Wednesday: Children’s Grand Park

An interesting sick day for August. He was awake at 7:12. Woke up okay, but wanted to nurse. Finally got him to laugh and that got him ready to leave the room. He wanted to go watch ABC songs. I asked if he wanted me to carry him and he said “Zinnie walk” and slid off the bed and walked out to the living room. Tried his temperature 3 times; only got it to 37.3, but may have been a bit higher.

We ate oatmeal for breakfast. While making it, we sang the ladybug song, but he wanted to add ’14’ to it everywhere, so we sang “landed on my 14…” and “Oh lady bug 14, lady bug 14, won’t you be my friend 14 14…” He requested the “Bye fuzzy” line he found so funny yesterday, and we ended up changing the “Warm kitty” song to “Warm fuzzy”. He was impatient to go outside, so I decided we’d go to Children’s Grand Park as planned. He requested more Smokey talking about zookeepers to entertain him on the changing pad; he would ask for this several times during the day, including at the zoo, making me think he should actually take Smokey to the zoo next time to see the zookeepers.

So we left nice and early, at 9:20. Read Dr. Seuss the entire way down. As we got him in the backpack at the other end, he spotted ‘q’ in a sign that said ‘equipment’. He started riffing on his “Q for…” joke and said “Q for parentheses…7 turn to Z…1…78…exclamation point…”

We got to the children’s museum right at 10, only to find it closed this week. This happened last year, so I’d been expecting it. But I didn’t see any signs about it last week and there was no text message to members. So rather annoying, especially when you’re standing there with a toddler saying “Go in, go in, go in please…” Went to the Arisu water museum instead. Played with the pumps, where I got another “Zinnie do it” as he was trying to figure out the stair step one that required turning a handle in a circle. We then played with the water wheels – it is a good lesson in cause and effect, and he’s starting to demonstrate understanding that blocking one channel will affect another channel.

I needed to change him and he was done with the water, so we walked to the bathroom by the new playground, as that is where he wanted to go next. But in that bathroom the door wouldn’t open to the changing room. Luckily, it was the 16th, meaning they had just opened all the bathrooms closed for the winter. We walked to the top of the hill, behind the amphitheater, and changed him there. He changed his mind, wanting to go to the old playground, so we walked down the other side. He decided not to play once we got there, but we sat on a pagoda and ate a little snack. I say little because all he ate was a couple pieces of bar, and refused anything else. I was able to lie back on the pagoda in the sun for a few minutes, which was pretty nice. He changed his mind back to the new playground, saying “Other playground…with letters on ground.” So we walked back over the hill and went to the playground. Mainly played on the hopscotch grid, tracing the letters and counting them (“Up to 8!”), and looking at the ‘6’ upside down to make it go up to 9. Got him to go up on the play structure for a minute and onto the shaky net floor, which he had liked once, but he said “No fun shaky floor. Get off.”

He then wanted to see animals, so we walked around the zoo, seeing the hyenas, lynx (which was actually awake and taking a bath, but still perched way up on top), and servals (“Hold it!” he said again), then across to the owls. He then wanted to go check on the penguins (still not out, but you can see one pair on their nest through a camera), then upstairs at the water birds. He showed a little interest in eating, and wanted to go back to our usual spot in the square, but when we got down there he didn’t want out of the backpack and wanted to keep going. A brief walk through the children’s zoo (the fennec foxes are out), then we went up and changed him again and walked to put him to sleep. He fell asleep and we went to the first floor cafe. A lot of other sleeping children in there. Busiest I’ve seen it on a non-holiday. Sadly, he only slept 24 minutes, from 12:31 to 12:55. We went out walking, and walked for 35 minutes, wandering north and south in the park. He didn’t fall asleep though, and didn’t want to do anything except walk, so eventually I headed to the subway. We were on one of the decorated trains for the fourth time, and he saw the word ‘Wedding’ on the floor, so was naming out the letters and learning the word.

We went to Costco and got 5 sets of the Bob Books, a block of cheese, and a chicken bake. August did really well, especially considering how sleepy he was and our failure at free samples: he didn’t want the tuna on bread, and when I hated him a bit of churro, he immediately gave it back and wanted to wash his hands. We were standing in line and I wiped his hand, then he twice wanted me to “wash the finger”, holding out a single finger for me that still had sugar on it.

We headed home, and I expected him to take a second nap once we got there, but when we approached home a little after 3 he got upset; he just wanted to do more walking. I went inside to put the books and stuff down, then we went out to the park and did laps for 25 minutes. Still no sleep. I was getting tired, so went back in and changed him. He just wanted to go back outside and walk. I tried to get him in the stroller instead, but he wouldn’t get in, just wanting the “Backpack. Please.” I sat with him on the floor and he calmed down. He could tell me he wanted the backpack, didn’t want to go to the stream, wanted to go to the park and walk around like we had just been doing, and didn’t want to go to the other side of the park. A full conversation. So we headed back out in the backpack. Another 15 or 20 minutes and still no sleep, so we started talking. Asked if he wanted to go over the bridge and he said yes. We went over there, then I mentioned the art museum and he got excited.

We went into the art museum (about 4:15) and he wanted to go to the play area. He was now well awake and feeling good. We were there for 20 minutes or so. He was pointing behind the woman sitting in front of the fire extinguisher to see the Q. He was then pointing out the colors and squares (nay-mos) everywhere and singing ABC songs – and we also sang the colors song. And he was Qing the blocks of color on the wall. I mentioned art and he wanted to go see art. Pretty excited, really. We went downstairs and he got the stickers and put them on the wall, then was peeling off stickers and moving them around. Played with the light switches for a few minutes.

Outside I put him in the backpack. There was a pigeon getting close to him. He kept calling it quiet and said “Paloma (Spanish for pigeon) quiet birdy” and Qed it. Finally headed home and got there a little after Carly. He hadn’t eaten much during the day since the oatmeal, and he didn’t eat a ton of dinner: a little mushroom and some toast.

Carly gave him a bath; he was traumatized by washing his hair, as usual. Later, well after the bath, he said “No wash your hair. Sad about the hair.” He read a bit of the Bob Books with Carly. While Carly took a shower we played on the bed, using the blanket for a fort. We were hiding under it when Carly came out, so that lasted a few minutes. She would say things like “Are you under the bed?” and he would say “Nooo.” He wanted to play with the bath letters in the parlor, so he went into the bathroom and said “Take off the present” (from the wall where it was stuck using suction cups). A bit later he went into the bedroom and hid under the blanket all by himself. We were in there for awhile, then he wanted us to all go back out to the living room and said “Mama and dada walk.” He drew shapes with Carly; she would draw and he would scribble over it and say “Bye octagon!” He called the yellow marker “Messy yellow” because the case
has marks from other markers on it.

He went asleep close to 9. Impressive after the short nap and being sick. He was obviously feeling much better by the evening, although Carly thought he still felt a little warm. I changed him a couple hours later as he slept. In his sleep he said “Dada do ABCD.” Ten minutes later he loudly proclaimed “Fuzzy bye-bye”. A bit after that it was “Espanol”, then “owls please…owls please…owls please” and finally “Screaming…screaming…more screaming.”

New words/phrases: camo, this is a…, avocado, rhombus, oval

Waking up: