Tuesday: Orchestra concert at APIS

He was grinding his teeth in his sleep at some point. Something he does a bit, but this was louder than usual. He was up sometime before 6. Watched one episode of Mouk and ate the last banana bread for breakfast. Carly headed to work as he was trying out Busy Shapes for the first time. After that we played some Easy Music and Discover Music. We got up and he played some toy piano, then I held hi and we were pretending to play instrument after instrument, repeating The Driver on the Bus over and over. He then made up ‘wedertone’ (or something like that), first telling me it was a Korean instrument he had learned from me, but then saying it was a made up instrument.

We did Piano Maestro and played mandolin, then had Cheerios and more banana bread. We sang Skip to My Lou and couldn’t remember all the words, so found the book and read it. Then he chose Snappy Little Monsters. We read that, and almost all of Cat on the Mat is Flat. He went to the bathroom, then wanted a nest with the friends, and was pretending they were going to the bathroom. This ended with him saying “I pooped Shapes out of my bottom: Heart, mango, molecule, square, diamond, hexagon, octagon, pentagon, circle, oval, and a quadrilateral.”

He played Artie’s World while I took a shower. We were playing on the electric keyboard. He played piano on my lap and made up a song called “Kite”. He then did some of dust mop piano game, followed by more mandolin and keyboard. At some point he asked me for kisses: “I want infinity kisses.” Did that a few times during the day.

We ate a salmon sandoo and grapes for lunch, then looked up all the words to “Take me out to the ballgame” and sang it. He picked up the last two grapes, said “Let’s share these last ones” and gave me one. We read My Family Plays Music and had to look up wind chime instruments, then he wanted to watch a harpsichord, so we watched a video of “Les Cyclopes” (which is about Carly’s favorite cyclops), then Scarlatti (https://youtu.be/71iUAFFQ8ik). He was then fascinated by a video about how harpsichords work (https://youtu.be/71x4MSlpGUk). We finished with a little Hendrix, then he wanted his iPad. I asked if it was in the parlor, and he said “No, but I still have my brush instruments.”

Then he wanted to watch a string quartet, so we found a Beethoven string quarter (https://youtu.be/oXLKu-HglnM) and he said “I’m playing along with my brush instruments.” I went to get our toothbrushes and he noticed the light was on in Carly’s closet and asked why. When I handed him his toothbrush, he then wanted to brush his teeth in the closet.

He joked around about hitting the wall with his hand and getting in trouble by the police: “Give me 16 flops, 10 kisses, and 2 nose rubs” was his idea of a consequence. And randomly: “Here’s a big Purple Heart. It’s from the kimchi store.”

He had said he was tired a few times (at one point he said “I told you I was tired”), so I wanted to give him an opportunity to take a nap, so I got the stroller. As we were getting ready to go he discussed getting too big for the stroller and backpack: “Then you’ll just walk?”But when it came to getting in the stroller he disagreed and said he wanted the backpack. He said the stroller was too hard, and showed me by going and putting his head on the stroller and saying it was hard. I suggested he could take a blanket, and he liked that idea and went and chose one of the baby blankets and we put that in. From that he started talking about pillows, and he said “But I like my head on mama.” I asked “On mama or her pillow?” He replied “Both”.

We walked for 25 minutes, doing a loop up on the stream, then walked to the playground by the pink building. He was up and singing most of the way, clearly not napping, right until before we got to the playground. Then he said he wanted to rest on the blanket. It had bunched down, so I pulled it up for him and he cuddled up in the stroller for a couple minutes. But he hopped up as soon as we saw the playground. This was the playground with four swings in the apartment complex. We had gone by the park close to the pink building, but even though the swings were open he wanted to continue on to this playground.

At the playground I suggested he put on his light blue coat that I had brought. He has never worn it. Completely different reaction to the one I tried on him a few days ago. I put this on and he said “I like it!” Then “It matches too because it has dark blue.” Earlier, he had liked that his shirt (the surfer shirt) matched his pants because they were both dark blue/purplish.

He went on the swings for several minutes, then we played on the play structure and the slides. Made a game of me taking up one slide, and the backpack the other, and he would slide down into the backpack. Also practiced his directions, north south east west. On the slide he said “I’m a big snake. My tail goes on and on.” As he climbed over me I said “For a snake you sure have big feet.” He replied “The end of my tail has big feet.” When we went up the stairs (he had been going up the climbing wall things) he commented they were short, and said “I don’t like a lot of stairs. Like at the pink building…because they are too bumpy.” He made some music and said “I was playing a drum machine.” We held hands going down the slides together, and then we went down in turns (“One after another”) and he would copy what I did going down. He worked on skipping stairs going up (pulling himself up by the railing).

We were sitting on the slides, looking up Korean words again, when a boy came over with pretty good English and talked to us. Through him I think I learned that there is a joke about the impeached president’s name. Park Geun-hye (박근혜 in Korean)’s first name sounds similar to the word for ‘swings’ (근혜 versus 그네). He also said “Koreans hate 근혜, Americans hate Trump.”

Eventually, we headed home, dropped off the stroller, and got ready to head to APIS. Carly asked if we could get the sandwiches for dinner. We just took the grey backpack. August walked or I carried him a bit. We went and caught the Nowon 15 bus and got off at APIS. Walked up to Tospia and got 3 sandwiches and drinks for me and Carly. While we waited we looked at the plants outside. August liked them. I could name a few for him, but he asked about one so I Skyped my parents for help. We went inside and sat for a minute, then took the food to APIS.

Ate with Carly, and Carly helped him use a stapler. We then went down to the auditorium for the concert. While we waited, I took him down to the front so he could see the instruments and things up close. He really liked that. We then went back up to Carly. The first group, 5th grade orchestra, was just 4 kids, so just like a string quartet, like I had introduced to him earlier. Then, one of the pieces they played was the William Tell overture, which we had come across in Piano Maestro.

At the end of each piece he clapped. After 5th grade, Carly asked if he wanted to stay or go home. Clearly tired. He said go home, but then we stood in the back and watched the middle school orchestra. Made it through that (and he got to say hi to Megan and Brett, and show off his math), then we headed home.

He was getting a bit crazy as we got off the bus and headed home, pretending to hit everything and everyone. Then while waiting at the elevators he actually went up and hit a guy. When we got up to the apartment Carly took him into the bedroom for a short timeout.

He ate a little soup for dinner, then joked “I’m eating my poop” before he got in the bath. Carly gave him a bath, and he went right to bed after that and was asleep at 7.