He was up at 6. Had a little pillow fight with me after he nursed, then out in the living room he wanted to practice Spanish with Carly, so she had him finding and doing all sorts of things in Spanish. They then went in and wrote Spanish and did molecules on paper. I took over doing molecules and Carly got ready to go. Carly headed to work and we played piano. He wanted to learn how to play If I Go on his “skinny 12 fret, 11 string guitar”, so we started to figure it out on the piano. We then got out the mandolin and he had his first success pushing strings down to make notes.
He ate a lot of oatmeal, then we did some exercise and I went to take a shower. He was doing TodoMath patterns when I came back out. At the higher level of those it is counting patterns (by 2, by 3, etc.) and he was doing okay with those. More piano, then as I got lunch together he snacked on crab and peanut butter. He was playing on the chair, doing a headstand, and joking about making both mama and Vivian nervous. He asked “Is mama at the job fair?” I said she already got a job at the job fair in Thailand, but he said she had to go to another one.
He made an alarm noise and I asked if he ever heard our alarms in the morning. That led to us playing my current sound on the phone, and I let him choose a new one. As we scrolled through the sounds, one of them has ‘Caribbean’ in the name, and he asked “Is that Pirates of the Caribbean?”
He was pretending to be Oona while brushing teeth and playing xylophone, joking about how Oona was holding the xylophone stick in her wings. He ate some crackers, then was singing If I Go and making up some funny lines: “If I go to the Vivian, I’ll play with the bones…If I go to the esophagus, I will play until it gets dark in the esophagus…I’ll get stuck and need help.”
We left at 11:30. I tried to tickle his palms, and he said “Sorry, my hands are in my sweatshirt.”
We got to Children’s Grand Park and walked over to the new playground. Busy, as I think the schools are out today (tomorrow is a holiday). Nice and warm (50 and sunny) so we ate outside. He ate, then went and looked at the kid art and went and played on the hopscotch by the recycling. He walked a bit away, and was hiding behind his arm. I thought maybe he was hiding from the hopscotch, because two other boys came and were doing it, and August felt that he was forced out. He came over and hid is head on my lap for a few minutes, and said he wanted to go somewhere else. But when he was feeling a bit better we played in the sand, making sand mountains, which he then put sticks in the top of and crushed. At one point a little boy came over and they sort of did it together.
He seemed, or said he was, sleepy at one point. He went back to the artwork, and was pretending to erase it all and paint his own art over the top of it. We got ready to go, and August asked “The food is in the backamapack?…Why Zinnie was just making sure?” August was very protective of the backpack today, asking a couple times if we had it. Unfortunately, I think we lost the broom a bit later after he played with it.
We went up to the bathroom and he wanted to go in one of the regular toilets, telling me “I want to stay away from the automatically one.”
On the seats in the theater, he lay down in the sun for awhile and I tried to convince him to fall asleep for a nap there. He saw a few kids playing down at the bottom, on the green part, and wanted to go down, and took off down the stairs. Went down and played there. He wanted to play with a toy. We didn’t have much, so he settled for the broom. There were a couple of American boys there, and they were play fighting/practicing their taekwondo and August was watching and said “I’m learning”. One of the boys started to throw ice or rocks or something, and the mom went and told him not to do it. August was wondering what he was throwing and what she said. In that curiosity I think the broom got set down and left.
We took off walking, and after 5 minutes I thought he was asleep as his head was back. Alas, not so easy. He suddenly said “I want more drums you don’t know.” Another time he started singing, and a third time he said he was hungry. 30 minutes of walking, but he was clearly very tired. He fell asleep and slept from 2:15 to 3:20, when I woke him up.
Held him for a few minutes, then he lay on the floor for a bit. We then went over to the old playground (still no work going on) and waited for a swing. Went on there for awhile, then got off to let another girl on. Went and sat on a bench and ate some banana.
Then, August walked off. I watched him go and figured out where he was headed: over to the walking path. Went over there and talked to him about walking off and getting lost. We then walked on the path. He was now getting up on the post ones on his own, and took a few steps. There were two elementary school girls there, and I helped one get her rolly shoe to work.
It was getting cooler, and was time to go. We talked about it, then a couple minutes later August did it again: he walked off in the direction of home. I caught up to him and he said “I just walked off! Zinnie didn’t tell Dada where you were going.” We talked some more, and about what it would feel like to be lost. He wanted to pretend to be lost, so I ran off down the path and hid behind a bush. He then was lost until he found me (easily) and agreed it felt a little scary.
The two girls caught up as he was combing the destroyed area, finding a bolt and looking at the old gobs of glue. They wanted to play with him, and I explained we were heading home. Their English was pretty good, and we did end up staying a bit. August found a big piece of wood, and she showed him how the rolly shoes work. They really wanted to set up a time to play with them, but I couldn’t promise anything (they said normally they have school until 5:15 on Tuesdays, so wanted a weekend – they were apparently coming back to play Pokémon Go sometime).
They then followed us as we walked the path out. August was generally amused by them, although it was a bit much for me.
I was carrying him around the fountain, and he had been looking at all of the hopscotch areas by the recycling bins. He spotted one and said “That hopscotch is messed up. There’s an 8 on there. That’s silly. How people do that?” All the others only have 7 squares.
We used the bathroom by the entrance then headed down. He was being slow going down stairs and stopping to look at things. At one point I called “Augustus!” And he asked “Why dada say ‘Augustus’ in a loud voice?” and thought it was funny. When he did want me to pick him up, he said “Pick me up. It’s a long way.” Something he was claiming every time he wanted to be carried today.
On the subway he liked the cane of the guy that sat next to him, and the guy let him touch it. He ate crackers, and we talked about what we needed to get at the store. I mentioned Drano, so we had an in-depth discussion regarding clogged sinks.
In the store he was joking about something and said “Those cost 99 bucks…those cost 99 hundred bucks. Lots of money.” He was a good sport in the store, even as looking for Drano and coffee took longer than I expected. He wanted down to look at the hair and bracelet things, so I let him do that for awhile. There were also shower scrubbing ball things that he really liked and wanted to get.
We were home just before 6. Spaghetti for dinner. Carly got him a spoon, and he was a bit melodramatic when it was wet: “Why is it wet? I don’t like it wet. I like it dry.” While in the bathroom, he bonked his head on the sink when the stool slipped a bit. He ate a lot of broccoli, and read Frida with Carly. Then played Mandolin with me. He played Elmo ABC and did letter tracing. He was looking tired so I started his bath. He did two more letters on the tracing app when I said he could do one more, and then drank for 11 seconds of drink
ing when I said 10 seconds. He found those very funny, and felt like he got away with something. He also exclaimed “I love 11!”
In the bathroom, he was extra silly on the toilet: “I have a penis on my bottom and a vulva on my penis.” He was talking about there being another Zinnie: “I have another Zinnie.” That Zinnie was downstairs “Buying some chips and floor. Because my other one is broken.” He wanted to watch the Prince of Egypt orchestra piece so I went to get the iPad. Traded with Carly. They found an orchestra flash mob (in Hanoi!) that he absolutely loves: https://youtu.be/F1j2lK2H388 He came out from his math and watched more of it, dancing and drumming along. Watched two more videos by the same group, then he was doing lots of eye rubbing. Carly went and took a shower, and we played mandolin and piano – learning Johnny Comes Marching. It as an A flat note in it, and it became a game where I would make a noise if he hit A instead. And then I would cover it up so he couldn’t hit it. He figured it out, then wanted to intentionally play it wrong so the song sounded funny.
The went in to bed at 9:15. He was back out 9:40. We read Splat the Cat, Not a Box, Elmo’s ABC, Peppa’s Ballet Lesson, and the songbook. He went back to bed at 10:25.
Photos:
Oona holding a xylophone stick with her wing:
Hopscotch math:
Resting in the sun:
Success:
Cane:
Bracelets:
Slow walk home:
Mandolin:
