Category: Uncategorized

August woke up early, at 5:50. Not a long night. We spent the morning doing a lot of reading (he now requests the ‘Snappy Little Monsters’ book by saying ’snappy’) and playing in the sink and on the bed and skyping with my parents. We found out the APIS maintenance guys would be over by 10 to pick up the desk and chair we don’t need, so we spent the rest of the morning straightening and cleaning instead of heading out to a park. I got out his blanket, which we haven’t used in many months, and he immediately started playing peekaboo with it. Unfortunately, he can now walk, and managed to walk right into a wall with his eyes covered.

His class started at 11:10, so about 10:40 we left and did a little walking around the park before going over. He spotted the camel sculpture so we went and he said “Hi, camel”. As we left he said “bye bye, camel”. He said “bye bye” to a lot of things today, including:

“Bye bye, magpie”

“Bye bye, park”

“Bye bye, cafe”

Anyway, his class went well. There are three other students. One mother is an English teacher, another boy, Jungbean, has been in August’s previous classes, and the other mother speaks at least a little English. August loved the bubbles (we haven’t done those in a long time) and the first stand up song in these classes, but there was no way he was wearing the bird wings or bird hat. He really likes birds though, so it was cool that today’s class was about birds (and he knows pigeon and crow in Korean, so he actually understood part of it!).

After class, it had been over six hours since August had woken up. It took him awhile to fall asleep. I walked over to the power plant and did a lap around the track, then headed back. He fell asleep close to home, but it didn’t go so smoothly this time. He woke up as I set him down, and I couldn’t get him back to sleep. No nap today (6 minutes hardly counts).

We read a lot more – some Maisy books, Wild About Books – and when he seemed mellow again I took him back out in the backpack. But after a mile of walking he hadn’t fallen asleep. So we played at Chrysanthemum Park. First in the sand, where he heard a magpie and wanted to go investigate (this is where the “bye bye, magpie” was said), then over by the wooden worms. Chestnuts were falling off the trees, and August had a lot of fun with these – peeling them and throwing them in the bushes. And later, shoving them under my legs. When the wind came up, chestnuts would start to rain from the trees, so I’d have to make sure we were out from under them.

He finally slowed with that and we went back to the sand, then walked around the corner to the women’s business center and got a blueberry smoothie. We sat and drank that, and the woman, who now knows his name, brought him some cranberry bread this time. We were there for about a half hour before we left (“bye bye, cafe”).

We went home for awhile, then needed to take out garbage. So we did that, and kept walking. Went across the park, going where August led. Ended up at the art museum and went through the children’s exhibit again (he went straight for the Alice in Wonderland box when I set him down). He wanted to ‘sit’ so we went and sat on a bench. He immediately wanted a cracker, as he remembered that last time we were there a woman gave us crackers and we sat on a bench and ate them.

This was the second time his memory surprised me today. Earlier, when we were at the park, he started to walk towards the stream when he heard construction sounds. He looked across and pointed to the northeast and said ‘neigh, neigh’. He couldn’t see them, but that was the direction of Madeul Stadium and the horse sculptures.

When he was done looking at the art, he wanted to climb the stairs. So he climbed the long flight of stairs up to the first floor (holding my hands), then continued to the second. He wanted to keep practicing stairs, but it was 5:20 and Carly said she would be home around 5:30. So I took him out to the bus stop to see if we could surprise her. She wasn’t on the first bus that came, so we headed home. But she hadn’t beaten us, so I figured she would show up at any moment. We walked back (August walking on his own now; a big change from being a bit scared walking around the hallways) to the elevators and she showed up after just a minute and got a good surprise as August was walking up to the elevator as the doors opened.

We went back and tried to keep August awake. He was having none of it, and fell asleep a little before 6. Hopefully he will sleep a long night. Carly tried to go to bed early in case he wakes up early.

New words: puppy, snappy, dalgi, hi (hi camel, bye bye camel), harmonica (onica), cereal, lemon, Molly (in Wild About Books), sand, magpie, spider (pieder), stork (cork)

Haircut: 

Class: 

Closest he got to putting on the wings: 

Drinking from the backpack: 

At the park: 

Pointing to where he hears the magpie: 

Smoothie at the cafe:

I haven’t been feeling entirely well the last couple days, with weird abdominal pains and nausea in the morning (Carly says I’m pregnant), so I figured today would be a good rest day.

He had a very groggy wakeup a little before 7. Several minutes after he got up, we were in the living room and he started looking for mama: “Mama? Mama? Mama?” Went on for over a minute. In the morning we did a lot of reading, played by the sink, made a smoothie, and played a little iPad. After 10 we went to the pink building to do some grocery shopping. 

We came back and I expected him to take a nap soon. He didn’t. Instead, we played with a tennis ball, and he figured out how to climb and stand on a chair.

Finally, he wasn’t looking tired, so I decided to put him in the backpack and go to the playground by the stream. He was happy about going outside. But less than a minute after we crossed the street from Baskin Robbins, he was asleep. So I returned home and was able to pull him out of the backpack and lay him on the bed without him waking up.

He slept for less than 40 minutes, which wasn’t nearly enough, as he kept crying and calling for ‘Mom, Mom, Mom”. After a half hour I asked if Carly could Skype with us. That seemed to do the trick, as he had calmed down after a couple minutes.

After that, we sat together on the couch and listened to some Jim Croce. He was then hungry and requesting another sandwich. He ate a bite of string cheese, then of crab, but insisted on a sandwich. We settled on a Larabar, and he wanted to sit on the couch with me as we ate it.

Around 3:30 we headed out to the park. We played around the dinosaurs, then went over to see the fountain by the stage when it came on at 4. This was where we had played with a tennis ball, and he remembered. Luckily, I had a tennis ball in the backpack. This time, there was a lot less throwing it in the bushes and a lot more throwing and kicking it around.

We then went to Home Plus to finish our grocery shopping and bought some plums on the way home. We got home a little before Carly. Right before she arrived he had been diligently picking up all the blocks he had dumped out earlier and placing them in the bag.

He didn’t eat a lot for dinner, having eaten well through the day. We got the storage room key and rearranged a few things. Carly took the old vacuum cleaner down, and August followed her all the way to the storage unit, since he loves the vacuum cleaner so much.

He took a bath and was asleep a little before 9.

Things August learned/perfected today:

How to use the water system in the backpack. Before he got the general idea, but if you don’t form a full seal with your lips, air gets in, and then the water goes the wrong way. He totally got it down today.

How to open the bedroom door. He did it once last night. Today he practiced it until he had it down.

How to climb on a chair and stand on it. One I would have been happy for him not to learn so quickly.

How to sing part of the ABCs song. He sings ABCD and then the G, V, and Z, and then the ABCs part in “Now I now my ABCS” and then ‘me’ at the very end.

New words: tower, vitamins, cat

 

Slow wakeup: 

Silliness as we leave to go shopping: 

Checking the mail: 

Back home: 

At the park: 

Kicking the ball: 

At home: 

I hiked another portion of the Seoul Trail today with Derek and Jeff. Before I left to meet them at 8:30, August got a pan from the cupboard and took it to his play area. He then got the blocks and a spatula and put some blocks in and started stirring them. When he did this a few days ago it was my idea, this time it was all on his own.

The hike went well. A pretty boring section, and the flattest of the entire trail. Which is why it was the longest, at 10 kilometers.

While I was gone Carly and August walked to the stream and then played by the dinosaurs. When I came home they were playing with the first set of Duplos and August was saying ‘more’ and went and got a second set. So we opened that box and they made their tower even taller.

Carly left to go to a coffee shop down on the second floor to do some work. I was pretty tired, so didn’t want to move much. Luckily, August was good playing in the house. We spent a lot of time cutting play dough with his plastic knife, then did his transportation sticker book, read a few books, played with the Duplos (mainly having the people and the sheep going down the slide, and then playing in the utility drawer. There were the medicine dispensers in there (like for children’s tylenol) and we ended up filling them with water and squirting it into his mouth. He drank a lot of water that way.

Carly came home for awhile, then did some work in the bedroom. She had played some Nighty Night with him, then he and I switched to Endless Alphabet. He can do 4, 5, and 6 letter words entirely on his own (except for the ‘R’s – he is slightly afraid of them and grabs my finger to do them).

In the evening I took him out to the park for about 30 minutes. We mainly stayed in the photo zone place by the dinosaurs. He snacked on Cheerios and looked and danced around. He kept going up the two steps and back down. He was walking up on the main walkway and had a scary stumble – he was heading right for a hole in the railing and I thought he was going to fly right through it. Luckily, he stumbled 2 or 3 steps but didn’t fall.

Before we left the park,  there were a couple of men playing harmonica and singing old Korean pop music. August liked this, and was sitting in my arms with his head on my shoulder, starting to get sleepy. It was now 7, and we headed home. He seemed pretty tired a few times, but stayed awake until about 9.

Grampa and Tia are his favorite people right now, at least their names. Starting with the fact that August sometimes wears grampa’s old shirts to bed, he loves to say things like ‘grampa’s shoes’ or ‘grampa’s car’ or ‘grampa’s house’. He does this with other people as well, but a couple days ago Carly made lentil soup. While he says ‘lentil soup’, he really started taking to calling it ‘grampa’s soup’, so he’s doubled up on calling everything ‘grampa’s’ the last couple of days.

Similarly, he inserts the names of other people into songs. We had changed “Baa Baa Black Sheep” to include ‘dada’ and ‘mama’ instead of ‘master’ and ‘dame’. At first he would sing it correctly, and also sing the correct words of ‘wool’ and ‘full’. But eventually he found it funny to start saying random names, like ‘oma’ and ‘gramma’. Since then, he has settled on ’tia’ being the funniest, and “Baa Baa Black Sheep” now goes like this, with me singing most of the words and August singing the ‘tia’s and the ‘full’ at the end:

Baa baa black sheep have you any tia

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags tia

One for the tia, one for the tia

And one for little tia (sometimes he still says August) who rides on a tia

Baa baa black sheep have you any tia

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full

New words: kick, Cheerios, Duplo, sneezes, coming (may have listed), Lisa (Corduroy’s owner in the book), gul (Korean for the sound a pig makes), bak bak bak (sound of a chicken)

 

Morning: 

My hike: 

Back hoe:

He pinched his foot in the swiffer and was bleeding. Here is Carly attending to his wound: 

Park:

Two awesome things today: we went to a department store up north and bought Duplo sets using a gift certificate Carly received last year and… we discovered shelves we never knew existed. After living here for 3 years.

The shelves happened in the morning. August can now climb up over the couch with little problem, so Carly started to move it against a different wall. I was cleaning the space now open to move the reading area there and wiped the back of the counter: click. Right next to the new reading area, and we now have all of his books on the shelves.

August also did a lot of vacuuming in the morning, and kept wanting us to really vacuum. And he did a pretty thorough job of using a rag to wipe everything. 

That’s his clean side. He also used a marker for coloring and managed to get it all over, including his face.

He also got to Skype with Tia, Vivi, and Baby Colin.

Later in the afternoon, after a monster two and a half hour nap, we headed north to Uijeongbu and the Sinsaegae Department Store. This is where we previously bought toys using gift certificates and cards (and I took August to a kid cafe once, and they have the cool roof). August took his pink rag that he’d been using to clean the house with him, and held on to it until we were up in Uijeongbu and he got to play with Carly’s straw and coffee up.

We first walked across the street to the downtown area and went to Artbox, then stopped and got a coffee. We walked up the street, and there is a little stream running down the center that you can wade in. August played there for awhile, then we walked up the street, came back, and went to the department store.

At the department store we went straight to the Duplos and bought four sets. We then went up to the roof and played there. He did quite well despite it being more overrun with older kids (literally doing a lot of running. And yelling.) Before we left, we went to the bathroom and then changed him. While waiting for Carly to come out of the bathroom, he decided he would lie on the floor and squirm around and entertain passersby. 

We didn’t get back until after 6, so we had dinner, he took a bath, and went to bed. The Duplos would wait until tomorrow.

New words: vacuuming, dirty, lentil soup, poh-doh (grape in korean), teddy bear, come here(?), lay down (according to Carly), I got you (the correct phrase, as opposed to ‘I got me’), I’m coming (?)

Uijeongbu trip:

Our haul for the day: 

Washing his cup in the bath: 

Carly had her back to school night, so wasn’t going to be home until around 7. In the morning August and I watched a couple of videos of Hozier performing “Take Me to Church” live on YouTube. This was how we discovered his next favorite song/video, Lorde’s “Royals”. He watched that a couple times, but had no interest in some other video I tried to put on.

We then made a smoothie, and made a game of throwing and catching his shirt that he had yet to put on. He was doing pretty well.

We also skyped with my parents to see how my dad was doing after shoulder surgery. It went smoothly, and he seemed to be doing well. The call ended when August was rubbing his eyes and I asked if he wanted a nap. He said ‘nap’, walked to the bedroom, and turned around and waved and said ‘bye bye’.

He was ready to sleep, but it has been months and months since he has just laid down to take a nap. He got a pillow (had to take it out of the pillow case) and played with it and laid on it several times. But then he bounced back a bit and we ended up playing Nighty Night. We finished that and he was upset we couldn’t keep playing. So there was some crying and I held him for several minutes. But then he didn’t protest when I laid him on the bed. I laid down next to him for a few minutes and sang to him and he fell asleep for an hour long nap.

He woke up a few minutes after noon and we headed to Dream Forest on the bus (which he now calls ‘subway’). At Dream Forest we first went to the wading pool outside the performing art building (the only water thing that was on). We stayed there for over 90 minutes, playing in the water several times and doing a lot of eating and playing on the bench.

From there we changed him out of his wet clothes and went to the book cafe. I asked him if he wanted to go to the playground or cafe, and he said ‘cafe, cafe, cafe’ and pointed to it as we got close. We got a strawberry drink that he could share and played for awhile. He liked climbing on the little tables and pointing at the bird and saying ‘tweet’. He had too much energy for the cafe, so we headed outside and went to the playground. A lot of independent playing there, so I read a little, and he rediscovered slides and went down several times. Also practiced the stairs. Oh, and he found a little apple thing that someone had drawn a face on. We threw that around, as well as the ball. And he still calls pine needles noodles.

From there we heard music being played at the outdoor amphitheater. It was a brass band rehearsing. We watched them until they were finished around 5:20. Thought the concert might start at 6, so we went up and visited the deer. We then walked through the wildflower garden, where he was looking for frogs and I taught him the word ‘cricket’, as we could hear a lot of them. 

Went back to the amphitheater and decided we had time to get some dinner. Went to GS25 and bought two packages of kimbap. Went back and ate it on the lawn in front of the stage. They did indeed start playing at 6, but it was a marching band and headed out across the park. They came by once more as we sat there, waiting for the main concert to start. August was plenty entertained though by the kimbap, playing with the backpack, and talking to a woman about the baby she had with her. Around 6:30 we heard that Carly was headed home, so we left. As we were leaving the park August was singing ‘Twinkle twinkle’ to himself.

A couple drops of rain as we boarded the 147 bus. Got off at Induk to find it starting to rain more heavily. I hadn’t put the hood up for August. Luckily, I ran around the corner and there was the 9 pulling up to the bus stop. We hopped on that and it stops right by our building.

His eyes were closing as we got off the bus at close to 7:30. He didn’t fall right to sleep though and rebounded for awhile, finally falling asleep around 8:30.

After that, Carly and I started season 5 of Game of Thrones. Earlier, during his nap, I finished watching the old Stanley Kubrick film Paths to Glory, with Kirk Douglas.

New words: strawberry, throw, nap, ankle, cafe, crickets

How he fell asleep: 

Playing in the water at Dream Forest: 

Destroyer of sandwiches: 

Nice and wet after our slash fight and falling down once: 

Cafe Dream: 

Waving: 

Heading home: 

In the morning we skyped with Cherie and he played Nighty Night. We got on our way right at 9. Got to the park and went straight to the zoo. He was really into horses today, and claimed that most animals say ‘neigh’, including the goats, which have always said ‘baa’ in the past. So we went straight to the miniature horses and goats. We got to see the porcupines today, as it was feeding time (they usually hide in the dark). There were two babies. 

From there we went to the outdoor birds (the condor was an ‘eagle’) and wildcats (he said ‘roar’ a lot) then sat by the bird building. He ate the sandwich and played with leaves. We then went to the tropical building. He was walking around on his own much more today. He’s been more clingy of late, but that was disappearing, particularly as he went up and down the ramp in the building. 

He was getting tired and needed to be changed, so we went up to the bathrooms behind the amphitheater and changed him. This is also when I realized another major benefit of the backpack: I can put him in it and he just hangs out while I go to the bathroom myself.

From there we walked the path for awhile and he fell asleep. Slept for close to an hour outside the cafe as I read. He woke up and we played in the cafe for a few minutes. Found a cool pop-up counting book there and he really liked operating the elevator in it.

Then went to the stream play area. Played in the shallow stream, the small fountain, and then near the top of the stream. He really walked around a lot there, and waded in the deepest he has before: up to his waist. He played with my sandal for awhile, putting it on his head.

He then wanted to go back to the zoo (‘neigh, neigh’). As we entered, he wanted to go down the path to the right to where the deer are. He clearly remembered. We saw them for awhile, then went to the herbivores next door where he really got excited by the zebra and kept saying ‘zebra’.

We finished by going to the Adventureland Playground. We mainly played with the musical instruments, then went over and played in the train play structure for quite awhile. He was playing really independently, to the point that I was able to read my book a bit. 

Sometime after 3:30 he started saying ‘mama, mama’ so we headed home. Walked past the water education center and the children’s museum, which was a mistake as he wanted to go in both.

On the way home a man started tickling his foot. He got a dirty look from me (I didn’t know he was doing it at first), but August said ‘more, more’ so they played for much of the ride home.

In the evening he did some spinning in circles, did a lot of cleaning, and read the From Head to Toes book with Carly several times.

New words: potato, circle, word for garbage, otter (may have listed before), coati, lemur, deer, deer poop (on his own), zebra, almond, bye goona, subway, lentils, subak (watermelon), sure (copying me), clean up, who (sound of an owl)

 

Nighty Night: 

CGP: 

After his nap: 

Stream area: 

Playground:

Playing independently. Hard to hear him talking the whole time over the noise of the cicadas: 

Home, ready for bed: 

We went out to Uidong to go to the park and the embroidery museum today. Unfortunately, the museum was closed, although the signs would have you believe otherwise. So we spent a lot of time in the park, which was fine, because it is a nice big park with two playgrounds and all sorts of stuff to do.

On the way there we took a bus/subway/bus route. That allowed us to pick up some kimbap for lunch at the subway station.

I was afraid August would fall asleep before we got to the park, as he woke up a little before 6 and it was now 10:30. But he made it there and we ate and he played in the water fountains (which had little hoses for him to play with) and with the car and horse spring toys at the playground. 

At close to noon he started to act sleepy. So I put him in the backpack. He tried to protest being put in the backpack, but his (fake) cries turned to laughter after blocking my attempts for a few seconds. We walked around the park, and saw a butterfly flying around some flowers. We watched it for close to 10 minutes, with August regularly saying ‘navi’. After that I walked up the hill/trail for a few minutes, then came back to the park and he fell asleep.

He slept 55 minutes. He then woke up and we ate some more. He thought it was fun to throw his larabar in the bush, so we got the ball out of the backpack and played with that. I changed him on the bench, then we walked over to the bathroom to throw away the diaper.

We then changed locations, where he had a couple of steps to play with. There were also a bunch of middle school students near us that entertained him, and he liked watching them ride their bikes.

From there we walked up to try the museum, only to find it closed. So we went back to the park, to the other playground this time. Here, there was a pond area with lily pads that he liked looking at, all sorts of benches and seats he liked climbing up onto, a play structure that he climbed the stairs to several times, and yet another pond with fish to watch. At one point he picked up leaves and was flapping them around; he then started climbing up on a bench to throw leaves behind it.. At another point I was siting on a swing and he was ‘helping’ me by pushing. And at one point he remembered the pond area and went running off to see it again.

At 3:45 we caught the bus home. We took the two seats over a wheel well. He sat by the window. He sat there for about 30 minutes, looking out the windows. For the last 10 minutes, he wanted me to hold him. This gave him a view of the people behind us. He spent the rest of the ride being an extrovert. He waved, individually, to each person. He played a hand grabbing game with two women. And he looked at the people right behind us and clapped. As we got ready to leave, he kept saying ‘bye bye’ and waving.

We got home after stopping at the little store at a little past 4:30. August was disappointed that Carly wasn’t here, but made it to 5 okay. At that point, he kept saying ‘mama’. So we went looking for here. We went downstairs once, but didn’t see here. We went back to the apartment, but he was once again disappointed she wasn’t there. So we went to the elevators and played on the bumps. We were waiting about 7 minutes when the doors opened and there she was. He was standing right in front of the door, so it was a good surprise for both of them.

One thing he has been doing lately is changing the words to the ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ song. I’ve already changed it to ‘One for the dada, one for the mama, and one for little August who rides on a llama’. As he has started to learn the words, I let him say ‘dada’, ‘mama’, ‘August’, and ‘llama’ in the song. His first change was changing ‘llama’ (because he doesn’t know what that is) to ‘baba’, then ‘mama’. Today he took it a step further, and instead of ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ sometimes he will call out other people, like ‘gramma’ and ‘tia’. And he has changed the ‘baba’ or ‘mama’ word to ‘backpack’ several times, making me believe he at least understands the ‘rides on a…’ phrase. Of course, his changes don’t exactly follow the rhyming pattern, but still pretty cool.

Oh, and at the park I was trying to teach him ‘pine needle’. He insisted on calling them ‘hoo-haa’s, that is, noodles.

New words: kimbop, pole, yummy, hawk, kaw, pull (pulling my hand), waterfall, tunnel, string cheese

 

Holding his smoothie inappropriately:

Pointing out the window: 

His prson of the day was grampa. He talked about grampa constantly:

At the park: 

After his nap. Sandoo and Larabar: 

Sandwich on his head: 

Pointing at an ant, err, bee (as he now insists on calling them): 

Looking for gaeguli and mulgogi (frogs and fish): 

Climbed up all on his own: 

More frog and fish hunting: 

Sitting on the way home: 

Back in our park, watching the stream actually on:

Ready to walk home on his own: 

Giving hugs before bed: 

Carly was still sick, so called in a for a sub today. It was a rainy day, so I wasn’t planning on taking August out for a long time. Instead, we made it out if he house three times to give Carly some time to rest. 

But in the morning I made banana bread. No veggies, although I added some raisins. August had fun with the bowl and spatula and tried licking the bowl. Unfortunately, he broke the bowl in two when he stumbled and put his weight on it. 

For our first outing, we went to Home Plus to do some shopping. August said hi to the lizard, and pointed out the turtle and said ‘turtle’ on his own. After paying, we went up and walked around the book store for a few minutes. 

One of the things we bought was a scale. So I can now tell you August is 23.6 pounds. 

Carly made lentil soup and August took a nap. He ate some lentil soup for lunch, and in the afternoon we headed out again. 

First, we went to the English Science Education Center. They have aquariums with water bugs, beetles, etc. August really liked those. We went up to the 4th floor and through the ‘Deep Space Walk’ (a room with lights) and started to look around the geology displays, but was then informed they weren’t open. So we left and headed to the art museum. 

We went downstairs and August made straight for the Alice in Wonderland box thing. We then went to the block printing exhibit in the community gallery and a woman gave us a like-cheese cracker. We sat on a bench and ate that. 

We then went up to the play room. We lasted there for quite awhile. He didn’t really go farther in, but he did well with the other kids, and did a lot of hopping on the mats. 

We then went up to the restaurant on top (Cellan) and got a Gorgonzola pizza to surprise Carly with. We then heard home. 

About 5:30 I took him out one last time. We went to the book/lounge area at the movie theater. Alas, the big stuffed animals are gone. And in the children’s room the books are getting trashed and kids were allowed to run wild in there. But August still had a lot of fun looking at books and pushing chairs around. His main activity was probably practicing the stairs – climbing the first flight on his own and needing help to get back down. 

I left at 7 to head over to a meeting with 3 other people who would like to form a writer’s group. That went well and lasted until 9. I had walked over, but took a taxi back to Brownstone with Sarah M. 

August and Carly were both asleep when I got home. He apparently went to sleep around 8. 

New words: eagle (looking at picture of a book in a book), Seuss, bowl (may have recorded this before), turtle, lentils, fan got me

 

Pointing at Abby: 

Putting dough in his hair: 

Licking the bowl: 

Home Plus: 

Pointing at the lizard:

Saying ‘turtle’: 

His phrase of the day, which sounds like ‘Oma I did it’, but probably isn’t:

English Science Education Center: 

Looking at water bugs: 

The ‘deep space walk’: 

In the park: 

In the art museum: 

Free cracker: 

A little crawling in: 

Jumping for his audience, the woman off to the left: 

Pointing at the lights: 

At the movie theater:

Practicing stairs. He loves stairs, and misses them from the states. I obviously need to find him more stairs to work on: 

He was up just a few minutes after 6 again. Pretty soon after Carly left, he wanted to make a smoothie. So we made a smoothie, and soon after that he started wanting to go outside. By 8:30 we were out the door and headed five stops north to Dobongson station.

No specific plans, just to do some walking and find some place to play. I actually thought we might just spend a couple hours and come home for his nap. That wasn’t to be.

Instead, we started by finding a children’s park (i.e. a playground) we hadn’t been to before (Newtown Children’s Park). So we played there for awhile and snacked. A man caught a dragonfly and showed it to us. We also went on the swings and played on the exercise equipment.

From there, we walked up to Bukhansan National Park. We took the first major left, heading up the hill past two Buddhist temples (my parents and I walked down this big hill on our way out). We then took the next left, following the easy-access (built trail) to its end, then a bit further. August fell asleep, so I looked for a bench. I had to double back, and ended up sitting at the top of the stairs at the end of the built trail. He only slept 24 minutes, waking up and pointing, saying ‘more, more’. Not sure if he meant ‘more cicadas’ or if he wasn’t happy we weren’t walking. So we walked some more, taking a left back at the main trail, and walked up to the top (what Carly and I call the ‘cat area’, as this is where Carly and I first saw and photographed the feral cats way back on our first visit). We then headed back down the hill.

We walked around the first temple complex, enjoying the view of Dobongson from behind it. Then back down, doing a shorter walk around the first temple’s grounds. We then found a set of shaded bench right down near where the main trail meets up with the road/trail out of the park. This is where we first spent a lot of time. We ate, and he played. Picking up and throwing a heavy rock (‘heavy, heavy’) and sticks, and throwing our ball off a little ledge (I got it out to keep a woman from mumbling loudly anytime he was throwing around, many, many feet from anyone, mind you, any sort of rock or stick). I showed him the moss on the trees and after that he would touch it. We were there for a good hour.

We then walked down and out of the park. He said he was hungry (again???), so we sat on a bench above the stream and ate. We then went down to the stream, and August was happy to be lowered into it (it went to his knees). We then played in the stream for over half an hour, throwing rocks and gravel and watching the little fish.

We walked out along the stream and followed it a little ways to establish that there was a path along it, and we found another park/playground. Perhaps the destination for our next visit.

We then headed home. He fell asleep as we got on the subway, and stayed asleep until we got home. He slept, perched on the coffee table for a little while. Just over 40 minutes for this second nap.

It was now after 3. We played inside, doing some reading and iPad. Carly got home at 5, and he was pretty attached to her for the evening. I pried him away long enough to give him a bath, then he went back to her and was asleep a little before 8. At one point, I did have him out with me, and he kept requesting ‘Abby, Abby’. The iPad was busy syncing, so not available, so I pulled up the Sesame Street page on her and started watching a video about broccoli. He was watching it intently, but then turned to me and started bawling. Perhaps it was the dancing broccoli heads that scared him.

Carly is sick. She almost didn’t go to work today, and then almost came home right after she was done teaching. She made it through. She went to sleep early, but woke up again. Her temperature is pretty high. Hopefully she’ll be able to get some sleep and feel better in the morning. 

New words: Peter, acorn, bumpy (going down stairs to subway)

Playing at Bukhansan: 

The Bears at the exit to the park: 

In the stream: 

because he didn’t take a nap. And I feel fine. He slept in until 8:30, so he had that going for him. They skyped with Glecy in the morning and we had a lazy Sunday morning around the house (note: I had planned to go hiking on the Seoul Trail but, of course, we had to postpone again…). At one point we were coloring and he wanted to use the purple marker. I let him, and almost immediately he realized he could color on his arm. So he had a purple arm all day. Pretty cool.

Around noon I decided I’d take him out for a walk until he was a bit tired. Before we left, he was staring at the pictures on his Korean poster. He tends to do that quite often.

The walk went well – we just went to the loop behind the youth center and around that area, and admired the mural they’re painting below one of the ramps along the stream. And he seemed pretty tired when we got home.

But he wouldn’t sleep. He nursed and nursed and nursed, but wouldn’t sleep. And just kept moving a lot. At one point he was dragging the iron around by the cord as if it was on a leash. So, about 2:30 I put him in the carrier and went walking around our floor. Did this for at least 20 minutes. He had fun looking up at lights, etc. but seemed no more tired at the end.

So we went home and a few minutes later I took him to the park. We were there for the next hour and a half. He played with the teeter totter, and spent a lot of time near the dinosaurs. First, looking at bushes and flowers. Then we went and played on the rocks behind the playground, throwing the tennis ball into the bushes a lot. From there we went over by the fountain, and when it turned on at 4 he watched for a few minutes. Then he wanted to go back by the dinosaurs (“roar”). So we went back, and he played in the bushes and with the tennis ball for quite awhile. At one point people from a church came by and gave us a bag of crackers. I called them the Jesus crackers as they had a line about Jesus painted on them. We ate several of those, and he still seemed hungry. So a little after 4:30 we went home.

He then stayed with Carly while I went to the grocery store. Apparently, he spent a lot of time cleaning the floor as Carly did the same. I finally found everything we needed for our burritos at that store and came home.

Carly did the cooking while I distracted August. He ate, then we ate and Carly took a shower. Miraculously, he stayed awake until a little after 7. Pretty darn good for his first day without a nap.

He is really loving the Nighty Night game, and has pretty much figured out how to move between all the animals, make them move, and put them to sleep. He was playing it with Carly when I came home from the store, and we played some more while she was in the shower. Time to find the next app or two.

I finished the book I’ve been reading for my book group. It’s called The Slap. Happy to be done with it. Not horrible, but not good either. Also, I finished watching that Scientology documentary a couple days ago. Derek had recommended it.

New words: towel, crack, pizza, hiccup

Park: 

Jesus crackers: