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August’s latest word is ‘dig’. We have used it a lot when playing in the sand. Today, when holding the shovel he would clearly say ‘dih-guh’ over and over. He’s also gotten better with the mechanics of the shovel and can now use it to scoop sand or water. 

He is also now really into mimicry. It kind of started with that chimpanzee last week and has built from there. Today he was really copying how I responded to the fountain when we were playing in it, he started putting both arms up in the air after Tammi did it, and after Webb hit his head and rubbed it with his hand August rubbed his own hand. 

Anyway, he woke up early this morning and we played at home until 10 when we went to Home Plus for a few more items. We came home and I expected him to fall asleep soon for a nap, but he stayed awake until 12:15. 

He slept for 90 minutes, but when he woke up he wanted to go back to sleep. He tried getting back to sleep for a few minutes but eventually got upset and I picked him up. He wanted to just nap on my shoulder, so eventually I put him in the carrier facing me and dinh died packing up. He dozed on the way to the bus and even on the bus. 

He finally woke up completely as we got off the bus. We were taking drinks out of the water fountain and I turned him around. A woman tried to give me a paper cup for him at wouldn’t be dissuaded until I got out his water bottle and showed it to her. 

We walked through the park to the wading pool and went straight in. When the fountain came on we went and played on the edge of it. He laughed a lot, and twice wanted down to play at the edge of the fountain. Neither lasted long, however, as he soon wanted back up in my arms. 

Back to the wading pool for awhile, where a bigger kid splashed him pretty good. Then back to the fountain where he was sad when it turned off at 3:30. 

We walked to APIS, pausing once to play with some exercise equipment and then again to watch a jackhammer. 

We got to Carly’s room a little past 4 and hey nursed. We then went and picked up dinner (I got a rice burger, Carly went back to Doniburger). August was adored in the rice burger place and the woman (I think she was the owner) have August a banana, which he started eating. 

We found our way to the new Lotte Time spot (the playground is closed). August interacted some with Ripley – at one point they sort of exchanged a soccer ball for a coke cup – and April Paulin, pointing out her nose. But his main focus was the water under the grates and playing with Carly’s Coke cup, lid, and straw. Near the end he slipped as he was trying to get the cup from under a bench and ended up with a little scrape next to his right eye. 

We used that as a good excuse to get out of there before they took a big group photo and headed home via bus. 

He fell asleep right at 7. We’ll see how early he gets up tomorrow…

Dream Forest: 

APIS: 

Lotte Time: 

Rubbing his head when Webb did: 

Wind: 

Touching April’s nose: 

August alerted me he was up by rattling the door a couple minutes after 7. I hadn’t heard a peep. 

After a breakfast smoothie we left the house at 8:15 and walked into the park a little before 9. The subway crowd seemed thinner than last week. 

We walked around a little, then headed to the zoo. I took August down and he explored the children’s zoo. The horses and exhibit area first, then we went up and saw the meerkats and otters. We got to see the zoo keeper come out and feed a bucket of fish to the otters. We were the only visitors in the children’s zoo the entire time we were there. 

We then went and visited the chimpanzee before walking through the water birds exhibit. 

We got to the children’s museum a little after 10 and stayed for a bit over 2 hours. During that time we saw literally no other visitors on the third or second floors where we were playing. I heard a few kids down on the first floor, but never saw them. It was crazy. 

We started up in the water area as we hadn’t spent a lot of time there recently. A typical visit, except he was starting to get friendly with the workers, although he would walk away when they started paying attention to him. He also was fascinated by the hand dryer. I would stick my hand in to turn it on and when he turned off he would ask for more. He wouldn’t get too close to it though. Very similar to his relationship with the vacuum cleaner. 

We then went and ate lunch and then went down the the toddler room. It was really nice having the run of the place. He made the most if it, bouncing from one thing to the next. 

We left and he fell right to sleep. I went to Peace Coffee. It may have been empty when I got there, and when I left there was one other customer. This MERS scare is bad for businesses, but nice for employees: both the women in the toddler room and the two women working here pretty much read the entire time. 

I was finishing up War Trash and only had 15 pages left when August woke up. I finished it as he played with my empty cup and straw. Perhaps not the closest read as I had to make sure to stand between him and the stairs, keep him from throwing the garbage through the railing, and keep him away from the bird droppings in the corner. 

From there we went to the wading pool. Alas, it was off. We played in the faucet for awhile instead, then went to the playground where he got nice and dirty in the sand. He sat in it and methodically dropped sand on his legs and feet. And at one point he was walking and managed to fall over and plant his face in the sand. I picked him up to find his damp nose and mouth covered in sand. A pretty sad sight. 

Before we left we went and played with the chimpanzee one more time. He then directed me back to the horses. As we left the zoo we first walked by the little creek by the robots, then watched the fountains in the folktale area. He didn’t want to leave the fountains, so we sat on a bench with a view of all of them and had a second lunch. 

The train was thin on the way home. On our walk home a driver in a Coupang (Korea’s version of Amazon) truck handed us a balloon out the window. August was exited by that and played with it quite a bit through the evening. 

Carly got home about 20 minutes after us. His nap was kind of late, but a bit short, and he went to sleep soon after 7. 

Breakfast smoothie: 

Moving up to bigger shoes: 

Children’s zoo: 

Children’s museum: 

Outside: 

Home: 

We spent a lot of time today starting to pack for the trip. This involved searching for things in all the closets. August loved this as he got to play with all sorts of objects. He got to play with his pacifiers for a few minutes before I packed them. 

The day felt like a big game of hide and seek. First there were all the things to find for packing. Then, as we were about to leave the house to go to Home Plus, I realized I couldn’t find his shoe. After a long search, I found that he had put one in his baby blender. But I couldn’t find the other, so we went to Home Plus without shoes – not a big deal as it was already in the 80s. 

Hide and seek continued at Home Plus. Every floor is in the process of being renovated and reorganized. Right now it is chaos. I managed to find everything except dish soap, and it took three times as long. 

He came home, had lunch, and fell asleep for 90+ minutes. He woke up for 5 minutes in the middle, but I laid down next to him and he rolled over and fell back to sleep. Progress!

He is also really working on sitting down in chairs. He is doing quite well, but his eating chair is difficult because it is so narrow. 

Workers came to change the gas gauge soon after August woke up. We then spent some more time packing and organizing, and then I realized I hadn’t found the second shoe. After another long search I realized I had not looked in the washing machine. Success!

We walked to APIS to see Carly and have dinner with her as she had to stay late for the middle school graduation. It was only 91 on the way there. 

With Carly we went to Doniburger and got food and then took it back to the park across the street from APIS. August did a lot of playing, mainly dropping things down the grates and carrying Carly’s beverage around and practicing putting the straw in. 

A few minutes before 6 she went back to work and August and I headed home.

We stopped at a park along the way and he did a lot more walking around the playground and managed to pick up all kinds of garbage. He played under the play structure and carried around a plastic bowl someone had left. When he was done he kind of just started walking off, sort of towards home. We went back and got our stuff and ended with a stint on the swings.

We beat Carly home by 20 minutes. She gave him a bath this evening and he did pretty well. 

 

A very happy wakeup. No crying; I just heard him walking around: 

Remembering the pacifiers: 

Home Plus. Where’s the cheese and butter? The dried fish section, half a store away from yoghurt and other dairy items: 

Walking: 

The park: 

Headed home:

At the park with his discovered toy:

View from the bridge: 

Stopping for a drink: 

Touching the brick wall (he also ran his hand through the ivy again): 

Recovering from a bath: 

We left the house about 8:15, probably our earliest departure yet, and travelled 14 subway stops and a transfer to Seoul Forest. The subway got really packed near the end, but we made it.

We picked up a map of the park and I planned our rough route for the day. We revisited many of the locations we went with my parents: butterfly house, deer park, the big pond. But we also went to the marsh area, played in the playground, and in the floor fountain. 

 

Playground: 

Walking to the marsh: 

Water: 

Grate time: 

Sadly, they have stopped the deer feeding due to foot to mouth disease: 

Axolotls: 

Floor fountain: 

Headed home: 

Home. Taking the swiffer with him to a diaper change: 

Today August and I went to Jungnang Camp Forest, a park and campground I passed through while on a Seoul Trail hike, and then stopped at Costco on the way home. When Carly got home we went for a walk to the playground behind the hospital. 

Camp Forest: 

Costco: 

Watching a backhoe and holding French toast to his head: 

Headed home: 

Playing in the sand: 

Cats go hiss: 

 

Mulbola Children’s Park is about the last park of any significance and convenience (about 20 minutes) within walking distance of our place that August and I hadn’t yet visited. So we fit it in this afternoon while Carly did some work. 

In the morning we Skyped with my parents, Carly made French toast, I gave him a bath, and he had a smoothie. There was also a lot of playing in there. 

He also took an early nap, so he ended up taking an afternoon nap. I think it was the first time that has happened in weeks, excluding when he was sick. 

Anyway, to get to the park we walk up the stream past 3 children’s parks and then a boring neighborhood park on the left, then take the next left. The park is nestled in the center of a few apartment complexes. It had three playgrounds, and we ended up at the one farthest east as it was the most shaded. 

He played in the sand and threw rocks, sand, and one of his shovels down a grate. Luckily, the grate could be lifted and I was able to get it. We also walked up on the play structure. He wanted to go down a slide, and scooted himself forward, but then re-grabbed my hand and he started to move, causing him to fall back and bump his head on the slide. 

He cried but recovered quickly, as he saw some plastic shovels and a water can belonging to someone else. It was a really nice boy who is 37 months old. He let August play with his toys, and they spent quite awhile playing together in the sand. He offered August some candy, which I turned down, and he pushed August around in his push car thing. It was really fun to watch. August had fun, and turned the little steering wheel back and forth. 

Carly was done with work and skyping with Glecy, so we headed home. After we got home Carly went to the pink building for a few groceries. She came home and fed August some frozen mango, which he liked, grapefruit, which he had had before but didn’t like, but loved this time, and some cooked spinach, which he also ate. 

In the evening we went for a walk in the park. Carly and I got ice cream bars, so we took turns eating them. He was initially by the water fountain, then walked over to the playground. We walked around that for about 10 minutes. We let him pick up a straw in a wrapper, and a cardboard coffee cup holder, but he got upset when he couldn’t pick up other garbage. 

So we got him back over by the dinosaurs and he contentedly played with the bushes and picked up handfuls of leaves. 

A little after 8, Carly left to go home and get ready for the following day and we stayed for another 20+ minutes. He scooted down the ramp, then crawled back up (he can walk both directions), then walked around the photo zone in front of the T-Rex. It is sort of circular, and he was holding my finger, doing circles on the photo zone and going up and down the two steps. 

He then wandered across the park to a little hill and played there with rocks and a plastic coffee cup. 

The back to the dinosaurs and north to the vending machines and passage through the science center building. 

Finally, he asked to be picked up and then started saying mama. So we headed home and he fell asleep soon thereafter. 

Home: 

Grapefruit: 

Evening park walk: 

I started the day with a Skype call to my book group to discuss the poet William Stafford. 

Carly had to go to graduation this afternoon. So August and I walked along the stream and went to some parks. First, to Madeul Stadium to play in the drinking fountains and play in the sad, unused floor fountain, then, for a few minutes, to a playground in an apartment complex, and finally to a park (Gamnamu) that translates as Persimmon Tree Park. There, we spent most of our time around a drinking fountain. He played in it a bit, watched the water in the drain, and closely watched the bigger kids as they filled water balloons, washed off some fruit (not persimmons), and played around. 

We walked back via the main road and went to Home Plus to get a few groceries. We got home around 6, and Carly was home awhile later. We had planned to go to a party on the roof across the way, but August had taken a long but early nap and had been awake since before noon. He stayed up awhile, but did fall to sleep around 8. 

Carly and I watched most of The Grand Budapest Hotel. Didn’t finish it, but good so far. 

Persimmon Tree Park: 

Walking home:

Home: 

 

There isn’t much good about a MERS outbreak, but there is a silver lining to public panic – with hundreds of schools closed and people staying home, we basically had Children’s Grand Park, the zoo, and the children’s museum all to ourselves. We basically shared all of it with a couple expat families, a group from a girl’s school, and a handful of Korean citizens. 

We had to be home by 3ish to go to the bank with Carly, so we headed down early, arriving at CGP a quarter to 9. We spent the first hour and a half in the zoo. Besides the zoo workers, we were the only people at times. We were the first people in the children’s zoo, and the otters were excited to see us. August walked around, and got nice and close to the otters and meerkats, as well as the goats and horses. 

We also saw the apes, and when we walked up to the chimpanzee it was holding on to the fence and swaying back and forth. August started to sway in the carrier. The chimpanzee then started to play with us, running back and forth in the cage and wanting us to follow. 

We also went by the big cats and saw the water birds, then headed over to see the deer and other herbivores. 

From there we headed to the children’s museum. Usually, the first floor is packed with school groups. Today, we literally saw two other expat families while playing in the children’s museum. That was it. 

We went up to the lunch room at 11:30 and ate (all alone). We left around noon and August fell right asleep. I went and got a drink at Peace Coffee and sat outside for awhile until it started to drizzle, then moves inside. August woke up after about 50 minutes so we left, but he fell back asleep. I found a bench under a tree and did some more reading until close to 2 and then headed home. 

August woke up after a few stops on the subway. We made it home and relaxed for awhile, then went and met Carly at the bank. We transferred money to our US account and got our internet banking straightened out. It took quite awhile, and Carly kept August occupied in the bank. 

Came home and August stuck closely to his mama for the evening. A lot more playing with fruit and nursing.

Zoo: 

Meerkat: 

Children’s museum: 

Teamwork: 

Soft: 

Finishing his piece of art: 

Cuddling: 

Chalk: 

Music room: 

Lunch: 

Upset that we are out of fruit snack (and signing ‘more’): 

Home. Playing with mama: 

 

Today we hung out at Dream Forest in the heat, then headed to APIS to for the secondary concert. 

August was in fine form today. Still a bit of a runny nose, but not bad. In the evening we noticed he had broken out with little red spots on his arms and legs – so it looks like what he is getting over is another case of roseola. 

Only had one PCWAS (physical contact with a stranger), after zero yesterday. It happened as we were about to get off the bus and a man grabbed August’s hand. Luckily, we were right by the Dream Forest visitor center, so went in and washed our hands. Seriously, I’m hardly germophobic, but with his multiple sicknesses and the MERS outbreak, it would be nice if strangers would back off. 

Anyway, August’s word of the day was ‘together’. You can see him saying it in the last video of the day. And he took his babbling to a new level today. All sorts of new sounds started jumping from his mouth. 

Another first was sitting down. I’ve never seen him just turn around and sit on a chair or bench. Today, as we were at the playground and he was eating a rice snack, he just turned around and sat right next to me as if he did it all the time. 

And he is still obsessed with water. Or, at least, pointing at every single thing he saw on the walk home and saying “wawa”. He is saying “baba” for tons of things now as well, so it is difficult to tell what he is pointing at a lot of the time. He clearly has a lot to say, but can’t. Must be frustrating, but he isn’t showing it, yet…

Anyway, we got to Dream Forest at 9:45. We first went and visited the deer. We then went to the wading pool, but it didn’t turn on until noon. So we went to the empty playground and hung out for a very relaxing hour. It was also cool to watch August just wander around and play, talking as he went. He would wander for 3 to 5 minutes at a time and I could just sit and watch him. 

The fountain and wading pool turned on, and he played in the pool for a half hour. He then got tired so I took him inside and changed him (where he ‘talked’ a lot on the table). 

He fell right asleep after that, and I stopped at the Terrace Cafe, mid-park. Got a macchiato and sat on a bench in the shade and read and responded to email for the next 75 minutes. 

When he woke up we spent a few minutes playing with the ice in my cup – something he’s never done before (I bit it into small chunks) – and then headed to APIS. We were late, so we caught the bus for two stops – “That’s What Friends Are For” was playing on the radio. 

We found Carly in the back of the concert. We watched a little, then she took him to nurse. I watched some more and they came back. It wasn’t exciting enough for him though so he didn’t last long. 

It was almost time for Carly’s after school activity anyway, so August and I left, walking home. It was in the low 80s, which felt really hot when we had gotten to Dream Forest, but was now feeling very comfortable. He had fun touching the icy as we got close to the bridge. 

On the way, we stopped at the playground in the apartment complex and played for about a half hour. Mainly on the swing and with his tennis ball. At one point he walked up to a swing that was still kind of swinging and managed to grab it. That kind of freaked him out, but it was pretty impressive. 

Best Carly home by 20 minutes or so. In the evening she played the fruit/veggie cutting game with him, and he is now saying the word ‘together’, which they had apparently been working on the last time. 

Watching deer: 

Playground: 

Practicing his gangsta lean: 

Eating a rice snack: 

Watching the concert: 

The walk home: 

Evening: 

Saying “together”: 

It was a nice recovery/getting things done day. In the morning August and I stayed home. We made banana bread and a smoothie and did some straightening up. Later, after Carly got home, I went grocery shopping and took out garbage, etc. and Carly gave him a bath.

August is working on a lot of things these days, but particularly words. Purple was a new word today, and he says it very clearly. He’s doing quite well with identifying colors, but this is the first one he can really say. Other words he says a lot now or is working on include dizzy, icky, Vivi, auntie, ant, woof, and probably a few others I’m forgetting. Yes, we’re at the point where there are too many words to keep track of.

After sleeping all day yesterday, he changed things up today, starting with last night when he woke up with Carly for a couple hours. Then this morning he still woke up at 6:30. He seemed tired a few times, particularly after skyping with my parents, but he stayed awake until almost noon and slept less than 40 minutes. It was actually two mini naps, as he woke up for about ten minutes in the middle. The good news was that I was able to just lay next to him and he got himself back to sleep.

After he woke up he ate lunch (he was very intent on using a spoon with a bowl of beans) and I checked his temperature (just 37.1). We walked up to the fake stream next to the real stream and threw rocks in the stream again and then threw leaves in and followed them through the current. Didn’t stay as long this time though as it was later in the day this time and we had less shade. 

We then went up to the street and across it to the park and went on the swings, played in the sand, threw around the tennis ball, and drank from the fountain. 

On our way home we stopped at the dingy little toy/stuff store and bought a glider and a Larva matching game for use in the future. 

On our walk home August fell asleep, so I walked around the park for about 25 minutes until Carly was home. He woke up when I got home. 

He had a pretty good evening, taking a bath when I was at Home Plus, and going to bed around 8. 

Smoothie: 

Saying purple: 

Throwing rocks: 

Moving to the playground: 

Pointing to the water: