Pollution was high again today, so August ended up staying indoors all day. I had thought about taking him over to the art museum play area at one point, but he wasn’t excited by it, so we stayed home. August and I slept in until 8. After he woke up he did a lot of reading with Carly: Bob books, Wild About Books, and others. He then did art with me and Peter Rabbit (he liked Peter Rabbit to do all the erasing) while Carly made some food for one of the new moms at work.
Carly then went downstairs to a coffee shop to get some work done. We did more art and some reading, then played with balloons. We then did fort time on the couch. We were back in the parlor, and he was looking at the set of Bob Books and noticed the photos of the other sets on the back of the box. He really wanted collection 3. I went to the closet and got out collection 2 and we opened that, and were reading the first book, Rub-a-Dub-Dub.
Carly had gone to the store to get fruits and veggies, then came home around 1:30. I then headed out. The art show, Rubens and Other Masters, was from the collection of the Prince of Lichtenstein and at the special exhibit space at the National Museum. It was the last day of the show, which was a mistake, as it was busy. Stood in line for about a half hour only to go in and find that you had to take a number and it would be another hour. So I went into the regular history museum and went and saw their current special exhibit on preservation science, which was kind of interesting. I then walked over to the new Hangeul Museum, which we haven’t yet been to, and saw the main exhibit space there. I then returned to the Rubens exhibit and went in. Stayed for a little over an hour and a half. Very worth it for the Rubens, but the Brueghels were my favorite. We had seen Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s Triumph of Death at the Prado in Madrid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triumph_of_Death). Here, they had a copy made by his grandson, Jan Brueghel the Younger. It was 99% identical, but with changed colors and details, including more carrion birds and a few more Catherine wheels. Similarly, they had a copy of the Numbering of Bethlehem by his son, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, but I haven’t seen the original.
Before I left I got two copies of the Where’s Waldo?-type book based on the show called I See 100 – a copy for August and one for Meg, who had planned to go with me but needed to work on school stuff.
I got home just before 7, and just in time: August was ready to go to sleep. I was basically able to say hi, then he nursed and went to sleep a few minutes before 7. While I was gone they had done some painting, nursing, reading, cleaning, math, and listened to the new ABC tongue twister song on repeat. He is getting better at the sponge painting: he can now press down on the letters to make a letter on the page. When the letters were tipping over, Carly showed him how to use his palm to do it and he caught on quickly. He would then run into the other room to get more letters to paint with. They made a smoothie, and he was upset when Carly put fresh strawberries in the smoothie: he only wanted frozen. I think this happened once when I did the same thing. He spent a long time in the bathroom, spelling words. ‘Gargantuan’ has been the favorite of recent baths. We only have one of each letter, so Carly has to move the letters around, which he finds funny.
New words/phrases: spelling mommy, several others I keep forgetting to note.
Opening the second set of books:
From my trip. The restoration science exhibit:
Hangeul museum:
Art show:
