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I woke up not feeling well. My hands and feet were swollen, but not really itchy. And my throat was bothering me. I would rest through the morning though and feel good enough to go outside for awhile in the afternoon.

Carly woke him up at 6:35. He was asking how to spell ‘switch’ which led to discussing words and silent E words. He didn’t think ‘mope’ was a word, so I was acting like Eeyore as my voice fit, and August said “Oh, Dada.” Carly headed to work, and we watched some printing press videos that Cherie had sent us, then August switched to puzzles in the Eric Carle app and did those until 8:05. He was making progress on them, and actually discussing the borders a bit by the end. He ate the last piece of French toast, then we had Cheerios for breakfast. He played some Simple Machines until he needed to go to the bathroom. After that, he was the book factory video while I showered. He came and looked in, but closed the door. When I got out I heard him humming Pirates of the Caribbean and playing with Duplos. When I went out with him he said “I’m building a book factory.” I rested on the reading area and he kept building. Used most of the Duplos. He watched Pirates of the Caribbean and kept asking about the tempo. Then Prince of Egypt and a couple others, while continued to rest.

I then got up and made a salmon sandwich for lunch. We ate that and watched videos on making sausages, pianos, and toilets. He then played GarageBand, before playing with the My First Orchestra app and then an app that lets you play tabla that he hadn’t played before.

I tried on the yellow ‘Turn up the bass’ shirt I bought for him a long time ago. Still big, but he liked it and wanted to keep it on. He then started a game, filling his shirt with Duplos, then dumping them out. We joked he had a baby in there. He then wanted to fill my shirt (previously, we’d put the animals down my shirt and pretended they bit, pooped, tickled, etc.) Did that, then I was trying to get us to go, but he said “I want to do it one more time.”

I told him we needed to brush his teeth, but he objected, saying “That’s not one of things on my list…I was Toad.” From Frog and Toad, when Toad says he can’t chase after his list because that wasn’t on his list. I made him brush his teeth anyway. Finally, he was listening to songs on the iPad and asking about tempos. There were some Judas Priest songs that he liked.

We left at 2. As we left the building he said he wanted to go to Mama Juice and get tomato juice. I was surprised, but said we could go and try it. He said “No, I don’t really want juice. I was just making a joke. How many jokes there are?” As we walked he was saying made up words, then said “Those funny words rhyme with ‘be’. The word ‘be’…like ‘Be an astronaut.”

We got to the Four Swings Playground. He sat at the top of the slide for quite awhile and we talked about rhymes. I was talking liked Dr. Seuss, rhyming every line, and he liked that and a couple times told me to be Dr. Seuss again. A boy came and sat on the swings, and was coughing, and they appeared to be fake coughs. August started to fake cough, then went down the slide and went over to the boy and did more coughing. August then got on a swing and spent the rest of his time there. At one point he was looking at his shirt and said “This shirt fits.” He worked on his pumping, and would tell me not to push him. He compared his tempo to the other kids swinging, and said “I don’t look the same tempo than those kids.” We left at 2:50 and he ate some of the last Sesame Street letter cookies as we walked to the Bye Fuzzy playground. He sat on the bike as he finished those off.

Then he went and played on the play structure. First he was hitting the blue poles as instruments, and he kept asking what a seemingly little and useless piece of fencing was for. He went down the spiral slide several times and had me follow or go first a few

Times.

He was then jumping all around the ground on two feet, and talking about who else could jump on two feet…Vivian, Logan, etc.

Then he started jumping on one foot, which was very cool as he just thought of it on his own. And he looks so cute doing it, with arms and legs going every which direction. Then, two kids left their scooters near him and he tried them out, pushing himself several feet on both. At one point, for a second or two, he had both feet on it and he was coasting.

We headed home 4ish and when we got home we had some early dinner then he was using my phone to use the chord/scale/metronome app, then switched to the Sesame Street Play app. We played three games based on its suggestions. In the first, I would cover him up and tell him to be something, like the letter C or a dog, then when I pulled the blanket off he would be that thing. He then did it to me as well, having me mainly be a jellyfish – then I would sting him and catch him like a little fish. When he didn’t want me to catch him he would feed me a pillow instead.

After that game, we tried one where you blow a wad of paper on the ground. August tried really hard, but we just couldn’t get him to move the paper. So we moved on to another game.

This one was sock bocce, and we threw a pair of his underwear as a target, then threw balled up socks and tried to get them close. Did that for a few rounds, then the next game was similar, but with skeeball, using a belt and a couple cords to make circles to throw the socks into. He was really into this one, and really practicing when Carly got home a little after 5.  In fact, he did it for a few minutes more before deciding he wanted to nurse.

We did some cleaning and straightening before the shipping company representative showed up, then I lay down for a bit. Carly gave him a bath and they watched Beethoven’s Ninth. The guy came just as they had finished with the bath. We have him a tour of the stuff. August was wary of him, but did okay.

After he left, August was making a mountain of pillows and friends on the bed. He and Carly talked about moving and he said he was sad he is leaving Korea. I suggested he show Carly how he could jump on one foot and he did that. I asked “What gave you the idea to jump on one foot?” He replied “Vivian” we had a little pillow fight, then they tried for sleep.

No luck, and he ran out wanting to read. We shared some soup and crackers. I suggested paper books, but he wanted “Glass books”, which is something he just totally made up on his own to describe iPad books. We read Dinosaurs Love Underpants on the iPad, and the paper book of Jill Murphy Stories “Five Minutes of Peace” and “All in One Piece”. Carly made hummus. We looked at the Musical Instruments book, and read A Violin for Elva. August wanted to watch Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and Beethoven’s Ninth, then went in to sleep at 8:20.

Photos. Book factory: 

Four swing playground: 

Bye Fuzzy playground: 

Home: 

Sesame Street games. Trying to blow paper: 

Pillow and friends mountain: 

Still awake: 

At one point he got kind of agitated in his sleep and said “Nope”. He was up a little after 6. A lot of nursing and being clingy, so I took a shower and Carly took him outside where he cheered up and they sat at the chairs and played pretend Go. They both won a few times. They came back, and August got to try honey milk and he liked that. I fixed the party toy thing and he was blowing that and we measured it with a tape measure that was out. He wanted to paint, so I got out the watercolors and he just painted by himself for a good amount of time, making shapes and mixing colors. He then wanted the keyboard hooked up to his iPad and played that, then went back and did more painting. He was particularly happy with mixing an orange brown color that he liked. For his second piece I asked what it was and he said “It’s a mouse singing”.

He spent some time looking at the pipes under the sink again, then he helped Carly paint Glecy’s card. He got carried away, and decided to put green paint on his leftover French toast (Carly had made him French toast) and said “I’m painting crazy food”. He painted an ‘R’, then a line from it and said “The R is carrying an L.” And I made some joke and he said “Oh, Dada.” Just as Carly has taught him.

Ate some noodles for lunch, then some banana bread. I was trying to take him out for awhile and finally lured him out with a peach slurpy thing. He often gets one when we shop at Lucky Mart, but then forgets about, so we have a supply of 4 or 5 of them. We left at 1:30 and made our way to the fake waterfall and short stream by Chrysanthemum and Park. He started by playing with some vines and roots sticking from the wall by it, calling it the “Stick game”. He spotted lanterns hanging up on the bridge and pointed and said “Blue and yellow make green.” We took off our shoes and he waded in and walked across the stream then back. And we watched stuff go under the bridge and into the big stream.

It got quite windy, and was blowing things upstream, so we discussed what upstream and downstream meant. Things were also blowing pretty well when he threw them. And of course we ate the peach slurpy thing. He was worried about glass on the ground, which was good as we found a few more pieces. He also spotted all the open shells still in the tree above us that all the seeds her was throwing in the stream came from Dan we discussed those. He also tried. Playing a poop game that I wasn’t finding so amusing, wanting me to step in fake poop: “Take off your shoe and step in the poop.” “Stack poop”.

Finally, he climbed up on the stair-stepped wall a few steps. That was fine, but then he was trying to touch the stack of glass I put up there last time. I wouldn’t let him do that, and he got a little upset and wanted to head home. I asked if I made him sad, and he said “No, Zinnie made Dada sad…Zinnie didn’t let Dada touch the glass.” So we compromised, and I got a piece of glass and we looked at it and discussed why it could cut you and how to hold it safely and I let him hold it a bit.

So this morning when I woke up I had a bit of a cough, but thought it would go away, as it had been doing. I had even told my mom that I was over being sick. But it didn’t go away, and by the time we left my throat was feeling worse. So I decided to stop at Juicy Juice. Called Carly, and she walked towards us and we met halfway and went and got juice and went home, about 4.

They nursed and did some art with markers. He played around with the markers after that, trying to hold them with his “Foot hands”, then making them and the blueberries into a big line. He needed to go to the toilet, and as soon as he got on said “I want to talk about tempos.”

I was feeling worse, so took a nap from 5 to 5:45. I was feeling better, so suggested we go outside for a little while. I hung laundry while Carly did some other stuff to get ready, but August didn’t want to go out and we gave up the idea. Turned out he was quite tired. Carly gave him a bath, and he was asleep by 7.

A couple hours later Carly headed to bed, and I was about to soon after, when I noticed my shoulders were itching. I took off my shirt to find my shoulders all read and covered with bumps, like an allergic reaction. Then my wrists and hands were getting puffy and red and itching. No idea where it came from, but it stopped at that. My elbow had been itchy since the stream, and I remember thinking that I must have been bit by something, so probably a reaction to that. I stayed up reading for awhile to make sure it wasn’t getting worse, then went to sleep.

Photos: 

Looking at his painting: 

Watching the bike guy and plugging his ears: 

Pointing at lanterns: 

Evening art with mama: 

He was up at 6:35. They had nursed a long time when I got up and he was lounging against her in the reading area. But then he wanted to keep nursing and got whiney when she got up. Carly set a timer though and that worked. In fact, he got involved in other things and forgot about the timer. He played a pillow as an instrument (“pillow instrument”) and Carly started to make a path for a ball on our front door.

I had my book group meeting to discuss The Year of Lear. He did a lot of banging on the door after I locked it (he was coming in before that). They did recycling at one point. My meeting was done at 9, and August wanted to go in on the bed and wrap himself in the blanket, then wanted a nest. Carly skyped with Chuck and Cherie. August and I played zoo, and took care of the animals, then he destroyed the zoo and we built a big ink factory a bit later. For a snack/early lunch he and I ate crackers with cream cheese and crab. Carly disappeared – she had gone in on the bed to rest, as she had a headache. Eventually August wanted to go find her, and they stayed together on the bid for awhile. He then came back out with me and she took a nap. We read Peppa’s Ballet Lesson, and played the Three Little Pigs app. Carly got up and went to do some grocery shopping, and we played with the Namoo app and did some other stuff around the house.

Carly came home and she wrapped the presents that August and I had purchased, and August helped paint a card for Cora. Carly got out his car vest, and he wore it for quite awhile. I was going to take August outside and Carly was going to do some cooking. She was getting ready in the kitchen, and August asked “You’re going to clean? You’re going to watch things?” (Which is what she does when she cooks or cleans.)

He had been playing with the leftover roll of wrapping paper, using it like a telescope and spinning around and asking “What direction this is?” I got him as far as out in the hall, and he was doing it, then ran it into the wall, hitting his eye. He then threw the paper on the ground. I laughed a bit, but it was admittedly a little funny. He needed to see mama, then I finally got him on the bike and we got to the Spiderweb Playground  at 2:00. He first went straight to the climbing part, then played with a toddler walker toy left out there. We went on a teeter totter for a bit. He had his hat on for awhile, but then took it off and said “It wears my hair out.” He spent several minutes climbing and hanging on another curving ladder thing, sharing it with another girl for a couple minutes.

We went on the swings, then he was ready to leave at 2:30 and we were home 2:45. He ate some of the fettuccini alfredo Carly had made and liked both the asparagus and mushrooms that were with it. He then wrote ‘Happy Birthday’ in Cora’s card.

We left the house at 3:30, walked down to take the 100 bus, and got to Dream Forest right at 4. Didn’t know where they were actually set up in this big, busy park, so we walked up to the middle, where most of our gatherings have been in the past. Didn’t see them, so sent a message to Sophie, then we walked over and got coffee drinks. Carly noticed that he wouldn’t hold her hand while walking if she said “Hold my hand like a big kid,” but WOULD do it if she said “Hold my hand like a baby.” While we waited, he held her hand and jumped over a gap area, then did a bridge over it with his hands and feet.

Got a response from Sophie and we found them at 4:25. As we walked he kept pointing at random people and saying “Is that Cora?” When we first got there, we met a girl about a year older than him named Yianna. When I introduced her to August, he said, nice and clear “Hi Yianna.” Seemed so old. We had him hand the presents to Cora. From there we moved over to the picnic mat, where he thought the rocks holding down the corners looked like poop. We had some chips with guacamole. He seemed to like it okay. Then they handed out goodie bags. He ate some gummi bears, and liked the party favor thing that you blow and it unrolls. At first he just wanted me to blow it, and he was looking at it. But eventually he got it down and could blow it, although he couldn’t quite make it make noise. He was blowing it at Cora when she opened the present with the markers. He was a little sad though when it got a hole and wouldn’t work anymore. We saved it to fix with tape at home.

We talked to Melinda a bit about his musical interests and progress. And they had bought sandwiches from Rye Post for dinner, so we ate those. Then it was time for singing and cupcakes. He loved the cupcakes. He had one with chocolate frosting, then shared a red velvet one with me after I ate a second sandwich (first was a bahn mi, second was bacon and avocado). Then he was doing cupcake maths with the remaining cupcakes, and snuck a lick from one. So I gave it to Carly.

Somehow, in talking with someone, swimming in the ocean came up, and August was asked if he wanted to swim in the ocean. He replied “No, there’s crabs and sharks.” We helped clean up a bit before leaving, and August found a cupcake left out that he licked, then took a couple bites of.

We left 6:20ish. He was making music as we walked and said “I was playing a chocolate cupcake, mama. I’m gonna play bubblegum ice cream.” Cupcakes on the brain, he said “We eated a lot of cupcakes? Zinnie eated cupcakes without doing permission? Without asking?”

We walked about halfway home, and caught the Nowon 9 the rest of the way, getting home at 7. Upset just a bit, then wanted my iPad and got upset when he couldn’t have it. He chose Carly to give him a bath. Carly was going to take him off to bed, but he said he was hungry, so I gave him some banana bread and we read Suddenly. He was asleep by 7:40.

Photos: 

Flower tower: 

Ink factory: 

Watching a crane: 

Toddler walker:  

Hanging upside down with the girl: 

Dream Forest. Jumping: 

Bridge: 

The party: 

He was up at 6:20. He nursed, then ran to me, saying he wanted to read. We read Hug Machine and “A List”, then he looked at the Persian Instruments book and started playing Artie’s World, so I exercised and started to get us ready to go. He played Big Numbers and I took a shower, then we did some TodoMath, he was a frog, and played his toothpaste tube as a flute. We sang some songs and left about 8:45. Three trains to get to Yangtze Citizen’s Forest. The last one is on a fancy new line, and we realized you can look out the front of the train – no driver – so that was pretty cool. Had packed a good amount of food for lunch and snacks, but wanted to get a little more, but suddenly there wasn’t a convenience store to be found. Ended up taking a basement passage to another building, then found a random convenience store in there and got some kimbap, a couple eggs, and a couple little banana custard cookie things.

We walked into the park and found the playground and sat under a shelter and ate lunch at 10:30. Went to play, but he said “I’m worried about the backamapack blowing away.” Started by playing with a spinning thing. I mentioned it was a different kind of spiral, and later he would ask what different kinds of spirals were and we’d look up the chart on Wikipedia. He went to the climbing wall and declared “This is a poop climbing wall. I’m climbing on poop.” Got up on the play structure and were playing around a bit. It was just us. A few older girls started to come towards the playground, then were called back by an adult. He started a game of guessing why they had left: “Do another guess.” One of his was “Maybe they didn’t want to go down the dark slide.” He had wanted to do the turning tube slide at first, but then saw that it got dark.

We were doing that sitting at the top of one of the slides. Eventually, he slid down, and we started to get going around 11:30. Carried him to the bathroom and he said “What does blue poop and yellow poop make? Green poop. I’m doing poop colors.” After the bathroom we found a bench. I set him on it, and he started rubbing his cheek on it, wondering why the bench was cold.

We got walking, but once we got out of the park, up and across the street, and into the wooded area with a big hill, he wasn’t excited by the idea of a hike and wanted to go home. We stopped for our first break from 12:00 to 12:10 and let him play some Dragonbox Numbers. But when we got walking he kept talking about nursing. Saying “Nursey, nursey”. I told him mama was at work all day anyway and he couldn’t nurse until she got home and he got upset and started to cry in the backpack. He was upset like that for a minute, but then calmed down, but didn’t talk to me for several more minutes. But he also didn’t mention nursing again a single time until he saw Carly at home.

He also got into the walking. I had reminded him that the fun part was finding things along the way. So when we took a second break from 12:35 to little after 1 he was thrilled to find an actual broom. He played with it the entire time we were there, poking me and other things with it, and pretended to hit the people (well out of reach) over on the trail, saying “I’m going to hit them.” And he kept comparing his height and my height to the broom. We also sang a bunch of songs from my phone – Basho and Friends Spanish songs, etc. Early on he hadn’t even been singing songs, and I think it is because he likes going fast when we walk – on the slow part he gets impatient, and would stop singing and would want me to entertain him.

Anyway, we got walking again, and he wanted a Zinnie Poops song, so we made that up. He was joking about wanting to poop on the ground, so it is about that. I knew he was liking the hiking when we came across a temple, which was up the hill above us. I mentioned I was going to keep going, but he said “I want to go up to the temple.” So we went up and looked around all over. I let him hit a big drum from the backpack. We had been there close to ten minutes, at 1:30, when he said “I want to get down and look around.” I let him out and he immediately went to look at all the candles that were around. He kept looking around, at the dragons, lanterns, etc. I pointed out the wind chimes but it wasn’t windy, but then it got windy for us. We went down the stairs to the lawn area and looked at the garden and little statues and kimchi pots, then headed over and used the bathroom and left at 1:55.

After that we focused on getting some distance done, and he was really into music, but specifically tempo. He would hum or sing a few seconds, then ask “What that tempo is?“ He joked more: “I want to poop on the ground.” Then we took one more break at 2:30 near the top of the last climb. He wanted to find a big stick. No luck with that, but there he saw covers over the bolts on a picnic bench and asked about them. He wanted to know what a bolt looks like, but a Google Image search of ‘bolt’ brings up a picture of the cartoon dog. So that led to a discussion of the two meanings of ‘bolt’ and why the dog would be named Bolt. We ate the rest of our lunch, took some photos of Smokey, and played a little more Dragonbox Big Numbers, then got walking again at 3:05.

We found the stamp box at 3:50, then were done with the path and found ourselves on a road headed down the hill. August walked quite a ways, holding my hand, but was then concerned about a truck that went by and wanted me to carry him. We spotted a couple men playing Go, and watched one of the claw recycling trucks for a bit.

Got to the train station about 4:10. In the station we found a bathroom, then he saw a shoe store and really liked a pair of light blue slippers with sparkles on them and tried them on. We caught the train one stop north to line 7 and transferred. Didn’t get a seat, so moved to the next car and found the bike/wheelchair spot empty. August held onto the bar and started to dance on it – don’t know if he got that from Vivian, the Tellulah books, or it is just a natural thing to do when you have a bar. He did that for several stops, then played iPad. One of the apps he played was the Montessorium Numbers app. In it, there is a sort game where you sort ten rods, from 1 to 10 in length. He hasn’t really gotten it before, but started figuring it out right away. Needed some encouragement to finish it when he was almost done, but then did it more confidently a second time. As we went over the river, he and a woman looked out at it together. Also, while he was playing he was actually singing (with words) our “Juice Store” song. We got to Hagye and left there at 5:15.

The official campaign signs are out for the presidential race – we first saw one coming down the hill, and now we saw them hanging them on the railing by the exit. He sang The Ants Go Marching and sang “Zero by zero…what, there’s no ants?” We were 5:30. I had asked him what he was going to tell mama about, and he hadn’t given me an answer. But the first thing he told her about was playing with the broom.

When he went to the bathroom earlier I had counted how many times I had had to ask him if he was done before he answered. In the evening I asked “How many times do I have to ask this time?” He said “Six”. So I asked six times and he answered me. He then asked “How many kinds of spirals there are?” so we went and looked them up on Wikipedia.

He ate dinner, then I let him play this Three Little Pigs app/book on my iPad. All three of us actually kind of watched it together. Along the way it asks you little questions, and we were surprised by the sort of questions he could answer, like which was a picture of something that was closest, farthest away, lightest, heaviest, etc. Although for hottest he chose the teapot over a fire, which makes sense given how much he has experienced both.

Carly gave him a bath, and they watched Beethoven’s Ninth. He was asking for tempos, so I was in there with them for quite awhile, helping with the tempos.

Before the first attempt at sleep, he and I read some Winnie the Pooh, then he wanted to try to sleep at 7:40, but was back out by 7:50. We read The Zax and part of Green Eggs and Ham, then he downloaded the rest of the Dr. Seuss books in the app, watching the progress “Pizza”s fill up. He remembered that from when we did that on his iPad a long time ago. They went back in at 8:25 but were out 10 minutes later. Carly took a shower. We read some of A Violin for Elva, and he wanted to watch Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, so we watched much of that. Attempt #3 lasted 9:10 out 9:15. Read a little of I Ran the Zoo, then back in and he was asleep by 9:40.

Photos: 

Cold bench: 

Smokey and August enjoying the view: 

Broom: 

Temple: 

Candles and statues: 

View:

Kimchi pots: 

Last stop: 

The stamp: 

End of the trail part: 

Trying on shoes: 

Dancing: 

Looking out at the Han together: 

He was awake at 6:10. Carly headed to work and he played some Dragonbox Numbers. He switched to the toy piano and played a little. He found something on the ground: “It was something icky on the ground…But I just throwed it away under the couch.” He wanted to switch to my iPad, but okay when I said no. I reheated some pancakes for breakfast, then we listened to his playlist of songs that he’s liked. He listened to the whole thing, and he was opening and closing the freezer door and said “I’m using it as an instrument.” Then he got two markers and was using them as drumsticks on the chair and table, and then got under the table and was using them in there. I asked if he wanted real ones: “I don’t want real drumsticks. I just want pretend drums.” He played his pancake, cut in quarters, as an instrument: “I have a pancake keyboard. It has four keys.”

We then had a good GarageBand session. Much less math today, and more music. We made banana bread, then he was playing with Duplos and humming “It’s O.K.” I tried taking a shower, but he kept wanting me to help with Duplos. We built an ink factory. I suggested that when he asked what it was, and he really liked the idea. I took my shower, but he was interrupting, and shouted “Come OUT!” But followed it with “I’m putting Duplos down my shirt. Watch me dada!” When I came out he was talking, mainly to himself: “You really like septillion…infinity?” “What’s a word you don’t know?” “What’s in your shirt? It’s a secret!” He said he was putting the Duplos down his shirt because they were afraid of the parlor, and that the monsters were eating them.

We then built a zoo out of Duplos – the first zoo in a long time. I had to hang laundry, and he wasn’t happy about me doing that, but when I suggested he help he did, taking things out and helping identify whose clothes they were so I could sort them on the rack.

The banana bread was ready, and he was smelling it while it cooled. He then started doing a quick smell, crouching down below the counter, then coming back up. He said “It’s my smelling exercise.” He then started licking it, so I cut it up and we started eating it. He said “Say you smell like banana bread breath…Haha, joke.”

We did more zoo work, then he stood in my open closet at one point and said “I’m a shirt.” We skyped with my parents. My mom asked how he was doing, and he said “Good…But I still put my finger in my nose.” He played piano for them, and used his toes. He then used his toes on the electric keyboard as well.

Before we left for class he was using a xylophone stick as a flute. He also said “You hiding from the ice cream.” “Yeah. That’s actually a cupcake.” But I’m not sure what that was about. When he went to the bathroom he doing a peculiar kind of math: “3 poops plus 2 poops equals 5 poops. I’m doing poop math…I was a dog doing poop math.”

We got to Teuni Teuni class just as the teacher had called August’s name. August saw the big picture of a birthday cake on the wall, and yelled cake. He then ran right past the teacher, who had his hand up for the usual high five, and went to the picture and pretended to eat it: “Cake!” “I ate all the cake!” As they did their walking path and forward rolls, August held up the line once as he was tracing and spelling ‘Happy Birthday’ on the sign. He kept going back to the cake throughout class and pretending to eat it, and also played it as an instrument. Class was obviously all about cakes, and involved a pretend birthday for the teacher at the end.

For the first cake activity they picked strawberries, then took them across the room to decorate a big cake. August did one, then ran back, saying “Whee! I’m picking strawberries!” After that one though he spent the rest of that activity just moving all of the strawberries the other kids brought over. They were putting a lot of them on the horizontal surface of the cake, and he thought they should all go on the vertical surfaces of it. They then put big candles in a cake, and put flames on the candles. He was very particular about getting the flame right in the middle of the top of the candle. They got birthday hats, but August just wore his a few seconds, then they had confetti cannon things, and August loved that. The teacher was pretty aggressive about shooting them at August’s face. In the video I got of it August was seeming to get upset about it, but then he kept going back to shoot the teacher after that, and when the teacher did it to August again August just laughed.

After class we took the bike over to Toys R Us. He admired all the lanterns lining the streets for Buddha’s Birthday, like he did last year. We went to the food court and chose a set lunch with dongatsu, udon, and a hot pot bibimbap dish and figured out how to order it with the machines. We both liked all of it, and somehow it is the first time we’ve had a rice hot pot dish, where the rice gets all crispy – reminds me of the Persian dishes I’ve had. Anyway, at the end August was feeding himself soup. Then he got up from his chair, walked around me to the other side, and picked up a napkin and wiped his face.

From there we went to Toys R Us. He played a bubble wand as a flute, then we went in and chose the letters and numbers play dough set that we have, a pack of markers, and a rubber chicken for the present for Cora’s party on Saturday. He kind of liked choosing presents, but was impatient to get to the Legos, being a bit demanding and using his “I’m going” line. We then sat and played with the Legos for a long time. We made another ink factory. For part of the time he curled in my lap and rested, and kept telling me to keep working on the ink factory. Ready for middle management, at least.

We then headed back and had a few minutes before his English class so he played on the yellow and green sculptures in the park.

We then went to class. Only him and one girl at 4. She gave us the books from last week, then started class. August was dancing to the songs and having fun. After about 15 minutes I thought it was slightly odd that we were reviewing last week’s lesson so much. Then suddenly other people started to come in. At this point, August, who had been calmly sitting in the middle of the room while she read through the story, got up and said “I’m done.” I had to take him out in the hall and he got upset, calmed down a little and we tried to go back in, but he got upset again, then back out in the hall and it took several minutes to get to a point where I could set him on the bike and I went in and got our stuff.

As we left I found on my phone a text message from 3:10 saying that class would start at 4:20 today. She didn’t tell us (me and the other mom) this at 4:00, but instead seemed to feel like she had to teach extra class. Very weird, but very Korean, where you don’t tell people things directly. But frustrating, as I would have gladly gone and gotten coffee. I mean, there was no way that either of us could have handled a full 60 minutes of the class anyway.

Anyway, we went down to the grocery store and he was fine there. While I picked out bananas he suddenly came back with an apple sample. It was on a toothpick and seemed like he had gotten it himself. I said he could get another one, and he went back and, I’m pretty sure, threw that toothpick away and got another one and poked another apple piece. I then expected him to walk with me, but when he was done with that apple he ran back and threw that toothpick away as well.

We got home just before Carly. They nursed, then he played Big Numbers. One of the skills in it is comparing two numbers: a shop gives you two rates for the same transaction, and you want to choose the one where you get more in return. He had needed help with this, but is now pretty able to figure out which number is bigger.

He ate a lot of dinner. He was then playing Carly’s leg like a flute and said “I played a leg flute.” He was then pretending t
o be a dog and pooping everywhere on the floor. I think that is pretty indicative of his view on dogs – he hasn’t been interested in touching dogs at all, and still comments about being afraid they’ll like his face. That traumatic event happened last May 1st.

Carly gave him a bath, then he looked at the Persian Instrument book and I cleaned and trimmed his nails. He totally let me do it without a fuss, in part because I let him watch the intro video a few times. We then looked at the songbook and watched the ABC-DEF-GHI video from Sesame Street as Carly hadn’t seen that. He was to bed at  7:50 and to sleep soon after.

 

Photos. Banana bread: 

Ink factory: 

Duplos in his shirt: 

Licking: 

Flute: 

Teuni Teuni. Decorating the cake: 

Hat: 

Lunch: 

Napkin: 

More flute: 

Legos: 

Sculptures: 

English class. Right before “I’m done”:

Home Plus. Getting an apple sample: 

He was up at 6:15. He was really clingy with Carly even after nursing a lot and when she had to spend a couple minutes getting ready to go he was really bothering her and not being patient. I picked him up and took him to the parlor as a consequence and said he couldn’t leave until he calmed down. I’d call it his first full blown three-year old tantrum, and he clenched his fists and screamed “Noooo” a few times. But after a minute he was able to calm down enough and I let him go out. They nursed once more and then he was fine when Carly left.

I cooked the rest of the pancake batter (11 pancakes) and he played his math apps. I put on music and much of it was music I just added back into our iTunes Match library that I’d gotten from my cousin Darrin but hadn’t listened to. And it was mainly pretty hard stuff. A song by a band called Mudwimin, “My Liver”, came on and he said “I like this. I really like this.” Another that he really liked was an MXPX song called “Invitation to Understanding” (https://youtu.be/uambX-xc6Kw). He kept asking “What’s the tempo?” and we got out the metronome app to check. Eventually he wanted to listen to Pirates of the Caribbean and he was excited about checking the tempo –  he kept asking me at every tempo change. After that video we had to listen to an ad because he liked the music. The next video started and he said “is this a orchestra? Yeah!” “We can add this to your playlist?” We finished with part of Beethoven’s Ninth, then the first 8 minutes or so of Beethoven’s Seventh (https://youtu.be/-4788Tmz9Zo). He then wanted the ink video (https://youtu.be/Fypi6dAJB8E) – the fourth or fifth time we’ve watched it. This time, thanks to comments on YouTube, I spotted a guy in the background of a one shot tripping and almost falling in a barrel of ink. Makes it an even better video.

He had to go to the toilet, and pretended to be a robot on the way and poop and pee on the ground: “Zinnie robot has a glitch…The Zinnie robot pooped on the ground.” After that I let him go on the iPad, which was a mistake. When I said it was time for the iPad to go away he got upset, despite me using all the usual warnings that worked in the past. I said we could use my iPad to read books, but then he kept trying to go to other apps, and when I let him look at the Persian instrument video, he kept going to watch the intro video, which is just about taking music lessons. So I turned off the iPad and put the iPads in the closet where he couldn’t get them. He had another major meltdown like this morning, and it took him about 10 minutes to calm down. He yelled “Mama!” a few times as if he was calling her to save him, then when I tried to distract him by saying I was going to read books he screamed “Wait! Wait!” (Which seemed to mean “Stop! Stop!). He was trying to go out the door and screamed “I’m leaving!”

Finally, he calmed down and started making the alien noises from Sesame Street. We went to get ready to go outside and were in the utility room (can’t really call it the changing room anymore). He was playing around, closing himself inside the empty suitcase that was standing upright, like it was chomping him. But then he tried to put his feet up in the suitcase and it tipped over, spilling him on the floor. Sad again.

Calmed down and we put on his pants. As I did so he said “P”. I said “You need to go to the bathroom?” He replied “The letter P, not the word ‘pee’”. He was making a (backwards) ‘p’ with his legs. He then went and was writing the letters d, p, d. I got out the letter stamps and we were doing those. He was doing z and x and we were talking about words that start with them and he was joking about xylophone starting with a z: “Have you ever seen a xylophone, spelled with a z?…I spell it zx…that doesn’t make sense, cuz that makes (zx sound)…”

We started to draw a mosaic, and he made a “I’m making a mosaic” song that transitioned to “that’s a made up shape…” song, then, after he stepped on the tub of crayons and spilled them “that’s the end of the song…I spilled too much stuff…”

No longer in a hurry to go outside, I took a shower while he did some art, then we had lunch at home. I asked what he wanted and he said “I want candy…I want bubblegum ice cream!” I made him half a peanut butter sandwich which turned out to be very messy, and he wiped peanut butter all over his shirt. I cooked one of the frozen chicken breasts and we made a banana and mango smoothie (he went and closed the door). We ate those, then he wanted to make blurry photos by running in front of the camera, then wanted to take photos himself. He took a photo in the bathroom and sang a “This is very good, this is very good.” song.

Finally, we played Sound Rebound, using it to build things and making it intentionally slow down. We finally left at 1:20. It took awhile, but after waking up with quite a headache, the Tylenol kicked in and I was feeling really good. We took the backpack and went down to wait for the 1144 bus right outside. They are doing more painting or flooring now, and there was a strong smell of that, even outside. While we waited, I tried to walk down the sidewalk a bit to get away from it. August said “it’s not going away.”

We took the bus north, then west across the river and got off. We walked west, up and over line 1, then kept walking west past the bus library and parks we had visited before. On the north side there was a green space that stretched north and east towards Changdong. We walked up it, first finding a neighborhood garden. August liked seeing all the plants in the gardens, and the numbers on the plots. We saw how high they got, into the 300s. Then, we noticed tags on the trees with numbers and looked at a few of those.

We found a little children’s park called 뱃골어린이공원. Pretty small, and no swings, so he wanted to keep walking. But I asked if he needed to use the bathroom, and he wasn’t sure, but said we could. They were nice and new, and he liked the classical music playing. We then sat on a covered area and ate animal cookies as a snack. He was then walking along the edge of the platform and we took a ‘making mama nervous’ photo.

We kept walking and got up to 초안산근린공원 at the north end. Here there was a really big playground with two play structures and swings. Not busy when we got there, and he started climbing on a spiral ladder thing. But after about 5 minutes the elementary school got out and the place was packed with kids. August liked that though, and we stayed a long time. He needed help with the spiral ladder, but eventually was climbing it on his own, and twice was able to step across to the play structure. We got food out and ate, and he was worried about things blowing away. No wind at first, but then it did get windy. He held onto the backpack, then was carrying the yellow bag so it wouldn’t blow away. He started playing with a woman by hitting her with it, then was swinging it around in circles, getting dizzy.

A lot more climbing on the play structure: up the stairs, up a little climbing will (where he again needed some coaching), and a ladder that curved over. He spent a lot of time on this last one, hanging from and sitting on it. This was when I was able to tell a boy to throw away his garbage after he ate the last of something and then just chucked the plastic tray on the ground.

His most curious activity though came when he was sitting up on the play structure looking down at kids at the bottom of the slide and he started saying “Toodley toodle” over and over. He kind of turned it into a song, and later referred to it as the “Toodley toddle” game and wanted to play it with me. He also climbed on the wood part of the teeter totter and asked “Companies make teeter totters?” At this point too a girl who, we found out, goes to an English kindergarten, came over and was talking to us. We learned that. her English name is Amber. A couple
times people asked him his name, and he replied with either Zinnie or Zinn.

He headed over to the exercise equipment and found he could hold onto the bar and spin himself back and forth. Rather silly like, but he had a lot of fun with it. He also spun one of them with his hands for a smaller boy.

Finally, I let him go on the second, smaller play structure for a couple minutes before we went to the bathroom and left. He said “I’m going to the mustard slide.” He went down the slide at the end (after some discussion of colors and playing of the Jaws game) and then we went to the bathroom and headed out at 4:15. We walked north and east to Changdong. He was hungry, and wanted to eat everyplace. There was one street vendor, with big vats of soup, in particular that he liked and we stopped to look at it. I said we were going home for dinner, and August replied “But, soup is for dinner.” Which is true. A guy there gave him a little peanut-shaped bread snack. August ate it, then he gave us a cup full. That was our snack on the way to the bus, although August pointed at other things to eat as well.

We had 9 minutes to wait for the bus, so we walked a couple blocks towards home so we wouldn’t be on the bus so long. August was falling asleep as we got off the bus, and I had tried to call Carly but she didn’t answer. I went to Tous Les Jours and got bread and was about to pay when she called and said she was almost to Brownstone. So she came into the bakery and woke August up. We were home at 5:10.

As we walked into the apartment, August saw the microwave and said “We need a better microwave? In Israel?…mama wants ten seconds?” We’ve talked about how we want a digital microwave in Israel. They nursed, then he played some Dragonbox Big Numbers. Carly made a salad, and August said from across the room “I don’t like the smell of the salad.” He went over to her a bit later and said “You smell like salad breath.”

Earlier in the day we had watched the ink. Video, and the narrator says ‘many mini balls’ – August picked up on this because of the many and mini difference he’s been working on.

He ate some dinner with me, then they did some painting for cards for Vivian and Colin. Carly gave him a bath (I was achy and drained again, after feeling fine during the day), then he climbed up on the couch with me and we read Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site, The Sneetches, and The Cat in the Hat. They tried for bed, but he was back out. We read Red, “A List”, A Place for Zero (on Skybrary), and some of the Bob Books app. He went back in and was asleep at 8:30 or so.

Photos. P legs: 

Peanut butter shirt: 

On our walk. First place we stopped. Making mama nervous photo: 

 Big playground: 

Holding the backpack so it doesn’t blow away: 

Spinning: 

Soup guy he liked: 

Asleep off the bus: 

Watching the pipes: 

He was up at 6:10. When I got up, I felt sore, like I had gone on a hike yesterday. Didn’t think much of it, but later was feeling very achy and unwell. I had a slight temperature in the evening.

Anyway, before Carly left he sort of sat on the table and said “I’m halfway sitting on the table.” Thought that was an interesting phrase he has picked up. She had sung some sort of gezunheit song and he didn’t like that. She cooked him a pancake and cut it in eighths and he said “There’s eight eighths.” Then did the math as he ate parts of it. Carly headed to work and I cooked more pancakes and he ate a couple. He played Big Numbers and Numbers for awhile and got upset when I said it was time to put it away. Did some piano, then read some Bob Books on my iPad, but he kept trying to get into other apps and games besides books so I put it away as well and he got upset. He was climbing on a chair and touching the iPads on the table, but luckily that turned into a game of me hiding his iPad and him finding it. We ate some Cheerios, then did more hiding of the iPad. I was able to distract him pretty well by saying “Look at that car out the window.” But it was funny when he observed “Why they all silver?”

I was cleaning out the art supplies in my closet, and took out the painting sponges. I hadn’t said anything about why I was taking them all art, but he gets the idea now. He said “I want to take those to Israel.” We have a Larva memory game that we’ve never really played and we got that out. As I put the rest of the stickers on the pieces, he was stacking them. They fell and he said “gravity win”.

I exercised and he joined in a bit. He played TodoMath as I took a shower. This was when I started to actually feel I was sick. I thought food would help, so we stayed home for lunch and made a salmon sandoo. While we ate, we watched his ink video, then videos on how ballpoint pens and pencils are made.

We finally got going at 12:45. Still plenty of time to play at the children’s museum, as I didn’t think we’d be doing much else at Children’s Grand Park due to the rain. As we walked in the slight rain to the subway, August was humming Itsy Bitsy. I then realized he was throwing in bits of other songs, then going back to Itsy Bitsy. At one point he did the opening to the Indiana Jones song. That surprised me, as he’s only watched that once.

We were playing in the children’s museum by 1:30. Went first to the science area. Everything was crazy today due to groups of kids. So he started by doing a lot of watching. The first thing he really did was write on a piece of paper (he wrote a random word, like ‘hat’, although that wasn’t it, that I didn’t know he could spell…’hen’ maybe, which was from the Bob Books) and send it through the pneumatic tube. I got him to look up while pushing the button, so he actually saw it go through the tube, as I noticed none of the other kids actually saw their paper going up. He saw it and said “I did it!” He also did the running and jumping games that he likes,  and controlled the surveillance camera. We then headed up to the vet area, where we looked at the x-rays and took care of the chimp. From there we went up to the water area, also busy because of big groups. We got to do our usual activity of floating balls down the path and cranking them up on the conveyor belt thing, then he played with the path area, where you put in the wooden pieces to direct the water. I had to gather all the pieces from the other water areas, as kids had used them for all sorts of other things. August and a couple other kids shared quite well here, which was a nice change from having to fend off the kids down in the space area who would try to grab controls from August.

And of course he did his water painting on the floor. Quite a bit, actually. He also did the fishing thing, and is noticeably better as he was able to actually catch fish floating in the water. Then he was done with the water and went over and did the fan thing that blows out the scarves. Then over to the culture area, where we tried to work on a puzzle of a building, but ended up going freestyle.

He then went over to the broadcast area, and was making noise into one of the microphones. He wanted me to do it too, and wanted me to make a note. So we ended up doing the copying game, where I would sing a line of notes and he would copy. We also did some with him doing it first. He played with the TV came a bit, then went to a machine where it blows wind in your face and takes photos of you. I thought that might bother him, but it didn’t.

We went across to the cafeteria and ate basically all the food I had brought. Then down to the book area. We haven’t been there in quite awhile, and I was disappointed to find the Uh-oh book nowhere to be found. In fact, the books were in bad shape, and I spent a lot of time finding all the foreign books and returning them to the foreign books section. We also played with the cupcakes game thing, but there was a cupcake missing. There was a new game with colorful sticks, but the sand timer to that was missing as well. Oh, and the magnifying glasses no longer have their nice holder. They are just in a plastic bin and there are only four of them. We read a couple of the books, mainly ‘When I Grow Up…’

We went to the bathroom, filled the water, and looked at the coffee shop for a gift for Cora, whose birthday is this weekend. Unfortunately, the. Sewing kits they have there are a bit too complex.

We had left about 4:40, so still a good 3 hours at the children’s museum despite the late start. He stood up by the backpack and played Dragonbox Numbers on the way home. Two Mormons, Travis and Isaac, talked to me on the way home, but luckily did not bring up religion. Best missionaries ever.

At home I let August play on the iPad and I did the dishes until Carly got home a little after 5:30. I talked to them while he nursed, then I went and lay down for awhile. I got up as they were finishing his bath. He was watching Shakespeare’s 9th. Carly tried to put him to sleep after that, but he didn’t want to fall asleep and was quite upset. I went in at one point, and he was saying he wanted books. She gave it one more shot, but he wanted out, so they came out. He sat with me and we read while she took a shower: A violin for Elva, Frog and Toad’s “A List” and “The Garden”, and all of The Sneetches. He was ready, and was asleep by 8:50.

 

Touching the iPads: 

Memory game: 

Monster game: 

Working surveillance: 

Vet: 

Water area: 

Wind thing: 

Building: 

“What if the ocean was this high?”: 

Sending the paper: 

It was supposed to rain a lot today, so a good day for likely our last trip to the aquarium.

He woke up at 6:56 and walked out. Sad to find no mama, but he let me pick him up and I held him for a few minutes. He then ate the rest of the banana bread for breakfast and we read Kipper A to Z. He then looked at the Persian instruments book on my iPad. He was quite interested in the tar instrument today. That led to the instrument book and finding a video of a ophicleide. He then watched some symphony pieces: Indiana Jones and a Harry Potter one. Then a video on making ink, then we did art in Sketches.

We exercised and had some cereal, then he wanted a piece of toast, which I cut in eighths. He wanted to cook with the friends, so we got all the stuffed animals (the ones that aren’t packed for Israel, and there are still plenty) and took them in on the bed. It turned into a throwing up game, and then he was hiding them. He still refers to Green Monster as “Green Marshy”. He asked “What happens if it’s 99 in Chelan?” Didn’t actually cook/eat with the friends, which was the original plan, as he wanted to go watch Pirates of the Caribbean. Did that, then he was writing letters on paper while I showered.

We read Welcome to the Symphony, then I was brushing my teeth when he wanted something and I told him so. He smiled and said “You said ‘I’m brushing my beak?’”, making a joke. We played mandolin, then went and had lunch with the friends, this time doing the cooking and ice cream, as usual. He did more asking about temperatures and funny math, asking things like “what berries plus berries equal?”

We got headed to the aquarium around 11:30. To avoid the rain we took the long subway route, transferring at Konkuk, so we wouldn’t have a walk in the rain. Walked through the mall and got to our usual bench and ate lunch. He just sat in the backpack for a few minutes, arms tucked in, before I took him out, still resting. We ate, then when he was full he was impatient to get to the aquarium.

We spent a long time in the aquarium – more than two hours, counting the gift shop. And we didn’t stop to take a break like we usually do. From the beginning he went around pointing at fish and pretending to swim, saying “I’m that fish.” The fist spot we spent some time was the river area, where he likes the plants and snails. Also a good amount of time at the funny aquariums, and he had no problem letting the fish nibble on his fingers. A good amount of time in the touch area. At one point he made a stack of starfish, and when he was picking up the big shells he kept saying “Bernie should wear that one.” And at one point he said “I want to go to the place where it shows you the things on a scuba diver…and snorkeler.” He didn’t seem bothered by the darkness in the ocean square area with the moving walkway. Most of the time he sat or stood on the walkway and made a drum sound as we slowly moved through. Oh, and he liked seeing the guitarfish. We had gone into the aquarium at 1:30, and finished 3:15ish, then spent more than 10 in the gift shop. He played with the “baby” toys, then found rods that reminded him of flutes, so he kept pretending to play the flute.

Eventually I got him out of there, and we got our backpack and headed to the book store. ALong the way though we passed the big video screens they have and there was a 2 minute video of animated, made up musical instruments. He stood transfixed for that. We waited several minutes for it to come on again, but it didn’t. There were a couple of other interesting videos though, of people doing art. Then we went to. the book store and down to the toys and he played with those little block things that they have, making towers. We needed to get going: “I want to do three more abstracto. I want to do three more shapes.” I got two coat straps I wanted for our grey backpack. I initially gave him a choice of. Orange or blue and he chose blue, but then he saw pink and really wanted it, so I gave in on that.

We headed out and stopped at the bathroom. I’ve been really, really patient and accommodating with people touching him and giving him candy, etc. the last few months. But as we were washing our hands,  a guy had to push past me a bit (I had the backpack on) to get out of the toilet area – meaning he hadn’t washed his hands. So as we walked out of the bathroom, I commented to August about how that guy hadn’t washed his hands, then the guy literally reached down to touch August’s face. I blocked him and snapped at him,  and pointed back at the bathroom and told him to wash his hands. Sadly, I didn’t use Korean, as I actually know ‘washing’ and ‘hands’. Also, it is a reminder I keep meaning to learn the imperative.

We got in the backpack and headed home, getting home at 5:30. As we were walking, August was humming Pirates of the Caribbean, which he knows pretty well by now. At home, they nursed, then we were trying to get him to tell her about our day. I asked “Did we see a guitarfish?” He joked “No, just a sitar. I saw a sitarfish.” Carly was asking “Guess what?”, which is supposed to be followed by “I love you so much.” But instead he was saying things like “It’s a hair washing day?…Mama has to go to work?”

He had to go to the bathroom and took forever on the toilet. He’s now doing variable problems like “3 plus what equals 9?” And figuring out the answers as he writes in the air. Carly observed that if he does become a mathematician, he’ll have a breakthrough on the toilet. He also said “2 plus what equals infinity? You know. Infinity.” And was asking his favorite temperature questions: “What if it’s 1 septillion degrees? What if it’s 1 nonnillion degrees?” He also asked “Whys your skin stuck to the body?”, which is a new question.

They nursed and she. Gave him a bath. He wanted couscous, so I got that out and added it to his bowl, cold, and he ate a bunch more veggies and everything as I fed him. We took him to bed, and I was trying to talk about getting Dippin Dots ice cream with Carly sometime. We had almost done it at the aquarium, as he’s been wanting Dippin Dots for months, but I told him mama would be sad if we got ice cream without him. Anyway, whether he understood me spelling ‘ice cream’, or picked up on the context clues, he knew we were talking about ice cream. He was asleep by 7:30.

Photos: 

Starfish stacking: 

Flute: 

Blocks: 

Looking at the lights: 

Toilet time: 

He woke me up at 1:30 and I remember trying to convince him to go back to sleep. He asked where mama was and when I said out in the parlor he smiled and went out to her.

When I got up at 7:30 Carly was making veggie pancakes. August was actually watching the blender and humming along to it. I asked if he’d been helping and he relied “I not tell.” When Carly asked why not, he said “For funsies.”

He and I read Suddenly, Welcome to the Orchestra, and Me and My Dad. Carly brought him pancake and he got to eat it in the parlor. After breakfast he nursed and they started reading Little House on the Prairie. I was watching race qualifying for Formula 1 and he kept asking questions and “Why?” I paused it and he and I hooked up the keyboard and played GarageBand. He sort of started learning Baa Baa Black Sheep. He then switched to the Peg + Cat Big gig app, which is also a music app.

He was being quite grumpy today, and clingy to Carly, wanting to nurse all the time. So after I took a shower, and as I was cleaning out the utility drawers, closet, etc. and packing it, she took him outside. They walked around both sides of the park. By the dinosaurs they pretended to be dinosaurs, and were back 40 minutes or so later. They came back around noon and then went back down and got the storage room key. We cleaned it out, so we don’t have to use it again before we leave. I made another chicken teriyaki sand witch for me and August for lunch, then we played ShapeKit, taking turns to make the shapes and connect them. Carly was doing some more cooking, of veggies and rice, and when she was done I was trying to take him out. He was proving to be just as grumpy and clingy as before, and didn’t was to leave the house or mama.

Finally, after some more nursing, we left at 2. We took the bike down to Hagye Children’s Park, aka the Tree Playground. The swings were busy, so we headed to the play structure. As we went up I paused to take off my outer shirt, and when I got up to the bridge I couldn’t find him. Found him a few seconds later up the path on the tree, as he said “Where’s dada?” We climbed up and down the stairs, and played with the track thing at the top, then he wanted to go down the slide. He almost went by himself, but then wanted to go with me. So we went down the big slide together, and it is fast. I’m kind of surprised he landed okay coming out of it when he went down by himself last time. Carly is now the only one of us to not go down the big slide. She says she wants to do it before we leave.

Then, August found an area where there are musical instruments carved into the play structure. He pretended to play those, then saw some kids climbing on a hilly part. He figured out how to climb up, then took a long time carefully walking back down it, as it sloped, and jumping the last bit to the ground. Then, he ran across to the base of the big tree, and climbed up that one, even bigger. Sent a photo of him at the top of it to Carly.

We wandered around some more, playing and went up and down the tree again, then he was hungry. We went over by the sand area to get a snack, but as I was setting down the backpack he suddenly kicked sand at two kids. Didn’t hit them badly, but the small girl started to get upset. As I was telling him to say sorry, he tried kicking sand again. I picked him up, and we walked over to the path near the entrance and got him calmed down. He wouldn’t say sorry to me or them though, so we didn’t go back: “Nope. I can’t say it.” He did, however, look at flowers and count their petals, and he watched kids riding by on scooters.

We left there at 3:10. I don’t remember why, but as we walked he was joking around and said “mama is a number.” He was happy, singing and whatnot, so we took a kind of long way home, and then went across to the park and were walking around. He stopped to watch the men playing go and Korean chess, really intrigued by the latter. Think he’ll really get into board games in the coming years. Finally, there was music being sung in the senior center, so we went up and listened to a couple songs as I held him and he pretended to play along.

We got home a little after 3:50. They nursed, and he played some Big Numbers. Then more nursing, and more being cranky when they stopped. Carly got out play dough and he was happy with that for awhile. Carly asked if he was ready for dinner and be said yes. She gave him some choices for what he could have, but he said “What you’re making”, referring to the beans she was cooking. But when she offered him veggie pancakes he agreed on those, and ended up eating three of those. He told me he wanted to watch a video of sausage being made, so we did that, then that led to watching a video about books being made, then one about ink, one about pencils, and finally one about soap.

Carly gave him a quick bath. As in they were done before I poured water for my tea. They went to bed at 7, but he was back out. Surprising, as he hadn’t had a nap and had gotten up at 6. They tried again at 7:40, but no luck. During these breaks he ran to me and we read: We looked at the Persian instruments book and songbook, and read Splat the Cat, A Violin for Elva,

Would You Feed It to the Monkey?, 123 Peas, Frog and Toad’s “A list” and “The Garden”, and about half of Dr. Seuss’s Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? before he decided he was ready. That was 8:20, and he was asleep by 8:30. Not clear what caused both the crankiness and long bedtime today. Our best guess for not falling asleep was the sugar in the pancakes…

Photos. Trying out the car seat from the storage room: 

ShapeKit: 

Climbing: 

Top of the tree: 

Flowers: 

Counting the flags along the street: 

Watching Korean chess: 

Coloring upside down: 

Carly was out in the parlor and heard the bedroom door open sometime after 12:30. But August didn’t come out. She came and checked on him and he had opened the door, then, while standing on the floor, put his head down on a pillow on the bed and had fallen back to sleep. He smiled when Carly picked him up, then slept the rest of night on the reading area until 7:20.

I got up a few minutes after him, and ended up spinning him on the floor. He was back to his optical illusion: “it looks like it is turning but it actually is not. Optical illusion!” We had banana bread for breakfast, then Carly Skyped with her parents. I took a shower then we all got to work on more sorting and packing. Carly started with the books and toys by the reading area, and August had fun making towers out of blocks. Then August and I went through all the books by the desk and all the books out by the couch. He chose a ton of books to donate, and was also very happy to save books. When I held up a book he liked he’d get a big smile, grab the book, and take it in to the big box we were using. He did a good job of choosing books to donate. In the evening Carly and I went through and pulled out a few that we wanted to save, but it wasn’t many.

That took a good chunk of the morning. Then at some point he was doing math problems and asked about 2+2. Knowing he knew the answer, I gave him a nonsense answer. He ignored me, and told himself “Tu sabes”. We had a can of chicken in the cupboard, so I used that to make us a chicken salad sandwich for lunch.

In the afternoon we headed out for a walk, all in shorts and short sleeves, as it was 73. We stopped and got coffee and fruit drinks – August chose mango and banana. While we waited he climbed on the big spheres outside.

We walked up to Madeul Stadium, doing Carly’s route from when she first was taking August out. We got up to where that big globe is, and August wanted to get off and look at it. Did that, then went to look at the new seating area, etc. at the Environmental Education Center. They’ve added a lot there in the last couple of years. There’s even a little indoor playground. Not too impressive, but might have been fun during the winter. We then went into the building itself and played there for quite awhile. There are three stationary bicycles that you can use to power Christmas lights, a radio, and a fan. Did that for awhile, then August and I got out the notebook and did some insect and plants rubber stamps that they have there. Finally, there is a wall where you can turn on different appliances and see how much power they are consuming. August and I played with and discussed that for several minutes.

We headed out, got on the bike, and walked around to the Madeul playground. They went on swings, then August went to play on the play structure. He went down the slide once, then went and got Carly off the swing to play with him on the play structure. He then went and got on the bike, ready to go.

We went to the spider web playground. There it was to the swings first, then I pushed him a bit in one of the broken toy cars that were around. We went over to the play structure, and Carly saw a ‘Store’ window area, and that became the main game. First, she sold him things, then they switched and he was the shopkeeper. Left that at one point to go on the spider web, but he fell forward after he climbed onto the spider web and that was the end of that. It was back to the store after that, and eventually it took some convincing to get him going as he wanted to do even more store.

We all came home, and made a grocery list. August wanted to go to the store, so we all went. Carly hurried ahead to start shopping while we parked the bike and headed down. August and I stopped to watch a couple kids lose at the claw machine (it of course dropped the toy). He and I then went and found tissue packs for the backpacks and found Carly just as she was finishing up.

At home, Carly made couscous and zucchini. He played some Dragonbox Numbers. We ate, then she went to a shower and we did some drawing. He wanted me to draw a cow, so I did a very simple cartoon cow, but that wasn’t up to his standards. Did a snake and a spider, but then he wanted a ‘real’ cow. So we pulled up a photo and did a cow that was more to his liking.

I gave him his bath and washed his hair. I had a playlist of ‘unplayed’ songs going, and we were on the numbers: i.e. Bands that start their names with numbers. He really liked 10,000 Maniac’s “These are  Days”, so we added that to his playlist. Then he really liked a hard rock song by a band called 8STOPS7. Finally, he wanted me to add 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up?” to his playlist. We were playing with the squirt cars, and he was spraying himself in the face and mouth with air, saying he was drinking the air.

After his bath we went in on the bed and listened to some more music and looked at the photos on the wall, counting the mamas in the picture from Glecy, and the Vivians in their picture. He went to sleep a little before 7:30.

 

Sorting and playing:

Environmental Education center: 

Playground: 

Home: