Category: Uncategorized

Another big water day, as we spent close to two hours in the water this morning.

Got up at 6:59. Sat and cuddles with me on the couch for a few minutes, then got down and started singing and playing with the piano on his own. When I went to get a photo to send to Carly, I said “Say cheese” and he said “feta cheese!” He then watched some videos on YouTube and did GarageBand, while I did some typing on mine. I was standing up, and he came up and very politely asked if he could have some toast. Back on the iPad, he wanted to do some Hangeul, so was doing the word puzzle things. The only problem was that when he finishes one he needs me to tell him what it means in English. Got him on to Elmo Loves ABCs and I took a shower.

After that, we made buildings out of Duplos. Often they were children’s museums, and he would point and tell me where the blue block area was, the ball area, etc. Got our toothbrushes out and he wanted to count everything on the table. He wanted 20 things on it, so he started grabbing piano keys, etc. to get to 20. Brushed our teeth and got ready, then played with the wooden blocks. I had us ready to go a bit before 9, but he didn’t want to leave the blocks, so we weren’t out until about 9:15.

Got to the pool and was in the water about 9:40. At 9:50 the pool closed, so we went and had crackers. Back in at 10. Took him out to the red and blue rope and we were counting the floats on it. Realized they were in groups of 10, so then we went back and forth counting by 10s…240 total. He then spent a lot of time sitting in the water on the steps. I went and got my camera and he kept playing there. He tried to splash a girl that came up, and she splashed him back. Got in his face, and didn’t like that. I got him, and he dried off his face by rubbing it on my shoulder. Recovered from that, then was playing on the steps again and kicking, and managed to get a bunch of water in his own face. Dried off the same way again, and decided he was done. It was close to the 10:50 closing anyway, so we wandered over to see what the concession stand has, and he looked at the vending machines. A woman that worked there shook a machine for him so that a flashing light came on, and he liked that. When the pools opened again at 11, he was ready to get back in. We spent a good amount of time floating together in a shady spot, and counting the floats. Realized that the last set actually has 11, so our count became 241. He started chanting 241, then adding in words and pointing. It became something like “241 here, 241 there, 241 up there, 241 right there, 241 down there…” He started talking about getting out, and I was talking about getting lunch at the pink building, so we were out about 11:40, changed him into dry clothes, and went walking.

We walked past the stadium and along the stream back and to the pink building. Went downstairs in the pink building and we chose sweet potato cheese dongatsu for our lunch. Was a little concerned that August was getting sleepy, but turned out not to be a problem. He enjoyed waiting for our order to come up, as we were standing near the dongatsu place and watching the numbers (we were 553). He ate everything except the salad (wouldn’t even consider it). All went well except it didn’t come with the macaroni salad with veggies like the plastic version showed.

We swung by the apartment so I could change shorts and grab the iPads. We then walked up the stream and down, this way and that, for just over 30 minutes, singing songs, etc. but no nap. He was talking about going to a coffee shop, and said “Mooka mooka coffee shop…pretend one”. I told him he could open one with that name. He also kept wanting to play sad baby (we had also played this in the pool). He would say one, then say “Dada’s turn!”

Back home, we sat together on the couch and both had some iPad time, him doing GarageBand, me typing and reading. But he kept wanting to use my iPad, even though he could do the same things on his. He got upset, and I put mine away. He was sad and came up and grabbed my legs and sadly asked “Can I have some iPad time, dada?” Held him for a minute and then ended up playing with the piano keys together, putting them in and out a few times. Changed him, then had the brilliant idea of bringing the wooden blocks out of the warm, smelly room. Also brought out two other sets of blocks. Combined the usual blocks with the letter blocks, and he made a whole complex out of them. Some of is discussion while doing so: “That’s too messy there. That’s carrot juice.” Wipes. “Now we can build a tower.” “That’s the trunk of the building.” “There’s a purple snail. I’ll wipe it off and put it up there.”

Carly got home a bit late. I had started to make a quesadilla for August, as he was hungry. They nursed and I got dinner out. After dinner, we played with the matching tiles/blocks. He matched a few on the cards, which now seems easy for him. In fact, he started to joke about them instead. I showed him how to set them up as dominoes to knock over, and he was really excited when they fell over. But then he didn’t want Carly to set them back up – he liked how they looked as steps, and wanted to play with them that way. He then started to match them up in a line: the lion blocks together, etc. The set doesn’t actually match up completely that way, and each one is different (the two tiger cubs are different colors, for example), so it was actually a pretty interesting activity.

Carly gave him a bath and he had fun. He was naked for awhile, but then talking about going to sleep. I carried him in to get a diaper, super baby style, and he said he (or maybe me?) was “Good at flying”. Random music was on the iPad, and “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” by the Beatles came on. He turned it up loud, which he always describes as “Too louder”. He and Carly started dancing around the room. He really got into it, and was having a blast, until he got dizzy/lost his balanced and ran his head right into the corner of the counter. A reminder that he is now tall enough for that. Carly picked him up and he had a nice red mark. He didn’t cry though, but they nursed, and he fell asleep, right at 7:30.

Morning:

Water park: 

Walking to the pink building: 

Chopsticks: 

One shoe boy: 

Combining blocks: 

Tower building: 

And knocking down: 

The big bonk: 

He didn’t want to leave the house today, but once at Children’s Grand Park he wanted to do everything, and didn’t want to come home.

He woke up a bit to nurse at 6, and said “What dada say?” – a reference to his ‘Sad baby’ game. He did wake back up until 7:11. Asked where mama was, then laid on the bed for awhile. Then wanted to go wait by the elevators, but got over that quickly. Played with the blender and then took all the keys out of the piano and put them back. As he took them out he was grinning and said “Dada is happy about it.” We had our vitamins and he wanted to play with mine. So we played with them on the table, making shapes out of them: “trapezoid and a line…funny triangle and a line.” He also said they looked like a gorilla, monster, gorilla eating hot soup, etc. Played Peg+Cat Big Gig, then the calculator app for a couple minutes, then he played with the piano on his own for a few minutes. Did some GarageBand, then I showered. After I came out he wanted to be naked, so took his clothes off. He had his toy helicopter out and it fell off the coffee table. I said “Well plastic isn’t as breakable as glass.” He responded with “Mama’s breakable as glass.” Repeated it several times. Now past 10, he decided he didn’t want to leave: “Want to stay home.” In part, I think, because he didn’t want to put clothes on. We built with the blocks in the changing room, then he saw the Teuni box and looked at the photos and said “Want to build this funny thing” We went out and built one, then he had a bit of a meltdown. After that, he changed his mind and wanted to get in the backpack.

Read Smokey on the subway down, then stopped and get kimbap and he chose an apple drinking yogurt to drink. Went and ate by the stream, after which he wanted to go to the children’s museum. No interest in the stream. He got distracted by the playground though, and played with the faucets for awhile. He could turn 3 of the 4. He was walking and saw the butterfly bench, then started running, saying “butterfly run!” Got to the children’s museum. He saw a couple school groups waiting to go in and said “Busy. Not too busy.” Went down and played with the blue blocks. Heard a baby crying and he said “What’s she crying about?…Maybe it’s a happy cry.” One of his towers fell over and he said “You crashed it!…I’ll feel happy about a new tower.” Played about 20 minutes, then wandered the basement for about 20 more. But that time made an impact: later as we were trying to get him to sleep, he remembered the music box thing that wouldn’t make noise, the pieces of paper that you can hang on the wall (he was quite confused by them – you write down something you want as a gift and hang it on the wall…for some reason), and some other turning thing.

We went up to the reading room, and played with one of the marble games. Then took of shoes and went up and looked at a couple books, particularly a Tullet book where pictures are created by shapes cut out of the page. Then changed him. Realized he can now safely slide of the changing table. And he played with the microwave. Got walking after eating a few fish crackers and he slept from 1:47 to 2:54. When he woke up and got out of the backpack he sat on the floor of the coffee shop like yesterday, then laid on it. I finally drew the line at looking for crumbs.

He wanted to see animals, so we went to the zoo. He was walking. First saw the wallaroo in their awful indoor rooms. He kept saying “How are you doing?” to it, then sang it a song. Suddenly, he took off running around in circles, saying something about the snakes. Saw the prairie dogs and meerkats, then went in the tropical building. Saw the mole rats, fish, and coatis, then a quick look through the rest. Came out at the children’s zoo and watched the fountain for awhile, and spotted a cicada swimming in the water. He kept asking it “How are you doing?” as well. I’m sure it had seen better days. Finished up by the goats and horses. He played with the faucets, and tried to splash water in for them. Picked up pieces of hay and threw them in as well.

Now 4, tried to get going, but he really wanted to play at the playground. So played there for a half hour. He went in the sand and ended up taking one shoe off. Then kept playing. Pulled a Colin. Climbed a rope ladder that way. He was throwing a rock on to a slide, then missed, and was looking for the rock. We started to get rained on as we packed up – the most of the day (there had been some drips earlier as we went to the zoo). We left right at 4:30.

Made our way home. In the park he saw the family sculpture with paint on it and he thought it would be funny to touch the baby’s butt. So I let him. He then said “there’s pee on it…brown pee.” So then he was joking about pee and poop. Saw a green sign and said “That’s mama’s pee.”

Got home and Carly got home soon after. They nursed and read and then played with Duplos. I took over playing Duplos and we kept making his creative towers and Carly snuck off for a shower. She made a quesadilla for him for dinner. I gave him a bath after that and he started to get his hyper on. He was singing and jumping, holding the side of the bath, for several minutes, coming up with lines like “four dragonflies jumping on the sky”. I would ask “Ready to get out?” and he would respond with “No, I’m still washing.” He got out a couple times to pee on his toilet.

Once I got him out of the bath, he started playing with the wooden blocks in the changing room. The three of us played in there for a good half hour, building Safeway after Safeway (he really likes Safeway). He would build one, knock it over, and ask “Shall we build more towers?” At one point he started to say “That’s mama’s fault”, which I honestly have no idea where that came from, but then I told him to say “Everything’s mama’s fault” and he really liked that. He was singing much of the time, generally based on Wheels on the Bus, and started to singing “Meditate, meditate, meditate”. At one point he started to drum along to his singing, which was the first time he’s really done that, at least so extensively. Trying to get him to head to bed, he would just say “I’m just making a tower.”

Suddenly, he developed quite an independent streak. He needed to pee, and told Carly “I’ll do it on my own…mama go away over there.” A couple minutes later he was ready to go to bed and said “Want to go sleep my sleep on your own…want mama go away.” Alas, that one didn’t work so well. That was about 9, and he came out a couple times, or kept shouting out “How you doing, dada?” I went in on the bed with them for awhile and sang him some songs. This is where he kept asking what we had played with today, and kept asking about the papers that people hung up in the children’s museum. Finally, he fell asleep about 10.

Picasso pants:

Headed out: 

Headed to the children’s museum: 

Children’s museum: 

Nap and coffee shop. Anyone know what kind of tree this is?

Zoo: 

Playground: 

Home: 

He was awake bright and early, right at 6. Nursed for a few minutes, then they came out. He was happy, and fine with Carly leaving for work. In the morning we watched a Dresden Dolls rehearsal on Periscope, then were listening to Young Fresh Fellow albums, which he seemed to like, as we played with Duplos and bricks. He built a tower out of Duplos and said “Smoke is coming out.” I was confused where he learned about a chimney until he then said “The light is flashing.” It was the power plant across the stream. Might also be why everything he imagined this morning was purple. He was counting the towers he made, and also calling them Q towers. At one point he was pretending the Duplos were letter crackers and pretending to eat them. We switched to the bricks and made a Q-shaped building, which he stood in, then a triangle one.

Eventually, we ate some cereal, brushed teeth, etc. and got going around 9:40. He was singing, then doing math on his fingers as we walked to the station. We took the train to Ttukseom, and got off. I had checked the website for the pools, which didn’t say anything about being closed Mondays. But as we approached the pool it seemed quiet. But then I saw the banner saying the pools were open from June to August 22nd. Good, that’s today. But then it was definitely closed. Walked to the front entrance, and the banner there had a ’21’ taped over the 22. Crazy. They closed the pools when it is still reaching 95 degrees. Not the only one surprised, as I saw several other families (at least 4) showing up.

August had no interest in the playgrounds, so we walked over to under the tracks, where he wanted to see a dance exercise class for a minute. He then wanted to go up into the J-Bug building. We wandered around in there, and up to the 3rd floor, where we looked at the animals. Ttukseom continues to disappoint: after taking out the coffee shop last year, and now the pool, more and more of the animals are gone. There haven’t been any crabs in the crab aquarium for months, and I’m now convinced the crawfish have been gone for quite some time. Now, they’ve removed all of the tanks for beetles. We went down to the library for awhile and looked at books. He didn’t mention the phone we had found again, but before we went in he talked about taking off our shoes because of the sign. Then when we got in, the sign wasn’t where it used to be, so he was asking where it went. He was pretty full of energy, so we didn’t last too long, as he was getting loud. He wanted to play in the elevator, so we went up and down a few times, him pushing all the buttons (he could reach them all! Hurray for wheelchair accessible elevators). We went back to the top floor and sat on the benches and ate crackers. He rolled around on the bench, and looked over the back at the view. Eventually, we changed him and got going.

I gave him some options and mentioned the possibility of walking to Konkuk University, one stop north. He didn’t know what it was, but was really excited by this. We got going, and found the tunnel under the highway. Stopped to look at the animal pictures inside. Just north was a nice area we’d never been in. Spotted some coffee shops for future use. After just a few minutes he fell asleep, and I found another coffee shop called Life on Mars. As I set him down I found something in one of my pockets of my swimsuit: his blue sunglasses. So have two pairs now. He slept there from 11:51 to 1:06. Woke up groggy and wanted out. Took him out and he just sat on the floor for a few minutes, then explored the coffee shop, leaning on chairs, etc.

We got walking. I carried him mostly and he did some walking as we headed north. Ran across something called the Gwangjin Arts Center. Looked around there. Nothing too exciting. One gallery space but nothing in it. We did like the statue of a robot head out front. Also, there were several fountains that would have been cool…if they were on. There was a glass elevator, and we had more fun with this one, riding up and down. He wanted to get off at each floor and see what was there. On the second, he stuck his head out and said “Eh”. We looked in through the windows on a pool at basement level. Then we headed out, stopping to get a bar out to eat and put him in the backpack now.

We walked up to Konkuk University. There, they have some stone plaques showing the history of different alphabets. He liked these, and we looked at Greek and Hebrew. Continued on and found the lake. Planned to sit on a bench and eat lunch, but he said “I’m not hungry…want to go home.” So we kept going. Walked by the mall where I’ve seen a few movies before. There are some colorful metal sculptures out of runners and people on bikes. We looked at and touched them, then went inside to refill his water. Then headed down to the subway. He was doing more math with his fingers. Oh, we were also playing the ‘More sad baby’ game. He said one, then said “Dada’s turn”. For something (baby bumping her head or something) he said the mama or dada said “wash it off and put a purple bandaid on it.”

On the subway he opened the Peg+Cat Big Gig music app. It is sort of a preschool Rock Band app where you copy a pattern of notes. It was cool to see, because he sort of just got it, but also clearly had to work hard to do it. On the way from the subway, I talked about the plan: go home for awhile, then head out in the stroller. We could stop at Mama Juice, then walk over to the youth center to try to get info on the indoor swimming pool. At the mention of Mama Juice, he said “Mama likes ant juice. But beetle juice has chunks of mango in it. That sounds yucky.” Right. It is the chunks of mango that would make that yucky…

So that’s what we did. Upstairs for about 10, then headed out. Got peach juice, then walked to the youth center. He was still processing what I was saying about the pool, as as we were walking he said something about the wading pool being off and seemed confused as to why we were going. So we went in the building as went down and looked in at the pool. He was excited, and wanted to go in. We got a brochure, then went out. He spent a few minutes inspecting a kid’s bike and turning the peddle. Then we were looking at the animal plaques (for lining up groups) and squirting the spray bottle. I looked down to find a moth crawling on my sandal. We then followed it and touched it a few times. It would sort of hop/fly a few feet. He yelled at it a bit and at one point touched it roughly, so a lot of talking about that, but he did okay. Eventually, it was climbing up a wall, so out of the way of shoes, and we said goodbye to it. Oh, and August was looking through the grates, and talking about touching the ‘bees’, which I said no. Then he said “pretend touch” and wanted me to, so I said okay. I pretended to be stung by a bee, which he thought was funny. But then, looking in the grate, I realized he meant ‘beads’ and not ‘bees’ – those little plastic ones we find everywhere. When I realized my mistake, he found it pretty funny.

We walked back to Brownstone and recycled our Mama Juice cup. August was looking in the recycling bins when Carly came up from behind and tapped August. We went up and they nursed and did some reading. We then had dinner – Carly made him a quesadilla and he ate a good amount of olives as well. August was being clingy to Carly when she was trying to eat, so I put on Beat Bugs, the new show on Netflix that uses music of the Beatles. He was surprisingly focused on it for the 23 minutes or so of the first episode.

The big activity of the evening though was taking all of the keys out of the piano and then putting them all back. Entirely on his own. I just helped him find what keys went next, and he put them in. He had figured out the trick for doing this in the morning, but it still took a long time. As he went, he would review the white keys, playing a scale and saying the names of the notes “C, D, E, F, G…” And also doing them descending “B, A, G, F, E, C…” I’ve never done scales like that wi
th him, at least not recently, and not for more than a few seconds at a time. He then made the connection to the xylophone, and was asking which color on the xylophone was which letter.

He then took a bath, with Carly today, and made a Colin/colon joke that he thought was funny when he asked where poop comes from. Carly said ‘colon’ and he said something like “Poop comes from Colin” and laughed. After the bath, they went in on the bed. Cary had stretched out, and he stretched out naked at a right angle to her, and somehow realized that they were making a ‘T’. He yelled out to me “come look at the T dada!” We then played on the bed. He was pretty hyper before bed. I read the Kiss Goodnight book as they came in and out of the room. He was turning the light on and off, and when he turned it on would say “Sooo bright!” like Carly does. He also said “want to pretend nurse” at one point. But then he was ready and went to sleep pretty easily around 8:30 or 8:40.

Morning: 

Walking to the subway: 

Library: 

Elevator: 

Cracker time: 

Waking up: 

Gwangjin Arts Center: 

Konkuk: 

Math as we enter the station: 

Headed home: 

Youth center: 

Home: 

Making a T: 

7:15. He asked me where mama was, then asked if she was going to work. Was of course happy when the answer was no. After nursing, he played with/on the piano by himself for a few minutes. Was then doing puzzles with Carly, and then me. I wasn’t doing much, and he was singing as he worked on an animal puzzle. As he was about to finish it, he again said “Want dada go away out there.” They ate some Cheerios and he spilled some. Carly asked him to help clean up. “No! Mama do it.” But he actually did help.

A big activity today was the cardboard blocks. They were building towers, and she was teaching him about ‘wobbly’ and ‘stable’. They then started sorting the blocks by color. We shared some toast, then I started looking at the blocks with him, still with the sorting, but we were also looking at the animals on them and discussing what they ate. We then started stacking them by color. He had been diaper-less for some time, then Carly just put shorts on him as an experiment. He laid back in the rocking chair, hugging one of the bricks, and pretended to sleep. We did more playing with the Duplos and bricks, and he was singing Wheels on the Bus. I asked him what he wanted to do today, and he said “Want to go to dragon playground by mama’s work. Want to go to mama’s work.” He was sitting on our little piles of blocks by color and singing “The wheels on the bus go crash!” as he would fall to the ground. We took turns with the ‘more sad baby’ game – significant because he has generally wanted me to just do it.

Carly was making beans for burritos later and turned on the blender. He asked “What she blendering?” Back with the Duplos, he found the flower ones and was trying to find all of them. He was naming the flowers: “This is a dangelion. Two of them. Six of them!” Holding up six fingers and smiling. He said “Maybe she wants some flowers” and it turned out he was talking about the sad baby. Carly asked him “Do you want to pee on your toilet?” “Neh. I do not have pee.” But a few minutes later, not used to the shorts, he peed a bit on the floor. We did more Duplos and blocks after changing him, then he nursed and they read Wild About Books. They then skyped with Chuck and Cherie and I took a shower.

Carly was getting ready to go do some work, and August wasn’t fond of that idea. He kept talking about going to the bus with her (he wanted to take bus 15, which is hers) and going to playgrounds by her work – of course, the problem was that Carly wasn’t actually going in to work, but going to a coffee shop. Eventually he was getting upset and Carly didn’t feel right leaving, so they nursed. That was all it took, as he let her go at 11:50.

We intended to head out to some parks soon after, but he wanted some cereal, then crackers, then played with the volume buttons on the iPad, and made a production of choosing clothes. We didn’t leave until 12:45. We decided to head to Hagye Children’s Park and Pedulgi (Pigeon) Children’s Park, which he had been intrigued by when pointing to parks on the map at the station. Anyway, he started to nod off, and fell asleep just before getting to Hagye Children’s Park. I just had my phone with me, so we sat on a bench and I read. He slept from 12:57 to 1:45. He woke up, kind of slowly, and I suggested we get walking so we had some breeze. He said “sweat and breeze”.

We walked to Pedulgi Children’s Park. He sat in the stroller for a couple minutes, then was coaxed out when I pointed to the climbing wall. He played on the climbing wall (one of those at a slight slant with ropes to help climb) for 10 or 15 minutes. I spotted him, but eventually he was climbing up and down on his own, about 7 or 8 feet, total. Back down, he played on a rope tunnel thing, kind of climbing on it, then sitting in it, and wanting me get in it too, then wanted up on the little platform with a slide. To get up to it was a regular climbing wall, a short one. Helped him up a couple times, then he stood at the top and looked around. He had found a little black piece of plastic in the sand, and threw that off. He saw the peppers a couple women had out in the sun, and wanted to go touch them. He was really excited about that, so I said we could go see. We went over and looked at them, and he carefully touched a couple, but one of the women asked him not to. There were some dried stems lying around, and he contented himself with picking them up and throwing them in a drain. But then he wanted to touch them again, and stand on the bricks holding down the corners of the mat some of them were drying on. When I wouldn’t let him do that he got upset and I had to take him away. Calmed down, but was done with the park.

We walked towards home, then I mentioned going to Home Plus to get tortilla chips. He said “Yes. Let’s go!” We went and got chips, milk, and soy milk. We stopped at the clearance area to see if there was anything worth getting. I said there wasn’t anything I wanted to get, and on his own he said “Eh, nothing too exciting.”

We got home at 4, and Carly had beaten us home. They nursed, and Carly suggested going out to the park. He said “Nope. I just want to stay home. Dada can go to thto fountain.” At one point she got out his iPad and played some Sago Mini Monsters. Carly made nachos for dinner. August didn’t eat much, and wouldn’t eat the beans. But he hasn’t been eating big dinners lately.

They were in the parlor, and out of nowhere he said “Want to go in mama and Zinnie’s nest,” referring to the reading area. I have no idea where he got the idea of a nest from. They then pretended to see birds: “There’s a pedulgi in the ceiling…a purple one.” He was talking about flowers and made a funny portmanteau: “daisylions”.

At about 7 they went outside, walking over to the playground by the youth center. They went down the slide about 5 times. Once back, he wanted to stay in stroller and have Carly serve him some food. I gave him a bath. We washed Sophie. The game with her is he asks what the messy is on her, and we think of all the crazy things she has been eating or playing in or falling in…teriyaki sauce, gum, ice cream, mud, etc. They went in to bed about 8:40 and he was asleep by 9.

 

Morning:

Asleep: 

Pedulgi Children’s Park: 

Home: 

He slept until 8:13. Normal nursing, etc. in the morning, then he went downstairs with me to do recycling. He was actual helpful, pushing buttons along the way as my hands were full. Down at recycling, sitting on the edge, we found a plastic bowl with Peter Rabbit on it that matches our Peter Rabbit stool. Score. Back up, Carly and him skyped with Vivian. The two of them then played with the counting cards. Carly said they should build something out of the bricks. Him: “shall we build a tower?” She was then teaching him to make the tower two blocks wide to make it more stable. They were building towers as high as he could reach, then he would say “It’s too big. I’ll build a smaller one.” At one point he also said “It’s time for me to go.” But he kept building. Also said “I’ll just move it right there.” I took a shower, and they skyped with Cherie and Chuck.

We then got ready to go and walked up to Sarang Children’s Park, getting there just before noon. August and I were eating our leftover kimbap when the fountain turned on. We played there until 12:30. August got in the water just a bit, but mainly played in the tree area, finding beads to throw in the fountain. He also found a couple pieces of glass and threw them away farther in the bushes: something he’s learned from me the last couple times we’ve been there, since there aren’t garbage cans.

We walked out the back entrance and to Starbucks, where we both got coffee drinks and August chose the chia seed yoghurt, which Carly says they had sometime last winter. August did the buckles getting into the stroller all on his own.

We walked back to the park, and August and I headed over to the sand area to look for beads. Carly went in the fountain a little when it came on at 1. Talking more about the glass, August concluded “I don’t think you can touch the glass of it’s sunny outside.” He was asking what was in the drinks, and asked “What is mine have?” He’s using ‘mine’ and ‘my’ for ‘your’ and ‘yours’, in addition to their correct usage, so a little confusing at times. Over in the sand area, August could now pop the beads on his own. I pointed out some pigeons and he said “How you doing?” a few times. Carly found a dead cicada and we looked at it and touched it. He picked it up, and eventually I had him put it in the bushes and told him to say goodbye. He waved and said bye. A little later he was talking about wanting to wake up the cicada. Before we left, we showed Carly how he could pop the beads and we washed our hands.

We got home a little before 3. At some point, he was also interested in the calculator on her computer, so I found a calculator for kids and put it on his iPad and we played with it a couple times during the day. They nursed and tried for a nap. Nope. Instead, they ended up drawing for a long time. It started with the pencil and eraser, but moved to crayons. He wanted to draw a monster, cantaloupe, children’s museum, house, road, shells…a lot of items. Carly tried coloring with black, but he wouldn’t let her: “It’s too dark.” He was also learning new colors: “That’s salmon pink.” A few things I heard him say: “That’s a road…to its home…to a children’s museum.” “That’s a shell…let me color a pink straw with it…this is a sandwich…its spicy.” “Yeah! I do want a mosaic right there! A pretty mosaic!”

We planned to go to Lucky Mart in the pink building. She went to change him, and he asked her to talk about why he was sad. Eventually it made sense: He was sad to stop coloring, but happy to go to the store. We were almost ready, when he changed his mind and wanted to nurse and “Want to stay here.” So I was about to leave on my own when he finished nursing and was now excited to go. We got the shopping done, although he was getting a little frustrated about staying in the stroller at the end. Let him out to help with checkout though.

Came home and they nursed, then he and I played with GarageBand. Taught him about measures and how to move through the song, then we were actually recording multiple tracks. He did some singing, then he added drums, bass, and some strings. Sounds like a free jazz sort of piece.

Something he did a few times today was shake his head and say “no”. He did it once when Carly had him naked and about to take a bath and I asked “Are you going to take a bath?” Naked time after his bath, then he helped vacuum the parlor. Carly got out pinto beans to soak overnight, and he was fascinated with them in the pot. Carried the pot around and played with them for several minutes. He said he was hungry, so I got out the sesame crackers we had just bought. Put several on the table, and he started playing with them, seeing shapes and letters in them, and then having me make those letters. At one point he decided they looked like the “emergency” call button in the elevator and so was pushing the button and we played that game.

Had some Apple Music playlist on and he was dancing to the music. We then read most of Kipper A to Z. At one point he then was lying on the floor, still naked. Carly asked if he was ready for bed: “Nah. I’m just lying down.” That said, he didn’t last much longer. Got his pajamas on and went to sleep at 8:30.

Morning:

Park. With his beads: 

Home: 

Numbers on his fingers: 

Pushing the call button: 

6:53. He was just starting to leak. Half asleep. Said “wait by the elevators” a couple times. Changed him, then cuddled on the reading area. Then he started working on the snaps in the activity book, then got the Duplo animals to play with the octopus page again. Out in the living room, he wanted to choose music videos on the iPad, then wanted the ‘more sad babies’ game. I was trying to get him to say reasons the baby might be said, but he said “Dada has more ideas.” We had oatmeal and mango for breakfast, but not together. He changed his mind about the mango going in, but then ate it separately. When I went to take a shower, he wanted to get naked so he had some naked time. After my shower we brushed our teeth, and he wanted to count the “stuff” on the table, then started adding more things: “14 stuff…17 things”. We skyped with my parents. Didn’t do much talking, as August was loud, so they mainly watched him play: a lot of time spent with the dominoes, which he has pretty much figured out. Took a long time to get out the door, as there was so much he wanted to do. Didn’t leave until 10:30 or so.

At the station, August chose to get kimbap from GS25, and also chose a mango soy milk drink. We went and sat near the stream and ate lunch. Once done, he threw away our garbage and hung out with his favorite garbage cans. Then we went to the stream and he walked right in. It was past noon, so fully turned on, and he kept commenting that it was deeper now (last time was before noon). We walked up and down the stream, and made a game of spraying a dandelion with the squirt bottle.

He was ready to get napping, so we changed him by the stream and started walking. Took awhile though. Along the way we found an interesting tree with some prickly fruit on them. He picked a couple and I found one on the ground when I set him down in the coffee shop, asleep, after 25 minutes of walking. Slept from 1:03 to 2:22. We were in the downstairs coffee shop, which is technically a new name/management, but looks exactly like it used to (same fake flowers, even) but with all the Peace Coffee signs and products removed. New management hasn’t done anything to personalize it yet (and their menus are still just printed paper and inaccurate – they’ve charged me more than it says on the menu for the 3 things we bought this week). Anyway, when he woke up we played a new game on the iPad called Artie’s Magic Pencil. He liked that, and we played together for 15 minutes or so.

He decided he wanted to go back to the pool from yesterday and was a bit sad when I said we didn’t have time. He agreed on the children’s museum though. On the way there we walked by the big metal I Seoul U letters. He hit them all, making noise, and joked that “Now they’re all sad”. Got our ticket for the children’s museum and saw a woman wearing a shirt that said ‘surfing seriously harms you and others around you’. No idea. We first went downstairs, where he wandered around a bit and then ended up at the blue blocks. Played around a few minutes, then when the two other kids left he focused on making a sculpture. He pooped and I needed to change him, and eventually I convinced him we could go and come back. But once we changed him, he wanted to go to the toddler area.

There, the busiest area in the museum, we went upstairs to the cooking area. There, he spent a lot of time making tea and pouring it for us to drink. He came up with some interesting kinds of tea: “chocolate mango tea” “It’s brown sugar tea.” We went back down, and he played with the magnet thing in the puzzle corner. A girl came over, and they played with it together. She had a tray with plastic foods on it, and they ended up playing together for several minutes, pretending to eat the food. They also were hitting it together, and we did the wooden sailboat-shaped puzzle together a few times. Got a photo of them playing where it looks like she is about to punch him, but she was just being silly and kind of dancing. After she wandered off, I suggested we could go someplace less busy. He pointed to the book area and said it might be quieter. So we went over there and ended up playing with a new game they had that involves a plastic container and a lot of colorful marbles. There are rings that allow you to make layers of marbles in the donut-shaped containers. Anyway, August and I were doing that, and realized the pieces were all messed up with the other set of the same game. So we got both sets and were sorting them out. Was doing that when a woman who works there came in and told us we were only to play with one set. I thought there must be someone else wanting to use it, but I looked around and there were only two other kids in the whole room, happily doing other things. Besides, there were plenty of other toys. I said “Fixing, fixing” and pointed out all the other toys. More confused than anything. Went back to it and she left. By this point we were running late from our usual, but it was okay as Carly was staying late at work. August wanted to just keep playing with everything (there was also a game involving ice cream cones that he played with).

Finally, we headed out. Ate a Larabar and crackers on the ride home. He did a lot of singing as we walked home from the train station in the rain. Got a bit wet, but felt good, so didn’t stop to put on hats or anything. Got home at 5:45. August pressed the call button in the hall. Oh, a new game has been him pretending (wherever we are) to push the call button in the elevator. I then ask if there is a problem, and he explains something funny he wants help with (stacking a block, wanting soy milk, etc.). They nursed and we ate dinner. He and I played more of the Artie game, with him wearing his headphones. We then did more dominoes. He went downstairs with Carly to get milk, then I gave him a bath. He was laughing pretty good as I used a funny voice, but started to complain when I washed his hair and was requesting mama. She peeked into the room and he was laughing, as I would turn around and she wouldn’t be there. He thought it was hysterical. He and I went in on the bed while Carly showered. He wanted 16 books on the bed, so started putting books on. Around 12 he had to start going out and getting more from the living room. He ended up putting 17 on the bed. We didn’t really do any reading though. Carly tried to put him to sleep once, but he came out to me at 8:55. We read the Dog and Alphabet books (first time since we’ve been back), then he got some Korean books, including the badger one. When I found the picture of the badger and rabbit on the swings, I reminded him of the summer and how he wanted to go to the sky like that. He started saying “Want more” and pointing outside, but had difficulty saying more of what. Finally I said “Outside?” and that was it. It was clear he was ready for sleep at that point, so they went back in to bed at 9:26 and fell asleep.

He’s been saying ‘meh’ and ‘eh’ recently for when he doesn’t care, or for no. Think he gets that from me.

Morning: 

Counting stuff: 

Skyping and dominoes: 

Children’s Grand Park: 

Stream: 

Coffee shop. New app: 

Children’s museum: 

Little kids area: 

Getting big for this: 

Marble thing: 

Heading home: 

Evening: 

A big day for him, as he got more in the water than he ever has before – after refusing to get out of the stroller for the first half hour we were at the water park.

He was up at 7:45. More upset today. First thing he did was go to the front door and want to go out. He turned the knob thing, which actually locked it. Held him for a few minutes in the bedroom, then he was ready to go. I told him I needed to take off his diaper as he was leaking, and he laid down in the parlor. For several minutes. After I put on a new diaper, he asked “What for daytime?” Now playing with the piano and singing.

He asked where his blue water was and I said the grey backpack. He said “Nope. Maybe she took it to work.” He then sang his favorite colors in play dough and the order in which he wanted to press letters into it. “Want to rock my baby A.” He did some more GarageBand, and some good dancing to the bass guitar, then I took a shower. We then made a smoothie together, and then skyped with Cherie, Kayla, Thatcher, and Derek. Cherie and Thatcher had made a fort, so August wanted to as well, so I made a fort. August was very excited to see them, and at first was knocking the iPad over. He also tickled them a lot through the screen. After we ended the call, we played in the fort, and he had the Duplo zebra and giraffe do the activity book in there: lifting up the octopus arms, pulling the zipper, etc. We did some more play dough, then I was using my ‘sir’ voice when I changed him, and he really liked that, so I kept it up as we brushed our teeth.

Finally, we left in the stroller to go to the water park at Madeul. At the park, from 10:47 to about 11:20 he wouldn’t get out of the stroller. He ate crackers, then watched me wade in the water and the other kids. Finally got him to let me hold him and walked in the water. Had just started dipping his feet in the water when a lifeguard told me he couldn’t have his shoes on. Sigh. Took another 5 to 10 minutes to distract him and get his shoes off. But from then until 11:50, when they close the pools for 10 minutes, I was starting to get him into the water and wading. He was put off by the big kids that kept running by and splashing, and all the things everywhere that spray water, but he was fascinated by the floor colors and wanted to walk on the yellow floor, which was a bit deeper.

From 11:50 to noon we took a break and had some lunch. Soon after they reopened the pools, we went over to the regular pool, and stayed in there until we left at 1. And this was the big breakthrough. There are three steps that go down to the bottom, and eventually he was standing on the bottom, about up to his arm pits. He was fascinated by those blow up toys the other kids had, and wanted to touch them. So I kept telling him that if he got out farther he could reach them easier. Eventually I was floating him around the pool on his stomach, holding him, and we went out to the center rope (about up to my waist) when he was intrigued by it. We spent 15 minutes or so walking back and forth along it, him touching the floats on it (red, blue, red blue) with one hand, counting with his other fingers, and him singing Wheels on the Bus and Five Little Ducks to himself. He saw one of his favorite blowup car toys next to the pool and got out to touch that. The father offered to let us use it, but August only wanted to see it floating in the water. We did more floating around the pool, on his stomach and back (although only slightly getting his head wet), and I was also getting him to sort of climb out at the edge of the pool by himself. The last couple minutes we went to the corner and I got my phone out of the backpack and I tried to get a couple photos, and he stood on the steps singing to himself and stepped in and out of the water on his own a couple times.

At one he was ready for a snack and to get dry. But then he was actually fine staying in his wet clothes, so we just packed up and headed home. At home I mentioned us changing into dry clothes we started taking clothes off. August is used to Carly going to get her privacy when she changes, so he started talking about it: “I’ll get some privacy in the tent…Zinnie’s naked. Dada’s not naked. He’s got shorts on. I’ll get some privacy. I’ll close the door.” Then, he made up a new verb that I liked, when talking about the air conditioner: “It’s not temperaturing…the heat.” He played naked for quite awhile, then I finally got clothes on him and back out for a walk to see if he would go to sleep at 2:50. Late, but it still took time to get him to fall asleep. He fell asleep at 3:15 and we went to the women’s business center. At 3:57 he sort of woke up and I said good, as I was going to try to get him up at 4. We left (a woman pointed out to me that it was raining…it wasn’t much and I never opened my umbrella), but he fell right back to sleep. Tried to wake him a couple times on the walk home.

At home, he let out a “Noo!” when I picked him up out of the stroller, but he fell back to sleep on my shoulder. A little later I figured laying him on the couch would wake him up as I have almost NEVER been able to set him down without waking him. But no. Right to sleep. At one point I woke him up and sat him up and he said “Where’s mama?” But when I said she wasn’t home yet, he went back to sleep sitting up. Then he laid back down. Then he rolled over. Obviously he needed the sleep. At 5:15, finally, I touched him and mentioned going to wait at the elevators for mama, and he popped up. We went out, and she came off the elevator about 10 seconds later.

We went back in and they nursed and I prepared dinner. He was talking more about privacy, then wanted to be naked so I took his clothes off. He then went in the parlor and closed the door for privacy. He let Carly in and they nursed, talked, and cuddled. Came out and he wanted to use the eraser, so I was writing words like ‘Kipper’ and ‘reading area’ for him to erase. He crawled under the dinner table, so we spent a few minutes looking at all the cords, and discussing what he could and couldn’t touch. He washed dishes with Carly, and a few times during the evening he went into the bathroom and peed on his own.

At some point (8 or so) he talked about “Go to sleep with dada.” So we went in to read books. But mainly it turned into a counting books exercise: “I got six books…want Zinnie to get seven books!” Then he would go get another one. He laid in bed with Carly for a long time, then came back out and we played with the blender. In the parlor I started reading Me and My Dad. I said the author’s name and he said “Where Alison Ritchie go? We haven’t met her.” Which is interesting because, while I often say the author’s name, I don’t remember ever talking about the authors as people. Nor does he know someone named ‘Alison’. So a very interesting connection for him to make. We didn’t get far in the book, however, as he wanted me to hold him up and spin him like the bear dad does. So I did, then he wanted to spin in the chair. After some chair spinning, he was doing his water pen book – the numbers one. Doing that, it became clear that he is easily counting things up to 15 or 20. Although for the 20 one he used my finger to help him keep his place as he counted them (but he was the one using my finger).

Carly gave him a bath and they played the milkshakes game – apparently making “yucky” milkshakes this time. He then played with the blended again with me, making a “green soup” smoothie for the Duplo zebra. We went to bed, and he did some good singing and dancing there. Carly tried to put him to sleep, but after awhile he was back up with me. We read the little Sesame Street environmental book, and starting with the insects, he kept point out the window and saying that everything was “outside”. Finally, he suddenly got up and on his own started doing some cleaning: putting Duplo pieces away, closing a drawer, picking up a paper towel off the floor and setting it on the table (“I’ll just set it her
e”). A minute of that and then he walked down to the bedroom and got in with mama. I did hear a little talking from him a few minutes later, but it was then quiet and he was asleep just past 10:30.

Morning:

Water Park. Not getting out of the stroller: 

In the water: 

Home: 

Sleeping in every position: 

Evening: 

Up late with me: 

A big day: rolling play dough with his palm and mixing colors for the first time, a new Smokey Bear app, GarageBand on his own, skyping with Vivian, building with wooden blocks for a long time, singing in a subway station, standing on the subway, and taking apart the piano keys, cleaning it, and learning how it goes back together…

He was up at 6:44. He heard the door when Carly left and said “Where mama go?” But he wasn’t really upset. Looked out the window after a minute, rubbed his elbows on it, and the started knocking the dominoes off the edge and singing.

A little later, we were doing math with our fingers and he asked “3 hundred plus one hundred”. I showed it to him on my fingers, then he walked up to me a minute later holding up five fingers and saying “five hundred”. He then wanted to play with play dough, and as I was opening it he said “Talk to me”. Of course, about trees when I asked. He had a red ball go to Safeway, and got up and took it to the window “The ball is driving…the ball is all done shopping.” Did more math. He also has developed the skill of rolling a ball of play dough with his palm. He then mixed a little blue and purple on his own, so then we mixed more colors. That was fun.

I had downloaded a Smokey Bear app/story, and we read that and he showed it to Smokey. He really liked that. We would read it a couple more times on the subway later on. He was watching Kipper, so I went to take a shower. As I was showering, he came in and asked for GarageBand. I told him to look for ‘Music’, and bring it in to me if he couldn’t find it. He came back with it, and I showed him. I then heard him singing into the sampler on his own. I took off his diaper and he had some naked time. Did some sculpture with the plastic pieces, then made soup. He left a couple skype messages, then Vivian called. Talked for about 20 minutes. He played the piano for them, then mooned them when I went to get him a diaper and had set down the iPad, sang “Six little monkeys jumping on the bed…”, and cooked things in the microwave for her.

We were getting ready to go. Had had some Cheerios for breakfast, but he was still hungry, so got his spoon and was eating peanut butter. He pointed in the jar and said “Zookeeper in there.” I’d forgotten that one and it has been months since he said that.

We left, and the train to Sangbong was full, so we stood. He did some standing on his own, and I was making him hold on to me and the bar. He would do even more standing like this on the way back on line 7. Luckily, on the long train we had a seat. We got off at the National Museum stop. First went to CU and he very excitedly picked out apple juice. We went and sat on a bench near the pond and ate. He enjoyed his kimbap, and was showing it off to me. I dropped a piece of crab, and we noticed ants finding it. By the time we were done eating it was swarming with ants, so I said we’d come back and check on it before we left.

As we walked up to the actual museum, I was trying to see if he remembered it, and then he said “where you stamp, stamp”, making a rubber stamp noise. I’d forgotten about that. So yes, he remembered. It was surprisingly busy inside, and initially we got a ticket for 1:30, but it was only 12:15. Luckily, the guy at the entrance took pity on us and let us in. They had changed it around. Gone were the big puzzles and some other things, but now there was some Silk Road and Silla stuff, and a couple hills (based on the Silla burial mounds) to play on. And different rubber stands. He did the rubber stamps and played on the hills (climbing up, and crawling through a tunnel), but the big thing was these little wooden Tetris-like blocks. He got his hands on them and he went into the zone. He used up all the blocks he had at first and said “That’s a building.” I asked “What kind?” His reply, “I don’t know!” He kept building structure after structure. When he first ran out of pieces, and a kid had abandoned other blocks, he tentatively reached over and said “I can use this.” This went on for just over 30 minutes. I got some reading done when I wasn’t watching what he was doing. Finally, he said “One more piece, then we do something else.” After that, he just had time to color on some fish and worm shapes. The main draw there though was turning the crayons in their plastic tubes. Then the session was over (at 1:20) and we headed out.

Refilled his water in the water machine he really likes (he is fascinated by all of them now, and wants to know if the hot is ever working. So far, no). Got in the backpack and went out the back of the museum and walked. He fell asleep and slept from 1:47 to 2:58, waking up in the coffee shop. Surprised he slept so long as it is the loudest coffee shop we nap in.

He wanted to go, so I put on the backpack and started walking. We went and saw the special exhibit on ancient artifacts from norther Afghanistan. It was pretty amazing, particularly the intricate scenes carved on ivory. We then went to the little gift shop and chose a gift for Carly. He wanted out of the backpack to look. He chose a Hangeul notebook for her, but then also a notepad. I had told him one thing, but he really wanted two things for her. We found a different, more colorful and oddly shaped notepad for her, then bought the two things. We stopped at CU and chose M&Ms for her as well. Both places I let August hand over the stuff and debit card.

We went and checked on the crab. Completely vanished. Probably the ants, but we can’t rule out human or animal interference. He really enjoyed the long moving sidewalks on the way through the station, and was fascinated by the red and green lights showing you which walkway you could and could not walk on. In the subway station, he started singing and walked away from me and stood to perform for a few seconds. Got that on video, then stopped, but then he started to add in hand motions, so I started recording again. Then he spotted some of the machines and kept singing as he said he wanted to do the machines, incorporating lines to that effect in his song.

He had remembered the apple cookie I had bought at CU and that I told him we could eat it on our way back as a treat. I had been thinking about on the platform in case we had to wait. But for once we just caught the train here. He remembered on the train, so we ate the cookie as we went. When we transferred to the 7 there weren’t any seats, and we stood the whole way, with him at my feet, holding on to my hand and/or the post.

We got off and put him in the backpack and headed out. As we were walking, I glanced back. August, always observant, asked what I was looking for. I said I thought mama’s bus might be coming. Then a bus drove by and I observed that it was the 1137. He said “That’s not mama’s bus.” (She rides the Nowon 15.) For each bus that went past that wasn’t the 15, he would then repeat that.

We got home and he really wanted to wait at the elevators. So we went and waited, but after 10 minutes or so we headed back in. She showed up a couple minutes later. One of the first things he said was to ask Carly if they could do the colorful thing. He was referring to one of the gifts. So she opened her August 17th gifts. I had written ‘Happy August 17th!’ On the paper her had stamped at the museum, and their was the notebook that turns into the shape of a vase, the Hangeul notebook, and the of M&Ms.

Carly prepped dinner for us, then he mainly hung out with me. He was curious about the piano keys, so we ended up taking them all out, washing them, vacuuming out the piano, and putting it back together. A good opportunity to teach him about the notes A to G and flats and sharps. He wanted to keep vacuuming, so we did more of the floor. He wanted to do GarageBand, and I showed Carly how he starts dancing when he turns on one of the auto play bass lines. We read Kipper’s Birthday a couple times (he’s been having me read that one story over and over). Then he requested that I give
him his quick bath today. We washed the animals again. When we were done, I was trying to get the towel off the hook on the back of the door without standing up. I’ve tried a few times before and failed. This time, I figured it out (you kind of have to twist when you yank). That was exciting, but then August wanted me to get it BACK ON the hook. And I did, on the first throw. Now that was exciting, and he started high giving me using Sophie, so we called that a Sophie five. Then, once he was out of the bath and I dried him, he said “thank you dada”.

He talked about going to sleep after that, but it ended up taking quite awhile. I was in on the bed with them, and we started listing the things we had played with today. He kept saying “Want ‘more you played with’”. It was a long, long list, but we eventually ran out of things, I think. He was also asking for more finger math, 3 plus 3, etc. Then he said “How you do 12 fingers?…It’s trickier.” He was then holding up six fingers, and hitting the bed with them, saying “Hitting with 6!” Finally, he was off to sleep about 9:30.

Morning: 

Lunch: 

Children’s history museum: 

Finding an August 17th gift: 

Red and green lights: 

Singing: 

On the subway: 

Standing: 

home: 

A full day, with a lot of imaginative play, and a lot of building and doing new stuff at the children’s museum – stuff that was beyond him a few months ago. And he made sculptures out of his Teuni gym pieces.

He was up at 6:20. A bit later they were in the reading area and she was wiggling her toes and he was laughing hysterically. They had a nice goodbye, and after she left we ended up listening to Spanish music on the iPad. We had started by listening to Basho, but August saw all the related albums and kept clicking on them to play them. Ended up finding a couple other albums of children’s music we listened to several times. Later, he was in my bathroom and standing on the scale, trying to use the sink, and dropped his water bottle on his foot. Think he thought it was my fault somehow, as he kept refusing my help, and knocking my hand away. Eventually he calmed down and started playing with his Teuni gym cubes, but wanted them taken apart. We took apart everything except the square at the bottom, and he started building, putting pieces on and taking them off. At first it would start to fall over, and I taught him about ‘balance’ and after that he would figure it out on his own. When he had all the pieces used up, he said “This is a sculpture” I asked “What house is it?” And he responded with “What house?…Gramma and grampa’s house.” We played some more play dough before we left, then got ready to go. But he got sidetracked and ended up playing with his noisy toys: the plane and the tractor. He then decided he was hungry, so we had some Cheerios. He then asked for a cracker, but asked so nicely that I had to say yes. At one point he said “Soup is cooking. Oma’s yummy green soup is cooking.” A few minutes later: “It’s ready now.” He then expanded his pretend stove with buttons: “What the red button for?” We decided blue set a timer, green told you if the food was done, red shot off the stove, and yellow subtracted time. And at some point he asked me to talk: “Talk…about trees.” So we talked about how we were going to walk in the trees in Children’s Grand Park.

We read the Seuss birthday book on the subway, and at Children’s Grand Park bought kimbap at one of the stands in front of the entrance. Hadn’t done that before, so didn’t know what it was. I called it ‘magic kimbap’ and August liked the name so it stuck. We ate near the stream, then he wanted to find cicadas, so we walked around and found a couple and watched them. I got him to go in the shallow stream (it doesn’t fully turn on until 12) and he played the milkshake game, with the same sort of script as last time. One he came up with was “popsicle flavored”. I had set the bucket in the shallow water at the edge, and a minute later he saw it. He said “Don’t like that there.” and went and moved it up to the bench. After awhile I said “Now I’ll make a milkshak for Zinnie.” He tasted it and said “Ooh, yeah. That’s a candy milkshake. Thank you dada!”

When he was done there we went and saw animals. We stopped to look at the zoo map, and he chose the wild birds. Saw some of them, then he heard something from the cats area. We went and saw the tiger, leopards, and lion and went upstairs to push the buttons. Then went and saw the water birds. When we had walked by the big square there, he had pointed and said he remembered mama there. He also talked about wanting to throw a ball in the bicycle wheels sculpture, but her telling him no (because once you throw something in you couldn’t get in to get it out). Both those were true, but I think the ball thing was with me. Oh, also, when we walked by the conservatory he wanted to go in and spray water to the fishes, but we had forgotten the spray bottle today.

He was tired, so we stopped at a bench and changed him. He then spent several minutes studying the ground next to the bench: started by spotting a cicada cocoon thing, then a couple of moths on the ground, then some ants, and a hole that he speculated was for a snake (he kept wanting to see what was in it, but eventually I convinced him we couldn’t look in it). Walked our normal path, and he fell asleep within 10 minutes. Went to the upstairs coffee shop, and he had a short nap: 12:35 to 1:05. After he woke up he had some of my ice, then wanted a juice. We went up and got a fresh strawberry juice and shared that.

After that, we went to the children’s museum. He played around on the first floor, the usual stuff, for awhile: blackboard, shapes on the windows, etc. But he was carrying Smokey around this time. There was an announcement, and it was rather loud and long. August decided it was too loud and wanted to at first leave. I talked about the book room being quieter, and he liked that idea, so I was going to take him upstairs, but then he saw the ramp to downstairs and changed his mind. That worked out well, because once he was downstairs we stayed over another hour. First, he jumped on the jump pad things, holding Smokey. Then, he headed over to the blue blocks and took his own shoes off and started playing. He played there for just over 40 minutes. Four main activities: First, he was building towers for Smokey and knocking them over. Then, he was trying to play with the big kids, setting smaller pieces on top of the forts they were building (often to their chagrin). Third, he started to make sculptures, much like he had with the pieces at home earlier. For a couple minutes, he and another boy worked together on this, randomly putting together all these shapes. Finally, he held my hand and walked all over them like a walking course.

When he was done there, I thought he’d be ready to go soon, but not so fast. “Let’s do something else.” He did the Tesla coil, then found the wheels controlling all the gears around the robot thing, and worked at turning those. Oh, and there were the faces where you turn the different parts to put together expressions of different emotions. We had a pretty good talk about those. Then he found the airport luggage scanner. I taught him how to turn the wheel to send the bags through, and their are four bags you can put through. He did them over and over, and found them pretty funny: one has fish, another a bunny, etc. Finally, there are the colorful gears you can put down on a grid to turn a music box sort of thing. It was still a task to convince him to leave at the end of that, but he went out happy. It is clear that a lot of this stuff suddenly clicks for him in a way it didn’t before, and now that he can turn things with his hands, he is much more able to do them.

We headed home, which was pretty non-eventful until we got to Hagye and were walking through. For some reason he started chanting “This is a woman. This is a guy.” and sort of pointing to other people he saw. It went back and forth like that for awhile until it didn’t, and he caught his mistake, chanting the whole thing: “This is a woman. Nope. It’s a guy.” And as we walked past the pink building I pointed out the sculpture of people dancing/flying and told him he used to really like it. He said “Zinnie can fly! Zinnie fly in the backamapack!” He then put his arms out as if flying and chanted “Fly in the backamapack” several times.

When Carly got home, he and I were sitting at the table eating our pretend soup. He turned to her as she entered and asked “How are you doing?” They nursed and read some Kipper together. He then made a game of rolling the bouncy ball under the couch and seeing if it would roll back out. We played that several times. I gave him a bath, which went well. We washed Sophie and Ducky again. Left him naked for some time after that, and he stood in front of the fan again and said it tickled. He was okay when Carly started her shower, and was in there with her, but then he started trying to play with everything on the counter, and Carly took it away from him. He wouldn’t recover from that, and I had to go in and get him. I took him out and he cried until she got out. She took him in and he went straight to slee
p, about 8:30.

 

Teuni sculpture:

Children’s Grand Park: 

Children’s museum: 

Lotus pond: 

Headed home: 

He was nursing at 5:50 but fell back to sleep until he woke up at 6:10. When I got up a little later he was lounging on the reading area. A couple minutes later he unscrewed the water pen and spilled it, but then wouldn’t wipe it up when Carly asked him to. A couple time outs and then some separation from Carly while she got ready. But he was calm by the time she left and just asked for a kiss and said bye. We spent a good long time playing with GarageBand. We then played with play dough. He said that one of the balls was going to Safeway. Then called a squished red one a “kimbap spicy worm” and joked about eating it. I changed his diaper, but didn’t get a new one on right away, so he had some naked time. We did the puzzles on the floor and found all the pieces. Then got the box of animal dominoes out of the toy box and took them to the living room and was teaching him to play dominoes. He was quite into that. We played on the piano, then played the “More sad” game, inspired by singing The Wheels on the Bus.

I’d been in touch with Derek, who was bring the kids over to our park at some point. August was ready to go out though, so I figured we would walk to Toys R Us. But on the way there he surprisingly fell asleep a block away. The earliest he’s fallen asleep after waking up since we’ve been back. So I turned around and sat outside the coffee shop at the corner of 2001 Outlet and he slept from 11:40 to 12:40. At that point, Derek had been in the park for awhile now, so I started to push August over there and he woke up. We met up, and first went to the playground, where August was still waking up and wouldn’t get out of the stroller. So he sat in it and watched Logan play with his bubble gun while a couple of bigger kids came over and batted at the bubbles. At 1 the fountains turned back on and we went and played in that. Logan was all about the fountain, whereas August was most fascinated with Logan’s bubble gun and played with that. He also liked talking to and playing with Kayla in her stroller. August did get close to the fountain with me holding him, and we both got pretty wet.

THe fountain turned off at 1:30, and we went with them over to Burger Ton, where Derek got lunch for him and Logan. We stayed outside the door with Rosie and Logan while Derek ordered food. August wanted to go in, and twice went in with Derek while I stayed outside with one or both of the other kids. That was pretty big for August. In fact, Derek was pretty excited by how August wasn’t scared by him this time.

They then came up to the apartment with us and we’re here about an hour. Derek shared his French fries with August and the kids played. At one point August got in his cubes thing and was acting like it was a bus and was then singing. Eventually they took off, and August actually seemed a little sad for a moment. But then he went and played with his Duplos on his own for a few minutes. We then got the set of wooden shapes blocks out and played with them for awhile.

We then headed out again, to Toys R Us again. On the way he started saying things like “What is six twenty-six?” If it was a time, I would say what I thought we were doing then…sleeping, playing GarageBand, etc. That went on and on and I was running out of things, so I asked if he wanted to do math instead and he said yes. So we started chanting addition tables, and he was counting along from 1 plus 1 to 1 plus 4 on his fingers, and also roughly hitting his back against the stroller in rhythm to the chanting.

At Toys R Us he got out and spent quite awhile trying out the big toys: like a bus that is a play house, little slides, and a tricycle. We wandered around a little bit, then looked at the books, but didn’t find anything worth getting. We headed back, and went to Home Plus to do some grocery shopping. We were running late, so he stayed in the stroller until we got up to checkout, then let him out to help put things up and take them off. Got him a new pair of sunglasses, red, as his blue ones disappeared after Saturday.

Got home at 5:30, after Carly. He sat up at the table with Carly to eat dinner, and told her “more talk to me”. After dinner, he played more GarageBand, then Carly gave him a bath. We read Kipper together, then Carly attempted to put him asleep. That didn’t work, so he was back up. Started a ‘cleaning the squares’ game, where he asked what was on each playmat square and would then pretend to clean it: I said things like drool from Kayla, ketchup from Logan, etc. We then did more of the pretend soup making using a pot, then they nursed. He was asking what each flavor was as he nursed, and said of one “This is gum. I’ll save it for later.” He played Duplos on his own a bit more and was singing, then eventually headed off to bed, about 8:30.

 

Morning: 

With Derek and kids: 

In the restaurant with Derek: 

French fries: 

Blocks:

Walk to Toys R Us: 

Back home: