Thursday: Teuni Teuni and a walk to Nowon Health Center

8:11. Laid on the floor for several minutes. Then I asked if he wanted banana bread. We went out to the kitchen, got banana bread, and ate it on the couch. I then asked if he wanted a banana. He did, and wanted to read the monkey book at the same time. We did that. He was then typing on a document when we got an email from Carly. She included a smiley face: :-). August then typed it on the keyboard. He was then typing rhythms out, and little words like ‘and’ and ‘is’. I then gave him ‘Zinn is’ and he wrote ‘cat’. I added the ‘a’ in. Then he wrote ‘Dada is a book’. Initially without the ‘a’ but he added himself, and a period. He then typed ‘Mama is a book’ on his own. We did some more typing and sentences, then he switched to the Smokey Bear story and we read most of that.

We then did some painting. He is really into wasting paint by mixing it straight into the water. Trying to let him do it for the experimenting. But then I was painting a tree and flowers, and he started to paint over it with brown, and didn’t stop when I asked him to. Lesson time. So I said I was sad and went to the reading area. He came in. At first he just wanted me to go back and paint, but then he was cuddling with me. A good discussion. At first when I was asking him to say sorry he would just say “I’ll just hide.” and hide his head or go behind a pillow. But then he was saying things like “I don’t understand.” and “What guilty mean?” I explained multiple ways, including talking about how he would feel if Logan or me knocked down a tower he had just built. Eventually he said “Sorry dada”.

He turned that into a game as we then made towers and knocked them down and acted it out. We then just made a big tower together before he wanted the zookeeper and girl to take care of animals. Did a few of those, then he said “I want jump rope song.” I put those on, and he jumped around to them. He then wanted his iPad to play Musyc – I think the rhythm reminded him of it.

Brushed his teeth, changed him, etc. Back on my iPad, we play with a music app called SoundPrism, then he found a story app called Tap Story. We read the Ten Birds story and he surprised me with some of the words he could read. He then played around with that while I got ready to go.

Had intended to leave early enough to get lunch before his class as he is now in the later class, with older kids, and it starts at 12:40. However, we only made it out the door early enough to be a few minutes early to class. Walking over, he was singing ABC songs. He was really playing with the rhythms, and at one point singing “A and uh, B and uh, C and uh” in a triplets pattern like he’s learned as I’ve taught him musical notes. As we got to the other side of the park, he spotted a stroller with a cover on it and he said “They have a cover!” Then the wind really picked up and blew really hard for 20 seconds or so as we hurried to Home Plus.

As we got to class a few minutes early, I suggested he could go in and say a few things to the teacher: “Hi, teacher”, etc. August said “I don’t want to say any of those words.” There was at least one kid there that we sort of know from his last class – the boy that often sat next to us and his mom. August was having fun from the start, popping bubbles and hopping around and spinning in circles on the floor. But when I asked about a forward roll, he said “I’m not gonna do a forward roll…I’m gonna skip it.” Class was about snow and ice. They had a big snowball fight to begin with styrofoam balls. August mainly liked rolling them on the ground, but the teacher came over and threw them at August a couple times and August liked that. He really liked the game where we used foam pick axes to get cubes of ice and put them in a 3 by 3 grid. After that, the teacher wore the polar bear hat and mittens and growled at August a couple times. August did a lot of squealing, said “No, no” and hid behind me. The polar bear paws had velcro on them and you could pick up fish, walk across a walkway, and put them in a bear’s mouth. August did this a bit, but didn’t liked the crowd at the bear’s mouth, so walked around to the back and pushed his through the other way. Creative thinking.

After class, we headed downstairs. August once again was pulling me away from the edge of the moving walkways. He knows all the rules, thanks to all the signs, and knows you’re not supposed to step on the part painted yellow. Mind you, I was still several inches away from the yellow, but too close for his taste, so he reaches over and pulls my pant leg at the knee to make me scoot to the middle. This is the second time at least that he’s done it.

Downstairs, I had thought to get kimbap, but wasn’t sure where we would eat. Had thought park, but was afraid it would be too windy. Problem solved when August wanted to go in the food court. We looked at the options for a couple minutes, but then he was certain he wanted the salad dongatsu. It is basically dongatsu, a cup of fruit salad, an omelette with rice, peas, and carrots and ham in it, and a few french fries. Oh, and the little salad with the sweet cream dressing. August liked it all – including the first 3 bites of salad he has ever eaten.

As we left and exited the front doors of Home Plus, he saw the weather stripping curling off the bottom of the moving doors and said, dramatically, “Oh dada. Look at those doors.”

As we got to our side of the park, we saw the police horses being taken out of a trailer. We watched as they saddled two large horses and two small horses. He wondered what they were doing and asked “What they working so much on the horses about?” I told him they need to make sure the saddles are on properly, etc. You don’t want someone falling off. Then I mentioned that Gramma had once fallen off a horse. He really picked up on that, and kept asking about it. I said we could Skype them tomorrow, and he wanted to right away. I realized they would still be up when we got home and told him we could Skype soon. As we followed the horses to the playground, he said “I want a video of it…gramma falling off a horse.”

There was one other girl there, and she got to ride one of the small horses. They said August could ride the other one, but August said no. We petted the horse though, and August had a lot of questions about its eyes and fur and head. They then walked the horses around the park, and August wanted to play the Nervous Game. We did that. I was positive they told the mom of the other girl that they were going to walk around and come back to the playground. I was hoping August could get another chance to get on the horse – it was only an offer the first seconds we got to the horses, and he wasn’t comfortable with them yet. But unfortunately they walked the horses around the park once and then straight to the trailers. By the time we got over there they were already taking saddles off.

So we headed home and skyped with my parents. August remembered why he wanted to talk to gramma and asked her to tell the falling off the horse story. So she did. While skyping, I mentioned going to Mama Juice when we left, and asked what kind he wanted today. He said “I don’t know. Let’s look at the menu outside.” When it came time to say goodbye, August sang them a song first.

Between hanging up and leaving, he randomly said both “What’s wrong with my finger?” and “Hey dada, do ballet.” We took a few minutes to hang up one string of Christmas lights. When he saw them on, he kept saying, dramatically, “Oh my goodness.” But then he struggled to understand WHY we put them up. He kept asking “Why the lights hanging up dada?” One time I explained (for funsies, I think I said) and asked if that made sense. He said “No. I want a better reason.”

We got going, and stopped at Mama Juice. He looked at the menu for a minute and decided on blueberry. I tried to sell him on blueberry and banana, but he insisted on just blueberry.

We wer
e heading up to the Nowon Health Center to meet Carly so she and I could get Typhoid shots. When explaining this to August, I told him he didn’t need one because he already had it. He was really trying to understand this too, so kept asking me why he already had it.

I wanted to take the bus home, so that meant no stroller. But that meant it was difficult to share the Mama Juice with him. So I carried him all the way to Sarang Children’s Park (the one with the fountain and where August first got fascinated by a map). As we walked, I would hold him in my right, and the juice in the left, but occasionally I would use my left arm to help hold him, which meant the juice was behind him. He would twist back and forth (not helping) saying “Where the blueberry go?”

At the park we stopped for a few minutes for a break and to finish off the juice. He said he was cold I told him we had more pants and a sweatshirt. He replied “Oh no. Thank you though.” He was then counting and stomping on the platform, and said he wanted to look for beads. Told him we didn’t have time for that, got him in the backpack, and headed out.

Got the the health center a few minutes before Carly. August had been asking a lot of ‘what if’ questions today (like “What happens if you fall off the horse?” And “What happens if we not meet mama?”). When I told him we had to wait a few minutes, he said “I don’t want to wait…What happen if we not wait?” The process was pretty quick. August watched us get our shots. We then headed across the street and caught the 15 bus home.

August hadn’t had a nap and had done marvelously all day. But this was the breaking point. He wanted to sit with Carly, but the bus started moving, and two people got up to get off at the next stop and stood between me holding August and the empty seat next to Carly. He couldn’t handle that. Got him to Carly and she had to coax him the rest of the way.

Made it though and he calmed down. Carly was running around getting some stuff ready before sitting down to nurse, and August joked “We lost my nursing; Where’d it go?” We ate burritos for dinner, then Carly gave him a bath and I did the dishes. His bath went well enough until the end when he was rather distressed. He then insisted on hiding his pajamas. We were then playing with Duplos. He was making towers and having me destroy them. He was acting out the being sad/ apologizing scenario from earlier in the day. But he was really being dramatic about it. After I broke a tower he would make a sad noise and say “I’ll just sleep…I’ll just build another tower on my own.” He was ready for sleep pretty soon after that and was asleep at 7:50.