Saturday: Nowon and Mask Festival

He was up at 7:22. I had my book group meeting via Skype starting at 7:30. While I had my meeting, Carly and August skyped with Vivian and Cassie, and played iPad and read Winnie the Pooh – and probably a lot more. At one point, August opened the door to check in on my meeting. He said “What the meeting about?” I had said that August was into Winnie the Pooh, so Peter B. was reciting the lyrics to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “House at Pooh Corner”. There was a lot of laughter, and August asked “What they joking about?”

August was typing on Carly’s computer, and wrote ‘Baby bhygtfreq’ He then said “Maybe that’s a doctors office….baby’s go there…when they’re sick…baby’s can go there…when they’re 77 hundred years old…maybe!”

Carly took down recycling and brought back deliveries. August was then popping bubble wrap all on his own. He was then walking on it, pretending it was water.

We all went outside to the park. Derek was already there with his two kids. August was surprised to see them and didn’t want to interact at first. He and Carly went on the teeter totter, then had to go off to nurse for awhile. Came back and went to the climbing wall, then climbed up the metal ladder thing and walked back and forth on the shaky bridge. He really wanted to dry the slide, but I hadn’t brought a towel. He and Carly then ended up over in the dinosaur footprints, and he waded into the puddles in them. Logan saw that and got involved. He slipped a couple times, but August managed to not get totally soaked.

They headed off to get lunch and we headed to Home Plus. Carly went ahead as August was being slow walking. In fact, he kept wanting to crawl on the floor in Home Plus. Think he was being a kitty or dog. Downstairs, he and I went to the diapers section. He now wears size 5, but wanted the size 4. Not sure if he wanted Mickey and Minnie mouse instead of Pooh, or just liked the number 4 better. Anyway, he got upset and didn’t recover. We paid, and Carly carried him the entire way home. He didn’t really calm down until we were in our hallway. He fell right to sleep and napped from 12:20 to 1:40.

We finally figured out a plan for a walk and headed out in the late afternoon. We got coffees and a strawberry juice for August at King Kong Juice then walked up to Nowon. We went to the big Lotte and Carly went down to see if they had butter, as our two stores have been out of anything vaguely American for the last couple weeks. She found one possibly acceptable spread. We then walked east. That entire main street was closed off for the Nowon Mask Festival. We watched some drumming and singing (the singing seemed to be to a skit/performance showing planting and harvesting). Then continued on and got Subway sandwiches again. August said “I want tuna again.” As we left I saw the seafood one and suggested we get that next time and he liked that idea.

We went to Eumji Childrens Park. Sat on the bench with us and ate some turkey sandwich. It was getting chilly, but for awhile he resisted a sweatshirt (Carly had convinced him to put on his cloud long sleeved shirt at some point by saying he was Pooh pretending to be a cloud): “I’ll stay cold.” Made him wear it though. Eventually got up and went over to the grass area he had ‘weeded’ before. Did some stomping on the stump and then throwing out of dry leaves of grass. Over on the play structure he climbed up the little climbing wall, then went down the slide once. He was having a blast, but eventually we convinced him to head out.

Got home. He ate some of my sandwich. I had installed a couple of Korean apps on the iPads that Carly had gotten as recommendations from Korean parents/teachers. August and I tried those out. Better, but I’m still not very impressed. Carly got his bath ready and came in and said he should take his bath while it was still warm. He didn’t want to take a bath at first, but then wanted to go in and check. He went in and touched the water and said “It’s still warm.” Carly gave him his bath. He randomly started reciting The Giving Tree: “Shook with joy…come boy…come swing on my branches and eat spray bottles” (that’s a joke of his at the end – it actually says apples). So Carly read him the story while he was in the bath.

After his bath, he and I ended up in the bed. We read the Peppa Pig books, then read 1 2 3 Peas, which we had first discovered at the children’s library last winter/spring and I just found on the iBook store for cheap. We had fun with that, and counted the 100 peas at the end. When they were ready to go to bed they kicked me out (literally: August said “Kick out dada” and started pushing me). I made a joke about playing with Duplos by myself. That was a mistake. They nursed for awhile (about 9:30) but then August came out and tried to start playing with the Duplos. I wouldn’t let him though. He sat with me for awhile and we read a Peppa Pig book and the What Would You Feed a Monkey? book a couple times. He then said “Want to fall fast asleep” (referencing the line in the Bedtime for Peppa Pig book when she falls asleep) and went in to Carly and was asleep at 10.

At some point in the day Carly made up a song for him that goes “I like to make mistakes because I like to learn”