Tuesday: snow, class, and Costco

Sometime during the night August woke up and was coughing and threw up a little in Carly’s hand. At first he said “wipe it up”, like he always does. Carly pointed out that it was just in her and and she would wash her hand. He then started saying “wash mama’s hand.” Luckily, he went right back to sleep after that, and slept until about 6:40.

In the morning we tried out his new pastels that we bought yesterday. He wanted to listen to Teuni Teuni, and when I started it, he requested the song “Bravo”, which is track 5. Tried out a different kind of vitamin this morning, the gummy kind, to mix results. He ate about half, but spit the rest out. And, out of nowhere, I think after he had been coloring, he said “I love Mama.”

We did our weekly vacuuming. He kept coloring and didn’t help much at first, but when I went to the other end of the house he followed, I think so he could hear the vacuum. He was listening and writing letters with his finger. When I was done vacuuming, he went and turned the vacuum back on just so he could hear it. I was then wiping the play area tiles, and he was saying “dirty” and “more wiping”. Then he wanted to do some wiping himself, so he started drawing on the floor so he could immediately wipe it up.

Finally, in the morning we spent some time playing with the tennis ball, bouncing it down the hall. And he was drawing on the whiteboard, then wanted to go to paper, I reminded him we had different markers. He said “switch!” which is what I’ve said when I’ve given him the same color marker in the other set in the past.

We went outside a few minutes past ten. It had been snowing lightly all morning, and we’d been watching it from the window (August had Qed the snowflakes when we first saw it). So we walked along the street and crossed at the crosswalk, avoiding the bridge. First went to the art museum play area for a few minutes. Then he was done with that. In the lobby, I asked if he wanted to look at some pretty art. He said “See pretty bunny”, then pointed towards the main gallery. I’d forgotten that their was a piece (a big pile of cardboard) with a big stuffed bunny head on top. He had remembered. So we went and saw that for a couple minutes, then headed outside.

Outside, I showed him how to make snowballs, and made a miniature snowman, reminding him of Kipper’s Snowy Day. He then stomped on it, so I made more snowballs and let him stomp on each. He of course wasn’t wearing a hat, or gloves, so we didn’t play long and headed to Home Plus. There, we bought some yellow bins to hold his art supplies, then went up to class.

Class went well, although it was off to a rough start, as he and Jungbin bumped heads before class, and August wanted to go home. Jungbin gave him a snack thing and he eventually calmed down. He impressed everyone when, during role call, he raised his hand and said “new” (yes) really loudly. I also had to explain (through the one mom who speaks English) why we chose the name August, which was kind of funny. Class was about random items and sorting them. He was really into the opening songs, and bubbles went well (he caught a bubble on his finger and took it to a mom for her to pop, as she had done the same to him earlier), but took some urging to get into the main activity of picking up items and taking them to the person (pictures on the wall) that they belong to. He did a little of that, but it dragged on, and he kept asking for stickers. Luckily, the sticker activity was next. Finally, she got out the parachute and he had fun with that – he ran under it a couple times. I don’t think he has fully done that before. They then made a tunnel of it. He went through once on his own, then took me through twice.

After class, we walked home past the library. He kept wanting to touch the snow on flat surfaces, then would shake his hand when it stuck to his finger. We stopped in the park in the tree area by the bus stop, where he had written on the ground last time it was snowing when we were with Carly. There was enough snow that when we wrote with a stick the dirt would show through underneath. We played for about 10 minutes, then headed home.

At home I made mandu for lunch, and he did a better job of eating it this time. He was choosing to drink his medicines in mango juice today, so he had some of that as well. Before going to sleep he wanted to read Kipper, and chose Kipper’s Snowy Day. As I read it, and they were making snowballs, August was pretending to make snowballs on the bed. Very cool. He chose to fall asleep in the stroller today, although he’d been requesting the backpack earlier. That went smoothly, and he fell asleep from 1:31 to 2:36. But he woke up after 30 minutes and I quickly put on my shoes and pushed him back out into the hallway, where he fell back to sleep.

He woke up okay, but was then cranky. Suspicions he actually could have used a longer nap. Finally, when I asked what was wrong, he kept talking about missing mama. She was on Skype, so we called her, and talked to her at work for a couple minutes. He really liked that, and I think it helped a little, although he immediately wanted to call her again.

We got stuff ready for Costco and headed out. His mood improved as soon as we got outside. Walking to the subway, carrying him, I tried to sing him the Wheels on the Bus and There’s a Hole at the Bottom of the Sea. But he rejects most non-ABC and numbers songs nowadays, saying “Nope. No. Nope.” So then I had a brilliant idea and changed “There’s a Hole at the Bottom of the Sea” into a numbers song, teaching him to count backwards: It starts at zero and keeps going – we went to 14 once, as he loves 14, so it goes “There’s a 14 on the 13 on the 12 on the 11…on the 0 at the bottom of the sea” at the end.

We got to Costco and shopping went fine. Looked a little upstairs, then August wanted “downstairs” as he knew that was where the food was. Got a few samples, and August helped get things out of the refrigerated/freezer sections, as he liked the cold. Although he got upset when we were done with one. We got blocks of cheese, feta, naan, and raviolis. When we got to checkout, lines were longer than usual. I then put him in the carrier, facing me, just for checkout. He did not like this and got more and more upset. As it was getting close to our turn, he started coughing and sounded like he was going to throw up on me, right down my shirt. Luckily he didn’t, but I took him out at that point. But then, when I had to bag our stuff I had to set him down. This really upset him. I looked down near the end, and he was looking up at me, desperately doing the ‘help’ sign (clasped hands, waving them up and down). Very sad. I picked him up, and he agreed to go get food. But then I had to stop to take off the carrier and put on coats. I got down with him on the floor, but he was again pretty unconsolable. He calmed down once I was able to pick him up again, and we got our food, including a green mystery smoothie.

The smoothie was green apple. Not my favorite, but he liked it. We sipped a bit and then headed out. We took it to the subway station, where we sat in our usual snack spot and drank a little more. He was pretty funny, repeatedly calling it “cold” and fascinated that there were two straws, red and green”. Mainly he liked the cold, and only took tiny sips. Combined we only drank about a fifth of it before we threw it away and headed to the train.

We were home about 5. Had time to put food away, then Carly said she was almost home. So we went and surprised her at the elevators. Carly noticed the Pororo hand stamp that his teacher had given them at the end of class. August was fascinated by it again and said “Sangsaengnim do that.” He then got out one of his own rubber stamps and a blue stamp pad, and we redid the stamp on his right hand, whi
ch had rubbed off. He then did some more stamping of his arm and wanted to stamp everything in the house. I let him stamp my hand, and he said “Blue on you.”

Carly had lain down to rest. When she’s resting, I try to only let August disturb her if he really wants to nurse. I say “Are you sure?” Today, he started to go in and I said “August.” He responded with “Nursing. Sure.” before I could say anything else.

He was in with her for a minute, then we were back out. I let him use the iPad so he wouldn’t bother Carly and he was watching ABC songs. He is really starting to sing along to a lot of them, and is getting the “L M N O P” passage in the fast versions of the song. He’s also doing pretty well with our 1 to 30 song, having done 1 to 24 by himself a few times now.

He didn’t eat much when Carly tried to share her food with him, but later, as she was taking a shower, he ate 14 (catorce, as we were counting in Spanish) beans from my soup. His most impressive dinner for some time. He decided he wanted to climb on the back of the couch, which we said no to, so then he joked “Dada go up there” and “Mama go up there.” He then remembered our vacuuming earlier, and wanted me to move the couch and vacuum behind it again, saying “Move. Vacuum back there”. I then had to stop him from getting the vacuum from the closet.

Carly’s parents sent a cool selection of books in Spanish, including Curious George and several others. Carly read some to him until he started to try to eat the books. He then pretended to eat all sorts of things around the room: “Yummy pillow”, “Yummy door”, shelves, blanket, mama, etc. I then had to change him, and as I did so he pretended to eat the Pororo stamp on his had, saying “Eat Pororo. Yummy Pororo.”

Initially tried getting him to sleep around 8, but that didn’t work. So he stayed up with for 40 minutes or so. Then Carly had, or almost had, him to sleep about 9, but may have woken him with a cough. He was wanting to leave the room. I went in and said I’d lay on the bed with him. That worked, and I laid next to them until he fell asleep.

New words/phrases: art museum play area, dirty, switch, Tiger falling, mama come out