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He was up a bit before 7. I came down a little later and the iPad froze on him as he was watching Juliue Jr. I read Life on Mars to him, then we played with the blocks, making a big structure out of all of them before he knocked it all over with his head. He played Sound Rebound with Carly but got sad when she didn’t like when it made a lot of noise. He wanted the screen to fill up with the balls so it would quit, while she wanted to balls to fall off the screen so it would stay more music-like. He stayed sad for awhile and Carly asked what he was sad about. He did a good job of expressing his feelings: “Because you didn’t play with me!” Then turned it into a game by being sad together. We heard the gas get delivered outside. They played Toca Store on his iPad. He told Carly he lowered prices because customers didn’t like it being expensive. Carly turned it into a lesson in supply and demand. At one point she asked”Do you know what ‘stealing’ means?” He replied “That means taking something that belongs to someone without their permission.”

He switched to playing Toca Blocks on his own and Carly went outside. He finally agreed to go out with her if she got him crackers with peanut butter for him. I went and took a shower. When I came down he was sitting outside playing Toca Blocks and eating his crackers and peanut butter.

He got really upset when I tried to take him up to a bath – hitting me and biting my shirt. Carly and I switched and she got him up and in his bath. When he came down he did a nice job of entertaining himself while we finished getting ready to go. He built a structure out of Duplos and I suggested it was a preschool. He said it was the playground outside it: “Every time the kids go to preschool they can play at the playground for ten minutes. That’s nice, right?”

We left at 10:30. I remembered we hadn’t looked up a Velcro video. He said we forgot to look up videos of how you see. I mentioned rods and cones. He said no, when your eyes are closed. He’s very interested in the colors and shapes when his eyes are closed and when he covers them with his hands.

We drove to Ikea. A pretty successful shopping trip: throw pillows for the pillow covers we got in Jaffa, a couple outside chairs, a frame for my Shepard Fairey print, bins for books in Carly’s classroom, and various other small things. August did some foot prints and hopscotch, but his favorite thing was helping Carly get the bins for her classroom. He said “I can’t believe you let me get so much…It was so nice of you to do that.” Carly stood in line and August and I went to get food. It was just at noon. But no falafel for a half hour, so we settled for hotdogs and got one ice cream, which was sort of for sharing, but he had most of. He was really thankful for that as well.

We got home at 12:40. I did the pillows and picture frame and August stayed outside and helped Carly with the chairs. He really got into using the wrench. He also made a stick breaking machine and broke up his stick. When he came in he didn’t like the new throw pillows on the couch and threw them on the floor. He got over it pretty quickly though.

Carly was getting them food in the kitchen and he played with rubber bands on the cabinets. One broke and he sort of got sad when it did and hid between Carly’s feet. We sat outside and they ate (I’d already eaten). August excitedly told me “Dada, the secret ingredient is maple syrup!” We were then talking about the flowers and I said his flowers were really nice (the ones from seeds). He said “We’re so lucky there’s purple ones because I love purple!” “Huh? Different kinds of pink?” Earlier he had told Carly “I don’t like when it’s sunny because then you go outside and don’t play with me.”

He wanted to play Toca Blocks with me so we went inside. We played on his iPad, and did all of the block mixing to discover all the different objects.

Carly headed to school at 4. It is the MUN/Conflict Resolution thing. I’m not really sure what all is going on, as it sounds like more than a regular MUN conference. August and I played with some music apps, and in particular were getting into looping in Auxy, which we haven’t used. He liked a song we made and wanted to make sure we saved it. I asked what we should call it and he said “Odin and Newt”. He then wanted to watch Julius Jr. He watched that and I did some reading and we ate broccoli and cheese for dinner. He ate a good amount, so then we had milk and cookies. He wanted me to sing the Julius Jr. song, and I found it on Apple Music. It was the long version and we listened to that several times, and he used my glasses as a sort of instrument, but he was a bit bothered by the song being different than in the show. Then I found the shorter versions from the opening/end credits and we were listening to that on repeat when Carly got home at 6:20.

She went into the bathroom with her and I heard him say something like “I can’t believe there’s kinds of pretty toilet paper.” We read a few pages of Sisters 3, then he played GarageBand, mainly with Carly. He yawned and she noticed. He said “Mama, I’m not really tired. I just did that for funsies.” He then asked “Dada, why can’t I stay up in the night time like you?”

They played cards – he basically just wanted to sort the cards, he dislikes having a winner so much. Carly said something about something be impossible and she asked if he knew something that was impossible: “Not getting any food or water or air to breathe” “living without any sunlight” “Living without a brain.” “Not having any stores to buy anything from.” Carly pointed out that some people grow their own food “But what if they don’t have any seeds?” “Eating tons of food until you explode.” “Choking on a rock and a doctor never fixes it.” We also taught him ‘improbable’ – I gave him the example of Oma and Opa walking through the door in 5 minutes. He sat, deep in thought.

I read Kipper’s Birthday, then Carly took him up. I left them at 8:15. He nursed, but then lay down and was still awake for awhile, then fell asleep on his own about 8:30.

Thunder and lighting hit at 11:30 last night. I watched it from the kitchen and kitchen door for 20 minutes or so. There was one big bolt that was quite close. All the street lights went out when it struck and they came back after a few seconds. Carly was woken by the thunder, but August slept through it. During the night he ended up on the bed though and was waking up a lot. In the morning I got up with him about 6:40 and Carly got up a bit later. One of the very few times he and I have gotten up before Carly.

He watched Julius Jr. At one point he asked me for water. It was right on the ground next to the couch, after he had pushed it off. I said he could do it, and he said “I’m watching a video.” I set it at the other end of the couch for him to get.

Carly had opened the sliding door to admire the rain. August went over to her and realized it ws open and ws concerned the rain was getting in. He said he was a cold baby. Carly didn’t understand him and basically asked “What’s a cold baby?” They played with Duplos. He ran over to show me how 1 Duplo plus 2 Duplos makes a triangle. Carly told him to walk on the way back: “Why? Is it Saturday morning? I HATE Saturday morning.”

Back on the couch he dumped Cheerio dust on me. I asked Carly to vacuum me off. He was with Carly for a bit,then wanted to play Sound Rebound. I put Sound Rebound on his iPad. “Can I play with you? That would be even more fun.” Rain poured down again outside. They played Sound Rebound and got it to quit. Carly taught him the old blowing-in-the-Nintendo-cartridge thing. He got up to go to the bathroom and asked “Could you do interesting stuff for me while I go to the bathroom? Hey, do I need to go to the bathroom?”

More Sound Rebound, then he and I finished reading Best Friends for Frances. Then read I Am NOT Going to Get Up Today! Then switched to the iPad for Too Many Marvins, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, There’s a Wocket in My Pocket, and The Shape of Me and Other Things. He said “I want to learn about a nature app on my iPad.” Then played Earth Primer and the Nature apps. Carly made cauliflower and made me a pita sandwich. August had pita and hummus and za’atar but rejected the cauliflower.

I took a shower. When I came down he was watching Smurfs. Carly finished her tea, then took him up for his bath. There was a moderate level of screaming. He tried to tell her that I filled up her spray bottle with bath water. They read some Bob Books on the bed.

She came down to enjoy a couple minutes of not-rain outside. August came and wanted to play on my iPad but I was completing a work task. He waited patiently, sitting next to me, until I was done. He then played Toca Blocks. Carly picked some of the plant in the window box and made him lemon tea. He was upset when she wouldn’t put more homey in, then got his shirt wet and took it off. He had taken his pajamas shirt off earlier after Carly washed his hands. When he was still wanting more honey Carly thought he asked for a hug when he said honey. He ate pita and hummus and some salmon salad and we finished the mango juice. He asked Carly to move over to the couch so he could sit next to her.

He made a bridge out of books between the couch and coffee table. They had a Lego person on it. Then they sort of played cards. Carly made a shopping list and he said “We need more Duplo persons, and Lego persons, and edge pieces, and water bottles!” He talked about how many water bottles he has, and I got out the pink Hello Kitty water bottle we got but he refused to use. He played with it and really liked the way the cap pops open. I told him to try drinking from it and he gave it a try, but was instantly disappointed. He doesn’t like how the water come out.

He asked “How does springs work?” “I have a spring in me that you can’t see that has bumps on it and it hits me to make me walk.”

They left at 2. They first went to school. Later, when I asked Did you play school? He said “Yeah, a little bit.” When I talked to Carly she said they actually played with the spinner from an old board game she found in the cabinets. He also played with Word and projecting things on the screen, printed some things, and played with the chair going up and down. And they enjoyed the thunder and lightning. They managed to miss all the rain though, as it was dry when they went to Tiv Taam in the mall. They got back at 4:20.

He came in and said something about “Like peas in a pod”. He’s really into idioms and saying, and was also using “a great balancing act” a lot. Carly tried to get him out on a walk while the weather was good, but he refused. Ate some crackers and hummus. He sat on the couch and played with the motorcycle Lego. He asked who built it and where it was fron, and he told me I shouldn’t have played with them when I was a kid because then it means he has less to play with now. The logic wasn’t clear on that one. He also asked “When did you stop playing with Legos when you were a kid?”

We then played with the salad spinner and talked about momentum and friction. He then threw the lego tree in as it was spinning. Some times it would spin back out, other times it would press against the side.

We went upstairs and brought down the box of blocks to do dominoes. He and Carly had talked about the “domino effect” earlier when they were making the bridge of books. From dominoes it turned into a game of seeing how far he could get the cylinder-shaped blocks to roll, starting on a ramp. He then made towers with their base in his bowl. The towers would make gold once you added sugar or something to them.

He wanted to play Piano Maestro (not something I can do too well right now), and he helped Carly set up a profile and get started. She played for while, then he switched to his account, but was still only comfortable playing the one-note songs and the two-note tutorial. Not ready to start any of the two-note songs.

Played Sound Rebound and had great fun making it quit. We then read some more of The Sisters, about 10 pages. He hadn’t eaten much of the stir fry that Carly had made earlier. He finally agreed to strawberries, and ended up eating quite a few. He’s rather picky about his strawberries now – no green bits and he likes them cut pointy. He talked me into taking him up to bed. I took him to the bathroom, then got his pajamas on and brushed his teeth. He told me I should just drink tea in the morning so I could go to bed earlier. He pieced that together on his own. I left them at 8:20.

I remember that he had a bad dream during the night and Carly consoled him. He came down at 6:30. First asked Carly if his hands were cold, then put his feet on her stomach and asked if his feet were cold. They then read much of Best Friends for Frances. When Carly asked what kind of animals they were I said badgers, but August declared them foxes. A bit later when he wanted to watch Julius Jr. I joked he couldn’t use my iPad until he admitted they were badgers. He won the exchange by stating “They’re badgers but I still call them foxes.”

Carly headed to work. He watched more Julius Jr., then he was a Trap-O-Matic, which was an invention from the show that detects traps. I made eggs with broccoli and cheese and he played with rubber bands on the nobs. He said “I hate that noise.” when I turned on water to boil. He wrapped a rubber band around his fingers and said “This is like a roller coaster.”

Ate breakfast (he ate his entire bowl) then built a big symmetrical shape with Duplos. “If you put the Duplos along the edges it makes it more stable. Mama told me that.” It turned into a playground. He stated at one point “Oh, the Places You Will Go doesn’t really exist cuz you can’t wander off by yourself…what if there’s no maps?” We played a level of Math Tango. I said I didn’t remember what ‘review’ was in the game. He said “Review means when you do something back over again.”

He played Toca Tea Party will I took shower. In the bathroom he asked “Why do ghosts not really exist?” When I was done shaving he said “Good enough” We had a tea party, then did his CAR puzzle. Then took his bath. Afterwards he played with his bracelet as a luggage conveyor belt. When we walked downstairs he brought the R from the car puzzle with him. He said he didn’t have his C case (suitcase) from the conveyor belt “But I have my letter R case.”

He played with the mop handle on the chair and we discussed ‘pivot point’. I went to make sandwiches for our outing and he watched the latest Wintergatan videos of building the new Marble Machine: https://youtu.be/iFuUSe44jtk He really liked the “sad part” where he knocks a piece off the machine and it breaks. He watched a couple more Wintergatan videos, and said “Actually, typewriters doesn’t exist…They don’t exist because they don’t work anymore.” He then did the pivot machine with the mop again and talked about the Frida book for some reason. I think he and Carly may have read it recently: “What’s Frida?…and she had babies…she had a dream and she divided into two Fridas. Uh-huh.”

We left at 12:10. Finished the latest Story Pirates podcast (episode 12), then a Tumble Science episode on sea stars. He didn’t believer that sea stars have thousands of feet. Arrived at the park at 12:35.

Getting out of his vest he looked at the Velcro and asked “How does that attach? Can you tell me?” We paid for parking on got in the stroller. I asked and put on his sweatshirt. He then said “It’s pretty warm. I don’t need this.” I told him I’d just asked if he wanted it and he said yes. He replied “And I said yes‽” Stopped and grabbed three books. He asked “How is spit made?” What if we didn’t have it?”

We got to the music area at 1, looking at the zigzag sculpture on the way. He played it a bit, then we sat on a bench and ate some lunch and had a good discussion: about step counts, berries and seeds you can eat, a video he watched yesterday about the soil: “There’s layers of the ground plants don’t grow in.” “Dada, why can’t plants push the rock if they’re so thick?”

“Why doesn’t leaves grow on roots?” “But why don’t they grow on the branch that is straight up?” He meant the trunk and we did some good speculating. He played the musical instruments a bit more but was then ready to get walking.

As we crossed the pond a couple asked me to take their photo. Perhaps my first full exchange in Hebrew of more than a couple lines. Well, just 3 or 4. But it was something. As I took the photo, August was looking down at the water and “How deep is it? I think it’s pretty deep.” When I agreed, he said “Actually, I was just talking to myself.” I had just talked to myself back at the lunch spot when I was wondering if I’d put the strawberries away.

I stopped and took a photo of the statue of a person playing accordion upside down. August patiently waited on his bike while I went up the hill to do that. We stopped at the covered playground and played there. First on the small spinning thing. His word of the day, which we had discussed earlier, was ‘momentum’: “When I got on here there was momentum.” He was a machine on there, then went up on the play structure: “Remember I have 90 mechanisms.” We played on the tilting thing on the ground (more discussion of pivot points), then he went on another spinning thing, with a spiral on it. He asked me “Could you apply some force?”

We stopped at the bathroom at 2:20. He spotted the changing table and we reminisced about them. I brought my right hand down to point to something just as he decided to close it and the table whacked my hand right on the pinkie area. Didn’t feel too good.

Over at the other playground he asked me to sing “Yellow Submarine” and he got a rice cake snack from a woman who had a box of them. He liked it, but commented on his lips getting dry and sticking to it – a good connection back to our previous discussion about what would happen if you didn’t have spit. I pushed him in the acorn spaceship. He asked and answered himself: “Why don’t I like little stuffed animals? It’s because I can’t hide in them.” And he said “This has some momentum from those kids.”

He then wanted to be termites in the log: “the top wood is the sugariest.” We sat in there for 10 minutes or so. We needed to get back to the car but stopped briefly at the exercise equipment. He talked more about momentum. We got to the car right at 2:50. He asked me “Do you still call water ‘wawa’?” I explained that he was the one that called it ‘wawa’ and he seemed surprised that babies made up those words, not adults. We talked about a few more examples, like Colin’s ‘mima’. In the car he said “I saw some tic tacs but they’re not manual because they have fancy tastes!” Actually a rather sophisticated joke, and he had mentioned something else being manual earlier. Not quite sure where he had picked up the manual/automatic distinction. I think maybe in discussing typewriters and the electric ones being more complex. I asked him what else was ‘manual’ or ‘automatic’ and he said “Something that’s manual versus automatic is guitars! Because people play them!” After taking the photo of the couple we had seen a guy playing a guitar and he had asked something about it being manual, versus a guitar in GarageBand.

We listened to an old Story Pirates and bits of other ones we hadn’t finished on the way north. We went to Tiv Taam at the mall. Watched some salsa dancing outside, then went shopping. Busy, busy. He wanted watermelon but I didn’t get one. Figured Carly could choose one tomorrow.

We got home. Carly was already there, having left school about 3. They had a half day with students, then a meeting. I ate, then Carly went outside. We played some Seuss Band. Then read Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?, Hunches in Bunches, The Zax, and Tadd and Todd. He wanted Skybrary and said “I love Skybrary!” He had it read Keep Your Distance to him (we had read it before). He then had it read a few books to him: I Can Do It Myself, Freda Plans a Picnic, and Jenny Jenkins.

Carly was getting him strawberries, milk, and Cheerios to eat. He asked “What are you making for me? You’re taking ages.” But then he didn’t eat much. Carly skyped with her mom. Derek and family are in Mexico now so we saw them. He then read Life on Mars with Carly. He randomly asked “How much cupcakes i
s there in the world?” He read one  of the new Seuss stories with Carly and was reading a lot of the words. He then turned into a complicated music machine, based on the old machine we had seen in the Wintergatan video at the museum – with multiple instruments, songs on paper, and doors you could open to see how it worked.

That led to playing Sound Rebound and he really liked trying to make it quit as it is a buggy program. Carly went up and took a shower. He finally agreed to eat some dinner and chose the soup. He ate the whole bowl, so he and I sat on the couch and each ate a cookie. Which meant he was in a talkative mood:  “How can tons of people walk on sidewalks if there’s space underneath them?” I talked about what we could do tomorrow while it rained and suggested a smoothie at the mall: “We’re not going to get a smoothie; it’s a rainy day.” He asked “Can I see your teeth? Wow.” He was then a “Dig-a-rator…” machine.

He was ready for upstairs. We went up and read 10 pages of The Sisters. Carly took over and let him fall asleep up on the big bed. He was asleep sometime after 8.

He was up just after 6:20. Down on the couch he was humming a line and I figured out it was “Do, a deer, a female deer.” He watched Julius Jr. as Carly headed to work. I made a banana, mango, and strawberry smoothie. He was pretending to call through vents and pipes again and asked me to clean the floor under the dining table. Too dirty for him. He then made a little Duplo play area on his own.

I was getting things ready in the kitchen to make cookies. He calls rubber bands “ribbon bands”. He confused me a day or two ago asking how strong ribbons are. Turned out he meant rubber. Also asked “What kind of conveyor belts did they use in the past when they didn’t have run by motors?” I asked if he was ready to make cookies. He said “I’m going to learn this Hebrew word first.” He made one of the letters, then was seeing very abstract letters BETWEEN the magnets in the shapes that were made: “That looks like a lamed and that’s a dalet.” And “Look at that shape. It’s like a tusk tooth of a Narwhal.” He then said “I’m gonna wash my hands to want to help you, you know.” He then ran off and washed his hands and came back, all on his own.

We then made cookies. He poured the eggs into the big bowl on his own. He also talked about how he was doing better making cookies this time and not getting upset. As we baked them he got excited: “I’m ADOPTED to cookies…I’m magnetical to cookies!” Meant ‘addicted’. When they were ready I gave him a funny-shaped one. He said “That’s the biggest one you’ve ever given me.” He said “I have a mystery for myself about how many cookies we’re going to make.” The answer turned out to be 43.

He then asked what drowning is and we had a discussion of swimming and lessons. A couple minutes later he said “I have another way to save people. You go to them in a boat and they sit on a floaty thing and you take them back to the shore.” “What if there’s not enough floaty things?”

I exercised and he played Figure on my iPad. He then had a mystery song, and correctly guessed it was from TodoMath. He then played TodoMath and we went upstairs. He refused carrots as a snack, saying he doesn’t like carrots or vegenaise anymore. I took a shower and we watched a Julius Jr. During his bath we watched an Animal Cell video. He mainly watched the guy running from the police part at the beginning. Then watched SciShow Kids Why Do We Get Goosebumps?

He randomly declared “There isn’t a tooth fairy that has a wand.” Then downstairs on the couch he said “Maybe magic is hard so it doesn’t exist.” I suggested we take a little rest before we got going on our buys afternoon. I pulled him over to me and he lay with his head on my side for a few minutes.

We walked up and did recycling. Or mainly I did, as he said “I’m more excited about school.” He did the glass though. He was asking if I liked his music and I said I loved the songs he made up. He replied “And I love the songs you make up.” We sang some “I Lost My Helmet in the Spaceship” on the way back.

While I put the bike in the car he hugged/protected the car and talked about not wanting anyone else to touch it. He then played in the car while I went in and got the backpack, etc. At the gate he asked “How can it lock if it’s kitty cat shapes?” Indeed the shape of the hole that the deadbolt goes into looks remarkably like a cat. He went in to go to the bathroom and asked “What’s the largest number invented?”

We listened to episode 12 of Story Pirates in the car today. We stopped at the Even Yehuda library to return the two Hebrew books we hadn’t really read. I apologized for not reading them and he said “Well the books doesn’t really have many feelings.” He wanted to put the books through the slot next time.

Back in the car he noticed the clicking of the engine idling. Sounded slightly different for some reason. Left there at 1:50. Drove to the school and went to the library. He walked in with the bag of cookies and gave them to Liz and said they were for the librarians. He played in the big stuffed animals. The fifth grade class was back in the kids area. We found Best Friends for Frances and checked it out and were going to head to the playground when the fifth grade started to leave. August wanted to head back to that room. He found Life on Mars by Jon Agee and I found Is that WISE, Pig? by Jan Thomas. He was hungry and wanted a snack and I realized I had forgotten the snacks at home.

We were about to leave and run home but then I realized we should ask Carly. Went and found her leaving her room. She got us her container of fruit and a plastic knife. He wasn’t happy about it, especially after Carly had a cookie. Didn’t really get upset, just grumpy. We sat in a chair together outside the library for a couple minutes. I asked if he was nervous about the Hebrew class and he said he was. We talked about it a minute and that seemed to do the trick. He then agreed to go deliver the bag of cookies to Mandy, then head to the preschool.

We stopped by Mandy’sclassroom but she wasn’t there, so he left the cookies on her computer. We looked at an aquarium with tadpoles in it, then headed to the preschool.

We went in and found Miriam, who was at Bar’s house and who teaches the Hebrew class. August had a few minutes to look around the preschool and liked it much more this time. Class was upstairs, and there were 4 other kids (including Bar, who technically isn’t in the class as she knows Hebrew). They did some greetings (we learned ‘sababa’ – very good/awesome). Then most of class was watching/acting out a Hebrew version of the song Five Little Monkeys. I participated. August was the doctor the first time. They then all got little sets of the monkey family and doctor and colored them so we can act it out at home. He asked a few times when class was over, etc. but at the end when she asked if he had fun and was coming back next week he said yes. And we shared some of our fruit with Lana and Thomas and Bar. I didn’t catch the name of the other girl, but she is a friend of Bar’s and they played together the first time at the playground.

Outside August ran around with them playing hide and seek until August decided to play on the playground. He climbed on top of the car thing on his own. He worked on the engine up there (that goes back to playing with Liam up there and working on the engine). He was singing the Julius Jr. song. He had talked about how much he liked it earlier. He used “Tin can foil…it helps it not squeak.” I briefly met Lana’s mother.

Carly came over and met us. He showed her how he can go down the slide with his legs over the sides, then we walked up to his activity class. Carly walked with us, then walked home while I stayed with him.

Class was a full parent and kids class today. Which worked really well, as all three of us participated. August was dancing and looking in the mirror. He got close to the mirror and said “Now I can look up my nose! That’s what I like about mirrors. My eyebrows are BIG.” They played with frisbees and he was balancing it on his head and his hand. And he surprised me by sitting on the frisbee and spinning himself pretty fast just using his hands. When they were being animals he chose snakes. For the big setup at the end he did a great job of pushing himself on the scooter across the floor with a frisbee on his back and then stacking the frisbee on a stack. But his favorite part was the mat that had arrows on it pointing different directions. You jumped from one to the next, spinning in the air.

At the end of class she has them sit back down and throws a pretend star to them which they catch, then throw back. He was excited about that part.

On the way back to the school and car we stopped at the park. We saw Gaby and Grace along the way and let them know it was us who dropped off cookies on her mom’s computer. We got to the park and it was still quite light – days are gett
ing longer. He did a bunch of climbing, then left at 6:20. As we left he saw a little kid with one of those push bike things that looks like a car. He said “We should get one like that. It has a steering wheel and everything.”

In Story Pirates they get hit by a tornado. In his continuing attempt to figure out what is real and what isn’t, he said “Tornadoes don’t really exist.” I had to tell them they actually were, but they don’t usually suck up people. He thought about it and said “I don’t EVER want to live in a country that has tornados.” I told him that meant we couldn’t live by Vivian.

We went inside and they nursed, then he drank the rest of his smoothie. Soup for dinner. Encouraged him to eat more and more bites until he was stuffed. Then show Carly how he could eat bites when she came inside from taking care of the plants. Ate a decent amount, then had a cookie, which he happily ate on the couch. When he had a couple bites left I remembered milk. Got him some milk for the last couple bites.

He read  Is That Wise, Pig? and at least part of Best Friends for Frances with Carly. She took him upstairs and I left them at 7:30. Think it took quite awhile to get him to sleep. I heard talking, but not crying.

Delivering:

Big cookie: 

He woke up and asked “Can I go to the bathroom before we go?” I asked go where. “Downstairs.” After he went to the bathroom I told him he could go downstairs and mama was there. He started down the stairs then stopped and asked  “Are you sure?”

Nursed and then Carly got up from the couch and he lay there. And then asked “Dada, could I have some Cheerios?” in what sounded like a British accent. He had fun putting Cheerios down his shirt, then did a “Magical disappearing hug” with Carly. He watched some Smurfs. Carly had locked the gate when she left and asked me to unlock it. I went and did so, then got an email a couple minutes later saying the gas delivery guy had already come and couldn’t get in. August played Easy Music, working on the rhythms and songs parts, then he was being a sick bird on the couch. He asked “Do animals get sad?” We then played Sound Rebound. At one point, when I hadn’t made any jokes, he said “It’s not nice of you to make jokes…I just don’t like jokes.” We then played Musyc. So a lot of music creation in the morning.

I exercised, then he was making a machine with the mop, chair, and a pillow on the floor: “This is a complicated machine…that’s the pivot point.” “Squeak…it broke cuz it’s out of oil.” Earlier he had made machines from Cheerios, as if they were gears. He drank the leftover smoothie from yesterday, then played some Seuss Band

We played xylophone and piano. I taught him the G major scale as the xylophone starts on G and played two octaves at once. We took the xylophone over by the piano and were playing scales together.

He was then going through different vents,  a la I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, and went through vent 5:  “I discovered a tiny trap door.” He started discussing Max and Ruby and tried to argue that it teaches you things: “That’s one thing it teaches you; it teaches you not everybody likes eggs.” He made a conveyor belt out of a rubber band on the cabinet handles.

We took crackers and peanut butter and smoothie up on his bed and I took my shower. He said “Hi merry! Here’s my bracelet!” I forgot Angeles was now Merry. He used it as a conveyor belt. We watched a Julius Jr. together. He played with his bracelet: “It looks like lips. It’s my latest invention.” He had me take photos of his different shapes.

During his bath I chose a SciShow Kids video on why we see color. Then watched some  Dr. Binocs videos and a video on brushing your teeth.

I made a tuna sandwich and apple sauce for lunch. He just ate the apple sauce. We trimmed his nails and cleaned them, then he played with the clippers and was figuring out how to use them. He also asked how they work and we talked about levers.

Played some Seuss Band, then finally got outside, where he played on his teeter totter and hummed Seuss songs. We had planned on driving to Winter Lake Park, but he decided he didn’t want to drive. He just wanted to ride his bike. He said “The walk will be fun.”

We decided to go to the mall and get chocolate chips for our cookies tomorrow. On the way he asked “How’d they cook things before they had stoves?” We were to the mall by 2:30. Stopped at the play area outside. Did some climbing around, then there were a couple of girls he was trying to play with. But they kept moving somewhere else when he got close to them. I got him and told him it looked like they wanted to play by themselves. We got on the airplane. He said “Dada, I have a glitch in me.” Then a minute later he said “The problem is I’m not designed to play with other people…I’m not. See? It’s not in my program.” He cheered up as he was a machine delivering things “Its a pretty complicated machine.” One thing it delivered was “Butterfly glasses…Actually, it makes you see like a unicorn.”

We went in the train. He saw a girl with balloons – she must be 8 now – and said “But I don’t EVER want to get balloons. Because I might let go of them.” He had me act out having balloons floating away. When I pretended to cry he told me I shouldn’t: “But it’s okay for big people.”

He tried again with some of the girls and this time it worked: he was chasing a girl around, and she was chasing him back, and a couple of other girls got involved, including the girl with balloons. She got the balloons snagged on the train and one of the small balloons broke off and floated up in the tree. August said he liked that part. Maybe not if it was his balloon.

We played on the train again: “I’m going back in time, you know. To see scientists! The father I go more scientists!”

He declared he was done playing and we headed in to the grocery store. I first pointed out the restaurants we haven’t eaten at yet and he was excited about trying them sometime.

Shopping went well. There chocolate chip selection was minimal, so we got a variety to try them, including white chocolate, which he wanted. He told me he doesn’t like tuna anymore. He announced, probably thinking of the balloons earlier, “When it’s oma’s birthday I don’t want Oma to suggest a party. Too much people.”

We left at 3:40. Studying his arm he said “I really don’t know why those hairs is there.” He had noticed hairs on his leg a day or two ago. We talked about what it does and evolution.

We got home and watched one more Julius Jr. I made a joke about something and then said I remembered I wasn’t supposed to make jokes. He now told me that jokes are funny. Carly came home. They nursed, then he was whispering nonsense to me.

We had dinner. Carly gave him some of her leftover noodles from lunch at school, but he didn’t like them as it was too peppery. He had some soup instead.

I went upstairs for some work time. August didn’t want to let me go and came up with me. Got him back downstairs to Carly and they watched a toothbrushing video at his request and a couple of videos about Golgi apparatus and other cell parts. “I like where it stores the things and packages them up…and the part where it shrinks when it doesn’t have water.” He talked a lot about it. They then ended up using the Namoo app. They came up to me before 7:30.

He liked jokes again after I made one to Carly: “Jokes are funny.” Carly was about to put him to bed when she remembered she was going to ask him “What does peace mean to you?” It is something that her students are doing. She took him into the office and he asked “What? You’re gonna put my foot in a scanner?” That’s a reference to The Sisters when Maureen wants to scan her cast. He really liked making a video and answering the questions, then did a freeform video. Took him to bed and I lef them at 7:50. He was asleep by 8.

He woke up and asked me to take him down to Carly. But by the time I got out of bed he had layed back down and fallen back to sleep. He then woke up about 6:50. Carly took the car to work as it was raining hard.

We watched Julius Jr. He really liked the one where they turn everything pink. A lot of laughing on that one. I suggested we build a Duplo zoo. He got really excited and reminded me that he had put two pieces of fence in for it yesterday but we never built it. We built a zoo, then I made a mango and strawberry smoothie. Exercised and he watched Julius Jr. We then built a Duplo playground to go with the zoo. He spotted a big bug on the Duplos that maybe looks like a kind of cockroach. It disappeared but found it again when he destroyed the playground with his head. I captured it.

We went upstairs and in his room he made an infinity sign from one of his bracelets. I took a shower. He came in and told me he got some poeanut butter on his bed. I told him thanks for telling me. When I went out I couldn’t find him. I found him in the big bedroom. He had moved the iPad to the bed on the floor because he didn’t like being by the peanut butter.

I started some laundry and then we did his bath. He played with Carly’s water bottle, dumping water in the bath. After his bath we went in and played kaleidoscope cards: “I made a design with equilaterals!? Thats pretty cool.” “I like how the volcano shapes are sticking out.” “I was reminding you…”

He talked about liking my toothbrush and I wondered if he’d like an electric toothbrush or if he’d find it too tickly. So I let him try my toothbrush and he liked it. I suggested we walk somewhere for lunch. He of course settled on Sushi Ishimoto: “Why do I love the noodle place? Because it’s the best noodles in the world. I love it.”

We got going at 12. Randomly told me “I call the Hebrew teacher Daria now.” He was humming a Seuss song. We were using ‘left’ and ‘right’ in Hebrew and he told me “We should work on north and south.” So we worked on ‘north’ and ‘west’ on the way up and ‘south’ on the way back. He had fun squishing a big mushroom that was lying on the sidewalk for some reason.

We got to the restaurant and August chose our usual table. He wanted the same thing – noodles with shrimp – but we went for the normal noodles. He used his chopsticks again and was picking up shrimp with them. He ate all the shrimp. When we were done I suggested we play cards. He talked about not liking having a winner and I came up with a cooperative version of Go Fish, where we were putting all of our pairs together to try to sort the whole deck. He was skeptical at first as that wasn’t how Carly did it. He also wanted to know how the blinds on the window work and we looked at the gear part and I taught him how to raise and lower them.

When we were done we got walking. He wanted a new playground, and there is one near our path to the school that we’ve never played at. On the way we stopped and watched a construction crane. We walked by a cat who was trying to eat a can of salmon or tuna. The can was turned upside down. So I used my foot to turn it back upright and the cat kept eating. August asked me twice to explain what I’d done with the cat. Finally, August was following the lines of white bricks in the sidewalk. Oh, and August talked about generating power as he rolled and I told him about power regeneration in the cars we watch race.

We got to the playground at 1:50. He thought I sounded like a pirate when I said something, and so we became pirates. And this became ‘Buried treasure playground’. Much of our time was spent running and climbing around pretending to use a map and the binoculars to find buried treasure. The treasure chest would then be full of socks or shoes or something, but then the gold would be hidden inside them.

He then asked “How can a bakery make the thing someone wants if they make a mistake?” No idea where that came from. But that led to a second game of play acting ordering a cake. He made hilarious recipes though with ingredients like nails and all sorts of other things. I think I made a reference to mookah mook something and then August asked if I wanted to know the Mookah Mook alphabet. So he told me and I got a video. I was curious when he came up with ‘Mooka’ and I searched and found that he had first made a ‘Mookah mookah’ tower almost two years ago on February 18, 2016 when we were playing with the wood blocks at the Folk Museum in Seoul and he played by the Russian boy.

We left at 2:50. As we went he said he gave me a hat that is pointy “like a wizard.” It told me things like how much power I’m making and all sorts of other stuff. We were home at 3:30.

I had some pita and hummus and za’atar. He had a few bites with hummus when I suggested it would make the za’ater stick better. We were listening to music and he said “What song is this? It’s kinda weird. Add it to my playlist!” It was Brad’s “My Fingers”.

We watched some smurfs together. It was the Meany episode. Carly got home a couple minutes before it was over and he basically ignored her until it was finished. They nursed, then we read Is Everyone Ready for Fun? We played Seuss Band. I let us buy the last song, “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back” and he was really excited.

Carly made a cheese sauce and broccoli and he ate that for dinner. He and I then started reading Sisters 3. Carly tried to take him up for bed but he protested that he’d never had his soup, which he’d let get cold on the table. She reheated it and then he ate all of it. Then he protested that she had said he could have a treat if he ate all his soup. He got the last chocolate coin from the Thatcher treats. We took him up and I left them at 7:50. He was asleep soon after.

He was up at 5:55. On the couch he asked Carly “What’s water plus crane?” Carly taught him ‘stream of consciousness’. When Carly left for work he said he didn’t love her, but then I got him to say he did, and he added something like “But I don’t love her when she goes to work.” He played Dragonbox Little Numbers, then Music4Kids. We saw a Beat Bugs app and he really wanted it. We bought it and listened to the four songs it includes. He hummed and sang along for awhile, then grew tired of it. We agreed that the interactive parts were disappointing. In the evening he asked me to delete it from the iPad.

I exercised and we played Seuss Band. He said “I hear a gurgling noise in my pants!” He laughed when I figured out he meant there was a wocket in his pocket. We switched over and read that book, then read I had Touble in Getting to Solla Sollew and Gertrude McFuzz. He then played his piano and played one of the Seuss songs and variations of the Hebrew color song.

We went up and I took a shower and he watched Julius Jr. In his bath we watched his favorite Animusic video (“Acoustic Curves” https://youtu.be/zF26jtMA9U0), then Wintergaten videos. First the original Marble Machine video, then the newest update on making the new machine, which was all about making gears, so August really liked it: https://youtu.be/SkI22V_v-xY Then two of the videos featuring old music machines at the museum: https://youtu.be/jUApoagh64U and https://youtu.be/5UpriHcn_xs

Finally washed him and we headed downstairs. He had taken the useless door handle of the shower off and brought a part of it down with him. He played with it and made music. He just had his underwear on and at one point he stood on the couch and put his hand in his underwear and said “grurgle, gurgle, gurgle”. So funny. It was the wocket. He played his piano and gave himself a lead in – it was like in Seusss Band, and he played variations on a Seuss song. For lunch I made hima grilled cheese sandwich and he ate apple sauce with cinnamon. We watched a little more  Juliue Jr. and had some Hebrew time.

We were then being a machine on the couch. Lasted quite awhile but then he got crazy and kicked my had quite hard. I had been feeling really well and we were going to get going outside but then suddenly I got really tired. I let him watch an extra episode of Julius Jr. and we feasted on the couch.

He then had us acting out I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew: “It was damp so I grew moss on my feet.” He was going through passages using the pillows and was doing it earlier: “I discovered a doorway that said ‘vent number 2’.”

He found the mop and was using it as a lever with the yoga mat. Played around outside for awhile and said “I’m wearing my magical shoes.” He scratched the paint on the bookshelves and we went in for a time out on the couch, which he really didn’t like: “you don’t love me.” He had a lot of trouble saying “Sorry Dada for scratching.” He was first saying it in a baby voice. Finally said it in his real voice. Outside he ripped apart a leaf and said “The bonds isn’t very strong.”

We hopped on his bike and headed to school. On the way he spotted one of the spots where pipes come out of the ground and go into homes and asked “Is that a gauge?” There were two, and the wheel was spinning on one of them. So we looked at several more gauges on the way to school.

We went to the library and he spent most of the time playing with the big stuffed animals. He hid in them and piled them in the chair and climbed on them. Found a few books, and he briefly did art on one of the computers. I had tried to stop him from putting stuffed animals on the chair, as he kept messing up the sort of display, with a turtle reading a book and having a mustache. When I went to return a Calvin and Hobbes book I heard him talking to Amanda. When I came back he had put an animal on the chair. He turned to me and said “Amanda said I could do it!” Seemed a few years older when he said it. He was also talking to Liz and when she left her desk he wondered where she was. He went and found her in the office and said “There you are!” He checked out our books (Seuss’s I Am NOT Going to Get Up Today and Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories, Is Everyone Ready for Fun? and The Duckling Gets a Cookie!?) Then we went to the building shapes, then read Sleepless Knight, a short graphic novel. He also did some jumping from the seating area to the squares.

Carly came about 4:10 and he was upset because he wanted to keep playing. Walking out, Bar came running across the grass and said hi. She showed us her ballet dancing, then introduced him to one of her friends.

We walked towards home and stopped at our park when he jumped off and sat on the alligator bench, Ended up playing on the teeter totter thing where he was making potions using things like pink ink and sparkles. He turned Carly into things: “You’re something that can’t see. You’re a worm.” Then turned her into oxygen, then hydrogen, then electricity. Back at home he would have me turn him into an atom, then back into Zinnie. To turn him back I thought of all the Zinnie-est things I could: 14s, Qs, his orange bike, hot chocolate, etc,

We got home after 5. We read I Am NOT Going to Get Up Today, then had pisole for dinner. He made up a song on the piano and showed it to both of us. He called it “Keese hears a who” and showed us how he was using different fingers to press the keys. H convinced Carly he could have a treat and when she asked if he’d had any treats today he said “Yeah, Tic Tacs. But that counts on a different level.” He had a Thatcher treat and said “Look at all the sugary goodness.”

He had eaten a good amount of soup, so later Carly let him have oatmeal and mango. When she put honey in it he said “That makes is a Thatcher-level treat!” He scarfed that down and wanted more. Amanda Palmer just released a new song and video called “Judy Blume” As we watched he said “I love this. Could you add it to my playlist?” He also asked “Why can our eyes see big things, but not small things?”

On the couch I made the potion to turn him into atom; another to turn him back. We then read Is Everyone Ready for Fun? and The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? With Carly he then read the first two stories in Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories.

He asked that I carry him upstairs and then he and I read the last two stories in it. Carly showered. I let him play some Tongo Music and he wanted to play music for Carly when she came back. He said he wasn’t going to fall asleep, even though it was 8. He came down and he and I read The Great Henry McBride and To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. Tried again at 8:30. Back down again. He lay with me on the couch for a little whi;e, then I took him up and we did timers on the bed. At first he was hitting his foot against the bed and me, and talking a lot. We kept practicing and he did a couple minutes of lying silently on the bed and not moving. Seemed very close to falling asleep on his own, But eventually he said he preferred falling asleep with mama. I got her and left them at 9:25.

August was up at 6:35. I got up at 7:10. They were playing with Cubetto and discussing space stations. August and I finished reading Young Cam Jansen and the 100th Day of School Mystery and did the picture thing. August played with Duplos and hummed. He then played with his xylophone. He used a stick from the xylophone to invent a clock: “This is an old clock they had when they didn’t invent two arm ones.” We then played with Musyc and created a couple of good boards/songs. He had had oatmeal with Carly. I had toast, then eventually made him a piece of his own. I then made a mango smoothie. Carly was grading outside. August went out and played with his stick and we sawed off a little of it again. He was playing with the stick and said “I’m just pretending to be a glue machine.”

He made Carly a shopkeeper: “You can borrow my calculator if you want to.”

I went and took a shower. When I came down they were playing cards. First go fish and then war. Carly took him up for a bath, and he told her everything she was doing wrong: I put the toys somewhere else, I fill up the squirt cars, I don’t fill the bath so high. He also likes to tell Carly “You always say that”. He played in the bath for a long, long time. Spelling words for awhile.

Came downstairs and was messing with Carly’s computer. He ate more of his oatmeal and asked Carly how a pen works if you can’t see something coming out. She explained, then he asked to hear the explanation again: “What did you say about the falling down part again?” She explained again and he said “Wow”.

They went to the store. August did great. Priced irrigation system at Ace. Played at the playground a bit. Got gas. He told me “Mama thinks she push-ed a button that said ‘No reciept’.”

They were gone just over 2 hours. I worked and they got home 2:20. I knocked on the door when they were about to come in and acted like they were the ones inside. He thought that was funny. I got him nutty noodles. He started asking nonsense math questions again: “What’s 8 plus gross?” I called the doctor and he told me the cast should stay as-is “for now”, although he said we could make it smaller if I wanted. Might bug him about it in a week or so. Would especially like to have my wrist back. Didn’t foresee having that wrapped up. A bit later August told me”I hope your finger’s still healing.”

We went and played Duplos. Carly snuck off to work. He sang a “Ploo” song to Skip to My Lou, where every word was ‘ploo’ and he jerked his head with each note. He asked “What’s ‘plural’?” Earlier he had told Carly he had used his magic powers to change his name to Bar, and I had referenced the Seuss story “Too Many Daves”. He now said “I turned into a story: Too Many Bars”. We made a Duplo playground and then had two of the girls playing on it. He said it was a playground for just nine and a half year-olds. The younger sister was just 3 and a half and kept getting hurt. I eventually got him to go out for a walk. We left the little sister recovering from surgery to her broken finger and he said she might be awake when we got back.

We left at 3:55. I told Carly we were leaving. She was up working in the bedroom. August asked if there was any other park with climbing stuff besides the snakes and ladder playground. There really isn’t, but he agreed to the pine tree park. On the walk up he said, talking about the Duplos: “Dada, before she hurt her finger and was on the playground she was drinking alcohol. It makes you think less.” He wanted to heard “Do you wanna build a snowman?” So we listened to it a few times  on my phone as we walked.

We got to the pine tree park by 4:20. He spotted an interesting gauge on a box coming out of the ground. We checked after a few minutes to see if we could tell that the numbers had moved at all but we couldn’t. We went over to the log running toy and he saw a hole dug in the sand: “What’s that big hole for?” We joked about it being hidden treasure. Yesterday he had told me “There’s no such thing as buried treasure.” We played on the log rolling thing. He pondered digging, but I said I didn’t want to dig in this sand with just my hands.

We continued on to fruit fight park (where we saw kids throwing fruit at each other once). Checked out the street construction along the way, where a block is closed and they’re putting in new sidewalks, etc. Got to the park and he climbed up on the structure asking “What are all the optical illusions?” He has been saying “You know?” a lot. He said this park was only for 9 and a half year olds. Hummed “Do you want to build a snowman” as he played for awhile. He then wanted to head home. Thought he’d want to stop at snakes and ladders back but didn’t.

We took a slightly long way home, past Holly’s house. We were magnets again going back. He counted cats along the way and did a lot of his own pedaling. He saw a padlock around a post, then was attaching himself to posts. We were back at 5:10.

He wanted me to guess where Carly was, but wouldn’t guess himself because he didn’t want to be wrong. “I always want to make guessed right!” We made him guess something wrong before he could nurse – he guessed I had something invisible in the hand when it was his water bottle. We then played Little Dragonbox Numbers, which he hasn’t played in months but remembered while on the walk. Then ate pisole for dinner and made a lot of yummy noises and was humming songs while he ate. We then played with Duplos, enlarging the playground and having the girls play on it again.

He asked “Why is glass brittle? Why does glass break if it’s really strong?” I suggested we look for a video. He said “We did when you hurt your finger and were having surgery…at the pizza place.” He demolished the playground, head first. Then we went and read all of Frog and Toad Together. Then on Skybrary he found Scrubba Dub, Carlos and we read that. Then we read I Can Do It Myself! twice with him saying the titular line. We read a book called Calendar, then one called Keep Your Distance! He played Tongo Music, which is a calm before-bed music app. He said he was hungry and insisted on Cheerios and got upset when we said no. Carly took him up at 7:35 and I left them about 7:50. He was soon asleep.

They were up at 6:20. I was able to sleep in until close to 8. I heard them finishing up the Narwhal book. He and I then played Duplos. He was humming Sentimental Wars. We made a sculpture with lots of arches and spaces and we talked about the sculpture he took a photo of yesterday. We typed on my iPad and I wrote the sentence “Narwhals are awesome.” He read it. We then played Math Tango. More adding of two-digit numbers. He was trying to get in the ‘parent zone’ and we found that he could read three-digit numbers that are spelled out, like ‘three hundred sixty-five”. We tried to skype with my parents a few times but they didn’t answer. He was doing more humming to Sentimental Wars and made a sculpture and wanted me to take a photo. He sang a “I need a P P P P potion” song. He made a space ride out of Duplos and then had the girl getting a hole in her spacesuit on Mars so the oxygen was running out.

My parents called and we skyped with them for quite awhile. Told them about my hospital experience and they watched us play with Cubetto. August chose the swamp map.

He wanted hot chocolate and I said I didn’t think he could have any. He said “I’m sure momma will”. I took a shower, then Carly gave him a bath. I was in to help explain how I do his hair, as August was sure that I do it better. He ws still upset about Carly doing it even though she did it just fine. He declared “Worst bath ever.” I had him in the bedroom and was putting clothes on him and he crawled up into my lap for several minutes.

He asked “When we’re making Duplos are we making bonds?” I thought he said ‘bombs’ at first, so was confused. When he explained what he meant I got it and we talked about different kinds of bonds: chemical, friction, etc. I brushed his hair, then downstairs Carly spotted an opportunity for a haircut. She cut his hair while he ate a few pieces of the “Thatcher chocolate”. Carly needed to vacuum the hair, so he put on his headphones. I chose a new show for him, Julius Jr., which looked promising and he was laughing about it.

He and I then drained the crystals. Should have done it a few days ago, but they turned out quite well. We will see how well they glow in the dark later.

Carly went to the store and he and I played the Toca Elements app. He was then a machine: “It doesn’t work anymore. It’s a joint machine, so it should go into a joint museum. You can still see how it works though.” Outside I got him a new stick “I don’t like dirty things. I like clean things. But not wet things.” He asked me to saw a bit of it off just for fun, so I did.

Then Carly suggested I go rest. I did, and fell asleep. Woke up to find them gone. They had gone to school as Carly needed to pick upValentines she needs to fill out for her students. They of course ended up playing school and around her classroom.

They got back at 4:25. Grace and Jillian rode up on their bikes and gave us snickerdoodles. Still warm. We had some and August of course wanted more. He was then doing random things with Cubetto using the random commands and then following behind. On the couch he became a fish, using the cord from his headphones as a rope or fishing line: “Save me! I’m a fish that’s about to be trapped in a net!” I saved him several times.

Carly was making pisole and I then took him out for a walk. We left a little after 5. We walked down to the path, August humming the Cat in the Hat song. We walked to the tunnel. Along the way August was different types of magnets, connecting to me by holding my hand. He pedaled and we did much of the walk that way. We had fun singing in the tunnel, then continued on to the roadway, past the strawberry stand, and back on the dirt road. On the main road he got to see the lights on the trees, which he always comments on from the car, but has never seen otherwise. On the dirt road he had fun steering us into the deep parts of sand. Not fun for me. He saw the strawberries and realized that they are green and yellow before turning red. We got back to paved streets and he randomly said “Did you know conveyor belts can turn around gears and wheels?” I asked how he knew that, and he said he just thought of it.

We were back just before 6. Ate some yummy pisole, athought August didn’t have a ton. Carly suggested cutting his hair more, for a treat. He asked “What do you have in your mind?” And “Will it be easy?” He agreed but said “Okay, just remember to take it out far.” Carly cut the back of his hair, although he didn’t last too long. Looks okay though.

He was obsessed with treats after that, which was rather frustrating for him. We read The Sisters, finishing book 2 and reading parts of 1 again. Carly took him upstairs to get ready for bed and play kaleidoscope cards. He had a question for me and when I came up he said “I still need you to drive.” I assured him I could still drive. I left them at 7:25.

Fish caught in a line: 

He was up at 5:45. When I came down he was having fun dropping Cheerios down his shirt. They were playing with Carly’s computer and she was typing sentences like ‘The frog sat on Zinnie’ for him to read. He then hummed songs as he ate Cheerios and made a nice little three line song that he repeated a few times and wanted me to hum too.

He watched Max and Ruby and was then different machines on the couch. He was a calculator that “calculates sea pressure.” Played Seuss Band and then watched the Marble Machine. I heated up the leftover French toast for him. Made things out of Duplos, then got a phone call from the medical center. My surgery was scheduled for 3, but I needed to get there ASAP to do a blood test and EKG. Oh, and I was supposed to be fasting. All things that would have been nice to know last night.

I quickly took a shower, and August got to skip a bath for a third day in a row. We got out to the car and watched a little beetle with spots – like a ladybug but longer – walk across the curb and street. We left at 9:45.

Drove to Herzliya Meidcal Center and parked on the street. Went across to a pay station but it didn’t print a ticket when we paid. So had to walk to another station and pay again. Then to the clinic. What followed was a whole lot of waiting at different offices, but August was awesome through it all. First was down to get a blood test. A long wait at the counter but he just stood with me. He watched while I got my blood drawn and found it really interesting. I explained what was happening and that I was going to look at him, not the blood. He asked why, and I explained what an ‘aversion’ is. He wanted me to like it next time: “Next time don’t do that” Have an aversion, that is.

Back up to the international clinic. Michelle then took us to the surgery prep area, and August played on a hoppy horse thing while we waited. No room to do the EKG there though, so we went back to her office and waited for someone to come over and do the EKG there. August played a little GroRecycling and scratched the candle when I wasn’t looking, A guy came over and set up the EKG test. Michelle brought August a chocolate pudding. He sat at a desk and ate that and watched me get the EKG stickers on me and take a test. The guy gave August one of the sticker things but August said he wanted it on me so he could still see it, so it went on my shirt.

August was great with both Michelle and the EKG guy – both answering questions and asking them. He asked questions about what the EKG was for and about electricity in the body and the guy answered. And when it was time to go out of that room he let the guy pick him up to get out of the chair.

Next was the realization that I was supposed to be here at least two hours before my surgery – but I had planned on picking Carly up and getting back at 2. Michelle took control again and took us back to the surgery area again to do some of the prep paperwork in advance so I could then go get Carly. While we waited August played on the bouncy thing again and then a woman brought him a teddy bear. He really liked it and sang “Oh my teddy bear” to the tune of “Dinah won’t you blow”. He named it Teddy Freddy, then “Actually I call it Pinnochio.” Michelle came back as we were still waiting to go in to tell me that the surgery was moved to 2:30. She was still working so that I could get Carly, but Carly agreed to just take a taxi. We then sat and played the Lumio Shapes app, then read Plumdog.

I was called in, and during this part, which August called the boring part because I just answered questions, he played with the high tech scale that weighed and took his height: 15.1kg and 100.5cm.

We went out and put more time on the car, then stopped at the bathroom. Then back to Michelle and she took me to my room to get prepared for surgery. I got dressed in my hospital gown and all. August and I talked about why you have to wear special clothes. We watched some cartoons in Hebrew, then played with the remote and saw some music videos. He managed to make it not work and I told him “Dont worry about it.” He replied “I’m worrying about it. I’ll die without it.” We played Seuss band

We saw something about 100 years ago, and I talked about how it was before the internet, etc. He showed his 21st century-ness: “What if they needed to do stuff?” “What if they needed to post something?” We talked about using the post office and blogs not even existing. He was being really patient, but was starting to run out and mentioned needing to go outside a couple times.

Carly showed up at 2 and they left at 2:15. They went and ate pizza, which August loved (he said it was much better than mine). They then drove over to Herzliya Park and played there for quite awhile. He was really interested in doing the zip line thing, but Carly was hesitant. When she agreed he had lost interest – perhaps because of her nervousness, or the having to wait in line. But it made me realize that a few months ago he couldn’t do that, as he couldn’t hold on long enough – I’d let go and he’d slip off. But he now hangs from bars or exercise equipment and swings his feet around for several seconds so could probably do it now.

On their way back they went to another coffee shop nearby and had hot chocolate. Carly had brought a deck of cards from school and he played war and go fish for the first time. He liked go fish in particular, I think. He told me one of the games had winners and he didn’t like that so they made it so everyone won.

Meanwhile, after Carly left the anesthesiologist came and told me it might be a general anesthesia. News to me, as I had been told local and pictured being awake for the whole thing. The surgeon, the same guy from the previous evening, came in and told me it would be a local, but with something to put me to sleep.

They got me going and took me into the surgery room and got me going there. I was humming “Sentimental Wars” to myself, then the next thing I knew I was awake and I was in the first recovery room. Unlike when I’d had general anesthesia in the past and woke up all groggy and strange this was just like waking. Surprised though to find that my whole hand and wrist were wrapped – he’d talked about having something over where the rods stuck out of my hand, but this seemed like overkill. In fact, I’d been wondering today if the surgery was really all that important. The swelling had gone down since yesterday and it looked normal. If it was just taped straight it seems like it would have been okay. Oh well.

Still sleepy though and was able to nap for the next hour or so before they moved me to a room. There I was reunited with my stuff, but was still on an IV and they gave me another bag of fluid. I finished reading A Horse Walks Into a Bar. They brought me a meal, but no news of when they’d let me out. I was starved, so quite enjoyed the Israeli meal of tomato slices, cucumbers, olives, bread, cottage cheese, hummus, white cheese, and berry yogurt. And tea.

Ate it all up, and just as I was losing patience and Carly was trying to figure out how to spring me, a nurse came and he disconnected the IV, let me get dressed, and brought me the discharge papers and my prescriptions.

Turned out the pharmacy with the super-efficient guy was closed. We drove back and they directed us to a Super Pharm about 18 minutes away. I ran in, but had to get a number and there was a long line. Carly parked and they got his bike and came in and rode around and looked. Got my drugs and we headed home. Tried to keep him awake and put music on. He requested “Sentimental Wars” and I told him how that was the song I was thinking about before my surgery. We had that on repeat and he was humming along. He said he wanted to fall asleep. He kept humming it and fell asleep at 8:25 holding my finger (not the broken one). Held my finger the whole way home.

We got home 20 minutes later and Carly was able to carry him right up to bed.

Oh
, and several times, as we navigated from place to place in the medical center, August would ask “Did she fix your finger?”

No pain for me. My pinkie and ring finger were still completely numb. So no pain medicine, except for the anti-inflammatory they had given me last night. Started listening to the audiobook of Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret before I went to sleep.

Watching the blood draw: 

Watching the EKG and eating pudding:

Bear:

Ready: