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He came down at 6:30. He wasn’t being cuddly with Carly though, instead being annoying, and not answering questions. He had some frozen mango, then oatmeal. He watched part of a Max and Ruby. In the bathroom he noticed that the chain to lock the door, which Carly had taped up when we moved in, had fallen down. He said he did it: “I use-ed duck tape remover from my lab. So now you’re out of luck.”

It was supposed to rain all day, although it never materialized. We all drove to school at 7:20. We dropped Carly off at the entrance, then parked in the lot. We saw a big bushy black dog, and as we walked in Marion and her older daughter had the dog and were calling the owner. August was wary of the big dog, and said he was taking its tongue out with his extend-o arm. Later he talked about using some of its fur in his laboratory. He also told me, “I have the power to make kitty cats follow me wherever I go.” When August was a bit more comfortable around the dog, I told Marion we could wait with it. I knew she wanted to get to her classroom. It took another 5 minutes or so. The owner got there just in time. The dog was starting to get playful, twisting out of my hand by lying on its back, then bounding around, jumping up with its front pays at shoulder level. The guy was appreciative, and said the dog was young, just a year. August and I then saw him having trouble getting it in the car.

It was still early, so we went down by the playground. August had his morning bar and we walked the now-finished sensory path at the end of the preschool. We were back to his classroom about 7:50, and Eve was there. I saw the Why Should I Recycle? book that he’s been talking about, then left him playing with Eve.

I said goodbye and went to the library for a few minutes, then headed to the library. I went over to the auditorium before the Cat Weatherill author opening assembly. When PKA showed up, August had his hood up. He grabbed my hand and we walked in. As we sat down he told me “You know, I still like those bumpy bricks.” He meant those tiles with bumps on them that you find at the edge of stairs, etc. In Korea they were outside the elevators and he liked it when I ran the stroller over them. Here they were at the top of the auditorium steps.

He sat on my lap for most of the assembly. Mike (the head of school) and Ilana (the librarian) did a 10 questions about fantasy books thing, with all the students answering with paper triangles with A, B, and C on them. The 5th grade class acted out each of the options. Then Cat told a story from one of her books about pirate ghosts. August made it through, but it wasn’t his favorite thing.

I walked him back to class, then went back to the library, telling him he’d find me in my usual spot when PKA and C came for their ‘private’ session with Cat. We went to the back of the library and he sat on my lap again. She told “The Three Little Pigs”, summarized the story from one of her books (the one with a light in it), and then they did “The Farmer and the Turnip,” with the kids getting up to act it out.

Dropped him off again, then I worked on editing Zoe’s novel in the library before going to the auditorium to get a coffee. Zoe showed up at 11:20 and we met in there, then the staff lounge when students showed up for lunch. When teachers started to show up we finished up in the library for a few minutes.

I walked home, expecting rain to start at any point. Got lunch and did Sabeel work, then walked back at 2:50. Again, no rain, although it was windy. I bought him one of the little pastries he likes for his snack, but when I went in the classroom they were eating lemon cake that Judson had brought. He said I should get the recipe, so I looked one up. I did give him a pack of gummy fruit snacks, then Anna had brought over apples and he had some of those. There are six students in the class. Besides August it was Gabriel, Taya, and Sam from PKB and Simona and (I think) Candy from PKA.

I sat out at the picnic table and typed. Vicky was going to try to make it back from a meeting to talk to me about literacy group, as I told her I’m curious to hear more about it, but she didn’t get back in time.

When I went in he told me that he was working on a chair (they had egg cartons and other materials) and that they would hot glue gun it next week. Andrea told me that he and Simona were working on chairs for the baby bear. They had been talking about fixing things. His change of clothes was in his box, and it turns out he had had a little accident today, just making to the bathroom late. He had been a little upset about it, she said.

He ate a few Cheerios while sitting on the bench. Taya and the other PKB kids climbed up on the PKB bench and sat in the window well there (not as dangerous as it sounds). August was calling Taya by some nickname he had thought of for her (something like Tayoot). She didn’t like it, so I told him it needed to stop.

Carly had walked home, not feeling great after school. Still no rain. August wanted to go to the library when I told him I had Mighty Jack and the Goblin King and Bone #1 books with me. We returned them and checked out Zita the Spacegirl, Mighty Jack, and Bone #2 We read some of Zita, then some of Mighty Jack. We checked them out just before 5 and walked out to the car. He said, “I’m on a desperate mission and I need wheels.” Which is a line from Mighty Jack. On the drive home he added the song “Kiss Them for Me” by Siouxie and the Banshees to his playlist.

At home he played with Carly on the couch. She then read Mighty Jack from the beginning. I heated up foccacia and chili for dinner. He was being grumpy (also refusing foods) and told me that what would make him feel better was buying something for him in a store. I talked about retail therapy and finding other ways to feel better. He wasn’t convinced. They read more of Mighty Jack.

Carly took a shower. He had a popsicle (he had eventually eaten a fair amount of chili and part of a hard-boiled egg). When she came down he went to the bathroom and she was going to take the chain off the doorway, as she doesn’t want him to lock himself in. He insisted that he get to unscrew it, so she pulled the chair over and he did it, with some help on the tighter screws. She took him up for his bath. There was a lot of screaming and name calling and I thought the bath was done. Then I heard washing. I was doing dishes and picking up downstairs.

He wanted me to put him to sleep. As I lay with him, he told me “Dada, you need to make mama not leave…I will kill Mama’s principal…I will kill Mama’s students.” She had told him about her upcoming conference and how she would be going to Spain. That was what all the yelling was about before his bath. Clearly he didn’t take it well. She said the mistake was probably telling him she was going to another country. He was upset about Sophia moving away, and this sounds like that. He talked about it for several minutes (nothing positive) and I assured him she would come back and we’d have fun while she was gone (I suggested we eat cashews and listen to loud music and eat pizza) but he wasn’t convinced. I sang a couple of songs and he was asleep by 8:30. He had also been saying “I will almost kill mama…I will almost kill you…” Oh, and he said he’d also kill the security guards so they couldn’t get him in trouble. Carly said that when she told him it was actually the security guards that he thought were in control and that it was their fault that she had to go away.

Author visit assembly:

Preschool session – three little pigs song:

Preschool session – pulling the turnip:

Unscrewing the door latch:

He was up at 6:50, just before my alarm. He went downstairs and he and Carly read the rest of Mighty Jack and the Goblin King for the third time. He then had me superglue the allen wrench he had found to one of the circuit boards from the computer monitor. I put the loaf of rosemary sourdough bread in the oven. He and I also walked over to the garbage area to see if there was anything else he could use. Came back empty-handed.

We then skyped with my parents as we took the monitor apart a bit more. The bread was done during the call, and as we cut it on the counter to try it, August told them that he was laying thousands of mosquito eggs out of all of his hairs as he touched them on the counter.

At some point, he and Carly walked up to the recycling area to look for treasures/supplies and to do our recycling. He came back with a screen of sorts and some other small item.

He watched a Berenstain Bears as I typed, then part of a The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot about That. I went up to take a shower. When I came down he asked to make a drink in the glass water bottle (the one I use for our water drinks). He wanted to mainly fill it with milk and put an ice cube in it. He assured me it would be drinkable, but I was being picky as I didn’t want to waste that much milk. It turned out his inspiration was The Cat in the Hat, as they had learned about making ice cream. He knew ours wouldn’t be ice cream. He added some water, then cinnamon, then honey and brown sugar. I suggested we could freeze it, then realized we had the popsicle tubes. We added some cream, and he suggested berries. I cut up strawberries and we did three with strawberries in them, and two with frozen blueberries.

While sitting on the couch he asked me what would happen if gravity stopped. We had a pretty good discussion of it. Could really see his brain working as I discussed conservation of momentum, how an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and equal and opposite forces (first and third laws, I believe). He also asked how the oven makes heat, and we discussed how electricity can be converted into heat.

Carly and August then headed to the nursery. They got a planter to go on the fence between our yard and Mikaela’s for tomatoes, and also dirt. They were back at 1:50.

August was out of watching time, but he was elated to find that if he clicked on “the one with the cone” (VLC) it let him watch. It was the most excited response to anything ever. Basically an extra Christmas for him. So it was fitting that he watched part of A Charlie Brown Christmas. I finished the rosemary focaccia with potatoes and cauliflower and got it in the oven, and handed the kitchen over to Carly, who made vegan chili.

August wanted to glue something, and I used the word ‘dab’. He didn’t know what it meant so that was our word of the day. He was then sitting on the floor, playing with the drill, and created the “screwdriver drill” by spinning the screwdriver in it.

He wanted to check for pieces of wood in the driveway area, and talked about walking around the block to look at the various junk piles. But he changed his mind on that. He sang a “That’s an outside voice” song, and asked me, “Do bugs have nerves?” He says no. In the storage area we got a couple pieces of wood and brought them in the yard. He then had me sawing off pieces and hammering them to his Zinnie house to make a bird perch above the door. He talked about how he’d be able to hear the birds singing if he was in his house. He worked on using the saw himself, and was starting to get the hold of it, at least a bit.

Inside we read the start of a book Pax and bought it, then read On a Magical Do-Nothing Day. That gave him the idea for hot chocolate, so I made a big mug of it in the pottery mug and shared it with him. Carly and August then tried to watch a movie. They started with Happy Feet but gave it up after 10 minutes or so.

I went up to take a shower as he was filling up the salad spinner with water from the sink and turning it into a concoction. They then tried watching Madagascar and liked it much better. They also made popcorn. Carly went up to take a shower. It started to rain. I went out to move my bike, and saw my shoes outside, wet. August had used them earlier to check on his seeds.

I took him upstairs. He went to the bathroom, then he started on an elaborate skyscraper sculpture using the toilet paper holder, a bag of rubber bands, and other pieces. He spent a good 20 minutes on it, the whole time not pulling up his pants. I gave him a bath, then we went in on the bed and he was jumping on my back, which he said was a swimming pool.

We went downstairs for a minute, then got him ready for bed. I left them at 8:45 and went for a walk in the wind, listening to The Written Word.

Mosquito eggs from his hair:

Making the popsicle mixture:

The screwdriver drill:

That’s a outside voice song:

Trying the saw – holes an ant could make:

Figuring out the saw and discussing sweatpants:

Filling up the salad spinner:

Working on his skyscraper sculpture:

I had my book group meeting. Near the end of it Carly actually got up. So when I was done I switched with her and slept on the big bed with August. He had been curled up with his bottom in the air when I came in, but then came up and shared a pillow with me for most of the rest of the night. He was talking in his sleep, several sentences, at one point, but all I caught was something about “school” and I think a “stick.”

He woke up at 7 and told me to go back to sleep and closed the door behind himself. About 7:50 Carly came in to get his iPad and she said he was upset because he had suddenly had the idea of going fishing but we couldn’t do that. He came up a few minutes later, asking me to come down and do a slo-mo video of a portion of a marble race.

Downstairs, he changed his mind. We played the brother and sister game for awhile, then he was telling me about what powers his lab. I was trying to ask Carly about something and he got upset that I wasn’t listening to him. Carly took him upstairs. I got a hard boiled egg and the last of the sourdough bread as toast for my breakfast. He had some of the egg. Then we were back to the brother and sister game. He wanted to make a concoction, claiming it was actually my idea yesterday. So we made a concoction.

Carly and August then went to pick rosemary by the bridge and I took a shower. They got back when I was finishing my shower. August came in to the bathroom and left the bag of rosemary on the stool. He watched a little of a marble race, then a Berenstain Bears. He asked if we could get lumber from our trees and make something from it. I explained you can really cut lumber from a tree without cutting it down, and we ended up watching a video of how you cut down a tree with a chainsaw.

Carly found the keys that had been missing in the bottom of her purse. We have no convincing theory on how they got there. August is one valid guess. August asked if we could get a chainsaw and sad when I said we could not.

We got walking at 11. The idea was to walk to the mall, with August walking on his own the entire way, to practice walking so we can explore Athens in April. And we were going to get a snack there. We made it as far as the little parking lot area this side of the cloud bridge. August wanted to stick sticks in the dirt, like we had done with the pipe at school. We got one stick in, then another, then another. Carly sat and read for awhile, then headed home, as she was getting allergic. He was telling me what to do and said, “I’m kind of your commander now.” When I suggested I was done, he told me, “Just pretend you’re doing something funner.” That as from Berenstain Bears. August and I kept building, incorporating rocks and other pieces of wood. We called Carly to let her know we were finally ready to go to the mall. While we waited for her to show up, August did a cool dance, and said that our sculpture looked like a stage. He performed his dance again for Carly when she got there.

We walked to the mall and went to Aroma. He requested a “Burrito brownie.” Which was just a normal brownie. He got that and I got a long round cheese tube bakery thing. Carly and I both got cappuccinos. August insisted on sitting inside, then was glued to the TV. He told us, “Please don’t interrupt me. I’m watching something. I love this. Wow. I need to invent that. Wow. That’s a great picture.” He particularly liked the soup, and a commercial involving a bus passing a car.

We walked back, asking Carly and I to swing him between us along the way. He stopped across the street to get a piece of wood from the garbage area. We went in and started cleaning up before Eve came over. He put all the Legos (they had opened the set this morning) in a plastic bag. I was cleaning upstairs. He and I were outside, and hammered the white piece of wood to the railing of the Zinnie house. We then got a second piece and were nailing it on when Eve and her mom got here at 1:50.

Heather stayed for a few minutes as they played outside. She left and Carly went upstairs. Eve and August made a sort of concoction to plant the tomato seeds in the olive can. They also put in some spices and an old lightbulbs. Eve sort of took over that one, so August went in and got a container for himself. While he and Eve were talking, I heard him say, “I’m STILL a scientist. And I’m STILL a robot.” They came in and Auguet pulled out the couch and they jumped on it while Carly made a smoothie.

I took the two of them to the park. August found one of those ads that gets hung on doorknobs and tied a string to it. He found a second along the way. He was leading, as I was pushing Eve on the bike. The second one got ripped as Eve got of the bike and August asked me for several minutes if I could find another one. They played on the exercise equipment, then I found an old computer monitor by the recycling. We took it up on the ship and they used it as they steered their pirate ship and watched out for crocodiles. A grandmother had two kids, and while smaller of them was crying she asked me to put the other one in the double stroller for her.

They hauled the monitor over to the round swing and tied it to swing and had it dragging around as they swung in the swing. We played around the park for awhile longer. I read a few pages, and August and Eve played on their own for a bit. We headed home, taking the monitor with us.

They played around the house. August started painting the styrofoam. Eve played with the piano, and joined in on the styrofoam painting. Heather arrived just after 5.

After they left, Carly read Mighty Jack and the Goblin King. August requested Michael Jackson from Siri, and had done so earlier as well. I mixed the sourdough bread dough. They skyped with Cherie for a few minutes, then when I was done August and I had past for dinner and Carly went upstairs to skype more with Cherie.

August asked me how they make balls of yarn without a tube in the center, like toilet paper. So we watched a video and discovered the answer is that there is a tube and it just gets pulled out. It was at a yarn factory in Washington. He then watched a video about how paint is made. He then had the idea for an experiment. He mixed baking soda and food coloring. He then painted it on paper, soaking the paper. He then had me dry it in the oven: “Thats how you dye paper.”

They read more, then he started taking apart the monitor on his own. I finished with the bread and kitchen for the evening, then helped him. As we worked on it he said, “The funner part is taking apart the computer than using the computer.” Looking at the circuit boards and parts he said, “I’ve used that part in my inventions…” One of the kinds of tape in the monitor broke apart easily and he called it “brittle…I still remember that word you taught me.” And he said, “Sorry dada…I should say, I love you dada, for finding this comouter we can take apart.”

His mood towards me changed when I took him up to his bath. I fixed some drawers that weren’t working correctly and he was okay until the actual washing, then there was screaming. As I got him ready for bed he told me how he had seen (during the middle of the night, I think) a constellation of birds in the shape of a cow. He flew up and electrocuted them and started the day without us and cooked them in the oven. He saved some in the refrigerator for me. It was 90 birds making up the shape of a cow. He repeated all of this for Carly, building it. He then told us that I had said the screen time password for his iPad in my sleep and he had watched thousands of things without us knowing. He explained that he had charged his iPad when the battery was running low so he could keep watching.

Carly came in and I left them at 8:50. I went for a walk, and finished listening to Forward the Foundation.

Starting the stick sculpture :

Dance in front of the sculpture :

Watching the TV at Aroma :

Hammering :

In the yard with Eve :

Leading to the park :

At the playground 1 :

At the playground 2 :

Dyeing paper :

Taking apart the computer monitor :

I went up and gently woke him up a little before 7:10. We didn’t have a lot of time. He had vitamins and oatmeal, then the alarm went off at 7:20. We got ready, and he did mouthwash. He joked (I thought) that fresh breath, “it’s more important because we’re going to an airport to go to Mexico.” We read Bone for a few minutes, then left by 8:40. He wanted the car, but acquiesced to the bike. We sang the alligator chomping song and played around with it, changing the animals. August keeps talking about Mexico, but it is more of a joke everytime. Today, before school, he said the funnest part of the day would be going on the plane to Mexico later.

We got to to his class a good four minutes before bell and they were already in a meeting. I dropped him off easily, then I went and dropped off the hummus. I biked home. I walked back at 2:30, listening to the Seamus Heaney Beowulf today. When I walked in he was playing with a string and block over the top of the easel when I got there. He then went out and found a strip of yellow tape out on the bench. He said he was the one that put it there. Not sure if that was today or some other day. He made a loop out of it and used it to stick down the bottom corner of their birthday poster. He then found a sign the class had made showing what orange leaves look like, and he taped it to the other door. He said it would remind everyone to take care of the plants when they went outside. He told me that he hadn’t needed his own snack today because they had a shared snack. He only had bred, and told me that Marion had been upset when he took all of the bread at snack. I saw a big Neal Stephenson book on a counter and asked Andrea whose it was. She said it was Marion’s, and she had even put it down on the kids’ shelf at one point. I joked about it being the only book they’d read as a class for the rest of the year.

He found a metal can outside that Hector had covered with tape. August wanted to plant something in it, then Andrea gave him an olive can of his own. He said he was going to plant an orange tree in it, then plant it over where the garbage area is. He said he doesn’t like the garbage area and wants to block it: “So I’m blocking it with a BIG orange tree.”

I remembered seeing high schoolers setting up a table by the entrance with food on it. August and I went up and he got a piece of chocolate cake and I had coffee cake sort of thing. August said it tasted like his birthday cake. We then got another piece to surprise Carly with and took it to her. August sneaked a bite of hers before giving it to her.

We then went to our bench by the library and read in the nice sun. We finished Mighty Jack and the Goblin King for a second time. Words of the day were ‘compelled’ and ‘transfusion’ from it. We then read more of Bone. He brought up Mexico again and was upset when we weren’t actually going. Maybe he wasn’t joking as much as I thought he was. He had some Cheerios, and asked me to stop packing the seaweed, as he doesn’t like the smell of his snack bag. He tied a string around a tree, then wanted to tie something to it. Looking around, we found a rock with writing on it next to a tree. Couldn’t really read it, but it appeared to be a grave marker for a class pet. August said the dead animal isn’t there anymore: “I dug it up, got the animal, and am studying the bones. Studying the DNA.”

Eventually, I found this little plastic toys in on the free shelf from the library and August tied a little airplane to the tree. He said it was a trap for Simona, and then he could get Simona’s blood to make him stronger. Like the goblin blood in Mighty Jack and the Goblin King.

As the sun was going down, Carly came and we walked home. The iHerb order and box from Aunt Dee had arrived, so we stopped and got those and took them home. At the north end of Vatikim August spotted rosemary plant and wanted to pick some. He suggested we dry it, and put it in bread. He was then telling us about how he wants to reuse things: “I love to reuse.” This was more from a book they’ve read at school. Yesterday he was also talking about composting. And he told us about picking oranges at school today. He said the orange trees are over by the big field.

We were talking about garbage, and he said that a lot of people seem to not reuse stuff or recycle. He then said he doesn’t reuse the boxes that his chemicals come in for his lab. Instead, he shoots them into space. We talked about space junk, and he said, “Space junk is the greatest thing I’ve thought of.”

As we got close to the house he saw a car, different brand, that looked a lot like our car. He told us he had traded Skoda Mama for that car. And he told us he drives the car on his own when we don’t know about it: “Sometimes isteal chemicals from other laboratories. That’s what I use the car for, mama.” We were home at 5:15.

We started drying rosemary, then opened the presents from Dee and Grant. He got a Lego Space Shuttle set, a new swim shirt, and a pair of shorts. Good gifts. Of course, he mainly played with the two bows and the box. He wanted to reuse the box, and put art supplies in it, and he glued the white bow to the top of our toolbox. We then made things out of pipe cleaners and put them in the box.

We ate a couple of hard-boiled eggs together and had pasta for dinner. He wanted to use his cereal bowl with a straw (it’s been so long he was asking what the straw was for) so he had a small bowl of cereal and ate all of that as well. He watched a marble race video, then I found the physics app that people use to make them and installed it on his iPad. We played with that a bit, then he helped me get the dried rosemary off and put it in a container.

Carly took him up for playing and bath time. Downstairs, he had me cut out a small rectangle of paper and he wrote ‘PKF’ on it and taped it to our front door, like we were a classroom. He said it would confuse people. We took him up to bed, and I left them at 8:40.

A trap for Simona:

Picking rosemary to dry:

Opening Christmas presents from Dee:

Out first marble race:

He was up at 6:30. I startled him when he came out. He walked out, rubbing his eyes. Carly was in the bathroom, and I was standing by the couch. He walked by me, then turned to the bathroom and saw Carly. I patted him on the head and he jumped. We all went downstairs and he cuddled with Carly. The first thing he said this morning was, “Mama, it’s too late to hide treats from me cuz I know where all the treats are hidden. In the big mall…That way, in the corner…those little containers of treats Oma has that I need to buy.” He wouldn’t tell us if he had been dreaming about it, but that’s what it seemed.

Carly brushed his teeth because of his breath, then she headed to work. He and I read Hungry Jack, and I taught him the word ‘eclectic’ as I used it in today’s Lunch Robot. We were walking before 8:40. He wanted me to keep reading on the bike and I managed a few pages. Carly still had his hat in her classroom, so we went by her classroom before school. August asked why there were so many students standing around. It was really exciting for him to see Mama in her classroom in the morning. We got his hat and he gave her a hug and giggled a lot, then we headed to his class.

Drop off went fine. He still talked about Mexico, but it was more joking today. As we walked in the class he was laying eggs out of his bottom, and he said one had already hatched. I did not ask what was hatching out of the eggs. He told Andrea about it as he came in.

I rode my bike up to town to see if the ATM machine worked. They have power, but say they are out of service. So I rode home and started laundry, then rode to Tel Mond, the town to the southeast that we’ve never been to and where our new Leumi Bank branch is. It took me some backtracking to get there, ending up on a dead end east of the mall. Rode about a kilometer on the wide shoulder of the highway, then south through Tel Mond.

Found the bank and figured that out, then decided I’d ask someone about our checkbook and whether we needed new checks as the account and branch changed. Took about a half hour of waiting. Ordered a checkbook, and she realized that not all of our permissions for online banking were ticked. Furthermore, she gave me my own username and password, as I’d been using the one for Carly.

I walked around the town and checked out the different bakeries and restaurants. Then got on my bike and rode back to a place and got a shwarma sandwich, a mix of turkey and chicken. Listening to Forward the Foundation as I went. I took an alternate route home, heading south. I stopped at a park and sat and ate, then rode west, then north up a paved road that went under the highway and comes out by the open area by the mall.

I was at home for awhile, then went and picked up August. He was at the art table, putting beads on wire. He had made a ring and had me bend it together. We then made a necklace for him. Today was Sophia and Nicholas’s last day as they are moving. After rest time they had watched the video they had all made for them and had chocolate cake. Evidence of the cake was still on August’s chin.

We sat and read some Mighty Jack and finished it for a second time. He wanted to immediately go and check out the next one, but got distracted by a length of metal pipe that he found by the stairs. He was trying to stick in in the ground, then talked about filling it with salt and making a snail trap (in Mighty Jack there is a giant snail that attacks their house and they pour a bag of salt on it, so he was asking why that would work).

We went to the library and he set up a dancing game on the rug with all the squares. You danced on the empty squares, then when you stepped on the squares with a red shelf place holder you froze for a second. For other colors you called out the name of the color. He wanted his water bottle, and let me run up to the bike and get it while he stayed in the library. He told me to run as fast as I run when I go running though.

We cleaned up and got the next book, Mighty Jack and the Goblin King, and had almost finished it when Carly came by at 4:30. She went out and ate something while we finished up. August checked it out and returned the first one so we could read it again. In the book, the little goblins give Jack some goblin blood to make him strong, and they kill the evil Goblin King. August was then looking in the preschool books and saw a book about babies. He joked, “I’m going to get a baby, kill it, drink its blood…” I cut him off there and told him why.

And at one point we went to fill up his water bottle. Liz scanned his hand to check him out and told him he was due in three weeks. He was then proclaiming “I’m due in three weeks!” And he told me I could put him on a shelf at that time.

We all walked home and got here at 5:30. He told me, “There’s something I need to install on you: hydroponic gills.” He had told us that the first thing he wanted to do when we got home was to make a weed killer. In fact, he had told me the schedule was: make weed killer, spray it on the weeds, then we could take his bath. But he said you had to wear safety equipment to be in the room. Carly found the goggles, then we found his snow gloves. He was upset they weren’t waterproof though. He was grumpy about that, then went upstairs without them and made a weed killer in his spray bottle.

He went down and outside with Carly and sprayed it on the weeds. He came in and had some pasta for dinner, then seconds: “It’s really yummy.” We then read more of Bone, then played the brother and sister game. We pretended to sew, and made a song out of the brother poking his finger with the needle: “Up down up down poke oww oww oww oww.” We were sewing a (pretend) sword holder out of a (pretend) old shirt. He then played school, in the role of the sister, and pretended to write on the board: “Today’s questions ‘How does machines work?” We then watched the video for Nicholas and Sophia video, as it had been posted: When we got to his part he said, “That’s the part that is stupid.” He was reluctant to say more, but he said he didn’t like something about the teleporting part. In the video he says, “I hope you like where you’re going. I hope you like me when I teleport you back from the country you’re in right now to Israel.” My sense was that he didn’t like his wording, perhaps realizing he should have said “I hope you like it” or realizing that Sophia and Nicholas are actually still in Israel at the moment.

It was a hair washing day, so I got him a lollipop. I pulled out two green at first and he started laughing. He doesn’t like the green. He just kept laughing and laughing. At one point he said “I’m Mr. Giggles right now!” I called him that once, and he said, “That’s so a nickname.” But then made it clear I couldn’t always call him that. While on the toilet he told me Told me how many layers things have, starting with the toilet paper. He said he has infinite layers, and that his parts can go together like a puzzle.

He played for a bit, then as his lollipop was running out I washed him and his hair. As we dried his hair and got him dressed, he claimed the back pockets of my pants, claiming he could put things in them. On the bed we brushed his teeth and he quoted the whole Shivers passage about how he is afraid of clouds: “What? You mean those fluffy pillows in the sky with enough electricity in them to call a man? Yes I’m afraid of clouds!” He checked all of my teeth to see if I had any loose ones, and told me that if I had a loose tooth I had to give him the dollar when the tooth fairy came.

He said good night to Carly. He spent about 5 minutes of about complete silliness, sort of telling a sort of nonsense story a couple of times, then calmed down. We had lights out about 8:40. I sang a little, and he was asleep, I think, around 9. I fell asleep with him though and didn’t get up until about 9:30.

Trying to dig in the pipe:

Squares game in the library:

Pumping goblin’s blood:

Making weed killer:

Mr. Giggles 1:

Mr. Giggles 2:

Quoting Shivers:

Bed silliness 1:

Bed silliness 2:

At 6:50, as Carly was locking the door as she left, August was coming down the stairs. He climbed on the couch and then cuddled on my lap, silent, for a good ten minutes. Then, at 7:01 he asked, “Dada, can I search through every single picture of mama?” I’ve never shown him this, but the Photos library automatically identifies people. I pulled up all the photos with her, and I asked why. He said, “I’m looking for a light blue shirt with a pattern on it.” Suddenly, as we scrolled back to when we were in Thailand, he spotted it. We watched a video of them playing with the stuff frog that turns into a prince when we arrived at our AirBnB place in Bangkok. He was laughing hysterically in it: https://youtu.be/vbTm3gFUk2o

He then wanted me to read Shivers. So we read Shivers and he had oatmeal. We were talking about the weather, and I said something about not making a ‘meteorological prediction’ about rain or something. So ‘meteorology’ became the word of the day. He was a bit reluctant about leaving for school but we got walking at 7:47. We were going to play the brother and sister game on the bike, and kind of did as we were getting ready, but then forgot to once on the bike.

This morning he did tell me he didn’t want to go to school and wanted to go to another country instead. But everything was fine and I dropped him off. I went and talked to Cassie for a minute by PKB and then was leaving when he came out and told me he didn’t want to go to school today. Luckily, as I talked to him I heard they had art with Ms. Dorene today. Then Andrea called him over to get his opinion on something. Think those were just enough to get him to stay. I spied from the top of the steps for a few minutes and he didn’t come back out.

I went and picked up our boxes from the high school office. My SubPop hats (and two shirts for August) had arrived, as did my new case for my phone (so I can use the macro lens). I walked home, then rode back in the afternoon. Marion was walking students up to the busses and warned me that he had gotten upset about their art project today. They were making ponchos, but aren’t done with them. They need to stay at school, but he started insisting that he was taking his home to finish it at home. I thanked her, and went down to get him. He was doing fine, and decorating a doily at the art tables. The poncho came up, and I asked to see it. We went out and sat on the bench and talked about it. He softened when I talked about not having fabric glue (they are made of felt, and today they made a model of paper and decorated it with markers—they will then decorate the real ones with felt or something), and when I told him our plans: going to the cafeteria to get a snack (and coffee) and then going to the library.

So we left the poncho behind and headed to the cafeteria. They were low on the bakery stuff and August wanted a strawberry popsicle instead. He ate that and I had my cappuccino. He noticed the new phone case and took some photos with the macro lens. We then walked up to the guard station as there was another package for us to get. Well, August ran, saying he was just a blur and didn’t even have to breath when he runs. I called him ‘The Blur’. I thought it was the SIM cards, but the guard handed me a box and it is the watch I got for August. August peeked over and told security guard we were moving and mama wasn’t working at the school anymore. It was the grumpy guard (I’ve only seen him once before) and he didn’t seem to want to give August any attention, so I rushed him away.

We went to the library. The plan was to get books (I had returned several yesterday). August was distracted by kids playing computer games though and wanted me to play and he would watch me. It was the shooting game he wanted. I eventually talked him out of it. I pulled down several adventure-related graphic novels I thought he might like. He chose the first Bone book and we read the first chapter and he really liked it. He then also chose the book Mighty Jack (by the same guy that wrote the Zita books). Carly showed up, and the two of them went out to eat pita and hummus at the little table. I found a Tallulah book (Tallulah’s Toe Shoes) that we don’t have and checked out the three books.

We left at 4:30, leaving behind August’s water bottle by the library (we’d get it tomorrow). We walked home. He was having fun steering through puddles. At the door he looked in the cabinet with all the old security system wires in it and found a pencil in there. Inside, Carly got him a pencil sharpener and the two of them did work together, writing in a notebook. Think they did some math. I started making pasta with a mushroom and broccoli cream sauce. He watched one Berenstain Bears, then Carly read the Tallulah book and reread the first chapter of Bone. We then realized we didn’t have his water bottle and Carly got the one from upstairs. While they were reading ‘bride’ was a word August didn’t know and he said it was a word of the day.

We ate the pasta for dinner. They read more Bones and he was then playing with his net thing. He put it over his head and looked funny. He and I then read Mighty Jack. The whole thing. He had peanut butter toast. When the book was finished he was upset because a.) he really liked it and he wanted to keep reading the story and b.) he knew it was time for a bath.

Carly took him up and gave him a bath. He came down with his hair in a ponytail. He realized that when he waved his head around it hit him on the side of the head. Upstairs I took photos of his ponytail and I said goodnight and left them at 8:10. There was a lot of laughing for awhile, but I think he was asleep by 8:30.

Strawberry popsicle:

Being the Blur:

Grating cheese:

Ponytail:

Hats for me, shirts for Z

Carly woke him up about 6:30. I made him oatmeal and Carly headed to work. He asked me to read, and we read Shivers 1 for 20 minutes or so until we got ready to go. We got walking at 7:36, which was good. August told me he likes to be late as it means he has less school. On the way to school I sang our whole “Ants Go Marching” song and “It’s OK”. And started to memorize the They Might Be Giants elements song.

Dropping him off went just fine, and I rode my bike home. I drove back in the afternoon as it was supposed to rain this afternoon. And it would. When I walked in he was helping clean up. When he saw me he came up and immediately told me he wanted to go to another country and never come back to Israel. And he wants to go today.

He was in a good mood though, and we headed to library time. Marion and Andrea said the kids had been crazy today—they had had Judson’s birthday, for one—but they were actually okay during library time and I was the only adult there besides Ilana. She read the book A Million Cats. She talked about how it was published in, I think it was, 1938. In it, a man brings back trillions of cats to his wife. I whispered to August asking what Mama would do if he brought home that many cats. He replied, “She would kill me.” For checkout time he chose All by Myself! by Aliki. On our way out, he told Ilana he was moving. I told her about his plan, and she said I had a lot of work to do this evening. I told her I was going to end up with moving dreams.

Back down at the classroom Andrea said that he’d had a great day, although he’d been a little sad about me leaving in the morning. She said they moving idea comes from them talking a lot about Sophia moving at the end of the week. There was a lot of talk about it today, and they did video messages for her. For August’s message to her, he told her that he would teleport her back to Israel. I told them how he has said he wouldn’t eat snack or lunch at first, but would eventually. They said he’d had cake, and I was reminded of his “all the treats in the world” line from earlier in the year.

We then went and saw Cassie and Taya. She had suggested he play with Taya in her classroom. Gabriel was also coming, so I figured the three of them could play together. August wanted to play with them, and they all decided on the classroom, as opposed to the playground. Once there, August wanted to play the brother and sister but Cassie and I were trying to get them to play on their own so we could each work. She and I first talked about the after school classes for several minutes. She had goldfish crackers for each of them, and August kept asking, 5 or 6 times at least, if his bag was his. He played a little with the office supplies for Taya, then Taya and Gabriel were watching something on Cassie’s phone and he watched a bit, but wasn’t very interested. He end up asking me to write random words on small post-it notes. I did that, and he would try to read them, then hang them up in a row on the wall.

All went well until we were getting ready to go. He wanted to leave the post-it nots on the wall, and I said that was fine. Taya said he couldn’t and started pulling them down. As I tried to stop her, August pushed her away a bit. She then came back and kicked him. She then managed to grab one of the post-it notes and was trying to crumple it up. I also had a hand on it and wouldn’t let her, and pried it out of her hand. She ended up throwing a fit on the floor. I told August we could take the post-it notes with us, and I took them down. August didn’t like this at all and got upset with me and refused to clean up, and kept trying to leave.

It was really windy, and on the walk over it had kept blowing his hat off. If the door was opened it would rip the big heavy metal and glass door open. So I was trying to stop him and also pack up our stuff. By the time we got to Carly’s classroom he was in pretty-full meltdown mode, telling me he hates me about 20 times and trying to hit me.

Carly got back and we headed to the car. It started to rain as we were walking. Carly had an umbrella, and I ran to get his bike and run to the car. I thought it was okay when I left, but suddenly it turned into a downpour with hail and wind. I was soaked by the time I got to the car, as were my Tom’s shoes. I had hoped Carly had stopped before leaving the school and I could drive back and get them As I was about to call, she opened the door. The wind had bent their umbrella. August wasn’t happy.

We made it home, and managed to get changed and do apologies. Carly did take him up for a timeout though when he said he wouldn’t say sorry to Taya and would hurt her instead. Back downstairs, they read All by Myself, I Been There, and The Hike (or whatever that book is called). He was then playing with the wire—the one we had trimmed to show him how it has two actual wires in it and we had used it with the electricity kit. He wanted to wires trimmed off now so it was back to the way he found it (albeit a bit shorter).

He had oatmeal for dinner, then I heated up his lunch and got his strawberries from lunch. However, unlike yesterday he didn’t eat any of it today. In fact, he didn’t have anything else before bed. Didn’t eat much today. He found birthday candles though, and wanted to push them in something. So he tried his pizza and broccoli. When that didn’t work, he put on in the styrofoam. He then wanted pineapple and mango to put on sticks and made a display of them on the Styrofoam thing. He ate the mango ones (so there was that) and I ate the pineapple ones. We lit and blew out the candle several times. He had fun spitting on it to put it out.

On the couch he said, “Because she’s full of butt-kicking awesomeness.” It’s a line he picked up from either Amulet or Shivers.

“It’s boring here now. I need to move.” “I just really want to go to another country and go to another house.” He then started to talk about his plan to move. We would go tonight, and we were going to move to Mexico and never come back.

Carly took him up and he played in the sink, then gave him a bath. I took over and was on the bed with him. He was really talking, and kept talking about his plan to move. Several times I pointed out how we couldn’t actually move, but he seemed to ignore me. He was going to sleep for 4 minutes, then we were going to wake him up and pack up our stuff and go to the airport. He was then jumping on the bed and said it hurt his brain: “I think I need to put shock absorbers into my positronic brain. Like woodpeckers.” And he told me, “I have more parts in my body than humans do.” He told me about only taking small bottles of liquids on planes. I asked where he learned that, and he said he had a picture of me teaching him that.

He wanted Carly to watch the video of his moving plan, so I took that down to her. He then went down to talk to her about it. As she and I were sitting on the couch, he took a photo of us with his tire pressure camera, then put it to his nose and said he was uploaded it and teleporting it through the internet to Oma and Opa. In talking about where he wanted to move, he asked us if Mexico had hurricanes or tornados, and said it needed to be the part that didn’t get them, “Cuz I’m afraid of tornadoes.”

I took him up to bed. He doesn’t like that the heater isn’t working as hard anymore, as he says he likes the high fan noise to put him to sleep. He suggested, “I think we need to clog the filter so it makes that noise.” He also told me that sometimes he wakes up and realizes he was playing in his dreams. He couldn’t give me details. We had lights completely out at 8:15. Did some singing, and thought he was about asleep. But at 8:34 he sat up and basically woke me up, asking, “Has it been 4 minutes yet?” He was ready to move. I told him we couldn’t actually go to another country that fast. He said he knew it would take more than 4 minutes—we were just getting ready now. No matter how I said it though, he kept focusing on that: it would take hours to get there, but we could get started in 4 minutes.

I tried to get him back down, but eventually he had to go downstairs and cuddled with Carly. He sort of talked a little about how he is sad that Sophia is leaving. Eventually, we took him back upstairs, and I left them by 8:55.

Escaping the wind:

Candles holders:

Dancing to the Korean song:

His plan to move to Mexico:

He sat up when it was still dark, then lay down on me, his head on my shoulder and his arms and legs wrapped around my right arm. Then my alarm went off at 5:50. I stretched with my left arm and was able to reach my phone and turn it off. Lay there another 5 minutes to make sure he was asleep, then slipped out. I was out of my shower when he woke up at 6:13. He peeked in the bathroom and I told him Carly was downstairs.

He cuddled with her for awhile, then watched a video on how tortilla chips are made. Carly made him oatmeal and I got his snack and lunch together. He then talked about making a spicy soup, but went upstairs to find Carly. She got his clothes on.

Back downstairs she headed to work and he started a new video. He went to the bathroom and told me, “I watched how chips are made, and now I’m watching about Coca-Cola. Hah. Grown-up drink. I teleport Coca-Cola to my lab…is that okay?” He then switched to Berenstain Bears.

I set our alarms forward 10 minutes, and he finished up a Berenstain Bears (he’d watched one about going to the dentist, and another where Brother doesn’t do his homework while he is sick) and we got going, and walking by 7:34. He hadn’t eaten a lot of his oatmeal, but said he was full. He had his morning bar at the beginning. Chilly and clear out, and a bit windy, so he had on a second sweatshirt. Quiet on the way to school. He told me he wasn’t going to eat lunch and snack at school again for awhile like at the beginning of the year. But that he would after awhile. He was very clear about it. He could’t or wouldn’t explain why, but it seems like he is a bit nervous.

Dropped him off right about 8. He was comfortable going in, and seemed just fine. So hopefully the nerves will leave and he’ll feel like eating. I stayed for a couple minutes outside, then as I walked away he was looking at something out the window and saw me, so I waved. He seemed to be saying something to me through the window, but didn’t run after me.

I walked home and finished listening to The Mere Wife. Worked, then rode my bike back to pick him up. He was carrying a sort of net thing, like the sort of bag that marbles come in, and said that Marion had given it to him, and he could use it to catch fish. When I went in to get his stuff, Andrea then told me that he had been telling them about trying to catch fish and getting water snails instead and studying them. She said questions had come up about what’s the difference between different kinds of snails, and I recalled when he and I actually discussed this in Seoul, at the aquarium. I think he had asked if they breath.

Cassie picked up Taya, then we met her at the playground. Cassie had to go back to work. Taya acted out going to South Africa and driving someplace in a bus that involved going through a tunnel. They played on the boat and the car and had a little snack, and Taya also had her baby out and was playing with it. Cassie had left her book, and Taya was using it, saying she had to read it as her homework. August was on the big swing, swinging himself, and they both got on, and also pushed me in it.

It was chilly, and about 3:50 we headed to the library. Carly met us on the way to say goodbye. She was walking home and to the mall to buy decks of cards for an activity with her class. In the library the storytelling class (elementary school) was in the kids’ room, so I got the box of hand puppets out, and then the Legos, and we took over a space out on the floor and they played with those. They also looked through the bookmarks on Ilana’s desk, and played with the little clapping noisemakers she has. (August loves them. An odd choice for a librarian, but they aren’t really loud.)

Cassie came and got Taya about 4:15. August jumped at Amanda’s desk and yelled “Boo!” and scared her, which was funny once, but then he kept doing it and I had to stop him.

We walked home. August decided he was going to make a leaf soup at home, so he started picking leaves at school and we got more along the way. We were home just before 5.

He was hyper with Carly. I heated up his lunch (pizza, corn, and broccoli) and served it with his strawberries. Now he ate the entire thing. We read most of Amulet 4. He then had two bowls of oatmeal. Carly bought down the piano and they cleaned the popcorn out of it. I took him up and gave him his bath. We finished reading Amulet while Carly took a shower. ‘Conspire’ was the word of the day. He had a piece of twine and we ended up tying it around the bookmark and making a bookmark necklace out of it. I brushed his teeth, Carly came in, and I left them about 8:10. He was asleep in 15 minutes or so.

August and Taya 1:

August and Taya 2:

August and Taya 3:

He was up at 6:20. Told me he wanted to go downstairs and I checked the time and said okay. He said something as he closed the door behind him. He was watching domino videos and I saw them returning from the junk pile when I was getting up. When they came in August wanted me to go look for a speaker over there. He wants to take something electronic apart. Will have to keep our eyes open.

He seemed a bit nervous about school, saying he wasn’t going to school tomorrow and that he didn’t like anyone in his class, except Eve and Millie.

We read a bunch of Shivers 1. Carly worked on our spring break plans, changing our AirBnB dates and buying plane tickets. August then made a strawberry-infused water drink. I took a shower. They were reading Nelson Makes a Face when I came back down. When they were done Carly went upstairs. We tried to Skype with my parents. August said, “I need to put on a costume. So they don’t know it’s me.” He got a sheet of the fabric-y stuff and had me write

“From Glad to Sad to Mad / From Pain in the Neck to Normal Nelson” We taped it on his shirt. They weren’t online, however. Since it was our copy of Nelson Makes a Face he wanted to write in the book. He had me write “August’s and Zinnie’s and Mama’s and Dada’s book” Then he drew a couple pictures of boom boxes. He had me draw a heart, then drew lines out from it. He told me, “That’s how my preschool draws hearts…that’s how Ms. Andrea does it.” In the front of the book he drew a picture of “A foot that’s alive.”

Carly headed out, going to the school for some work, the grocery store, the strawberry stand, and then VIPizza to pick up a couple pizzas.

He wanted to watch a Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That. I bought the first season, since it isn’t available on Netflix here. I made him toast with peanut butter and honey.

Heather dropped off Eve a little before noon. Heather was going to two appointments in Herzliya and would be back around 5. Eve had brought her doll, whose name changed from Amelia to Emily to Mikaela during the day. They started by giving me and the baby checkups. Eve checked something and said, “Nothing specticular.” Seemed like a nice combination of ‘spectacular’ and ‘particular’. They were then painting styrofoam together, which was a form of medicine for me. Eve heard me talking to Siri, and said “Here name is Siri?” August explained that she was a person who lived in the internet.

Carly got home with the pizza. The kids were excited about it, and took slices on plates upstairs, but didn’t eat much. I tried to leave them on their own as much as possible, but Eve did a ballet dance and I was the audience. August played music for her on the guitar. He then wanted it hooked to his iPad. So I helped with that, and Eve brought up the piano. I played piano, and they did guitar, and they took turns dancing. Eve insisted Carly come up to watch.

They went back downstairs and were painting, I think. Carly found August curled up, sad about something. He wouldn’t say why, and Eve couldn’t say why. He cuddled with Carly for a few minutes, then was back to playing.

She took them to school, leaving a little before 2. They took the balance bike with them. I went out with them, at first just in my t-shirt. David saw me and was amazed. He had four layers on. I got them buckled in the carseat and vest and said goodbye. I went back in and did some work, listening to all my music from 1991.

They played on the playground for about a half hour, then played in Carly’s room. They went to the studio by the gym, and played with the mats. Carly sent me photos of them wrapped up as hot dogs.

They got back at 4:20. I came down after just a couple minutes, but they’d already made a soup out of leaves they’d brought back from school and bits of tissue paper, and were cooking it on the stove. August had said his stomach hurt and was sitting on the toilet.

Carly made them a smoothie, then popcorn, and they took them upstairs and ate them. I was back downstairs, and Eve announced, “There’s nothing going on up here!” They had put popcorn in the piano. August told me “I’m pickling them!” They were then playing the piano: “Trying to pop them in the pickle station!” They then went into the bedroom and were playing on the big bed with the doll and the medical equipment. They locked the door, and I thought they were going to try to lock themselves in there when Heather showed up.

Heather showed up about 5. It was get quite stormy out there and it had taken a long time to drive from Herzliya. She stayed and had some tea and the kids kept playing and came down on their own. They did some more painting. Some grumpiness and not wanting to clean up and go/say goodbye from both of them, but not too bad, and they left just before 6. August had given her a wind tester from the gift envelope before she left.

He ate more pizza and a little broccoli. We made a wind tester and I decorated it with “beautiful abstract trees.” He took it out and tested it in the wind, wearing Carly’s flip-flops. We ended up all the way out on the sidewalk. Back inside he was talking to Carly, then said, “Now if you don’t mind, I have a lot of cuddling to do.” And crawled into her lap. He made a popsicle of a toothpick and toothpick and then had to go to the bathroom. Seems like his stomach might be a bit upset, but hopefully not too bad. He asked me to hold the popsicle, and said, “I’m afraid you’re too nervous to even hold a popsicle stick…because you’re Shivers.” While on the toilet he wanted a story, and told me not to talk in my Peppa Pig voice. So I did, and I told a Peppa Pig story where they are caught in a flood while playing in muddy puddles and have to get rescued by the ship captain.

Carly took him up and gave him a bath. We then finished reading Shivers 1, then were getting into bed before 8. Brushed his teeth. He told me, “You might hear a motor while you’re sleeping. It’s just me going to another planet while you’re sleeping. So don’t be afraid.” He told me how he grows spikes like a porcupine and grows them back. He wanted a visualization about a magic town. So I told him about a town where they manufacture magic potions, and there are side effects on the residents and town. ‘inhabitant’ was the word of the day. He asked if Shivers and Margo were allowed to go in buildings and things like they do. I talked about why that makes it funny (them sailing a ship, etc.) and he was a little sad when I said normal kids couldn’t go on adventures like Shivers and Margo. He rolled over and curled up, ready to sleep. I sang a little and he was asleep by 8:40.

Playing with Eve 1:

Painting with Eve and explaining Siri:

Dancing to music 1:

Dancing to music 2:

Pickling popcorn:

Testing the wind tester 1:

Testing the wind tester 2:

Scaring Oma and Opa:

He was up at 6:30. As he left he told me, “But you need to wait. When it’s really bright out you can come down.” He likes his morning time with Mama. I came down an hour later. He stopped watching something and we checked his mold experiment in the pasta outside. He said it smelled like a toilet. Carly made him oatmeal and we read Shivers. I went up and took a shower, then we read more of Shivers. We are re-reading the first book. He wanted to paint eggs, but we’d have to cook them first and we were getting ready to go. He wasn’t happy about not being able to do it right away.

Instead, he watched the episode about how trees communicate of Magic School Bus. I was baking the two loaves of bread this morning, and when the first was done we had some bread. We got ready to go. August put pieces of frozen mango on toothpicks as popsicles and set them up in the styrofoam thing. He charged Carly pretend money to have one.

As we were heading out he talked about cooking fish and clams in his laboratory. Actually, he started by telling me he killed clams in his laboratory, but just to eat them. He said he snuck in to our kitchen to cook them: “Can you believe I use dangerous kitchen stuff in my laboratory? Like ovens!”

We were driving at 10:10. He was using the tire pressure gauge as a camera and was taking photos. He said, “Dragons…that’s something that exists in my world that sometimes comes. They’re pretty nice. But I like to eat them.” He then started telling me about his camera and what features it has: “Did you know photos can never get blurry on this one? It has fast working sensors.” He talked about it for several minutes and took photos of people and nature. He said he was going to add portrait and pano modes. And he asked about the words ‘portrait’ and ‘strangers’ “What do you call people we don’t know?” “What is the name of that mode that let’s you take photos of people easy?”

We read then read Shivers 1. He likes to make me apologize when I read the words that he’s not supposed to say. He made me apologize for saying ‘stooped’ as it sounded like ‘stupid’. He then looked at Google Maps on my phone for a few minutes. He gave it back and was quiet for several minutes, then fell asleep at 11:30. We parked in Akko and woke him up. A 15 minute power nap. We heard the call to prayer as we got out of the car.

We got walking. He stopped to get a piece of strapping and to destroy some dandelion-type flowers, knocking off the seeds. We walked through the walls into the old city, then up towards the visitor center to use a bathroom. The normal set was closed, so we had to walk up by the Orchard Garden and Carly and August went in. We went back down and August found a big rock that he could break by dropping it on the ground. Carly was having trouble with a contact, so August and I went and bought tickets for the Citadel of Akko. We went in and Carly got the audio guides. I carried August and he listened to the audio guide as we went through a few rooms.

As we walked down one hallway there was a display about graffiti from the Crusaders. August had asked earlier why the walls were built out of stone and not concrete. He now told me that the floor of his laboratory is concrete, but there are stones in the walls and that he carves symbols on each of the stones. Later, when we were done in the citadel, he would tell us he wanted to go back to find concrete buildings with tile on the floor. We saw the church area, and his favorite spot was in the big hall, where there was an animation projected on the ground showing a knight being punished, forced to eat outside where dogs ate his food. He watched it over and over and also did a lot of silly dancing on it.

We saw the well and he dropped a couple stones down, then we found the latrine area. ‘latrine’ was the word of the day. We then worked our way out. August would say he was done, but then want to look in the next building.

We walked and found Maadali for lunch. August wanted us to order everything on the menu. We got the cauliflower siniyya dish, fatayer (dough stuffed with a sweet herb mixture), and the halab kebab. And I got a beer, which was from Nazareth Brewery. They were really busy when we left, and it took me awhile to pay. They walked out the end of the hallway and August was breaking soft rocks with a bigger rock. He and I did that together for awhile.

From there we went for a walk, down narrow streets to the west until we got to the water. August stopped to look at and touch some garbage—old speakers and stereo stuff. He startled some cats: “Sorry, cats. I’m just looking at garbage.” A good garbage pile. Too bad it wasn’t across the street from our house. We dragged him away from it after a few minutes.

We followed the coast around counterclockwise. I looked down a hole and you could see the sea. I said the view was ruined by a water bottle stuck in it. August also spotted an actual tea/coffee cup in it. He wanted to go around to the other side so he could get both of them out of it. He didn’t realize it was a cliff on the other side.

We stopped to look at the view and he could see the cliff. He played with garbage and found a clothespin sort of clip. He took it and told us, “if you’re still terrified of it, you can just not look at it.” The two of them went across the street to use the bathroom in a shop that advertised one.

Carly went into a coffee shop to get a coffee. August and I went across the street and got an orange and pomegranate juice. August didn’t like it. I had a pack of sweetener in the backpack, and he liked putting that in, but said he’d still prefer something banana. We went back, but the English-speaking guy was gone. This guy didn’t know what I was talking about. They had bananas, but I think they just did squeezed juice, not smoothies. I asked Carly what they had in the coffee shop, and she spelled ’s-u-g-a-r’ and August figured it out what she had spelled. So that’s the start of the end of spelling stuff in front of him.

We kept walking, having to go up a ramp. At one point August asked if we could go up father. There were guys standing on the wall up there, and Carly thought he meant there and told him he wasn’t the correct age. Eventually, as we continued up the path, we realized August meant up the path “I’m not going up on the wall! You need to say you’re sorry, mama.”

He was fine with not getting another drink, and when he spotted a popcorn cart we got him a small bucket. He ate all except the little bits the two of us got. A lively atmosphere down at the south end, with lots of people, and the boat rides, slow and fast, out in the harbor. He stood and ate popcorn for a few minutes, then we kept going.

We made one more stop in a square where he found a length of wire and played with that. We kept going, and made our way slowly back to the hostel where Carly had stayed with students. Made slower by August being distracted by his wire, which he was tying around parts of his bike. Carly went in to put in her contact, and August tied his bike to a tree across the street and was playing when she found us. He was reluctant to leaving, want to play there more.

We walked back to the car. Read more of Shivers 1 on the way home until he was closing his eyes. Switched to watching The Cat in the Hat Knows About That and that kept him awake the entire way. He laughed hysterically at one point.

We were home at 6:30. He got 6 pieces of mango and set them up as popsicles on his styrofoam stand again. Carly Skyped with Cherie. August tried to sell me a popsicle for 20 dollars. I complained about the sign and he said, “Customer, didn’t you read the sign? It says ‘expensive store’.” He also was saying, “That’s what I say on my watch.” He said he learned that from Margo in the Shivers books. And he said, “I’m always hungry and I’m always up for a snack. And I always wanted to drink your blood.” Pretty sure he got the first part from something. I asked who drinks blood and he said, “Mosquitoes!”

We read more Shivers, getting close to the end of book 1 again. I gave him his bath. He played in the sink for awhile, whacking the soap with the metal spatula. I brushed his teeth and Carly came up. I left them at 8:34 and he was asleep by 8:50.

Popsicle holder:

His camera 1:

His camera 2:

Through the citadel:

Funny dance 1:

Funny dance 2:

Rock breaking:

Wire and wire song:

Loaf#7

Tiny crayons from Christmas

Progress on the Pepsi building