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For our second full day with Oma and Opa we again stayed in the neighborhood. August woke up just as Carly was going out the front door at 7. He didn’t make any noise; he simply opened the door and walked out and was ready to play with Oma and Opa. 

After 10 we all went to the pink building. We first went to the book store where I bought him a larger pack of crayons (12 – I’ll save the pack of 36 for later), a set of glass markers, and three big pads of paper since he has filled up the first one. 

We then went to the grocery store and got a few things for the stir fry Cherie was going to make for dinner. 

He wasn’t going to fall asleep at home again, so I took him for a walk outside in the carrier and simply sat in a bench (reading) meet the ‘mama statue’ while he slept. 80 minutes – his longest nap with me in a long time. 

We went home but Chuck and Cherie weren’t there. So I changed him and we went for a walk up the stream and checked out the construction site. Not much there, so we headed home. Still no Cherie and Chuck, so we end to Home Plus. We saw the lizard, got a grapefruit sample, and bought diapers and paper towels. On our way home we caught up with Chuck and Cherie as they were crossing the bridge. They had also been at Home Plus and had run into Atsuko, who figured out who they were and helped them with their shopping. 

We went home and Carly got home a little after 5. Cherie made delicious stir fry stuff for dinner. Carly gave him a bath and he went to sleep about 8:30. 

So today he applied his new vegetable knowledge. When we got to the veggie stand by the stream, he got excited spotting peppers, zucchini, and caboo (cabbage). 

And as we enter Home Plus he has a whole routine of things he spots: the balloons and soaps on the first floor, owl figurines, perfumes (he says ‘soap’ and makes sniffing noises), fake flowers (sniffing), and the vegetables (he has a random word for them)stacked outside the restaurant as we enter the first basement, horse pictures (neigh neigh) and pictures of strawberries (dal-gi) as we go down to the second basement. 

Finally, after we brushed his teeth in the evening, he was walking around sucking/chewing on his toothbrush. When he was done, he walked into the bathroom, stretched on his tiptoes, and put it away on the counter. 

New words/phrases: hole king’s socks, on box, come with me, uncle dee dee, swiffer, zucchini yummy, doggie there (pointing out dog across the stream), people hop, by lizard, baby diaper, top

Skyping with Cassie and Vivi: 

Fans in the grocery store food court: 

Riding in the shopping cart: 

Waiting for kimbap and mandu for lunch to take up to Oma and Opa:

We are working on holding the crayons pointed down in the hand: 

Our walks: 

Asleep with Camel: 

Evening: 

Showing Opa Nighty Night: 

August had a blast with Oma and Opa on their first day. We spent most of the day at home, letting them recover from jet lag. But we went to Dunkin Donuts and Home Plus in the morning, then I took him out to the park in the afternoon. And after Carly got home we all went out to the park.

It was a long day for August (and Carly and Cherie, for that matter), as he woke up at 4am and they got up with him. I was able to go back to sleep for awhile. He took a nap from 7 to 7:50, but then got really tired around noon but just wouldn’t take a nap.

A little after 9 we went to go to Home Plus, but the grocery store doesn’t open until 10. So we went to Dunkin Donuts and got coffee and donuts. Well, August and I got a bagel with cream cheese and a banana drink. August really liked the bagel, and sat quietly for a few minutes on a chair eating it. Then he continued to eat it as he explored the store a little and looked at himself in the mirror.

Then we walked around the block and went to Home Plus. I took a carrier, but didn’t use it at all this trip. August walked a lot, out of the building, across the parks, and in the store – I could get away with it because Chuck and Cherie were doing the shopping and I could corral him.

He saw the lizard and guinea pigs and had his grapefruit sample, as usual.

We went home and played there. He was looking really tired, and kept lying on the floor. But he wouldn’t go to sleep with me on the bed. Chuck and Cherie went in and read him stories but also had no luck. So I did my walking thing with the carrier and he fell asleep but woke up 4 minutes later when I tried to put him down. Chuck and Cherie were resting, so I took August back outside and walked around for 20+ minutes. Thought he was falling asleep, but no. So we played in the park.

We were there for about an hour, then went home and ate a tuna sandwich for lunch (he liked tuna for the first time) and played. Cherie started something where she would lift August up so he could put magnetic letters near the top of the door. She would then drop him down and say ‘zoom’. He loved this, and through the day would say ‘Oma zoom’ or ‘Dada zoom’.

After Carly came home well all went out to the park to try to keep August up as late as possible since he hadn’t napped today. We played a bit on the dinosaur path, then went over on the other side of the dinosaur to the hill he’s played on several times. We were there for a long time. Chuck and Cherie went in a little after 6 and we made it until sometime after 6:30. He stayed awake until right around 7.

New words/phrases: pig, dinosaur, zoom

 

With th his new Duplos: 

Sitting on Opa’s foot: 

Eating a blueberry bagel at Dunkin Donuts: 

Walking home: 

Back home: 

With me in the park: 

At home again: 

Watching Oma chop cabbage: 

Evening walk to the park with everyone: 

August and I had a lot of things to finish up this morning, and he helped with all of them. And he was a character while doing it. Early on I looked up to find him standing on the table. He’s been trying to do this for weeks. I took him off and he said “I did it. I did it. A-ha!”

A while later he was walking around creepily saying “no more dada”

And he really liked helping take apart crib

Another funny phrase he was repeating was “Yummy goat poop” Later, we had this exchange:

Me: What do you want to eat?

A: Goat poop. Eat goat poop. 

To be clear, he had never eaten goat poop. I think. 

Finally, he has taken to calling himself ZZ. Although if you ask his name he says Auggie.

Finally, he surprised me by Humming (na na na na) and conducting a song with his fingers to show he wanted me to play the piano. 

At close to 10 we headed up to the stream at Dobongsan. As soon as we got there, he started working on ‘at’, as in ‘at mul area’. 

He played in the water for quite awhile, scrambling from rock to rock. Then he made a game of throwing his ball and shovel and I would recover. Here he started working in saying “Give me ball/shovel” (and we started working on adding ‘please’ at the end). He surprised me at one point by pointing up at the waterfall and saying something. He had spotted a chipmunk and was saying ‘chipmunk’. Big surprise as I haven’t really taught him that word – the few times we’ve seen them I’ve been undecided on whether to call them chipmunks or squirrels (a word he already knows). 

He was getting tired and I changed him. As I was putting stuff away, he was trying to climb into my arms, saying ‘sit’. So I sat and he cuddled in my arms for a few minutes and said ‘sleepy’. 

But the.b he was back up and wanted to walk on his own to see the sculpture we could see from where we were sitting. 

Anyway, put him in the backpack and did our usual walk down the stream and he did his usual falling asleep along the way and we sat on our usual bench overlooking the river and he took his usual 35 minute nap (which felt long after the last two days). 

We walked to the station and got off at Nowon. Shopped at Daiso for a screwdriver for the fan, a bag for his toys in the backpack, and a few other things. Took the bus home. We did some eating and then went to the pink building and then Home Plus. On the way out, August was walking on his own in the elevator, and then at the bottom exited, went out the doors and down the hall and out the doors all on his own, waving at people as he went. I just followed. 

Got back at 4:20ish and Carly was home and then I went to get the bus to go to the airport. Got them and we just got on the bus headed back at 7. A little traffic on the way home but not bad. Home a little before 9. Had a little time to visit and get the presents from Glecy before going to sleep: a shirt from Sierra Leone and a Gaudi shirt from Barcelona, and a book about Picasso. August is going to look great in both of the shirts. 

Helping with the crib: 

Dr. Seuss. Or Shirt: 

On our way. Using Camel as a pillow: 

At the stream: 

Cuddle time:

At home: 

Note: Squarespace has started to randomly crop and squish my vertical photos. I’ve contacted customer service and they are working on it. Until then, August will look kind of funny in some of the photos. 

 

 

I fell asleep at 9, and was up at 4:30. August slept until 6:45 – a little over 12 hours. 

Speaking in his sleep: “dada” and “hungry baba”

In the morning we made banana bread. He found the hair dryer, so j plugged it in behind the microwave and he played with it in the reading area. 

He also helped peel and mash bananas, then helped with making the smoothie. 

In between, he was licking the spatula and pointing up to the open cupboard saying “I see salsa!”

The delivery guy had called up at 10:15, but hadn’t arrived by 11:02, so we hurried to August’s class, getting there just when it started at 11:10. Class was all about the story about the tortoise and the hare. He got to play with a plastic turtle shell, stand on them, run across the room to get a flag, and play a drum. 

After class we went to Home Plus for a few things, then home. An iHerb package had come and I picked it up at the guard station. To do so, I had to put August down. With my arms full of stuff (including the free Mickey towel they gave me at the guard station as part of the building’s 10 year anniversary), he was able to walk with me to the elevators. 

We played at home awhile and I expected him to sleep. He wasn’t going to sleep, so I took him for a walk in the carrier and that worked. But he woke up and started crying when I put him down on the bed. After a couple minutes his crying turned to laughter. 

So then we headed to Costco. What used to feel like a big trip is now something we do in the early afternoon before Carly gets home. 

I let him down to walk around and look at the toy section. He really liked a few of the things, particularly a fire station set and a bus that teaches phonics. He found out that it also plays ‘Itsy Bitsy’, which he calls ‘Hungry Baa Baa’. 

We headed home and played. At 5:25 he suddenly started wanting mama, so we went to the elevators. She didn’t show by 5:35 so I coaxed him back in by saying we would vacuum. We were vacuuming the play area when Carly got home. 

At 7:30 I went down to my writers group meeting. We met in Cafe Heim on the 2nd floor. 

It got done at 9 and j stopped by Jeff’s apartment to borrow a fan, as one of ours is broken. Went home to find that August had stayed up until 8. Impressive, since he basically didn’t have a nap. 

New words/phrases: hair dryer, Todd Parr, guinea pig, mama statue, Kings sock, baba gate, mailbox

“I see salsa!”: 

Class: 

Costco: 

With his class tomorrow, and planning to go to Dobongsan on Wednesday, I figured today might be the last day for a few weeks to take August on a completely random haven’t-been-there-before adventure, as we’ll mainly be visiting places we’ve already been with Chuck and Cherie. So I decided to make a long trek across the city to check out some of the other parks across the city in the World Cup Stadium area.

And it was definitely a trek. It took 2 hours and 15 minutes to get there, as we took busses to try to avoid the morning rush hour packed trains. But that meant we also hit Monday morning traffic, which is the worst day of the week.

Anyway, August did really well on the trek. I took 3 books along, and that definitely helped. And we transferred twice, which actually helps as well as he gets a break.

We made it to World Cup Stadium and first went to Pyounghwa Park across the street. We walked around the large pond to the big playground. We ate, then he played. He did his usual stealing of my portion of the sandwich, literally saying “Dada’s sandoo” and then taking it. 

At the playground he played in the sand a lot. There were two older boys playing with the water faucets, making a stream in the sand. I had to keep August away as he kept wanting to throw sand or water in their direction. He then made a game of throwing the shovel off the picnic platforms. After I changed him he got into following the pigeons. A couple of pigeons went up a rock embankment, so then August was really trying to climb. We ended up walking around on the dirt to follow them. He is pretty calm about it, and doesn’t try to chase them (yet), although he sees other kids chase them all the time. He was walking around barefoot as his shoes were back on the backpack drying.

Before we left, he really got into drawing with the chalk on the chalkboards that were next to the platforms. He spent at least 10 minutes on it. Ironically, he stayed on the chalkboard, whereas at home he will draw on the floor after about 10 seconds.

He had now been awake for more than 5 and a half hours, so we started walking. As we left the park, he was saying ‘bye bye dulgi (pigeons)’ and he quickly fell asleep. Found a quiet cafe and got a lemonade. But he woke up after 20 minutes. Quickly packed up and headed out, and thought he fell back to sleep. But as soon as I started looking around for a bench, his head was back up.

So we walked up the 300 steps and a hill to the top of Haneul Park. This is the other hill (the east one) that used to be a landfill and now has a park on top. Last year, we went to the top of the other hill, Noeul Park (that’s where we almost touched a spider).

We spent a lot of time at a circular observation building. He really liked climbing up and down the stairs and waving at people. At one point, a couple walked down across from us and they had a little radio blasting (a common occurrence here in Korea). I said ‘Seriously?’ to myself, and August picked up on it. After we walked to the top, we went back to the same spot, and August started saying ‘Seriously? Seriously?’ He then said it a lot more through the day.

We then walked across the park, headed west. We stopped at a little bridge and he played around. The bridge was sort of a ramp, so he would go back and forth on it. He was carrying Camel in one hand, so when he came down Camel was flapping in the wind. He also stopped to wave to the butterflies (nah-be).

Our other stop in the park was a cool sculpture/enclosure that shades some stone benches. We ate a snack here and he played a bit with the bushes and waved to the women meeting there.

We walked around the west end of the park and stopped to refill our water. I then put him in the backpack and walked down the road and out of the park. We walked through Nanjicheon Park, where we had started our adventure last year by having a picnic in the grass near the playground, and where this year we got to admire the flowers and watch some butterflies.

We made it to World Cup Stadium subway station and headed home. Scored two seats together on the subway, and it only took an hour to get back to Hagye Station. He sat most of the way, although sat on my lap for part of it. Made it with the help of Cheerios, the three books, and then playing some Nighty Night and Endless Alphabet on the iPad. The last couple minutes, before our transfer, he started to want down from the seat. Put him in the back pack at the station and he was in that for the last two stops on line 7.

Got home a just a few minutes after Carly. He was really talkative in the evening. He kept saying two mystery words, which I got both of on video, but we had no idea what he was saying. Seemed very intentional though.

During dinner, Carly spilled yogurt on the floor, which seems to have been foreshadowing what was to come. After his dinner, Carly gave him a bath, and he got really upset – more than he’s cried in some time. It got worse when she was putting his diaper on, to the point where he threw up, which only upset him more. Two more throw ups and she managed to get him calmed down and to sleep at 6:30. Very unusual experience for him.

New words/phrases: diaper, brush your teeth (held his toothbrush out to me and said it), cabbage (caboo), Cookie Monster, seriously, Dr. Seuss (how he requests Hop on Pop)

On the busses: 

At the park: 

First piece of garbage for the day:

Dada’s sandoo: 

Climbing to see pigeons: 

After his nap, at Haneul Park: 

World Cup Stadium in the foreground, Namsan Tower on a hill way far away on the right. We live way on the other side of Namsan Tower:

Sculpture thing: 

Headed home: 

Still hiding some Larabar: 

On the subway: 

Mystery words: 

I had another hike scheduled today, but it was postponed. So more time around the house in the morning until August took a two hour nap, which provided time to catch up on blogging and do some reading. After that, we walked to the park near Toys R Us that August and I recently found. We then went to Toys R Us and bought a couple books before coming home.

We all woke up around 6:30. He and Carly left the room first, then August turned around and came back in the room with his head lowered and said “kiss dada” so I would kiss his forehead.

Also in the morning, he did a pretty good job of eating Cheerios with a spoon, and we Skyped first with my parents, then with Chuck and Cherie and Andrea and Thatcher and Glecy in Seattle. August’s biggest discovery in the morning, however, was the hairdryer Carly had gotten out for her mom. First he wanted to hear it, then he wanted to help hold it, then he was holding it on his own, blowing air on himself and other people, and climbing on the bed and blowing it around. This lasted for a long time.

For lunch, he had Carly’s soup. His favorite part is the zucchini. At first he was just saying ‘kee-nee’, but he ended up really getting the full pronunciation down.

After his nap he did a good job of keeping the crayons on the paper when coloring. This has been a work in progress as he likes to color on everything else. So now I say “What do we color on?” and he says “paper”. 

Then we headed to the park. On the way there, he really started using ‘see’, as in saying ‘see namu’ (tree) and ‘see subway’ (he meant bus, but they are all subways now). He’s used ‘see’ before, and says ‘I see it’, but this felt more conversation-y. 

We reached the park and played there for a long time. Carly got to really see him playing more independently, especially in the sand. And every time he would find a piece of a nut or a rock in the sand he would get out of the sand area, go to the bushes, and throw it in. When he got back to the sand area he would excitedly make the big step down into the sand. He still kept us really busy, as he roamed all over the playground, spending a lot of time going from one springy animal chair to another, and then wanting up on the noodle slide (for lack of a better term) and then back down.

Eventually, he wanted to nurse, so we headed to Toys R Us. I was considering getting a full beach play set, and we wanted to look for a couple other things. We ended up getting a book on dinosaurs and a visual dictionary. Both because they were really cool, and because books at Toys R Us are surprisingly cheap.

We went home, and I tackled our storage unit, getting out more stuff that is being donated, and taking a few bags of stuff left by previous tenants down to the garbage. While I did that, Carly fed August (more zucchini/soup and spaghetti) and gave him a bath.

He stayed up until a little after 9. He and Carly had a nice long cuddle/singing time at one point, and he and I read a lot of books. He really liked Kiss Goodnight (about a mother bear putting her son Sam to bed) tonight and we read it twice through the first time, then a third time later on. He loved the line where the mom says ‘hmmmm’ and was absolutely cracking up. It became his new catch phrase. He really picks up on words like that, having previously picked up on ‘tasty’, ‘sure’, ‘yummy’, ‘a-ha’, ‘uh-oh’ and a couple others.

New words/phrases: kiss dada, set go (ready, set, go), zucchini (kee-nee, then the full word a few minutes later), see subway, pinecone (said at park, not sure if I’ve listed it before), hmmm

Hairdryer: 

Park: 

Evening: 

He’d just been making GG hop: 

We didn’t venture far today, as the day was dedicated to rearranging all the furniture in anticipation of Cherie and Chuck’s visit starting on Wednesday. August wanted to get the work started early, as he was up at 4:30. Carly was fully awake, so got up with him a little later. I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t really, so I was up around 5:30. Carly was able to go back to sleep for a little while. While she did that, August and I played Endless Alphabet and with his sticker books while listening to a couple of Bach cello concertos.

And then we spent all morning moving beds, hauling stuff to recycling, etc. August liked to help, but he was most excited when Carly got out the screwdriver to put the bed frame together. He stole the screwdriver and took it to where he and I had taken the door off of the cupboard in his reading area. He also really liked extending the legs on the collapsible end tables we have. We would reset all the legs and he would pull them up and then we’d have to do it again.

He took a 2 hour nap and woke up around 1. In the afternoon we all went to Home Plus to do some shopping. We of course saw the lizard, and he got a cheesy sausage, chicken nugget, and pineapple as his samples. He eats more meat at Home Plus than he does at home.

Carly headed straight home to start chopping vegetables for soup. August and I went to the park to check out more of the children’s festival, but the concert that was scheduled to go to 6 was over by the stroke of 4. Bad scheduling there. So we went to the playground and played there for an hour. August wasn’t scared of the crowd and really liked it – waving to a lot of people and watching the big kids on the swings and doing flips over the bar around the swings. He played with his shovel, climbed on a little hill, threw little rocks into the bushes, and generally wandered around the area. He threw a rock over the little dinosaur fence, and another boy about the same age was interested. They stood next to each other, looking at things on the other side of the fence together for a couple minutes.

Finally, he decided he could use some mama time, so we headed home. He had spaghetti for dinner but didn’t get too messy. I entertained him with camel, putting camel on my head and then asking him where camel was. He would point to me, and I’d say, “No, I’m dada. Where’s camel?” He thought that was really funny. Eventually he would lie, and point somewhere else, and when I went to look he would laugh. He didn’t get too messy in general today, so we skipped a bath. He fell asleep rather suddenly a little after 7.

He doesn’t seem too upset about all the rearranging, and in fact seemed to really like the whole process and the way things are set up. And he likes that the fish are back on the wall – I asked him where they were and he immediately walked into the other room and pointed to them.

New words/phrases: trumpet, mama go (playing chase around the house), sock, cream, hammer car, giraffe, guinea pig

The park: 

Looking out at the street: