7:27. Walked out and sat on the Smurf thing. His first words were “Where’s Jokey Smurf?” A bit wheezy like yesterday. I laid back on the reading area, and he came up and laid down next to me for a few minutes. A woman at APIS had given Carly a bag of books, and August and I read Five Minutes Peace and All in One Piece by Jill Murphy and a little Amelia Bedelia and the Cat. While talking about “raining cats and dogs” he came up with “cats and anise” and “cats and stories”
Out to his iPad to type in search in iBooks. At one point he ran in the kitchen and said “Why you in the kitchen?” I asked and he said “16 g?????” I asked him to repeat the mystery word. At one point he said something like “I don’t know the word.” And I got out of him that he thought it started with ‘g’. Eventually he went back to the typing.
He switched to Hangeul, and we tapped out the tempo of the characters. He wanted to do art, and said “Want to do lots of work.” He was doing art while I showered, then got out the glass markers and colored with those. From there it was “Want to type on Skype.” He sent a lot of messages. He recited the line “Look what I can do.” from the Controlling R song, although he still likes to joke that it is a ‘controlling K’. More Hangeul, and occasionally wiping his runny nose. At some point we read the Alphabet book. At the end, he wanted me to draw a zorilla. I drew one on the paper, and he said something like “Oops” or “Good job trying” and I was like “Hey. That is a pretty good zorilla.”
We were getting ready to go, and he randomly said “Want a rice burger.” We haven’t had one in quite awhile. Finally, before we left he made a “mosaic” of all the door magnets.
We left, stopping to get one rice burger, then took the subway up to Suraksan. Headed to a couple parks to the northeast, stopping at the second. Ate on a covered platform. He wanted ‘sh’ words and listed shoe, shock, and shaving on his own. We were then singing Ants Go Marching.
A very relaxing park, and I laid down for awhile, and he laid down with his head on my stomach for a minute. He was then sitting up, but still cuddling with me while eating an apple. Suddenly, a woman came along and started talking to us. I made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t welcome to interrupt us, but she kept talking and touching August and I think even our food (like she was going to feed him). I packed up our food and backpack. Finally, she moved off, motioning that I could lay back down.
August and I went up and played on the structure. He went back and forth on the shaky bridge thing a couple times. I went down the slides, but he didn’t. He saw a shape in the rubbery surface and called it a circle. I said it was more of a blob. He thought that was a funny word and wanted me to explain it. I used the example of squirting out mayonnaise. He thought this was even funnier, asking “what you squirt the mayonnaise about?” and laughing harder.
Earlier, on the platform, he had been doing some yoga, and from there I ended up saying “breath out, breath in.” Now, walking around the playground, he started repeating it and breathing in and out. Did it off and on for a few minutes.
We got ready to go and changed him. Just as we were about to go – and he was ready for a nap – a group of slightly older kids came to play. “Want to play with them.” He’s showing more awareness of who speaks Korean, as he next said something like “What they speak Korean about? What they not speak English about?” I told him we could stay and play, but he was tired, and just watched them from the platform for a few minutes, mainly on his hands and knees or lying down. We got walking at 1:20.
Walked up to the trailhead for Suraksan Mountain. Took a bridge across the stream to head back and we saw a cat. He said “it’s alone…what there no friends about?” Reading into the kids thing and that I’m thinking he could use some friends.
Actually took some time for him to fall asleep. We checked out a couple other parks in the process, and he finally fell asleep from 2:00 to 3:02. We went to a coffee shop we found called Once that had awesome metal tables. After we woke up, we walked south and east to two maps marked on the map. Along the way, we spotted several coffee shops and restaurants I marked for future reference. Later, back home, when Carly asked him what we did today, the first thing he said was “Found lots of coffee shop.” It was a nice area, and as we got to the end of the road I realized that Derek and I had walked through on our very first Seoul Trail walk.
The two park areas were small things – no playgrounds here. We stopped to get out a Larabar, but otherwise kept walking and headed home. As we walked, we played the fake Larabars ingredients game. August came up with a pretty good list: “computers…woman…music groups…tomatoes…”
We were home at 4:30 and August wanted to get straight to art: “Look at all those mosaic… want to do lots of work…I’m an expert at it (orange?)…I’m showing dada how to do art…”
Carly was home a bit after 5. He mentioned anise again and then wanted to smell spices. The two of them were skyping messages back and forth, like he and I had done yesterday. And he actually called her – his first skype call on his own. They nursed and read Pooh. I made banana bread, and he came over and said “Where’s the stool.” Then went on his own to the bathroom and brought it back. He helped pour a few things in and stir. He licked the spatula. When done he said “good night spatula sweet dreams.”
Back to skype. He wanted to ghost emoji, but it doesn’t show up on his iPad keyboard. So Carly taught him how to type it out. He wanted Hangeul on the keyboard, and Carly didn’t know how to do it, so he taught her. Perhaps the first reversal there.
I gave him a bath. After his bath, he decided to start calling the parlor the ‘play room’. Carly objected, but he said “no. I think it is the play room.” No idea where the ‘play room’ idea came from.
He was talking a lot, telling stories and about words: “you make it up…then a smurf came by and the smurf said play with the piano and the other smurf said no!” “Pufferfish is a tricky word.”
A bit later he said “your tummy feels sick.” The first time he’s said that. But when the banana bread was done he said “You did a good job waiting!” And then ate a couple slices.
Had a lot of fun with Siri, then was singing Ants Go Marching. Went in to nurse at 9:20. He mentioned again about his tummy not feeling well. He was playing around on the bed and we told him it was time for sleep. He said “The game’s all over. It’s closed for business.” They nursed for awhile, but it wasn’t working. They got up and read some Pooh and went back for try 2, which worked, at 10.
Waking up:
Tired before we even left:
Park. Relaxing on me:
Home. His skyping pose:
