A bad pollution day, so we escaped to Uijeongbu, just north enough to escape the bad air.
He was up at 6:50. Cuddled a little, then we played with Marshy, counting the shapes and tracing them on the back of a book. He was hungry pretty quickly, and said “Want guhahguhs with rectangle crackers…Try it! Try it with rectangle crackers.” I didn’t actually let him put rectangle crackers in the cereal, but he had a couple crackers while I did cut strawberries to put in. I changed him, and he was rubbing his eyes: “Green and yellow and pink. See yellow in there!” He would do this again in the evening when Carly changed him. We watched videos from class and brushed his teeth, and drew on paper. We played hide and seek, with me running around the house and him chasing me. We read a Korean English book called What I Need, which we haven’t read before, and I was surprised when he read ‘weather’ right away and was able to sound out ‘snowy’. He then wanted “More hide and seek.” I was then asking him what he wanted to do today, and he said “Want to play with Marshy today.”
We had played with Marshy earlier, and played with him some more. The big game today was “Want Marshy count all the lines.” as August had noticed that there are lines in the texture of the rug. But Marshy never finishes, either distracted by August or confused when August gives him a wrong number, and he has to start over.
And when drawing with markers he came up with a random game where he would mark his hand, then want me to blow on it: “Use this one to make dot. Blow on the dot.”
We left at 10. As we walked out he said “Look for messy. More find messy things.” Then said he wanted to find “100 messy things.” I pointed out that the sidewalk was messy and he asked what it was. I listed some things, including that people spill things, and he asked “What is it people spill?”
Subway ride north he was very happy. A woman across from us talked to him and said goodbye and August responded. A couple stops later a guy a couple seats down from August left. We hadn’t talked to him at all, but August waved and loudly said “Bye bye!”
Up in Uijeongbu we transferred to the U-Line, which is an elevated line that goes around much of the city. We rode it all the way to the end, looking out the windows as we went. There was a child care group that got off a couple stops before the end. At the end of the line we rode the train back three stops to where we had seen a promising park. We got out, and I put him in the backpack on a bench. A woman came up and wanted to take his photo. We walked the trail back to the park (곤제근린공원) we saw and scouted it out. The play structure I had seen from the train actually wasn’t too impressive. Then I saw that there was another children’s park a couple blocks away. So we went to check that out. As we did, we saw a group of kids – the same group from the train. One of the teachers was singing a song and waving her finger in the air. August liked the song and started waving his hand too. They went into a building right before the park, and we said good bye to them as they did.
This park (중보뜰어린이공원) was quite nice. A man handed us some church tissues, then we pretty much had the park to ourselves. We sat and ate lunch on a bench, and played there. Randomly, he remembered a lesson I had given him yesterday or Monday on the word ‘but’: “Say again. Zinnie wanted hardtack crackers, but we were out… B U T but.” We played a lot of the game where he touches my chin to make me open my mouth while I am eating and say “Ahhh” and he does it too. Then, while eating watermelon he was talking about the size of the pieces and repeating “Big subak, little subak, big one, little one.” There was a broken balloon behind the bench and he started chasing “Broken balloon”. And he showed he knows the word ‘chose’ when I gave him a choice of foods, he took crab, and said “Chose crab”. Finally, he got up and we did some playing. He sat on the alligator thing and rocked on it, trying to take his hands off the handles, then roamed the dirt area, putting rocks in the bushes as we sang “Bingo”.
Finally, I changed him and we walked towards the closest train station. It was getting close to 6 hours since he woke up, and he was tired. We had a few minutes to wait, and looked at a Korean children’s book about a sheep in the little library boxes they have in the stations. Then, on the train he fell asleep right before we got to the city hall stop. I got off, and went to the book cafe (아름드리카페) we had seen before, but hadn’t been it. He slept from 1:04 to 2:04. They had a surprising collection of English picture books, so when he woke up we read a bunch of them, including a book by Pat Hutchins, who I like, and Everyone Poops, which August liked and we read 6 times. He also ate my ice.
From there we left and walked the short path back to the park behind city hall (직동근린공원). As we walked up, he used ‘because’ again: “Hard to see the sky cuz trees.” Halfway up he wanted down to walk on the roots: “Big sticks…Zinnie can do it.” And then he spotted a concrete platform that he climbed on and spent the next 15 minutes playing on. He heard an ambulance, but couldn’t hear it, then said “A A A A (the sound of the ambulance) hiding in the trees.” He asked what I saw in the trees. He chanted “D double dare you”. He spotted insects, and had me translate the Korean on the cover of the hatch (Korean Water Corporation, or similar). And he spun around in circles and almost fell off.
Finally we headed on our way and made it to the playground. Which we didn’t actually play in, of course. We threw little rocks into the waterfall, then played with the one faucet which was cool because he could both reach it AND turn it on and off. Then we went to ANOTHER faucet and he used my cup to play in the water for quite awhile, pouring it on my foot and saying “A badrillion drinks.”
We then went and sat on a bench and I got out his first Hangeul/Korean book and he got to draw in it. He loved this. I changed him, and he stood behind me, holding my shirt, and shaking his head and rocking back and forth. At some point today, I said “You are…” and he finished with “Crazy!”
Finally, we headed out. On the way to the train he talked about nursing and said “Nurse with dada. Try it. Want to try it.” On the train, he said “back and forth” as I rocked him hack and forth and “What’s he doing?” when he saw a guy tapping his foot. On line 7 we sat and he traced more in his Hangeul book.
We got home a little after Carly. We played more with Marshy and did the dot thing on his hand again. He and Marshy (voiced by Carly) had a very long nonsense conversation, where August was apparently remembering the phrases he was saying – I then showed him the videos of himself, and he was chanting along to himself, over and over. I gave him a bath, then Carly read books with him on the bed – he had lined them up, as usual. He had said he wanted to nurse before she took a shower, but he didn’t fall asleep. He came out and we were tracing Hangeul some more until he intentionally marked on my shorts (he had done it on accident before). He was asleep about 9.
New words/phrases: reading weather and snowy, hide and seek, reading Nowon, chose, moss, just kidding
Counting shapes with Marshy:
Off the train and ready for some parks. This is just after a woman took his photo:
Fun at park #2. “Aaaah!”:
Everyone Poops:
The books we read:
Three platform:
Playground and faucets:
Workbook:
Home:
