We had to hurry to get ready in morning and get on the road by 9. But there was still time for August to play with the toy syringe I refound in a box yesterday, and to show him a young buck that was out in the yard.
The drive north went smoothly. August made it fine thanks to singing a lot of songs, a quick break at the rest area north of Tacoma, and snacking on banana brew and broccoli.
Our first stop in Seattle was REI, where I bought a child carrier backpack and supplies. While I did that, Carly took him to play in the children’s area and to nurse.
We then drove out to log boom park in Lake Forest Park. August fell asleep right after we left, so when we got to the park we sat in the car and read. When Carly’s friend Colleen showed up, she got out to go visit and I stayed with August.
He woke up after about an hour. I tried putting him in the new backpack, but he wasn’t having that. So I took him over to Carly and Colleen and her daughter Vivian. We walked down by the water, and my friend Peter and his son Micah showed up a few minutes later.
It was just a few minutes before it started pouring. So we all headed over to Third Place Books.
There, I watched August most of the time while Carly visited with Colleen and then her friend Carolyn, who showed up at 4. She took him in between, however, and near the end when I ate dinner.
August really liked the big chess set they have, and Micah played with the pieces with him. August also played in the toy area, where at one point he really focused on the big Lego-type blocks and managed to put several pieces together by himself.
After a quick walk through of the actually book store, we left a few minutes after 6 and headed to Derek and Andrea’s house. August was excited to see them all, although Eddy scared him a bit by being too rambunctious. He and Thatcher played with play dough together, as well as with the vacuum cleaner.
We took August out on a short walk in the backpack. At first he allowed us to put him in it, but he didn’t like the straps and started crying. He was unhappy for a block, but calmed down and seemed to enjoy it well enough by the end.
Back at the house, he snacked on apple and cheese that Thatcher gave him, and some of the fresh smoked salmon that Derek had just made.
Carly gave him a bath and he was asleep around 9:30.
His latest new words include ‘girl’, ‘chair’, and ‘feather’. He twice pointed to girls in TPB and said ‘girl’. He also used ‘chair’ there and Carolyn heard him say feather. I didn’t hear that, but he said it when I was teaching him ‘feather’ at the beach the other day. There were also multiple times during the day where he would very clearly attempt to use a word, but I couldn’t figure out what he was trying to say. In particular this happened with a parrot finger puppet we looked at in the book store. He used three separate words that I didn’t catch. One may have been ‘cockatoo’, which I had taught him at the zoo in Seoul.
Log Boom Park:
Third Place Books:
Thatcher’s house:
