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Sometime early in the night he sat up at one point and said something music-related and then fell back to sleep. He was then up a bit before 6. When I came out he was playing piano and I started to teach him how to play Old MacDonald Had a Farm. Carly headed to work. He wanted to write ‘two’ on paper. We ended up writing words like Israel, guitar, banjo, and fish. He was hungry so we went and had banana bread. We looked at Google Maps for awhile then went back to the paper, where he wrote number lines. I put the new Sun Kil Moon album on and he liked that. He said “I want to play the mandolin and pretend to play hard rock guitar.”

We spent a good amount of time trying out different piano learning apps. I took a shower, then we played more piano, working on Mary Had a Little Lamb, Hot Crossed Buns. He joked around, trying to play the piano with his toes. He then tried out the Dust Buster piano app from Joy Tunes, and when he figured out Mary Had a Little Lamb in it he decided he liked it, so we bought a month of Dust Buster/Piano Maestro (https://www.joytunes.com/#apps) to try it out.

We ate grapes and crab for snack, then were playing songs together on the piano. He then made something up and said “Sorry, this song is made up. It’s not a real one. It’s a pretend one.” He wanted to know the words to Buffalo Gals so we looked up the lyrics by listening to Pete Seeger. He pretended to play instruments and said “Im playing a hurdy gurdy…I’m playing a trumpet with the wires in it.” He then said “I want to sing Yellow Submarine.”

We then got going and headed to the subway, where we sat next to each other until we got to Sagajeong. We stopped and got three small things of kimbap on the way out: ham and cheese, crab, and, at August’s request, the flying fish roe. We were headed to Sagajeong Neighborhood Park, at the foot of the mountains on the east of the city, down from the Seoul Trail. Pollution was bad today, but supposedly better down south, but when we got off the subway it was grey and hazy, and smelled like exhaust. I was hoping that it would get a bit better when we got up to the park, but there there was a sewage smell wafting around.

We found a decent bench by the small playground and ate lunch there. We really liked the roe. When he was full he went and sat on one of the horse things; he was excited he could climb both on and off of it. Then it was to the play jeep. He recognized it because he’s played in one at Olympic Park.

He pretended to drive it, then wondered why there are two steering wheels. I told him the second one was for spraying water, so he pretended to spray people and the plants and birds. And me.

We then went up to the bigger playground. No swings, but we had a lot of fun climbing up the ramp and playing on the structure. There were some vertical bars that he pretended were a harp and kept playing. He started to use the phrase “My idea…” several times today, and he said  “My idea is to climb down and climb up using the rope one.”

Eventually we both ended up in the tube slide. He wanted to look up Korean words on my phone, so we did that for several minutes. Then he turned to music, and was first playing the buttons on my shirt: “when the buttons light up I play the notes.” He then played letter notes with his fingers, which would be difficult to explain, but luckily is on video. He then switched to snail: “I’m a squishy snail…slime on you!”

We got out of the slide and did more climbing. Then we started to get going. Went over the bathrooms, and as we left the bathroom, a woman came in. She got between me and him, and the door started to close, separating us. August didn’t like that at all. Got him calmed down, but before I put him in the backpack he saw a Korean walking path and he wanted to do that. So we walked on that, then he climbed on some exercise equipment, and we played with the drinking fountain and admired some flowers that they had just put in. We got in the backpack and went walking at 2:30.

We walked up into the park, up the hill. Found buds on some bushes and trees – appropriate to for the first day of spring. A sculpture of horses, then out the other exit. We walked west towards a coffee house. Found a backup on the way, in case I couldn’t find the one we were looking for. We smelled a bad smell (they just continued all day). August said “It smells like waffles.” and laughed. August wanted to get going, and we saw some flowers. He said “Nice flowers. That’s why I wanted to walk over here.”

We found the coffee shop I was looking for, but it is now called Cafe Vino. We got a yogurt smoothie. I got out his iPad, but he never used it. He sat in my lap and said “I’m cold!” So he cuddled in my arms and at one point joked “I’m inside Dada.” Eventually we had his sweatshirt and my sweatshirt over him as he cuddled with me. We worked on understanding even and odd numbers. Then we read books on my iPad: The Perfect Hug, Very Little Red Riding Hood, Red: A Crayon’s Story. Finally, he was hiding under the sweatshirts and started a game where he was pointing at things in the coffee shop: “I’m pointing at the owls…I’m pointing at the kiwis.”

About 4 we headed out. We walked a block north and west to check out another park, 까치공원. I just wanted to check it out for future reference, but he first saw the green and yellow ground and wanted to check that out. He then spotted the infant swings (one of the only parks we’ve found with them) and wanted to get in. I put him in. In the other was a small white dog that a few kids were putting in the swing. The kids were being silly, and one of the girls told me my English is very good. We went to the bathroom, then as we left he started saying “Elmo, Elmo, Elmo…” He had spotted an Elmo toy on the back of a girl’s backpack. As we left, he spotted more flowers and said “nice flowers”.

In the station he was singing Yellow Submarine and making up words, changing ‘sea of green’ to  “interesting thing”. On the subway, he got a seat, and picked his shoe up and and started playing it like a musical instrument.

We were home about 5:20. They nursed and he had some soup. He played piano and wanted me to sing silly songs…we made up one rhyming scoop, poop, oops and other words. Carly gave him a bath, and he was asleep at 7.

 

Photos: 

Park: 

Harp: 

Coffee shop: 

Park 2: 

Shoe instrument: 

Strange night. Carly couldn’t sleep so got up at 12:30 and ended up falling asleep in the reading area. August woke up at 5 and they came back to bed. He fell aslee, but she got back up. He then woke up again at 5:40, after which they both fell back to sleep in the reading area. I was confused when I woke up at 6:50 as last I knew they had been in need. I heard them stirring a little before 8, so came out then.

He was very clingy to Carly and the nursing. But when I put on A Hawk and a Hawksaw and he heard instruments like dulcimer and violin and accordion he came and sat in the chair in front of my iPad and pretended to play the instruments.

We then started to make banana bread. Got partway and realized we were out of eggs. So I ran downstairs and got eggs and milk then came back and August and I finished making banana bread. He licked the spatula, then tried to go wipe his face off on the blanket in the reading area. Forced him to wash his face. He did Park Math, and Carly started to make soup. He was hungry, so had some cereal, then I took a shower. When I came out, he and Carly were drawing a picture of a guitar. He had added a “Lot of frets”. They were using the mechanical pencil and eraser, which was a new experience for him and the lead kept breaking. We had an empty paper towel roll and he played around with that.

We then skyped with my parents for a long time. August played mandolin at first, and at one point climbed into the mandolin case. He then did math, and used the calculator on the iPad and took requests for math problems from my parents. We then got the electric piano and was playing that. And Carly got the gummi bears that Glecy had sent as part of his gift but he hadn’t had yet, and he had some of those. Finally, he was playing his pretend instruments on both his brush/comb and also the marker case. Hung up after close to an hour, at 12:45.

He then wanted to watch Cherie’s hand surgery, so he did that. And we tried the new almond soy milk together. He offered it to Carly, of course. He and Carly did math. She wrote a ‘14’ but wrote an open 4. He said “No, I normally do a closed one.” We then read Hop on Pop, and he wanted to write big words on paper, so I wrote Gargantuan, Constantinople, and Timbuktu on paper for him. He then rewrote the two cities (which are in Hop on Pop) a couple times, and added all sorts of lines to the letters – very creative, and I think inspired by On Beyond Zebra. Carly came in and they did more writing together: Even Yehuda and Israel and guitar, and she drew him a picture of a guitar and a hamburger. Finally, he looked at the Musical Instruments book.

We were meeting Megan for ice cream at 2 at Baskin Robbins. A few times he asked if he had to be silent, remembering when he and Carly delivered the flower and message to her yesterday: “Is it a surprise? You don’t have to be silent?”

We went down and found a busy Baskin Robbins. We looked at the flavors, and August and I decided to share Milk and Strawberries. He also got to taste Megan’s very chocolatey one, and Carly’s mint chocolate chip. He hopped on his bike and we all walked over and around the park, and settled on sitting on the edge around the tree in the center (basically where we had sat with Chuck and Cherie to watch the concert, when August started dancing). We ate our ice cream, then Megan suggested he get his shovel from the bike. They played in the sand/dirt together, making a little mountain and exploring the pieces of bark and garbage that they found – and taking a little bark off the tree. August played in there for quite awhile, and said “I like playing in this fresh sand…I love digging.”

Then he heard music from across the park and went to investigate. It was two Korean men, one playing accordion and the other singing. August stood and watched them for quite awhile. There were a lot of older men around. One gave August a couple of hard candies. August got a bit sad when I wouldn’t let him have any, but soon recovered. The men liked August. One liked that he was dancing to the music, and at one point the harmonica player came over and started playing to August. August had to go to the bathroom, so I took him over and did that. Then he took off running back to the music. They stopped a few minutes later, and August was ready to go.

We all walked back to Brownstone, and said goodbye to Megan. Then we walked to the pink building and did a little grocery shopping. August was wanting to drum again, which would have been fine, but he wanted to run around the store. Luckily, he settled for being carried by Carly.

Back home, he looked at the Musical Instruments book, then shared soup with me for dinner. We played GarageBand and keyboard, then he wanted to watch Cherie’s surgery again. He sat at the desk watching it and said “I like Oma’s hand surgery.” At some point we read a couple Frog and Toad stories. We started reading Kipper’s A to Z but he needed to go to the bathroom. In the bathroom he requested watching more of Oma’s hand surgery while he sat there. When he came back he went to his iPad and did math problems on the calculator.

He ate some banana bread and played the piano. I asked him something about the banana bread, and he looked at me and said “Why you talking to the banana bread?”

I gave him his bath. He watched Pirates of the Caribbean three times. To bed soon after that, and he was asleep by 7:45.

 

Photos. Playing along to the music: 

Banana bread: 

Guitar: 

Paper towel roll: 

Surgery: 

Ice cream: 

Playing: 

Harmonica: 

Timbuktu (and a silent E): 

Timbuktu and Constantinople: 

He started to wake up around 4:30 and they got up a little before 5. They Skyped with Cherie and Chuck in Costa Rica and with Vivian and Colin and Cassie and played piano. When I got up they were painting and had each made a design on a piece of paper. He told me “That’s like a penguin with a head but there’s no bones…That’s August being a penguin with one arm.” They also had worked on spelling words, and he was hopping around to spell them. Words like bus, cat, car, cow.

He wanted mushrooms, so I got him some, but left them in the microwave too long so they were hot. So I got him a bowl of cold ones as well and he ate all those since he likes things cold anyway.

August and I read part of The Lorax, then all of Hop on Pop. They nursed and I took down recycling. They then painted a flower and wrote a message for Megan and delivered it. August did a really good job of keeping quiet for the “secret”; kind of surprising since when I (jokingly) tell him to keep a secret from Mama he instantly runs and tells her. Carly found a video of a boy playing banjo on Letterman that he really liked, and there was lots of talk about instruments through the morning. Carly made French toast while he and I looked at Google Earth and another globe on my iPad. That started because he was asking about Thailand and Israel being north or south, etc. Carly then went and rested in bed. While August and I played he asked “Can you feel infinity?” He was then looking at the Welcome to the Symphony book before he went to join Carly just after 11. They both woke up about 12:15.

August acted like a dog, then we played in the reading area after he wanted to ask GM and Bluie how old they are. I had them argue about their ages, landing on 6 and 7, I think. Bluie did the rabbit dance and August agreed that Bluie could still do the rabbit dance when August is an adult and at August’s graduation. Carly thinks he will change his mind about that at some point. The two of them did the Itsy Bitsy floor puzzle, then he shared some quinoa with me for lunch, until he spit out a bite for a reason that wasn’t clear. Carly made oatmeal for herself and said  “This tastes a little stale.” August responded “Why it taste a little snail?”

He looked at the Musical Instruments book, then we were getting ready to go. I made the mistake of trying to put a different coat on him – a lighter brown corduroy coat he hasn’t worn. This turned out to be a traumatic experience. After he nursed and was no longer traumatized, we left at 1:40.

We walked over to Hageulbi Park, which we haven’t been to since, I think, September. The swings were busy, so first he and I went on the teeter totter. From there we went to the swings when they opened up. We discussed synonyms and antonyms again. When discussing synonyms, he thought of “bright, sunny”. We then made up a ‘What’s bigger than…?’ game. He heard birds up in the trees and said “I hear pigeons”.

We played on the slides and the round climbing steps/bars. After awhile he was doing circles, climbing up the round things on his own, then sliding down. We did the thing where I rest on the slide and he slides down on to my head a lot. He took a break and was being an owl and cuddled with Carly. I got out the tennis ball and we were playing with that. I was dropping it down the twisty slide and he wanted to do that. But when he dropped it it bounced out and went under the play structure. He followed it, but on the other side bonked his head on the edge. I picked him up and he was doing well enough to try it again, but when it bounced out again and went under the play structure he started crying again and had to go cuddle with Carly.

When he felt better he ran off to the climbing wall/slides and we heard him talking to himself: “…I like pink…white make pink…I don’t remember what blue and white make…it’s awua, I remember…”

We left at 3:25. He went in the bathroom with Carly. I heard him say “Nice tile” – we had talked about the tile at the power plant yesterday. We stopped at Pizza School and ordered a couple pizzas. We played outside and remembered that the last time we were here there was a lot of snow. So Carly started a fake snowball fight and that filled the rest of the time. Before we left he was swinging his legs as he supported himself between a table and a chair.

We got home and ate pizza, then read Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. His bottom was itchy, so Carly started an early bath. I went to Home Plus and did some grocery store. When I got home she was finishing up cutting his hair, and he was watching Mouk – the first time he’s watched a show in several weeks, I think. I continued to watch Mouk with him as Carlyt went to take a shower. He and I read My Family Plays Music (one of the books Carly checked out at the APIS library), finishing it in bed. He went to bed and was asleep by 7:40.

Photos: 

More later… 

Hangeulbi Park: 

Catching: 

Cuddling: 

Pizza School. Swinging: 

Haircut: 

Sometime after he went to sleep last night he sat up and was sleeping sitting up. And Carly heard him say “Tuba” later in the night while having a bad dream.

He was up at 7:06. Kind of tough to wake up, and we went to the reading area to make a nest. He woke up and was saying and singing silly things, like “I was scared so I hugged my fathers blood…” We read Dr. Seuss: the entire birthday book for the first time, The Zax, The Strange Shirt Spot. He was hungry, so we went out for some breakfast. He was pretending to play instruments: “I’m playing the lap organ…I’m playing the Chinese fiddle.” Cereal and fruit for breakfast, then we read part of Skippyjon Jones. We played piano and he said “You sing and I’ll play piano.” So we dueted together. He went to the bathroom, then I dressed him in a short sleeve shirt as it was going to get to 60 today. And I thought he’d be getting two shots today and I thought they might want his arm. Didn’t tell him that one though.

He looked at the toy box lid and we counted the letters on it (there’s only one Q, but 4 As, etc.). He said “I want to write really big Qs. Because I really like Qs.” “I want more Qs. I really like Qs!” “I want blank space to write Hebrew and ‘umbrella’.” So we went in and he wrote letter pairs. He then wrote ‘T_a=L’ then wanted me to guess what goes in the blank. I suggested + and – and *. He said “No, T+a=V’ etc. The correct answer for the blank was ‘a’. Of course. He then wrote another letter problem and said “Do that letter problem with your fingers.” We then moved on to Hebrew, which we haven’t done much recently. Should really do more, as evidenced by his excitement. Then he wrote the sentence ‘I saw an elephant.’ Except ‘elephant’ was in Hebrew: ‘I saw an פיל’.

Then to the piano and electric keyboard, where I started to teach him “The Wheels on the Bus”. After loving that song for so long he decided he didn’t like it anymore a couple months ago, so we haven’t been singing or playing it recently. Still hungry, so we had strawberries and bananas. We exercised, and he did all the exercises today alongside me. I took a shower, and then we did math in Dragonbox Numbers.

We had a lot of discussion on where to go today. I suggested Dobongson, which he agreed to, but then asked “Is there swings there…Is that where the boy threw sand on you?” He decided he wanted to go back to where the boy threw sand on him on Monday. Then he decided he wanted to ride his bike instead of take a train, so that became our plan.

Before going down I had performed a medical exam on him, but he was still a bit upset when we got off the elevator on 2. We walked past where they are turning the old PC place into a few restaurants to find that one had opened: another kimbap place. We like our kimbap, but we now have 5 in the building. There was one, maybe 2, when we moved in. One pizza place in the building is all we ask.

Anyway, at the doctor’s office we (mainly August) got the good news: there aren’t any more immunizations until he is 4 years old. I hadn’t looked at the YEAR for when they said to come back. Seems odd it is so long, but okay.

We headed out, riding the bike up past Madeul and across the river. A lot of singing “Hole in the bottom of the sea” and doing math. Later, he would say he wants to learn “It’s Okay” (a punk song by Dead Moon that I’ve always sung for him, and he sometimes sings) on piano, and then added Hole at the Bottom of the Sea (except he wants to learn the numbers version we sing instead), and Buffalo Gals (which is in the Musical Instruments book, and that he knows from the songbook he sings from) to the list of songs to learn on piano.

We got to 모랫어린이공원 but there was no boy to throw sand on him today. He spotted a word on the side of a toy and said “Let’s figure out that word. I’m excited about it.” He sounded out ‘Honey’ but needed me to repeat it back to him before it clicked. We rode over the little hills in the bike, then went to the swings. After insisting this was where he wanted to go today he actually only was on the swings for five minutes or so. He then wanted to eat, so we went and sat on a bench and ate our sandwich. Then he walked off and sat on his bike. And just sat there. I went and sat by him, and we just sat there and chatted for another 15 minutes or so. He said he was sleepy.

Eventually he agreed to me pushing him around and doing some exploring, but he needed the bathroom first. We went and used it. No chainsaw in the park today. Then we rode north and found another park, 효자어린이공원. Here he went on the swings. Another kid came and used the other swing, then another kid wandered by. He sort of looked like he might want a swing, and August said “Sorry but I’m using it.” August got off after awhile, then we played on the skinny toys and played on the play structure. He drummed on the window in the play structure.

Also, while on the swing on his stomach he wanted to do Yankee Doodle as a poem again. He was then asking about a lot of the words: “mind the music”, “and the step”… I explained, and demonstrated the waltz, but he wanted more dance steps and that’s all I remembered.

And while sitting on the swing hew as looking around looking at things and saying “That looks like a bone, that looks like a knuckle, that looks like a harp, that looks like a semicircle, that looks like an arrow…”

We left at 2, walked north a bit more, and crossed the street. He was doing finger math. Of a sort: “What is triangle minus diamond…nothing.” He spotted phone booths and we got out and looked at the buttons. Found a third park, but he didn’t want to get off and play.

We walked back south, towards home. School was out and there were kids everywhere. August kept saying “Excuse me” to all the kids as we walked by. And at some point he said “holy moly”.

We walked back across the river, then down the stream. Still plenty of time, and I thought about the power plant and that we haven’t been back to look at the exhibits. So we went to the Nowon-gu Resources Recovery Center. We looked around a bit, but many of the lights were off. He pulled on a handle that lifts garbage to weigh it, then looked at the plastic food and fruit in the kitchen area. We saw a model of the power plant and he liked pushing the buttons to light up parts of it. We went into a dark area, and found a couple buttons that work and light up/start these little diorama things. We walked through the tunnel over towards the power plant and found another model of it, but then you get to the point where you have to be on a tour.

Turned around and went back and went to the bathroom. He liked the green tile in the bathroom. Afterwards, he was wiping his face on my leg and when I asked why he said “I’m rubbing my face on the leg because I’m sleepy.”

There was a sign saying the environmental education room was up on the third floor, so we went up. On the second floor we saw some pieces of art that we liked, and walked around the floor looking at them all. Then up to the third floor. Not much up there, as the room was closed. And the doors to the patio on the roof were locked. On the way up though (after discussing whether one of the pieces of art had a storm in it) he asked “What does a chick do if it’s in a nest and there’s a storm?” Looking down at the floors below us, August said “I see the dark place.” A guy seemed to be watching us really closely and wanting to talk to us (tell us to leave?) on the way down, but I used my foreigner status to kind of ignore him and take our time on the way out.

Outside we stopped at a bench by the stream and had a snack and we shared an orange. We then went to Juicy Juice at Brownstone. He chose cherry and I got the crimson one (a mix of apple, grapefruit, and something, I think). Pollution was high, so the plan had been to head home, but the weather was so ni
ce that we sat outside Juicy Juice for awhile. And August looked at their signs and planned our next order at Juicy Juice.

We got home and were playing piano and somehow landed on the idea of listening to a version of Yankee Doodle on Apple Music. Turns out there is a lot of them. August was listening to them and pretending to play along on various instruments when Carly got home. He was so into this that it took more than an hour before he thought about nursing. Some of our exchanges:

Me: “How many versions of Yankee Doodle are you going to listen to?” Him: “A lot”

Him: “I have 66 buttons on my french horn to play Yankee Doodle.”

Him: “I’m playing a zucchini.”

Him: “I’m playing an instrument with holes in it.” Carly: “What is it?” Him: “You know.”

Eventually he remembered, and nursed. Had dinner, played more piano, and looked at the Musical Instruments book. Carly gave him a bath and I did dishes (our new routine), and he was asleep just after 7.

 

Photos: 

Hebrew: 

Honey: 

Sitting on the bike: 

Power plant: 

Plastic fruit: 

Juicy Juice: 

8:04. He opened the door, then came scooting down the hall on his hands and knees. He said  “I’m a snail”, crawled up to me and said “Slime on you.” He then offered me something and said “Here’s some beans with slime in them.”

A bit later he said “Dried watermelon. Is that a thing?” This actually goes back several days when he had been joking about dried fruit and said dried watermelon, and we looked it up and found out it is actually a thing.

He was then looking at the Poli posters and talking about them, and I tried to watch the Poli cartoon. I’ve tried a couple times now and he isn’t interested. When he heard the YouTube Kids startup sound he ran over and said “No. I want the green one.” It is this odd little Preschool Prep video about the color green that he found yesterday when watching color wheel videos. Watched that, then blue: “Blue like grapes and blueberries.”

We watched more videos, then had Cheerios and fruit for breakfast, then read Frog and Toad stories. And more and more. Read most of the two books we have.

He had to go to the bathroom, and as he talked he said “Sorry, my voice is different. Maybe like a turtle.” Giggle “I’m a turtle.” He was then doing an “alligator voice”. “That was a dolphin voice.”

He then said “I want to meet the friends…in the playroom!” So we went to the parlor and he had them use the bathroom, then eat. First we had peach cake, then chocolate ice cream. More bathroom game, although it morphed into dealing with the sounds of flushing. If I said flush he would say “I don’t like you!” We talked about saying “I don’t like that!” instead and then he got better about that. And by the end he was acting out using a loud automatic urinal. We also did some cuddling in a fort in the reading area.

We read some doctor Seuss stories: Zinniga Zanniga, Gustav, the Goldfish, then he looked at the Musical instrument book. He went to the bathroom, and he said something that reminded me of Go, Dog, Go, so I said some lines from that. He responded with “I haven’t seen anything funny for a long time.” from Frog and Toad. He went back and was looking at the Persian instruments and I took a shower. When I came out he was back to Dr. Seuss and the birthday book, asking “What’s a Birthday horn?”

We headed to his class. In the elevator he sang “It stopped at 8, now it’s going down to 1.” to the tune of London Bridge.

In Teuni Teuni he did a bunch of forward rolls. Launching himself forward now. Kept talking about instruments as he ran by “playing on guitar…” “…no frets?” When he was done with forward rolls and helping carry, he ran to me and said “So that was seven!” Class was all about cicadas, and it was probably his favorite one ever. When the teacher brought out a big picture of a cicada he was fascinated by it. August felt it, then stood in front of it and spread his arms like wings. Then, when the costumes were brought out he was thrilled and he flapped his arms like wings and kept saying the “Ma ma ma ma maaaa” cicada sound. There were little board things with numbers on them, behind which was a picture of a cicada. August was amazingly happy with something that just had numbers 1 to 7 on it. He pulled off the 5 from the teacher’s board, and said “I have 5…I have 5 fingers!”

They then got to ride around on little carts with poles on them, sort of like they were cicadas attached to trees that moved. The only down moment of class was when August sat on the cart and it tipped backwards and he hit the back of his head. He recovered and got back on it standing up. There was then a hill path that they jumped off the end of. At the top the teacher would count to 3 and they would jump. August’s game was seeing how high and how quickly he could jump before we made him jump. He made it to around 30 the first time, then 11 or 9 or so after that. He wasn’t ready to jump entirely on his own, but had a couple of good ones where he was just holding my hand but I wasn’t really supporting his fall at all.

Finally, there was an activity where they used nets to catch cicadas off of metal posts and transported them over to trees. In between and during these activities, August would stop to look at his wings in the mirror.

Finally, at the end of class they got their treats. August was the only one still wearing the costume by this point. At the end I told him we had to give the costume back and he asked “Why?” I thought he was going to get upset, but he was okay taking it off and carrying it back to sangsaengnim. Before we left, the teacher got down to give August a hug. August is more open to hugs now, and will walk into the hug and kind of pull the teachers arms a bit. As we walked out, August said “I did two hugs!” Out on the bench I put on his shoes and he growled and then said “I’m a lion Flynne cicada.”

We walked across the hall to the School Food restaurant. I wanted the coconut curry, but it wasn’t on the menu. August saw the carbonara pasta and really wanted that, so we went with that. He really liked the soup in advance, and ate several pieces of radish that we put in it. The pasta was good, and when he was done he walked across the hall to the little car/plane rides and sat in a plane while I paid.

We walked across to the park to see all the new sculptures that showed up. He liked sitting on the metal bananas like the metal girl. He started hitting them with his feet, so I took off his shoes. We then spent a lot of time at the ‘love’ sculpture. He said “Love is a silent e word” as he covered up the E. Finally, he sat between the odd person and human cat on the bench and talked about the cat. He said there were letters in it as he traced the tail like a C, etc.

We were going to go the bathroom, but the ones on that side of the park were being cleaned. We walked to our side of the park, but those had construction going on in front of them. So we walked back to the art museum and went there. We went into the art museum play area and played there for awhile. He worked more on throwing balls to me.

From there we went to the English class. Class today was about the character Amber, who is pink. The big activity there was first mixing red and white paint to make pink, then using the paint to paint a picture of Amber, then tracing the word ‘Amber’. He also did a lot of dancing to the songs. After class was over, he told me to “Sing a happy song” and we sang “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. At some point earlier in the day, after Teuni Teuni, I think, he had said “I’m happy.”

We tried to meet Carly again, but didn’t see her and she didn’t answer. We went home a bit after 5. He wanted to go in and rest and have a fort with the friends. There was a lot of talk about flushing urinals (he often has to walk by ones with sensors to get to the toilets without, and so he is concerned they will go off). Carly got home and he hid under the blanket from her.

They nursed, then he was being a fly and cicada. He played piano and figured out London Bridge is Falling Down all the way through and was playing it pretty smoothly by the end of the evening.

We opened the card from my parents. I read the first couple lines, but then realized I should let August. He surprised us by reading almost all of the rest:

“…You’re smarter

Than ever.

You’re funnier,

Stronger,

And ever so clever.

And what’s more-

Yippee! You’re three!

Happy Birthday”

I kind of expected him to get ‘smart’ and ‘strong’, because they are actually words from his Poli English class. But I didn’t expect him to get all the -er endings so easily, and words like ‘Yippee’ and ‘funnier’ and ‘three’. He also read the written part, ‘We love you! Gramma, Grampa, & Paul.’

We watched a Poli video as I was curious. The whole time August kept pointing out the characters he knows when they were on the screen: “Poli…Roy…Amber…Helly…”
That was fine until a truck lost its breaks and was out of control. August wanted it stopped and left the room. It was too stressful for him. Carly picked him up, then they went and did his bath while I did the dishes. He went straight to bed from there, and was asleep at 7:30.

Teuni Teuni: 

School Food (with a smiley fork): 

Airplane: 

Sculptures: 

Ball area: 

English class: 

Last night around 11 he sat up for a few minutes. I tried to get him to lie back down but he landed on Puff, who played some music. Nursed. But sometime later he sat up again. He crawled over to Carly and lay his head on her a bit, but eventually just lay down next to her and fell back to sleep.

He was up right after 6. When I got up a little alter we did math with the blueberries, then played with the Poli flashlight in the dark. He figured out how to change the pictures. He wanted to write the names of the characters in Korean, then ended up writing Carly and dada in Korean a few times. He then wanted Peter Rabbit with him while he played the instruments from Welcome to the Symphony. He was then playing french horn and talking about playing “very loud” and kept walking around humming the Puffin Rock theme song. Very loudly.

We ate cereal and bananas for breakfast. We did lots of cuddling in the reading area and at one point we had to go get Carly’s blanket. He got some of the little puzzles out and we did those, and he did more writing on paper – and put the kids back on on his own without me reminding him.

He played some GarageBand on his keyboard in th reading area, then followed me around as I hung up laundry. He looked at the lid to the toy box, the one with letters on t, and said “Tou really liked this when you were a little baby? But I still like it.” He then wanted a sticker that he had once put on it taken off so he could see it all. A bit later he ran out of the room saying: “I’m going to draw Hs on paper! H H H H! H is for hug and hut!” He drew letters on paper, but invented “dot letters”. Didn’t know the inspiration for this, as I’ve never done it, until we went back into the laundry room and he pointed to one of the Hs on the lid and said “I did that.”

There was some Sesame Disco on and I was holding him and we were sort of dancing to it. He was acting sleepy for the first time and putting his head on my shoulder. Started to do some exercise but he was acting tired again and sort of curled up in the rocking chair for awhile and I cuddled with him a bit. When he got up he went to the paper and was asking how to spell numbers and was copying numbers like ‘seventy’ ‘two’ ‘sixteen’. We sang a lot of “London Bridge Is Falling Down”. I took a shower, and when I came out he was watching a color wheel video. He then said “I love green, yellow, blue, black, white…” On YouTube he saw a listing for a Dr. Seuss video and recognized it and said he wanted to read Dr. Seuss books. We read On Beyond Zebra and Marvin K Mooney. He loved On Beyond Zebra, and started copying all of the made up letters onto paper, then was making his own. When he went to the bathroom we worked on pulling up his pants.

We headed out around noon and walked down to catch a bus. Caught the 172 as the 100 and 111 weren’t coming for awhile. August was playing french horn on the bus, then surprised me by falling asleep. I got off and went to Cafe Another, which is where Carly and I went the first time we had a babysitter for August (when the three girls watched him). He slept from 12:25 to 1:45. When he woke up the first thing he said was he wanted to play the big piano.

That was why we had headed to Dream Forest today. In the morning he said he wanted to play the big piano again. Besides the one at Children’s Grand Park, I could remember ones at Seoul Forest and Dream Forest. So we walked up to Dream Forest, finding a green car (a Fiat) along the way that August really liked. We walked up into the park and to where the piano used to be. Alas, it wasn’t there. We looked around at a couple other places, in case it had been moved, but no luck.

Got him out of the backpack in front of the arts center and he played around for awhile, one sleeve down over his hand and his shoulder showing. We went into GS25 and got a croissant sandwich thing, a set of fried sushi, and a thing of peaches. We sat outside and ate. He liked the fried sushi, but couldn’t eat the interesting ones as they surprisingly turned out to be spicy.

We went over to the playground and to the play structure. We started by drumming around on it, then climbing inside it. He was counting the steps, or something, and I remarked I didn’t know how his counting game worked. So as he went through he said things like “I’m gonna count Dada but I’m not going to count that bus.” “I’m not going to count that bike, but I’ll count that woman.”

After that he walked over and helped push the round thing a bit but didn’t want to get on. He then climbed up the stairs and across the rope bridge on his own, and went down one of the short slides. He then saw a little boy playing in the sand area. He got the stick and started writing in there. But then he started kicking sand. I took him out, then he started kicking again. Upset once more, but then was fine after that, and he spelled the start of his Mani song. He says it starts ‘Manitsnonq’. He then wanted to spell all of Yankee Doodle. So we worked through a lot of it, and he surprised me by being able to spell a lot of the words.  It was about time to head out, and it was time to go when he started to put sand in his coat. His hands were really dirty and he kept wiping his face, acting sleepy.

We headed out at 3:35, and stopped at the bathrooms near where the piano was supposed to be. He got to choose which toilet to use: dragonfly, snail, or turtle, and he chose turtle. We then washed his very dirty hands and face. As we walked out he saw the new flowers (they put in the spring flowers) by the visitor center and said “Nice flowers. Ooh. I like them…I want to take a picture.” We caught the first bus then transferred to the Nowon 9. He played french horn on way home, then was quiet and put his head down a bit.

At home the plan was to switch to the bike and head to the grocery store. But when we got there he said “I want to rest in a nest in the parlor.” So we rested for awhile, then he was having fun having Marshy and GM poop and use the bathroom. Back on the reading area, he said “Let’s go.”

We went over to Lucky Mart and shopping went smoothly. He started drumming on everything, starting with big cans in the back. We headed home at 5:20. They nursed, then while he was on the toilet he counted all the way to 100 for Carly. He had done that once earlier today, and sometime yesterday.

We played London Bridge on the piano then on my iPad he got into the My First Orchestra app and played with that. He ate some olives and then the last piece of sushi from lunch. He stuffed much of it in his mouth and dropped a bunch of rice on the ground. A minute later he said “I’m still hungry” and walked over and picked up some rice from the ground. I gave him an new commandment: “Though shalt not eat floor rice.” Carly and I had made stuff for burritos. He’s never liked burritos, so I had just given him a bowl with olives, tofu, and bell peppers in it. He ate everything else, but left the pepper. But I told him he should try it and I thought he’d like it. He tried it, and liked it and was excited: “I like pepper!” But to be clear he then said “I don’t like tomato.”

Carly gave him a bath and washed his hair while I did dishes. We tried for sleep after that, but they came out after awhile. Carly went to take a shower and he and I looked at the MFA Musical Instruments book. He spent over a half hour going through it and listening to/watching it and pretending to play all the instruments. He was so hyped up by it; I wonder if any other three-year old has been made hyper by a book of antique musical instruments.

They went back in sometime after 9. Thought he went to sleep, but I heard him fussing at 9:45 or so, then got quiet after that.

Photos:

On Beyond Zebra: 

Dream Forest: 

He was up at 6. Carly skyped with Cassie and family. Vivian was playing a song on something, and Carly taught them the “I like to make mistakes”. I told Carly how I intentionally make mistakes with that song so that August can correct my mistakes. Vivian was really into talking to August, but he found the Dr. Seuss music app I had installed on his iPad and he was hooked. He was playing that, and started to sing “If I Go” to it. Carly left for work and had to hang up the Skype call.

I made scrambled eggs and veggies for breakfast. He continued to play with his music apps. He drank some water and said “I’m using my water bottle to make music with my hard rock guitar” as he sucked on it and it made noise. He wanted to play mandolin and I went to take it out. Then, tragedy. I went to pick it out of the case as he bent over to look at it. I hit him with the headstock in the left cheek, and one of the wire ends poked him below the eye. So kind of lucky, as it could have been worse. He didn’t exactly see it that way. When he calmed down, I played mandolin and he played piano and we played a couple songs together for the first time.

On his iPad he chose Magic Piano and we figured that out a bit before he moved to a different music app. Exercised, then we read Welcome to the Symphony. He memorized the sentence “The brass section…” after he had me read the paragraph several times. We watched a piccolo flute video, then he watched Pirates of the Caribbean (symphony, that is – he hasn’t seen the movie yet). He was still hungry so had some crab. We then had some word silliness: “I like to make mistakes…” “That’s a funny thing to moon…” “The trombone is wearing my sock in the orchestra.” Him: “I started to say my ribs didn’t work but…they are bone…I said they were broken.” And he quoted the Peek-a-Zoo app: “Can you dance th macaroni?”

We watched brass instrument videos and found a guy who shows off and plays all sorts of random bass trumpets and alto horns, etc. August was then playing music but being silly about it: “I’m playing the trombone silly.”

I went to take a shower, and I heard him call out, still processing the videos we had seen several minutes earlier: “There’s a bass trumpet the guy knows? There’s a BASS TRUMPET?” Before I could get in the shower he then said through the door: “I’m 77 hungry. I’m still hungry.”

So I got him something else. He then invented another silly game: “Oh yeah? Well I’m a…” We would take turns finishing the sentences with a random instruments, animal, or other random thing: play structure, joint. He was then copying my answers. We also ate the last piece of pizza.

He said “Sing the song I don’t know…falling.” I didn’t know what he was talking about so I made up song about me falling and breaking my arm. Finally realized he meant London Bridge and he was really excited (although he said he also liked my song). I tried to go take a shower again, but just as I was about to step in I heard “Turn off the water. I want to make a nest.” I tried to ask him to go watch something or play piano but he got a sad look on his face and went and lay down on the reading area. So I made a nest with him. Some good cuddling, then he started talking about neighbors and was pointing in every directions, asking “neighbors that way?” I said we might have less neighbors in Israel, and that was hard for him to believe. He then got the little puzzles and we did some of those.

Finally, a shower. At the end he said he had to go to the bathroom. I was drying off and said he could go and I’d be there to help him wash his hands. When I came out I found the door closed. He had turned on the light, closed the door, and was on the toilet. When I opened the door he said “You surprised me”.

We ate a small piece of cake, then did the big Itsy Bitsy puzzle and sang London Bridge. We left at 12:30.

He sang the Mani song until a few stops from Children’s Grand Park. He was then singing his new song, “Anikalooah”. Those two, plus his “The shovel caved it out” are his first three very clear and repeated melodies/songs.

We went and did some sidewalk chalk (he was asking how to spell words in Korean, like playground, mama, dada, and writing them), then had some food. He saw the tennis ball in the backpack and asked why we had it, then wanted to play with it. He immediately started throwing it to me and was super excited when he got it to me. Started a couple feet away then got him to back up a bit. Every time I caught the ball he would jump up and down and be excited.

He was acting tired several times, and so I figured we’d try a walk. He did some hopscotch, then we went to the bathroom, then for a walk. He was singing and singing. We paused to eat some crackers and he said he was done singing, but it soon started again. So we went to the lower coffee shop. As we walked in he said “I turns to upside down V turns to N turn to M”. He did another one as well. We did multiple of these when he was learning to draw letters (C to O to Q being the most common), but these were ones he had just imagined in his head while walking.

We went to the counter and he was looking in the display case. He saw muffins and said “Looks like muf-cakes”. Wasn’t clear if that was intentional or a slip. Very nice either way. We got a strawberry smoothie, then went and he did art on his iPad. After awhile he started asking me for help in spelling his made up words from his two songs and was writing them down.

He said he wanted to play a big piano. Not sure if he remembered there was a piano upstairs or if it was a coincidence, because then he seemed surprised when I said there was one upstairs. He kept saying “You mean up there!?” and pointing to the ceiling. We were joking about me hiding something, and he made up “I hid Zinnie’s iPad because he didn’t follow the rules.” Then, as we walked up to the roof he said “I was dreaming about having a long piano.” I later asked if he remembered any other dreams he’s had, and he said no, but he reiterated that he remembered dreaming about a big piano.

We played the piano for quite awhile. I hadn’t worn my heavy coat today, but in the shade on the roof with some wind was a bit chilly. Couldn’t elevate though, as he was so excited. Let him get up and see inside, and he really liked that. We played songs together, and he made things up. He also surprised me by transposing the songs he knows to different keys: He figured out Are You Sleeping on the black keys, Itsy Bitsy Spider starting on G, and was working on it on the black keys as well.

It was time to get going. We went to the bathroom up there, and he asked “What’s a woozle?” Remembering that Pooh story that he was a bit frustrated about because he didn’t learn what woozles are. We talked about reading more Pooh, but then forgot later.

At the station he was walking around and playing an instrument while I stood in line. I asked what he was playing and he replied “French horn. You know. French Horn’s the best.” On the train he stood most of the way. He was looking out the door and saw the train going the other way. I said it was the train going south like we had earlier. He then pointed the way were were going and said “That’s north?” Then left down the tracks: “That’s south?” He ate some crackers, then asked me about the months and we worked on the ones he doesn’t know. He did fine standing up, but the last few stops started lying down and I corralled him in the corner by the door so he couldn’t lay down in the middle.

We were home at  5:40. They nursed and I trimmed and cleaned his nails. We read Welcome to the Symphony, and then they nursed again and read one of the new books Carly brought home from the library. She gave him a bath and I did dishes. He was still hungry, and she fed him some of the quinoa. It looked like eyes: “Why does the mushroom have eyes?…I want another one with eyes
.” “Mama let me eat quinoa in the bathroom!” “Say that’s thousands of eyeballs.” Joked about eating Bob.

Lots and lots of french horn and trumpet playing at home today. Finally, I introduced him to a book I had just purchased: Boston’s Museum of Fine Art’s Musical Instruments. It is instruments from their collection, many with audio or videos. He watched a few of those and loved it, but was rubbing his eyes. I left, and he fell asleep about two minutes later at 7:35.

 

Photos. Puzzles: 

Throwing: 

Trying to close his eyes without squinting: 

Spelling his words: 

He ran out at 7:13 and quietly jumped up on the couch. He then looked at the Mike the Knight book and I asked if he wanted to read it, but he said “I want to do math on my iPad.”  But then he went and played on the toy piano. After ten minutes or so he wanted to play Park Math on my iPad. He did that for awhile and he really likes the music in it, then switched to another one of the Duck Duck Moose apps and just listened to the background musi: Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Yankee Doodle, Shoo Fly, London Bridge, Baa Baa, This Old Man. We then had cereal and fruit for breakfast and read all of Welcome to the Orchestra.

He played piano, then wanted videos of brass instruments he doesn’t know. We had just watched a videos of an alto horn and Vivian and Colin called. August wasn’t happy that his brass instrument time was interrupted until Vivian went and got Cassie’s clarinet and was playing that. August was then pretending to play oboe and making a lot of music. Colin seemed to be sucking on random things and dancing. After 11 minutes they disappeared and August wanted to go back to brass instrument videos.

But instead he sent some videos on Skype. He spent a lot of time on his piano and GarageBand. We did exercise together. And we looked at Welcome to the Symphony again. I took a shower. Afterwards he was playing with his comb/brush and used it as a musical instrument, or several actually, pretending to play it by pushing down on the bristles. We played mandolin, then looked at a few of books about musical instruments in iBooks that I had downloaded previews of.

I let him eat two letter cookies, then we read the Frog and Toad story “A Swim” three times in a row before he let me go and finish making our lunch. He wanted to look at the dinosaur book but couldn’t find it, so got the Junior Picture Dictionary instead and was pretending to be animals out of there and chomping/stinging/hugging me.

We ate a salmon sandwich and half an orange for lunch. We were listening to music, and the Sesame Disco album. He really liked that and pretended to play trumpet to “Disco Frog”. We played piano together and were figuring out how to play “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”. And we taught each other how to play “Itsy Bitsy Spider”. I misheard him saying something, and that turned into a nonsense “I thought you said…” game, with us each saying things like “I thought you said snare drum.”

He was then pretending to be a pipe organ playing frog with four legs and three feet. I could not make that up. He continued to be a frog as he did man with the blueberries, counting by tens and adding more to make more tens.

I packed up some snacks, and let him have one more letter cookie. He chose ‘m’ and said “I have M for milk, muffin, much, and mud.” We left at 1:30. We walked through Madeul and he spotted the ‘A’ and ‘Q’ signs (for answer and question). He said “’A’ ‘Q’ You liked that when you were a little baby?” He was asking how to spell a couple words, like ‘sun’ and he mentioned ‘sky’. I told him how to spell it, and he gave me a dismissive “I can spell that.”

We crossed the river and walked up to 모랫어린이공원. These were two parks we went to awhile back where we found a jumprope stuck in the ground. We found this one as we left and didn’t play there. This time, we went on the swings for quite awhile. There was an older boy there who kept trying to throw sand on August. I had to tell him no and be more forceful with him than any kid before. August wasn’t too phased by it though. At one point August was asking about how many trees there were in the world, and said there were infinity trees.

Eventually he got off and played around the playground. He worked on climbing up and sliding down a climbing wall with a rope. As we roamed around I said “That’s a funny thing to do, that’s a funny thing to say” and August kind of asked what that was about, but we can’t remember when/why that was from. I tried to search the journal/blog, but no luck. I know we used to say it a lot though, and also turned it into a nonsense thing, with things like “That’s a funny thing to floozle…” There were these small hills and August ran up and down them. He got on a teeter totter facing the wrong way and the third boy at the playground got on the other ended and I pushed the end August was on. After they left, August ran up and down the hills a bit more, then sat next to me on one for a minute before he said he needed to go to the bathroom. So we went to the bike and walked one building over to 월천근린공원.

We went to the bathroom and tried to go to the big bathroom, which he had used before. But it had a sensor and he refused, backing out. I checked the regular stall and it didn’t have a sensor. But the urinals between where it and where August was did, so August sprinted past them to get to the toilet.

That taken care of, we sat on a picnic platform and had a snack. He started with the letter cookies. Two girls came by. I suggested he share a cookie with them. He was holding a cookie, looking at it and thinking, when they left before he could decide. He said “I thinked”. “You can have I for ice and igloo.” “Q is my best letter. Q is for queen becuase I love queens.” The girls came back with a dog a few minutes later. August seemed surprised that it wasn’t barking, and then got to pet it. They left, and a few minutes later the workers, who had been sawing off fence posts at a distance, came close to us. August had been interested in what they were doing when they were across the park. But the second they turned on the chainsaw this time he started screaming and hid behind me. I happened to start recording video just as it happened. I picked him up and we walked a ways away and watched from the distance. He calmed down, and seemed fine when I walked a bit closer, but when I sat back down on the platform he got upset again. I took him away again, and by the bathrooms I asked if I could set him down and go get our stuff and return. He said yes, then ran to the back corner of the bathrooms and waited there until I went and got our stuff and the bike.

We went over to the playground, hoping to find the jumprope buried in the sand. Instead, we found a crime scene. The jumprope had been broken, with the rope piece by the bushes and the plastic pieces spread about. It looked recent, as the hole was still there. We used the shovel to dig down, but found no additional rope. An unsolved mystery through and through. Anyway, we spent the rest of our time writing things in the sand. He wanted me to write sentences, then asked “What’s the word for twelve? Thirteen?” He’s liked ‘dozen’ and ‘baker’s dozen’ the last few days. I also invented a ‘ Zinnie dozen’, which is 14. He also confused me by saying “I said ‘I don’t remember’ in the hospital.” No idea where that came from.

We left after 3:30. We walked to Cafe Tolerance where he got an orange juice and a pineapple juice, of which he only drank the orange. We sat in our usual chairs looking out at the stream. He went to the bathroom at the beginning, played music apps, then near the end ran off. He went and put on the slippers and headed into the bathroom on his own.

We were home just before 5:30. Carly was home. They nursed and read Welcome to the Symphony. He played more of the Park Music and ate dinner. I got two new iPad apps: My First Orchestra App and Beanie’s Instruments. He particularly liked the second one.

He went in with Carly to take a bath. He was sitting on the toilet, talking about his fingers bending and others not bending. I asked why, and he answered “Those ones don’t bend because these ones do.”

After his bath he went right to bed at 7.

Playground: 

Q: 

Hiding from the chainsaw: 

Scene of the crime: 

Cafe Tolerance:

MUp just before 7. When I came out later they were skyping with Cherie. August was singing songs, and she sang Frere Jacques in French with him. He then wanted her to “Make Yankee Doodle up in French” When she didn’t, he said “No, it’s like this” and sang Yankee Doodle in made up French: “That’s how it goes in French.” At the end, she pretended to give him a noisy kiss. August asked “Oma was practicing playing the trumpet?”, remembering his trumpet lesson yesterday.

A bit later he said “I get my hopes up…about ice cream…or candy…or cookies.” I was making jokes, and he copied Carly in saying “Dada thinks he’s funny.” I am. We skyped briefly with Glecy, and at first video wasn’t working. August said “I don’t see anything EITHER.” I had warmed up a piece of pizza, and after about one bite I found I had lost it to August. He kept talking throughout the day about watching an axe video again. Not sure if he and Carly ever actually did watch one.

I got the stuff out from our Poli class and we played with the Poli flashlight. He then wanted to take care of my heart, so he used the new medical equipment and the flashlight to perform surgery on me.

He was saying lots of random things, like  “My kidney’s in Costa Rica”. He started drawing letters on paper and said “The G is crying.” He then wrote the alphabet, but said it was mixed up. It was sort of a puzzle for me to find all the letters. I got his little notebooks from the other day. In the lines one he started to write small, and wrote “Hi mama and dada. How are you?” He then wanted the Funny Mathematics notebook. He made up and solved 8 math problems in there with some help from me. He has been changing how he writes some of the numbers. Like using a closed 4, putting the little line at the top of 1, and making the bottom of his 9 curvy. And I love that he had ‘7+7=14’ memorized.

He did a total of 24 math problems, then wanted a video of an axe again. Again, not sure he every watched any of it. We Skyped, for real, with Glecy this time. We gave him his present from Glecy: a big container of alphabet and number cookies. He looked through them and chose a 6 and said “6 reminds me of 16. That reminds me of Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” Because Alexander says “Who needs 16?” As he ate the letter ones we (but mainly he) were coming up with words for them: “Z for for zebra…and zigzag…I have J for juggle and jellyfish…and joke…H for hug…P for pet and paint and picture…A is for August…and astronaut…astronauts go to space.” At some point he said “I want another present from Aunty Glecy.” We cut off the cookies, then he nursed. He then said “I nursed a lot…I did too much sugar…sugar high.”

After we hung up on Skype he and Carly played with playdough. Carly made a little sucking fish and he was afraid of that. They then looked at the dinosaur book and he was pretending to be all of them.

He and I read Welcome to the Symphony. We read every word, and started it a second time but then he started doing math. Back to writing math problems in the notebook. He then used a calculator as well. Carly came and did Kathe ith him while I took a shower. Afterward, I heard them working on commas. I came out and made us a sandwich. We were asking him problems, like 6+6, and he was writing them out and solving them. He had to go to the toilet, and as they went Carly would ask him one and he’d say “You know. 2 plus 2 is 4.”

We had a teriyaki tofu sandwich. He doesn’t really eat the lettuce in sandwiches, but insists on me putting it in. At least he likes it in theory. He spit out one big bite today because he sensed some lettuce.

Then, to mess with mama he pretended to be a dung beetle: “I’m a beetle rolling poop.” We went to the store in the pink building together. We talked about the rules of the store in advance, but he ended up running away from me again and thinking it was a game. Not sure why the Lucky Mart has turned in to that, as he is always fine over at Home Plus. I picked him up, and he was fine for a bit, but then asked “Why did you pick me up? Because I was running off?” When I said yes he started crying. Carly heard him and took him and I switched and paid for the groceries.

On the way out he headed towards the movie theater, missing the stairs. I had the idea to go read books in the movie theater area and he liked that idea. Carly took the groceries and headed home. We read a total of 11 books, some more than once, and he snacked on banana chips. One was called something like Happy Day, and part of it was about what dreams are happy dreams. I asked him:

“Do you ever dream you are playing music?”

“Yeah”

“What instrument?”

“Hard rock guitar.”

Before we left he slipped off a stool. Didn’t seem to be too hard, but it upset him. Think he was a bit tired. He calmed down and we rode his bike around the park for awhile.

We headed home. On paper he wrote “Hi mama dada” on his own. Then they looked at the dinosaur book and he was pretending to be all the dinosaurs and chomping mama. In the reading area I read one Biscuit book to him. He went to the bathroom, and was pretending to force feed me cake. He wrote a bunch of Gs on paper, then ‘good day’ Carly had made a quinoa dish, and August ate some of that.

We all headed out for a walk at 4:10. “I want to ride my bike please …” At the ‘bye fuzzy’ playground he got off and declared he wanted a snack. I realized it was because we’ve often stopped for a snack there. We walked up the stream and across the bridge and back to Chrysanthemum Park. We went on the swings, then he climbed up the ladder part to the top of the play structure. He needed my help to get over the top, but when I went up to help he simply stood up and wasn’t using his hands to climb over the top ledge. That wouldn’t work, so I handed him down to Carly, which he didn’t like. Went back and did a little more swing, then we headed home at 5.

As we got home he said “Hi mama and dada. I love you question mark  exclamation point.” We were playing on the piano and he took exception to how I played something in When Johnny Comes Marching Home. He said “Let me teach you. See? Like this. Yeah.”

He did some math on his iPad, then ate more quinoa for dinner, then played with the monster music app. With that going as a background he told me “You play the drum and I’ll play the tambourine drum…it will be like an orchestra.” We also read the Welcome to the Symphony book at some point and had read it earlier. We’ve read it a few times over the last couple days.

Carly gave him a bath, which went smoothly for a hair washing day (it didn’t get washed yesterday). He came in to the parlor to find me and say good night. But we started talking about days of the week and months, and he surprised me by knowing “March, April, May, June, July”. He needed some help with August and the rest of them. He then went to bed and was asleep just after 7.

Photos. Math: 

Kids on the roof: 

Interesting mushrooms: 

Books. Covering his ears like in one of the books: 

Snack: 

Chasing: 

Swings: 

Wheelie: 

Drums: 

Sleeping boy: 

He was awake at 7:40. Sometime before my meeting started he was singing a “I want to make a K out of Duplos” song. I had a book group meeting from just past 8:30 to just past 10. August spent a lot of time coming in and wanting me to make letters out of Duplos. Carly made him french toast for breakfast.

My meeting was over a little after 10, and they showed up at 10:40. Right before they got here August was practicing drawing crescents and hearts. Sophie and Jeff and the two kids, Cora and Maggie came in and handed August his present. We opened it and it was a set of foam things you can use to make art in the bathtub.

They played in the living room for a bit, trying out the piano and xylophone (August was really amused by how Cora was playing them), then we all ended up in the parlor. August kept counting everyone, although since he kept turning in circles to do it he often went past 7, We started to ask him questions like how many people with brown hair, how many kids, how many blue eyes. For the hair or eyes he ran off to go check himself in the mirror.

A bit more playing in the parlor with the tool kit, Duplos, etc. then Jeff went back down to the car for the trumpet. He came back and gave August a little trumpet lesson. August tried a little but couldn’t make a sound. Carly tried and blew a couple notes. August started crying, and Carly took him to the bedroom for a bit.

They came back out and ordered pizza. We played and had lunch, then August disappeared. He had gone to the changing room and was just playing by himself. He wanted some alone time, and told both Carly and me to leave. I went back down after 10 minutes or so and convinced him to come out as we were having cake. He came out and ate cake. They left just before 1.

A little straightening up then we opened the card from Glecy and then Skyped with my parents to open presents. He liked the letter wrapping paper and when he found the Q said “That’s my best, best letter.” He wanted the big present first, and that was the medical stuff. He liked the medical stuff, and listened to his own heart with the stethoscope. He said “It’s making music in my body.” He also listened to me and Carly.

Next was the set of letter rubber stamps, then the two books. August played the new piano and was then talking about instruments. He said “I have an instrument with zero strings and infinity frets.” We finished skyping at 2:10, then August and I read the Mike the Knight: The Tricky Trail book.

I talked to him about why he was sad earlier and he said “loud”, which I took to mean that he didn’t like it when Carly blew the trumpet. But a bit later I asked him in front of Carly and he said “blowing”, and seemed to confirm that it was because it was hard to play.

They nursed, then on the toilet he said “I’m a rattlesnake.” They did math together, then played a little Venus fly trap game. They ended up watching a series of odd videos: some using an axe to cut a tree, kidney and lung surgery, and something else random.

I took him for a bike ride and we went up to Sarang Children’s Park a little before 4. He saw it was busy and said “I don’t like the kids.” because the swings were busy. I asked him if he wanted to go to Madeul, which is never busy. He thought about it and said “Sand” and decided we’d play in the sand instead.

We made a sand mountain and he crushed it. While writing things in the sand with our stick he asked “How do you spell Maggie?…Cora?” Then he wanted to spell “Daisy…Biscuit” He ate a Larabar for a snack, and we played the Larabar game, which we haven’t done much recently, not eating Larabars, making up ‘oops’ ingredients.

He wanted to go on the swings but sent me as a scout: “I want dada to go on the swings.” While we waited I pointed out the map we had looked at before. He asked “You looked at it when you were a little baby?” He also pretended to play the piano on the side of the play structure and I made up a nonsense song.

We got a swing and he was on that for quite awhile. He joked “What do yellow and red make? Do it with your paint fingers.” That is, like we use our fingers to make numbers and letters, he wanted me to make colors out of them. We played tag on the swing and I was telling him to stop moving.

He started talking about someone named Mani (like his song – and I can’t remember if it was a similar name when he last seemed to be talking about a pretend person): “Mani should go over there…to those teeter totter things…mani doesn’t like tomatoes.” Mani was from some place, then from ‘March’. He declared “March is a place.”

He said something about “you can’t tag along”, which seemed to be from Berenstain Bears No Girls Allowed. He then got on his stomach on the swing and recited a couple of verses from Yankee Doodle as a poem.

Off the swing, we went up on the play structure to check out the pipes on what appeared to be a musical instrument. Perhaps it was at some point, but now the ends were covered up. We went down the little slide and played there, with him sliding into my head while I pretended to try to rest o the slide. He also climbed up the slide several times. He picked up something off the ground and, against my wishes, licked it and declared “I did it.” He did more sliding into me and declared “I’m a bully…What’s a bully?…Suddenly.” He was thinking of the bully in the book Suddenly that pushes past the main character on the slide.

I said ‘Boo’ at one point and he said “That tickles!…It tickles my eardrums.” We went on the teeter totter things, first sitting in the middle, then getting on the ends. He was watching the girl and mom on the other one, and when they switched ends August wanted to switch ends too. Out of nowhere he said “I want a picture where Oma broke…broke the arm…and the X-ray.” He wanted to see my x-ray and I told him we could when we got home, but we forgot.

We left at 5:35 and went across the street to a public restroom but it was very dirty and only had squat toilets. August didn’t want to go there and I didn’t blame him. We walked over to Chrysanthemum park to use the bathroom there. As we passed the two wooden worms he observed “The head is missing” on one of them. We then headed home. At one point he said “Squash. There’s a dog.” That was a reference to the driving simulator at the science center that tests your reaction speeds when a dog runs into the road.

We were home a little after 6. Nursed, then we used the letter stamps a bit, using q and m. We had a piece of pizza, then watched videos of a harmonium, pipe organ, and a harp, the last two playing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Jeff had earlier mentioned a Sesame Street album he had on vinyl as a kid (about the symphony), which reminded me that we had Sesame Street Disco, with the song , sung by Cookie Monster, “Lost My Cookie at the Disco”. I found it on YouTube and we watched it as we went in for his bath.

Carly took over to do the bath foam stuff with him and they had fun with that. He was singing the ABC song, and sang “Next time won’t you sing with Cora.” After a long day, he was asleep at 8.

Photos: 

Sarang Children’s Park. Godzilla:

Superman: 

Letter stamps: