Tuesday: Children’s Grand Park

He woke up at 7:18. First I heard was the door opening. Then he closed it. I went back to typing, then he opened it again and I went down to him. I sat in the bed and eventually he closed the door yet again. We played with Green Monster for a minute, then out to the couch and pastels. He then turned to the iPad and mainly played Elmo ABCs – he is fixated on the letter ‘W’ in that game for some reason. We had Cheerios and strawberries for breakfast, then when we started getting ready to leave he requested oatmeal, so we had some of that as well.

We left the house before 9:30. On the subway down he did more Elmo ABC and then we drew shapes on Paper. He is getting better at the shape tool, making triangles, ovals, circles, and rectangles. And, once, a trapezoid. He still likes erasing all the time, so I showed him the ‘undo’ button, which he started to get ahold of.

At Children’s Grand Park, our first stop, after buying kimbap and an apple cookie, was a bench in front of the children’s museum, where we had a snack. It was a bit chilly, but sunny; he admitted he was cold, but wouldn’t wear his coat or sweatshirt – mainly sat close to me. We ate the apple cookie and kimbap, then played around (did some stepping on my shadow). He wanted to take a photo of the wrappers, so we did that. We took our garbage over to the cans, then we were back playing in the O-shaped bench. He wanted to sing Bingo, so we were doing that when another little boy came over and sort of danced around a little as well (but mainly stared at us).

Once again, no children’s museum for us. He wanted to go to the old playground. I carried him up the path, and thought he had pooped. I asked him a few times, and he said “No…No…No poop. No change diaper.” But when I set him down and checked, I found otherwise. I think this is his first really clear, not just joking, fib. That I’ve caught, anyway.

As we entered the playground I took a sadly symbolic photo: the last drum had broken off of the plastic drum kit. Someone had set it up like a garbage can by the entrance, and it was full and surrounded by garbage – more than a day’s worth. A good indicator of just how abandoned this playground is (all the musical instruments are coming apart) and of the poor availability of garbage/recycling. There is a set of them out on the main path, but nothing by the huge playground area.

At the playground he looked for garbage in order to cover it with sand. We did a little writing in the sand as well. He wandered around on the play structure, reading letters everywhere, and throwing off the shovel, while I stayed on the ground and hid behind the panels. He was having difficulty with his hat, taking it off quite a bit. I let him keep it off while we went over and played with the musical instruments. He tried them all out on his own, using our stick for the one that no longer has any of its own. He wanted to sit on the drum, but there was water on top. I brushed and dried it off, but he still didn’t trust it, so never got on it.

I tried to get his hat back on, but he got upset. We took a break and went and sat on our bench. He calmed down and sat on my lap for few minutes, then lay face down and was looking around, playing “This is a?” I eventually started saying “Mookah Mookah (his new made up word)” for everything, which he found very funny. He wanted to climb on the rocks behind the bench, then found a drink container he wanted to throw away. He walked it around to the garbages by the path, and on the way back saw the water faucets. When he saw them he exclaimed “Remember!” and pointed. We played in them for a few minutes, with him splashing in the puddle.

I got him away before his shoes got soaked. Changed him and got him ready for a nap and did our walking. Took close to a half hour. We went to the upstairs cafe and he slept from 1:06 to 1:49. Woke up early, I think, because he had leaked. Left our stuff in the cafe and took him out and changed him (diaper #3). Went back and he sat on my lap, playing iPad, drinking water, and eating my ice. Eventually he got down and walked around, and sat on one of the low chairs. We were sitting there when he looked at the books and said “Want this one” and went and grabbed a book, which happened to be a Korean book about Picasso. Don’t think he could tell that though, although he was able to read ‘Picasso’ on the cover when we looked at it. Looked at that several minutes, then we were spelling words. I asked him if he could spell ‘shoe’, and it turned into a joke, with him saying things like “S H O 14!” He started singing ABC and getting rambunctious so time to head out, about 3.

He walked/ran, spelling ‘queen’ as he went, and led the way to the new playground. There we played in the sand (more garbage burying), then I helped him up on the hill. There, there were two girls that were really interested in him. He was counting them, and one went down the hill he said “Only one!” He really liked the pants of one of the girls, as they were covered with letters. I pointed out a boy carrying one of the dinosaur balloons they sell in the park and suddenly I realized August had his sad look. I picked him up and he cried on my shoulder for several minutes. When he calmed down I was asking him what made him sad. He wouldn’t tell me, but if I asked if it was the balloon he would say “No” – to everything else he just wasn’t responding. Eventually, as we sat on a bench, he was saying “sad about this one (pointing to nothing at first, then a piece of cardboard or the arm of the bench)…sad about the bench.”

Finally made our way out of the park, changing him one more time (diaper #4) and headed home. It was a slow walk from the bathroom to the train platform though: August said “Dada be frozen” about 50 times. He walked the entire way, except for two stairways he decided he wanted to play and sit on and I had to pick him up and take him down. Later, he would tell Carly “Sad about the stairs.” One nosy woman on the subway home (she stood, bent over August, to see what he was doing on the iPad – I tolerated it all until she started stroking his cheek), but otherwise a day of pleasant interactions with people, including an old woman at the elevators who was pretty funny with August when we got home about 5:40 and Carly wasn’t there and simply turned around to go back down to find her. We started walking, looking for her.

After the morning hat difficulty August had been better with it. But as we walked into the building the first time it twice blew off his head and got tangled around his neck. When it happened the first time (August somehow managed to also get his arm stuck in it) I had offered to simply take his hat off, but he wanted it back on. It then happened again, right as we were entering the building proper. This time, as we walked back through this area, with no hat on, he said something like “No wear hat here” – a good idea as it is windy as you enter the building due to the hole through the building and, I think, drafts from the parking garage.

Anyway, we walked down by the pink building and saw Carly crossing the street with two co-workers. We had to wait about 10 seconds before they crossed to our side. I told August to call out “Mama!” and this time he did – in the past I would say that, but of course I’d be whispering it to him, so he would whisper to. This time he said it loudly and actually got her attention.

At home he requested mango, so ate some of that. He also had some soup. A bit later he requested oatmeal again, so Carly made him some, and put mango in it, which he found exciting. He took a long bath. Today they were writing the names of shapes on the door – afterwards he could spell ‘oval’ and ‘star’ when I asked him. They nursed and did a lot of reading. At one point they moved from the couch to the reading area. August likes to take the shortest route – i.e. over the arm – and I was in the way, so he said “Walk through da
da.” Carly took a shower and he and I looked at In the Garden and played with Green Monster and Marshy and Bluie on the bed – he wanted them to do the Bluie dance and sing him happy birthday. We also started making up mooka mooka song. We were back out in the reading area when Carly finished getting ready for tomorrow and picked him up. He was ready for bed and fell asleep a little after 9.

New words/phrases: spelling ‘down’, photo of wrapper cookie, spelling yo-yo, find some garbage with the shovel, foil, something to recycle, bury it, just one (girl), both wearing hats, spelling ‘star’ and ‘oval’

Morning: