He was up at 5:30. They skyped with Vivian, etc. for quite awhile and had pancakes for breakfast. Made playdough letters, and early on he was ready to go outside: “Get me ready to go outside.” But before that he was playing notes on the piano and asking what they were. He was actually playing notes, so we were looking up chords on the iPad. I was trying to figure out if I needed to pay money for an app, and tried to use GarageBand instead. We tried it out, but it didn’t. August kept asking “Why?” it didn’t work.
He and Carly went outside at 9:20, and were back a little after 10. They had taken out recycling, rose around on the bike a bit, and gone to the bakery for bread. He got a little cheese ball thing as a treat and shared it with me when he got back.
We played with play dough. He wanted me to make cubes, then he would squish them and print a litter in it. He was then walking around and made up a song. There were lines about spitting, and pooping, and something else, then a few lines about a fish eating. He was sitting on the toilet, and I started reading him the Cat on the Mat Is Flat book. We then went and read more in the reading area. He shared some noodles with me, then was pretending to have a flashlight: “The batteries are dead…there are new batteries. There is a button. It is lighting up dada.”
He was getting sleepy, and Carly put him down for a nap. He slept from 11:30 to 12:35 – his first kind of full nap during a weekday in quite some time (37 minutes on Friday was the next closest). They nursed, then he was just playing on the piano on his own, playing two notes at a time.
I took him out for a walk at 1:30, with him on the bike. As we got close to Madeul Stadium, he was holding his hand by his ear and saying “I don’t hear anything.” He then wanted to pedal on his own, so I was giving him a good push and he was trying pedal as far as he could. We went to the playground by the stadium and played here. Haven’t done that much recently. He found some shells in the sand, then we sat down and had some food to eat. He ate all of the pasta veggies that Carly had made. He then wanted to try the swing, with me pushing him. Started off slowly, and with short sessions, and he was nervous. He asked “What happens if you fall off?”, and I said the sand was nice and soft. He would swing for a few seconds on one, kind of jump off, then want the other one.
A guy came over and talked to me. Turned out he was a retired English teacher in a Korean high school. Each Monday he brings his grandson, who lacks some use of his left hand, to the center for disabilities across the street. Anyway, while I was talking to him, I realized August had been swinging for several minutes as I pushed him. He left, and August continued to swing, getting more and more confident. He started chanting “Up to the sky!” And a few times said ”Isn’t it pretty?” At some point he looked across and realized that the piano sculpture was a treble clef: “Why there a high clef about?” He also noticed that we were the only people playing in the park: “It’s empty…why just dada and Zinnie on the swings?”
One had one mild fall when he got off going to fast. I rubbed his back and he said “Why dada wipe the sand off about?” Wasn’t traumatized and wanted right back on the other one. He had a a bigger fall, in which he fell on his stomach and got some sand in his mouth. I told him to spit it out, and he did, and was fine. A total of three falls, and he didn’t get upset about any of them.
From there he went to the play structure and climbed up – and then back down – the wooden wall with a rope on his own. He then wandered over to the exercise equipment and played with that. He wanted to climb up on the sit-up bench, and I helped him up. He sat at the top of that for awhile. Without me saying he was cute, he asked “Why are you cute about?” He then gave me his ‘cute’ look for a photo. Finally, he walked on the piano sculpture. He had a pretty hard fall on the black keys, but got up and didn’t fuss.
On the walk home he spotted a heron on the stream. Not one of the small ones, but one of the big ones that we don’t often see. He got off and hung on the fence and watched it for a few minutes.
At home they nursed, then went back out with Carly for a walk by the stream. After a bit I felt like going back out for a walk too, as the weather was so nice. I met them halfway between here and the stream. August wanted to get juice, so I walked to King Kong Juice with them, and August chose mango pineapple. We got it without sugar, but it was rather tart, and he didn’t drink much.They did more walking, and I headed home.
They were home a bit later. He watched Puffin Rock, then wanted to play on Carly’s computer. She was doing some work, so asked him what her students’ homework should be. He came up with a whole list: “Writing…painting…work…fix something…”
He typed on the iPad, then played with the tongs in the freezer, picking up a popsicle. He and Carly had made popsicles earlier in the day, and he’d already had two: one early in the day, and one as they went for their walk. Carly gave him a bath, then he and I did a bit of the Peter Rabbit puzzle, with Peter Rabbit, of course, then we read. He requested a Pooh poem, then that we read Opposites, which he basically read all on his own. He then wanted my iPad to draw. I had barely said no and he came and jumped on me saying “No, no, no, no” We took him to bed and he fell straight to sleep, by 8:40.
Park:
Cube:
Popsicle:
“I don’t hear anything”:
Bonk:
Climbing up and down:
Exercise equipment:
Being cute:
Treble clef sculpture:
Watching the heron:
Hanging off the side:
Tongs:
