He was up at 7:22. Pretty calm, and he laid on the floor for a minute. Then started talking about spiders that fell from webs and needed to be taken care of. We spent a long time writing Hangeul and Korean words on paper. A bit later he found his Korean class videos on the iPad and was watching them for the first time in a long time, then a Kipper story. Banana bread for breakfast. Before we left we read Frog on a Log, then headed out to the subway at 9:15.
On the subway we read three new Peppa Pig books…Bedtime, Swimming, and Ballet Lesson. We also read a book called What Would You Feed a Monkey? He then did the Hangeul app and magnet board thing, and had an audience of a couple of people.
We got off the subway and bought some kimbap and another sandwich (same kind as yesterday). We walked over and sat at a picnic table by the playground and ate our lunch. The wind picked up and we finished up and headed in. August was running in the wind, and stopped to smell (and pick) some flowers. We got a ticket and I handed it to him. He ran into the museum and handed over the ticket and we went on in. Busy, full of school kids. We ended up in the children’s area, and then in the room with foam building blocks. Played there for awhile: I was making cylinder towers and he was knocking them down, and we worked on a couple of random towers together. He also just had fun climbing over the terrain of loose pieces.
From there, we wandered around the rest of the children’s area. He really wanted to go in the big climbing part, but it said for ages 7 and up, and was packed with kids. Got him in a little ball area for a little while, then he turned a crank handle, and eventually we were able to climb up through the structure after a school group left. That got us upstairs, where there were optical illusion things. He looked through tube things, and saw the ‘hole’ in my hand during one optical illusion. We also felt the coils that have the illusion of being different temperatures. We heard a loud mystery noise that we tried to track down – got us close to the water area, but then it didn’t happen again. He really liked the noise though, and noticed when we heard a similar noise later in the day. After the crank thing, he wanted me to carry him much of the time. We went through the tilted room a few times, and when he didn’t want back down at all we headed outside.
We went to the insect building, which we had been talking about since before we got there. As we went to the building he talked about taking care of the beetles. And, indeed, when we started looking at beetles we played that game. Had fun looking at beetles, and then he was quite excited to touch the super worms. We went and saw the bee hive, then waited to touch the big black beetles and the larva. A woman that worked there helped him touch the beetle, and she was trying to let him hold it, but he found it tickly. We looked at the spiders for a bit, and decided to save the butterflies for next time. The building was quite busy with screaming middle school students (I had to tell a couple to stop screaming, or stepping on my foot).
We went out near the pond area and had a second lunch. He was joking about feeding a monkey. As we finished, I walked a few feet to the garbage can. I heard the water bottle fall and looked up to see August had fallen off the bench and was sort of wedged between the two benches. Comforted him, got our stuff together, changed him, and got walking at 1:40. He was talking about me not remembering a tune to a song he made up (happened a couple days ago), then was singing a song with the line “that can not float”. Now sure what ‘that’ was. He fell asleep and slept from 1:56 to 3:15. We went into the coffee place and sat there. The place was starting to clear out before his nap, and by the end the museum was pretty empty – all the school groups having left to go back to school.
Put the backpack back on and we went out to the space building. Went down into it and walked around. Some potential, but pretty underwhelming, and August didn’t want to get out of the backpack. We went back outside and walked around the building – the space building is built as a octodecagon (18 sides), which we thought was pretty cool. He saw a big map and we spent time looking at that. He pointed to the Delta rocket and asked how many sides it had. We walked around it, counting the engines, and realized it was a nonagon (9 sides). He was ready to leave, so we left out the side entrance and walked around to the front, stopping (him still in the backpack) to do the water pumps.
As I stepped up to the train station there are two very short steps. I missed one of them and tripped on it. Took a couple steps and thought I caught myself, but then felt the weight of him still going forward. Took another couple steps and went down on my left knee. He sort of fell to the left. Scared both of us. Got him out of the backpack and we sat and held him for awhile. He was holding his right hand funny. Stopped crying after a couple minutes though, so I didn’t think it was too hurt. He wouldn’t talk about it though, just saying “No” to any of my questions. I held him and stood on the subway. He had his arms around my neck but was still holding the right hand as a fist. But eventually I felt him opening and closing it. We got a seat and got out the iPad. For a few minutes he only played left handed, but then started grabbing my finger with his right hand when he wanted me to do something. Then he was using both. Only once he felt better would he talk about it. In fact, he then said “Want to play that game” (meaning me falling down).
After awhile we were playing with the Hangeul magnet app and he was spelling words on his own. A Korean woman asked how old he was and then said that August was better with Korean than her 5 year old.
Got off at Changdong. Drizzling. 14 minutes until the next 1144. So we walked up and caught the Nowon 15. Construction and traffic though meant we took about 10 minutes just to go a block. Would have been faster to take the 1144 (which takes a different route). Oh well. Raining a bit more as we walked across the park, but made it okay.
Home at 5:30. Nursing and Winnie the Pooh. Carly was surprised to find him talking about Eeyore, Kanga, etc. He was then climbing on back of couch. Wanted me to play the oops game, then when I said I was out of ideas he reached to my head and said “I put ideas in there.” Always cute when he does that. Playing the iPad later it froze. He didn’t much like that and got upset. Spent sometime with Carly, then he and I played with Loopimal and he did some good dancing. We went to the parlor and were making shapes out of the crayons and picking out triangles and quadrilaterals and trapezoids in them, like in the geometry app. We were then writing words on the paper. He was spelling ‘cat’ and ‘stop’ on his own.
He had some soup with Carly and joked “No superworms in there…there was in the banana bread.” Don’t know if I’ve mentioned how he doesn’t like to use utensils. Carly was trying to get him to use the spoon, and it seems like he doesn’t want to do it because he doesn’t want to drip (indeed, when we do spill something he wants it back in the bottle, etc.) Carly said it is okay to drip, then he wanted her to drip. Said “Fine. Mama will drip.”
He saw my Korean textbook and wanted to write in it and I got his workbooks out (which we haven’t used since we’ve been back) instead. He was excited about that, and did a lot of tracing of words in those.
It was bath time, so I did the Sophie voice and she said she was getting in the water. He didn’t want Sophie to get in the bath, saying “No! No!” And getting upset when we suggested she was about to jump in. Eventually though he changed his mind, and went running in so he could help put her in. I gave him his bath. Letters on the door, as usual, but then he was putting them all on the door, and he looked at the shape and called it a volcano.
Got out, then ended up going
in and making a nest. Pretty easy after that, and he was asleep about 9:30.
Videos:
Photos:
Wind:
Inside:
Beetles and worms:
Eating. He’s laying across the spot he would later fall into:
18 sides:
9 sides:
Home:
Volcano:
