’s better. Now I can do my growing.”

Carly took him up and got him ready for bed. I left them at 9 and he was soon asleep.

He woke up at 7:30, just as I was going up to wake him up. Downstairs he found a one shekel coin on the couch. A few minutes later the first thing he said to me was “Dada, can you put this coin in my treasure box?” He watched Max and Ruby while I got ready to go and had dry Cheerios. I brought down a couple of new shirts. I compared them to the white shirt he’s been wearing and they were no bigger. So I put the green shirt from Thatcher on him, but then realized the sleeves were long. August really liked it though. It was soft and he also thought he looked like a big kid in it. So I let him wear it. He also took his bracelet and wore it the whole day.

We were walking right at 8. He sang a “How did you fix my bracelet?” song. I explained that I had transferred it to a new string. Dropping him off at preschool was smooth, just before 8:30. He was happy to see Anna and she commented on his shirt. He later said she and Ms. Karen commented on his bracelet, but Ms. Marion didn’t. He wanted to look at the calendar before I left, but was then okay.

I went to the library for a bit and did some work, then walked home, sometime after 9. As I walked past the preschool, I spotted him over by the bushes pulling some berries or leaves off. He then ran under the cover of the play structure and I couldn’t see him.

I worked at home – all Sabeel today – then walked back to school at 2:30. I sat down for just a minute ended the elementary building, then took my headphones off and realized August was crying. He came out before I could go in. I didn’t think anyone had spotted me, but the door was open so maybe another kid told him I was there. He said he had just been upset for a little while. Held him, and after a couple minutes went inside. He told me he had made a piece of art – a chocolate chip cookie factory – and was looking around for it. Anna told me that it had really started during rest time. He would start to get upset if he was alone or bored. They could redirect him and he would be okay for awhile. But I think at the end, when he knew it was time to get ready to go, it was too much.

Still looking for the picture, we went over to the art atelier area in PKA. He said that was where he made his picture. We found them and he explained his picture to me, and that the cookies had honey and brown sugar and a little white sugar.

He said he didn’t want to go to coding class, but we went out to the big kid playground for a few minutes. He ate a couple of the nut treats (almost out of those) and he felt better. He told me he ate bread, apple, and cucumber for snack: “I’ll show you how how long the stick of cucumber was…” He marked it out on the playground: about 12 feet long. We went up to coding class and he had fun there. He called me over to choose which game he should play, but otherwise played on his own. He also brought me the picture he drew at the beginning. He had folded it and told me it was like an invitation.

At the end he told me he had invented an “Unstickifier” that unstuck all kinds of things: glue, stickers, magnets. Carly showed up as we were still in the room. We headed home. Slightly long, as August kept stopping along the way. Near the house he found a long bean pod sort of thing that he was able to open up and examine. We was calling Carly Ms. Seechin, one of the PKC teachers, and he was Lana

We were home at 4:30. He sang the full coffee song for Carly. They went outside and I heard them playing red light, green light. I got him soup and stirfry noodles for dinner. He ate a good amount and then had the mango popsicle we had frozen a few days ago. Ended up getting the mittens, then putting it in a cup and using a spoon. There was more mango juice left, so we froze another popsicle when he was done.

He accidentally popped a balloon. Then Carly mentioned my parents babysitting when we are in Chelan. He didn’t like that idea. I taught him the game ‘Would you rather?’  He wasn’t amused by it at first, but started to warm up to it a bit, as we asked questions like “Would you rather eat a spider, or a slug?”

I took him up to his bath. He played and played. Listened to Erasure. Carly took over after awhile. They came downstairs and we were asking him about school. He also had the puppet time today. Carly asked him if he asked any questions at school and he said no, and seemed to think that the other kids didn’t ask questions either. Carly said there should be question time and he liked that idea: “Can you be the teacher and say ‘Okay class, it’s time to ask questions about time?’” He then asked “How fast does time travel?” He was then asking questions of Carly, and it turned into a big Q and A session, and the balloons were other students. At one point he told Carly “You’re a good, good teacher.” Carly said thank you, but then he added “I turned you into a good, good teacher.” One of the students was a Duplo he grabbed. He said the student’s name was “Duplo McMarshmallow”.

Carly went up for a shower and I made him crackers and peanut butter. He ate them in the squirrel nest I built, then we did one hibernating season and ate nuts. We went upstairs at 8:20. Brushed his teeth and I read My Preschool twice. He really likes the book. I left them before 8:55, but heard him for quite awhile. He was talking to Carly about how the kids don’t play with him. He was saying how he doesn’t like the games the boys play. And how the kids won’t let him play with the gears. He did say he plays kitchen with the girls sometimes. Think it was closer to 9:30 by the time he fell asleep.

Carly woke him up after 7. I heard a lot of laughter and when they came down he said “Watch out, I’m throwing up everywhere!” “I threw up on the Christmas tree!”

Carly headed to work. I got him some dry Cheerios. He wanted a fort and we first made one out of just pillows, like our old Flynne dens. He wanted it bigger though, so we made a squirrel den using the chairs and blankets and played the nut gathering and hibernating game. We then read Kiss Good Night in the fort.

He spilled out the balloons and I ended up blowing up about a dozen of them to play with. The coffee maker was sitting on the floor from when Carly brought it back from school on Friday. He put a balloon on top of it, but then started singing a song about coffee that followed its journey from becoming a liquid in the coffee maker, into your mouth, through your body, out the penis, into the toilet, through the sewer system, through the waste treatment plant, and then back to our house. He kept adding more stops along the way, all on his own, like mouth and kidneys.

We somehow got on the subject of how many feet animals have (I think he made a monster with three legs on the fridge). He was then “I’m a tricapod…I’m a tonapod.” Lots of feet. He watched Max and Ruby, then accidentally broke his bracelet. Luckily, they didn’t fly everywhere and we set it aside so I could fix it later. I took a shower and he watched on the bed. When I was done with my shower I heard him calling to me. I went in and he said “Dada, look at me! I have nursings!” He had Carly’s bra wrapped around him. Yesterday he had been joking about actually growing “nursings”. Downstairs he got meta: “How much times does people think?…What things are thinking?” Sang the coffee song again. Went to the bathroom and was crouching and being silly and somehow got poop on the seat.

Shmuel came over just as we were getting ready to leave. He had brought us a couple of plants to match the other ones he had given us. We said we could plant them later, but he said he might have time to do it. They were planted by the time we got back. As we got in the car, August said “We should talk to him about the black stuff from the refrigerator…we don’t want it to happen again.” He also noticed how dirty the sidewalk still ws, despite his spraying yesterday. I suggested he needed a broom too. So he invented the “Hosebroom”.

We left at 10:30 . I’d packed three of the energy balls, so he did an “experiment” to see how messy they were in the car. They were fine, but had just come out of the freezer.

August wanted to go to the beach first, so I agreed to that. We got to Jaffa and parked in our normal lot. Just a couple blocks to the south end of Alma Beach. A small beach here, and the tide looked high. Carried the bike down and found a spot. Put on sunscreen and mainly played burying his feet and legs, then him breaking out. The tide was still coming in though. One wave got pretty close and I remarked it might fill up the hole I’d dug next. But a couple minutes later the next big one came and almost got us. August jumped up and scampered back. We moved several feet back and thought we were safe, but the next big one came even further. August stood up and I picked him up to ‘save’ him.

One more move back, so he was sitting on the bottom of the sea wall with his feet in the sand. Kept playing. The tide chased everyone else who had been on the sand away at the end of the beach. We were fine though until the little white dog came sniffing around. August has been more scared of dogs recently. Don’t know why it has come back/gotten worse. No dog incidents. He’d been doing okay with Nellie and had started counting non-barking dogs, but he’s been really hesitant as-of-late. There was a small black dog running around on the beach when we got there and he almost didn’t want to go down on the sand at all. Got him on the sand though and then he was okay watching it and a larger dog running back and forth on the beach, as they stayed away from us.

But the white dog came close a couple times and he was not having it. No barking and no licking. It never touched him. It came back again when August was sitting on his bike to go. I petted it, but he just started yelling and getting really upset. I had to pick it up and hand it to the owners to hold while I got us going.

We got up the stairs and walked to across the roundabout to Cafe Bistro Rogette. We had a seat outside in the shade. Went in and used the bathroom first, then ordered a pizza with mushrooms and cheese, a cappuccino for me, and a forest berry milkshake. Not sure what ‘milkshake’ meant, as it often means smoothie here. Haven’t seen a proper milkshake. But the other flavor options were vanilla and chocolate. When the waiter brought the drink it looked brownish, and August realized it was chocolate. The best mixup ever, in his opinion.

We read a chapter of Oliver and the Seawigs, which is looking really good. Then the pizza came and we ate. He didn’t eat a lot, but joined me in eating the green olives. I broke pieces off for him and he ate probably two olives worth. He was pretending to have a chocolate egg that I couldn’t have and held out his hand. I pretended to eat the pretend egg he was pretending to hold and he let out the loudest scream I think I’ve ever heard. Luckily we were outside, but I still expressed my displeasure with that.

It was mid-70s, but August said was cold, so put on his light blue coat. A few minutes later he said he was still cold. Didn’t have pants with us, so he used the extra shirt as a blanket for his legs. We talked about Palestinians and the government and immigration and being luck and inequality.

We went inside to pay and August had fun playing along the bar. He was reluctant to leave, and one of the waiters patted him on the head as he played there and I got an awesome shot of it.

We left after 2. We walked to the parks to the southwest, where we’d been with Carly before. I didn’t remember a playground, but thought it was worth a shot. And also a nice walk. We wandered through Hamuze’on Garden, past the theatre, and through Abrasha Park. Found a little fountain and he played there, and smashed a nice big olive on the sidewalk. I talked about doing more walking, and he said “Yeah! A dada and Zinnie adventure! Without mama…so we can explore some more.”

We kept walking and tried to follow signs for a bathroom that took us across to square by St. Peter’s Church. No luck, but we went to the ones that we’d used when we were in the are with Carly. It was 2:40. Then walked back to the car, stopping to admire a handmade motorbike/sidecar, and then looking at a metalworking shop.

Got driving about 4. Listened to Story Pirates and finished episode 20. We heard “Peter McNurney” listed in the credits. He got excited and pointed it out. It’s a name he’s been repeating recently and asking about, but we had no idea where it was from. At least I didn’t. Tried to keep him awake with music, but he fell asleep from 4:21 to 4:45.

Got home and woke him up and took him in to Carly. She told us about her day and I made a rice thing and mushrooms for his lunches and got his lunch together for tomorrow. He played with the balloons and one accidentally popped. He liked it and wanted to pop all of. He then sang the “…bowl of jelly…Santa’s belly” lines from “My Christmas Amoeba”. Don’t know when we listened to that last, and don’t remember him singing it before.

He ate an energy ball and his hands were messy. Washed them in the kitchen sink, then spent a lot of time playing in it. When he was done I took him up to his bath. On the toilet he sang a “Oliver and the Seawigs” song. Carly took over – they played red light green light and Simon says (which he pronounces funny). They were back down at 7:45 and he turned on all the lights. He played Tinybop Earth. I made myself some tea, then another fort, which he reques
ted. We did a couple of squirrel winters – lots of nuts and seeds talk, and our winters, where we pretended to sleep and wake up for nuts, were really long and quiet. Nice calming activity for him, I think.

We also read another chapter of Oliver and the Seawigs. I took him upstairs and we read a few Frog and Toad stories. Brushed his teeth, but wasn’t happy when he reached over and squeezed the toothpaste in my hand and toothpaste went everywhere. Luckily not on the bed, but had to clean the iPad. He talked about how he liked to sleep up on the bed with me, but wanted to fall asleep with mama. He said he’d “try to remember” to climb up with me. Carly came up and I left them at 9:40 and he was asleep after about 10 minutes.

He was up at 7:20. We had to go to the equivalent of the DMV and renew our licenses, which we have to do every 6 months. We got going and left the house by 7:30. He and I looked at the activity book in the car, identifying differences. He spotted some dark clouds and said “I think it’s gonna rain in Jordan again.” Snacked on some of the last of the nut treats on the way.

We were meeting another teacher and her family at the office they were going to. Last night we had asked why that office, and not the one I had gone to but hadn’t gotten an answer. Traffic was heavy and we got there just after 8 and parked. They had gotten there before us and found out it was the wrong place. They gave us a new address over the phone, so we got back in the car and drove there. It was the office I had been to before.

Things went smoothly there. Their daughter is Maya, who is a year older than August and in PKA. She is also in his Hebrew class and is the one who always asked me how my hand was doing. They started playing iPad together and caught fish in Toca Nature. They then switched to Animal Hospital but just watched the intro before we were already done. We then went and spent a few minutes in a little coffee shop buried in the building. Maya got a grape juice and shared it with August. I got a cappuccino and a cheese turnover that I put in the backpack for the ride home.

We had to actually go pay for our licenses at the post office, so we drove there, having some of the turnover on the way. I told August how we used to get apple turnovers in Chelan and we used his time machine to go back and get one from the Judy Jane Bakery. He got “one of everything” they had in the store.

We parked and Carly headed to the post office and I took him to the bathroom in town. We then met her at the post office. Just took another minute, then we headed home.

We were home at 10. I had August give Carly her bracelet, then the present that was actually more for both of them; the Spirograph thing, the robot magnets, the rest of the beads, and a couple bars of chocolate. They ‘snuck’ some chocolate, then he and I did some of the Spirograph. Carly was teaching August the word “evasive” again. Despite all the presents and chocolate, a few minutes later I heard him say “I hate mother’s day. It’s not for kids.” Think he was hungry, and he had noodles and stir fry for lunch.

I vacuumed out the car while they were out in the yard, then he came and helped me wash it. He had control of the hose the whole time and we gave Skoda Mama a good wash for Mother’s Day.

Carly then took him to school with her to deliver the white table. They were gone a long, long time. They got back at 3:25. I did a lot of reading, mainly the Echo Spring book. August asked “Did you miss me?” And he told me “We goed on the new high school swing that were not supposed to swing on. And we swinged on it.” He just loves Carly’s classroom. They practiced reading. He knew cat, wall, tree, trunk, grass, and Earth. They cleaned and recycled. She did computer work while he drew. And he played with a balloon. It was his idea to put it in a bag to bring it home so it wouldn’t blow away. And he threw leaves around to confuse the students. And spent a long time in the bathroom.

We all ate some soup outside. Back inside he sat on the balloon until it popped. We got ready to walk into town and go to a coffee shop. I had the idea of making the bracelet for August at the coffee shop. August was looking at the beads and said his favorite colors are”lavender, peach, pink, and purple…and turquoise.”

On the walk up a couple stopped and asked for directions to the post office. We got to Malkin, about 4:30, and found out they were closing. They serve until 4. August was quite upset by this – he was very set on hot chocolate. But I checked the menu online and Gutale had hot chocolate. We walked over there, seeing Abigail and Daria’s mom on the way, and sat in the comfy chairs outside the front door. August got his hot chocolate and Carly and I each got a cappuccino. And we got an order of the cauliflower and mozzarella latkes with a quinoa salad to share. August and I made his bracelet. And we read some of the Home Sweet Motel book I’d bought on the iPad. He seemed to like it well enough.

We left at 5:50. I took a photo of their bracelets together on their wrists and he said “I don’t think anyone else does this for Mother’s Day.”

We stopped at the grocery store so Carly could get ingredients for an energy balls recipe she’d found. Then headed home. He wanted to stop and play so we left Carly at 6:15 at the Snakes and Ladders playground and she continued on home.

August told me “Here’s how you make energy balls…extra sugar, extra honey, extra pollen, extra petals, extra stems, extra roots, extra rectums, extra atoms…” We played a little shop, then he had me climb up on top of the structure. A girl holding a stuffed dog came and stuck her tongue out at us. She talked to me in Hebrew. I understood some things about her stuffed dog. Then she ran off, came back a minute later, and started talking in English. Her mom came over and I met her. The girl’s name is Lori and her mom is Limore.

August ended up playing with Lori, and a bit later a boy, Ben, who she knows from the gan, joined them. The three of them played hide and seek and did a lot of running around. And went in the spinning thing. At first when they started to run off a bit August told me “Stay right here.” When I was talking to Limore too much, even though he was playing, he stopped a few times and told me “You’re not giving me enough attention.”

Things they mentioned we should check out:

Book: Shark in the Park

Song Steve and Maggie English TV

Show: Gruffalo’s Child

Finally, August was open to going home and seeing if Carly was done with the energy balls and they were leaving as well. We were home at 7:30. He ate an energy ball (oats, chocolate, dates, honey, etc.) and then made monsters on the fridge. After the energy ball he said “Now I’m energetic!” Then he ate noodles and stirfry and asked me “Dada, what’s good about force?” “Like move water bottles? And close refrigerators?”

I took him up for his bath. A lot of playing, then washed his hair. A lot of whimpering. When done we blow-dried his hair and hands. we got him ready for bed and I left them at 8:50. He was asleep pretty quickly.

He woke up at 6:20. Carly came in and got him back to sleep. He then woke up at 7:20, right after me, and asked me to carry him down. I took him down, and they went out for a bit. They came back in and were looking up how broccoli grows. I started some laundry. He was then using a bit of clay to put it on textured things and see the texture. Then he pretended it was a finger puppet and started to chant “Na na na na na, I have a finger puppet and yooouuuu don’t.” I joked he couldn’t go to school anymore as he clearly learned that there. He had some pizza, then I got him another piece. I then went up and took a shower. They went out and put one more coat of paint on the white table. He came in and had some naked time.

We did some Duplos. A spiral, then he asked for the “Zoo mat we used in Korea.” We started on a zoo. He asked Carly “Mama, can you teach me something?…Why you running out of things you know?” Carly drove into Netanya to get a set of shelves from a teacher that is moving. She then took them to her classroom. When she started driving she must have listened to music, as the music we were listening to stopped. We only have the one device plan for Apple Music. He was upset by this. I switched to some music on Bandcamp, but he wasn’t too happy with leaving the new Horse Feathers album (Appreciation) which he’d been liking. But then we listened to A SENTENCE, the new album form Component #4 and he really liked that.

We got out one of the packets of beads I had gotten at the art store and made a green bracelet for Carly. August liked making the bracelet, but generally doesn’t like the idea of Mother’s Day because he wants things too. I said we could also make a bracelet for him, although we ran out of time and he got distracted. As I tied it he started watching videos on my phone, starting with the one he liked about the size of things, then watching one on how long you could live on each of the planets.

He was playing with the pink clay too, and we had an unfortunate clay on the couch incident that I had to clean. We were getting ready to go on a Zinnie walk when Carly got home at 11:10. One minute too early. He told her about the bracelet. When I denied knowing anything about it he said “I didn’t know it was a secret.”

I still convinced him to head out for a walk and we left before 11:20. He chose the bath and had us halfway to school. I suggested we walk a different street and he liked the idea, taking us north for “more exercise”. He invented a machine: “Oaielectron…it regrows dead plants, animals, humans…”

We got to the Pine Tree Park. He went on the rolling walking thing, then on the swings for a bit (he said it was the first time he’s been on those swings). A lot of discussion on which ways the park was good or bad, as there isn’t much playground there, but there are nice trees. He asked “Why when it’s shady you still get a good dose of the stuff that gives you a sunburn?” Clearly using some phrasing that Carly or I have used. I was able to sit on a bench while he played around for a few minutes. He said “Let’s get more exercise then head home.” But then he discovered the big moss ball thing at the foot of the drinking fountain. Except now it is all brown. He said “That smells like a bear’s fur.” He spotted a dog and came and sat next to me. I told him about how he first became afraid of dogs licking him when he was licked in Korea. We found out that the drinking fountain doesn’t work now, so we speculated that the moss had died because it no longer has its water source. He was spitting on it, trying to give it some water. Nice, but a lost cause, I think.

We walked home, going the long way to Kibuts Galyout. At home I made him oatmeal. Carly had gone to the store. He was now upset to find that I couldn’t add the Component #4 song to his playlist as it wasn’t in iTunes. So I downloaded it and added it using Carly’s computer so I could do so.

Carly came home and he got the keyboard out and we set up GarageBand. Didn’t play for long though. He was playing around with the pink clay on things he wasn’t supposed to again so it got taken away. Carly was cooking soup and a noodle stir fry dish and I took him upstairs to look at toys, as he was complaining about nothing to do.

We played with the bingo blocks with animals on them and made it into a cooperative game. Then played with the Korean Monster Mix card game. He made a monster named “Ay-ooh-ah”.

Then, we played with the Zoo on the Loose game. My parents had gotten it for him a couple years back. We’ve played with the stuffed animals that came with it, but not the actual game. We set it up and first played the on-the-mat version, then the version where you move the animals around the house. It was really cool as August could read most of the words, or could figure things out with just a small hint. He did almost all of the reading of the cards for both of us.

I went out to do laundry and he came out and found a ziploc bag. He filled it with water in the outdoor sink and played with it until it popped rather dramatically. He liked that. Apparently he’d played with it before with Carly like that.

We went downstairs and he ate lots and lots of soup. Kept asking for more. I suggested he could be a zookeeper in the future. He disagreed and told me “My job is to invent things and solve problems…” He saw Carly open a can, then got upset when there wasn’t another can to open. Carly took him upstairs to calm down. A minute later he asked more for my iPad. He came down and played Toca Robot Lab. He’d been talking about how he hasn’t played a Toca game recently. Which is true. Very little games or watching times now.

He had more soup, then more soup, while sitting outside. And some cherries. He started playing with the hose as Carly and I both sat the table with our computers. at first he was pushing the boundaries with the hose, spraying towards us and the open windows. I got him on watering the plants and then he did a great job, watering the plants and cleaning off the slide, and then spraying his Zinnie house. Minor tragedy as he got the coin box wet. One more Korea item gone, not that it was fancy or anything. It was a nice tea box that I’d cut a hole in the top of. “Saturday’s our cleaning day, so my shop is closed. So don’t buy anything in my shop.”

Got a message from Sara, Ella’s mom, and we headed up at 4:45. We had to wait a few minutes and August and I were playing with the drinking fountains. When they showed up Ella came running; “August!” They played on the exercise equipment, then ended up in the swings for a long time. They held hands for a minute, then Ella was watching English children’s songs on her mom’s phone. August started making music of his own and kept going and going and going and going. He was a very happy boy.

They got out and went over on the spider web swing. Stood up, sat down, etc. Carly headed home. We stayed another 20 minutes or so. We all left at the same time – ready for dinner.

We were back at 6:20. He ate lots of noodle dish for dinner. We then made a for and almost finished The 72-Story Treehouse. Carly then skyped with her parents while he was in the fort. Got him a flashlight. He wanted to hold a conversation like Vivian can, so they asked him about preschool. He told them he went to kindergarten and changed teachers. Think he said he went to chemistry class. Not quite Vivian level yet. He and I finished the book.

And he told me “I’ll tell you how long I’ll be inventing inventions: past me dying.” And “I discovered an intergalactic chair that rescues universes.”

After skyping, Carly took him up to his bath. He then wanted to sleep with me on the big bed. Although the key part was “for a couple minutes”. He asked me to sing songs, but after just a minute said he wanted Carly now. I sang a couple more songs, but he just whimpered. I agreed to go get Carly. She asked me to try
a bit more, but he was having none of it. She heard him and came up, about 9, and he was asleep soon after.

He came down at 6:43. Took several minutes waking up on the couch, then ate his vitamin and the last of the zucchini bread. He then watched a Llama Llama episode. He paused to tell me he had a machine with a wheel on it that measured things: “I can measure size, weight, wind, speed of wind, water weight, sound…” Then back to the episode.

We left the house right at 7:40. Talked about preschool and the meetings and schedule along the way. He said something about learning at school without realizing he is learning. I listed some things I’ve seen him learn recently, like standing on one foot, walking on the cup things, using scissors, how to work with clay, and about bees.

On the way to school we talked about how he didn’t have school on Monday and it would be a Dada and Zinnie adventure day. He was excited about that. When I asked what he wanted to do he immediately said “Coffee shop!” We settled on going to Tel Aviv and playing at the beach and finding a coffee shop. 

We got to class at 8:05. Before we went in he asked to look at the schedule. But when we went in the door he immediately saw the set of blocks with gears. Boom, hooked. Marion and I asked if he wanted to set up the schedule, but he just wandered back to the gears and started playing.

I worked in the library until 9:30, mainly on Sabeel stuff. At 9:30 I went to the gym where Carly’s meetup event with students from the Even Yehuda middle school and two middle schools in Tira was happening. I took photos and videos there, then followed them back to Carly’s classroom where they did some circle discussions and I took more photos. I helped get the pizza at the gate, then stayed for lunch. Told Fatin that August said he wants to go back to her house again.

I left about 11:30 to head home. As I walked towards the library I saw August exiting it with Marion and Maaian. I thought they may have been looking for me, but didn’t know if I should let him see me. The custodian who always hangs out by the library, and who doesn’t speak English, started talking to me and had me hide behind a post as August stopped to throw leaves or something down through the railing. My interpretation of what she said was that he had been crying but was okay now.

After he went around the corner I followed a bit and could hear them going down the stairs and he was okay. So I headed to the car but texted Maaian to see if everything was okay. Turned out they had been delivering a tea party invitation to Alex the fix-it man (that’s what August called him later) in the library. August hadn’t been upset. So maybe the custodian was actually telling me she thought he would cry if he saw me.

Anyway, I went home, then came to pick him up at 2:50. I first sat down on the bench outside PKA and started studying some Hebrew. But then I heard August crying in the PKB classroom. I went in and Marion and Myriam (Anna was gone again) told me that he’d just had had enough school and had been sad for the last half hour our so. When he saw me he ran to me and the first thing he said was “You weren’t in the library! Where were you?” So I think he hadn’t gotten upset at the time, but had obviously been thinking about how I wasn’t in the place where I was supposed to be. That combined with basically his first full week of preschool made it too much.

He calmed right down though and he went to the bathroom. He played with his hair in the mirror, and told me “I want my hair to grow until I die!”  Or until it reached the ground, at least. I had brought the swim bag, but even after he calmed down he just wanted to walk home. We saw Marion as we walked up the stairs and she was impressed that he was singing the school bell. She then told me about how they delivered the invite, and I told her my funny story about hiding behind a post. She then told me that earlier August and Reia had been holding hands and fell and he scraped his knees (and apparently the inside of his left elbow, although we didn’t realize that until later). He acted just like he had with me on Monday. Would let her even look at it and was upset for a long time, sitting in her lap. Finally, he calmed down a little and she asked what would make it better. He said “sugary stuff”. She offered him a spoon of honey. He asked “How big?” So he and Reia both got half a teaspoon of honey.

We walked home. Stopped at the bushes on the street side of our park when he saw spider webs in the bushes. He spent several minutes picking bits of weeds and putting them in the webs, “feeding” the spiders. I saw Carly driving by and he said “Skoda mama!” He then said she was driving really fast. She wasn’t, but this morning on the way to school we had seen a car actually pass another car and speed right through the crosswalk. I hadn’t said anything, and he asked “Is this a highway?” He had clearly noticed that the car was traveling too fast.

We headed home and met Carly at the gate at 3:40. He asked her “What did you teach your students?” She told him she had taught them the words ‘monotonous’ and ‘evasive’. So she taught him what they meant as well, and for monotonous he said “Like Max and Ruby?” That was a good connection, as he knows I’ve called it ‘repetitive’. We then discussed the nuance between ‘repetitive’ and ‘monotonous’.

Carly had brought home a bunch of the leftover cheese pizza. We all ate some, and we asked him about school. He talked about playing with the gears, which apparently wasn’t too great as some kids didn’t want them takin things apart or something: “Mean kids” He said he responded: “I jumped on the table and sitted on it and crushed it.” They had carrot cookies at the tea party and Ms. Ilana came. Carly told us that there was a new middle school bench swing, but that the email that announced it then immediately said that no swinging was allowed. August and I found that funny and he had her make up other announcements, like a slide you couldn’t slide down, and a playground you couldn’t play on.

He played with the highwire, figuring out how to spin it like a jump rope. For some reason flour came up, and August said he liked plain flour. So Carly got him a little bowl with four in it and a spoon and he ate some. Went outside and made mud where he wasn’t supposed to. Carly brought him in the house and he was upset. He tripped on the kitchen rug, which was kind of rolled up, and fell down. On his own. He accused Carly: “You threw me…why did you drop me?” When he calmed down they learned about how stars are born. He was a nebula. Carly asked if he knew how black holes are made. He said “When stars die…I knowed that!” He and I did rubber stamps and I did names of his teachers, other students, etc. Carly was outside in the yard. He started playing with the vacuum cleaner and pretended to suck things up with it: tables, pillows, etc. He wanted to suck things up outside so I carried it behind him and he sucked up plants and trees and everything else.

Carly took him up for bath. We switched and I finished it. We talked about preschool in the play area and he told me that his favorite part is yoga class. We went downstairs. Carly had gotten a photo from the art teacher of August making his plate. It was the art room that he had gone to to do that.

He wanted a popsicle and first we got out one that we had made. He tasted it and said it just tasted like water. We got it to thaw a bit so it would actually come out, and it was indeed jut a water popsicle. I then remembered that last time he had had one of our popsicles he had wanted to just try a water one. He was disappointed until I told him we also had a berry popsicle from the store. He actually ate a few bites of the ice one and then of course devoured the beer one.

We had talked about the schedule and how he didn’t have school for three days. He said “Mama, let’s go to sleep, wait until the morning, and have three days off!” He and I read Big Dog, Little Dog a
nd a couple chapters of The 78-Story Treehouse. We took him up and got him ready for bed. I left them at 8:50 and he was asleep after a few minutes.