6:56. Took a look in the parlor, then went and opened the door and looked out for a minute. Then went and sat in front of the paints and wanted to paint. Took a couple minutes of stretching and rubbing his eyes before he was ready to paint. Did some painting, then we ate banana bread and he typed in search. Then played on the piano, singing Ants Go Marching. He wanted to go look out in the hall, so went and looked out. A neighbor walked by, and August said ‘hi’ after he had passed. He heard a car honk, and said “I like cars…that honk a little.” He then went out into the hall and hopped around as a froggy for awhile. I didn’t want him making too much noise, so we want back in after a minute.
We played with Duplos, and made shapes: “that’s a filled up square…you put lots of colors in it.” We sat in the reading area and read Mother Goose. For the one about Elsie Marley, which he used to say looked like mama, he said “That’s Jeff…Tia Cassie. Fine.” But then for the Cat and the Fiddle one he looked at the dish and spoon and said “Those are mamas.” We wrote on the paper, and he wanted to copy the ‘libros espanol’ sign. He was working on his ‘b’ and ‘d’, saying “you’re not good at it.” But then we worked on them for awhile, practicing both.
We then watched some Puffin Rock, and I took a shower. He was watching word songs after that, and singing along to much of them. He was also singing along to much of the Puffin Rock theme song. He often watches the song a few times, practicing it. Finally, we searched for ‘alien’ for some reason on YouTube, and an episode of Timmy Time came up about aliens. We watched that, and left at 10:20.
As we walked out the building, he was pretending to see seagulls (from Puffin Rock) and combined that with the silent E song: “No seagulls here. Wait, the seagulls are changing grac to grace.”
On our way downtown, he talked about wanting a slurpy thing. We walked into GS25 in Insadong and he pointed straight for the water jelly drinks. I think he remembered from the last time we went to the folk museum, as he immediately asked for the mango one and talked about liking it the best. As we went to cross the street, Atsuko came up to us. We talked for a minute, then the light changed and we headed on our way.
We walked up to the Folk Museum. Along the way, they were filming a TV show or something in the narrow street from Insadong to the art museum. August wanted to stop in our usual spot behind the art museum for lunch, but I convinced him to go over to the folk museum. We checked the wait times for the play areas, then sat outside and ate lunch. Then headed in at noon. Of course, he decided to be Oona on the way in, which involved crawling and pretending to sleep on the ground outside in front of a big group of older kids.
We could go to the tree area first. Up there, he typed, climbed in the window of the hanok house, did more of the typing, played with the hammering thing, then did some art, drawing what he said was a bird.
We then went downstairs to the new exhibit, on animals in Korean mythology. He climbed on the climbing area, wrote little notes and sent them up a pneumatic tube, then spent most of his time playing in the ball pit in the ‘Underwater palace’ area.
We headed out, changing him in the infant room. As usual, he played in the crib for a few minutes, curling up and pretending to sleep. We got walking, and he had some crackers to start. Then singing, then wanting more food. We walked along a new road, up by the hanok village, then stopped to get out some apple. Ate for a few minutes, then kept walking, through the village and back towards the art museum. Finally, he fell asleep, and slept from 2:12 to 3:17 in Latteya Coffee.
After he woke up, we went to the Kukje Gallery and saw the Anish Kapoor and Wook-kyung Choi exhibits, which close on Sunday. I’d wanted to see the Kapoor, and Meg and sent me an article about the Choi. The first Kapoor pieces we saw, were the big black circles using Vantablack, the darkest pigment yet created: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/anish-kapoor-seoul-kukje-gallery-615575
August preferred the big mirror pieces in Kapoor, and in the Choi we talked about what we saw in the pieces. I mentioned that one looked like Korea, and so then in another I asked what he saw, and he said Myanmar. Then said the red part was India, and black was Mongolia. He wasn’t a huge fan of the art, but made it through.
We talked about going and playing outside at the folk museum, but I decided it was too late. We walked to the station, and stopped to get a snack. They were the round bread things. I ordered six, but August kept saying “No. Seven.” So the guy gave us a free one. He slathered them in sauce and the onion flake stuff, which August seemed a bit disturbed about.
We headed the rest of the way home. At Kwangwoon we transferred to the bus. As we went over the river, I asked if he saw any birds. He pointed far off, and said “Maybe that’s a bird off in the distance.” I asked where he had learned ‘off in the distance. He said “Kwangwoon University”. I asked what had been off in the distance, and he said “a chicken.” I remembered now, although he had the location wrong (I think). He was referring to previous times we had eaten behind the art museum (ironically, the spot we walked past today). We had once heard a chicken ‘off in the distance’. That was last year. A few weeks ago, I had told him about that as we were eating lunch there. So it has come up. I also think that maybe it had, in fact, been discussed as we walked through Kwangwoon University a week or so ago. Anyway, interesting to see how he remembers and connects things.
Also, he was talking about a ‘snack’ and explaining how to pronounce ‘snack’ in Korean – that is, as two syllables. This is a new game, where he takes English words and sort of turns them into Konglish.
Carly was staying a bit late to get work done. August was frustrated by this news on the bus, but handled it fine when we got home. We ate the bread ball things, which turned out to have octopus in them. However, August thought I was playing the ‘Oops ingredients’ game when I told him, and wouldn’t believe me. I’d say “Octopus”, and he’d say “Oops! No octopus!” So we settled on ‘sausage’. He liked those (luckily, not spicy). We then heard the noise of a drill from another apartment. He was pretty fascinated by it: “I like that noise…maybe it was a zzz noise…want to go check.” He then did a painting, and when done set it up on the counter to dry and to show Carly.
She got home, and they nursed. Her and I were trying to talk about work stuff, and August kept interjecting, trying to change numbers, or saying the opposite of whatever word she used. He’s definitely getting opposites. We typed on Skype, and I helped him type all of ‘octopus’. He wanted an octopus emoji, so we found that. Carly had put pants back on him without a diaper, and he remembered this time and went pee on the toilet. Later, he would start to have an accident, and felt a little bad about it. There was more watching and signing of the Puffin Rock song, and he did some drawing with the glass crayons. He was upset when Carly wouldn’t let him use them on the costumes.
Carly got his bath ready, and I gave him a bath. He did not want to get in though, and kept trying to avoid it. Eventually I had to be firm about it, and he melted down. A quick wash, but at the end of it he just kept calling for mama, and wouldn’t get out of the water. He kept insisting that mama wash him, although we were already done. Eventually, she got him out of the bath, and in on the bed. He then couldn’t handle her putting on the diaper or pajamas. Definitely his biggest meltdown/fit in recent memory. Luckily, still really cute. He fell asleep about 8:30, but twice woke up and walked out and Carly put him back to bed.
Photos. Slurpy drink:
Tree exhibit:
Animal exhibit:
Crib:
Anish Kapoor sculpture:
Money for musician:
Floor of the subway:
Bus:
Octopus balls:
Hiding as George:
