Carly had to go to work today to run a Civic Mirror training for a group of Korean teachers. He was up just before 6:40. He did some playing in the sink, then was wearing her shoes and shuffling around the house. I took a photo. As he shuffled away he turned back, sort of pointed his finger in the air and asked “You got it?” He then watched Beethoven’s Ninth and video about bubbles. He was then wearing the nursing mittens, and wanted his gloves, so we got those out and he was trying them on. He did a lot of sneezing while I was taking photos of him in the nursing mittens, then he wore her shoes some more.
Carly left at 8:40. He didn’t want to let her leave, but was distracted by Sesame Street Art Maker. After he went to the bathroom he asked about how to put his underwear on by himself. He’s been doing more and more on his own: he washed his hands twice this morning on his own and wanted to pour mango by himself with Carly. We read To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. He was then playing on the reading area and stuck his whole leg down my shirt. As I tried to get away he said “Knock it off”. Not quite sure where he learned that one.
We skyped with my parents. He was sucking his lips in at one point, which he hasn’t really done. He also didn’t want to play piano. He hasn’t been playing songs on it recently. After we hung up we got going. We had eaten some leftover pizza for a second breakfast.
We got walking and walked up north, towards the parks we had talked about going to yesterday before we ran out of time. At one point I started singing “Ants Go Marching” until he told me to stop – he hasn’t been into the songs like that and Yankee Doodle recently. Up the main street, and then we walked along the green path to the right, past the park and then up to 원터근린공원. We first went to the middle playground, where he went on the swings for a bit. He saw a hole that other people had left in the sand, so we got our shovel, etc. and first made it bigger, then were filling it in.
He took his shoe off and was having it (a whale) spit out sand, then wanted to play in water. So we walked over and found the water fountains. Played a couple minutes, but he didn’t like a noise that the faucets made – either the high pitched noise of the pipes in the wall, or the loud noise of the water going through the grate and hitting the ground.
He needed to use the bathroom at some point and we used the bathroom there. We then got going, but saw the funny faces on the sculptures on our way out. He wanted to take a photo, so we did. He then saw an old little playground at the apartment complex so we stopped there and he went on the swings.
On the way there we had seen a sort of carnival happening at the Bible university. He liked the idea of looking for food there, so we went in and found the food section. They actually called it a ‘flea market’, but in addition to used stuff there was also activities for kids and food. We got a Korean pancake and an orange slushy. We sat on a bench and ate those – I was impressed with how he ate all the veggies without trying to avoid any. He went and watched the slushy machine turning, then we went and looked at the rest of the food. We decided on getting some bibimbap. He was a little concerned by the red spots he saw in it, but it was just barely spicy, and he ate it just fine. As we were finishing up, he ran off around the circle part and started to go down the stairs. I went and retrieved him, and told him we needed to clean up.
We then walked down and looked at the big world map on the ground. He wanted to go in through the open doors, and we found the cafeteria area and a theater (well, church). And we refilled his water bottle at a water machine (he mainly did it on his own, until the tray underneath started to come loose and he was concerned about it).
We headed out, walking through the unversity to the southwest. We found a little fake stream and a couple of fish ponds that we didn’t know about. To get to the second pond we had to go off the main path, but he wanted to take the bike, so we went off-roading.
We got to 당현천근린공원 at 1:00, the park where we had earlier turned off to go on the green path, and he made up a song to “I don’t want to live on the moon” “My vacuum sucks up everything…again, and again, and again…” He played with a drinking fountain for a minute. Then he needed to go to the bathroom, so we went to the bathrooms with the outlines of a man peeing and a woman squatting. We headed out at 1:15 to the south, back to the green path. He pointed at something and said he wanted it – I thought he was pointing at a balloon that two kids playing on some exercise equipment had and kept going, telling him he couldn’t have it. But he made me stop, and said “I don’t want their stuff.” I had misunderstood. He wanted to play on the exercise equipment like them. He went on the spinning one on his own, then climbed on the sit up/back stretching things, and finally was able to push himself on the leg press ones a bit.
He wanted to go down the big set of steps to the stream, so I carried down the bike. He sort of played on the edge of flower bed area and looked at bikes and at yellow flowers.
We started walking home along the stream and crossed a bridge. By Chrysanthemum Park I saw a girl, about 7, trying to push her bike up the ramp. She wasn’t getting very far. I asked August if we should help, and he jumped off and we both went and helped push up her bike – me from the back, him on the right, and her on the left. He then wanted to play at Chrysanthemum Park. He played around by the swings and tried climbing the poles, then ran and leaped on a swing when he realized it was free.
Then he ran over to the play structure. He needed help starting on the climbing wall, then hurried around the entire rest of it. I helped from below to get him started climbing down to the shaky platform, then I helped lift him down through the ropes when he wanted down.
From there it was to the sand, where he reluctantly allowed me to put on some sunscreen and his hat. He remembered sitting on the little table thing and me drawing shapes, but when I did it now the sand was all dry so didn’t work well. We got the bucket and cup and were filling them in the drinking fountain, and he was walking them over to the enclosed area and dumping out the water. He kind of made it into art by picking up dry sand and putting it on his shapes. A girl showed up, and then we saw a cat come out of the bushes. The two of them followed the cat as it walked across the playground.
About 2:30 we finally headed home. Carly was home already. He started singing “Mama’s coming home from school” to Ode to Joy.
At home they nursed and hung out for awhile, then Carly took him with her to the store. They left at 3:40. I realized that would be a good time to make a smoothie, as August is really opposed to the blender now. But I was about to turn it on when they came back to drop off groceries. They left again, and I was able to finish my smoothie. They went over to the park, where there were some games and stuff going on. They played some sort of kid darts, but then Carly wanted to leave as it wasn’t easy to understand the rules and what they could/couldn’t do. August wasn’t too happy about that, and made less happy when they walked around the building past Baskin Robbins and he wanted to go in. That was where they were when I called, about to leave the house to come find them. Instead, I met them at the bottom of the elevators.
Back in the house, about 5, there was lots of nursing and he was whiney. Finally, he helped me make banana bread. There was a lot of “I want to do it on my own.” After he’d licked the spatula, he was doing headstands on the couch on his own. Carly said something about how he should take gymnastics in Israel and I mentioned how he wanted to do dance thanks to the Tallulah books. He said “I want tap AND ballet in Is
rael.”
I also cooked broccoli and rice while we made banana bread and he ate rice and broccoli and cheese for dinner. I asked how he liked it and he didn’t really answer, but he was eating it, so I said something like “Well at least I’m not going to starve.” He had fun saying that, then said “I want you to say ‘Oh Zinnie.’” So we turned it into a little movie:
“How’s you’re dinner?”
“Well I won’t starve.”
“Oh Zinnie.”
We read the Tallulah tap book and Loch Mess Monster and Carly gave him a bath, and he was asleep about 8.
Photos:
Filling up his water:
Exercise equipment:
