He was up at 7:05. Silently sat for 6 or 7 minutes, then wanted the iPad. He wanted Cheerios and strawberries for breakfast, but we were out of strawberries, so he wanted mango instead. I thawed some mango in a separate bowl, but we both agreed it wasn’t too good with the mango. He saw the Cheerio box and wanted me to write ABCs on it. He then wanted to get Cheerios out, and I figured out that he wanted the Cheerio book out. We found it, and he played with that while sitting on the table. We read some Bob Books and played with Marshy, then he was watching his Korean videos and singing to the songs. At some point, he got down on the floor and decorated one of his Korean workbooks with stickers on his own.
The pollution was bad for a third day in a row, so we headed up to Uijeongbu again. On the way to the station he wanted me to hop, then run. We did some running, but was upset when we got to the stairs and I couldn’t run anymore. He was talking about something as we walked, but I’m not sure what: “Go past 14. Stop at 16. Find 14 names.” While we waited for a train he played with Smokey, then was chanting and working on jumping, using the benches.
We planned on ending up in the same coffee shop and park behind city hall, but started out with a different plan. We first went to the man street, hoping the little stream down the middle we have played in in the past was on. It wasn’t we sat next to it though and ate our kimbap which we had bought at the Storyway in the station – he was eating more radish and cucumber. He heard a motorbike that startled him, then was saying “That was a motorbike” when he heard them. We could hear music blasting from a store, and he was dancing to it a few times. And he pulled up his pigeon shirt and hid behind it for fun.
From there we left to walk west. But first we stopped at a little park (Park #1, 중앙어린이공원). This was just to change him, and he was sad there wasn’t a playground. A woman gave us one of those little yellow melons while we were there. From there we headed west. We came across the park area NE of the department store, which I believe used to be an old U.S. base. We found a monument there that included big pieces from the Berlin Wall. That was a nice random find.
We kept walking, then turned left from the main road, short of the stream. Down there were two parks we hadn’t been to. I told August we would check out one, and if he didn’t like it we could try the other. He saw the first one (Park #2, 달님어린이공원) and liked it, but wanted sand to play in. There was no sand. He started pointing and saying “Other park.” We walked to that one (Park #3, 만남어린이공원), still no sand. But we had a snack and hung out for awhile. Suddenly, he got sad, and said “Want Camel.” I put him in the backpack and he put his head down on Camel and fell asleep after a few minutes. We walked to the same book cafe (아름드리카페) as last time and he slept from 12:45 to 1:56. He woke up and we read a couple books, including Everyone Poops a couple times. This time, he was reading much of it.
We then went to the park behind City Hall (park #4, 직동근린공원). We stopped and played on the platform again, then headed on. There, he played with the water and cup for a few minutes, then we went to a covered bench and drew in the Hangeul workbook. He wrote ‘in’ on his leg twice before I stopped him. He then started a third time and write ‘i’ before I stopped him. I got the notebook out for him to write in, and he wrote ‘n’ on that. He then pointed back and forth from the letter on his leg to the one on paper, spelling “in”. Twice we lost a marker and it bounced down into the grates and I had to lift it up and get the marker out of the water. There was what appeared to be a piece of cheese on the ground and we watched the ants crawling on that. And he worked on his jumping, putting his hands on the benches to do so. Finally, we were working on the workbook and came across ‘mirror’. I reminded him we had a mirror at home (labelled in Korean) and he got sad – he wanted a mirror outside. I put him in the backpack and he cuddled with Camel again.
We had a little time left, so I suggested we check out one more park on our way back. This was 의서어린이공원 and park #5. There, we had a little more snack, went on the teeter totter, and climbed the hill at the base of the sculpture thing. There was a truck going by with a speaker on it. August didn’t like it and said “Don’t like the sound.”
On our walk to the subway station we saw a boy walking the other direction and I pointed out his hat. August asked what the boy had been carrying, and I told him it was a corndog. August was sad because he wanted to hold the corndog.
Pretty easy trip back. As we transferred, August was talking about Os, although I’m not sure why as I was navigating the crowd: “That’s not O, that’s O right there.” We got home a few minutes before Carly. When I went to get him out of the backpack he would let me, and kept repeating something. Then I figured out it was “Would you like out, sir?” Apparently I say it enough that he has learned it. I said, it, he laughed, and I could take him out. I changed August and we were putting on our shoes to go wait for her when she came in.
They nursed, then we played with Marshy (more counting lines). He ate dinner with Carly. He remembered being sad about the mirror “Sad about the mirror outside in the workbook.” Carly gave him a bath, and when he was done he was wearing the towel. He then liked having the frog part on his head and walked around as Froggy Boy. Some reading after that, then he was asleep a little after 8.
New words/phrases: workbooks, wait a minute, no garbage around here (he said this when we were at a park and had some garbage to throw away)
Waking up:
Uijeongbu:
Park #1:
Berlin Wall:
Park #3:
Cafe:
Platform:
Park #4:
Proud of having written on his leg:
Park #5:
Home. Froggy boy:
