He woke me up at 1:30 and I remember trying to convince him to go back to sleep. He asked where mama was and when I said out in the parlor he smiled and went out to her.
When I got up at 7:30 Carly was making veggie pancakes. August was actually watching the blender and humming along to it. I asked if he’d been helping and he relied “I not tell.” When Carly asked why not, he said “For funsies.”
He and I read Suddenly, Welcome to the Orchestra, and Me and My Dad. Carly brought him pancake and he got to eat it in the parlor. After breakfast he nursed and they started reading Little House on the Prairie. I was watching race qualifying for Formula 1 and he kept asking questions and “Why?” I paused it and he and I hooked up the keyboard and played GarageBand. He sort of started learning Baa Baa Black Sheep. He then switched to the Peg + Cat Big gig app, which is also a music app.
He was being quite grumpy today, and clingy to Carly, wanting to nurse all the time. So after I took a shower, and as I was cleaning out the utility drawers, closet, etc. and packing it, she took him outside. They walked around both sides of the park. By the dinosaurs they pretended to be dinosaurs, and were back 40 minutes or so later. They came back around noon and then went back down and got the storage room key. We cleaned it out, so we don’t have to use it again before we leave. I made another chicken teriyaki sand witch for me and August for lunch, then we played ShapeKit, taking turns to make the shapes and connect them. Carly was doing some more cooking, of veggies and rice, and when she was done I was trying to take him out. He was proving to be just as grumpy and clingy as before, and didn’t was to leave the house or mama.
Finally, after some more nursing, we left at 2. We took the bike down to Hagye Children’s Park, aka the Tree Playground. The swings were busy, so we headed to the play structure. As we went up I paused to take off my outer shirt, and when I got up to the bridge I couldn’t find him. Found him a few seconds later up the path on the tree, as he said “Where’s dada?” We climbed up and down the stairs, and played with the track thing at the top, then he wanted to go down the slide. He almost went by himself, but then wanted to go with me. So we went down the big slide together, and it is fast. I’m kind of surprised he landed okay coming out of it when he went down by himself last time. Carly is now the only one of us to not go down the big slide. She says she wants to do it before we leave.
Then, August found an area where there are musical instruments carved into the play structure. He pretended to play those, then saw some kids climbing on a hilly part. He figured out how to climb up, then took a long time carefully walking back down it, as it sloped, and jumping the last bit to the ground. Then, he ran across to the base of the big tree, and climbed up that one, even bigger. Sent a photo of him at the top of it to Carly.
We wandered around some more, playing and went up and down the tree again, then he was hungry. We went over by the sand area to get a snack, but as I was setting down the backpack he suddenly kicked sand at two kids. Didn’t hit them badly, but the small girl started to get upset. As I was telling him to say sorry, he tried kicking sand again. I picked him up, and we walked over to the path near the entrance and got him calmed down. He wouldn’t say sorry to me or them though, so we didn’t go back: “Nope. I can’t say it.” He did, however, look at flowers and count their petals, and he watched kids riding by on scooters.
We left there at 3:10. I don’t remember why, but as we walked he was joking around and said “mama is a number.” He was happy, singing and whatnot, so we took a kind of long way home, and then went across to the park and were walking around. He stopped to watch the men playing go and Korean chess, really intrigued by the latter. Think he’ll really get into board games in the coming years. Finally, there was music being sung in the senior center, so we went up and listened to a couple songs as I held him and he pretended to play along.
We got home a little after 3:50. They nursed, and he played some Big Numbers. Then more nursing, and more being cranky when they stopped. Carly got out play dough and he was happy with that for awhile. Carly asked if he was ready for dinner and be said yes. She gave him some choices for what he could have, but he said “What you’re making”, referring to the beans she was cooking. But when she offered him veggie pancakes he agreed on those, and ended up eating three of those. He told me he wanted to watch a video of sausage being made, so we did that, then that led to watching a video about books being made, then one about ink, one about pencils, and finally one about soap.
Carly gave him a quick bath. As in they were done before I poured water for my tea. They went to bed at 7, but he was back out. Surprising, as he hadn’t had a nap and had gotten up at 6. They tried again at 7:40, but no luck. During these breaks he ran to me and we read: We looked at the Persian instruments book and songbook, and read Splat the Cat, A Violin for Elva,
Would You Feed It to the Monkey?, 123 Peas, Frog and Toad’s “A list” and “The Garden”, and about half of Dr. Seuss’s Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? before he decided he was ready. That was 8:20, and he was asleep by 8:30. Not clear what caused both the crankiness and long bedtime today. Our best guess for not falling asleep was the sugar in the pancakes…
Photos. Trying out the car seat from the storage room:
ShapeKit:
Climbing:
Top of the tree:
Flowers:
Counting the flags along the street:
Watching Korean chess:
Coloring upside down:
