He woke up at 12:30 during the night and needed to go to the bathroom. Carly helped him into the bathroom, then he came and fell back to sleep. Woohoo! Later in the night I thought I heard him up and talking. I rolled over and looked. He was sleeping on his back, with his head towards the end of the bed. Think he had woken up a bit, then lay back down.
He was up about 6:30 or so. They were Skyping with Cherie and Chuck when I got up awhile later. After I’d had some breakfast, he took me into the bedroom to play. He told Bluie “Carrot waffles, Bluie.” They ate various things, including pizza which had ”spiders, macaroni, sauce, pepper, onion, peach, apple.” Back out to Carly where he nursed and then watched a bit of a documentary on Netflix about blue whales. He was interested in it, but decided it was an “adult” video because it was confusing. They did some typing, then he took me back to the bedroom and we played more with the animals. It turned into a throw up game. Worn out, he went in the parlor and played with ththe fruits and veggies a bit by himself. I then watched as he put them all away, put the lid on, and put the container away along the wall, all without a word from me. After that he played with Duplos by himself for a few minutes before wanting me to join him.
He said something about Mama not going to work today, and we started discussing days of the week. I used Duplos in a line to represent the days, with short Duplos being the weekdays that she works, and tall ones being the weekend days she doesn’t. That turned into a game where he started adding days (blocks) to the cycle. We would then inform Carly of her new work schedule, and she would (generally) be upset about it, because it meant working more days in a row. August got it up to something like 24 days of work in a row, followed by 8 days off.
They then nursed and rested on the couch, then August piled things on top of her. I took a shower and she took him outside at 10:30. They came back a few minutes later for a towel to dry of the swings. Back outside it was rainy and snowy. August liked drying off the swings but didn’t want to get on them. They were back a little after 11. He and I made a salmon sandwich. While I made it, he ate salmon on crackers and like tormenting Carly with his breath. That game got old after a bit, so as we finished up the sandwich Carly closed the door to the parlor.
He took a nap from about 12:15 to 1:20. Nursed and played with Carly. They pretended to be in the ocean, being eels and whales and eating fish and things. And they read a couple Bob Books. They put Bob Book stickers on a piece of paper, then colored it. I started playing with him and we colored it some more, then he started making squares out of crayons on his own. I showed him he could make equilateral triangles, and he did those, then used a broken crayon to make an isosceles triangle. Carly came in and made more shapes with him. They made something like 30 shapes. They were all triangles except for one square, which I pointed out was lonely. August then made a big rectangle and said it was so the square wouldn’t be lonely.
He had me play a bit of the meeting game, then we brushed our teeth. He was getting crazy with it, trying to run around while brushing, and I had to take it away. He was upset about that. They nursed, then we got him ready to go outside. On the toilet, he asked about washing strawberries again. We ended up joking about all the kinds of poop that could be on the strawberries: giraffe, bear, Zinnie, etc. Finally, he wanted to look at his fingerprints with the flashlight.
He and I left with his bike and got to the art museum play area about 3:40. Had 20 good minutes of play time before it closed. It was busy, which was good and bad. Lots of kids to play with, but August also wanted to just throw balls at people, and practice overhand. So I had to stop him a few times, and use the treat of leaving. Later, when we were back home he told Carly about throwing balls and Dada saying we’d have to leave. He got better though, and got gentle with other people, and did overhand at a wall and the metal tank structure.
He wanted to ride around on the bike (no rain now, so nicer than earlier). We rode around that side of the park, through all the Pokémon players, then back over to our side of the park, where we did most of a loop, then stopped at the ‘Mama sculpture’. He walked along the edge, and we went up on the boardwalk area. He started to find beads and put them in the back of the bike. There were a lot. We played around up there for 15 minutes or so, finding beads, then back down on the path he jumped in a muddy puddle. He said, I thought, something about going “swinging”, so I got the stroller, then wasn’t understanding why he didn’t want to go to the playground. He said “I said swimming.” I figured out that he had said ‘swimming’ in the first place, not swinging. He thought that was pretty funny. He also found one of the ice pushing things laying on the ground, so we decided to take it back to the ice area where it belonged. We put it in the bike and walked around and put it on the side of the ice rink, then headed home.
At home he nursed and spent a little time with Carly. She wanted to get out for a walk, so the two of them took the stroller (the first time in the stroller in a couple weeks?) and they went to Starbucks. He got his chia drink again. They were home at 6:30.
He ate pilaf for dinner, then was tracing letters and numbers on the iPad. He was really into that, and had already done a lot, but wanted lots more. But he agreed to go take a bath if he could do some more afterwards.
In the bathroom I decided we should watch some more music. I got my iPad and searched for ‘orchestra’ in YouTube. One of the first results was for the Seoul Symphony performing Tchaikovsky’s 6th. August loved it. When we spotted Jeff (Cora’s dad) playing trumpet, we went out and showed Carly, then went back in. August stood and watched 22 minutes of it before I decided it was time to wash him. We washed him (at first he insisted on washing himself, but then said we should do it together), then went out on the couch where we watched the rest of the symphony (50 minutes total) with Carly, and he now traced Arabic. Carly asked him what instrument he wanted to play. He sat up from nursing for several seconds, thinking about it, and said “viola”.
Around 9 I had him put the iPad away and we went in on the bed and played a little. He then sang from the songbook. 9:30 or so he was all dressed for bed and went to the bathroom (he remembered himself about going to the bathroom before going to sleep) and was ready to go to sleep. He went to tell Carly. She needed a couple more minutes to finish writing something, so I suggested we go back and tell a Puffin Rock story in the dark. He agreed, but then on the bed just started playing with the animals, jumping on them to break their bones, yelling “break”. I put an end to that, and Carly came in. Thought he was very ready for sleep, but not so much. Had difficulty getting to sleep. I told him one Puffin Rock story at one point, then finally he was asleep at 10:22.
Photos:
Playing by himself:
Mama’s work schedule:
Stickers and coloring:
Rectangle:
Ball area:
Walking by the mama statue:
Collecting beads:
Pushing:
Arabic:
