Cherry Blossom Fail

Call me silly, but I always have to post pictures of flowers and nature in the springtime. Last April I posted pictures of trees blossoming near our home in Minnesota. It was truly a glorious event, because Minnesota winters are long, cold and depressing. Every year I feel like the winter just might last a full 365 days.

The winter of 2009-2010 here in Seoul was quite bitter. It snowed at least four times. Not Minnesota-style knee-deep snow, but we actually had to *gasp* cancel classes because of snow one day in January.

That said, I feel like the winter here lasted longer than it should have - or at least longer than I was expecting. So maybe you can imagine my elation when the Golden Bells started blooming last weekend:

Believe it or not, but I used to hate these flowers. They were just too bright for me - not dainty enough.

Now I welcome them with all my heart.

There were plenty of Golden Bells decorating the National Assembly Building. They make a lovely fountain of gold against drab white concrete.



There was plenty of lovely green foliage, as well.



While in the area, we visited a park on a hill that was full of all kinds of strange, bizarre, and inappropriate sculptures. We also saw at least three kindergarten classes walking around the park and/or picnicing there, also. Probably the least strange sculpture was this one, which I happened to really like:

I have no idea what the significance of this statue is, but I thought it was lovely.

There was plenty of running around, waving hello to anyone who was not made of metal or stone, and chasing magpies to be had. TheFry has been up to his same old tricks, but with some new habits, as well.

He has started covering his face while laughing, which is pretty common here. Most of my students laugh this way.

However, there were no cherry trees in bloom as far as we saw along the road where the cherry blossom festival will be held this week. It's been just a little too cold the last few weeks probably. However, there were a few shrubs here or there who offered a little bit of hope.

We're going back on Saturday night after I get off of work. We'll probably take some snacks with us and mingle among the throngs of people who will likewise be enjoying the graceful loveliness of these flowers as well.

Happy Cherry Blossom Viewing Season, everyone!

What Kind of Person Will You Be, Little Fry?

What kind of person will TheFry be?

He refuses to hold hands while walking. He heeds the directions of his parents about 50% of the time. Recently, he has begun a pattern of refusing to be fed - he must do it himself.

Last night, however, PapaFish witnessed the most telling actions of who our little man is growing up to be.

While strolling at the park, TheFry tripped over a crack in the ground, falling to his hands and knees. He got up, unfazed. He circled back to where he had been standing before. Very precisely, he walked over to the crack to step over it successfully.

It's one of those powerful moments I wish I would've caught on camera. Our little guy is very determined in everything he does. His will is strong. His sense of adventure knows no bounds. I hope he can keep these very good qualities into adulthood. I feel it is my responsibility as a parent to give him the kind of environment where he can be free to do so.

I'm so proud of my little Fry!

Tidbits

1. PapaFish recently became a volunteer online teacher three nights a week. One of the benefits of this volunteer opportunity is that it will give PapaFish a taste of the main industry for foreigners here in Korea: teaching. The greatest benefit, however, is that students of less-than-wealthy parents will be able to practice English regularly throughout the week, hopefully narrowing the income gap between Koreans who can speak English well and those who can't.

2. TheFry has been walking for one whole month now! ...Or, at least I think it's been a whole month. He pretty much was running from the start. One day he was still clinging to the walls, and the next evening I caught him scurrying past me from the corner of my eye. Now it's just a game of chase until he decides to start listening to and cooperating with MamaFish and PapaFish. He refuses to hold hands, and it can be very difficult to guide him in the right direction sometimes. Needless to say, we still often use the Pognae baby carrier most of the time when we go out.

3. The new semester at my work has begun, as of March 2. It's been a crazy whirlwind of teachers getting hired and quitting, and me not knowing how many classes I'm really going to have to teach each week. I have a stack of about 75 or so essays on my desk that need grading by next week. Not sure when I'm going to find time to do it all!

4. My dad is in town! Yay!!! AND HE'S GOING TO TAKE US OUT TO TACO BELL ON SUNDAY HOLY COW I'M SO EXCITED!!!

5. Here's hoping the springtime warms up sometime soon.

6. I can't really fathom making a blog post without pictures, but this is the best I've got:

If that doesn't say "I'm a boy," I don't know what does.

P.S. - I have no idea why he's not wearing a shirt.

Developmental Review

Some new developments have been unfolding in the Fish Bowl, especially now that TheFry is finally over all the miniscule illnesses he’s been struggling with since Thanksgiving:

1. TheFry has started taking steps. He will only take one or two at a time, and then drop to his knees. Then he will either start crawling like a madman to his intended destination, walk on his knees for a little bit before crawling, or collapse altogether into a desperate temper tantrum. Usually it’s the first or second option, though.

2. TheFry recognizes himself in the mirror. When I showed him his reflection, I said: “Who is that? It’s Dexter!” He responded by saying “Deh-ter.” I said, “Yes, that’s Dexter!” He responded again by saying “Deh-ter.” The other day I showed him his reflection in a little toy mirror we have and he said “Deh-ter” immediately. He only appears to be interested in this activity about half the time, but I think he’s catching on!

3. TheFry continues to love to read. Now he really wants to help turn the pages. His current favorite book is 곰돌아, 어디가니? (Little Bear, Where Are You Going?"). I am not very good at reading it but about 60% of the time he waits patiently for me to stumble through the words. It’s really helping my Korean reading skills improve a lot!

4. TheFry began to “play pretend” about two weeks ago. This really moved me, watching him imagine scenarios. His favorite game by far is feeding. He still will not feed himself at the table – he thinks it is a game and he will just end up scraping all the food on the floor – but he will feed himself (and others!) imaginary food. If I give him a cup and plastic fork he can play pretend for hours. The other day I woke up in the morning to him dipping a fork in an empty cup and then “feeding” himself.

Another play-pretend game he plays is crochet! If he has a crochet hook he will look for yarn and he will try and stick the hook in the yarn. He’s watched me so many times, I guess, it’s one of the things he knows about best!

5. He has started really getting interested in sorting objects. He will pull all the plastic bowling pins out of his toy box, for example, and line them up. Or he might spend quite a bit of time figuring out how to stack a set of plastic nesting barrels he has.

One particularly new development in this area is that he has become interested in building towers rather than just knocking them down. About 80% of the time he is building he will hand the blocks to me or PapaFish and then we will build the tower. However, on my dinner break this evening I was handing the blocks to him and he was trying to stack them up in a tower by himself! I am really excited about this one.

The down side of these developmental heights we’ve been climbing are the temper tantrums that have come with them. He just really screams and throws little fits sometimes. Also, he’s learned how to wiggle out of his seatbelt in his highchair and stand up in it, which makes me pretty nervous. I can’t take my eyes off of him for a second!

And now, the Stages of Tantrums:

Oh, Hi!

You have the camera!

Give me the camera!

Why won’t you give me the camera?!

Alas, cruel world, how will I survive?! My life is MISERABLE!

Does no one understand my pain?!

Fine, I give up—but I’m not looking at that camera EVER AGAIN.

Seoul in White, Part One

Last week, Seoul got the most snow it’s had since 1937. However, I am so behind in posting that I only have a few pictures of the light dusting we received just after Christmas:

McDonald’s near our house.

The building where I work.

A walkway dusted with snow.

Cart belonging to “The Snack Man” (yes, that is his official name – given by yours, truly). In the summer he sold fried spiraled potatoes and in the winter he sells those yummy fish-shaped cakes stuffed with bean paste or custard.

Bicycles lined up at a neighborhood building.

Belated Christmas Tree!

CAMERA!!!!!

Finally, we got a camera! It cost less than $40. We shipped it from the USA because cameras are extremely overpriced in this country.

So, of course, we had to take a few obligatory pictures of what life is generally like for us.

First of all, we needed a memory card because the camera would only hold about four pictures without one. We bought one at HomePlus – 4GB for less than 10,000 won (1,000 won roughly equals $1).

HomePlus is like Wal-Mart combined with Macy’s on some kind of weird illegal substance. Whenever we go to HomePlus, we eat at the cafeteria because they have super huge portions of food for less than 6,000 won. The three of us can share one meal, and I find the taste to be delicious.

Behind PapaFish you can see Overpriced Baby Studio on the right and a children’s play area on the left. The children’s play area costs something like 4,000 won for two hours of child-free freedom.

Probably the biggest bonus of eating at HomePlus is the fact that they have highchairs. Anywhere else we go to eat – except other supermarket-on-cocaine-cafeterias – requires holding TheFry on our laps, trading him back and forth so the other person can eat. We have a portable inflatable highchair seat, but we use it permanently at home, and I guess we’re basically just too lazy or forgetful to tote it around with us everywhere. Maybe we should make a better effort…

TheFry gives a “whaddup” to his homies.

I require tonkatsu from the HomePlus cafeteria. It is a tenderized pork cutlet, breaded and deep-fried Japanese style. This kind of Japanese-style cuisine is pretty popular in Korea these days. Also we got a big helping of omurice, which is basically fried rice wrapped in an egg. That’s ketchup squiggled on top of the egg.

Tonkatsu, omurice, cole slaw, kimchi and miso soup cost us 5,500 won.

TheFry absolutely loves tonkatsu. He is the main reason why we order it. At home, if we can’t get him to eat his vegetables, sometimes in a moment of desperation we will dip a small bit of it in tonkatsu sauce. He will usually eat it, unaware of its original form.

In other news, TheFry is getting his top two teeth at the same time. This basically means we get to hang out with this every day:

Sometimes he still looks like this, though.

This is fine, too.

At the end of the day, PapaFish is more exhausted than TheFry.

“Milk” and “Mama” are two words that TheFry knows. He can say “Mama” but not milk. However, when we ask him if he wants his milk, he sometimes gets hysterical. If we go to the fridge without asking him if he wants milk, he sometimes gets hysterical. And sometimes he just gets hysterical.

Also, he doesn’t just call me “Mama”, he basically says it all the time. He knows that “I’m the Mama”, but he has been known to call PapaFish “Mama” also.

Up until recently, TheFry had a really clingy fixation with me, preferring me in most circumstances to anyone else, including PapaFish. I prayed and hoped that this would change. Maybe I wasn’t specific enough. Now, if I get home from work and PapaFish needs to go grab groceries, take out trash, run some other errand or just plain go out to relieve some steam, TheFry will cry when he leaves. However, when PapaFish is home, I still have to be with them. So really, TheFry has learned to prefer having the three of us together to any other arrangement at all.

We’re hoping to go out this weekend to see some fall foliage; it’s supposed to be the peak time for viewing the red maple leaves. The bad thing about having a super-cheap used camera is that the batteries only last a couple of hours at a time. Hopefully we can find some good rechargeable ones somewhere without having to travel too far to buy them.

Peace

TheFry has gone to bed before midnight for - wait for it - five days in a row. This is a major accomplishment, given that for the last month or two he's been staying up until nearly 2:00am and basically driving both myself and PapaFish insane.

There are two possibilities to this conclusion:

1. The last five days were vacation for me (Happy Chuseok, everyone!). I have been home almost non-stop, and he has certainly enjoyed all the cuddling and walking around together that we've been doing.

2. I've tried my darndest to have him fall into a bedtime routine. This was rather sporadic beforehand, given that I came home from work at different times, and also that PapaFish occasionally tried to put TheFry down early so he would be asleep when I got home. However, TheFry would always just use that extra snooze as a nap and get up around 11pm and decide to hang out with us for a couple of hours until we were so exhausted that we would just go to bed and let him crawl around until he fell asleep on his own (which he tends to do on occasion).

I hope it's the routine. I really, really hope it's the routine.

TheFry gives a few telltale signs that he's tired enough for sleep: he grabs his blanket and pacifier and spends some cuddle time on his bed watching TV with his feet wiggling around in the air, repeatedly hugging the blanket and rolling his eyes back. He pushes them back open with such a strong will to not sleep that it's almost aggravating, if it weren't so cute. Also, he can get very clingy and refused to be separated from PapaFish or myself by even a couple of feet. One thing that unfortunately happens quite often is that TheFry will be hyper as usual (or even a little moreso) and then start having really random clumsy moments. Usually the spills are not bad at all - but when he falls on his face from a crawl and starts screaming as if he's going to die, we know he's ready for bed, without a doubt!

That's when I scoop him up, toss the blankie and a book on the bed, change the diaper, bathe, lotion, and dress him in clean pajamas, and then we sit down to read a book! Lately he's had such a huge interest in books that it blows my mind. He loves them, to look at the pictures, to smile with his two-tooth grin the whole time, and to try and help me turn the pages (or close the book before the story is over). Then we might give him a cup of milk if he hasn't had one, or we might just go without and brush his [two] teeth either way. He loves his little toothbrush with duckies on it, but usually he just tries to chew on the non-brush end. Anyway, it's the exposure that counts! Mainly, I think he enjoys the bonding and social time that toothbrushing involves.

Afterwards, I fight him for a grand total of 5~10 minutes before he's out like a lamp. It usually includes 2 rounds of "Barges", "Jesus Loves Me," "Jesus Loves the Little Children", the "ABCs", "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", followed by 3 rounds of "Edelweiss" to get him to ease into sleep. The fighting has been getting less and less, so I really hope the routine will stick.

Interestingly enough, "Edelweiss" is the only song that really gets him to fall asleep - the others are just warm-ups that get his attention, perhaps soothing him until "Edelweiss" is the final push over the edge. Or maybe it's just the fact that it's the only song I sing to him in 6:8 time.

I'm anxious about tomorrow, but I'll definitely be more consistent about what time I come home so that this routine can have full effectiveness. Previously, only PapaFish had success with putting TheFry to bed but now I think I might have provided a comfortable alternative.