He was up at 5:30. Carly was stuffy and had already gotten up and was in the parlor, so when he woke up he came and poked me awake. I tried to get him to lie back down, and he thought about it for a second, but then wanted to know where mama was. So I spilled the info and he went and found her. They did a lot of typing and skyping and nursing. When I got up he had just started watching some Puffin Rock. Carly made him oatmeal, and he ate that and did some hide and seek as George and Peppa, and we found him. He then laid on the floor and made letters with his fingers. He was then ‘erasing’ the punctuation on Go, dog. Go! and decided he wanted to write punctuation on paper. So we went and did that and also did some math. As he sat on my lap he made up a song “Baba in the bathtub…achoo in the morning.” They Skyped with Vivian and Cassie while I took a shower. He went down with me to do recycling but saw a puppy as we got off the elevator and wanted to play as a puppy. Got him outside only to find it wasn’t full recycling. Could only recycle our glass. Tried to read the notices by the elevator, but didn’t see anything about recycling.
Back up in the apartment he made up a places chant “…Myanmar, Centralia, Mongolia…” We got ready to go and left about 9:50. He fell asleep on the bus at 10:10. He woke up at 10:50 as we got off the subway at the War Memorial.
We went in the children’s museum at the War Memorial from 11:10 to 11:50 while Carly went to the War Memorial to scout it for an upcoming trip with her students. In the children’s museum we went to this upstairs place where I had to crawl because the ceiling was low. August liked to see me crawling like a horse. There was a castle wall with foam bricks you could put in it. He sat in the box for the bricks, then spent a few minutes on the wall. From there we took another 15 minutes or so to go though the rest. There was a digital puzzle he worked on, a little tracing thing, some shapes to play with. It was kind of about the effects of war, but had the overall message of the larger memorial – Japan is bad, Dokdo belongs to Korea, here’s the guy that unified Korea, etc.
At the end was a big play room. As we walked in it, the two women in the room jumped at him and got in his way to tell us he wasn’t big enough for the big play structure. Really quite aggressive and annoying. And August didn’t like the news. He didn’t want to play on the little kids one (which just had a climbing wall and foam shapes – no slide, etc.) I held him for a few minutes, but he just kept talking about going on that one. Eventually we headed out.
Back outside, he kind of walked around the open area and sat down. He wanted to do iPad and kept asking “Can dada do art?” We sat in the middle and did art for awhile. He then agreed to go on the play structure. He climbed up on it and we went down the slide – first me to show that it wasn’t too fast, then he came down on his own. He had some crackers, and when he was done I took them to the backpack. Had my back turned for about 3 seconds and turned around to find him holding two gummy bears. Couldn’t figure out where they came from, until a girl came by holding a gummy bear package. Wasn’t entirely clear whether she had given them to him, or they had fallen out. August tried to give them back, but she wouldn’t take them, so I let him eat them. He was happy about that.
Carly showed up and we sat on the benches for awhile and he played around Carly. We then headed to the subway and headed eight stops west to Mangwon. We walked towards our second museum, and found a Vietnamese sandwich shop along the way. We got sandwiches and Vietnamese coffees and sat on stools and ate lunch. His first time, I think, sitting on a tall stool on his own, outside of the ones in Centralia.
From there we headed to the War and Women’s Human Rights Museum. On the way we stopped to look in the windows of a store, and August was walking. Well, sort of. He was pretending to be a puffin, then a snake. And was slithering on the ground. I turned him into a robot with a spell, and he said, in his robot voice, “I am IOQ-excuses-2014…” Carly or I had used the word ‘excuses’ awhile before that, and he picked it up.
Wasn’t sure if I was going to take him in, but he seemed intrigued by it, and it was only 3000 won and he was free. Glad we went in, as the museum was really well done, and August did a great job. Mainly, he was attracted to the audio guide things. He listened to the voice and talked back, as if it was a phone call. When we got upstairs he and I sat on the floor for a long time so I could listen to the audio guide and pretended to dial numbers and make phone calls. Downstairs, he and I went outside and down the stairs to a small space while Carly went and arranged for her field trip. As we went to go back in, there were two women sitting outside. August went up to them and was saying “Now get off.” in a funny/demanding voice. Told him to say hi instead, and he did. They asked where we were from, and August was telling them we lived in different places (made up places). He finished by saying something like “I told them three things.” So funny. Carly took him in to the bathroom and changed him, then I had him put coins in one of the donation jars.
We headed home. He did a lot of art on the train home. At Seokgye, transferring to the bus, he was starting to fuss a bit, and Carly made up a little chant with him. She said “Waiting is so hard.” And he would reply with “I don’t want to wait.” One time he let out a big burp instead and thought that was funny. He rode home on the bus sitting on Carly’s lap. He was getting a bit impatient but she did a good job of distracting him and getting him home.
At the building, Carly went to get bread and he and I headed to the kimbap place where the pizza place used to be. We got 3 kinds of kimbap: dongatsu, cheese, and aloha cheese. He had the idea of getting Juicy Juice, and he settled on an apple and I got mixed fruit. I had a bit and Carly had the rest.
We went up and they nursed. Carly then tried the kimbap and had an allergic reaction and got sick. It was the cream cheese stuff in the aloha cheese – there were chunks of nut in it, probably cashew. August then had some kimbap, and the cream cheese stuff was the first part he wanted. And he decided he really liked the cashews. Later, he asked “Where the cashews go?” I replied, “In mama, Z. In mama.”
We read Peppa’s Ballet Lesson a dI changed him and got him in the bath. He was fine until he realized I was washing him and then he wanted mama. I finished it; got his diaper on, then Carly took over and put his pajamas on in bed. He calmed as she did that and I asked him if he was going to sleep. He said yes and let me give him a goodnight kiss. He was asleep at 7:10.
Photos:
Asleep in the subway:
Play area:
Outside:
Gummy bear:
Vietnamese sandwich place:
Slithering:
War and women museum:
Writing ‘kite’:
Juicy Juice:
