Category: Uncategorized

It was another pretty restless early morning with Carly having to get him back to sleep a couple times. They stayed in bed until 6:15. When I got up a bit later they had been playing Wizard School and Carly was making him oatmeal with mango. They then did their crazy eating outside thing even though it was just 15 degrees out there. They came in after awhile and he wanted to type on my iPad. We added two new keys to the onscreen keyboard – one for ‘Mama’ and one for ‘Dada’. They then nursed, and Carly was reading a YA novel called Ghost. August asked her to read outloud. She did, and when he was done nursing he just lay on the couch and she read for awhile. She decided it was a bit depressing, then they went over and got paper and she taught him how to draw a stick figure. He said he couldn’t do it at first. He drew lines coming out of his and said: “The person is actually an alien!”

He was then playing with the blueberries and I went over and played with him. He was a machine going haywire and not following the rules. Then he used the blueberry that is a pinkish color and said it was a drone (or at first a satellite) and wanted me to steer it by remote control. So I was giving it directions on which way to go. To the toy piano where he was making things up, then played the tune again and asked “What’s that from?” He often sits with his left arm and head up on the couch now and plays with his right hand.

We got going and left to head up to Levet Israel in Binyamina. Stopped at a gas station and we figured out the gas card on our own and filled the new car for the first time. Stopped at another gas station just before Binyamina to use the bathroom and we saw Karen, from the school, who organized the beet picking.

Got to the field at 10:10. Jack was there, and I suggested to August that he ask how Nellie is doing. Jack said Nellie could use someone to come over and pet her, as Celeste is away on vacation. So we might swing by sometime. I walked/carried August up to the field. We were a bit behind when we got up to the field, and the rest of the group was listening to the organizer. I had us standing back a bit, but August was ready to get beet picking. He took off towards the field where other people were already picking, saying “Bye bye dada”.

We had fun picking beets. The area we worked in had less big beets this time. Liam (who August and I had once went swimming with at the pool) and his mom were there so we picked close to them. August was very into helping carry the buckets to dump them. He would use his “Super rocket turbo power!” to help. Near the end, Carly pulled a really big beet. August instantly decided he wanted to take it home. Carly argued it was too big, but he picked it up and started to haul it back to the car. I talked to him about it, and about how it would be too hard to cut. He said “Dada, you can cut it. You know everything!” How could I resist that? Also, he was looking pretty sad, so I gave in. The organizer kept putting out new bins as we filled them up, and August was asking me what my guess was for the goal for today. I was guessing a multiple of two, and August started counting by 2s, up to 100 and beyond. It turned out to actually be 9, and after the 9 were full we grabbed a bunch of beet greens and a couple of smaller beets as well and headed back to the car.

Jack almost convinced us to head farther north with him to do some flamingo watching, but we decided it was too far north and weren’t sure how much August would be into it. Maybe if we had binoculars. We drove through Binyamina to see if there was anything interesting and we didn’t find reason to stop. The winery if we didn’t have August with us.

We headed home, and Carly and I felt like a coffee. We went to Gutale, the other cafe in Even Yehuda and the one we haven’t been to. We got cappuccinos and August got a peach and mango smoothie. August and I had read some of the Magic Treehouse #32 in the car, and Carly tried to read a bit more with him here. He ended up doing some Memrise with me.

On the way back to the car the steering on his orange bike broke. The metal piece that attaches to the steering rod to turn the front wheel broke in two, so now Carly and I can’t steer. August can though.

We were headed over to Tiv Taam at the mall, so stopped at the bike shop and took it in. Long shot, but thought they might know someone who could machine a part. They said no. And get him on a two-wheel bike. August was into the steering himself thing though, so maybe a blessing in disguise as he suddenly took off, peddling himself around the mall. Carly went in and did some grocery shopping and he rode to the end of the mall, on the outside, and went down the ramp. He had to turn halfway. Did it three or four times, entirely on his own.

We met up with Carly and headed to the car. In town, when his bike broke, a guy came up to us trying to sell us random things, like snacks and perfume. Suddenly, it happened again. Same snacks and perfume, and now a massager thing that this guy (couldn’t have been the same guy) tried on my back. Strange. Also, he asked for 100 shekels for this cheap blasting thing, which was crazy.

In the car and out of the blue August said “I lost track…how many trees in the world.” Listened to more Jingle Bells on repeat on the way home.

Home at 3:40. I tried to call Omar at Sabeel but didn’t get an answer. They played out in car a bit, then came in and nursed. Inside, he used one of Carly’s shoes as a phone and was calling places to get them to fix cars, his stool, etc. He had a sort of script, and was telling them our address: “I live at Habrosh 1.”

I went out and finally tried riding my bike with the trailer attached. He watched and started to get interested in it. Tried on his helmet and he was okay with it (although we didn’t do the chin strap). He was showing interest in trying the bike for the first time. Maybe in the next few days.

Had some stir fry, then played the Hungry Cateepillar AR game and showed that to Carly. He played some toy piano, then we read Tallulah’s Tap Shoes. He was still hungry and I got him more veggies from the stir fry, no noodles, and he ate all of them and asked for more.

We went out and played Zinnie shop for quite awhile as it got dark. Don’t know if I mentioned hanging the battery light up in it so he has a light now. I bought the soccer ball from him, then got him to kick the ball back and forth with me. He said “This is so fun”. But then stopped about 10 seconds later.

Carly had taken a shower, then we took him in and got him ready for bed. He agreed he’d be dreaming about beets. And added “And VOLCANOES. And storms.” I left them at 7:10.

Drawing a person/alien: 

Drone: 

The big beet: 

How I decorated it in Wizard School:

Taking a rest from biking outside the mall: 

In the Zinnie shop: 

They got up at 6:20. I was up at 6:40. They were reading Plumdog. I took over and Carly drove to Herzliya for her first appointment of the day. While reading Plumdog he first asked what keyhole surgery was, so we looked it up. A few pages later it was talking about the age of different people in dog years, and I wasn’t certain what the conversion was. August said “Google!” When we finished with Plumdog we switched to language apps. I wanted to try Drops and Memrise with him. He didn’t like Drops at first as it shows your 5 minutes counting down in the corner. We did some Hebrew in that, then in Memrise he wanted other languages, so we did some French, then some Arabic. Did a good amount of language, then switched to Wizard school and exercise. On his toy piano he played the tune he’s been obsessed with (he now plays it in multiple keys) and asked “What’s this from?” I turned music on on the iPad and it was a Moby song. He instantly started dancing to it, so he had another Moby dance party. I said he seems to really like Moby, Erasure, and New Order. “Actually, I like other bands too.” In one of the remixes they kept repeating “Los Angeles” and I mentioned how I’d like to go back to California sometime. He said “What? You mean the element.” He knows ‘Californium’ from “The Elements” song.

He was running around, trying to stay away from me, and saying that if I touched him I’d burn up:  “Dada, I’m the hottest thing there ever is…I’m the fastest thing…You know I’m faster than the light.” We then switched and were listening to Christmas songs. We went upstairs and he watched the Timmy Time and Storybots Christmas episodes while I took a shower. We then did his bath and he pretended to be a flower, which made him more okay with getting wet. He didn’t know about the soap though: “I don’t know if I like soap on my stem.” I said I was washing off aphids and he liked that. When he was done he told the letters floating in the water “Time to get out of the pool! Pool closing!” Yesterday I taught him the secret to using the suction cups on the letters and numbers bag. I got the little sewing scissors and he let me cut one tuft of long hair. He was brave about that, but then wouldn’t let me do any more.

Carly got home at 10:10 as we were about to get out of the shower. They nursed, and she asked him how the bath went. He accused me of spraying him, which, in fact, did not happen at all. He then played piano: “Dada if you play the piano it sprays water on you. It’s good I played it because I’m a BABY FLOWER.” (Squeaky voice at the end there). He then transposed that little mystery song he plays into D flat. He asked for popcorn and said “The plain kind so it’s healthy.” Then he said to Carly “You know, let’s watch a movie…the polar bear one.” “Why we always eat popcorn when we watch movies?” He watched a good part of the first episode of Planet Earth, which they’ve watched before. He then helped me glue more book labels in the books.

Carly was making stir fry in the kitchen and he asked what the recipe was that she was making. He found out there would be noodles involved and said “Dada, you know I love noodles, right? More than mangoes. More than Qs! I like them, but I like noodles MORE.” When it was done we ate stir fry outside. He liked picking the noodles up himself. And while he was eating he asked Carly which burner she had cooked the mushrooms on. The food reminded me of Vietnam for some reason and Carly and I talked about the night before I got sick there. A couple minutes later he said “Tell me more things about Vietnam.” Usually he calls it boring talk if he isn’t involved. Although often he also doesn’t like it if we’re talking about him.

About 1 we got going and headed first to the Even Yehuda library to return the Hebrew copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which was due today. We realized we hadn’t brought August’s vaccination records with us, so headed back home and I ran in and got them. Carly drove us to Herzliya and to where the pediatrician’s office was supposedly located. We found a house. Carly called and the Herzliya Medical Center and got us to the correct spot a block away. But then it was 1:50 and no one was answering the door. August had a 1:45 appointment. The doctor showed up at just before 2.

August was not happy about going to the doctor and very worried. He was reluctant to go in at first, but then the doctor asked if he liked puzzles and pulled out a board with magnet shapes on it. August was into that and did it twice. Overall he handled it well, and let the doctor look in his ears and listen to his chest, etc. He did say “I hate doctors” a couple times, but it wasn’t horrible. The doctor measured him at 14.5kgs and 98cm. August was a little upset about being measured short. I noticed August didn’t have his feet all the way back though. I’ve consistently measured him at 100 or 101cm and had just measured him, with shoes on, at 101. I told August that and he wanted to put on his shoes again and I re-measured him.

The doctor said August was doing fine with everything, although encouraged us to work on playing with other kids, etc., which is our own assessment. In asking questions though we realized that August has used glue (he was just doing that with me), but we haven’t had him use scissors. The doctor also asked if he could draw a person, and August said he didn’t know. So the doctor asked him to try and August drew what he called a “weird person”. We’re also not sure if August entire has hopping down, and he hasn’t really worked on dressing himself yet.

We got to the car and I drove us south a couple minutes to Carly’s next appointment (all check-up/getting to know doctors appointments today, but they rather spread things out here). August and I played in the car for a few minutes. I talked about how nice the doctor was and that he was from South Africa and had said he had lived in Texas. August asked “Is there rattlesnakes in the United States?” When I said yes he said “Then I should have told him watch out for the rattlesnakes.” This goes back to when we learned of a poisonous snake in India and I told him he should tell Korea Megan to watch out for it. Anyway, I told him he could tell Gramma and Grampa that so he recorded a Skype video for them. He had also said “I hope they haven’t got bit by a rattlesnake”. We were then listening to Jingle Bells on repeat and he was singing it but only but only some words (like ‘jingle’ and ‘way’) to make a sort of accompanying part.

We then took the orange bike and headed down to the beach. There were stairs so I had to carry the bike down a couple times. He talked to the bike, asking how it felt about being carried and telling it it was okay.

Down on the beach we headed north on the packed sand. Went about half a kilometer and came across a runoff area that leaves a sort of channel in the sand. We played there for 40 minutes or so, using the shovel and rake and bucket to play with the sand of the ‘cliff’ at the edge of it. A wonderful time at the beach – just warm enough and we could enjoy the breeze.

About 4 we headed back south. His shoe fell out at one point and we had to backtrack. We had paid for parking until 4:15. Carly had waited forever to see a doctor, then met us at the car right about that time. August were a couple minutes after her as we were looking at a sculpture and debating whether it looked like a person or not.

She then had to go to another office at the main medical center for a blood draw. She started walking up there after we paid for more time, then August and I stopped at one building for a restroom. It was being used, so we went on up to the building Carly was in and found a bathroom there. We walked a bit more, then went back and hung out in the car for a few minutes until Carly called.

She walked down to the pharmacy and August and I packed up and drove to get her and arri
ved just as she called to ask where we were. I kept driving and we headed home, getting her at 6.

We had dinner but he said he was full of the snacks in the car. Luckily it was a lot of fruit. We played Wizard School, then August and I did Hebrew and Arabic together in Drops and Memrise. He was tired so we got him ready for bed. He said he’d dream about “Nursing, and Qs, and cupcakes, and chocolate. And doctors, too.” I left them at 7:15.

It was a rough morning – August was waking up around 4:30. He had nursed earlier as well, making it a really rough night for Carly. They got up by 5:30. I got up after 6:30. As I got up he was getting really upset because Carly wouldn’t let him have the noisy thing from the Old MacDonald puzzle. Carly tried to go to bed but couldn’t get to sleep.

Downstairs he calmed down when we pretended to be on Treehouse levels (the bed was out and it looked like a platform): chainsaw juggling, upstairs to ice skating, ice cream: “I’m gonna get monkey ice skating board…It’s a real ice cream flavor. It tastes like monkeys.” We then sat in the play area and read book: Biscuit Picnic, Opposites, Barnyard Dance, Happy Birthday!, Moby-Dick, Tickle, The I Love You Book, and a good chunk of The New Kid on the Block. We moved in on the bed for the last book. He was laughing pretty well at some of the poems. Then he got silly: “When I said muggle wuggle the sticks under there disappeared.” And “Everywhere I go, the calculator sews and sews…it seems our whole house up.” He was rhyming nonsense words, like “uppa moopa appa dappa”. We traded these back and forth as we walked downstairs.

They went upstairs to nurse about 8:15. Carly had cooked eggplant so I had a sandwich. He fell asleep but Carly didn’t. He came down at 9:40. When he saws Carly he asked “What were you doing down there?” We had been working on some errands: getting our 2000 shekels from Skoda (the other associate seemed to be cleaning up after our actual dealer again, as I had to resend him a voided check) and making doctor checkup appointments.

I took a shower. The silicone I put down last night didn’t completely solve the leaking, but it is better. When I came down he was sitting between the couch and the coffee table, with the books covering his lap. I then gave him a bath. We were spelling words and found 8 ‘ook’ words we could spell with them. He took the ‘k’ away from ‘brook’ and asked if ‘broo’ was a word. I said no, but that ‘bro’ was a slang word short for ‘brother’. After his bath he said “What’s the short word for brother again?” I told him and he said “Don’t EVER call me bro.” He said bye to the letters as we left.

Downstairs he played some TodoMath as we got ready to go. I had found Kadima Forest on Google Maps and it was less than 20 minutes away. Give how tired people were today we figured we shouldn’t go too far. He played outside a little before we left.

We got there about 1:15. A little tricky getting in as the maps led us to the east side of the park, but the road that seems like it should be (and used to be) an entrance is closed. Found a dirt road in, then eventually found our way to the playground and picnic area. As we left we found the paved road out the southwest side of the park.

It is a really nice pine forest, open beneath the trees. He climbed on a big rock, then we went over and he climbed up a rope climbing structure. Got up to the second level himself, then I helped him up to the third. Climbed around in that a bit, and he worked on lowering himself through the ropes to get down. Went over to the regular play structure for a few minutes and he went on a swing and climbed on it. Carly had gone and rested in the car.

We went and sat on a picnic bench and Carly came out with us and we had cheese and crackers. Carly had gotten crackers that were in all sorts of interesting shapes, including quadrafoils. August said  “I don’t see any right angle trapezoid crackers”.

We then got out his orange bike and went on a walk on the dirt roads around the park. August liked the garbage dump, and on the way back he was singing a song about how he liked it. It ended when he smelled the garbage and said “Ewwww”. We also admired the big trees. August spotted a drinking fountain and commented that it was an old one, then played with it as it just went straight on the ground.

We left before 2:30 and stopped at home to drop off the bike. We had talked through the plan with August, which was to drop it off and then go to Ikea. He was fine as we dropped it off, and he and I read Berenstain Bears Think of Those in Need and Too Much Junk Food. But when we got to Ikea it was surprisingly full. Then, right after I got him out of the car he fell as he went to Carly and scraped his knee. Carly called off the Ikea trip and we headed home. A good call, as he then had a bit of a meltdown on the way home and had to apologize for saying mean things.

He had calmed down by the time we were home. Carly said something and he joked “With me, you never know.” Played a little of the shape matching game on the iPad, then he had dinner and he went outside with Carly and was doing more of the selling game. Only his business has evolved now to meet his customer’s (Carly’s) needs: he was now delivering. Carly would call him on the bowling pin phone, he would answer on his, tell her what he had in the store, and he would then deliver it to her at the table. He came in to go to the bathroom, and as he did he told Carly “Maybe YOU can sell ME things.”

August and I had started to play with Dino Walk (an app that shows how the globe has changed over millions of years, and has information about animals, etc. from different time periods). I wanted to go for a walk, but they were both too lazy, so eventually I went on my own. I walked for about 25 minutes, listening to an episode of Afghanada. I saw Holly walking her dog – she was surprised to see me on my own. When I got back they were playing Dino Walk. When I got back we switched to Earth Primer and we read/played through a lot of that.

He was seeming tired, and so was Carly, so we went up and got him ready for bed. I left them about 7:10. We decided he’d dream about erosion “and earthquakes” and the Zinnie shop.

I went downstairs and started watching Rogue One. Only got a few minutes in though as they came back down after 7:25. August and I read the rest of Plumdog, then Tallulah’s Solo, Tallulah’s Tutu, Pablo and His Chair, Biscuit Goes to School, Peppa’s Chrisrmas Wish, and Hug Machine twice. We had Cheerios and banana bread while we read. He then got down and sat and played piano slowly, doing big intervals, with his head resting on the couch. Looked very tired. Carly took him up at 8:45.

He was up around 6:30. When I got up I heard him playing chords and saying numbers on the toy piano. When I came down he was in the bathroom. As I helped him he said “I’m never going to give you your iPad back…I’m going to remodel your iPad.” (A reference to Fortunately, the Milk). He had used it to watch Sarah and Duck. Carly was drinking her coffee outside and he went out with her for a few minutes, eating his oatmeal, then came in and used my iPad to play Wizard School. We sent each other things for quite awhile. He then nursed and played Scratch on Carly’s computer, then wanted to read Berenstain Bears and the New Baby but only wanted Carly to read it, not me. He ended up watching a video about jail with Carly and had good questions: “What are other really bad rules they could break?” “Are they stuck in jail forever?” “When the person goes to jail does the person that got the iPad stolen get it back?” “Can we watch a better video of someone breaking a really bad rule?”

I took a shower, then Carly headed to the plant store and I took him up for his bath. He was throwing the letters out of the bath and said “They’re sea sponges!…You can scrub me with the sea sponges.” We were listening to Christmas music, mainly the new Minus 5 album. He then spent a lot of time watering the toys in the basket (kind of looks like a flower pot) with the water can. I commented on how I needed to do the silicone to try to reduce the leaks under the barrier that Yve put in. August said “Silicone? Is that an element?” “I turned into silicone.” When he was out of the bath he was then the silicone, blocking the water. Naked, he put up his arms and a leg to block the water from going to the other end of the bathroom.

Out in the play area we were now listening to Moby and the Void Pacific Choir. He started dancing, so we had a little Moby dance party. I picked him up and he said “Are you using your watch?…But dancing is exercise too.”

Carly was home 10:20. We heard a noise and investigated. She was bringing all the plants and pots in. She’d bought a couple of big pots, then za’ater and flowers and other plants for one side of the kitchen boxes. August asked for popcorn so I made that. He wanted the plain so I could put za’ater on it. Carly remembered how he used to flap his hands when he was excited. He tried it, but said “I don’t do that anymore.” When I made the popcorn I asked how much za’ater Carly usually puts on it. She said just a little. He said “You don’t want to waste the za’ater.” Then told me “When I had oatmeal mama almost putted on all the honey container!”

I also had out carrots and pesto vegenaise to dip them in. August kept eating carrots, even as the popcorn was available. He ate a lot of them. He told Carly “Mama! You should have some popcorn! It’s SO good.” We took the carrots and popcorn out on the outside table and ate there.

He was then playing in the Zinnie house. Carly was doing the plants and I was working on the library, putting the glass in, the plaque on, etc. August started a shop out of his Zinnie house, selling things to Carly and me. Carly went and got coins and we used those. Carly replanted his carrots to a bigger pot and he got to pick one and eat it and the greens: “It’s the tiniest carrot I’ve ever seen!”

In his shop he offered to sell Carly some cardboard, which I needed for painting the board for the library sign. I told him I’d give him twice what the other woman was willing to pay. He said “Actually the other woman really wants it but you can borrow it anytime.” I had the two pieces of cardboard to use under the painting, but when I went to get something I came back to find it missing: he had reclaimed it and it was now back in the shop. He had earlier done the same thing with the broom Carly was using and she had to repurchase it.

He helped me paint the sign green. He was talking to the paint and the boards, asking them how they felt about the process. We finished that and went inside at 12:30. I put a frozen pizza in the oven and while he waited he ate beet greens. We ate, sitting at the table and listening to Christmas music, and then got going up to the Ilanot arboretum.

We got walking a bit after 2. We had taken apart his orange bike and figured out it could fit in the trunk of the car so he rode that around Ilanot. He liked the hills, and got pretty good at rolling down the hills. Also, he realized there were QR codes on all the tree signs, so wanted to scan each of them with the phone. He wanted to do all of them, so then I told him he could only do it on trees he really likes. So he was asking “Do I really like that tree?” Or asking Carly if she liked that tree, then if she said yes he’d say “Okay, let’s scan it!”

We got back to the beginning around 3, but then we spent several minutes repeatedly rolling down a hill on the bike. Carly got a couple minutes to sit and read. We went over to the picnic table area and he started playing in the pine needles. Carly skyped with her mom. Last time August and I were here we skyped with Cassie. While they were Skyping August and I played around and I realized that some of the pine trees above us (the Turkish pines (pinus brutia) or the stone pines (pines pinea) were showing crown shyness, which I’ve been wanting to see since I read about it.

We got going and from Ilanot you have to travel north on the highway and turn around. Got stuck in traffic a bit. We made it to the Tiv Taam at the mall and Carly went in to shop. August and I stayed in the car. He got in the driver’s seat and played the whole time. He was doing a lot of singing to “Jingle Bells”.

We got home after 5. We were dipping some of the new oval-shaped crackers and carrots in yogurt and vegenaise. He did a couple of puzzles with Carly: the undersea one and Peter Rabbit. I thawed the soup, did some dishes, and made us grilled cheese sandwiches. We ate and August got us all playing Wizard School. Carly sent him a picture of a menorah. He then asked for a picture of 3 candles, since he is three.

Carly cooked the beet. She put some in the freezer to cool it down for him. He asked me “Could you be somebody taking something into a freezer?” He has me act out things all the time, but this was an odd one as I just put something in a freezer. Earlier we had been acting out getting tattoos again. He gave a piano lesson to Carly, then we were trying to figure out the little tune that he was playing and often hums. Pretty sure it is from some app we’ve used, but not sure which one. We looked at a few but couldn’t find it.

We also had the Hanukkah donuts that Carly got at the store. In the car when we were guessing what she had purchased that was Hanukkah related, August said ‘dreidel’ and ‘menorah’.

He was ready for bed, and laid out the order of things: “Number 1 is brushing my teeth, number 2 is going to the bathroom, number 3 is nursing, number 4 is going to sleep…” Before I even asked he said “I’m going to dream about machines and squirrels and mice.” I left them at 7:55.

New plants: 

In the Zinnie house: 

First carrot: 

Arboretum: 

Skyping: 

Crown shyness: 

Singing in the car: 

Menorah picture: 

Sometime after 12:30 during the night he sat up and said “I need to go to the bathroom.” So I took him. As I carried him back he said “Read a book”. I said we needed to go back to sleep. He crawled up to Carly. I asked Carly about it later and she didn’t realize he had gone to the bathroom.

Around 5:30 he had been nursing for a long time and Carly had had enough. He got really upset and wouldn’t calm down. Carly took him to the Zinnie bed. I went and got his water and a snack and the iPad. At first he was even angrier when I tried to play Storybots or something. Eventually he calmed down and started to play something and I went back to bed. I was getting up, slowly, around 7 and he came in and was pulling the blanket off of me. Carly had brought the big piece of styrofoam in from the laundry area and he had me carry him on it.

Downstairs he showed Carly how to play Yankee Doodle again, then they made the hologram thing she had brought from Planetanya. They went in the bathroom to get it to work. You get it to work by setting it on a phone/iPad playing a video from YouTube. Back out in the living room he just watched the video on its own.

Carly was in winter break cleaning mode right from the get go. She wanted to turn our bed and return the rolling bed from the Zinnie bed to his room and set up a mattress on the floor next to our bed for him. So I ended up doing much of that, with Carly’s help turning the bedframe a couple times as we had to stand it up. I finished putting the beds and mattresses back together and they ate oatmeal outside and took care of plants.

Back inside I read Plumdog with him for awhile (he really likes that book), then I went and took a shower. He was doing TodoMath. Let him play a few more minutes, then I took him up and gave him his bath. More squirt cars and we had the letters swimming today (which we used to do in Korea). When we were done he used his foot to pick up the letters and talked about them not wanting to go back to the bag (again, from Korea).

He talked to Siri and we got ready to go, then was playing with Scratch and Carly’s computer. He would do something and tell Carly “What did you do to my computer?” And he told me “It’s Mama’s computer, dada. Don’t interrupt me. Or you’ll have to pick the papaya plants. And weed the garden.” I wasn’t actually interrupting him, but it was a line from Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners. Then he was using the red marker as a wand to make us disappear and reappear.

We got out to the car with Carly driving and we drove up to Caesarea. On the way we read some Clementine. He spotted a McDonald’s sign and said “McDonald’s! We can eat at McDonald’s!” I was surprised he recognized the sign so easily, as we’ve never really talked about it.

We first went to the Casesarea beach with a Roman aqueduct running along it. We sat under the aqueduct, then went down on the beach and played around. August wanted to make a moat, so Carly went up on the beach and they made a moat around her. He then got upset though when he wanted to fill it with water but we didn’t have anything to do it with. He wanted to go home and was trying to walk back up to the car but we wouldn’t go. Finally, convinced him to take off his shoes and feel the crunchy sand. He then had fun picking up chunks of sand and destroying them. Initially we weren’t letting him “sandify” us but eventually it turned into a game. Spent some time burying his feet in the sand and they were crabs. Carly was surprised that he knew that sand was broken up rocks, but he knows erosion pretty well from the Earth apps and from our time playing at that stream by the Dead Sea.

We headed back to the car, trying to get sand out of everything and failing. Drove to Caesarea National Park and got tickets for just the Crusader city part, as it was about 2:30. Saved the Roman portion for another time. August liked going over the bumpy path in the stroller, but he liked the ramp more, saying he liked to run up ramps. We wandered around the harbor and out to its farthest point. Carly made fun of me for taking a photo of the power plant. She didn’t think many people would do that.

We walked back to the lawn area  about 3:15 sat and had a snack. A baby came over to us, interested in the snacks and did a nice roll. August wasn’t impressed with the roll or the baby. August was eating a grape, a piece of pear, then getting a chip. He was okay with the order, but didn’t like saying “please” each time, so was pushing buttons in the air and claimed that “8 8 works without a please.”

Headed home about 4. We read part of Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman on the way. He was really interested in the part about the aliens wanting to remodel earth.

At home they Skyped with Korea Megan for over half an hour. Gave her a tour of the house, and I talked to her about how the trucks have ‘Horn OK Please’ painted on them there. So that Carly could talk to her I was ‘entertaining’ August by spinning him around and made up a little chant:

I’m entertaining Zinnie

By spinning him around

By lifting him up

And flopping him down

Eventually August said “Dada, stop entertaining me.” After Skyping we read some more of Fortunately, the Milk. Then all three of us were doing Wizard School. I told him “I’m going to send you the funniest thing ever.” He said “You mean the Treehouse books?” I sent him a picture that said ‘Robot poop’. Perhaps not as funny as the Treehouse books, but it got a good laugh from him.

He was then getting tired and Carly was talking about reading to him and he slipped and hit his chin/neck on the corner of the coffee table. No real damage, but it hurt. Carly took him up and he was ready for bed. For dreaming I suggested beach and ruins. He said he’d dream about “Beach and robot poop and ruins and Wizard School”. I left them about 7:10. He was asleep soon thereafter.

Wanting to go home: 

Back to the sand: 

Feet as crabs: 

Caesarea. Photo Carly made fun of me for taking: 

Snack spot: 

City walls: 

Carly woke him up at 6:30. When he came down to me he was a hedgehog, as Carly was wearing her WBAIS shirt with a hedgehog on it. He curled up to me (being pokey) and ate some worms. We typed a little on my iPad and Carly headed to work. He found Gus on the Go Hebrew Stories on my iPad and we spent close to a half hour working our way through the Three Little Pigs. The app really works well for scaffolding vocab.

He wanted to switch to Wizard School, so we got his iPad and he did a lot of art. I was also writing words in English and Hebrew and he was sounding them out. He watched some Sarah and Duck and I made us a smoothie and we watched together. He walked around the room waving back and forth and said he was a wobbly tube man (a reference to 91-Story Treehouse, I think it was – one of them, at least). We read Curious George Cleans Up and I then exercised while he watched more Sarah and Duck. He then pretended that I was trapped in a whale, then said he was a whale. I had thought he was stuck inside the whale with me, but he clarified: “Noooo, I’m a whale and you’re sick inside ME.” We then did squirrel games: I was going to work and leaving him at home alone (he never mentions where Mama Squirrel is), there were snakes in the meadow, then we were driving in the squirrel car together (which apparently has two bathrooms in it).

We then read Biscuit Loves the Library. When I was done he asked me to read it backwards, so I did. As squirrels we were then driving to the nut store, and he had us go upstairs to another nut store. This store let us eat the nuts. I said “That doesn’t seem good for their business” He forcefully replied “ACTUALLY, it is.”

He played Sound Rebound and I took a shower. When I came out he asked “Did you not like your shower?” I assured him I did, and he said “But you SPRAYED yourself!” Then “Did you get water in your eyes?”

We made pizza with corn (left over from making the pisole) and ate that and listened to music. He chose songs while I worked on hanging up a couple of the photos that had fallen. He was singing quite a bit of the 12 Days of Christmas, although when I took a video he mainly hummed. We then made banana bread. August helped the entire time, and started by mashing up the bananas with a knife and fork. He said “Bananas, are you okay?” And said “I’m a cutting and stabbing machine.” The entire rest of the process, and pretty much the entire day, was an ongoing dialogue with inanimate objects, with me having to supply the responses. He talked to the bananas and eggs constantly as they got mixed up with the other ingredients, then to the banana bread itself in the oven: “Bananas, are you happy bleeding in there?…Cuz they’re human bananas. I told you.”

We put the banana bread in the oven (he had gotten brown sugar and cinnamon along the way and liked the mixer and spatula), then heard the ice cream truck. I raced us out, which, given that he’s three and there are two locked doors to go through, took awhile. He has a lot of business up on the dead end though, so it was easy to catch up. We bought a bubble gum one for Carly and a mango popsicle for August, and paid back the ice cream guy the 2 shekels we owed him from last week.

We started counting cats on the way home: 5. At home we hung up lights in the kitchen and on the railings and bannister. Had to switch them once and adjust a few times, so quite a process. August helped as much as he could, and kept talking to the lights: asking if they liked being hung up, turned on, etc.

We ate some banana bread. He sat at the table slowly eating it and making yummy noises and listening to the music. We were listening to David Bowie all afternoon, after listening to his playlist earlier.

Carly got home after 1:50 following her half day. August had been so great and helpful with me today but he switched once she got home and just wanted to nurse. He was upset as tried to get food and ate outside. Finally got him to play Math Tango and he surprised me by reading several full sentences that he’d never seen before on his own. He was then making up music on toy piano: “there’s a piano in the meadow. It’s stuck in the sand. It’s a magic piano. When I play it it sinks in the sand.” He then gave Carly a piano lesson, showing her how to play Yankee Doodle and how to make chords. We talked about going to do recycling and he wanted Carly to come as well. He asked if she knew how to do recycling. She hasn’t really done it. When she went upstairs to get ready he said “Mama doesn’t know a lot of things.”

We went to recycling with Carly. Got most of it done but then he needed the bathroom. We came home, and Carly stayed here. He and I went and finished recycling, then walked around the Holly block, then saw Holly walking Doby as we continued to walk down Kibuts Galyeot. We walked down to the big Israeli flag, then took the path across the field to the trail. We’d never done that before as there is a flight of steps. He was talking to the bike as I carried it up and down the stairs. ‘And down’ because once we were up he decided he wanted to go back down by where the Israeli flag was to see what was at the end of the block.

We had been adding to our cat count and got to 15 (give or take one) by the time we were home at 5:15. They nursed and he wanted the nursing mittens so I got them. We had dinner and he ate a lot of beet greens. There was a lot of saying “Oh, dada” to me, which Carly has taught him to say when I say something funny. Carly and I were talking about Sabeel and she mentioned the tour she went on. He shouted”Tour? There’s no tour around here!” Carly explained he probably didn’t realize it but she had gone on a tour with other people. He said “When we taked care of Nellie?”

We read Berenstain Bears and Too Much Pressure and they nursed. Carly was trying to convince him to let her cut his hair. He said “I will NEVER let you cut my hair.” I got him to say “I want to look like the boy in the Sesame Street video.” There’s an old Sesame Street video that I’d found when he was a year old or so (in the ABC or 123 app) that I showed to Carly and told her I liked the hair on the boy in it. She didn’t like it at all.

He wanted to watch something so we watched the Peg + Cat episode with The Hannukah Problem. He went upstairs with Carly and wandered down in underwear and socks a bit later. Took him up and we got him ready for bed. I told him to dream about Christmas. He added “and volcanos…and tornados.” He was asleep about 7:20.

Kitchen lights: 

Stomping on recycling: 

Cuddling in the chair: 

Up the stairs: 

He was up around 5:45. Not really fully awake as Carly came in and nursed him and he was close to going back to sleep and no hurry to get out of bed. He followed Carly around a bit, but then got upset when she needed to go downstairs and get ready. I tried to distract him, but ended up having to calm him on the couch. He was able to do that and waited for her to nurse again. I then got Wizard School set up on his iPad and he finally accepted it and we made a picture of a dog. He said “Let’s buy the 1 and the 0 because 10 is the dog’s favorite number.”

Carly left and we read some Plumdog. I tried turning on the heater and after awhile realized it wasn’t heating. Someone had turned the temperature down to 17 yesterday. But then when I turned it up it didn’t seem to be working either. Spent some time tinkering around with that, comparing to the one upstairs and going outside. August enjoyed following me. Eventually we went back to Plumdog and it started working after a couple minutes. In Plumdog the dog is left alone at one point and August started acting it out: “I’m a baby mouse…can you leave the baby mouse alone…can you be a dada mouse going to work?” In the evening I realized that August is almost always pretending to be quiet animals: squirrels, cats, mice, shrews, hedgehogs…probably because he dislikes loud dogs so much.

There was a lot more acting out of Plumdog, then he played Sound Rebound and other music apps and I exercised. The leaving games continued with squirrels: “Could you be Dada squirrel going to the grocery store?” And pretending to get a toy though the mail slot (which happens in the book). We read four chapters of Magic Treehouse #11. We collected acorns and other nuts, then he played the toy piano and said “If you press the keys the acorns fly out…up to our pile.”

We went up and I took a shower while he watched Sarah and Duck. His bath went well again, playing mainly with the squirt cars and cups today, and a little letter spelling. He was grumpy at the end though as I washed a bit of his hair. Out in the play area he played with the drying rack, knocking it over, moving it around a bunch, and putting it back up. He came over and said “Splat! I splatted my bad mood on you.” I asked “From your bath?” He had been playing quietly and I didn’t realize he was really being grumpy. “Yep.”

I loaded laundry and he saw an iHerb box with a QR code on it. He said “Go to that website. Is that a QR code?” He reminded me the bad mood was on me, then when I was pretending to be grumpy he said “Do you like me? It seems like you don’t like me…Do you still have mad?”

We had had cheese and crackers and vegenaise before his bath, so I didn’t know how hungry he would be for lunch. We went downstairs and made a smoothie: banana, mango, and mixed fruit. As he waited he wanted mango, so I thawed four bites for him. Then four more. Then two more. After that and the smoothie I figured he definitely didn’t need pizza right away so we held off on that.

We drank our smoothie and listened to the Smithereen’s Especislly for You. He went and played toy piano, then used the keyboard on GarageBand. He was humming along to his improv, then playing with long notes and sustain: “I was doing whole notes.”

I went outside to put the glass in the door of the bookshelves, but didn’t make it far at all. August came out, picked up the screwdriver, and scratched the side of the cabinet. I got upset and took him inside. He was mainly upset when I said we couldn’t play any more iPad, etc. until the evening. We finally sorted all that out and calmed down and he picked Berenstain Bears and the New Baby and he had me read it in both Spanish and English. Realized that like Peppa Pig there are two different stories about how they get their house. In this book it says that Papa Bear made the house in the tree. In a different book they move into it and it is already a house that needs to be fixed up.  Then read some Clementine. There was mention of gummy worms and August sang a “Yeah gummi worms” chant/song and was a gummy worm machine.

Had a little more mango, the read Berenstain Bears and the Double Dare. We finally left at 2:25. We got in the car and he requested the song “Constellations”, which we found from one of those Skype videos, then he yelled “One! I spotted a cat right there.” He had spotted a cat up on a fence. We drove to school, but as we got close he was enjoying listening to music and I asked if he wanted to keep driving. He said yes and we drove up through Even Yehuda a ways. Found an odd park/play area composed of painted tires and a house with an unseemly number of Greek/Roman-inspired statues and vases around it. He said he wanted to head to school, and we made it just in time as he almost fell asleep.

We got there a little before 3 and so it was starting to get busy in the courtyard area. We saw Celeste and a student that knows August. But August said “No time!” and claimed a sucking thing was pulling us away. It pulled us down through the elementary school, then downstairs, then back to the kindergarten rooms where we looked at fish they had in various containers outside.

Then to the library, where the “pulling” took him to the to computers. Distracted him from that though and we got a big stack of Berenstain Bears books and Magic Treehouse books. He grabbed one that was about polar bears – it was number 31 or something like that – and we got that as well. We went and found a couple girls in the winter wonderland area, so went to the aisle over and sat on beanbags. Over in the kids area he had spotted something: “A menorah!” He knew it from the Peg + Cat Hanukkah episode. Next to it were three dreidels. We took one back with it and he was figuring out how to spin it. I was taking a video when suddenly something fell on him. It was a black piece of cloth that was dropped through the shelves by a girl we would learn was named Rosie and in 1st grade (her sister was in 3rd grade and reading a book called Amulet).

They started playing by throwing/passing it through the shelves. She came over and we talked to her and they started playing with pillows. They gathered pillows from the benches and other beanbag areas. Luckily almost no one else in the library (and school is over before break – tomorrow is a half day that is basically a party day), although I reminded them of library voices several times. As they gathered pillows he said “Wherever you go, I will go!”

They made a chair out of the beanbag chairs and pillows and took turns sitting in it. He said “we’re going to live here forever!” While he was sitting in the chair she sat on the ‘arm’ of it and sort of hugged him and said “You are a good friend.” They kept playing for quite awhile. While looking at the beanbags August read the tag and said “It has the same Hebrew word like Ilana’s house.”

Rosie took him over to the kids room and showed him the big elephant. She was about to climb the shelves to get it down but I got it down for them. They were playing with it and a pillow, carrying them on their shoulders and Carly came and spied on them, Rosie’s mom, Sunita, came and got Rosie and we all headed out. We put the pillows away together, then checked out a good pile of extra books for the winter break.

August was kind of sad to stop playing with Rosie, but happy to see Carly in her room. We carried our iHerb order and the box with August’s Christmas present in it out to the car and were home at 4:15.

They nursed, and he asked Carly “Did you have a good day at school?” He had some dinner, then Carly walked over to the store. We kept eating, then played Wizard School, Carly came home. We said something about Hanukkah and joked about it, Seinfeld-style. August copied me: Five more days!” With his hands apart like me, Carly had gotten a chunkier kind of hummus and August liked it. She cooked beet greens and he ate it, He says he really lik
es them.

I was spinning him around and getting us dizzy, then we read Berenstain Bearskin books: Junk Food, Blame Game, part of Too Much Pressure. He wanted to send messages to Korea Megan, After a couple minutes he said”I’m not going to send her keys anymore. It will get boring if I just send keys.”

I saw on Facebook that Gaynelle Derr, who had taught English at MTHS when I was there, had passed away. She’s dealt with severe diabetes for a long time, so shouldn’t be a huge surprise, but still a tough one. Jon Ummel had already passed away a couple years ago. Breysse has retired, Kinnear and Franklin are at different schools, Isakson is in New York, and Falk has moved on to admin. So White, Ellinger, and DeMiero are the only English teachers still there from when I was there.

Carly took him upstairs and got him to brush his teeth and go to the bathroom. I went up and helped put on pajamas. I tried to get him to kiss me instead of vice versa and he said “I don’t like kisses. I never do kisses. Even when I’m a grown up. Kisses are icky.” So hilarious. I asked what he would dream about and he said “castles”. I left them by 6:45 and he was asleep by 7.

Licking me: 

Fish: 

Dreidel: 

Chair: 

Trying to get the elephant: 

Carly woke him up about 6:30. He was grumpy when Carly left, but I got him to say “I really love you, actually.” We read some Clementine and he got up to turn on all the “suns” (lights): “No, I’m just trying on the three more suns…cuz we’re dandelions.” Carly had gotten him some Cheerios and strawberries and we had some more. We finished five chapters of Clementine. There was a mention of tattoos in the book and he asked “Why can’t kids have tattoos?” I had to answer it a couple times, then he had us acting out getting tattoos and kids having tattoos and then growing up. He played Montessori Geometry and I exercised. He told me “Dada, I just turned into a curvilinear triangle.”

We then both did Wizard School. He was doing “arte abstracto” and told me of one “It’s another part of a weird alien…I saw it when I was blasting someone into space. There’s another person waiting for me to blast them into space.”

We went upstairs and he watched Timmy Time. I realized that he’s starting to sing along to the Timmy Time theme song in Swedish (which is the default – neither English nor Hebrew is available). I took a shower, then watched the end of a Timmy Time Halloween story with him.

Then, the miracle of the day: I had the bath all prepared for him, and when he went in he stepped in. We spent the next 15 minutes spelling words out of the foam letters. He complained a bit when I washed his face, but that was it. Incredible. We had realized that 4 of the letters were missing. After he got out of the bath he walked over to the sink and said “Dada, open this door.” He had apparently remembered that the bath toys were in there, and sure enough, there were the four missing ones.

We were listening to Jingle Bells and 12 Days of Chriatmas on repeat. Downstairs he sat in front of the iPad choosing and listening to songs in his playlist as I got snacks. Had some vegenaise and crackers, then did a little of the puzzle. He went to the bathroom and was saying grumpy things. When I pressed him on why he would only answer “Because.”

We got outside and I was changing my mind about going to the zoo, as the drive was longer than I thought. Then I checked the hours and realized it closed at 2:30. So it wasn’t worth it to drive over an hour each way to only have a couple hours in the zoo. We decided on Herzliya Park instead. I had mentioned Ra’anana Park and he instantly said “Nooo, because I’m worried about the money.”

And he said “I don’t like you.” When I picked him up and asked him to actually explain why he said it he said “Can I have some dada time?”

Listened to Jingle Bells about a thousand times on the drive. 30 or 40 minute drive. We drove at the northeast corner of the park. Went and and saw a nature area. And a sign that told us to watch out for snakes. He said he wouldn’t watch out and told me that was my job. We went down and sat on a bench by the pond and ate lunch and watched the ducks.

We saw a high school class come from the north with cages, now empty. We were intrigued but didn’t figure out what the cages had been for. We walked north and found a bird watching shelter. August said he wasn’t patient enough to wait for birds, which I said was fine. He then started shouting “Go!” at the imaginary birds out there, which I let him do for a bit as no one else was around.

We walked a bit further north until it came out on the corner. August spotted a map and we looked at it. Realized we hadn’t paid for parking and did that, then headed to the huge playground. He led the assault on the play structure. He pretended it was like the 13-Story Treehouse, with different levels. We climbed up and up and had to go across all of the shaky bridges really high up. Looked out from the platform at the top of the big slide, which is the highest point in the park. Pondered going down the slide, which was bigger than the big slide he did in Korea, but decided against it until we saw other kids doing it.

We worked our way around and then down the play structure, then out and next door to the smaller kids’ play area. Played on the tugboat, and asked me “Are there snakes up here?” I lay on a slide and he climbed around a bit, then said we should be wolves eating crocodiles. Went and played inside the plastic hippo, which has a picture of organs with labels in English, Spanish, and French. He pretended to eat it: “I tried the inside but it was kind of tough. There’s no juice inside…Dada! Eat the inside. It’s sour.”

We went over to the snack stand and got a mango and raspberry smoothie and a snack bar that turned out to be coconut flavor. He said “You know, a smoothie makes me shut down…it clogs my pipe. You need to clog out my pipe. Besides, sometimes my pipe overflows when I drink too much water.” When we ordered he realized that some of the smoothies were Xed out on the counter. He asked the guy “What does the black Xs mean?” The bar was pretty good, I thought, but he wasn’t too fond of it. I told him that gramma would like it. We talked about our favorite fruits: “Mango is my favorite fruit.” I said raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries.” He said “And watermelon too!”, remembering Carly’s joke from months ago.

Then, randomly: “Dada, I think what makes a smoothie fly is magic. Oh no, the whole cup is flying away! Catch it! Use my rockets! It’s faster than two rockets. We need more rockets. Maybe 99 nonillion rockets…” We had mainly drunk the smoothie while sitting at a table outside the snack shop. It got cloudy and windy and threatened rain but never came to that. We went back to the little playground so he could throw our garbage away in the penguin garbage can. Carly called. August started singing “On the seventeenth day of Christmas…”

I spotted a little library area and we went over and looked. He listened to The 12 Days of Christmas on my iPhone while I looked. I grabbed a couple of English book and a Hebrew book of short stories that looked interesting and might be a translation learning project for me.

We then went for a walk around the south end of the park. He wanted to listen to the Elements song on the phone as we walked. Walking by the lake we saw a couple of the interesting ducks/geese in fight. One seemed to really have the other by the neck. As we stood there for a few seconds, wondering if it was really hurting the other one, a couple of middle school girls came along and waded right in and broke up the fight.

We kept walking. August asked me what scale he should sing in and I said blues scale. He said “It sounds like someone painting in the color blue.” We listened to some other songs, then stopped at the bathroom. He told me the toilet paper was rolled down, then he rolled it up. He told me “I didn’t want anyone wasting toilet paper.” He also sang several lines of “Elmo’s Song” on his own.

As we walked back to the north we saw three people practicing some acrobatics (holding each other up with their legs, etc.) He spotted a rope thing hanging between two trees and went to climb on it, after first asking “Dada, are you watching for snakes?”

We stopped on a bench to eat a snack and play with the interesting drinking fountain (there’s a mystery one that may be for dogs, but then just drains out the back past an odd metal pole that seems like it should do something).

We got to the car at 3:05. I had turned the clicks off on the media system, but now as we sat in the car (him in the driver’s seat) he turned them back on when I wasn’t looking. When I found out he started laughing really hard. I said he was happy with himself and he exclaimed “I’m so happy!” He pretended to drive: “Okay kids, were on the highway. We’re putting them up. We’re telling you seventeen times and you’re not putting them up.”

He got tired on the way home and we just barely made it: he was either going to get really upset or fall asleep. We got home
and played some Wizard School, then Carly got home and we had some dinner. They did some of the puzzle made read some more Clementine.

They went upstairs and he played with her spray bottle. Back downstairs he pretended to be water and had me trying to pick him up, but he would drain out of my hands. Amazingly, they both had hiccups at the same time, which has never happened before.

Carly had to run back to school to supervise middle schoolers selling hot chocolate at the elementary concert. Carly started listening to music in the car, so Apple Music stopped in the house. I switched to listening to KEXP, which we don’t do enough of. I had found out that Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens had passed away, so we had been listening to some DiNizio, and John Richards mentioned him on the Morning Show and played a Smithereens song (“Beauty and Sadness”). August also got to hear Pearl Jam play  “It’s Okay”, which I sing to him. He wasn’t overly impressed though.

We went and cut and glued book labels for our little library books. He liked using the glue stick. We read a little Little House in the Big Woods, then went and finished the puzzle. We played TodoMath a bit, then Carly got home before 7:30. She made hot chocolate for him and he drank that.

We all went upstairs, and he asked me to turn on the cat ornament. We were all sitting there and he at first said he didn’t want to go to the bathroom, but after a couple minutes just went in on his own, no complaining. I left them at 7:45. I told him “Dream about ducks. And snakes. But not scary ones.” He sat up and said “I’m gonna dream about scary ones!”

Puzzle: 

Pointing: 

Herzliya Park: 

Hippo organs: 

On the hippo: 

Penguin garbage can: 

Playing music and watching the ducks: 

One of the ducks: 

Driving us home: 

At one point during the night August got up and started to leave the room before we stopped him and got him back in bed. Then he was up early, around 5:30 or so. We all got up at 6. Carly set him up in his bedroom, watching Timmy Time and with the heater on. The house is so cold in the morning nowadays without the heaters on. So his small room is a nice morning cave. At one point he asked for Cheerios, so I went down and got a bowl with strawberries, zucchini bread, and Cheerios for us. When I came back he said “Toda, toda, toda. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

He was his usual grumpy self to Carly when she left. Teenager August, Carly says. He then typed on my iPad. Yesterday we had created a special key on the onscreen keyboard that types ‘August’ and he said “Now you don’t have to type ‘August’ anymore.” He typed ‘car’ on his own. We switched to sending each other messages on Wizard School. He said “I will NEVER be the wizard’s friend.” I had said the Wizard could turn me into a frog. He said he didn’t want that. I asked “What would you want the wizard to do?” He replied “Just turn outlets into iPads.”

We continued some Wizard School downstairs. He watched the video on how to read music. After reading so many books yesterday he wasn’t into reading this morning. I was looking for one of the Berenstain Bears books we own, and he asked “Berenstain Bears and the nursing mittens?” When I couldn’t find it I mentioned it might be out in the car. He wanted to go find it so I carried him out and we looked. Ended up finding it inside. He wanted me to be someone trying to open a car and he was the car: “I have a car language” Yesterday I had explained to him why our remote only opens our car, and not any other car.

We skyped with my parents. He started taking the books off the shelves for fun. When we were done he read the time: 26 minutes. I asked him to help me put the books back on the shelf and he was an “Organizing machine”. He spent a few minutes watching Skype emoji videos. He asked of one “Is that a disco video?” It did, indeed, have a character that looked like a disco dancer. Don’t know how he knew that. He’s watched “I lost my cookie at the disco” a few times, but not recently. Rather a connection to make to a 5 second animated video.

He played some Simple Machines, then got into Loopimal for the first time in a long time, as I exercised. I played some Loopimal with him and he did some dancing to it. He was making patterns in it. We went upstairs and he watched Timmy Time and I took a shower. He stopped after one episode and was playing in the play area while I finished. He knocked the drying rack over but he was okay in the middle of it. Then played with it that way.

I drew a bath for him today. Went no better than a shower, and possibly worse. We went downstairs, and he wanted to do the underwater floor puzzle. We did about half of it, then took a break. He was being a bird, which continued as I made us a mixed berry smoothie with frozen mixed berries. He ate several frozen cranberries and blueberries as a bird. He went and stood on the mop handle and called it a “Twig”. After drinking our smoothies (he really liked it) we went outside to water plants. He was still a bird, flying around the yard. We went back inside and finished the puzzle. We were listening to more of the Hebrew children’s songs and he added a few to his playlist. He was even singing along to “Agada”. I was cleaning up in the kitchen, then looked around the corner to find him just sitting in the Lego box. He stood up by the time I got over there.

We finally got ready to go. But out in the car he wanted to pretend to drive and to play with things. We sat out there for quite awhile. He said things like “I’m taking a different route.” Saw David enter his house, then a few minutes later August and I went inside to use the bathroom. Back out in the car David came out looking for his keys and wondered if we saw anyone. We had not.

We drove down to Hatzipor Garden, which is a park south of Netanya Stadium. We had ridden by in a bus and there is a cool bird sculpture on the corner. So it looked promising. But it wasn’t. August fell asleep just as we got there. I couldn’t get him awake as I put him in the stroller, then at the park I took him out and climbed up the sculpture, carrying him and trying to wake him up. No luck. Back down on the ground I tried harder to wake him up. Stood him up on the ground and he slept standing up while I held his hands. Another time he simply walked over to a bench and lay his upper body on it, back to sleep. After he was asleep for about 15 minutes I finally got him up, looking at the other bird sculptures. He liked those when he saw them, and then wanted to climb the big one. He didn’t realize he had just been up on it.

We took the stroller off road and onto the rougher, bumpy paths to the south. Not much else in the park, except for an ant nest where big black ants were piling dirt. August liked the bumps though.

We walked out of the park on the west side and went across the street to a store called Home Design, in the eBay building. Nothing too exciting, but there was a fish tank by the elevators. He climbed up on the couch next to it to see the fish. Later realized it was a $6000 couch. I showed him how the magnetic tank cleaner worked. We then wandered around looking at couches: “Why are there so many couches?” He wanted to make nests on them. And he read a sign on the wall. We rode the elevator up to the second floor. Both directions he lay on the floor, even though it was just one floor. He chose elevator over escalator coming back down: “Yeah, the elevator. I really like elevators.” We left at 2:35.

We walked to the west and north, checking out the shops over in that area, including the meat shop that I read about (that actually has a lot more than just meat, but August did get to see big sides of beef hanging up) and a toy store where we bought a couple of cheap magnet Hebrew word sets.

We went to Tiv Taam and had a good shopping trip. August was helpful, and got out of the cart and was leading me around the store part of the time. As we waited in a typically slow line, he sang a “smash smash smash” song to the tune of Jingle Bells.  In the car we were listening to Jingle Bells and the Twelve Days of Christmas over and over.

Carly had said she should walk home, but I knew that we might see her walking home, and told August that if he saw her he should yell out his window. He did, and he yelled “Hi mama! Do you want a ride?”

At home he wanted to try the pesto vegenaise I had found. He decided “I love veganaise!” Had some dinner, then they did the ocean puzzle together. He and I read Berenstain Bears and Mama’s New Job. I did dishes and they started Clementine and Magic Treehouse #11. He then did chord lookup and played on the toy piano while Carly took a shower. He was putting the chords on arpeggio and then on repeat so the iPad would play it over and over, then playing along on the toy piano or iPad keyboard. He was getting pretty good with a couple chords.

I took him upstairs and we read Plumdog. I asked him what he would dream about and he said “Treehouses!” He was asleep at 8:15.

Park: 

Fish tank: 

Elevator: 

He was up right at 6 with me. Hard for me to get up as just a little earlier I had thought it was about midnight, literally seconds before Carly’s alarm went off. He watched Kipper and Carly got him strawberries and Cheerios, and when Carly headed to work he quite cheerily said “Have a not good day at work!”

He then watched one Smurfs episode (Fountain of Smurf), then we turned to books, reading more of our reread of The 91-Story Treehouse, pausing to play some chords on the piano and Piano Companion, then finishing Magic Treehouse #10. We found Red River Valley (which is central to the book) on YouTube and listened to it. He then wanted the songbook. He had me sing a few of the songs, then made up his own. He then wanted me to sing Go in and Out the Window, which I’ve never heard, so we found it on YouTube and sang along to a couple versions. He was then watching kid song videos for Ants Go Marching, etc. and singing/humming/playing along with them.

Back to 91-Story Treehouee for a couple chapters, then he needed to go to the bathroom. He declared he had turned into an octagon, then after I washed his hands he was a circle: “Now you can cut me any way you want.” (Lines of symmetry) “A machine squirted ten sides into me, so now I’m a decagon.” He had more and more sides and had me cutting him up or his lines of symmetry. He was also counting keys on the piano as he played a scale – I had started to explain chords like C add 9 to him.

He played Simple Machines and I exercised. We went upstairs and he watched Sarah and Duck while I took my shower. We watched one together downstairs, then another together upstairs first. We then played the geometry app together, finding the shapes in the pictures. Gave him a shower and he was pretty upset despite not touching his hair. Think we’ll try a bath tomorrow just to mix things up, even though he says he doesn’t like baths. Clearly he isn’t liking showers either.

We went downstairs and he asked for “more תות”. Strawberries, that is. He’d already had a couple bowls with Cheerios and strawberries. Cut him a couple more, then made grilled tuna and cheese for lunch. While he ate he said “Dada, I don’t like people.” We talked about that, and I talked about people he liked. He denied liking some of them, saying “No, they kill me…no, he killed me too.” A couple minutes later he said “Why do pilots not take baths?” We then figured out he meant “Captains”. This was a reference to either the 26-Story Treehouse (the first we read) or one of the Magic Treehouse books (more recent) in which there is a pirate captain that doesn’t bathe. Either way, surprised that he picked up on that.

I got some iced tea and he wanted a straw for it, then some honey on the straw. Carly had left some of her Tic-Tacs on the counter, the white mint kind. So we each had one. He said “Dada, does your mouth fee cold?” “I’ve always wanted to have those mints.”

We went back and did more reading: Berenstain Bears Sitter and Dentist books,  finished You Wouldn’t Want to Live without Bacteria, and finished our re-read of The 91-Story Treehouse.

He then had me carrying him outside on the pillows – each pillow would go a different distance, based on its size. Then a lot of imagination play based on books – something being drawn twice, “that sign says if we teleport again we will be teleported to another planet.” We turned into frogs. I emailed Carly about our plans to walk to the school library and walk home with her and he sent her a few messages and a GIF.

Before we left he went to the bathroom. On the toilet he told me “I smashed the living room.” “Why?” “There was a fire. I used my magic smashing board to smash it. It put out the fire. The fire got smaller every time I smashed it.” He then did a pretend phone call, which I wish I got on video, where he asked who it was, etc.

We got out on a walk at 2:10. He invented the Ants Go Marching letters song, where the ants go marching “A by A’. Each line then ended with something that started with that letter (but didn’t rhyme). We only got up to E though before he got distracted by running over a paper cup. He pointed out “That’s Jack’s house”. Then I pointed out a helicopter in the sky. He joked “Did you say ‘Nelliecopter?” There was a big yellow fruit on the road that he crushed with the bike wheel. When he was done he said “Sorry fruit that I smashed you. But I think wanted to smash you.” As he sang a song he said “I have three hands. I’m pressing the notes with two. And I can strum with the other one.”

We got to the school, and as we walked towards the library we rode by a guy that was standing and looking at his phone, not moving. August pointed and said “That’s a statue.” Luckily, the guy smiled. We were at the library at 2:35. He helped return our big stack of 7 books (everything except the clean water book). I wanted to look for books, but he kept saying someone was steering us and pulled me to the winter wonderland area they have set up. There is now fake snow on the ground. But the bean bags and polar bear were gone. We huddled together on the snow (he said we were cold squirrels). I had dragged him back to the kids room to pull a couple of books (the Clementine book and another couple books we ended up not looking at) and tried reading those. After the preschool class left the kids area he was okay with switching the squirrel nest to in there and piled up the bean bags in the back right corner. We got a stack of Berenstain Bears books and read those:  Forget Their Manners, The Truth, Bad Dream, and Mama’s New Job.

When we were done reading, he spotted the library computers: “Someone’s steering me to the chairs again…Now they’re steering me to sit. They’re pushing the down button…” They then steered my hand (which he pulled) to the keyboard. Spent the next 20 minutes or so figuring out how to use a mouse. Played around in the Paint program, changing colors and making pentagons. Also played with Publisher. On the library website he found a Neil Gaiman book, Fortunately, the Milk which we then found in the library. Carly walked in to find him sitting at a computer, looking very much like a big kid. We checked out Clementine, two Berenstain Bears books (Mama’s New Job and Bad Dream), Clementine, Max Axiom Photosynthesis (He was excited when I found that one), Fortunately, the Milk, and Magic Treehouse #11 and #12.

We walked home. On the downhill he wanted to roll on his own. Carly was spotting him, but letting him do it more and more. He was figuring out steering and using his feet as brakes. We were home around 5.

They went to nurse and Carly said his hands were cold. He wanted me to get the nursing mittens. I went up and found them in the box of winter clothes. I was talking about what to do tomorrow and said we should go to Ra’anana Park. He said “But I’m worried about the money thing.” That is, the parking meter. After he went to the bathroom he just wore underwear and a shirt while Carly and I were cold and wearing sweatshirts and pants.

Had rice and soup (and chips) for dinner and he wanted to send messages to Korea Megan. He was getting grumpy and upset with Carly when he couldn’t nurse. I almost got him to read a book with me, but then he decided he wanted Cheerios and got upset again when we told him he could have more dinner.

Carly took him up to bed and I did dishes. They read some Berenstain Bears. I came up and read Plumdog. We then did a couple timers and he practiced trying to sleep. He asked for mama and she came up. I left them at 7:10. I asked what he would dream about and he said “Robots” I suggested libraries and he said “Robots and libraries.” Asleep soon after.

Smashing:

Nursing mittens: