We had a very busy day. Early in the morning I had put on the American Beauty soundtrack, as the first track was one of the songs from the blue blocks area at the children’s museum yesterday. August instantly recognized it and wanted to go back to the children’s museum to play with the woman again. Given that the children’s museum didn’t open for a couple hours and I also didn’t want to spent my whole day inside the children’s museum again, we came up with an alternate plan, which August wasn’t all that happy about at first: we’d head to Olympic Park, and then on the way back the train goes past the back entrance of Children’s Grand Park. We’d go to the children’s museum for awhile in the afternoon, after the big school groups started to leave.
He was up about 5:40. He was typing on Carly’s computer. Think he typed ‘much’. He was okay saying bye to Carly when she left at the door. She had gotten him some Cheerios but he said “I want to throw them away. I don’t like them. I don’t like the taste of just Cheerios.” Don’t think there was any banana. He wanted to get going, so I got him to play Mammals and I took a shower. When I came out he had gone to the bathroom and was yelling “I’m done!” He was upset about not going to children’s museum right away, but got distracted looking through the kitchen drawers: “I don’t like eating with forks because because they’re boring.” He ate part of the peanut butter sandwich. I was being really allergic this morning and stopping to sneeze from time to time.
A lot of talk about things he likes and doesn’t like today: “I don’t like the slurpy thing because I don’t want soft things. I want hard things.” And, out of nowhere, he said “I want to plant a tree, dada.”
I had to email Carly to tell her about this one. He heard me blowing my nose in the parlor and came in and said “Ha. I thought it was mama.” Me: “Because I was blowing my nose?” Him: “Yeah.”
He played with cups in the sinks, then we brushed our teeth and went to the bathroom. He said “I want to go to the children’s museum and see the woman.” We left by 9:00.
On the first train he did a good job of using his words to communicate with a woman that kept touching him. First he said “I don’t like that. Don’t touch me.” Then, when she did it again, he got off the seat and said “I’m uncomfortable.” We transferred at Gunja and August stayed in the backpack most of the way on the second train. At one point he was staring down the train and doing a biting-his-thumb action repeatedly. Then just sucking his thumb, which was funny because he’s never sucked his thumb.
We got out at Olympic Park and went to CU and got the least meat-filled meal thing and a macaroni salad thing (which we wouldn’t eat today so would save). We talked about how he didn’t seem to like kimbap much recently: “I don’t like kimbap” “I’m getting tired of kimbap.” We then walked into the park, and he saw the big thumb sculpture and said “I like that sculpture…it’s coming out of the bottom to show how messy the poop is.”
Part of the park was closed at the south end for some concert or festival they were setting up for. Also cut off our easy access to the east, so we headed to the west and north. He saw a truck and started a “I want that truck, I want that truck, I want that truck in Israel” chant that turned into a song about how the truck had beans and ladders in it.
We walked up to the sculpture area south of the Baekje Museum and ate lunch by the alien leapfrog sculpture. We ate lunch and had a lot of fun. He saw a big golden retriever walk by and said “I want that dog in Israel because it’s not barking.” I had gotten a coffee drink at CU and he said “I don’t want the coffee because I don’t like coffee.” He got a stick and was poking me: “Poke, poke, poke. What your brain is saying? What your nerves are saying?” In talking about wanting a dog he said “I want three dogs in Israel because three people.” I also noted he didn’t want to get sandwiches at CU recently: “I don’t really like sandoo…I’m getting tired of sandoo because I don’t like it.”
We then spent a long time looking at sculpture as we walked to the north. We spent a lot of time at a piece called Childhood Memories. It is an odd, rusted sculpture with a horse in a metal box, a door that is only partly open, a face next to the door, a pair of footprints in front of a chair, a switch on the chair, and a wire going from the chair to the leg of the box that the horse is in. August squeezed through the door, compared his feet with the footprints, then sat in the chair and tried the switch and pulled on the wire.
We saw a few more sculptures and August took a couple photos of them, and he noticed some trees that had bark splitting open. And we stopped at my favorite sculpture, Elephant Man. August stood next to it and patted the little robot at the bottom. At a sculpture called News he pretended it was an instrument and made music. Then we found a sculpture called Bells. He pushed on the big metal pieces and was startled when it made a big noise. He then went and looked through a sculpture that is a big outline of a head with the words ‘Love Me’ cut into it. Next, we came across a sculpture that was called ‘Mama’ and he particularly liked the sign. Finally, we found a series of 4 nude metal sculptures in a row that look like they might be by the same artist that did the ones over on the other side of our park. August was amused that you could see all the bottoms.
We went to the bathroom, then made our wat to the playground at noon. He went across the rope bridge a few times. He fell a bit on it the first time, assessed himself, and said “I’m okay”. He then went to the Jeep and was shaking and jumping on it with other kids. He then went to the triangular climbing structure and zoomed up to the top. He then needed some explanation on how to get back down, but then did it just fine. Then back to the Jeep for a long time – swinging on the bar, a mother shaking it. It was really full and he seemed to like all the kids there. Back to climbing, and he went up and came down on his own. And then to the Jeep. It was packed and he stood on the bumper, humming the Smurfs song. Then got in the crowded back. Out at 12:35.
Back to the top of the climbing structure. Helped him over the top and he climbed down the black side a bit before going back up over the top with a little help and down the yellow side, and back to the Jeep.
About a quarter to 1 all the kids had left, then a few minutes later a group of teenagers came over while he was sitting in the back of the Jeep. He gave them high fives with his foot. When they started shaking the Jeep too much he wanted out. We went over to the bathroom and saw the poop bread place. So after the bathroom we went and got one, then finished it as we got him in the backpack.
We left at 1:05. We walked through the big square and then down by the lake, looking at the fountain and then the water wheel. He had a lot of questions about it, and we went back and forth from the wheel to looking at the inside part where it was turning the big hammer things. An old Korean man asked me to take his photo on his phone with the water wheel in the background. I figured there must be a story there I wish I could have heard.
We then walked back to the south end of the park, retracing our steps from earlier. We stopped at a stage to look at the disco ball (which he knows from that Cookie Monster song and someplace else). He was wearing his sunglasses and said “It’s shady over there, but it isn’t. That’s an optical illusion? Why? Why dada?” We said “Goodbye, Olympic Park” before we left.
We took the train to Children’s Grand Park and got there at 2:10. As we walked in the back entrance he said “Mama was a baby?” And was pointing “That one was a baby? Everyone was a baby? That bike was a
baby?”
He was hungry and said “I want a chewy thing. Can you please buy me a chewy thing?” To people at random he was saying “Do you have candy? Do you have candy? I want candy.” As we walked past a market area, a woman gave him freeze-dried apple and strawberry. We got to the big fountain and watched it for a couple minutes as the show ended. We went into the children’s museum and were playing with the blue blocks at 2:35. He added onto a fort a couple other kids were making and said “I’m building together.”
The same woman he had played with yesterday came and they played together. I told her (with the help of Translate) that August had wanted to come back to play with her. They played together most of the 40 minutes we were there. When he had built something he said “What that is?…Dinosaur with bones.” When she walked away he said “Where’s she going?” When she came back he told her “I made a curve.” He made a sculpture: “It’s a dragon coming out of someone’s bottom…” It continued from there, and I said I was happy she didn’t understand him too well.
He needed to use the bathroom, so we got ready to go, but then he was running around to other things in the basement. They played with the magnets for a couple minutes. He said “One more thing…the robot!” We left at 3:25 and headed upstairs to the bathroom. He said “I’m comfortable with that woman, but not the other ones…I like all the people that work here.”
We then spent another 45 minutes up at the water area. We spent a lot of time with the tubes, making water turn the little water wheel and full up the shapes. He also figured out how to pull a rope hand over hand for the first time as we pulled up the bucket and dumped it out.
We left about 4:20. He wanted to look for turtles in the pond. Didn’t see any today, but saw bugs walking on the surface and we saw fish. Finally, at the UNESCO Little Prince/elephant statue/stairs thing he saw a bunch of bigger kids playing on it and wanted to go up and through. He couldn’t at first because it was full, but when it cleared out a bit he was able to do so. He then saw the kids sitting down in a row on the edge and ran over and sat down with them and scooted right next to a girl in a blue shirt. He then drew a crowd of them.
We headed home and got to Hagye at 5:10. On the platform he was looking up at the lights or something and said “If you had a very long extendo arm you could tech that high?” He was then pointing at people and things: “That one used to be a baby? The elevator used to be a baby?”
We were home after 5:20. They nursed, then he ate some veggies and tofu, Not a lot, but he’d been eating good all day (we had stopped outside the children’s museum and he had eaten a bunch). Carly gave him a bath and skipped a hair washing day. We read Loch Mess Monster and Tallulah’s Tap Shoes. He told me he didn’t like me smelling like tea, so I went and got a breath mint and he said he liked that. He saw Carly slicing some cheese, so had some crackers and cheese. He then read part of a book in bed with Carly and went to sleep at 7:35.
Photos:
Sculpture:
Playground:
Poop bread:
Walking out:
Children’s museum:
Sitting with the kids:
