Mr. Clean

As a parent, when your child exhibits certain behaviour you start to wonder if maybe your *mild* case of OCD and anal retentive personality are a bit more pronounced than you ever led yourself to believe . At just 17mths old, Logan regularly:

- confidently proclaims "duh-ty" and runs to the trash can with his dirty (just changed) diaper in hand.
- wants nothing more than to help with the vacuuming and dusting
- closes the childproof locks on the kitchen cabinets should they be left open by his forgetful parents.
- announces that it's "col" (cold) and runs to close the sliding glass door leading to the veranda (in an effort to save on the heating bill?).
- puts all of his dishes and cups (and sometimes books, toys, and socks^^) into the kitchen sink when he's finished with them.
- (after an outing of any kind) dutifully sits down to take off his boots, hat, and coat, then marches to the bathroom to wash his hands.
- gets upset if shoes are not immediately put into the shoe cupboard (this one he picked up at daycare though, not from me)
- runs in a cloud of happy delirium to the bathroom to brush his teeth and, of course, returns his toothbrush to the sink when he's done.
- cleans up all of his milk/juice spills with the kitchen tea towel.
- recycles (in the correct container no less!) yogurt containers, juice boxes, straws, and cheese wrappers among other things.
- requests the food garbage bag so that he might throw away banana and orange peels.

Oh, how I love my Bubba :)

Ya! Pororo da!

Today we met up with some fellow expats for a play date at Pororo Park, an indoor children's theme park. In case you're wondering, Pororo is a little blue penguin and star of a Korean animated tv series. It's a really huge franchise (tv series, books, toys, and now a theme park); so popular, in fact, that Pororo has earned the nickname "Pororo the president".

To my surprise, I recently learned that Logan is a big Pororo fan (must've learned from the bigger kids at daycare). For the past week, he's been walking around the house randomly muttering "po-po". So today he played hooky from daycare and got the chance to meet Pororo.

We were some of the first to arrive and got the ball pit all to ourselves (briefly) ~ woohoo!

Don't know how he did it. This was gently rocking/spinning and gave me vertigo, but he seemed unphased.

Hanging out with Pororo and Crong.

Inside Pororo's house.

Reminded me of going to Chuck E. Cheese's as a kid :)

 Good times at Pororo Park. Hopefully Daddy can join us next time ^.^

Bubby's 1st Birthday

The morning began with me (and half the kitchen) covered in vomit courtesy of the birthday boy. He had a mild fever and was most definitely feeling under the weather, a real shame considering that he just got over bronchitis. Luckily, a small dose of Children's Tylenol seemed to do the trick.

It's customary in Korea for parents to celebrate their child's first birthday with an extravagant party called 돌잔치 (dol-jan-chi). I've heard stories of (and been invited to) 1st birthday parties costing upwards of 10 million won ($10,000!). They are often elaborate affairs complete with lavish table settings and decor, a large buffet, an MC, and hundreds of guests bearing cash and/or gold jewelry for the little one. While I appreciate that some families choose to celebrate in this way, Clark and I opted for a much more intimate and small scale celebration.

We reserved a private room at a well-known Korean "family restaurant" called VIPS, known for it's "western" buffet and steak, and invited Clark's parents and a few aunts and uncles. Being from the older generation, Clark's relatives didn't much care for the food and made that fact painstakingly clear. It was quite amusing trailing behind Clark's father through the buffet as he repeatedly exclaimed "뭐야!? / What's that!?". And a recurring conversation at the table was:
Relative: (holding something up on their fork or between their chopsticks) 뭐에요? / What's this?
Me: it's an olive/mango/pasta/pizza/chicken/etc.
Relative: 맛없어 / It doesn't taste good.

Logan received a gold ring and a ton of cash. We're going to deposit the money into his new bank account (started by his Canadian grandparents) to go toward his future education. I sincerely appreciate Clark's family for coming to the party today and showing Logan their love, but one thing that really took me aback was when they (and by they I mean ALL of the aunts and uncles) asked what Logan's name was! The Koreanized part of my brain logically understands why this is so; Koreans don't typically use first names, but instead refer to others based on their social rank or role (e.g. sister, husband, so-and-so's mother, manager, teacher, etc.). My more Western sensibilities, however, cannot fathom how you could not know the name of your own nephew but have a desire to attend his birthday party and shower him with gifts! It stands to reason that they also have no clue what my name is, but I'll save that ditty for the Thanksgiving Holiday coming up in a few weeks time.

Here's the awesome chocolate cake that we ordered. Perhaps not as delicious as something to be found in Canada, but damn tasty by Korean standards!

Singing the Happy Birthday song...

Grrrr...I have a fantastic video of Logan eating the cake, but it won't upload! :(

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUBBY!!!! Mommy and Daddy LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU!!!!

Bubby Goes to the Beach

Yesterday, Grandma and Grandpa took Bubby and I to Grand Bend. Bubby had lots of fun playing on the sand and in the water (didn't even cry when I dunked him for the first time). We're going to go again next week when Auntie Kristen is here.

Logan's New Daycare

It's a sad day folks. I now have to wash my own dishes, clean my own floors, and do my own laundry. Man, do I miss having a nanny! Sadly, we said goodbye to Josie on Friday. It was a wonderful luxury having her with us to take care of Logan and do the housework for the past six months, but with Clark's recent string of bad luck in the job department we decided it best to explore other options.

Here's a picture of Logan with Josie on their last day together...sniff sniff...they were together since he was just 8 weeks old and formed a close bond.

But all good things must come to an end, or so they say. Lucky for us the Korean government provides a subsidy in the form of a 'debit card' called the Aisarang Card 아이사랑카드 or "Child Love Card". For multicultural families such as ourselves, childcare is 100% covered for the first 5 years.

There are a variety of different kinds of daycare facilities, called 어린이집 or "Children's House". We found a small, government certified, apartment-style children's house (so-called because it's located on the first floor of an apartment building) in our neighbourhood. It's a 5 minute drive or 25 minute walk from our place. We chose this particular one mainly because of its size. There are 11 children who currently attend (to a maximum allowable of 19).

Several weeks ago, we began taking Logan there for just a few hours at a time a few days a week in order to get him accustomed. He was supposed to start full-time yesterday, but he got a cold, so we waited until today to start him.

 

 

These are Logan's new caregivers. The woman on the right is also the owner. They're smiling because I brought them a couple of homemade banana-strawberry muffins :)

 

 

There are three children in Logan's age group. At this age, there is one adult to every three children. And when he turns 12 months, he'll be sent to a different room where the ratio is 1 adult to 5 children. Here he is in his Jellymom (Bumbo knockoff) getting ready for his lunch. They don't have highchairs and at first suggested they hold him on their lap to feed him, but we thought it best to bring along the Jellymom to keep him in the practice of sitting on his own to eat.

Though it hasn't been said outright, it's quite obvious that they find our child-rearing practices a bit peculiar. For one, I choose to pack Logan's food instead of having him eat the standard juk 죽 "rice porridge" they serve the kids. From what I understand, juk is served at every meal to the kids in Logan's age group. It's not that I think there's anything at all wrong with rice porridge, I just enjoy making food for Logan and want him to experience the wide variety of flavours and nutrients that exist. Like today, for instance, he feasted on a medley of beef, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots & peas followed later by yogurt and bananas. Also related to our 'unorthodox' feeding habits is the issue of the highchair, or, in this case, lack thereof. Whilst a great many Korean parents choose to spoonfeed their children 'til a ripe age, we would prefer to have Logan learn how to feed himself. I recently read that children gain a sense of independence and self-confidence by successfully feeding themselves. The other thing that seems to befuddle them is his sleeping habits. Their method is to rock him in their arms and when he's almost asleep lie him on a mat on the floor, but they have yet to have any success with this technique. We've explained that he is accustomed to sleeping alone in his own room in a crib, but they insist their method works. I suppose I should wish them good luck because I really don't think they're going to be able to undo 8 months of sleep training, though I hope for their sake they succeed.

Though we miss Josie, we're happy to have Logan in daycare. He's going to learn to socialize with other babies (he's already made one cry by pulling the poor guy's hair), learn to speak Korean, and no doubt learn some Korean mannerisms.  Have fun Bubba!

Toy Awesomeness

Had Barney Stinson accompanied us to the  Suwon Toy Library 아이장난감도서관 today, he surely would have agreed that it is pure awesomeness.

The government runs this program for Korean and multicultural families with young children to borrow toys, books, and dvds. Clark and I signed up today along with another expat mom we know who's also married to a Korean. This is Casey and her almost 8 month-old girl, Ivy.

A friend of Casey's, Gisela, also met us there, but has to wait for a membership (must enter a lottery in March) because both her and her husband are foreign. Here's Gisela's little boy, Iggy, who seemed to be enjoying himself testing out lots of different toys.

We're on probation for the first three months so they can make sure we behave ourselves and abide by their rules. The rules are quite simple, really; we can use our library card to borrow up to two toys and three books at any given time (or one dvd may be sustituted for a book). The borrowing period is ten days, after which late fees are incurred with the fee being decided by the size/value of the toy as per a coloured sticker code.

The place is pretty amazing. Everything is barcoded and has labels telling you the product name, what age group it's appropriate for, & general instructions on how to use it. Then, when you go to the check out counter, they walk you through how to use the toys you're borrowing. Here's Clark at the checkout getting shown how to use the play gym we picked out today.

The most impressive thing is the cleanliness. See the woman in the room behind him? She cleans all of the toys as they're returned. And from what I could tell, she was doing a very thorough job of it.

I think it's pretty safe to say that from this day forward, we will never spend money on toys again!

Here's Bubby at home with a (figuratively speaking) new play gym.

Little Prince Kids Cafe

Today we were invited to spend the afternoon with a fellow expat family (from England) at a local kid's cafe called 'Little Prince'.

I've never been to anything of the sort before and was rather impressed. There's a 6000won (about $5.50) entrance fee, but they didn't charge us because Logan is so young and unable to make use of much yet. They have a wide selection of toys, a trampoline room, ball pit, slide, jungle gym, carousel, and train. They also have a small library and a costume closet (there were quite a few princesses and supermans running around today).

They served pretty decent food, though it was a little pricey. We had pork cutlet and teriyaki chicken pilaf. Matthew (UK dad) told us that lately he's been going there with his daughter almost every day and is a huge fan of the coffee they serve. He had THREE triple shot coffees while we were there!

It was Logan's first time to socialize with other kids and definitely something I think we're going to start doing a lot more of.  One little girl, in particular, took a shine to him.

Clark took Logan for a train ride. It was hard to get a good picture because the train was moving surprisingly fast!

And here they are testing out the slide.

Then Bubby chilled out in this rocking chair and it wasn't long before he fell asleep. I guess all the excitement wore him out.

Hello 2011

It’s probably better to say that I’ve matured rather than admit that I’m now just plain boring. When I returned to Korea in 2006, I did this:

Here I am (behind the camera) downtown at Boshingak “bell pavilion” with a few good friends in a manic crowd of several hundred thousand, no doubt drunk, and secretly praying I don’t catch on fire.

Now fast forward 4 years to this New Year’s Eve. After eating at a (very crowded) shabu-shabu restaurant, we put Logan to bed, gobbled up a freshly baked apple crisp, cracked open a bottle of champagne (my first taste of alcohol in over a year) and watched “When Harry Met Sally”. Things certainly do change ~ *sigh*.

We had visitors on New Year’s Day. Clark’s parents, grandmother & aunt (on his mother’s side) came over with a ton of mandu “dumplings”. For those who haven’t read my Favourite Winter Food post, eating mandu is a New Year’s (both Solar & Lunar) tradition in Korea. According to popular superstition, a person does not become a year older until they’ve eaten mandu in some form or another; usually served in beef broth soup. Regardless of actual birthday, everyone turns a year older on January 1.

Does this look like a 2 year-old?

Koreans (and a few other East Asian countries, I think) count a person’s age differently from the rest of the world whereby a newborn is considered 1 year-old at the time of birth and each passing of a new year adds another year. Thus, Logan (who is 4 months-old) is now magically 2 years-old!

Logan with his Grandmother, Aunt, & Great-Grandmother



Happy 2011!

Tips for Happy Teething

Hello. It's me again, Logan. My gums are feeling itchy thesedays, so I find it necessary to put things in my mouth.  Mommy and Daddy think I'm going to sprout some teeth in the not so distant future :P

Here are my tips for a happy teething experience:

#1 Taste test your favourite playmate. In my case, Mr. Inchworm.

#2 Ask someone to buy you a teething toy. This giraffe from Mel & Evan provides plenty of chomping pleasure!

#3 Grab whatever is nearby. Here, I happened to be in arms reach of the giraffe that's part of my playgym.

#4 Not satiatied after a meal?  Pas de problem! Just eat the bib :)

#5 And when toys are not within reach, simply use the blanket (your sleeves will also suffice).