Tuesday: Children’s Grand Park

Spent close to 5 hours in the children’s museum as he discovered hand puppets and spent a ton of time in the water area.

He was up at 6:20. They nursed and read books: Suddenly, Me and My Dad, the Elmo earth book. They took off his diaper and he ran around all silly so she couldn’t put on his underwear. I mentioned going to Children’s Grand Park today and he told Carly “I don’t want you to go to work.” “How many days of work left?” He put her shoes on his hands and said he was a robot. When she said she had to get going he handed her his shoes. We wouldn’t let him go out until he put pants on, and after Carly left he went and put shorts on, and even commented on mama still being in the hall, but then he didn’t actually go out.

Back in the living room, he added a Depeche Mode song to his playlist and I made Cheerios and bananas for breakfast. He wanted to watch how cereal is made, so we watched a video, then I switched to Mr. Rogers videos. I did some exercise, but when it came to taking a shower he kept not letting me go. I finally got that done. He came in and was playing with the sink. He was saying “It’s going to the waste treatment plant?” a lot this morning and throughout the day, anytime sinks or toilets were involved. He also used his stethoscope as a vacuum throughout the morning. And he was lying on the floor and playing with Carly’s spinner.

I got us ready to go, and he ate peanut butter on spoon – a lot of talk about zookeepers, and eating them as he ate the peanut butter. We played some piano and I was figuring out the Smurf theme song. August made up a new version of the Juicy Juice song that went: “I needed juice cuz my friend was thirsty…the shopkeeper…they actually had juice at the store.” And as we were leaving he looked at the artwork we have that says ‘hope’ and said “I erased the silent e…Stop hopping. I catched the picture and hung it up with tape so it can’t jump around.” We left at 9:50.

In the elevator he looked at the repeating images of us and said “infinity Zinnies, infinity dadas.” Outside, we watched a backhoe break up some pavement for a couple minutes. August put his fingers in his ears. On the train he needed to use the bathroom, so we stopped at Meokgol. While we were there we stopped at a GS25 and got some kimbap and a triangle one with salted fish roe.

August wanted to go straight to the children’s museum and start playing. I was hungry so we sat in front of the children’s museum on a bench and had some lunch first. Good call, as he was really into playing once we got in. While we were at the bench, a boy and girl came with some Pokémon toys and eggs and August was really interested.

We went in and he first played with the static cling pieces on the window. He then walked over by the blackboard, but got entangled in a big group of kids a bit older than him. They ended up lining up to take photos in the toy soldier photo op place, and August got in line with them. He was having a lot of fun. I got him to move to the end of the line, and we waited in line until they were done and I took his photo as a toy soldier. While he waited, he rubbed his back against the apple tree things, and wanted me to take a picture of his back so he could see the back of his shirt.

From there he went into the drumming room and drummed with a bunch of other kids, then hung the leaves/branches on the tree (went back to that a few more times) and played with the CDs on the fish shape, before getting attracted by the spinning zoetrope. He walked over to it and tried to grab it, and it pulled him around and he fell into it. A little hurt, but he had learned his lesson and went back and kept spinning it, and putting the discarded papers in it. He also wrote on some papers.

But the big activity was the hand puppets. First, he sat down on the seating area to watch some other kids. He then went back and got a puppet and started playing around with them. He got one for me and we played with them together, then he went back with the other kids and was hiding behind the curtain part and touching the other puppets with his and generally being silly. At one point he ran off and went over to the colorful shadows area with the puppet and was dancing around and making shadows with the puppet. He then wore the puppet as he made towers with the light blocks and had the puppet knock them down.

Then back to the puppet area, where he got the green kid puppet, which he called Augie. He played with that, then the dragon: “I’m a floppy baby…I’m a floppy dragon.” He switched to the scary dragon one and went back to the shadow area and started singing a “I am the beautiful one” song. I asked where that came from and he said he made it up. Back in the puppet area, he switched back to Augie, and gave me the man one, which I named Omar and had tell stories. August wanted a story about a dragon, so I told the story about a lonely dragon that finds an abandoned baby and ends up raising it. When August wanted a second story, it was about the dragon figuring out what diapers are and how to get them after the baby was pooping all over the dragon’s treasure. For a third story he requested a story about cows peeing on me. So I told a very short story about going to a farm with cows and they all peed on me so I left and never went back.

At some point suddenly all the school groups disappeared. Kind of strange, as there were still a couple upstairs later. But it was suddenly nice and quiet. We went to the zoetrope and I made an actual animation for him – C to O to Q and back. Then back to the puppets some more and more shadows. I took a photo of all the puppets we had played with, and he said he wanted to play with the dragon one last time. He then played with the light blocks, shadows, and shadow puppets, following a girl and her dad wherever they went. Then back to the puppets one more time, and to the puppet he used at the beginning. He said “Your name is Jenny.” And said that the puppet was a teacher. I had the puppet teach him about spiders, so we Googled photos and information about how many eyes spiders have.

He finally got hungry, so we went up to the bathroom, then went and had our second lunch. He kept saying he didn’t liked the smell of one family’s lunch and pointing. I didn’t like it either. Not sure what it was. We also walked by one of the changing rooms, and August ran in and joked that he wanted me to change him. So he got up on the changing table and I pretended to change him. Then to the water area, where he played and played. Mainly in our usual part, having the balls go up the lift thing. But this time August found that he could turn it on his own. A lot of work for him, but he kept doing it and doing it. There was also short stints over on the fishing part and putting balls into the jets that lift them up, but mainly it was the lift area.

He played with the scarves for a minute, then wanted the space area at 3:50. He did the running thing a few times, then roamed around, playing with the hopscotch shapes, another running video game thing, dancing with the alien a bit, and then wanting to go in the big climbing structure. This is the one that you’re supposed to be 5 to play in and he’s been upset about not going in before. No one was in it, so we went in, and he was done after a minute. But then he found the hanging thing, which sees how long you can hang in the air by your hands. I had to lift him up to the bars, but then he would hang. Did it several times, up to about 12 seconds.

We left the children’s museum at 4:15. We sat outside and ate a Larabar on a bench. It was kind of chilly so I put my shirt on and tried to put his coat on: “I want to be cold…Put it away.” He then was lifting my outer shirt to make me cold: “There’s cold air in there now?” He then wanted me to blow air at his face, and he’d say “There’s wind in your mouth!” He also analyzed the big sign advertising the water area, asking what the differen
t things on it were. It is kind of a bad sign, with all sorts of things that are meaningless or don’t correspond with what’s actually in the exhibit.

We stood on the way home, then Carly called as we were by the pink building. She was close too, and August wanted to meet her. We went and met her, then we went to Tous Les Jour to get bread and Carly went to get milk. The guy at the shop gave August a plastic car, then Carly showed up. August was upset that we only looked at cakes for a second.

At home they nursed and I got food. Referring to his food almost being done in the microwave, I said something like “It’s almost there.” He pointed at the broccoli I was cutting up and said “I wish that wasn’t there.”

They read Suddenly! Then I gave him a bath. We watched Pirates of the Caribbean, end of Beethoven’s Ninth, then some Pink Panther. After his bath, he said “I want one bubble gum ice cream. Two chocolate chip ice creams. And one strawberry ice cream.” And added “And one art that is beautiful.” Then said “That’s not a very good story.” Carly then got him to say “I’m hungry because I don’t want to go to bed.” While eating an apple Carly didn’t want him to stand on the board that is the top to his piano and which he calls his skateboard. So he ran over it and said “I passed over it.” They read My Dad and Me in bed.

Before trying to get him to sleep he said “I don’t like sleeping…Everone does sleeping?” Carly tried to get him to sleep but he wasn’t going for it. Carly went to take a shower and we got books and read Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight and the Time for Bath Poli books and did the stickers in it. And then we read Wheels on the Bus. He went and got more books but we didn’t end up reading them. He was asleep by 8:35.

I was able to finish reading Numero Zero by Umberto Eco while August was playing in the water. Then started Saramago’s Blindness.