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Due to parent conferences, Carly wasn’t going to be home until 6:30. So August and I had a nice long day at Children’s Grand Park – a nice way to end summer, as this might be the last full shorts and sandals day we have this year.

We were in no hurry to leave, so we took our time in the morning. He woke up at 8:13, happy but groggy. He came out to the kitchen and stood on his stool at the counter for a few minutes, stretching and waking up. We did our usual playing, and read that new Korean elephant book, where he started saying “kung” (Korean for ‘crash’) and “kitty cats hug”, pointing out a picture of two cats hugging.

At one point August was playing on the bed, and I asked if he wanted to go to the zoo. He immediately stopped what he was doing, slid off the bed, and started saying goodbye to all of the animals on the bed. We made it out of the house right at 10.

At the park we headed for the zoo. When asked what he wanted to see, he first said “lion” (a new word for him), then “serval”. But we got distracted by the playground, so we first played there. This was also the first week that the park and zoo were overrun with middle/high school students on field trips. Nice because they are exciting for August (and drew his attention to the playground) but they also tend to take over everything. Today, we were asked multiple times by groups to pose with them for a photo for some scavenger hunt. Not sure how getting your photo taken with a stranger was educational. We agreed twice, but then started saying no, as August was getting upset by all the attention.

We saw the elephants (first time he has really been excited by them) then escaped teenager attention by going to the upper floor of the water birds exhibit. Then back to see the lions, servals, etc., before returning to the children’s zoo to see the horses and goats, and then walking through the tropical building, and returning to the water birds on the first floor. He was very patient, trying to see a penguin through the doors in the back of their exhibit as they weren’t out. We saw one (and he said ‘penguin’ for the first time). 

Did our usual nap routine and he fell asleep quickly – barely over a quarter of a mile and less than 8 minutes. And he had a long nap, outside at Peace Cafe: 1:35 to 3:00.

He woke up and we hung out there for a little while. He looked at the counting book. Then back to animals: he wanted to see the seals, then we went to the deer. Where the old animal ride area used to be (thankfully they don’t do animal rides any more) they are building something new and taking the rust off of a covered area. August was fascinated by the sound of grinders (“saws”) on the roof, and the backhoes at work on the site. We got to see one backhoe move a tree, and another dig dirt. We watched for a few minutes, then he wanted to draw letters in their dirt.

Pushing our way into a construction site didn’t sound like a good idea, so we went to the Adventureland Playground and played there. Mostly letters and numbers in the sand, although a little play structure. He wanted to go on the rope bridge (“more shaky!”), but it was a narrow, much more advanced bridge, and wouldn’t easily take both of us. So we wandered around the rest of the playground, played with the instruments for a few minutes, and ended up by the train area. He liked the numbers (he can identify all the digits regularly, although he often calls ‘6’ a ‘9’). We played there for about 30 minutes, and before we left he helped fill a small plastic bag with garbage.

We went to the amusement park and to Popeye’s to get a chicken sandwich and cheese sticks. Ate them on the steps looking out at the rides. I called one crazy, so when watching it, August would say “more crazy!” He looked up close at some random display the had, and when we left it he said “Bye bye deer. Bye bye swans. Bye bye sagwas.” We watched the roller coaster up close, and I taught him to wave at the people when they came close.

Finally, I changed him. On the pad he was talking, and said “More Oma’s yummy green soup” out of no where. On our way out, he saw the “banana moon”, but it is a half moon now, so we decided to call it the “D moon”. He said it a few times, and later, when I asked him to tell Carly what kind of moon we saw he sad “D moon”.

Didn’t eat a lot today, although he ate little bits throughout the day (a few eggs in the morning, a little of my cheese stick and chicken from my sandwich, some Larabar, etc.)

We all played Duplos together at home, then Carly went to draw him a bath. He was reading Kipper stories with me, then got tired. Thought he would go to sleep at this point, but he was reluctant to go to sleep, although he was never in a shape for a bath. Carly said he kept trying to crawl backwards off the bed, saying “more dada”. But he was asleep by 8:45.

Emailed my mom to wish her a happy birthday, and Carly and I watched episode 3 of Modern Family.

New words/phrases: red, kuung (Korean for crash), kitty cats hug (pointing to picture of cats hugging), penguin, puma right there, waterfall on, bye bye camel and blue broom (first use of ‘and’, unless I imagined him saying it), left shoe, broom off, crazy, na-beeS (lot of focus on using plurals today), yellow flowers, pink flowers

Zoo: 

After his nap. I pulled out the chair and set down the book. He sat down and started looking at the book on his own while I threw away my garbage and put away the book I was reading: 

Playground: 

Headed home: 

 

He had a very happy wake up at 8:07 and we played on the bed for awhile. Later in the morning we ended up playing back on the bed and I taught him about rolling on the bed for the first time. He does it a little himself, but mainly thinks it is hilarious for me to roll on the bed. But as usual, the first thing he wanted to do was play with Duplos. After that we ate breakfast: he ate some banana bread, two whole eggs with pepper, some mango, and a couple pieces of broccoli. I had him wear his Lake Chelan animals shirt today (each shirt he has is now getting a name – he calls this one the ‘animals shirt’). We spent quite awhile learning the animals on it. He now knows raccoon, wolf, beaver, and puma (which we’ve been working on at the zoo). And as I was changing him before we left, he got interested in my t-shirt – the ‘I power KEXP’ shirt that uses a blocky font.

Anyway, we left a little before 11. Pollution levels were really high, but luckily for us tapering off after being high overnight. So didn’t affect our outing. We stood on the ride to Dream Forest, then walked to see the deer – which he requested, but then didn’t want to stay at. So we headed on to the playground, where we played for the next 90 minutes. Lot of up and down the stairs, playing with rocks and sticks, and also walking on the “shaky” rope  bridge. And he went down the slide a few times. When a childcare group would come through he would get surrounded by big kids for a few minutes, which both amused and startled him. He really liked staring at the group of teenagers (“big kids”) when they came by. At one point, he sort of played a chase game around a toy structure with a girl who was 3 or 4 – although I’m not sure she knew they were playing. He then hid between my legs, and kept saying “bye bye girl” and waving to her.

He found a stick and wanted to write letters, so for 20 minutes we went over to the small play area and wrote in the sand (and he stepped on them, of course). He also found someone’s abandoned rock collection, so we played and wrote with those.

A little past 1 I took him in to change him and start the nap process. Walked along some trails we had never been on. He’d slept 12 hours, so it took longer to get him to sleep – about 25 minutes and a mile. Went back to Dream Cafe and he only slept 30 minutes. Not surprising, given the long night.

We spent the rest of our time in the book cafe. He pulled down some chapter books, and then found a book about insects with nice watercolor paintings. And then we started playing Endless Reader on the iPad. Like Endless Alphabet, but the words are in lower case, and once you finish a word, you put words into sentences. He caught on pretty quickly: the lower case letters didn’t throw him. Putting the words into sentences was more difficult, but he got the general idea. His favorite words was ‘funny’ (not a surprise) in the sentence for ‘dog’. A couple times, he picked up my empty coffee cup with a straw and offered water to the dog on the iPad.

I changed him once more before we left a little before 4. He played with my hat on the changing pad – putting it on his head, then playing peek-a-boo. We left, and walked the main street-ish back way to APIS, getting there right at 4:30. Carly nursed him, then we walked home.

We stopped at the pink building for some groceries (including spaghetti sauce that wasn’t spicy), and August ate a whole bowl of non-spicy spaghetti for dinner. We did more rolling and playing on the bed and playing with Duplos. Carly created a structure with pretty much every animal and Duplo piece. I then got video of August pointing to all of the animals and naming them. We also played more on the bed, and added to our rolling, with him pushing or pulling me to get me rolling. And we had some good coloring and letter writing time after Carly gave him a bath and before she tried to get him to sleep around 9.

With him only taking a 30 minute nap and waking at 2:20, you would think he’d go to sleep a bit earlier. Not to be. He stretched it until almost 10:20. Very hyper boy. Kept wanting more water, and playing with the light switch in the bedroom, and wanting to come out and see me (although he would act like he was afraid of me, standing in the doorway, saying ‘Dada out there’, but not coming down the hallway). Anyway, eventually I went in too and sang to him and Carly got him to sleep.

New words/phrases: enormous C (normo C), mango off my face (as I was wipin his face), puma, raccoon, wolf (oof), beaver, beaver at the zoo (pointing out towards books), bye bye wawa. Set counter. (Then runs out of room to set bottle on the counter), help dada’s shirt, funny, bye bye book cafe, food, lunch, boy/girl, lion

Dream Forest playgrounds: 

Inside and Dream Cafe: 

Offering the doggy water: 

As Max again. Notice he now has to crouch to put his head through: 

APIS and walking home: 

Home: 

In his sleep Carly found him near the end of the bed once, and one time crawling towards bottom of bed. Later, I heard him say ‘tippy toes’ in his sleep.

He woke up just after 7:30. Wasn’t happy to see me; he wouldn’t let me touch him and kept saying “all done dada”, meaning he was either all done with me, or still sleepy, as ‘all done’ is what he says when he is sleepy. Anyway, he finally made his way off the bed and walked into the room with the Duplos. At this point he grabbed my finger and led me to the Duplos, pulling me down to sit. He then pushed my arms towards the Duplos and leaned on my shoulder as I started playing with them. 

He drank some milk and we ate oatmeal with blackberries for breakfast. We then skyped with my parents. Dee and Grant are visiting them for two days, so we were able to Skype with Dee as well. August spent a lot of the time sitting at the table, coloring or having me write letters. At the end, he said “bye bye Dee”.

We then started getting ready to go. Pollution levels have been highish. Planning on being outside Thursday and Friday, so figured we’d try to avoid the worst of it. We headed to Dobongsan, where levels were below 100, with the intention of going to the Iris Garden, then maybe a couple different children’s parks and/or the stream.

On the train north we sat, and August immediately wanted to get out his broom and start sweeping, which drew a laugh from other people on the train. We got there and started playing in the Iris Garden. August found some discarded stems (there were a lot of people working in the park) that we used to write letters in the sand. At some point he got hungry, so we walked along the boardwalk area along the stream and to the bench area. The swinging bench, where he had napped before, was broken, but there were plenty of other benches. Along the way a woman told me August was cold. It was sunny and close to 70, and getting warmer and we were both wearing t-shirts and shorts.

We ate lunch. Today when I divided the sandwich I made them very equal. August’s response was to grab both pieces, take a bite out of one of them, then hand me that piece. That piece he then called Dada’s sandoo, calling his own piece ‘Auggie’s sandoo’ for a change.

We then walked around the garden, August saying ‘Dobongsan’ a lot, and settled at a bench/pathway near the north end where we got out the shovel and other toys and played with them, particularly the ball and boat. More letter writing and silliness ensued. Pollution levels were still rising, and now higher than Nowon. So I decided to head a few stops father north, to Uijeongbu, where we could nap inside then play out on the roof of the department store.

I changed him at the park around 12:30 and put him in the backpack. He was looking tired right away. He managed to stay awake on the platform, even saying “ah-ha, I see it” when he saw a train going the other direction. But he fell asleep on the train at 1:13.

Got to the department store and went way up to the top floor to the movie theater. Found what I thought was a decent place to sit in the lobby, but turned out to be louder than I expected, as there were these loud announcements for peoples’ popcorn orders or something. He only slept to 1:47, although he woke up okay.

We went down and played on the roof, mainly walking around on the rubbery hills and with the ropes on the bridge. Then went down to the 8th floor to change him. We then played at the toy table at the toy store, but August kept wanting the toys the girl next to us had. The second time this happened he really started crying. He was looking really tired, and I thought he might fall back to sleep. I took him for a walk away from the store and he calmed down. Then he started saying “fun” and pointing. I let him lead, and he led us back to the table. We played around the store for another half hour or so, and he did much better this time. 

Getting close to 4, so we went back up to the roof to play for awhile longer. We were throwing and rolling the ball around. August started to get upset when one little boy tried to play with it. This was the second smaller boy that was fascinated with August, and kept trying to touch him. August was generally polite, but kept walking away from them. Another boy, bigger than him this time, gave him a cheese stick, which August liked.

Finally, we headed home. Waited about 15 minutes in a train, as we chose the empty one starting at Uijeongbu as opposed to the one from father north that was full. We were able to sit and play on the iPad. For the train from Dobongsan home we were able to sit again, this time entertaining himself by looking out the window and telling the other people about his brooms, including “yellow broom (at) home”.

We got home a little after Carly. Carly prepared veggies for spaghetti sauce, but we then realized that the sauce we had was spicy. August wasn’t eating much else, so when I was eating the spaghetti, I let him try a noodle. He reacted rather surprised, and said “spicy hoo-ha (noodle)”, but then wanted more. We put him in his seat and gave him a bunch and he devoured them, sometimes acting like his mouth was hot, but still eating more.

I gave him a bath tonight and he played for a long time. Carly then put him to sleep a little before 8.

I watched the first two episodes of the new Walking Dead season. A great start, and they’ve gone (apparently) very off-script from the graphic novels. Carly and I also watched the first two episodes of the Modern Family season. So kind of a catch up on TV night.

New words/phrases: color blue (pointing to ink on his hand), stamp pad, dada missed it, Dobongsan, itchy right here, have idea, fun, fire extinguisher (fire ex-ting-sher), yellow broom home

Zinnie’s screwdriver and my pen: 

Iris Garden: 

Department store: 

Pointing up to a van vent: 

Patting and waving to the turtle on our way out: 

In the subway station: 

Spicy spaghetti:

August had started waking up around 4am, getting Carly up for good at 4:45. I don’t know how she managed that. She got him back to sleep a little before 7, and he slept until 8:30. When he woke up, he opened the door, bumping his forehead slightly, as he was rubbing it as he walked down the hall, and went straight for the Duplos.

We made banana bread and he played some iPad and ate breakfast (milk, Cheerios, and then banana bread) before getting ready to head to his class.

His class today was about the grocery store and categorizing foods. She had four tables: one for toys, one for fruits, one for veggies, and one for meat. August really liked going to each table and playing with the objects. 

While at home, he had surprised me when, telling him we would go to class, he said ‘seongsaegnim’ – or some version of it that was at least recognizable. That is Korean for ‘my teacher’, and is how you address teachers. Of course, I’ve used it a lot – and he’s heard it used in class by the teacher and the other parents – but he hadn’t said it before. I then also found out he could say ‘Jungbean’, the name of the boy in class that he knows from other classes, and seemed to know who that was.

So, we had used these names during class, and at the end, I got him to say ‘bye bye seongsaegnim’ to his teacher. But he was really into saying ‘bye bye Jungbean’, and said it to him several times.

We went down and went grocery shopping, exploring the pet area first with August carrying around the basket.

We came home and ate raviolis for lunch, and at 1:30 I decided to try to put August to sleep without the carrier. Didn’t expect much, but figured I’d give it 10 minutes. Well, he looked on the verge of sleep, but he was just sitting on the bed, refusing to lie down or let me touch him. I kept singing, and his head would tilt back and he’d start to fall over – but he’d catch himself and jerk awake. Finally, I got smart and stacked pillows around him. He fell asleep like that at 1:50, mostly sitting up, without me touching him at all.

He slept for 47 minutes. I went in, and he clearly wanted to go back to sleep. Managed to sing him back to sleep once, but as he fell asleep he kind of rolled to his right and off the pillows. He tried laying there for a few seconds, but got back up. I rebuilt the pillows around him, but he was now too upset. So I picked him up and he fell asleep in my arms. I sat on the couch and he slept on me for 40 minutes (2:47 to 3:27) while I watched ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ (with headphones). So kind of the two extremes of napping.

 At 4 we headed out of the house, him in the backpack, and walked east to Cuckoo Bird Children’s Park (뻐꾸기어린이공원), southeast of Home Plus. We had played there just once before. He climbed the stairs to the play structure, walked across the slightly shaky bridge, and went down the slide. The slide was always with me, but he did the stairs and bridge on his own at times. We also just played up in the structure as there weren’t other kids. He surprised me by pointing to a sign in there and saying ‘Hangeul’, the Korean alphabet. And he had fun pushing me over, and then pulling me up by the shirt.

School was out and other kids showed up, so we made room for them and left. We went to the art museum and went through the downstairs art, looking at the Alice in Wonderland box and other art. When we exited that main room, August asked for “more crackers”, still remembering the visit several times ago when a woman gave us crackers. And when he saw the tree outside, he still said “waterfall”, even though I’m not entirely sure what he’s talking about (I think maybe the tree, which is a sculpture, has a water feature on it, and we saw it in the spring, but since then it has never been on). Finally, he remembered that there is a drinking fountain with little paper cups that we’ve drunk out of before and he wanted the “yummy cold wawa”.

August had been holding his blue broom when we left the house. He held it, transferring hands, the entire time we went to and played at the park, and then to and through the art museum. He only set it down when he then decided he was hungry and wanted banana bread. We ate that outside the museum, and when he was done he immediately wanted the broom back.

We walked and met Carly and Megan just south of Brownstone and headed home, stopping at Tous les Jours for bread. August was upset when Carly left to go in to get the bread, but we spied on her through the window and that made him happy.

Came home and had did the usual dinner/bath routine. Carly gave him his bath today. He is continuing to really enjoy bath time, and sit down now.

He went to sleep at 8:30, an early night as of late.

I finished season one of Fear the Walking Dead after he went to sleep. Thought the last episode moved quickly, but really liked it overall. During his nap I was working on translating the class schedule for winter session, as I need to figure out what classes to enroll him in.

New words/phrases: patience grasshopper, volcano, seongsaengnim (‘my teacher’ in korean), Elmo shirt, Jungbean (friend in class), panda, crow, bye bye Jungbean, doggie/kaa food, Hanguel, shaky, wawa on my(?) shirt (drinking out of little cup at museum), mama’s tea all gone

Class: 

Home Plus. Nice spelling: 

Napping sitting up: 

Children’s park: 

Smog sun: 

Where he claims the waterfall is at the art museum: 

He woke up at 8:10 and opened the door and came out, going pretty much directly for his two brooms. We made a smoothie for breakfast. We left the house a little before 11, taking a subway two stops south to Taerung, then a bus east to the area of the old Hwarangdae train station area. We then:

– Tried to walk into the Korea Military Academy to go to the Army Museum. The guard we talked to didn’t speak Korean, but we got that it is only open certain days.

– Found a wood carving workshop area at the old train station. We got to see a lot of carvings they had out (August liked the fish and turtle). They also have an indoor wooden playground, but it too was not open today.

– Walked into Seoul Women’s University. We sat next to a fountain and ate lunch (he again took Dada’s sandoo when we divided the sandwich), then played in the sand and dirt and rocks in two different spots. He is still into “Dada do C” and every other letter.

– Sat in Solbat Community Park while August took a 70+ minute nap from 1:42 to close to 3.

– Played in the nearby Chengsol Children’s Park. A lot more letter drawing, but we also climbed over the play structure and went down a slide together. He then went down a slide on his own. As we left, we found a nearby play structure in the apartment complex that was pretty cool, so we climbed on it for a few minutes and August picked out the animals on the side.

– Walked north to Songlim (Pine Tree?) Children’s Park and played with the biiig rocks, mainly stacking them on a bigger rock for a few minutes.

– Stopped at the SeoulTech Art Museum as we walked home. This is where we went with my parents to the Arttoys exhibit. We still have the program from that exhibit and he looks at it a lot (BB is his favorite figure in it). Anyway, we didn’t stay long (and it is small), but August’s favorite was a collection of objects that look like eggs.

– Walked home, arriving just after Carly.

I then went to my writing group meeting. When I got home a couple minutes after 8:30 I was surprised to find Carly putting August to sleep – his earliest evening in quite awhile. While I was gone they’d played Duplos and made a pretty impressive structure in the middle of the rug. When August is working on his Duplos like that he is very focused for a surprisingly long time, finds it funny when the fall over, saying things like “uh-oh, spaghetti-Os”.

New words/phrases: net, goose, house, want to go outside, soy milk, duyu (korean for soy milk), more eggS, dada find big rock

Seoul Women’s University: 

Pine cone: 

Bark: 

Children’s park after his nap: 

Second children’s park: 

Carly and August’s creation: 

August slept late, until 9:30. When he woke up, Carly opened the door, but he got down off the bed, walked out into the living room, and climbed up on the couch. Soon, he saw the iPad and said “want to play baa baa”. Let him play Endless Alphabet for a bit instead. I made French toast for breakfast. The rest of the morning involved a lot of sweeping (“dada sweep!” “mama sweep!” “sweep here!”), looking at wood grain (“more grain!”), and playing with the alphabet cards. He also spent some time poking an apple core with his plastic fork.

We then took him for a walk over to Hanguelbi Park, the park SE of Toys R Us with the playground set back in the middle of apartment buildings and a school. He did some climbing on the play structure and went down some slides. He then went down a big twisty slide with Carly a couple times.

We came home and he took a good nap, not waking up until close to 4. After his nap, we all went to Home Plus. He spent more time carrying around the basket and looking at the aquariums. We went downstairs and we did our grocery shopping. We waited with the baskets while Carly went to find something. He had fun looking at the groceries and stacking them. Got a bit upset though when we had to leave and then pay for the groceries, as he wanted to keep playing and touching everything. 

Carly came home and started working on the curry dish. August and I played in the corner of the park by Carly’s bus stop: picking up crab apples, carrying around big rocks, and sitting on the ‘3’ and eating snacks. 

We came home for awhile to change August, then went back out to the park in the dark around 6:30 to the playground. Ran into the sisters Claudia and Mikayla for a minute. Did some seesawing, sliding, and climbing on the structure. August had three falls: got knocked over by a girl by the slide, fell over the seesaw bar, and fell to his knees walking across the bridge at the end. Only the last hurt him, as he scraped his knees on the concrete. While out there he had figured out how to climb over the seesaw bar, worked on climbing up the bars to the structure (but still asked for help to get up), and worked hard climbing up the stairs to the bridge. 

Came home and ate dinner. Had a good bath. Went to sleep at 10 after reading Many Nations a few times. 

New words/phrases: all gone mama’s French toast, sweep here, want to play baa baa, more down slide, now what do?, now what to do?, flounder, dada whee (when he wants me to swing him by the arms when we walk), nurse (full word)

Hangeulbi Park: 

Home Plus: 

Our park: 

Second outing: 

Back home: 

Carly had a lot of grading work to get done today. I took August out twice, and we did a lot around the house.

In the morning, Carly skyped with her parents and took out recycling. August led me in some yoga. And we made homemade oatmeal, topping it with honey and canned blackberries. August also did a lot of coloring. He can now identify/say nine colors: black, brown, blue, green, peach, pink, orange, yellow, and purple. Still working on white and red.

I then took him over to the park, where we mainly played, for the first time, in the petrified wood display between the dinosaurs and the senior center. He spent most of the time sweeping off the rocks with his little blue broom and walking (usually with my help) around the rocks.

He took a long nap; close to two hours, I think. After that, the three of us played on the bed for a long time. He ended by playing with Carly’s Nook, somehow landing on ‘More D’ for wanting to look for letters on it. When he was finally done and we left the room, it was an epic session of ‘bye bye’, with him saying, multiple times: “bye bye mama’s book”, “bye bye pillow”, “bye bye Marshy”, “bye bye kitty cat”, “bye bye Pooh”, etc.

In the afternoon I took August for a walk and to another park. It is called Gukhwa Children’s Park, and it about a 25 minute walk to the southeast – past the hospital. Carly walked with us for a few minutes to get outside before returning to do more work.

Last time at the park (we’ve only been there once), August was all about sitting on the bottom of the slide (his thing at the time) and playing in the sand (for about the first time). Today, it was all about writing letters in the sand. He would say “Dada do C” or whatever letter he wanted me to write. We then had a game where he would walk on my letter and find it hilarious. I’d say “Don’t step on my letter!” He turned this into saying “Stepsie!” when he stepped on it: a combination of ‘whoopsie’, which he often says when he does something on purpose, and ‘step’.

We played there about 40 minutes, then went back up the street and ordered a couple pizzas at Pizza Myung, a little pizza place up the street. Then back to the park for 10 minutes while we waited. I tried him on the swings, but he would’t focus on holding on – he kept getting excited by the CU convenience store across the street, pointing and saying “C U!” because of the letters. So we went over to the castle/easy climbing wall area, and he had fun walking up and down the climbing wall (it isn’t exactly steep). Then put him in the backpack and picked up our pizza and headed home.

On the way, we saw the crescent moon. We have started calling these ‘banana moon’, because he would see them in books and he would call them ‘nanana’. I would tell him it was a moon, thus the phrase ‘banana moon’. But this was the first time we saw the real moon. After he saw it, when it went behind the buildings he would say “bye bye nanana moon.” At home, in front of Carly, I asked him, “What did we see in the sky?” “Banana moon”, was his answer. Very cool to realize he could understand that question.

There was one big mystery that we couldn’t figure out: as we were walking, he looked up, like towards the tops of the buildings or trees, and was saying something like ‘cut’. Neither Carly or I could figure it out. He gets a big grin when you do figure out what he is saying, and we didn’t get that.

We ate pizza for dinner. August is a fan, eating almost a whole piece. A lot of playing in the evening, with Duplos, his new glass markers (although we used them on paper), reading in the reading area, and in the bath. And a LOT of looking at the wood grain throughout the day. He slides across the floor, saying “grain, grain, grain” and pointing. He also did it on the headboards when we were playing on the bed. He also had some iPad time in the evening. A lot of jumping around between his usual programs. I also introduced the Montessorium Letters app to him. He doesn’t have the fine motor control yet to trace the letters himself, but he liked holding on to my finger as I did it, and he would make the letter sounds.

He was up until close to 10. Will probably have a good night’s sleep.

New words/phrases: garbage recycling, red, cooking, ravioli (rah-vole-ee), Pooh dada hug, button on mama’s shirt, Smokey (kee-kee), no flag (no flags on flag pole), dada do c, banana moon, sorry mama

Petrified wood: 

Back home: 

Children’s Park:  

August was up at 6:30. Original thought was to go to Dobongsan, but since it is cooler now I figured we’d go in the afternoon. We’ play at home in the morning and go to Home Plus, then take his nap before going.

So we did a lot in the morning. he was playing with an ‘art’ and setting it on Angeles’s head. We skyped with Gramma and Grampa, but that didn’t last too long due to connection issues. We read the Sandra Boynton Snoozers book, and he really got into the “Night Sounds” poem, learning all of the snoring noises. Played a little Night Night Circus on the iPad, then made a mango banana smoothie. 

At one point I had my back turned and he got down off his stool. I turned back around to find him rubbing his head. I asked him what happened. He looked at me, very serious and said “bumped head…counter.”

He really got into sweeping today and finding hairs to throw away, later getting both brooms out and insisting I sweep with the other. 

Around 10 we went out to go to Home Plus. First stopped in the park and played. He worked on climbing the play structure and went down the slide. He went over to the dinosaurs and said “biiiiig dinosaur”. He was also fascinated by a saw he kept hearing off in the distance.

At Home Plus we spent at least a half hour on the first basement floor. He had the basket and was walking around. Did really well, although obviously I had to keep an eye on him and keep him from touching a few things. Before we got there, he said “go to see lizard”. Spent most of the time looking at the animals and their supplies. In particular he liked the empty pre-furnished aquariums. I noticed this at the zoo too, where he also likes the empty cages, looking at the plants, pieces of wood, and concrete structures.

Finished our shopping there and went down to groceries. Put him in the carrier and finished shopping.

At home, he finished off his smoothie and wanted more. When I changed him he said on his own “bye bye Auggie poop.” Tried to get him to sleep without the carrier. No luck. Spent about 40 minutes on it. He would only lie down for a second and kept wanting to walk around. Finally gave up and put him in the carrier and went for a little walk and he fell asleep. Slept 1:35 to 3:25. Around 3 I went in to see if he would wake up. No luck. So I lay down next to him to rest. When he woke up, I think he thought I was Carly and was upset when she wasn’t around.

He ate some more, then we went out to the closest playground in the apartment complex on our walk to the bridge over the river. Played there about an hour, climbing up the stairs and going down the slide. Both he did with my help at first, but he went down the slide twice on his own without wanting to hold my finger.

There was a man with two kids there. Girl a little older than August, boy a couple years. We had the tennis ball out by then, and they played with him with the ball for about 10 minutes. A little much for August (particularly the boy) and eventually he said “all done. Broom. Broom. More sweep.” and went back to sweeping the playground until Carly and Megan showed up and we went home.

A standard evening. He and Carly did some good Duplo playing. I took over at some point and could tell what word Carly was using with him while playing: he kept saying “idea” and “now what?”

I gave him a bath. He was eager to get in the water as it was filling. Told him we had to take off his clothes and then pee in the toilet. He replied with “pee bathtub”.

He stayed up until about 9:30. He tries to stay up by requesting each of his stuff animals, and by popping up and saying “more dada” or “more wawa”. And saying “all done nurse.”

New words/phrases: dada get it (ball under table), bumped head counter, go to see lizard, idea, now what?, sweet, pee in bathtub, octopus, sail, kangaroo (langahop), all done nurse

 

Waking up: 

At the playground: 

Home Plus: 

Loving the empty aquariums: 

Smoothie: 

Playground: 

Home: 

Reading the new Korean counting book: 

We went to Children’s Grand Park, as usual. Headed out a bit later than usual, as we did two loads of laundry in the morning. On our way to the the subway, there was a fundraiser fair happening, and we bought 3 Korean picture books for 2000 won: a version of Alice in Wonderland, Heidi, and then a book about an elephant and other animals on a wire. The art in each of them is really cool.

On the way down we initially sat in an open bank of 3 seats. The train filled up, and I gave up my seat. August ended up sitting between two really nice women who played with him the entire way down.

At the park, there was a small festival setting up near the stage near the entrance. We were handed a free Pororo puzzle. As we entered the park, I asked August what animal he wanted to see. His first answer? Serval. He said it sticking his arm out in front of him, palm down and fingers spread. This became ‘the serval thing’ and I’d ask him to do it later and he would.

So we headed towards the serval. I set him down at the elephants. Looked at them, then the lions, tigers, etc. until we got around to the servals. He did, indeed like the servals. We finished up that stretch (coyotes, foxes, hyenas), then went to the water birds. We walked up to the second floor and sat down and watched the birds while we ate. 

I tried to divide the sandwich as evenly as possible, but he immediately grabbed the slightly larger piece and called it “dada’s sandoo”. And pointed to mine and called it “Zinnie’s sandoo”. He continued with those names again even as he ate “dada’s sandoo”. 

He sat on my lap, eating the sandoo and watching the birds. He was playing around as he finished eating. A couple came along with a 17 month boy. He had a big backhoe he could ride. They had tied a rope to it so they could pull it around. August really liked it, and they let him ride/play on it. He loved it, mainly the backhoe part (“More scoop”) and the buttons that made noise. When he had to give it back he got really sad. So we headed downstairs, where we looked at the birds a little more before heading over to see the lizards, etc.

I realized I can identify all 15 kinds of water birds they have in the building. Also, I think I know every mammal they have at the zoo. We then went to the lizards and turtles and I now have all of them down as well. That leaves the parrot-type birds and the birds they have in cages outside (pheasants, etc.).

Anyway, he was into that building as usual. Pointed to the parrot room and said “parakeet”. As it got to 1 it was time to get ready for his nap. We went out and he wanted to see the goats and horses first. At the goats he pointed to the one with horns and said “dada goat”, then to another adult and said “mama goat”, then to the babies and said “baby goat”. He did the same sort of thing with the horses, even though they are all about the same size. He wanted to sit on the steps, so we did that for a few minutes, then I took him up for our nap routine.

Changed him in the bathroom and did the usual walk to put him to sleep. 

Carly mentioned that when people ask her what August is like, her first word is ‘hilarious’. An example of his sense of humor happened after I changed him. He saw a fan up by the window in the wall. He then saw that it was plugged in to an outlet, about 7 feet off the ground. As I carried him out, he said “bye bye no no area”. He kept repeating that several times since I laughed.

He fell asleep from 1:28 to 2:13. We sat outside at the cafe and I read. When he woke up he looked at letters on the book I was reading, then we went down to the festival area. Walked around and watched people, including the two guys on stilts. A band was doing soundcheck, playing a cover of “Mmm Bop”. I am not making that up. 

August didn’t want to stay at the festival. I let him choose where we went. He directed me to the swampy areas, looking for gaeguli (frogs) and pointing out all the Haechi pictures on the ‘Don’t enter the water’ signs. He then wanted to go to the children’s museum.

So we went to the children’s museum. I think we’ve only been back once since the summer. We walked around the first first floor and ended up in the ball play area. Spent some time in the ‘under 4’ room, but ended up in the ‘5 and up’ room as it is more fun. The balls spilled on August twice, but he found it exciting. Eventually, he said he was hungry, so we went up to the third floor and finished off the sandwich in the small eating area.

I changed him before we left. There are animals on the wallpaper, and he was pointing them out. First he said “animal” and was pointing out the individual animals. Then he suddenly started working on his plural. He would say ‘animal ssss’. There was no snake on the wallpaper, so I knew he wasn’t doing his snake sound.

Before leaving the park, we stopped by the festival again. There was a K-pop dance group on stage. Rather odd, considering it was a children’s festival, especially when they were dancing to a mix that included the Sir Mix-a-Lot line “My anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hun.”

We headed home. Had to stay in the backpack for the ride home. In the subway station he saw the maps and was calling each “Opa’s map” after the one day Chuck was looking at maps in the subway.

At home he immediately laid on the carpet and was pointing out letters on a book. We switched backpacks and went to the pink building for grocery shopping. Did that, then went into the bookstore there. Ended up buying a really cool Korean baby animals counting book and a set of nice English letter flashcards. 

Came home. Carly had just beaten us. She played with the flashcards with him. He had dinner and she gave him a bath. He still hasn’t sat down entirely in the bath. Today, after Carly was done washing him and he had let some of the water out, I asked him to sit down, and he did it. Progress.

Expected him to go to sleep earlier due to the short nap, but that didn’t happen. We all ended up playing on the bed for a long time, with the sheet and stuffed animals. Unfortunately, it ended when he stood up and took two sudden steps to the edge of the bed. There were blankets hanging off the edge and he thought they were solid. They were not. He fell and hit his chin on the bed frame, getting a little cut.

Carly calmed him down, and taught him that kisses make it better. He was sticking out his chin for us to kiss it, and he would say “feels better”. Finally, sometime after 9 he fell asleep.

Oh, and the Peace Cafe got a couple of new books in that I will read. I had thought there was just two books I was interested in left after I finished the one that I’m on. Now they have Still Life with Rice The Guernsey…

New words/phrases: sweatshirt, parakeet, dada sing baa baa, teeter totter (tee-tee-oh), go to see mama, heeby jeeby e f g, tongue, feet, feels better

Children’s museum: 

At home: 

Our first full day without Oma and Opa around. He handled it pretty well, but mentioned them pretty often, especially in the evening when he started walking around, trying to find them.

After he woke up after 8 we took the morning to finish cleaning and setting up the laundry/etc. room. August found the chunk of ginger that Megan had given Carly, and was walking around carrying it, saying “ginger”. He also found the paper for one of his Duplo sets in the drawer, and was pointing to the picture on the front, so I built the farm for him, and now he is calling it “farm”. He kept wanting to go outside, and we finally made it outside a little after 11.

We walked and took a bus up to Danggogae Station. This is the valley where Chuck and Cherie walked up to a temple. There is an extension of the Seoul Trail that I’ve been meaning to do, so August and I started it today. From the station we walked up to the stamp location for the Seoul Trail. I had taken August here before when I went back to get the stamp. There is a pagoda near it where we had sat and he had crawled around on the floor. We stopped here again and had lunch. I divided the sandwich, and August traded. As he ate the piece he now had, he continued to call it “dada’s sandoo”. I had checked in the backpack to make sure there was a pair of shoes. It turned out the pair that was in there was a pair of Vans that I tried the other day but couldn’t get on over his socks. Luckily, he wasn’t wearing socks and they fit. So after he ate he was walking around in those, playing with little rocks, and watching a little beetle on the ground.

Eventually we took off walking. Very nice area, and the trail climbs up over a tunnel on the Seoul ring road. August kept himself entertained with songs, either by himself or with me singing. He found it hilarious when I said “whoop-de-doo” in a little chant thing I know.

He fell asleep at 1:27. Suddenly, the trail became very devoid of sitting spots. Made it down to a road and walked back to the station. At 2 I was walking up to Danggogae Park (where the climbing wall is – Chuck and Cherie had been here) and he woke up. A short nap, but as you’ll see, he apparently didn’t need more.

Set him down and took him out of the backpack to realize one show – his left – was missing. So we walked back about a half mile looking for it. August seemed to enjoy the search. No luck finding the shoe. A good one to lose, as I had planned on donating them since they weren’t going to be of much use during the winter.

Back to the park. Sat on a bench near at the playground and ate some more. August was very focused on hearing today. He had pointed out crickets when we were hiking. In the park he started by saying “hear train” and pointing off through the trees in the direction of the tracks. He kept saying it, and started adding in the article, making it “hear a train”. Then he said “hear a car” and “hear a tweet tweet”. Later, someone up the hill started singing. He started by saying “singing” (a new word) and pointing. Then he surprised me further by saying “someone singing”.

While we were at the playground there was a girl, age 6 (Korean, so 4 or 5), named Haneul that played with him and talked to me using all of her English (and all of my Korean, for that matter). August was sweeping the slides and she was at the top when they first met, and August had a lot to say to her. She would repeat what he said. She was sliding down the slide, which was going fine, but at one point accidentally knocked him off the end. Not a hard fall, but he was shocked and sad. He was afraid of her for a couple minutes, but went back to waving and talking to her, and when she was leaving he said “bye bye Haneul” many, many times.

I changed him in preparation of leaving, then he started climbing on and walking/crawling across the benches. At one he stopped in the middle and did some bench yoga. I had packed up, ready to leave, only to find that he had pooped, so I need to change him again.

Finally headed home, getting back about 4:40. Had planned to quickly trade for the regular backpack and go to the store, but he immediately went and found his ‘whale shark’ (his Duplo whale and shark) and started playing with them. They were the first Duplos he had played with in the morning. He was very focused on getting both of them on the same square piece. So we spent 10+ minutes on that, then Carly got home. He would play with and say “whale shark” a couple times later in the evening.

Oh, and we started to work on reading today. Carly decided that ‘coffee’ would be a good sight word, since he can find it on signs. And I thought ‘art’ would be good too. So in the morning when he was coloring I made signs for each and hung them up in the appropriate location in the house. I swear a couple times when we were out he said “bye bye a-r-t”) but I am not positive, since he was also saying “bye bye train’ (and his ’train’ sounds a lot like just ’t’) in those talks.

Anyway, his first sight words might actually be ‘Cassie’ and ‘Welcome’. He found the photo collage of Cassie and Vivian and Jeff as I had set in on the floor when we were moving things around. He started by pointing down to a photo of Vivi and saying “ah-gee down there”. But then he started focusing on the letters. And I was teaching him that Tia’s name is Cassie. So he was pointing to the C and saying ‘Cassie’ first, then he started saying “W, welcome”. He did this later with Carly. Can’t really be considered a sight word until he does it someplace else, but we will see.

Despite the short nap, he decided he was going to stay up. Made it to 9 something. I was pretty drained by then. He was really fighting sleep. Mainly he didn’t even seem to be tired. But at one point he wanted to play Duplos and Carly took him away. He lost it, and wasn’t calming down in the bedroom, wailing “more baa baa”. So I took him his Duplo sheep. Helped a little, but not really. He came out once more, then I went back in with them. We sang to him some more, then I slipped out. Carly still had some work getting him to sleep after that.

New words/phrases: ginger, peach (color), white, farm, door, change a diaper, whale and shark, ah-gee down there (pointing on Vivi photo), osprey, train, gettin’ there, pretty, bug (little ants at park), hear a train (at park – pointing to train out of sight), hear a car, someone singing (minutes after just ‘singing’, dada get it (pointing to rock he couldn’t reach), rooster, reading area (eed area), grain (of the boards on the floor)

Morning: 

On our hike: 

At Danggogae Park: 

Home: