April 2008 Archives

Sarah has two more teeth now for a grand total of six. The two on either side of her top front teeth finally came through after what seems like months of effort.

We left the background paper up until Sarah woke from her nap so we could get a sister-picture. Anna wanted to wear a white shirt and do a white background after I showed her her 2-year portraits. Then, since I've been neglecting to tear off the bottom of my background paper for months, I finally tore off the end that we had stickered and colored during photo shoots and flipped it over for the girls to color on their own.

Photo by Jerry

We were lucky enough to go over to our neighbors house today to celebrate Greek Orthodox Easter with them (Eleni's dad, Jerry, is Greek). I was really happy that Sarah was able to take a nap (a long one!) and we could bring our monitor over and that Anna actually played with Eleni and had a lot of fun!

I went with Pyongwon, Laurel, Hyunjung, and Mijung to cheer on the Geoje competitors.

The Geoje group.

I went to Tongyeong with Mijung, Laurel, Hyunjung, and Pyongwon to watch Jaynie, Chris and others compete in the triathlon. It was really interesting to see but I can't say I'm inspired to try one. The swimming doesn't look like fun at all to me. Partly because the water was really cold and partly because I don't think it's possible in my current situation to commit to enough pool-time to get the training in. I'm considering training for the Geoje Marathon next winter but not the tri. Maybe I could be convinced in two years...

What Sarah wanted to be doing instead of a photo shoot.

Craig & Anna went up to Costco to get some supplies for Sarah's party next weekend so I had Sarah to myself all day today. I wanted to take her hiking but it was super windy out so we just had fun playing around the house. I really appreciate getting to spend some alone-time with her but I could tell that both Anna & Sarah were happy to be reunited this afternoon.

Sarah does not like to sit still for her official monthly head-shot (I still maintain it is much harder to photograph your own child than someone else's). Just one more to do to complete the series!

I have been trying to spend time just hanging out around home with Sarah on Mondays & Fridays while Anna is at school instead of running around with her (we still go out on Wednesdays because that's the day the cleaning ladies come to do their magic). Today we had fun with bracelets after Sarah finally figured out how to open the drawers (and after one finger-pinching she learned how to shut them, too).

Anna wore her new "Orange Blossom dress" today and when we were playing "take-the-car-ferry-to-the-Cherry-Blossom-Festival" I said I had to take a picture of her at the festival. The routine is pretty good. Anna brings the chairs from the kids table into the office and sets them up for us to either be one in front of the other or side-by-side. She makes "tickets" of a book and another random little item (today it was a magnet) and we sit in the chairs for a while and pretend like we're watching seagulls and the water go by. Then we get to the festival (the family room) and we set up all of the things there with Legos (car ferry, dock, cherry trees, bouncy room, carousel, and smoothie vendor).

Now we don't end with the festival however. I have to build The Doctor's Office (complete with sparkly waiting benches like the one we go to, a fancy height & weight measuring device, the door you have to push a button to open, and a Lego doctor and chair). I play the part of the doctor and give the patients (her miniature Strawberry Shortcake dolls) shots or clean their hurt knees or heads and put bandages on. Then the patient invariably walks over to "Dunkin' Donuts" to get a donut where they repeatedly hurt their knees and bump their heads all over again. Note this is all done with Legos so it takes an active imagination.

The azaleas around here have been gorgeous the past week or so. They're actually starting to fade right now so I should have gotten a picture of the kids earlier.

I've really been bad about keeping up with Sarah's little things lately and I think it's because there are so many! I know I'm missing some here but will try to keep taking random notes around the house when I think of things.

Sarah knows exactly what she wants but isn't super efficient at communicating that yet. She often wants a piece of fruit from the fruit basket on the counter when we're eating and she'll point angrily in that direction. When you present her with an item from the basket she will nod a very dramatic nod if you got it right. Usually it is a banana she wants but sometimes kiwi or grapes. Other times she is expecting something from the fridge so at this point we just keep showing her stuff until we get it right! I have to get a video of her nodding because it is pretty endearing.

Sarah loves clocks. In fact, this is going down as her first random spoken word (Daddy is technically first). Anytime we see a clock in a book or around town or at the store she get so excited! Fortunately we seem to have quite a few books around here that happen to have clocks in them. She also loves to pretend to talk on the phone and has very animated conversations on any of the play phones throughout the day. And she loves lights. Everywhere we go she points out the lights and signs "light."

She is starting to put things in containers. As much fun as this is, she still prefers to fling books off of the shelf and objects out of drawers and containers more. She's not helping with clean-up time yet anyway.

Sarah can point to her tongue and eyes when we are looking at a book featuring those body parts. She likes to "sniff" flowers (like in Pat the Bunny, a toy one we have around, and when we're outside).

We caught her dancing to Stevie Wonder's Superstition the other day. Too bad I didn't get it on video because she hasn't done it since.

I'm going to start the official word list now even though it actually began a few months ago. I'll list everything to-date here and later will only post new words & signs.

First Signed Word: "more" at seven months
First Spoken Word: "daddy" at ten months

Spoken words: clock, Anna

Signed words: daddy, light, elephant (complete with sound), down, all-done, eat, milk, toothbrush, and bed

Possible signed words (not totally consistent but so close to doing it they have to be the real thing): hot, bird, duck, fish, bunny

Anna gave out some flower seeds for part of her "favor" at her birthday party and we finally got around to planting them today. She said this was the best part of her day. Now I just hope they grow!

We took a short hike up the mountain near our house this morning. Anna wanted to walk so we just went 1km and turned around. I think she could have handled more but we didn't want to push it. When we got home she said, "my shoes are tired." Sarah didn't take a nap so she wasn't excited about the hike (she was fine as long as Craig kept moving) but she seemed to like the backpack carrier relatively well. I'll have to try her in it when Anna is in school sometime.

Baby Luke passed away on Friday. He was five weeks old and doing well at home after his heart surgery. Please keep his family in your thoughts and prayers.

Anna has since been instructed to hand Sarah the kazoo rather than placing it in her mouth.

Sarah dropped another nursing today. We celebrated by going to Starbucks and getting a blueberry bran muffin. Now we just need to drop the morning one which might be difficult if she keeps up this 5:30 AM thing. (I've been nursing her then putting her back to bed where she stays until I go get her after 7. This really hasn't been bad because I've been going back to sleep, too!)

Yes, Sarah is actually playing with my wallet and not a book, but rest assured she checked out all of the books at Jaynie's and had fun sifting through them all again at our house again. And again. And again.

My friend Jaynie was doing some spring cleaning so Sarah & I went over this morning and got two bags full of kids books from her! Anna & I read for 1.5 straight during Sarah's nap and we didn't get through them all. There were a few books that I had on the kids' Amazon wish list and a lot of books that I didn't know I wanted so we were very pleased. There was even a book that I knew Sarah would like but I was reluctant to buy because I think the others in the series are not great (she disagrees: she thinks they're the best ever!). So, we both won on that one.

I let Sarah try to climb up the 74 stairs to the parking lot today. She made it almost to the top of the first flight, I hopped her up the middle two and then she made it half-way up the last flight. I then let her walk from the stairs toward the playground but she started getting pretty wobbly by the time we got to the hill so I carried her the rest of the way. I also sent her down the tunnel slide on her own (on her tummy) today and she had a blast. I'll try to remember to bring the camera up with us next time for some pictures. I could really tell that she felt like she was a "big" kid when she was doing all of this stuff. I'm so glad it's finally nice enough to spend a lot of time outside so she can explore and have fun while getting some great exercise!

I guess Sarah is practicing relaxing or she is finally wearing herself out! She likes to rest her head on this chair, or the floor, or wherever, from time to time.

It was always my intention to get both girls one so imagine how happy Anna was when I presented her golden pig to her today.

With Easter break and all of our company it feels like we've been "away" from our routine for a long time (three weeks)! Today we got back to it and I think we were all happy.

I don't know why, but lately Anna really wants to be hugging Sarah a lot. She's always putting her arm around her and I'm really glad that she waited until Sarah is strong enough to (almost) fend for herself because Anna is still bigger and stronger and doesn't always have the gentlest touch. Sarah seems to enjoy the attention but, as is Sarah's way, she doesn't like to be held down or fenced in for long.

Anna commissioned a car ferry from Craig so her doll-house dolls could go to the cherry blossom festival and re-enact our day there.

Sarah getting chummy with the restaurant staff.

We decided to go out for one last Korean meal before my mom goes (we took her to gamjatang earlier in the week). There is a playground at the ferry terminal that I've never taken the kids to so my mom, Anna, Sarah, & I went early to play and wait for Craig to meet us before dinner. This was the first time I've let Sarah go down the slide on her own and she did great! It is a little fast so I don't think she can do it sitting up. (One of the two at our house she can do sitting up but I still hold her hands very lightly because the end is a little wild.)

After the park we went to the restaurant and had a great meal. The food was great but also we were the only ones there and the waitress took it upon herself to "babysit" Sarah for us which was really nice because it's really impossible to contain her at the Korean-style restaurants (no high chairs, just a cushion on the floor). Craig says he wants to go every week but I'm not sure if it was for the food or the child care! Actually the food is really good so he may just get his wish.

Anna at the birthday party; to her right are Kristin & Mia, the birthday girls

Sarah loves to help me make banana-oatmeal cookies! She gets to shake cinnamon (Anna shakes nutmeg) and both girls help me stir.

Note she's holding the camera for a vertical composition just like me!

You can see Sam just behind Jake's right ear.

Anna went to school today (I didn't make her go Monday & Wednesday so she could play with Grandma) because there was a birthday party after school for Kristin & Mia. This meant that Grandma & Sarah got to play a little together on their own. We also did a video chat with Jake & Sam (and Rachel, Mat, Grandpa, and Mat's dad, Al) but we were boring because it was just me and Grandma (Sarah was taking a nap)!

This and photos below by Adele.

Rainy weather has kept us inside so we went to Home Plus for some diversion. Living in a small space really makes rainy weather hard for me to keep the kids entertained! Mostly this is due to Sarah's age, if she were older we could play with play-doh, paint, color, etc. (Right now she'd eat all of those activities even if she could sit still long enough to participate.)

Note that Sarah is playing with one of the ladies' purses.

Photo by Adele

We got the kids up at 6:45 so we could leave at 7:35 for the car ferry to Jinhae today. Anna & Sarah were pretty excited about riding the car ferry and did very well on the ride. We sat on the floor with a bunch of ajummas (old ladies) who offered us some rice & bean paste treats (we declined), oranges (we accepted), and hard boiled eggs (we declined). Sarah had fun playing with the ladies purses (they encouraged it) and gave everyone a good laugh when she pulled out a 10,000 Won bill from one purse. Anna ate the orange and otherwise avoided interacting with the Korean ladies (as expected) and Sarah mingled a little with them which was great because it kept her entertained and made the ride a lot easier for me. In the US this trip would probably not have been as nice because I would have felt compelled to try to keep Sarah away from the ladies but here since they're always wanting to play with babies it worked to my advantage!

We found our way to the festival market pretty easily but we were a little early for a lot of the vendors and a little late for the blossoms. The blossoms were past their peak in Jinhae (just as they are past their peak on Geoje already). But we did see some interesting sights, my mom got to use a Korean "Mobile Toilet," we got smoothies, and we rode a carousel and a train. Actually, Anna freaked out on both the carousel and train so she got off pretty fast. Sarah & I took a full ride on the train which she really enjoyed.

We set out to find McDonald's for lunch (we don't have one on Geoje and I don't believe we've been there since Doha). We found McDonald's but opted for bagels at Dunkin' Donuts instead. We maybe should have driven around Jinhae after lunch and tried to find more cherry blossoms but we decided to try to catch the next ferry home instead. Our timing worked out well and the next ferry left about ten minutes after we arrived at the terminal. Sarah fell asleep in the car so we sat in the car until she woke. When she was up and ready to go we went upstairs and sat outside and watch the seagulls catching Bugels and other snacks from the passengers on the ferries. It was actually quite amusing (if you get over the fact that the poor seagulls were eating junk food) to watch them catch the food mid-air. Sarah really liked the foamy water all around the boat and watching the waves (as well a the seagulls).

We played up at the playground the rest of the afternoon and we were all exhausted by bedtime which I guess means we had a good day. I was disappointed that we missed the cherry blossoms at their peak but I guess we can try again next year.

I can't believe there's just one more month until Sarah turns one year old! The year has flown by. I need to get the official word & sign count going since I'm now more positive Sarah is getting some communication skills (nice ones and screamy/tantrum-y ones!) I will do a "little things" post soon to get all caught up on Sarah's developments.

The girls each took turns reading with Grandma and getting re-acquainted.

Photo by Adele

Actually, I'm usually holding Anna's hand but you get the idea.

We finally opened the box that my mom sent a few weeks ago (Sarah was using it as a walker; it was the perfect weight and height for her to walk on her own!) and the girls got new tutus (and crowns) and music boxes. The music boxes were ultimately the bigger hit but I think we'll have a lot of fun with the tutus as well.

The cherry blossom trees near DSME are fantastic right now and there was quite a crowd of people today checking them out that would agree with me. We plan to go to the Cherry Blossom Festival later this week but since we were driving this way to get Craig's car from the ferry terminal in Janseugnpo anyway we thought we ought to stop and take a few pictures.

I took the ferry to Busan this afternoon and did some shopping and relaxing all by myself. It was pretty awesome but the best part was that I hopped in a taxi and went to the airport to meet my mom. Craig had arranged for a driver to take us back to Geoje Island which worked out really well. Of course the only things I bought were for the kids but it was a nice break from my usual routine.

Chins and cheeks.

We have been enjoying some really nice weather this past week. The cherry trees have also started blossoming throughout town (and in our yard!). Today we spent a long time outside and played with some bubbles and sand toys in the the yard.

We've spent the second week of Anna's Easter Break going to the playground to meet up with friends (the weather has been fantastic!) and playing around with Sarah's sleep schedule (we tried one nap for a few days, played with her bedtime, etc—we finally ended up with a later bedtime and better naps so we're happy for now).