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He popped up at 6:50 and went to find Carly they had some good cuddling in the reading area. A lot of playing the Althauser game this morning and being pretend angry. He spent a lot of time just sitting on the toilet. “I’m scrunching my teeth…I still have teeth.” He played GarageBand and ate banana bread. Carly went in the other room to Skype with Glecy, but ended up getting work done when she didn’t respond.

August helped me make a loaf of banana bread to take over to the Meyers’ for lunch. I told him why we were making it and he said “I don’t like to share”. But we talked about it and when when he went in to tell Carly the ‘secret’ that we were going to have pizza, he said we were making banana bread to share “special”.

Then back to music, and he played a lot of GarageBand, Discovery Music, and piano. I took a shower, and when I came out they were skyping with everyone in Mexico. That lasted quite awhile. He saw Cassie and carried on: “That looks like mama…Is mama in there?…That looks the same because she has the same bones.” Vivian tried to tell him he is too old to nurse. He nursed anyway, and asked “Vivian is going to be angry?” I think they put a towel down for Vivian to eat on the floor while she still Skyped, and August wanted to do the same in the parlor. So Carly got a couple sheets and put them down. August piled all of the blankets on Carly, and wanted the baby blankets as well to add to the pile. Carly did some surgery on him as well. He also wanted all the blankets on him. He then said “I can’t move.” When Carly didn’t do anything, he said “That means help.”

We finished skyping, then got ready to head out. Slowly. August and I played more with the blankets. He was a chick and wanted a nest out of all the blankets and pillows, and I piled all the blankets on him again at one point. We left at 11:50 and walked down to catch the bus. Caught the 111. August was in the backpack, and there were open seats. In the past, if Carly sat down then he would want down with her. So I explained we weren’t going far, and asked if it was okay if mama sat down. He said it was.

As we got off the bus, his foot got caught in the little railing dividing the exit of the bus. That has never happened before. The 111 is a different type of bus than most, and this was a new one, so perhaps it was narrower, or the railing was a different design. Anyway, his shoe came off, and it hurt his foot. Grabbed his shoe, and we got him out of the backpack. Once he calmed down and we got the shoe back on though he was fine walking. Also helping was that I gave him one of the Kinder minis that a woman gave him on the bus.

We got to their apartment in Luceen right at 12:30. August seemed a little surprised that there were so few people there – he’s only been there in party situations. We all sat at the table and had pizza and apples for lunch. We were using a dull steak knife to cut his pizza, and August picked it up at one point. I then taught him how to use it, and had him sawing his pizza (me holding the pizza) pretty well. That was a pretty big moment for him, and he enjoyed telling Carly he was using a knife. We also discussed sharing a few times. He stated “I still don’t like sharing” even after we cut up the bread and were sharing it, and he listed all the things they were sharing with us (he listed five things: pizza, the house, toys…and he added two – probably apples and water). But later, either on the walk home, or at home, when Carly asked if he liked sharing, he decided “Yeah”. Oh, and he also kept counting all the people at the table (7 of us).

After eating, Amanda took the two boys, Quinn and Egan, by bike over to their friends’ (the Websters) house. August got a bit sad when they left. He talked a little to Dan, but then decided he was ready to go home. Amanda got back, and she and Carly took August in to play with Legos and toys. I think they were playing with something with dinosaur bones, as they were discussing bones. Somehow, ‘phalanx bones’ came up, and she called them ‘phalanges’. August insisted on ‘phalanx’ until she realized that both are correct (it appears she was using the plural, and he the singular). But cool to hear that he was so confident.

We left at 2:10. As we got to the elevator he said “I was sad the boys left.” Outside, he wanted to play on the playground. He noted there were no swings, but said “I still like it”. Climbed up a squarish climbing thing, then went down the spiral slide once. Got into one of those rocking chair things, and was asking about instruments he doesn’t know. I came up with auto harp and harpsichord. We will have to look up videos sometime. He kept saying “I want to learn…” and would name a song he wanted to play on the autoharp. I would then pretend to show him how to play it. As he tried to get out of the seat he said  “oofta”.

We walked home. He started singing a new tune and sang it for much of the way. We were home at 3:15. He went to the piano and we worked on last line of Ants Go Marching. “I want to play GarageBand on dada’s iPad because there are electric pianos and electric guitars.” He then played lots of GarageBand. Took a break from that to read Planting a Rainbow with Carly. They also looked at the Care for Our World app at some point. Also, he wanted to see a video of a fern growing, so they got his iPad. Not sure if that was because of Planting a Rainbow, or if they also read Spiral by Spiral on my iPad (he had been really interested in the fern page when we read it a day or two ago).

They did some big number math on paper, with Carly showing him how to line up numbers to do long addition. Carly gave him a bath and I did dishes. He was very ready for sleep, but trying to avoid bed; ironic, as Carly decided we should try letting him go to sleep earlier today. She took him in and he was asleep at 6:45. Before she left the room, he sat up a little and said something about “dada’s iPad” in his sleep. He did come out about 7:30 and Carly had to go nurse him again, but he slept soundly after that. Later, I heard him say something in his sleep, and say (actually pronounce) “sigh” – which is something I do sometimes.

 

Photos: 

All the blankets: 

Nest: 

Meyers’. Using a knife:

Playground. Talking about instruments:  

Pretending to sleep: 

Math: 

He woke up at 7 this morning, after going to bed late last night, and waking up a lot during the night. At one point he kicked me in the face, harder than he has ever done before. I know I made noise, but it apparently wasn’t enough the wake the two of them up. He ate banana bread for breakfast. He was nursing a lot, and wanted to keep nursing. So we tried giving him specific times he could nurse, which then had him running into the bedroom to try to read the time.

I took down recycling, then they Skyped briefly with Cherie. August played mandolin with Carly, then went and read an entire page of Kipper A to Z on his own. We were then working on writing  ‘gargantuan’ on the smartboard. He played piano a lot through the morning.

Carly took him outside for awhile. They rode the bike, went on the swings, commented on each other’s hats, and enjoyed the nice weather. They got back a little before 11.

He sang from the songbook, then we read the Winnie the Pooh story about hunting the woozle. He was really curious about what a woozle was, and I think a bit confused and disappointed when there were no woozle.

He was getting sleepy, and slept from 12:10 to 1:07. When he came out he was carrying Green Monster, and took him in to the reading area when he nursed. After they were done, he was using the smartboard, and I taught him about how it worked, and how you could turn it over and see white where you wrote on the front. Carly then came in and they were writing on paper.  She asked if he wanted to learn how to hold a pencil. He was all for that, and was soon figuring it out with her help. He was using his fingers to make a little mouth and voice from where the pencil is held (Carly started it): “Hello…do you like green?” And at some point he asked me to do the finger letters to go along with his letter math: e.g. He writes R+T=F and then we make the letters and symbols out of our fingers.

We got ready to go, and he heard something from the neighbors. He is always interested in the neighbors, and asked “We can’t see neighbors because our walls are in the way?”

We got outside and walking by 2:40. He was singing Ants Go Marching. Again and again. And coming up with random verses like “Marching 606 by 14 across”. He was on the bike most of our way up the stream, then got off when he wanted to walk with Carly, and then march on his own, to Johnny Comes Marching. We turned around and started walking back. We saw an egret on the stream and he was excited about that, and was then flapping his arms. We saw a couple little dogs, and he was a bit wary of them, after he got past them he said “Maybe gonna chomp…because not an alligator.”

We stopped at Chrysanthemum Park. Spent most of our time writing words in the sand. And I was writing some full sentences. He would then erase them. Then we moved to shapes. He sat on a wooden table and watched me do real shapes, then wanted me to make up a shape. He then took over, and was making shape after shape and naming it: a dada(something), a mama(something), a scobalch, etc. He went over to Carly (who was sitting and reading) and drew shapes in front of her. The first two he called a hippopotamus and a kangaroo, and then there was a bird. At the end he said “All done. After I do one more shape.”

When he was drawing, he copied what I would say before he then erased my art: “Look at my pretty art. Don’t step on it. Just look.” Also, at one point he looked up and thought that other people were by his bike. It was actually a different bike that looked similar to his. He said  “I don’t like leaving it…”

We walked home. Carly came upstairs to get her backpack and headed to the store. He was fine staying home with me. He played some loud piano, then seemed to be getting a little frustrated with something. We went in on the reading area and read Take Care of the Earth, which is a new book/app on the iPad. He cuddled up and pretended to be a bear cub. He then wanted to play Word Wagon. He was really sounding out words with the app.

I ran over to Home Plus to get a few things (Carly was making rice curry and needed the aluminum trays to bake it in).

I got back and they were getting in the bath. I put groceries away, and then traded with Carly so she could start baking the rice curry and I finished up the bath. We went out and he ate a good serving of rice curry. He spotted the bag of blueberry yoghurt pretzels that I had purchased and immediately read ‘blueberry’. He sounded out the other two words with a little help. Finished the rice curry and then had a pretzel.

He wanted to read Kipper A to Z so we went to the parlor. He had a rubber band, and I asked where it came from. He was able to act out me stretching my back on the rolled yoga mat to tell me he thought it was from that. That was some good communicating. Then, he saw his water bottle and talked about how he had left it there by the reading area when playing Word Wagon. He remembered he had spelled ‘water’ and that had made him thirsty so he got his water bottle.

Before reading Kipper, he went to the smart board and practiced holding a pencil and wrote all sorts of letters and numbers. In particular he wanted to write a closed 4, when he usually has it open at the top. So he got that down. We read Kipper A to Z and Spiral by Spiral. He talked about how he used to be afraid of the nautilus song because of the sneezing, but he likes it now. He was ready for sleep soon after that and was asleep at 9.

 

Photos: 

Pencil: 

On our walk: 

Walking the rocks: 

Pushing: 

Chrysanthemum Park: 

Erasing: 

Shapes: 

Silly face: 

He was up a little before 6:40. Nursed, then went on the toilet. They were talking about Carly going to work, and he asked “Is Friday a tall day?” referring to our Duplo game. He also asked her to play “the Althauser” game, where they debate his last name. Carly left, and he stayed on the toilet until 7:15. We continued the Althauser game: “Say ‘You left out dada’s part’…Say ‘You left out mama’s part.” He headed to the piano and started playing Yankee Doodle. “Look behind me. There’s bugs on me. There’s one in my mouth. I ated one hundred bugs.” He then went and pretended to play Yankee Doodle on the mandolin through the case.

He was hungry and joked “What happens if we eat the mandolin?” He was looking at his stickers, and wanted to look up one of them, so we found a video of the flying dragon lizard. We ate eggs and broccoli with toast for breakfast.

He wanted to do math in the parlor and took his toast in. “I’m going back in the parlor. I’m gonna be careful.” We did some multiplication on paper then he pretended to put water in my tea, then wanted to do math on the smart board thing. He sang a song to the tune of When Johnny Comes Marching Home: “We’re getting to negativeland again, hurrah, hurrah”.

We read Biscuit want to Play, Kipper A to Z and Kipper’s Toybox. We then cuddled on the reading area for several minutes. He wanted me to go get the soft blanket. We were then doing math with Duplos on the reading area. He wanted to do Endless Numbers, so he did that, then watched some Kipper while I showered. When I came out he told me he was going to do Kid Calculator, so he did some math problems on the calculator, then went and played piano. We did more mandolin, then he wanted to see a video of a sea star. We found a show called Blue World on YouTube and watched a segment on sea stars. It was really good, so we watched a second one on sponges.

We left at 11:55. As we walked to the station, I caught a whiff of something that reminded me of those smelly markers – the licorice one, I think. On the subway he was singing a random letters song, then reciting random really big numbers. He got quiet, and seemed a bit sleepy.

We headed to 봉황공원, a little park west of the station. He played on the swings, and noted that we were the only people there. Then a daycare group showed up for a little bit. He got off, and stood on the railing of the fence around the swings. We sat and ate, then did letter math with fingers and feet – walking out the numbers and symbols on the ground.

In the big play structure August found a red jump rope. We played with that a bit, and he was figuring out how to flip it back and forth over his head. We talked about visiting the U.S. this summer, and I said we’d first stay with Thatcher and family. He asked “What’s the dog’s name?” When I then said we would visit my parents and Paul, I started to include the cats’ names, but he chimed in with “Iris” before I could say that one. He then asked “Why they getting comfortable?” Referring to my mom saying that the cats were getting more comfortable.

He was back on the swings for awhile, then went and played in the play structure. He climbed up and down through it, counting the hexagonal platforms as he climbed on them. After awhile he wanted me to follow him. He was up close to 30 and up at the top when he heard something, and tried to quickly climb down and across one to get to the other slide. He slipped and fell down one, then slowly tumbled down a second one. He was okay. We talked about it, and continued playing. He wanted to know big numbers, like “quintillion” and was reciting random big numbers again. Back up to the top, where he at first wanted me to go down the slide first. But he was in the way, and I said “Why don’t you just go first.” So he did. It was a fast straight one, and he stuck the landing on his feet. Impressive, but then when I went down I realized it basically makes you run off the end.

There was a star shape on the ground, and he taught me how to trace that, then I got us going.

Took some time to find a bathroom – down and back up three different subway entrances only to find that all the bathrooms are on the paid side of the turnstiles (in other stations it is the opposite). But then we found a bathroom in the building with a Starbucks. We walked through Starbucks to find it, and August had the idea of getting a drink. At first he was upset when I said after his nap, but then he adopted that as his plan.

We got walking, and it seemed like he fell right asleep. But then he kept opening his eyes, even though he had his head leaning back. It was windy, and that seemed to bother him. Finally fell asleep, and he slept from 2:35 to 3:40 or so in a place called Cafe Dorothy. One of the few second story coffee shops we’ve been to.

Got him in the backpack and we headed to Costco. Along the way there is a new bread store so we got samples of a green tea bread. At Costco we went to get cheese, and he noticed that the Costco sliced cheese is in pink and blue packaging. He asked if they were for boys and girls. He had noticed the branding on bathrooms, and we’ve discussed it. Not very busy today, so got our cheese (a couple extras, as I want to make just one more trip before we leave in June) and grabbed a few samples: some blueberry bar, an onion chip, and a couple other things.

Paid, then went to get a slice of pizza for Carly and a chicken bake for us. Ordered, then went to the pickup window. August then read my mind. As I was waiting, I was thinking I’d say ‘takeout’ in Korean – ‘pojang’. But I had ‘pojak’ stuck in my head, for some reason. Swear I didn’t say it out loud, and I remembered and said ‘pojang’. But then August asked what I said, and I said ‘pojang’, and he said “You almost said pojak.” As we walked towards the exit, I asked how he knew, and he said “Pojak means ‘pick up’” I tried looking it up. I’m thinking maybe he learned it from his Teuni Teuni teacher (like when they were picking up the flies this week), or maybe he just made it up and got lucky.

We walked out of Costco at 4:30, but then spent ten to fifteen minutes by the family statue as he ate over half of the chicken bake. It was slightly windy, and he was concerned about things blowing away. We were joking about what was in the chicken bake. Earlier it was the sandwich we were joking about. One bite would be worms, the next mayonnaise, the next kimchi. Evertually I asked if he was full. He replied “No. I have to do one last bite…full now.”

Back in Sangbong station he tried to carry the bag, but it was too heavy (and the straps too long) for him. He walked down all the stairs on his own, and he found it funny when I intentionally messed up the “We like to make mistake” song.

On the train home he stood for a stop, then got a seat. He sat next to a guy who taught him how to do a fistbump, and pretended to be hurt and cry when August lightly kicked him. August did a good job saying goodbye to him as we left.

Singing Ants Go Walking on way home “202…307…502…” I told him I was getting tired of thinking of things for the ant to say, so he took over “I’m going to paint…I’m going up the stairs…I’m going in the trachea.”

He told Carly all about the donuts as soon as we got in the door. He got his nursing mittens on and said “Set for nursing!” On the toilet he was playing the Althauser game, so when he got his last name wrong I was turning the light off on him. He did Endless 123 on the iPad, then wanted to watch a video of a raccoon. So we watched raccoons on YouTube, with me trying to convince Carly that a raccoon would be a good pet. She wanted to see sloths, so we watched sloth videos. August was getting silly and climbing on the couch, and fell off the end once, but was okay.

He then helped me make banana bread. He licked the spatula at the end, then when we went in to read books he wanted to read “Monster Party…beca
use I licked.” Licking the spatula had reminded him of when the monsters get cupcakes all over their faces.

So we read Monster Party, then Carly gave him a bath. She then went to bed, but he wasn’t ready, so we went out to the reading area and talked about reading books, but ended up just talking instead, mainly about going to space which he wants to do.

He went in to bed at 9:50, but came back out just after 10, saying “I’m going to ask dada for a Puffin Rock story.” We didn’t do Puffin Rock, but ended up reading Kiss Goodnight, and the Boynton and Eric Carle ABC books. He then wrote timpani and tom tom on the smart board thing. And we discussed why tea is spelled tea and not T, and why Iguana is the same in different languages “Tell me the story again,” he would say.

He went back to bed at 10:25 and told himself “Now be nice to mama,” which is something I usually tell him. Took him quite awhile to fall asleep though, as Carly thinks it was around 11.

 

Photos: 

Park: 

Getting donuts: 

Silly time: 

Watching the orchestra: 

The new (and our last) session of classes started today at Home Plus. He has Teuni Teuni again at 12:40, and an English class, based on the cartoon Poli, at 4:00. In between, we went out for lunch.

First though, he woke up too early at 7:33. He wanted mama, although he did say anything. He went back to the bedroom, then when he walked out to the living room he didn’t want me to pick him up. He sat down and was sad on the floor for a couple minutes, then his first words were “Sleepy sleeps time”. He didn’t want to go back to bed or into the reading area though. We sat on the couch, and I opened the short Kipper episodes. We watched 4. The ones we had seen before. After each he kept saying “I like it”. But no badminton in them though.

He played piano and had both Cheerios and eggs for breakfast. Watched part of the tabla video from yesterday, then wanted orchestra stuff. Exercised, then he played Endless Numbers while I showered. When I got out of the shower, I heard him loudly saying big numbers, like 341,000. He was just thinking them up, and I found out he was inspired by finding a coin on the desk that had ‘100’ on it.

We did math on paper for awhile, then he let me trim his toenails with the clippers. He played some Simple Machines, then we Skyped with my parents. He was still playing Simple Machines when we called, so at first he wasn’t paying them much attention. But then my mom asked if he’d play the piano. He listed the 3 or 4 songs he was going to play for them and ran for the piano. And then he kept playing and playing. Had a couple good improvs in there as well. But was also being really loud. He played mandolin a bit, but went back to the piano. I went over to the parlor, but he pushed the piano into the parlor. Eventually though got him writing on the paper. He needing some reminding on how to write his name in Korean, but then kept doing it over and over. He also mentioned a ‘smarkamork’ again, and when we asked what that was he said “It’s a kind of beaver that  ate plants and carrots…”

We had some crackers for a snack, and he was remembering the Korean word he wrote that, when we looked it up, meant ‘knight’: “Gunpa…soldier…knight”

About 12:30 we headed to his Teuni Teuni class. A smaller class, at least at first, which was nice. It was all about the lifecycle of frogs today. August jumped right in doing the path and forward rolls, and helping carry. We then pulled the kids around on tadpole carts. First sitting, then I had August lay on his stomach. The next activity involved two shakers that sort of made frog noises, and a frog hat. He loved that, and they all hopped around on the big bouncy thing doing that. Next were a couple of walking paths that had them practicing jumping with two feet. He had a few good jumps, but mostly was still jumping one foot at a time. Finally, they had frog tools where they picked up flies and fed them to frogs.

After class we headed to the bop burger place here in Brownstone for lunch. August chose, and then ordered, a chicken mayo one. And she understood him. I got one as well. We then walked to the King Kong Juice and he got mango and I got grape. We went to the park, and sat by the playground and ate lunch. We were happy to find that my bop burger wasn’t spicy either, and he liked both. He sang a little yummy song (“We are very yummy, we all like the taste”) then transitioned to the the Jumping Game song. He also joked about the ‘big as a log of maple’ line in Yankee Doodle: “Big as a kid of maple…big as a brontosaurus of maple.”

After eating he went on the teeter totter for awhile. We then headed home but realized we had forgotten his bike outside the bop burger place. We went and retrieved that. At home he played piano, then mandolin. He was talking about bones a lot: “Do cats have bones?…donkeys? Lions?…Banana?…because they’re for eating? does water bottle have bones?…because it’s for drinking?” He wanted to look up the frilled lizard from the stickers he got at Daiso. Found that and then watched a video of a lizard eating worms. Finally, he watched the Pirates of the Caribbean flash mob video, then we headed to his English class.

His class had more of a school feel to it, at least at first, as we sat at little desks and she had a projector set up. I told him to go say hi to sangsaengnim, and at first he was saying something about “That’s not sangsaengnim” so I had to explain that this is another sangsaengnim. August hadn’t taken a nap, and he was seeming a little tired at first too. He did some waving and saying hi to people, but once class started he wasn’t too interested in sitting on my lap. He was really into playing the piano on the wall, then wanted to climb on the tables in the corner. I had mentioned that when he was littler and we had 5-Touch classes in this room he wanted to climb on them and I wouldn’t let him. He was then going under the tables and being Flynne, and growled at me once.

Class itself though was okay, and when they got to the active stuff August was really involved. At the beginning of class, she went around with a fake microphone and was asking them their names. August pronounced his name as Korean as possible, Ah-guh-suh-tuh.

In introducing the Poli characters there was a song, and August liked being a helicopter in particular, and tried to sing along to lines. After a few more minutes of card activities (when he was Flynne) she then taped white and blue rectangles on the ground. The kids were then holding hands and going in circles. August was fully involved now, and the rest of the class involved going in circles, and going back and forth from blue to white. At the end of class I gave the money to August to pay for the materials fee. He then played with the toy microphone that she used when asking their names. It makes your voice kind of echoey and he was singing into it.

We left class after 4:40, and rode his bike over to the corner of the pink building where we have met Carly walking home from work several times. Tried to call her, but she didn’t answer. We hung around for a couple minutes, then started walking home. August got off and walked, so it was a slow walk, and we looked at everything along the way. Carly called when we were close to the elevators. August got back on the bike and we went back and met her on the sidewalk. As we went up in the elevator, August pushed the ‘8’ button on and off, and the elevator stopped on 5 or something then went back down to the first floor. August thought this was hilarious and said “The machine is acting silly.”

They nursed when we got home, and Carly was asking him questions and asked “What’s your favorite thing to do?” He thought and responded “Umm…steal things!”

He ate an awesome dinner of cooked carrot coins and broccoli and then raw tofu.

He and Carly did math on paper, and he was writing his letter problems on paper, like T+V=R. Carly gave him a bath and washed his hair, and he went straight to bed and was asleep at 7:15.

Photos. Carrying: 

Our delicious lunch: 

Man-say! 

Frets: 

English class: 

Playing the wall: 

Growling at me as Flynne: 

The machine going crazy when it took us the wrong way: 

7:13. Too early. Held him for several minutes, then changed him into underwear. I suggested the kitchen might have a warm spot, as he was lying down in the changing room, so he went and tried it out but said “No, it’s still cold.” He got up on th couch and asked for his iPad. When I said “Let’s read a book first. How about Moo?” he burst out crying. A lot of holding and time before he was okay again. We eventually did read Moo, then he worked on “The cursive dada learned” for awhile (I had shown him yesterday which font was the cursive system I had learned in school). First I took a photo to send to Carly. When I asked him what he wanted to do for the photo today he decided to flap his hands like wings.

He had the last of the oatmeal for breakfast, then played piano, then played Metamorphabet. An announcement came on, and he hid from it behind his hands, then climbed in my lap and hid. He wanted “outside” but was okay after a couple minutes. Had some cereal and banana, then typed some Skype messages with Gramma. We went and made letters out of Duplos, then he watched those new outdoors orchestra videos while I took a shower. Afterwards, we did math with the Duplo pieces and made patterns. He wanted some surgery, and it was his brain this time.

Getting ready to go, I got him dressed and put his pajamas on the bed, with Green Monster as his head. He thought that was funny, then destroyed monster Zinnie. More piano playing and mandolin. When the mandolin is in the case and he plays it it sometimes buzzes. He thought it was “weird“ and started talking about how “the first time it buzzed, the second time it didn’t…” getting up to “sixth”. I asked him to brush his teeth, but he said “I want to play it more because I like it.”.

When he did brush his teeth he was going to spit it out, despite it being the strawberry kind, which he doesn’t have to spot. Going to the bathroom, he asked  “Mama has muscles? Mama has bones? Mama has kidneys? Mama has intestines? Mama has burns and arteries and blood? I want to feel the metatarsals…” Sang a bones song.

We headed out sometime after 11. In the elevator the doors opened on 2 and we almost stepped off. I said something about the people going down to the basement, but August didn’t hear exactly what I said. He said “I was confused. I thought dada said 2 was a basement.”

We took line 7 up to Dobongsan. He just sat next to me on the train. Very little iPad on the trains recently. To get to our next train at the transfer, he was very slow and wanted to walk down all the steps by himself. I heard the sound for an approaching train and ran us up the stairs…only to find I had gone one passage short and was on the wrong side. Missed that train, so we sat and ate some of our sandwich until the next train came.

In Uijeongbu we transferred to the U-Line. We discussed the words ‘I’ and ‘you’ and he asked about ‘tea/tee/T’. He stood and looked out the door window. We got off at our usual spot, and walked up and over the hill to the playground. I asked if he remembered playing on the concrete platform at the top of the hill and he asked “Was it warm?” (when we played there, that is.)

No swings at the playground, but he climbed up the rope thing a few times and went down the little slide. I tried to use reverse psychology to get him to go down the spiral slide, but it didn’t work until I went down it myself, and he wanted to go down with me. We did that a couple times, and played in the slide. He was hungry, so we sat and ate lunch, and he stole my half of the sandwich.

He needed to use the bathroom, so we slowly walked over to them, past the people playing basketball. He said he was breaking the rules by stepping on the “baseball field”. He found a rope fence and was playing with that, stepping on it and shaking it. A woman came along and played with it with him, stepping and pulling on the other end. He was talking about drums, and asked something about drums playing notes, and I told him about tablas, and he was intrigued.

We went to the bathroom, then walked up the hill by the soccer field. There was a Korean walking path up there, and we did a couple laps. He was getting better at standing and balancing on the rocks. He said his bottom was itchy, so we went back down to the bathroom and he went again. Fine after that.

We walked over the badminton courts, and I explained Badminton to him. It sounded familiar to him, and he said “Was it in a video? Biscuit. Oops, try again…Kipper.” Hmm…maybe one of the short Kipper videos we watched? But that was quite awhile ago.

We had a bit more lunch, and I pointed out that the library box was gone. He went to the spot where it used to be and pretended to look in it. He was trying to zip his coat up all the way, and I said I’d teach him the “secret” of zipping up his coat (holding the bottom). He was intrigued by that.

We got in the backpack and got walking. Up and around the soccer field, then back over the hill and past the station to the stream. He fell asleep, and I went to coffee shop I’d seen across the stream called Coffee Inside. He was asleep 2:44 to 3:45. I started waking him up at 3:35 but he was falling back asleep. I eventually set him on the floor, thinking he’d wake up, but he sank to his knees, then lay on the concrete floor and fell back to sleep. Picked him back up after a minute. He started to get upset, but warmed to the idea of waking up when I said I could get him juice.

He decided on blueberry banana, but then spotted a group of people sharing a big honey bread. A woman saw him, and gave him a big bite on a fork. I really didn’t need to get him juice at that point, I found, as he was very happy with the bread. I ended up drinking most of the juice.

We walked east to 의서어린이공완. Dead back streets, so I was letting August walk. He heard a motor bike go by on a different street and identified it as such by sound. But then he decided a car might come by and he wanted me to carry him.

At the park he went on the swings. Kind of quietly swinging, then he asked “What if there’s no roof?” He had been looking up at the apartment building across the street and pondering the roof. We were there maybe 10 minutes, but it was getting cloudy and windy, so we headed out. But first he walked up the hill thing. He remembered playing there, and asked “It was warm?” He found a bendy blue dot thing, and we put it in his pocket.

It started to rain just a tiny bit as we got to Daiso. Didn’t think much of it, until we were in Daiso. August had fun choosing stickers for him and Megan, and he played with the plastic pigs, first climbing up on a box to get them, then realizing he could move the box and reach them. We got went to get in line, and they were huge. Everyone was running in and buying umbrellas. Finally paid, walked out the door, and Carly called. She reminded me we needed batteries for the apartment door, so August and I went back in and got them. Luckily, the lines had abated.

We headed home (only two trains this time, as no U-Line) and were home a bit after 6. They nursed, then I offered him spaghetti for dinner. He has grown tired of it after 3 days, really wanting something else. Carly made carrot coins for him, and he ate a good amount of those.

He and I went and read Splat the Cat, A Violin for Eva, The Bear and the Piano, and Tallulah’s Tutu. A music theme going on there for the last three.

I took him in to his bath and we watched more of the Rhapsody Orchestra videos. Then we watched tabla and sitar videos:

Tabla lesson: https://youtu.be/KfCYNFgZnVk

Sitar: https://youtu.be/9xB_X9BOAOU

Zakir Hussein on tabla: https://youtu.be/O2K0ptoYpuc

He was really liking that last one, but getting tired. We got him to bed and asleep just before 10.

Photos. Flapping like a bird: 

Hiding from the announcement: 

Duplos: 

Monster Zinnie: 

Looking out on the U-Line: 

In the slide: 

Balance: 

Pretending to look in the missing library box:

Back asleep on the floor: 

Honey bread: 

Looking at the lights: 

Blue dot: 

Daiso pigs: 

Pattern: 

Being slow: 

He was up at 6. Had a little pillow fight with me after he nursed, then out in the living room he wanted to practice Spanish with Carly, so she had him finding and doing all sorts of things in Spanish. They then went in and wrote Spanish and did molecules on paper. I took over doing molecules and Carly got ready to go. Carly headed to work and we played piano. He wanted to learn how to play If I Go on his “skinny 12 fret, 11 string guitar”, so we started to figure it out on the piano. We then got out the mandolin and he had his first success pushing strings down to make notes.

He ate a lot of oatmeal, then we did some exercise and I went to take a shower. He was doing TodoMath patterns when I came back out. At the higher level of those it is counting patterns (by 2, by 3, etc.) and he was doing okay with those. More piano, then as I got lunch together he snacked on crab and peanut butter. He was playing on the chair, doing a headstand, and joking about making both mama and Vivian nervous. He asked “Is mama at the job fair?” I said she already got a job at the job fair in Thailand, but he said she had to go to another one.

He made an alarm noise and I asked if he ever heard our alarms in the morning. That led to us playing my current sound on the phone, and I let him choose a new one. As we scrolled through the sounds, one of them has ‘Caribbean’ in the name, and he asked “Is that Pirates of the Caribbean?”

He was pretending to be Oona while brushing teeth and playing xylophone, joking about how Oona was holding the xylophone stick in her wings. He ate some crackers, then was singing If I Go and making up some funny lines: “If I go to the Vivian, I’ll play with the bones…If I go to the esophagus, I will play until it gets dark in the esophagus…I’ll get stuck and need help.”

We left at 11:30. I tried to tickle his palms, and he said “Sorry, my hands are in my sweatshirt.”

We got to Children’s Grand Park and walked over to the new playground. Busy, as I think the schools are out today (tomorrow is a holiday). Nice and warm (50 and sunny) so we ate outside. He ate, then went and looked at the kid art and went and played on the hopscotch by the recycling. He walked a bit away, and was hiding behind his arm. I thought maybe he was hiding from the hopscotch, because two other boys came and were doing it, and August felt that he was forced out. He came over and hid is head on my lap for a few minutes, and said he wanted to go somewhere else. But when he was feeling a bit better we played in the sand, making sand mountains, which he then put sticks in the top of and crushed. At one point a little boy came over and they sort of did it together.

He seemed, or said he was, sleepy at one point. He went back to the artwork, and was pretending to erase it all and paint his own art over the top of it. We got ready to go, and August asked  “The food is in the backamapack?…Why Zinnie was just making sure?” August was very protective of the backpack today, asking a couple times if we had it. Unfortunately, I think we lost the broom a bit later after he played with it.

We went up to the bathroom and he wanted to go in one of the regular toilets, telling me “I want to stay away from the automatically one.”

On the seats in the theater, he lay down in the sun for awhile and I tried to convince him to fall asleep for a nap there. He saw a few kids playing down at the bottom, on the green part, and wanted to go down, and took off down the stairs. Went down and played there. He wanted to play with a toy. We didn’t have much, so he settled for the broom. There were a couple of American boys there, and they were play fighting/practicing their taekwondo and August was watching and said “I’m learning”. One of the boys started to throw ice or rocks or something, and the mom went and told him not to do it. August was wondering what he was throwing and what she said. In that curiosity I think the broom got set down and left.

We took off walking, and after 5 minutes I thought he was asleep as his head was back. Alas, not so easy. He suddenly said “I want more drums you don’t know.” Another time he started singing, and a third time he said he was hungry. 30 minutes of walking, but he was clearly very tired. He fell asleep and slept from 2:15 to 3:20, when I woke him up.

Held him for a few minutes, then he lay on the floor for a bit. We then went over to the old playground (still no work going on) and waited for a swing. Went on there for awhile, then got off to let another girl on. Went and sat on a bench and ate some banana.

Then, August walked off. I watched him go and figured out where he was headed: over to the walking path. Went over there and talked to him about walking off and getting lost. We then walked on the path. He was now getting up on the post ones on his own, and took a few steps. There were two elementary school girls there, and I helped one get her rolly shoe to work.

It was getting cooler, and was time to go. We talked about it, then a couple minutes later August did it again: he walked off in the direction of home. I caught up to him and he said “I just walked off! Zinnie didn’t tell Dada where you were going.” We talked some more, and about what it would feel like to be lost. He wanted to pretend to be lost, so I ran off down the path and hid behind a bush. He then was lost until he found me (easily) and agreed it felt a little scary.

The two girls caught up as he was combing the destroyed area, finding a bolt and looking at the old gobs of glue. They wanted to play with him, and I explained we were heading home. Their English was pretty good, and we did end up staying a bit. August found a big piece of wood, and she showed him how the rolly shoes work. They really wanted to set up a time to play with them, but I couldn’t promise anything (they said normally they have school until 5:15 on Tuesdays, so wanted a weekend – they were apparently coming back to play Pokémon Go sometime).

They then followed us as we walked the path out. August was generally amused by them, although it was a bit much for me.

I was carrying him around the fountain, and he had been looking at all of the hopscotch areas by the recycling bins. He spotted one and said “That hopscotch is messed up. There’s an 8 on there. That’s silly. How people do that?” All the others only have 7 squares.

We used the bathroom by the entrance then headed down. He was being slow going down stairs and stopping to look at things. At one point I called “Augustus!” And he asked “Why dada say ‘Augustus’ in a loud voice?” and thought it was funny. When he did want me to pick him up, he said “Pick me up. It’s a long way.” Something he was claiming every time he wanted to be carried today.

On the subway he liked the cane of the guy that sat next to him, and the guy let him touch it. He ate crackers, and we talked about what we needed to get at the store. I mentioned Drano, so we had an in-depth discussion regarding clogged sinks.

In the store he was joking about something and said “Those cost 99 bucks…those cost 99 hundred bucks. Lots of money.” He was a good sport in the store, even as looking for Drano and coffee took longer than I expected. He wanted down to look at the hair and bracelet things, so I let him do that for awhile. There were also shower scrubbing ball things that he really liked and wanted to get.

We were home just before 6. Spaghetti for dinner. Carly got him a spoon, and he was a bit melodramatic when it was wet:  “Why is it wet? I don’t like it wet. I like it dry.” While in the bathroom, he bonked his head on the sink when the stool slipped a bit. He ate a lot of broccoli, and read Frida with Carly. Then played Mandolin with me. He played Elmo ABC and did letter tracing. He was looking tired so I started his bath. He did two more letters on the tracing app when I said he could do one more, and then drank for 11 seconds of drink
ing when I said 10 seconds. He found those very funny, and felt like he got away with something. He also exclaimed “I love 11!”

In the bathroom, he was extra silly on the toilet: “I have a penis on my bottom and a vulva on my penis.” He was talking about there being another Zinnie: “I have another Zinnie.” That Zinnie was downstairs “Buying some chips and floor. Because my other one is broken.” He wanted to watch the Prince of Egypt orchestra piece so I went to get the iPad. Traded with Carly. They found an orchestra flash mob (in Hanoi!) that he absolutely loves: https://youtu.be/F1j2lK2H388 He came out from his math and watched more of it, dancing and drumming along. Watched two more videos by the same group, then he was doing lots of eye rubbing. Carly went and took a shower, and we played mandolin and piano – learning Johnny Comes Marching. It as an A flat note in it, and it became a game where I would make a noise if he hit A instead. And then I would cover it up so he couldn’t hit it. He figured it out, then wanted to intentionally play it wrong so the song sounded funny.

The went in to bed at 9:15. He was back out 9:40. We read Splat the Cat, Not a Box, Elmo’s ABC, Peppa’s Ballet Lesson, and the songbook. He went back to bed at 10:25.

Photos: 

Oona holding a xylophone stick with her wing: 

Hopscotch math: 

Resting in the sun:

Success: 

Cane: 

Bracelets: 

Slow walk home: 

Mandolin: 

7:56. He ran out and I held him for five or six minutes. He got down and was making shapes with his fingers. He wanted to start with letter tracing on his iPad. Lately, part of what he has been doing on it is replacing the default sounds for the letters with his own voice. So when you choose ‘A’, for example, it says “A, ahhh” in his voice. He was hungry, and asked for a couple of crackers first, so I let him have that, then we had cereal and bananas, then we worked on Itsy Bitsy Spider on the piano. And then he surprised me by now being able to stretch his fingers to play chords like C and G. We listened to A Hawk and a Hacksaw through the morning until he wanted to watch orchestra and wanted the kids. He watched several pieces from them, including Prince of Egypt, Let it Go, and part of Swan Lake.

We did some TodoMath together. Today we were making progress on starting from the lower number when adding. That is, when adding 7+2, instead of having to count “1, 2, 3, 4…” just starting with 7 and then saying “8, 9”. He seemed to have a decent grasp on this by the end of the day.

At some point he was asking about Carly, or simply what day it was. I said “it’s Monday. Mama had to go back to work.” He replied “I don’t like that. I can’t handle that… Now I can.” Ate more cereal and banana. He wanted some surgery, and I tried to say no; I was trying to take a shower. He immediately got upset and started crying. Held him and waited until he calmed down, then asked if we could talk about it. He said yes, and we made a deal where we’d do the surgery, but then I would go take a shower. So that worked. He did Simple Machines while I took a shower.

I was then getting our snacks and lunch together, and when I mentioned that I had bought the crab at the store the other day he asked “Lucky mart?” Which kind of surprised me as we rarely call it that, referring to it just as the pink building. When we brushed his teeth, I asked which flavor of toothpaste he wanted. He asked “Why not the orange and zucchini one?” Not sure if that was intentional or not. The flavor is orange and mango.

We did math with Duplos, and were working on counting by  3s and 5s. I was trying to get him to go, and he said “I want to do this for a couple minutes.” I sat down in the desk chair (he pointed out I was sitting in “Mama’s chair”) and he came and climbed on my lap for a few minutes. We finished getting ready to go. He wanted to do X in Metamorphabet so did that, and he snuck a few extra letters.

We left at 12:40. We stopped at 7-11 to get some stuff for lunch, since we never go there. Got a ham kimbap and a triangle tuna one. We hopped the 1144 bus right next to the building headed north. Took it up past Madeul and got off right after it crossed the river. We walked a couple blocks further, to the west, going under the line 1 subway tracks. Carly and I had been in this spot exactly once, when we then turned south again and walked by the dump area. Today, we continued west one more block to the north end of the big park area north of APIS. I had spotted some potential park sites on Google Maps. The first was just a little sitting and exercise area, but there was also a bus that had been converted into a library. Unfortunately, it was closed for the winter until March 1st, but August was intrigued by the idea, and went and investigated after we ate lunch. During lunch, he ‘stole’ my half of the sandwich, and said “I’m a stealing machine.” (A reference to ‘Hug Machine’). We added the library to Google Maps, and he walked up a path to a little marshy area, then did part of the walking around a little loop.

He said he was sleepy, but when I asked him about it he claimed he wasn’t, and said “I’m not ticklish and I’m not sleepy…I’m not broken…”

We could see a playground to the west, across an apartment complex parking lot. We walked over there. It wasn’t a park playground, but an apartment complex one, but we stopped to go on the swings. Did that for quite awhile, and he was being pretty imaginative: “squirrel police” “I’m playing a pretend skinny guitar.” He got down and was singing the If I Go song we made up, by himself. He remembered a lot of the lines, and made a few up. Back on the swings he was really getting the hang of pumping, leaning back and forward in addition to moving his legs. He got off, and was twisting the swing up and letting it go, but made it clear he doesn’t like being on it when it is twisted. When he wanted back on the swing, he said “Hey. I want to go on here. And no twisting cuz I don’t like twisting.”

When done there we went into the park area, which here is called 초안산세대공감공원. He found little seed pods from trees and we talked about how those work. There’s a little stream area, and we went up and used the bathroom. We then found some bushes with thorns, and he investigated those, then found another bush with kind of interesting seeds on it, so we talked about those.

Got him in the backpack, and started walking up to the environmental education center. But down a path to our left we spotted playgrounds and stuff, so went down to investigate. It was another park, a children’s park, on the edge of the large park area. He didn’t want to stop, but we checked it out and added it (and the other park) to Google Maps, then got walking to Cafe Tolerance.

Along the way he was singing his standard walking song – the nonsense word song that he’s been singing for a long, long time. Then he invented a new tune.

We got to Café Tolerance at 3:40. There were some kids bikes out front and he investigated. He wanted to know about the bike lock and how it works. I explained it needed a number to open it:

“What the right number?”

“Only the owner knows.”

“Why not Zinnie?”

He got podo and mango juices. He was a little perturbed they were out of pineapple juice boxes. He chose seats by the window again and we sat and played/worked. Near the end he needed to go to the bathroom. Did that, then he tried on the different pairs of flip flops. As we left, he spent a couple minutes singing the notes on the wall in the stairway.

We got home a bit before Carly. Sometime after she got home and they nursed, he was playing on the piano and playing a few notes (C to E chromatically, then back down) that sounded just like the organ in Phantom of the Opera. So I showed it to him on YouTube. He wasn’t too fond of that one, but ended up watching other orchestra pieces (mainly the kids again). When I was in the kitchen he came up and asked me why  “no more”. Took me awhile to figure out what he was talking about – he had read it off the back of my shirt. So I had to explain that to him (the front says ‘strangers’). Carly gave him a bath, and he was soon to bed after that, at 7:20.

 

Photos. On my shoulder: 

Riding the bus: 

Bus library: 

Swinging together: 

Seeds: 

Thorns: 

Singing: 

Bike lock: 

View:  

Slippers: 

Singing the wall notes: 

He was up at 7:22. Kind of a short night. They nursed, then read some Amelia Bedelia. They then skyped with Cherie and everyone in Mexico – Cassie and family are all there. August played piano for them, then Carly moved to the parlor to talk. When August noticed they had left, he started pushing the piano in there, then was following her around the apartment with the piano. Eventually, I got him on the iPad, and he wanted to play the Duck Duck Moose apps. He did Word Wagon, then I helped with division in one of the apps. We went and did math on paper and with blueberries, then was pretending to float in space like the people in Metamorphabet when he was doing head stands and I was holding his feet. Then he was a jellyfish.

More nursing, then Carly tried to read Creepy Carrots but he wouldn’t let her. They read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. He started by intentionally skipping words. They then read Creepy Carrots. We switched, and I read Frog and Toad’s “The Dream”. We discussed dreams and he said he has weird dreams but remembers “zero things.” Carly vacuumed, and August and I read the Splat the Cat snow book.

Carly turned off the vacuum, and August was asking her “Are you done mama? Are you done mama?” Not realizing she had headphones in. He went to the piano and was playing. I asked what his third song should be, and he said Itsy Bitsy Spider, so I started to teach him part of that. It will be his first song using a black key. He also played his little C major tune that he invented and has played many times.

We had thought about him skipping a nap today, but he was acting sleepy, and eventually Carly took him in to the bed. But he only slept from 12:40 to 1:07. He clearly didn’t think that was enough, as he kept wanting to nurse and was cranky. Carly was holding him, and I started joking about stealing him from her, and he eventually perked up. He and I shared a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and several strawberries for lunch.

He decided to move all the stuffed animals from the couch back into the reading area. He was taking exception to Carly moving them in the other direction. Moved a total of 14 things in, but when I asked him how many he counter up to 35. “I skipped 18 and 19. Who needs 18 and 19?”

He wanted heart surgery. So we did that, but he said his heart was still slow. So he gave himself a shot and said “I put some earwax in there and now it’s gonna be fast.”

I was getting ready to go and do some grocery shopping, and Carly was going to get him outside. It was in the mid-40s and sunny today. I was trying to help get him ready, but first they shared some crackers, then he really wanted to do math on paper, then words. He started telling a story of sleeping in the stroller and singing the Jumping Game song. Didn’t entirely make sense, but he told it in a very soft and serious tone, and seemed to be based on real memories to an extent.

I went to the pink building, then returned the groceries to home and went back out to try and find them. I called and texted, no answer. So I walked around the park a couple times, then headed to the stream. They had walked along the stream and I found them walking the street home. I was able to run up and surprise them. He didn’t want to stay out, but wanted to get home to do numbers. We were home about 3:40. He put his nursing mittens on but then we decided his hands were warm enough that he didn’t need them. It was so warm in the apartment that he took his shirt off as well.

They nursed and did more math. Carly started spaghetti. August and I did all sorts of exams and surgeries stomachs and hearts and veins and arteries were involved. I had gotten some Shaun the Sheep bandaids at the store but he wasnt too excited about them, saying he didn’t like bandaids.

I went to make coffee and August had me count some blueberries, then he went and was playing Yankee Doodle. We played mandolin, and he helped me take off one of the sets of strings so it will be easier for him to push them down to make notes. Carly was getting compost ready to take out, and August was inspecting it. He touched, or pretended to touch, it, and we had a good germs discussion. I said he could study germs when he grew up, which turned into a discussion of careers. He said he didn’t want to do that. When I asked what he did want to do, he settled on playing piano. He went and was playing the piano, and playing the C major and chromatic scales and singing along. As he got to the high notes he was squealing and explained “Because I was going to the high notes.”

We ate some spaghetti, then I took out the compost. They did some mandolin together. I came back and they nursed and did more math. He was then showing me his kicking and saying he could kick fast. He went to the bathroom, then told me he was sleepy. We went in on the reading area and read Paddington. Carly showered, and he played Metamorphabet. More fun with the vacuum one and vacuuming up the village.

He and I shared 3 bananas. Or, rather, 2 and a half. Played more piano, then the guitar on Metamorphabet. He took one more bite of banana, and said “I’ll have the rest after my bath.” Carly gave him a bath.

They had fun in there, then he said something about “I hope Manny is here.” Then said that was “Made up.” I thought maybe it was the same pretend person/something that he talked about yesterday. I suggested it was his first make believe friend, and that led to a discussion between all of us of what is real and what is pretend. I had mentioned Nearly Headless Nick (our ghost in the chair) and we discussed him.

He and I ended up on the reading area and read most of Cat Alley. Tried for bed at 8, but he was back out 20 minutes later. I heard them debating what his last name was, as he leaves out the ‘Althauser’, which I swear is none of my doing. He had some water, then found the part on the iHerb box where it says ‘Thank you’ in several languages. We talked about them, then he pretended to trace them. We then read Kipper’s Snowy Day and Kipper’s Toybox (twice).

They went back to bed at 9 and fell asleep by 9:15.

 

Photos. Reading with mama: 

Resting: 

Math: 

Mandolin: 

Carly was off to National History Day today, who we had an extra Dada and Zinnie day this week. He nursed around 5:40, then slept until 8:08. Held him in my arms for several minutes and we looked out the window, identifying cars and things. He then got down and was playing Yankee Doodle. He gave a couple of his bid grins when he finished playing. He picked up the xylophone and started to take it to the parlor, but then was shocked to see all the stuff he had moved missing. I had to show him where I put everything, and he decided to get the octopus out of the toy box. We put it down in the parlor and we decided each leg did something – zapped, sprayed water, etc. He jumped over the legs and counted.

On the reading he cuddled with Marshy and Peter Rabbit a bit and declared he liked earwax. He then went and got all the Duplo animals and brought them to the reading area and had the alligator chomp Peter Rabbit. For then chicken he said “Hen. I call that a hen. Kind of chicken.” He used one of the octopus arms as a crown and wore that a bit and we had a whole alien and robot thing going for awhile. He broke the alien by doing a headstand, but they had a machine that fixed broken things.

He turned the light to the closet on and asked about the machines in there. That led to a discussion of the air conditioning and heater. He said he was still cold and wanted a blanket. We investigated all the blankets in the house, then he played xylophone while I made oatmeal (the slow kind). He asked “Where’s mama?” And we had the following discussion:

“National History Day. Remember? She…”

“Without a blanket?”

“She has her coat…”

“Mama’s blanket is still here?”

“Yes”

“I want mama’s blanket.”

We read Biscuit’s Picnic, then made our oatmeal. He had five tiny chunks of brown sugar. Ate, then back to piano. We practiced together.

Back in the parlor he made a loop of the hoses and said there was water through there. He wanted to spell ‘hope’ on paper; so I wrote it once and he wrote it over and over. One time there was a yo-yo hanging from the ‘e’. He started talking about which words start which each letter. We also spelled nose and hose, and talked about the S making a z sound. And he has started worrying about putting the kids back on, as he doesn’t like it when the markers run out.

I had found out that a software company called Duck Duck Moose had been purchased by Khan Academy, and all their apps were now free. I had downloaded them, so we tried out some of the words and math apps. I also found the Orchard board game, which I had planned on buying this summer, was also now an app. So we played the Orchard game, then had some crackers. He played with the Duck Duck Moose apps while I took a shower, then we played Orchard together again.

When I said “Sorry” about something about the shapes in his tracing app, he asked “What’s that voice? You sound funny.” Later, out on our walk, he again told me I sounded funny, and I realized my throat was a little sore. Hopefully not the start of a cold.

We played some mandolin, then read a Biscuit book and the Pete the Cat knight book. We got out of the house at 1:30. We stopped at Tous les Jour and picked out a potato and ham (supposedly) sandwich, a vegetable (supposedly) croquette, and a chocolate donut for lunch. We walked south towards the railroad tracks. He pretended to eat a lot of candy and at one point said “The mouth peed on the ground”. At the park we found a table in the sun to eat at. He wasn’t too impressed with either the sandwich (there was no ham) or croquette (too beefy), but of course the chocolate donut was a hit.

We then walked along the tracks to the east, until the trail/park ended after a couple blocks. It will eventually continue further, but is under construction. We walked back. He got off the bike, and was running and hopping on the trail – particularly happy when he was on the wrong side. He was all about walking on his own and being safe crossing the street as we got back to Hagye Children’s Park (the tree playground), but once he saw where we were going he said no, not that one.

He played with a drain in the sidewalk for a bit, then took the shovel out of the bike and started walking with it. He made up a song repeating “The shovel cave it out”, then sat on a random spot of the sidewalk and kept singing it, and hitting the ground with the shovel. He swung it at a guy walking by, then was pretending to hit everyone he saw with it (across the street, etc.), saying “hit” and “smack”. When he wouldn’t stop that I took the shovel away for awhile. He wasn’t happy about that, but then we got to the smaller park, talked about it, and he got the shovel back and was just smacking inanimate things. At one point he asked “Why dada don’t like you going ‘smack’?”

We did some math in the sand, went and used the bathroom, did more smacking, went back to math (intentionally doing multiplication wrong at one point) and words, and played the “I want you to think of things that don’t taste good with banana bread.” We also went over and played on the walking path for quite awhile, him trying to balance on it. We found one of those library phone booth things, and he found a Korean book about birds that we took home. Oh, and we sat by the bike and played with the beads he has collected in the back and did some math with them.

Around 3:40 we headed north, cutting through the apartment complex. We came across a small apartment complex playground that had swings, and he wanted to get out and swing. Did that for awhile, then headed home and got home a bit after 4.

We played on the iPad and did some surgery and checkups until Carly got home. They nursed, then August and I shared a salmon sandwich for dinner, and he ate a bunch of broccoli and zucchini (cold, as is his preference) while we joked that it was Carly’s and that he couldn’t eat it. While eating the sandwich, he claimed that  “Manning doesn’t like the lettuce” and that Manning was “the character…in Drumstick.”

He was playing piano, and now singing and playing both the first two verses and choruses of Yankee Doodle. We played mandolin, and were working on holding the neck the right way so he could press down the strings, and playing with the pick.

Carly was going to Skype with Mandy, the woman we know who now lives in Israel. We weren’t sure when August would want to go to sleep, and the call got pushed back. I took August in for his bath, and we just stayed in there, watching a whole bunch of orchestra pieces on the iPad, while Carly skyped. August also let me clean under his fingernails (they were filthy – if you looked at them now you wouldn’t think they had just been cleaned, but they’re much better) and trim a couple. And he took a turn at cleaning under mine.

Carly came in at 9:30 or so when she was done, and we got him out of the bath and off to sleep around 10.

 

Photo for mama: 

Counting: 

Halo or crown: 

Listening to himself:  

Hope: 

Choosing a treat: 

Smack: 

Math: 

Step: 

Swing: 

Doctor: 

Strum: 

Nail cleaning: 

We had planned to go to Children’s Grand Park today, and that was still the plan for much of the morning. But then August got on a quite a roll playing at home, and we stayed here through lunch.

Nursed a couple times early this morning, then slept until 7:39 when he threw open the door and came running out. Lay on the couch, then saw the Kipper Collection book so we went in the reading area and read that. Read almost all of that, then August went and did a headstand on the chair: “There’s someone on the chair…Is it Santa Claus?” We finished the Kipper book, then he said he was hungry. I offered a couple things, and he said “No. I’m being picky…I want dada to give you something. There’s leftover something.” Thought he was referring to the pizza, but then he settled on oatmeal.

When Carly emailed him, he asked “Are You with Megan?”

I went in the kitchen and commented there was a warm spot. He came running and lay down on it. We shared the blueberry donut from yesterday, then made oatmeal. Plain, which he chose to add banana and honey to.

He did some Endless Numbers after he played something on the piano that reminded me of the Endless Alphabet song and I mentioned that. Later, we would learn part of the Endless Alphabet song on the piano.

Did some exercise, then did exams of his entire head and did heart surgery. He had an entire Duplo giraffe in his chest slowing down his heart. When examining his teeth we talked about what an actual dentist would do. On paper he wrote lower case letters, then upper and lowercase letter pairs. He then announced he was going to draw a sun, and did so. Interesting that that is a shape that all kids draw. For one he said “That looks more like a heart.” And he used the phrase “Let’s keep that in mind.” at one point.

He did a headstand on the ghost and I had it say “Hey, I’m scrunched.” He then recited the title “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day…That’s from Alexander.” Figured out he meant my use of the word ‘scrunched’.

He was writing Chinese characters when I went for my shower. In my shower though he opened the door and told me he was doing math now. But then an amazing thing happened: he closed the bathroom door behind him. That’s never happened.

Back out in the parlor, he was playing with the medical supplies on his own, taking the carpets, temperature, etc.: “I’m taking care of the carpet” “You’re going to explode, so let me give you…”

He did lots of TodoMath with my help as I got us ready to go. He’s really into the multiplication and the high level number line activities. He wanted to play with the Duplo animals – particularly the pig, so we found all of those. He walked around going “oooh” with the crayon as if it was a flashlight “there’s a cave…a dark spot…” He was then doing the same thing with the pig. He crawled under the chair once while doing it, then announced “I’m a badger.”

He called the gorilla a monkey, and I reminded him of the difference, and mentioned that Ruby had told us about chimps versus monkeys this summer, talking about Curious George. He requested the story about Ruby a couple more times.

He was playing with the Duplo alligator and started to have it chomp, but then told himself “It not really chomp because it not really an alligator. Don’t be scary.” He gave it a dental exam: “its teeth are broken.”

He showed off his newfound kicking ability, kicking the stuffed animals a couple times, then talked about “J O K” being the author “of a sentence”. In on the toilet he said “Let’s do the random game.” Talking about bones in his feet: “Can I see the metatarsals?”

At this point I thought we were going to head outside soon, but then he really kicked it into an intense mode. He went to the piano, and was working on scales and chords. He wants to play chords, but it is hard for his little hands to stretch his fingers far enough, so was practicing that. He said he was sleepy at one point, but kept working on chords. He then, out of nowhere, decided to take apart the playmat pieces and stack them. That involved moving all of the toys and instruments off, which he did by himself. He then decided to methodically move literally all of it in to the parlor so he could play with it in there.

At this point I suggested a change in plans and that we eat lunch here then go someplace closer. He agreed and when I asked where he said “Cheysanthemum Park. No, something different. Madeul.”

With everything now in the parlor he said “Now I can play with everything…I want to play with all these things…Let’s count all the stuff…There’s 41 things…”

He did a headstand on the chair and was in a crazy mood: “I’m blood stinky salami breath…no, something else…Let’s be crazy.” “I can’t go down cuz DADA’S IN THE WAY.” Back down, lying on the floor: “…on top of me of a flower…Someone. I said I was a flower.”

We ate lunch and played with GarageBand. Then back to the piano for Yankee Doodle singing and playing. I put his coat on. “Hey. Something’s wrong. There’s a bump in my coat and you didn’t zip it.” More piano. He was working on the chorus and changing the verses so fit the words in the other verses. He took all the black keys out.

We finally left a bit after 2. Walked up and around the stadium and got to the playground at 2:15. He did some writing in the sand and found a couple shells. Climbed up to the play structure and went down the wavy slide, after I tested it to assure him it wasn’t too bumpy (he doesn’t like bumpy slides, and I don’t blame him). On the swing for awhile, where he requested the random game again, but like earlier he started copying me, turning into a copycat.

He wanted to go up to the exercise equipment. We went up and he played on the piano sculpture, pretending to play Yankee Doodle. He seemed to have a memory of the cicadas there, as he said “Cricket, cicada…you used to see cicadas here?” Using the bone white elliptical machine with my help, he said “This is the bones of Nearly Headless Nick.” Then was identifying what bones some of the pieces were.

I pointed out the swinging machine where he knocked himself over a couple years ago. He pretended to be a baby and played with it. And almost knocked himself over once. But he also climbed on it and perched there. He then found an elliptical machine that was still too big, but that he could do entirely on his own.

I noticed that the long curved bench had had the broken pieces fixed. I pointed it out and mentioned how he used to walk on it, so he got up. He stopped where he could touch the moss on the tree and talked about remembering the moss. I also said this was where he started reciting the Korean numbers, so we practiced those, and he wanted to know big Korean numbers, like ‘billion’ and ‘trillion’ (we already know million).

I did the ‘duh-duh’ Jaws thing once, and he gave me the rules: “One – don’t chomp me. Two – don’t say duh duh. Three – don’t hide. Four – don’t do that.” I asked where that came from and he recited what Carly says before they nurse in the parlor: “One – no turning on the light. Two – no falling asleep.”

He then found some really gooey mud and had fun getting it on his shoes and rubbing it off on one of the exercise machines. I was getting chilly as the clouds had come in, so after a few minutes of that we headed out and left at 3:35.

On the walk home he was making “bzzz” noises and listing bones – it was an x-ray machine. When he named all the bones he could, he was asking me for the names of “things I can’t feel” (organs) and would then do those. We paused by the gas company building, and he got off to study the mat in front. It is like the one at the children’s museum: “Is that noodles?” We were home just before 4.

Played some piano, and shared some crackers. He played some Metamorphabet. For t
he ‘village’ he asked which one was my house, then pointed to another and said “That one is mine…we live close to each other.”

Carly was home at 5:30. He helped me put the iHerb order away. He played Yankee Doodle on xylophone and was silly in the chair. We did superbaby and rocky, rocky, rocky like a chimpanzee. He kept repeating “Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”

Carly gave him a bath while I washed his gloves. He was playing with words: “Noke rhymes with poke. Joke rhymes with joke.” He sneezed and told himself gezunheit. Carly was laughing, and he asked “Why are you laughing? Because you’re silly?” He pretended to be a baby, then was writing things in the air “I wrote it too fast. Mama can’t read your words.” Fairly straight to bed after his bath, and asleep by 7:20.

Photos. The warm spot: 

Letter practice: 

Chord: 

All the things: 

Park. Running: 

Exercise: 

Pointing: 

Perching: 

Standing on it together: 

Elliptical: 

Reflection: 

Bench: 

Scraping off mud: