At some point during the night I remember August sort of crawling over towards me, then I went back to sleep. I woke up sometime later to find him taking up most of my pillow, laying on his stomach on the pillow. Again I fell back to sleep. At a later point, he must have crawl off the top of the pillow, as he sort of fell into the small gap between the mattress and wall, waking him up.
After that he slept until 7:30. We made a smoothie and ate some cereal for breakfast. The big activity in the morning was dumping out all of the blocks and then placing them back in the bag one-by-one, identifying an object or letter on most of them as he did so.
We left at 9:30 and headed up to Dobongson. We didn’t go up to the national park, but stopped at the ‘Dobongson Ecological Park’, i.e. the stream area. We were there for 2 hours. We spent most of that playing in the water, but there were a couple of snack breaks, and at the end we spent several minutes looking at the grasshopper that found its way to our backpack. He likes the word ‘grasshopper’ and he got to see it hop a couple times, which was pretty thrilling.
I changed him before we left: probably the roughest changing for him in a long time as he cried through it. Very tired. We started walking down along the stream (past the playground, which will wait for another day). He lasted over half a mile, but fell asleep as we approached the river. I sat on a bench overlooking the river while he napped. Only 30 minutes, but that seems the new norm. It did take him quite awhile to wake up though, as he was groggy all the way to the subway station from there.
We took the subway two stops south to Nowon and went to Daiso. Managed to find two small brooms – one for the backpack, one for the house – for him and another set of the cheap beach toys so we have two more shovels. 3000 won total.
From there we took the bus home. There was a food fair going on in the park, and we bought a simple pajeon (korean pancake) and a box of chicken. We went home and ate. He ate almost all of the pajeon and kept saying ‘more pancake’.
After awhile we went back out, this time to Home Plus for grocery shopping. While there he got ‘samples’ of red pepper, apple, and a chicken nugget – first time he’s had a chicken nugget. After that, he was saying ‘more chicken’. He also got really social, and was waving at everyone, particularly as we walked by the food court.
Back home, then, sans carriers and backpacks for once, we went out a third time to get a loaf of healthy bread at Tous les Jour on the first floor. Took that up, then we made a fourth and final outing to go find Carly, as she was walking home with Megan.
August and I walked to the benches next to the pink building and waited there. He was fine snacking on Cheerios, drinking water, and climbing/sitting on the bench for about 15 minutes, but then got restless. Looked at bushes for awhile, then said ‘shovel’ a couple times. I’d been thinking we should have brought one too, since we just bought more. Anyway, he played with some receipts (‘paper’) I had in my pocket, but he would crumple them and throw them in the bushes. Would have been fine with a shovel, as it stays on top, but the the receipts fall through to the ground. So we started walking some more. Crossed the street and went a half block south. Still no sign of them. So we turned around as it was now 5:15 and we might have missed them.
He was bumping his chin on my shoulder and did it really hard. Got a very sad look on his face, but didn’t cry. A guy walking the same direction said ‘Is he okay?’ and I had to explain what just happened.
As we got to the corner, there were Carly and Megan coming from the side street and crossing in front of us. We got to surprise them on the corner. Only then did August start to cry.
Back home, we, and especially August, since he gets most of the attention, had a nice long Skype call with Glecy, who is back in Seattle. After the call he was saying ‘bye bye aunty Glecy’, although the ‘Glecy’ part doesn’t sound like Glecy.
Carly gave him a bath, we read several books, and played one round of Nighty Night, and he went to sleep a little before 9.
Other highlights of the day:
Saying “I got… And ‘I got my…’ sentences. He has pretty much figured these sentence patterns out, starting with ‘I got my dada’ when he grabs my legs and wants me to carry him. He was also saying things like ‘I got my knee’ and ‘I got my wawa’. We were working on ‘I got my mama’ before we saw her and he said it later in the evening when he grabbed her legs.
He still stumbles on it sometimes. The last time we headed to the elevator, he walked most of the way, but then wanted up. He grabbed my legs, looked up at me and said ‘I got…’ ‘I got my…’ I still wasn’t picking him up as he stumbled with the words, so then he just loudly said ‘UP’.
When we were talking to Glecy, I saw him grab his shoes and start to walk down the hall. I called him back and was trying to get him to say ‘I got my shoes’. I realized that he had been on his way to put the shoes away by the door and I had interrupted him. Sometime after the call was over, I started to tell Carly about this and asked where his shoes were. We looked around, and they were down by the door. Despite my interruption (he had stayed in the room for the next few minute and, I thought, had set them down), at some point he took the shoes back down the hall and put them away all on his own.
He now regularly uses his stool in the kitchen when he wants to see what is going on. He’ll push it where he wants and step up on it. He hasn’t (yet) really used it to get thing off the counter, but it now means that very little counter space is safe from him.
New words: kisses (I kissed him a bunch and he said ‘kisses!’, grasshopper, pancake, chicken, waving, Cyril (in the Maisy books), I got my… (Used with several things: dada, mama, knee, shovel), poh-doh (Korean for grape), vegetable, okay
In the stream:
Pontificating on the trees from a rock:
Then losing his balance:
Then eating his ‘yummy shirt’:
Grasshopper:
On the way home:
Still sleepy after his nap:
Our food from the fair:
His new broom:
Waiting to surprise mama:
Bye bye Aunty Glecy: