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He was up just before 6:30. I had gotten coffee and come back to bed, as I didn’t know if he was comfortable waking up alone yet in the new room. He draped his legs down to me and pressed them against me. The sign his feet are cold. He kept kicking the covers off during the night. Got him straightened on the bed and he took a couple more minutes but didn’t fall back to sleep. We got up and headed downstairs. Carly had already left. We read issues 5 and 6 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and then played Minecraft. I have realized he calls campfires something like campuses. And doesn’t want to change his pronunciation.

He suggested “Mr. Can’t-Hold-It” for a Mr. Men book. We then played the Bar-from-the-future Brother game. First she was from a few seconds in the future, to eventually 300 million years. He ate some oatmeal and we watched the beginning of the Mexican Grand Prix. Accelerate was a word of the day. We then did a long Brother game with him in Minecraft. He was saving animals: a cat stuck on an island surrounded by lava, an injured monster baby that needed darkness, etc.

We discussed our day, then he ate a bunch of carrot coins so he could have a Milky Way from his candy stash. While he ate that I fixed the annoying hinge in the kitchen by switching part of it with a hinge from a door we rarely use. He then remembered the story about the School with All the Rules and her us play that with Brother as a kid stuck going to the school and Bar being the one that crashes into it and destroys the robots. August even brought back the character Ms. Safe, who hadn’t liked the field trips to Bar’s lab and had quit. He had her be at this school now and fainted.

He got dressed, and put his shirt on by himself. He’d doing pretty well with it now. He then played with the Legos, and then the My Little Pony dolls. He was talking to them and brushing their hair. He said to me, “I have advice for criminals: they should have a base underground. Reinforced with the diamonds they stole…” He then told me the story about a gold coin he found and it involved an old orange farm and criminals.

We went for a bike ride, covering about a mile. We stopped when we felt a few drops. Back at home he stayed outside and played on the teeter totter a lot, standing in the center of it. I went in and got the iPad and we sat on the bench swing and read issues 7 and 8 of Friendship is Magic. We went inside at 11:35. He watched a couple educational videos, then had a tuna sandwich and pickles for lunch and watched we watched a little more of the race.

Inside he turned on the air conditioner and we talked about the different settings. He wanted a setting that would actually humidify the air, and I told him about the humidifier in the closet upstairs. I got that out and he played with that for several minutes. We then did music time. He did exercises, practicing using all of his fingers, and then was playing around.

We took a break from music to play a Brother game. Another beach one where he is with all of his family but hears scary sounds instead of there being a storm. Then we did the original beach story again, with them getting caught in a storm. We had some toast.

He then went back to music and did a little Simply Piano. He is making progress, but didn’t want to play for long. Instead, he asked what conductors do and wanted to learn about it. So we watched two videos (https://youtu.be/z_yIn8V3UcU andhttps://youtu.be/xcR1-WhjZys

) and then he wanted to actually tell me what to play. He started to compose for me, getting a piece of paper and writing circles for notes, and lines for rests. He told me I could choose which notes to play. It worked pretty well. Then he added more, using a different color, which he said meant lower notes. So I played that down two octaves. His next idea was to compose for drums. He pulled up a drum kit in GarageBand to look at, then composed the sequence of drums I was supposed to hit by tracing different-sized stencil circles to represent each drum.

He had one other composing idea, which involved drawing lines that sort of curved up and down, and then circles for rest. He sang it, and said “Its like spooky walking in the jungle noise.”

He then did alone time and I exercised. We then played Minecraft. We were making a house in the nether, luckily in creative, as we discovered that if you place a bed in the nether and touch it it explodes. Which was quite funny.

He read three books in Rivet to me. He then had a Brother game that involved him being in a Minecraft village and there is a zombie attack. Carly got home and he wanted to keep doing the Brother game. He had Brother taking care of ocelots.

August looked at my KEXP shirt when I pointed out I was wearing it and we were listening to KEXP. He said, “That’s an arcade.” I was surprised by that. He says he remembers it from a game. He had played the Endless Arcade game months ago, but not much. When he went running across the house he said, “Let’s hit the throttle.”

Carly made a lassi. August asked to listen to Story Pirates. I remembered The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian, which Liz had suggested. August really liked the beginning and we listened to more than half of the first episode. He then wanted Carly to read to him and she read a Minecraft book.

He had a yogurt and watched the last couple laps of the race with me. They then watched more brain surgery videos. Carly had managed to find rather more explicit ones than I had. Shmuel called, needing access to the electricity meter. He also had two women with him that were there to see the new unit.

I got August pesto pasta and cauliflower for dinner. While eating it he wouldn’t eat a piece that fell off his plate onto the table, and washed his fork for some reason. He said, “I’m being a germ goody two shoes.” He did his evening time with Carly. I did dishes.

Carly had asked if August was feeling okay. Still a little stuffy and seemed a bit off. When I got him up to his bath he said he had a stomach ache, so we made it quick. He asked, “How’s all the complex stuff in the human body even work?…Like how does the brain process one tiny signal from the nerves?”

And then he was asking about gravity: “Why is gravity so weak? Why can you break gravity just like this? (Jumping)” He talked more about his space telescopes as I brushed his teeth. Carly came in to put him to bed. I went and got a throw up bowl, just in case, and left them at 8:20.

Fluttershy gets sunglasses:

Standing on the teeter totter:

Practicing piano:

More practicing:

Composing music for me:

More music composing:

At some point during the night he moved his pillows and pulled up the warm blanket over himself. I don’t think I’d ever seen him do that before. Such a big kid. I hadn’t thought about the jump forward in time during the night when I set my alarm. So when he woke up at 6:15 I thought he was really early. I had him crawl down next to me for a couple minutes, then I realized it seemed awfully bright for 6:15 and remembered the time change. So we got up and went downstairs.

We went downstairs and he asked Carly for candy. We told him it had to be after healthy food. They went outside to check on the water bowls and to water plants. I picked him up outside. As I held him he said, “I have nothing to do. Can we get back to the treat argument?” He made an analogy that something was “…like a shockwave…”

Inside he ate an apple, then got a candy. He chose a banana taffy and loved it. We watched a little Formula 1 qualifying in Mexico and played Minecraft. From the qualifying flying lap was a word of the day, particularly the idea that flying could apply to something that was just fast, and not necessarily going through the air. He was grumpy about food and didn’t want scrambled eggs for breakfast. He eventually had oatmeal instead.

He watched a Bright Side video on what happens when you destroy a piece of art. He was then walking around, silly, and yelled out the window, “Anyone who’s noonynanny shout to me ‘Noonynanny!’” We did a Brother game. Bar had a priceless Roman temple artifact that he breaks. When she insists that he pay for it he runs away to live with Greena in the jungle.

Carly headed to the store. He watched another Bright Side video about what foods you can and cannot eat if they have mold on them, then a Kurzgesagt video about aliens. He did alone time, then played Minecraft. Then had a Brother scenario where he meets a time traveling Bar who is from a week in the future. This was based on a very funny My Little Pony episode where Twilight meets herself from a week in the future. We then watched an episode, involving a dessert eating mystery on a train. He then spent time telling me about his famous desserts. After he went to the bathroom he washed his hands, doing a good job: “You know, germs and all. You know I just watched that moldy bread video.”

He wanted to earn 15 minutes. Carly got home. He brushed the ponies’ hair for a few minutes and I put away groceries. He earned his last ten by playing with Legos. Carly made a berry and mango smoothie that was really good. He added two Wire songs to his playlist. We played his 15 minutes, then he ate Yogurt and raw tofu. We read the first issue of My Little Pony: Friends Forever and he was correct about Pinkie Pie sting the line about monkey ninjas in this issue.

He and Carly left just before 12:30 to go to Mr. Gabi’s. He later told me that they did sword fighting, play dough, and other things. Carly then took him over to Herzliya and they had pizza at a place right near the beach. They then went down to the beach and played in the water again. August let Carly go wading a bit in the sea this time. He also did some bike riding along the sidewalks area there, and stopped to use exercise equipment, and was having Carly use it.

They got home at 4:45. I came down after a couple minutes, and he was laughing hysterically. Carly didn’t know why. He wanted to watch an educational video, and Carly remembered she had something to show him. It was episode 1 of How We Got to Now, and all about how cities deal with water and waste. He watched more than half of it and would do a lot of talking about it later.

We did his evening time in Minecraft. He was throwing experience potions around a lot. For dinner he ate mango, cauliflower, and grapes. Carly was telling me something about the union at school, and August wanted to know what she was talking about. She mentioned the union and the board, and he reminded her he had a suggestion for them: opening a college. He even justified it by explaining that students would stay longer and pay more money.

He got upset about wanting more candy, I think it was, and yelled at me. I went upstairs to fold laundry. He asked Carly to ask me to come down so he could apologize. That was a good step. He told me about a condition called pebbleitis. It involves a lack of balance and vision and nausea. Can’t remember what video or potion inspired that.

He asked what the appendix is for and I looked it up. He then explained it: “My theory is that the appendix is kind of like a crafting table that makes more good bacteria…Analogy. Minecraft analogy.”

Carly gave him a bath, and I put him to sleep again in the Zinnie bed. Carly gave him one of her shirts to cuddle with, and he indeed fell asleep, by 9, cuddling with it. He’s never fallen asleep cuddling anything before.

Doing Rarity’s hair:

Theories about fizzy water:

He was up at 7:15. So early. I carried him down, and he went outside to say hi to Carly. They were going to read, but then once to the couch he wanted Minecraft and they played together.

He was with Carly though the morning, very much enjoying his time with her. They read a Minecraft book and played a Brother and Myna game. He had oatmeal. They were over on the floor by the Legos. I think he was being a baby or something, and he was climbing on her. They went upstairs and I did the dishes.

They came down and he watched Bright side videos: journey through the body, particle accelerator. He then told me about his particle accelerator. We read some of the My Little Pony: Knightmare Knights series, then Carly got a call from Tessa asking if she could go pick up Spooktacular tickets for her at school, and look for her purse. August wanted to go with her to see the setup for the Spooktacular. The were gone for a bit, then came back and started a science activity about skulls, which involved watching videos and making a paper skull mask. I was up working, and when he was done he came up and showed me.

Back downstairs we read the rest of Nightmare Knights #2 and Ponyville Mysteries #3. He had two strips of paper left from the cutting earlier and decided to tape them together as a ball. He had heard “Goody two shoes” in one of the videos or stories we read today and asked what it meant, so a phrase of the day. He did some alone time with cutting paper, then sat on the couch. Carly had a headache and went upstairs for a while.

We played Minecraft, then went outside for a bit. We then watched a My Little Pony and ate raviolis for lunch. Well, he didn’t eat much because he decided he doesn’t like the cheese ones. He started discussing stopping tome to do stuff, and when I suggested something he said, “No, because the laws of space time itself wouldn’t allow it…” He brushed Pinkie Pie’s hair, then we went out for a bike ride.

We rode for a full half hour. As we rode around, to no where in particular, he told me about his telescopes and satellites. He has a naming system for his space telescope, where it is like Telescope GVL. The telescope gets better and better by itself until it gets up to ZZZ. We felt one drop of rain along the way, but then it was fine. We were back after 3:15.

He sat on his red push bike but commented on how it looked smaller and he doesn’t know if he can ride it now: “That looks like a baby bike.” He had a game where Bar played a practical joke on Brother, dragging him all the way up somewhere to see a “phenomenon…collision of magic and science” that didn’t exist.

He then watched some Bright Side video: Sydney Funnel Web spider, one about busses, and one other. We then read a couple of the Mr. Men stories. Muddle was another new word. As we got ready to go to the Spooktacular he was in a good and funny mood, and said, “That’s one fun thing about summer: Halloween is right around the corner.” “Right around the corner’ is a phrase he was using a lot today. August got his costume on, including the gloves, and wore his sparky shoes after Carly suggested them. He was then swooping around.

We parked a block north of school and walked down. We saw Jonathan, the band teacher, on the way in, who was dressed as Batman and gave August a high five. Once inside we started in on the trick-or-treating. August was quite into it and wasn’t daunted by the crowds. They had moved some stuff due to the threat of rain, so we actually did two laps of part of it. Wandered by the games area at one point, and saw the line for the haunted house. He was interested in the haunted house, but didn’t want to stand in the long, long line. We then found the other trick-or-treat doors hiding in the elementary school hall. Finally, there were a couple of game things (a wheel to spin and a place where you stick your hand into boxes to feel things) in the entrance to the auditorium.

He was then ready to head out, and I was the only one to want food at the food cart so we skipped it and headed home. At home they poured out his candy on the couch and then had a couple pieces. He was then playing Minecraft and Carly skyped with her mom. They were talking about Halloween and she asked how it went. I told Carly to tell her I’d gotten a lot of candy. August said,”Ryan didn’t get any!…I’m sorry, did I ruin your joke?” He had a carrot, then watched Bright Side videos: What if you didn’t drink water? What if you step on a rusty nail?

I went upstairs for a bit. I came out and took over. He started to play with a little strip of sponges thing in the sink. He was really washing it, wanting it to be clean. He said, “He’s Mr. Spongey and he likes getting clean…I showed him the Bright Side video…” about germs and how sponges get a lot of them.

There was a thunderstorm happening, so after he was done we watched out the bedroom window. We went downstairs and he stuck his hand out the door, still naked, to feel the rain. Carly had brought the containers in, so I took a bowl out for him to catch water. He wanted to go out in his raincoat, but then lightning flashed very close.

We were sleeping in his Zinnie room for the first time. Carly said good night and we went in. I read two My Little Pony issues (Nightmare Knights #3 and Ponyville Mysteries #4. He was then reticent about the new bed, so we had some Cheerios and he played with a few Duplos in the bed. Eventually though he was comfortable, and remembered his glow-in-the-dark crystal. We got that out, and he played with that on. I told him about Halloween when I was a kid: actually trick-or-treating, sorting candy at Mark and Scott’s house, etc. He fell asleep at 10:20.

Particle colliders:

Skeleton August:

His Attack of the Skeletons song:

Drumming:

Bat flying around:

Trick or treating:

Trick or treating 2:

Spinning the wheel:

He was up at 7:30. We rested on the couch together for a few minutes. I then read some of the Mr. Men stories from the big book of them. We read about Mr. Nosey and the Beanstalk, Mr. Jelly and the Pirates, Mr. Greedy and the Gingerbread Man, and Mr. Strong and the Ogre.

We played Minecraft, working on the hollowed out mountain and the house that’s attached, and Gilad came on for a few minutes. When our time was up we went looked at our schedule. August decided to go on the Dada-Zinnie adventure after lunch, and we scheduled science and alone time before it.

He then had a big Brother story/game that simply started with a girl that had super throwing, then a bunch of other powers. Like camouflage and not getting hurt by animals and thermal vision. Greena is her name. She took Brother to her house in the jungle where she lived alone and was making a breakfast of nature-y stuff: “Some wood to give it some extra crunch.” She said they aren’t actually powers, they are learned. And if anyone says they have powers they are lying, including Bar, which set her up as an adversary of Bar’s.

We each had a yogurt for breakfast, and went back to the Brother game. He traded paper with her. She makes a list each day: “And in case it blows away I write ‘Run after list (maybe).” He was making a reference to the Frog and Toad story where Toad has a list but then when it blows away he can’t run after it because that wasn’t on his list of things to do for the day.

Greens made medical stuff out of vines. Then, they were talking about who Brother was and August said, “I’ve heard of you, you’re the crazy family. But I don’t think you’re actually crazy. Look, I’m like you.” She talked about how she made inventions in the jungle, like brushes and combs and whatnot. August and I talked about tines and teeth of forks combs and how it is odd there are different words. Talking about something she said, “These are just toys. I focus on surviving more.” And, “I have fun, that’s one of the main things. But only when the hard work is done…And I spy at the edge of the jungle at your civilization.”

He had her ask what Brother does. I listed out all the things he’s done: discovered new animals in the jungle, survived on a deserted island, traveled to voids and through time, been attacked by robots, taken care of animals, made friends with people with all sorts of powers.

We played until 10. Then I had music on and we were listening to the synth-punk band Suicide, from the early 80s. The song “Wild in Blue” was on and he added it to his playlist, then said, “I’d like it if the high school band played this.” I exercised and he did alone time. He listened to the music and got the Kumi Now book and looked at it.

We did more Minecraft, then did a Brother game for a few minutes, using a timer, telling the first Tigey story again. For science time we watched a video on the size of the universe (https://youtu.be/u23vZsJbrjE) and Kurzgesagt videos on automation (https://youtu.be/WSKi8HfcxEk), why the Earth is a prison (https://youtu.be/RVMZxH1TIIQ), and robot rights (https://youtu.be/DHyUYg8X31c).

We had fish sticks and rice dish and chocolate milk for lunch then played more Brother and Greena game. He told her about My Little Pony, confusing her. She then gave Brother a tour of her civilization: “Put in these tiger clothes…we have different laws in this civilization…”

We left at 12:45. We drove up to a park/bridge on the Alexander tht Jonathan had told us about. There are turtles in the river there. We parked and August started riding his bike up to the park. The turtles are really big, like 3 feet long. August rode a circle of the park, first along the boardwalk part then up the hill past the playground and lookout. I had to coax him across the bridge (I carried his bike) as he didn’t believe me there was a path on the other side. He happily started riding on it though, and went about half a kilometer down the trail to the east before wanting to turn around. He commented on the cracks in the path and how they need to fix them. I reminded him of the sidewalk sealant song and he started singing that as he rode.

We headed back to the park and sat at a table in the shade and had a snack. He ate a whole apple. He was telling me all about his record breaking satellite/spare probe: “Nobody got to enjoy what it looked like when it took off…everybody was stunned…” Then how he was recovering a pirate ship and treasure. The bones had gone in a museum and the government was getting the treasure. We chewed some gum, and he asked, “why do plants need water?” He wanted to see a video, but the internet was not working. He also asked, “What’s qualification?” We discussed the meaning of that.

He rode up and down the little hill by the picnic table 4 or 5 times. And he wants to see a video of brain surgery.

We left at 2:50. Quiet on the way back, and as we drove into town the bike, which I thought had been wedged in well, shifted and the handle hit him in the head. He wasn’t very happy about it, but was okay. May have actually woken him up/kept him from falling asleep.

At home we watched the brain surgery videos. The best werehttps://youtu.be/u3O571_kiN4

andhttps://youtu.be/SDsBr6sXkH4

. He actually wanted to keep watching more, but I told him I needed a break from brain surgery and suggested My Little Pony instead. We watched an episode where Pinkie Pie tries to make friends with Grumpy Doodle Donkey. I’ve never heard August laugh so much during an episode, yet at the end he was still trying to claim that he doesn’t like Pinkie Pie and needed another episode.

Instead, we finished the Mr. Men book. A lot more laughing. We were eating pistachios, which he told Carly all about as soon as she got home. For the Mr. Loud story he laughed at the first page, saying, “This isn’t going to go well.”

Carly was home after 5 and he was instantly hyper. He went out with her and did a great job watering plants “For free!” He was being really polite and nice. When they came in for iPad time he wanted to check with me to make sure that the My Little Pony episode wasn’t supposed to have been part of his evening time. They he promised he would never type in th passcode even though he thinks he knows it. And he said he chose his Taiga Bay world because he knew Carly liked that one.

After they were done he read a book about tigers on Rivet. I read one about making slime. I got him his food, with mainly chicken chong and then shrimp from the last of the pad thai. This was when the evening started to fall apart. He wanted pad thai noodles too, and got upset with me when I said there weren’t any more.

He eventually ate, then was rhyming a lot. We noted the weirdness of present past tense verbs of sought, bought, caught, and fought. I then read Nightmare Knights #1 and Ponyville Mysteries #4. Carly cut his hair. He had his backup candy from the last time we went to Tiv Taam, then watched videos while she cut. He watched Bright Side videos about kinds of gasoline and what happens if you fall off a cruise ship. August said, “Easy answer: you drown. But I want the complex answer.”

He then had a meltdown when it was time to go up for his bath, insisting on another video. Carly took him up for his bath. He was feeling better, but I decided to leave our sleepover in his Zinnie room (he and I had set up the beds earlier for him and me to sleep in their together) for another day. We got him ready, and he started singing “Brothers, sisters, we don’t need this fascist groove thing” from the Heaven 17 song he’s heard a couple times. I said good night and went for a walk.

Greena’s items for sale:

Turtle in the river:

Riding around the park:

Sidewalk sealant song on the bike:

His huge satellite:

Satellite to go in a black hole:

Singing We Don’t Need This Fascist Groove Thing:

A big full day. Started by waking him at 8. He flopped around on me and the full bed a lot before finally getting up. He went to the bathroom downstairs, and as he left, asked, “Did I go to the bathroom!?” Which showed just how deep in thought/distracted he can be when he goes to the bathroom. I read the book Should I Share My Ice Cream? Then we played Minecraft. I stopped early to get us ready, and he did a good job of eating and getting ready quickly, so when we got going we still made it to Ra’anana Park by 9:40.

They also brought Gilad’s bike. We parked in the dirt lot today, and August rode his bike on the sidewalk to the entrance by the covered playground. He yelled to Gilad, and the two of them took off racing in circles around the playground. It was the fastest that August had ever ridden, and he did a few fast screeching stops in front of me and Lauren before I convinced him to stop with that. He and Gilad took off on circles a few times, saying they were going to discuss Minecraft, but each time they ended up going too fast and couldn’t hear.

So they went over on the spinny thing for a few minutes and discussed Minecraft. We learned there are underwater TNT. I looked it up, and it is something that you can only find with the experimental/education options turned on, and you have to craft by adding sodium. So August was excited about doing that when we got on Minecraft.

They ran the airplane/spaceship game for a while, then did some more riding around. Eventually we sat down and had a snack. They got going at 11, and August rode his bike most of the way back to the car before I had him walk to cross the street.

We drove to Even Yehuda. The plan was to get nuts in the bulk foods store, then sit in the park and play Minecraft (do the TNT) until VIPizza opened at 12. Didn’t quite go as planned. Got the nuts (including a small bag of new nuts that turned out to be really crunchy—don’t know what they are), but VIPizza is still closed this whole week. He still wanted to go to the park. We went and he chose a bench. We got a world created, but he needed to use the bathroom. We went and used the one behind Maya (the health food store), then went to Sushi Ishimoto to keep playing.

A good decision, as Sushi Ishimoto took forever. We ordered 8 pieces of sushi (4 crunchy and 4 veggie combo), our usual pad thai and shrimp, and the chicken chong. He had a good half-hour of Minecraft, blowing things up with underwater TNT. So much that he decided he had enough. I was then reading A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School when the food was finally ready. August had been snacking on pistachios while we waited.

I think it was there that he started reciting, “If the monkey was worth his bananas we wouldn’t see him!” It is something that Pinkie Pie says in one of the comics. One we haven’t read in a week or two, I think, and he randomly started reciting it today. She’s talking about a ninja monkey, of course.

He held the bag of pistachios in the car and had more as we headed home. We were finally home at 1. He ate 6 of the 8 pieces of sushi, really liking the veggies in each (one had avocado, which he identified right away, which surprised me because I don’t know when he last had avocado). He had some of the chicken chong, and said it was his favorite meat ever; the meat we got on Friday is his second-favorite, as he doesn’t like the fat with it.

He then did piano practice time. He did some finger exercises, as he calle them, then practiced using Simply Piano. He mainly covered things he has done before, but was excited that he was finding them easier.

We next did a Brother game where he was actually hurt but his family didn’t believe him. It kept going on and on, with him being put to sleep for billions of years and waking up upset, and I eventually had to say we were done.

He did alone time, playing with rubber bands, tying them around one of the small drumsticks, as he just figured out how to twist and make them smaller. I exercised. We then did his 15 minutes of Minecraft that he earned. Didn’t think Gilad was going to be available until later, but he popped into our game. So I let August play until 3:30. They were blowing things up underground in the TNT room together.

We got driving for school at 3:40. The pool didn’t seem heated, but it was nice and sunny and not windy, so August still wanted to get in. Didn’t bother him that there were no students. A little difficult to get in, but I was in by the time Carly got back from changing.

The cool part was how August was practicing over on the steps without his vest. He told us to not watch him, and to do our boring talk. After a few minutes he had us come back over and he told us he had wanted us to have a break from watching him all the time. So sweet. He was then performing for us, jumping back and forth. I suggested he step down one step and keep doing it. Then it happened: he was actually paddling back and forth. I would call it his first actual swimming. Very exciting to see, and he’s basically taught himself. What he really needs is for the sides of the steps to be further apart. Alas, they are not. The next step would be for him to come out to one of us, but he isn’t comfortable to go that far yet. Probably in the spring it will happen.

We got home after 5. We were standing just inside the yard, and I saw Carly drop something that went between the slats of the walkway. Had to happen at some point. She couldn’t tell what it was though. Wasn’t her keys. I finally spotted her watch down there. Luckily, she has two We also have a screwdriver that we can use to take up a board, but it will be some work.

August ate the rest of the sushi and said, “This is the best sushi ever…No offense.” Realizing that he had said it was better than Carly’s. He went to the bathroom, and again got confused about whether he had gone to the bathroom or not, or had even needed to. Or something. He said, “I think I got my mind mixed up.”

He did his evening Minecraft time, first with me, then Carly taking over for me. I had changed my skin, so when they were done we took a few minutes looking at other skins. He had some chicken chong, then had a Brother and Myna game where he was collecting potion ingredients for her. Carly took over and did a Brother and Myna story with him. He at first thought it would be too advanced for her. They did the whole Myna story, then restarted in the car.

We got to the auditorium for the middle and high school band concert. He was super excited to see a treats table before we went in and was jumping up and down. He had a cookie, then we went in. He said, “Oh, I like this room.” We sat in the back and ended up staying for the whole thing. He said his favorite instrument was the tympani. He was repeating what Jonathan was saying at the beginning: “Please pay attention to the Halloween…”

He sat on my lap for a couple pieces near the end, including the piece from The Magic Flute. We headed home, and as we got here was asking, “What happens if you pour alcohol on a wound?” “Wine?” “Milk?” Not sure where that came from.

At home we read three Friends Forever issues: Applejack and Cherry again, Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich, and one about Twilight and her student. I gave him a food warning at 8:30 and he asked for an amazing apple like he had had with Carly yesterday. She sliced him an apple and he said it was “The best apple in the world” and also had pomegranate seeds. He eats his apples with the peels on nowadays, which is a real nice change.

He told me about how Carly better at Minecraft Brother games (because she’s read all the books with him): “At first I didn’t expect her to be too successful…But this was good…she didn’t say ‘kakow’ once!” I guess he doesn’t like how she’s made bird noises before.

I took him up and gave him his bath. Carly took over and I got ready for a run and left about 9:30 as she was about to brush his teeth.

Biking nowhere:

Biking with Gilad 1:

Biking down the ramp:

Swimming!:

Train safety system ideas:

Composing a song:

It rained a little after Carly left for work. None of the forecasts were showing a chance of rain. August was up at 7:50. I went up and he handed me my headphones, saying he had found them on the bed. Downstairs I read the In a Dark, Dark Room book. He asked what a cemetery was and we discussed that and it was a word of the day. He then had a Brother game: “Brother should be crying because the blue beaked, blue footed woodpecker died…it got sick.” They had a nice funeral for it.

We played Minecraft (more hollowing out) and had oatmeal. We had difficulty decided which way his shorts were supposed to go on, as they have some odd pockets. August argued one way, saying “The two pockets usually go on your bum bums.” He remembered the videos of a guy explaining how to play Minecraft. He meant Phineas Rage, so he watched the first video of his season two as I got ready.

We had a 9:30 appointment with Shani, the occupational therapist. She had gone on maternity leave right after August started with her. Got there in good time. He was really excited about the swing thing. They first sat at the table and made a plan for their activities. He drew pictures of the activities they were going to do. I don’t trust her nearly as much as I do the other OT that I met, as she seems to jump to conclusions on scant evidence (when he wanted to get off the swing after five minutes, she talked about how he got tired fast and needed to work on upper body strength—but then he wanted to be on it the entire rest of the time we were there), but what she does with him is still good, and he had a blast, and she is much more convenient that driving down to Ra’anana.

After some time on the swing they went and played with putty (to work on his pencil grip; another thing she seems way overconcerned about). He then got to choose from the cupboard and chose the cone and rings to use with the swing, and spent the rest of the time flying around on the swing.

We headed home and finished the finished Phineas Rage video and watched #2. He did alone time listening to music. I made our daily calendar and exercised. We watched episode 3 instead of playing for the time he earned. Unobstructed was a word of the day from that. He had some banana bread, then fish sticks.

We read the Rainbow Dash and Wonderbolt issue of Friends Forever. We watched two Kurzgesagt videos: “Is Organic better?” Followed by a video on “Beauty”. Organic was word of the day, and he also asked, “What’s guilty mean?”

For music time he practiced with Simply Piano, then spent a good amount of time just making up his own tunes. He was then coming up with lines for me to copy on the mandolin.

As we got ready to go pick up Eve he asked, “Why does your poop have germs?” if the food doesn’t. A question that would have to wait for later. August saw Lydia and Ori as we walked into the school. He remembered Lydia, but didn’t remember Ori’s name. We picked up Eve, and Heather showed up with a brownie (there was a bake sale table upstairs) for each of them. They ate those at the table outside the kindergarten. August really liked the candy corn on top. Eve showed us her room, and we went out the back door.

We saw Andrea over in the preschool and they went in to say hi. August told her about the atmosphere and bird poop so she could teach her students. August really liked the airport her kids had been making out of blocks, and Andrea showed them a photo of Taya working on it. August talked about his ideas for how to use the blocks, then we got going. Near the entrance we saw the whole Omri and siblings gang.

At the house I got banana bread for them, and Eve started watering the plants. She doesn’t really understand having the hose on anything but high pressure (part of what led to the soaking of August last time) and August was being protective of Carly’s plants, yelling at her not to spray the flowers, and not to spray other plants. He was also keeping a safe distance across the yard. We finally got her to keep it at a reasonable pressure, and he did some digging in the mud.

They then started working on their fort/tent plan for outside. They had all sorts of ideas for using bamboo sticks, so I started taking apart the extra bamboo fencing. While I did that Eve snuck in and made another lemon and brown sugar drink that August said was better than the first. She also made just brown sugar and water, but August didn’t like that one.

Eve was trying to hammer nails into one of the pieces of bamboo, then we all worked together on tying up bamboo sticks to the slide and making an actual frame for a tent. That worked really well. Eve mainly sat at the top of the slide and cut pieces of string for us.

Heather showed up at 4:45. She asked if we had extr bamboo sticks, as she needed a couple for holding up a banner for the band concert. I got out the big rolls of bamboo fencing that Shmuel has thrown in the junk area and used August’s tools to cut off sticks. Eve left at 4:55. They didn’t get far as Heather realized she had left her keys in the yard. When she came back, she asked if August had anything to teach her. He immediately said “You should thank the atmosphere” and explained how it protects from solar radiation.

We were outside for a few minutes longer, and I had music playing on the speaker. He was really listening to words, and asked me about meanings of lyrics in “Girl at the End of the World” and a Twilight Sad song. Carly got home, then August and I went on a short bike ride until his evening time.

We played Minecraft, doing more hollowing out, and using TNT to do so. He ate some dinner and then had chocolate milk. He did a lot of reading with Carly. When she stopped he was upset and talked about “Your stupid parenting trick of saying it was boring.”

We Skyped with my parents to tell Mom happy birthday. Dee and Grant were also there. August was pretty hyper. He told them about contests he ran for people. One involved a maze made out of diamond. This was after telling them about the upcoming Halloween Spooktacular and I had mentioned the maze. When I said he could go up to Carly and I would keep talking to them for a while he whispered to me about wanting to do a Brother game first. I told him we could do that after his bath. He then had the bath time meltdown and Carly came down to help get him up. I said goodbye on Skype.

Bath actually went well, and Carly got him all ready. She introduced flossing to him, and he did a few teeth on his own. I went in to put him to sleep. He was repeating “Ugly varmint,” which I think is something Apple Jack says at some point. I had been working on August’s Christmas list, so when he asked for a story I told him about the games we would play, like puzzles and Yahtzee, etc. I fell asleep with him, as he took quite a while to fall asleep, tossing and turning. When I woke back up at 10:30 or so, he had fallen asleep with the pillow on top of his head, like he had crawled underneath it. I went down and finished the list.

On the swing thing:

His experiment on beauty:

Practicing piano:

Making the fort with Eve:

Swinging the hose:

Swinging the hose slo-mo:

Sweeping in the yard song:

I started waking him up at 7:50. He rolled around for a few minutes. He finally sat up and asked, “Goo goo or gaa gaa? Which do you choose?” This is a game he’s developed the last few days. One choice is good, the other bad. It’s shifted to whichever you choose is the bad choice (usually killing), or they are both bad choices. Started out a bit more amusing.

Downstairs we started with looking at and planning our schedule on the window. We then played Minecraft and learned how to make a firework launching machine using redstone. We ate some banana bread, and went outside for a minute. He had a Brother game where he is playing with Myna, starting in survival mode, and plays really slowly, taking a long time to decide everything, like where to place his house.

For table time I started doing a voice journal with him. Today I asked him what he likes about Minecraft. He was then insisting we play more Brother game, even though we had done quite a bit. He used the “You said so” line, which seems to be a recent strategy to claim we said he could do something, when we had said no such thing. We finally compromised, with him agreeing to using a timer. When we started playing he made me smile using his fingers, saying “Your happy face is up.”

The Brother game continued, with a full story. Brother got blown up by a creeper and respawned way back at Myna’s spawn point. We then moved to science time, and he had Brother and Myna watching science videos together (over skype, that is). We watched the Kurzgesagt Marsbase video (https://youtu.be/uqKGREZs6-w), gamma-ray bursts (https://youtu.be/RLykC1VN7NY), and dark matter (https://youtu.be/QAa2O_8wBUQ). And we watched a Mumbo Jumbo video about how to kill the Ender Dragon using Redstone (https://youtu.be/jQ9TUoZNzGw). August really liked the line from one of the Kurzgesagt videos saying we are basically “apes with smart phones”.

The Brother game continued, with Myna getting him back from her spwawn point using a nether tunnel. She then had him gathering stuff for her brewing stand.

He ate two pickles and banana bread. We then tried out Simply Piano, as the Yousician free trial was running out, and he was stuck on Ode to Joy and there was very little other stuff he could do in it. He liked Simply Piano better, as there was more options, and more easy things to practice. He didn’t like that the practice speed wasn’t as adjustable as Yousician, but it definitely seems better overall.

Then more Brother and Myna. She blew up all their Minecraft games somehow and Brother was upset. She had backups though and it had just been a joke and she apologized.

He did alone time and I exercised. He did drumming and looked at the Visual Dictionary. He told me some of the words he found. I suggested he look at the story dice and make a story in his head. He said, “I already have like a thousand of them.”

We played Minecraft, working on Brother’s house. August knows about the app Brilliant from the Kurzgesagt videos, so we worked on a problem involving dividing groups of circles in half. I was looking for math videos he might like (after Numberphile looked to advanced) but didn’t find anything. I did, however, find the video of the Big Numbers song that I used to sing to him a lot, and he had me sing my version to him.

He had a Brother and Sister game where there house is destroyed by a hurricane: “And it’s terrifyingly destroyed.” All the people and animals were safe, and Brother kept screaming when he realized something that’s destroyed: spice collection, Pokémon comic book, his bed. Etc.

We then did art time. I would draw shapes on paper, and he turned them into monsters. All of his drawings had penises. We were then going to do math, but he talked about making a folder of our homeschooling learning apps and remembered coding. He found Coding Karts and worked on that a bit. He ate oatmeal and more pickles.

We watched watched an episode of My Little Pony (about Hearts and Hooves Day) then got ready to go to school. After he went to a bathroom he saw me watching a video on YouTube about photography techniques. He watched that with me, and we discussed how they did some of the shots (they were kind of set up shots). He liked the song and we found out what it was.

He talked abut Bright Side being his second favorite YouTube channel, after Kurzgesagt, although he “hated” the video about exploding a nuclear bomb in the Marianas Trench, as it turns out very little happens except killing some sea creatures: “Nothing happened!”

So August’s original plan had been to go swimming at school. The forecast seemed to support this idea. But before we left he decided it was too cloudy out, and we decided to go play at the playground and library instead. Now, when we got outside he saw the bike and trailer and wanted to go riding first. We started riding, and as we were down on the old highway it started raining. Very lightly, but consistently. Very weird, as there were just wisps of clouds. We headed home via the street, but it stopped. At the house he wanted to keep riding. We did some more, then came back, and he wanted to keep going a third time. We ended up riding two and a half miles.

The third time he had a specific mission: he’d been spotting things that the city needs to fix. This has started as the leak at our water piper is before our meter and the city’s responsibility. Also, there is a street lamp across from our house that has been hanging open for a long time. He’s pointed that out several times. And they are currently doing tree trimming (butchering, in some cases, as we saw at the roundabout nearest our house). As we were riding, he noticed places where the streets need repair, and one spot where the curb/sidewalk were broken. So he wanted to go out again, specifically finding other things the city needs to do and wants to tell them. He also asked for my ideas on what they should do. I talked about dark sidewalks at night, which are hard when running, and also more bike lanes.

When we got done it was 4:10 or so. He still wanted to go to school to play for a while. My watch was dying (the battery is worn out) so I told him I was just going in to put it on the charger. He automatically followed me in and kicked off his shoes and turned on the AC before I came back downstairs, then and said he was hungry. So we stayed home and he had something to eat.

He told me, “I want to go to Korea for winter break. What? We haven’t goed there for years.” He ate apple and pickles. We watched a couple more Kurzgesagt videos, then the power went out during the second one. It was getting rather windy out, although not really storm like. Shmuel called to us and we talked to him for a few minutes outside. August was then helping Carly by feeding the vine back through the fence. We went back in and finished the second video. We had watched the one on fusion power, then on electro smog. fusion was a word of the day.

Carly got home. He went out and helped water plants. He sprayed his slide, and then made an analogy of how the slide was like the atmosphere, protecting against the radiation from the sun (the water) and explained it to Carly. He talked about being a teacher: “Should I be a teacher when I grow up?…I want to be a teacher…Actually, I don’t want to be anything when I grow up.”

We went in and I heated up the rice dish for him. Carly opened a pomegranate and he ate that first: “I’m fascinated by pomegranate seeds…” He did evening time on the iPad. We were hollowing out a mountain as Brother and Myna. He ate the rice dish, then had some chocolate milk.

He asked about the difference between Ms. Shani and Mr. Gabi and teachers. He said, “Ms. Andrea should come here on the weekend…” And he wants to teacher about things to teach her students, like about electromagnetic spectrum. He wants to take the chart that Carly had printed out for him of the spectrum.

He read to me in Rivet. He read a level one book, then on his own switched to level 2. He read I’ll Be a Pirate. He was particularly working on pronouncing/reading ‘I’ll’. He was repeating the words like the kids he watches in the pronunciation app, enunciating it differently a few times. He had also started a Baa baa black sheep book. I remembered our version of the song and sang it for him.

He then traced a photo of himself on the tracing app (that I had used fro Lunch Robot). As he drew he said, “This is kind of educational…accuracy…motor control…” He went to the bathroom, and still thinking about what the city should do said, “Here’s something the town hasn’t thought about: benches.”

Carly read the latest Secrets of an Overworld Survivor book to him and I went for a run and took a shower. I heard him asking about what Christmas is. He then talked about having to cancel Christmas and the “no cars on the roads” holiday in a country he runs because of hurricanes, etc.

Carly got him oatmeal. He then talked about how he has a machine that cleans up nuclear waste. We discussed Hanford and looked up costs. https://amp.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article225386510.html. He talked about TooVoo, which is his YouTube channel. He does science videos, like What if bad people came out of our computer. What would happen if we exploded nuclear bombs in the sun. Etc.

I put him to sleep. I read part of the My Little Pony Annual 2014. For story time I told him about family reunions at Lake Wenatchee. He wanted to look up why you should be afraid of square waves in water. It was a video he had watched at some point with Carly, but he didn’t remember why. He was asleep about 10, after I sang the whole Big Numbers song, after he reminded me about it.

Drumming:

Drawing a monster:

Drumming 2:

Twirling triangle:

Helping with the vine:

His atmosphere and slide analogy:

Reading about pirates:

He was up at 7:40. Carly played Minecraft with him. He started adding things to her house and she asked him to not make it too cluttered. She talked about wanting it to be colorful and he said, “I’m respecting that and making it more colorful.”

He said he was going to call me “Mr. Sausage” from now on. I responded by calling him “Liverwurst Pond Basket.”

We read the Fluttershy issue. This led to going upstairs to play a Brother game where Bar was knitting. Then a survival in the jungle one where they find a lion hurt by a cactus and have to prepare for a storm.

We went downstairs for breakfast. His usual oatmeal. We watched a Kurzgesagt video on detonating a nuclear bomb in the Marianas Trench (https://youtu.be/9tbxDgcv74c) and a Mumbo Jumbo video about creating silly things in Minecraft (https://youtu.be/ua-3T12Um7U).

We started making banana bread. He requested I put on really unusual electronic music and I showed him the Underground playlist on Apple Music and let him be in control. He added a few songs to our library. Told me about his Minecraft machines in his world of “Minecraftia.”

He played with the Garageband loops, then we watched another Mumbo Jumbo Minecraft video. Carly headed to the store. He was practicing “Ode to Joy” on the keyboard and I wrote it out on paper (he had asked me to) so he could practice it without the app. We watched the “Ode to Joy” part of Symphony #9 after listening to some Beethoven Piano Concerto #1. He was somehow talking about fruit in relationship to the symphony, and described a “Piccolo fruit.” He asked about how the people (soloists) in the choir were dressed and which were boys and girls. We discussed the four parts of the choir. When they really started the loud part he told them, “Keep it up! Keep it up!”

I got him ready right before Carly got back. They were heading to the pool. It closed at 2, and it was just after 1, so they wouldn’t have much time and were in a hurry. They left and I put away groceries. They didn’t get home until a little after 4. After the pool had closed, they went to her classroom. They spent about half the time with her reading to him (Minecraft books, I think) and the other half he did art: he drew on the digital whiteboard, then did pictures on paper of Minecraft blocks and Minecraft trees.

When they got home we went out in the yard and Carly planted the mint plant she had gotten for him at the store earlier. He told us, “I have four kinds of mint…I do a lot of baking in my lab.” She had bought a mystery fruit and figured out it was a dragonfruit. August tried it, and said, “I like the flavor, but not the texture. It’s crunchy, like I’m eating a burnt piece of toast.” She said she had been telling him about analogies at school.

We went in and he had a Brother game with Myna – a character and story based on the Minecraft book. Myna is a character who is good with potions that saves him. We did that, then I got him out for a bike ride, somewhat reluctantly. He agreed to go around the roundabouts, then I coaxed him into riding over to where we could see the strawberry fields growing.

We came back and checked on the filling bucket. In the yard he talked about not liking the term teeter totter, like cubby. He asked if tires could stick in mud, and we watched a couple minutes of videos of cars getting stuck in the mud as we sat on the swing. He noticed the noise of the trucks that were stuck and we talked about what a muffler does. Watched cars stuck in mud.

He was staying outside until it was is evening time at 5:30. At one time he asked how many minutes were left and I said 6. He jokingly replied, “NOBODY says six minutes to me!” We went in and played Minecraft. Carly had made a cheesy rice dish with tofu and cauliflower. He then ate that, then did 15 minutes of lone time, then 15 minutes of Minecraft. He is combining Minecraft and Brother games now, as Myna is a character that Brother met online and she is helping him with survival mode in Minecraft. They were making his starter house together.

We then read a book I had purchased on Apple Books: An I Can Read! book called In a Dark, Dark, Room and Other Scary Stories. He particularly liked the one about the girl’s head falling off, and the one about the ghost pirate. He liked their startling, but funny, endings and had me repeat the endings several times. We then read Frog and Toad Are Friends. First time in quite a while. Carly had been upstairs, but came down and read the next Minecraft book to him. He had a second bowl of food, but made her keep reading the book until they finished the whole thing in one sitting.

He was then eating pickles, and wanted more and more. We laughed or something, and he said, “What? Pickles is amazing! What? They have a lot of fiber in them! Wait, do they?” He really ate a bunch in the evening again, now having a slice of banana bread, then a second on that as well. He told me, “I’m stocking up.” I picked him up at one point and said said I don’t hold him as much any more as he does a lot more walking now. He told me, making a mistake, “Then cut off my arms…I mean legs.” Yet another pickle, then some more bread. He talked about wanting to make pickles at home.

I asked him about Mr. Gabi’s yesterday. He told me he had play d a winning game using a second computer in his head that he had programmed to play winning games. They had been playing Monopoly as a winning game, until it got crazy.

He had one more pickle, then got him upstairs finally at 8:55. He told me about quantum physics, explaining, “It’s kind of the digital information space has to exist…the tiny information that controls space-time and tells it what to do…we’re all made up of it…” He said that since quantum physics exists, God doesn’t, and he compared the quantum physics to “Like the conductor controlling the music…” And without it “We wouldn’t be dead or alive…we wouldn’t even exist in th first place.”

He then switched tactics and talked about God and Titanic victims, and speculated about what happened to them after they died. He told me, “I have a million skeletons in my lab. It’s gross. And terrifying.” He said they were studying them to see what happens after you die: “Maybe when you die you respawn at your spawn point.” We talked about reincarnation being a buddhist belief. Another theory he had was that there was a “pathway through space time…” planet to planet. “When you last die at the end of space you die forever…or it goes on and on…because you’re in a loop!”

Somewhere in all of that I gave him his bath and washed his hair and he had a lollipop. We got him ready for bed and I left them around 9:30 and went for a run. She was reading a new Minecraft book to him. I heard him up again still after 10. Apparently it took him quite a while to fall asleep, and he actually woke her up a couple times.

Minecraft books they have read or are reading:

• Diary of a Minecraft Zombie

• Secrets of an Overworld Survivor: The Witch’s Warning

• Secrets of an Overworld Survivor: Lost in the Jungle

• Secrets of an Overworld Survior: Never Say Nether

• Secrets of an Overworld Survivor: Wolves Vs. Zombies

Making music with loops:

Practicing Ode to Joy:

Balance bike in the yard:

Composing a tune:

He was up at 7:55. He had me carry him down the stairs. I asked how sleeping without a shirt had been. He said, “Pretty good.” It had been an adventuresome night. He had been down in the crack before I went to sleep and I pulled him out. Later in the night he had turned perpendicular, shoving his feet into my side. Finally, he had been pressed right up against me through the morning, sharing my pillow. I thought that might be for warmth.

At one point he started to go out to Carly, but came back to the couch and cuddled next to me for several minutes more. Minecraft about 8:15. Ate some mango, but spit out a bad piece. He drank from his water bottle, then wanted the tip cleaned to remove any possible contamination from the bad mango. I made us scrambled eggs and cheese. He then had a Brother game where he had an animal that was only awake 2 minutes a day and had to be fed precisely. It would then go back to sleep for 23 hours and 40 minutes.

We ate, and he asked about cats being nocturnal. I couldn’t remember the word, so I looked it up and taught him crepuscular. He next wanted some oatmeal. While he ate that we read the My Little Pony: Micro-Series, finishing the Pinkie Pie story.

Carly opened a pomegranate and they were eating that. he wanted to dye clothes with it, so she found an old pair of his pants and he rubbed seeds on it. He wanted something to squish them with and I suggested the juicer thing. That worked pretty well. Carly was doing a lot of cleaning this morning. August did 15 minutes of alone time then we did 15 minutes of Minecraft, focusing on learning redstone stuff.

We got him ready to go, and they left at 12:30 and went to Gabi’s first. Last time Carly took him August had wanted her in the room and she had been in for ten minutes before she could leave. This time, she negotiated and got it down to 5.

They then went to the beach. They spent a long time there, and didn’t get back until 5:30. He played with the water coming from the shower/foot rinsing area and just kept playing and playing. She stopped to take a photo to send me, and he told her “Mama! A major amount of water is coming! This isn’t the time for a picture!”

For his evening time we did more redstone in Minecraft. We then watched two My Little Pony episodes. He ate some of the pasta, then ate a carrot. He asked if there were really killer bunnies in Minecraft. I looked it up and we watched a short video about rabbits in general in the game.

We built with Legos. He added “Mr. Legs” to it: Lego legs and then a slanted piece as the body/head. Carly called us up to see a lizard upstairs. He was talking a lot about that ghost train video, and wanted my help in coming up with possible explanations for if it really had happened. One idea he had led to: “A magical surge…When an unimaginable amount of magic collides with physics…”

He also randomly asked, “Can I meet Harry Potter?” We pretty quickly figured out that he had confused names: Potter and Picasso. There’s a photo of Picasso at the end of Picasso’s Trousers.

He had some oatmeal, then we read the Twilight Sparkle issue of My Little Pony: Micro-Series. We went up to his bath. Carly took over and I went for a run after saying good night. He was still awake in there after I took a shower and was out a little past 10.

Using pomegranate as a dye:

His emergency flood path:

Laughing at My Little Pony:

Rules during Legos:

He was up at 7:25. He came down and sat next to me on the couch for several minutes. The first thing he said was that he needed to use the bathroom, then proceeded to tell me how you could make a practical joke in Minecraft to make someone fall in a hole.

We read the Cutie Mark Crusaders issue of My Little Pony: Micro-Series then started Minecraft. He asked “What’s mimicking?” A word of the day. We played Minecraft. He turned it off at the end of his time but was huffy about it. He ate a plum, then was reciting the “Avocado! Avocado!” poem, so I read the book. Should I Share My Ice Cream? book we had checked out at the library, then had me read I’m a Frog! When he threw his squishy ball up the stairs he said, “I throwed the ball up the corridor.” And he told me, “Dots are the beat shape…they can form ANYTHING!…Lines have limits…”

Upstairs we went did a Brother game where they all fight over a window seat on a plane and cause chaos. He ended up wearing my watch, even though he says he still hates the band, and went downstairs to get some exercise. We ended up doing Legos instead, after he destroyed what he and Carly made together. He talked about getting more Legos and said, “I don’t want to run out of Legos like Mama doesn’t like to run out of coffee…and milk.”

He then did alone time on the couch, looking at the world records. He found the largest commercially-available pizza and wanted to show it to both of us. He then played Minecraft, and wanted Carly to play with him, but she was able to stop playing after a minutes, but the played when he changed worlds and asked her to.

After they were done he demanded I read, so I went upstairs to do something instead. When I came back down he was more polite and we read the Rainbow Dash issue again.

Carly then took him to the Hockey Marathon. He quite liked watching, and she thinks we should take him to other sporting events. He said he was most interested in the goalies and watched them the most. They stopped by the house and I ran her glasses out to her. They then drove down to the southern end of the boardwalk in Netanya to ride his bike. That was fun, and they stopped at the ice cream place. He got half Smurf and half bubble gum ice cream, but it melted too fast. Like, insanely fast, apparently.

When they got back they started washing the car. August helped a bit, then came in and did alone time. When Carly came in I went out and vacuumed it. When I came in he was finishing up a Bright Side video about a disappearing train urban legend. He called it “The goodest train video I’ve ever seen.” He wanted to watch it again, this time with me, so we did. “We should give Bright Side a like cuz it’s so good.” We researched the urban legend a bit and talked about what that meant.

He then wanted to act out the story as a Brother game, with Brother and Sister being the ones that jumped off the train. He would later do a lot of speculating on possible explanations for why a train would disappear.

He had a potato from the meat place, then asked for another one. I read him part of Ramona Quimby, Age 8 at his request, then did his Minecraft time. Carly skyped with her parents and took a shower.

He had a pasta dinner, then the last of his frozen chocolate thing. Carly told me about the ice cream from earlier. A mistake, apparently, as August was quite sore about the melting thing. He did Legos with her, then was grumpy about alone time. We next read the Apple issue of My Little Pony: Micro-Series and ate crackers and turkey before watching Joseph’s Machines videos.

He next had oatmeal; he’s been saving most of his evening for late in the day. He talked about his idea for a contraction: “Starts shooting oranges! It’s a funny contraption cuz it has no use.” He had yet more oatmeal. We started the Pinkie Pie story, then switched and read ten pages of Luna’s. He was grumpy about stopping, and had been in a grumpy mood all evening.

He channeled the grumpiness into ripping up a coupe pieces of paper and putting the pieces in a pot. He had plans for what to do with it. I went for a run while Carly gave him a bath. They finished The Witch’s Warning, a Minecraft book. He said good night to Carly, then I finished reading him the Luna story. He talked about a machine that would write and print an unlimited amount of Hilda books. I sang to him and he was asleep by 10:20.

Improving one of Joseph’s Machines:

Ripping paper: