He was up at 6. Or maybe 6:01. It was early. He was fine with Carly leaving again today. He initially wanted Puffin Rock, but chose Beat Bugs instead. A nice change. We haven’t watched any since watching that one episode when it came out. Randomly, at one point he said “Uncle Paul Nimand” And he read the word ‘Rain’ at the beginning of an episode. He did some typing into Google, then watched Puffin Rock while I showered. He didn’t have a diaper on, and accidentally peed on the floor. He looked at the shape of it, pointed, and said “That is countries.” I made a sandwich for lunch, and he wanted to know what the old kind of honey was. I didn’t remember, so he wanted me to look it up. So we pulled up the bottles on iHerb and he studied them. He found a coin on the floor, and it was a 500 this time. I mentioned that he would have fun doing math with coins when he was older, and he said he wanted to do that game now. So we got some coins and did some adding with them. But mainly he had fun hiding them under the carpet. His favorite was the little 10 won coin: “I get 10 today.” He read ‘osprey’ on the backpack and asked again what it meant. I’ve told him many times that we should look up photos of an osprey, so this time we finally did. He saw one of his drawing tablets and read ‘Sketchbook’ on it. He got back on hiding the door magnets in the xylophone, so we did that for awhile. He said “Period is my favorite punctuation.” Finally, we left at 11.
He did Art Maker on the subway. I asked if Abby was still his favorite, and he said “Yeah”.
We grabbed some kimbap, and headed to the children’s museum. He told me on the way that he wanted to play first. We went downstairs, where he first spent time practicing sliding paper into the machines that let you punch words in braille. It is kind of tricky to slide them in properly. He then wanted to blue blocks area. Went there and built some towers. Today was a long list of “What happen if…?” questions, such as “What happen if we don’t take our shoes off?” and “What happen if we not eat in cafeteria?”
He agreed it was time to get going and take a nap. I asked “how long is your nap going to be?” He replied“8:72 to 8:73”. He was claiming to be a grown up again: “I’m a grown up…I’m a kid now.” In the lobby we had fun with our shadows – he wanted me to try to step on his. We got our coats on and went outside to get in the backpack. He was saying he was a grown up again, but changed back when I put him in: “grown ups don’t go in backamapacks…you’re a kid.”
A usual walk, and he fell asleep. Went to the upstairs cafe and he slept from 1:31 to 3:05. I had taken his coat off again when he was taking a nap. He wanted out of the backpack, and went and looked in the display case. He wanted the black bean drink this time. We got that. He drank a good amount of it. I don’t understand the appeal. He wanted to go outside – without his coat. He was working to open the doors, but couldn’t do it on his own. Good job trying though. I was packing up our stuff and said we’d go out in a minute. I looked over and he was gone; a guy had come in through the doors and he had slipped out. He was very excited about his mistake. I went and got him, and he agreed to stand by the door until I came out. Outside, he had a glorious minute running around without a coat on. The cold then set in and he let me put on his coat. He said he wanted to see animals, so we headed that way.
Didn’t get that far though, as he saw the playground and wanted sidewalk chalk. The sun was gone and the wind had come up. It was cold. But we tried it anyway. For a few minutes he did sidewalk chalk happily. He kept writing a made up Korean word over and over and asking what it meant. I told him it didn’t mean anything, but he kept asking. Not sure where it came from – maybe he dreamt it. Eventually he made up other words. Then the wind really picked up and he was getting cold and came to me. The wind got so heavy that the box and some of the pieces of chalk started blowing away. He didn’t like that. I grabbed them, and we counted the colors as we put them all back. I tried putting his hat and gloves on. He refused the hat, but accepted the gloves. He was ready to head home now and no longer interested in seeing animals.
He did some good singing on the way back to the subway as we walked through the pond area. Lots of triplets in his rhythms. He was incorporating signs he saw all day into his singing (he had been singing about subway stops on the map after we got out of the subway on the way there), but at this point there were no signs, so mainly just random syllables. Started up with the words again when we got back to the station.
He pooped on the train, so I carried him home from Hagye Station. I changed him, and he said “Maybe it’s a leaf poop…you’ve been eating leaves.” I said ‘sorry’ about something, and he kept insisting “Dont say sorry, Dada.”
We spent a few minutes sending Skype messages – or at least typing them – then I suggested we go to the store and get some fruit. He jumped up and said “Yeah!” We went to the pink building. He wanted oranges, so we headed to them. It turned out he wanted one. Then I said we’d get mandarins. I held the bag, and he put two in. I said we could get like 10, but he insisted he only wanted 2. So I had to get the rest myself. We got persimmons for Carly, and he said 3 was the right number for those, so I went with that. Strawberries are getting cheaper – down to 7900 won, but there were also slightly old ones for 3000. So we went with one of those. Some looked edible, and the rest would be a smoothie in the morning. He also remembered letter crackers and wanted to look for them. They of course don’t have them, but I let him get some other cracker thing as a treat. He got mandarin slices and a piece of a yummy bun thing as free samples.
We got home a few minutes after 5:30. On the way over, and a little on the way back, I’d let him walk across the driveway and along the sidewalks. He did a really good job of looking around for cars, etc. Carly came home a few minutes later. He greeted her and said “I smell the nursing.” We were eating the strawberries at the time, so we all had some of those. They were quite good. Then they nursed and read some Pooh. We ate some dinner, then he really wanted to make the banana bread. So we did that. He helped a lot. All went smoothly except when I was trying to melt butter in the microwave. He kept wanting to change the power level, and tried swatting my hand away. He accidentally knocked Carly’s empty mug on the floor. Nothing broke or spilled, but it upset him, and he went and stood in the bathroom while Carly finished her shower. But when he came back out he helped me finish up, then helped wash all the dishes.
He then went in the parlor with Carly and closed the door. They nursed, and he played on the iPad. She made a deal with him to take a bath, but then he refused to leave the parlor. Finally, I asked if he needed some alone time, and he said yes. He agreed to a minute of alone time, then he would take a bath. It worked. He closed the door and we heard him talking to himself for awhile. When he came out, the banana bread beeped that it was done, and I said he could have some after his bath. I took him in and gave him a bath. He was sitting and playing again. A decent play time.
He was saying he was ready to nurse and sleep sometime after 8:30. They went in, but a little after 9 he came into the parlor saying he needed a tissue. He let me wipe his nose, then sat down and we read four book: Peppa at the Pool, Would You Feed It to the Monkey?, Rain, and Swirl by Swirl. We haven’t read those for some time. He laughed a lot at Rain – it is the reason he hops around as a frog all the time, after all. He went back in at 9:30 and fell asleep.
Hiding from Flynn the fox:
Braille:
Blue blocks:
The sun:
His shadow:
Black bean juice:
Trying the door:
Mittens and a yawn:
The wet-looking painting:
First strawberry:
