When he woke up at 6:30, once again, he and Carly spent a lot of time going through books just looking for Qs. We’ve gotten to the point where we know where the 1 or 2 Qs in a book are, but this was taking it to the next level. After I got up a while later, his big “Becoming…” joke was “Becoming Megan. Nope!” Carly left for APIS a little after 8:15 to work with an NHD group. August and I did quite a bit of reading, during which he started counting in Spanish for 1 to 10 (before she left Carly said he had been doing 1 to 8) and he randomly started spelling ‘poop’ and ‘book’, then watched the Teuni Teuni video and brushed his teeth. A little after 10 we left, headed for Children’s Grand Park.
Rain wasn’t in the forecast, but it was drippy to start with. We got down to CGP and August wanted to see animals. He first wanted the horses, and since it was still icky we spent most of the time in the covered area nearby, looking at the signs and displays. He was really into turning the the squares that have a picture of an animal on them to find out what they eat on a picture underneath. We’ve looked at them several times, but this was the first that he was saying them on his own, such as “Bears eat (turn) fish” and “Sea lions eat (turn) squid.” He was doing that when a big group of teenage girls came by and were admiring him. He gave them a little attention, but eventually he got frustrated that they were keeping him from playing. Luckily, they moved on.
It was getting close to nap time and we hadn’t eaten, so we used the step in front of those animal food displays for eating a snack. He ate all the pickle and a bunch of zucchini (exclaiming “Thank you mama for zucchini!”), then noticed that the baboons were now “outside.” So he took off towards them and I followed with the backpack and zucchini. He looked at them and kept eating zucchini and walking/looking around. He started drawing a crowd of teenagers again, including the girls he had seen before. This time, he was more in an entertaining mood and lasted quite awhile. Eventually, he was done with zucchini and we moved along for nap time. In fact, I’d kind of been mentioning nap time to him. He then took about another minute walking around, then came walking over to me saying “nap time, nap time.”
Took him to the building with Peace Cafe. Looked at the books in the little outside library and set aside a few to take with us to the cafe to look at after his nap. Changed him, then went back to a covered table and chairs and had a bit more of a snack and put him in the backpack. As soon as we started walking he just lay his head back. Took a few minutes for him to fall asleep, but not long.
He slept 12:23 to 1:51. Carly showed up about 20 minutes before the end of his nap, and he was happy to see her when he woke up. Carly was finishing her coffee and they were looking at books for awhile. After that, we went to Han’s Deli for lunch. Carly and he shared the chicken cutlet. He liked both the corn and the cutlet, particularly with the sauce. He kept asking for more sauce (“yummy sauce). While eating, he had fun Qing the tray on the high chair (which he didn’t use, preferring to sit in a regular chair on his own), and he lost a shoe, saying “uh-oh!”
We then went to the children’s museum. First took him downstairs, as the ‘Visible/Invisible” exhibit is now open. Played down there for a good amount of time. First just roaming around to various things, but then spending most of our time in a block area that had these really big, really cool soft, blue building pieces. They were all sorts of shapes (rectangles, noodles, gears, arches) and you could build forts and all sorts of things. Were probably there about a half hour, until a little after 4, when he decided he was done and wanted to go upstairs.
From there we went up to the little kids area. Carly wanted to play with him, so I sat and read most of the time. They went down the slide together, and he actually went down once on his own. They spent a lot of time playing with a doll, and August picked up a stuffed pretend chocolate bar and said “chocolate.” We were both surprised he knew that one. He must have seen a chocolate bar at some point, but I can’t think of when that was.
Finally, he kind of just decided he was done in there as well, so we left. Got 3 seats together on the train and got off at Sangbong and walked to Costco. Got a couple things for us, an apple pie for Christmas dinner (they were out of pumpkin, or we would have gotten both), and then 3 chicken bakes for our dinner/lunch tomorrow. Got back on the train, but it was crowded now. After a stop I got next to a woman who has lived in LA for 33 years. She and her husband travel back and for every couple of months for business, I think (but I didn’t catch the full explanation).
Came home and ate dinner. I was trying to see what he remembered of the ‘animal eats’ display, but he pulled out a joke (two, actually) instead:
Me: What does a hedgehog eat?
Him: Dinner!
Me: What do they eat for dinner?
Zucchini!
He did remember that kangaroos eat leaves though.
some coloring and reading after that, then he went to sleep at 7:45. He was really acting and looking tired, first at Costco and then on the train, so we weren’t surprised it was an early evening.
New words/phrases: Mama’s at work, uno to diez, spelling poop and book, bear eats… (And other turning signs at the children’s zoo), worms, leaves, want some more, Qed the tray, more sauce, archway, fits, press hard
Zoo:
Peace Coffee:
Children’s Museum:
Home: