He was up at 6:40. He was finishing up a couple Wild Kratts episodes when I came down. Carly had been outside and came in and was talking to August. He said that an elephant can pick up a “cah”. A funny misunderstanding ensued, with her talking about cows are sacred in India. Turned out he meant ‘car’, but when he says them they sound exactly the same.
I went upstairs to scrub the bathroom ceiling of the mold. I’ve done it three times and never had problems with dripping. Today, however, I realized there were two pink blobs on my new sweatshirt. Carly made French toast while I did that. I came down and ate.
He and I made things out of magnet blocks. He started by timing me. We ended up with a pretty cool house with an escape pod on the roof and a playground outside. Carly then wrapped a couple of presents for him. They were things from Valencia. The first was a porcelain bird magnet for the fridge and the second was a notebook from the conference. He liked those.
We sat and finished reading Hil0: Volume 1 and read a couple chapters of the second volume. Carly startled by a lizard when she opened a kitchen window to water. August used his scanner to declare it wasn’t poisonous. I went up and took a shower.
Me to shower
He was hungry, so we went to make oatmeal. I had gotten a different brand, but they were also instant oats. But they turned out to be thicker, and ended up chunky. He said he didn’t like it, but he ate it anyway. Carly got home from going
August and I experimented with the oats. We used knives and scissors to break some into smaller pieces, then cooked those in the microwave. And I made a bowl on the stove. He liked the microwave bowl better. August had also used the food processor on his own to shred up a carrot and add lemon to it. We washed that out, and then used the food processor to chop up the full bag of oatmeal.
We played more with the magnet blocks, and Carly left to meet with teachers in Tira about the upcoming Get to Know You Day at the Jewish school. More blocks, and I was making hexagonal towers which he then destroyed (after my first one self-destructed dramatically on its own). We recorded them in slo-mo and it turned out really well. We went upstairs and did the brother and sister imagining game and had a pillow fight. He had the brother and sister destroy the house with the pillow fight, but then they found gold outside and it paid for the damages so the parents weren’t upset any more.
We got going and walked to town. He told me he invents magical things in his lab now, not scientific things. I figured Carly was probably close to being done so I invited her. We were a little early, so went to the park by the playground and played around there for a few minutes. I tried to get him to wave to Carly when she drove by, but he kind of hid and screamed instead, which of course didn’t work. We met her at VIPizza and we ordered a large pizza. Half mushroom, and half mushroom and olive. He randomly said “I hate my imagination” at one point. We sat at one of the outside tables for the first time. We ate, and when he was saying ‘poop’ or something we introduced the idea of other funny words. I came up with “Llama potato…potato llama.” He really liked that one. He tried to tell Carly he didn’t like her drink, and said, “I hate your coffee.” Realizing he had the wrong drink he continued, “I hate your tea? I hate your Coke?”
Carly left to drive up and get gas. August and I walked around the building after going to the bathroom and checked out the sandwich/hamburger place on the other side of it, which we’ve never been to. August liked the stools, which were made out of old bicycles, with the pedals fixed in place to rest your feet on.
We got walking home. At one point he asked what ‘instant’ meant (maybe from the oatmeal discussion?) and that was our word of the day (which he keeps claiming he wants to stop doing, but then he’ll chime in with his little tune). We walked a back street, and I bribed him with the promise of 2 Whoppers if he’d extend it a further block to check on the supposed site of a cafe that we’d looked for before but doesn’t exist. It has gotten a few more reviews since last year, so I figured we’d look again. Still not there.
We got back on the main road and Carly honked as she went by. August then found plants that looked like wheat and spent a few minutes picking a bouquet of them.
We stopped at our park, and we had us do the brother and sister bird game again. He played around on his own for a minute and I was reading, then he sat in my lap and I read a Donald Hall poem to him. We found another Allen wrench on the ground, then got a call from Vivian wanting to FaceTime. We headed home.
He talked to Vivian for a few minutes. One of them hung up and he tried to call back, but gave up and watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving instead. I squeezed the rest of the oranges and made a big bowl of orange juice. We finished reading Hilo 2 and started 3. He had a timeout when he got upset when I stopped.
Carly was making mac and cheese and broccoli. August had only had one slice of pizza at lunch, and absolutely nothing since then (he’d forgotten the Whoppers), but he didn’t eat more than a bite, saying he wasn’t hungry. Carly asked me to go to the store and mentioned chocolates for the session she was running tomorrow after school. When August was disappointed that he couldn’t have any, he hit Carly. Cherie called for a minute, and he yelled loudly. Carly said she’d talk later, and took him up for a timeout.
They played on the bed and I headed to the store at 6:20. I got back after 7.He had watched a Magic School Bus episode, and they were now playing on the upstairs couch. She gave him a bath. He came downstairs and was trying to scare me by yelling. He ran around a little, then I reheated his dinner and he ate the whole bowl.
We tried to Skype with Gramma and Grampa. They didn’t answer, so we left a video message and he improvised a nice song about wanting to Skype with them. We went up and read more Hilo 3. He saw my shirt, the one from Cherie, and said he wants to hang it on the wall when I get to big for it. Will have to see if they sell it as a poster, as he’s mentioned it before.
He said goodnight to Carly at 8:35 and went to the bathroom. He requested a visualization and this time he let me do the snowflake. It lasted until the snowflake melted on a cow. He was quiet for a few minutes, and asleep just after 9.
He was up at 7:05. He watched a Wild Kratts, then went outside with Carly and helped her rip up a dying plant. He wanted to saw off the roots and we let him use the bread knife to do it. He rinsed it off with the hose, and wanted to boil it, although we didn’t get to that until later.
I made eggs for breakfast. We were going to eat outside, but he carried his plate back inside before we could get out there, so he and I ate inside. We listened to Kraftwerk and he sat on my lap. We discussed electronic music and rhythms, like 16th notes. We then worked on his bear book. He dictated the story for 3 pages and I wrote it down, then Carly came back and she wrote it on the individual pages and he illustrated it. He wanted to break apart some of the computer parts, and we went outside and he used a hammer. Had him hammer on one of the big rocks, then had him wear the goggles when pieces went flying. I went up and took a shower.
He played a few minutes of Angry Birds, then he wanted to boil the plant, so we did that. He got the frozen green rock things from the freezer (I’d forgotten they were in there), and we took them outside. He hammered one apart, then drilled into the other. We couldn’t find the goggles. The drill was dying, so we went in to find the drill charger. Or, rather, I did. He said, “I’m just going to relax and serve myself some food.” I complained when I couldn’t find it, and he told me that that was okay and that was just the way life is sometimes. I eventually found it, and we plugged it in outside and played a little more.
He was hungry, so we went to make oatmeal. I had gotten a different brand, but they were also instant oats. But they turned out to be thicker, and ended up chunky. He said he didn’t like it, but he ate it anyway. Carly got home from going to meet with teachers in Tira about the upcoming Get to Know You Day at the Jewish school.
August and I experimented with the oats. We used knives and scissors to break some into smaller pieces, then cooked those in the microwave. And I made a bowl on the stove. He liked the microwave bowl better. August then had us do an imagining game where I was him and he was me. We acted like each other a bit. We were next talking about our plans for the day and were talking about going into town to get ice cream, as he hadn’t done any hitting today. But then he hit Carly about something and I took him up for a time out.
Up on the bed we played the bird game where the brother takes care of a baby bird, but it turns out it was just a dream, but then they do find a bird and take care of it, then a new one where the boy tried to catch a bird to eat.
We went downstairs, and he requested a hot dog so he could try the mustard in the fridge. He ate that, then we read some Hilo. He then took the plant out of the pot that he had boiled earlier. He now had a yellow broth and was adding things to his soup. We got ready to go to Kfar Sava Park, and he told us, “Just one more thing in my broth and I’ll be ready too.”
We got to the park and walked in. He wanted to go to the playground, but when we suggested a walk through the park first he got upset and ended up with a timeout first. We did go to the playground, and he played several rounds of hide and seek with Carly. Carly went to the bathroom and he and I kept playing, taking turns looking for each other.
We then went for a walk through the park. He rode down a few small hills. Then he fell over once. He wasn’t hurt, but blamed me and hit me, so he had another timeout. We stopped at this outdoor bike/rollerblade path and he ran around and Carly gave him challenges. A bit later he declared we weren’t going any further. We turned around and then stopped at the trampoline place. He needed that, and jumped for 15 to 20 minutes. He kept asking Carly to lift up the edge of the padding so he could see the plants growing underneath.
We got going from there and stopped at the bathroom. Carly took him in. He ended up with another timeout as they came out, and we headed back to the car and left at 4:30.
At home we finished reading Hilo book 5 again, then he worked on his soup. Added things like milk and vinegar and oil. Quite a mixture. We had noodles for dinner, and discussed fixing the catapult. He talked about his lab and told me that the floor and ceiling are made of sandpaper. I asked why, and he replied, “I just like a rough surface.”
I went upstairs to do some work, and they were Skyping with Cherie and Chuck, I think. They made popcorn and watched some of the polar bears and seals video, but he was more interested in acting it out. I came down and Carly went to take a shower. He added more to his soup, including some cream, and talking me into brewing a little coffee so he could use some. He played with the tools, then we went and started reading Hilo from book 1. ‘Rehearsal’ was the word of the day, from that.
We made some toast, and he told me about his machine that does surgery. He said it is “the most expensive machine you can buy…but it’s really energy efficient.” We read more Hilo, finishing 7 chapters. I took him up to his bath, and then came down to get him dressed. We went up to brush his teeth, and he sang a song that sounded like a show tune. It went, “everything is permanent, everything is permanent…except ink and paper! Right? Am I right?”
Carly came up and I left them at 8:50.
Andrea posted a Storypark story about them making bridges after reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Of August she wrote, “August tried multiple materials including: blocks, sticks, corks, and small wooden discs. He made a stop motion video to test out his bridge. He found that the weight of the goat was too heavy to hold his goat at the final part of his bridge and had to use his problem solving skills to try a new way!”
He was up at 6:35 and came into the bathroom, where I was getting ready, to use the bathroom. He dripped on his pajamas, so we changed his clothes before heading downstairs. He cuddled with Carly and was a little sad that she was going to work. He asked her to go with us to the science center. But we mentioned food and he cheered up and told her, “Remember, you need to share that free lunch with me.” Yesterday he had eaten her leftover cafeteria lunch after school. When she didn’t know if she’d be able to take extras today, he said, “Ask them.” “But not if there’s any spicy stuff or tomatooor peppers.”
After she left he got a plastic bag and asked me for two ice cubes, then to put a little cold water in it. It turned out to be the sort of ice that they get the kids at school when someone gets hurt. He helped chop the mango and we made oatmeal. He ate at the table, and asked Siri to play the song “The Cat Came Back”, which he learned at school. He got it, but it wasn’t the version he was expecting. We figured out he wanted the version by the Laurie Berkner Band and listened to other music from her as well.
He told me his trucks just take recycling to a field and dump it. we then went upstairs for a pillow fight and he turned it into a baby bird imagining game. We then went downstairs when he wanted to do a porcupine game. We looked up what they eat (trees, etc.) as part of the game. He also made rainbow slime for Green Monster, which I had mentioned that he used to do: “first I have to shop for moss and rainbow powder…now I put some ground up gooeyduck in it, then some powdered sugar…”
He watched some Wild Kratts, then we got ready to go and left about 9:45. We listened to the last Story Pirates of the season (18), then a couple of the early ones (2 and 3). He listened the whole way and looked out the window. He mentioned seeing a billboard or ad for fruit again, but I didn’t see it. He said he thinks it has a grapefruit and something else, and a person on it.
We were in the science center about 10:50. There’s a sundial thing outside the entrance, and he hopped a passcode on the way in, and later on the way out. We dropped one coin on the vortex thing, then wandered through the museum. He told me he made a “cryboceptor…it takes away electricity.” One exhibit has you vote whether you think that machines will be able to love. I asked him for his vote and he said, “I think they will, becuase I might invent a computer that learns to love.” In the food area he said he was the one that put the big pile of garbage in the center, and we learned about spirulina. We went in the electricity area and he played with the paper clips thing. There were few times I wanted to keep doing things, but he would want to go somewhere else. He gave me an exasperated “Yeah, I know. You can make lightning bolts,” as he pulled me away from the Jacob’s Ladder.
He showed me where he sent messages to other countries with Gramma and Grampa (when we first walked in he had said, “I went here with Gramma and Grampa.)
Then to the area near the entrance with the big metal structure with tracks for balls. He first played with the microscope thing, even putting his tongue on it, then we played with the ball machine.
We eventually headed outside. We sat and had some snack, then he took the Cheerios with him up into the big ply structure. He climbed up through a ladder/stairs thing, and I took the easy stairs to the top. He got me to crawl in for a minute, then he then climbed down. We walked around outside and looked a bit at the part they are working on. Doesn’t look like they’ll have the new/remodeled exhibit space done anytime soon. Rather annoying, with the Hadera museum also being closed for who-knows-how-long.
The cafeteria was open and he wanted food, but he was wary of going in. He wasn’t convinced it was open, even though the lights were on and there was a guy in there. He’s developed a sense of trespassing, and there were a few other times when we would be the only ones walking into an exhibit room and he’d be afraid to be there because he thought it was close.
But we went in and got a tuna salad sandwich. He wanted a chocolate pudding thing and commented on how he had had them before. I mentioned he’d gotten them a couple times at the grocery store in town. He added, “Yeah, and I had one when I moved in our house…and one was strawberry.” We sat inside and ate.
Around 12:30 he had said he was ready to go to the park and was done with science. But then we went back inside. We went to the very top, where we hadn’t been yet. He showed off the ‘atom translator’ and told me what a bunch of them were. There was a science demonstration starting down in the stage area, but when we confirmed it was in Hebrew he wasn’t interested. August was saying things in mooka mook and told me, “I think you should take a mooka mook class from me sometime.”
We went up to the very top, which seemed closed to him because no one was up there. There was a container of sticks, and August immediately thought of them as swords. He demonstrated his sword technique, which I think is a combination of influence from Shivers, Mighty Jack, and seeing kids at school. Then, we stopped at the drum that moves air to shake little disks. I really liked that. He was then back to the atom translator “that slow one is circulatatiin 5…” On an exhibit that shows how light can transmit sound, or maybe it was the one next to it, I used Shazam to identify the song, and it was “The Robots” by Kraftwerk.
And then, a long time making paper airplanes. He had me make one, but then he insisted that all of the flaps and things be taped down, and he carefully did that one. We held on to that one, as he didn’t want to lose it, and I made a second for him to shoot out of the launcher thing. We did that, and then were launching all of the random ones on the ground over the edge so they’d fly down below (which was okay to do).
We watched the wave machine a couple times, and the last thing he spent a long time on was the paper clips again. This time, he decided to make a paper clip chain out of all of them. He also insisted, after getting it half done, that they all be in the same direction. Cool to see him focused on it. Finally, he spent a few minutes on a couple of the other electronics things, like the one where you touch it and you are acting as an antenna.
There was the announcement of it closing at 2. He was reluctant to stop at the bathroom on the way out as he was afraid we’d be locked in. But we did that, then headed out. ‘Touchdown’ became the word of the day as we talked about a airplane or spaceship landing for some reason.
In the car we listened to “The Robots”. We got over to the park and I parked, but August wanted to keep listening to the song on repeat, and he said he had thought it would take a long time to get to the park. I looked at him and realized he was going to fall asleep in a minute, so we got going.
He was asleep from 2:35 to 3:30 and I was able to listen to the book on Jerusalem that I’ve been listening to on and off. He woke up as we got home, and I carried him in and he rested on the couch. He watched a Magic School Bus, and Carly got home. They went outside, and realized that he tomato plants in the shadier pots were actually bigger than the ones in the fence-top pot. August was going to take photos of them and Carly got my phone, but then he did something and she took him up for a timeout.
Back downstairs I got him noodles. We had a discussion of Japanese versus Chinese soy sauce and he asked good questions about why there are different foods in different places and why people like different things. It touched on culture and trade and globalization and ecosystems. When I talked about how people in different people had developed different cultures of food and what tastes good, he asked “Then why when we go to Gramma and Grampa’s the food still tastes good to us?” Which led to a discussion of how he’s been exposed to different food cultures, etc.
We then went and played with the magnet blocks. He was making a structure out of triangles and got a bit grumpy as his perfectionism was showing once again today and he wanted to make a roof for it that didn’t have any cracks. We discussed his changing birthday plans, and it is now much more doable: he wants Taya and Eve and her sister Zoe, and it is okay if their parents are all here.
He was then smothering Carly, then they went and he was building with the blocks with her. Something minor happened (he tripped over her or something?) and he dramatically said, “Mama, I almost died-ed.” Carly and I were discussing school and kindergarten etc. (based on discussions she’d had at her PLC meeting today) and I asked August if he knew the kindergarten teachers’ names. He didn’t, but he did remember Ramona Quimby’s kindergarten teacher’s name from the book.
Carly went upstairs and August and I ended up watching the latest two Marble Machine X update videos. Really like how August picks up on his learning from his mistakes and the perseverance and attention to detail. Also, he really likes all of the tools.
He took the silver paper off of the set of crayons from the goody bag from Taya’s party. He was then drawing with them, but frustrated when they were breaking. I glued a couple.
He ate more noodles, then was making a book with Carly. I went for a walk. They had completed a couple pages of the book, and she gave him a bath.
He looked in the fridge and accused us or just cooking more food and leaving food to rot in the fridge. Clearly an idea about not wasting that he got from school. He had even more noodles and veggies and talked bout how much he liked them.
I took him upstairs. He told me, “You’re magical, because you keep me safe.” And he said, “Ms. Rimona’s magical cuz she keeps everyone in the school safe…Everybody’s magical in some way.” He then decided, “I’m magical now! Not scientific…you don’t know how complicated my laboratory can get.”
We had the lights off at 9:10. We discussed our day and our weekend plans. For an experiment he suggested putting Cheerios in food processor, and he wanted to find a park with trees to climb and he wanted to find a place with good food. He twice rolled over and said something random to me when I thought he was about sleep. Second time was to tell me about the garbage at the science center again and how his trucks dump it in a garbage dump. He took quite awhile, but was asleep by 9:55.
Carly woke him up before she left. He wanted to cut with the utility knife. I let him cut the mango for his oatmeal instead. He told me, “I once made a treat in my laboratory out of milk, starch, and maple syrup.” He watched the Berenstain Bears Bad Habit episode and we got ready. He wanted a present in his little piece of umbrella wrapping paper, and I wrapped a single Whopper candy. He was obsessed with presents after that. I told him that would lead to less presents in the future. We got out at a good time, 7:33. But just past the park I realized August didn’t have his sweatshirt on. He had his sweatshirt-like crab shirt on, but it wasn’t enough, so we went back and got it.
They hadn’t started meeting when we got there. Instead, they were having the kids bring the ponchos out of the bomb shelter. In fact, when Marion told him to go get his poncho from the bomb shelter that sounded odd to me. They always refer to it as the ‘safe room’. My suspicion was correct. In the evening August would be asking me about the ‘bomb shelter’ and said Marion saying it was the first time he’d heard it called that.
Anyway, he and Millie carried his out. August got distracted by Legos and didn’t help straighten it. I went over and said good bye and he reminded me to wait on the bench.
I was meeting with Julie Fisher and Rachel Gutman on the redesign of the website for the Consortium for Israel and the Refugees. Originally planned for 11, but it was switched to 12:30. I worked on the website in the morning. Drove to her house in Ra’anana and we met until about 2:40. Julie is the wife of Daniel Shapiro, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel. He is in Florida right now, giving a speech to the JNF. So kind of odd, as I also work for Sabeel and we have an entry about the bad things the JNF does in the Kumi Now book. We got a lot of work done on the new website I’m doing for them.
When we left, Julie and I ended up at the school at the same time, although had gone different routes. She is on the WBAIS board and they are doing contract negotiations with the teachers. I had joked they should give the teachers everything they want, and should get those gas cards back for us.
I was at school about 3:10. Carly had picked him up and I found them in her classroom. No ice cream. He’d had a rough day: he had hit Simone because he had broken something of August’s, then subsequently blew a raspberry at Ms. Minnie. He hit Millie because she wouldn’t let go of the swing, and he hit a boy from PKC because he sat in August’s spot at literacy group.
I walked home and did some work, and they got home about 5:10. Outside he picked a broccoli leaf and wanted to eat it. Carly let him put salt on it to make it taste better. With me he then cut pieces of the iHerb box with the utility knife. He spotted his folding comb/brush and exclaimed, “Ah! My instrument!” He ‘played’ it for several minutes. He ate noodles for dinner. We were listening to a Beat Happening song, and he started singing “I’m gonna crush you.” Instead of “I’ve got a crush on you.” I made him stop.
We popped buttered popcorn and read Shivers. ‘Meanwhile’ was the word of the day. He then had me create an obstacle course. I took him up and he had a lollipop while I washed his hair. That went pretty well. He then brought up the ‘bomb shelter’ comment from Marion and ‘bomb shelter’ was a word of the day: “Bomb shelter stands the strength of a bomb…why do people have those rooms in the classroom in case there’s an emergency?”
We read more of Shivers #1. He was then jumping on the bed and told Carly, “I think we need to get a more bouncier bed, mama.” I think I half-convinced him that our bed is as bouncy as they come. He was then running around in circles on the bed: “I’m tiring out a turkey by running…10 percent, now zero…now to grind it up! And I eat it!…Don’t worry, I cooked the chicky.” I left them at 9:10 and he was soon asleep.
Carly woke him up before she left. They spent some time on the couch before she left. I made us pancakes for breakfast, then he wanted to use the utility knife he knows I have up on a shelf upstairs. I taught him about using it and he carefully cut a triangle out of cardboard, then the knife went away. We got ready for school. He had plans for other things he wanted to do, and complained I always tell him we can do things after school.
Smooth walk to school. At some point, out of the blue, he told me, “Dada, even when I’m in 1st grade I’ll still hate Mind Yeti.” I reminded him he’d only listened to about 10 seconds of Mind Yeti before passing judgment. Thought we had left earlier, but we were just beating the bus kids in as they walked in the school. August hurried in front of them to get to class first. He was a bit hyper when he went in and to Ms. Andrea. I was able to remind him about ice cream and being able to read the new Hilo book (#5, which just came out yesterday) if he had a good day.
I rode home and worked, then rode back to pick him up. He came out and told me he had two hitting incidents. The first was with Ms. Marion when she took from someone, either him or Judson, one of those snap bracelets, which August said belonged to Sophia but that she had left when she moved. Kind of muddled, but didn’t sound awful. He then said that during Playball Reia had hit him, and he hit her back. She didn’t cry though, and Dion didn’t get either of them in trouble, so it didn’t sound too bad. Also, he had gotten hand stamps from Dion for doing good, so he was happy about that. He had intentionally smeared them on the back of his hands, but had also gotten it over his face, on his chin and under his nose. At first I thought something was wrong. When I talked to Andrea she said it had been a really good day for him, with just a couple of times they had to calm him down. As he and I were talking on the bench he asked me, “Can we talk about the good things now?” He had been sitting on my lap, facing me and tying my headphones together.
In the classroom he really fixated on a grapefruit again and wanted to take it and started to get upset when Andrea and I both said it needed to stay there. These are the same grapefruits he got into a confrontation with Eve and Lydia about last Tuesday. Andrea told me they had worked on their ponchos today, and she had noticed that he had a lot of symmetry to his.
August told me he knew about the fire today, and told me it was an electrical fire. I asked how he knew that, and he said the voice from the wall had said it. Carly later said there had been a lot of announcements today over the intercom. There had been an electrical fire in a chemistry classroom in the high school. It was put out, but there was some substantial damage. High schoolers were sent home early, but the rest of the school wasn’t. He went on to tell me about his fire control systems in his lab: “It has coison in it.” “It’s to keep away pirates or put out electricity fires.”
Since he’d had a pretty good, but not perfect day, I told him we could read the new Hilo book but not get ice cream, but he could have a small treat at home. He was talking about burning things, and it became a discussion of what you can and can’t burn, and ‘arson’ was a word of the day, followed by ‘vandalism’. Near the park he got off the bike to look at an ad on the ground. It was for a gutter installation service, and he was excited about it being on the ground, and said, “That was useful!” We are now supposed to call that number if we need new gutters. He left it on the ground though so that other people could find it.
He was riding on his own, and went fast so I had to run. He said he was making me exercise, and I said he was pacing me. He said ‘pacing’ was the “Word of the day!”
We were home at 4:10. He got out a string cheese by himself and I taught him how to open it. He had had one in his lunch, but a teacher had opened it for him. Oh, and in his box today I found a piece of paper with rubber stamps on it, and the words ‘DADA Love’. I always write ‘Love, Dada’ at the bottom of the Lunch Robot cartoons. But he said that he hadn’t made this.
He had some toast and chose the Kinder Egg for his treat. The toy was a little transforming robot/spaceship. We read the Superman book, then Hilo 5. It is really good (and he did a lot of laughing), but shorter than the others, and has a huge cliffhanger ending…and the next volume doesn’t come out until next January. Cruel, really. I did not tell August that part. He hadn’t been happy to find out that it would be a year until the next Shivers book.
Carly had gotten home at 5. He was hyper with her, then she went upstairs and we finished the book. He told me about using something to make texture in clay and said that he had done it “One time to make a house with Ms. Marion.” Carly came down and we had dinner. I gave him a timeout when he was saying ‘butt’ and wouldn’t stop.
We went down and played with the magnet blocks, making houses in different ways and putting small things in the rooms. He brought up the term ‘pain in the neck’ and said it was a word of the day when I explained what it meant. He said he was being a pain in the neck to Judson but wouldn’t explain what he meant by that.
When he went to the bathroom he wanted Carly to watch behind him. He talked about liking Vicky more, but said, “I still want to paint her bones…I wouldn’t take her muscles. She could still be alive…I could use bags of blood to keep her body running.”
She took him up for his bath. He didn’t do well and hit her, so we said we couldn’t re-read Hilo today. She had him do a paper, drawing what happened, and then writing words on it together, like they do at school, then they played on the bed.
I took over while she took a shower. He was drawing faces on the back of his paper. I asked if one had big teeth, but he said, “Thats just an old grandpa” so it has a beard (with two points). He said he wanted to read Elephant and Piggie books. I looked, and they aren’t available digitally. He was frustrated I couldn’t get them right away, but I said we could get them at the library.
Carly took over and I said good night to them about a quarter to 9.
Testing out the bicycle helmet:
Riding his bike and talking about riding an airplane:
Carly woke him up before she left. He came down and had oatmeal and we read Monster Party. He then politely asked to watch a little Wild Kratts and watched part of the praying mantises episode. We got going, and were walking by 7:37.
As we walked, I started to sing the “More Bones” song. Apparently my subconscious had figured it out, as August said “That’s the song I wanted to listen to more in the car!” The one he was humming last night. He hummed it the rest of the way to school.
Drop off went well. We were there just before the bus kids. He reminded me to sit on the bench for a few minutes. I did that, then I went up to the library until 9. Then, I went out and sat by the front gate, waiting for the courier to deliver our passports. While I waited, listening to books, the school had a shelter drill and I got to go to the basement of the auditorium building. The courier called a bit later and I had to get one of the security guards to talk to him. He drove in and I signed for them and rode my bike home, about 11.
Worked, then left by 1:30 to head back to school. When I went in he came and told me that he had hit Millie. I hadn’t thought there was a paper that went with it, but I found it later. Don’t think I actually learned what the incident was about. I was a little early for library time, so got to hang out a bit and help with cleanup. Hector was writing the same math problem (5+5=10) over and over. August asked him, “How much math problems is that?” And while I was helping with something else I heard him telling Andrea all about how we had taken apart a monitor and he’d found electrical tape and put it on the hook and now it is permanent. He came to me and asked, “Do you think Ms. Andrea likes having a robot in her class? Because she likes science.” And he showed me his art: two shakers (one in a metal can and one in a plastic container, so they made different noises), a unicorn puppet he had made out of a paper bag with Ms. Ramona at some point, and a cup he had painted last Wednesday.
We headed to library time. All was smooth until Ilana and I took them into the back room. They were going crazy climbing up onto the benches and her chair and not listening, so she had me go get Marion. She told them the “I know an old woman who swallowed a fly” song using the finger puppets, then read two storybook versions of it. One an older straight version, and one that was something like “I Know an Old Teacher”. Millie had clearly forgiven August, as she was reaching over and playing with his hat. He, of course, checked out The Story of Superman as he now loves superheroes. I am not thrilled by this development (I’ll take it over the hitting, but not by much).
We went back to the classroom after school and got our stuff and sat out on the bench. We read the Superman book twice, and in talking about his behavior at school he said, “I have to be funny.” He was asking me questions about knives and saws and how you use them, and what for, and I said I had never sharpened a saw. He asked me, “In your meetings in Israel could you learn how to sharpen a saw?” I asked if he meant with Omar, and he said that yes, maybe Omar knew how.
We walked home. We listened to “More Bones” on my phone. He did a fair amount of pedaling on his one in places. In the park area between the small playground and the synagogue he stopped to look at berries, and explained how the little berries grew into the bigger berries that birds can eat but humans cannot.
At home he was hungry so I got him a piece of toast and peanut butter and honey. I had let him have some of it without peanut butter, as per his request, but he didn’t like how the honey just soaked in, and we talked about why that happens, and how the peanut butter works, and compared it to wood and water with a sealant between it. The word ‘waterlogged’ came up and that was a word of the day. He sat on my lap at the table and we just sat there, listening to a few songs from Weezer’s new Teal Album before Carly got home at 5:05.
He was smothering her at first. He then got involved with cutting the broken umbrella to make wrapping paper. I wrapped him up a little paper clip sort of thing as a present before I left. He was chatting with Vivian and family as I left, as they had a snow day.
I walked over to the mall and to the store to get some groceries. I was back at 6:15. He was making a soup, which we eventually boiled on the stove. He told us, “When cauliflower gets hotter it turns to broccoli.” Don’t believe he really believed that. He chopped up a carrot using the food processor and ate a good part of it himself. As the soup boiled we discussed the colors of flames and looked it up, as to why they are different (temperatures, as well as how fully the fuel is getting burnt). He added violet to his favorite colors: “pink purple peach lavender silver and violet.” Carly was cooking noodles and tofu and broccoli and we read “The Sneetches” and “Too Many Daves” while he waited for food.
He ate a lot for dinner and said it was really good. We talked more about school and I said he had fun at school and would be bored at home. He told me, “Dada, you’re real entertaining…more than everyone in the whole school.” He brought up the word ‘party pooper’ and turned out he didn’t quite know what it meant, so I explained. He then asked me who I thought would be a party poop, and he listed people like Shmuel, him, mama, Taya, and Shai. I asked which Shai he meant, and it was the one that used to live downstairs. We agreed it was him.
Upstairs I gave him a bath. When he went to the bathroom he told me, “Watch me go to the bathroom…and focus behind me…make sure there’s no ants.” He weighed himself and is now 15.9kg. Said goodnight to Carly and I put him to sleep. He was asleep about 9. I fell asleep with him, and got back up a bit later.
He was up at 6:54. He came down and sat on the couch and started demanding a treat: “Just give me a treat.” A rather inauspicious start… He watched a Wild Kratts about chameleons and had oatmeal with mango. He went to the bathroom, then looked at the post-it notes on the side of his art kitchen (the ones from the infamous incident with Taya) and asked why they stick. I said it was interesting, and used the word ‘bond’. He sang, “Word of the day!”
He asked, “Why do we have to keep buy more and more stuff?” and we discussed reasons for buying and not buying things. He was playing with the broken umbrella and called it his shell. Mechanical, I think. At some point he was being an upside down turtle, waving his feet in the air and said he learned it from Mr. Dion.
It started to rain about 7:20, so I decided we’d take the car. I had to distract him from the umbrella and we got going after 7:45. When we got to school it was only a light drizzle. At the entrance, where they usually have music playing, there were actually three people playing instruments instead. On the way down I talked through the schedule. I would list something, and he added poop to it: “Poop yoga” “Poop snack” “STEM poop” “Poop ice cream”. The last being the ice cream we would get if he had a good day. When we got to his class Eve greeted us at the door. Yaya and I think Hector were there, and August ran over and started playing with Yaya, looking at (and erasing, I think) the message Marion had written for the day. I hung up his stuff, then was reluctant to leave without saying goodbye, as I was afraid he’d notice and come running after. I hung out on the steps for a couple minutes and he didn’t, so I decided I was good.
It was raining more, but not too heavy and I walked home, listening to The Emissary. I set up my new keyboard and worked from home, then rode my bike back to school. It had actually been pretty sunny, then was getting clouded when I headed out. As I headed up the hill towards school I could see big rain clouds coming in and wanted to get to school quickly. It started to rain once I was already down by the preschool.
I waited a few minutes until Carly showed up, then we went upstairs to meet with Vicky, who is in charge of the preschool. It was a productive meeting with her, as she is quite pragmatic. Still, took quite awhile, an hour and a half, to come up with ideas.
Carly and I then went to the cafeteria. She got a coffee and I got a sandwich, as I hadn’t really eaten lunch. I went and waited for him. He ran out just before 3, past the bus kids lining up. He told me that he had gotten upset with Andrea. He had wanted her help making something (a round piece of cardboard, I think) and she just kept telling him to keep trying. He had gotten upset enough to hit her. Vicky told us, and he told me about it as well, that he had hit Lydia earlier in the day when she had something he wanted. He didn’t go into details, but he still seemed upset with her.
He seemed ambivalent/confused about STEM class, but when I directed him that way he asked for his snack. I gave him a sort of small bar I had gotten at the store yesterday. He ate that, then went in to class. I sat out at the picnic table and read and worked.
Hit near end
Me up to Vicky’s
“I’m trying to not hit at home. And I’m trying to not do it at school.”
We met carly at the library and headed home. When we got here, Shmuel met us at the gate. He wanted to pick the weeds above the door. He did that for us and I got gloves and bagged the weeds.
After Shmuel left, August and Carly were playing school by the whiteboard. They were playing with playdough and adding shapes to the umbrella. He showed her his piece of pumice and then wanted to try to drill a hole in it. I was getting his dinner, so Carly went out with him. He managed to drill a hole in it.
He came in and ate dinner (broccoli, meatballs, and rice). He wanted water and went and refilled his water bottle from the bathroom sink all on his own.
He has the random idea of wanting to put spit on her rights in two different places to see how it soaked through. When she said she had an old pair of tights he could experiment on his idea changed. He wanted to make a concoction to use as laundry deterrent in the washing machine. He had had this idea before, but his concoction at the time had included lotions and other things I wasn’t excited about running through the washing machine.
He made his concoction, with a brief timeout for picking up a sharp knife after Carly told him not to, then Carly helped him load the washing machine.
He got a flashlight and the two of us walked up to the garbage spot by the recycling bins. I had mentioned there was a broken washing machine there and he wanted to see it. The top of the case was ripped open, so we could see the drum and other pieces inside.
We walked home and did some imagining games on the floor, discussing dungeons and prisons and the ethical treatment of prisoners. He was hungry, and said he really wanted oatmeal so we made a bowl, with him doing most of the cutting of the mango. He ate the full bowl.
At one point, I came down from upstairs and he was under the umbrella and said, “Dada, punch me.” I thought he meant his turtle shell, so I pretended to punch the umbrella. But he said he wanted me to punch him. Kind of an odd moment, and I wouldn’t even pretend to do that.
Over on the couch he said something that sounds like “Putting” or “pudding”. When I asked what he was saying he said, “that’s what Ms. Vicky says when she doesn’t have an answer, I think.” I think maybe it is ‘pardon?’ in her English accent. We read Monster Party and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day He asked to read it again, but said, “Just because I love really angry people. Because I love sad people.” We discussed that and didn’t read it again right away.
Carly came down and we were discussing standards-based grading and she talked about how it didn’t click for students. August took on the role of students and kept asking, “Teacher! Why is it not clicking!?”
She took him upstairs for a bath. They came down and he said good night to her and I took him upstairs. We read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and talked more about school. He was humming a song and wanted to listen to it tomorrow, but I couldn’t quite place the tune. Brushed his teeth and we got in bed. The first time in quite a few days where he seemed to actually fight going to sleep for while. He asked for a visualization, but then was interrupting it, so I stopped. Eventually he was quiet, and I fell asleep with him for awhile. I think he was asleep around 9.
He woke up at 6:28. I tried to convince him it was too early but he going down. We read on the couch for awhile and I got him vitamins, then he watched a Wild Kratts. “Dada, in my laboratory, I watched a 16 thousand hour video. Full. I watched the entire thing.”
We went outside and he used the saw to saw the yellow tubing. He wanted to hammer it to the house, so I started it but decided it was too early (7:40) for so much noise. He got upset and we went back inside.
He was hungry, so I made us pancakes. He was eating one when Carly came down at 8. He was very happy to see her. They sat on the couch together for several minutes, then he asked me to get his special straw. He showed it to her and explained all about it, and demonstrated how to clean it. He found an optical illusion with it, as the colors get blurry when he waves it around fast, then I showed him the bendy straw optical illusion by holding it in the middle.
He told Carly how he uses people in his chemicals, then he went and got the banana strawberry juice from the fridge and explained the machine to her, and how the other rows of the same juice looked like they were bad from the sun. He gave the rest to her to have.
They then went outside for a few minutes, then back inside they did an art project together. August had them making letters out of yarn glued on paper. Probably an idea that came from school. He was being cuddly, and told her, “You’re the sweetest thing ever.” When we talked about how Bryan bought a cuddly cat in the West Bank he was then a cuddly cat. I mentioned he wanted to go to another country this summer, and he told her “Iceland! Iceland!…I want to be cold! I want to wear a scarf!”
Carly went up to take a shower and he and I finished reading Amulet book 5. She came back down and they kept working on their piece of art, adding paint to it.
When I came back down they were outside. Carly had made food, and he had bumped her as she walked outside and it had all spilled and she was making it again. Outside, he was hammering and used his small stool to finish hammering in the nail we had started this morning. He then got on the inside of the railing and looped it over to the other side and hammered the other side all on his own, making a handle for him to hold onto.
He wanted to do more sawing, but didn’t know of what, so I suggested we squeeze oranges. He liked the idea, and he worked on cutting oranges on his own and got pretty good with it. Unfortunately, while lining up a new one to cut, he scraped a finger the tiniest bit. He had quite a reaction to it. Carly took him in to rinse it off, and the frustration came and went and took several minutes before he was okay. Dramatic like his knee scraping was last night.
I squeezed a few more oranges and the orange juice turned out really well. He wanted some of his own, watered down and sweetened a bit, so I got him a cup. Unfortunately, he knocked it over on the outside table before tasting it. I cleaned it up and Carly was with him. He was kind of falling apart, and made things worse by ripping the glass eye off the wall, taking a lot of paint with it. I had been telling him I needed to take it down carefully when it was done.
He curled up on the rug, silent, for several minutes, while I finished cleaning. I then picked him up and held him as we walked around the yard for awhile. Carly was cleaning the patio and transplanting plants, and she decided it was time to take down the red lantern, which has been really damaged by the wind and rain. Basically, half of the plastic is just gone. Interestingly, the shapes of the flowers and animals, which are painted on, mainly remain, the paint being enough protection to keep it intact. August had fun fully destroying the lantern, and then I got him a new cup of juice. He finished it just as I was coming out to work at the table.
He decided to go inside, and after a couple minutes insisted that Carly come in to cuddle. He wasn’t patient or polite about it though, and when he couldn’t be she took him upstairs for a timeout. After that they were playing on the bed.
He came down and was using a whiney voice. Really seemed tired, but then I realized he had only had a pancake. I made him a lunch of broccoli and meatballs. He ate it all, Carly made popcorn on the stove top. We then started reading Amulet book 6. ‘Improvise’ was the words of the day.
After awhile he got Carly to go upstairs to wrestle with him. He was rather hyper, and admitted he was smothering her when he came down. She had gotten him dressed, and he had his orange piece of ribbon and wanted it tied in his hair: “Anyway, could you tie this around my hair?” She tried to get him to try on his sandals, and he wouldn’t do that. She gave him a present from Spain: a pen from the hotel. He liked it, but then asked her for another present. He suggested she make something with his art supplies. She said she would, if he decorated the wrapping paper for it, so he reluctantly agreed to do that.
She took the paper and came back with a present. It was a Kinder Egg from Spain. It had a clicking robot fidget toy, and he enjoyed the chocolate stuff. The toy is separate from the chocolate now, so it isn’t inside the chocolate.
I headed to the store, walking, about 2:15 and they headed out for a walk. I saw them over by the garbage pile. They got a large plastic flower pot, and a round ring of metal. I was home about 3:15. They had been painting the plastic pot and were now doing challenges, with him running around the yard and touching things. Touching me was part of one when I came in.
I asked about their walk. It hasn’t gone well, as he had wanted to go on a bus ride and didn’t like not being able to do it right away.
I had purchased Scotch tape and he opened it with the wine bottle opener. Carly asked me “Did you want to take August to that place?” She meant the hardware store (which we had talked about doing), but he heard her and said, “Yeah, to the BUS stop so we can take a BUS somewhere.”
He cuddled with her on the couch for awhile and I heard him say, “I love you so much, I just want to put you in my soup and eat you.” That sounds like a line from something, but I don’t know what.
He got his iPad and realized he could watch on VLC. Need to fix that. But it is solving itself, as he only has the two Charlie Brown specials to watch on there. He watched a bit of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and stopped.
We made oatmeal. He chopped the mango and we joked about what we would put in it. He was singing, “I want to know, what you’re thinking, tell me what’s on your mind today…”
He ate the oatmeal and I started making dinner. Carly had gone up for some alone time, as he was being quite smothery. When she came down they started watching Monsters Vs. Aliens. I finished making dinner, then watched the rest of it with him. I preferred the Shrek movie, but this was pretty good as well. He was getting tired, and started demanding I get him a megaphone and microphone.
The curry I made was a bust. It was from a ‘mild’ packet on iHerb, but was spicier than the last one. And it had cashews. So Carly couldn’t eat it, and August decided it was too spicy. He went to the bathroom, then realized he had accidentally washed his hands twice. He asked me to put his pants on, then before I could reply said, “Wait, why should I ask you when I can do it myself?”
So for dinner he ate a good serving of broccoli, then had a pancake with cinnamon and sugar and butter, like a Swedish pancake. He didn’t eat much of it though as he didn’t like the texture and taste.
He sat with me and I talked to him about the week. He told me he didn’t want to go to school anymore and only wanted to learn things from me and mama. He played with the glue a bit, then I took him upstairs. He said he’d give me a massage, and then was the (rather rough) massage machine on my back. He was then trying headstands on the bed. He told me, “Ms. Andrea always says try, try, try!”
I gave him a quick bath, then we read all of The Meeting. We had a little pillow fight at his request, then brushed his teeth. Carly came in and I left them at 8:15. I went for an evening walk, listening to The Emissary.
We got up at 6:40. The first thing he said was, “Is there no school today?” After a minute we got out of bed. He first did a very random “Moose” song and dance. He sat on the couch for a few minutes then went to the bathroom. He then asked me if it is possible to hammer nails in our walls. He told me about the “3-I-I-B…G-I-I-C” parts in his robot brain.
He got the circuit board again, and this time wanted to use a knife to break pieces off. I let him use a steak knife for a few seconds to saw the fragile pieces, then remembered the pliers had a wire cutter portion. He used them to get another small piece off, and we used the macro lens to photograph them.
He wanted to watch Wild Kratts, and yesterday we had realized there is only one season of Wild Kratts available on Netflix now. There are full episodes on Netflix, but not a ton, and I don’t like the ads. So we purchased a pack of episodes on iTunes. Which are nice, because they have the portions at the beginning and end with the real Kratt brothers. He watched the episode where they do a race to find the fastest animal and I made pancakes.
I was watching the episode with him and they explained what ‘stamina’ means. I said it was the word of the day, and he replied, “No. Not the word of the day. Wild Kratts can’t choose the word of the day.” He wore the strainer on his head as he watched.
We wrapped Taya’s present. Earlier he had drawn a “Snowman kind of character” on the inside of the paper. As I wrapped it, he decided the ends should only be partly folded, meaning the present basically had wings. He taped them solidly.
We ate pancakes and strawberries, then we opened the packages from yesterday. One was a t-shirt about reading that Cherie had bought for me. She had mentioned it on Facebook, but I’d forgotten about it. It is a nice shirt. He took a photo of me wearing it so I could send it to Carly and Cherie, and he decided it was a good bed and curled up on it on the couch.
The other package was the Final Straws, which I ordered several months ago and were supposed to come by Christmas, but the company had screwed up shipping. He really liked them, especially his, which is rainbow-colored and has a pink case. Mine is silver with a blue case. He remembered the juice from the science center and got it out of the fridge to drink with his straw. He was excited that it is long enough to use with the bottle without having to hold it up. Then, we cleaned it, and he liked the squeegee part that you pull through to clean it. I know that will be Carly’s favorite part.
I took a shower and he waited in the bathroom with me, playing around with things. We got dressed and ready to go. He said, “Isn’t it cool that I have Taya, a friend in PKB, And I’m older.” He needed to go to the bathroom and said, “With you watching…because of monsters.” He had earlier said it was scary being in the bedroom while I take a shower and that was why he had come in with me.
We left right at 10:30. We were to the mall at 11, but the entrance to the parking garage was gated shut. We drove around the big block, following another car, and found a random building to park in, south of the hospital. I didn’t think until later about how parking at the mall would have been free. And, indeed, the entrance I thought was to a hospital parking lot also leads to the mall.
We walked past the hospital and to the mall and ran into Eve and family as we were heading down to the Gymboree. This party was a big production. Probably 30+ kids, food all over, an entertainer running games with the kids, etc. It was a bit overwhelming at first. August was most attracted to the food, and he started with a sweet roll while I had a bagel with salmon. I then generally made him go treat/healthy/treat/healthy. Surprisingly, a couple times he chose to just eat a big leaf of lettuce, instead of something like a strawberry.
He was in and out of the show. Sat on my lap for much of it. Didn’t really want to participate. Couldn’t blame him. It was pretty crazy, and in a little room that was too small. When the show finished he did play around in the room a bit, especially after pizza came and we had a slice and then the cake came and we sang happy birthday. He liked sneaking into Taya’s birthday chair when she wasn’t there.
So now we went into the actual play area. Still quite chaotic, but much better. Not really up to Korean standards (the ceilings were low, for one, which made the whole thing rather claustrophobic) but still fun. He went on the slow merry-go-round thing, then did some bouncing, then threw some cubes back and forth with Eve. Zoe took him back in the bouncing area. I was able to do some reading while he played with them.
He wandered out of the play area and claimed he was bored at once. We practiced the telephone number song. We now had cupcakes and he got a goody bag from Cassie. Back in the play area he jumped with Zoe again and I played a ball throwing game, trying to hit a balloon we tied to the railing of the bouncy area, for awhile before he went back to playing with Zoe and Eve.
We went and found the bathroom, then played together in the ball pit area (after he had me show him how deep it was) and basketball. It was emptying out now as the party wound down. Taya came in and he and Taya started playing. I was able to talk to Cassie for a few minutes. She seemed sick (her voice was mostly gone) and worn out, but was heading to Belgium on the Space Camp trip tomorrow. When Cassie was leaving and trying to get Taya to go with some relatives he said, “No. I want her to be here forever and ever and ever and ever.”
A few minutes later he told me that Taya was still in the ball area. The relatives were just trying to call to her to get her out. I went and told her it was time to go and she obediently headed out. August and I then played hide and seek for a good long time. It was perfectly developmentally appropriate for him. He would never have handled looking for me for 10 or 20 seconds before. But this was just the right combination of safe and scary for him.
We were the last people there for quite awhile. It was technically open, but there was no one else there anymore. We left at 2:20 as he wanted to explore the rest of the mall. We found a gourmet chocolate stand and he talked about how he could get one some other time: “I want to come to this mall another day. Like once a week.”
We did a little Zinnie adventure as I carried him and he pointed which direction to go. It led us outside and around some sidewalks by the hospital, then we headed to the car. He stopped to examine a leaking fire pipe and discussed wanting rain boots. He spent some time chasing pigeons that weren’t too afraid of him, and found a broken lighter that he really wanted to be useful somehow.
He wanted to go to the same beach in Tel Aviv that we had been to with Carly. I drove that way. I figured it might be busy, but wasn’t prepared for what I would find. August fell asleep at 3:05, about 5 minutes before I got to the garage—the same one we had parked in with Carly. I drove around the whole place for a few minutes, then finally found a family getting in the car. But then up ahead of me I saw a car pull out. So I gave up that spot and headed up there. Only to find it wasn’t actually a spot. I parked there, and thought about chancing it. There were cars parked illegally all over the place. But the parking seemed to have calmed down, and since August was still asleep I got back in the car and kept looking. Lasted another 20 minutes or so before I gave up and paid 14 shekels for the pleasure of driving around the parking garage for more than half an hour.
And I had seen in action something I’d recently read about, where people jump out of cars and scour the parking lot looking for a spot, and then stand there saving it until their friend can show up with the car. Really disadvantages cars with only one adult in them.
Then, the side lane that you come out on was bumper to bumper, even though the Main Street was empty of traffic. It has its own light, and took another 10 minutes to make it to the light at the end of the block. But finally some good luck. I had put in directions to Poleg Beach in Netanya, but figured I’d keep my eyes open for another garage a couple blocks away. I didn’t have to do that though, as I found a spot on the street. Curb wasn’t painted. It was by a construction zone. I inspected the sign, and it appeared to say just no parking until 3pm. The family parked in front of me showed up and I asked them, and he confirmed my reading of the sign. We had found free street parking just a block from the beach.
August was waking up. It was now 4. A 55 minute nap, and he had napped 3 days in a row. I think I’ve been tiring him out. We walked to the beach and the first activity was having me bury his feet. We would move a little each time. I then suggested we walk up the beach a bit to see if we could find the playground. As we walked we saw a big flock of seagulls attracted by something on the beach by the water. August and I both thought they were big shells, but he went closer to investigate and it was rolls of bread. It turned out we were farther away from the playground than I thought, so we just picked a spot and started working on a sand sculpture.
We worked on a sculpture using our sand toys. At one point he said, “My teachers always says ‘Add more!’” We saw a couple of drones flying above the beach and they looked pretty cool. He said he wants one, and was sad when I suggested it might not be right away. He was cuddling on me and was giving me lots of raspberries on my neck and cheeks and hands today. He said he learned it from Mama.
We watched the sun go down at 5:07 and played a little more. I was a little kid getting my sculptures destroyed. We left at 5:20. He said he needed to use the bathroom so we walked a bit further north to the bathroom. On the way we practiced the phone number song and I asked him who he could ask for help here if he couldn’t find me. He thought about it for a minute and said, “Someone with kids.” That was a great answer. We talked a little more about what to do if you’re lost, and as he went to the bathroom he told me, “The lost kid area in my laboratory is like a zoo…when the parents aren’t there I can just look like them.” “I even have have a lost parent room. It has iPads to do your work on.”
From there we walked to the car and were driving at 5:45. We had interesting discussions on the way home as we drove through Tel Aviv. He asked about surgery, which had come up sometime earlier, and how all the blood doesn’t just come out of your body when they cut into you. I told him there is a really sharp knife call a scalpel and scalpel became our word of the day. We talked a bit more about that and he started talking about how he experiments on people in his lab. This led to a discussion of ethical experiments and what that means. He assured me that the only people that he kills in his lap to get their blood were people that wanted to die. He explained that they were all people who have lived full lives and are now ready to die and asked for his help so he helped them die. It was like a full argument for euthanasia, which he has never heard about before.
Earlier, we talked about his upcoming birthday and he has changed his mind. He now wants a party just like Taya’s and at the same place and with a lot of people. Carly wasn’t too excited to hear this. He talked about the cake he wanted and he said he wants stars, infinity signs, and computers on top with birthday cake icing. He wants his to be round though.
As we got closer to home he talked about having a satellite in space, and it had tubes from it to see with and they had actual eyes at the end. We ended up discussing the possibilities of alien life. Oh, and he talked about wanting to go on a bus ride again and seemed particularly fond of sitting at the bus stop, waiting for a bus. We were home at 6:35.
For dinner I made him a chicken patty and broccoli and he ate a good deal of broccoli. He went to the bathroom, and he asked, “Can I control my body?” We got into that, and it turned out he particularly was talking about babies, and he said he never wanted to have one, and he wondered if mamas just told their bodies to have a baby. I gave the briefest explanation, but he mainly focused on the DNA combining and inherited traits, and what he got from me and mama.
We made popcorn and buttered it and sat on the couch. He chose the fourth Shrek movie and we watched it together. I liked it more than I thought I would. When he finished the bowl of popcorn he said he needed another bowl as there was still a lot (an hour) of the movie left. I got him some Cheerios instead. I haven’t seen him watch a full movie, so that was interesting to see.
We skipped a shower and went upstairs before 9. He went to the bathroom and peed, but then when he sat on the bed there was a little poop. He had thought he just had gas. He said, “I hate my body.” He had said something earlier on the toilet when he had dripped some pee. I assured him it was not a big deal and we just changed the sheet.
I said we could never skip brushing his teeth, and he speculated on if there was ever a scenario where we would. I said if we were out late and he fell asleep in the carry and we just carried him up to bed we would probably just let him sleep and not brush his teeth. He said, “What about when you say you love me a ton of Qs?” I said I’d say it to him in his sleep, and told him I sometimes said things to him in his sleep, thinking at least part of his mind was at least hearing it. He said he couldn’t, and it kind of blew his mind when I talked about how his brain wasn’t fully off when he was asleep. He said that when he was asleep it was like he was dead. But then he remembered he was a robot, and concluded, “The only part of me that’s on when I sleep is a warning system.”
He wanted a visualization about pee, so he was a drop of pee, produced by a kidney and ending up being destroyed by a waste treatment plant. It took him a lot of trying to fall asleep, and he partly blamed the visualization. He said it wasn’t calming, but was too funny. He was quiet for several minutes, then asked, “What if you don’t use a sharp knife to cut you open?” He then ended up, somehow, with more, he thought, poop on his finger. I whisked him to the bathroom to wash him well. Back in bed there was another period of silence. He then said, “Dada” and put his hand on my throat before finally falling asleep at 10:05.
He woke up at 6:45. He waited for me to get dressed and we went downstairs. The first thing he really said was, “If I finded a superglue bottle on the ground and it was full of superglue, could I squirt it all out outside?” He played around with tape and stuff as I got oatmeal ready. He watched a Wild Kratts about crocodiles and alligators and then got ready. It was a pretty smooth morning. He got a little upset when it was time to go, but he didn’t talk about not wanting to go. He just wanted me to read.
We were walking at 7:40. On the way to school we were singing our “Alligator” song. He started making up verses, including ones about a robotic drill and one about a motor. A little reluctance at the classroom, but he went and sat next to Ms. Rena all on his own. He knew we are going to get ice cream if he has a good day. And maybe get a present for Taya, if we could make it to Toys R Us by 4. He is convinced she needs a stuffed animal for her present.
I went to the library and sat and worked and listened in on the elementary parent coffee, which was about the elementary math curriculum. Preschool parents hadn’t been invited, so I figured it wasn’t very focused on preschool. At 10 I then went to the Parent Education Program meeting in the multi-purpose room. The speaker was Dr. Deborah Gilboa, and she was speaking on “Raising Resilient Kids”. It was good, but lasted over 2 hours. I walked home and worked for an hour and a half, then drove to school.
When I got there Lydia was outside, crying. I was afraid it had something to do with August, but apparently she was just missing her mom. When August ran out he was in a good mood. He told me he had a good day, but after rest time, on the playground, boy from PKB (Chen, I think) had taken his rock and he had hit Chen. We went inside. Marion had gone to the bus, but Rena was there. She said there had also been a time in the morning where he hadn’t been happy with her when she made him clean up blocks, and that he had threatened to hit Reia.
I told him we weren’t getting ice cream. He didn’t handle that too badly. We got going, and drove to Toys R Us. He fell asleep for the last 5 or 10 minutes. I carried him into the store, and he woke up and spotted a tub of stuffed animals. He looked through it and found a llama. That was it. Taya’s toy. He wanted something for himself, but I said no. But near the registers we found those snap bracelets, with the sequins that flip over. Only 2 dollars each. He got a blue one for Taya, and a pink one for himself. On our way out I stopped to get some wrapping paper from the wrapping station. He wasn’t sure we were supposed to take it without paying, and basically made me ask the security guard by the door. I did, and then he was okay with it.
He stayed awake on the way back. We stopped at the school and took a grocery bag in and went to the orange trees.I had run into Zoe and met her husband in the library earlier, and then saw her again as we entered the school. August and I were filling up the bag with oranges. Plenty to choose from. She had picked up her 1st grade son Lincoln from piano lessons at the school, and they came to get oranges too. On the walk back, August and I looked at the tractors and mowers, then he found a round filter of some sort that he said looked like a honeycomb. We stopped and checked Carly’s box and got a couple small packages, and then at the guard station we got the iHerb box.
We were home around 5. He opened the iherb package with his scissors. He took the plastic cushion things from the box and was popping them, all on his own. He then used tape to hang the strand up from the kitchen door to a cabinet, and called it a “Christmas decoration”. He was limping and said his right foot was bothering him.
We ate the last of the curry and rice for dinner, then we made a batch of popcorn, put butter on it, and watched a short documentary called The Search for Life in Space. He watched it, but claimed he wasn’t too impressed. We skyped with Carly, as he was looking tired and she was heading out to dinner with the group soon. It wasn’t a long skype, as he was grumpy.
He was hungry and wanted oatmeal. He wanted to chop mango, but we are out. He decided to try with pineapple, so he chopped that. He decided he didn’t like it too much with the pineapple, and I agreed, but he ate most of it. We finished reading The Return of Zita the Spacegirl. He got his circuit board from the monitor and found a couple screws on it we hadn’t taken out. I tried, but they were too tight, and he was a bit upset I couldn’t take them out.
We headed up for a bath and I mentioned not having a word of the day. He came up with ‘established’ and we discussed what it means. He had a rather screamy bath, and I think it was today that when I told him to stop screaming he told me, “You know I get upset when I take a bath!”
In the bedroom he asked me about my name as a kid and didn’t believe it was the same: “Did you grow up having the name Ryan?…No!…Cuz that’s an adult name! Like mama…” He played on the bed, and at one point hugged me and said, “Did you know something? I love you so, so, so, so much.”
He was speaking randomly through his wood sculpture/musical instrument, and said things like, “According to vacuoles and things being cancelled because of the United States of America and going to another planet.” And, “You know, if you ever find a roast human on the ground, the secret ingredient to make it sugary is salt.”
Brushed his teeth and got him to bed. He requested a visualization, and we did a visualization on visualizing ‘nothing’. He talked about colors he could see and fell asleep by 9:15.
