The past several days, August has spent a lot of time just gazing at his hands. It is one of those things that is difficult to get on video, because as soon as I pull out the iPhone he is staring at that. I posted a video of him sort of doing it while drinking from a bottle a couple days ago, but I finally got a good video of him just staring at his hands:
This is what happens when you blow in his face:
Excitement at looking in the mirror:
Walking across the bridge:
Gazing at art:
This is a shirt that used to belong to me when I was a baby.
He he wore this on our short walk to the art museum and Home Plus. He loved all of the kids and adults at the art museum that paid attention to him, as well as the video art pieces and the digital prints with lots of circles and colors.
Here he is getting excited looking in the mirror:
And here he is getting excited by the video monitors:
The big adventure was a long walk up to the center of Nowon and back. Along the way we stopped at Daiso, a stationary store, a park, and hung out in Starbucks for an hour.
He was facing forward in the carrier for the first time outside our apartment and he loved it. He squealed and got excited at trucks and people and trees and especially at any mirror we came across.
I dressed him in a tshirt and pants, which makes him look older, and which he seemed happy about:
While at Starbucks I had to change him twice. Here was the scene:
Yes, I washed his hand when we were done.
wgen I got out the bottle for him, he seemed surprised to see it, as if he hadn’t expected me to remember it.
On the way back we picked up pizza and then, on our way back through English Science Park, walked by the senior center where a band was playing. The musicians waved at us, and then a woman started dancing for August. Here’s what it was like:
Back at home, he was excited to see his mom and continue to work on his crawling – and staring at his hands. Of course, he hadn’t sleptich during the day, and he did have a bad wake up from a nap – the most crying he did all day:
Drinking from a bottle:
Turning, trying to crawl, and teething:
Trying out the carrier facing forward:
After a bath:
On his tummy:
He is rapidly becoming more demonstrative/interactive. Here are a couple examples from yesterday:
Telling us about teething:
Hamming it up for the camera:
Yesterday (Monday) was a big day of firsts:
– Carly’s first day back at work
– My first full official day of working at home, as it were
– My mom and dad’s first time taking care of August by themselves while I went to my first physical therapy here in Seoul
For my parents there were several other firsts as well: dealing with the Korean maintenance people that showed up while I was gone, visiting APIS, taking Korean public transit, etc.
But of course you are here for August, so here are his firsts from yesterday:
Feeding himself with the bottle. He doesn’t actually have much experience with a bottle. Carly was gone for shorter periods on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and in that time period we fed him probably a total of 20 ounces from bottles. Yesterday, he decided to just do it himself. Here he is finishing of one bottle. He then proceeded to drink the entire next bottle of 5oz by himself. I only had to help when he got the nipple kinked, and right at the end when he needed to angle the bottle up to get the last of it:
Also, in the previous 24 hours or so he had started to turn on his stomach when sleeping. Usually it would wake him up though or we would turn him back on his side. By yesterday afternoon, however, it was clear he was doing it intentionally, and he was staying asleep when he did it:
Since then he has gotten better about turning his head to the side.
Much has happened over the summer, but we are back in Seoul and getting settled into our new, new life of Carly teaching, me staying at home, and August doing something new every day.
To give you an idea of where August is now at, here are a list of recent milestones:
– Sleeping on his stomach
– His two bottom front tooth are through; a top one is on its way
– Holding a full bottle by himself and drinking the whole thing with barely any help from me
– Close to full control of rotating his pacifier any direction in his hand, passing it back and forth between hands, putting it in his mouth, and holding on to it when he wants it out but knows he might want it back in a minute
– Loving tummy time and being able to intentionally rotate. No crawling yet, but it might be close
I am sure there are others. Carly can weigh in if I missed any.
August, at 4 months
Thatcher & Vivian at two months (two years ago)
