8:52. He was a little sad, but let me pick him up. He was wet, so took of his diaper, but the bed was dry. He played with th fan, reading the levels in Korean, and said the fan made a “W noise”. He hasn’t described sounds as letters much recently, but does it from time to time. Then smiled and asked for the iPad and said he wanted to do the puzzles. Played the Hangeul app and then some Todo Math. Ate cereal, banana, and crab for breakfast. Some milk dripped down on his bandage and I took it off. He didn’t like that and said he wanted a new one on. I said to wait until we were done eating. When we were, I wiped off his chin. He was scared of that, but then said “What it not hurt about?”
We played Art Maker together, and he was doing the Oscar the Grouch one and painting in mayonnaise and putting worms on it: “The worm is eating the mayonnaise.” He was then climbing on the back of the couch while I did it. We did a little writing of letters on the paper, then he wanted to read Froggy’s Day with Dad so we did that. We read much of one of his Hangeul posters, then was back to the Hangeul app together. We guessed what one of them said, and he said “Maybe! We’ll find out.” Back down on the paper he was using a broken crayon and asked what color it was. I said I didn’t know, and he started saying ‘Got me, brown tree’ jokes: “Got me eeyore…got me moray eel.” “Got me, …” had been a running series of jokes yesterday (purple slug, brown potato, etc,) Also, a random sentence he said, then ran around, but I didn’t understand: “That makes me slippery fast.”
We headed out and down to Children’s Grand Park. We got kimbap and little eggs. Lot of little changes at the park: figures by the entryway, food trucks by the big fountain, the I SEOUL U letters gone, paintings on the ground…think they had a big festival for the weekend or something. We ate lunch by the pond. I responded to an email from Paul saying that my dad’s surgery had gone well, and then August wanted to type to Paul. I had already hit ‘send’ on my email though, and August was upset that he couldn’t type on my message. He typed a little on a separate email to Paul, but it wasn’t the same, and he kept deleting what he typed. We did send a video message to my dad though. I was feeding him kimbap, which he was eating all of, if I took off the seaweed, and he accidentally chomped down on my thumb, hard. Luckily, he got it sort of sideways and the nail protected me. Hurt, but no breaking of skin. I yelped pretty well though. Randomly, he asked “what does vegemil C have?” This was a joke from a few days back: The soy milk we buy comes in two varieties, A and B, so he started asking about different letters, like Vegemil W. We then come up with weird combinations (like beetle-flavored soy milk).
Finally, he wanted to “Take care of the D with the blood on it.” We ended up doing this a lot today, and each letter got hurt because “It was not going down the purple slide…it got got hurt on the red steps.” With the colors of the slide and steps changing each time, or course.
We went to do sidewalk chalk, and had a lot of fun with that for 20 or 30 minutes. A couple other people joined us. One girl started writing in Korean, and August wanted to copy it. They left a minute later, and I realized that the girl had actually been copying what we had already written: Kwangwoon University (in Korean), which August had asked me to write. After that, August saw people playing in the sand and wanted to play there. He was disappointed to hear that we didn’t have all our sand toys with us. He saw an older girl making shapes with a jello cup thing, and kept saying “Can we make that shape?” Suddenly, he looked incredibly tired and sad.
We packed up and changed him and headed out. I hadn’t planned on a nap – in fact, hadn’t brought my iPad. But just when I was sure he was asleep, and he had had his head down for quite awhile, he popped up and said “No sleep today.”
Not sure if that was because he wasn’t actually sleepy enough, or because me talking about him not taking a nap today got him thinking about it. Because he was Tired (capital T) for the rest of the day.
He was then singing the ABC song, and talking about the letters: “A B C D…there’s no blood on the G’s face…there’s blood on the E’s cheek.”
We went to the children’s museum. We first went to the new area that has replaced the ball area. It is called ‘Idea Transformer’. August knows what ‘ideas’ are, but was confused by the name, and kept asking what it meant. Tried several explanations, but he didn’t seem totally satisfied. There, he played with a lie detector thing (rather pointless), a tools/building area that was pretty cool, and then was fascinated by a display on symbols/signs. He then played with the shape magnets you could use to make your own signs.
He was then done with that, and headed off. He wanted to go up to the space area. Looked around there for a bit, but mainly he wanted to go in the play structure, which he isn’t big enough for. He didn’t get upset, but got sad, and tired. I picked him up and he cuddled. We watched some kids in the spaceship area for awhile while I held him, but he didn’t want to play there. I finally suggested the building area, and he wanted to go there. There, he ended up playing with the floor tiles for a long time. And rubbing his eyes. He was counting them, and laying them all out, then really got into putting them away before we left. Before that, he had climbed into the box for a minute.
I picked him up, and we headed upstairs. He jumped on the ball pad thing a bit, but then wanted to continue on. We went to the reading area, but he remembered the bead game, and sadly kept asking for that, but they don’t have it anymore. I suggested the little kids area next door, and said he could make tea in the kitchen area. That brightened him up, and we went in there, and he went straight up to the kitchen area. We found cups and a teapot, and he was initially frustrated because he wanted to put the teapot on the stove, but couldn’t get to it. It opened up though, and we were able to play with the tea. He put pots on the stove to cook, then was putting corn, steak, and other food in the oven to cook. He totally remembered about ovens being hot (from this summer, since we don’t have one). Then suddenly, he curled up on the floor. Then got up and curled up on the little couch. Then crawled in a corner and curled up. We headed out, but first he went down the slide twice, and curled up under the slide. He was really trying hard to play.
Took awhile to get down the stairs, as he was analyzing the different levels of handrailings and calling them ‘medium’ or ‘high’. On the subway he made up the shape “Quadrilatadecagon”. And on the walk he was singing a lot and having me name the language he was singing in. He was also using his hands, like he was reading the words out of a book.
We were home a bit before Carly. I heated soup, and we were doing the ‘oops’ game, listing ingredients in the soup and including things like ‘rocks’ and ‘beetles’ etc. as accidents. Carly got home and he went and greeted her, then told me “Mama is here!” Later, I swear he was looking at the Cat book and reading ‘photography’ on his own, repeating it several times, but when we asked him to read it, he was unsure about it and back to sounding it out. He and Carly read a book, and he called the end the “endymcnickerton”. He did some more reading with her, and she gave him a bath. He then fell asleep while nursing, and naked, on the reading area at 7:20. We took him in on the bed and put clothes on him. He got up once to nurse an hour later or so, but otherwise was fast asleep after managing to stay up for a long time.
On the couch
Chin and knee and mosquito bites
Counting the ants
Trying out the new Idea Transformer area
Figuring out signs
Floor tiles
Drinking tea
Second spot to curl up
Curling up
yet again
Sidewalk chalk:
Children’s museum:
Home:
Photos:
Children’s Grand Park:
Ants Go Marching:
Children’s museum:
Sleepy boy:
