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He crawled out of the covers and halfway across the bed. I found him using my knee as a pillow. Straightened him out and he slept close the rest of the night. When my alarm went off at 6:30 I found him using my shoulder as a pillow. I got him off, but he woke up a couple minutes later. I took awhile to come down, and when I did he was eating oatmeal and watching Max and Ruby: the one where they meet the queen.

He went and found Carly, then they went and played with the Legos and circuits. He explained all about the creation we had made yesterday and how it is connected to Siri. They then took that all apart and were going to make something new. He then made his first circuit all on his own that worked. He was then talking about how he’s invented 1000s of things and knew everything, but it would be hard for Carly. Carly told him he sounded a little arrogant, so he asked what that meant. An early word of the day.

August wanted to find insects, so I took him out for a walk at 9:20. He took us north, straight up towards town. We stopped at the little park-ish area to the right, on a hill, and looked for insects. He found one unidentified little insect and we caught that. He then picked some leaves to put in with it and we found two more insects of different species on the leaves. So three interesting insects, just like that.

He kept heading north to town and we were almost there when he decided he wanted to go to where the baby caterpillars were. Which was the exact opposite direction. So we turned around and headed south. Along the way we discussed things like small cars, whether subs could go to the bottom of the ocean, and why cars can go slow. We talked about car racing and how they control the cars, and I suggested he could try out a go cart sometime. He said, “Never ever, ever, ever…” with about 30 ‘ever’s. He released the three insects at some point, and replaced it with a big crane fly. We got back to the baby caterpillar area and spent a lot of time looking at insects. We sat on the sidewalk and could see all sorts of things now: ants carrying different things, caterpillars crawling up plants, lady bugs, etc. August squished a caterpillar on purpose and I said that was the end. We discussed the difference between doing it on accident and on purpose.

At home we got out the microscope and looked at the insects he’d brought home. Then switched to the macro lens and realized that worked quite well. He got into taking photos around the house, and when Carly called (she had gone to the store and to run errands while we were gone) he took a phone call from her. To eat I served up noodles and sauce and water drink. He ate a couple plain noodles, but didn’t touch the dish.

We ended up talking about the brain, and I reminded him of how I used to teach him about brain development by explaining how babies/kids eventually learn to use a toilet. He had me run through that script several times.

Carly got home at 11:45. Candy’s mom, Vicky, had said they were available to come play, and it turns out that they live in Even Yehuda. So they came over at 12:15. They got here as August and I were taking the insects over across the street to let them go. So they walked over with us, then Candy and August immediately found a couple more bugs to catch.

They played inside a little, then were out in the yard for a few minutes. I then took the two of them up to the park to look for more insects. Carly and Vicky stayed at the house. They ran around, then went in the swings. They played on the play equipment for a few minutes, then spent most of their time over on the exercise equipment, trying everything out.

August had me catch a bee. We went back to the house at 1:20. Inside for a bit, then I went out in the yard with them. I was able to do some reading while they played and went in the Zinnie house. They pretended I was a bear or monster and did a lot of screaming out of the Zinnie house. We let the bee go on the plant.

Inside, Carly made them each a chocolate pancake, and they had juice boxes that Candy and Vicky had brought. They got going at 2:30 to go to a horse riding lesson.

August told Carly, “You’re the best mama ever…you do everything I say.” August wanted to make a frozen treat, so he got a plastic container and mixed milk, chocolate, and honey. this morning he had put water in a cup with spoons and made a frozen sort of sculpture.

He then remembered the silkworm game, where I was a person building my silk business, and he was the silkworms. from several months ago, but he had us go through the whole story again after making an enclosure out of the chairs and pillows. A few times he said, “I’m gonna search on my mobile network.” He also said “I can do this all day” a few times, which was from when Siri randomly told us a tongue twister.

We switched to the squirrel game. Carly found a caterpillar on her flip flop outside. Don’t think it was from August, but Carly wasn’t so sure. He wanted to go get more caterpillars. The sun came out and Carly loved it, but August wasn’t impressed.

We got walking at 3:50. We walked over towards the bridge, then our long route. He knew exactly where we were going, to the old highway area. As we walked he asked, “Why don’t I see round bee hives?” Good question, as we see bees all the time, but we’ve never seen their nests. Told him we’d have to look for them.

We had a great time looking at the plants and insects. We are seeing more and more. I got a great video of a caterpillar crawling down a plant, and we saw ants carrying different things. August noticed how one plant really collected water droplets in its folded leaves. We caught caterpillars, then a bee. But in the end we had a black beetle and a couple of other bugs. He also was very intrigued by a hole in the ground he saw back in the bushes, speculating there might be snakes in it. As we left he asked, “Did you like how I was looking closely? Did you like how I was really focused on collecting animals?”

We got back a little before 5. We showed Carly the insects, video, and photos. Randomly, he asked, “What are suction cups?” I couldn’t think of any in the house to show him, but as I described them he remembered the ones in the car in the United States on that window shade we hang up for him. Later, he would tell me that his toothbrush has a suction cup on it.

Read some Sisters (volume 3) in the squirrel nest. Carly cooked an artichoke and the two of them ate it together. August said, “I can’t believe dada doesn’t want to eat this yummy artichoke.”

We then did a movie and popcorn. We watched about 2/3rds of Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. He remembered his frozen treat, so I let him eat part of that. He then released the other insects but held onto the beetle. We fed it a small chunk of mushroom and a broccoli leaf.

Carly took him up for his bath, then I read him some more Sisters on the bed. August found an orange under the upstairs couch. It had rolled back there and made a moldy mess on the rug. Carly came in, and I left them at 8:30.

Yep song:

The crane fly through the microscope:

August and Candy 1:

August and Candy 2 – slide:

August and Candy 3 – swings:

August and Candy 4 – monster game:

Any carrying something:

Caterpillar crawling down a plant:

Eating artichoke:

He woke up at 6:10. They let me sleep an hour longer. When I was up, August came running up to show me a big flying “spider” that they caught. Actually more like what we would call a mosquito eater. They had been plying with the electricity kit as well. And he’d had oatmeal and watched something. When I came down they started reading Pippi Longstocking. “Unless you put them in my mushroom machine that makes wild mushrooms okay to eat…spins at the speed of light and a chemical goes through a giant poop tube…” She taught him what ‘precipice’ meant so that was a word of the day.

He was getting really hyper, so Carly went outside. He went with her for a second but came right back. He asked me for a ginger snap, so I delivered his vitamins to him on a ginger snap. He came and sat on the couch quietly for awhile, then asked, “Why does humans have shoes?” “Would eagles’ feet be strong enough to poke through the roof of our house?”

He was looking at his insect, and asked what it ate. We looked it up, and I remembered it is a crane fly. He was surprised to find that some of them don’t eat anything as an adult, and they definitely don’t eat mosquitoes. He went out and put some leaves in it. He then started telling me about his insect machine, which killed and cooked insects so that you could eat them. The machine could actually turn them into anything you want, including treats and cakes and pies.

We read more of the Disney version of Treasure Island. He asked if islands were as big as countries. We looked at them on Google Maps and looked at Madagascar, New Zealand, Australia, and others. I taught him ‘archipelago’ as another word of the day.

He went upstairs with Carly to wrestle for a couple minutes, and came down with my keyboard, and said that when it stops working he wants us to take it apart. I told him I hoped that would be a long time. He wanted me to hook the keyboard up to Carly’s computer, so I did, and he did his satellite work. I asked what his satellites were doing, and he said they were detecting “rivers, ponds, streams, oceans…everything that includes water.” And measuring things about them, like their size and how loud they are. “My robot mom takes a day to type a very long document. It takes me minutes.”

I went up and took a shower, and when I came out he came up, showing me his funny outfit. He had put his shirt on as pants, with his feet coming out of the sleeves. He wanted a belt to hold it up. He then put a pair of pajama pants on as a hat and did a funny not-safe-for-YouTube dance. He then found a pair of Carly’s socks and put them on all by himself. When I pointed out that he had put socks on all on his own, he said he can only put socks on when there isn’t a reason.

I then got him going for a walk. Got him dressed, then he asked for his shirt. I pointed out that he already had it on, and he said, “THAT’S Why I didn’t feel a breeze.” August and I got going on a walk at 10:20, and Carly headed to the store. He spotted several crane flies and asked, “Why do I see crane flies everywhere?” We talked about ‘psychology’ (word of the day) and how you notice patterns once you know they exist, but also the biological reason in that they might be hatching now.

We walked north and around, coming back along the Holly block. We found a spider and crane fly and caught them. He chose to take the ‘long route’ down by the old high way. He stopped when he noticed an odd antenna/box on top of a pole at the edge of the empty field and we speculated what it was. We stopped in our now usual spot for insect catching, and he was catching caterpillars. Then he found a nest of baby caterpillars and had no qualms in reaching into the sticky nest to get them.

We got walking, and stopped by the little park to eat a bar. We then walked over towards the big flag. Our first goal on this walk was to find things to take apart, although I wasn’t expecting to find anything. No luck at the garbage spot over that direction, so we headed home. We were home at 11:45 or so.

On the couch I was messaging Simone’s mom and Candy’s mom about play dates. August was bothering me and made it clear he wanted my “Full attention”. I got us noodles to eat. He spilled some water drink on his pants and was takign them off as Carly got home and brought in the groceries. August wanted to try the seaweed snack, and ate a whole packet. Then ate his lunch. Did a good job of that, so I let him have some of the last lemon cake. A little dry, but still good. He finished off the cake, and asked “What’s an invertebrate?”

Not sure which of us brought up the subject, but he said, “I’m not getting a job when I’m an adult because I already have one: making inventions, doing electrical work, satellite work…” Carly was getting stuffy, and felt like a walk would help, so she went out for a walk. He made a spicy soup, but made it clear he wouldn’t add clove this time. Randomly, Siri told us a tongue twister: “Cats and boots and cats and boots and…” She said “I could do this all day”—a phrase that August picked up on and repeated a few times later. Not sure WHY she said a tongue twister, and when I tried different commands later it seemed like Siri didn’t know what a tongue twister is.

August asked about gunpowder, which one of the characters puts in their tea in Treasure Island. I looked it up, and told him how gunpowder actually started as a medicinal thing. Carly got home, and he had more of the seaweed snack. I had him practicing saying ‘Hilo’ to work on the ‘l’ sound, then he asked, “Could you not interrupt me from my seaweed?”

I went upstairs to do some work, and they went out to plant tomatoes. Carly wasn’t happy when he picked a bunch of the flowers to put in his spicy soup. Inside, they watched their usual documentary and had popcorn. They learned about weasels and how they kill voles and use their fur as a blanket. They made a weasal cave out of the chairs and pillows and blankets.

I then read a chapter of The Witches, then we went and ended up combining the circuits kit and Legos. Made quite a mixed structure. He then went over to Carly as she was making tempura. Ate some of that. Deborah had asked when August had stopped bottle feeding, then Megan, in India, asked about the same thing. So I was gong through our past photos and journal and found that the last evidence we have of him using a bottle was April 17, 2015. I also found a photo of my old tea infuser, the one with a polar bear on top. August said, nicely, “I can make you one of those in my laboratory” Then added, “if you pay me.” He was then charging us for other things. 90 dollars for an artificial sun for Carly. He said, “You’re pushing it, bub.” for something. And he requested his payments through the internet, so I was paying him through PayPal.

We added more to the Lego and circuits structure. His left hand was getting dry again, so we put on more lotion. Carly made new sushi. Had crab in it, which Carly had found. Another kind had tempura. August said, “It’s the best sushi ever. Really; the best.” He was making yummy noises, which I realized were to the tune of “Rocket Man”.

I tried to get him interested in a puzzle. No luck. He instead made a mango, sugar, and honey drink and put three straws in it so we could all try it. We then went upstairs to wrestle. We developed a game where I catch an invisible elf or sprite or fairy or whatever in my hands and he pulled my fingers apart to let it go and capture it himself. We had started this downstairs earlier.

We went downstairs so I could have more sushi. He decided to take apart the magnet writing board from Korea. He then taped a bag of prices from the light fixture we took apart to it. As we did that, he said, “Dada, it’s really good I grew up to be a person in Israel; and not a Buddhist monk. I’d hate being a Buddhist monk.”

We watched the Nisse episode of Hilda and ate the last of the gingersnaps. Took him up and washed his hair. No lollipop, and he whined more than the last several times, but not nearly as bad as it used to be. In bed we read another chapter of The Witches, then had the lights off. We did a grasshopper visualization, imagining the jumping and getting caught. He pulled the covers up over most of his body and eventually fell asleep that way. I was falling asleep as well. As usual, he had one last thing to say before he fell asleep, and he woke me up to ask if we needed a small or big ax to cut things down, like he’d seen at the hardware store. He was asleep at 8:55.

Baby caterpillars – time to giddy up:

Magic insect cooking machine:

Lots of syrup in his soup:

Singing and wires:

Legos and wires and singing:

Another song:

A dance before bed:

He cuddled a lot with me last night. As soon as I got into bed he had his feet shoved into my side. I realized his pajama pants were pulled up to his knees. I pulled them down and straightened him out, and he huddled close to me the rest of the night. Carly got him up before she went to work. He had oatmeal and watched something, and we got walking. He hadn’t wanted to get going early enough so that we could play in the library, but when we got to school he was upset that we couldn’t go to the library. And he said he didn’t want to deliver the hummus, even though he’d talked about wanting to get the sticker.

So after a grumpy minute at the top of the stairs we went down to his class. Andrea was back. She has been sick. He wasn’t really in a talking mood, but went and joined them at the meeting.

I rode home, worked, and rode back before 12. I caught up to the class as they were walking down the stairs. They had just gone to the K-2 assembly. August had 2 red dots, but he said they were pretty minor ones. He had a lot of green ones, and Andrea added a couple more for how well he did at the assembly. She confirmed that the red dots were pretty minor, in that they kind of tried to not engage with him, and he calmed down quickly. The second incident had him trying to destroy something, and Marion told him to leave the area so he could calm down.

He showed me an art thing he’d made, involving sort of doing paper mache with tissue paper onto wood. He said it is called ‘modge pudge”, which isn’t a term I’ve heard before.

We had planned on going to the library to play with the Library Tech Week toys. But he changed his mind and said he wanted to go collect caterpillars in the nature reserve. And I had thought we could get lunch in the cafeteria, but he said no to that as well, wanting to go straight to the nature reserve.

But first, as we went up the stairs, we saw Judson’s mom and his 2nd grade sister, Ayla. We’ve talked to her a little before, but I don’t remember where. But she knew who August was, and immediately started to tell us that August is annoying Jurdon by being a robot. She said she wanted to have a talk with August, and asked if she could do that now. So at the top of the stairs I kneeled down so August and I were both at her level. She explained that she thinks that August is trying to be Judson’s friend but doesn’t know how to. She said it was like her friend Evan in the United States who was doing annoying things to get her attention at first. She was amazingly well-spoken for a second grader, and I agreed with her, and told her that August was still learning about how to be friends with people. She was wearing a bird hat and told me that she had been in the play.

We headed over to the nature reserve and found a lot of caterpillars. While we were there he randomly said, “The worst pizza I’ve ever had was in Markenborks. 90 million light years away, but only a million light years away from my planet…becuase it tasted like poop…from a human.” We then headed to Carly’s classroom and he said hi to her and showed her the caterpillars.

She had to head to her meeting. We were going to head home, but by the middle school office August ran into Candy and two other kids I don’t know. They started looking at caterpillars together. August dumped out all of his caterpillars when he found another bug for me to catch. I did that, but then all of them started gong around for 10 minutes or so catching more caterpillars.

We headed home about 1:15. He dumped the caterpillars out along the way. He told me at one point, “That kind of ant I’m chasing is called a trophis any.”

Our lunch plans kept changing. August suggested going for pizza. The first plan was to walk home and get in the car and drive up to see if VIPizza is open, and if not go to Pizza Hut in the mall. But then he decided we should just go straight to the mall. But then he remembered that someone had given Carly a light fixture for him to take apart. I had it in the bag and he wanted to take it apart first.

So at home we took that apart. Kind of the perfect size of project, as he could do it mostly by himself. I was hungry, and was snacking. He chastised me, “Dada, don’t waste time snacking on cinnamon and coconut chips when you have this whole thing to take apart.”

He ate the last of Carly’s sushi for lunch and we had water drink. We then had a ginger snap and watched an episode of Hilda. This was a consolation reward, as the full reward was supposed to be a handful of ginger snaps and a long movie (he had requested a long one).

He was still hungry so had oatmeal, then more. He wanted a new iPad app, and I had actually meant to add a moth mystery app I’d read about today. He wasn’t interested in that, so we ended downloading a DJing app instead. So ‘DJ’ was a word of the day. We then got the new version of Brian Enzo’s Bloom app and played with that. It has 10 different scenes, and I talked about how they looked different to “reflect” the music. He asked what that meant, so another word of the day.

Carly stayed at work until around 5. So I started on making dinner before she was home. August grumbled a bit about me not playing with him, but he did okay. He went to the bathroom and started giggling. He had the toilet lid fall down on the back of him, and it was tickling his neck. I got him involved by having him use the food processor to slice the mushrooms and grate the cheese. We made pasta with a cream sauce and asparagus and mushrooms.

Carly got home, and August made a spicy soup. He had fun making it, then I was upstairs when I heard him getting upset. He had put a lot of cloves in it, and when it was cooking he really didn’t like the smell. So I had him come upstairs to escape the smell and we wrestled on the bed. He’s really getting stronger, and I talked to him about how he’s at the point where he has to think about not being too rough.

We went downstairs and Carly went up to take a shower. He had totally rearranged the kitchen rug and the dining room chairs, tipping a couple over, when I was cooking earlier. He was now doing tricks, climbing over the middle of a chair that was on its back and hanging, parallel bars style, from the legs. He told me to watch, but this time he fell backwards while climbing up. Didn’t hit too hard though.

I took him upstairs and he made a potion, then I washed him and got him ready for bed. Carly was ready for bed and put him to sleep. I left them at 8:15. I still heard a lot of laughing a bit after 8:30.

Caterpillars cannot fail me now:

Catching caterpillars with Candy:

Crawly caterpillars:

Tune he wanted to record:

New Bloom app:

DJing and singing:

He woke up a couple of times between 5 or 5:30. He was stuffy, and lay back down on me and would sleep for a little longer before sitting up again. After a couple times adjusting on me he crawled off the bed and down to Carly and fell back asleep until Carly woke him up before 6:50. He had oatmeal and watched part of a Shaun the Sheep, then we got going.

We drove to school. We walked in together and Carly headed to her classroom. It was about 7:30, so we went to the library. Looked at the art in the entryway again, then at the free books. August remembered he wanted to get another book that he could write in and take apart. We went in the library and over to the left, where he found an electronics set like his (different set from the same company). We played with that for a few minutes. He wandered out of the library and enjoyed the wind coming in through the automatic doors when someone walked in or out.

He wandered back into the library and to the kids room. There, he found a lot more toys to play with, including the big box of Lego Technix. He found a claw machine that someone else had made, and quietly and happily added to it for 10 minutes or so. On his own, he then took it over to the shelves, where he knows other kids sometimes put their creations to try and save them, and was ready to leave.

We walked to his classroom and looked at the schedule and talked a little about the day, kind of like we used to. We’ve all realized that transitions are his hardest moments, and he complained last night about the teachers making him do things. Maybe understanding the schedule better will help him feel more in control.

I also reminded him of the pillow and had him squeeze it for a minute. We then put it in his box and he calmly walked over and sat next to Marion for the meeting. Didn’t see another teacher yet. I left, but came back in a second later to leave his raincoat in his cubby. I heard Marion telling someone it wasn’t polite to make up words to the song “we’re all trying to sing together”. She wasn’t talking to August, thankfully, but then I heard him say “Well, not me.” Indeed, as they started singing it again he sat there, not doing the hand movements. Couldn’t tell if he was singing along or not.

I walked home. Got lucky in that I didn’t get poured on. It had really poured for a minute before we drove to school. Finished all the work I can do on the website until they give me more to do.

In the afternoon I rode my bike up into town to get cash at the ATM. I stopped at VIPizza to get one of those calzone things with egg in it and took it with me to the school. I went by the preschool and saw August playing outside, then went to the auditorium and ate. I had a few minutes and sat in the library. I got the info on the house to rent in Even Yehuda and forwarded it to Ada.

I went down to pick him up. Just Marion again, although Minnie was taking the kids to the bus. Marion was looking at August’s sheet. All green stickers, but she said it had been a rough day; all of the difficult moments had occurred with other teachers. The only solid example was running into the classroom and hiding under the table. August came and said “A lot of little problems…no crying.” Later, he would tell me and Carly that he had run away from Ms. Michele when they were learning about the welcoming project. They were just looking at examples of things they could do, and he ran away because he was bored. He went under the table to ovoid getting in trouble. So, difficult to classify the day. No mentions of hitting or spitting, and it sounds like the issue of boredom might be coming through. Marion said that there was a problem every time they tried to get him to move to something new. And she said the whole morning went just fine up until 11:30 or so.

I was helping Marion clean up the big mess that was the colors area. August didn’t want to help, but it sounded like he was a reason for it. When Marion found all of the missing stuff in a big garbage bag in the atelier it looked like it was an adult that had scooped it all up. Kind of odd. Think they were short handed today. Anyway, that ended when August threw a big plastic tray to the other side of the table and it broke in two. Will try to take superglue tomorrow to fix it.

We went up to the entrance of the library and I held him until Carly arrived and we headed home.

He and Carly went upstairs to wrestle while we waited for Deborah, the speech therapist, to get here. He was really excited about her getting here at 3:45 and ran down the stairs so fast that I was afraid he was going to slip.

They chose to sit on the couch. Carly and I were at the other end of the room. Deborah started with a 60 piece puzzle and worked on it with him. He completed that, and was very proud of getting it done. They also played the board game where you ask questions to figure out which person the other player has chosen. And they did a story sequencing game. And she asked him a lot of questions.

We learned that she had talked to him in the morning. He drew an angry picture of Ms. Minnie this morning and crumpled it up and threw it in the garbage. Now she asked him to draw a happy picture, and he drew Deborah smiling. She asked him to add things, and he added freckles and gum and other things.

When they were done we let August watch things on his iPad and we talked to her. Not sure we learned much new. She said his language is fine, but could use some work on certain sounds—he has a sort of lazy tongue and doesn’t raise it much in his mouth (like for the ‘l’ sound). Although he does do ‘t’. (Also, she said he couldn’t do the ‘l’ sound when she asked him to, but on Friday I practiced with him and he was doing it pretty well.) She took his difficulty with the puzzle and the sequencing game as signs of organizational issues. When I suggested his difficulty with the sequencing game might have more to do with the story dice, as he would just start telling a story based on the order of the cards, which is exactly what we do with the story dice, she dismissed the idea.

And really the same with puzzles: he’s never been interested in them, so he isn’t fast with them. So her conclusion that these are signs of an organizational issue don’t really convince me, as he is fine organizing other things (tools, blocks, etc.). But her conclusions about school seemed to make more sense (about being overwhelmed by sensory input, not knowing what is expected socially, etc.). She said, for example, that he’ll go into a room and sit on a table instead of a chair. She also said she was happy that she came to the house; he is a very different person at home than he is at school. And she was impressed that he sat with her for an hour and a half and didn’t lose interest or get frustrated when she asked hard questions. In conclusion, she said she could do some ST with him, but said the priority would be with the OT, Shari.

She stayed until around 6, then August wrestled with Carly. They then came down and played with the circuits set. I was submitting our recent insurance claims. She took him up and gave him a bath. He came down, hungry, and I made him oatmeal. We then read Scrubba Dub, Carlos in Skybrary, then read part of Hilo 3. ‘Necromancer’ was a word of the day.

I took him up to bed. He reminded me that yesterday the visualization was of a caterpillar being caught by August. Today we did a millipede visualization. I started singing to him, “Take Me to Church”, and I think it was the first time he’s asked what ‘church’ is. So we talked about that and religion. He volunteered that he didn’t believe in God, but then said he (August) was the one that made the universe. I said something about how that made him God, without thinking, and he picked up on it, saying, “Yeah, I’m God!”

That got him talking about the size of the universe, and I tried explaining how the universe could be finite but not have an edge. Last time he said it was confusing. Today he seemed to be understanding it, and following along as I explained it would curve in a 4th dimension, like how we perceive the surface of the earth as flat, even though it curves through a third dimension.

He was quiet, and seemed close to falling asleep when, like usual, he had one last comment: “I really think that tomorrow I’ll get the reward.” He then fell asleep, sometime around 9, but I fell asleep for awhile as well.

Legos in the library:

Simile 1:

I have a cute…:

Simile 2:

With the ST 1:

With the ST 2:

Circuits kit project with music:

He was up at 6:20. As he came down the stairs he said, “Mama?” Cuddled with her on the couch, then watched some Pink Panther. I got him oatmeal and Carly headed to school. We had planned to drive, but the rain was holding off so she walked. When he went to eat breakfast he asked me to find the Smurfs Christmas episode he had been watching yesterday morning when we had to get going. He finished that, then we read a few pages of Shivers before we had to get going.

As we got ready he asked why he doesn’t have any pants with zippers. I asked if he wanted some, and he replied, “No! I’d play with the zipper too much and people would see my underwear.” And out of nowhere he said, “Dada, your job is kind of an odd job: writing stuff, and doing paperwork…” We drove to school and parked on the street. As we walked in he said he was going to catch fish for lunch and cook it in his “overhead oven”. When we got to the classroom he showed me the old school overhead projector that they’re using as a light table.

I was able to talk to Marion for a few minutes. She told me about how she’s staying calm with him when he’s upset. I told her about how he said he’s open to squeezing a pillow when he’s upset, but I didn’t have one. I then had the idea of borrowing one from the library, so went and did that.

As I was talking to Marion, August learned his first real swear word, courtesy of Eve. August was watching Eve draw, and she said “Bullshit!” Or maybe “Holy shit!” August repeated it. Marion turned around and calmly told them those are words we keep inside our bodies, or something like that. Hopefully it won’t catch on.

I walked home, worked (almost finishing up with the Consortium website before realizing it wouldn’t save anything. Aagh.) and then walked back. Missed the rain.

I went to pick up August, and found him in the art room with Vicky. He had ripped his sticker sheet in half, and was fixing it, but it didn’t sound like he’d had a meltdown. Instead, he hadn’t wanted to do Playball again. He came in, and didn’t want to go to Yoga either, so he had stayed with Vicky. They had been in the block area, and then were down there. Not quite good enough of a day to get his treat today. But he seemed okay. Vicky said she had sat with him during lunch today as well, and he had told her all about how I had made the sushi for him (which he actually ate for lunch!). I told her that it was actually Carly that had made the sushi. She also said she had shared some fig with him. He had been intrigued by all the seeds.

I had brought a pillow from home, identical to the one I borrowed from the library, and switched them out. Vicky said he had squeezed the pillow a little.

We walked over to Carly’s classroom. Along the way he tried shaking the two small palm trees. We then talked about how he had spat at Ms. Rimona today. He said it had been right in her face. He said it was better than ripping things up, but when I clarified that while it wasn’t quite as bad as hitting, it was kind of like hitting with our germs. He replied, “Oh, I didn’t know that. I won’t do it anymore…I’ll just squeeze the pillow.” So I realized that he doesn’t really know the hierarchy of behaviors. He’d probably respond well to a chart/clarification of them.

I dropped him off with Carly. Along the way we met Cassie and she said that Taya was playing with Grace, if he wanted to go. So August changed his mind about playing in her classroom, and she took him down to Cassie’s room. I went to the short open board meeting in the library. Nothing too interesting, but put some faces with names. And looking at the shelves I realized that the school has quite an extensive Eugene Ionesco collection for a high school library.

When I went to Cassie classroom, a little before 4, I found August, Grace, and Taya doing art at a table. Carly wasn’t there. She was through the back door, doing some work at a table. They played for another 5 minutes or so, then Cassie came back and Grace had to go to a guitar lesson.

As we got in the car to drive home he asked, “Israel is so big. Why do you call it so small? Why is it small on a globe but big to us?” As we walked inside he asked if we could take apart a car. I suggested getting a project car in Chelan and he could work on it each summer with Grampa. I joked that I’m sure Gramma wouldn’t mind a car sitting around for the next 12 years.

He went and was playing with the electricity kit on his own. Carly headed upstairs. When he needed help I joined him. We looked for a little clip piece to hold on the light lamp thing. No luck. We ate broccoli and cheese and read Shivers. I went out to move my bike before it rained more. He played with the big wrench. He spotted a small flying insect and asked me to catch it. We did, and he really liked it moving around a lot, but then he quickly decided to let it go outside.

He told me that someone, like a teenager, had shown him a silver tooth at school. He couldn’t say who it was though. I had met the substitute teacher after school, but now wasn’t sure about her name. I think Ms. Tracy. I asked him, and he said it was, but then said he was kidding. So it turned into a game of him fooling me, as I asked about different names.

He wanted to unscrew his balance bike. As we started to do that he named the rug the “Circuitry and screw rug.” He saw the welding on it, and we talked about the difference between ‘soldering’ and ‘welding’ and those were words of the day.

Carly came down and caught another bug for him, similar to the first, but skinnier and longer. He said, “The best thing ever is that it’s moving a lot…the bad news is we don’t know what it eats.” He soon let it go as well.

Carly started on cleaning the house, as the speech therapist is coming over tomorrow. August asked for oatmeal. In the bathroom, he asked, “So, Dada. How long can a toenail grow?” When I walked away a minute later he asked, “Dada, could you talk more about toenails please?”

Carly was vacuuming and bumped into him as he walked behind her. He was upset but recovered. He was then singing a “I’m using a big extension cord” song. I took him up to his bath. He played in the sink, making a lot of suds and giving himself a soap beard. In on the bed we read more Shivers. Carly cuddled with him and read The Little Kids Big First Book of Why. I came back after ten minutes or so and took over. He told me, “You’re full of circuitry and love.”I was trying to get him to sleep quickly. We did a short visualization, although I can’t remember what it was. August took over the story and finished it. He calmed down and was trying to get to sleep, but then started talking about how he didn’t like his teachers because they made him do things. I assured him that they loved him, and that we would work it out. He was asleep by 8:50.

Playing with Taya and Grace:

A fast bug:

Taking apart the balance bike:

Soap beard:

Carly woke him up before she left. He had oatmeal and watched Smurfs. He was okay with stopping a Christmas episode in the middle when we got going. We were walking at 7:32. Very nice. As we walked by the retirement home we saw a garbage truck going in the parking lot and he asked why. He then asked what it is called a ‘retirement home’ when it is so big. I think we decided ‘retirement condos’ was better. He also asked again why people live there.

I dropped him off at school without a problem. But apparently right after I left he had his first problem: He wanted to bring scissors to morning meeting and got upset when Marion said he couldn’t. Took him a long time in the atelier to calm down after he had pulled some leaves off of plants.

I rode home and worked, then drove back in hopes of going to Max, as August wanted to get an egg timer as his reward if he had a good day. I was early, about 1:50. As I walked in, Marion said “Good”. Which I thought meant they’d had a good day. But then I realized August was with Andrea. Her “good” had meant good that I was there. August had come in from playground time for rest time and Andrea could tell something was wrong. She thinks he had an issue with a PKB kid, but we never knew for certain and August didn’t remember. August told me he was pulling a table over his mat for his home for rest time. Rather unfortunate, as it sounds like he was trying to make a calm space. But it was making noise, and Andrea stopped him from moving it. He tore a couple small papers that had been on a wall, and a random doily. I think he’d just been sitting with Andrea since then. I took him out and we sat on the bench. The other kids had gone out to the playground, so we had some time.

We went back in and used an annoying roll of tape to tape the pieces back together and hang them back up. The other kids came back and we all went to library time.

The good news was that there were three other parents today (Eve’s dad, Simone’s mom, and Reia’s mom). The bad news was that for library tech week Ilana had changed things up. She had them sit on the floor outside the entrance and showed them the art pieces made out of printer parts (the inspiration for August collecting the pieces for Eve’s mom). She called them up 4 at a time, but of course all of the kids jump up. So I took over directing groups of kids.

Got through that, then inside she showed them an iPad app that points at a special shirt on a mannequin and shows you anatomy. Of course, only a couple kids could see at once, and so they were pushing and shoving. Candy started shoving to get in, so I had to stop her. She resisted until Reia’s mom then took her for me. And of course there were all sorts of other displays by the high school students showing anatomy, but Ilana told the kids not to touch those. Which is what all the kids that couldn’t see wanted to do. Funny moment though, as Leonard, in particular, kept trying to look inside the mannequin, not understanding that the pictures were just from the iPad. So she had to let them all look inside to see that there wasn’t a beating heart in the mannequin.

Finally, we got back to the kid book room. There, they had a few minutes to make paper airplanes or play with the straw builders. August ran straight to those and was building. When it came time to check out books, August wasn’t interested and went without a book today.

We went back to the classroom. Hector’s mom was talking to Andrea, and August went over to apologize to Andrea. He also, confusing both of us, told her, “Mama has two baby sisters.” When we asked for clarification he said they were actually babies, and they were really small and he could hold them and put them in baskets like one that was next to them.

Anyway, he apologized, and we went outside. He gave me a hug at one point, and I asked if he hugged his teachers like that. He replied, indignant, “Are you kidding me? After what they two have done to me?”

He showed me where the kids earlier had been finding bugs under pieces of wood. No insects now, so we wandered around with his bug catcher looking for a bug. We walked the little foot path, and I put the cup over a small moth in the grass on the other side. I had to go around to the other side of the fence to actually catch it. August didn’t know what I was doing and picked up the cup and lost the moth.

We looked for a few more minutes, wandering around the elementary school, but with no luck. So we headed over to the nature reserve. There, he didn’t see caterpillars at first. He then found them: “They’re hiding in the shade…Now I understand.” We wandered around the nature reserve. He said, “I got the hang of it.”

We met Carly by the middle school a little before 4:30. While we waited for her to change he picked up more caterpillars from the stairs of the outdoor stage. Had quite a few by now. We walked out. Dudley saw him at the gate, and talked to him about the caterpillars. As we walked to the car August talked about his delivery trucks delivering electronic equipment to other people. It reminded me of when I went to the UW and lived on 15th, and a guy tried to sell me speakers out of the back of a van once.

We drove home. We read more of the Magic Tree House book. ‘Miracle’ was the word of the day. The lesson in the book (about Houdini) is that it takes lots of practice to become good at something. I asked August what they had learned, and he said, “Hard work.”

He had me carry him upside down. For dinner he ate some of the stir fry but not much. We caught a jumping spider and he watched it for a minute, then took it outside and released it. He had me carry him upstairs and we watched 80s videos while we played on the bed. He was sister and I was the brother. He said, “Let’s get our gold so we can go in the fancy seats in the plane with two layers.” He meant a 747. We went downstairs, and he had us flying to Italy. Carly was the flight attendant, and we would ask for things and she would just throw them to us. He was laughing a lot.

We went back upstairs, but he soon wanted to go downstairs and do the similar thing with Carly again. When I said I didn’t want to he said he didn’t like me any more and went down. She brought him back up, but he slid to a meltdown. I stayed in the bedroom with him until he calmed down enough to request Carly. She came up and was able to pick him up to comfort him.

I went downstairs, and they found and then lost some sort of bug. He played in the bathroom, then accidentally put his hand in the hot water in the sink. He was very upset about that. She got him washed.

He and I watched a couple of Skybrary books: Field Day and Goodnight Baby Bear. He had some oatmeal, then Carly made the last Swedish pancake, and he ate that. We started reading the Mickey Mouse graphic novel version of Treasure Island, which was on sale. While it downloaded after we bought it we switched and read a chapter of Shivers. I was half asleep, and he told me about how he’d had a really good day at school. I agreed, but that he needs to work on having a good day with the teachers too. I told him he’d just get in more trouble if he kept telling people he’d kill them. He asked who he’d have to talk to when he was in elementary school, etc. and I gave him the names of the principals. When he asked what about when he was an adult, I said they might call the police. This terrified him, and he started crying. He was also clearly very tired. I’d made a similar connection with something a few days ago (I think about ‘stealing’ something or telling a lie) and he’d handled it okay, and decided to not do whatever it was. Carly came down and took over trying to comfort him. He wasn’t happy with me. Carly assured him that he’d be okay, and he lamented, “I’ll never get the hang of it!”

We took him upstairs and he was calmed down enough that he let me brush his teeth. He still wanted Carly to put him to sleep though. I left them at 8:30. She’s found that telling him he needs to go to sleep if he wants to see her in the morning works really well. Today he just rolled over on his side, away from her, and fell asleep.

Today was Ms. Michele’s birthday (PKC teacher). They had a gathering of all the kids on the small covered play area. There’s a video on Storypark of everyone getting up to dance to a song. August, and at least one other kid, stayed sitting. Andrea very lovingly checked in with August and tried to get him to get up, but he didn’t want to.

Building during library time:

Collecting caterpillars:

Picking up the escaping caterpillars:

Carly woke him up and brought him down about 6:40. He was holding his foot, but didn’t complain about it hurting. He watched The Pink Panther and ate oatmeal. He asked for seconds on oatmeal. I made a half-bowl and he ate all of that. As we got ready to go he asked me, “Do you think Simone’s mom is nicer than you?” He didn’t come right out and say as much. But when I asked why he asked he said because she had given him so many treats yesterday. I pointed out that some of those were because he hurt his foot.

We got walking at 7:37. Along the way he looked down one of the short side streets that we’ve never gone down and said, “The next time we go on a dada Zinnie drive I’ll try to remember that. We haven’t done dada Zinnie drives for awhile.”

He got off the bike and I noticed he limped a bit on the way to class, but he didn’t say anything. I had put a short sleeve shirt on him today as it was getting to the mid-70s. He at first took off his sweatshirt, but wanted it back on. When I picked him up later he would still have it on, and say he didn’t want it off. I said goodbye and he said, “I don’t need you to wait on the bench.”

I went home and worked. Mainly got all of our old Squarespace blog moved over to the new WordPress site. Some rough edges, but mostly done. That took too much of the morning, then I moved to Sabeel work. Starting to get up to speed on InDesign so that Marc and I can collaborate on the manuscript.

Rode back to school. Had finished listening to The Tomb of Atuan (Le Guin) this morning and now started on Second Foundation (Asimov).

Simone’s mom went into the classroom at 2:50. I followed. August excitedly ran over to me, but I think that was because he wanted his snack before STEM class and I wouldn’t give it to him before the bus kids left. He was a little frustrated by that, but I slipped back outside, and then I actually had to go back in to remind him of it a few minutes later. He had one red sticker today, having hit Simone in the head when Simone wouldn’t let him see the bug he had caught. August told me it took him a long time to calm down.

He also told me that Simone had given him and other students some of the lemon cake. I think that might have been part of the reason for the email from Marion reminding parents that treats have to be for everyone in the class. On August’s sheets for the day they’ve started briefly describing what he gets the stickers for, and I know that he brought flowers to the teachers at some point, and helped them with getting scissors at another.

He ate his snack, then had STEM class. The read The Very Busy Spider and were then learning to weave spiderwebs. He was attaching his to one of the shelving units, and apparently got a bit frustrated at one point, but got through it. At the end of class he ran out to tell me it was cleanup time. I went back in with him, and he did some ‘robo-cleanup’ on his own. During class I talked to Anita and invited Simone to his birthday party. They should be able to come. Before we left, I asked August if he had apologized for hitting Simone. He said he didn’t think so, and walked over and apologized.

We got walking at 4:10. I brought up the incident at school, asking why it took a long time to calm down. He put his head down on the bike and said, “I don’t want to talk about it. And I don’t have an explanation.” He was looking at different kinds of trucks and told me how he has delivery trucks for his lab.

As we got closer to home, he brought up how Simone’s family has a record player. He was not a fan, and explained to me how you have to change them, and can’t just ask it to play music, and they take up space, and cost a lot of money. He told me, “Whatever you do, do NOT buy a record player.” I was listening to him talk about the record player and had slowed down. He asked, “Why is the bike moving so slowly?” Finally, we saw a woman walking on the street pushing a suitcase. He asked, “Remember that suitcase with jagged wheels on it?” It was an ad on YouTube for Bluesmart. He reminded me how it could go over different surfaces and it had a charger in it and said we should buy it.

At home we got our ice cream, using ginger snap cookies that Carly had in the cupboard from something at school on top, and watched an episode of Hilda (“The Storm”). Carly got home. We spent some time playing with the circuits, then he started talking about needing to squish green monsters if we saw them because green monsters are bad. I asked about our Green Monsters, and he dismissively said, “Aagh. He’s just made out of like, cloth. These are real. And alive.” He went on and on and about the monsters.

He talked about how he was poisonous to eat: “I’m pure coison…What’s ‘pure’?” So ‘pure’ was a word of the day. He also found the furniture pad stickers. He keeps wanting to stick them on things, but I haven’t let him. Today I let him have one. He told me, “When I’m 17 I’ll buy some.” He was on a roll, and started talking about needing to ship sticky rice to his planet to feed all the robots. “90 million…billion…quadrillion…” He remembered his big numbers that far, then skipped to ‘octillion’, so I reminded him of the ones in-between. The silliness led to me pretending to eat him and getting poisoned on the couch.

Carly came down. She was talking to her parents. August talked to them a little. In the kitchen August kissed the bag of sticky rice and said he loved it, “But I don’t love the sticky rice as much as you.” Carly had mentioned that Simone likes Michael Jackson music videos, so August and I watched some music videos, like Daft Punk’s “Technologic” and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”, while she made sushi. He was very excited by that, and ate a lot of it. And he liked the orange soy paper that she also got.

I took him up and washed his hair. We then played on the bed: he was jumping on me a lot and played the game where he steals my hidden food. He was insistent on reading some Shivers, so I read a few pages of the second book, before leaving them a little after 8:30.

Music on the bike:

Cutting shapes:

Spinny thing slo-mo:

Green monsters:

Running to mama:

Drying his hair:

He had a bad dream. Then was up early, at 5:50. He watched some Berenstain Bears and had oatmeal. I was up an hour later. Carly started cleaning things out, and she found his old brown tube that he used as a musical instrument. She asked if he was done with it, and he said, “I’m never done with it!” He started playing it again, making music. I think she was able to get rid of it a bit later. He went outside, and with just a little help from me nailed two nails onto the Zinnie house to hang up keys on. He was basically able to do it by himself; I just helped to keep them straight. Inside, he took over vacuuming and was singing “Hey Man.” We were doing more cleaning. He got the photo book from the artist here in Even Yehuda, and looked at a photo of Buddhist monks in Thailand, wearing orange robes. We discussed the photo and why they dressed like that.

I then took August out on a walk. First, we went across the street and released the caterpillars and, after taping up the microwave (August helped with the duct tape), placed the microwave over there.

We then walked over to the mall. We discussed the meaning of ‘insect’ and ‘bug’, so ‘insect’ was a word of the day. Along the path near the mall we looked for insects. I caught a little flying insect by putting the catcher upside down over the plant it was on. I talked about thinking about something ‘rationally’, so that was another word of the day.

We went to Tiv Taam and got a few groceries. We also got a pack of saltine and cheese crackers. We ate those as we walked back, stopping to look at microphones at the musical instruments stand. Back outside he released the bug, then we found a pill bug and three different ladybugs. He released those, then caught an ant, but let it go when we found what we at first called a centipede.

It turned out that he was releasing the insects quickly because he didn’t want them to bake in the sun. Marion had warned him about that. I assured him they’d be fine on the way home. On the walk back he studied the old wall that has styrofoam in the middle of it.

Earlier, when releasing the caterpillars, he had started to cross the street on his own. I had called to him and he had stopped, but he was doing it right, having stopped first and looked both ways. Now, as we walked back, I let him lead the way and practice crossing.

We were home at 10. He wanted to feed the insect. I looked it up and realized it was a millipede. He got some old leaves for it, but then got impatient when it didn’t start eating right away. He would release it out in our garden pretty quickly.

He ate some of the broccoli casserole dish, then was climbing on Carly. I went up to take a shower. When I came down they were working on the electricity kit. We read Magic Tree House #50 pleats word

Upstairs to wrestle and bladder game

I rest and he went downstairs to Carly

He wanted to go looking for bugs by the strawberry field instead of going to the beach before Simone’s. He had me spin him around for awhile, then we did the rocking thing on the floor.

The two of them got walking about 1:05. I spotted the bug catcher in the kitchen and put on my shoes to chase after them, since Carly hadn’t taken her phone. They had realized it though and I met them at the gate.

They were back at 1:50. They sat on the swing for a few minutes before coming in. They had found several insects, but Carly said he was quite dissatisfied with them. He said the ants were boring at first, but then decided he liked them the best.

Carly made popcorn and sliced an apple and they ate those on the couch. He randomly said to me, “You dropped me…in the museum.” At least he finds it funny now. He’s talking about when I was carrying him in the Natural History Museum and he did a raspberry right in my face and I was startled and tried to put him down, but he slipped in the process and fell the last foot or two.

Before we left we asked if he was hungry, and he said, “I can eat the food at Simone’s house.” He then sang, “I’m pretty sure they have food, I’m pretty sure I love you, I’m pretty sure I’m walking away from you…hugging you.”

We drove to Herzliya and got to their house right at 3. It’s a nice, new house, and they just moved there within the last couple months. It’s faced Israeli construction issues though—the kitchen ceiling collapsed without warning after they moved in.

August and Simone got to it. It is a little different, as Simone is much different than Taya or Eve. He too is more into parallel play, although they still interacted a fair amount. They went outside for a few minutes to look at snails or something, then went down to the play room. When they went upstairs August first wanted me to go up with them. They climbed in the bunk beds, then tried to jump on the parents’ bed.

Back downstairs, Anita put a Michael Jackson album, Bad, on the record player. Meanwhile, Carly and I were talking to Anita. Her husband works as a financial director for Philip Morris. The kids went back downstairs, and now we all went down. Anita helped build a big Playmobile castle, while the boys played with Legos. A typical exchange between them went like this, August starting: “Look at this powerful thing.” “Yeah.” “Yeah, cool.” August found Simone’s electric toothbrush and loved it. He kept playing with it, and we had to stop him from putting it on anything. We definitely need to get him an electric toothbrush.

When I suggested we needed to leave soon to go home for dinner, Anita offered to cook some pasta. So we stayed for dinner. We’d had a coffee earlier, and now there was Chianti wine. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we had lemon cake earlier, which they had baked together. August and Simone played out in the back yard. They started throwing rocks in the small pool, and Simone claimed it was allowed. I didn’t believe him for a second, but asked Anita. They were then playing at locking Carly outside, and that was pretty funny. They usually eat their pasta quite al dente, so cooked it further for us.

We all sat at the table and ate, then we adults were still talking at the table and August and Simone were playing in the living room. They’d brought up some Legos and were playing with them. More Michael Jackson was playing (I had tried to put some other music on, but Simone really liked Michael Jackson). I was over looking at the records again, when suddenly August screamed behind me. He had leaned on the glass coffee table, which has a wooden base. It had tipped and the glass had landed on his toes.

Anita and I got the glass off of him and I picked him up and sat on the stairs by the door. Luckily, no broken skin, and, eventually, clear there was no broken toes. Luckily, it had hit all the toes, and not just one. He was inconsolable though. He calmed a little to have a little of a popsicle that Simone brought him. And I think he got more lemon cake, and she sent us home with a bunch more cake. He refused an ointment.

So we headed home. He wouldn’t wear his shoes. He calmed down enough for me to read some of _Hilo 2 _ in the car, and after we got home we sat and finished the book. We took the iPad upstairs but never started the next book, as planned.

Did a bit of a sponge bath, then he was cuddling with Carly on the bed. He called for family hugs. He was telling Carly she didn’t love him, and said, “I’m just trying to make you squeak.”

We had talked about inviting Simone to his birthday party, and he liked that idea. He then also suggested Candy as well. Carly and I were wondering how big we can make it without feeling like we have to invite everyone. As I put him to bed, he now changed his mind and suggested Millie: “She acts kind of cute. Cuter than Candy.”

August got frustrated when he realized he hadn’t worked on his wood project with Carly this weekend. We talked about how there isn’t time to do all the fun stuff in one day.

As he was quiet and about to go to sleep, he told me, “Dada, I have something good to tell you…The pain is at a 1.” He was asleep just before 9.

Playing his instrument again:

Hammering a nail on his own:

5-legged bug:

Sitting and humming:

Climbing to the bunk bed:

Legos with Simone 1:

Legos with Simone 2:

Locking mama out:

The blocking game:

Around the post:

He was up at 6:54. The first thing he said to me was “anesthesia” to give me a shot to put me to sleep, then as he closed the door he said “wake up shot.” Downstairs they read Captain Underpants. I came down and we played the sleep/wakeup shot game, then he had a swedish pancake.

I went upstairs and did laundry and typed and they did more reading, then went outside. I saw him walking around with the bug catcher. I did dishes.

They went over across the street to look for insects. He came back with an ant. He asked me to look up what they eat. We decided on giving it some leftover apple. He told it “Don’t worry, ant. We’ll at least give you apple to eat…sorry, we fooled you, using a clear thing…”

He asked what ant poop looks like, and we ended up watching parts of

. We learned that that one species at least is known to chew through plastic.

He watched a Berenstain Bears. About a pumpkin contest. I read We Are in a Book and he played around with the ant. He then sang a “we are being read” song to the tune of “This Old Man”.

He went to the bathroom and said he wanted to go for a walk. And he also wants a terrarium like they have at school. I got him clothes and Carly got ready. Space came and I told him about the Vrigin Galactic flight. We watched a video of it, and he asked if it had parachutes for landing like an airplane. He was thinking of the Space Shuttle, but I found videos of 747s landing to show him. As he and Carly headed out the door I heard him ask, “Are rockets that carry people bigger than airplanes?”

I took a shower, then went to meet up with them. They were already walking back though and I met them on the path. They had released the ant on the way over and caught a caterpillar but then let that go to catch “A giant ant. I love it…it has giant legs.” At Aroma he had had a cookie. Carly got the Israeli breakfast and he ate some of the potatoes and stuff from that.

At home we took apart more of the microwave. I used the word ‘kept’ and August misheard me and thought I said ‘cut’. I talked about how it is pronounced, and how it is kind of odd (the ‘p’ is a guttural stop), and told Carly, and we discussed similar words. Made it a word of the day. We took apart more of the microwave. We tried to light up the bulb with a 9V battery, but it was a 220V bulb so didn’t work. He got upset by that and needed a timeout. Carly took over and I went and made myself lunch.

They went for a walk towards the fields. They left right at 1, and were back at 1:40 with three ants and a ladybug: “And they’re interacting fine with the different species of animals.” He sang a “I am a very small robot” song and we made a shopping list.

He and Carly then went to the boardwalk in Netanya. I got the job of grocery shopping and carrying everything back. I got to listen to my book (The Tomb of Atuan) so I didn’t mind too much. They left at 2:20. I did a little typing, then walked over to the mall. Loaded up just about as much as I could carry. Made me miss Korea, where the grocery stores were even closer.

The walked along the waterfront. August did a great job of patiently letting her look out at the sea. Although, at home he cast a spell on Carly so she wouldn’t stare at the sea anymore. They then went to school, where packages have piled up for August’s birthday, and August filled the bug catcher with caterpillars near the middle school office.

They got home a little after me. A friendly grey and white cat followed them in the yard and hung around outside the house, sleeping by the kitchen door. It followed us around outside. I petted it a little, and August giggled a lot, and he especially liked it when it rubbed up against Carly and got cat fur on her pants.

Inside, Carly and August played with the electricity set. He told us, “Robots have twenty nerves in their hairs; humans don’t have any.” He was playing with the set on his own, and switched out one kind of switch for another. He was really excited that he had made it work differently and showed us. We realized that if you hit the fan blade upwards when it is spinning fast it will fly like a helicopter. He read my mind, suggesting we do a slo-mo video of it.

August wanted to go with me to Sushi Ishimoto again to get dinner. We left at 5:55. We started driving, and I noticed a flashing light on the sidewalk. I told him I’d be right back and quickly jumped out to see what it was. It was the broken part of something, involving a little battery pack, and some wires that led to a red, a blue, and a green light, which flashed. Don’t know what they used to be in.

He played with it on the way up, realizing that if he touched the broken wire to certain spots it would complete a circuit and light up the blue light, but that it wouldn’t work in other places.

At Sushi Ishimoto we got the iPad menus. He got one, and got to reading it. He read ‘Rice Dishes’ and wanted a rice dish. We got the same orders of sushi as last time, the shrimp stir fry, and the classic noodles with tofu.

As we walked to the car he realized we could see stars, and he said we could see “My Planet”. He then made a joke and confused me, as when I said “Your planet” he said I was wrong, as his planet is actually called ‘My Planet’. We joked about that as we got in the car. He remembered when we had to jumpstart someone’s car, wondering if we’d ever have to do that to our car. He then joked about destroying power plants: “Dada, did you know I’m breaking down all the good energies…I’m just making coal ones. I like coal ones.”

At home we had dinner. He was talking like crazy, and Carly and I were quite amused. Carly remembered it was the 10th anniversary of our first date. We had remembered our anniversary season before it started, but had then not thought about it much until now. August asked what a ‘date’ was and she talked about how we had eaten dinner together. Since we were sitting there eating dinner together, he asked, “So this is a date?”

We ended up talking about squid and crab a lot. In part because Carly had had squid in its own squid ink in Spain. And she remembered that August had liked crab meat in Korea. We haven’t looked for that here, although I haven’t seen it. I told August I’d gotten sticky rice today at the store. He made me show him, so he could see how it looked different from our usual jasmine rice. He was excited about it, and Carly is excited about making sushi.

She gave him a bath. We needed to get him to bed as we had our consultation with Dr. Postma at 9:15. He went and started playing with the electricity set all on his own though, and I didn’t want to interrupt that, even though I had popcorn ready for him. He probably spent at least 15 minutes playing by himself. Perhaps a new record. He came over and we watched an episode of Hilda (about a ghost that cleans a bedroom) and had popcorn. Carly put him to sleep, and he was asleep a little before 9.

She said he’s showing awareness of his own interests: He asked her earlier, “I’m really into bugs right now, aren’t I?” As we try to figure out what sort of things trigger stress in August, one thing that happened today (overall he had quite a good day though) was that Carly dropped her water bottle and it rolled under the car. He was able to calm down when she talked about how it wasn’t really important, and that they could try different things to get it, and buy a new one instead if need be.

Our consultation with Dr. Postma went well. We’ll probably consult with him twice a month or so for the next few months. He was impressed with how much progress we’ve already made in a week, and how well August is able to talk about things.

Fooling the ant:

Ant and apple:

‘We are being read’ song:

Ant with a stinger (he thinks):

A visiting cat:

Experimenting with the switches:

Propeller slo-mo 1:

Propeller slo-mo 2:

Planning to attach the blade to the food processor:

The lights thing:

Playing by himself:

First he lay over the top of me and kept sleeping so I couldn’t get up. When I was sure he was back to sleep I got up and got dressed. As I was closing the door though I heard, “Dada.” I went in and lay back down with him for another five minutes until he decides to get up at 6:15.

He cuddled with Carly for a good amount, then sat at the table waiting for oatmeal. He then watched a Berenstain Bears and we got ready to go.

I dropped them off at school, then continued on to Jerusalem. August really liked Carly dropping him off and picking him up. He showed her the big rolls of paper that they have that he thinks she should get for her own classroom (but not home, as we already have a big roll of paper). But otherwise it sounds like he had a rough day: 5 green stickers and 4 red. When Carly got there to pick him up he was outside with Andrea and a few students, and trying to squish a caterpillar. He has decided they are poisonous, and he doesn’t, at least temporarily, like them anymore. Carly said a girl said they were poisonous, backing up August when he was telling Carly.

At home he let Aviva go across the street and he tried out the other blade in the food processor, slicing a carrot for fun. He had nutty noodles for dinner.

I got home at 5:15. He hid behind Carly on the couch. I had to take him upstairs for a timeout for saying mean things, then we talked about what he really meant. Back downstairs we discussed the incident papers from school and did a picture for Yaya. He then sang a “Sorry for hitting at the school” song. We read Hilo, and ‘parallel’ was a word of the day. We finished volume 1, then read half of volume 2. He was hungry, and went and scooped up his own oatmeal in a bowl. I helped him finish it. He ate, then in Skybrary we read Keep Your Distance twice. He said he loves it. We then read half of A Child’s Calendar by John Updike, but he kept going back to water freezing on a pond and asking if you could break the ice, etc. Eventually he was telling me about his huge polluting scuba suit that ran on gasoline and could move you around.

Carly him a bath and then in on the bed he put his pajamas on all funny and was dancing around declaring “I’m danger dandy and I like to show myself…Im Danger Dandy, I pee in people’s bladders…” He kept asking if he could go out in public dressed like this. He had me get a pair of pants to tie around his waist to cover his bottom as well.

Carly said goodnight and went to take a shower, and he ended up asking “How do they cut wood?” So we watched a video of how boards are cut. He told me he has all the wood and metal working tools in his lab. And electronics tools and chemistry tools and astronomy tools, etc. And he told me, Dada, after today, no one in this house will ever touch a caterpillar.”

His brain was really going, and he asked why, if the earth was curved, it seemed flat. Explained that for awhile, then he asked how he could tell that a sound was above him or below him. So we talked about hearing and the speed of processing sound. We talked about science at school, and he said he and Andrea were the only ones that really like science in PKA. Had the lights off and he was quiet at 9, and sleep within a couple songs.

Sheep:

Allen wrenches:

Picture of him and Yaya:

His polluting scuba suit:

Danger Danzey 1:

Danger Danzy 2:

Danger Danzey 3: