August was up 7ish. Had a nice Skype call with Cherie, then Carly made eggs for breakfast. August and I made a zoo out of his Duplos – our best one yet – and August expanded his prepositions by saying something was “next to” something else. Then a nice sky call with Glecy. August was doing a ton of coloring today, but at one point in the morning was getting tired of using the paper, so Carly suggested an empty cereal box (I had just taken down recycling or we would have had lots of options). That worked, but that made him want cereal, so he ended up having some cereal as well.
Carly made hummus and August and I did more art and did some reading. We read the Going to Bed Book, and August read the words ‘is’ and ‘now’. We had naan and hummus for lunch, but August didn’t like the hummus. He just wanted to eat naan. Carly put peanut butter on it and he really liked that.
A bit after 12 it looked like he would take a nap, but that wasn’t the case. He came back out with me while Carly took one though.We did his leftover stickers from class on Tuesday. He said pointed to the gorilla sticker and said “gorilla”. He found a spot in the book where he had written with marker and said “Who did that?” He initially said “Dada” but then admitted it was Zinnie. We did a lot of play dough letters. I had started to put them in order yesterday, and he got into that, just sorting them and looking for the alphabet. We are missing L, R, S, T, and V, however, so when he would get to L I would have to tell him it was missing. So he started looking for it, walking around and looking, saying “Hmmm” repeatedly. He got down on the floor and looked under the couch, then was looking under the cushions. I wasn’t helping, since I’ve known they’ve been missing for months (probably in Chelan or Centralia, or on a plane somewhere), so he’d say “Dada look.”
Carly got up and forced him to take a nap at 2. He resisted, but when she started talking about skipping his nap, he finally fell asleep and slept until 2:50. He actually wanted to just nurse and fall back to sleep though, which we didn’t want, so I put ABC songs on the iPad and he watched from Carly’s lap for several minutes.
Once he woke up, we decided to head out for a walk while it was still light. He really wanted to go out. We put him in the backpack and headed to the stream. Along the way, we walked along the wall where he was saying “1, 1, 1, 1…” last week. This time, he expanded on it, saying “11, 11, 11, 11…” and “111, 111, 111…” He also did it across the bridge and then on a wall at the coffee shop that had a lot of vertical lines.
We went across the bridge and he saw the playground. He then said “Coffee shop closed.” That was pretty cool because he was referring to Cafe Tolerance, one we’ve been to only twice in the last year since it opened. When we were walking back from Madeul last weekend, I said something about it, and he picked up on it and wanted to go to a coffeeshop. We checked the door, but it was locked, so we went to Cafe Mug in our building. So it was only a minute long thing a week ago. But here we were, still a good distance from the coffee shop, couldn’t even see the building yet, and were walking to it from the south instead of the north, and he remembered that. He had made a couple other good associations earlier in the day. I forget the really good one, but things like me asking “What do you want for dinner?” and him answering “Yummy dal-gi (strawberries)”, which shows he clearly understands the question.
Anyway, luckily today was Saturday and it was open. So we went up. Of course, he also remembered that there is a ‘block’ (like Legos) play area there and he wanted to play in it. It is a.) for older kids and b.) was closed anyway, so he was upset about that. But he calmed down when I convinced him to draw in our notebook. We sat at a low table, drinking our cheap, but good, drinks, enjoying the lovely (it is all wood) coffeeshop and the view and had the place all to ourselves. And I did a lot of drawing with August.
But we couldn’t stay for too long if we wanted to make use of any of the remaining sun. We headed out, walking up the stream and past the apartment complex. We walked around Madeul, showing Carly all the science exhibits that August likes (the ones with Qs, the earth that opens, the door to go through, etc.). We got to the little area that has fossil imprints on the ground and August wanted to get out. He got his stick and we did ABCDs on the fossil area and in the dirt for awhile. We then continued walking and finished the loop of the science area before heading home.
August was getting cold, and was admitting his hands were cold, so I carried him in my arms and pulled the sleeves down over his hands. He was still uncomfortable, so we forced him to wear his gloves for awhile. He wasn’t happy about that, but it helped. He wanted to go home, but we suggested nursing at the art museum, so we went and did that. I took a few minutes to look at art, then came back and went into the play area with August while Carly went ahead to Home Plus to do shopping.
We followed a few minutes later when the museum was closing at 6. We found Carly, ordered pizza, then put August in the backpack only to find that one shoe was missing. No idea what happened. Anyway, I took the pizza and started retracing our steps and Carly took the shoe to ask around. She ran into a woman who was carrying the other one, so a happy reunion.
We came home and had pizza for dinner, with August eating all of our mushrooms and olives. A lot more coloring in the evening. I got his bath ready, then gave him a bath. He objected to going, until I suggested he go find mama to take him to his bath. That was all it took, then once he was in the bathroom he was impatient to get in the water and play with the squirt car. During the bath I suggested we count backwards. The first time I started doing it I got to 6 and he finished the rest “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, o.” I was shocked. I’ve sung that “Hole in the bottom of the sea” song that I made up a bunch, but he’s never sung along or anything. After that, he was doing as much as 8 on down.
After his bath Carly put him in his owl pajamas. It was now past 7:30 and Carly was getting tired. We were all in on the bed and he wasn’t ready for sleep, so I suggested we go out. He first said “Leave mama alone”, but then rethought that and argued she should come out too, saying “Mama dada Zinnie have fun.” We headed out, and he closed the door. We went out and did more drawing, and read a couple stories in the new reading area (we now have two, one in the original spot and one in the parlor – but we had transferred it to the parlor and had the brown chair next to the couch, but today moved the brown chair and made the ‘new’ reading area in the original location next to the magical shelves).
Carly got back up because she wasn’t falling asleep and drew with him for a little while. They then went in to sleep a little after 9.
Oh, and I weighed him this evening. He is up to 11.3 kg, which is just at, or shy of, 25 pounds. So basically what he was 3 months ago. Taller though. I will measure that later.
He was also, of course, requesting translations for all sorts of words into Spanish today (including rabbit, giraffe, eagle, book, blueberries, black, pink, and purple). If Carly didn’t know the word, he would say “Look it up!”
New words/phrases: next to, reading ‘is’ and ‘now’, queso, naan, look it up, gorilla, real (looking at this in the evening, I can’t remember how he used it – may be a typo…), maroon, melon (crayon color), amarillo (yellow), open them (container of crayons)
Lounging:
Letters:
Stickers. “Who do that?”:
Looking for the ‘L’:
Trying to keep him up after his nap:
Walk to Madeul:
Cafe Tolerance:
He had seen a ‘3’ in the foam on Carly’s coffee and was now looking at mine:
Science exhibits:
Art museum play area:
Counting down: