He seemed to have a lot of bad dreams last night. Sometime around midnight, I heard him say “Tissue…please.” Carly got up, half asleep herself, to get one, but by the time she came back to the room he was asleep again. They then got up at 6:15. He has started unrolling the toilet paper again, much to our chagrin. Dealt with that this morning. We were getting stuff ready for recycling, and of something he said “I want to recycle that later. I want to recycle that afternoon.”
Carly took him outside a little before 8. They went to Chrysanthemum, ate their snacks, played with garbage he found in the sand, and got a sandwich at Tous Les Jour. They were home at 9:30 as I was taking out recycling. He was then being rather negative about things, although much of it seems to be that he’s acting like Grouchy Smurf: “I don’t want you to say that. I don’t really like that word. I don’t really like Korean. I don’t like kids…I like mama, dada, Zinnie.”
Meg Pendleton, the previous art teacher, flew in from Moscow for the weekend for graduation. We were meeting her at 10. Before we left, I said what we were doing, and he said “That’s the art teacher?” I then mentioned that she had given him The Boy Who Bit Picasso and he really wanted to read it. Unfortunately, it is in a box for Israel.
We met her at 10 by the pagoda. We tried to go to the coffee shop in the art museum but it wasn’t open yet. So we walked past See and Me and went to the Coffee House place (where Meg and I once went, and where August took a nap a month or two ago). August got an apple juice, and the rest of us got teas or coffees. Meg got a bagel and cream cheese and said she would share it with him. She said Sharing is caring” and he said “I don’t like ‘caring’”. He did really well though, looking around the coffee shop, talking to us, drinking his apple juice, and sitting on Carly’s lap and cuddling.
We all then walked back to the art museum, and into the play area. I offered Carly and Meg a mint and the woman came over and told us we couldn’t eat in there. We weren’t actually in the play area yet, just the shoe area. August had fun playing with other kids. They were throwing balls at each other, which went well for the most part, except when he would throw balls at people who weren’t throwing back, or would be too close to their heads.
Eventually, Meg took off. August was a bit disappointed, and asked why Meg had to go. The three of us then wandered around, looking at all the art museum. We made sure to show Carly the U Ram Choe bird sculpture downstairs. And Carly liked the crazy Star Wars shrine, and we looked at those figures/dolls. Unfortunately, just before we left he spit on the ground by where the bike was. He was then spitting on the ground outside, which is okay.
Anyway, he spent several minutes climbing on the yellow sculpture with a couple of other kids. Decent sharing, although he was stepping on a boy’s feet when he got too close. He then followed a boy on rollerblades as he skated around the wooden benches. He was then riding his bike around, so Carly headed home without us.
When we headed home a couple minutes later, he saw a Korean boy about his size and age walking in front of us, wearing a hat. August said “Is that Zinnie?” I made him repeat it a couple times to make sure I had it correct. He was either being funny (it did kind of look like him) or was having an existential crisis.
We were home a bit after noon. We ate a salmon sandwich and potato soup for lunch. Carly taught him how to play Simon says, and then he was telling Carly what to do. While nursing he was pinching and grabbing Carly, so I got him to apologize. Then spent a good time playing in the sink. He then helped take apart his other set of green shelves.
Carly was getting ready to go to the APIS high school graduation. August was upset about this, and he was upset that we couldn’t dry off a toilet paper roll he had been playing with in the sink. Upset about that, he then slipped on something on the floor and fell a bit. Carly comforted him a little, but was already running late, so had to leave.
He took a few minutes to calm down and was still upset when I suggested we head outside. That helped a bit, and when I mentioned I was turning off the lights he went and turned off the bathroom light. We left at 2:14.
We decided to go to Sarang Park. We walked by Cafe Sarang Bbang but it is still closed with the same signs saying they were closed until June. We got to Sarang Park 2:40. Played just a little with the water and in the sand, then he needed a bathroom at 2:50. He didn’t want to use a urinal or squat, so we walked south to Madeul Stadium and used the bathroom there.
There was a soccer match, and we heard some drumming. So we went in and watched the match and the drumming. Just a single drum, but August was pretty excited about it and stood on the seat of his bike to watch at one point. He then had fun drinking from his water bottle and spitting in the drain, and playing with a lid and straw someone had dropped. And occasionally looked at soccer (or ‘football’ as we call it).
Out water bottles were almost empty, so when he was done we walked up to the faucets. He played for a few minutes there. A man came with a little black dog. August was several feet away, but the dog barked at him rather aggressively. August jumped and flapped his arms and exclaimed “Don’t lick me!!!” Really, really traumatized by that one licking experience, since he doesn’t even seem concerned about getting bitten.
He then rode his bike around the plaza there and then we headed home. We stopped to make sure the ant road is still there. We went to Tous les Jour to get bread, and got a red bean and cream cheese bread thing to share. We decided to go to the park, and we went down the two stairs at the edge of Brownstone in the bike. I said “How cool is that?” He replied “A little cool…but a little boring.”
We sat across from the mama statue again to eat it. I asked “Do you like it?” He replied “Yeah…not as much as candy, but I still like it.” He then went and climbed on the mama statue, then we spent a lot of time lifting him up to the three exercise bars and letting him hang and drop. They are actually quite high, so I would have my arms around him and catch him. More climbing on the mama statue, and he hugged it, then went up and climbed on a big rock. There were a couple of girls up on the hill and he followed them around a bit. At one point the older girl ran down the hill and he followed, then kept following her halfway to the playground before he turned back around.
Finally, there was a dad with two kids at a nearby bench. They had a bubble gun and a regular bubble wand thing. August popped the bubbles and watched. But when they would offer them to him to use he would say “I’m just watching.”
He had wanted Carly to meet us in the park at one point, but she was later than I expected. We headed home at 4:50. We then fixed the fan by taking off the cover and tightening it. He said “We’re workers?” We also washed off all the dust while we were at it. We then had fun talking and making noise into the fan. We then changed the sheets and were doing that when Carly got home just before 5:55.
August told her “I don’t want you to go to work again.” She made them egg and beans and rice for dinner. He brought out the pillows and said “I want to surf on mama because I have pillows.” They did that, then Carly gave him a bath and I did dishes.
He then wanted to read Smurfs so we read part of King Smurf story then Baby Smurf. He was ready for sleep and we took him in and he was asleep by 7:50.