Not Much Going On Lately

Wow, I didn’t realize that I hadn’t posted at all in June! In addition to not having bought anything off of GMarket (because they are no longer accepting PayPal for domestic purchases, and I can’t figure out how to get any other methods of payment to work), life has been pretty regular.

TheFry is developing at a rapid pace. He is talking all the time now, saying words here and there in English and sometimes short sentences in Korean. I’ve stopped making a list of all the words he knows because it’s rather exhaustive. However, he doesn’t speak consistently – he’d rather whine! We try and reward words over whining but it’s still his preferred method of communicating his emotions to us.

Apparently he is shy and doesn’t talk much at his nursery school. They announced rather proudly some words that he could say in Korean to PapaFish about a week ago, but they were words like 아빠 and 엄마, which he has been able to say for awhile. PapaFish proudly showed them how he can say 아버지 and they were impressed.

Lately the nursery school they have been trying to teach him how to bow. They will put his hands on his stomach and dip him over in a deep bow. He thinks it’s a game and tries to thrash about. He knows how to bow and greet people but he’s just too shy and silly to do it.

Recently we have found that the only way he will greet other children is to give them a good shove and push them down. He seems surprised when they cry or run to their moms and don’t want to play with him afterwards. We never reward him for this behavior and we chastise him when he does it. We have tried to prevent it in any case but we have yet to find an alternative (like shaking hands or giving a high-five) that he finds suitable.

His most favorite playtime activity as of late is to throw things in the sink. We have found shoes, his toy school bus, and many other things in the sink after being absent for short activities such as using the bathroom or making the bed. It’s another activity that we discourage but haven’t had much success in doing so.

We have been rather busy lately, as I work six days a week (that’s coming to an end soon, thank goodness!) and I have been looking for a new job. The one I have right now is not bad but it’s getting too stressful and the night hours are just killing my ability to get any rest. Last week I signed a contract with a private day school in Incheon province, near Gimpo City (which is technically in Gyeonggi Province). The pay is the same as my base pay is now and the hours are better. The air is clean and fresh and there is farmland and countryside everywhere. The prices are also much cheaper – we bought a MOUNTAIN of food at the Gimpo HomePlus yesterday for a mere 11,000 won. (2 tonkatsu, 1 fish katsu, 1 hamburger steak, 1 cheese baked spaghetti, 1 cheese baked corn, 1 sauteed pork in soy sauce, 1 omurice, and a side of coleslaw and pickled radishes. I’m proud to say that PapaFish ate most of it!) This kind of meal would be easily twice that price in our current location.

So life is good, even though there are changes coming our way. Hopefully I’ll have pictures and/or videos up in the near future.