With the weather getting colder, I figure it is time to up the visits to Children’s Grand Park to two a week. It is easy to get to, with plenty to do, between the zoo, children’s museum, cafes, and the playgrounds. So we went today, which was kind of a bad choice, as I had forgotten that the children’s museum is closed on Mondays. Luckily, we only tried to go near the end of our day, and the weather was nice so we went on a walk instead.
He woke up right at 8. Upset to find mama gone, saying “Mama here”, as if arguing or wishing she was here. But as I was holding him, he then said “Kipper”, so we ended up starting the morning by reading Kipper stories on the bed.
We did Cheerios and strawberries for breakfast, did a load of laundry, and played on the iPad. We got bundled all up and left a little after 10. When we got to the park, August chose the playground over the museum or the zoo. We went to the Adventureland Playground and mainly played in the sand, although he went up on the play structure a couple of times when “big kids” went up there. He also called the turning thing “heavy”, his term for things that are actually or figuratively hard or difficult, until I showed him how to work it. When he was done playing, he suddenly said “head home, all done playground” and starting walking off. I got him to come back, and we went over in the sun by the musical instruments to eat lunch. We ate there and played the musical instruments. Eventually he was done playing there and we had about an hour until it was his nap time.
He wanted to see animals, but when I asked him what animal, he twice said “giraffe,” which they don’t have at this zoo. After that, he would say “giraffe, no” to himself. His second choice was serval, so we headed that way. On the way, he noticed that the primates were out in the open today (they were inside last week, so we couldn’t see them). So we watched them first, then went around towards the servals. On the way, we noticed that the elephants, hyenas, lynx, foxes, and jackals were either asleep or gone. When we did see animals asleep, August would make a joke, saying “puma sleeping,” when clearly they were not.
He also did not want to be set down. When I did so, and he wanted back up, and he wanted right back up, I asked if he was asleep. Whether he was or not, he used that as an excuse, saying “more sleeps, more sleeps.” He then wanted to see the outside birds, so we did that. We then heard a donkey or zebra braying, so he wanted to see those. We walked around and saw the zebra, and he noticed that the kangaroos were still not out, that they were “inside.”
After that, it was getting close to 1, and he was clearly getting sleepy. So we walked up to our usual bathrooms, only to find that bathroom and the one nearby were both locked. So we went to the building with Peace Cafe in it and changed him there. Took his coat off so he wouldn’t roast during his nap, but he still had a sweater on. Only took a few minutes for him to fall asleep at 1:21.
We went to the 1st floor Peace Cafe, as it has a slightly nicer sitting area. He slept exactly an hour, then explored the cafe, pointing to the letters on the floor, and examining their Christmas ornaments. He knocked an ornament off the tree, and while I put it back on, a barista came and gave him a hard candy before I knew what was going on. He crunched it up and ate it just fine. We played a little Endless Reader and looked around at things they had for sale, then headed out.
It was now getting close to 3. This is when we tried to go to the children’s museum to find it was closed. We looked at the robots, then I changed him by the entrance and put him in the backpack. I figured it was sunny so we could go for a nice walk, going on the last trails in CGP that we had yet to walk on. They run from the seals exhibit along the south edge, past the south and east gates and to the rear gate. Along the way, we saw the camping experience area (with tents looking like Native American teepees), the ‘totem pole village’ (Korean totems, not Native American), the one cafeteria area we hadn’t seen, and a big statue honoring three heroes of the Korean War.
We walked out the back entrance to Achasan Station, then took that one stop to Gunja and transferred to our line home. Got home a little before Carly. He was upset to find she wasn’t home, but then wanted to watch ABC song videos. He was doing that when Carly got home a few minutes later. He went and said hi, but then went straight back to the iPad and was engrossed in that. The battle over screen time has begun.
Sometime later he was carrying Marshy and dropped him, and said “Oh gosh, oh my goodness” – phrases he has picked up from Carly. When Carly was preparing dinner for him, he kept wanting “more yummy chicken soup”, referring to the soup that Megan and Torrey brought last Friday and is now long gone. A lot more playing with play dough, pretending it was coming from our mouths or nose or ears, then he took a nice long bath.
Not sure if I’ve mentioned the ‘happy/sad’ thing: he finds it funny when I act happy or sad. Started with him turning on/off the light when I was trying to read. Continued tonight, with me playing with him while he was in the bath. He also wanted me to sing the counting song (a song I made up from 1 to 30) over and over again. He has also started to use ‘yes’ more. For example, I asked if he was ready to get out of the bath, and he replied with a simple “Yes.”
Before he went to sleep, as Carly was trying to get him to the bedroom, he walked down the hall saying “Night night, sleep sleep.” Despite that, he put up more of a fight falling asleep tonight, but was still asleep before 10, so pretty good overall.
New words/phrases: cold outside, F to E, n turn to m, move, lynx, poor Marshy, coming (out of) my nose
Playground:
Zoo:
Cafe. He is writing ‘E’ on the table:
Turning an O to a Q. He was also magically turning things into E, saying “A turn to E” and scribbling on it:
Home:
