He woke up at 7:05. He was just sad a minute then calmed down and let me hold him for 10. He first played with the stethoscope, then watched Zinnie videos on my iPad. He weighed himself on the scale and is now 12.6kg (about 28 pounds). He wanted the little fan plugged in, and then he learned how to use the nob and what all the settings are. In the living room, he slipped on one of the yellow plastic tubes and sort of fell down. I asked “Are you okay?” “No” “Do you want a hug?” “No” “kiss?” “No” “just want to sit?” “Yes…Just sit.” We then got ready to leave and headed north, to Dobongsan. On the way to the station he talked about wanting a seat to himself, not standing. Easy to promise this time because we were headed north.
On the way up, then through the station, he was asking what every single sign meant. There are a lot of them. We exited the station and walked through the bus area then the back streets, then came out at the main street to the park entrance. He immediately asked “Where the candy go?” He was referring to a candy stand that used to be there, but was closed today. He never actually had candy there, but would look at the candy in the big bowls. Then, as we got to the stream he said “Just wanna go to a coffee shop.” His second surprise memory was when we got up to the stream and pointed to a waterfall-ish section and said “That’s where you played with Oma and Opa.”
Got him down on the rocks along the stream and spent several minutes gathering rocks for him to throw in, practicing his overhand throwing. He didn’t want to touch the water, so eventually I just set him in. He wasn’t really upset about it, but went pretty cat like as I did, keeping his feet out of the water as long as possible. But once his feet were in he was fine and we played for the next 30 minutes or so, scooping sand and dumping it. First on an old corn cob in the stream, then on rocks. We sat and ate one of our new carrot cake Larabars, and we watched dragonflies flying. He started talking about flying: “You can do the flying. You can. Zinnie can.“ He wanted more food, so we went up to the big backpack and ate crackers. A man came over and leaned over the glass and touched his head. August then played with him a bit, and thought it was hilarious to spray him with the spray bottle. The guy hid behind the fence, then picked a piece of grass and blew on it.
August had been asking what was at each stop again today (even asking what the transfers were), so we had talked about the Iris Garden also being at Dobongsan. So he eventually wanted to leave and go there. As we walked he sang a little choosing song: “I choose this one…no no no no no….I changed my mind…”
At the Iris Garden we filled up our water bottles. At the sink he had a third memory: “Mama says you can NOT play with it.” Outside, he sprayed towards some birds and said “the pigeons might like it.” He then wanted to head home, and started a “no air conditioning” chant.
On the way home he was really fixated on the ‘no hand’ and ‘no leaning’ (as pictures) signs on the subway doors. I explained that if you leaned on the doors you could get hurt. It was interesting to see him interpret signs through his world. He thought about it and a minute later said “hurt your knee…the leaning one.” Then, as we walked through the park he saw ‘no smoking’ signs. I explained you shouldn’t smoke, and he started speculating on why: “Maybe the bedulgi (pigeons) fly away…Maybe a bee comes if you smoke.”
At home we took off his diaper and he didn’t want to put one on. So he had some naked time. He really enjoyed standing in front of the little fan, having it blow first on his penis, then butt. He ate a bunch of nutty noodles for lunch, then wanted to watch Zinnie videos on his iPad. Only watched one, of him and Carly playing with stuffed animals yesterday, and he wanted to do it again. So we went and did it again, mainly playing with Baby Q. He really liked Baby Q falling asleep, then waking Baby Q up to ask for more ploopa ploppa. Then, he was touching Baby Q in the eye and we were role playing me telling him not to poke, and he would apologize to Baby Q.
He wasn’t acting tired, but he was getting kind of frantic in playing with Baby Q, so I figured it was worth trying for a nap. Got him in the stroller and went for a walk, and he fell asleep after 10 minutes or so, by Madeul Stadium. Before we left, they had been testing the fire alarms and lights in the building. Scared him the first time, then he was really interested and wanted to see it, so we went out in the hall where we saw the sirens and flashing lights. Anyway, would have taken him home, but was afraid they were still testing. So we went to the cafe and the women’s business center. He slept from 2:50 to 4:05. Woke up very groggy and quiet. We walked home, him not saying a word.
Carly came home and he was still quiet for some time. They nursed, then had some dinner, then spent quite awhile building a Duplo zoo together. He kept asking “Where mama go?” Then would ask ”How you doing?” As we left to go get ice cream celebrating our fifth anniversary, he said “’That’s an idea.’ Oma said that.”
He wore his sunglasses down to Baskin Robbins and until we were to the park. He was very excited about choosing ice cream and he and I decided on a Choco Tree Forest scoop on a cone. He loved the ice cream, and kept asking what all was in it. We sat on a bench and ate our ice cream and took a good family selfie with him with ice cream on his face. He wanted me to do the slow snail nursery rhyme and he started running around fast, like the mouse, and fell down. Just a slight scrape. He sat on Carly for a minute and went back to running – this time in circles – then fell again. Got back up again, then asked if Carly wanted to go to the playground. Then ran off, stopping every few feet to turn around and say “Bye!” to me.
We all went to the playground. He played on the exercise equipment, teeter totters with both me and Carly, and climbed up on the bridge. We did some Wheels on the Bus, with me holding him in the air, and he ended by singing the song to bigger kids on the teeter totter. As we headed home, Carly was carrying him and he was singing the song as loud as he could as we entered the building.
At home, he and I played with the alphabet blocks, putting them in order. I had music playing and when the Eels song “Hey Man” came on he said “This is my favorite song.” That came out of nowhere, as we have never discussed favorite songs. Not 100% sure he was talking about himself, and not me though, as he still gets the pronouns mixed up. But either way, an interesting thought.
Carly gave him a bath, and tried to get him to sleep around 9. He got up and we left the bedroom at 9:30 and Carly fell asleep. I read Bob Books to him as he played in the parlor. He had a ball that he held under his chin, then he was dancing, swinging around on one foot. We also talked about the Bob Books, but he wasn’t actually sitting down with me. Finally, he wanted to “Read a book then sleep.” He laid down and I laid next to him, and he wanted to read Me and My Dad – actually the first time we’ve really read it together. Then his final shocker of the day: He pointed to the dad and cub on the cover and said “That’s me. That’s you.” Had him repeat it several time, so pretty sure he had the pronouns down. Also, I may have made the connection once, but as I said, we hadn’t actually read the book together before. We read the book, then he got up to go into the bedroom. I said “I love you Zinnie.” He ended with one more joke, and a kind of abstract one at that: “Guess what? Next stop.” That’s a play on Carly’s line (“Guess what? I love you soooo much.”) that I’d inadvertently started saying on the subway when we were getting off at the next stop. It had surprised him, thinking I was going to say “I love you soooo much.” after the first line, but that was months
ago.
He went in and got up and started poking Carly, saying “You want to nurse…nurse mama.” I tried to get him to be quiet, but I guess it didn’t matter, as in the morning she didn’t remember him coming in at all. He was asleep by 10:10.:
Awake:
Dobongsan stream:
Spraying birds:
Home. Fan on his bottom:
A look he kept giving me after every bite:
Zoo:
Ice cream. Pointing to a sign:
Playground:
Dancing at 10: