Author: Ryan/Dada

He was up at 7 and I was up a few minutes later. We had a pillow fight in the reading area, then he played piano. Carly is listening to the Trevor Noah book as an audiobook, and August was wondering what she was doing. So she put one of the earphones in his ear, and they listened together for several minutes. He asked what ‘prostitute’ means. I made pancakes and he helped mix them up. He was then asking about baseball rules (from Take Me Out to the Ballgame).

Carly took down recycling and went to get bread as well. As she left I made a joke about how we could the bread to make towers. Carly was confused, but then August came in saying “That’s silly. Bread towers. That doesn’t make sense.” and laughed.

He was slowly eating pancakes, quarter by quarter: “Were doing quarters with pancakes…see, I have two quarters.” “Pancake math. I like pancake math.”

We watched a couple videos of pedal steel guitar, then skyped with Vivian and company. She was very excited about showing off the new iPad and watching Sarah and Duck. We got out the wooden car and backhoe puzzles to show Colin. Cassie took Colin up for bed, but he wouldn’t stop talking about the truck, so they had to come back and see it again.

August did some drawing on paper, and said “I’m making designs just for funsies.” I took a shower and they were still skyping when I came out. For the next hour or two I did taxes and they nursed and played. Carly got him peanut butter and honey sandwich for lunch. We were then trying to get outside, but he didn’t want to go.We did kisses math on the reading area, then headstands. He untwisted part of the dog. I thought he was then going to want it back together, but he was fine with it. He was then being a woodpecker. And confusing: “It can peck you because it is in a fire.” He went and looked out the window: “Why we don’t hear recycling?” He was then trying to make fingerprints on the window, but I said that was okay. So instead “I want to do it on mirrors.”

We got him outside at that point, about 1:15. We stopped at the banana sculpture and played on and around them for quite awhile. Carly and I had been talking about potential car size for our car in Israel, and AUgust then transferred that to looking at all the kids on bikes and picking a bike size for himself: “Maybe a bike that size.” I asked if he wanted a bike or a scooter. He thought and said “Bike AND scooter.” “Or maybe that size!” He observed that his blue coat and pants matched: “My coat matches my cat pants.” Then to me: “Your shoe ties are blue? I thought of ANOTHER one!” as he pointed to the ground in emphasis.

Carly went ahead eventually to do the grocery shopping. We continued to play in the park and he wandered around a bit and be played in the dirt of the planting boxes. We talked about what he might want to grow in Israel, and he said fruits.

Eventually he wanted to head to Home Plus. We were singing Yankee Doodle as we went down the walkways. A woman asked me what the song was as she recognized the tune. We went in and found Carly and finished the grocery shopping, then headed home.

On the way home we stopped by the guard station to see if there was a package. A guy saw us and said “pal sam chil” (837). It was actually the delivery driver, who then led us to his truck and got the the box. He had simply recognized me from the few brief seconds he has seen me when dropping off packages when he brings them to our door. Impressive service.

At home August helped put iHerb away. We snacked on the baked lentils then I made a salmon sandwich. They nursed, then we ate our sandwich, then read some Kipper. Carly cooked a cheesy rice dish and August and I read Bob Books. We did lots of music time: mandolin, Piano Maestro, Dust Buster. August figured out how to make the instruments play pizzacatto in GarageBand, and he also played with the Itsy Bitsy app.

They nursed, then we played with the yellow alien and spaceship and introduced them to Bluie and Green Monster. August pretended to be an alligator and chomped on Green Monster. Carly didn’t like the idea of the feel of it – carpety, she calls it. So August found it really funny. They then played GarageBand together and August showed her how to change the instruments.

I gave him his bath and washed his hair. We watched hurdy gurdy and keyed fiddle videos in the Musical Instruments book. August was talking about diapers and underwear, and we talked about eventually not wearing a diaper at night. He decided he wanted to try it tonight, but when I said no, not yet he got really sad. We got him dried off and off to bed and he was asleep about a quarter to 8.

Oops. Sunday photos. Sunday will have Saturday’s.

Cleaning out: 

 

Looking at… 

Flowers on the trees: 

Construction: 

Flowers: 

Fish: 

Colors: 

Birds: 

Building: 

Home. Shoe instruments: 

Korean book: 

He woke up sometime after midnight and couldn’t get back to sleep nursing. Eventually, I got up and picked him up. I stood up with him in the bedroom for a few minutes and he rested his head on my shoulder. Eventually he said “book” and was grabbing at the door. We went out and walked around the house a bit, then into the parlor. He wanted a light on, and we lay in the reading area with a blanket on us. He just lay against a pillow for several minutes. More than five, at least. He hadn’t really been crying at all since I picked him up, but he kept rubbing at his nose and his breathing took a long time to return to normal. It almost seems like he holds his breath for a few seconds each time. I thought he was going to fall asleep like that, but eventually he wanted a book. We ended up reading Kipper A to Z and the first three stories in the Kipper Collection. At close to 1:30 we went back in and he fell asleep soon thereafter.

He came out at 7:06. Looked for Carly, then climbed up with me and sat on my lap facing me. A lot of eye and face rubbing but not upset. Eventually he asked “What (something) mean?” but I missed the word and he wouldn’t repeat. Then he was playing with his fingers and pointed his them at me and said “You’re pointing at Dada with the wrong finger.” I had been teaching him the names of the fingers a couple days ago. He climbed off and sat next to me on the couch for awhile.

We read “How Kids Grow” on the couch, then he lay with his head on my legs for a few minutes. Eventually he said “I want to write on paper.” Changed him into underwear, then headed to the paper. He said “I can write numbers up to…Let’s get a marker and find out.” I think he was thinking about the book we read, which said the seven-year old could write to ten. He started writing and kept announcing his progress “I wrote all the way to 37!” Then he kept going. He wrote up to 100, well 300, if you count when he switched to 100. We then talked about big numbers and I wrote out big ones like thousands and millions and we looked at how many zeros there were.

He wanted water and walked out into the living room where I had Sun Ra playing on the iPad. He listened for a bit and said he was playing the hurst gurdy. But when he was done listening he wanted the music off.

He was hungry and I offered Cheerios or a smoothie. He chose smoothie, but then immediately closed the door on me when I said okay. I made the smoothie and poured hims some and he started drinking. I found some chunks in the rest of it and told him I needed to use the blender again. He whined and ran to the parlor and started to close the door. I got his smoothie for him so he could drink it in the parlor.

He asked what the music (I had turned Sun Ra back on) was about and didn’t seem convinced that the song (called Space Jazz Reverie) was about space. After smoothies he wanted to play mandolin. But first to the bathroom where he talked about how ours doesn’t have a sensor un-“like Chrysanthemum Park”. I made the “flush” noise which even by itself he finds funny but also scares him a little and he says “No”.

We played mandolin and piano for quite awhile, then with the stuffed animals for a bit. He crawled in my lap and curled up and was a rabbit and we pulled the blanket around us. He was hungry so we went and had a piece of toast. He was still coming center about the blender and asked something like “You out the toast in the blender?” When I assured him I would t use the blender he agreed to have toast.

After toast he asked what gold and silver make. He then asked if they’re colors and I realized that he hadn’t actually seen gold and silver, the metals. So we looked up images of them and others, like iron and bronze and copper and steel.

He then declared he was going to make a puzzle by himself. He chose the Old MacDonald’s Farm one. Spent several minutes dancing around, listening to the song and pushing the button when it stopped. We finished the puzzle. He has a tendency to just look at it, and not try out pieces, but eventually I encouraged him to try out pieces in different ways and reminded him of the mistakes song and he listened to that.

He then wanted to watch Pirates of the Caribbean.

Shower

He talked about ages while on the toilet. “We look the same. But I’m bigger. Because I’m 16 and you’re 14.” “Sorry, I’m ten thousand…in infinity.”

He took apart the puzzle and made a guessing game of it, turning a piece around and asking me to guess what was on it. On the iPad was a song by Drivin N Cryin called “The Hardest Part”. He wanted to know hardest part of what. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make out what the singer says in the song and couldn’t find the lyrics. He wanted to listen to it a second time.

We ate our triangle kimbap for lunch. One of them had kimchi rice so I took that, but he ate two bites of it. He had a quarter of the peanut butter sandwich and started talking about shapes: “What’s triangle plus octagon? Do it with your shape fingers.” “What’s trombone minus violin? It equals bassoon.”

“What impossible mean?” Not sure what made him think of ‘impossible’. Perhaps he heard me say it. I supplied standing on the ceiling and flying as things that were impossible. Then he playing the piano as something that is possible.

He played with th balloon dog and we had it go to the bathroom on the toilet.

“What happens if there’s no flowers in Israel?” So we looked at Google Maps and photos of Netanya. He accidentally clicked on Telunas Beach in Indonesia, and we found that you can do a walk through of the resort.

Back to music: “I’ll play xylophone and you play mandolin and we’ll play Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

He wanted to sing Alligator Chomp from last night. I looked up the words. “Where are the other verses” “There’s fourteen verses…like Ants Go Marching.”

Getting ready to go, I gave him a choice between his usual grey and blue striped sweatshirt, and a blue hooded sweatshirt. He looked at his pants and shirt and was at first concerned that neither of the sweatshirts matched. He’d been so excited by matching yesterday. I assured him it was okay, and he chose the new sweatshirt.

Before we could get out the door there was one more thing: “I want to read Lost Button…No, Cookies. I really like cookies.” So we read that Frog and Toad story, then the sample of a My Little Pony book, then discussed smurfs and how tall they are (three apples): “Why not three mangos? Three pineapples?”

He looked at the How Kids Grow book on his own, then a minute later, as I was putting on his sock and shoes, asked “How you put on pajamas?” I started to ask if this was about the book (because the 4 or 5 year old can put on her pajamas by herself) but he cut me off, saying “No” to all my questions.

We left at 1. On the way down the elevator stopped at three. August said “It stopped at 3? Wait, my age is 3!”

At the station he was asking which directions each train was going, and we discussed that we were headed north. I said ‘northbound’. So he asked what ‘Bound’ meant. I explained, and gave some examples, and he said “We’re Megan bound. Yeah, I want to visit Megan.”

We went to the Iris Garden and we first looked at the flowers near the entrance. For one set of flowers he counted the petals, of another he said “It smells like cheese.” He spotted a butterfly, then a couple bees: “Bee on it. Making honey. I really like bees.”

From there we wandered through the park. We sat on a rock by the currently dry stream and I got out some of the letter cookies. “I have Y for yesterday and yo-yo.” “Q for quartz and queen and quitter…I really like Q.” We worked on similes, and he declared “Q and G are my favorite letters.” He wanted to spell ‘bridge’ and we discussed the letters G and J and their sounds. He asked “Why they have two letter that
are close?” Good question, kid.

Wandered and played on the rocks and made our way to the deck area where we’ve often eaten lunch. A guy took his photo and showed it to him. August looked around, remembered the log benches, and crawled through the metal bench several times. A woman tried to giver him a Snickers bar or something it, and I tried to wave her away before he saw it. He did, but simply said something like “Why the woman try to give you candy?” and kept playing. Other kids showed up, then after a couple minutes August wanted to head down the ramp and wander around. He had talked about finding frogs, but they’re not out yet.

More wandering and we finished the letter cookies. I used the Cookie Monster voice, but August said “Cookie is not here because it is Korea. Cookie Monster is not here because it’s not Sesame Street. Because it’s Zinnie and Dada…you’re back to Dada. Fine.” He said “Y is for yodel, yawn, yesterday, and yo-yo.”

I had talked about going up to the park and playground west of the station, but he had said he was fine playing at the Iris Garden. Eventually though he wanted to go. We went to the bathroom, then got in the backpack and started walking. Along the way, in the village area, we looked at hats where I had bought my beige hat (with Chuck?) and looked at all the aquariums. We saw squid and sea pineapples and sea cucumbers and octopi. And fish, of course. And a variety of shellfish. By another shop he saw a blue sweatshirt that looked like the one I was wearing and asked if I had got it there.

We got to the park (새동네어린이공원) and started by looking at the random kernels of corn someone had left on the bench. Then to the swings, where he had an argument with Cookie Monster about eating cookies, then on to the play structure, where we spent most of our time. He went across the shaky bridge a couple times (“its shakey so it helps my balance.”), then up the big rope ladder, needing my help just a little at the top. We went down slides a few times, after each other, and once holding hands in a tube slide. But mainly he played with a broken piano sort of thing. It didn’t make noise, but that didn’t stop him. Eventually, he just sat on the floor of it and played instruments on his shoes for several minutes.

We headed home. He sat on the train and sang. We got home just after 5. Carly got home a bit later. August initially ran into the parlor, but then came back to greet her. They nursed, then we had soup for dinner. We played piano and were learning Zero at the Bottom of the Sea. We then read Aaaaaargh! Spider! and Gabriella’s Song (from APIS). It was time for his bath, but he wanted to draw notes on paper, so we made an agreement that he could draw five, and shook on it. He of course got a few more than that.

Carly gave him a bath, then he came back and drew more notes with me. He filled a whole page with sixteenth notes. He was then asleep about a quarter to 8.

Only one sock all morning after he took one off: 

Puzzle: 

Counting petals: 

Q: 

Tunnel: 

Sea cucumbers and pineapples: 

Playground. Corn kernels: 

Singing on the subway: 

Sixteenth notes: 

We skipped his English class today so we could go to the band concert at APIS.

He was adding numbers in his sleep during the night. He was then talking and almost up around 5 but fell back to sleep. At 6 he woke up coughing. He got up and went straight to get his water bottle before going to Carly. He then stared asking me about fractions, and I don’t know where that came from: “What is 3 slash 4? What is 4 slash 6? What is 100 slash 2?”

He ate Cheerios and banana for breakfast and Carly headed to work. He made a racket on the piano to wake me up as Flynne, sleeping in my lair on the couch. We made a pajama person on the bed after we changed him. He was singing London Bridge with funny words, then listing rhyming words. So we went and read Dr. Seuss books. First the spot story, then the Zax. Then all of On Beyond Zebra.

We then played mandolin and PianoMaestro. He started to be able to push down and play notes pretty well, doing it on multiple strings and a variety of frets. So that’s a big step.

He did some stamp pad letters. Then had more breakfast. He went back into the parlor and lay on the floor. He took one sock off. I asked why he took the right sock off, and that led to a discussion of whether one was a right sock and one was the left, like with shoes. He wanted to switch the socks to prove they were interchangeable. We did that, but then he took one off because it was supposedly cold. So I put it on his hand. He then wanted the other sock on the other hand. He then tried picking things up, and did some more stamp pad letters.

Back in the reading area we read parts of On Beyond Zebra and Oh The Places You’ll Go! He then wanted to play the “feet game”, which involved hiding his feet under the carpet and is pretending they were a rock or a spider, etc. He then pretended to be May, the rabbit “I want to hide May!”

He was pretending to play music as he was wrapped in the blanket, so we ended up figuring out how to play the rabbit dance song on piano. He then played with GarageBand after that. He was asking about the scales and arpeggiator, so we played with those and discussed them.

We then played with the friends again and the blanket, and he ended up sitting and listening to Puff’s music box. He then wanted to build a tower. We ended up building a couple towers and a huge Q. Then, on his own he made a big R and lowercase r and spelled ‘on’ out of the blocks. We exercised together, then I took a shower, after which we Skyped with my dad. It did the thing where the other person sounds like a chipmunk and we have to call them back (only seems to happen with parents now – an odd Skype bug). August said he sounded like a giraffe and we my dad talked like that for awhile before we called back. Anyway, my mom was out for dinner, so he said they’d call back in a bit. We went and started to get ready to leave, and August was brushing his teeth when they called back.

He mainly played mandolin while we skyped, showing off how he can press notes. We then headed to class. Class today was all about watermelons. Didn’t learn anything about them, but everything was round. I think we were talking about colors, and which ones we know and don’t know in Korean and he said “I don’t know this one either…we have to find out.” As class went on he said “Watermelon!” a lot, as well as “uftah” a couple times. The highlight activity was a watermelon ball fight. August also really liked helping pushing the watermelon cart, and he made a watermelon tower of watermelon pieces and the teacher was trying to blow it over. At the end of class we got a Teuni Monster Spaceship toy which he really liked.

For lunch we went to the new kimbap place on the second floor of Brownstone: Honest Lee Kimbap (올곧은 Lee 김밥). He chose dongatsu kimbap and I chose the tuna salad one. We enjoyed that and discussed odd and even numbers. He’s catching on: “6 is an even number? Because you’re counting by twos?”

We went home and played piano and mandolin. I was getting kind of sleepy, which tends to happen when we lounge on the reading are in the sun after eating lunch. He was making up words and said “Humfor dumfor. I made a funny word.” He also played with the spaceship toy. I did some cleaning up while he played, and I think he saw. Because eventually he said “Let’s go to the band concert” and then he took all the pieces for the spaceship and put them away under the rocking chair.

On the bus we looked at all the Mary Had a Little Lamb lyrics and sang that. Then he got quiet and fell asleep sitting next to me. When I went to pick him up to get off the bus I actually fell down onto the seat as the bus driver dove into the bus stop. I was afraid I kneed him on his foot, but all he did was sort of wake up and ask “Where’s mama?”

Much a repeat of Tuesday, we went up to Tospia and got sandwiches and coffee drinks and looked at the plants again. We saw Emmalee, the orchestra teacher, and I had August say hi and “Good concert“.

He did more walking on the way to APIS this time, and when we got to the field he stated crawling on it. We went up to the fourth floor, and he saw Carly coming out of Megan’s room. He went down, and went in Megan’s room and she gave him an Earth sticker. Isra, one of Carly’s students, who he met on Tuesday, was in Carly’s room working and he said hi to her. We ate dinner, and he kept saying “I hear Megan” every time he heard her. Carly took him down to the bathroom, then on the way back they were talking to a couple of the other teachers about August learning things, and Carly mentioned making mistakes, and August sang the “I like to make mistakes” song. Oh, and another teacher made him a balloon dog and gave it to him.

We went to the concert and watched the jazz band, 5th grade band, and middle school band. Once again I took him down to the front beforehand to look at the instruments. Back up in our seats, he got folded up in the seat, but recovered as Carly played with the balloon dog and sat on her lap. He then had the dog pooping on everything, including the teachers sitting in front of us.

Anyway, the music for the whole concert was all music composed by James Swearingen. As soon as they started playing August was playing and humming along. We sat for the first two groups, then stood in the back for the middle school band. He wasn’t a fan of the talking in between, but loved the music.

We headed out, and August was playing the stairs like an instrument – something he had also done in front of the sandwich shop. On the bus home he and Carly made up keyboard instruments to play.

At home we shared a banana and discussed even numbers. He asked “What’s timpani plus trombone?”  And I said trimpanibone, to his amusement. Next he asked “bass plus trombone equals what?”

Carly started his bath and I gave him his bath. Banana in Carly’s salad. He wanted to make up songs, and we came up with three, all on subjects of his request: I Lost My Helmet in the Spaceship, Alligator Chomp, and We Are the Red Crabs. He made it through washing his hair and we straight to the bedroom and got him dressed for bed. I left at 7:10 and he was soon asleep.

 

Sock hands: 

Being May the rabbit: 

Towers: 

R: 

Showing gramma and grampa: 

Teuni Teuni. Helping push: 

With sangsaengnim: 

Watermelon tower: 

Monster spaceship: 

Kimbap lunch: 

Asleep on the bus: 

Walking to APIS. Fence instrument: 

Sticker from Megan: 

Recovering from getting his leg pinched in the seat: 

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: 

He was grinding his teeth in his sleep at some point. Something he does a bit, but this was louder than usual. He was up sometime before 6. Watched one episode of Mouk and ate the last banana bread for breakfast. Carly headed to work as he was trying out Busy Shapes for the first time. After that we played some Easy Music and Discover Music. We got up and he played some toy piano, then I held hi and we were pretending to play instrument after instrument, repeating The Driver on the Bus over and over. He then made up ‘wedertone’ (or something like that), first telling me it was a Korean instrument he had learned from me, but then saying it was a made up instrument.

We did Piano Maestro and played mandolin, then had Cheerios and more banana bread. We sang Skip to My Lou and couldn’t remember all the words, so found the book and read it. Then he chose Snappy Little Monsters. We read that, and almost all of Cat on the Mat is Flat. He went to the bathroom, then wanted a nest with the friends, and was pretending they were going to the bathroom. This ended with him saying “I pooped Shapes out of my bottom: Heart, mango, molecule, square, diamond, hexagon, octagon, pentagon, circle, oval, and a quadrilateral.”

He played Artie’s World while I took a shower. We were playing on the electric keyboard. He played piano on my lap and made up a song called “Kite”. He then did some of dust mop piano game, followed by more mandolin and keyboard. At some point he asked me for kisses: “I want infinity kisses.” Did that a few times during the day.

We ate a salmon sandoo and grapes for lunch, then looked up all the words to “Take me out to the ballgame” and sang it. He picked up the last two grapes, said “Let’s share these last ones” and gave me one. We read My Family Plays Music and had to look up wind chime instruments, then he wanted to watch a harpsichord, so we watched a video of “Les Cyclopes” (which is about Carly’s favorite cyclops), then Scarlatti (https://youtu.be/71iUAFFQ8ik). He was then fascinated by a video about how harpsichords work (https://youtu.be/71x4MSlpGUk). We finished with a little Hendrix, then he wanted his iPad. I asked if it was in the parlor, and he said “No, but I still have my brush instruments.”

Then he wanted to watch a string quartet, so we found a Beethoven string quarter (https://youtu.be/oXLKu-HglnM) and he said “I’m playing along with my brush instruments.” I went to get our toothbrushes and he noticed the light was on in Carly’s closet and asked why. When I handed him his toothbrush, he then wanted to brush his teeth in the closet.

He joked around about hitting the wall with his hand and getting in trouble by the police: “Give me 16 flops, 10 kisses, and 2 nose rubs” was his idea of a consequence. And randomly: “Here’s a big Purple Heart. It’s from the kimchi store.”

He had said he was tired a few times (at one point he said “I told you I was tired”), so I wanted to give him an opportunity to take a nap, so I got the stroller. As we were getting ready to go he discussed getting too big for the stroller and backpack: “Then you’ll just walk?”But when it came to getting in the stroller he disagreed and said he wanted the backpack. He said the stroller was too hard, and showed me by going and putting his head on the stroller and saying it was hard. I suggested he could take a blanket, and he liked that idea and went and chose one of the baby blankets and we put that in. From that he started talking about pillows, and he said “But I like my head on mama.” I asked “On mama or her pillow?” He replied “Both”.

We walked for 25 minutes, doing a loop up on the stream, then walked to the playground by the pink building. He was up and singing most of the way, clearly not napping, right until before we got to the playground. Then he said he wanted to rest on the blanket. It had bunched down, so I pulled it up for him and he cuddled up in the stroller for a couple minutes. But he hopped up as soon as we saw the playground. This was the playground with four swings in the apartment complex. We had gone by the park close to the pink building, but even though the swings were open he wanted to continue on to this playground.

At the playground I suggested he put on his light blue coat that I had brought. He has never worn it. Completely different reaction to the one I tried on him a few days ago. I put this on and he said “I like it!” Then “It matches too because it has dark blue.” Earlier, he had liked that his shirt (the surfer shirt) matched his pants because they were both dark blue/purplish.

He went on the swings for several minutes, then we played on the play structure and the slides. Made a game of me taking up one slide, and the backpack the other, and he would slide down into the backpack. Also practiced his directions, north south east west. On the slide he said “I’m a big snake. My tail goes on and on.” As he climbed over me I said “For a snake you sure have big feet.” He replied “The end of my tail has big feet.” When we went up the stairs (he had been going up the climbing wall things) he commented they were short, and said “I don’t like a lot of stairs. Like at the pink building…because they are too bumpy.” He made some music and said “I was playing a drum machine.” We held hands going down the slides together, and then we went down in turns (“One after another”) and he would copy what I did going down. He worked on skipping stairs going up (pulling himself up by the railing).

We were sitting on the slides, looking up Korean words again, when a boy came over with pretty good English and talked to us. Through him I think I learned that there is a joke about the impeached president’s name. Park Geun-hye (박근혜 in Korean)’s first name sounds similar to the word for ‘swings’ (근혜 versus 그네). He also said “Koreans hate 근혜, Americans hate Trump.”

Eventually, we headed home, dropped off the stroller, and got ready to head to APIS. Carly asked if we could get the sandwiches for dinner. We just took the grey backpack. August walked or I carried him a bit. We went and caught the Nowon 15 bus and got off at APIS. Walked up to Tospia and got 3 sandwiches and drinks for me and Carly. While we waited we looked at the plants outside. August liked them. I could name a few for him, but he asked about one so I Skyped my parents for help. We went inside and sat for a minute, then took the food to APIS.

Ate with Carly, and Carly helped him use a stapler. We then went down to the auditorium for the concert. While we waited, I took him down to the front so he could see the instruments and things up close. He really liked that. We then went back up to Carly. The first group, 5th grade orchestra, was just 4 kids, so just like a string quartet, like I had introduced to him earlier. Then, one of the pieces they played was the William Tell overture, which we had come across in Piano Maestro.

At the end of each piece he clapped. After 5th grade, Carly asked if he wanted to stay or go home. Clearly tired. He said go home, but then we stood in the back and watched the middle school orchestra. Made it through that (and he got to say hi to Megan and Brett, and show off his math), then we headed home.

He was getting a bit crazy as we got off the bus and headed home, pretending to hit everything and everyone. Then while waiting at the elevators he actually went up and hit a guy. When we got up to the apartment Carly took him into the bedroom for a short timeout.

He ate a little soup for dinner, then joked “I’m eating my poop” before he got in the bath. Carly gave him a bath, and he went right to bed after that and was asleep at 7.

Photos. Brushing his teeth in the closet: 

Watching harpsichord: 

Resting in the stroller: 

Kicking the backpack: 

Slide selfie: 

Boy with the 36 year old bike: 

Sleepy on the bus: 

Plants: 

Stapling: 

Concert: 

Sometime early in the night he sat up at one point and said something music-related and then fell back to sleep. He was then up a bit before 6. When I came out he was playing piano and I started to teach him how to play Old MacDonald Had a Farm. Carly headed to work. He wanted to write ‘two’ on paper. We ended up writing words like Israel, guitar, banjo, and fish. He was hungry so we went and had banana bread. We looked at Google Maps for awhile then went back to the paper, where he wrote number lines. I put the new Sun Kil Moon album on and he liked that. He said “I want to play the mandolin and pretend to play hard rock guitar.”

We spent a good amount of time trying out different piano learning apps. I took a shower, then we played more piano, working on Mary Had a Little Lamb, Hot Crossed Buns. He joked around, trying to play the piano with his toes. He then tried out the Dust Buster piano app from Joy Tunes, and when he figured out Mary Had a Little Lamb in it he decided he liked it, so we bought a month of Dust Buster/Piano Maestro (https://www.joytunes.com/#apps) to try it out.

We ate grapes and crab for snack, then were playing songs together on the piano. He then made something up and said “Sorry, this song is made up. It’s not a real one. It’s a pretend one.” He wanted to know the words to Buffalo Gals so we looked up the lyrics by listening to Pete Seeger. He pretended to play instruments and said “Im playing a hurdy gurdy…I’m playing a trumpet with the wires in it.” He then said “I want to sing Yellow Submarine.”

We then got going and headed to the subway, where we sat next to each other until we got to Sagajeong. We stopped and got three small things of kimbap on the way out: ham and cheese, crab, and, at August’s request, the flying fish roe. We were headed to Sagajeong Neighborhood Park, at the foot of the mountains on the east of the city, down from the Seoul Trail. Pollution was bad today, but supposedly better down south, but when we got off the subway it was grey and hazy, and smelled like exhaust. I was hoping that it would get a bit better when we got up to the park, but there there was a sewage smell wafting around.

We found a decent bench by the small playground and ate lunch there. We really liked the roe. When he was full he went and sat on one of the horse things; he was excited he could climb both on and off of it. Then it was to the play jeep. He recognized it because he’s played in one at Olympic Park.

He pretended to drive it, then wondered why there are two steering wheels. I told him the second one was for spraying water, so he pretended to spray people and the plants and birds. And me.

We then went up to the bigger playground. No swings, but we had a lot of fun climbing up the ramp and playing on the structure. There were some vertical bars that he pretended were a harp and kept playing. He started to use the phrase “My idea…” several times today, and he said  “My idea is to climb down and climb up using the rope one.”

Eventually we both ended up in the tube slide. He wanted to look up Korean words on my phone, so we did that for several minutes. Then he turned to music, and was first playing the buttons on my shirt: “when the buttons light up I play the notes.” He then played letter notes with his fingers, which would be difficult to explain, but luckily is on video. He then switched to snail: “I’m a squishy snail…slime on you!”

We got out of the slide and did more climbing. Then we started to get going. Went over the bathrooms, and as we left the bathroom, a woman came in. She got between me and him, and the door started to close, separating us. August didn’t like that at all. Got him calmed down, but before I put him in the backpack he saw a Korean walking path and he wanted to do that. So we walked on that, then he climbed on some exercise equipment, and we played with the drinking fountain and admired some flowers that they had just put in. We got in the backpack and went walking at 2:30.

We walked up into the park, up the hill. Found buds on some bushes and trees – appropriate to for the first day of spring. A sculpture of horses, then out the other exit. We walked west towards a coffee house. Found a backup on the way, in case I couldn’t find the one we were looking for. We smelled a bad smell (they just continued all day). August said “It smells like waffles.” and laughed. August wanted to get going, and we saw some flowers. He said “Nice flowers. That’s why I wanted to walk over here.”

We found the coffee shop I was looking for, but it is now called Cafe Vino. We got a yogurt smoothie. I got out his iPad, but he never used it. He sat in my lap and said “I’m cold!” So he cuddled in my arms and at one point joked “I’m inside Dada.” Eventually we had his sweatshirt and my sweatshirt over him as he cuddled with me. We worked on understanding even and odd numbers. Then we read books on my iPad: The Perfect Hug, Very Little Red Riding Hood, Red: A Crayon’s Story. Finally, he was hiding under the sweatshirts and started a game where he was pointing at things in the coffee shop: “I’m pointing at the owls…I’m pointing at the kiwis.”

About 4 we headed out. We walked a block north and west to check out another park, 까치공원. I just wanted to check it out for future reference, but he first saw the green and yellow ground and wanted to check that out. He then spotted the infant swings (one of the only parks we’ve found with them) and wanted to get in. I put him in. In the other was a small white dog that a few kids were putting in the swing. The kids were being silly, and one of the girls told me my English is very good. We went to the bathroom, then as we left he started saying “Elmo, Elmo, Elmo…” He had spotted an Elmo toy on the back of a girl’s backpack. As we left, he spotted more flowers and said “nice flowers”.

In the station he was singing Yellow Submarine and making up words, changing ‘sea of green’ to  “interesting thing”. On the subway, he got a seat, and picked his shoe up and and started playing it like a musical instrument.

We were home about 5:20. They nursed and he had some soup. He played piano and wanted me to sing silly songs…we made up one rhyming scoop, poop, oops and other words. Carly gave him a bath, and he was asleep at 7.

 

Photos: 

Park: 

Harp: 

Coffee shop: 

Park 2: 

Shoe instrument: 

Strange night. Carly couldn’t sleep so got up at 12:30 and ended up falling asleep in the reading area. August woke up at 5 and they came back to bed. He fell aslee, but she got back up. He then woke up again at 5:40, after which they both fell back to sleep in the reading area. I was confused when I woke up at 6:50 as last I knew they had been in need. I heard them stirring a little before 8, so came out then.

He was very clingy to Carly and the nursing. But when I put on A Hawk and a Hawksaw and he heard instruments like dulcimer and violin and accordion he came and sat in the chair in front of my iPad and pretended to play the instruments.

We then started to make banana bread. Got partway and realized we were out of eggs. So I ran downstairs and got eggs and milk then came back and August and I finished making banana bread. He licked the spatula, then tried to go wipe his face off on the blanket in the reading area. Forced him to wash his face. He did Park Math, and Carly started to make soup. He was hungry, so had some cereal, then I took a shower. When I came out, he and Carly were drawing a picture of a guitar. He had added a “Lot of frets”. They were using the mechanical pencil and eraser, which was a new experience for him and the lead kept breaking. We had an empty paper towel roll and he played around with that.

We then skyped with my parents for a long time. August played mandolin at first, and at one point climbed into the mandolin case. He then did math, and used the calculator on the iPad and took requests for math problems from my parents. We then got the electric piano and was playing that. And Carly got the gummi bears that Glecy had sent as part of his gift but he hadn’t had yet, and he had some of those. Finally, he was playing his pretend instruments on both his brush/comb and also the marker case. Hung up after close to an hour, at 12:45.

He then wanted to watch Cherie’s hand surgery, so he did that. And we tried the new almond soy milk together. He offered it to Carly, of course. He and Carly did math. She wrote a ‘14’ but wrote an open 4. He said “No, I normally do a closed one.” We then read Hop on Pop, and he wanted to write big words on paper, so I wrote Gargantuan, Constantinople, and Timbuktu on paper for him. He then rewrote the two cities (which are in Hop on Pop) a couple times, and added all sorts of lines to the letters – very creative, and I think inspired by On Beyond Zebra. Carly came in and they did more writing together: Even Yehuda and Israel and guitar, and she drew him a picture of a guitar and a hamburger. Finally, he looked at the Musical Instruments book.

We were meeting Megan for ice cream at 2 at Baskin Robbins. A few times he asked if he had to be silent, remembering when he and Carly delivered the flower and message to her yesterday: “Is it a surprise? You don’t have to be silent?”

We went down and found a busy Baskin Robbins. We looked at the flavors, and August and I decided to share Milk and Strawberries. He also got to taste Megan’s very chocolatey one, and Carly’s mint chocolate chip. He hopped on his bike and we all walked over and around the park, and settled on sitting on the edge around the tree in the center (basically where we had sat with Chuck and Cherie to watch the concert, when August started dancing). We ate our ice cream, then Megan suggested he get his shovel from the bike. They played in the sand/dirt together, making a little mountain and exploring the pieces of bark and garbage that they found – and taking a little bark off the tree. August played in there for quite awhile, and said “I like playing in this fresh sand…I love digging.”

Then he heard music from across the park and went to investigate. It was two Korean men, one playing accordion and the other singing. August stood and watched them for quite awhile. There were a lot of older men around. One gave August a couple of hard candies. August got a bit sad when I wouldn’t let him have any, but soon recovered. The men liked August. One liked that he was dancing to the music, and at one point the harmonica player came over and started playing to August. August had to go to the bathroom, so I took him over and did that. Then he took off running back to the music. They stopped a few minutes later, and August was ready to go.

We all walked back to Brownstone, and said goodbye to Megan. Then we walked to the pink building and did a little grocery shopping. August was wanting to drum again, which would have been fine, but he wanted to run around the store. Luckily, he settled for being carried by Carly.

Back home, he looked at the Musical Instruments book, then shared soup with me for dinner. We played GarageBand and keyboard, then he wanted to watch Cherie’s surgery again. He sat at the desk watching it and said “I like Oma’s hand surgery.” At some point we read a couple Frog and Toad stories. We started reading Kipper’s A to Z but he needed to go to the bathroom. In the bathroom he requested watching more of Oma’s hand surgery while he sat there. When he came back he went to his iPad and did math problems on the calculator.

He ate some banana bread and played the piano. I asked him something about the banana bread, and he looked at me and said “Why you talking to the banana bread?”

I gave him his bath. He watched Pirates of the Caribbean three times. To bed soon after that, and he was asleep by 7:45.

 

Photos. Playing along to the music: 

Banana bread: 

Guitar: 

Paper towel roll: 

Surgery: 

Ice cream: 

Playing: 

Harmonica: 

Timbuktu (and a silent E): 

Timbuktu and Constantinople: 

He started to wake up around 4:30 and they got up a little before 5. They Skyped with Cherie and Chuck in Costa Rica and with Vivian and Colin and Cassie and played piano. When I got up they were painting and had each made a design on a piece of paper. He told me “That’s like a penguin with a head but there’s no bones…That’s August being a penguin with one arm.” They also had worked on spelling words, and he was hopping around to spell them. Words like bus, cat, car, cow.

He wanted mushrooms, so I got him some, but left them in the microwave too long so they were hot. So I got him a bowl of cold ones as well and he ate all those since he likes things cold anyway.

August and I read part of The Lorax, then all of Hop on Pop. They nursed and I took down recycling. They then painted a flower and wrote a message for Megan and delivered it. August did a really good job of keeping quiet for the “secret”; kind of surprising since when I (jokingly) tell him to keep a secret from Mama he instantly runs and tells her. Carly found a video of a boy playing banjo on Letterman that he really liked, and there was lots of talk about instruments through the morning. Carly made French toast while he and I looked at Google Earth and another globe on my iPad. That started because he was asking about Thailand and Israel being north or south, etc. Carly then went and rested in bed. While August and I played he asked “Can you feel infinity?” He was then looking at the Welcome to the Symphony book before he went to join Carly just after 11. They both woke up about 12:15.

August acted like a dog, then we played in the reading area after he wanted to ask GM and Bluie how old they are. I had them argue about their ages, landing on 6 and 7, I think. Bluie did the rabbit dance and August agreed that Bluie could still do the rabbit dance when August is an adult and at August’s graduation. Carly thinks he will change his mind about that at some point. The two of them did the Itsy Bitsy floor puzzle, then he shared some quinoa with me for lunch, until he spit out a bite for a reason that wasn’t clear. Carly made oatmeal for herself and said  “This tastes a little stale.” August responded “Why it taste a little snail?”

He looked at the Musical Instruments book, then we were getting ready to go. I made the mistake of trying to put a different coat on him – a lighter brown corduroy coat he hasn’t worn. This turned out to be a traumatic experience. After he nursed and was no longer traumatized, we left at 1:40.

We walked over to Hageulbi Park, which we haven’t been to since, I think, September. The swings were busy, so first he and I went on the teeter totter. From there we went to the swings when they opened up. We discussed synonyms and antonyms again. When discussing synonyms, he thought of “bright, sunny”. We then made up a ‘What’s bigger than…?’ game. He heard birds up in the trees and said “I hear pigeons”.

We played on the slides and the round climbing steps/bars. After awhile he was doing circles, climbing up the round things on his own, then sliding down. We did the thing where I rest on the slide and he slides down on to my head a lot. He took a break and was being an owl and cuddled with Carly. I got out the tennis ball and we were playing with that. I was dropping it down the twisty slide and he wanted to do that. But when he dropped it it bounced out and went under the play structure. He followed it, but on the other side bonked his head on the edge. I picked him up and he was doing well enough to try it again, but when it bounced out again and went under the play structure he started crying again and had to go cuddle with Carly.

When he felt better he ran off to the climbing wall/slides and we heard him talking to himself: “…I like pink…white make pink…I don’t remember what blue and white make…it’s awua, I remember…”

We left at 3:25. He went in the bathroom with Carly. I heard him say “Nice tile” – we had talked about the tile at the power plant yesterday. We stopped at Pizza School and ordered a couple pizzas. We played outside and remembered that the last time we were here there was a lot of snow. So Carly started a fake snowball fight and that filled the rest of the time. Before we left he was swinging his legs as he supported himself between a table and a chair.

We got home and ate pizza, then read Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. His bottom was itchy, so Carly started an early bath. I went to Home Plus and did some grocery store. When I got home she was finishing up cutting his hair, and he was watching Mouk – the first time he’s watched a show in several weeks, I think. I continued to watch Mouk with him as Carlyt went to take a shower. He and I read My Family Plays Music (one of the books Carly checked out at the APIS library), finishing it in bed. He went to bed and was asleep by 7:40.

Photos: 

More later… 

Hangeulbi Park: 

Catching: 

Cuddling: 

Pizza School. Swinging: 

Haircut: 

Sometime after he went to sleep last night he sat up and was sleeping sitting up. And Carly heard him say “Tuba” later in the night while having a bad dream.

He was up at 7:06. Kind of tough to wake up, and we went to the reading area to make a nest. He woke up and was saying and singing silly things, like “I was scared so I hugged my fathers blood…” We read Dr. Seuss: the entire birthday book for the first time, The Zax, The Strange Shirt Spot. He was hungry, so we went out for some breakfast. He was pretending to play instruments: “I’m playing the lap organ…I’m playing the Chinese fiddle.” Cereal and fruit for breakfast, then we read part of Skippyjon Jones. We played piano and he said “You sing and I’ll play piano.” So we dueted together. He went to the bathroom, then I dressed him in a short sleeve shirt as it was going to get to 60 today. And I thought he’d be getting two shots today and I thought they might want his arm. Didn’t tell him that one though.

He looked at the toy box lid and we counted the letters on it (there’s only one Q, but 4 As, etc.). He said “I want to write really big Qs. Because I really like Qs.” “I want more Qs. I really like Qs!” “I want blank space to write Hebrew and ‘umbrella’.” So we went in and he wrote letter pairs. He then wrote ‘T_a=L’ then wanted me to guess what goes in the blank. I suggested + and – and *. He said “No, T+a=V’ etc. The correct answer for the blank was ‘a’. Of course. He then wrote another letter problem and said “Do that letter problem with your fingers.” We then moved on to Hebrew, which we haven’t done much recently. Should really do more, as evidenced by his excitement. Then he wrote the sentence ‘I saw an elephant.’ Except ‘elephant’ was in Hebrew: ‘I saw an פיל’.

Then to the piano and electric keyboard, where I started to teach him “The Wheels on the Bus”. After loving that song for so long he decided he didn’t like it anymore a couple months ago, so we haven’t been singing or playing it recently. Still hungry, so we had strawberries and bananas. We exercised, and he did all the exercises today alongside me. I took a shower, and then we did math in Dragonbox Numbers.

We had a lot of discussion on where to go today. I suggested Dobongson, which he agreed to, but then asked “Is there swings there…Is that where the boy threw sand on you?” He decided he wanted to go back to where the boy threw sand on him on Monday. Then he decided he wanted to ride his bike instead of take a train, so that became our plan.

Before going down I had performed a medical exam on him, but he was still a bit upset when we got off the elevator on 2. We walked past where they are turning the old PC place into a few restaurants to find that one had opened: another kimbap place. We like our kimbap, but we now have 5 in the building. There was one, maybe 2, when we moved in. One pizza place in the building is all we ask.

Anyway, at the doctor’s office we (mainly August) got the good news: there aren’t any more immunizations until he is 4 years old. I hadn’t looked at the YEAR for when they said to come back. Seems odd it is so long, but okay.

We headed out, riding the bike up past Madeul and across the river. A lot of singing “Hole in the bottom of the sea” and doing math. Later, he would say he wants to learn “It’s Okay” (a punk song by Dead Moon that I’ve always sung for him, and he sometimes sings) on piano, and then added Hole at the Bottom of the Sea (except he wants to learn the numbers version we sing instead), and Buffalo Gals (which is in the Musical Instruments book, and that he knows from the songbook he sings from) to the list of songs to learn on piano.

We got to 모랫어린이공원 but there was no boy to throw sand on him today. He spotted a word on the side of a toy and said “Let’s figure out that word. I’m excited about it.” He sounded out ‘Honey’ but needed me to repeat it back to him before it clicked. We rode over the little hills in the bike, then went to the swings. After insisting this was where he wanted to go today he actually only was on the swings for five minutes or so. He then wanted to eat, so we went and sat on a bench and ate our sandwich. Then he walked off and sat on his bike. And just sat there. I went and sat by him, and we just sat there and chatted for another 15 minutes or so. He said he was sleepy.

Eventually he agreed to me pushing him around and doing some exploring, but he needed the bathroom first. We went and used it. No chainsaw in the park today. Then we rode north and found another park, 효자어린이공원. Here he went on the swings. Another kid came and used the other swing, then another kid wandered by. He sort of looked like he might want a swing, and August said “Sorry but I’m using it.” August got off after awhile, then we played on the skinny toys and played on the play structure. He drummed on the window in the play structure.

Also, while on the swing on his stomach he wanted to do Yankee Doodle as a poem again. He was then asking about a lot of the words: “mind the music”, “and the step”… I explained, and demonstrated the waltz, but he wanted more dance steps and that’s all I remembered.

And while sitting on the swing hew as looking around looking at things and saying “That looks like a bone, that looks like a knuckle, that looks like a harp, that looks like a semicircle, that looks like an arrow…”

We left at 2, walked north a bit more, and crossed the street. He was doing finger math. Of a sort: “What is triangle minus diamond…nothing.” He spotted phone booths and we got out and looked at the buttons. Found a third park, but he didn’t want to get off and play.

We walked back south, towards home. School was out and there were kids everywhere. August kept saying “Excuse me” to all the kids as we walked by. And at some point he said “holy moly”.

We walked back across the river, then down the stream. Still plenty of time, and I thought about the power plant and that we haven’t been back to look at the exhibits. So we went to the Nowon-gu Resources Recovery Center. We looked around a bit, but many of the lights were off. He pulled on a handle that lifts garbage to weigh it, then looked at the plastic food and fruit in the kitchen area. We saw a model of the power plant and he liked pushing the buttons to light up parts of it. We went into a dark area, and found a couple buttons that work and light up/start these little diorama things. We walked through the tunnel over towards the power plant and found another model of it, but then you get to the point where you have to be on a tour.

Turned around and went back and went to the bathroom. He liked the green tile in the bathroom. Afterwards, he was wiping his face on my leg and when I asked why he said “I’m rubbing my face on the leg because I’m sleepy.”

There was a sign saying the environmental education room was up on the third floor, so we went up. On the second floor we saw some pieces of art that we liked, and walked around the floor looking at them all. Then up to the third floor. Not much up there, as the room was closed. And the doors to the patio on the roof were locked. On the way up though (after discussing whether one of the pieces of art had a storm in it) he asked “What does a chick do if it’s in a nest and there’s a storm?” Looking down at the floors below us, August said “I see the dark place.” A guy seemed to be watching us really closely and wanting to talk to us (tell us to leave?) on the way down, but I used my foreigner status to kind of ignore him and take our time on the way out.

Outside we stopped at a bench by the stream and had a snack and we shared an orange. We then went to Juicy Juice at Brownstone. He chose cherry and I got the crimson one (a mix of apple, grapefruit, and something, I think). Pollution was high, so the plan had been to head home, but the weather was so ni
ce that we sat outside Juicy Juice for awhile. And August looked at their signs and planned our next order at Juicy Juice.

We got home and were playing piano and somehow landed on the idea of listening to a version of Yankee Doodle on Apple Music. Turns out there is a lot of them. August was listening to them and pretending to play along on various instruments when Carly got home. He was so into this that it took more than an hour before he thought about nursing. Some of our exchanges:

Me: “How many versions of Yankee Doodle are you going to listen to?” Him: “A lot”

Him: “I have 66 buttons on my french horn to play Yankee Doodle.”

Him: “I’m playing a zucchini.”

Him: “I’m playing an instrument with holes in it.” Carly: “What is it?” Him: “You know.”

Eventually he remembered, and nursed. Had dinner, played more piano, and looked at the Musical Instruments book. Carly gave him a bath and I did dishes (our new routine), and he was asleep just after 7.

 

Photos: 

Hebrew: 

Honey: 

Sitting on the bike: 

Power plant: 

Plastic fruit: 

Juicy Juice: 

8:04. He opened the door, then came scooting down the hall on his hands and knees. He said  “I’m a snail”, crawled up to me and said “Slime on you.” He then offered me something and said “Here’s some beans with slime in them.”

A bit later he said “Dried watermelon. Is that a thing?” This actually goes back several days when he had been joking about dried fruit and said dried watermelon, and we looked it up and found out it is actually a thing.

He was then looking at the Poli posters and talking about them, and I tried to watch the Poli cartoon. I’ve tried a couple times now and he isn’t interested. When he heard the YouTube Kids startup sound he ran over and said “No. I want the green one.” It is this odd little Preschool Prep video about the color green that he found yesterday when watching color wheel videos. Watched that, then blue: “Blue like grapes and blueberries.”

We watched more videos, then had Cheerios and fruit for breakfast, then read Frog and Toad stories. And more and more. Read most of the two books we have.

He had to go to the bathroom, and as he talked he said “Sorry, my voice is different. Maybe like a turtle.” Giggle “I’m a turtle.” He was then doing an “alligator voice”. “That was a dolphin voice.”

He then said “I want to meet the friends…in the playroom!” So we went to the parlor and he had them use the bathroom, then eat. First we had peach cake, then chocolate ice cream. More bathroom game, although it morphed into dealing with the sounds of flushing. If I said flush he would say “I don’t like you!” We talked about saying “I don’t like that!” instead and then he got better about that. And by the end he was acting out using a loud automatic urinal. We also did some cuddling in a fort in the reading area.

We read some doctor Seuss stories: Zinniga Zanniga, Gustav, the Goldfish, then he looked at the Musical instrument book. He went to the bathroom, and he said something that reminded me of Go, Dog, Go, so I said some lines from that. He responded with “I haven’t seen anything funny for a long time.” from Frog and Toad. He went back and was looking at the Persian instruments and I took a shower. When I came out he was back to Dr. Seuss and the birthday book, asking “What’s a Birthday horn?”

We headed to his class. In the elevator he sang “It stopped at 8, now it’s going down to 1.” to the tune of London Bridge.

In Teuni Teuni he did a bunch of forward rolls. Launching himself forward now. Kept talking about instruments as he ran by “playing on guitar…” “…no frets?” When he was done with forward rolls and helping carry, he ran to me and said “So that was seven!” Class was all about cicadas, and it was probably his favorite one ever. When the teacher brought out a big picture of a cicada he was fascinated by it. August felt it, then stood in front of it and spread his arms like wings. Then, when the costumes were brought out he was thrilled and he flapped his arms like wings and kept saying the “Ma ma ma ma maaaa” cicada sound. There were little board things with numbers on them, behind which was a picture of a cicada. August was amazingly happy with something that just had numbers 1 to 7 on it. He pulled off the 5 from the teacher’s board, and said “I have 5…I have 5 fingers!”

They then got to ride around on little carts with poles on them, sort of like they were cicadas attached to trees that moved. The only down moment of class was when August sat on the cart and it tipped backwards and he hit the back of his head. He recovered and got back on it standing up. There was then a hill path that they jumped off the end of. At the top the teacher would count to 3 and they would jump. August’s game was seeing how high and how quickly he could jump before we made him jump. He made it to around 30 the first time, then 11 or 9 or so after that. He wasn’t ready to jump entirely on his own, but had a couple of good ones where he was just holding my hand but I wasn’t really supporting his fall at all.

Finally, there was an activity where they used nets to catch cicadas off of metal posts and transported them over to trees. In between and during these activities, August would stop to look at his wings in the mirror.

Finally, at the end of class they got their treats. August was the only one still wearing the costume by this point. At the end I told him we had to give the costume back and he asked “Why?” I thought he was going to get upset, but he was okay taking it off and carrying it back to sangsaengnim. Before we left, the teacher got down to give August a hug. August is more open to hugs now, and will walk into the hug and kind of pull the teachers arms a bit. As we walked out, August said “I did two hugs!” Out on the bench I put on his shoes and he growled and then said “I’m a lion Flynne cicada.”

We walked across the hall to the School Food restaurant. I wanted the coconut curry, but it wasn’t on the menu. August saw the carbonara pasta and really wanted that, so we went with that. He really liked the soup in advance, and ate several pieces of radish that we put in it. The pasta was good, and when he was done he walked across the hall to the little car/plane rides and sat in a plane while I paid.

We walked across to the park to see all the new sculptures that showed up. He liked sitting on the metal bananas like the metal girl. He started hitting them with his feet, so I took off his shoes. We then spent a lot of time at the ‘love’ sculpture. He said “Love is a silent e word” as he covered up the E. Finally, he sat between the odd person and human cat on the bench and talked about the cat. He said there were letters in it as he traced the tail like a C, etc.

We were going to go the bathroom, but the ones on that side of the park were being cleaned. We walked to our side of the park, but those had construction going on in front of them. So we walked back to the art museum and went there. We went into the art museum play area and played there for awhile. He worked more on throwing balls to me.

From there we went to the English class. Class today was about the character Amber, who is pink. The big activity there was first mixing red and white paint to make pink, then using the paint to paint a picture of Amber, then tracing the word ‘Amber’. He also did a lot of dancing to the songs. After class was over, he told me to “Sing a happy song” and we sang “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. At some point earlier in the day, after Teuni Teuni, I think, he had said “I’m happy.”

We tried to meet Carly again, but didn’t see her and she didn’t answer. We went home a bit after 5. He wanted to go in and rest and have a fort with the friends. There was a lot of talk about flushing urinals (he often has to walk by ones with sensors to get to the toilets without, and so he is concerned they will go off). Carly got home and he hid under the blanket from her.

They nursed, then he was being a fly and cicada. He played piano and figured out London Bridge is Falling Down all the way through and was playing it pretty smoothly by the end of the evening.

We opened the card from my parents. I read the first couple lines, but then realized I should let August. He surprised us by reading almost all of the rest:

“…You’re smarter

Than ever.

You’re funnier,

Stronger,

And ever so clever.

And what’s more-

Yippee! You’re three!

Happy Birthday”

I kind of expected him to get ‘smart’ and ‘strong’, because they are actually words from his Poli English class. But I didn’t expect him to get all the -er endings so easily, and words like ‘Yippee’ and ‘funnier’ and ‘three’. He also read the written part, ‘We love you! Gramma, Grampa, & Paul.’

We watched a Poli video as I was curious. The whole time August kept pointing out the characters he knows when they were on the screen: “Poli…Roy…Amber…Helly…”
That was fine until a truck lost its breaks and was out of control. August wanted it stopped and left the room. It was too stressful for him. Carly picked him up, then they went and did his bath while I did the dishes. He went straight to bed from there, and was asleep at 7:30.

Teuni Teuni: 

School Food (with a smiley fork): 

Airplane: 

Sculptures: 

Ball area: 

English class: