Back to being sad when he wakes up. 7:43. Wouldn’t let me hold him and just kept saying “No, dada.”. But when I stared reading Winnie the Pooh he came and sat next to me and put his head on my shoulder. He then laid on the floor and started singing the 1 2 3 song. Then on to Duplos.
Took care of a couple animals and I looked up images of whales as we were talking about fins. He then wanted to search for his funny words. I asked if he wanted to search for real animals and he replied. “No. funny words. Again.”
He spotted the magnetic letter set that we got from someone but had never used. Started making words, and I had to show him the silent ‘e’ rule (like in ‘can’ to ‘cane’). He liked that and said “More tricks.” I mentioned the YouTube video we’d seen before on this, and that led us to pulling up YouTube to find it. Found that, and ended up watching more spelling and grammar videos from the same channel, mostly. We also watched the “A makes ah” song, and when it got to U August interjected “U also makes U…” (as the video just says “U makes uh”).
I was getting ready to go and making our lunch. He wanted some peanut butter. Then back to more songs and words. He said “What letter ‘swim’ start with? ‘Swim’, ‘start’…same letter…’start’ begins with S.” Back on the magnet board he made up words: “That is a music group from sumanoo.” At some point he said the word “disgusting” and I was trying to remember where he learned that. Seems like we used it in the last couple days – perhaps in a book? Finally, before we left we read the Peppa Pig and Rain books on the iPad.
Left and went across to the fair going on in the park. There was a guy that makes ornaments out of geometric shapes. We looked at those, and he showed us how they can spin and make other shapes. He stayed in the backpack for the 3 stops north to Madeul. Lots of singing along the way. We bought two rolls of mystery kimbap in the subway. Unlike yesterday, he ate a lot today. Going through all the kimbap, much of the apple, etc. through the day. Walked past one park and ended up at 개나리어린이공원. Ate our lunch. He dropped some carrot and rice and at one point asked if he could pick it up. I said no, and he started to get sad. Turned out he wanted to clean up. I let him pick it all up so we could throw it away. Second roll of kimbap turned out to be slightly spicy. He wasn’t happy about that, but ate parts of it.
After eating, he climbed the wooden climbing thing onto the structure. Went down a slide a few times and sat at the top of the wall. He wanted to fix it, and I happened to have his fixing spoon. He sat there talking about the park he was making and naming it: “I built a climbing wall…I built a bench.” He walked cross the metal bridge. The first time he was telling himself “I’m safe, I’m safe”. A running joke today was telling me I stepped in slime/had it on my feet – that comes from silent E song, where it says “I can turn slim to slime”. And he was pretending to wash his feet and said: “I can’t wait to get the dirt off my feet.”
Also based on that song, he made up a game where we pretended to jump over letters. We then pretended to build a bench together. He was asking the name of the park and he decided to name it Slime Namu Park. The game of pretending to take care of hurt animals also continued apace today. Finally, he wanted to spell ‘exploding’ for some reason, and as we worked on it he said “it’s not just X by itself; its E X.”
Changed him and got walking for a nap. I know we have talked about points and lines in all of our shape stuff, but he surprised me when he started singing something like “One line makes a point, two points make a line…” He fell asleep and I found a place called Madeul Cafe. He slept from 1:52 to 3:05 and awoke with a squeal. His left arm had come out and fallen asleep.
We got walking, again passing through one park where he didn’t want to stop. Walked up some stairs to get to 종달새어린이공원 and found a pretty cool park. It had a big main structure, a little kids structure, and then a slide that went from an upper level, through the ground, and came out by the main structure. We had a bit of a snack, then he climbed up a rope ladder thing and went down slides a couple times. I went up and went down the long slide, then he wanted to go with me. Kind of fast, and we only did it once, but he was fine with it. We took a break for a snack. The park was now pretty full with loud older kids. One older boy was waving in August’s face and interrupting us as we tried to read Biscuit and I had to tell him to go away. August wasn’t amused by him at all, and ignored him like I’ve never seen him ignore someone – and August is pretty good at ignoring the ajummas when he wants to. We read two of the new Biscuit books, with August sounding out and identifying several words when I asked.
We were getting ready to go, when he decided to start playing on the small structure. He would go down the little slide, run around and do it again. He started counting them…“First, second, third…” He said all of them up to nine, then also knew tenth, eleventh… Helped him a bit after that, and we lost track in the mid-20s. He started going down the slide in different styles: One time he would curl up like he was in his nest and slide down sideways, another time he would put his hands up. That started after the second or third time he went down when he tripped and sort of went down the slide backwards but discovered he liked it. We had talked about why the slide was smaller than the others (for smaller kids) and a smaller girl walked close and he said “she’s not old enough to go on it.”
Eventually, a little after 4, we headed out. He was singing, and would finish a song and say “That is all my letters…What is that language called?” I would then make up a name of the language, which he would then change.
After the subway, we walked through the park again. There was loud music and dancing going on at the stage. Tried to stop, but he didn’t want to. Looked around a little at the booths, but he still wanted to leave. A person gave us a balloon on a stick, but he didn’t want it, so I held it. Then a clown mime started making a balloon thing for him. August wasn’t interested, but later liked the balloon grapes he made. As we walked out, yet another group of people tried to foist balloons on us. One handed August a flower made from balloons. Said thank you, then we got about a step and he dropped it saying “Want someone else to do it.” I picked it up, saying it was rude to reject a present.
We got home a couple minutes before Carly. He was just getting the iPad out when she came in. He totally ignored her for 3 or 4 minutes, even after she tried to say hi to him. Very odd. He did tracing – the 5 star thing – and eventually they did that together and nursed, then did Art Maker together. They would draw something, then he would fill it in with “slime” and laugh hysterically. I took over and did some art with him as well. At one point he randomly said “It’s quiet now, what do YOU say?”, from Boynton’s Moo Baa La La La. We hadn’t read that in a couple weeks, I think. So we read it a bit later.
He and I then read more Biscuit books and he made laps around me, climbing on the back of the couch, then off again, etc. He was looking at the pictures of the other Biscuit books and then making up names: “Biscuit goes to eat. Biscuit wants to try the teeter totter.” He wanted to type on my phone, and was doing that for awhile. He was doing fine, but when I talked about changing him he got sad and looked really tired. Carly agreed to nurse, and he said “no counting” – something he’s said a few times when he doesn’t want her to use the counting trick to limit the time he nurses. She gave him a bath, and he was still acting tired and wanted to nurse on bed. She tried to put him to sleep a little after 8, but it didn’t work.
Up, he played with
Duplos and the magnet letters/board on his own for quite awhile. I then got some books and he came into the bed with me. We read The Hungry Little Caterpillar for the first time in months, and ended up reading it 3 times. He then wanted a cocoon, so we made him a cocoon out of pillows and a blanket. We then took care of an injured slug and a worm. We read Hop on Pop once, then he was ready for sleep. He was asleep about 9:40.
Waking up:
Letter magnets:
Park 1:
Fixing the bench together:
Some graffiti art:
Walking:
Park 2:
Slide loop:
Walking:
Mime:
Home:
Pronouncing his word:
Taking care of a worm:
