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Up at 6:40. He came down the stairs, but then wanted me to take him upstairs, where he lay on the bed for a couple minutes. He then wanted to go downstairs, and I held him in the living room for several minutes. Finally, he was hungry so he watched Puffin Rock and I made him a pancake. We then played the owl game: “Mossy’s doing something in the meadow! They’re gonna fly over there! Come on, Otto! Mossy’s finding mice for Pip and Pop!” After playing that for quite awhile he watched Wanda and the Alien and I exercised, then we went back to the owl and Mossy games, with Mossy being a patient: “You put brain medicine in there that makes the brain confused of something.” “Doctor! Every machine you used is not working right!” “All the bones is working right but the bone marrow isn’t!” “The heart is working well.” I ended up putting robot parts on him. And he was repeatedly calling me ‘doctor’: “Why you putting pillows on me, doctor?”

I took a shower and he was on the toilet. Went downstairs and he played Namoo and I made pizza. In talking about our plans he had earlier said that he wanted to go back to the park we went to yesterday, but now he said “I want a different park every day.” We looked at Google Maps together, then played more of owls not feeling well. I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which he ate half of, and sliced up an apple for a snack. We did more doctor game, taking care of the owls and shrews and rabbit, then Carly called while he was on the toilet. Before we left he was talking about the Mammals app, saying “When I ask the animals if they’re hungry they keep saying they’re HUNGRY!” He had left one piece of pizza, so I got him to eat it before we left. He bit his tongue eating last bite of pizza. Earlier, when we were eating pizza, he had slipped walking to his chair and fell.

We finally left at 1:05 on our first drive together without Carly in the car. I had given him the iPad app and he’d chosen RioMio before we left. As we drove away he said “Bye bye house”. Yesterday, as we had left Ra’anana Park, he had said “Bye bye, park.”

We went to the Ilanot arboretum just north of Even Yehuda. Had some difficulty getting to it. First tried to go to the portion on the west side of Highway 4, but started to go on a once-paved road that was now a mess. I feared for our little car, so turned around. Google Maps took me on the highway, but wanted me to take a left turn where I couldn’t. So I exited to the right, to the Ilanot portion on the east side. I thought it didn’t matter, as from the photos it looked like there was a path under the highway connecting them.

Anyway, this part at least turned out to be an arboretum. We parked and got in the backpack on a bench. We got walking and had a great time. Almost all of the trees are labeled, and August wanted to stop at every sign to see what kind of tree it was. There were flat fir-type needles that he liked taking off their branches when I picked them off from the ground for him, and we looked for a tree like the ones at our house. There a hundred species at least, and a lot of them are really interesting trees. We stopped to look at seeds and cones and different leaves and needles. We walked the entire paved path to the east and then the north, then looped around and headed back towards the car. August started a “We’re going back the way we came” chant that lasted several minutes and turned into a song, before reverting back to the chant. We found the tunnel under the highway, but it is now closed off.

We talked about what we were doing next, but he said he wanted to ride a bus: “But I like to ride busses!” Five minutes later: “Can I get a bus ride home?” We pondered how the path to the tunnel no longer existed and he said “Maybe a scary monster took it away.”

We got back to picnic tables and chose one in the shade. He started playing with the pine needles, making a mountain. He was pouring dust on it with his hands, and said it was a “pine needle washing machine”. The dirt he put in it was the soap.  Cassie, Vivian, and Colin called and skyped for a few minutes. August was focused on his pine needles, but paused to say hi and bye and listen a bit when Vivian played piano for him. Later, when he told Carly about it, he remembered that Vivian had skyped to play piano for him, so he had been paying attention.

We ate our apple and more of the sandwich. We had walked for about an hour, then played in the pine needles for a good half hour. Finally, after 3:30, we headed to the bathroom. August explained what we were doing next: “I want to wash my hands, go to the bathroom, go home…and have a nice dinner with mama.” When he saw inside of the bathroom he said “This is like a Korea bathroom in Children’s Grand Park?” Not sure why he said that. He spotted the urinals and said “Urinals. No. They might have sensors. I do NOT like sensors.”

We got going, and had a bit of adventure. I went out the eastern exit, as I would have to turn north on the highway. It was a big, nice dirt road out the back, and it looked like I could get to a paved road pretty easily. But I’m finding Google Maps is not so good here, and some of their lines didn’t even seem to correspond to what I saw, or were really rough lines along power lines, or rough roadways for those ATVs. I found a nice gravel road running north or south, but at the north end there was a gate, and at the south end it ended. Made it back to the arboretum and took a right on the highway and turned around at the next light.

August had been playing Mammals, and I kept hearing elephant noises. I was focusing on navigating and driving, and finally made it home at 4:10. I turned around to find him asleep. He was still sitting up, so I think it had just happened. He slumped over as I watched. I got him out of his vest, and he said “No” to going inside, and lay down on the backseat and fell back to sleep. I took him in and stood him up, and he lay down on the rug and fell asleep again. I got him awake at 4:20, telling him he could have some mints. He perked up and told me “The fruit ones are the waking up mints…because they have good sugar.” He got a couple Tic-Tacs, then said “Don’t tell mama you had inside mints?” He was then pretending to be a dying beetle.

We got up and read Corduory Goes to the Library. At the end there is a reference to Little Red Riding Hood and we discussed that. He wanted to plat the Little Green Riding Hood story/app on my iPad. He did that, and was proud of himself for going through the whole story.

I started making food: a pancake for him, cauliflower, mushrooms, and a new batch of iced tea, this time the Earl Grey we like. Carly got home and they nursed, and he told her we didn’t find a tree like we have here. He ate his pancake, and he left the last bite. I told him he got that from his mom, and he asked “Did mama do that in college?” He played the My First Orchard and My First Orchestra apps and we looked at the orchestra together. He and Carly read Jumpy Jack and Googily. I gave him a shower and washed his hair, and he was drinking from the shower head. In bed they read part of the Cyrus the Unsinkable Sea Serpent book. He was tired, and went to sleep at 7:30. He woke up at 8:10, but Carly got him right back to sleep.

Weed watering: 

Arboretum: 

Closed path: 

Pine needles and Smokey: 

Sleeping: 

Drinking from the shower head: 

Reading Cyrus:

He wanted to nurse at 5 something. Carly was already up so I went and got her. He went back to sleep, then was up at 6:27 and went straight to the bathroom. Nursed but didn’t go back to sleep, so they went downstairs and played the owl game and had a chocolate pancake, which he sat at the table and carefully ate, making yummy noises. He and I played the chipmunk game “Dada chipmunk, you can be the weather changing.” Then to owls. They kept throwing up owl pellets but also were getting sick. He was Pip and Pop and I was the animal doctor and inspected him. He then crawled back in the stump and was silent for a few minutes.

We watched a SciShow Kids video on owl pellets, then he changed to being shrews: “The Owl’s want to be shrew crew now.” They got sick eating bad berries: “They ate mud and shells and outlets and light switches and pans, light bulbs, mugs, plants, sinks, bathtubs, containers, baskets…”

Carly took him outside for a few minutes and they mixed food coloring, then we came back in and did more animal games. I then went up and took a shower and when I came down he was watching Wanda and the Alien and laughing a lot.

We were then waiting for Mandy and getting ready to go. She was taking us to pick up our rental car. Running late though, so we had some time. I got him some grapes and he did his “The grapes clogged my pipes.” game where I then have to unclog him. He was being cranky, a combination of being tired and nervous about what was going on. I went out to the junk in our driveway and found shelves from old kitchen cabinets that we might be able to use for our library. I had turned on Michael Jackson’s Bad to celebrate its 30th anniversary. While I was out August wouldn’t let Carly turn it off as he said he really liked it. We all went outside for a little while and he talked more about digging up the weeds. He also said “I have a little gear on me that turns me up and down and left and right…There’s a handle on it, see?”

Mandy and Jillian turned up after 11:30 and we headed over. I sat in the middle and gave August red and yellow mints. He swallowed one, dropped another. I gave him a replacement red, but when I wouldn’t replace the one he swallowed he started to melt down. We got to the Enterprise at 12 and they dropped us off.

It wasn’t the fastest service, and Carly had quite the task in getting August calmed down. Finally he did, and played some Creature Garden and Gro Forest, I think. We eventually got our car, a well-used Kia Picanto, and left about 1.

I drove the north route into Even Yehuda, getting used to the car. We gt home and Carly took August up and he was asleep just after 1:30, then awake a little after 2:30. Nursed, then played Namoo, saying “I like to show mama things that are really interesting…This game teaches you about trees, mama.”

Carly cooked mushrooms, then gave him some pilaf on the couch and dropped a little on it. He excitedly told me “I was eating on the couch…Mama foegot to set me on…Got on the orange pillow…” He ate the rest at the table, making yummy noises.

We got ready to go and left at 3:30, with Carly driving this time. We drove down to a Skoda dealership a few miles away in Ra’anana. August was talking more about getting cats, specifically “Can we buy robot cats sometime?”

Parked and went in, and pretty much decided on getting the Skoda Fabia. The size and features we want, and the diplomatic discount was impressive. August spent his time spinning in one of the chairs and loved that.

We left about 4:20 and drove over to the Ra’anana Park. It is a big park and maybe sort of our new Children’s Grand Park. Not as big, but with two big playground areas and a small zoo. We parked near the west end, paid, and walked east. Saw a couple of interesting birds on the way, and there are a lot of sculptures. We got to the first playground, a big covered one, and mainly played on a big spinny thing and Carly went on the big swinging beam. We then went up and walked around a slightly bizarre concrete maze sort of area. We found a fuzzy backpack decoration and August rubbed it on his neck.

We had been looking for a drinking fountain and looked at one sculpture. Carly commented on the artist who made it. August misheard an thought she was talking about the sculpture itself: “It’s not a person! It’s made out of metal! Not bones and skin and intestines and everything!”

Headed farther east and found the second huge playground area. Even more kids here. He climbed up stairs, along with other kids, and was amazed they were all going “All at once!” He went down the slide. He spotted a hanging capsule thing and said “It looks like an acorn rocket!” Tried out all sorts of other things, then went in the rocket thing for a good amount of time. Carly skyped with Cherie as we played around there, then walked around the big circle, playing with other things. August and I went on one of those parent/kid swing combos.

Close to 6:30 we started to leave. We got the stroller and walked around the big circle, stopping to try out the exercise equipment. Stopped at the bathrooms and left there at 6:40, walked by the zoo area, and headed back to the car.

I drove, and we got home at 7:25, just as it got dark. Inside Carly made him a pancake and he told me “Hey dada, I was just saying in the car I want to eat those pancakes every once in a while.” We all ate dinner, then played the Pip and Pop game, followed by a new yard waste game in which we put the branches in a can, then the truck came and dumped the cans, then it got chipped into mulch. He was talking about something and said “Little microbes ate it all up and pooped it out.”

We read Chicka Chicka ABC twice and Tiny Rabbit’s Big Wish, then took him up to his shower. Carly gave him his shower. In on the bed he sang his “Bee-uh bee-uh” song, which is about nursing, but added a whole dance, with his hands palm together, to it.

I thought they were both asleep about 9, but at 9:25 she sent him back down. He played Sarah and Duck Sleepover and we did Solar System together, discussing the different planets. We read Loch Mess Monster and part of Hilo, then went up and I got ready for bed and he used the bathroom, then we went in at 10:35. Still took him awhile to fall asleep, and it was after 10:45 before he was asleep.

Photos. Morning: 

The rental car: 

At the Skoda dealership: 

The car we will order: 

Ra’anana Park: 

He came down just before 7:30. Carly and I were both on the couch. He picked up his shorts on the way down the stairs, left from last night, and handed them to us. He then asked about the pile of student papers next to Carly, and then noticed the air conditioner was off. He went to get the remote, but it was next to me so I handed it to him. He replied “Oh, okay. Thank you.” He went and turned on the air conditioner and said “17. 17 for mama.” I asked what about me, and he gave me a look and said “I don’t like warm things. I don’t like hot things.”

He had some cozy time with Carly, then when she went to go to the bathroom he was upset and said “I’m gonna miss you forever.” I offered to get him some milk and he said “Milk with something something cuz mama doesn’t have nursing in her nursing.” Carly mopped and we read Berenstain Bears Go to Camp and looked at photos of bears. Carly made toast and I cut it for August. She started bleaching the cabinets. I opened a door, and as August was playing Namoo on my iPad, I went up and took a shower. Back downstairs August wanted to head upstairs because of the cleaner. So we went up and hung out in the office. He played the Creatures Gallery app – an animal version of Robot Factory. Then the space music game.

We went back downstairs. They nursed and we ate crackers in the white cheese, which is kind of a cross between cottage cheese and cream cheese. We then played the May the rabbit game, followed by a lot of the Pip, Pop, and Otto game. He told me “You can be the stump.” First played with me, then Carly. We then invented the Shady Glade game, based on the book. I had left the raisins in the oven overnight, then we put them out in the sun. We tried them, and he really liked them “One more dried grape, then we’re done.” He said that three or four times, then we left the rest out to keep drying.

Inside, he went on the toilet. He takes the toilet paper off and makes the binging noise when he’s done. Supposedly. But now he keeps doing it even when he’s not done. So when I didn’t come back he was asking “Why isn’t dada coming back‽”

We went for a walk at 11:45 over to the mall. We went to Arcaffe, just for drinks this time. I had a macchiato and they shared a cold chocolate (chocolate milk) and orange and carrot juice. He was shocked we had a chocolate drink: “Why did you let me have a chocolate drink‽” When Carly offered him the orange and carrot he said “Uh-uh”. He then played Everything Machine and Carly went to the grocery store. He played for a couple more minutes, zoned out a bit, and wanted to drink the mist. As we paid, the waitress asked us if we were tourists, then the woman at the table next to us talked to us for a minute when she heard me mention the American school.

August wasn’t too happy with the grocery store, as he kept saying it was too cold. We managed to help with shopping a bit though, figuring out which one was spinach, getting more of the good Earl Grey tea, and more Tic-Tacs.

We went home, where Carly started making the healthy chocolate pancakes. August couldn’t believe his luck: “Mama’s letting me have chocolate things without having dinner‽ She needs to read that monkey book?” That’s a reference to the Should You Feed It to the Monkey? book I often remind him of when he wants too much candy or sweets.

He was being grumpy, so eventually Carly took a break from cooking and they went and wrestled. I made pizzas, then after we ate we played more Pip and Pop and Otto game. We went in the stump and pretended to sleep. He closed his eyes and was silent for a good five minutes. Carly cut up an apple from him and he said “Sour. I love sour things.” He kept referring to me as ‘Otto’, and said “Otto. You sleep while I go get pillows upstairs.” He built a big stump and said “Huh‽ how the Owl’s gonna get in here? How the Owl’s gonna get in this stump?” That turned into a smelling game, with the owls taking turns finding interesting things for the other owls to smell.

Carly was making the healthy chocolate pancakes, and it was time to cook them. He watched that, then ate a couple, making yummy noises the whole time. He then kept having me build the stump and he would destroy it. He wanted an Oona and Baba game and when I asked what that was he decided they would make sand castles out of the pillows.

He and Carly nursed, then when Carly got up he was dramatic again, saying “Mama’s not even going to be friends with me.” He also started saying he was sleepy. We went outside to sweep the tree things and check the raisins. Then back in for more Pip and Pop and Otto game. Carly skyped with Cassie. August said “But we ALWAYS nurse when we Skype!”

We went for a walk about 6:15, just up to the playground without a stroller. We took the recycling and did that, and when he was done with the plastic and glass he played with things from a tree on the sidewalk there for several minutes. Then in to the playground. August pushed Carly on the big round swing, and we went on the big teeter totter thing. Played around a bit more then headed home. He told me “I sometimes eat clouds.”

At home we read Chicka Chicka ABC and part of Spiral by Spiral. He really liked the picture of the snake and chipmunks curled up in their underground homes, and he wanted to curl up like them. So he did that, first as a snake, then a chipmunk. As a chipmunk then he started gathering acorns, which he pronounced ‘air-corns’. That became the big game, and we would grow oak trees and gather the nuts for him. He even had an acorn machine: “Turned the air-corn machine on.”

I took him up for his shower at 8. He was reciting the seasons from our hibernating chipmunk game: “Summer, winter, summer, winter…winter, summer, fall…Someone broke the weather machine.” And worried about his acorn machine: “Someone attack-ed my acorn machines down there! A monster! Do you see it down there in the drain?”

After his showerhe went and got the bed wet as usual, but spent a lot of time describing the different rockets in the wetness, rockets going to Jupiter and Mars and Saturn and back to earth. Went back down and did more acorn game, then up to bed and he was asleep about 9.

Photos: 

Raisin: 

Groceries: 

He was up at 6:53. Upset that mama was gone, so he sat on the curvy part of the stairs for some alone time and calmed down. Came down and we talked about the shells and how and what clams eat. Mammals on my iPad. I made a selection of toasts for breakfast and he watched the first episode of Care Bears. As he finished he turned to me and said “Dada! The blue Care Bear stole the honey, then Beastly stole the honey from the blue Care Bear.” At first he was excited by the chunky peanut butter, but he has not decided he doesn’t like the chunks, so I had to eat the chunks off the toast. Luckily, the jar is almost empty. He was, however, excited by the fruit chunks in the strawberry yogurt.

He decided “I want to see how you make yogurt and cream. Did you hear me dada?…cream that goes on your bottom and penis…and then cream for cooking. And next time I watch how things are made I want to see CLOTHES.” We watched a video about yogurt, then one about chains. He then said “I might build a clothes machine in the kitchen.” Penis was bothering him a bit this morning, but not for long.

About 8:50 we went out for a little walk. He wanted to put recycling in the cages and had remembered that he saw Carly put something in our recycling bag. And I had thoughts about the table that was across the street, and painting it for his Zinnie house or for the play area upstairs. The table turned out to be cheaper and bigger than I remembered, then we walked up and recycled the two plastic containers. On the walk back he was walking and saw some foam and said “Foam! What’s all the foam I see in this country from‽” At home he wanted to take the cans to the school to recycle and I said we could in the afternoon. “When we see the moon?” He’s noticed that the moon is visible in the sky in the late afternoon now.

He made his clothes machine, then was lying on the pillows and bothered a bit by the itchiness. We put grapes outside for raisins. We chose the first half-cloudy day since we’ve been here for it. He watched Puffin Rock and ate grapes and Cheerios. I went and took a shower. August wanted to do more recycling and said “I want to go recycling shopping!” Checked on the grapes and seemed like one was missing; maybe a bird got it. We discussed goals for the day and he said he wanted the teacher game and reading books and recycling at the school. He wiped chalk in his hair and I told him not to unless he wanted it to be a hair washing day. He celebrated it not being a hair washing day by singing a “Not a hair washing day” song and hopping laps around the living room. He then made a music machine out of pillows in the kitchen, which he destroyed and then hopped on the pieces of to make them make noise.

We then made a machine in our usual spot. This one was a noodle machine: “I’m the noodles and you’re printing them…here’s purple noodles and green noodles and blue noodles. Could you print the right color on them dada?” Played that for quite awhile. We turned the ceiling fan on, and tried the different speeds. It rattles a bit when fast and we talked about foreground versus background sounds again. I spotted a bird out our window, not getting a grape, and we watched a pair of them in one of our trees.

Then he developed another big game. We were planting trees, then veggies and other fruits. Then he was May, the rabbit from Puffin Rock, sleeping in a burrow and eating all of the plants before I could harvest them. “Turnips and radishes‽ May loves those!” I put up an electric fence and he dug under it, but only wanted regular fences after that.

We made pizza for lunch and he ate most of one of our long slices. He went to the bathroom, and then back out in the kitchen he walked in front of the kitchen door: “When I walk back and forth that opens to make warm air for you. Cuz you like warm things.” We played with his shells from yesterday and he said one of them ate plastic. I said it got sick and he was surprised: “But, clams eat garbage‽” We had previously talked about how clams clean the water and now talked about organic garbage versus inorganic. He kept being May: “May LOVES pizza!…May just wants shirt and underwear.” He spotted ants in the kitchen and talked about a cleaner he had to kill them: “Type of cleaner…they can’t live on earth at all.”

He’s really been into the Tinybop apps, so I got the Everything Machine, Monster, and Creative Garden ones and we tried out the first two. We played around with sound things in Everything Machine, then made a really cool monster on his iPad. The app crashed and we lost his first monster. He kept asking “What vanished completely mean?” We switched to my iPad and the app worked much better on it and he made a second monster.

He wanted the little feather we saw fall from one of the birds earlier so I went and found it. Back inside, by the door, he said “Oh dear! There’s a bunch of ants there!” We battled ants, then did the noodle machine one more time.

He went to the bathroom, and while sitting on the toilet he was pressing on his eyes and we talked about the colors and shapes. I said something about being careful about pushing on his eyes because it could hurt, and he asked if it could damage his eyes. Got into a discussion of blindness, and of guide dogs. At first he thought I was talking about a toy dog, not a real dog. So after he got off the toilet we watched a couple videos about guide dogs. I then couldn’t remember why we had started talking about guide dogs in the first place. I asked him, and he said “I’m keeping it in my head so you can’t talk about it…I’m keeping it in my brain so you can’t remember it.” Luckily, I remembered on my own.

We got going to the school around 2. We stopped at Jack’s house for a few minutes to talk to him about helping us with the little library. August got to throw the dog toy for the dog a couple times.

We then continued on to school and got to the library at 2:30 or so. He played with the animals, making a nest, then I suggested we go get a couple books to read in the nest. We got a couple of Corduroy books (A Pocket for Corduroy and Corduroy at the Library) and a new book called That’s NOT a Hippopotamus. We went back to the nest of animals and read the Library book. A woman came over and said something about looking perfect and took our photo together. But then he mainly pretended to be Baba’s snail, from Puffin Rock, used the sea turtle as his shell. He wanted me to say “Baba sad” when he dug underground, then would say “Found you, baba!” The bell rang, and they announced the library would close at 3:15. So we went back and found two other books, as we had turned in 5. We also got Bill Peet’s Cyrus the Unsinkable Sea Serpent and Berenstain Bears Go to Camp.

We headed to the pool, stopping to recycle the aluminum cans. We then stopped to eat some raisins, and that’s where Carly found us. We were lazy, and almost didn’t go swimming, but I said we should. We changed and went in the pool. We mainly played in the deeper end, and August near the end really got serious about swimming, and swam almost the entire length of the pool, a very serious look on his face, and got out at the steps. We changed and left by 4:40.

On the way home he said “I want a cat in our yard. I want to buy dirt so the cats can bury their poop.” I asked if he could tell Carly what animal he was being at the library and he kept a secret again. He wouldn’t tell her and said “I like to keep questions in my brain.” He then invented a cat machine and was a cat machine for much of the walk home, spraying out cats that went all the way to our yard. He told Carly “You can absolutely get allergic.” He used the word ‘absolutely’ a couple more times, then later I got him to tell me where he learned that word: from Carly. She does say it sometimes, and sometimes tells him “Abso-fruitly”. He then invented a cat vacuum cleaner, which sucked up the cats and their fu
r. He then said the cats then just lived in the vacuum cleaner and played with toys, at which point he made up a toy machine that attached to the cat vacuum cleaner and sprayed toys into it, but “They soon wear out and break down.”

We got home at 5:10. He went in and said “I’m gonna hide somewhere to keep things in my brain.” Our raisins were still grapes, so we put them in the oven. We ate dinner and played more of the May game. He played Mammals, then we read some Hilo and had Cheerios with milk. We then read That’s NOT a Hippopotamus and part of Cyrus the Unsinkable Sea Serpent. Carly took him up for his shower, then I brushed his teeth. They tried for sleep before 8. They came down and he and I read Berenstain Bears Go to Camp. When I explained camp to him and staying with friends he asked “How you make friends?” And something about about the book got him asking about animals dying, then he asked “Are you gonna die?” When I talked about it being a long time for now he then said “I want to stop talking about it.”

He got tired and went upstairs for bed. Went to the bathroom and I heard him talking about his cat machine again. They went in and he was asleep about 8:35.

Touching the growing sap:

Getting printed on the conveyor belt: 

Funny look: 

His first monster: 

Reading in the nest: 

Playing fetch: 

He was up at 6:20. Had a repeat of a week and a half ago when he went straight to the bathroom and said his penis hurt. Seemed to get over it faster this time, though it took a couple hours. Before Carly headed to work she said something to him about going to the beach today and he said “But you’ll miss all the fun!” Watched one Care Bear episode and ate a few Cheerios. We went outside and there was a strong smoky smell. Don’t know why. We spotted ants going towards the garbage for the first time, so I took that out and recycling. He wanted to take recycling to the cages, but we would end up waiting to do it. He decided to watch Lucy and Pogo, then went to the bathroom and got talkative: “Why in Korea when they had garbage they made heat and electricity?” He talked a lot about plastic and pollution: “I’m glass you can put on the ground and it lasts for millions and millions of years. It will never break down.” “A machine is filling me up with empty glass. Someone behind the machine is putting in empty glass to fill me up.”

He hadn’t eaten much breakfast and wanted toast and biscuit spread, which is gone. Did toast and honey instead and I took a shower. Back downstairs, as we got ready to go, he spotted more ants. He said: “They say they’re hungry.” And “When I eated my toast gravity pulled the seeds and crumbs down.”

We left a little after 9. I didn’t expect the bus until after 9:30, but wanted to make sure. We went to the bus stop and waited until the bus showed up on the sign and it said 30 minutes. So we went back to the house and got recycling and took it up to the cages. Had August do much of the walking, although he wanted me to carry him by the dog poop as he didn’t want to step on it. Did recycling, dropped off the bag, and made it to the bus stop in plenty of time to catch the bus at 9:40. He was watching the sign, telling me when the minutes changed. The actual cost of the bus is 6.80 for us. Don’t know why the first guy only charged us 4 shekels.

He just sat and looked out for much of the way and ate his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. While eating he said “I’m just as allergic to cashews as mama.” We played I Spy and I said a stop button. He had apparently already found all the stop buttons as he immediately pointed out about six of them: “That stop button or that stop button…” Before we got off at 10:30 he had been asking if ants could get on the bus, which led to a discussion of insect survival and dying. As we got off the bus he asked how we die. I asked if he meant the insects, which we’d been discussing, and he said no, “How do WE die?”

We walked around the block a bit, got in the backpack, and walked straight to the beach. We went to the bathroom and changed into our swimsuits and were in the water just after 11, at the spot we initially went to last time. School apparently doesn’t start until tomorrow, but for whatever reason the beaches were empty compared to last time. We spent about two hours playing at the beach. We went out floating a couple times, going out to a sand bar a little ways out that he could stand on and touching the waves that were breaking a bit. Back on the shore we used our stick to write words that either August or the waves would erase. August would say “The waves choose” whether he or the waves would erase it. We also watched kids out surfing and he liked the little fish swimming around. At one point he didn’t want to walk out to me because he didn’t want to step on the fish.

While sitting on me as we were in the shallows, he got his mouth too close to the water and took a mouthful. Had to get out and took him awhile to recover. Finally, he was making a hole with the stick, and before we left we went out for one more float in the water. Oh, and the kids next to us had a fishing pole and were trying to catch a little fish.

Just after 1 we went up to the showers and faucets to rinse off. August then spent about twenty minutes playing in the stream going from the showers into the sand. He would get his hands or feet sandy, then go over to the faucets and rinse them off.  We got walking by 1:40, with him in the backpack. We went up the steps. Along the way he told a story about a cat he saw sleeping that ran off down the stairs and went into the water. The first part may have been true. Of another cat he asked “Can I take the cat home?” Yesterday, at Tiv Taam, when I was looking at cheese he wandered over to the aisle with pet food. He came back and asked if we could get a cat and cat food.

At the top of the stairs we walked north along the path at the top of the cliff. Maybe a half mile or so until we had a view of the next beach north. We also saw a paraglider go right over head, a big ship out on the horizon, and the docks or something up at Jaffa.

We were ready for a smoothie, so we walked back along the street to where the steps to the beach are, then our usual route back to the bus. We stopped for a smoothie and chose a peach and strawberry yogurt smoothie this time. We drank it on our way back. We stopped by the restrooms close to the bus station and paid a shekel to use them. Outside, he stood and drank the smoothie for awhile and offered me some. When we were walking he had been doing a drink for him, a drink for me.

We got to the bus station and lucked out this time, catching a bus immediately. On the way home we read some Hilo, then he watched Sarah and Duck with his headphones and I did some reading. We got off the bus and he played on the exercise equipment for a bit. We were home at 4:15.

We had just started reading the Shady Glade book and were discussing bird migration when Carly got home at 4:30. They nursed, then we finished reading Shady Glade. Carly was upstairs and he was pondering telling Carly about the mints AND Jaffa cakes that we had had on the way/when we got home. He giggled about it a lot, but then decided, I think, to keep it a secret.

We ate dinner, and he ate some of the rice and curry dish, but not a lot. Carly took him outside and they sat at the table and he showed her the Mammals and Plants apps from TinyBop on the iPad. Back inside, he and I read The Story of Babar, which involved discussing hunting, as Babar’s mother is shot by a hunter. He was hungry, and I sliced up the last golden apple. He was really excited about it, and ate 7 of the 8 slices, as he gave one to Carly because he wanted her to try it.

He wanted more apple, and wanted a machine to put water back in the dried apple, which he refused to eat today as he said it was too hard to eat. Carly took a shower and we read Hilo, then I got him some grapes when he was still hungry. I also got him to eat a few more bites of his dinner.

Carly gave him a shower, and in on the bed he said that Carly was the garbage power plant and his feet were the cranes picking up the garbage (his clothes). He keeps asking me where our garbage and sewage go, as in Korea we sort of knew that, as he knew about the power plant and the sewage treatment plant at Seoul Forest.

A couple days ago he was able to clearly communicate how when we put his shirt on it sometimes hurts him, so she is careful putting it on now. He was asleep about 8.

We used our dryer a couple times today. Carly dried a couple shirts she washed by hand, and then I did a full load of laundry in the evening. What a luxury!

Bus stop: 

Beach: 

Sharing: 

Bus: 

It really seemed like he heard Carly leave today, as right after she left I heard the door upstairs. And when he saw me on the stairs he got upset. He started crying and I went to him. He said “I’m not gonna like you. I’m not gonna love you.” He then went to the door and was calling “Mama! Mama!” through it. I picked him up, and he said “I’m gonna kill you.” The frustration left him, and he lay on the couch for several minutes and I got him ‘special milk’. I told him I put a little extra “something something” in it since he was upset this morning. He would remember this, and later ask Carly if she’d put extra something (it wasn’t sugar) in something else because he had been upset this morning.

He drank it and said “Lets watch some shows.” Watched some Care Bears while we ate the leftover eggs and some toast. The claw truck came and we watched it pick up the branches and cardboard across the street. They left the metal and plastic stuff. That stuff would be gone later.

We played the Solar System app, then he mentioned wanting a new game. I had wondered if there were any Sarah and Duck games. There are – Sleepover and At the Park. We purchased both and played them. He continued playing while I took a shower. After my shower he told me to cut  “the hairs I don’t like” on my face. When we went downstairs he spotted two spiders in the stairwell.

My raspberry iced tea was ready, so we had some of that and he seemed to like it. He played Gro Garden and we got ready to go. Which was a slow process as he kept wanting me to play, or needed something else. I made sandwiches and used the last of the biscuit spread to make him one more piece of treat bread. Finally, he asked why headphones work and we ended up discussing ‘foreground’ and ‘background’.

We left at 10:40. Two №11 busses, at 10:45 and 10:48, went by. Then I think I figured out the schedule enough for the 48 to realize that there are very few busses. The next one would be the one we caught last time at 11:40. But there is an earlier bus, maybe 9:30 or so. So we decided to wait until tomorrow. Instead, we went to the playground and sat down and ate our sandwiches and banana. We discussed  where garbage goes, air pollution, and acid rain. He then had a plant killing machine that at first seemed to just kill weeds but then killed everything. It had a chemical that was “Worse than the chemical in bleach.” I made the mistake of telling him I don’t like my bananas as ripe as him. He said “I don’t like my bananas so sugary.” as he gave me the last couple bites to eat.

Then went to playing. There were two smaller kids who turned out to be 2 and a half and 1 and a half. The mom offered August a salty bear-shaped snack. He ate, but didn’t want another as he didn’t like the crumbs on his hands. He wiped his hands on his head, saying “I love crumbs in my hair, just not on my hands.” He saw a fake compass on the ship play structure and we discussed directions, and I reminded him of the compass that Uncle Jeff showed him. We played with the compass on my phone. She then offered him dried apples instead, and he really liked that. He ended up sitting on my stomach while I lay on the ground and we discussed dried apples and other fruits. He really liked the idea of making dried apples.

Eventually got up and went to the play structure again. He wanted to play the game where he slides down on my head. We did that, and still had his shoes on. He looked at the bottom of his shoes and pointed to something: “It has that on it so it’s not EXACTLY clean.” Did that a bit more, then we saw some guys dump out the big cage of cardboard recycling. That made him want to go home and get the recycling and bring it back. First, we stopped at the water fountain. It drains straight to the grass and we talked about watering the grass and how that works.

We looked at the big pile of cardboard and asked “Don’t you just want to jump right in it? All the time?” But then he decided it was too icky. We went home and got our bag of recycling, then went and dropped it off. We then stood there and watched a claw truck pick up the cardboard and foam recycling.

We went home. Sitting on the couch he told me “I don’t really like long hairs…on your legs too. That’s why I always try to pull your hairs out, dada.” He played the Mammals app and watched the bat digest and poop as he lay his head on my stomach.

He went to the bathroom and got really talkative: “Now I love it. I eat chicken all the time…meat and chicken and toast and dried Cheerios and milk Cheerios and drink water and drink juice and that’s all I eat and drink, dada.” I then took a couple minutes of video where he continued with that, after which “And chains and sinks and drains and dirt and rocks…but mostly animal stuff dada. I eat things that animals eat. I eat toilet paper, dada. But mostly I eat ropes and chains and jump ropes that is underground, dada. I eat mud too, dada. And towels. I eat towels. But mostly things you hang up sheets with. And phones. I eat watches. And iPads. And plastic. That’s all I eat though. I eat tiles, too, dada.” “I love chicken though. I just eat chicken. I eat chicken and meat. That’s all I eat.”

Did some more Mammals, then set a timer. When it went off I said we should get going. He told me “When you’re lazy could you lie down and fall asleep?” I thought he was going to wake me up, but he just kept playing the iPad. He was playing me. I objected, then he did try waking me up, saying “I’m gonna play loud, loud Israel music while you sleep, dada.”

He was then being cranky as I made him get ready to go to the store. So I started putting happiness in him, through his ears and head and elbows, etc., which made him laugh. He said “Put happiness in my eyebrows…I’m putting happiness in you.” But then he was grumpy again and I asked “Where’d all the happiness I just put in you go?” He told me “A machine tooked it.”

We left at 2:15. As we went out he said, for no apparent reason, “I want to renovate this house.” I asked what he thought it should have and he said “Some fake trees.” Interesting, as we’ve listened to “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead, but the song doesn’t actually say “Fake trees” in it. I looked up the lyrics, and he told me “I have a machine that makes the right words.” for the song. He spotted the dirt track across the street and asked “Does that go to the mall?”

We headed over and found the parking lot for the mall full. Something was going on, and it was a little kids fair thing out front. We went and did our grocery shopping first. Pushed him around the store until the basket started to get full, then we parked both and brought things back to it. He helped carry a few things, although the cold things made his hands too cold.

We paid and headed outside. We went to the fair and watched, but it was too busy for him. Listened to some music, then he wanted to head home. We were back at 3:50. Across the street he saw all the scattered garbage left over from the piles of garbage being picked up. He asked if it turned to dirt or polluted, then “The plastic pollutes the earth COMPLETELY? So we can’t live?”

When we got in he turned on the AC: “I’m sure mama will be really sweaty…Mama likes it up really high. That’s why I turn it up really high all the time.” He was then a bug killing machine with “Strong chemical and really sharp blades.”

I sliced up an apple for him and he really liked it. He also had the idea of making raisins and said “When I was in Korea and ate raisins all the time I didn’t like raisins, but now I LOVE raisins. That’s why I want to put out grapes and turn them into raisins…I want to check on them every once in awhile…I think they’ll turn into grapes when we’re sleeping…I’m sleepy.” We soaked the apples in lemon water and he ate the other apple and watched Lucy and Po
go, then read Hilo. He wanted more apple, and as I sliced them he was talking. I asked “What’s that?” He replied “Don’t talk to me!…I’m talking to myself. I’m talking to my brain.”

Carly got home at 4:50. Out of nowhere August told her about seeing Jeff working and being able to see where the water comes into the basement. Kind of cool that he is forming some long term memory. He also told Carly why he didn’t want to play at the kids fair: “There was too much kids so I didn’t have my people machine.” He played Human Body. He watched the digestive parts and we talked about that was what was happening to his apple in his body. Carly got some rice and curry for the two of them but we called it “mama’s food”. August would go and get one bite and laugh hysterically, then go back for another bite. We had also gotten raspberry Jaffa cakes at the store and eaten one while we were at the kids fair. He told her all about them. Lots of explaining.

We did a smoothie machine, and he made smoothies for me and Carly with our favorite fruits. He told Carly “I’m gonna put extra sugar in because you’re sad about something.” Then told her “I have something for you…poop.” “I have toy poop that is plastic…rubbery plastic.”

I was putting together an iHerb order, and the two of them played the Sarah and Duck apps together. He went to the bathroom, then was playing with one of his bamboo bowls and dropped it and it broke on the floor. We checked on the apples. They were rubbery, but getting there, and August had one and liked it. He was jumping from the couch onto the pillows and jumped and did a forward roll.

We went for a short walk. Startled by a huge dog that was in a yard that also had a shorn sheep in it. We were back at 7:10. He watched/played Lucy and Pogo, then I gave him a shower and washed his hair. He got the bed wet, then saw pictures in the wetness on the bed: “That’s another rocket. That’s another rocket…those are rockets and satellites we send to other planets.”

As we walked downstairs he said he had a lightbulb machine: “It reused them. It gives them more power.” That was cool because he sort of put two things together: he knows about burnt out light bulbs, and knows about recycling. We took the apples out and he had a few.

We went back upstairs to the bed to put on his pajamas. Carly came with us. But he was hyper and not ready to calm down, so we decided he’d try to go to sleep with me. Carly headed down. He was hyper for awhile longer, then when he started to slow we went down and got his water bottle and the iPad. We went back up and read the first four chapters of Hilo, after which he was looking really tired. We tried turning the lights off for a few minutes, but he was getting upset, so I went and got Carly. He was asleep right about 9.

He was laughing in his sleep during the night. He was then awake at 6:55. He walked into the office and looked at Carly’s clothes. He pointed to her shorts and said “I don’t like that dark color.” At a bra: “That goes around mama’s nursing.” Then had fun throwing all of his clean clothes downstairs, then started taking his pajamas off and throwing them down until he was naked. We walked downstairs and he asked “Whys it so quiet in here?” It is quiet when the AC is off, and really quiet when the refrigerator is also off (I’m a little concerned by how much the fridge runs – it seems like it should be off more often). Anyway, he went went and turned on the air conditioner. He wanted to listen to music. He requested new music, but I put on my playlist of favorite songs. We listened to the Los Gossos song and he liked it and wanted it added to his playlist. I had seen a National Geographic video of a crew removing fat, oil, and grease from a clogged sewer system and showed it to him. He watched it again and again and again. 

We then went and read Hilo, starting from the beginning. We paused for grapes and more Cheerios. He said “But grapes clog my pipe.” Some more Hilo, then he watched Care Bears and told me “My pipe is clogged…See all the gross poop? The gross fat?” I took a shower, and after that he was talking about a “Pipe that goes down to a music tree…”

We then moved to playing with the pillows. He said “I want to pretend to be a leaf machine.” So we set up the machine and did what we did yesterday. But instead of batteries being boxed and going to the store it was leaves being cut out, painted green on each side, put into bags, and being taken to the assembly area where we’d build apple trees and plant them. That went on until he got destructive (after I was worn out and needed a break): “I cut it with my very strong cutter. If you touch it when I turn it on it will break all your bones.” More leaf machine, then birds were dropping plastic parts into him, then he was a blender. Brushed his teeth, then it was a toothpaste machine, making mango toothpaste. Once I was worn out again we did some Flynne game, as that lets me lie down for at least a few seconds at a time.

He wanted a cracker and I told him to try not to get crumbs on the ground. He said “But gravity’s going to pull the crumbs down.” I made him eat outside. We had been listening to music and Radiohead’s “15 Steps” came on. He said “I really like this music! Could you add it to my playlist?”

We played factory again, this time making smoothies, then switched to playing Robot Factory at 10:35. The dryer was supposed to come between 9 and 11, and when I hadn’t heard anything by 11 I started texting the number from yesterday. We had peanut butter and jelly for lunch, then read Jumpy Jack and Googily.

Around 12:15 a guy called. He only spoke Hebrew, although confused me when I asked in English if they were delivering a driver and he said ‘No’. And when I asked if he spoke English he said “British”. Anyway, he kept talking really fast, but he kept repeating “Ata ba bye-it”. Which I then realized was “You at home?” I said yes, and they showed up about 12:30. They hauled the dryer up the stairs in about 10 seconds, then asked for a tip because of the stairs. I tipped them, and decently, but then realized after they darted off that it was still in the box. Also, I should have asked them to move the couch up and the bed out to the curb and tipped them a bit more.

I got the dryer out of the box and in trying to get it off the styrofoam bottom I realized I could just set it up on the washer. August played with the dryer vent, which actually makes a good toy. So I got it set up, although after attaching the vent I realized it could also be attached to the side, so might change that later. We tested it to make sure it worked.

August played Human Body and then the Weather app. He was hungry and I told him I was having difficulty finding things to feed him: “I eat different things. I don’t want the same kind of something. I want different kinds of something.” We ended up with toast and banana and he ate almost the whole banana. We read more Hilo and Sleepy Dog, Wake Up.

We had looked at the library books and he said he didn’t want to return any today, and we were running out of time. I was talking about going to school and how we needed to get there before the bell rang and I mentioned when we saw all the big and little kids coming out of the gate. Confused, he said “But, little kids can’t go to school‽” He assured me it was okay if we had to watch the people coming out as “I have my people machine and log machines with me…in case there’s a bunch of people walking by us.”

We finally left at 2:45, but when we got over to Vatikim, about 8 minutes, I realized we had forgotten the floaties. Went back and got them. When I came out with them he said “No! No floaties!” We got to the school and changed and got in the water. I was just up to my waist when he needed to go to the bathroom. We went and it took a long time. Carly came and was in the pool before us. There was another teacher family there with a 2 and 4 year old (Ben and Maya). August watched them, but was shy. When we got in we mainly went and stayed in the deep end. He kept putting his foot up on the edge to feel the breeze on it. It was 5 by the time we got out and got going, and were home about 5:30.

Rice was running out, so he ate a little food with Carly, and I made eggs with mushrooms, seitan, cauliflower, and cheese. He was impatient for them to be done as they were cooking and I kept telling him I just had to put a few more ingredients in: spider legs, etc. He said “Oh. I like bat eyes in my eggs.” He ate a good amount of eggs, then went with Carly on the couch. He told her “Say ‘I’m not going to give you any space.’”

We started reading Hilo. Carly went outside and swept and cleaned the slide, then went up and took a shower. We paused reading to eat grapes and Cheerios. He asked me to count the grapes, then I arranged them in a shape in the bowl. As he ate them we did subtraction and named the other shapes. When it got down to 2 and 1 I told him not to eat more as then we wouldn’t have shapes. He told me “We can always get more grapes.” While he finished eating them I responded to an email. He didn’t like that though and hit my leg with his head. I told him not to do it, and he did it again, really hard. I got up and Carly took him up to his shower.

I went up after they were done. He had some crazy time on the bed but mainly cooperated with getting his pajamas on as he was ready to nurse. He was asleep just after 8.

He slept all the way until 7:25. Twelve and a half hours. I came out of the office and he was at the top of the stairs. He told me “Don’t come down.” I asked if he wanted to be downstairs by himself. He changed his mind, saying “Come down.” Downstairs, we took off his diaper and he spotted a new insect, with two long antennae, on the ground. Got done looking at it and said “I’m gonna turn on the air conditioner and turn it up really high…I’m really warm.” After that he climbed on the couch and asked “Dada, could you get some dried Cheerios and set up some Care Bears for me?”

Watched Care Bears, and when he had had more dried Cheerios and still wanted more I suggested more foods, but he wanted something he could eat on the couch. So I cut up grapes and allowed those on the couch. He was being itchy this morning, and it was bothering him on and off through the morning. We put cream on at one point. We read Hilo, reading the first five chapters. Chapter 5 ends with Hilo being crushed, and shown to be a robot. When we started playing with pillows August turned that into a game: “Crush me apart.” “I want to play that robot game.”

I went up and took a shower. He sat on the toilet the whole time and talked a lot about his spit. Back downstairs he wanted to be a towel machine, a battery machine, and a leaves machine. Then he was a broken machine: “The clouds in me are a little broken.” We went outside for a few minutes and I found a pine cone thing from our trees that we haven’t seen before. August wanted a cracker, and I gave him one of the square crackers. At first he was eating it outside, but then he went inside and was intentionally dropping crumbs for the ants. I wasn’t happy about that and as I swept I said I wouldn’t play that game with him. He said “You won’t love me anymore?” When I assured him otherwise and hugged him he said “You don’t have to like me” “I’m not your baby; I’m mama’s baby.” “I’m playing a game you don’t want…I’m gonna play a game you don’t want me to play…The game I’m going to play is when you don’t want ants in the house.”

That done, we set up the pillows as a conveyor belt and it was a battery sorting machine. He would be the batteries being dropped on the belt, then at the end of it I would put them in a box (a pillow), close, tape, and label it, then pick it up and put it in the truck and drive the batteries to the store in the kitchen. We did that 27 times. He kept saying “It’s a comfy ride.” He let the machine get broken down after that. He then planted apple trees, before remembering the Robot Factory app and wanting to play that. We played that together, and he got into the process of making the robot, trying it out, then going back and making it work better.

We did part of a round of Animal Hospital, a few more rounds of the battery game, then left for downtown at 12:50. We first went to the bank where he helped with the ATM to deposit more of the relocation money. When we were done with that he said “Thank you” and gave me a hug for letting him use the machine. We then went to the Israeli restaurant by the pizza place for lunch. August had said he was hungry a few times. I ordered falafel, but when the guy brought out our food the first things were hummus and pita and salad: “Those are all the things I don’t like!” He ate a bite of pickle but said it was too spicy. When the falafel came he ate a couple bites but then said he didn’t like that either. I got ketchup. It was in a Heinz bottle but clearly not. August tasted it on the falafel, but wouldn’t eat anymore. He said he just wasn’t hungry, but I couldn’t tell whether he really wasn’t or whether he just didn’t like it. He did, however, drink all of the mango drink he got.

August had said he needed the bathroom. Not one there, so we walked across to the library. Right, it’s closed during the middle of the day. But then he was saying he didn’t really need to go. We went to the hardware store where we got rubber bands, more Tupperware, and exchanged the light bulbs I’d purchased for the fixture that doesn’t work for bulbs we can actually used. I used some more Hebrew on the older guy that works there, but he seemed down so I asked if he was tired. That turned into a little lesson on times of day.

We then went to the mall the grocery store is in. Rode the elevator to different floors (it is small) but no bathroom. August said he still didn’t need to go though. So we went to the grocery store and bought frozen fruit, which was pricey, for smoothies, bananas, and then looked for raisins. No raisins, but we got apricots, cranberries, and covered peanuts in hopes of finding some more snack options for August. He ate one apricot after we had paid, and one cranberry. And that was it.

We then walked home, taking some back roads. He did need to go to the bathroom when we got close, but he made it just fine. He wanted to play more Puffin Rock-inspired games, saying “I want to play the Silkie game…I want to invent it.” We played Flynne, and he was waking me up. He really screamed once, and I held up my hand to ward him off. He ws still coming towards me and I bonked him in the nose or lip. He wasn’t happy about that, and kept doing his whiney I’m-not-happy-with-you cry for a few minutes. At 4 the digger came home across the street, so we watched the guy park that and he felt better. We read more Hilo, and finished most of it, more than three-fourths finished, before he wanted to start over at the beginnng. He was asking about the title, which includes ‘earth’, so we looked at the Solar System app and the different planets. We were doing that for just a couple minutes when Carly got home.

He ate a lot of the rice curry for dinner. I told him he couldn’t have just rice bites, so he thought those were exciting – he also agreed to eat a lot of veggies so he could have just rice bites. For his goals earlier he had wanted to learn about stickers and cotton balls, so we found videos on how both are made. We then played more of our box game and he watched an Ask the Storybots episode. When he was asking to watch that, or something else, he told me “You never say ‘fine’ now, dada.”

We went for a walk, over to the west in basically the same area as before. Earlier though, so not dark. On one street there were two loose dogs walking slowly ahead of us. I slowed down but Carly thought they looked nice. When we got towards the end of the street though and they were still some way in front of us I wanted to turn back, and just in time, as one of the dogs turned to us and started barking. We kept walking away, and it followed us close to a block. Carly grabbed some rocks and when she started to throw one at it it turned and ran away.

After that, Carly got August to get out and walk, holding her hand. He walked most of the way home from there. I picked him up to show him one of the water tanks on top of a house and when I set him down I made the mistake of setting him in the stroller, so he went back to riding. At home Carly tried to get him to walk up the stairs. But he told her “Ma-MA! We always ride up the stairs…so that’s why I don’t have to get out.” She managed to push the stroller up the stairs.

We were back at 7:20. He and I watched/played Lucy and Pogo and Carly showered. He then played Shake the Tree. While doing that he got off the couch and I asked if he needed to use the bathroom. He said no, but then as I played the game he got back on the couch to watch, but then said he was peeing. I grabbed him off the couch and he started crying. Some got on the couch, but not much. Carly took him up and cleaned him up. I went up and gave him his shower. Carly then managed to brush his hair. He wasn’t fond of it, but he didn’t stop her from doing it. He was asleep a bit after 8:20.

Photos: 

In the box, ready to be carried: 

Mama and Zinnie in the swing: 

I was up at 6, Carly down a bit later, after nursing August, then he was down at 7:15. They nursed and did some reading: Thunder Boy Jr. and parts of other stories. He played Dr. Panda Hospital and I made us eggs with mushrooms, cauliflower, and cheese. We then skyped with my parents, which lasted pretty long. While Carly was upstairs and we were skyping he asked for biscuit spread. I gave him two crackers with it on and we talked about it being a secret. At first he was actually afraid of what would happen if Carly found out. But then he wanted to give one to Carly too. I made him one, and he took it to her and said “A secret one for me and a secret one for you.” He also said “I want to bake another treat in our oven sometime.”

He also played the Flynne game with Carly, telling her how to make a den and growing mushrooms, etc. We were done Skyping at 9:25. He was also growing a worm tree: “Brown worms and blue and green leaves”. He went upstairs with Carly to do laundry, talking about worms in the washing machine: “When it’s empty and there’s no clothes in there and it’s not spinning.”

I took a shower, and when I came down he was watching Care Bears. I then headed to Tiv Taam to do some grocery shopping. While I was gone they did some science experiments: oil and water, tasting things while plugging their nose. On my walk back one of the guys on the clean up crews outside asked for water and had a big bottle. I got water for him. Carly went outside and was doing more sweeping and we moved the swing over towards the front door where it is a little more level.

Mandy came and picked up Carly at 1 to take her shopping. Carly got a blender, a dryer, more towels, a duvet cover, and a few more items. The dryer will be delivered later. While she was gone I was sleepy and dozed while August watched Care Bears. I made pizza, and August was starting to sing along with the opening song of Care Bears. We ate all the pizza (it was an egg pizza, using the leftovers from the morning, and quite good), then he had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. While I was gone he had eaten a good amount of the rice curry stuff.

He wanted to eat the PB and J on the rug, telling me “Can you let me? You’re really nice.” He lay down on the rug and I asked if he was sleepy. He said “No I’m not. I’m just lying here cuz it’s cozy.” We played the Flynne game and it turned into machines: “I have a powerful machine that doesn’t do anything. It just makes fuzzes…cotton ball fuzzes…it cleans them up, and vacuums them up somehow…”

Carly was back at 3:30. We unpacked and set stuff up. August wanted to use the cardboard for something. He then wanted Lucy and Pogo, so we read/played that, then an app called Shake the Tree, that is based off of a board book. We then read Hilo again. Chapter 4, then back to the beginning, rereading the first 3 chapters.

He wanted to wrestle on the bed and I said I could go up with him. He said “But you’re not a great wrestler; mama is.” He was getting a bit hyper and rough, so we went back to the Flynne game and were more machines. We set up the pillows as the conveyor belt, then he worked and went through the machine, making stickers and sheets. He wanted to hide under the sheet, so we did that for a bit, hiding from a monster, waiting for Carly to come downstairs, but then he needed the bathroom. He talked about: “I want us to be the ocean for people to swim in. I’ll be the tide carrying things away.”

We read Peppa Pig Dentist twice, played Dr. Panda Hospital, and then he went outside with Carly. I heated up rice and curry for him and me and we ate outside for the first time. Which was nice until the mosquitoes found me. We were planning to go for a walk around 6:30, and about that time Carly took him in because he wanted to nurse. I was expecting them to come out after awhile, but instead it was really quiet inside. I fled the mosquitoes and came in to find Carly coming down the stairs. He had fallen asleep at 6:45.

Photos. Lazy time: 

Dada and Zinnie: 

My glasses: 

Bowling: 

Eating outside: 

Got one arm in: 

He was awake at 4:30, just for a few minutes, but enough to be talking. Carly got him back to sleep, but I was awake, so went downstairs and did some reading on the couch. I went back upstairs after Carly got up sometime later and went back to sleep. He was awake at 7:15, and I slept for another 20 minutes or so. When I came down he was playing Human Body. Carly spotted ants inside, and he said “Where are they going?…I haven’t eaten anything at the table yet so there isn’t any food…I haven’t fed the ants yet.” Carly cooked mushrooms for him, and he was very excited, as they were the brown mushrooms that he had spotted and we bought for him at his request when we were at the store. In the bathroom, he was making the binging noise with the toilet paper holder – a regular activity for him. He saw and ant, I think, and he said “It was in the sink turning on the water and off the water…because it was trying to drown and die.”

We went outside and checked on the cats and ants, then he helped Carly put cheese on the pizza she was making. They played the Flynne game, and he told Carly  “You can be the earth now.” He asked me “But where’d the foxy game come from?”  I told him he had made it up and he replied “Nope, a company made it…I’m a company.” They ate pizza and I went and took a shower. I came back and he was watching Care Bears. I watched with him and Carly went out and fixed the patio table, taking off the old tape and putting on new tape to make it level and look much nicer in the process.

We went over to the mall for lunch and went to Arcaffe, sitting out on the deck. A decent place, and you can almost pretend that the view is okay, except you’re looking out at the back parking lot for the mall. They have mist machines and August really liked those. We got three drinks: an iced cappuccino, an orange and carrot, and a strawberry yogurt thing. August liked that one the most. And he and I shared a salmon and ginger sandwich. He ate a decent amount of it. Carly went to start the shopping, and August watched three Sarah and Duck stories while I studied some Hebrew. We then paid and went to find Carly. Spent just enough time to find cumin and curry for her, then he needed the bathroom. Went into the mall and found another set of bathrooms. He took awhile, and we met Carly halfway as we walked back to the grocery store. My Hebrew helped me ask for the check, find the spices quickly, and find the bathrooms. Good progress.

While he was on the toilet he talked a lot: “I have a car machine that squirts out a lot of cars.” Talked about breaking sensors with “My breaking machine.” And “I love the smell of pee and poop because I’m a dung beetle eating poop. Mmm, yummy poop.”

We headed home, where he wanted a new app. I found the Dr. Panda apps and got Hospital and Handyman. He spent some time playing Hospital, then we all left at 2:25 to head to the school to swim. As we left, he was talking about killing the weeds that are growing so that we can plant something else, and explaining how he would use hisrake and shovel to kill the weeds.

We were swimming right at 3. He wanted a swim fin to drop, we played the chasing mama game, and I was lifting him out of the water and into the air. He really got splashed, his head entirely drenched, when a boy jumped in. He wasn’t happy about it, but handled it okay. It is the wettest I’ve seen him in the pool. I got out and did a little reading, then August needed to use the bathroom. When they came out of the bathroom, he was doing a dance across the concrete that we called the pool dance. They stopped to look at the berries that Carly told him were poisonous, and he told her that I had said they weren’t (I’d told him they wouldn’t likely plant poisonous plants at a school). They were done with the pool, so we packed up, changed out of our swimsuits, then sat in a couch by the cafeteria and had a snack

August wanted to go to Carly’s classroom, so we walked over there. He played on the bean bags, then he and Carly played school. He sat in a desk and she taught him some math and reading. He then wanted to be the teacher and they switched spots and he told her the answers to some math questions.

We left at 4:45 and were home by 5:20. I went over to the junk pile across the street to see if a set of shelves that had shown up would work for our little library. Instead, I found a full box of pottery jars. I made a couple trips to bring them into the house, thinking we’d maybe save a few. Carly called, then FaceTimed with Cassie and Colin and Vivian. I went up and took a shower. When I came down, Carly had put the pottery up on the shelf above the kitchen. I went and got the off-white pieces. We ended up with twelve pieces up there, a nice bowl in a cupboard, a bowl out on the patio table, another bowl replacing the plastic container for the cat water, and a watering can outside.

August played the Handyman app for awhile and really liked that. He and I then played with the pillows again, first playing the crab game (the red crabs trying to get into Bernie’s grotto), then reverting to the Flynne game. We then read Berenstain Bears Think of Those in Need, Thunder Boy Jr., and Peppa Pig Goes to the Dentist. We read a sample of Hilo, The Boy Who Crashed to Earth and bought it. While it downloaded, I took him up for his shower. He told me “Soap is awesome. I love soap going down the drain.” We went back down and read three chapters of Hilo, then he was ready to head up to bed. He wanted me to stay for a minute. He was asleep by 9:30.

Photos. Fort: 

Lunch: 

Watching Sarah and Duck: 

Sunglasses: 

Mama’s keys: 

On the bean bag: