In his sleep Carly found him near the end of the bed once, and one time crawling towards bottom of bed. Later, I heard him say ‘tippy toes’ in his sleep.
He woke up just after 7:30. Wasn’t happy to see me; he wouldn’t let me touch him and kept saying “all done dada”, meaning he was either all done with me, or still sleepy, as ‘all done’ is what he says when he is sleepy. Anyway, he finally made his way off the bed and walked into the room with the Duplos. At this point he grabbed my finger and led me to the Duplos, pulling me down to sit. He then pushed my arms towards the Duplos and leaned on my shoulder as I started playing with them.
He drank some milk and we ate oatmeal with blackberries for breakfast. We then skyped with my parents. Dee and Grant are visiting them for two days, so we were able to Skype with Dee as well. August spent a lot of the time sitting at the table, coloring or having me write letters. At the end, he said “bye bye Dee”.
We then started getting ready to go. Pollution levels have been highish. Planning on being outside Thursday and Friday, so figured we’d try to avoid the worst of it. We headed to Dobongsan, where levels were below 100, with the intention of going to the Iris Garden, then maybe a couple different children’s parks and/or the stream.
On the train north we sat, and August immediately wanted to get out his broom and start sweeping, which drew a laugh from other people on the train. We got there and started playing in the Iris Garden. August found some discarded stems (there were a lot of people working in the park) that we used to write letters in the sand. At some point he got hungry, so we walked along the boardwalk area along the stream and to the bench area. The swinging bench, where he had napped before, was broken, but there were plenty of other benches. Along the way a woman told me August was cold. It was sunny and close to 70, and getting warmer and we were both wearing t-shirts and shorts.
We ate lunch. Today when I divided the sandwich I made them very equal. August’s response was to grab both pieces, take a bite out of one of them, then hand me that piece. That piece he then called Dada’s sandoo, calling his own piece ‘Auggie’s sandoo’ for a change.
We then walked around the garden, August saying ‘Dobongsan’ a lot, and settled at a bench/pathway near the north end where we got out the shovel and other toys and played with them, particularly the ball and boat. More letter writing and silliness ensued. Pollution levels were still rising, and now higher than Nowon. So I decided to head a few stops father north, to Uijeongbu, where we could nap inside then play out on the roof of the department store.
I changed him at the park around 12:30 and put him in the backpack. He was looking tired right away. He managed to stay awake on the platform, even saying “ah-ha, I see it” when he saw a train going the other direction. But he fell asleep on the train at 1:13.
Got to the department store and went way up to the top floor to the movie theater. Found what I thought was a decent place to sit in the lobby, but turned out to be louder than I expected, as there were these loud announcements for peoples’ popcorn orders or something. He only slept to 1:47, although he woke up okay.
We went down and played on the roof, mainly walking around on the rubbery hills and with the ropes on the bridge. Then went down to the 8th floor to change him. We then played at the toy table at the toy store, but August kept wanting the toys the girl next to us had. The second time this happened he really started crying. He was looking really tired, and I thought he might fall back to sleep. I took him for a walk away from the store and he calmed down. Then he started saying “fun” and pointing. I let him lead, and he led us back to the table. We played around the store for another half hour or so, and he did much better this time.
Getting close to 4, so we went back up to the roof to play for awhile longer. We were throwing and rolling the ball around. August started to get upset when one little boy tried to play with it. This was the second smaller boy that was fascinated with August, and kept trying to touch him. August was generally polite, but kept walking away from them. Another boy, bigger than him this time, gave him a cheese stick, which August liked.
Finally, we headed home. Waited about 15 minutes in a train, as we chose the empty one starting at Uijeongbu as opposed to the one from father north that was full. We were able to sit and play on the iPad. For the train from Dobongsan home we were able to sit again, this time entertaining himself by looking out the window and telling the other people about his brooms, including “yellow broom (at) home”.
We got home a little after Carly. Carly prepared veggies for spaghetti sauce, but we then realized that the sauce we had was spicy. August wasn’t eating much else, so when I was eating the spaghetti, I let him try a noodle. He reacted rather surprised, and said “spicy hoo-ha (noodle)”, but then wanted more. We put him in his seat and gave him a bunch and he devoured them, sometimes acting like his mouth was hot, but still eating more.
I gave him a bath tonight and he played for a long time. Carly then put him to sleep a little before 8.
I watched the first two episodes of the new Walking Dead season. A great start, and they’ve gone (apparently) very off-script from the graphic novels. Carly and I also watched the first two episodes of the Modern Family season. So kind of a catch up on TV night.
New words/phrases: color blue (pointing to ink on his hand), stamp pad, dada missed it, Dobongsan, itchy right here, have idea, fun, fire extinguisher (fire ex-ting-sher), yellow broom home
Zinnie’s screwdriver and my pen:
Iris Garden:
Department store:
Pointing up to a van vent:
Patting and waving to the turtle on our way out:
In the subway station:
Spicy spaghetti:
