One last big adventure for the year: across the city and south of the river to a park that has a big wading pool.
He got an early jump on it: Up at 5:50. He got up and went out and found Carly in her bathroom and opened the door. When she left to go to work he was at first very accepting of it; he said “Want to kiss mama.” and let her go. But she turned around and talked to me about something for a minute, and the opportunity was lost. He decided he wanted to stay with her, and wasn’t happy with her leaving. After she left I carried him into the reading area and he just kept saying “Want more”. Eventually he calmed down and cuddled in my lap.
We left by 9. As we left I asked if he wanted his hat and he said “Keeps the sun out of the eyes.” We heard a truck beeping as it backed up and he described it as “W W W W W”. As we left the building we walked by something making a fan noise, but we couldn’t actually see it (it was a parking garage vent or something). He fixated on this for awhile: “Want to see the fan in there”. He also wanted to take some photos as we got to the other side of the park: the bushes, a banana peel on a bench, a post. Finally, we took the train down to Express Bus Terminal, then transferred and went another 8 stops or so National Assembly. One of those stations had walls in marble, or something that looks like marble, and I explained what it was, as he had asked “what is the messy” when looking at it. When I said “marble” he replied “Marble. Remember marble at the park…blue one…dropped.” We caught a glimpse of the big government building, but thought we were going to loop around and get a better look at it, but never did.
On the way down he invented a new word: ‘next stopping’, which is when you realize you get off at the next stop and start getting ready – similar to all of his other -ing words, such as ‘mosquitoing’.
We got to Yeoeuido Park (not the Hangang Park, which runs along the river, but a big park that runs perpendicular to that one, down to the river) and looked at the big map of it: August was looking at it and the numbers on it and decidng all the places he wanted to go. We went to the bathroom, then went to the little playground and ate our leftover kimbap and peaches in jello. He then played with the spray bottle, in particular spraying the cube things in the playground.
We then got walking north, towards the river, and he was doing some walking. Changed him, got him in the backpack, then went and saw the King Sejong statue and kept going. He fell asleep as we got to the Hangang Park. He slept from 11:27 to 12:34. Sat in a window seat from a coffee shop there with a wonderful view of the river and the very empty wading pool. Probably only on during the weekend, like the ones at Dream Forest. Not that there is a sign anywhere telling people that. The sign says it should turn on at 12 on weekdays, but it did not. In fact, there was a team pressure washing it.
Anyway, when he woke up we left the coffee shop and went down and changed him by the wading pool, then played with his water bottle in a faucet nearby, pouring water on the dirt and down a drain. The team had moved down to the lower portion of the wading pool, so we went to the upper part and stomped in the puddles. One of the guys tried to shoo us away, but we were far away and I ignored him. August didn’t last much longer anyway, since there wasn’t much to do.
So we headed off, heading toward the playground. But then we found the fake stream, and it was on. We went under the overpass to have some shade and played in the stream for a few minutes. He was surrounded by a bunch of photography students, and paid attention to them a bit, but then I think they were a bit much, and he wanted to move up the stream. We got back in the backpack and kept walking. I think he was talking about eating again, and maybe about having more fruit, and we stopped a MiniStop. We went in, and he chose another cup of peaches in jello and I got a mango juice. We walked a bit farther to where there are trees with benches in the shape of Os around them. We sat down and ate our food. As we did so, a group of girls and their teacher were taking a group photo behind me, and they were saying “Hana, dul, set” and jumping. August liked this, and was saying “Hana, dul, set”. Then he was counting them. A guy came over and took over the photo taking job so the woman could get in the photo, and August stood right next to him and said “Set!” (three) when the guy said “Hana, dul”. Oh, and when they had been jumping and stopped, August was saying “More” and signing ‘again’. After they were done, they swarmed August (again). To August I said “Are they being funny?” and he said “Funny!” loudly. Which made them all laugh. So he repeated it a few times.
After they left, he was playing around and spinning, and said “Making an O…round the tree…make an O with a bingul.” We continued on to the playground, but it was disappointing and right out in the sun. So we headed back ot the stream. Along the way there was a little festival set up, that included statues of animals and grapes. August wanted to take photos of them, so I helped him, then we headed back to the water.
We first got in the water near the beginning of the stream, but he didn’t want to keep his hat on. So we went back to the overpass and went in in the same spot. After a coupe minutes he started walking down teh stream, and was intererested in some older girls (college) using squirt guns. But then one was shooting him, at his feet. I thought he might like it, but I think it lasted too long, and he started walking off the other direction. Later he would say the squirting made him sad.
I caught up with him, and picked him up. Back by the stream, he saw some kids with toys and said “Want to go in there…in the water where the kids are.” They had a bucket with a spinning thing on top. August played with them for 15 or 20 minutes, and would have kept playing a lot longer. One girl had him pour water into her cup, and she poured water on his hand. When it was time to head home he kept trying to play, but then didn’t object when I took him away.
We headed to a different station, as I realized it would be easier. He was hyper in the backpack and started chanting “Energy! Energy!” and asked himself “Where all the energy come from?” On the train he drew in the workbook, mainly. Carly was going ot be late getting home, and we were runnign early, so at Seokgye Station we went and checked out a little park (Saetbyeol (샛별) park) we had visited long ago. Just looked around to see how it would appeal to him now, and we turned on the water faucets. He was joking about poop: “fooled you…poop in the water faucet…poop in this one.” He then wanted to take a photo of the faucet, so we did that.
We took the bus home. Setting him down on the seat so that I can then sit next to him has been upsetting recently, as he is afraid of falling off the seat. Well today the bus started moving before I could get the backpack off, so he was trying to climb back to me and get off the seat, and I was pushing him back on the seat
After Carly left:
Photo on the way to the subway:
Lunch spot:
Empty:
First attempt at the stream:
Back to the stream:
Our photo of the poop water fountain:
