New Baby

Jack's cousin, Brad, has a new baby! Wendy, Brad's wife, gave birth to their baby girl last week. She is so adorable! We were able to spend some time with Brad and his mom at their apartment before visiting Wendy at the hospital. I promised Wendy I would not post any 'I'm in the hospital and haven't bathed in days," photos of her. I'll wait until she's fully recovered. At Korean hospitals, they don't allow women who have just had babies to bathe. I'm not sure how long, but it had been a week and Wendy had still not been allowed to shower. Yikes! They also make her eat miyeok-guk (sea mustard soup) over, and over, and over again. And (one more thing), she gets to move to a recovery home where she and the baby can rest for two weeks while people take care of them. While the other parts--no bathing, etc.--aren't so fun, I would have loved to have something like a recovery home where people would just take care of me and let me rest. She won't be done recovering from the birth until the end of this month.

Jack and Dahin with cousin Brad.

Jack's sister Eun-young (left) and Brad's mom, the new 'halmoni.'

Boys at Preschool

Our computer at home crashed so I'm having to do this rushed post before heading home for the evening. Soon, we will have a decent computer at home.

The teachers sent pictures home of the boys at preschool. I wrote a note asking them to send me some jpegs and they did. Oliver, I think, is being a little more social than Ronan. Ronan's a little quieter, in general. The one thing that has surprised us is how well they've adjusted. I feel a little embarrassed now thinking about when I told the head teacher, "You know, they are going to cry a LOT since they've never been to preschool or to any type of school outside the home." But, no problem. Not a tear or hesitation. In fact, Ronan whined on Saturday, "Why can't I go to school today? Why?" As if being home with the family and without structured time was akin to torture.

There are children there all the way from babies to 6 year-olds. They keep the different ages separate except once a day when all the kids are allowed to interact. The boys, in Korean age, are six. It feels a little wierd saying, "Six," when asked how old they are. The reason for this is that Koreans consider kids to already be one year old when they are born. You don't turn a year older on your birthday. but on the first day of the lunar new year (or solar new year, these days). So, at the new year, the boys turned "6" in Korean age becsuse this is the year, in American age, that they turn 5 (although they don't turn 5 until July).

Preschool Time

The boys LOVE preschool. We were so worried about sending them and just knew they would cry. But, on the first day, when the bus came to pick them up, the boys just got on the bus and sat in their seats as if it were what they do everyday. The school provided us with backpacks and a lunch dish for the boys. We send them to school every morning with these things as well as a set of chopsticks and a spoon. The boys are eating really well at school, and Oliver has discovered that he loves "spicy kimchi." The school also provides us with a book in which the teachers can write notes to us about their day. I love that we can hear little tidbits, like Ronan singing a pop song during lunch, or Oliver mastering drumming. Today, they learned how to play an hourglass drum called the changgu. The teachers taught them the spoken syllables used to teach the rhythms. The teacher wrote in Oliver's book that Oliver picked it up really quickly. They sent us a printout of some pictures the teachers took of the boys today--Oliver and Ronan playing drums and eating lunch. I'm going to ask them if they can send me the photo files via email so that I can post them here. They are really cute! After the bus drops them off, the boys head home for a snack. Ronan's favorite is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and Oliver likes fruit.

Our Neighborhood

The neighborhood down the street from where we live is full of everything--an outdoor market, Dahin's school (in the background below), restaurants, bars, ice cream shops, clothing stores, coffee houses--anything you can imagine is there.

Oliver has mastered the art of manipulation when it comes to being held. Much like an oppossum plays dead when he senses danger, Oliver will 'drift to sleep' when he knows we're about to be on the move. He pretended to fall asleep in a restaurant and we just HAD to carry him. Ronan, however, knows how to spot a faker and take the faker out: kiss him.

The outdoor market is a lot of fun. I just like to go and eye-shop, but it's also the place where you can find the best prices. We've begun shopping here regularly, especially since our supermarket of choice is located in the heart of the sijang.

The One Mart is the grocery store we've discovered that suits us best. The prices are alright and, best part: they deliver. You just pick out all of your food, pay for it, and then have them deliver it. About 30 minutes later, a motorcycle loaded with yellow baskets will come roaring up to your door with your groceries. The sijang is so crowded, there is really no way to drive there. The delivery option makes shopping doable.
Ronan, as well, has a technique for having us carry him when he gets tired. He just screams, over and over,"CARRY ME!" until we do. We're suckers. Ronan is happy as a little clam riding on apa's back. Dahin is fascinated with the tanks filled with creatures of all kinds, from octopi to squid, king crab to carp. Here, she poses with some king crab right outside a seafood restaurant. She said, "You don't have to go to the ocean to see fish, you just have to come here!" Yeah, who needs an aquarium membership?

Finally, our 'stuff' is here

This just reminds me of the George Carlin monologue about your s*** and my stuff. Except, there were a lot of things that emerged from the boxes that made us think,'"Why in the heck did we pack all this s***?" Oh well. Most of it was, however, a series of pleasant surprises and we actually need most of the stuff we unpacked. We basically spent the entire weekend pulling things out of boxes, recycling the boxes, putting together furniture, and arranging the new additions to our home. Above, you can see that Dahin has totally settled into her space. Jack's uncle got this desk for her since, "A student HAS to have a desk; why doesn't she have a desk?" and the desk's bookshelves have tons of room for more books which I am, of course, happy about. The boys room, below, is in a condition that it will never see again once the little tornados take over. I won't show you the living room, kitchen, our room yet since we're not quite done getting everything arranged. Plus, there are about 10 boxes of books and cds in our bedroom room waiting to be moved to my office on campus.

On Sunday afternoon, we'd had enough of being cooped up inside. Actually, the kids had gone outside several times this weekend, riding bikes and playing with friends. I, however, had not seen the light of day in two days and had a terrible case of cabin fever. We went out to eat kalbi and then just sat on a bench for a while outside. As you can see, below, we're a little loopy.

Jack proves, once again, that he can make sillier faces than me.

Dahin's attempts to cross her eyes resulted only in what looked like a "I'm looking down" pose.

Dkokbokki

Jack's obsession with ddokbokki is well known. He loves the stuff and has not-so-gently nudged the kids to eat it every chance he gets. We stopped off at this stand after we had tried to eat dinner in a department store but where the kids refused to touch their food. At least they ate this, even though you can really call it Korean junk food. Ddokbokki is tube-shaped rice cakes with fish cake swimming in a sweet/spicy red pepper sauce. Every other step you take in the market and along sidewalks, there are stands set up like a little impromptu diners selling fried foods and ddokbokkii. Stands like the one pictured here have become regular snack stops for the kids. The kids especially love squid fried in a flour badder (eojingeo twigim--romanization here is terrible; not wanting to think too much about it right now), which they usually order along with the ddokbokki. The food stands are a welcome site when it is cold outside. All you need are some toothpicks to skewer the little morsels, a metal or paper cup for some broth, and napkins (lots and lots of napkins; and wet wipes) and you're set (all but the wet wipes provided by the stand owner). Ah...deep-fried squid, ddokbokki, and hot broth to drink...super cozy.

Family Sunday

The kids and I started the day by talking to Bubbie and Grandfather via SKYPE! Unfortunately, we couldn't talk for long since we had to go to church. Before the service, we stopped off at Jack's favorite ddokbokki place to have some classic Korean spicy rice cakes. Looks a little un-yummy, but totally yummy. This place has been around for decades. They've gone up in price. Instead of 50 cents for some ddokbokki, it's now $2.
We were able to walk from the church to Jack's jageun abeoji's place (his father's younger brother; literally, 'little father'). There, Jack's s wacky cousins Eunjin and Eunil greeted us with their mom. We all ate lunch together and hung out for the rest of the afternoon.

Below, jageun eomeoni learns just how stubborn Ronan can be. Despite her best efforts, he refused to eat. He only came to the table after we ignored him and stopped trying to make him eat. By the way, she loved this picture when she viewed it on the camera. She said, "You just have to post that on your home page!"

Jack's cousin, Naksong (who I, from this point on, will call Jack's 'nemesis' since Jack's aunt kept confusing Jack's name, Nak Jung, with his cousin's name the whole day) and his family visited as well. Naksong's daughter is the same age as the boys--all born in July 2004. The kids didn't really interact that much, though. There's still the language barrier issue. It'll get better once the boys start preschool next week. I think their Korean fluency will improve rather quickly.