After leaving the house somewhat early the last couple of days, we were more relaxed today. Still, we had a full day up around Dobongsan. He also got into sorting and playing hide and seek today.
He was up at 7:59. He came running out and called “Where’s the pink wawa?” He then went straight to stickers his stickers and was stacking the puffy ones. I introduced him to Tayasui Sketches on my iPad, with the Apple Pencil, and he made art for quite awhile. Some cool looking stuff. I took a shower, and then we played with Duplos, making a new zoo, then destroying that. A big activity today was sorting the vocabulary cards. It started with the Korean cards, which are designed to be sorted, as they are different colors with different borders, based on time, numbers, etc. After sorting those, we moved on to the Spanish cards, and made our own categories: food, body parts, numbers, other things, and animals. He really got into that and we sorted the whole deck. Then more work on the new zoo. At some point I asked “Do you want to go outside soon?” He replied “No. I’m doing a couple more things.” He then wanted the zookeeper and tiger to work together to do part of the Peter Rabbit puzzle. Finally, and I don’t know how this started, we began playing hide and seek. At first he just wanted to run after me as usual, but then I told him about standing in place and counting to 5 before moving. And he did it. A few times. We had fun with that, then eventually made our way out around 11.
Outside, we found that the the park was full of a rummage sale. We looked around. A few booths had toys and English books, but neither of us found anything we wanted to get. We were saying “Nothing too exciting” as we left. On the way up he was talking about subway stops (and going north versus south, as we were headed north today). He mentioned Ttukseom, then talked about how it has a wading pool, but it was closed.
He first wanted to go to the Iris Garden. On the way up we had decided our ‘quests’ for the day were to find an interesting plant and to find a playground. The plant one was easily done as the park is very green and full of flowers right now. We went to our normal spot for lunch, the long log benches. I sat straddling the log, and August did it to. Only his toes touched the ground, but still. Such a big kid. He also remembered Carly being on the log. After eating, we went for a walk around the park, him in the backpack. We went through an archway covered in morning glories. So that was his new flower of the day. The fountain turned on, so we watched that. We saw fish, and they were gathering, as if they wanted food. August said we could pretend, and suggested the fish were pretending too: “fish have imagination…we give them food.” We walked a bit more around the park.
August started suggesting that we head home – I think that happens when he is getting bored and/or a bit tired. But not necessarily ready for a nap, as he didn’t take a nap again today. We stopped in the building to play with the faucets, both inside and out, then headed out, walking to see if he might sleep, and to find a park. First walked through the little park area connected to the station. He liked the sculpture of upside down metal cones, calling them ice cream cones. The waterfall fountain wasn’t on, but he wanted to get down at the exercise equipment. Did that for 10 minutes or so. Then kept walking.
Made our way to 서원어린이공원, a children’s park we’ve played at once before, maybe twice. He was calm along the way, but no sleep. At the park he got down to play. There was a rope climbing thing in the shape of an upside down cone. It also turned. He spent a lot of time on this, climbing up to the third rung of four. He tried the spinning part a few times, but was unsure of it – mainly he wanted me to hold it still. We also played on the play structure: down the slides a few times (he was first hesitant about them, as they were in the sun and he was afraid they were too hot), a couple times together, and he also tried the vertical climbing wall, hanging on it a bit. We ate some more food, then he started spraying with the spray bottle, making art on the ground. That lasted quite awhile, and we also did letters and words.
From there we walked up the stream to where we play. He had been talking about going home again, but when he saw it he wanted to play. Got in the water no problem. Forgot the bucket, so we just had the scoop, and used it to bury the green ball and other things. Had fun trying to bury the ball as it floated. We waded down the stream to see the waterfall part. Got to a set of the stone steps and he remembered throwing things off of them (he was remembering the set father up stream, but impressive, as we haven’t done that since early spring). He wanted to climb down the rocky part, but I wasn’t feeling that. Went back the other way for a few minutes, then he was ready to go home. Went up to the backpack, had a snack, and did some more spray art on the ground.
Headed home, getting here at 4:30. We made our drink mix and he ate some more peanut butter. And he decided to take all the magnets off the door. Did almost all of that himself, then needed me to pick him up to get the ones at the top of the door. I started laundry, but he kept turning off the washing machine. He got upset when I blocked him from doing that. His only obvious tired moment of the day. Thought we might not be able to go to the grocery store, but he calmed down and was okay.
Got in the stroller and went to the pink building and got a few things. He remembered the jello stuff that ‘slurps’, so I let him get one. He chose peach. We got home at 5:20. Carly was running late. August had just turned on the AC when she got home. They nursed and had some food for dinner, then August was making big numbers on the door and having her name them. We did more piano keys, then he took a bath with Carly. We switched so I could wash his hair, but he got really sad about washing it, so he got a reprieve until tomorrow. We then did puzzles. He did the ABC puzzle entirely on his own. We then did a couple of the animal puzzles, and turned them over to put together the big picture using the back of them. A lot of pieces had fallen out, so we had to put the puzzles all back together. He went to the Duplos and said “Make children museum bigger” He was really excited about this for a minute, but when I started working on it he was off to the wooden tools. Went in soon after that, and was asleep about 9 of a little after.
Oh, and at the playground I had read August an email that Carly had sent him. He was then pretending to write on the ground things like “Mama I love you so much.” And when we walked in the house and she wasn’t there he didn’t believe me at first and loudly called “Mama!” Then quietly he added “Where you supposed to color?”
iPad art:
Iris Garden:
Screaming:
Playground:
Spray art:
Stream:
His initials:
Home:
