He was up at 6:50. He went downstairs and almost immediately started humming tunes he made up. He requested Corn Flakes for breakfast. Had those mixed with Cheerios and with milk. They went upstairs to wrestle for a few minutes, then Carly came down to the kitchen. August asked, “Why do I have to follow you everywhere you go?” Good question.
He and I read and finished Fing. He was then bothering Carly and I took him for a timeout. Back downstairs he wanted to do a playing by himself session. He told Carly he didn’t know what to do. She helped him think of some options and he settled on playing with the circuits. I had headphones on, so didn’t exactly hear what happened, but he came over and hit her when he was frustrated. She took him over to the calm space, and they ended up revising it, taking out the table so they could make it bigger and redoing the posters. He eventually got his Oreo from the alone time.
He found the spaghetti noodles as I was planning meals for the week. He made a bridge out of noodles and tape. Carly made scrambled eggs. He ate all of his, and I made him another egg. He went back to his pasta bridge and was frustrated when the scotch tape wasn’t sticking well. He switched to packing tape, and figured it all out and got over his frustration. He said, “Isn’t it funny that they don’t have pasta at the art store?…Maybe they haven’t thought about using pasta…”
Carly left a little after 11 to go to the store. We finished watching the Formula E race. He dressed himself entirely by himself, including his shirt, although it was backwards. He spilled water on himself after he put spaghetti noodles in his water bottle and tried to drink from it.
We then walked across the street and got insects and put them in with the lizard. Carly got home and went upstairs to rest. He and I put the groceries away and listened to the new Strand of Oaks album. He described a pneumatic system to deliver things “even people want to use that pipe…but they don’t let anyone poop in there.”
Carly came down and August asked her when we were going to Sushi Ishimoto to eat. He’s been asking for a couple weeks now to actually eat in the new restaurant. So we got ready to go. After I watered the plants upstairs we got going at 1:20.
On the walk up he had me pushing as fast as I could (“the speed limit”) and then we’d wait for Carly to catch up. At Sushi Ishimoto he chose the table right in the center. He wanted the pad thai with shrimp and I chose the chicken Chong, with Carly’s approval. August mainly ate the chicken Chong, liking the chunks of chicken in tempura, the peanut sauce, and the white rice.
While we had waited for our food, and after we were done eating, we read A to Z Mysteries: The Falcon’s Feathers. He was confused by the phrase ‘spill the beans’ so that was a word of the day. He also asked, “What’s ballroom?” I didn’t understand what he was saying at first, then when I did asked what it was from. It is from The Witches and where the witches have their big meeting.
Carly left to head to the pharmacy to get head lice prevention stuff and a few packs of tea at the coffee shop. We paid and went to meet her by the post office. We beat her there, and when he saw her walking from up the street he got off the bike and ran to her. We were then in front of the post office, and when he looked inside he saw her again, and said, “Another mama!”
We walked home. I made a rice noodle and veggies dish, and he pulled weeds for 2 shekels. He’s been talking about an allowance and wanting to buy stuff himself. They considered how to make a lock for the Zinnie house to keep out the cats. One had gotten in and left cat hair on the pillows. Inside, they skyped with Cherie and Chuck.
August made up something called the “P O 8 transmitter”, but then said, “Actually, you’re saying it wrong. It’s called the PO8TransMINTer. It makes mint smoothies for you.” Which was pretty funny. He put a nail in the drill and used it on one of the exposed pieces of concrete. I stopped him, but he was excited about his experiment: “Dada said our drill from Ikea isn’t very powerful BUT it drilled concrete…”
Just before 6 we drove up to buy a compost bin from someone who works at the school. They had a little dog that August was afraid of, but be loved the composter, and the fact that you could spin it. They explained how to use it, and she showed August how it spins and locks. We drove home and started our compost, then inside I finished the food and we ate dinner. Carly had bought a pad thai sauce and put it on her food and August’s. It turned out to be really spicy. August was upset about this, but liked the noodles when we got him another bowl. He wasn’t letting it go though, and was threatening to kill the sauce company for not making it clear on the bottle that the sauce was spicy.
Carly went up for a shower. She came down with the essential oils in her hair and then put some on August. He used the lice brush to brush our hair, and asked, “Aren’t I a great hairdresser?” When he was brushing Carly’s hair she asked, “Can I give you a tip?” He asked, “What’s a tip?”
I took him up for his bath. He played with the comb. In bed he requesedt the Nick and Tesla book. We read some of it and Carly brushed his hair with the lice comb. I left them at 8:30.
He was up just after 7. We read Fing and ‘inexplicable’ was a word of the day. He then watched Julius Jr. and The Magic School Bus. I went up and took a shower. They spent some time outside and were playing with the circuits set. They made a nice annoying one that makes siren noises. He had some crackers, and as he was making yummy noises he told us, “instead of doing mmm mmm I sing a song.” We were trying to set up a play date for him, but everyone was busy. Carly asked him, “Do you want to play with Taya?” He replied, “Well, if she’s available.”
The butterfly seems to be doing okay—not on death’s door like I first thought—and we fed it sugar water and saw it drinking it. We got ready to head to Tel Aviv. We left at 10:30. On the way he told me he had won a pizza contest in Israel and received gold for it. Everyone liked his pizza, except a few people: “they had a brain problem and didn’t want to eat reslly good things, only bad things” like wood and plastic. We also read more of Fing.
We parked along the street up on the road north of the power plant, near the light house. We walked north to the bridge over the water intake into the plant, then worked our way south. As we got on the south side of the river, to the old port area, we started looking for a cafe for lunch. Greg, the only place I’ve ever eaten down there, was closed. We found a couple other places, but they were either closing for an hour (odd), not open yet, or really, really busy. Finally, we walked inland a block and went to Movieing, a cafe quite close to Cassie’s house.
We got a shakshuka and a veggie pasta dish. Carly and I got cappuccinos and August had a hot chocolate. We sat outside at first, and August sang a scribbling song as he colored on a kids placemat that they brought. they moved us inside and the food came. Carly took him to the bathroom, then they looked around outside while I paid and got the leftovers as takeout. We then walked over to the shore and south to the first beach.
There, August and Carly compromised on a spot and we got playing in the sand. August was quoting the commercial saying, “I need more money! Not clutter!” He went down and sort of waded in a few times to fill a bucket up with water. His nose was really getting runny, and when I asked if he wanted to go he said yes and we left at 2:40.
On the walk back to the car we had to weave our way though traffic. August was making it difficult today, always drifting/pulling to the left so I had to steer him back or ask him to turn to the right. We stopped at the bathroom, then stopped at the wooden hill and he rolled down a few times.
We read Fing on the way home, then once there we worked on taking apart the broken iPad Carly had brought home. I managed to pry off the glass pretty well with our small screwdrivers. The broken screen meant I couldn’t take it all off in one piece. August wore his safety glasses, and we took it apart in a cardboard box. August used tape to hold up three of the flaps to keep the glass in.
He ate some string cheese and then had oatmeal, then played with the construction set with Carly. They made popcorn and watched another documentary about Arctic. He had a lot to say, and was happy we could cook our fish, unlike the people in the documentary who were eating theirs raw. Carly went up and took a shower and he and I watched Formula E practice. We looked up where the circuit was (Sanya, in China) and he looked at Google Maps for awhile.
He told me about his safer car, which had both wings and tires. The wings fold back into it, and you could get it as a kit. He gave me a kit so I could make one.
Carly took him up for a bath. She washed his hair, but there was no screaming. She had put a towel around his shoulders and it worked really well. I went up to read to him. He talked about how I could come to his laboratory but I had to be safe and wear a safety suit. We read The Bad Seed and then started Nick and Tesla’s High Voltage Lab. We had finished Fing earlier. We discussed karting, and how a go kart is less likely to tip than his bike. Don’t think he was convinced though. And I could only find a karting place in Israel that starts at age 8.
He went down to say good night to Carly. She was talking to someone on the phone. I thought it was Cherie, but it was someone else, who lives in Israel, but that Cherie met. She was offering to show us other schools in Israel, just north of us in the Hadera area.
Back upstairs we did a puppy visualization (one of the puppies we saw down on the waterfront today). He was quite stuffy again, and got to sleep about 9.
He got up at 6:20. He and Carly read the Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat book and Short Stories for Little Monsters. And he played a little with the Legos. He ate oatmeal and watched Max and Ruby. He then came and talked to me, with a few minutes left before we had to get ready, and asked how rockets turn. We discussed that, and he remembered Monster Physics on the iPad and wanted to play. He played for a few minutes, creating a set of 8 rockets, then adding more and more weight to it, trying to see how much it could hold and still lift off.
We got walking right after 8:30. As we walked he asked, “Is outer space clear like the atmosphere, or is it black?” He was identifying minivans and SUVs, then categorizing cars by their trunks, sedans or hatchbacks.
We got to school and walked in before the bus kids. For the first time he asked why the bus kids have to sit on the benches while they wait for everyone to show up. We went down to the classroom and had a couple minutes before they showed up. The snacks were ready for shared snack, and Eve was making a sign to tell people not to touch them yet. August was working with a popsicle stick to get out a glass tile stuck between the layers of glass of the overhead projector. It was getting stuck on a metal lip. I tried to help him, but they were getting ready to go out to the playground. I told him it would have to wait. I said goodbye and he headed out with them.
I rode home, worked, and rode back. Andrea said there had been some small things today, but all small. No major upsets. She put down one red dot. So that meant he got his reward three times this week—his best week of 2019. Woohoo! Marion told me they were starting to look at the profile of a learner, and were now talking about what it meant to be a “responsible and caring citizen”. She asked me how August will clean up at home. Not his favorite activity, but I guess he won’t really clean up at school. They were all cleaning up at the moment. several kids had competing brooms and dustpans and were arguing about whose pile of sweepings was whose. It seemed like they’d just been told to clean up, so I wasn’t surprised August wasn’t doing anything. I pointed out scrap paper on the floor and asked him to pick that up, and he did.
Lydia came up to me and told me that August had been mean to her. She said she had tried to tickle him and he had hit her. I told her that August really doesn’t like to be tickled, and I had him say sorry and practice telling her he doesn’t like to be tickled.
He first wandered over by the elementary school and found the palm tree he’d played with the other day. He got a nut, then found he could rub it on the ground and bricks and scrape off the outer layer, and sort of paint with it.
For his reward he was to get something from the cafeteria. But first we had to wait until the lunches were over. So first we headed to the science fair. Carly had just finished judging and now it was the open time. We went in and saw one on biomass energy—a power source that August hasn’t learned about. Carly then showed up as we were looking at a project about making a hydropower generator. She then took August as they looked at another one, then the one about making paper from guinea pig poop. We looked at two or three after that before August had had enough. We looked at one where they were trying to filter salt out of water, and August chimed in with his own theory about which material was the most effective.
We headed out and said goodbye to Carly. As we walked out through the tunnel, a teenage girl right by us said “Oh my god” to someone. August heard her, and repeated it, mimicking her voice. quite well, actually. I changed it to “Oh my gosh” and he copied me, luckily, as he kept practicing his teenage girl voice.
We went into the cafeteria. Still high school lunch. I’d forgotten they had ice cream bars, and August found those right away. I was thinking of a popsicle, but oh well. I was surprised to find that they cafeteria was selling them to students though, as it was the PTA’s understanding that treats aren’t being sold until after 3.
So August and I got an ice cream cone bar and also an avocado sandwich to share. While we were waiting to pay we saw Gabby and August joked with her. She was wearing the grey shirt from school like Carly has, and he accused her of breaking into our house and stealing his mama’s shirt.
He started with the ice cream, and ate about half of that. I told him he’d probably like the sandwich, once I took out the tomato and lettuce. He took the sandwich and proceeded to eat most of of it (bread, eggs, and avocado). He ran to the window and started banging on it. He had seen Carly walking by. We went out a door and he said hi.
I told Carly about what he said to Gabby about the shirt, and then told August what I’d told Carly. He asked, “What’s ‘accusing’?” A word of the day.
We headed to the drinking fountain, then to the library. He did art on one of the computers, then I checked out Fing by David Williams.
We got walking at 2:10. He was trying to figure out the difference between the SUVs and minivans, and I said it was “murky”. Another word of the day. At the big recycling place he stopped and got a big Coke bottle so he could joke to Carly that he got to drink Coke again. He also stopped to pick one of the red flowers that he keeps wanting to study at home, but we keep forgetting. And he asked me, “Dada, if I was a police and I put a pirate in jail would I get in trouble?”
At home he played with the salad spinner, filling it with water and the nut from earlier, to make palm nut water. But the main event became spinning it to be the water to come up the sides of the container. When it started to drip out the sides, he went and got the tape and taped it all up to make it watertight. Somehow he ended up talking about fire resistant clothing, and we watched a video on how it worked:
And he also asked, “What’s iron ore?” He’s heard about it somewhere.
He watched an episode of Hilda, the one about bad dreams, then played by himself to earn an Oreo. He asked me, “Why do you wake up when the sun is up?” and we talked about the clock in our brain, and the senses. We finished reading The 104-Story Treehouse, then went upstairs to wrestle. We came down and did a little art and writing on the iPad. Carly got home at 5:40 as he was writing his name.
She had the box with the time-in/calm space set we had ordered. They opened it and set up some of the posters over by his calm area. I heated up pasta for him and they are together at the table. I joined them with my tea. He made up a song that went “Don’t change the subject. Don’t change the subject. Queen, queen.” He earned another Oreo playing with the tape and Duplos.
We read part of Fing and he was laughing a lot. ‘Out-of-print’ was in the book and he asked what it meant.
I took him up at 7:45 and gave him a bath. We read more Fing. He was then saying, “Or I’ll howl the house down!” Based on a line in the book. He sang a song before bed, and said it was a magic spell. Carly came up about 8:30 and put him to sleep.
Carly got him up after 6:30. I finished listening to Always Look on the Bright Side by Eric Idle as I got his oatmeal ready. He ate his chocolate vitamin this morning after climbing the last couple tasted bad. He and I made a back landing gear to the Lego spaceship so it wouldn’t tip backwards. Carly headed to work, and he had oatmeal and watched Julius Jr.
As we got going we discussed something, and I used the word ‘overall’ and he asked what that meant. Then, on the walk to school he was talking about cutting open dead animals to learn what was inside them. So ‘dissect’ was another word of the day. It was a nice quick and quiet walk, as there was no school at the Israeli school so there was no traffic on the sidewalk, and a lot less cars.
We got to school and down to his class. He was playing with Eve in the calm space when I left. I headed home, worked, and rode back at 12.
He had had a good day. They had sent photos of him playing with Eve in the kitchen, hugging her, and being pushed by her on the swing. He had a great literacy time again, getting involved right from the beginning (Vicky said it usually takes him 5 or 10 minutes before he really gets focused). For tracing letters he decided to use two pencils, one in each hand, for doing the practice shapes, then switched back to one for the actual letters.
He had one meltdown, and it happened when he got a cut from one of the ribbons. Marion said she saw the whole thing, from the cut, to him trying to hold it in and hiding the cut finger in his sleeve, through all the emotions. She explained it to me at length when I picked him up. She said she had learned a lot from helping him through it.
We headed home, and as we walked there were lots and lots of butterflies, all headed north. We paused in Vatikim and just watched the hundreds of butterflies flying towards us. We paused again at the empty lot of yellow flowers. In both places I tried holding out a hummus container to catch one. August was pessimistic and told me, “It’s no use.”
We got home home and he watched some Hilda and I did some work on the PTA website and social media sites, basically finishing it all up.
We went out for another walk at 3. We went up and did recycling. Someone had left a bunch of stuff by the garbage area. There was a nice big bowl that he wanted, then he asked if we could take the green “serving plate” as well. He must have learned ‘serving plate’ at school. We went back to the house to drop those off, and also get his black headphones so he could play with them on the bike.
As we got walking, I spotted a butterfly on the ground and caught it. It looked sick. We walked down to the path area, and August cut flowers for a bouquet. We picked from about six different kinds of plants. We’ve been planning to do this for a few days, but today also happened to be Palestinian Mother’s Day, so I had him tell Carly “Happy Mother’s Day!” later.
We got home at 4:05 and put the flowers in water. We then cut a hole in the butterfly container big enough so that he could reach a finger in and touch it. Not big enough though, because as I was on the phone with Carly he got it stuck and started screaming. I managed to get it out, and we cut it a bit bigger. He said, “I like having a pet butterfly.” When I said something was a “Good observation” he replied “What’s ‘observation’?” Another word of the day.
Carly got home and he showed her the flowers and the butterfly. On his own he had gone out and gotten lemon plant to make himself tea. Now, as I made salmon pasta for dinner I asked him to grate parmesan. He said, “I’ll be drinking my tea by then.”
But when Carly asked him to help her harvest the broccoli to save it from the caterpillars and he went and helped her.
I finished dinner and he drank his tea. He made a mixture on the floor of the kitchen, then he did a couple of timed alone times, playing with the Duplos. I did dishes and listened to my audiobook.
Carly gave him a bath. I took over and he got all the keys in the house to do the pretending game where he steals my belly button snacks. We read The 104 Story Treehouse, reading the silly “Up and Up and Up” chapter. Carly then read while I took a shower. I read the “Down and Down” chapter, then read the email about the painted lady butterfly migration.
He was really stuffy. We did a butterfly visualization, being the butterfly doing the whole migration, but he took quite awhile to fall asleep as he was so stuffy. He wouldn’t blow his nose with me, although Carly said he’d done it earlier. He was finally asleep around 8:50.
I let him sleep until he got up right at 7:00. Carly had left a little early, with the car, for a training down in Tel Aviv. He watched Julius Jr. Nd he oatmeal. We got walking. Couple minutes late, then had lots of distractions along the way. Most notably a tractor pulling a trailer full of carrots up from one of the fields. He also stopped at the corner before school to look at flowers and insects. As we walked in the school we were next to Bar and Ben and their dad, with their dog dressed in a tutu. August got his Bar hug, and this time I was ready to take a photo.
We picked up his robot costume from the guardhouse, where Carly had dropped it off this morning. It was still before 8, but the preschool was out on the playground. One piece had come loose, so he had me tape it, then we took the costume to show off to Marion, then Andrea. Marion was very excited, telling all of the kids that this was what a costume should be like: homemade, and not bought at the store. That was what it had been like growing up in France.
It was close to 8:30 by the time I walked home. Worked for awhile, then packed a lunch for him and packed tape and aluminum foil for emergency robot repair and rode my bike back.
He had had a rough day, and when I got there was with Vicky. Surprisingly, literacy group went really well, and he did okay with Ms. Liron. It was between the two and after that he had problems. With Vicky he had done the running thing out on the grass. Since she didn’t know she was supposed to catch him, he gave her a big hug around the legs.
August was visibly down, which is a first. He wanted to head home, or alternately go to Sushi Ishimoto for lunch. I finally convinced him to stay on campus. He chose to go over by the cafeteria. He didn’t have any interest in eating with his class.
We went and sat at a table by the teacher lounge, then he agreed to stay for the Purim celebration. We went back to his class, got his costume on, and went out where the other preschoolers were. He was swamped by admirers.
On the walk up the stairs to the start of the parade he found a butterfly wing on the ground and I put it in the backpack.
We joined the parade around the quad. That was fun, but chaotic, with older kids pushing past and bumping into the preschoolers.
We ended on the grass by the foreign language classrooms. A performer talked to them all for a few minutes and had them play a sort of simon says game, then let them spread out to do the different activities.
August played around for the next 90 minutes or so. We watched the bubbles, then he played with the nuts from a palm tree, trying to throw them into the middle of it. He asked to look at the butterfly wing, but we couldn’t find it in the pocket of the backpack I’d put it in. When he spotted bubbles over by the soccer field we headed over there. It was a bubble machine and he watched and played with that for quite awhile, as did some older kids. He climbed a tree and took a making mama nervous photo, went on the field and played with the soccer goals (he wanted me to move them around and put them together like a tent, but I told him they were there in case anyone wanted to play soccer), and Shary talked to him about some insect. He wandered over to the busy big kid playground. We saw his friends (Eve and Candy) a couple times, but he didn’t want to go play with them. I think the whole thing was just too loud and overwhelming. He played on the playground for a few minutes, doing loops around the poles while he held on with one hand. He would go around one pole several times, then switch to another, etc. He found a piece of rope and played with that for the rest of the time: tying me up by spinning around me while I held it and tying it to my feet, then attaching it to a tree and having me hold the other end and he would stand on it.
Eventually, about 2:30, we wandered back to the classroom. There were about 5 students in there, watching alphabet videos from Alphablocks on the big screen. August sat on a table and watched. They were pretty funny.
Just before 3 we got walking home. Lots of butterflies on the way, and along the little path between blocks we tried to catch some, to no success. We were home at 3:35. He talked about how he likes his tape measure better: “AND it smells like hardware store.”
He ate some zucchini cornbread and we read a little of The 104-Story Treehouse. I then let him watch some Hilda. Carly came home at 5:30. She talked about the workshop she’d been at today and talked about liking the speakers. August was confused at first, until I explained this other definition of ‘speakers’.
He called for a “Family hug.” Earlier I had jokingly called a family hug without Carly there. He said, “That’s not a family hug. It’s just a hug.” They gave food and water to the lizard. I asked if it had a name and he named it Workenstocks. We had brought the orange and white pillow home from the classroom, and he now put it in the fridge to make it cold, and liked squeezing it when it was cold. He had me put it in the freezer to make it even colder.
Carly went out and found the broccoli plants being attacked by small caterpillars. He went out to see and caught a few. For dinner I put some mushroom on a piece of pizza for him and he had a bowl of corn with butter. He went to the bathroom, and from there I heard him yell, “Dada! I want to tell you my favorite kind of power…kind that turns heat into electricity.” He meant geothermal, and he explained how it was better than solar, because you don’t have to worry about adjust the panels towards the sun, or cleaning them.
Carly went to take a shower. He ate some of his frozen treat, remembering it was there from a few weeks ago. We went upstairs for his bath. He washed the walls with his electric toothbrush. Made sure he washed it good before using it. We somehow talked about the real bath, and he told me, “That one thing makes it so I never want to touch the bath again.” He explained it was when his foot hurt and he got in the bath. I told him that was only a problem if he had a wound, but he is clear that he doesn’t want a bath again.
After I went to bed he had sat up and lain down on the covers, feet towards the pillows. At some point, he got back up and crawled under the covers, putting his head on a pillow and pulling the covers up to his chin. I don’t think he’s ever done that before.
Carly got him up starting at 6:30. He spit out one of his vitamins this morning, saying it didn’t taste good. Carly headed to work and he watched Pink Panther while he ate oatmeal with mango and zucchini cornbread.
On our walk to school he asked, “Why an I seeing more minivans?” I reminded him of patterns, and how when you learn about something new you then recognize it more easily. He replied, “Oh, like crane flies.” We also saw Bryan’s wife and kids, and had fun seeing all the Purim costumes of kids going to the Israeli school: a sumo wrestler, hotdog, and all sorts of others. Not sure how to feel about a couple boys dressed as Arabs.
At school we walked in to the classroom to find that Eve had the gecko. She had also made a picture for the rules, which mainly involved not opening the cage, as it would escape.
I walked home and worked, finishing the PTA website, then drove to school. August had had an okay day, but not treat worthy. We hurried to the car and drove home. There, he got his tape measure and compared it to our other one. His goes to 10ft, so just barely longer than the 3m of the other one. We measured the swing and grabbed IKEA bags and headed to IKEA.
When we got there he asked, “Why do you think Ikea is a big block?” We talked bout building shapes. Later, as we left, he compared the size to the new mall just to the north, and to the Pepsi bottling plant. Back at school he would talk to Marion, I think it was, about the size of IKEA versus the Pepsi plant.
We went inside and planned a quick shopping trip to get back in time for library time. When we went upstairs though he spotted the cafe area up there. We decided to get lunch. It was a short line, three people in front of us, but there was only one woman working there and it was slow. We got a salmon and cream cheese sandwich, a peach iced tea, and a cinnamon roll. I let him taste the cinnamon roll, then saved the rest as a reward for when we had to wait in the checkout line. There was lots of discussion of seat belt laws and then the metal pipes of the ventilation system.
We then did a quick shopping trip. He chose (thankfully cheap) pillows and blankets. We got matching ones for home and school. And we got a round pink rug for under the table at school. We had just enough time to also find cushions for the swing in the yard. We had also gotten another tape dispenser and a couple pairs of small scissors. At checkout he ate the cinnamon roll as we waited to check out.
We then hurried back to school. We walked down to his classroom as they were lining up to go to library time. We headed to the library. I could tell that they had talked about library rules, as the kids were much better behaved today. I confirmed this with Andrea later. Ilana read Harry the Dirty Dog for library time, then August checked out Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat Are You Going to School? At the end of library time Eve was a bit confused and upset that August was taking the gecko and not them. We walked back to the classroom and set up the calm area under the table under the stairs. Very cozy.
After school we went out on the playground for a few minutes, then went up to Heather’s art room. She had said he could get parts for his robot costume. She was gone, but David and the girls were there. They helped August find a few parts in the big box. He then hung out with Eve a little and she gave him some art that she’d made.
We drove the car home. I put the cushions on the swing, and August opened and started the tape dispenser. We had some meat and crackers, and set up the calm space at home. We were then adding to the costume, using the hot glue, when a big glob dripped on my left pointer finger. I used fingers on my right hand to get it off, burning them as well.
We read Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat Are You Going to School? and worked on the Lego-like kit, making the spaceship, until Carly got home. He watched something and they read Captain Underpants. I went upstairs and rested for awhile. He ate pasta and we finished the spaceship. Earlier, he’d been in denial about being involved in burning my fingers. He had told me I was joking about it. Now, he conceded, “Well, if I did get hot glue on you it was an accidental…” Carly took him up for a bath and they read Two Homes
I put him to bed. We read 104-Story Treehouse and did a lizard visualization. He had his usual “I have a question for you…” and asked something bout the size of buildings or something. He took rather awhile to fall asleep, at 9:15.
Carly got him up at 6:40. They played on the couch, then he watched Max and Ruby. We ate some zucchini cornbread and then he had oatmeal. On the walk to school he asked about how fast cars drove on the roads, and why they drive faster on the road down to the highway. I said there weren’t intersections, and he asked what that meant, so ‘intersection’ was our first word of the day.
When we got to school he talked to some one and called them “whackadoodle”, then me “Mr. Whackadoodle”. It’s from Hilo. I talked to Marion about a quiet place, and she showed me and August that they had a table under the stairs that he could climb under.
I went from there to the library and did some work. Marion started sending photos of August on our WhatsApp group. The big new thing was making long ramps with the blocks and rolling marbles on them. And when Judson bumped his head, August, on his own, drew a picture and gave it to him to help him feel better. Finally, he is really into the math/geometry boards where they make shapes with rubber bands.
At 9 I went to the PTA meeting. It was all about the cafeteria issues, and the place was full. Sat next to Sarah, and she asked me to make some discreet inquiries to find out how the staff would like the staff lounge improved, as the PTA needs ideas for a staff gift. At 10 I went to the cafeteria and edited chapters for Zoe until Marka showed up to discuss PTA website. We sat outside with Jessica and Misao, the co-secretaries and met. At noon I then ran to get August.
He was sitting down to the meeting and doing great. He ran to me to show me his sheet empty of red dots. Woohoo! He was so proud of it. He also told me how he had gotten upset once and went under the quiet area table. I tried to get him to go ahead and stay for the meeting, but he wanted to go get his reward—the treat from the Moto shop in town. As we were about to leave, Eve stood up in the meeting and yelled at Candy, then stomped out of the room. August watched this unfold, then rather loudly announced, “That is something I did NOT do.”
So we decided to walk up to town, and get VIPizza for lunch on the way. August stopped though at the NW corner of the big traffic circle by school and started finding black beetles everywhere. He climbed up the dirt hill, and explored for 15 minutes or so. He said, “This is something I like about doing half days at school…I get to see a lot of bugs when they’re out.” We took a lot of beetles with us, sadly they were looking pretty sickly by the evening and I let them out. As we walked north he stopped at another empty lot full of flowers and we decided to do a bouquet some day when we brought string with us (that’s from school). He was asking about the weights of different trees as we walked into town, and which I could pick up or not. ‘Sapling’ became another word of the day.
We stopped at VIPizza and the owner handed me a paper towel to clean August’s nose, which has gotten pretty bad. We each got a slice, and August asked, “Why does steam float?” We discussed bonds and atomic weight (another word of the day) and he asked “What does ‘embarrassing’ mean?” (Another). He requested a second slice and said, “I think I’m gonna eat all this.” He ate about half and I had the rest.
We walked over to Moto and he looked around. He had initially planned on one of the little umbrella looking suckers, but decided on a Kinder egg. I gave him the money and had him buy it on his own. He sat on the table outside and ate it. While we were in town he developed the grumpy game, where I was supposed to act upset that he didn’t get any red dots. I complained, saying I really liked red, and accused him and his teachers of conspiring together to cost me money and get him treats. He found it very funny.
We had stopped at the first grocery store to look for the bars he likes for his pre-STEM class. No luck. We now went across the street to the new one, and found them there. As he walked down the stairs there were a couple of women on break there. One has big long extensions in her hair and August pointed right to them and commented on her having long hair and a wig. She took it well, and on the way back she asked if he wanted to touch them. He declined.
We walked back through the residential streets in the middle of town. There was a lot of stopping to look at crane flies and snails on the way back. And more beetles by where he found the rusty hoe blade a few weeks ago. He also asked me to have big arms like David. I politely explained that bulk doesn’t necessarily mean strength, and that DNA has a lot to do with body shape. David was in the Navy, but is also a pastry chef, so didn’t pass judgment on his arm strength vis a vis mine, but was able to convince August I was strong from lifting him. This, of course, backfired, as August wanted me to carry him the last full block to school, telling me he was helping give me more exercise.
We got back at 2:50 and after stopping at the library to go to the bathroom, went down to the classroom. They played with the math boards for a few minutes then went into STEM. I went out on the bench. At 4 he ran out and excitedly told me that they had used the printer/calculator parts that we had given Andrea a couple weeks ago and put them in playdough. They had made the playdough, then made things using the parts. She said August’s started as entirely abstract, then turned into a satellite.
He played with the math boards until everyone was picked up, then I talked briefly to Andrea about when (assuming today is the start of something) about when to extend his time. She said we’d continue with the half days through the week. I’d like to push to 12:30 ASAP as long as he’s doing fine with the second meeting.
We went to the library and he looked at the electronic bits art again, wondering which parts were from the bag of parts he had given Heather. (She had particularly said that a student had found the right parts for the eyes of one of them.)
Bar came out and gave him a nice hug again. Probably the tenth of the year, but they are all very stealthy and I haven’t gotten one on camera. In the library we looked for a Bone book, but they still don’t have 3. He started setting up a big game on the rug of squares, which was cool. But he started to pull books off the shelves for it. I tried to stop him, and he immediately got upset. Carly arrived just at that moment and I picked him up and handed him to her. She took him into the empty classroom in the library and they spent a lot of time discussing how we treat books, and she called them the librarians’ babies. They spent a lot of time acting it out, with him being a baby book and her being a librarian. While I tried to figure out where they went I ran into Zoe and briefly talked to her.
We all walked home. He’s really into identifying cars now, by type. A new one is ‘sports car’. As we walked down Vatikim he saw a Mustang and said, “Sports car. Convertible.” As we walked the bath between blocks he said “Maybe a meteorite…” broke the street light. He brought up bullet trains, and Carly mentioned that he’d been in the womb when we’d ridden the fast train to Busan. That reminded me of a few days ago when he had spotted Ms. Rena getting on her motorcycle. She’d asked if he’d been on a motorcycle. He said “Well, maybe when I was in my mama’s womb…”
We got home and he watched something on YouTube. When we got dinner ready he chose to pause it and joined it. In the kitchen he then made a small soup or something and they had it warming in the oven. I was working on the PTA website. Carly took him up and he played and she gave him a bath.
I came up as he was going to the bathroom and explaining how you make pee. It had a lot of ingredients, including “distilled pollen” and lots of chemicals/molecules we don’t know.
He said goodnight to her. In bed he discussed his micrometer, which turned out to be able to measure really, really big things. I explained then name, and that that should then be called a ‘megameter’. He liked that. He got on the subject of his planet and said that people had tried to settle there, but had all died, because something about the air molecules: “It was a good try though.”
Carly had reminded us light off at 8. When it turned 8 I said I needed to turn the light off or I’d get in trouble. He then jumped on me so I couldn’t get up, and at 8:01 he was giggling like crazy and went to tell Carly that I should have a timeout because I didn’t follow the rule.
Back in bed he was talking about all of the world records he has: brightest light ever, etc. He ended with, “lotionest lotion ever.”
He asked me for story from school and I told him about getting to go, in 4th grade, to the Museum of Flight before it opened. I’d been meaning to tell him of this since we had made space suits, which looked kind of like his robot suit. I talked about how we had made a space constitution, and he asked if I had agreed with all the laws. I said I hadn’t, but then he asked what the rules were, and he got upset when I didn’t remember. He tried to leave the room, but I got him back on the bed and he rolled over and was asleep right at 8:30.
He was up at 6:05. I was up at a quarter to 7. I came down and found them working on his costume, him doing most of the gluing. I did the lettering for the welcome sign, then made coffee for me and oatmeal for him. He then watched a video while I kept organizing and Carly made the cake. He was watching a long Lego video called ‘World’s Longest LEGO Great Ball Contraption”. I watched part of it with him, and it was a good engineering lesson for him. From that ‘module’ was the word of the day.
We got to finishing our cleaning and preparing for the party. Think I left a lot of that out of yesterday’s journal, but we had done a lot of cleaning in the evening, and August had helped me make two loaves of zucchini cornbread. Now, she cut the veggies and August and I finished the ‘Welcome’ sign for the Zinnie house and hammered it up. And he had the idea of hanging up the birthday cards/art from his classmates on the tack board in the Zinnie house so we did that. We had some time before the party at 11, so we let Mikaela know he was ready to show her his Zinnie house. She had been invited to the party, but was going to be gone by then. So she came up and he showed her everything in the house for a few minutes. He then played with the “antennas” on the Zinnie house, and inside we watched some of the Formula 1 qualifying.
People started showing up just after 11. First Eve, Zoe, and Heather and David. They brought a bag with some art supplies and a set of little plastic jars for his treasures. Eve tried on his robot costume. Then Simone and Anita showed up. He opened the present right away. It was a Transformer sort of robot toy. They were quickly followed by Taya with Cassie. They had brought a Lego-compatible spaceship set. Cassie told us that Taya had insisted that August wanted a doll. Taya loves dolls and has about 8. Later, when she found Baby Q, the doll Carly bought him in Korea, Taya told Cassie “I told you!” I told Cassie she could get the finally “I told you!” since he’s never actually really played with it. We were also going to invite Candy and her mom, but they had a meeting with all of the other Chinese moms and their kids for the International Day planning.
The kids did great together. They started outside, painting. They had brought one canvas, and I grabbed the big cardboard box out of recycling and used a utility knife to cut it into canvases for them. Lots of looking in the dirt for insects together. The Zinnie house turned out to be a huge hit and they spent a lot of time in there. August enjoyed showing off a bug to Anita, and David got involved kicking a soccer ball around with Simone and Zoe. Simone was reluctant to play with the others, but he is really into soccer, so that was good.
Inside, August, Taya, and Eve took care of Baby Q. He got a lot of his potions and they mixed them all together as medicine for the baby. They mixed them using one of the brushes that Eve had bought, and August put it in our drill to make an electric mixer. The three were really doing a great job taking turns.
Carly then brought down the toilet paper holder and, inspired by the project on the stairs at school where August and Eve had been tying ribbons all week, Carly had picked up rolls of ribbon at school yesterday, and now the kids went crazy tying them to the toilet paper holder.
There had been the hummus, veggies, potato pastry things, and pizza out, so they had snacked along the way. I had poured water for the kids at one point, and for the adults Anita and I had opened a bottle of wine.
At 1:20 we did cake. August requested we not sing the song. Zoe started it, but he only got about half the song before it petered out. Everyone liked that he had 5, 6, and 7 on it. We ate cake, then August got the little plastic jars that Eve and Zoe had brought and he went and filled them up with water from the sink and handed them out to everyone at the party, adults included, so they could drink them. That was very nice.
Back outside they play a little hide and seek, then it was back to playing in the Zinnie house. The only tough moment came when August got sort of trapped in the Zinnie house, then bumped his head. He got upset, and we took him upstairs to calm down. I was being really calming with him, but he was really mean with me, so Carly took over. She got him back down after a few minutes and the rest went smoothly.
August had Carly lift up stones, and he found a big grub. That was an exciting find. David then was helping August, the first that he’s really interacted with August.
People headed out about a quarter to 3.
Ilana and Howard were having their vegetarian soup party, and the second loaf of zucchini bread was for that, but we didn’t feel like rushing to that and decided to skip it.
So we relaxed and recovered, and worked on cleaning up. Carly skyped with her parents, and August showed off the Zinnie house to them as well.
We had some dinner, and August and I started putting together the Lego spaceship as we watched the Australian Grand Prix. I took him up for his bath and washed his hair. Went okay, but he got frustrated with the hair washing and threw his lollipop towards the shower after I was done. It shattered, which was a good example of a natural consequence.
In the bedroom, he asked me, “Maybe I could ask you a couple questions and watch some videos?” He asked, “Why does concrete chip off?” So I looked up chipping concrete and we read about it. ‘Spalling’ was another word of the day. He had us act out the necklace story from yesterday, then we did another Story Dice story, telling “The Girl Who Wanted to Be a Hunter”. August was repeating, “I kicked the habit and it’s almost done.” Which might be based on a Berenstain Bears episode, or some commercial.
Carly came in to put him to sleep. I left them at 7:40. Carly said he was really reflecting on school, and when she asked what he liked about school he replied, “My nice teachers, the fun activities.” When she asked what he didn’t like he basically said, “Handling all the kids.” They really role played when Eve wouldn’t let him hold the bug catcher at school, and he was practicing saying to a teacher, “Would you help me get it back?”
I had my book group meeting at 12:30am. It’s usually an hour later, but since the U.S. has made the time shift and we haven’t, it was a bit nicer for me, and I stayed up until it started, watching the new Netflix series Love, Death, and Robots.
Around 6 it started pouring. August was up at 6:30. I heard him yell “Mama!” I got up because I thought he was scared by the storm. It turned out he was just surprising her when he came down the stairs. I went back to bed until 8. They had done Makey Makey and he was watching marble videos. He chose the Learn Engineering video about how a clutch works and we watched that together. He asked, “What’s ‘logical’ mean?”
The shelves had gotten wet during the storm, and I now moved the shelves just before another storm hit. They read some Pippi Longstocking. We then did two rounds of him playing by himself, rewarded with Oreos, while he worked on his toilet paper holder sculpture. We then played a round of Guess Who. He won for real this time, having guessed my person had blue eyes right away.
He did the game where he runs across the floor to Carly and she picks him up. He was getting too hyper though and I took him for a short timeout. Carly headed to the store. He added some paint to his ‘Welcome’ sign.
We read part of Magic Pickle and then part of The 104-Story Treehouse. We were going to go outside but we missed our window and another thunderstorm. He was a bit grumpy about it, but then we went upstairs. We told a story called “The Queen of the Jewel.”
Carly got home at 12:30. As she unpacked the groceries he found the seaweed snacks, and as he opened a packet he was telling a story to himself. I caught, “… That’s what happens when you take over the world…You get sausages.”
I took him out for a walk up to do recycling. As I did the plastic recycling, with him not helping, there were dark clouds coming over. He said it was going to rain, and wanted us to go right away. When I did finish and we started walking home, the rain hit as we were halfway down the block. We just got a few drops by the time we got back, but he was saying mean things about me as we came in so Carly took him upstairs.
They discussed his costume for Purim and I helped him collect parts from the art kitchen and the other places he has little electronic and metal bits. He explained his toilet paper holder machine to me, and told me he could drink bleach, etc. because, “I put them in a special machine that turns them into water.”
The two of them left at 1:20 to go down to Ace to get supplies for the robot costume. They came back with a hot glue gun and other things. They were back at 2:40 and started making the robot costume. Carly cut the box and cut the neck and arm holes. Carly said I could do the hot glue. He agreed: “Yeah, you’ll do that part dada. Mama’s too wimpy and nervous.” I went upstairs and they made progress on the costume, covering it in foil and starting on the hot glue.
Carly left at 4 to go to the store. He found a coin and said, “This is for my account.” When I asked what he needed money for he said, “Let me buy whatever I want that we don’t have.”
We went out for a walk now, as the weather had cleared. He asked about how fast signals travel, and we paused at the park to watch a video about how fiber optic cables work. As we continued on up towards town he sang a song about a crane fly, then we caught a bee. In the nature-y area we looked for other bugs, and he had me pick him up when someone had a dog. We then found a big dead lizard. We looked at that, and he claimed we had seen a dead bird in Korea. I don’t remember that. We headed home and got here at 5:25.
They started doing hot glue on the costume, and August really liked doing that. Carly was letting him do the glue gun.
We had dinner, and Carly gave him a bath. I put him to sleep. We discussed the word ‘hate’ and he said he didn’t realize what it meant and wouldn’t say it anymore. I told him something about when I was in kindergarten. And he volunteered a story, saying that Eve told him that she cries when she hears a beautiful piece of music. He called it “good crying” and said he understands what she meant. He was asleep just before 8:20.
He slept all the way to 5:45. So that was a good night of sleep (11 and a half hours). Carly got him oatmeal and he watched Aardvark and the Ant. When his time was up he asked to read the zombie book. We finished Plants vs. Zombies: Lawnmageddon, which we had started several days ago. ‘Suddenly’ was a word of the day.
He played with the circuits for a couple minutes on his own before coaxing me over. He listened to “Murakami” through the circuit set using the headphones he found, then asked me to play it through Siri so we could both hear it louder. We put it on repeat and he sat on my lap and we listened. He then asked what he could make for me: time machine, robot that does everything I demand, a fancy toilet seat better than the one we had in Korea. He said he only makes things in his lab at night. He randomly quoted Hilo: “And I see a duck sitting on a toilet.”
We went out and did more painting. He painted the board for the welcome sign white, and I did more of the shelves. He went back inside on his own and was sitting near the Siri speaker and I heard him doing a lot of talking to himself. I came in to wash the brushes and he was still talking. He put the blanket under the table (he said something about losing it in there) then went and played with the toy drill, doing a little more talking.
I started an email to Marka about PTA stuff and got most of it done. August was done plying by himself and needed something to do. I tried to get him started playing with the Guess Who and Shark Attack games that he got for Christmas. Those involved setup, however, and he got me to help him. But we did ply a game of Guess Who, and it was only at the end that I pointed out he had played a winning game. He was a little indignant that I had ‘tricked’ him. We then played with the Shark Attack game. We played together a bit, then I was able to go finish my email.
He asked for cake, so I gave him a small slice. He then had the last two chicken nuggets with mayo and ketchup and a juice box. He got some juice on him putting in the straw and we had to change him. I went upstairs to brush my teeth. When I came down he ask started talking about his newest plan to punish people that break into his lab. After I redirected him to a more appropriate punishment (capturing and turning them over to the police), he then asked if he could just have his own jail. I said no. A couple minutes later he asked, “Can anyone outsmart the police?”
I went out and did a little more touchup paint, then we got headed to school for parent teacher conferences day. We were supposed to meet Gabby at 10:55. But when we got there Carly told us that Gabby was sick and had cancelled. August was really looking forward to being with her and was upset. Luckily, he was able to get over it and sat in the atelier and watched an episode of Hilda on Carly’s computer.
His teachers had had their skype session with Dr. Postma last night. It sounds like it went pretty well. It will be interesting to hear how Postma felt about it. Marion set up a WhatsApp group so they could send us positive things about him through the day; the idea being that we can then show August the good moments at school and discuss those, and reinforce that he actually does like school (as he still says he doesn’t like school). Marion told a story about how, a few days ago, he started tying the ribbons from the railings of the stairway going upstairs. He initially was tying them across the stairway, blocking the stairs. Marion tried to be logical about it, knowing that ‘No’ is one of his triggers. She explained that for safety reasons, PKC needs to be able to get down the stairs in case there was a fire. He got his usual reaction/meltdown. But then a couple days later they were doing the tying again. Vicky came along and he started telling her about what they were doing, and explained that they weren’t tying them across the steps because PKC needed to be able to get down if there was a fire.
Heather was coming in to meet next as we took August out. He said hi to her, jokingly calling her “Eve June” (her daughter’s name) and telling her she had really blue eyes.
So August had said something to me about getting lemon water in a bottle or something. I had thought he meant the other iced tea we still had from McDonald’s. He repeated this to Carly as we said goodbye outside the preschool. Then, when we got to the top of the stairs he went to the Make-A-Wish table, where they were selling things. In the two seconds we had taken to walk by he had seen the water bottle with a “filter” in the middle and decided you could put fruit in there and flavor the water. I asked if he had seen a water bottle like this before. He said no, but he had seen Ms. Liron with lemon in her water bottle but it was just floating free. He was so excited about it, and talking the the high schoolers running the table about it, that I had to get it.
We then walked down to the little arts fair that was going on outside the library. Mainly looked at a table where a couple sells old maps and prints. He was kind of interested, but would have been more interested if he didn’t have the water bottle, as he kept talking about it. From there we went to the book fair. He mainly sat under the tables and played with the water bottle (it also has a nice latch) while I looked. I got a couple books for him: The Hairy Brown Angel and Other Animal Tales and an old book (with an inscription from Pakistan in it) called My Very Own Fairy Stories. For myself I found A Little History of the World and Reza Aslan’s No God But God.
From there it was more shopping. We went to Ikea. We talked about getting food, but I had warned him no ice cream. He decided not to get lunch there, since he couldn’t get ice cream, but he was calm about it. I was disappointed though as I hadn’t had lunch yet and was counting on that falafel. We went backwards, going through the checkouts, and got the small metal table for in the office, then walking back to get another can of white paint. I also decided on a desk lamp for the office. By checkout we got a few packs of their little snacks. He ate one of the berry ones on the way out to the car. He didn’t like the nut and berry mix that I got.
Next, we went to Max. We were just planning on getting the egg timer he wanted so that we could work on him playing by himself. But then we started to find other things: a white board and tack board for the Zinnie house, which needed markers, an eraser, and push pins, some fabric we could use for something, a pair of magnifying glasses, some new paper clips, etc. Actually, the first add-on was their cheap acrylic paint. That actually saved us a trip to the art store, and was much cheaper. It was paint we needed for the ‘Welcome’ sign to the Zinnie house. He chose some nice colors.
We walked back to the car (we had parked in the dirt lot) and left the boards and my backpack in there. We went into Tiv Taam and got lemons (for his lemon water) and some milk. I was then looking for loose leaf tea when a young woman heard us and asked where we were from. Her name was Yael, and she was there with a woman named Paige McGonagall, who has two high schoolers at WBAIS. The older, Ethan, is a senior and on the robotics team. So we talked for that for a couple minutes. August handled the delay pretty well.
We paid and got going. On the walk back to the car he asked, “What’s machinery?” Another word of the day. We were driving at 2:40. He didn’t fall asleep, although it was a close call. I looked back after we passed the Israeli school and he was still awake. When I parked I looked back and his eyes were closed. He opened them after a few seconds. I’m not sure if he was actually falling asleep or just messing with me.
He had his vanilla yogurt. He tried to fool me by telling me he didn’t like it, but then revealing it was actually really good. He repeated this joke later with the sushi, and confused both of us quite well, as he had liked the sushi yesterday.
I was unloaded all of our stuff out of the car, and we got to nailing up the whiteboard and tack board in the house. I heard someone calling to August, asking where his dad was. It was Gil, from across the street. I had left the back left door to the car open.
We finished hanging things up in the Zinnie house and set up the pink organizer we had gotten for the markers and tacks. August asked, “What does ‘in custody’ mean? It is a word from Hilo (when he is captured by the military).
Inside he opened the colorful rubber bands he gotten at Max and was tying them together. By the end of the day he was doing it on his own. We were outside finishing putting together the blue table when Carly got home.
We showed off what we had done and then he wanted to put lemon in the water bottle. He and I did that. Too mild at first, but he was really excited about it once we had crushed the lemons a bit and left it to steep for awhile. He wanted to try the egg timer and playing by himself. So we did that, and he tied together rubber bands by himself while Carly and I worked.
He and Carly then played the Shark Attack game. I should have taken a video of it, as August didn’t tell her it would pop up, and when it surprised her he was really laughing.
He as then adding to his rubber band chain as Carly and I sat on the couch. He was running with the rubber bands while I held the other end. The chain got longer and longer, and he would add shorter chains that Carly was making. He randomly quoted, “Boss, I can’t find my lucky dollar.” It’s from an annoying commercial on YouTube that he’s been watching.
He requested that we buy him Honey Nut Cheerios sometimes. When Carly said they’d be more of a treat than a snack he got upstairs and threw the tissue box in my general direction. I started to take him upstairs for a timeout, but then asked him where he would like to calm down until he could apologize. I suggested under a chair. He got the blanket, put it on a chair, and curled up on it for a minute. He then got down and apologized without being prompted. Brilliant.
Carly had him play on his own again. He tied rubber bands of course.
I set up the lamp upstairs, then back downstairs he had me count how many were in his chain. It is up to 87. He, of course, said he wants to get it to 100.
Carly took him up for a bath. When he said Carly told him she’d seen a dust devil when she was a kid. He asked me “What’s positronic mean?” I reminded him, then we read the first story in My Very Own Fairy Stories. We went upstairs and read a few chapters of Magic Pickle. And he had some Cheerios.
He requested a story visualization, which at the time I couldn’t remember what he meant, but later realized he meant one like where we had someone walking a path and ending up in a new world. He settled for a regular visualization, and we did a bird living in that mall on Tuesday, and it did things like steal grain from the bulk food store and french fries from people and McDonald’s. He fell asleep around 8:30. I fell asleep too, though, so I’m not sure quite when.
