He stopped nursing this morning to say “lowercase”. Woke up at 6:45, right as Carly was about to head out the door. She stayed and hung out with him for 15 minutes though. He did really well when she left, saying “Mama work, Dada do ABCDs” and he didn’t cry. A bit later we were playing Endless Spanish and August said “favorite one” when he chose ‘todas’, in which he watches the cartoon at the end over and over.
For breakfast we had banana, strawberries, and banana bread. Everything was on the coffee table, and I got up for a second to do something at the table, I turned around to August right behind me, holding my lukewarm coffee mug by the handle, saying “Tea for dada.” He’s done pretty well carrying things to this point – no major spills except for Carly’s salad once over winter break; he grabbed it off the counter and dumped it on the floor. Actually, Carly’s salads have been funny – August has never liked lettuce in anything. But he always things Carly’s salads look yummy, and will repeatedly point and say “Yummy salad!” He will just never eat them.
While watching Teuni Teuni I brushed his teeth and also cut his hair. He kind of knew what I was doing, and would keep looking back and grinning at me. Otherwise, went pretty smoothly.
Before we were ready to leave I told August I needed to go finish the snacks. I said “Can I go finish the snacks?” August replied with “Zinnie do it (type on the computer, which we had been doing together). Dada snacks. Bye bye, dada.” Then he pushed me out of my seat.
He requested to listen to Teuni Teuni, so we were doing that. He said “Listening to Teuni Teuni.” As I was changing him, he had additional “Becoming…” jokes: “Becoming kitten,” Becoming funny funny.” After I changed him he needed a shirt for the day and I asked if he wanted to choose. He walked out of the room saying “Dada choose” and was happy with the shirt I brought him.
Finally, as he was drawing right before we left he was chanting “baby bunny funny” on his own, and “up down” as he drew.
On the walk to the subway he was spotting “coches” in the street and singing the Spanish alphabet. He’s really into Spanish now.
While we waited for the train, he wanted Camel off the backpack and played with him. As we walked into the park, August pointed at the empty flower beds and said “all gone.”
We first went to the children’s museum, where we first went up and changed him, then played for awhile on the second floor (in front of the screens with the numbers counting down and the spaceship) then went downstairs where we played with the big blue blocks and a few other things. His favorite thing was the little spot with a pencil and pieces of paper. You were supposed to write the gift you want and hang it on the wall, but of course he wanted ABCs. So I was writing ABCs and singing the song. We drew a bit of a crowd, and one boy started singing the ABC song as well, just not in toon or in rhythm to me – i.e. he was being a little annoying. So I switched to Spanish to throw everyone off. Think it worked. But after that I forced August to give up the pencil so other people could do it. He was very sad about that. There was a little screaming.
It was also past the 5 hour mark (about 12:50) so it was time to head towards a nap. We went upstairs and ate lunch. I filled August’s water bottle from the machine near our table, but he preferred drinking from the little paper cup I had. He totally knows the routine by now, and usually goes along with it, no problem. But today he was resisting the nap, saying “no fall asleep” as we left the museum. Outside, he wanted to keep going back in the children’s museum. But once I picked him up and put him in the backpack he gave in. Took less than 10 minutes of walking to put him to sleep. I asked what I should sing – before he was in the backpack he just kept saying “No”, but once in the backpack he requested our 1 to 30 song. At the end of each song he’d say “more” until the one time he didn’t and he was asleep.
He slept 12:33 to 1:22. Woke up and spent a few minutes in the coffeeshop (we were upstairs this time). He wanted to go back to the children’s museum, but agreed to first go to the new playground. We went and played there for maybe half an hour. He wanted to take a shovel with us today, and we got it out. He played with it alone in the sand for quite awhile – he hasn’t played with sand/shovel like that in some time. Then he was drawing on the ground. He wanted to play on the hopscotch area, but was upset I wouldn’t let him as people were actually playing hopscotch. On both of them. Full on hopscotch with a bean bag and everything. Can’t say I’ve seen that before. Anyway, we roamed around a bit, then I noticed one had opened up. So he played on that, then wanted me to write the alphabet over and over again on the hopscotch area with the shovel. Eventually, we made a game where I would trace a number, like “trace 7”. He would then look at me until I said “step 7”. Then he would step on the 7, saying “step 7” and we’d move on to a new number.
He roamed a bit more, then decided he was done with the playground. As we left, me carrying him, he said “playground fun.” I tried to get him to say “goodbye playground”, something he used to do a lot, but does much less now, and he just kept saying “No.” Finally, I asked if he could wave to the playground, and he did, back over my shoulder, as we walked away.
We stopped at the first floor Peace Coffee on our way. I got a couple bars of soap, and we picked out a new bag of snacks, sweet potato (gogumah) this time.
Back to the children’s museum. This time to the little kids area. First up to the kitchen area to make soup. Then back down to the main floor for a variety of things. He liked the clock (kept saying “No 14. Up to 12”), he liked the animal hand puppets (cow, lion) that were out and would pick them up and hug them and hold them. There was a girl a little bigger than him that was very upset, and I could tell he was interested/concerned. I asked if he wanted to go give her a pat to make her feel better, and he kept saying “No”, but in a shy way. I then asked if she was too big, and he said “too big, too big.” If she had been a little baby he would have been fine. We were playing with one of those baby cube things. It had a squeaking thing on the side, and he was saying “S Q for squeak.” It also had a spot next to it where something was obviously missing. He was saying “No squeaky. Broken.”
Near the end he headed back up stairs, telling me “Make soup.” When we got up there, another boy had the ladle. August first tried taking it out of his hand, which I wouldn’t let him do. He was a bit upset about that, then I found a good spoon for him to use instead. He was happy about that, but turned back to the kid and kind of reached for him again, but looked at me, as if seeing if he could get away with it. I said no, and he settled for the spoon.
We left at 3:30, a little early as we were going up to Pizza School to pick up pizza for dinner. Took the subway one stop further north than usual and walked to Pizza School. Waited for the pizza, then put August in the backpack and walked home.
As we were approaching home, about 4:45, August started saying “call mama.” When we got home we tried calling her. She didn’t answer a couple times, but then called back. That kept him happy until she got home. As did eating pizza. We got the kind with noodles on it, which August really likes, calling it ‘hoo-ha pizza’.
We all ate when Carly was home. Then August was down doing his art. He went to Carly, saying “Mama do vaca,” meaning he wanted her to draw another cow. Evening was pretty focused on doing his art and writing things for h
im. I gave him a bath around 7.
We were sitting by August and he was writing in his notebooks. Suddenly, he was singing the ABC song and drawing along with us, and he shocked us by drawing about half the letters – several letters we’ve never even see him draw before, like J and K and M and a little N. We were already figuring he could write about half the letters, now it is a little over half.
A few minutes later, I was asking if he wanted to read stories because we hadn’t read books yet. He said ABC books, so I was getting them together, but then as he came close to the reading area he hit his head on the counter. A kind of sad end of what had been such a happy evening for him. Carly comforted him and he nursed and went to sleep about 8:45.
New words/phrases: favorite one, pala (shovel in Spanish), No 14. Up to 12., s q for squeak, goguma (sweet potato), falling asleep, vaca (cow in espanol), Little Blue in the zoo, ewww, yuck
Hair cut:
Camel in the train station:
He said the bushes looked like an ‘O’. He then said the boards were ‘I’s:
Children’s museum. Holding the membership card while in front of the screen:
And still with it at the spaceship:
Downstairs:
Looking through our tunnel:
Found the pencil:
Playground:
Hopscotch:
Qing the cat:
Little kids area. Making soup with the ladle:
Saying hi to the snail:
Holding the cow:
He spotted a number on this sign as we walked into our building:
His evening’s work:
