Author: Ryan/Dada

6:48. I believe the first time this week he slept past Carly heading to work. He didn’t take it too badly though. After a minute he went and got his bag of bath letters. Then sat on the floor in the hallway as he didn’t want his diaper changed. Finally, I offered to do a pull-up diaper and he jumped up and said “Off!” and went into the changing room. We then went out to the parlor and the etch-a-sketch  and played “This is a?” for quite some time.

He started talking about going outside pretty early today, and was fine with trading his pajamas for his tree shirt. We got out a little early, and went to the art museum before his class. We walked through the Hyundai-sponsored  show of car art. August most liked a car on the second floor that had its engine exposed and the pistons were slowly moving with stuff on them. We then headed to his 5-Touch class. Shy at first, wanting me to hold him through the songs at the beginning. Although for roll call he threw his hand up in the air when she called his name. After the stickers time, the activity was great: she got out the parachute and spread it on the ground. We then all sat on it and she took a pretty big bin of macaroni noodles and spilled them out in the center. We then played with them using beach toys: animals we hid under the noodles, shovels, pails, dump trucks, etc. It was still very organized, in that she would introduce a toy, we’d play with it a few minutes, then that toy would go away and be replaced by something else, etc. And every child played alone. But still, pretty good. At the end of class August got a Krung (sp?) hand stamp. He pointed to it and said “Green one”. Interesting, as the stamp was purple but it was of a Pororo character who is a dinosaur or alligator thing and is green.

From class we headed to the subway. I had changed him before class, but when we got to the platform he had leaked. We would have had to go back out the turnstiles to go to a bathroom, so we did a pull-up diaper at one end of the platform. Caught the next train and continued on to Children’s Grand Park. I had boiled eggs the previous night, so no need to stop for those, but he wanted kimbap, so we did get a roll of that. He wanted to eat lunch in the theater today, so we walked there and ate lunch. He then wanted to read books on the iPad before going for a walk, so we went to the shaded picnic area in the building with the cafes and read Bob Books on the iPad. When he stopped doing that we changed him and got going on our nap walk. Took 15 minutes or so, but he fell asleep. We went upstairs, and he slept from 1:09 to 2:00. He woke up happy and smiling, then sat on my lap and we did art on the iPad for 30 minutes or so. His art style has changed a lot – whereas we used to fill up a page, he now loves erasing, so will draw one figure or word, then we erase it.

Close to 3 we headed out and went back to the theater. He wanted food, and we sat and he ended up basically eating a full second lunch. We also skyped with my parents – something we haven’t thought about doing outdoors because of the weather. August was in top form, all about words and constant spelling, and performing for the camera – when he wasn’t staring off at the trees swaying in the wind. After we hung up, he kept playing there on the benches. We found some chips of brick and dropped them in the drainage holes that still had water in them. It was breezy, and his hat blew off once. I’ve left it kind of loose, because I didn’t want it bothering his chin. But now he was concerned about it coming off, and wanted it tighter.

We played in the theater until about 4. We went across to the bathroom to change him and tighten his hat. On our way down from there he saw the water faucets. I stopped to refill his water, and he wanted to play in the water. We did that about 10 minutes. I would fill his bottle a little and he would dump it on the flower petals or dirt. He didn’t want to stop, but I got him away around 4:15 or so.

He had taken his hat off when we got to the subway station, but when I put it back on him when we got of the train, he was happy about it: “Wearing the hat!” He took it off when we got in the building, but then used it to hide behind when we got home to Carly. He nursed and read with Carly, then I went down to get the package that had come. It was the presents from my aunt and uncle. They were Peter Rabbit/Easter themed: a very soft stuffed Peter Rabbit, a Peter Rabbit puzzle, Max’s Easter Surprise book, and three chocolate marshmallow bunnies. He really liked the stuffed rabbit, and we ate one of the chocolate rabbits. Carly and I finished most of the puzzle before August took it apart. I put the other two chocolate rabbits away for later, and he came up to me saying  “Want the rest…Please…sad.”

Carly gave him a bath and we did some more reading (lots of Bob books). We played with Bluie and Green Monster on the bed (rabbit dance, hiding in the crack, etc.) then he took them out to the parlor and he was drawing pictures on the etch-a-sketch for Green Monster. Carly took him in to nurse a couple times and read, and he fell asleep close to 9.

New words/phrases: sunny, spelling ‘tree’, ‘messy’, cara (face), want the rest

 

Morning. Right back to it: 

His favorite piece of art: 

Class: 

Children’s Grand Park:

Asleep in his hat: 

Inspecting recycling: 

Water: 

Hiding from the fountain: 

Later: 

He was up at 6:20. He played on the iPad until I made breakfast, at which point he wanted to help make oatmeal. After that, we read some Bob books and then played with Duplos, starting to build another zoo. One of the Duplo people we have is a guy in safari gear. August asked what he was, and I asked August. He decided it was a second zookeeper, so now we have to zookeepers for the zoo. He was having them both ride in the “zookeeper truck” and when he had difficulty getting one of them to sit he would say “Dada fix it”. We were getting ready to go and I was cutting up crab and he wanted some. He said “Thank you mama for crab.” I told him I was the one that had gotten it out, then he started repeating “Zinnie got the crabs.” He was then standing on his stool and started to use a butter knife to play with the apple core. I got him his plastic fork and spoon to play with instead, and that turned into a game of dropping them on the ground: “Fork and spoon back please…uh-oh.”

We went to his Teuni Teuni class. August made me hold him until we were past the point at the beginning of class where the teacher picks each of the kids up. He then got down, but stood by the door until the teacher got the first toy out, at which point August was engaged. Class was about alligators. At the end of class they had little rolly scooters and he was sad to end that one. After class, we went down and bought a couple packages of balloons at Home Plus. We would blow one up a little on the subway up to the Iris Garden. We also ate our Jesus crackers, which a guy handed to us as we were about to enter the subway station, on the ride up.

At the Iris Garden we first went and looked at the new Seoul Trail information center – it was the room where August was watching them paint the ceiling last time. We then walked to the same bench area where we ate last time. August remembered every detail of what he did with Carly last time. He pointed at the bathroom where we waited for her: “Mama here.” As we walked by where we threw rocks in the water he said “123 with Mama.” And when he got to the Lincoln Log bench he pointed to the end where Carly was sitting and said “Mama here.” I then noticed he was leaking and we walked back to the changing room, only to find it locked. He then talked about Mama, turning on the water, and screaming when he couldn’t.

For lunch we had bought a chicken and mayo bop burger in the station. I’m pretty sure August asked his first ‘why’ question of his own, when he was holding the spoon that came with it and said “Why spoon for bop burger?” A woman gave us an orange while we ate lunch. As he finished up eating, he was walking around being silly and asking for a lot of words to be spelled. I heard frogs from down below (all the streams had water in them now) and we went down to look for the frogs. Didn’t find them, but ended up throwing rocks in the water for awhile.

He didn’t want to stop with the rocks, but it was really time for his nap. So eventually got him up and in the backpack. Walked around the park and he fell asleep. We went and found a picnic table in the shade, and it coincidentally happened to be the same one we sat at with Carly last time (it was the only empty table). He slept from 1:02 to 2:02. Woke up and first wanted down, but changed his mind in the process and wanted to sit with me. We sat and read Dr. Seuss, including a couple of stories we (and I, for that matter) had never read before. He was then playing Elmo Loves 123s while standing on the bench and we were spelling a lot of words together. I suddenly noticed one of his arms was getting pink, and needed to change him, so we left (leaving behind the annoying woman who had sat at our picnic table and started to have a loud phone conversation). The changing room was still locked, so we did a pull up diaper in the upstairs bathroom. Headed home and got home about 4.

He pleaded for the iPad a lot, but enough of that for the day. Instead, we played with the new balloons, blowing up and tying several, including several heart balloons that he likes, but which pop easily. We also wrote some words on the paper. Carly was home about 5. He didn’t eat much for dinner again today (but he ha eaten a ton of oatmeal and strawberries this morning and a decent lunch). They read some books and Carly gave him a bath. He wanted it quick: no playing with the letters today. For quite awhile we played a new game with the etch-a-sketch: he would scribble something and then ask “This is a?” and I would say something. He would then often say “Uh-oh (thing)” and erase it, and draw something else. This went on for quite awhile. He would also tell me what to tell him, like “Do a D” and then I would say it and he would draw a D. He went to sleep pretty soon after that, at 7:40.

Oh, and he has been asking me to spell a lot of words or sounds like ‘yeah’, and ‘uh-uh’, and ‘uh-oh’, etc. This evening he started spelling “uh-uh” himself, including the hyphen.

New words/phrases: spelling ‘uh-uh’ (including the hyphen),

 

Reading: 

Class: 

Iris Garden. Fun at lunch time: 

Throwing rocks: 

After his nap: 

Home. New balloons:

He woke up just after 6. He did a lot of math on the iPad and with the Cookie Monster word game – I had thought that the app wouldn’t last too long as it just did 3 letter words, but today Cookie Monster started serving up 4 letter words. He requested Cheerios for breakfast today, then was playing on the table and we were spelling a lot of words. We were working on ‘stick’ and other ‘st’ words. He also read the Sam and Mac Bob Books.

At 9:20 he suddenly headed towards the changing room, requesting his “letters” shirt and wanting his pajamas off. That never happens. The shirt he was referring to is the one from Meg that she brought from Myanmar. Changed him, then we were playing with balloons and he wanted me to tie more of them (“tie it”). He also kept asking for a yellow balloon. Like 10 times. But I think that was the one that popped awhile back.

Finally, before we left we brushed his teeth and worked on learning that ABC tongue twister song. We were out just before 10.

He was up for taking a bus this morning (and playing on the iPad) so we went and waited in front of the museum, looking at Hangeul on the museum sign and numbers on the bus route signs while we waited. A slow bus ride. We got to Hyehwa and walked to the park/square in front of the Arko. Ate lunch on a bench, which went fine until he first wanted to crumble the egg shell and make a mess of it (his idea was to do ABC with the shell) and then started shaking out soy milk. Had a meltdown when I wouldn’t let him do either, and it took a few minutes to get him calmed down so he would get in the backpack. We started walking, and was first interested in a sculpture, which we agreed was very “arte abstracto”. He was asking what it was, and I told him it could be whatever he thought it was. He said part of it was an egg, then took awhile before deciding the rest of it was a “beetle”. We started walking again and he was avoiding sleep by asking “This is a…?” over and over, pointing to every car and everything he saw, long past when I stopped answering. We walked up past the entrance to Naksan Park and into the mural village area. As we walked past the little water basin area we played in with Carly a year ago, he sleepily said “Turn on wawa” or something to that affect. He would actually remember this moment later and say something like “Sad about the turn on wawa…before fall asleep.”

He fell asleep, and I kept walking up to near the top of the hill, where we sat in a pagoda and he slept from 12:27 to 1:12. He woke up happy, and wanted to keep going up the hill “to the top”, when I suggested that. We took in the view, then he was up for finding a playground on the other side of the wall. We walked a couple blocks and found Naksan Children’s Park. We both liked the tile mosaic around the playground. As we were looking at it, we got pooped on by a magpie. We wiped it off, then he played on the playground for awhile. He liked the “tricky” stairs that looked like feet, and ran back and forth on the structure a few times, then we went back to the ground and looked around a bit, but then he was done. It wasn’t a very exciting playground.

He wanted to go back to the water area, so we walked back, heading down the big staircase this time and looking at some of the art and graffiti along the way. We played with the water, finding rocks and throwing them in and me reaching in to get them out. Pretty much like last time, but this time he can count, and kept wanting more rocks. I got 6 rocks, then he wanted “eight rocks”. All was going fine until a little fly started buzzing in his face. That bothered him, and he took a few steps away, only to be bothered by the same fly again. We played for a few more minutes, but he wanted me to hold him while he threw in the rocks. Then he was done and talking about going home.

So I thought we’d get home early. We got back to the park we started at, planning on making a trip into the art gallery before we left. He wanted a snack, so we got down on a bench. He remembered the screaming and egg shells from last time and talked about that. We had a snack, then two women with their grandkids came over to us. One was a girl about August’s age and the other was a boy around 14 months old. The boy came right up to me and wanted up in my lap. August saw this and wasn’t upset, but then he was down interacting with them and wanted to climb into my lap. He was also walking around and asking them “What you doing?” Eventually, I got out the tennis ball and we all played with that. He or the boy would bounce it and they would go off after it. At one point August seemed to be copying the clumsier boy and kind of started stomping and high stepping around. August was also singing ABC songs, and one of the women joined in. August was also really good about sharing. He handed the ball over to the boy or girl 6 or 7 times and never demanded it back. And at one point he was looking at the poster for the art show. He really liked it, because the letters were wavy and thus “tricky” and “funny”. One of the women was looking at it as well and he was pointing out letters. He also kept runny through my legs, calling it a “tunnel”.

That brought us to about 4 and I wanted to go see the art show and get heading home. So we got the ball back and headed inside. August needed some coaxing, but eventually agreed to go in. Nothing spectacular, mainly a lot of odd video installations, but we liked some big paintings that showed people “hiding”. One had a person curled up under a blanket on a couch, another had a person covering their face with one hand. There was also a room with three video screens showing a person randomly moving glasses of water, pulling a cloth across the table, etc. We watched for a couple minutes until August said “All done” and headed out.

The train was packed, and I held August in my arms the entire way to Changdong Station. He handled it just fine. We played I Spy a bit and he sang ABC songs and numbers songs to entertain people.

We got off at Changdong and bought a couple of those donut hole-looking things with the red beans inside and snacked on those while we waited for the 1144 bus which took us home to Brownstone. He really wanted to k ow the Korean name for them, repeatedly asking “This is?” and not happy with my answer of “Donut”. He was asking it so many times, and me answering with “Donut” that it became a game of him asking as quickly as possible.

On the busses today he was very aware of feeling like he was sliding off the seat, saying “Falling off”. So I had my arm around him all the time. And when doing the counting activity on Todo Math he would ask himself “How many strawberries?” As we drove up across from the building, August was looking out the window and suddenly pointed and said “Home!” We got home one elevator after Carly, who had stopped at the store.

At home Carly fed him and gave him a bath. I then gave him a haircut while he watched ABC songs. He then read two Bob books with us and then wanted to read The Picnic and nurse. It looked like he would go to sleep around 7:30 but it wasn’t so. He was back out again and we read Dr. Seuss on the iPad while Carly took a shower. We then read books with him and managed to get him to sleep about 9:40

Every time I changed him today he would say “No cream on the red” and “Mama do that” – both referring to her putting cream on him when she changes his diaper. He is suddenly very opposed to this.

New words/phrases:  spelling ‘at’, ‘big’, Five has an I, spelling ‘seven’, ‘funny’, old icky noodle, knot

 

Want 8 rocks: 

Playing with the kids:

– 

– https://youtu.be/a29zwU13sMg

– singing ABC: 

– https://youtu.be/–NV-6ELsTo

– stomping: 

– sharing the ball: 

Lunch: 

The beetle/egg sculpture:  

Nap spot: 

View from the top: 

Playground: 

Rocks and water: 

Recycling: 

Playing with the boy and girl: 

Haircut: 

Crossing his leg while reading: 

He got up with us at 6am. We had a pretty mellow morning, as both of us now have colds. He was pretty sniffly through the night, waking up a lot. He would have a runny nose throughout the day, but no coughing or fever. We had oatmeal for breakfast. I thought I’d put maple syrup in it this time, like Bert suggests in Plant a Tree for Me. August saw me pouring the syrup and pointed and said “This is?” I said “Syrup” and he got upset. He kept complaining and wouldn’t eat the oatmeal. Finally, he gave in after a few minutes and ate it.

On the way down to Children’s Grand Park we read Dr. Seuss – all of Oh, the Thinks You Can Think, Marvin K. Mooney, and most of Fox in Socks. When getting him in the backpack to walk into the park I discussed what we were doing and mentioned lunch. He said “Eat some egg and kimbap. Egg and kimbap at CU.” So we stopped and got each. He wanted to eat by the children’s museum again. As we walked across the boardwalk, we saw an egret and two cranes in the swamp area, where plants are starting to shoot up. He really wanted to see some duckies as well.

We ate lunch, starting with the kimbap. We peeled the egg and I said the yolk was inside. He said getting to the yolk was “tricky”. After he ate he was doing a lot of walking back and forth on the bench. He was banging our empty soy milk containers together like cymbals and singing and dropped one. He then looked down, threw the second one to join the first, and said “Uh-oh!” I had sat on the ground at one point, and he wanted me to sit there again, so he pointed and said “Dada down here.” While on the bench he also discovered the shadow of our backpack and found it funny to step on that, then my shadow, then the shadow of the container of strawberries I held in my hand. We also ate shadow strawberries.

Transition to nap time was pretty smooth, although he complained for a minute as we started walking, saying he wanted to go to the children’s museum instead or home. But he fell asleep after about 10 minutes and slept from 11:48 to 12:54 in the upstairs Peace Coffee. After waking up he sat on my lap and did math on the iPad. He took some convincing to get out of there a little after 1. He chose which way we went, and we ended up going down the stairs in the middle of the building, reading all the Hangeul signs as we went. Down on the first floor we analyzed one of the big Peace Coffee signs again.

We went to the new playground. He wanted to play in the sand, and after looking at the garbage bins (something he still does all the time), we got a plastic cup out of recycling, washed it out, and he played in the water with that for awhile. He also played on the numbers a bit, but the playground was crowded and he almost got knocked over once. I also think his energy was on the low side. So after about 20 minutes he decided he was done with the cup and took it back to recycling and then did some of his flying and flew to the backpack. We discussed all the options and he was clear that he wanted to head home. So we walked that way. On the way I asked if he wanted to walk through the robot area and he said yes and that he wanted to “See 3” (holding up his fingers), referring to the 3 at the end that he likes. We did that, then exited the park and stood in the entryway. He was fixated on the big I SEOUL U letters and studied them for a few minutes.

He seemed less sure about leaving now, and I ran over some options. I asked if he wanted to go read Oh No! at the Children’s Museum and he jumped at that one. So we went there, and straight up to the second floor reading room. He saw the texture squares, so we got those down and sorted those for a minute, then got Oh No! and read that. He then grabbed a book called Et Pourquoi Pas Toi? (And Why Not You?) from the shelf and we looked at that for several minutes. The pages are divided in half horizontally, and you can mix and match the pages to show people doing a whole variety of activities. He quite liked that. He helped clean up the room a bit (he saw a magnifying glass and wanted to put it away, and instructions for a game). He suggested going over to the toddler area at one point, but I was trying to avoid getting his germs on too many things, so I was fine when he changed his mind and wanted to head home. We changed him and walked to the subway station and got home around 4.

At home we started with reading. He surprised me by reading straight through Mac, the fourth Bob Book, with barely a stumble, then we read Dot and the Dog. We got down on the floor and did backwards alphabets for awhile, then got out the iPad and our styluses and did some art. He had gone back to math when Carly got home around 5:30.

He nursed and was almost falling asleep. We got him to wake up by asking him to read to Carly, so he read Mac. We played with balloons for awhile, then he was playing on his own with the magnets and floor tiles, then suddenly ran to the closet and was trying to get the vacuum out. Carly helped him get it out, and he wanted her to vacuum. He sat on the couch and watched her vacuum, and he wanted me to sit with him while he watched.

He wasn’t much into dinner, but ate a little with Carly. She gave him a bath, and he fell asleep about 7:20.

New words/phrases: reading ‘not’, ‘tag’, ‘rag’, ‘sat’, ‘hot’, ‘sit’, ‘hid’

A new song:

Children’s Grand Park: 

Playground. Reading the Hangeul:

Children’s museum. Learning French:

Oh No!: 

Home: 

Awake 6:15. Let him watch iPad while I lay on the couch. Then we sat on the couch together and blew up balloons and sat under the blanket, hiding from mama. More iPad. Toast and strawberries for breakfast. More balloons together. He went and grabbed a balloon when watching an ABC song with balloons in it, and held it over his head. He then wanted me to sit with him and the globo (balloon). Before we left the house he wanted to read Moby Dick. We finally left the house a little before 11.

At the subway station he was spinning while waiting for the train. We got down to the National Museum only to find it is closed on Mondays. I thought I had confirmed that it was open on Mondays. Also closed were the Hangeul Museum and the special exhibition hall. Luckily, I had also planned to spend time in the park there, Yongsan Park. By the time we were walking over there it was time for a nap and he fell asleep. Set him on a picnic table at the east edge of the park, by the walking path. He slept from 12:52 to 1:36. He woke up happy, and played with Camel for several minutes, having Camel eat the backpack and bench and sand and Hangeul writing that was around. He then walked up and down the walking path, liking each different surface, and calling the harder ones “tricky”. There was a little pond in the garden area and we heard frogs, so went and saw those. August wanted to throw rocks in though, so we didn’t stay. We went back and picked up our garbage and backpack and walked to the playground to throw away/recycle our garbage.

At the playground there were two other kids, both boys smaller than August. One tried to walk up to August, and August decided it wasn’t his scene and turned around and started walking away. I coaxed him back and got him to walk over to recycling, carrying our two soy milk containers. He kept wanting to throw rocks in water, so we walked around the stream/pond areas and came to the little stream, where he climbed out on the stones and sat and could touch the water. We (well, mainly me) found a bunch of little rocks that he was able to throw in there. After awhile he wanted to put his feet in, so we took off his shoes and socks. The sun was really coming out and I had my hat on, so I thought I’d try his. Surprisingly, he didn’t protest much, and wore the hat. It came off and on several times over the next hour or so, but he steadily got more comfortable with it.

He was a bit unsocial when a mom with her daughter, smaller than August, was hovering around us, then finally talked to us and he screamed. But later, there were two girls, maybe 6 and 3 who came up to us and talked a few times. He basically ignored them, while I did the talking, but he didn’t mind them.

With his hat on, he really liked playing with his shadow, and called himself a ‘queen’, because a queen is someone who wears a hat. He walked over to the big bridge across the big pond, and there were three big boys feeding the fish. August was intrigued by their messiness, and wanted to know what the fish were, so I was teaching him ‘koi’.

He was working on spelling numbers all day, and eventually got down all the numbers one to seven, although he calls seven “tricky” and usually spells it ‘siven’.

About 4 we were getting ready to leave and I asked him which direction he wanted to walk out. He looked around and remembered the playground, which he hadn’t wanted to play at all day. So we played there for about 15 minutes. This time, he saw kids digging in the sand and wanted to play with them. We got out his shovel and he played with that. It was quite the change – we saw one kid in shorts, and another little boy with bare legs. This is because most of the people there were American families from the base next door. So I had August’s pants rolled up from playing in the water and kept them that way.

We headed home, getting here about 5:30. We ate dinner and Carly gave him a bath. August was a little upset because he managed to drop letters behind the shower door, which is stuck open because of his bath, so you can’t get them out. Making it worse, the V that he dropped managed to stick to the other side of the door, so he could actually see it, but not get it.

In the evening he read a lot of books, mainly with Carly. He read the first Bob Book by himself a couple times. We were playing in the living room and he want to walk to the kitchen and whacked his head on the counter pretty good. He started to say “Nurse” before he even started crying. Carly took him and nursed him and he fell asleep, a little after 7:30.

New words/phrases:  got it, almost got it (he was using these phrases when walking on the walking path), no fall in the wawa, spelling ‘baby’ and ‘messy’, spelling numbers one to seven (although spelling ‘siven’ for seven)

Morning:

Park: 

Stream: 

Hat: 

He was awake just after 7. I was awake by 8. As soon as he saw me he said “iPad”. We let him on the iPad, and he mainly watched shape videos and shared Cheerios and milk with me. He did some reading with Carly, mainly Kipper, but some other books and Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus a couple times. He went searching for At the Zoo and found it and read it with me. Once again, when he got to ‘flamingo’ he said “Want some flamingo…yummy mango.” When Carly asked him how many strawberries he wanted (we still don’t have mango), he said “Million!”

We had planned on meeting up with Jill and Logan today, but she said they were going to a kid cafe as it was raining. I didn’t want to do that, so August and I just went for a walk in the drizzle. It was basically an August walk, as I let him decide where we were going, starting with when we got to the stream area. We walked along the stream, spotting an egret. We walked through a couple parks (at the traffic safety park, he wanted to look at the garbages and “See galleta”, as this is where we saw a cookie in the garbage once) but he didn’t want to stop, besides having me turn the water fountain on at Wild Chrysanthemum Park for a minute. From the second park he wanted to go along the road, and when we got to the main road he wanted to cross, then go straight. He passed up another park, but finally wanted to see another park close to Toys R Us (백합어린이공원). But once we were there, he only wanted to touch a sculpture from the backpack, and didn’t want to get out.

From there he wanted to see the animals at the “zoo” (pet store) by Toys R Us. We went there, and it was opened (it has usually been closed on Sundays), so we looked around. He was reading the “Cats only” sign for the cat area. We then moved on to Toys R Us, where they had a book display out front. We looked at a couple books, but he didn’t want to take any of them home. He was starting to act tired, so we headed home. We had left home at 10:40 and got back a few minutes after 12. He fell asleep pretty quickly, and slept from roughly 12:15 to 1:15.

He nursed, and was then typing with Carly on her computer. He got out his alphabet blocks, and played with those with me – we found the whole alphabet and then the numbers. At the end he started knocking them off the reading pad, saying “That’s a silly thing to do.”

I took him back out again so Carly could cook and work. He was fine with leaving, saying “Bye” to Carly. Very different from earlier in the day when he was upset to leave at first. I had asked what he wanted to do, and he said play in the sand. But he didn’t want to take the bucket, saying “Nooo”.

We decided to head to the tree playground (Hagye Children’s Park – 하계어린이공원). On the way down, he wanted me to read all the Hangeul signs, then tell him what they meant. If I didn’t know, he wanted me to look them up. So we ended up translating things like “realtor” and “domestic freshwater eel”. We played at the playground for about ten minutes. I was writing big Qs in the sand and he was tracing them. But then it started to rain, and then got heavier. We took cover for a few minutes, but then decided to head to a coffee shop. We went to Caffe D’Ate a block away. I tried to order strawberry lemonade, but for some reason she could not understand me (I order ‘strawberry’ stuff all the time, so don’t know what the issue was) and we ended up with just lemonade. August tried it, but didn’t want a second drink after that, although he did play with the ice. And he really liked the letters on the wall that spelled ‘Pick Up’. They were the glued-on kind and he could feel them, and the K was sliding down the wall, which he liked. We hung out for awhile, him on the iPad and me reading, then headed home.

Outside, he said “Zinnie walk” and proceeded to walk the entire way home – several blocks. I just picked him up for intersections. He was stopping to look at puddles and wet spots on the ground.

At home, he read with Carly, then had me blowing up balloons. He had me blow up to 5 at once and we were holding them at the same time then letting them go. I was teaching him the word ‘trinity’ when we had 3. Carly was going through his clothes and found his hat from last summer. She put it on her had, after he refused to try it on, and August called her a “queen”.  We did a lot more balloons and spelling after that. We were telling Carly about our walk and he told her about the rain “Messy rain on the hair.” Carly went down to get me pho, then we all ate dinner and I brushed his teeth.

Carly gave him a bath, which went pretty well considering it was hair washing day. She was trying to get him to tilt his head back while she rinsed his hair, so held the D up above his head so he would look. He didn’t like this, and afterwards was saying “No pick up the D”. After his bath they played with the Spanish cards, etch-a-sketch thing, and wooden shapes puzzle, then we did dinosaur stickers. I read Plant a Tree for Me and he knew all of the fruits and nuts, except for ‘walnut’. It also made him want some apple, so we went and got that. Out on the couch, he read Dot, the third Bob Book, all on his own. Will have to get that on video. We were then reading Jig and Mag when he decided it was time to nurse. He went to sleep a bit before 9.

New words/phrases: only, fifth, spelling ‘apple’, ‘four’, ‘five’, peach, cherries, almonds, avocado

 

During the Zinnie walk: 

Home: 

Tree playground trip: 

He has always called the benches Cs, but this time he also pointed out the D shape around the trees: 

He was up at 7:05. I developed a sore throat over night and kept sleeping. He and Carly skyped with both Cassie and Cherie, and I was up about 8:30. Carly did recycling while I hung out with August. We read Moby Dick and wrote words in our little notebooks. He started writing a lot of Qs like he used to do. We read Picasso’s Trousers, and with Carly he was successfully tracing a ‘K’ – the last letter he struggles with.

I changed him before we left for Costco, and he didn’t like me trying to put on the kitty cat shirt – he settled for Carly putting it on. He said “Sad about dada putting on the kitty cat shirt.” Perhaps his biggest sentence yet. Then, I was making ‘meow’ noises and he said “Sad about the meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.” We made a quick trip to Costco. He sat on Carly’s lap each way on the subway, and at Costco he and I stayed outside by the sculpture and ate some food while Carly went and bought cheese. We headed home, and he fell asleep from 1:05 to about 2:35. I fell asleep for a bit, and slept awhile after he woke up.

We then all went out for a walk. We stopped to get Juicy Juice. We asked what kind he wanted and he was very clear: “Mango…and fresa!” So he and I shared a mango and Carly got choco-banana. We walked put to Nowon Stationary, where we bought some cards and stickers. August got a set of Hangeul stickers. From there we walked to a playground southeast of there (신기루어린이겅원) and played. He played with his stickers for a couple minutes, then up on the play structure. I was hiding from him, and another little boy joined in. The boy had a bunch of sand toys, and let August play with them. Did that for awhile, then headed home.

Carly went to Home Plus, and August and I headed home, but he wanted to stop at the playground across the street. We played there for awhile, going over by the dinosaurs, and having a snack, but then he started to leaks we headed home. Carly came home, then August and I were sitting on the couch with the iPad. He was holding my hand against his head, which was nice, but then he put my thumb in his mouth. When I warned him not to bite, he did the opposite, biting quite hard. Carly took him in to the bedroom for a time out. Back out in the living room, he wanted cold enchilada for dinner, so he ate that. I gave him a bath, which was quite long as we were having fun playing. He was putting random letters and numbers up on the door and asking what it spelled and I would make nonsense noises. Eventually, he had every sponge up there.

After that, we played with the balloon and brushed his teeth. He read Snoozers with Carly, and was really into the word ‘snoozers’ as it “Has a Z.” And while reading At the Zoo (a book Carly wishes would disappear), he was asking “What animals do you see?” I took off at 8:30 to go hang out with Derek. Carly tried to put him to sleep at 9, but he kept popping up, and would spot a book on the bed and say “Read this!” He fell asleep at 10.

New words/phrases: frio leche soya, backamapack, Avent, spelling ‘balloon’: 

 

Costco: 

Home. Reading Monster Party and clapping: 

Playground: 

Our playground: 

Walking in the dinosaur footprints: 

Hiding from mama when she got home: 

He was up at 7:30. Carly was up early, and working on her paintings for him. When he was up he was playing with her Q, Z, K , and 14 paintings and being really funny about it. He was reading with her for awhile, then just sitting on his own on the reading area in the parlor for a few minutes. He and I then read Under the Sea with Me and Dot and Mit.

We went to his 5-Touch class at 10:20. It was the first time Carly got to see his new teacher. He spent much of the class sitting on Carly’s lap, much like yesterday. He did the stickers, then today’s class was about cars. He liked the steering wheel circle thing, but then didn’t want to be pulled around in the basket cars. In between, there was a song that they danced around to, and August didn’t like something about it, as he would later talk about being “Sad about song.”

From Home Plus we headed to the subway. Got to Children’s Grand Park and got some food at GS25. August wanted to eat lunch by the children’s museum, so we sat on one of the C-shaped benches and ate lunch. After that, he was walking around, holding Carly’s hand, looking at the flowers: “Daisy in espanol…dada look it up.” “Mama look at the flowers…holding mamas hand” Looked at the fountain that was on for the first time this year as well. We found a bench in a nice spot east of the children’s museum and he nursed and was falling asleep. Put him in the backpack, but then he didn’t sleep. Carly went on in to the cafe to start doing some work, and he and I kept walking. He was quiet, but at the 23 minute mark he started asking for fingers (“6 fingers…7 fingers…”) So we went in at about 30 minutes. I got a berry smoothie for the two of us. He played some iPad and nursed in the coffee shop.

I took him out to play – he cried for 4 minutes or so, wanting to go back to Carly. I set him down by the empty wading pools and he started to walk back to Carly, but he went up a little set of stairs and saw the playground and got distracted. I got out his water bottle and he played with that for several minutes, using it to dump water on the ground. A mom there let us borrow some of their sand toys and he used a watering can and shovel. He didn’t want to get messy though, and wouldn’t step in the sand himself (he pointed at the boy with his shoes off in the sand several times and said “Messy!”). When the watering can got sand on it we had to wash it off – same with the shovel. But then the wet shovel just had sand stick to it, so he stopped playing with that. He recycled a couple pieces of plastic that e found, then we played on the numbers for a few minutes, then he saw a girl making little sand castles. I tried to tell him we could make our own (I was ready to get a cup out of recycling and wash it out), but he would have none of that, saying “Want to hold it” then “Knock it down!” I picked him up and took him away and the meltdown started. He calmed down a bit and said he was “Sad about the knock it down”. He wanted to play on the numbers again, but another boy was playing hopscotch. August started getting upset again and I had to set him down. When he calmed down a little though he grabbed my hand and pressed it against his cheek and head. We stood there under a tree until showed up a couple minutes later.

She took him up to the outdoor theater and changed him and nursed. Unfortunately, he didn’t want to stop nursing. There was a lot more crying and screeching involved until we finally made our way to the subway. This is what a no-nap day is sometimes like. Luckily, he was fine once we were at the subway. He played on the iPad with Carly, doing art.

At home he ate a ton of cold (that’s how he wanted it) enchilada for dinner. We had a good bath, with a lot of nonsense singing and “That’s a silly thing to do.” He hung out with Carly after that and they were reading. She was trying to get him to make it to 7, but at 6:30 he really wanted to nurse and fell asleep.

With Carly’s paintings:

5-Touch class: 

Children’s Grand Park. By the children’s museum: 

Home: 

August was awake 7:10ish. He was counting with Carly and started being funny, saying “treinta-one, treinta-fourteen, treinta-A, etc.” There was a Skype call with Cherie for awhile, then he and I were doing puzzles on the iPad. And he did some reading with both of us in the morning.

Carly gets to go to his classes this week; today was Teuni Teuni. They got to play with a variety of balls today – it was refreshingly freeform and costume free. For the beginning stuff at class he was distracted by a long triangular tunnel thing that he wanted to go in. When playing with the balls, he liked to put them on his head. He also liked sitting on Carly’s lap and playing from there. At one point he was walking around, practicing the backwards ABC song. Near the end we all sat in a circle and batted around an enormous ball (we called it the ‘gargantuan ball’). One boy stood up and got knocked over. August was very aware that he was upset, although he was too shy to go over and comfort him. At the end August went to the teacher to get a treat, as usual, but then, as I was trying to get him to say ‘thank you’ or bow, he just stood there, staring at him, and milked him for two more treats.

He had been looking really tired during class – he often seems a bit tired/overwhelmed at the end of class, but this was more so. He nursed out in the seating area, and we almost just went home for his nap. August and I were going off on our own for awhile, giving Carly some time to do some grocery shopping and get some work done. We left, heading out the backdoor of Home Plus and walked up towards Toys R Us. He wasn’t falling asleep, so we did a quick visit to Toys R Us, looking at the pet store and then quickly at books. The puppies were all asleep when we went in, but as we were walking out he pointed and said “Awake!” so we went and watched the one that had woken up.

He was still seeming pretty wake, so I planned to stop for lunch at a park east of Toys R Us, then have him fall asleep after that. But as we got close to the park he got quiet, and when we got to the park I asked if he wanted food. He said “No…keep walking” and fell asleep a minute later. I hurried through the Eunhang Junction area to the neighborhood at the base of the hills, where I was planning to go. I found a place called Coffee Zip which was nearly empty. He slept from 11:53 to 12:39. He may have slept a bit longer, but suddenly the place was overrun by a large group of women. I went to give up our table of 4 and rotated him to a window seat for two, but then he woke up. We sat in the window there for awhile, him doing puzzles and playing with monsters on the iPad and me doing some reading.

I took him to the performing arts center to change him, but the bathroom was cramped. Went out to the little park area to change him there. Had to deal with the nice but persistent church people (5 visits) who were handing out tissues and food (and then apologizing when they realized the food was too spicy for August). Changed him, then he wanted to eat lunch there, so we did that. He was having me spell all sorts of words, and entire sentences. He is picking up that a lot of words end in ‘-ing’, saying “I N G in the end!” We also seemed to be spelling a ton of words with ‘oo’ in them today.

From there we headed to a children’s park a bit to the southwest that we’d never been to. It was secluded in the middle of an apartment complex. August got excited when he saw the playground. It had a big tall walkway that sort of made a semicircle and had slides down from it. After looking at a climbing net thing, it was the first place he went. Up on it, he spotted a little spider and was very interested. He spotted an ant a little later. While up there a woman with two dogs showed up and one was parking. August looked out at them through these colored circles and called it “ladrido per” (barking dog). After playing up there a few minutes, I needed to change him, so went down to do that. We then went to a little rounded area with a slight hill around it and played with pine needles. He wanted rocks, so I found one for him. It was dirty though, and first he wanted one hand cleaned, then the other. He said “This is a messy rock” and was eventually disgusted by the rock and dropped it and didn’t want rocks anymore. I used our stick to write letters in the sand and he traced them. They were sometimes hard to see, so he would say “Hard to see G.” We were singing the colors in three languages song, and he started wanting other words, like ‘big’ and ‘small’ in three languages. He climbed up on the structure again, and was dropping off the stick and I would hand it back to him. He then decided he wanted to go down the slides, saying “Dada do it, Zinnie do it.” So I went up and we went down a total of 5 times. We stopped to have a snack, and when one of the containers was empty he said “Vacio. Mama says that.” Oh, and he was using the word “upping” a lot today – at one point when he wanted me to pick him up he said “Upping, upping, upping, upping, upping…” as he held up his arms.

He wanted to go down the slide one more time before we left, so we did that. As we left he said he was sad about the puppies as they had left and he wanted to see more of them. We checked out another playground on our way home, but it was pretty minimal, and he just wanted to keep going. We sang number songs most of the way home. Almost back home, we ran into Patrick and his daughters – August was a bit distressed that we had just crossed the street to Brownstone and I ran back across the street and away from Mama. But he let me say bye, as they were leaving in a couple hours for their move to New York.

As we got home, August spelled ‘gargantuan’ by himself (we had been practicing it a lot today) and as we spotted Carly he called her “M A M A!” That is, he spelled it out instead of saying it.

At home he did some play dough and then painting with Carly. He then wanted me in the parlor, where we were hiding under the blanket and reading Plant a Tree with Me and Bob books. Carly gave him a bath. He spelled ‘hat’, ‘quack’, ‘quiet’, ‘zoo’, and ‘zoom’ on his own using the letters. The ‘E’ was missing, so after his bath he was talking about how he was sad about that, saying “No F turn to E” as Carly had tried to use the F instead and he didn’t like that (they had settled on using the ‘W’ sideways). He also saw the water leaving the bathtub and got sad about that, actually looking sad and later saying “Sad about the aqua.”

He read At the Zoo with me and ‘flamingo’ reminded him of mango again. We were out of mango, but he was happy with frozen strawberries. Basically, all day he was pretty nonstop asking for and spelling words. He fell asleep a little after 8:30.

New words/phrases: spelling ‘big’ and ‘bag’, vacio (empty)

 

Morning: 

Teuni Teuni class: 

Coffee shop: 

Lunch: 

Playground ( 광석어린이공원):

Down the ramp: 

Home: 

He was awake a little before 7. He was spelling numbers with Carly soon after: fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, etc. We all skyped with Derek for his birthday. At one point I was saying something and August grabbed my hand, saying “No dada talking. Zinnie Dada fort. Hide from bebe.” We took the blanket in on the couch and he had a lot of fun hiding from Kayla and everyone else. After the call he was reading books like Tickle and Kipper A to Z with Carly, and reading words like ‘tickle’ and ‘giraffe’. With me we were watching some Peg + Cat videos and other videos. For several days now he’s been having me do large numbers with my fingers, showing him 14 fingers, 19, fingers, 78 fingers…now he also requests a million fingers. We also played with a balloon.

We were slow getting ready to leave today and finally about ready to leave. But somehow the diaper we just put on him leaked and I had to change him again. He was not happy about this, and ended up nursing again. He was acting tired, and fell asleep a bit early for a nap, so no leaving the house yet. he slept about 50 minutes, waking up a little before 1. After more nursing, we left the house at 1:40. We had planned on going to Seoul Forest earlier, but with it being so late we changed plans and headed north to the Iris Garden. On the way up, he played the Elmo Look and Find app. He now knows words like ‘trombone’, ‘paddle ball’, ‘hula hoop’, ‘jack in the box’, and ‘pogo stick’ thanks to it.

We got to the Iris Garden and first went to the bench area he and I have been to a couple times. We sat on the big Lincoln log-looking bench and had a snack. He played on the bench, with Carly saying “What are you doing?” and him saying “Walking on a log.” August eventually decided it was time to get going, and headed down the ramp, saying “Bye!” We caught up to him and he led the way as we wandered around the park. He liked the different kinds of paths, particularly the round and rectangular stones. He wanted to find rocks, and we ended up at a bench in the southwest corner, where I handed him rocks and he dropped them off. We needed to change him, so went to the building and found they had just made a new mothers’ room. All went well until we were leaving and he wanted to play in the sink. He melted down a bit in the hallway “Sad about sink.” He calmed down, and as we walked out he saw workers painting the ceiling in another new part. He watched that for a minute, but then a couple of women came and tried to say hi to him. He started screaming. I picked him up and got him away, but he was quite upset. We walked up north of the building and found a picnic table surrounded by pine trees and took a nursing/reading Sherlock Holmes break.

When he was recovered he climbed on the table and I was handing him pine needles and pine cones and we were all playing with them. He mainly liked dropping the pine needles through the cracks and through the hole in the middle of the table. Carly was wearing a sweater, and he read the ‘Columbia’ tag on it. We had previously helped him read the Columbia tags on other pieces of clothing, but he sounded this one out on his own.

When done playing there, we put him in the backpack and went for a walk, out of the park and to the southeast, following the Seoul Trail across the river and then up the stream/park on the east side. We made a loop, crossing the stream and heading back on the other side. As we went, August got really into having me read the signs in Hangeul. So we made up a little “Looking for some Hangeul” song. Oh, and had been spelling words, like ‘M A M A’ and I would say the word – he started to change the letters, and it turned into a game of nonsense, and him laughing hysterically.

We got on the subway and headed home. At home we ate dinner, and he was starting to fall asleep at 6:30 when nursing. But there was to be quite a bit more to his evening. He is really into the At the Zoo book, and when reading that the word ‘flamingo’ reminded him of ‘mango’ so he wanted to eat some frozen mango. So we got that out for him and thawed it. We all did a lot more reading and word stuff after that – he was reading more of Kipper A to Z with Carly. 7:30 or 8 Carly took him in to go to sleep, but they just ended up reading a lot of books. They came back out and Carly painted while I read more At the Zoo and Alphabet book with him. He started rubbing his eyes a lot, but really fought sleep and going to bed, but was finally asleep about 9:40.

New words/phrases: Hula hoop, paddle ball, pogo stick, trombone, quake (the quaking dog at the Iris Garden)

Morning:

Iris Garden: 

Exploring: 

After the nursing break: 

Rocks: 

Walking: 

Home: