Warmest day of the year so far. Saw up to 84. 7:30. Stood in the doorway between the living room and parlor waking up today. A little sadder, but not bad. Cheered himself up after a few minutes and then went to drawing. After that, he sat on the table and wanted the letters from down below. We got those out and alphabetized them, then he wanted the play dough, so we made play dough letters. I had music on, and when he was done with the letters he said “Pause the song.” I did, and asked why, and he wanted to read. So we did a little reading, of Maisy’s First Numbers, then he was hungry. While I was getting the cereal and strawberries ready, he threw a couple books and I asked why he did that. He started asking himself “Why throw the books?” After breakfast he finally spotted the iPad, and watched a few songs before we got ready to go.
We left right about 10. Stopped at GS25 for kimbap and soy milk. He wanted some of the triangle kimbap so we got a couple of those as well. We sat by the rectangular pond again and ate there. He liked being able to see the workers fixing the building, and had me look up “new song” a couple times. He tried the radish in the kimbap again. Ate a little bite, then gave the rest to me. I suggested he might like it more if he he ate it with some of the tuna from the kimbap. He tried that, chewed it for quite awhile, then spit it out. At least he keeps trying. He also tried the seaweed that comes with the triangle kimbap and that we never use. He didn’t like it at all – I think it immediately stuck to the roof of his mouth. He started counting backwards from 10 over and over. While he was doing that he was sticking his finger in his water bottle to get it stuck – he does it for fun now and it doesn’t make him upset. Finally, he started to pour his water out and I said he couldn’t. He started to screech, but then turned to me and said “Why?”
I changed him and we put on sunscreen. He said no to this, but then say patiently as I did his arms and legs. We walked to the new playground, where we looked at the garbage, then found the one shady spot in the sand and played there. We took his sandals off. He was finding pieces of shell in the sand, and found a pretty big piece. He was burying it and said “That’s a silly thing to do.” We had the shovel and I started making a sand mountain. He had fun destroying it. He was talking more about finding ladybugs today, and wanted to write ‘ladybug’ in the sand. I think his interest in ladybugs partially comes from the Elmo Loves ABC app, which has a clip of the song “Ladybug Picnic” for L. Later, during his bath, I would look up the words and we would sing it a bunch. Finally, he was saying that the big piece of shell was “shell from an egg”. I was trying to explain that it wasn’t, but I’m not sure he believed me. He also found another one that was part of a spirally shell and he called it a “worm”, which it kind of looked like.
Getting him ready for his nap went smoothly, except for having to try 3 bathrooms to find an open handicapped stall with changing table. 15 minutes or so and he was asleep. Slept from 1:25 to 2:22. He woke up and said “play on iPad” so I took him out. He didn’t want me to set him down though and instead put his head on my shoulder and fell back to sleep. Walked around the cafe with him on my shoulder for 5 to 10 minutes until he woke up again. Think he still woke up grumpy, as he was sitting on my lap and playing Elmo Loves ABC and eating ice. We dropped one piece of ice on the floor and he was concerned. I said it was okay and reached for a new piece of ice and he screeched for a couple seconds. I picked him up and quickly took him outside. He didn’t really do anymore screaming, it was just talk time. He cuddled with me and yawned. We went back in the rest was fine. Noted a Muzak version of Billy Joel’s “For the Longest Time” playing – their music is really quiet so I never notice it, but that song I did. Finally, right before we left he was standing on the chair and trying to play with the straw. I asked if he was being uncouth again, so he started saying “Be uncouth!” Not exactly the reaction I wanted.
We had left because he was hungry. He wanted to go to the children’s museum and eat, so we did that. Nice because it was warM – now up to 84. Went up to the 3rd floor family room and had a snack. We needed to fill his water so went to do that. From there he saw the exhibits on the 3rd floor and wanted to play. Had to coax him back to the cafeteria to get our stuff. Spent a little time on the 3rd floor (the balls and air stuff), then we went down to the book room to read Oh No! We never actually got to that, as he wanted to go to the little kids area. We went there, and the first thing he wanted to do was “soup”. We went up there and played – had the place all to ourselves as it wasn’t busy today. He wanted his watering it was back downstairs he agreed to stay there and play (“Zinnie stay here”) and I went and got it. A bit later, he spilled some water and I went back down to get a paper towel. This time there was a mother up there with a 12 month old or so. August started walking to the stairs and she stopped him, which is kind of funny because he can totally go up and down those stairs on his own now. Anyway, we went to the room under that and played with the colored sorting objects. At one point a ball rolled across the room and he wanted me to get it. He was a little demand-y today, and said “Dada walk.” I reminded him to ask nicely and he said “Dada get it please.” in his sweet voice. An announcement came on the loudspeaker and he asked me to “Look it up.” Sadly, couldn’t do that one (actually, I’ve used the Google Translate voice translation to get bits of the announcements in our apartment before, but this was too muffled with background noise).
We went out and went to the puzzles. Place wasn’t busy at all, but all the pieces were mixed up and missing. August noticed a piece missing from the shapes puzzles and said “Dada find circle.” We never did find that one, but sorted out a lot of them. Before we left, we took some things that belonged back up in the kitchen area up there. Going down he counted stairs, as he usually does. But he got creative: “1, 2, 3, 100 million.”
We went to the reading room to put on our shoes, and someone had left out a book called “I taste…” We read that several times, then changed him and headed out. On the way to the subway, he was spelling ‘bingo’ but changing the spelling, mainly the first letter and vowel, and seeing what that made: “cingo, ango, mango” He figured out he had spelled ‘mango’ at one point.
Sat on the floor of the subway on our way home. When we got back to Brownstone he stopped me outside, wanting to read Hangeul on the building map. He has pointed it out before but we haven’t stopped. Took me a minute to figure out what he wanted. Turned out he thought the shape of the building itself was Hangeul, as the left part of the building looks like ‘ㅏ’. It was about 5:20 and I had been telling him mama probably wouldn’t be home, but when we got home he was really, really sad she wasn’t there. We’ve gotten in a habit of being pretty late returning in the afternoon, so he isn’t used to getting home first. I tried to take him out of the backpack and tell him we could walk back to the elevators, but he didn’t want to get out of the backpack. He wanted me to get back in and “dada walk”. But he was being demanding, so wasn’t going to give in to that. Took several minutes until he would let me take him out. He calmed down as we walked to the elevators. Carly called and was going to go to the grocery store, but decided she didn’t need to when she heard August still sad in the background. We went down and met her by the building entrance and he was much happier.
Carly gave him dinner and they were drawing on paper. Carly got his bath ready and August heard the water and said “More dad
a and Zinnie have fun in the wawa…get stool.” He wanted the kitchen sink. Instead, I changed him and then gave him his bath. Didn’t play much with the letters today, instead wanting the cups to play with. After his bath he started saying “Oh my goodness!” He likely got that from Carly, but I’m not sure why he started saying it. They nursed, then he was sitting with Carly and she was quiet and he said “More talking.” So Carly asked him what he had done today that was fun. He said “Fun drawing letters.” She asked which letter was fun and he replied “K!…Fun with K!”
So they started drawing again. He started to ask her “Do you want to trade?” She started drawing dots as he drew letters and he would follow the dots, meaning that she could get him to write words and the alphabet in a pretty straight line. I took over while she took a shower. He then wanted to play in the sink, so I finally let him do that, but just standing on the stool. He did that for quite some time.
Carly took him in to try to sleep a little after 9, but he popped up all hyper. I suggested we let mama sleep and go read and he said “Mama slept sleep. Bye mama!” We did a little reading, but then he wanted iPad, then Duplos. When I said no to those he decided he wanted to sleep and nurse. He went back in about 9:30 and they fell asleep.
New words/phrases: reading ‘please’ and ‘puddles’, spelling ‘mango’, oh my goodness, do you want to trade?
Getting to it:
Table and letters and play dough:
Children’s Grand Park. His reaction to seaweed:
Playground:
Children’s museum:
At home. Playing in the sink:
