An odd morning. He was up at 4:50. Nursing on and off until 5:20. He was also saying “Nuzzle noses…cheek rub” to Carly. After that I got him up on the bed with me and we read Garfield for awhile. August particularly likes the ones where Garfield or Odie end up messy, which is a surprising number of them. We then went out on the couch until 7. He watched some Kipper and Korean videos, and we ate Cheerios with blackberries and blueberries, both of which he liked. He then went back in with Carly and slept until close to 9.
He was then outside and wanted to put sand in Celeste’s water: “Celeste can eat sand in the water.” He became obsessed with the wire sculptures that my dad made and the beads that go on them, and started taking them off. One was dropped and lost in the rocks. Carly told him this would make grampa sad, but then August was finding it funny to “break beads…make grampa sad.” So that backfired.
I was playing with him, and we went into the garage and looked around. Back down on the first floor, August wanted the car to beep. Not sure how he thought of/knew about that, but my dad got the keys out and let August push the ‘lock’ and ‘unlock’ buttons to make it beep.
Carly fed him lunch, and I cooked zucchini and mushrooms. He then ate a second lunch, but only ate the mushrooms and skipped the zucchini, which he has generally liked. My mom then gave August a flannel shirt that matches one that my dad has. August was very happy about it and immediately wanted it on. I put it on and he exclaimed “You like it!”
Carly tried to put him to sleep for a nap a couple times, but no success. So we were back outside and, once again, playing with the beads: “Want to break the beads and make grampa sad…this one has no beads.” “Work on the climbing rocks.” He was also counting how many beads each sculpture had. Finally, Carly started hiding a bead in her hands and he was excited to choose a hand and see if it was there. He would only choose the hand where it last appeared.
In the afternoon we all got in the car and went to Lakeside Park. Made our way down to the beach and he threw rocks in the water. Other kids had left a bunch of beach toys around and he wanted to “Hold the green one.” He then spent quite awhile standing with me and throwing rocks at/in the plastic toys. He saw all the bigger kids playing out in the water and decided he wanted to swim: “Want to go out there…want to learn to swim like a fish.” The fish reference was entirely of his own choosing. I told him to learn to swim he had to go one step at a time, the first being getting used to getting deeper in the water. He walked out deeper with me a couple times, getting water up to his thighs. It was really wavy though and he’d start saying “Don’t like it.” The shirt was long, so we took it off and he went around shirtless as he played on the beach and wrote in the sand. He saw some ants and wanted to touch them with something and my mom reminded him of something her dad used to say: “We’re outside and it’s their house.” He did some more writing and walking along the shore with gramma, then found a “shiny bolt” and gave it to grampa.
We then went up to the playground, where he managed to climb the five foot ladder thing on his own 3 or 4 times, with us spotting him. He went down the slide with Carly and me, then next to us, then wanted to do it on his own. He tried several times, and did counting in all 3 languages, but couldn’t do it. Finally, as I was standing up top he went down on his own.
Back home, he wanted to see the gnomes out front. So he and I looked at those. Carly was sneaking off to the store, but when she started the car it startled him and he realized what was happening. He was okay though. Back in the house, my mom and me started to do “Whee” at his requested, and we started swinging him, me holding his hands and her his feet. He really liked that and wanted more and more and more and more. He got upset when we stopped and started screeching. I took him down to the bed for a rest and he calmed down and cuddled with me after awhile. He got quite and was sitting against my shoulder, looking out the window. I took a photo, then realized his eyes were closing. It was only five, so way too early. Managed to wake him up, then get Carly down when she got here. Then, Paul had shown up, so we took him up to see Paul.
We were planning to go to Westside Pizza for dinner, but were unsure how August was going to do. Eventually we decided to go for it, and walked there with him in the stroller. Went in and ordered pizza, then Carly took him out on the street to walk around. She skyped with me and I stepped outside and realized a minute later that they were calling from right down on the corner. He was looking at the flowers and wanting to know what they were. There wasn’t room to eat pizza in the restaurant anyway, so we had decided to head home. So Carly headed home with him.
We followed a few minutes later. At home we ate out on the deck. Carly had tried to get him to eat some vegetables before we got there, but he knew that pizza was coming. Sometime after dinner, I took August down into Paul’s room to talk to him about books. August was playing with the door and enjoying locking us all in. He’s really working on turning the round handles, but generally can’t do them yet. I changed him, and he wanted pajamas on: “Where did the pajamas go? The Owls are dirty. The yellow pants are too warm.” Finally, he was sitting down on the bed with my mom, going through all the Garfield books and finding the numbers on them. He fell asleep a bit before 9 again.
Park:
Playground: