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He was up at 7:10. I had just gone in the bathroom and when he came down he saw Chuck and Cherie but not me. A bit upset by that. I held him a few minutes, then he sat on the grey carpet. He spotted the shark, which Carly had hidden as part of the Duplo hiding yesterday but apparently they had forgotten about. Took a photo of him with it to send to Carly as the good morning photo. He then ate Cheerios and watched a Julius Jr. sitting on the couch between Chuck and Cherie.

When the episode was over we read Sneetches and Other Stories and Wild about Books. He wanted to go upstairs with me during my shower, so he watched a Magic School Bus episode while I showered. Chuck had made hash browns so we went down and ate some of those. I cut allergy pills to restock the supply for August, then he had more hashbrowns and watched the rest of the episode.

Chuck and Cherie went up to watch Promises. He drank some water drink and got talkative: “What makes things go up if there’s not something pulling them up?” (He meant there’s a force pulling things down, gravity, but not clearly an ‘up’ force). He helped me brainstorm and we discussed ways that things go up: buoyancy, lift, bounce, suction, wind. “Dada, I’m gonna make everything connected…in the whole universe.” “Dada, how do scientists study animals but not get hurt?” Discussed cameras, tags, trackers, darts, etc. “what about if you’re studying a bee?” We looked up images of beekeeper suits.

Took him up for his bath. Listened to Chemical Brothers and played with bubbles. Same game as yesterday where I couldn’t see his hands through the bubbles so I couldn’t wash his hands. He was kicking his legs around and said “I can push/puss legs”. He said it was something Oma did/said.

After his bath he said “I’ll tell your something: jelly is between a liquid and solid.” He then asked how that could be if there were gasses, liquids, and solids. We looked it up but I don’t think I found a satisfactory answer for him.

He banged on their door and they came out. Cherie asked if he missed them and he needed attention. He said “I like to make noises through doors and interrupt people.” They went back to watching the movie and I hid the Duplos upstairs for him several times.

We went downstairs and he wanted to play with the rubber stamps. I did his full name out of rubber stamps. When they were done with the movie and Cherie came down we asked about the legs thing. He said “Puss legs…like pussapotamus.” We decided it was probably from “Roll em roll em sugar baby.” And he misheard her when she sings it fast.

It had started to rain earlier, and now there was another solid downpour. I went out and put grocery bags in the book shelves to protect the books. Cherie and August played with the rubber stamps and had a debate about words. He said “Castedonia…that’s the best word in the cosmos.” Cherie claimed that ‘Oma’ was the best word. They then had a competition to see who could reach higher to prove their word was the best. But then he changed his mind: “The best word in the cosmos is…Amazon.” The thunder had started after the last downpour and he now had an invention: “most lightning-proof thing available.” He went upstairs to do laundry with Cherie, then downstairs they put away the rubber stamps.

I asked about books to take to back to the library: Z for Zeus “Oh, I loved that.” And he gave me a thumbs to keep “The Artist and Me”. A minute later he said “I just discovered the carpet is warm and we don’t even have a floor heater.” He was sitting in the spot I had been when looking at books.

He played with the instruments with Cherie, then they played with GarageBand and the keyboard for a long time. He showed her how to use the sampler and explained ‘trim’. They kept playing with different sounds on GarageBand. For lunch I got him peanut butter and apple and made a smoothie. He ate an they went back to GarageBand. He paused and came and cuddled with me while Cherie got food for lunch. They then played Musyc and then the Earth app. He was really into the polluting part: “I’m trying to pollute as much as I can.”

We got going a little after 2. We dropped off Chuck and Cherie at Ikea, then drove back up to the school. We got to Carly’s classroom right after 3. I was bring her the blue table they had painted. I didn’t want August to go in the classroom, so I asked a student who was coming out if she could take the table in to Carly. Carly was amused by that. Turns out the girl is an older sister of one of the boys in August’s class.

We then went over to the coding class. August was a bit shy after not seeing people for a couple weeks, so it took him a couple minutes to get comfortable. He wanted me to stay in the room. The teacher suggested he sit at the end of the table and he could see me through the door. I went out the door to show him, but he got immediately upset even though he could see me the whole time. I sat inside, reading Eugene Ionesco’s Exit the King, and he did fine. They colored and put stickers on a piece of paper – a sort of algorithm, then played on the iPads. He needed some help with the stickers, but didn’t call me over at all during the iPad time. Except when he wanted some apple.

We went to the library and he returned some books, then we went to the bathroom and Carly met us at the library. We went and picked Chuck and Cherie up at Ikea. They’d also walked over to the Tiv Taam.

When we got in the house Chuck and Cherie had already gone upstairs. August joked “I thought Oma and opa were here. Did they go on that flight?” I got some nutty noodles for him and me. He sat at the table and asked “Could we listen to that My Baby’s Coming Back to Me song?” Yesterday, when we got in the quiet house, he said we should put some music on. He ate a bowl of nutty noodles and a full cup of the smoothie from earlier. For each song that came on he would ask “What’s this song about?”: “This Year”, “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?”, “Let’s Get This Over With”, “Hurt”. We read a Bob Book, The Old Truck. I started to read the one called Before and After but August suggested we play the game of the same name.

We played that and had a good story going. Cherie and Carly came downstairs. He then got the idea of playing with the vegetable steamer and pouring water through that. We did that, with the water going in the salad pinned. Still made a good mess of the floor though. He then did a pillow pile and had me hiding Duplos and things in it. After several rounds I was getting tired of that so suggested that I hide the Duplo eggs. Did that, then suggested it was reading time, at 7:30. I hid the Paddington book in the pillow pile and after he found it Carly read it to him. As they read it Carly asked “Strawberry tart…could you make me one of those?” He replied “I don’t have that power.” Carly was incredulous: “All your powers and you don’t have the power to make a strawberry tart?” I think he decided he could.

Carly said something about getting a stomach ache from too many treats, and he said “We’re in magic land! You don’t get stomach aches!” She took him upstairs and I took up Cheerios. He heard Cherie talking about her blister, and when he got to see it he was excited: “Oh goody, oh goody.” And he got his treasure baskets that Chuck and Cherie had gotten him at Ikea. He liked the ideas of those.

Carly was with him for awhile, then I went up from 8:25 to 8:55. Sang “Over You” “ABC Song” “Big Number Song” “Barricade” – songs I haven’t sung for a long time. He was tired but not gong to sleep. He told me “Yeah. My choice is mama.” We switched and he was asleep soon after 9.

He was up a little before 7. I walked him down and he slouched around on the rug. He climbed up behind Cherie on the couch and talked to her and played with her hair. Sent a drawing message to Carly. I made him oatmeal and mango. As he got up at the table he asked “What are your lips for besides talking?”

I took a shower and we got ready and left the house at 8:20. We found the yoga studio in Ra’anana, just a block west of the Skoda dealership and dropped Cherie off for a class. Chuck, August, and I then drove to try to find the ‘Restored Garbage Mountain’ on Google Maps. Drove down some dirt roads but didn’t see anything that looked tall enough.

We continued on to Ra’anana Park instead. A short but nice visit there. August wanted to go over to the music area. I said we’d stop and show Opa our favorite sculpture. He asked “Favorite sculpture in the universe?” I said no, in Ra’anana Park. He wasn’t impressed and said “You get a pffft for that.” ‘pffft’ being the noise with his lips that he always makes when he isn’t happy about something. We stopped at the zigzag sculpture and August still enjoyed it, then we spotted the tractors and other farm equipment displays. He drove a tractor and said it was also a juice machine: “I do fruits and veggies and mixes.” When I ordered a juice he would pull a lever and then a hand would reach out and hand me the juice.

We went to the music area and turned the spinning one and played with a couple others. We then walked back and used the bathroom. The back part of the zoo was open and we went in there for the first time: martens, chipmunks, porcupine, pelican, storks, jungle cat, peacocks, and others. August noted that the birds were trapped in the cages.

We left right at 10:30 and went and picked up Cherie. Timing was perfect. We then drove on to Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv. Got walking at 11:15. We took the north side of the river downstream, then the south side on the way back.

We had a nice walk down, stopping to look at some graffiti along the way. August was talking and singing the whole way. He made up one song and asked if I liked it, then requested that I record his next song.

We got down to the boardwalk area and stopped at Greg Cafe, where August and I ate the day before his birthday, at 12:30. August and I shared the sweet potato ravioli and he got the strawberry and mango smoothie with yoghurt – I think the best smoothie we’ve had. And I got the sahlab – a drink made from hot orchid cream, with coconut, pistachios, and cinnamon on top. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salep?wprov=sfti1

August and I headed across to the sand area while they waited for the check. Got some sunscreen on us and proceeded to play in the sand for a long time. There was a big pile of sand that August started by attacking, then he was burying his feet and legs. Then he asked me to do it. And again. And again. And again. Probably 20 or 30 times total. Sometimes with him lying on his stomach. He really liked the feeling of it and the coziness of the warm sand. While I was sort of on my hands and knees he burrowed under me and said it was his nest in the sand. Meanwhile, Cherie and Chuck relaxed on a bench and Chuck walked the boardwalk a bit. We also got to watch a lot of planes taking off from the airport. Some modern planes, but then also a lot of smaller planes that looked like vintage military planes. Or maybe just trainers.

On the walk back we stopped at a few playgrounds: the first was the big one right by the waterfront, where we had not played the last time. He ran off and did a walking course, then ran to the other end where there was a pirate ship that rocks. We sailed and dug up treasure. Then up on the big play structure. He wanted me to follow. At one point I had to take the backpack off and push it ahead of me through a climbing tube. August went on without me and let me struggle. He then went down the big slide, then I did.

The second was a small one where he just wanted to walk on one of the rolling things.

And the third was a playground we had played on before when we walked across to the south side of the river. He was trying to climb a plastic structure that looked like tree routes. He was talking about how he was trying to choose his route. Earlier we had investigated and discussed the big climbing wall on the other side of the river.

We also saw a lot of different forms of transporation; sail boats, row boats, roller blades, etc. I asked what sort of thing he’d like to learn and he said something like “I can basically make mama nervous with just about anything”.

We stopped at the bathroom and August and I went and paid for the parking, then we were driving at 4:35. He asked again where the bubble came from for the Big Bang. We dropped Chuck and Cherie off at Tiv Taam to get milk and a few other things. They then walked home. We took advantage of having the car to ourselves and listened to “Go” a couple times. He pointed out what part of the song was his favorite. Earlier, the Eels song “Hey Man” came on and August was excited because it was the mystery song he had been humming before we left the house.

When we got home and he saw Carly outside he said “Can you teach me what you taught your students?” When Chuck and Cherie came in the door her asked “Did you have a good time at the store?” They all ate dinner outside (August ate a lot of nutty noodles and broccoli and cauliflower. When I asked “Do you want broccoki and cauliflower?” He replied “Oh yeah” I heard him ask Carly “Can you teach me about diagrams?” He had asked me on our walk about diagrams.

Carly hid the eggs inside, but then they spent a lot of time outside, with her doing the flowers and plants. They came in he found the Duplo eggs, then she hid them again. Earlier, when I was upstairs, another one of the squishy balls had burst. This time more dramatically, luckily on the tile floor.

He found the eggs, then she took them upstairs to hide. While he waited on the couch with me he said “Wait, where’s that bear that I got at that hospital?” Earlier in the day he had also been talking about the pipe heating system in Korea and how we could see all the pipes under the sink. They were having a good time upstairs and eventually she got him ready for bed. I came up and said goodnight and he was asleep at 8:30.

We were up before 7:30. Downstairs, he and Carly played with the rubber stamps. Chuck and Cherie were then both down. August came over and curled up next to me. He was then being a hedgehog and having me kiss his head and get poked. He and Chuck ended up talking about Bedouins, then camels. August said he doesn’t want a camel. Cherie asked what he thought camels ate and he joked “Coffee containers! That’s what they eat!”

Cherie showed him the carrot bits that they were growing in water. Two of the three seemed to be growing. On his own he said he wanted a beach day. Carly made him oatmeal and he ate outside. They came in and August wanted Cherie to hide Duplo eggs. She hid them outside, then they came and they went upstairs and hid them upstairs. I went and took a shower.

When I came down Chuck was on the floor with August and they had been doing dot painting: galaxy, power lines, generator. Carly and I tried to take him upstairs for a bath but he got really upset. He hit the mirror with his hand, then when he rolled on the floor he bonked his head. I sat with him and got him calmed down and gave him a bath. He had lots of bubbles time. He tried to wash his own face by putting bubbles on it but the bubbles were tickling him and he was laughing.

Downstairs he played around with Carly on the couch and we did the William Tell overture thing. They went upstairs so Carly could change. Carly said she’d change into an elephant: “You can’t be an elephant. You’re not in a circus!”

Back downstairs he was balancing on one foot while holding on to the chair and putting his other foot high in the air. He ate some parmesan, then had nutty noodles. And more nutty noodles. He ate a ton.

He played by himself over by the rubber stamps. There was a cardboard roll from something and he used it as a rubber stanp. He then filled it with the wooden rubber stamps and was seeing how high he could pull it up before the tower of rubber stamps would fall down.

He wanted Duplo eggs hidden outside, so while I did that I heard them learning about atoms. After he found the eggs it was Chuck’s turn to hide them.

Carly and I got ready and left at 12:05. We told August goodbye. He reacted as expected. He got a good grip on the strap to my bag. We walked up to Malkin in town and each had a coffee drink. I worked on Hebrew and read. We then ordered the green shakshuka and the green juice (celery, cucumber, apple, and ginger).

The post office was busy on our way up, and after we left Malkin Carly got a number and we waited for awhile before she gave up. We walked home and were here at 2:35.

Chuck and August were on the swing doing patterns wth the kaleidoscope cards. He was glad to see us, but not in a hurry to leave Opa. When we had left he had been upset for about 15 minutes, banging on the door and trying to leave the gate and pacing around the yard and trying to get his bike to follow up. Eventually he asked “What if they don’t come back?” When he calmed down he ate ice cream. All the ice cream. “I just eated ice cream. Without any healthy things…two cups of it.” They cleaned under couch (started with looking for a lego) and found the missing wooden frog. And the missing Lego. They built with Duplos and he and Chuck made animal cages or something of the sort.

Inside we talked about how much fun he had had with them and Carly suggested being babysat by the Kerns. He said “But the question is, do they have treats?” He wanted to do kaleidoscope cards on the swing again and wanted it to be Oma with him. So they played on the swing and I think also did a piggy back. And they were singing children’s songs that she knows.

Calry and Cherie walked to Holly’s house to pick up a couple of little tables for Carly’s classroom. He and I sat on the floor and he said he wanted attention. I asked “What kind of attention?” He said “Talking attention. I love that kind of attention.” So we were just sitting there, talking, when they got back a few minutes ago. He did kaleidoscope cards with Carly for a minute, then was hungry and wanted peanut butter and apples; “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Carly and Cherie then drove to the mall to get flowers for Holly. August ate a whole apple with peanut butter and then spoonfuls of peanut butter. 

We made a list of things he wants to learn from Bat Chen for when he wants to play with other kids. Things like “Do you want to play?” He had me cut up another apple and ate another slice and had more spoonfuls. He made a nice mess of the knife and spoon with peanut butter.

He went and played with the Duplos, breaking all the bonds in his “storage area” (between his legs) and singing a “All bonds need to be broken” song. He went and noticed that the watermelon was softer in the experiment.

We discussed the lights I can and can’t change, making a whole tour of the house with him asking me if I could reach that light or that light. We talked about how all the mold probably died in our grape mold experiment and he acted out being the mold dying. He played more with the peanut butter “More zookeepers than there are in the universe…they’re jumping around and stuff.”

We then played the Before and After game we got from my parents. He didn’t care about the rules, and made a big story with them. He went to the bathroom and told me “But don’t say ‘Would you like to reconsider?’” – something that Carly says to him when he says he is done.

He and Carly learned about Earth worms, then black holes, white holes, and the Big Bang. He pointed to his stomach: “Do you want to look through this green light? If you looked through this green light you can see all the things the big bang maked-ed.” Speaking of the Big Bang, he asked “Now wait, where did that bubble come from?…everything comes from something.”

They went out and did some spray painting of one of the little tables she got. I discussed plans for the next couple of days with Chuck and Cherie. They came in and he went to the bathroom and Carly washed her hands. He realized she hadn’t used soap on his hands so he washed his hands in the kitchen sink. He saw Chuck and Cherie playing cribbage and said he had played that game with Oma earlier. It had a winner “but that’s okay cuz I winned-ed”. He whispered the end of it. He watched them play and gave away Cherie’s cards. Chuck wanted to out his shirt on but August said “I survived the cold.” Chuck called him “one tough cookie” and August liked that phrase. He watched two full games of cribbage- Chuck won the first, Cherie the second. At one point he took some Oma hairs outside and left them for the birds – they had talked earlier about how birds like to use things like that for ther nests.

At some point the rest of us all ate dinner, kind of at our own times. August didn’t really have much in the evening after his apple and peanut butter consumption.

He and I then read about gears and cams and cranks in the How Things Work book. He was really into it. We read They Saw a Cat, then the first story in the Peppa Pig collection.

We took him up at 7:50 and I left them at 8:05. He wasn’t calming down though so I went up at 8:35. We sang songs – his favorite today was “Animal Life” and he requested it a couple times. Haven’t sung it recently. He said”Let’s not tell mama I was talking a lot.” At one point I talked about how tomorrow we were going to take Oma and Opa on a Dada and Zinnie adventure. That got his attention and his eyes lit up: “A big dada Zinnie adventure?” He was getting quite tired and about ready to sleep, but needed to go to the bathroom. He went and did that, then I switched with Carly and she put him to sleep.I left them at 9:20. I still heard them at 9:30, but I think he was asleep soon after that.

We were all up about 7:30. We stayed up in the room until close to 9. He watched one Max and Ruby, then a lot of Julius Jr. I updated the blog and read and got him his water and dried Cheerios. He climbed up on the bed and looked out the window and said that everything looked smaller. He made a machine that made things bigger. When we went downstairs he asked “What does snow taste like?” He wanted to find Carly and had me open the sliding door and he spotted Carly sitting outside. He and Carly played with the globe and he said he was bigger than the world and had a lot of parts: “If you read the dictionary you’ll learn from me.”

They then played with Duplos and Carly mentioned that he had woken up a lot last night. I asked him why he didn’t sleep well last night and he said he heard noise downstairs. We were skeptical that he heard any noise and he joked “Maybe David was chewing gum again in our house, right?” “He’s putting it on our pictures, and my kitchen, and the flowers outside!” He said there was no blue gum though. We discussed eye colors and he said my eyes were “boring”. He went and inspected Cherie’s eyes, then went to Carly. I went to take a shower. He showed Cherie GroRecycling, then I took him up for his bath. Washed his hair and he insisted I blow dry it. I blow dried it and brushed it in the bedroom. He asked Cherie if he could have one of the nut treats. She let him have two to help him recover from the bath. He said “Warning, warning. Not mama food.”

We went downstairs, and a bit later Chuck was teaching him about ‘suggestions’. August caught on and offered Chuck suggestions: “I suggest you wear that shirt every other day.” “I suggest you eat cereal twice a day.” August then wanted to play with the alien, so we had a mystery to solve. Today we talked about how solving mysteries is more than just finding clues, but also finding things that aren’t clues – that is, ruling things out. He found the alien in the toy box, then took the time machine to dinosaur times.

We left at 11:25, driving to Tira to see the Saturday market. August joked about Cherie’s fat, and she pointed out he had fat on his body too. He responded “What do you mean? I don’t have any nushy gooshie…I’m not as old as you!” He ate more of the snack mix we had bought before our Jordan trip. It seemed like there were more and more peanuts and Cherie joked that they were reproducing. But August decided “Well, peanuts can’t make babies so I guess we’re gonna run out.”

It’s only about 10 kilometers and 20 minutes to Tira. But you have to drive south, then loop back around to the north as there’s only one paved road into the Arab town. As we got close to town traffic stopped. So we parked at the edge of the road and walked. We hadn’t brought a stroller so I carried August most of the time.

He was singing the Smithereens song “Top of the Pops” on his own as we walked. He’s asked about what the song is about a couple times. When I was getting tired he said he was a generator that made every kind of power. I said I operated on pizza, coffee, and tea power, so then he was generating pizza.

We couldn’t find the market and wandered through town. Sort of headed towards a green area on the map, then east to a roundabout. Found a shawarma place and ate lunch there, getting shawarma pita sandwiches. August liked the meat and ate the chickpeas from the plate of hummus. I got him an orange juice. I asked the guy at the counter where the market was and it turned out we had basicallly walked by it early in our mile+ walk into town.

Chuck and Cherie had decided to walk home from there. So we walked west together for a bit, then Google Maps took them north and we headed west and south.

We found the market and wandered around. Kind of a normal household goods market, but still interesting. And with a couple of food places. August stopped to play with bath toys and a spinning sea monster toy at one place, then was playing along to some super music (a song called “Bababa”) at a CD stand. Finally, Carly stopped to get a shrak bread sandwich to take back. August watched the woman baking the bread and in particular the bubbles forming. August then saw the sample sandwiches and the one made with Nutella. I could sense what he want, although he hadn’t asked yet. When I said we’d get one sometime in the future but that for now we had pie and ice cream at home he was disappointed.

As we headed out we saw a little girl crying. I then saw the mom looking at the girl’s foot and I said “Oh, she hurt her foot.” August was excited and said it was the first time we knew why a kid was crying. Not entirely true, as we’ve seen kids get hurt and cry, but he was on to something; Usually we don’t know and he wants us to speculate on why the kid is crying.

On the way to the car he was chanting “pizza power generator” so I chanted with him. We got driving at 2:10. We listened to “Top of the Pops” twice, then “Go”. We were home at 2:35.

Carly was making watermelon juice and he wanted a water and watermelon chunk experiment. They put chunks of water melon in water in a plastic container to see what happens. They got out the number line and did some math.

I learned about airwander.com and Carly and I discussed possible stopovers on future summer travel. Alas, too late for this year. August got the musical instruments out, but then found the stick to the frog instrument, but no frog. It was a mystery. We searched some more downstairs, then he and I went upstairs to investigate in the drawers. No luck. But he did find the squishy balls from Gramma and Grampa and the smiley face he bought at the park. He threw them down the stairs.

Carly started hiding eggs for him outside. Carly’s started correcting him on verb conjugations of irregular verbs, as sometimes he seems receptive. Not this time: He said “I seed you hide it.” “Can you say ‘saw’?” “No. Cuz that’s not the word I use.”

I had told him earlier that “Top of the Pops” was the first Smithereens song I had heard, and it was as a video. I found a video for it on YouTube (although I’m not sure it is the correct one) and tried to show him. He was intrigued, but eggs being hidden was more intriguing.

She hid eggs eggs for him twice. I helped him find eggs. We went in and he requested water drink. We made it and he drank it outside. He went in to the bathroom, and they ended up discussing sukkot and why some people don’t have money. When I came around he switched to me getting upsidedownia. One of the cures involved eating rocks. I said that rocks were hard, and he made chewable rocks: “Apsacapsabillia” – rocks that are softer than water. He had a very specific pronunciation for it, and taught it to me until I had it down.

Chuck and Cherie made it back. They had stopped at Tiv Taam and brought me a bottle of port.

August and I did rubber stamps and he had me spell ‘upsidedownia’ and something else. He said he wants the teachers and kids at school to call him August, but he was indifferent to learning how to spell his name.

We then read the rest of The 13-Story Treehouse. Chuck and Cherie started dinner time. I got August a dish of the cheesy noodles and cabbage and carrots. Cherie brought him a bowl of broccoli and cauliflower. He ended up eating a bunch of veggies – more than the pasta. Chuck got him pie and ice cream, then played a little game with August, circling the table while he waited for August to sit down. As he was eating, August pointed to a berry and asked Chuck “Are you gonna tell me that has my name on it?” Earlier in the day when August was eating Cheerios Chuck was telling him which Cheerio had his name on it.

Inside, Carly started some cleanup. August said we had “The mystery of the missing lowercase Z” as that letter was missing from the rubber stamp set earlier. He helped Carly roll up the number line. The splat balls are gettin
g old and seem to be dissolving. He poked one on the top of the pokey plant and it started leaking. We took it outside and he squirted most of the water out of it.

Carly took him for a walk to do recycling and they went to the park for a little bit. He told me he did the shaky thing and went on the spiderweb swing. He told Carly “The password for the locker thing is 14 14 14.” They were back at 7:45.

He ran in and told me I had a consequence for reading the words “stupid” and “idiot” to him in The 13-Story Treehouse. He has picked up on the words and started using them with Carly. He said my consequence was that I couldn’t have any work time or use my iPad for the rest of the evening. Carly read Thump, Quack, Moo to him, then parts of Z for Zeus.

I took him upstairs at 8:20. His mind was really racing and he was doing a lot of talking: “thread power” “smelling generator”. He said he wanted to sleep with me in the bed, but then changed his mind and wanted to be on the floor. We called Carly up to say goodnight, and he sad he changed his mind and wanted to go to sleep with her. We gave it a try though. He said I could sing 3 songs. He was very nearly asleep and couldn’t keep his eyes open. He got sad and I said I’d go get mama. He said “Thank you”. She came up and I still lay next to him and he fell asleep after a couple minutes, about 8:55.

We were up just after 7. He was wanting me to steal Carly’s phone and then a tissue while in bed. Downstairs he ate Cheerios on the couch, then Cherie read Cam Jansen and the Lion Lunch Mystery. I let him watch Julius Jr. then it froze. He got sad and I let him watch on iPad. I went and took a shower. As I was finishing up my shower he wanted to come in and use the bathroom. While he was on the toilet I asked why he had to use this toilet and couldn’t go downstairs. He said the sink was plugged with gum. I asked who had been chewing gum in our house and he said “It was David (Dah-veed), the neighbor…He’s been doing it at night when we’re asleep…he should have a consequence.”

He discovered he could make mouth bubbles. In his bath he made bubbles and chanted “agitate, agitate, agitate, agitate…”

As we finished with his bath, Carly and Cherie left to go to the big Tiv Taam and Ace. Chuck had left a bit earlier and was planning to meet them at Ikea. While they were gone I hid eggs outside, then inisde. He tried his balance bike for a minute. He was hungry and wanted oatmeal. He told me to make it just like mama does. I said I was, but then he told me that mama makes it in a big bowl, then pours it into a Zinnie bowl. I just had it in a Zinnie bowl. I covered it with another bowl, but he hypothesized that there’d be too much pressure and oatmeal would still spill out. His hypothesis proved correct, although not much actually spilled out.

While I was making the mango part he brought over the meditation bells that Cherie brought and was using them as a pulley on his fingers. Right as I was telling him to take them over a rug he dropped them on the hard floor. May have been the moment that led to our later troubles, although it was 10am, so shouldn’t have been a big deal…

He then started asking questions: “A person doesn’t have arms. How do they do their jobs and stuff?” He then asked about people that didn’t have arms or legs and we talked about quadriplegics and services for people with handicaps. He also asked how prosthetics could work.

I realized that everyone else was gone so we could listen to our loud music. He chose the Chemical Brothers, and asked me to pick him up so we could have a dance party. Earlier, Carly had written ‘now’ on the blackboard and he had copied it. He now erased the ‘n’ and changed it to ‘wow’. He showed me the structure they had made out of Duplos, then took it all apart and we made a big block that was the layers of ground.

As we finished that up, Carly, Chuck, and Cherie got home. Ikea had been closed due to Pesach/Passover. I went up to rest for a bit, and they made watermelon juice.

I found out yesterday evening that Thursday had actually been Palestinian Children’s Day. When we had celebrated Palestinian Mother’s Day we had talked about how there was also a Children’s Day. So I told him that today was Palestinian Children’s Day. I was going to take him out to pizza and then to a park. He chose Ra’anana Park. He wasn’t happy about Carly staying home and asked, we’re not sure why, “Are you going to talk while you work?…You, know, say words with your mouth?”

They typed words on her computer and I got ready. They were robots talking to each other, then turned into robot pirates.

So August and I got going about 12:20. We drove into town but VIPizza was closed. We headed south on 4 and went to the mall. We went inside and Pizza Hut was also closed, although almost all of the other eating places were open. He wanted to play in the indoor play area though. No one else around. So we started playing in there. After awhile two girls came and one of them pretended to be a cat and the other, the older one, rode the squirrel thing and chased August. He had a lot of fun with that, even as he was a little scared and would hide on me. More and more kids showed up. He saw other kids doing forward rolls, so started doing them himself. We then worked on a head stand. He said he knew what that was: “I seed it in that christmas book…You know, that What Do You Do with h an Idea? book.” He also did the crab walk.

We were there for the busy time, then the crowds started to dissipate. We played attack squirrel ourselves now, and when other kids were playing with the squirrel he was pretending to be the squirrel (getting squished, etc.) when someone else was on it.

We took a break and he lay on the edge and rested, then we had a snack. It emptied out and once again we were the only ones. Played more attack squirrel. He kept asking what else he could do there, and I taught him the standing long jump and he practiced that, and we did more head stands.

We went to the bathroom at 2:30. He ripped off toilet paper on his own. I told him not to rip off more. He tried to convince me to let him rip more: “But when you practice something more you get better at it. Can I practice more?”

We went outside and he wanted to play in the outside play area, which was busy with kids. We played on the plane and pretended to fly to Cyprus, Morocco, South America, and San Carlos. There was a girl and a boy playing on the plane with us. The girl had colors waved into her hair and he was intrigued by that. He then went over on the train with another girl. She showed him her lemur stuffed animal. I asked, in Hebrew, what it was. she went and talked to her mom and came back and told me the Hebrew word for lemur.

Finally, after 3 hours of playing at the mall, he was ready to head home. He hadn’t shown interest in getting other food, and was fine that we never made it to Ra’anana Park.

We came home and I made a banana peanut butter chocolate smoothie. What he’d actually wanted last time I’d made a mango strawberry one. Carly said “This is really good.” He said “Yes. I agree with that mama.” She ended up drinking too much and it gave her a stomach ache. For something he said “I did. But I can try to do it again though.”

Carly went to Younes to get some of the salads and tamboon bread. August was in the bathroom and he was being photons. He could see all the colors. We talked about x-rays and utraviolet and infrared. He asked where the poop was before it came out of your body, so we looked it up in the anatomy app. We also looked up what the gallbladder and kidney do.

He noticed how the front axle tilts on his tractor, so we talked about why that is and then made a bumpy road for the tractor. Carly got home.

Cherie said we won’t starve tonight. He replied “What do you mean? We don’t ever starve at night.” He and I took the light up ball upstairs and played with it in the dark. Then did more road for the tractor. Carly went and lay down, then came down after awhile. August was being sick as well: “I’m sick cuz I tried-ed the smoothie.” He said he was copying her because “I’m the same except I don’t have any nursings.”

We all ate dinner outside. Carly went back upstairs for awhile. He wanted to follow but I bribed him to stay down with Julius Jr. He hadn’t eaten dinner (full on smoothie) but ate a stick of cucumber that Chuck gave him. He and I then read Thump, Quack, Moo. Carly came down and they had a little love competition. She then taught him a country finding game on the globe using hot/cold.

The three of us went for a little walk, about 30 minutes. Came back to find a stereo sitting up on the ledge outside our kitchen windows, blaring music into our kitchen. A gift from the neighbor. I reached out and turned down the volume. Got it all on video. The neighbor came out. Videotaped the entire confrontation. Chuck came out and talked to him as well. He tried to come in through our gate, which was locked. He then wanted Chuck to come over to his yard to discuss the situation. Anyway, we talked to the landlord. Neighbor is moving out at the end of the month. Really should have called the police, but the landlord was against it.

Carly had taken August upstairs, then had him watchin
g Julius Jr. He seemed pretty unaware of what had happened, thankfully.

Cherie had made a mystery berry pie (the frozen mixed berries they have at the store) and we ate pie and ice cream. As he ate he made yummy noises to the tune of “Rocket Man”. When he was done he said “I’m full of pie and ice cream”. We took him up, got him ready, and he was asleep by 8:40.

We were all slow to get up after 7. Downstairs I got him his vitamins and allergy medicine and he asked me about bonds and played with the Duplos and Lego chain, humming. He and Carly then did school. They made the word ‘Amazon’ out of Duplos, there she used the globe to show him the river on it. She made him oatmeal and he made that, then he and I did more globe study: hemispheres, the time zone thing, degrees of latitude. He then wanted Piano Maestro so we set up the keyboard and he watched me play Piano Maestro. He then ate some of the potato and eggs that Chuck had made for him. Carly was grading, but he wanted her to teach her more. They did more globe learning and he wanted to learn how to spell words like ‘globe’. He asked why we have silent letters like ‘k’.

He played Coral Reef, then we did Robot Lab together. I went up and took a shower. I heard him ask Carly “How do you get the honey IF the bees sting you?” And he and Cherie discussed the difference between Omazon versus Amazon. Cherie used the brush from Chuck to successfully brush his hair.

They were headed to Jaffa and I was going to stay home and work on the big-picture analysis of the project for Sabeel. He was a little concerned about not having me sitting next to him in the car, but of course it went really well.

They left at 10:40. They went to the Jaffa Market and found a cool metalworks shop, then walked the back streets and hills of Jaffa and found an artist’s shop called Studio of Julien Roux. They went someplace for lunc hand had chicken kebabs and salad for lunch. They used the stroller on their walks. They stopped to get coffee, but realized they didn’t have the ipad for August and he wanted something to do. The shop was being slow to take their order so they left. Finally, they found a playground and played with a feather.

They were back after 3:30. We played duplos, then he destroyed the whole thing and broke all the bonds. He talked about a “Funky monkey wrench” and where he had heard of that “Oh, I remember. (whispers) Julius Jr.”

Outside Carly hid the eggs for him. He told her she wasn’t supposed to give hints, even if he asked for them. He tried out his balance bike, and he suggested I take the big bike out for a ride so I did that.

He and I then went out for a little walk at 5:20. On the way towards Vatikim I smelled barbecue, but he said he had smelled a mint smell. We got to the park over ther at 5:30. There was a barking dog and August had a potion that kept the dog away from us. Played on one of the rocking things and down the slide a few times. We headed home and August smelled the barbecue this time. He was excited by the smells, and at the house he said he smelled cauliflower and was excited by that as well.

We were home at 5:50. He went in and washed his hands and then came right out to the table and we ate the yummy baked pasta and cheese and vegetables they had made. August asked for more and more cabbage. Chuck asked him “What do you think of it?” August said “Opa’s making fun of me.” August then said he didn’t like being called a rugrat, but he wanted Carly to tell Opa not to call him that. Carly asked if he could tell him himself (he was right there0. August: “No. Cuz he’ll eat me.” And “I need more cabbage.”

The neighbor had come home from work while we were on our walk. As we were sitting outside I got a complaint. Before 6pm. He proceeded to complain that we had woken him up. He invited me down for coffee, but kept insulting me and there was no way I was going down.

Chuck and Cherie walked over to the mall again. August said he was still hungry and Carly made pita and peanut butter for him and he ate it all. Serious eating. We read 5 chapters of The 13-Story Treehouse on the ipad. Carly took him up and Chuck and Cherie were back just as he was going to bed. He was asleep soon after 8.

We were all up around 7. I put stuff away upstairs and August and Cherie were doing a big pretend bubble bath that lasted a long, long time – the bubbles covered every place August knew, then all the countries, then the whole universe. August then ate his oatmeal and mango that Carly made. Cherie went upstairs and August came over to me and played Robot Lab on my iPad. When Carly came down he went to her and they ended up reading the 52-Story Treehouse. August was acting out having all the things like a really strong hair dryer that blew all our hair off. He said he had snake repellent for the snakes and ladders game. For each thing “I have that too!”

I took a shower, then remembered skyping with my parents. We skyped with them and August did much better. He spent a lot of time looking at himself in the video, making faces and pulling down his eyelids. My mom taught him the words ‘parallel’ and ‘perpendicular’ after he showed them that he knew what ‘diagonal’ meant by walking diagonally on the floor tiles. I drew them on the chalkboard, then August was really thinking about it, drawing parallel and perpendicular lines.

After he went to the bathroom we said goodbye. He then tasted chalk and said it was yummy, then tried dumping out all the Duplos.

Cherie then took him outside and they painted Easter eggs. He had a lot of fun. But he liked finding the Easter eggs even better. She hid them outside and he was so excited to go find them. After two or three times of finding the eggs I asked if he wanted a smoothie. He said “Ready to find. So no time for smoothie.”

Eventually he agreed to a smoothie and was playing with the honey container while I made it. Chuck told him he should put it on the counter and August called out “Opa’s telling me what to do!” It was a mango and strawberry smoothie with orange juice and he really liked it: “I love it. I love it more than you love me.”

Cherie was then making apple crisp. August was going to have a hard time waiting. I took him up for his bath. He sat in the bath and played with bubbles for a long time: “I’m gonna attack. I’m gonna make a war.” Admiring all of his bubbles, he whispered “Holy mackerel”. But then he made a game of scooping them out of the bath and said “I hate bubbles.” That was why he was taking them out of the bath.

We finally finished his bath and went downstairs. For lunch he ate rice, peanut butter, apples, meatballs. And Cherie let him try the apple crisp.

We packed up and headed to Poleg Beach. We got to the busy beach at 2:30. It was windy and warm, and there were tons of kite surfers out on the water. I counted more than 50. We plopped down in a spot and August immediately got to paying in the sand. I went for a walk down to the stream area and where most of the kite surfers were, then came back. He and Carly had been playing in the sand. He was saying “Holy mackerel” a lot and asked what “originally” means.

I then took over playing with him for awhile so Carly could read. We were pirates burying treasure, then sailing away, then coming back later to retrieve our treasure. One time he said it had been replaced by garbage and that Opa had stolen the treasure. He wanted to make Opa walk the plank. He was talking like a pirate and has a good pirate voice. We were pretending that Carly couldn’t know about our treasure, and when I was afraid I’d accidentally said “treasure” so she could hear he covered by telling her I’d just said “Tr”. So after that we were just calling it ‘tr’.

He loved the sand so much he didn’t want to go in the water at all or for a walk. I waded in the water and roamed the beach a little as Carly started playing with him again.

We left the beach at 4:20. He was eating Cherie’s snack mix and was eating all of it. I tried some and it is definitely spicy. I told him if he liked that he should be able to eat anything that I eat that is spicy. We stopped at the strawberry stand and Carly got two packs of strawberries. Took exact change so they couldn’t try to talk her into getting 4.

Chuck and Cherie went to the mall to look for food, and Carly went to school. I hid eggs for August. We did several rounds. Carly was back at 5:40. She had brought the globe from her classroom: “Mama gotted me a globe from her classroom. Wait, how can she teach her students?” He and Carly looked at it and he marveled at the size: “We go everywhere and it’s very big.”

Carly hid the eggs outside. With me I had taught him ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ as hints to find an egg. He asked Carly to do it, but he changed it all on his own, telling her that a high noise (and raising his hand) would mean he was getting close, and a low noise meant getting farther away.

He had two hilarious cartoon moves today: When we were skyping and he had to go to the bathroom he picked a leg way up in the air, perpendicular to the ground, paused, then swung it towards the bathroom and started running to the bathroom. Now, when Carly was doing the high and low thing he did a funny lunge to see if she’d get higher or lower.

They went outside and he picked a couple carrots and ate them. And a third. She asked if he wanted another and he said “Well, I could deal with another carrot, of course.”

Cherie and Chuck had brought back what they thought was sausage from the store, but it turned out to be some sort of interesting fake sausage. We ate dinner, and August said “Just so you know, the sausage thing that isn’t sausage is very good.”

He went to the bathroom and was in total music mode. Then Cassie and Colin called on Skype while we were starting to eat the apple crisp. Had a long skype call with them. August was impressed with how much apple crips there was: “With all these people eating it it still isn’t gone.” He was then grabbing at Chuck or Cherie’s leg and was asked “What do you want out of this leg?” August replied “Your BLOOD!” We were done skyping at 7:25.

I went upstairs for a bit and Derek called on Skype. I went down, and we took August up to bed. we had a good session of mosquito killing. I left them at 8:35. He wasn’t going to sleep though and gave Carly a “real” so she would go get me. I went up and we read one chapter of The 52-Story Treehouse. He seemed sleepy, so I turned off the lights and sang a few songs. He started singing along to “Imaginary Bars”. Carly took a shower, then came back in. I left them about 9:10. 

He was up at 6:40, right after Carly closed the door. We all got ready to go and were driving at 7:40. We read the Cars book and a few chapters of Hilo 3 in the car. Otherwise, he was rather obsessed with treats.

Got to Sabeel in north Jerusalem just after 9. They all went in to meet Omar and stayed for 10 minutes or so. We were talking about getting the families together sometime and Omar joked that his daughter could teach August how to throw stones. Funniest thing I’ve heard.

Omar and I met for about a half hour, developing a plan for continuing the project we’re working on. Carly, Cherie, Chuck, and August drove down and parked near the Educational Bookshop and had an early lunch, getting sandwiches there. They bought an activity book for August, with mazes, word searches, etc. in it and borrowed a pencil. August caught on to the activities pretty quickly and was soon doing mazes on his own. Carly ordered a sandwich for me. When I was done I took a bus down there and met them. I bought a couple books on learning Arabic (level 1 and a phrasebook) and a copy of The Way to the Spring for Chuck and Cherie.

We then walked over to the Garden Tomb, one site that some claim is the possible location of Jesus’s crucification and tomb. I sat and ate my sandwich, then walked around and caught up with them. I spotted them down below and called to them. When I came down to where they were he was saying “Do you have the feeling someone’s watching us?”

We first walked towards the Temple Mount. Omar had told us it opened at 12:30 to 1:30, and so had something I had read online. We found out that you enter over by the Western Wall and it was open an hour later – they had switched to the summer hours – so we walked back towards the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We stopped at a bathroom at 12:30 then kept walking. We first went to a 4th century Greek Orthodox Church. We took a quick look inside, then sat on a bench outside. I went back and looked in as they were chanting and the others came over to listen. I held August, and a priest gave August a little charm thing.

We then found the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Busy at the entrance, so Carly stayed out to people watch and read. When August realized Carly wasn’t with us he wanted to go back out to her. We went out, but then I convinced him to go back inside. We walked around, first up to the Calvary Chapel, then around the much emptier parts of the church, until we ended up by the tomb of Jesus. Did not, of course, join the huge line of pilgrims waiting to go in. Instead, we talked a bit about domes. Then found out that Chuck and Cherie were already back out with Carly so we headed out.

We then made our way to the Western Wall. Entered and looked around, then made our way to the line for the Temple Mount complex. Looked long, but it moved pretty quickly. Looked at the mosque, then sat and read the guidebook. August also asked us about what country we were in. Told him it was complicated. Caught up to the rest as they sat on the stairs below the Temple Mount. August needed a bathroom, so we spent most of the rest of our time up there looking for a bathroom. Finally, Carly found a bathroom just down from one of the Muslim-only gates and was allowed to go down. I walked around for a minute more, then Chuck and I were waiting for the three of them at 2:30 when security started rather forcefully making us leave. We were able to wait by the west gate though until they came back from the bathroom.

From there we worked our way back west, past the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and to the shop where we had bought the wall hanging we have in the living room. Along the way August spotted the snow globes. After we had left the church the first time and were hurrying to the Western Wall, August had spotted snow globes “like mama has in her classroom”. He then got really sad when we hadn’t stopped to look at them. Carly later spotted  another shop that had snow globes and he dismissively said they were different. Well on the way back he now spotted the exact same shop and was really excited. We looked at them, and Cherie said she’d buy him one. He chose one with a windmill in it. After an uncomfortable bargaining session, Cherie got it for 40 shekels.

Also, while we were walking and I was carrying August his job had been to look back and make sure that the other three were all with us. He did that quite well. I then gave him a second job: finding a fresh juice place. He liked doing that as well. We found a place and ordered two drinks. When I asked the guy how much it was he said 20 shekels. Then, when he saw I had pulled two 20 shekel notes out of my pocket he suddenly said it was 20 each. We ended up paying the extra, but at least the juice (pomegranate and orange mix) was really good. And August got to actually watch the pressing this time.

We found the shop and Chuck and Cherie found a wall hanging similar to ours. Much nicer interaction with the shopkeeper. We then headed north and Carly led us through backstreets and back to the Damascus Gate. As we were walking he asked me “What does ‘academy’ mean?” Wasn’t sure where he learned that word. he was then being imaginative and talking for a long time about sounds he was hearing as we walked. He finally decided the sounds were coming from the sky. Then, he was counting everything in the universe. And he asked “What does ‘for future reference’ mean?” Something he’s heard from me.

We walked to the east and then back up to the area where the Educational Bookshop is. We found the little Abu Ali restaurant that Omar had recommended. Nothing fancy, but it was perfect. We ate an early dinner of falafel, hummus, and salad. Took the rest home for dinner. As we walked back to the car he told me “You’re very, very super strong.”

We were driving close to 4:45. On the way home Cherie was calling him “Peanut boy” as he ate all her peanuts. At some point I sang the “Problem solved” song from Peg + Cat. We talked about how we haven’t watched that show in quite awhile. He said “Well it’s good we have that stuck in our head.” Did some iPad art and watched some Sarah and Duck. He ate pretty much all the food we had left for him: apple, peanut butter sandwich, etc. I had Carly drive 444 home so I could use the iNakba app and point out the remains of the Palestinian villages along the way.

We were home by 6:30. Played with some Duplos, then he wanted to find mama. Found her outside. He was then getting sleepy and he joked “I need some coffee.” He then climbed behind a pillow and said “I’ll just go in here one second…I’m not sleepy; I’m wide awake.” He ate stir fry for dinner. And he asked “What’s humanity mean?” Another one I’m not sure where he heard it. We tried to Skype with my parents, but they had chipmunk voices in the first call. When we hung up it gave me the stars for feedback and I accidentally touched the 1 star instead of letting him do it. We tried again, but he just wanted me to hang up. Carly took him up stairs and he went straight to sleep in just his clothes, about 7:50.

At some point during the day he gave a good “Oh, Opa” after Chuck had said a joke.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre:

Western Wall:

Temple Mount:

He slept all the way until around a quarter to 8. He stayed with me for a few minute while Carly got ready. They went downstairs and I was slower – I had the worst night of sleep I’ve had since before the trip as I was bothered by mosquitoes much of the night. When I came down he was eating oatmeal and mango and proceeded to eat the whole bowl.

Went outside with Carly, then he ate egg and potatoes that Chuck had made. He and Carly were making the Maze of Doom out of Duplos. I took a shower, then gave him a bath and washed his hair. He was actually sitting down in the bath and playing today. He let me wash his hair that way for awhile, but then he was done. He is mainly upset about it being wet, and he liked the idea of a hair dryer. So Carly got the hair dryer and used it on him and he liked that. For his clothes we put on the green camel shirt that Cherie got him at Petra.

Back downstairs we started playing with Duplos. He said “Speaking of mama, let’s go find mama.” When I said something about not bothering her he said “But Mama’s very important.” We built more Maze of Doom. Thawed frozen mango for him. He ate a bowl, then had seconds. Someone said “You really love that mango.” He responded “What about other things I like? Like treats and pink?”

Cherie and Chuck and August and I went for a walk and Carly stayed home to work. We went up to the Snakes and Ladders playground. He and I went on the spinning thing, then he wanted to do some Drops in Hebrew. He then went and tickled Cherie and wanted to play store with her. First it was an ice cream store, then a burger store. He then had a crazy everything store. He sold her one of everything and had a million arms to deliver it to me.

They ended up in the jeep thing – the one he and I use to drive around the world. For them it somehow turned into a fighter plane and they were fighting bad people: “south America” “There’s a lot of bad people in Iceland”. Finally, he insisted I take him through one round of Snakes and Ladders before we leave.

Did that, then walked up to the grocery store. That went fine except he was upset about not getting to put the wine in the bags. He was then grumpy about the post office, complaining there is nothing fun to do there. He was surprised though when I just took a few seconds.

We walked the back roads home, getting here at 2:20. He saw Carly and joked “There’s another person in our house.” I came down from upstairs and was sitting at the table. August was watching Cherie cut vegetables and said “Dada! Dada!” When I asked what he wanted he said “Nothing”. Then “I wanted to confuse you.” He and Cherie did the pretend bath thing: “Let’s practice sitting down in a bath tub…for pretend with water in it.”

I went upstairs to rest for a bit, then I came down and Carly, August, and I went to do recycling. Took some convincing. He only wanted to do the glass, and at first suggested that I should go up and do everything else on my own, then come back and take him to do the glass. Eventually we all went at the same time and he helped with the cardboard and plastic as well.

He and I then read some more of The 52-Story Treehouse. He was then pretending to take a bubble bath: “The cosmos is full of bubbles!” He destroyed the Duplo maze, chanting “Destroy the Maze of Doom! Destroy the Maze of Doom!” He and I then read to chapter 11 of The 52-Story Treehouse. We were being silly and ignoring Carly, joking that “She’s still at recycling.” Cherie had made stir fry and we all ate outside, then Cherie had gone upstairs. August wanted to wake her up, so he started knocking on the chalkboard and chairs. He got two knocks with a Duplo on the floor. A few seconds later I got a complaint from the neighbor. Seriously less than 8 knocks total, and only 2 on the ground. Sigh.

Anyway, Cherie came down and August did a pretend bath and he had polka dot pink goggles. They went upstairs for awhile, then they came back down and Carly made a bunch of popcorn and he ate popcorn with Chuck and Cherie. He had a lot of fun wrestling with Chuck over the popcorn. Until August got rather violent: “I’ll take away your heart!”

He and I finished reading The 52-Story Treehouse, then I took him upstairs. He saw Carly with wet hair from her shower and he told her “You should try a hairdryer sometime.” We got him ready and I left them after 8:20. He wasn’t going to sleep, and we switched at 9. I just lay next to him and sang a few songs. He kept kicking his foot against the bed but didn’t say a word. He went from still kicking the bed one second to snoring the next at 9:15.

He started waking up at 6:30 we were up at 6:45. We heard Chuck and Cherie up and I told him he should go yell “Happy birthday!” Instead, he decided he wanted to be a mouse and went and scratched on their door. We all packed up and cleaned up the place. He went outside and was an archeologist with Carly outside. They left a little museum of garbage out on a tile. We packed up and took showers and got ready to go. Carly took him down to the playground and he played on the exercise equipment before we left. He showed me his garbage museum and we left at 8:40.

We drove through town but nothing was open. We went up to the visitor center and walked up to the cafe there. It was open, and we ordered two of their big breakfasts: one with an omelette and one with shakshuka. August and I went over a couple times to see the climbers setting up at the top of the cliffs. He seemed to already kind of know how it worked (the ropes and being tied on), and when we went back he told Carly all about it, including new information. He ended with “So it’s actually safe!” But then added “Only dada can’t go down any cliffs.”

Breakfast was good. And it included some matzah. The shakshuka was a lot better than the hostel one. August’s favorite part was the chocolate spread for the bread.

We left breakfast before 10 and drove over to the sculpture park. August was being grumpy as he had wanted a treat in the car but he had just had the chocolate toast. And he was complaining about not having a winter. So he wasn’t too excited by the sculpture park and said he didn’t like the one with swings. It was an interested spot for a sculpture park, right on the edge of the crater cliff. But kind of big, basic monolithic sort of sculptures. Wouldn’t rank it too high on my sculpture park list.

Left there at 10:40. He was still grumpy over treats but got into doing some shaky art. And he definitely cheered up when Cherie started giving him bits of cookies. He was hiding it from me. When I said he smelled like cookie he laughed and said “Someone gave me cookie-flavored tic tacs to make my breath smell like cookies.”

We stopped at a crazy busy Pas gas station. It was on the southbound side so we had to turn around to get to it. That also meant that all of the vacationer traffic heading south was using it. Rather a zoo. I filled up the car while Carly took him to the bathroom. We left before 12 and Cherie decided we should head home instead of Jerusalem.

He wanted to learn how to change the time on her watch. She started by telling him she’d tell him when he was 15 or something. She then knocked off a couple years. He said “The limit to how long I can wait is one hour.” When we went around curves he would hold his arms out to hold up me and Cherie, even though we were assuring him we weren’t squishing him like yesterday. He said “This is the problem with having Oma and opa around.”

We read the Cars book along the way and were home at 2:10. When he was in the bathroom he had a bee scare. he screamed and told me a bee had flown in. I didn’t actually see it, so didn’t entirely believe him. But back out in the living room he spotted it by the sliding windows. I started to try to get it out and he got really scared and I told him to go over to Opa and he ran over to Chuck on the couch. I got the bee out. When I went upstairs, telling him I was doing so, he came with me saying “don’t ever leave without me.”

I made him a peanut butter and honey sandwich, his first in a week, and he was excited: excited “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” “This bread that I’m eating is pretty good.” We were talking about it being Cherie’s birthday and what she wanted to do with it, and he said “What do you mean? I have control of your birthday?” She asked what he was going to do with it and he said “Mess it up.”

Carly went to get food at Younes and to water her plants at school. August and I were lying on the floor together. He said “I like everything…even war.”  When I asked why he said “Because the bad people are destroyed.” We then talked about how that isn’t often the case. He took me and Cherie upstairs to “explore” for Opa. Chuck had gotten his phone working with the Israeli card.

August and I ended up playing with the magnetic drawing board. I was writing words for him to read and he said “When you’re done with that word, spell ‘Wikipedia’.” We then talked about different kinds of encyclopedias and he asked how you could edit Wikipedia. I looked at the page for Even Yehuda and found a typo on it. It said “one the south” when it meant “on the south”. So I had him make his first Wikipedia edit to fix the typo.

Carly got home and he was so excited; “Mama! Mama! Mama!” We had an early dinner outside. I cut up some strawberries. He ate the meat when Cherie told him not to. Cherie said something about colorful foods being healthy and I joked about skittles. He said “Speaking of Skittles, we should have Skittles sometimes.”

They worked outside (August helped Chuck pick up the tree things) and August and Carly ended up sitting in the swing and talking. Chuck walked over to the store to get eggs and I was inside, typing.

August came in and was hungry. Chuck had just gotten back and had apples. I suggested apples and peanut butter. He was upset at first as he wanted Cheerios. He said “Together!? That doesn’t sound good!” But just a few seconds later he was telling Carly that he was going to have Apple and peanut butter. We went down and sliced an apple and he ate about 3/4 of it with peanut butter.

Carly started to vacuum so we fled upstairs. He wanted to find Oma and opa and said “Where is everybody?”

We came back down and read the first four chapters of The 52-Story Treehouse while Carly took a shower. He was getting sleepy, so we headed upstairs and got ready for bed. I left them at 7:55 and he was asleep right away.