This Is Our Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photos. Morning walk: 

Diaper hat: 

Watching the TV at the station: 

Iris Garden: 

Fall: 

Making a 4: 

A couple of his photos: 

Headed home: 

Home. Painting with browns:

Hallway: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Me: “That’s an English Pheasant.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Photos. Alone time: 

Our tower: 

‘Zoo’: 

Sandcastle and leaf: 

Hiding from the flusher: 

Bare feet: 

Counting pigeons: 

Coffee shop. Pumpkin drink: 

Visiting another table: 

Snack time: 

Leaves: 

Zoo: 

Home: 

Our leaf: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Slime: 

Eating in the backamapack: 

Aquarium: 

Wet hair: 

Home: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Park: 

With Logan and Rosie:

Saying goodbye: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Volunteering: 

Headed home: 

Pink Burger: 

Teuni gym: 

He was up at 6:10 after nursing a little earlier. After nursing he was hungry, so I made eggs with mushrooms and cheese, toast, and a mandarin orange. He ate a lot, then we were doing the Silent E game and he asked for more examples of fire (this had started yesterday when leaving the play area when he saw the fire extinguisher and wanted more examples of what it is for). We read Mr. Gumpy’s Outing. He saw that word ‘chase’ and said “That’s a good C H word.” After that he said “I want to go play with dada with Duplos.” He spent a lot of time watching Peppa Pig and writing words that he saw in the subtitles: all, the, tree, etc. Later we Skyped with my parents. Talked about the election. We did play dough mixing while we talked to them. Afterwards we found the Minions emoji video thing that he was quoting yesterday (Ah, no). We did more play dough then watched the Winnie the Pooh ABC episode, first while I hung up laundry, then as we brushed our teeth.

We left about 11:30. A lot of leaves falling and being swept up. On the train, he got his foot stuck in the backpack moving from my lap to his own seat. He started whining, but I thought it was his diaper. The guy next to us saw the source and helped free his foot.

We got to Children’s Grand Park and ate lunch by the rectangle pond since it was warm enough. He saw another girl playing with it and was intrigued. He threw a couple leaves in. He didn’t want lunch though. Instead, he found the chalk in the backpack and wanted to do sidewalk chalk. So we headed to the playground. On the way he talked about how he was going to draw shapes. We first started with words and letter. This was part of it: “Can you guess what that is?” Me: “A rectangle?” Him: “That’s close.” Me: “A square.” Him: “Yeah!”

It got windy and he got frustrated with the  leaves blowing into him and the sidewalk chalk rolling away. Near the end: “Can you you draw ‘chwachwanicall’. It has two Ls remember?…I taught you that.” He then traced it. All was good until he was getting silly writing “11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11…” and then the chalk broke. He wanted me to put the piece back together and was sad when I couldn’t. We went to the bathroom by the stage – first time we’ve used it in quite awhile, and changed him and offered him more food. Still not eating. We got walking and he fell asleep from 1:24 to 2:54. A good nap. He woke up pretty happy. We had been in the downstairs cafe this time. He wanted to do sidewalk chalk again, so we headed that way.

As we walked, I asked him if he had dreamed. He kind of said a couple of things as he woke up. I didn’t catch it, so thought it might be dream-related. I’ve asked several times before and he always just says ‘no’ to any question. But this time, when I asked if he remembered his dream, he smiled and started writing letters in the air. I asked if he remembered what his dream was about, and he started singing and drawing letters, randomly. Asking more questions, I got that he dreamed about letters, but not letter songs, and that the letters were random, or making words maybe, but weren’t in order.

We got back to the sidewalk chalk area and added to our art from earlier for 15 minutes or so. Didn’t last long. We were in the shade now and I think he was a big chilly, but didn’t want to put on another layer. I found a bug on me, and he helped me take it to the bushes to brush it off. A couple odd interactions as we were leaving: I went to pack up the chalk, which we had had out the entire time. 12 pieces of chalk, and as there were two left, a woman hurried over and grabbed one right before I grabbed it. Didn’t ask or anything, just grabbed it. I was all about sharing earlier, but that was crazy. I told her we were leaving and she gave it back. Then, August had had me write the name of the playground and had traced it. He then traced it in another color. He asked me to blend them together. I started to do so, and another boy was walking by. He came over and started smearing it with his hands. I said something to him, then looked up at his parents who were standing right there and smiling at him. I said “So this is okay with you? Alrighty then.” And then turned and got August and we left.

It was early, so I asked if he wanted to go to the children’s museum for awhile. He said yes. We went in and he first wanted the light blocks. We went there, but he just briefly played with the light shapes, then went in to the floor magnets. He made Hangeul with them, then randomly asked “What does ‘rude’ mean?” I’m not sure where he heard it. I may have said it to myself/him in talking about the chalk interactions, but didn’t remember it. But it may have been a Pooh reference or something, the way he said it. Although he said it may have been Piglet (“maybe piglet said it.”), but that doesn’t sound right. Anyway, I explained, and, predictably, he wanted “another example”. So I kept giving examples, and pushed him out of the way, etc. He thought that was funny, and it turned into The Rude Game. We left just before 4. As we walked out he said “you played the rude game.”

Had some trouble getting on the train, as he decided he wanted to step over the gap on his own, and I wouldn’t let him. He kept saying “No, no, no” for a few stops. Finally calmed down and we played ShapeKit the rest of the way. He was making some cool shapes. Getting off, he agreed to hold my hand this time, and he stepped over the gap himself. He was happy about that.

He was disappointed when we got home and Carly wasn’t there. I suggested he make a sign for her and that cheered him up. We made a sign that said “Hi mama.” While coloring it he said “Cuz peach is my favorite color today.” We decorated it with a bunch of stickers then hung it on the door. He stood looking out in the hall for a few minutes, then I convinced him to come in. I put soup in a mug to heat it up and he thought that was funny: “What soup in a mug about?” he kept asking, and laughed. Carly got home and he went and looked at the art with her again. They nursed, then he ate some soup and we showed Carly the Rude Game. He then wanted to play Duplos, so we went and added to our tower. I asked if he had a good nap today and he said “No.” I was surprised, as he had slept 90 minutes. I asked why not, and he said “Because I was too warm.” Very cool how he can remember and communicate things now.

He ate some sandwich and soup with Carly. We then gave him a bath. I did the playing part – we played with the squirt cars – but when I tried to start washing he wanted mama, so we traded. They then played together a bit, and he and I did more ShapeKit.

But the big event of the evening was the music lesson, divided into two sections. We read Snoozers and he said he wanted to write the music notes. So first he learned to write the quarter note and half note. The tricky part was to not make them look like ‘d’. Then we went back, and this time he learned the whole note as well, and I taught him the beats of each. We then counted and sang them while I drummed, and he totally got it. We got to the point where I could do whole notes and he would count the quarter notes or half notes. Oh, and we also drew quarter rests and included those in our counting. And he asked what the treble clef was and liked the word, so was chanting “clef, clef, clef” for the notes.

Carly took him in soon after our last music lesson and he was asleep about 9:20.

Contemplating the tower: 

Picture for mama: 

Writing music notes: 

 

He was up at 5:40. We started with some typing on Carly’s computer. After that he did some writing on paper before saying goodbye to Carly. He was asking for Spanish words and we looked them up in the Spanish dictionary app. He did some of that on his own and some typing in search. After that it was an arts morning: we did some painting, played with the slime, and mixed play dough colors. He wanted brown, and in discussing it I used the word ‘tan’. He said “Tan. I haven’t heard that in awhile.” Wr made worms of it and did the worm dance, which he and Carly had invented. He saw me look at my foot and asked about it. I said there was some dry skin and he said “I like dry skin.”

“Hey dada, lean over…cuddle, cuddle. We’re cuddling.” He pretended to be a snake and said “I’m Paja the snake.” Not sure where that name came from.” We played hide and seek with the play dough worms, with August hiding them around the house. Did some more translating and typing on the phone, then it was back to play dough. August was singing a “I’m a dancing worm…I broke apart!” song.

We watched part of a Puffin Rock episode and August made a nest against me and pretended to be a baby seagull. He then moved to Paper and did art while I took a shower.

More play dough and iPad art after that. He then played with Figure and I got ready to go. One of the sound is called dolphins and lava and he didn’t know what lava is, so we looked it up on YouTube. He was pretty fascinated.

Before we left he spelled “achoo” on his own. He wanted both kimbap and Pink Burger for lunch. The latter was closed. We got to Home Plus, and he still wanted a burger, so we got shrimp burgers at Lotteria. He saw signs under the counter and asked “I wonder what that says.” We ate our burgers. A cart went by, and August copied the sound of the clattering wheels.

We then went shopping for some fruit for lunch. We were getting some mandarins, and a guy who works there opened one for August and gave it to him. He ate the whole thing. We also got a nut/yoghurt bar. As he walked around he said “I like walking around.” And he was talking about the knocking over water from the Oh No! book, although I’m not sure why.

We went up to his class, and it was starting as we parked the stroller and got out. He heard a noise, and said “Let’s go see!” and ran in. He did great today, running around a lot at the beginning of class and walking the path and giving the teacher a high 5 instead of doing a forward roll. Today was all about 무지개 – rainbows. First we made a rainbow hat, which August liked wearing, then there were rainbow walking path activities, and one where you pressed raindrop shaped pieces into a rainbow. That was probably his favorite thing.

After class we ate the yoghurt and nut bar and got walking. After 15 or 20 minutes we stopped at the park by the stream and ate some mandarins. Then walked some more, exploring random streets we’ve never been on between Nowon and Sanggye. We stopped after another 20 or 25 minutes to watch a guy spray painting a new building. August really liked that. We tried one more stint of walking, walking to the train tracks and back in to Nowon, until we got to the department store. No sign of sleep, and we’d had 60 minutes of walking, divided into 3 chunks.

So we went to the play area in the department store. As we walked into the store, he said something to the woman who helped us with the door, then said “’You can go slow.’ Something like that. I said that to that woman, dada. I was joking to her.” We went up to the Ppippi House (삐삐하우스) play area. We went there once last year. A small place, but with a coffee purchase you get to play for an hour. He went in and played with the trains by himself for 3 to 5 minutes. Then came over and played with the magnets for a bit. It was pretty amazing – he hasn’t been in a playing alone sort of mood lately. And he hasn’t been interested in iPad much the last two days, except on the subway. After that he wanted me to play with him: filling up the trains and trucks at the gas stations, pretending to make phone calls, making tea, building part of a puzzle, spelling things with the magnets, etc. He asked what the Barbie dolls were, and gave them a long, odd stare. There was a girl there, and he paid a little attention to her, but not much. When they first met, he had been curious about a spot on her face. Her mom said mosquito bite.

I had to change him twice there: once right after we got there at 2, then again as we left at 3. The first time I changed him, he wanted to lay down, and was very thoughtful about it: “What’s that baby crying about?” Me: “Maybe it doesn’t want its diaper changed. Sometimes August doesn’t want his diaper changed.” Him: “But NOW I want my diaper changed.” “Sometimes I like like to lay down for a diaper.” The diaper at 3 was perhaps the messiest I’ve changed in a long time. And had to wait for a table the second time, then had a long wait for an elevator. Got out, went to Daiso, only to figure out that the big one is now gone. We hurried to the second one on the way home, and as I got there at 3:40 he was falling asleep. I got him out of the stroller and carried him downstairs against his desires, only to find they don’t have the big pads of paper. Sigh.

He fell asleep right away, with his head hanging out the side of the stroller, as is his wont nowadays. It started to rain as we walked home, so I hurried. I stopped to get his head in the stroller more comfortably, and literally as I was moving his head with my hands, a woman stopped at started telling me his head was uncomfortable. I did not take kindly to that one. By the time we got home I had the umbrella out. Not heavy rain, but enough.

At home I let him sleep until 4:40, then got him out. I let him lay on me in the reading area, and he was trying to go back to sleep as I read some Winnie the Pooh. At just before 5, Carly called. August heard her and started to whine. She heard and took a cab home. In the meantime, he had climbed into the stroller and wanted to go outside. But down on the first floor he refused to put on a coat, so we came back up. I was just getting his coat on him to try again when she got home.

They nursed and he recovered. He refused any dinner. Carly wanted to go shopping, and so did August. So I went with them. While Carly shopped at the pink building, August admired the meat. He really liked all the meats. But the dried fish/octopus/shrimp/etc. he called “disgusting”. Couldn’t blame him. He knows I don’t like the smell of it. We were waiting for Carly outside the market, and she went back in to get mayonnaise. He spotted her back inside and loudly said “Mama! Where you go?” Or something to the sort. As we got back up on the first floor he noticed it was dark and said “I love it during the night.” He was then a baby owl on our way home.

At home, he said “Mama eat cashews.” when she sneezed. Luckily, that was not the case. He and I watched some Puffin Rock. He was excited by the word ‘young’ in and wanted us to go back and rewatch that line a couple times. He pointed at it (in the subtitles) and said “That’s an NG word!” Still not eating dinner. Crazy, as he hadn’t had any food – crackers or anything, since a little after 1. He kept requesting breakfast foods instead. We are doing eggs for breakfast tomorrow, so will try to break the cereal routine and see if that helps.

Carly took down the compost and August played with the sink as I finished the dishes – Carly had done most of them earlier. I took his clothes off for a bath, which was ready, but he said “Mama wash you!” I was about to dunk him in for a quick bath when she returned. He recovered and had a very fun bath, but at the very end he refused to help put the letters away and got sad instead. They nursed, then she tried to go take a shower. He got upset, and she decided to take him in to bed and put him to sleep ins
tead. He was asleep by 9:30.: 

 

Slime: 

Shrimp burger: 

His cubby: 

Paint sprayer: 

Play area: 

Asleep: 

Closet fun: 

Spatula: 

He walked out at 6:59. I said good morning and he held out his hand toward me and said “No”. He wanted mama. He went in on the reading area and laid down and I let him have a minute. He wasn’t upset though. I tried to go in a couple minutes later, but he said “No, no.” At 7:06 he came out and saw me typing. He watched and saw me type a period and whispered “No period. I don’t like the period.” Then wanted me to “come to the nest”. I went in to the reading area but he went to the Duplos and quietly played by himself for awhile.

He wanted to paint, and did so, but just for a minute. When getting him red paint, I said a rhyming line from Dr. Seuss. He noticed it rhymes, then decided he wanted to watch the Winnie the Pooh about rhyming. Luckily, I found a YouTube play list that has it broken into chunks. So we watched all of that. After that, he started to asks me for rhymes, pointing his finger at me as he finished each question:

“What rhymes with blanket? Now, what rhymes with spider? Now what rhymes with tiger? Now what rhymes with painting? Tires?” For each I would make up a rhyme like “Tigger is a really brave tiger, he likes to walk on a wire.” I took him in to change him, and he made up a rhyme. Something like green and clean. He said they sounded like Korean and said “What they sound like Korean about?” I said Korean and English shared a lot of the same sounds, so then he went around listing them: “ㄱ is G. ㅂ is B…”

We read The Wheels on the Bus and Buenas Noches a Todos books. I took a shower and he was doing art on the iPad when I went in. When I came out he was typing and wanted to show me what he typed.

He seemed pretty hi energy so I asked if we should start getting ready to go, and he said yes. He walked by the piano and asked for “Green Marshy” – a funny oops. We went in and got Green Monster and were singing the We Like to Make Mistakes song and August wanted GM to make mistakes while he sang it, which August thought was really funny.

Back out, August was making a noise and wanted to know the tempo. Opened up the metronome app and August was tapping on it, singing to the tempo, and started noticing the tempo words, like allegro.

I made a sandwich and August ate peanut butter on a spoon, then stated he wanted to go outside. So we finished getting ready. But somehow the word ‘bug’ came up and he asked what it meant. I explained ‘bug’ and ‘insect’ and listed insects he knew. He added “spider” and I said “Actually, they have 8 legs.” He kind of insisted on spiders; then crawled behind me. After a minute he said “Want the nest.” We went in on the bed and had a nest for a few minutes. I brought the spiders back up, and he said “Supposed to be six legs.” But a minute later he was singing the I Like to Make Mistakes song.

We went out and he rolled on the floor and pretended to cut the couch with the  playdough knife. We brushed our teeth and left about 10:30. Before we walked out the door he was putting his head on the floor and looking through his legs and saying “I’m upside down” then standing up and saying “I’m right side up.”

On the bus down he made up “chegga mega” for Daniel Tiger (instead of ‘ugga mugga’). In Sangbong he said he didn’t like parentheses now. I asked what punctuation he did like, and he said colon is his favorite. Then “Maybe dada’s favorite is ampersand.” On the platform his hands were getting cold, so he had me hold them a bit. He was then putting them in my hood.

On the train he was impressing a woman with his reading of Hangeul. In talking about our route, I said we were transferring at Sangbong and he said “That’s a slow train…that train goes rrrrrr. R sound.” I really don’t know how much of this he makes up, and how much he remembers, but that seems pretty accurate – it is a slower, above ground train and has a quieter hum to it that our noisier 7 line. He also talked about how he had been upside down before we left.

We got into the museum at 11:40. Went and got a ticket for the children’s museum from 12 to 1:30. Perfect. We went into the infant room and ate our lunch, and went in to play. He did some writing on the walls, some duplos, then went and briefly played with the blocks he loved last time and the rubber stamps. Really thought we’d get back to them. He went and was climbing on the little hill things. He was crouching on top of one when a bigger boy (about the only other kid there) came up the slide of it. August was telling him “No, no, no” but I said it was okay. But then, in what I think was some unthought out plan to play with August, he kept going and kind of kneeled on August’s knees, put his hands on August’s shoulders, and August fell over backwards, and likely would have fallen off the hill if the boy hadn’t been crushing his legs. I was able to catch him, and the mom came over. August started bawling and I picked him up. I wasn’t too upset, except all the mom did was say one thing, basically “Be careful with the baby” and let the boy go back to playing.

August should have been getting tired anyway, and wanted to go home. We walked around a couple minutes, and a woman who worked there pointed out there was an infant play room. It was kind of a boring room, with a couple little hills and some bench steps to climb on, but it worked. August calmed down and played in there for 15 or 20 minutes. There was a smaller girl, and August touched her foot and hands and cheek. She started to get a little worried so the mom came over and I had August scoot back. We talked for a couple minutes – they just moved here from Hong Kong 5 months ago. But then August was rubbing his eyes and asking to go.

We packed and changed him and headed out. It was at this point that the election, which I had been frantically following all morning, was starting to look bad. I didn’t feel like staying around and looking at the musuem, so we walked west, towards iPark Mall.

Got there, then headed north, and wandered some back streets, seeing the west entrance to the U.S. base. August had his head back and was making small noises at one point, but then popped back up. After 40+ minutes I walked to Sinyoungsan Station and we headed home on line 4. On that train he said “mmmm This train makes an M noise.” And he said (kindly) “What are you doing?” to a woman who sat down next to him.

We got off at Changdong and started to walk to catch the 1144. But he pooped and needed to be changed right then. So we went to the little stage area where I’ve changed him before and changed him. Went and caught the bus (he really likes the solar-powered KakaoTalk wobbly head things in the machine and has figured out you can by them (sort of – it is a game of change thing), so I was glad when it arrived) and headed home.

Randomly, on the bus he said “I want a lizard.” I asked “Wait, you ARE a lizard, or you want a lizard?” He replied “I’m not a lizard, but I want a lizard.” We then talked about where he would get a lizard and why. His first real pet request.

At home he first wanted to paint, then we did play dough, making more marbles of mixed colors (more lessons in the color wheel). We then went down to get some Mama Juice. In the elevator, we were having a discussion about why two words DIDN’T rhyme. This really impressed a guy in the elevator, saying that August speaks really well. August got a mandarin juice and I got a coffee. August had said we should get “high” ones and I figured out he meant ‘large’ (he knows the difference between high and low musical notes, so he’s gotten these confused before). We settled for ‘medium’ (which is their ‘small’ – it is confusing to be a little boy). We went for a walk around the park. His hands were getting cold, so he used the blanket on them in the stroller.

We went to the art museum and saw some of the new art in the main gallery. We dropped the blanket. Went back, he got out of the stroller and cuddled on it like a nes
t. Tried to go to the play area, but it is closed. Good news though, as they are turning the gift shop into a larger kids area. We went and looked at the coffee shop. August wanted to head home. I said I needed to get the stroller. He said “I’ll wait here.” I made him come with me. He sat in the middle of the lobby floor and laid down again.

We headed out and went home. He was hungry, but requested Special Flakes and was passing up all the actual dinner choices. He decided he did want a mandarin though, and I turned for a few seconds to get them out of the backpack. When I turned back, his face was all orange. Like really orange. And there was a streak in his hair. He had drawn on himself with the glass crayons. Carly had just messaged saying she would be back in a few minutes. I was going to wash him, but we decided it would be more fun to meet her at the elevator that way.

Oh, and before that he had randomly started saying “Oh well. Oh well.” in an Eeyore voice. This was as Derek and I were texting about the disaster of an election. Derek said “Now there’s a kid with foresight.”

We met Carly at the elevator. They came back and nursed. August was having a tough time, and being very contrarian, doing his opposite word thing when we were talking. I told Carly about his request of a lizard, and he started to cheer up. I got out the Pete the Cat book and he got excited about that. He and I read that and carly slipped off to eat some dinner. He was in a much better mood now and they nursed, but he was laughing about things this time.

They had read Wheels on the Bus. He and I then read Mother Goose. We played hide and seek with Turkey, with him hiding Turkey and me finding her. He’s getting better with his hiding skills.

Carly gave him a bath. He did more iPad art, and at some point was making a point of snuggling with both me and Carly on the couch, saying “Snuggle, snuggle…You’re snuggling.” They did more hide and seek with Turkey and August Jr. and he was asleep about 8.

 

Children’s museum: 

Play dough: 

Art museum: 

Sleepy: 

Orange: 

He got up at 6:10 and went out and found Carly. First activity of the day was play dough mixing, which he was really into. He made one that was a beetle, another was a chomebahdi spider, etc. Before Carly left she gave him th iPad and he started doing art. I noticed he started using ‘why’ when talking: ‘Why that is pink about?’ Still has his unique sentence structure, but that is slowly going away. Will miss that. As he was mixing colors he added yellow and said “and makes that goldenrod.” Didn’t know he knew goldenrod. When he finished it, we typed the date and he made up a name for it. He liked that, so we went back and dated and named a few from yesterday. He then kept going, adding random dates and making up names for older pieces that didn’t have them. He said “Hey dada, you need to learn to spell chwachwanicall.” So we sounded it out and spelled it together, and he declared it has two ls at the end.

 

He then wanted to read stories, and he chose Pooh. He was pretending to be Spikey, the hedgehog, and making a nest while I read. When piglet talked about being a small animal, August said “I’m a small animal.” At the pockets in suits part he said “I always do funny ones.” At some point he decided to be a bird in the nest instead. We read much of the Kanga and Roo story, then the poem about Christopher Robin having weazles and sneezles- August caught some of the rhymes and thought it was funny. He then really got into nesting mode so I went and got another blanket and pillows for him. He wanted August Jr. and Turkey and cuddled with them, saying “I have the two friends…we are cuddling.” We did some cuddling in the fort, and then played hide and seek with the two stuffed animals, hiding them in the nest area and finding them.

I went and took a shower and he did more iPad art. We watched some Puffin Rock, ate some pineapple, and did more hide and seek with the stuffed animals and Puff.

We headed down, got some lunch at GS25 across the street, and went to the children’s museum. During lunch he said “strange fungus…from Winnie the Pooh…I changed it.” He was referring to Kanga and Roo being a “strange animal”. He got out his broom and was sweeping and throwing away garbage in hallway. He walked in the changing room and sat down in the chair and said “I’m going to sit on this couch for a little while…now I’m done with the rest.” As we went down the stairs to the reading area, I noticed him grabbing his pants and mentioned they were loose. He agreed. Then said “Piggies like pajamas just a little loose.” That’s a line from Snoozers.

In the reading area, we played with the new rotating game, which involves colorful pieces and penguins. August immediately had an idea how he wanted to play with them and showed me, and said “I just showed you this game.” We then actually played it as a memory game, like it is meant, then we got down a wooden puzzle. He did the puzzle “funny”, then said “Let’s do it quite right. ‘Quite right’ rhymes. What they rhyme about?” We did it correctly, then he went up in the reading area where we found Oh No! A nice surprise since we couldn’t find it last time we looked. We read that three times, and he used the pillows and dinosaurs to make a burrow to cuddle in while we read. Then he found a Korean book about animals eating an apple. He translated much of it himself, using Google Translate on my phone and typing the words in himself and translating them. Very cool.

Got ready for his nap and headed out. A regular walk, and he was asleep 1:41 to 3:06. After his nap, he liked the idea of looking at some animals before we headed to Costco. As we walked out, he heard a Korean song on the public broadcasting system and was repeating words from it. And he thought it was funny that it sounded like there were English letters in it.

We went and saw the donkeys and discussed what they eat, then went and saw the seals. We decided against a snack there as it was too cold. He sang quietly to himself as we walked out. We walked past the aviary and checked in. It was always closed because of bird flu, and now is just closed closed. No birds in it. Near the exit he said “바지 is dinosaur.” I was confused and said that it meant pants. He replied “I did a joke.” and laughed.

Pretty straightforward trip to Costco. We have it down. Got in, got our cheese, got a few free samples, paid, got some food for dinner, and headed out. On the way home he kept singing variations on the “Snake is in the grass” song from Jolly Tunes: “the can is in my cane, …in hagye, …in yellow, brown is in my pink, ladder is in my tea…”

We were home about 5:15. I got him out of the backpack and he sat on the couch, looked at me, and said “You need some tea, dada?” We ate some chicken bake, and Carly came home. He nursed, then was typing on her computer. He was sad when that was taken away. He was whispering, something he seems to do when he’s sad now, and got carly into the parlor and kicked me out and closed the door. A bit later they did some painting. Carly got his bath started, but he was resisting going in, and told me “because it is not fun.” So I talked about how it was our job to make it fun, and we talked about ideas. We ended up going and getting several of the plastic balls and putting them in the bath, and that worked. Carly took over and washed him. He played with letters, the spoke Spanish, and read the Boynton Spanish book.

He came out and we played in the parlor while Carly took a shower. We cuddled in the nest (he said he was a bird) and read several New Kids on the Block poems, then some Pooh poems and

Much of the first story. He then wanted to play with Duplos. We made Hangeul and a tower, then he went and nursed. He did some more painting, then made a game of stepping back and forth over the painting. He then sang a song: “This is Mongolia. This is Myanmar. This is China. This is watermelon…” We added to our Duplo tower, and August wanted to take a photo. We worked together on a couple photos, then he tried holding the phone and taking photos himself. Getting better, but still awkward for him. Carly took him in to the bedroom and he was asleep by 8:50

 

Reading Pooh together: 

Cozy: 

A rest: 

Playing memory game: 

Seals: 

Jumping over his art: 

Blurry photo of our tower: 

A photo he took: 

He didn’t wake up to nurse at all during the night. He was up about 5:40 and they came out at 6. When I came out a few minutes later he decided he wanted to go play in the hallway. Carly got him distracted by typing on her laptop instead. He typed ‘hope’ on his own, the vowels, and lots of other stuff. When Carly was getting ready to go we got out his iPad and read the message she had sent in response to his video last night. He was then typing to her, and she called, but August wasn’t ready to talk to anyone. After that, he was sad when we found out the ghost emoji doesn’t work anymore, even if you type it. He sat on the floor for a minute, then decided to move to play dough. We made several letters out of play dough, then made oatmeal for breakfast. He remembered the ‘rhymes with autumn’ question about Pooh and wanted to watch that. However, the episodes we had been watching on YouTube have been taken down. He then wanted to watch Peppa Pig, so we watched some of that. We saw the Windy Fall Day and Bedtime stories, which was exciting since we have those books.

He leaked on the floor before I changed his diaper. He told me there was pee on the floor, then said “I like leaks.” He did iPad art off and on, and typing, of course. On both Paper and in Skype. We decided on Ttukseom Resort as the rain was supposed to hold off and it might be the last day in the 60s. We got ready to go, but then kept getting distracted by things. He wanted to take out the piano keys, so we started by having Puff play the piano (he apparently likes to scare me by playing loudly), then August wanted to put the keys back in in a random order. We happily did that for quite awhile, until he wanted to X key (the one on the very right) to fit in a certain spot, but it wouldn’t because of its shape. He got sad about that, and wanted me to hold him.

After that, he was being a snake in the nest (reading area). He wanted to get even more pillows, and went in and grabbed mine off the bed. He also grabbed August Jr. Back in the nest he said “I’m cozy. I’m cozy too.” He then told a story about the Smurfs. Part of it was “Come on smurfs, let’s go to a mooka moo party…there’s a bridge and there was lightning and it scared them boom boom crack crack.”

He started to sing a funny ABC song, replacing letters with random words, such as potatoes, punctuation, paint brush, and backamapack. He looked in the utility closet and started looking for a fuzzy, pointing and “Is fuzzy there? Noooo.” Then, we changed him to leave, and we ended up spending a lot of time reading the Tigger birthday card. Sadly, the music has stopped working. But he wanted me to read it in an Eeyore voice over and over, and sometimes as Tigger. For some reason he decided he didn’t want me to say ‘P.S.’ He really wants to know what ‘aloha’ means and told him he needs to ask Aunty Glecy for a better explanation. Before we left he wanted a 귤, a mandarin orange.

We headed out. As he was in the backpack he started to come up with “konglish” versions of words, like “sock-uh” for ‘sock’. He started working on a big piece of art on the ipad on the way down that he would continue to work on on the way home.

At Ttukseom we first looked at some sculptures in the J-Bug. There were some wooden Hangeul blocks you could play with. August wanted to play with them, but was hungry so we ate first. We ate on a nearby bench then brought them over and played with them. He said “chwachwanical” and I asked “Where’d you learn that?” He replied “Maybe the imagining, but I. Don’t. Know.” Then, he randomly said “I like people.”

We finished up with those, changed his diaper, and he was ready for a nap. We walked just north of the park and he was asleep in a few minutes. Went to a coffee shop called French Quarter and he slept from 1:11 to 2:36. He woke up and we walked back into the park and to the big play ground. He wanted to play in the sand area. He pretended to be a fox and hedgehog, and used the broom to sweep the bench and chase away the flies. He found some garbage and was burying it and said “I like burying things.” He was using a plastic sandwich container to fill it with sand and pour it on me. Did it a few times and then said “I’m not going to play that game anymore…Dada do it.” So I poured sand on his foot. He took the container and says “Don’t play that game anymore.” as he waved his finger at me. We then dug a big whole, and August stepped in and sat in it, pretending to be Spikey the hedgehog. He was pretty much Spikey the rest of our time here.

We then went and played on the whale-shaped structure, climbing up into it. There is a wavy floor there, and he pretended to be the hedgehog, climbing up and sliding down the waves. I pointed out it was a sine wave, and he chanted “Sine wave! Sine wave! Sine wave!” Some college students asked to take a few seconds of us playing for some video they were doing. We were literally the only people playing in the park, so would have really felt rude to say no. They did that, and gave us a lollipop and an apple-flavored spray candy thing. We opened the spray candy. I tried it, and warned him it was a bit sour, but he loved it, and kept declaring that he liked sour things. We also laid in the trough of the waves and looked up at the sky. I said we should be getting going, and commented that the rain seemed like it might finally be arriving. He then kept saying that he likes it when it rains, and I think he was a little disappointed that we only felt one drop before we left.

Back around home we didn’t know if we hadn’t beaten Carly home. August really wanted to find her, first by the pink building, then going into the park. But I called her, and had him ask where she was, and she was already home. We went up and they nursed, then he was playing around and said his “Now get off!” line. I asked him where that was from, and he said “From Vivian.” I asked who she had said it to, and he said “To Zinnie.” But then he couldn’t explain why she had said it. It made sense though, and sounds familiar. I think he had been playing with Duplos or something and she had been wanting him to do something else. It also might explain why he’s talked about ‘timeouts’ a few times recently, and used the same voice. The voice, scrunched face, and finger wagging totally look like Vivian.

He wanted to go make a nest, but wanted Mama to go with him. He told me to be sad, and to stay sad “because he doesn’t have any paint.” They went in and read Mother Goose and nursed and did some Duplos. He came back out and ate some soup with me, then did another piece of art in Paper and then sent messages, mainly to himself, on Skype. Carly went and took a shower and he and I went into the parlor to read. We read a poem from New Kid on the Block called “The Flotz”, which involved a monster eating punctuation marks, so August picked up on some of the rhymes and found it really funny. We then read Peppa Goes Swimming and Elmo Goes Potty before moving to Skybrary where we found a book about Alexander Anteater. Alexander stands on his head, which August liked and was trying to do. August then said he wanted his shoes (because Alexander was wearing his shoes). I told August he didn’t need his shoes, but he went out to get them. But then he got really sad. It wasn’t clear why and he wouldn’t tell us. I guess because I said he didn’t need the shoes. He just kept whispering “I want to nurse” to Carly until they did. After awhile he recovered and wanted to paint.

I gave him a bath, then we were in on the bed. He counted the stuffed animals, then we talked about which other animals he could get to make bigger numbers. Eventually, I listed Turkey, the turquoise-colored elephant he had picked out at the Salvation Army store our first year. Turkey has been in the toybox for the last year or so, and August had forgotten the name. But when I went and got him he remembered and was excited. Played a bit more in bed, then Ca
rly came in and they were asleep by 9.