Category: Uncategorized

We’ve been getting out of the house pretty early lately, so when today we had a leisurely morning and made it out of the house, I was surprised to find it was still before 9:30. In the morning we played with his hand puppets (Eddy, the blue cat, and the Korean frog) and August started putting on the cat puppet and saying ‘meow’. We then made a smoothie, and August decided he now likes yogurt, after flatly rejecting it in the past.

As we were headed to the subway, we found booths being set up for a children’s festival in the park, happening both today and tomorrow. There were concerts in the afternoon, so I figured we’d try to get back for them.

We went up to the stream at Dobongsan and played there for a little over two hours. I remembered to get out his toys this time, so he spent a lot of time digging in the sand in the stream, and we sailed the boat. As we got there, there were three ducks. He was excited by that, and would later stop playing and say ‘ducky’ or ‘more ducky’.

After an hour or so, we stopped for a snack. As we were eating our snack, there were three women and a girl up above the bank having a picnic. They brought over a plate of food: sweet potato, 2 hardboiled eggs, squash, and a bread stick thing. August preferred the sweet potato, not least because he liked using the chopsticks to poke holes in it.

When we were done eating, we went up to say hi. We took a bag of cranberries and a Larabar and I had August sort of offer them to the little girl. They then offered August a variety of nuts – cashes, walnuts, and almonds – which he tasted, but didn’t really eat, since he doesn’t like crunchy foods yet.

We left to go back to the water, but August preferred climbing on the rocks. As we were doing that, an egret came walking up the stream. August saw it first and pointed it out. We watched it for a few minutes until it disappeared upstream. 

August wanted to go back and say hi to the women again, so we did that. Then, we were back playing on the rocks when the egret flew back downstream.

It was now 5 hours since he woke up, and I needed to change him. So I took him over to our usual changing spot by the waterfall fountain and there was the egret. It stood there, about 10 feet from us, as I changed August. When I let August up, he started walking towards it and got within a few feet.

We headed back to our stuff and packed up, just as it started sprinkling. We started walking down the stream and it continued to rain. It was light though, and the sunshade was enough. He fell asleep, and I sat in the same spot overlooking the river.

When he woke up we went to the subway and back to our stop. We went into the park to look around and watched a little drumming. It started raining harder, so we went home.

A little after 3 we left to go back to the park and concert. August took with him a plastic spoon and the camel. There was no music at first, so he played by/with some bushes and flowers with camel and his shovel. Then the music started. He really liked the kids and their nantas performance (there was fire and steam shooting up as they performed on the drums, so that was exciting) and the high school brass band. Between shows we walked up the stairs outside the art museum, which he really liked, and played up there. He also got to climb and stand on the lizard sculpture. The museum has taken down the ropes and signs prohibiting this, so they were being swarmed by kids.

He wasn’t into the last show, more traditional Korean music that was supposed to be calming, so we went into the museum to see the new show that just opened up. Some cool art, but more difficult for August, as there were things like chairs that didn’t have ropes around them, yet he couldn’t touch and climb on. We went down to the children’s space and of course he want to the box thing. Then had fun sort of running in and out of the tunnel area, and ended by giving high fives to a woman that was talking to him. 

We got home at 5:15, but Carly wasn’t home. August wasn’t happy about that, so we turned around and headed back outside, and met Carly and Megan as they came into Brownstone.

Spaghetti for dinner and a bath, and he went to bed about 7:30.

New words/phrases: hurt, ducky (both his bath duck and the ducks at Dobongsan), cool cool, moss (have taught it to him a couple times; he used it on his own today pointing to miss on a rock by the stream), sure (Me: So you want banana bread? Him: sure, sure), trumpet (in his sticker book)

Stream: 

Waving to the egret: 

Asleep: 

Watching some drumming: 

Headed back outside: 

Playing with the flowers: 

Nantas performance:

On the lizard: 

Going down the stairs on the art museum: 

Running out of the Alice in Wonderland area: 

Today August turned 18 months old and we made the most of it. August really wanted to make the most of it, as he stayed up until 10pm and only took a 35 minute nap, after waking up a little after 7.

In the morning he carried Marshy around a lot, hugging him and patting his tummy. We made eggs with crab, broccoli, and cheese together. He then carried around and played with his blanket, and got out a few of the books in his room that we’ve never really read. Finally, he got ahold of one of my belts and was walking around the house making ‘ssss’ sounds like it was a snake. He still had a firm hold on it when I put him in the backpack to leave. I took it from him and he got upset, but calmed down when I coiled it up and put it on the couch and said it would be there when we got back.

He acted surprisingly tired on the train ride down, yawning several times. But when we got to the park we headed straight for the zoo and spent the next two and a half hours there. He first wanted to go see the deer. Then we saw the zebras, then the seals, then walked to the children’s zoo. This is where he really started to spend a lot of time, as he walked from the horses to the goats, then on to the meerkats and otters. He spent a good amount of time in the tropical building, then we sat on a bench in the shade out in the square and ate some crab and banana and other snacks. He was also doing a lot of people watching; in fact, on the way down we took the stairs, and at one point he pointed back and forth across the square and said ‘people’, then sat on the stairs and watched for a few minutes.

After 20 or 30 minutes of eating/watching he headed back into the tropical building on his own. There, he proceeded to spend about 15 minutes playing in the entryway, activating the automatic doors, waving to people as they came in, and laying on, crawling, and sliding around on the floor. He then proceeded back to the lizards (he really likes the word ‘gecko’ now), snakes, and fish, then proceeded to walk up and down the indoor ramps several times, stopping occasionally to watch the water monitor, gibbons, or birds.

Finally, he was starting to look tired, and I needed to change him. So we went up to the bathroom I usually use behind the amphitheater and changed him, then he fell asleep after a few minutes of walking. Went to the cafe, where they now have the umbrellas set up outside, and he slept about 35 minutes.

When he woke up, I realized I didn’t have his shoes. We hurried back up to the bathroom, and they were still sitting on the floor (the light hadn’t been working in the changing room, so that didn’t help).

We went back to the cafe and I bought August a strawberry juice and a cinnamon muffin as his 18 month treat. We sat in the comfy chairs he has always liked, but never sat in (usually the table is being used). He started eating the muffin (he loves cinnamon), and quickly said ‘cinnamon’, and kept saying it. I had also told him it was a treat, so he kept saying ‘treat’. Eating and drinking his treat took about 20 minutes, after which we cleaned up, and August helped by throwing away the wipes, muffin wrapper, and napkin. We said and waved goodbye to the woman who works there, and left to go to Adventureland Playground.

We stopped at the water fountains near the playground to take off his shirt and rinse the strawberry juice out. While at the playground, he played without a shirt, and by the time we were ready to go it was dry enough to put back on.

Anyway, as I was doing that, he climbed down the rock step and started walking towards the playground, saying ‘I see it’. I caught up to him, and when we got to the sand area he pointed and said ‘a-ha’. He would later repeat the ‘I see it’ after I took him across the path to throw away a piece of garbage and he watched a crew mowing the grass area.

He played in the sand areas, then we went up to the instruments and played “Baa Baa” a lot. Then he stood on a little ledge and threw his shovel over some bushes to me, and spent time walking up and down the ramps. He then heard “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” playing on the loudspeaker and got really excited. We went and listened to the rest of it, then spent the next half hour singing both the spider and hungry baa baa version over and over. Initially, his signal requesting the song was kind of patting his own head (his motion for the “up came the sun” part, but eventually he was saying “hungry baa baa” to distinguish it from the “baa baa black sheep” song. And at some point he finished off his strawberry juice and played with his camel, making the camel hop (“camel hop”) and saying “camel sleepy”. 

We changed him and headed home. From the subway we went and did some grocery shopping (and of course went and saw the lizard and turtle, which was out eating lettuce) and headed home. At about 5:15 we went out to meet Carly and met her walking around the corner from the elevators.

He ate a ton of the spaghetti that Carly made for dinner, then I gave him a bath. He had a ton of energy in the evening, despite looking tired. Carly took him in a couple times, but he wouldn’t go to sleep. At 9, I took over and we read a lot of books. At one point stood up on his stool and we read the Mother Goose book on the counter. Finally, a few minutes before 10 he kind of pinched his finger in a drawer. He calmed down after that, but when I asked if he wanted mama, he started saying ‘nurse’, and he went in and went straight to sleep.

His new song creation today was inserting ‘grampa’ into the ABC song instead of letters, ending with “next time won’t you sing with grampa.” And he was talking a lot about soup and fish through the day. For soup, he would randomly say “all gone soup” or “al gone grampa soup” and the fish are because Carly took down Cherie’s fish picture to hand up someplace else. So he when changing him he’ll look up at the blank wall and say “all gone (fish noise).” Today, he expanded that to “all gone sad (fish noise).” We will get them hung back up this weekend. Oh, and he surprised me while taking a bath, turning to the wall and saying pointing and saying ‘tile’. It is a word that Carly and I have used with him in passing, but hadn’t made a point to teach him.

New words: sad, dada/gaegul hop, bye bye sssss, people elevator, see baboon, dirt (as we walked by a flower bed, kind of surprised me), baby elevator (otter and elevator sound similar, and he was saying them, back and forth, then started saying ‘baby elevator’ for fun), kangaroo (surprised me by pointing at the kangaroos and saying it), hay (picked some off the ground and tried to feed the goats), more hay (different meaning of ‘more’ – previously, he has used more to mean ‘I want more’, this time, it was when he went to the other end of the goat enclosure and saw more hay and was pointing it out), gecko, skip, hungry baa baa, camel hop and camel sleepy, all gone sad (fish sound), tile

On our way: 

Zoo: 

18 month treat: 

Playground: 

Reading the Mother Goose book while standing on his stool and looking really tired a few minutes before he finally falls asleep: 

He was up early, about 5:40. He saw Carly’s quesadilla and wanted it, so we started the day by making a quesadilla. We then had a little extended iPad and Sesame Street website time, since he hasn’t done much the last couple days. I took the door off the cabinet in the reading area, and he was fascinated by the screwdriver. Luckily, it was a short, stubby screwdriver, so I could let him play with it a bit. 

We used one of his little brooms to do some sweeping, and when he managed to get some in the dustpan, I said “You did it.” He replied, changing the pronoun like he did yesterday, with “I did it”.

We then had some music time with the xylophone and drum and what not, then skyped with my parents.

We were hanging up laundry when the woman came to spray the stuff down the drains, something they do every few months. That kind of freaked him out, and he started crying.

We were finally going to leave the house when a delivery man rang the bell. So we waited for our iHerb package. After 30 minutes he hadn’t shown up, so we headed down. But no package for us at the security office, so I decided to go back up once more to check. We met the guy at the door.

Finally, about 10:40 we were off, headed for Dream Forest. August fell asleep as we went under the underpass. I looked at the map for a place to stop and realized there was a park we’d never been to back on the east side of the tracks. It was behind an apartment complex in the space where two sets of train tracks come together. So we went there and he slept 40 minutes.

He woke up and played for awhile with his shovel and sand and with a faucet. And he ate his sandoo. I asked him if he wanted to stay and play or go and see the deer. After several more minutes of eating and a little playing, all the sudden he started saying ‘deer, deer, deer’. So we were off.

Walked to Dream Forest and straight to the deer. Spent a long time there. First, he was fascinated by the work crew working with shovels and other tools. So we just hung out on the bridge and he entertained himself and watched, and occasionally watched the deer. Then we headed to the north end, where he started to play with an old fence post, putting grass and rocks into it. The deer were getting closer and getting more of his attention. He spent a lot of time practicing going up and down the set of seven steps at the corner. He did a lot of talking and babbling to the deer.

Finally, we were off. We went to the playground, where another family gave him a peach jelly stick. Basically liquid candy, but very good. He loved it. He did some more eating, and watched kids play, but needed to be changed. So we went inside and changed him.

While changing him, we heard a baby crying somewhere. He looked at me, and with a very serious look on his face, said ‘Baby crying’. He was very proud of himself for the sentence. He would say it a lot during the day.

We went back outside and spent the rest of our time playing in the wading pool. He played a lot with our set of toys and sat down a lot in the pool. When I changed him before we left the diaper was incredibly full and heavy.

We took the bus home and beat Carly by about 30 minutes. He played in the sink, we finished off the day’s snacks, and we did some straightening and cleaning.

Carly came home and nursed him and fed him spaghetti. She blended broccoli up to add to the sauce, and that worked really well. I gave him a bath. As expected, he was tired and went to sleep before 8. He was really hyper as Carly took him in to bed, but he crashed pretty quickly.

New words/phrases: antlers, spots, fence, baby crying

Park: 

Deer: 

At the playground: 

Wading pool (aka mul area): 

Eating spaghetti never gets old: 

August slept late. Past 8. When he woke up, he didn’t make any noise. I was startled to see/hear the handle of the bedroom door opening and he walked out. He asked for ‘mama’ a few times, but then went to playing with the clips on his high chair.

In the morning, we made banana bread and a smoothie together. He helped with cracking the egg, peeling and smashing bananas, pouring milk and stirring, and then helped put fruit in the blender. As he drank his smoothie he looked out the window at the street below. He then sat on the floor and used his feet to spin himself around as he drank it.

We then had a nice extended art time, where he did some coloring, played with play dough, took stickers out of his sticker book (and put some on the arm of the couch), and then made a point of sitting on the couch with Marshy.

His class was at 11:10. As we were getting ready to leave, he had ahold of Marshy. He still had Marshy when I put him in the backpack. He got upset when I took Marshy away, but I was able to trade him for the leopard, err ‘camel’. He ended up holding the camel through most of his class and shopping, and we later clipped it to the backpack and took it when we went to the park.

His class today went well. He likes the more active songs and we got to play with a musical instrument thing after bubble time. The class was about colors, and we got a set of felt objects to play with. August was mainly interested in putting cleaning up and putting them back in the plastic bag. And when the teacher walked away from hers, he went over and picked up all of her pieces and put them away as well. Then, they got these flower hats to put on. He, of course, rejected it. But then I pointed to Jungbean and said that he was wearing his. Almost immediately, August picked up the hat himself and tried putting it on. There are now 6 other kids in the class, and at least 2 of the parents speak English.

We stopped at the rice burger (bap burger) place on the way home after doing a little extra walking since he seemed sleepy (but he didn’t fall asleep). We took our bap burgers up to the apartment and ate them for lunch. August really liked them. Unfortunately, I realized they aren’t nearly as health as the kimbap, but they are easier for him to eat.

He seemed tired, and on a couple of occasions laid down on the floor with Marshy, or went in on the bed when I asked when he was tired. But he wasn’t falling asleep. So I put him in the carrier and we went down and walked over towards the park. That worked. We came home and he slept for 70 minutes, until 3:15.

After he got up, we were getting ready to go to a park. I couldn’t find the camel to take with us, so I asked him where it was. He looked around, then started calling ‘Camel? Camel?’ So funny. We then looked around the house and he kept doing it, or saying ‘bye bye, Camel’. Finally, we found it (behind the bedroom door) and were on our way.

We went to Junghyeong Children’s Park (중현어린이공원 – one of the few not named after an animal or plant, but maybe Google just doesn’t translate it properly). It is the park where I once took a walking video of him in the carrier and he threw up. We played there, mainly in the sand, and then in the bushes. Then he saw some cats so we went and looked at them, but he didn’t try to get really close. Then back to the sand area, where he played with the ball, and was then excited when I started drawing letters in the sand.

A little after 5 Carly let us know she was walking home with Megan. So we walked and met them on the other side of the river and walked home together.

He had spaghetti again for dinner, after which he took a bath. He was awake until about 9. Before that, there was a lot of reading and just a little Nighty Night. In the evening he was randomly saying ‘no more soup’ for no apparent reason. Also, he is really into the Maisy books now, and when he sees Cyril with say ‘hi Cyril’. And when he saw the jam jar he called it ‘salsa’ in his high sing-songy voice.

Earlier in the day, he had been picking up on words in songs we were listening to. Listening to “Puff the Magic Dragon”, for example, he would repeat ‘by the sea’ after they sang it.

New words/phrases: by the sea (Puff), honk (car outside), toucan (goo-cah), hi Cyril, hide and seek, Charley, bap burger, I did it (after Carly said ‘you did it’), Sophie, no more soup, bread (beet), itchy (bug bite on leg)

Fresh banana bread: 

Taking his ‘camel’ to class: 

Class: 

At the park: 

Cats (we saw a total of four): 

Drawing letters and things in the sand. Me, not him: 

Evening: 

August woke up a couple minutes before 7, and by a couple minutes after 8 we were headed to the subway. It took 65 minutes and one transfer to get down to Seoul Grand Park, south of Gangnam. August did just fine. For the second train stint he sat on my lap and we read the two books I brought along (Carle’s ABCs and Plant a Tree for Me).

It is a long way from the subway, up past the parking lots and around the lake to the zoos. We walked this time to check things out along the way, but would probably take the shuttle bus/train thing in the future. The parking lot was being used by the police for motorcycle and riot police training, so that was pretty entertaining.

As we got to the children’s zoo (you had to walk along a fence to the far end), August could hear and smell (he did his sniffing thing) it and was getting excited. We walked into the the zoo and first he was excited to see a sheep statue and sit on it. Then he saw pigs for the first time. It got even better after that as he saw goats and horses and then ‘real’ baa baa sheep. We spent a good 30 to 45 minutes with the sheep, pausing for a snack. After our snack, we bought hay from the vending machine and he loved feeding the sheep. He got to touch their wool and a ram came over and he was touching the horn.

We moved on, looking at the gardens a bit and then heading out and across the street to the big zoo. There, we went first to see zebras for the first time, then the giraffes (he pointed and called them ‘GG’ after his stuffed animal).

He was hungry, so we went to the playground and sat on a platform to eat. He was really entertained by another green bug that crawled on our backpack, then played in the sand. We then went down to the stream and played in the water using the shovel and the plastic boat I’d brought along.

From there we walked up to see about the dolphin shows. He saw a dolphin picture and said pointed and said ‘dolphin’, a word I didn’t know he knew. He had heard me say it in the zoo, but I hadn’t been pointing to a dolphin. So that must have come from a couple of his books with dolphins in them. Anyway, we saw the seals, then stopped for a snack and water. He started laying on the ground at my feet and I thought he might be tired, so I put him in the backpack.

Walked up to the goldfish pond and back and forth a bit and he fell asleep for a 45 minute nap by the pond.

After he woke up we walked back down the hill, headed for camels. Along the way we saw llamas and then spent a lot of time looking at the big birds (he said ‘eagle’, ‘owl’, ‘who’, ‘condor’, and ‘law’ a lot). And we saw a bateleur, which was new to me.

We then went to see the camels, but could only see part of them, since they were in their houses. He was hungry again, so we found a bench by the water birds and ate a Larabar. Another family saw him and gave him a rice cake thing that he loved (called it a ‘cracker’). This is where he said ‘dada eat’ and ‘dada eat it’. The backpack was out of water, so we went to find a water fountain. Took awhile, then headed to the dolphin show. We passed more water fountains and August pointed and said ‘a-ha’. Pretty sure that isn’t exactly what I said when we found the previous one, but obviously I had been excited.

Anyway, we went into the dolphin show (benefit of the backpack: not having to leave it outside in the stroller area) and sat down in the first row. He kept pointing and saying ‘mul area’. When the show started, the audience clapped. He was startled by that, and kept looking at the audience every time they clapped, even after I pointed out the seal. After a couple of times of clapping, he then clapped, but got his sad/overwhelmed look. So I picked him up and he sat on my lap the rest of the show (15 minutes). He loved the dolphins, and was upset when the show ended. For the next 15 or 20 minutes he kept saying ‘more’ as we walked outside. 

Getting out of the park took much longer than I expected. We saw a camel out in the open, then when we got to the hippos August decided he didn’t want to be carried. So we played there for awhile, mainly with the bushes and railing and wanted to be picked up to see when the hippo made noise. I was standing a bit off from him while he played when he turned to me and said “I got my dada” several times and grabbed my legs, then went back to playing.

I got him away from there, but the next stop was the meerkats. Who knew he loved meerkats, so much? He watched them for several minutes, then wanted to go back to them after we started to leave.

We made another pass by the zebras and changed him in the bathroom across from them. From there, we made the long walk back to the subway. He was fine most of the way, but insisted on playing near the parking lots and was a bit upset when I cut that short and insisted we go.

He did great on the ride back. On the first stint on the train he was in the backpack. At one point, he started rubbing something on my neck. I knew he didn’t have anything so was confused. It turns out one of the women around us, I don’t know which, gave him a piece of hard candy. In the wrapper. 

We transferred and managed to score one seat for the entire 40 minute trip back. He was still in the backpack. 3 crackers, some Cheerios, and then reading the books kept him occupied until we got home a little before 6.

Carly made him spaghetti for dinner, which is still his favorite, then gave him a bath. He successfully peed in his toilet again before the bath. Went to sleep around 8:30 again.

So one of the things he was doing today was changing the words to the ABC song. Like he has done with other songs (like Baa Baa), he would say something different to be funny. I was telling Carly about this as he ate spaghetti, and he sang the ABC song replacing the letters he knows with ‘haak-uum’, his made-up word for garbage.  

New words: sheep, wool, giraffe, dolphin, owl, bye bye condor, dada eat, dada eat it, raisins, meerkat

 

On our way: 

Children’s zoo: 

The big zoo: 

He had tried to drink the stream water, so I called it icky water, which he then repeated a lot: 

Waiting for the show: 

Watching from my lap. Note the bit of Larabar still in his hand: 

Sad because the show is over: 

Playing by the hippos: 

Meerkats: 

On our way home. Cracker boy: 

Dinner time: 

Don’t think I’ve mentioned it on the blog before today, but haak-uum is his word for garbage. It can refer to either a piece of garbage or to a garbage can or bag. My dad first figured it out in Everett on the waterfront: 

There were lots of wake ups in the night. I remember watching him sit up, sit silently for a couple minutes, then reaching over and silently tapping Carly on the shoulder because he wanted to nurse. At other times he was talking and making noise in his sleep, including his lip noise and saying ’bye bye Anna’. As such, he slept in until about 9.

I made an egg scramble with crab that he really liked. Later he helped me make a smoothie. The rest of the morning involved some cleaning and resting and of course some playing. A bit after noon I took him out for a walk in the backpack. We walked to a park (백합어린이공원, Lily Children’s Park) just north and across the street from Toys R Us that we’d never been to before. A nice find, as the park and playground area are good for playing, and there are two really nice apartment complex play areas kind of attached to the public park.

We played there for about an hour. First, of course, in the sand area, and then climbing on a bench and throwing his shovel an a long stick into the bushes and off the bench. He also got to watch a flock of pigeons as they moved through the park.

From there we went to Toys R Us. As soon as we got in the building and he saw the combination of the pet store and the giraffe statues for Toys R Us he got really excited and kept saying ‘at the zoo’, which is the name of a book he has and just started saying in the last couple days. When we actually went in Toys R Us he wanted to go back and kept saying ‘more at the zoo’. Didn’t buy anything, but we did scout out Duple sets for which ones have animals with them.

We then walked home, stopping at 2001 Outlet to watch four workers scaling the side of the building and washing it, and getting home about 2:30. This was when he would take a nap, if he was going to. He looked a bit tired, but didn’t go down for a nap. A no nap day.

We were at home for awhile and skyped with my parents, then I took him out to Home Plus. While we went there, Carly went to the pink building and got some groceries and pho. He carried his rag on the trip. Did a good job of holding on to it, although in the store he did decide to throw it on the ground so I took it for awhile. For samples he had red pepper, chicken nugget, and pineapple. This actually convinced us to get a pineapple. He was upset that he couldn’t have more pineapple in the store and had a little meltdown, but stopped crying soon, pretty much on his own.

We walked home and he ate a bunch of carrot. Carly called it a ’sweet carrot’, so he kept requesting more by saying ‘more sweet’. At one point he had been nursing and I sat down next to them on the couch with my iPad. He climbed on to my lap, blocking my view,  and insisted on Nighty Night. In the evening he played in the sink and ate a late peanut butter sandwich as if we hadn’t been feeding him all day. 

Carly gave him a bath. Before he got in, she had him try to use the toilet for the first time. Success! He was very excited by it and about dumping the pee in the toilet afterwards. 

Right before bed I changed him again. We were singing “The wheels on the bus” and he was really getting into ‘the doors’ and timing his hand claps with mine, and saying ‘shut’ every time. He was asleep around 8:30.

New words/phrases: crack eggs, I see it, cow, At the Zoo, goat noise (baaaaaaaa), sweet carrot, salsa, bye bye people, smoothie cup

 

Morning: 

Lily Children’s Park: 

Toys R Us: 

Walking home: 

Watching workers on the building:

Home: 

Home Plus: 

Back home: 

Taking over the iPad: 

Sandoo: 

Today started primarily as a cleaning day; we tackled a lot of the closets and organizing involved in making sure there is room and preparing for rearranging rooms before Chuck and Cherie show up a week from Wednesday.

We skyped with Chuck and Cherie in the morning. Then I made French toast. While doing so, August got up on his stool at the counter just for fun. He did this a few times throughout the day.

He then literally did some vacuuming, with the vacuum cleaner on. Lasted a good 10 minutes. He was in the hall, and it would stretch into the two back bedrooms. He would vacuum in one room, then struggle to lift and turn the handle into the other room, then go down the hall, etc.

He took a nap. At this point, Carly was starting to feel off again and, sure enough, she had a fever. After his nap, August and I got out the magnet board game I bought some time ago on sale and he ate a sandwich for lunch. At some point, Carly added the little zookeeper and panda Duplo set I’d bought several months ago to the mix. August quickly picked up ‘zookeeper’.

Carly went to the hospital to see about some antibiotics for an infection. It turned into a two hour experience as they were incredibly thorough: x-ray, blood work, frozen water bottles to bring down the (not incredibly high) fever, an IV.

August and I, after reading a few more books, headed out for a walk. We took Carly her Kindle, then I quickly got August out of the ER full of sick people. We went and played in the park near the hospital. He mainly played with his shovel in the sand. He also requested I get out the ball, so we played with that, kicking it, throwing it up in the bushes, and watching me shoot it through the basketball hoop. And he threw away a few pieces of garbage.

I’ve noticed sand is now the most important thing for a playground. Funny how it has moved from swings to slides to water to now sand. I wonder what the next thing is going to be…

Anyway, when Carly was done with met her at the hospital then walked home via McDonald’s. 

We were home for a little while, long enough for August to use a discarded shower head to pretend to fill up his bathtub, then left again to give Carly some time to rest. This time we walked to Chrysanthemum Park. But that involved about a 15 minute stop along the way where he basically stood on the sidewalk and waved to everyone and everything, primarily cars going by. He then got into throwing fruits from the trees, but he wanted to throw them into the street, and get close to the curb in doing so, so we kept going.

Both directions as we walked by the women’s center he said ‘smoothie’. But it was closed.

Anyway, as soon as he saw the park he shouted ‘shovel’, and that was the primary activity again, with me needing to encourage him to keep the sand in the sand area. He also played with a swing a little, then wanted to go over to the ‘chestnut’ area. We did, and he played with them a bit, but mainly he ate: a Larabar, a banana, and a cracker.

We were at the park over an hour, then headed home about 7 or 7:15. We got home, then got a call from the security guards saying we had a package. I took August down to get it. It was his infant toilet. So we brought it up and he helped me put it together.

He ate another banana and had beans, cheese, and broccoli for dinner and we read a lot of books and he was asleep about 9. 

New words: banana shaker (‘nana shirkle’ – he just pointed to the shaker on top of his piano and said it), lightbulb, zookeeper (zoobooper), tissue, suitcase (from the Abby Cadabby page on the Sesame Street site where she turns a pumpkin into a suitcase), sweep, a-ha (we were looking for Carly’s Kindle and found it. I said ‘There it is!’ and he said ‘a-ha!’), dada’s pockets (pop-its), call mama (as we walked home and she sent a Skype message I said ‘We could call her’ and he said ‘call mama’. I had thought he said it during our first trip out, but wasn’t sure.)

 

No need for tippy toes to look out the window: 

On his stool at the counter: 

Magnet game: 

Sandoo: 

And zookeeper: 

Park #1: 

In motion: 

At home. Filling up the bath: 

Waving on the way to Chrythanthemum Park: 

View over the stream: 

Chrythanthemum Park: 

Larabar: 

At home: 

Looking out the window. He had both feet up and fell. Think he learned a lesson:

At some point during the night I remember August sort of crawling over towards me, then I went back to sleep. I woke up sometime later to find him taking up most of my pillow, laying on his stomach on the pillow. Again I fell back to sleep. At a later point, he must have crawl off the top of the pillow, as he sort of fell into the small gap between the mattress and wall, waking him up.

After that he slept until 7:30. We made a smoothie and ate some cereal for breakfast. The big activity in the morning was dumping out all of the blocks and then placing them back in the bag one-by-one, identifying an object or letter on most of them as he did so.

We left at 9:30 and headed up to Dobongson. We didn’t go up to the national park, but stopped at the ‘Dobongson Ecological Park’, i.e. the stream area. We were there for 2 hours. We spent most of that playing in the water, but there were a couple of snack breaks, and at the end we spent several minutes looking at the grasshopper that found its way to our backpack. He likes the word ‘grasshopper’ and he got to see it hop a couple times, which was pretty thrilling.

I changed him before we left: probably the roughest changing for him in a long time as he cried through it. Very tired. We started walking down along the stream (past the playground, which will wait for another day). He lasted over half a mile, but fell asleep as we approached the river. I sat on a bench overlooking the river while he napped. Only 30 minutes, but that seems the new norm. It did take him quite awhile to wake up though, as he was groggy all the way to the subway station from there.

We took the subway two stops south to Nowon and went to Daiso. Managed to find two small brooms – one for the backpack, one for the house – for him and another set of the cheap beach toys so we have two more shovels. 3000 won total.

From there we took the bus home. There was a food fair going on in the park, and we bought a simple pajeon (korean pancake) and a box of chicken. We went home and ate. He ate almost all of the pajeon and kept saying ‘more pancake’.

After awhile we went back out, this time to Home Plus for grocery shopping. While there he got ‘samples’ of red pepper, apple, and a chicken nugget – first time he’s had a chicken nugget. After that, he was saying ‘more chicken’. He also got really social, and was waving at everyone, particularly as we walked by the food court.

Back home, then, sans carriers and backpacks for once, we went out a third time to get a loaf of healthy bread at Tous les Jour on the first floor. Took that up, then we made a fourth and final outing to go find Carly, as she was walking home with Megan.

August and I walked to the benches next to the pink building and waited there. He was fine snacking on Cheerios, drinking water, and climbing/sitting on the bench for about 15 minutes, but then got restless. Looked at bushes for awhile, then said ‘shovel’ a couple times. I’d been thinking we should have brought one too, since we just bought more. Anyway, he played with some receipts (‘paper’) I had in my pocket, but he would crumple them and throw them in the bushes. Would have been fine with a shovel, as it stays on top, but the the receipts fall through to the ground. So we started walking some more. Crossed the street and went a half block south. Still no sign of them. So we turned around as it was now 5:15 and we might have missed them.

He was bumping his chin on my shoulder and did it really hard. Got a very sad look on his face, but didn’t cry. A guy walking the same direction said ‘Is he okay?’ and I had to explain what just happened.

As we got to the corner, there were Carly and Megan coming from the side street and crossing in front of us. We got to surprise them on the corner. Only then did August start to cry.

Back home, we, and especially August, since he gets most of the attention, had a nice long Skype call with Glecy, who is back in Seattle. After the call he was saying ‘bye bye aunty Glecy’, although the ‘Glecy’ part doesn’t sound like Glecy.

Carly gave him a bath, we read several books, and played one round of Nighty Night, and he went to sleep a little before 9.

Other highlights of the day:

Saying “I got… And ‘I got my…’ sentences. He has pretty much figured these sentence patterns out, starting with ‘I got my dada’ when he grabs my legs and wants me to carry him. He was also saying things like ‘I got my knee’ and ‘I got my wawa’. We were working on ‘I got my mama’ before we saw her and he said it later in the evening when he grabbed her legs.

He still stumbles on it sometimes. The last time we headed to the elevator, he walked most of the way, but then wanted up. He grabbed my legs, looked up at me and said ‘I got…’ ‘I got my…’ I still wasn’t picking him up as he stumbled with the words, so then he just loudly said ‘UP’. 

When we were talking to Glecy, I saw him grab his shoes and start to walk down the hall. I called him back and was trying to get him to say ‘I got my shoes’. I realized that he had been on his way to put the shoes away by the door and I had interrupted him. Sometime after the call was over, I started to tell Carly about this and asked where his shoes were. We looked around, and they were down by the door. Despite my interruption (he had stayed in the room for the next few minute and, I thought, had set them down), at some point he took the shoes back down the hall and put them away all on his own.

He now regularly uses his stool in the kitchen when he wants to see what is going on. He’ll push it where he wants and step up on it. He hasn’t (yet) really used it to get thing off the counter, but it now means that very little counter space is safe from him.

New words: kisses (I kissed him a bunch and he said ‘kisses!’, grasshopper, pancake, chicken, waving, Cyril (in the Maisy books), I got my… (Used with several things: dada, mama, knee, shovel), poh-doh (Korean for grape), vegetable, okay

In the stream: 

Pontificating on the trees from a rock: 

Then losing his balance: 

Then eating his ‘yummy shirt’: 

Grasshopper: 

On the way home: 

Still sleepy after his nap:

Our food from the fair: 

His new broom: 

Waiting to surprise mama: 

Bye bye Aunty Glecy: 

He slept until 8:16. So tries to hurry in the morning, but we made a smoothie and with all the usual stuff we didn’t leave until about 9:30. As we left he said “bye bye haa-ugm” and “bye bye home”, and as we approached the front door he said “kitty cat”, seeing the photo of Celeste. 

At the park we headed for the zoo. The first animal he requested was ‘zebra’. We went there first, then bounced around between the zebras, deer, and seals as he requested each. I had to change him, then we stopped at a bench outside the seals to eat or sandwich. He was grabbing my legs and saying ‘I got me dada’ or ‘I got dada’ when he then tripped over my foot and landed with his knee on the edge of the concrete. Didn’t actually bother him much, but he got a pretty big scrape on his knee. I remembered to add bandages to the carrier backpack when we got home.

From there we bounced around the zoo based on which animals he wanted to see next. This is a very cool development. We saw the baboons, then the outdoor birds (peacocks, the vulture (‘eagle’), working on ‘pheasant’), then the horses (he got licked by a quick horse), goats, and otters, then into the tropical building where he focused mostly on the water monitor. First, he saw the sand in the cage and wanted his shovel so he could pretend to play in it. A couple minutes later we came back and got to watch the water monitor crawl out of the water into the sand and face-off with August as he played with his shovel.

From there we went to the Adventureland Playground, where he played in the sand for a few minutes until he was ‘all done’. We went to the musical instruments and he played there for awhile, then wanted to go back to playing in the sand, so we went back over by the toy train, where he played with sand, threw rocks up on the other rocks, and worked at climbing on the rocks.

It was getting close to 5 hours that he’d been awake, so I put him in the backpack and he fell asleep after a half mile. Went to the cafe and read for awhile. He woke up happy after a 34 minute nap. Not long, but much more than the last two days.

From there we watched the big fountain for a few minutes than hopped on the subway, then transferred to the bus and went to APIS. We played in the park until school was about over, then went in to meet Anna (one of Carly’s students from last year) in the library after school. We had a few minutes to hang out with Meg and her art class. August was looking overwhelmed, then we were just standing in the quiet hall and he got an incredible sad face and started crying a little bit. Got him calmed down and in the library when school got out, then Anna and another student showed up. A little much for him, so we went outside by the field.

Took him awhile to get fully comfortable (the other student was a bit too much for him), but he ended up throwing objects (his shovel, tissues, etc.) around on the benches, then running around on the field. Anna had to run off to get her stuff when the busses showed up, after which August was saying ‘bye bye, Anna’. So I took him inside so she could hear him say it.

After Carly was done with her culture club, we went up to her classroom then we all walked home. We passed a place advertising soft serve ice cream, but then they were out of ice cream. So when we got back to our neighborhood we went to McDonald’s for our soft serve, then home for dinner.

He ate ‘grampa’s soup’ for dinner. Although ‘grampa’s soup’ now refers to refried beans, cheese, and broccoli. Carly gave him a bath. He has a lot of fun in the bath now, but still stands up the entire time. We read books while Carly got the bath ready. He wanted to see a camel, so we got back on the computer and was looking up photos of various animals. He made it to about 9 before falling asleep.

New words: goodbye, (trash), goodbye home, kitty cat (seeing photo of Celeste as we left), tissue (after Anna said it), nozzle

Eyes closed when he hits the drum: 

Park across from APIS: 

APIS: 

Walking home: 

He slept for a long time, upwards of 13 hours, and woke up around 6:40. So that was good. That still gave us plenty of time to do stuff in the morning before leaving to go to the National Museum around 9.

First, he got out his broom and dustpan, calling it a shovel. He then saw his little shovel. So, we were working on ‘big shovel’ and ‘little shovel’, which he seemed to have down, but wasn’t repeating in the evening.

We were then reading his bird book, which he calls ‘Say’ (the Korean word for bird) and then Wild About Books. In it, there is a bird that looks kind of like a peacock, so I called it that. He then started repeating the word ‘peacock’ – I think he remembered them from the zoo last week – and went and grabbed his bird book. I told him there wasn’t a peacock in there, and we went to the computer and used Google Image search to find peacocks. He then started requesting other animals, and when he was done looking at an animal he would say ‘all done (animal)’, as in ‘all done lizard’, then request another animal.

He then played in the sink, and helped me crack eggs by standing on his stool and cracking eggs on the counter so we could make eggs, cheese, and broccoli. He didn’t eat dinner last night, so he ate a lot this morning.

We were listening to the latest Neil Young, and he would point out when he heard harmonica.

We then did some Duplo playing before getting ready to go.

Bit longer train trip down to the National Museum. Luckily, you get to see outside much of the way. We made it down, and no sign of rain, so we went over to the park first and played at and around the playground. He likes to pile sand outside the sand area, so I realized I should get a little broom to hang on the backpack for cleanup. He also enjoyed throwing sand in the air and watching the dust blow. His hair was full of sand. He did a lot of wandering through the trees, picking up rocks, etc. and throwing them in the bushes. We’re also extending our comfort distance – he let me walk back to the backpack at one point to get the cup, and he would walk away from me 30 or 40 feet to play. Finally, there were ramps and stairs up to the picnic table area. He spent a lot of time walking up and down them, and throwing the ball off of them.

I then changed him and we started to leave (rain was coming, eventually) but found the drinking fountain. We played in that, and he drank from the ‘waterfall’ where the water drains down below.

We then put him in the backpack and walked back to the museum area. Walked around the pond until he fell asleep, then walked toward the museum to find a place to sit. There was a whistle off in the distance and I heard him sleepily say ‘more’. Then he saw a fountain and got really excited. End of nap after 3 minutes.

We went to the covered picnic table and rubber floor area to the left of the museum entrance. He ate and climbed on the benches, and helped throw our garbage away. He then practiced his running, first following me, then on his own. It started raining, and before I could get the backpack together, it was pretty heavy. We waited it out a minute and it calmed, then hurried the 50 meters back to the entrance. He kept saying ‘umbrella’ and was probably wondering why we weren’t using one like everyone else.

We went through part of the museum. I showed him the little animals in the Shilla section. There was another baby there who kept staring at him. He kept pointing and saying ‘animals!’ They interacted for a few minutes, until she touched August’s nose. Her mom came over, chastised her, and took her away. Oh well.

We went up to the third floor, and looked at some of the Silk Road art – he liked a piece with a horse in it, then he led the way through Buddhist sculpture for awhile, then we went down to Buddhist art. From there he had fun walking down the stairs.

Went to the cafeteria and he ate almost an entire Larabar. From there we left. On the train home, two women entertained him. But as soon as they left he started falling asleep. He slept 30 minutes and I woke him up by taking him out of the backpack at home.

I gave him a shower and we had some snacks (he ate most of a banana) and were doing some cleanup when Carly got home. He had a lot of energy in the evening, and stayed up until close to 9. They read the Snappy Little Monsters book a few time and other books. He didn’t eat much in the evening, but had eaten a lot during the day.

Before he finally went to sleep she had him in the bedroom and they were singing the ABC song as they nursed. He was then calling ‘dada’ and went to the door once. I was about to go in, but then she got him back down and he fell asleep.

New words: big shovel, little shovel, say (korean for bird – used to request his Korean bird book), peacock (in wild about books, saw them at zoo last week), ship (boat on wooden block), train (tray – on wooden block), sand (don’t know if I recorded this – has used it a few times), I saw it (more mimicry than independent, but copying/using sentences), subway train (phrase), I got me mama (to Carly in the evening when he grabbed her and wanted to nurse), Ernie book, harmonica (on-uh-cuh)

 

Morning. I realized he could start learning to use a trackpad: 

Park: 

Coming down the ramp: 

Mushroom (buh-sot in korean):

Playing at a distance: 

Drinking fountain:

Running: 

He’s saying ‘running’ as he goes: 

In the museum: 

Headed home: 

After his shower: