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He was up around 6:30 again, I believe. Skyped with Cherie in the morning. When I got up I made oatmeal and strawberries and we shared that for breakfast. I made a Q out of Duplo fence pieces for him at one point and he really liked that, and had to stand in it.

 

A little before 11 we headed to his class, with Carly. That is always a treat. It was pretty much the same Christmas class as last year – they put on antlers and red capes (well, August didn’t do the cape at all) and got to ride in ‘sleighs’ made out of plastic bins that we pulled around. Then they hung decorations on felt trees she had hung on the wall. She gave each student a pair of Pororo socks, and of course we did stickers at the end. At the beginning of class, with Carly there, Jihong’s mom was asking him where his mama was, knowing that he says “Mama home, no… mama work.” He landed on “Mama in closet” and kept saying that. Also, at one point when he was walking around he pointed to another kid who had zebras on his shirt and said “zebra!” And when he got the antlers we were surprised to hear him say “A for antlers”, as that isn’t a line in a song or anything.

 

After class we went down and shopped at Home Plus. He walked around much of the time, often carrying the basket. It was the first time Carly has really experienced that.

 

Went home, had lunch, he took a long nap, and Carly woke him up about 3. We went for a walk with him in the backpack in the afternoon, heading south to the park with the playground shaped like a tree. Did a lot of writing in the sand there – in fact, that was one of the first playgrounds where that was a really big thing. He also did a lot of climbing, with help, on the climbing hill thing. He liked sweeping of the caterpillar thing, then when he saw a girl sitting on it he wanted to sit on it too. Turned out he wanted to sit in the same spot. And he wasn’t too patient as we made him wait. This was the first time he’s really done that, wanting something another kid has. At one point he wanted to go up in the tree structure. He was disappointed to find the bridge didn’t shake, but the rope sides of it did and we pretended the bridge shook and he really liked that.

 

Played there for quite awhile until we started to get a bit chilly and it was starting to get dark. Walked home and had dinner – Carly made more zucchini and I made dongatsu (from the freezer) that August had and liked for the first time. Carly is finishing up her lovely Christmas tree on the closet door. Taking an idea from class, August started putting his magnets on the tree like Christmas ornaments.

 

He then started turning the light in the closet on and off. He’s done that before, but today he wanted the door open. He would turn on the light, flop down off the couch, look in the closet to see the light on, then climb back up and turn it off, flop down again, look in the closet, etc.

 

I gave him a bath and Carly nursed and then read to him a lot. We ended the evening all playing with the Duplos. Carly made a really tall tower with them, which he really liked. I brought Angeles in with us, and August was really into the pattern and texture of the Duplo mat and the rug, and wanted Angeles to experience it as well.

 

We got him to head to bed, and after a little hanging out there he headed to sleep around 9:30.

 

New words/phrases: backwards 2, mama’s running, mun (door in korean)

 

Standing in the Q: 

Class: 

Shopping: 

Tree playground: 

Qing his five Qs: 

Home: 

Mama’s tower: 

Showing Angeles the pattern: 

He was up about 6:30 today. In the morning it was sort of snowing, but not for long. Carly made him a big house for the animals, then I added a playground, complete with a shaky bridge. We then skyped with my parents, during which August had fun Qing grampa and gramma – he mentioned it several times throughout the day. Carly cleaned some of the windows, and August was really into helping with that. When she was done we got him the water squirt bottle so he could keep cleaning.

He took a solid nap in the middle of the day, then around 2 we left on the 2 mile walk to Luceen Apartments. Along the way he surprised us by saying “Pattern Ms.” I asked what he meant, and he pointed to the railing along the sidewalk that had wavy bars that could look like Ms. We got to Luceen Apatments right about 3, and went up to Mandy’s apartment. She and her 3 daughters had offered to watch August. So this was our first time dropping him off at someone else house. He was cautious at first, but soon got into identifying letters (mainly C) in all of the patterns on the pillows and blankets. He also saw a cross on their wall and called it a little T. About 3:30 we slipped away and walked a few blocks to a coffee shop called Cafe Another. We had good mochas and macchiatos and read for about an hour.

When we went back they met us exiting the elevator – he was crying. He had done really well for 20 to 30 minutes, then got a little wimpery every 3 minutes or so, then was upset the last 10 or so. He calmed down quickly, and we stayed visiting for a good 30 more minutes or so. He really liked playing with the girls, and they had a lot of toys he really liked, including a play kitchen mixer that turned (and sort of looked like a drill), a little oven where he “sizzled” a hot dog in a pan, and something he was using as a hammer.

We took the bus home and had went to the pink building. Carly went grocery shopping and August and I went into the book/stationary store. He chose puffy number stickers and we picked up 5 more big pads of paper. They were out of big boxes of crayons. We kept looking until Carly came over. He kept looking through a box with packs of different colored paper, going “hmm, hmm, hmm.”

Came home and had dinner. Carly made zucchini, which he continues to eat in bulk, and I made noodles that he shared with me. Used some of his new stickers and read “After the Storm” for the first time (or was that after his nap?). I gave him a bath a little after 7. He did pretty well, but didn’t appreciate it when I started washing his hair. He was playing with his comb/brush, which is a folding one that Cherie gave him. He bends it and moves it around, naming different letters he sees: “English V, Hangeul S, G, N, No Hangeul V.” Skyped with Cassie and Colin for a few minutes. A little more Duplos and writing letters on his new paper, then he insisted on some stories before bed. Read him a couple Kipper stories in bed before he decided to turn off the light and nurse, a little before 9.

Been listening to a lot of Christmas music. With our Apple Music subscription you can get all the music you want, so today we were listening to the Bruce Cockburn and Ottar Liebert Christmas albums for 1991. Those were big Christmas albums at the Music Store in Chelan when I worked there 1992-94. Also listened to Ella Fitzgerald’s 1960 Christmas album.

New words/phrases: Cevesa hobres…, M A M A mama, Q gramma, more nursey nursey mama please, dada frozen (when I paused in a song for him to fill in a line – he uses ‘frozen’ when playing with the iPad and it seems like an app has frozen), que paso, more mama do that

Walking: 

He saw Ms in this: 

Mandy’s house: 

Coffee shop: 

Shopping. “Hmm, hmm, hmm”: 

New stickers: 

Bath: 

We got August out of the house twice today. We swapped off so that we could each get some work down. In the morning (10 to noon), Carly took him to the kid play area next door in the pink building. Haven’t been back there since he turned 13 months old. In the afternoon, I took him up to the playground at Madeul Stadium.

 

Carly heard him say “espanol” in his sleep last night. He didn’t wake up until a little after 8 – well over 11 hours of sleep. Ate breakfast, brushed his teeth, and made letters out of Duplos, then Carly took him next door at 10. There, he spent a lot of his time pretending to cook. He wouldn’t go on the spinning octopus thing we used to put him on all the time. They played with the balls, but he seemed to think he was helping clean them up, saying “help mama.” He wasn’t interested in going on the trampoline part to begin with, but after another girl did he got interested. He would throw a ball off of it, then slide down the ramp part.

 

They came back a little after noon. We had an hour or so in there where we ate lunch, then played. He wanted to play iPad. I categorized his apps (Letters, Numbers, Videos, Books) to get him thinking about categories. He really got into Loopimals, an app that introducing looping and rhythm in music, and also playing the instruments in GarageBand.

 

He fell asleep between 1 and 1:30. Carly woke him up close to 3, as we didn’t want him sleeping too late. After he woke up, we all took off for a walk. Carly walked with us along the stream, then turned back to head home. August and I walked around the stadium, then to the exercise equipment. As we walked down the back side of the stadium, he said “cold” and held his left hand forward so I could hold it. Then, when I got him out of the backpack he climbed on the exercise equipment and sat next to me, cuddling and letting me hold his hands. He let me put his hat on and he wore it a few minutes, but after he was moving and warmed up he refused to wear his hat or mittens anymore. We played around the exercise equipment, then looked at the map, then went over to the little ’Sejong Park’ area that has little metal statues of Hangeul characters. He was naming all of them, and there is also (randomly) a triangle. He was first calling it a ‘Hangeul M’, but then I pointed out it only had 3 sides instead of 4 (Hangeul M is a square), so he started calling it ‘triangle M’.

 

From there we went back to the exercise equipment, then to the playground for a little while, where we drew letters in the sand and I jumped between a woman and August before she could mess with his hood, after he took his hat off and wouldn’t let me put it back on. His hood is pretty useless and falls off after 3 seconds, and he certainly wouldn’t have appreciated a stranger trying to put it on after I had just been annoying him with a hat.

 

We wrote a little Hangeul, then I said “Let’s head home to mama.” He took off down the path towards home, and I had to go catch him to go back and put him in the backpack.

 

We headed home, and bought strawberries from our now-usual spot, then stopped and got milk. Carly had ordered pizza and it came soon after we got home. August ate pizza, then Carly cooked zucchini and he ate a bunch of that and a little strawberry.

 

In the evening we all did plenty of drawing, some music with the drum, some Loopimals, and a whole lot of reading in the reading area and on the bed. Oh, and he was practicing counting by 2s, and now goes from 2 to 16. Carly gave him a bath around 8, then it looked like he might go to sleep. He didn’t, so he was up with me reading and doing the drumming while Carly took a shower and then laid down for a bit. He finally gave in and went to bed about a quarter after 9.

 

New words/phrases: yeti (in Loopimals), turn around, apps, I here (pointing on the map at the playground), someone else coming (after I answered the door for pizza but it was someone collecting donations – he was very intrigued, and didn’t seem scared, by people coming to the door), 2 to 16 (counting by 2s), manzana

Kid cafe: 

Madeul: 

Home: 

August was up at 6:30, soon after Carly had gotten up. They skyped with Vivi and Cherie and Chuck before I got up. August was very climby on Carly this morning, using her as a jungle gym. Carly made him eggs and toast for breakfast, and gave him ketchup, something I would never think to do. He loved dipping his toast and eggs, but mainly his toast, in the ketchup. He also came up to me at one point and randomly said “quack, quack”. I don’t know where that came from. We also spent a lot of time making letters out of Duplos, something that Carly started.

He took a nice long nap in the middle of the day, then around 2:30 Megan and Torrey came by to do some babysitting – the first non-grandparent that has watched him. Carly and I just went down to Cafe Holic on the second floor and had a mocha and blueberry latte and talked and read our books. While we were gone, he basically played on the iPad the entire time; they weren’t even sure if he realized we were gone. He wasn’t just on the iPad though: he went and looked out the window, and went to his magnets a few times. He would get up and find a letter on the door, then go back to the iPad where he had a typing document open and type it. He also used the Hangeul app with her, and was really into finding the ‘d’ sound – a character he had been excited to see in a Duplo piece earlier in the day. And in the Alpha Writer app, before we left, I saw him swipe through the list at the top to get to the double letter combinations and pull down ‘oo’ all on his own, something I had never seen him do.

After they left, Carly and I took him outside. I took him to the art museum and Carly went shopping at Home Plus. We first went downstairs, where the Wonderland exhibit is still open, even though it said it was closing on the 13th. He was still mainly frustrated about not being able to go in the fenced off area. So we went back upstairs, and he played in the play area, which was only slightly crowded. He went into the bouncy area a little, but mainly played out in front, saying the Spanish alphabet and rolling around. He also sat next to me, back against the padded wall, for a couple minutes, admiring a “pattern” he saw in one of the pairs of shoes sitting near him.

Carly came and saw us for a minute, then headed home to start making stir fry. August played for another minute, then was done. We went outside, and he spent about 15 minutes wandering around that part of the park, watching skateboarders and finding a long stick that he used to write the Spanish alphabet on the ground.

I got him home at 5:25, then turned around to head downstairs to meet Megan and Torrey and go with them to see the Star Wars film over at Home Plus. My dinner was a creamy garlic hot dog at the movie theater. The movie was quite good. No spoilers here. But worth it, and so much better than the prequels.

Came home and August was already in bed. He had fallen asleep out in the reading area about 7:40. Apparently he had missed me, saying “more dada” and “miss dada”. I’ve heard him say “miss mama” dozens of times, but the first he’s said it about me.

New words/phrases: ketchup, fresh and clean diaper, Teuni Teuni class, take it out (play dough letter), Megan did that

Enjoying our coffee: 

Art museum: 

Under the D moon: 

It was 18 degrees when I first looked at the temperature today. So we were in no hurry to leave the house in the morning. He woke up at 7:13. I rushed in there, but he was already opening the door. I picked him up and he pointed to the bed. It wasn’t until we were on the bed that I think he realized I wasn’t Carly. He wasn’t happy about that and sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. I started reading the Mother Goose book and that calmed him down.

We did a lot of reading again in the morning. He hasn’t requested iPad at home at all the last couple days. We made eggs and crab for breakfast. He ate a bunch of cheese and crab before I could get them cooked.

Later, I was changing him, and asked myself ‘What time is it?’ Before I could check my watch, he said “7:40” – that was the time it was when he was looking at my watch yesterday or the day before and I taught him what it said. He was an hour off though, as it was 8:40 today.

As I was making snacks for the day, he was playing in the cupboards and got out the container of rice. He started requesting the scissors, which he has never really done before. I gave him the tongs instead, and he played with them for a minute, then started requesting the scissors again; then I realized why: he was trying to open the rice container with the tongs. He has seen us open boxes with the scissors and wanted them to open the plastic box with rice in it.

We left a little after 10. He had been doing a lot of Qing in the house, and continued it on our walk, Qing birds and people and cars and anything else he saw.

We got down to CGP and he wanted to see animals, fish in particular. So we went to the tropical building. Spent close to an hour there. We saw a couple zookeepers go into a back room, and he fixated on that, wanting to go through those doors to see “more animals” and getting upset when he couldn’t. We also saw one of them go in the room behind the reptiles and amphibians. He liked seeing her pour water in the cages, but was again upset when I wouldn’t take him in the room itself. He also spent time playing in the dirt in the empty planters and with the rocks sitting in one of them.

Finally, he was getting tired and agreed to leave. So we got our coats on and headed to the bathroom to change him. On the way he first wanted to check in with the horses and goats, but just briefly (long enough to count them) as he didn’t want out of my arms. We went to the heated bathrooms, only to find they weren’t heated. Changed him in the nursing room, then he fell asleep pretty quickly on our walk. Went to the cafe and he slept an hour, from 12:58 to 1:58.

When he woke up he looked at the counting book for awhile. I started doing the numbers in all 3 languages. He started to pick up the Spanish because as we were walking to the children’s museum he said “quatro, cinco, seis.” He then sat on my lap and we started using Dragonbox Numbers, as he seems ready to start developing some number sense, and both the Montessorium app and the Endless Numbers app aren’t quite cutting it in that regard.

We then headed to the children’s museum. Today I gave him a choice of about 5 different places we could go. He chose the spaceship. Really crowded up there as there was a school group, but he kind of toughed it out. Didn’t have too for too long though as it was approaching 3, and they soon left. Played there, and with the Hangeul magnets, then he wanted to go downstairs to the first floor. His favorite activities there were once again making letters with the magnetic strips and drawing with the chalk and erasing on the chalk board.

He was getting hungry again (we had first eaten part of our lunch at the train station, on our usual bench), so we went to the third floor and ate some more, then changed him and headed out. He spent a few minutes walking around outside again, as a light snow began to fall.

Took the subway home, and put the cover up as we walked home, as it was still snowing. By the time we got home you could just tell that the group was turning white. Pretty much stopped at that.

A lot of writing letters and numbers on the whiteboard and paper by both me and Carly this evening. He did not want to take a bath at 8, so I made that very quick, as he was screaming very loudly. He calmed down quickly afterwards, very helpfully lying down on the changing pad for his diaper and then for his pajamas. He hung out with Carly on the bed for awhile, but wasn’t ready for sleep. He came out and we did a lot of reading in the reading area – mainly Brown Bear, Brown Bear and From Head to Toes. Sometime around 8:30 he wanted to go back in the bedroom with Carly, and he went to sleep pretty quickly.

New words/phrases: marmoset, python, one hundred (saw it on the longevity chart in the children’s zoo and said it, surprising me), ducklings, cuatro cinco seis, coat for dada coat for Zinnie, head to toes, red bird red bird what do you see

Qing pigeons on the way to the subway: 

Zoo: 

Asleep on camel: 

Children’s museum: 

Admiring the plants in the way out: 

Home: 

He woke up just before 7. We spent about an hour reading, starting with Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? He pointed to ‘see’ and said it, which led to me emphasizing other words and him pointing them out, mainly ‘me’ and some of the animals. Awhile later he saw the two xylophone sticks on the ground and exclaimed “11!” We ate breakfast and watched his video from class while brushing his teeth. We then did some coloring and he again helped wipe up the crayon that had gotten on the floor. We did quite a bit of music time today with the xylophone and shakers.

Then he started playing with the bricks on his own. He was carrying them to the center of the room, making a chair or tower, repeating “patience grasshopper” to himself as he worked. I saw him point out that the backhoe looked like a ‘C’, then he saw the pattern on the brick and said it looked like an ‘H’. Then he got me involved, telling me to “build something.” That something ended up being letters out of the bricks, starting with Q and D and moving on to a W and a couple of Hangeul characters.

Finally, we headed over to his class. Class went well. The biggest news was that there was a second teacher, also a man, in the class, and he speaks English. Class today was about dressing up as an Eskimo (August refused that part), building the entrance to an igloo, spearing fish, putting them on sticks, and cooking them on a barbecue grill. He really liked both the spearing the fish and the cooking part. Actually, his favorite thing was scraping the spear back and forth over the containers that held the ice blocks – it made a nice noise, I think.

After class we went downstairs and got a couple things at the grocery store, including more fruit chips and some kimbap and a ham and potato sandwich for lunch. We looked for washable dry erase markers in the art section. While I was looking for those, August was excited by all the crayons and markers. He had the basket and started filling it up. It became a competition between who could empty or fill the basket faster. Finally, I prevailed.

We went home and ate. He ate a ton for lunch – most of the sandwich and then most of the sausage and crab from my kimbap and several pieces of strawberry. At about 1 I took him out in the carrier to walk the hallway to get him to sleep. This didn’t work. He was sleepy, but just wasn’t falling asleep. After 40 minutes he started practicing his screeching so we went home.

Sometime before 3 we tried again. He wanted to go actually outside this time, so we got bundled up. But after about 10 minutes it was clear it wasn’t happening that way either. So we returned home. Finally, at 3:30 I decided we would just head to Toys R Us with him in the backpack and see what happened. He fell asleep at 3:50 after just a couple blocks. I walked to Toys R Us, bought dry erase markers, and came home. I then woke him up at 4:38 when we got home. I helped him wake up by playing the new DVD we got today from his Teuni Teuni class. It actually has kids dancing in it, and that got his attention.

About a quarter after 5, August wanted to go looking for mama at the elevators. We had just gotten there when Carly called, saying she was stopping at the store. So we went back in and got our coats, and went down to the first floor to meet her down there. August decided to take his Pooh pillow with him. We spent a few minutes walking around the first floor and outside before Carly found us.

While Carly cooked some zucchini and more noodles, I did some clean up and got out the whiteboard so August could use the new markers. I then went and laid down for a little while since I hadn’t really had a break all day. This evening, August was really rolling with the ‘Becoming…’ joke, including things like (fish sound), “knock at the door”, and “turn off the light.” Did a lot more drawing and writing on the whiteboard. He is starting to read ‘is’, so we are working on simple sentences – the first sentence he read was “Vivi is funny.” When I said that was a sentence, he said “period” since he knows those come at the end of sentences. Oh, and earlier we were working on drawing Zs and question marks. He calls question marks Qs, so I was teaching him their proper name today.

I did a little reading to him while Carly prepared his bath, then she gave him a bath and took him into go to sleep around 8:30. That didn’t work though, so he read with me while Carly took a shower. They then Skyped with Cassie for a little while and August was ready for bed around 9:40.

A few random things:

When August wants to dump the matching blocks out of the bag, or take apart the CAR puzzle he will wave them wildly over his head. Kind of works.

When he didn’t go to sleep for a nap, I was tired and laid down on the play mat. He proceeded to crawl back and forth over me to get magnets from the door and take them back to the magnetic board, which he had on the ground on the other side of me. Made several trips.

He continues working on “counting by twos”. Today he said “2 4 6 8 10” several times, but he hasn’t yet combined it with his “12 14 16 18.”

New words/phrases: Zinnie do question (drawing a question mark), no sound on bottom makes ng (remembering what I had taught him on Monday), find mama elevator, 2 4 6 8 10

11: 

Brick letters:

Class: 

Home Plus:

Home: 

Napping: 

Looking for mama: 

Evening: 

We went to APIS for the second day in a row. But first, he woke up really early, just after 5:40; that’s less than 8 hours of sleep. He did fine though until about 11 when he took a nap.

 

In the morning we did lots and lots of reading. Our first session included a lot of the pigeon books, and Where the Wild Things Are; later, we read the pigeon books (bus and hot dog) over and over. He is now requesting each of those by title. We also played with his Duplo zoo, the matching cards and tiles, and did art. He colored on the couch a bit, then got his eraser and tried to erase it with that. When that didn’t work, he grabbed a bottle of lotion and pretended to squirt that on. When that still didn’t work, he went and got the floor wipes from the cupboard, and wiped it up himself once I got a wipe out. This was great until he grabbed a crayon and started drawing on the door and floor so he had more to clean up.

 

We finally finished watching his new video from class for the first time. We had been watching it in 3 minute chunks for the last week every time we brushed his teeth. Today we watch the last few minutes after we finished brushing his teeth.

 

We had been ready to leave around 9, but he kept wanting to read and do other things. We finally left the house around 10. He was starting to act a bit tired at that point. Made it to the park just fine. We sat on our usual bench down on the platform and he ate part of the sandwich for lunch as he was going to fall asleep once I put him in the backpack.

 

He fell asleep pretty quickly, and we went to the lower Peace Coffee. He slept from 11:07 to 12:54, and the only reason he woke up then is because I started talking to him; I didn’t want him to take a 3 hour nap and be up to 11. He woke up really well, and had a ton of fun in the cafe. He got camel off the backpack and was carrying him all around, pointing out the letters on the floor and on the walls. After many minutes of this he went back to the backpack and pulled out one of his mittens. He immediately started calling it a lizard – a complete moment of creativity, as I don’t know of any other time he has seen a mitten called an animal. He would walk around the cafe and set the ‘lizard’ on a letter and say “Lizard on ‘I’!”

 

When I asked him the night before what he wanted to do at the park, he said “children’s museum”, and when I gave him the options today he stuck with that. Finally, I convinced him we should head out. We started to walk to the children’s museum. It was windy and his hair was getting in his eyes and bothering him. Might have to do some trimming.

 

At the children’s museum we had to wait in line as there was only one person working the desk (we always have to pick up a free ticket, since August is free). He kept telling himself “patience grasshopper.” We went in, and August made it clear he didn’t want to play on the first floor today, saying “upstairs”. Later, we were working on the floors, so he has a name for “first floor” in case he wants to request it (he can already request “little kids area” and “water area”).

 

We first went up to the Hangeul magnets area. Played with them, then in front of the video screen thing, then in the spaceship bridge – he loves all the switches and buttons and lights. Eventually, he made it known that he was hungry – I think he requested “sandoo.” We went up to the eating area and ate a fuller lunch.

 

From there he wanted the little kids area. We went down there and played the rest of our time there, until just past 4. He pretty much played with everything, but particularly the balls, dinosaurs, and clock puzzle: oddly, the clock puzzle, which has pieces with dots next to them that correspond to each number, had been glued together (maybe because they were a choking hazard) – but whoever had done the gluing hadn’t matched the pieces up to the numbers.

 

Anyway, the most notable moments were when a baby was crying, being put in his coat and carrier, and August went over and very gently patted his hood. Later, the woman that worked there got August interested in the big activity cube things they have (one side of one was a xylophone). He played with her for several minutes, and a couple times was pulling her hand to it to have her operate things on it.

 

At 4 he started requesting strawberries. So I went and changed him, then we went back to the eating area and snacked on strawberries.

 

We then left. We put on our jackets near the front doors, then we walked out, him on the ground. Before we went out the doors, August pulled up his own hood. He then spent several minutes just walking around the area in front of the children’s museum.

 

From there, we caught the subway to Hagye, then caught the bus to APIS. Went up to Carly’s room about 5:15. She had gone and gotten pressed sandwiches for dinner. Ate, then we headed up to the concert. Jazz band was playing in the dark gym when we walked in, and August was freaked out. I retreated with him out to the hallway, where he calmed down and was watching through the glass. But then he saw Carly and freaked out again, pleading “want to see mama.” We retreated down to the 4th floor. Carly checked on us and let us into her classroom, where August and I colored using the big 24 packs of crayons (we only have 12 at home), so he was excited to used colors like silver and gold and mustard and other shades/tints we don’t have. After all the middle school groups were done, about 6:45, Carly came down and we all headed home.

 

Made it home by 7:30. He nursed a lot, then I forced him to have the briefest of baths, since he hadn’t had one yesterday, then Carly put on his pajamas and had him to sleep before 8:30.

 

New words/phrases: wombat, pigeon finds a hotdog, drive the bus, duckling, quickly

 

Playing with the zoo: 

This demonstration (about global warming and energy use, I think) took our picture with them: 

Our lunch spot: 

Camel, waking up from his nap: 

In the cafe:

The lizard: 

Children’s museum: 

Heading outside: 

APIS. Getting into Carly’s art supplies: 

He had his usual class today, then we went to APIS in the evening for the Christmas dinner.

He woke up around 7:15. I think he had basically been waking up for quite some time, then just popped up and turned on the light.

In the morning he was playing on the iPad when I said I was going to do some vacuuming. He immediately got up and went and opened the closet by himself and pulled the vacuum cleaner out. He helped with the vacuuming. At one point he wanted to play with Siri on the iPad, which entails him telling me what he wants Siri to do an image search for. He was very serious about the whole thing, and when he wanted me to talk to Siri he would put his hand on my head and push my head down towards the iPad.

Then, before we left I was hanging up laundry. He knew we were getting ready to go to class, and went and was playing at the front door. I told him he had to wait a couple minutes, and went back to hanging up clothes. A minute later I saw him leave the front door and walk down the hall. A few seconds later, he came by, pulling the backpack to the front door.

Finally, I asked him “Ready to go?” and he responded with a nice long sentence, “Ready to go to class.”

We made a quick grocery run before heading up to his class. Class went well – he is no longer intimidated by all the new people. It was about the seasons today, and so they were playing with little pairs of sunglasses, mittens, scarves, and umbrellas. First he really liked the sunglasses and played with them for several minutes, then the umbrella.

After class we walked home and had lunch, then walked him around the 8th floor to fall asleep. Took a lot of walking – close to a mile – but when he did fall asleep, he slept from 1:17 to 2:53, and I woke him up at the end.

We got ready to go, in the backpack this time. First walked over towards the stream and bought more strawberries. Then walked down along the river. Mid 40s, but damp and windy, so I stopped at a bench to try to put his hood on. I also tried his mittens. He would agree to put the mittens on because his hands were cold, saying something like “hands cold” and holding up his hands so I could put them on, but then when I got them on he would sort of grin and say “Nope” and take them off. Did this 3 times, then he finally kept them on all the way to APIS, except he took one of them off about a minute before we got there and just held it in is hand.

We were early, so we first played at what is in the summer the water park. He didn’t find much to do there, so requested “other playground.” So we went to the other one and had more luck there. I helped him climb up, then back down the net ladder – he was getting the idea pretty well – then he had the rest of his sandoo and we played up on the play structure.

We went in to see Carly a little after 5, then headed down to the cafeteria for the Christmas dinner at 6. Dinner went well. We sat with Rob, Courtney, and Megan and Torrey. August was apprehensive at first, sticking to Carly. But he liked the singing, and when it turned to just speeches he was saying “more more” to request more music. He enjoyed all the food, and by the end was happily walking around on the floor.

We took the bus home. He was pretty hyper when we got home: he was saying “more floor” – I wasn’t sure what he meant, until he lay down on his back so I could slide him around on the floor by his legs, bumping him into reading area. Then he grabbed a pillow from the reading area and put it on the floor and was playing on that, which he has never done before. Then he wanted to do forward rolls. He was clearly tired at this point, and when he gently bumped his head on the wall trying to get another pillow, he suddenly was done and said “more nurse.” It was now close to 10 and he fell asleep about 10.

New words/phrases: different Dr. Seuss (wanting a different Dr. Seuss book), sideways, backwards, not shaky (referring to the bridges on the play structure), mama getting milk (Carly went into the GS25 when we got home and we were waiting for her)

Cursive: 

Vacuuming his Duplos: 

Using stain remover: 

5-TOUCH class: 

Sleeping: 

On our walk: 

Playground. The ladder he had just climbed up and down: 

Sandoo on the “not shaky” bridge: 

Dinner: 

Home: 

We made the long trek to the big zoo today. He woke up at 6:40, just before Carly was going to leave for work. Delayed her a bit, but he was nice and happy when she left. We had oatmeal and strawberries for breakfast, and then got ready to leave earlier than usual. We were ready about 8:30, but he was really into reading and kept wanting to read the Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus book, which he finds hilarious. So we kept reading, and ended up leaving right at 9.

Subway rides were pretty uneventful both ways. Headed down, we read books half the way, then traced letters on the iPad. Once off the subway we put him in the backpack and made the long walk to the children’s zoo. We would stay there for about an hour and a half – about 11:00 to 12:30 – and didn’t see a single other visitor until we were leaving and a group walked in the gate. He was looking tired early on, and was quiet the whole time, but had fun feeding the sheep, and then we got to go to the half of the children’s zoo that was closed last time. Had fun seeing all the marmosets and birds, and saw two animals for the first time: tamarins and mongoose. Also found that they had a very awful looking and very smelly dog area. Looked like a dog pound, not something for a zoo, particularly as all the dogs just bark at you. Yuck.

From the children’s zoo we walked across to the main zoo and walked for a few minutes until he fell asleep. The zoo was pretty much deserted. Didn’t see a single school group, although we saw a few groups going to the ‘Giraffe World’ play/learning center on our walk to the zoo – basically, I think all vaguely outdoor field trips are cancelled if there is the possibility of rain. Went to the food court area by the dolphin show and he slept there from 12:31 to 1:56.

When he woke up it was now raining pretty hard. So we got equipped in all our rain gear and went out to explore the zoo for an hour before the dolphin show at 3. Saw the ibex for the first time, then found the Asian Jungle building so we could get out of the rain. There, we saw all sorts of macaques, then a bunch of snakes. Still had some time before the dolphin show when we got back, so we sat at a covered picnic table and August finished off his leftover ravioli as a snack. He was still in the backpack, on the bench, as he didn’t want to get out.

At 3 we walked over to the dolphin show. Turned out we were the only ones there. Literally. Just the two of us in the audience. So we stood right up front, just a few feet from the guy running it and the seals. I held August. He was still a little weirded out by it, but didn’t cry. Will be interesting to take him back sometime in the spring and see how his reaction changes.

The show only lasts 10 minutes, then we went out and put him back in the backpack and headed out. On our way out, we went into the building where you can see the water buffalo, elephants, and rhinos in their very depressing cages. On our walk back he was really singing the alphabet in both English and Spanish. A few minutes before the end he started to say ‘cold’, I think because his hands were really cold. Got back to the subway, and got one seat to start with on the way back. Which was fine, as August lay sideways in my lap for several minutes, finishing his sandwich (we had lunched across from the sheep earlier). When a seat opened up, I sat him next to me. He spent much of the rest of the trip tracing letters – he is definitely making progress in trying to draw the letters. The last several stops, we read Dr. Seuss stories.

Got home just a couple minutes before 5:30. He ate more pasta for dinner, and did art and reading with Carly. More pigeon boo, in particular, with both me and her. When I said it was time for a bath, he took Smokey (he had also been playing on the couch, wanting to climb on the back) to the front door and was trying to open the front door, as if to escape. Carly got him in to the bath though, and he didn’t complain. Pretty quiet after that, and he fell asleep a little before 8:30…or so I thought. They were very quiet in there, but around 8:45 the door opened and August walked out. We cuddled together and read books while Carly took a shower. Read Where the Wild Things Are three times and several other books. He then got up and was playing with his magnets on the door for several minutes. Then, at 9:18, he suddenly was done and ready to go back to the bedroom. As he went in he said “night night” to me.

He was really into backwards/upside down letters today – there was a ‘6’ on the ground when we were waiting for a train, and he kept walking around it, saying ‘9’, then ‘6’. He then was looking at our drawing pages upside down at home and saying “backwards”, and doing the same with Where the Wild Things Are.

The most recent growing up sign is that August has stopped nursing in his sleep in the morning.

New words/phrases: dada’s email (he has used the phrase ‘mama’s email before’, but I don’t think I’ve made note of it. Today he managed to open my email on the iPad and recognized it as email, even though he had never seen it before), straight line down (tracing letters on iPad), camel as pillow, (talking about how he uses his ‘camel’ as a pillow when napping in the backpack), more Guinea pigs (spotting more of them), counting by twos (he was saying ’12, 14, 16, 18’ and saying ‘counting by two’ – got this from Endless Numbers), no sound ng (he was saying this to himself as we walked home – it refers to when we were at the subway station and I taught him that the ‘o’ in Korean makes the ‘ng’ sound when it is at the bottom – to this point he has just called it ‘no sound’), ibex (animal we saw at the zoo)

Children’s zoo: 

Rabbits: 

Big zoo: 

The white handed gibbons were interested in us

Our private show: 

Spanish on the way home: 

Looking at letters sideways, upside down, and backwards: 

Made the most of our park today. I took August out to the playground before his nap, then after his nap we all went out to the park and art museum.

 

 

After his nap we headed back to the park. We walked over to the other side of the bridge, August writing letters on the concrete with his broom, then August spent a long time playing on the two bicycle ramps. He was simply climbing on the lower one when he saw other kids sliding down the steeper one. He then started sliding down the lower one. He also liked jumping off of it (with me holding his hands), and sliding down the big ramp, with the help of me or Carly.

 

When he was done with that we wandered around for awhile, letting him lead the way. He ended up on the other side of the park, so we suggested we go in the art museum. We went in and saw some of the art. We went downstairs (last day of the Wonderland exhibit – he mainly got frustrated about not being able to climb up the fake grass hill) and saw the teenage photography contest show in the community gallery.

 

Carly then took him up to the nursing room and I went and saw the photography exhibit up on the second floor. I went down and found them, and Carly headed home. August and I went into the play area for awhile. Really busy – at least 8 other kids – but August just got to it. He crawled in to the structure once, and went in and out through the trampoline area several times. He wasn’t bothered playing with all those other kids around.

 

We then went outside and he just stood between the pagoda and benches, watching people – particularly a mom and girl jump roping together – in the park. He got hungry, so was eating his peanut butter sandwich while he watched.

 

He then got up on the bench and walked on that, then heard a baby crying. He walked across to the baby and was comforting him. From there, he walked right up to two bigger girls and their parents and said hi, or at least “big kids”.

 

We then went over and realized that the camel sculpture is gone. Sad. We then wrote words and letters in the dirt area over there that we’ve used a couple times before. That ended when he hear the church band start playing. He went and watched them. This was now near a major walkway, so he started to get some attention. A woman brought her son, Andrew, over to say hi. A guy from the church came over and gave us two bags of Jesus crackers. We were munching on those when two daughters (4th grade or so) of two APIS teachers came up to us to say hi. They were eating Dippin Dots, wearing makeup, and equipped with a credit card.

 

The band left, and we slowly made our way home. He kept stopping to watch things or if he heard something. On this side of the park he spent several minutes singing numbers and writing them on a pole and the ground. Before coming home we went and looked at the squid and eels and fish for the first time in quite awhile. Got home about 5.

 

Skyped with Glecy for awhile in the evening, and ate noodles and tofu and broccoli for dinner. He discovered the pigeon books yesterday (or was it Friday?) and finds them absolutely hilarious, so we read a couple of those. We also colored in his notebook – I was starting to make a little word notebook for him today, starting with digraphs. I was writing letters for him in the notebook when his bath was ready, but he was not happy about going to the bath. Carly took over and made it a quick bath, and he went to sleep pretty soon after that, around 7:15.

 

New words/phrases: manzana, Zinnie a giraffe, Zinnie is a door

Playground: 

Home: 

Back in the back: 

Art museum: 

Back in the park: 

Watching the band: