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He was up at 6:20. I was surprisingly tired today, so when he wanted to make a nest in the reading area I was fine with that. He said goodbye to Carly, and we read some of the Tigger story, then were hiding the animals and finding them, then did art in Paper. We ate some banana bread and some of Carly’s pancakes for breakfast. We watched a Korean video and did some translating, then played Endless Spanish for the first time in quite awhile. He watched Puffin Rock while I showered. He peed on the toilet, and took August Jr to pee too. We used the green bath cup as a toilet for August Jr.

Got ready to go. He first wanted just the little zoo, but then got excited about the big zoo. He was interested in Flynn, the fox on Puffin Rock, so we looked up photos of foxes and talked about finding them at the zoo. He went into the parlor and locked the door for a minute. He came back out and I picked him up for some reason, and he said “I’m heavy.” He also said “Hey dada, show me.” for something. He locked me out again – wanted some alone time I heard him singing and making funny noises and talking to himself about numbers. He came out and wanted to go out in the hall. Told him we would get going as soon as he was dressed. Got his diaper and pants on, but then he was grabbing at it and said “The penis is uncomfortable”   I tried to help, but he went back and closed the door again, saying “I’m going away.” But he was soon back out, saying “I want to go to the big zoo.” But before we left, he pooped and I changed him yet again. We didn’t leave until 10:45. And he yawned as I put him in the backpack. Then he didn’t want to get out of the backpack on the subway. Next thing I knew, he was falling asleep. He kept insisting he wanted the big zoo even as he fell asleep. But I got off at Ttukseom and walked to the Life on Mars coffee shop and had a tiramisu cappuccino. He slept from 11:17 to 12:27. When he woke up he looked around and started reading the menu. First thing he was saying was repeating “Americano, americano, americano…”  He then went on about how the “ㅓis more of an O sound” – it does often seem that way. Anyway, he was really into studying that menu, and we didn’t leave until 12:48.

We walked around a bit and he sang, then we went to the park and to the big play structure. We sat down by the sand area and ate lunch. I had taken his coat off while he slept, as he has talked about how he wakes up too warm. Now he took his coat back off. He was then cold but didn’t want to put anything on. He instead cuddled with me while we ate. After eating a bit he got really energetic, and the sun came out and warmed us up a bit. He was randomly saying “What’s going on here?” “What’s that? Dung beetle? Mouse? Chicken?” He then started a game of throwing his sweatshirt around. Then he was saying “hee haw” as he did it. After a bit he crawled over to me on his knees and said “snuggle, snuggle, snuggle…I had a fun day.”

I needed to change him, so we did that over on the bench, then went back to playing, this time in the play structure shaped like a whale. Climbing in:“Your turn dada…you’re trying very well…I want to go in there…that looks pretty fun.” On the wavy part: “Sine wave, sine wave, I’m sine wave in the sun…” Studying the broken step on the climbing wall: “I can’t believe it…oh dear…what happened?” We spent a lot of time lounging in the trough (he now knows the parts of a wave) of one wave up top. He sat up and looked at me and said “I’m having fun.” He also talked a lot about being a grown up: “I want to be a grown up. Grown up, please, dada.” He lay down next to me, and pretended to sleep. He then wanted his feet up at the crest of the wave, like me. But when he did that it meant his head was in the trough. He thought that was funny. We climbed down the rope ladder, then back up the climbing wall. He had needed to use my hand as a foot hold going up, and now he wanted to help me climb, and wanted me to step on his hand. It took a lot of explaining to convince him that I shouldn’t step on his hand like that.

Finally, we were ready to go from there. We went inside to the library for a bit, and read If You give a mouse a cookie and a song in that book. And bits of a Korean book. But then he wanted water. Got his water bottle, but then he spit on the floor. He said “Sorry”, but then climbed on a couch. He looked out the window and talked about nursing. He looked at the river and said “Hey mama, are you in the water?” He then started getting loud. The hyper had returned to him, so we headed out.

We stopped at a bench on the first floor of the J-Bug building to get in the backpack. It had a sort of climby part in the middle, and he said “I suppose I can climb; There’s no sign.” He then crawled around it double checking that there wasn’t a sign anywhere.

We headed home. As we walked into Brownstone, we smell a series of food smells we don’t usually smell. Odd, really. He was trying to figure out where they came from and joked “maybe it comes from the engines…wheels…restaurant…that place over there…”

At home he pooped again. The third time today. He wanted to paint (when we left the park that had been our plan for home). We were just getting set up with the watercolors that I had bought at Daiso in Uijeongbu some time ago when Carly got home. He was very excited to find that there was brown paint. They painted together for 20 minutes or so, filling two and a half pages, before he decided he was done and wanted to nurse. While they were painting, I was trying to ask him about his day. He wasn’t answering, and flatly said to me “I’m busy.” Oh, and at one point he went and got his stool and brought it to the kitchen sink, then got his cup of painting water and brought it to rinse it out.

They nursed and read some Pooh. We then did a lot of hide and seek and hiding the green cup, etc. He watched some Puffin Rock, then I gave him a long bath. He was squirting soap on his hands and washing the walls. He sat in the sudsy water and was stretching out his legs. He was then almost on his stomach and pretending to be a snake in the water. He also kept trying to drink the dirty water.

In to go to sleep 8:10. I said thank you for letting mama put on your pajamas. He said “don’t say thank you.” I told him mama appreciated him not getting upset about them, and he said “Mama not appreciate it.” Asleep about 10 minutes later.

 

Falling asleep on the subway: 

Lunch: 

Throwing his sweatshirt around: 

In the trough: 

Feet on the crest: 

Closing his eyes: 

Library: 

Watercolors: 

Hiding: 

August woke up at 4:40 and told Carly “I’m not sleep.” They got up together and let me sleep. They did math with Duplos as counters, and were doing quite well, until August was insisting that two long pieces were ’11’ and got frustrated and sad when Carly tried to explain. They watched Puffin Rock, and looked up photos of the hummingbird moth. Carly had mixed up ingredients for veggie/apple/chocolate pancakes, and they made those. August loves them. I got up, and we did some drawing on paper, then played with Musyc. While doing that, he accidentally peed (he had pants on, but no diaper). Miraculously, it only went on the floor, between the rug and the reading area. A bit later he watched one of his Korean videos, and we translated words on the phone. He then played with GarageBand a bit, before going to find Carly. She was in ironing.

Carly asked if he needed to pee, and he reminded her “I already peed on the floor.” while pointing at the ground. They then made crazy sentences with the Free Speech app before August helped me mix the dry ingredients for banana bread, then helped Carly prepare more of her curry rice (mainly by eating the cheese). He then ate a bunch of rice and more pancakes. He said “I like chocolate.” and gave a big smile. Back to Free Speech. He then helped me finish the banana bread, and licked the spatula.

Carly tried to get him to sleep, but he got back up and said “I’m going to say cheesy jokes.”  He cam running out to me, saying a bunch of nonsense that included ‘cheesy’ in it. I let him type a bit and we ate a few mandarin oranges. A couple times he claimed to be an adult today. He went back and fell asleep from 12:43 to about 2:20. He nursed and was then leaving Skype videos and watching videos from summer. For his video messages, he was singing, and each one was a made up tune, many including rests in them. Very cool.

Around 4 we headed outside, stopping to get drinks at Mama Juice on the way – he wanted banana, and it was really good. We got to the playground, and he and I showed Carly the Nervous Game. He is very purposefully putting one foot in front of the other and trying to balance as much as possible. Derek showed up with Rosie a bit later. Carly stayed with August as he roamed around and I talked to Derek. After awhile, August was ready to get going. So we all got in the strollers and headed to their place. They were making pulled pork and coleslaw, and we were bringing banana bread and curry rice. We stopped at Paris Baguette for rolls, then went to their apartment building. On the way, we went through the new pathway to Wolgye Station, which we’ve seen, but never used. Derek called it the ‘secret’ tunnel, and August loved that, as he loves the word ‘secret’. At the playground at the apartment building, August went straight to the climbing thing, and played there for 15 minutes or so. Logan came out, and August was excited to see him.

Carly and Jill took August and Rosie up, and I walked with Derek and Logan to get a treat for him and August and drinks at the convenience store. We then went up to the apartment. August was totally relaxed there this time. The kids played with the block buildings things, and August played some peekaboo with everyone. We ate. August didn’t eat much, but he’d eaten well through the day. August was the one that called it, saying he was ready to head home.

We walked home. He was in the stroller, so couldn’t hear him well, but there was a lot of singing and talking along the way, and he was looking at all the lights – he’s not used to being out in the dark much, so is intrigued by all the lights. We got of the elevator, and he was pointing out the “X or T” shapes in the tiles. Apparently he had done this with Carly yesterday.

Carly gave him a bath. He sat down, and they were making words out of the letters. I saw him read ‘ghost’, and Carly said he had read  ‘bench’ on a bench in the park. We made some Duplo towers, and he let me put his pajamas on. He was asleep by 9:40.

 

Banana bread: 

Hiding: 

About to jump: 

Secret path: 

On the climbing wall:

Sitting down: 

Our tower: 

He walked out at 8:15. My book group meeting started at 8:30. He came in a few times and did lots of ribbits. He and Carly took recycling down. He came back in at the end and said bye to everyone. He talked to Peter a bit, but mainly interrupted us with numbers. He played with the calendar on my iPad, and was suggesting what we could do that day. He chose one day and said “We can go to Peter’s house.” Another was “the toilet museum.” Afterwards, we read the Korean elephant book, then made ducks and then polygons from Duplos. His tummy seemed to be bothering him, as he said “There’s a rumble in your tummy…your tummy’s upset…you have gas…”

We Skyped with my parents. He played hide and seek with them. First I was putting the pillow over the iPad, but then August would pick up the iPad and ‘hide’ them someplace. He tried putting them in the closet, but the iPad was on the cushion in there, slightly sticking out, so when he closed the door it closed on top of the iPad. Took a bit to get out, but it was okay. Carly tried to put him down a couple times for a nap, but no nap today. At one point I asked if he wanted a peanut butter sandwich, and he said no. So I made half of one and he ended up stealing it and eating most. Later we shared a tuna melt for lunch. Carly and him were ‘experimenting’ with the yoga mat, rolling it over, etc. and a  rubber band broke.

We were discussing S sound at the end of words, , and I mentioned that it makes an ‘S’ sound after K. And he immediately came up with ‘thanks’. I then said ‘t’ and he immediately said ‘knots”. I think his focus on the end sound of words comes from both the rhyming thing and from Korean.

We were working on a grocery list, and Carly got out paper, so August had to write on it. He was ready to go walk around Home Plus, but it took some effort to get him out of the house. A couple times in the morning he called Carly ‘Girl’, as I occasionally call her that.

At Home Plus we first looked at pants for him, and got one pair. Carly went to get something else, and he and I headed downstairs. Sort of. He wanted to push the stroller himself, but steering it is hard. He wanted to look at shoes, and I asked if we were looking for shoes for him or me. He said “Dada. Because those (pointing to my shoes) are old. We need to buy new shoes. They’re not shiny.”

We all got downstairs and we were getting some of the groceries. He was walking behind me and tripped over my foot. He was upset about that, then upset further when I wasn’t letting him put his hand in his diaper. Rather sad by the time we met up with Carly. She held him and I went to get the pizza. Wasn’t quite ready, so I got a chicken nugget sample and delivered it to August. Went back and got the pizza and we headed home. On the way home we stopped to look at the ‘cabbage flowers’, as we call them, which have suddenly appeared the rotating planters in front of buildings. August liked the little drops of water beaded up on them. He picked up a leaf that had fallen on them. A few seconds later I looked down to see him licking it. He said “You licked the water off. You’re a cat.”

At home we all had some pizza. He was rhyming words and said “Peter meter…that rhymes…they end in eter.” Also, randomly, he was saying “It’s all my fault.” Something, I think, he’s heard Carly say. And when looking for Carly he said “Whered mama go? She’s not over here. But I don’t see her.”

Derek texted to say he was on his way over with Rosie. Carly stayed at home to cook the veggie curry rice and work, and I took August out. We were there a few minutes before them, an August wanted to stand/walk on the bar again. He joked “you’re causing problems.” He was also wanting me to let go of him while he was standing on the bar – today he was working on balancing. He got down, and then went and climbed over the little fence (he couldn’t do that last time) into the dinosaur foot prints area. He was playing there, dropping things in the water, when they showed up.

We wandered around that end of the park with Rosie. August was really into walking along the curb, and then climbing all over the rocks at the petrified forest area. I had to change August, and he wanted to do it outside, so we did. Logan and Jill showed up after awhile. We were all together for a couple minutes, then Jill and Rosie headed to Home Plus, and we went with Derek and Logan over to Pink Building. They were getting food for dinner, and we met Carly there. The boys played around there – August liked looking through the glass door at Carly, and he saw Logan climbing on the big granite balls and wanted to climb on those. Before we headed our separate ways, Derek picked up both of them.

Carly, August, and I went over to the pink building to find the bowling alley that Carly is going to on Monday as part of a field trip. Did that and headed home. August kept saying “You had a fun day.” When I asked what made it fun, he said “Derek”.

He coughed at one point and said “you have the wheezles.” Which is from the Christopher Robin poem. Carly used her phone flashlight to find something she dropped, and August wanted his flashlight – the one he got this summer from Gramma and Grampa. The batteries were dead, so he helped me put in new ones. He was then looking for this, and put a measuring spoon under the washing machine so he could find it. He said “I’m good at hiding things and finding things with this flashlight.” He also got out his old trumpet rattle thing and was playing it and singing. Carly gave him a bath, and he was asleep sometime after 7:30.

He’s asking lots of “What happens if…” questions nowadays.

 

Duplo tower with mama: 

Cabbage flowers: 

Climbn the fence:

Socks off: 

The rocks: 

Rosie: 

Playing by Pink Burger: 

Climbing the stairs: 

Flashlight: 

He came out at 7:26. Saw me and said “Dada!” but kept walking to the parlor. He heard me start to get up and said “No! No!”I kept reading for a couple minutes, then he came out on his hands and knees and was joking with me through the legs of the table and chair, going “Dada! Dada!” He came over and the first thing he wanted was to type some Hangeul on my iPad, so I let him do that. After a couple minutes he said “I want music!” so we are playing with Musyc.

I made eggs, cheese and mushrooms for breakfast and we had a banana. We played with the Teuni sword thing, then watched some Puffin Rock before we had Turkey and August Jr play hide and seek for quite awhile. He sent messages on Skype while I showered. Before I got in, he was excited to find that the ghost emoji worked on his iPad. When I was done with my shower, he came in the bathroom and closed the door. He said “You’re hiding from something.” I asked what, and he said “Ghost.” He noted some dirt in the corner of the bathroom, and wanted to wash it with the shower head. His original idea, as he’s never seen me do. We washed the floor of the bathroom that way. Then he played with one of the weather science apps while I got ready to leave. He was doing a lot of hopping and singing for awhile, then asked for the ‘thermometer’. Don’t know where that came from either. He tried out the thermometer in his mouth. Didn’t get it fully under his tongue, but he kept it in until it gave a temperature.

In my bathroom, he wanted to look in the left cabinet. He saw the new deodorant and wanted it – I thought to smell it. I handed it to him. He said “I need deodorant today.” He then rubbed it on his face. He liked the smell. Before we left, he declared “I’m nocturnal now.” And he wanted some water. He drank a bit and said “I just wanted a little drink before I go outside.”

We got to Children’s Grand Park. In the station, he saw the big add on the platform that we always see. It is for a chicken place, but has a big photo of a baby on it. It also has a lot of punctuation. Today he said “My favorite is question mark…the Baby’s is tilde.” We got one roll of kimbap and headed to the park. The first thing he wanted to do was sidewalk chalk again. He wasn’t really interested in lunch again, so we ate in stages. Did sidewalk chalk for 10 minutes or so, then moved to sand castles. After awhile he headed off across the playground to the hill, which he can now get up and down on his own. He wanted me to climb it with him, then he sort of played behind me while I sat with my back against the hill.

He then wanted to go see animals. We went through the tropical building for the first time in quite some time, then down into the children’s zoo. He liked the meerkats and watched them for a few minutes while he swung on the railing. He then played around in that area, dropping leaves down a drain. I was doing some reading, and he came over to me and wanted me to see something – something he had just touched, he said. It was bird poop. He wanted me to touch it too. I refused, and when he kept trying to pull my arm so I would touch it I would say “Ooh” and pull away. Turned into a game. We went and washed his hand off by the horses, and translated some signs.

We walked towards the bathroom to change him, with him walking. Suddenly, he started doing a shoulders and arms shrug thing and saying “I don’t know”. I don’t know where that came from. Very amusing. Went and changed him. As I set him on the changing pad, he again covered his eyes so as to not see the pig-shaped urinal with the auto-flusher. I changed him, and he was calm about it, and just laid back on the changing pad, his head turned the other way.

We went out and he wanted to climb the stairs in the theater again. We got to the top, and he wanted to sit on the top set of benches. He sat and said “Hey dada. Sit…why there no music playing?” We sat there a few minutes, and he also asked why there were so few people in the theater. He then said “I want to walk in the forest.” We did, but just for a couple minutes, as it was late and he was sleepy, although he said he wasn’t. Put him in the backpack, and he zoned out after 10 or 15 minutes, but took several more minutes before his eyes finally closed. He slept from 2:41 to 4, downstairs, until I woke him up and we left.

Before putting him in the backpack before his nap, we had discussed what we were doing for the rest of the day, as we were going to Costco to buy a turkey, taking a bus to line 1, taking the subway to Derek and Jill’s house and dropping off the turkey, then going home. We had listed all the steps: 1 was getting in the backpack, 2 was falling asleep…12 was handing off the turkey. So as we made our way from here we kept counting off those steps. We went to the subway, took it up to Sangbong, and walked to Costco. There, we got one block of cheese, found the turkeys and got one, and grabbed a few samples on the way to keep him happy. Paid, and got some food for dinner, then then headed out. We crossed the street and just missed the 2235 bus, and had to wait 10 minutes. It was a slow bus, so August was getting a little impatient. I pointed at the river as we went over it, and he said “What’s it in the distance about?” The bridge we went over was rather tall.

That bus took us across to Sinimun Station on line 1, where we caught a train north. Unfortunately, it was stopping at Kwangwoon, one stop short. But it was empty so we got seats. At Kwangwoon we ate some chicken bake while we waited for the next train to come along. It was packed, but it was just one stop to Wolgye.

We left the station and walked right across the street to their apartment complex. August said “I like Logan.” As we got closer, he said ”Want to go to Logan’s house.” This is a huge change from the past when he was afraid to come here. Unfortunately, they weren’t there when we got there. We slipped in the outside door with someone else, and left the turkey outside their door. We went back outside and sat on the picnic structure and ate more chicken bake before heading home. He played around a bit, and it started to rain a little. Fully dark now. We were there long enough that they showed up and we got to talk to them for a couple minutes. August was really happy about that.

We went and caught a bus home. As we walked into our building, he saw one of the lights on the parking garage that lights up when cars leave. He said “It’s an Oona light.” A few days ago I told him he used to call these baba lights. Baba is a character on Puffin Rock, and so is Oona. So he started calling them Oona lights now.

He was also singing a song “The oven is in my walking…the home is in the bus…”

We were home quite late – it was about 7 when we got in. They nursed, and then we played the typing game where we type words for each other. We did a lot of hiding Turkey and August Jr, then I gave him a bath. We got lotion out to put on his backside where he was getting dry, and he really got into putting lotion on himself, and on me – first on my neck and face, then on my arms and legs and back. Maybe he’ll be a masseuse.

We read Pete the Cat again – he was back again to orange juice for show and tell. He let me put his pajamas on. He wanted to try the footsie ones again (he wanted to be a pig like in the Sandra Boynton Pajamas poem), but we didn’t get those on very far before he wanted the other pajamas instead. Carly came in and he was asleep at 9:45 or so.

 

Photos: 

Thermometer: 

Playground: 

Meerkats: 

Being a zero: 

Hiding from the flusher: 

Chicken bake and delivering the turkey: 

Lotion: 

He got up at 6:25 and turned the light on. Some good mama time before Carly left for work. He said goodbye, but then wanted me to go play in the hall with him and got sad when we said no. I said we could try walking her to the elevator. Didn’t know how that would go, but it worked. He pushed the button for her, then we said goodbye as she got on. He then got to walk the hall way a little on the way home. We went to the apartment so we could get socks on. Did that, but didn’t make it back out. He sat on the floor, leaning against me, and studied he Korean poster for several minutes. He started singing songs to the tune of “Farmer in the Dell”, including lines like “Sagwa in my hat” and “The slime is in my color” and also used random words from the Korean poster.

He wanted to type on my phone, but got sad when I wouldn’t let him delete my typing. He went in and laid on the reading area, and didn’t want me to join him. I went to make breakfast, but he came out and decided he was hungry, so we got cereal. He asked where Pete the Cat was and wanted to read it. So we ate breakfast and read Pete’s First Pet together. He did some typing on my iPad, then we had fun with play dough for quite awhile. He had some snot and I tried to get a tissue for him. He politely disagreed, saying “Dada, stop doing my tissue. I’m going away now. Bye.” And closed the door to the parlor. A minute later he opened the door, stuck his head out and pointed at me, saying “Hey dada. You get the iPad. You get the iPad if you want. I’m going away again. Bye!”

I took it in. We watched some Puffin Rock. I left the room for a minute to return and find that he had taken off his pants and diaper on his own. The first time he’s done that. I went to take a shower and left him with that and some Korean books. As I was finishing my shower he came in and said he had to pee. I quickly finished and grabbed the towel and went out in the cold apartment to turn the light on in the other bathroom for him. He had also dragged the Teuni gym thing out into the living room he pointed out that he had moved it and said something about it being for mama, as she was coming soon.

Back in the parlor, we made numbers with the Duplos. Then on the iPad we made music with the Musyc app – we did more of the tutorial and figured out how to do some new things. He then did some art in SketchBook.

We tried to Skype with my parents, but they weren’t online. So we left a video message. I said something about the Teuni gym being out and he told me to crawl through it. So I did. I mostly fit, although a couple pieces came apart. We moved to his Korean books for awhile and that reminded him of the videos from class, so we watched those a bit.

We headed out a bit early, and went down to the grocery store in Home Plus to get diapers and salmon for our lunch later. We got to class early and saw him blowing bubbles. August was excited by this – we’ve always been walking in late the last few weeks, and I was just thinking about how August liked the bubbles. August was really into the beginning of class, running around, and rolling around on the floor like another boy was. And when it came to the forward roll part, August first walked the path without doing a forward roll, but then did it again and allowed the teacher to do the forward roll. He was very happy with himself for doing it, and later in the day when I asked him about it he said he’d do it again next week. After that, he bowed to the teacher when he comes around and bows to them, and he was using his fingers to count the beats of the music. Class was about the post office today, and all was fine until the teacher demonstrated a mailbox board thing. It was built with a hinge, and stood up. The teacher stepped away from it, and two kids went behind it, and fell over each other and into the board. It fell over, and all three of them landed on August. He wasn’t really physically hurt – he never told me a specific part that hurt – but it took about 10 minutes of hallway time before he wanted to go back in. Later, when I asked if he remembered what happened, he remembered getting hurt, but said “I changed it to a minion.” I think he didn’t really know what happened, and that was probably the scariest part.

Anyway, he put the postal hat on for a bit, then participated in the rest of the  activities. They got a toy today, which was a Teuni fencing sword thing. It squeaks when you stab something, and he immediately started stabbing me.

We headed home after class and made a salmon sandoo for lunch. We got in the stroller and went walking. He just kept singing and singing, finally after 20 minutes he got a bit upset, then quieted. Walked over 30 minutes by the time he fell asleep. Asleep 2:22 to 3:37 in the women’s business center coffee shop. Thought he was up and I started to pack up, but he dozed back off. I woke him up at 4 and we walked to Juicy Juice. I asked what he wanted and he said “귤파”. I asked “You mean 귤?” But he kept insisting on 귤파 and pointed to the menu – 귤파 was there and meant mandarin and pineapple. So he got that and I got the raspberry one.

We walked over to the park, but he didn’t want to get out at the playground. Walked over to the other half of the park and wandered around. I asked if he wanted to go to the library, and he agreed. He chose one book and wanted to sit at the table and look at it by himself for awhile, then we got another book, Abigail Spells, and took it upstairs. We read that, and then he got down a Korean book about worms and translated parts of that.

We headed home, and Carly heard us coming at the elevators as August was singing. At home, they nursed and he typed on Skype and we did our ‘secret’ word game again. At one point he was really riffing on the ‘Got be, brown tree’ thing, with “Got me monkey donkey…pantsy mantsy…juicy moosey…banana yamma…” Carly got out his old high chair to clean it up, and he tied it out. We then played with the Teuni fencing sword thing for quite awhile, and did lots of hide and seek with Turkey. We read some Pooh, and the Korean elephant book. He went in my bathroom and pretended to take a shower, getting in and pretending to wash himself and turn it off. He likes to wet my soap by the sink now, and he did that, explaining “I just washed off the soap so it doesn’t stick. Otherwise it could really stick.”

He and Carly did more nursing and reading, and she was surprised when he requested a ‘poem’. He also had a good hand motion for when he explained to her that a poem was shorter than a story (this was in the Pooh book). They read some Pooh, then the elephant book. Well, he mainly read the Korean book. They got a bit distracted, and Carly was getting him up to go to the bath. August said “I’m going to read one last page.” And did.

I gave him a bath. He was scrubbing his own hands and arms “It’s an arm washing day” and his hair “I’m washing the back myself.” Very cool.

We read Pete the Cat before bed (today, when asked what he would take to show and tell, he said “a window”), and he was asleep by 9:40.

Earlier, while on Sketchbook, he had claimed that Puff was spelled with one ‘f’. I pointed out that Zinn had two ‘n’s and could be spelled with just one, and he liked that: Zin. He spelled it like that a few times during the day.

Upset at class: 

Teuni Teuni mail carrier:

Home. Getting stuck: 

Walk: 

Library: 

Reminiscing, and wanting to be small: 

Fencing circle things: 

He was up right at 7. Silently walked out, into the parlor, then down the hall, opened the door, and out into the hall. He pulled me after him. He silently walked halfway through the building – away from the elevators. He stopped, and when I asked if we could go back to the apartment he whispered ‘yes’ and let me pick him up. As we walked he whispered ‘Go find mama’. Back inside, he wanted me to sit on the couch and he sat on my lap for a few minutes. He then wanted crackers, but turned to the idea of a Larabar. I agreed to that one and he ate a whole Larabar. He then made a mess of the play dough stamps while counting them and sliding them on the floor, and we then made play dough letters and then marbles and dancing worms for quite awhile. He’s getting good at rolling the worms. He also washed my soap again, so it wouldn’t stick, he said. And he saw the box from my parents, and talked quite a bit about erasing the letters and about typing “P N instead of P O…1226 instead of 1225…Q instead of P…What you type Q about?”

We went in the reading area and read some Winnie the Pooh – more of the flood story and a couple poems. He wanted to watch Puffin Rock, but wanted me to watch with him, so I did that for awhile and he was cuddling with me, then I took a shower. He had started some writing on paper before I went in, and did more after. On his own he wrote 코끼리, 맛, 꽃, 토끼, 뚝섬.

He did some painting, and I started getting us ready to go. He wanted some bread “little toast”. He then requested Sketchbook, and I let him use my iPad and the Pencil. At one point he went in to the changing room to study the way the letters are written on the toy box. He occasionally just sits down and looks at all those letters. It was similar to how sometimes he will run off to go check how a Korean word is written on one of the posters. He also wrote ‘me’ on his own and was able to sound out and write ‘you’ and ‘and’ when I asked. He can also now make new files on Sketchbook, and I introduced him to layers.

Next was hiding the animals, particularly Turkey. He’s getting more clever with this as well. Lot of laughing involved with this. I had a diaper out to put on him, but first put it on his head as a hat. He then played with the camera, then came out to me and said “dada turn diaper hat.” Had him take a photo of me, then he wanted to do Pano. He tried that out a bit, but told him t would be better outside.

Got him changed. Then he sang one of his usual tunes but said “You changed it…why you changed it?” When I asked why he changed it, he said “It was getting old.”

He wanted to paint before we left, and opened up to a blank page. He said “Best page ever.”

We finally headed out and found we had just missed the big kimbap making day in the park.

He did some Pop Poppin Hangeul app on the train – the first time he’s used that in weeks. At the station we read some signs, then walked to the Iris Garden. We admired the view and a few pigeons, then sat down and ate lunch. He opened the sweet potatoes, and sang a song “That’s the goguma, that’s the goguma, go- go- go- go-, goguma means sweet potato.”

He headed down the ramp and we went for a walk after I packed up the food and followed him. He was pretending to be a frog, I think it was, as we walked up and over the bridge. He then walked off the path and into the grass for awhile. We were walking through the park again when I realized he needed to be changed. We went into the changing room and did that, then when we came out he wanted to head to the street. We decided to head up to Bukhansan. While putting him in the backpack he looked up at the ‘Book & Cafe’ sign and said “You erased the ampersand…you erased the emoji.” The former would change it to just ‘book cafe’, which he knows, and the latter referred to the little cartoonish figure the sign had as its logo.

We got walking about 1:20. By the station he said “I smell kind of a bad yuck.” Then kept guessing what was making the smell. But the smell went away, and he said “Huh. I haven’t seen the smell.” Walked for 10 minutes or so, but he wanted banana chips, so we sat in the children’s park, him still in the backpack, and ate a few until he was ready to walk. Another 15 minutes or so and he fell asleep at 1:54. We went to 우리동네 커피집, a coffee shop I had added to Google Maps last spring but we haven’t been to. He slept to 3:15.

Walked up into Bukhansan. Once we got up to the bridge we stopped because August wanted a snack and wanted to take some photos. While eating, he leaned against me and noted that his legs were “Like a 4”. I took a photo of that, then let him take some photos. He got my leg in a photo of leaves, and I suggested he take one without my leg, but he said he wanted my leg in it. He also tried out some panorama shots. He pooped, so we needed to change him outside, standing up. Did it on a rock and went fine except the wet wipe was pretty cold for him. Got him in the backpack and he was singing silly lines, like “The banana breads in the Cat…”

On the walk back down he said something looked like poop. It was moss on a rock. So we studied that. As we continued to walk, we sang the “We’re going home to mama” song together, then he sang a series of songs, which he claimed were Japanese, French, and Chinese songs. And of course the Spanish ABC song, which he now sings all on his own, including the words at the end in Spanish.

Back down on the street, he was asking about the orange cone signs blocking the right lane. They said ‘No smoking on them’, but also the name of the store. Other stores had the right lane blocked with signs as well. Not sure why stores get to block off the street. Anyway, we discussed that, and as we walked he sang “blocking off the street”. Finally, he spotted a truck that was a portable shoe store. And he spotted that it had some of those wobbly head things as decorations.

On the way home I successfully (and kindly) kicked two guys out of the seats reserved for pregnant women. We were home at 5:30. They nursed and played hide and seek. He drank some water and soy milk and was going in to the sink to spit. His bottom was itching, so Carly took off his diaper and put on some cream. It kept bothering him though, so we started a bath soon. He did some art with Carly first, while I hung up laundry. He asked her why we don’t have brown paint, and she said that most people probably prefer the other colors. He disagreed, or argued that people should like brown, saying things like “People choose the brownish color.” Brown has definitely been his favorite for the last week or two. I gave him a bath. Went smoothly except he kept squirting me with the squirt car at first. After his bath, he told me to hide, but then ran off to hide himself. Carly brought him back to look for me, but he decided to go out in the hall. I had been standing in the bedroom, holding up the blanket to hide behind. I came out and was the blanket monster, which resulted in a lot of laughing. I then did go out in the hall with him for a few minutes and he wandered around. He and I then did a typing game, where I typed a word and he tried to read it, then he typed a word and I read it, etc. Worked quite well. By the end he had developed his own rules, telling me to stand in the parlor or kitchen or somewhere else while he typed and insisting the word was a secret: “now dada you stand here…it’s a secret.” But after we were done he asked “What’s a secret?”

Around 9 we went in to bed. He chose Pete the Cat – Pete’s First Pet to read. He read much of the first few pages. He’s really intrigued by the page where Pete’s paints are empty, and wanted me to come up with many examples of things going empty – and he came up with his own: our paints running out, out of time. He was asking what ‘show and tell’ are (it is in the book) and I explained and asked what he would take to Teuni Teuni if there w
as show and tell. He thought about it, and said “Juice…orange juice.” He also randomly asked “What bones are?” So I explained those. He let me put his diaper and pajamas on, no fuss. He wanted to nurse and went looking for mama, not realizing she had fallen asleep next to us several minutes ago. I left them at 9:30 and he fell to slee quickly.

In morning he had said the nautilus song was a playdough song.

Photos. Morning walk: 

Diaper hat: 

Watching the TV at the station: 

Iris Garden: 

Fall: 

Making a 4: 

A couple of his photos: 

Headed home: 

Home. Painting with browns:

Hallway: 

8:06. He walked straight into the reading area. He heard me getting up from the couch and said “Stop! Stop!” He wants some alone time. I snuck in to take this photo and he waved me away. After a few minutes I heard him up and walking around, and singing his phone booth song from yesterday. At 8:13 he ran out to me, excited, and said “I want a new tower!” We made a tower, and he named it the Sambangi Tower. We ate breakfast, and he played GarageBand and Musyc. Then a grand game of hiding things, sort of, where he would throw something (like play dough) a few feet away and say it was hiding. A lot of laughing. We did Duplos, and he said “It’s a house. Essentially.” Second time he used ‘essentially’ today. We played with slime, then I wanted to take a shower.

I suggested he read while I showered. He asked me to choose a book for him. I started to look at the English books, but he said Korean. So I grabbed a few of the Korean books and went and took a shower. I came out to find him still flipping through the books and reading them. Lasted several more minutes after that. Very cool.

He came in my bathroom at one point and grabbed the soap by the sink and rinsed it for me. He told me it was so it wouldn’t stick in the tray. He has long been interested in why the soap by the sink is dry, but the soap in the shower is wet. At one point he impulsively knocked the Duplo tower over but wanted me to rebuild it the same.

I had held him up in the air and he said “Then let go…so I can fly.” I carried him around super man style and he flapped his arms and said “cheep, cheep”. We were talking about things people say (probably started with Carly saying ‘You’re making mama nervous’) and he kept asking about other people: “What’s another example of what Vivian used to say?” Finally, before we left he wanted some toast, and requested it soft. Then said “I like soft things…What quarters about? I like quarters, and I like counting.”

On the way down he did art on the iPad. At Children’s Grand Park we headed to the playground – he said he didn’t want lunch yet. He first wanted to do sidewalk chalk. Did they for maybe ten minutes, then he wanted to do other things. He first wanted to wash his hands, so we went to the water and did that. Then he followed a pigeon around without scaring it away. Next, it was putting sand in a pipe thing. But the pipe was packed full of sand, so we worked to fixed it. Did that together, but he lost interest and wandered off to the hill thing that he famously sang from last year. He climbed on and around it, and laid on it a bit. He then wanted sand castles, so we made little sand castles. He wanted to put something on top (like Kipper), so we used a leaf. He asked me what color the leaf  as and I said tan. “Umm, that’s close. But it’s not. It’s brown.” He hid rocks in the sand for me to find. He ate some lunch, and spotted a sign that said ‘zoo’ in Korean. We played on the swings a bit, with him figuring out how to put his stomach on it and swing a bit.

Needed to change him, and maybe try for a nap, so took him up to the bathroom. Set him on the changing table, and he held a hand up in front of his face, at first a few inches away. Turned out that he was blocking his view of the toilets, afraid that they would flush (and he doesn’t like the noise). He made it through though. We went out to the seats in the outdoor stadium to have a snack and get in the backpack. The latter never happened. He played, pretending to be Spikey. He took one shoe and sock off and said “I know what you’re thinking: it’s uncomfortable…The shoe’s uncomfortable, dada.” He ended up taking both shoes off. With both shoes off he wandered around the stands. He walked in the water pigeons had just been in and kept saying “You’re walking in the pedulgis’ water.” Climbed on the benches and sat down next to a random guy. More climbing around and he went way up the stairs and sat next to a woman. He was fine sitting there while I went back down and got his shoes and the backpack. Put his shoes on, and he started wandering around on the top of the ridge: “You’re walking in a bunch of trees…you want to play in a bunch of trees.” It turned into a big walk, with him walking much of the path I usually use to put him to sleep – most of it I’ve walked hundreds of times, but always with him in the backpack. He was chatting as we walked: “We’re walking…that’s 90…I like people.”

He led us to the coffee shop. Just before we were there, he doubled back and walked on some leaves a second time, and said “I like all the colors.” He had me carry him up the stairs to the top floor, then he walked to the coffee shop and pushed the door open on his own. In the coffee shop he chose a table and his seat and told me to sit across from him “Let’s talk!” We got up to choose drinks: He got a pumpkin juice pouch (not as bad as you might think) and I got an apple juice. We sat across from each other and chatted about animals a bit, then I got his iPad out for him. He saw it and said “Oh! My iPad.” So he did art and I worked on mine for awhile. But then he wanted mine and got a little sad and laid on the floor. So I pulled up a chair next to him, and we did art together on his. While drinking his juice he wandered over to a table that had two other kids and casually leaned against a chair and watched them. They had asked his age, and he had done three with his fingers. On the way back to our table he was practicing his finger numbers, and I was horrified to see him do 3 the usual way (the 3 middle fingers), as opposed to his pinkie, ring, and middle.

He needed his diaper changed, and we went downstairs to do it. Same covering of the eyes and stressing out. But a guy came in and used both the urinal and hand dryer, and neither was loud like he was worried about. Good chat about things usually not being as bad as we fear.

We went by the rectangle pond (but on the opposite of our usual side, as we now need the sun) and ate more lunch. He ate much of the rice and finished off the sweet potato. He saw me pull out the pink spoon for the rice and wondered what that was about. He said “This spoon is for ice cream.” (Indeed, as it was from Baskin Robbins.)

From there we tried the backpack to see what would happen. We walked back behind the zoo. He smelled an odd smell and said “I smell a mooka moo”. I stopped to read a plaque by a statue and he said “I erased it…Dada’s not going to read it now.” A few more minutes, then he said “I want to get down. I want to walk with dada. I want to walk more leaves.” So we had another nice walk in the leaves. A couple times he just stopped to admire the leaves falling and the wind. At one point he noticed the wind in our hair. He then came over to me and asked “What the leaves fall about?” I explained (again), comparing it to animals hibernating, etc.

Had to change him again, so we went to the sometimes-heated infant room. Changed him, then he wanted to walk to the zoo. A boy sort of tried to say hi to August as he walked, but August wasn’t in the mood. We got to the animals, and first say the jaguar, which August said was a ‘pretend serval’. He heard a bird and wanted to find what it was. We went over there and realized it was the pheasant. He asked what it was and we had this discussion:

Me: “That’s an English Pheasant.”

Him: “What it not a French Pheasant about?”

Perhaps the fastest and funniest thing he’s said. He was starting to talk about heading home, but a group of students from Sejong University wanted to quickly interview us for a scavenger hunt. They asked us a few questions. August gave his name. As we finished, August was saying “wrong, wrong, wrong…dada do an oops 4…” I think I figured out that he had wanted me to say he was 4 years old as a joke. He had the joke planned, but they didn’t ask his age. He’s very used to that question, as it is a cultural thing, almost always the second question
asked after your name (or often before).

He saw the upstairs part by the leopard, with the board that plays the animals sounds, and wanted to go in there. First he climbed in the Jeep photo point place, where a few women were planning to take their photo. So they asked me to take the photo. I held both cameras and took the photos with August in them. We then spent a few minutes reading and translating a big sign about ‘Kinds of Tigers’ – He was reading the names of the tigers in Korean: Bengal, Siberian, etc.

Before we left, we stopped at the covered benches by the entrance of the zoo and had a snack, eating orange and finishing the rice. As we walked out, he sang “do, ra, me, fa, so…”

On the subway platform he sang a song using words he saw: “발빠짐 주의 (watch your step), Children’s Grand Park, Konkuk University…”

We were home at 5:20. I unzipped his coat, and he was on his knees, trying to take it off, but got it stuck on his arms and fell on his face. Not hurt though. Carly came home a bit later. They nursed. He was eating rice and tofu with his hands, which was fine at first. But when I gave him more he made a mess on the table. I had started to sing the nautilus song for some reason. He didn’t want me to sing it all, but did the ‘achoo’ at the end. That led to long game of him laughing hysterically while I pretended to sneeze. He then said “achoo…no, just say zero.” So then I was sneezing ‘zero’, which was equally funny.

Carly gave him a bath, and there was a lot of laughter. August and I read some Pooh while she showered, then started hiding August Jr. and finding him. August at one point said “it’s CLEVER. I found something clever.”

He hadn’t had a nap, and made it through quite well, but was quite tired. He was asleep at 7:40.

Also, he knew 잠바 (jacket), and 사자 (lion) all on his own today, bring them up in conversation.

 

Photos. Alone time: 

Our tower: 

‘Zoo’: 

Sandcastle and leaf: 

Hiding from the flusher: 

Bare feet: 

Counting pigeons: 

Coffee shop. Pumpkin drink: 

Visiting another table: 

Snack time: 

Leaves: 

Zoo: 

Home: 

Our leaf: 

He was waking up and nursing starting around 5:30. He got up about 5:50 and turned the light on on me for a couple minutes. He and Carly spent some good morning time together. He decided his name is now Zinndow (because it rhymes with window)  they read The I Love You Book and he made up a song about a mug “Cooking in the mug…painting on the mug…” He was fine with Carly leaving, and we then painted for 15 minutes or so. He then did art on the iPad. We watched some Puffin Rock and ate some breakfast and then I took a shower. He’s now totally fine with me going to take a shower. He wanted to play with the slime, and while we did that he said “we’re mucking.” At some point he said “Grown ups poop.” He got ‘grown up’ from Puffin Rock today (had been asking what it meant), and remembered this line from the book Everyone Poops.  He then said “I want to watch a video of pooping.” I passed on that one for the moment. He was then singing the Spanish ABC song and practicing ‘next time’ in English: “Next time we go to the big zoo we can see lava…Next time we go to the little zoo we can see bugs.”

As we were getting ready to go, I grabbed some coins to pay for the locker at the aquarium. He wanted to grab a coin as well, and got a 100 won coin. “I chose 100 today.” He then tried out some new words, referring to the coin: “It’s not crazy. It’s wonderful and brilliant.”

We headed out, and took the train to Cheongdam. It was after 11, and close to 6 hours since he woke up. So I told him we were going to the park first to eat and play. He didn’t object to it when I mentioned it on the train, but once we got to the park he asked what we were doing there, and wasn’t happy with the answer. He wanted to go to the aquarium. He refused to eat or get out of the backpack, and said he’d just go to sleep. But then I went to get a Larabar out for myself, and he wanted some. So he sat in the backpack and ate some bar, then some sweet potato, and then some sandwich. He had eaten a lot of apple before we left, so good eating so far. It started raining, so we calmly ate for awhile until it stopped, then got walking. Walked around a couple blocks, then it started raining. I circled back to the park and took cover in the bench area. I was walking around and he didn’t like that. Stood still and we watched the rain for a few minutes and when it stopped we got walking. I was concerned he was going to take a long time going to sleep, but he fell asleep pretty quickly. We went to LaVita Coffee, a new place for us, and he was asleep 12:41 to 1:55 When he woke up his left arm was numb, and I asked if he wanted to get out of the backpack. He replied “No. Want to play. Play at aquarium.”

So we headed to the aquarium. He chose a Japanese version of the stamp sheet for today. He realized we could cut some of the beginning by going by the bathrooms, but he wanted to start at the beginning. I carried him much to start with. He had a lot of fun at the Touch Lab again. Picked up shells, put sand on the sea stars, touched the pineapples, and I picked up a couple of the worms so he could touch them better. In the next room we sat on a bench and took a snack break. We spent a long time there – he ate some rice and finished up a lot of our other food. He walked around singing, lounged on the floor, and read the Korean signs. Part of his song was “pink is in my water…quake is in my quack…bread is in my seahorses…” On a sign he read “우리…that means ‘we’!” We made our way through the rest of the aquarium. We were there for close to 2 hours, so a nice leisurely visit.

We got the backpack, and sat and he ate more rice. He saw a ‘no smoking’ sign and asked what smoking was, and I of course included how bad smoking is, and mentioned that grampa doesn’t really like smoke and August said “Then he turns back to Bernie.” He was being funny, but I think he made the connection because he thinks grampa sounds like Bernie on Puffin Rock. On his own he started talking about our time in the aquarium: “you touched the spoon worms…I really like the spoon worms…I really like the moray eels and eels…” He then joked about smoking: “You’re smoking. I’m smoking. Smoke, smoke, smoke. Dada turning back to Bernie.” His pretending to smoke involved waving his fingers in front of him: I think that was the smoke. We headed out of the mall at 4:30.

As we left he wondered why it was dark. We then smelled something like burning leaves. As we walked back to the station, I was calling him Zinndow. Then he said “Now you turn back into Zinnie. Doooo.” – kind of making his robot sound at the end. It was getting a bit drizzly as we got close to the station, and a guy ran over with his umbrella. No, no, we’re fine. In the station, he saw the phone booths and started pointing and singing “That’s a phone booth, that’s a phone booth…” He continued the song, pointing to random panels and what not, and making a word play by switching the start of the words: “that’s a funny bone phooth, that’s a funny bone phooth…”

We got home about 5:30. On the way back he had mainly done art in Sketchbook on the iPad. He discovered all the different textures he could paint with. At home, they did a lot of nursing, and read some Pooh. They painted, then he asked for Sketchbook. He played with that, and wrote ‘posse’ in cursive. Which was odd. He wanted to see a poop video, so we found a potty training video, but I don’t think he liked it. He searched for some random things in YouTube Kids, then pulled up GarageBand. Got him to loop his song, and sign along to himself. He also added some drums to it. From there we moved to ShapeKit, and made a few animations. I had him carry the iPad over to Carly to show her one he did on his own. While Carly took a shower we moved to the Musyc app and he played with that for th first time in quite some time. He had some soup for dinner, and did some more painting.

Carly gave him a bath. He had a lot of fun. Pretty straightforward bedtime. Except that she put some footy pajamas on him and he kept pulling at the feet parts. She had to change him out of those, and he went to sleep about 9.

 

Slime: 

Eating in the backamapack: 

Aquarium: 

Wet hair: 

Home: 

Up 7:55. He turned on the light and joked with me for a minute. We got up and he found Carly. After nursing they Skyped with Cherie. She talked about teaching English, and August said “Chinese” when she said “English”. Then she mentioned ‘tenses’ and he shouted “Twelveses!”

They then Skyped with Vivian, and left her watching a video on the iPad while Carly made a sandwich. August and I played together and he pushed himself backwards away from me on the floor saying “I’m going far away.” When the sandwich was ready and Carly cut it he asked “What happen if you don’t quarter it?”

He watched French songs with Carly. When she took a shower we then did a little art, then he cuddled with me and we read The I Love You Book and two Peppa books. He then wanted the smart board and we wrote on that after he had had fun throwing the stylus in the air. I stated making a shopping list, and he wanted to write on it. So he helped Carly. When they were done he said “I wrote the list with mama.” He still wanted to write, so carly got him a piece of paper and with a marker he wrote ‘kite’ and said “we can get kites at the store.”

Carly tried to leave to go to the store but August made it clear he wanted to go as well. So we got him ready and we all went. Once there, they went and got a cart and I went into the stationary store to buy some pads of paper for his art. When I got to the grocery store, he was out of the cart and admiring the meat. I walked around with him for a few minutes. He wanted a slurpy thing but settled for an orange juice. He also looked at the bracelets and hair things again.

At home, he was having some more constipation problems. Pooped a little, but felt like there was more. Eventually got him to sit on the toilet and let him watch some Peppa Pig. But no luck. back out in the living room we watched a little more Peppa Pig, then played with ShapeKit. Our creatures are becoming more elaborate. Carly made a rice and veggies dish while we did that. He ate some when it was ready, and while eating eat he said, all on his own, “Thank you mama for making dinner.” I noticed a bruise on his tailbone and commented on it. He said “Its a tail! I’m a mouse!” He then pretended to be a mouse. They nursed, and he said he was a girl. He then hid from Carly and found her and thought it was funny to jump on her in the ‘nest’. While in the nest, he peed a little: “I peed in the burrow…why I pee in the burrow. For funsies.”

We were planning to go for a walk, so I slipped down and got my hair cut first. They were just getting ready to go when I was done, so I came back up, then we all headed out. We walked up the stream to Chrysanthemum Park. Close to the park, August wanted to get out and walk, so we let him out. He had a sticker that had been stuck to his sweatshirt, and he stuck it to a metal gate. We were talking about it (he wanted it to stick all the way) and he was grabbing at his diaper. Carly checked his diaper and realized that he had pooped. The prune she had given him earlier had worked. And he had poop on his finger. We hurried to the park and she changed him just inside the door of the bathroom. That crisis averted, he played on the play structure, showing Carly how he could climb the climbing wall. He hung out on it for a long time, quoting the minion on Skype (“Ah, no.”) and chatting away. They played some hide and seek, talked to an older girl in English, and rode the worm thing together. Then we headed home.

We went home and he ate some sweet potato, then he and I headed back outside while Carly stayed to make soup. We met up with Derek and his two kids at the park. Rosie is running around a lot now, and the park was crowded, so we were busy. Also, there was a girl and a boy, the girl in particular, who kept bother us and Logan and August – like touching them and constantly asking questions after we said we didn’t speak Korean. Logan was pointing and saying “Go away” and August made himself heard at one point as well. Finally, they left. The other two kids spent a lot of time on the swings, but August’s favorite game was standing on the railing around it, holding my hands, and walking around and jumping off. We called it a ‘making mama nervous’ game. We played a bit more, then got the kids in the strollers and walked around the park a bit, then came up to the apartment.

Here, Logan and August did art with markers together for 10 or 15 minutes or so. At 5:30 they took off. August wouldn’t give Derek a hug, but did participate in a hug with Logan. That was very cool. And he gave Rosie some good pats as she was already in the stroller.

In the evening, Carly gave him a good bath. He and I read Mr. Gumpy at one point. No nap today, so an early bedtime, and he was asleep by 7:30.

 

Park: 

With Logan and Rosie:

Saying goodbye: 

He came out at 8:10. He had leaked last night, so carly took his diaper off right away and said he needed to go pee. “I just already peed.” Nursed with Carly. I made toast, milk, mandarin orange, and eggs from yesterday for his breakfast. He explored the closet and we read Baby’s Day. I did recycling and they Skyped with Chuck and Cherie and August did a lot of typing “What ‘hina’ mean? Why I type ‘hina’?” “Because I like to learn.” He was obsessed with the word ‘hina’ that he made up, and kept repeating it. “I like hina.” Cherie sent him a video of puffins, and there was lava, and he said “There’s lava!”  Chuck said his shoes had broken once playing pickleball and hat finally got August’s attention: “Why your shoes fall apart?” “I did a mistake. I accidentally do capital.” We got ready to leave, and headed out a little after 11.

Carly changing him. He said ‘Hina’ the sound that Mossy the shrew says. But Carly heard “messy shoes”. He was excited when we sorted that out. They also read the Smokey Bear story on my iPad at some point in the morning.

We got going just after 11. He was uncomfortable in the backpack, so we stopped in the park to adjust. Took the Nowon 15 to APIS, but got out a stop early as he was uncomfortable again. Think he was getting too warm. Walked to APIS and met up with Megan a little before noon.

Megan made a joke about wiping snot on a tree and August though that was hilarious. He really wanted to go in the school, which was good, but ironic since we weren’t actually going in, but getting on a bus instead. August and I played on the bus while we waited for other people to show up. He was giving a running monologue “I like hot things. I like cold things…I like dust because it is dry.” Putting paper thing back in the seat pocket: “Yeah! That’s a great idea…it’s for an emergency. If something’s on fire. If something’s wrong in here…we found Megan…I like sitting in different busses.”

The bus trip was a bit long, and he kept wanting to nurse. Carly appeased him with bus candy (M&Ms) and we made it to the retirement home. He wanted to go in right away. A bit nervous once we were in there, and they nursed. We had fun looking at ornaments, then he relaxed once he had a peanut butter sandwich and was walking around eating it. He spent some time examining his bangs and at one point said to me “We’re having fun together.” They nursed again, then he stood against a wall for awhile and sang. We went back into the big room and spent most of our time playing up on the stage area. He slid these ‘Merry Christmas’ signs down the ramp, then I went and got Smokey from our backpack and he slid him down instead. He asked Smokey about forest fires. He and I both slid down the ramps, and he showed me how to jump up on the edge of it: “I showed you how to do that.” The best was when he started dancing to the music that was playing and he was basically voguing. And I received a message from Glecy, so he spent a lot of time typing messages back and forth with her.

It was around 3:30 that we headed out. We were taking the subway back, so had to find the station. Made our way to Wangsimni and took a very crowded train to Sangbong. Carly used the last of the bus candy to get him through it. We took the 7 home and went to Pink Burger. August was very excited about this, and wanted to sit there and eat. While we waited, he went out and we read the menu together. August was feeling constipated though and uncomfortable, so eventually Carly took him upstairs, then I brought up the food. He had french fries, and liked dipping them in ketchup and mayonnaise. And he ate a little burger. He then pooped in his toilet for the first time.

During the evening we read part of the Berenstain Bears new baby book, then the Baby’s Day book a few times. He found the box for the Teuni gym thing. We got that out and took the pieces apart and played with them for awhile. I gave him a bath. We played with the squirt cars. All was fine until the washing. When Carly was trying to get him in bed and dressed he didn’t want the pajamas and said “I’ll just hide the pajamas someplace.” She got them on, and he was asleep 7:20ish.

At some point during the day he wanted Carly to sing the ABC song. She was asking which language he wanted, and he said “French!” He was also identifying a lot of rhymes today.

 

Volunteering: 

Headed home: 

Pink Burger: 

Teuni gym: