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August had a real big kid day. He was totally into everything at class: the teacher was his best friend, he did forward rolls with the teacher and on his own, helped carry the walkway, and received his first certificate for attending Teuni Teuni for a year. He said his first real Korean sentence as he ordered his own corn dog. He had his biggest fall from a swing yet and got up as if it was no big deal. And he had a great time having a baby sitter (except for the last five minutes).

He ran out at 7:22 and climbed on the couch and curled up there for a couple minutes. Then got down on the floor and looked at the book shelves and asked (of himself) “What you going to grab?” He looked at those books, then we spent a few minutes trying to find books to read. He was being picky. “What? That’s not an exciting book to do. Boring.” “Hmmm…I have a few choices.” “Come on! Come with me.” To the bedroom. There he grabbed several books. Back in the reading area we read Froggy’s Day with Dad. He wanted it a second time, but first wanted to get food.

He remembered seeing me put away crackers last night, so he talked me into eating one of those first. Then he ate Cheerios and banana and played some Yankee Doodle. He walked around hugging everything, then asked what would happen if you didn’t have a spine. He hen walked walking as if he didn’t have a spine.

Read Manana Iguana and Busy Toes, then got out the mandolin. Played around with that, and talked about how to play different notes and the idea hat we need to practice a few minutes each day to toughen up our fingers.

He wanted to make up words in Korean on paper, and wrote something that translated as ‘soldier’. He asked what that was, and I mentioned a knight, like we had looked up yesterday. He wanted a picture of a knight, so we looked that up, then he wanted me to draw one. Did that, and he wrote numbers, then wanted an eye exam.

He ate more cereal and banana, and some toast. I remembered we had some cream cheese and ate some of that on toast. Don’t think I mentioned that yesterday, I think it was, he had his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We have always done ‘and honey’, because when he was smaller he simply did not like the idea of jam. Wouldn’t taste it. So when I made him half a sandwich when he was hungry I thought to try it again. Now he likes jam.

Played “What a seven year old can’t do.” Then he wanted to write ‘Bernadette’. He got another quarter of toast, and brought it into the parlor where we were writing it. He said “Cream cheese doesn’t have crumbs, but bread does!” He added extra letters to ‘Bernadette’, then needed to use the bathroom. On he toilet he was making Creepy Carrot noises. We went into the bedroom to look for them, and he wanted to go in the fort. We did that, and cuddled up with Puff and pretended to sleep for a minute. But then he was a red crab making noise. He started making rhyming words and said “The red crab is rhyming words.” He went and got Green Monster from the reading area and played with him, then went into the parlor and played some violin. We were working on plucking versus strumming.

Did some exercise, then he was doing art on the iPad. He drew a “squeepanee” in Sketches, then was working on his texture art. Did that while I showered. Did shape art and was doing Arabic art when I came out.

We did doctor exams, and at one point he started throwing up letters all over the room. I vacuumed all the extra letters out of his stomach. We had a tofu teriyaki sandwich for first lunch, then played a game he invented a couple days ago: “I want to think of things that don’t taste good together.” We list things, like kimchi and pie.

He then worked on the Yankee Doodle chorus. He now has the first two lines of that down. HE wanted the mandolin book, and sang from that as I got him dressed to go. Had to use the bathroom before we left, and we were out just after 12:30, getting to class a couple minutes late.

At the elevator, as he was sitting on the bike and thinking about reaching the buttons, I think, he said: “Extendo arms…I learned that from mama..why she always want extends arms but she doesn’t have them.” Brilliant.

At class he ran in just as they were starting the walking path. He did two walks down the path on his own, bowing to the teacher the first time. Then the teacher did forward rolls, and August did two with the teacher. Then he did two forward rolls of his own on the ramp. He was itching to help carry the walkway when they were done. The first activity was pushing the foam things into the holes in the pigs. This was the first activity he ever did in Teuni Teuni as well. August loves it, and calmly shared a pig with a girl, pushing in the foam things the whole time, even as a throwing battle with the teacher erupted behind him. They then kick over blocks, and August was having fun kicking. Another walking path, and August mostly did that on his own. The teacher helped him on part of it, and me a little on the bouncy part. He took his biggest jump off of something on his own, I think, jumping off the end of a platform. At the end of class, being the last of the session, the teacher handed out participation certificates for kids that have been in Teuni Teuni for a full year. August got to stand on a platform and shake his hand. Then, for the group photo, which August has always hated, he ran over to sit down and do it. Took a few photos, then the teacher had them make heart shapes over their heads, and August did that.

After class, as we were the last in the hallway, the teacher brought us a couple of Dunkin Donuts donuts. Put those in the backpack, and then we headed to Mama Juice for our second lunch. We got two juices (kiwi and blueberry) and two corndogs. August wanted the black one (먹물 – which translates as ‘India ink’ according to Google, but which I think refers to ‘squid ink’, as they make the hot dog part look like a squid), and I got cheddar. August surprised me by ordering his own corn dog (on the way over August had been talking about how they are hot dogs, but “I call them corn dogs” – remembering how I told him that’s what they’re called in the U.S.). He said 먹물 주세요 (Please give me India ink), which I then asked him to repeat to the guy. When the guy didn’t quite understand him, August turned and pointed it out on the menu.

We sat and ate our lunch (all very good), then August had an idea: “Ooh. I have an idea. Let’s draw Hangeul, dada.” We went home and maybe did some of that, then we Skyped with my parents. He got to see both the cats today, and was very nice to them. We then played the Cookie Monster game sans iPad, and headed back outside for some playing at 3:50. Right before we left he was asking what would happen if a person didn’t have leg bones, or arm bones, etc. and had this deep thought: “What happen if I don’t have everything in my body?…There’s be no Zinnie?”

We walked past the pink building, him on the bike and singing, and through the park near there. He protested – apparently he didn’t want that park – which was fine as I was thinking of the apartment complex park with four swings. We got there, and he went on the swing. He had his biggest fall of the swing, as he was going back. But he kind of just bounced on the rubbery ground. I helped him get back up, and he wanted right back on. I asked what had happened, but he argued he did it “For funsies”. There was one other kid there, a slightly older girl. He was watching her, and eventually got off the swing to  go play on the play structure like she was. He said hi to her a couple times, but although she followed us around as we played, she never made a peep. He tried climbing up a green plastic thing, but his back foot slipped off the end of it. He fell and bumped his head on it. He tried really hard to not get upset, but after several seconds he burst out crying.

Calmed down though, and ended up going down slides a few times. As we I drove
him past the girl and he said goodbye (in Korean), but still not a peep.

We were home at 4:40. Did some medical exams: “My talking is wrong. I need a talking exam. Because my mouth is blurry.” I also mentioned Sesame Street for some reason, and he joked about that: “Where’s Stwesame Street. Is it around here?” And sesame sounds very funny when he says it.

Carly got home, he nursed, and we cleaned up and ordered a pizza before Megan came to babysit. We were going out (all the way to the second floor) to celebrate our eighth anniversary. August and I had discussed it earlier in the day (I had shown him the first photo of Carly and me together, a photo my dad took at my grandma’s house, and August asked “In Thailand?” because in his frame of reference it actually does kind of look like Thailand) and was fine with the idea.

She showed up, and brought him a little stuffed tiger hand warmer. We left a bit later, and he was playing piano with her. We went down to D-Pub, a coffee/beer/food place we hadn’t been to yet. Got a ham sandwich on a bagel, a beer to share, and lattes.

Back home, they had a lot of fun. When the pizza guy came, August gave him the money, then said kamsamnida when he got the change back. He ate a ton of food: lots of broccoli, zucchini, pack of pickles. Slice of pizza. Played hiding the veggies under the cheese. They also paid store, with her selling him veggies for other things. They sang and played Are You Sleeping, and she sent us a little video of him saying “Hi, friends!” We got home at 7, and heard him crying. Just a few minutes earlier he had started rubbing his eyes and kept saying “I’m rubbing my eyes” and got sad when he thought he’d have to go to sleep without us. Carly nursed him, and Megan hung out for awhile longer. She left, and August and I tried out the hand warmer.

He was still awake, so Carly started a bath. He talked about being sad “Because mama and dada were not here.” But we talked about how we came back, and he said he’d like Megan to come back again.

He left us with a random sentence: “I wish I had extendo speakers and announcements.” Carly washed him, then he was asleep a little after 8.

 

Photos. Some cereal for mama: 

Art: 

Class: 

Waiting for juice and a corn dog:  

Park. Right before he fell off the swing:

Watching the girl climb the ramp he fell off of:

With Megan as we left: 

The tiger from Megan: 

7:44. He came out and rolled around the floor for a few minutes and waved to Carly for a photo. We then read A Pet for Pete and Biscuit Meets the Class Pet. He was then hungry. We made eggs and mushrooms and broccoli. He played some Marco Polo Ocean on the iPad and a couple other things. We exercised and played piano, then he wanted more food. He hadn’t eaten a ton of the eggs, but wanted something else. He ended up eating a good amount of cereal and banana again. He wanted to hear about things that he couldn’t handle. I mentioned/asked about biting his tongue the previous night. He agreed. I then asked him for something else he couldn’t handle, and he remembered falling down on the path at Children’s Grand Park.

He wanted to do the medical stuff, so I did some surgery on him and some exams. He watched a little Mouk, but only a couple minutes, and talked about how he really liked it. He moved to Puffin Rock, but didn’t watch much of that either. To TodoMath, but that didn’t last long either. I was trying to get in the shower, but he kept wanting something. He decided he was ready to go outside, then said he wanted more cereal and bananas. Got him set up with some more, and finally took a shower.

We then did TodoMath together, and he ate MORE banana and cereal. He tripped at the end of the table and flopped on the floor. He looked up and said “I’m okay” and acted like nothing happened: “What?” “Flop.”

We spent more time teaching him the chorus of Yankee Doodle. Then made a game of waking up Flynne by using the xylophone stick inside the piano. It was snowing through the morning, but above freezing. So we ate our sandwich from GS25 that we didn’t eat yesterday for lunch. Nice big snowflakes outside. Then was turning to rain. More doctor visits, then some math on paper. I wrote out the numbers, and he was copying them down. He’s really into writing really large on the paper now. I then wrote out the names of the Puffin Rock characters and we talked about how they were spelled. We played the Cookie Monster game (without the iPad) and then, confusingly, both of us were Flynne.

We decided to actually head outside in the afternoon, despite the rain. Before we left, he had really gotten into the “What five years old can’t do?” game, where I make up something that a five-year old (he was pretending he was five) can’t do, then he does it…climb on the table, play the xylophone, etc. That continued on the bike with things like sing Yankee Doodle, sing Itsy Bitsy Spider. We headed over to the library. We found three Spot books and three Biscuit books we hadn’t read, and a book with children’s songs (called Yankee Doodle). We went upstairs and read them. Spot books first, then the Biscuit ones, then the songbook. He was struggling to keep his voice down, but doing okay. Read a few of the books multiple times, and he worked on the songbook by himself. He then found No, David! on the ground and wanted to read that. It was in Korean, but pretty easy, and we translated parts of it. Read it a couple times, but then August started to get restless. Rolling around on the floor, climbing on the table, wanting to play “Tell me to not do something” etc. But he didn’t want to leave and wanted to keep reading No, David! But would then get distracted after two pages. I think maybe he didn’t really want to go back outside in the wet and cold.

But eventually he relented and agreed to go to Cafe Tolerance (wasn’t interested in the art museum play area, which was probably packed anyway) and didn’t get too upset (although he SAID he couldn’t handle it). Put the books away and headed out. We started walking towards the stream, but there was a cold, wet wind in our face. I asked if he wanted to continue into it, or head home, and he agreed to face the wind.

We made it to Cafe Tolerance. He walked up the stairs and found a metal bar on the railing that was broken. Then had to test all of them. Took off our shoes, and after choosing his mango and pineapple juice boxes he ran off while I ordered. He came back telling me he knew where he wanted to sit and that there weren’t any people. He had chosen the short table. I managed to fit myself in there after my coffee was ready.

I did some work and he did TodoMath. He needed to go to the toilet, so we went and did that, and the woman working there gave him a couple pieces of candy which went in my pocket and he forgot about. She also asked his name when we got there, and remembered it at the end and said goodbye to him. Anyway, close to 5 I started suggesting he go home. But he climbed on my lap and was then drawing letters, then squiggly lines, then shapes with lines coming off of them on my iPad. He said “I made the tail of a smarkamork.”

We got home at 5:30. I had been talking to the principal who has a mandolin for sale, and Carly had brought it home. August spotted the case and was intrigued. Carly opened it, and he was hooked. They played with it for a minute, then he and I played with it for quite awhile. He totally forgot about nursing and dinner for a long time. I needed to go to the grocery store to get us things like fruit, and eventually he remembered nursing. But first they continued to play with the mandolin together. August kept saying “Mama doesn’t know what this part is…” Or “Mama doesn’t know how to…” and then he or I would demonstrate. I headed to the pink building.

Came home and had some dinner, and August was finishing up his. Carly gave him a bath, and then we played with the mandolin again for a few minutes before taking him to bed. He was asleep at 7:45.

 

Waving for mama: 

Waking up Flynne: 

Library: 

Cafe Tolerance: 

A tail: 

Mandolin: 

He woke up at 6:40 as Carly was going out the door. She nursed him, then he ran out and lay down on the warm floor. I lay down next to him, and he played with “Baba’s shiny shell” and asked why it was broken. He got up and played some piano. He was playing and singing the first two lines of Yankee Doodle, has those down, and is working through the third line of the verses, but pretty much has that down as well. We ended up on the piano for quite awhile, and took out the metal sort again and played it with the xylophone stick. He also pretended to play on the now silent piano and sang most of our verses of Yankee Doodle.

Eventually we put it back together and washed our hands. Talked about Doug some reading again, but ended up doing math on the paper with blue berries and a headstand on the “Nearly Headless ghost.” When doing subtraction he was hiding the blueberries down his shirt. At first he said they might be ticklish, but decided they were just cold. The black marker was running out, so he said “Maybe we should just use crayons.” We did a bit more math then read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Goid, Very Bad Day. “Let’s go back to the hating…I don’t like other people kissing.” “I’m pretending…I think I’ll move to…”

He played some TodoMath. There was an update that had new activities about number lines and digit places. We worked on those, and then on a general counting/grouping one. He went through the highest level on that one, then declared: “I did the hardest one and it got easier!” He was also working on multiplication ones. He was getting down both the times 11 and times 1 time tables, and for other numbers he was asking me for the answers, but getting good practice writing the digits clearly so the app would recognize them.

He went to the piano and started to add in some bass notes with the left hand on his own to Yankee Doodle. Had some more Cheerios, exercised, then he wanted to sing all of Yankee Doodle. We did that, then I took a shower. He was playing TodoMath when I went in, Metamorphabet when I came out. We had fun vacuuming up the village in ‘V’, pretending they were talking. Ate some crackers and peanut butter, then he wanted to work on the chorus of Yankee Doodle on the piano, although we didn’t do much.

I laid his pajamas on the bed after changing him, and put the socks in so they looked like feet. He then had the idea of using the “friends” for hands, and we added Bluie as the head. Looked pretty cool.

Something got us started talking about the concept of ‘places’ (I think we were joking about the ‘move to Australia’ line from the Alexander book), and he wanted me to list more and more places. I listed ‘Sweden’ and he asked “Why Sweeten?” No, Sweden.” I said “Bangor” and he thought that was funny and needed help saying it: “ng…you haven’t heard that sound before.” I reminded him of ‘song’, ‘thing’. I mentioned ‘England’ and said that it was where we got married, and he asked “Why mama dada get married?”

We didn’t leave until just after noon, as he again kept coming up with things to do before we left. He really wanted an eye exam, so did that. His teeth needed more brushing, so he let me do that. He wanted to sing the “Dawn Chorus” song from Puffin rock, so we did that. He did a headstand, then claimed he was tired and crawled under the rocking chair for awhile. I finally dragged him out and got all his clothes on. He wanted to sing more Yankee Doodle: “Let’s sing the funny ones…of Yankee Doodle…I went nigh to one myself…that’s a funny one.” He basically has the first 7 or 8 verses of Yankee Doodle entirely memorized on his own and sings them by himself.

Nice sunny day today. A slight cold breeze, but not like the cold wind of yesterday. We drew more gawkers today, for some reason, including a guy that basically stared at him on the train and kept calling him a ‘doll’ long after we had acknowledged him and said thanks. A woman asked his age, and he and I ended up discussing the ‘why’ of the Korean versus American ages again. When it came around to saying he had been ‘zero’ in American age, he asked “There was no Zinnie?” and seemed to find it hard to believe that there was a time that Zinnie didn’t exist: “No baby?” He then was sounding out Korean signs on the train and asking me to translate them.

At Children’s Grand Park we got some kimbap and a sandwich. Would only eat the kimbap today. As we were walking to the stairs, he said “It’s uncomfortable.” I asked what, and he said “The penis.” So we stopped and got him out of the backpack. He then picked up the bag from GS25 and carried it up the stairs, and all the way out to where he played on the last remaining ice in front of the park. He also pretended to spray paint on everything (including another guy who stopped to watch) and was doing some mystery task that he never fully explained to me.

We went to the botanical garden for lunch again. We sat on the other end (actually the spot we once ate lunch at sometime last year). He was eating full bites of kimbap, including the seaweed today. I liked that development. The less I have to rip it apart the better. He wanted to take photos, so used his camera. Then he wanted to make blurry photos of him running again, like we did a few days back, so we did that. “I want dada to do the pattern.” He was referring to the 11 times table. At 10 he asked me to keep going, so I did them all the way to 20. I asked if he wanted to save the sandwich. Big discussion of ‘save’ followed and he wanted me to keep listing all the different things that can be saved. He signed ‘more’ when he asked for more, so of course I had to keep going.

We went out via the ramp, which was open today, and he skipped down it, saying “Wheee!” He had been acting tired on and off, so definitely needed to try a nap. Went to the bathroom, and he was about to use the little urinal when I mentioned that it was actually the first one he had been scared off. He then remembered he was still scared of it. Oops. We tried the normal toilet in that room, but he was hiding his face from the urinal and couldn’t go. We went out to a regular stall and wanted me to go in with him and close the door. Then he could go.

Played in the wheelchair area in the theater and sat together in the sun, then got walking at 2:26. Took awhile to get to sleep, but the first several minutes of him singing Yankee Doodle probably didn’t help. He was asleep 2:49 to 3:50 when I finally woke him up. I had started trying to wake him up at 3:35, but he just seemed so tired. Still didn’t want to open his eyes at 3:50, until I asked “Do you want me to give you an eye exam?” “Yes” and up popped his head. He sat on floor for a few minutes.

He agreed to going to the playground. After all this time I still don’t understand the busyness schedule, as it seems to have little correlation to the school schedule or holidays. Today the whole park was busy the whole time, mainly with groups of elementary school boys, not in school uniforms, but with what seemed to be teachers. But no actual school groups, and also lots of families and random teenagers. Anyway, the playground was packed. Prospects for a swing were nil, as there were lines. I suggested we walk over to the hill to what remained of the Adventureland Playground area.

He agreed so we walked up and over. Busier than usual, but one of the 4 swings opened up, and he was able to use it as long as he wanted. Did that for 15 or 20 minutes. Then I suggested we go over to the walking path as he hadn’t been on that in months. He was intrigued, and agreed. We went over and he had a lot of fun trying to balance on the big wooden bumps. He kept saying “ooftuh”, which is something he has started saying. Eventually I had to coax him away from that, as it was already past 5.

We walked by the area where they tore down the other play structures. Basically, the Adventureland area had 4 separate play areas. The
y tore down 3, and have started rebuilding the biggest one. But that hasn’t been touched since early or mid December. Two months. The two others that were torn down are simply empty. You can walk through them, but there is garbage on the ground from the demolition. So that is why the other playground is so busy. Crazy. These two playgrounds were in good shape. If they aren’t replacing them they could still be up, getting used.

Anyway, he played with chucks of bricks and rocks. Could tell he was really getting into that, so I told him we could come back here next time. He then found colorful plastic pieces from the destroyed toys, and started picking them up: “I want to take this home.” He ended up with nuts, bolts, plastic pieces, and a piece of wood. He’s already taken to finding beads and putting them in the little pockets of the backpack whenever he finds them (found 2 or 3 today). He carried his ‘treasures’ a bit, then agreed when I suggested he put them in the backpack. He was also sure that Carly would like them.

We stood most of the way on the train, which was fine. Told two Puffin Rock stories (the Flynn ones), finishing he second one after he got a seat. We were home just after 6. They nursed on the bed, then played there. He showed Carly his treasures. He then was counting, and skipping random numbers, which impressed Carly that he knew what he was doing. He said “Who needs 16?” It was the line from the Alexander book and August had been doing it all day, skipping different numbers as he counted. He then recited the 11 times tables all the way to 10 for her. Several times. Then went and played and sang the first verse of Yankee Doodle for her.

I got his dinner together, which was going fine, but then he bit his tongue, right at the end. Nursed, then did some TodoMath. He went to the number line activity and insisted on working through the highest levels. Carly got out the measuring cups so I could help him understand the fractions one.

Carly asked what to do with the pile of ‘treasures’ on the floor. I talked to him about throwing way the dirty pieces, and anything that he didn’t have an idea for. He asked ‘Why?’ several times, but seemed to agree, as he studied each piece, and ended up throwing all of them away on his own.

I gave him a bath, and we played the Cookie Monster game, with me giving him letters, and him choosing letters to put in the words. He was doing quite well with it. Washed his hair, as we are now on our Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday schedule. Much easier to remember than our previous every-third-day schedule.

After that Carly took a shower. At first he didn’t want her to go, but I convinced him to read a book. We read for over an hour. Almost every Frog and Toad story we have, several two or three times. A couple of Biscuit books on the iPad (Biscuit, then Biscuit’s Snowy Day a few times). The Pete the Cat Gets a Pet book (in paper). Then the Pete the Cat book on the iPad (where he is a knight) a couple times – first time we’ve read that.

Finally, he said he was ready for sleep and Carly took him in and he was asleep just after 9.

Photos. Bluie Zinnie: 

Under the chair: 

Carrying the food: 

Lunch: 

Calm: 

After his nap: 

Swings: 

Balancing: 

Desolation where once there was playgrounds: 

He came out at 7:22. Let me pick him up and hold him for a couple minutes, then we went and took off his diaper and went and read a bunch of books. We read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Monster Party, How Things Grow, Biscuit Meets the Class Pet, and started Sir Cedric. Read the email from Carly where she told him not to sit on Nearly Headless Nick, so he had to sit and do a headstand on Nearly Headless Nick: “I’m being crazy on Nearly Headless Nick.” He worked on Yankee Doodle and said he’d work on the “Stuck a feather…” line after breakfast. We had cereal for breakfast: a small bowl with bananas for him, a large bowl with strawberries for me.

We then worked on Yankee Doodle together, exercised, and then did surgeries: removed a couple of things from his ears, then we both did heart surgery. He went and wrote some numbers on the smart board. He did some art while I showered, then some letter tracing. He was still hungry so had more banana in Cheerios. Played more Yankee Doodle and I talked about how the third line ‘walked’ up and down the keyboard. He said “Walking, like this.” and got up and walked across the floor.

I had bought a pair of underwear at Home Plus, but the security tag hadn’t been removed. So last night I used a screwdriver to break it apart. Inside was a little spring that I set on the table to show him. He found it and asked what it was. I told him it was a spring. He said “Not like the weather spring”. Ah, yes. ‘Spring’ has two meanings.

Thought we were pretty much ready to go, but AUgust had two activities to do before that. The first was eye doctor time. I checked his eyes, then drew an eye chart for him and gave him an eye test. I had to keep drawing smaller letters, but finally we got to the point where he had to start leaning forward on the reading area to read them. He then drew an eye chart for me and did a pretty good job, once he figured out how to hold it up so it faced me, of testing me.

Then he wanted to do math. We did some multiplication on paper, drawing out groups of dots to represent the equations. Then he wanted to to 7 x 11. I said that was too big, but would do a smaller problem. He got upset about this. When he calmed down he went back to the paper and wrote ‘7 x 12’. When I said no to that one though he luckily settled for something smaller.

We did one last problem then got going. Some singing on the way, but he was looking tired when we got to the station and on the train was looking sleepy. But then he said ”I want 7 times 11 on Paper.” When he was sad I had suggested we do it on the iPad on the train. He hadn’t said anything then, but obviously remembered. So we did that. Over the river he stood up to look out. I spotted a seagull flying, and he wanted to see it, but not sure he did. Ours was the next stop. I hadn’t given him enough warning that he needed to put the iPad away, apparently, as once we got to the station he really wanted to do some more. He had been playing Marco Polo Ocean and made the ship and submarine. We sat on a bench and he spent a minute making the octopus scene, then was perfectly happy to put it away and get going. He was also looking tired still. I put his hat on, and he pulled it down over his eyes. I said that would be good for a nap, and he pretended to sleep.

It was a windy walk to the mall. August was quiet yet again. H was planning on him not taking a nap, but he kept looking and acting tired, so was surprised when he actually didn’t. We stopped and got some kimbap and a cheese sandwich to go with our lunch. In the mall we sat on our now usual bench and ate lunch. He started with one half of the cheese sandwich. We switched at one point, and he said “This one’s great.” But then he found the one piece of tomato in the sandwich and ate it all at once. It was too much, and he spit it out.

We went to the aquarium and put the backpack in the locker then went to the bathroom. He heard a flush and said “That wasn’t so bad”. When it came time to wipe him, he made sure I used a dry wipe, saying “I like the dry wipe; I don’t like the wet wipe.”

We had a nice long (close to two hour) visit at the aquarium. He wanted to climb on the megalodon mouth statue thing, then when I asked if he could find the cowfish he looked at a couple of the round tanks and found it. A woman from Oklahoma started talking to me by the squirrels, and August was a bit rude and started saying “Go away”. He let the fish nibble his finger. He ran down the ramps in the Amazon area, although stopped to look at the pirarucu skeleton. He likes all the bones, and asked if it had hips. He fell flat on one of the ramps, but got up and was okay. Didn’t spend a lot of time at the touch area, but really liked the large clams, which I don’t think were there before. Holding the big spiral shells, he said “These shells are big so Bernie would like them.” Spent time with the electric and moray eels, and paused for a snack by the crustaceans again. I read the sign about crustaceans having joints and feet, so he had to go look. We also saw the manatee, etc. eating lettuce again. He didn’t seem scared of the dark moving walkway part through the big aquarium this time. Instead, he kneeled and lay down on it. He kind of sang and conducted to the music that was playing, then sang Itsy Bitsy.

At the gift shop he looked around a bit, then decided that the big seal stuffed animals looked sad. So he spent a couple minutes hugging them and rubbing his face and head on them. Very cute.

We went to the bathroom, then had a little snack there, then went back to our bench out in the mall and ate more of our lunch before heading home.

We were home at 4:40. We ate the last of the kimbap and Carly was home about 5:10. He immediately ran to her saying “My hands are not cold.” But then he was patient and let her get settled in before wanting to nurse. We were asking him questions about the day while he nursed and he would nod or shake his head. He played Metamorphabet and ate a little with Carly. She gave him a bath and he was incredibly silly. It started with thinking of rhyming words, but led to a lot of nonsense. They read Manana Iguana before he went to sleep a little after 7:30.

 

Photos. Book time: 

Pretending to sleep: 

Contemplating his sandwich: 

Aquarium. Using the hand dryer on his own:

Pirarucu skeleton: 

Moray eels: 

On the moving walkway: 

Hug: 

Kiss: 

He was up at 7:30. After nursing he had Suddenly, and can now read much of it on his own and was using it to scare Carly. Skyped with Cherie and Chuck. They told us about the storm they had had and August read them part of Suddenly and played piano and xylophone. He and I then had a good long music time. I introduced him to the G major scale and he got into comparing the piano and xylophone keyboards (the xylophone starts at G, the piano C). And we played Ants Go Marching together, with him on drum and me on piano. He wanted to watch the marble machine so we did that. He wanted a symphony, and a new one, so we watched Dvorak’s ninth.

He then wanted to play GarageBand. While he was doing that I went and took a shower. Carly started to vacuum, and he didn’t want to hear it, so he closed the door on her. Carly headed to the grocery store. He hid his feet under the rug and then said he was a worm and pretended to be a worm. He then wanted to rest on the reading area and joked “And nurse with dada.” We read Peekaboo Sophie two or three times, then Skyped with my parents. He was playing with the blocks, and making towers. When one fell my mom said “Timber!” which he thought was amusing. He then joked “Timber is a kind of mucus on a slug.” We were discussing his birthday, and I asked about our conversation last night. He said “I want a play date.” for his birthday. He then pretended to eat cake and other “sick things”. Carly then got home.

I made us a teriyaki tofu sandwich. He ate a few bites of tofu before it was cooked. He sang Yankee Doodle by himself and played with the words “a-rhymed with Cap and gooding.” They nursed and read Suddenly. He then got silly, and was walking around and looking places and saying “I can’t see a thing; everything is mistaritis.” He then made up other words. I gave him an eye exam, but nothing would work: “Everything is still blurry…I need to go to a different place that gives you an eye exam.” Did that three or four times.

Carly made the fettuccini alfredo, then we all got ready to head out for a walk with him on the bike. We headed up to Madeul. He saying Ants Go Marching. We walked up and around the stadium. He saw the planet-like balls in a little play area place and pointed and asked “Is there superglue on those balls?” He demonstrated for Carly how he can pedal on his own, then we stopped at the exercise equipment and played on the one that goes left and right. Continued on down to the playground. We joked that the swings were taken by invisible people: Carly sat on Santa Clause and August sat on Nearly Headless Nick (from Harry Potter) and thought that was really funny. We ended up chanting random words while he was on the swing, which was funny. He was quite good with it, coming up with words like ‘tree trunk’.

Did some trading on the swing and a little standing up, then headed home at 3:30. He hurried to get his mittens on so he could nurse. After that, he wanted to do everything: wanted me to fill his water, to share food with Carly, to read Berenstain Bears, and to write on the smartboard thing. He ended up at the piano and on his own started to combine Yankee Doodle and Are You Sleeping. He played Are You Sleeping and sang the words to Yankee Doodle to the tune. Very creative.

He was then on the couch with me and wanted to see pictures of cochleas and then damaged ear drums. Did that a bit, then Carly took over as I wasn’t a fan of that. They ended up watching videos of heart operations and who knows what else. He and I then played in the parlor, and used his doctor stuff to first inspect his damaged eardrums, then perform surgeries. I did a couple of ear surgeries on him, he did a lung surgery on me, and I removed a Duplo that had ended up in his lung.

We read a little Winnie the Pooh on the iPad, then he ate mushrooms and zucchini and nursed. He got the flashlight, which we had used in our surgeries, to shine in Carly’s eyes. He ate more noodles and Carly gave him a bath. He was asleep around 7:30.

Photos: 

Skyping and towers: 

Smile: 

Dental exam: 

Swings: 

Pointing at the ball in the tree: 

Prepped for lung surgery: 

Upside down: 

Last night he sat up at 11:50 for a minute but lay back down and went to sleep on his own. He got up at 7:30. I was up, and watched him walk out the door and silently down the hall. He then surprised Carly when she closed the refrigerator to find him standing there. The nursed, and when I came out to the living room a few minutes later he was putting objects on the table and counting them, doing +1 math. Got to 23 and said “That’s all”. Then they started subtracting things. Carly got him dressed, and he said he didn’t like the “Korean bumps” in his pants. That comes from last weekend when we were getting rid of clothes, and we mentioned that he never wore the looser pants we had been given, because he prefers the tighter Korean pants. So when we put two pairs of pants on him they sometimes bunch up in the legs until we straighten them out. Thus, the ‘Korean bumps’.

Back out in the living room, he typed messages to gramma. He asked what their names were, and he typed messages like ‘Hi Vicki’ and ‘Hi Randy’. I went to take a shower, and he continued to type messages and math problems to her. When I came out he was helping Carly prepare the recycling to go downstairs. She took that down, then they Skyped with Cherie, then Vivian and Cassie, then Cherie and Chuck. Carly went into the parlor when he was playing piano, and he followed her, dragging the piano in there. He then went and got the kalimba to play for them as well. He was doing a lot of math with them and watched Vivian dance.

I made the curry dip to take with us later. He and I spent a long time doing math on paper, and using the blue cubes. He asked about multiplication, so I was introducing that and he was starting to understand the grouping involved. After we were all done he wanted me to play music with him. He was working more on Yankee Doodle. He ate a bunch of the cucumber I had sliced, and one or two carrots. Carly then scrambled an egg for him with mushrooms. He then went around the house hugging things: tables, chairs, toys, etc. Finally, we brushed our teeth, got ready, and left just before noon. He decided he wanted to take a banana, and was hugging the banana as we left.

On the way to the bus he was singing and putting drum noises in his songs. He’s done a bass drum ‘boom’ before, but today added in his snare drum and triangle noises. He was getting warm sitting in the sun in the backpack on the bus, but we made it.

At the Meyers’ I explained to August that this was where the girls babysat him that one time, but that they now live in Israel and we’d see them in a few months. August was the only little kid there, so they had got some play dough and puzzles for him. We hung out for awhile, then I got roped into a game of Energy Empires (I placed second), which took a long time. Carly and August played with actual Legos, play dough, and he did a complete puzzle. He came over to our game and really liked the money. He took some of Dan’s money while he was gone, then joked about Dan going “ballistic”. Everyone, adults and kids alike, were impressed by him saying that, so he kept saying it. We also ate plenty of food, and he stole a cookie off of the plate of one of the other boys. He particularly liked the pretzels. He was getting hyper near the end, and wanted me to lift him up to touch the ceiling. We also did ‘tunktunktunk’ from Creepy Carrots and he said all the other people were creepy carrots.

We left close to 4. We ran into Jeff and his two kids outside the building. August and I told him we had seen him playing trumpet on YouTube (that first symphony we watched). August was intrigued by Cora for a few minutes, but then said he was tired and wanted to go home.

We walked home (him in the backpack). August sang Ants Go Marching…we got all the way up to the 30s in the verses.

We were home after 4:30. He put on his nursing mittens to nurse, then played piano with the mittens on. He got the Suddenly book and said mama didn’t like it, so he chased her with it, reading it to her. He is reading full pages. He played TodoMath, and impressed me with how he moved through the sorting activities. We did some Arabic, then he wanted to read No Girls Allowed, but changed his mind and went out to Carly. He took a long time in the bath with me. When I said it was time to wash he had his hands on the side of the tub and said “No!” and brought his head down and whacked it on the side of the tub. We got through the washing with him upset, then got him out and ready for bed. He was asleep at 7:50.

Photos: 

Hugging the banana: 

Game: 

Puzzle: 

Headed home. Our shadow: 

Nursing mittens: 

Crying at 7:35. Sat in on the bed together for five minutes. He calmed down and wanted to go on the toilet. He sat here for a long time, but wouldn’t talk about why he had been sad. As we put on his clothes, he had me pretend to be mama. Then he was anpuffin and checking the apartment for seagulls. He said he was hungry and I said there was some banana bread left since we didn’t eat it as a snack yesterday. He said “We did in the National History Museum”, remembering two days ago. He sat on the floor playing with a Duplo kid, telling it to turn around. He ate his banana bread and we took a selfie for our morning photo to Carly. He played piano – Are You Sleeping is pretty darn smooth now.

Taught me to write letters, and he wrote a cursive little k. He then said “Me start a word.” and drew letters, with a blank in them, like Cookie Monster. We did that for quite awhile, mixing it up and taking turns. He spoke like Cookie Monster: “Me never seen those ones.”

We read Skip to My Lou, Jack and Jill, and The Going to Bed Book. He was still hungry, so I made a mango banana vanilla smoothie. He said “I’m scared of the blender” and cement in the parlor and closed the door. He did some Chinese on his iPad. We drank our smoothie, then read books in the reading area: Suddenly and Fox in Sox. That reminded me of the Dr. Seuss books on the iPad that we haven’t read in a long time. We read Marvin K. Mooney, Oh Say Can You Say, and What Was I Afraid of? For the last he spent several pages clicking on the words one by one and repeating them.

I gave him the last of the smoothie and we did some math with the books on the table. We exercised and we worked on DragonBox Elements, making triangles. I had found a new cartoon that he might like called Mouk, about a couple of animals that travel around the world by bicycle. I put that on and we watched a bit together, then he watched it while I showered. I don’t think he made it more than 3 minutes in, as he kept going back to the beginning to watch it, kind of like he does with other videos.

We watched Marble Machine, then we skyped with my dad. My mom wasn’t there. August showed him the smart board Cookie Monster game, and also went and got the kalimba. We were getting hungry for lunch, but it took us awhile to get out of the house. He played some GarageBand, then talked about his esophagus and cochlea while sitting on the toilet.

We took the bike and headed over to Home Plus for lunch. August wanted the same udon soup again, so we got that, and also the mandu. We enjoyed that. When August was full he lay down on the floor for awhile while I kept eating. He then told me he was ready to go to the park. I told him I’d take a few more bites, then he started counting them. I told him five, then got to turn the tables on him when I actually took ten, getting extra bites. Also, he’s started picking up the phrase “Can handle”, as in he ‘can handle the hot soup’.

We rode down to 국화어린이공원, or what we call the Writing Playground because it is where we write in the sand. He instantly wanted to do the ‘step Q’ game, then I was writing words like mooka mook, periwinkle, and Israel. Went on the swings for awhile, then back to writing. He wanted me to tell him not to do everything. When he would step on words he would tell me “be mad”. Back on the swings, I ordered him to stop moving at the top of his swinging, etc. and he found that hilarious. I also did the alien noises from Sesame Street and he found that funny. He got off the swings and said “I have a few things (to do).” I gave him a kiss and he asked “You a kissing machine?” (Referring to the book Hug Machine).

We played on and around the play structure a lot. He went down the slide several times, and I lay at the bottom of it in the sun for awhile.

We then went to the other end of the park, which has the weird circular climbing wall that is more ramp than wall. He ‘climbed’ on it a bit then wanted a Puffin Rock story and I told the Bernadette story. He was then Baba. He then started the “What happen if you run?”, where I was supposed to say a consequence or something bad that would happen if he ran down the ramp, but of course he would then run down.

He heard one of those moving trucks with the lifts that take things up the side of apartment buildings and he didn’t like it. He said he was scared of it. He had me hold him for awhile and said he wanted to go home. I set him down, but he sort of covered his ears for awhile. He wanted to sing the If I Go song, so we did that and expanded it, then we pretended to have pudding. The lift went again and he said he could handle it this time. He then wanted me to talk about things he could and couldn’t handle: “ask me handle things.” He agreed he couldn’t handle losing the cracker on the bus the previous day.

Playing around the little structure in the middle, I made the ‘Tunktunktunk’ sound from Creepy Carrots. He really squealed about it and I asked “Is is scary?” He said yes, so I said I’d stop, but then he said “Scare me dada!”

We left at 4:10. A good two hours spent in the park. Could have stayed longer, but it was cooling off. He talked about his hands being cold and said “Remember how mama feels about cold hands.” He then surprised me by pedaling the bike faster and farther than he has before. Even down a couple of the back streets.

We were home at 4:40. We watched a little Mouk but didn’t make it much further. He wanted to take a photo with my camera, so I got out Carly’s old phone, which she had charged for him. He liked the idea of his own camera, and that it was easier to hold, and took several photos. Carly got home and they nursed and he was falling asleep. He was then writing on the paper and playing the Cookie Monster game all on his own.

I went over to the pink building to do some grocery shopping. I came home and Carly gave him a bath. He was asleep at 7:30.

 

Photos. To mama: 

Lunch: 

Park. Step Q: 

Down the slide: 

Climbing, of sorts: 

Afraid of the lift thing: 

Silly: 

Camera: 

He was up at 6:52 with a dry diaper. I was surprised, as he had said “Want to go to the toilet” sometime during the night, but had fallen back to sleep. Had some banana bread, then we read seven books together, some, like Suddenly, a few times. Had some more banana bread, then music time. Improvising on Are You Sleeping and remembered how to play the song in F sharp.

Read Doc McStuffins in the reading area, then walked around saying “I don’t see anything. No animals here.” as he looked around the room. Confusing, as I didn’t know where it came from.

I rested on the reading area, as I was developing a headache. He wrote on the etch-a-sketch sort of board, then did TodoMath. I got up and he copied skeleton words, such as humerus, on paper. Did some exercise, and he found the pieces of the stamp pad roller. We put it together, and did some stamp pad art. We had some Cheerios, then read more Suddenly and Peekaboo Sophie. Then practiced lowercase letters and Hangeul and figure 8s on that smart board thing.

He then wanted to write Chinese for real (not just make it up). So we searched through a few apps, and found a couple that show you how to write different characters. He was tracing Chinese while I took a shower. He was still hungry, so we made a couple scrambled eggs with mushrooms. Played some piano, and took turns conducting. He wanted to watch some orchestra, so did that. He let me brush his teeth – he pretended to be Oona, so it was her bill. He then ‘taught’ me how to write letters, then played piano and I brushed his hair.

He saw me start to measure things (Carly had found the dimensions of the largest boxes at the post office) to see if we could send them, and August immediately wanted to make sure the piano would fit. It will.

We left just after noon. Walked up a few blocks and caught the 1139 bus. As we went over the stream, August was looking out and said “Nice statue”, referring to the cone-ish shaped statue there. We watched the driver, and he went quiet. He even had his head resting back, and I think he was close to falling asleep. But then we got off the bus and he perked up a bit. I walked a couple blocks to the park, but when we got there at 12:45 he didn’t want to get out. He agreed to walking and falling asleep, so we went walking again. 13 minutes. But we sang all we know of Yankee Doodle, then he sang all twenty vereses of Ants Go Marching (he knows almost all the words himself). He even kept going past 20. Think we were up to 24, with me making up new lines for the ant, when we got back to the park. Clearly he wasn’t attempting to fall asleep.

But back at the park he still wanted to stay in the backpack and sleep. But then he said he needed to use the bathroom. We did that, then sat on a bench and ate lunch. Actually, first he did a long chomp attack on me. Then while eating there were these women at the next bench over really trying to get his attention. At one point he went over and gently did a chomp attack on one of them. He walked on the lines of bricks. Carly and I have had some odd interactions with the women who frequent this park (the woman who stared at her breastfeeding, the woman with the bubble wrap), and today was no exception. One of the women came over and was chasing him – he was running away and I had to shield him. She then wanted to give him a piggy back ride. As that was happening, I had our lunch and stuff spread out on a bench a couple feet from us. There were plenty of open benches. Two other women came over and insisted on taking our bench.

We escaped across the park to the playground. They swings were being used most of the time by older kids coming and going. August could have easily gotten a turn, but because he was tired he didn’t want to. And then he started to notice when the swings were being used and would hide from them by covering his eyes. We wrote with our stick in the sand instead, and he started drawing Qs with hats. Absolutely no idea where he got that. He hasn’t drawn a hat on any other letter, and he drew several Qs this way. We drew some Hebrew, then he started to say he wanted to go home. But he found some big pieces of styrofoam. Played with those, then he wanted to throw them away. We walked over to the bathrooms and did that.

He was then being Baba, learning to swim, and we wandered across the middle of the park to kind of the small circular hill area that is bisected by two paths that cut through the hill, meaning you can kind of hide around it easily. We played hide and seek for awhile, then he pretended to be Baba swimming again. At one point I found a pretty big shell discarded in the dirt, so that was his “Shiny shell”. A woman came up and gave him what I thought was a cookie. Rather, she insisted on giving me a whole big container of this cookie-looking things. She kept saying kabong (backpack), even though it wouldn’t have fit in the small backpack I was wearing and that she kept patting. Also, it turned out not to be cookies, but cookie sized and shaped hard candies, kind of like a candy cane. I let August lick on one for a couple minutes. His tongue and lips were nice and red. I gave him one more minute, and he was thrilled to sneak 10 or so extra seconds out of me by running away so I had to catch him.

We tried one more time for a nap, walking in the little streets again between the park and the bus stop. But he just kept insisting I sing, and not the sleepy songs. He would get upset if I didn’t sing. So we headed to the bus. We got seats on the bus, and he was eating crackers next to me. He was so tired that when he dropped one and it went in a crack below the seat in front of us he couldn’t handle not getting it back. He cried and wailed and kept asking me to find it because he wanted to eat it. He wouldn’t eat any of the other crackers we had. Luckily, just a few more minutes on the bus. After a couple, he said “I want to cuddle with dada” I held him and he put his head on my shoulder, but still kept sobbing until we got off the bus.

He calmed down, got in the backpack, and fell asleep after a few minutes. I got over to Cafe Sarang Bang, only to find that it is closed, it appears, until June. Luckily, it was a warm day. We sat out on the benches near there (humorously, the same benches where a woman once insisted it was too hot to have him sleeping outside when it was in the 80s and it was shady – i kept expecting someone to tell me it was too cold for him to sleep outside this time, but it was deserted now). He slept from 3:30 until I started to wake him up at 4:05.

We made it home at 4:20. I got him out and he just lay on his stomach on the floor. Wouldn’t respond to me, but I put the Pirates of the Caribbean orchestra piece on his iPad and he got up and watched.

He then wanted pictures of punctured eardrums. This is what it means when they say that parenting changes you; I would have never looked at such photos before, but here I was. He then did some letter tracing, and Carly was home at 5:30.

They nursed and read Doc McStuffins. August insisted on her saying ‘BFF’ as it said in the book, when she just wanted to say ‘best friend’. August mentioned pudding to her, and she asked how he knew about pudding. I finally remembered we had talked about it at the children’s museum when we saw someone else eating it. August still needs to try it (I also mentioned cinnamon rolls to him the other day, and had to show him photos – we will take care of introducing him to cinnamon rolls in Chelan this summer).

He was being loud, and said “Mama’s cochlea will hurt.” He and I read Kipper’s A to Z, then had rice and soup and banana for dinner. He watched Puffin Rock as Carly cut his hair. She gave him a popsicle, and he asked how long it would take to melt before he could eat it (they won’t come out of the containers at first) but asking “Will it take 15 Puffin Rock episodes?” Which I thought was a very creative and personally relevant measure of time for him.

I gave him a bath. He ate his popsicle in there,
then we invented a ‘If I Go’ song together, then he sang a good nonsense ABC song. Carly then took a shower, and August was asking about snare drums, so we watched snare drum videos. He went and got his drum and was beating it to wake me up, then was pretending to play timpani and other instruments.

We headed to the bed. He wanted a nest, and went out to the parlor and got the blanket there and dragged it in to me. He was being quite hyper. Finally, Carly nursed him a little before 9. However, he came out to me a little before 9:30. We ate a banana and sang the If I Go song. He then said it was sleepy time, and went back in to bed at 9:45. 

 

Photos. Stamp roller: 

Piano time: 

Danggogae Park. Q with a hat: 

Styrofoam: 

Candy: 

Hard to wake up: 

Haircut: 

Drum: 

When he woke up in the middle of the night, I heard him say “Is it a face washing day?” He got up again at 5:50. Carly nursed and he fell back to sleep until 7:24. He came out and saw my iPad and said “I want to do something.” First had him go to the bathroom and we got banana bread for breakfast. Ate that, then he played Artie’s World and I started getting ready to go. An earlier departure as we had more distance to cover. He announced he was going to work on Yankee Doodle and he went and played piano. We did that together.

He wanted more banana bread so we got another slice, with butter. He watched the marble video, then switched to Chinese children’s songs and was singing along. At one point he announced “I want to learn Korean.” I clarified he wanted Korean, not Chinese, but before we did anything he went back to the Chinese songs. But a couple minutes later he said “I want to learn some Korean.” We listened to some Korean while he played the shapes app, then did some exercise. He said “I want to learn how to draw a crescent.” So we went and did that on paper for a bit.

He was doing math when I went to take a shower. As I was finishing up, he came in asking “What this bone is?” He had opened the skeleton app. He walked back out and I called out to him ‘What letters does it say?’ He was then calling out letters. When I walked out, he had written ‘frontal bone’ on paper, quite nicely. He then copied down ‘humerus’ and ‘radius’ and ‘ulna’. Typed and wrote math problems and asked me to solve them. He’s starting to get some math rules down. He knows that a number minus itself is always zero. Today he was getting that a number minus a number one less is always one. And when doing a subtraction problem that leaves just the fingers on one hand up he knows the answer is 5 without counting them.

I saw that a fuller anatomy app was on sale, so got that. We then spent quite awhile with him on my lap, looking at things like blood vessels, intestines, stomach, appendix, etc. He then wanted to sing: “Pretend to be mama and sing Johnny Comes Marching Home. I don’t want the real words. I want Johnny to break the ear drum.” This started yesterday with Carly during his bath, as he wanted Johnny to break an ear drum (we’d been talking about ears and why he can’t actually touch the things in his ears).  “I want Johnny to break another new thing.”

“He’ll fall in the street and break his feet…fall of a cliff and break his humerus…get in a fix and break his appendix…and we’ll rush him to the hospital when Johnny comes marching home.”

Finally, we went to the piano for more Yankee Doodle playing.

We left at 10:35. He was doing art on Paper. Still in his single color phase. He painted one all black. He said “It looks like space…there people in there.” I asked “In space ships?” “Yeah,” he whispered.

He was singing Itsy Bitsy and pushing the loudness level. He adds drum sounds to some of his songs now, and was adding a loud “Boom!” at the end. He then started Yelling before getting off the train. He was then upset when I picked him up and he couldn’t step over the gap. We talked more about the yelling as we walked to the transfer.

As we we waited on the platform, two women came over and were bothering him while he was trying to eat some Larabar – first asking for some of his Larabar, then when he ignored one of the women, she went behind him and grabbed him from behind. He didn’t like that, and neither did I. The other woman told her friend to knock it off, and was saying something about father being right.

Next train was fine, and we went to CU and got one of the lunch tray things, a container of aloe and coconut fruit, an orange juice, and a hobang. It was the ‘vegetable’ hobang, but apparently that just meant the bread is green. We went and ate on a bench overlooking the lake by the National Museum.

As we were finishing, he found the little wooden chopsticks and wanted them. He then decided he wanted to carry them. As we walked, I asked if he wanted me to take them and he said “I’m carrying them all the way.” I let him walk up the stairs with him, but then had to take them away when he was running around with them, then wanted to walk on the ice with them. He was upset about that, so we headed inside. We stopped to read the sign for the children’s museum (in Korean).

We had about 40 minutes to play in the children’s museum for that session (12:40 to 1:20). First went to the bathroom, then we were grinding grain into flour using stones for a few minutes. He played with the blocks, then wandered around a bit. He walked into a space where they have big TV-sized touchscreens where you can color pictures. A girl was already using it, and he tried to touch the colors. They told him no, and he started to get upset. Held him for a couple minutes, then convinced him to climb on the little hills. Took his shoes and socks off and he did that. He figured out how to climb them on his own, and slide down. His first slide though he didn’t see the tunnel and fell a bit. Got to do just a minute of the drawing thing as we left when it was the end time for the session.

We were looking at another museum sign in the lobby, and Olivia and her mom saw us. They were going in the next session. August wanted his chopsticks again, and was carrying them around. We sat on a bench and ate the banana bread as a snack. We played the banana bread ingredients game at his request (where we list oops ingredients). I said something about Dada and Mama loving August, and Zinnie continued with a joke: “Zinnie loves Zinnie…that’s a Zinnie over there.” and pointed to an invisible person.

As we walked out he tried poking a bench cushion with the chopsticks. I wouldn’t allow that, so as we walked outside he tested everything out, saying “Can I poke this? Can I poke this?” Outside, I wanted to check out a space around the corner. He was going slow, still poking things on the ground, and I said I was going to walk ahead. He didn’t hear me, and asked “Whatcha talking about!?”

He said he was still hungry, so we sat on a big bench. He lay down on it and said “The bench smells good.” We ate the rest of our lunch, then he started pretending to be Baba and playing around. We left, walking east, and he continued to be Baba. This would last a long time. He played on some snow and ice by a planter, and held on the side of the planter and kicked his legs up. We continued on, with him doing a lot of running.

He would be a puffin for the next hour:

“The seagulls cut open their knees and have blood.” as he looked at drainage holes like the kind he tripped on.

“Baba found something.”

“Baba heading home.”

“Are there seagulls? Let me check.” as he pretended to use a telescope to look everywhere for seagulls.

“Baba’s painting.”

We got around to the other side of the lake and I pointed out a hillside that May and Oona would like to dig in. So he switched to Oona to dig puffin burrows. I asked if he wanted to go in the pagoda, and he asked if it was a puffin burrow. I said yes, so we went. There, we looked out at the fish, and he spent a lot of time lying on the floor. A girl gave him three Pringles, and he liked those.

We pretended to play music, and he gave me different instruments to play: “Now on guitar. That’s a guitar. It has a lot of strings.”

Finally, we headed home. Walked along the moving walkway holding the handle. He stopped being a puffin as he pretended to hold a sharp thing and run, then pretended be the police who would tell me to stop running with sharp things.

In the station, he was back to Oona again, and there were seagulls everywhere. He scared them off, saying “I have a loud drum, Seagull.” We were to the platform at 3:40.

All went smoothly from there and then the transfer to line 7 at Sangbong. The mistake was leaving him in the backpack. On the train we were si
nging Yankee Doodle, but then he stopped. I stopped a minute later. After that he said “More Yankee Doodle”. I started again, but then realized he was falling asleep. I tried to keep him awake, but it was a lost cause. He fell asleep, and slept from 4:30 to 4:58 when I woke him up at home. We watched the Pirates of the Caribbean orchestra piece a couple times, then the marble machine, then some Chinese songs. Carly was home at 5:15. She asked who he was today and he said “a cat”. And his name was “Monie”.

They nursed, and he ate soup with crackers and cheese and bread with me. He played piano for mama, then they painted. When he was done with that he arranged all the paint tubes in Xs. They nursed again, then he did some Hebrew with me, then was trying to make mama nervous in the chair. We read DocMcStuffins, then he pretended to have stinky breath and blow on us. Playing around with that, he knocked over the water left on the floor from painting. No casualties. I gave him a bath and washed his hair. He saying Ants go Marching and made up big ones:  “Billion by a billion…Wow! That’s a big number.” He pretended to play the double bassoon. He had squeaky feet after his bath, but no amount of oiling them fixed it, so I started to take the feet off and give him new ones. Alas, that didn’t work either, so I guess he is stuck with squeaky feet.

He wanted pictures of damaged eardrums, but we didn’t get to it this evening. He ran around with his water bottle in his mouth, knowing Carly had told him not to earlier. When Carly took it away he started crying. Time for bed. We got him dressed and he was asleep by 8:30.

 

Photos: 

Telescope: 

Pagoda: 

Cuddling and watching orchestra: 

Painting: 

Xs: 

He was up at 6:08. Spent time with Carly, then wanted a video of a rocket. We launched a couple, then Carly was ready to go. August wanted to go with her, so they nursed a couple more minutes and he was okay. He wanted to find out how the ear works, so we looked up videos and watched a couple of those. He was hungry so I got oatmeal for him. He ate that and we watched videos of the marble machine and how it was built. He then decided he wanted to do Hangeul on the iPad. Just a couple minutes of that and he said “Let’s write some syllables.” We went into the parlor and were looking for paper he could write on. I offered a page that was half full and he said “That’s a full one…Let’s go ahead and do the little one.”

He did some Cookie Monster, then tried Artie’s World. I remembered I’d found a Puffin Rock music app. Sadly, there isn’t much to it and we were done with it after about 5 minutes. We tried playing checkers, but also abandoned that after a couple minutes. We did some exercise, then I was about to put an end to iPad time, but he wanted to compose music in Notion, so I let him do that.

Went in to the bed to make the friends breakfast. But then he was jumping around and being too loud. I eventually left because he couldn’t stay quiet and he followed. A minute later he wanted to go back. When we got to the room he said “Don’t think I’m going to be quiet.” But then he was better when jumping on the bed.

I took a shower while he watched marble machine and symphony videos. He brushed his teeth, then did days of the week with Duplos. This time, he gave Carly a much nicer work schedule. We talked about giving Carly her chocolate this evening. He said “Why mama want some chocolate to eat? A smidgen of a smudgen of a smidgen.” A phrase he’s gotten from her. He went to the bathroom, and when done washed his hands and turned off the lights on his own. He came out saying: “Two things proud…Zinnie proud of himself.”

Had an apple slice, then we got going around noon. Put him in the backpack at the station and walked to the botanical garden building and ate lunch upstairs. As we started to eat, he pointed to the plants and said “I’m not going to grab those leaves..and I not going  to pull those.” Great, but later he realized he could stomp on a branch of ivy and so there was that. He started talking about nursing and he said “I like to nurse all the time.” When I suggested he start snuggling with mama sometimes instead of nursing, he said “I don’t want to do that.”

He said a few times that he wanted to go down to the fish and banana tree area, and he even walked down the stairs all on his own. But downstairs he said he was too tired for that and he wanted to get going. We walked by the playground, but the swings were inundated by a school group. Went up and went to the bathroom, then went and sat on the bleachers. At first though he reenacted where he tripped, and ran up and down the drainage line. He then asked “Is this a wheel chair seat?” because of the symbols on the ground. He then did his “What if you sit here…not move?” line of questioning, which he does several times a day. When I say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t want to find out’ he will often extend it himself to the police coming. Today he was also asking what would happen if we didn’t pay our heating bill, and suggested we hide in a tree if the police came.

Anyway, we sat in the sun and also counted the people in the stadium for awhile (it was 6 at first, but people came and went), then got going for a walk. He was fighting a nap though, even though he was up early and clearly tired. We walked awhile, but then he said he was hungry. When I said he had just eaten lunch he broke out crying. Stopped at a bench, and gave him crackers, but he was still sad and would just hold them. Had to get him out and hold him awhile. He calmed down and walked around eating crackers for awhile, then we tried again. Still took another 15+ minutes. Right before he dozed off he chuckled about something a couple times.

He was asleep 2:24 to 3:57 in the upstairs coffee shop. Tried waking him up around 3:40 but he was sound asleep. Woke him up at the end. He woke up and said he wanted to get food at the coffee shop. I told him not today. Between the children’s museum and the playground he chose the playground, so we headed that way. But as we walked into the playground he said he was too tired and just wanted to go home. At some point, can’t remember if it was now or earlier, he also had me pick him up and he covered his eyes and put his head on my chest. I asked if he was sad (I think he had mentioned mama before that) but he said “No. Just resting.”

But I took him all the way to the swings, and when he saw the empty swing he changed his mind. Went on for a few minutes. At one point I asked Did you say something? He said no, and bluntly “You were wrong.” Off there, he talked about going home, but it was a slow going home. He played around, stepping on the white bricks, then wanted a snack so we stopped at a bench. Ate more crackers, then he had fun stepping and jumping on the bricks, hitting a bush, and doing hopscotch. He was then teaching me different variations of hopscotch by the garbage cans, and had me do them wrong a few times: “Dada can’t do hopscotch…dada hasn’t practiced”

Stopped at the bathroom by the exit, then to the train. He was doing some interesting singing on the way in. On the train he did some art (he’s going through a single color canvas stage, where he just fills a canvas with green, then does a new canvas and fills it with pink, etc.) and Cookie Monster. All was smooth until I picked him up to get off and we had some difficulty with yelling.

We got home at 5:40. August got the chocolate and handed it to her and said “Happy Valentine’s Day”. They then shared some. We ate dinner, and he watched some orchestra (he’d been talking about watching orchestra since we headed home) and marble machine videos. I notice he is watching part of the videos, then repeating the beginning several times. I think he is learning the music.

He and I made banana bread. I had gotten all the ingredients out while they nursed, then asked him what he thought we were making. He looked over the ingredients and got really excited, but was hesitant to guess, but finally did with a lot of encouragement.

When it was in the cooker, he played piano. I taught him the last bass note change for his two handed version of Are You Sleeping. He got that down, and has the song pretty smooth. Very proud of himself. I asked what song next, and he wants Yankee Doodle. So we spent maybe 15 minutes starting to learn that. They nursed, then there was an announcement at 8. My job of covering up the speaker has worked; we still heard it, but the extreme volume and shrillness are gone. August still wasn’t too fond. He got up and wanted to go to the bedroom, saying it was sleepy time. Instead, they went and read Three Questions in the parlor. I got his bath ready. But they took a long time in the parlor and had to add some hot water back in.

They had a fun time in the bath. When he came out we had some banana bread. He made a really good yummy face, so I asked him to make his yummy face again for a photo and he did. He wanted to take photos, and I let him take one photo with my camera. He and Carly headed to bed at 9:30 or a little after and were soon asleep.

Photos. Hangeul syllables: 

Pregnant spot: 

Wheelchair seat: 

Squares: 

Snack spot: 

Train orchestra: 

Yummy face for banana bread: