They were up at 5. When I got up he helped me pour out the old spices and was smelling them. Carly took down recycling. It took three trips, and August went down for the third trip. Carly left at 7:30 and August wanted to go out, so we went out on his bike. There was a some setting going on in the park for a festival, and there was a series of blue tent sort of things in the center on our side of the park. He spent a long time riding his bike around, under and around the blue covers, trying to get close to the pigeons, and often getting close to other people before I would stop him. He got the bike tipping up on one wheel at one point, and I warned him to be careful. But several minutes later he tipped and fell over and scraped his knee a bit. Just a little one, and he handled it pretty well. He has a pretty good collection of scrapes on his knees. At 8:15 I said I needed to have some breakfast “No. we already at French toast.” He had had some with Carly, but I didn’t.
We came in at 8:40. I made some pancakes and August was scooping sugar in the sugar bowl. I was chatting with my friend Peter, and then realized that August was putting sugar in my tea. Think he put two or three spoonfuls in there. I didn’t mix it, and got most of the way down before finding it too sweet.
We ate breakfast, then made a sign for Carly, saying ‘You’re done!’ It is interesting how he is less into art and writing, and it actually took a fair amount of redirecting and convincing to get him to do it. We hang it on the door, then were looking through the books we are donating. He found the Freight Train book and we read it a couple times. Then, we were playing with the sampler in GarageBand and recorded a couple of noises, like the beeping noise of the refrigerator to play with. Also, at some point I was sure he said “Dada lost weight”, but I don’t know why he would have said that.
Carly was home at 10:10. I was reminded of that when she said she couldn’t lift him, and he asked “Mama needs exercising?”
Carly then took him outside for awhile. They went up to the spiderweb playground. He pretended to be a baby learning to walk with one of those walker things. He found a faucet and they were filling part of it with water. They went and got a snack and found a spot over in Madeul Park to eat it. He was holding the bag up so it would blow in the wind and told her “That’s the point.”
I had taken a shower and gotten a couple things done, then went up and met them by the stadium. I was walking a different path and sort of passed them without seeing them, which confused him. We all went up to the space-themed little tube play area and played there. He tried sitting on the spheres outside but found them slippery, then crawled a little inside with me, but didn’t like that too much. We all went on a wooden dragonfly shaky thing together, then Carly and I debated which way he should pronounce ‘bag’, since we pronounce it differently. He was also mildly interested in the kids playing soccer on the field, and he mentioned something about going to see them. I then said something about watching them, and he said “No. Not watch. Just see.”
We then walked up to the Nowon Ecocenter. On the way he found a big stick he wanted to hold: Carly said “You want to hold it, huh?” And he replied “It doesn’t make any sense.” Then “It has birdies on it.” We got to the Ecocenter at 12:15.
First, we went to the merry-go-round/teeter totter thing. They went on it like a teeter totter, then I spent a long time pushing him in circles. He liked the lights lighting up. He was then chanting “Faster, Gargamel, faster.” A variation on a line from one of the episodes where Gargamel tells Azrael to go faster. We stopped to eat the rest of their snack: Bugles that they put little strips of dried cheese into. Not bad. August dropped a bunch of Bugles on the ground at one point and when we picked them up apparently missed one. Several minutes later he spotted it and said “Ooh!” and ate it.
We then went inside to use the bathroom. He was disappointed to find the power generating bikes missing. Used the bathroom, then we went and looked at the musical instrument in a classroom, and he found a little container with toys that another kid had left. Played with that a bit, then put it back. He wanted to play in the nice sink more, and referred to each turning on of the sing as a ‘sinky sink’: “One more sinky sink…That’s enough sinky sink.”
We all headed to Cafe Tolerance, but as we were about to get there August noticed that the right handle of his bike was missing. We had to walk back most of the way before we found it along the side of the sidewalk. Carly was feeling tired, so she headed home, and August and I went to the coffee shop together. He got grape and I got my cinnamon drink again. And I got a cheese bread thing. We sat in the coffee shop for a few minutes, then headed home. Along the way he was a crossing the street machine.
We were home at 1:55. Carly went in to lie down on the bed for awhile. August was with me a bit, then went in with her for awhile. We then read some Smurfs and ate some cherries. I let him pour water drink in his cup, but he poured to much and spilled on the table. It was a cool learning moment. He’s gotten good with pouring, but usually with only a little in the big bottle, so it would all fit in his cup. He said “you tried to pour it all?” I showed him he had to pay attention to how much was already in the cup, then he practiced pouring just a little bit at a time until it was almost full.
He wanted to watch Eine Kleine Nachtmusik so we watched that and part of Beethoven’s Ninth. Carly came out after 2:50. He lay on the floor and was stretching his green bracelet in his teeth. He joked about something, but I don’t remember what: “And that’s okay because Dada was eating and it was not mama?” He then played in the sink.
After four I took him to Home Plus. That was the idea. It turned into a tough trip, starting with the festival thing in the park. Very busy, and August wanted to do everything, starting with the power-generating bikes (not the same ones that were missing from the Ecocenter, I think). He got to try a different set, that run air compressors that fill up animal balloons. He did the polar bear. Then we played in the recycled materials playground: teeter totters made out of bike parts, a pole that you threw old tires over, a walking path.
We got to Home Plus and started with a couple pieces of watermelon samples. But then he wanted to drive himself around and it was way too busy, and he wasn’t listening to me. Then he spit in Home Plus a couple times. Got a mandu sample to, and made it through. Also decided he was hungry, so we headed straight home, avoiding the park. Got home at 5:15.
I cooked the broccoli and mushrooms and he had a bunch of those (mainly mushrooms) with teriyaki sauce for dinner. Carly cut up the watermelon and we had some of that as well.
He had some milk, and I was having my water drink. He had the idea of mixing them: “Water drink and milk? That sounds GOOD!” So he added some to his milk and liked it.
At 6:10 we took a bath. We watched Fountain of Smurf while he stood in the bath, then we watched Baby Smurf while I washed him.
He had some naked time after that, and kept carefully adding water drink to his milk. Took him to bed after that and he was asleep by 7:20.