August and Carly were up at 7. They skyped with Chuck and Cherie and I was up by 8. He did some Endless Spanish and was really getting into the words. Carly vacuumed and we cleaned out his coats and other clothes for the clothing drive at APIS. August happily tried on a couple spring coats and said they fit. He opened the Sesame Street Cookie app and at first only wanted to do vowels with Elmo. When it came time for the cookie feeding he called me over to do it and he went and watched from the doorway. He was afraid of Cookie Monster. After hat I switched to doing words, which requires Cookie Monster. August was interested, but kept running back to the doorway. After a few rounds though he was proudly doing it by himself. He was also doing a good job sounding out which vowels could go in the gaps, sounding out words he knew.
I made the steel cut oats for breakfast, and he got to taste brown sugar. We added that and cinnamon and blueberries and strawberries.
He started doing his swinging by his hands between the table and couch thing and then throwing up his hands. I asked Carly if she had shown him any gymnastics, and she said that he’d seen Vivian do it. That made sense. He looked at the Hangeul app a bit, then went back to writing the complex vowels on paper. I took a shower. He and Carly were doing Hebrew when I came out, then he was making things out of Duplos on his own.
He and I ate the last of the pizza for lunch. He was pretending to swim on the floor, and I thought he was an animal, but he said he was himself. We read Biscuit Goes Camping, with him surprising me with the words he knows. He did more of the cookie iPad app. Carly was trying to do it with him, but when she asked if she was bothering him he said yes.
Carly headed to a coffee shop to do some work and August and I were going to go out for a bike ride. I heard her talking to someone out in the hall, then the door bell rang. It was a security guard telling us (well, yelling at us) that the downstairs neighbors had complained about noise from August and couldn’t sleep. An odd complaint, as August hadn’t been too active in the morning. I tried to get the guy to give us some more information, like when, but he just kept yelling, and the most detail I got out of him was ‘morning’. He seemed just as upset that we hadn’t answered the intercom earlier when he called up (a call which had come while Carly and August was nursing, and, I think, after they had been doing Hangeul in the other room and my shower – so nothing to help identify what the unacceptable noise part was).
After he went away, August was a bit upset. I tried to explain what had happened, but that just led August to want to run around, and he talked about wanting to go to the seventh floor and run around. Just as I was thinking in my mind that the loudest thing we had done today was when Carly was slamming the freezer door to make the buzzing noise go away, August decided to make a game out of just that. That ended with us sitting together for a timeout on the couch. He continued to test how much noise I would let him get away with closing drawers, etc. At one point he started to close the door to the parlor. When I asked why, he said he was going to slam it. We had some crackers and cheese, then headed out at 2:05.
Carly had forgotten her headphones, so we found her on the second floor and August waited on the bike while I ran them in to her.
As we walked to Hagye Children’s Park (aka the tree playground), August said “I see notes on the ground.” It was the shadow of the metal railings along the edge, casting 4 lines along the ground, with circles for the ‘children’s zone’ signs. It did indeed look rather like a staff and notes. He was singing and counting them.
We walked down to the area that used to be train tracks but is now a park. We haven’t been there since it opened. He got off and explored an area with flower/garden plots. He liked them, but particularly liked walking on the dead plants and then wanted to see what happens if you bend the plant signs. We got back on the bike and walked the path along the tracks a bit, then went to the tree playground.
He went on the swings. When the swing next to him was empty he would say he wanted another kid to sit there. He did some standing, but otherwise had a relaxing time on the swings. Finally, a bit of a line formed, and I told him we were going to take a break. He didn’t like this, and I eventually had to pull him off. Seemed a bit tired, and indeed when we got home later he would try to fall asleep with Carly.
He recovered though and we walked up on the play structure. Up at the top he wanted to go down the slide. At first he wanted to go with me. I asked if he wanted to go by himself and he said yes, and down he went. I then had to go find him at the bottom. It was the biggest slide – the one Carly hasn’t gone down yet – and I hadn’t quite realized how big it was from the top. I found him walking around at the bottom, looking for me. He was perfectly happy though, and was excited he had done it. He would happily tell mama about it later.
He got in the turtle shell a bit, then went back on the swings. I had mentioned we had sung a song here last year, and he wanted to know what it was. I looked it up, then we sang Bingo. We eventually were ready to leave. He paused to pretend to eat the mushrooms statues first.
It was 37 and sunny today, so when we stopped by the ice rink we found it to be more of a slush rink. A few kids were in it, but it looked pretty sad, and is supposed to close. August liked looking at it, but didn’t want to go in. He did, however, want to ride his bike around. In particular he wanted to pedal on his own. We tried it in a couple places, and eventually he started to get it on his own on flat ground without needing a push first. Some improvement in pedaling technique, and also his legs getting stronger and longer. Don’t think he’ll every be really able to ride it around too well though. Hopefully he isn’t clamoring for a real bike before we leave Korea.
At one point he somehow managed to tip it over as he tried to get off. He was okay, but the beads he has gradually collected and put in the back spilled everywhere. We took a minute to pick them all back up.
We were home a little after 4. They nursed and read Go, Dog, Go! Learned about helicopters, roller coasters and scuba diving, as when they found them in the book they would look up photos and YouTube videos.
Played triangle and drums with me. He was the conductor at first. We worked on rhythm. Then he went to play Are You Sleeping on the piano by himself. He called the banana shaker a maraca and I asked how he knew that. He said it was from a book. First he said No Girls Allowed, but then remembered Drum Dream Girl.
We read the rest of Go, Dog, Go! He ate peanut fried rice for dinner and some mushrooms. He put the reusable farm animal stickers on his shirt then took them off. He wanted a milking the cow video, and I mentioned that goats also get nursed, so he wanted a video of that. He also started singing “There’s milking a cow in a hole at the bottom of the sea.” We’d been singing that song outside.
At 6 he started asking if it was bedtime and said he was sleepy. Watched a video of a boy getting stung by a sea urchin. We read Doc McStuffins again (ugh) and 1-2-3 Peas. I went to start his bath, and told him to read 1-2-3 Peas by himself while I was gone, and he did. He called me back for help with a word on 8, but I watched him read much of it on his own. Before heading to his bath, he wanted to work on ‘photograph’ and do tongue twisters. I had him recite ours (Now streamlined to ‘The thick fish’s thin fin.’) and he surprised me by having memorized She Sells Sea Shells. He then did Peter Piper after me.
Carly gave him a bath. Earlier in the day we had gone through more of his clothes and coats to decide what we could donate. She found a pair of pajamas – one piece but without feet – and put them on him now. He liked
them and wore them to bed. He modeled them, and did a little more of his gymnastics in them.
Had him brush his teeth, which went fine except he didn’t want to stop. Was a bit sad and definitely ready for sleep. He said “Where are my socks?” as I took him in to bed, and he was asleep at 7:50.
Photos. His first photo of mama:
Shadow musical notes:
Standing:
Slide he went down:
Circle:
Pajamas:
