Tuesday: Children’s Grand Park and Costco

Sometime after 10 last night he sat up in bed for a few minutes, then lay back down, putting his head on my leg for a pillow.

He got up at 7:30, just as Carly started skyping with Cassie. Unfortunately, their attempts to Skype with people this morning didn’t go too well: first Vivian got hurt and cried. Then when they called back both Vivian and Colin wanted to sit on Cassie’s lap, so that was the end of that. They Skyped with Cherie, but she was babysitting Ava, who was putting shells in her mouth, so that didn’t last long. I got up and they did some hallway number line, then they ate some noodles. August was putting his foot high up on the counter, standing on one foot, being a stretchy flamingo. Cherie called back, free from babysitting and Skyped.

After skyping, August was on his pianos for a long time. First the toy pianos, then he wanted chords. I pulled up Piano Companion on my iPad to make sure I was teaching him chords correctly, but he ended up playing with that instead. He would find a complicated chord and ask me to play it on the toy piano. Then say “Stop playing, please…I’m being polite.” He wanted his electric keyboard, so we set that up and he used it with my iPad.

Carly started reading Little House in the Big Woods to him while they nursed, and would read more of it later. I took a shower, and when I came out they were hiding under the blankets. We then had a blanket fight. Carly made a funny voice and he wanted more. When she said she was out of funny voices he said “I put more voices in there.” like he does (or used to do) with ideas.

He and I played catch with the blankets. When he would throw a blanket on me he would say “Ka….BOOM!” He then did a headstand on the rocking chair and he caught the blankets upside down when I threw them to him.

We left at 10:50, headed for Children’s Grand Park and the children’s museum. On the train he asked which direction we were headed, then was asking why the lights were going the other direction. We explained it was an optical illusion: “But the lights are going north.” They did math on their fingers, then when he wanted to see a problem written out they used Paper on the iPad.

At Children’s Grand Park station we headed out the south exit and went to Subway for lunch. He and I got a seafood one to share and Carly got a Turkey one to share with him. We walked into Children’s Grand Park and sat on a bench near the children’s museum and ate. I gave him a cucumber and he ate it and said “Thank you Dada for cucumbers.”

In the children’s museum I had to pay for him, adding him to our membership now that he is 3. He spotted a big group of kids walking in pairs and said “groups of two”. She ran over to them and started counting: “two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve…”

We started on the first floor, in the nature area. He mainly played with Carly while I did some reading. He stood on the thing that makes you look like a butterfly on a screen – he used to be afraid of that before. He’d watch people do it, but wouldn’t stand for it himself. He wore the butterfly wings outfit, and wore it for a long time as they did the pencil rubbing and he looked at the minerals and ran around.

Eventually he was ready to move on. He ran and got me and held my finger and said “Dada come too.” We went over to the Idea Transformer area. We’ve played there a couple times, but not his favorite area. Nor anyone’s, as it is barely used, especially compared to the ball area that was there before. But more success this time. We did the recycling area for a long time, then the touch ensemble, then recycling again. They built things for a minute, and he also posed as a girl and a dog in the cutout things. But mainly we built towers and knocked them over. A couple fell on his head and Carly ‘saved’ him once. He tried to get me to do all the work, saying “Build a tower, Dada.” as he cuddled with Carly.

Finally, we went upstairs to the third floor and were pleasantly surprised to find that they had installed a whole new water area. Not only is it new, but it is much more interactive than the old one was. All sorts of places to have balls float down streams, buckets to pour, etc. His favorite thing was a place where you place a ball in a tube with spraying water in it and the ball sprays out the top. Some water would also spray out the sides and hit him in the face, so he would push the ball on the track, then try to get away before he got wet. Did that over and over and over.

Once he took off the apron he headed to the rest of the third floor, where they now have air draft things that blow handkerchiefs in the air, then to the TV broadcasting area and fashion runway, which are old. Played there for a few minutes, then Carly took him to the bathroom. But a toilet usage error resulted in pee on his pants and underwear, necessitating a change.

On our way out we stopped at the coffee shop in the children’s museum. Haven’t really used that one (think I got a lemonade there once). He got an orange juice. We went out and sat on the benches and drank our drinks, then August jumped over the squares in the pavement. He went with me to throw away our garbage and smelled and counted the petals on the flowers.

We also ate the rest of our sandwiches, and he was as worried as ever about things throwing away:“I’m worried” Carly convinced him to let something blow in the wind to see what would happen, and it turned into a game.

From there we headed to the train and on to Costco where we got cheese and sour cream and a couple of free samples. That went smoothly, then we headed home. On the train he was eating crackers and bit his tongue.

We got home and they nursed and read more of Little House. He took out the piano keys and put them back in out of order, being silly, with Green Monster. We read The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore and started Berenstain Bears No Girls Allowed.

We continued No Girls Allowed in the bath. Carly washed him, and I read. We then finished reading the story in bed. We then started The Phantom Tollbooth. He had lots of questions about all the books. He’s also been asking about the lyrics to Yankee Doodle a lot. He did a sweet good night. He leaned in for extra kisses, then said “I got one on the cheek and the mouth.” He was asleep at 7:10.

When I asked him why he had been sad yesterday he said “I don’t remember.”