August had started waking up around 4am, getting Carly up for good at 4:45. I don’t know how she managed that. She got him back to sleep a little before 7, and he slept until 8:30. When he woke up, he opened the door, bumping his forehead slightly, as he was rubbing it as he walked down the hall, and went straight for the Duplos.
We made banana bread and he played some iPad and ate breakfast (milk, Cheerios, and then banana bread) before getting ready to head to his class.
His class today was about the grocery store and categorizing foods. She had four tables: one for toys, one for fruits, one for veggies, and one for meat. August really liked going to each table and playing with the objects.
While at home, he had surprised me when, telling him we would go to class, he said ‘seongsaegnim’ – or some version of it that was at least recognizable. That is Korean for ‘my teacher’, and is how you address teachers. Of course, I’ve used it a lot – and he’s heard it used in class by the teacher and the other parents – but he hadn’t said it before. I then also found out he could say ‘Jungbean’, the name of the boy in class that he knows from other classes, and seemed to know who that was.
So, we had used these names during class, and at the end, I got him to say ‘bye bye seongsaegnim’ to his teacher. But he was really into saying ‘bye bye Jungbean’, and said it to him several times.
We went down and went grocery shopping, exploring the pet area first with August carrying around the basket.
We came home and ate raviolis for lunch, and at 1:30 I decided to try to put August to sleep without the carrier. Didn’t expect much, but figured I’d give it 10 minutes. Well, he looked on the verge of sleep, but he was just sitting on the bed, refusing to lie down or let me touch him. I kept singing, and his head would tilt back and he’d start to fall over – but he’d catch himself and jerk awake. Finally, I got smart and stacked pillows around him. He fell asleep like that at 1:50, mostly sitting up, without me touching him at all.
He slept for 47 minutes. I went in, and he clearly wanted to go back to sleep. Managed to sing him back to sleep once, but as he fell asleep he kind of rolled to his right and off the pillows. He tried laying there for a few seconds, but got back up. I rebuilt the pillows around him, but he was now too upset. So I picked him up and he fell asleep in my arms. I sat on the couch and he slept on me for 40 minutes (2:47 to 3:27) while I watched ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ (with headphones). So kind of the two extremes of napping.
At 4 we headed out of the house, him in the backpack, and walked east to Cuckoo Bird Children’s Park (뻐꾸기어린이공원), southeast of Home Plus. We had played there just once before. He climbed the stairs to the play structure, walked across the slightly shaky bridge, and went down the slide. The slide was always with me, but he did the stairs and bridge on his own at times. We also just played up in the structure as there weren’t other kids. He surprised me by pointing to a sign in there and saying ‘Hangeul’, the Korean alphabet. And he had fun pushing me over, and then pulling me up by the shirt.
School was out and other kids showed up, so we made room for them and left. We went to the art museum and went through the downstairs art, looking at the Alice in Wonderland box and other art. When we exited that main room, August asked for “more crackers”, still remembering the visit several times ago when a woman gave us crackers. And when he saw the tree outside, he still said “waterfall”, even though I’m not entirely sure what he’s talking about (I think maybe the tree, which is a sculpture, has a water feature on it, and we saw it in the spring, but since then it has never been on). Finally, he remembered that there is a drinking fountain with little paper cups that we’ve drunk out of before and he wanted the “yummy cold wawa”.
August had been holding his blue broom when we left the house. He held it, transferring hands, the entire time we went to and played at the park, and then to and through the art museum. He only set it down when he then decided he was hungry and wanted banana bread. We ate that outside the museum, and when he was done he immediately wanted the broom back.
We walked and met Carly and Megan just south of Brownstone and headed home, stopping at Tous les Jours for bread. August was upset when Carly left to go in to get the bread, but we spied on her through the window and that made him happy.
Came home and had did the usual dinner/bath routine. Carly gave him his bath today. He is continuing to really enjoy bath time, and sit down now.
He went to sleep at 8:30, an early night as of late.
I finished season one of Fear the Walking Dead after he went to sleep. Thought the last episode moved quickly, but really liked it overall. During his nap I was working on translating the class schedule for winter session, as I need to figure out what classes to enroll him in.
New words/phrases: patience grasshopper, volcano, seongsaengnim (‘my teacher’ in korean), Elmo shirt, Jungbean (friend in class), panda, crow, bye bye Jungbean, doggie/kaa food, Hanguel, shaky, wawa on my(?) shirt (drinking out of little cup at museum), mama’s tea all gone
Class:
Home Plus. Nice spelling:
Napping sitting up:
Children’s park:
Smog sun:
Where he claims the waterfall is at the art museum:
