Author: Ryan/Dada

He was first up at 6:30, hearing Colin. “What’s he doing? What’s Colin doing?” Carly nursed him back to sleep, but he was back up a couple minutes later. As he walked out of the room he said “You like Tia Cassie.” A little later he tried to get close to Colin, who had a toy on the floor. Colin thought he was going after his toy though and grabbed at August’s face. Don’t think August was all that hurt, but he felt betrayed and got quite upset. A little later we were in on the bed, doing “5 little monkeys”. We started doing different numbers of monkeys each time: “Q monkeys….806 monkeys…107 blue monkeys…” I looked at my watch and August saw me doing it and he asked “What is it? The time?” We did stickers and read some Garfield with Vivian on the floor in our room, and they cuddled a bit. She has regularly asked about his knee, and he now occasionally says “How is your knee today?” to himself. So he inspected his knee, and also how Vivian’s nail polish continues to come off.

Carly was still doing some work, and I took the two of them outside and up to Oma’s car to play in it. They played with the door a bit, August getting excited every time it opened to reveal Vivian. Vivian eventually went back down to the house and Cassie was making water balloons. She brought one up to us. I let August have it, and he seemed to think he got away with grabbing something, and he carefully pieced together this sentence: “It’s okay if you grab something like Colin does when you grab a balloon for Colin.” We spent quite awhile playing with water balloons.

Back inside, they both then ended up in the bedroom with Carly. August nursed as Vivian and Carly prepared photos for scanning, taking them out of albums. the two of them sat with Cherie in the kitchen and smelled things like barbecue sauce and helped put away some groceries. Cherie made scrambled eggs for them, and August tried to cut his with a fork. He looked at them and said “Princess!” I didn’t see it, but then he enjoyed joking about eating the princess. I was holding August as he stood on the stool, and Vivian asked why. I said something about keeping him safe, and August said “Make sure he doesn’t scrape his knee again.” Carly came out and had a salad, and August went and studied it.

Carly then took over, and she went and played with the two of them down in the sand, and then ended up reading in Vivian’s room until he was ready for a nap. She took him down and he slept from 1:20 to 2:43. At some point in there I was down in the sitting area and Colin was eating in the booster chair and we started waving and saying “Hi” to each other.

After playing around for awhile in the afternoon, we decided to take the kids to a park before dinner. However, Colin didn’t want to get in his seat and time was running short before his nap. So Cassie stayed behind and we took Vivian with us again like yesterday. We decided to go to Alexander Park. There, we went on the swings, Vivian went down the slide several times, and I pushed her on the merry-go-round for quite awhile. We then went to change August in the grass, and Vivian was walking ahead of us. August and Carly raced after, saying “Ready, set, go” and running a bit, then doing it again. We changed him, then went walking, looking for blackberries (August had said he wanted to find blackberries on the drive down). A woman told us there were blackberries and raspberries at the end of the park, so we walked down and found several blackberries. We walked back to the car, petting a dog and smelling some lavender on the way. On the way back, I had to stop for some deer in the road, which August spotted right away “Deer!” He was then calling to the deer, saying “Come close to the car deer!”

We came home and ate a dinner of delicious nutty noodles – as Cherie pointed out, it is one of the few dishes that everyone really likes. In the early evening, Carly went in to do a little work. Vivian, August and I played with the bag of quarters on the floor. I would spin them and they would slap them to stop them. August decided to use me as a chair and sat on my stomach for several minutes. August got upset when I wouldn’t let him make a mess stirring my coffee, and wanted mama. I bribed him with animal crackers at one point, and also got him downstairs to watch a movie. We turned on Vivian’s Centerstage movie, but after a few seconds he got really sad. When he was sad, any question I asked him was “No!” But when he calmed down and I asked him what made him sad he said “Movie”. I got him to cheer up by suggesting he go down and ask Vivian to take a bath. I took him down and he loudly asked “Vivian get in the bath?” Took them up and they took a long bath together. Carly and Cassie then hung out with the kids up in Vivian’s room and read The Sneetches. Carly took him down and he went to bed much more smoothly today, and was asleep by 9:30.

At some point during the day Carly replied “No savamos” to one of his questions. He then said “No savamos…that means we don’t know.”

Up at 7:30. He only slept eight and a half hours. He then played with Kayla and wanted to “Tickle Opa!” Everyone except Vivian was up and playing in the sitting area by the kitchen. At some point I mentioned Glecy and August said “Want Auntie Glecy teach you how to play…” Later, when playing with Colin, Colin said “tru tru” and August looked across the room, went and grabbed a truck on the floor that Colin seemed to be looking at, and said “Truck please” as he brought it back and gave it to Colin, as if telling him how to ask for the truck. I took Kayla for awhile and carried her around for about a half hour. She did a good job slobbering on my shoulder as we watched August, Vivian, and Thatcher play with water balloons. Glecy was up, and making delicious flan, and August wanted to get in her car. We got the keys from her, and Carly and I played with Vivian, August, and Kayla in her car.

Derek and Andrea and their kids left for their week down on the coast. Vivian got upset as they left, and I was holding August on the deck as we watched them drive away from the lower driveway. August got his really sad face and had to go to Carly. Back inside, about 11, Carly got out her old eraser collection and August and Vivian looked through erasers with Glecy and Cassie and Cherie.

Close to noon my parents arrived and we played with them for the next couple of hours, including with more water balloons. August played with and sang to Colin as he sat on Cassie’s lap, and then sat with Colin on the step and they did a forehead kiss. It was then time to say goodbye to my parents, which involved a lot of high fives. I walked them out and said goodbye.

Cassie then skyped with Jeff in Eastern Europe and August said hi to him and played peekaboo with him from the side of the screen. Glecy was the next to leave, and the last of the goodbyes for the day. After that, Carly tried to get him to take a nap, but he was too wired. So I put him in the backpack, and he fell asleep after just a few minutes. I walked through the new set of lots down the road and finished listening to a Planet Money podcast before coming home. He slept from 2:10 to 3:15. Carly nursed him back to sleep, but he was back awake at 3:40 when he heard Colin crying and we heard him say  “what he crying about?” Carly then took him up to see Colin. I ended up with Vivian and August and we were smelling the shampoos and conditioners in the shower, then Vivian put a couple of bandaids on me.

Cherie had made her yummy green soup, and August had some for an early dinner. He decided he wanted to put pepper and salt in it, and hilarity ensued as he kept wanting to put more and more in. He ate it when it was amazingly peppery, but I dumped it out when he managed to grab the salt and dump a bunch in. Cherie filled a shaker with rice so he could pretend, and he kept at it.

In the evening Carly and I took August and Vivian down to Borst Park. Carly started out following Vivian, and I had August. August was in the swing for a long time, and Vivian came over and pushed him. He started chanting  “beetle” for no apparent reason and other people nearby joined in. I pushed him pretty high, then Carly helped him hang from a short bar by his hands a few times. We then went over to arched climbing structure. Vivian went up a couple times, but got stuck on the top and was a bit scared. But then I suggested she needed to figure out how to turn around and then she could go down the other side. I spotted her once and she did it, then she climbed the entire way by herself 3 or 4 times. Meanwhile, August wanted to do the same, but Carly couldn’t reach him when he got above the 4th bar. So she made the rule he could only go to the 4th. But then he kept trying to climb higher. Carly took Vivian to the bathroom, and I took over. I was explaining why he couldn’t climb to the top yet, but he argued  “you’re ready to go to the top.” We went over to one of the play structures and August went down the slide on Carly’s lap. We then went and pushed Vivian on the swings together. Finally, a little after 7 we headed home. August had really put up a fight getting in the car seat to come over, but did a better job on the way back and had fun sitting next to Vivian.

At home, Carly and Cassie played a little horse with the basketball, then we headed inside. August and Vivian took a long bath together. Vivian was very nice to August today, and when she heard that he didn’t like bubbles or toys in the water she agreed to do her bath that way. Once they were in, she started to slowly add toys in and he ended up having a lot of fun. Carly then read some stories to the two of them, and Vivian headed to bed. She started crying, and August could hear her and kept asking “What she crying about?” Cherie had suggested acting these sorts of things out with dolls, after August’s difficulty getting to sleep last night. So Carly used her old teddy bear and acted out Vivian being sad, rocking her to make her feel better, and then Vivian going to sleep, then getting up and playing in the morning. August really liked this, and would have the bear cry, rock it, then put it down to sleep. I left about 9:30 when August started nursing and was cuddling with the teddy bear. He was asleep about 9:40.

 Morning:

Eraers:

In the backpack for a nap:

Putting on a bandaid: 

Playing on the bed: 

Green soup and pepper: 

Headed home: 

Horse: 

Reading: 

August was up just past 7, and started the day eating Cheerios with Thatcher and Vivian. When I started watching him, he was playing with a ball, and kind of asking what he could throw it at or over: the window, the rocking cow, etc. He got out the crayons, and we got out the Peppa Pig workbooks and did them with Vivian. Carly had gone to get some work done, and he was fine until he noticed she was gone. Went from totally fine to upset in about 10 seconds. I took him downstairs, and distracted him with the DVD player – he was intrigued as soon as I turned it on. The Last Unicorn and The Secret of Nimh were sitting there, and he initially chose The Last Unicorn. But then he saw me struggling to open it, and he helpfully changed his mind. We started watching it, and Derek came by and asked “Isn’t this a scary movie?” I said yes, but I didn’t think August would watch a lot of it. We fast forwarded to a mouse part and indeed, August watched about 2 minutes then was done.

Back upstairs, Carly came out. There were some bags of kids clothes being talked over, and August was smelling them. Carly had Colin, and put him in the Ergo. He was totally chill in there for the next 45 minutes or so. August wanted a piggy back ride at some point – the first time he’s offered that. August smelled my coffee, then I was offering him the different kinds of ground coffee to smell, and he wanted to smell the compost.

Andrea was taking Thatcher, Vivian, and Colin on a walk, and Carly and I took August and Colin (still in the Ergo) along. We walked as far as the entrance to the trail, then turned back and Andrea kept going. August was really waving at cars as they went by.

Back at the house, my parents showed up. We hung out with them, and my mom helped prepare for the party. August fell asleep for a nap around 1:30 and just kept sleeping. The party was in full swing for quite awhile by the time we woke him up at 4.  At one point I had been talking to Chris and planning an Althauser/Niman brewery tour of southern Germany, where both the families are supposedly from. August didn’t want to wake up, but finally perked up when we offered him a cookie. Got him outside, and eventually he sat on my mom’s lap and ate some watermelon. Eventually, I took August downstairs and he spotted Kayla at the other end of the patio area. August then sat down on a blanket and did some hammering with a toy hammer (He said “Kayla was playing with this.” although I don’t know what he based that on). He ended up with Carly or my mom, and I went around and took some photos of the party. When I had started walking around with him he had spotted the foods, specifically the desserts, and had a bite of chocolate brownie. He wanted more, but it turned out it was gone. However, my dad had a brownie, and August got a bite of that. He then played around the driveway area in and around all the kids and grown ups doing water balloons and spraying each other. August did some singing, then eventually wanted to head back in because he wanted a “cupcake with star” sprinkles in an ice cream cone. We had first seen them when visiting with Cadance and Hattie, then he was reminded of them when a couple of the older boys came out with them. We got him a cupcake, then I set him down on the couch between Carly and Glecy to eat it.

After that, there was a big photo of most of the kids out in the driveway; he made it through the first round of that, but then took off and wouldn’t go back for the redo once Thatcher showed up. Back inside, he was letting Colin try to drink from his water bottle. He drank from it himself and ended up coughing. And coughing. Then it became clear that he was fake coughing. So he and Glecy were fake coughing together, then moved to fake sneezing. Thatcher had been looking for snakes with his grandpa, and they cornered one, so we went and saw the snake. We then did some cousin photos down by the bushes down below. Back inside, we said goodbye to my parents, who went back to their hotel and now past 7 August and Colin and Kayla hung out with Oma. We then did a cousins photo on the couch. Kind of a circus getting them to agree to it, and many cookies were handed out across the course of the cousins photos.

August then hung out with Vivian and Thatcher as they took a long, long bath. August wouldn’t get in with them, but played from outside the tub. When I went up they were making milkshakes using cups and bubbles. They finally got out, and I almost got August in – we had to remove all the toys and drain the water of bubbles before he considered it – but then he really, really wanted to see Vivian and Thatcher. So we followed them around, bouncing between checking in on Thatcher and up to Vivian who didn’t want to see anyone at the time. Eventually, Carly got August in the bath, and Andrea and Glecy read the Frida book to Vivian and Thatcher. August came down from his bath, and did some left/right up/down stomping and dancing with Glecy. Then the three older cousins sat with Andrea as she read Skippyjohn Jones.

Vivian and Thatcher headed off to sleep at 9, and it took the next two hours to put August to sleep. We spent a lot of time smelling the soaps from the shower. August would go in and get one, bring it out, smell it, then put it back. He said to himself “You can smell another one when you put it away.” He heard Vivian crying upstairs and decided “She’s sad because she doesn’t want to go to sleep.” He and Carly nursed for awhile, then he came out and walked straight to the window and looked out for awhile. Then Derek came up, and August got excited and ‘stung’ him for awhile. They went back in and tried again, but he kept popping up and talking about Vivian crying (“Maybe she said because…Mama…Colin…want to see Thatcher…), trying to work out different reasons she might be crying, and saying “Where’s Thatcher?” He was back out again one more time at 10:30. I took him back in the bedroom and sang a couple songs as Carly slept and he chewed on the plastic whale he was holding. He got up and we went into the shower and smelled the shampoos and conditioners again (he said the conditioner smells like apple). Finally, just before 11 he wanted to nurse again. I left and heard a little more talking after that, and he was asleep at or a little past 11.

New words/phrases: conditioner, cupcake

Morning: 

Walk. Waving at cars:

Home: 

Party: 

After the party: 

Milkshakes in the bath: 

Reading Frida: 

Reading Skippyjohn Jones: 

August was up a little before 7. Spent some time on the big paper drawing with Oma. He had her write the alphabet, then he spent quite awhile tracing all the letters she had written; he’s getting pretty good with the tracing. He remembered the cars from last night, and had me push the buttons this time. They were then out on the deck, and I saw them through the window; August and I did a forehead kiss through the window, then he moved to the doorway and we did one there. Back and forth a few times. There had been a discussion of the butterfly being an outside toy, and something else in inside toy. So a few minutes later, he picked up the doll that someone had left outside, brought it in, and said “This is an inside toy”. He then ended up upstairs with Cherie and Vivian, looking through a big bag of coins.

Derek, Andrea, Cassie, Carly and I then took all the kids to the Penny Playground in Chehalis. Colin and August were in the swings together, with Carly pushing them. Carly then took Colin to Cassie, and he swam in the rocks, as he is wont to do. I kept pushing August, and he sang his other hand song again, made up another little ditty, and started to do a noise with his tongue that he would keep doing throughout the day. Eventually he wanted out and we climbed through the play structure once, then went to the big swings where Vivian and Thatcher were swinging. August got on and I pushed him. He was swinging fine for awhile, then went to shift his hands and fell off backwards. Luckily a low swing, but the swing swinging back and hitting him in the head added insult to injury. Carly took him off to nurse, but they never did, as he got distracted by a puppy. He got to pet the puppy, and Vivian held the leash a bit. We then headed out, and came back to the house.

He napped from 1:20 to 2:20. Carly and the kids played in the sand and made a big sandcastle. We then went with the kids on another walk to the forest. August was in the stroller and got out to walk in the forest. We spent most of the time behind Vivian and Thatcher, as August was going at his exploring Seoul pace. Picked some berries and ate a couple of green/red ones (“don’t like the dark ones…this one ready…you picked the green one.”), then carried a tiny green one most of the time. We caught up with them (August holding Carly’s hand as we walked down the hill) and threw rocks in the pond area for 10 or 15 minutes. But Colin kept wanting to crawl into it, and August wanted to stand on the rocks and go down to the water. Not the easiest place to play.

We walked home, and August started to wave at all the cars that went by. At the house, he and I watched Chuck hammer some boards into the pathway to the motor home. August liked that, but he really wanted to do some hammering himself. We went down below and looked at the fruit trees. He picked a hard little peach and wanted to eat it; we went back in and I cut it up and he ate a good chunk of it and liked it. We then went back outside, just the two of us, and rocked on the rocks and smelled and tasted the mint. When he first smelled the mint he said “Smells like lavender!” He saw some bees on a nearby bush and lightly touched one of them with a mint leaf and his finger. I wouldn’t let him touch any more.

He went back in and nursed with Carly for awhile, then we drove into town to meet my parents at Bank of America just after 6. He was very excited to see them, and we walked to the Irish place a few blocks away for dinner. Carly entertained him while we waited for food, then he sat in a booster chair between us and ate a bunch, particularly liking the clam chowder and French fries, and having a lot of fun dropping grapes in the chowder and then eating them. He knocked over a cup of water, but wasn’t too damaging, as it only got gramma a little bit, most of it ending up on the table and floor. On the walk back, we stopped and smelled and identified some flowers. He then saw a centipede on the ground and was looking at it with my parents. He then stepped on it, and I picked him up and gave him the talk about hurting animals and asked him to say sorry for hurting the centipede. He wouldn’t say it to me, but then said “Say it to mama” and said it to her instead.

A guy at the restaurant had told us that the blimp we had seen flying over the last couple days was parked at the airport. August wanted to see it (at the end of dinner, as we waited to pay, Carly had taken him out for a minute. He came back in and said “Want to see the blimp, please.”), so we drove down and around the airport. Couldn’t get too close, and turned around at the entrance of the airport. August was excited to wave out the open window at gramma and grampa in the other car, and as we left he said “Want another gramma and grampa…14 grampas…there’s another gramma and grampa.” as he pointed at another car going past. We drove home past Walmart, and I saw another little road we hadn’t tried. Drove down it and got our best view of the blimp, then headed out again. As we drove, we talked to August and for some reason asked him where we live. His answer? “Seoul Tower”. Not sure where he came up with the ‘tower’ part. A minute later he said “Holy guacamole”, which is from the Skippyjohn Jones book. We realized we needed to buy coffee, so went to Fuller’s and I ran in. We then went home. He took a long time getting out of the car, then stood and watched the deer and waved and said  “Bye bye deer” several times.

when we took him in to sleep he looked at the lights above the bed and said “Turn on the lanterns.” Not sure where that one came from either. He was asleep by 10:30. 

Morning:

Outside: 

Penny Playground: 

Walk in the woods: 

Back at the house: 

Morning: 

Tracing: 

Water balloon art: 

August’s photo of Colin crying: 

Vivian’s photo of August: 

Park:  

Home: 

Evening walk: 

Dinner with my parents: 

Blimp: 

The house as a whole was pretty much up by 6:30 (except for Thatcher who kept sleeping and sleeping). August woke up once, but Carly nursed him back to sleep, then he was up again a little after 7. Carly played with them down in the sand area, then she went to take a shower. Chuck was down by the sand area, but August also wanted to go see Oma, and he sand a little “Oma, Oma, Oma…” song. We walked up into the house and saw Eddy, then went into the bedroom and brushed his teeth. We heard someone crying and each guessed who it was – I said Kayla and he said Kayla. We were both wrong as it was Colin. But it was kind of our first guessing game. August and Colin ate a snack together on the floor, then everyone ended up out in the driveway and played there a lot through the morning, using the water guns, scooter, butterfly thing on a stick, etc. We went inside, and he played with the noisy ball thing on his own for awhile. We ended up playing outside again, and August touched a moth and it flew away. We spent several minutes finding moths and flies and butterflies on the side of the house and studying them and touching them.

He took a nice long two hour nap in the afternoon, waking up around 2. There was more playing outside, then he sat at the booster chair and ate some pisole (sp?) and did a lot of talking about it. Everyone was then on the deck, playing, and they got to taste Cherie’s yogurt, which he also liked. He nursed, then we took the kids for a walk in the forest.

August took the play syringe with us, so he was giving me shots in the neck and shoulders as we walked. Also, Derek and Andrea had brought our pink water bottle down from Seattle, where we left it, so we used that again, much to August’s joy. We stopped to pick blackberries, and August was focused on that, so we did that for several minutes. We caught up with everyone else and walked back with them, stopping at the big pile of gravel so that Vivian, Thatcher, and August could climb and run down it several times (August holding my hand). We were then walking back along the road, August holding my hand, when we saw Andrea walking towards us, with Kayla. August got really excited, but then was looking at them and stepped on the edge of the pavement and fell, scraping his left knee. Bled pretty well, and I carried him back to the house and we washed it off in the sink. Carly nursed him while I dried it off, and she was able to get a bandage on it later. While he was in the bedroom, Vivian and Thatcher ran around cleaning up and decorating and put together a couple plates of snacks for a surprise party for August to make him feel better.

He came out, they surprised him, then I got him soy milk. Vivian wanted the same cup with emoji faces and got upset when she couldn’t happen. But later, sitting at the table, we were acting out and defining the different faces on it. I fed him som pisole, then we were playing out on the deck, and Vivian once again got upset when August was using the butterfly.

We ate dinner, after which I changed him, and we started talking like robots. August liked that, and has a pretty good robot voice. Out in the hallway, August started pushing the buttons on the big toy cars that then drive back and forth rather randomly. He stood up on the step of the living room, saying “Don’t like it, don’t like it, don’t like it…You DO like it.” Vivian and Thatcher were sitting on stools at the island, eating veggies, so August wanted up too. Got him a chair and he climbed up next to them and actually ate a couple of pieces of carrot – he’s getting more into crunchier foods. Cherie noticed the rocking chairs outside rocking on their own and joked that it was ghosts. August first asked what ghosts were, then thought it was really funny to watch them and kept wanting to see the ghosts.

He was then upstairs and watched Vivian and Colin take a bath. Out in the hallway, he sat on Colin’s lap, which was funny and Colin didn’t seem to mind. A bit later August and I started to fill the bath, but then he was off, following Vivian and Thatcher. Eventually, Carly got him back upstairs and gave him a bath. I came up at the end and rinsed his hair. In his bumblebee pajamas, he then pretended to sting Uncle DD and Eddy, using one of Vivian’s shoes as a stinger. He was asleep somewhat earlier this evening, around 9:30.

 

Snack with Colin: 

Squirt guns: 

Kayla with the banana: 

Sideways: 

Giving me shots: 

Green blackberry: 

Walking: 

Scraped knee: 

Sitting together at the island: 

Colin and Vivian were up really early, so August ended up getting up around 6 or so. They played outside at some point, and were all coloring on the paper when I got up. He went outside with Carly on the porch (too cold for me). Back inside, he saw Vivian drinking warm soy milk in a mug, and wanted ‘tea’ himself. He excitedly ran and pointed to the mugs and said  “Want it in a mug.” Later, he and Vivi had a blast giving everyone shots with the play syringe. We sang Cada Semilla in English, which has the line “…you need something else”. A game the last couple weeks or so has been giving him examples of ‘something else’. So we played more of that. Vivian set up the yoga blocks in a line, and August was walking on them. He slipped and fell once, but thought it was funny, then was intentionally trying to make them slip.

Carly, Cassie, and I got all of the kids in Cherie’s car, and Carly drove and we went into town. We stopped at Burgerville and Carly ran in and got a bean burger, fries, and a couple of raspberry milkshakes. We drove to Riverfront Park and played there and ate our food. Vivian and August were both on the swings, then Cassie went off with Colin and Vivian, but August spent his whole time in the swing. At one point he started singing an “Other hand” song. Not sure where it came from, but it was about the game where you hide something in one of your hands and he chooses it, it isn’t there, then he chooses the other hand. He had hand motions with it and a lot of words. He would later sing more of it back in the car. Perhaps his most impressive song so far.

Back at the house he slept from 11:43 to 2:18. A long time. After his nap, he played upstairs with Colin. I went up to find them doing kisses and lots of head rubs. Carly spent a lot of time in the afternoon scanning photos and papers. Cassie and I had August and Colin down in the sandbox. Vivian had gone with Cherie to Costco and other stores and were gone for a few hours. In the sandbox August stood on the corner (so as to not get too dirty) and mainly played with the toy cow, putting it in the water. Vivian and Cherie got home, and Vivian gave August a box of band aids to play with. Earlier in the morning, August had been outside with her and Cassie and he had fallen down and reopened his toe and scraped his knee a bit. We played with the bandaids; August still didn’t want one, but he found it fun to put them on other people and watch Vivian put them on us.

We ended up outside again, this time out front. Vivian wanted to do hopscotch, so I drew a hopscotch course for her, and August helped write the numbers. Vivian then showed him how to hop on it. He can’t hop on one foot, but he had fun hopping on it. We played with the squirt guns, and I brought up the bucket so we could fill it up and refill the squirt guns. Big surprise was that August could position the bucket and turn the water on and off on his own. Couldn’t do that last year. The two of them played with the water for quite awhile. Then August started playing in the sand Chuck had put in the cracks. I was blocking him from doing it and said “That’s a no-no”. He responded with “That’s a yes-yes.” Very funny. We also talked about it being tempting, which he pronounced “that’s temptaning”. They got back to the water, and Vivian was dumping out the buckets and sat in the water. August, who still won’t sit in the bath, saw her and sat in it too. But just for a second, then he was done.

I talked to August about going in for dinner and getting something to eat and drink. He said  “I was thinking bout orange juice.” We started to walk inside, and he saw the bottles of water on a shelf and grabbed one and said “Give this to mama.”

We ate dinner – leftovers today, as we had about 6 dishes to finish up. Carly then took them downstairs and they played in the sand. Back upstairs, Carly gave Vivian her old Russian nesting dolls. I was then downstairs with them for quite awhile as they played with the noisy ball toy and plastic oven, and played the piano. Very easy supervision time, as they mainly played by themselves and with each other. Cassie took Colin and Vivian upstairs, and Carly tried to get August to sleep a couple times, but no luck. At 9:30, Derek, Andrea, and their two kids showed up. August was thrilled by this, and first watched Thatcher hop like a frog, then studied Kayla’s pajamas with desserts on them. The last piece of excitement was watching Uncle DD pretend to prick his finger on the toy syringe and going “Ouch!” Still took a lot of effort and time after that (August and I read the Berenstain Bears Truth book at some point), but he was finally asleep around 10:30.

New words/phrases: bandaid, hide and seek,

Morning:

Park: 

Headed home: 

At the house: 

Kayla and Thatcher arrive: 

A few firsts today: spitting out Oregon grapes himself, playing on his own with another kid in another room (Vivian), an injury that needed a bandaid, and pooping on the toilet.

Awake just after 7. His first words when he woke up were “Where is Kayla?” In the morning he played with Oma’s yogurt without really eating any, then she left to go pick up Cassie and her kids at the airport. August got sad, because he wanted to go with her. Back in the house, he got upset that we wouldn’t let him play with the grate, then nursed. He walked around, sliding his feet on the pot holder things. At some point I asked him what he was thinking and he said “I was thinking bout more rectangle crackers.” I was giving him his vitamins and he said  “Where should I put them?”

The three of us then went downtown. We took the stroller. We went to Santa Lucia and got coffees and a scone. Sat outside for a bit and then went walking. Up to and around the college, seeing the new building they are building. August spotted Oregon grapes, and we did a little of the ‘patooie’ game, then he spotted red berries, which turned out to be hollies. We studied those, crushing them in our fingers to find the seeds.

We then went to Safeway, after which he didn’t want to get in the car seat. He explored the car for about 8 minutes, insisting “Zinnie can do it” but he wouldn’t get it, so then we had to force him in. We got back to the house, and just as we were going in Cherie arrived with Cassie, Vivian, and Colin. They did greetings, and August tried to do a forehead hug with Colin. Played in the driveway for a few minutes, then Cherie and I took Vivian and August down to the blackberry bushes at the edge of the property and picked blackberries. The two of them then ended up going downstairs, and Cherie and I were working on taking the toys upstairs. August was jumping on the couch, and slipped off the cushion and his foot went down in the couch and cut his toe. Pretty traumatic for him, as he has never had a cut like that before. Finally got one on his foot and the trauma helped him nurse right to sleep. Kind of a short nap though, as he slept from 1:20 to 2:18. A long nurse, then we got a bandage on his foot, as it had started bleeding again.

He ate some spaghetti, then he and Vivi played in the house. She was giving him dancing lessons, showing him how to spin and leap, and kept trying to play tag (which he really doesn’t like) and hide and seek (which he doesn’t understand). By the end of the day he was sort of understanding the latter.

Chuck and Cherie had gone to pick up the motor home, which had been getting some small repairs. Cherie and I helped him park it in their new driveway, then everyone got in and explored it. August really liked the light switches and the vent/skylight.

At 5:30 we went over to Claremay and Steve’s. Carly had been working in the afternoon to make two quiches, which we took. August and I took a few minutes to get in the house, as we were doing patooie with the Oregon grapes out front. At first he was putting the berries in my mouth and I was spitting them out, then he started doing it on his own – the first time he’s spit them out. And when he heard someone hammering down/across the street he started clapping in rhythm to it. We went in and had dinner. Vivian fell through her chair and started crying, which made Colin cry, which made August very concerned about both of them. After dinner, he and Vivian first played in the toy room by themselves for several minutes. That was pretty amazing. Then they played on the deck, spinning and jumping and dancing. He had picked some of the pedals from the flowers you can supposedly eat (pansies), but he wouldn’t actually eat them. I was asking Vivian and August where their energy comes from, and August answered “From the flowers.”

We went home, and Vivian and Colin headed to bed. I gave August a bath, and before it I had him standing up on the counter to smell the soaps, and to take his clothes off. I thought he was pooping, or about to, and asked if he wanted to poop on the toilet. He said no, and at first insisted on pulling his shorts back up, but then he changed his mind and wanted to poop on the toilet. So I set him there and it worked, as he pooped on the toilet. For the first time. Bath went well, and he was washing himself with all sorts of soaps, until he decided to wipe his eye. Then he just kept trying to rub his hurting eye with the hands covered in soap. He didn’t get much in though, and I got him out of there. He went down to Carly, and they did some reading. She thought he was gong to sleep, but they ended up doing a good amount of reading (I guess they read that Skippyjohn Jones book a lot) before he was asleep a little after 9.

Standing on the coasters:

Walk to the college: 

Greeting them: 

Claremay and Steve’s: 

Up at 8. He was thrilled to see Oma, and wondered where Opa was. He and Oma were looking at a spiral potholder, which led to looking at the rocks and then then spiral shells. Carly took a shower, then skyped with Vivian and Cassie. I took a shower, and when I came out they were playing in the sink in the hallway bathroom, playing with the foamy soap. A couple of workers came to change the locks on the house and do some other work. August was very interested in them and wanted to know their names. Eventually, we watched them out an open window, and then asked their names. One was Kaitlyn. She asked his name, and he was shy. I said “Is your name August?” And he said “No…goo-uh-goo. Becoming goo-uh-goo.”

We went to Wal-mart to get contacts for Carly, and August had fun trying on the sunglasses. We then went and dropped our car off for an oil change, etc. We went over and played at Riverside Park. First in the little kids swing, where he could drag his toes in the gravel, then on the spinning thing I have to hold him up for, then on the red turning thing. Oh, and after we got out of the swing, he had sat on my lap for several minutes in the gravel and we had played with the swing, pretending it was attacking us, and hitting it away.

We then walked to Burgerville. Along the way we saw blackberry bushes. August wanted to eat one and I started to warn him it might be tart, but he ate it and really liked it. We had a turkey and a bean burger, fries, and shared a raspberry milkshake at Burgerville, then picked up the car.

We came home and he napped from 1:40 to around 3. He was rather demanding today, especially in the afternoon/evening. He watched Mary Poppins and other videos with Oma, then was smelling soaps with me (the beginning of the demanding). We went outside and he saw Opa pulling weeds and wanted to go over there. Along the way, we found little shiny beetles on the ground. I said something about getting one on a stick, and August wanted to do that, but was poking the beetles with it and didn’t like e stopping him. So I took him in and he nursed with Carly. We had curry and rice for dinner, then went out on the porch, where he played peekaboo with Cherie through the screen door.

After dinner, we all went for a walk. I gave August a choice, and he chose the backpack. He was very focused on finding more blackberries. We found them near the start of the trail area. He got down and was picking them. He preferred the crunch red ones, as opposed to the dark, ripe blackberries. We did that for several minutes, then changed his diaper on the path, then got him back in the backpack. He went along with it, but wasn’t too happy about stopping. I, however, was getting attacked by mosquitoes. August was excited to actually see mosquitoes though and enjoyed waving his arms at them. As we walked he kept requesting more berries, wanting “red and green…purple and blue…blue and red…blackberries”. He got Smokey out and played with him a bit as we walked, showing him the trees. He also imitated my Smokey voice and said something like “These are nice trees.”

Back at the house we played with the soccer ball outside. He was actually setting it down and then kicking it, or just rolling it with two hands, and squealing when the ball came close to him. Inside, we got out the Peppa Pig workbooks and were tracing in those. He pointed to one picture and said “Peppa Pig is dressed up for winter.” He and Carly had also had nice art time today, filling up more of the paper, and sand time, making a big castle.

Carly gave him a bath, then took him straight to the bedroom around 9 because it looked like he might go to sleep. But they ended up doing a lot of reading and he fell asleep by 9:30.

Also, at some point today he wanted to touch my teeth, then told me they were yellow: “What is the yellow?” Thanks, son.

New words/phrases: amber, spiral, contacts, peekaboo, next time,

A fountain his size:

Playground: 

Burgerville: 

Sandcastle with mama: 

Evening walk: 

Back home: 

When he woke up in the middle of the night, I heard him whisper several sentences. Didn’t catch the specifics, but he said ‘Opa’ several times. He was then up close to 8, and excited to see Oma. They explored the office supplies drawer. I measured him with a tape measure, and he is 35 and a half inches tall. Cherie was then teaching him to use a stapler, then they ate yogurt together. Then, the first deer of the day as he and Carly watched a couple off the deck. I took a shower, then after that he was playing with the bubble thing again, and watched Mary Poppins videos with Cherie, particularly “Love to laugh”. I finally got him downstairs, and we played in newly-filled-by-Chuck sandbox for a good long time. Back inside, Carly used the word ‘tempting’, and he wanted to know what it means. She explained, and he caught on, then started listing things that are tempting: “That’s a tempting thing”, he would say. Apparently throwing things is very tempting to him, as he listed sever of those: throwing chalk, throwing water, throwing grass. Chuck got home, and August absolutely screeched as we talked to him through the door. Carly was eating a salad, and someone asked him  “Do you like salad?” He replied with “Not much”. Finally, he amused me when he climbed on a chair and said to himself “You can sit here, if you want.”

He slept from 1:45 to 3:55, but woke up and fell back asleep twice in there. After he seemed to wake up I skyped with my parents. He enjoyed seeing them but was having a rough afternoon; the ‘tempting’ thing of throwing the shells down the air vent was too much for him, so eventually we put the shells away. Finally, I got him outside again. We just walked around the property, starting with the new driveway for the motor home. We got up there and startled two deer. We then started following them around the property, finding a third along the way. We continued to follow two down the hill, watching them eat and poop along the way. He wanted to find the deer poop, and we did and studied it using a stick. After about 40 minutes we made our way back to the house.

We had pasta and mushrooms and salad for dinner. He ate a ton, and did pretty well with a fork, although still tends to wipe his hands on his shirt, so we still had to change him at the end. Cherie mentioned something about him jumping like a monkey, so he wanted to do ‘Five Little Monkeys’. So he and I went into the bedroom and acted that out a couple times. He was then back out with Oma and Opa and they started doing one and two finger hugs, and cheek and nose and forehead rubs. He would do these a bit later at Steve and Claremay’s, and then as he was telling them good night. Chuck and Cherie left first to make sure Steve and Claremay were at home (they didn’t answer their phone), and August got sad, saying “Want to go in” while pointing to their car as it left. Once we got the call they were there, we headed over as well.

At their house we hung out outside. He remembered the monkey-faced pansies, and found a spiderweb and did some entertaining, running around between us. He went inside to find toys at one point, but went downstairs instead, where he got fascinated by the baseball that was left playing on the TV. Then, he figured out how to turn the channels, and kept asking “What is this?” I finally got him away from that, but it was funny as he hadn’t shown much interest in television at my parents’.

Back at the house, we spotted some deer while getting out of the car, and he and Carly watched them. She then went inside, and I watched them with him for a few minutes. I gave him a bath, and he was really into smelling soap, as usual. He used their bar soap to wash himself, then at the end of his bath Cherie let him smell a bar of sandalwood soap. He said nice goodnights to Oma and Opa, then we took him in and did some reading. I read him the Strawberry Shortcake book that is around, then he took awhile to drift to sleep about 10:10.

New words/phrases: safeway, tempting,

Our walk studying the deer. Deer poop: 

Steve and Claremay’s: 

Forehead rub: 

Watching the deer before we went in: 

He woke up at 7:50 and opened the door and came out – the first time he had opened a round door knob on his own. He wasn’t ready to say good morning to Oma, so Carly went in and they nursed. She asked if he wanted her to change his diaper first and he said “No, maybe not.” When they came out they were looking for Cherie and went down stairs. She came from upstairs and made some noises to get their attention. He said “What is that? Maybe a bird. Eee, eee.” He then came upstairs and they spent several minutes walking like different animals, including a bear and doing a crab walk.

I took him outside while Chuck and Cherie worked on cleaning out the garage. We got the bubble fan thing working and he played with that – blowing bubbles a little, but also just liking the wind and noise. And he spun in the empty pool. Inside, he ate some breakfast with Carly. He hasn’t eaten blueberries recently, but started eating them and raspberries off the Abby Cadabby plate. They had a pressure washer show up. August saw the guy and asked “Who’s that?” So we watched him a lot, and August got a broom and did some sweeping. I was talking to him about our plans for the day and said we were going into town, and he asked “What town we going to?”

Carly and I took him in to Safeway, where he sat in the cart and took Marshy with him. He liked dropping the groceries in the cart behind him. We then went over to Borst Park. He went on a big kid swing by himself for a little while, then I pushed him in the little kid swings for quite a long time. Carly ran back to the store. When he was done swinging we climbed on a play structure and did the shaky bridge together. Carly showed up, and met us as we walked over to the arch climbing thing. She helped him climb up it a couple times, then we headed back.

The garage was looking pretty empty, and they were working on the attic above. August really wanted to climb the ladder and go up there. At one point August went to open the door to the garage and Chuck made a noise. August responded with “You scared me!” I watched August while Carly and Cherie worked on the quiches for dinner. August and I also played a bit with the shells today, and did art on a big piece of butcher paper that Cherie got out.

After the quiche was done, the three of us went over to Steve and Claremay’s. There, August went straight to the toys, but then he and I went out to with Claremay and picked apples. He really liked that. Back inside, we went downstairs to see Steve. He told his Harry Truman and Army recruitment stories, and August played with Claremay, both with a ball we were throwing around and with the Etch-a-Sketch. I did the ball hiding trick with my two hands and he found it hilarious. A really nice visit.

We headed back to the house for dinner. The quiche and asparagus was delicious, and August ate a bunch of both. He started to get funny at the end, and put his feet up on the table. Carly pushed him back and let him put his feet up on her arm. After dinner, he went outside to see the soon-to-be sand area with Oma. We were then in the bedroom and August was doing his own Peter Rabbit voice, which Carly found scarier than mine. He then patooied on the bed, so Carly gave him a ‘timeout’. Back out with the shells, he and I played a game we started earlier in which he tries to feed them to me and I say “That’s not food, that’s a shell!” He thought about Bluie so we got Bluie out, and he had a grand time throwing Bluie back and forth with Cherie. Then August decided to go out into the garage. As he got to the door, Chuck knocked on it, and August shrieked hilariously. Earlier he had talked about being scared when people hid or surprised him, but this time he just loved it. He spit on the floor again, and we said  “Time for a timeout” To which he excitedly responded “Timeout!” and ran for the bedroom. At which point I said I surrender, as he has clearly won. I made it a day short of28 months. But when we all settled down, I did take him into the bedroom and we had a talk about rules. I first started asking him about the rules for throwing, and he then started talking about the spitting rules on his own. He then said “Show you things not patooie on” and grabbe Marshy and said “No patooie on Marshy” He then went around the room and house pointing out other things he couldn’t patooie or “spit” on: sandals, the bed, the backpack, Opa (which he appreciated).

Carly gave him a bath, which was much mellower than yesterday, then he did a very sweet session of saying goodnight and getting hugs from everyone. Earlier I had also said “I need a…” And before I could finish he said “Hug!” and gave me a big hug, then went back to Carly and said “Big one!” He was then asleep at 9:30.

New words/phrases: gouda, squirt gun, ambiguity and damaging, pie crust, spitting

Turning and stomping in the empty pool:

Safeway: 

Borst Park: 

Cleaning: 

Lying on the lounge chair: 

Steve and Claremay’s. Picking apples:

Back at Oma and Opa’s: