This Is Our Blog

There were lots of wake ups in the night. I remember watching him sit up, sit silently for a couple minutes, then reaching over and silently tapping Carly on the shoulder because he wanted to nurse. At other times he was talking and making noise in his sleep, including his lip noise and saying ’bye bye Anna’. As such, he slept in until about 9.

I made an egg scramble with crab that he really liked. Later he helped me make a smoothie. The rest of the morning involved some cleaning and resting and of course some playing. A bit after noon I took him out for a walk in the backpack. We walked to a park (백합어린이공원, Lily Children’s Park) just north and across the street from Toys R Us that we’d never been to before. A nice find, as the park and playground area are good for playing, and there are two really nice apartment complex play areas kind of attached to the public park.

We played there for about an hour. First, of course, in the sand area, and then climbing on a bench and throwing his shovel an a long stick into the bushes and off the bench. He also got to watch a flock of pigeons as they moved through the park.

From there we went to Toys R Us. As soon as we got in the building and he saw the combination of the pet store and the giraffe statues for Toys R Us he got really excited and kept saying ‘at the zoo’, which is the name of a book he has and just started saying in the last couple days. When we actually went in Toys R Us he wanted to go back and kept saying ‘more at the zoo’. Didn’t buy anything, but we did scout out Duple sets for which ones have animals with them.

We then walked home, stopping at 2001 Outlet to watch four workers scaling the side of the building and washing it, and getting home about 2:30. This was when he would take a nap, if he was going to. He looked a bit tired, but didn’t go down for a nap. A no nap day.

We were at home for awhile and skyped with my parents, then I took him out to Home Plus. While we went there, Carly went to the pink building and got some groceries and pho. He carried his rag on the trip. Did a good job of holding on to it, although in the store he did decide to throw it on the ground so I took it for awhile. For samples he had red pepper, chicken nugget, and pineapple. This actually convinced us to get a pineapple. He was upset that he couldn’t have more pineapple in the store and had a little meltdown, but stopped crying soon, pretty much on his own.

We walked home and he ate a bunch of carrot. Carly called it a ’sweet carrot’, so he kept requesting more by saying ‘more sweet’. At one point he had been nursing and I sat down next to them on the couch with my iPad. He climbed on to my lap, blocking my view,  and insisted on Nighty Night. In the evening he played in the sink and ate a late peanut butter sandwich as if we hadn’t been feeding him all day. 

Carly gave him a bath. Before he got in, she had him try to use the toilet for the first time. Success! He was very excited by it and about dumping the pee in the toilet afterwards. 

Right before bed I changed him again. We were singing “The wheels on the bus” and he was really getting into ‘the doors’ and timing his hand claps with mine, and saying ‘shut’ every time. He was asleep around 8:30.

New words/phrases: crack eggs, I see it, cow, At the Zoo, goat noise (baaaaaaaa), sweet carrot, salsa, bye bye people, smoothie cup

 

Morning: 

Lily Children’s Park: 

Toys R Us: 

Walking home: 

Watching workers on the building:

Home: 

Home Plus: 

Back home: 

Taking over the iPad: 

Sandoo: 

Today started primarily as a cleaning day; we tackled a lot of the closets and organizing involved in making sure there is room and preparing for rearranging rooms before Chuck and Cherie show up a week from Wednesday.

We skyped with Chuck and Cherie in the morning. Then I made French toast. While doing so, August got up on his stool at the counter just for fun. He did this a few times throughout the day.

He then literally did some vacuuming, with the vacuum cleaner on. Lasted a good 10 minutes. He was in the hall, and it would stretch into the two back bedrooms. He would vacuum in one room, then struggle to lift and turn the handle into the other room, then go down the hall, etc.

He took a nap. At this point, Carly was starting to feel off again and, sure enough, she had a fever. After his nap, August and I got out the magnet board game I bought some time ago on sale and he ate a sandwich for lunch. At some point, Carly added the little zookeeper and panda Duplo set I’d bought several months ago to the mix. August quickly picked up ‘zookeeper’.

Carly went to the hospital to see about some antibiotics for an infection. It turned into a two hour experience as they were incredibly thorough: x-ray, blood work, frozen water bottles to bring down the (not incredibly high) fever, an IV.

August and I, after reading a few more books, headed out for a walk. We took Carly her Kindle, then I quickly got August out of the ER full of sick people. We went and played in the park near the hospital. He mainly played with his shovel in the sand. He also requested I get out the ball, so we played with that, kicking it, throwing it up in the bushes, and watching me shoot it through the basketball hoop. And he threw away a few pieces of garbage.

I’ve noticed sand is now the most important thing for a playground. Funny how it has moved from swings to slides to water to now sand. I wonder what the next thing is going to be…

Anyway, when Carly was done with met her at the hospital then walked home via McDonald’s. 

We were home for a little while, long enough for August to use a discarded shower head to pretend to fill up his bathtub, then left again to give Carly some time to rest. This time we walked to Chrysanthemum Park. But that involved about a 15 minute stop along the way where he basically stood on the sidewalk and waved to everyone and everything, primarily cars going by. He then got into throwing fruits from the trees, but he wanted to throw them into the street, and get close to the curb in doing so, so we kept going.

Both directions as we walked by the women’s center he said ‘smoothie’. But it was closed.

Anyway, as soon as he saw the park he shouted ‘shovel’, and that was the primary activity again, with me needing to encourage him to keep the sand in the sand area. He also played with a swing a little, then wanted to go over to the ‘chestnut’ area. We did, and he played with them a bit, but mainly he ate: a Larabar, a banana, and a cracker.

We were at the park over an hour, then headed home about 7 or 7:15. We got home, then got a call from the security guards saying we had a package. I took August down to get it. It was his infant toilet. So we brought it up and he helped me put it together.

He ate another banana and had beans, cheese, and broccoli for dinner and we read a lot of books and he was asleep about 9. 

New words: banana shaker (‘nana shirkle’ – he just pointed to the shaker on top of his piano and said it), lightbulb, zookeeper (zoobooper), tissue, suitcase (from the Abby Cadabby page on the Sesame Street site where she turns a pumpkin into a suitcase), sweep, a-ha (we were looking for Carly’s Kindle and found it. I said ‘There it is!’ and he said ‘a-ha!’), dada’s pockets (pop-its), call mama (as we walked home and she sent a Skype message I said ‘We could call her’ and he said ‘call mama’. I had thought he said it during our first trip out, but wasn’t sure.)

 

No need for tippy toes to look out the window: 

On his stool at the counter: 

Magnet game: 

Sandoo: 

And zookeeper: 

Park #1: 

In motion: 

At home. Filling up the bath: 

Waving on the way to Chrythanthemum Park: 

View over the stream: 

Chrythanthemum Park: 

Larabar: 

At home: 

Looking out the window. He had both feet up and fell. Think he learned a lesson:

At some point during the night I remember August sort of crawling over towards me, then I went back to sleep. I woke up sometime later to find him taking up most of my pillow, laying on his stomach on the pillow. Again I fell back to sleep. At a later point, he must have crawl off the top of the pillow, as he sort of fell into the small gap between the mattress and wall, waking him up.

After that he slept until 7:30. We made a smoothie and ate some cereal for breakfast. The big activity in the morning was dumping out all of the blocks and then placing them back in the bag one-by-one, identifying an object or letter on most of them as he did so.

We left at 9:30 and headed up to Dobongson. We didn’t go up to the national park, but stopped at the ‘Dobongson Ecological Park’, i.e. the stream area. We were there for 2 hours. We spent most of that playing in the water, but there were a couple of snack breaks, and at the end we spent several minutes looking at the grasshopper that found its way to our backpack. He likes the word ‘grasshopper’ and he got to see it hop a couple times, which was pretty thrilling.

I changed him before we left: probably the roughest changing for him in a long time as he cried through it. Very tired. We started walking down along the stream (past the playground, which will wait for another day). He lasted over half a mile, but fell asleep as we approached the river. I sat on a bench overlooking the river while he napped. Only 30 minutes, but that seems the new norm. It did take him quite awhile to wake up though, as he was groggy all the way to the subway station from there.

We took the subway two stops south to Nowon and went to Daiso. Managed to find two small brooms – one for the backpack, one for the house – for him and another set of the cheap beach toys so we have two more shovels. 3000 won total.

From there we took the bus home. There was a food fair going on in the park, and we bought a simple pajeon (korean pancake) and a box of chicken. We went home and ate. He ate almost all of the pajeon and kept saying ‘more pancake’.

After awhile we went back out, this time to Home Plus for grocery shopping. While there he got ‘samples’ of red pepper, apple, and a chicken nugget – first time he’s had a chicken nugget. After that, he was saying ‘more chicken’. He also got really social, and was waving at everyone, particularly as we walked by the food court.

Back home, then, sans carriers and backpacks for once, we went out a third time to get a loaf of healthy bread at Tous les Jour on the first floor. Took that up, then we made a fourth and final outing to go find Carly, as she was walking home with Megan.

August and I walked to the benches next to the pink building and waited there. He was fine snacking on Cheerios, drinking water, and climbing/sitting on the bench for about 15 minutes, but then got restless. Looked at bushes for awhile, then said ‘shovel’ a couple times. I’d been thinking we should have brought one too, since we just bought more. Anyway, he played with some receipts (‘paper’) I had in my pocket, but he would crumple them and throw them in the bushes. Would have been fine with a shovel, as it stays on top, but the the receipts fall through to the ground. So we started walking some more. Crossed the street and went a half block south. Still no sign of them. So we turned around as it was now 5:15 and we might have missed them.

He was bumping his chin on my shoulder and did it really hard. Got a very sad look on his face, but didn’t cry. A guy walking the same direction said ‘Is he okay?’ and I had to explain what just happened.

As we got to the corner, there were Carly and Megan coming from the side street and crossing in front of us. We got to surprise them on the corner. Only then did August start to cry.

Back home, we, and especially August, since he gets most of the attention, had a nice long Skype call with Glecy, who is back in Seattle. After the call he was saying ‘bye bye aunty Glecy’, although the ‘Glecy’ part doesn’t sound like Glecy.

Carly gave him a bath, we read several books, and played one round of Nighty Night, and he went to sleep a little before 9.

Other highlights of the day:

Saying “I got… And ‘I got my…’ sentences. He has pretty much figured these sentence patterns out, starting with ‘I got my dada’ when he grabs my legs and wants me to carry him. He was also saying things like ‘I got my knee’ and ‘I got my wawa’. We were working on ‘I got my mama’ before we saw her and he said it later in the evening when he grabbed her legs.

He still stumbles on it sometimes. The last time we headed to the elevator, he walked most of the way, but then wanted up. He grabbed my legs, looked up at me and said ‘I got…’ ‘I got my…’ I still wasn’t picking him up as he stumbled with the words, so then he just loudly said ‘UP’. 

When we were talking to Glecy, I saw him grab his shoes and start to walk down the hall. I called him back and was trying to get him to say ‘I got my shoes’. I realized that he had been on his way to put the shoes away by the door and I had interrupted him. Sometime after the call was over, I started to tell Carly about this and asked where his shoes were. We looked around, and they were down by the door. Despite my interruption (he had stayed in the room for the next few minute and, I thought, had set them down), at some point he took the shoes back down the hall and put them away all on his own.

He now regularly uses his stool in the kitchen when he wants to see what is going on. He’ll push it where he wants and step up on it. He hasn’t (yet) really used it to get thing off the counter, but it now means that very little counter space is safe from him.

New words: kisses (I kissed him a bunch and he said ‘kisses!’, grasshopper, pancake, chicken, waving, Cyril (in the Maisy books), I got my… (Used with several things: dada, mama, knee, shovel), poh-doh (Korean for grape), vegetable, okay

In the stream: 

Pontificating on the trees from a rock: 

Then losing his balance: 

Then eating his ‘yummy shirt’: 

Grasshopper: 

On the way home: 

Still sleepy after his nap:

Our food from the fair: 

His new broom: 

Waiting to surprise mama: 

Bye bye Aunty Glecy: 

He slept until 8:16. So tries to hurry in the morning, but we made a smoothie and with all the usual stuff we didn’t leave until about 9:30. As we left he said “bye bye haa-ugm” and “bye bye home”, and as we approached the front door he said “kitty cat”, seeing the photo of Celeste. 

At the park we headed for the zoo. The first animal he requested was ‘zebra’. We went there first, then bounced around between the zebras, deer, and seals as he requested each. I had to change him, then we stopped at a bench outside the seals to eat or sandwich. He was grabbing my legs and saying ‘I got me dada’ or ‘I got dada’ when he then tripped over my foot and landed with his knee on the edge of the concrete. Didn’t actually bother him much, but he got a pretty big scrape on his knee. I remembered to add bandages to the carrier backpack when we got home.

From there we bounced around the zoo based on which animals he wanted to see next. This is a very cool development. We saw the baboons, then the outdoor birds (peacocks, the vulture (‘eagle’), working on ‘pheasant’), then the horses (he got licked by a quick horse), goats, and otters, then into the tropical building where he focused mostly on the water monitor. First, he saw the sand in the cage and wanted his shovel so he could pretend to play in it. A couple minutes later we came back and got to watch the water monitor crawl out of the water into the sand and face-off with August as he played with his shovel.

From there we went to the Adventureland Playground, where he played in the sand for a few minutes until he was ‘all done’. We went to the musical instruments and he played there for awhile, then wanted to go back to playing in the sand, so we went back over by the toy train, where he played with sand, threw rocks up on the other rocks, and worked at climbing on the rocks.

It was getting close to 5 hours that he’d been awake, so I put him in the backpack and he fell asleep after a half mile. Went to the cafe and read for awhile. He woke up happy after a 34 minute nap. Not long, but much more than the last two days.

From there we watched the big fountain for a few minutes than hopped on the subway, then transferred to the bus and went to APIS. We played in the park until school was about over, then went in to meet Anna (one of Carly’s students from last year) in the library after school. We had a few minutes to hang out with Meg and her art class. August was looking overwhelmed, then we were just standing in the quiet hall and he got an incredible sad face and started crying a little bit. Got him calmed down and in the library when school got out, then Anna and another student showed up. A little much for him, so we went outside by the field.

Took him awhile to get fully comfortable (the other student was a bit too much for him), but he ended up throwing objects (his shovel, tissues, etc.) around on the benches, then running around on the field. Anna had to run off to get her stuff when the busses showed up, after which August was saying ‘bye bye, Anna’. So I took him inside so she could hear him say it.

After Carly was done with her culture club, we went up to her classroom then we all walked home. We passed a place advertising soft serve ice cream, but then they were out of ice cream. So when we got back to our neighborhood we went to McDonald’s for our soft serve, then home for dinner.

He ate ‘grampa’s soup’ for dinner. Although ‘grampa’s soup’ now refers to refried beans, cheese, and broccoli. Carly gave him a bath. He has a lot of fun in the bath now, but still stands up the entire time. We read books while Carly got the bath ready. He wanted to see a camel, so we got back on the computer and was looking up photos of various animals. He made it to about 9 before falling asleep.

New words: goodbye, (trash), goodbye home, kitty cat (seeing photo of Celeste as we left), tissue (after Anna said it), nozzle

Eyes closed when he hits the drum: 

Park across from APIS: 

APIS: 

Walking home: 

He slept for a long time, upwards of 13 hours, and woke up around 6:40. So that was good. That still gave us plenty of time to do stuff in the morning before leaving to go to the National Museum around 9.

First, he got out his broom and dustpan, calling it a shovel. He then saw his little shovel. So, we were working on ‘big shovel’ and ‘little shovel’, which he seemed to have down, but wasn’t repeating in the evening.

We were then reading his bird book, which he calls ‘Say’ (the Korean word for bird) and then Wild About Books. In it, there is a bird that looks kind of like a peacock, so I called it that. He then started repeating the word ‘peacock’ – I think he remembered them from the zoo last week – and went and grabbed his bird book. I told him there wasn’t a peacock in there, and we went to the computer and used Google Image search to find peacocks. He then started requesting other animals, and when he was done looking at an animal he would say ‘all done (animal)’, as in ‘all done lizard’, then request another animal.

He then played in the sink, and helped me crack eggs by standing on his stool and cracking eggs on the counter so we could make eggs, cheese, and broccoli. He didn’t eat dinner last night, so he ate a lot this morning.

We were listening to the latest Neil Young, and he would point out when he heard harmonica.

We then did some Duplo playing before getting ready to go.

Bit longer train trip down to the National Museum. Luckily, you get to see outside much of the way. We made it down, and no sign of rain, so we went over to the park first and played at and around the playground. He likes to pile sand outside the sand area, so I realized I should get a little broom to hang on the backpack for cleanup. He also enjoyed throwing sand in the air and watching the dust blow. His hair was full of sand. He did a lot of wandering through the trees, picking up rocks, etc. and throwing them in the bushes. We’re also extending our comfort distance – he let me walk back to the backpack at one point to get the cup, and he would walk away from me 30 or 40 feet to play. Finally, there were ramps and stairs up to the picnic table area. He spent a lot of time walking up and down them, and throwing the ball off of them.

I then changed him and we started to leave (rain was coming, eventually) but found the drinking fountain. We played in that, and he drank from the ‘waterfall’ where the water drains down below.

We then put him in the backpack and walked back to the museum area. Walked around the pond until he fell asleep, then walked toward the museum to find a place to sit. There was a whistle off in the distance and I heard him sleepily say ‘more’. Then he saw a fountain and got really excited. End of nap after 3 minutes.

We went to the covered picnic table and rubber floor area to the left of the museum entrance. He ate and climbed on the benches, and helped throw our garbage away. He then practiced his running, first following me, then on his own. It started raining, and before I could get the backpack together, it was pretty heavy. We waited it out a minute and it calmed, then hurried the 50 meters back to the entrance. He kept saying ‘umbrella’ and was probably wondering why we weren’t using one like everyone else.

We went through part of the museum. I showed him the little animals in the Shilla section. There was another baby there who kept staring at him. He kept pointing and saying ‘animals!’ They interacted for a few minutes, until she touched August’s nose. Her mom came over, chastised her, and took her away. Oh well.

We went up to the third floor, and looked at some of the Silk Road art – he liked a piece with a horse in it, then he led the way through Buddhist sculpture for awhile, then we went down to Buddhist art. From there he had fun walking down the stairs.

Went to the cafeteria and he ate almost an entire Larabar. From there we left. On the train home, two women entertained him. But as soon as they left he started falling asleep. He slept 30 minutes and I woke him up by taking him out of the backpack at home.

I gave him a shower and we had some snacks (he ate most of a banana) and were doing some cleanup when Carly got home. He had a lot of energy in the evening, and stayed up until close to 9. They read the Snappy Little Monsters book a few time and other books. He didn’t eat much in the evening, but had eaten a lot during the day.

Before he finally went to sleep she had him in the bedroom and they were singing the ABC song as they nursed. He was then calling ‘dada’ and went to the door once. I was about to go in, but then she got him back down and he fell asleep.

New words: big shovel, little shovel, say (korean for bird – used to request his Korean bird book), peacock (in wild about books, saw them at zoo last week), ship (boat on wooden block), train (tray – on wooden block), sand (don’t know if I recorded this – has used it a few times), I saw it (more mimicry than independent, but copying/using sentences), subway train (phrase), I got me mama (to Carly in the evening when he grabbed her and wanted to nurse), Ernie book, harmonica (on-uh-cuh)

 

Morning. I realized he could start learning to use a trackpad: 

Park: 

Coming down the ramp: 

Mushroom (buh-sot in korean):

Playing at a distance: 

Drinking fountain:

Running: 

He’s saying ‘running’ as he goes: 

In the museum: 

Headed home: 

After his shower: 

August woke up early, at 5:50. Not a long night. We spent the morning doing a lot of reading (he now requests the ‘Snappy Little Monsters’ book by saying ’snappy’) and playing in the sink and on the bed and skyping with my parents. We found out the APIS maintenance guys would be over by 10 to pick up the desk and chair we don’t need, so we spent the rest of the morning straightening and cleaning instead of heading out to a park. I got out his blanket, which we haven’t used in many months, and he immediately started playing peekaboo with it. Unfortunately, he can now walk, and managed to walk right into a wall with his eyes covered.

His class started at 11:10, so about 10:40 we left and did a little walking around the park before going over. He spotted the camel sculpture so we went and he said “Hi, camel”. As we left he said “bye bye, camel”. He said “bye bye” to a lot of things today, including:

“Bye bye, magpie”

“Bye bye, park”

“Bye bye, cafe”

Anyway, his class went well. There are three other students. One mother is an English teacher, another boy, Jungbean, has been in August’s previous classes, and the other mother speaks at least a little English. August loved the bubbles (we haven’t done those in a long time) and the first stand up song in these classes, but there was no way he was wearing the bird wings or bird hat. He really likes birds though, so it was cool that today’s class was about birds (and he knows pigeon and crow in Korean, so he actually understood part of it!).

After class, it had been over six hours since August had woken up. It took him awhile to fall asleep. I walked over to the power plant and did a lap around the track, then headed back. He fell asleep close to home, but it didn’t go so smoothly this time. He woke up as I set him down, and I couldn’t get him back to sleep. No nap today (6 minutes hardly counts).

We read a lot more – some Maisy books, Wild About Books – and when he seemed mellow again I took him back out in the backpack. But after a mile of walking he hadn’t fallen asleep. So we played at Chrysanthemum Park. First in the sand, where he heard a magpie and wanted to go investigate (this is where the “bye bye, magpie” was said), then over by the wooden worms. Chestnuts were falling off the trees, and August had a lot of fun with these – peeling them and throwing them in the bushes. And later, shoving them under my legs. When the wind came up, chestnuts would start to rain from the trees, so I’d have to make sure we were out from under them.

He finally slowed with that and we went back to the sand, then walked around the corner to the women’s business center and got a blueberry smoothie. We sat and drank that, and the woman, who now knows his name, brought him some cranberry bread this time. We were there for about a half hour before we left (“bye bye, cafe”).

We went home for awhile, then needed to take out garbage. So we did that, and kept walking. Went across the park, going where August led. Ended up at the art museum and went through the children’s exhibit again (he went straight for the Alice in Wonderland box when I set him down). He wanted to ‘sit’ so we went and sat on a bench. He immediately wanted a cracker, as he remembered that last time we were there a woman gave us crackers and we sat on a bench and ate them.

This was the second time his memory surprised me today. Earlier, when we were at the park, he started to walk towards the stream when he heard construction sounds. He looked across and pointed to the northeast and said ‘neigh, neigh’. He couldn’t see them, but that was the direction of Madeul Stadium and the horse sculptures.

When he was done looking at the art, he wanted to climb the stairs. So he climbed the long flight of stairs up to the first floor (holding my hands), then continued to the second. He wanted to keep practicing stairs, but it was 5:20 and Carly said she would be home around 5:30. So I took him out to the bus stop to see if we could surprise her. She wasn’t on the first bus that came, so we headed home. But she hadn’t beaten us, so I figured she would show up at any moment. We walked back (August walking on his own now; a big change from being a bit scared walking around the hallways) to the elevators and she showed up after just a minute and got a good surprise as August was walking up to the elevator as the doors opened.

We went back and tried to keep August awake. He was having none of it, and fell asleep a little before 6. Hopefully he will sleep a long night. Carly tried to go to bed early in case he wakes up early.

New words: puppy, snappy, dalgi, hi (hi camel, bye bye camel), harmonica (onica), cereal, lemon, Molly (in Wild About Books), sand, magpie, spider (pieder), stork (cork)

Haircut: 

Class: 

Closest he got to putting on the wings: 

Drinking from the backpack: 

At the park: 

Pointing to where he hears the magpie: 

Smoothie at the cafe:

I haven’t been feeling entirely well the last couple days, with weird abdominal pains and nausea in the morning (Carly says I’m pregnant), so I figured today would be a good rest day.

He had a very groggy wakeup a little before 7. Several minutes after he got up, we were in the living room and he started looking for mama: “Mama? Mama? Mama?” Went on for over a minute. In the morning we did a lot of reading, played by the sink, made a smoothie, and played a little iPad. After 10 we went to the pink building to do some grocery shopping. 

We came back and I expected him to take a nap soon. He didn’t. Instead, we played with a tennis ball, and he figured out how to climb and stand on a chair.

Finally, he wasn’t looking tired, so I decided to put him in the backpack and go to the playground by the stream. He was happy about going outside. But less than a minute after we crossed the street from Baskin Robbins, he was asleep. So I returned home and was able to pull him out of the backpack and lay him on the bed without him waking up.

He slept for less than 40 minutes, which wasn’t nearly enough, as he kept crying and calling for ‘Mom, Mom, Mom”. After a half hour I asked if Carly could Skype with us. That seemed to do the trick, as he had calmed down after a couple minutes.

After that, we sat together on the couch and listened to some Jim Croce. He was then hungry and requesting another sandwich. He ate a bite of string cheese, then of crab, but insisted on a sandwich. We settled on a Larabar, and he wanted to sit on the couch with me as we ate it.

Around 3:30 we headed out to the park. We played around the dinosaurs, then went over to see the fountain by the stage when it came on at 4. This was where we had played with a tennis ball, and he remembered. Luckily, I had a tennis ball in the backpack. This time, there was a lot less throwing it in the bushes and a lot more throwing and kicking it around.

We then went to Home Plus to finish our grocery shopping and bought some plums on the way home. We got home a little before Carly. Right before she arrived he had been diligently picking up all the blocks he had dumped out earlier and placing them in the bag.

He didn’t eat a lot for dinner, having eaten well through the day. We got the storage room key and rearranged a few things. Carly took the old vacuum cleaner down, and August followed her all the way to the storage unit, since he loves the vacuum cleaner so much.

He took a bath and was asleep a little before 9.

Things August learned/perfected today:

How to use the water system in the backpack. Before he got the general idea, but if you don’t form a full seal with your lips, air gets in, and then the water goes the wrong way. He totally got it down today.

How to open the bedroom door. He did it once last night. Today he practiced it until he had it down.

How to climb on a chair and stand on it. One I would have been happy for him not to learn so quickly.

How to sing part of the ABCs song. He sings ABCD and then the G, V, and Z, and then the ABCs part in “Now I now my ABCS” and then ‘me’ at the very end.

New words: tower, vitamins, cat

 

Slow wakeup: 

Silliness as we leave to go shopping: 

Checking the mail: 

Back home: 

At the park: 

Kicking the ball: 

At home: 

I hiked another portion of the Seoul Trail today with Derek and Jeff. Before I left to meet them at 8:30, August got a pan from the cupboard and took it to his play area. He then got the blocks and a spatula and put some blocks in and started stirring them. When he did this a few days ago it was my idea, this time it was all on his own.

The hike went well. A pretty boring section, and the flattest of the entire trail. Which is why it was the longest, at 10 kilometers.

While I was gone Carly and August walked to the stream and then played by the dinosaurs. When I came home they were playing with the first set of Duplos and August was saying ‘more’ and went and got a second set. So we opened that box and they made their tower even taller.

Carly left to go to a coffee shop down on the second floor to do some work. I was pretty tired, so didn’t want to move much. Luckily, August was good playing in the house. We spent a lot of time cutting play dough with his plastic knife, then did his transportation sticker book, read a few books, played with the Duplos (mainly having the people and the sheep going down the slide, and then playing in the utility drawer. There were the medicine dispensers in there (like for children’s tylenol) and we ended up filling them with water and squirting it into his mouth. He drank a lot of water that way.

Carly came home for awhile, then did some work in the bedroom. She had played some Nighty Night with him, then he and I switched to Endless Alphabet. He can do 4, 5, and 6 letter words entirely on his own (except for the ‘R’s – he is slightly afraid of them and grabs my finger to do them).

In the evening I took him out to the park for about 30 minutes. We mainly stayed in the photo zone place by the dinosaurs. He snacked on Cheerios and looked and danced around. He kept going up the two steps and back down. He was walking up on the main walkway and had a scary stumble – he was heading right for a hole in the railing and I thought he was going to fly right through it. Luckily, he stumbled 2 or 3 steps but didn’t fall.

Before we left the park,  there were a couple of men playing harmonica and singing old Korean pop music. August liked this, and was sitting in my arms with his head on my shoulder, starting to get sleepy. It was now 7, and we headed home. He seemed pretty tired a few times, but stayed awake until about 9.

Grampa and Tia are his favorite people right now, at least their names. Starting with the fact that August sometimes wears grampa’s old shirts to bed, he loves to say things like ‘grampa’s shoes’ or ‘grampa’s car’ or ‘grampa’s house’. He does this with other people as well, but a couple days ago Carly made lentil soup. While he says ‘lentil soup’, he really started taking to calling it ‘grampa’s soup’, so he’s doubled up on calling everything ‘grampa’s’ the last couple of days.

Similarly, he inserts the names of other people into songs. We had changed “Baa Baa Black Sheep” to include ‘dada’ and ‘mama’ instead of ‘master’ and ‘dame’. At first he would sing it correctly, and also sing the correct words of ‘wool’ and ‘full’. But eventually he found it funny to start saying random names, like ‘oma’ and ‘gramma’. Since then, he has settled on ’tia’ being the funniest, and “Baa Baa Black Sheep” now goes like this, with me singing most of the words and August singing the ‘tia’s and the ‘full’ at the end:

Baa baa black sheep have you any tia

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags tia

One for the tia, one for the tia

And one for little tia (sometimes he still says August) who rides on a tia

Baa baa black sheep have you any tia

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full

New words: kick, Cheerios, Duplo, sneezes, coming (may have listed), Lisa (Corduroy’s owner in the book), gul (Korean for the sound a pig makes), bak bak bak (sound of a chicken)

 

Morning: 

My hike: 

Back hoe:

He pinched his foot in the swiffer and was bleeding. Here is Carly attending to his wound: 

Park:

Two awesome things today: we went to a department store up north and bought Duplo sets using a gift certificate Carly received last year and… we discovered shelves we never knew existed. After living here for 3 years.

The shelves happened in the morning. August can now climb up over the couch with little problem, so Carly started to move it against a different wall. I was cleaning the space now open to move the reading area there and wiped the back of the counter: click. Right next to the new reading area, and we now have all of his books on the shelves.

August also did a lot of vacuuming in the morning, and kept wanting us to really vacuum. And he did a pretty thorough job of using a rag to wipe everything. 

That’s his clean side. He also used a marker for coloring and managed to get it all over, including his face.

He also got to Skype with Tia, Vivi, and Baby Colin.

Later in the afternoon, after a monster two and a half hour nap, we headed north to Uijeongbu and the Sinsaegae Department Store. This is where we previously bought toys using gift certificates and cards (and I took August to a kid cafe once, and they have the cool roof). August took his pink rag that he’d been using to clean the house with him, and held on to it until we were up in Uijeongbu and he got to play with Carly’s straw and coffee up.

We first walked across the street to the downtown area and went to Artbox, then stopped and got a coffee. We walked up the street, and there is a little stream running down the center that you can wade in. August played there for awhile, then we walked up the street, came back, and went to the department store.

At the department store we went straight to the Duplos and bought four sets. We then went up to the roof and played there. He did quite well despite it being more overrun with older kids (literally doing a lot of running. And yelling.) Before we left, we went to the bathroom and then changed him. While waiting for Carly to come out of the bathroom, he decided he would lie on the floor and squirm around and entertain passersby. 

We didn’t get back until after 6, so we had dinner, he took a bath, and went to bed. The Duplos would wait until tomorrow.

New words: vacuuming, dirty, lentil soup, poh-doh (grape in korean), teddy bear, come here(?), lay down (according to Carly), I got you (the correct phrase, as opposed to ‘I got me’), I’m coming (?)

Uijeongbu trip:

Our haul for the day: 

Washing his cup in the bath: 

Carly had her back to school night, so wasn’t going to be home until around 7. In the morning August and I watched a couple of videos of Hozier performing “Take Me to Church” live on YouTube. This was how we discovered his next favorite song/video, Lorde’s “Royals”. He watched that a couple times, but had no interest in some other video I tried to put on.

We then made a smoothie, and made a game of throwing and catching his shirt that he had yet to put on. He was doing pretty well.

We also skyped with my parents to see how my dad was doing after shoulder surgery. It went smoothly, and he seemed to be doing well. The call ended when August was rubbing his eyes and I asked if he wanted a nap. He said ‘nap’, walked to the bedroom, and turned around and waved and said ‘bye bye’.

He was ready to sleep, but it has been months and months since he has just laid down to take a nap. He got a pillow (had to take it out of the pillow case) and played with it and laid on it several times. But then he bounced back a bit and we ended up playing Nighty Night. We finished that and he was upset we couldn’t keep playing. So there was some crying and I held him for several minutes. But then he didn’t protest when I laid him on the bed. I laid down next to him for a few minutes and sang to him and he fell asleep for an hour long nap.

He woke up a few minutes after noon and we headed to Dream Forest on the bus (which he now calls ‘subway’). At Dream Forest we first went to the wading pool outside the performing art building (the only water thing that was on). We stayed there for over 90 minutes, playing in the water several times and doing a lot of eating and playing on the bench.

From there we changed him out of his wet clothes and went to the book cafe. I asked him if he wanted to go to the playground or cafe, and he said ‘cafe, cafe, cafe’ and pointed to it as we got close. We got a strawberry drink that he could share and played for awhile. He liked climbing on the little tables and pointing at the bird and saying ‘tweet’. He had too much energy for the cafe, so we headed outside and went to the playground. A lot of independent playing there, so I read a little, and he rediscovered slides and went down several times. Also practiced the stairs. Oh, and he found a little apple thing that someone had drawn a face on. We threw that around, as well as the ball. And he still calls pine needles noodles.

From there we heard music being played at the outdoor amphitheater. It was a brass band rehearsing. We watched them until they were finished around 5:20. Thought the concert might start at 6, so we went up and visited the deer. We then walked through the wildflower garden, where he was looking for frogs and I taught him the word ‘cricket’, as we could hear a lot of them. 

Went back to the amphitheater and decided we had time to get some dinner. Went to GS25 and bought two packages of kimbap. Went back and ate it on the lawn in front of the stage. They did indeed start playing at 6, but it was a marching band and headed out across the park. They came by once more as we sat there, waiting for the main concert to start. August was plenty entertained though by the kimbap, playing with the backpack, and talking to a woman about the baby she had with her. Around 6:30 we heard that Carly was headed home, so we left. As we were leaving the park August was singing ‘Twinkle twinkle’ to himself.

A couple drops of rain as we boarded the 147 bus. Got off at Induk to find it starting to rain more heavily. I hadn’t put the hood up for August. Luckily, I ran around the corner and there was the 9 pulling up to the bus stop. We hopped on that and it stops right by our building.

His eyes were closing as we got off the bus at close to 7:30. He didn’t fall right to sleep though and rebounded for awhile, finally falling asleep around 8:30.

After that, Carly and I started season 5 of Game of Thrones. Earlier, during his nap, I finished watching the old Stanley Kubrick film Paths to Glory, with Kirk Douglas.

New words: strawberry, throw, nap, ankle, cafe, crickets

How he fell asleep: 

Playing in the water at Dream Forest: 

Destroyer of sandwiches: 

Nice and wet after our slash fight and falling down once: 

Cafe Dream: 

Waving: 

Heading home: