He was up about 6:30 today. In the morning it was sort of snowing, but not for long. Carly made him a big house for the animals, then I added a playground, complete with a shaky bridge. We then skyped with my parents, during which August had fun Qing grampa and gramma – he mentioned it several times throughout the day. Carly cleaned some of the windows, and August was really into helping with that. When she was done we got him the water squirt bottle so he could keep cleaning.
He took a solid nap in the middle of the day, then around 2 we left on the 2 mile walk to Luceen Apartments. Along the way he surprised us by saying “Pattern Ms.” I asked what he meant, and he pointed to the railing along the sidewalk that had wavy bars that could look like Ms. We got to Luceen Apatments right about 3, and went up to Mandy’s apartment. She and her 3 daughters had offered to watch August. So this was our first time dropping him off at someone else house. He was cautious at first, but soon got into identifying letters (mainly C) in all of the patterns on the pillows and blankets. He also saw a cross on their wall and called it a little T. About 3:30 we slipped away and walked a few blocks to a coffee shop called Cafe Another. We had good mochas and macchiatos and read for about an hour.
When we went back they met us exiting the elevator – he was crying. He had done really well for 20 to 30 minutes, then got a little wimpery every 3 minutes or so, then was upset the last 10 or so. He calmed down quickly, and we stayed visiting for a good 30 more minutes or so. He really liked playing with the girls, and they had a lot of toys he really liked, including a play kitchen mixer that turned (and sort of looked like a drill), a little oven where he “sizzled” a hot dog in a pan, and something he was using as a hammer.
We took the bus home and had went to the pink building. Carly went grocery shopping and August and I went into the book/stationary store. He chose puffy number stickers and we picked up 5 more big pads of paper. They were out of big boxes of crayons. We kept looking until Carly came over. He kept looking through a box with packs of different colored paper, going “hmm, hmm, hmm.”
Came home and had dinner. Carly made zucchini, which he continues to eat in bulk, and I made noodles that he shared with me. Used some of his new stickers and read “After the Storm” for the first time (or was that after his nap?). I gave him a bath a little after 7. He did pretty well, but didn’t appreciate it when I started washing his hair. He was playing with his comb/brush, which is a folding one that Cherie gave him. He bends it and moves it around, naming different letters he sees: “English V, Hangeul S, G, N, No Hangeul V.” Skyped with Cassie and Colin for a few minutes. A little more Duplos and writing letters on his new paper, then he insisted on some stories before bed. Read him a couple Kipper stories in bed before he decided to turn off the light and nurse, a little before 9.
Been listening to a lot of Christmas music. With our Apple Music subscription you can get all the music you want, so today we were listening to the Bruce Cockburn and Ottar Liebert Christmas albums for 1991. Those were big Christmas albums at the Music Store in Chelan when I worked there 1992-94. Also listened to Ella Fitzgerald’s 1960 Christmas album.
New words/phrases: Cevesa hobres…, M A M A mama, Q gramma, more nursey nursey mama please, dada frozen (when I paused in a song for him to fill in a line – he uses ‘frozen’ when playing with the iPad and it seems like an app has frozen), que paso, more mama do that
Walking:
He saw Ms in this:
Mandy’s house:
Coffee shop:
Shopping. “Hmm, hmm, hmm”:
New stickers:
Bath: