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Children’s Grand Park

He was awake at 8:05. I followed him as he walked around looking for Carly. She was in the bathroom, so I told him to go knock on the door, which he did. He and I looked at the APIS art book, then Carly skyped with her mom and she was spelling words for August. August and I tried out a Peg+Cat app – he really liked the cat, and I think the show is math-based, so he might really get into it. He also played with the Q that Carly is painting and the X painting sponge, placing them next to each other. We skyped with my parents, and spent some time reading Plant a Tree for Me before we headed out to Children’s Grand Park.

At the park we first went to the children’s museum. The school groups were suddenly back, so it was quite busy. We went up to the second floor (August directed us) and played in the new space area – mainly with the hopscotch area and hexagons again. As he was walking around after that he saw a few hexagons left out on the ground and he went and put them away. He talked about going upstairs, but when I mentioned lunch he decided he wanted to eat. So we went up to the cafeteria and took a long time eating lunch. Carly went to the bathroom, and while she was gone August said “Talk about the mama peeing at the home.”

We took August on a walk to get him to sleep. He yawned several times, and after some complaining, went quiet. But it was like he couldn’t turn off his brain. We walked a half hour and then went to the first floor coffee shop. Carly nursed him, but he still didn’t fall asleep. I read some Sherlock Holmes while they did that. He got up and was really into figuring out words on the floor. He found ‘how’ and then said “Find how in the funny one” and headed back to our table. I figured out he wanted to read the Dr. Seuss story Marvin K. Mooney, which includes the line “I don’t care how”. We were reading and Carly was reading. I asked if he had pooped and said “Somebody pooped.” He liked that sentence and was repeating it, and pointed at the baby sitting across from us. I took him upstairs and changed him. I washed my hands, and he wanted to use the hand dryer – he first used a hand dryer at the aquarium last year, but since then has been scared of them, but likes hearing them from a distance. But today he actually put his hand in it, three times. Our walk back to Carly was slow, as he was pointing at everything and saying “This is?” He was then fascinated by two signs for Peace Coffee with a lot of writing. We spent several minutes reading those, especially the messy handwriting-looking Hangeul on them.

From the cafe he chose to go to the new playground. Spent 20 or 30 minutes there playing primarily with the water faucets. Someone had left a plastic cup on the ground, and he used that to pour water on the ground and on the sand. He was having difficulty understanding to hold the cup upright to get water into it, which was pretty amusing. We went under the play structure a bit, where he read the word ‘zone’ by himself – he would later spot the word again on a sign at Brownstone. It was threatening rain and getting pretty windy, so we convinced him to head home.

At home, I got another message from Patrick inviting me to come over to get some more free stuff. I went over there – it was now raining a bit – and picked up a little more stuff. Nothing too exciting. We ate dinner, Carly gave him a bath, and read some books with him. He went to sleep right about 8. About an hour later he walked out and Carly took him back to bed. Interesting how he doesn’t cry out or yell when he wakes up at night. He simply walks out of the room.

New words/phrases: reading ‘zone’

 

With the Q and X: 

Children’s museum: 

Peace Coffee: 

Home: 

He was awake at 7:15. He woke up as Carly was Skyping with Cherie. A little later they skyped with Cassie and Vivi. I let him play in the sink for awhile while Skyping with Vivi. He spent a lot of time in the morning nursing. He was watching songs on Carly’s computer, mainly the Barefoot Books videos, then playing Elmo Loves 123 on the iPad with me. Carly went to Home Plus, and we read some books while she was gone. He made his way reading through about 6 pages of the Sam book. Carly came home and they looked at the animal pasta that she bought, calling it arte abstracto. August and I were then playing with Smokey on the couch and August thought it was hilarious to make Smokey flap his arms. We played a little more iPad together, then he was looking sleepy. He napped from about 1:35 to 2:40, but woke up in the middle and walked out and Carly had to nurse him a lot in there.

He read the Tickle book with Carly, and was really taken with a font that made a lower case ‘n’ look like an upside down ‘u’. They then read Plant a Tree with Me, and he spotted the 14 card that Carly had hung on the wall (the one I had bought at DDP) and wanted to hold it. He and I then played in the ‘fort’ a lot in the parlor, hiding from Carly and reading books. He didn’t want to stop playing in the fort, but we finally convinced him to go outside.

We walked down to the 100 bus. On the way I started singing the backwards ABC song, and he wanted to do it himself. I was surprised to find he could sing most of it backwards on his own already. At the bus stop Carly took off her coat. August didn’t like this, wanting her to put it back on, then telling her to zip it. We took the bus and then walked to the apartment complex and dropped off the food that Carly had made for a teacher who just had a baby. We then walked across the street to Dream Forest and went up to the deer park.

At the deer park he first wanted to play with the water fountains, so we did that. He then went over and pet the deer, and wrote letters with his finger on the side of one of them. He tried feeding them some grass, then wanted to give them a rock to eat. He was sad when Carly said they wouldn’t eat the rock. Later saying “Sad about the rock, deer” and “Mama says deer no eat the rock.” We sat on a grate across from the deer, and that made him remember pine needles. Later, after we had left, he would say “Sad about the pine needles” because we didn’t find pine needles for him to play with. Had a little snack there, then I was hiding from him and we were running around a bit. Ended up sitting on the bench, all three of us, and having another snack. He was asking for a lot of words in Spanish. He was happily eating pine nuts when he bit his tongue, hard enough that it bled. Carly nursed him, and he said “Sad about the tongue”.

We walked home, and along the way I get a text message from the father of the two girls August and I had met in the park a few times. He and I had never gotten around to hanging out, but he was telling me that they were moving to New York in a few days and we were welcome to come over and help ourselves to things they had left around the house. So after we got home I headed over there. Came back with a lot of food stuff (spices, canned stuff, tea) and a food processor. We ate dinner (thanks to Carly we now have risotto, nutty noodles, and enchiladas in the fridge) and Carly gave him a bath. It was hair washing day, but there wasn’t too much screaming. In the bath, they were spelling words with the bath sponges, and tried to spell ‘vroom’. But the R was missing. They used a ‘P’ but he wasn’t entirely happy with that, saying afterwards “Sad about the P turn to R.” We did fort again, reading much of a Bob counting book and more Plant a Tree. Then he was out on the couch with Carly reading Kipper A to Z. He first read ‘box’, then was figuring out several other words and almost whole sentences. Very cool. He was sleepy, and went to sleep a little after 9.

New words/phrases: harina de avena (oatmeal), reading ‘oak’, spelling ‘box’, another two, spelling you, reading ‘box’

Morning:

Dream Forest: 

Walking home: 

Home: 

Awake at 7:40. He ate oatmeal with Carly again, and this time reflected on yesterday’s frustration when making oatmeal “Sad bathroom, sad up…” He did some painting with Carly, and we played with stickers. We did a lot of spring cleaning in the morning: Carly vacuumed and started on some other things, and I tackled the papers and other things in the hallway closet. August had some good iPad time, and we also played with the plastic eggs from yesterday.

He napped from about 12:45 to 2:05 then spent a long time nursing with Carly. We went for a walk in the afternoon to Hangeulbi Park. We stopped at Juicy Juice and got a mango juice and a mixed berry juice and drank them on the way. August kept calling the mixed berry one “milky”, which it was.

At the park August first wanted to look in the garbage cans, then we played in the hangeul sculpture area. He was identifying the characters on the ground, and carly got out the soccer ball to play with. He played with that and went to put it in the Hangeul M character, only to find that someone else had placed several rocks there. So he was playing with the rocks as well, and putting them on the soccer ball and making them fall off.

He wanted to walk over to the playground area. He was looking at the L shaped benches and calling them letters or Hangeul characters, and there was a hedge bordering the paved area that curved in an interesting shape. August seemed to think it was supposed to look like something, but couldn’t decide what, so he said “arte abstracto!”

At the playground the first thing he wanted to do was go over and climb on the round platforms. That was where he spent much of his time. He climbed up and down all of them with our help, then just wanted to sit, mainly on the blue one, and look around. He talked about falling. We went over and he went on a swing with Carly for a little while. And we took a break and had a snack on the benches before going back to the platforms and sitting on them again. He got pretty good at climbing up and down on the lowest two or three platforms. He was spelling ‘up’ and ‘down’ as he got up and down on the platforms – he has ‘up’ memorized and was getting ‘down’ learned pretty well. We spent several minutes on the teeter totter – He could look across and see Carly on the swing as he went up and down on the teeter totter. There were little plastic beads from something on the ground, and he played with those, dropping them from where he sat on the platform and watching them bounce and roll away. Before we left, he wanted to take two plastic bottles to throw away. He had a cute moment of indecision as he could only carry the bottles or two of the little plastic beads and he didn’t know which he wanted to take. He ended up taking the bottles. We took those over and he found the plastic bin and tossed them in. He played a little more at the Hangeul sculpture. The rocks from before had disappeared, so we were looking for new rocks. I found one, then a chip off a brick. He held both and said “Have a rock, have a brick.” We then put him in the backpack and he spotted another plastic bottle, so he got to recycle that one too and dropped it from the backpack.

We walked home and did some shopping together in the pink building grocery store. At home, Carly made nutty noodles both for us and for a woman at work who just had a baby. I fed August, and we played with a balloon, singing the very repetitive balloon song many times. We played on the iPad together, then read the Sam book (he concentrated on reading it pretty well through the first six pages) and brushed his teeth. We read Feely Bugs and Happy Birthday, then he wanted to play in the sink again. Did that for awhile. He didn’t want to stop, but he was tired and it was time for bed. He fell asleep about 9:15.

I noted today that it wasn’t long ago that we were introducing prepositions to August. Now he pretty much has all the common ones down, both in understanding and in speaking: under, on, in, next to, above, etc. 

New words/phrases: Zinnie falled in the bathroom, what’s in the blue egg?, platform, sitting on the blue one, spelling up and down, teeter totter, spelling three, lobster, spelling box

Hangeulbi Park: 

Home: 

Up nice and early at 6:30. I had my book group meeting at 7:30, which lasted until 9. During my meeting, Carly made oatmeal and August got upset because it wasting too long (she was washing her hands, wouldn’t let him get up when she was cutting strawberries, etc.) Afterwards, he reflected on the whole thing, talking about how every step made him sad.

We got out of the house around 10, headed for the easter egg hunt gathering at Children’s Grand Park. August isn’t used to traveling the subways with Carly now, and wanted to nurse and was upset when he couldn’t. We got off at Sagajeong, then back on a train, and had to get off again at Yongmansan. After nursing on the platform for awhile we get back on our way. We stopped at GS25 to get kimbap and eggs and a sausage thing August has been eyeing.

We got to the picnic area (in the grass south of the new playground) as they were doing the easter egg hunt. We set up our picnic mat and started to eat, and August was given a few eggs with toys inside, and a hard boiled egg, which we peeled and ate. We added the fruit that Carly had brought and donuts she got at Dunkin’ Donuts to the potluck mat and August had fun trying out all the different foods (and eating a couple of the donut holes). We talked to Jill and Logan a bit, but then they had to leave as Logan was ready for a nap. We talked to one guy who we had briefly met on New Year’s Eve, but then August too was getting ready to go – he was grabbing the backpack and wanted to get in. So we packed up and headed out. We stopped at the drinking fountains and low faucets at the new playground as August wanted to play in them. Did that for several minutes, then went up to show Carly the “outdoor theater”. I changed him (he is very concerned about falling off the changing tables nowadays – he holds on very tightly, and talks about it a lot. But he generally gets through it, noting it is something that has to be done. I give him the option of standing on the floor and using a pull-up, but so far he still chooses the changing table) then we were back out in the theater, where August had fun hiding from me.

We got walking for his nap. He refused the cover again. And after 3 minutes of walking he was saying “All done fall asleep.” Kept walking, circling through the paths to the north, and he fell asleep after 15 minutes. Making falling asleep more difficult was that he had hiccups. We went to the upstairs cafe, which was surprising empty when we got there and we got our favorite table. It filled up as we sat there though and was quite busy by the time we left. He slept from 1:04 to 2:17 and after he woke up did some nursing, then we read some Dr. Seuss on the iPad.

We went to the zoo, which was now crazy crowded. He wanted to see monkeys, so we went around the backside of the primates area to the macaques that usually don’t get much attention. Still busy, but not too bad. August was really enjoying them and we watched for several minutes. It helped that other people were throwing food to the monkeys and that was entertaining. I think he is really going to get into animal documentaries in the future. He was asking to spell animal words, like ‘elephant’ and ‘monkey’ and ‘macaque’ and was happy to find out that ‘macaque’ has a ‘Q’ and we spotted it on the sign.

We then went over by the elephants and sat on the stump stools. He played on the stumps for several minutes, climbing on them as Carly held his hands and then ‘falling off’. At one point he decided there was something in his shoe, and he wanted to “find out” what it was. He sat on my lap and shook out his shoe for a long time. We headed home about 4, after stopping to change him again (Carly this time).

The trip home went smoothly. He painted with Carly and played on the iPad. He did art and music with me, playing on the piano and with a drumstick. At one point he decided he wanted to nurse, and sat on the couch repeating “Nurse, please” while Carly was in the bathroom cleaning it. For him that was waiting very patiently. We played with the balloon (glob0) and made up a globo/balloon song that he wanted to keep repeating. We all skyped with Cassie and Colin. We were playing with play dough at the time and August saw Colin eating Cheerios. So we made a bowl from play dough and he was pretending there were things in it (like cucumber, tomato, and bussot (mushroom). He wanted some apple, and as I carried him into the kitchen he made up a little “Get manzana” song complete with an arm motion.

We drew shapes using pastels, then he read Plant a Tree with Me with Carly, then was out with me reading Bob Books and Happy Birthday. He then went in with Carly and was asleep about 9.

New words/phrases: macaque, big word,

 

Morning:

Picnic: 

Drinking fountain: 

Zoo: 

On the stumps: 

Home: 

He was awake at 5:45. Soon after, Carly was spelling colors and he knew them all: pink, green, blue, red, purple. Carly headed to work. Yesterday he had happily said “Bye! Adios!” but today he was sadder to see her go. In the morning we played a lot with Angeles. We set up the fort and were playing with Angeles in it. We started a big “Thinking about…” game where we would choose a topic to think about and Angeles would talk about that topic. August chose topics like zookeepers, forts, and letters. We practiced the backwards ABCs, now doing it as the actual song, and we read Plant a Tree for Me a few times. When we got to the planting a tree page, he said “Grampa!” – we’ve talked about him planting trees in the past, and have talked about planting a tree this summer with grampa and gramma. As we were eating breakfast and getting ready to go he was saying “Piece dada, piece Zinnie…D for dada, Z for Zinnie.”

We rushed over to his 5-Touch class. Went pretty smoothly, although he was shy at first. It was a monkey and bear theme, with the monkey and bear getting in a fight and then making up. They acted that out through songs, holding little bear and monkey things, andy dividing up into bears and monkeys and acting it out as a class. August, of course, really liked the sticker portion as well. At the end of class, he saw the teacher put the hand stamp on a girl’s foot, so he wanted to do that and we took his sock off. He changed his mind though, and wanted it on his palm. He liked this, as he then made fists and said “Something in there!” As we walked out and passed the coffee shop, he pointed out photos of coffee and tea and said “Tea and coffee yummy.”

As we walked to the subway station, he was looking at the shapes in the concrete retaining wall. He pointed out Ws, Xs, say-mo (triangles), and, for the first time in the wild, trapezoids.

We stopped for an apple cookie, kimbap, and little eggs and then went up to the outdoor theater to eat lunch. I had intended the cookie thing as a treat for later, but made the mistake of carrying it in full view, so we ended up starting with that. When he was eating the mushrooms, he said “Thank you mama for bussot.” Where we were sitting, we had clear views of much of the park around us. He started remembering his meltdown last time and talking about it “Scream at robots…Up.  Sad about the change your diaper. Sad about Dr. Seuss diaper. Pick you up. Pick you up. Scream…” Very cool that he was doing all this reflecting on his own. After lunch we went up and changed him and walked for about 15 minutes. For the first time he really complained about the cover on the backpack and so I didn’t put it up, and he fell asleep without it. Slept from 12:54 to 1:58.

When he woke up he wanted to get walking, and go to the zoo. We saw the primates and lion, etc., then he wanted to go see the seals. We went upstairs at the seals first, then downstairs to see them underwater. After that, we were leaving the zoo and he saw the botanical gardens building and wanted to go in to “see elephant”. At the indoor fish pond he wanted down to have a snack on the bench, and I realized he was leaking. So we walked out (seeing the moss-covered elephant sculpture on the way) and changed him in our usual spot.

From there we went right across to the playground. While sitting on the bench eating our snack, a group of teenage girls came over next to us. August was showing them his handstamp on his palm and doing the closing his fists and saying “Something in there” thing. He called it “Funny!” Once we started playing, he had fun spotting foot prints in the sand, and was also finding pieces of garbage that we had to walk over to the garbage cans and throw away.

We played under the play structure for awhile. There was a slightly bigger boy playing with one of the toys under there, and August wanted to do it and was saying “Zinnie do it…Zinnie do it, please.” Back out, we spent about 20 minutes playing on the little hill. He stood on top and kept singing ABC songs over and over, and sang the numbers song while pumping his arms in the air.

We had a little more of a snack, then started to head out, but stopped at the drinking fountains and played in the water for a few minutes. On the subway, he played the Elmo Loves 123s app. He was focused on ‘6’ the entire time. One of the videos you can watch for 6 is one of the classic pinball videos. I remembered the song, but had totally forgotten about the pinball videos that went with it. Quite a flashback to childhood.

Got home a little after Carly. He ate dinner with me and we watched videos together. Carly gave him a bath – he is back to playing with the letters now and isn’t hating his baths (unless washing his hair is involved). After, he wanted to make the fort with me, and we played with Angeles and read Plant a Tree with Me. He could read the title on the cover. He was also hiding from Carly. He wanted to nurse with Carly in the fort, so we switched places, and he was off to bed about 8:15.

Earlier in the day, when I was putting him in the backpack, he was making it difficult for me to do the straps, or something along those lines. I asked “Are you being stubborn?” (something I’ve never asked him before – don’t think it is a word I’ve used) and he immediately replied with “Very stubborn”.

New words/phrases: burbujas (bubbles), tongue (of a shoe), container, foot print , no mas galletas

Fort time:

Class: 

Headed to CGP. Spotted trapezoids, Xs, and triangles:

And made out all the letters in the graffiti: 

Lunch: 

Zoo: 

Playground. Looking for foot prints: 

Under the play structure: 

Hill time: 

He was awake at 6. So he started the day with some iPad – he is totally back into Endless Reader now, after ignoring it for several weeks. I think he is understanding a lot more of it now. We then played with play dough and then Smokey and Angeles on the couch, before moving into the parlor to play with Duplo animals. We were sitting by the Duplos on the floor when he realized the blanket was on the rocking chair, near his head. He pulled the blanket over his head and hid. When I asked what he was hiding from, he initially said “ABCD”, then “Mama”. He then wanted me in the fort, and we spent much of the rest of the morning under the blanket, playing with Angeles and the Duplo animals. Before we left, I changed him, and he asked what ‘butt’ was in Spanish. Before I could look it up, he said “Butt in espanol is butt-ay.” Finally, he was playing with the animal magnets and held up the zookeeper magnet and said “Al reves el niño” (upside down boy).

He kept wanting to go back and play with the Duplo animals and get in the “fort”, so we barely made it out of the house in time for class. Got there as it was starting. August was shy at first, but let the teacher do a forward roll. There were a lot of good activities today, from tunnels to crawl through (or simply play with, and hide behind, as August did), to turtle shells to put on his head and stand on, to objects to carry across a walking course and put in a box (although August found it simpler to simply avoid the crowds and obstacles and walk around the course).

From class we headed up to Danggogye, up to the northeast. Had thought about taking the bus or subway up, but August was yawning and had been awake 5 hours already. So we walked north to the stream, then headed up the stream. It was about 40 minutes before he fell asleep, just as I was walking past the coffeeshop that we had found the day it poured. I had a Yorkshire tea latte, and he slept from 11:45 to 12:30.

When he woke up we got walking again. We got to Danggogye Park around 1. We sat on a bench and ate lunch, watching people on the climbing wall. August really wanted to go on the climbing wall, saying “Do this, do this.” He looked around and was counting how many people were on each bench. A couple weeks ago he started to want to do the alphabet backwards (this was after we started counting backwards, and he started to say “Letters backwards!”), but we’d only really gotten through ZYXWVU. Today he kept wanting to do the whole alphabet over and over, and between each attempt he would sign ‘more’. He was doing pretty well, but found saying “NML” the most difficult part.

He decided he wanted to play iPad in the park, so he did some Endless Reader and I read some Sherlock Holmes. We then walked over to the playground, but he wanted to play with rocks, and there weren’t any around the playground. We found an oval shaped tree area that had a little hill and several rocks, so we stopped there. We played with rocks, then he noticed a woman sitting across from us, popping bubble wrap. She had a whole bag of it, and August really wanted bubble wrap. He was too shy to walk over to her with me though (or let me carry him). He then had a big rock and was joking around with it and put it on his head. I said it was a silly thing to do, and he liked that phrase and started repeating “silly thing to do!” and doing his head bob thing. Got him on video doing it once. He had something in his shoe, so he sat on my lap. He wanted to shake out his shoe himself, so was doing that over and over and watching the woman with the bubble wrap. We started talking about him being sad or happy (I think not having bubble wrap may have made him “sad”) and I said that him being happy makes me happy. He started singing a “Makes dada happy” song. He sat in my lap for quite awhile, then we played around bit more, writing words in the dirt and with the rocks, then decided to walk home.

He had a little freakout when, after changing him, he wanted to press buttons on a keypad by the bathroom door. When I walked away he struggled back and forth and whacked his head into mine – that startled him and he shrieked and lashed out and almost knocked off my glasses. Got him calmed down and we headed out. We walked home along the stream. On the way to the stream we stopped and looked at the boxes of chicks that a woman was selling. A few minutes later as we were walking he was suddenly upset and holding out his hand with snot on a finger. I wiped it off with a tissue, then he was saying “snot from the nose…snot on the finger…messy…sad”. As we got to the stream, he was singing the individual letter songs he likes to himself, whispering them: “a is a vowel, a letter in the alphabet, b is a consonant…b b b”.

He got a bit upset when we ran out of crackers, but we stopped at the safety park along the stream for a snack and he ate most of the rest of the food we had. His diaper leaked and we went up and changed him next to a sculpture. Carly called as we were finishing up and asked if we needed anything from the store. August heard us talking and said “Crackers!” Running out of crackers had made an impression, and he would also tell her about the snot on his finger later in the evening.

We walked home and got home a little before Carly. It was close to 5:30 by the time she got home. We ate dinner, Carly gave him a bath, and he was asleep and in bed a few minutes before 7.

New words/phrases: spelling feet and butt, tray for the hands, tray for the stroller, al reves, hombros sucio (messy shoulder), reading ‘tree’, bark, hasta luego

Class: 

Park: 

Walking home. Chicks: 

Snack: 

Wanting me to take the backpack off the H: 

H: 

8:45. Kind of a quiet wake up, as we just sat on the bed in the dark for a few minutes, then were doing numbers with our fingers. Then came out and and got on the iPad, had breakfast, and got ready to head to Children’s Grand Park.

Got there around 11. Almost empty again. More and more baffled by usage patterns, as we haven’t seen a single field trip group (outside some very small child care groups) to anywhere in the park since the beginning of the year. And yet, for months the children’s museum was packed with them, and last spring the entire park was full of school groups.

Anyway, we first went up to the second floor to see what had been changed. The tortoise and hare stuff was gone (which included the Hangeul magnets) and has been replaced with space-related stuff. Mostly interactive video game things, which are a little beyond August. He did like a planet hopscotch thing with hexagon pieces, and played with that for a few minutes, but then wanted to go down to the nature area. Went down and made letters on the floor, played with the static cling magnets (mainly focusing on the shapes), and went and looked at the minerals. Then he was ready for lunch. Went up to the cafeteria where there was just one other family eating lunch a few minutes before noon. We sat by the windows in back and one of the screens was down on the window. He was very intrigued by it, and so I showed him how it worked and we put it up and down several times. We peeled an egg, and he was really into spelling ‘egg’. He was peeling the egg and said “Messy with the shell…wash your hands.” He was singing a lot – we have been singing the Mother Goose Club “Count with me” song and he would sing lines of that.

From there we went down to the book room, primarily to read Oh No! There was also a little pop-up colors book that he really liked. We then played with the texture squares, matching them and counting them, and he played with a magnifying glass, carrying it around and looking at pieces from the various games.

He wanted to go back downstairs, so we did that. He wanted to “Make A out of floor magnets.” When we got down there he saw a girl and pointed at her, saying “Kitty cat on her shirt.” We played there for a little while, but didn’t last long; he decided he wanted to go up to the little kids area. There, he spent his whole time playing with the puzzles, and playing with the bumps on the cushions.

He was actually talking about falling asleep today, and even getting Camel out as a pillow (something he hasn’t done for a month or two), before we started our nap routine. So I thought it would happen today. Alas, when we were walking he kept wanting to do other things, and got upset when we walked by garbage cans without looking in them. So after 15 minutes or so I walked down to the zoo. Thought he might fall asleep as we walked around the zoo, but after awhile he wanted down for another snack, so we ate pine nuts and string cheese by the leopards. He heard noises from the little upstairs section by the cats, so we went up and spent ten minutes or so pushing the buttons on the half-working display on predators. The button for the monkey only worked sometimes, and I said “Come on monkey!” He liked that, and said “Come on mono!”

We talked about going to play at the playground, but on our way there he saw the conservatory and said “See pez (fish)!” and wanted to touch water. So we went in there, and mainly out to the potted plant exhibit. He watched the little streams and touched the water where he could, we then went back in and looked at the fish in the pond.

We went around the corner to change him, and this is where the no-nap day fell apart. He’s been a little afraid of the changing tables recently (he has taken the ‘beware of falling’ warnings to heart, and now says “No fall!” a lot on the changing tables), and started to get really upset as we finished up today. He then just clung to me when we were done, but I had a dirty diaper to dispose of, and had to put everything back in the backpack and put it on. He kept screaming, and even after I had the backpack on and was carrying him outside to go to the garbage can, he was screaming and started pinching my face. I had to set him down, screaming on the ground, so I could throw away the diaper and set up the backpack to put him in. Got him in, and he calmed down enough for us to head out, but then he wanted to go play at the playground with the numbers, and got upset when we walked the wrong way.

Luckily, he settled down enough to head home. He kept yawning, and I expected him to fall asleep at any moment, but didn’t. We were home about 4:30 and he was fine with waiting for mama. We sat on the couch, him on the iPad and me reading Sherlock Holmes, until Carly got home.

Evening went pretty smoothly, considering. Carly made herself a salad, which August found fascinating. He said “See the salad…very, very, nummy” He looked in and would name off everything in it: “lettuce, feta, cucumber, tomato…” The funniest part is that he won’t even taste salad himself.

He had one more meltdown with me. I had put the iPad behind me on the couch and he was trying to get it. He said “Dada in the way.” That part was funny. But then when we had the iPad open, he accidentally turned the page on my book. I told him to wait a second while I got the page back, then he could have it. He grabbed my arms and started pinching them and screaming. Carly took him into the bedroom for a bit of a timeout. While they were in there she was trying to get him to say sorry to me, but he insisted “No say sorry to dada.” But a few minutes after they came back out I was sitting with him and asked if he’d say sorry. He first said no, but then said “Sorry, dada.”

There was one of those blowup toy things from class that you use a straw to blow up. This one was a frog. He was trying to do it himself, so I was explaining how to blow into the frog. I told him he had to close his lips and blow, but then he would scrunch up his eyes, closing them at the same time – that’s what we’ve been working on in the bath. Very funny.

Carly gave him a short bath, and he was asleep in bed about 7. A little later he got up and walked out of the bedroom and Carly had to take him back to bed and he went back to sleep.

New words/phrases: egg shell, flamingo, feta, wrapper

 

Yoga: 

Children’s Museum: 

Book room: 

Little kids area: 

Conservatory: 

He slept all the way to 8:35. First thing I heard him saying was “Dada”. Went in and he said “iPad…watch ABC songs on the iPad…on the couch.” Changed him, after which he wanted his new pajamas off. But then he cheered up with ABC songs and while watching a colors song over and over was working on spelling colors (asking a lot of “How bout…?”). One of the songs had an alien spaceship. He asked what it was and I said “spaceship”. He said “ Spaceship at children’s museum” (the one you can push the buttons in) and I mentioned it might not be there any more since they were changing that floor. He then said “Sad about the spaceship at the children’s museum.”

Since he slept late, we didn’t have a lot of morning time to hang around. We left a little after 10 and made our way to the back entrance to Olympic Park. We were walking into the park when he decided he really wanted eggs. So we backtracked a bit and went to C U where he also wanted kimbap, then spotted a pack of mandarin oranges in what I thought was syrup. We got those and went out and sat on one of the same benches as last time and ate lunch. Turned out the oranges were actually in jello. He really liked that. It seemed like he ate a ton of food, then he wanted to throw away our garbage and look into the garbage cans, so we made to walks over to do that. He was playing around and stood on a little curb around a tree and wanted to know what it was. He was happy to learn the word “curb”. Then, a motorbike was coming down the walkway sort of towards him and I heard him say “uh-oh”. He didn’t panic though, and took a step to the side. The motorbike actually headed off towards the left, across the plaza, so it wasn’t all that close when it went by.

He wanted to do some walking, so we started walking into the park. But then he was suggesting we go home. I was reminding him of all the things in the park, and mentioned puzzles at the history museum. He started saying “Sad about one”. When I asked for clarification, he said “Sad about the one puzzle here” and pointed ahead of us. We were still on the other side of the park, but he was remembering that there was a piece missing from the puzzle we worked on at the museum last time.

We walked through the sculpture area and he saw some big rocks he wanted to play on. So I got him down. First he walked up and then down a set of gentle steps cut into the hill. He wanted me to carry him back to the backpack, and on the way he saw the big green sculpture of what looks like alien praying mantises and was intrigued by that. He then tried climbing on the rocks. He said he had something in his right shoe, so we sat on a rock and took it off. He wanted to keep walking, so he went back into the backpack. But just a little further up the path it turned into a sidewalk embedded with rocks and he wanted to get back down and see the rocks. He ended up looking at the rocks, picking up a leaf and carrying it around (he said it looked like a globo (balloon), getting out the shovel and playing with it, wading through the leaves to the Elephant Man sculpture and hitting it with the shovel, and admiring a couple other sculptures, one of which he could walk on and then touch the big circle in the center of.

We were getting close to nap time, so time to keep going. As we continued, he spotted a couple more sculptures he liked. One was a big bird head with pieces of tile on the side, so we were able to talk about mosaic and abstract art. We made it to the history museum and played with the puzzles for a few minutes. Didn’t last long though, as he was clearly tired. The nursing/changing room was occupied, and he seemed scared of the regular bathrooms, so we went back outside to change him. Ended up in a nearby bathroom with more lighting, but he still wasn’t happy about it, really clinging to me as I tried to set him down. Once that was over and he was in the backpack he fell asleep after just a few minutes of walking up along the fortress path. I went to the Eat coffee shop by the art museum and he slept from 2:11 to 3:04.

When he woke up he wanted to head straight outside. So we walked out, and I gave him some options for what we could do. I mentioned pine needles and “Pine needles!” won out. So we got down in the same spot we played with pine needles last time. He played with pine needles, but was more into finding rocks and counting them and deciding if the looked like a triangle or square. We got out the tennis ball and were rolling that down the hill, then he wanted to walk up the hill a bit. We went up there, and he felt something in his left shoe this time. We sat on the hill and he sat on my lap and we dealt with that, then just sat there for several minutes singing songs and playing with the stick from the backpack.

We went back down, and he decided he wanted more food. So he sat on my lap again and ate what felt like a second lunch. The grass we were sitting on was dry and sticking to our clothes and hands, which he found both “Messy” and amusing. While sitting there he got to watch helicopters and planes (U.S. military) fly overhead, we spotted a nest, and he watched a pressure washer. While eating crackers he called them pink. I pointed out they were more yellow and white and brown. He only budged a little, then calling them “Kind of pink”.

I convinced him to go to the art museum, which he was opposed to. It would have been okay, but there was a lot of object-sort of art, like a desk with items all over it. This made him want to touch things, and he couldn’t. Once we were back outside and he had calmed down he would say he was “Sad about the touching.”

We were ready to change him and head home, but I had forgotten about his new found love of playgrounds, and as we headed to the other subway station we passed a playground. I said we needed to get home to mama, to which he said “Play at the playground three minutes”, holding up three fingers. He’s never said anything like that before. So we played at the playground (more like 10 or 15 minutes). He walked up the steep stairs by himself, then went back and forth on the shaky bridge. He tried climbing the rope ladder thing, and the metal climbing part opposite that. I put him in the shaky jeep, but then the other boy in it started to shake it really hard and that freaked August out. I quickly grabbed him and it took him some time to calm down. We went and changed him, then headed home.

He had no problem staying in the backpack for the first two legs of our journey. On one stretch there were several teenage girls that he sang ABC to and they were interacting with him. For the long trip we got to sit down and play on the iPad.

Carly was home before us. In the evening he ate dinner and played with the magnet set with Carly )working on animal names in Spanish). I prepared and gave him his bath, which he was not happy about at all. It had gotten so easy with the bath letters and everything, but now he is afraid of the dripping. When he was feeling better and playing around he hid from Carly behind one of the Hangeul cards, but then walked into the doorframe. Carly took a shower and he cuddled next to me on the couch and was hiding from her. He then wanted to make a play dough banana and peel it, so we did that. About 9 Carly needed to head to bed to get some sleep. I was going to stay up with him, but he wanted to stay with her. So he and I read Bob books at the foot of the bed, and a few minutes later he wanted to nurse and go to sleep. They were both asleep by 9:30.

New words/phrases: nozzle, hose, history museum, nest, helicopter, kind of pink

 

Wanting the owls off: 

But now he’s happy: 

At lunch: 

Sculpture area

Sculpture he liked: 

History museum: 

Pine needles and rocks: 

Another sculpture he liked: 

Headed home:  

Carly and I both heard him call out “No dots!” at some point in the night. He woke up at 8:12 and came out and quietly sat next to me on the couch for several minutes. When he got going he wanted to play with play dough. He was pressing letters into the play dough and was holding the Q and said “I’m a Q!”

We headed out about 10. Down to Sangbong, then two stops east to Yangwon, getting there a bit before 11. We looked at the map and walked over to the playground. Running through options with him, he wanted to get out and read books. So we sat on a bench and read a few sentences from Dot and Mit. He then wanted to go in the play structure, so we did that. He said “Zinnie fit” as we went in, and really liked all the hexagons, circles, and triangles in the structure. He climbed up three levels, and was counting them. At the end he was saying “All done climb up to 3.” We went to the plate ship for a minute, then back to the bench to read some Dr. Seuss and eat lunch. A group of kids came along, a little older than him. Three of them sat on the benches, and August walked over and started singing “ABC” to them. August did some flying as an eagle and wanted me to fly as well, then was ‘freezing’ me. He saw the big kids on the swings and was suddenly interested. First the green one opened up, but then he wanted the red. Luckily, it did a minute later. He sat on my lap and we were swinging for a few minutes. After that, he started to get a bit grumpy. I was packing up our stuff to go change him when a couple of women came in the bench area. One of them tried to get really close to August, and only got closer when he started screaming, and only backed off when I told her to. We left and went to find the bathroom. We did, but no changing table. Went back out and found a shady place to change him standing up. No one around at that point, but as I again packed up another group of women came by. They set off the same reaction. I was telling him to just say “Bye bye” but lost my patience with a few of the women when they stuck their heads back around the corner and were giggling at him. I told them to just leave him alone and one said “Sorry” and they left.

We went up to another set of benches for a snack, starting with pine nuts. He ate a whole lot, including string cheese, strawberries, grapes, and crab, and it took quite awhile. A maintenance worker came by using a leaf blower and August loved that. He kept pointing and saying letters. I didn’t quite understand why. If the guy stopped for a minute August would say “More B!” He lay on top of the bench and was looking under it at his shoes and me and said “See caballos!” referring to the shed that he had first spotted from the playground that looks like horse stalls. Mind you, I have no idea how he knows what horse stalls look like (he has done this since the “neigh gates”).  He also saw a “group of kids” walk by. I had to change him again, so we went to a different set of bathrooms by the campground and found a changing table. Changed him, put him in the backpack, and started walking towards Costco.

He fell asleep after about 10 minutes. Slept from 1:59 to 3:12. I found a coffee shop called HiFish. Wen he woke up he wanted to get going. So we walked to Costco, looking briefly into a Daiso and a Beautiful Store. We went to Costco and did a quick trip, getting naan and feta. Got one sample for August this time, which he liked.

Headed home and got home a little before Carly. August really wanted the naan we had bought, so I started to cook one. He was not finding it easy to wait, then hit his head on the freezer door. Luckily, Carly got home soon after and he was able to nurse. After dinner, I went to Home Plus for diapers and also got August a new set of light owl pajamas. When I got home, they were finishing up a bath, and August was not happy. The faucet had dripped into the bathtub before he got in the bath, and they had waited for it to stop. Then, while he was in the bath, just a little drop had dripped out, and he didn’t like it at all.

After he got out of the bath, I said “Zinnie, I got you something!” He immediately said “Present! Present!”, grabbed the pack of pajamas out of my hand, and ran into the parlor. Kind of scary how well he understands ‘present’. We looked at the owls on his pajamas, although he was in no hurry to put them on. Carly took a shower, and we made Duplo letters, then hid (from Carly) under his baby blanket and read Plant a Tree with Me. He was counting the characters on each page, and had no trouble counting to 7. He was asleep a little after 9.

New words/phrases: group of kids, spelling ‘one’

 

Waking up: 

Park: 

Snack and leaf blower: 

Home: 

His reverse sentence construction: 

He was awake just after 8. We opened the new stamp pad and used it a bit. He was very aware of getting his fingers “messy” with the ink. Carly skyped with Cherie and Chuck, then made eggs and spinach and apple and peanut butter for breakfast. August made a game of opening and closing the door to the parlor and hiding; he has also figured out how to lock the door, so Carly double checked to make sure that the key to the door works. Carly went to Home Plus, and we played with the letters and he spelled ‘but’. We then got out play dough. Carly came home and they were in the parlor and August was hiding from me under his baby blanket (the one that used to be on the wall. He had spotted it on the shelf and I got it down and he was looking at all the colors, textures, and animals like we used to do). Finally, Carly got out the finger paints, sponges, and a paint brush and August got his first taste of painting. August enjoyed it, but he also enjoyed putting the paint tubes back in the container; he did it a few times.

He fell asleep and took a short nap from 1:40 to 2:19. When he woke up, he walked out and into the parlor and started playing. It is the first time he hasn’t wanted to nurse right after waking up. We did more spelling with letters, art on the iPad, and then play dough, then we all went out for a walk.

We stopped at that new Juicy place and got a strawberry juice and an orange juice. Nice and cheap and healthy. We will be going back. August certainly liked it. The juice is in those plastic cups with a thin plastic lid, and the lid was covered with juice. August said the juice was “hiding” in there. We walked along the stream, then went in the new apartment complex, which is now open. We looked around and found the playground. It was quite nice. August got very excited about it. Surprising, as he hasn’t really been into playgrounds lately. And he also wanted his coat off. He went on the swings with Carly, then we were at the spider web mesh thing. Carly was lifting him from one spot to another and he wanted to sit “Right here over garbage”. There were a bunch of girls around and they came and sat close to August. He sang to them and kept counting them. Carly got him to say hi a couple times: “Hi girls…hi over there (pointing).” He sat on the fake rock for much of this and I had been telling him that the pieces were made out of recycled plastic. He liked the texture, then was pointing from the rock to the slats on the bridge (made from the same material) and saying “same”. He then was pointing at me and Carly and saying “same”. Not sure if he was making some analogy about how we were made from the same materials or what, but it was pretty amusing. By the time we left he was crawling over and under the spider web on his own.

On our way out we stopped to recycle our juice cups. There is a lot of recycling there as everyone seems to be discarding stuff as they move in. So August wanted to look in all the recycling bins: “another one”.

We headed home and Carly needed to go shopping at the pink building for a few things. August chose to head home with me instead of us going with her. We played with Bluie, etc. and then he got on the iPad and watched ABC songs. Carly brought him some of the food she had made and then handed me the bowl so I could taste. August wanted another bite and she said I had stolen the food. So August started repeating “Dada stole the food.”

He played with play dough again. He has a funny sentence construction where he gets it backwards, saying “Yellow out of ball…play dough out of .” Carly made a banana you can actually peel out of play dough and he loved that. Carly gave him a bath and I did the dishes. After that, he walked into the kitchen saying “Milk…leche” but neither of us understood him at first, so he grabbed a glass off the counter to make his point. He was then opening the cabinet under the sink to “See the heating system.” He was getting tired and playing with the Duplos. Carly said he had his first stress out moment as he was trying to line them up and it wasn’t working and he put his head in his hands for a few seconds. Carly took him in to sleep about 8, but it wouldn’t stick so he came back out and was with me for awhile. He was kind of lounging and lying on the couch next to me, and he suddenly got excited because he managed to hold up two fingers without using his thumb. I then brushed his teeth, which went really well. He started to drink his water but said “Dada drink wawa” right before he did, so I stole it from him and he said “What you doing?” Finally we read Kipper A to Z, Little Houses, and Mac before he went to sleep a little after 9.

 

Stamp pad ink on his fingers: 

New playground: 

Home: