He turned two and a half today! Sort of celebrated by letting him pick something out at the bakery when we stopped for bread. He chose mini cheese balls.
He woke up at 7:10. I was still in bed, and at first he was upset Carly wasn’t there. Told him she was out in the parlor though and he went and found her. The nursed, then when he came out to the living room we worked on piano keys. He saw the play dough marbles and got them and said “remember those from yesterday.” Skyped with Cassie and Vivian, then with Cherie. Carly and August did some coloring while skyping. Carly then got us all doing some cleaning, and August was really into picking up the Duplos and vacuuming. In fact, he went back to both several times on his own. He was having a tough morning – clearly hadn’t had enough sleep, and kept wanting to go in the bedroom with Carly to nurse. One time we went in and played in his nest with GG. He joked about feeding worms to GG, which she spit out, so I taught him to feed GG by lifting her up to the leaves on the tree that Carly made. He really liked that. They did some more reading of books she brought from school, then he suddenly fell asleep and slept for a long time – from 11:30 to 1:48.
They nursed on the reading area, then August was asking what letter words start with. Started out normal, but then he started making up ‘letters’ from his made up language. Carly would ask him “What does ‘dada’ start with?” and his answer would be ten seconds long. Very funny. He was then typing on her computer, and plugging in the charging cable.
We decided to hop the 1141 bus to Eunhang Junction and get food at Subway and walk to a playground. That plan went well until we found that Subway was now something new. A burger sort of place. So we walked through the main street there, finding everything except a Subway, and hopped another bus to Nowon. There, we went to Subway, where August was excited about getting a tuna sandwich with me and having cucumbers on it. Got sandwiches and walked down to 소망어린이공원 (Hope Children’s Park) and ate our sandwiches on a covered bench. August then wandered over to the play structure, and called Carly over to play with him after a minute. Climbed up and they went down two slides side-by-see together. August bounced on it and sort of fell off the end. Pretty impressive. Then, he went on the spirally slide. That turned out to be quite fast, and he turned sideways, then fell off the end of it. Slight scrape to his knee. He handled it really well, however, with a lot of his “That’s a yes, yes…that’s a yes, yes…” But didn’t have to nurse. Sadly, didn’t get either on video. They played a bit more on that structure, going down the slides together a bit more, then I pointed out the tube slide at the other play structure in the park. Went over there and played for 20 or 30 minutes. Went down that slide and climbed up the rounded climbing wall. Also played with the spray bottle and drank from it until he poured it out, then found a few beads before we left.
He was doing quite well after his nap, but had a bit of a meltdown when we wouldn’t let him hold the pack of gummi bears someone had left on the bench. He was upset in the backpack until we got to the cell phone store to finally switch Carly’s SIM card to the newer phone. She nursed him while I went in, only to find that this major store is closed on weekends. Although they were blasting music, the lights were on, the door was open, and there was a guy sitting in there. Very weird.
From there we went to Starbucks. August got a kiwi drink this time, and we both got drinks. We headed out again, walking through 엄지어린이공원, which we’ve been to several times. There, he and I climbed on the play structure a lot, and he went back and forth on the narrow bridge. We went up and down the shaky steps – something we did last spring, and it was much easier this time. Up on the structure he was talking about temperatures, prompted by the sound of an air conditioner we heard. “Maybe it is set to 70…” Then he was talking about more esoteric temperatures ”nine thousand four hundred three is a little cool.” He worked on a little climbing wall and talked to a girl about his age. He was up in a tube thing that was open on top, and I put my chin on it and said ‘Aaaah’. August found that both hilarious and disturbing, and actually told me “Stop”. We changed him, then walked home.
On the way home, I was singing a version of “Are you sleeping” and he started saying “it’s called…” He came up with ones like ‘You’re not sleeping’ and ‘Mama goes to work, Dada and Zinnie have fun’. So we made up new versions.
We were home around 7, and a bit later I gave him a bath. Played with the letters, and we made a game of having letters patooie out other letters when August stuck them in their mouths – e.g. Sticking the ‘Q’ in the hole of the ‘O’. And he made a long game of saying “Have good dreams…go to sleep.” to all the letters and numbers as he put them away.
After his bath, we ended up in on the bed. We read some Kipper, then we got the iPad and tried a new Bob Books app that he really liked. Then a Shapes app from Highlight, that he figured out rather quickly. It is about sorting shapes, and he is into sorting now, so it was a good fit. I put the iPad away, and Carly was getting ready for bed. August wanted to play in his nest, then we had a pretty good pillow fight. If August was hit, he would pretend to cry, then cuddle next to Carly and pretend to nurse. Then he would get up and say “More pillows!” He started to screech, so that brought the pillow fight to an end and we calmed down. He was seemingly really tired, so I think I left them around 9:30 to sleep. He did go to sleep though, and 15 minutes later was calling for his water. I got it for him and told him he could come out with me if he wasn’t ready for sleep. He came out and agreed to read. We read more books on the iPad: Tiny Rabbit’s Big Wish, Elephants Swim, Swirl by Swirl, The Perfect Hug, Not a Box. Then he chose Frog and Toad are Friends. That was exciting, as it was a favorite as a kid, and we hadn’t read it yet. It also has less pictures and more words, so I didn’t know how he would do with it. But he did pretty well, and he kept wanting to read more of the stories. Think we read three of them. Eventually he chose to go back in to bed…around 10:20 or so. But a little later I heard him still up, and heard him say “Want dada to sleep with us.” So I finished getting ready and went in. I asked if he wanted me to sing and he said yes. Sang three or four songs, and he was finally, FINALLY asleep about 11.
He’s been working on verb tenses and time. Sort of starting to understand ‘tomorrow’ and ‘yesterday’, although ‘today’ still seems to mean ‘now’ to him. He made clear his use of past tense today, when Carly said something in the present tense, and he turned it into the past tense to show it was no longer true. Along with that, he’s been using the future tense.
Second park:
Headed home:
Home: