Category: Uncategorized

He started waking up after 4. They were up at 5:15

When I got up at a reasonable hour, August wanted to use my iPad for the Earth Primer app. Apparently he had been waiting for that. After that we Skyped with my parents. He told them about the balancing thing in TodoMath and showed them that. He kept working on TodoMath after the call. He’s adding and subtracting 5s and 10s in his head. Has counting by 2s pretty much down. Working better on the 100 puzzle. And he’s writing 3 digit numbers with his finger quite clearly.

I made French Toast for breakfast. He dipped his in the syrup: “I’m cooling it down by syruping it.” he then did TodoMath with Carly using blueberries after she came back downstairs. We then did a lot of goldfish games, with him being a goldfish that was hurt or lost, etc.

I went up to take a shower and they went outside. They planted a random seed that he found. He was then acting out the ants dying in what we were calling the “ant syrup”. He then wanted to go in and play TinyBop Earth so that he could pollute.

We then all got going to the mall. On the way over he was spotting letters in the wild: the canal was an I, metal pieces in a fence were an upside down V, the path with a round planter in the center was a P. At the mall Carly went on ahead and started looking for things for his Halloween costume. He decided he wants to be the number 14 again. This time Carly decided to make it out of fabric and attach it to his clothes. While she went into the mall, August and I played in the play area. He mainly played on the airplane. After about 10 minutes a guy came into the area and pointed out a wire a few feet from August in the corner. At first I thought he was a passerby and thanked him. I assumed it was just a dead wire, phone cord or the such, and suggested moving it and said the mall should know. But then the guy said he was with the mall and they were working on it. And it was electrical. I got cross with him and told him to put a sign on it, etc. You don’t just leave live wires unlabeled and in reach of kids when you’re 40 yards off working somewhere else.

We went inside, looking for Carly. There was a baby class going on in the play area there. At first August was watching what was happening. But then he started yelling “Go away” to them. Carly found us and we went into the art store. August chose the pink sparkly fabric stuff and we also got glue. I then stopped at the frame shop to ask about framing my Shepard Fairey print but they don’t actually do framing. August started yelling “Go away” to the babies et al again so Carly took him outside.

She decided to take him home and I went to Tiv Taam and did some grocery shopping.

I was home at 12. Carly was already working on the costume. I made sweet potato fries and helped him with math. Carly kept working on the costume and we made rockets with Duplos. He was then a goldfish, etc. They then played with the scraps and the glue, making little glue balls that he liked.

He was looking quite tired, so she took him up for a nap from 2:15 to 3:30. I woke him up. He kept turning away from me. I read the Mother Goose book but stopped to wake him up again. He went down to Carly and she nursed him. Then made popcorn with za’aten.

He then asked if he could watch Puffin Rock and instantly got upset when I said we could do something else. He grabbed a handful of popcorn and threw it on the carpet. He was having a really hard time calming down and Carly took him upstairs. Then our power went out. Just 3 minutes. They came down a couple times with him calm, but he wouldn’t pick up the popcorn: “I won’t pick it up…I don’t.” Finally, he agreed to pick it up when she held out his hands for him to put it into. He kept asking for help to do it, even though it was only 7 or 8 pieces. He kept rejecting robot cleanup with me, so that ended up being the key.

Carly thought he needed a little mama and Zinnie time, so they went on a walk at 4:50. They went to the little park up towards town, which I now see is labeled as Motek Garden on Google Maps. She went on the swing and he watched her – he was the parent. There were oranges falling from a tree in the park so they stepped on them and juggled them, although didn’t bring any home as Carly felt weird about that. And when they saw dogs along the way August was using his hands to fire laser beams at them, Hilo style.

They were back at 6:05. Heated up nutty noodles and we all ate outside. He then played at being lost animals several times. We then read Picasso’s Trousers three times, and he acted out being Picasso, wanting me to say “No, no, no” so he could say “Yes!” So I came up with all sorts of things that August does as the things that people said no to, then he would say “Yes!” Such as “You can’t make up your own languages, Picasso! No, no, No!” But Picasso said “Yes!” Others were be a robot, make rockets on the bed, make pictures with just red markers, etc.

We then read some Hilo, and he was ready for volume 2 of Hilo, so we bought that. While we waited for that to download, we read the sample of Plumbog, which is a graphic novel written as a diary of a dog. That will probably be our next purchase. We then read Pablo and His Chair.

Carly came over and asked if he wanted to learn more about Josephine and Zambia. When Carly said that they didn’t have electricity he asked “How does she get electricity for her iPads and stuff?” When Carly said they didn’t have iPads he asked “What can she have though?” And he also asked what sort of things they could do. So, working well so far.

I gave him a shower, which went quickly, then he made his rockets and we read more of Hilo 2. Carly put his full costume on and got him to tolerate it this time. Earlier she had tried the shirt a couple times and it had been a big production, with him freaking out about the stiffness of the numbers, and calling it all tickly. In fact, I had ended up joking that we must have gotten the clothes at the Everything Tickly store, then we joked about how the couch, etc. were all from the Everything Tickly store. Anyway, he tolerated it this time, and they practiced trick or treating and he got some chocolate. So I brushed his teeth one more time before bed. I left them in bed at 8:40 and he was asleep several minutes after that.

Earlier today he had asked why Watchy (my watch was waterproof). He knows that ‘because it doesn’t have holes in it’ is part of the answer, but then he asked “If it can’t plug in how does it charge?” Interesting thinking there, as he knows that things with electricity have to be charged. So we talked about how it uses inductive charging and charges through the back of it.

He was crowding me and pushing me with his feet during night. Then, I woke up enough to see him lying on his back with his left hand straight up in the air. He then dove over to his right, onto his stomach and into his usual sleeping position. He was itching at his ankle a lot during the night, and in the morning when I asked him about it it turns out he has three or four red spots on his leg from insect bites.

He got up with me at 6:45. Carly was already up. Down on the couch he asked how we could help Josephine if she wasn’t here. They went upstairs together for awhile, then he came downstairs to play games with me. He didn’t like my game, which involved throwing the friends (stuffed animals) at each other. He wanted an iPad game instead. We tried Astro Cat, a new game about the solar system that looked promising, but it was too advanced. He won the iPad from me and ended up playing Sarah and Duck Have a Picnic while I got up to clean the kitchen and get coffee. Carly was upstairs vacuuming.

Carly came down and they ate outside. He had Cheerios. I helped him water. Carly got sap on her hand. He and I moved the interesting week away from the wall and replanted it in the center of the planter so it could grow better. Back inside it was upstairs with Carly again. Then back downstairs to learn about lava with me while Carly did some work. He played Earth and I found an app called Earth: A Primer. We played that and really liked it – a lot to learn. He particularly liked ‘magma plumes’. We had pita and hummus to eat (well, I had hummus).

I went upstairs and took a shower. Downstairs Carly and I discussed what to eat for the week. Carly suggested tomato bisque and he said “Tomato bisque‽” He got upset when Carly got up to get food to eat. I had to take him upstairs. So sad. “Only nursing will help…Can we nurse? Just a little?…Please help…” Carly: “Let’s go upstairs.” Him: “To nurse?” Carly took him up and distracted him with toys.

Downstairs she left to head to the mall to start the shopping and August and I were going to follow. After she left though he calmed down and ate most of the apple that I had sliced for a snack. He even started eating his pasta, which he had refused, but the iPad froze and put an end to that as well.

We left at 1:15. We talked about going to Tiv Taam, which first he said was at the mall, but then he said he wanted to go to the Ikea one and go to Ikea: “To buy glass…you know, to hold liquid.” We met Carly on the other side of the bridge and walked back together. We dropped off the groceries and the bike and August and I took recycling and walked up to the cages. Took awhile doing that then we stopped in the park for another ten minutes or more to play with the drinking fountain, seeing how big we could get the pools.

We were hone after 2. Carly was doing some cooking. August had been taking about doing more Earth: A Primer when we got home so we did. He joked “You can’t see me!” We pretended we couldn’t see him and he thought it was hilarious. Finally he said “You can see me!” and we could see him again. We did drawing and spelling words on paper. He just wanted the pink/purple color. He drew a man-eating refrigerator. Then the lava burning things game: “Can you be a huge pile of carpets that goes out to Neptune?” We were then being magma plumes, which was sort of an interpretive dance.

Carly had been cooking nutty noodles and when they were done he ate a ton of them. I had to get him more twice. He then wanted milk and I gave him a cup on the floor with a straw. He spilled it, luckily just on the kitchen floor. Frustrated, he hit the cup across the floor. He did a good job helping me clean it up though and throwing away the paper towels. But then decided he could dry his feet on everything.

He was then a gold fish and the gold fish was having all sorts of adventures, being taken out of a tank, being captured, being placed in a desert, caught by a fisherman, being returned to a stream, etc. Then he was a squirrel: “Its winters so I’m hibernating.” We all went for a walk, heading up into town, very similar to the walk that August and I took on Friday. On the way back he wanted to pedal own his own, particularly down a little hill. I let him do that and he found it exciting. We stopped at Tal Garden, the park that had been closed while they painted some of the toys, and played there. Carly went on the swing and he did the motorcycle thing. He then got on the merry-go-round with me and really wanted Carly to get on as well, telling her he had a spot for her. She had no desire to go on though and we talked about motion sickness. So he asked her “Are you going to stay on there? You’ll get swing sick?”

He also played with the drinking fountain, watering the weeds, then we got home before 5:30. Hanging out in the yard, David brought by the their 2-year old niece or nephew. Talked to them through the fence. Carly invited them in, but David said he needed to go check in with the family and they didn’t return. August picked at the pitch and talked some nonsense.

Came inside and Carly skyped with her parents. I took him up for a shower that went very smoothly and included washing his hair. So that was a nice change. Carly made mango lassi and we drank that. Then the two of them read The Magic Tree House on the couch for 2 or 3 chapters.

They then went upstairs where they read a bunch more books in the play area: several Boynton books, Snappy Little Monsters, The I Love You Book, Wild About Books. I came up and took over reading the last one. I read it 3 more times. He kept being all of the different animals in the book and asking what they ate, then pretending to eat it. He decided he was ready to nurse and was sleep just after 8.

Holding up his robot shorts because they feel too long: 

Glass tile found in the dirt: 

Peeking out: 

Riding on his own: 

Hand on her shoulder: 

He was up about 6. I was up a few minutes later and heard him asking “Where’s dada?” Came out to find him lying face down on the rug in the play area. Downstairs he played Metamorphabet and of course had us look at ‘kaleidoscope’, which is one of his favorites and I helped him with the Q quilt puzzle. When Carly left it was tough on him and I twice had to haul him upstairs as he started stomping on the floor, and taking him upstairs just made things harder. Got calmed down and we played Sesame Street Play games.

He didn’t want to play Ankle Detector because from the description he could tell it would be “Too ticklish”. So we settled on one where you use towels as rock to get you across lava. We went upstairs to play it. We played for several minutes (good jumping with two feet practice, which they were working on in the class yesterday), then he was counting by 5s. He got up to 100 on his own, then needed a little help getting going on the 100s, then made it to around 200 before saying “Counting by 5 machine broke down”. I realized that he didn’t really know what lava looks like, so asked if he wanted to see a video. He had also been calling it guava (not clear if it was intentional or not), so then he asked for “a video of people getting burned up in guava”. We watched a few videos of lava destroying cans of Coke and ravioli and an iPhone, and a volcanologist getting close to lava then developed a game where he was lava and I was random things that the lava would burn. It started with me being things like Coke cans, but then went to houses and trees and stacks of paper and more trees and shelves and anything else he could think of. I had music playing and a Nine Inch Nails song came on and he started doing a fast dance to it and called it the lava dance.

We went downstairs at 9:50 and ate some of the bars we had bought and listened to the”I’m scared” song from StoryBots. He talked about it, telling me what was going on in the video, I think. He then had me act out someone being scared of sounds at a zoo. He was a dinosaur, lizard, snake.

Then back upstairs where I took a shower. He had watched the Bermuda Triangle problem on Peg + Cat and told me about it. We were then taking care of animals on his bed: spider, lizard, snake. Our getting sick scenario for a whale involved islands that were polluting the ocean. August’s solution? “Beep. I turned on a machine that destroys islands that pollute too much.” And then “Turned on a machine that kills germs cuz anyone doesn’t sell antibiotics.”

Next up: “Now the salamander.” “I live here and the foxes live right here…the foxes’ door is right next door…” The Fox was allergic to things: “something made my den fill with water and now mold is growing in there.” “One machine kills all the mold and another machine sucks up all the water and another machine cuts all the fur…it’s power is apples and it needs 100 apples.” It went on from there, which I got on video. Then he was bees: “And the tigers don’t like me so they sent fur to me to make me allergic all the time.” And scorpions. It was quite a selection of animals.

We went downstairs for an early lunch. I had pita and hummus while he had peanut butter and jelly on pita. We listened to Hebrew together and he would repeat and ask about words. Then some TodoMath. He worked on the 100 board puzzle. Which is a good challenge for him as spatial reasoning seems to be a challenge for him as he gets into puzzles. From there it was to the paper: “Could you draw objects and I’ll connect them to make a machine?” He drew a machine then: “Dada. Could you write math in the spaces?” He said it was a walrus machine and explained how it worked. We worked on counting by 3s, then he started a new picture on a new piece of paper and said it was a whale machine. We then did more acting out lava burning things.

We read some Hilo, then I got him outside. We did watering and played. I had the ipad set up outside playing Peg + Cat songs. He explained one song to me: “This is from where Flat Woman is flattening Bany Fox’s exercise ball…because Flat Woman likes flat things.”

We got out on a walk with no real goal or agenda. We went up through downtown, taking some of the last little streets in the south half of Even Yehuda that we haven’t walked on before. We went to the ‘Roller Skating Grounds’ to find out what that was. Unlike most of the possibly-interesting things listed in Even Yehuda, this place actually existed. Not too impressive though. It was a small outdoor concrete roller hockey arena. August played on the concrete bleachers, saying he was a machine that was supposed to know all of Beethoven’s songs but it only knew Ode to Joy. We went in on the court a bit, but he bonked his head on the metal railing a bit and wanted to go.

We walked into town, stopping briefly at a basic outdoor stage area in a grass triangle, then finding the dentist’s office and taking a photo of its sign. As we walked by the pizza place (it and the restaurant next to it are about the only things open) they had music playing loudly, and we said hi to the guy when we saw him outside.

We continued on towards home and stopped at the park to play. Planned to stay there until Carly shower up, but then August needed to go to the bathroom. So we headed home and were here at 4:30. I mixed up my water drink, which we haven’t had since Korea. When August saw the bottle he said “Huh? What are you doing? Water’s supposed to be clear. That’s red.”

Carly showed up a few minutes later as he was finishing in the bathroom. They went outside and I did the dishes. They came back in and discovered that the green mangoes are actually good. So Carly made the mango lassee. We drank that, then he was chanting and reciting all sorts of numbers. He wanted to play TodoMath. Eventually I said yes, saying “You are bursting with numbers.” which he found funny. I asked how long he wanted to play, and he said for a really long time. I asked if he could quantify that, and he replied “QUANTIFY it?” I explained, and he said 2077 minutes. 2077 is a new favorite number it seems as he uses it all the time when trying to come up with a big number.

Then a rough spell. While eating he bit his tongue. Then I took him up to a shower. He was really upset there was no mama. I got him to ask her to come up. Once he was in the shower she snuck off, but he realized and got upset and she had to come back up. Then, when I let him go get the bed wet he was disappointed by his rockets on the bed. I tried to get them to fly but he said they wouldn’t:   “Broken…someone cut the pieces.” He sulked for a minute, but then went back to the shower, got wet again, and made better rockets.

After that we went downstairs as he wanted to play the Space app. He talked Carly into doing the distance thing all the way out to Voyager 1. He taught Carly that Uranus is tilted, Voyager 1 exists, and there was something else.

Before bed Carly talked to him about doing a child sponsorship to help someone else out. He was, at first, opposed: “But then we’ll have less stuff!” He chose an older girl named Josephine in Zambia. As we tried to get registered he got too tired and was ready to head to bed. Up in bed we got ready and I said that tomorrow we could learn about lava and Zambia (and pointed out that they rhyme). He said “Learn about lava first.” He was asleep by 7:20.

His serious explaining face: 

Knuckle he scraped in the dirt: 

At the roller skating grounds: 

Watching the blender: 

He came down at 6:45. After they nursed Carly needed to get going. She was holding him and I started reading the Kipper Collection. That got his attention and he came over to me. She left, and we ended up reading all four stories. Had some zucchini bread, then played a little Metamorphabet. At the end of U there is a ‘U’ floating up into the sky holding an umbrella. He let the U enjoy the ride and just left the iPad on while he played at being a lamb (I tried to turn off the screen but had to turn it back on).

As a lamb he ate grasses and stuff. He told me “You’re tender dandelion…you’re tender rosemary growing.” We played the magic banana game and he was acting out the things when he figured them out instead of saying the word. From that it was to the Pip and Pop and Otto game and we made a stump for them.

He was then singing the ABCs to our Hebrew alphabet tune. I finally went and got him clothes so he didn’t have to hold his pajama pants up. I was fine until my stomach hurt again at 8:30. We were listening to music on random and he heard a Peg + Cat Song, then decided he wanted to watch the show. He said specifically The Hanukkah Problem and where they catch Triangulo. So he watched and I rested. At 9:45 we played the Shrew Crew and Mossy game. We made a big stump out of all the pillows and he got really into plugging the holes with “objects” like his pajamas and the objects from our magic banana game. ‘Objects’ has been one of his favorite words recently and seems to be a little awareness of the concept of abstraction.

We went upstairs and did Toca Builders on the bed. We finished turning all the trees turquoise but then he wanted to turn all the ground white. I told him I was a bit done with that. He played Toca Nature and I took a shower. After, he asked if I was feeling better. When I said I was he said “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”

We went downstairs and got ready to go. Left right at 12:30 but before the end of the block I realized we could swim. Went back for the swim bag then walked up the back path and quickly headed to the bank, which closed at 1. Got there at 12:50. Figured out checkbook ordering at the ATMs this time and got the same 606 error message. So back inside and upstairs to the same offices where the guy had initially told me they wanted people to do things on their own. That had sent me on a quest to the website, the app, and the ATM and full circle only to find that the error message means it is a foreigner’s bank account and we in fact aren’t allowed to order checks on our own. They have to do it for us. So they did that, and we headed out.

We went to the coffee shop for a smoothie. Got a menu and was going to order a smoothie/shake. But then found out they didn’t have them today for some reason. Just juice. August got an orange and carrot again and I got apple. August was very insistent that he wanted ice in it though. August had us move into the main room as he thought it would be cooler. He was correct.

He played Pet Bingo on his iPad and was surprisingly good with some of the math, understanding the divide by 10 problems right away and doing well with others as well. But he was being loud at first, just talking at the top of his voice. Seemed kind of stressed over having to actually make the bingos, which isn’t really a big deal. Got him to calm down though and he was fine after that.

We left there at 2 and went across the street for a couple slices of pizza. We went up to the counter to see what they had. Their full selection of slices (cheese, corn, and olive) and a folded pizza thing (like a small calzone, but I forgot what they call it). August confidently ordered for us, saying he would have corn and a cheese for me. I changed his order for me to the folded pizza. He didn’t eat a lot of pizza though as after a couple pieces he got a piece of corn stuck in his teeth. He seemed more annoyed than anything. At one point he walked up to the front counter almost as if he was going to complain.

We left about 2:30 and walked some back streets to the school. We stopped to look at a big purple flower plant. It had a big long branch that hung down and rubbed against his leg. He said it was attacking him. Had a good overreaction when I moved it intentionally to touch him.

We got to the school before 3 and he wanted to swim. Spent a few minutes playing on the couches and looking at the big world map painted on the wall, then went in and got changed. Spent an hour in the pool, swimming and watching and dodging kids taking swim classes. I met Bart, the swim coach, who we have seen there before with his 4 year-old son.

We got out at 4 and Carly met us after we had changed.  We walked up to the studio. August and I had been talking about going to the activity class, and we talked more about it on the way up. He was hesitant about it as he didn’t want to be in a different room from us. He got off the bike right before we got there, and Carly had to persuade him the last little distance.

We had to wait a couple minutes for the teacher to arrive and open the studio. She saw him, and said hi, then asked if he could help carry things inside. He started to be intrigued, and carried a stack of cones inside. There were only two other kids at class today, sisters named Daria and Abigail. Carly and I talked to their mom. We sat right by the door, so August could come back and forth and see what was going on in class. Before class started he rolled a cylinder back and forth with one of the girls a few times. But when it started he hung out out in the waiting room. Their mom suggested that he help Daria, as she was smaller, but he said he didn’t want to help. He ran in a couple times to participate, but then was first concerned that the teacher was chasing him, then said the music was too loud. We got him to tell her those things, and she turned the music down. Finally, he was concerned that she was going to tickle him. Once he was able to tell her not to tickle him he was then more comfortable, and was inside for most of the rest of class. When the teacher was putting rings down and saying their colors and asking for things of that color, he ran out to us and asked “Is basil green?” Also, before and even during class he kept asking “Is this dance class?” Hard to keep the classes straight when they take place in the same room and he hasn’t been to either in a couple weeks.

So class went really well. We walked home and got here at 6:10. We spent time outside watering and picking up tree things that fell due to the wind, the went inside to play TodoMath and the new games in the updated version. There’s a 100 grid puzzle, a couple of matching things, etc. He was the asking me to count by 4s, 8s, 11s, etc. And since he keeps asking me what is after nonillions and I tell him he can make it up he finally settled on it being ‘baanillions’.

He seemed to be doing fine and wasn’t tired. He went to the bathroom and after that we said it was time for dinner, then a shower. But he couldn’t handle any of it. He was exhausted from the swimming and class. It was pretty much straight to bed and asleep by 7:25.

Photos: 

Filling cracks:  

Math and juice: 

Pizza: 

Map: 

Crawling into class: 

They got up at 6, I was up at 6:15. He was doing some tracing on his iPad and we all moved downstairs. August didn’t want to let Carly get ready for work though. Eventually she was able to do so and they nursed and he started watching Wanda and the Alien. When she left for work she kissed him goodbye, but when I told him to say “Love you mama!” he got anxious and tried to follow her out the door. Had to hold him back but it only took him a minute to calm down and come back to Wanda and the Alien. We watched a couple episodes, then got some zucchini bread and played some Sesame Street games – trying to high five with our eyes closed, invisible presents, and more of the magic banana.

We spent some time looking at the Collins World Atlas. I was feeling pretty well except that every few minutes my stomach would feel tied up in knots. So when he wanted to play Metamorphabet I let him do that and I laid down for awhile. He then watched two episodes of Ask the Storybots. He needed to go to the bathroom and said “2 plus 2 equals 4” when he saw the rolls of toilet paper on the back of the toilet. He was also counting by 5s on his own up to 30.

Back on the couch he played with the Space app and acted it out being a space probe: “You’re the people working on the photos of the planet that the machine sent.”

We went upstairs and in Toca Builders (Minecraft for 3-year olds) there is a landscape of trees. August decided we should turn them all turquoise with the cannon bot. We did that for quite awhile, then I took a shower.

Back downstairs he was doing a variety of dances and being silly – there was a math dance and a game dance. He was then a machine: “I’m a machine that finds things on the moon.” I would act out being an astronaut on the moon and drop something (kaleidoscope or telescope or machine, etc.) and then realize I was missing it when I got back to earth. The machine would then retrieve it super fast.

On the couch he sat on me and had me play sixteenth notes, etc. on his back and head. I spotted the scrape on his nuckle from yesterday that he wouldn’t let us wash or look at. He had received it when digging in the dirt at the playground, but didn’t say much about it at the time. Although in photos of him playing in the water after that he was holding his hand behind his back. Then, he wouldn’t let Carly wash it in the shower, or show it to us on the bed. He said it was better, but wouldn’t really let me look at it.

He was then a whale and asked what whales it. In that discussion I brought up ‘krill’ and realized he didn’t know what krill was. So we watched videos of krill and of whales eating krill.

We discussed how sick I was. He asked “Because you got in the zoo when it was closed?” He was remembering the bird flu and how the zoos were closed in Korea. I don’t know how he decided I had snuck into a zoo though and that is what made me sick.

Anyway, we were discussing bird flu, and he then asked how the zookeepers take care of the animals if the zoos are closed. I explained they could go in, and they probably had protective gear, etc. Which then led me to mentioning nurses, and Glecy when she was an Ebola nurse. So I wanted to show him what Glecy would have dressed like, so I Googled ‘Ebola nurse uniform’. Luckily, I previewed the images before letting him see, although not for the reason I expected. Several of the top photos were for ‘Sexy Ebola Nurse’ outfits. I didn’t know whether to be horrified or shocked or amused.

Anyway, from that we went and did art. He drew a robot that had a leaking eye so it got another eye from a friend. And we did some math. Then, as we were getting ready to go I found a container of Tic Tacs in the bottom of my backpack and let him have a couple. He swallowed the second one though and was upset about that and that I wouldn’t let him have another one. Upset, he tried to go out the kitchen door but then hit his foot with the door, making things worse. Finally, we left at 3:15.

He got the last Tic Tac, then was proud of himself for making it last until we were on the bridge across the highway. I then realized I had forgotten the snack bag, but he was okay with just Cheerios for the moment.

At the mall he played in the indoor play area and watched some remodeling going on at a restaurant next to it. He did a ‘riding on the bike’ dance and asked me to translate some words on a sign. We then went to the pharmacy and got a couple of medicines, then headed to Tiv Taam and did our grocery shopping. Not a basket in sight in the store and I didn’t have a coin. So I got a reusable grocery bag and used that as our basket. The store was pretty empty and August spent part of the time riding along on his bike.

After Tiv Taam we went to the health food store. At first he didn’t think there were any samples and started to walk out of the store. I said we were actually looking at the containers of snacks to buy something. He asked if we had to pay and I said yes. He didn’t like the idea and kept walking. I got him back to the store and we actually found some bars with raisins and stuff in them that were quite good. We ate a couple on the way home.

We headed home and took a longer route home. We crossed back over the bridge then headed south to the highway-turned trail and circled home from the south. We were here at 4:50. Carly was already home. They played outside and I rested upstairs. I came down and they went across the street and dumped out the tree things, then went for a walk around two blocks. They were back after 6:30. Had some pasta for dinner, then Carly gave him a shower and he was asleep by 7:30.

At some point he had asked Carly how we could eat food in the winter in Korea. Carly told him both about greenhouses and how we get food from other countries. So he then asked how we get food from other countries.

Finding machine: 

Watching the remodeling; 

Swimming. Or flting. Bonus of a kid doing a headstand out of his hair: 

The machine: 

During the night he was really laughing out loud in his sleep a couple of times. And nursing a lot. I got up at 6 but was really hot and achy. I took some Tylenol and went and lay down in his room. He was up at 7 and I was up at 7:20. I was feeling better as my temperature had dropped, but Carly had already called in for a sick day. We decided she’d at least stay home for the morning so I went to bed again.

 

He played in the iPad while she did sub plans then they spent most of their time outside. They went for a walk around the block and played at the park on the swings and in the boat area.  They came back and hung out outside. They did a lot of imagination playing – including pretending to be a baby.

I got up at 10 and took a shower. Feeling substantially better. When I came out August was upset that they weren’t nursing. Carly got ready to go. August played Metamorphabet, then the letter tracing app. I suggested he try Endless Reader again as he could probably start reading the words now. He replied “I still can’t read the words. I never can read the words.”

Carly left at 10:45. He did some cursive and we added numbers to the cursive app. He then did change to Endless Wordplay and had a lot of fun with that. August would pretend to be the robot “I might be getting a cold.”

I went upstairs to find the Tylenol but couldn’t find the open bottle. August told me I should just open the new bottle then. Back downstairs I asked why he was laughing last night. He said “I was laughing cuz of jokes.” Played more Endless Wordplay and he was trying to start from the opposite end: “I accidentally goed right to left like Hebrew.” After he went to the bathroom he claimed to see a lamed (Hebrew letter) in the black rocks in the floor.

He was eating an apple and calmly said “Oh no. I bited my tongue.” But then he started crying. Upset, he went and opened the kitchen door and went outside. He opened the door back up and threw the rest of the piece of apple across the kitchen. He went and cried at the gate. We went back in the front door together and I held him for a bit, then he said he wanted to go back outside. He went out the kitchen door and closed it, leaving me inside. He hung out outside on his own for a couple minutes before coming back in and ordering me to go out. He threatened to pour out the remaining apple “I’m going to pour these out.” Kept him from doing that, and he ended up eating them later.

We played more Sesame Street games – measured how long the couch was in Zinnie lengths, tried to walk to different places using a certain number of steps. Then he ‘read’ the instructions for the Submarine game “Everyone finds a submarine and breaks it!” We played the real version (I was the commander telling him when to dive and surface).

I cooked some mushrooms to make pizza. As I did he played with an egg carton. He came up behind me and said “This is a man-eating egg carton.” It then had a voice and said “I’m hungry.” before biting my leg. We had mushroom pizza for lunch, then played more banana magic game and watched Peg + Cat.

Started to leave for a walk, but he got sucked to art instead. Still in his red phase, only using a red marker: “That’s a walrus machine that eats other walruses.” Flipped to another page to do math. I started to show him even and odd numbers, but despite his frequent counting by 2s, 10s, and 5s, and working on 3s and 4s he looked at my lists of numbers and was incredulous I wasn’t counting by ones: “That’s not counting by ones…Why weren’t you showing me counting by ones?”

We left for a walk after 3:50. I had grabbed the bag of breadsticks that Carly had left on the counter. August wasn’t too happy with them as they were broken. He hadn’t eaten any pizza for lunch, and I took that with us, but it turns out he doesn’t like the new sauce I got. We just walked up HaHadarim and then over to Vatikim, then turned back down Vatikim and came back to our park. Along the way he got off to pull some weeds.

At our playground he was fascinated by where a hole had been filled in. There had been a random hole, about a foot and a half deep, in the dirt in the grass and now it was filled. He stomped on it and dug in it, getting nice and dirty. A kid came over to play by him and August retreated. He told me “That boy wanted to get dirty but I just wanted to get dirty.” From there we moved to the drinking fountain to wash off his hands, but ended up playing with that. I held the water on, and he watched it form a puddle, then stomped around in it. He only had one shoe on when Carly got there.

We were home by 5:10. They nursed, and Carly asked if I’d taken Tylenol: “Dada opened a new bottle cuz he couldn’t find the open bottle.” We played some Endless Wordplay then they went outside. They were apparently being hot air and cold air and doing a dance, in addition to doing the watering.

They came inside for a bit, then went back out. August came in and asked “Dada! Are you feeling better?” and gave my leg a hug. I assumed that Carly had put him up to it but she swears she knew nothing about it. We played the Cursive tracing app and added more numbers and body parts to the lists of words he can trace. He chose bone marrow and immune system.

He was then negotiating with Carly when to go up to shower. She said he had 6 minutes of playing left. He asked “Count backwards from 60 six times?” But then he wouldn’t practice saying “Okay mama” for when the timer would go off – instead yelling it a couple times, then bonking her with his head “But it was only a little bonk” – so she took him up for his shower right away. He was actually in a good mood, just being punky.

She gave him a shower then I went up and played on bed – she was being a spider and he first tried to stomp on her hand, then did Hilo-style Lazer beams from his hands. He was asleep by 8:30.

Toothpaste: 

Hiding the hand with a scraped finger behind his back: 

He came down at 6:40. Carly nursed him, then he wanted to play something with her on the iPad. He had to to with her when she went to the bathroom then went to wash her hands. He opened Namoo and said “You know what the sun does? It helps with photosynthesis.”

She headed to work and we kept trying to figure out the whole amino acid process. We understood how ribosomes and the gogli apparatus work, but not exactly where the amino acids come from. We went to Google, where we learned about nitrates and healthy bacteria in the roots, but then it just said that the plant concerts it to 20 amino acids. Might have to ask biology people for help. https://www.hunker.com/13428186/how-do-plants-get-protein

He wanted some dried Cheerios and then asked “Is this enough for two episodes?” of Ask the Storybots. I didn’t know he had a per-episode amount that he needed. He watched the rain episode. We read some Hilo, but he was asking what craters are so we switched to the Space app and did meteorite impacts on mercury. He asked “How do you spell ‘I want to go to the solar system’?” Then we spent a lot of time on the distance thing, where you scroll to see how far away from the sun things are. You can keep scrolling past Neptune to Pluto and the other dwarf planets, all the way out to Voyager 1. Did that in AUs and kilometers a couple times, then was play acting making space probes and baby squirrel and nest.

My stomach had been feeling bad this morning, but I thought maybe I just ate too much dairy yesterday. But now I realized I was cold and wanted a blanket. I took my temperature and it was at the high end of my normal. It would keep getting higher though, and I’d get achy, etc.

We talked about making bread, and he wants to make regular bread. We don’t have yeast though and discussed what yeast is. In Human Body we did the bones puzzle a couple times and then in the hearing section he was recording himself singing and listening to himself. During the playback he would dance and sing along to his own singing. Lasted quite awhile.

He watched one Peg + Cat and I started zucchini bread. He helped finish and mix it. I needed to sit down and rest after that and said I was definitely a little sick. He exclaimed “But I love you!” Very sweet. And then he hit me, as clearly it was my fault I was getting sick.

He pulled up the Sesame Street Play app and we played Floor Monsters from that. I got a basket full of his clean clothes and we made monsters on the ground. I needed to rest after that and he watched/played Lucy and Pogo. He also did Arabic letters and tracing; them worked on Hebrew letters and was copying all the pronunciation examples for each letter/vowel combination.

We went outside when we heard a chainsaw. There was a crew trimming bushes in the back walkway. Back inside we played more Sesame Street games: a tapping game where you tap on their back with a different number of fingers and they guess how many fingers you are using – this proved too ticklish for him, even when I moved it to his head, then a ‘Knock it Off’ game where I balanced a shoe on my hand and he tried to knock it off. Looking at his monsters from earlier on the ground he said”They don’t have a head so they’re actually a ghost.” He then came up with his own game: “Here’s the game: Some grownup has to build a monster, then a kid has to destroy the monster.”

But then the best game: We put objects on the table and he closed his eyes and I would replace one with a banana and he would guess which was missing. A tough game for him, particularly as he just wanted to skip to looking behind my back to see what was there.

I got the zucchini breads out and he hid things for me a couple times. The first time he had it in his hand. Then it took a few minutes while I struggled with the zucchini breads. He told me “I hid my shoe really well!” He was more successful with not giving it away after that.

We then ate some zucchini bread. He said “This makes me not want to eat the rest of my pancake.” Which was a measure of how he both really liked the bread and how he was getting tired of chocolate pancakes after a few days.

We then did more of the hiding game, and eventually it evolved to no guessing at all – one of us would hide objects between a couple pillows, then the other person would find them. He giggled a ton at this and thought it was great. We then ate our magic banana and I mentioned that bananas always reminded me of him first eating bananas, and I tried to describe the pacifier sort of thing that we used to feed him banana. He didn’t know what I was talking about so I found the photos and videos of when he was about 7 months old (October 7, 2014) and we walked the length of the stream in downtown Seoul and at the park at the end he ate banana from the pacifier thing. We watched that video, and also one of him bonking me on the head with a bottle and laughing like crazy – which made me realize he was very much himself even back then.

He then invented another game: “This game is I’m gonna go behind you and make a noise and you guess what I be.” First he was a baby squirrel, then other animals. Although most of his animals sound pretty similar, unless it was a bird. At some point we discussed sharks and wondered if baby sharks have teeth. He asked “Could you look it up?” We learned that not only are they born with a full set, but they have already lost baby shark teeth while in the womb.

We headed upstairs and on his bed took care of baby millipede, etc. He watched Wanda and the Alien while I showered. Out on the landing we then read some Bob Books: VW Book, Snow, Guessing Machine. After the VW book he was a walrus and looked up how big they are; we learned a walrus could weigh more than 4400lbs. He wanted me to take care of the baby walrus. He walked in circles as he explained some machine that would tell me what was wrong with it: “It it’s a blue dot it’s bone marrow, if it’s red…if it’s green…If it’s brown it’s nervous system…”

He played Metamorphabet and I rested. Then downstairs I was teaching him how to run on his toes. He kept saying he was slower that way, and I said he just needed to practice. He was then being crazy and said “The running machine broke down.” But then he hit himself on the coffee table and said “I bonked me” Instead of getting upset though he started saying “Im glass now”.

We left for a walk at 3:30. We walked up to the Citrus Garden park, the small park on the left as we go up to town. We’ve never actually played there as there is a bigger park on the right just before it. We played around though and he started throwing away garbage he found on the ground. The fun stopped when he was walking and fell on his knees and scraped one a bit. He then said he needed to go to the bathroom. He gave a thumbs up when I asked if he needed to go quickly, so we decided to go to the bathroom up in town.

From there we walked to the corner of Vatikim, where Carly had waited for us on a bench the other day. We sat and had a snack and he wanted to wait to see if Carly would come by. He’s been asking how you spell a lot of words, and he randomly asked “How do you spell ‘dance party’?” He started yelling at me about something though so we left at 4:40.

We walked down Vatikim and found that the small park there (Tal Garden) is closed. August assured me it was okay: “It’s okay if that park’s closed. I meant the other park by home…so it’s okay.” We then saw Celeste walking Nellie and talked to her for a moment before getting to our park at 4:50. At the park he played with the exercise equipment and was reciting “Force, drag, weight, and lift!” He ran away when a little kid tried to talk to him, then we played with the drinking fountain.

We headed home at 5:10 and stayed outside. He picked at the sap and I lay on the grass. Carly was home at 5:20. He told her about the closed and close park, which led to confusion as I
think he was using both ‘closed’ and ‘close’. They nursed and he played GroForest and Carly got him noodles. I went and lay down in August’s room.

I got up at 7 and found them writing a list of President August’s decrees: “Don’t ruin books if you want to read them more…Don’t ruin people’s houses when they still want them…Dont and touch outlets…Dont make people go to the doctor if they don’t want to go to the doctor.” There were 20 in all. Carly took him up for a shower and I did dishes. Said goodnight about 7:30 and he was asleep a little after that.

Zucchini bread: 

Exercise: 

1. Don’t destroy something if you still want it

2. Don’t make things moldy if you don’t want them to be

3. Don’t kill plants if they’re not dying

4. Don’t break glass things

5. Don’t take things from other people

6. Don’t destroy iPads

7. Don’t take out your teeth when you’re still not turning into a grown up

8. Don’t destroy water bottles if you want them

9. Keep pajamas

10. Don’t break shoes

11. Don’t steal clothing from people

12. Don’t kill people

13. Don’t hit people

14. Don’t steal water bottles from people

15. Don’t ruin books if you want to read them more

16. Don’t ruin people’s houses when they still want them

17. Don’t touch outlets

18. Don’t burn yourself

19. Don’t break kids’ marbles if they still want them

20. Don’t make people go to the doctor if they don’t want to go to the doctor

We all slept in today, which was good. He woke up a little after 7, then got up at 7:22. Because that’s what he read on the clock when he got up and what he wanted to tell me when they came down. He really wanted to turn on the air conditioner and was upset he couldn’t. Carly figured out he was just fine turning it on and then off. Problem solved. They built with Duplos.

They then went outside and discovered aphids, and ants eating those aphids, on the flower plant. August initially didn’t like bugs on the plants and wanted to destroy them. Came back in and Carly made some banana milk and we drank that, and while drinking it August requested “Fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth”. When he was done drinking he asked to watch it on the rug. He was then asking me what the notes were, then when it got to a loud part he said “I’m filling up with power.” as he spread his arms apart.

He then wanted to nurse and Carly set a 10 minute timer on her computer that he happily watched count down. When it went off his chocolate pancake was actually done so he ate that. He and I then read Oh My a Fly! (The pop up book of “There was an old woman who swallowed a fly), We haven’t read it in a long time, and now he was asking why she died, etc. and now seems to find it a bit disturbing. They then nursed as they hadn’t earlier after the timer.

Carly got out the vacuum cleaner and initiated clean up time. Got August to be a robot and he helped clean up Duplos. Carly then vacuumed and I did dishes while he watched the “How Do Airplanes Fly” episode of Ask the StoryBots using his headphones. I then finished reading The Wizard of Washington Square by Jane Yolen. It is the first book for the little free library as I had picked it up at a little free library in Stroudsburg this summer.

When he was done with his episode he then play-acted molecules and being a plane going from “China to Greenland”, but then it crash landed in Iceland. He FINALLY went to the bathroom after 10. That led to looking at Google Earth and Collins Atlas on my iPad. He found Gameti in the Northwest Territories and the Great Bear Lake: “I want to go there sometime.” We were looking at the different layers in Collins Atlas (population density, energy resources, etc.) and he was really interested in those (and their colors).

I went up and took a shower and they were outside. I came out and started clearing the dirt strip of garbage and the last of the tree things, and especially the cat poop which had been under the tree things layer and was now smelling up the front corner of the yard. August helped, using one of his little shovels as well. I then started hauling the stack of stones from the driveway area to place between the plants. August came and looked in the driveway area, making it past the small stream of water going into the street – it appears to be the runoff from the washing machine not draining properly.

We then got ready to go (plenty of hand washing) and walked up into town. First stop was the grocery store, where they did indeed have my debit card. So a quick end to that one. We then went to the department store where we got lightbulbs (I believe 6 of the old incandescent bulbs have burnt out since we’ve been here, so planning on the rest going soon) and twine for tying up plants. The guys were asking how much Hebrew we, and particularly August, know. August proudly recited the numbers to 10 for them.

We then headed to the pizza place. August remembered being there, as he said that we “always” get a pizza cutter to cut the pizza slices up. We got three: cheese, olive, and corn (the only three they had). August really liked the corn. We also got grape Capri suns with them (I don’t remember if that was part of the deal last time…I know we got one). We went to the little grocery store in town and got bananas and yogurt and a couple other things. August was looking at the soy milk section and wanted cashew milk. I said Carly would appreciate it if we didn’t get that. He didn’t like the other options though and threw his sunglasses. I picked him up, and he rested on my shoulder and feebly tried to be defiant “I’m…gonna throw…a whole box of…” But never finished the sentence and calmed down instead.

We then headed home at 1:30, going our back route. August requested we sing our Hebrew alphabet song, then wanted to stop at the little park we go through on Ha-Shalom Street. Carly sat and read. I sat on the bottom of the slide and he slid into my head. He did it repeatedly, shouting “Tzadi sofit” (the last letter of the alphabet).

We were home at 2:15. Carly went upstairs to do some work. He played around on the couch, making noise, and said”It’s supposed to play Beethoven but it only has Sentimental Wars on its storage.” He wanted to play Human Body so we did that. We put together the skeleton together, then was looking at the intestinal lining: “You’re the food breaking down… We’re gonna turn you into energy.” He was the intestinal lining and good germs attacking me.

He then played Toca Builders. I started reading a book. He then showed me what he was working on and had built all sorts of walls and stuff. He had really figured out a lot, as we hadn’t played this one much. He said one of the walls looked like a ‘U’ and said “I don’t mean ‘you’ like the you right here (pointing to himself) I mean the letter U.” I got a pita and we shared that, then we had fun making a colorful landscape in the game, using the builder that throws paint to throw colors all over the floor. I started falling asleep as we kept doing that.

We went outside and picked up more tree parts and I moved more stones. He went inside for a bit and spent a long time on the toilet (the first time in quite awhile) then nursed. They then came back outside. Carly did all the watering and August helped with that and first swept dirt off a big stone I had unearthed, then used the hose to wash it off.

Back inside Carly skyped with Cherie, who is now in Mexico and August figured out the machine for making food in GroForest and did that a lot. We ate spaghetti for dinner, then I took him up for shower at 7:10. Up in the play area, as I got him ready for his shower, he wanted to play: “You hit the dog…I want to play that for pretend…and I’ll be the dog killing you…Can I play that just for pretend?” Earlier, I think when we were in the yard (or perhaps when he was on the toilet), he had talked about how he doesn’t like dogs because they kill people. I explained that that rarely, rarely happened. He asked why, and I talked about how some people mistreat dogs and that makes them mean. He asked why they mistreat them, etc. So he was bringing it back now to play though it. I told him I didn’t like playing through sad games like that though.

He got sad when it was time for his shower and we had to power through that. He cheered up when he got the bed wet and was crazy on it. He was flipping his legs up in the air as he lay on his chest and kept asking: “What it exercise when I do this?” He would then change what he was doing and ask again. He was then a machine: “It goes to the cooling place where it stays for 224 days…the dough the machine burns…then it goes to the hardening process…I’m making jawbreakers…the dough is jawbreakers.”

We read Mr. Brown’s Fantastic Hat and he asked what ‘fussing’ meant. I talked about how mama and I make sure he brushes his teeth, takes a shower, etc. He said “I don’t like anyone fussing.” He wanted a nest and we went in on his bed to make it. I turned off the lights so he could see the stars: “Whoa! Whoa…Can I count them?…23.” Lights back on and playing with the nest, he sat up and lightly hit his head on the headboard. He quietly said “I bonked my head…go to mama.” He actually walked into the bathroom and stood on his stool and hid in his towel that was hanging there for several seconds.

He then went down and Carl
y came up. In bed he asked if she had to go to work in the morning. I left them about 8 and he was asleep about 8:10.

He got up at 6:05. I was up a half hour later. When he started to play around Carly took him upstairs. They were working on puzzles – the Old MacDonald puzzle and the Asia puzzle. I went up in time to help him follow the words on the Old MacDonald puzzle as he pushed the button on it a few times and help him with cleanup, and we were back down just before 8

Carly made oatmeal for him and he watched French fries episode of Ask the StoryBots. We then played with Duplos. He played with his play structure and also wanted to count by 4s so we did that. He got up and ate his oatmeal, then watched the Lucy and Pogo app. I did dishes and Carly was upstairs. We read some Hilo. Now past 9, he refused to go to the bathroom with me. Finally Carly took over and he went to the bathroom – first time since before he went to bed.

I took a shower, then Carly made chocolate pancakes. He asked to play Namoo to learn about roots. Then he was baby birds, and said it was winter so we migrated to the equator (over where the Duplos are). He practiced counting by 4s and he made a big tower. It was then summer again (according to him) and we migrated back to the nest on the couch, which he then had me destroying as a digger.

We went outside where we watered and he ate a chocolate pancake. Carly was resting in on the couch. August went and checked on her once and came back out to nicely let her rest. He then went in with her. She was going to go upstairs and take a nap but he insisted on going with her. He came back down at 11:21 (telling me the time) and she got a little nap.

He wanted to watch Peg+Cat, so we shook on a deal that he could watch an episode, then go for a walk. Carly came down at 11:50. We were talking about what we should get at the grocery store, and I asked August what we should have for lunches this week. He gave me a whole list of ideas: “Sandwiches and…sausages and pickles…and noodles and pizza and chicken and cow and milk and syrup…” He got upset when Carly tried going to he bathroom. They ended up going upstairs and nursing. I did dishes and read. They came back down at 12:35.

We got going to Tiv Taam. He rode in the cart, which was okay for awhile. He didn’t like Carly stopping though. Right as we finished it got too much and Carly took him outside and I went to pay. I realized my debit card was missing and had to run out to get Carly’s. On the way home August spotted a lizard near the path.

We were home a little after 2. They went out and did more painting for their art project while I put groceries away and looked for my card, with no luck.  Perhaps I left it at the grocery store yesterday.

I was sitting on the couch and August came in and told me to go to sleep. So I pretended to sleep. I thought he was going to wake me up, but he didn’t come back. Several minutes later he did, and said “Dada, I told you to go to sleep!” Then they did play the waking me up game.

All day he was singing a couple lines from the StoryBots song “Hooray, for A”, which I had played right before we left for Tiv Taam. We were listening to more of the letter songs later in the day and finding them funny.

We played with Duplos. He started making a big rectangle on the big green base piece. He was using only the small square pieces and counting them as he went – got up to 60-something. We then added a couple layers to it, making an enclosure. They nursed, then were birds. He was asking her to get birds of different colors and interesting tastes: “Mama, can you find 30 worms that are red and taste like purple?”

He went on a walk with me at 4. We first did recycling, as we had a nice full bag. Then by the playground he spent some time killing weeds. I went on the big round swing and he was a machine sort of singing the “Sentimental Wars” song to wake me up. He then made a game of hopping from white square to white square and said “The longer I do this the more mangos I get – for mama!” We were robots, and he decided our charging station was on the teeter totter thing. Finally, we spent some time playing and exercising over on the exercise equipment before heading home.

We were home just after 5. He ate a bunch of mushrooms and asked her “How do you pick them up without burning your hand?” He would eat a couple, then ask for more in a math problem, like “I want 2 times 2 pieces.” He then ate some of the spaghetti when it was ready, and we listened to the StoryBots ABC songs.

We were then being robots and and he said he had infinite batteries and I asked where he stored all those batteries and he said they were inside a computer and pointed to his storage unit in his chest – he’s getting to Rick and Morty levels of sci-fi there.

I made a nest for him, then I went and ate. He and Carly then went for a walk down by the fields to the southwest. The plants were small and low to the ground so they decided they might be strawberries. While they were gone I finished reading Turtles All the Way Down, the new John Green novel. Actually, I had two paragraphs left when they came in at 6:20. So close.

He had me counting by 7s and 36s and 105s before I could sneak a look and finish the last couple paragraphs. They painted with the dot paints and I did dishes. Carly took him up and gave him a shower and washed his hair. I rinsed him off. I read him some poems from Something BIG Has Been Here by Jack Preutsky which sort of was distracting him from the fact that Carly had gone downstairs for a couple things. He was really ready to go to sleep. He really liked Denson Dumm (about a boy who planted lightbulbs in his hair) and We’re Fearless Flying Hotdogs and had to tell Carly about them. He was asleep about 7:30.