Category: Uncategorized

He sat up at 6:30 then got up and went and looked out the window, the first of us to see the sunrise over Jordan. He gave a big “mama hug” when he went to her. We went down about 6:45 and waited to go in for breakfast. He said “Hi Cassie” and got a high five from grace. He then stood looking in the window into the cafeteria and spent some time lying on the floor. We went in for breakfast and he wanted to try everything again. He mainly ate the berry yogurt, the “banana bread” (more like a coffee cake bread), some egg, and the veggie quiche thing. After every meal he has helped me take our plate back and separate out the silverware and garbage. And as I was holding him after breakfast he gave me a good hug.

We went back to the room at 8. We read 26-Story Treehouse, which he thought was really funny. Carly left at 8:30, then we played the chipmunk game for quite awhile, making a nest for him out of the pillows.

We finally left a little before 11. We drove to Ein Bokek and found parking at a mall area by the beach. August helped put money in the meter, then we went over to the beach. Changed in the restrooms then went to a covered area on the beach and had a snack before going in the water. We went out on the wooden ramp to the shaded area actually out in the water. The sand and walkway are scorching out, and amazingly seems to get even hotter the first few feet in the water. August floated around for a couple minutes, but with his floaties on didn’t seem too impressed with the water and complained that it was too warm. I floated a bit, then went to him. Got him over on the beach, where he played in the sand and waded a little and I was able to go out and float again. I tasted the water, just a lick of my finger. August saw my reaction and wouldn’t do it. He did, however, really like the salt crystallizing on the posts.

We got going and took some time in the outdoor shower area. August was being a machine, breaking up the clumps of sand, when Carly came and found us. They had gone on a stream hike in the morning and had just arrived at the beach as we were leaving. We then went and changed and went over to the mall area to the Cafe&Cafe. We had brought cut up mango with us from home in our cooler. I’d put it in the fridge last night, but we were disappointed today to find that it had started to go bad. He was disappointed with that, so was talking about wanting a mango smoothie. We got a mango smoothie and a pressed sandwich – basically a pizza sandwich with tomato sauce, cheese, and mushrooms.

When we finished that August was a crab crawling through the mall and finding different floors that he said were the sea. We got in the car and drove over to where Carly had gone on the hike. She didn’t want us to do the whole hike (slippery rocks) but thought we’d really like the stream. She was correct. We got in the backpack about 1:20 and hiked up, under the highway (admiring the trilingual graffiti) and along the stream. The stream is basically the trail. There is a cool tree tunnel at one point. We got up to a kink in the stream where the cliff is close in on the left and it gets a little waterfall-ish. The walking became more difficult there so we stopped and walked back and found a shady place to play.

He got out of the backpack and started walking in the stream. He started pushing sand in from the little bank and it was making the water cloudy as it rushed downstream. I pointed it out so he did it more. We talked about how it was going down to the Dead Sea. He asked “Why it might go to the Dead Sea? Without taking a car?” We talked a lot about erosion, and looked at how the different sized rocks did or didn’t move down the stream. He then wanted me to be the sand: “Could you be the dirt that doesn’t want to go to the Dead Sea?” “Could you pretend to be the dirt washing down the stream?” That turned into a big game, with some of the sand wanting to stay in the stream in the shady spot and other sand wanting to go for the ride.

There was a bigger round stone that I said was the storytelling rock – it told stories to the sand around it. When August wanted to hear a story though it talked so slowly that we didn’t want the story any more. August was then a digger that moved the storytelling rock. Eventually, he replaced it with a different rock, which was supposed to be a storytelling rock, but turned out to be an ignoring rock. He would ask if it could talk about things and it would just say “No.” “Could you talk about grass? Trees? Photosynthesis?” “Gravity? Suction?” “Can you  all about why you can’t see air?”

Finally, he turned into a virus machine, that was actually making the viruses big enough so that you could see them: “This machine makes germs and viruses bigger.” He kept asking me to look in the machine to see the part that made the viruses bigger: “Can you see the part that makes the viruses bigger?” Then he switched motions and was a box burning machine. As we played there, a few times people walked by and would smile at him or say hi, and one guy patted him on the head. He said hi back a couple times.

Finally, about 2:45 we changed him in to dry clothes (he was confused as to why we were changing out in the open, saying “Most people don’t want me to be naked.”) and started walking back, him walking in the stream. He was cautious about any mossy (moldy) looking part, as I had said they were slippery, although I really only meant back at the tunnel. He wanted the to ignoring rock to actually talk about something, so in the tunnel he asked “Can I learn how shadows go away when you’re in tunnels?”

We got back to the car, cooled it down, and drove south about ten minutes to a gas station. I punched enough numbers in that it finally let me get gas. I noted that my watch now said 104 degrees (at the beach earlier the electric sign on the lifeguard station said 42 Celsius, which is close to 108 Fahrenheit).

We started to drive back north to the hostel and August said he needed to pee. Luckily, there was a viewpoint that I wanted to stop at anyway, so I had him pee in the gravel, which he was very excited about. Took a couple minutes enjoying the view, then got driving and was back to the hostel at 4:15.

As we got out of the car he got very slightly bonked in the head with a door. I ended up letting him have one of the cookies and he said “I want to tell mama I ate the cookie cuz I was sad.” We left the key at the desk for Carly, who was about back from the agricultural center with the group – in fact their bus pulled in as we walked out. I had him in the backpack and we walked up the hill to the Masada vivistor center. We were planning to go up the cable car, but it was closed, with the last car coming down at 5. We went outside to look at the view. Pretty sure he mocked me, saying “Oh my gosh, look at the view.” We walked up the outside stairs and saw the cables for the cable car, and I pointed out the Snake Trail, which Carly would be walking up in the morning: “Is that where mama and the kiddos are going?” He referred to them as “kiddos”, like Carly sometimes does, several times. He also wanted to know more about rocks, so I started to tell him about the three kinds of rocks.

We briefly looked at the gift shop at books (looking for English books about trees and birds, etc. in Israel) then headed back down, getting to the hostel at 5:05. I had been carrying him in my arms and he slumped over at one point. We joked he was a robot and his balance meter had broken. Down in the parking lot he found a piece of broken spring and said “This spiral thing broke out of my balance meter.” He wanted to show it to mama, so he carried it to the pool and we found her and showed her, then put it in the bag.

We went and changed into swimsuits, then went in the pool. He just started swimming off among the big kids. Did several high fives with kids, and there was an older guy that he gave high fives to before telling him his hands were
underwater. They talked about other things as well, but I couldn’t hear. Grace came and talked to him and asked him what he thought of the pool. He said “It definitely isn’t the Dead Sea.” Which I think is a sentence I said to him a few minutes earlier when we got in the pool, but I was impressed that he remembered it and used it correctly in context in a conversation. There was another girl with a waterproof camera and he swam up to her and said “Is that waterproof? Is it floating?” She then took a selfie with him.

Carly got in and I got out. They played for several minutes and I got back in for one more swim before the pool closed at 5:45.

We went back to the room. We were talking about the kids in the rooms next to us, boys on one side, girls on the other, and he asked “What gender mean?” I said he was a boy and Vivian was a girl. He disagreed: “I’m a girl, and vivian’s a boy.” He didn’t nurse at all until 6:20. And he told Carly about the cookie: “I ate-ed a cookie after dada bonked my head with the car door.”

Carly went to supervise and we read 26-Story Treehouse. We also played the baby chipmunk game and it was sick. I mentioned having to save it, and he said  “But some animals die at the end of their lives.” Also “Luckily I have a powerful medicine that can kill trillions of viruses growing in my body!” As we left to go to dinner at 6:55 he asked “Is the kiddos awake?”

Dinner was pretty much the same as yesterday, but with mashed potatoes instead of roasted potatoes. And we had a chicken leg as well. He said “Hi Dudley!” a few times but Dudley didn’t hear him, but a few minutes later he was back at the table and did. Before we left at the end of dinner he said bye to Dudley and to Cassie, and gave them and a few other teachers high fives.

Back in the room Carly tried to put him to sleep around 7:40. Didn’t work though, and she went to supervise kids. We read the Treehouse book and then played the Space app. Carly came back about 8:40. He told her “I love you so much; I won’t let you die!” He was asleep by 8:50.

He was up around 6:30. He nursed and played baby with Carly then she got ready to go. We drove her to school as she had her backpack for the trip. As she got out of the car he said a very nice “I love you mama!” to her. But as soon as the door closed he said to me: “Now move.” On the way back he looked out the window and talked about seeing “interesting trees”. We were back at 7:40. We played a lot of the mold and viruses game – at one point he said there were 114 germs growing in him, at another point he said there were books “through your eyes”. He was then a book making machine, making noise and then handing me books:  “Here’s 150 books!”

We watered plants, then did another round of ant battling, closing off more cracks around the sliding door, where they have really reemerged. He played Space and drank milk while I did snacks. We then walked up to the recycling cages to do recycling.

Back home, he went to the bathroom, and wanted me to talk as the poop and pee not wanting to go down the drain. He then said “I can’t get out of this fire! I’m burning up!” Which was disturbing, but then a little less so when I realized he was being the garbage in a garbage power plant.

We got in the car and he said “Bye house!” He had the house say bye back, and said it was a “magic house”. We were driving at 10:05. The drive took about two and a half hours and was, thankfully, rather uneventful. It was, however, very interesting and scenic. We liked all the trees that suddenly appear when you head west (we went down 4, then east past Jerusalem on 1, then south along the Dead Sea on 90). There are trees and hills to Jerusalem, then suddenly you are in the desert.

The terrain of the desert was fascinating, and it felt a bit surreal to be driving through a desert, just me and August, and seeing signs for Ramallah, Jericho, and Jerusalem. I saw camels and donkeys, and a sign for a place called Og (which struck me as I loved the book The Secret World of Og as a kid). We drove through one checkpoint along the way, but were waved right through.

August played games on the iPad and paused and looked out at times. He was the one that spotted a flock of very large birds, maybe forty of them. He was also a machine a lot. We arrived at the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve at 12:28. We were meeting the school group there at 3, and just stopped now to get our bearings, stretch, and have a snack. Didn’t really get out, as as we sat there the temperature ticked up to 102. He sat on my lap though in the driver’s seat and we had a snack. The Vampire Weekend song “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” played on the radio and he said “I like this music.” He also looked out and spotted what he thought were dead trees and pointed to them.

We left and headed to the Ein Gedi Botanical Gardens. It turns out the entire kibbutz of Ein Gedi is the botanical gardens and you pay to get in. We stopped and went into the office to buy tickets. They sell seeds and August wanted to buy some. I looked up a couple things but they were too large for our house areas. We drove in and parked and first went to the small zoo at about 1:30. He seemed to be confused by all the dirt on the ground, asking “Where’s all this dirt from though?”

In the zoo we first saw peacocks, then the brown nutman (Nasua narica) – a Latin/South American raccoon. We watched it drink and cool off in the water. We then walked through the rest of the zoo. It was at least 102, and his face was getting quite flushed. He wanted to go to the coffee shop, and that seemed like a good idea. We saw the monkeys and lemurs (one had a baby on its back – don’t think I got a great photo, as they moved so fast, but they got up quite close to us) and several other animals, then made our way back up the stairs, got back in the stroller, and walked north towards the coffee shop. Along the way we looked at several plants and stopped at the lookout over Wadi Arugot. Near the coffee shop we saw the two huge baobab trees and the ficus.

We went to the Baobar coffee shop inside the hotel. He got a lemon mint slushee and I got the coffee one. I was a little afraid he wasn’t going to like it, but he did and drank most of it. He really liked how it was turning to water and talked a lot about that. If he got some on the table he would use his finger to turn it to water. And he said “I think if other animals ate this they would freeze up. It’s way too cold for them…That’s why I don’t let any raccoon drink my slushee.”

We went out and saw the baobabs and ficus some more and the big date palm. He looked at it and said “I see that kind of tree ALL THE TIME.” We had also seen palm farms at the north end of the Dead Sea.

Carly had said they were running a bit late, so we waited until she said they could see the Dead Sea before we left for the Nature Reserve. We caught up to them just as they were starting the hike at 3:20. As we got hiking he was being machines and said “This machine makes new people out of old people.” We hiked up with the school group until there was a part where you had to walk through a tunnel with a stream in it. Carly was nervous about me hiking with August and that was the limit. She continued on with them and we stopped to play in the stream there. It was actually a really cool spot and we would have been quite content to play there. There was a sign and chain keeping us from one part of the stream and he asked why. We talked about what a nature reserve was and about protecting habitat. He was then a machine that seemed to pick up on that: “This machine needs things that would kill the animals and it puts out good things for the animals to eat.” I was in the middle of getting his full explanation on video when Carly and Ayal came back, saying it wasn’t too much further and we should keep going.

So August walked the rest of the way up and we made it to the David Waterfall. Only had about ten minutes there, but August enjoyed it, wading in the water and playing with rocks. The group headed back, going back the way we had come. Ayal suggested we take the other route, the usual route back, which also made more sense to me as it was in the shade. So Carly and I spent a few minutes longer at the waterfall with August then we headed back. We stopped to watch some ibex feeding and saw one jump up to knock down another branch. There was one section that involved steep narrow stairs with big gaps right through the railing to a cliff several feet tall. But we had August walk down them, with me in front and Carly in back, and we made it down to the bottom. Easy after that.

Followed the busses to the Masada Youth Hostel, listening to the Lumineer’s “Dead Sea” on repeat about 5 times (seemed appropriate). We got to the hostel at 5:20. We got room 217 and the keycard didn’t work so Carly went back and got the regular key. August’s soap had leaked out of the bottle, through the plastic bag, and gotten my short and shirts. Luckily, that was it. So I washed those in the sink and Carly took a shower. I had sweated so much the front of my hat was soaked like I’ve never seen it. August played Elmo Look and Find and Music 4 Kids. Carly went out in the hall to supervise the “kiddos” and August went out after a minute to ask her how they were doing: “Are they doing good, medium, or bad?”

We went to dinner at 7. August wanted to try everything and was very excited by all the food. The first meat we’ve had in Israel since the party as we had a chicken pattie thing here. Grace gave him a high five earlier as he was seeing how the kiddos were doing in the hall, and he would continue to get high fives from Grace and other kids throughout the trip. At the end of dinner he lay down on the floor and said he was sleeping.

Went back to the room while Carly went to the drum circle event. He watched Peg + Cat and I gave him a shower. He did a whole dialogue thing on his own with our talking house, with it saying things like “Wait, where’s Zi
nnie?” He looked out the window at the now dark Dead Sea. I turned off the lights inside so we could actually see but he wanted them back on. We talked about how pupils work though and he said “That’s what my eyes are doing with this light?” He continued to look out, but was looking at his own reflection and doing a little dance with his hands.

He said “I think I should read some books.” We read the awful Mickey Mouse book and Sarah and Duck Stay at the Duck Hotel. He then made his first solo phone call to Carly, where I let him do all the talking, telling her “I want to nurse.” She came back from the drum circle and was nursing him to sleep just before 9.

Photos. Ready to go: 

Pointing at dead trees: 

Sweating at the zoo: 

Looking at the date palm:

At the waterfall: 

Walking back: 

Hot. Very hot: 

View from the hostel looking out at the Dead Sea: 

High five: 

Looking at his reflection: 

Comfy while reading: 

He was up at 6:10 again. Watched Wanda and the Alien. He was a little frustrated with Carly for going to work and wouldn’t say goodbye to her. Had banana bread for breakfast, then played Dragonbox Numbers and ate bread upstairs in the bathroom while I took a shower. Back downstairs he started a big game on the couch involving being viruses and mold. He had asked about the mold again in the bathroom and why we open the window and I mentioned why it is bad for your lungs to breathe in mold. He was also an airplane motor “To the countryside.” And he talked about going for a walk and wanted to find full green garbage cans “A different street each day.” We never actually got out on that walk today.

He kept being white blood cells and mold, climbing on my chest to be each, with the white blood cells having a “yummy dinner” of the mold cells in my lung. At one point he got off and as he played Human Body said a whole dialogue that he made up between white blood cells and mold cells as their dinner, which ended with the mold cells saying they were dying. He was also my heart pumping and I explained the path of the read blood cells through my body, like in Human Body.

We moved over to the air conditioner and continued the moldy air game, as he was breathing in moldy air. And it got more interesting: “I’m a drill putting a hole in a pipe leaking mold in your lungs.”

We spotted ants, and then took a good amount of time finally deploying wet and dry borax for the ants, both inside and out. We’ll see how that works. He watched an episode of Puffin Rock, then we went and watered the seeds, then played the Pip and Pop game. We read two books: Look after Your Planet and That’s NOT a Hippopotamus! He went to the bathroom, then he was a paper cutting tree, doing karate in the living room, chopping up paper coming off a conveyor belt and making newspapers.

We left at 11:10 to head to school and pick up a car seat that Israel Cassie is letting us borrow for the trip. As we drove there he said “Mama said there’s a hedgehog there that looks like Spikey.” He ate apple as we waited for Cassie. One slice had some peel on it and he told me “You can eat it if you want, dada.” She came out to her car and gave us the seat. August was unimpressed, but when I said he could see better he agreed to try it out. So I put it in and he moved into it. He said he still liked the one in Pennsylvania better though.

We drove over to the Drorim Mall and went to the Tiv Taam. Not a cart in sight, although there were only a few people in the store. When we left there were suddenly tons of them – August thought that was pretty funny. A couple times aswe walkedthrough the mall and started shopping I would say something and he’d say “Oh, okay dada.” After we had just two items he needed to use the bathroom, so we popped out to do that. Back in the store, he was helping push the cart and said “My turn now”. I wondered where he got that line and realized it was something that Mossy says on Puffin Rock when they are moving rocks from in front of Bernie’s grotto.

A pretty quick trip through the store, getting water and a water bottle, granola bars, and Cheez-its for the trip and a few other things. August was a crane helping to put things on the conveyor belt and take them off. Oh, and in the store he started dancing to the music that was playing. And near the end I asked if he wanted to get a drink and he chose apple juice. He then said “Oh, thank you.” and gave me a hug.

We stopped in the mall to drink the apple juice and try one of the granola bars, then headed home and got home at 1:10. He found a feather on the sidewalk and said “I WONDER what kind of bird it is.” But then he decided to leave it behind and set it down and said “Bye bye feather. Bye, August…It’s a magical feather!”

We went in and quickly made pizza with salmon and zucchini for lunch and ate it, then headed back to the school, getting there at 2:35. We went to the library and he needed to go to the bathroom. We used the bathroom there and he saw a drain in the floor. He said “I don’t think it’s for anything. It’s just random.” We went into the library and there was a class finishing story time in our normal area. We grabbed the box of small animals and played with them at the other end of the room. We found (well, he spotted) some bean bags and played on those. Mainly with the crocodile chomping my finger: “Crocodiles can be REALLY dangerous!” We were by the poetry section and I got a Shel Silverstein book I’d never read (Every Thing On It, or something like that) and a Jack Perlusky collection. The class left and we went over to the picture book section. He spotted the Curious George section and we got Curious George Goes to the Hospital and we sat in the story area and read it. He also found…

After that we started to go to check out our books and return all the other. But he saw a boy watching Paw Patrol on one of the computers and was captivated. I left him there and went and did the checking out. Grace and a friend came in and said hi, then went back to see August and gave him high fives. Oh, he also stopped to watch a student printing something at the printer.

We went and found Carly at 3:45. They printed something, then played classroom. He used the highlighters, then wanted to know how clothes are made. He said a different desk was that classroom, and they found a video on YouTube. Then he wanted to know how you make buildings. He moved and said “This is the building class”.

We had planned to go swimming but he had wanted to play with Carly instead. As we were leaving he also talked about wanting to see the hedgehog, but I told him next time.

At home I cooked up an okara pattie for him and he ate that with ketchup, then played a little Dragonbox Numbers. He wanted a blanket to be cozy, so I got that. We read Du Is Tak? and he really liked that. It is about insects who build a treehouse in a plant that grows. It uses a madeup bug language, so you have to use the pictures to pick up on clues as to what they are saying. The sweet potato fries were ready, so we ate those for the rest of dinner. Carly was upstairs finishing packing during much of this.

On the couch he was making a tunnel under my legs, moving my legs to adjust it. Then it was the Pip and Pop game. Carly skyped with Chuck and Cherie and August showed them the insect book, as Cherie was the one who had brought it to my attention. We watched one episode of Puffin Rock, then he was kicking pillows down from the couch like in the episode about Bernie’s grotto being blocked – he was being May.

I gave him a shower, then we went in on the bed. He played with Carly: “I’m gonna be the motor of the rocket…you’re gonna be the person going to space.” He was also a chain machine and a towel machine. He was asleep at 7:30.

He nursed at 5:50, fell asleep briefly, and was up at 6:10. He played Dragonbox Big Numbers after Carly stopped nursing. He was working to make the last building. I went and got him underwear to change into. Carly left and he was fine. We had dried Cheerios and he got the game to start making the final building. We discussed what he could do while he waited for it, and there is a place he can exchange could nuggets to coins. He said “Change punches for coins?” He’s always called them ‘punches’ and I don’t know where that came from.

About 7:50 I heard someone moving our garbage can and got him ready so he could go out and see the garbage truck when it came. He wanted to go out right away, so we went and waited for the truck. He played on the teeter totter while he waited, and realized he still had his pajama shirt on. It came at 8 and we watched it pick up all the cans on our street. He then wanted a “walk and carry”.

I just locked the gate and we walked west, around the roundabout, then back. On the way back we saw the garbage can again and watched it and he found two big leaves that he used as wings. We walked over towards the bridge and speculated on whether the cafes would be open at the mall. He wanted to go find out, but I said another day. A couple times I suggested going home and he said something like “I just want to keep walking and the machine will put out empty garbage cans.” We also went up to the park and he played a little on exercise equipment. We then walked the back path back to the house and were home at 8:30.

He spotted the black and white car drinking from the dish. He found a random seed on the green chair. We went in and had toast for breakfast (he kept saying the jam was the best, but didn’t eat either of the jam pieces until after eating the honey ones and the cheese ones) then he lay in the floor for awhile, went to the bathroom, and realized I’d raised the air conditioner temperature: “Why’s it not 17?…Did YOU change it?”

We started making banana bread, but then I noticed another truck outside. It was a lift truck and they were changing burnt out light bulbs in the streetlight, and one was right outside our fence. We went out and watched the guy change it. We then planted the tomato seeds in the can and August watered them. We also planted the random seed that August had found. We talked a lot about the watering: “Why the soil sucks up all the water and says ‘I like this water’?”

We went back to banana bread. He asked “Can I have more brown sugar since I was so sad this morning?” He then developed a game where I pretended to be an ingredient, not wanting to get stirred in: “Can you pretend to be baking soda not wanting to get mixed in?” When we were done he licked the spatula and wanted to play Dragonbox (Little) Numbers. He then went to the bathroom and said “Besides, I don’t think I’m gonna be very long…No, poop too.”  Talking about the sound the toilet paper roll holder makes upstairs when he clangs it to tell us he is done he asked “Sounds like a car breaking down?…Remember, from the Peppa Pig story?”

The banana bread was about done, so I prepared pizzas and put them in when the bread was done. We ate pizza for lunch, then while I was on the phone with the guy at Skoda about the roof of the car we cut into the banana bread and ate some of that.

We went back to Dragonbox (little) Numbers. He hasn’t played with one in a long time and it was cool to see the difference. He was talking about how he was estimating the lengths of the blocks as he added them up, and seemed like he was more cognizant of combining numbers in different ways.

I took a shower, then we played more together downstairs. He very seriously told me his favorite part of the game: “The part for me that’s really important is tracing…For stars.” We then read some of Hilo and ate more banana bread. We looked at Google Maps together to decide what to do today, then played with the Space app. We then used the pillows to pretend to be a rocket taking off. We played the distance game thing on Space and talked about AUs.

We had been lazy around the house long enough and finally got ready to go and left at 2:35. A 15 minute drive, and he fell asleep about 10 minutes in. I drove north to HaAlonin Park (or Sargeant’s Grove, or Netanya Forest) and parked. I got him out of his verse but he said something including “No” and lay down across the entire back seat. I went to the other door and picked him up. He slept on my shoulder as I carried him into the park. He woke up at 3:05 as I put him in the backpack. I gave him some ‘waking up’ mints and he talked about the fruit flavored ones being the waking up ones and said “I don’t know if carrot tic tacs or mints even exist.”

Nothing too exciting in the park. It is a flat forest a few blocks square in the middle of the growing city. So the breeze and shade was nice. We walked around and he hummed the whole time and made music. At one point he said “this music will last hundreds…Trillions of years…Trillions of machines!” We spotted one playground but he wanted to keep walking longer. We walked to the east end and found a second playground. He liked the trees there: “This one looks different…I want to find out what those trees are.” I realized one of the trees was still half green – it seemed they were dying trees. He asked a lot about that, then we walked up on the observation tower. Up there he talked about how far he could see. I asked, of the big construction site off in the distance “Do you see a them working?” He replied “No, not right now. I think they’re having lunch. The cranes aren’t moving.” “I can see hundreds and hundreds of miles away without getting closer to them.” He also spotted a tree in the grove below us that was also clearly dead.

We got walking (and making music) again. We walked back to the first playground. It was also mostly in the sun, but he spotted that the end of the slide wasn’t and talked about how he could go down it. But he never did, as we got out of the backpack and he spent all the time digging in the dirt and playing with dead grass.

We talked to Carly about picking her up from work, and left at 4:05. On the path he spotted the markings and said “That’s a long, long F.” He hasn’t spotted letters in random things for quite awhile.

We were driving at 4:15 and picked up Carly in front of the school and then headed home. He stayed in the car for a few minutes, playing. When we went in he said “When we were driving and I was playing Gro Garden I was about to move on to another game I haven’t played in awhile.”

Inside he nursed and played baby with Carly while I ate dinner, then we were animals and played hospital with me. We used the stuffed animals and had hospital beds for all of them and him. We were then robots destroying each other.

He had earlier gotten out the blue bag and wanted to do recycling, so he and I went to do that now. He took off walking, but part way asked “Will you carry me dada robot? There’s lots of dog poop there.” We did the recycling, then he wanted to play at the playground. We played on a couple of things, then he wanted to do the waking me up game on the slide. We did that, and he said “This game is for three year olds only…When I am five years old I will still play this game cuz I will be heavier and hurt you more.” He saw other kids with his shoes off and wanted to take his off, so I said yes. He slid down a few more times and found that he could walk up and down the slide with his shoes off. So I was laying there, waiting for him to come down. I heard him say “Oh, this is fun”, then a second later I heard him fall and his head crashed into mine. We got up, and the first things he said “Is mama gonna tell? I don’t want mama to know.” He repeated the second sentence as I carried him back. Not sure why he didn’t want Carly to know.

We got home and Carly heated c
orn and spaghetti for him, which he devoured. Carly took him upstairs and started laundry. He did a “Mama said…” as we got stuff to put in laundry. He’s been doing that more often, being able to tell me something she’s told him. Earlier, it was with the Space app and weighing the planets on scales: “Mama said that means it weighs more.”

Carly gave him his bath at 7:15 and they played on the bed together while I put the Israel Lonely Planet book on Carly’s Kindle. I went up to say good night. Carly said “Got me brown tree.” August asked “Why you say ‘brown tree’s? Is the tree dying?” He was asleep by 8.

Photos: 

He was up at 6:30 and saw me “What? Mama go to work?…I’m gonna go downstairs. You stay on the bed.” He left and closed the door behind him. They played the baby game. There was lots of talk about runny yellow poop, then he had just started watching Wanda and the Alien when I went down. We ate Cheerios and I sat next to him. He played the baby game with Carly again for a long time “Dada said it’s play time but the baby has to sleep. Sorry dada, the baby has to sleep.” The baby would also poop and he would want Carly to go bury it outside, like a cat. He and I read a couple books. We purchased Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Space Adventure, which turned out to be simply awful, as the plot was basically incoherent, and read Peg + Cat The Chicken Problem.

I then went and took a shower. I came down to August being really dramatic: “If you cut my hair I will not love you!” He was watching Puffin Rock, and eating cookies, but the hair cutting wasn’t going too well. He also said “I want to go to dada!…Dada loves me!” I sat down and tried to hold him and help, but we didn’t do much better. He would let her cut his bangs, but touching his ears or neck was too much.

About 11 we left and headed to the Ir Yamim mall in south Netanya. We parked, then went in and first looked for the shoe repair place, which was on the basement level. August and I looked at a baby/kid store while Carly found it, then Carly went to look at backpacks and water bottles at an outdoor store. He and I first went and looked down a colorful hallway that he said looked like a pipe. It was an entrance to a bowling alley. We went back and into the store with Carly. We also got a first aid kit for the car. Not sure if it was usual behavior, but when Carly then went to pay the guy first tried to sell her a different water bottle, then questioned her backpack selection.

We wandered around much of the rest of the mall to see what was there. August looked down from the second floor at a juice place we might try in the future. Our one other stop was the Fox Home store, which has reasonably priced home goods. Didn’t buy anything, but we might in a week when we come back to pick up Carly’s shoes.

From there we drove up to the nursery at Tel Yitzhak, just south of the school. August and I looked around for outdoor plants, then at the seeds. August was pointing at the seeds to tell me which he wanted to plant: “That and that and that and that…” He really wanted tomatoes though for mama, so we got those. He was disappointed that I said pumpkins weren’t an option. Carly found a wooden box to put inside under the air conditioner and chose three plants to put in it. There was a cat on the counter that inspected our stuff as we bought it, and a black kitten nearby. August was happy while we checked out and Carly went to get the car and I hauled things to the exit as he was stepping on the little bits of tile on the floor.

On the way home August was talking to himself in the car, and I figured out he was telling the Wanda and the Alien story where Alien stops the waves and they talk to the sea creatures.

We were home at 4:20. Carly planted the plants and August watched. I killed the ants and rewashed the dishes. We suddenly have a lot of ants coming in from near the sliding door. I also went and got the old metal can from the driveway area to use to plant tomatoes in later. Carly made oatmeal for August and he ate two full servings with fresh mango. They played more baby game: “I want to pretend to be a baby in your tummy, please.” Then we played squirrels, with a digger destroying his nest, like in the Bill Peet Shady Glade book: “The digger that parks across the street…It’s a mean digger.” They nursed, then went upstairs to look for dragons. I played around with him up there, growling. Dragons are a mean animal to him now, much like there are now mean robots. The robots I understand, from Hilo, but I’m not sure where the mean dragons originated. I was singing Puff the Magic Dragon on the way up, but he wasn’t convinced.

We played the Hilo game, with him destroying bad robots. At one point there were 973 Hilos. We were all getting ready to leave: I was going to drive to Ikea and they were going to the mall to do some shopping and get a smoothie. I joked that he couldn’t have fun without me, and if he did have a little fun he had to take a photo. He asked Carly at one point “Why are we leaving dada behind‽”

We all left at the same time. At Ikea I looked through the upstairs, which we had not done last time. They called while I was in the store and August said  “I’m having so much fun!” I ended up scouting out things like book shelves and cushions for the swing. I got a set of sheets, a drill, a set of tools, a tape measure…think that was it.

I was home at 6:20. Drove there on the main road, then back through the Keara Netter route, without needing the map, so that felt good. When I came in August announced “I’m having so much fun!…infinity fun, never stopping!” I asked what they had done and he told me “Buyed-ed stuff and after we buyed-ed stuff I got a smoothie.” He kept thinking that Carly was making pizza but it was baked spaghetti. We ate that for dinner, then they played the Flynne game. He was Pip and Pop (funny that he is always both of them) and Carly was Flynne and he kept throwing up “Owl pellets in Flynne’s lair.” And they were picking strawberries that were ripe.

Just after 7 we skyped with my parents. August typed and talked to them a bit (we discussed the fires in Washington and dad asked what a fire needs and August did a pretty good job of remembering the three things), then played Dragonbox Big Numbers and Carly and I were able to talk to them. I took August up for his shower and washed his hair. He got the bed wet as usual, then we used the pillow as a rocket and flew to Venus. He didn’t want to stay there though as he’s afraid of the volcanos, so we had special space suits, although he was still wary of them. He really wanted to read the Mickey Mouse book again, so Carly volunteered to do it. She thought it was awful too and told me to delete it. He was asleep at 8:45.

Baby trying to sleep: 

Car inspecting our purchases: 

Our new plants: 

Shark socks: 

He was up around 6 to go to the bathroom. He tried to go back to sleep on his own and lay there for a few minutes. They got up at 6:10. They read That’s not a Hippopotamus and made a stump. He had milk, and was playing Airplane on the iPad when I got up a bit later. We played chipmunk game and snake. He said there was an egg pipe into our house, bringing eggs for the snake. I went up to take a shower and as I went I heard August try to understand where he came from, asking Carly: “But where were you when you weren’t anywhere?…In your tummy?…Were you underground?…we were all born?” and asking how he got in mama.

We were getting ready early to go to the beach before it got really busy and hot. Before we left, he asked “Do I have all my clothes on?” Something he’s been doing regularly before we leave the house. So far we haven’t forgotten his pants or anything. We left at 8:50. Carly drove and we went to south downtown Netanya and parked by Argaman’s Beach. We walked north along the trail for 15 or 20 minutes. We stopped in the shade of a hotel where August played on these snake-like concrete benches and Carly went to find a bathroom. He climbed over those, then found plastic spoons that he took and threw in the garbage. Carly came back, and we headed back south. He was a machine that was making drinks for me, starting with a “Bottle of wine.” Which I think he knows because I wouldn’t get him out of the cart in the wine section at Tiv Taam yesterday. He also found a metal nut on the ground and said “I want to go home and start a bolt collection.” But a minute later he decided he didn’t want it. A small dog walked by and he shouted “Don’t lick me!”

We got back to the car and kept walking down the hill to Argaman’s Beach. The beach here isn’t sheltered like the other beach, so the breaking waves come right to shore. August spent most of his time playing in the sand, and Carly and I took turns going out and floating and swimming. The second time I went out far enough that I couldn’t touch the bottom. That was far enough. August waded in with me for awhile. We went up to the showers and August played in the sand and faucets and the stream from the shower area.

We left there at 11:20 and stopped at the bathrooms, then made the steep walk up the hill to the car. We got to the big Tiv Taam at 11:50. Actually, first we were going to go to Arcaffe to eat, but it was crowded. So we went and got a cart. Carly had to go back to the car to get a 5 shekel coin to get the cart. Then, after just a minute in the store, August and I parked the cart and went a few feet away to get corn. We turned around and someone had stolen our cart. Not only theft (albeit of about $1.50), but also we couldn’t get another cart. And there were no baskets available. Luckily, we found a big kid car/cart and used that. Very difficult to steer around the store with its crowded and narrow aisles though.

August found two Skittle-type candies in the car thing as he rode in it. He didn’t even think of eating them though, instead wanting to take them home to see what would happen if he put them in water.

We finished shopping, Carly went and got the car, and we were home at 1:20. Played a little iPad, then we played that the shrew crew was in the hospital. We read Peg + Cat The Chicken Problem twice. Carly cut up a mango for him and he ate all of it, then had some of the rice stuff. We read A Pocket for Corduroy. Carly was making spaghetti, and August had a little of that. He nursed and pretended to be a baby in Carly, tasting what she ate. We were then pretending to be cats:

Him: “There’s infinity poop in your bottom.”

Me: “How’d it get there?”

Him: “From your infinity of eating.”

We were then a garbage truck and power plant: “LOADS of power.” “This is a meter that shows how much garbage there is.” He then wanted to go recycle, but first played upstairs, throwing all the dirty clothes down the stairs. They nursed, and he was falling asleep. Woke him up by saying it was popsicle time. We had gotten some at the grocery store. We went and ate them outside. They were raspberry with raspberry ice cream in the middle. Carly swept the tree things that fell because of the wind last night. It was probably more than I picked up all through the week. August picked one of them apart using his tweezers, sitting in front of the kitchen door, with raspberry all over his face. He went to the bathroom and we finally started to get going to the playground at 5:15.

But while I was locking the door he somehow fell on the steps. Carly came out to comfort him, then he was distracted by something falling from the tree. Carly went back inside, and I was able to get him to head to recycling after we watched a bird singing for a minute.

We walked up and did all our recycling, then went to the playground. Went on the standup teeter totter, but then he bonked his head a bit when he was getting off. A first, as when he got upset his first inclination was to run home. I stopped him before he got out. I picked him up and took him over to the drinking fountain. He usually really likes it as it drains to the grass. Got him to calm down, though he didn’t care about it. Instead, he saw a little boy going to pee in the bushes, then I got him interested in the green hanging chair thing. Then, we remembered the game we had talked about playing earlier: Hilo. He was generally Hilo and I was the bad robots and he was destroying me by attacking me and putting leaves and water in my parts and having it rain on me, etc. He is now one of those boys we used to always see pretending to be superheroes in the parks in Korea.

He found a bottle in the playground and we went over to the plastic cage and recycled it. By the recycling he started stuffing my pockets with leaves (to break the bad robots). We were standing close to the garbage and I told him I wanted to get back in the playground, away from it. He said “I LOVE stinky garbage. I LOVE stinky garbage.”

It was getting close to sundown, the end of Shabbat, and the playground started to fill up. August both liked this, but was also bothered by how busy it was. He saw other kids playing in just their underwear and he wanted his shirt off. Took that off, and he went and played on the play structure and went down the slide a few times. Busy, but we managed to do the game where he slides into me once or twice.

Eventually he said “I want to go home cuz there’s all this barking and kids…But why are there all these kids? It’s close to nighttime soon.” We actually kept playing, and it was me, getting quite hungry, who eventually got us to head home about 6:20.

Carly had baked some of the spaghetti, because that’s a thing we can do now. We ate dinner, then he played the Space app with Carly. Carly took him up to a shower, then he got the bed wet and told me “I want to play blanket fights.” When I said we didn’t really have blankets he said he couldn’t do anything. Eventually we read some Hilo, then Carly came up. He kept wanting to read, but also wanted to nurse. Eventually sleep won out and he went to sleep about 7:45.

Photos. Playing on the benches: 

Playing at the beach: 

Popsicle: 

Shirt off at the playground: 

He woke up at 6:10. They nursed, then came down and read the Look After Your Planet Charlie and Lola book while I installed the Space app on his iPad. He and I then read it as Carly headed to work. We opened the windows as it was slightly cooler this morning, then played some owls and shrews before he went to the bathroom. Played the Space app on my iPad, then Simple Machines. Then we played the Pip and Pop owl game, hunting for mice, etc. Then we had some banana bread for breakfast. After that we went out to fill the cat water and pick up the tree things. Then back inside and more owls. Somehow that changed into a robot game and he was breaking me. He watched Wanda and the Alien and I exercised then took a shower, after which we had more banana bread. He was then a bad robot: “It’s painting your eyes and feeding you paint.” Pip and Pop were sick, and he did a lot of talking about white blood cells.

We talked about our plans and goals for the day, and for some reason he started talking about chocolate. I mentioned that I don’t love chocolate like he and mama do, and he asked “You don’t love chocolate?” He seemed incredulous, although this isn’t news to him. He lay on the floor, quiet, and I went to get things ready to go. After a minute I noticed that he was still silent, and curled up on the floor. I went over and asked if he was okay. He whispered something into the floor, and when I asked him what he said he said more loudly “You don’t love chocolate!” And then he started crying. I picked him up and we ended up sitting together on the couch. He calmed down once, but started crying again. Eventually, he was okay and played the Space app while I made lunch.

Packed lunch for at the park, then we looked at our library books. He went back and forth between wanting to return them all to the library and wanting to keep all of them forever. We read That’s NOT a Hippopotamus, then got outside at 11:50. A few minutes outside playing on the teeter totter, then left right at noon. He asked if we could go to a gas station in case we ran out of gas.

In the car he played the Airplane app and said that the characters wanted to go to another country. When I asked which country, he said “all the countries”. We parked and were in Ra’anana Park at 12:30. That was pretty much the limit of his comfortable driving for now, I think. He spent the last couple minutes wanting to be unbuckled.

He got to put coins in the parking meter, then we went in and found a bench and ate some lunch. Or at least I did, as he only ate a couple bites of peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He didn’t have much of an appetite today. Then playing with the leaves and dirt, before going on a swing for quite awhile, doing more machines, like an electric swing machine. We eventually went over to the acorn spaceship. He complained he didn’t have a spacesuit though as “Any store doesn’t sell spacesuits.” He played with the tunnel thing while we waited for a baby, but then only spent a minute in the acorn rocket.

We spent a few minutes discussing the concept of ‘space’ and trying to understand it, then I suggested we head over to the zoo. He asked “Cuz flamingoes is my best?”

We went to the zoo and watched the chlorocebus monkeys, then he needed to go to the bathroom. Did that, and were talking about why people need wheelchairs and how limbs can’t grow back (“Why?”). He started playing with the dried grass, etc. and said he was making grass smoothies. While he did that I took photos of the emu and sika deer. We then walked over and saw the caspian turtle and tried to find the mara. There were a few water birds (said they had pelicans, but didn’t see any) and he started crushing up feathers and leaves on the ground and making feather and leaves smoothies.

About 2 we got going, and went to a water fountain where we got a drink and washed off his hands. He then promptly grabbed a handful of dirt and got muddy hands which required a re-washing. Got driving at 2:13, headed towards WBAIS.

He fell asleep right as we got to the school. Carried him in, still mostly asleep, and he started to wake up for the big stuffed animals and Amanda, who greeted us. We went and got two Tomie dePaola books, Tom and Pancakes for Breakfast, which we read in his nest of stuffed animals. Weren’t all that impressed with either, and decided at the end not to check out any new books (since he couldn’t decide we had just brought all of them, in case). We also met Marina, who had previously taken our photo while we read in the library and who is working with Carly on student research projects.

Before we left we went and looked at books a bit and August discovered that in a corner of the library they have a big container full of hand puppets and stuffed animals, and other toys. More reason for us to spend more time here in the future. We left at 3:15 and then went to the cold drinking fountain, with steps, then on the way back towards the hedgehog the guy who is running the trip next week started talking to me. August started picking up leaves and dropping them through the railing to the ground below (when the wind didn’t blow them back), and that was where we still were when Carly found us at 3:30.

Almost went back to Carly’s room to play the student and teacher game, but decided on home instead, and got here at 3:45. Carly cooked the new veggie patties we had found, then we realized there were a bunch of new ants in the kitchen – they had found a gap in the patch job on the wall behind the sink. At first it wasn’t clear where they were coming from though, so I looked under the sink with the flashlight. August liked this and helped out. Patched the hole.

They nursed, and at one point August said “Don’t mind if I do.” Which was pretty funny. I think I finally figured out that it is something that Mossy the shrew says on Puffin Rock. Talking about the ants, August very politely said “I don’t mind if they get my food from the ground…Can they get the food from the floor?” We then played the animal game, taking care of sick shrews, etc. He and I were then sort of cuddling on the couch while Carly got ready to go on a walk. She joined us for a bit when we were too lazy to get up.

We finally left at 5:40, Carly driving, and went to a parking lot by the community center in northern Even Yehuda. August liked all the branches and pieces of bark in the windy parking lot. We got walking and walked around several blocks. Almost convinced Carly to take a painting by a garbage can and turn it into a zombie for her friend Paul, and we almost took an old wooden chair we saw elsewhere. Turned around at one point because of a dog wandering the street. As we went August would want leaves and branches from the ground and would rip them apart.

We got home at 6:45. He asked “Can I play the planets game? Learn all about the solar systems?” So he played Space for awhile. Carly took a shower and we played the chipmunk game, talking about the seasons. Carly took him up and gave him a shower, then he was hyper on the bed. I stayed with him and he was crazy for a minute, then I got my iPad. We read Peppa Big Ballet Lesson and The Curious Garden, and then bought Peg + Cat The Chicken Problem. He talked about how if he loved it he’d want to read it over and over and over again, never stopping. We read it twice, but I decided that was enough. Carly came up, and August made sure he got a kiss from me. He was asleep about 8:40.

Spaceship:

Sika deer: 

Playing in the library. He has a sore tummy: 

Crry branches on our evening walk: 

Peeking out: 

He woke up at 7:15. Silently came down and lay on the floor. Sat up when he spotted two birds on the wire outside. Sat there for awhile. Went to the bathroom, and we heard the garbage truck go by. Missed it by the time we went outside. But then August wanted to take stuff up to recycling. So we got the bag and headed out. The garbage truck now went by on the east-west street and we went and watched it pick up a couple cans. We then walked up and did the recycling, and on the way back got to see the street sweeper truck doing its job up close. August picked up some caps from bottles that were left on the ground and wanted to throw them away at home, so we put them in our bag.

As we got home he speculated on where the actual garbage goes, since we don’t know where it goes here. He said “Maybe it goes to Korea where it’s turned to electricity.” At home we tried the coconut milk, then had Cheerios with a mix of milks for breakfast. He wanted to play more Music for Kids and did a few more levels. He took his shirt off because it had gotten a little wet from the milk. He wanted me to build a stump. I asked if I should turn music on and he said “I love music! New music. Every day I want you to play new music.” We then played a lot of the owl game, talking a lot about times of day, and owl pellets.

Hungry, so had some banana bread, then he was talking about his water bottles and trying to remember how many big ones and small ones we have, which led us to talk about the one we lost at Teuni Teuni class. He saw crumbs on his chair and brushed them on the floor when I told him not to. He wanted me to play, but I told him I couldn’t since I had to clean up after him. He stood by the kitchen door, quiet, for a minute while I cleaned, then he came up and gave me a hug and said “Hug…make you play with me.”

We were now being the mice, then he was a turtle hibernating. We weren’t sure about the details of turtle hibernation so we looked it up and read it. Played a little Music 4 Kids, then watched Wanda and the Alien and laughed a lot while I took a shower.

We got ready to go, and about something he was asking “Why?” When I didn’t answer all of his repeated ‘why’ questions he asked “Will you explain all my questions to me?”

We left the house at 11:25. Outside he looked at the weeds, etc. and said there were boxes all over me. Then said I was a vacuum. Then he said there was blood in the boxes. Then random batteries. He saw ants by the weeds and talked to them: “Ants there. I think they’re eating the plants. Sorry ants! We just have weeds. Of some sort.”

We left for real at 11:45. As we got in he was combining the Wanda and the Alien theme song with the Sarah and Duck one: “Wanda and the Alien. Quack.” We drove down to the big Tiv Taam by Ikea. We finally found a parking spot then went and got a cart. He put the coin in. We were shopping by 12:10. He did pretty well in the store for quite awhile, but we were there for a long time. He spotted meat, and on his own said “Meat! I don’t like meat that much! I don’t like to eat animals.” We spent a long time shopping and finding things. We found pie crusts, then went and got a pie can and discussed making quiche. He asked what quiche was, and I described it. He remembered having it in Chelan: “You had it at gramma and grampa’s?” He liked looking around the kitchen supplies area, kind of a store in a store, and made machine noises and dragged me over to look at things. I also got a clear glass mug.

We found the bathroom in one of the corners, then went and finished our shopping. He helped me unload the cart onto the conveyor belt, and after I paid I said something and he said “Oh, okay dada crane.” We had apparently been cranes putting things on the conveyor belt. We folded up the stroller, which we had left outside, then took the cart to the car and unloaded, then returned the cart.

We were both hungry, and thought about going to a cafe, but while driving I realized it was in the same complex where I saw Dunkirk, and I think we had to pay for parking. Couldn’t find street parking, and August liked the idea of going straight home.

We got home before 2:30. We made a banana, mango, plum, blackberry, yogurt smoothie that turned out quite well. I hurriedly cleaned up, then we hopped back in the car and went and picked Carly up at school at 3:30.

I drove us to the Skoda dealership in Ra’anana. There, we were led to the snack area where a guy named Jakob made us coffee drinks and August got a slice of chocolate cake. Carly then started the paperwork with Shmuel, the same guy who had helped us before. We traded off with August, with me talking to Shmuel about the exact car we wanted. August had fun spinning in the chairs. I joked that I had told him no spinning, and he told me “You joke all the time!” He was getting crazy, and at one point told me “You didn’t un-crazy me!” Carly took him out and he was a waste treatment plant out on the stairs. Back inside with me he pretended to be a broken machine that destroyed all the cars and popped the balloons.

We ended up getting the high-end Skoda Fabia in the denim blue color we liked. Pretty much exactly the car they had on display, but we got the lighter interior, which is half grey. The only thing I didn’t ask about is whether the top will be white. We also got the backing camera and they are going to check about putting on the roof racks. Not too worried about the outside appearance, as we really like the color anyway, and we got the exact interior we wanted. Well, I would have also liked the big sunroof, but those are aren’t available anytime soon. We paid 2000 shekels today, then the embassy files paperwork, etc.

We got home at 5:30. We had some dinner, then he and I played the owl games. He was Pip and Pop and they were needing blood transfusions. And “Pip and Pop saw something…something spongey and soft…a sea sponge.” Carly Skyped with Chuck and Cherie. August wasn’t a great Skype partner as we were looking for books in Skybrary and read The Ink Garden of Beother Theophane and Albert the Fix-It Man. We then read some Hilo.

Carly took him up to start his shower, then I washed his hair. After making his water rockets on the bed he wanted the Space app, so we played that together, discussing the planets. He then sat on a pillow and we pretended that was a rocket launching. He went asleep about 8:40.

Morning: 

Recycling: 

Smile: 

Pushing (and doing a silly walk) at Tiv Taam: 

Waiting for the blender: 

Drinking the smoothie: 

Signing the car paperwork: 

He was up at 7:02. Nice and happy and came down and took several minutes on the couch to wake up. Had some Cheerios on the couch and watched Puffin Rock. He got creative: “I’m sure a bird is going to put a hole in the roof and put a lot of empty garbage in here…I’m gonna get my hole machine that makes holes in our house.” “The ants can eat my stomach acid…Only if I eat them I will let them.”

He played Human Body for awhile. And “When my crumbs stay in the air gravity helps it fall to the ground so the ants can eat it.” And he had a machine that put blue circles in, like the ones in Human Body that track blood cells through the heart: “The machine is putting more of the circles in your body.”

Being owls we headed outside and found things to smell. He decided to kill some of the weeds using his rake: “It’s killing the weeds cause it’s sharp and pointy.” I found a big nail over in the dirt strip, and he used it to break up clumps of dirt. And he talked about wanting to see cats drink from the water.

We went back inside and took care of shrews with blood infections and other problems: “I ated a cloud! I drinked all the water so it not rain. The shrews didn’t want it raining so the shrews dranked all the water up in the clouds.” I prescribed vegetables for the shrews and he ended up having them eat things like celery juice. We ended up looking up what shrews actually eat, as in Puffin Rock they just eat berries. So then he had them eating worms and stuff.

He was hungry and we found the salmon. Opened a can and he proceeded to eat the whole can, chunk by chunk and the last two pieces of pancake that he had left from earlier. Shmuel called about bringing the papaya plants someday, and Carly texted to let me know she was headed to Holon to get the number for getting a car. She was successful with that and we plan on going to order a car tomorrow.

In eating the fish we talked about meat and fish and eating animals. He played Gro Recycling while I showered. Then we made banana bread. He was most excited by the brown sugar, but also helped with the mixing and pouring. He enjoyed checking on it occasionally as it got bigger in the oven. He played Music for Kids and we worked on the music challenges on it. The banana bread was ready so took it out and had some. It turned out really well and he liked it. Too much, actually, as I realized I should have had us eat lunch first. Now he just wanted banana bread. I heated up pilaf and mushrooms but he didn’t want it. I put it in a container to take with us.

Randomly, he said “When mama gives me a shower she never opens the window…If mama lets the mold grow I will kill the mold. Yeah, I will kill the mold when it grows on my clothes.” I had told him why I had opened the bathroom window after my shower, but that was a couple hours earlier.

We got ready to go, and he had the idea of doing recycling, so we walked up and did that with the four or five things we have. We then got in the car and left, about 2:10, and drove over to a park I had seen just a little north of the school. There are all sorts of new climbing things there, and he spent some time going from one thing to the next to try them out. He was a little upset that some things, like the hamster wheel kind of toy, were in the sun. He ended up on a swing and spent a long time there – his first long swing session in Israel. While on the swings he wanted me to look on my phone and figure out where we should go after he was done playing. And he talked about how he was getting bored of the bowl he broke and wanted a new one anyway.

He was then an electric post machine (like light poles he saw around us) and had me put them up. He switched to being a banana bread dough machine, then said “Now it’s an electric post machine now.” I had thought he said toast. I told him that and then he was: “Next it’s gonna be robot toast you can eat with grapes and chocolate and raspberries on it.” He was making loud machine noises and they went on and on: “The machine needs a lot more power than the one that killed you and pollutes the earth completely!” “More so any neighbors can’t live on earth!” “Now the machine barely needs any power.” Then a machine that made hard candies (that kids broke their teeth on) and that made the step things for the playground. Some machines barely needed any power (like our new light bulbs) while other barely needed any pieces (perhaps the ‘reduce’ part of RRR that I discussed with him earlier). Finally, he was a gummy worm machine.

He got off the swings at 3:20 for water, and was ready to go. We were going to go into town and to the hardware store to get a new bowl to replace the one he broke. He then asked “Can you look on your phone, see where we should go next after we buy a bowl, please?” And looking at my watch he asked “Why is your watch waterproof? Cuz normally things that are electric aren’t waterproof…How’s it get more electricity then?”

We went to the hardware store after parking in a parking lot area behind the small grocery store. August found a pink cup with unicorns on it that he really wanted, so we got that. I was showing him a different pink cup with a fairy doing magic on it, but he said he learned more from the unicorn cup. He also found a smaller cup with a knight on it. He was talking about how they would be cups to get when he got bored of his other ones and broke them. I said no, no. No need to break things. We can go ahead and get them. We got two bowls – one like the one he broke and one with a cow. And he really liked a plate with two sections to it that I showed him, so we got that.

We walked past city hall, stopping to count the cats along the way and look at a gutter, and went across to the toy store. No forks there. He saw all the toys but just said they were all things he didn’t need. He wanted to go to the health foods store. He recognized it as a place with samples, even though the one where he had samples is over at the mall. This was a different branch of the same chain. We went in and they did have cracker and spread samples at the counter. Tried all those, then found a big jar of natural peanut butter and a container of apple and strawberry juice for us to share. He also did a little “samples” song and dance while we were in the store.

Left ther about 4:05 and went to the car. Turned on the AC and we sat in the back. He ate his rice and mushrooms and we shared the juice, which was really good. He kept telling me “You can have some if you want to.” We talked about going to the school and finding the hedgehog. I mentioned it was like Spikey on Puffin Rock, so he thought it was a baby. I said probably not, and he replied “Bu I love baby cats and hedgehogs? How will I ever find baby hedgehogs?”

I had to climb over the seat to get to the front as there are child locks on the back door. We left by 4:30. As we were driving he asked “Wait, does this car use gas?” He was a little upset to find that our new car would use gas too. I assured him the next car we buy (in several years…) might be electric. He was okay with that. And he said he was happy we had a car as he is getting bored of our house.

As we got to the school he suddenly went quiet and I looked back to find him sleeping. Or pretending to. Hard to tell as he had sunglasses on.

At the school we parked on the street and walked in, him singing, and got a drink of cold water by the office. He was happy there were steps up to the drinking fountain. We went down and looked in at the preschool (it was being remodeled and surrounded by construction fence when we saw it before), and he played with the toys outside, microwaving a plastic apple in a microwave. We talked about how this is where he could go to school when he was 4.

We then went to find the hedgehog. Found the outdoor habitat, but also realized they might put it inside for the evening. We had taken enough time at the preschool, so decided to look another da
y. We went upstairs to the bathroom. On the toilet he said “I don’t think anyone knows where the pee and poop goes, dada.” He then talked about the whole process of sewage back to water.

We went to Carly’s classroom at 4:55. He wanted to play the student game. Carly was the teacher and suggested a few topics, and he said “Machines!” They did a hammer machine, then she showed him the printer and they printed things from her computer. She then taught him about capitol letters, and he wrote on a small whiteboard. When they changed topics he moved to a different seat and said it was a different classroom for learning different things. He then said that when he came to school he had a machine that made classrooms.

Finally, while Carly went to get ready to leave he played on the bean bags doing a squirrel game, gathering nuts, then sleeping on the bean bag through the winter.

We headed home about 5:30. At home I got out the new bowls and cups and August showed them to Carly. They went outside nod I joined them after a bit. He was digging in the dirt with his rake and breaking up clods of dirt so they’d make dust in the air. He saw a dog wandering across the street and talked about how it couldn’t get in the yard and that he doesn’t like dogs because they lick and bark. He had been drinking milk: “Only cats can get in here. Cuz I love cats. But, can I get back to drinking my milk?”

Back inside I made pizza and they went up and he took a shower. I made a seitan and cauliflower pizza and a salmon and mushroom one. He came back down and ate pizza, really liking both of them.

He told Carly “Remember, I go crazy really fast.” And said “I want to play blanket fight. That’s where you throw blankets at each other.” We went up on the bed. He talked about just liking people: “Things that are not people I don’t like.” “Not robots; sometimes they’re scary.” I think that was a reference to Hilo, which has some bad robots in it. He was asleep by 8.

Earlier, he had been concerned about his Zinnie bed, not liking that it doesn’t have a mattress on it. He wanted to take the mattress out of our big bed and put it back. We talked about him sleeping in his own room and he asked about coming in if he woke up during the night. So he’s thinking about it. I told him when our stuff from Korea arrives we might be able to have mattresses in both places.

Also, at some point this morning he was putting his floaties on his feet and asking if you could swim that way. He had the idea that you might walk on the water.

Bug eyes for mama: 

Spatula: 

Banana bread: 

Thumbs up: 

Student game: 

Squirrel: 

New bowls and cups: 

Carly said that at some point August dreamt he was washing himself – he had his hands together as if he was rubbing soap in them, then was rubbing them on his body.

I heard the bedroom door slap shut (he often closes it behind him) at 6:34 as Carly was still closing the gate. He later told me he heard the air conditioner noise and that woke him up. He was tired but happy and I held him for several minutes standing in the kitchen. He spotted the coffee maker flashing and we talked about the contents of the canisters. He commented on not wanting to eat or drink flour.

I made a chocolate pancake for each of us and he watched Puffin Rock. He went to the bathroom, then we read Biscuit is Thankful, Berenstain Bears Go to School, and Berenstain Bears Trouble with Chores. Brushed his teeth, then Skyped with my parents. When talking to them he said he wanted a kitty and a cat. When they asked what he would name them he said “Same as gramma and grampa’s”. My mom also said “Now if gravity would just stop dropping crumbs for the ants,” referring to how he was dropping crumbs from his mouth. August responded “Gravity never stops!” We also told them about how he got mints inside yesterday and how he wanted to keep it a secret from Carly. He told them “Don’t tell anybody.” He then played Mammals while we skyped and he noticed that the elephant was literally leaking food from its stomach and falling to the floor. A very odd glitch for the app.

After we got of Skype we played the Pop, Pip, and Otto game. They went on a conveyor belt that he had made to their stump, then they were machines. He then directed some playing based on one of the episodes: “Otto, you go find eggs. The shrew crew and Mossy will find good berries for them in the meadow…Its not blue or white so it’s not a seagull or Puffin egg.” We also did some Flynne game. He pondered why you can’t eat water, after he said he was hungry but then just wanted water. He walked to the bathroom and as he did so said “All sorts of interesting ways to go…through those lines…streets.” Referring to the lines on the floor.

Out of nowhere (or maybe we were talking about killing bugs) he asked about dying: “You disappear just like that…whoosh…you die slowly? Not right away?” We talked about that a little.

He was hungry and wanted apple, so I cut one up. He talked about our house in Korea and apparently his opinion has changed and he now says he likes this house: “I didn’t like our house…I just like this house…I just like this house…I don’t like other things…I don’t like neighbors…mama…dada.” “No I didn’t at all. I didn’t like the wood. I didn’t like the wood floor. I like tile, so I like this house.” He climbed under my shirt to be warm at one point.

We read Take Care of Our World, which is a cool app/book with lots of animals in it. Then he played Highlights Shapes while I took a shower, then we explored the new forest level in Aniscience as we sat on the couch and he watched/read Little Green Riding Hood while I made pizza for lunch. We sat and ate lunch together, then we noticed flies buzzing around the house. Not sure if they came in when we had the door open for a couple minutes when we were out in the yard, or through the open window in the bathroom upstairs, but I killed three of them with the flyswatter and their may have been a fourth.

Back to animal games with the pillows, he wanted the sheet, so we went and got it and I made a stump/lair with chairs and it as the roof. He tried going on it and fell right through, but ended up bundled up. So he lay there and it was his hospital bed. The shrews were sick and couldn’t talk. He started blinking, which has meant ‘yes’ or something in the past, but he told me “The blinking doesn’t mean that…Means I want to blink.” He just lay there being cute, then was sort of just talking to himself for quite awhile. At one point he was reciting part of the Lucy and Pogo story, where the narrator asks you to count her claws.

We listened to Led Zeppelin II as I realized he hadn’t heard them yet. And also a Robert Plant album. We got ready to go and he played a little Human Body. He tried to convince me to play, saying “If you don’t play this dada you’ll NEVER learn about the human Body!!!”

He wanted to do recycling, so we took the bag and walked up, then came back to the car and left at 2:25. He was trying to get Tic-Tacs out and said “This container said it’s not gonna let me have a yellow one!”

We drove over to the Tiv Taam at the mall. A very direct walk, but a convoluted drive that probably takes just as long or longer. We parked, got out the stroller, and went in. Left the stroller by the entrance and he sort of hopped/crawled through much of the store. He was really excited about fruits and we got apples, bananas, and plums to try. He was also a machine destroying the store for a minute or two. But we made a quick shopping trip of it and left at 3:15.

As we got in the car he saw a paper cup and other garbage in the parking lot. He said “I hope people put garbage where the claw picks it up.” He talked about it polluting the earth, and I said that at least the mall should come around occasionally to clean it up and something about how they are responsible for keeping their land clean or they could get in trouble with the city. He thought of our own house and said “But, I made a mess with pillows.” I assured him that wasn’t what I meant.

As we drove out of the parking lot he looked out the window and talked about how he gets tired of foods, etc. but that he never gets tired of the things he sees when we are going on walks and adventures and on the bus and driving.

We made it to school and parked in the parking lot. Went to Carly’s classroom but she had decided not to swim. So we went just the two of us. He got really said when he saw the metal recycling can and we realized we hadn’t brought the small metal altoids container to recycle. I eventually got him in the pool and that cheered him up. There was a swim lesson going on and he was fascinated by that. He saw kids goofing around and asked “They don’t want the teacher to teach them?”

We mainly played with bubbles, with me doing the splashing thing to pull bubbles under him, then him popping all the bubbles on us. The first lesson got over, then a bit later he said “It’s Jill and a boy!” He had recognized Jillian, one of the Kerns, coming into the pool. He said hi to her as we got out, then watched a little of their lesson as we got ready to go.

We got to Carly just at 4:30 and we all drove home. As we walked to the car he was a post machine, making more posts and cutting up something for building sites (as we had been driving he was pointing out everything he recognized, including the half-done house that isn’t painted). He also told Carly he likes bus rides that last “Hours and hours…because I love busses so much.”

We got home at 4:45. They nursed and he chanted “I want something something milk, cuz there’s no milk in the nursing.” He ate the pilaf and veggies for dinner and was really liking it (he had seemed to be getting a little tired of both chocolate pancakes and pizza already). He had dropped some on his chair, but then brushed it on the floor. Carly talked to him about picking it up, and he decided to eat it instead: “Cuz I LOVE my dinner. I’m gonna pick it up from my chair and eat it.”

Carly cut up a plum and he ate a couple bits of it through the evening, although he said he didn’t like it. We went outside and he looked at the sap and we filled up the cat water with fresh at his request. Back inside he wanted that milk he never got. He got upset when Carly was going to make it with honey and not sugar: “Dada’s something, something milk!” Carly gave in, and told him she poured in too much sugar. He was thrilled by this, and kept it a ‘secret’ from me for several minutes before deciding to tell me: “M
ama gave me too much sugar! Enough to make me sick!”

Carly told him to go to his lair after that, but he said “But I don’t have a lair!” Carly asked him what that was made out of pillows, et. And he said “Just a hospital bed.”

Carly left to go to Back to School Night, taking the car. As she was about to go out August said “I want a hug and a kiss from mama.” He played Gro Recycling for awhile, then was doing the talking to himself playing thing, although I couldn’t catch what it was about. He was still hungry and ate most of a banana, then some of the pilaf and mushrooms. He talked about wanting to wake up with mama and watch Sarah and Duck. Wasn’t clear if this was something he was remembering or a new idea of something he wanted to do.

We went upstairs and he took a shower. He was covering his eyes to see shapes and colors and told me “I want to look up why you see colors and shapes and robots and stuff when you close your eyes.” I was surprised by the ‘robots and stuff’ part.

In bed we read Berenstain Bears No Girls Allowed and finished the first book of Hilo. He was doing fine until 8:47. Then it really sunk in that mama wasn’t home to put him to bed. He got sad and I held him. Eventually we went downstairs and I was holding him in the kitchen. He would calm down for a minute and would think he might go to sleep. He paused being upset too to go to the bathroom again. When I wouldn’t let him outside we ended up sitting on the floor with him in my lap. That was when he got upset with me, repeating “Mama’s nice. You’re not nice.”

I was telling him we could go outside in the yard if he calmed down a bit, and finally he did, although he got upset again for a bit when we realized that Carly had the stroller in the car. So I carried him for a walk at 9:15. Which was quite nice. We saw a cat sitting on the corner on the sidewalk, and saw it again on our way back. Walked past the house and up towards the park, then turned around again when I saw Carly pull up. I had kept expecting him to put his head down and fall asleep, but he didn’t.

She was home at 9:25. He was happy to see her and went in and was asleep just after 9:30.

Hiding in my shirt: 

Being cute: 

Finding Cheerios: 

Sap: