When he woke up at 5 or so to nurse Carly heard him say “More Hangeul. More nursing.” He woke up at 7:36. The door opened slightly, then closed. I went back to typing. It cracked open again, and I heard him say “See dada.” As I got up and headed down the hall he said “I see you.” So he was in a happy mood from the start. We played sleeping elephant and Eep and Eeb on the bed, then I got the Korean book and we read that, while he kept freezing me. Finally, a little after 8, he left the bedroom and went out to the paper, then the iPad. We had Cheerios and strawberries for breakfast. The iPad froze, so barely any iPad time this morning. Tried to Skype with my parents but they weren’t online. When I mentioned them, August walked into the parlor and said “Remember the presents.” He then played with balloons and we blew up and tied the last new balloon, the pink one.
We headed to class right at 10. Light drizzle, so stopped to put the cover up and put on my hat. He didn’t complain about the cover. In the park we saw Preacher, so just said hi to him since we were in a hurry. Class went very well. No knees to the head. And he participated from the beginning, going down the walkway, then letting the teacher do a forward roll. Then back for a second. The third time down he gave August two forward rolls, for a total of 4. August was ready to go back for number 5, but we moved on. The activities were perfect: the first was big foamy Tetris-shaped blocks. The intended purpose was stacking them and trying to fill them in (like Tetris), but August preferred to make a big long “arte abstracto” piece on the ground – and he kept pointing and asking “This is a?” then would add more pieces. After that, it was big foamy dice. Again, August focused on the numbers, but he also liked stacking them and knocking them over.
We then packed the dice, 4 at a time, into containers that look like everyone’s favorite non-straight Tetris pieces. They stood and climbed on them, then the teacher made two walking paths using them, and we walked around in circles on the two paths. Class ended with getting a treat from the penguin container, as usual. August was really good at going and sitting by the teacher during all the toy introductions.
The rain was still hanging around, longer than the forecast was suggesting earlier, so I decided to go to Home Plus and get some things and go home for lunch. I asked August what we needed as we headed down and he said “Pepper…hobak (pumpkin)” When we got down to the first basement, he wanted out to look at clothes. Well, to “Find names, numbers.” He started looking around and said “What you need?…socks.” He also said “Mama was here.” and at one specific spot was talking about either sitting on the floor with Carly, or being sad that she wouldn’t let him sit on the floor. He also sounded out and read ‘fresh’ on a shirt. I don’t know where he learned that one. We walked home, rain had stopped. He didn’t like me also holding the diapers and groceries while holding him, so set him down to walk. He didn’t want to get down, but then I pointed out the puddles, and he stomped in puddles along the way.
We ate our kimbap at home for lunch, then changed him and headed out. He said he wanted to “Sit on the names on the picnic mat.” when we got to the park. At Hagye Station there is a store called SN that he always notes. Today he saw it, then said “S N O T. Snot!” Took the subway up to Dobongsan and August recognized the park from the station window. We walked into the park, and August said “Where’s Hangeul?” He noticed that the huge letters to the left as you walk into the park were no longer there. It took me a few seconds to remember that and figure out what he was talking about. Put him in the backpack and started walking for a nap. Took less than 10 minutes. At one point he saw water and said “Throw rocks” but fell asleep a minute later. He slept from 1:32 to 2:26 up in the coffee shop. Still kind of cool, so we sat inside. He woke up and sat on my lap, and we played the very cool Classify It! app. It’s an app from the American Association for the Advancement of Science that is free. You classify animals in various ways (like choosing all the birds, or all the mammals, etc.). It starts easy enough that August could do it with help. We played that for quite awhile, getting up to level four. He learned the phrase “Think so”, as in deciding on whether an animal fit a category or not I would ask “Do you think so?” So he started saying “Think so” every time he, say, chose an animal that eats plants.
We then went out to the park. He wanted to go to a picnic table, but I walked us by a stream area and got him interested in that. Found some rocks he could climb on, then he wanted rocks to throw. I was finding rocks for him, and he made up a “Dada go find rocks” song. I think I fed him the first line, but he finished it. That went on for quite some time. August also spotted a bunch of pigeons that got close. We then went to a picnic table. A different one this time. We put out the picnic mat on the table and had a snack. He looked at that, and wrote the alphabet in the air over and over again, wanting me to say the letters as he wrote them. Sometimes he would be clear with writing them (I could tell the E and F and M, etc.) and other times he was just waving around wildly. He nearly fell of the bench a few times, but managed to keep his balance.
Before we left we went into the changing room, which was open today. You wouldn’t think a changing room would be too exciting, but he wanted to stay in there. He read ‘push’ on the garbage can, then wanted to play with the drawers and the water, and read the backwards letters he could see through the window. It is called the ‘Happy Mother’s Room’. Meant to take a photo, as it is ‘Happy Moder’s Room’ on the door. He also read ‘Coway’ off of the water dispenser, saying it had a “Funny Y”. We then sat in the chair in there together for a few minutes before putting on his shoes.
On the subway home he was counting the people across from us. There were 7. He was then counting them in all 3 languages. His shoe had come off getting him out of the backpack (we had run to make it on the train, so didn’t get him out on the platform), and sitting on the train he started ‘eating’ his sock. This reminds me that he often bites the handle on the backpack (in front of his mouth as he sits there). A couple days ago he gave it a big bite and said “Refreshing!” He’s really been chewing on things recently, like his fingers, or the counter yesterday. But has all his teeth. So don’t know what that’s about.
Pretty easy evening at home. He was stuck to mama. She did some reading with him and they had a nice bath – up until she washed his hair. I said hi as they came out of the bathroom and he said “No dada!” He fell asleep a little after 8.
New words/phrases: reading ‘made’ ‘parking’ ‘Korea’, steep, ‘reading push’, Dobongsan, think so
Class:
Home Plus. He was fascinated by the spices, as they each have a big letter on them:
Waking up:
Throwing rocks:
Picnic table:
Hungry:
