He slept until 7:29. He was quite awake after nearly 12 hours of sleep, doing a lot of talking right away, asking “Why you wake up?” And “What’s in your ear?” He found the lint roller in the changing room (can’t really call it that anymore) and I taught him how to use it. Randomly, he asked “Why Zinnie have blood in you?” He kept wanting to get lint off of one of Carly’s shirts: “I want more limps (lints).” We left, but he asked “What if we forgot some limps?” so we went back and did some more.
Back in the parlor where he talked about what “in order” meant as he then walked back and forth around the room with just a shirt on reciting numbers and then singing our numbers song (to ABC). He spotted the Eric Carle Animal Tales book and pushed the buttons. Then he decided he wanted ALL of the Bob Books boxes over on the other side of the reading area “Those were all the boxes I was carrying.” We read half of Animal Tales until he was hungry.
He got 4 little chunks of brown sugar. Then he played Are You Sleeping while I got the oatmeal ready. He played both of our verses of the song, and was figuring out the slight rhythm changes (each adds one note to the song, but in different places). We ate oatmeal. I plugged in the Christmas lights and he said “I want music”. I started iTunes and one of his playlists. He asked what the song was, and I said “The Satellites” (https://youtu.be/H22bwiMtyrs). He asked “What’s satellites?” I gave him an explanation and we kept eating.
He made the frog on floor frown and said “I want to see what mama says about it.” He took the photo and we sent it on Skype. He watched Meet the MathFacts videos while I showered. Watched some more math and symphony and science (ear, heart) videos with me. He spotted a saxophone in one of the orchestras and asked what it was, and what it sounded like. So we watched a video of just a saxophone.
He started walking around and making up a language, saying things like “uuumqua stands for two”. Did that for a few minutes, then wanted to do math on paper. So we went in and did that: “Another way to do this is count by tens.”
He did headstands in the chair, which is easy for him, so I suggested he could do it on the ground. Indeed he can, and kept doing them in the reading area against the wall. He took some photos and took a couple of me, but they were blurry, so he was working on holding the camera still to make it sharp and took a good photo of me on the reading area. He did more headstands, and wanted me to take photos of him. So I did that and got a good one, so we posted it to Instagram. He chose the filter. Then, when I typed the description I wrote two sentences. August wanted to add periods, turning both of my periods into ellipses. He must know I use a lot of ellipses…
Looking at Instagram, we saw a photo of Meg, now in Russia. I reminder him who she is, saying she gave him the book The Boy Who Bit Picasso. He got excited and said “I want to read that, The Boy Who Bit Picasso…was there blood?” I got the book, but then wanted to eat lunch first. As I was making a salmon sandoo, he was reading the title of the book on his own, then pretending to write it all out. We ate the salmon sandoo, then watched hula hoop and rocket videos – the hula hoop was because he had a big circle out of the octopus tubes and I said it looked like a hula hoop. He then said “I want to learn how to draw a heart all on my own.” We went and worked on that and he was getting better. He got his iPad and looked at the skeleton app. He said “Can I feel my hyoid bone?” We sort of tried feeling that, and he realized he had a thumb up. Put it down as I took a photo. He then wrote ‘mamá’ on paper. Worked on the little a and on the accent.
At one point he started to go to the rocking chair, but said “Wait, I don’t need that any more” then went to the reading area to do a head stand. Ate most of a banana, then had to go to the bathroom again. His toilet humor: “There’s poop on the door. It is sticky poop so dada has to wipe a lot. I pooped there this morning…I pooped a lot so you have to do a lot of wipes.” He talked about the moles on his legs.
Back in the parlor he said “Dada pretend to be mama…Say something…like ‘cute’” Funny because later in the day he did something and Carly called it ‘cute’. He had one of the orange octopus tubes and was twisting it into shapes “It’s abstract, but it looks like a foot.” Earlier, when we read The Boy Who Bit Picasso, he had liked the abstract sculpture of a mother and a child in a stroller. I had used similar phrasing about something.
We finally got entirely ready and left around 2. Didn’t find his blue hat at first, so I grabbed the Cookie Monster hat instead. He hasn’t worn it yet. He found the dark blue one by the door, but stayed with the CM hat. We went out and caught the 1144 bus right away. He sat in a seat and was really tired. Seemed like he was contemplating a nap. He was also very quiet when we got off and headed to the park.
There were two playgrounds at the park, but both small and neither had swings. He played around one for a bit and said he was still hungry. I gave him the letter cookies I found on iHerb. When he saw one he giggled and said “What this?” He then talked about the ones that we used to find in the store. Ate those, all except one. He then got on the teeter totter. He didn’t have his gloves on (it was pretty warm in the sun, and close to 40) and was talking about how he was holding on with his coat. He started to slip when he took one hand off but caught himself. I told him to be careful, but right away I think he tried to do it again. He fell off, and on his face. A lot of crying, and a little sand on his forehead where he it, and the slightest spot of blood on his lip. He never mentioned the blood though. The last letter cookie helped him recover.
And then the mystery: he found a jump rope in the corner of the playground. At first I thought it was missing a handle. But when he tried to pick it up we discovered the end was buried in the ground. The hard, hard ground. Tried to dig down, but it would take a real shovel. We ended up playing with the 4 feet of jump rope though, swinging it and jumping over it, etc.
Eventually, we got our stick and started writing in the sand. He needed the bathroom, so we went there, then came back and did more writing. It got cloudy and cooler, so sometime before 4 we headed home, walking with the backamapack. We stumbled upon another park that didn’t really show up on the map. It had a better play structure, but no mystery jump rope. We continued on, across the river and through Madeul. We were singing, but at some point he was tired. We made up another verse of Are You Sleeping: Are you sleeping, little Zinnie?… You know the rule…No falling asleep…
We had talked about getting chocolate for Carly and he liked the idea. We went to the pink building and got a simple bar of chocolate and a couple other things we needed. We saw Sarah and Jen in elevator at home and they complimented him on his Cookie Monster hat. As we left the elevator he was asking about their names.
When we got home he talked about how his hands were cold and his feet, having worn only one pair of socks, also were: “My feet are cold…Just a LITTLE cold…why my feet can’t nurse?”
He did Hangeul writing and I did some Hebrew. He took my pen and started writing ה on the paper. I suggested we turn music on, and started with a cello suite. He wanted something with drums. We went through an orchestra with piano, gamelan orchestras, and the Blue Man group. Not what he wanted. But then I found a video of a musical instrument that runs on 2000 marbles. He liked that and we were watching it when Carly came home.
They nursed and we ate dinner. When August ate, she told him some people eat dinner together around a table. He was curious about that, so we all sat at the table. He did the cookie app and Elmo
Loves ABCs. He made Cookie Monster sad in the game by not sharing. I act d sad and August tried to comfort me. I was holding my tea though and he bumped it with his head. Luckily, not very hot. Got some on his head and my shirt. Not nearly as traumatic as the Sprite incident at the burrito place with my parents when he was 5 months old.
He read with Carly: The Red Car Bob Book and Wild about Books. She gave him a bath. I heard him continuing with his toilet humor: “I have poop on my hand and rub it on there.” And he talked of another kid pooping in his underwear on his toilet.
After his bath we were sitting on the couch and doing some nonsense singing. It started because he asked me to sing the wrong notes. That turned into wrong words as well. I’d say a random word and he’d start laughing. He was trying to sing in Carly’s ear and be sneaky about getting close, which means he wasn’t sneaky at all, so she was run away. When he calmed down he went and wrote Korean syllables. He wrote more Hebrew in my practice notebook and said “That’s Hebrew and it’s abstract. Dada likes abstract Hebrew.”
He got tired and was ready for bed. He chose his regular pajamas tonight and was asleep a little before 8.
I forgot to mention yesterday the radio game on his bike. He’s been doing it for a week or two. There is a plastic thing that slides around on his handlebars. He will move it, and it is like changing the radio station. I’m supposed to sing a different song. He keeps doing it until it is a song he wants. He will then use the other hand to say he is turning it louder or softer.
Photos. “That’s a cool shape”:
Math:
Headstand on the reading area:
His photo of me:
Again:
Thumbs up (before he put it down):
Cookie Monster hat:
Bus:
Park. Letter cookies:
Q:
Right before he fell off:
Jump rope:
Writing ‘mama’:
Evening. Drawing abstract molecules in my notebook:
