Friday: Last 5-Touch class and Children’s Grand Park

Final 5-Touch class and Children’s Grand Park

A big day for a couple of reasons: for the first time ever, he didn’t nurse during night. And, after 5 sessions, today was his final 5-Touch class.

He woke up at 7:51. Again. He was very quiet and we cuddled on the couch, then he kind of got off me, but lay back down with his head on my leg. A bit later he wanted to put on his shoes and go wait for mama at the elevator. He made this request a couple times through the morning, but didn’t get upset when I reminded him it was only morning. He ended up doing art on the iPad, mainly in Art Maker. We then watched one of the older videos from class and brushed his teeth, and then sent some video Skype messages. He also worked more on his hopping. He wanted to leave early, and we were out the door by 9:15.

On our way out, he heard a noise that he described as V and W. It was workers trimming the hedges around the building. We watched them for a minute, then went across to the park. He found a few pieces of garbage, which we threw away, then he climbed up on the rocks and explored the bushes. He said “See bushes. What he’s doing.” and hit the bushes with his hands, referring to what the man with the hedge trimmers had been doing.

Changed him at the art museum before class. He got extra anxious about falling and pretty upset. Not sure why. He definitely prefers standing up nowadays. Got to class and he had a great last class. He was singing to much of the opening songs – both actual words, and “A A A A B B A…” which he likes to do quite a bit now, both with songs he knows and doesn’t. I took two videos of his last bubbles time, but missed the moment when he leaned against the wall, looked up, and said “Bubbles are fun.” Class was all about frogs today. He let me put the frog hat on him a few times, but would take it right off. There was a hopping on lily pads activity, then a swatting flies with a flyswatter and feeding them to frogs activity, then she got out frog-shaped percussion instruments. August loved these, and stood right in front of her, kind of hopping, for her demonstration. We played with those, sang the closing song, then got his frog hand stamps before we said goodbye.

I had told him last week that we could eat in one of the food courts, where they have the “yummy” plastic food, sometime this week. So we went down to the second basement and looked at the selections. We chose the Japanese curry and dongatsu. We had a to wait a few minutes, and he sat at the table and said “Zinnie is waiting.” Got the food and he liked everything, except the salad, which he refused to try. He ate a lot.

From there we headed to the subway, got to Children’s Grand Park, changed him, then walked to fall asleep. The park was busy, particularly with art students, so it took awhile – he kept wanting to look at the paintings, and he wanted to kick trees from the backpack. He fell asleep and slept from 1:17 to 2:35 in the upstairs cafe. We did Art Maker for awhile, and talked about our options. I mentioned the children’s museum and he remembered it being closed on Tuesday morning: “Children’s museum open. No be open at 9.” In art maker, he was doing the Abby Cadabby picture and said “Zinnie like those.” while referring to one of the objects. He liked Abby’s like “I feel totally magical.” and wanted me to say it over and over. Before we left, we found a collection of National Geographic magazines on the bottom shelf, and looked at a few, looking for animal articles. We saw bears, elephants, and his favorite was an article about hummingbirds.

From there we decided to go to the faucets by the walking path. Walked over there and played from 3:20 to 4 or so. A lot of the same splashing as last time – he liked me splashing water into the corner and he would say some nonsense each time. But then he was also using the plastic cup to pour water into his water bottle and onto the seats for quite awhile (and I was able to read).

Before we left he wanted to sit and read. I initially chose a different bench from Tuesday, but then he saw that bench and got excited, so we changed benches. We read some Bob Books, and he remembered The Jet and talked about it (even though we didn’t have it with us): “Sad about th jet cuz Zinnie want to do it.” He was then looking for insects after he saw a green bug (his words) go in the bushes somewhere. He got up and said “Zinnie take a look.” He didn’t find that one, but he found a bug we couldn’t identify on the ground, then a little beetle, then a big fly walking across the bench. And ants, of course. He kept talking about them looking for food and he tried to give the fly something to eat: “Now it’s on the book. Looking for food…maybe this.”

He was having a hard time leaving – he didn’t want to leave the insects, then he wanted to play in the sand. As we walked out he wanted to read all the Hangeul, turn on water, etc. I had forgotten there was the Agricultural Expo going on as well. We had seen it a bit on the way in, but it meant there were all sorts of things to try to look at on the way out. On the subway home he started singing “ABC…” and the woman next to us joined in. She confused August when she switched a couple of the letters around, then was singing “Twinkle twinkle little star” instead of “Now I know…” In the stations he spotted the “Dwaje masayo” (do not run) and was repeating that pretty well by the time we left Hagye.

We got home awhile after Carly. He didn’t really eat much dinner, but I wasn’t surprised as he had eaten a huge lunch. And when we had gotten to Children’s Grand Park he insisted on eating since we always do, and he had eaten most of a LaraBar. Also, having not nursed since the previous evening, he nursed a lot. He and Carly did a lot of reading (they’ve also been reading the Curious George Spanish books) and I gave him a bath: “Want the squirty car please.”

Sometime after that, I was reading Bob Books with him and he was being funny: “Dot say BAZABAZABAZABAZAPENQUIN…Mat say Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q .” We read a book about Dot running up a hill and falling, and August was sad both because he wanted to run up a hill and because hewanted to fall like Dot: “Zinnie want to fall like Dot in the book. Sad bout that.” And he remembered being sad when the fly disappeared at the park: “Sad bout the fly.” Finally, we read Where the Wild Things Are three times. It was about 9, and I suggested he take books in to read on the bed with mama. He took 4 books (one at a time) in to the bedroom and lined them up neatly at the end of the bed. They read Frida together and played a bit with Baby Q (August remembered that girl at class today also had a Baby Q doll). We read the Jane Eyre book a couple times. Carly had a fan on, and it started to make a bit of a rattling noise. At first August seemed concerned by it, so I tried to make it stop. I couldn’t, but when I went back to him he had decided he liked the noise. He and Carly were both asleep 9:20ish.

New words/phrases: hedge trimmers, curry, pointing this way, kind of, 빵 (bread), “This one, no this one…”

Yawn: