Author: Ryan/Dada

Just after 7. Nursed, then I changed him and we went back in on the bed where he wanted to play ‘sit up, lie down’. I did that for a bit, then laid his head on a pillow and said he could start sleeping on a pillow if he wanted. He said “Like mama!” Then he turned his head to the side on it and we both lay there for 4 or 5 minutes. Very cool.

A bit later we were playing with the rocks on the floor upstairs, sliding them on the floor. We then went out for a walk around the yard. We found Celeste hiding in the bushes in the back corner, then watched her run across the yard and around the front of the house. August really liked.

Carly then took him out for a walk in the rain. Not sure where they went to. After that, it really started to pour for the next few hours so we were stuck in the house. I was putting the backpack back together, after washing it yesterday. As I was putting everything back in, August made what I’m pretty sure was a pretty intentional joke. He was looking at the backpack and said “Where does the water go?” Before I could point to where it would go, he said “In the tummy!” And patted his tummy.

My mom then got the metal bowls out for him and they were making music with them. They started spinning/dropping them on the floor, and August was stomping and spinning with the bowls, something he came up with entirely on his own. He needed to have his diaper changed and said “Someone needs a diaper change.” I changed him, then realized I hadn’t taken his photo for the one-a-day thing. I said “I need to take your photo.” Before I could take it, he said “1, 2, 3” then flipped his legs off the changing pad to the right, landed on his feet, and said “Escaping!” This from the boy who is always concerned about falling off of them.

I cut up a plum and he ate all of it. His first plum. He then went down for a nap – the first in a few days – and slept from 12:20 to 1:43.

We ate lunch and brushed his teeth, then he was playing with the rocks with Carly. One rolled under the TV stand, then they were mainly studying them and finding his favorite rocks: “Want more favorites.” “Orange in there.” “Hole in there…the ants like to go in.”

3:30 or so the rain let up and we all went for a walk into town and got coffee at The Vogue, then walked back to Habitat for Humanity to look for books. August was in the backpack. At the coffee shop August was messing with me, first saying he wanted to go outside, then immediately wanting to go back in to see mama. Then back out, then seeing mama. Did that a few times. He also spotted the straws and wanted to play one, and he spotted a little watering spray thing in a plant that I didn’t see. On the way back we walked along RIverwalk Park and he saw the wind on the water. Pretty sure he was calling it “crying water”. We got to the thrift shop just a few minutes before they closed at 5 so I looked quickly and got 10 books or so. We couldn’t find the books at first, so as we walked around with him in the backpack I started saying “maybe…maybe not” and rocking back and forth. August liked that. When we did find books, he got out and my mom watched him while he looked at the toys. He did something, and another little boy gave him a thumbs up.

We came home and ate dinner – basically leftovers from the last couple days – then my mom and me went to Safeway. We got back and August was in the bath, playing. He liked the new shampoo and soap I’d brought back, as well as the new big kid toothpaste. He went to bed a bit later at 8:45.

Dancing bowls: 

Plum: 

Rocks: 

Spotting grampa: 

Rocks in the puddle: 

Wrapped in his towel:  

They woke up at 8:30. He came up to me at 8:50, then wanted to go outside: “Ask mama to turn on the water…turn in the water mama.” I went outside with him, and he spent several minutes just standing at the top of the porch and looking around and performing. We heard a machine noise of some sort up the hill, and we went to investigate. It was a work crew a block up scraping off the old stop lines in an intersection and putting down new paint. We watched for a few minutes and headed back. Went inside and had Cheerios for breakfast. At first he was refusing blueberries again, but then I slipped one in a bite and he liked it so he ate several more. Still rejected a raspberry – I think on texture. He had told Carly that they were “fuzzy”. We went back outside, and were playing with water for awhile, but then “Want to water with grandpa.”

We went in to ask him, but he wasn’t ready to go outside yet. August ended up looking at everything with the magnifying glass, then went downstairs to nurse with Carly. They read Plant a Tree for Me and he he learned the word ‘sturdy’. They then went upstairs and August wanted ice, but wanted it “warmer”. This led to first melting ice in what was left of Carly’s tea, then simply hot or warm water. He kept talking about it and saying bye “Say bye bye to it.”

I took over and did some melting with him, then we ended up back outside, first cleaning out Celeste’s water dish, which had been dirtied by the raccoons, and then simply refilling it, and then the buckets over and over. He also remembered the snails from the other day and how he wanted to hold them: “Sad about the snails in the rain…hold them.”

Eventually we all got ready and got in the FJ Cruiser and headed down to Beebe Spring Wildlife Area. We first walked around on the upper paths, which we had never been on. Didn’t find the mythical waterfall, but found an old rusted car and plenty of things burned by the fire. Oh, and the skull of a marten or something that someone had placed on a stick. Dad found a tooth from it on the ground, and August liked looking at it. We then walked down to the river and he spent a long time throwing rocks in the river: first with grandpa, then with gramma, and then Carly. He slipped and fell on his tailbone once, then cuddled with Carly. When throwing rocks he was looking for big ones, and would then say “BIG one” when he threw it. And he found grampa trying to skip rocks very funny.

We then went back to the car and drove just a ways to Entiat State Park, where he did some climbing on the play structure, watched both Carly and grampa go down the slide (he thought both were very funny), then poured water from his water bottle after I took the straw out. Carly was nice enough to refill from the weather fountain.

On our way into town, we stopped at Walmart. August loved riding around in the cart. He seemed to remember exactly what it was. Carly and I went crazy buying fruit: plums, watermelon, peaches, etc. And I got California rolls to see if August thinks they are a decent substitute for kimbap (which he has requested a couple times). My parents let him (us) pick out a toy for him, and we got a writing tablet thing that also shows him how to draw letters and numbers. And, he got to pick out sunglasses, which he has also been interested in (and a couple times now he has been hiding his eyes). Not a large selection, but he ended up with blue ones he liked. Also, gramma was kissing his hand and he found that very funny and requested more.

We headed home, where he opened the new toy with grampa and played with it a bit. Then he went outside with me and helped me spray down and scrub our backpack. Dinner was then ready, so we ate out on the deck. After dinner, my parents brought out the dead butterfly they had found and August got to see it up close and touch it. Carly gave him a bath tonight, and he went to sleep at 7:30. A couple of wake ups in the next few hours, but then he seemed to sleep well.

New words/phrases: spheres, snowballs, hose, the poke yous  (plant with thorns), sturdy

 

Playing on the porch: 

Filling Celeste’s water: 

Hiking: 

Rocks and water: 

Playground: 

Sunglasses: 

Home. New toy:

Cleaning the backpack: 

Don Morse Park

We woke him up at 10:45. Over 13 hours asleep. He sat up and whispered “Go outside” twice. Carly asked if he wanted to do that right now and he replied “Nurse then go outside.” They then nursed and Skyped with Cassie and Vivi. August was then with my parents and met Celeste – they were holding August and Celeste, and as they brought them closer, both Celeste and August leaned back, afraid to get too close – August is probably still remembering the dog licking incident that he occasionally talks about. He was then out back playing with the sunglasses and the gnome and we ate some banana bread. He was being talkative and said “Where grandpa go?” And “Where the energy come from?” We were all outside and my dad introduced him to watering, using the hose. August loved this and they watered the flowers, then much of the garden. The only hiccup was when they spotted a huge black widow spider.

We ate lunch, sharing a sandwich, then my dad took August out front to see the gnomes (my dad had made the door into the trunk of the tree out front, but the gnomes had just shown up, likely placed there by a neighbor). After that, August saw my dad weeding the driveway and wanted to help out. We did that for awhile, then I needed to go inside, but August wanted “More weeding!” and got a little upset. I got him inside and he took a little break with Carly.

In the afternoon we took him on a walk downtown and my parents stayed home to wait for the window guy to show up and replace a window in the kitchen. August was in the stroller. We walked through downtown and went to the bakery and got lattes, then walked out to Don Morse Park, where August went in one of the swings for little kids and loved it, then did some climbing. We walked back to Safeway – the two of them went shopping, and I went to the post office and picked up my package from Amazon.. I then met them at Safeway. On the way there we had seen the lavender in front of Safeway and I had shown him how to smell it. But on the way back we were already a block away from Safeway and he wanted more lavender. So we told August he should tell grandpa to plant lavender. We walked through Riverfront Park on the way home, and stopped at the farmer’s market, where August liked a couple chickens in a cage and we watched the guy play guitar and sing for a couple minutes. We then walked home via the baseball fields. August requested the “Hasta Manana” song in English, so we started singing it that way.

Back home, Carly introduced August to shucking corn. Did it with her, then one more ear with me. He then really enjoyed eating the corn and ate a bunch of it for dinner. During dinner he said a couple of pretty random things: “Everyone likes to scream in the coffee shop.” and “Go outside…Thanks, I guess.”

We played outside again for a little while, doing some watering and playing in the sand. He was then with Carly and they nursed and he accidentally fell asleep at 7:50. Sometime much later – 11 or so – he woke up and Carly tried to nurse him but he got back up. He came out and walked to me and I realized he was whispering “Dada come.” I think we were both concerned it was going to be a repeat of the other night. I followed him and he climbed up the stairs and got upset when. He just found my mom sitting at the computer. I don’t know what he was looking for. I picked him up and he cuddled on my arm and I suggested we all go to bed. We went down, and I laid him on the bed and he curled up next to me.  Carly came in and they read for awhile and then both went to sleep.  So not nearly as bad as the other evening.

He has been weary of the back screen door after bonking himself yesterday.. He still goes in and out, but he is very attentive to it and prefers someone else deals with it.

Also,  I don’t know if I mentioned that we invented the  ‘high one’ the other day after. I had tried to give him a high five and he only held up one finger.

New words/phrases: weeding

 

Gnome’s glasses:

Watering: 

Gnomes: 

Signing his art and writing: 

Smelling the lavender: 

Climbing: 

Chickens: 

Corn: 

More watering: 

August had a weird night. He woke up at 1:20 and Carly got up with him. They were eating some food and were fine for about 20 minutes. Then he turned around and looked out the window and got really sad then started crying. She brought him in to the bed and tried to nurse, but he just stayed upset. He was gasping and having difficulty getting words out, but kept saying “Go outside” and mentioned the backpack. Finally, I took him and held him, and he mentioned it again. I asked if he wanted to get in the backpack and he said yes, so I started putting him in and he calmed down and cuddled with Smokey. He even wanted the cover up. He was relatively calm now, and we started walking around the house. But then he kept pointing at the back door and wanted to go outside,  and go more upset when we walked past it. So eventually I opened the door and stepped out on the very, very cold deck in my bare feet. We lasted 20 seconds or so – long enough to hear the screech of an owl and for him to understand we weren’t going anywhere. We went back in and he was still upset, but willing to nurse. He was saying “Turn on the lights” over and over, and eventually “Turn on the lights outside.” We sang to him and he nursed and fell back to sleep at 2:40.

He was awake at 10:18. I was right there, and he sat up and whispered “Where’s Mama?” Then a little later, “Go outside please.” Took a minute to wake up, but he woke up happy and with a lot of energy. He went out and spent much of the morning with Cherie. She had printed out some pictures with names of shells on them, and they spent a lot of time sorting through the shells and figuring out what they were called. She also made him an egg for breakfast. Carly and I were getting the car packed to go. After shells, he was playing with a yellow ball and would toss it and chant. He was doing that in the bedroom and spotted his toothbrush and toothpaste, so sat down on the ball to look at them. He then brushed his teeth – he was focused on doing it himself: “Zinnie do it.”

We left at noon, with me driving. We stopped at the Tacoma Mall again and I bought my new iPad Pro – it is to pretty much replace my now 7-year old MacBook as my primary computer. I’m typing this entry on it, getting used to the keyboard. Carly drove from there, and August watched some more Korean songs and Pororo for awhile, then we played with Peter Rabbit, read some books, etc. He was snacking on grapes and made up some inventive math problems: “Podo minus messy equals one.” Right after Cle Elum we stopped for a minute and I took over driving. After that we immediately saw two Trump signs, but luckily those were the only two we saw on the trip.

We got to Chelan just after 5. August covered his eyes for a second, but was then in full exploring and chatting mode. First out on the porch, playing with the gnome and taking off his sunglasses and hat, and then in the sand area, where he tested the limits for where he could put the sand. I got his shovel and buckets, and then a stick for him, and he played out there with my mom. They also played up on the porch, with her picking him up to see the wind chimes and to jump off the chair. When I changed him she came down with us and August was talking constantly about falling off of changing pads and biting my finger and who knows what else. We had dinner and he sat in the high chair and ate rice and meatballs and broccoli. My mom got out the metal mixing bowls and he hit them with a wooden spoon or spatula for a few minutes. We then got the shiny rocks out and they played with them on the floor – after he dumped them out, of course. He kept asking what each one was, but there was no field guide for this one. They were all polished rocks, from my great grandpa, and August started rubbing them on his large, saying “Smoothie..” He and I then shared some banana bread that my mom had made, then she and I took him in for his bath. We had brought the bath toys from Centralia with us.

I was surprised he lasted so long, as he had looked tired a few times all the way back in the car, but no nap. He made it to 9:40 before falling asleep. 

New words/phrases: mollusk, gnome

Shells with Oma:

Looking at the flower: 

In the car: 

Chelan. Sunglasses from the gnome:  

Wind chines:  

Rocks: 

I was up at 6. Carly slept until much later. August was awake at 9:40. He had been stuffy through the night, but was up pretty quickly and exploring everything in the house, including the vacuum cleaner. He spent quite awhile playing with the shells and rocks, first with Cherie, and then with me. Tana showed up to take photos of the house; at first he was shy, but then he was happily interacting with her. I was then playing with the rocks with him, and we were making Qs – he didn’t like it when I tried to add rocks to his Q part. When we went upstairs, he wanted to play with the “Messy ribbon” and Tana played with him a little. He then blew me away by saying “Want to hold the rope…like the kids” When I asked which kids, he said “…in pink…in Uijeongbu.” He was remembering the group we saw on May 25th, first on the train up there, and then later as we walked to a park.

Chuck came home for dinner and August played with him – Chuck was pointing out the spots on his pants. After that, he was outside with Carly. I started finding all of Carly’s boxes in the garage, and brought her big stuffed dog Barney down to them on the back patio. August loved Barney, and played “Barney sees”, kissed Barney several times, and sat in Barney’s lap. Carly was cleaning out those boxes quite a bit today. August and I played on the patio, then started to check out the books that Cherie brought up from Mexico – so far we’ve read the Richard Scarry counting book and Pat Hutchins What game Shall We Play? book. August also spent a fair amount of time standing/playing in the doorway out to the garage, watching Carly. He didn’t seem to like the garage much, or at least walking in it.

Monique came over with her two sons (Rowan and Ellis) in the afternoon. August really liked following after them as they walked around the driveway and picked flowers above the house. August picked a couple to show to mama, although he didn’t quite give them to her. We walked down to the O’Neill path area and did the loop down there to the stream and back. We got hit by rain and hail – luckily we had brought a big umbrella and waited it out under there. He also got to see a slug and a couple snails, which he quite liked. We played by the stream for awhile, watching the other two boys throw in rocks. When Rowan threw a big one, Carly said “Is it a fish?” and August liked that, so he kept saying it when they threw in rocks. August wanted to go in the pond, and later in a puddle in a drainage ditch on the way home, and wasn’t happy when we said no to those plans. He walked most of the way, and was carried by us the rest of the way. I had the backpack with me but didn’t use it.

We came home and Carly did more organizing. I asked August if he wanted fruit, and he got really excited when I mentioned blueberries. I got out a small container of them and he ate almost all of them. Oma then played with the big shells and pieces of coral with him, and Carly showed him a yo-yo she found (he’d wanted one from some book – maybe the Spanish vocab one).

We went over to Steve and Claremay’s for dinner. We went up to the toy room for awhile, and August took the little train down to the living room. The other toy he really liked was the (real) Etch-a-Sketch. At dinner he primarily sat with Carly and ate a good amount. Some from me as well. After awhile he got down and wandered a bit, then got up on the bench at the end of the table with Cadence. He really liked Cadence and Hattie, and asked their names several times. After dinner he was playing with Brad and Hattie and Henry and a couple of other kids. He got tickled by the two teenage girls – which he seemed to like for awhile, but I stepped in a little and suggested they stop, after which he was saying “No tickle”. He escaped and went up to the toy room, where Hattie came up and joined him, playing with the car track thing. She was playing with some blocks and would put them together, then hold them out for Carly to see. Carly asked if one was a flamingo, and she said yes. August then wanted to see the flamingo, but didn’t seem convinced.

Back home, he and I sat on the little couch and he talked about being tickled. He first said he liked it, then switched his story. He also talked about yelling “A” on the bus yesterday and making mama sad.  We gave him a bath, Carly starting, and I Skyped with my parents so they could see him in the bath. After that, I took over and played with August in the bath until he was done. Both days now he has peed on the big toilet, and talked about pooping on it, but hasn’t yet. After his bath, he went to sleep at 8:40. He was sleeping kind of restlessly, and Carly had to go in 2 or 3 times between then and when we finished watching Game of Thrones around 11:30.

Rocks:

Finding Oma: 

Messy ribbon: 

Lunch with Opa: 

Meeting Barney: 

With Carly’s ‘baby’ from an 8th grade play: 

With Rowan and Ellis: 

Dinner. Etch-a-Sketch and caterpillar: 

With the other kids: 

Asleep: 

Flight day!

It was our long, long Monday. Went amazingly well though, and despite waiting on one line or another for hours August did really well.

He was up at 6:00  and turned on the lights on me before going out to find Carly. I had been up pretty last night so I turned the lights off an went back to sleep for awhile. The day was kind of off to a rocky start as August was whiney throughout the morning. I suggested Carly take him outside, as I had a lot of computer stuff to do, as Carly had suggested I don’t take my computer with us, and I needed to load up the iPad for August. They went out to the park, and mainly played in the bushes by the playground.

They came back and he took a nap from 11:30 to 12:30 or so. We then were out the door right at 1 – me with August in the backpack and pulling one suitcase, and Carly with two backpacks and the other suitcase. At the bus stop he and I played with the handle on a suitcase. On the bus he really liked going through the long tunnels. He was getting a bit impatient as the trip wore on and started shouting “A” a few times, but otherwise was fine.

His least-favorite part of the whole day was when we first got into the huge terminal building and he was a bit put off so he wanted to go outside. And Carly went into the bathroom right away, compounding it. But when she came out she gout out the letter crackers and that pacified him. He wanted to “Go check-in”, and made it through that process with the help of the crackers. From there we went through security – the shortest line of the day and walked down to Starbucks to get much-needed coffees and sandwiches. Found our gate and sat down and ate lunch. August had gotten a mango juice at Starbucks and ate that and part of Carly’s sandwich. She then took him over to the play area and they played – apparently there was a girl who kept trying to hit him for no discernible reason. We then switched and I went over with him for a few minutes, where he was hyper and liked watching the hyper older kids, but mainly he wanted me to hold him up to the drinking fountains to see them and drink from him. Then he started to actually dribble water out of his mouth and go “Patooie”, so we cut it off there.

It was time to board, and there was a family in line with us and August asked each of them in turn “What is your name?” Must have been a great experience for him, getting people to answer back to him. Later, in Sea-Tac at baggage claim, the girl (7 or so) came up and said hi to August again. As we boarded (waiting in more lines to get on the plane) August remembered the videos that Carly had been showing him about flying – so that definitely worked.

The flight was long, but went pretty smoothly. One of the first activities was playing with the new sticker books. He is suddenly a perfectionist with matching up the stickers with the spots they go in, so kind of a slow process. He liked the engine noise as we taxied, and was fine for takeoff. Carly was singing “Puff the Magic Dragon” to him and he was interrupting to ask what each line meant, so we then had to explain it. He watched a little Pororo while wearing his headphones. He liked it, but didn’t last too long. But later, right before we landed, he requested Pororo again and watched, fascinated, with the headphones for 15 minutes or so. Anyway, after that he and Carly found some animal game on the seatback thing and played that.

We had a lot of turbulence for the first few hours, and as such dinner was slow. But he really liked trying all the foods that came. He did a little coloring, then did tracing and math, and then mainly art on the iPad. He was getting tired and had pooped, but because of the turbulence we weren’t supposed to get up. Finally, we talked to an attendant and she let us go back to the back bathroom and change him. Quite an experience changing him standing up on the counter in there and then walking him back to our seat in some of the worst turbulence of the trip. He fell asleep just before 10pm, and woke up just before 11am Seattle time – so 5 hours of sleep. Carly and I both slept a bit, but I was actually woken up twice by a crying baby – but not ours. There was another baby who cried a lot on the flight. The mom was nice though, and had noticed August’s Myanmar shirt. It turned out she was from Myanmar.

In the morning he didn’t eat much, but he stared at the brownie in its package and kind of just smiled at it when I picked it up. So he and I shared that. Then he did his Pororo watching (it was called 뽀롱뽀롱), and we landed right at noon. I had watched 10 Cloverfield Lane and most of In the Heart of the Sea on the flight. I had also listened to a lot of music when I was trying to sleep.

Customs took forever and just seemed to be one line after another.  Finally, finally we made it through and met up with Cherie. We are out to the car about 2. Then we got to the car and had a very pleasant surprise: August got in the carseat and was just fine with it. I sat next to him, and he did a lot of nonsense singing and kicking around of his legs as we drove. We stopped at the Tacoma Mall so I could get a new iPhone (a 6s Plus) and activate both of our phones. Took a bit longer than expected, as the guy at the Apple Store was convinced I couldn’t do what I wanted (get a T-Mobile phone on the iPhone Upgrade Program) but in the end it worked out. They mainly waited in the car but went in to use the bathroom. August doesn’t like being set down to stand on the floor in bathrooms, so he let Cherie hold him while Carly went. Back in the car I would ask why, and he would say “Cuz of the flushing.” We were back on the road at 3. About 30 minutes from Centralia he fell asleep, at 3:54, and I gave him Peter Rabbit as a pillow.

As we got to the house Chuck pulled up as well. So August was very groggy as he met Opa. But he woke up once we got in the house and we played with some of the toys that Cherie had gotten (the Magformers) and then was stomping and jumping around the house with Chuck. Later, August and Cherie were making making letters out of a ribbon, then he was standing and jumping on them. A lovely dinner, and August sat in the high chair and ate with us.

He and Carly went in and fell asleep for the first time at 7. She got back up after an hour or so, but he woke back up around 10:30 as I was about to go to bed. They were up for an hour, mainly downstairs, and he was very mellow, although he started to sing at some point. He wanted to go back to bed, and Carly stayed up for quite a bit longer.

New words/phrases: reading annang and kamsamneda in Korean

Morning: 

On our way. Waiting for the bus: 

On the bus: 

Airport. Cool wall: 

Flight: 

Art: 

Asleep: 

Headphones: 

Seattle! 

Car seat: 

Oma and Opa! 

Jumping on the ribbon with Oma: 

He was up at 7. He and I read some Bob Books with Marshy in the morning, then around noon I took him out for a short park outing. He wanted to take the stroller. We swung by where the fountain was on yesterday, but it wasn’t on yet, and August didn’t want to stop to play in the faucets. We kept walking, and headed down behind the hospital, to the park we’ve been to a few times, but not since at least winter. There was major construction going on on the side street along the hospital, and we got to sit and watch all sorts of vehicles tearing up and putting down asphalt. Only stayed a couple minutes though as dust was everywhere. Got to the park and played there awhile. There was a group of girls practicing a dance routine, and August liked watching them, and actually started Qing them – something he hasn’t done on his own recently. We played in the sand for awhile. It was gravely, but moist, so decent for sandcastles. We made a couple and August had funs smashing them – he said something about “like the girls…at the park” yesterday. Pretty sure he was referring to the kids playing in the sand with him and Carly. Time for a nap, and August knew it. He requested a coffeeshop, even pointing across the street to what looked like one. But I headed home instead.

Got home and he napped from 1 to 2. In the afternoon he was playing the piano and wanted to see the ’S’ sound in it. So I got out screwdrivers and we took the top off. He liked seeing the inside of it and seeing the hammers, but he was unconvinced by our quest for the ’S’ sound, since there wasn’t one clear thing making that extra rattling sound.

I went over to the pink building to buy workbooks and sticker books and a couple snacks for the flight, then met up with August and Carly at Baskin Robbins with Megan and Torrey. August wasn’t impressed with Carly’s ice cream, so when I got a macaron cookies n’ cream sandwich he ate most of mine instead. I had a little though. Back in the house, he and Carly made a nice fort  out of the bricks.

Then I took him out to the park. We first played at the playground, mainly on the elliptical machine. We then went over to the faucets and played in the water. There were bigger kids playing with water balloons, and one boy was convinced that August shouldn’t be playing in the area, but we were undeterred. So he had fun pouring water on the ground and watching the older kids. We went back in around 6.

During the day and while we were gone, Carly had been doing a ton of cleaning and packing, and we now looked very ready to go. I have written down that August said “That’s not ours.” and “Want to see more messy things.” I’m not sure what he was talking about, but the ‘messy’ sentence is one he uses all the time when we’re outside and he is looking for messy things.  And at some point Carly was cleaning the sink and August pointed and said “Mama playing in it.” And I caught him putting his finger in the butter and said “Hey” and then he said, to himself, “You being uncouth.”

In the evening he wanted to do ‘patooie’, spitting into Carly’s sink. So he stood on the stool at her sink and brushed his teeth. But when it came time to do ‘patooie’, he wanted to do it together with me. So we did it together several times, counting “1 2 3 patooie.” He then wanted “lots of patooies” so we would do several in a row. He read with Carly and went to sleep at 9:30.

New words/phrases: basil, that’s not ours

Reading with Marshy:

Home: 

Ice cream: 

Park: 

He was up really early with Carly at 5:50. When I came out a bit alter, he wanted to poke me. After Carly left, he was looking at his drawings on the paper and said a pretty complex sentence: “Kind of an ‘I’ that’s sideways right here.” He was watching a Korean video and started hiding. When I asked why he was hiding, he said “From the chalgyeyo part” when listening to one of the Lulu songs. He was acting tired, and we ended up laying on the bed in the dark together for a couple minutes. We were then listening to songs from class, deciding which we wanted to download for the States, then watched some videos, and then wrote words from the pigeon books on paper.  He was ready to go outside once he had poured a cup of water on the floor, then got upset when he saw my phone and wanted to watch videos. When I wouldn’t allow him, we ended up back on the bed lying down for a minute.

We got ready to go and headed out to the park across the street. He wanted to keep walking though, so we kept walking east. He was acting tired, so I asked if he wanted Smokey and the cover, and he said yes. I made my way towards a nearby park so I could sit down, but along the way we came across a little play area in an apartment complex. There was a snake made of concrete to climb on, a seesaw (“teeter totter seesaw”), and swings. August got really excited, so we played there. First he climbed on the snake/“worm”, and kind of crawled up it like a “gabohgi” (turtle) and “Like a snake.” We then got on the teeter totter, where he stood on it, then wanted to go higher “up to sky…like toh-gi (rabbit) in the book” Figured out he meant a rabbit on a swing in the Korean book about a badger – I hadn’t even noticed there was a rabbit in one of the pictures. He then played with the spray bottle, spraying the mosaic tiles on the snake.

Time for a nap. We had spotted a coffee shop called Caffe Nissi on the second floor of a building. Went there and he slept from 11:26 to 12:33. Nice place, but they switched from traditional Korean instrumental music to English music, probably for their one paying customer. Had to listen to Prince’s “Kiss”, a Spice Girls song, and “Physical”. When he woke up he said “Leaking!” So changed him in the bathroom. Then explored the coffee shop – a little aquarium with fish, a pink cushion he wanted to sit on, a little desk pond with green rocks, etc.

Headed home, but stopped at the museum side of the park and played in the faucets. A woman fell off her bike close to us, and he was very intererested. He saw another person coming along in a shirt like hers and pointed and said “another green one”. Then the fountain came on, so we went and played in that. He put his hands in it, then found a straw to stick in it. Another boy was playing with him, but started splashing and got August’s shirt quite wet. Took it off and he went back to playing for awhile.

We went home, and in the evening Carly took him out in the stroller. They went up to the new playground near Madeul Stadium, where they played on the spider web, he did the spinny thing, and they went on the seesaw. He kept talking about standing up, but it is one with seats instead of a flat surface. They then spent a lot of time in the sand. The sand was wet, so it stuck together, and they made sandcastles.  They then went to Starbucks to use soem of the gift card that Carly got at school. They got sandwiches and August did a good job of staying with her and sitting and eating.

In the evening he was really into “Donde esta?” using the First 100 words book. He played with Carly, then played for quite awhile with me. He started jumping on the bed, first with his hands on the bed while looking at the book and just jumping his feet off the bed, then jumping and landing on his butt.  He went to sleep around 8:30.

New words/phrases:  sip of tea, I’m thinking bout this

 

Photo of a workbook: 

Playground: 

Coffee shop: 

Park: 

At Starbucks: 

Home: 

Legs off the bed:

One last big adventure for the year: across the city and south of the river to a park that has a big wading pool.

He got an early jump on it: Up at 5:50. He got up and went out and found Carly in her bathroom and opened the door.  When she left to go to work he was at first very accepting of it; he said “Want to kiss mama.” and let her go. But she turned around and talked to me about something for a minute, and the opportunity was lost. He decided he wanted to stay with her, and wasn’t happy with her leaving. After she left I carried him into the reading area and he just kept saying “Want more”. Eventually he calmed down and cuddled in my lap.

We left by 9. As we left I asked if he wanted his hat and he said “Keeps the sun out of the eyes.” We heard a truck beeping as it backed up and he described it as “W W W W W”. As we left the building we walked by something making a fan noise, but we couldn’t actually see it (it was a parking garage vent or something).  He fixated on this for awhile: “Want to see the fan in there”. He also wanted to take some photos as we got to the other side of the park: the bushes, a banana peel on a bench, a post. Finally, we took the train down to Express Bus Terminal, then transferred and went another 8 stops or so National Assembly. One of those stations had walls in marble, or something that looks like marble, and I explained what it was, as he had asked “what is the messy” when looking at it. When I said “marble” he replied “Marble. Remember marble at the park…blue one…dropped.” We caught a glimpse of the big government building, but thought we were going to loop around and get a better look at it, but never did.

On the way down he invented a new word: ‘next stopping’, which is when you realize you get off at the next stop and start getting ready – similar to all of his other -ing words, such as ‘mosquitoing’.

We got to Yeoeuido Park (not the Hangang Park, which runs along the river, but a big park that runs perpendicular to that one, down to the river) and looked at the big map of it: August was looking at it and the numbers on it and decidng all the places he wanted to go. We went to the bathroom, then went to the little playground and ate our leftover kimbap and peaches in jello. He then played with the spray bottle, in particular spraying the cube things in the playground.

We then got walking north, towards the river, and he was doing some walking. Changed him, got him in the backpack, then went and saw the King Sejong statue and kept going. He fell asleep as we got to the Hangang Park. He slept from 11:27 to 12:34. Sat in a window seat from a coffee shop there with a wonderful view of the river and the very empty wading pool. Probably only on during the weekend, like the ones at Dream Forest. Not that there is a sign anywhere telling people that. The sign says it should turn on at 12 on weekdays, but it did not. In fact, there was a team pressure washing it.

Anyway, when he woke up we left the coffee shop and went down and changed him by the wading pool, then played with his water bottle in a faucet nearby, pouring water on the dirt and down a drain. The team had moved down to the lower portion of the wading pool, so we went to the upper part and stomped in the puddles. One of the guys tried to shoo us away, but we were far away and I ignored him. August didn’t last much longer anyway, since there  wasn’t much to do.

So we headed off, heading toward the playground. But then we found the fake stream, and it was on. We went under the overpass to have some shade and played in the stream for a few minutes. He was surrounded by a bunch of photography students, and paid attention to them a bit, but then I think they were a bit much, and he wanted to move up the stream. We got back in the backpack and kept walking. I think he was talking about eating again, and maybe about having more fruit, and we stopped a MiniStop. We went in, and he chose another cup of peaches in jello and I got a mango juice. We walked a bit farther to where there are trees with benches in the shape of Os around them. We sat down and ate our food. As we did so, a group of girls and their teacher were taking a group photo behind me, and they were saying “Hana, dul, set” and jumping. August liked this, and was saying “Hana, dul, set”. Then he was counting them. A guy came over and took over the photo taking job so the woman could get in the photo, and August stood right next to him and said “Set!” (three) when the guy said “Hana, dul”. Oh, and when they had been jumping and stopped, August was saying “More” and signing ‘again’. After they were done, they swarmed August (again). To August I said “Are they being funny?” and he said “Funny!” loudly. Which made them all laugh. So he repeated it a few times.

After they left, he was playing around and spinning, and said “Making an O…round the tree…make an O with a bingul.” We continued on to the playground, but it was disappointing and right out in the sun. So we headed back ot the stream. Along the way there was a little festival set up, that included statues of animals and grapes. August wanted to take photos of them, so I helped him, then we headed back to the water. 

We first got in the water near the beginning of the stream, but he didn’t want to keep his hat on. So we went back to the overpass and went in in the same spot. After a coupe minutes he started walking down teh stream, and was intererested in some older girls (college) using squirt guns. But then one was shooting him, at his feet. I thought he might like it, but I think it lasted too long, and he started walking off the other direction. Later he would say the squirting made him sad.

I caught up with him, and picked him up. Back by the stream, he saw some kids with toys and said “Want to go in there…in the water where the kids are.” They had a bucket with a spinning thing on top. August played with them for 15 or 20 minutes, and would have kept playing a lot longer. One girl had him pour water into her cup, and she poured water on his hand. When it was time to head home he kept trying to play, but then didn’t object when I took him away.

We headed to a different station, as I realized it would be easier. He was hyper in the backpack and started chanting “Energy! Energy!” and asked himself “Where all the energy come from?” On the train he drew in the workbook, mainly. Carly was going ot be late getting home, and we were runnign early, so at Seokgye Station we went and checked out a little park (Saetbyeol (샛별) park) we had visited long ago. Just looked around to see how it would appeal to him now, and we turned on the water faucets. He was joking about poop: “fooled you…poop in the water faucet…poop in this one.” He then wanted to take a photo of the faucet, so we did that.

We took the bus home. Setting him down on the seat so that I can then sit next to him has been upsetting recently, as he is afraid of falling off the seat. Well today the bus started moving before I could get the backpack off, so he was trying to climb back to me and get off the seat, and I was pushing him back on the seat

 

After Carly left: 

Photo on the way to the subway: 

Lunch spot: 

Empty: 

First attempt at the stream: 

Back to the stream: 

Our photo of the poop water fountain: 

One last trip to Children’s Grand Park before heading home for teh summer. Today was supposed to be a bit on the relaxing side after the last couple days, and a big trip tomorrow, but it didn’t really work out that way.

He was up at 6:56. Did some cuddling, then I asked him to wave for mama so I could take a photo. And he did. He totally understands the sending mama a photo every morning thing. We ate Cheerios for breakfast, and he wan’t to spell ’soy milk’ and we wrote it on paper. He then wanted the iPad: “iPad…want fonts”. He started looking at the colors of the crayons. One color is ‘melon’, and it led to some confusing remembering: “like mama and water…no straw…at the park.” I remember Carly saying he couldn’t drink something of hers because we didn’t have a straw, but don’t think it was anything melon-related. Anyway, we were in by the reading area, and started making shapes and letters out of the crayons. We started with Qs, and started small, but ended up making one with 20 sides, plus a lower case Q in the center. We also did S/s and R/r. Finally, he started ‘hiding’ crayons under the reading area cushion. I may have made a sound, but before I could object, he mimicked me, saying “Fine. Sigh. All right. Augustino!”

When we left the apartment complex I noticed he had covered his eyes and put his head down. At first I thought he was hiding from something, but then realized it was because of the sun. I asked if he wanted his hat, and he said yes. So we stopped and put it on. On the subway, there was an older woman sitting next to us that August played with and talked to most of the way down. We transferred at Gunja and got kimbap there, and went to Achasan to go in the back entrance to the park. But first we went to Daiso where we got a new spray bottle for August: we have declared the other one a bath-only toy, so then I had the idea of getting him one to use outside. We also got blank notebooks for coloring on the plane, and I loaded up on caribiners for by backpacks.

We walked into the park and ate lunch on an open platform near where we ate last time we came in the back entrance. We ate, then he decided it was time to fill up the water bottle. He took off to the faucets, which were a ways away. We filled it up and that kept him busy for the next 15 minutes or so. Despite encouraging him to spray everything else around us, me and our stuff were still pretty wet by the end. Changed him, walked a bit, and he slept from 12:28 to 1:34.

Didn’t hang around the coffee shop for long. We went to the new playground and played in the water. I filled the bucket for him a few times and he dumped it. Ended up by the sand, where he then started scooping sand in the bucket until it was full: “Putting sand in the bucket.” He had really engaged with the woman on the subway, but here women only got in his way: He was trying to get to the sand when two women stepped in front of him and started talking to him. He did his best to go around them. Later, a woman was watching him play and actually was touching her face. He tried to ignore her. She gave him an apricot or something of the sort, but he didn’t seem to interested.

We played until 3:10, then changed him, and figured we’d see a few animals before we left. I asked what animal he wanted to see, and he instantly said “Giraffes!” and grinned, as that was a joke – no giraffes here. He then said “Animal!” and repeated that several times, knowing that it was vague. We ended up starting with the primates where we saw some baby baboons and macaques, then went around the ferocious animals: lion, tigers, leopards, jaguars, etc. He was counting them, and at the tigers said “One awake, two sleeping.” He pointed out the ‘zookeeper doors’ a couple of times.

We then headed out, stopping at the first floor coffee shop to get a couple things. Took the subway up to Jughwa to visit Nathalie and Chloe and pick up some books and toys we were buying from them since they’re moving to China. In Jughwa August saw a TonyMoly shop and liked the sign: “TonyMoly…like Hangeul. Some Hangeul in there.” I think because the font made the ‘O’ look square and it looked like ㅁ.

We made it to their place just past 4:30. Visited until 5 or so. August was playing with random toys and putting them in the baby seat and kind of rocking them. He was really shy at first – just put his head down in the backpack and hid, but by the end he was performing and having a great time with them, including Nathalie’s mom, who leaves on Sunday (we met her at the birthday party last weekend). Heading home the backpack was full of stuff (they also gave me a box of big letter board things and some math manipulatives – oh, and a Wiggles baseball hat that August really liked).

August didn’t want to be set down on the way to the station, but I made him walk a bit. But once we got off at Hagye and made it through the turnstiles, he walked the entire rest of the way home, including, for the first time, twice holding my hand as we crossed the street. When we got in the apartment he wanted his shoes off – he is very big on taking his shoes off in the right place. I helped him with the first by stepping on the heel while he tried to get it off, but he got the second one all by himself, saying “almost, almost” as he did it.

We were home about 6, and I left about 7:50 to go meet Derek. In between we had dinner and gave him a bath, and Carly took a shower. I hung out with Derek over at 7-11 (which sounds weird, but is totally a thing here, as the convenience stores have tables and chairs outside) and Jeff, who moves to Iraq to teach, showed up a bit later. We had much to talk about between that and Derek’s new job.

While I was gone, August fell asleep at 8:30. He chose his own pajamas: a button up shirt and his blue cat pants. I noticed them as soon as I came in the room later.

New words/phrases: almost, that’s good

Morning:

New squirt bottle: 

After his nap: 

Playground: 

Hat from Nathalie: 

Sign in the park: