Children’s Grand Park
He was asleep to 7:53 – almost 12 hours of sleep. More sad than upset for a minute, then up and ready for the day. The usual morning: Cheerios and strawberries for breakfast, writing with the markers, playing with his door magnets. When it came to brushing his teeth, I started doing it when he was watching ABC songs, instead of Teuni Teuni. He was excited by this and said “Brush your teeth (to) ABC songs!” Later, as we were getting ready to leave, he went into the kitchen and started looking through the door, talking to himself: “What you looking for?…flashlight…flashlight in there.” But it wasn’t. I looked with him for a bit, but he had to wait until the evening, when we found it under the table. Anyway, he was distracted away from that by the “1 potato…” song playing on the iPad.
Finally, before we left he started writing ‘5’ on the paper. He was saying and writing “Hangeul ㄴ”, then saying “turns to ‘5’” and drawing a backwards C. The first few times I then had to remind him to draw the top line, but after that he would then draw the top line. In the evening, when he was showing Carly, he started doing the ㄴ/backwards C part as a single line and didn’t have to say the instructions out loud to himself.
We left a little before 10. Had two seats heading down, which was nice. He was mainly doing Dr. Seuss and Art Maker on the subway today. The children’s museum was busy-ish. I have neither figured out the Korean school calendar, nor why the museum (or certain areas in it) is busy one day, but empty the next. August and I saw elementary students leaving schools yesterday, but today the museum was all families. Anyway, he started by wanting to go downstairs, but changed his ming after we were down there a few seconds – I think because it was busy. We went back up and into the nature and art areas. He played around for awhile, but was getting frustrated by not being able to use the chalkboard. Then, when we finally got a turn, a girl came and stood right by us after a minute, so I made him get up after a bit, and he wasn’t happy about that (nor was I, frankly, as her mom was standing right next to her – go do something else for awhile). He played with the light stuff – stacking blocks, etc. – for 10 minutes or so, then wanted to go eat. So we went up and had lunch. He was all about throwing things away at the end again.
From there we did the air/ball stuff on the third floor again, then I followed him down the ramp to the second floor. There are two plastic astronauts (a photo zone), and one is holding up a peace sign. August was walking by and did a double take, then held up his two fingers (he uses his pointer and thumb) and said “Two!” Played with the Hangeul magnets for a couple minutes, then wanted to go somewhere else. Said “No” to the little kids area, but walked him over that direction anyway, and he changed his mind. He spent much his time there focused on two things: First, the leaf-shaped cushions on the floor. They have 5 little harder bumps in them, which he noticed and found fascinating. So he would reach down and touch them, and step on the cushions, and walk from one to another. Second, the wooden puzzles and magnet thing (“metal…not metal”). On the way out, he played with the triceratops, shoving it off the railing, but that was about it for everything else.
From there we went right next door to the book area. We grabbed several books, and since we didn’t have our shoes on yet, and the little loft area was empty, we went up there and read/looked at them – mainly the Oh No! book again, which is where I think his interest in falling came from, since his favorite picture is the boy falling out of the tree.
We headed out and he started with a snack on our walk, then fell asleep. So took a little over 20 minutes. He slept from 1:42 to 2:37. I’ve noticed that sometimes when he sleeps in the backpack with his arms hanging over the side, that when he wakes up he shakes and rubs his hands like they are bothering him – I think the circulation is being cut off and they are falling asleep. The solution is to make sure his hands are up inside the cover area. Today he woke up and immediately said “Cold”. I had forgotten, and let his right hand come out and he was leaning his head on his right shoulder, which probably made it worse. His right hand was, indeed, cold, while his left was nice and warm.
Played on the iPad for a few minutes, but then wanted to go see animals. But he wanted in the backpack, which was good, because we did a lot of walking. He wanted to see the primates, but they were inside. We saw the cats, the hyenas, went upstairs at the water birds (where he saw the slightly bizarre statue of a giant egg hatching a bird. He wanted to touch the shell and then the big foot. Did that, then went back out, looked at the birds (he said “English Pheasant” again, although at the silver pheasant), then went on to the herbivores. Here the fun was in counting the animals. But he claimed there were 7 guanacos, and 14 zebras (there were 2). Walked back around the zoo, then stopped at the exit to the children’s zoo and had a snack. He ate the rest of his sandoo, singing and stomping around on the wooden floor as he did so. We stopped at the bathrooms at the base of the outdoor stage, which we’ve never used before, to change him, then headed home.
Carly had stopped at the post office, so we beat her home by a few minutes. August was writing with a marker when he heard the door. He shrieked, then scooted a few feet onto the reading area, literally threw the marker back towards the paper, and covered his eyes, and so was ‘hiding’ when Carly came in.
In the evening, he perfected his ‘5’, then focused on ’S’, saying “S is tricky”. I told him it was “C turn to S” or “C, backwards C” and at one point he suddenly got it and was drawing Ss. That just leaves ‘K’ for him to figure out, and ‘9’ in numbers.
Carly got the bath ready, and I gave him a bath. He let Sophie float again tonight. He was playing with the shower door, which is stuck open due to the bath, and started saying “No se peuda” (No it can’t), which I had to call Carly in to translate – she had been using it with him when he tried to close the door.
He didn’t last long after that, and went quietly to sleep a little after 8.
New words/phrases: metal, chips de platano, no se peuda (it cannot), tricky, crunchy, galletas, hard (talking about drawing letters)
Waking up:
Children’s museum:
Cushions:
Zoo:
Snack before we leave:
Evening. S down, one more letter to go (K):
Taking apart our Cs:
