Thursday: Teuni Teuni and band concert at APIS

We skipped his English class today so we could go to the band concert at APIS.

He was adding numbers in his sleep during the night. He was then talking and almost up around 5 but fell back to sleep. At 6 he woke up coughing. He got up and went straight to get his water bottle before going to Carly. He then stared asking me about fractions, and I don’t know where that came from: “What is 3 slash 4? What is 4 slash 6? What is 100 slash 2?”

He ate Cheerios and banana for breakfast and Carly headed to work. He made a racket on the piano to wake me up as Flynne, sleeping in my lair on the couch. We made a pajama person on the bed after we changed him. He was singing London Bridge with funny words, then listing rhyming words. So we went and read Dr. Seuss books. First the spot story, then the Zax. Then all of On Beyond Zebra.

We then played mandolin and PianoMaestro. He started to be able to push down and play notes pretty well, doing it on multiple strings and a variety of frets. So that’s a big step.

He did some stamp pad letters. Then had more breakfast. He went back into the parlor and lay on the floor. He took one sock off. I asked why he took the right sock off, and that led to a discussion of whether one was a right sock and one was the left, like with shoes. He wanted to switch the socks to prove they were interchangeable. We did that, but then he took one off because it was supposedly cold. So I put it on his hand. He then wanted the other sock on the other hand. He then tried picking things up, and did some more stamp pad letters.

Back in the reading area we read parts of On Beyond Zebra and Oh The Places You’ll Go! He then wanted to play the “feet game”, which involved hiding his feet under the carpet and is pretending they were a rock or a spider, etc. He then pretended to be May, the rabbit “I want to hide May!”

He was pretending to play music as he was wrapped in the blanket, so we ended up figuring out how to play the rabbit dance song on piano. He then played with GarageBand after that. He was asking about the scales and arpeggiator, so we played with those and discussed them.

We then played with the friends again and the blanket, and he ended up sitting and listening to Puff’s music box. He then wanted to build a tower. We ended up building a couple towers and a huge Q. Then, on his own he made a big R and lowercase r and spelled ‘on’ out of the blocks. We exercised together, then I took a shower, after which we Skyped with my dad. It did the thing where the other person sounds like a chipmunk and we have to call them back (only seems to happen with parents now – an odd Skype bug). August said he sounded like a giraffe and we my dad talked like that for awhile before we called back. Anyway, my mom was out for dinner, so he said they’d call back in a bit. We went and started to get ready to leave, and August was brushing his teeth when they called back.

He mainly played mandolin while we skyped, showing off how he can press notes. We then headed to class. Class today was all about watermelons. Didn’t learn anything about them, but everything was round. I think we were talking about colors, and which ones we know and don’t know in Korean and he said “I don’t know this one either…we have to find out.” As class went on he said “Watermelon!” a lot, as well as “uftah” a couple times. The highlight activity was a watermelon ball fight. August also really liked helping pushing the watermelon cart, and he made a watermelon tower of watermelon pieces and the teacher was trying to blow it over. At the end of class we got a Teuni Monster Spaceship toy which he really liked.

For lunch we went to the new kimbap place on the second floor of Brownstone: Honest Lee Kimbap (올곧은 Lee 김밥). He chose dongatsu kimbap and I chose the tuna salad one. We enjoyed that and discussed odd and even numbers. He’s catching on: “6 is an even number? Because you’re counting by twos?”

We went home and played piano and mandolin. I was getting kind of sleepy, which tends to happen when we lounge on the reading are in the sun after eating lunch. He was making up words and said “Humfor dumfor. I made a funny word.” He also played with the spaceship toy. I did some cleaning up while he played, and I think he saw. Because eventually he said “Let’s go to the band concert” and then he took all the pieces for the spaceship and put them away under the rocking chair.

On the bus we looked at all the Mary Had a Little Lamb lyrics and sang that. Then he got quiet and fell asleep sitting next to me. When I went to pick him up to get off the bus I actually fell down onto the seat as the bus driver dove into the bus stop. I was afraid I kneed him on his foot, but all he did was sort of wake up and ask “Where’s mama?”

Much a repeat of Tuesday, we went up to Tospia and got sandwiches and coffee drinks and looked at the plants again. We saw Emmalee, the orchestra teacher, and I had August say hi and “Good concert“.

He did more walking on the way to APIS this time, and when we got to the field he stated crawling on it. We went up to the fourth floor, and he saw Carly coming out of Megan’s room. He went down, and went in Megan’s room and she gave him an Earth sticker. Isra, one of Carly’s students, who he met on Tuesday, was in Carly’s room working and he said hi to her. We ate dinner, and he kept saying “I hear Megan” every time he heard her. Carly took him down to the bathroom, then on the way back they were talking to a couple of the other teachers about August learning things, and Carly mentioned making mistakes, and August sang the “I like to make mistakes” song. Oh, and another teacher made him a balloon dog and gave it to him.

We went to the concert and watched the jazz band, 5th grade band, and middle school band. Once again I took him down to the front beforehand to look at the instruments. Back up in our seats, he got folded up in the seat, but recovered as Carly played with the balloon dog and sat on her lap. He then had the dog pooping on everything, including the teachers sitting in front of us.

Anyway, the music for the whole concert was all music composed by James Swearingen. As soon as they started playing August was playing and humming along. We sat for the first two groups, then stood in the back for the middle school band. He wasn’t a fan of the talking in between, but loved the music.

We headed out, and August was playing the stairs like an instrument – something he had also done in front of the sandwich shop. On the bus home he and Carly made up keyboard instruments to play.

At home we shared a banana and discussed even numbers. He asked “What’s timpani plus trombone?” And I said trimpanibone, to his amusement. Next he asked “bass plus trombone equals what?”

Carly started his bath and I gave him his bath. Banana in Carly’s salad. He wanted to make up songs, and we came up with three, all on subjects of his request: I Lost My Helmet in the Spaceship, Alligator Chomp, and We Are the Red Crabs. He made it through washing his hair and we straight to the bedroom and got him dressed for bed. I left at 7:10 and he was soon asleep.