Right after he woke up at 6 he played with his stuffed animals for several minutes. I don’t think I’ve mentioned how, a day or two ago, he was playing with Angeles and carrying Angeles around in the living room. When he was done, he said ‘all done’ and took Angeles back in to the bedroom and put him in the bed.
In the morning we listened to his headphones again. He can now request two songs: the fish song (39) and the baby song (18). We also Skyped with my parents for awhile.
Before we left for Children’s Grand Park, he was also using his elbows to lay his head down gently and lie on his back on the hardwood floor.
He was quiet on the subway ride, but didn’t go to sleep right away at the park as I had hoped. We walked around, picking shady paths. He likes the music on the loudspeakers, so in two places I just stood in the shade and we listened. After each song he would loudly say ‘more’. Finally, he started to yawn. But he still wasn’t falling asleep, so we went to our picnic area behind the coffee place. We got out the picnic mat and had a snack. He played around with sticks and rocks, and took a little tumble over a curb but wasn’t too upset. A little more walking around and he fell asleep. I went to Peace Coffee, as usual, and started reading Paul Bowles’s ‘The Sheltering Sky’.
He woke up after 40 minutes and spent several minutes playing in the coffee shop. He was excited to see the popsicle cartoon characters again on the cooler, seemed to long for the bags of snacks in the display case, and sat in four different chairs before he was ready to go.
We walked past the water area, but he wasn’t interested in going in. So we went to the zoo, and first to the primates. The chimpanzee wasn’t out, so we ended up watching the baboons, particularly a baby baboon. He liked saying ‘baboon’ (sounds like ‘baboo’) and used it later for the gibbons, spider monkeys, etc.
We walked past an area that had a bunch of children’s art and he liked looking at the pictures. He would say ‘roar’ when he saw a lion or tiger, and started saying ‘camel’ after I told him that was what was in one picture.
We then went into the children’s zoo. He looked at the otters, but quickly headed for the tropical animal building. There, he learned how to say ‘sloth’ and ‘skink’. He also made a ‘ssss’ noise to all of the snakes and lizards. We spent more of our time (3ish minutes) on the first floor. He kept walking back and forth from the coatis, the fish (making fish noises), and the skinks/lizards. In front of the fish there is a wooden fence. He figured out how to pull himself up and stand on the log that is its base.
From there we went to the water. We played in 3 different locations. First, in a really shallow pool (about an inch deep) where he stuck his hand in the grate where the water came out. Then I went and changed him. We came back and found a shady spot at the very start of the stream area and played in the rocky area. When done with that, we went to the end of the first stream where the water runs down the path and into a drain. He spent the most time here, picking leaves off of weeds and dropping them down the drain one by one and watching them float to the other end. He would say ‘bye bye’ and wave to each one.
I changed him again near the front entrance. He was perfectly calm for both changings. After this second one, he wanted to sit on the changing table and play with the lap belt that held him in. I put up with that for 5 minutes, but it was hot and stuffy, so we left. He fussed, but went calm when I got him in the backpack.
We left the park and went to the subway. We got off 3 stops north at Yongmasan to check out the waterfall park. We’ve never actually seen the waterfall on. Success! The waterfall (3, really) was on. He got out and we sat on the steps watching it and having a snack for probably 20 minutes.
From there we headed home. Carly gave him a bath and he went to bed pretty uneventfully. Before he went to bed he at one point asked for a bowl, then a spatula. I asked where he wanted them (I was holding him) and he said ‘bed’. So I put him on the bed. He stirred food in the bowl, then had GG and Marshy eat out of it, making eating noises as he held them in.
He also ‘helped’ as I gathered ingredients for banana bread. He liked watching me grate and chop the zucchini and carrot. He was asleep before it was finished though. The banana/zucchini/carrot bread turned out really well – much better than the last couple loaves.
New words: French toast, tiger, roar, camel, baboon (baboo), skink, sloth, stain glassed window (she-dow), Ruby (ooh-bee)
Pcnic area:
After his nap:
Animals:
More food:
Water:
Fake waterfall:
Big climbing wall being built in front of actual rock walls:
Home:
