Carly’s first visit to Dream Forest! I’ve been there ten times or so, so nice she could finally visit. We continued our tour of places August and I went with my parents two years ago, revisiting feeding the deer, and seeing where I first changed him here.
He was up at 8:35. Very happy when he came out, after 13 hours of sleep. Laid down on the rug for a minute, then wanted both his pink and blue water bottles. When I brought them to him, he started talking to them: “How you doing pink wawa…blue wawa wants the drink.” “Pink wawa at work, blue wawa stay home.” He then the blue wawa go and make a zoo. He then said “Mama didn’t go to work yesterday.” Good use of both past tense and ‘yesterday’. They nursed and read some Bob Books, then skyped with Vivian. Carly read the Mr. Gumpy book over skype. We were slowly getting ready to go, and at one point asked “Where letters go that mama paint?” He was referring to the paintings that Carly did of Q, Z, 14, and K. And at another time he randomly looked up at the two of us and said “Mama and dada are humans.” Carly had put an old pair of shorts on him and was wondering if they were okay. He said “shorts are a little big…it feels okay.” And kind of leaned towards/pointed at Carly as he said it. He got upset when I said he was getting in the backpack, so that delayed us a bit. We ended up leaving with him walking, then wanting to get in the backpack once we got outside.
On the subway down, he and I were remembering the song he made up at Dream Forest. He said “All the way to this stream, boop. Remember that game…remember that song.” He was then chanting it and stopping on ‘boop’ as he walked on a yellow line in the subway station, and then doing it with Carly out on the sidewalk.
In Seoul Forest he first played on the piano by the info center. He’s graduated to playing with both hands, and not just focusing on one. He was also very interested in the sheet music that was on the piano. I kind of told him what it was, and he would point to it and say “You’re playing 2 notes…you’re playing 5 notes” then play some keys. There was a little fountain that we then played with. August was throwing chestnut shells in, which floated like little boats, and a chestnut, which sunk. But at 12:30 it turned off. We had a couple more minutes to play in it, then it drained.
From there we went to the playground. He saw people playing in the sad, so first wanted to make sand castles. We did that, using a cup we found. He still had his chestnut, so put that on top. (He had said he wanted to put the chestnut in the turning things by the stream, but we never actually played with those today.) He then went and played on the play structure with Carly. They went down a slide a couple times. He liked walking through the metal bridge with holes in it, although he didn’t like when people tried coming the other way. He also went across a shaky bridge. He saw a guy building a pyramid out of sand, and wanted us to do that. So we ended up back by the backpack. I was building him a pyramid, but he kept knocking it down. I told him he could do that, but I would stop if he did it again. He thought about it, then knocked it down and was subsequently upset when I wouldn’t rebuild it. Eventually, he agreed to help me rebuild it. We did that, then I got the spray bottle out, and we spent quite awhile drawing letters and words in the sand with it. There were some older boys next to us, practicing their karate/dance moves and August started spraying them with the water bottle. I told him not to, but the oldest boy said it was okay. He knew English. Talked to him a little, and turned out he was from the Philippines. In fact, the park was mainly full of non-Koreans, with Koreans being out of town for Chuseok.
Done at the playground, August and Carly went to nurse on a bench. We then went to walk to the bathrooms, then on to the insect house. There was a little boy crying. His dad was carrying him, and the mom had a scooter. We were speculating he had fallen off the scooter. Then August pointed to the mom and said “His mama is wimpy”.
We went to the butterfly building and looked around there. August wanted to know the names of a couple of the butterflies, but we didn’t have a way to figure that out. Then went to the insect house. He wanted to know the names of a lot of the frogs and beetles. For one, we just had the scientific name, and August had fun saying that one. He wanted to stay in the backpack the whole time while we looked at the tortoises (and talked to them), crabs, iguana, etc.
We then walked over to the deer area. The inside part wasn’t open, but we could still get food and feed the deer. Carly got the food, but when it dispensed the food it didn’t put out a cup. Luckily, I had an empty snack container, so she scraped it all in there. We went over and fed the deer. August and I did that, as Carly didn’t want to. He had me do it, and he threw some pieces in. After awhile, he sat in my lap and we fed them that way.
Finished up there and walked to the CU and got a snack. On the way, Carly carried him a bit, and he held on tight around her with his arms and legs to make it easier. At CU, August got a tomato/fruit juice, and we got some sweet potato chews. He liked both. We were sitting on the square of benches around the tree – where I first changed him, and where we’ve eaten a couple times since then. I reminded him that this was where he first tired seaweed, in the triangle kimbap, and he said “No…it was here.” as he walked around to the other side and pointed to the bench where, indeed, it had happened.
We headed back to the train station. August was talking to the dirt, etc. along the way. We got on the subway, and he sat, in the middle seat between two guys. August was pointing to the map of subway stops and talking, pointing to it and holding one had to his ear. We realized he was talking on the phone, taking about made up people and which ones went to work and which ones stayed home.
Got back to Hagye around 5. We went over to Mainz Dom and got bread, then to the little tteok place which was selling the traditional Chuseok tteok and we bought a pack of that. Went home and Carly made more sweet potato fries and spring rolls while I played with August. We ate, then I gave him a bath. But first we had been playing a game where he put magnets in the xylophone case and told me to open it. I would open it, be surprised the magnets were there, take them out, then walk away. He thought it was hilarious, and put more magnets in each time. He was avoiding a bath, and coming up with excuses. He wanted to put the magnets on the door, so we did a little of that, then I got him to the bath. The usual letter routine now: making numbers, saying ‘sweet dreams’ as he put them all away. We got in bed and were reading on my iPad. We read the Swirl by Swirl book a few times today, and also Tiny Rabbit’s Big Wish, and Possum’s Harvest Moon (the first time for that one). He kept claiming he wasn’t tired, and said he wasn’t going to sleep, but finally convinced him he wanted to nurse, and he was asleep about 8:40.
Morning:
Walking to the park:
Seoul Forest:
Playground:
Headed home:
Home: