He was up at 6:51. Sad that mama wasn’t here, but stayed by the parlor door and didn’t go hang out by the front door. Cheered him up with the markers a few minutes later. Ate banana, Cheerios, and a smoothie for breakfast. At one point we were playing together on the iPad and he was holding Baby Q. Later, when he was playing by himself, he got down Eddy and was holding her in his lap. Headed out a little after 10, as he had one good coloring session in him before we left. When putting on his shirt this morning he had strong opinions about what shirt to wear. I actually had to take the first shirt of as he kept complaining. He rejected my second choice, then we were finally successful when I took him in and he helped choose.
For the first stop on the way down he say by himself, with me standing. He’s getting pretty good at this subway thing, especially considering this is our first subway ride in quite awhile. Exited the station and August got down and walked most of the way to the children’s museum. At the museum he had to be a bit patient, as we needed to renew our membership. After we got our new card I let August hold it. He wasn’t happy about giving it up to have it scanned, then carried it around for 5 or so minutes before I could get it back from him.
He walked up the ramp way to the second floor, then realized that wasn’t the water area. I carried him up to the third floor. We played at the water area for awhile, but he wasn’t happy about the wearing the apron and eventually he wanted it off. He wanted to go to the little kids area from there. In the little kids area he initially wanted the wooden clock, as it is apparently the only thing in the entire little kids area that has numbers on it. We checked. Eventually he was happy in the upstairs area cooking some soup. He walked up the stairs and then back down the stairs as if it was no big deal. These were the stairs where he was first trying to climb stairs for me.
After awhile he was done there and was hungry. It was also getting close to 12. So we went upstairs where they only had the big eating area open. We found a table by a window. I sat, but he stood up and looked around the entire time we ate. Good amount of sandwich, some apple, and string cheese.
We changed him and and got ready for his nap. Got in the backpack and did our usual walk. Took less than 10 minutes, and he slept from 12:35 to 1:31, at the downstairs Peace Coffee. He woke up and carried Camel around the coffeeshop, looking at the letters and words. Identified ‘is’ in the collage of words. He wanted these pumpkin snacks (he calls them crackers) they had there, so we got a bag of those. We were sitting down eating those and playing on the iPad, and the woman brought over some very hot little pancake snack things for free. A nice treat.
After that, he wanted to see animals and go to the playground. We went out and saw that the fence was down around the new playground. But as we got close we saw they were literally doing the ribbon cutting ceremony. Speeches being given, etc. So we walked on and went in the tropical animal building. He looked at the lizards, turtles, and skinks, and wanted to see the naked mole rats so I held him up for that. He spent a good amount of time at the coatis and talked a lot about them (“coatis funny”, “uno dos coatis”). He spent a lot of time hanging out by the zookeeper door that so intrigues him. Eventually we went upstairs, where we got to see a zookeeper go in and feed the lemurs.
From there we exited the building and stopped by the goats and horses for a couple minutes (he also said they were “funny horses”). After that, we went to the new playground. It was full of kids. It is an inclusive playground, with all sorts of features for special needs kids. The coolest is a ground-level merry-go-round thing with a bench and a spot for a wheelchair. There were still people in suits and news crews, etc. wandering around.
This whole time it was snowing. Lightly at first, but good-sized flakes. The snow continued to slowly get heavier until we left about 3:45 and it was starting to actually look white in the air. The kids mainly disappeared after 20 minutes or so. At one point, it was just August and one other kid playing in the entire playground. A snowstorm and 31 degrees isn’t exactly the greatest time for a grand playground opening.
Anyway, August had spent most of our time there drawing in the sand and on the ground with a stick. Eventually, he was having me do it. I got him to walk up the ramp to the play structure once, then he went down the slide with me, but then he was back to letters. He also once wanted me to help him climb the netting on the small structure, then he walked down the steep stairs before going back to letters.
Then, suddenly, at 3:20 he put down the stick and started exploring. Walked around and under the play structure, and saw a net you could stand on and jump on. So I helped him on that and we played on it for awhile. Then, before we left he really got into touching the balloons they had hung up. One even popped when he touched it.
We took off about 3:45. Pretty simple trip home. I told him in advance we were beating mama home. He understood that, and was upset when I told him, as opposed to waiting until we were home and he saw she wasn’t there. But he got engaged in writing on the whiteboard and did fine until she got home. He loves the sentences “The cat meows”, I think because it is kind of hard and fun to say, and he had me write it ten times in a row.
When Carly got home I went straight down to the doctor. Got 3 days of refills for the cough and got my flu vaccine while I was there. Not again. Got my prescriptions filled and came home. Did our usual dinner stuff (Carly also made popcorn). After that, Carly and August were watching Viv and Colin videos. A lot of “Again” “this one” “like this” from August.
I made banana bread and they did a lot of writing. At one point, August went to the cupboard and got the wipes and cleaned some earlier marker action all on his own – he also tried to wipe up some smoothie he had dropped. Carly drew his bath, but I took him in today. I haven’t given him is bath since I was sick. It went well. A lot of laughing on his part, as he kept trying to water me with the watering can.
He and Carly had a really good session of drawing 3s before he went to bed. He was drawing them of different sizes (enormo, big, tiny) and of course dotting them. Carly would then wipe the whiteboard when it filled up. She was saying “wait for it” when she wiped. Then he started saying it himself. Very funny.
He wanted to nurse and fell asleep pretty quick, a little before 8:10.
He was doing a lot of “Zinnie…” sentence construction today, like “Zinnie walk” when I asked if he wanted to walk or be carried to the children’s museum. And “Zinnie cold” when I let him open the closet door.
New words/phrases: Zinnie sad, Zinnie walk, cooling down, go in, for zookeeper, zookeeper funny, fishes, coatis eating, wipe it off, Zinnie cold, wait for it
Morning:
Subway:
Walking to the Children’s museum:
Children’s museum:
After his nap:
Step O:
Zoo. By the zookeeper door and looking at the skink:
New playground:
Home:
Cleaning:
After his bath. He just had Sophie kiss Puff:
