He was up early. He started nursing a little after 5, then was up at 5:35. I got up a bit later. He went and grabbed pillows and told me I should get a blanket. He wanted a nest in the reading area. He then grabbed the Curious George Cleans Up book and we read that, then the entire Nursery Book. We then found out that my parents had gotten two cats, and also watched a video of contrabassoon that Cherie had sent. He then wanted Venus fly trap videos.
After some Cheerios, we Skyped with my parents and got to see one of the cats. August want to scare it by screaming, so I turned the mic off. It didn’t help that Skype was doing the echoing thing, so when August made a noise he could hear himself. After Skype we made banana bread and got that baking.
In on the toilet, he said “I’m working on my sounds.” I asked “Which sounds?” He replied “My ph and th sounds…let’s work on ‘photograph’.” So we worked on those. He’s actually starting to pronounce them a bit differently. We made up a tongue twister to practice: The thick fish had a thin fin.
We did some exercise, then I took a shower while he traced words on the app. He was then doing some exercise on his own, then went and played piano. He played Are You Sleeping two handed through “Brother John”. We brushed our teeth and he played with Duplos while I got us ready. He came up to me and said “I’m a little nervous about mama.” I asked why and he replied “I was just making a joke.” He went over to the window and was tracing on it with his finger and said “I drew a heart on the window. It pumps the blood.”
We had, on August’s choice, originally planned to go to Uijeongbu today. But he kept playing at home. We had a long music time, then looked at pictures of blood on his iPad. He switched to Google Maps and identified places we should go: “We can go to this park…we can go to this coffee shop.” In fact he got a little sad when he found a coffee shop on the map that I’d pinned, but said we’d go there some other day when it was warmer. He wanted to go now. A minute later he said “You find Thailand there.” He had zoomed out and indeed read ‘Thailand’ on the world map. That was pretty cool.
He did some Arabic app, then went to the bathroom. We sang Yankee Doodle twice. We talked about what would happen if he scared the cats. He suggested they might bite. I said they’d more likely run and hide and then he couldn’t see them. He said “Then you would cry…(whispered) Don’t be loud.”
Deciding it was too late for Uijeongbu, we decided to walk east, over by the new science center, instead. There was one park I realized we hadn’t added to Google Maps, and a couple others we could go to with swings. We left at 12:15. He fell asleep just east of See and Me at 12:24. We went to a coffee shop I’d seen before called 커피랑 파이랑. He had a good nap and I woke him up at 1:54.
We went across the street and checked out the restaurant/play area we had seen once from the street. A typical Korean restaurant with a small climbing area in it. Okay, but don’t know if we’ll ever go. We walked north and east to the mystery playground. He was singing, and I realized he was singing our Hebrew alphabet song on his own. That park turned out to just be a tiny play structure with no swings. We kept walking and went to 충숙공원, the park in the little valley by the burial area. It is all shaded there, so there was still snow everywhere. He spent several minutes just walking around and playing on the snow, then went on the swings. The swings were the perfect height, as he could just touch the ground when he was swinging. He was rubbing his feet on the snow, making lines to the dirt below, and realized that it looked like a 4 under him.
He sang some more Hebrew and ate dried mango as a snack, and a little sandwich for lunch. We then headed back home. We were singing Ants Go Marching. Actually, he was singing most of it on his own now, and knows most of the lyrics, although sometimes he needs reminders. He did a lot of screaming for our 20 by 20 verse, then he made up one on his own, singing “100 by 100…the little one stops to say ‘That’s a joke’”.
We got to our Dinosaur Playground at 3:40. We pulled up and he was watching some kids being silly on the swings. I asked “Is Zinnie ever silly?” “No” “Tell the truth” “Yeah!…I’m telling the truth.” He practiced some climbing, then before I could get around to help him he climbed on the tube slide and slid down all by himself. Said he was sleepy, but played for several minutes going back and forth on the slippery ice. At one point I asked if he wanted to do the shaky bridge, but he said “I’m too sleepy to go on the shaky bridge.” He wanted to do the elliptical, and while I held his hands he is now able to make it go in circles on his own. He did the teeter totter for awhile, and went down the slide once. Back to the slippery ice part, then another boy gave him a Fruittella blueberry candy. He was very happy about that.
We headed home about 4:30. I got him interested in eating soup again by putting Sesame Street crackers in it. Carly stayed late at work because there were students working on their NHD projects. She was home a little after 6. They nursed, then we went in and played with the friends on the bed. They ate carrot cookies and carrot stir fry. He was doing forward rolls and wanted me to get upset. I asked “Are you doing forward rolls?” He replied “Not anymore I isn’t.” Back out in the living room, he told Carly about yelling at the cats and how he would get sad if they hid. He ate a slice of banana bread, then ate some of Carly’s lettuce “I ate the lettuce, dada.” Some piano time, then he nursed, and said he felt itchy.
I gave him a bath. Carly had filled it, and he declared it too hot and went and told her. He had the ‘O’ bath letter and was pretending it was a Venus fly trap. But when I tried to put my finger in it he said “No. it’s not a Venus fly trap anymore. I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t like to see blood.” And gave me quite a facial expression too. A minute later he had soap in his mouth. I asked if it was soap or a hair. He gave me a disgusted look and said “Soap. Not hair. Soap.”
Back out in the parlor after his bath he picked up his little weight and declared it exercise time. He lay on his back and lifted it over his head. Did this for quite awhile. He then told me to exercise and I lay down next to him. But then he wanted meditation time. Haven’t talked about meditation really that I know of, so not sure where that came from. We ended up trying to work on letting his eyes relax closed. He squints his eyes shut. A little success, but still hard for him.
They nursed, then Carly went to take a shower. But first she headed for the closet. August saw this and made a joke “What mama doing in there? Take a shower?” We read Curious George Cleans Up twice. He had some apple, then did a little playing on the bed. He was asleep about 9:30.
A couple days ago, when Carly was talking about her students, he told Carly she teaches fourth grade. It was clear that he knows his ordinal numbers, as I don’t know when we ever talk about the ‘fourth’ of anything. He knows ‘sixth’, ‘seventh’, and ‘eighth’ from her talking about students, and certainly ‘first’ and ‘second’ (and ‘eighth’) from the elevator. The only place I can think of that we’ve talked about the ones in between is in making chords on the piano, as you use them to discuss the different notes in a scale.
Photos. Twisting:
Asleep:
Park:
4 on the ground:
Dinosaur playground:
Ladder:
Blueberry candy:
Soap in his mouth faces:
