August and I went off adventuring alone as Carly wasn’t feeling well. We explored an entirely new area for us, Madeul, just three stops to the north.
During the night, August was laughing in his sleep at one point, and at another said something about me. He got up at 7:30, came out, and said “Mama’s not going to work.” Carly took him in and took off his diaper, then he just played with the animal magnet set on his own for several minutes. He came out to the living room and we ended up playing with Green Monster, and invented a monster version of the “How many?” song, with lines like “How many horns on a macarapine?”
He and Carly skyped with Vivian and company for a long time – an hour or so. He was playing with the zookeeper, and told Carly he wanted the zookeeper to teach him math. So she used the blocks to teach him math, and he is starting to get down the +1s. One of the books Carly brought home is called Manana Iguana, and it has a snake saying it will help if it grows arms overnight. So at some point August wanted Carly to help him with blocks and said “Mama grow arms and help me.”
Before he and I took off, he started making patterns out of crayons. He’s also starting to understand the repeating concept of patterns, and was able to keep repeating his simple pattern.
We took off about 11. He sang the entire way to the train. Every time we go through the turnstiles, he has to see if our card will work, as occasionally it won’t read it through my wallet and we get an error message. Went through today and he said “It worked that time.” We had brought some food for lunch, but wanted to get some kimbap as well. GS25 was closed, and Lotte Super didn’t have any. But we found a CU that was open. He also got a mango juice. We went to the first set of playgrounds on our list, a larger park that includes 참새어린이공원 (Sparrow Children’s Park) and 두루미어린이공원 (Crane Children’s Park). Ate on a bench. He spilled the mango juice at one point, and was hoping I could get it back in the bottle. He did some exercising on a bench, then wanted to talk to Green Monster on the phone. He and GM had been doing piano keys before we left, so I had GM playing piano for August and singing. We came up with a new version of “There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea”, changing it to “There’s a monster at the bottom of the sea.” We wandered to the middle of the parks. There was a planter with eyes on it, and a loose round piece on one corner. August was playing in it, then accidentally dropped it down the grate. I had to reach down past a spider to get it. He needed to be changed, so we went over by a set of water faucets. He was scratching off some graffiti on a post. He then talked to the backpack, asking “how you doing backamanic?” – that is, combining our words for backpack (backamapack) and picnic (picamanic). Pretty clever, as we eat out of the backpack all the time.
Then went over to the crane playground and played there. We both went down the spiral slide, which was a faster one, then did the covered slide. He was sitting on a stair at the top of it, waiting for me to go first. I got down and asked if he was coming, and he said “I was looking at the sky.” The sun came out, so he wouldn’t go down the third slide, as he thought it was too sunny. He was just hanging out on the play structure and said “I’ll rest and take a little nap.” I was on the swings a bit, and they were a bit squeaky. He seemed concerned about this, and later commented on squeaky exercise equipment and swings at a later park. As we left, he was saying “How you doing?” to the swings and bigger kids playing on them.
Little past 1:30 when we finally got going. The challenge now was finding a coffee shop, as we were new to this area. Walked this way and that, and past two other parks for future reference. He fell asleep at 2:10, right as we got done with the second park, and as we got to a spot that I thought there might be a coffee shop. And there was (called I’m Bean). Alas, it was closed. I’d seen a McDonald’s a couple blocks up the main road, so turned back and went there. It was one of the fancy new ones, with touch screens that you order on, and interactive tables upstairs for kids to play on. And apparently a piano or something for them to bang on, although I never saw that, but just heard it for the next hour. The place was sort of a zoo, but August slept well, until 3:39.
August woke up. The first thing he said was “Where mama go?” We packed up and got going. I asked about his nap, and he said “That was a tree nap.” He was fascinated by all the numbers on the businesses: percentages, telephone numbers, floors, and addresses. So started to explain addresses to him. Walked past the closed coffee shop, towards the other big park I wanted to check out, 상계근린공원. At the entrance, we stopped to look at some sculptures. He also saw a white motorbike parked there and talked about Zinnie going on a motorcycle, then said I should. I told him to tell that to mama when we got home. We talked about a sculpture called something like ‘Land and Sea’ and talked about abstract art. He then pointed across at a sculpture of a couple heads and said “I like that one.” We looked at that, then walked around the park until we came to exercise equipment, where he wanted to get down. He climbed and played on that for awhile until he wanted to head home. I said we could go to the playground, and he replied “Or we can just head home.” But then we walked down to the playground and he saw it and wanted to play.
We worked on a couple of the climbing things on it, went up, and did one of the slides. He walked across the narrow bridge, and climbed up on the side of that. I went on the swings, and he wanted me to get off: “The deal is you want dada to get off…the deal is you want to get off, dada.” I noticed that he had a scratch on the back of his leg, and he said “A dragon got you.” He saw the broken faucet and said “Maybe a dragon touched it.”
As we were walking home, he randomly said “Ton of hedgamahogs”.
We got home at 5:40. Carly asked “How are you doing?” and he replied “Goodymcnickerton” – which I think may be based on a line in Skippyjon Jones. He hung out with Carly for awhile, then looked at photos on my iPad with me. We ate dinner, then he was playing with the Teuni monster cube thing. We noticed that one of them looked like Green Monster, so had him talking to them. Took it apart, and he was working on stacking them. It was time for a bath, but he was stalling again. I gave him a bath, and he took a long time saying good night to all the letters and numbers. He managed to get the ink pads out, and when I wasn’t looking he managed to get it all over his hands, and wiped some on the reading area. I read The Great Big Enormous Turnip and The Magic Porridge Pot with him. He was ready for sleep, and said he was going to get books for bed. Got Moo and Dog, but then left them in the parlor. In bed, his mind was racing and he basically did about a 15 minute monologue about his nest and everything else. He then fell asleep about 9:40.
August managed to get on my ipad while I was writing this and typed the following: 1q121211111111121120-[]
‘;.,mnhgfdsasdfghjkl;;lkjhgfdsxdcfghjk,l./’fghjklghnm,fghjghjklfghjklbnm,./GG,.//.,kjhgtfrdsazsdfghjkl;;;;;;;;ttttttttuuuuuuj
Skyping with Vivian:
Math:
Patterns:
On our way:
Park 1:
Talking to Green Monster on the phone:
McDonald’s:
Park 2:
Home:
