He came out at 7:22. Let me pick him up and hold him for a couple minutes, then we went and took off his diaper and went and read a bunch of books. We read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Monster Party, How Things Grow, Biscuit Meets the Class Pet, and started Sir Cedric. Read the email from Carly where she told him not to sit on Nearly Headless Nick, so he had to sit and do a headstand on Nearly Headless Nick: “I’m being crazy on Nearly Headless Nick.” He worked on Yankee Doodle and said he’d work on the “Stuck a feather…” line after breakfast. We had cereal for breakfast: a small bowl with bananas for him, a large bowl with strawberries for me.
We then worked on Yankee Doodle together, exercised, and then did surgeries: removed a couple of things from his ears, then we both did heart surgery. He went and wrote some numbers on the smart board. He did some art while I showered, then some letter tracing. He was still hungry so had more banana in Cheerios. Played more Yankee Doodle and I talked about how the third line ‘walked’ up and down the keyboard. He said “Walking, like this.” and got up and walked across the floor.
I had bought a pair of underwear at Home Plus, but the security tag hadn’t been removed. So last night I used a screwdriver to break it apart. Inside was a little spring that I set on the table to show him. He found it and asked what it was. I told him it was a spring. He said “Not like the weather spring”. Ah, yes. ‘Spring’ has two meanings.
Thought we were pretty much ready to go, but AUgust had two activities to do before that. The first was eye doctor time. I checked his eyes, then drew an eye chart for him and gave him an eye test. I had to keep drawing smaller letters, but finally we got to the point where he had to start leaning forward on the reading area to read them. He then drew an eye chart for me and did a pretty good job, once he figured out how to hold it up so it faced me, of testing me.
Then he wanted to do math. We did some multiplication on paper, drawing out groups of dots to represent the equations. Then he wanted to to 7 x 11. I said that was too big, but would do a smaller problem. He got upset about this. When he calmed down he went back to the paper and wrote ‘7 x 12’. When I said no to that one though he luckily settled for something smaller.
We did one last problem then got going. Some singing on the way, but he was looking tired when we got to the station and on the train was looking sleepy. But then he said ”I want 7 times 11 on Paper.” When he was sad I had suggested we do it on the iPad on the train. He hadn’t said anything then, but obviously remembered. So we did that. Over the river he stood up to look out. I spotted a seagull flying, and he wanted to see it, but not sure he did. Ours was the next stop. I hadn’t given him enough warning that he needed to put the iPad away, apparently, as once we got to the station he really wanted to do some more. He had been playing Marco Polo Ocean and made the ship and submarine. We sat on a bench and he spent a minute making the octopus scene, then was perfectly happy to put it away and get going. He was also looking tired still. I put his hat on, and he pulled it down over his eyes. I said that would be good for a nap, and he pretended to sleep.
It was a windy walk to the mall. August was quiet yet again. H was planning on him not taking a nap, but he kept looking and acting tired, so was surprised when he actually didn’t. We stopped and got some kimbap and a cheese sandwich to go with our lunch. In the mall we sat on our now usual bench and ate lunch. He started with one half of the cheese sandwich. We switched at one point, and he said “This one’s great.” But then he found the one piece of tomato in the sandwich and ate it all at once. It was too much, and he spit it out.
We went to the aquarium and put the backpack in the locker then went to the bathroom. He heard a flush and said “That wasn’t so bad”. When it came time to wipe him, he made sure I used a dry wipe, saying “I like the dry wipe; I don’t like the wet wipe.”
We had a nice long (close to two hour) visit at the aquarium. He wanted to climb on the megalodon mouth statue thing, then when I asked if he could find the cowfish he looked at a couple of the round tanks and found it. A woman from Oklahoma started talking to me by the squirrels, and August was a bit rude and started saying “Go away”. He let the fish nibble his finger. He ran down the ramps in the Amazon area, although stopped to look at the pirarucu skeleton. He likes all the bones, and asked if it had hips. He fell flat on one of the ramps, but got up and was okay. Didn’t spend a lot of time at the touch area, but really liked the large clams, which I don’t think were there before. Holding the big spiral shells, he said “These shells are big so Bernie would like them.” Spent time with the electric and moray eels, and paused for a snack by the crustaceans again. I read the sign about crustaceans having joints and feet, so he had to go look. We also saw the manatee, etc. eating lettuce again. He didn’t seem scared of the dark moving walkway part through the big aquarium this time. Instead, he kneeled and lay down on it. He kind of sang and conducted to the music that was playing, then sang Itsy Bitsy.
At the gift shop he looked around a bit, then decided that the big seal stuffed animals looked sad. So he spent a couple minutes hugging them and rubbing his face and head on them. Very cute.
We went to the bathroom, then had a little snack there, then went back to our bench out in the mall and ate more of our lunch before heading home.
We were home at 4:40. We ate the last of the kimbap and Carly was home about 5:10. He immediately ran to her saying “My hands are not cold.” But then he was patient and let her get settled in before wanting to nurse. We were asking him questions about the day while he nursed and he would nod or shake his head. He played Metamorphabet and ate a little with Carly. She gave him a bath and he was incredibly silly. It started with thinking of rhyming words, but led to a lot of nonsense. They read Manana Iguana before he went to sleep a little after 7:30.
Photos. Book time:
Pretending to sleep:
Contemplating his sandwich:
Aquarium. Using the hand dryer on his own:
Pirarucu skeleton:
Moray eels:
On the moving walkway:
Hug:
Kiss:
