He woke up sometime after midnight and couldn’t get back to sleep nursing. Eventually, I got up and picked him up. I stood up with him in the bedroom for a few minutes and he rested his head on my shoulder. Eventually he said “book” and was grabbing at the door. We went out and walked around the house a bit, then into the parlor. He wanted a light on, and we lay in the reading area with a blanket on us. He just lay against a pillow for several minutes. More than five, at least. He hadn’t really been crying at all since I picked him up, but he kept rubbing at his nose and his breathing took a long time to return to normal. It almost seems like he holds his breath for a few seconds each time. I thought he was going to fall asleep like that, but eventually he wanted a book. We ended up reading Kipper A to Z and the first three stories in the Kipper Collection. At close to 1:30 we went back in and he fell asleep soon thereafter.
He came out at 7:06. Looked for Carly, then climbed up with me and sat on my lap facing me. A lot of eye and face rubbing but not upset. Eventually he asked “What (something) mean?” but I missed the word and he wouldn’t repeat. Then he was playing with his fingers and pointed his them at me and said “You’re pointing at Dada with the wrong finger.” I had been teaching him the names of the fingers a couple days ago. He climbed off and sat next to me on the couch for awhile.
We read “How Kids Grow” on the couch, then he lay with his head on my legs for a few minutes. Eventually he said “I want to write on paper.” Changed him into underwear, then headed to the paper. He said “I can write numbers up to…Let’s get a marker and find out.” I think he was thinking about the book we read, which said the seven-year old could write to ten. He started writing and kept announcing his progress “I wrote all the way to 37!” Then he kept going. He wrote up to 100, well 300, if you count when he switched to 100. We then talked about big numbers and I wrote out big ones like thousands and millions and we looked at how many zeros there were.
He wanted water and walked out into the living room where I had Sun Ra playing on the iPad. He listened for a bit and said he was playing the hurst gurdy. But when he was done listening he wanted the music off.
He was hungry and I offered Cheerios or a smoothie. He chose smoothie, but then immediately closed the door on me when I said okay. I made the smoothie and poured hims some and he started drinking. I found some chunks in the rest of it and told him I needed to use the blender again. He whined and ran to the parlor and started to close the door. I got his smoothie for him so he could drink it in the parlor.
He asked what the music (I had turned Sun Ra back on) was about and didn’t seem convinced that the song (called Space Jazz Reverie) was about space. After smoothies he wanted to play mandolin. But first to the bathroom where he talked about how ours doesn’t have a sensor un-“like Chrysanthemum Park”. I made the “flush” noise which even by itself he finds funny but also scares him a little and he says “No”.
We played mandolin and piano for quite awhile, then with the stuffed animals for a bit. He crawled in my lap and curled up and was a rabbit and we pulled the blanket around us. He was hungry so we went and had a piece of toast. He was still coming center about the blender and asked something like “You out the toast in the blender?” When I assured him I would t use the blender he agreed to have toast.
After toast he asked what gold and silver make. He then asked if they’re colors and I realized that he hadn’t actually seen gold and silver, the metals. So we looked up images of them and others, like iron and bronze and copper and steel.
He then declared he was going to make a puzzle by himself. He chose the Old MacDonald’s Farm one. Spent several minutes dancing around, listening to the song and pushing the button when it stopped. We finished the puzzle. He has a tendency to just look at it, and not try out pieces, but eventually I encouraged him to try out pieces in different ways and reminded him of the mistakes song and he listened to that.
He then wanted to watch Pirates of the Caribbean.
Shower
He talked about ages while on the toilet. “We look the same. But I’m bigger. Because I’m 16 and you’re 14.” “Sorry, I’m ten thousand…in infinity.”
He took apart the puzzle and made a guessing game of it, turning a piece around and asking me to guess what was on it. On the iPad was a song by Drivin N Cryin called “The Hardest Part”. He wanted to know hardest part of what. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make out what the singer says in the song and couldn’t find the lyrics. He wanted to listen to it a second time.
We ate our triangle kimbap for lunch. One of them had kimchi rice so I took that, but he ate two bites of it. He had a quarter of the peanut butter sandwich and started talking about shapes: “What’s triangle plus octagon? Do it with your shape fingers.” “What’s trombone minus violin? It equals bassoon.”
“What impossible mean?” Not sure what made him think of ‘impossible’. Perhaps he heard me say it. I supplied standing on the ceiling and flying as things that were impossible. Then he playing the piano as something that is possible.
He played with th balloon dog and we had it go to the bathroom on the toilet.
“What happens if there’s no flowers in Israel?” So we looked at Google Maps and photos of Netanya. He accidentally clicked on Telunas Beach in Indonesia, and we found that you can do a walk through of the resort.
Back to music: “I’ll play xylophone and you play mandolin and we’ll play Itsy Bitsy Spider.”
He wanted to sing Alligator Chomp from last night. I looked up the words. “Where are the other verses” “There’s fourteen verses…like Ants Go Marching.”
Getting ready to go, I gave him a choice between his usual grey and blue striped sweatshirt, and a blue hooded sweatshirt. He looked at his pants and shirt and was at first concerned that neither of the sweatshirts matched. He’d been so excited by matching yesterday. I assured him it was okay, and he chose the new sweatshirt.
Before we could get out the door there was one more thing: “I want to read Lost Button…No, Cookies. I really like cookies.” So we read that Frog and Toad story, then the sample of a My Little Pony book, then discussed smurfs and how tall they are (three apples): “Why not three mangos? Three pineapples?”
He looked at the How Kids Grow book on his own, then a minute later, as I was putting on his sock and shoes, asked “How you put on pajamas?” I started to ask if this was about the book (because the 4 or 5 year old can put on her pajamas by herself) but he cut me off, saying “No” to all my questions.
We left at 1. On the way down the elevator stopped at three. August said “It stopped at 3? Wait, my age is 3!”
At the station he was asking which directions each train was going, and we discussed that we were headed north. I said ‘northbound’. So he asked what ‘Bound’ meant. I explained, and gave some examples, and he said “We’re Megan bound. Yeah, I want to visit Megan.”
We went to the Iris Garden and we first looked at the flowers near the entrance. For one set of flowers he counted the petals, of another he said “It smells like cheese.” He spotted a butterfly, then a couple bees: “Bee on it. Making honey. I really like bees.”
From there we wandered through the park. We sat on a rock by the currently dry stream and I got out some of the letter cookies. “I have Y for yesterday and yo-yo.” “Q for quartz and queen and quitter…I really like Q.” We worked on similes, and he declared “Q and G are my favorite letters.” He wanted to spell ‘bridge’ and we discussed the letters G and J and their sounds. He asked “Why they have two letter that
are close?” Good question, kid.
Wandered and played on the rocks and made our way to the deck area where we’ve often eaten lunch. A guy took his photo and showed it to him. August looked around, remembered the log benches, and crawled through the metal bench several times. A woman tried to giver him a Snickers bar or something it, and I tried to wave her away before he saw it. He did, but simply said something like “Why the woman try to give you candy?” and kept playing. Other kids showed up, then after a couple minutes August wanted to head down the ramp and wander around. He had talked about finding frogs, but they’re not out yet.
More wandering and we finished the letter cookies. I used the Cookie Monster voice, but August said “Cookie is not here because it is Korea. Cookie Monster is not here because it’s not Sesame Street. Because it’s Zinnie and Dada…you’re back to Dada. Fine.” He said “Y is for yodel, yawn, yesterday, and yo-yo.”
I had talked about going up to the park and playground west of the station, but he had said he was fine playing at the Iris Garden. Eventually though he wanted to go. We went to the bathroom, then got in the backpack and started walking. Along the way, in the village area, we looked at hats where I had bought my beige hat (with Chuck?) and looked at all the aquariums. We saw squid and sea pineapples and sea cucumbers and octopi. And fish, of course. And a variety of shellfish. By another shop he saw a blue sweatshirt that looked like the one I was wearing and asked if I had got it there.
We got to the park (새동네어린이공원) and started by looking at the random kernels of corn someone had left on the bench. Then to the swings, where he had an argument with Cookie Monster about eating cookies, then on to the play structure, where we spent most of our time. He went across the shaky bridge a couple times (“its shakey so it helps my balance.”), then up the big rope ladder, needing my help just a little at the top. We went down slides a few times, after each other, and once holding hands in a tube slide. But mainly he played with a broken piano sort of thing. It didn’t make noise, but that didn’t stop him. Eventually, he just sat on the floor of it and played instruments on his shoes for several minutes.
We headed home. He sat on the train and sang. We got home just after 5. Carly got home a bit later. August initially ran into the parlor, but then came back to greet her. They nursed, then we had soup for dinner. We played piano and were learning Zero at the Bottom of the Sea. We then read Aaaaaargh! Spider! and Gabriella’s Song (from APIS). It was time for his bath, but he wanted to draw notes on paper, so we made an agreement that he could draw five, and shook on it. He of course got a few more than that.
Carly gave him a bath, then he came back and drew more notes with me. He filled a whole page with sixteenth notes. He was then asleep about a quarter to 8.
Only one sock all morning after he took one off:
Puzzle:
Counting petals:
Q:
Tunnel:
Sea cucumbers and pineapples:
Playground. Corn kernels:
Singing on the subway:
Sixteenth notes:
