He slept all the way to 8:35. First thing I heard him saying was “Dada”. Went in and he said “iPad…watch ABC songs on the iPad…on the couch.” Changed him, after which he wanted his new pajamas off. But then he cheered up with ABC songs and while watching a colors song over and over was working on spelling colors (asking a lot of “How bout…?”). One of the songs had an alien spaceship. He asked what it was and I said “spaceship”. He said “ Spaceship at children’s museum” (the one you can push the buttons in) and I mentioned it might not be there any more since they were changing that floor. He then said “Sad about the spaceship at the children’s museum.”
Since he slept late, we didn’t have a lot of morning time to hang around. We left a little after 10 and made our way to the back entrance to Olympic Park. We were walking into the park when he decided he really wanted eggs. So we backtracked a bit and went to C U where he also wanted kimbap, then spotted a pack of mandarin oranges in what I thought was syrup. We got those and went out and sat on one of the same benches as last time and ate lunch. Turned out the oranges were actually in jello. He really liked that. It seemed like he ate a ton of food, then he wanted to throw away our garbage and look into the garbage cans, so we made to walks over to do that. He was playing around and stood on a little curb around a tree and wanted to know what it was. He was happy to learn the word “curb”. Then, a motorbike was coming down the walkway sort of towards him and I heard him say “uh-oh”. He didn’t panic though, and took a step to the side. The motorbike actually headed off towards the left, across the plaza, so it wasn’t all that close when it went by.
He wanted to do some walking, so we started walking into the park. But then he was suggesting we go home. I was reminding him of all the things in the park, and mentioned puzzles at the history museum. He started saying “Sad about one”. When I asked for clarification, he said “Sad about the one puzzle here” and pointed ahead of us. We were still on the other side of the park, but he was remembering that there was a piece missing from the puzzle we worked on at the museum last time.
We walked through the sculpture area and he saw some big rocks he wanted to play on. So I got him down. First he walked up and then down a set of gentle steps cut into the hill. He wanted me to carry him back to the backpack, and on the way he saw the big green sculpture of what looks like alien praying mantises and was intrigued by that. He then tried climbing on the rocks. He said he had something in his right shoe, so we sat on a rock and took it off. He wanted to keep walking, so he went back into the backpack. But just a little further up the path it turned into a sidewalk embedded with rocks and he wanted to get back down and see the rocks. He ended up looking at the rocks, picking up a leaf and carrying it around (he said it looked like a globo (balloon), getting out the shovel and playing with it, wading through the leaves to the Elephant Man sculpture and hitting it with the shovel, and admiring a couple other sculptures, one of which he could walk on and then touch the big circle in the center of.
We were getting close to nap time, so time to keep going. As we continued, he spotted a couple more sculptures he liked. One was a big bird head with pieces of tile on the side, so we were able to talk about mosaic and abstract art. We made it to the history museum and played with the puzzles for a few minutes. Didn’t last long though, as he was clearly tired. The nursing/changing room was occupied, and he seemed scared of the regular bathrooms, so we went back outside to change him. Ended up in a nearby bathroom with more lighting, but he still wasn’t happy about it, really clinging to me as I tried to set him down. Once that was over and he was in the backpack he fell asleep after just a few minutes of walking up along the fortress path. I went to the Eat coffee shop by the art museum and he slept from 2:11 to 3:04.
When he woke up he wanted to head straight outside. So we walked out, and I gave him some options for what we could do. I mentioned pine needles and “Pine needles!” won out. So we got down in the same spot we played with pine needles last time. He played with pine needles, but was more into finding rocks and counting them and deciding if the looked like a triangle or square. We got out the tennis ball and were rolling that down the hill, then he wanted to walk up the hill a bit. We went up there, and he felt something in his left shoe this time. We sat on the hill and he sat on my lap and we dealt with that, then just sat there for several minutes singing songs and playing with the stick from the backpack.
We went back down, and he decided he wanted more food. So he sat on my lap again and ate what felt like a second lunch. The grass we were sitting on was dry and sticking to our clothes and hands, which he found both “Messy” and amusing. While sitting there he got to watch helicopters and planes (U.S. military) fly overhead, we spotted a nest, and he watched a pressure washer. While eating crackers he called them pink. I pointed out they were more yellow and white and brown. He only budged a little, then calling them “Kind of pink”.
I convinced him to go to the art museum, which he was opposed to. It would have been okay, but there was a lot of object-sort of art, like a desk with items all over it. This made him want to touch things, and he couldn’t. Once we were back outside and he had calmed down he would say he was “Sad about the touching.”
We were ready to change him and head home, but I had forgotten about his new found love of playgrounds, and as we headed to the other subway station we passed a playground. I said we needed to get home to mama, to which he said “Play at the playground three minutes”, holding up three fingers. He’s never said anything like that before. So we played at the playground (more like 10 or 15 minutes). He walked up the steep stairs by himself, then went back and forth on the shaky bridge. He tried climbing the rope ladder thing, and the metal climbing part opposite that. I put him in the shaky jeep, but then the other boy in it started to shake it really hard and that freaked August out. I quickly grabbed him and it took him some time to calm down. We went and changed him, then headed home.
He had no problem staying in the backpack for the first two legs of our journey. On one stretch there were several teenage girls that he sang ABC to and they were interacting with him. For the long trip we got to sit down and play on the iPad.
Carly was home before us. In the evening he ate dinner and played with the magnet set with Carly )working on animal names in Spanish). I prepared and gave him his bath, which he was not happy about at all. It had gotten so easy with the bath letters and everything, but now he is afraid of the dripping. When he was feeling better and playing around he hid from Carly behind one of the Hangeul cards, but then walked into the doorframe. Carly took a shower and he cuddled next to me on the couch and was hiding from her. He then wanted to make a play dough banana and peel it, so we did that. About 9 Carly needed to head to bed to get some sleep. I was going to stay up with him, but he wanted to stay with her. So he and I read Bob books at the foot of the bed, and a few minutes later he wanted to nurse and go to sleep. They were both asleep by 9:30.
New words/phrases: nozzle, hose, history museum, nest, helicopter, kind of pink
Wanting the owls off:
But now he’s happy:
At lunch:
Sculpture area
Sculpture he liked:
History museum:
Pine needles and rocks:
Another sculpture he liked:
Headed home:
