He started waking up around 5:30 and they got up at 6. They were humming and singing and making up random lines to On Top of Spaghetti. At one point, Carly sang “On top of Zinnie…” and August continued “all covered with poop.” He then explained that the poop ended up on the wall. We were reading Daisy-Head Mayzie when Carly left for work. August got hungry and wanted cereal. I asked if he wanted to share or wanted his own bowl and he said “own bowl”. When I got out the blue straw bowl he said “No…the bowls I usually use.” referring to the small normal bowls he’s been using for dinner. I also got his Claritin ready and decided to just put it in his water bottle today and see how that goes. I also gave him his vitamins, and he wanted to know how vitamins were made, so we watched a few videos. While I’d been getting everything ready, music by The Urge was playing. He liked it and we added one song to his playlist (quite a contrast to the Sesame Street songs we added yesterday) and he talked about how loud hard rock guitar is.
After the videos, and he ate more cereal, we did exercise and a little Human Body. He was then playing with Duplos and sang something about something being beautiful and a spaceship. He was then humming the Juicy Juice song as he filled the desk drawer again with Duplos.
He was using he word ‘exactly’ a lot this morning, mainly to mean ‘completely’, as in “Are you exactly done?”
We played mandolin and did chords and tempos, and tuned it. Then he wanted to play iPad together and we played a round of Animal Doctor, which we haven’t done in a long time. I wanted to go take a shower, but he wanted to keep playing with me, so I played some Tinybop Earth before slipping away for a shower. We were listening to the new Amanda Palmer album.
Banana Bread. While listening to Amanda Palmer he hummed along to at least one song, and identified a glockenspiel in it. He helped make banana bread, then played with the vegetable steamer and funnels and stacked them with magnets and other things.
I showed him how a funnel works and he got excited. He wanted to play in the water in the sink, something he hasn’t done in a long time. I suggested he go get his stool and he headed for Carly’s bathroom. I reminded him it was in my bathroom and as he ran in there he yelled “One second!” – I think he got that from Carly, although I might say it too. He played with the water a long time. At one point, while he was playing and humming to himself, I went into my bathroom to get something. He ran into the bathroom and asked “What happens if a monkey drives a bus?” I speculated that monkeys might not make great drivers and might run into things. I asked what he thought and he said “Maybe people.” He then ran back to the sink and played with more water.
I hung up laundry, then we skyped with my parents. He did quite a bit of talking with them. Banana bread was done, and after we hung up with them he ate some. He then played with xylophone and magnets and funnel, filling the funnel with magnets and other objects. He was then kicking the magnets across the floor.
We headed to Teuni Teuni class and got there a couple minutes early for once. Class was a blast for him again. The usual dancing at the beginning, then the teacher was acting like animals and August was acting them out too, waddling like a penguin, for example. When it came to a duck, August ran away, almost out of the class, then came back. Then the duck costumes. There was a hat, then a body that they attached around their waist. August wore both parts for the entire rest of class. There was a shaky walking path that August walked as a duck several times. He also squated down several times to have the duck poop.
August is always pointing out the red X and circles with a line through them that mean ‘exit’ or ‘don’t go this way’. Today he started making an X with his fingers and saying ‘exit sign’ when he didn’t want me to do something, and he did it to the teacher once. Makes sense if you know his line of thinking, but otherwise not so much.
Class continued with other duck activities – sliding ducks down a ramp, jumping of a ramp themselves – and the final activity involved a hand puppet duck head and getting fish to feed the duck. The idea was for the parents to be the duck, but August really liked the duck and did it himself.
At the end of class they got a new toy: a Teuni Monster Drum. It is pretty cool. If you roll it on the floor it comes back to you. And of course you can use it as a drum. After class I asked him what the best part of class was and he said “being a duck and playing a drum and it rolled away and came back.”
After class we got on the bike and headed south, to the area southeast of the hospital and north of the university. We found a place called U-Yeon Curry, on the second floor above a coffee shop. It looked good, and August was ready to go up. Climbed the steep steps and went in. We got the dongatsu curry, along with a fried shrimp, a piece of fried chicken, and a croquette. It also came with soup. And some radish that August ate all of. A perfect lunch for us. Ate it all, and then we headed to the nearby park.
On the way we discovered some sad news about a coffee shop we never made it to: Cafe Comma had closed. Would have gone that one time I was down there when August took a nap in the stroller, but it had stairs.
Anyway, we went to the park and went on the swings. When he wanted my swing I wouldn’t let him have it until he made the look he gives Carly. He did it, then said “The other look I do is like…” Not sure what the second face was for.
He wanted to do the step letter game, so I got the stick. We were playing that, and a bigger boy came over, stood by August a few seconds, then simply reached out and tried grabbing the stick from August. August kept the stick from him and I told him no and told him to get away. He didn’t seem too happy about that.
We didn’t play too much longer, and August was talking about going home. But then he found dandelions in seed, and had fun knocking off the seeds, and we watched how they were starting to blow away, even though it was barely breezy. Finally, we left at 2:45.
We walked up past the fire station. August kept saying he wanted to go home. But then he said he needed to go to the bathroom. I took him to the art museum and we went to the bathroom. The play area looked busy, and August didn’t try to go in. He wanted to go look at art. We went downstairs, which is now open. Some interesting stuff down there: a couple of big zoetropes that the attendants spin for you, videos of balloons, and a mechanical U Ram Choe sculpture, that sort of looks like two flying birds. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’ve seen that exact piece when Carly and I saw a show of his work at a gallery downtown. But as a children’s art gallery it continues to be mediocre: nothing to touch, and nothing particularly childlike, except for balloons.
We went back upstairs and into the main gallery. The intent was to go upstairs, which we haven’t done yet. Didn’t get that far. He watched the sewing video again, but then again had the same idea of touching, or perhaps crawling under these big translucent rectangles of plastic hanging from the ceiling. He wasn’t happy when I wouldn’t let him, and angrily said “I want it!”
In the lobby he said he was hungry. As if on cue a woman came over and gave him two pieces of chewy fruit candy. We went outside and he ate it outside on the big wooden benches around the green and yellow sculptures. He then sat on his bike and grabbed his shovel from the back. He used it as a telescope, then discovered the handle could hook on the handlebar and swing up and down. He said it was a backhoe, then a magic telescope, which he changed to a nonsense telescope.
It was time for English class, so we headed to Home Plus. A lot of songs and singing, and not a lot of other kids today,
so it went pretty well.
After class we went to try to find Carly. Didn’t see her at the corner, so we called her and he asked where she was. She was a block away, so we walked to meet her. He sang “Don’t see mama here, don’t see mama there” as we went. We found her, and got up just after 5.
They nursed, then Carly took a shower. He went to the bathroom, then left his shorts off. We play fought for his shorts and hid them in the reading area.
He then turned to filling the door area in the desk with stuff, humming while he did so. He played with the funnel for awhile, and that led to playing in the sink again. When he was done with that we went in on the reading area and read part of If I Ran the Circus, Gustav the Goldfish, part of If I Ran the Zoo, and were reading Daisy-Head Mayzie when he started getting crazy with a pillow. When he threw one at the iPad again after I told him he needed to be careful, I put the iPad away. He got upset – definitely bedtime – but I got him to calm down and to calmly ask Carly for a little nursing before his bath.
She gave him a bath and I did dishes. Then he and I watched our primary Sesame Street videos: We All Sing the Same Song, What’s the Name of that Song?, etc. before he was ready for bed, and he was asleep at 7:40.
Photos:
Teuni Teuni. Zinnie duck:
Lunch:
Art:
Poli English:
Home. Filling the desk:
Ernie:
