He was awake at 5:45. Soon after, Carly was spelling colors and he knew them all: pink, green, blue, red, purple. Carly headed to work. Yesterday he had happily said “Bye! Adios!” but today he was sadder to see her go. In the morning we played a lot with Angeles. We set up the fort and were playing with Angeles in it. We started a big “Thinking about…” game where we would choose a topic to think about and Angeles would talk about that topic. August chose topics like zookeepers, forts, and letters. We practiced the backwards ABCs, now doing it as the actual song, and we read Plant a Tree for Me a few times. When we got to the planting a tree page, he said “Grampa!” – we’ve talked about him planting trees in the past, and have talked about planting a tree this summer with grampa and gramma. As we were eating breakfast and getting ready to go he was saying “Piece dada, piece Zinnie…D for dada, Z for Zinnie.”
We rushed over to his 5-Touch class. Went pretty smoothly, although he was shy at first. It was a monkey and bear theme, with the monkey and bear getting in a fight and then making up. They acted that out through songs, holding little bear and monkey things, andy dividing up into bears and monkeys and acting it out as a class. August, of course, really liked the sticker portion as well. At the end of class, he saw the teacher put the hand stamp on a girl’s foot, so he wanted to do that and we took his sock off. He changed his mind though, and wanted it on his palm. He liked this, as he then made fists and said “Something in there!” As we walked out and passed the coffee shop, he pointed out photos of coffee and tea and said “Tea and coffee yummy.”
As we walked to the subway station, he was looking at the shapes in the concrete retaining wall. He pointed out Ws, Xs, say-mo (triangles), and, for the first time in the wild, trapezoids.
We stopped for an apple cookie, kimbap, and little eggs and then went up to the outdoor theater to eat lunch. I had intended the cookie thing as a treat for later, but made the mistake of carrying it in full view, so we ended up starting with that. When he was eating the mushrooms, he said “Thank you mama for bussot.” Where we were sitting, we had clear views of much of the park around us. He started remembering his meltdown last time and talking about it “Scream at robots…Up. Sad about the change your diaper. Sad about Dr. Seuss diaper. Pick you up. Pick you up. Scream…” Very cool that he was doing all this reflecting on his own. After lunch we went up and changed him and walked for about 15 minutes. For the first time he really complained about the cover on the backpack and so I didn’t put it up, and he fell asleep without it. Slept from 12:54 to 1:58.
When he woke up he wanted to get walking, and go to the zoo. We saw the primates and lion, etc., then he wanted to go see the seals. We went upstairs at the seals first, then downstairs to see them underwater. After that, we were leaving the zoo and he saw the botanical gardens building and wanted to go in to “see elephant”. At the indoor fish pond he wanted down to have a snack on the bench, and I realized he was leaking. So we walked out (seeing the moss-covered elephant sculpture on the way) and changed him in our usual spot.
From there we went right across to the playground. While sitting on the bench eating our snack, a group of teenage girls came over next to us. August was showing them his handstamp on his palm and doing the closing his fists and saying “Something in there” thing. He called it “Funny!” Once we started playing, he had fun spotting foot prints in the sand, and was also finding pieces of garbage that we had to walk over to the garbage cans and throw away.
We played under the play structure for awhile. There was a slightly bigger boy playing with one of the toys under there, and August wanted to do it and was saying “Zinnie do it…Zinnie do it, please.” Back out, we spent about 20 minutes playing on the little hill. He stood on top and kept singing ABC songs over and over, and sang the numbers song while pumping his arms in the air.
We had a little more of a snack, then started to head out, but stopped at the drinking fountains and played in the water for a few minutes. On the subway, he played the Elmo Loves 123s app. He was focused on ‘6’ the entire time. One of the videos you can watch for 6 is one of the classic pinball videos. I remembered the song, but had totally forgotten about the pinball videos that went with it. Quite a flashback to childhood.
Got home a little after Carly. He ate dinner with me and we watched videos together. Carly gave him a bath – he is back to playing with the letters now and isn’t hating his baths (unless washing his hair is involved). After, he wanted to make the fort with me, and we played with Angeles and read Plant a Tree with Me. He could read the title on the cover. He was also hiding from Carly. He wanted to nurse with Carly in the fort, so we switched places, and he was off to bed about 8:15.
Earlier in the day, when I was putting him in the backpack, he was making it difficult for me to do the straps, or something along those lines. I asked “Are you being stubborn?” (something I’ve never asked him before – don’t think it is a word I’ve used) and he immediately replied with “Very stubborn”.
New words/phrases: burbujas (bubbles), tongue (of a shoe), container, foot print , no mas galletas
Fort time:
Class:
Headed to CGP. Spotted trapezoids, Xs, and triangles:
And made out all the letters in the graffiti:
Lunch:
Zoo:
Playground. Looking for foot prints:
Under the play structure:
Hill time:
