We had planned to go to Ttukseum for the water park today, but Derek was concerned about rain in the forecast. So we hung out around here instead.
August woke up at 6am again. When Carly left today he said goodbye to her a lot and then let her go without getting upset at all. He and I got a lot of cleaning done in the morning after eating slices of banana bread for breakfast. We were going to go out for a walk around 8:30, but I made the mistake of saying we’d go and get a smoothie. He heard the word ‘smoothie’ and immediately wanted us to make one here at home. He got so sad when I kept preparing us to go outside that I gave in and we made a smoothie here at home first. If he’d been angry, etc. I wouldn’t have given in, but with the sad face…
Anyway, when he was done with his smoothie we went out for a walk around the streets east of here. We ended up at the playground in the apartment complex just south of Home Plus. Played there a few minutes, mainly on the elliptical and watching a lift truck, then went to Home Plus and bought bread, then met Derek and Logan in the playground by the dinosaurs.
We played together for over an hour. August watched Logan on the slides and on the play structure. August was starting out his usual clingy, but after some sandwich and watching Logan he got bolder. Soon he was throwing away garbage and trying to climb on the play structure.
We wandered through the center of the park, then went over to the art museum to show Derek and Logan the play structure inside. Logan climbed through most of it. August didn’t really try to climb through, but he spent more time in the trampoline area than ever before, and kind of slid into a crawl area. He spent a lot of time watching Logan and was clearly inspired by him.
It was now about noon and August was clearly tired. We walked with them to McDonald’s, where Derek picked up lunch. They saw August and Logan and gave us free toys. We parted ways from there and I carried August home, hoping he would fall asleep. He was laying on my shoulder when we got home, but he brightened up and played for awhile. So after 15 minutes I put him in the carrier and we went walking around the building. He fell asleep pretty quickly and I was able to set him down for a 75 minute nap.
He played for an hour and a half. Some reading books, general playing with the pillows and couch, etc. Finally, he was ready to go outside, but this time I made the mistake of going into the bathroom. He followed me, and picked up the towel outside the shower. He started ‘cleaning’ everything: the floors, the walls, the doors, etc. So I went and did dishes. He then found the washcloth on the counter from one of his previous cleaning sessions and cleaned with that. Then he asked for the soap ‘soap, soap, soap, soap’ and I gave him a container of dish soap to play with (closed, of course). In all he spent about 20 minutes pretending to clean before he was ready to leave again. But he insisted on carrying the washcloth with him (which was fine – I told Carly I would have drawn the line at also taking the soap).
We went over to the park. This time by the pond area, full because of the recent rain. He spent several minutes just looking out through the railings at the dragonflies. Then we ate a Larabar and walked around a bit. We went to the dinosaurs and watched the fountains and a dance group practice and then headed to the other side. We went in the art museum and down to see the Alice in Wonderland box thing and some of the other art. We then went to Home Plus (again) to get diapers and a few other things. I didn’t have August in a carrier, so when I decided to get more than just diapers I needed to get a basket and put him in the carrier. He wanted to carry the basket around and put things into it. We could have done that for awhile, but he was getting in the way of other people (it was busy) so I put him in the carrier and we finished up.
Got home a little after Carly. She had picked up the big (green) new bathtub we had ordered. She and August tried it out for size (they fit).
We played with his letter magnets, and I determined he can recognize and pronounce at least 10 letters (p d f c u s r o h m) thanks to our Endless Alphabet time (which we generally do for 5 or 10 minutes each day, but not always).
He had spaghetti and raviolis for dinner, then they took a bath in the new bathtub. There was some good playtime on the bed, and he went to sleep around 8:30.
‘Only’ recorded 4 new words today, but also noticed him combining nouns and verbs in his verbal practice, saying ‘baby sit’, ‘gramma sit’, ‘tia sit’.
Carly and I watched a couple episodes of Game of Thrones. We now have one episode left in season 4.
New words: wrapper, Hagye, Abby, squirrel
Still crossing his fingers:
Sandoo:
Back outside. Carrying his washcloth:
Watching dragonflies:
Watching the fountain and playing with the broken trash bin:
Wanting to do the shopping:
Trying out the new bathtub:
His first ten letters (later he would also confirm ‘t’):
The song we’ve been working on: