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August and I skyped with my parents in the morning. He was very excited to show them the reading area and his books. And it was cool to find out that the sleep shirt that August has been wearing wasn’t just mine, but also my dads. So August is wearing something from the 40s. 

Soon after that we left on a morning walk. I’d thought about the stream, but decided we’d have more shade going somewhere else. So I put him in the backpack and headed due east. We finally managed to square the circle and find the elusive path that allows us to get over to Chungsuk Park without going around a block. This is the park next to a tomb area that August first went to on a walk with my dad and then we went back with both of my parents.

We got out to play at the playground here, but that didn’t last long. We went on the swings for awhile, but then August saw an older girl on a scooter and wanted to watch her. But she left after a minute. He wanted to follow her. I tried to distract him, but he kept wanting to walk up the stairs after her. So I gave in and we packed up and headed up into the apartment complex for his first stalking. 

Of course, we didn’t see her, but stumbled across another playground. This distracted August and he got down and we went on the teeter totter. He was stable enough that I wasn’t worried about him falling, so I could get on the other end. We then sat on a bench and ate a snack. We were going home for lunch, so I didn’t bring a lot of food. Mistake. I brought a stick of string cheese, which he hasn’t been eating for myself. He ended up eating two-thirds of it. I then made the mistake of giving him the first bite of Larabar. He grabbed the whole bar and wouldn’t let go. He ended up eating three-quarters of it.

He was nearing nap time, so we headed home. I was hoping he’d make it all the way before falling to sleep, but he fell asleep as we approached See and Me/Home Plus. So he was asleep about 10 minutes by the time we were back at the apartment. I set the backpack on the table and he slept in it for another hour.

After his nap we went for a walk in the park. I didn’t plan to go far, so I only took his water and an umbrella. No carrier. He is now pretty good at walking out of the apartment, to the elevator, on the elevator, and then off. We went to the near side of the park and he threw away some garbage. We also ran into Preacher, the old man with a bad back that we’ve met many times.

We then decided to go over to the art museum. I let him do a lot of walking in the exhibit. A learning experience for him, and a lot of work for me. We went through the exhibits, then he decided he wanted to just sit on a bench. We found one and sat on it. He seemed very amused by this and kept saying ‘sit’. He also had some banana bread. 

After that, we went to the little play area. He is still small for it, and mainly watched the bigger kids. But he got up on the trampoline area and tried jumping. He had fun for a couple minutes with an older boy who was jumping, but then August got knocked over by accident and that was the end of that.

It was raining, so we went into the gift shop. He really liked their display of umbrellas and was trying to play with them. I pulled him away from the display and thought he’d react badly. Instead, he started waving to the umbrellas and saying ‘bye bye’.

I planned to leave, but grabbed an exhibition catalog and showed August and pointed to a couple of the pieces he had liked (the balls and the blow up monster things). He made the connection, and started pointing back into the gallery area. So we went for a second walk though the first floor. This time I let him do more walking and he did better. Less string grabbing or trying to get to the artwork. He ended up sitting down next to the blow up monster things to watch them. I got him to do some breath in/out movements like the sculpture, which he did, but when I tried to film him he instead had fun acting funny for the camera. He also like the sculpture of strings with cotton clouds and rocks underneath. He pointed to the cloud parts and said ‘baa baa’.

We went home and Carly got home soon after. He had fun chasing Carly around the apartment. We ate some dinner, then did some cleaning. He got the vacuum cleaner attachment and diligently pretended to vacuum the bedroom. He was then intrigued by the cord on the vacuum cleaner and would get really excited when we pushed the button that would retract the cord.

Carly gave him a bath and he went to bed pretty easily. 

New words today: soap (pointing to soap by sink), plate (pointing to plate by sink – first called it a bowl and corrected himself), pillow (referring to the pillow in the reading are), soft (the blanket), towel (tal)

 

Morning: 

Putting together the cup then filling and drinking from it: 

Skyping with gramma and grampa: 

Showing off the reading area:

Chungsuk Park: 

Wanting up:

Playground in nearby apartment complex: 

And now he took possession of the Larabar: 

Cicada: 

Taking the elevator: 

Art museum: 

Second walk through of the exhibit: 

Evening: 

It was our first real full day without Carly, as she had to go in to work by 8 and didn’t finish until after 4. August woke up before 6, and when we left the house to head to the subway at 9:45 he instantly fell asleep.

He slept all the way to Children’s Grand Park, and I had enough time to walk and listen to a couple podcasts. When he woke up we were by the seal exhibit, so we went inside. He got down and ran around in there. He stood in front of the seal tank and pointed at a seal and said ‘seal, seal, seal’.

As we left, an emergency message came across my phone about the heatwave. And yes, it was darn hot. We walked back past the donkeys and deer, which August was really excited about, but we didn’t stop for long.

We found a bench in the shade and ate lunch. He stole my peanut butter sandwich and, a bit later, stole the last third of my Larabar. That is, he got each in a hand and would get upset if I tried to take it away. He walked around that area for several minutes, looking down through grates and exploring, the whole while with food in each hand.

I wanted to get inside, so we headed out, me carrying him this time, hands still full of food. We stopped by the big fountain and he got down. He ate the last of the Larabar, so only one had was now full of food. A boy slightly larger than him came up and said a couple things, August said something back, then pointed excitedly at the fountain. A while later he was trying to point out the grates to the boy and was saying ‘wawa, wawa’.

From there we went to the children’s museum. He was still holding the sandwich. We hung around the lobby, then outside, then the lobby again, and the sandwich wasn’t disappearing. Finally, we sneaked into the museum and went up to the dining room. He ate some other food, but still didn’t finish the sandwich.

From there we went down to the book room where, finally, at 11:46, more than an hour after he had stolen the sandwich from me, he ate the last bite and finally hand both hands free.

We played in that room for awhile, then went to the toddler room, where he focused on pushing around the carts and riding the bug things. He and I both got tired of that, and it was busy, so we decided to head out. We went to the fake stream area and waded in there a bit, but he was looking tired so we decide to go home at about 1.

He was tired the entire way home, but did not fall asleep. He continued to look tired but was doing okay at home, so we went grocery shopping at Home Plus. That was a bit challenging, however, as he can now recognize what I’m putting in the basket and wants it. In particular, the crab meat and pineapple. We stopped and he wanted to sit in a chair on his own to eat some Cheerios, but that only lasted a couple minutes as he wanted what was in the basket.

We made it out and headed home. He continued to look and act tired, but mainly played in the sink. Carly came home a little after 4 and he nursed and fell asleep.

Our friends Jill and Derek came over about 5:20 before the staff and family dinner next door at Todai. August woke up around 5:30 but kept wanting to go back to sleep. Something we didn’t want to happen, both because of dinner and because we didn’t want him up until midnight.

So we got him to dinner. He perked up when he got some food and ended up pretty hyper. He particularly loved a basket of fake flowers and fruits. This is how I learned he knew the word ‘grape’ as he pointed at grapes and said it. He also used ‘namu’ when pointing at a branch, ‘sagwa’ (apple), flower, and bee. There weren’t actually any bees, but he kept pointing at the flowers and saying ‘bee’, presumably because he now associates flowers with bees. He also really liked a couple of colorful little chairs that he played around while Carly was watching him.

We took turns eating and watching him. He ate some pizza, and I got some buckwheat noodles for him, which he liked and kept his attention for maybe 3 minutes.

We both had our fill of food and headed home. August kept up the hyper until crashing about 8:45.

His other new words are ‘pineapple’ (when we ate pineapple this morning), ‘broom’ (when he saw a broom at the park), ‘play dough’ (when he opened his art box), and ‘high five’ (when reading Monster Party).

 

Morning: 

On the way to Children’s Grand Park. Using the sun shade: 

Zoo: 

Deer: 

Lunch: 

Stolen sandwich: 

Sandwich and Larabar: 

Children’s Museum: 

Water time: 

Sitting at Home Plus: 

Todai:

Sitting on the little chairs with Cora: 

Helping dry the carpet after someone (not mentioning who) peed on it: 

Today was Carly’s first day back at work. But it was the retreat portion and families could go. The destination was Nami Island, a park/resort/art community/cultural micro nation on an island in the middle of the Han about an hour upriver from Seoul. 

We left a little before 8. There was some rain as we walked across the park; luckily, this was the only rain of the day. We took the bus to APIS. Soon, we were on the chartered busses and August fell right to sleep and slept the whole way to Nami. 

We took a short ferry to the island, then Carly had an hour of icebreaker games in a field. August and I played nearby: with water in a sink area, watching a lawnmower (I was surprised when he said ‘lanmow’ right away), and mainly with the parts to his pink straw bottle. 

When they were done, we all walked to the center of the island and had lunch (bulgogi hot pot). August ate a lot of rice, beef, and veggies. 

We then had three hours of free time. We walked around the island with Megan, the new 8th grade Eng/SS teacher. We stopped and watched a backhoe working with rocks along a river. Soon after that, August fell asleep in the carrier. We got back around to where we had departed the ferry and found a covered platform. August stayed sleeping in the carrier for another 20 or 30 minutes. 

We headed back to meet up with the group at 3. Along the way there was a series of art prints of animals by a Uruguayan artist. August really liked these, particularly the sheep and the lion, to which he would walk up and say ‘roar’. 

We got back only to find they cancelled the afternoon activity. So it was back through the island to the ferry. August wasn’t really happy about being forced to move so often, but he got to play with some plants and smell flowers before we had to walk back. 

Back on the bus, August was full of energy on the ride home. Luckily, he had a lot of fun. As we neared APIS he was waving to other people on the bus and saying ‘bye bye’. 

We went into the school and Carly’s classroom to change him, then took the bus home. He was playing well at home, but started to crash when Carly went in to try to sleep and I was going to give him a bath. So I gave him a quick bath in the sink and he headed off to bed sometime before 8. 

New words: cranberry (cra bay bee), lawnmower (lanmow), bop (rice), tree (both ‘tree’ and ‘namu’), stick, tunnel (he said it all 4 times we went through a tunnel in the busses, apple (as opposed to ‘sagwa’)

Lunch: 

Meeting Megan and tasting her ice cream:

Entertainment: 

The Han: 

Asleep: 

Art: 

Baba: 

Sitting in a chair in Carly’s classroom: 

August and I got up at the same time, a little before six. Carly had been up for some time. We spent the morning organizing the apartment. I think we are close to getting to first year overseas levels of organized, although with a lot more stuff. 

It was an arty sort of morning. He played with play dough, and then was into coloring with the crayons. I managed to keep most of his coloring on the paper. 

Carly went to work at 9ish. August seemed sleepy, but every time I tried to hold him and put on music he would want down on the bed. Three times we lay on the bed for several minutes. He would lounge on a pillow, change positions, etc. Eventually he would get back up. In between, we did a lot of sitting in the reading area and reading books. 

Finally, I put him in the carrier and went for a little walk to the pink building. He fell asleep and I walked back, but he woke up when j tried to set him down – he now pulls his arms up over the straps, so it turns out I tickle him when I undo the clasps. 

He woke up, and started playing. We ate some lunch (pineapple, crab, etc.) and made bags of snacks for both the backpack and backpack carrier. 

Early afternoon by now and he was still awake and he wanted to get in the backpack. So we went for a walk, directly east. He fell asleep after about a mile, right near Hangeulbi Park. So I went in the park and set the carrier on the bench. He stayed asleep and I read. 

He woke up after 40 minutes. But he needed more sleep as he wasn’t fully waking up. I held him and walked around with him for 15 minutes, but he still didn’t want to get down and play. So we walked home. I didn’t put him in the backpack, instead carrying him in my arms the whole way. We did stop in the park in front of the art museum for awhile and he inspected the grates for water. But it was getting sunny and hot, so we didn’t stay long. 

By the time we got home Carly had returned. He ate some dinner, then Carly gave him a standing up bath and he went to sleep early. 

New words: bird, color, green, blue, belly, belly button (bee bee), uh-oh, crab, bowl

 

Banana bread (and little spoon) in the sink: 

Play dough: 

Lying on the bed, but not sleeping: 

Back to playing: 

More laying down but not sleeping: 

Asleep oh so briefly: 

Oops: 

Walking to Hangeulbi Park: 

Sleepy: 

Asleep: 

Still asleep: 

A little grate action on the way home: 

He woke up about 5. Carly and he spent the next hour cutting fruit and sitting in the reading area with books. 

They went for a walk after I woke up. I helped put his shoes on and this is when he started using his first real two word phrases: ‘mama shoes’ and ‘dada shoes’. 

Carly made a smoothie and he is now saying ‘smoothie’ regularly.

After that, Carly headed off to work for a few hours to start setting up her classroom. August and I finished making a loaf of banana zucchini carrot bread and August had fun licking the spatula.

After that, he was bouncing back and forth between playing and being sad that Carly was gone. I thought something was up, and put on Hozier. He fell asleep in my arms after just two songs. Been a couple months since that has happened.

His nap only lasted 35 minutes though, and he seemed quite awake. It didn’t seem like he needed to go back to sleep. So he ate some banana bread and put on his shoes and we went out to the park. Some teeter tottering, picking up of garbage, swinging, and wandering around the park occurred, then we headed home around noon.

At home, he was sad to not find Carly, but was excited when she called. I answered on my watch, so he could hear her and talk to her as well. After she hung up, he started saying ‘bye bye’ and waving to the watch. He did this several times and thought it was quite funny.

Carly came home and after awhile needed some time to rest and try to sleep. So August and I left for a walk. For the first time, he didn’t object or get upset about getting in the backpack at all. We walked up the stream and to area north of the soccer stadium, where we play in the faucets. There are all sorts of new sculptures and history exhibits now around the stadium, basically and outdoor museum. I let him down out of the backpack at the north and and we played there for 20 or 30 minutes. 

We walked back around the other side of the stadium and came home. I thought he was close to falling asleep as we got home, as he was resting his chin on the backpack. But he recovered his energy and became pretty hyper. He calmed down at one point though and grabbed his picture dictionary book and wanted to sit in the rocking chair with me. He lay in my lap and looked at that for about 10 minutes. After that, we wall went to the grocery store.

Back home, Carly made soup, and I played with August. He played in the sink for a long time. I got out the dinosaur cup that Vivian had given him and he used it to drink water. He then played with it in the sink, filling it up, pouring it out, and pretending to drink from it.

About 6:30 Carly got him ready for bed. We then spent 15 minutes playing with the clips on his high chair. His new game is pretending that his finger gets caught in it when it clicks. He goes ‘ahh’ and pulls back and looks at his finger. He will often then hold it out to me to kiss, or walk over to Carly to have her kiss it.

Despite waking up at 5 and only taking a 35 minute nap, he made it 7 before falling asleep. Hopefully back onto a regular sleeping schedule from here on.

New word: elevator

 

Reading with mama in the new reading area:

Making and eating banana bread: 

Saying bye bye to the watch after a call from Carly: 

Walk to Madeul Stadium: 

Grocery store: 

Playing in the sink: 

Blurry because he is moving around like crazy: 

That is literally a (plastic) knife in his hand that he is attacking me with: 

Caught falling down: 

Evil stare. To go with knife attack: 

Saying ‘all done’, I think: 

Banana in mouth: 

Carly and August were up a few hours before me again, and when I woke up they had gone for a very early walk through the park and down to the stream. He did some more garbage pickup in the park, but also just spent a lot of time wandering around and looking at things.

He took a nice long nap in the morning, then we headed to Children’s Grand Park. It was our first outing with the new backpack carrier, so we didn’t know how it would go. But it went really well. He fought getting into it both times, but was instantly fine once I had him on my back. And the subway wasn’t crowded, so I didn’t have to worry too much about hitting people with it as i get used to having more bulk behind me.

The first place we went at Children’s Grand Park was the zoo. We saw the primates with him in the backpack, then went to the children’s zoo and let him down to walk around. He was happy wandering around and looking at a little pond and a grate that had water beneath it. We finally got him to go watch the otters for awhile, then he wanted to walk out of the children’s zoo. So from there we went and looked at the water birds, then went to the children’s museum.

The children’s museum was packed. We went to the book room for awhile and decided to leave, but then he saw the toddler area and got excited by that, so we went there for about 20 minutes.

We came home and went grocery shopping in the pink building. Back home, August stayed awake, somehow, until close to 7. We did a lot of cutting of his plastic fruit, ate some real pineapple, and then he got really into using the new reading corner I set up. He would sit on the blanket and grab a book out of the basket. He still had a ton of energy, and would get really excited by the ‘no no area’ of the plugs in the wall, and would do a little ‘no no area’ dance as he chanted the phrase. Got a little of that on video.

I changed him and dressed him in one of the old nightgowns that were from me/my brother. I’d been meaning to try one on him all summer but kept forgetting. He was hilarious in it. And at one point he was literally attacking me with his plastic knife while wearing it. Finally, he calmed down and wanted to nurse, and he and Carly both fell asleep.

His new words of the day were ‘larva’, when he saw the statues of the cartoon characters in the subway station, and ‘pineapple’ when we ate pineapple.

Looking at the chimpanzee: 

Water area: 

Children’s museum: 

Headed home: 

Home: 

My/my brother’s old sleep shirt: 

We are getting back on track here and all on different schedules. Carly woke up first, sometime after midnight, then August around 3am, and I slept until close to 6. 

Before I got up they had skyped with Cassie and Vivi and read the cat book and Skip to My Lou a lot. They were skyping with Cherie when I got up. At some point last night, when August sort of woke up, Carly came in to find him holding Marshy. 

Despite both carly and I feeling groggy today, we got outside three times though. 

We went out at about 7am and the big things were going on the teeter totter, throwing away garbage in the garbage can, and walking towards cicadas when they started singing. Carly went back in first and August and I stayed out another 30 minutes until it started raining. 

When we went back, he stood on his own and then walked out of the elevator and to the apartment. A small thing, but remarkable. 

We went out the second time to get groceries at Home Plus. We also picked up a class schedule so I can sign him up for a class or two come September. On the way back, he spotted the dog statue and was very excited. 

We went back to the park a second time at 1, after skyping with my parents. August was a little afraid of the fountain and just watched it. He started to do better wen I held him and walked up to it, but then it had a big burst that surprised us all and he got a little wet and that was enough. Again, I stayed out longer with him while Carly went in (this time, to rest – earlier it was to finish the stir fry she was making). We did more teeter tottering and trash pickup. 

Carly and August basically both slept the afternoon and on into the evening. We will see how that affects the night…

New words: bathtub (pointing to my bathroom door, later out in park), garbage (hoo-guh), swiffer, backpack, food, hungry, shoe

 

Skyping in in the morning: 

Reunited with the dog statue: 

‘Hungry’: 

‘All done’ with the park: 

Brushing his hair after his bath: 

Mama and baby exhausted by the afternoon: 

Preparations and the trip to the airport all went smoothly. He was up about 6:30 and we left the house right about 9:30. We kept him entertained on the ride up – I did the lip thing with him and Cherie and I sang him some songs. There was a little traffic before the airport, but we got to the airport right at 11. He took his first nap at the terminal, sleeping on Carly. I went and brought food back for us. 

He did really well on the flight. A little fussing before his second nap on the flight, but otherwise he was always in a good mood and enjoying the flight. We had three bulkhead seats on the right side of the plane, so we mainly kept him contained in there as a play area. We walked the aisle a few times, but he always wanted to go back pretty quickly. 

His second nap of the flight was about the last hour and a half of the flight. I finally finished the one film I watched, Papillon, from 1973, with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, during this time. 

We made it off the plane and through the airport and caught a bus right before it left. August and I both napped on the bus. Carly had napped a couple times on the plane, but I don’t think she did on the bus.  

 

Back in his home, he quickly found the swiffer and remembered playing in the sink. I let him sit on the edge of the sink and play, and that has started a new favorite thing to do. While sitting in the sink, he shared two other words he now knows: ‘scissors’ and ‘soap’. He also found the fruits and veggies and remembered cutting them. 

Carly was exhausted and trying to sleep, but August made it to close to 10 before falling asleep. 

Nap 1 in the airport: 

On the flight: 

Still asleep after landing: 

Back home:

Knife in action: 

Not letting Carly sleep: 

Today was mainly about getting ready to fly out tomorrow. In the morning, August played with Cherie, and really got into combing his hair and looking at himself in the hand mirror. We had to go down to Chuck’s office to sign our updated wills, so we made a quick trip of that.

After we got back, I went shopping at Eddie Bauer to get some shorts, and tried to get my haircut. That turned into quite an adventure, as I had to go to five different places before I found a place that existed and was open on Wednesdays.

Mission accomplished, I headed back to the house. Carly left on her own shopping mission, and August and I played around the house and with Cherie. He continued to carry around a rubber spatula, play with the fan, and be fascinated by the salad shooter and vacuum cleaner. He bumped his head on the stove while climbing onto the brick area, and when I asked if I should kiss it, he leaned forward so I could reach his head. He did this again later when he pinched his finger in something and he put it to my mouth so I would kiss it.

When Carly was home, he shared an orange popsicle with her. He appeared finished with it, so when he went off, playing, Carly finished it off. He was upset to find it all gone. He was happy again, however, when Carly brought the car down and we washed it. He helped by sticking his hands in the suds and wiping the front of the car.

Before dinner, we headed to Steve and Claremay’s house to visit him out of the hospital. We found Steve doing quite well. His energy was high, he was eating, and he was in good spirits. He told us about the claustrophobic experience he had had that night in the hospital; I was impressed by how well he told the story and wish we had it on tape. He had enough energy to tell Brad to “Shut up, son” when he tried to interrupt his story.

While Carly visited with her grandparents, August and I walked downstairs, then outside. While out there, Brad and Claremay came out. They gave us a fig, which August really liked, and showed us a tomato plant that August could pick tomatoes off of. Brad was then watering plants, and August helped by holding the hose with him.

Back at Chuck and Cherie’s, Cherie let August have some naked time. He played all around outside, from the back porch around to the driveway.

His new words today included ‘bathtub’, ‘backpack’, and ‘popsicle’

 

Morning: 

Driving downtown. You can see his scraped elbow from yesterday: 

At Steve and Claremay’s: 

Helping Brad water: 

Back home: