He woke up a little before 7 today. While reading Kipper after Carly left, he surprised me first by repeatedly counting the mice, even thought there were just two of them. It was very intentional. Then, at the end of the “Splosh” story, he pointed to ’squelch’ and twice said the word. It was never a word I had called out or spelled for him.
Later in the morning he got out some stickers and said “For mama.” So we decorated a piece of paper for him; he was really into Qs and wanted me to draw a bunch of them as well. We Tried out the new Endless Learning Academy app and also found a new phonics song on YouTube.
At some point we were talking about being happy, and he said “Happy letters. Happy ‘q’.”
We left for the subway about 10:15 only to get there and realize he didn’t have his shoes on. First time that has happened. When I saw he didn’t have shoes I said “Oh my” a couple times. He repeated me. When we got back to the apartment, I said “Let’s get your shinbal (shoes)” and he said “Oh my.” He still remembered it in the evening, randomly saying “Shoes. Oh my.” So back home for shoes, then back to the subway.
At the other end, we sat on a bench to get our coats back on and put him in the backpack. But he climbed on my lap and cuddled. I realized he was looking over at the billboard sign by the subway doors, reading the letters. I said “This is about the letters, isn’t it?” He started saying “About E, about V…” But this lasted several minutes, and he said “More cuddle” a couple of times.
By the time we got to CGP we were getting to the 5 hour mark. Had time to go to the horses and goats. He had fun feeding leaves to the baby goats and petting them. That lasted several minutes. We then went and saw the snakes, lizards, and turtles. After awhile there we were getting close to 12:30 and time for his nap. We initially were going to go look at other animals briefly, but he started to get tired, so we headed to get ready for a nap. He changed his mind, and started saying “playground”, even though that wasn’t an option I gave him. I explained we would do his nap, then could go to the playground. He processed this and was saying “nap, playground” as we walked to the bathroom. We went to the heated bathrooms Carly likes so much. Changed him in the nursing room, then put him in the backpack for a nap. Took off his coat so he wouldn’t get too warm while sleeping. Don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to do that, as we walk outside to put him to sleep.
He fell asleep after a few minutes of walking, and slept exactly an hour, from 12:44 to 1:44. Woke up and we looked at books for a few minutes. Found a book in English about Korean art that I might read, and another of historical maps documenting the claim to calling it the Sea of Korea as opposed to Sea of Japan.
We then went over to the children’s museum. Spent a few minutes on the second floor playing with the Hangeul alphabet magnets. He was starting to put together simple Korean syllables and sounding them out. Very cool and unexpected.
We then went up to the water table area and played there most of the rest of our time – over an hour. He can now aim the water cannon things – just caring about aiming them is a development since last time we were here. Crowds came and went, but he handled all the kids just fine. Wandered away from the water a couple times to look at the culture play area and the pneumatic ball pipes, but those didn’t last long.
Finally, a little after 3:30 I convinced him we should eat. He hadn’t shown much interest in food through the day so far. We went and ate in the lounge. He was running around doing his flying maneuver (bent over, with his arms behind him) when two slightly larger boys came in and started pretend fighting him Pokemon or Dragonball Z style. He was initially surprised by them, but then was just amused.
We left a little after 4. As we were leaving, I said “Let’s put on your coat” and he responded with “Okey dokey.” He then let me put on his mittens. He pulled them off once, but the second time they stayed on, and he kept them on until we were to the subway. Then, when we were at this end of the ride and putting all our coats, etc. back on, he also let me put on his hat. It was 5, so we called Carly and met her on her walk home, with both his mittens and hat on for the first time.
At home he had a good long hyper time. I was talking about his new class, which is called Teuni Teuni Kid Champ, and he found ‘kid champ’ incredibly funny and he was ‘attacking’ Carly. I was eating my dinner sitting in the reading area, and August started sliding off the couch, into my lap. He then did some forward rolls this way. But when I made him tofu and heated the leftover eggs and broccoli for him, he got very serious while eating.
Carly did some art with him and got his bath ready. He wanted to listen to music on his iPod, so we were doing that and he started to cuddle with me, pulling my arm back around him when I took it away. This lasted several minutes, then I took him in to his bath. That went well, then he went and read books with Carly, namely Wild About Books.
We read a bunch of Kipper to him. After Carly took a shower, he went in with her and he found one of his water bottles under the bed. He came running out to me, saying “I did it” about a million times. Went to sleep awhile after that at 9:20.
New words/phrases: two mouse, other mouse, squelch (reading it), oh my, nap playground, Zinnie turn (wanting me to hold him so he could turn the spiny thing in the water area), cold outside, found mama, turn light on, nurse reading area, here
Headed to the subway. Hands sort of protected:
Zoo:
Children’s museum:
Wearing mittens, then also a hat:
Adding the hood:
And now hat:
Home:
