Monday: Home Plus, Ppi Ppi House play area, and Daiso

Now Carly and August both seem to be suffering from at least minor colds. August was up just before 6:20, after sleeping fitfully. My ribs were still bothering me today, so we had a lazy morning. Carly said it was time to break the rules and try some video out on August. So we started with the first episode of Timmy Time and watched just the first story, involving Timmy trying to put together a puzzle, but missing a piece. It was cool, because I’d tried to watch it with August many months ago, but of course back then he didn’t follow it at all. But now, he understands puzzles, and teachers, and toy boats. He found it very funny, but in the last minute started to cry – kind of his overwhelmed cry that he used to get back in late summer if we watched a Sesame Street video. But then he started to say “Miss Mama.” So I don’t know exactly what caused it. What I do know is that he didn’t want to watch any more video after that. Later, I tried showing him Puffin Rock on Netflix and he said “No” and kept pausing it after 2 seconds. In the evening, Carly tried to show him Daniel Tiger, and I tried Puffin Rock again, but they were both no-goes.

Anyway, we had banana bread and strawberries for breakfast. Then I gave him his vitamins in the shape of a square. He took one away and called it a “Hangeul N”, then took another away and called it a “Hangeul E”. We then did some puzzles on the Very Hungry Caterpillar app. He is getting them down, and has done all of the puzzles on ‘easy’ (only 6 pieces) himself. We’ve worked through several together on ‘Medium’, and one on ‘Hard’.

We then read some Kipper and made a smoothie. It was now past 9 and I had opened the blinds. He had looked out the windows a few times, but right at 10 decided he wanted to go outside. And he was in a hurry. He started talking about changing his diaper to get ready. So we went outside. There was a dusting of snow on the ground and it was cold – low 20s all day. I set him down by the floor fountain and he slipped after about 5 seconds when he stepped on the stone part. It wasn’t a bad slip, but after that he didn’t want to walk or be set down. I set him down by the buttons, but he wanted right back up. It was the first time I’ve heard him say “Upping”, although he has used it with Carly a few times. He directed me across the bridge, but then couldn’t decide what he wanted to do. Well, he wanted to go to the play area, but the museum is closed on Mondays. Everything else elicited a “No”: shovel, library, ramps, etc. Eventually though, we were close to the crosswalk to Home Plus. When I turned back towards the park, he got upset and pointed across the street, saying “that way.” So we crossed and went to Home Plus.

We spent a lot of time roaming around the first floor. He spotted numbers on price and aisle signs, we looked at the animals (particularly the “funny iguana lizard” that he Qed), we wrote ABCs on the ground, and he requested I get a basket, which he then played with a bit.

We went downstairs and got a few groceries since we were there. He wanted to get kimbap and a sandwich for lunch. Got the kimbap, but decided to get some frozen mandu and make that.

On the walk home, I used Carly’s line “I love you soooo much”, to which August said “No.” I don’t think he wanted me stealing Mama’s line. So I tried out different lines, and landed on “Dada loves you a ton”, which he thought was a hilarious.

Back home we ate lunch. He liked dipping the mandu in teriyaki sauce, then requested dongatsu sauce. The only problem was he was mainly just licking off the sauce. I got him to start eating the mandu, but he would mainly eat the dough. If he got a good bite of the filling, which actually had veggies, he would spit them out. So much for the mandu idea.

He requested the stroller again for his nap. I didn’t know if he would then insist on going outside, so I bundled us up. But I just pushed him around the 8th floor, and just under 10 minutes later he was asleep. Slept 12:15 to 1:27 in the stroller in the living room. A good nap, but when he woke up it was a sad wakeup. No clear reason at first, but as it continued, it turned into “Miss Mama.”

Eventually he calmed down and ate some more strawberry and was drawing in the notebooks. I asked if he wanted to go to a play area or stay home, and he chose a play area. So we got in the backpack and headed to the bus stop and up to Nowon. We went to the play area in the Lotte Department Store. I knew it was small, but it was really small. Not too impressive, but it was cheap – I just needed to buy a coffee drink. So it was more like a very kid-friendly coffee shop.

Started out okay, but after a couple minutes a much bigger kid ran right into August and knocked him down. No parent in sight, of course. August wasn’t happy about that, so we went out into the seating area. Got him drawing in the notebook, then we took it into the play area and were drawing and doing stickers. He started to play a bit more, but when he was playing with a coffee pot, a little boy came over and grabbed it from him. August wasn’t in a great mood, and that made it worse. We went back out again. At one point, he started walking back to towards, I thought, the play area, but then he kept walking out the exit. I was just a few feet behind him, but one of the workers was closer. I told her it was okay (in Korean) but the still tried to stop him and pick him up from behind. He wasn’t fond of that either.

So we took another break, this time playing on the iPad – caterpillar and then art, I think – and eating our snacks. Finally, he was done with that and cheered up and ended up playing in the play area again, with the kitchen stuff (some cooking “sizzle” and then with numbers on the microwave) and with the letter magnets. He’d played with the letter magnets earlier, but in the meantime one of the kids (the one who took the coffee pot) had made a mess of the letters and his mother hadn’t cleaned up after him at all and we couldn’t find the ‘Q’. There was a red ‘Q’, but August wanted the blue one he had earlier.

So that was the end of things. August wanted to go home, so said something about changing his diaper first. We went and did that, then looked to see if the rooftop area was open, but it is closed through February.

We left. As we walked through the perfume area, he spotted the ‘Q’ in ‘Clinique’. We went to Daiso, where we bought pads of paper, and a couple small cups for him to practice drinking from. He also spotted a little puzzle with the alphabet on it (another ‘Q’ spotting) so we got that.

We walked to the bus and took that home. We were getting home around 4:45, so before Carly, so I was telling this to him several times and that we’d have to wait for Carly. As we walked to our door, he then said “Wait for Mama.” When we went inside, he was hopeful she was around, saying “Mama here” as he saw the blankets in the reading area, for example, but he didn’t get at all upset when she wasn’t.

We called her a few minutes later to tell her something, and August of course said “Hi” and was waving to the phone. After saying goodbye, he reached out and pushed the red button to hang up. He knew she was close, so wanted to go wait for her at the elevators. I convinced him to try the new puzzle once, then we went out. He wanted me to hold him the whole time again. Took about 5 minutes before she got there and we surprised her.

Really fun game in the evening when he was having me write letters. I would only write a few of them, then he would grab the marker and dribble them out, I would protest and try to keep him from getting the marker. He thought it was hilarious. Later, it turned into “circle letters” instead of scribbling over them.

Ca
rly fed him and got his bath ready, then I gave him a bath. He was really stalling before his bath: drinking water forever, then saying “more pictures” (on the fridge) when I tried to take him in, then standing on the toilet not peeing, but wanting to keep trying (“try again”). He is a sneaky one already.

He had done quite well all day, high energy, and just a small cough a couple times, but in the evening after he first nursed when Carly got home he threw up. He was also looking pretty tired early on, but lasted until about 7:30 before falling asleep. We will see how he sleeps and feels tomorrow.

New words/phrases: dog bears have robot (referring to the print on the wall in the changing room that we’ve been looking at again recently), favorite word (referring to ‘Todas’ in Endless Spanish), soy (Spanish), no pausing, fresh clean diaper, take a wawa (we were packing the backpack to go outside, and I said we should take the shovel and stick, then he said “Take a wawa”), scream outside, scribbling, circle letters, pee on the toilet, try again, mama holding

Not too happy outside: