He didn’t want to leave the house today, but once at Children’s Grand Park he wanted to do everything, and didn’t want to come home.
He woke up a bit to nurse at 6, and said “What dada say?” – a reference to his ‘Sad baby’ game. He did wake back up until 7:11. Asked where mama was, then laid on the bed for awhile. Then wanted to go wait by the elevators, but got over that quickly. Played with the blender and then took all the keys out of the piano and put them back. As he took them out he was grinning and said “Dada is happy about it.” We had our vitamins and he wanted to play with mine. So we played with them on the table, making shapes out of them: “trapezoid and a line…funny triangle and a line.” He also said they looked like a gorilla, monster, gorilla eating hot soup, etc. Played Peg+Cat Big Gig, then the calculator app for a couple minutes, then he played with the piano on his own for a few minutes. Did some GarageBand, then I showered. After I came out he wanted to be naked, so took his clothes off. He had his toy helicopter out and it fell off the coffee table. I said “Well plastic isn’t as breakable as glass.” He responded with “Mama’s breakable as glass.” Repeated it several times. Now past 10, he decided he didn’t want to leave: “Want to stay home.” In part, I think, because he didn’t want to put clothes on. We built with the blocks in the changing room, then he saw the Teuni box and looked at the photos and said “Want to build this funny thing” We went out and built one, then he had a bit of a meltdown. After that, he changed his mind and wanted to get in the backpack.
Read Smokey on the subway down, then stopped and get kimbap and he chose an apple drinking yogurt to drink. Went and ate by the stream, after which he wanted to go to the children’s museum. No interest in the stream. He got distracted by the playground though, and played with the faucets for awhile. He could turn 3 of the 4. He was walking and saw the butterfly bench, then started running, saying “butterfly run!” Got to the children’s museum. He saw a couple school groups waiting to go in and said “Busy. Not too busy.” Went down and played with the blue blocks. Heard a baby crying and he said “What’s she crying about?…Maybe it’s a happy cry.” One of his towers fell over and he said “You crashed it!…I’ll feel happy about a new tower.” Played about 20 minutes, then wandered the basement for about 20 more. But that time made an impact: later as we were trying to get him to sleep, he remembered the music box thing that wouldn’t make noise, the pieces of paper that you can hang on the wall (he was quite confused by them – you write down something you want as a gift and hang it on the wall…for some reason), and some other turning thing.
We went up to the reading room, and played with one of the marble games. Then took of shoes and went up and looked at a couple books, particularly a Tullet book where pictures are created by shapes cut out of the page. Then changed him. Realized he can now safely slide of the changing table. And he played with the microwave. Got walking after eating a few fish crackers and he slept from 1:47 to 2:54. When he woke up and got out of the backpack he sat on the floor of the coffee shop like yesterday, then laid on it. I finally drew the line at looking for crumbs.
He wanted to see animals, so we went to the zoo. He was walking. First saw the wallaroo in their awful indoor rooms. He kept saying “How are you doing?” to it, then sang it a song. Suddenly, he took off running around in circles, saying something about the snakes. Saw the prairie dogs and meerkats, then went in the tropical building. Saw the mole rats, fish, and coatis, then a quick look through the rest. Came out at the children’s zoo and watched the fountain for awhile, and spotted a cicada swimming in the water. He kept asking it “How are you doing?” as well. I’m sure it had seen better days. Finished up by the goats and horses. He played with the faucets, and tried to splash water in for them. Picked up pieces of hay and threw them in as well.
Now 4, tried to get going, but he really wanted to play at the playground. So played there for a half hour. He went in the sand and ended up taking one shoe off. Then kept playing. Pulled a Colin. Climbed a rope ladder that way. He was throwing a rock on to a slide, then missed, and was looking for the rock. We started to get rained on as we packed up – the most of the day (there had been some drips earlier as we went to the zoo). We left right at 4:30.
Made our way home. In the park he saw the family sculpture with paint on it and he thought it would be funny to touch the baby’s butt. So I let him. He then said “there’s pee on it…brown pee.” So then he was joking about pee and poop. Saw a green sign and said “That’s mama’s pee.”
Got home and Carly got home soon after. They nursed and read and then played with Duplos. I took over playing Duplos and we kept making his creative towers and Carly snuck off for a shower. She made a quesadilla for him for dinner. I gave him a bath after that and he started to get his hyper on. He was singing and jumping, holding the side of the bath, for several minutes, coming up with lines like “four dragonflies jumping on the sky”. I would ask “Ready to get out?” and he would respond with “No, I’m still washing.” He got out a couple times to pee on his toilet.
Once I got him out of the bath, he started playing with the wooden blocks in the changing room. The three of us played in there for a good half hour, building Safeway after Safeway (he really likes Safeway). He would build one, knock it over, and ask “Shall we build more towers?” At one point he started to say “That’s mama’s fault”, which I honestly have no idea where that came from, but then I told him to say “Everything’s mama’s fault” and he really liked that. He was singing much of the time, generally based on Wheels on the Bus, and started to singing “Meditate, meditate, meditate”. At one point he started to drum along to his singing, which was the first time he’s really done that, at least so extensively. Trying to get him to head to bed, he would just say “I’m just making a tower.”
Suddenly, he developed quite an independent streak. He needed to pee, and told Carly “I’ll do it on my own…mama go away over there.” A couple minutes later he was ready to go to bed and said “Want to go sleep my sleep on your own…want mama go away.” Alas, that one didn’t work so well. That was about 9, and he came out a couple times, or kept shouting out “How you doing, dada?” I went in on the bed with them for awhile and sang him some songs. This is where he kept asking what we had played with today, and kept asking about the papers that people hung up in the children’s museum. Finally, he fell asleep about 10.
Picasso pants:
Headed out:
Headed to the children’s museum:
Children’s museum:
Nap and coffee shop. Anyone know what kind of tree this is?
Zoo:
Playground:
Home:
