August started waking up around 5:15. Carly came and got me up at 5:50. He started with art and play dough letters in the morning and we were still doing that well after Carly left for work. Eventually he wanted the iPad and was watching ABC songs. He ate a bunch of strawberries for breakfast, then wanted cereal. He then just wanted milk, and then wanted some of it poured into the bowl. I poured just a little in, and he enjoyed dipping his fingers in and getting the milk.
We played with the cardboard bricks. He chose to stack them 14 high before knocking them down: “Wait for 14.” We made a walking path out of them, and he pointed out it looked like a ‘J’. We did some reading, mainly of books we haven’t read for awhile: the Korean counting book, Teacher Says, Under the Sea with Me, and of course some Kipper. While we were on the bed he pointed out that my legs looked like ’11’.
We then revived the closet game, where I carry him and run to the closet and put his head in my clothes. He enjoyed that a few times. Luckily, there had been just a little milk in the bowl, because when he went back out to the coffee table he accidentally knocked it off, and milk splattered a good six feet, somehow missing all the stuffed animals and books in the vicinity, which was nice.
He found one of his plastic knifes and we cut some fruit and veggies, with him noting the halves of the chili pepper looked like an ’11’.
He started getting sleepy around 10, and finally started to admit it awhile later. He really wanted to fall asleep on the bed, refusing the stroller and backpack. We read some Kipper, then he would lie on his back for a long time and I would sing number songs. By ‘on his back’, I mean he was more like wedging himself in the pillows at the edge of the bed, by the chair, but looking very comfortable. But it just wasn’t working, and eventually I changed his diaper again and put him in the stroller (again, he fought it until I offered him a cracker). He fell asleep less than 10 minutes later at 11:54 and slept until 12:56.
When he woke up he wanted out of the stroller, and wanted me to take him in on the bed. He then didn’t want me around, getting upset if I was close. He lay on the pillows again, generally quietly, until about 1:20. At that point he started getting more upset (he missed Mama, and clearly still needed more sleep, as he had only slept 8 hours last night), and eventually he let me read Kipper. After that, he was ready for lunch. He ate a lot of quesadilla and rice and beans and cheese, and some orange, and was in a good mood.
But something cause that to change, and he was already getting upset when I tried to take him in to change him and get him ready to go outside. He kicked and screamed and tried to pinch all the way down the hall, then fought the diaper change and insisted on taking off his socks. But the worst screams came when I took his owl shirt off to try to put a shirt on for the day. I couldn’t get a shirt on him. I went back out to the living room and he was shrieking. He went back into the changing room and came back out carrying his owl pants. I had changed him out of his owl pants earlier in the morning, but left on the shirt. So I thought he had meant to get the shirt. I gave in, realizing he wasn’t ready to go outside anyway. I went and got his owl shirt and brought it back out. But he kept saying “No, nope” and screaming and pointing roughly down at the pants, which he had thrown on the floor. So I took off the blue pants and put his owl pants back on, then the shirt. Then he calmed down and we were able to talk about it, and he made it clear he wanted to stay inside until Mama came home. So it became a pajama day.
We read more books we hadn’t read in awhile, like Plant a Tree for Me, From Head to Toes, and Hop on Pop. There was hammering noises coming from outside or a neighbor and each time he heard it he would get back up on the couch next to me. We then spent a lot of time sending messages to Carly. He now knows at least 5 punctuation marks (periods, commas, apostrophes, question marks, and explanation points) and heard me saying ‘comma’ and ‘period’ as I was using Siri to compose my messages to Carly. So he was saying “comma” in his messages to her (Siri comically translates his messages like “I love Mama. Bye” to ‘Abdominal my.” His enunciation is getting a lot better, but not computer-can-understand-him clear). Carly didn’t know about apostrophe in particular, so I had August record a couple videos of him listing punctuation marks for her. He also typed her some messages focused on punctuation. I finally got smart and had him typing messages to her on the iPad while I used the iPhone, as he would get upset when I needed the phone to myself for a minute.
One thing he was doing today, and I’m not sure if it was a joke, or just really abstract visualizing, was seeing the Hangeul ㅁ character everywhere today, and not just in things that were rectangular – some were rhombus like, at least, but others were things like pointing to the side of a stuffed animal and saying it, and I didn’t see anything resembling a rectangle.
Anyway, after that, I let us veg on ABC and other videos for awhile. Trying to get him back to the other apps and away from YouTube. He has learned a lot from them, but the balance is off. Funny that he totally forgot about YouTube for weeks until I reminded him at one point, and now he is forgetting everything else. He did do a lot of singing along to ABC songs though. He saw one of the cardboard bricks on the ground, the one with the Puma on it and said “Puma is sad.” At least, that is what I thought at the time. An hour later I realized he may have said “Puma inside”, referring to the fact that the Puma is not out in its enclosure at the zoo. I got him away from YouTube and he played with the Intro to Letters app, recording himself saying the letter sounds and playing them back.
Finally, at about 5 he got upset that Carly wasn’t home. I told him we could put his socks and shoes on and go meet her at the elevator. But just as we were all ready to go, she came through the door.
A bit later I went out to do some shopping at Home Plus. While I was gone, he was standing on a stack of books in front of the window, which made Carly a bit nervous. She told him he could stand on one book, to which he then responded “One book. No two. No fourteen.” She gave him a quick bath as he was getting very tired.
He fell asleep a few minutes short of 7, just before I got home.
New words/phrases: white shows up, mama goes to work, more peanut butter on the knife, say-mo is triangle. Three sides, One book. No two. No fourteen
Lounging in the morning:
Dipping his fingers in milk:
J path:
3 stickers on his hand:
Sleepy before his nap:
After his nap. This is where he stayed for over 20 minutes:
Skyping with mama:
Intro to letters:
Shampoo and wash for boys. There was no girl equivalent:
