He walked out at 6:59. I said good morning and he held out his hand toward me and said “No”. He wanted mama. He went in on the reading area and laid down and I let him have a minute. He wasn’t upset though. I tried to go in a couple minutes later, but he said “No, no.” At 7:06 he came out and saw me typing. He watched and saw me type a period and whispered “No period. I don’t like the period.” Then wanted me to “come to the nest”. I went in to the reading area but he went to the Duplos and quietly played by himself for awhile.
He wanted to paint, and did so, but just for a minute. When getting him red paint, I said a rhyming line from Dr. Seuss. He noticed it rhymes, then decided he wanted to watch the Winnie the Pooh about rhyming. Luckily, I found a YouTube play list that has it broken into chunks. So we watched all of that. After that, he started to asks me for rhymes, pointing his finger at me as he finished each question:
“What rhymes with blanket? Now, what rhymes with spider? Now what rhymes with tiger? Now what rhymes with painting? Tires?” For each I would make up a rhyme like “Tigger is a really brave tiger, he likes to walk on a wire.” I took him in to change him, and he made up a rhyme. Something like green and clean. He said they sounded like Korean and said “What they sound like Korean about?” I said Korean and English shared a lot of the same sounds, so then he went around listing them: “ㄱ is G. ㅂ is B…”
We read The Wheels on the Bus and Buenas Noches a Todos books. I took a shower and he was doing art on the iPad when I went in. When I came out he was typing and wanted to show me what he typed.
He seemed pretty hi energy so I asked if we should start getting ready to go, and he said yes. He walked by the piano and asked for “Green Marshy” – a funny oops. We went in and got Green Monster and were singing the We Like to Make Mistakes song and August wanted GM to make mistakes while he sang it, which August thought was really funny.
Back out, August was making a noise and wanted to know the tempo. Opened up the metronome app and August was tapping on it, singing to the tempo, and started noticing the tempo words, like allegro.
I made a sandwich and August ate peanut butter on a spoon, then stated he wanted to go outside. So we finished getting ready. But somehow the word ‘bug’ came up and he asked what it meant. I explained ‘bug’ and ‘insect’ and listed insects he knew. He added “spider” and I said “Actually, they have 8 legs.” He kind of insisted on spiders; then crawled behind me. After a minute he said “Want the nest.” We went in on the bed and had a nest for a few minutes. I brought the spiders back up, and he said “Supposed to be six legs.” But a minute later he was singing the I Like to Make Mistakes song.
We went out and he rolled on the floor and pretended to cut the couch with the playdough knife. We brushed our teeth and left about 10:30. Before we walked out the door he was putting his head on the floor and looking through his legs and saying “I’m upside down” then standing up and saying “I’m right side up.”
On the bus down he made up “chegga mega” for Daniel Tiger (instead of ‘ugga mugga’). In Sangbong he said he didn’t like parentheses now. I asked what punctuation he did like, and he said colon is his favorite. Then “Maybe dada’s favorite is ampersand.” On the platform his hands were getting cold, so he had me hold them a bit. He was then putting them in my hood.
On the train he was impressing a woman with his reading of Hangeul. In talking about our route, I said we were transferring at Sangbong and he said “That’s a slow train…that train goes rrrrrr. R sound.” I really don’t know how much of this he makes up, and how much he remembers, but that seems pretty accurate – it is a slower, above ground train and has a quieter hum to it that our noisier 7 line. He also talked about how he had been upside down before we left.
We got into the museum at 11:40. Went and got a ticket for the children’s museum from 12 to 1:30. Perfect. We went into the infant room and ate our lunch, and went in to play. He did some writing on the walls, some duplos, then went and briefly played with the blocks he loved last time and the rubber stamps. Really thought we’d get back to them. He went and was climbing on the little hill things. He was crouching on top of one when a bigger boy (about the only other kid there) came up the slide of it. August was telling him “No, no, no” but I said it was okay. But then, in what I think was some unthought out plan to play with August, he kept going and kind of kneeled on August’s knees, put his hands on August’s shoulders, and August fell over backwards, and likely would have fallen off the hill if the boy hadn’t been crushing his legs. I was able to catch him, and the mom came over. August started bawling and I picked him up. I wasn’t too upset, except all the mom did was say one thing, basically “Be careful with the baby” and let the boy go back to playing.
August should have been getting tired anyway, and wanted to go home. We walked around a couple minutes, and a woman who worked there pointed out there was an infant play room. It was kind of a boring room, with a couple little hills and some bench steps to climb on, but it worked. August calmed down and played in there for 15 or 20 minutes. There was a smaller girl, and August touched her foot and hands and cheek. She started to get a little worried so the mom came over and I had August scoot back. We talked for a couple minutes – they just moved here from Hong Kong 5 months ago. But then August was rubbing his eyes and asking to go.
We packed and changed him and headed out. It was at this point that the election, which I had been frantically following all morning, was starting to look bad. I didn’t feel like staying around and looking at the musuem, so we walked west, towards iPark Mall.
Got there, then headed north, and wandered some back streets, seeing the west entrance to the U.S. base. August had his head back and was making small noises at one point, but then popped back up. After 40+ minutes I walked to Sinyoungsan Station and we headed home on line 4. On that train he said “mmmm This train makes an M noise.” And he said (kindly) “What are you doing?” to a woman who sat down next to him.
We got off at Changdong and started to walk to catch the 1144. But he pooped and needed to be changed right then. So we went to the little stage area where I’ve changed him before and changed him. Went and caught the bus (he really likes the solar-powered KakaoTalk wobbly head things in the machine and has figured out you can by them (sort of – it is a game of change thing), so I was glad when it arrived) and headed home.
Randomly, on the bus he said “I want a lizard.” I asked “Wait, you ARE a lizard, or you want a lizard?” He replied “I’m not a lizard, but I want a lizard.” We then talked about where he would get a lizard and why. His first real pet request.
At home he first wanted to paint, then we did play dough, making more marbles of mixed colors (more lessons in the color wheel). We then went down to get some Mama Juice. In the elevator, we were having a discussion about why two words DIDN’T rhyme. This really impressed a guy in the elevator, saying that August speaks really well. August got a mandarin juice and I got a coffee. August had said we should get “high” ones and I figured out he meant ‘large’ (he knows the difference between high and low musical notes, so he’s gotten these confused before). We settled for ‘medium’ (which is their ‘small’ – it is confusing to be a little boy). We went for a walk around the park. His hands were getting cold, so he used the blanket on them in the stroller.
We went to the art museum and saw some of the new art in the main gallery. We dropped the blanket. Went back, he got out of the stroller and cuddled on it like a nes
t. Tried to go to the play area, but it is closed. Good news though, as they are turning the gift shop into a larger kids area. We went and looked at the coffee shop. August wanted to head home. I said I needed to get the stroller. He said “I’ll wait here.” I made him come with me. He sat in the middle of the lobby floor and laid down again.
We headed out and went home. He was hungry, but requested Special Flakes and was passing up all the actual dinner choices. He decided he did want a mandarin though, and I turned for a few seconds to get them out of the backpack. When I turned back, his face was all orange. Like really orange. And there was a streak in his hair. He had drawn on himself with the glass crayons. Carly had just messaged saying she would be back in a few minutes. I was going to wash him, but we decided it would be more fun to meet her at the elevator that way.
Oh, and before that he had randomly started saying “Oh well. Oh well.” in an Eeyore voice. This was as Derek and I were texting about the disaster of an election. Derek said “Now there’s a kid with foresight.”
We met Carly at the elevator. They came back and nursed. August was having a tough time, and being very contrarian, doing his opposite word thing when we were talking. I told Carly about his request of a lizard, and he started to cheer up. I got out the Pete the Cat book and he got excited about that. He and I read that and carly slipped off to eat some dinner. He was in a much better mood now and they nursed, but he was laughing about things this time.
They had read Wheels on the Bus. He and I then read Mother Goose. We played hide and seek with Turkey, with him hiding Turkey and me finding her. He’s getting better with his hiding skills.
Carly gave him a bath. He did more iPad art, and at some point was making a point of snuggling with both me and Carly on the couch, saying “Snuggle, snuggle…You’re snuggling.” They did more hide and seek with Turkey and August Jr. and he was asleep about 8.
Children’s museum:
Play dough:
Art museum:
Sleepy:
Orange:
