He slept until 8:16. So tries to hurry in the morning, but we made a smoothie and with all the usual stuff we didn’t leave until about 9:30. As we left he said “bye bye haa-ugm” and “bye bye home”, and as we approached the front door he said “kitty cat”, seeing the photo of Celeste.
At the park we headed for the zoo. The first animal he requested was ‘zebra’. We went there first, then bounced around between the zebras, deer, and seals as he requested each. I had to change him, then we stopped at a bench outside the seals to eat or sandwich. He was grabbing my legs and saying ‘I got me dada’ or ‘I got dada’ when he then tripped over my foot and landed with his knee on the edge of the concrete. Didn’t actually bother him much, but he got a pretty big scrape on his knee. I remembered to add bandages to the carrier backpack when we got home.
From there we bounced around the zoo based on which animals he wanted to see next. This is a very cool development. We saw the baboons, then the outdoor birds (peacocks, the vulture (‘eagle’), working on ‘pheasant’), then the horses (he got licked by a quick horse), goats, and otters, then into the tropical building where he focused mostly on the water monitor. First, he saw the sand in the cage and wanted his shovel so he could pretend to play in it. A couple minutes later we came back and got to watch the water monitor crawl out of the water into the sand and face-off with August as he played with his shovel.
From there we went to the Adventureland Playground, where he played in the sand for a few minutes until he was ‘all done’. We went to the musical instruments and he played there for awhile, then wanted to go back to playing in the sand, so we went back over by the toy train, where he played with sand, threw rocks up on the other rocks, and worked at climbing on the rocks.
It was getting close to 5 hours that he’d been awake, so I put him in the backpack and he fell asleep after a half mile. Went to the cafe and read for awhile. He woke up happy after a 34 minute nap. Not long, but much more than the last two days.
From there we watched the big fountain for a few minutes than hopped on the subway, then transferred to the bus and went to APIS. We played in the park until school was about over, then went in to meet Anna (one of Carly’s students from last year) in the library after school. We had a few minutes to hang out with Meg and her art class. August was looking overwhelmed, then we were just standing in the quiet hall and he got an incredible sad face and started crying a little bit. Got him calmed down and in the library when school got out, then Anna and another student showed up. A little much for him, so we went outside by the field.
Took him awhile to get fully comfortable (the other student was a bit too much for him), but he ended up throwing objects (his shovel, tissues, etc.) around on the benches, then running around on the field. Anna had to run off to get her stuff when the busses showed up, after which August was saying ‘bye bye, Anna’. So I took him inside so she could hear him say it.
After Carly was done with her culture club, we went up to her classroom then we all walked home. We passed a place advertising soft serve ice cream, but then they were out of ice cream. So when we got back to our neighborhood we went to McDonald’s for our soft serve, then home for dinner.
He ate ‘grampa’s soup’ for dinner. Although ‘grampa’s soup’ now refers to refried beans, cheese, and broccoli. Carly gave him a bath. He has a lot of fun in the bath now, but still stands up the entire time. We read books while Carly got the bath ready. He wanted to see a camel, so we got back on the computer and was looking up photos of various animals. He made it to about 9 before falling asleep.
New words: goodbye, (trash), goodbye home, kitty cat (seeing photo of Celeste as we left), tissue (after Anna said it), nozzle
Eyes closed when he hits the drum:
Park across from APIS:
APIS:
Walking home: