Carly was back to work today. August decided that meant he wasn’t sleeping in anymore either. He was up at 6:55. Luckily, he handled the news that Carly was at work pretty well, considering. He “missed mama” through the day, but pretty much handled going back to the regular schedule really well. He woke up from a short nap, and that was probably the only time that he wasn’t fine with being back on the schedule – instead of falling back to sleep in my arms, he got upset that Carly wasn’t home.
Anyway, we made a nice bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. Watched Teuni Teuni and brushed his teeth (he said “mama!” a couple times and pointed to the screen, presumably at the woman actor/dancer). He is really into the puzzles in the Hungry Caterpillar iPad app. He’s kind of starting to get them, but will still start a puzzle, have me help for 5 seconds, then start a new one, etc. When we were writing on paper he was focusing a lot on numbers today.
Just past 9:30 we headed out – first time using the backpack since the 31st and our trip to the party and back. We walked to Toys R Us and went to the play area on the same floor. Our start time was 10:11, and we used pretty much our whole two hours. He did some wandering around at first, but spent most of our time in the sand area, followed by playing with the giant needle wall thing, then the big teddy bear you can jump on, and finally the toy car area. In the sand area we first made soup and played with the animal figures, but there was a lit sand table, so we poured sand on it, and that’s where we spent the rest of our time in there, mainly writing letters in sand.
From first telling August we were going to a play area, he was talking about “No screaming in the play area.” I didn’t have to bring it up myself. Then, as we left the play area I said we were going to Toys R Us. He immediately started saying “No screaming in Toys R Us.”
At Toys R Us we bought washable Crayola markers for paper, as he likes to use the dry erase ones, but they are much more expensive. We looked at books and almost bought a Very Hungry Caterpillar ABC book. Luckily, August found one that was already opened and we realized it was the Eric Carle ABC book we already have – all that was different was that ‘crocodile’ was replaced with ‘caterpillar’ so they could do the rebranding. Lame. Saved us 6 bucks.
We changed him and ate part of our lunch, then headed home. He fell asleep about half way home (12:47). Got home and had him sitting on table in the backpack. Had enough time to take my drugs and get stuff out to work on, then he woke up at 1:16. Oh well.
Spent most of the afternoon using those new markers to color and write. A lot of tiny letters, and a lot of words, especially in cursive. He definitely recognizes ‘is’ and ‘it’ as sight words. There were a few other new ones he seemed to be getting down, too.
About 4:15 we went back outside. Went across to his usual sign (the one for the bridge) and was pushing that. He then got his water bottle out and was drinking, then was watering things. But he was watering things by rubbing the nozzle on them, which is gross, so I reminded him about shaking. So he spent a good 10 or 15 minutes shaking water out on everything, particularly the ground, pretending to write letters with it. Finally, at 4:44 he was done with that. He said “wait for mama.” We were standing by the bridge. He said that a couple times, then said “Mama up there”, pointing at the bridge. Tried to call but didn’t get her, but figured she might be walking. So we went over to the bus stop to wait. He didn’t like me trying to get him away from the bus stop at all (into the sunshine, or simply out of pedestrian traffic). He just wanted to stand and wait. But then Carly called as said she was actually walking.
So August and I walked home, stopping at GS25 to refill my juice and lozenge supply. We went home to drop them off, then were going to wait at the elevator for Carly, but I had to change him, and that’s when she got home.
August and I had started listening to the newest David Bowie album before we went outside. I had just turned it back on when we came back inside, then I saw that he had died.
We all hung out for awhile and Carly ate. Then I went and laid down for awhile. She gave him a bath, which went pretty well. I hung out with him while he did some Endless Spanish, then I convinced him to do some reading. Then he was back to the whiteboard for awhile before Carly nursed him and he fell asleep right about 8.
New words/phrases: pantalones, funny monkey, no screaming in Toys R Us. Sad that mama’s all gone, sad that mama’s gone, (what does the) peacock do?, wait for mama, estornuga (sneeze in Spanish – saying it after he sneezed), tickle Sophie
I’m feeling pretty good. Cough surprisingly strong still at times. Was definitely winded and tired after we got back from Toys R Us – still feeling it when he woke up. But hopefully a little better each day. Really wanted to finish my Bluebeard story today (today was the day we were supposed to submit to each other) and had just started working on it when he woke. So that was a little painful. But oh well. Before he fell asleep like that I didn’t think I was finishing it anyway.
First backpack trip of 2016:
Play area:
Back home:
Turning pages:
Back out in the park:
Pointing to ‘the’ and ‘is’:
