When he woke up at 6:52 we heard him say “Took the socks off” and looked over to see that he had. After we got up, I took him over to the playground while Carly went to take a shower. He climbed the plastic rock climbing wall 3 times, and spent some time throwing wood chips down the slide. My mom then came over. He was just sitting at the top of the climbing thing. We saw robins close by, so was able to point those out to him. He started to take a shoe off and said to himself “Don’t take your shoes off.” When gramma said it He would then say “That’s funny!” and laugh. We went back about 8:15 to get some breakfast.
For breakfast he ate some of Carly’s sandwich, and I shared some Cheerios. We somehow managed to spill some milk on both of us. We then all went on a walk over past the group campground area. He chose the stroller, but we should have done backpack as we ended up going on a dirt road. We heard and saw killdeer. Gramma gave him a shiny rock, so he kept wanting more shiny rocks, which he would then throw from the stroller. On the way back we stopped and he was throwing rocks into the big puddle in the middle of the road. Paul helped out in supplying him rocks.
Back at the campsite, I went to take a shower and August and Carly played in the tent with his water writing book. He was also asking for a lot of math problems. I heard him asking ”17 plus 17 equal?” but he was doing the doubling thing – after she would answer with 34 he would then ask “34 plus 34 equals?” They apparently got up to the 200s.
We then got in the cars and drove to the playground down by the dam on our side of the river. Played on the structure for awhile, walking across the shaky bridge with mama then going down the slide together, then walked out to a little vie area and looked at the signs and the dam. He seemed to be sleepy so we headed back.
Carly tried putting him to sleep but he wasn’t doing it, so I offered the backpack, and he accepted. He put his head down on Smokey. We walked past the swim area and then saw a marmot, so we paused napping to watch it. He then said “There’s another one.” and indeed there was. We watched them for a couple minutes, then I heard him whisper “fall asleep in a coffee shop.” We started walking again and he fell asleep quickly. Set the backpack by the picnic table at the campsite and he slept from 2:12 to 3:24. We all read and napped.
After his nap he was eating popcorn with grampa. He waved at Paul, then climbed into the stroller and used it as a chair as grampa gave him popcorn. He heard an air pump noise from another campsite and matched the pitch..
At the. Playground there had been a mom with her 4-year-old son. She told us about the wading area at the park downtown. So after his nap we went there. We found the wading area, but he only touched the water a bit: the main focus was sandcastle building. First it was with grampa, and they built a few together, with grampa teaching him how to pat down the sand and then hit the bucket to get the sand not to stick.. Carly then took over and they built about 20 of them. With my dad August had started to put a rock on each of them, and continued that. At some point he decided to spray each rock with the spray bottle to make it clean. My dad also found a little squirt gun in the sand, so they got to play with that. As we walked back to the cars, I was carrying him and he had the squirt bottle. He squirted grampa in the shorts, then said “Squirted the shorts…just a little bit.”
We drove to the grocery store that sold ice cream, which we had seen on the way there. We all got ice cream and ate it on benches out front. We then drove the few blocks to the start of the wooden sculptures carved out of the old trees. August really liked these and liked identifying the animals and things on them. I took some photos, so then he took some, and took some of Paul and Carly as well.
Carly and I drove past the other park in town on our way back. Has an outdoor pool and a big metal play structure out of the 80s. If we were staying another day we could have gone there.
Back at the campsite we ate ravioli so for dinner. After dinner he was playing by. The tent with gramma and laughing as he dropped sand on her feet. But then he was throwing sand on the tent and wouldn’t stop. He started screaming when I picked him up. He went with Carly into the tent for awhile, then came out and read the stinky sock book with gramma a few times.
We did marshmallows again. This time, however, he only wanted the crispy part of the marshmallows, so I worked to make extra crispy parts for him. We then shared our s’mores again.
I then took him to the playground, where there were four bigger kids playing. And hyper. He climbed the plastic thing, and was repeating what he heard the other kids yelling, like “I’m not playing”. They kept screeching and yelling, and he was concerned that they were sad. He had wanted “Dada Zinnie go down the slide” on the way over there, but when we went up to the slide, there were kids coming up it and running by August found this exciting, and even didn’t mind when they bumped into him, and would laugh and do his shaking arms thing. But he didn’t want to go down the slide. He did want up, and I picked him up and he just watched for awhile. Then he said “want to do the hanging one…like mama” and raised his arms in the air. So we went and I helped him with the monkey bars a couple times. Pretty quickly after that he decided he was done, and he whispered “want to see the campsite”.
Back at the campsite he said good night to everyone, then went in the tent with Carly and fell asleep right away, at 10.
New words/phrases: s’mores, marshmallow, campsite, fire, What’s this one called?
Our walk:
Park by the river:
Asleep in the backpack:
Sitting with grampa:
Park in Bridgeport:
Eating ice cream:
Sculpture walk:
August’s photo of Paul:
Reading with gramma:
Wearing his sunglasses:
With gramma again. Watching grampa roast a marshmallow, I think:
