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We slept until a little after 7. I woke up with a really sore ankle. Has never happened before, but it went away after a few minutes. Downstairs he watched Wild Kratts and I got oatmeal for breakfast. When he went to the bathroom he asked me if hammers could break bones, like the dog bone he found in the dirt last year. He talked about metal and said that ‘amphacork’ was the strong metal from his planet. Then he was telling me about the subs he has that carry a lot of people.

His wood sculpture came apart so he re-glued it using more glue. He learned that you need to use more to make it stay together. He found little Mickey Mouse coloring book set from an airplane flight and got the markers out from it. I found a pencil case from Korea that he could put them in and he liked it and wants to use it now. I took a shower and he played a little Angry Birds. As we got ready to go he was asking a lot of questions bout knives and glue. He couldn’t find one of his shoes, and we remembered he had tied it to me using some of his pajamas last night.

We left at 9:30. He told me more about his amfihsubs. Which are actually airplanes he builds. They have printing presses on them and are for discovering things. Kind of like helicopters but more complicated. We listened to “I Want to Know” by the Thompson Twins and he requested it on repeat.

We were headed to the science center in Hadera. As we drove by the mall he spotted a couple of those blow up wavy arm guys. He hasn’t seen any for a long time, and knows them from one of the Treehosue books. We got to the science center and went in, only to find that the main museum is closed again, and actually being remodeled now.

We rolled a few coins down the vortex thing, then we went back to the car and headed north to Haifa. We were listening to an ‘Indie Songs for the Family’ playlist and the Broken Social Scene cover of “Puff the Magic Dragon” came on and he reminded me he didn’t want sleepy songs because he didn’t want to take a nap.

We parked in our usual dead end. We were in the science center before 12. No play area, and we headed straight to science after the bathroom. We went to the sound room for a few minutes, then I convinced him to go out side and have a snack. We then played around the outside portion. I lifted him in the globe for quite awhile, then he was in the spinning sun. He saw another bot walk on the walking circle thing and he tried that. He wanted to see if he was big enough to do the helicopter by himself, but he was upset to find out that it was chained up.

And then it was back down the water portion, with the different gates and pumps. At the bottom of the hill he spotted the vending machine for the first time. We got a bag of crunchy Cheetos and we sat down and he got to have those for the first time.

I convinced him to go up to the special exhibit. I had mentioned not knowing if it was open. I meant I thought it might be closed down, as it is temporary, and I didn’t want him to be disappointed if it was. But he thought I meant ‘closed’ as in for the day, and it took some convincing him that we could stay in it once we were there. There was almost no one else in there.

We did the blurry screen at the beginning, then the big head thing. More blurry screen, then we worked our way through, doing the other big head thing, the happy/sad thing, the coloring the circles and putting them on the screen, etc. There is the digital map of computer virus attacks, and he talked about how it was network connections between his labs that he has all over the world. Next, we did the Pictionary game where the computer tries to guess what you’re drawing. He was mainly silly about it, but a few times took it serious and got the computer to recognize his drawings.

Finally, we went back to the beginning and played with the blurry screen again. He got the props and asked me to use them as props and to use the area in front of the screen as my stage and put on a play. Perhaps an idea from preschool? So I did a version of Beauty and the Beast.

We headed back to the building, and this time got a strawberry banana juice from the machine and drank part of that. He decided he did want to stop at a beach on the way home, so we got going t 2:45. Outside the science center he spent some time finding peach and maroon colored rocks. We got back to the car (he was walking and having me carrying him—we’re using the bike less and less). Along the way he talked about how he has sensors that automatically count all the cats and birds that we see, and it doesn’t include duplicates.

In the car we were listening to music. He fell asleep from 3:20 to 4 when I woke him up at Hadera Stream Park. This is the stream that runs just south of the power plant. We parked on the south side. He was slow to wake up, and I carried him down to the beach. It was really windy, and we stopped to put his sweatshirt on after a minute. We got down to the beach. August said he didn’t want to play there, as it was too shelly, but I think it was mainly too windy. Because then he started following bird tracks and looking for treasures. As we were walking back along the stream, a small round thing was blowing along the ground and he followed it, and saved it before it blew into the stream.

We then followed the path up the stream as far as we could. We stopped to look at some of the sculptures, and to throw a stick in one of the fountains that flows into the river. As we looked across at the power plant he said the four smokestacks were different sizes. It was an optical illusion as they were progressively farther away from us. He found a nice piece of pumice and that was the word of the day. He said it was like soft white rock he’s found at school. He found a really big piece of it, but then left it behind when he hurt himself a little somehow.

We heard an announcement over the loudspeaker that the park was closing, and listing the cars still, including our Skoda. The signs had said open until dark, but apparently it meant sunset, which was a few minutes away (about 5:05). We got to the just before 5, not the last one, and got going at sunset.

We were home at 5:30. We had quiche for dinner, then made popcorn and read Amulet book 5. He bit his tongue. A bad one, and he spit blood-covered popcorn on the couch. He then kept running around the house, rubbing blood on his sleeves, screaming, anytime he could get away from me. I had to yell “Stop!” to get his attention. The blood slowed, and we read more of Amulet and ate more popcorn, finishing it.

He asked me, “Dada, next summer can we go to a house that has a TV? So I can watch movies?” We went upstairs and he was looking at out space heater and asked if a stick would burn if it touched it. I asked how long the stick was on there, because it wouldn’t burn if it was a quick touch. He replied,”No, it sitted on there for as long as a bird sitted on a wire.” He took a long time on the toilet, and I did some reading. We did his bath, then we skyped with Carly. She asked, “What was the best part of the day?” He said, “The best part of the day is you” and leaned over and hugged me.

Carly said that the Alex and Cherie’s flight was 9 hours late. August asked, “Did they make a joke in security?” I guess we had mentioned not making jokes to security to him at some point. I took a shower and then we discussed why we have 1 of some organs and 2 of others, which we’ve wondered about before.

In the bedroom he played with his wooden sculpture. With a straw and bracelet thing attached it has turned into a musical instrument and he made music. We put lotion on his hand and lip and had lights off before 9. He requested a visualization and we did a visualization where he was an ant getting food and taking it to the nest. We talked about how the heater regulates temperature and ‘thermostat’ was a word of the day.

It was hard to get to sleep but he really tried, rolling around a lot, and pressing his forehead and cheek against mine. He fell asleep at 9:40 while holding onto my arm.

Coin vortex:

Sound song 1:

Sound song 2:

Walking circle:

Big Zinnie:

Blur screen 1:

Blur screen 2:

Blur screen 3:

His laboratory connections in mooka mook:

Pictionary of sorts:

Following bird tracks:

The rolling thing:

Stick in the fountain:

His musical sculpture:

Carly was picked up by a taxi at 5:30. I managed to get up and say goodbye and crawl back in bed. I didn’t know how August would respond in the morning, so after I woke up I went back up and stayed in the bedroom until he woke up at 6:40. It turned out I had nothing to worry bout.

We went downstairs and he ate oatmeal and everything went smoothly. We walked to school and dropping him off went without a hitch. Marion was gone, and Ms. Rena was there for the morning, which I think was a nice surprise for him. As I left I heard Lydia or Eve saying “August is the best. I love him so much.”

I went to the library and worked from there for the day. Around 11:30 Andrea emailed me and sent me a couple photos and said that morning choice time was going really well. He had made something out of a stick and beads and pipe cleaners, and was painting a plastic bottle. At one point during the day I walked over and around the big field and found all the orange trees he’d told me were over there. Lots of oranges and I picked one and ate it.

When I picked him up he immediately told me he had had a good day. His nose/top lip had gotten pretty bad though and were all brown and starting to get scabby. He walked in circles on the grass and told me about how he could recombine DNA: “You can break it apart and recombine that code.” He sat on the bench and ate some cashews. Taya and Eve were hanging out with Grace and going to play on the playground, but he didn’t want to play with them, and instead wanted to get going.

We walked upstairs and he saw plants in pots outside the 3rd grade. He told me the pots were actually made from plastic, although it looked like fabric. He had learned this on Monday and showed me where the table was where they had learned about them. Must have been part of the earth day celebration. he tiptoed through some flowers that had been planted around trees, then told me how cheetahs are stupid because they can only run at top speed for bout 40 seconds. He told me that was their weakness, then talked about the weaknesses of other animals: “The weakness of the clam shells, dada, is that one creature of the sea can drill through the shell and make it a liquid and just eat.”

We went to the library and got The Return of Zita the Spacegirl. I asked Amanda if they could track down the 5th and 6th Amulet books, which were due back in early December. She looked it up and it said they were turned in. I then spotted them on the shelf waiting to be re-shelved behind her. They just came back today. We got those and left at 4:10. We saw these doors down below into the hillside, sort of, below the library with warnings about electronic equipment. He explained how he made the equipment in there.

Finally, as we started walking home I told him I had eaten an orange today, and mentioned that we have a juicer. He got really excited about juicing oranges and wanted me to find the juicer when we got home. He then started talking about “The robotic Dion I’m making…” Dion is the Playball teacher. He said it looks and feels just like Dion on the outside, but inside it has machines and space and everything. And it was huge. This was like Zita, where there ends up being a huge Zita robot. He said he had fun at Playball today, but that he still hates Playball. I asked why, and he replied, “Because I always hate playball, silly Billy.” And he told me he wants to travel more, and wanted to go to every country. Except for ones with tornadoes and hurricanes, of course.

We stopped at home and dropped off our stuff and took the car up to town and parked in the dirt lot. As we walked to VIPizza, he asked, “Where did we park?” I told him him we had just parked in the dirt lot. Without a pause, he told me, “I was talking to my invisible robotic tree trunk. I was asking it where I parked my invisible dog.”

At VIPizza they had cheese slices and anchovy slices. I asked if he wanted to try anchovies. He called back “Never!” As we ate he told me lions are picky eaters as they won’t eat anything that has been dead for awhile. We speculated on lions and scavengers would have different stomachs. We talked about how this was the best pizza ever, and I said I wished we could eat at Pizza School again so he could compare them. He didn’t remember Pizza School at first, but then I mentioned noodle pizza, and he perked up and I could tell he actually remembered that. He told me he could give me some noodle pizza from his lab, tied with a bow, “with perfect cheese.”

He had a cheese slice and I had one of their stuffed things, which they also put hard-boiled egg in and serve with ranch dressing. And then it happened: I had to get him a second piece. He had corn this time, and he ate most of it. He asked to go to the bathroom and as we walked back there I said I hadn’t thought to ask him at school. He said, “Don’t worry about it.” We left there at 5:25.

As I walked back I said something about having good Dada and Zinnie time. As we got in the car he sang “August loves Zinnie and Dada time. Just kidding!” Then he said it the other way and with “Just kidding!” again.

We were home at 5:45. I remembered how we used to say thank you to parks when we left them, and he asked, “Can we still do it?” we got a bag and walked over to the tree near the cloud bridge and picked a bunch of the small sour oranges. We went back and had a fun, and made a mess, squeezing them. It was really strong stuff. We kept adding more and more water and a bunch of sugar and fake sugar. Then, we finally got something drinkable by putting some of that (we had filled the glass water bottle) in a cup and and adding more water and sugar.

He watched a Wild Kratts and took the frozen treat out. Too frozen, so let it thaw. He wanted oatmeal, and I let him cut the mango all on his own. We then skyped with Carly. He gave her a hug on the iPad, but also got sad and told her he didn’t like her. Carly had had a good trip to Spain. August was grumpy, but softened when she offered to tell “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. He lay on the couch as she told him the story.

He ate the frozen treat and oatmeal. He broke off a big piece of the frozen stuff and gave it to me. We read a few chapters of The Return of Zita and skipped his bath. We started to talk about a word of the day. I proposed some word I had taught him today and he said no, that it should be ‘motherton’. He said it was from a song he’d heard at school; “Motherton can’t you live.” He said it was a song about nature. Couldn’t figure it out, but I thought it might be about Mother Nature, and I talked about ‘personification’ when he asked what Mother Nature is (and I also mentioned us saying thank you to parks). He said, “Personification, word of the day!”

We brushed his teeth and got in bed. We discussed wedding rings after he gave me his ring, as it is too big for his finger (he had made it at school). That discussion led to a discussion of living with someone. He told me he was never moving out, and flatly said, “And I won’t get a job. I refuse to get a job.” We had lights off at 9. He made some funny noises, then requested a visualization about a hair. He was asleep about 9:30.

Trying to tape the automatic doors:

Explaining an invention:

Discussing the pizza:

Squeezing oranges:

Slicing mango:

Carly got him up before she left, about 6:40. He watched a Magic School bus episode about pollution. His nose has been runny and has been bothering him so we used some chapstick before we went. We were walking before 7:40. Everything seemed pretty normal, although he did talk about not wanting to go to school.

But when we got to his classroom he went to get an orange from a basket that Lydia or Eve was holding. When they said he couldn’t he got upset and grabbed one. I had to make him give it back, and he was saying mean things to them, and tried to hit Marion. I took him out and we talked on the bench for a few minutes. Took him back in and Andrea came and took him, suggesting they look at the photos that he and Yaya took in the nature reserve yesterday.

Then, about 10:30, I got a call from Vicky. She had August in her office. She had him tell me over the phone what had happened: they were on the playground and there were four people on the swing (the limit). Eve wouldn’t let him get on, and he threw a chair (one of the small plastic ones) at her and hurt her. She was okay, and after August had talked to Vicky they had gone and checked on Eve. She was okay and August had apologized.

I drove and picked him up. We talked about it in Vicky’s office. She had to do the talking now; he was much more talkative over the phone. We headed out. After we walked by the security guard he said, “I don’t like the security guard anymore cuz he see-d me out of class.” We left at 11.

At home we sat and finished reading The Meeting, started it again. There was then a knock on the door. It was Shmuel, and he was giving us a few plants. He was still working in Mikaela’s yard, and said he’d be around for about an hour. I asked if he wanted coffee, and he said when I was ready, and I could call down to him. So August and I planted the plants. We put the droopy one with purple flowers in the big colorful vase we found, the one with red flowers in the old metal bucket that we first used for growing tomato seeds, and the two smallest plants in the pink pot that I have up on the ledge outside the office, but the flower seeds haven’t grown.

And yesterday, when he had been here and left the ladder, he had also left a bush. He had seemed shocked that Mikaela had pulled it up. But it was mostly dead, with just one small living shoot. Carly was just going to toss it, but now August was wanting to use the saw. We picked off the small growths on the tree, and I lifted him up to use the saw on a couple. So, we also took that dying plant and used the saw to cut off the dead chunks, then planted it over by the fence near the Zinnie house. An experiment to see if it will survive. I aid it had a “slim chance of survival.” August made ‘slim’ the word of the day.

I made coffee, but when I went out I realized that Shmuel had left. I mentioned having too much coffee now, so August got a bowl and had me pour coffee in it and he made concoctions and poured them into his water bottle.

We did more sawing and hammering. He had me nail a piece of bamboo to his Zinnie house as a wind tester. He then wanted to go inside and do a brother and sister scenario. He introduced it with: “Right behind you there’s a ravenous bear.” We played out the scenario. He (as the sister) saved me from a bear dressed as a crocodile.

I then pulled up the Mind Yeti app (which the elementary school uses for their mindfulness program) and we watched a couple of mindfulness videos. He then wasn’t happy when I wouldn’t read him Monsters Beware! I had told him we weren’t going to read any of the books involving fighting will he was hitting at school. Instead, we read the newest Hilde book, Tornado Hits!. He wanted oatmeal and I made him eat more of his lunch first. We finished the book, and he sang a song at one point. He played with the drill, then we read The Bad Seed twice.

Back outside, we cleaned out the Zinnie house and swept it. Threw a way a lot of the old balls and random toys that were out there when we moved in, and got all of the plastic plant pots out. He told me he knew how to use the saw because of Marion. He had watched her use it when he was with Hector.

Carly got home and he got hyper. I took him upstairs and tried to listen to Mind Yeti with him. He really doesn’t like it. But eventually he said he could turn on calm and happy robot modes if I asked him. He also said he would be okay with me saying visualizations to help him calm down. He just doesn’t like the app.

Downstairs we ate dinner, and he asked for a second bowl of curry.

He cuddled with Carly and asked her to tell “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. The boy’s name was Johnjoe, and wanted to be a scientist. He said “I’m a good rememberer…In dada’s stories there used to be Dr. Figlemeister.” She told the story a few times. August wanted the boy to fool the townsfolk multiple times.

She took him upstairs for bath. I did dishes and his lunch. They made a tent on the bed, using the purple bucket and clothes hampers to hold up the blankets. She then went to take a shower and I read Breathe to him. We then finished reading The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow . He asked me, out of the blue, “Can we go to Thailand this summer?” He was playing with a couple of runner bands and calling them his headband, although he was putting them on his toes and feet. I turned out the lights and he wanted a visualization. I had him being a leaf floating down a stream. He was asleep at 8:55.

Drill fun:

“It’s masking paper” song:

Indian spiderwebs…or roots:

He was up a little before 6 when I was getting dressed. He went down and cuddled with Carly for several minutes. He watched a Magic School Bus, then played with his drill. Carly said he should tell Heather about it and he called it his “long intensiled (utensiled?) drill.” Carly dressed him in earthy colors for the Earth Day celebrations today (a school-wide dress thing). We got going at 7:20 and I dropped them off at school. Carly said that taking him to class wasn’t as smooth as the last time she did it. She cheered him up and got him going by saying he could have Mama-Zinnie time after school if he wanted to skip STEM class.

I drove to Sabeel. Waze took me a new route: south on 2, east on 5, and then south on 60. A new section of the West Bank that I drove through. I got to Sabeel at 9:30, just a couple minutes after Omar and Marc. Omar made Turkish coffee and we met in the office (Androus was mailing out the newsletter on the usual tables) until about 12:30. Reorganized the book, in theory, but should also make things easier/more sustainable in the long run (again, in theory). Omar also talked about parenting and how the baby isn’t sleeping much, and he’s running out of parenting tricks to manage Ghada. We had kak and yogurt and falafel and oranges for lunch, with Androus and the woman that was also there. Omar and her talked about some online game, a first-person shooter, that everyone seems to play (PUBG, which is apparently pronounced ‘papa ji). I told them that the kids at school play that annoying Shellshockers on the library computers.

I drove back, getting gas along the way. I got to school about 3:30. I went to her classroom but it was locked and I saw August’s stuff inside. I found them over at the cafeteria. He was eating a pastry thing.

He had hit Lydia today, although it didn’t sound as bad. She had been pushing him (not clear if it was literally or physically) to do something. He said she wasn’t upset by it. He had had to sit and draw again, presumably with Ms. Vicky, but Carly didn’t actually talk to a teacher. When she had gotten there, he had said he had a piece of paper to give her and he told her this.

We went back to Carly’s classroom. He had drawn a restaurant machine on the board, and now explained it to me and added things: a spot where you put in the recipe you want, arms so it can deliver the food, a table people can sit at, and eyes on the table so it could see.

We walked to the car and were home about 4. They stayed outside, planting a bunch of seeds (peppers) and making a sign for the ‘sensor fence’. I got his dinner ready (curry and rice), then Carly read to him. They started with Tar Beach, then read I Been There, then started Monsters Beware! from the beginning as they ate popcorn. I baked the second loaf of bread. They then went up to wrestle on the bed and I did some typing and work. August fell off the bed and was hurt for a minute but was okay.

Downstairs the second load finished. He wanted to cut his slice in half with the bread knife. As I tried to helped him he told me, “Dada. I. Don’t. Need. Your help.” We ate, then he had fun taking the hairband out of Carly hair, repeatedly, as she sat on the chair.

She made him pick up the clothes. Earlier, she had let him bring down the clothes so he could make a clothes sculpture on the drying rack. Carly took him up and gave him a bath. Carly had noticed the full moon, so I took August out and we looked at it.

He was still hungry so I made him oatmeal. He was playing with the drill with the paintbrush in it, and he asked me to do a slo-mo video of it, which turned out pretty well. We finished reading Bone #2, then read the fox and badger book, The Meeting. One of the books had the term ‘party pooper’ in it and August made that the word of the day. We went upstairs and he asked, “Can we wrestle? I have my wresting moves down!” So we wrestled around on the bed. The most we have actually wrestled. He asked questions about boxing as we headed downstairs for him to say goodnight to Carly.

He took the tape dispenser back up and taped a couple things, then I brushed his teeth. He wanted a story, so I told a story called “A Day in the life of Shmorgadeboop“, where the cat spends the day pretending to be a tiger and meets August at the park and gets chased home by dogs. Then sang a couple songs and he was asleep at 8:45.

His restaurant machine:

Clothes sculpture:

Paintbrush drill slo-mo:

He was active during the night. He kept turning sideways and rolling towards the end of the bed. The first time he was using my feet as a pillow and I felt him about to roll off the end of the bed and I sat up to grab him. I don’t know how I sensed it was about to happen a second time.

He was up at 6:50. He raced downstairs to Carly. She talked about being independent, and he made an art project on his own. When I came down at 7:30 he was watching a Wild Kratts about salmon. When he was done he cuddled with Carly. She then tried to get him to do the independent thing again. He said he’d do a chemical at the sink, but he needed one of us to sit upstairs. Carly reminded him he’d been up there on his own for several minutes yesterday when he was taking to Vivian and Colin. He said that was different because it was entertainment. When she said this was entertainment too, he replied, “No, only talking entertains me.”

So I went up. The playing in the sink thing lasted a few minutes, but he regularly needed my help. He then wanted to wash old clothes with his chemical in the washing machine. He decided in the purple bucket would be okay, but downstairs he got distracted by the heater and seeing if we could throw things in the path of it and it would blow them.

Back on the couch he asked Carly to be mama and baby butter chunks. Then, mosquitoes. Then, “Can we be mama and baby wasps? So we could sting multiple times without getting dead?”

They then went outside. August was playing with my bicycle pump and wanted to blow up the tires, so I helped him do that a little. Carly also wanted to get another planter to go on the fence. August wants to fill up the big plastic planter that Shmuel left for us. I suggested it could be August’s own planting space, and he and I discussed where it could go. I went back inside and they stayed out. He had some experiment where he was pumping air into the bag. He was blowing them up like balloons. The first worked quite well. I went out to help with the peanut bag, but we couldn’t stop it from leaking too much.

His next activity was using the piece of rebar he found yesterday and the hammer to break apart our big rocks. Carly told him he had to wear goggles, then I helped and held the rebar. We had some success in breaking off chunks big enough that Carly would use them in the plants beds. I was back inside a few minutes later when he came in and cut paper and asked me to write ‘Warning. Electric Fence.’ He hung signs up on the inside and outside of our fence.

He then used the parts from the watering system to make some sort of watering system outside. When I went out he was making a drainage system that would go into one of the plastic pipes coming out of the concrete.

He asked me to make him oatmeal with mango. We made it together, but he didn’t want it microwaved at all. I had overdone the mango in thawing it, so that added a little heat, but not much. He ate the whole bowl. I was listening to the “Fractal Zoom” CD single on repeat. Actually 8 or 9 tracks.

He played a few minutes of Angry Birds and I went upstairs to brush my teeth and get ready for the day. Carly cut up strawberries and he was eating them, but claimed that some of the pieces had the hard middle in them and wanted those parts cut out. He claimed it was the ‘pit’ of the strawberry. Carly argued that strawberries don’t have pits, but he disagreed. He told us, “Parents doesn’t know everything!” When he had enough strawberries he ate some of his frozen stuff. He spent a few minutes arguing with Siri, trying to get Siri to “play every song in your database.”

Carly got us in major cleaning mode. I spent some time cleaning upstairs. When I came down he was starting another oven experiment, making ‘cookies’ of flour, baking soda, and chocolate chips. He wanted to add water to them and asked me to get the eye dropper. He was then trying to get water on them and told me, “Its harder than putting a baby to sleep.”

We then read some of of the first Shivers book. He then watched The Magic School Bus, the tree communication episode. He was upset when I wouldn’t give him more time. Carly took him, then I took over.

Back downstairs we took his cookies out of the oven (they’d been turned off earlier) and he tried them out. He said, “It’s kind of a good and kind of a bad snack.”

I worked on the bread dough, and he had rice and curry for dinner, then I made him oatmeal, which he ate outside. They washed the car and he made his drainage system.

They came back in and Carly talked about going to the nursery. She said they needed a pot. But not the other kind of pot. He picked up on the joke and asked,

“Pot? What’s the other kind of pot?” Carly just said it was a drug. He then told us he has all sorts of drugs in his laboratory.

He wanted to set up composting and wanted to put all the compost from the freezer in the bucket. Carly explained that we couldn’t just start it that way, but she emailed someone at school about getting a recycle bin. They went and did recycling and got materials (leaves, etc.) for his soil he’s trying to make.

Carly did quiche and he and I did art. We did a big picture together. He got the drill and put crayons in it for his “scratch pad”. We drew with that, and he drew where the machine kept chemicals and where it kept drugs. Carly and August painted with the drill while I did the crust of the quiche. Carly loved the drill painting and didn’t notice when August told her he was wiping the paint from his hands on the floor. They also they made popcorn.

We read more of Shivers. He kept repeating the “Son of a flotsam” line, so ‘flotsam’ became the word of the day. We ate quiche for dinner, and he had a little more of his cookies before Carly said that was enough—not because he was eating cookies, but because of all the baking soda it was kind of grossing us out.

On the couch we started reading The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow, then he used tape to hang up our art above the couch. I gave him his bath and washed his hair. He was asking questions about boxing (not sure how this has come up as a topic, but in one of the books we’ve read recently it referenced that one of the characters used to be a boxer) and we watched aa couple minutes of Muhammad Ali in the ring. He always shivers, but shuns warm water, the heater, etc. Today he actually told me he was cold, which is progress. Went okay though and we got his hair dried and got him ready for bed.

In bed he told me, “I hate princesses…I only like nice girls that AREN’T princesses.” We then read more of The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow. He said “Humph” again about something. He had said it several times today. Got it from one of the books. I left the two of them at 8:45. I went for a walk and finished listening to The Written World, then listened to more of Foundation.

Pumping up the bag:

Hammering the rocks:

Tasting his cookies:

A drainage system:

Crayon drill:

Crayon drill 2 – drugs and chemicals:

Flotsam song:

He was stuffy during the night and woke up a few times: “Dada, make me not stuffy.” He was up at 6:40. After a few minutes of sitting and leaning against me he went downstairs. She made him oatmeal. He was down for awhile before Carly came up and got his iPad. I went down after her and he was watching a little Wild Kratts, then Berenstain Bears. Ads work, and he has really been wanting Angry Birds 2. So we downloaded it, with the understanding he could just play a few minutes. He did that, and caught on quickly. He then stopped, and was acting out the different birds on the couch.

He asked me for a piggy back ride. We talked about his lab and he still wouldn’t give me the passcode. In the kitchen he then did a rosemary bread experiment, putting foil in the bottom of a pot, then using flour, baking soda, rosemary, and chocolate chips (a good choice, as he of course got to have some as well). He had hung up one of his pieces of art on the freezer using the mounting stuff he now likes. He showed me how he can open the freezer while on his stool: “So now I can ask for treats whenever I want.” He hung up more stuff with the two-sided tape. He then had a scenario for us to play: I was a boy playing a video game. I was startled by a lion behind me. It turned out to be a mail carrier (like in Shivers) and had a note about my parents being in trouble. It led on a voyage for me across islands looking for them. I found diamonds along the way, and there were various animals along the way (birds, snakes, etc.) whispering which direction I should go along the way. The story was all his, but he liked my jokes when I had the character be literal about the directions and run into trees and other objects. ‘Perish’ was the word of the day as I used it in the note from the parents.

He ate a lot of spaghetti for dinner, then had some of his frozen treat as we got ready to go. We were out to the car when he realized he hadn’t gone to the bathroom, so we went back for that. We left at 12:20.

In the car we mainly talked. He asked if someone had invented a rain hat. I said they had, and we looked at photos on my phone of different rain hats. He thought there were kids that looked like Candy and Sophia. In the parking garage he saw the big fans on the ceiling and explained how they worked like a refrigerator to keep the garage cool. I had just explained to him yesterday, as he discovered the refrigeration unit at the olive section of the bulk food store, why a refrigerator (or our air conditioner) turns on and off.

We went into the natural history museum at Tel Aviv University. Bought tickets, and spent a few minutes looking at the displays on the right as you go up the ramp. Then he wanted to go to the downstairs section. This is where they have the living insects (and a few other animals). That was the best part for us. Lots of fascinating stick bugs and videos of insects building things (one raises a shell off the ground using silk and uses it as a home) and an ant colony and all sorts of others. He was hungry so we went to the tables area and sat there for quite awhile. We ate the fruit peel thing that Carly had found. He liked that, but later would not like the other flavor at home.

We then worked our way upstairs. We made our way though a couple of rooms full of skeletons and statues. Learned that lions had been wiped out in the area by the crusaders. Then there was a room with a video about the sea. We watched the end of it, in Hebrew. Then a boy ran over and started it again in Hebrew. August saw this, and ran over and pushed the English button. It restarted the movie. We grabbed him, the boy came back and pushed Hebrew again, and August was not happy. Carly took him for a timeout. I followed, but lost them, and ended up walking back and forth for several minutes. She had taken him in the bathroom. He had calmed down but wasn’t letting it go. He was still saying mean things, and blowing raspberries at her. I took him, and I think we were planning to take a break. But then he was telling me he was going to kill the other boy. He then blew a raspberry right in my face and spit all over me. Startled, I tried to put him down quickly, but then he slipped through my left arm and fell the last foot. Hurt his foot a bit and a shoe came off.

That was the end of things. We headed back to the car and headed home. We red a little of Bone #2 in the car. At home he was upset about not playing the iPad. Carly took him upstairs for a few minutes. They then went on a walk towards the strawberry fields. He came back with a couple treasures. A plastic piece of a crown, and a short piece of rebar.

We made a shopping list and Carly headed to the store. We started re-reading Monsters Beware! from the beginning. He then watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving while I started to cook the curry, with potatoes and cauliflower for diner. He played with the can opener, using it on paper. He wanted to drink coconut milk. When it turned out we had a can of coconut cream instead he was disappointed and didn’t like it

Carly got home and I finished cooking. He set alarms on his iPad and played with the stopwatch. They skyped with Vivian and Colin. The two of them were pretending to swim, as they had gotten ready to go to the pool, but then found out the pool was closing early and it wasn’t worth it to go. August wanted to show them his jumping on the bed upstairs. Carly then came back down and he spent several minutes upstairs on his own, talking to Vivian and also Colin. Carly asked him if he’d been talking to Colin, and he said yes, but it wasn’t really a conversation.

He got me to come up, and he went and got pajamas and other clothes from his closet and started tying them around me as scarves for my neck and legs and arms and as a hat to keep me warm. He was acting like an adult dressing me for the cold.

We went back downstairs. He remembered his oven experiment from earlier, and he got me and Carly to try it. Tasted like baking soda. Eventually we said goodbye.

He was hungry, and ate a bowl of the curry. Kind of surprising as Carly thought it would be too spicy for him. He then wanted oatmeal, and we agreed he could have some. Carly would make it and I’d give him his bath. We went upstairs. While he was on the toilet, he asked how war works and trying to stab the other side with swords. He wanted to see videos of war with swords, and I said he couldn’t see real videos (nor would I let him), but the closest was movies or videos games, and that he’s already seen video game ads with that sort of fighting. He asked, “Can you show me a not-real war? Where the north side wins? And the south side gets dead?” No idea where the north versus south idea came from. Haven’t discussed or read about the Civil War with him.

Washed him, not quite as smoothly as yesterday, but not bad, and Carly came up. I left them about 8:50. I don’t think it took too long for him to fall asleep. I went for good walk. No threat of rain now. Listened to The Written World, which I am close to finishing.

At the natural history museum:

Jumping for Vivian:

Dressing me to keep me warm:

He was up before 6:30. He was with Carly for awhile, and was singing a little jazzy song about me for awhile. He had Cheerios and watched Wild Kratts. As we were getting ready for school he suddenly asked for oatmeal. I made a small bowl for him using the last of the oatmeal and we hurried out after that, walking at 7:44. On the way to school he told me bout a bunch of inventions, including one that was bolted to the wall, talking about how it was attached, before he revised it and it was on the roof. I think it had a lot of voice commands. Then he had a rocket that would slow down traffic (he had asked why traffic was slow by the Israeli school) by either getting in the way, or being a distraction. It didn’t have a button to slow it down, although he said it had a brake, but the brakes were reverse rockets.

A couple of time he forgot it was a half day. He asked again what was after rest time as we went down the stairs. When I reminded him he said something like, “Oh, a short, easy day…I can work in my lab at school the whole time.”

I went to the library for a few minutes, then met with Stephanie and Johnell about writing group (or really the first meeting) in the staff lounge, after getting a cappuccino. Johnell and I then got a table in the library and sat there until we picked our kids up at the end of the day. I was able to work on typing and Sabeel work and also listen/watch a bit of Cat’s sessions.

I went and picked him up. It was him, Eve, and Judson today after school. Andrea took them into the back room. August and Eve put on safety goggles as they played with playdough. August figured out that electricity doesn’t go through playdough as he tried to add it to a circuit that Judson was playing with.

We got going, and I gave August one of the cereal bars on the way. He said he liked it more than the other bars. As we exited the school he was explaining to me how he could eat concrete and other things. He spotted a small bolt stuck in a bush and stopped to get that.

We headed north into town. He talked about how he made a car that could shock people, but he assured me it had warning signs on it, and he described signs we’ve seen for danger, including the one of a guy getting shocked in the monitor we were taking apart. Of himself he said, “I should put a sign on it that says warning this robot doesn’t just have spit. It also has snake venom.” He also described a fleet of metal-detecting robots he uses to find gold. Kind of like his fleet of mail delivery dogs.

He told me he knows how to start and zip his sweatshirt. He’s done it at school, he says. And he walked a good amount of the way into town. Sadly, VIPizza was closed. August was grumpy about it, but was very excited when I suggested going to the new restaurant/cafe in the mall. We headed there and found a table inside. He chose a peach smoothie to drink and wondered if he’d ever had a peach one before, and I got a cappuccino. There were several Asian dishes listed, but as I asked if one and then the next was spicy she informed me they all were. So, we got the sweet potato raviolis.

He came over and sat in my lap and we read Monsters Beware! He liked the peach smoothie but wasn’t too excited about it, although by the end he finished it. He really liked the glass it came in, which looked like a pineapple. He curled up in my lap and actually told me he was sleepy. When the food came he just ate a bite of it. He didn’t complain at all, but he didn’t really like or want it. So I ate half, and would take the other half home to Carly, who had them for dinner.

We read more, then eventually decided to get going. He wanted oatmeal at home, but didn’t want to stop at the store to buy any. Finally, he relented. We were going to go downstairs. He remembered the bulk foods store and asked to go there. He said he remembered that they had oatmeal, and he asked if we could get the nuts that Carly wouldn’t like. I said it was funny that he suggested that, because I had joked to Carly that we would do that when she was gone next week. But when I told August we could wait until she was gone, he told me “If you can do it now you shouldn’t wait…my teachers told me that…Or maybe you told me that…” In the face of a lesson on procrastination I realized he had me.

So we went down there and he had fun doing the scooping. We got a container full of oatmeal, and a paper bag of cashews. He also spotted large peanuts in shells, and we got some of those. He saw coconuts as well, and when he told Carly about the store later he said he was going to get one the next time we go.

We got walking and stopped to try the peanuts. They were kind of a disappointment. August liked cracking them on his bike, but the skin doesn’t easily come of these. Even when we laboriously scraped it off (which was kind of fun) he decided he didn’t like the taste. I gave in and let him try the cashews instead of saving them for when Carly was gone. A good decision, however, as he really liked them. He ate several on the way home.

We were home at 2:40. We opened the Christmas card from my parents, which came today. It is a 3-D card and he liked that. We read Breathe. He was in awe that the author had written something to him in the front. In the book, he read “yoga studio” with no problem. We then finished Monsters Beware! and he ate a lot of cashews.

He wanted to have the new oatmeal, so he had a bowl. It seemed to make a creamier oatmeal than our usual Quaker Oats. He used the two-sided sticky stuff and hung things on the wall. He stuck his music box, one of the glass eyes, and the passport photo of himself on the wall to the right of the kitchen door.

Carly got home at 3:55. He went outside with her and hammered open some peanuts for her and me. She wasn’t too fond of these peanuts either. He watched some Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, then had a Swedish pancake that Carly made. I made a second, but it fell apart. He ate it anyway.

The two of them read Breathe. He was then in on the toilet, talking about his lab. He wouldn’t tell me the passcode to his lab. I kept trying to ask him different ways and he wouldn’t let it slip. He did, however, give me the code to his “robotic gym.” I went up and folded laundry. They played school and did art, making a really cool picture that started as separate machines and melded into one, then tracing his hand and decorating them.

He and I read The Legend of Zita and ‘stray’ became another word of the day, followed by ‘vacuum’ when he asked about what was in space. He had some difficulty accepting a what a vacuum is, but we talked about it for several minutes, using several different examples to talk about density, and I think it was starting to make sense to him.

I took him upstairs and he mixed a new chemical in the new container that came with my toothbrush head today. In the office, he started dancing, watching himself in the mirror on the wardrobe. He told Carly to dance like him: “You need to do every move that I do.”

He said goodnight to her. In on the bed he joked, “What’s around you in space? Tiny microscopic mes. Tiny microscopic Zinnie’s.” He told me he has a sore throat and had some water. We finished The Legend of Zita and read Tar Beach, another one of the books I got from the free shelf at the library. It is about living in the city (New York, or the such) on a really hot day. A nice find.

I had lights out at 9. After being quiet for several minutes he said, “Dada, when we go to another country; like Greece, we need to go to a hotel where they have refrigerators that get colder and warmer.” I don’t know why, as he was quiet again and then fell asleep just father 9:10.

Napkin writing:

Scooping peanuts:

Can I have another cashew?:

Art with mama:

Talking about their art:

He got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. He then went back to sleep with Carly on the lower bed. I was getting up just before 6 when he cried out in his sleep a few times. I went to him and he insisted I give him a treat. I’m not sure if that was part of the bad dream he was having, or he thought that would make him feel better after the bad dream.

He went downstairs and cuddled quietly on the couch with Carly for quite awhile. I got his oatmeal ready. He sat at the table and ate two bowls of oatmeal, the second with mango. He watched Wild Kratts. He watched the Gila monster episode, and told me, “Dada, do you know how I get animals for my inventions? I use robot turtles that has 90 million voice commands in it.” Not sure how I feel about him modeling himself after one of the bad guys (Zach) in the show who is always trying to steal animals to make inventions out of.

“I just had an idea for an imagining game. It’s about a Gila monster. Dada, we need to do it on the couch.” In it, I was a boy watching TV and a baby Gila monster came in and crawled on me and I was afraid of gotten bitten, especially when the mama came in. I yelled to my parents, and the dad tried to take the mama out, but got bit by it.

Carly had almost wanted to drive to school, as it was raining. The rain had almost stopped when August and I were leaving, but I left the choice to him and he chose to drive. It was pretty much done raining, but would have been pretty cold and windy. They had “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” playing on repeat at the entrance of the school. As we went in we saw one girl get surprised by her friends with birthday balloons. That got us talking about helium and how high the balloons would go. August spotted water coming in through a hole in the wall at the top of the stairs, so we went back to the outside side to see where it was coming from.

Again, everything seemed fine dropping him off until I went to leave. We were there a few minutes before the bus kids, but I wasn’t able to leave until they were midway though morning meeting. Finally headed out though and headed to the library until the PTA meeting. Got a cappuccino before heading to the meeting.

PTA meeting was in the staff lounge, which was nice, as there was windows and light. The normal spot is a room with black paint and no windows. Mike and Neal talked about the response to the wind yesterday and the decision to cancel everything after school. Tom talked (vaguely) about the ongoing curriculum development work. I talked to Marka afterwards and basically volunteered for the cafeteria committee and maybe the sustainability committee. I also talked to her about the volunteering in the classroom issue and the lack of a directory, which is supposed to come. And I returned Sarah’s book to her, the homeschooling one, and talked to her.

Walked home and got lunch and worked a little. Shmuel was down working in Mikaela’s yard, and he gave us a big long planter thing before I left.

I walked back, and when I got to the class Andrea told me that August had tripped on Leonard today and blamed him and hit him. He then hit Andrea, who handed him to Vicky, and he hit her as well. August and Eve were watching a video with Candy, then the two of them were dancing around and got hyper. They ran around outside. Andrea got Eve in and took her and Candy into the art room. August and I went out to the bench for a minute, then he went in with the others. He was drawing on paper, but then said he was drawing a picture of Vicky and crossing her out because she was leaving the school. I picked him up and we went out on the bench and were talking about it when Vicky came out.

She had a big piece of paper where she and August had drawn pictures of people and she had written words down that he had said. The good thing was that August could, and did, talk about it with her. While we were talking, I initially kept August sitting with me, but then let him get down. He had a tray for a flower pot and made a sort of soup for Vicky, so was making amends with her a bit. At the end I was able to get him to apologize for hitting Vicky.

We sat on one of the concrete flower bed edges that goes through the elementary school and read a little of Monster’s Beware! while he had some snack. He had done a good job of eating the Swedish pancakes that Carly had made him for lunch this morning, and now ate all the mango.

I was getting cold so got us to head up to the library. We looked at the free shelf and got a couple of things (a sort of workbook and a worn out picture book) that he could write in. In the kids room there were teenagers in the storytelling spot with papers spread out for something. We went over to the beanbag chairs. August wanted to write in his workbook and was using colored pencils on the table to do so. I went and bought the Cat Weatherill Breathe book and when I came back he was delivering a page to the teenagers. He had seen one of the notebooks they had and that you could tear out pages and he wanted to do the same with his. He ended up delivering 3 or 4 pages.

One of the computers had a Coyote Peterson video on it and he watched a few minutes before going back to the notebook. When he ripped a page getting it out he asked me to get him tape. I got it off of Ilana’s desk, and when I came back he was over laughing at one of the teenagers. We also went in and out of the library a few times and every time he went by Liz he would joke with her about having an invisible book to checkout. We read more of Monsters Beware! and ‘pore’ was the word of the day.

It was close to 5 so we packed up and went to find Carly. We knew she had had a meeting. Her classroom was locked, but looking over the edge we saw the meeting breaking up downstairs. We surprised Carly as she came up the stairs, and August screeched at her. We went to her classroom while she got ready to go. August started doing art and hanging it up on her wall with pushpins. He said, “Too late. It’s too late mama…for going home now.” Carly was telling me about problems with her keyboard, and he heard her say ‘space button’: “Space button!? You don’t have a button that makes you go into space.”

On the way out to the car Robert and Mary asked for a ride home, as they had a flat tire and had taken a cab to school. They live in north Even Yehuda. We rearranged the car a bit so August just had the vest. He was falling asleep on the way, but made it home.

At home he found his iPad but I took that away. He behaved well after that though, so after his dinner he had some of the ice cream stuff. Carly and I were talking about the issues regarding the cafeteria, and August said said he liked it when we were talking about treats. When we turned to teaching-related stuff though he thought it was boring. When Carly said something was ‘generous’ he said, “Generous! Word of the day!”

We read two chapters of Zita, then Carly took him up for his bath. Basically a complete meltdown once she got him upstairs, and he was insisting on falling asleep with me. She finally told him that he could get me if he lay down and was quiet for five minutes. As soon as he knew he could get what he wanted he was fine. Even though it actually took 15 minutes for him to fall asleep, he didn’t request me again. He was asleep about 8.

Running in circles:

Delivering pictures to the high schoolers:

Finding mama:

From Mike’s Twitter

Carly got up at 5:50 and then August got up right after she left the room, saying he needed to go to the bathroom. I took him to the bathroom, and Carly switched with me so I could lay down for a few minutes. My stomach hadn’t been too happy with all the food last night and I woke up during the night with a stomachache. Felt better by morning, but lingered. Downstairs, August watched the Wild Kratts sperm whale episode, then ate oatmeal. We read Zita the Space Girl and finished it and planned to check out the next book after school.

We got walking and as we walked through our park he asked, “Did you know I can change the number of teeth I have and the pattern of my teeth?…so my teeth can look like a sucker thingy.” He said he could even have no teeth, and suck things in. I suggested like a sponge, and he said or like a seahorse. And when we saw a small dog he said he could suck in a dog and then kill it in his stomach with rattlesnake venom.

Eve greeted us at the door when we got to the classroom. We’d beaten the bus kids. He took his shoes and sweatshirts off and I said goodbye and I was waiting at the door to leave as Marion and the kids were coming in, when August came to me and told me he couldn’t go to school today. It took 5 or 6 minutes before he would let me leave, and that was with me telling him I’d come back to school and be out at the bench if he was having problems after rest time. He still wasn’t happy, but let me leave.

I worked on Sabeel work, and finally got back to research/website planning for the Consortium for Israel & the Asylum Seekers. I enjoyed the wind, watching the trees out my windows. I drove to school after 1:30. Then realized I’d left the bag of books at home. Drove back and got those. I looked down at the preschool and they were starting Play Ball. I watched for a few minutes and he was doing fine, so I went to the library to type. Watched part of the Cat Weatherill author session, then went down to August. It was starting to rain as I went down, and I thought about his bike. I told him I was going to run up and put it in the car and he let me do that.

Came back and got him. He seemed to have had a good day after I left, although I didn’t learn a lot of details. We went to the cafeteria. He got a chocolate donut thing that turned out to have a filling, and I had my cappuccino. Right at the end of school there had been an announcement that all after school activities were cancelled due to the windstorm. August had heard it and told me about it. He now asked me if Skoda Mama could handle this weather. I said cars were fine with this sort of weather and it was only a problem if you drove through a really flooded area, like a river.

He then took a long time telling me about his water car, which ran on water. It couldn’t drive on land because it had an engine that ran on water. He kept describing it, and by the end he decided we could install the motor in Skoda Mama and he’d use door paste (from Zita) to make a door in our car and you could put in the engine. And you could have a gas motor as well so you could use either. He then moved on to the “Best invention ever…It does everything you say” and has “90000 English voice commands in it.” Although, again, the more he talked about it, he decided it knew every language in the world.

We then headed to the library. He ran in, and Amanda reminded him to walk and be quiet, as the staff meeting was going on in the back. August complained that “Running is not noise.” In the kids room he invented machines that answer questions. Kind of like his mail-delivery dogs, but to answer questions, and there are billions of them deployed around the world. I think he was thinking about things like Siri.

He went to find the next Zita book on the shelf. Couldn’t find it, but came back with some other books instead. We tried reading the little pink book (Babymouse) he found, but didn’t end up checking that one out. We did check out Mr. Badger and Mrs. Fox #1: The Meeting and The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow. And I found The Legend of Zita and Monsters Beware!, which is new. We read part of that, and it turned out that he wasn’t sure which characters were boys and girls. It led to a discussion of names, and how there are different versions of names. We then heard Cat telling a story to the teachers, and August ran out there and stopped in the back. We heard the last minute of a story, then went back into the other room.

We read more, and ‘repugnant’ was a word of the day. We went and checked out the books, as I didn’t know how late the library would be open. All after school activities were cancelled, as was the high school choral concert. At one point, there was an announcement that any students remaining on campus had to report to the auditorium. August was confused and asked if he had to go. Anyway, we checked out the books and Liz told us about the natural history museum at Tel Aviv university. She had taken her kids this last weekend and we plan to go on Saturday. She said there were live insects, and August said he would steal some insects using door paste to reach through the glass. He also said he’d take bones from the museum to study in his lab.

We read a little more, then Carly showed up. She checked out a book, then we got going. It started pouring before we got out there. Missed our window. I went out to drive the car up to the school. Luckily, the rain had lightened. We got home at 4:50.

He had been in a good mood, but instantly had a meltdown over the ice cream stuff. He had remembered his ice cream mixture, which he had made last night with Carly while I was gone, and had had fun this morning scraping it with a spoon to eat some. I told him he had to have dinner first. Once he recovered, he watched a Wild Kratts.

When Carly asked if he wanted swedish pancakes for lunch tomorrow he said yes, if she “made them awesome and with extra cinnamon and sugar.” He ate spaghetti and broccoli for dinner, then scraped the ice cream stuff with a small fork while we watched a couple of Wintergaten update videos about building the new marble machine. August observed, “He keeps trying and trying.” And asked, “Is he learning this with his eyes?”

He asked if I wanted to make a frozen treat, then doubted I’d want to: “Cuz sweets is my thing…healthy food is your thing.” He went to cuddle with Carly on the couch and asked, “Could you be my mama particle and I’ll be you baby particle and we’ll be making up part of a fan?” I read the Superman and Bizarro book to him, then we played with the SLR camera. He had been asking this morning for a camera with a flash. Don’t know where that came from. Wild Kratts? So I got the flash out for it and we played with it. Did a slo-mo video of him making it flash and analyzed the couple of frames that had evidence of the flash. We then watched a video from the Slow Mo Guys showing how a shutter works.

He found one of the little SIM card tool. He was excited to do something with it, then switched to wanting to cut things, then talked about using the broken umbrella. He asked to do something, I don’t even remember what it was, and when I said it wasn’t possible he instantly got mean, and Carly took him upstairs. Eventually he came back down and went to the bathroom. He then was trying to give me a hairdo, putting beads and things in my hair. He decided my hair was too short, so told Carly he’d give her a hairdo, but would make sure the things (they were from his treasures) were clean first.

He did that for awhile, then found a key in his treasures. He wanted to melt it, so it would change the key pattern on it, and got grumpy again when I said we couldn’t do that. I talked to him about how he reacts to his teachers when they tell him things aren’t possible. He says he just ignores them. That would be an improvement over telling us we are mean and trying to hit.

We went upstairs and I straightened out the blanket on the bed. He excitedly jumped on the bed but hit his knee on the corner of the frame. He blamed me for it. He cheered up and we were discussing the door to the attic and that maybe it is a pirate house and the pirate treasure was either up there or in the basement. He said he could ask Mikaela if she could give him a pirate sword.

He said he could make loud noises like a “full grown bull whale.” That’s definitely Wild Kratts. I took a shower, and when I came out they were reading about worms in the book from Cassie and family. He told us, “I think I dreamed that we were driving home in Skoda Mama and it leaked.” Turned out he was actually quite worried about the car.

I took over and put him to sleep. He had me tell a story about a preschool that flooded. It kept raining and raining, day after day, until school was cancelled. Sang a little and he was asleep about a quarter to 9.

His water car and engine:

Flash slo-mo:

He was up at 6:42. He was starting to get silly with Carly and I suggested they read All By Myself before he returned it to the library. I got his lunch ready and made oatmeal. He told me, “I don’t know where my picture goed-ed at school…the one you took before school.” Our family photo. We’ll have to look for it. He requested a second bowl. Probably hungry from not eating much for dinner last night. He had requested food after brushing his teeth, but went to sleep without getting any more food.

Carly headed to school. He told me, “Dada, two ways to catch flies: permanent tape…a rubber thing…” He explained all about his two methods. He ate his second bowl, then watched some Max and Ruby. He wanted to see how a glue gun is made. I let him watch a few minutes of videos about glue guns, then we got going, walking at 7:40. On the walk he explained “In my universe, time is faster…” And explained how if you went to his universe 200 years would pass while only a year had passed here, or something to the effect. Actually a pretty good explanation he gave of how time is relative.

We got in the classroom right after they had started meeting. He said he didn’t want to go to school. To do so we’d have to get there before the other kids. Listening to what they were doing today, I heard they were having time when the kids from PKB and PKC could come into their classroom. I told him about it, and he said, “And the kids from I’m not going to school again ever ever.” To appease him, I told him I’d come back a little earlier than usual. He asked that I be out on the bench while he was lying down, then come in when he was playing. I agreed to that and was able to go.

I walked home, worked, then rode my bike back for library time. He was fine when I went in, playing with the blocks, making a tower, close to Ben from PKB. I played with them for a few minutes, then Marion and Andrea had me take the kids to the library in small groups. Ilana isn’t doing regular library time because of the author visits. First I took Leonard and Yaya, then August and Simona. August got a superhero book for the first time, about Superman and Bizarro. Then Bibo, Hector, Eve, and Judson. Back in the classroom we sat on the floor and read August’s book. I had a group listening and wanting me to read their books, then they realized Candy had a book as well, so I took her.

Back in the classroom we packed up, then went and picked up Taya. We went to the playground and started with snack. I got August to finally try the dried banana and mango. He liked both and declared, “I love dried mango!” Played around the playground with Taya on the big swings, little swings, and then the boat/bus thing, pretending we were going to South Africa. Cassie showed up a little before 4. August was then screaming and when he wouldn’t stop I gave him a timeout. He wouldn’t accept that though, and threw the plastic chair, then threw a piece of wood at me. We left, no more playing with Taya.

We went by Carly’s classroom, but she was still meeting with someone. We took the long walk home. Along the fence above the preschool he said he had seen a wire attached to the fence. We eventually found it and took it off as a treasure. He asked me, “Remember that bottle cap I left on that trip? Did you like that?” He still remembers that bottle cap he dropped on the way to the Jordanian border.

Next up, he got off the bike by the recycling area near the pool. He found a length of coax cable, 6 to 8 feet long, and wanted to keep it. He kept walking, and probably did half of the walk on his own feet today. As we walked by the Israeli school there were students arriving for something. Teenagers pulled up in a car and a song was really loud. August asked if we could listen to that song at home. It was “Parallel Universe” (appropriate for him as he likes universes) by Red Hot Chili Peppers and I pulled it up on my phone and we listened as we walked. He was pulling the coax cable along now, and he stopped at the bulletin board to empire the hundreds of staples on it. And he made some sort of machine with the coax cable, attaching it from the fence to the bike. He was charging up the bike.

He got back on the bike for more of the walk. He started asking me about electric fences and seemed surprised to find out that houses don’t have electric fences. Near the house he got off the bike again and started talking about the electric fence around his laboratory. This went on for quite awhile, but included: “I reach in, grab the dead crocodile, cook it, and eat it. I like catching animals. Remember that flock of birds I caught? They’re all gone.” And he told me he picked grass at school, washed it off, and baked it in the oven. Only robots could eat it, but not humans. Carly caught up to us at 4:50. He explained this all to her.

We were home at 4:55. She told us of a young falcon she saw outside her window. He was then the falcon that she saw.

At 5:30 I headed over to Jem’s, the new pub/restaurant over at the little mall. The first guy’s night out I’ve been to since we came back. Usually they’ve been playing cards, but today were trying out this new place. Howard told a story of when he coached high school basketball in South Africa, a couple years after Mandela took power. The basketball team was all black, and basketball was a black sport. But the captain of the rugby team saw their drills and wanted to join in and ended up integrating the team.

I was home just after 7. He was working on his skyscraper sculpture upstairs. They had pulled out the couch for something as well. She washed him, then downstairs he found the red stick-on light in the drawer. I mentioned it was like the one in the Zinnie house. We went out and put new batteries in both of them. He was asking why the batteries look different, and ‘standard’ became a word of the day.

We hung up the second light and had them both on in the house. He then had the idea of cleaning up the Zinnie house and putting in a book shelf and comfy chairs and we could read out there. He also suggested heat lamps.

Back inside he had one of the popsicles, and we read part of Zita the Space Girl. He got a chunk of the popsicle stuck in his throat or something and threw part of it up. We took him upstairs and got him ready for bed and I left them at 8:40.

Playing blocks near Ben:

On the big swing:

Discussing super girl:

Leading with the cord:

Explaining how he cooks crocodile and grass: