A few out of the ordinary things today: I had to wake him up. Twice. He didn’t ask about the iPad at all in the morning, and just once in the evening. And he was very quiet/mellow through almost all of our outing today, only starting to sing/talk on our walk home with Carly.
He didn’t wake up until 8:40, at which point I turned on the light and started talking to him. Woke up just fine though. First toy of the day was the little flashlight, which he found in the kitchen drawer and we had to put new batteries in it. From there we were on to making letters out of Duplos, then ate leftover eggs and then Cheerios and strawberries for breakfast. There was doing ABCD on the paper, then playing in the sink, lining up the letter shapes (he doesn’t really request play dough letters nowadays) and looking for ‘missing’ ones, and playing with his door magnets and singing. He got out his old sticker books, and was interested in the dinosaur one. There is a sticker puzzle in the back, and we finished that. He was doing a good job at the beginning of matching the sticker to the proper spot, although near the end he was less concerned with that. Finally, we watched Teuni Teuni and brushed his teeth.
He was interested in so much stuff at home that we didn’t leave the apartment until noon. We headed to Dream Forest, as we haven’t been there in a few months. We did a little singing at the beginning, but then he was quiet, and didn’t want me to sing as well. When we got near the Wolgye library I asked if he wanted to go in, but he said no, and just wanted to keep walking. Which was good, because it was closed. He was quiet the whole 2.75 miles to and into the park, although once we got to the park he said “Here” a few times. But then once in the park there wasn’t anything he wanted to do. The children’s art museum was closed anyway, and when we got in the performance art building, the art gallery was closed. Too bad, as it looks like we might have just missed a kid-friendly show. Anyway, even when I went to take him out of the backpack, he just wanted to sit in the backpack for a couple minutes on the bench.
So we went back down a floor to the Dream Cafe. Convinced him to go there by mentioning the iPad. They were out of strawberries to make strawberry juice, so the only kid-friendly thing they had was bottle orange juice. We got one of those to share and hung out in the book cafe for about an hour. He did some Dr. Seuss, then mainly art. There was one bigger girl there, and she was doing the wooden tree thing on the wall. August went over and watched her, and he did the wooden flower path thing. The first time I’ve seen him able to really move the wooden pieces along the curved paths, either here or elsewhere. Back at the iPad, he was flipping among apps, and asked himself “What you looking for?” again. He settled on Endless Spanish (first word was, of course, ‘todas’ so he could watch Pinkerton eat the cookies). To spice it up, he turned the iPad upside down and was spelling and putting words in the sentences upside down. We also ate a first lunch there.
It was now past 2 – he was not wanting to leave, but finally got him out of there (he didn’t want to pose as Max on the way out). Took him up and changed him, and he did a lot of screeching/screaming. Finally he was acting tired, but in the unfortunate way. Got him in the backpack and started walking. Had intended to walk around and return to the same cafe, but didn’t see the point of staying at Dream Forest. Started walking towards APIS using the north route, as Carly said we could meet up and walk home together. He fell asleep pretty quickly, at 2:48. The first cafe I found only served tea, so I was walking back towards some chain coffee shops I had seen, but was by the tree playground that is identical to the one near us. It was a warm 40 degrees, and I didn’t want him to nap to long anyway. So, I decided to taketh nap in the park. I sat right next to him and held his hands and read my book. He slept well, as I had to wake him at 3:38. He woke up fine, but didn’t want to play in the park.
So we kept walking. He did spot some ducks in the stream, and liked the deer pictures on a wall, but otherwise was pretty quiet. Every few minutes I would ask to hold his hands, and after I grabbed one he would say “other one” to make sure I took both.
We got to the APIS area and went to the park/water park across the street. Again he didn’t want to go the playground (actually complaining when he saw it), and wanted to continue up the hill instead, where he was fine sitting down on a bench. I got him out of the backpack and set him on the bench. Still very quiet, so I asked him if he was sad or happy. He smiled and said “Happy!” Ate a second lunch, finishing of the quinoa and eating the banana and some strawberries. After we were done eating he wandered around the top of the hill a little, but didn’t really get into writing ABCDs. That worked out though, as it was now 4:30 and we walked over to the school.
Been a couple months since we had been there, and August wasn’t happy with seeing all the people. As we approached the field he saw the kids and said “No.” Inside the school, he instantly got his about-to-cry face, so hurried upstairs. He kept quiet though until we ran into Megan and I thought he might be okay seeing her. He wasn’t, so we continued on to Carly’s room. Then he was fine. Nursed and then he remembered all the art supplies in her room: he made soup using the paper plates, then was using markers to “Work on…” letters with Carly.
Walked home. He found his voice, and was singing exuberantly much of the way home. It was the August Zinn show again. Took him awhile to quiet down as we entered the building and there wasn’t all the background noise. By the time we got home, I had carried him 6.2 miles today. At home, he picked up the empty cereal box that he had knocked on the floor earlier and was waving it around saying “vacio” (empty). We then invented the sleeping elephant game, where I pretended to be a sleeping elephant and he poked me to wake me up. He would keep saying “More sleeping elephant.” Played on/by the couch, then in on the bed. Back out in the living room, he wanted me to lift him up to touch the lights, as Carly had plugged them in. He wanted something and Carly said “Talk to dada”. He then said “Talk to papa”, pronouncing ‘papa’ in his best Spanish.
He was doing art with Carly again (we got out a new notebook), and “Work(ing) on…” letters. He could now write 22 letters (all but K, R, S, and X, with i, j, and l in lower case), having recently gotten down E, F, and Y, and by the end of today was doing R (“P turn to R” as he makes the final line) and X pretty well.
He was then lining up the letter shapes in alphabetical order. He lined up all 21 letters we actually have – the only help I provided was moving the line down when he ran out of space on the table, and I gave hints for where some of the next letters were when he couldn’t find them in the basket.
Carly gave him a bath, which was fine but he was really screaming as she washed his hair. So then she was getting him to practice closing his eyes.
He wanted to help me with the bed again, so we entirely made my side of the bed so he could push down all the sheets and blankets. Finally, he found a wrapper of something that had fallen on the ground and enjoyed throwing it away. But as Carly lifted him up to the garbage can he saw a marker we had thrown away and had to save it.
He was the one that wanted to read and take books in to the bedroom. Carly grabbed some books and we went in. I read him Happy Birthday, then Where the Wild Things are twice. Carly then took over, reading Alphabet, and he went to sleep soon after that, around 9:15.
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New words/phrases: push 1 in the elevator, where (does) it go? (dinosaur stickers), louder, silent, artwork, broken, en orden, vacio (empty), thousand, million (asking what they were in Spanish), move it down (letters when he ran out of room), feet in the crack (as he helped make the bed and put his feet in the crack)
On our walk:
Dream Cafe:
An outside nap:
Walking to APIS. Looking at the deer:
A snack:
Carly’s classroom:
Home. Both blue water bottles:
Working on R:
