Saturday, September 22: Ra’anana Park

I got up at 7. At 7:15 I picked him up off the bed to wake him up Downstairs he lay on the couch and fell back to sleep while I got his vitamins and Cheerios. Carly got him to wake up, then read more Beezus and Ramona. She read the whole section of Beezus taking Ramona to the library and then eventually having to pay for the book after Ramona writes in it. Carly and I both remembered that from our childhoods.

I made french toast with berries for them. We all ate outside. Carly was then watering plants and August played with the hammer. He then came in and played with the anatomy app (we used the augmented reality mode) and then he watched the scientific method video on Brain Pop Jr. We were listening to Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life (#57) and I did all the dishes. August did more macro photography, having also done some a bit earlier.

He let her trim his hair and he got a butterscotch lollipop. He told us that butterscotch is his favorite flavor. They played card games, but not winning games. He told her, “I learned how to play a game called slapjack.” We had done it a couple weeks ago.

I went up to take a shower as they were watching a video about robots and humans. Part of the science project website. When I came back down they were on the rug, surrounded by paper. Carly was watching a video and tying knots and August was having fun cutting up paper into small pieces. They were making a model of bones and muscles and tendons. He said, “I’m into cutting paper now.”

Carly was over on the couch and August ran over and into her and hurt her. She said she had to go upstairs for something. He stayed behind and huddled in the couch. When I went over I realized he was crying. He thought she’d left because he hurt her.

We read some Magic Tree House #30 and watched a marble video. Carly headed to the store at 12. For lunch he had oatmeal and mango. We then went upstairs and he helped me move the couch from the small bedroom out to the play area. He took the lint out of the dryer, then we charged the old phone and he played with it a little, using the compass and voice recorder. We then measured him on the wall chart for his 4 and a half year height.

Carly was back at 1:10. August was excited about telling her about the couch and being measured. She wasn’t thrilled about the couch, but later admitted it was good there.

He had been wanting to play with the “birthday camera” (he calls it that because that’s generally the only time I take the DSLR out to use it) since our aperture discussion yesterday. So we went downstairs and played with that. He particularly liked the fisheye lens. We talked about doing a stop motion video and he went up and got the box of wooden blocks from upstairs on his own. He said, “I have an idea. We can build a little, take a picture, build a little, take a picture.”

He ate noodles and chicken. He told Carly that 60 plus 60 is 120, and explained that adding seconds is like normal math: “Seconds has math in it exactly like regular math.” I asked him what 9 plus 9 is and he claimed it was 19 but he explained his thinking well. He found a tendon bit in his chicken. Carly said she had made a mistake and, “We all make mistakes.” He replied, “No, I don’t!” He spent several minutes on his own, gluing popsicle sticks together for us. We then made our stop motion movie. That went really well. He wanted to do a fish movie, like the sample movie, and we got as far as drawing fish on paper. He and Carly would later do a little more coloring, like of the water background.

He brushed Carly’s hair and told her, “I’m your special hairdresser.” Carly went upstairs to work for awhile. He watched Max and Ruby and ate some crackers with peanut butter. Carly came down and admitted I was right about putting the couch in the play area.

We headed to Ra’anana Park in the late afternoon, getting there at 5:15. I went and paid at the meter while they went in and were then hiding from me. We started at the smaller covered playground. I did some reading while they went on the play structure, which he was calling his house, then used the sound reflection things.

We then walked over to the big and very busy playground. Carly and August went and did a circuit of the big play structure. Carly particularly liked the shaky bridges. I read a book. They came back and sat next to me and he had a snack. We had a good view of the gibbous moon. He said, “When the sun sets, it’s really dangerous to be on the moon because it gets 900,000 degrees.” And asked, “Do scientists know there’s aliens on the moon?”

We left as it was getting dark. He told me he snuck to Mandy’s classroom and ate everything – the chemicals and everything. And that “I think concrete is yummy. Like a treat.” In the car we watched domino videos on my phone to keep him awake.

At home I got his bath ready, then I went for a run. He was reading Will I have a friend? to carly when I got back. He was doing lots of reading. He then chose the fossils book and was trying to read that. Carly told him about the concept of a ‘just right’ book and they went downstairs to find a just right book and he read a Bob Book.

Carly went to take a shower. August and I went on the Zinnie bed and were looking at Bedouin photos again. We went to the big bed and he was opposed to Carly leaving, but she said good night, and after some songs he was asleep at 9:30.

Carly told me he had talked to her about his reading and explained that “When I read, I first look at the word and think what is is, then I say it.”

Gluing sticks:

?rel=0

Brushing Mama’s hair:

Lego explorer:

Ra’anana Park 1:

Ra’anana Park 2:

Ra’anana Park 3:

Ra’anana Park 4:

Breakfast outside

Making tendons science

Trying out the couch in the new spot

Playing with the old phone on the new couch location

Drawing fish for the stop motion

Spots

Running down the ramp

In his house

Blue August

Snack time

Off to tour the play structure

Friday, September 21: school and pool

He got up just before 7:30 after I’d entered the room. He watched on Max and Ruby and then we got ready to go. Got to the school right at 8:10. As we did, August asked me how many milliseconds were in a second. I told him a thousand. He said, “So a minute is 60,000.” We dropped off the hummus, then headed to class. He had me pick him up and then joked that “dada” was across the commons, even though I was carrying him. It turned into a “Where’s a dada?” song. We reviewed the schedule with Andrea, then I was able to leave at 8:20.

When I picked him up I learned that he and Eve had done stop motion animation earlier using the table with the wood pieces on it, then they had done more with Yaya down on the floor. Eve wanted to show me and got the tripod and asked Andrea for the iPad. I got to see both their videos. In one they had used a string to show the lizard jumping or flying. He had also eaten focaccia today and for lunch had the cake and the cereal bar from his lunch. They had had a tea party and celebrated Miriam’s birthday.

He ate on the bench, then eventually we headed to the pool. But on the way he asked if you could make a photo lighter or darker. We started talking about how cameras work and ‘aperture’ became a word of the day. We stopped at the couches near the pool and used the Moment camera app to explore shutter speed and ISO and white balance. White balance was a fun one and we took a lot of blue photos that turned out pretty cool. Marion walked by with one of her daughters, Jill, and another girl and asked if we were going to the pool.

He was excited to see Marion at the pool so we went and got changed and got to the pool at 4:15. He found Marion sitting on the side and gave her a hug and told her he thought she’d be in the pool. She told him that by the end of the day she was exhausted from teaching and she was just supervising. She defined ‘supervision’ for him and that became a second word of the day.

Once in the water, Liz said hi to us. She was swimming laps in the lane next to us. He at first asked “Who are you‽” when she was in her goggles. As she started swimming he commented on how wet she was and said, “She doesn’t look like a librarian now.” Later, when she had gotten out of the pool and leaving and she said bye he called to her, “I love you!”

We also saw Ilana at the pool. He asked about getting water in your ears and whether it could get to your brain. We discussed ear wax a lot, and he asked if your brain could be hurt. Later I found out that he and Carly had watched a video of a brain tumor surgery. We talked about physical damage and I told him about the guy who got a metal rod through his head and we talked about the different effects that could happen when specific areas of the brain are damaged. We also talked about how the brain communicates with chemicals and discussed depression, etc.

We got out of the pool at 5. As we were by the grass a woman said hi to him. It kind of looked like Rebecca, and August asked her if she was the one that squeezes him as a s’more. It wasn’t. It was the woman that helped with Carly’s get to know you day, and she does look kind of like Rebecca.

We headed towards the bathroom and he asked about how the bladder can not work. He was then talking about his science lab by the preschool. It was at the water table where he had watched Dion’s class from. He developed a story about how he was making explosions in it and it was interrupting kids trying to sleep at rest time.

We were home by 5:30. He watched Llama Llama, then we put noodles in the soup for his dinner. He used the Voice Memo app on my phone and recorded a song about how he loves the number 10. He was then playing in his science labs behind the pillows and then showing Carly the “videos” (acting it out) of his science. We read some of Magic Tree House #30 and then I gave him a bath and washed his hair.

He really wanted to cut his hair and get a lollipop and kept asking Carly about it. She said he was persistent about it, and explained persistent. He was repeating, “Persistent about lollipop.” He settled for cake and doing lollipop and hair cutting tomorrow. He then took photos with the macro lens, then went upstairs to brush his teeth with Carly. I was putting him to sleep. We first looked at Flickr photos while on the Zinnie bed. He then went and said good night to Carly. We sang some songs on the Zinnie bed, then switched to the big bed. Took awhile longer, and he was finally asleep at 10:15.

Dada is right here song:

Zinnie’s blue exercises:

I love 10s song in voice memos:

Stuff in his science lab:

Science Lab 1:

Science Lab 2:

His electric lab:

Lookin at their time lapse video

Playing with the white balance

Thursday, September 20: school and library

He got up himself at 7:25 as I brushed my teeth. We read a couple chapters of The 13-Story Treehouse, then were able to get going by 7:50. So we walked. Spent a couple minutes in the classroom with him refilling his water, then Andrea told him the schedule. She asked about our break, and we told her about seeing the planets. He said something like, “The schedule’s easy enough.” I carried him outside and Andrea took him from me and was still holding him as I left. He was calm but apprehensive.

I went home, then was back to pick him up. He ran out to me at 2:45, then went back in for the goodbye time. When I went back in he ran to me and said “I eat-ed!” Turns out it was just two bites of cake in his lunch, but it is something. They had also done stop motion with a lizard toy during maker space and he asked if we could do stop motion at home. Actually, it turned out he did movement for choice time. The stop motion was earlier in the day. And he’d done a bunch of challenges with chairs, etc. during playground time.

Maaian walked by and showed us a photo of him eating cake at lunch. He went in to use the bathroom and ended up talking to Andrea and Vicki about microscopes. I reminded him why he had gone inside. I asked later why they had ended up talking about microscopes, and it was because he heard them mention microscopes. Back out on the bench he ate a bunch and talked about how he recognized Dion’s voice. He wanted to go watch the after school Play Ball class and went over and sat on the stairs. The kids said “Hi, August!” and Dion said hi as well. We also talked to Amelia when she walked by, about the dance class. August said he had liked being bees today in the creative movement class.

About 3:45 we headed over to the library. He reminded me “We need a word of the day!” We returned Magic Tree House #29 and eventually checked out Magic Tree House #30 andBeezus and Ramona. He lay on the library time rug and said that he turned into whatever he lay on. He said, “I’m like a chameleon, except better” because he actually turned into the thing and didn’t just look at it.

He did photography and macro photography around the library. He took a lot of photos of Bar, Omri’s sister, playing that egg first-person shooter game because he likes it. While he did that I was able to read a graphic novel by Øyvind Torseter calledThe Heartless Troll. We checked out the books (Eve checked them out again) and went out to have a snack. He had various things from his lunch and snack, then wanted to go down the elevator. We went down and he made some noise and then excitedly showed me that he had grabbed the Cheerios again.

We went back up and Carly told us she was getting ready to go. We headed over to her. He wanted to go down the stairs by the library, then back up the stairs by her classroom. He told me “Look how fast I can gallop!” as he ran there. There were guinea pigs in cages and we looked at them. He found that guinea pigs were easily startled.

Carly had already headed to the library and called us. We met up with her and he didn’t want to go home. He wanted to go to Carly’s classroom. He had told me he wanted to be a guinea pig startled by noise and hiding under desks in her classroom. So kind of a chore to get him on the bike and headed home. Carly had to start walking, and I sat with him on a bench for a few seconds. He agreed to get on the bike so we could catch up with her.

At home Carly turned around and headed to the store, taking the car. August watched some Max and Ruby and when he was hungry I heated him up some soup and pita. He ate all his soup and asked for seconds. After that he wanted some Cheerios leftover in a container from this morning, so I let him have those.

We read some Beezus and Ramona but he wasn’t really into it. Carly got home, and he got upset about not using the iPad. Eventually he ended up being a robot kitty again. We read some more of The 13-Story Treehouse and Carly took a shower.

She took him up for a bath. They came down to cut his hair. They had negotiated to not having treats, but then he was still trying to get a treat. Carly only pretended to cut his hair. I was confused as to what was actually happening, so I said I was going to go get cake. August and I had some cake.

She told me he now fully understands hyperbole, having used it with Carly upstairs, then was able to come up with another example. He told me “I solved the hair cutting problem…compromised.” We went back upstairs at 8:45. I brushed his teeth again and left them by 8:55.

He came back down, laughing, about 15 minutes later. He had been making Carly hit herself. We went upstairs and in on the Zinnie bed so she could rest. We looked at more photos of Bedouins, then I sang several songs and at 9:45 he was ready to go in with Carly. She had gotten up though so we went and found her downstairs. They went back upstairs. I still heard him awake at 10:05 but fell asleep soon after that.

Watching the Play Ball class:

I’m like a chameleon, except better:

In the echoy place, sneaking Cheerios:

Walking down to class in the morning

Watching the Play Ball class

Getting closer – he then called that spot his science lab at school

One of his photos of Bar playing a video game

Watching them play

On the table

Hiding

Guinea pigs

Wednesday, September 19: More walking on the highway

Carly went up at 7:45 to wake him up but found him already sitting on the edge of the bed. A bit later I said I would get him his vitamins. Carly asked what I had said and I said “orangutan.” August said “Thrn get me an orangutan.” Sometime yesterday I had said something along the lines of how he loved his iPad almost as much as me and mama. He said “More, actually.”

The two of them started reading the Space Exploration book. We marvelled at what has changed in 20 years.

Laughing from bathroom. “Dada, you found an empty cat that peed on you…empty except for pee.” He was then saying random things like “Grown up cucumber…”

He then wanted to take the Band-Aids off the animals: “I wanted to take these off after she was gone because it would make her sad.” He explained that he wanted them on yesterday though: “I wanted them on because I love-ed the word ‘plaster’.”

They read more of the Space Exploration book and he used a string and tape and fork to make a tether, tying a fork to the cupboards. We went up to get his iPad. He discovered the measuring app and was measuring everything downstairs. Last night I installed iOS12 and the measuring app was a part of it. It also includes the parental controls, so I put a timer on his iPad usage today. Measuring everything really taught him how to read feet and inches. Eventually I switched it to metric for him. I took a shower, then he ate some more apple and watched some Max and Ruby while Carly got ready to go for a walk.

They walked up to the snakes and ladders park but didn’t stay. They walked in the street. They were back about 11:10. He and I watched marble race videos together. We then made the yogurt cake from the recipe we got from Marion. He helped spray the Pam for the first time.

He asked what 90 plus 90 equals. I told him, and he said, “Oh yeah, that makes sense. Cuz you use those two things to equal ten, then you have 8 more.” He went and did several problems with Carly, like 8 + 4, and he would explain his thinking as he got the answer.

We read Math Curse, and he repeated the last line, about everything being a science experiment, several times through the day. Carly asked him to draw a picture for a card for someone, and he drew four pictures of a robot fish until he got one that he was happy with. The lines in the middle were its metal parts, and it had long beta-like fins and big eyes.

Carly and August then started a science experiment where they had a series of glasses with water in them and paper towels connecting them, and food coloring in three of the glasses. It would soak through the paper towels and the two colors would mix in the glass in the middle. That was the theory, at least. They worked on it through the day.

He was hungry and impatient for the cake, but it was finally ready and we ate some. Came out just right. He asked me, “What’s social studies mean?…word of the day.” Carly cooked corn and I made pizza for lunch. He ate some corn first, then we put it and mushrooms on the pizza. When the pizza was done though he just ate the veggies off of the top. He told us, “You know what’s cool about starfishes? When a starfish arm falls on the seafloor it can grow a new starfish!” Which is true for some species. Not sure which app or video he learned that from.

We read The Word Collector. He chose ‘delighted’ as another word of the day. He then wanted to type on my iPad. For a little while he had me type words as he said them. Then he wanted to type satellite language. So he played with typing on my iPad. He then did some art in Paper with both of us, doing the thing where we make dots, then connect them.

We left for a walk at 2:45. We took Carly up the way we’d gone last night, onto 553. Along the way he investigated where the blue drainage tunnel goes, as he could see daylight at the other end. He wanted to walk the other direction this time, west, so we did that until we had a good view of the chicken farm. We then walked back on the offramp from 4 and hopped the guard rail where he and I had hopped it. We took the long way home again. I mentioned how we could see more stars there because of the lack of lights. We discussed ‘magnitude’ and ‘apparent’ and ‘absolute’ magnitude and reviewed ‘lumens’ and ‘lux’ all after he asked how you measure how bright things are. More words of the day.

We got back at 4. August and I read Loch Mess Monster, then he and Carly did another science experiment, putting food coloring in milk and then adding dish soap, which makes the food coloring jump across the top. He was then a robot cat again and he and I went upstairs and played with the treasures. We were on the Zinnie bed and he found a roll of thread on the floor. He went and put it in the sewing kit for Carly.

He went to the bathroom, then cleaned the toilet, doing it all except putting in the Duck cleaner, which he left for me. He put on his own underwear, which he’s now getting down pretty well. He told Carly about cleaning the toilet and we joked he had used Carly’s brush to clean it.

Carly had made him a chocolate pancake and he sat at the table and ate it. He started telling us random jokes:

“Why did the banana drink all the water in the world?” “Because it’s the only banana in the world.”

“Why’d the clam eat the clam?” “Because it’s a clam.”

“Knock knock

Who’s there?

Hippo

Hippo who?

I would not like a hippo, but I would like a clam.”

“Knock knock?

Who’s there?

25 million chairs…”

He was the robotic cat again and he said I was a kid. He told me my name was August, and we decided he was RC for ‘robotic cat’.

We went back upstairs and did some of the puzzle. He did the orcas and part of the octopus. Out of nowhere he asked “What’s syllables?…word of the day.”

We headed back downstairs and Carly talked about the iPad, and said something about him not getting upset. He replied, “MAKE me get upset? You make me get upset all the time!”

I went for a run. Getting close to sunset, but the streets were all still filled with people. Ran up the road all the way up through town, past the library, then back home.

I took a shower when I got back. He had eaten dinner, then had cake. He told me about the time limit in his iPad. I had set it to two hours for a day, with everything shut off at 7pm, except for the book apps. You can extend the time though, and Carly had extended it for the anatomy and space apps. She went and took a shower and he and I read a bunch of Skybrary books: Rosie Raccoon’s Rock and Roll Raft, Emma’s Friendwich, Freda is Found, Dilly Dog’s Dizzy Dancing, and good Job, Ajay! We read some of Sisters, Volume 1. He requested popcorn and Carly made some. We then read The 13-Story Treehouse. He then talked about how he had millions of rules and was telling some to Carly. He was also quoting the Word Collector, repeating “My trip to Peru was perfectly pleasant.”

He spent some good time lying on the couch and being silly. I took him up and gave him a bath. We came back down and skyped with my parents. They were about to head to Wenatchee to check in with the travel agent.

Carly took him upstairs and brushed his teeth. I left them at 9:20. He seemed really tired, but it took until around 10 before he fell asleep.

He’s chewed on his water bottle so much that the spout is all disfigured. He asked me to fix it a couple days ago, but was okay when I said it couldn’t be fixed.

This morning he asked to take a photo of Carly’s “nursings” as he calls them. Carly told him that was inappropriate, then he got sad and said he was going to miss them when he stopped nursing. Likely one of those moments that, when he’s older, he’d find embarrassing (don’t worry, Z, I won’t be bringing it up at family gatherings) but was so touching in the moment.

Trying to measure up the stairs:

Measuring the bedroom:

Explaining his thinking on math problems:

Explaining his robot fish:

Cautious on the highway:

Speeding on the highway:

Silly on the couch:

Drawing robotic fish

Finished cake

Checking out the drainage pipe

Chicken farm

More science

Tuesday, September 18: playdate and playing on the highway

He called out “No!” in his sleep at one point during the night. He woke up at 7 and went downstairs. I went down a little later and they were well into the Cam Jenson and the First Day of School Mystery. At one point August asked, “Why is she always bugging the class…cuz she’s saying ‘click’ so much?” At one point he got up and asked Carly, “Can I teach you something?” When she asked what he was going to teach he responded, “Nothing! I just wanted to trick you!” They finished the book, then he was acting out being Cam Jenson, with a photographic memory.

They played with the Makey Makey. He was talking about dividing up their time and is working on fractions: “We have a half hour. For the first quarter hour…” I was making scrambled eggs and cheese with mushrooms for breakfast and we all ate those.

They went outside to water plants. He came back in, having gotten wet, and was grumpy. We changed his clothes and dried his shoes and he went back out.

Tessa arrived with Liam and Neva about 10:20. The two kids were off, playing with the Duplos. He focused his attention on Tessa. He showed her the synth app, and he took out the three sets of Bob Books and told her, “To teach you to read we have 3 sets of Bob Books.” She started reading a book, and he told her, “You read so well.” He then explained to her how he reads slowly. He didn’t actually read, but instead sounded out his reading rhythm, like notes, to show that it was slow. She told him he’d get better with practice. Carly made a mango smoothie for everyone and they sat at the table and had that.

An ice breaker with the kids was when August wanted to bring down his treasures. He wanted to do it on his own. He went upstairs and came down holding all three of the wicker containers. He did a great job sharing all of his toys today. The kids really liked the treasures and they played with them. August gave them the bracelets that he had made them.

August wanted to make a spicy soup, so he and Liam worked together outside, pouring spices into big pot. We then put it on the stove to boil. I made some of the chocolate pancakes for them to snack on. August borrowed my phone and showed them the macro lens and did some photography and he let Liam take some photos. August and Liam did some TodoMath together. Liam liked the Tally Catch activity and would return to it later.

They all went upstairs and were playing in the cardboard box. I did some dishes. Back downstairs they had the chicken and pasta for lunch. August and Liam then played SoundRebound on the iPad. They worked together, talking, really well for ten minutes or so. August wanted to show Tessa how he could run, but she was comfortable on the couch, so Carly took August outside and took a video of him running around the yard that he then showed her. At one point Neva escaped upstairs. August went upstairs for something and found Neva playing in the box by herself. Earlier, playing with the Duplos, she had put band-aids on the animals and August had learned the word ‘plaster’. Anyway, he came back down and Took Tessa up to find her in the box. She was then Driving him crazy pretending Neva wasn’t there.

They talked about getting ready to go, but then decided on 20 minutes more. We asked August if that was okay and he thought and said, “20? That’s as long as rest time, so I can handle that.” August was rather done with playing though. He sat on my lap and we read The Word Collector. He also wanted to make a squirrel nest but the couch was in use. So a couple times he was asking things like, “When are you going to leave?” And, “Has it been 20 minutes yet?”

They headed out at 2:15. He had kind of a crash after that, asking, “Why didn’t they listen to me?” He hid behind the pillow of the couch. He was upset that they didn’t talk to him much, and in particular one moment when they briefly played hide and seek. They had all run up and hid in the bed and had locked the door behind them. By the time I had opened the door with a key, they were under the covers. August was getting hot and wanted out but they wouldn’t let him out. He let out a loud scream. He was fine after that, but kept bringing it up. Also, Liam isn’t very verbal, in part because he is bilingual. He’s generally avoided talking to us at all, refusing to answer any questions when we’ve tried to talk to him at the pool.

August took awhile to recover on the couch, then we made a squirrel nest. He wanted to watch Pink Panther in there, so he vegged for quite awhile, watching that and then inviting me down to watch animated ball race videos with him. He started to show some energy and we played the robotic squirrel game. I would find a squirrel in the park that needed a home, but then when I took them home they would each do something bad, like eat my shoulder or destroy concrete walls. He was laughing a lot. Finally, he was a cat that spoke sign language. The sign language cat went outside and was eating cats. He was then supposedly a real (non-robot) cat, but I think it ate “25 billion, 800 million books each day…thousands or soda water bottles.”

While in the squirrel nest he had asked for Cheerios, then passed the bowl back out for a refill. The next time he passed it out I gave him the rest of an apple. The next time I cut a whole apple for him. When I saw his empty bowl a bit later I at first thought I’d forgotten to actually give him the apple. But no, he had eaten an entire apple.

About 6:15 Carly went out and met up with Mikaela and they went up to the synagogue on Kibuts Gulyout for Yom Kippur. They had to sit in the women’s area, which was apparently chairs set up in the kitchen. August and I headed out for a walk a bit later, at 6:45, as the sun was going down and cars were leaving the streets. We walked along the path past the pedestrian bridge – our usual “long way” home – and through the little tunnel and up to highway 553. Along the way we realized we could really hear the birds, and now, as we got up to the big intersection at the highway, we could really hear the sounds of the crosswalk lights. Which I’ve never noticed although I run past there all the time. August was hesitant about going across the highway at first. We waited for the lights to change. Plenty of bikers out already.

We took a photo of him standing in the middle of the big intersection, then followed some bicyclists down the on-ramp onto Highway 4. We got down on the highway and took another photo of him, then turned back north onto the southbound lanes and walked back towards home. We went under the 553 bridge. I thought he’d want to be loud for the echo, but he was rather quiet. We had seen a few cars still out on the highway, but fewer and fewer. Mainly the occasional police car. We stopped along the side of the road and looked at the sky for 15 minutes or so, using the app. We could easily see Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, and of course the moon. We looked for highway treasures along the way and he found a white plastic ball and a back rubber ring. As we got walking again he said, “I can get this now.” I asked him to explain and he meant he understood what we meant about how there wouldn’t be cars on the highway.

We looped around back onto the off ramp and then hopped the guard rail and walked across a worn trail atop a covered drainage ditch to get back to our usual path and head home. We took the rest of the long route. There’s one dark section that I’m not fond of when running, but it was nice as we could see a lot more stars.

We walked up to our park and then over to the synagogue to see what was going on. August wanted a closer view so we went in the gate and parked the bike and looked in a bit more. We were home at 8 and Carly was already there.

We had some dinner, then he was discussing what the praying was and God with carly. That ended when he finally tipped over backwards in his chair. Carly dove and tried to stop it. Definitely slowed it, but tipped over to the right. He was okay though.

He snuck to his iPad to try watching Ruby and Max. He got upset about the iPad and heading to bed. We went up and read Will I Have a Friend? Carly took a shower. I brushed his teeth and we read two stories in Nightlights and The Sneetches. Carly took over and he was asleep at 9:20.

Showing the synth to Tessa:

Spicy soup with Liam:

TodoMath:

Sound Rebound with Liam:

Running video:

Sign language squirrel:

Watching people on the highway:

Walking across the highway:

Riding the onramp to Highway 4:

Not being loud under the bridge:

Smoothies

Sharing treasures

Lunch

SoundRebound

Standing in the intersection

On Highway 4

Highway treasures

Down the highway

Monday, September 17: Netanya Beach

He woke up at 7:30. He watched Smurfs for awhile while I did some work. He told me “When I’m a grown-up, I think I’ll make a lot of rules.” He then wanted to play with the Makey Makey. We did an art app, a pizza one, and others. I was looking for a sort of set of projects to do with the Makey Makey to actually learn things, but he was impatient so we settled for the little apps. He took a macro photo of the Makey Makey and a burst photo of me moving around, then we got going.

We had planned on Tel Aviv, but when we got going he said he wanted the shorter drive. I didn’t have a compelling argument for Tel Aviv, so we switched to Netanya. He wanted to make sure it was the protected beach though so there’d be less waves. As we drove down he said he thought I was going the wrong way.

We parked at the beach (only cost 15 shekels) at 11. As we got out of the car he told me about a computer currency that was on iPads and computers. It was like he knew about Bitcoins. As we walked to the beach he spotted a place with slurpee drinks. We got a strawberry one and sat at a shaded table and drank it. He asked me, “Do you know why sugar dissolves?” And then explained why sugar dissolves. He stood up and was using his arms to show the bonds breaking. Don’t know if he has learned about that one somewhere or just thought it through. He then invented a machine to make things less liquidy.

We got down to the water and put on sunscreen. He started to wade right in. Near the shore he commented on all the “microgarbage.” We spent the next hour or so in the water, going far enough out that the water was calm, but he could stand if he wanted to. A guy, British, I think, came over and warned me about burning the top of my head heatstroke. He said he’d been playing at that beach last year with his grandkids and had that problem and just wanted to warn me. He was quite nice. We saw several small fish. The largest was about 5 inches long. And it kept nibbling at my feet. Which was quite annoying, although I told August it was just tickling a bit. He did his wave tickets thing again, and we headed in from the water about 12:20.

As soon as we were on the shore he was fussy about being wet and said his neck was itchy. We’d gotten hit by a big (for that spot) wave on our way in and it had splashed his face and neck and he blamed that (and me) for his itchy neck. We had discussed the waves, and he reminded me he knew all about breakers and waves and it getting calmer past the breakers from reading that Magic Tree House book set in Hawaii. He kept quoting from the book: “’I’m paddling out to catch big waves!’ said Nava.”

So he wanted to be changed right away. Changed him into his dry clothes, then he played with a shovel in the sand. He had me write words in the sand and he erased them with water as fast as possible. He got soaked doing that, so changed into his backup shirt as we left. We stopped and rinsed off our feet, then walked over to the beach elevator that took us to the top of the cliff. I realized we should have stopped at the car and dropped off our beach stuff and gotten his bike, but he said he could just keep walking.

We walked a few blocks north, him walking all the way, to the Rhythm Cafe that we’ve been to before. We got a green mojito smoothie, a cappuccino, and shakshuka. The shakshuka was too spicy for him. I thought he could eat the egg, but I didn’t think about how they had put black pepper on top of it and I gave him a bite. He then refused any more even after I took the top of the egg off. He liked the bread though and ate a small loaf of that and drank the smoothie. I felt a little bad and let him watch the Curious George Christmas on his iPad.

We left about 2. On the way back we stopped in the park and he took some photos. When we had left the cafe he talked about a green cloud, and when the cloud rains on you it tires you out. After he took some photos he said, “Remember the green cloud?” It kept raining on him and he was acting more and more tired. Think he really was a bit worn out. we spotted a cat and he said it was #82, but I later figured out it is #88 or so. He now blamed me for green cloud. He explained how I had accidentally cast a spell that made it.

In the car he watched the rest of the Curious George show, which kept him awake. It was just after 3 so we stopped at the school. We parked in the parking lot for a few minutes, but Carly was in a meeting so we headed home.

We were home at 3:30. We did more Makey Makey, and were listening to Public Enemy for our albums countdown. He heard the word ‘terminator’ and said “Terminate! Word of the day!”

There was a knock on the door. It was our new neighbor from across the street. They were actually trying to reach Mikaela as, for some reason, they need access to a pole in her yard to hook up internet. I did a phone number exchange for them and we chatted for a minute. The woman’s name is Yael, while her husband is Gil. Three kids, two of which are 8 and twins. Aton and I forgot the girl’s name. Then a 2 ½ year old named Abigail.

He did Dragonbox Big Numbers, then made up a song with some good rhyming: “Trunks is trunky, bumps is bumpy, skunks is skunky.” He wiped himself in the bathroom so got a piece of mall candy. Carly started the bribery but it is working. He ate some dinner, and talked about about the chewing and liquids in his mouth: “It makes a liquidy substance.” We read one Skybrary book, What a Treasure! We made a squirrel nest, then Carly got home, close to 6.

I went up to do some work and they continued the squirrel nest. He came up to say hi and she started his bath and washed him. I asked about washing his hair. He said something like, “I supposed we could give it a try.” He talked about the lollipops and how we should buy more butterscotch ones. He sang a song that went “Do fish know it is Christmas?” From Curious George.

Downstairs, Carly cut his hair. She told him he needed to be more still so he said, “Okay. I promise I’ll be really frozen.” In Skybrary we read What Does it Mean to be Green? and the Gertie Gorilla book. And a math adventure book called What’s Next, Nina? about a bead necklace that breaks.

Carly took over reading it and I went for a late run at 8:55. He was asleep sometime after 9.

While we have a strawberry slurpee:

On the beach 1:

On the beach 2:

Elephant song and squirrel nest:

Sitting cashews at mama:

Looking mischievous already

Slurpee

Wet again

Looking out the elevator

Mojito smoothie

Resting on the bench

Taking a break when he’s been rained on by the green cloud

Squirrel nest

Sunday, September 16: errands with Carly

He was up at 7:10. He went and sat outside with Carly for a few minutes. When I came down she was giving him the iPad and he started playing the Nature app, chanting “I love nature.” He actually started with the Mammals app and was showing us things. Carly joked we should get a pet sloth and he patted her arm and said, No.” In one of the nature apps he showed us an animation of the earth spinning and explained nighttime was when the sun was at a slant. He had explained this a few days ago and we thought he was actually thinking about winter, but he was talking about the slant of the sun making shadows as night fell, as he pointed to the line between day and night and said that was where the slant was.

He’s gotten into these Lego ball machine videos, and videos of dominoes falling. And then another sort of animated videos where balls race down through courses, sort of race style. Kind of cool, but also surprising that this is a genre of thing that exists. So he watched some of those, then told me “You need to start letting me choose new games…like you give me options and I get to choose.” I said I’d be happy to give him choices in the future, but he wanted to look now, but wouldn’t play until later. So we looked, and he really liked this space app called TALU Space. Ultimately it would be kind of a disappointment as it didn’t really teach anything about space, nor was it all that complicated. But it was fun. And for now he was true to his word, as we then went and played with the catapult, and took slo-mo videos of it. We were then in a time machine house that was taking me to when atoms formed. And then he was a robot kitty again.

We went upstairs and he was asking about the house across the street. He got out his treasures and dumped them out on the couch. We played with those and he wanted to hang up the little hamsa he had found in a store once and we went downstairs for tape. We hung it on the kitchen door and he asked Carly if it could be there. He played with the string from his treasure, tying it around the knobs by the sink, then just randomly started taping everything.

They left to run errands at 10:45. They went to the school, but didn’t stay there long as the air conditioner was off. They then went to the mall, where the did grocery shopping and ordered more baby blue paint for the chair. I finished all the chair that you can see, but didn’t have enough for the bottom. Well, when you fold up the chair you can see the bottom, which particularly bothered August.

I was supposed to be doing some Sabeel work, but started filling out our passport renewals for me and August. That took longer than I expected and took the entire time they were gone. At least it is done though. They returned about 1. August did more vacuuming, then he played that TALU Space app. I did some work, and they made bracelets. August glued a bolt onto each one from the little bag of bolts that Carly had found him when she did recycling the other day. He had talked to me about using the bolts for something. I had told him that there weren’t nuts to go with them, but they might be good for one of his art projects. He remembered that and had the idea to put them on the bracelets.

I came down and we read a chapter of The Scarecrow and His Servant. He was then looking at Sky Guide on his iPad. He figured out the X-ray astronomy tool and we read about the gasses of space and x-ray photography. He went and showed Carly and told her about it, then went outside with her.

Tessa was supposed to come over with her two kids after their Jewish day care. August was getting impatient. Very cool to see him excited about having kids over. He played with his hammer, then came in and watched domino videos. It turned out they weren’t coming today, as the kids were having a hard time.

He and I did Makey Makey and magnet science for quite awhile. I went for a run as Carly took him up for a bath. He had a bit of a meltdown going to do that, but calmed down, and while I was gone he used the chalkboard to teach her about constellations. He then talked about how stars are made and the big clouds of gas out in space that we can only see with X-ray telescopes, and told her about evolution, walking out on the floor and explaining that there were apes back here, then humans up here. She asked him about tides and he didn’t know about those, but he didn’t want to learn about them now.

I got back and took a shower. They were playing Candyland. He came in to use the bathroom while I took a shower and stayed in until I was done. He weighed himself (15.5 kg) and then wanted Carly to weigh herself. He told her,”Let me guide you.”

Carly then took a shower. He and I went down to get his two chocolate chips. He got one gummy worm instead. He told me we need to let him make more rules. I told him he often gets choices and I mentioned tomorrow.

Upstairs we looked at Google Maps for where we should go tomorrow. We settled on the beaches in downtown Tel Aviv that we’ve never been to. I left them 8:30 and they read a couple Skybrary books, Field Day and What a Treasure!

He wasn’t going to sleep though, and came into the office with me when he got up to get a drink or something. He wanted to lie on the Zinnie bed while I did my work and fall asleep there, then when I was done working I’d take him in to the bed with mama. He gave it a good try, spending about 15 minutes lying on the bed. He played with and cuddled with Puff for awhile.

He got up and looked at photos of Bedouins with me, which I was doing for the book. He kept talking about how they were beautiful photos. I then lay down with him on the Zinnie bed. He brain just kept going though and he found it hard to fall asleep. at one point he popped up and asked about the “safety bed” – the pullout bed under the Zinnie bed. Awhile longer and I thought he was falling asleep but he then said he wanted to watch the Smurfs tomorrow. I think he was thinking about the bed, and last year we had played with the Smurf figurines and told stories while on the Zinnie bed.

At 9:50 he wanted to go in with Carly. He said goodbye to me, but I walked him over. It still took awhile as I heard him talking, but I think he was asleep around 10.

Catapult slo-mo 1:

Catapult slo-mo 2:

Sound wave experiment:

Jump rope:

Silly selfie video:

Dada dancing time lapse:

Sneeze slo-mo:

Mama slo-mo:

Recording sounds outside:

Shapes drawing

Treasures

Vacuuming

Bracelets with bolts

Makey Makey

Magnet fishing

Candy Land

Saturday, September 15: rest day and evening walk at the start of vacation

I was sleeping in the other bedroom because of my book group meeting and heard August get up at 7:25. I was up at 8 and when I went down he ignored me and was watching videos on how machines work. I got him cornbread and his vitamins for breakfast, and after he watched a few Pink Panthers we read a few chapters of Magic Tree House #29. He had sung a full song about how you make a s’more out of the gummy vitamins and the chocolate vitamin in the middle. Got sort of a version of it on video, but the original was much more involved. He then asked where Carly was and he noticed the kitchen door wasn’t entirely shut. He asked her if he could come outside with her and she said yes, so he went and got his shoes and headed outside.

They looked at plants. Carly found one that had some sort of bugs all over it. He played with the pedals on my bicycle and also with his swing and string setup. Back inside he played a time machine house game, where I pushed buttons on the wall that accidentally took us farther and farther back in time, with him describing each time period. He ended up being a baby from all the time travel. We watched the video of him sleeping on his first day after being born.

Carly headed to the store. He was being born from a womb of pillows while I read. We finished Magic Tree House #29. The word of the day was ‘cauldron’. As a result of that we played the magic water game: “you’re someone getting the magic water and then it all drains…I drinked the entire cauldron.” He was hungry, so I cut corn off a cob and cut up a hotdog and served those together. He really liked that. We went upstairs and I took a shower and he watched Max and Ruby. He found a flashlight and took it apart and put it back together: “It’s like I’m doing maker space at home.”

My old laptop, which generally stays up on the desk, has been having the fan on basically all the time and started to shut off on its own. I brought it down and August helped me take off the bottom of it and get dust out. We used to vacuum cleaner to clean it really well. He used the macro lens to take photos of the inside of the computer.

Carly got home. Put away groceries, then I went up and did some laundry. The vacuum cleaner was out, and August did some vacuuming. Downstairs he played some Dragonbox Little Numbers, then they made a bracelet for Mikaela. A bead rolled under the couch and we spotted it with the flashlight, then he used the brown tube he has upstairs to reach it and get it out. He talked about how he sometimes gets the crusty bits from his eyes: “I get some out of it every once in a while.”

He and I went upstairs in the bedroom so he could take photos up there. He did a video and sang a song about dinosaurs 25 billion years ago that didn’t drink water. Very random. I taught him the difference between slow motion videos and time lapse and we tried both of those out with him dancing and swinging his hair and pretending to sneeze.

Downstairs a bead went under the couch again and this time it was further back. August and I had to move the couch out and he was able to squeeze back and get it. He found the 2kg weight and exercised with it, making Carly nervous. He made up a bunch of exercises and was my personal trainer, having me do each of them.

We went for a walk at 4:45. He took his stuff-touching stick with him. He found a really cool 3-sided comb and claimed it as a treasure. More cat counting, up to 87. We walked down a street to the south of us and he laughed when he spotted the big Israeli flag. Think he was surprised by it as we haven’t walked that way since being back. I talked about how I could see four planets in the sky at night and used the phrase ‘naked eye’, which was new to him. On the way back he spotted a garbage corner and got off to find treasures. I told him a maximum of three small things. He found a green plastic thing, a green block, and a firetruck piece from a wooden puzzle. I then spotted a Duplo-sort of person and let him have it. He really liked it, except a couple blocks later he poked a wall with the stick and it broke. He burst out crying. I was afraid he had been poked with it, but no, he was just sad the stick broke. He blamed it on me: “You let me get too many treasures and I couldn’t see…”

He calmed down and we stopped at the small park. He first was trying to get seeds to go down a tube in the ground. It was a machine that would teleport them around the world. He didn’t like that they were stopping where he could see them though. He wanted them to go deep into the ground. I told him he probably just had to shake the tube. He didn’t believe me, but when I showed him he said, “Oh yes, you’re right.” We took a bunch of the seed things to the top of the slide and he was dropping them down, saying “Incoming!” He was also saying “Gravity, man, gravity.” Which I eventually figured out is from one of the robots in StoryBots. We did slo-mo videos of the seeds rolling down the slide and of him dancing. And a time lapse of him dancing slowly. Looked like ballet. We did both kinds of videos of him on the swing and then merry-go-round. He had me spin him on the merry-go-round a lot, but then said he wasn’t feeling well. He blamed this on me as well. I carried him over and he lay on the bench for a few minutes. We headed home at 6:15.

At home I went for a run. Carly washed the car and August watched Max and Ruby. I came back and took a quick shower. He had been decorating a card for Mikaela (he covered it in 1s and 0s and was using a lot of colors in it, but said it wasn’t anything, just decorations) and when I came down they were delivering the bracelet and card to her by lowering them on a string from our kitchen window.

I got August’s bath ready and watched a Max and Ruby with him. Gave him a rather quick bath, then he ate noodles and chicken. We read another chapter of The Scarecrow and his Servant. He said good night to Carly and we headed upstairs. We brushed teeth and he picked up Will I Have a Friend? and read the first page all by himself without any prompting from me. He started on the second page then stopped and told me to read the rest. Around 9 we had lights off and were trying to go to sleep. I sang Street Songs, like “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon” and others. He took a long time to go to sleep. He was finally asleep at 9:50.

Vitamin s’more song:

Vacuuming:

His dinosaur song:

Slo-mo 1:

Slo-mo 2:

Slo-mo 3:

Slo-mo 4:

Time lapse 1:

Time lapse 2:

Being my personal trainer:

Looking for treasure:

Seed slo-mo 2:

Dancing time lapse 1:

Dancing slo-mo 1:

Merry-go-round slo-mo:

Merry-go-round time lapse:

Swing slo-mo:

Swing time lapse:

The present for Mikaela:

Another little treasure he found