The Kimchi Kid Says The Cutest Things!

Showing off the dragonfly he caught.

After his bath today Thomas came into my room to say good night. He showed me his wrinkled fingers and said "Oh no! Look Mommy! My fingers are Grandmaed!"

Watching TV with his baby brother.

After he pooped I went in the bathroom to wipe his bum. He shouted at me "No Mommy! Don't look a my poop! Don' t look at my poop! It's a big dirty one!"

Super Thomas to the rescue!

Thomas wanted desperately to watch "Super Zero" on Youtube.
He said to his daddy " I want to watch 'Super Zero'! The flying one with the clouds! Like the new spiderman! And the many flying and airplane! 'Super Zero'! I want 'Super Zero'!"

After a few frustrating minutes of trying to find out what video he was talking about we realized he meant "SUPER HERO" and it was an X-men cartoon he'd watched.

When we explained his mistake to him he said "Oh, sowwie Daddy. Sowwie."

If you want the puppy to come to you, this is how you have to hold your hand! Words of Wisdom from the Kimchi Kid!

Thomas knows that his Daddy sometimes goes out at night. Usually they shower and get ready for bed together. If Daddy doesn't do it with him it means he's going out. Thomas doesn't like that so he tries to come up with a way to prevent Daddy from leaving.

"Daddy! You have to take a shower! Daddy you're dirty! Daddy you have to take a shower, take off your shirt and panties and 바지(pants)!"

After the shower when Daddy still isn't undressed and ready for bed.
"Daddy you have to take off your shirt! Daddy you have to take it off or you will be 아픈(painful)!"

He talks a mile a minute these days so I've decided to make a concerted effort to share some of his hilarious logic and quirky comments. Watch this space!

Shutterfly Holiday Cards-Family, you may actually get cards this Christmas!!

Hello all! Mommy Cha here! I just found out about a wonderful site called "Shutterfly"!
Thanks to a great posting by Mama Seoul , I have found a solution that will work for me!

As many of you(family and friends) who live outside of South Korea may have noticed, I am awful at getting to the post office to mail gifts, cards, photos, etc. I actually wrote cards when I was pregnant with the Kimchi Kid, addressed them and left them in my office until after his 1st birthday when I mailed them out for Christmas! So bad, I know! To make things worse, they didn't even have a photo of the Kimchi Kid in them, so I am sure everyone was disappointed to not see his shining face looking out from a Christmas greeting!

This is where Shutterfly comes to the rescue!
They offer GORGEOUS, glossy, colourful and creative holiday cards for amazing prices! Cards you can customize and add your own photos to! Cards like these lovely Christmas cards! I just love the many different designs they offer! From this lovely traditional styled card :

*Obviously not our family, but imagine how GOOD we would look on this card!

To these fun and funky Modern styled Christmas greetings:

*Cute kid, but nowhere near as cute as The Kimchi Kid! Right? RIGHT!?!

If it wasn't enough to know that I could order my Christmas Cards, I can also order them in 3 different styles! The cards are available as Folded Greeting Cards which allow you to put "photos and wishes inside and out", Flat Stationery Cards in "stylish designs frame your photos" or Flat Photo Cards which allow you to "send holiday love (for less)"!

There are so many choices, my only worry is choosing them in time for Christmas delivery! Luckily Shutterfly makes that easy for me too! They can stamp and mail my cards DIRECTLY! No more worries about me getting to the post office on time this year!

I wish I had discovered Shutterfly earlier, because it isn't just about Christmas cards, as awesome as they may be! They offer a variety of custom services, several of which I have used from Korean companies in the past. The benefit to me is that with Shutterfly I understand what is going on as it is all in English and I can ship it directly to my family instead of waiting for it to arrive here and then sending it on my own.

*Now no one will forget important days like Mommy Cha and The Kimchi Kid's birthdays!

One of those things is Wall Calendars. I have an adorable calendar on my wall of the Kimchi Kid in his Halloween costume from 2009. My in-laws in Texas also have one. Why doesn't the rest of my family? For the simple reason that my Korean future-SIL ordered and posted it to my in-laws and gave one to me. I would have loved to send a copy to everyone in Canada, but alas, my language skills failed me and I gave up. Now with Shutterfly I can send an awesome calendar to all my family members so they can enjoy the Kimchi Kid 365 days a year!

*Come visit us in South Korea and make YOUR OWN "Asian Adventure"!

The other thing I have done is created Photo Books for my sister and my nephew to commemorate their visit to South Korea in January of 2009. It took me hours on the Korean website to create the books and in the end, the whole process failed because I hadn't used Internet Explorer and the final submit button wouldn't display! I had written a personalized story to accompany the photos in my nephew's photo book and I had to re-write the whole thing! In the end the formatting and paragraphing was a little strange as well, due to the language differences between Korean and English. The saving grace was that he absolutely loved it, still does, and will gladly pull it out to read and pore over the pictures.
Customized Photo Books are awesome gifts for children, if you haven't tried it, I would highly recommend doing so! Be creative, write a narrative about the photos that the child can read on their own. Spice it up with some adventure or funny anecdotes! It will become a gift the whole family will love and treasure for years to come!

So now you may be wondering, why all the Shutterfly love?
Beyond making my life so much easier and allowing me to share the adorable Kimchi Kid with everyone, they have a great holiday promotion on right now!
Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly, follow the arrow à http://bit.ly/sfly2010

How can you resist the lure of Shutterfly's awesome cards, calendars, books and more, especially when you can get 50 free cards just for writing about them?? I know I couldn't!

So if you want a gorgeous Christmas card from Mommy Cha and the Kimchi Kid, be sure to give me your address so I can send one your way!

Cheers!
Mommy Cha

Mommy Cha and the Kimchi KIDS?!

The Kimchi Kid got a stylish Mohawk haircut for the hot, humid Summer season!

Hello everyone, Mommy Cha here again. I know, I know, I am an awful blogger. I am so sorry!! >.< I have a lovely draft blog post about family-friendly Bucheon I started last month, but I've been unable to continue with it. I have a very good excuse this time though-I swear! We're currently 8.5 weeks pregnant with baby #2! Yay! We heard the heartbeat and had a good checkup on Monday. All is well with baby and the due date is April 9th, 2010. I on the other hand am not doing so well. I came down with a terrible stomach virus 2.5 weeks ago and since then have been suffering greatly with morning, noon and night sickness! I've lost track of the days where I haven't vomited and my kindergarten gently suggested that I start my vacation time a few weeks early and rest. I'm hoping this means that baby #2 will be the much requested girl, but we really only hope for a healthy and happy baby, just like the original Kimchi Kid! We've tried to explain what is happening to the Kimchi Kid but the week after we told him about the baby in mommy's tummy, I got very sick with the stomach virus. He was then told by his daddy that mommy's tummy was "아프다", Korean for "hurt/pain". So the poor little guy thought the baby was hurting mommy's tummy and he wouldn't go to sleep for a few days without resting his hand or head on my tummy to comfort me! These days he seems to understand a bit better, but we're going to wait a bit more before getting into more discussion with him. We plan on taking him to the doctor's appointments with us in the future so he can see the baby on the ultrasound. With the Kimchi Kid we were clueless, anxious new parents and had ultrasounds performed every 2 weeks since our doctor was being overly cautious. We had no idea this wasn't the norm but will only have them every few months this time around. We've also learned that the Korean government provides a free credit card for prenatal visits, up to 300,000won($300) total. This will really help cover the cost of our checkups and is a nice incentive to try and increase the birthrate in South Korea. We can also get free multivitamins from the local municipal office, but I ordered from the USA instead. Too bad I keep vomiting them up, but hopefully this too will pass!

Playing in the water with Daddy, AKA "Tom teacher"!

Right now the Kimchi Kid is incredibly excited for our upcoming vacation to North America! The discovery of the long-awaited pregnancy plus my BIL's upcoming wedding to my close Korean friend(I set them up! How cool is that??) meant that we had to jump at the chance to take a trip and visit all the family. The Kimchi Kid and I have visited Austin, Texas to see the Korean family members the past two years. Last year my younger sister and nephew came to Korea to visit us, but we haven't been home to visit my family since he was 4months old. Since he is so different and wonderful now at 28 months, it is past due time to get home and visit! Not to mention that the new arrival next year will limit my ability to travel and visit for quite some time! The Kimchi Kid is already quite a fan of "비행기", airplane, and so we have been priming him with pictures and stories about airplanes. He is very excited to go and understands that he is traveling with mommy while daddy stays home for work. As he says "Mommy, Thomas, 비행기 같이(airplane together). Tom teacher, no! Stay home!"^.^ Hehehe..The Kimchi Kid is quite fond of calling his daddy "Tom" or "Tom teacher" since he teaches at the same kindergarten that our son attends and sees/hears the students refer to him as "Tom teacher" daily. We think it is very sweet that he understands daddy can't come because he has to be "Tom teacher" and work. We plan to take a family vacation for Christmas, hopefully somewhere warm, so that "Tom teacher" can get a break as well!

The Kimchi Kid has been making excellent language progress in both Korean and English and is comfortable speaking in both languages depending on whom he is speaking to. His teacher has a far better understanding of his Korean speech than we do as she is hearing it 5 days a week, 7 hours a day. Already his Korean has surpassed mine in certain areas but thankfully since we switched to pure English in the home, he has managed to become an excellent English speaker as well! He still mixes in Korean vocabulary on a regular basis but it is easy for us to understand. He also loves singing these days, and happily sings to himself in a mix of Korean and English. He has made a mash-up of the "Pororo Penguin" theme song as well as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "ABC". Heaven forbid if we try to sing along though, he will quickly tell us "NO! No singing PLEASE!". Such a little critic! ^.^ He has also almost mastered counting 1-10 in English and 1-5 in Korean. He will at times mix them up but it seems like the English numbers came easier to him. He happily points out and counts diggers, forklifts and other heavy machinery as we walk and drive around town. He is constantly surprising us with his keen observations, active interest and strong memories of the world around him. Every day he brings a smile to our faces as he shares some new discovery with us. We truly are blessed with happiness in our son!


It must be a male thing, being so comfortable on the toilet! ^.~

As for other developments, well the Kimchi Kid is 100% toilet trained and it happened so fast that I still have 1 1/2 cases of diapers in the house! He never wets the bed, is always vocal about needing to use the bathroom and except for 2 pooping in the park incidents things have been smooth sailing! The pooping the park came about when he had to GO and there was no toilets nearby. Thank goodness for bushes and borrowed wet tissue!

Mmm..yummy cake!

There is so much more he is doing these days that I constantly forget to write down! He feeds himself completely, even to the point of often helping himself to food and snacks in the house. He loves art and drawing and will happily sit and doodle on his own. He is a master block stacker and has become creative in making diggers, cranes and trains out of blocks. He has started to turn off the TV if something "Scary" comes on although so far this happens with 1 episode of "Pororo Penguin" and a dog scene in "The Fantastic Mr. Fox". He also managed to create his own "괴물" or monster out of a shape sorter that was arranged in a face pattern. It reminds him of the monster in "Pororo Penguin" and has caused tears more than once now! He walks so much we never use a carrier or stroller now, and have even walked more than 2km without him asking to be carried! He is such a happy and strong little boy, everywhere we go is surrounded with positive energy and interaction. No wonder he loves to go for long walks every evening! ^.^

Move over Jamie Oliver-The Kimchi Kid is the TRUE Naked Chef! ^.~

Since I am on vacation now and spending most of that time in bed, online or vomiting, I will do my best to keep the blog more regularly updated with stories about the Kimchi Kid. Thank you to everyone for your patience and hope to hear from and see you all soon!
Much love, Mommy Cha and the Kimchi Kid! ^.~

Long Time, No Post!

Hello everyone! So sorry it has been so long between posts lately.
What can I say? The Kimchi Kid is growing up so fast, Mommy Cha rarely gets the chance to sit down and blog. Facebook is about as good as it gets these days, anything that takes longer is more likely to be forgotten. As it is, I am writing in bed, while the Kimchi Kid drifts off to sleep next to me. We're working on separate beds but he still needs Mommy or Daddy next to him to fall asleep! Which I don't mind, as I can't believe my baby is growing up so fast!! ㅠ.ㅠ
The Kimchi Kid has so many new developments daily it is hard to keep track. I'll do my best to try and post more often! For now, here are some tidbits and anecdotes to tide you over! ^.^

The Kimchi Kid modeling his new underwear!

1. The Kimchi Kid began potty training just over 1 month ago. After the first day, he never peed or pooped his pants at school again. The few accidents he has had were due to us forgetting to take him to the bathroom. Now we no longer need to worry-he tells us when he has to go and has graduated from the potty to the potty seat on the big toilet, and no seat when peeing! This took us and the kindergarten completely by surprise! He still can't pull his own pants down fully, but he doesn't even wear pull ups anymore, just thin cotton underwear! Fantastic!

2. The Kimchi Kid has begun adjusting well to the only English approach we are taking at home. He has almost complete understanding of anything you say to him although he often will choose to not answer beyond a few words or in Korean. He can be negotiated with, offering him options works wonders! He can fully understand the choices presented to him and respond with the choice he prefers. This leads to much more pleasant outings and time together for us all.
Recently he has even begun to make English sentences which is a great step for him! Since he has so much more exposure to Korean he speaks it more easily, but is showing a good grasp of English now that we have decided to focus on it more in the home. Our first approach was 1 parent, 1 language. But when Daddy was speaking Korean, as well as Doumi, neighbours, strangers around him and his school, Korean was all he would use. Now he is learning that we respond to English and people around him respond to Korean. ^.^

3. The Kimchi Kid has gotten even better at feeding himself. He has trainer chopsticks that he uses like a pro! He even picked his own meat off the grill in a restaurant with them! He is very good at telling us what he would like to eat, although at times that has meant he requested "cheeseburger" or "ice-cream" for dinner. But what kid doesn't request things like that? ^.~

4. The Kimchi Kid has become extremely fond of song and dance, drawing and painting. I credit his kindergarten for inspiring this creativity in him, but some of it surely must be genetic! (The drawing and painting, not song and dance! Neither Tom nor I are good at that!)
He loves to sing little songs to himself, sometimes they seem to be real songs that we can identify, other times he makes them up. He also loves to clap his hands, dance and bob his head in time to music. I caught him singing along and dancing to the opening song in the movie "Wall-E" the other day.
As for the art, well he only tries drawing on paper, but it can be magazines, books, sketch pads, tissue, anything! Despite having lots of lovely crayons his weapon of choice is a ball point pen. As long as he doesn't draw on other surfaces, I suppose it isn't too bad. He really loves tracing his hand or feet though and can do so endlessly. I think it is adorable!

5. The Kimchi Kid is polite! Yay for Canada! ^.~ He is very good at using his "please" and "thank-you"s. He is fond of saying " Help me please!" if he can't do something on his own. He loves to ask for "Money please!" or "Candy please!". He is just so cute when he does it is hard to say no!
He is also very good at greeting Koreans politely, bowing and speaking the polite form "안녕하세요!" (Ahn nyoung ha seh yo). The people in our building, in the shops and restaurants all know and love him. He gets so much positive attention everywhere he goes and he is always polite and happy.
He has even been given money by older men who said that he reminded them of when their children were young! ^.^ The first time it was 1000won($1) but twice now he has been given 10,000won($10). He is also frequently given toys, candy and snacks by his adoring fans! ^.~ I'm getting tired of the candy thing, but we are weaning him off it.

6. The Kimchi Kid is currently obsessed with baseball, bugs, birds and diggers! During the recent construction in front of our building there was a large orange backhoe at work almost every day. There was no way you could tear him away from watching that machine at work! He talks about diggers all the time, looking for them and pointing them out to us. The same goes for bugs and birds. He is always hunting for them when we go for walks and will chase either one happily for hours!
As for baseball, he calls it "야구" (Yagu). He can spot a baseball, bat or glove a mile away! He will run into the park searching for older boys playing it and try to play with them. Luckily everyone is charmed by this precocious little sports fan and they are more than happy to toss him the ball a few times. He has also learned "strike", "out" and "home run" which he happily shouts while watching people play!

7. The Kimchi Kid has learned the difference between "Good Boy" and "Bad Boy" and will tell us when he is being a "Good Boy". We have worked with time outs and now counting down from 5 in terms of discipline. We also explain to him now that if he is a "Bad Boy" he will be punished, either by forfeiting a treat or reward, returning home or by making us angry. He has learned that these are things he doesn't want so if we tell him that is what will happen, he reassures us that he will be a "Good Boy"!
At dinner the other night he was being restless while we were still eating and refusing to eat his meal. We told him that if he did not eat, we would go home and have no walk in the park. Since he loves walking in the park so much, he responded "No no! Thomas Good Boy!" and ate all his food! ^.^ Daddy and I were so surprised and utterly charmed that it was all we could do to stop from laughing out loud!

There is so much more I could write, but the Kimchi Kid has fallen asleep and it is time for me to steal away into the night...
I will leave this post at lucky #7 and do my best to write more soon!!

Much love from us all, Mommy Cha, Daddy Cha and The Kimchi Kid! <3

The Kimchi Kid and ABCs!

It has a QWERTY keyboard so he is learning the keyboard at the same time!


Thomas loves his Leap Frog Text & Learn.


He also loves to sit in his book tent and read.

When we went to Texas I bought Thomas a new toy, LeapFrog Text & Learn. He has been playing with it on his own in the house, during car rides and such. Then one day we were in the car, sitting at a red light, when Thomas started saying "I,i,i!". Tom said to me that he didn't know what he was talking about so I looked back and realized that he was looking out the window at a store sign next to us. It was the "DIY Mart" and Thomas was pointing out the "I" in "DIY" to us! We were so surprised as we hadn't put any attention or effort into teaching him his ABCs yet. After all he was only 20 months old!
From that day on, Thomas was an ABC learning machine! He was pointing out and saying the ABCs everywhere we went! Daddy has been working hard to help him now, practicing them with stickers on the fridge. Thomas can now identify, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, I, K, Q, S, V, and Z on his own! He can spot them on signs, on books, papers, cars, toys, boxes, anything and everything. We were so surprised and impressed with his knowledge and even more his desire for knowledge. We bought some posters with the ABCs on them and he loves to read them and tell us what he sees!
Beyond his new-found knowledge of ABCs he is starting to speak more and more English. These days he can easily say "I love you", "please", "more", "all done", "night-night", "thank you", "orange juice", "orange", "car key" and several animal names in English. His Korean skills are also advancing, he can tell us when he doesn't want to eat, that he's had a good sleep, when he wants a bath and he has started saying hello and good bye in Korean. He communicates so well that we rarely have trouble understanding what he wants or what is bothering him. I guess one of the most important developments recently he's come up with is "No". He can tell us what he wants more accurately now and it really helps us in our daily life.
The Kimchi Kid is surprising us daily with his new vocabulary and behaviour. He's growing up so fast, sometimes I feel that it is too fast! We went to the orientation for his Kindergarten today. I cried when we were done, I'm not ready for him to start school! In Korea he is already almost 3 years old! They follow the lunar calendar here and the ages are on average 1-2 years older than in Canada. There were several other kids his age at the orientation, but I just think he is still a baby and no where near ready to enter preschool! Unfortunately Tom, Doumi and the Kindergarten teachers all think differently! I am sure Thomas will love it and will thrive in the new active environment. They don't focus on teaching too much in the beginning, they try to help them with basic skills, behaviour, manners and such. He will have snacks twice a day, lunch, play time, story time, song time, gym time, nap time and more. I worked at his school for the past year and really love the system and his teacher. She is a sweetheart and loves him already since we've been taking him for visits and special days through the past year.
Hopefully I'll update more often in the future, especially once he starts school. I know we will most likely have lots of new and fun stories to share!
Much love from Mommy Cha and the Kimchi Kid.

Language and Respect!

As many of you may know(and if you don't know, why don't you read my blog??!!), we are trying to raise the Kimchi Kid in a bi-lingual environment. The reason we do this is mainly out of respect for my husband's culture and heritage but also since we are living and raising him in South Korea.
My husband left South Korea as a small child, around the age of 5. His parents whole-heartedly immersed him into the American lifestyle, culture and the English language. He very quickly(6 months he says!) learned to speak English and FORGOT all his Korean language abilities. As he grew older he realized that he was unable to comunicate with his grandmother and that saddened him. He attempted to re-learn Korean so that he was able to at least thank her and ask her how she was doing. Upon his return to South Korea he studied Korean in an academy and then joined the Korean military for his mandatory service. Adult Korean males must serve at least 2 years(it may be less now) in the military. My husband became fluent in speaking Korean during that time, and he STILL remembers how his grandmother cried after speaking to him on the phone, in Korean, for the first time! As a result he was determined that his children would NOT forget their heritage and their language. I agreed with him that it was important for our children to be aware of their cultural background and learn the language of their country of residence. The Kimchi Kid has been progressing well in both English and Korean, but since Korean is more prevalent he is stronger in speaking Korean than English.
I read and talked to several people who have raised bilingual children and we chose to follow the 1 parent-1 language approach. That means I try to speak only English while my husband tries to speak only Korean to our son. At times I do forget and speak in Korean to him, but I always try and say the English word as well.
Beyond just learning a language however, there is a question of respect. I was raised to always say please and thank-you especially to those older than me. Teachers, friends' parents, doctors, grandparents, relatives, etc. all of these people I was unfailingly polite to. So when I came to Korea I was shocked at how rude I found people could be! Once I had spent some time here, and read more about the culture and history of the country, I began to understand more. Korea was strongly influenced by Confucianism and still is today. This teaches the Korean people that elders should be respected, as well as teachers and scholars above all else and this is reflected in their language as well. Asking your age or job when meeting someone new is not considered rude, but it helps them determine what language to use with you and where to place you in their social hierarchy.
I quickly learned that strangers where not so much being rude to me, but more likely uncertain of my status in their life and instead choosing to ignore me. It was like I simply did not exist in their world until I was introduced. The older woman ramming me with her cart at the store, or pushing past me to grab something, would often change her attitude and apologise if I called her on it. Usually I would just ignore it as it was not worth it to me. Staff in stores and coffee shops where I became a regular who at first may not acknowledge me would start to respect me the more they saw me. Slowly I became "someone" in their view. This has led to me forming good relationships of mutual respect with many different people here, including teachers, doctors, students and their families. Our local store owner would often give the Kimchi Kid a free candy when we shopped for produce.
Since I was ever mindful that as a foreigner in South Korea, I paid special attention to my pleases and thank-yous in Korean. As part of the culture of respect, Koreans have formal and casual language, the formal of course being the most polite and suitable for elders, teachers or scholars. However, I frequently used the politest form of "thank-you" for anyone who served me or helped in stores or restaurants, as that was simply how I was raised. My husband was actually told by my favorite sandwich lady that she ALWAYS gave me extra toppings on my sandwich because I was the ONLY one who was always so polite with her! Not even younger Koreans would thank her like I did, they simply ignored her. She was so impressed that I spoke the most polite Korean to her, thanked her for my food and always said please and I was a FOREIGNER! This made a big impact on me, because it showed me that by simply respecting her and her language/culture, she would never forget me and treated me better than the average customer. A little respect can go a long way sometimes!
Once I made the decision to marry a Korean, I threw myself into language lessons. Despite the fact that my in-laws live in Texas and speak fluent English, I knew that I wanted to be able to communicate with them in their language. This was a sign of my respect for them, as they were my family now. I tried my best to learn the polite forms of please and thank you, as well as greetings and compliments for cooking for my MIL. They were very happy and touched that I made the effort and it helped them to understand that while I was not Korean, I respected them and their culture. The Kimchi Kid has been raised the same way and he already knows how to say "please" in English, bow his head in respect for greetings or thanks in Korea, and to use both hands as a polite sign when asking for a treat or toy. This is important to us and we hope to raise a bilingual child who is well-mannered and respectful in Korean and English.
I have often read postings in online forums from the ESL community and gotten angered by those who have no respect for the country or culture that they are currently residing in. I understand that you may have no intention of staying in Korea long-term and therefore have no need for the language, but is it really that hard to learn your please and thank-yous? I find it even more difficult to deal with people who marry into a different culture and live and raise children in that new country or culture. The very least you could do is learn to respect your in-laws in their language, especially if they do not know yours. Afterall if they moved to your home country, can you honestly tell me that you would NOT expect them to learn YOUR language especially if they plan to be there long term?
Respect is not given, it is earned. If you don't respect the people around you, why on earth would you expect them to respect YOU?

Time Moves So Swiftly!

The future is so bright, I gotta wear shades!


This laundry basket is much more comfortable since I removed the dirty clothes!



Toilet paper rolls are fun toys, especially once you remove all the rolled up paper!


Why won't you help me climb up on the sofa to press the intercom? You're so mean Mommy!


Hey, what's that?

The Kimchi Kid has delighted in showing us all his new skills and more over the past few days! Time seemed to move so slowly while pregnant, now each and every day he is demonstrating new skills and comprehension.
Some days I miss that precious baby I held in my arms, but other days I rejoice at how blessed we are to have such a happy and healthy son keeping us on our toes!
His vocabulary is constantly growing and these days he seems to be trying even harder to repeat after us. We have always tried to speak to him, even when he was in the womb, but now he is trying to speak back to us.
This week he spoke English for the first time(if you can call it that!). We have a CD of children's songs that the doumi brought us and the first song is the Alphabet song. I asked him if he wanted the ABC song and he replied "ABC!" . We were so surprised and thrilled! He also has started repeating Korean words after us. He says "Banana" which is the same in Korean and English, and "Seureggi" which is garbage in Korean. That word came about because after changing his diaper, we would always throw it in the trash can and tell him that it was "Seureggi". These days he takes great delight in throwing his own dirty diaper in the trash and repeating "Seureggi" after us.
He has now mastered door opening and if he is not tired, he will not hesitate to open the door and leave the bedroom. This can be good and bad. It is good because now when he wakes up he can come out and find us, no more crying in the room waiting for us to come in and get him. It is bad because twice now I have been so exhausted I have not woken when he has, and instead I wake to the sound of dishes crashing in the kitchen as he searches for his morning "mool". The other bad side is he has apparently learned how to unlock the house door and open it, inspiring great terror in me that he may run away and be hurt! Fortunately he is fond of us and the doumi, and reluctant to leave us. He will try and follow Tom if he goes out to smoke, but usually I am here and can prevent him.
With the lovely Summer weather we have tried to take daily walks as a family. If not as a family, one of us will take Thomas for a nice walk around the area. Before we would put him in the stroller and then let him walk at our destination. Now we will walk with him, often with Thomas wearing his leash/harness, and he happily walks for 30 minutes or more on a daily basis. He is very active and loves being outside. He doesn't often run from us but he still tries to pick up trash, leaves and sticks and that can make for slow going.
Reading is still his favorite quiet time occupation, and he appears to have lost interest in his Pororo DVD. I can't say I mind that he no longer zones out with the TV, but when I am cooking it can be a pain to have him underfoot! I recently bought him a new book, "I Love you Forever" by Robert Munsch. Reading it to my son for the first time brought me to tears. I remembered this book from my childhood, and now reading it as a mother drove the sentiment home even stronger. Last night when I curled up in bed next to him and watched him sleep, I kissed his forehead and held him in my arms. I whispered the words of the story to him:

"I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be."

I'm actually crying now as I type this. Never did I imagine I would feel so much love for someone as I do for my son. I would do anything for him and I am doing my best to be a good mother for him. The words from the story remind me that although he is growing so fast, changing from my baby to my boy, no matter what, he will always be my baby, and I will always love him.

What a Beautiful Day!

I love cupcakes. Love them! Think they are the best thing in the world! I dream of opening a cupcake cafe one day. I think it would be amazing! So yesterday when Tom and I stopped by Hyundae Department store for lunch, I was THRILLED to see a gourmet cupcake shop had opened!! I was not so thrilled-to see that each cupcake was 3,600 won each, but they were all so pretty and delicately decorated! After much deliberation, I chose this chocolate vanilla cupcake for our doumi ajumma who has a major sweet tooth! She was so impressed by it's adorable appearance she STILL hasn't eaten it!! Hahaha..that was the start of my Beautiful Day!

How could you resist??

It ended up being a gorgeous day here! Blue sky, golden sunshine, a light breeze ruffling all the glossy green leaves around where we live. Bucheon has put a lot of effort into planting trees and making green spaces. One of the apartment complexes I teach at recently put small gardens with tall, leafy trees all along the sidewalks on the main road that runs past them. Koreans love to relax in the shade, sleep even, in local parks during the hot Summer days and nights. I really love that about Bucheon, and I think that is why I have stayed so long. Even though Winters are bitterly cold and dry, the lush green Spring, Summer and colorful Fall make up for it!

View from our building of the park and area.


Fountains in the park.

Thomas enjoying the shade.

Since the weather was so gorgeous and I was done for the day at 4:30pm, I decided to take Thomas to the park to enjoy this day while we could! He was more than happy to crawl into the stroller and get his shoes on. He even tolerated his hat for more than 10 minutes! As I was leaving our building I bumped into my friend Melody(Mel) and asked her to join us. She was happy to spend time with us so off we went!
As soon as we arrived at the park we let the little man out of the stroller and he took off exploring! There was so much to see! Mong-mongs walking with their owners, dirty pigeons cooing and walking around, fat lazy carp swimming in the pond, and birds singing and flying through the leafy canopy. Thomas was a little ball of energy moving from one interesting site to the next with so much interest and excitement. He was making the sign for "all done/all gone" when the dogs would leave and the birds would fly away. Mel was so impressed at what a smart little boy he is becoming.

Watching the carp swim with Mel keeping a protective lookout.


Pointing at the dirty, dirty pigeon he followed around for 10 minutes!


Trying to spot the birds that were singing so happily.

After chasing the various animals (and ditching his hat on the ground!) we moved on to the rest of the park. Jungang Park(Central Park) is a very large park in the middle of the city we live in, and only 5 minutes walk from our building. The park has an auditorium for musicians and other performers, a playground for children, various water installations like ponds and fountains, sculptures, tennis courts, badminton courts, an open-air gym, lots of leafy trees, flowers and climbing wisteria and the whole perimeter has a 1.3km track made of spongy recycled tires that is wonderful for walking, jogging or running on.
We walked through the leafy wisteria shaded path in the middle of the park, admiring various flowers on the way. Eventually we came to the children's playground. Thomas was so excited to run around, we got very few decent photos! He was just too fast! Poor Mel was trying so hard to stop him from flinging himself of the edge or down the stairs on the play castle as I tried to take photos. He tired us both out and STILL had energy to keep going!

Looking at the pretty flowers.


Running down the cobblestone path beside the pond.


Peeking out of the play castle.

After all the fun in the park, Mel had to go to work and we went shopping for Daddy's dinner. We bought some spicy chicken stir fry, called "Dak Galbi". It is chicken meat cut up with onion, leek, carrot, rice cakes(chewy rice noodles) and spicy red pepper paste. I added sliced potato as well, although Korean normally add sliced sweet potato. We cooked it up for daddy and had a great dinner followed by a dessert of fresh blueberries which Thomas loves, especially since they are so expensive here I'm sure! Haha..


After dinner we went out to meet a new student I will be tutoring this Summer in essay writing. He will be starting grade 12 in September and has been attending school in NEW BRUNSWICK of all places! He has been going to school there for 1.5 years so far and loves it! He is very athletic and his build is similar to Tom's, he doesn't look like a 17 year old skinny Korean boy who studies until 2am, that's for sure! It was great to talk to him and I am looking forward to tutoring him this Summer.
After the meeting we went to meet a friend of ours, Kelly, who is a Korean living in Australia. She comes back to Korea every Summer for a brief visit and met me first when I was pregnant with Thomas. She was so excited to see us but Mr.Energy fell asleep in his stroller while we were walking!! We sat outside and he slept for 1 hour. Considering how noisy everyone was laughing and drinking, we were surprised he slept so long! He did wake up and charm the pants off the group of teachers we were with, and then we went home. It ended up being such a great day, we had so much fun and the weather was so lovely! Days like this make us so happy to be a family and live where we do!! Hope everyone else has wonderful days this Summer!!

The Kimchi Kid's amazing vocabulary!

Making the sign for "more".
As many of you may know, my husband Tom is Korean. We made the decision before Thomas was born to raise him bilingually. Tom speaks to Thomas mainly in Korean and I speak mainly in English. However, we have had a doumi ajumma(nanny/housekeeper) since Thomas was 5 days old. As a result, he has begun speaking, but ONLY in Korean so far! He is getting better at communicating by the day, and so far his vocabulary consists of:

Ohma = Mommy
Appa = Daddy
Ahboba = this is used when the doumi wants to carry Thomas on her back
Mama = food or milk
Mool = water or drink as he uses it
Mong Mong = puppy in child-speak, and he is so in love with dogs!

We also tried to teach Thomas some baby signs, but we only managed to keep up with it enough to teach him "more" and "all done".
He does seem to understand when I ask him things in English, but so far he is definitely only speaking Korean!
He also understands a lot of spoken Korean and will react when we ask him or tell him things like where is mommy or daddy, let's go outside, put on your shoes, etc.
Hopefully he will keep on learning new words and try out some English ones soon!