He, and by extension Carly, was up from 3 to 4:30. He then woke up at 7:20. Opened the door but then closed it when he heard me. Opened it again to whisper “Where’s mama?” and got upset when she wasn’t here. When he calmed down he wanted to go out in the hall. I offered him the black pair of sandals and he said “No. The ones for when you’re in a stream or lake.” We put those on him, then I put his black shoe on my toes and he flatly told me “Well that doesn’t even fit.” We went and wandered the hallway. He sang a little song: “Which letter you push, which number you push, dada push a number…” We stopped at a set of bikes. He sat down and studied a bike lock. Then kept pushing the bike across the floor as he studied it. That lasted several minutes until I was tired pulling it back across the floor. On the way back he hid behind a bag hanging from someone’s door for milk deliveries.
Back inside, he wanted to go back outside, but after some banana bread he wanted to play Mammals, just as I had changed and was ready to leave. He played that, I exercised, and he wanted the other new app: Space. We played that, and he once again read ‘Jupiter’ on his own. Really don’t know how he learned to read that one (he did it once at the children’s museum as well). He played with the vacuum cleaner while I hung up laundry, then I took a shower.
After my shower we used a music app called Lily to make a sort of song, then listened to that for awhile and he played with the blueberries. For lunch we had a quesadilla and teriyaki chicken sandwich. I realized we’d be having Tospia sandwiches for dinner and that August wouldn’t really get veggies, but then I realized I could add broccoli to both the quesadilla and sandwich.
We talked about going outside a few times, but it didn’t happen until after noon. We were talking about what to do, and I said that if we went to Dream Forest the water might be on. He replied “I don’t want to do that. Water is wet.” Finally, we got going at close to 1. I had the backpack ready to go, but then he decided he wanted the bike instead. So I switched to that. It worked out, as it made our meandering trip to APIS a bit easier, as we could stop and take our time along the way more easily.
As we walked we sang random songs, and I sang our even numbers song. He wanted it to go to 100, so we extended it. Then I realized it could also be an odd numbers song and we went to 101. I like when I see him extending rules/testing hypotheses, and this time he asked “201 is an odd number? Because it ends with 1?”
We got to the first park before 1:30. We were to get sandwiches and meet Carly at 4:30, so we had about two and a half hours for playing and exploring. Unfortunately, August knew the plan but just wanted to jump to the meeting mama part. So he didn’t want to stop at 매봉어린이공원 until he saw the faucets. We played in the water and got the blue cup thing out of the bike and played with that, pouring water down the drain. When he was done with that he went to the play structure and climbed up the round steps once, then went down a slide. Spent a little time on a swing, then went and got on the bike. I had left the backpack on the seat, so he climbed on with it and had me push him around. He was kind of crouched down so his body made a Zish shape: “I’m Z!…I’m a P!…I’m an upside down V!” He was remembering the song from Poli class. We ended up over at the apartment playground just adjacent. Didn’t play there, but he found a feather that we guessed was from a pigeon. Played with that, then he opened a zipper on the backpack, put the feather in, and closed it on his own.
We then got going, and he was pulling the cover down far to give him some shade. We went through Wolgye Station, then were walking by the construction site. I was suggesting a coffee shop, but he kept rejecting them (we passed at least 4) as he wanted to get to mama. He hopped off by the showroom building, and played with the green netting that is used as a fence around it. He used his hands as monsters on it, and said they were eating plastic in the ocean, then wanted me to take care of them (remembering a few days ago when we took care of a Duplo whale that had eaten plastic). Played with the fence for ten minutes or so, then got going.
Our next stop was Sinchang Children’s Park (신창어린이공원). There, he was excited about going in the toddler swing. He wanted me to do it, but I told him I wouldn’t fit. He stood up in it and was swinging. We went and had some dried mango for a snack, and he was sitting on his bike and picked up a cone-shaped ice cream wrapper and played with it, putting it on the ends of the handle bars before calling it “Elmo’s vacuum cleaner” and then was breaking up sticks to put in it: “I sucked up the icky sticks.” There kept being an occasional sound from an apartment building – kind of sounded like a lift, but we couldn’t see it – that he didn’t like, and we left at 3:15.
As we were walking today I realized he was humming the Pink Panther song a lot, and also that “Sentimental Wars” song that he likes.
Finally, we got to our third park, 각심어린이공원, the sometimes-water park across from APIS. The water wasn’t on (didn’t really expect it). He went down and ran around it for a minute, but then needed a bathroom. We used the little bathrooms there, then walked across to the faucets to wash his hands. He was done with that playground, so I pushed him to the other end of the park and to playground #4 on the day. This one finally stuck, in that he played there for more than 10 minutes. But first, we took quite awhile eating banana bread. And he took my hat and put it on his head, first forwards, then backwards. But then he saw some girls go start climbing on the spiderweb thing and he went and climbed on it for several minutes with them. Then up on the play structure, where he played around and then tried out the periscope after another boy was using it.
I had to remind him of seeing mama to get him going. We walked up to Tospia, and ordered three sandwiches. August saw the smoothie drinks on the menu, so got a strawberry yogurt one. While we waited we watched a bit and Igot out the notebook and he was drawing spirals.
Got to Carly’s classroom at 4:30 and ate and they nursed and August started playing around. But he was happy to go see some music and art. First to the auditorium where we saw the orchestra play Ob-La-Di and then selections from Wicked. August clapped his hands after each piece. Then up to the gym, where he went right in to look at art. No hesitations about the gym this time. Carly went to the bathroom, so we were looking for pieces he wanted to show here when she got back. She came back and he showed her a couple, then kept looking and saying “I like that one, I like that one”. But his favorites seemed to be a black and white portrait where the face looked funny, and a big colorful one that kind of looks like an eye (but I think is a crystal) that he said was his favorite at the end. He started sneezing as I took a photo of him looking at it. It was also the one that he kept trying to tell Carly about when she was talking to War.
Then the most fun part: down in the art room were small musical performances and you could do art: there were some flute players, violins, etc. We started by drawing on the paper on the tables, then the three of us together colored a stained glass thing of the Mona Lisa. He really liked one of the pieces of music, so I went and asked Emmalee what it was, and it was Bach’s Hungarian Dance No. 5.
He was ready to go after that. We went to Carly’s room and he nursed. And wanted to just keep nursing, and fell asleep just after 6. I was tickling him a little to get him to laugh in his sleep, then Carly said he could get a cookie downstairs. And boom, he was up. He and I went and got two chocolate chip cookies on the third floor and then met Carly at the entran
ce. The cookies had nuts, so August kept asking “Mama likes chocolate nuts?” Which was funny because he knows she loves chocolate but doesn’t like nuts. Carly was talking to Kevin, and August was asking what the CLC room was, then saw students with instruments, so we went in and watched them rehearsing on flute and trumpet.
Headed home about 6:15. Had the bike so I couldn’t take the bus, but after he got upset when we didn’t stop at a playground he and Carly almost took a bus home. But he calmed down while we waited and wanted back on the bike so we kept walking. He got off the bike a couple times and was a slow walker, but we made it home about 7.
Given that he had fallen asleep at 6, he showed some impressive resiliency to sleep in the evening. On the toilet he said “I don’t want my sleepy. How many minutes you sleep? 30?”
I gave him a bath, which he was opposed to: naked, he stood between the couch and the coffee table and then pulled the table towards him, barricading himself in and even picking up the metal spatula that he’d been playing with earlier. But he then followed the iPad into the bathroom when I started playing the music from Frozen. In the bath he was figuring out how to fill up the squirt cars on his own. After he was out of the bath he got the bag of letters and was playing with it in the water as a vacuum:”I’m catching the water from going down the drain.”
We took him into bed, had some silly time, and he was asleep at 8:20.
Photos. For mama:
Park 1:
Pulling down the cover for shade:
Netting by construction site:
Park 2:
Park 3:
Periscope:
APIS Arts Night:
“Mama likes chocolate nuts?”
Walking home:
