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He woke up a little after Carly, 6:15 or so. He asked for her a couple times, then went back to sleep on his own. He and I then both got up a little after 7. He lay in bed for a few minutes and I almost thought he was going to fall back asleep again.

We went downstairs and they nursed, then he played with the kaleidoscope cards. Carly made Israeli French toast. He had wanted crackers and was frustrated he couldn’t have them. Only ate a little. He asked “How do we buy more carrots at the (plant) store if they ran out (of seeds)?” “…At the carrot stand?” Not sure why he was afraid they would run out of seeds. He typed on my iPad and started by typing words and using some autocorrect. Sort of made a poem: “Him him palm him in his rear type him his” He and Carly then did Wizard School. Carly said the light bulb was out over the shower and asked me about it. I said we had extra light bulbs. To which August said “Oh dada.” Didn’t think I deserved that one.

I took a shower. They went outside and Carly scrubbed the cat poop off the lawn. (One of those sentences I never thought I’d find myself writing.) Back inside August and I had some cheese and crackers. August said “I didn’t like Liam so much…I don’t like the cheese so much.” Upstairs, avoiding his bath, he helped Carly take off the pillow cases. He was then putting things in his spaceship and “locking” them in there. He kept saying “Locked on target”. It is his favorite phrase nowadays, and I can’t figure out which story/show he got that from. I think Carly was wondering if I’ve let him see Top Gun.

I gave him a bath, which went fine. Carly then headed to the store. August was singing Mary Had a little Lamb. We went to play with Cubetto. He put his bassoon under the four Cubetto map boxes and said “I’m making a lever…a cannon…it’s shooting eggs onto your head.” We played with Cubetto using the space map for the first time. August followed Cubetto, and we did some good logical thinking. I was particularly helping him figure out when Cubetto needs to turn right or left.

We then switched to Piano Maestro, where I primarily worked on a couple songs. August did a little on his account near the end. Carly got home and unpacked groceries as we did that, then started cooking an artichoke. August asked her “How many are you going to buy?” “You think one a year?” He and Carly talk about how they are good but you get sick of them if you eat them too much, so she doesn’t buy them all the time.

I made a strawberry and mango smoothie for the three of us while he waited for the artichoke. I told Carly he wanted to move to Greenland. He said “I change-d my mind!” He says he still wants to move in a year, but now he wants to live by Vivian. I told them I’d visit on the weekends from where I would live in Philadelphia.

Shortly after he woke up he had asked Carly if she ever gets locked out of her school computer. It came up again, somehow. Seems like maybe he had a dream about it.

We did a little translating of the Hebrew poems in the book we bought. One poem is about a secret room. When the artichoke was done they ate outside. I heard him say: “The office upstairs I turned into a secret room. No parents allowed!” Of the artichoke: “I like it in mayonnaise. It changes the flavor. Why does it change the flavor?” They were then doing plants outside. He came in and we did more Cubetto.

He was then a space probe, studying the planets. He would act it out, going across the house to orbit a planet: “There, I did 19 BILLION photos of Jupiter, 79 photos of Mars…Scientists will be studying that for YEARS.”

Carly was making noodles and alfredo sauce. He tried noodles and lemon zest. He then played with two different pairs of tongs and picked things up, calling it “tonging”. I grabbed him with tongs and he said “Hey, I’m not a noodle. What do you think I am?”

I got him on a walk at 3:15 to do recycling. We went to the park first. On the teeter totter he did a lot of talking. Then, “Want to go in out shop?” In the shop he only had two chairs for me to buy. I said I thought he had six of everything, which is what he said yesterday. He told me “Spider supplies changes over time.” He climbed on the front of the ‘ship’ and asked if it would make mama nervous, then why. I explained, something about being concerned that he would fall. He replied: “Oh, goodie! I love concerns!”

He needed to use the bathroom. On the way, not related to anything it seemed, he asked “You mean a big field of lollipops? With cracks we can stand on?” We used the bathroom, then we went back and did recycling. He didn’t want to go for a walk, but I got us to walk around the Holly block.

We were home at 4. He played with the tongs some more, then ate some noodles with mushrooms and alfredo sauce. He then asked “Could I drink berry flavored mineral water?” He then wanted to do an experiment with mineral water. He wanted to mix food coloring. So we did that, then he started to get spices. He made up what each spice was. The container with a T on it was “tortillas”, V was “volcanos”. He kept calling himself a “Sneaky boy” as he went and got more things to sprinkle in. There was curry and cardamom. C was “Yankee Doodles”. Don’t ask me why.

We tried to read a Magic Treehouse book but he was hyper. I got ready to take him back outside, but he wanted to try the sweet potatoes (Carly was now making a curry dish). He ate a good amount of sweet potato and garbanzo beans. As he finished eating he told me “That’s fun that we made-ed our experiment, dada.” He was looking for his water bottle and when he found it announced “Mystery solved! I found it!”

He was hyper as we got him out the door. Carly said he needed another friend over to play with. He said “What friend? You mean Bar?”

We just went back up to our park. He started climbing on things, starting with the exercise equipment, and wanted a whole series of Making Mama Nervous photos. He spotted the sliver of a banana moon. Then asked “It looks like it is in the sky, but it is actually in space. Why does that happen?” I explained how we actually are looking at it through all that space, but our eyes can’t distinguish the distance. And about how much further the stars were away than the moon. He asked “How much light years?”

Playing on a spinning spiral thing he identified an optical illusion (how a corkscrew looks like it is moving forward when it is just spinning), and another on a thing he jumps up and down on (as it looked to him as if the center bar was also moving, although it was still).

We were home at 5:40. He used Carly’s wireless headphones to tap a rhythm on top of her computer. We read some of The Sisters, and he spent a lot of time jumping off the bed into the pillows and blankets. Carly took a shower. Glecy tried to Skype us. Told her Carly would skype in a few minutes when she was ready. August sent Glecy a couple of video messages. August and I read more of The Sisters as Carly skyped with Glecy downstairs. Glecy’s mother isn’t doing well, and keeps going into cardiac arrest. She has sepsis and her organs are shutting down.

In The Sisters there is one where the big sister puts her little sister in the washing machine. August and I have talked about how you can’t really do this, and it would probably break the washing machine, anyway. He asked how a washing machine works, and we found a video of a guy taking apart and explaining a washing machine on YouTube. And it was almost our exact washing machine. We watched that, then August wanted to watch more and more. We let him watch one of a boy doing a load of laundry, then it was bedtime.

When I asked August what he’d dream about he said “goo goo, gah gah”. He was back to being a baby. I left them at 8:15.

Making mama nervous: 

Tongs head: 

Experiment: 

More park: 

Spotting the moon: 

Flying: 

Jumping: 

We had some loud thunder sometime in the morning. Later, around noon, we had some more thunder that actually shook the house.

Carly got him up before she left. He was a little worried about the idea of people coming over this afternoon, and he just lay on the couch quietly as she left. He asked for Cheerios and Max and Ruby. During one of the stories there was a mention of bedbugs and he asked what those were. I explained, and he asked if we had them here. I said no. He said “Well, I don’t want to go to any country that has those.”

He randomly threw a water bottle at me, which resulted in pausing Max and Ruby for awhile. I think I just happened to be in the way, as later I saw him throw it into the pillows in the corner of the couch again after drinking. He watched a Max and Ruby story where they take care of a baby. A few minutes later he said “Well I don’t want to have a baby.”

We built a nice Duplo playground. He put a bed in and said “There’s a bed of nails!” We then went upstairs to okay with the kaleidoscope cards: “That’s a fancy one! It’s the best design ever!”

Back downstairs I exercised and he watched more Max and Ruby. We then ate crackers, cheese, and strawberries. We did Piano Maestro, then we went upstairs and he watched one Sarah and Duck while I took a shower. After Sarah and Duck he had gone into the bedroom and was playing with the kaleidoscope cards on his own, then brought his finished design into the bathroom for me to see.

We skipped his bath today. Downstairs he played on the piano and said “That’s the Hebrew song!” I asked him to play it again. He had figured out the tune to the Hebrew colors song we watch on YouTube. We added a little more to the maze: “We’re done with our Lego maze. It’s the Maze of Doom. Can you make a guy be lost in the Maze of Doom?”

Finally, I was trying to rehang a picture hook that had come down. He saw me scraping the wall with the screwdriver and said Shmuel wouldn’t be happy about that. I told him the school would repaint the house after we left. He said “Wait; so all my wall damages will be painted?” I stressed that wouldn’t happen until after we moved out – we’d have to paint the wall damage we can see on our own before then.

We left at 11:35. We were planning on the sushi place for lunch and picking up pizzas at VIPizza for dinner. But both were closed. We parked and walked up to the bank and got cash. Then walked over to make sure the pizza place was closed. It was just before 12 and there was a woman taking down chairs in the Sushi Ishimoto.

So we first went to the library until it closed at 12:30. We looked at a book about trees, and he played in the pillows on the couches. He found three clock books and we looked at those. We translated some words and he translated ‘הקטר’ (locomotive) on his own. We couldn’t check those out though, so went to look at other books. He found a Spot book with a clock (פנוקי, מה השעה?) and I got a book called צורןת (Shapes). We went to check out and told the librarian we didn’t actually know how to check out books, although we had registered. She found us in the system and gave me our account number, which I promptly lost in the next couple of hours. On the way out I looked at the book sale shelves and found a children’s book called פעם נצחתי שלושה ענקים (I Defeated Three Giants, I think). It was in great shape (new) and appears to be short poems about things like spaghetti and pizza. And the art is really cool. Anyway, I took it to buy it. The sign said books cost 5 or 10 shekels and I swear she told me 5. She took my 10 shekel coin and put it in the till. Then I stood there waiting for change. I would have paid 10 for it anyway, so when she said she didn’t need me anymore as she was writing out the record of the sale I headed out.

We walked to Sushi Ishimoto and it was definitely open. A couple teachers, Howard and someone else, were there. We ordered the pad Thai with shrimp again. Before we left home August had remembered that we should bring his chopsticks. We got those out and he practiced with them a bit. He liked the pad Thai and ate a good amount. We saw Gaby come in with about 10 other middle school girls – the school had a half-day today, with a staff training in the afternoon, which is why everyone could go to lunch. We also had water, and August liked the water in his. He was squishing the lemon with his straw and it slipped on him. The glass slipped and rested precariously on the edge. It didn’t fall though. August didn’t appreciate this remarkable event, however, as he was upset that some water had splashed on his sleeve.

He whined about it as we headed back to the car. He told me it was still wet when we got in the car (I had told him it would be dry by then), but it wasn’t bothering him anymore. In the car both directions we were listening to episode 3 of Story Pirates. We were home at 1:35. We spotted another spot of cat poop and discussed what it looked like. He said “Cat Poop-ish?” He was asking why that meant the cat might be sick. I explained, and he asked if it was the same for other animals. I explained yes, and he said “And trees!” I said no, but he argued that trees also ate, and when I said but they don’t poop. He said  “What do you mean? They could just poop out their roots!”

We got on the orange bike and headed to Tiv Taam. We had seen only small branches down in town, but on the way to Tiv Taam we saw whole branches ripped off of young, healthy trees.

Tiv Taam was busy, so luckily he sat in the cart. But he complained that the actual seat was too tight. So I let him sit in the cart itself. As we added groceries he stacked them neatly in the end. He had to go to the bathroom so we left the cart and walked down there. He told me “Dada, I was getting ready excited in the cart.” He explained it was the first time he had sat in the cart. He also liked the liquid soap in the bathroom: “It smells flowery.” We went back and finished shopping. He wanted to touch the cheeses, so I decided to get a nice aged cheddar for later. And I surprised him by getting the fruit popsicles again when we went to pay.

We walked home. I reminded him he couldn’t get off the bike or it would tip over backwards. At home he went to the bathroom again. He asked what would happen if the toilet paper holder, which is getting loose again, broke off. I said we’d have to fix it. He said we should leave it broken until we leave. I asked when he wanted to move again. He said he wanted to live here one more year. When I asked where he wanted to me he said “Greenland”.

He watched Max and Ruby while I did dishes and straightened up (Carly had done cleaning last night) for the guests. Carly and Tessa were walking, but got here at the same time as Ofer and the kids (Liam and Tava(?)). August hid under the pillows behind the coffee table at first. And the other two kids were shy at first as well. August warmed up by making a kaleidoscope design for them. He was then drinking more of the watermelon water we got at the store and asked me to move it closer to them. I got out the cheese and crackers and started making sandwich pizzas, strawberries, and apple sauce for dinner. Carly got him over with the other kids as they were starting to play with the Duplos and musical instruments. August had some difficulty at first with them playing with his toys. He let out a blood-curdling scream the first time. Carly took him upstairs. When he came back down he asked me if he could have his popsicle now as he wasn’t doing so well. He got upset one more time, and was also upset about waiting for the popsicle.

But then Liam wanted to play hide and seek with his mom and August really got into that. The two boys went and found the moms hiding upstairs. Then he and Liam hid once and the Carly and Tessa found them. August also played with Ofer, piling pillows on him.

Shay, downstairs, texted, saying he didn
’t like the running (which had just started with the hide and seek, and was mostly upstairs, but was downstairs a bit too). I explained we would have dessert soon, then they probably wouldn’t last much longer. He said he understood.

August kept asking me, every one or two minutes, what time it was, as I had said they could have popsicles at 6. So right at six I got out the popsicles. The kids sat on the floor together and ate their popsicles. They stayed pretty clean.

There was some playing after that (August and Liam were being pirates with the kaleidoscope and a piano key), but their kids were ready to go. August was a little concerned that they were going to take the kaleidoscope. They left about 6:30.

August did some Hebrew on my phone. Carly took him upstairs, then I switched with her and played with him on the bed. He wanted baby books, so we read Boynton’s A to Z and But Not the Hippopotamus and some of The New Kid on the Block. He acted out being a motor and a storm breaking plants and trees (after the party he and Carly had gone out and found that the big purple plant’s middle had all broken). I left him just after 8 when he said he was ready for sleep and sent Carly up.

Lunch: 

Broken trees:

Riding in the shopping cart:

Popsicles: 

Magic wands:

He was awake and, Carly thought, getting up a bit before 6, but then fell back to sleep on his own. He was then up about 6:45. Carly was going to get him up, but I don’t think she had gone up yet when we heard him coming down the stairs and asking to nurse.

He watched Max and Ruby. In one episode they go Trick or Treating and wear reflective bracelets. He declared “I don’t want to do that!” For some reason he really dislikes the bracelets they try to make us put on at the science center, etc. He’s never worn one. He says he only likes his bracelets up in his closet, but he won’t actually wear one of those, either.

We played Piano Maestro and Dust Buster. He did more on his own own. “Zinnie mode starts off not many wrong notes but gets more wrong notes OVER TIME.” As he spreads his arms out in front of him to demonstrate. Passed another song, and got to second level and second chapter. I made a green pancake for him after he suggested we try brown sugar on it sometime. He made music with his piano, using his “kickdrum” to keep the beat. He was stepping on the lid to the piano, which was off and on the ground, to make a noise against the floor (obviously the neighbor was gone). When it came to the pancake he only ate one or two bites.

I exercised and he built Duplos. There is a small round hole in one of the tile trim pieces near the kitchen door. It doesn’t go anywhere, and we didn’t realize it was there until a couple days ago. He said he wanted me to silicone gel the hole in the trim. I said we could do it sometime. In the meantime he covered it up with the blanket.

Back to Duplos. I made a new base for him. He told me that wasn’t how mama did it. “Do you mind me if…” I add another piece. “Look, that end part is fragile, so be careful if you add Legos. It’s the fragile-est part I’ve make-d.” Tried to have the motorcycle go in his mouth from the slide.

He discovered a tag in the shirt of the pajamas he’s worn for a long time and had me cut it out: “Look at this! There’s a tag. It’s not homemade! Cut it out…Good, now it’s homemade!”

More piano and kickdrum. Then he watched more Max and Ruby and I did Hebrew. I started making a mango and strawberry smoothie. He had to go to the bathroom. When washing his hands he put his fingers around the water in an O shape. He said “See, like that. That’s how you rope off metal.” Yesterday, at the science center, in the puzzle area, there was one where you took a loop of rope off of a metal structure. It had reminded him of this, as the rope was like his fingers makin a circle and the water was the metal in te middle. He had tried to explain it to me, but I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Speaking of the science center he said “What? Is it open? Then we should go there again.”

We drank the smoothie. He was then listening to his playlist, changing songs and singing and playing along to them. I then got out Hebrew notecards and was making notecards for words he learned in class. He was into this and found more words in the Hebrew book that he wanted me to do notecards for. We also got out the Hebrew notecard sets and magnets. That all ended though when he started to make a big mess out of them. First he tried to cover it up with the blanket, but then he was trying to bring Duplos over to add to the pile, and stepping on them, etc. Got upset when I made him stop and we cleaned up.

We went upstairs and watched a Sarah and Duck together, then I took a shower. Washed his hair during his bath. He handled it well and didn’t mind the water on his face as I did a fast wash as he let the water out of the bath.

Then he found the kaleidoscope cards. He said he’d play on his own while I went and started lunch. Worked a bit, then we moved the cards downstairs and he kept playing. I got mac and cheese for him and made a tuna sandwich for me. He changed his mind and wanted a honey sandwich, but I said that wasn’t an option. We did kaleidoscope cards together and he wouldn’t let me use a background on them, as it made the designs one-sided: “I HATE the solid ones.” He finally ate some mac and cheese, but not much.

He was then scooping Duplos in the cube pieces and carrying them over to the floor by the coffee table. We built a nice playground out of them. He was talking about something and said “Zombies…and blood everywhere…and teddy bears with their heads cut off.” He was quoting The Sisters and the older sister describing a scary movie. He was concerned about someone destroying the playground when we were gone. I asked who, and he said mama. So we sent her a message asking her not to destroy it when she was home and we were at his class. He then sent some text messages to her.

We went outside about 3:20 and he played with his beloved big stick. He said “Dada, the big storm wasn’t even big enough to get the sap off my stick!” There was some icky presumably-cat poop in the yard and he stepped on some of it while playing on the teeter-totter. He asked what it was and I told him. He got slightly upset and said “No. I’m sure it isn’t. Okay, I’m not joking. It’s a can of beans.” We found that if we sprayed the cat poop with the hose it dissolved into the grass pretty well.

We then went on a Zinnie walk. It was windy, but he said “The bike isn’t being a kite.” Referring to when he went on the beach with Carly. We talked about Larabars and he said he was sick of blueberry Larabars. He wants chocolate. Or peanut butter. We headed north, then cut over to the west past the cat-feeding spot. He kept heading west, saying he didn’t know what was that way. It takes us to the street to the school and I said we could go find mama walking home. Carly called, and it turned out we were really close. When we saw her, August put his head down and ‘hid’ on his bike until Carly came up and touched him.

We walked with her to our park and he wanted to stop and play shop. So we all went up the play structure. Down the slide (into me), then he found a little snail on the inside of the structure. Then more store. I asked what I could buy and he said “I don’t know. We have six of everything.” Then to the big teeter-totter where he did the prize-winning game: “Those black things are prizemen…they give you prizes…they come shooting out of their mouths.” He was then pressing all the ‘buttons’ (the plastic covers over bolts) to see what they would do and I’d make things up, like slime falling on his head, etc. A lot of laughing. He said the big one in the middle said “Danger, don’t press.” So when he pushed it I picked him up and was hopping while I held him. This was something new, and he laughed like crazy.

He and Carly then sat/lay in the swing together. I stood by them and he said “Dada, don’t look up. I’m afraid you’re under the metal.” He asked me to go buy things from the ‘store’ for him. I brought them back spider things, like bags of flies and mosquito juice. Carly was saying “Eww” to these things, so then August joked “Could you buy some cashew bars? Bring two.”

At 4:30 we walked home with Carly and said goodbye to her when she went in the house and we drove to class. As we got to the house he asked “Dada, how did someone teach me something when I was a baby and you and mama didn’t exist?” Tried to get some clarification on what he meant/believed, but he wouldn’t really add much.

Class was just him and Daria and Abigail at first. I told him to treat it like his Hebrew lesson, learning words and repeating things that Segal said. It worked a little, but he came out after a few minutes. He was in and out. He talked about not being able to do things. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a long setup time for the webbing thing and he didn’t like sitting on the bench. We went to the bathroom and came back and they were still doing sitting stuff. But finally the last ten minutes or so he was really into the playing and asked me a couple
times to watch him play in the web thing. Just a couple minutes before class was over I heard Segal talking to him. I couldn’t see them, as they were back towards the back corner. I don’t know what happened, but he came running out, upset. He tried telling me about it, but I couldn’t really understand. Something about just not being able to do anything. Couldn’t really talk to Segal at the end as she had her next class starting, but we stayed to say bye, then headed out.

In the car he asked “Can I have an extra tic-tac cuz I’m sad?” He sort of talked to me about it as we got home, but not specifically what had made him upset. He told me it was a one-time telling thing and wouldn’t tell me again. He said it was a secret.

Carly was out in the swing, watching the wind. He sat with her in the swing. There was more talk of metal in getting in your eye. I told them they talked about metal in their eyes about a million percent more than most people. At least.

Inside they nursed, then he had mac and cheese for dinner, but again just ate a couple bites. Carly found out about him being upset and asked if he was okay, then if he wanted a kiss. He said “Yes. But I’m still okay.”

He and Carly did a lot more building with Duplos. He was hungry, and finally said he wanted soup. Carly got him some and he had a lot, so then he got to have hot chocolate (we had all forgotten that he could have it on Wednesday, so had it today instead).

He drank that, then Carly asked if I could take him upstairs as she wanted to vacuum and August didn’t want her to. I tried to get him to read a book, but he insisted he wanted to do kaleidoscope cards. I’m getting kind of sick of them. We didn’t do any reading today as we did over an hour of the cards.

Upstairs at least, after initially telling me I couldn’t use background cards, I at least convinced him that they looked good and he let me use the solid pieces, and did some himself as well. We got him ready for bed and he said he’d dream about “Dragons, monsters, kaleidoscopes…monsters eating me!” He asked if that was okay. I said as long as it wasn’t scary. He said it would be. He was asleep about 7:40.

Wind: 

At some point during the night he got partially ttuck under the bed and Carly had to pull him out. Then, at 6 he had a bit of an accident and we had to change the sheets and his clothes. We all got up. He watched some Max and Ruby. I got lunches for us so we could try to get on the road early for the hour+ drive to Haifa and the science center. But when he was done he got upset when I said he couldn’t just have Cheerios and he knocked a couple books off the shelf.

We picked those up and went and made Duplo buildings as he was grumpy and wasn’t letting me get ready. I asked what we were making: “A fancy store” “Are you making a base? So we can add lists of fanciness?” Our big structure had animals all over it and he put a bed on it: “To get there the kids have to… Skip over the bed, boop, into bed. It’s not a very safe bed.” He found a Lego without a leg and asked what people who didn’t have a leg did if they didn’t have a wheelchair. We ended up watching a video of prosthetic legs.

We were talking about Max and Ruby and how I’m not a big fan of it. I said that Max is impolite. August asked “Can I turn into not doing please and I love you?” He was still having a bit of a hard time and asked “Dada, could you give me a treat cuz I’m sad this morning?” I think it was mainly because he didn’t get enough sleep last night. But later it also came up that he might have been upset that I didn’t want him to watch more Max and Ruby and he really likes it.

We did a little more Duplos, then moved to Piano Maestro. He insisted he wanted to do piano, which pushed back our departure. Apropos to nothing, he said “Dada, I still love sheep…I love sheep. I just love sheep.” I THINK he was thinking about the other day when I sang my “Itsy Bitsy baa baa” song to him and told him that sheep used to be his favorite animal. But that’s been a couple days. We moved to Dust Buster, then I got some mac and cheese and broccoli for him, after he hadn’t really eaten anything. He ate two bowls.

I exercised and we went upstairs and I let him watch Max and Ruby. He was happy about that. We skipped his bath for today. While going to the bathroom he asked “In Korea did I pee like a grown up?” Standing up, he meant. I reminded him of the kid-sized urinals at the children’s museum and other places that he used a couple times.

We got going about 10:40. Through Netanya he said he spotted a mineral water sign “Right out my window!” He was right, as I spotted it on the way home. We listened to season two, episode 1 of Story Pirates on the way up. He had me star it. We then listened to music. He didn’t play his iPad at all. He fell asleep at 11:40 with 10 minutes left, according to Google. By the time I parked, on the same street but a bit closer this time, he had about a 15 minute nap. When I got him in the stroller he perked up and asked “Do you want to go to the science center?”

At the science center we had a wonderful surprise: I went to buy an annual pass and were informed the museum was free every Wednesday. As we walked in (him without an armband, as he won’t wear those) he said “Maybe we should just come on Wednesdays from now on!”

I asked if he wanted the play area or the “more science-y stuff”. He voted for the “more science-y stuff”. He suggested we go to the bathroom (he used the Hebrew word). We did that, then headed up. First to the sound area, which was busy at first, but not incredibly busy. But then it cleared out. This would happen, as people seemed to be in groups (but not just family groups). Occasionally busy, but other times we’d have rooms all to ourselves. Given that the museum is probably busiest on a rainy day like today (the play area was filled with moms and toddlers), it wasn’t too busy for a free day.

We first went to the sound room, then up the stairs in that room to the puzzle area up on the balcony. We went to the energy room for a few minutes. August was having me carry him everywhere again. We had the energy room to ourselves. He then agreed to go outside and have lunch. We sat on a bench and ate, then headed back inside and went up to the second floor, which we hadn’t visited at all when with Carly.

The first room was all about mirrors and perspective. He was making me carry him, and finally I made him get down. He then pulled open the curtain to the dark room, and started to tell me I’d need to pick him up again to go in, but then he spotted something, ran in, and that was it – not a single mention of picking him up after that. All sorts of activities involving colored light, strobe lights, etc. On one thing that showed how light mixes to make white he said “I think it’s the primary colors. If you ever forget the primary colors you can do that.” There was a plasma sphere, and then we really liked the shadow wall, where the flash leaves your shadow on the wall. There was an activity where you could redirect light with prism, which reminded us of a similar thing at the children’s museum in Seoul.

From there we went to the room on dental hygiene and he brushed the huge set of teeth with a huge toothbrush. I told the teeth they weren’t brushing properly so he’d have to take control and do it. Also in that room he spotted rainbows cast on a chair and he took a photo. The next room was historic microscopes and telescopes and other instruments. We looked in a microscope and at a couple other things. Then a class was coming in, so we made our way out. Next was air and air pressure. And a surveillance camera you could control. The best were these wheels you could turn to create air pressure, then you’d press a button and it would shoot a plastic bottle up a tube.

And then to the optical illusions room and the astronomy room, which we didn’t spend a ton of time in, before getting to the magician room, where there were different magic trick things. He lay on a bed of nails, then I did. There was a bottle of liquid that would drain/fill when you put a hat over it, and he liked learning how that worked. His favorite though was the beachball that would float in the air when you stepped on a switch to turn on the fan. While in there I got a phone call at 2 from Omar to check on our work.

He needed the bathroom, so we went to the one down the hall. Oh, downstairs we had also played with a cool video installation that simply showed a video of yourself. But delayed it about 5 seconds. That was fun. Anyway, on our way back from the bathroom he started singing my Juicy Juice song, but changed it up, in particular changing it to “Mechanical juice store”. No idea where that idea came from.

We went back and finished up the magic room (entirely empty now) and did the bed of nails. He really liked saying magic words to make the fluid appear and disappear.

We then went outside and across to the temporary exhibit space, only to find it empty. But we played a little with the water stuff outside, then wandered the top part. We looked at (but didn’t try) the unicycle you could ride out over the water. I get that it is ‘safe’ in that it is counterbalanced, but it is still rather a fall to the shallow-ish water below. And August got to ride in the helicopter thing and I pushed him around. It started to rain as we headed back to the museum and it was close to closing time.

We stopped in the bathroom, then bravely pushed past the people waiting by the exit door, afraid of the rain. I had my umbrella up and we hurried the couple blocks back to the car. We sat in the back seat of the car and have a snack. Talking about Carly he asked “Did she go to the bathroom a few times?” Don’t know why he asked that. As we got in the car he was singing a “Please go away” song. It was quite nice, and entirely made-up. Well, part of the tune was, I think, based on the Poli English class song about crossing the street. But August’s song was about how he was shutting down and wanted to be left alone. Then, he was doing a really cool cha
nt, repeating each line several times: “You’re kidding me…you broke me to pieces…go away…I really mean it…please please please.”

On the drive back we listened to Story Pirates episode #2. Then he requested the monster story from episode 8, then the bath story/song from episode 1 again. He likes the Story Pirates. Then for most of the rest of the way home we listened to a longer one of the science podcast episodes about dinosaurs. August had all sorts of questions about dinosaurs and I would pause and try to answer them. The show wasn’t about how they were extinct, but August asked me “Why aren’t there dinosaurs now?” I answered the best I could. A few minutes later he asked “What killed the dinosaurs again?”

The show was discussing why dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals got so big, and it talked about eggs. August was then a huge snake that covered everyone and made us extinct. He then asked what would happen if everything on earth died off. And he asked what would happen if an egg hatched too early. I explained how developing babies have to be in their egg/etc. to develop. August joked “Same as couches”. He then kept asking about different animals “What about…” and listed different animals. We talked about what happens when things are born premature.

A few times August has caught me sort of sugarcoating things, I think, or avoiding his real question, when I say something about how science makes something easier, or there’s medicine for something, etc. I think he did that when I said that if a baby is born prematurely there are machines, etc. that we can use to help the baby. He says something like “No dada, I mean in the past.” And I have to explain that the baby would die.

As we got to Even Yehuda we stopped at the strawberry stand and got two cartons. He waited in the car. We were home at 4:50. He asked me to let him unbuckle himself (just the seatbelt button) and told me “I figured it out when you couldn’t figure out the gas pump.”

Inside they nursed and Carly told him not to fall asleep. He asked “Why don’t you want me falling asleep?” He ate soup for dinner and said “Dada, I’m rejected to noodles.” Another funny word mixup, as he meant ‘addicted’. I think I forgot to mention a conversation yesterday or the day before he asked what would happen when he ran out of words to learn. I talked about how many words there are, and also that there are other language and things to learn. He then said something like “I’m gonna know SO many words when I’m 100!”

I was getting dinner and needed a rest when he asked me to play Piano Maestro. I told him I needed to rest and he said “What’d ya mean? But I want you to be a better piano player.” Which is supportive and nice, I think.

He and Carly did a lot of building with the Duplos, then Skyped with Vivian and Colin. Colin was really into skyping and seeing ‘Ata’ (as he still calls August). They did more Duplo building with Vivian watching.

Carly got him ready for bed, and when I asked what he’d dream about, with no prompting, he replied “microscopic motors”. Don’t know where the concept of such motors came from. I left them at 7:10.

Off to Haifa: 

Our shadows: 

Floating ball: 

No pants: 

Back home: 

Carly got him up and delivered him to me before she headed to work. He just lay next to me in a daze for a few minutes. He then asked to watch Max and Ruby. An episode of that, then he agreed to try the new Magic Schoolbus and we watched one of those. We then read the Max Axiom Food Chains book and he was a mouse. We then got the piano and did Piano Maestro for quite awhile. When I got up and was getting him food he switched to Easy Music and was practicing “Mary had a little lamb”. He asked about the words and wanted me to write a new verse, so I added one where they head home.

He ate Mac and cheese for breakfast, as he is now rejecting every breakfast choice except for crackers and dry cereal. He played with the poop spinner: “Dada, I love this poop spinner…why does it spin?” He watched the Cover your cough song and a few other PlayKids videos while I exercised. On my phone we did some Arabic and August looked up Arabic words including ‘ok’. He then played with the Lego cars and requested that we throw away the throw pillow that is coming apart.

We read the first half of The 26-Story Treehouse. A few minutes after we stopped he said “Dada, don’t ever keep me too safe.” That happens to Terry, one of the characters in the story. I took a shower and he watched one more Max and Ruby. Then his bath. He arranged all the bath letters in what he said was a bassoon: “I’m gonna make a bassoon. It costs billions of shekels. It will cost so much shekels the world doesn’t even have that many shekels.” “Tada! A fancy bassoon!” At one point he started dumping water out of the bath too close to the edge and I threatened to take away the watering can. He then said “Dada, can I have the squirt car? Or is that going away TOO?” And since I won’t let him bang the rocking chair anymore to get chocolate he was now banging the shower door: “There! That’s another reason way of getting chocolate! Banging that door!”

Got him out of his bath and suggested pizza for lunch: “Pizza with broccoli? Ewww, disgusting.” “Maybe pizza with eggs and rocks and clothes. Does that sound good?”

Downstairs he started a big conversation when he asked “When you are sick and have to stay in bed is a parent there?” I explained that one of us would stay home with him until he was old enough to stay home on his own: “I want to stay with somebody at home until 19 BILLION years. Then I will want to stay by myself.” We ended up talking about the legal requirements of taking care of kids and how it would be the parent that would get in trouble. And I said that mama and I had to take take care of him until he was 18. He was sit/standing on the chair and in a very cute voice said “Thank you!”

He added a live version of “Given to Fly” to his playlist. I mentioned that I really liked Pearl Jam when I was younger. He asked why I liked Pearl Jam so much when I was a kid. We had some pizza, although he didn’t eat much. We played a little Dust Buster then I went to do dishes when he kept hitting the ‘octave’ buttons. He played a little more, then was lying on the floor. He said “we don’t know if Daria is going to give me cookies or not.” I confirmed that he meant Daria, the girl in his activity class. I think he was remembering when we took cookies and he gave a cookie to Daria.

He told me “Dada, when I’m four I’ll stay up at night.” He was then playing his bassoon and singing part of “The 12 Days of Christmas”. Speaking of his bassoon he said “Dada, you know I got this for free. Why’d I get it for free?” My reply: “Because it is a piece of garbage.” He talked about the plugs and which don’t work for awhile, then told me “Dada, I love the bassoon I found. It’s so frizpan.” (Maybe a reference to Plumdog when she describes the snow as something like ‘fritzy’).

We left at 1:50, walking with his bike up to the school. He asked “Can you sing I’ve been working on the railing road?” I didn’t know all the words, so we looked them up and listened to a version sung by Pete Seeger.

We got to school and first went to the library. A class was coming so we grabbed a big stack of Berenstain Bears books – the last 6 or 7 that we haven’t read – and went and sat in the corner with all the beanbag chairs. On our way in August had played with the sea turtle stuffed animal and brought that with him, adding to the pile. We read most of The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat and then he needed the bathroom. On his way back in he chose a different spot, which was good as we were whispering in the other room as Ilana had a class. We finished reading the book and then decided to go to the playground for a few minutes before the Hebrew lesson.

A short, quick play. He did some climbing, then went up on the big play structure where some bigger kids were playing. Didn’t really interact with them, but wasn’t afraid about going around them and waiting his turn on the slide.

He was ready for the Hebrew lesson and we got there right at 3:15. He went in and talked to her for a few minutes, then she needed to finish an email so we looked around the classroom at all the Hebrew alphabets. They then sat down at the desks together and spent the whole time drawing pictures and talking about them. But the best part for him were the erasers and the pencil sharpeners. Because we’ve sheltered him and he hasn’t really used pencils, erasers, or pencil sharpeners yet. So he learned eraser  מוֹחֵק and pencil עִפָּרוֹן and sharp חַד. She got him a bigger eraser to use and he erased things. He liked the eraser dust. Then he said “I really love the eraser.”

He first drew a sun, then he drew a machine מְכוֹנָה. Their drawings had lots of wheels גַלגַל, and when she asked what one machine did he said “It turns plants into crackers.” I think he was the one that asked about a pencil sharpener, and she brought him one. It was a little metal one, like the one he had found at the playground the other day. I showed him how it worked, and he had all sorts of questions. First he asked if you could get your finger in it. When we decided you couldn’t he asked what would happen if one was big enough. Then he was fascinated on how pencils get smaller, and he was asking how many times you could sharpen a pencil.

Near the end I took him over to the bathroom. On the toilet he said “I don’t think she’s gonna give me a treat.” and was fine with it. But when we went back she gave us each a crem-bo, which is basically a little cookie with a huge glob of marshmallow on top, all dipped in chocolate. She said it is called a winter ice cream and only available in the winter. August said it was better than the chocolate muffin from last week.

We took him over to rinse off his hands, then on the way back to the classroom he simply said “I’m tired of Hebrew class” and started walking away. The timing was fine, but the departure wasn’t. I got him to go back to the classroom and we got our stuff and said goodbye.

We went up to Carly’s classroom. He burst in and loudly asked “Are you ready to go home?” He was happy to hear she needed to go change as he wanted to play with the magnetic darts and dartboard by the office. We went and did that. He realized the darts would stick to other things and so was testing them out. They stuck to the bike, but when he did it on the handle (which has padding) it didn’t stick so well. He said “The black thing is semimagnetic”. I’m not sure where he got the semi- prefix from, but a good creation.

We walked home. When we got to Tal Garden August wanted to stop and play store. He and I stopped and let Carly keep going. He wanted to sing the ladybug song and told me “You can change up the body parts if you want.” Then “Dada, they don’t tell us how many spots there is. Could you put that in there?” So we figured out how to do that. The merry-go-round was a bus or something again and he said “We’re goin
g to Toys R Us” Earlier he had asked where his stuffed animals/dolls had come from and I had told him Baby Q was from Toys R Us. He has also asked about other toys in the past few days and I remember telling him the stroller was from Toys R Us.

Mainly we played on the spiral slide, climbing up and down it and sitting in it. We did a little store, buying all sorts of art supplies. Finally, he used the rope to pull himself of the ladder board thing for the first time. You can climb up them without the rope, but he’s never actually used the rope.

We left at 5:15. When we got to our park he wanted to stop to exercise. He spent 5 to 10 minutes going from machine to machine and playing/exercising.

We were home by 5:30. He had mac and cheese for dinner, then nursed. He was being a one-year old. He and Carly built a big Duplo house/building/something. He was talking about fires, and Carly asked where that came from, and if it was from a story. He said “Yes, 26-Story Treehouse.” He knocked that one down. Carly was giving him kisses and he said “I’m sick I’d smoocharoos.” The started making a new thing and Carly asked what they were making this time. He said “I don’t know. A fancy thing.”

She took him up to bed. He was being a baby, so I told him to dream about science centers. He came back down little after 8. We read Lulu Witch and part of Akiko on the Planet Smoo. He went and destroyed their Duplo structure. I took him up to the bathroom, then he was asleep by 9.

The bassoon: 

Library: 

Playground: 

At 4am August tried to get up: “It’s 4 o’clock. Time to get up.” Carly miraculously got him back to sleep. Carly got him up before she headed to work. When she left he was choosing a show to watch on Netflix but was a machine breaking down and couldn’t choose. He seemed to be thinking about choosing Max and Ruby. So I chose it for him. He liked Max and Ruby. Some good laughter at first. The stories are really repetitive though. He watched a few stories before being done. He wanted crackers and had a few. I made him a pancake with jam but he wouldn’t touch it. He asked to play Piano Maestro. I finished learning “Just the Way You Are” and we started on another song. He watched another couple of Max and Ruby stories. I exercised. I had made a pancake for him for breakfast but he had rejected that, wanting only crackers and the occasional strawberry.

He played with the tape measure and I was teaching him how to measure things. We went upstairs and played some of the Monster design game together. I then took a shower.

While playing monsters or something he said “I’m smashing you with 19000 hammers, 1 (something), 3 guns, 2 cutlass…like a pirate…2 mechanical arms…” The guns and cutlasses like a pirate was a reference to Captain Woodenhead in The 26-Story Treehouse.

Then it was his bath. He actually played for awhile today, spelling and reading words with the letters and bouncing the bouncy ball around.

Went down stairs and he watched the Marble Machine music video and ate his leftover honey and peanut butter sandwich. He stacked the chair full of pillows and called it the “pile chair”. It was a machine. Good until he tried pulling off the cushion.

He went to the bathroom and saw the vacuum cleaner and asked if I had tried to fix it in Korea. Been rather awhile since we’ve discussed the two vacuums and how the other one was loud and I moved the bag-holding clip from that one to this one. We made a strawberry and mango smoothie and drank that, then played with the kaleidoscope cards for long time. I did dishes and explained we needed to clean before we left so the house would be clean when we got home. Instead, he took out the keys to the piano. He wanted me to play more Piano Maestro but I made him clean up the keys first. We found the last key back under the couch and I used his ‘bassoon’ to get it out. He said “Thank you bassoonie.”

Worked on the Bridal March in Piano Maestro. He made me pause when he went to bathroom. He turned on the option so I could see the notes and explained “Dada, I wanted to turn on the note thing cuz it will make it a little easier.”

We got outside and he did some of his music machine. In the car I introduced him to podcasts. Carly had sent me an article with podcasts for kids and I had subscribed to most of them. We started listening to Tumble Science podcast episode called “Meow of the Misunderstood Cat”. August was hooked and after a minute asked me to add it to his playlist. I explained podcasts were different from songs (different app, for one) and we realized we could star them instead. The episode debated whether cats are evil or misunderstood and explained the science of their behavior along the way. August predicted ‘misunderstood’ and was excited when that was what the kid judges decided.

We then listened to a Story Pirates episode (“How Do You Play Day/Samantha”) and he wanted that starred too. The first story was particularly funny, too.

We got to Winter Lake Park. Parked on the west side this time by the wooden playground. He first wanted the one with his spiderweb (where he first started the buying things from stores game) so we walked over there, about 2:45. He first talked about his shopping list at one store. He asked “Do you have your equipment on?” That would be the equipment needed to climb on his spider web. When he bought stuff he asked “How long’s the receipt?” At Tiv Taam he always likes to see how long the receipt is.

We wandered around from toy structure to toy structure. Each was a different store. One had appliances (August informed me that he had to restock his web each time – the stuff from last time wasn’t there anymore), another had comfy things, another had fruits and vegetables. At the web he asked “Do you want to sit inter chair that has water in it? It will be fun. Cuz you will get your bottom wet.” And “I baked a cake. You can have some if you eat healthy food.” He said something had “your favorite trumpet in it”. I said “Miles Davis?” He replied “Oh! That’s my favorite band!…We should listen to Miles Davis.” He climbed over the web and was doing things he hasn’t done before. He realized this and said “That means I’m a better spider than last time…it’s because I’ve grown more…yeah, because I practiced.” He then made fruit salad and vegetable salad, then we ate those before eating the chocolate and peanut butter cakes he had baked.

We went over to tree-shaped spinning thing. This place had a movie theater in it showing a monster movie. We had rockets and “firelocks” and were apparently sucked into the movie theater and had to fight monsters.

That lasted a good time then we ended up back at his web. We did some Drops and he said “It doesn’t matter if a boy is called a yeled (girl). Can you call me a yeled?” I said I could, to which he replied “then you’ll turn me into a girl?” I said I don’t think my words are that magical. We then talked about heading over to the wooden playground. August said he the ground was wood, too. I said the ground wasn’t wood. He said he had turned it wood: “I did. I suppose my words are that magic.”

We walked to the wooden playground. On the swings for a bit, then he wanted to climb on the big structure. He helped push the stroller across the sand: “There’s our tracks. We can follow it on the way back…see where we go-to”. We did two big laps of the big wooden structure. There was a part I couldn’t really crawl through with the backpack so I went down and met him father along and he went through the net bridge on his own. He played railings like instruments (“Harps” he said a few times). He requested I take a video of it, but a worked started sawing something at the same time.

Earlier we had joked about going into the wood, and during our second lap he suddenly remembered his “wood power” and we were termites in the wood.

Finally, we were getting ready to go. On the way to the bathroom a boy on a skateboard calmly rolled by. August said “He should be careful on the skateboard.” We used the bathroom and he said “Thank you!” when I turned off the water. When I flushed he said “Oh! That’s a nice toilet.” Then “I WONDER how that flushes down to where the pee and poop goes…I wonder where…It has to go somewhere, dada.”

The sun was setting and we were close to the big pedestrian bridge, so we walked up on that. He got out of the stroller, and somehow, right there in the middle of the bridge, it turned into a big imagining session: “I turn posts into people…you run the posts through it and…it just rains people…watch this! Aargh! People coming down!” And “The people that are sick or dead go into the turbine and it shoots them up into space…to the sun…and when the sun is full it turns the dead people into NEW People!” The sun then came down and went into the ocean. And kept going and going. And was cooling down. And then he was just lying on the floor, looking down through the boards at the lights and cars below. He said “Yum! This wood is edible!…I licked it…I’ll justick it one more time!” And then he was a machine – a disappearing turbine, actually – that when you put food in it made the bridge disappear. We then fell down onto the cars, and were actually in a car, and the cars disappeared.

The sun was down and it was getting cooler so we put on his second coat. On the way back to the car we walked by the skatepark. I
asked if he saw the skateboarders. He said “I HATE skateboarding…because it’s so dangerous. I’m not gonna skateboard until I’m 100.” Hilarious. And I don’t know where this strong opinion of skateboarding came from. He was then pointing out all the kids not wearing helmets.

We went back to the car and left at 5:25. We listened to another episode of Tumble Science called “Voyage of the Ocean Trash”. Starred that as well. During the intro August spoke up and asked if we could ever clean all the plastic out of the ocean – right before the girl they were talking to on the podcast asked the exact same thing. At the end of the episode he out of nowhere asked if I remembered the words to “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” He has had slight exposure to that song (I think we may have watched the video once, but months ago – perhaps Korea) but no idea why it came to mind. I didn’t, but I asked if he wanted to hear it. We don’t have it, but asking Siri to play it worked. We finished listening to it as we got home at 5:50.

They nursed and we got mac and cheese for dinner and he watched one episode of Max and Ruby. He and I then read half of Max Axiom Electricty. At which point he got up and started chanting in a robot voice “electricity” over and over. At one point hiding his head under the blanket while he did so. He got back up on the couch and we listened to “Do you want to build a snowman” and “Electricty” on my phone. He wanted me to play more Dust Buster but GarageBand wasn’t working. We read the rest of the Electricity book, then Carly took him up to get ready for bed. He said “I’ll dream about toothpaste and brushing my teeth.” I left them about 7:45.

Listening to podcasts: 

Winter Lake Park: 

Shadow: 

He woke up at 6:35. He came and sat next to me on the bed and I carried him down to Carly a few minutes later. She was about to go outside and drink her tea and he went with her. Back inside he agreed to a strawberry/cracker arrangement, but was then upset when Carly cut the strawberry in four pieces when I usually do two. So he had to wait until she was done making spinach pancakes before he ate. He had cinnamon and sugar on his, and was incredulous when he saw that Carly had yogurt and fruit on hers: “What‽ You didn’t put sugar? But the sugar’s sugar!” After he ate he came and sat on my lap and looked at the weather forecast with me for a few minutes.

Carly started to make macaroni and cheese and he really helped grating the cheese. I went and took a shower. When I came back down they were still grating cheese. August was being a mouse, stealing some. They grated the Parmesan cheese and August was interested in the hard shell part. Carly cut it off so he wouldn’t try to grate it. He asked why she cut it off and she said “I don’t trust you.” He replied “I trust myself!”

Carly gave him a bath and brought him back down and he sat bundled in his towel on my lap. He requested Toca Builders. He sort of built some three dimensional letters, then said “I’m building the Maze of Doom!” from 26-Story Treehouse. We did a little Drops then ate the delicious macaroni and cheese. He wanted to play the car and gas station game with the Duplo cars with Carly but she was cooking. I played with him, but he wouldn’t do the gas station part with me.

He had built a big pillow pile over his piano earlier (I had accompanied him upstairs to get pillows and he convinced me to let him throw some down – he called that the “Zinnie way” as opposed to the “Mama way”, which was sliding them down the steps – he did the last one the Mama way though and was excited by that too). He now went and removed pillows from the top and lounged across them and experimented by moving keys around and making different chord sounds.

I then went up to the office and started my work time. They had popcorn, took the backamapack and suitcases out to the car to see what would fit, and took care of the yard, I think. And other things I’m sure. They then decided to go to the beach. They went to Poleg Beach. The water was up high and it was really windy. Too windy, so they didn’t last long. They drove up to the boardwalk area but it was still quite windy. The cover on the bike acted as a kind of sail and the wind would still push the bike around when she took it off. There was one gust in particular where they just had to hunker down. They went back up to where the car was and across the street to the sort-of-science-y park with the helicopter thing where we’ve played before. They were back at 3:30.

As he went to the bathroom he told Carly “If my iPad breaks you will buy me another one.” “Not if you say it that way.” He rephrased “If my iPad breaks could you buy me another one?” This was bringing back a conversation from a couple days ago when he asked “Why do some kids not have iPads?” That had also led to a discussion of what would happen if he lost his iPad or it got broken.

August found the tape measure and was measuring things. Carly wanted to use it to measure leg space in the car. He went out and helped her measure. Came back and told me “We solved the mystery of how much luggage will fit.” We then went upstairs and solved the “mystery of the kaleidoscope cards”. He often says “I love mysteries!” He and I played with the kaleidoscope cards – putting together a few of the puzzles and making his own designs. He also licked his toe, which I was happy to catch on video.

Carly went out for a walk and he and I played Piano Maestro. Well, mainly I did and he watched me. I’m starting to get into two-handed songs, so it is hard, and the app breaks the song into pieces for you to learn one piece/hand at a time. So the first time for each piece I’d let him do “Zinnie mode” in which he would play as many mistakes/make as much noise as possible. He then lets me do “Dada mode” where I actually practice that piece. But after a half hour or so, as I was done practicing that song today, he took us to easier pieces. Then, he was suddenly doing it on his own. He did it a couple of times and was getting better keeping the tempo. In fact, he was playing with playing the notes slightly late in order to reduce his ‘Timing’ score, then did it again accurately.

Carly skyped with Cherie to discuss car things for the trip. August stopped playing piano. He asked “How many times are we going to Skype with Oma and Opa before they come here?” A good thunderstorm hit while they were talking. Poured rain and thunder and lightning. August went back to the piano and started playing Dust Buster, playing on his own using the on-screen keyboard. He found a set of Chinese songs. Carly got dinner for herself and ate while sitting a looking out the kitchen door at the storm outside. August watched with her, and when it was really pouring he said “Is it Friday or not? The ice cream truck will not come!”

I got him soup for dinner. He ate two bowls. But then he wanted a treat since he ate so much. Not happy there was no treat today. He went back to the kaleidoscope puzzle on his own and started to figure one out on his own. Got the first card, then needed my help to find the second one, but he placed it properly. I then helped him finish with the tricky third card.

He then remembered his “bassoon” from the park yesterday and asked where it was. I had figured he had forgotten about it and thrown it in the garbage. Luckily, the rain had stopped so I went out to the garbage and got it and washed it off. He played his bassoon and played Juicy Juice Store song on it. I told him I’d always wanted my song played on the bassoon. He sang London Bridge and changed up some words: “Silver and gold will waste too much money…my friend lady…” Then some Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. We then looked up some of the songs I’ve made up for him and sang them: “The hungry, hungry baa baa”, “Lost my helmet in the spaceship”, “The elephant was hiding low”, etc.

We went and read Lulu Witch, then a little over 20 pages of The Sisters. He asked “Can I get ready for sleep?” I took him up and got his pajamas on. Carly brushed his teeth. I told him to think about what he’d dream about while I went to get his water. When I came back he said “roses on a bed and a toothbrush on the flowers.” I left them at 7:55.

Sometime during the day Carly gave him a list of subjects (art, science, reading, music, etc.) and asked which was his favorite. He said “Science!”

Grating cheese: 

At the beach with Carly. He thought I’d like this door: 

Back home: 

Flexible: 

Bassoon: 

Reading with me:

I had a good book group meeting to discuss A Curious Beginning. Up about 1:10 and back asleep about 4. So I slept in. I think he was up a bit after 6. They watched a couple Sarah and Ducks and played with the Lego cars and the alien. He made a machine out of the pillows and chairs. I heard them debating ‘Unconnects’ versus ‘disconnects’ as he explained the giant/human making machine. When I came down he said “It makes 17000 giants.” He and the giants were then fighting an ice dragon – Carly. Carly made pancakes and we read The 26-Story Treehouse. When he was done eating he went and washing his sticky fingers on his own.

They nursed, then Carly went outside. That didn’t last long, as he wanted to play with her: “Can we play that car and gas station game PLEEEAAASE, mama?” She came in to play it with him. He sang part of “We all sing with the same voice” “…sometimes I feel angry, and when I want to cry I do.” They went back outside. He typed on my iPad outside at the table and I went up to take a shower. Back downstairs he was laying pillows over the couch and table: “I’m making an underground nest. But don’t destroy it.” Carly was making popcorn, and he lounged on the couch very relaxed as he ate it. I then took him up for his bath and he watched Marble Machine music video in the bath.

Back downstairs we did panorama photos, at his request. He was getting the idea of how to do it and keep it level. Then it was back to being animals: “I’m a talking rabbit…Its May!” And then he said “I’m popping ducks out of my bottom!” We then played the Flynne game “Bam Bam I mak-ed a shelf! I hammered the screws!” That was to wake me up.

I had some Cheerios and strawberries and he wanted the milk. I tried to give him a bit with Cheerios in it: “Get those out you silly Billy.” Back to the Flynne game he had May take  over the fox lair.

We got going to the big Tiv Taam. There, Carly headed right in and we got out a couple minutes later. He had found the tape measure in the console and was measuring things and wanted to take it in the store to measure things. As we walked through the parking Jack drove by and we said hi to him. He was driving up to pick up Celeste at the entrance of the store. As he drove on August asked “I wonder how Nellie’s doing?” So as we caught up to them and saw Celeste August asked her. She then asked if he’d like to come visit Nellie sometime. He said not right now, but that he would. We were in the store just after noon.

We found Carly and he wanted to get in the cart. Shopping went smoothly and we had a full cart. Carly had purchased supplies for the movie day fundraiser her kids were doing and so on the way back we stopped at the school and she took those things in. In the car August wanted to play with the stopwatch on my phone, but we realized that the stopwatch he had started a few days ago was still going and up over 190 hours. He immediately wanted to let it keep going.

Back at home Carly cleaned out the fridge and put away groceries and I made lunch for me and August. August was playing around and suddenly asked “Is there infinite stars? Is there an infinite number of stars?” So we looked that up. August also wanted a smoothie but he wouldn’t help me out by going out and asking if Carly wanted some too. So then when I wouldn’t make the smoothie he refused to eat the tuna sandwich as well.

Upstairs Carly plugged in the Christmas lights: “Why do you always put them on NOT BLINKING‽”

After awhile he kept asking for the smoothie, so I told him he had to help me with something. He picked up and put away all the pillows, so then I made a mango and strawberry smoothie. I asked him to get the milk for me but then realized he couldn’t open the door. Several minutes later he told us “We need to buy a refrigerator that’s easier to open!” As I was making it I assured him he could like the honey spoon. He was at the sink with Carly when I tried to hand it to him. Carly, thinking I was handing it to her to wash, grabbed it and threw it in the sink. August realized what she did and wasn’t happy about it. She rinsed the spoon and put some more honey in it for him.

We drank the smoothie, and for some reason ended up talking about putting gas in the car. I told him that my plan in the future was to make sure to open his window so he could talk to me. He replied “MY plan is to be out of the car THEN get gas.” He asked “Can we watch a song about loose teeth?” We found a Wobbly Tooth song on YouTube that he liked.

A bit later he asked for the mango popsicle: “It wasn’t enough sweetness…the honey, it wasn’t enough sweetness.” Carly got out the popsicle. When I took a photo he told me I should put it on the blog. Said the same for a photo earlier on the couch.

We did some Drops as Carly was making minestrone soup. He and I were then getting read to go for a walk and were about out the door when Vivian skyped. Talked for a couple minutes, then we got going for a walk at 3:45. As we left he asked “Dada, could you forget less?…Not forget so much?” I had joked I sometimes forget to take photos of a park when Carly told Vivian we’d take photos of the park for her.

As we walked up towards the snakes and ladders park he asked”How did we go places when we didn’t have a car and we needed to go places that were farther than we could walk?” I asked if he meant in Korea and he said yes, so I told him about the glorious busses and subway. A bit later he asked “How do you take a photo when is dark?…” He was specifically asking about a panorama photo, and I told him I didn’t think it would really work well if it was really dark. He asked “Then how do you take a photo of the sunrise…sunset?”

At the park he first ran over and played in his ‘shop’. Throughout our time there he was asking how many photos we took for Vivian (he and Carly had decided we’d take 10). When he wanted me to set him down on his hands and knees on a net thing he asked “Could you set me down like this? Like a bear?” We went and spun in the planets thing and talked about elliptical orbits. Then he wanted to take panorama photos of the park. He tried some from near the Jeep thing, then got up on the play structure and did several from there, intentionally see how massed up he could make them. Then it was over to the big climbing area where there were a few other kids playing.

Finally, some snakes and ladders. I sat on the ground to take a photo for Vivian. Then he came and sat in my lap. Cuddled there for several minutes and was getting drowsy and said he was tired and ready to go home. It was a little before 5.

Before we left he found a plastic piece of tubing that he wanted to play with. He carried it as he rode on the bike. He sang “She’ll be coming around the mountain” and then was playing it as in instrument. He said it was a bassoon.

We were home at 5:20. Carly was Skyping with Cherie. He went to the bathroom and told me he “Only a fair amount” of toilet paper. He’s been ripping off paper, but using too much. Back with Carly he told her “You should be Skyping with Vivian, not Oma!” He showed them how he played his bassoon. Carly told him not to put it in his mouth. He said he didn’t but “I accidentally put it in my mouth when we went over bumps. That’s what happened!”

So then he skyped with Vivian and showed her how to play bassoon the bassoon. He played and said “An excellent bassoon player!”

Carly gave him some minestrone soup. He was excited: “Dada! Mama’s gonna give me noodles soup! I love noodles!” As he ate it he said “It’s so good I can’t stand it.” When he dripped soup on a seat and one of us asked what he was doing changing seats he said “Moving that seat, silly boy!” He and Vivian got into a “MY toys is eating YOUR toys!” debate.

After skyping he and I finished our latest read through of The Sisters. He had a slice of apple pear
and a cracker. Carly took him upstairs and they played with the kaleidoscope cards. He was talking like a baby, but he liked the idea of dreaming about playgrounds. Carly started to put him asleep about 6:55. A first: He said “Blanket please” and fell asleep with a blanket on him. He nursed for a minute then asked “Did I go to the bathroom?” He then fell right to sleep.

He woke up just after 6: “Nurse-y?” Carly took him down. I came down and he was lying on the couch, but got impatient for Carly as she made her quesadilla. She came and read The Animal Santa (one of our library books this week) and Go Away Big Green Monster! and part of Wild About Books. He wanted a quesadilla of his own so Carly started it and I finished it. He ate half of his half quesadilla.

He watched marble machine videos “You need to type apples  and stuff in your typing.” He typed on the iPad a bit. He climbed in the upside down stool on the chair and said it was comfy. Then he wanted to do the metronome thing on my phone, which led to wanting to play mandolin, so I went and got that. He went to his music box and carried back the recorder, alien drum, and kalimba. We had music time.

He was still hungry, so I got him some strawberries and Cheerios and he watched Sarah and Duck. He did a strawberries/Cheerios eating pattern. I exercised. He stacked some pillows and said “Dada, I’m building a blue meter. It tells you how blue you are.” He also said he had a lab and it said “Danger. Keep out.” I think a Treehouse reference. He had me set him on the machine to test his blueness a few ties, then it turned into the Flynne game. He used the recorder as a magic wand and told me “I turned you into a mouse!”

We skyped with my parents, then he wanted to send messages to me, so we typed back and forth on Skype between his iPad and mine. We talked about going to play at the school this afternoon. He said “But I don’t think Bar will be there.” I said there could be other kids though and he said “I’ll like them, too.”

We went upstairs and he watched Sarah and Duck and I took a shower. He then wanted to play with the Kaleidoscope cards and insisted we play with the in the big bedroom. That’s where he and Carly had played with them.

Yesterday I had discovered a small scrape on the back of his thigh. He didn’t notice it until I said something. Before his bath today he said “Don’t wash that scrape. Only five seconds, you know.” He was over enthusiastic about letting the water out of his bath the second I put him in and he was upset when I stopped him. I quickly washed his hair and we made it through.

He told me “On Mondays and Fridays you don’t listen to Hebrew when you exercise. That’s your challenge.” I usually listen to a Hebrew app, but he wants me to use an exercise app instead. “That’s your challenge” is what I told him the teacher meant yesterday when she said he’d stay with her all through the class next week.

We had carrots and veganaise and he drank some milk while I made some of the sweet potato balls for lunch. Which he wouldn’t touch. He asked what lemon water was (from Sarah and Duck). I told him and he asked if he would like it. I told Hume “We’ll have to try it.” He replied “The question is, do we have lemons?”

He keeps asking me to do more Piano Maestro, which requires paying for it. He won’t do it himself, but I figured he’s so interested that I might as well pay for a membership and he can watch me playing and learning and maybe he’ll get involved. So we, or rather I, played Piano Maestro for a good hour plus. He was very encouraging for much of it: “You got it!” “You’re doing good, dada.” “Accidents happen.” He was then having fun making mistakes while I played. We switched to the kid version (Dust Buster – included in the membership) and played a little, and he played just a bit. Not much, but a good start.

We were then getting ready to do recycling and go to the school. He reminded me “Bar help-ed me on at the playground. We were cooking things. You remember that dada?” And he was ready to go: “I mean are you ready? Have you gotted our snacks and stuff?” So he helped me clean up (pillows everywhere, etc.) and we got ready to go. Outside, he said a feather and said “Is that one of our dog feathers? You know, to scare away dogs.” Which is actually a pretty good joke. Yesterday he had found the rocks in the same spot that were from the back of the orange bike – the rocks I keep in there to scare away dogs (which, luckily, we’ve had no problems with for the last couple months).

We left at 2:25 and went up to recycling. I had told August we could do the ice cream truck if it came (since it has been an ongoing question the last couple weeks whether it would come). But he’s had a lot of treats this week, and when we decided to head to the school to see if there were kids to play with I figured we’d miss the ice cream truck, which comes close to 3. Well, as we were at the cages doing recycling I started to hear it somewhere. I wasn’t sure I had money with me and didn’t want to have to hunt for the ice cream truck. So I sang along with a song he was singing and he didn’t hear it.

We finished up recycling and headed through the park. He saw a cool tricycle and said we should get him a bike like that, so I took a photo of it and briefly talked to the mom. A girl got on the bike, and August said something about it being Bar. He said “Every girl I see is called Bar.”

We kept heading to school and were just at the big roundabout intersection and turning towards school when he heard it. At first he wasn’t sure what it was and was asking what the noise was. Then, he stopped us, and looking back he identified the ice cream truck turning down a street. Took a few minutes to convince him that we might not be able to find it, and that it would make us late for playing at the school. He still wanted to play at the school, so he agreed to keep going.

We got to school a couple minutes after the bell rang. We headed first to the library. I said it would close soon, so he said he’d wait on the bike and I could return our three books (Berenstain Bears Too Much Birthday, The Animals’ Santa, and You Wouldn’t want to be a Medieval Knight!) and get a Magic Treehouse book. I went in and told Liz that August was sending me in to do his errands. I grabbed Magic Treehouse #15 and #16 and surprised August by getting The 26-Story Treehouse – which was the first one we ever read. When I checked them out and took the books out to August he did end up yelling hello to Liz and talked to her for a second.

We then went to the big playground, as there weren’t any kids on the preschool. On the way down in the elevator he lay down on the floor, which he always does in elevators. At the playground he started by climbing up on the web sort of thing and saying he was making mama nervous. He played by himself for awhile, but then there was a girl about his age who he started to play around and follow. She was a bit on the quiet side too, and eventually I heard August say “Hello” to her a couple times but didn’t hear if she said anything.

He came over to me and had a snack at one point and we read some of The 26-Story Treehouse. Then he was back, playing with the kids as they ran around. A boy asked him if he wanted to play with them. At one point they (6 or so of them) were standing around the spinning thing, taking turns. August did it once and excitedly told me about it. They ran out to the field once and he sort of stopped to ask if he could go and I told him he could.

Carly showed up and hid behind me as he played with them all on the big play structure. He climbed up the twisty slide after the girl (I think her name may be Sophia) did it – something he’s never done before. In fact, there there were a couple of other things (climbing up and swinging from bars) that he’d never done before until he was following the kids today and copying what they were doing.

They all ran way out into the field and ran around a bit. The girl said a couple things to August but we couldn’t hear what they were. They all ran back, and August ran right around Carly to keep running. Then everyone was going so August said “Let’s get going.”

On the walk home when Carly tried to ask what he did
today he just kept saying “I don’t know”. A few minutes after telling her about missing the ice cream truck he used some persuasive technique on her: “Can I have hot chocolate since we didn’t get the ice cream truck?” He was also talking about his powers: his straw power (he shoots out straws to suck things up) and something else, but he said his most powerful is his ice cream truck power, which fills the world with ice cream trucks.

At home he and I had nutty noodles  He ate with me while Carly took care of plants. They then shared the bubble gum ice cream bar we had bought for her a few weeks back from the ice cream truck. He was then being grumpy after that, and I said “You’re being…what’s the word?” He filled in the answer “Grumpy?” He was looking for his water and found it in the backpack: “It’s not a mystery now!” We read a few chapters of 26-Story Treehouse. He and Carly went upstairs and played with the kaleidscope cars and I heard him singing.

They came down and played with the Legos and Duplos

He got frustrated. Carly had him repeat “That’s too bad. I guess I’ll try again.”

Carly went to take a shower. He and I read The Cat in the Hat and The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. He then went upstairs with Carly. For his dreams he said “Bad dreams…magic rugs” No idea where the magic rugs idea came from. I left them at 8:10.

Kaleidoscope cards: 

Carly got him up, or he got up on his own. They nursed and she headed to work. We watched Sarah & Duck and ate crackers and cheese. He really liked the line “Building block? You’re definitely NOT my sandwich.” After the episode about making a sand sea cow he turned it off and we acted out finding an occupied shell – he was the baby crab. We read a little of Clemetine’s Letter, then he wanted to go outside and play his music machine (stick) and metronome (teeter totter). Of a chair he said “It’s a scale fortune teller…it tells you what scale something is…major scale.”

As we went inside he told me “Dada, my shop isn’t open on Hannukah and Christmas.” He played with the alien and spaceship and collected dinosaurs for the international zoo in the Andromeda sector. There was also time travel. This was s we listened to Sun Ra’s “Space Probe”. Seemed quite appropriate. At one point he said a dinosaur would die in the zoo, so I had the alien assure him that a team of paleontologist would come and study the dinosaur’s habitat and recreate it in the zoo. Sometime later he remembered and asked how the team was doing.

We read most of Max Axiom Electricty and he was then a robot and I had a remote control. A lot of talk of motors and being tiny like an atom and motors. The remote control and robot were broken and he had me fixing them with superglue.

I opened Google Maps and discussed what to do. He said “I want to show you what I was thinking.” Although he mainly wanted to search for gas stations, which he proceeded to do around the world. He found one in Greenland.

He looked at the Berenstain Bears book on his own as I got his French toast ready. As he ate it I was learning perfect and bad in Hebrew so we debated which the French toast was.

He played a couple of Toca apps while I exercised, then was upset when I wouldn’t buy a new app. We went upstairs and I showered. He watched Sarah and Duck and ate a couple strawberries. He kept watching upstairs while I made lunch for us. I learned my lesson – he got a peanut butter and jelly/honey sandwich today.

He chose his lollipop from his stocking today and was talking about having it in the car: “…get buckled up, then I can have my lollipop! That rhyme-ed!”

We did his bath – another quick version with him pulling out the plug. In his room he played with all his bracelets and asked where they were all from. He talked about how much he liked them, but he didn’t want to wear one. He said they were for seven-year-olds.

We were ready to go, so he played outside a bit more and was singing “Down by the Station”. He asked where the song was from and I said his songbook. He asked if it was on his playlist and I said we didn’t have a recording of it. He asked if we could get one, so in the car I searched Apple Music and we found a tolerable version. He listened to it a few times on the drive to the beach before he let me change songs.

We left at 11:20. His lollipop lasted the whole way (20 minutes) plus a minute on the bike. We took the orange bike so we could do a beach walk. One of the songs that came on on his playlist was a song from his Poli class. He asked if there was one about street lights. I found that, and it tells you how to cross the street. He asked me “Dada, do you always do that?” As we got in the stroller he asked “Why are Smarties little circles and they don’t stick together…they are cutted in the middle?” We had found the Smarties wrapper as we got in the car, so he’d been thinking about it.

We parked up on the hill, but it turned out parking was free. He had fun driving on the sand-covered sidewalks though on the way down. We got to the beach, and didn’t get too far, because right away he spotted an elongated hill of sand that he said looked like a person. And he wanted to destroy it. He asked if I’d brought the sand toys. We set our stuff down and got out our implements of destruction. We played on the sand hill. It was a building at one point, as I started making channels down it and said it was erosion, and he told me no, it is a building. So then I was making channels and he was destroying them, literally sliding down the hill on his stomach to do so.

We stopped to go and have lunch. He ate much more sandwich today, of course. I had brought my yellow water bottle from Korea. We haven’t used it in Israel yet. He wanted to use it and asked “Do you remember how we make it work?” I asked if he remembered using it in Korea and told him he had first drunk from it when my parents were in Korea and we were on a hike. I said “Of course, I’m sure you don’t remember that specific time. He replied “I still remember that in Pacific time!” Very funny as it is rare that he confuses words like that.

Back on the ‘person’ I started making a big hole. Then, I made a perpendicular hole near the bottom of the hill. August was doubtful we’d get them to connect, but he ‘helped’. Eventually, it did, and I mentioned pouring water through to see if it would go through. He excitedly grabbed the bucket and ran off towards the water. Unfortunately, there was a jerk of a dog owner with three yappy puppies on the beach, and August ran by them. They dogs, who had been chasing a soccer ball around, started chasing August and literally jumped up on him. I had to run and grab August. He was traumatized. The dog owner called his dogs away, but offered no ‘Sorry’ or anything to us. Said dogs were later just wandering all over the beach and around the tables at the restaurant. I didn’t say anything to the owner, but should have. August and I shouted one away from us later on.

Anyway, I got water and that cheered August up. First bucket didn’t work. But after several buckets and straightening out the tunnel we had water trickling out the other end.

We decided to go for a walk at 1:15. We walked north along the beach to the end of the swimming beach. Then took the bike over a couple of rock places. We then cut to the east, off the beach, in search of the Israel National Trail, or at least where that portion of it is marked on Google Maps. We tromped our way through garbage-laden sand and dunes, over a busted guardrail, etc. But eventually gave up when it was clear there wasn’t anything between us and the road. We turned back and tromped back to the beach and walked back. Along the way he found some of the blobby rocks and kept one that did, indeed, look like a “Sea cow” rock. Back near where we started we stopped under a shade shelter and had a snack, then read The Berenstain Bears Too Much Birthday. He got on the bike and was ‘spying’ through his hands, then the handle. We left at 2:05.

As we walked up to the car he told me “I hate parties”. He said he just wanted the three of us and a cake for his birthday. He didn’t like the idea of a bunch of people at a party. I had Carly ask him later and he articulated it quite well. As we got to the car he used a couple of new phrases. He joked about calling the car Sputnik instead of Skoda. I said that would be a good name and that Carly would prefer that name over Skoda Mama. He insisted the car was still Skoda Mama or Carly though and said “I would prefer if you call our home Sputnik. If you care about that.” There was then some dog poop by his door and I asked if he wantedto get in the other door. He said “Well yes, if you (don’t) mind.”

I’d forgot to ask him about using the bathroom and he thought he needed to go, so we then drove down to the beach and walked in and used the bathroom. We then headed home. I stopped at the strawberry stand and August said he’d wait for me in the car. I got a couple containers of strawberries (25 shekels total).

We got home and made a smoothie. He said it made him turn into a strawberry. Which I then ate. But he said he was a strawberry with mold on it: “Some cyanobacteria on it! And volvox!” He learned those from the Classify It! app. That made me sick, then he went a
nd got the doctor stuff and checked me out and gave me medicine.

He was then being a kitten, and Carly got home a little before 4. She was asking what we did today and asked if we went to the beach. He replied “It seems to me we did.”

He went outside with her and was then being a baby. He went down his slide and helped water. I vacuumed the car. Then August and I got in the car and headed to his activity class. We were a little early, so we drove down to where the road to Kfer Netter has been closed. Don’t know why, except it is a legal thing. Very frustrating, as it is already insanely hard to get from one town to another here.

We went to his class. He had been positive about it all day, and started okay. Lasted about 10 minutes then came out and said he was leaving. Sat with me for awhile, then back in. She had a magic wand activity, and turned them all into snakes and they were crawling around (and I recognized the word for snake). When it was August’s turn he used the wand and said “I made you disappear!” When she had him choose an animal he said “Dog!” Then I heard him say “I made you disappear!” again. They crawled around acting like dogs, and he was the loudest dog – reflective of how he sees dogs as a species, I think. I also saw him standing in front of the mirror, staring at himself at one point.

He was then back out with me, sitting on my lap again. I took him to the bathroom and he saw they have the heart toilet paper: “My favorite toilet paper!” He speculated how much toilet paper they have, with all these people: “More than we do. I’m sure they get more rolls.” Back in to class again, then back out, saying “I’m tired. I can’t make it all the way through class.” Rested again, then he went back in for the last couple minutes. And at the end he stayed to help her clean everything up. When he came out he was very happy and excited that he’d made it. But as we walked up the stairs, unprompted, he said “So class was pretty good. But I don’t like class too much.” He then told me th teacher said he would stay in the whole class next time.

As I got him in the car he kicked off his shoes and then was looking for them. I spotted one, and he told me “I have better eyes than you.” He hasn’t mentioned that recently. Also didn’t work at that moment as I was the one that saw it. We got home and sat in the car for a few minutes as a song I liked was coming on. He got out of his seat and looked at the screen: “Is this song called Angel?” It was, indeed. I asked him what else he could read on the screen and he read ‘back’ and ‘up next’. The song was Depeche Mode’s “Angel” and he added it to his playlist.

Inside they nursed, then he had nutty noodles for dinner. Carly then had the computer typing messages to him. He was doing a good job of reading them. Carly took him upstairs and after they had been up there for some time I went up to see what was going on. I opened the door and Carly said “We’re going to bed!” They were playing with the kaleidoscope cards my parents got for us last Christmas, I believe. They were having a lot of fun, particularly when they realized we had two sets. We got him ready and brushed his teeth. I asked what he’d dream about. He said “I don’t know. Scary dreams and mosnters eating me.” Beaches? “Yes! And scary monsters.” Carly had to go do a few things, and he cuddled in on the bed with me. He wanted blankets and pillows pulled around him and he was being a baby “when you first met me”. I told him he had held my finger when they first gave him to me, so he did that. He then asked “Are you used to having me around?” Which I thought may have been a discussion that he had had with Carly, but it hadn’t been. I told him it had been a big change, but that I was always used to having him around. She came back and he was asleep about 8.

Kaleidoscope cards: