August’s choice today, and after listing several options for him, he chose Dobongsan. He was up nice and early, at 6:30. Nursed, and Carly tried to put him back to bed but then he was up. Played on the iPad and was fine saying goodbye to Carly when she left for work. We ate banana bread for breakfast and played with Duplos. Tried the new Discover Music app on my iPad, which is kind of an introduction classical music, and August liked that. He particularly liked the one that has 4 birds singing and introduces you to the 4 sections of a choir. When playing the piano, he joked about breaking it, but said that the guy in the app would be sad: “want to broke them…that guy will be sad.” When I changed him, he then just lay on the changing pad and was singing, then explaining the songs: “what that song about…go to work and get some money and have fun…” And got silly: “like the giving tree has apples…” “No no dada, it’s shambayapayo.” “How you doing quackamcnickerton?” He played with the magnets on the door and did more singing, then randomly said “arpeggiator”, which is a setting in Figure that we’ve never really figured out.
We headed out, and while walking he was doing nonsense math: “Double ㄱ plus double ㅁ equals…” And he was working on counting big numbers: “96, 97, 98, 99…200, 300…1500, 1600…” At the train he wanted to stay in the backpack. We saw a baby sitting down, and he kept asking it “How you doing baby?” He was also asking the train’s name in Korean, and pretending to save a baby penguin, a la Curious George.
We stopped and got a couple of rice burgers in the station, then went into the Iris Garden. We went to our usual log bench area, then had to go right to the changing room to change him. Back to the log bench and we ate lunch. When we were done, he started playing with the spoon from our rice burgers, pretending it was a tool. He was working on the bench and tree: “I’m building this park. This is a new bench.” “This park is new.” A smaller boy came over and totally watched him for awhile. A woman came by and for some reason wanted August to see a pigeon. August turned to her and sort of pointed to her, saying “That’s not right, that’s not right…The woman said the wrong thing.” At least she couldn’t understand him.
He was getting tired, so we went and got water, then got in the backpack. Tried identifying some flowers we saw earlier, but the app still wasn’t working. Got walking and meandered around the little streets west of the main street, where all the little shops and restaurants are. Had planned to go to a coffee shop we hadn’t been in before, but when it took longer for him to fall asleep I headed to Cafe 553, right by the stream we play in. He slept from 12:49 to 2:29. A long nap.
He woke up and we walked around the stream area. He was chanting and pointing “70 zero right here, 70 zero right there…80 zero in the stream…” And he said “I’m a ladybug eating a beetle.” But he wasn’t ready to get out, and didn’t want to play in the stream. On his own he said “Next time we come back we can play in the stream. Maybe. That’s a deal like that.” I had mentioned we could go to a new park instead, and he liked that idea. When given a choice between walking along the stream or streets, he chose the latter. We made our way to the park, him singing much of the time. The park is 누원어린이공원, and is near where the Dobong stream meets the river at Suraksan.
The park had a really nice play structure. He started by climbing on the little fence around the sand area. Eventually we went to the slightly angled climbing wall. I went up first and he followed. He got stuck the first time, and I had to go help. Once he got to the top he was really excited, and kept talking about the yellow one where he got stuck. And then was pretending to eat bugs. At one point I asked what he was, and he said an elephant. That climbs. And eat bugs. He climbed up it twice after that. The second time he paused halfway and rested his chin on the yellow grip thing and pretended to eat bugs.
We went and played in the sand a bit. August used the rice burger spoon to pretend he was feeding me ice cream, and then we were dropping it everywhere – a repeat of that game at home. We also found a few beads. Back on the play structure, we went down the blue slides together a couple times. We ended by climbing over the play structure to the other end, where he was disappointed that I wouldn’t let him go on the shaky bridge. It was up high, 5+ feet, with big holes in it. Eventually he settled for climbing on the rope ladder part. He kept pointing from the rope ladder to the rope shaky bridge, and pointing out that one went horizontal and the other was vertical. He climbed up the ladder to where he could put his hands on the platform, but never tried to climb up on it.
Before we left we went and looked in at the library next door. Something to check out if we are in the area when it is cooler. We walked across the river to Suraksan Station and headed home.
Got here at 5:15. Carly home 10 minutes later. They nursed, then did Hangeul and some Dragonbox Numbers puzzles on the iPad. Ate stir fry for dinner and played in the living room. He wanted me to use the Cookie Monster voice for things, and played with the magnets. Carly went to take a shower. August asked me for a paper towel – a wet one – because he wanted to clean. Nothing in particular. He just went around rubbing things. Back on the iPad, he played Math Tree with Carly. Definitely getting the math now, and not just randomly choosing answers. He played some Figure, then back on the Hangeul app (which will disappear soon…) with Carly he told her “Good job trying mama; it actually goes there.” After she got one wrong.
Carly gave him a bath, then he did play dough letters with me. We switched, and he did play dough with Carly. She made a snake and had it dancing. I had put an Aphex Twins album on, and August liked that, asking what the sounds were (I think they reminded him of sounds in Figure). He started dancing around naked to the music, like the snake.
We did a little nest time before he went to sleep. They were both asleep about 10.
Don’t do a lot of ‘on this day’ things, but noted them today: Last year at this time we were at the palace with chuck and Cherie and August did yoga with her. And there was the great pineapple/bloody lip/tears/snot incident. Two years ago, we were at the other palaces with my parents. And 4 years ago my parents and brother were about to leave for Germany.
Morning:
Iris Garden:
Park:
Home:
