Children’s Day – Home Plus and Madeul
He was up at 8:35. Nursed, did some drawing. I changed him and he played with the Pororo magnets in the changing room and found the Harry the Hummingbird magnet. He asked what sound hummingbirds make, and I made a humming sound. He said “Hummingbirds make Vs…Ws…” I changed him, then we were back out with the piano. It was making a buzzing sound when you played it he said it sounded like a “Spider…snake” I shook the piano a little and it went away. “Where’d the double S go?” “Double S make this one: sss sss” He was then trying to shake the piano to make the sound come back. He then played with his etch-a-sketch and did some more art on paper. I then went and took a shower.
He was then looked at his door magnets. They are Pororo characters, so the hummingbird is also on some of the magnets, so he was finding them. He heard a loud car outside and said “Hear W W W W.” and said “Where it go?” after he couldn’t hear it anymore.
We all walked over to Home Plus a little after 10. The park was busy getting ready for the day’s Children’s Day celebration. August wanted to stop and pay on the benches (he remembered playing there with Carly before), so we did. There was another boy with a pink ball and August really wanted to play with it. We got out the tennis ball instead. Then, there was a girl blowing bubbles, and he got into those. She was very nice and let him try it a couple times. From there we went into the art museum. He and Carly went into the play area and he played there for awhile. I went and checked out one gallery, then went in. He was standing up by the trampoline, making up a numbers chant. Carly wanted to see the portrait gallery I had just looked at, so we went over there when he was done playing. He wanted to go downstairs instead. Tried going down without her, but he wanted to go back for mama. So we all went downstairs. They did the light switches together, then got stickers and put them on the wall. We were talking about going to Home Plus and he was excited to see the animals. He said “insects” and I said no, there weren’t insects at Home Plus. Not sure if that was what made him sad, but he suddenly got very sad, and they went and nursed for awhile. When he was better we looked at the paper mache animals in the community gallery, then headed to Home Plus. Walking through the park, he saw a lot of balloons today and wanted one himself. Never did get him one though.
At Home Plus he wanted to “look at shirts” and started by carrying the basket around. We looked at pillows and finally selected two for the new couch. He looked at the aquariums and seems to be understanding that you can take fish out of the tanks and home…I think we will be getting pet requests sooner than I would like. We headed downstairs – August shows Carly how he could walk off the end of the moving sidewalk by himself. He looked at the alphabet spices while Carly went and started grocery shopping. Eventually, we walked around a bit. We rain into Meg and her friend who is visiting. August happened to be wearing the shirt she got him in Myanmar. When we told him the shirt was from her, he was asking her what the letters are, as if she might know better than us. We then put him in the backpack, picked up the pizza, and grabbed diapers before heading out.
We went home and he slept from a little after 1 to around 2. In the afternoon we got ready and headed out for a walk. The two cafes we go to were closed. After the first one, he said “go to the one that’s open right here”. Alas, the second one (Cafe Tolerance) was also closed. So August and I stayed at the playground and started playing while Carly went and got coffee back at Brownstone. I had asked August if he wanted to go with her or stay and play and he agreed to this readily, saying “Bye bye” and waving to Carly. We played on the platform, then got Smokey out and played What do you see? When Carly came back we were sitting by the grate, dropping little sticks and rocks in the water below. When Carly got there he wanted the ice from her drink. She sat on the ground, and he tried to get her cup, which turned into a game. Finally, she finished, and he sat, eating her ice. A group of young teenagers came and were trying out there English with August. He said “Hi!” and waved a few times, then “Bye!” They were fine at first, but then kept hanging around, so we decided it was time to head out.
We walked up towards Madeul, but August wanted to go to the “new playground…spiderweb with mama.” So we walked over there and played there. He mainly played with her: on the spider web, in the tube, on the teeter totters, on the swings, and in the sand. On the teeter totters he kept taking his hands off the handle and laughing. In the sand, Carly drew a big Q, but he didn’t like it for some reason: “No like mama’s Q.” We left, but had to stop to look at recycling because August asked really nicely – he had wanted to on the way in, but there were people in the way so I said we could on the way out. I almost took some English books out of recycling, but the set was too big. August got upset when we wouldn’t stop to turn on the water, but it was at a faucet that doesn’t work (we’ve tried every other time). He was still upset by the time we got home, and when Carly tried to continue on to the store he got really upset. So Carly came up to the apartment with us.
After I had some pizza I went to the store instead. When I came back August was hiding behind Carly on the couch – he does this all the time when Carly comes home, but I haven’t seen it myself much. From the couch he pointed to the Moo book and said “Funny M covered by baa baa”. I played with him on the couch, and we made a game out of counting his toes…incorrectly. So that he had a million toes, etc. He wanted the joke to keep going and going, asking “How many have this one?” I bought sesame crackers at the store and gave him a few. We called them ‘rectangle’ crackers, to differentiate from the square and circle crackers we’ve had in the past. He was still hungry so I offered him fruit, offering banana, orange, or grapes he was trying to still choose rectangle crackers, saying: “3 choices. Rectangle. That’s not a fruit!”
Carly gave him a bath. When he came out he saw me and said “Hi dada! How you doing?” A little later I asked if he wanted to read books in bed. He took several in on the bed and we read a little, then he nursed and fell right to sleep, about 8:30.
New words/phrases: aquarium, I think this goes here, go to the one that’s open right here, okay let’s go,
Piano sound:
Park, art museum, and Home Plus:
Playground 1 after his nap:
Playground 2:
Home:
