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He slept with me for a long time before going down to Carly on the lower bed. At one point he laughed in his sleep for a long, long time. In the morning he came down at 6:33. Carly was in the bathroom, so he came and climbed into my lap and was there for several minutes. Carly snuck upstairs, then came back down, at which point he wanted her. When she set him down on the couch he lay on his stomach and was literally falling back to sleep right as Carly left and unlocked/locked the door. He slept until 7:40. After a couple minutes, the first thing he said was “Dada, where’s that Bat-Chen car?”

“Why is it at school the teacher is normally the boring part and the students is th fun part?” But when I asked him to explain he said something like “The teacher is always doing stuff and doesn’t learn and the students get to learn.”

As we walked by the retirement home, a car stopped with a guy driving, and a teenage girl with him. He asked if there was a coffee shop nearby. I directed him towards downtown. rather surprised that they didn’t have a smartphone between them. Oh, and August asked what the retirement home is a couple days ago and we talked about why people might move there. he has since called it “the place with extra doctors”.

When we got to his class at 8:25 they were sitting down for an early morning meeting: “Morning meeting? Yuck!” But I explained it was (as Marion had just said) because they had a busy and exciting day today so he should listen to find out what it was. I was then able to wave goodbye and walk out.

I went to the library and worked. At 10:30 his class showed up. This time he ran in and knew right where to find me. I went back with him, but then for most of the time he actually sat several feet away from me. Ilana read the third Orq book and then a book titled something like Ugh. The connection was that it was the word that Orq said in the first book. During book check he walked around and found a book called My Preschool and said it was going to be another really good book.

I walked him back after library time. We were sort of walking with Omri, and as we went down the stairs August got upset that she had beaten us down the stairs. Not sure why. Then in the classroom they were sitting down for another quick meeting and he didn’t like that. Nor did he like the idea of looking at his book, saying he’d only read it at home. So I thought I might have some difficulty leaving him. But he grudgingly headed to the meeting and I left.

I went down to do some shopping. Carly needed grapes and soda for her event tomorrow. I tried to park at the Ace complex but couldn’t find a spot. Worse, it was difficult to get out as one of the exits stopped working and there was a huge backup getting out. Finally managed to get out the other exit and drive over to the Tiv Taam complex. Parked and first went to the art store, where I got some beading supplies, a Spirograph sort of set, and a cool monster making kit that uses optical illusions to make it look like they move – all art things that Carly can do with August. Her Mother’s Day drift.

Then went to Tiv Taam and got what she needed, and a few other things, like tofu for lunches.

I went home until 2:30. Then drove back to the school and dropped of Carly’s stuff in her classroom. Then picked up August from his yoga class at the end of their school day. He played on the preschool playground. He was loudly singing the school bell and said it was the bell of Disneyland. And that it was GarageBand breaking the speakers. We had talked before about how it wasn’t real bells, but a recording of a bell. We talked about his day and he told me he made a plate of clay in a teacher’s office but he didn’t remember the teacher’s name. He also told me that he and Reia made another kid upset taking apart a gear structure.

We then went up to Hebrew class. He and Lana had difficulty sitting still for the beginning part. August would copy whatever Lana would do, which was then encouraging her more. She got them calmed down eventually. Then, they made caterpillars with all of the things it eats on it. He had me help him with putting that together. There was a sheet with the names of the PKC students on it and he read then kept repeating “Lana”.

After class we sat out on the bench by the PKA door and had a snack. He was shrinking things and said “I’ll make the whole school as small as a proton.” We left at 4:20 and walked up towards the studio. We stopped and he played on the exercise equipment for a few minutes. We heard the ice cream truck and he got excited. It stopped near us and initially I told him we weren’t going to get anything. He just put his head down on the bench and was sad. He then got sadder and said he just wanted to go home. He had been happy about class a minute ago. So I told him we could get something to share. We got an Oreo ice cream sandwich and it was very, very good.

We ate it quickly and walked up to class. We were a minute late and it was very quiet, so we speculated there was no class. He suggested it was “Because Sigal is sick.” Turned out we were the only ones there so far. Sigal had him go look in the mirror to see the ice cream left on his face. I washed him off and he went to the bathroom, then Etai and his mom showed up and they were the only ones for class.

He had fun the whole time, and at the end Sigal was helping him learn how to walk on the cup stilt things. She said he could practice more outside the studio, as it was time for the next class. He did for a couple minutes, then spent another 10 minutes or so playing with all the little baby toys and things in the boxes. I made coffee that I then took with me.

We got going and stopped at the playground. He spent several minutes spitting in the dirt and saying “seep, seep, seep.” There were a couple of dogs and he said “I want those dogs to leave with their owners.” We ended up going up in the play structure and pretending it was the space station and we were doing experiments: “I made it so the cactus grows tomatoes…I’m seeing what happens to my cactus OVER TIME…It’s like a crystal.”

We left the parks at 6:30. As we walked to the car he saw a woman with a small child on the other side of the street and said it looked like Ms. Vicky. I said it wasn’t her and he said “Well it looks like her. She has puffed up nursings. Right?”

Got to the car and were home at 6:45. We  listened to the song “Like I Used to Be”, which we was really liking for awhile but we forgot about. He asked “Dada, what’s allergens?” Suddenly, there was water leaking out of the air conditioner on the inside of the house. Turned it off and emailed Shmuel. Would later realize that the hose outside was bending up and full and the water washing going out.

Talking about rest time he told us he mainly stayed on Candy’s bed. Then told us he was on everyone’s bed. And said he stood on people during morning meeting.

He had some oatmeal for dinner, then I was cooking tofu for lunches and he ate a piece of raw tofu. They read My Preschool, then he ate rice and mushrooms and sauce. Carly went to take a shower. He was still hungry so had some apple sauce and cinnamon. He was on a roll, talking about black holes and which objects could defeat/suck up others. He made up “A zakzillion…it’s a zebra that bigger than the Earth, bigger than a star, bigger than all of space.” He talked more about flubong: “It’s a liquid with no surface tension and it feels like gel and you can make buildings out of it and it’s strong in all ways.”

Carly took him up to his bath. I had bought him underwear at Carter’s and told Carly how stereotypical it was, with sports and trucks being the only options on the boys. August heard and complained “I don’t like sports and trucks…that’s not fair…let’s sneak and get girls underwear.” She dried his hands with the hair dryer. He said “I’m trying to get as much water to
evaporate to the clouds as possible to make a downpour.”

Got him ready for bed and I left them at 9:05 as they finished the preschool book. Asleep a bit later.

He came down right at 7, but then lay down on the couch and I thought he might fall back to sleep. He didn’t, and a few minutes later got up and had his vitamins and some zucchini bread. We talked about school today and he said “80…mama will be at work 80 percent long.” I put on music and realized the first song I had him hear today was “Jesus Shooting Heroin” by The Flaming Lips. I was looking at their preschool calendar and realized that it says that yoga is actually on Tuesdays. I asked him about that and he said “You’re telling me nonsense.”

On the way to school he asked “Are wars a rare thing?” We drove, so he still had his mango candy as we got near the preschool. As he got to the bottom of the stairs he crunched the rest of it so it would be gone when we got to class. We walked in and looked at the schedule, then I left him as he started to build with the color blocks next to Blanka.

I got in the car and headed to Sabeel in Jerusalem. Took an hour and 45 minutes. So much traffic.

Carly picked him up at the end of the day. She taught until 3, so ran right over after that. He was sitting on the waiting bench and ran to Carly when she picked him up. He was a little sad as to him she seemed late.

They hung out in her classroom. He did art. He painted. He got to blow a whistle that she doesn’t let her students blow. Four times. Played with the chairs. They did math problems on the board. And they played some darts.

They came home and they did another layer of paint on the table together. When I called on my way home, stuck in traffic again, he was pretending to be Lana from PKC. He then had oatmeal for dinner.

I got home at 6:40. She got his bath started, then I played with him. Did the bladder game, then he asked what people do if there isn’t enough water. We talked about water tanks and rain collectors (like at Tent of Nations) and bringing water in trucks. This then turned into a game with me using up water, then having to go get water in a truck, or waiting for it to rain.

When he was done he wanted to hair dryer his hands because he likes how it feels, even though we didn’t wash is hair. We did that and discussed how hair dryers work. He created a system where the air goes to the sun, gets heated, and comes back to dry your hair.

We were downstairs at 7:40: “Mama, I invented a magic hair dryer…there’s a big steel pipe that goes through the sun and the cold air goes through it, gets heated by the sun…” “It’s pretty unusual, right?”

He then asked her “Why doesn’t a scientist want another scientist to know what they’re doing?” This was a big discussion yesterday, I think, on our way to school or back. Basically, the difference between scientists who work on open science and scientists that work for companies that are trying to get patents.

He said that at school for snack he had corn flakes and milk. And crackers. And an apple. Carly went up to take a shower. I made his lunch. He had some apple sauce and cinammon. We discussed what ‘phrase’ and ‘term’ mean, then discussed temporary exhibits again. He then had some crackers and peanut butter. He had another garbage power plant and described a human-sized slingshot. I asked where he got that idea and he said it was from Story Pirates.I discussed the roadrunner cartoons and said he might like the funny inventions that the coyote uses. “Dada, here’s how you can catch a roadrunner.” He was then talking to Carly about her students and asked how she would give them a time out: “How would out give them a time out? Throw them over the edge of the walkway?” They read Perro Grande, Perro Pequeno. He said he had lots of dreams about monsters. But he said it was good monsters.

We were all in bed 9:25. He discussed why he was sad mama was late picking him up. He told us “I rocket blasted to Leonard to play with the puppet.” And he said he played with Reia and Selma. I forgot to mention that last night, when he was up late, he started to do a voice impersonation of Selma. Which was surprisingly spot on. Then, he simply did a ‘different’ voice. That was even more shocking, as he suddenly sounded like just a different kid.

And he was a bit worried about water truck thing – a truck had gone around a bit later with a loudspeaker to tell people that water might be interrupted tomorrow due to work on the water main. He was asleep at 9:40.

He slept between us on the big bed. I squeezed in next to him when I went to bed, so he was right up against me. Sometime around 2 he woke up and asked to go to the bathroom. I took him, then Carly put him back to sleep on the lower bed. He was up at 6:35, right as I went in to take a shower. I came downstairs to find him asleep again on the couch.

He slept. And slept, and slept, and slept. I was afraid he had a cold. Finally, I started waking him up at 8:10. It took him a few minutes, but then he was full of energy and feeling fine. I got him ready to go quickly and we walked to school. I dropped him off about 8:50. We met the sub for Anna, another teacher named Ms. Karen. He wanted to look at the schedule, then he needed something to do, and I walked him around. The purplish clay was out, and I suggested he make a monster. He wanted me to help, but after half a minute he was working on it and I was able to leave. Blanka went over to talk to him as I left. It was the first time I’ve left and he hasn’t been with a teacher.

I went to the library and did a couple of things, then Carly came by at 9:15. We had a meeting in the elementary office with Shary, the principal, and Maaian, the preschool director. The meeting went well. They were open to more volunteering than 40 minutes a week, but just weren’t (mainly Maaian, was my impression) with how to do that. We came to some agreements on how to do so, which was good. Left unexplained was how, after being very clear with how we wanted me there for the transition, and Maaian being very clear about how I could be there weekly/daily from the beginning, we are now three weeks into his actually schooling and she hasn’t given me one concrete way to do so.

After the meeting I took the car down to the complex where Ace Hardware is. I went to the Apple retailer there and got a new charger and cable, and went and shopped at Fox. I thought I’d drive the back north way into town. The shortest route that way has been closed via court order for a couple months, necessitating a drive through north Even Yehuda, which is longer. Well, I get to that intersection to find that that one other road is now also closed due to construction. The short route is also closed, requiring that you drive a couple miles farther south again to get to the highway that I took in the first place. To make things even better, the street from our place up into town is still closed, making it harder to get to downtown for us.

I stayed at home until going to pick August up. Dealt with condo stuff, as our current tenant is moving out. Went to pick him up and got there a little early, so I sat on a bench in the tunnel area through the elementary school. It was one of the students that was getting ready to go to the bus that spotted me and told August I was there. He came out, nice and happy. Myriam was reading a story to the kids that weren’t going to the bus, but he wasn’t interested. Karen said he’d had a really good day. So we packed up his stuff and got a glue and glittery thing picture that he had made. We helped spread out the rest so they wouldn’t glue together.

We then went over to Bat-Chen’s classroom and had a Hebrew lesson. He had a lot of fun. His favorite part was a toy phone thing that would play back your voice to you. And the cookies, of course, which he said were a real treat. She asked him about school and what he did and he said he played “learning games”. She did a toy guessing game with him, which he didn’t quite understand at first. We need to play 20 Questions, I think. The toy was a little green and purple car she had in her hand. He liked getting it dirty in the marker on the board, then cleaning It with the eraser. At the end she gave him the car and we put it in his shorts pocket (mechonet ba kis – car in pocket) and then she wanted a hug. He gave her a good hug, and he said “That’s another present: love!”

לנו

We went to Carly’s classroom. He told her “I get really excited about little toys.” “Bat-Chen gave it to me as a present! I can keep it until it breaks!” We discussed preschool and he said “It was hard for me to stay on my bed.” And “I did end up getting two blankets for awhile.” When we asked how he got another blanket he said “They put it on the floor and left it…I sneaked and got it.” Carly asked if anyone got upset about him taking it: “Nope. I didn’t hear anyone cry.” “I had it for awhile. For a fair amount of time.”

We were in her classroom for a few minutes then got going. I realized we didn’t have his artwork so we headed back to Bat-Chen’s classroom. On the way we saw Jill, the youngest Kern sister. August was shy with her, and was whispering, although we don’t know what. The art wasn’t in the classroom. While Carly talked to her about the upcoming event on Friday August and I continued on to his classroom and found it. We left school at 4:30.

At home he had lots of energy. We played with a balloon. More talk of school: “I made a big star heart…I picked up a lot of clay.” He said they made invitations. They said “Please come to a tea party.” They talked about it in morning meeting. All the parents are invited and it will be June 1st. He was then going “Nah nah nah nah” He had learned that from Sophia when they were playing on the playground once. I was hoping he hadn’t paid attention to it. He hadn’t done it at the time, but he apparently remembered. Or heard it again at school. Also about school he said “One time, I played with Selma a fair amount…outside…we beed-ed kitty cats.” He said he didn’t ask any questions today but “I still learned…I forgotted it all.”

He then asked “Why is glass fragile?” “Why do different materials feel different?” We watched a video about why glass breaks when it is hot and you put water in it, then he asked about the size of particles. He also asked “Why can’t science tell us everything?” Size videos we watched were https://youtu.be/WK2uPF0t98w and https://youtu.be/isppUA0MZmw and we  discussed testability in science.

He then had some oatmeal and watched Max and Ruby. Carly and I were using the microwave and water kettle and he got really upset he couldn’t hear the show. He finally was appeased when I let him restart the episode from the very beginning. In the bathroom he told me about the imaginative movement class (with the puppet). He said “We goed-ed to imaginary land.” And “Class is short now so we don’t have much time.’ They’ve divided them into two groups so they are smaller, but now only have 20 minutes with her. They started that last week.

Carly had gone up to rest and came back down and made him peanut butter honey toast. He asked about Jewish and Arab schools and then different cultures.

They went outside. He sprayed her. His consequence was coming inside and he was upset about that: “And besides, you can’t give more than one consequence!” When he calmed down a bit h went out on his own and didn’t want us to follow. Went to the hose at first, but then was picking up tree things on his own, then told us he’d been doing something nice. They did that a bit more, then it was up to a bath. Carly started. I finished dishes. I went up for a few minutes so she could do laundry, then she washed his hair, which didn’t go horribly.

He came downstairs with pink clay. Carly went to shower. We developed a game where one of us (first him, but then we switched) would hide an object in the clay, then the other person would dig it out. He had a museum exhibit going with several objects by the time Carly came down. He told her “We’re playing archeologist. Dada’s the erosion burying ancient things and I’m the archeologist digging up the objects and studying them.”

He said “Presenting…” several times today and we asked where that came from. He said Max and Ruby. Carly went up to bed. He ate some crackers and peanut butter. We talked about field trips, and that led to a d
iscussion of summer. I said some people do summer camps, but I think we’ll just be traveling and visiting people during his summers. When I mentioned visiting people, he said “Bat-chen?” I said no, in the United States. He was fine with that, but said “But no place with tornadoes.” I assured him it wouldn’t be the season. There was then lots of talk about black holes and galaxies etc. We read Sally’s Room. Discussed dolls and toys getting old.

Brushed his teeth and flossed. He went up to Carly at 9:21. But a bit later she got up to go to the bathroom and he escaped downstairs to me. He was ready to go up again a bit later, but Carly then brought him back down. I got ready for bed and went in with them. He was cuddled in my arms for awhile and quiet as I was falling asleep. He was really swiping at my alarm clock app and managed to share random text to Twitter. He went down with Carly and finally fell asleep about 10:30.

Leaving him at preschool:

He went until 2 at school today, and likely could have made it to the end, no problem.

When I went to bed last night he was on the bed with Carly. But he was sideways, right by my pillow. So I took my pillow and slept on the lower bed for the first time.

He was up just before 7. Closed the door behind him. He was quite stuffy as he woke up on the couch. We thought maybe it was the cold, but he cleared up during the day. He watched a Max and Ruby and ate some oatmeal and mango at the table. We got going at 7:50 and had a nice walk to school. Rain was coming, and you could see the big clouds approaching. When we parked the bike I said we had made it. August sprinted under cover to make sure.

When we went into the preschool he complained there were too many kids. We could shoot for getting there a few minutes earlier before the bus kids arrive. He needed something to do before I left, and we found the new activity over on the light table: insects encased in plastic with magnifying glasses to look at them with. Nicholas, however, was protecting them, saying only he and Emmitt could use them. Marion came over and Nicholas got upset. August got a scorpion and was studying it when I left. He let me walk out for the first time without him being with a teacher.

I went and worked in the library. Will probably start heading home, at least some days, when he is going full time.

I went and picked him up at 2. When I went in they were sitting around the pottery tables, watching a video storybook on a laptop (projector not working?). Derin saw me and told August. He smiled, then kept sitting at the table. I gathered my stuff, and Marion came and told me that Anna would be gone tomorrow. Then Anna came and told me myself, then she went and told August. August got up and came and told me, adding the detail that she had a doctor’s appointment.

August was ready to go – all we were skipping today was Playball – and we walked out the side door. He showed me where the dead baby bird was on a chair, covered by a cairn of small rocks and stuff. He said the flies were eating it. We walked up to the library and were going to start reading when I realized I had left his bag of stuff at the preschool and we also needed to get the bag of swim gear from his bike. All was well (although he accused me of “always” forgetting things, but couldn’t come up with an example besides the bag) until we left the school and were walking to the bike. He started twirling in front of me. I had to stop, then kept walking. Somehow he twirled around me and stepped on my heels from behind and fell. I picked him up and carried him and pushed the bike over to the bench in front of the school entrance. He said “You knocked me over!” His knees were a little red, but not deep enough for there to be any blood. It was still very, very traumatic. He kept saying “Dada, don’t look!” When I said it would go away soon he said ‘No, it goed away! Dada, make it go away!” And kept repeating the second sentence. We sat on the bench for about half an hour. He eventually was hitting his knees and said it was to make the color go away. He calmed down, then just rested his head on my lap. Started talking a little before 2:40.  Started making things things up. Still upset though. He told me “Put me in a bag.” And he decided he didn’t want to swim. Probably because he was afraid of the water on his knees, although he wouldn’t say it. Clearly I should have just picked him up after school.

He cheered up as we walked home and he told me he had a song we hadn’t sung for a long time. It turned out to be ‘never’. It was a song he had learned in class today. He remembered the tune, and sang “Friday is fish…all the hungry children come and eat it up.” We paused to record it so we would have something to go on in case he forgot more.

We kept walking and he stopped me when he spotted a cylinder and a black rectangle on top of a house. It was a water tank and solar panel and we talked about those. He wanted me to compliment his spotting.

He then wanted to stop at our park. We started by playing spider store. Although he also told me “If you dig anywhere in the Earth, you will find a big puddle of flubong.” I was the shopkeeper and he was buying things and I would add up the total cost. He bought sugar-coated flies, pillows, etc. He bought Pepsi: “I’ll tell you why I need Pepsi. I have a little problem…I’m sniffly.” He was then removing spiderwebs from my ‘store’ using a stick and I told him he’d get a discount. He also got “Chocolate chip, pineapple, strawberry ice cream.” He also had a machine that “changed its mouth feel.” Can’t remember what it was changing the feeling of though.

We paused and sat on the alligator bench to have a snack. He asked “Isn’t it not fair that animals only see a few colors and we can see ten million?” Ate a little couscous and then granola. Lots of discussion of iHerb and shipping costs and weight. Then a lot of playing the pee and poop game, where I would forget to go to the bathroom before going to sleep, then have an accident, then wake up in the morning, go play, then go back and make the same mistake.

We saw Holly and her dog Doby. She asked if he wanted to say hi to Doby, but he ran to the top of the structure to be safe. He did eventually agree to count Doby, as he doesn’t bark. After they left there was a girl about his age. she made a funny noise at him. Apparently this is a real thing. They ended up playing together on the teeter totter thing for a couple minutes. August then came and played more with me.

He was excited when Carly came into view. “Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!” She asked what we were doing. He said “We’re playing bladder…and rectum.”

Carly asked him what the best part of the day was. He said “Preschool”. Then, when she asked what part, he said “everything.” He told her about looking at the insects with a magnifying glass and drawing what he saw. They made a connection to the spider I caught and he studied. “They teach-ed me about worms but it was a diffent day.” He was talking about the slug. About rest time he said “just walked around, being loud. Waking people up with hammers and chainsaws and stuff.” Pretty sure that one wasn’t true.

At home he went outside with Carly. I made mushrooms and risotto. He must have done something with his long stick, as he got upset when she put it up on the planters where he can’t reach: “Give me my stick back!”

He had rice and lemon chicken and broccoli for dinner. He spilled some rice, and even though there was plenty left he got upset and wanted new rice, just like what happened with the yoghurt. Carly was nice enough to take it away and come back with ‘new’ rice. He then ate it all, and even more veggies with it.

He asked how big the largest power plant was. Carly clearly didn’t hear the question, as she thought I was crazy when I started reading out stats on power plants a minute later. August said “Is it pretty cool that sometimes we’re a power plant for like a hand mixer?”

He stepped in the rice mess, then didn’t want to stay out of it when Carly asked him. I got him upstairs by showing hm the little charm he had gotten from the church in Jerusalem. We went up and put it in his small treasure box. He remembered the small sticker jewel thing he had found at the play area of the mall and I showed him where I had put that as well. He got out his bouncy ball and said “Let’s experiment in my lab.” The bathroom, that is. He bounced it around, and behind and through his bathtub. He sang more of the song from school and we found it on YouTube. It is the “Today is Monday” song from the book by Eric Carle. When we had first visited the classroom they had told me they had read the book and were having snacks each day that week to match the book.

He started playing with the scrub brush and knocked everything on the counter over with it. He was upset when
I took it away and he headed downstairs. Carly read Sally’s Room. August had said he had been looking for his blanket during rest time, so maybe that’s what he wanted instead of a sheet, so we got out the brown blanket Andrea made and he cuddled in it while she read.

He then cuddled in my lap and we talked about things. He didn’t want to wash his knees and we talked about the reasons you wouldn’t go in the pool if you were actually bleeding. This ended with him spraying blood out of this hands with his magic, all over the kitchen and everything else.

We went upstairs to his bath. More blood on everything. I joked there were sharks in his bath and then he was spraying sharks out of his hands. We played more bladder game, then bubble town. We were downstairs at 7:50. He was hungry so had some of the risotto and mushrooms and then crackers and peanut butter.

He blew his nose again and said “It’s fun for me to blow my nose.” He’s been asking me to blow up a balloon until it pops as an experiment. So I did one. Really loud, and made my ears ring.

We went up and got him ready for bed. I left them at 8:45 and he was soon asleep.

He climbed up on the bed with my at some point and spent much of the night with me. Right at 6 he woke up. I asked if he wanted to go back to sleep and he clearly said no. He went downstairs to Carly and told her the same thing, but when she got up to get tea she turned around to find him asleep on the couch. He slept on the couch until 7:30 when he sat up for a minute. But then he lay back down and fell back to sleep. He laughed in his sleep once. I eventually went up to take a shower. He woke up about 8:50 and when I came down they were setting up the keyboard with my iPad. I skyped with my parents using Carly’s computer and he had fun showing off his lunch box.

After Skype he went outside with Carly. Carly got him crackers and peanut butter and melon. I started setting up for zucchini bread making.  Had asked if we do that or the mall first today and he was adamant about baking bread. Carly was then inside and he called in “Mama! I thought you were going to teach me!”

He helped make zucchini bread. We were able to kind of multitask for the first time, with him doing much of the peeling of the zucchini while I did other ingredients. He was then able to grate the zucchini pretty well on his own.

While I finished up the pans he went over to Carly. She was feeling pretty sick, and I got him watching Max and Ruby. He was pretty stuffy today.

Carly headed up for a shower and he and I put out ant poison. He asked about the purpose of war. He was upset by the idea of childproof lids and tried giving me a punishment for it. He was hungry cranky. Inside we started to get food for lunch. They played war the card game “Dont make this a winning game.” I put his allergy pill in his water and he was excited about that. He gave me a thumbs up for allergy medicine

Carly read Sally’s Room. He asked “Why does she have so many not doing toys?” He meant dolls. He also asked “Why’s she look like a teacher?” There’s a picture near the end where he thinks she looks like a teacher.

Zucchini bread was ready so we had a couple slices. He said “Dada, this is the goodest zucchini bread we ever made cuz there’s no bits of zucchini in it.” He was looking at the Sally’s Room cover with Carly and asked “I thought apostrophe goes at the end of the word.” Then more punctuation questions: “What’s a comma?” “What’s a dash?” He helped me make more iced tea and sang “cinnamon and honey tea”

He then did a reading lesson with Carly, and told her that his words had silent letters: he said flubong has a silent ‘h’ and ion has a silent ‘b’. Both at the beginning. He made crumbs with his zucchini bread and wasn’t happy when Carly made him clean it up. He was then asking what tiny rocks would be and he said “Microrocks” when I said sand. I got an “Oh, dada.” for simply stating that fact. He was also saying “You know? You know? You know?” a lot.

August and I headed to the nursery to get a little plant and pot for his classroom (every child has one) and also potting soil and compost. He hummed the school bell as we left the house. At the plant store he wandered around looking at all the little plants. He said it was hard to choose. He chose a plant, and then a turquoise pot, which he said matched his Crocs. We found the other stuff and then headed home.

We got home and he was excited about transplanting his plant into the pot. He and Carly did that, him doing much of the work.

He and I then walked to the mall at 3:25. Went first to Tiv Taam. He saw the drinks and said we should get some for mama: “Any liquid counts!” He got her a Coke and a Sprite. We got a few other things and paid. As we were leaving he asked “Why do funny noises make kids want to play with me?” He was referring to Ella yesterday.

We stopped at the toy store. Got balloons for Carly’s event. Looked at swim goggles for August but he was adamant that he didn’t want any. Got him a frisbee with Winnie the Pooh on it.

Then down to the indoor play area. Played there about 10 minutes, with the squirrel trying to eat me. We stopped and had a snack bar thing that I’d gotten somewhere. Then into the pharmacy. He convinced me to get hi some chewy multivitamins while we looked for contact solution. Running low on cold medicine, so had to stand in line for that. There was a smaller girl, probably 2. August was standing close to her. I don’t know if he made faces at her first, but she stuck out her tongue. Very funny. We also got a couple of nut/protein bars.

We ate the protein bar one on the way out. We sat in one of the houses in the outside play area and got out our other snacks. Didn’t really play, and he sang a “What should we do?” song. We ended up leaving, and he chose the long walk home. Along the way we spotted Israeli ladybugs, snails, lizards, some new flowers, and I saw my first snake in Israel. Didn’t get a good look, but seemed reddish and was pretty long.

We were home just before 5:30. He talked about smelling popcorn, and it reminded me that yesterday he had an invention that changed what he smelled like – if he thought about ice cream he would smell like ice c ream.

Carly made him popcorn. I was in the kitchen when it started popping, and they pretended it was me, so I acted like popcorn was popping inside me. He laughed a lot.

They went outside and tried out the frisbee. Carly was teaching him how to throw it. They then set up for painting and used the white paint to paint the little table for Carly’s classroom. I sat and tried the Valencay cheese that August and I had picked out at the store and white wine while they painted.

Carly took him over to wash paint off him with the hose. He observed that paint really gets everywhere. Inside, Carly noticed a bruise on his forehead. He reenacted what happened to him with the metal water bottle. He said he was running inside the classroom and fell and hit his forehead. Later, he told me that it was before the tea party. They had picked flowers and needed people to put them in water and that’s when he ran to do it. He also told me about rest time on Friday: “Dada, the second time they made me be on my bed.” And he asked me “Why don’t we do dada/Zinnie adventures anymore?”

He asked why iherb has a weight limit. Our discussion then ranged to where a rubber band would break when you pulled on it (he then kept suggesting other materials and also theories on why things would break) and back to cinnamon sticks in the hold of a plane. Carly came in mid-discussion and said we have some weird discussions.

I took him up for a bath. He wanted a balloon, so yelled down to Carly asking for a new one. I then found the red one. He played the bladder game with the balloon being the bladder. We did that for quite awhile until I convinced him to play with bubbles instead. He said he likes being bored and we talked about the importance of boredom for creativity.

Out of his bath at 8:20. We went down and he saw Carly typing on her phone and he wanted to send messages. In Skype on his iPad then he typed messages to Cherie in mooka mook. He then told Carly what he had typed and she translated: “Hello, I love you” “How are you feeling?” “Hi” “Do you have any plants in your yard?” “How are you doing?” As she typed he said “Wait, I just seed something I want you to teach me about” It was the parentheses. Then “Wait, why are they facing different directions?” He also asked “Do dashes have powers?”

They ate some artichoke together, and he asked “Mama, why do you like it when I ask cool questions?” He was then asking her about war and Carly asked if he knew what ‘peace time’ was. Some he asked “So we have a lot of peace time, right?” “Do Palestines get into wars?” “Do they use guns or do they just say you can’t have electricity?”

He and I then read Sally’s Room. He remembered his heart sunglasses from last summer and wants them again. I took him upstai
rs and he said “I hate etcs.” That’s a line from a Smurfs comic, which we haven’t read for months. 

I left them at 9:20. Carly texted me about 10 minutes later saying he was really blowing his nose. A big milestone. Must have fallen asleep soon after that.

He slept on the bed between us the whole night. He’s still a crazy sleeper sometimes, but has calmed down when there’s a limited space.

He woke up 5 something. Back to sleep when I got Carly. Up again a little before 7. They were outside all morning.

When I went down awhile later they were sitting at the table outside and Carly was teaching him about cacti. He had to store more: “Well I can store 9000 gallons!” He was then a cactus that got more and more amazing. I heard him talking about stabilizers at one point. I was inside making scrambled eggs.

“I’m a magic broccoli plant. I just grew that way. Everyone expected me to be normal but I turned out magical.” Pipe made out of magic steel that gives him air when he goes out to space. No nutrients, no water, no dirt. Just air. Spikes all over.

He spotted a spider with black and white stripes on it in the kitchen and we trapped it. He took it outside and studied it. We later let it go. 

We ate our eggs with cauliflower outside. He told me “I learned there’s a zoo up that way and the animals escaped and ran down the street to the recycling.” I taught him the word ‘skeptical’. He told me again “I just learned there’s bad things in all the countries of the world except Jordan.” He hasn’t mentioned that for a couple weeks. Still can’t explain why there was nothing to blast in Jordan; there just wasn’t. He kept going after that but I lost the train of thought.

He then sat outside and watched some How the Body Works videos. I went up and took a shower. When I came back down they were building a pyramid. I took over from Carly. We talked a lot about ant nests and whether they could flood. Continued with the Duplos and the bladder game, mainly. Carly and I worked on a shopping list. When August found out what the plans were and that they didn’t involve school he said “Does that mean I won’t be by myself in preschool? Pretty special day!” We left at 10:10.

August spotted one of Carly’s granola bars in the car and wa rather whiney about it. Carly gave him some and he very sweetly said he wanted to help out in the stores. Didn’t exactly work out ideally. We went to Ace first, and just ended up getting a screen to install in the bathroom window. Then to Tiv Taam. A big load today, mainly focused on possibilities for August’s lunches. Got all sorts of things (dried apples and apricots, peach apple sauce, couscous and rice things, rice cake things), and also bought him a new lunch bag of his own (with monsters on it) and a pink container that fits right in it. We also saw Mike, the head of school.

We were back before 12. I started putting the groceries away and they played school. I made him a “preschool practice lunch”, using his new stuff. A couscous and veggies dish in the main container, with dried apricots next to it and his honey granol mix in a separate container and a container of the peach apple sauce. I gave it to him in the lunch box and he was able to open all of it on his own, except for the peach apple sauce. I’ll probably repackage that in a container he can open so we can also save it when he doesn’t eat it all.

We also watched a lizard out on our kitchen planter boxes, chasing after bugs and jumping around on the plants. August played with the salad spinner. He eventually put the colander on it and poured water in. After a couple pours I realized he had put it on the wrong part of the salad spinner and the water was going right through to the rug. He took it outside after that and used the hose to play with them. He was filling it up and calling it a bladder, then pouring it out on the fake grass.

Carly cooked an artichoke and they ate it together. I then got him to head to recycling with me at 1:45. Three very full bags of recycling to do. We saw David on the way and talked to him. August kept saying something like “You keep chewing gum in our house!” Luckily, David didn’t understand what he was saying.

We went up and did recycling. August actually did a lot, and there were a couple bags of glass that other people left that he was able to do. He was then using a yogurt cup to collect pollen from some flowers. He poured the pollen in the plastic recycling and then said “I feel bad.”

We then went to the playground. He said “Only a few kids. Good. I can handle a few kids.”…”What should we spend our time with?” A woman borrowed our phone so a girl could call her mom. We then went over to the exercise equipment. There was a girl August’s age there. August kind of walked up to her and made some funny noises. I told him to say hi instead. When my back was turned I heard one of them saying “hello”. August later told me he was the one that started talking first. When I turned back around she was motioning August to follow her. He ended up running after her all the way across the park to the play structure.

I soon met the girl’s mom. The girl is named Ella, and her mom is Sara. She has another child, Raum, who is 9 and was riding around on his bike. Sara is a single mom and finishing up 26 years in the military, where she works in cyber operations. She’s thinking of helping do tours for people coming to Israel for their bar/bat mitzfahs, etc. when she is done (in June).

August and Ella did a lot of running around, played on the teeter totter thing a couple times, and had orange drink. August had two cups, and didn’t use a straw. August also pretended to turn into Ella. That was about as big of news as making a new friend. They ended up in the swings. They were trying to touch and hold hands while the were swinging. So cute. They managed to do it while they were “in sync”, a phrase I taught him. We talked about inviting them over sometime, and settled on next weekend, since Ella would be in school tomorrow.

They then had to leave, so we got going as well. Sara said Ella wanted to Sahel his hand or hug hm and August gave Ella a full, real hug. Also so cute.

As we walked home he said “I played with someone for the first time at this park, right?” We were home at 3:10. He and I put out some of the ant killer out outside the sliding windows, where they’ve started to find their way into the house. Carly had made lemon chicken, so he had some of that. I then made a mango, strawberry, and banana smoothie and he drank that outside. We discussed floods and water seepage.

We then got in the car and drove over to Brenda’s house. She had some surgery and Carly took her the lemon chicken. August and I looked around the house a bit while they talked, then outside she showed August the fountain and the fish in the pond. We were home at 5:10.

“Mama, can you teach me something?…fractions.” They did that with the blueberries. I got him and I some lemon chicken for dinner. He was then putting objects in his blue clay and was an archeologist. He would then dig an object out and line it up on a pillow in his museum display and we’d speculate when it was from and who used it.

He and I left for walk a walk at 6:30. Cherie had asked about skyping right as we left and August wanted to Skype when we got back. We walked around the Holly block. We got wet by a sprinkler right across the street and August liked it, so we walked by a second time. We then walked the path down to the old highway, along it a bit, then circled back to home. Back by 7.

Carly was on Skype with Chuck and Cherie. He had the last cookie, then some milk. He kept saying “Oh, snapdragon!” as he admired his bubbles. He then made a mess with milk then was upset when I cleaned it up. Carly convinced him to head upstairs with the idea of experimenting with the balloon.

He sang a “Boopa boopa boo, won’t you be my friend?” Song as they went up the stairs.

I took over the bath after awhile. Got that finished, then him into his pajamas. Carly came up and brushed his teeth. He remembered the garbage-powered power plant in Korea and he was creating garbage for my pow
er plant. He said  “Through the night and even at preschool I’ll keep producing garbage…it will go through the air to your powerplant…Remember, I’ll produce extra garbage pills!” I left them at 8:30.

But then he was down before 9. He ate crackers and watched the start of the 6 Hours of Spa with me. He told me he would sleep with me on the big bed and Carly would be down below. We went up and he used the bathroom and I got ready for bed. He made up a machine called the “Gearamakeraton”. It makes gears. We opened the back of the toilet so he could see it flush.

We got in bed at 9:30. He went up and down between the beds before finally falling asleep with Carly about 9:45.

He was up at 6:58. I heard him turn off the air conditioning, then close the door before he came down. He watched a Max and Ruby and wanted to make a “bladder” out of Duplos. A pyramid, that is. We made a small one and he had a Duplo kid pee once.

We got going. He chose the coconut pineapple wrapper treat from International Day.

On the way he simply asked to look at the schedule before I leave. He also expressed concern that Carly wouldn’t know where to find him for the tea party. And we talked about asking for help with his lunch (he said he had asked for help closing his Cheerios) and strategies for rest time (trying to look at They All Saw a Cat or his Kipper book).

Went smoothly when we got there and we looked at the schedule. He didn’t want to let my finger go. He asked if they could work on the stream. When Anna said yes he let me go.

I went and worked in the library, primarily on Sabeel stuff. I took some breaks and went for a walk around campus. And at one point I watched the falcons on the webcam on the big television set up outside the elementary office. I saw the mother come back with a bright green lizard. The 5 babies all woke up and fed on the lizard. Most of the action took place off the bottom of the screen. I could see the tail and one leg of the lizard, and and the beaks of a few of the babies as they had stringy lizards parts coming out of their mouths.

Carly went to the tea party at 1:30. August greeted her by handing her the invitation they had made for her. The big news was the dead baby bird that had been found on the preschool playground. August later talked about raising his hand in class and said he had raised it to give his hypothesis on why the baby had died: “because it started flying and it just couldn’t make it.” They had mint tea at the tea party and kale chips and beet chips. He ate a good amount of those, and also the bread and honey.

Anna said that he had played with Reia quite a bit and she thinks they should play outside of school.

I had gone to Carly’s room after 1:30. They showed up at 2:10. He was hungr but had refused to eat anything else from his lunch. I think he had basically just eaten Cheerios again. He ate a little more of it with me. Carly got her leftover rice and green beans and tahini and falafel. He really liked the green beans and ate some of the rice as well.

Eventually, he and I left. We went briefly to the library. He talked to Gaby, the intern, then we went back to the kids section. We had talked about getting an “anthology” of Greek and Roman mythologies. While we looked he was standing on a stool and Ilana crouched next to her to put some books away and he was touching her fluffy hair. He changed his mind about checking a book out right now, and instead wanted to head to the pool. He told me “With my untouchifier I picked up a sparkly gold box to take home. I found it in a treasure chest.”

We changed in the bathroom and then went to the pool. Just a little after 3 but there were already a few people there, so we could tell it was going to be busy. Omri and her family were already there, including her father. Carly then showed up a few minutes later. And more and more people. Not uncomfortably busy, but busy enough. August and Omri didn’t really end up playing together this time. We did some time without the floaties, then put them back on. He also wanted me to get a kickboard for him. He used it a bit.

He didn’t want to leave, so we hung out until about 4:30 before going home, getting home a little before 5. I was asking him more about school and he told me he walked around eating Cheerioes during rest time. The teachers asked him to stop, but he didn’t. I figured rest time was going to be the hardest part of the day without me.

They read Sally’s Room and the poetry book from Perlotsky. He ate crackers and peanut butter, then oatmeal. We played with Duplos, making more structures that were either Bladders or rectums this time. he kept saying “That last step is a doozie.” Whch he from The Magic Schoolbus Rides Again. He says they stepped out of the bus and turned into ancient animals.

I took him up to his bath. He had a new machine: “Girlboyodifier…it turns a boy into a girl.” Played with bubbles. Washed him and then we went into the bedroom and I brought up books. We finished the poetry book, read Sally’s Room, then about two chapters of the 78-Story Treehouse. Carly came in and I left them at 8:15. He was soon asleep.

His invitation to Carly: 

He came down at 6:25. When Carly left he wanted to play with Duplos but first kept asking me questions, like “Could you knit a house?” Which led to a discussion of what houses are actually made of and why. We played with duplos, and the piece of twine became a high wire. To make the animals go on it, we would attach Duplos underneath them as a counterweight to hold them upright. Also a lot of discussion of pivot points and center of balance.

He watched one episode of Max and Ruby, then chose his wrapper treat for the morning, one of the mango hard candies. He said it had an interesting flavor from the beginning, and when he was done told me “The flavor was kind of grassy.” A good conversation on the way to school: He was asking about surface tension, which led to a discussion of mercury, but then to how it is poisonous, which led to mad hatters and Alice in Wonderland and how you can have problems with the brain. He pretended to be a mad hatter and was forgetting how to drive the bike, running us into a pole.

When we first got to the preschool I gave him his water bottle. Instead of walking inside he headed around the corner of the building and towards the playground. When I caught him he said “I’m not gonna do preschool anymore.” But I picked him up and took him in and he was okay. He tried to walk out the door one more time when I asked Anna some questions, but after we looked at the schedule I set him down inside the classroom and he told Anna they should work on their stream and I said bye and walked out. Easy peasy. I was out by 8:15.

They showed up at the library a little after 10:30. As they lined up outside the library I heard one of the girls say “This is my new friend August!” August later told me that Candy said it. When they came in he was happy and didn’t see me. Junyeok spotted me first and pointed me out to August. He was so smiley and cheery when he saw me.

I went with them to library time. He liked the songs and finger puppet parts, but was a bit squirmy during story time with Ilana. The read the book ORQ and the sequel. Candy sat on the stool and invited August to sit next to her. But he was then copying Candy and she was encouraging him. Good I was there.

For the preschoolers they set out books on the table for them to choose from, and they can check out one. He checked Sally’s Room by M. K. Brown

I helped walk them back to the preschool. When I dropped him off he didn’t want me to leave because he couldn’t read the book on his own. But he was okay with playing blocks with Omri and just let me leave. Told him I’d pick him up at 1.

I came back at 1. They had the lights out for the start of rest time. He was near the door, chomping away on Cheerios. We went outside and sat on the bench. Anna opened the window to the staff room and said he did great. And that he played with Reia, Derin, and Omri a lot. He told me he had snack today, a first. It was Cheerios. Honey Nut ones, it sounds like. He said he had milk with them, but no banana. And all he ate of his lunch was his Cheerios. Still, much better that he’s eating something. And he was in a much better mood.

We discussed Mercury poisoning and brain diseases and damage all the way home and were here by 1:30. He drank the rest of the smoothie from yesterday. He asked “Have you ever heard of a basil and banana smoothie?” Then told me “My tongue is six meters long.” “600 meters long.” and joked

“What’s an umbilical cord? Is it a cord with electricity in it that goes to a baby?”

We played more highwire. He sang an “All aboard the choo-choo train” song as they went down the line. He pretended the old pillow is a backpack again, and when I said he had a real backpack in Chelan he said “Well, I like pretending a pillow’s my backpack. I can take it to school with my stuff in there, right?” He then told me all the crazy stuff he carries in his backpack. He then sang several lines of “Animal Life” loudly while I made a pyramid.

The pyramid was then the bladder of a Duplo kid.

We drove back to school. Had a few minutes before his Hebrew class so played with some of the new blocks in the classroom. Upstairs there was a guy working on the door to Maaian’s office, so August watched some of the grinding and drilling. Hebrew class went fine. I sat near the door. He had me come over to help him color, but otherwise did fine. They reviewed their words from the hungry catepillar story. She had told them what ‘air conditioner’ was at the beginnng of class. At the end she was reviewing the sheets with each kid. When she finished with August he asked “What about air conditioner?” (Matzgan)

Carly had walked home, so after class we went to the big playground for awhile. He found a big hula hoop and we played with that. He was rolling it and would say “Make it nice and balanced and give it lots of umph.” He was getting tired of the playground so we got going. We headed to the car to eat some yogurt in the air conditioning. As we walked up the stairs he made a spotted some sort of connection, then said “I like connections.” They often point out connections they make in class by saying “Connection!” He told me that earlier he had walked all the way to the library.

In the car he told me “I really don’t want to go to activity class.” I gave in and said we didn’t have to go. He didn’t eat any yogurt or sandwich. We got home a bit after 4:50.

Carly read him his library book, Sally’s Room and he was laughing a lot. I got him mushrooms with cheese and peas with butter. He ate some, then said “Let’s eat outside.” Outside he did some watering and shared a little of my veggie burger, but mainly wanted bread. He got frustrated when I wouldn’t give him more.

He watered more and I did dishes. He came in and took off his shorts. Sang an awesome song that he later said was about books: “this one’s unusual…” He was then talking about/annoying Carly with poop and “spitland”. He wanted an “alternative” and he came up with cauliflower. He ate a few pieces of that. And he corrected Carly, saying particles are smaller than atoms. He then had crackers and peanut butter and we talked more about ways people can get brain damage.

He heard the Marble Machine song on the ipad and wanted to see the video. So I turned it on and he followed it up the stairs to his bath. He said he made a machine out of everything that had ever been made: “fossils…adio stations…narwhals…paper towels…” “It makes stuff for another universe to form that’s completely different!” A shorter bath without toys. He did an amazing job of letting me wash his hair. No complaining, then when we went to the other room we didn’t even use the hair dryer. He had been watching Animusic in the bathroom and now switched to KidsHealth videos.

We went to the bedroom and flossed and brushed his teeth. I talked about how well preschool is going but mentioned missing dada/Zinnie adventures. he got sad at that: “We don’t do dada adventures.” And put down his head. He had also told me “Don’t brush my teeth. This means you.” ‘This means you’ is a phrase he picked up, I think, from Max and Ruby and was practicing today.

We read two chapters of The 78-Story Treehouse. Carly came up and I left them at 8:20. She didn’t have any luck and they came down at 9. He kept saying he was hungry. He had a cracker with peanut butter, then two slices of apple with peanut butter.

He asked me to make chocolate cake with my mouth. I said the secret ingredients were “love and spit. And some of my dinner.” He liked that. Carly taught him the words ‘trepidation’ and ‘sustenance’. He asked “Can we listen to Josh Ritter?” and August turned on some music.

We all went up and he went in the bathroom and used the toilet while I got ready for bed. We were all in bed about 9:45. He climbed up on the bed with me, then slid back down with Carly for a mi
nute before climbing back up on the bed and falling asleep in her spot, his head facing the foot of the bed, by 10.

Library time:

His book:

Hula hoop:

He was up sometime after 5. Thankfully, he told Carly “Let’s go back to sleep.” He woke up at 6:54 and came down. Quiet for a couple minutes, then the first thing he asked was “What wrapper treat am I gonna get today?” He ate Cheerios and one watched one Magic Schoolbus, then part of a Max and Ruby. When he went to the bathroom to get ready for school he remembered and said “Don’t leave me at preschool!” We talked it through a bit then, then he was okay for the walk.

We left after 7:50. He had his small pink hard candy. He then asked “Why is the Earth big if it’s actually really small?” As part of our universe discussion last night we had discussed Carl Sagan and NASA’s ‘pale blue dot’ photo of the Earth and how it made the Earth seem small (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections). We now had a long discussion of ‘perspective’ and ‘viewpoint’ on the walk to school, and talked about how the earth must seem to a cat and an ant. And we talked about the book They All Saw a Cat.

He was fine until we got to the door of the preschool and then he started to get sad. He wanted me to stay and play with him. We looked at the schedule, and I said I’d come sometime after playground time. Told Anna 11. We sat on the bench just for a minute then I left him with Anna a little after 8:20. No holding onto my fingers this time. As I walked away I heard him say “What are we going to do out here?” to Anna.

I went up to the library and worked and read and studied Hebrew. No reports/photos from the teachers today, although when I was sitting in the adults room later Anna said that today he was playing on his own a lot, that is, without her having to be there.

When I showed up at 11 Derin saw me and said “August! Your dad is here! Your dad is here!” August was drinking from his water bottle and smiled when he saw me. His cheeks were red and he was sweaty and had clearly just been outside. He also clearly wanted to play more. He asked if I could go sit in the adult room. So I did, reading Returning to Haifa. He also told me “They said everyone would get a big pffff.” I didn’t know what he meant by that, but later in the day he explained that they were getting big drinks of water, and that was how to say ‘drink of water’ in mooka mook language.

At 11:20 he came in, showing me his empty bag of Cheerios, and said “That’s enough for today.” Marion was reading Green Eggs and Ham. I convinced him to go listen to the rest of the story. Although I then heard him say “I’m doing sound waves.”

He made it all the way to lunch, and wanted me to come out for lunch. It was going so well I thought maybe I’d be able to leave again after lunch. But things changed at lunch. Got him set up and he opened his strawberry yogurt. But then he dropped it on the ground. About half an inch of it spilled out and he couldn’t handle it. I cleaned it up and that didn’t help. He had wanted me to scoop it up – the sort of reaction he used to have. He wouldn’t eat anything, and ended up crying in my lap, demanding a treat to make him feel better. Emmitt had had a big meltdown right at the beginning of lunch when he didn’t get the chair he wanted, and this seemed Emmitt-inspired. At one point he said “Dada, could you just cut me in half?” and then kept repeating “Do something! Do something for me!”

So we left at 12:20. We got to his bike, and he actually said he didn’t want to leave school yet. We discussed the options though (library, back to preschool without me, etc.) and he chose to continue on to home. Before we got home he asked “What’s an arthropod?” Then “What’s busted mean?” When I explained ‘broken’ and ‘caught’ he asked “Does busted mean wrong?” I initially said no, but then he said “What do you mean? I heard it in The Magic Schoolbus…they were trying to make a map of the world.” I think their theory/hypothesis had been proven wrong, so in that case he was correct, it more accurately meant ‘wrong’ than ‘broken’.

And he also asked “How does your muscles move?” All these questions led to watching KidsHealth.org videos while he ate mushrooms and potatoes with melted cheese. He ate good amount of that, then we had crackers and peanut butter and crackers and Brie. He ate a lot more. He needs to start eating snack at school so he doesn’t get so hungry. Think that is why he was cranky. We also watched videos about arthropods. He was asking how centipedes defend themselves, and he decided he was a centipede with rockets so he could blast into space so predators couldn’t get it. He ended by watching a video about narwhals.

We got ready to head back to school and he talked me into taking his floaties. He talked about how he really likes them and that he likes be able to have control. And he told me that at school he had worked on his bridge but it kept falling down. When I put my swimsuit on he told me “That swimsuit looks great on you.” And admired its lava-ness.

We drove to the school and got to the pool right at 3. We had the pool to ourselves for awhile. He went in with the floaties and we were playing around. Then Omri, from his class, showed up with her mom and two older sisters and her baby brother. She wasn’t wearing floaties, but couldn’t swim, so August let me take his off and we tried that for awhile. He watched Omri holding onto the side and copied her. He didn’t like getting splashed by her, intentionally or not, although by the end of the time he was doing better about the incidental splashes. We got a kickboard and I at least introduced him to the idea of it and he played with it a little. Omri then put on floaties, so August’s went back on as well.

Carly came at 4 to check in. He wanted to stay as long as Omri. We had been in the sun since 3 though so I didn’t want to spend too much longer in the direct sun. August agreed to 10 more minutes so she left and came back. He was reluctant, but I got him out of the pool at 4:20. Carly was sitting and reading over by table tennis. August wanted to watch them play and asked about how points are scored. He said “I like watching winning games but not being in them.”

We headed home. On the couch he said he was an animal that sees hot things as red, warm things as orange, cool things as light blue, and cold things as dark blue. We’d been talking about that book They All Saw a Cat again.

He was whiney. Hungry again. He was rubbing his penis on things, but through his clothes. Carly was trying to explain why that wasn’t okay and I said “Uncouth”. He said “I don’t like that word.” Carly agreed that it wasn’t a great sounding word. He said he was going to hit me for hit and came and hit me in the leg. Carly sat him down and got him to apologize.

His mood changed when he sat at the table and ate his spaghetti. He came and helped me grate the Parmesan and wanted to do it himself and was doing pretty well. After he had a decent amount I made a banana, strawberry, and mango smoothie. We drank it outside. He was then watering plants with the hose and I went in to do dishes. He came in and took his pajamas off as he had gotten them wet. He had some naked time and a cookie. He took the cookies out to Carly to offer her one.

She came in and took him up to start his bath. I then went up. He was playing with the soap bottle but I thought it was the empty one. Suddenly he said ‘I’m pouring the pink soap in!” Most of the bottle went in. So he had a good bubble town today. He asked about guess versus hypothesis. We played guessing games and he liked that. Mainly with him thinking of a letter or number or animal or color and me guessing. He then asked me the difference between ‘tomb robber’ and ‘archeologist’.

Out of his bath he wanted some time with me in the bedroom, but then wanted to fall asleep with Carly. It was 8, so I told him he needed to get to sleep. He said a short book. We read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You
See? and Plant a Seed for Me. Neither of which we had read in awhile.

Carly came up and took over. As I left I heard him start telling Carly his story of what he did while I was gone: “I sneaked to the middle school and gobbled up the students’ castles. Then I went to the kindergarten and ate orange peel. Then I went to the preschool and did clay.” He was asleep by 8:30.

His smile when I returned:

Vase we found on the way home this morning:  

He was up about 6:20. I was in the shower and he came in and used the bathroom. I finished and he went down to Carly. When I came down a minute later and Carly headed upstairs, August asked me “Nights go quick, right?” We talked about how we don’t dream the whole night, and don’t remember all of our dreams, so it seems shorter.

Carly headed to work and he had his peanut butter toast for breakfast. I got the ipad out for him but he never watched anything as he kept talking and asking questions. He asked me “What does winnify mean?” “How do you win in a game?…the game with real money…you know, spin, spin, spin…” He meant roulette, which we had seen in that one sculpture at the Herzliya Art Museum. So we talked about it and then other games and sports.

Before we left we looked around for materials for his bridge with Anna. He got a plastic container out of recycling, a Cheerios box (last night he had told us that he told Anna that they only had the sugary Cheerios at the little Tiv Taam – don’t know why that would have come up), and outside we got some sticks of bamboo and a regular stick.

We left about 7:40. He got the Haslerky treat from the International Fair. He said it was licorice, but also tasted like mint. Sucked on it most of the way to school. He had me sing a few songs using his ‘radio’, and as we got close to school he told me that when we had gotten home yesterday he had felt some static from the wires in the little bathroom. Confusing, as there aren’t any wires, or things with wires, down low in that bathroom. He said they were under the bathroom and he could feel them through the floor, apparently.

As we got to the corner of the school he then asked if I was going to leave him today. He didn’t like my answer, but didn’t get really upset. I did have to pick him up at the bike rack, and he was hesitant at the preschool door and told me not to leave right away. But he was excited when I had him show Anna the bag of materials. It looked like a good time to leave, but he picked up on it and asked me not to go. It took a few minutes. I picked him up and showed him the schedule cards, then asked if he wanted to say goodbye by his materials or out on the bench. He requested a private moment out on the bench. I took him out and we talked for a couple minutes. He asked “What if they run out of food?” And “Where will you go?” He was much calmer through the whole thing. Eventually I told him I was going to hand him to Anna. He said no, but didn’t fight it, although he didn’t want to let go of my fingers. He was calm enough as I walked away that he was talking to her, and I was able to give him a thumbs up before I went around the corner of the building.

Got this report from Maaian on his morning without me:

August is doing really well this morning. Anna said the transition into the classroom was much quicker, and he was engaged until around 9:00am when everyone transitioned to Morning Meeting. Then, he had a moment of feeling upset, and Anna was able to talk with him about his feelings and take a break outside. He then went back to participating and continued the

sculpture that he began yesterday. Some of his classmates also joined in to help with the creation, which was wonderful.

Later on, August joined everyone for snack and engaged in conversation with a few classmates. He and Ori played with the bucket of bubbles and soap water for the dishes and shared some good laughs.  He later had a great time playing at the sand box with Derin and making “a storm”.

When I picked him up at 10:40 they were over on the PKA side again. He said “Dada, dada, dada… That’s enough for today.” I saw his sculpture before I left. There had been all sorts of animals and things added to it by him and the other kids.

We walked over to a bench in the center of campus and sat and ate an early lunch. I asked him about preschool, and then he asked me “What kind of work did you do in the library?”

We then went in the library. Back in the little kids section we found Liz. She was struggling to fit all the books on the shelves and asked August for advice. He found one or two places that another book could go. She asked him questions about his teachers and preschool. He didn’t actually name his main teachers, and told her she was in PKA now. He actually was in there when I picked him up, so maybe that was what he meant. Or he was being funny. She suggested a book called Oliver and the Seawigs (think it helped her find room on her shelf – she was also checking out a book for her daughter from that shelf). We went and read a few pages of it. He liked it, so we checked it out. Before we left he looked at a 750 piece that was sitting on a table, partially completed. And then destroyed the corner. And tried to keep destroying it when I stopped him. His consequence was having to wait while I rebuilt it. He was not happy about that.

While sitting on the bench we had talked about baking cookies for Teacher Appreciation Day (they are celebrating it a week early here). He had settled on snickerdoodles. We drove down to the big Tiv Taam and did our shopping, and also got crackers (he had reminded me we were going to go to the store for crackers) and looked for Cheerios. Still no luck. Oh, and we chose some Brie cheese to try. Along the way he told me “You could use a rocket I’d you have a deadline.” This is an ongoing discussion about what a ‘deadline’ is, and how at the end of every 13-Story Treehouse book they use something to get their book to the publisher just in time.

He also asked what ‘access’ means. Once I explained he said “I have a way to access libraries when they’re closed: JUST BREAK THROUGH THE ROOF! Take a ladder and climb up and break through. Right?”

Shopping was quick, but no cream of tartar so decided to substitute baking powder. And we stopped to go to the bathroom. We were home a little after 1. Got straight to making cookies. He made up a “5 4 cherry” song and repeated it several times. He was helping a lot but being whiney about wanting to try more of the dough, etc. paid off though when he said “That was better than just the cookie dough.” He had just had a little dough with cinnamon and sugar. I reminded him I was right that he should wait for it. Then, when he ate an actual cookie he said “THIS is even BETTER than cookie dough and cinnamon and sugar.”

We headed back to school and got to the preschool at 2:45. After the bus kids left he gave the bag of cookies to Ms. Anna. I didn’t foresee him taking the cookies out to show her though, and Emmitt saw one and wanted one. Didn’t mean for that to happen. He then gave bags to Ms. Myriam and Ms. Vicky. They both wanted to give him a hug and he reluctantly accepted, turning so it was a backwards hug. When Ms. Marion came back from the bus he delivered the final bag. When I was asking him who he wanted to make cookies for, Ms. Vicky was actually the first he mentioned.

Then up to coding class. He had agreed in advance to let me sit out in the hall as long as the door was open, but Karen wanted it closed for the air conditioning so I just sat inside. At 3:35 he ran over to me and said “I’m doing a great job!” with a big smile on his face. I saw him show Karen a spit bubble, and she actually asked him to do it again. He said “Bubbles. Spit bubbles.”

Afterwards we went out on the playground. Carly showed up a few minutes later. He played with Nikolas and Sophia, first over in the kitchen area. Carly and I talked to their mom, Anastasia and learned that she and her husband are geophysicists for oil companies (although she’s not working now). August went on the big swing with Carly, and the other two joined in. They/we then played several rounds of hide and seek. At one point Sophia said she was doing a trick and did something. August wanted to do something, then came over to me and whispered “How do you do the crabwalk?” I reminded him, and he and Sophia
ended up crab walking across the ground.

We got going. Along the way he asked me “The sun is always giving us all this heat, so why is the Earth cooler than the sun?” We discussed that.

At home I got him cauliflower and potatoes and milk and he ate dinner outside. I was inside doing dishes and she brought him in for a break from outside. I was asking what he had done, and finally he said his guess was that he had hit her with his stick. He went out and apologized for that, but Carly said that wasn’t it – he had sprayed her with the hose.

Back inside she took him to his bath and I made lunches. In the bath he was repeating “Oliver Boliver Butt” from Too Many Daves. Downstairs he asked “What’s gooseberry? Is it a berry made out of goose, or a goose made out of berries?” He finally ate more of his cauliflower. I had added ketchup and that helped a bit. He asked “What’s ‘wellthen’?” Turns out he meant ‘well then’. Something I say, I think.

Carly went to take a shower. He had a cookie. Then asked “What happens when you die?” We discussed that, then the conversation meandered to Israelis and Palestinians and he said he wants to go back to Farin’s house. He asked me to sing Knickknack Paddy Whack. We ended up looking up words for it and he spotted the Barefoot Books video of it that they’d watched in class. There’s also a song they’ve listened to a few times, the telephone song, that he was humming a lot today and told me they had heard in morning meeting (he said he listened better today) and I should get.

Then made him some oatmeal. He ate about half of it, then told me “I’m ready to go to bed now.” Up on the bed, not wanting to go to the toilet yet, he said “I’m just going to hang out for awhile.” He asked about new rocket engines being tested. I had mentioned NASA was testing new things and we need to look those up sometime.

When he was brushed and flossed and ready for Carly he said “I’m gonna tell mama what I did when you were gone today. It’s going to be another silly story.” Yesterday he had told her that he had eaten orange peel at the kindergarten, then eaten the kindergarteners. He reused that story with me when he had sprayed Carly with the hose and didn’t want to tell me what he had done.

Left him 7:45. His story today was that he had snuck to the library and eaten all the books, then eaten the desks and chairs in the kindergarten. She called me up at 8. He wanted me to sing. I was exhausted and got ready to go to bed with him. I asked why he couldn’t get to sleep and he said it was because he was stuffy. We talked about what might happen to the universe, then I did some singing for him. But then we were just silent for a few minutes and he was asleep on the bed by 8:30. I read a little, then went to sleep as well.

Delivering cookies:

While I was gone: