Hawaii Recap

Did I mention that on our way home from Korea that we did a 5 day layover in Hawaii? I am bad about posting things in order, but it was a trip worth reporting for sure. We stayed at a lovely Hilton hotel, went to a luau, played on the beach, ate lots of pineapple and took in the Polynesian Culture Center with our friends the Ks. They happen to be locals and came over from the big island to see us. It was fun to hang out with them. I was amazed at AK, who as always is bursting with energy and makes everything funner. She was not slowed down by the fact that she was 6+ months pregnant. I decided it's easier being pregnant when you are not 38 watching her as she caught kids repeatedly as they jumped off the hotel beds into her belly. That is not something I did while pregnant with Baby Girl.

Also on an unrelated subject Middle Boy had his 11th birthday. He was one happy kid! In fact I think that the wait for his birthday about killed the poor kid because he went from being quite disagreeable before to being an angel on the day of his birthday. He got almost all the requests on his birthday wish list. With the exception of a BB gun. Mom's not ready to say yes to that one yet. Probably never- I hate weapons!

Anyways- I sure am grateful to have Middle Booy as my son. He is always so good at helping me when I need him. He is thoughtful and funny, and reserved for a boy his age. He loves animals and is a good friend to his brothers. He loves a job and his happiest when working on something. He would rather be outdoors than in, and loves sports of all kinds. Middle Boy has made some good friends in our neighborhood. He is a great kid, and I love him a lot. Oh- he's also one of the best looking kids you'll run across in a day. Unless you see my other 4 that is :)

Baby firsts

Well, here's another entry finally. A lot has been going on. Soccer has started for N. E has taken up the clarinet and we are still in search of a violin and piano teacher for N and D. I am hoping to simplify as much as possible and either find a college student in town with a car who can come to our home and teach, or to take the kids to a local music store for lessons all at once with 3 different instruments. Wonder how lucky I will get there. A has started preschool and seems to like it for the most part. She gets so bored at home with me sometimes, so it's a welcome break 2 days a week (for both of us). She complained for the first time about going the other morning, but went when I told her she had to. I always hate it when they figure out it's not an option and they must go to school. It's a long battle for the rest of their childhood after that day.

The Baby has had many firsts of her own in the past few months as well. I should be better about recording right when they happen, but hey- I have 5 children! Not to mention that I still don't feel quite settled in our new place yet. Organizing things just the way I want takes me a while, and if it's not something that effects every day living- I procrastinate. But I digress-- E has 2 lower teeth now (those popped up around 6 months of age). She bites on occasion and I howl and scare her to death. We are learning to deal. I sometimes call her barracuda baby. Then at 7 months she began to crawl and our lives have taken a whole new turn as she gets into about everything she shouldn't and has recently even put her finger in a fan. It was nice of her to wait until things were mostly unpacked first though. Then around the same time (7mo), she gave her first wave to a friend of mine leaving the house. It was so unexpected for me! I checked in with a pediatrician who told me that they don't usually do that until 9-10 months, so I am fairly certain that she is a communications genius! This has sparked my interest in teaching her baby signs. A has already shown great interest in signing (making up her own hand signals for various things), so she has been a good tutor for me. She gets out the small book I bought and does the signs for this or that to me. Whoever put that book together was thinking because even a preschooler can know what the signs are for since there are pictures of say a cat on the cat signing page, etc. A knows a lot of signs now! Anyways I am rather impatient and thought that possibly I would give up too soon without seeing fast results with the Baby, but after only a month of signing to her she has now picked up 2 signs. I thought my eyes were deceiving me at first but she has done it too many times now this week for me to argue with her. She does the sign for milk and a funny version of cracker that reminds me of a rapper. I guess it's just as I suspected-genius...

Long lost blog

I know it has been a long time since I blogged. I have had many things get in the way I guess. I promised myself I would get back into it though, so here I am. T has pooped out for the night and the house is quiet at 10:31pm, so I should be able to crank something out without interruption.

Big Girl has started University Pre-school, and seems to be enjoying it a lot. Every night she asks if the next day is a school day or not. We were very lucky to get her in since there was a long waiting list that we would not have made it through had we not been 'legacy' (meaning I have had children attend there before). Teacher Jan came up to me on Thursday and said that she had a story to share. Apparently during dress up time there was a girl with slow speech who was chattering away incomprehensibly. Big Girl got a strange look on her face and asked the teacher if that blond girl was a Korean.

It's funny to notice things I never would before about Asian people I see here in Iowa. There are a fair number of Koreans attending U of I, or here for other reasons as well. This week when a skinny Asian woman walked right out in front of my car without looking, N and I both noticed that she must be from Korea (or somewhere close). I was also in the car when I noticed someone walking on the sidewalk from a distance, and I sensed in the way they were doing whirlybird motions with their arms while walking that this must also be someone of Korean decent. Sure enough when I got close enough- she looked the part. One of the benefits of living in another culture is that I can smile when I see familiar things I guess.

Another funny Big Girl story and then I will turn in. I have been called as the primary chorister and this month we learned the song "Listen Listen" only we learned to sign the song. So Big Girl has taken it upon herself to make up some signs to use when she wants me to know something. She likes to tell me with her made up signs when she has to use the bathroom. Something I am usually telling her that I don't need for her to tell me when we are at home- she can just go on her own. Perhaps this is why she feels a sign is neccessary instead of 'telling' she can show me with her signs. So for pee she shows me a sign that seems pretty appropriate. She puts her hand down between her legs and points her index finder to the ground, symbolizing a stream of urine I assume. For number 2 she curls the same finger toward her bottom, I guess pointing to the origin of said waste product. So the other day she came to me with a new sign she had ingeniously come up with to represent when she has to do both. One hand forms a circle (poop) and the other makes a straight finger over the circle (peep). She is such a funny gal! We have told her that public use of these signs isn't neccessary.

Fall down-go boom

N recently broke his left radius (distal). In a running falling incident involving the dog. "Naturally the dog was faster than I am," N could be heard saying several times to various health care providers during our diagnosing appointment. No one would want to get the false impression that N was a slow poke. He was very proud of his broken arm. We'll see how much he likes it in 4 weeks!

Back to school blues

Well today was the official start of school and we seem to have gone back without doing too bad. The kids were anxious. I was ready! We all awoke early and by now (almost 6:00 pm) I am tired! N was easy to wake up, something I know will not last as he loves to sleep in these days, a sure sign that he is becoming a teen. We made him a nice hot breakfast of his favorite (scrambled eggs), and he was off to the bus by 7:30. He kept suggesting that we give him a ride on the first day, but since I had 2 other kids to get off to school that wouldn't really work. His Dad goes into work too early for that as well. He also objected to bringing his violin on the first day of school insisting that he wouldn't need it and didn't want to give the kids the impression that he was nerdy on the first day on the bus. Poor N couldn't get a break. He had to take his nerdy instrument. Anyone with any true character would respect that black eyesore as a sign of stick-to-itiveness on behalf of the owner or at least his mother who will never never let him quit. I was pleased to see as I sat on my front step that he was walking home from the bus-stop with another nerdy Asian looking friend with a violin in his hand as well. When I asked him who his friend was he couldn't really say. They were silent walkers apparently. N informed me almost immediately that he didn't really need his violin that day- they didn't play their instruments but did talk about a trip to Chicago to see a real orchestra play and there was talk of a nice restaurant as well. I want to go! Seeing as Chicago is a 5 hour drive I wonder if this is an overnight adventure. I know it will cost 80.00.

Anyways the younger kids seemed in good spirits when coming home from school. E who had made mention repeatedly that 'now was when the boredom begins' on our walk to school came out saying he made 3 new friends and played football at recess with a large group of boys. He also told me that they get a break for 15 minutes on top of recess after lunch. A marked improvement over his last school's outdoor time. He also has a locker-way cool! The most bizarre thing that E had to report is that a kid from his class came up to him asking if he had lived here before and if he remembered a boy named Ted. I was just trying a few weeks earlier to recall a boy he had as a friend when we were here before. Try as I might even when we got out the pre-school class photo we could not recall his name. Well this same boy is in his class and his name is Ted. His mother was a lovely person who I will look forward to getting acquainted with again.

D also came out saying positive things but the main complaint being that there were too many kids on the playground and he couldn't get to the top of the 'space net.' The day for me was most interesting indeed. I had a very happy walk home with my two girls in tow. But once we were home it wasn't long before I realized that even one cranky baby can ruin your day. Especially when you need to get through on the phone to an insurance company that keeps putting you on hold, and A is being demanding (not unusual), and the VCR won't work to distract her with a movie. I recall thinking several times that if I just had more helpers around to take the baby or put on the movie while I am on the phone that would sure be nice.

Well it's now getting to be that crazy time of day when people are hungry and punchy and of coarse T is nowhere in sight to help out while I rustle up some dinner. Sigh! Maybe tomorrow will be better. That's what I told N when he came home too...

PS I also notice that I eat way too many oreos when the kids are gone. When they are here I don't get them out for fear there will be an eating frenzy. Gotta watch that I guess.

Asian Baby

Here we see the baby in her silk Chinese PJs, basically not suited for sleeping in or anything else for that matter since washing them would be difficult (silk). The neck was so tight when I buttoned it that they are actually choking her a bit. You'd never know what with that cute smile though. These outfits weren't really made for chubby American babies. She sure looks cute in them though. When we first moved to Korea I bought some of these silk duds for the boys, and they instantly thought they were the best outfits for Karate kicking. The seams quickly ripped out, not to be repaired easily due to fraying. Yeah pretty much the only thing these outfits are good for are for taking cute pictures. (as seen here).

Out with the old in with the new

Well, I have to say that the only thing that feels better than getting new stuff is getting rid of the old stuff that is building up. Opening box after box of things that have been in storage for 2 years has been both a trip down memory lane and an experience in 'why do we have so much stuff!'

Boxed in

We got tired of unpacking and had some fun putting the baby in a box. We called Big Girl downstairs and asked her if she could find the baby. What a jack in the box surprise she had when she discovered Little Girl inside the box. Big Girl just had to try it. Sometimes the best toy you unpack is the box it came from... sigh.

Three boys, three bikes!

One thing we promised the kids back in Korea was new bikes when we got back to the States. Their bikes were either stolen or severely damaged from the pollution in Seoul. The kids kept wanting to replace their bikes from our cruddy little shop on post and we had them hold out for something better. I think you can tell from the look on their faces that it was worth the wait. Having new bikes has sure helped keep them happy during the wait time for the toys to arrive. Today T went on a long ride with the boys (after getting his bike repaired enough to ride- it took a beating out on our deck in Seoul). He was very impressed especially with Little Boy who was having difficulty the first week handling a bike this size. He can now keep up with the best of riders. That is one kid who does not give up easily! Way to go D!!!

Cute Sisters

Big Girl just can't be left out of a picture. Note the boxes stacked up in the background. I am swimming in paper and boxes and can't believe all the stuff that has filled up this large house. We thought we'd be swimming in this house but we are in sore need of a purging job instead.