He was awake at 8:05. In the morning we Skyped with Chuck and Cherie and then, a bit later, with my parents. August was not happy about skyping to start with, and we had to call Cherie back once I had him in the parlor playing with the letter sponges. We also played with Marshy, Bluie, and Green Monster a good amount as he was requesting “more happy birthday”.
We got all packed up to go out for the day, and as I was running around to get a last few things done he said “Dada hurry up.” We made it to Home Plus a few minutes before his class. As expected, he pointed out the “Upside down V” once we got up to the culture center area. Things went much smoother today. Still rather shy with the new teacher at first, but made it through the class without having to take break. She still did a lot of talking, and took a long time to explain everything that was in our package of supplies (books, CD, etc.), so I wasn’t too happy with how much time we actually spent playing, but am hoping that will improve next week. Oh, and we have to bring the books each week instead of leaving them with her. Which means I have to carry them to Children’s Grand Park. The activities today were about paper: crumpling and ripping sheets of paper and throwing them in the air, and getting a big sheet of tissue paper to play with. And, of course, since we now had the books, stickers at the end of class. He was in a quick sticker mood today, finding it funny to put all the stickers on one page and on top of each other. He was good about bowing to the teacher and getting a handstamp before we left.
We headed to the subway and got on one of the specially decorated trains again (third time). The car we were in today was night scenes of Macao. We stopped to get kimbap and little eggs for lunch (we had run out of bread, so no sandwich today). A joke he started yesterday was now calling CU “QU”. I corrected him at first, but he clearly said “No, QU” and laughed. He kept saying “eat outside”. It was cold, not yet 40, but it was at least sunny. So we sat on the edge of the pagoda between the children’s museum and the swamp area. Some pigeons came along and he waved and said “Hi” to them a few times. Ate a small lunch, then he was clearly getting cold and said “Too cold” so we packed up and went inside.
In the children’s museum he played on the first floor a bit. Doing the sorting of fruits/veggies by season thing he called it a puzzle, then recalled the Timmy Time episode, which we haven’t watched in many weeks, saying “Sad about puzzle…Timmy makes a puzzle.” Every time we eat something slightly sticky he now starts talking about washing his hands. Writing on the chalkboard was the same. We’ve done it many times, but this time he wanted me to wipe off his hands every couple minutes. He seemed done with the first floor after that, and I picked him up to talk to him. He suddenly said “See rabbit over the selenite.” I looked across the room and, sure enough, there was a rabbit painted on the wall above where the selenite and other minerals are that we had never noticed before. He wanted to go upstairs, so I set him down to get the backpack. He said “Eraser. All done chalkboard.” and erased the chalkboard before we left.
We went up to the second floor and to the book room. Grabbed a bunch of books and read them up in the loft. Mainly Uh-Oh and the Opposites book, then he wanted to go find Numbers and we read that once. Went to change him before nap time, and he started to talk about “Clase sad.” Basically, from what I could gather, he was either sad that the teacher plays a different song at the end of class, or one of the songs she played was sad. But it was definitely about the music. Then, we were outside having a snack before his nap, and he said “Sad bout the music at city hall. Play one song.” And held up one finger. Now, he has continued to mention the music thing regularly, but I don’t remember saying ‘City Hall’ for a couple days.
We got to walking and it took awhile but he fell asleep from 1:46 to 2:37. He wanted to leave the coffee shop right away, and we went to the zoo. Walked around the fierce animals, then he wanted to see the birds. Thought he meant the pheasants, etc. but then he clarified he wanted to see a white goose. So we went to the water birds. He then wanted to go upstairs and see the big hatching eggs and turn the penguin exhibit things. From there we walked past the tropical building, but it was closed for some reason, then went in the children’s zoo. The fennec foxes weren’t out, but he wanted to hold one. As we got down by the goats and horses, a whole group of zookeepers were walking down the path. It was his lucky day. The zookeepers were getting into the horse enclosure to care for the horses (hooves, etc.) so we got to watch. August was excited that they were going in the enclosure. We watched them, and August got down and threw bits of straw in to the goats. He was leaking, so I had to go change him. Did that, and when we came back a zookeeper stopped us from going in the ‘exit’ and told us to go around – they were dealing with the most skittish horse, I think, and had closed the path while they did it. As we walked the other way, August said “Zookeeper says go this way.” We went around and played with the goats for several more minutes before heading home.
On the way home he said “Read Oh No! on the iPad.” Wishful thinking, but that’s the book he really likes at the children’s museum. Stopped and got bread on the way home and a vegetable croquette to share and got home a few minutes before Carly, who had stopped at the grocery store for a few things.
In the evening he was playing with the orange ball and joking that it was the Teuni ball. Carly fed him and he did a lot of nursing. We started his bath and he was said, saying his lyrical “No, no, no, no, no.” I gave him a bath, and when I started washing his hair he started talking about closing his eyes, which Carly has him do. It was funny to see him practice closing his eyes, as it was a full facial movement.
We opened the rest of his presents. From my parents a letter water writing book (to match the number one last night), a dinosaur shirt, a Little Houses counting book, two I Spy books, and some shoe lights. From Megan a Hawaiian coloring book. From Glecy a Seattle counting book and finger paints. He immediately wanted to use the finger paints and was sad that he couldn’t use them right away.
Before bed he had a little crazy time and we had two games that set him to laughing: me freezing, then him poking me and me saying “Hey!” He was asleep a little before 9:30.
New words/phrases: mayonesa, croquette, all downloaded
An advertisement for my famous oatmeal:
Class:
New books:
CGP:
Children’s museum:
Zookeepers, horses, and goats:
Singing together on the way home:
Taking a bath:
Fun time in the evening: