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August was up at 6:30 and came down on the couch with Carly and nursed. He was there until she left, then watched two episodes of Ask the StoryBots: How Airplanes Fly and Why Do You Have to Brush Your Teeth. He said he wanted “two episodes, two books”. He didn’t leave the couch until after 7:30. He then started playing at being a germ, and at this point he did run across the floor and back once as he attacked my teeth. I tried to keep him on the couch and he played at being a sick baby lizard, then the Flynne game, waking me up on the couch: “It’s a vacuum cleaner that can suck up foxes.”  But when he then wanted to be a chipmunk gathering nuts I took us upstairs. We were then playing upstairs on the bed in his room until after 8:10. He looked at Carly’s Q, 14, Z, and K paintings and asked “Why is there a K?”, since K wasn’t one of his favorite letters. I explained how he practiced writing it a lot and would say “Line down, sideways V turns to K.”

We did his car puzzle, then listened to StoryBots songs, including the airplane one. He then had an airplane: “My airplane goes two octillion seventy-seven miles an hour.”

We went downstairs and again straight to the couch where we read some Smurfs and then some Magic Tree House. He was hungry, so I got up and started slicing apple while August had started watching Beethoven’s Ninth.

While I was slicing apples, suddenly a broom handle was hitting our window. Our downstairs neighbor was hitting it from his yard. I immediately went out the kitchen door. He was not in sight, so I called “Shalom”. He came around the corner and was about ten feet away. He started telling me that August woke him up “at 7”. I apologized but said I wasn’t sure what we were doing wrong. I told him we don’t wear shoes inside.

I tried to talk to him about it, but he just kept saying “If he wants to run you take him to the garden (park).” I suggested he should call Shmuel. I meant to talk to him about something to do with ceiling tiles or lowering rent, but he cut me off and started talking about how he was going anywhere and we should move.

I offered to give him my phone number but he refused it, saying “I’m not calling you at 7am.”

Finally, as I told him I’d see what we could do he got threatening and was pointing his finger at me. He said “If I can’t sleep, you won’t sleep.” I said “Please don’t threaten me.”

He then left. I emailed Carly to let her know what happened and called Shmuel. Shmuel assured me his behavior was unacceptable and he would talk to him. I felt better for awhile, but don’t know how the neighbor will react to getting a call from Shmuel.

August had walked around outside in his socks while this was going on. We went inside and I talked to him about why the man had talked to us and how we need to be quiet in the mornings. He, of course, wanted to be loud. We went upstairs and he played GroGarden and I exercised and then wrote up what had happened. We played with the blocks, saying words for each letter, and he said “V is for vein”. With the smurfs he made a machine “to make a potion that turns clay into smurfs.”

I took a shower as he watched the how candy is made videos. He reported to me again as I showered: “Billions at Easter alone…a brush knocks off the extra starch…” I really wanted to get out of the house, just for a change of scenery and because we really needed to go to the bank to try to order checks and to get some groceries, but I couldn’t get him out of the house. He wanted to play with Duplos, kept distracting me while I tried to make snacks, etc. Finally got snacks made, then we played at being plaque attacking people’s teeth on the couch: “We’re making people’s breath stinky.” Then some more Duplos, and we finally left at 11:30.

Stopped along a rough stone wall on the way up as he wanted a snack, a Larabar. There was a short piece of rope attached to the wall and he pulled it and surprised me by saying “If I pull on it it makes a force at the end.” That’s mostly from that how airplanes fly episode.

We got to the grocery store and couldn’t find a basket, and I realized my coin thing was in the other backpack. But then I remembered we needed to go to the bank first. So we did that. Went upstairs and August sat and played GroRecycling. I first talked to a guy who told me I could order checks online and that it was actually the bank’s philosophy that customers should be able to do that themselves. He suggested I try it on my phone, and he would answer questions if I couldn’t. So I sat and tried – actually good, as I discovered there is an English site. The app is only in Hebrew and that’s what I’ve been using. However, I couldn’t find the check ordering option in English. Then a woman asked if I needed help. I told her I couldn’t find the right spot on the English site. She told me I could also order through the ATMs, and the woman downstairs could help.

I had just realized that I get an error message when trying to click on the link on the Hebrew site, but at that moment she took me to the woman to help me downstairs at the ATMs. But then I realized I had no idea what my PIN was. So ultimately unsuccessful, although closer.

August had done a good job of following us around, carrying the iPad with him. We got the bike, then went to the grocery store. Still no baskets and the place was busy. I just settled on getting a six-pack of beer, as Jack was coming over when we got home and that was all I could carry, basically.

On the way home August was asking for the Hebrew word for things and we would look them up: sand, brick, wood.

We were home right at 1. Talked to Jack and he said Rick ws coming too. I told August that Jack and Rick were coming: “But I don’t like anything coming near us…They hit other people, even me…” But I had told him he could have a popsicle later (at the store he had been a machine that led me to the bakery counter) and I now told him he could have it when they got there. So we hung out outside until they showed up. August had his popsicle, then watched Peg + Cat. I joked he is now going to love having people over as he got popsicles and got to watch extra shows.

I sat with them outside and we had a beer and discussed insects, people that ride motorcycles, and the little free library. They had some good ideas. They helped take apart the doors, then we painted the outside of it. I brought August out and he helped me paint a bit. Didn’t want him too close to the spray paint fumes though, so we hung back and Jack and Rick did the rest.

They left, then we ended up inside drawing on paper. He hasn’t really been into just doing art for quite awhile, but suddenly he was using the red marker to draw picture after picture, mainly of man-eating things: “That’s the man-eating fish…that’s the man-eating cord…That’s the safety sign.” “That’s the man-eating bubble…that’s its digestive system. Say ‘I didn’t know bubbles had digestive systems.’” “It’s actually a robot that takes care of people.” The last had been the progression of his drawing as it turned from a man-eating bubble into a doctor robot (with three eyes, one ear, and a bunch of arms and legs). When he showed it to Carly later though the two had been combined and it was a “man-eating doctor robot”.

When he was done drawing he wanted to watch something on his iPad. I said he had had enough and he got upset and started hitting me. I carried him to the couch and then he actually started hitting me with his head. I got upset about that, and then he really started crying and said “Sorry!” Took a few more minutes to help him calm down. We then read the Puffin Rock book Goodnight, Beautiful Moon (which we hadn’t yet read), then some of Gargamel and the Smurfs until Carly got home.

They nursed, then he showed her his drawings. He then started drawing again: “I’m gonna make another machine…This is
a man-eating jungle.” He continued to work on it for quite awhile, and Carly and I went outside. Carly asked “Can I have one?” August heard her as he drew and said “But then I can’t have another popsicle!” She had meant one of the beers I’d bought. He drew for a long time then came out with us, watering plants, and picked another ripe tomato. While out there he asked “Stars are bigger than rockets or planets? Why? Cuz they’re like huge?” He then asked where the red bag was and helped pick up some of the tree things. He ate apple and peanut butter outside and I put painting stuff away. He was asking about Hebrew teen Numbers. I called it an evening as the mosquitos were attacking.

Inside he was a garbage can and had me throw stuff in him:

“I’m checking the meter see how full the garbage is.” – a reference to GroRecycling. It was getting time for a shower, but we were playing with Duplos. He was starting to count them by 3s. Carly gave us a muffin that Holly had made as it had nuts in it. August and I talked about how it was good, but it wasn’t delicious as it didn’t have chocolate in it. We played a bit longer and he made a play structure , then Carly called to her. He knew it was shower time and yelled “No! Mama!” But ran to her. Then asked “Can I get the bed wet? Secretly?”

Carly took him up, then I gave him a shower. He talked about a machine to make the muffins so Carly could eat them: “I have a machine that turns muffins with nuts in them into muffins with chocolate.” “Mama would like that.” “Yeah, but it pollutes though…it needs garbage that it burns to burn the nuts…It burns the air people breathe.”

He then got the bed wet, secretly, at 7:05. On the bed he was reciting numbers and getting bigger and bigger: “7 is bigger than 1….16 is bigger than 7…70 is bigger than 16…and 277 is bigger than 70…” He was then a baby birdie. We then read the Mother Goose book. I asked him who Elsie Marley looked like and he said “Mama”, so he remembers that. Then when we sang our “Saw a ship a-sailing” song he held he last note really long, which I’d forgotten we did. We looked up the equator on my phone as he had talked about being a baby bird in the winter and flying south “To the South Pole?” He was ready for sleep and was asleep by 7:55.

It was sort of half a holiday for Carly. No school, so she was home until noon. But she and Mandy went to Jerusalem in the afternoon to meet with an organization that does outreach to Palestinian lands.

He had kind or a restless night. Carly thought he was going to get up at 1. He managed to go back to sleep and got up at 6:10. Carly has today off, so he went down to her and I stayed in bed a bit longer. They played “Map”, looking around on Google Earth. He surprised her by reading ‘Jordan’ on his own and being happy to see it. We discussed Jordan while over at the Dead Sea, but I didn’t know he could read it. He was also commenting on whether places had trees or not “There’s not much trees here.”

He ate the last of the apple bread (except th last couple bites), then I distracted him from Carly while she made some food with GroForest, where you can now fly a hot air balloon and do some composting.

We then went outside where the two of them were painting shapes cut out of milk cartons for a design on our bedroom wall. I measured the second shelf and started to saw it, before deciding to wait awhile as it was still a little before 9. When I started August asked “Have you been doing that all night?” Odd question.

Back inside Carly was getting oatmeal for him. He said “You’re the oatmeal say ‘Oh no! Let’s hide!” Then he made up an oatmeal dance as he lay on the floor and chanted “Ooo-ba, ooo-ba”.

Carly went upstairs to work and he and I read more of The Magic Tree House and looked at dinosaurs in our big Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life book. We did some math with blueberries and writing on paper, then played with Duplos. He then wanted to watch the KidsHealth.org videos about the body and watched a few while I took a shower. I came back down and they were nursing. August then declared that they were eagles and they played being eagles for quite awhile, having nests on the couch and in the red chairs and flying around to get fish. Although one time they got stuck in the stomach of a huge fish: “Let’s get in our fish bathtub and eat dinner…where we store our fish.”

I went out and worked on the sawing, then I prepared schnitzels and sweet potato fries for us for lunch. Carly got out a new set of paints that make circles that you paint with. August made a long snaking line in green and said “It’s a slithery snake…a machine snake…a road.” Playing on the floor, August found a small piece of popcorn that he said was a tooth. Carly told him him about the tooth fairy, and as she did I practiced my eye rolling. But then Carly told him the truth, and how we pretend to be a tooth fairy. Carly had to head outside to Mandy, and August and I played Tooth Fairy. He would pretend to sleep and I’d give him a surprise under his pillow. He would then request a new thing “Now, could you give me a toy train?”

We then played Toca Nature, actually figuring out how to get all the different plants to grow and which animals wanted which, and exercised. With Duplos I then made a series of rockets, and August was counting how many people could fit in each and adding them up and saying they were his friends: “I had seven friends but one of them went to a coffee shop.”

He watched the airplane episode of Ask the StoryBots. He really likes the airplane episode, and after it was over he was repeating “Thrust, drag, weight, and lift” as if he was trying to remember the four forces.

He ate the last of the sweet potato fries, then listening to music he really liked the remix of Mark Lanegan’s “Death Head Tattoo” and added it to his playlist. A version of Nine Inch Nail’s “Closer” then came on and he said he really liked it. I didn’t add it to his playlist though and distracted him by switching to Bjork. He then heard “Earth Intruders (XXXChange Remix)” and said “I love this”.

We went on a Zinnie walk at 3. First we did a clockwise circuit of our block, which we decided to call the playground block. He ate some Larabar along the way and we realized I’d forgotten his water bottle. He said it was okay though as we were going around the block and would end up at home. Very thoughtful reaction from him.

Got his bottle, then he decided to walk around the other block, which we decided to call the Holly block, since she lives up that street. We kept walking up the block though, all the way to the dead end. Someone had a bunch of dishes set out, and I grabbed a couple of good glass bowls as I need a second mixing bowl for baking. August had eaten apple with peel last night when he was having dinner, so I tried to give him apple with peel on it today. He took the cup and looked at all the slices and said “Umm…Why is there PEEL on it?” He was having none of it. So I had to bite off the peel for each slice. Ate that as we walked back.

He spotted a truck with Hebrew writing on it and wanted to know what all the letters were. So I was telling him. Then he was looking at the numbers on the phone number. He was trying to read it as a long number, from left to right. After I explained it was a phone number and went from left to right he still had fun pretending to read it the other way.

We then got to the small synagogue up that way. Spotted some junk furniture out back and went and looked at it. He got off the bike to walk in the sand and play. He wouldn’t go down the little slide though. Too sunny. But he pulled weeds along the wall of the synagogue. I sat and read, and he then walked the edge of the square in the bricks several times.

We went home because he said he needed to use the bathroom – it would be another hour before he finally went though. On the way home he was saying he was a white blood cell, but then giving a scary laugh. A surprisingly scary laugh. Maybe I can get him in a horror movie. I asked why he was laughing like that and we decided he was a virus pretending to be a white blood cell and attacking me.

We were home at 4:20. We played more Toca Nature. He said “I’m filling it up with snow like Greenland.” Carly got home a little later. We talked about her trip to Sabeel (they got to eat lunch with them and met with the director – might do some sort of tour with them around Thanksgiving) and were talking about work stuff. August was playing his game, but apparently paying attention and asked what we were talking about. He asked “Are you talking about the guy that kicks them out of school if they don’t have homework?” Got to be careful around him.

We went outside for a good amount of time, doing all of our watering. Carly and August picked the first ripe tomato off the plant from Ikea. I asked August if he was going to eat it, and he started to wind up to throw it away before Carly stopped him and said she would eat it. They did more shape painting outside, then back inside Carly Skyped with her parents. August and I used used Google Earth, so he could actually see the round earth, as opposed to just Google Maps. He ate some pumpkin seeds and Carly made banana drink. He drank that and watched the second movement of Beethoven’s Ninth before switching to the fourth.

Carly gave him a bath, then he was a candy machine on the bed. First it was a gum machine: “Cutting you into the right size and shape”. I’m sure that phrase came from the how gum is made video. Then he made jawbreakers: “hardening process…sweetening process”. He was ready for sleep and fell asleep just after 8.

Robot pajamas: 

Counting friends in the rockets: 

Ripe tomato: 

Painting outside: 

6:50. Quiet. I made a nest for him on the couch. When he woke up we read three Kipper stories, then he wanted a big rabbit burrow. We made that and played for awhile, taking turns being germs and taking care or him when he was a baby lizard, then he was hungry so I got him some apple bread, which he ate at the table while he watched the Storybots episode about rain. We then worked on Hebrew and he drifted to Hangeul. Don’t know what to do about that.

Outside to check on the tomatoes and do some watering. Back inside he played the Chordana app, then switched to Musyc and we had fun with that, making all sorts of soundscapes. He went to the bathroom, and declared that he wanted to watch a video about how gum is made. So we went and found a video on YouTube, and he watched a few on candies and cookies while I exercised. He narrated the videos, telling me every fact that he heard: “24 hours, dada…200 degrees Celsius, dada…” We moved upstairs and it continued as I took a shower. He was sitting on his bed, and I’d hear him run across the landing, then he’d yell “through the extruded, dada”. He would wait for me to respond, then he would run back, hear something, and come back and tell me.

After my shower we played in the toy room landing, first with the Smurfs. He was being Gargamel. He had the idea of Gargamel turning Smuefette back into clay. I turned on Storybots music on the iPad and at first he wanted to watch, but then he listened as we played, and hummed along at times. We then switched to the wooden blocks (first time playing with them since Korea) and made a house. He set a piece on top of one of the walls and said “It’s a fire alarm in case there’s a fire.” We recently got smoke detectors. He knocked down our house saying “I told you a truck would destroy our house…I told you water would flood our house.” When I said “No you didn’t!” he replied “Yes I did!”

With the letter blocks he was thinking of words for each letter, and said “P for poets.” We then watched the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. He didn’t want to watch Frozen or Symphony #5. Had to be the Ninth. I asked if he wanted a smoothie and he said yes. I went down to make it, and when the blender was on he yelled down “Dada! You’re keeping me from watching symphony 9!”

Drank the smoothie upstairs and then came down and played Gro Recycling while I got him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We went outside and I used the saw to cut one of the shelves for the library. We talked about the difference between a hand saw and a chainsaw and its parts. He thought for a minute and exclaimed “But dada! You don’t eat wood! But they’re called teeth!” It was a slow process, so he went and got the iPad and played TodoMath, calling out to me for help with math problems. He then switched to the My Body app and had me practice holding my breath. I did a minute and 7 seconds. He wouldn’t try it though.

We left for a walk by 2. We walked over to the school. On the way he stopped at the little park to pull some weeds. Then, closer to the school, he wanted to get off the bike so he could do the germ dance and attack me.

At the library we found the microscope in the ‘Maker Space’. There were about 6 compounds to look at (silicon, NaCl, etc.). I rather expected a bit more, but we had fun with it. We went to the little kids area and looked for books. He got sucked over to the computers where two kids were watching one of those awful, awful videos where and adult plays with toys. Got August away from that and we sat and read a few chapters of the first Magic Tree House book. Looking around, he saw a picture on something: “Those are Halloween pumpkins!” We checked out the Magic Tree House, Lucy by Randy Cecil, The Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl, and the August issue of Ranger Rick magazine. I was excited to see that they have Ranger Rick magazine, because I thought I had searched and found that it had stopped publication. While we waited for Carly to come we read The Magic School Bus Inside a Hurricane as we sat on the big stuffed animals.

Carly came by at 4:10. We stopped to get drink at the drinking fountain with stairs, then headed home, getting here at 4:40. We all went out watering and and Carly and I had pita and tea outside. Inside they did math with blueberries aand on paper (doing some pre-algebra with ‘X’), then were doing a mosaic on paper. August used the markers themselves to do some joke math: “Lowercase t times uppercase T equal broken case T.”

We watched some Beethoven’s Ninth, then August was being fussy about dinner. But I got some couscous and mashed sweet potatoes for him and we ate dinner at the table. He joked “Corncous…that’s couscous made out of corn.” I said he should have some milk, and a minute later Carly set down a cup of milk for him. I joked that when I said something should happen t magically happened. I then said I should get a massage. Carly told me I was losing my powers, but August got up and pushed behind me on the chair and massaged my back with his hand and head.

He continued to watch Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Wars pieces after Beethoven’s Ninth was over. Carly then noticed someone at our gate. It was the guy that lives downstairs. August didn’t give him a warm welcome, yelling “Go away!” Carly took August in and I talked to him. He was complaining about hearing August “always” running around. Told him we don’t wear shoes inside and he’s three and I tried to ask what times it bothered him/he was home, but he didn’t really help me out. Ah, all the inconvenience of apartment living as well. I was rather annoyed from the beginning to find that there was a downstairs apartment, as we were never told this when shopping for houses.

Carly read him part of The Enormous Crocodile and then he spent a long time pretending to read it in his languages. Then she gave August a bath and washed his hair. He didn’t complain too much until the rinsing. They read Mr. Brown’s Fantastic Hat and he was asleep by 8.

Watering: 

Smoke detectors: 

Watching me saw: 

Among the animals: 

He was up bright and early at 6:10. We played more Chordana and tried the Dust Buster app for learning piano again, but he wasn’t a fan of it. I mentioned reading some poems as we read some Silverstein and he asked what poems were. In the process I mentioned rhyming and he asked what rhyming words were. That reminded me of the Winnie the Pooh ABC episode that we had watched at one point, but then disappeared from YouTube. I then meant to buy it on DVD this summer (not available through iTunes, etc.) but didn’t, but it is now back on YouTube. So August watched that and started to watch the Shapes and Sizes one while I made French toast.

We ate French toast, then were robots for a long, long time, Starting with him making a little secret spot on the couch that became our private charming station: “Its a secret place cuz it’s just for these robots.” “That’s why it’s secret cuz the robots don’t want the power to be taken.” Eventually he had bad robots trying to attack us and we were destroying them. He was talking abou how the metal from the robots we destroy goes through a machine to break it down: “The metal gets turned into dirt to grow robot trees.” “The ones that aren’t made out of paper are bad robots and the ones made out of paper are good robots. We’re destroying the ones not made out of paper because they’re bad ones!” “Come on! Let’s both destroy robots!”

We paused a couple times to read Robot Kipper stories. That is, I read them in a robot voice and added ‘Robot’ before every mention of his name. After Robot Kipper had had a strange dream of climbing a mountain of cake, I asked if August ever had strange dreams. He said yes: “Climbing a mountain of cherries and candles.”

We built a bigger secret robot place, using two dining table chairs and his sheet from his bed. He also did more dances today: game dance, sleeping dance, reading dance…there were others.

Eventually he asked “Can I play Star Wars?” He repeated it several times as I was confused. How does he know about Star Wars? “I mean Star Walk…Star Walk, not Star Wars.” He played with Star Walk while I prepared to make apple bread. Chopping apples takes some time. Eventually I was ready and had him come over and help make it. A bit messy again. When we were done there was extra apple bits, and he stood at the counter, eating them and making yummy noises. Until he bit his tongue. Hewent and curled on the couch, but was okay. He joked about there being more than one of him: “Two of me…More of Zinnie than one.” But I’m not sure what he was doing or why.

I then made pizzas – one with olives and one with sweet potato. We ate those for lunch and I turned on the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. He watched all of it, humming along much of the time. Been too long since we’ve watched/listened to orchestras.

We went upstairs so I could finally take a shower. Hebrew, then  watched Peg + Cat. We went downstairs then I went up. He followed, joking that I’d gone down, not up: “This is down, not up…Down, farther than that…farther than the earth has ever been.” He also made a going home dance: “The going home dance for us was…”

We ate some apple bread. It tastes really good, but in adjusting the cooking times and temps to being a bread and not muffins, and for our oven, which seems hot, it didn’t cook through well. So while I put it back in to bake longer we continued with the robot game. He requested the Silverstein poem about a guy whose stomach literally talks to him, quoting the poem: “No more ice cream and sauerkraut!”

We got outside for a few minutes in the yard, then finally left on a little adventure at 2:40. We walked over past the mall and to the park in the middle of Bnei Dror, about 5 minutes to the east. As we walked he pointed to a huge plant and asked”Is that bougainvillea?” It was.

We got to the park and he started with the merry go round

– roll slide. He turned us around on that, then wandered to different toys. He was excited to find a rolly slide. There was one in Stroudsburg and before that I remember a play area in Korea. But they are far between. He went down that once, then he went down the regular slide while I went down the rolly slide. I rested at the bottom of the regular slide, but instead of sliding down on me he attacked me as germs. After awhile we switched places and I wasthe germs attacking a lizard.

We went over and looked at their free library for a few minutes. Almost all Hebrew. Some travel books (someone had gone to Madrid and Barcelona and west England) and a David Eddings book in Hebrew. A couple of English cookbooks, but no kids books. We saw a flock of birds that included a bunch of the green parakeets, then went and played tic tac toe on the turning things on the playground.

We finally headed out, first walking down to the east and looking at the little store down there that has household stuff, then looking at a sculpture and stuff. We then headed back through the park and stopped to fill his water bottle before heading home.

We got home at 4:45. Carly was home, but August first went to pull weeds along the side of the house, saying he wanted to plant his carrots there. We went in and Carly showed him the robot pajamas that Cherie had sent him. He walked on them to destroy the robot. He was upset when Carly got food for herself. He was hitting her and I had to take him for a timeout. They nursed and he was falling asleep. Got him to watch Ask the Storybots to wake back up.

Carly went over to the mall to do some grocery shopping and get diapers for some fundraising sort of thing at school. August and I went outside to move his tomato plants from the pot to spots along the fence. Planted three out there and left two in the pot. Don’t know how any of them will do though as the roots were hard to separate. While digging we found a two liter plastic bottle buried in there and he helped with watering the papayas.

Carly took him inside as I finished that so he could have some dinner. He had some sweet potatoes and fried rice, I think. She then took him up for his shower. In bed, we practiced Hebrew numbers together. He told Carly what 11 is. He was asleep about 7:30.

Photos. A big burrow: 

Slide selfie: 

Pajamas from Oma and Opa: 

He talked in his sleep again. Something about “millions”.

He came down at 7:15. Very quiet and calm. Sat at the bottom of the stairs for a minute, then came and curled up on the couch. We watched two episodes of Ask the StoryBots and ate the last of the banana bread. It started raining and got harder and harder and we watched together. He watched on his own, and declared “Clouds peeing.” We went upstairs and he helped put the stickers on all of the stars and planets. He had been taking the stickers off the paper on his own, but then got frustrated after a couple gave him troubles. It rained hard again so we watched from his bedroom window. He playe the Space app while I stuck them up. When he looked at Titan he said “Beautiful. That moon is beautiful.” Then, when I first closed the blinds and turned off all the lights he looked up and said “Whoa!…Look at it…So beautiful.”

We went downstairs and played some mandolin. I went upstairs and got a pick, and when I came down he was strumming it. He said “I was making music while you were gone.” He turned to acting out really hot steam molecules “And then we drop down into the ocean and burn it into steam.” Then was acting out regular water molecules evaporating and then coming back as rain, like in the Ask the Storybots episode.

We went outside and checked on everything as the rain had stopped. Didn’t need to water plants and August kept commenting on that. I spilled the water out of the bowl on the table and he said “The table’s peeing.”

Back in on the floor he played with the Kaleidoscope. He recited Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat when he saw the book, so we read it. Back to the kaleidoscope, he said “Next time I want the little one with colors.” He’s referring to one of the short kaleidoscopes that had beads in it (the one he got doesn’t have any). He then said “Big one for me, little one for baby.” I asked “Whose our baby‽” He replied “Me”.

Played lots of sick baby squirrel. He invented a machine that shocked germs. He asked about a StoryBots app, so we watched some of the free videos (the numbers ones) then played with the little dancing game, where you can take a photo of yourself, then have the little StoryBot version of you dance.

He switched to Toca Blocks as we went upstairs so I could take a shower:  “Then I’m gonna make the underwater sea…with jellyfish…whoa, really blue sea.” I took a shower, then we went downstairs and did more mandolin. At some point he dropped the pick inside and I showed him how to get it out. We read some Silverstein, took care of sick animals, etc. then got out some quiche for lunch and made sweet potato fries. He only ate quiche reluctantly, in a one bite of quiche, one french fry sort of deal. Although he kept trying to slip a second french fry.

We were going to do some Hebrew on paper, but he spotted the Chordana Play app on my iPad, where you try to play the piano notes along to the music, and we played that for quite awhile. There are no points or feedback, so August just had fun with it, choosing song after song. He would try to do the right hand and I’d do the left. We did switch to Hebrew and markers for awhile, but he was being rough with the markers. Making a marker blunt upset him, but then he took the next one and simply slammed it on the paper, forcing the tip back inside. I was able to fix it, but he was done with markers then.

Outside to scrape sap with stick. The tip of his long stick broke off, so then he broke the whole stick. We got another one (there’s a whole bundle of them). We took the tree things over across the street and dumped them out in the yard waste/garbage area. He had fun pushing them into the hole, but they were kind of wet so he wiped his hands on me, simultaneously asking “Do you mind?”

Back in the yard I ended up giving him a piggy back ride around the yard – something we haven’t really done. Finally, we got ready to go. We got snacks ready and took recycling with us and rode his orange bike up to the cages. Did recycling together, then started on a walk at 2:50. He requested a Zinnie walk, so we started with that until I realized he was taking us around the block to go home. So I suggested we head up towards town and go to the park on Ha-Hadarim Street that he wanted to play at yesterday. He agreed, so we headed up there.

We got to the park, and he hopped off and told another boy he wanted to look through the round window thing in the ship area. Luckily, the other boy was moving along. Went and played on the Jeep thing, which he pretended was an airplane, and that the battery was running out again. Then we went on the “spinner merry-go-round thing”. From there we spent a lot of time playing on the snakes and ladders board on the ground of the playground. He then sort of taught me the chasing game that he played with Carly, first with me chasing him around as he ran from base (100) around a pole, etc. then back to base. Then he chased me. He then headed to the swing and went on that for a few minutes until it started raining. Rained medium-hard for a couple minutes then stopped.

We then walked up to the grocery store and got cream cheese and eggs and he spotted the puddings. Haven’t gotten one there since the first couple weeks. I let him choose one.

On the way home we sang “Sentimental Wars” and when I asked what other song he wanted to sing he requested the OMD “Electricity”, so we listened to it on my phone. Along the way he ate more apple and a Larabar.

We were home at 4:25. I had suggested he do TodoMath, which he hasn’t done in quite some time, and he totally got into it, doing actual math and figuring things out. I was trying to do some dishes, but had to keep helping and coming over when he wanted me to see something. I asked a few times if he needed to use the bathroom, but he said he was just dancing to the music in the app. Eventually he admitted needed to go. He declared what he was doing a pee dance, then showed me the difference between that and his germ dance, then also made up a machine dance.

Carly got home and they did some TodoMath and nursed, then he switched to the Chordana app again. Carly got him some food – sweet mashed potatoes on one side and fried rice on the other, but he didn’t eat much, even though he’d wanted the potatoes for lunch but I couldn’t find them. He showed off all his dances for Carly, and added some new ones – at some point he added a nursing dance.

We all went outside for a long time. Carly and I had tea out there while he played with his sticks, etc. Carly was trying to remember the Hebrew numbers and he helped her out. He knows 1 to 10 quite well and is working on the teens. He came inside because he wanted to do more Hebrew letters. Did that for a couple minutes, then remembered the Hangeul app he used to use and switched to that. Kind of funny to see that again.

Read a little Shel Silverstein and he ate a little dinner. He found the pudding in the fridge at some point but couldn’t have it since he hadn’t really eaten dinner. Carly took him up for a shower, but at first he tried insisting on me doing it, which is a change. He said because I would let him get the bed wet – we’ve been joking that Carly doesn’t want him to. But he was fine with Carly once they got up. They read some Bob Books, then we went in and showed her the stars. Had them lay down and I turned off the lights.

They tried for sleep, but he came down at 7:50. As he came down he told me “Dada. I’m gonna wake up at 11:17.” We finished reading Every Thing On It, then went back up with Carly and was asleep before 8:40.

He came down at 6:45. They nursed, then were talking about the keyboard on her computer, which led to a discussion of typewriters, then videos of how a typewriter works. They were then typing and reading big numbers. They did something in the millions and August said “And that’s how many treats I have in my storage place where I store treats.” He walked little circles on the carpet for awhile, then I got him vitamins and banana bread. He and I then read Home and Mr. Brown’s Fantastic Hat. He went to Carly to nurse over in the red chair and I jokingly asked Carly, holding up Mr. Brown, “Isn’t this a sad book about losing a hat?” Carly looked at me confused, then August added “Because his hat turns into a tree.” Excellent timing.

He watched an episode of Wanda and the Alien, then went outside with Carly watering plants and playing with sticks. Playing with the trees made him want to play Namoo, so he did that while sitting outside at the table. I went and took a shower. When I came down he wanted his water bottle and chanted “is it in the backamapack? Is it upstairs? Is it in there? Is it out there?” Carly was making him a pancake and he ate that. We read more of Shel Silverstein’s Every Thing On It and he read in made-up languages that he was naming. They nursed then he went to the bathroom and asked about sharks:”What ‘man eating shark’ mean?” We discussed that and how there aren’t many animals that eat humans, then he thought of a lot more: “I’m a man eating brick!…Eats things with its tube.” “I’m a man-earing goldfish.”

We left for a walk at 10:30. One mission today was to get my hair cut. Stopped at the place by the pharmacy, but she was only doing nails today and didn’t seem to know English. As we kept walking August stopped to pull some weeds, and he also solved my problem by creating a machine that made a hair cutting place for me. I joked about whether it met code and how well it paid the workers and he said “My money process is broken.” and went on about how it couldn’t pay the workers. There was a place at the little mall, Shohan Hairdressers or something to that effect, and I stopped and got my hair cut there. They went on to Bachar Garden, the park by the library. They played a game where a tree was home and he ran around touching other things and getting points and then they would add up the points. Getting my hair cut went smoothly and then I caught up with them at 11:30.

He was up on the play structure and hid in the tube when I got there. He liked me drumming on the tube, but when I just peaked my hand around the end of it and waved, not touching him, he was afraid I was trying to tickle him. Even after I agreed to not tickle him and we shook hands on it, he called to Carly: “Mama! Come watch so dada doesn’t tickle me!” Did some more drumming, then he was done on the play structure and we got going. We walked around the block, finding a new kind of seed pod to take home, then headed to the coffee shop/cafe down the street, מלכין (Malkin).

We found out they actually have a full menu (when August and I peeked in it looked like just a coffee shop and some pastries). The waitress explained the menu to us as August started to play with all the toys. We got the tofu sandwich and cauliflower mashed potatoes with roasted veggies (onion, zucchini, spinach, and broccoli), blended iced coffees for me and Carly, and an orange and carrot juice for August. Carly and August played in the toys (mainly sorting out things that were in the wrongs spots – August’s idea) and I translated the menu.

The food came and August got upset that there was no ice in his juice. Carly took him out of the restaurant. When they came back, calmed down, they asked for some ice. He was happy once he put some pieces of ice in it. The food was wonderful. August ate some tofu, but mainly ate the cauliflower mashed potatoes and several bites of broccoli, and a couple bites of zucchini. And one bite of spinach. He claimed he got a bite of onion in his first bite of potatoes that I gave him and didn’t like it, but he kept eating them after that, so he wasn’t that bothered.

After eating he sat on my lap and we read The 13-Story Treehouse. We read the last few chapters, then started again at the beginning. About 1 they went to find a bathroom – apparently there is one around the back of the shops next door. Good to know, as we hadn’t found a bathroom downtown before.

We went over to the toy store. The woman remembered me from when I bought the bug viewer and stuff. She handed August a kaleidoscope. He spent much of our time in there trying out the different kaleidoscopes and also found an octopus magnifying glass he liked. It started raining while we were in the shop and the woman ran out to get the displays inside. The rain only lasted less than a minute, but it broke our 2+ month streak of not seeing rain.

In talking to the woman, August understood her English and answered her questions about his age and his name. He had answered the name question a couple days ago as well, so nice that he is answering people again. I bought the kaleidoscope (he had chosen one with no beads in it, with a picture of a person with a telescope on it) and we got going.

We went to the hardware store and Carly went to the post office to mail a postcard to her grandma. At the hardware store August walked around looking at everything with the kaleidoscope. We got masks and eye protection for sanding, and a saw, a paper towel holder. We went next door and looked at the produce store for the first time. They have spices in English, for future reference. We walked across to show Carly the other coffee shop/restaurant, then started walking home the back way, past the hardware store. Just as I pointed out the shortcut path from the small grocery store, August asked for food and we realized we had left the snack bag at the restaurant. So we used the shortcut to head pretty much straight there and it was still sitting by our chairs.

So then we walked home. We stopped to look at some low palm trees with big bunches of fruit on them. He read license plates, I got a few paperback English books that were left on a paper recycling bin, and we looked at a lot of interesting houses and yards.

Home at 2:45. As we got there he was saying things like “In 200 meters, go inside.” Carly then headed to the mall to look for some pants and do some grocery shopping. He watched an Ask the StoryBots and ate banana bread and apple, then played the sick baby chipmunk game. Carly was home at 4. She did some some cooking and we kept playing.

I then made a sun-dried tomato, red pepper, onion, and zucchini quiche. They played outside. Carly had brought a small wooden box for the small stuff on our big table. They painted that together, watered, and August picked a bunch of the sap off the tree. Inside she made him burrows. He was at first skeptical of her techniques and ran over to ask me how I make them. She got the yoga mat and he gave her a skeptical look and asked “exercise mat?”

We ate dinner (stir fry and the last of the pasta stuff) while the quiche cooked, then did more burrows. I told him it was hair washing day. He asked “Does that mean I will cry?” But I gave him a shower and washed his hair and he did really well. He was a rocket on the bed, then we heard someone drilling outside. He said “I think it’s a hurricane destroying our home.”

We went downstairs and he wanted some quiche. We ate some. He kept joking about his schedule being full and having to poop. Not quite sure what that was about: “My schedule is full. Poop!” Carly went upstairs for a shower. We read some more Shel Silverstein. Poems he particularly likes are: “Turning Into” (where ‘wow’ turns into ‘mom’), “Mistake” (with a snake coming out of someone’s bottom), and Tic-Tac-Toe (where someone gets a tack in their toe).

He then developed a random typing game where he was the typewriter hitting the paper a
nd I was typing random letters and numbers and punctuation, which I would call out as I type. He said “The more you type, the more mail you will get.” I would type a bunch, then send it in the mail, then he’d bring me back some mail. He then requested Mr. Brown’s Fantastic Hat. He speculated on why some of the fish closed their doors “why are the doors closed? I think they’re going to the bathroom.” He then played at being a bird flying away to go to the bathroom and come back to his nest. He built nests for both of us next to each other on the couch. Finally, he was being cells again: “I’m a sytotoxic (sp?) T cell.” Then made-up cells: “I’m an outlet cell.” That one zapped bad plugs to destroy them.

We went upstairs and looked at his glowing stars and planets in his bedroom, turning off the light while Carly skyped with Glecy. He was intially shy with her, hiding in the corned of the office by the chair, but then went back and said “Hi Glecy!” He helped me start to put the stickers on the back of the stars and planets so I could hang them up.

As we were headed to the bed, he said something about “Point turns to line turns to triangle turns to square.” Not sure where that came from. I’m pretty sure I used to do that while drawing shapes with him a long time ago but would be surprised if he remembered it. I left them in bed about 8:25 and he was asleep a bit after that.

Sometime around 6 August spoke up very clearly in is sleep:

“That’s a monkey… There’s a lake with magic water right there.” Although Carly said she thought it was about a magic tree. I thought water, and it reminded me of the Ask the Storybots episode where the water evaporates and becomes rain. He came down at 7. Nursed and cuddled with Carly. About 7:20 he asked “Can I do something fun?” I said “No having fun on Saturdays.” To which he said “Mama stays home…That’s kinda fun.” I liked the inclusion of ‘kinda’.

We let him watch Storybots but he made deal with Carly – episode and banana bread on couch, book, vacuuming. They shook hands and said “Deal”. He watched the Why do I have to brush my teeth? episode. He and I then read Mr. Brown’s Fantastic Hat, then he was bacteria attacking my teeth and he was doing a germ dance each time. We then read Peach and Blue. I took off his clothes and he said he wanted to stay naked as bacteria don’t wear clothes. He likes to walk circles in the kitchen and did some circles. He was walking circles around me yesterday when trying to tell me something.

We let him watch another Storybots and I took a shower. When I came down he was really upset: the deal had been that they’d go do recycling after the show, but now he didn’t want to go. I caught up and went with them, and he calmed down once we were at the cages and he helped do all of the recycling. On the way back he started walking towards the pathway back so we went that direction. Carly and I watched a hoopoe in a tree and he was pulling weeds. He kept pulling weeds as we headed home and were home at 11:10.

Inside for a bit, then went outside at 11:40. Pulled weeds in our yard, played with the bamboo sticks, and I brushed his hair, much to his chagrin. We left ten minutes later, headed to Tiv Taam at the mall. He was upset about not pulling weeds in middle of parking lot but settled for weeds by the Aroma coffee shop. Carly went on ahead to start shopping. We caught up and helped with shopping. Sort of. August saw kids riding in the actual basket of the carts and wanted to try it and got upset and Carly took him outside for a bit.

We finished up and came home about 12:30. I read some Shel Silverstein, which he was opposed to at first, but then got into. He then went and played with the blueberries by himself for several minutes. At one point he said “I’m M cells capturing germs.” He then wanted to play the germ game with me. Carly then made popcorn and zaater and we sat on the couch and ate it. She said it made her want to watch a movie, so I pulled up Blue Planet and we watched the deep sea episode. August was intrigued by every animal they introduced, asking “What’s that? What’s that? What’s that?” At one point, as he was climbing on Carly, he said “I’m a Diana fish”. He wouldn’t tell us where he got that one, but he said it several times.

Carly made banana milk. He asked”Can we play the stealing honey game?” I asked how that had started (he puts a spoon in the stream of honey and gets some – he told me about it a few days ago). Carly wasn’t sure, but he said “When we made the honey water for the flowers.”

Carly Skyped with Cherie, and I had brought down the mandolin. August helped me tune it and we played around a bit and he played Dragonbox Big Numbers. Carly then made stirfry for dinner. He was then a sardine: “I’m a sardine that’s been taken out of the water.” And he was calling Carly ‘Mama sardine’: “Nurse, mama sardine.”

We left at 5:45 for a walk. We walked to pine tree park. When he wanted to play there he said “Say okay. Say okay mama.” He was really doing the “Say okay” thing a lot today. He’s done it with me regularly for a few weeks, but it was in overdrive today. I helped him do the barrel walking thing and we discussed RPMs. He played in the sand for awhile. A couple dogs came along with an owner and he called “Dont hurt me!” They were quiet and left him alone and kept going, and August said a couple more things about not wanting to see dogs and not liking them.

We were home before 7. When I went to take him up for a shower he really started screaming. In the bathroom he went and huddled in the corner of the shower farthest from the water. So we skipped his hair. He was so upset when he was done that he didn’t go and get the bed wet; he just wanted to go downstairs to mama. They read 13-Story Treehouse together. He has the first few pages pretty much memorized and was able to ‘read’ much of it. He then switched to a nonsense language and kept ‘reading’ and turning pages. She went to take a shower and he kept doing it with me.

We then played the germs on my teeth game, then put on his pajamas. He wanted to be covered all over (I had gotten a long sleeve shirt), so I suggested a balaclava for his head. He didn’t know what that was so I looked up photos. Took him up for bed and he got to the bathroom first and asked  “So I can have 2000 strawberries now?” The idea that the winner to the bathroom gets strawberries as an award is one he made up today.

They tried for sleep. He was upset when she stopped nursing:  “Help me, mama!” They tried again and I thought he was asleep, but at 8:15 Carly asked to switch and told me to bring a book. He and I read Fall Festival then Pablo and His Chair. He was hungry, so we went down and I sliced apple for him. We went up and he ate that and we worked on our Hebrew numbers. We are working on 11 to 100 now. We then read Pablo and His Chair again. He wanted water, but first watched the clock click to 9:00. Carly and I then switched and she read some BFG to him after he went to the bathroom.

They were quiet for awhile, then he was really upset when he couldn’t get to sleep: “Can you make me better? This nursing makes me better! Make me better mama!” They were nursing again at 9:50 and he was finally asleep.

He was up about 5:55. He looked around and asked where mama was. I told him she was downstairs and he asked if it was a holiday for her. Carly came up and they nursed. They came downstairs a few minutes later. He walked around, turned on the fan light, then went and sat in one of the red chairs for several minutes, just resting there. He then got down and did some math on his own with the blueberries before turning his attention to the number line. He really wants to write on it with the blue marker line mama, but if he does it will end with him being upset about it, like when he did the 3 on it. So he just looked at it for a few minutes, then went outside with Carly for a few minutes to look at plants. Some of the carrots are finally popping up. Still no cilantro.

Carly left and we read 13-Story Treehouse, about half of it, and ate Cheerios and apple. I then made some pancakes but he didn’t really eat his. We did some math on the number line and he used the bathroom, then played Human Body and Earth while I typed.  Then played May getting sick and did some number line. He finally got around to eating his pancake. In Dragonbox Big Numbers he found a weird glitch where the number 100 sort of followed him around. I got ready to make banana bread.

We went outside for a bit and looked at the plants and the pitch. There was a little string of pitch hanging down that he decided to break off. Back inside we made banana bread. He kept being overly enthusiastic with his stirring so we ended up with a pretty messy counter. Shmuel called, saying he was on his way to plant the papaya plants. He arrived about 10:15.

August was a little weary at first, and then David, our neighbor who we’ve not yet met, also came in the gate to say hi and August didn’t like that at all. He was also not thrilled about Shmuel using his hose. But when I asked him to tell Shmuel about what we have planted, August went to each and every pot and said what was in it. But then he retreated inside for awhile and kept playing Dragonbox Little Numbers. Shmuel and I took a break and sat and drank coffee.

After that, August came out more and was really watching what Shmuel was doing. Shmuel was really saturating the ground before putting the papaya plants in each spot, and so we talked about infiltration and why Shmuel was doing that. Shmuel asked August a question, and August tried to tell him about the showers at the Mediterranean and watching the water go in the sand. Shmuel rather missed the answer, and started talking about the Mediterranean instead. Then, August was getting really comfortable with Shmuel, and there were actually a couple minutes where I went in and did some dishes. When I came back out, August was sitting right next to him and they were talking. But right as I went to take a photo August got up, and I realized he was starting to get upset. There had been a big block of soil/clay that August had initially thought was a brick. Shmuel had told him what it actually was, and that it would dissolve with water. August and I were waiting to dissolve it when Shmuel was done with the hose, and August was waiting pretty patiently to do it (in the meantime he had been picking at it with his spade and shovel). But now Shmuel had started to dissolve it himself. August was upset and told me “He’s not letting me do it!”

Took him in and he had some more banana bread. I realized another aspect of August and language is that people rarely understand what he is saying, as even when they speak English it is their second language, so find him difficult to understand. So the exception was when we got in the car with Carly and Mandy and he was telling them about the smoothie and cookie and too much sugar, etc. and Mandy understood what he was saying.

Anyway, Shmuel left at 2:20. August and I did some more Dragonbox Little Numbers. Then I captured another of the big bees in the kitchen. Then I realized it was the one I thought I had killed earlier when Shmuel and I were having coffee. August and I looked at it, then I let it go. I made cheese and olive pizza for lunch, then he watched Ask the Storybots and I finally took a shower.

We were planning to go to the school again (I would have liked to have gone swimming), but he wasn’t into the idea of leaving. Seemed nap-bound. He started doing some imaginative play on the couch. He had watched the Storybots episode about rain formation, and said he created “Not r-a-i-n, r-B-i-n….It floats higher…” I got him to contemplate books to return to the library and he wanted to return Du Iz Tak and Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book. He said “I want to return it cuz it’s short…I want longer books you can read to me.” He also spent a lot of time explaining to me which stacks of books were books he wanted to return and which he wanted to keep longer. Then, he was back to imaginative play: “I’m making something up…wzitgb…Then all our best molecules turn to wood, then they just disappear!” From there he started to be “billions” of heat molecules, going up into the air. It was sort of based on the rain episode of Storybots, with the molecules going up and down.

That went on for quite awhile, then he was over counting the blueberries and Duplos: “Dada, I was counting those by hundreds and I soon got up to thousands.” Nice use of ‘soon’, but I kind of messed him up with the counting song, where you jump from 10s to 100s to 1000s, etc. as that’s what he generally does.

We got out for a walk at 3:10. I figured he was probably going to nap, as he didn’t object when I put him in the big stroller, and when I asked if he’d rather use his orange bike he said he wanted to stay in the stroller. We wandered up north, then took some back streets. At one point we went through a little path and came out at a little park area and realized we were surrounded by cats. Someone feeds the cats there and there were a good dozen there.

We got up to downtown and decided to go to the grocery store. But being Friday the doors were already closed at 3:40. Customers were still coming out, but no more allowed in. We got to the park by the library and August got off to play. He went up and down the stairs, then climbed the spiral thing. He also remembered pretending that there were raccoons in the helter skelter. I tried to grab him through the bars at one point and he said “Don’t eat me!…You eat food. You know, like I eat…Larabar and apples and cakes… Chocolate cakes and other cakes.”

Carly told me she was leaving work. At first August just wanted to keep playing at the park, stepping on berries. But he was done a minutes later. So we hurried off at 4:06 and caught up with Carly, who waited for us by Vatikim Street. We walked with her, then stopped at the Tal Garden park – the one by Jack and Celeste. He played around for fifteen minutes or so. He put leaves in a cup of water that someone had left on the ground, then kicked it over. He turned around and walked back to the playground but missed the step and fell down, scraping his knee. He ran off towards the other end of the playground, and Carly went and comforted him.

We saw the neighbors on the way home. August was still upset, and didn’t enjoy meeting David again for the second time in a day. We were home after 5. They nursed, and apparently Carly gave him some chocolate since his knee was hurt. Later I had joked about something, saying I hadn’t given him chocolate before dinner, and he excitedly told me that mama had in fact done just that because his knee was hurt.

Anyway, he went outside with Carly for awhile, then they came in and nursed and she read him some of The BFG. I had wanted to get some Roald Dahl books for him, so when we decided not to go I asked if Carly could. She got that and James and the Giant Peach. He ate some banana bread and I made a banana and mango smoothie. He played some GroGarden and was very excited when he figured out on his own that 3+19=22. Carly took him to the bathroom and he was excitedly talkin
g about sparkly paint for some reason – I think it had to do with the color of the pot. We thought he would go to sleep early, but then he and I read Pablo and His Chair and the first 100 or so pages of 13-Story Treehouse. Carly took him up for a shower, then we played a little on the bed. He was asleep about 7:30. Right before we went to bed we heard him really talking and thought he was asleep, but he was only talking in his sleep. Sat up, then flopped over.

He was awake at 3:50 again. Actually, Carly said he started waking up a half hour earlier. They went downstairs a little after 4 and read some 13-Story Treehouse. I tried to get some more sleep but went down an hour later. Carly went up and he watched Peg + Cat and at 5:50 I made eggs with tofu and cheese for breakfast and toast. August ate half a piece of toast but wouldn’t try the eggs, so I took the rest of the toast away. He was done for the moment though.

We had done some blueberry math, then he was a rocket and invented wireless power: “This rocket doesn’t need rocket fuel” How? “My machine that gives it power without using any wires.” He was remembering the watches from yesterday and said “5 quadrillion 2 thousand…Thats how much my phone’s cost.” We read a lot of 13-Story Treehouse, then built rockets. He decided that patterns made them strong, and when we broke a pattern it would make the rocket break or fall over. He then had a machine: “It’s parachuting the tutti-frutti onto the moon.” And told a long story about cards that he made go away when we broke a pattern (they were cards that checked to see if there was a pattern), then a machine that made black smoke so you couldn’t see ad the cards were in the smoke and someone had taken the cards and the police got them in trouble. He told another story while he was in the bathroom about how cars with 10 numbers on them were destroying his storage area with all the treats in it.

We built a house and some crazy rockets, then Carly came back down at 7:50. We went outside to check on tomato plants (there lines on the leaves, so he said he was going to pull out his tomato plants), sap, and pick off flowers. He found a feather and took it inside to show mama. Back inside, Carly was upstairs doing something and he said “Is mama still sleeping? Is she an owl?” We switched and I went upstairs and rested for awhile and took a shower.

He played GroGarden and wore headphones while Carly vacuumed. He then finally ate most of his eggs. He heard us talking about the ants and poison and August went and opened the door and headed out to check on them. Back inside, he requested the Hokey Pokey and they did that. We then played the May and a tree game, where a tree falls over and hurts her. She was then being sleepy. I turned on Dan Bern’s 2 Feet Tall, an album of children’s songs, and August stood and watched it play and hummed and sang along to some of the songs (“Cabin in the Snow” is the one that really caught his attention). We added a couple to his playlist, and he didn’t want to stop listening to go on our walk.

But we got him out of the house and over to Tiv Taam. He was acting sleepy and impatient though, so we made it a pretty quick shopping trip. Came back and they tried for sleep, but he came back down. I made peach pancakes as lunch/second breakfast. While I did that, Carly made a number line and he helped. Think they also played with blueberries. We ate pancakes, then they tried for a nap again, but surprisingly he didn’t fall asleep. Came back down and he and I read Five Minutes Peace, then Little Critters Fall Festival (new book we got on iBooks) twice. Back up again and he slept from 1:10 to 2:50. I went and rested on his bed and fell asleep for a few minutes. Carly woke him up and he wasn’t to happy about it.

I went downstairs and finished reading Homegoing while they nursed and he watched Peg + Cat. Carly was working on hanging up her tree (the one she had painted for him before he was born) in the landing/play area and also hung up parts of her balloon/goose painting in the office.

They came down and he was still cranky. She got apple and peanut butter for him. He wanted to see her get the peanut butter out of the container. I asked if there were still zookeepers in there and he said no. But that there were pipes mixed in. He explained that the zookeepers had disappeared in black smoke from someone cooking. He sat, making yummy noises the whole time he ate.

We went outside and planted his flower seeds and he watered them and the weeds that we discovered starting to grow by the water faucet. He’s been asking how to spell words, and was asking “How do you spell read? Picking? Arctic? iPad? Zero?”

Back inside we finished 13-Story Treehouse and started again at the beginning.

Then, a major life moment: breakfast for all three meals. Having cooked eggs for breakfast and pancakes for lunch, Carly actually suggested French toast for dinner. Actually, this was apparently something she and August had discussed at some point, the idea being to use pita instead of regular bread. Since it wouldn’t be ‘French’ toast anymore, Carly had asked what it should be called, and August had reportedly said “Dead Sea Toast”. Or “Red Sea Toast”. I was rather confused by the whole thing. But now he was calling it “Bread Sea Toast” and so that is what stuck. And it is nice and punny.

Anyway, they had the idea and I implemented it. Just a normal egg/milk/vanilla/cinnamon mixture, but the I cut up the pita into quarters, got the mixture inside as well, and stuffed it with banana, then served it with banana on top. It turned out surprisingly well, although Carly liked it more than August, who declared he liked French toast better.

He played Dragonbox Big Numbers and I impressed Carly with my punning skills. He then remembered The Owl and the Pussycat from Peg + Cat so we read the book version. He was excited to find that we actually owned a version of it, and told Carly about it later. We looked up ‘runcible spoon’ and found out that Lear made it up.

We got out for a walk at 6:15. We took Carly down to the streets south of us that she hadn’t been on. He pointed out the big Israeli flag. A nice evening walk in the neighborhood and we saw Holly near the beginning. We were back a little before 7.

At home we read books: Suddenly, Happy Birthday, Peppa Pig Christmas, and all of Frog and Toad Are Friends. It was time for a shower, and he lay on the floor and told me”I’m playing that game…avoiding picking up game…” And then proceeded to try to wriggle out of my hands when I tried to pick him up.

Did get him upstairs and he had his shower, then played on the bed for awhile: first with Carly too, then him and me while Carly went downstairs. Brushed his teeth, then played more of the germs, etc. game. Went downstairs by 8:15, then he was being a machine inspired by the ice cream robot in 26-Story Treehouse: “I’m a tutti frutti, bubble gum, winding road, rocket road, flying monkey, falling coconut….dispensing machine.”

Ate some wheat thins, then he and Carly added to the number line and used it. Went upstairs and he was asleep about 9.

He came down at 6:33, as Carly was still closing the gate. He was really quiet though and went over to the cough and curled up on it for several minutes. At 6:44 he finally got up and went and turned on all the other living room lights (two of them), then came back and sat on the couch. A couple minutes later he said he wanted to do something. That was watch the Care Bears. When I went to the bathroom he sat in his car seat on the floor. Then played with blueberries, comparing stacks to him and me (we were taller than his stacks), then making rockets out or Duplos. He started making stairs of Duplos but was frustrated when they were falling down. I showed him how to make a new column every few steps to support it and he was impressed with that and seemed to get it. Made it bigger, and he said it was his 13-story treehouse.

We got to the bus stop at 9:25. But then it said it would be 30 minutes. I explained that and he said “So that means we can play for that many minutes!” But then he didn’t really want to play in the playground and said he wanted to wait at the busstop. But then he found a piece of chalk. At first he just wanted to break it, but it was too small to easily break. I wrote ‘Zinnie’ and he wanted a ‘Q’ as well so I wrote a Q after it and called him Zinnie Q and asked if that was his superhero name. He asked what a superhero was and I was explaining that. He then took the chalk and  drew Qs, then said “I want to cut open a Q.” He drew lines in a Q, dividing it into fourths, then further dividing it with straight grid lines. But then back to ‘Zinnie’ he started to add different lines coming of the letters, as if he was turning them into a new language: “Now my letters all make different sounds…You’re the letters playing a piano.”

We then sat on the alligator bench and read some 13-Story Treehouse and when he was done with the piece of chalk he threw it into the bushes. It was getting close to bus time, so we went to the bus stop. August made circles with his fingers and put them together and said “That’s infinity.” Not sure how he thought of that. He then said “Infinity is launching into space.” The bus came at 9:58. As we drove away he said “Bye park.” and as we drove by the school he did his usual “Hi, mama!”

We read some 13-story Treehouse on the bus and he ate Cheerios and a whole Larabar. He then talked about having an air conditioner that worked underwater: “I bought a sea remote that can work underwater for my underwater animals because they were warm.” Still hungry, he ate some of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

We got off in Netanya at 10:50. We started walking, and he smelled something and said “That smells like the school sandwiches in Korea.” We then had a long discussion where I tried to figure out what he was talking about. And as I did so and I was carrying him in my right arm he was giggling and burying his head against my chest. Finally, I realized he meant the Tospia sandwiches that we would get and eat in Carly’s classroom when we went to concerts, etc. Really cool that he had a smell-related memory from Korea.

We stopped to get in the backpack and he was calling out patterns from flower colors, then reading number signs on shop windows as we walked. He saw a rotating watch display and asked how you buy the watches. I said you’d have to ask someone who worked there. He still didn’t understand it: “Do they break the glass‽” We paused to watch an accordion player, then got walking. He now had a watch store: “Mt watches cost 2 million, 18 thousand…Say ‘okay’! That’s expensive!”

We passed our smoothie shop, עולם הפרי (which means Fruit World), and decided to get a smoothie on the way down this time. He saw ginger and said “I don’t like raw ginger. It’s gonna be spicy.” He was intrigued by passion fruit, but we settled on mango and watermelon. We sat at a shaded table and drank it.

We went down to the beach and went to the bathroom, then found a spot on the left beach, a little after noon. There were a lot of holes/castles left by other kids, so he started by destroying one of those. He did pretty well with me putting sunscreen on him, but he didn’t want his floaties on and was reluctant to go in the water at first. We played together on the beach, making sandcastles and crushing them. I snuck into the water to get wet a couple times. A woman found a little toy car on the beach and gave it to him. August played with it a bit, but then the steering wheel broke off. He decided he didn’t want it any more, and we decided to put it in a hole and bury it as a treasure for someone else.

He played a little with the water on the edge, then I carried him out, above the water. He wanted to touch the breaking waves, so I put his legs in. Eventually, he was okay standing in it a bit, and he sat on my lap and played in the water as I also sat in the water.

He asked where we had buried his car and at first I thought he was going to be upset that we couldn’t find it. But then he excitedly related the story of how someone had found it and given it to him and we had buried it and hidden it for someone else to find as treasure.

He spun around and said “I’m pretending to be a record player.” I asked “How do you know about record players?” He said “Curious Geroge Goes to the Hospital.” Which we only read a couple times. He wanted to bury something else, so he found a straw and buried that.

As we were getting ready to go, a woman came up and asked to borrow our shovel. He was not happy to see me give it to her – he thought she was taking it. They gave it back, and we left the beach at 1:15. He then played at the shower stream until 1:50. He would dig the sand, making a stream channel for it, and seeing how far the water would go when people started showering again. He looked at the water and said “It looks like a huge animal…Why’s it going farther than we’ve ever seen? It’s soaking into the sand…Evaporation?…Amazing…”

I couldn’t remember the word for water going into the sand so looked it up and taught him ‘infiltration’. But I told him I wasn’t sure if that was the right word for it soaking into his skin. So he called it “soakintration”. In the bathrooms I helped a man find the shower room. Both with him and the woman borrowing the shovel I couldn’t remember how to say ‘You’re welcome’, but now have it down.

We left at 2:10. We counted the steps on the way up: 154 steps. He said”When we get home I’ll tell mama that was 154 steps.” We walked back to the station, stopping to look at the bumpy green fruits on sale. He had wanted one on the way down, but now he wasn’t as excited about buying one, so we didn’t. The drinking fountain at the bus station didn’t work, so we went into McDonald’s and used their sink. We were at the station, waiting, at 2:35.

Last time, the bus had come at 2:50. And before that had been a later bus. So we sat down and started waiting: “I want to sit on the dirt ground and read 13 Story Treehouse and eat apple. Okay?” He pointed to something: “But don’t sit on whatever that is…Or touch it, or eat it, or smell it…”

So we sat. And read. And read. And ate the rest of his sandwich. And all of the apple. And the other granola bar I had. The station was getting emptier and emptier. It was clear that the busses were on a different schedule as the holiday starts in the evening. But I couldn’t believe there wouldn’t be a single afternoon bus back to Even Yehuda. And at one point a guy assured me a 48 would be coming. But around 4:10 two 471 (or something like that) busses came and the last people around climbed on those and left. A few times August said “We’re stuck in Netanya!” But he handled it all really well and was in a good mood.

Carly called Mandy and I sent her a pin of our location. While we waited we went to a bakery shop that was just closing (McDonald’s already was) and bough
t ten cookies and a pizza-ish thing. I let August choose a cookie while we waited and he chose an all-chocolate cookie. We talked about how that was it for him and the cookie with a red dot would be for tomorrow and the rest were for Mandy and her family (and one for mama).

They picked us up at 4:40. As we got in August excitedly told them how he had had a smoothie AND a cookie and it had been so much sugar, and about how a woman had given him a car and he had buried it on the beach as a treasure.

But then in the car Carly sat next to him and he was immediately grumpy and tired. He wanted more cookies, despite our discussion. He calmed down for the last few minutes though.

We were home at 5. He asked to watch something and said he wanted to watch Ask the StoryBots. He watched the French fries episode. He sang along to the theme song, which he has been singing parts of. I took him up and gave him a bath. He played with Carly and they read some Bob Books and Home and the hats book from the library. He was asleep at 6:40.

Stairs to his treehouse: 

Infinity going to the moon: 

Smoothie: 

Pushing me: 

Holding the car and about to stomp an abandoned thing in the sand: 

More disturbing than any shirt in Korea: 

Reading in the bus stop: 

Chocolate cookie: