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August and I are recovering from colds, but they weren’t bad enough to keep us from venturing out to Children’s Grand Park today. August has had a runny nose, but hasn’t been too stuffed up. I’ve only been a bit stuffed up; my main symptom has been being overly tired. 

Anyway, he took a surprise nap this morning as we were about to get ready to go. It only lasted shy of a half hour, but he was fine after that.  

We rode the subway down, then walked around a new neighborhood southwest of the park. It will take another trip or two to fully scout it out. Found a promising burger place.  

We then walked through Sejong University and talked to a guy who spoke English. There was a statue of a mother and child that August liked.  

We ate lunch at the children’s museum – the first time he sat in a chair and fed himself – then played until a bit past three.  

We walked around a bit, checking on the aquatic birds and the dogs and small cats. August really liked the jackals.  

Coming home, he fell asleep on the subway at the exact spot as last week – as we pulled into Taerung Station, two stops before ours. Unlike last time, I could not get him back to sleep when I put him in bed. It lasted a whole 15 minutes. 

But he bounced right up, waving, asking for mama, and giving me kisses. He did fine and stayed awake until going to bed awhile after 7.  

 

Morning: 

 

I told him to wave to mama so we could send her a photo when he woke up. He obliged: 

Playing with the caterpillar: 

First thing we did when we got to the children’s museum was we ate lunch. It was the first time he really sat in a seat and fed himself. It took him awhile to get used to the lids that moved, but he did a pretty good job: 

Playing at the children’s museum: 

I was nice and wiped the mirror off after he was done: 

Liking trees (namu), as usual: 

The children’s museum was much more crowded today, but we still stayed quite awhile. After we left we went and checked on the aquatic birds and in the hyenas, jackals, foxes, and servals. The jackals were his favorite, as he was startled when one ran right in front of him. He continued to be startled by and laugh at the jackals for several minutes: 

A jackal running by: 

Back home: 

Wrestling with Marshy:

I’ve decided that August likes to be scared, at least a bit. He laughs when I jump in a room unexpectedly, found joy in the jackals, and then this happened. I had been using this voice earlier when he was by the lamp in the bedroom and reaching for the cord. He would pull back, turn to me, and act innocent. Repeat.  

So the three of us were sitting in the living room and Carly and I were talking. I saw him start to chew on a book and called out in the same way. He was totally startled, jumped, and hucked the book several feet. He gave me a startled look I’d never seen before and thought he would start crying. Instead, he calmed down, grabbed a book, and turned it into a game:

August decided to stay up until 10 today, so not a lot of writing from me. We Skyped with my parents, tried strawberries and blueberries for the first time, he took a nap, went to class, played in the park, got a bop burger and went back to the park, met horses, and took a second nap.  

He was still sleeping when Carly got home and I went to PT.  

August is starting to be able to give a high five, and he clearly understands sentences like ‘Give Marshy a hug’ or ‘Can I have a kiss?’ and act on them.  

Morning: 

Class: 

In the park: 

Back home: 

The coolest part of the aquarium comes, of course, when you get to all the large animals: the manatees, sharks, rays, penguins, etc.  

Of course, if you have a time limit you know you want to spend most of your time here. Unfortunately, once you hurry forward to this section the layout of the aquarium makes it difficult to double back to see earlier section. Kind of annoying.  

Anyway, August really went crazy when we got to the tank filled with sardines, rays, giant guitar fish, and other fish. The sardines are impressive to watch: 

And here is August at his best. Note that he is mainly waving at himself in the mirror in this video, but looks intently at a ray near the end. We spent more than fifteen minutes here: 

A couple more moments from around this time. He was saying ‘dadada’ in this sing-songy voice quite a bit: 

The rays are pretty cool: 

Here is a view of part of the tank. That is a guitarfish laying on the bottom of the tank off in the distance: 

The grand finale is the moving walkway that snakes through their biggest tank. You get to see sharks and tortoises and rays swim right over you. And when they do there is an interesting optical illusion that makes them appear closer to your head than they actually are: 

A ray going over our head: 

And a tortoise: 

Or is it a turtle? I wouldn’t know because there is a distinct lack of signage here. There was one set of plaques at the very beginning, but then nothing.  

Anyway, that brought us to the end. August had one more fun experience though in meeting the statue of an axolotl and poking its eye: 

I will leave you with one last sign. One that purportedly teaches you about the axolotl and the exhibit:

Sigh.  

We spent about 2 hours in the aquarium. About the right amount for August. A person could stretch out a visit if you lingered over more of the big tanks, or paid more attention to the cheesier elements of the aquarium. But August generally needs a fair amount of movement to keep up his interest, and I have a low tolerance for the cheesier stuff.  

First room: 

August watching these tanks: 

The first section of the aquarium was about the fish of Korea. An okay exhibit, but the English signage was some of the worst I’ve seen in Korea. Particularly annoying for something you’ve just paid 22000 won (about 22 bucks) to see: 

So because the amount of water stays the same the temperature changes easily? And why does this allow plankton and algae to grow? 

At least all the signs have an English name on them (but no scientific name). But for most that is all that is in English: 

But the best thing I learned today was about the particular deliciousness of the long snouted bullhead: 

But these last two were my absolute favorite signs: 

Why? Because that toilet is in an enclosed plexiglass cage with squirrels running around. And it has a big lead or something in it.  

And yes, I just said squirrels. There are two cages with squirrels. In an aquarium. But there is no explanation – in any language – as to why. This is about all the signage you get: 

Alright, one more sign and I’ll move on. The horribleness of this sign (posted dozens of times around the aquarium) speaks for itself: 

One more section of cheesy stuff and complaining, then I promise we get to the cool animals and cute videos of August.  

The low point of the aquarium for me was a room full of fish stuck in all manner of arty aquariums. I wasn’t impressed, not was August. Although he was probably most annoyed by me stopping to take photos of them. This harp aquarium actually made noise as the fish swam back and forth. IANAI (I am not an ichthyologist), but might not this actually annoy the fish?

Refrigerator aquarium: 

You get the idea.  

But then we walk into the Amazonian room and things start to look up. August loved looking over the railing at the cage of squirrel monkeys (note: also not aquatic) and down into the big tank below: 

His view: 

Then we got to go into the touch pools area. August got to touch some shells and coral (he couldn’t reach the sea stars). He also enjoyed using the hand dryers. This first one wouldn’t turn on too well for him, but the one we used as we were leaving did and he had fun with it: 

After this, he started flapping his hands a lot. Perhaps to further dry his hands, or just as more of his usual hand flapping excitement. Here he is looking at baby zebra fish: 

The room this was in was cool as they showed you how the grow live food and breed animals in the aquarium. Here is a tub of baby jelly fish. You can hear August making funny noises in the background: 

I’m actually going to finish this up in a third post as the Squarspace app is getting all crashy on me, telling me the post is too long… 

August and I returned to Gangnam to revisit the COEX Mall, which we first visited a couple months back, and actually go to the aquarium this time. 

We also returned to the bookstore with all the English books and bought a couple new books for him.  

But first, he woke up around 6:30 happier and less stuffy than yesterday. We had a good morning, and he took a two hour nap until about noon. 

 

Playing in the morning: 

Getting tired: 

After his two hour nap we took the subway to Cheongdam (same stop for Yeon and Nature) then walked to the COEX Mall. We went and ate lunch in the nursing/changing area before heading to the aquarium: 

We also went to the book store and bought two new books: 

I also bought a clip/strap thing that allows be to hang my coat from my backpack, meaning we could remove all of our coats and covers and hats, etc. and fit everything in and on the backpack. Here we are walking through the mall wihout roasting in the heat:

The boy that can barely stand a hat on his head got really excited when we passed a stand of hair bands: 

In part 2 we actually get to the aquarium… 

August was stuffy last night and woke up too early today. Neither he nor Carly slept all that well. It was kind of a tired and rough morning. He had a runny nose all day, but at least he wasn’t too stuffy. 

He did take a nap, but only managed to sleep 34 minutes. Seemed to help though. 

Sort of watched/listened to the Super Bowl this morning. Paused it with 10 minutes to go and Seattle up by 10 in order to go to August’s class. 

In his class we celebrated the upcoming new year. He tolerated the hat for a few minutes.  Did well enough, especially considering how many transitions there were today (and the fact he got dressed in an outfit). 

Came home and watched the Seahawks lose. I’m sure the final play will be much discussed for the next 34 years as Seattle waits for another men’s championship (it was 35 years between the Sonics in 79 and the Seahawks in 14). 

August took a two hour nap in the afternoon, which was good, but preempted our afternoon walk. So when Carly got home she was nice enough to let me go out for a walk. 

Mir was this sort of morning: 

August had the wildest hair in his class. Which made him the center of attention when he had 8 to 10 bubbles stuck in it: 

This was for the upcoming new year. Surprisingly, he tolerated the hat for a few minutes: 

Back home, feeling a bit better: 

First time in a couple months I’ve had him use the iPad. He was able to catch on to moving the letters around in Endless Alphabet (although not placing them yet): 

Further perfecting his spoon technique: 

When Carly and I went in to bed we found him sleeping in this position: 

We thought it would be nice to have videos of us reading his favorite storybooks to him. So, for the next few days we will try to record one of us reading to him. First up, But Not the Hippopotamus, by Sandra Boynton, one of our favorite authors: 

Today we went with two friends, Meg and Jeff, to the Dongdaemun Design Plaza. I went with Meg and Jeff to an exhibit on the original street photographer and photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson  while Carly took August to the lounge and children’s design museum that August and I enjoyed a couple weeks back. 

After that we got some very Korean Mexican food for lunch before heading home.  

While I was at the exhibit, Carly and August had fun at the children’s design museum. He apparently really liked this handle again:

Nursing in the design lounge:

Checking out his favorite chairs from our last visit: 

Visiting the bench where he played with the woman on her break last time: 

Some very Korean-looking Mexican food for lunch: 

August with his usual straw: 

Our friend Meg took this photo as we prepared to leave the restaurant: 

Back home: 

I had originally planned to go on a hike with Derek today, but he had to postpone. Instead, we went over to their place for dinner (taking a bottle of port and some rice cooker chocolate chip cookies).  

During the day Carly and August Skyped with Cherie and Glecy. Then we went grocery shopping at Home Plus.  

August got his first taste of orange today and showed no hesitancy in getting in the bath today.  

Augist isn’t used to being out close to his bedtime and couldn’t recover after bumping into Logan and falling down. So that was our cue to leave and we walked home. He stayed awake until we got here but went to sleep pretty quickly. 

Begging for Carly’s orange: 

Getting a taste: 

He also loved the raw stalk of the broccoli today. Good for teething: 

Bath time with mom: 

Playing at Logan’s and warming up to Derek: 

Eventually there will be video of Logan and August playing together. For now they are still at a stage where there interactions are usually quite brief and require a good amount of parent oversight – not really conducive to photographic moments.  

My phone tells me I walked eight and a half miles today. August covered most of that with me. 

He made it a two nap day again, so after his first nap we headed to Dream Forest. We first had to walk to the main street to catch the bus, then through Dream Forest as we saw the deer and went to the gallery and cafe. 

We played there for a good while and August ate a full lunch of broccoli, cauliflower, prune, and banana. 

We then walked to APIS and said hi to Carly. He fell asleep for his second nap, so I took him and we walked around the neighborhood for a half hour so as to avoid the bells and other noise at the end of school. 

We met up with Carly when she was done and we hen walked home. As soon as we got to the apartment I said goodbye and left to go back the way we had come to physical therapy. And of course I then had to walk home at the end. 

Minor PT milestone: with the arm getting close to getting the full range of movement back, next week I am dropping to one PT session a week. My guess though is that that will continue until June and I will stop going to PT when we leave for the summer. 

Morning:

Under the table: 

Taking a rest. He has done this the past few days where he will rest on my shoulder for 2 or 3 songs and I will think he is asleep. Then I will look in the mirror and realize his eyes are still fully open: 

But this time he actually fell asleep: 

Brushing his teeth: 

Hugging the bed: 

On our walk. First stop, deer: 

Then to the gallery to see some art: 

Fun in the cafe: 

Back home, lifting some weights: