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He was up by 6:20. Carly and I were still sleeping, or trying to, so he just sat in bed for awhile. Then he started talking: “Mama, I’m gonna tell you something you don’t know. You can tell your students. Ten days is when you get to hundreds of hours…can you tell that to your students?” He was then a wake up machine, sitting on the edge of the bed: “I’m supposed to be sitting chose to the edge, silly….” He said that would be his job “for the rest of the time I’m a kid.” He was also a weather detector after he looked out the window and said it had been raining. We went downstairs at 6:40 as he ‘helped’ us get up by pulling us out of bed.

He played on his iPad and I rested on the couch. It started raining and Carly went out in it. August went out after awhile to catch rain in a cup. He was then soaking it up from the table and putting it in his cup. He then drank that. He kept trying to catch rain, but it wasn’t falling fast enough. He talked about leaving a cup out so it might fill up.

We went back inside and he played the Sarah and Duck Sleepover app. Then went back out to Carly. They came back in after awhile, with him saying, “Mama, can we do yoga cuz your shirt says yoga?” They watched a video and did yoga. When I tried to take a video of him doing it he stopped because he was wiping his nose. Stopped the video right before Carly said “That’s the snot pose.” They did yoga and I made pancakes for breakfast. Those were a big hit. We had frozen blueberries in the freezer. “Maybe we could give this to other people, like Mikaela.” “Mama, we have four days for the weekend. So we have time to make a bracelet for Mikaela.”

After breakfast he was on the couch with me as I filled out a contact form for the school. They had questions about who they could share your contact info with and would give lists, but then you could write in an additional option, which didn’t make sense. So for what information they could share I also included “hat size”. For who they could share August’s information with I added “elves and wizards”. And for our information it was “tugboat captains’. He was making up instrument machines: “Every time you play it you see the note over there and a tube sucks it up over to there and plays it.” He typed a lot of crazy stuff to Cassie on Skype, then he and I did some reading but only read two chapters of Magic Tree House #28, High Tide in Hawaii. He then wanted to do math games with Carly and they did TodoMath. She was teaching him the American coins.

I took a shower, then came down and they were still doing a lot of math. I went up and cleaned the bedroom, listening to Nevermind. We have the small bed slid under the big bed now. Back downstairs they were reading Skybrary. They had read the Erie Canal Pirates and Zachery Zormer and made Möbius strips out of paper. Rosie’s Rock and Roll Raft. When we finished he went to Carly and asked, “Mama, do you think I could make something like that by myself?” They talked about making a toy one first. We then read Mr. Mouse’s Motel and The Problem with Sisters and Robots. He played Sound Rebound for awhile, then he wanted to build things out of cardboard. He got cardboard from recycling and had me cut shapes and he was gluing them together in an abstract shape. He later would call his shapes “oars”, by which he meant rafts.

I was making baked salmon for lunch for August and me and I asked Siri to convert a temperature for me. He then asked, “Hey Siri, what’s the air pressure outside.” Siri said she couldn’t do that that on the HomePod, but then I figured out it actually works on the phone.

He helped me wash dishes (his idea) and then I baked the salmon fillets. He helped a bit with that, helping put the olive oil mixture on them. He and Carly went back to the cardboard and were making rafts. He ws hungry, so we got out the blue chips and ate those with hummus. He opened the fridge and sort of closed it on himself: “Oh, well I’m a polar bear and want to feel the cold.” We ate our salmon, then he watched Max and Ruby. He was still hungry so we had apples and honey. He ate almost a whole apple.

Still hungry, so I got him a pie crust cookie. When the honey was gone he was spinning the bowl with his finger and told me, “I’m practicing. So I can do that gear thing, remember? The writing gear thing.”

He wanted to do an experiment to see how soap would soak into a towel. We ended up testing soap on a variety of things, like a tissue, white cardboard, glossy cardboard, brown cardboard, and a rag. Worked really well as an experiment as we ended up talking about it a lot, and led to the words of the day being ‘glossy’ and ‘saturated’. He then did some bead math with Carly, but he wanted to do math with her on TodoMath. He was doing greater than and less than understanding that just fine. Carly and I were remembering doing that in elementary math.

Carly went upstairs to Skype with Cherie. He was then a robot cat with me, he’s been one with Carly a few times, and was cuddling with me on the couch. It became a game where I would be someone that found the homeless robot cat and agreed to take it home. We added a little to the mosaic on the floor and took photos of our progress. He took photos inside, then went outside. He was swinging my hat at the speed of light. He hit the swing with the bolt thing he found the other day over on Vatikim and said “That’s because it’s the loud instrument shop.” We went upstairs to the bedroom with the macro lens and took photos. He was then giving out tickets, and I was asking funny questions like, “What happens if you teach an elephant to play cards?” Then more of the robocat adoption game again.

We came back downstairs and played some Math Tango on the couch. Carly made popcorn and they ate popcorn. Lots of yummy noises. I let him download the Tiggly Chef Subtraction game. August told me, “I love you tons, but I love you extra when you buy me things.” Carly made a mango smoothie and we played the subtraction game. He had the rest of the salmon for dinner, but he had had too much popcorn though and only ate about half of it.

We all went for a walk. We walked to the southwest, towards the strawberry fields. August stopped to take photos a couple times, and he found a white bit of tubing that he called a treasure. It fell out of the bike, but we found it again on the walk back. He took photos of a metal bench to show how dirty it was.

We got home and I went out for a run. Carly gave him a bath, and when I got back they were reading the fossil book from the book exchange last year. He was asleep at 8:30.

Gathering rain water:

The snot pose:

The instrument maker:

The soap absorption experiment:

Spinning my hat at the speed of light:

Sound experimenting and knocking off the branches:

Catching rain

Cooling off in the fridge

Salmon

Checking on his timer

New treasure

He was up at 6:57. Seemed pretty well-rested and back to normal at first. He watched a Puffin Rock and we got going. But he immediately started to stress out about school and wanted to stay at home. He did remember when we turned the light on last night, looking for the cockroach. He had said something about the light and Carly turned it off and he went back to sleep. “When mama turned on the light last night…” His main complaint this morning was that the nature walk was too long and he didn’t want to do it. He has never mentioned this before, and last week had said he should wear his shirt with animal tracks on it every Friday for nature walk.

Eventually, we got going just before 6:40. When I tried to say something about it he barked, “Let’s talk about it when we get to school!” Walk to school was okay. But at school the worrying over the schedule began. The teachers then started to throw hand grenades into discussions over the schedule. First was the announcement that there wasn’t a nature walk,but Fitness Friday up on the grass. The whole elementary school (and some middle?) was up there and there was music playing and 4th graders, then a P.E. teacher, leading some dance/jazzercize exercise time. I went up with them and held August most o the time and we danced around.

August had said I could leave after that, but as they lined up I tried to hand him off to a teacher but they missed the cue and didn’t take his hand. I had to walk him down the stairs, then there was more uncertainty. We sat on the bench and he said he just needed to know how many more minutes of outside time there was before circle time. We went and asked and they said “20 minute”, which was a lovely answer, as I had said 30. But then they added “…and then we’re going to an assembly.” Well that led to a whole lot of worrying about the assembly. Eventually Andrea ran through the schedule, but because of the assembly and other things we don’t usually include it was a lot more items than our usual discussions and he thought it was going to be an extra long day. This led to me writing out the entire schedule for him to prove it was a normal day, with times attached.

Through all of this there was a lot of crying and thus tons and tons of snot and lots of trips to get more tissues. Eventually we had to do a crying leave. I was reluctant to do it when they weren’t armed with tissues and I felt bad bout making them to hold hands with a kid covered in snot. Also, when Andrea would try to take his hand he’d say things like, “Don’t grab me! I’m going to be bad! I’ll be too loud! I need to be outside the whole time!”

I left at 9. I went up on the sidewalk and listened to him calming down. It was taking several minutes, but sounded like they were able to do their circle time. He just wasn’t joining in. I waited for 5 minutes or so. He still wasn’t happy, but was quieter.

I rode my bike home, then came back at lunch. When he came out, the first thing he told me was that he’d had a cookie at snack time. I think Yaya had brought them. That would be the first thing that he’s eaten on his own at preschool this year. Then he handed me the bottle cap. He had spotted it against the wall this morning in the middle of being upset. He had held onto it and now gave it to me to save for home.

Sitting at the table, he told me about Rosh Hashanah and that they’d had honey and apples for snack. He ate that as well. Derin sat across from him and talked to us. Told us he’s going to Switzerland for vacation this weekend. Also, he had been carrying my hat around and showed me how he could spin it in circles. Then he asked me to write down his anthropology notes:

• Some people were playing police

That’s it. He told me of the morning, “I thought that if I’m sad you’d change it to no check-ins, sneakily.” He cleaned the whole table and I left as they were lining up to go back in.

I worked in the library, then sat at the picnic table 9my bench was taken) He ran to me. We talked to Andrea about the meeting and arranged to meet over on the grass. We went over to Mandy’s classroom and Carly got him hanging out with them. Andrea and Marion came over and we met sitting at a picnic table outside one of the language classrooms. We were quite disappointed in the meeting, as it wasn’t a conversation about his progress, but 30 minutes of telling us I needed to stop checking in at lunch. Which literally could have been a 5 second conversation or email, as in my last email I had said they could let me know if they thought we should do something different about the check-ins. And there was no discussion of meeting his interests or needs or of his strengths.

Contrast that with a minute later when we went over to where August was hanging out with Mandy and the three girls. Mandy commented on his memory, they had been impressed when he was investigating how many “supports” the ping pong table had, and he looked at. Set of lockers and said how many were open without counting them. She was impressed he could visually see the numbers like that.

Gaby had taught him the word ‘nuby’, so that was the word of the day. It sounds like it kind of a gamer term for someone who hasn’t learned something, like ‘idiot’, but they were using it in a sillier sense. He said “Everyone in the whole school except me…is a bit (nuby).” I had bought popsicles from the cafeteria and Grace went and got them out of the freezer and they had them. August chose mango. Carly went up to her classroom and we talked to them a bit more. I told Mandy and Matt about the project for Sabeel.

August and I went to Carly’s classroom. Carly said I could head home, as I was going to ride my bike. They were setting up to do some painting when I left. I had a little time to listen to more of my audiobook and some Nirvana (#17) before they got home about 4:50.

He ate the rest of her lunch from the cafeteria. He pretended he was a kid who forgot his lunch from home. Carly went upstairs and he and I watched Brain Pop Jr. videos. He was still hungry so I made French toast and he ate two pieces. We then read The Unexpected Love Story of Alfred Fiddleduckling and then Zachery Zormer Space Transformer in Skybrary.

Carly took him up for a bath and got him ready for bed. I said goodnight and he was asleep about 8.

Fitness Friday:

Rosh Hashanah song:

Running to me and Reia’s birthday:

Another song:

Looking big

Fitness Friday

Making Mandy nervous on the stairs

Mango popsicle

Getting ready to paint

He was up a bit past 6 and came down with Carly. We read more of Magic Tree House #27 and then he watched Puffin Rock and ate his vitamins, Cheerios, and apple. I took a shower and he was still hungry so Carly made him peanut butter toast.

We got walking before 7:40. We sat and read the last two chapters of the book. He was reluctant to let me leave, although not getting as upset as yesterday. Went though a lot of tissues, but hopefully his sinuses were pretty drained by the time I left. He kept wanting to know precisely how many activities were between now and lunch and how long each would be. At one point he said, “Let’s divide it into chunks.” He wanted me to check in more. I left at 8:30 and he held Marion’s hand as she walked him back across the outside area.

Rode my bike home, then back to school. I was sitting on the PKA bench when they came out just after 12:30. He thought he didn’t have a lunch but it was hidden behind a backpack. He told me he hadn’t gone to the garden. And he had watched kids play the coding card game. Wasn’t clear what he’d done. He ate a good amount at lunch and I talked to Reia a bit as she was sitting across from him. He said he would choose yoga for the afternoon activity. I was surprised it wasn’t makerspace. Seems like he’s trying them out as he was in the garden last Thursday. He asked me to write down his anthropology notes:

• people were kind of making a mess of fake food but cleaned it up.
• some people were being really crazy in the classroom. They were running. The teachers said it is not okay.
• people haven’t been playing with clay lately. Not even paint.
• “Thry won’t listen to me.” If he tries to ask what they’re doing, although he hasn’t tried it.
• People have been practicing the one thing at a time goal. “Can people do that at home?” He wanted to practice.

Randomly, he asked me, “How much is 12 plus 12?” When I said 24 he thought about it and said, “So if an hour hand pointed at a twelve it would be half a day!” And then he figured out that if it said 12 again it would be a day. He got one of the sponges to clean his spot and I packed up his lunch. He let me go once they started to line up.

Ran out to me 2:55. Andrea asked if I knew were the Magic Tree House book went. I said I’d taken it has he had brought it out to me at lunch. Apparently he had forgotten this and was stressed out about it. He told me how he had signed up for yoga class, but apparently the teacher didn’t come. So he watched makerspace but sounds like he didn’t join in. He said they did a card or board game and tested batteries.

He took photos around the outside of the preschool. He took a photo of a frying pan lying in the grass and he ran to show it to Marion to tell her about it. I got out the macro lens and we had fun figuring out how to use it. Lots of talk of texture and shape as he was looking for photos.

We sat and played the Human Resources game that he had spotted on my phone. It is basically another learning to code game. Played a couple levels, and he learned of the ‘Go To’ and ‘Copy From’ commands. Particularly for the latter I talked about how computers store data and compared it to what they do in the StoryBots episode.

He found a ball and returned it to the playground. I pointed out red bumpy ball. He asked, “Dada. Do you want to see my porcupine?” When I said yes he threw the ball at me. We sat and he ate Cheerios. He spotted a bunch of harvested kale on the PKA bench and tore some off to eat. He said he thought it was his last chance to eat kale. We went to look. I led us to where the kale had been by the door. He told me that was the wrong kale, as that was where the dino kale had been and this was a different kind of kale over in the garden. He explained how they were different colors and different shapes and tasted different. I told him he was teaching me about kale.

We headed up towards the library. As we went up the stairs he asked, “Is there anyone that takes care of wolves?… Like saves them…But how do they communicate with them? They’d like bite them.” We went down the elevator so he could make a little noise in the echoey area, then went to the library. He had me play chess, and as I was explaining I said that a piece was vulnerable. He asked, “What’s vulnerable mean?” We made it the word of the day.

We went and looked for books. He got the next Magic Tree House and I found a book called The Unexpected Love Story of Alfred Fiddle Duckling. Bar, Omri’s oldest sister, was tickling August and chasing him. He was having fun, but both Liz and I had to tell her to calm down, as they were being loud. Liz’s younger daughter, Eve, was helping out, and had checked in the Magic Tree House book we had brought in, and now checked out the books when August brought them to her.

Carly showed up and August showed her the word stick things, where the letters spin and you try to spell words. She then found the Scieszka Math Curse book and checked it out. Liz gave him a bookmark that smelled like pineapple. As we left he asked, “Dada, will I ever get a bookmark that tastes like pineapple?”

In the car he said, “Dada, as soon as we get home, let’s get ready to go on a walk to take pictures. Let’s take the macro lens.” As Carly went to park, August told her to not park by the big bush across the street because it was poisonous for our car: “Car coisin (poison) drains the battery of your car when you’re gone.”

We did indeed go for a photo walk. He found all sorts of different textures in the wood and rocks as we walked up to the playground. Took photos of plants up there and I told him I was ready to go home and eat: “That’s why I said we’d only go to the park cuz I knew you’d get hungry.”

We were home at 5:20. He finished an Ollie and Moon and we watched the how do ears work episode of StoryBots. We showed Carly some of his photos from yesterday. He played TodoMath as I made him pizza. He did a great job asking for help and when Carly went to help him he said, “You’re a really good teacher.” He ate his pizza, then played Quick Math Jr.

I took him upstairs to his bath. He said he should make a bracelet for me. We went down and looked at our bead options. He said I could wear mine everyday. He’s a little sore that his teachers don’t.

He said he detected an asteroid that was going to hit the earth after “all three people that live in this house are dead.” I asked if he meant near-term, or like thousands of years. He replied, “No. It’s going to be right after all three of us die.”

He then had a machine: “It smashes together rocks with these smashers when you turn a crank. It has a million rocks in it. It has a little tube, and the flour comes out.” But then he decided the first machine only made wheat, then a second crank turned it into flour.

Downstairs he ate both pieces of French toast that Carly had cooked for him. We then read The Unexpected Love Story of Alfred Fiddleduckling and then on Skybrary read Mr. Mouse’s Motel and a a new book called Zachery Zorner Shape Transformer. He didn’t want to make a Möbius strip out of paper, but we liked the book.

Took him up to bed and we discussed the meeting with his teachers after school and the possibility of him being in Mandy’s room while we met somewhere else, like Carly’s classroom. August was trying to visualize it and used the headboard. He pointed at the top of it and at the mattress level and said, “So this is upstairs and this is downstairs.” It was cool how he was visualizing it. No conclusions, but he was open to the idea, knowing there might be science and popsicles involved.

I left them at a 8:25 and he was soon asleep.

‘Everybody do this’ song:

Explaining no yoga class:

Playing with Omri’s sister Bar:

Word sticks 1:

Word sticks 2:

Doing photography outside the preschool:

His plant from last year is still alive

Rocking in his chair at lunch

Taking photos

Seeing how they had cleaned out the garden bed

Eve checking out his books

He woke up about 5:50. Carly came in and got him back to sleep, but he was awake again at 6:05. Less than 9 hours of sleep. Downstairs he played with the synthesizer and was really excited when he found there were a bunch more settings he could use to change the sound. He then remembered how he wanted to watch Puffin Rock. He watched the episode with the sleeping hoglet, the puffin way, and Bernie and the bee. He watched the next one and really laughed at the story with Mossy’s flea, especially when it got on Flynne.

Before we left he talked about the schedule. But he said, “Only yesterday was a really good schedule.” He meant that he wanted me to stay in the afternoon. I asked if he wanted any of the Bob Books to look at during rest time. He initially said no, but then said, “I need the Bob books I can already read…I was talking about for the future.”

We left on schedule at 7:30. Everything went fine as we got to school and dropped off his stuff and went outside, although at one point, in talking about his sniffles, he said “I think it’s a cold.” Andrea was back. And I thought I was about to leave at one point, but he stopped me. He sat on my lap for several minutes, but went downhill. Eventually they started circle time outside, but he really didn’t want to participate in that. He started crying, and there was lots and lots of snot. I figured he hadn’t had enough sleep and was sick enough I could spare them from having to deal with the snot. We talked to Marion and headed home 8:35.

Lots of blowing his nose on the way home but he ended up with lots on his arms and shirt. As we started he said, “If I ever have snot on my arm when we are at Gramma and Grampa’s, please let me go upstairs in Grampa’s garage cuz I think there’s rough stuff I can put on me.” To rub off the snot. We had gotten a permission slip from Marion to leave campus before we left and he asked, “Can permission slip be the word of the day?” And we spotted cat #54.

At home he asked about making a toy chair out of clay. When we read When You Give a Mouse a Cookie I understood why. The mouse made a whole room out of clay. We haven’t read the book since we checked it out and he remembered that detailsl from months ago.

We also read Mr. Mouse’s Motel. After that he played with the synth. He watched an Ollie and Moon, then did some art on his iPad. I suggested a science experiment and he showed me the floating egg one. We speculated in whether it would make the egg salty or not, so I fried the egg. Result: not salty. He ate the whole egg.

We played a few minutes of Green Planet, then he watched some Pink Panther and I worked. We were listening to Elvis. He requested popcorn and we shared some.

He had some lunch, sneaking the second bar before having fruit or egg. We then did a second science experiment: putting salt on ice and seeing what happens. You then put food coloring on and see how the ice has been pitted. He then played with the eye droppers in water and we put regular and salt water in the freezer to see if they freeze differently. We exercised and he then played a Sarah and Duck game. He randomly said, “I hate Ms. Karen.” Wouldn’t give a reason, but later he apologized and said he was just joking. He also said, “I’m so negative today…about food. I only want treats.”

He asked, “Why does Gramma and Grampa have the most impressive things in the world?…Like their tools and stuff.” I talked about going outside and taking photos, as he’d talked about wanting to take photos last night. He suggested he get on the counter, like when he waters the plants, and look for birds through the window. He took photos out the window and closeups of things around him on the counter. He took a photo of the dirty pan. A nice photo, actually, then used it as evidence that I should wash the pan. We were also taking apart the burners on the stove so he could photograph them and see how dirty they were. And he took a video of himself making up music as he sat on the counter.

He then wanted to go take photos outside. I asked if he wanted me to go with him and he said no. He went out in the yard by himself for about 5 minutes. Back inside he took more photos around the house.

When I wouldn’t let him play iPad yet he told me, “I’m never gonna make rules.” We read half of Magic Tree House #27, then on Skybrary we red Mr Mouse’s motel and he watched a video about interesting jobs. Earlier he had watched the one about the Jewish/Arab Jerusalem school. I showed him that we still had old Bob Books on the iPad and he read the first one easily on his own but then didn’t want to read anymore.

We went upstairs and wrestled on the bed. He was enjoying having me push him over and saying “push” or “shove” at the same time. And often I would miss him completely, which was even funnier. I did the thing where you get someone to put their hand in front of their face, then I pushed him over with that, and he found that really funny.

We went and started a load of laundry. He helped and pushed the button. We headed downstairs and read more of Magic Tree House. He had eaten one piece of carrot, but had otherwise refused any of the options for the last couple hours. He was now ready for noodles and tofu and veggies and ate all of that. Carly got home and went to take a shower. He and I ate hummus and crackers. We had listened to Elvis Presley earlier and now finished The Velvet Underground and started Abbey Road as we continue our listening project. Carly came back down and he was spinning the straw things around in the air so you couldn’t see the end. Carly asked why that was and he explained, “That’s because it’s moving so fast your eye can’t take pictures fast enough.”

She got dinner for her and when guest saw it he said “Yummy!” and went to eat some with her. I went up to do some work about 6. I heard them playing Dragonbox Big Numbers and he had the last of the pie. She gave him a bath and I heard him having a good time in the bath. He was telling her about computers at one point. I went in for a few minutes before she put him to sleep. They were going to read the Sneetches as I left. He was asleep at 8.

I got the new website set up in the evening. Still a little more work to be done to get Ulysses to post to it, but after this initial work it will be a lot less work to publish the blog posts.

Shwoing me the floating egg experiment:

Laughing hysterically at Pink Panther:

A little song and a yawning thing from yoga class:

Taking photos on the counter:

Singing and fork drumming on the counter:

Taking photos outside:

Pink panther song and special magic:

To find the special magic:

Probably a sign of what was to come

Before we left school

Science experiment

Eating the egg of science

Exercising

His first selfie?

Photographer Zinnie on the counter

Taking a photo of a ball in the yard

The photo he was taking