He was up at 6:54 and very excited to see Carly when he found her. A bit later they skyped with Vivian, and skyped for an hour or so. Vivian was trying to ‘teach’ August his numbers. After that, they skyped with Chuck and Cherie. August was then on the iPad and working on subtraction in TodoMath. Carly mixed up spinach pancakes and started cooking them, then we switched and I finished the rest. August liked those for breakfast. I took a shower, then he was climbing on the couch around Carly this time. We were talking about me taking August out so Carly could do some work, but August got upset and clingy every time that was mentioned. They nursed and read Biscuit books, then spent a long time pretending to read the ‘beauty’ bag that our kimbap came in yesterday. At one point he joked “Mama is a giant pacific octopus…mama has a giant pacific octopus as a friend.” Another time they read some Winnie the Pooh. Made one attempt for a nap sometime before noon. Early, but he was wanting to nurse on the bed. That didn’t work, and he came out and was playing with the magnets. They had been talking about chicks for some reason, and he was saying “The chicks are spelling words…I’m helping the chicks spelling words.” Finally, he did go to sleep, and slept from roughly 12:20 to 2:20, but woke up once in there and nursed.
It was a hard wake up. Nursing on the couch he fell back to sleep and Carly had to wake him up. Used the iPad to wake him up. Later, he started playing with the balloons from yesterday, and we were throwing them around the parlor. I was trying to get him outside, but he wanted mama to go and was getting upset. Finally, we kind of just had to force it, and we left a little before 4. He calmed down for Mama Juice, though, and we got a blueberry one to share. The park was pretty packed, and we found a bench over near the bridge. He stayed in the backpack and drank the juice.
We walked to Golmaeul Neighborhood Park (골마을근린공원). This is a park to the southeast. I don’t think I’ve been there since my very first walk alone in Seoul, the first week we lived here. Along the way, he was singing and naming alphabets. Didn’t know if there was a playground, but there was. At the park he pretended to save a penguin that fell in the water and took care of it. He went on the slide and tried to claim “this is second”. He was then saying “twenty-fifth” etc. when it was only the third or fourth time. He was talking about letters: “F can swim. But G cannot swim.” And saving the ones that can’t swim and drying them off. We spent a lot of time writing Ks, and intentionally making mistakes, saying “Oops!” We played on the teeter totter a few times, and he stood on it. More slide and more writing, then we went up to a bench to have a snack.
We ate most of the food we had with us – pancake, crackers (putting mushrooms on them), Larabar, and apple – and he asked “What ‘mechanical arm’ start with?” I asked “Where did you learn mechanical arm??” And he said “Ocean!” Referring to the Oceans iPad app. He also wanted to spell ‘badger’, which I also think comes from an iPad app, but from quite awhile ago. Finally, we read the Biscuit books we brought, and then were making up nonsense Biscuit stories and telling them.
We left about 6:20 as it was getting dark. He was making up more languages, and using names from Figure in naming them, like “Wobblylead language”. We walked a little south, then along a road I like, past the park where we first traced letters in the sand (that had been our backup destination today). Found an Italian restaurant, and a coffee shop called Cafe Comma. We will be back. Also two new coffee shops on that street from when we were there last. I was dictating Skype messages to Carly, and August wanted to as well. He kept saying “What is it then?” to Carly, and Siri understood him most of the time. Confused why he was saying it though, so I asked him and he reminded me it was a line from the book Not a Box. He was singing, and being really loud by the hospital where it was quiet, so I was asking him to be quieter. A few minutes later, as we were along the busy street, he was then including some whispering in his songs. We stopped and picked up bread, and I let him pick something out, which he was very excited about.
We got home at 7, and he had a minute for craziness when he got out, running around the house and saying “Hang in museum, tummy, stroller, door, shoes, water…” and listing about ten other things. Played a little iPad, then typed on Carly’s computer and was changing fonts. He said “Zinnie’s favorite color is yellow.” On his iPad we read the patterns book and a new book called Blue in Skybrary (Reading Rainbow). Carly gave him a bath. On my iPad, he was looking at books in the iBooks store and said “maybe Zinnie can read it when he’s 77 billion years old.” He did some Korean in the Dabong app. At some point, he and Carly made a big game of smelling all the spices. He would carry each one over to me so I could smell. Eventually, we headed in on the bed. He said “Want to build you a nest…Want to take Sophie with us.” Apparently he had built a nest for Carly earlier. He was asleep a little before 10.
Climbing on the chair:
Mama Juice makes it better:
Park:
Home:
Spelling words with Carly:
