Sunday: Madeul and Cafe Mug – This Is Our Blog

Carly was up first, then August just after 7. When he woke up he was saying “uh-oh” because his hand was in his sleeve. I was up at 7:20.

He listened to ABCs songs and Carly made French toast for breakfast. We then moved to play dough letters, pressing our letter shapes into the play dough. Made about a dozen of them. Carly Skyped with Cherie. She had a baby and Ava with her, and August really liked seeing them. After that he got GG the giraffe down and was playing with her, having her drink from the water bottle and taste things, like the table and door. He read Spanish books with Carly while I took a shower. When I came out, they were reading the Frida book. He had also ripped a goat out of the Moo book, which I then fixed with tape. August wanted a piece and immediately took it down the hall to the poster. We did more play dough letters and then, while Carly was making nutty noodles, he wanted to make soup. So we got our a pot and ladle for him and he did that for awhile.

He napped from around noon to two. Another long one, and another slow wakeup after. He ate nutty noodles for lunch, then was down on the floor with his art. He found a cow sticker from yesterday and put it on the back of his hand like a handstand. He found the K letter shape, turned it sideways, and saying ‘juh’, which is the Korean character ㅈ. We were then typing Hangeul on the computer. I had the keyboard viewer open and was showing him how the keys light up when pushed them. He got excited about this and said “4s show up” when pushing 4.

He did more reading with Carly, particularly Frida, and they were speaking a lot of Spanish together.

I decided to take August for a walk in the backpack up to Madeul. Before we left, he did a really nice goodbye to Carly, going in to get a kiss and waving to her. On our walk, we walked along a concrete wall that has vertical lines every few feet. I suddenly realized he was chanting “1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1…” Also, as we got into the Madeul park/stadium area, I took a slightly different path past the tennis courts. We came out on our usual path, and he started saying “Q, Q, Q.” I realized our shortcut had taken us past the science sign that includes the big Q. So we had to backtrack and see the Q sign, then go back farther to see the ‘answer’ sign, which has a big A.

From there, we continued our usual walk around the stadium, looking at the science exhibits. He knows them by know, and which ones open (the model of the earth, one with a door) and where the ones with numbers are (particularly the big clock history of the world one). Then past the north end of the stadium, past the dog park, and down to our usual exercise equipment/playground area. It was mid-30s, but felt colder. He completely refused hats and gloves though. We looked a bit at the map, and we used the shovel and stick to hit the metal around the piano sculpture and sang ABC. But he was getting cold, and eventually it was too much. He suddenly wanted to go home. It had only been 10 minutes or so. We packed up and headed out, me holding him this time to keep him warmer and try to hold his hands.

We had planned to go to a coffee shop, but he said no to that and just wanted to go home. So I walked back down the stream. As we passed Cafe Tolerance I mentioned it being a coffee shop, but closed. Suddenly he changed his mind and wanted to go to a coffee shop. We checked, and it was closed, so we walked back to our building. We went to Cafe Mug near GS 25. We spent a good hour plus in there. We drew on the iPad, drew in the notebook, spelled words in Alpha Writer on the iPad, played Nighty Night Circus for a couple minutes for the first time in months, and did Very Hungry Caterpillar puzzles. He is getting better at them. For the harder level puzzles I still help a lot, putting the first few pieces in place, then coaching him through much of the rest (he can get the last 4 or so pieces no problem), but his attention span is better (he doesn’t flick to another puzzles after just 2 pieces as much) and he needs less help. He’s also started to figure out that you get different colored stars after finishing the puzzles, and likes the yellow ones, which are the ‘hard’ level.

Anyway, eventually we called it good and headed home. From Cafe Mug he wanted to walk to the left, back to the side door, and past the new coffee shop they are making (where the nail place used to be). We’ve walked by a lot, and August now says “coffee shop” every time we pass it. We got home at 5:30. Jill had brought over dinner for us as she heard we are all sick, so we ate her yummy pasta and alfredo and broccoli for dinner, then August and I did more play dough letters while Carly took a shower. She headed to bed about 8 and he stayed out with me. Before saying “good night” to her, he grabbed the Duplo kangaroo to bring out with him. He brought it out to the living room and had it “hop” on all the books we had on the coffee table. We read a few books, then colored on paper, and a little after 8:30 he popped up and went in to Carly. I thought he was asleep about 8:45, but he kept waking back up. I went in around 9:30 to give Carly a break. I sang number songs to him and he was laying on his back with his feet in the air. He looked at his legs and said “11”, then grabbed his feet and said “both”. He eventually kept trying to stand up, so I forced him to stay down, resulting in a good cry. Carly nursed him after that and he fell asleep a little after 9:45.

At some point during the day I was facing him and had his hands in mine. He looked at my arms and said “V”. Another new thing was using the non-writing end of the markers to write ABCs, kind of like what we do with the stick or shovel on sidewalks, etc.

New words/phrases: has plurals down (ones, threes), 4s show up, comma (identified it when I was typing), picture come off that, turn the paharos (birds in Spanish), back with mama