The zoo is open! The zoo is open! Well, mostly. The zoo is open, but the water birds, outdoor birds, tropical building, and children’s zoo are still closed.
He was up just before 6. He was using Carly’s brush as an instrument. In the morning we played with a few of his apps on the iPad – he wanted to try out new ones, or one he hasn’t used recently, so we kind of jumped around. We ended up on a Duck Duck Moose app called Superheroes, which lets you make scenes with characters in them, then move them around and tell a story. I did a very simply demo using two dragons, then he did one with four bats, and when I pressed record he just started telling these stories about two of them. I don’t know where it came from. A very cool surprise. The first one wanted to learn the viola and said “I need learning. Will you help me?” And the second wanted to play the violin, but its mama said no.
We ate Cheerios and fruit and more banana bread for breakfast, then he was being animals in reading area, mainly a snake, as he later called it the snake game. He hid his hand under the blanket and said “Is that the pinkie?” We sang some songs, and he called Yankee Doodle an infinite song, I explained it was just long, but then taught him “This is the song that never ends…” and told him that could be an infinite song because it loops. We then went back to being snakes.
Did some math and ate the last piece of banana bread. He looked at the Musical Instruments book while I showered. After my shower he was picking up a container with his feet, then using Duplos to count by twos. He then just started building a big shape on his own, and said it was a crane picking up Duplos. Some how he got to talking about pooping robots: “My pooping system is not working.”
He then had a long GarageBand time, trying out the arpeggiator and different sounds. We were listening to children’s songs from Woody Guthrie, and there were two that he liked because Woody sings fast. So we added those to his playlist. Before we left he went to the bathroom, and while sitting on the toilet he was making up musical instruments.
We left at 12:45. On the train he talked about the optical illusion of the lights moving, then was doing math. He is starting to do subtraction that goes into negativeland a bit in his head. 7-8, for example. When we got off he was grabbing at the handles as I was trying to carry him off, even after I told him not to. As we talked about it out on the bench, he said “I can’t hear you because my sound system isn’t working.”
We got kimbap and an apple cookie and headed in. The zoo was open, so we headed that way, and ate lunch on the set. Over covered benches near the primates. He played around a lot there, picking up random garbage to recycle, and recycling our own items. There was a little boy that he saw and called a “baby”. When he was done eating he went and played on the monkey statue. The metal statue has a tail on it that is tempting to climb, but I told him not to. He kept trying to do it though, and at one point I was looking at my phone to edit a photo. He called me on it, saying “I can climb up because dada’s looking at his phone. I remembered that.”
But mainly he used the statue as drums, using both his hands, and stomping with his feet.
There was a slightly older girl who had both a dolphin balloon on a string (August had said it was swimming in the air), and a balloon on a stick. She climbed up on the statue and did some drumming with him, and hit him with the balloon a couple times. August liked playing with her, and when she had to leave they said goodbye.
We then headed across to see the new playground, and if it was done. On the way he stopped to smell and count petals on flowers, and we looked at the rabbits. He spotted a bee and said it was making honey, then looked at the new leaves on bushes. The gate going out that was was closed, necessitating a long walk around. He stopped to look at toys at the gift shop, and I tried hats on him. Then he saw the elephants area and wanted to go in there. He was trying to read the sign on the entrance and said “starts with an F”. It was ‘Ferocious animals’. He pretended to be an elephant, lion, and tiger as we saw them. From up above, looking down on the tigers, he was playing on the glass and said “I’m doing a pattern.” He pointed out a little grass in the cage and I talked about how the habitats aren’t very nice. He said “But, there’s still grass.”
He heard music on the speakers and was dancing to it. He decided to walk out of the zoo, and we headed up and around to the playground. He was making music along with the speakers as we went. He walked all through the zoo and much of the walk before wanting to be picked up.
He’s now declaring what key or chord he is playing in, and will ask things like “G sharp. Does that make sense?”
We got to the playground. New one still isn’t open, but the one they didn’t tear down was pretty empty. He went on the swing, and declared it “Looks like Thailand”. I think because it was warm and he had short sleeves. I tried to get him to wear his hat but he wouldn’t, and he got upset when I put lotion on his face – he was wiping his face on the wood posts. We spent most of our time making piles of sand and he put sticks in them – I think he actually remembered that from Thailand as he did it first with Carly. We called them stick castles.
We discussed going to the new water area and he said he wanted to wear a yellow apron. I reminded him there are pink ones he can wear, and he said “pink. Because I love pink.”
At the children’s museum we first went to the first floor, and he spent. almost all of his time wearing a blue set of butterfly wings while being a butterfly on the screen. He would dance around and turn around so he could see his wings. The screen occasionally takes photos of people as butterflies and shows them at the top of the screen. He liked that four of them were him. One looked kind of like Carly, and he said it was “mama”.
We headed upstairs, but it took awhile. We did three of the paper rubbing things, then the crop seasons circles, then the apples. I got him up to the third floor, and he played in the water area for several minutes. Then we went over to the air area, and played with the one that shoots out the handkerchiefs. He was trying to catch them, but they kept going out the other side. So I was throwing them up and he was catching them.
As we walked across the center of the museum he looked down at the courtyard in the middle. It has some toy sort of things in it, including two of the medal pipe xylophone things. We have never seen anyone in it. He kept asking “Why?” For why it isn’t open, why we’ve never seen anyone, and why I don’t know. We went to the bathroom, then to the cafeteria for more of our lunch. Had it to ourself. He asked “How do spell please?” He then spelled it with a silent q, I think, at the end. We talked about the animals on his shirt (the Alaska shirt from Glecy). I was poking the animals and saying them, like “Moose mouse” He told me “Keep doing it.” He was also talking about being a crane, and asking things like “What happens if the crane picks up a toy and it’s the queen’s toy?”
We headed out eventually, but of course he saw the space area on the second floor. He said “I want to play in the space area for a couple minutes…please.” Of course, two turned into 20, so we were a little late. He mainly did the running and jumping things, then we did the hover board game (rather lame) and ended with dancing with the alien. He’s been a bit shy to do it, just watching, but was having fun with it today. On one of the stomping games he read ‘Jupiter’ no problem. Don’t know how he got that one.
No iPad needed on the train. Before we stopped off, he talked about what to do if there was someone standing in our way (you’re supposed to queue to the sides, but sometimes people try to walk straight into you
): “What happen if there a kid there…I can yell?”
At Hagye he talked about why I hold his hand getting off the train: “Why adults walk themselves?…why you still hold Zinnie’s hand?”
On the walk home we were talking about which song to sing next, and he asked “Why there’s another ‘like’? There’s the happy one, and the ‘like another one’ like.” He’s all into words with multiple meanings and has pointed out several, but this was the most complex one.
Outside the pink building we saw Sarah. August did a great job in saying “Hi Sarah!” and interacting with her, then saying bye and waving when we separated. As we entered Brownstone we talked about how the garage works and I mentioned the red light on the exit and how he used to call it a Baba light. He thought I meant like Baba in Puffin Rock, but I told him it was because of the Baa Baa song. He reminded me he calls them ‘Oona’ lights now (after Baba’s sister in Puffin Rock). In the elevator he was looking in the mirror and said something “looks curved even though it isn’t”. I wasn’t sure what he noticed (a waviness in the glass, perhaps), but told him he had spotted an optical illusion of sorts and he was very excited about that.
We were home close to 6. They nursed and he ate dinner. Think they finished Little House in the Big Woods – or did later. We showed her his video story about the bats, then he did more of the chapters in word. He didn’t want a bath, but I suggested the orchestra videos, and Carly said that totally changed him in the bathroom. He was totally fine until she was drying him off and accidentally poked him in the eye with the towel. He was done with the day. He still wanted to read Little House though, so I went and got the Kindle. He got out a very sad and cute “Thanks, Dada”. They read a few minutes and he was asleep by 7:15.
Don’t think I’ve mentioned how much he says “What you said?” He says it a lot because he wants. to know everything we say, and it also means “I don’t understand.” Very amusing.
Photos. Snake game:
With his feet:
Crane:
Zoo. Looking at the baby:
Statue and girl:
Tigers:
Playground. Stick instrument:
Sand:
Stick castle:
Jumping on a pile of sand:
Seeing his wings:
Water area:
Catching:
Wearing my hat and making music:
Space area:
Robot dancing:
