He came out at 7:47. Walked out to the living room and directed me to the parlor, then stood over by the couch, waking up. Did a lot of good stretching. Then wanted to be changed, and spent several more minutes lying on the changing pad and waking up. He wanted his shirt changed, and picked the CWU shirt (we call it the ‘puma shirt’) for the first time today. But no pants for now. He ate leftover carrot pancakes for breakfast. He was coming up with random words he wanted to spell, like ‘Hagye’ and ‘after’. He continues to turn things into verbs, asking “How bout altering?” Then declaring “Name!” when I say it isn’t a word. He was watching ABC songs, then wanted me to come watch with him, so said “More dadaing.” I called him or something else “wacky”, then he wanted to spell “wacky Zinnie”. We did the elephant puzzle, then got him ready to go. He objected to shorts at first, but once they were on he was fine. We sat at the table and watched the new video from his 5-Touch class (we’ve had it a few weeks, but this is our first time watching it) and brushed his teeth. He was so enthralled with the new video I let him watch 10 minutes or so, which gave me time to get the scissors and do a little trimming of his hair to get the hairs I missed last time. We left about 10:30. It was going to be warm, so we were both in shorts and sandals. He complained about the sandals too, but only until they were on, then he was fine. I used the same sandals as last summer/fall – they were full, but still fit.
We headed up to Dobongsan. I had initially planned and trying to do a little more of the section of the Fortress Trail that we couldn’t complete (going from the other direction). But then decided all the travel time wouldn’t be worth it. I had asked August what he wanted to do, and he actually said “New park.” So I settled on going to the stream at Dobongsan – not new, but we haven’t been there in months and months.
We got up there and to the stream. He talked about going in, but only ever touched it with his fingers. He climbed around on rocks – both more sure-footed and more confident of himself – which actually made me more nervous. It didn’t help that the water was a bit higher now. Just a couple inches, but more current as well – there was no playing on the hilly part where we played with Chuck. Eventually, we settled on him standing on one rock and me gathering rocks from up above and bringing them down to him. He threw and dropped them in the water. When close rocks became hard to come by, we both went up to the trail with a bag and collected rocks. We also saw a dragonfly that landed on one of the big rocks. We watched it for a couple minutes and could point out all the body parts. Sadly, while we were up gathering rocks, a man walked through and squished it. When we came back I saw it and brushed it into the water. August then proceeded to ask where the dragonfly was several times, and later said “Sad bout the dragonfly” – either because it was gone or because I wouldn’t let him actually touch it. Anyway, it was now noon and I needed to change him and have lunch. When I talked about eating he said “Go to Dobongsan” a couple times. I was confused, because we were already in Dobongsan, but then I deduced that he meant (I think) he wanted to go to our lunch spot that we’ve used the last 3 or 4 times we’ve been up that direction, slightly up into the park and in the trees. I gave him a cracker to hold him over until we got up there, so he made up another word: “crackering” is now the verb for eating a cracker. I was telling him he could make up words, so he started saying “Made up a word.”
We walked up there, got out the picnic mat and had lunch. There, he played with sticks, and I took him down to see the stream. He spotted a “flying” thing, then wanted to “look for butterflies…dragonflies…ladybugs” I told him the ladybugs might be hardest to find, and he said “Keep your eyes open.” I’ve said that to him in the past, but hadn’t said it today. As I put away the picnic mat he looked at it in the case and said “P cut off” where he could only see ‘-ororo’ sticking out.
We went and filled his water, then started a nap walk. But after a couple minutes he wanted his diaper changed. I figured he had peed, so we went back to the bathrooms and changed him. I then figured I should go as well, so did. As I was at the urinal, another man came into the bathroom, stood at the one right next to me (he didn’t need to), and started talking to August as he peed. That I could handle. But then, while peeing with one hand, he reached out and grabbed August’s hand with the other. That was too much and I told him as much and got out of there as quickly as possible (after washing my hands, which he probably didn’t do).
That was an ill omen, because the next 20 minutes or so involved a lot of annoying people. I noticed this last time I walked up the steep hill into the park – people coming the other way would see August and like dive across the trail/road to see him, and sometimes even get in my way. We made it off that main path and onto the Dulegil trail, and his eyes closed. Then a couple totally tried engaging with him/me and I said “shhhh”. I then heard “How bout ‘shhhh’” from August. He kept asking, and roused a bit and had his eyes open. A second group did the same thing. After we passed them, I muttered “Be quiet” to myself. August heard that too, and said “How bout ‘be quiet’”. We then passed some women sitting along the trail and they started talking and calling to him, and August loudly said “Be quiet!” Oops.
I kept walking on the trail, headed south, since it was taking a bit longer to put him to sleep. Only one more incident – I stopped to let a couple pass, and as they did the guy reached out and tried to grab his hand as he was almost asleep. But after that August fell asleep and I found a lone bench just off the trail to sit at. We had first started walking at 1:10 (before the bathroom incident). He slept from 1:52 to 2:43, then I thought he was awake, but he fell back to sleep. At 3 I got in the backpack and started walking and he woke up a couple minutes into walking. He was still very sleepy though, and didn’t talk for the next 20 minutes or so. We got to a viewpoint tower and climbed that. He started to perk up then. He pointed to the railing and said “See railing…sad about the railing.” Remembering the time last week that he wanted to climb on the railings but I wouldn’t let him. Back down, he started to talk about getting out of the backpack. I convinced him to wait until we got to a playground. As we were walking he started saying “This is? This one…” and pointing to the strap of the backpack. It was a little inchworm. I saved it and put it on a tree. We kept walking, and it was another 20 minutes or so until we reached a point where we could get off the trail.
Made it to a little children’s park about. Set out the picnic mat again and had another snack. He was content on the mat for quite awhile and I kept encouraging him to play. He even play hid on my lap. Eventually he got up, first wanting to find letters and shapes in the tiles and lines on the ground (up at Dobongsan he had pointed out an ‘M’ fence). He then played in the sand. First drawing letters, then he discovered pieces of styrofoam which he eventually started picking apart into little pieces. There was a little girl that stood at the railing to the sand area and just watched him. Eventually, he went over and showed her a piece of styrofoam. Then he started saying “How are you?” I’m not sure where he picked that up, but I may have taught it to him awhile back. It was time to get going, but he was fascinated by the styrofoam, saying “More styrofoam.”
Eventually we headed out. At the bus stop he saw a bit of paper attached to a sign with tape. It fluttered in the wind, and he said it looked like a “butterfly”. On the bus home we saw an
APIS bus and he was looking at names on buildings. He started saying “Name of a company”. He also randomly started saying “Cookie starts with C.” from Cookie Monster.
We got home at 6. He nursed, then ate strawberries with me while Carly read. She changed him, then they played “Donde esta”. He then started drawing, saying he was doing a “Mosaic” and then writing letters in Spanish, saying “Donde esta…” and saying the name of Spanish letters. He and I then read, looking at the I See 100 book and reading Rub-a-Dub. Carly got him some dinner, then got his bath ready and I gave him a bath. He peed 3 times – the first time I got him on the toilet, the last time was on the floor towel. We were in there a good half hour. We put the letters away (him drying a few on a towel) and I got him out of the bath, and he saw two little dots of dust floating in the water and really wanted me to get them out: “Get out the two dusts”. Finally he let me take out the plug so they’d drain out.
It was now 8:45. Carly took a shower and August read almost all of Maisy’s First Colors on his own, and much of Maisy’s First Numbers. We then read Picasso’s Trousers. After Carly was out we went into the bed and played fort and he wanted to make the bed, so we did that. He and Carly read some Go, Dog, Go then it was time for sleep. He was asleep by 9:40.
New words/phrases: reading ‘mart’ on poster, styrofoam, how are you?, cut off
Hard to wake up:
Stream time, in the shirt from Paul:
Lunch:
View on our walk:
Playground. Making a V:
And X:
Being watched:
Styrofoam:
Headed home. He was very amused by this:
Home: