He was up at 6 again. He and Carly were adding negative numbers (like -4+(-5)) for the first time. Carly has taught him about ‘negativeland’ for math with negative numbers. So August started pointing around and asking “What land is over there?” He pointed towards me getting coffee in the kitchen and Carly said it was “Dada morning land”. So August then added 5 and 5 and said it was “Dada morning land 10”. He next wanted to watch Oma’s hand surgery. But first he wanted to sing a song. I sang a short “It’s morning” song but that wasn’t what he wanted. We sang Yellow Submarine, then listened to it on the iPad. August marched around the room and said “I’m playing a tomato”. During a Jason Webley song he said “I’m playing the bass viola keyboard…That doesn’t make sense?”
We ate fruit and Cheerios for breakfast and watched, at his request, the video on sea snakes, then one of a giant snail. We switched to instrument videos and watched parts of videos by the bass instrument guy, on the Keyes trombone and french horn.
We listened to music on the iPad, from the playlist I made him. He liked Yellow Submarine, Webley’s “Ways to Love”, and Icicle Works “Love is a Wonderful Color”, but vetoed a few others. When he doesn’t want a song he will just go over to the iPad and pause it.
We did some math with the blueberries, then exercised, then he wanted to play mandolin and pretend it was a bass. Then he played pizzicato. We did Piano Maestro and mandolin. He then said he was hungry and wanted crackers. I asked what kind, and he said “ilban crackers”. I said I didn’t know what kind of crackers he was talking about, but it sounded familiar. He laughed and said he made it up. I asked him where the ilban part came from and he said “garbage”. ‘Ilban sulagi” means general waste in Korean, but we haven’t talked about that recently at all.
He ate a couple crackers then some grapes. He played with his toolkit and sang Yellow Submarine with random words as he did some hammering.
He then did some yoga, pulling his feet up over his head. He wanted Marshy to do it, then he was throwing Marshy around the room. Then said “I want them to talk about their ages.” We did that a bit – he decided Green Monster is the oldest. He sang more random words with Yellow Submarine, then had the stuffed whale turning into an apple and getting things wet.
I needed to take a shower, but he didn’t want to play on his own. I finally said I needed to go and whined for a couple seconds, but he went to his iPad and played the Dr. Seuss instruments. After my shower he was hungry, so we had some grapes and I got us ready to go. We did more mandolin after I changed his shirt. He was pushing down frets while I played it, then he pretended it was an upright bass, guitar, and cello.
We finally got ready to go and left at 10:40. As we left he made up an instrument: “Eraser tells me which note to play…there’s a bunch of erasers…it’s a brass instrument.” On the train down train down he started to talk about other people he saw. One woman had bandaid on her cheek. He pointed and said “Is that a bandaid? Maybe there was blood.” Another woman wore tights: “What’s that woman wearing on her legs?” And another had holes in the knees of her jeans: “Why are there holes on her legs?”
We got off the train and went to our usual CU or GS25 and got lunch. Another one of the lunch boxes – one with a little strawberry cake in it this time. Bonus: I got a free iced latte drink. We went back to where we ate lunch by the small lake last time and ate there again. Then we headed up the stairs to the museum. August saw the flowers up the stairway and kept talking about, smelling, and looking at them. “Nice flowers,” he kept saying.
We went to the children’s museum and got a ticket for 1:30. We then went and got tickets for the special exhibit on Egyptian artifacts. Our friend Meg, now in Russia, and seen an article about it and suggested it. She thought August might like the animal sculptures, etc. He did enjoy it, but wasn’t too fond of how dark it was (a couple hours later he would ask ‘Why was Egypt dark?’). Also, as usual, they were a bit jumpy and fast on the rules: we were told he couldn’t touch the display cases, couldn’t step past the yellow lines on the ground (even though there were then display cases, and everyone else was stepping over the lines). And though it was hardly busy at all, when he lay down on the floor one time a woman came over and told us there were chairs in the hall where he could rest. When he lay down in the corner of a second room a woman came over and asked him to get up.
But we found interesting animal sculptures for him (an ibis, Anubis, cat coffins shaped like cats, etc.), he saw his first mummies and sarcophagus, liked a cutout light sculpture thing (which, thankfully, he could touch), saw hieroglyphics, and said that the falcon mummy looked like a carrot (it did). And he seemed interested in the fact that Egypt is next to Israel and we might go there.
About 1:45 we made it to the children’s museum. Timing didn’t really matter, as it was far from full and they didn’t make people leave at the end of the session. Here, of course, the rules are entirely different, and he was able to climb on everything, and started by playing drums on things. He then ground some flour, then spent most of our time playing on the little hill things. He was climbing up them, and sliding down all over them in random directions. We took off his coat and I asked if he also wanted his sweatshirt off “No…What’s under?” He looked and saw what shirt he had on underneath, then said “Take it off.” He started hitting the hill with his hand and counting, and said “I bonked my hand eleven times.” Then he was bonking his head on things. He was playing on his own and I was studying Hebrew, and he came and poked me in the face as he sometimes does to get my attention. He wanted me to climb the hill with him. I said “Sure. Just don’t stab me in the face.” He replied “Fine. I’ll not stab you in the face.”
There is a display next to there where you put your head up in a bubble thing and see pictures of ancient jewelry. He played in that quite a bit and liked when I went in one and I went in another and we could see each other. He went and sat on a camel, and then tried on my hat before we left.
From there we went to where you can write on the walls. He wrote Zinnie, Niman, and Althauser in his crazy On Beyond Zebra-inspired letters and designs. He then went and played in the agricultural revolution-era house (“That’s the bamboo?” he asked when he saw it), and watched the videos on tools from the time period a few times.
We then went to the gift shop and he picked out a card for Carly to send to someone. I wanted one of the museum books, but they didn’t have it at that one, so we went to the big gift shop and I ended up buying the small museum guide. In between he had wanted to look at some of the permanent exhibits. He really liked the replica of some Joseon-era chimes. He wanted to touch them, but it isn’t clear if you can. But he wandered around and looked at other things, particularly the printing press stuff. He asked about musical instruments, but I realized I don’t think they have any musical instruments on display (which seems like an oversight).
In the prehistoric section, we saw petroglyphs and talked about how old they were. He said “Long before mama was a baby? Long before uncle Paul was a baby? Long before gramma and grampa was a baby?”
We headed home. No iPad necessary either direction today. Singing and looking out the windows and snacks instead. He talked about our version of Ants Go Marching: “Why when you get to Twenty the ant goes ‘ahhhh’?…Because we keep going?” When we transferred in Sangbong he did some more yoga on the floor, like he had done in the Egyptian exhibit. He said “That’s pretty easy”. On the
second train we looked at the subway route map and played the “How do you get to this stop?” game. He was getting a lot of attention and touching on the trains today. Seems to happen on that line. A guy on the left tried to offer him a Halls. A woman to his right touched his head about a dozen times.
We got home at 5:30. I heated water for tea and there was a miscommunication between me and Carly when she realized I hadn’t made tea for her. She acted sad and August said “Why are you sad?” “Maybe mama could make mama’s tea.”
He ate tea, then wanted to watch a string quartet. I put on a video of Apocalyptica, a cello quartet, playing Metallica’s “Unforgiven”. After that we watched the Metallica version, then, so he could see instruments more, the live video of Pearl Jam’s “Alive”. He and Carly were then doing all sorts of silliness involving Carly being a Venus fly trap. But he was clearly getting tired, on the verge. Carly gave him a quick bath, and he cried through it. Before he went to sleep he said, on his own, “I love you Dada.” He was asleep early, at 6:40.
Photos:-,
Mandolin:
Flowers:
Egyptian exhibit:
He liked the hippo:
The falcon mummy looked like a carrot:
Children’s museum:
Art:
More floor:
Subway stops:
