Kkobul-Kkobul

Bamboo

2012-02-12T22:35:00.002+09:30

Nothing much to share. We visited the Bamboo "Theme Park" in a nearby village. Really, I just wanted to get out of the house. When I'm home I feel like I should be sewing or working on one of the other 1,000,000 projects or items on my To-do list, yet I never seem to accomplish anything. At least when we're out, I can get some exercise for the kids and myself.

Mama was a Rolling Stone

2012-02-10T21:34:00.003+09:30

Our rental contract for our apartment is up in a month. We've been a little nervous for a while because the housing market in Gwangju has become very expensive, and we'd heard rumors that most apartments were raising their rent and/or key money (a large amount of money paid up front, often in lieu of monthly rent so the landlords can collect the interest). Since we only intend on staying for another 6 months or so, the last thing we wanted was to get roped into super-expensive rent or "key money" without a way out (basically, key money cannot be returned until a) the contract is up, or b) someone else rents the apt. This is money that we will certainly need in our move so it's not like we can just let it go for a few months. Well, we finally got the call from the landlord and it turns out he's selling the place so our only options are buy it or get out. So yesterday the kids and I spent some time practicing our tent-making skills. They were happy and it was a pretty good tent if I do say so myself! But, I don't know if it would fare so well when exposed to the elements. Plus, we ran out of blankets so we had nothing to put on the ground. Also not a good thing for tent-dwellers in winter. Luckily, after a day of apartment shopping today we found a very nice apartment just 2 buildings down. I'm actually, dare I say it, excited about the move. As much as I like our current apartment, I see the move (however small) as a chance to clean house, re-organize, and start fresh. I've already got several projects in my mind for decorations for the kids' room. I've planned out how my work space and Young-Hoon's office will be, and holy moly...there's an oven! A real oven! I guess you could say that I've got itchy feet and can't stay in one place for too long. Well, that or I just haven't cleaned the bathroom for 2 years and am looking forward to a clean slate (or shower). After finding our apartment, we took advantage of the hour before picking up the kids to do a little shopping...on the gov'ts tab. Since we got our grant to start the new business, we've been working on gathering all the things we need and, boy, is it fun! Although, I must admit it can be a struggle to overcome my thrifty streak (although my mother would disagree that I even have a thrifty streak in comparison to her, I do consider myself thriftier than most). When we did some fabric shopping last week, it was actually stressful because I consider fabric a delicacy and I hate to waste the money on the wrong fabric! Anyway, today we went to the best stationery/craft store in Gwangju and it was fun. I got so many different colors of felt for various projects and I saw so many more supplies that I can't wait to buy. As soon as we got home, I was eager to get started so I made some "Max" crowns ala Where the Wild Things Are. I had planned on making them all from brown but Irene and Johan both wanted the hot pink. Irene & Oscar spent the rest of the night stomping, singing, and proclaiming "Let the wild rumpus start!" (I resisted the urge to point out that it already had started because I'm pretty sure it would have gone over their heads.) Sadly, I didn't get a picture of the most wild thing of all wearing his crown: Johan. He is pretty much the embodiment of Max as far as I'm concerned.

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

2012-02-04T21:39:00.003+09:30

Last Christmas, my brother and sister-in-law sent the kids a DVD of Maurice Sendak's books put to music & moving cartoons drawn by him. This, of course, included his most famous book, Where the Wild Things Are. We watched it on my computer while we lived in Japan and they enjoyed it, but it got shuffled about in the move home and I just rediscovered it among the Christmas CDs/DVDs in December. I popped it in one afternoon and the kids went crazy for it. We were able to pick up the book when we were in Michigan but I wasn't sure how they'd like it. They can't get enough. The best part is when Johan brings the book to me and crawls up on my lap. While both Irene & Oscar have always enjoyed reading, it's been a rare occasion to have Johan sit through a book or even show interest in books at all. And it's also a rare occasion to have him sit on my lap for 5 minutes at a stretch! He loves, loves, loves this story though, and enjoys "roaring his terrible roar" right along with the wild things. So thanks Aunt Shannon & Uncle Tim for introducing the kids to Max & his wild things - and really, me, because this isn't one of my childhood favs so I probably wouldn't have thought about it for them! (p.s. the kids' other favorite book at the moment is The Bear Snores On. Uncle Tim & Aunt Shannon really know how to pick 'em!) And yesterday I was attempting to get a picture of Irene in yet another of my old dresses (which she picked out to wear to school.) I really like the picture above and, mostly, I love that it was spontaneous in that they arranged themselves like that. Too bad there's the big shadow across their faces. So I tried to move them to better light but I guess they decided that they'd had enough togetherness because I couldn't get them to sit on the same chair after that. And finally, just a little toot on my horn. One thing that I've always felt like I missed out on, having raised my babies here in Korea in a rented apartment, is being able to decorate a nursery. I'm not very good at interior decoration anyways, but there are certain things that I would most definitely have done: pretty colored walls, maybe photographs, paintings, and the standard First Initial or full name display. But, we couldn't paint or re-paper the walls and Young-Hoon won't let me poke too many holes in the walls, so I was out of luck. But, as I mentioned before, I've been on a crafty streak lately, and this was aided by the purchase of a little bottle of Mod Podge when we were in Michigan. Looking at my fabric gave me the inspiration I needed to get off my bum and do something. So I cut some letters out of a box and covered them with fabric. Voila! Not only are they cute (if I do say so myself) but they are so light weight that I could just tape them to the door! Although, truth be told, if I had it to do over again, I would have taken my time and printed them out in a nice font. I was so antsy about doing the project, though, that I couldn't be bothered to wait till the next time I went to school to print. The kids love them, and since then I've decided to revamp their room. I started last night with Irene and we made a cloth-covered shelf for a wire book stand in their room (also from a cardboard box).

She Paints

2012-01-31T14:33:00.003+09:30

I don't want to pigeon-hole the kids. In fact, I think I've tried hard to make things equal. When one kid got a toy (a doll, a car, a paint set, etc), the other got the same or, at least, something similar. And we do our best to encourage them equally. But...even at the tender age of 3, it's becoming pretty clear where their interests lie. A month or so ago, I made a post called "He Sings" It was about how Oscar seems to love singing...and he's good at it! This post is "She Paints" and, as you may guess, Irene loves to paint...and she's good at it! The photo above is from today's finger painting session. (actually, its just her first painting. She did 3.) While I was surprised to see her simple pattern, I wasn't surprised to see how painstakingly she applied the colors. Although it may look like she just poked her finger here and there, I can assure you, nothing about that painting was random. Just as nothing about this painting (done by acrylic paint & a brush) was random: Or this "Mountain & Sun" painting also done with acrylics. Now, this is not to say that Oscar is not good at painting, or Irene is not good at singing. Because, really, what 3-year-old is NOT good at those things? I'm just saying that they have really begun showing us some individuality and have given us a peek into what their "thing" might be. I'm excited to see more!

Getting Closer

2012-01-31T13:37:00.002+09:30

I've always had the daydream that, when I had kids, I'd be the perfect, fun, crafty, home-cookin' mamma. I'd do fun crafts with them every day. I'd read to them 2-3 times a day. We'd bake cakes and cookies together. I'd teach them numbers and letters through fun learning games. Oh, I'd be perfect. But then reality came in the form of twins...and then one more just 2 years later. Needless to say, I've fallen short of those (naive) expectations. But I'm trying. And every now and again I get into "grooves" where I feel like I'm doing alright. Those grooves tend to come at random and unexpected times. For example, I feel like I'm beginning a "groove" now, on the tail end of a looooong 2-week adjustment period after returning home from Michigan.

I'll admit it: I was giddy as I sent the kids out the door the first morning they went to school after being back. It's not that I wanted to lounge around the house and do nothing (I actually spent hours & hours researching the set-up for my new sewing business and accomplished quite a bit), but what I wanted most was to not have to entertain, intercede for, or humor anybody for a while. Ohhhh....it was nice. But then I started feeling guilty (ah, the "mommy guilt." Is there any cure?") and felt like I should keep them home with me because, after all, Irene & Oscar will be starting 5-day/week pre-school next month! So yesterday I did keep Oscar home with me while Irene & Johan went to daycare. Oscar was the worst-off of the 3 as far as colds go, and I had planned on spending some one-on-one time with each of them anyways, so why not start then? It was great, as it usually is when dealing with just 1 kid. We made some whole-wheat bread and some peanut butter granola bars and we read book after book. And while Oscar entertained himself with his cars for a while, I was able to leisurely surf the web and my newest addiction: Pinterest. I had heard about this for so long but avoided signing up because I knew that I'd end up spending hours and hours on that site. Finally I caved and here I am. But I guess its not all bad because it's gotten me into this "Good Umma" groove. The thing about that site is that it's filled with all sorts of crafty things (and recipes, art, photographs...whatever your "thing" is!) from around the web that people find interesting. I signed up before Christmas but only really started looking a week ago. Today I tried my first project with the kids. Well, actually, my first two. First we did this activity and it was a HIT! Basically (for those who won't click the link) it's milk with food coloring and a stick with dish soap on it. The colors swirl away from the soap so it makes really cool designs.) We did this two times for about 40 minutes. Even Johan got into it, although he was whipping his so much that it turned grey pretty much right away. They wanted to do it once more but I was afraid we'd run out of milk so instead I broke out the finger paints. A good time was had by all. And while they were swirling, I took the opportunity to make some honey lollipops (also found on that site, though I don't have the link). Basically it's like a non-choking hazard, no weird ingredients cough drop. Since we're all still hacking away, I gave it a whirl! It's pretty easy. Just boil honey until it forms a glob when dropped into cold water. pour it on a stick and let it cool! I don't have toothpicks or anything cool like that, but I bought a sushi roller before Christmas for a craft project and I usually just take a stick from that when needed (also used for the milk color activity). It works better than toothpicks (because it's bamboo, not wood so there are no splinters!) and is probably cheaper! We all enjoyed them as we watched Mary Poppins. I didn't even feel guilty (there's that mamma's guilt again!) about vegging in front of the TV because we'd done some quality artwork today!! I'm contemplating a batch of peanut butter playdough for the after-nap activity. Plus, it'll use up the jar of peanut butter so that I can try the DIY peanut butter recipe I found on Pinterest!

A Few of Our Favorite Things

2012-01-30T21:24:00.003+09:30

I've mentioned before that my mom saved a good number of my old clothes for Irene to wear. At first I thought, "yeah, that's cool. It's kind of fun seeing her in the same clothes I wore in some photos" ('cause it's not like I remember wearing them after all) But I kind of figured it would be a baby thing and when Irene got older she'd not like wearing my old clothes. I rarely force Irene to wear anything. At most, I make suggestions about what's acceptable if her choice is not weather friendly or otherwise inappropriate (this is usually when she's too dressy for the situation). Anyway, I was wrong. She LOVES wearing my old clothes. Right now she's got about 3-4 of my old dresses in her drawers and she often picks them out, repeatedly telling me and anyone who'll listen that it's "Umma's dress!" Today she wanted to wear the little number above to school. (sorry, I suppose a color photo would have been better to show the dress but I'm in a black-and-white mood today). She loved the dress, and when I picked her up from school her teacher even commented on how cute it was. When I explained that it was mine and I wore it 30 years ago, she just gave me a confused look, smiled and nodded. I'm pretty sure she thought she misunderstood me. (and I did repeat myself to Young-Hoon to check my Korean and he confirmed that it was correct). Thanks to the dress, Irene was in a great mood today when she got home from school so I decided to get some photos of her and Oscar with their favorite toys. We recently went to the orientation session for their new pre-school and were given a short list of photos that we are to attach to their textbooks. One of them is a photo of the kids with their favorite toys. I asked Irene to choose hers and, no surprise to me, she grabbed her puppy. This lead to a "Me & my Lovey" photo shoot. Oscar has a hard time looking natural in photos sometimes so this is the best I get of him. And this might be some of the first photos of Johan and his buddy...er, I guess we'll call him "puppy" too? It was good to smile a bit this afternoon after a hard, hard weekend. Not only did I throw my back out on Friday morning and spend the next two days unable to stand up straight, but all of us have come down with colds. Irene & Oscar even had lung infections to go with their colds. So there was a lot of hacking, tissues, sore noses & whining going on in this house.

Back to Normal...with a Twist

2012-01-22T14:13:00.002+09:30

Ok, I stole a couple of photos from my brother to complete the "Holidays in Michigan" series. Now we've been home for almost a week and are just getting back into the groove. Sort of. I don't think things will ever be quite the same as they were when we left, and for that I'm grateful. One huge change is the way that the kids, all of them, speak. Since we live in Korea, about 95% of the kids' English exposure comes from me (& Young-Hoon, though he usually speaks Korean as well). The other 5% is from other foreigners and some of their cartoons. (Incidentally, as a result, my stance on TV and kids has loosened greatly. Because their English input is so limited, it is easy to see what/how much they learn from these shows and it's pleasantly surprising!) During our stay in MI, I could tell that their English was improving, but it actually wasn't until after we returned to Korea that they broke out their big guns. I've really gotten a kick out of the things Oscar and Irene come up with now and the new grammar points and phrases they use almost daily. And Johan...he's just started echoing some of the things we say just like his cousins Molly & Mona.The other big, no, HUGE change that's taken place in our household is the way the kids interact and get along with each other. Pre-Michigan you may remember my ranting post about how Oscar and Johan just couldn't seem to get along. Every day, 100 times a day I'd end up scolding one or the other, or both an dragging someone off to a Time Out. I noticed the change shortly after arriving in Michigan. I chalked it up to the abundance of toys at Grandma & Grandpa's house (all of the toys my brothers and I ever had have been saved and are now brought out for the grandkids to use.) But really, the number of toys never seemed to make much difference back home; two identical cars = twice the fighting. Then I thought it must be the extra attention because at Grandma & Grandpas, there was certainly no lack of attention. But here we've been home 1 week almost and just today Oscar told me that Johan was "Soooo cute!" I can assure you that those words have never come out of his mouth before...and that's not due to language skills! I think I could even count the number of fights they've had since we've been home on 1 hand. Unbelievable. Of course, I can never really prove that these things are direct results of our visit. After all, kids this age grow and change in a million different ways every day. Maybe they were due for a language explosion. Surely Johan is about that age. Or maybe Johan had finally reached that magical age where he became interesting for Oscar to play with. We'll never know. Maybe the only way to tell for sure is to visit again sometime soon and see what happens!

On the Road

2012-01-19T21:07:00.007+09:30

One great thing about seeing my parents, aside from seeing them, of course, is that it's the one chance Young-Hoon and I have to get away. So every time we meet them, we always take advantage of the chance to take a little vacation. This time the plan was to go skiing but our lack of planning resulted in our resort being full and, while we could have found another hotel, we opted to keep on driving north and we ended up at Sleeping Bear Dunes in Northern Michigan.We'd heard that it was considered one of the most beautiful places in the world. In our opinion, they were pretty (and they may be beautiful in another season?) but they were undeserving of that title. Maybe we were just bitter because we kept telling ourselves the beach was "just over that hill" when, in reality, it was just over the next 1000 hills. But we made it, and it was pretty. After the dunes, we headed over to Traverse City and happened upon a great and relatively cheap hotel in the center of downtown. This allowed us to enjoy a great meal and a few beers without having to worry about driving. We also got to do some shopping the next morning followed by wine tasting on the Old Mission Peninsula in the afternoon! After returning home, we visited some friends on the weekend. On Saturday, we drove to Lansing to see my old friends from my first work/study abroad in Japan. It was fun as always and we got to hang out with my friend from the program who happens to have twins 1 month younger then Irene & Oscar and a singleton 2 months older than Johan. It was a crazy house! On Sunday we drove over towards Detroit to meet up with some of my best friends from high school. The last time we were home, we took a photo of all of our kids on the sofa. There were 8 kids (all, I believe, 4 and under) for 4 women and, at the time, we joked about how many more there would be the next time we met. Turns out each of us have had 1 baby since then so there should have been 12 kids on that sofa. Unfortunately, one of my friends' kids were sick and another left her son behind. Still, it made for a pretty active sofa. And finally, Young-Hoon and I really wanted to do something fun with the kids so we decided to take a trip to Chicago. Young-Hoon has also never been there and I knew it was full of family friendly fun so we booked a hotel and set off. After much deliberation, we opted to leave poor Johan behind with grandma & grandpa because, a) he would enjoy Chicago...but then again, he'd enjoy going outside and looking at Grandpa's car just as much; b) he's not nearly as easy to travel with as the big kids; and c) we thought it would be a fun trip & reward for the big kids to go without the "baby." And it was. We scored a great deal on a hotel 4 blocks from Navy Pier. We ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, we took advantage of Free Family night at the Children's Museum on Navy Pier. I cannot recommend this museum more. We LOVED it and wished we could have spent more time there. There was even an art center where the kids could grab any wooden beads, blocks, sticks, twigs, pine cones, etc. they wanted and build a sculpture. They could have spent much more time there but we were pressed for time so we had to stop them after about 30 minutes. And, finally, the next morning we visited the Shedd Aquarium before driving home. The kids and Young-Hoon really love fish so we were excited about this. It turned out to be a bit of a let-down because we only had a couple of hours to spend there and were, therefore, not willing to spend the big bucks necessary to see the "cool" sea animals. It was nice though. Although, on the way out I noticed that the Field Museum was having an exhibit about whales so I kicked myself for not doing more research. All in all, a great experience and the kids were (as usual) amazing travelers!

Home from the Holidays

2012-01-18T20:17:00.003+09:30

Just a quick note to say we've arrived home safe and sound. The flight wasn't as quiet as the way going (Johan didn't to sleep & sitting was also not high on his priority list) but we survived and I didn't even notice any nasty glares from other passengers so it couldn't have been THAT bad. Although, it helped that the seat next to me and the seat in front of him were empty!

Anyway, there will be many, many more photos to come but just wanted to check in. I think the kids really enjoyed themselves with Grandma & Grandpa but I also think they are a little happy to be home. I KNOW they're happy to be done traveling for a while. Here's a conversation I had with Irene as we stood outside our apartment building:

Irene: This is everybody's home!"

Me: Who's "everybody?"

Irene: Umma, Appa, Oscar, Johan & Irene!

Me: But not Grandma & Grandpa, huh.

Irene: Yes. grandma & grandpa house is tooooo far away!

Me: But hopefully we'll see them again real soon!

Irene: YES! (pause, looking thoughtfully at the mountain of luggage ) They can come here.

Guess she's not a fan of travel.

Around Grandma's House

2012-01-11T05:37:00.002+09:30

Still having a great time here in Michigan with Grandma & Grandpa Cameron. Irene and Oscar have learned to play board games (Candy Land & Shoots & Ladders) They exceeded my expectations, and there was very little pouting when setbacks occurred (though there were some...) One great thing about being home with them now that they're older is that I can go through my old things and find treasures to give them. One such treasure was my old Ballet Dancer jewelry box. I was never into ballet and tutus but Irene likes it. She loved the jewelry box. And, although I am disappointed that the most snow we got at one time during our visit was approximately .5 inches, we still managed to have fun in it. Irene and Oscar had their first trip to McDonalds. I'm not a big fan of fast food (except Subway...I could eat there every day) so I naturally never took the kids. Why feed them what I won't eat? But, my dad suggested we go to take advantage of the big playground there. We had a coffee while watching the kids have a blast - no McJunkfood required! I found myself wishing that we had a McDonalds like this closer to us in Korea! Irene did a great job climbing the wall. Uncle Kevin was spotting her but not really helping her. Some of her moves looked almost like a real climber! And more playing in the yard with cousin Mona. Oh, how I love the yard...

Snow with the Cousins

2012-01-04T03:59:00.005+09:30

After finding out that we'd be vising Michigan for Christmas, I had grand visions of taking all of the cousins sledding, of building snow forts and snowmen, and generally having fun in the snow with family. As to be expected, there has been very little snow here (but I hear Gwangju got hit pretty hard...of course) But at least there was one day where we could bundle the kids up and take them out into sole-deep snow. There's just something about toddlers in snow gear...I couldn't get enough photos. There really wasn't much snow at all, but we managed to have fun. We made snow balls... ...and ate snow... ...and made snow angels. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that there will be more snow in the next 2 weeks.

Family

2012-01-04T03:45:00.006+09:30

After my brothers arrived in the house, all heck broke loose. Imagine 6 kids, the oldest having just turned 5. Needless to say, there weren't a lot of quiet moments in the house but we did have some fun. There was a movie night with cousins Toby & Molly, and we had a second Christmas, and the kids played and played and played. We tried on two occasions to get a good family photo. Easier said than done although I think my brother finally got a good one on his camera. There was always someone wiggling, making silly faces, or pouting for unknown reasons. During the trip, Irene became best buds with her cousin Toby. They really knew how to get each other riled up and spent a lot of time hanging out in the basement where my parents have piles and piles of toys which they saved from our childhood. My niece, Mona, just kind of quietly observes and mingles in with the big kids, but she doesn't seem to take to well to Johan...and vice versa. Toby taught my poor kids about electronic games. I worry (in passing) that they will be at a disadvantage later on because they don't have the benefit of playing with our Smart phones and IPads, etc. since Young-Hoon and I are still fairly low-tech. They seemed to catch on pretty quickly though.

Aunt Shannon was the go-to adult for upside-down rides. We really had a great time with everyone and were sad to see the Cameron family go (especially Irene).

Christmas

2012-01-03T11:00:00.005+09:30

Christmas morning in Michigan was great. Although we didn't really bring anything for the kids & my parents had already sent all of their presents to Korea but they didn't arrive before we left, there were a few presents under the tree. Irene and Oscar got digital cameras from us and have enjoyed snapping pictures of our trip. Santa came to town bearing cars and lots and lots of snacks - I think he knew that we wouldn't want to cart a bunch of toys back to Korea with us, smart guy that he is. Johan discovered the big-sized Hersey bar in his stocking and had it 1/2 gone before any of us knew it. He was not too happy when it was confiscated and put away until later.

But he cheered up when he found the cap I knitted for him. Of all the kids, he was the one who I thought would appreciate it the least. In fact, I had predicted that it would stay on his head a total of .5 seconds before being ripped off, thrown to the floor and stomped on. In actuality, he kept it on for much of the present opening. I think it was just to spite me...but that's ok!

After church the boys played with their new cars and Irene took pictures with her new camera (expect a "pictures by kids" post soon) And then we headed off to dinner at Zenders in Frankenmuth, a nearby German-themed city. It was delicious as usual. After dinner we took a little detour to look at Christmas lights. My kids really appreciate Christmas lights so it was fun to hear their excitement. And home to bed to rest up for the next day when my oldest brother would arrive with is family. (Stay tuned!)

Arrival

2012-01-02T12:35:00.004+09:30

Well, we made it. We've been back in Michigan for almost 2 weeks now and time is flying. I think it's going to be a huge undertaking to arrange all the photos I've taken so far so I'll have to take this slow. Today's post is about the pre-Christmas visit where only the Jin-Cameron family was staying at Grandma & Grandpa Cameron's house. The kids handled the trip amazingly well and slipped right into life in America. It sure helps that Grandma & Grandpa's house is full of exciting new (to them) toys. 100s of Match Box cars for Oscar to play with and a didgeridoo to boot. The Christmas Tree was also a big hit. Much nicer than our little 4-footer. And we all enjoyed the Christmas Eve church service as well as our traditional visit with my dad's side of the family. One wonderful thing about us being in MI for Christmas was that my mom got to see Irene in her Christmas dress. Last time she visited, my mom brought a stack of clothes which used to be mine. Most of them were sewn for me by my Grandma Loll (after whom Irene was named). I had already planned on making the dress above be Irene's Christmas dress for this year, but really, in Gwangju there is no real need for a Christmas dress. It was nice to have her get some use of it (along with the boys' equally handsome hand-me-down duds) She was a little freaked out when my mom showed her the photo of me wearing the dress but she came around. And the dress even got compliments at church! Stay tuned for the next post: Christmas!

Pleasant Surprises

2011-12-18T09:29:00.009+09:30

It's been a crazy week. On Monday I was just plugging along till Christmas, feeling a little (read: a whole lot) perturbed at the Embassy for failing to respond to my appointment request for an interview to complete the first step of Young-Hoon's visa process. I final managed to get someone on the phone and they very kindly made us an appointment for Friday morning. So we headed to Seoul on Thursday morning. Only, when we arrived at the Embassy to file our papers, we found out that the application that was submitted and accepted 4 years ago was successfully re-activated. You see, several months ago I'd requested this and was told that we'd receive a notice if it was acceptable. No notice = not re-activated. Well, we got no notice so...But, it was a pleasant surprise anyways since we already had all the documents from when we did the kids' so the preparation had been no work and the trip up north gave us a good chance to visit Young-Hoon's sister and also his mother & father's tomb. Plus, it's always a welcome surprise to find that we don't have to pay an extra $500! Plus, we had our photo taken for an online news publication! (though I don't think it made it to the website) And the second pleasant surprise of the week: we're going home for Christmas! We haven't been back to the States since December 2008 and every summer or winter since, I've been saying next summer/winter, but something always comes up: being pregnant, having a newborn, moving to Japan, and this year saving money for our move next summer. But at the request of my parents, we're headed home where the whole gang will get together for what will presumably be a very rowdy get together with 6 children 5-and-under. *gulp* I wonder if my parents thought this through. So this may be my last post for a long while as we're headed out on Wednesday. Happy Holidays!

Johan Speak

2011-12-13T15:20:00.002+09:30

Just another quick video. This was the very first video I took with my new camera so much of it is blurry, but I just wanted to show Johan's expansive vocabulary. Not only does he know Korean (Umma) and English (Cheese) but now he's speaking some African clicking language! Amazing!

He Sings

2011-12-13T14:45:00.003+09:30

We're a singing household. Despite the fact that I can't carry a tune to save my life, ever since the day we brought Irene and Oscar home, I've sung with them pretty much every single day. Some people read books at bedtime, we sing. Maybe as a result, Irene and Oscar love to sing, and they sing everywhere - in the car, in the house, walking down the street, on a mountain...you get the picture.

Oscar especially loves to sing along and, much of the time, he can carry a tune. I have to admit though, it's not always a good thing. About 3 times last week I was woken up to the lively tune of "Jingle Bells" coming from their bedroom. Normally I enjoy his singing but not at the expense of sleep and not when it wakes up the entire household. So I've been a bit anti-singing as of late. But something strange happened the other night. Oscar was feverish and sick so I let him crawl into our bed. At least twice, during his most feverish point, he started singing. His eyes were closed and he was sweating and even shaking a little bit but he was singing. I didn't even have the heart to tell him to be quiet. Instead I wondered what could be going through his little head. Is singing a sort of safety blanket for him? Or is it Tourettes-like in nature, where he can't control it? Whatever the case, I'm going to keep trying to encourage it - except for those early morning wake-up calls; Those have to go. Here's a video of him singing a new Christmas song he learned last week. It's not his best song, but enjoyable nonetheless. Sorry about the blurry quality - it's also one of the first videos I've taken with my new camera.

On the 5th day of Christmas...

2011-12-05T21:27:00.004+09:30

Ok, so we don't really do the " 12 Days of Christmas." In fact, I don't even understand what that song is about. But as I mentioned before, we're on our second year of doing an Activity Advent Calendar. So far so good. The kids are super-excited to get a little nugget of fudge every 3 days (we rotate and, although I had considered giving them each a piece every day, I decided that it would be a good exercise in sharing). I'm super-surprised that our original batch of fudge is still holding up...I must be sick or something. I admit, I've been cheating a little...already. Our activity for the 3rd day was to make salt-dough ornaments. This was fun because they got to make & play with the dough and their cousin Min-Hyuk was visiting so he got to join in the fun. In the end, it didn't make as many ornaments as I had anticipated and they are kind of wonky, but that's what makes them special, right? Anyway, our activity for the 4th was to paint our ornaments (and I briefly considered our activity for today - the 5th- to be stringing & hanging the ornaments but luckily I had some old bananas to use up so we made "Christmas Banana Bread.") I was very impressed with how they painted them. I don't have an artistic bone in my body so I would have probably gone for the plain yellow star, the green dinosaur and a boring striped Christmas tree bulb; thank goodness the kids can think outside the box. Above you see Irene's star, Oscar's dinosaur (although it was Irene who cut out the dino & Oscar who made the star the day before) And Johan's bulb. However, the final 2 cookies didn't come out as well because by then the paint was pretty much a grey mess. After paining the ornaments, the kids moved on to paper. Again, I have to say that I'm blown away every time Irene gets a paintbrush in her hand. I don't know, maybe it's normal. But I can only say that most kids her age I've watched paint (Oscar included) don't have near the concentration, focus, or intent that she does. Above isn't even the finished picture - in the end she added what appeared to be a sun rising from the "mountain." What gets me is that every stroke she paints is 100% deliberate and she usually has a definite "end" to her painting despite it's apparent abstractness. I know, I know, I've got silly mom syndrome & am sitting here bragging about my 3-year-old's artistic skills. But she really is a genius. ;) And finally, a couple of photos taken this evening before bedtime. I'm using Young-Hoon's computer tonight because mines on its last legs, and I discovered that his has photoshop in English so i couldn't resist playing around a bit.

Re-group

2011-12-01T21:49:00.003+09:30

In the past few weeks, I think I've alluded to the fact that Oscar has been a bit challenging. I was hesitant to say too much because I just imagined some day when he may read this and possibly feel bad or negative about what I say. But I'm just going to say it: Oscar has become cause of stress to both Young-Hoon and myself. Or, I should say, had become. Here I thought I had eluded the dreaded sibling rivalry, but I can assure it that is alive and well here with my two boys. It seemed that no matter what Johan was doing, it was not what Oscar wanted him to be doing. If Johan so much as looked in his direction, Oscar would start shouting "MINE, MINE, MINE!" and guard his toys. If Johan happened to walk within a foot of Oscar, he'd be brutally shoved across the room, regardless of whether or not he was even looking at Oscar or his toys. We found ourselves increasingly hostile towards Oscar on these occasions...which was certainly not helping anything. So, we both decided that maybe what Oscar needed was a break. So, on Tuesday, my day off, we sent Irene and Johan to daycare and Oscar and I had our "Big Day Out". To be honest, I don't often get out alone with Oscar. It seems like whenever "the twins" split up, I'm with Irene. Not because we planned it, but just because that's just how it works out. Naturally, I love spending time with Irene but I didn't realize how much I'd been missing Oscar until this past Tuesday. We didn't do anything super-exciting. Some work around the house. A bus trip into town. Lunch at a chain restaurant & home again. But it was wonderful. Within the first few minutes after Irene and Johan left with Young-Hoon, I could see the excitement and joy on his face. Even when I asked him to help clean up the toy box (which usually takes 15-20 requests) he gladly did it in a matter of minutes and thanked me...thanked me for helping him clean up the toy box. At the restaurant, he thanked me again for eating with him. He carefully copied how I placed my cup, how I ate my food, and he often reached out to hold my hand or to pat my shoulder. He was clearly a boy who needed attention and was happy to be the center of my attention. In the past two days I've noticed a difference. While he still does fight with Johan a bit, he is much more willing to share his toys. He no longer takes 1+ hours to finish a meal as has been his habit for the last 2 weeks or so. And he is back to being our lovable, smiley Oscar. I always knew he was a great kid, but sometimes it takes separating him from the pack to see just what a fantastic kids he is. However, it was also this occasion which showed me my lacking as a mother. From now on, there will be much more quality time between me and each of the kids. I can't wait for our next "date!"

The Decor

2011-12-01T21:02:00.004+09:30

As I mentioned in my last post, my Christmas decoration plans were thwarted last Saturday by the kids' foul moods (or rather, my foul mood caused by the kids). Turns out we'd all done a 180 by Sunday evening and I was ready to give it another go. This time we managed to get everything taken care of with minimal fuss. One thing I'm really looking forward to about moving to America is having a house where we can feel free to put nails in the walls or maybe, dare I say it, have a fireplace on which to hang stockings! Alas, this year I made do with attaching them to photo frames already hanging there. It actually worked out pretty well. We have Young-Hoon's and my stockings which I made waaaay back in 2005 - our first Christmas here. And Irene and Oscar's made in 2008 for their 1st Christmas (along with my favorite baby picture of them & (technically) our first family-of-5 Christmas photo from 2009 - Johan had not yet arrived but he was there.) And Johan and Matilda's stockings. Matilda's is from her first Christmas in 2007, but Johan's I just whipped up last week. Yep, that's right. I had no stocking for Johan's 1st Christmas. And, yes, I'm saving up for his therapy bills. But he really loved the tree. He seemed especially excited when he found 2 ornaments that matched. He seems much more grabby with the tree than I remember Irene and Oscar being at his age so I actually left off many of my most treasured decorations such as those that came from my grandmother, and I only put out a fraction of the other ones that I really like (for example, some I got from Sweden) so that if (when) he breaks them, I'll still have spares. And the final touch to our decor was added this morning with our Advent Calendar. Last year I had a calendar as well and I was eager to do it again, but I thought we should have a nicer-looking one. I found a kit for about $3 online at a fabric store and, as I was already ordering some fabric, I bought it. It's not as nice as my mom's but I'm happy with it. All I had to do was sew a backing on and sew the pockets on. Our project for Dec. 1st? Make fudge! I had been going back and forth about adding a piece of chocolate to each pocket (so whoever got to open that day would get it) when I had the brilliant idea to just have the first one be to make fudge and that way I could just put a little piece of fudge in each day. Sure, the fudge is already 1/2 gone today. I can always whip another batch (or 20) during the month to keep the supply going. It's a burden I'm willing to bear in order to give the kids a memorable Christmas.

Behind the Scenes

2011-11-26T20:50:00.005+09:30

Today is Thanksgiving...well, for us it is anyways. I haven't celebrated Thanksgiving on a Thursday for...10+ years I think. Usually we celebrate it on the following weekend because one of us always has to work. I figure, thanking God can be celebrated any ol' day so why not? (I'm not really into the whole pilgrim aspect of the holiday) So, considering it's a special day, I thought I'd give you a hint of what's behind the scenes. I mean, you all see the lovely, smiling photos that I post week after week...but what's our life really like? Well, today was a doozy.

In the morning we visited our farm to harvest the last of our radishes. Of course, we didn't leave as early as we had wanted because Oscar didn't seem to want to finish his breakfast (but heaven forbid I should take it away!) or get dressed. Anyway, since we were going to a country setting, I decided to take advantage of the backdrop and try to get some "Christmas Card" photos. Ok, so I don't think I've actually sent Christmas cards out for...well, maybe ever...but that's what people are supposed to do, right?! So I'll try this year. I actually dressed the kids in matching outfits (perhaps a 1st for all 3...maybe the 4-5th time ever for the twins.) I've heard that the matching colors help make a family photo look nice so I thought I'd give it a try. This is one of our sweet photos of the three. Nice, huh? Irene and Oscar hugging, a smiling Johan? What a loving family we have, right?! Except... I knew this is what Oscar really wanted to do to Johan. Ok, true, he appeared to be going in for a kiss (further photos confirm this) but still, not 1 minute after this photo was taken, Johan ended up doing a face plant off the bench. Hmmm. See how it screwed up his smile?! And although everyone looks happy enough, trust me...there was fighting over who got the swing...even though there were 2 swings. Anyway, after some relative peace at the farm, we headed home for our Thanksgiving feast. Young-Hoon took the big kids out while Johan napped and i got things ready. This year, for the first time, we had real turkey. In years past, we've substituted with baked chicken or rotissery turkey legs, but this year, since I figured the kids were old enough to appreciate it, (they are total "foodies") I decided to go all out and we ordered a 4kg. turkey from a local foreign store. Because our oven was too small, we had it cooked and delivered with stuffing and gravy. He delivered it this morning and it wasn't until a couple hours later that I realized that I had also ordered a pumpkin pie, which hadn't been delivered. Turns out, there was a mis-communication and there would be no pumpkin pie. Luckily, I had already baked a Korean "pumpkin" planning on making some squash. I decided to use that as the pie instead. In the end, I reasoned, it probably saved us many, many calories. So, the kids helped me make the pie and the sour cream potatoes. We had fun...until dinner. They look happy, right? Wrong. I think, aside from the creamed corn (which was my replacement veggie for the squash) they each barely nibbled on their food. A bit of turkey: "what's not chicken! bleh!" A bite of stuffing (because I made them try it): yuk. A bite of potatoes (which we made together!)- yuck. So, they had creamed corn for Thanksgiving dinner. Fine. But it was after dinner that everything fell apart. I had grand plans of decorating the tree while listening to Christmas music. Then watching a Christmasy movie with popcorn. And finally, breaking out their Christmas pajamas for bedtime. I actually don't have photos for this because my blood pressure was so high and I was shaking so much that I couldn't get a clear shot. In the past few years, it's been on Thanksgiving that we've decorated for Christmas. We put up the tree while listening to Christmas music and feeling, in general, "Christmassy". I was actually really excited this year because they've been singing "Jingle Bells" since last Christmas and they know, when they start I'll say "Christmas is OVER!" as I have since February. I was excited because I could finally say "Christmas is coming!" But, between the 3 of them, there was not a 3 minute window in which I did not have to scold someone. Johan is attracted to all things forbidden. And Oscar and Irene seem to have lost their short-term memory because when I told them to stop bouncing the Christmas tree bulbs off the floor...they'd just wait a minute before starting again. In the end, I had to stop decorating the tree because they were so crazy. In fact, I was seeing spots. And even after i halted our Christmas preparation, they continued to wrestle, jump on each other's heads.......and cry about it. So, as you can see, despite our happy family photos, there's much more than meets the eye. I'm pretty sure my blood pressure hasn't gotten this high in...maybe ever! Happy Holidays!

While the Cat's Away

2011-11-26T20:43:00.003+09:30

The other day Johan woke up early from his afternoon nap & Irene and Oscar were still sleeping. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with his "alone time" - play with Oscar's big trucks. On a good day, Oscar will share one. Most days, he chases Johan around shouting or hitting. Today, they were tucked away in a closet somewhere because I just couldn't take the fighting any more. But boy, did he have fun while Oscar was sleeping!

Over the Rainbow

2011-11-20T14:31:00.002+09:30

Irene's first nail painting courtesy of tester bottles at the store today. I've always known that she'd go crazy for nail polish once she discovered it - while I haven't worn it for upwards of 10 years, it's right up her alley. Today she pointed and asked what the 100s of colorful bottles were. I hesitated a moment wondering if I wanted to open up that can of worms so early in the game. I mean, she's only 3! But in the end, my desire to see that excited twinkle in her eye won out. She didn't disappoint. In fact, she's becoming my little buddy these days. Yesterday I participated in a local flea market where I tried to get rid of all of the kids' outgrown clothes and toys. I'll be honest, I was looking forward to an afternoon alone where I could schmooze with fellow weigookin (foreigners), but she really wanted to stay and "help" me and so I gave in with a sigh. In the end, it was actually having Irene with me that made the afternoon so enjoyable. Well, that and the ukulele that I picked up from another booth. Coincidentally, earlier in the week I had been talking to Young-Hoon about taking a ukulele class that meets Sunday afternoons for 10 weeks so this was fate! Now I can save on classes and learn it via the internet like I do most things. I've already begun to work on my "Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. Not to say Oscar is not my little buddy. While it's true, he does seem to be going through a rough/jealous patch (I can't tell you how many times a day I have to scold him for being mean to Johan or Irene...mainly Johan) he does have his moments. He's the sweetest and politest little boy I've ever met. How many 3-year-olds say "Thank you, Umma, for the eating!" (i.e. dinner) without any kind of prompting whatsoever?! And today he was the big helper at the farm where we harvested our 10 giant radishes. Although I had been excited to use all of our radishes to make kimchi after seeing them all laying in a row, I'm more than OK with sharing with our friends. That's a LOT of radish! And finally, we got some big news this past week. The partial results of our bid for a government small business grant have been released an we have been selected to receive one of the grants. The amount we'll receive has not been decided yet but whatever the grant is, we'll work within those constraints. After all, this is supposed to be a hobby business so I'm not going to break the bank. Minimum, we'll get our website created (since I have to pay someone to do that...my web skills are lacking), a serger (fancy-pants sewing machine), and some fabric, etc. I can live with that!

Pass the Hat

2011-11-13T15:11:00.004+09:30

We took a trip to Mudeung Mt. today. After all but ignoring the biggest mountain in our town for the better part of our life in Gwangju, we've become regulars there since Irene and Oscar's birthday earlier in the year. We usually don't make it very far up the mountain because the parking lot is so far away, and the kids are so excited about every leaf, rock and twig on the way, by the time we get to the hiking part it's time to have lunch and head home for naps. Today we didn't even make it to the mountain, the kids were in such energetic moods. Instead, they stopped at every single bench and large rock along the way, climbed on top and began to serenade the passersby - and there were many passersby on this beautiful fall morning. After all, Korea's unofficial national past-time is hiking and this is the place to do it in Gwangju. There was lots and lots of singing. And some dancing as well - mainly by Irene. The occasional spectator even joined in the singing for a bar or two, but most people just smiled and continued on their way. I felt like we should have put a hat or a tin cup out there to collect some lunch money! In the end even Johan joined in the fun with some "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" dancing which he must have learned at school because that's not in our usual home repertoire. So, just before we reached the path up the mountain we turned around and headed back to restaurant alley for some mixed barley and veggies, our favorite mountain treat. Johan likes to give kisses and he really has good timing. Often when we scold him for something he gets a sad face, wraps his little arms around our necks, and comes in for a ppoppo. On occasion, I've been in the sweet-yet-uncomfortable position of having his wide-open mouth pressed tightly to my lips for extended periods of time. I suppose I should enjoy the cuteness of these baby-ppoppos before they're gone. Not much longer now, I suppose! He's noticeably growing up more every day.

Moo

2011-11-12T21:00:00.003+09:30

We took our usual weekend visit to the farm this afternoon. (the 2 photos above are actually from last weekend). There's really not much to do at the farm this season. During the summer it was necessary for us to go every weekend to make sure our plot was watered and weeded. The weeds grew like...well, weeds. This season, however, we've been getting enough rain that we don't have to worry about the soil drying and cracking, and there aren't really any weeds to speak of yet. Although, that didn't stop Irene from obsessively picking grass-like growth on the edges of our plot and scolding me for not doing my part. We can't even really play in the water which was one of the kids' favorite summer past times so there's almost no point in even going out there. Almost. Today we took a nice stroll among the other plots, most filled with large, lush green heads of cabbage. After our stroll, we decided to pick just one of our Korean radishes (moo) so I could make more kimchi. The kids were excited about our biiiiig harvest and took turns carrying it back to the car. I can't wait until next week when we'll pick our first head of cabbage!

National Museum of History

2011-11-12T14:48:00.004+09:30

Today was the first Saturday in a long time that we haven't had something on the schedule. We decided to make a short trip to the National Museum of History in Gwangju which is just up the road from us. I really like the museum because it's got a lot of open space & there's a kids' museum as well. The best part is that it's free-although every time we go they tell us that they'll start charging soon. They've been saying that for 2 years now.

Before visiting the kids' museum, we made a run through the main building with all of the pottery artifacts and whatnot. They kids did fairly well as far as keeping their hands off the exhibits, but I don't think it was too interesting for them. The best part was a glass floor where we could look down on the people below.

At the kids' museum we dug for artifacts as usual and listened to some music. There was also some coloring involved. But the part they liked best, I'd say, were the paper airplanes Young-hoon made for them.

Say "Cheese!"

2011-11-07T20:15:00.004+09:30

Photo by Irene

Another busy weekend has come and gone here in Gwangju. Saturday was a book and bake sale to raise money for a local orphanage here which is kind of like the expat pet project. During the week I enlisted Irene and Oscar to help me pick through their books and decide which ones to donate. Then we went through their toys to decide which ones should be given to other little boys and girls who need toys. Really I just wanted to get rid of all the clutter and make room for Christmas. I was amazed by how willing they were to give their toys. The only thing Oscar cared about keeping were his trucks and cars which I had gathered into a pile, intending to have him pick a few to add to the "give" pile. However, since he was so giving with all the rest, I let him keep them all. Irene was excited about he project saying "Irene love kids!" as she gleefully picked out toys to give. (that's her new thing these days "Irene love...") We ended up gathering a large bag of books and 2 boxes of toys! Poor Johan was napping at this time but he really only wants to play with what the kids are using anyways so I didn't even bother to keep many "toddler" toys.

On Sunday I ran a 10K in a nearby town. I didn't know it when I signed up, but it was actually in a place that Young-Hoon, the kids and I frequent. While the course was by far the nicest course I've run here in Korea, I was definitely not on my game. I think it was a mixture of the humidity (yeah, it's November but we had summer weather all last week! Crazy!), the fact that the first 3K were uphill, and, honestly, I was just not prepared enough. I missed my goal by about 10 minutes so it wasn't my finest hour. Luckily there was a lot of good company there with the running club and as a gift I received bottles of bamboo wine (which that area is famous for). I'd do it again!

And finally, today Johan said his second word. He's been saying "Umma" for quite some time now, though it refers to Young-Hoon as well as me. We keep trying to get him to say "Appa" (dad) but he seems to be taunting us. Well, tonight we were eating spaghetti and he kept pointing to something on the table and signing "please" so I said, "fork?" no. "milk?" no. "cheese?" and he nodded yes, saying "sheeth" I did a little double take and sort of dismissed it as a coincidence but Oscar screamed "Johan 'Cheese' did it!" (i.e. Johan said "cheese") So I asked him to say it again and sure enough "sheeth." So I called up Young-Hoon (who is away at a conference tonight) and let him know and when I put Johan up to the phone I expected silence, but when directed, he very clearly said it again. I think it's official! Although, now I'm re-evaluating our cheese consumption. We must be eating a little too much if that's his second word!

Halloween Party

2011-10-30T22:43:00.006+09:30

Happy Halloween to everyone. I was super-excited about this Halloween because not only did we have a party to go to, but Irene & Oscar were actually old enough to sort of understand the concept of costumes and to have an opinion about what they wanted theirs to be. So, Irene was a butterfly, Oscar was Big Jet. I had the week off of school due to exams, so I thought I'd try my best to make some awesome costumes for the kids. While Irene's panyhose wings, fuzzy antennae and black sweats worked out alright, Oscar's had a few glitches. I had the bright idea to paper machet his costume because I couldn't get a box to be all sleek like a fighter jet and I have always wanted to try to paper machet. So I spent a loooong time working on this plane between making the skeleton, applying newspaper strips, and painting (and cursing Matilda who ate one of the tail wings making it look more like a commercial airliner than a jet fighter jet). Not long into the project I became worried that it would be too heavy for him to even wear, let alone spend any time in. And I was right. So the most daylight this costume saw was when I (forced) him to put it on for a photo at the beginning of the party. I don't regret making it though. I learned something new, I actually enjoyed it, and the look of excitement on his face as he saw each step being completed was worth it. Still, I'm glad that I came with my back-up plan. Simple cardboard wings. Looks like they work! He loved them just as much as the plane....maybe more! As you can see, Johan took over Oscar's train engineer costume from last year. Sadly, he seems to have come down with a case of pink eye (by our diagnosis). His eye was red he night before so I'd already decided to keep him home but today it was cleared up so we went. About 1 hour into the party though, his other eye suddenly gooped over so Young-Hoon took him home. The kids weren't too excited when we got there, but soon they cheered up. Irene really, really enjoyed climbing on the hill with all the big kids (boys). And she ditched the wings (which she had been sooooo excited about!) and the tutu in the first 15 minutes. At one point, I was sitting on a picnic blanket with some friends and Irene ran over shouting "Umma! Ummaaaaaa!" - just loud enough to make people turn to see who she was shouting at (I didn't know most of the people at the party). As she got closer to me, she excitedly unveiled her find - a maggot (or a grub?). One father commented on how I've "sure got a country girl there!" not in a bad way...at least I didn't take it that way because I was actually proud of her for not being a squeemish girly-girl. Although, after congratulating her on her awesome find, I did suggest that she take it out of the picnic area because people don't like to eat lunch with maggots. Fun with her buddy Julian & baby Finn (& father). Sack races. Irene had no interest and Oscar just liked watching the kids. I was kind of relieved by this because I could just imagine him falling flat on his face and knocking out that front tooth (which is still loose and is actually more crooked now!).

Mish Mash

2011-10-26T22:44:00.002+09:30

Just a little mish-mash of an update today. I realized that it's been quite some time since I've posted any photos or even mentioned our farm so I thought I'd say something quickly. As I said before, our options of fall foods were limited for some reason so we opted to fill our plot with Asian radishes and cabbage. I actually hadn't even been there since a week or so after we planted them because, either Young-Hoon took the big kids alone, or we just didn't feel the need to go because it had just rained & it was too early for weeds. Considering the bounty that we'd already harvested, I new we'd have some big plants this time. Or cabbages (in the foreground) were huge, though apparently still only in the beginning stages of growth. Honestly, I'm still not seeing any resemblance to the final product which makes me wonder if we didn't mis-plant. And we have quite a few big radishes. We didn't pick any this time but I'm actually looking forward to it. Originally, I thought we'd end up giving most of them away but now I'm excited to see what I can do with them since my kimchi-making experience! And, in other news, we're getting into the Halloween spirit. Not nearly as much as last year, but a box of Halloween goodies from Grandma & Grandpa gave us a nudge. Actually, Johan has been riding around the house in Irene's witch's hat from her costume last year. I'll probably end up using that as his winter cap because, until now, this is the only head wear he's ever kept on for more than a second & around these parts, people are already bundling their children up, wrapping them in plastic stroller bubbles and blankets and tsking at me for not doing so. Wonder how they'll react to this? Anyway (sorry for the mini rant) I'm getting a little excited for Halloween. This weekend we'll go to a Halloween party. Originally, I had offered to host it but, because of the number of things I had on my plate for that weekend already, I passed the buck. Turns out another big thing we had planned for this weekend also fell through - our trip to the Embassy...but I'm not going to get into that now. I've been working hard on the kids' costumes this week while they are at school and I have some free time. I gave them a preview tonight and they seemed to like them so I'm hoping they'll wear them the whole time...or at least not throw them in a corner as soon as we arrive!

Other than that, we're just hanging out. I've decided to give the monthly flea market one more shot with a wider range of products that can appeal to the college crowd. I've come to the realization that I just don't enjoy sewing those types of things as much as I enjoy sewing for kids. It's a good lesson. We've completed our presentation and are just waiting on the results of whether or not we'll get a grant. The odds are good that we'll get something...we just hope it'll be one of the bigger ones - keep your fingers crossed!

Octopussing

2011-10-23T22:16:00.006+09:30

About a week ago, one of Young-Hoon's friends told him about a place near the coast where you could just stick your fishing net into the water at high tide and catch an octopus or two. Young-Hoon was super-excited about this for two reasons: 1) he likes to eat octopus. 2) it would be fun for the kids. Me? Well, truth be told, while I'll nibble on it if it's in front of me, I could probably live the rest of my life without eating another and feel no loss...but I agreed, it would be fun for the kids. So today we took a daytrip to the coast. While waiting for high tide, we strolled along the coastline.On the way, we collected some conch shells. This was our first time to collect shells and I wasn't sure if they'd be into it or not. Above is only a small sampling of our final collection so I'd say they enjoyed it. I'm not sure what we'll do with them but I promised them that tomorrow I'd get them all cleaned up while they're at school and I'm home because of exam week. :) We also made some friends. There was one really cool hermit crab that I briefly thought about bringing home but after seeing how they treated this poor little crab, I thought twice. We strolled the peer. Note the car making a 20pt. turn on the narrow peer! I was sure he'd go over but he (and the other people nearby) didn't seem the slightest bit worried. Just another reason why I would not fit in as a driver here in Korea. As the sun set & the tide rolled in, our excitement built. We headed out to the end of the peer and... the only thing we ended up catching was a little stinker. No octopuses for us...well, not freshly caught at least. Not to be discouraged, Young-Hoon stopped at the market across the street from our house and bought a couple live ones & the kids enjoyed watching them try to escape.

Kimchi Festival

2011-10-18T16:17:00.002+09:30

I mentioned in my last post that we went to the Gwangju Kimchi Festival this past weekend. I usually have a pretty good time at the festival and we even got to go with my parents one year! This time was also quite fun...in fact, I took the kids twice. On Saturday we went with Young-Hoon's friends and today (Tuesday) the kids and I had a playdate there. Both times we got to experience new things. On Saturday the Kimchi Characters were out and about. Irene was less than thrilled. Below you can see her (fake) scared face. She recovered moments later. Today we got to see the Kimchi Bus and some other cool exhibits. Then we had some kimbab and hung out in the park. Just a quick closeup of Oscar. It's hard to tell in this photo, but his gums are purple and his upper right tooth is slightly crooked. Yesterday morning he was playing with his trucks (as usual) when it wheeled out from under him and he smashed his mouth into the floor. There was some blood and lots of tears, but I managed to move the tooth back to (almost) it's original position. I was too nervous to fiddle with it anymore so I left it a little crooked. Only time will tell if his perfect smile is gone forever...well, until his adult teeth come in at least.

When In Korea...

2011-10-16T21:02:00.004+09:30

This Saturday, Young-Hoon took the big kids to the farm to do some weeding and watering while I stayed home with a napping Johan. I was shocked when they returned home with a basket full of daikon (Asian radish). For the fall, we had used our entire plot to plant daikon and Chinese cabbage but we weren't expecting anything for a while longer. Apparently, although they weren't quite ready yet, he had to pick them or risk the whole crop being choked off by an overabundance. So, now our dilemma is what to do with a basket full of daikon (and more on the way). I decided to dust off my old Korean cookbook. I'm ashamed to say that I bought a Korean cookbook (in English) several years ago and, after an energetic start, I haven't opened it since (although, in my defense, I do still cook Korean food sometimes...just not with a cookbook) Today's mission: Radish Kimchi. So I sliced up the radishes to let them sweat and prepared the ingredients. Oscar did not like the raw ginger. I tried to warn him. The kids helped me knead the spices into the radishes and about 45 minutes after we started, we had a full pot of kimchi. Now if we were real Koreans, we'd have a large ceramic pot in which to ferment our kimchi. But we're not. So the best we could do was this plastic container shaped like a traditional kimchi pot that we got at the kimchi festival yesterday (more on that later). While Oscar helped for a little bit before getting bored, Irene was a true ajuma (old, married lady) and really enjoyed making the kimchi. I did, too. I suppose it didn't hurt that it turned out to be quite tasty as well. I must admit, I'm a bit of a kimchi snob. One of my fondest memories is from the first time I ever visited Korea with Young-Hoon and his mother let me watch her make kimchi...and then she packed some for me to take back to Japan. To this day I cannot find kimchi as good as hers. But her spirit was with us today and even Young-Hoon approved of our creation...but is looking forward to our next batch with his mother's secret ingredient. Oh, and Johan couldn't resist tasting it either. Again, I tried to warn him...

Settling In

2011-10-13T20:41:00.005+09:30

It seems as though I'm finally setting in to life here in Korea. After 6.5 years. I realize that I have nobody but myself to blame for my slow acclimation. It was me who let my shyness take over, preventing me from getting out and meeting other foreigners or making friends when we first moved here. It was me who was lazy about studying Korean - always an excuse as to why I couldn't take a class just then. And it was me who decided to have kids - a sure-fire way to put a halt to any social life I did have. Though to be fair, it wasn't all me. Being a "small town," Gwangju had very little to offer in the way of activities for foreigners, foreign food or comforts from home. When I did try to make Korean friends, I was often ignored or else I found the cultural barrier virtually impassable. But since coming back from Japan I really feel like I've finally got my footing. Foreign foods and goods are not as elusive as they once were. From book clubs to running clubs & flea markets, there are so many activities open to me. It seems that there is always something going on. And most importantly for me, I think, is the foreign baby boom that seems to be happening here in Gwangju. When we brought Irene and Oscar home, I new only 1 other family with a child. Over time there were a few more, but in most of the multicultural families, it was the man who was the foreigner - and it's just not the same as having a fellow mom to chat with. But now our little mommy group is growing and it seems that the kids and I have a playdate almost every week. Between working 3 days a week (at the perfect job for me), playdates, sewing and planning for our sewing business, and visiting our farm, training for and running "marathons" with friends (this past weekend it was the Pink Marathon - a race for Breast Cancer), and our usual weekend outings, there's not much time for anything else! Of course, I knew this would happen. For every big move I've ever made I've experienced a contented feeling weeks or months before. But while I have more comfortable here, I don't fear that I'll have second thoughts about our big move to the U.S. next summer. (don't worry, mom) Instead, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the time we have left in Korea. In fact, I'd say the timing of our move is probably just right because I'd much rather leave on a positive note than feeling bitter. By the way, I know I've been remiss about posting on my sewing blog and, therefore, I've probably lost my 4 viewers, but I'm trying to get back into it...at least until our little business takes shape & I get to make a professional site! :) I've just posted about a few new projects so if you're interested in that kind of stuff, check it out!

The Zoo

2011-10-08T14:42:00.005+09:30

Today was the first Saturday in a long time the we sat around after breakfast wondering what to do. We've been quite busy recently and there's always someplace to go, but today were at a loss. I went back to the internet (as I've done so many times before) and searched "Things to do in Gwangju," only to come up empty handed - most of the recommendations are things that we routinely do or things that we have no desire to do (one site even recommended we stop by an old and virtually empty department store.) Young-Hoon had an idea and, since I couldn't think of anything else, I (grudgingly) went along with it: the Family Land Zoo & Amusement Park.

The park is pretty run-down and the zoo is as well. I've mentioned it before and my feelings haven't changed. It's depressing. Most of the habitats are cement and very few of the enclosures with pools actually have any water. It's also hard to see most of the animals behind the heavy caging. The zebras weren't too blocked off though. I always forget how amazing they are until I see one in person. Johan shared his feelings about the hippo (who, according to Oscar, was "sad") The elephants, located across the way from the hippo, also seemed to be affected by his stench. My favorite "animals" of the day were the following two critters. I enjoyed seeing them because they didn't make me feel depressed. I knew they could escape whenever they felt like it. We also took a short train ride and the kids rode on a giant robotic stuffed animal. Not a bad morning after all.

Day Trip: Other

2011-10-01T22:18:00.003+09:30

I just thought I'd include a few more photos from today's outing that don't include the kids. It's funny, as I was playing with my new camera today I realized that I was starting to act like I used to, pre-kid. When I was in college and I had my trusty manual camera by my side, I took 1000s of photos and, with the exception of fun karaoke nights out, very few included people. I've never been a fan of the "stand in front of this landmark so I can take a picture" method of photography. But now I get it. Now I still take 1000s of photos and, until today, very few did not include people (the kids, specifically). From now on, I'd like to do something about that. Kimchi pots - used to store kimchi, soy sauce, Korean miso...and probably a lot more

At the Folk Village there were a number of these crazy looking Korean Traditional statues. I'm not sure what the meaning is.

Day Trip

2011-10-01T21:09:00.004+09:30

First off, I'd like to apologize for my rant in my last post. I'm better now. Things are sorting themselves out. But today I left it all behind to take a little trip with the fam. We were supposed to go camping today but things seemed to have fizzled out so instead we took a drive to the seaside. In order to get to the seaside, though, we had to walk a boardwalk through an "Eco Marsh." It was really nice but we never made it within visual distance of the sea. Still it was a wonderful morning stroll. The kids hammed it up a bit. I realized that a year ago, I couldn't get a decent photo of Irene because she wouldn't stop making funny faces. And now she thinks she's a supermodel. I like it! After the Eco-marsh, we visited a nearby folk village. It's full of thatch-roofed houses where people actually still live. Of course, it's now a tourist attraction so there are also plastic people planted all over the village to show what life was like 100 years ago. Oscar liked the punishment section of the display. And Johan liked the boiled silk worms larvae.

What's This?

2011-09-30T21:26:00.006+09:30

I know this is going to sound completely unbelievable to most of you. Really, I know. But I rarely feel stressed out. I remember being back in high school, my friends would say things like, "Oh my gosh, we've got such-n-such exam tomorrow, I'm so stressed out!" or "Oh my gosh, I couldn't eat dinner because I was so worried about the basketball game (that I'm going to watch from the stands) tonight." I never got it...but I tried to. And in college my friends would say "Ugh! I just can't find a good guy! You know, if you don't find a husband by the age of 22, you're more likely to be struck by lightning!" and, of course they stressed about exams. Me? I tried the "stressing thing" once. I stayed up late with friends studying for a history exam. The result? I almost slept through the exam. Luckily, this was during my Japan days and our classes were semi-informal. My teacher let another student give me a ring to check on my well-being. He probably assumed that the night before I had looked more like this:Than this. No, I'm just not a stresser-outer. Even when dealing with twin infants, I like to think I managed pretty well on the whole - because, yeah, there were some stressful moments, to be sure, but when the crying stopped and I could pull myself together, the calm returned. And by the time Young-Hoon got back from the store with the six pack, I didn't need it anymore - well, usually. I guess I've just always had a go-with-the flow philosophy, which frankly seems quite contradictory to my anal schedule-keeping, this-is-right & this-is-wrong self, yet it works. I got a great husband without stress (heck, I felt I was way too young to be even thinking about stuff like that!) And we got married (3 times!) without any of the wedding stress you see on TV. (is that even real?!) I made pretty decent grades in school, without stress. I've survived 3.5 years of parenthood, with...minimal stress. And here I am- stressed.

I was sitting in my office this morning, wondering why I felt so crappy, when it hit me: I'm stressed! I had been filling out my to-do list for this week & all of October:

input grades for the papers I finished correcting last night
correct more papers (and new ones coming in soon)
plan classes
go to classes
prepare 1,000,000 documents for our immigrant visa appt. in Seoul later this month
call the embassy because the information on their website is contradictory and I can't understand
prepare the kids' Halloween costumes (I'd love to sew them this year but first I have to figure out what to make. They still don't seem to grasp the costume concept so it's mostly up to me)
prepare activities because I volunteered our house as the Halloween party site (pre-stress)
prepare clothes for the October flea market which we promised to do...the same weekend that we'll be going to the Embassy in Seoul and hosting the Halloween party.
Sew some pajamas for the kids because their cool/cold weather ones are looking mighty snug & I have some fabric I want to make them out of
take the toys back to the toy library
take and post photos of all the junk I want to sell/get rid of on the second-hand website because the clutter is killing me
pick the kids up from school
cook dinner
change diapers
laundry
wake up in the middle of the night because suddenly Oscar has to pee every.single.night and inexplicably can't do it by himself like he does in the daytime.
all the other "mom stuff"

and in my free time - train for the 5K coming up next weekend. But you know what? No where on my list was "whine in my blog" but, as you see, that's what I'm doing. And I do feel a little better, thank you for listening. But now it's time to ring the Embassy...and that's never a good thing. I guess I should be more like my young-self and like Irene: just let it all hang out! Today's photos are from Irene's rock concert last night. She rocked out for a good 30 minutes until bedtime. Seriously, she has some true grit and a nice set of pipes on her. I'm sure the neighbors loved it.

On my toes

2011-09-27T13:52:00.003+09:30

Just a few photos of today's trip to the neighborhood playground.

Johan climbing. Climbing. Always climbing. I should show you a photo of the humongous blue lump on my knee from when I had to dive up the playground structure because, in the 2 seconds it took me to say hello to another woman, Johan had climbed up and was literally teetering (arms flailing and all) on the edge of a 5-foot drop off. I snagged him just in time and then spent the rest of our playground visit trying (and failing) to get him to play in the sandbox. I wondered why they don't have playground structures more suitable for 1-year-olds so the parents don't have to stay glued to the kid's side. But then I noticed that the other mother there was just chillin' on the bench while her toddler was calmly and safely playing (on the ground) by herself. I guess it's just my toddler. He looks scared, but he was doing a warrior scream.

Doesn't get much better

2011-09-25T22:02:00.005+09:30

Today was my 33rd birthday. Aside from the realization that I'm inching ever closer to life in a nursing home, it was definitely one of the best birthdays I've ever had. I'm including yesterday in my birthday festivities because not only was yesterday's run great, but after naptime Young-Hoon took me to the local electronics shop and bought me an amazing present: a new Nikon d3100. I've been hemming and hawing about buying a new camera for almost a year now - ever since my old one started doing some funny (and frustrating) things, but I really hate spending money on myself. So be prepared to see a lot more photos (as if this blog were lacking photos) and hopefully they'll be better quality than before. I'm still re-learning the art of manual photography (which I took a class in in college) and learning how to do it on this fancy-shmancy camera, but I've sure been having fun already! But anyway, back to my birthday. The kids woke up at their usual time (6:30ish) but for some reason, stayed in their bedroom playing instead of charging out into the living room just outside our (open) door. I actually got to sneak into their room and hang out with them for a while after I woke up which was a very welcome rarity. After a quick breakfast, we headed off to Mudeung Mt. for a nice birthday hike. We had so much fun there on Irene & Oscar's birthday that I decided that that was how I wanted to celebrate my birthday, too. There were a LOT of people there on this beautiful fall Sunday morning, but we managed to enjoy some peace nonetheless. Oscar had a few scrapes though. As we were "hiking" we came across some paramedics giving CPR & Heimlich tutorials on the side of the road for anyone interested. I've wanted to take a class ever since we brought the kids home but haven't had the opportunity. They explained it simply enough that I could understand and even let me practice on the dummy (without the breathing part of course...ew) An awesome (if not random) "birthday gift" for me! We stopped for a mid-morning snack at a tea house on the mountain. We had a green tea latte, & some tea-boiled eggs. Delicious. While we were there I pulled out my old camera for the kids to play around with a little bit. Irene especially loves to take photos (and pretend to take photos) so she was thrilled to pieces. She got quite a few nice ones, too! Below: "Kattchi!Kattchi!" - we both have cameras!

And back down the mountain for a lunch of Bolibab (rice & barley mixed with tons of delicious veggies...mmmm) and home for an afternoon nap. Dinner of sashimi & an apple crisp for dessert. The kids sang "Happy Birthday" to me while I blew out the "33" candles. Actually, I wouldn't have put candles on at all but I thought it was a wonderful coincidence that I was turning 33 in the same year that my twins turned 3...I had the candles so I figured I may as well use them! All in all, a birthday for the books...can't wait till next year!!!

Breakdown in Communication

2011-09-24T23:34:00.003+09:30

Just a real quick conversation I overheard today:

Young-Hoon: Let's watch the news!

Oscar: Juice?

Young-hoon: No, NEWS!

Oscar: Juice!

Young-Hoon: Neeewwws

Oscar: Juuuiiiice

Young-Hoon: No, NEWS! NEW. NEW. NEWS!

Oscar: New juice!? Yippeee!

Runnin' Down a Dream

2011-09-24T22:47:00.004+09:30

Last spring I started running again. This was a big deal because, while I've always considered myself an active, "sporty" person, since becoming a mother I've been 99% sedentary. This bothered me. A lot. But after returning from Japan, I'd decided that enough was enough, and I needed to reclaim my life. I'd become a shell of myself for too long (this includes pre-kid days as well) and this was not acceptable for me or the kids. So I joined a running club. At my first race, Irene seemed very eager to join me, but of course, I wasn't going to bring my then-2-year-old on a 5K run with me. I usually run after the kids go to bed so they rarely get to see me doing it, but occasionally we'd take a weekend trip to the university track where the kids play and Young-Hoon and I take turns running. Irene would run a lap around the track with me. I was impressed.

During summer, I pretty much stopped running - the heat being my main scapegoat, but really I was just too lazy. But since starting school again at the beginning of September, I've taken it up again. To motivate myself, I've even signed up for a 5K in Oct. and a 10 in Nov. and this morning there was a "Mock 10K" put on by my running group. I was sure I wouldn't be able to make the full 10K, and in any other situation, I would have used that as an excuse not to attend...but I really wanted to give Irene the chance to run with me and run in a "real" race because there was just something about her pleas (Oscar also asks to run with me sometimes...but it doesn't seem as...authentic -more like he wants to do it because Irene got to do it) We got to the race and Young-Hoon took Oscar and Johan up ahead a ways while Irene started the race with the rest of the pack. She was clearly excited! We were off....she was clearly distressed. "Kattchi!!! Kattchi!!!" she screamed (Together! Together!) She was very upset that the rest of the pack (10 or so people) had run out ahead of us. I tried to motivate her by telling her that, if we ran fast enough, we could catch them! No dice. She was very upset. Finally, I threw her on my back and started out (myself being very upset at this point...I mean...I didn't know how far up Young-Hoon had gone and running with a 3-year-old on your back is not exactly fun) But after just a few meters I gave up on that idea. And to my surprise, she was a new little girl - ready to run. She ran the rest of the way until we got to Young-Hoon & the boys (about .75K (.5Miles)!) and was smiling at the end! I couldn't have been more proud. Now I'm thinking about how I can cultivate this love for running. I don't want to push her, but at the same time, I don't want to discourage her (I've got those races coming that she can't join in...and I still only run when they're not around...so when can I encourage her?) I'll have to work on it. In the meantime, I'm hobbling around (I ended up running the entire 10K, much to my surprise) and she doesn't seem any worse for wear!

Scattered

2011-09-20T14:13:00.003+09:30

I used to be a pretty together girl. I prided myself on never missing deadlines, on rarely being late for events, and on never forgetting a friend's birthday. I used to reply to emails as soon as I read them. Now...now I feel like I'm falling apart. I now have emails sitting in my inbox for over a week. I mentally reply to them over and over again but can never manage to remember to actually type it out when I'm sitting at the computer. And worse yet, there are the emails that I actually think I did reply to but I never did. (this happened twice in the last week-with negative results). I can be talking to a friend or my class and completely forget what I was talking about and what my point was (as embarrassing as it is in front of friends, it's 10X worse in front of my class...especially when it happens more than once in one class period.) The other day I was asking students questions and, as is my habit, I repeat their answers in correct English. Only this time when they gave the answer, I read a completely irrelevant line out of our text book (I don't remember what it was but it was something along the lines of "Underline the correct answer.") And I was paying attention -I swear I was. I heard what they said. I mentally confirmed that it was correct. I meant to repeat it...but for some reason my brain decided to read something that my eyes settled on for a split second. And the scariest episode came last night. This is the one that's got me rattled. Last night I decided to run after the kids went to bed. So I changed my clothes, got my sneakers on, and headed out the door. Only when I stepped outside, I realized that it was raining. The pavement outside was wet and I could feel the raindrops. (Relieved) I started back inside. Except...the nagging voice in my head kept saying, "you USED to run in the pouring rain and LIKE it! What's a few raindrops?" So I turned around and started out in the rain only to have a different inner voice say "Yes, but you were young then...and it's cold. I think you'd better just run tomorrow" Voice #2 won out and I headed back to our apartment. When I got to the apartment, I explained to Young-Hoon that it was raining, but as I was talking I glanced out the window. No rain. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the pavement on this side of the building was completely dry. After some hesitation, I decided that it must not be raining as hard as I though so I'd better just suck it up and run. And when I stepped out of the very same door I had been deliberating at minutes earlier, do you know what I found? Perfectly dry pavement. Not a drop of rain. Seriously. I know some of this comes with old age and some with having 3 little kids to focus on, but that last one...it's got me thinking about scenes from the Shining or some of those other movies where people see things that aren't there and eventually end up doing terrible things. So please, before I get to that point, tell me that I'm not crazy and this is all just a part of getting older! (or tell me that I need to seek professional help...at this point I won't argue!)

Chuseok

2011-09-13T21:12:00.004+09:30

It's that time of year again - Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving). On Saturday Young-Hoon's sister and her family came to visit for a night. Irene and Oscar had a blast playing with cousin Min-Hyuk and it was good seeing them again. After they left on Sunday, we decided to take a little hike at Mudeung Mt. Really, it was less about hiking and more about tasty food that can be found there. The kids made a new friend and then we came home for a jumping contest. On Monday, the actual holiday, we made apple turnovers. Really, on Korean Thanksgiving it's a tradition to make sonpyeon. Now, generally I love Korean dduk, (seriously, I could eat dozens in one sitting) but for some reason I just don't like sonpyeon - to me it just tastes stale and old. Since the kids made it at daycare earlier this week, I didn't feel too bad about altering the Chuseok tradition a little bit so instead of sonpyeon we made apple turnovers. I reasoned that it's kind of the same thing, in the sense that we're sealing something inside an outer shell and cooking it...plus we have a balcony full of apples that need to be eaten. As usual, the kids loved it and this was our best batch yet. On Tuesday (also a holiday) we met some new friends and their boys at the local kids' cafe to play. In the beginning it was almost empty but by the time we left it was chaos. Finally, we finished our holiday with a little exercise - we met up with the Gwangju Running Club and had a little jog. I've been pretty lazy since my last race in May but, since starting work 2 weeks ago I've been taking advantage of the little free time after classes but before picking the kids up and I've been trying to get back into it. I really want to participate in a few races coming up in October but I've go a lot of work to do. It was good to be out and I even got to do a mini-run with Irene who always likes running with me. And finally, a photo of Irene taken by Oscar which I really like. No cropping, just a little color tweak.

Here we go again!

2011-09-07T21:03:00.003+09:30

I've been keeping pretty busy these days. Last week I started back to work - I am no longer a SAHM (Stay At Home Mom for those who are not hip to the new terminology). I can't complain though, I was fortunate enough to reclaim my old job at the university so I'm back to my cushy schedule of 3 work days/week and almost 6 months of paid vacation time. (so I guess I'm still a part-time SAHM) Of course, once we get our grant for the new sewing business I'll be a WAHM (Work At Home Mom) and a WAOM (Work At Office Mom)...whew! I'll be POOPED! Last weekend we met some of our friends at the farm. About 2 weeks ago we had planted our radish seed and this weekend we planted our Korean cabbage seedlings. We were happy to see that our radish seeds have already produced sprouts! I'm researching various kimchi recipes in the hopes of being frugal with our veggies since I feel guilty about the number of cucumbers and eggplants that we wasted over the summer. It's a good feeling to see the garden back to the simple state though. Near the end of eggplant/cucumber/sesame leaf season I was feeling overwhelmed by the overgrowth. Young-Hoon tended the grill while the kids played on the swings. We even caught a little wasp fight. The kids were mesmerized.

Weekend in Review

2011-08-30T13:37:00.002+09:30

We're just wrapping up another great weekend here - this time a long one. On Saturday we spent the morning at the farm pulling the remaining plants from our garden and re-tilling the soil. Finally, we planted some Korean radish seeds. We don't eat that much radish but our options for this season appear to be limited so I guess we'll have a lot to give away!

And in the evening we participated once again in the Kunsthalle night flea market (by the way, if you look at the photos under Flea Market vol. 8 you can see part of our group in photo #3...Young-Hoon appears to be torturing Johan for some reason. And my booties are pictured in #4) This time the flea market was held outdoors and it was enjoyable. I was a little worried in the beginning but ended up doing about the same as last time. Johan climbing all by himself to the top of the playground equipment. And today he conquered the big-kid equipment by our house. I'm not so worried about him climbing as the fact that he doesn't seem to realize that he can't just walk off the edge of things once he gets to the top! Here comes another onslaught of grey hairs! On Sunday we recovered from Saturday and then on Monday we drove up to Suwon to visit Young-Hoon's parents' tombs. It will be Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) in a couple of weeks and visiting the ancestor's tombs and spending time with family is what you do. In an effort to miss the extreme traffic jams on the actual holiday weekend, we opted to go now and spend the holiday weekend camping somewhere. All the driving made for a long day but I think our kids (well, 2 of the 3) are the best car travelers ever. We made a few stops for fun along the way of course.

Why?

2011-08-26T20:08:00.003+09:30

I always thought that TV shows and movies were exaggerating when they showed the little boy/girl asking their mother/father "Why?" about everything. I thought it was just a tired old bit for an easy laugh. Until...

About two days ago I noticed it. Just two days and I've already resorted to the old stand-by "Because I said so, that's why!" I just don't have the patience for this job! Here's a quick sample of our dinner tonight:

(Irene squatting and bouncing on her chair)

Me: Irene, sit down in your chair like a big girl.

Irene: Why?

Me: Because that's how we sit at the dinner table.

Irene: Why?

Me: So we don't fall down or spill the food everywhere.

Irene: Why?

Me: cause that'd be bad.

Irene: Why?

Me: *tired sigh* Oscar, do you want more milk?

(about 3 minutes later)

Irene: More noodles, please!

Me: You still have some in your bowl. Finish those and you can have a little more. There aren't many noodles left.

Irene: Why?

Me: Because we ate the rest.

Irene: Why?

Me: Because we were hungry.

Irene: Why?

Me: I don't know. *insert defeated sigh*

(Irene's finished eating and has left the table, only to return and torment Oscar who is still eating his nectarine)

Me: Irene, leave Oscar alone.

Irene: Why?

Me: Because he's trying to finish his dinner. Go over to the living room and play.

Irene: Why?

Me: Because I said so!!!!

Little Schmoozers

2011-08-24T14:43:00.006+09:30

In my last post, I mentioned that Irene and Oscar have become quite outgoing and independent these days and that I am happy for it. I thought I'd take a minute to expand on that thought. From my earliest memories until sometime in college, I was painfully shy. I think that term, "painfully shy," is not fully understood by people who are outgoing or even a just a little shy. It is painful - physically painful. I remember one incident, perhaps I was 7 or 8, my family was at a festival (I feel like it may have been the Cherry Festival in MI) and my dad, as always, had told me to just let him know if there was something we wanted to eat. When I told him I'd like a bratwurst, he lowered the boom - he'd give me the money but I had to order and pay by myself. I felt sick to my stomach. I think I even tried to backpedal, saying that I changed my mind and didn't really feel like a brat after all. But, there was no escaping it. I remember approaching the booth (with my dad right behind me) and, looking at my shoes, mumbling "bratwurst please" while sliding the $ across the table. I got my brat, and I didn't die. Maybe that was a sort of breakthrough because I don't recall any other such terrifying shop encounters yet I did a fair bit of shopping in my youth. So thanks dad!

I have spent a large part of my life purposely doing things out of my comfort zone and trying to pretend not to be one step away from soiling myself, in an effort to break the shyness and it has helped. I gained some confidence in college from my studying abroad and my time with the Hash House Harriers (as much as my mother hates that I was in such a group, I never felt as confident and outgoing as I did during and directly following my hasher days*) Anyway, my point to all of this is that, from the time that Irene and Oscar started walking, and therefore socializing, I've been praying that they are spared the curse of being shy. Irene has always seemed pretty outgoing, but it wasn't until somewhere around Oscar's 2.5 mark that he would even let me leave his side at the playground. Now I often have trouble keeping him in sight. And it's not just the fact that they are willing to wander and explore on their own, together or separately, but they (especially Oscar) start conversations with random people on the street. They seem to feel comfortable goofing around with our friends and are usually the kids who help bring other kids out of their shells. We've even had to start giving them lessons on who it's ok to kiss on the lips (umma, appa = ok. Random restaurant lady = not so good) Since I can appreciate what a blessing they've been given in not being born shy, I'm working hard on not squelching it with my anti-social ways. I try a little harder to be talkative to the stranger on the street who asks me, for the 1,000,000th time that day "Korea good?!" and, you know what? I give them the money and have them pay whenever possible...and it makes me smile to see them fight over who gets to do it. * I just want to be clear for those of you who do not click links and are not familiar with the Hashers...it has nothing to do with illegal substances. It's generally defined as "A Drinking Group with a Running Problem."

At Camp

2011-08-20T20:57:00.006+09:30

I mentioned a few posts ago about our plan to go camping as a family for the first time. Yesterday we finally got our chance when we met 2 families for a night of camping. They are some of Young-Hoon's closest friends and they both happen to have 3-year-old daughters for Irene & Oscar to play with so it was nice. Not only was it my first time camping as a mom, but it was my first time camping in Korea. I have to say, it was wonderful! First, a little about camping in Korea. I admit it, I had prepared myself for disappointment, fully expecting to find paved camping lots, disgusting bathrooms, and wall-to-wall people. I was so pleasantly surprised! True, there were quite a few people but it was surprisingly quiet. Nature-wise, the campground seemed similar to what one might find at a campground in the States. The big difference was that this campground was only for tent use - no pop-up campers or RVs allowed. And as a result, the camp sites were considerably smaller than those in the US. Cars must be parked in a separate parking lot (unless loading/unloading) and each lot is marked off by 4 logs in a square. You can see below how small each lot is and how close together they are. The yellow tent is ours, the guy next to it is Young-Hoon's friend & the green one in the foreground is our other friends' tent so being close together wasn't really an issue this time. Our tent (a 4-5 person) barely fit in the lot but I suppose that's not usually an issue as most people don't need such a big tent (5-person families in Korea are pretty rare). Most of the tents there were big-name brands and, as far as I can tell from our tent-hunting over the summer, pretty pricey. I'd say that the average cost of the campers' tents was probably about $800-1000. Ours was $200 from the Meijer-like store down the street. While I was a little jealous of their nice awnings considering that it rained all night/morning, I think our cheap-o tent did just fine. Another notable difference between American camping and Korean camping is that there are no fire pits or picnic tables so everyone brings their own grill & portable table & chairs. This campground also had a really cool pool which was formed by a river running through it. There were waterfalls and shallow places to wade along with 2 different pools between man-made falls. Although the weather wasn't as warm as it has been recently, I was super-excited to get our suits on and hit the water. They were excited too but, because the water flows directly from the top of a mountain, it was pretty chilly. Still, we had a great time playing with the kids and they didn't want to leave...but after just 15-20 minutes Irene's mouth actually started to turn blue. We managed to get her to leave with promises of more swimming the next day - which were broken when the temperature plummeted unseasonably low and, as we were already shivering with no long pants/sweatshirts the last thing I wanted to do was hop into a pool of ice water. But, we did get some wading in before we left, after it warmed up ever-so-slightly. Aside from swimming, we pretty much just hung out, had a BBQ, & the kids played. I was so happy to see Irene and Oscar taking the opportunity to do some exploring on their own. I'm realizing more and more how independent and outgoing they have become and, while it's no thanks to me I'm sure, it makes me proud.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I grew up camping with my family and I've always considered myself a "camper". Maybe not a rugged sleep-under-the-stars kind of camper but a camper nonetheless. As I sat around the BBQ last night (after the kids went to bed so I didn't have to chase Johan around and stop him from walking off of cliffs or eating pine cones) I felt an unexpected rush of emotion. I imagined what our camping experiences will be like as the kids grow and realized that so many of them mirror the experiences I had growing up. I even imagined making the same towel moo-moo/bathrobe for Irene that my mom made for me (which I loathed yet was forced to wear year in and year out) so that I don't have to fiddle with putting on her clothes in a tiny, wet shower stall - cause now I can see just how practical it really is. And I imagine us roasting marshmallows and making "cherry pies" in the camp fire (or waiting for the campfire talks to finish so we can catch the last embers of theirs). I actually made Smores for everyone last night and they seemed to go over well. I'm excited because next year we'll get to do more camping here in Korea but we'll also hopefully get to squeeze in one trip after our move to America...and every summer after that. Oh, and mom, because I remember well the very first thing you checked out every time we stopped at a campground and I know you're wondering - the bathrooms at this campground were among the cleanest I've ever seen. Oscar and his best girlfriend Hyun-Ji (although, just tonight we were watching The Sound of Music and when the wedding scene came on I said "Oh, she's getting married. You know, appa and umma got married just like that (well sort of)" and Oscar said, very matter-of-factly "Yes, umma, appa married but Oscar no married. Married is SCARY!" Not sure what that's all about...)

Cycling

2011-08-20T20:23:00.003+09:30

A little over two years ago I wrote about taking Irene and Oscar to a nearby river where there are quadra-cycles for rent. After a brief spurt of visits following that post, it's been quite some time since we've been back - mainly because fall/winter came and by the time the weather was nice again I was ready to burst with Johan. While thinking of things to do last weekend, Young-Hoon finally remembered this place so we headed out there. It was just as much fun for everyone as I remembered. This time I think Irene and Oscar appreciated it even more than before and they had a good time helping Johan get into it as well. Although he is exactly the same age they were when we first visited, I was soooo much more on edge with him sitting up front. While I remember them sitting still and holding on, he bounced around, wiggled, squirmed in his seat, and generally gave me a heart attack every few minutes. But, we'll probably be back before the weather turns cold. It's not too far away, it's got some nice nature, and it's a cheap thrill. As we walked along, I gave Irene and Oscar each a turn taking photos with my camera. Below are each of their best photos. I didn't do any cropping (just tweaked the contrast ever-so-slightly in Irene's) so the photo is their original. The first one below of Young-Hoon and Johan walking together is by Irene. I think that's a pretty darn good photo for a 3-year-old! And this is Oscar's. Also a good shot but unfortunately a little blurry. Still, I think they both have potential! I think I'll hand over the camera more often!

Rainy Day

2011-08-13T14:02:00.002+09:30

Another rainy day here in Gwangju. We've been having downpours almost every day for the last 2 months. Nothing compared to Seoul, thank goodness, but still no fun. Since Young-Hoon was out of town yesterday and today, it was up to me to keep the kids occupied. While my first instinct was to take them to the local kids' cafe, I resisted the urge in an effort to save money. Instead, we mixed up a batch of peanut butter playdough and had a blast. Since we've done this several times now, they are well aware that it's edible...and delicious. Oscar's method of playing was to have the bus cookie cutter forge a path through his pile of dough and then eat it. Johan had no use for cookie cutters. He'd use his hands to pull the dough into a mountain and then get down to business eating it. I guess he feels that using your hands to eat is for squares. Note the slimy puddle next to the peanut butter. ew. A satisfied guy (is it just me or does this kid have a HUGE mouth?!)

On Your Mark...

2011-08-12T10:50:00.003+09:30

Lately, whenever we go downstairs to the playground, Oscar and Irene have to race down the road. They start off crouched on the ground, ready to spring into action - just like real racers and half the time I end up screaming at the top of my lungs for the to stop and wait for me before they run completely out of site. Johan has also picked up on this game but he's usually (always) left in the dust. Yesterday, however, he made a new friend and showed her the ways of the runner. Every time he gets into "the stance" I'm reminded of a photo I took many months ago. At the time I was thinking American football player but now I'm wondering if maybe he was just getting ready to make a run for it. And in other good (great. WONDERFUL) news, it looks like we're down to just 1 in diapers. Irene & Oscar have been pretty much diaper-free since 2.5 but we've always had them wear a fleece training pant for naptime and a disposable pull-up for bedtime. While Irene's been dry off and on for a month or so now, Oscar had shown no inclination of staying dry...until 3 nights ago when he did...and has ever since. So last night Irene wore her big-girl pants (aka underwear) to bed and Oscar wore a fleece pull up (holds 1 pee long enough for the kid to get up and change). Both were dry today! Very exciting!!

The Countryside

2011-08-08T13:16:00.004+09:30

We've been talking about going camping all summer. Every summer. But we never really do it. We both grew up camping and it's something that we enjoy, but as a team we don't have the best track record. There was the time in Japan when we arrived at our campground after a day of travel/hiking only to discover that we had the poles and sleeping bags...but no tent. And the time when the snake slithered under the tent with me in it - not a big deal really, but it nearly gave me a heart attack when Young-Hoon (who was outside the tent) started yelling for me to "GET OUT! GET OUT NOW!" (plus, there were spider carcasses the size of my hand littering the beach where we pitched our tent so that kind of freaked me out a bit). But despite our history, it's something that we both feel is important to do with the kids and, now that Irene and Oscar are 3 years old I feel like I've already wasted so much time. Sounds ridiculous, I know - but I had already been on a cross-country (USA) camping trip by the time I was 2 so I'm feeling like I have somehow failed my children!

So, we bought a tent (actually we bought two because when we brought the first one home and tried to set it up in our living room to "practice camping" with the kids we discovered that we had a tent but no poles...funny considering our previous camping snafu). On Friday we were invited to spend the day & night with a friend of Young-Hoon's who lives in the country side about 1 hour away. Instead of staying in their house, we were excited to give the tent a try. In the end, only Young-Hoon slept in the tent (for a number of reasons which I won't get into) but he said it worked quite well and we're planning a real camping trip for sometime this week! Very exciting! While in the countryside we had some fun. The kids got to catch bugs and frogs. Poor frog doesn't stand a chance Examining a dragonfly And the grandmother of the house enjoyed showing us their beetles. In fact, the grandmother seemed to enjoy them more than the kids and she kept taking them out of their cage and waving them around. She thought it would be funny to put it on Johan's hand...and it was until he started screaming and trying to take his hand away...but she wouldn't let him. We went from "haha! This'll make a funny picture" to "Ok. I think he's had enough" and then "um...seriously, joke's over" and finally "HEY! just let him go for @#$@ sake!" (but maybe not in those words). This was not the only "situation" we had with this pushy grandma during our short stay. But that's all I'll say about that. And finally, on Saturday morning we all went to the local "beach" and dug for shellfish. It was a lot of fun (though not the beach with water that I had foolishly expected, once again. I'm beginning to think that there are no swimming beaches on the entire peninsula of Korea!) Irene found herself a little crab friend and a lot of pretty shells. They were both covered in mud from head to toe by the time we were done - what a wonderful day!

Tiger Mom

2011-08-04T21:03:00.002+09:30

A few months ago, the internet (for moms) exploded in a debate centered around a recent book published by a Chinese-American mother, Amy Chua, called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. In it, she addressed the differences between the "Chinese" way of raising children vs. the "American" way. At the time, I was a bit disgusted by some of her actions/viewpoints...but today everything changed. Today I took the kids to the local "toy library" where we are allowed to check out toys for a small fee. We found out about this after arriving back in Korea in February but have only been there handful of times, mainly because I think they have quite enough toys already. But today I really needed to get out of the house and it was too hot to really do much walking, so the toy library (by taxi) it was! After playing there for an hour or so, the kids each picked out a toy to take home. I was thrilled when Oscar picked a big Korean-style drum and Irene picked a violin (but to be fair, their choices were limited as I only showed them items without small pieces...which would most certainly be lost forever, resulting in us buying a new toy for the library).

And so it begins. I've said it before: I'd be thrilled if any of the kids turns out to be musical. (and if it's a violin, cello, guitar, or drum - all the better!) So you can imagine my pleasure when we got home and I unwrapped the violin for Irene, she took it, looked at it, put her chin to it and started to "play"! I was floored. We'd had a guitar before (long ago demolished) so I'd assumed that she'd try to play it like that. Then I thought, "well, they must have one at their daycare." but when I asked them, they said "no"...and Oscar definitely didn't have the same awareness. You can't tell from the photo above...but trust me - there are no natural violin instincts there. BUT he did rock at the drum! As Irene played her violin songs (they're recorded songs on the violin...as she moves the bow over the rubber piece where the strings should be, it plays the song), he played along with the drum to the beat. I was in heaven. And I've already started to devise a practice schedule for them. The way I figure it, because they wake up at 6:30am, they've got a good 1 hour before they have to eat breakfast and get ready to go to day care. Then, when they arrive home, they've got another hour or so before dinner, and I'm sure we can squeeze in another 30 minutes of practice before their 8pm bedtime (of course, if they don't get the day's song right, they will practice through dinner...so that would be about 3 hours of practice at night!). By the time they enter kindergarten they'll be ready to join the symphony! P.S. In case you were worried, I'm not really a "Tiger Mom" - couldn't be if I tried. I don't care what they become as long as they enjoy what they're doing! Yeah, I love the violin, cello, guitar & drums. Yeah, I'd be happy if one of them played it...but I'd be just as happy if one of them could do my taxes (accountants seem to run in my family). Plus, I think it would be pretty hypocritical if I expected too much from them (says the girl who has two fairly useless college degrees & still doesn't know what she wants to be when she grows up!)

Art

2011-08-02T20:57:00.002+09:30

This week the kids are on vacation from their daycare. I had tried to plan some fun activities -more than just our daily walks & trips to the playground, but I seem to have caught a terrible cold and it's been a struggle to function. So today we spent the whole morning in the house, me crabbing at them for everything under the sun - poor kids. In an effort to get some time to reclaim my sanity, I let them swim in the pool again. Seems Johan just doesn't like the pool, but he does enjoy being naked! Fortunately, I was feeling a little better after a nap with the kids, so when Young-Hoon came home a little early and suggested we check out the new art exhibit at the culture center across the street from our apartment complex, I was game. The exhibit was called "Trick Art." I couldn't really understand what that meant, and my first impression upon entering was not too good. It wasn't until we'd been there a few minutes and Young-Hoon wanted to take a photo of Irene and me next to a painting that I figured out the "trick." A shock to say the least! Oscar was terrified of this guy. Irene wanted her photo taken holding his hand and Oscar carried on so much - he seemed genuinely afraid for her safety. It took a while for him to get into the paintings and enjoy himself. At one point the kids ran ahead (one good thing about an art exhibit that you're supposed to touch: you can let the kids roam free) When I caught up to Oscar he had been writing on a chalk board. I think he takes after Young-Hoon... ...which makes me wonder who Irene takes after. This is how we found her: For the past couple weeks, both Irene and Oscar have started getting into dinosaurs. A popular book in our house is Dr. Seuss' Oh say can you say Di-no-saur. So they both really enjoyed the group of dino paintings. Oscar even knew one of the dinosaurs by name: Triceratops. Ok..."ceratops" because no matter how many times I try to get him to say the "tri" part he won't. I say, "try to say it! Tri-cer-a-tops" and he says "ceratops!" It's like a bad Who's on First adaptation.

Flea Market: 1st Attempt

2011-07-31T14:18:00.008+09:30

As I mentioned in my last post, yesterday (Saturday) was the big flea market that I've been working so hard towards, but I don't think I mentioned that it was a night flea market and didn't even begin until 6pm. This means that I had almost the whole day to fluctuate between super-excited and nauseously nervous. There were last minute preparations to be made as well as regular errands such as a run to the farm and just trying to keep the kids from killing themselves or each other. But, around 4:30 we had the trunk packed up with my goods and we were on our way to set up! Young-Hoon kept Johan and Oscar occupied while Irene helped me set up. In fact, she was so into the whole flea market atmosphere that she very happily stuck close to my side the whole time she was there (the constant flow of juice, snacks, nachos, etc. that people gave her could have had something to do with it as well). It made me really happy to see how much she enjoyed it, and I'm now having daydreams of the two of us heading out to flea markets and doing these kinds of things together as she grows up. Not only would it be an awesome way for her to learn hands-on about work & money, but maybe in the not-too-distant future she can add her own contributions, be it sewing or art or whatever her "thing" is. But, I realize that I'm making too much of this- next month she'll probably be begging to get out of there! Things started out with a bang as one of the coordinators of the market stopped by and claimed one of my bibs 15 minutes before the market even opened. We were interviewed for a local news station. And I heard from several sources that we were the talk of the flea market! In the end, my partner ended up selling all 4 of her items and I did better than I'd hoped for with mine. I even made up the cost of all the material I bought for the sale which is no small thing. And now we know what modifications should be made for the next one: a better display of goods, a new sign (I don't like the clumsy wording on our sign - the homeMADE/custom-MADE thing bothers me), and most importantly, I know what does and doesn't sell/get attention. I'll be spending the next month sewing with a renewed vigor! Above you can see me, my partner's niece, and my partner. This was nearing the end of the night and we were high on success. If you want to read more about the fashion aspect of the sale - what was popular and what wasn't- you can check out my sewing blog here. And if you want to read more about the Gwangju monthly night flea market, you can see it here. Last night's was "Vol. 8" and I'm not sure when they'll get a review up, but you can check out "Vol. 7" and if you look at picture #3 you'll see our little family as we visited last month on a reconnaissance mission!

Mickey-D's & Mickey Mouse

2011-07-29T21:55:00.005+09:30

Although it's been a while since I mentioned our big moving plans, I can assure that it's never far from my mind. Almost every day I think "after we move..." fill in the blank: we can put the kiddy pool in the yard instead of in the house. we can have a full-sized oven. we can buy the kids bicycles. we can...and the list goes on. (although, I'm really coming to appreciate all the Korea has done for us/given us but that's a topic for another post). Anyway, one of the things I often find myself thinking about - not worrying exactly but feeling slightly uneasy - is the culture shock that the kids will encounter. By then they will be 4.5 and 2 and, at least for Irene and Oscar, their "world view" will be somewhat established I would think. But as I read my friends' blogs and social networking site pages, I am constantly reminded of how "wierd" my kids will be by American standards. They don't know what McDonalds is - but they often ask to eat squid. They've no idea about Coke but will happily sip on Young-Hoon's vinegar water. On the playground, instead of making mud pies they make sand rice. They have no clue who Mickey Mouse or any other Disney character is. No clue. Irene hasn't entered her "Princess Phase" and, as far as i know, has no idea what a "princess" is, mainly because I have never shown her one (and for that, I'm not sorry!) and she doesn't seem to "gel" with the other girls in her daycare group so she doesn't learn anything princessy there (there are only 5 other kids in their class and neither Irene nor Oscar can remember the names of the 2 girls after 5 MONTHS. again, a topic for another post). And there are so many more potential teasing hazards for these kids! Their looks (depending on whether or not our location has many Asian citizens), their accents/language barrier (as of now, some things they only seem to know the Korean word for and, in general, I can really see the wheels turning when they are thinking about how to "translate" what they want to say into English for me. Obviously, this should change quickly after our arrival, however.) And there are sooo many other things that would make them stand out...and not in ways that a kid can always appreciate. So am I being irrational? Should I give them a crash course in American culture - McDonalds, Disney...what else? i don't even know what's "in" among the pre-school crowd thesedays. *sigh*

On a different note, tomorrow is the big day: the flea market. I'm just putting the finishing touches on our display and hoping it's not a total loss. It may be the longest 4 hours of my life. Wish me luck!!

Staying Cool

2011-07-28T09:52:00.003+09:30

It's been pretty hot here lately and, despite the record-breaking rainfall up in Seoul, there's not much here at all. It is, however, fairly breezy which makes the heat not so bad. But in an effort to keep the heat tolerable, keep the kids occupied, and keep myself sane, I've been trying all the water activities I can think of. The other day we took some water balloons to the playground and had some fun. This was their first time to play with water balloons and I think it went alright except that no one actually got wet. I tried to teach them to play catch with them, but they preferred to throw them away from anyone and break them on the cement. I also discovered the key to getting 3 little kids to look in the same direction at the same time for a photo- throw a water balloon at them. It's not pretty but at least I can see all of their faces! And today I installed a small kiddie pool on our balcony. I've wanted to do this since the first summer the kids were with us but it just never worked out. This was the closest I ever got. So this morning I spent about 40 minutes pumping it up with my hand pump & got the kids in their swimming suits. Note Irene's suit - it's the hand-me-down size 2 one-piece I mentioned before. A pair of scissors and a couple strips of elastic go a long way! Although, surprisingly, she seems to have developed some modesty because she was not too happy with her belly showing and kept trying to pull the top down. They all enjoyed it...some more than others. The big kids ganged up on poor Johan and he soon decided it was time to get out. So nap time for him and Irene & Oscar kept swimming. That's when I discovered the best part about having a mini pool on our balcony: I can shut the door and enjoy my cup of coffee and internet time in peace all the while being a "good" observant parent!

What I like

2011-07-24T13:44:00.004+09:30

We just got back from our weekly trip to the farm. Things are growing well there for the most part. You can compare today's photo above with this photo from just over a month ago. Not too shabby! Sadly, though, we had to pull the last of our cherry tomato plants as well as our pepper plants. I also discovered that one of our sesame plants had died...not a huge tragedy since the bush is seriously out of control (see the lower left corner of the above photo). That's a small fraction of the plants. Now we only have 9,999,999 sesame leaves. I've said it before, what I really like about the farm is that it gives the kids exposure to nature and critters and creatures that they otherwise would not come into contact with in our city-dwelling life. I know they appreciate these experiences as Oscar and Irene often speak about the different animals (along with the goat they "helped" milk at Uncle Kevin's last winter - Oscar just mentioned him last night as we read our book about animal poo). In addition to the cow, chickens, rabbits, dog, and ducks that the owner is raising, there are lots of creepy crawlies in our plot of land. So far we've seen worms, larvae, ants, beetles, lady bugs, bees, & caterpillars but today was the most exciting day yet. There was this fancy guy. A grasshopper-ish bug maybe? Seriously, I guess I'd better start studying up on my bugs. And their favorite of the day: A cute little frog. They really enjoyed tormenting it until it hopped away. And there were dragon flies (my favorite) flying everywhere. At times there were clouds of them hovering above our field but, strangely, they sensed when I was about to take a photo and quickly scattered. And then there was this guy: In general, am not bothered by spiders (though I do remember that the bicycle rack at my old dorm in Fukuoka had some rather large, scary looking ones hanging from the rafters). This guy though... while the spider alone would not scare me I have never seen a web like that before. At first I thought maybe he had somehow gotten some artificial materials mixed up in his web (you know, like hermit crabs sometimes use bottle caps as their home?) but I saw about 2-3 more of them around the eggplant. It seems to me that if a spider can weave that heavy-duty web then he's probably got some other heavy-duty powers so I kept the kids at a distance. Nonetheless, we all had a great time again. I love this farm and cannot wait till we can have a garden outside our door! Someday...someday.

The Boy in the Mirror

2011-07-21T14:22:00.003+09:30

Today was a sad day for me. The weather has been horribly hot since the rain stopped. So hot, in fact, that I have broken down and we've ordered an air conditioner. To put this into perspective, we've survived 6 years here in Korea without an air conditioner and I never intended to buy one. In fact, I was strongly against buying one but the heat has just begun and already I've noticed its adverse effects on my mood and personality...which in turn adversely affect my relationship with the kids and, to a lesser extent, Young-Hoon. In fact, although today is Thursday (normally a non-school day for the kids) I sent Irene & Oscar to (the air-conditioned) school so they wouldn't have to suffer the heat or my crabbiness.

But back to my sad day. I kept Johan home from school today so he could catch up on his napping (they don't let him take his usual morning nap) and so I could take him to get a haircut. His first haircut! This is the thing that makes me so sad. I love Johan's hair. It's exactly the kind of hair I would have chosen for him from God's Big Book of Hairstyles for Babies if I had had the chance. From its color to its texture to the way it curls when the weather is right (or when it's really dirty). Unfortunately, between the heat and the fact that the weather has not been "curling weather" lately, we decided that it was time to cut his hair. So I took him in today and he did pretty well. He gave his pouty face for 60% of it before breaking down into crocodile tears. Too bad I forgot that I had my camera with me until it was too late or I would have loved a few pictures of it. It's just as well, the woman looked at me like I was nuts when I asked her to give me the first few locks she cut off so I could put them in a ziplock baggie for his baby book. She probably would have asked me to leave if I had whipped out a camera. But, above you can see the before photo and below is the after. He looks so much more grown up! And I think he knows he looks good as evidenced by the way he made out with himself in the elevator wall mirror on the way home. And finally, I couldn't resist this last photo from our "before" photo shoot. I mean, you all know I'm obsessed with my kids anyways so there's no point in censoring myself now, right?

Unjusa

2011-07-18T13:28:00.003+09:30

Another great day yesterday. Hot but great. We loaded up in the car and drove out to Unjusa Temple, a Buddhist temple about 40 minutes from our house. This used to be one of my favorite day trips around Gwangju because of the nature and the fact that there are usually very few visitors. Even so, this was the first time we'd been there with the kids and I was looking forward to it. They enjoyed it, but the heat kind of put a damper on everything (pun sort of intended). Above you can see shingles with writing. People can buy a shingle and write a special message on it and when the shingles of the temple buildings need replacing, theirs will be used. There were stacks and stacks (and stacks) of shingles with and without writing laying around. I don't know how often they need replacing but I'd say they're set for the next 200 years or more. The kids enjoyed looking in the main building at the colorful lanterns, the big gold Buddha, and his little Buddha friends. But Johan wasn't satisfied with looking from the outside. I don't know how many times Young-Hoon had to drag him away from that door. And there were lots of stone Buddha statues around. One of the things that makes this temple special is that the Buddhas are ugly. People say that it means this temple was established by the people rather than by the government and therefore better than other temples. And finally, on our way home we stopped at one of the local specialty restaurants (another reason why I used to love day trips out this way). We had some boiled pork slices with kimchi, pickled radish (the green circles) and thin tofu slices (the green & yellow squares). This is the only place I know where you can get tofu like that to wrap stuff in and it was all delicious!

Update

2011-07-16T13:53:00.004+09:30

I've been keeping myself busy lately by devoting every naptime and all after-bedtime hours (i.e. my free time) to preparing for the flea market two weeks from today. When I signed up for it I did it on a whim and I had planned on having 10-15 items prepared. But now that the stakes have been raised- it turns out that I was mistaken, there is more than 1 small business government grant and the one we are applying for is worth $8000, not $4000, EEK! - so I've been working really hard* on developing new skills and a bigger collection and, with two weeks to go, feel quite satisfied! If you want to read more about what exactly I'm preparing, I'll (eventually) post it on my (equally neglected) sewing blog. But this morning we took advantage of the fine weather - it wasn't raining for the first time in almost a month, and we went to the farm. Young-Hoon and Oscar went out there to harvest some last weekend but because of the rain I stayed home with Irene & Johan, so I hadn't been there for 2 weeks. It wasn't as shocking as last time but it was exciting! Unfortunately, our cherry tomato plants have become diseased and we have just 1 out of 6 remaining. Our Korean pepper plants have also gotten sick so that leaves us with a garden of eggplant, cucumbers, sesame leaves (about 1,000,000) and corn. CORN! When we planted our garden, I honestly scoffed when Young-Hoon wanted to plant corn. I don't know why, but I had it in my head that "ordinary people" couldn't grow corn - it was a specialty crop. We planted 3 plants and two of them are now producing ears of corn! I think that the day we pick and eat our corn will be the most exciting farming experience for me because I will feel, however irrationally, that I have somehow made the leap from "ordinary person" to "farmer person." Unfortunately, with the lack of rain comes the unbearable heat here in Korea. It was 9am and as Young-Hoon and I weeded and harvested our tiny plot, the kids had sweat dripping down their faces. Apparently going to the farm is not as enjoyable as it once was. They cheered up after I took them to the common area where there is a water faucet and we had a little fun in the mud & water. In the above photo, it seems as though Oscar is torturing Johan but really, he loved it. And he loved getting soaked at the faucet with Irene & Oscar. So much so that he really, really did not want to change his clothes to leave. I guess we'll have to start making our trips to the farm into day trips!

*I say "working really hard" but really I mean challenging myself to do my best...while watching internet TV...and enjoying it all!

Swimming 'n' stuff

2011-07-11T20:21:00.006+09:30

It seems as though I haven't blogged in ages although it's not even been a week since my last post. I feel like so much has gone on in the meantime. Here's the long and short of it:

Everyone is now healthy. Johan's "measles" cleared up and he's back to his old self...almost. I think the 1-year-old tantrums have begun - not fun. But other than that he's doing fine. He started going to daycare for a few hours in the morning with the kids on Mon., Wed. and Fri. so he can get used to it for when I start work in September. Also, there was an opening and if we didn't register him we'd lose the spot and possibly have to find somewhere else in Sept. So far I think he's doing alright and it seems that Irene and Oscar are taking him under their wing. This weekend we went up north to a pension to meet Young-Hoon's sister and brother and their families. I've been looking forward to this for a while now, not only because the kids really enjoy playing with their older cousins and being treated like a little prince & princess by their aunts, but also because the pension was on the ocean so finally I could take the kids swimming in the ocean! Things didn't work out as planned as far as the swimming went. A) it was pouring rain almost the whole time we were there; B) there was no ocean! Turns out it was a mud beach and the tide was out but the kids did enjoy squishing around for a while. But we did have a good time with the family and we even managed to squeeze in a quick trip to the pool which everyone enjoyed. Yes, that's Irene wearing the boy-shorts on the left. We had received a hand-me-down swimming suit earlier this summer and I didn't bother to check the label until the day before we left - size 2. I tried it on her and she looked pretty uncomfortable so we ran out to get another suit quick. For some reason or another, the (meijer-like) store only sold boy shorts. There were some girls' suits in the fancy boutiques there for $40 but I wasn't willing to pay that, cheapskate that I am. Too bad I didn't know sooner or I could have tried my hand at sewing a swimming suit! Next year...next year. Cousin Min-Hyuk

Speaking of sewing, I've been spending every free moment in preparation for the big flea market on the 30th. My collection of goods is growing and I'm getting more and more excited about it. And to top it off, Young-Hoon has come up with a plan. It seems that the government has a program to sponsor small businesses by giving a $4000 grant to those business proposals it feels have merit. Young-Hoon had it all worked out before he even brought it up to me - one of his close friends who happens to live in the building next to ours has a wife who also sews. So we're going to team up together and submit a proposal. If we fail, no biggie. If we get accepted, well, $4000 can buy a lot of awesome fabric, patterns, and nicer sewing machines. And to top it off, if we pass this first level we will be eligible for an even bigger grant ($30,000) next year! I'm not sure how our chances are. On the one hand, I know I've got a lot of improvement to go as far as skill and technique, but on the other, we do offer something unique (handmade, custom-order western style clothing without the "Gap" prices (because Gap here is at least double the price of Gap in America, if not more) and I would assume that is what the program is looking for. So we've got a lot of work to do before our proposal is due. First on the list: name our company! While Young-Hoon wants me to use Watermelon Dreams, it doesn't feel right to me since I have a partner and that name is kind of a left-over. Plus, I'm thinking it may be more beneficial to find a name that works in both Korean and English and ideally sounds a little Asian. That way when we move to America I can keep it going and specialize in "Asian fashion". So, I'm now open to suggestions - give me your best ideas! Whose ever name I choose will get a free custom-designed garment of their choice! Brain Freeeeeeze

Growing Up

2011-07-06T13:30:00.005+09:30

Every so often I catch a glimpse of one of the kids in a certain light or doing a new activity and I am shocked to see how much they've grown. I know, how cliche. But really, how did we go from this to this so darn fast? Now that they've all completed their basic milestones (e.g. crawling, walking, etc.) we've moved on to more obscure milestones. For example, just this week Irene and Oscar went and swung down onto the monkey bars by themselves when, until now they always asked for my help. They climb on the "big kid" playground by themselves and Johan does his best to follow right behind them. The way he climbs, I think he'll succeed by the end of summer...which means I'll have a full head of grey hair by Christmas. And I can see their thinking and creativity expanding as well. Yesterday while drawing with chalk they carefully drew pictures of each of our family members while in the past they would have drawn scribbles for a minute or two and been done with it. I'm eager to see what the next "milestone" will be...but not too eager. I'm quite content to keep them at this cuddly stage for a little while longer. And is it just me, or do these two look like twins? In general I don't often think they look too much alike but with Irene's new haircut and Oscar's lack of haircut, it's hard to tell who's who!

The First Harvest

2011-07-02T20:30:00.004+09:30

We took a drive out to Two Caterpillar's Farm this morning. We hadn't been out there for about two weeks now thanks to the kids' illnesses and the fact that it's monsoon season so there's been lots of rain. I was expecting to find our little field much like we'd left it but with many, many more weeds. Holy Moly, I was blown away. As soon as we entered the farm I felt more like I was in a jungle than a farm due to the humidity and the lush vegetation everywhere I looked. And when I got to our plot? well, I almost fainted! I mean, really - this is what the field looked like almost exactly 1 month ago. And this is what it looked like just two weeks ago. Being a novice farmer, I had no idea that plants grew so fast (they certainly never have on my balcony, that's for sure!) So, Today after picking some weeds, we harvested some of our veggies. We got a few Korean peppers, some green tomatoes (thanks to Irene), 5 eggplants, and about 100 sesame leaves (the front "bush" in the above photo). I don't think sesame leaves are common in western countries, but here in Korea they are used for pickling, wrapping sashimi & meat, and a million other things which I will have to study up on because we didn't even make a dent in our supply. Above you can see our first harvest. Note: I don't know much about eggplant but I do believe that Korean eggplant is shaped differently than western eggplant. Am I right? Showdown: Irene, a squirt bottle (our version of the water gun) and a chicken. I can assure you that no chickens were harmed in the making of this post. And there were many more insects out and about today as well. I saw bees for the first time and I finally got to take a picture of one of the Korean poisonous caterpillars. A few people asked me about it after I mentioned it in a previous post, so I thought I'd post a photo. This one isn't as colorful and attractive as most but you can see the hair-like poisonous spikes all over his body. I discovered him about 6 inches away from where Johan was playing on a bench. Afterwards, we did some wading a nearby stream. Well, Johan did some swimming but it was fun nonetheless.

P-U

2011-06-30T20:38:00.002+09:30

Just a quick video of Johan. About 3 days ago Johan learned to pinch his nose when someone said "P-U!" It was ridiculously cute, and I'd been meaning to take a video of it. Unfortunately, I think I missed my window of opportunity because this morning he modified it and has been doing the new version all day long. It's still pretty cute though so I can't complain.

Improvements

2011-06-29T20:13:00.007+09:30

There have been some improvements in our house since my last post. Oscar has recovered from his hand, foot, mouth disease and is as wild as ever. And Johan's spots are fading, his fever is gone and his mood is improving. This is great, but the best part is that he is still sleeping like he's sick. Until now he would take an hour nap in the morning and another hour - 1.5 hour nap in the afternoon. I was just beginning to think that he was getting ready to taper down to 1 nap per day but now he sleeps 2 hours in the morning and 2.5 in the afternoon! It's wonderful!! I get so much done during the day, especially when the older two are in school!

Upset that I caught him in a lie - Johan (who was across the playground) actually didn't throw sand at him just then!

Other than that, we've just been hanging out. It seems as thought we're in between typhoons right now and today was hot and humid. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain. again. At least rainy days aren't so bad now that we're back in Korea though. While in Japan, a rainy day spelt torture. So much so that I often preferred to slog through the puddles with all 3 kids in toe than spend the day indoors. But here in Korea we've got room to roam, tons of art supplies, an oven for baking, and digital TV - not so bad!

Speckled

2011-06-27T14:12:00.004+09:30

In my last post I mentioned the sickness and disease that's been troubling our household. Since then things have gotten better...on the one hand. Oscar's Hand, Foot & Mouth (HFM) disease seems to have cleared up and he's back to his talkative self again. On the flip side, however, after about 3 days of fevers, Johan's symptoms seem to be just beginning. As I mentioned before, I wasn't sure if his fever was the start of HFM, a regular cold, or related to his Measles, Mumps & Rubella vaccine he received on Thursday, i.e. the day his fever began. My bet was on the vaccine but the dr. (who we visited on Friday just to rule out HFM) said it wasn't related. And this morning he woke up with a face & body rash looking suspiciously like measles (along with a runny nose & that fever). But the Dr., who Young-Hoon took Johan to this morning, still says it's not vaccine related - but he doesn't know what it is. Right. You know, I don't know if he's trying to cover his tracks, put us at ease, or if he really believes what he's saying, but I would feel much more at ease if he'd just admit that it's possible that it could be vaccine related and that it's normal...or at least not too abnormal. At least the fever's pretty much gone now and he's acting more like himself. But I still can't get the MMR-Autism debate out of my mind.

A Pox

2011-06-24T20:49:00.005+09:30

A plague has descended upon our house. Not a "pox" exactly (although there are red and white spots involved) But hand, foot, & mouth disease . That's Oscar. I actually noticed a white spot on his tongue a few days ago but never really thought anything of it - it's not the first time they've gotten them. Then he stopped eating - that was strange. And to top it off, Johan's got a fever too. Although, we're not sure what caused the fever. Is he catching the disease too? Is it just a cold because he spent a few hours in daycare this week and picked up some germs? Or is it because he got his MMR shots yesterday and is now in the process of developing autism? Yeah - I'm a bit freaked. I keep asking him to "look at umma!" because I'm terrified that he'll stop making eye contact.

Anyway, because the kids were all home today & there's a typhoon a-brewing & Oscar's stopped eating due to a grotesque number of blisters in his throat (according to Young-Hoon who saw the Dr. stick a camera to the back of Oscar's throat), I decided to try making our own ice cream again in hopes of killing time and making him feel better. I had picked up some cream the last time we went grocery shopping so I used that instead of milk this time along with a nice air-lock metal container. They pushed it back and forth a few times then complained. So I ended up shacking and rolling and kicking it until I thought I'd pass out (all the while they complained - that's gratitude, huh?!). Still not frozen. So I just stuck it in the freezer as-is, and we ate some ice cream-like dessert after dinner. The boys loved it. Here's hoping for a plague-free Monday (because I could really use a few hours to myself while they all go to daycare!)

Fish Museum

2011-06-20T15:22:00.001+09:30

We went to our favorite fish museum over the weekend. This was the first time Johan was there and he loved it as much as the kids did when they were his age. The kids enjoyed getting soaked in the misty lagoon.

Introducing...

2011-06-20T15:02:00.004+09:30

I'd like to take a minute to introduce my new blog: Watermelon Dreams Design. I've been hearing from (extremely kind) friends and family for some time now that I should start my own home business with my sewing. I would love to. Really, I would. But at this point in time there are a few things standing in my way. Maybe they are small hurdles, but to me, right now, they seem like mountains. However, because the idea does intrigue me - mostly because I just want to know if I could sell something - I decided to take a small step in that direction. So, not only have I created this blog but over the course of the next month I'm hoping to whip up a few items and run my own booth at the local flea market at the end of July. I'll write more about that as the time approaches but for now, I'm taking baby steps in the right direction.

Bounty

2011-06-18T14:44:00.000+09:30

Just a few photos from our trip to the farm today. We were amazed at how much everything has grown since we visited just over a week ago. This includes weeds so there was a lot of work to be done. We really weren't expecting any big changes from last time, so we had yet to stake up the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers & eggplants. They were all dropping on the ground under the weight of their bounteous produce. Note our very first eggplant in the background of the above photo! Cucumber plant starting a runner Corn Sesame leaves & Irene

Hand-me-downs

2011-06-14T14:43:00.003+09:30

I vividly remember my first pair of store-bought pants: a pair of light grey slacks. This was the first pair of pants that were mine - no one else's butt imprint or holey, patched up knees. I was in the 4th grade. To be honest, I never minded (at least not that I can remember) wearing hand-me-downs or garage-sale clothes as long as they were reasonably "cool" looking. Unfortunately, the many pairs of pastel pink and peach bell bottoms didn't sit well with me (no pun intended). This was the 80s, after all, not the 70s! Now that I'm a mom, I can understand the need to be thrifty (though I will never understand those bell bottoms). We've been extremely fortunate so far in the way of clothing. I think so far we've only had to buy socks and underwear for Oscar since he gets so many awesome hand-me-downs from his cousin Toby. And, of course, those clothes have been passed on to Johan. As for Irene, well, unfortunately she's the oldest girl in the family as well as among our friends (except for people who have much older daughters in which case the clothes are long gone) so hand-me-downs are limited. Still, between my sewing, gifts, and the occasional flea market find, we've saved a bundle on her clothes as well - and I like to think she's one of the best-dressed girls around ;) Also, lucky for us, my mom has saved tons of great clothes from my childhood. She's sent a few items here and there, including one of my all-time favorite outfits of Irene's. I recently got another shipment of my old clothes and this one was even more special because a number of items were made for me by my grandma. I think my grandma sewed me clothes until I was in 7th or 8th grade (i.e. and too "cool" to wear hand-made clothing). Although I'm a sewing freak now, I didn't get into it until a few years after my grandma died. Looking at these clothes and the detail and quality of them, I keep feeling a little pang of regret that I wasn't able to share this with her. I would love to sit and "talk shop." The clothes my mom sent me were like new - after 30 years! - and it was fun for me to see Irene in them. This morning, when it was time to get dressed, Irene actually picked out this little purple polka-dot number pictured above. She was sooo excited about it and happy to be wearing it and I told her that my grandma had made if for me when I was just a little girl. Now she thinks that Grandma Cameron made it for her but that's ok too, I suppose. She gets that it's a "special" dress and it's all in the family anyways, right? Blue sundress: JCPenney's circa 1980

Roll, Baby, Roll

2011-06-12T20:38:00.004+09:30

After a month or so of beautiful weather, it seems as though the rainy season has descended upon South Korea and with it the muggy summer air. On the one hand, I really dislike hot and humid weather, but on the other, I have a growing list of "summer fun" that I've been waiting 3 years to do with the kids. This summer I think they are finally old enough to enjoy it! First on the list: Homemade coffee can ice cream!

I had just finished my 3lb can of coffee and was eager to give it a whirl. After looking a million different recipes online, I settled on the simplest one since I had the ingredients at hand. We wanted to make two little bowls so they each got to do it. First we added 1/2 cup whole milk to each bowl. Then a 1/2 cup sugar & and a swirl of vanilla. I also added frozen blueberries to Irene's as an experiment. I figured it couldn't hurt...in fact, it might even help since they were already frozen! Afterwards, I put the lids on and sealed it with a heavy helping of tape. We filled the can with ice and rock salt and took it outside. Johan seemed unsure. And the kids had no idea what was going on, but they enjoyed playing with the can nonetheless. It was, however, a challenge to get Oscar to roll it along the ground instead of carrying it everywhere. After about 30 minutes of kicking and rolling the ice was melted and we called it good (ok. Young-Hoon and I ended up doing most of the kicking and rolling...while the kids played and the other kids & mothers on the playground looked at us like we were crazy) . Upstairs in our apartment I couldn't wait to sample our ice cream! Unfortunately, upon opening the cans we found murky water inside and outside of the ice cream bowls. No ice cream for us tonight. But, I shan't be outdone! Next time I'll try another recipe...or more ice...and definitely different containers.

Fun

2011-06-07T21:25:00.002+09:30

Just thought I'd include some pictures of us (or the kids anyway) having some fun this past weekend. On Saturday, Young-Hoon's brother & sister and her family came down to Gwangju to take care of some family-related business. It was great because the kids got to see some of their Korean family and got to play with their cousin, Min-Hyuk, who is just about 7 months older than them. They had a great time and we even got to initiate the "kids table" at lunch for the first time! And today we played on the playground (like we do every day). For the past week or so it seems like whenever we visited the playground there were tons of kids around- most between 1 and4-years-old. I had assumed that it was because the weather had become warmer (Korean people tend to obsess about children's body temperatures and therefore wouldn't dream of taking a child under 10 out to the playground between the months of October-May...do I sound bitter?) Anyway, I was really happy because it made playground time much more enjoyable for the kids as well as myself. But today, mysteriously, there was not a soul to be seen. I'm wondering if I missed some kind of memo...or perhaps now it's become too hot to take a child out. And the last picture is from Sunday when we visited our little farm. As usual, Johan was a muddy mess and had to be stripped before we could put him back into the car.

Art

2011-06-07T20:38:00.003+09:30

There is a story going around the internet about a 4-year-old art prodigy. I've read people's comments about it but I hadn't clicked on the link until today. I have no knowledge of art whatsoever, though I will say that her "artwork" exceeded my expectations (although, it wouldn't be hard since I was very cynical to begin with). Having watched the video and read all the comments, I've come to see my own kids in a new light. I think Irene is also an art prodigy. We've been painting/finger painting more lately and I've often been impressed with her deliberateness - for example, in the photo above she painstakingly created each dot with her pinky finger. And now I'm seeing that maybe that's a sign of genius! Heck, she can even make her hand look artistic! And, though I don't like to compare, her attention to detail and deliberateness is emphasized by her brother. Below is his finger painting. He's watching Little Einsteins as he paints his big brown blob. But don't get me wrong - that's beautiful in it's own right and will be taking a place on the wall right next to Irene's picture. Painting isn't the only artistic talent in the family though. While Oscar isn't too interested in painting, he's got a great ear for music. About two weeks ago we watched The Sound of Music for the first time and now they often ask for the musical highlights (what did people do before DVD players?!) Now at least several times a day, with Oscar as the ringleader, they break out in song singing Do-Re-Me or Edelweiss (actually, Edelweiss is a song I used to sing to them every night before bed but I'd gotten out of that habit as they got older). The following video was taken at the farm just a few days after our first viewing so they didn't have the words down at that time. Now they know most of the words (or at least are saying something that sounds like the words)

*P.S. In case you were thinking that I'm totally crazy, I'm not actually saving up for Irene's prestigious Art Institute education. But I do think that her pictures are pretty.

Mommy Vs. Me

2011-06-05T20:36:00.006+09:30

Last weekend I met up with one of the ladies from my new Mommy & Me group and some of her friends. The original idea was to have a "moms' night out" but apparently the other moms here in Gwangju can't bear to be separated from their children for a night. (or else they were out of town and/or pregnant...in which case they get a pass) I had a good time, but the meeting really highlighted the fact that I have become a world-class frump since becoming a mom. I knew this, of course, but it was really brought front and center when I realized that I had hit the town in my flipflops, my backpack & my "best ponytail" and felt dressy! I know I've never been a fancy girl, but Yikes! I decided it's time to climb out of the "mommy rut" and I'd start with the hair. Truth is, I don't think I've had a haircut since a few months before I found out I was pregnant with Johan. I usually get a straight-perm & cut once or twice a year and "they" say you shouldn't perm while pregnant. Furthermore, I didn't feel comfortable doing it while breastfeeding so...almost 2 years it's been? For the most part though, I've had it in a ponytail for about a year (crazy wispy earflaps and all). So as of today I reclaimed my body & I went out to get my hair done: It feels good. So good in fact, that I even stopped by a cosmetics shop and bought some things. (This is so rare for me, and I was so clueless, that I think the sales ladies thought this was my first time ever to visit a make-up shop.) Too bad I can't ditch the glasses -not just because they're frumpy but also because they are a general pain in the rear. I've researched the surgery but it terrifies me & I mysteriously became allergic to contacts a few years ago after happily wearing them for 10+ years. But still, I'm back on track to feeling like myself again instead of just being "The mom with all the kids."

Ramblings

2011-05-31T14:09:00.004+09:30

We took another trip to Two Caterpillars Farm this morning since Young-Hoon had some business out that way. The kids and I tagged along and we spent 45 min. or so planting the rest of our field. To our surprise and dismay, most of the plants that we planted on Saturday were yellow and wilting. It's fortunate that we did stop by today I guess because, in the absence of rain, I'm pretty sure they would have died by next weekend. But, we gave them all a really good drink then went about finishing up the garden. Today we planted cucumbers and Korean peppers. We also left a small corner of the field for the kids to dig in and do as they pleased with. Usually we make a stop or two on the way home at a grocery store or someplace and we tend to get a lot of looks (of disapproval?). This is because every time we leave the farm Johan is filthy and looks like he's been chowing down on dirt. Probably because he has. I guess it's good roughage, right? Aside from the garden, I'm becoming more and more obsessed with the move. It seems that everywhere I turn there is something else that makes me think "Oh! After we move we can..." and I get excited all over again. Here are a few examples off the top of my head:

-teach the kids to ride bicycles/tricycles

-visit family

-celebrate holidays WITH someone (instead of feeling like an island)

-have a back yard/garden/BBQ/and everything else that goes with having a yard

-have an uncluttered house with real furniture (since we never knew how long we'd be here, most of our furniture is cheap-o furniture. I'm eager to have real furniture - maybe even help my parents clean out their garage & basement full of dressers, etc. from my grandma & Uncle!)

-Flea markets, thrift stores & Target!

-buy nice fabric and cheaply!

-go to church

-eat a variety of foods

-go to the beach/anywhere without throngs of people

And the list goes on. But, on the flip side, there are things that I will miss about Korea. For example:

-health insurance (although I dislike that Drs. throw drugs at us for every sniffle, I like that it costs us very little or is even free sometimes)

-free daycare

-the food

-our cushy lifestyle - I'm pretty sure that we'll have to work 2-3 times as hard in the States to live an equivalent lifestyle. On the other hand, many of the things that we see as splurging here would be unnecessary in the U.S. (e.g. renting this farm, gas money for travel - to nature, international foods, etc.)

And I'm sure I'll come up with more after our move. But in the meantime, be prepared to read a lot of my ramblings about our preparations in the next year and a half!

Two Caterpillars Farm

2011-05-30T14:52:00.002+09:30

Not a lot of terribly exciting things going on here. The tomato plant that the kids and I planted a month or so ago has actually produced tomatoes, much to the kids' delight. Yesterday morning they were able to eat a couple tomatoes along with a strawberry each from a strawberry plant, also on the balcony. It makes me all the more excited to see what becomes of our little garden. On Saturday morning we went over to "Two Caterpillar Farm" (as Oscar has dubbed it) and planted some corn, tomatoes, eggplant & sesame leaves. Since this is our first time, we weren't sure how much to buy so we've still got quite a bit of land left to plant. Other than that, we've just been hanging out. I'm spending a good deal of time researching for our big move - where to move, what kinds of jobs are out there. I'm hoping that all of this time is wasted though when Young-Hoon get's the job of his dreams & the location is decided for us. On a last note, along with the self-explanatory photos above is the last photo of Irene & Johan. I was taking a picture of Irene in Oscar's Halloween costume (she loves the bibs because it's a perfect carrier for her puppy), and she was doing her version of the peace sign...I guess 4 fingers = double peace? Johan was standing next to me watching her when suddenly he walked out, turned around to face me, & stuck his hand out with the Double Peace sign, too. He's been doing things like that a lot lately - always copying the big kids.

A little slice of heaven

2011-05-24T21:43:00.006+09:30

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm super-excited about the little plot of farmland that we decided to rent. Today we decided to get started with it, so in the afternoon we drove over to the field. I'll admit it, I honestly wasn't sure what was going to happen with the three kids while we worked. I assumed that Irene & Oscar would be fine but Johan, the little man of mischief...I was worried. I kind of figured that I'd end up "babysitting" him while Young-Hoon worked in the field - not what I wanted at all! Luckily, all 3 were amazing. Irene helped me weed while Oscar played with bugs & Johan just chewed on an empty bottle contentedly. We managed to get the whole thing weeded, fertilized & tilled before calling it a day! (The fertilizer is natural. I don't think I mentioned it in the previous post but this farm is organic so no chemicals allowed.) Above you can see the kids playing on our plot just after we arrived. Below is our field when we were done with it. And even Johan got in on the weeding for a little bit! Just being in the field for 2 hours today really proved to me how important it is to get kids involved with nature. But I was a little nervous (really, just a little) because when the owner showed us our land on Sunday, I noticed a caterpillar. I excitedly showed it to Irene and Oscar and the owner freaked out...and showed us the huge body rash that he had gotten days before from touching one of the poisonous caterpillars. Because Korea has poisonous caterpillars. So, I cautioned them against touching caterpillars but accidents happen. But luckily today all we came across were some beetles, ladybugs & maggots (at least, I think that's what they were). And Oscar, who was whimpering when we first arrived because of the bugs, was catching them left and right by the end of our outing. I'm excited to be able to teach them how to interact and respect nature! After our hard work, we went up to the community area and had a little barbecue. Grilled beef, pumpkin, onions & a nice cold beer - it doesn't get better than that! I can't wait to go back again this weekend to start planting! Above you can see Johan, pre-disfiguration. As I said, he's a mischievous little guy and seems to have no fear. Currently he is sporting a road rash on a good part of the left side of his face thanks to him falling out of a building. I just don't have enough arms. But I will say, he rarely even cries when he takes these kinds of tumbles...so I guess that's good, right?

Mommy & Me

2011-05-22T22:48:00.006+09:30

"Who's this old guy?!" "That's not grandpa! RUUUUNNNNN!!!!!!" Note the "candy phone" Johan's got. Thesedays, everything's a phone In my last post, I mentioned my new Mommy Crew here in Gwangju. Lindsay, one of the girls, is pretty handy with a camera and, at a meeting two weekends ago, she snapped a few photos of Irene, Johan and me (Oscar hung out with Young-Hoon for the day) Above are some of my favorite shots from that day.