Day One

So we did not make it to church this morning.

We did finally make it out the house around 11 to go meet a new little guy named Zion Tamen Baney.  He was born exactly one week ago to our friends Justin and YJ.  On our way to Pyeongtaek, which is about an hour and a half from where we are, we decided to introduce our friend Steve, who is visiting from my husband's hometown growing up, to a decent "Shabu-Shabu" meal.  You get a communal hot pot of boiling broth (which tastes awesome) at the center of the table in which you throw some paper-thinly sliced beef with lots of veggies for a few seconds and scoop out and eat them.  We found this restaurant on the top floor of a Shinsegae department store at the express bus terminal.  We waited half an hour to get seats but it was worth it.  Steve liked it.  We all enjoyed it.

Ti enjoyed the "teething bling" I had around my neck. :P

(Just for personal record, I ran into one of my relatives there.)  Promptly, after this excellent lunch, we got on a bus to our destination Pyeongtaek.

After about an hour ride on the bus we finally arrived in Pyeongtaek.  We squeezed ourselves into Justin's car with the humongous stroller in the back when we got off the bus, and finally arrived at their place.  Baby Zion and mommy YJ looked great!  I got to hold him and started fantasizing....for a few seconds....you know, of another one...just for a few seconds!  I think he looks more "Western" than either of my babies did.  Anyway, he is BEAUTIFUL.  I just love his long, full, dark, curly hair!  :)

Zion Tamen Baney

Ari said, "The baby popped out!"  :)  Ti was busy crawling around on the floor.  We'll probably all be in Chicago the next time we get together...

Kiddos did great considering having no real naps in the afternoon obviously.

playing at the park outside of the Baney's

We got home around 9.  Put the tired kiddos straight to bed...and it's our turn--Good night!

thinking random, like this digital age...

I had a spontaneous brunch date with just Ari this morning at Paris Baguette at Suseo station.  This was the second time we've done it.  We walk down the hill (yes, we live on the top of a hill again--not as steep as the last one though), cross the big street and catch a number 2412 bus to Suseo subway station about 10 minutes away.  The bakery is right there when we get off the bus.  Life seems so much simpler with one child.  (Those of you with one child might disagree...I used to too until we had two.)  She loves croissants. She always picks one of those for herself.  I ordered an actual brunch meal with an egg and made sure she ate that egg for her protein. :)  We shared a potbingsoo (a shaved/crushed flavored ice with fruits, red beans, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top) for our special treat.

When the kids were napping this afternoon, I laid down on the couch and resumed listening to an audio book I began listening to recently, called, The Next Story.  I woke up to Ti clanging his toys on the floor and my husband picking up in the kitchen.  The book was still being read to me and all I remembered was something about speaking, "truthing"??  Well, I will need to go back to where I left off before, AGAIN. :P

So I came across a couple of parenting articles this evening and one of them talked about parents not being playmates to their children--that children are to play on their own and parents should do parent-things.  (like the idea of pararelle play)  Well, I am the one who feels guilty if I don't play WITH my children and often can't get much done and feel exhausted...  I am not sure if this is why but Ari has always been my "shadow."  I tried.  I tried to begin doing something with her--encourage her to continue what we'd started and leave to get some things done... She stops immediately and follows me around.  Of course I let her "help" sometimes but there are times when I really cannot get things done if she's "helping," and it's healthy to have some "breaks"/ alone time/ just doing our own things in the same space... sometimes.  This just does not happen much around here... So some days I just give up and spend all the time and energy I have to try to entertain and interact with both my kids and end up with a mess both outside and inside of myself... It doesn't help that I don't have regular/frequent playdates with other moms...  Anyway, Ari just wants to do everything I try to do even when I encourage her to play with her things on her own for just a few minutes...   This is something I need to learn to do more.  I look forward to Ari going to preschool soon and learning this herself too soon.

Kids are asleep and Daniel's picking up our friend from the States at the airport tonight.  We plan on some fun times exploring a bit of Korea we have not yet seen!

"An Easy Baby"

Ti is mastering his crawling skills these days.  Now I just plop him down to take care of some things and he is quite content and happy to start exploring his surroundings--that is, until I make an eye contact with him.  He then smiles big and immediately starts to make his "hold me!" sounds and frantically starts crawling toward me with all he's got!  My heart melts whenever this happens and I pick him up, kiss all over his soft chubby cheeks, smell him (yes, I love smelling him) and hold him tight.  (I am learning to celebrate these moments...)

Ari shows me everyday that she is changing and growing too.  Today it hit me when she just disappeared without a word and I found her on her little potty in the bathroom taking care of her own business as usual.  I smile and go over to help her wipe (she seems to want to do this herself (after #1) but I just want to make sure she stays clean.  Same with brushing teeth...  I probably should encourage independence in these kinds of things more... I think that in the back of my mind but then I had enough visits to the dentists myself and I want to control this as long as I can. :P)  Potty training has pretty much been a breeze with her.  (I hope Ti will follow in his big sister's footsteps. :P)  I did part time EC (Elimination Communication) with her since she was about 3 months old and I think about starting that with Ti too but he just seems unpredictable and hard to read (the cues) so we will see.

It was another beautiful day out today so after they took descent naps this afternoon, I took them out for a walk (it always seems to help --Ti in his stroller and Ari walking beside me.  She LOVES outside.  I am sure most kids like to be outside but this girl really LOVES to just go out whenever whether rain or snow.  I love that she does, and am trying to meet that need more often especially when I feel lazy and just want to stay home.  As we were getting ready to leave, she said something funny that I want to put down here.  As I put Ti down and helped Ari put her shoes on, I heard her say to me, "Ti's an easy baby, Mommy!"  I was surprised to hear her say such an adult like thing.  I laughed inside and thought she probably heard us say that.  I said, "You think so?  Yeah, he IS an EASY baby!"  She quickly corrected me and said, "No, Mommy!  S-NEEzey baby!"  Then I realized that he did indeed just sneeze. :)  She just has a hard time saying the "s" sound at the beginning of a word (which, by the way, I think is cute but Daniel tries to fix).

We walked to the little playground.  She loves to swing there, and I mean REALLY SWING.  She wants me to push her up pretty high and gets real joy and satisfaction out of every swing up and down.  So we did our usual thing.  Me reminding her with each push that she MUST hold tight and NEVER let go until the swing stops completely.  And at a blink of an eye she fell off as soon as I finished saying that again.  She landed on her back--thankfully it looked like she was able to hold her head up so no head injuries.  I picked her up, inspected, and comforted her.  No blood, no scrapes, nothing I could find then.  After she stopped crying and my lecture was finished, she wanted to go back on the swing.  So we did one last one and walked to the little corner store around the corner to get some ice cream.  All this while Ti was busy chewing on his teething ring.  On our walk back home, she complained that her back was hurting.  I did not think much of it.  After dinner, she told me her back hurt again.  I told her that I would give her a massage before bed.  So I was changing her into her jammies and this is what I found:

She said it didn't hurt anymore as I asked her while "giving her a massage" (feeling around to see if she would cringe).  She is a tough one--the more I get to know her, I love who she is and the sweet and tough mixture she's got in her little self.  I get to be her mother.  I get to be her mother... (I celebrate these moments when I can truly feel the love I have for her--because I know I do not have that in me naturally.  I celebrate and cherish these moments because I know it is given by God and it is therefore pure and life-giving.)

Lastly, today was Daniel's last day of work in Korea.  We indulged ourselves in a few episodes of Burn Notice (we recently go into this) had pizza delivered to us.  In less than three weeks, we will be on our flight back to Chicago.  I am doing some thinking and writing down here and there some of my thoughts whenever I get a chance.