After some good play time in the water, we got out of the house kind of early today, making it down to CGP before the children’s museum opened. So we went back to where he first noticed ants and looked at ants and played with rocks.
When the museum opened we went straight to the water table. He played there, and at the air-based things nearby, for over an hour. His play date didn’t show, but I don’t think he minded.
New this week was that he could grab balls from the little whirlpool thing by himself for the first time. In previous weeks he needed my help.
We also spent a lot of time playing at the big kids table at the part where you can change the flow of a stream. It is too tall for him, so I had to hold him up a lot. But he also just liked standing next to it and throwing pieces in.
And I’ve decided my next job should be designing water tables at children’s museums as there are so many ways this one could be better: the pool for older kids, for example, doesn’t really have any opportunities, besides this stream thing, for free play. So all the bigger kids always try to play in the toddler pool where there are all the balls and boats.
When he stared to fade we went up and had lunch. This was a notable lunch because it was the first time he just walked out of a room on his own, leaving me behind. We then had fun making faces at each other through the glass. And there were some bigger kids that he found hilarious and was trying to emulate when they banged on the glass.
From there we headed to the rooftop coffee shop and he fell asleep right away. I finished my book and chose my next book from their shelf: War Trash by Ha Jin.
After 50 minutes he woke up and we went behind the building, up in the wooded area, looking for a quiet place to skype my parents as they had tried to call. We ended up finding an awesome little area that makes a perfect picnic spot. We Skyped and then played with sticks and bushes and looked at the statue of a girl who was a leader in the rebellions against Japan.
From there we headed to the zoo. The tropical building (where his favorite thing is still the humidifier, but he also took to the cockatoo, amused both by its head feathers and name – he tried saying it a few times), then the children’s zoo (most of our time spent at the horses, particularly the water spigot in front of them and the water running under the grate next to it), then the baboons and macaques, then the wild dogs, where suddenly he wanted food and then started looking tired.
So we left, and he fell asleep by the time we got to the subway, but not before we had to stop and watch some construction equipment for about 15 minutes. He slept all the way back to Hagye, so I just walked around the park for awhile and admired the new paint job on the bridge steps. He woke up a couple minutes after 5 and a couple minutes later Carly’s bus pulled up and we surprised her.
Having not eaten a ton of food during the day, he ate a bigger dinner than usual. He also made good use of the help sign while playing. I decided to try and teach him ‘book’ next. Stayed awake until close to 10.
Morning. Stepping in:
Children’s museum:
Lunch:
Our skype/picnic area:
Zoo:
Watching dirt being moved:
Back home in the park:
Waking up:
New paint job:
