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Got down to th children’s museum soon after they opened at 10. Had fun playing in the toddler room, playground nazi woman aside. Chris and Ashley (from APIS) showed up with their daughter – I had just recommended the children’s museum to the mm on Thursday. 

Played there until close to noon when August wore himself out, nursed, and fell asleep. 

After August woke up we went and saw the aquatic birds, baboons, and did a quick walk through the gibbon/sloth/lemur building. 

We got lunch at a burger place and walked over to a pagoda and ate outside. 

We made a short stop back at the children’s museum to nurse again and play in the reading room area before heading home. 

August did quite well both directions on the subway; having rice treats, and Carly singing the itsy bitsy spider help a lot. 

Back home we rested for a few minutes then went to Home Plus for groceries. 

What the baboons would see: 

Back at the children’s museum: 

Walking home: 

Coming back from getting groceries: 

He has settled into taking just one nap a day. Last week he did this, but they were 2 hour naps. This week they have dropped to an hour or less – today’s seemed long at an hour and nine minutes.

We got out for a decent walk in the afternoon, but it was generally a relaxed day. In part this was because as I was putting August in the carrier this morning to walk up to Nowon he fell asleep. So I took him out and waited until he awoke before we went out. We needed to be back to skype with Carly before she left school, so I decided to make our walk shorter. 

We walked east and south, ending up just south of the hospital. 

Once back, we Skyped with my parents and then Carly. 

I then gave August a full bath – his fullest, happiest bath in quite some time. 

Once Carly came home I left for my usual Friday PT. 

August had a lot of fun playing with his stuffed animals on the bed this morning. And today’s accomplishment was working the sliding flaps on Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? – both opening and closing them. 

Playing around on the bed with his stuffed animals: 

Shirtless after the regrettable banana-in-the-carrier incident, the details of which you don’t want to hear: 

And now with a shirt – one that used to belong to me or Paul: 

Being spacey, but not taking a nap: 

So we head out on a walk, using Carly’s maroon carrier as mine is now drying after going through the wash following the aforementioned banana-in-the-carrier incident. We walk southeast, ending up behind Carly’s hospital, where we admire the mural: 

He really liked the birds.  

Back home, we Skyped with my parents: 

And read a lot of books. August suddenly reached out and started working the sliding bits in the Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? book: 

Augist has been opposed to baths for several weeks now. Today we played in the bathroom and with the water for several minutes before I stood him up in the bath. We played for another five to ten minutes before he finally decided he wanted to sit down. He then stayed in the bath for over 15 minutes. Success! 

From the design lounge we go to the design experience zone. It is a children’s design museum/play area. I cost 4 dollars; August was free. 

It is aimed at older kids, but August loved it. Mainly because he is so visually stimulated and also because there were enough toys and things for him to play with. 

We then went down to the second and first floors, which have these design labs. Basically, they are a bunch of small shops that sell a lot of really cool stuff. I bought a Very Hungry Caterpillar puzzle and a magnetic board and animals set for him. 

We also found a very cool kids play area we can come back to once he turns 12 months. 

Finally, I change him in a huge changing room. It has these round little privacy booths for breastfeeding and they are surrounded by silky curtains. August loved the fabric and had to investigate after he was changed. 

We headed back, arranging to meet Carly mid-walk on her way home. That worked out well, as we arrived off the bus at our meeting spot only a couple minutes before Carly walked by. 

Back home, Carly gave him his first teething biscuit. That made him very happy.

Whirling thing: 

Helping to turn one of the handles: 

He still got excited seeing it, even after we circled back to it eight times or so: 

So many toys: 

He finishes his tower: 

Back home, he enjoys his first teething biscuit: 

So, August’s major development for the day is waving to strangers. And it isn’t something he sort of kind of starts to do. He decides to start waving to just about everyone. 

It starts at the top of the design building where we find a ‘design lounge’. We end up staying there for over an hour. August is in a great mood despite the 38 minute nap. Right away he starts waving at everyone he sees enter the lounge. 

His persistence pays off as a woman who works there ends up spending her entire break with him. She then leaves and comes back later with a couple of her friends and they play with him for another 10 minutes. 

Photos/videos: 

The nice empty design lounge. It only had up to about 8 people when we were there, and at one point August was pretty much waving to all of them at once: 

First, he seems to like the echoing of his voice. But then he starts waving at people walking by: 

He then crawls around a lot and waves to more people: 

Crawling by the windows: 

It pays off. Here is the woman that spends a half hour with him: 

Before we left, I let him try out these chairs that he kept admiring. I think he liked them because they rocked and because they had dots on them: 

Up next: 

Our thrilling conclusion in which we go to a children’s design museum and find our way home. Coming tomorrow.  

The Squarespace app has been giving me problems with long posts, and I have a lot today, so I’m going to break this up into 3 parts.

August was up at 6. By 10 he wasn’t taking a nap so we got ready to leave the house. By 11 we were on our way to the Dongdaemun History and Design complex. This is a new area that just opened a few months ago. August and I did a quick walkthrough with my parents. So it was time to head back. 

Our adventure got off to a rocky start, as the only art exhibit open at the time is one on Audrey Hepburn. I didn’t think August would enjoy it to the tune of 13 bucks. 

He fell asleep, which was amusing because it happened pretty instantaneously and he was a complete rag doll as I took him out of the carrier, adjusted it, and put him back in. 

I went in search of coffee, but (long story short), August woke up 38 minutes later. So instead of hanging out in a coffee shop and reading while he slept, we continued on exploring.  

From the morning:

He was doing this for awhile. Definitely new, but I only caught a couple seconds: 

Oddly, he has never really enjoyed knocking over towers that Carly or I build. He seems know he is supposed to reach over and knock them down, but he doesn’t show any enjoyment in doing so. That changed today as he started to actually react. This was the tallest tower I built, and when he knocked it down I think he was a little startled:

And here he is, a rag doll between my legs as I concert the carrier: 

So after August wakes up after 38 minutes, we start exploring the design building. This involves walking up six stories of boring boringness of the design walk spiral thing.

It strikes me as the inverse of the other major disappointing spiral walkway: the Seattle Public Library. Its book spiral was a major selling point, but I didn’t like it as it wasn’t a spiral at all. It was square. The books were nice, but you turned 90 degrees at each corner. The slanting walkway and lack of clear floors only made it difficult to know where you actually are. 

Here, on the other hand, you have a wonderful spiral, but nothing that makes it worth trudging up six floors of it:

Next time: 

Things get better as we find people and August acts like an extrovert.  

So August stayed awake for more than seven and a half hours before taking a nap. And that one nap today was less than 50 minutes. And he didn’t sleep in, and went to sleep at the reasonable hour of 7:30. 

Besides that, highlights today were his music class (which was snowman and snowball themed) and going to the bank as a family to get boring banking stuff done.  

Oh, and it seemed like he is trying to stand up (unsuccessfully) without using any wall or chair. And when he holds my hand to walk he did a few steps only holding onto one of my hands. Up to now he has insisted on holding both hands, even when it doesn’t seem like he needs both. Will keep an eye on that.  

Good morning: 

Admiring Lauren’s baby painting: 

There is one song in the Napul Napul video that shows cartoon babies crawling, sitting, and walking. He goes crazy for it. It is the baby success story: 

Feeding himself rice snacks: 

Relaxing on the bed, but not taking a nap: 

At music class. Watching the teacher: 

Shaking the basket of snow balls: 

Bubble and bandana boy: 

Back home. Here he is crawling down the hall to me. I actually missed all the yelling and arm flapping he did on the first half of his journey from his room: 

Reading about the wild things with mama: 

August and I Skyped with my friend Peter in the morning. August was really into waving to him and playing the up/down game. He didn’t really wave at strangers during the day, but in the evening after Carly got home he was waving to both of us a lot. 

He took a morning nap (55 min) and woke up at 11:30. We took the train down to Children’s Grand Park and first walked to a playground where he went on the slide and we went on the swing together. They are small swings, but August could handle swinging at full force and was still excited. I think he will really be into the swings.  

Had planned on looking at some animals first, but he clearly wanted to play so we went straight to the children’s museum.  

Ate lunch (August ate half a banana and some of the rice snacks from yesterday), then went to the toddler section. Busy, but not overwhelmingly.  

Went next door to the book area when he needed a break, then back to the toddler area until we left.  

Headed home when he was getting tired. Walked around our park and on top of the art museum as he suddenly didn’t seem sleepy. Came home and even though he was twice crying and rubbing his eyes he never took a nap.  

We did, however, invent a game in which he drops Marshy off the side of the bed and Marshy tackles him. 

Had a bath and ate dinner after Carly came home. And did a lot of waving. Made it until 7pm. So, made it through a full 12 hour day with less than an hour of napping.  

 

Woke up crying, but happy when he got his rope: 

Decided to go without clothes for awhile: 

He got excited once he saw the owl mural on the way out of the subway station: 

Having fun at the children’s museum: 

He was getting tired, as evidenced by the fact that he spent several minutes looking out a window at the view outside: 

Back home. He refused to nap, but invented the Marshy game instead: 

He has figured out he can stand up at the windows and look out. He can just barely see any of the street, however, and asks to be picked up: 

One more cute bath photo. In his robe and grabbing his foot:

It was a two nap day for August. He slept for 80 minutes in the morning, which meant he was full of energy for his class. After class we bought a few groceries and came home and played and ate lunch. We then headed to the kid cafe and had fun there. 

It has been a few weeks since we were last at the kid cafe. In that time August has become a full on crawler and is talking and interacting more with other kids. I could definitely tell the difference. It was nice and empty, with just a few other kids there. There was one girl in particular – probably 4 or 5 – that took an interest in him and enjoyed jumping on the trampoline to make August bounce, which he liked.

He was having fun there but after an hour and a half he asked to be picked up and cuddled in my arms. Time for a nap. We headed home and he fell asleep. While he was asleep Carly got home and I headed to PT.

Here he is in the morning playing with Mimzy. He did this over and over and over:

Off to class. Today’s class was all about cats. This, of course, included cat ears. August (predictably) did NOT like the ears:

August and Ahsoo (I’m probably spelling that wrong) are the two most outgoing and demonstrative babies in the class (out of a total of four today, so not saying a whole lot). Anyway, they were interacting a bit more today, or at least playing in the same general vicinity:

Going down a slide by himself:

For Cassie. His first balance beam experience. He actually crawled along it a bit (and then scooted backwards on it) but I couldn’t get that on video:

Playing with a ball of yarn and the cat pages of the books:

One of the moms in August’s class brought in these bags of homemade rice treats for everyone. August loves them, as he can crunch them with his teeth:

Back home for awhile before heading to the kid cafe. He loves his set of shapes. He just kept throwing them around today, particularly the red one:

All sorts of fun at the kid cafe:

Rocking:

Meeting this girl who played with him on the trampoline. You can hear him talk to her:

They were actually looking at each other for awhile, but I managed to snap this photo when August looked back at the boy. It was really quite cool to see him making eye contact with another kid like that:

Back home in the evening. He was clearly ready to go to bed, but rebounding to play for awhile. You have to see the face right about half way through this video:

August slept well last night, so today seemed like it was off to a good start when he slept until 7. But then he fell back to sleep after nursing, which seemed a bit odd. When he woke up again he started crying and the crying got worse and he was wiggling around in obvious discomfort. 

Of course, this happened on a Sunday, the only day our pediatrician office isn’t open. So around 8:30 we hop in a taxi and head to the hospital – the same one that sewed Carly’s fingertip back on a couple years ago. 

He didn’t have a temperature, so their guess was bowel obstruction, and they wanted to do an x-ray. I had the job of helping the technician hold August still as they took an x-ray. They saw “fecal matter” but nothing of big concern. 

So, they gave him a little baby enema, he fell asleep in my arms as we walked around the emergency room, and after he woke up he pooped and was instantly back to his normal self. 

It was all rather odd, in that he had pooped quite well on both Thursday and Saturday. And the recovery was so quick that the brunch plans we had cancelled from the hospital were now back on. 

In hindsight, we probably could have held off on the hospital; it would have been nice to avoid the x-rays germs in an emergency room. And, if it was any other day, we would have waited until the pediatrician was open. But we kind of just expected it to be an ear infection, we’d get some medicine, and be on our way. Also, people go to the hospital all the time here in Korea, so it wasn’t unusual. And did I mention the whole thing cost 34 dollars?

We took a cab home and Skyped with Chuck and Cherie. August was clearly back in peak form based on his excitement. 

At noon we met our friend Meg and hopped the bus up to Nowon to go to an American brunch placed called the Ugly Stove. Carly was there once back in the fall, but I had never been. August fell asleep on the walk there from the bus and slept through most of the meal still strapped to me. Meg brought back some awesome handmade colored pencils from Hawaii for him. She’s an art teacher and wanted to give him his first art supplies. 

After lunch we walked around Nowon and then walked home, buying a new set of stacking cups for August at a rather disheveled and dusty toy store we found along the way. The rest of the day has been perfectly normal; seems odd that we we were at the hospital just this morning. 

The one photo I took at the hospital. Carly didn’t want photo evidence to embarrass August with in 15 years. So no photos of me carrying around a half-naked baby with a rag covering his bottom: 

Here we are, two hours later: 

Our brunch: 

The awesome colored pencils Meg brought from Hawaii for August: 

The new stacking cups we purchased on our way home: 

Happily eating a dinner of the delicious soup Carly just made: 

Playing with the sheet while wearing his bib: 

August had an odd night of sleeping involving a lot of talking in his sleep and trying to wake me up and being awake with Carly for an hour and a half. So we didn’t know how the day would go. 

August and Carly played in the morning while I first Skyped with my parents and then had a book group meeting with my teacher friends (we had read Hild, by Nicola Griffith). 

Around 11 the three of us took the bus to Dream Forest. After watching the deer getting fed we went back to the library cafe that was packed last Sunday afternoon and found it empty on a Saturday morning. So we had fun there and Carly and I took turns with August so the other could sit and read. 

He got tired and fell asleep after nursing. We decided to walk home, stopping at the new burger place that August and I went to earlier in the week. 

Unfortunately, August was awoken by a cold gust of wind after being asleep only half and hour. This proved to be his one and only nap. 

We had fun at the burger place; they let him play with a toy tractor. 

We walked home. Carly then went grocery shopping while I gave August an unwanted bath and fed him lunch. 

He was getting really tired but managed to stay awake until close to 7 when he fell asleep in my arms as we were listening to Hozier. 

 

Watching the deer: 

Carly looking out at Dream Forest from the cafe:

Exploring an empty cafe:

He is obviously quite comfortable here:

Asleep for his shirt nap:

At the burger place, excited by the knicknacks he remembers up above:

Playing with the tractor:

Back home with rosy cheeks:

Some pretty funny talking:

An unwanted bath, but not too traumatic:

Enjoying some nearly-naked time:

Asleep: