Last night around 11 he sat up for a few minutes. I tried to get him to lie back down but he landed on Puff, who played some music. Nursed. But sometime later he sat up again. He crawled over to Carly and lay his head on her a bit, but eventually just lay down next to her and fell back to sleep.
He was up right after 6. When I got up a little alter we did math with the blueberries, then played with the Poli flashlight in the dark. He figured out how to change the pictures. He wanted to write the names of the characters in Korean, then ended up writing Carly and dada in Korean a few times. He then wanted Peter Rabbit with him while he played the instruments from Welcome to the Symphony. He was then playing french horn and talking about playing “very loud” and kept walking around humming the Puffin Rock theme song. Very loudly.
We ate cereal and bananas for breakfast. We did lots of cuddling in the reading area and at one point we had to go get Carly’s blanket. He got some of the little puzzles out and we did those, and he did more writing on paper – and put the kids back on on his own without me reminding him.
He played some GarageBand on his keyboard in th reading area, then followed me around as I hung up laundry. He looked at the lid to the toy box, the one with letters on t, and said “Tou really liked this when you were a little baby? But I still like it.” He then wanted a sticker that he had once put on it taken off so he could see it all. A bit later he ran out of the room saying: “I’m going to draw Hs on paper! H H H H! H is for hug and hut!” He drew letters on paper, but invented “dot letters”. Didn’t know the inspiration for this, as I’ve never done it, until we went back into the laundry room and he pointed to one of the Hs on the lid and said “I did that.”
There was some Sesame Disco on and I was holding him and we were sort of dancing to it. He was acting sleepy for the first time and putting his head on my shoulder. Started to do some exercise but he was acting tired again and sort of curled up in the rocking chair for awhile and I cuddled with him a bit. When he got up he went to the paper and was asking how to spell numbers and was copying numbers like ‘seventy’ ‘two’ ‘sixteen’. We sang a lot of “London Bridge Is Falling Down”. I took a shower, and when I came out he was watching a color wheel video. He then said “I love green, yellow, blue, black, white…” On YouTube he saw a listing for a Dr. Seuss video and recognized it and said he wanted to read Dr. Seuss books. We read On Beyond Zebra and Marvin K Mooney. He loved On Beyond Zebra, and started copying all of the made up letters onto paper, then was making his own. When he went to the bathroom we worked on pulling up his pants.
We headed out around noon and walked down to catch a bus. Caught the 172 as the 100 and 111 weren’t coming for awhile. August was playing french horn on the bus, then surprised me by falling asleep. I got off and went to Cafe Another, which is where Carly and I went the first time we had a babysitter for August (when the three girls watched him). He slept from 12:25 to 1:45. When he woke up the first thing he said was he wanted to play the big piano.
That was why we had headed to Dream Forest today. In the morning he said he wanted to play the big piano again. Besides the one at Children’s Grand Park, I could remember ones at Seoul Forest and Dream Forest. So we walked up to Dream Forest, finding a green car (a Fiat) along the way that August really liked. We walked up into the park and to where the piano used to be. Alas, it wasn’t there. We looked around at a couple other places, in case it had been moved, but no luck.
Got him out of the backpack in front of the arts center and he played around for awhile, one sleeve down over his hand and his shoulder showing. We went into GS25 and got a croissant sandwich thing, a set of fried sushi, and a thing of peaches. We sat outside and ate. He liked the fried sushi, but couldn’t eat the interesting ones as they surprisingly turned out to be spicy.
We went over to the playground and to the play structure. We started by drumming around on it, then climbing inside it. He was counting the steps, or something, and I remarked I didn’t know how his counting game worked. So as he went through he said things like “I’m gonna count Dada but I’m not going to count that bus.” “I’m not going to count that bike, but I’ll count that woman.”
After that he walked over and helped push the round thing a bit but didn’t want to get on. He then climbed up the stairs and across the rope bridge on his own, and went down one of the short slides. He then saw a little boy playing in the sand area. He got the stick and started writing in there. But then he started kicking sand. I took him out, then he started kicking again. Upset once more, but then was fine after that, and he spelled the start of his Mani song. He says it starts ‘Manitsnonq’. He then wanted to spell all of Yankee Doodle. So we worked through a lot of it, and he surprised me by being able to spell a lot of the words. It was about time to head out, and it was time to go when he started to put sand in his coat. His hands were really dirty and he kept wiping his face, acting sleepy.
We headed out at 3:35, and stopped at the bathrooms near where the piano was supposed to be. He got to choose which toilet to use: dragonfly, snail, or turtle, and he chose turtle. We then washed his very dirty hands and face. As we walked out he saw the new flowers (they put in the spring flowers) by the visitor center and said “Nice flowers. Ooh. I like them…I want to take a picture.” We caught the first bus then transferred to the Nowon 9. He played french horn on way home, then was quiet and put his head down a bit.
At home the plan was to switch to the bike and head to the grocery store. But when we got there he said “I want to rest in a nest in the parlor.” So we rested for awhile, then he was having fun having Marshy and GM poop and use the bathroom. Back on the reading area, he said “Let’s go.”
We went over to Lucky Mart and shopping went smoothly. He started drumming on everything, starting with big cans in the back. We headed home at 5:20. They nursed, then while he was on the toilet he counted all the way to 100 for Carly. He had done that once earlier today, and sometime yesterday.
We played London Bridge on the piano then on my iPad he got into the My First Orchestra app and played with that. He ate some olives and then the last piece of sushi from lunch. He stuffed much of it in his mouth and dropped a bunch of rice on the ground. A minute later he said “I’m still hungry” and walked over and picked up some rice from the ground. I gave him an new commandment: “Though shalt not eat floor rice.” Carly and I had made stuff for burritos. He’s never liked burritos, so I had just given him a bowl with olives, tofu, and bell peppers in it. He ate everything else, but left the pepper. But I told him he should try it and I thought he’d like it. He tried it, and liked it and was excited: “I like pepper!” But to be clear he then said “I don’t like tomato.”
Carly gave him a bath and washed his hair while I did dishes. We tried for sleep after that, but they came out after awhile. Carly went to take a shower and he and I looked at the MFA Musical Instruments book. He spent over a half hour going through it and listening to/watching it and pretending to play all the instruments. He was so hyped up by it; I wonder if any other three-year old has been made hyper by a book of antique musical instruments.
They went back in sometime after 9. Thought he went to sleep, but I heard him fussing at 9:45 or so, then got quiet after that.
Photos:
On Beyond Zebra:
Dream Forest:
