7:13. Too early. Held him for several minutes, then changed him into underwear. I suggested the kitchen might have a warm spot, as he was lying down in the changing room, so he went and tried it out but said “No, it’s still cold.” He got up on th couch and asked for his iPad. When I said “Let’s read a book first. How about Moo?” he burst out crying. A lot of holding and time before he was okay again. We eventually did read Moo, then he worked on “The cursive dada learned” for awhile (I had shown him yesterday which font was the cursive system I had learned in school). First I took a photo to send to Carly. When I asked him what he wanted to do for the photo today he decided to flap his hands like wings.
He had the last of the oatmeal for breakfast, then played piano, then played Metamorphabet. An announcement came on, and he hid from it behind his hands, then climbed in my lap and hid. He wanted “outside” but was okay after a couple minutes. Had some cereal and banana, then typed some Skype messages with Gramma. We went and made letters out of Duplos, then he watched those new outdoors orchestra videos while I took a shower. Afterwards, we did math with the Duplo pieces and made patterns. He wanted some surgery, and it was his brain this time.
Getting ready to go, I got him dressed and put his pajamas on the bed, with Green Monster as his head. He thought that was funny, then destroyed monster Zinnie. More piano playing and mandolin. When the mandolin is in the case and he plays it it sometimes buzzes. He thought it was “weird“ and started talking about how “the first time it buzzed, the second time it didn’t…” getting up to “sixth”. I asked him to brush his teeth, but he said “I want to play it more because I like it.”.
When he did brush his teeth he was going to spit it out, despite it being the strawberry kind, which he doesn’t have to spot. Going to the bathroom, he asked “Mama has muscles? Mama has bones? Mama has kidneys? Mama has intestines? Mama has burns and arteries and blood? I want to feel the metatarsals…” Sang a bones song.
We headed out sometime after 11. In the elevator the doors opened on 2 and we almost stepped off. I said something about the people going down to the basement, but August didn’t hear exactly what I said. He said “I was confused. I thought dada said 2 was a basement.”
We took line 7 up to Dobongsan. He just sat next to me on the train. Very little iPad on the trains recently. To get to our next train at the transfer, he was very slow and wanted to walk down all the steps by himself. I heard the sound for an approaching train and ran us up the stairs…only to find I had gone one passage short and was on the wrong side. Missed that train, so we sat and ate some of our sandwich until the next train came.
In Uijeongbu we transferred to the U-Line. We discussed the words ‘I’ and ‘you’ and he asked about ‘tea/tee/T’. He stood and looked out the door window. We got off at our usual spot, and walked up and over the hill to the playground. I asked if he remembered playing on the concrete platform at the top of the hill and he asked “Was it warm?” (when we played there, that is.)
No swings at the playground, but he climbed up the rope thing a few times and went down the little slide. I tried to use reverse psychology to get him to go down the spiral slide, but it didn’t work until I went down it myself, and he wanted to go down with me. We did that a couple times, and played in the slide. He was hungry, so we sat and ate lunch, and he stole my half of the sandwich.
He needed to use the bathroom, so we slowly walked over to them, past the people playing basketball. He said he was breaking the rules by stepping on the “baseball field”. He found a rope fence and was playing with that, stepping on it and shaking it. A woman came along and played with it with him, stepping and pulling on the other end. He was talking about drums, and asked something about drums playing notes, and I told him about tablas, and he was intrigued.
We went to the bathroom, then walked up the hill by the soccer field. There was a Korean walking path up there, and we did a couple laps. He was getting better at standing and balancing on the rocks. He said his bottom was itchy, so we went back down to the bathroom and he went again. Fine after that.
We walked over the badminton courts, and I explained Badminton to him. It sounded familiar to him, and he said “Was it in a video? Biscuit. Oops, try again…Kipper.” Hmm…maybe one of the short Kipper videos we watched? But that was quite awhile ago.
We had a bit more lunch, and I pointed out that the library box was gone. He went to the spot where it used to be and pretended to look in it. He was trying to zip his coat up all the way, and I said I’d teach him the “secret” of zipping up his coat (holding the bottom). He was intrigued by that.
We got in the backpack and got walking. Up and around the soccer field, then back over the hill and past the station to the stream. He fell asleep, and I went to coffee shop I’d seen across the stream called Coffee Inside. He was asleep 2:44 to 3:45. I started waking him up at 3:35 but he was falling back asleep. I eventually set him on the floor, thinking he’d wake up, but he sank to his knees, then lay on the concrete floor and fell back to sleep. Picked him back up after a minute. He started to get upset, but warmed to the idea of waking up when I said I could get him juice.
He decided on blueberry banana, but then spotted a group of people sharing a big honey bread. A woman saw him, and gave him a big bite on a fork. I really didn’t need to get him juice at that point, I found, as he was very happy with the bread. I ended up drinking most of the juice.
We walked east to 의서어린이공완. Dead back streets, so I was letting August walk. He heard a motor bike go by on a different street and identified it as such by sound. But then he decided a car might come by and he wanted me to carry him.
At the park he went on the swings. Kind of quietly swinging, then he asked “What if there’s no roof?” He had been looking up at the apartment building across the street and pondering the roof. We were there maybe 10 minutes, but it was getting cloudy and windy, so we headed out. But first he walked up the hill thing. He remembered playing there, and asked “It was warm?” He found a bendy blue dot thing, and we put it in his pocket.
It started to rain just a tiny bit as we got to Daiso. Didn’t think much of it, until we were in Daiso. August had fun choosing stickers for him and Megan, and he played with the plastic pigs, first climbing up on a box to get them, then realizing he could move the box and reach them. We got went to get in line, and they were huge. Everyone was running in and buying umbrellas. Finally paid, walked out the door, and Carly called. She reminded me we needed batteries for the apartment door, so August and I went back in and got them. Luckily, the lines had abated.
We headed home (only two trains this time, as no U-Line) and were home a bit after 6. They nursed, then I offered him spaghetti for dinner. He has grown tired of it after 3 days, really wanting something else. Carly made carrot coins for him, and he ate a good amount of those.
He and I went and read Splat the Cat, A Violin for Eva, The Bear and the Piano, and Tallulah’s Tutu. A music theme going on there for the last three.
I took him in to his bath and we watched more of the Rhapsody Orchestra videos. Then we watched tabla and sitar videos:
Tabla lesson: https://youtu.be/KfCYNFgZnVk
Sitar: https://youtu.be/9xB_X9BOAOU
Zakir Hussein on tabla: https://youtu.be/O2K0ptoYpuc
He was really liking that last one, but getting tired. We got him to bed and asleep just before 10.
Photos. Flapping like a bird:
Hiding from the announcement:
Duplos:
Monster Zinnie:
Looking out on the U-Line:
In the slide:
Balance:
Pretending to look in the missing library box:
Back asleep on the floor:
Honey bread:
Looking at the lights:
Blue dot:
Daiso pigs:
Pattern:
Being slow:
