Saturday: Lumpini Park and New Year’s Eve

He was up right at 7:30. I was just getting up and he opened the door and asked “Where’s mama?” She was out on the porch. Apparently some time last night he sat up and said something like “You don’t have a nose.” After nursing he went and got the play dough. Making letters on the floor, he said “Hmm. Somebody’s taken my best ‘E’. Let me look in the mirror.” That’s a reference to Puffin Rock, but it is a shell, not an ‘E’.

Then, it was time for a shower. He really did not want to do that. I coaxed him in with he idea of filling a teacup with water, but he only got as far as standing at the entrance to the shower and using the shower on my legs. He then retreated to the living room and I had to pick him up and take him in. He was fighting me, and to do his hair I called carly in to help hold him. I was afraid he’d slip away from me and fall down.

Got it done and he went out and nursed. Calmed down right away though and was talking about the shower. Don’t think it was all that traumatic. I then took a shower, and Carly heated the frozen chicken and rice stuff and we ate that, boiled eggs, and toast and pineapple jam for breakfast.

Carly was wiping the floor and August helped, wiping a lot in the bathroom and around the apartment. He also squished a little bug in the bathroom. He wanted to watch Puffin Rock so I let him watch a couple minutes of it while I got him dressed. He’s doing a good job of washing his hands after he goes to the bathroom, although not necessarily rinsing well. Today he kept trying to wipe his hands on the mirrors, etc. to dry them off. I caught him with sticky hands and steered him back to the bathroom to rinse them. He asked “Why we don’t have a bathtub in Thailand? Why we in Thailand? Why this the place we stay in Thailand?”

Carly took him to the store. Their first adventure without me. They got a few things, and she found eggs this time. They were home a little before 11. He was sad as they came in the house. Think he thought they were going straight to the pool. We got ready and at 11:30 we headed down to the pool. But when he saw the toys he wanted to play there first. Played there a few minutes, then walked around the roof area for the view, then went to the pool. Spent a few minutes wading in the pool, then August went and got on the lounge chair thing with Carly. He wanted to climb on it like last night, so I took him down to the one that was less steep.

Back up at the condo he watched some Puffin Rock and Carly made stir fry for lunch. Ate that, and he then took a long nap from 1:15 to 3:21. I got to wake him up this time. After nursing we played with play dough, then he spent a lot of time on the toilet. We finally left at 4:15.

The Skytrain was free today, but Carly had problems with the cards anyway. On the way in, August’s card worked, but hers didn’t. On the way out, it was reversed. We went four stops to Si Lom, then walked the walkway to Lumpini Park. It is a nice big park in the middle of the city. Busy, but not crowded. We got in and were looking around, and August saw arms waving on the other side of a plant divider in a pedestrian street. It was a woman, a runner, doing stretches. I walked him to the other side so he could see her and he got down, and started swinging his arms like she was. He then walked across the pedestrian street, saying he was being careful, and did some more arm stretches. I looked at the map and identified the playgrounds. Meanwhile, a girl spilled duck food and August looked and kicked at that.

We then walked towards the playground at the center of the park. Along the way, he studied everything on the ground, and smelled it. First was a tree seed/fruit. He thanked himself for not touching it: “thank you for not touching” Then obliterated it with his foot. He then kept saying “What’s that?” and smelled bird poop and everything else he found on he ground. As he went he said “Why you have senses of smell?…What’s that? Something icky.”

So a long walk. Along the way, we saw a bunch of guys doing parkour/gymnastics in a grass and rock area. We then found the playground. The Thais have swings right: Even the biggest playgrounds in Korea never have more than about 4 swings. Here, there were more like 20. We went to a set of 6. He went on one for awhile, then wanted to play in the sand. He started sticking sticks from trees in the sand. He wanted to do a sandcastle, but Carly suggested a stick castle, and started sticking the sticks in a circle. August helped out. Then back to the swings. He started on one ended, then slowly worked his way down, switching from swing to swing as they opened up, until he had tried all 6. Then, Carly took him to the play structure and he tried climbing on a couple things. He then went across to another set of swings and tried a few of them. Finally, he wanted to try a tire swing. He did that, standing up, for a few seconds. I then sat in one and he pushed me. Carly was on a swing, and he walked back to her, I think to push her, but he bumped into her and fell down. Wasn’t hard, but upsetting.

Oh, and at 6 we saw how everyone pauses what they are doing as the national anthem and something else play on loudspeakers. It was past 6:30 when we started to leave, so quite dark. We saw a shrine lit up in the dark, and saw lizards on it. We then went to a bathroom and I took August in. We left the park at 6:45.

Our plan had been to head to the malls to the north to find a place to print resumes and enjoy the holiday lights I had read about. It wasn’t all that festive of a walk for awhile, although we passed fancy hotels. And we saw a woman with a hijab turned into a costume. But as we finally got to the CentralWorld mall it turned into a zoo. We heard lots of music, and saw the lights. And the crowds. Oh so many people. August was hungry (he’d eaten most of the soy crisps along the way), and Carly wasn’t fond of the crowds, so we decided to call it good and head back to the condo and find food.

But how to get to the skytrain? One end of the station was closed, so we made our way to the other end. It was closed to. We had to walk over to Siam station. To get there, the elevated walkway gets really narrow as it crosses a big intersection. Quite an experience. A lot of people were grabbing August’s hand as he was in the backpack. He generally did okay with this, and interacted with several people. Sometimes he got frustrated though. One time, stuck in the crowd, he grabbed a woman’s collar. We got on the train, completely packed in, and he said ‘sawadeekrap’ to one woman, but then hit her a bit later. I think he didn’t like the people grabbing his foot next to her.

Made it the 6 or 7 stops home and walked to the shabu and steak place to find it was closed. Along the way, we saw a guy smoking and I commented that we had seen a lot less people smoking than in Korea. But then we saw two more. I said the word ‘jinx’ and August liked that, so I kept repeating it and he broke down laughing.

So we went to the grocery store and got some drinks and some instant noodles and bok choy and mushrooms to add. August wanted a fruity thing, and I let him choose two snacks: dehydrated mixed fruit, and a ‘Thai snack apricot’ thing. August wanted to carry the basket. He managed a few feet, then set it down and started pushing it. He called it a monster and had it attack me. He pushed and pulled it almost all the way to the counter.

We got home at 8:40 and started with the latter. He said “Thai snack apricot? That sounds amazing!” The apricot things are tiny bits of apricot with stuff on them. Very strong flavor. I warned August, and told him he could spit it out if he wanted. He tried one and lasted a few seconds before spitting it out. He said “That’s the strongest flavor I haven’t seen.” (Kind of a mangling of his common phrase ‘I haven’t seen that before’) He then wanted his berry yogurt drink. He wanted to mix it with milk, then added a couple of the apricot snacks to it and then drank his
concoction with a straw. He liked the little mushrooms in the noodles. We played with play dough, and read Creepy Carrots and part of Going Places on the iPad, before he sang from the songbook. He did some art, and was coloring a bear in the coloring book.

Tried for sleep at 10:20, but he wasn’t ready. Came in with me on the bed while Carly got some sleep. He helped me upload all the day’s videos to YouTube, listening with one of the headphones. He went back to Carly at 11 and was asleep soon after that.