He was awake 6:45. Gave him the iPad to distract him from Carly leaving and it worked pretty well. He was finding new, more advanced phonics songs this morning. Some how. We ate oatmeal and strawberries for breakfast. He has started rejecting the vitamins (Omega-3 things) we give him (right after I ordered six bottles), so I was able to slip him two in his oatmeal. He spit the third out and wouldn’t eat anymore. We ‘read’ the Korean elephant on a line book a few times, and then he was back to the iPad doing a lot of Sesame Street Art Maker (and calling it “Art Maker”).
He walked into my bathroom at one point, and wanted to stand on the scale. He pulled it out from under the sink, but still bumped his head on the sink. It wasn’t hard though, so when I suggested he move further back, he started joking about bumping his head. He even walked over to the shower door and said “Bump the shower.”
We left the house about 10:30. He didn’t want to go to class, but I noticed from the beginning he wasn’t as passionate about it. We spent our little extra time going down to the first basement to look at the animals, including the puppies. We then went to class; he protested, but I was able to walk into class without him crying. He then got a little upset when he heard the song turn on where they pick up each of the kids. We went out and got water. Then when they brought out the forward roll mat he went and hid by the door. But after that he was totally fine.
They did things based on traditional Korean games, namely Jegichagi (제기차기), which is similar to hacky sack but with colorful streamers (I think I posted photos of him standing on Jegi in the park), Neolttwigi (널뛰기), which is a seesaw sort of thing where one person stands on one end and another person stands on the other, and they launch each other into the air, and Tuho (투호), in which you throw arrows into a pot.
He really liked the balancing boards, and even allowed the teacher and Jihong’s mom to stand on it with him. The arrows for Tuho were little Nerf-like things with magnets in them. He wasn’t much into throwing them, but he really liked how they would stick together, and liked sticking them to the board that stood in for the pots.
After class we went and did some shopping on the first basement – mainly getting large plastic box covered in letters to act as a toy box. He didn’t want to shop and started doing some screeching, so we didn’t do any food shopping. On the way home, he asked for ‘outside’ in Spanish, but my hands were full with him and the box, so we stopped in the park. He spent a long time looking at the letters on the box.
Got him to walk part of the way home (to the bridge), but walking in front and asking him to ‘fly’ to the pagoda, then around it, and then to the bridge. As we got home, he said “Mama home soon.” He then asked for ‘soon’ and ‘work’ in Spanish.
We ate a teriyaki salmon sandwich for lunch, then it was time for a nap. We read some Kipper first, and he was pointing to words saying “What say that?” In particular, pointing to ‘ball’. He also surprised me by pointing directly to the words ‘old’ and ‘his’ and read them, or at least remember which words they were.
Eventually we got in the stroller and walked around the 8th floor. It was apparent after 8 minutes or so that he wasn’t falling asleep. Also, it was 54 out, so I realized it was silly to be walking around inside. So we went back in, and a bit later took off in the backpack. Before we did, we were looking at the little ‘book’ of words I’ve been making for him. We were doing ‘sh’, and he started joking “SH makes azul…SH makes coat.”
We started walking, going a back street at first, and he fell asleep pretty quickly. We walked over to Coffee R, which we’ve walked by a thousand times but never been in. He had a short nap, 2:10 to 2:48. I immediately took off after he woke up. He kind of dozed as we walked up to Daiso, but didn’t fully fall back to sleep.
At Daiso we got little wood pen holders to act as book holders by his reading area. We also saw cool monster erasers and bought them as a “present for mama.”
From there we walked to the park basically behind Daiso. He claimed he didn’t want to go to a playground, but wanted to go to a coffeeshop instead. Carly joked that he is already 3o. He reluctantly started to play at the park when I got the stick out and started doing ABC. He got really interested in a sculpture two girls were making out of sticks, rocks, ice, and leaves. I got him away from that area by playing with the ice built up around the water fountains. We broke pieces of that off, and he stomped at them and looked for air bubbles for quite awhile.
He then wandered over to the play structure, where he wanted me to help him up and down all of the ‘big kid’ ways of getting up – the net ladders, the climbing wall, the rope stairs, etc. We did them all (the rope stairs were a bit tough coming back down) except the actual ladder. He worked on that himself for awhile though.
We then went back to the sand area, where the girls had left. He found and old leaf and said “Ooh. Cool leaf. Texture!” I let him touch their sculpture, but not take it apart. He wanted to do his own sculpture. We sort of stacked some rocks in the sand but he kept knocking them down. Then he pointed to the platform in the sand area and said “Sculpture here.” I lined up a few rocks along the edge and he took it from there, making almost the entirety of the figure we ended up making, using rocks I gathered. And as soon as he was done with it (the last rock he was placing at a tangent and calling it a Q), he destroyed it by knocking all of the rocks and sticks off.
It was now past 4, but he wasn’t ready to go home to mama. We spent some more time doing ABC on the ice and in the water in the drain, then I was able to convince him it was time to leave. He initially dropped the little stick we had been using to write ABCs back in the sand area, but then he turned around and went back and got it and said “Little stick in backpack.” We wiped off our hands and headed home, walking through apartment complexes, parks, and the Bible University much of the way before ending up back on the main street.
We got home about 5:20, after Carly. In the evening we built his Teuni ball, after which he didn’t want to play with it, but just take it apart and build it again. I told him tomorrow. He had a really nice bath with Carly, then we gave her the erasers. Well, sort of. August decided he really likes them, so he didn’t actually hand them to her. But she opened them and he played with them, making 11s and 111s and lining them all up. We spent some time writing more of the words he is picking up in his little word book. Then, while drawing on the floor with Carly, he noticed the book stands set up. He said “No” and proceeded to take off all the books and take out the stands that hadn’t been stuck down yet. Sigh.
At some point he asked Carly for a word in Spanish. She said she didn’t know, and he immediately and forcefully said “Look it up!” Soon after that, he asked for something, and Carly didn’t understand and said “What are you asking for?” and he said “Asking for this.” and pointed.
He realized the B letter shape was missing, and kept looking for it – primarily under the couch cushions and couch. I used the flashlight on my phone to look under the couch and he called it “sunny”.
When Carly first tried to get him off to bed, he delayed, saying “Read books in the reading area.” The first attempt to put him to sleep failed, and he was back out with me around 9. We drew and read and typed for awhile, then he was obviously v
ery tired, so I steered him back in. Thought he would go to sleep pretty easily. I came out and read one Atlantic article about Kindergarten in Finland, then heard him starting to really climb. I quickly finished getting ready for bed, then went in. He was clearly exhausted, but couldn’t get to sleep. I sang to him and he nursed more, and finally we got him to sleep about 10:30. When I was singing, he kept insisting on “English” a few times, even though I was already singing in English. I think he may have meant “phonics”, which we only apply to English songs, as he said it when I sang the Big Numbers song, and then the regular ABC song. I switched back to the A makes Ahh song, which he class the “phonics song” and he was fine.
New words/phrases: eliphante, gato, shower, cerdo, scratchy, push uno; no push ocho, Where dada?, watch your head, uva (grape), parentheses, dada fix it
Headed to Home Plus. Noticed the square and called it a Hangeul ㅁ:
Touching the letters on the sculpture:
Class:
Walking home. Checking out the toy box:
Flying home:
Eumji Children’s Park:
All the big kid stuff:
The shaky stairs. He is off finding the next thing to climb:
Sculpture time. The inspiration:
The sculpture:
Back home:
Lining up the erasers:
