Wednesday: Olympic Park – This Is Our Blog

I had felt a cold coming on last night, with a slight sore throat. Not much worse this morning. I planned on Olympic Park, as it was cold today and I figured there were lots of indoor places to go. As it went, my cold actually got quite bad, and we only went into one of the buildings. A lot of time outside in the cold when developing a cold. It was a fun day though.

He came out at 7:27. Headed for the parlor and closed the door. Came out after 5 minutes and laid on the floor. He wanted Cheerios for breakfast, but I reminded him of the banana bread. We had some of that, and he wanted strawberries, so I salvaged some of the remaining strawberries for him. And I used the last of Carly’s batter to make a veggie chocolate pancake. He was eating, and realized the sketchbook was shaped like a ㅁ. He used the Teuni fencing thing to make a ㅡ and combined them for 므. He then used a little ball to make it into 모 and 무. He ate, and was balancing on the top of the piano (which was sitting on the floor, not the piano). He was then pretending to slip and fall all the way to the couch. He then wanted me to pretend to fall. He stood on it staring out the window while eating pancake, kind of chanting, then pretending to type and saying “send” like a Skype message.

Rhyming words. I said ‘better’ and he then said “wetter… temperature”. He was coming up with a lot of other rhyming words, both real and imagined.

In on the reading area he was jumping on it and saying funny words: “smurf bird…smurf bird…I’m doing funny words.” That went on for a long time. He also hid the stuffed animals under the blanket and had Duplos, etc. find them.

We watched some Puffin Rock, then I took a shower and we got ready to go. I tried to put a blue and brown shirt on him, but he said “Not that shirt. I don’t like that shirt!” Why? “It has brown and blue.” But you like brown and blue. “I like LIGHT GREEN now. Light green, Dada.” Then the next shirt I brought had green stripes, but he claimed they were dark green. Eventually, he went into the changing room and chose the trees shirt, and also chose his own socks.

We got going, him singing. Transferred at Gunja and went to Olympic Park. I had brought food, but the CU had indoor seating. So we bought some triangle kimbap and a sandwich and sat inside to eat. After lunch he needed to be changed, so we went to the bathrooms that were close. No changing tables, just a regular bathroom. Went in the separate handicap bathroom. He was afraid of the flushing. I told him there would be no flushing, but the toilet was making a loud running noise and he said “I don’t like that toilet now.”

My cold had just been a sore throat upon waking up, but it started to kick in now, with a headache and all. And August decided to get hyper and ask about 8000 questions. It was a pretty funny running monologue though:

“Here comes trouble…(I asked where he learned that)…from Puffin Rock…the seagull…when it eats Mossy’s big berry…why it eat the berry?”

“It’s sunny. I can’t believe it.”

“Why there no flushing outside? What is that? What the machine do? What if the machine not work? What are those long jumps about?”

At this point he had started hopping over the ‘gaps’. Or cracks between bricks, really, but he is fascinated by ‘gaps’ from the subway. Anyway, this went on for a long time as we walked into the park. He discovered he can jump a distance now – over two bricks, roughly. A few times he did his little arms together move and said “That was pretty fun.”

We got to the big olympic buildings, and he was feeling cold. So I put him in the backpack, and he wanted his gloves on. But then he took them off. I asked why, and he said “Because I thought it felt weird.” I put them back on, and I promised something to him. He said “I promise too. Just FYI.” Then he said “It’s still weird dada.” and took them off again. But when I asked Why did you take them off? He said “For funsies. I’ll try dada. I’m gonna try.” To keep them on, that is.

He kept them on, and sang and sang until we got to the Baekje Museum. When we got inside he was whispering “this is a secret place we have not been here before. This is a secret bathroom…” I just washed my hands, and as we headed out he said “I was closing my eyes because of the toilets.”

We went downstairs to where the puzzles had been, but sadly they were gone. He stayed in the backpack but wanted to look around the museum. We spent quite some time looking at three dioramas (Neolithic, agricultural, and Bronze Age) and watching a short cartoon about Neolithic people. He watched it four or five times. Or eight. He kept wanting to go back. We walked through a special exhibit on Shandong area of China (the birthplace of Confucius). He picked up on the fact that the maps had two languages: “Why are there both Korean and Chinese?”

We went downstairs to the nice changing room and changed him. He spent a long time rolling around and lounging and playing on the changing table. We then got walking for a nap. He got quiet for a good amount of time, but no nap. We stopped by the (now empty) fountain near the museum and had a snack. As he ate his sandwich he wandered over to the fountain and kept asking “What you can’t go in about? But you can sit! Stop making that noise! I’m trying to sit!” It was never clear what noise he was talking about, or how it would keep him from sitting on the edge of the fountain. He was also balancing, walking along the curb. I told him he was like a gymnast, like Tia Cassie. He had stepped off at that point, then tried to step back on to keep doing it. He tripped and stumbled down. He got back up, but said “I not Tia Cassie. I not a gymnast.”

I had to change him yet again. Another 3 poop day. We went back in and quickly changed him in the same spot. I left him standing by the door of the bathroom while I went. He liked it because he could still see me. He said “I like standing out here, FYI dada.” He was back in full energy mode: “I found a garbage…What the toilets back there for? I not hear the flushing sounds, dada.” He was then crawling in the lobby, and got up and did some silly runny around, telling me “Run dada!” But a woman played with him instead. That was pretty cute. I followed him down a hallway, and he wanted to go in a seminar room that had people working on computers. He was a bit upset when I wouldn’t let him. Got him going back the other direction and he was walking on his knees chanting “goldenrod, goldenrod, goldenrod…” A woman walked by and he said “that’s a person…that’s a girl.”

Outside we had planned to go to the art museum, but he had been noticing the open drainage ditches they have here. There is one that is incorporated as a spiral into a sculpture area. He wanted to play there: “I working (on) stepping over things, dada…there’s a gap there, there’s a gap there.” He stepped back and forth over it, then stepped into it, then held himself up with his hands on either side and was “swinging like a monkey”. We walked along it together. When I suggested we go, he said “Okie dokie”. He’s been saying that a lot.

We were on our way out, but he saw the playground and wanted to play there. He climbed up a little stairway and went down a short “fast” slide a few times, and had me do some turns. He then started to say he was ready to go home, but he saw one of those rocking seat things: “I need to go home…wait a second…what’s that!? It’s a ducky!” He shook that, and we also went on the teeter totter briefly. Suddenly, he said “Hey dada. Turn around. I want to show you a secret” He led me to the other side of the playground and starts pointing. “The secret was POOP BREAD!” As I then carried him over he said “Poop bread is yummy!” We got two poop breads at the 똥빵 store and ate them on a bench. I then put him in the backpack, and as I did so told
him he had a lot of poop on his face from the bread. He thought that was really funny.

We walked out the north end of the park and took the two transfers route home. He was loudly singing Silent E song on and off on the way.

We got home just after 5. He got a little frustrated when I wouldn’t let him choose my kind of tea for me. We ended up on the reading area cuddling together a bit, then Carly got home.

She was nice enough to take over for the next couple hours while I went and slept. They painted and did a long bath. He told Carly his full name (all 4). I heard her trying to get him to say that ‘Althauser’ was his favorite part of his name, but he stuck with ‘Niman’. She brought him in as I was getting up to have some dinner. He fell asleep right away, at 7:15.