He woke up just after 6. He did a lot of math on the iPad and with the Cookie Monster word game – I had thought that the app wouldn’t last too long as it just did 3 letter words, but today Cookie Monster started serving up 4 letter words. He requested Cheerios for breakfast today, then was playing on the table and we were spelling a lot of words. We were working on ‘stick’ and other ‘st’ words. He also read the Sam and Mac Bob Books.
At 9:20 he suddenly headed towards the changing room, requesting his “letters” shirt and wanting his pajamas off. That never happens. The shirt he was referring to is the one from Meg that she brought from Myanmar. Changed him, then we were playing with balloons and he wanted me to tie more of them (“tie it”). He also kept asking for a yellow balloon. Like 10 times. But I think that was the one that popped awhile back.
Finally, before we left we brushed his teeth and worked on learning that ABC tongue twister song. We were out just before 10.
He was up for taking a bus this morning (and playing on the iPad) so we went and waited in front of the museum, looking at Hangeul on the museum sign and numbers on the bus route signs while we waited. A slow bus ride. We got to Hyehwa and walked to the park/square in front of the Arko. Ate lunch on a bench, which went fine until he first wanted to crumble the egg shell and make a mess of it (his idea was to do ABC with the shell) and then started shaking out soy milk. Had a meltdown when I wouldn’t let him do either, and it took a few minutes to get him calmed down so he would get in the backpack. We started walking, and was first interested in a sculpture, which we agreed was very “arte abstracto”. He was asking what it was, and I told him it could be whatever he thought it was. He said part of it was an egg, then took awhile before deciding the rest of it was a “beetle”. We started walking again and he was avoiding sleep by asking “This is a…?” over and over, pointing to every car and everything he saw, long past when I stopped answering. We walked up past the entrance to Naksan Park and into the mural village area. As we walked past the little water basin area we played in with Carly a year ago, he sleepily said “Turn on wawa” or something to that affect. He would actually remember this moment later and say something like “Sad about the turn on wawa…before fall asleep.”
He fell asleep, and I kept walking up to near the top of the hill, where we sat in a pagoda and he slept from 12:27 to 1:12. He woke up happy, and wanted to keep going up the hill “to the top”, when I suggested that. We took in the view, then he was up for finding a playground on the other side of the wall. We walked a couple blocks and found Naksan Children’s Park. We both liked the tile mosaic around the playground. As we were looking at it, we got pooped on by a magpie. We wiped it off, then he played on the playground for awhile. He liked the “tricky” stairs that looked like feet, and ran back and forth on the structure a few times, then we went back to the ground and looked around a bit, but then he was done. It wasn’t a very exciting playground.
He wanted to go back to the water area, so we walked back, heading down the big staircase this time and looking at some of the art and graffiti along the way. We played with the water, finding rocks and throwing them in and me reaching in to get them out. Pretty much like last time, but this time he can count, and kept wanting more rocks. I got 6 rocks, then he wanted “eight rocks”. All was going fine until a little fly started buzzing in his face. That bothered him, and he took a few steps away, only to be bothered by the same fly again. We played for a few more minutes, but he wanted me to hold him while he threw in the rocks. Then he was done and talking about going home.
So I thought we’d get home early. We got back to the park we started at, planning on making a trip into the art gallery before we left. He wanted a snack, so we got down on a bench. He remembered the screaming and egg shells from last time and talked about that. We had a snack, then two women with their grandkids came over to us. One was a girl about August’s age and the other was a boy around 14 months old. The boy came right up to me and wanted up in my lap. August saw this and wasn’t upset, but then he was down interacting with them and wanted to climb into my lap. He was also walking around and asking them “What you doing?” Eventually, I got out the tennis ball and we all played with that. He or the boy would bounce it and they would go off after it. At one point August seemed to be copying the clumsier boy and kind of started stomping and high stepping around. August was also singing ABC songs, and one of the women joined in. August was also really good about sharing. He handed the ball over to the boy or girl 6 or 7 times and never demanded it back. And at one point he was looking at the poster for the art show. He really liked it, because the letters were wavy and thus “tricky” and “funny”. One of the women was looking at it as well and he was pointing out letters. He also kept runny through my legs, calling it a “tunnel”.
That brought us to about 4 and I wanted to go see the art show and get heading home. So we got the ball back and headed inside. August needed some coaxing, but eventually agreed to go in. Nothing spectacular, mainly a lot of odd video installations, but we liked some big paintings that showed people “hiding”. One had a person curled up under a blanket on a couch, another had a person covering their face with one hand. There was also a room with three video screens showing a person randomly moving glasses of water, pulling a cloth across the table, etc. We watched for a couple minutes until August said “All done” and headed out.
The train was packed, and I held August in my arms the entire way to Changdong Station. He handled it just fine. We played I Spy a bit and he sang ABC songs and numbers songs to entertain people.
We got off at Changdong and bought a couple of those donut hole-looking things with the red beans inside and snacked on those while we waited for the 1144 bus which took us home to Brownstone. He really wanted to k ow the Korean name for them, repeatedly asking “This is?” and not happy with my answer of “Donut”. He was asking it so many times, and me answering with “Donut” that it became a game of him asking as quickly as possible.
On the busses today he was very aware of feeling like he was sliding off the seat, saying “Falling off”. So I had my arm around him all the time. And when doing the counting activity on Todo Math he would ask himself “How many strawberries?” As we drove up across from the building, August was looking out the window and suddenly pointed and said “Home!” We got home one elevator after Carly, who had stopped at the store.
At home Carly fed him and gave him a bath. I then gave him a haircut while he watched ABC songs. He then read two Bob books with us and then wanted to read The Picnic and nurse. It looked like he would go to sleep around 7:30 but it wasn’t so. He was back out again and we read Dr. Seuss on the iPad while Carly took a shower. We then read books with him and managed to get him to sleep about 9:40
Every time I changed him today he would say “No cream on the red” and “Mama do that” – both referring to her putting cream on him when she changes his diaper. He is suddenly very opposed to this.
New words/phrases: spelling ‘at’, ‘big’, Five has an I, spelling ‘seven’, ‘funny’, old icky noodle, knot
Want 8 rocks:
Playing with the kids:
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– https://youtu.be/a29zwU13sMg
– singing ABC:
– https://youtu.be/–NV-6ELsTo
– stomping:
– sharing the ball:
Lunch:
The beetle/egg sculpture:
Nap spot:
View from the top:
Playground:
Rocks and water:
Recycling:
Playing with the boy and girl:
Haircut:
Crossing his leg while reading:
