Twice in the early morning he woke up and fell back to sleep. The first time he sat up, crawled to me, and lay back down. He pushed his feet into me, so I thought he might be cold and put some covers over him. Later, around 6, he was up and went to Carly and asked to go “downstairs’ but she told him to lie back down and he fell back to sleep again. At a quarter to 7 the thunderstorm started. I finally left the room a little before 7:30. He woke up again and looked at me for awhile, then rolled away from me and fell back to sleep yet again.
He came out at 7:40. We had left the door unlatched as we didn’t think he knew how to open the doors here, which have a latch you have to lift up. He went to Carly and cuddled, then went to the bathroom, then back to her.
He brought up the subject of being able to buy things when he sees them in shops, and was upset when we said he couldn’t buy things when he sees them. He curled up on the floor. Carly introduced the idea of an allowance and I said it would be fun to learn about money, but he rejected that idea, at least for now.
It was supposed to rain hard all day and Carly didn’t like the idea of being stuck in the little apartment all day, so we decided to head back to our real home. We started packing up. August realized there is a hole in the wall between the laundry closet and the bathroom, and he played with that, putting things through the hole He was pretty silly and crazy as we packed up.
We left there at 9:20. As we went down the stairs he told me, “I can make an optical illusion…It’s just a transmitted 3d video.” Things changed when we got in the car. I drove, and he sat silently the entire time, except to ask me to add a Flaming Lips song to his playlist.
At home I went up to work. He played with playdough for quite awhile, then watched Berenstain Bears. I came down for a break and Carly was making him oatmeal. Carly and I were talking, and she said something about Mandy. August thought we were teasing Mandy and told us, “PLEASE don’t do any teasing about Mandy anymore. She’s my friend. Well, one of my friends.”
They then tried to go for a walk and made it about halfway to the Snakes and Ladders Park. I had my phone out in case they needed to be rescued. It didn’t pour on them, but it got really windy soon after they left and they turned back. They watched Angela’s Christmas, which is short, and we’re watching The Polar Express and eating popcorn when I came down, done for the day. He said it tasted like macaroni and said, “More macaroni-like” as he added more salt. He was saying, “Oh no!” and hiding during the movie.
He watched a good chunk of the movie before needing to to to the bathroom, after which he didn’t go back to it. Instead, he told me about a machine he made for wrapping or delivering presents. And he wanted to make presents for Vivian. He made a couple of small presents, wrapping the second in a piece of art he made. Inside were just small things from his treasures. He was then acting hyper, and I used the word ‘fickle’ so that became the word of the day.
We next did imagining games: first he was a tiger, then a snake. Then a version of the silkworm game. As a silkworm he saw the chess set and then had me play a chess game against myself. As I went to the kitchen for something he told me, “We need a little brother for me to get distracted to (from) you.” Don’t know where he got that idea.
He got a small piece of wrapping paper and wanted me to wrap presents for him. So first I gave him one of those marshmallow tofu-looking things from Andrea and Derek. Then a part of the blender. then a piece of sourdough bread and a kumquat. He wanted more than one present at a time. I went up and raided his closet, and wrapped three presents: a box of chalk (from Korea), scissors (the cheap decorative ones from Korea), and colored pencils (that, I believe Meg Pendleton had given him).
He wanted even more, so I did another round: the case from the plane from Oma or Opa, small post-it notes, a pack of stickers (from Korea), and two little rings of notecards (one which had been for English words when he was first learning words, and the other was Korean words for me).
Carly took him up for a bath and I did dishes. They did the tea game in the bathroom and he was giggling a lot. She then got him ready for bed and put him to sleep. I left them at 8:40 and everything was quiet by 9.
Writing sentences for him to read:
Making wrapping paper:
Writing a poem about a bear:
Opening a present:
Second Christmas with regifted things:
