8:29. No crying at all. Let me hold him for a couple minutes. When I put him down though he wanted to go open the door and look in the hall. Then wanted to press the doorbell. Then to Duplos and playing with the duck, ‘saving’ it when it fell over. We then had the zookeeper taking care of the animals. Next, he remembered butterfly fish for some reason, and wanted to see photos of them on my ipad. We did that, then I searched for photos of kinkajous. He then requested ‘slow loris’, another animal in the nocturnal pavilion at the zoo. We did some counting with the blue blocks, then he wanted more piano keys. We read Rain on the iPad, then he played on his iPad, doing more puzzles in Dragonbox Numbers and some funny sentences in the sentence app. I took a shower. We brushed our teeth, and he let me brush his teeth some more. He had a couple of random almost-sad moments, once when he wanted to flus the toilet but I already had. We did robot cleanup of the Pororo magnets, at his request, then he sat and sang all the letters on the side of the toy box. He had packed the xylophone full of magnets, and we counted and stacked them, getting up around 27.
We headed for Children’s Grand Park. As we left the building, he started to say “Dang…” and “Blasted…” This is what reading children’s books has taught him. First he was just doing it himself, saying “Dang tree, dang sidewalk, dang ‘g’ (Hangeul character on road)…” Then he said subway stops and wanted me to say it: “Dang Nowon…” etc.
We stopped and got kimbap, then headed up. As we went on the escalator he quietly chanted “It’s exciting”. We first played in the yellow Tayo bus, maybe 10 minutes or so. A smaller child cried, not wanting to leave, and August speculated on where they were going: “Maybe they’re going home to the 14566th (floor). Maybe. Maybe they’re going to the 15000th and take a nap. Maybe. “
We went by the rectangle pond for lunch. He had me identifying almost every song. From there, we went to the children’s museum. Took awhile getting there though, as we walked slowly. On the subway ride down he had started saying ‘Children’s Grand Park’ in Korean, 어린이대공원 (euleene dae gongwhan), and we talked about how it sounds similar to ‘What is your name?’ in Korean, 이름이 뭐예요? (ereume mwoyeyo?) After lunch, he wan’t to practice ‘What is your name?’ and was asking it of all of the trees and bushes and birds that we saw as we first looked for cats and then headed to the children’s museum. He also ‘helped’ me walk by pushing the back of the backpack again.
At the children’s museum we first went to the light area. Spent most of his time with the blocks, and on his own made a square, circle, square, circle… pattern. Then he went and played with several of the other light things for 5 or 10 minutes on his own, then wanted me back to help build towers and stuff with the blocks. From there he wanted to go play games in the book room. We worked on the little tetris-like puzzle thing, doing several of those together. He’s working on flipping the pieces, in addition to just turning them. We then grabbed several books and went up to read. He was reading (or at least identifying the covers) for all of them, and we started with ‘I eat…’ and he read much of the book. And it made him hungry, as he wanted a snack. We went up to the cafeteria and ate some more food. He had gotten quiet, and spent some time lying on the soft bench. So he was looking like he needed to rest. Didn’t really expect a nap, but I figure a walk in the middle of the day is always a good thing. Changed him, and got walking.
I asked how long we should walk, and he said “14 minutes”. He fell asleep after about 10. Went to the upstairs coffee shop and he slept 2:31 to 3:51. He was slow to wake up, just resting his head to the side in the backpack. When I asked if he wanted to get out, or whether he wanted me to put on the backpack and walk, he whispered “Put on the backpack”. We walked to the new playground, and got down to do sidewalk chalk.
Got out the chalk and got started. Just us for a few minutes, then another mom brought her kids over and they started using our chalk. Was happy to share, and it turned into a really cool thing, but odd that none of the first people even asked, or said thank you. August saw her writing her kids’ names in Hangeul, and he wanted me to write that. I tried to write something else, but he wanted me to copy their names. So I did, and the mom thought that was funny. They were then impressed though when I could write August’s, and we did other words in Korean. August was then interested in his own name, and tried writing it. He had me write it, and then he was tracing it. He then had me writing subway stops in Korean. He was drawing lots of shapes, and things we decided were boats, flags, and dragon and dinosaur footprints. He had me draw a crab, and then, in english: ’emergency equipment’ (from the train station), medicine, cough, and meditate. And some smiley faces after he saw someone else do one. We ended with a rainbow, after another girl was making one.
He didn’t want to leave, but I finally got him going about 5:10. He was hungry, so wanted the peanut butter and jelly Larabar. As we walked, he asked “What’s in there? In the ingredients?” (Something he was asking with the real banana bread we made.)
We got home at 6, and Carly was late, about 10 minutes later. They nursed, and August randomly said “More bad news.” It is another line from Rain. He then pretended to give carly and me newspapers and wanted us to say it. He shared some rice and soup (adding plenty of mushrooms for him) with me, and we read Spiral by Spiral and Elephants Swim. He then wanted to type, and we ended up pretending to play the Cookie Monster ABC game. He would type something, then I would either declare it was a word, and we’d pretend to eat a cookie, or I would say it wasn’t and pretend to wipe it away, like Cookie Monster does in the game.
I gave August a bath, and he made a pattern out of the letters on the door: horizontal, vertical, horizontal, vertical. I washed him, then Carly took over while he played. A lot of Duplos after that. Taking care of the animals, and the tiger had bit the chicken. So we made a cage for the tiger. Kept making it bigger, and rebuilt it a couple times. We took him in to bed around 9:30. He fought it a bit, but wasn’t horrible. They were asleep about 10:15.
Looking in the hall:
Saving the duck:
Walking:
Children’s Grand Park. Reading the Tayo barrels:
Lunch:
Walking:
Children’s museum:
Pattern:
Book room:
Sleepy:
Slow wake up:
Sidewalk chalk:
‘August’ in Korean:
Emergency equipment:
Another pattern:
Cage for the tiger:
