Category: Uncategorized

He was up at 7:15. Upset when he found Carly gone, and sat on the floor in the parlor. He didn’t want consoling today, so I just sat next to him. I started playing with the Duplos and he initially rejected the zookeeper. But then when I picked up the alligator and had it chomp something he said “Want alligator chomp dada.” He then made a joke, calling the zebra the “Giant Pacific zebra”, which is a play on ‘Giant Pacific octopus’, which we saw yesterday. Traded a couple messages with Carly – August found the letters for and typed one of them – and she liked the joke, so he made up a couple others like it.

He ended up on his iPad, playing the Hangeul app. On the one hand, he is starting to actually read some of them. On the other, the music group thing is bugging me. So I spent time looking for better Korean apps. Hadn’t found anything in the past, and today was no exception. Just horrible, horrible programs. Either ones that don’t teach anything, try to teach the wrong thing (one app started with ‘one piece’), or are so poorly programmed that they are basically unusable.

We skyped with my parents for awhile, but then Skype was having issues, so we gave up on that. My dad has a birthday next week, so I was telling August to ask him how old he will be. My mom was joking about how they didn’t have enough fingers to count that high. Anyway, I felt like a translator, as August kept asking what she said, and I had to explain. Of course, there is a lot of explaining the other direction as well. But later in the day, when I told Carly about it, he definitely remembered the discussion about not having enough fingers.

I eventually found one app that wasn’t a complete waste: it is a magnet board, where you can put up magnets with letters on it. Korean is included. Kind of redundant when we have the actual magnets a few feet away, but could be good on the subway.

Before we left he developed one big ice cream game, using the crayons that look like ice cream cones. It turned into something like this: “Let me make more ice cream for you then dada will be happy. Here you go dada. Mama will be sad about it if dada drops ice cream. Want dada to drop it on the carpet.“ I would then say I wasn’t going to drop it, then drop it, and he would laugh. He would then clean off the cone, wipe the floor (and sometimes me), and then make me some more ice cream. Repeat.

Also before we left he wanted to do some matching with the animal dominoes. And he wanted me to use the Cookie Monster voice to decide if the matches were correct.

We headed to Home Plus a little before 11. August had finished off the banana bread this morning, then was sad when he wanted more but it was gone. So we had talked about making more. He also hadn’t eaten much else, and as we left he started asking about food. So we did our shopping first, getting bananas and carrots for bread, and he picked out kimbap. We walked outside and sat on a bench on the south side of Home Plus and ate the kimbap. He was hungry, and we ate it all. When we had walked into Home Plus I was carrying him, and he started giggling. I asked what was funny and he said “Home Plus is funny”. In Home Plus he found one of those hopscotch-looking tape figures on the ground and wanted me to do hopscotch a few times. He then started pretending to write letters in them, like he did last year (from doing it with the stick in the actual hopscotch figures down at Children’s Grand Park). He switched to his language, then was totally walking and pointing around as he sang in the produce section for a few minutes.

Up to class just as it was starting. August clinging to me at the beginning. As the teacher came around to do the lifting thing, I told August he could tell the teacher ‘no’. As he came up, August said “No, no, no, no.” And it worked. I then congratulated August on using his words, and that made him smile. He still was afraid of the walking path/forward roll part, and that one is odd, since he loved that part last spring. Anyway, after that things were fine: August was sitting with the teacher, was fine with the teacher riding a camel toy with him, and got into a ball fight with him in the ball pit. August’s favorite part was the big jump down to the mat – about a 3 foot jump, or a bit higher. He did it several times, just holding one of my hands. At the end of class they got their first Teuni toy of the session: a Monster Cannon. You squeeze a ball to shoot a foam ball. And August said ‘kamsamnida’ really well when I asked him to after he got his treat at the end.

On our way home we started singing the Spanish ABC song, which reminded me of the backwards ABC song and the counting ones. So we brought those back through the day. A lot of songs were forgotten by both of us over the summer. Oh, and we invented a new ‘Sleepy little nautilus’ song today, starting in the morning when he was pretending to be a sleeping nautilus again (he had shown my parents some of the animals we had seen in the aquarium yesterday, using the Oceans app).

Anyway, we got home and dropped off groceries and the Monster Cannon, and were going to get in the stroller and go for a walk. He was clearly sleepy and started to get upset. But then he started to make actual syllables out of Hangeul and pronounce them using the door magnets and I let him do that for awhile. Missed my window to get him in the stroller though, as he then wanted something and got upset when we couldn’t do it. Wiping his eyes and yawning, but didn’t want to get in the stroller. So I had to force him in. We rarely have to force him to do anything, so this was a definite exception. But once he was buckled in he calmed down. Fell asleep after 10 or 15 minutes of walking.

Went to Sarang Bbang Cafe and he slept from 1:33 to 2:22. A short nap, and very slow to wake up. So I pushed him north, to an area with two parks, just southwest of Nowon Station. I believe they are the last two children’s parks within two stops any direction that we hadn’t been to and documented on Google Maps. Went to the east one first. He didn’t want to play, still waking up, but liked the idea of reading. We read Rain, Not a Box, and then a couple of Bob Books. Been awhile since he had done that, so it was like he needed reminding about how to sound out words. But then he was doing it on his own.

Eventually he wanted to head home, no playing at the park. We swung by the second park, but it was closed anyway, with backhoes and other trucks working on it. Watched them for a couple minutes and kept going. He started singing, and sang pretty much the entire way home. As we went past Madeul Stadium and through the apartment complex there, he was really singing, singing a “2, 1 and 0” song and then “That’s a funny diamond, that’s a funny rhombus…funny star right there, funny star right there…” The whole time he was drawing in the air. He would finish a song, and I would ask what the song was about, and he’d say something like “Sopadoo and chimamoo go to work…they get some money…mockamoo stayed home…”

We got home a little after 4 and I started making banana bread. Carly got home at 5:20 and they nursed, then did math with the zookeeper. He did more of the annoying Korean app, but when I told him it was time to put it away he did. I got out the monster cannon and we played with that. Carly made stir fry for dinner and he had some of that, then he had some banana bread when it was ready. Carly took a shower, and he and I read the Pete the Cat Old MacDonald book. He did a lot of reading and singing of that.

I gave him a bath, then he and Carly read Curious George Goes to the Aquarium. For some reason they got on the subject of our names, and he was saying “Carly Althauser”, which was fun to hear him say, and my name at least once.

We got him in to bed, and it went pretty smoothly. He had a big long monologue all about polygons before he settled down to nurse, and they were asleep about 10.

Morning:

Home Plus:

Class: 

Home: 

Park: 

Headed home: 

Home. The Monster Cannon:

He was up right at 8:00. Very sad for a couple minutes, but then he got down and started reading all of the word signs in his language (after actually reading ‘la ventana’) and then playing with the Duplos. Banana bread for breakfast, some iPad, and getting ready to go, and we left about 9:40.

He sang on the way to the subway. When we went through the turnstile he kept saying “We sneak”. He was referring to the little informational Larva videos that they show on the monitors in the stations and trains. In one, it shows the characters trying to sneak through a turnstile without paying. I assured him that we had paid.

We got to the mall about a quarter to 11. We went to Cheongdam and walked from there since the weather was good. Found a bench outside to eat on. It was a boat-shaped bench, and August was crouching on it and, I think, he forgot it got narrower and at one point fell off. A pretty hard fall, but no damage. As we went in towards the aquarium, he kept pronouncing ‘aquarium’, and we had been sitting near a sign that said ‘aquarium’ in both English and Korean (it sounds the same) so had been reading that.

At the aquarium, it became clear right away that he was much more into the fish names this time. That is because of the Marco Polo Oceans app he has been using, and all the looking up of butterfly fish, octopi, etc. So a lot of “What is this one called?” Near the beginning we saw pufferfish, butterfly fish, and clown fish, which he’s all seen in his app. Later we could see coral, giant pacific octopus, sea turtles, lion fish, and a few more that he knew. We also saw the random squirrels they have, and one was running on a wheel. We watched it and I explained what it was doing. It that stopped running and did two flips in the wheel. August said “Octobut” a couple times and I was confused as to what he meant. He then said “A for, A for…flip.” It was the ‘A ah apples act as acrobats’ song. He was trying to call the squirrel an acrobat.

We saw a lot of fish. Some of our other favorites were the blue tang, zebra eel, and electric eel. And we got to watch the beavers coating their fur with their oil. His favorite part, as he told both me and Carly later, was the touching area. And this time we got to touch an eel and he reached the spoon worms this time. In fact, later in the day I mentioned that, and couldn’t remember the name of them and he said “spoon worms!” We were in the aquarium for a couple hours. Like last time we were worn out by the end, so didn’t spend as much time on the big animals or mammals. Next time. It was because he was focused so much on the names. Oh, and we did the rubber stamp thing this time as we went through. So he was interested in knowing what each area was called and what was next. One of the stamps was broken though, and that left an impression. We did the penguin stamp twice to fill in the spot.

From there we went to the infant area and ate a second lunch. He had eaten all the crackers and most of a Larabar in the aquarium, so I was surprised when he ate a bunch more. Had a lot of fun speculating about all the other babies and parents going in and out, and why they were crying, what they were doing, and where they were going.

From there we went to the bookstore. He played with some lamps, then down in the toy area they had these cool little blocks that he played with for 10 minutes or so. We looked at books, but nothing caught our eyes. We headed out, and he fell asleep in due order.

Found a coffee shop attached to a hospital. GNG Cafe or something like that. A nice place, and cheap. Being right across from the Lamborghini dealership in Gangnam I was expecting someplace more expensive. We could have just as easily ended up in a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and paid 7 bucks for a latte, but instead found one for 2 bucks. Anyway, he slept from 2:05 to 3:18. A peaceful wake up, and he wanted me to walk again. So we got going and walked to 해주세요서비스, a little children’s park a couple minutes away, and about the only one anywhere close in that part of the city. Stopped to look at a sculpture in a housing area along the way.

At the park he was still waking up, so stood in the bench area for a few minutes, and finished the Larabar. Played for awhile, climbing on the shaky bridge and narrow bridges, and going down a couple slides. Both times he went down a slide he ended up getting shocked when he touched the structure again. Something clicked. I asked “Is that what happened at Ttukseom?” Last time there he had remembered hurting his finger on the play structure and I was thinking it was a pinch, but I couldn’t figure out where he would have gotten pinched. But I think he had been shocked. Anyway, he at least liked that explanation, and kept mentioned getting shocked at Ttukseom. In fact, on the train home we were looking out the window and saw the J-Bug building and I pointed out the playground. He said “Where you got shocked.” He finished playing at the playground by climbing and rocking on the little toy things. He was then singing “Rocky, rocky, rocky like a butterfly fish…rocky, rocky, rocky like a pufferfish…”

We headed home, and got here just after 5. Carly got home a few minutes later. As we walked today there was a lot of singing and talking about polygons, both real and imaginary. Real ones like ‘nonadecagon’ and ‘tridecagon’, and made up ones like ‘nonatripolygon’. They nursed, then he wanted to paint with her. So they did that, trying to figure out what each sponge print looked like. He then played Oceans on the iPad, then did the crazy sentences and Cookie Monster ABC app. He and I then played with Duplos, making a cage for the alligator and some letters. He and Carly then did math with the zookeeper, at his request. At one point he was drawing Ks on the paper with a crayon, and just giggling after each K. I was just watching from the kitchen, then he started quoting from Cookie Monster – he says a line about “That cookie should hang in a museum…or in my tummy”. We had talked about the line earlier in the day. He was finding it funny now, thinking of each of his Ks as a cookie for Cookie Monster.

Carly gave him a bath. After that, he was doing a Hangeul app with Carly. We had been doing it on the subway home. It is a decent app, but their word puzzles are stupid: a few useful words, but then three sentences for ‘You are pretty’, and then a couple dozen names of K-Pop groups and their songs. So he was excited when he could tell Carly that one was a musician, and he picked up the iPad and came out to me to confirm, saying “That’s a musician, Dada. Think so. That’s a musician.”

We took him in for bed a bit later. I had just eaten some sesame crackers and he smelled them, so I had to get him some. I asked if he wanted to read a book, and he said “Nope. That’s not my plan.” He wanted to build a nest instead. He was playing in his nest, and pretended to be a coconut octopus: “You get out of your coconut shell…you’re sleeping in your coconut.” He was asleep around 9:15.

After he woke up:

Train. His favorite map:

Aquarium:  

Looking at sardines: 

Jellyfish: 

Book store: 

Playground: 

Headed home: 

Home: 

8:29. No crying at all. Let me hold him for a couple minutes. When I put him down though he wanted to go open the door and look in the hall. Then wanted to press the doorbell. Then to Duplos and playing with the duck, ‘saving’ it when it fell over. We then had the zookeeper taking care of the animals. Next, he remembered butterfly fish for some reason, and wanted to see photos of them on my ipad. We did that, then I searched for photos of kinkajous. He then requested ‘slow loris’, another animal in the nocturnal pavilion at the zoo. We did some counting with the blue blocks, then he wanted more piano keys. We read Rain on the iPad, then he played on his iPad, doing more puzzles in Dragonbox Numbers and some funny sentences in the sentence app. I took a shower. We brushed our teeth, and he let me brush his teeth some more. He had a couple of random almost-sad moments, once when he wanted to flus the toilet but I already had. We did robot cleanup of the Pororo magnets, at his request, then he sat and sang all the letters on the side of the toy box. He had packed the xylophone full of magnets, and we counted and stacked them, getting up around 27.

We headed for Children’s Grand Park. As we left the building, he started to say “Dang…” and “Blasted…” This is what reading children’s books has taught him. First he was just doing it himself, saying “Dang tree, dang sidewalk, dang ‘g’ (Hangeul character on road)…” Then he said subway stops and wanted me to say it: “Dang Nowon…” etc.

We stopped and got kimbap, then headed up. As we went on the escalator he quietly chanted “It’s exciting”. We first played in the yellow Tayo bus, maybe 10 minutes or so. A smaller child cried, not wanting to leave, and August speculated on where they were going: “Maybe they’re going home to the 14566th (floor). Maybe. Maybe they’re going to the 15000th and take a nap. Maybe. “

We went by the rectangle pond for lunch. He had me identifying almost every song. From there, we went to the children’s museum. Took awhile getting there though, as we walked slowly. On the subway ride down he had started saying ‘Children’s Grand Park’ in Korean, 어린이대공원 (euleene dae gongwhan), and we talked about how it sounds similar to ‘What is your name?’ in Korean, 이름이 뭐예요? (ereume mwoyeyo?) After lunch, he wan’t to practice ‘What is your name?’ and was asking it of all of the trees and bushes and birds that we saw as we first looked for cats and then headed to the children’s museum. He also ‘helped’ me walk by pushing the back of the backpack again.

At the children’s museum we first went to the light area. Spent most of his time with the blocks, and on his own made a square, circle, square, circle… pattern. Then he went and played with several of the other light things for 5 or 10 minutes on his own, then wanted me back to help build towers and stuff with the blocks. From there he wanted to go play games in the book room. We worked on the little tetris-like puzzle thing, doing several of those together. He’s working on flipping the pieces, in addition to just turning them. We then grabbed several books and went up to read. He was reading (or at least identifying the covers) for all of them, and we started with ‘I eat…’ and he read much of the book. And it made him hungry, as he wanted a snack. We went up to the cafeteria and ate some more food. He had gotten quiet, and spent some time lying on the soft bench. So he was looking like he needed to rest. Didn’t really expect a nap, but I figure a walk in the middle of the day is always a good thing. Changed him, and got walking.

I asked how long we should walk, and he said “14 minutes”. He fell asleep after about 10. Went to the upstairs coffee shop and he slept 2:31 to 3:51. He was slow to wake up, just resting his head to the side in the backpack. When I asked if he wanted to get out, or whether he wanted me to put on the backpack and walk, he whispered “Put on the backpack”. We walked to the new playground, and got down to do sidewalk chalk.

Got out the chalk and got started. Just us for a few minutes, then another mom brought her kids over and they started using our chalk. Was happy to share, and it turned into a really cool thing, but odd that none of the first people even asked, or said thank you. August saw her writing her kids’ names in Hangeul, and he wanted me to write that. I tried to write something else, but he wanted me to copy their names. So I did, and the mom thought that was funny. They were then impressed though when I could write August’s, and we did other words in Korean. August was then interested in his own name, and tried writing it. He had me write it, and then he was tracing it. He then had me writing subway stops in Korean. He was drawing lots of shapes, and things we decided were boats, flags, and dragon and dinosaur footprints. He had me draw a crab, and then, in english: ’emergency equipment’ (from the train station), medicine, cough, and meditate. And some smiley faces after he saw someone else do one. We ended with a rainbow, after another girl was making one.

He didn’t want to leave, but I finally got him going about 5:10. He was hungry, so wanted the peanut butter and jelly Larabar. As we walked, he asked “What’s in there? In the ingredients?” (Something he was asking with the real banana bread we made.)

We got home at 6, and Carly was late, about 10 minutes later. They nursed, and August randomly said “More bad news.” It is another line from Rain. He then pretended to give carly and me newspapers and wanted us to say it. He shared some rice and soup (adding plenty of mushrooms for him) with me, and we read Spiral by Spiral and Elephants Swim. He then wanted to type, and we ended up pretending to play the Cookie Monster ABC game. He would type something, then I would either declare it was a word, and we’d pretend to eat a cookie, or I would say it wasn’t and pretend to wipe it away, like Cookie Monster does in the game.

I gave August a bath, and he made a pattern out of the letters on the door: horizontal, vertical, horizontal, vertical. I washed him, then Carly took over while he played. A lot of Duplos after that. Taking care of the animals, and the tiger had bit the chicken. So we made a cage for the tiger. Kept making it bigger, and rebuilt it a couple times. We took him in to bed around 9:30. He fought it a bit, but wasn’t horrible. They were asleep about 10:15.

Looking in the hall:

Saving the duck: 

Walking: 

Children’s Grand Park. Reading the Tayo barrels: 

Lunch: 

Walking: 

Children’s museum: 

Pattern: 

Book room: 

Sleepy: 

Slow wake up: 

Sidewalk chalk: 

‘August’ in Korean: 

Emergency equipment: 

Another pattern: 

Cage for the tiger: 

He came out at 7:07. Much too early, and he was sad to find mama gone. Still, didn’t last too long, and a minute later he wanted me to take him to the parlor: “You can play with Duplos when dada reads.” He ended up using all the regular pieces to build a big wall for the zoo. We then read books on the ipad – mainly Rain a couple times, then we got his iPad and he played the Ocean app. For every animal (moray eel, kinds of fish and octopi) he would want me to look up images of it in Google Images on my iPad. And we read Swirl By Swirl and he pretended to be a sleeping nautilus again on the parlor floor. I took a shower, then he wanted to go in on the bed. Made a nest, did some more reading, and then typed on the iPad. Back out in the living room, we did the piano keys, and he started playing patterns of notes he was making up, then trying to explain, using numbers, the pattern he was playing: “That was 1, 2, 2, 3…” We finally glued the broken piece with super glue and left it sitting until we got back. Played with some play dough, then brushed our teeth. He then let me brush his teeth, which was really cool. Usually he won’t let me touch the brush. But I did it today and he said it wasn’t tickly. Finally, before we left he was making monsters out of the Pororo magnets by putting several pieces together and asking what they were.

Headed to Bonghwasan Park. Bonghwasan Mountain is a little mountain (hill really) to the SW of us. August and I have been to Sinnae Park at the north end several times, and the first time walked up the hill to the top, where there is an old signal fire thing. There is another park on the south side, and that’s where we went today. A little harder to get to, as it takes train and bus. So we took the train to Junghwa and then the 1122 bus east. August sat in a seat of his own.

We walked around a few minutes until we found a coffee shop for future reference – Mancini’s Coffee. Then walked to the park. Spent a few minutes looking at the big map and telling him what the numbers were. Then we went and saw the waterfall that was off, and the big tile mural that is really cool. In the afternoon or evening I asked if he remembered what was on the mural, and he said “kimchi”, referring to the kimchi pots. Then headed into the park and got as far as the little playground (he had wanted to see the ‘rolling ball court’ (apparently Korean for croquet). Got down and sat on a platform and ate lunch. I had bought a crab and ham and cheese sandwich pack at GS25 last night, and he ate from both of those. Then played on the structure. He climbed up the rope ladders on his own, no problem, and went down the little slide a couple times.

He then wanted to read books on the iPad. Think this was because he was getting tired. Also, he really, really, really likes the book Rain. When he was asking to read it, we were on the play structure and he kept telling me what he wanted me to say: “Fine. I’ll do dada’s iPad.” We read Rain, and Pete the Cat’s Old MacDonald. He did a little more playing, and with my help climbed up the rocks to the exercise area. He had seen a barbell gently rocking in its spot after a guy used it, and wanted to inspect it. He stood up on the platform area, looking down and counting the rock steps for a couple minutes, then came back down. Got ready to go, and I agreed to read Rain one more time. His favorite lines are now: “Blasted overcoat.” “There goes my hair.” “It’s raining frogs and polliwogs.” “Hippity-hop.” Aand “Hardly. Dang puddle.” We got walking, and first went up and inspected the air compressor we kept hearing where people coming down from the trails clean off their shoes. August used it to blow air on the bushes, then I used it on his foot and leg. He was a bit scared of it at first, but then liked it. We got walking, and it took awhile. At first he wanted me to keep pretending to step in puddles and say “Dang puddles!” Then he spotted beautyberries – a lovely berry bush we first found at Olympic Park a few weeks back. And it was slightly windy, which really seemed to bother him as he was falling asleep.

Finally, he fell asleep and I want to the coffee place. He slept from 1:34 to 2:42. Which was definitely not long enough, and he woke up sad. He saw my iPad and wanted to draw, but that wouldn’t cheer him up. Eventually I was holding him and he just kept saying “No, dada. No, dada.” And asked “Can we go home?” And of course he asked to nurse a couple times. We headed home. He had calmed down right before the bus came, and he was fine after that, riding on his own again.

At some point I had realized and mentioned that we hadn’t listened to Basho (spanish songs) in a long time, so when we got back we got out his iPad and watched Basho videos. He kept saying  “you can watch as much as you want.” And wanted to me to confirm that. Not sure where he got that idea, or phrase. He played with the magnets on the door. We made the alphabet, then he made a line of all the Hangeul characters to make one crazy word for me to pronounce. We went to the Duplos, and made a big duck, and worked with making it balanced so it wouldn’t fall over (or unbalanced so it would). He then wanted to make the “Australian Pavilion” from the big zoo, but we didn’t get too far.

Carly came home and they nursed. He started playing with the Duplo animals, and was pretending to have the zookeeper try to eat the animals (part of the carnivore, herbivore, omnivore game) and I reminded him a zookeeper is supposed to take care of the animals. I was then teaching him how the zookeeper does that, and we were having the zookeeper feed, clean, and examine the animals. He would then get another animal, etc. He made a T out of Duplos that looked like the University of Texas logo. Then, out of nowhere, he requested the video of letters going down water slides. He was referring to an ABC video that he used to watch. I think it has been months. Watching the Basho videos today must have jogged his memory. We watched a few ABC videos and found both that one, and the one of letters on a playground. We then read Rain again and he was laughing a lot at the lines.

We then put the piano keys in. The broken key works well. He asked how the piano broke, and when I said I didn’t know, he did his “I put ideas in there” thing to my head and we speculated on how it broke. I made up funny ones, like Carly playing the piano in the middle of the night. He said  “Maybe Green Monster and Marshy were singing THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO ROUND AND ROUND. Maybe.” Where he sang the all caps part really loud and in a Green Monster voice. Got him to do some of it on video, but sadly not in the same voice. He was on a roll, and talking about everything, and also randomly throwing out random lines from Rain, like “Blasted overcoat.” Carly commented on how August and I have so many inside jokes and it is just going to get worse. When he sang The Wheels on the Bus really loudly, that was a reference to GM singing to him over the (pretend) telephone. August was then saying “I turned it up to 70…I turned it to ‘loud room’”, which were references to changing the voice settings in GarageBand and the volume and tempo settings in Figure.

Anyway, he took a good bath with Carly, then was of course hyper before bed. He wanted to pretend to iron, (which we also did this morning with the blanket), then was pretending to make me touch the iron. I then tried to put a stop to that game by explaining we don’t hurt people. He then tried to start a pillow fight. Carly tried to put him to sleep at 8, but no luck. She came out to do something, then took him back. Still no. So she took a shower and got ready for bed. With me, we did a little reading, including Swirl by Swirl, but I told him it seems like the reading doesn’t seem to calm him down, but just makes his brain run faster, so we were going to go in and try to relax on the bed in the dark and sing songs. We went in and watched the clock click to 9, then hung out on the bed for a little wh
ile. He wasn’t too happy about that, but Carly came in, and he was able to go to sleep about 9:15 or 20.

Morning:

Being a nautilus: 

Riding the bus: 

Park: 

Having difficulty getting to sleep: 

Home. Hangeul: 

Carly’s last day of Chuseok Break before going back to school tomorrow. And we tried to go find Taco Rico, where August once spilled soda on me and him, only to find it was closed. And he wouldn’t go to sleep…

He was up at 8. Nursed and sorted the Spanish cards with Carly. They then skyped with Chuck and Cherie. After that, he played Figure, then Sesame Street Art Maker with me. When doing the aliens, he got behind me and was climbing on my shoulders. He let me give him a piggy back ride for a bit. He did play dough with Carly while I showered. One of them suggested something and he said “That’s a good idea. Let’s make it.” He mixed up some of the new playdough – he wanted Carly to separate it later. They worked on the ocean puzzle, then nursed. He did a little ipad, doingshapes both in the math app and the sorting game, then we got ready to go out for a walk and lunch. Carly went to the bathroom, but August was ready to go. He said “Let me open the door and tell mama we can go outside.”

We got going and walked down to find Taco Rico. We had been there twice before. Once Carly and I went, back in the winter before he was born, then August and I went when my parents were here. He was on my lap, and threw an arm up and knocked Chilsing cider on both me and him. Anyway, we couldn’t find it. I was 99% sure we were in the right area, so I looked it up in our old photos, and indeed it was now gone. Also realized it was September 19th, 2014 when we did that – almost 2 years ago. So we found a burger place instead. But August wanted to nurse, so we first walked into the university and found a place and nursed. Mosquitoes or something were attacking so we got out of there, or tried – August sat on the ground and played with the stroller first.

On the walk, August started Qing things, starting with me. He was also ‘reading’ license plates in “Stopadoo language”. In the evening it would be signs in general. And it got off to a rough start when we went past a ginkgo tree with berries on the ground. August said he wanted to get some, but we were already by it when I realized what he had said. I told him we’d find another tree. He got really sad, and couldn’t recover, even when we did find another tree like 10 seconds later. We eventually stopped at a little apartment complex playground and nurse. He wanted to play at the playground, so did one slide. He then got a bonus thing when Carly bounced him once on the teeter totter. Back in the stroller, he was happy about doing two things, as I had said he could do one thing.

Went to the burger place and got food, then headed to a park. Spotted a couple coffee shops for later reference. Went to 씨알어린이공원, just a little children’s park, but it worked. Ate, then Carly went on the one swing and August played on the sculpture. A lot of singing and chanting – he had a good “Konkuk University“ chant going at one point. He wanted to write Hangeul in the said, so got a stick and we did some of that. Off the structure, there was a little sand area with a low metal slide. He said “Let me show you something” then went and walked around the sand area and walked down and back up the slide. We played maybe a half hour, then wanted to head home in case he got needed a nap. I changed him before we left, then headed out.

We got home, and he got sad at the door. He didn’t get out of the stroller, but then got upset when I did the door code. Indeed, it was nap time. For both of them. They took a nap together from about 2:30 to 3:30. Nursed, then they made towers out of the blocks and then he decided to sort them by color. He then had the Duplo animals eating with me – the whole carnivores and herbivores eating thing game. He and Carly then did some play dough.

In the late afternoon, I took him out and we went to the spiderweb playground so Carly could do some work for tomorrow. He was fine with that. On the way there, I was singing the “A ah apples act as acrobats…” song. Slow going, as he now wants to know what every word and phrase in the song means…acrobat, act, daisy bunch, Ed and Edna exercise with eggs… Slow going, since it is somewhat nonsensical too.

At the park, he first spotted the spirals on the stepping stone things. Climbed those, then went on the shaky bridge. He told himself “you’re okay” on it. Climbed on the fake rock for awhile, then was counting the steps he’d taken – ended up being 20. Went over to the sand area, and pointed at the grates outside it: “no, you can’t put sand down there. Mama said that. I remember.” In the sand, a girl about his age came over and started helping filling the bucket and patting down the sand. Filled and dumped out several buckets with her, and they both liked stomping on the piles of sand that we made. August was hungry and we ate a banana bread Larabar. I mentioned I should make real banana bread, and a few minutes later he came to me and said “Can we make real banana bread?” So we talked about going to the store for bananas. He wanted to leave right away, but then saw other kids on the teeter totters. When they got off, he wanted to go play. On the teeter totter, I let him take his hands off, telling him now that he’s steady on the teeter totter that he could. Before we left, I took the stroller over by the girl and had August say goodbye. Her dad had her give August a gummi bear.

We walked to the pink building and got bananas and a few other things. August saw the bracelets, and I let him choose a set to buy. He also wanted another jello thing, but I told him he still had one at home from last time. That worked, and later he forgot about it, just as he had last time.

At home, August said “dada count bats.” Earlier, we had watched a couple of Sesame Street videos of the Count, since he was on Art Maker, but August didn’t know who he was. He then played Dragonbox Numbers on the iPad, getting into the puzzles more than he has in the past, and I started banana bread. Carly gave him a bath. A nice long one, and a lot of fun. I came in and watched him sing. And then he almost sort of sat down, although he was still on his feet, and holding onto the side. After his bath, he asked Carly “how’s your sliver doing?” Remembering the sliver she had a couple weeks ago. Getting towards bedtime, we started to clean up, and August really helped clean up the blocks. We went into bed and read Elephants Swim and Swirl by Swirl on the iPad. He then pretended to curl up and sleep like a chipmunk, snake, and nautilus, using a blanket for his nautilus shell. He had a lot of energy, and was then trying to do forward rolls. Near 10, I tried to talk to him about calming down for sleep. We watched the clock switch to 10:00. Now time for attempt #1.

But 15 minutes or so later, he and Carly came out to get some books. He also saw that the banana bread was ready. So I got him a slice and we all read some books in bed, mainly the porridge pot and turnip stories, and Manana Iguana. When Carly started reading that one, he said “There’s a little Espanol and English.”

Try again. But a few minutes later, after 10:30, he came into the parlor, saying “There’s poop in there.” I changed him, but there was no poop. Took him to the parlor so Carly could sleep. We read Paddington, and a Biscuit book. Tried to take him in at 11:11, but he wasn’t ready. So I took him back out. We read Curious George Goes to the Zoo, then I got ready for bed. We both went in at 11:30. He was nursing, but then I heard him talking quietly, then getting louder: “The ___ got a big ___.” Then math: “7 plus 7 is 14.” Then something about Duplos and shapes. He was trying to climb to me. When Carly wouldn’t let him, he said “No grabbing.” I sang a song or two, he did some more nursing, and was finally asleep just before midnight…maybe 11:57.

 

Made up words:

On our walk: 

Park: 

Spiderweb Playground: 

Home: 

Singing: 

Spiraled up in his shell: 

At 4:20 he was talking in his sleep: “Can Zinnie go pink building?” And at 5:55 he suddenly threw up on the bed. I cleaned up the bed and started laundry while Carly cleaned him. I stayed up with him for a little while, and he laid on the bed and drew in the air: “I draw an H in the loopy loop home.” I went back to bed for an hour or so, and when I woke up August was asleep on the couch. Carly was sitting on a cushion on the ground in front of him to make sure he didn’t roll off. He woke up and nursed around 9. I got recycling ready to go and was literally going out the door when I heard him throw up. Went back in and helped clean up. I was then going to leave, and he wanted to go with me. He was just in a diaper, and started to put his shoes on. When I said he had to stay he got really sad and went to Carly. When I was downstairs I got gatorade for him. He was suspicious of it and wouldn’t drink any at first, but did later. He was being kind of sad and we weren’t sure why, so I had Green Monster singing for him. We then did piano keys, and were starting to play xylophone together. I was teaching him to play the same thing as me, and were working on the beginning of Are You Sleeping, when he threw up again.

Cleaned up from that, and then skyped with Chuck and Cherie, who are somewhere on the way to Mexico. August then threw up a third time. Thankfully, it would be the last time of the day. After that, he fell asleep around 11. With the doctor being closed on Sundays and only open to 1 on Saturdays, we figured we should take him down, so we got him up at 12:15 and went down, only to find that they were closed Thursday to Friday because of the holiday. Carly took him back up, and I went to the pharmacy to see about Pedialyte, or something like it. They had something, but we need a prescription. She said we could go to the internal medicine clinic next door, which was open to 3.

August and I read a ton of books on the ipad in the reading area – Swirl by Swirl, Rain!, The Perfect Hug, Goodnight Already!, The Curious Garden, some Frog and Toad and probably others, and he ate some crackers and apple. I was making him take it slowly, but he was clearly hungry. He got up and started counting blocks with the zookeeper and Carly. They then were working on subtraction. He started counting the blocks in one of his made up languages, and wanted Carly to do it. His energy was clearly back. She tried it, but he wanted a different made up language, and started talking about how there were two options. They then took apart the Peter Rabbit puzzle and worked on that. He then started talking to me about polygons, asking about different numbers, and making up his own combinations of names, for several minutes.

We were eating some soup and getting ready to head out. Carly asked him if he wanted more soup and he said “No, I’m full. Thank you though.” and ran off.

We got him in the stroller and headed to Toys R Us. We found it to be quite a zoo, but it went well. August played with play dough, using a roller to make a pattern, and saying “That’s a pattern”. He then played with the magic sand stuff, then with the toys on the baby bouncy chairs while Carly looked at strollers. We found some stuff: chalk, a puzzle of Asia, an ocean puzzle, a Monster Mix card game, a play dough set with letters and numbers, and a stool.

From there we headed to Hangeulbi Park. Carly headed to the swings. August hung on the bar around them and watched for a minute and did some singing, then wanted her to get down and play on the structure. He went down several of the slides and did some climbing. He then went and was bouncing on the teeter totter when he spotted the play dough set and wanted to play with that. Got sad when we said it was for home, then wanted to nurse. We headed out, but they nursed for a minute near the entrance before we left. Carly carried him much of the way home.

At home he and I got the play dough set out and started playing with that while Carly started his bath. Made several minutes, then he helped put all the play dough and letters/numbers away before we went and I gave him a bath. After his bath, he and Carly got out the monster cards and looked at those, then they started the ocean puzzle. I worked with him on that a little, then he wanted the map puzzle. Got that, and I ended up putting most of it together to make sure all the pieces were there. He was tired, and Carly took him in and he was asleep just after 8.

Asleep on the couch:

Sleeping animals: 

Toys R Us. He said “That is a pattern” at the end:

Static: 

Walking home: 

New toys: 

“It doesn’t match”: 

New puzzle: 

He was up just before 7:10. They nursed, then read Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones. He was interested in the dinosaurs, so Carly got out the big dinosaur book we have and they looked at that. I came in, and he wanted to make things with his wooden tool box. We turned the toolbox on end and attached things to it, then he wanted to make a family sculpture – we had seen two new ones yesterday, and of course the one in our park, so it was on his mind. We used the nails and screws as people. He put one in and said it was Zinnie. We then read books on my iPad. He started that by asking for “swirl”. Took awhile to figure out what he was talking about – it was the book, Swirl by Swirl. We read that, the Tiny Rabbit book, and the Possum book.

He then made big numbers out of the magnets on the table, and Carly said what they were. When he started making words out of the Hangeul magnets I helped, until I went in to take a shower. When I came out, they were cuddled on the couch in a nest with the stuffed animals. August was pretending to feed her eating ‘stapadoo’, which was “a little spicy”. I had sat on the brown chair, and he came in with some number magnets and climbed up behind me, calling it a number nest. After a couple minutes, he made me get up. I thought he wanted me to play something, but then he went and got a 3 magnet that had slid beneath me. He said “Sorry dada for doing that.” – apologizing for making me get up.

Eventually, we all went to Home Plus. Carly did most of the shopping, while August looked at the spices with letters on them. We helped though, getting soy milk and diapers. On our way home, we ran into Eric, the new college counselor at APIS, by the park. Talked to him for a few minutes, and August was pretty patient. He didn’t want to get out of the stroller, or play with the exercise equipment, so I realized he was tired. We got home and he fell asleep for a good nap, from 12:45 to 2:10. He woke up once to nurse after about 40 minutes.

But after his nap is when things went bad. He threw up…there ended up being 5 of these, so I can’t remember exactly where the first one was. They then skyped with Glecy, but had to pause when his diaper leaked. This turned out to be user error, as Carly hadn’t put the diaper on correctly, so he had also leaked on the bed. I got laundry going, and they went back to skyping with Glecy.

After that, he threw up a second time. Some on the rug this time. He and I then sat on the reading area and read more ipad books, on Reading Rainbow. Read African Animals ABC and were then reading a Twinkle Twinkle Little Star book. Near the end, he suddenly got really sad and went out crying to Carly and nursed. He never told us specifically what in the book made him sad, but it was very much like when the Baa Baa Black Sheep book made him sad.

They started playing with play dough, and made a lovely monster. I just started admiring it when he threw up a third time. I cleaned up the floor and Carly cleaned him and they nursed some more, then read Skippyjon Jones. He then came and read Possum’s Harvest Moon and Tiny Rabbit’s Big Wish. Or most of the latter, as he then threw up on both of us, the reading area, and the rug. Back with Carly, they read Skippyjon Jones again, and then were examining our stuffed animals for ones with beans in them (like the book), and playing with the caterpillar.

I was going to go out for a little walk. Carly wanted to stay home with August, but when he heard I was going to go for a walk he wanted “Mama and Zinnie and Dada go for a walk.” I got him ready, and he started matching the Pororo magnets, like little puzzles. He said his tummy felt fine. When I asked what it feels like when he is going to throw up, he said “itchy”.

We left at 6:20. We walked to the stream, then up along it, across, and back down the other side. August and I played the sad baby game much of the way. He would say “Dada’s turn” when he was done, and I would say “Zinnie’s turn.” He wanted to touch the rope along the path from the stroller. At the beginning, he also wanted to go to a playground, but we said no, since he was sick, and he was okay with that. He also talked about, I think it was the sad baby, making a nest, after he was making shapes with his fingers: “She’s making a triangle nest…heptagon nest.”

Also, he often says things like ““14 makes…?”, meaning what sort of polygon. So we now know the names of most of them through 20, and sometimes he asks for bigger ones, so are learning those. He specifically knows ‘tridecagon’ and ‘hexadecagon’ (13 and 16).

We got home, and he ate some dinner. Carly had made delicious soup today, so I had some of that. I think he ate some, and he also ate some sesame crackers, as he had requested them, and Carly made him rice balls. When we had eaten the crackers, he was making shapes out of them on the table, specifically ‘quadrilaterals’, which is a current favorite word. It had been several hours, and he seemed to be doing well with the food, but just as Carly was taking him in to give him a bath, he threw up in the hallway and on the entrance to the bathroom. It was a big one. I was still cleaning it up when they were done with his bath.

We made the bed and played on it a little. He ate a few crackers, but I wouldn’t let him eat a bunch, and he drank a lot of water. He saw a sticker on the fan, and wanted to put more stickers on it, so we got some polka dot stickers and decorated it. He was then lying on the bed, looking at the shapes of art on the wall “square…rectangle…quadrilateral…no triangles…” and the dream catcher. He was then saying “1 is on and zero is off” – something he has said a couple times the last few days. Finally, I realized it was from the coffee roasting machine in Ttukseom on Monday. There had been one in the coffee shop, and we spent a few minutes looking at all the switches on it before we left. It had the on/off switches with the line and circles on them.

And that realization reminded me that I had figured another one out yesterday. A couple times he has said things like “Dada will hit you” or “Mama will hit you”. Thought he was just being funny, but at the playground he started talking about “Or dada will hit you” when we were going to go down the slides, and it clicked: he was talking about getting hit on the slide – not that he has, but he likes to jump away and stay clear when we come down after him.

Anyway, he went to sleep pretty quickly after that, at 8 or a little past.

Sculpture:

Home Plus: 

Nest: 

Monster: 

Walk: 

Brushing my teeth: 

August just decided to stay up until 11:30 (well, later, as he just started talking again). So no full posts this evening. But I’ve been meaning to post this. Each 6 months seems to get more and more eventful:  

August and I went off adventuring alone as Carly wasn’t feeling well. We explored an entirely new area for us, Madeul, just three stops to the north.

During the night, August was laughing in his sleep at one point, and at another said something about me. He got up at 7:30, came out, and said “Mama’s not going to work.” Carly took him in and took off his diaper, then he just played with the animal magnet set on his own for several minutes. He came out to the living room and we ended up playing with Green Monster, and invented a monster version of the “How many?” song, with lines like “How many horns on a macarapine?”

He and Carly skyped with Vivian and company for a long time – an hour or so. He was playing with the zookeeper, and told Carly he wanted the zookeeper to teach him math. So she used the blocks to teach him math, and he is starting to get down the +1s. One of the books Carly brought home is called Manana Iguana, and it has a snake saying it will help if it grows arms overnight. So at some point August wanted Carly to help him with blocks and said “Mama grow arms and help me.”

Before he and I took off, he started making patterns out of crayons. He’s also starting to understand the repeating concept of patterns, and was able to keep repeating his simple pattern.

We took off about 11. He sang the entire way to the train. Every time we go through the turnstiles, he has to see if our card will work, as occasionally it won’t read it through my wallet and we get an error message. Went through today and he said “It worked that time.” We had brought some food for lunch, but wanted to get some kimbap as well. GS25 was closed, and Lotte Super didn’t have any. But we found a CU that was open. He also got a mango juice. We went to the first set of playgrounds on our list, a larger park that includes 참새어린이공원 (Sparrow Children’s Park) and 두루미어린이공원 (Crane Children’s Park). Ate on a bench. He spilled the mango juice at one point, and was hoping I could get it back in the bottle. He did some exercising on a bench, then wanted to talk to Green Monster on the phone. He and GM had been doing piano keys before we left, so I had GM playing piano for August and singing. We came up with a new version of “There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea”, changing it to “There’s a monster at the bottom of the sea.” We wandered to the middle of the parks. There was a planter with eyes on it, and a loose round piece on one corner. August was playing in it, then accidentally dropped it down the grate. I had to reach down past a spider to get it. He needed to be changed, so we went over by a set of water faucets. He was scratching off some graffiti on a post. He then talked to the backpack, asking “how you doing backamanic?” – that is, combining our words for backpack (backamapack) and picnic (picamanic). Pretty clever, as we eat out of the backpack all the time.

Then went over to the crane playground and played there. We both went down the spiral slide, which was a faster one, then did the covered slide. He was sitting on a stair at the top of it, waiting for me to go first. I got down and asked if he was coming, and he said “I was looking at the sky.” The sun came out, so he wouldn’t go down the third slide, as he thought it was too sunny. He was just hanging out on the play structure and said “I’ll rest and take a little nap.” I was on the swings a bit, and they were a bit squeaky. He seemed concerned about this, and later commented on squeaky exercise equipment and swings at a later park. As we left, he was saying “How you doing?” to the swings and bigger kids playing on them.

Little past 1:30 when we finally got going. The challenge now was finding a coffee shop, as we were new to this area. Walked this way and that, and past two other parks for future reference. He fell asleep at 2:10, right as we got done with the second park, and as we got to a spot that I thought there might be a coffee shop. And there was (called I’m Bean). Alas, it was closed. I’d seen a McDonald’s a couple blocks up the main road, so turned back and went there. It was one of the fancy new ones, with touch screens that you order on, and interactive tables upstairs for kids to play on. And apparently a piano or something for them to bang on, although I never saw that, but just heard it for the next hour. The place was sort of a zoo, but August slept well, until 3:39.

August woke up. The first thing he said was “Where mama go?” We packed up and got going. I asked about his nap, and he said “That was a tree nap.” He was fascinated by all the numbers on the businesses: percentages, telephone numbers, floors, and addresses. So started to explain addresses to him. Walked past the closed coffee shop, towards the other big park I wanted to check out, 상계근린공원. At the entrance, we stopped to look at some sculptures. He also saw a white motorbike parked there and talked about Zinnie going on a motorcycle, then said I should. I told him to tell that to mama when we got home. We talked about a sculpture called something like ‘Land and Sea’ and talked about abstract art. He then pointed across at a sculpture of a couple heads and said “I like that one.” We looked at that, then walked around the park until we came to exercise equipment, where he wanted to get down. He climbed and played on that for awhile until he wanted to head home. I said we could go to the playground, and he replied “Or we can just head home.” But then we walked down to the playground and he saw it and wanted to play.

We worked on a couple of the climbing things on it, went up, and did one of the slides. He walked across the narrow bridge, and climbed up on the side of that. I went on the swings, and he wanted me to get off: “The deal is you want dada to get off…the deal is you want to get off, dada.” I noticed that he had a scratch on the back of his leg, and he said “A dragon got you.” He saw the broken faucet and said “Maybe a dragon touched it.”

As we were walking home, he randomly said “Ton of hedgamahogs”.

We got home at 5:40. Carly asked “How are you doing?” and he replied “Goodymcnickerton” – which I think may be based on a line in Skippyjon Jones. He hung out with Carly for awhile, then looked at photos on my iPad with me. We ate dinner, then he was playing with the Teuni monster cube thing. We noticed that one of them looked like Green Monster, so had him talking to them. Took it apart, and he was working on stacking them. It was time for a bath, but he was stalling again. I gave him a bath, and he took a long time saying good night to all the letters and numbers. He managed to get the ink pads out, and when I wasn’t looking he managed to get it all over his hands, and wiped some on the reading area. I read The Great Big Enormous Turnip and The Magic Porridge Pot with him. He was ready for sleep, and said he was going to get books for bed. Got Moo and Dog, but then left them in the parlor. In bed, his mind was racing and he basically did about a 15 minute monologue about his nest and everything else. He then fell asleep about 9:40.

August managed to get on my ipad while I was writing this and typed the following: 1q121211111111121120-[]

‘;.,mnhgfdsasdfghjkl;;lkjhgfdsxdcfghjk,l./’fghjklghnm,fghjghjklfghjklbnm,./GG,.//.,kjhgtfrdsazsdfghjkl;;;;;;;;ttttttttuuuuuuj

 

Skyping with Vivian: 

Math: 

Patterns: 

On our way: 

Park 1: 

Talking to Green Monster on the phone: 

McDonald’s: 

Park 2: 

Home: 

Carly’s first visit to Dream Forest! I’ve been there ten times or so, so nice she could finally visit. We continued our tour of places August and I went with my parents two years ago, revisiting feeding the deer, and seeing where I first changed him here.

He was up at 8:35. Very happy when he came out, after 13 hours of sleep. Laid down on the rug for a minute, then wanted both his pink and blue water bottles. When I brought them to him, he started talking to them: “How you doing pink wawa…blue wawa wants the drink.” “Pink wawa at work, blue wawa stay home.” He then the blue wawa go and make a zoo. He then said “Mama didn’t go to work yesterday.” Good use of both past tense and ‘yesterday’. They nursed and read some Bob Books, then skyped with Vivian. Carly read the Mr. Gumpy book over skype.  We were slowly getting ready to go, and at one point asked “Where letters go that mama paint?” He was referring to the paintings that Carly did of Q, Z, 14, and K. And at another time he randomly looked up at the two of us and said “Mama and dada are humans.” Carly had put an old pair of shorts on him and was wondering if they were okay. He said “shorts are a little big…it feels okay.” And kind of leaned towards/pointed at Carly as he said it. He got upset when I said he was getting in the backpack, so that delayed us a bit. We ended up leaving with him walking, then wanting to get in the backpack once we got outside.

On the subway down, he and I were remembering the song he made up at Dream Forest. He said “All the way to this stream, boop. Remember that game…remember that song.” He was then chanting it and stopping on ‘boop’ as he walked on a yellow line in the subway station, and then doing it with Carly out on the sidewalk.

In Seoul Forest he first played on the piano by the info center. He’s graduated to playing with both hands, and not just focusing on one. He was also very interested in the sheet music that was on the piano. I kind of told him what it was, and he would point to it and say “You’re playing 2 notes…you’re playing 5 notes” then play some keys. There was a little fountain that we then played with. August was throwing chestnut shells in, which floated like little boats, and a chestnut, which sunk. But at 12:30 it turned off. We had a couple more minutes to play in it, then it drained.

From there we went to the playground. He saw people playing in the sad, so first wanted to make sand castles. We did that, using a cup we found. He still had his chestnut, so put that on top. (He had said he wanted to put the chestnut in the turning things by the stream, but we never actually played with those today.) He then went and played on the play structure with Carly. They went down a slide a couple times. He liked walking through the metal bridge with holes in it, although he didn’t like when people tried coming the other way. He also went across a shaky bridge. He saw a guy building a pyramid out of sand, and wanted us to do that. So we ended up back by the backpack. I was building him a pyramid, but he kept knocking it down. I told him he could do that, but I would stop if he did it again. He thought about it, then knocked it down and was subsequently upset when I wouldn’t rebuild it. Eventually, he agreed to help me rebuild it. We did that, then I got the spray bottle out, and we spent quite awhile drawing letters and words in the sand with it. There were some older boys next to us, practicing their karate/dance moves and August started spraying them with the water bottle. I told him not to, but the oldest boy said it was okay. He knew English. Talked to him a little, and turned out he was from the Philippines. In fact, the park was mainly full of non-Koreans, with Koreans being out of town for Chuseok.

Done at the playground, August and Carly went to nurse on a bench. We then went to walk to the bathrooms, then on to the insect house. There was a little boy crying. His dad was carrying him, and the mom had a scooter. We were speculating he had fallen off the scooter. Then August pointed to the mom and said “His mama is wimpy”.

We went to the butterfly building and looked around there. August wanted to know the names of a couple of the butterflies, but we didn’t have a way to figure that out. Then went to the insect house. He wanted to know the names of a lot of the frogs and beetles. For one, we just had the scientific name, and August had fun saying that one. He wanted to stay in the backpack the whole time while we looked at the tortoises (and talked to them), crabs, iguana, etc.

We then walked over to the deer area. The inside part wasn’t open, but we could still get food and feed the deer. Carly got the food, but when it dispensed the food it didn’t put out a cup. Luckily, I had an empty snack container, so she scraped it all in there. We went over and fed the deer. August and I did that, as Carly didn’t want to. He had me do it, and he threw some pieces in. After awhile, he sat in my lap and we fed them that way.

Finished up there and walked to the CU and got a snack. On the way, Carly carried him a bit, and he held on tight around her with his arms and legs to make it easier. At CU, August got a tomato/fruit juice, and we got some sweet potato chews. He liked both. We were sitting on the square of benches around the tree – where I first changed him, and where we’ve eaten a couple times since then. I reminded him that this was where he first tired seaweed, in the triangle kimbap, and he said “No…it was here.” as he walked around to the other side and pointed to the bench where, indeed, it had happened.

We headed back to the train station. August was talking to the dirt, etc. along the way. We got on the subway, and he sat, in the middle seat between two guys. August was pointing to the map of subway stops and talking, pointing to it and holding one had to his ear. We realized he was talking on the phone, taking about made up people and which ones went to work and which ones stayed home.

Got back to Hagye around 5. We went over to Mainz Dom and got bread, then to the little tteok place which was selling the traditional Chuseok tteok and we bought a pack of that. Went home and Carly made more sweet potato fries and spring rolls while I played with August. We ate, then I gave him a bath. But first we had been playing a game where he put magnets in the xylophone case and told me to open it. I would open it, be surprised the magnets were there, take them out, then walk away. He thought it was hilarious, and put more magnets in each time. He was avoiding a bath, and coming up with excuses. He wanted to put the magnets on the door, so we did a little of that, then I got him to the bath. The usual letter routine now: making numbers, saying ‘sweet dreams’ as he put them all away. We got in bed and were reading on my iPad. We read the Swirl by Swirl book a few times today, and also Tiny Rabbit’s Big Wish, and Possum’s Harvest Moon (the first time for that one). He kept claiming he wasn’t tired, and said he wasn’t going to sleep, but finally convinced him he wanted to nurse, and he was asleep about 8:40.

Morning:

Walking to the park: 

Seoul Forest: 

Playground: 

Headed home: 

Home: