Wednesday: Monster day: Dream Forest, 6 other parks, dinner with mama, and walking home

Carly had 8th grade graduation, so we met up with her before that and had dinner, then played until she was done and walked home with her. That made for a long day. And what a day…a bit rough in the morning, but by the end of the day he was copying a picture for the first time, had done a lot of climbing in the playgrounds, and was giving me a ton of high fives.

He was up at 7:01. A little sad, but a quick recovery and went straight to watching Korean videos. We then read the Korean Hangeul book, and were able to translate almost all the words in it. We had Cheerios for breakfast, then he was rubbing his eyes on the couch. I asked if he was sleepy and he said “sleepy”. He cuddled with me for a bit, then got off the couch, went and got Peter Rabbit, and came back to the couch and cuddled with him. A bit after that, he wanted the spray bottle and the morning got a little difficult after that. Started out fine. He was first remembering when Carly took away the spray bottle because he sprayed the book sign: “Where’d the spray bottle go? Mama took it for the 책 sign. Sad about the 책 sign being wet.” Then he got fanciful: “Mama…took it to the giraffes for eating…eat the squirt bottle.” He found the spray bottle and was playing with it okay. We had discussed where he could spray before he started. Then he got a bit cheeky, as he sprayed on the fruits and veggies container and said “Here?”, then answered himself “That’s fine.” I asked if I had said that was okay and he said “Think so!” But then he tried spraying books again and he was a bit frustrated by that.

Then he saw me with my phone and instantly got upset and wanted it. When I wouldn’t give it to him he screamed, then when I reached down for him he bit my hand. I eventually took him to the ‘screaming room’, which he wasn’t happy about, and wanted to leave. Eventually he calmed down a little and I brought him back out on the couch and sat him on my lap, then suddenly he was calm and quiet.

Finally got going after that, and left for Dream Forest at 10. He was very mellow on the busride there and had continued to rub his eyes through the morning. As we walked by the visitor center at the park I pointed in the windows and said I saw mirror August. He replied with “I see mirror dada.” As we passed the first water play area he said “Dada was sad right here. Go in the deeper one.” – referring to when it didn’t turn on and I didn’t understand why and I wanted it deeper. We went to GS25 and got kimbap, and he spotted the fruit cup things. We got grapefruit and pineapple, and he was excited for both. I was looking around a bit more and he said “Ready to pay.” We went out and sat at one of the tables and ate there. He didn’t like the grapefruit but ate the pineapple, and used the little fork thing to get a few pieces, and he offered some to Smokey. Getting his own pineapple and dripping reminded him of the drippy oatmeal he had with mama awhile back. There were some moms and kids at the table next to us, and we saw a pink water bottle: “Sad about the purple one. “ “Where?” “That she had at the spiderweb playground.” Remembering a few weeks back when he wanted the purple water bottle that a girl had at the new playground.

We had about 20 minutes until the water turned on (I thought), so we went to the playground. He played in the bushes area a bit, then wanted to walk on the wire containers full of rocks that make a wall around it. As he walked along he started saying “All the way to this stream, boop.” on each square. At noon we went up and…no water. I looked on the sign by the floor fountain. There hadn’t been a sign with times on it last time we were here, but it had turned on at noon on a Monday. Now, there WAS a sign, and it said…Saturday and Sunday only. Very weird, as it wasn’t the case last year, and there was a water shortage last year… Anyway, we went back to the first water play area (where the party was on Sunda) and it too was off. That HAD had a sign too, and didn’t list dates, just times. Now that sign has been replaced too, with one saying just Saturday and Sunday.

We’d been out in the heat for a couple of hours by the time I got him ready for his nap and he fell asleep, and I thought about cutting our day short and going home after his nap. I changed him, then he randomly said, full sentence, “Babies pee in the water in the wading pool.” I asked “Does Zinnie?” And he instantly replied “Yeah”. This is odd as he always has had a diaper on. Don’t know where this came from.

He fell asleep and had a short nap, 12:52 to 1:34. But when he woke up he then cuddled on me until 1:48. He wanted to play in the book area. We looked at books a bit, then he did art on the iPad, first just sitting on the floor. Then he traced letters and changed fonts.

We went out and went to the art show at the Dream Gallery. He was open to it, but not terribly excited, although he ended up liking a few pieces. After we had seen it all I asked what was his favorite, and he said the “Ssssshhh” one of a person making the shushing sign. He said it reminded him of the espanol book, and I figured out it was the Curious George book where he goes to the library.

We left, and made our way through the north route to APIS. We looked at one park but there was no water. At the second park we came across (벌말어린이공원) he played with a low faucet, and spent much of his time pouring water on his own sandals. We then kept going, passing a third park that was pretty boring, and hiked over the hill through a fourth park (비석골근린공원) to meet Carly at the Tospia sandwich shop for an early dinner at 4. August really liked walking through the trees: He was saying “Sky…trees” as we went from clearing to trees and back, and “watch out for the trees.” We came across a cat house that someone had set up, and he liked the stones we came across that are part of the old cemetary. He wanted more walking through trees when we got out. We stood waiting for Carly for a couple minutes, and he said “Waiting here.” He startled her pretty well when she showed up and he saw her first.

We ordered sandwiches with Carly, walked around a little, then went to the park across from APIS (안골어린이공원) and ate them. August was sad when he dropped a piece of ham. Actually, he was fine with that, but then had the idea of eating it, and was sad when Carly wouldn’t let him. But when a piece of ice fell later when he was eating our ice he was fine, saying “That’s fine. That’s okay.”

Carly went back to school for the 8th grade graduation, and August and I decided to head up to 초안어린이공원, a park a bit farther north. Before we left though a couple of guys gave August a little fruit thing they had gotten off a tree. August was carrying it as we walked up a street, but he dropped it. He told me, but by the time we turned back the one car that came out of a parking lot had driven over it. He handled it well, and actually found it funny even though he’d been making plans to eat it.

Before getting to the park, we finally got into the Buddhist temple along the way. It has two historical markers in it, but the gates are never opened. We read and took photos of those (he wanted me to read one in Chinese), then went to the park. There, he was first attracted to the water, but then went to the big rope play strcutre thing (which he called the “B one” for some reason). He did some climbing on it, and stood on it, shaking it. It was like the spider web at the new playground, only much, much bigger. He saw big kids up high, above my head, and wanted to go up there. I did help him climb up about to my head level, but that was it. Actually, I was just spotting him, as he was doing a pretty good job climbing.

From there we headed yet further north, to a park on Google Maps located back behind an apartment complex. Thought it might be mislabeled, but we did find a very cool playgrou
nd near what Google calls 원계근린공원. The play structure was awesome – it is a huge elephant. August climbed on a little curving red ladder once, then just looked around. We startled two cats that were hanging out in the structure, and watched them for a couple minutes before deciding we should head back. Changed him, then we went back to APIS and met Carly across the street again. Before we left that last park, he had said “I don’t want to be sad.” and we were doing pretend sad, surprised, etc.

His favorite sentence recently, but especially today, is: “what does dada say?” He says it anytime I say something he doesn’t fully understand, or if I just haven’t said anything in awhile.

Also, as we were walking, he was asking “10 plus 10 equals…” and I would answer 20, then he would say “20 plus 20 equals…” and I would say 40. We got up to 160 that way. As we walked home with Carly he was doing something similar, then applied it to words, saying “Mama plus mama equals mama mama” and then I’m pretty sure he doubled that…or at least said a whole lot of ‘mama’s after it.

At home, he wanted to watch the video of Vivian dancing, and then he danced with her. That was pretty amazing. We were then writing words from the pigeon book on paper, and suddenly he started copying the pigeon, like he saw Carly doing the other day. He drew a circle and put a dot in it for the eye, then drew two rectangles underneath – the neck and the white band on the neck. That was very cool to see. We then got out his sticker book things, and he really got into the matching part of it, which had been to complicated for him before. Every time he would figure out where a sticker went he would give me a bunch of high fives. Finally, he took the “Book from Meg” to bed and went to sleep at 9:30.

New words/phrases: no thank you (when eating dinner, I think it was, Carly had asked him something and he just out and said this)

He grew again: