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Carly goes back to work tomorrow. So we ended the break by meeting up with our friends and their son at the book cafe at Dream Forest. 

 

In the morning: 

A nice blurry action photo of him bouncing in the chair: 

Eating a raw carrot. He ended up eating quite a bit of it, and ate a couple good meals of pasta and veggies later in the day:

There were about ten times as many people in the book cafe as when August and I went a couple weeks back. August still had a lot of fun though and got into taking books off the shelves:

After that we played at the playground. August on the slide and Carly on the balance beam:

Some slide time:

Watching the deer on our way home. He really likes the deer, and even though it was cold and getting dark he was upset to leave:

Brushing his teeth with mama before bedtime:

Happy ten months, August!

Today looked to be a repeat of yesterday as he only took a 30 minute nap in the morning. But after a trip to Home Plus he slept 90 minutes in the early afternoon. 

We took a walk in the afteoon sun, getting coffee at the women’s business center before walking along the stream and playing at the little park by the youth center. 

In the evening August suffered a bath and got to eat pasta and sauce for the first time (we always schedule the messiest meals right after baths for some reason) before falling asleep at the reasonable hour of 8.  

Morning: 

August had been imitating us more and more. Just today he tried to imitate me in saying ‘Oma’, ‘annyang’, and in making a ‘rar rar rar’ sound. But his best imitating lately is coughing, and he will carry on full conversations in coughs. He will also let out a whole string of fake coughs as we walk down the street, which Carly and I are afraid people with think are real. And when you do cough for real he will think you are joking and cough back. Anyway, some coughing:

In the carrier:

Asleep in the carrier at the start of his 20 minute nap:

On our walk, atop the museum:

Going down the slide by himself for the first time:

August got really excited about this sculpture, which we could see from the playground. I’m not sure why. We’ve walked by it several times but I don’t think he has taken note of it before:

Eating pasta and sauce:

For Carly and me: our first big cookie from the rice cooker:

We had fun with our first trip to the museum. It turns out we only had to pay 30000 won, or about $30, for our membership.

August played and played until we knew he was overdue to nurse and take a nap, although he showed no signs of wanting to do either. 

He fell asleep quickly though and we went and got lunch, and then visited some of our favorite animals in the zoo: spotted seals, the sea birds, gibbon, squirrel monkeys, and the sloth.  

Carly really liked to see August exploring new things, so we are planning ongoing back tomorrow as well.  

 

On our way there August spent a lot of time doing his walking noise: 

 

His initial excitement walking into the actual museum:

This is the middle of the infant-only area:

Having fun:

At lunch. The same place I had lunch with him and where we went with my parents:

August really likes the polar bear statues:

He only took a 30 minute nap on our trip, and didn’t go to sleep when we got home like we thought he would. He only made it a bit past 6pm before falling asleep. We’ll see how early he wakes up tomorrow…

Rather a mishmash of a day. In the morning we went to an optical place to get contacts for Carly. Figuring out one more thing in Korea that we haven’t done before. August and I then Skyped with my parents. After that, Carly and August went for a walk with one of Carly’s friends. And then I went to get my hair cut and to PT.  As I was getting my hair cut I realized Carly never got to take a picture of August and I both with messy hair. Perhaps when my hair is long again in a month or two…

But tomorrow is Carly’s last weekday of her winter break and we are going to make the most of it by taking August to the Seoul Children’s Museum and (most likely) getting a membership.  

Anyway, when we went to get contacts for Carly, August and I spent most of our time waiting outside because the cell phone store next door had these flashing signs and the whirligig things that were driving August crazy. Didn’t get any photos/videos though as Carly had my phone for potential translation purposes. 

 

Here’s a shot of August before we left for the walk: 

I’ve got two things to show you from August today. The first is that he has suddenly become very interested in figuring out how to turn individual pages in paper books. He’s turned pages in the board books, but still generally requires help just getting one page. Today he became fascinated with this Corduroy book and was intent on picking apart individual pages. At one point he even had a good ruffling of the pages going. I was trying to keep him from destroying the book too much, but just kept reminding myself it only cost 50 cents, as it was one of the books we bought when we went with my parents to the thrift store:

The other thing is crawling. He’s actually been crawling quite well for a couple weeks, but it is something that happened so gradually that I don’t think we ever posted a video of it. He can now pretty much crawl as far as he wants to, although he will often take breaks, or army crawl for awhile, or request that we pick him up.

This video is from when I got home after PT. So he is excited to see me, but keeps looking back, as crawling to me takes him farther away from Carly. He did, eventually, make it all the way to me after I stopped the video:

Finally, Augudt had perhaps his most excited moment ever today as Carly was getting him changed for bed. He was crying, so I started to play the jump-out-from-behind-the-door game, which he always loved. The other thing we do is the ‘duh duhn’ sound from Jaws. That is one of the things I don’t think about getting on film as I am too busy at the time. Anyway, will perhaps try to get his response to that another time. 

August had his music class. Then he and I went shopping and then on a walk so that Carly could have some time to work. Later, we all went for a walk in the dark to get some exercise, fresh air, a hot chocolate, and free advice about how rosy cheeks are bad for a baby. 

Also,  August spent a lot of time teething. 

Music class: 

He like the rattles they played with. Mainly as a teething toy:

Carly gave him her water bottle when it was time to give them back:

We got to play with stickers. Carly and I would put the sticker on our nose or ear, etc. and he would pull it off. Here it is on his cheek:

And we played with puzzles. I like both of his classes, but prefer the Monday class. This is supposed to be a music class, but a lot of the activities seem to not have much to do with music. Overall it seems a bit more chaotic and less clear. Although there are about ten more babies in the class and I don’t speak much Korean, so it isn’t necessarily the teacher’s fault. She actually seems really good with the kids and August likes her. 

As we often do, we looked at the pet section of Home Plus. The lizard was moving around and caught August’s eye. And August caught the lizard’s eye, as it seemed to be trying to get to him:

He is excited about the ice rink they built in the park:

Here’s what he was looking at. Kind of an odd activity. They have kids pushing themselves around on boards over the rough ice using these pointy ice pick things:

We stopped at home to drop off groceries and change him before heading out for a walk. Usually he isn’t a big fan of lying on the changing pad, but sometimes he decides he just wants to hangout for awhile:

On our first walk, looking down on the stream:

Watching the washing machine before we leave on our second walk. Trying shoes on him again for a little more warmth:

Waiting for Carly’s hot chocolate and my royal milk tea. Note the mittened hand sticking out:

And here are the cool shoes:

Finally, trying out another bath. Notice how he is clinging to Carly. It went okay, and is interesting because it isn’t like he is afraid of the bath. I ended up standing on the other side of the bath and washing him while he still held on to Carly. There was a little crying near the end, but not much:

Carly and I went to the dentist today. That involved a rather long subway trip to south of downtown Seoul. After our appointments we went to the National Museum and then walked up to Itaewon for lunch before heading home. 

Carly and August at the dentist office. We had forgotten the diapers, so while Carly was getting her teeth cleaned August and I walked to a store to buy diapers: 

 One of the more memorable pieces at the museum today:

It was a luxury changing area at the National Museum. The mobile was still broken, however, as they always are:

This chair was in the nursing area, and August loved it. He is a blur because he is rocking back and forth in Carly’s arms in excitement:

In the park next to the museum there is a circle of flags. August loves flags and it was quite windy, so he had a lot to look at:

We walked some narrow back alleys on our way into Itaewon:

We ended up eating at a Vietnamese place. August really ate off our plates for the first time, having some of pretty much everything. I think the pickled carrot was his favorite thing from my plate. He also loved his high chair, as he could easily rock it, requiring my hand on it to keep him from tipping over:

August loves coffee packets, and this is one we got at the dentist. He started a new game of offering it to me and then laughing hysterically when it was in my mouth. This game was repeated later back home:

Dancing again, this time with a shirt of Carly’s that was on the chair:

All seven teeth:

New pajamas from Costco:

Another fairly new game. Taking the diapers out of the bag:

But new today: trying to put them back in:

A few other new things today, or just recently started, that we don’t have on video:

– Today he was fascinated with the snaps on Carly’s sweatshirt and the buttons on my shirt. He spent a lot of time looking at both.  

–  He has started to grab our hands and direct them toward things. He did this to Carly yesterday when he wanted her to turn a page or lift a flap in a book. Today he did it repeatedly to me as we were looking at the collage that Glecy made us. The collage has 7 photos of Carly and 5 of Glecy. I will point out all of one of them and he will get excited. He kept grabbing my hand and shoving it towards the collage so I would do it again. 

It was a busy day. August took an early nap (falling asleep in my arms for th first time since Carly has been on winter break) and then he had his Monday class. From there we went straight to the subway and down to Costco to refill out cheese supply. August fell asleep for a second nap in the carrier as we left Costco. We were home for awhile before I had to go off to PT. 

After August went to bed, Carly and I watched Fury. An awful movie. It is basically the Rambo of tank movies. Whoever told us it was good was very, very wrong. 

Anyway, back to August. He has started to be able to navigate around the house by just using the wall. That is, he doesn’t need a ledge to hold on to. This just started today and I’ve only seen him do it a bit in the kitchen and across the refrigerator. He also started this hitting thing in the washing machine, which he just does for a moment here:

At his class. It is really interesting how well he focused on the teacher. He is fascinated by her. Good sign for school later. 

Today was about musical instruments:

More parachute. Ready to play with the parachute, but was a but hesitant about getting under it today:

Here he is sleeping on the way home from Costco:

I think I mentioned this yesterday, but here is a better video of him trying to put the dot back in the number:

Today was (relatively) warm (mid-40s) so we had to get out. We took a short bus and then a short train ride and walked through two university campuses. 

But first, August cuddled with mama and Marshy while Skyping: 

And took a bath, which he didn’t like, but felt better after the fact:

After getting off the train we took Carly on the Obama Trail at HUFS (Hanguk University of Foreign Study). Carly was quite amazed:

And August and I took a photo standing next to the president:

From HUFS we walked a couple blocks to the back entrance of Kyunghee University. We’ve walked around this university several times before. August really likes these statues on the steps to the library. This time, someone had dressed them for the season:

We returned to what might be our favorite coffee shop in Seoul, 8th Street:

They have an art gallery and a really big and really fluffy dog. It has recently been trimmed, so isn’t nearly as fluffy as last time:

He (August, not the dog, although the dog was also asleep) fell asleep after the coffee shop and stayed asleep through walking around Hoegi and ordering cheesesteak sandwiches before waking up on the way home:

 Finally, some videos of August playing at home. He has started to out the sit back in the center of the number, throw his shapes around, and play up/down a lot:

Carly needed to get some work done, so after August’s one and only nap for the day, he and I headed to Dream Forest. August loves to reach out and touch things as we walk. Mainly trees. But this post with a ribbon tied to it was also a good target for his mittened hand:

First stop at Dream Forest, the deer park. We watched the deer for 15 or 20 minutes:

For those of you that have been to Dream Forest (did we take Glecy there?), this is the big pond, frozen over. And yes, there are children playing on it. That is the observation tower on the hill across from us:

Turns out there is an art gallery in the performance center at the north end of the park. There was a cool exhibit happening. This was my favorite piece:

This was August’s favorite piece:

Looking at the piece:

Book cafe:

This is actually looking out through that round hole at the people in the regular cafe area. I ran around the wall to surprise him:

He didn’t get too concerned with me walking across the kid section:

Read the bottom line closely:

Walking to the playground. Nothing exciting about this video really. You can see the big windows to the cafe in the building behind us:

Enjoying the slide:

Ending our adventure for the day. Nice lens flare here. August is looking longingly at the fancy merry-go-round full of older kids that he got really excited about but he can’t go on:

Another cold day. We ventured out to the post office and then had a nice little walk to the east of that. We Skyped and FaceTimed with a few people. And I had PT. Oh, and cake. Did I mention cake? There was cake. 

The day actually started with cake. I had asked one of the cakes in the rice cooker last night, but waited to make the second cake and the frosting until the morning when August was asleep (for blender purposes):

Playing with Marshy (originally his name, according to the factory, was Marshmallow; I have since decided he is actually named after the first conservationist and author of The Earth as Modified by Human Action, George Perkins Marsh. As such, he tends to be a rather depressing bear as he likes to teach August about all the horrible things people are doing to the environment):

Skyping with Steph, Nate, and Ruby:

On our walk. In addition to the post office, we wandered through the community services building (which has a cool little library), went to the top of a building, and stopped at the playground:

The rest of the day was usual fun at home. August discovered a fun new noise, there was a lot of playing in the closet, and he practiced his standing:

And he played with the laundry basket:

And when Carly and I went to bed, we found August in this very typical pose, sideways on the bed with his hand and feet up on the pillows: