Our last trip to Costco! No Costco in Israel, so likely our last Costco for some time.
Carly moved out to the reading area at 4 when she was stuffy. He woke up and followed her out and fell back to sleep until 6:43, a few minutes after she had left for work. He was sad she was gone, but not too upset. We sat by the door and he wanted to go out in the hall. When we got our shoes on and went out he hopped on the bike. We rode his bike through the hallways. He joked about going to B4, but then said he didn’t really want to. We stopped at the elevators and he watched the elevator numbers go up and down. We said hi to Sara as she headed to work and told her to have a good day – August repeated everything I suggested he say.
He wanted to go down to the first floor. There, we followed a hose going out of the building, and found a guy watering the bushes. He watched that a bit, then agreed to go back up to get our sweatshirts. It was sunny, but still a little cool. As we got off the elevator there was a high school girl waiting to get on and August asked “Who is that?” We grabbed sweatshirts – he didn’t get off the bike – and we headed back out and across to the park.
We were outside for an hour, but he stayed on the bike almost the whole time. He sang part of the Shooby shoo waa song from Poli class at one point. We rode around our side of the park, then cross at the north intersection to the other side. He did a little driving over there. Then we crossed the bridge back to our side and went to the playground. I went on the swing for a minute but he didn’t want to get off the bike. Instead, he found a bump in his sweatshirt pocket that turned out to be a caramel candy that someone had given him weeks ago. I let him eat that. We did more riding around, revisiting the scene of his fall, and he steered us to the bridge. We went over to the other side, rode around, then crossed back at the south intersection. He was doing a lot of pointing at trees and saying “That tree’s doing photosynthesis?” Or at flowers and saying “That’s flowers doing pollen?”
I was hungry and a bit sneezy, so finally convinced him to head home at 8:05. But he said “I want to go outside again.” But then he needed to go to the bathroom. After that he wanted some apple so I cut some. As he ate it he was asking what animals eat apples. I listed a few, and he asked “Ducks like apple?” I said probably they would. He then asked “They eat human skin?” I replied “I hope not.”
After the apple we had Cheerios and fruit. His with banana, me with strawberry. He wanted to watch Big Bird. So we watched Big Bird sing a song, then a few others. He then played some of his music apps (Seuss and Discovery Music) and I showered. As I finished up he came in and was wiping the sink with something, like a towel. I couldn’t tell what it was. When I got out I found out it was one of Carly’s shirts. When I asked why he said something like “I wanted a towel.” Also, he couldn’t remember where he found it.
We sat in thereading area and read the Welcome to the Orchestra book. Then he played the Namoo app. Perhaps the trees and flowers reminded him of outside, as he was ready to go outside. So I got ready. He played with his water bottle, sticking it up to the bananas and saying he was making ink. He had me take the lid off so he could pretend to squirt banana ink into the bottle. He said it was yellow, of course, and when he then drank the water he said it was yummy banana ink. I made a peanut butter and jam sandoo and he wanted to eat it at home, so we did that.
We were talking about having enough jam and honey to last us for five weeks, and I said “Because in five weeks we’re going to the United States.” He instantly replied with “To get bubble gum ice cream?” We hadn’t been talking about ice cream at all. That’s Carly’s influence on him.
He played with his fishing pole thing (from playing with Megan yesterday), then we brushed his teeth. He saw his plastic extendo arm up on top of the wardrobe so we got it down and he played with that. Before we left he went to the bathroom, but wanted me to turn the light off while he went. Did that a couple times today.
We left at 11:45. It was 73 degree. In the subway station, waiting for a train, he was still sitting in the backpack. Now that he is three I’ve had almost no comments about him being cold. But a woman came up and saw his bare arms and legs. She said he was cold and grabbed his arm. I was not amused. But it was when she really grabbed his leg and was pulling on it that I got upset and was telling her “No. You go!” (In Korean) and shoved her hand away from him. Of course, as we then waited to get on the train, the boy that ignores most people said “I want that woman again.”
We transferred at Sangbong and went two stops east to Yangwon. We got to the park at 12:30 and went to the playground. He found a light blue coat on the ground and played with that. He pretended it was an octopus squirting ink. He then wanted to go in the play structure, so we took our lunch and ate some of it in there. He didn’t eat a whole lot, and he only ate one of the pieces of mushroom that I offered him. He said “One bussot made me full.” We were climbing from platform to platform, and I was sitting with my legs up against the next one. He said “Up please. You’re in the way.” We climbed up to the top, and he slid the coat down the slide. He wanted to climb out though.
From there it was to the pirate ship, where we spent a lot of time pretending to spray things and each other with the long non working water cannons. He would aim it at me and it would spray off my hat.
Back over by the backpack, he was asking how long it took to count to 20 or something like that. So I actually got out a stopwatch. He was doing random things (to 22, to 18, etc.) but then we did the alphabet. He first did A to Z in 8.2 seconds, but later got it down to 5.41 seconds.
He found a dandelion gone to seed and spread the seeds and watched them blow away. He was then being a vacuum cleaner and said “I sucked up that Jellyfish because it stinged me. I sucked up that bee cuz it stinged me too.”
We filled up his water and were singing “What’s the name of that song?” He told me to sing and “Be the Count.” We left that spot at 1:55 and walked the street east (to avoid going over the hill) to the east side of the park.
He liked being in the shady path, but wanted to go over to the play hills when I told him about them. I’d seen kids on them before but didn’t realize the draw until August and I went on them – they are all springy, like a trampolines. He was singing “What’s the name of that song?” on his own. You had to take off your shoes, and August started pouring sand on the play part and got upset when I made him stop. But I got our broom to clean it up and he helped sweep it off. I also got Smokey and we made a game of throwing those and my hat up on the big hill, then he would climb up and get them and slide down the hill. At one point I point out the shelves for shoes and he took both of our pairs of shoes over there and put them away. We played until 2:30 when he had to go to the bathroom.
We went to the nearby bathroom, then walked back to the shady area and had more of our lunch. He saw his chopsticks and played with those. He then said “I want more backamapack…more walking time.” He got in and we left at 2:55.
We walked up by the temple and looked at it. I said it was too bad that it wasn’t windy because he had liked the fish wind chimes. Then it got just windy enough for us to see and hear them. But he really liked the fountain with a statue of a boy peeing. He thought that was really funny and we watched that for a couple minutes. He asked “It drank a lot of water?” We looked at some more of the statues, then got going at 3:10. We tried to get a look at the big construction site just to the east, but still not clear what’s going on th
ere. Briefly saw a big dump truck and backhoe though.
We walked to the west side of the park, then south, stopping so he could see the actual campground, as he wanted to see that. We then walked west towards Costco. He wanted some song (probably “We all sing with the same voice”) and asked “Dada’s going to pull up the words?” I had earlier said “I’m going to pull it up on my phone…” and he was asking about the phrase.
It had been cloudy, but hadn’t thought much of it in the park. But once we got to civilization I pulled up the air quality and realized it had gotten quite bad in the last couple hours. And here you could tell, what with the car exhaust, etc. trapped by the still air. Just as bad, August got quiet and I realized he was falling asleep. I couldn’t keep him awake, and he slept from 3:40 to 3:50. At that point I got to Costco and woke him up by the family statue out front.
He wanted back in the backpack, and I let him back in when I was sure he was awake. We went in and shopping and snacks went smoothly. We got our cheese and he got two samples: some white fish that was really good, and some sort of strawberry cheese thing. He somehow comment about how he got two good samples.
We went and paid (I was self conscious about our all-cheese purchase, after two of the books I’ve recently read, The Sympathizer and The Orphan Master’s Son, both had Asian characters complaining about how Americans ruin everything with cheese) and then got pizza for Carly and two chicken bakes for him and me.
We went outside and ate some chicken bake by the statue, said goodbye to the statue one last time, and headed home. At Sangbong Station he went to the bathroom, and I asked him if he was done on the toilet four times. At the end of the fourth question he said yes, then said “Dada got to ask four times.” A. Clearly he heard me every time, as he counted on his own and B. ‘Got’ to?
On the train home he stood, and he requested the same Smurf story as yesterday. Also, I now feel my time in Seoul is complete, as I made a guy get out of a seat for a pregnant woman for an actual pregnant woman. I had noticed when we got on that both such seats in that car were occupied by guys in their 20s, obvious to the world around them. After a couple stops I looked over to see a clearly pregnant woman standing in front of the guy a foot away from me. He now had his head back and eyes closed. I tapped him in the shin, and when he opened his eyes I point to the pink signs on the floor in front of him and read them. He looked around, saw the pregnant woman just standing, and let her have the seat. She said “Thank you” to me.
On the elevator home he didn’t say hi to someone who was saying hi to him. I asked why not and he said something like “I don’t say that anymore.”
We got home at 5:15. Carly had gotten an email about someone selling furniture in Israel, so we quickly emailed back, buying a pullout couch, a desk, a chair, and a microwave. Combined with the furniture that the school provides, we should be in pretty good shape.
Carly and August ate some dinner and nursed, and somehow got on a series of ‘making of’ videos, a lot of them from Mr. Rogers: erasers, flashlights, crayons, Legos, etc.
He wanted to read Bob Books at some point and we read 5 from the third collection. We shared the reading for the first 3, but then he just wanted made to read.
I gave him a bath. I had sung the Smurf theme song as part of our story earlier, and he remembered and wanted to see/hear it more. So I pulled up a video of it, then we ended up watching trailers from the new Smurfs movie. He really liked that and was upset when we were done and I put the iPad away.
In bed, I agreed to read Gustav before he went to sleep. They then tried for sleep, but he got upset. When he was asking for me she called me in. I sang some songs and he calmed down. She was going to try again, but he was requesting books. So she went to take a shower and I went and grabbed some paper books and we read The Hole in the King’s Sock and a couple others. Carly came back and he was asleep around 8:30.
Photos. Morning outing:
Finding the coat:
Holding his pant leg off his wound:
Spraying:
Sliding down the big hill:
Chopsticks:
Falling asleep:
Goodbye to Costco:
