Carly said he was dreaming and talking in his sleep a lot last night. The most memorable had him talking about play dough a lot, and rolling up on a pillow and off of the bed.
He woke up at 7:21. Not happy to begin with, but calmed down and wanted to color. So we did a lot of that. When I changed him the first time I changed his pants. He once again refused the yellow pants, but was fine with grey. We made a smoothie and he was standing on his stool helping. As I was doing something I heard him say “M I L K” and looked down to see him pointing at the milk carton. He then said “Milk”. It was the first of 3 words he would read on his own today. He was also very interested in the word ‘fresh’, which came right before ‘milk’. He also saw a kitchen drawer as Hangeul ㅁ, knows “tongs”, and saw the tongs as an X. He saw Google News on my computer. The top story was about Obama going to a mosque. He kept pointing to the photo and saying “What this?” Then, he saw the ‘q’ in ‘mosque’, so was saying “Q for mosque”.
He asked for the iPad so I let him on for awhile. He was watching ABC songs (of course). He started watching them upside down, something he does from time to time, but this time he just kept doing it – for 2o minutes or so. He particularly liked the Dutch alphabet song upside down. At some point we were by the coffee table and he suddenly looked at his thumb and pointer finger and said “11”. Yesterday, he did this looking down at his feet in the bathtub.
We ate eggs and toast for second breakfast, then started getting ready to head outside. When it came to changing his shirt, he again refused a few shirts before insisting on an “animal” shirt. So I think I’m on to something here. He then saw me reaching for more pants (second layer) and he got upset, saying more about “animals”. I think he thought I was going for another shirt. He then started talking about “dirty clothes” – I think referring to the fact that the animal shirt he wore yesterday was dirty.
We finally got out of the house around 10:15. We walked to Home Plus and did our shopping. He was fine with getting play dough, but didn’t want to go down stairs to groceries. He did fine though until I set the full basket down by the frozen food and picked him up and went to find sponges, our last item. He got upset that I was leaving the basket behind, what with the yummy string cheese and strawberries in it. He was pretty loud by the time I found the sponges. Then, he didn’t want me to set him down again during checkout.
We finished there and headed up to his class early. Every mention of class in the morning had elicited a strong “No”, so I had stopped mentioning it. He got upset as soon as I headed up to the second floor. A long story short, he was very upset up through the beginning of class, past when the teacher picks up each kid, and past the forward rolls portion. Then, he calmed down, and did great the rest of class. Carly had thought it may be because the teacher is very hands on, and I think she was right. In particular it was the opening part – August was fine when the teacher came around with later activities and touched him. So maybe he had a bad dream about the forward rolls or something. He hasn’t been wanting to do them at home recently, although later in the day he would remember them.
Anyway, not really a theme today. First activity involved saving cham-say (sparrows) from eagles, walking across a walkway, and putting them in their nests. He did a bit of that. Second activity involved using magnet sticks to lay on the floor and reach under a cardboard box as if they were reaching under a couch and retrieving things like cell phones and TV remotes. The kids loved this, and August was no exception. Next, we pulled them around on these little carts that looked like recycling trucks. The teacher put August on his truck and pulled him. After that, August didn’t have much interest in it. Finally, they got long tongs like the workers use to pick up garbage in the parks. Of course, these had magnets. They then picked things (like dead fish) up off the ground and put them in their recycling trucks.
When class was over he was very nice to the teacher (and did his bowing – I also asked him to bow to Jihong’s mom as we were all saying goodbye and happy new year, etc.). As we were leaving he said “Class over. Teuni Teuni all done. Teuni Teuni fun.”
We went home where we ate nutty noodles, ravioli, and strawberries for lunch. He figured out how to hold shirt to type ‘?’. He also now officially knows ‘semicolon’, ‘slash’, and ‘bracket’. As I changed him, he put his feet up in the air and used his feet to make ‘11’, ‘T’, and ‘V’. He joked “Yummy apple Q. Icky poop Q.” As we left the changing room he had to close the door, saying “Close the door this way.” We did a lot of reading. As we were reading Kipper, he suddenly pointed and read ‘the’. Then he pointed lower on the page and said “read ‘at’”. Falling asleep in bed wasn’t working despite him saying “Go to sleep on the bed.” So into the stroller. Took about 15 minutes.
He slept from 1:49 to 2:42. Not a happy wake up. At some point, as we were playing on the couch, he saw the cracks in the arm and saw a ‘Y’. Eventually he decided he wanted to go out and do the “ice thing” – the rink in the park where you pull kids around on boards. He wanted to go in the backpack though. So we headed out. Got out there at 3:20 and spent 40 minutes on the ice until it closed. He loved it. Not the boards, as he could care less about those (I pulled him a foot before he decided that wasn’t what he was there for). No, he was fascinated by the ice. Mainly finding little chunks of it everywhere and stepping on them to break them. I showed him how there was little bubbles in it, and he kept picking pieces up and saying “Bubbles!” We also looked at the sun reflecting off the ice, explored the different textures of the ice, and looked at bubbles and all the shapes under the ice. At 4, when it closes, a man started hosing down the ice. August didn’t like him doing that, and he was sad when I made us leave a minute later. Luckily, they have extended the opening of the rink until the 14th (it was supposed to close Saturday), so hopefully we’ll be able to go a few times.
Got back in the backpack from there and wandered around the park. As I put him in the backpack he asked “Sun espanol?” and “Ice espanol?” So I taught him those. He also said “Ice fun.” August didn’t have a specific destination, so I just wandered across the park. As we crossed the bridge he asked “Class espanol?” The one thing August didn’t want to do was go inside. We walked up on top of the art museum and he thought I was going in. We walked down the other side and then wandered back to Brownstone. We were wandering around here, and he was asking for more words in Spanish (like ‘eat’ and ‘yummy’). He also started chanting the English alphabet, going “Big A, little a, Big B, little b, etc.” My phone suddenly died and wouldn’t turn back on, even when charging. Had meant to stay out a little longer (it was about 4:30), but went home. Got my phone working by heating the battery with a hair dryer (thank you, internet).
Carly came home at 5. A pretty usual evening. They did a lot of reading together. We also got out the green and blue play dough we had bought earlier in the day. He really avoided a bath, delaying me by wanting to read more and more books. He has such a cute whine when he doesn’t want to go, as if it is the worst thing in the world. Anyway, once we were in the bathroom he wanted to get in the bath and he happily played with the squirt cars. Barely any complaining as I washed him – the face still elicits shrieks. Carly had done dishes while I did the bath. She then headed to bed. He sta
yed out with me for awhile, but then headed in to nurse just past 8 and was asleep around 8:15.
New words/phrases: apostrophe, semicolon, butter, toast, bread, shift, bracket, slash, clase (Spanish for ‘class’), azul, verde
Smoothie making. He saw a 9:
Reading milk:
Watching upside down:
Markers on his cabesa:
Teuni Teuni class. Cham-say (sparrows):
One on his head:
Dead fish on his head:
Dead fish:
V:
Typing ‘?’:
Nap:
Ice rink:
New play dough:
