I heard the door open at 6:58. The next thing I heard was the toilet lid being opened. He had gotten up and gone straight to the bathroom. We played with the Smurfs a bit, then read Little Red Riding Hood (which we got a couple nights ago when he wanted to read Little Red Riding Hood – an odd request, as he doesn’t really know the story), Tallulah’s Tap Shoes, and A Violin for Elva. He ate the last of the banana bread for breakfast, then shared some Cheerios with me. He heard Rossini’s William Tell Overture on the iPad and wanted to add it to his playlist. We then played with the Smurfs for a long time, having Papa Smurf make spells, them visit the aquarium, go on picnics, and made up stories about Azrael. He had a vacuum cleaner save them at one point: “The name of the vacuum cleaner is robot vacuum cleaner. The robot vacuum cleaner saves them.” He made shapes out of my vitamins – he remembered doing that from quite some time ago.
He wanted to go outside, and requested water faucets. I suggested the ones up by Madeul Stadium and he liked that idea, so we headed out for a morning trip at 8:50. As we left, he said “We don’t have to take a bus or train?…A horse will ride us here.”
We got to the faucets, and he played for a little while, but not long. We left at 9:25. I drove him past the playground but he wasn’t interested. At the Spiderweb playground he hopped off and ran to the store window, and we spent a few minutes buying and selling things and making change. Then back on the bike and we went farther. He saw exercise equipment near the corner of the apartment complex and wanted to play there. Did some spinning things, then did the thing where your feet swing on his own. And he did some hanging from the bar on that one. Then he wanted to leave: “I want to get away from garbage.” I had also just detected a garbage smell, but wasn’t sure where it was from.
On the way home, by Cafe Tolerance, we spotted a huge line of ants. We investigated that for a few minutes and talked about how ants live. As we got back to the building, he got upset by the plans: he didn’t want to go to Tous Les Jour for bread, and he didn’t want to go home so I could take a shower. He wanted to go to Cafe Tolerance, and he wanted to go now. Took awhile to get going, but we made it to Tous les Jour. But there he wanted to look at cakes, and keep looking at cakes, then jelly beans, etc.
Since he kept talking about candy and treats I thought he might be hungry, although he wasn’t saying so. We got home at 10:30 and watched a video of the William Tell Overture. And then I got him some apple and he ate three pieces. I left him to watch the overture again and took a shower, and as I was finishing I heard him yelling for another piece of apple. He was quite upset I wasn’t getting him an apple right away (being dripping wet and all) but then he heard the start of the end of the overture (the galloping part) and ran out and watched that. I got him the last apple slice, then we watched the first two movements of Beethoven’s Ninth.
We were going to leave to go to Cafe Tolerance, but he decided he wanted one more Smurf story, so we did that. Then I put the stroller away in the closet and he saw the gas pipes and asked about them. So we ended up spending a lot of time talking about how the gas pipes and stove and exhaust and everything work. We covered it several times, and I kept turning on the burners for him.
Finally, we left by 12:10. We got to Cafe Tolerance. He got an apple juice and I got the cinnamon toffee latte. The woman (the one who remembers August each time) made sure it was okay with me that it didn’t have coffee. I then made the mistake of mentioning to August that he could try my drink. He really liked it, and ended up drinking about half of it. He kept saying “I want to share” but then when he started drinking his apple juice it was gone before I could get a sip. I tried to get out the iPads, but he didn’t really want to play or anything so, so we ended up leaving just past 12:50.
We headed to Home Plus to do our shopping. Going down the walkways he spotted a puppy in the window of the pet shop and wanted to stop and look. First time he has done that. We then did our shopping. He insisted on peddling and steering himself around the grocery store. I was keeping a hand on the bike at first, but he got quite good at it. Up by the checkout lines he found a display of bubble wands and little plastic hand crank fans. He loved the fans, and kept playing and playing with them. At one point he ran away from me and over by the wine section because he was afraid I was going to take one away from him. He then argued “Maybe we should buy it for mama.” They were only 2 dollars, so I let him get one and he chose the blue one.
We then went over to the park and sat on a bench in the shade by the (still off) floor fountain. It was now 2. He played with the fan, blowing air on my hair, the bushes, etc. A guy came over and gave us a piece of candy and brochure from the Bible university just up north. He was happy to hear we had gone to the flea market on Saturday.
At 2:20 August had the idea of going to the art museum. We went in and looked at the stage area that was being set up (alas for a concert at 7), then looked at the art, first on the first floor, then up on the second. Came back down and played in the play area. He ran right over to the one other kid in the play area and started playing with her. We played with balls a bit, then there was a second girl that was more into playing with him, and was actually chasing him around. When she left he was pretty much done. We went out, and he got a paper cup and drank from the water machine on his own until he spilled some on his shirt. We were then all startled by a very loud couple of seconds of music that was accidentally played from the speakers. August got upset a bit, and another girl really started crying.
We headed home a bit before 3. Played more Smurfs, and he mentioned Clockwork Smurf again. I had the idea of looking first at a picture, then finding a video of Clockwork. We watched part of the episode together, then he watched parts of the episode a few times on his own. He really found the beginning hilarious, and then wouldn’t really watch the parts where the story changes to the trapped prince and the scary woman trying to be queen.
We talked about heading to the four swing playground and meeting mama there. But first I realized I should cut the veggies for nachos later. Then, I couldn’t find a lid. By that point August got distracted and was doing other things, and wanted “one minute” of water. So by the time we went down we just had time to go meet her by the pink building.
We came home and I made nachos. I gave August an olive with beans on it and called it a beanive. He said “I like beanives.” For some reason Carly did a Marshy impression (I think August had said he was Marshy). August responded with “Oh, mama.” We ate, and he did a pretty good job of eating nachos. He tried to avoid the green onions, but on one bite had one. I suggested he just cover it up with yogurt, so he did and ate it.
Carly took him to the bathroom at one point and washed his hands. He wants us to get a hand dryer now: “I want a hand dryer. Hand dryer please!” We played around more with being Clockwork (he really likes pretending to break the parts inside Clockwork and then going out of control, like what happens in the episode), then Carly gave him a bath while I did dishes.
After his bath I was putting some stuff away and banged on his drum a bit. He said “Nice music.” He then made a Tallulah’s Tap Shoes reference, changing a line from referring to tap not being dance: “It’s not music, just making noise.” He was asleep about 7:20.
Photos. Playing store:
Exercise:
Puppy:
Fan on my hair:
Looking at art:
Getting a drink:
