Christmas 2008

 

Christmas 2008 has come and gone. On one hand, it was kind of lonely to spend it without the extended families around, but on the other hand, it was a great time to bond, just for the four of us. It was the first Christmas that Henni was really able to participate in some of Christmas activities and it was very enjoyable. We've started on some of our own Christmas "traditions" this year and we will continue with them as kids get older. Henni and I made Gingerbread Man cookies and read the Gingerbread Man stories together. She learned to chant "Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I am the Gingerbread Man", and it was so much fun. She certainly enjoyed getting to eat more cookies than she is normally allowed. We received a very nice Advent calendar from my sister, and Henni was able to do it throughout the month of December. She was able to just do one day at a time, and I was very impressed with her self-control. I feel like she really learned to be expectant of Baby Jesus' arrival, and that is a big accomplishment for a 27 month-old. Next year, we will start reading the Christmas stories in the Bible together as we do the Advent calendar. Of course, Henni loved opening all the Christmas presents on the night of the 24th. She was too eager to open not just her own presents but also Elliot's, and she had to be reminded that not all presents are for her. We attended the candlelight service on the evening of the 24th, and Henni really enjoyed all the music, and especially lighting (and blowing out) the candles. Early on the 25th, we drove out to the mountains in Kangwon Province with our friends, Heidi and John and their children, to join some of our friends for a Christmas party. It was beautiful out there--so calm and peaceful. It was great to get away from Seoul for the Christmas Day. I am reminded of Noel Piper's Treasuring God in Our Traditions, a great book on how to worship God in everything we do in our home, and hoping that our Christmas traditions at home will ultimately guide our children closer to Christ. I am so looking forward to doing many of these things with Elliot too.

Junjun is here!!!

 

Someone who saw my blog recently commented that there isn't much of Junjun in it. It is true I have more video clips of Henni here because she is doing a lot of new and more interesting things than Junjun. I do have some video clips of Junjun eating corners of books and crawling away from the video camera, but they are not all that interesting to watch. Here are some really cute pictures of Junjun instead.

Singing Christmas Songs

Henni learned to sing some Christmas songs. I like her singing Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus in Korean a lot.

Voracious Reader

I always tell Henni she is a voracious reader. She must like the sound of it, for she always repeats proudly, "I am a voracious reader!!!" She really loves reading. She used to like books that sound fun, such Dr. Seuss books, and books that rhyme and repeat sounds. Now she is beginning to enjoy books that have clear plots. Her recent favorites are William Steig's Pete's a Pizza, Kevin Henke's Wemberly Worried (she really likes just about all Henke books), and Emily Jenkins' What Happens on Wednesdays. We borrow about 20 new books from the library every 2 weeks, and she will eventually have me read and reread about 2/3 of those we get. Some things I think she would really like end up being not so popular with her, and some things that I think might be too hard for her would be her favorite. She certainly has her own likes and dislikes. (I didn't think she was going to like and understand What Happens on Wednesdays as much as she did. But now when I try to kiss her, she will tell me "today is not a kissing day," just like the main character from the book!) Now she is also into "reading" on her own. She reads to herself some of the books I read for her since she was about 3 months old, like a lot of Eric Carle's boardbooks. It seems that she doesn't really memorize the books I read her word-for-word, but rather understands them in her own way, as we can see her retelling it in this video. It makes me laugh to hear her copy some parts the way I read them, like "POP" or the munching sound I make. On the other hand, things that do not make sense to her, such as a "pickle" which she has not had yet, she changes to cucumber, an object that she knows, even though she heard me read "pickle" ten thousand times. I hope she will always love reading.

Sweet and Strong Junjun

Kids change so much in the first few years of their life, and it is far too early to tell what kind of man Junjun will become. But so far, he is a sweet sweet boy, who loves to kiss, hug, and smile. He has been quite sick with the flu that has been going around here in Seoul. Every other child I know is sick, and both Henni and Junjun had their share of fever and runny noses. Henni got sick first, with fever over 102 for 3 days and lots of coughing, and eventually it turned into pneumonia, and now she is on antibiotics. Junjun also caught the same cold, and had to visit doctor's office three times this past week. For good three days, he vomited every time he had his coughing fit, throwing up everything I had labored over to feed. But he is so remarkably sweet-tempered, even when he is so ill. While his nose is completely stuffed and his breathing is accompanied by an audible wheezing sound, he still is all smiles and happy giggles for the most part. (I am so thankful neither Henni nor Junjun is very whiny. Grumpy, yes, sometimes, but not whiny.) Junjun has reached some important milestones in his growth this week while fighting the cold. His first two teeth on the bottom have pushed forth; he started to pull himself up to sit up; and he is now crawling quite well. All these things happened together, all last week. What a strong boy he is! Now he just has to fight the lingering cold and get better.

Do the Penguin

My three children play well together. I don't know who the cutest one is in this video.

Forming Identity

Henni has a bad Anglo accent when she speaks in Korean. This song cracks me up, because, with Henni's bad accent, it sounds like it should be sung by a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, but alas, it is our girl, who was made and born in Japan and raised in a US military base in Seoul. Why does her Korean sound so bad? Scott and I certainly don't sound like that when we speak Korean... I need to speak to her in Korean more consistently, but I keep failing to do so. I just enrolled her in some mommy-and-me classes run by a Korean culture center in the neighborhood, but she only speaks to me in English there too, making all the Korean moms in the class turn their heads (and sometimes roll their eyes).

Henni started doing another interesting thing this week. When someone who looks Asian asks her what her name is, she says "Henni," and when a Caucasian person asks for her name, she replies "Annelise"!!! What does she know about her two names, and more importantly, what does she know about race?!?! I thought kids were supposed to be color-blind when it comes to people's skin color until they were much older...

Daddy Dearest

 

 

 

Scott just got promoted and is now a Commander. I'm proud of him for all of his professional achievements, but most of all for being a caring and generous father to Henni and Junjun. Maybe I am just a sappy soccer mom at heart, but I was always moved by seeing footages of Palin holding her baby or Obama interacting with his two young daughters during the last election, because those pictures made them more human, not just politicians. (I am sure that's precisely how their campaign managers and media wanted to influence voters like me.) This was important to me because as I became a mom, I realized there was nothing like your own children that humbled you to your core, and humility definiltey was one of the traits I wanted to see in my elected official. There isn't any other book or program that has taught me the life lessons my children have so far--like how to be kind, patient, hopeful, and honest--and I've only had them for less than three years! I hoped that whoever was elected as the next President, would be the person that have learned some of these important lessons of being a real human of integrity as I saw pictures of them with their children. This is certainly my hope for Scott too--that he would be a man, deserving of the two beautiful children and shaped by the lessons they teach us, both at home and at workplace. Congratulations!

Cookies and Muffins Rock!

After coming back from Hong Kong, we tried to get Henni to say she loved Disneyland or boat ride or something like that. But when we asked her about her experience in Hong Kong, she said she liked cookies and muffins the best. We usually ration sweet things to Henni in very small portions, but when we are on vacation, we sort of let it all loose and give her whatever she wants to eat (partly because she refuses to eat anything different, and we can't always order her a $20 mac-and-cheese through room service, which we did when we were in Thailand).

Funny new words

Henni likes to make up her own words. She is calling our video camera "battery picture." I don't know why.

Mickey Mouse conundrum

 

We couldn't pass the chance to go to Disneyland in Hong Kong, so took the kids there, all the while wondering if Henni was too young to enjoy what Disney offers. She absolutely loved it!! When we were going through "It's a Small World" she could not blink or close her mouth for a second, looking at all the dolls and animals that sing and dance. She still talks about it and sings the theme song all the time. She equally enjoyed her Dumbo ride and the Pooh Bear's Storybook ride. The most surprising thing about the whole experience, however, was how instantly she developed a true love for Mickey Mouse. She was never formally introduced to any of the Disney characters (she only watches Sesame Street on TV, and she has not read any Disney-related books yet), but for some reason, she decided Mickey Mouse was her favorite almost the very minute she laid her eyes on him. Mickey IS the most ubiquitous character there, but she could have easily preferred Minnie, Pooh, or any other creature. At the end of her day at Disneyland, we told her she gets to have one gift from Mom and Dad, and she immediately picked a Mickey doll among thousands of things they were selling at the store. On the way back to the hotel, she adoringly stroked every part of the Mickey doll, repeating "I love his legs, I love his nose, I love his eyes, I love his ears..." People in the subway couldn't stop smiling at her. I am so curious as to how her little mind selects and prefers this one character over other things. Is it simply having seen this character repeatedly all day long while at Disneyland or is there something more profound about the Mickey Mouse phenomenon? The allure of Mickey Mouse to Henni (and to thousands of people regardless of their age, gender, race, and religion) is still a mystery to me.

Turkey Day where?

 

We spent our Thanksgiving vacation in Hong Kong, and got to spend the Thanksgiving day aboard the USS Blue Ridge, "The Navy's Finest Flagship" which happened to anchor out in the HK Bay over the holidays. Henni, having been born in Yokota Air Force Base and spending her toddler years in Yongsan Army Garrison, has become quite the military brat. She can hear the sound of flying helicopters from miles away, and is fascinated by any big flying object. She not only got to eat her Thanksgiving meal on this monster ship (it accommodates over 200 officers and 1200 enlisted!) but also got to sit in a real helicopter. It's true, she didn't get to spend this special holiday with her aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents back home, but how many kids get to eat their Thanksgiving meal aboard a huge Navy ship and play with a real helicopter afterwards? Count your blessings!

Amazing Grace

Henni likes to sing many songs, but one of her favorite songs is Amazing Grace. I think she learned the words to this song before she was able to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, because I used it as a lullaby since she was born. I saw a friend from the Bay Area, Angie, sing it to her daughter, years before I had kids, and I thought I wanted to do that, too, when I had children of my own. Henni learned the first and the last verses of this song and sings often, sometimes to her dolls when she puts them down, sometimes to herself in bed the first thing in the morning when she wakes up. The part where she sings "a wretch like me," is especially moving to me every time I hear it, partly because the way she mouths the word "wretch" is really cute, and also because I like the way she tries to hit the high note and hold it when she sings "me~~", but mostly because I so hope that she would know the truth about her wretchedness and the amazing grace God has shown to her through Jesus Christ. I want that knowledge to help her open herself completely to God and worship him with her whole being for the rest of her life. God bless my little Henni.

Play together

Henni and Junjun aren't really playing together yet. They would sit by each other and play near each other, but not quite yet together. But today I saw a glimpse of how it is going to be when they actually start playing together. While playing "kitchen" on her own next to her brother, Henni spotted Junjun holding his carrot near his ear. She must have thought that he was playing "phone" with his toy, because that's what Henni likes to pretend doing with all kinds of oblong objects. I nearly died laughing at her reaction holding the video camera. She was cracking herself up, and I was cracking up seeing it, but Elliot didn't quite get it. They will soon start playing together and have loads of fun.

Gerunds are confusing!

It's amazing to see how English grammar is getting sorted out in Henni's head. She is still talking a lot in present tense, even when she is talking about something that had just happened or days before. When spotting a picture of a lion in her book, she will say "Umma, I see lion yesterday." We saw lions in the summer when we went to the zoo. After coming back from the playground, she will exclaim "Umma, I ride my swing!" (She certainly has her possessives figured out. Well, kind of. Everything is preceded by "my" these days, especially with Elliot.) She has been using gerunds a lot lately. "Let's clean up your toys." "No, mom, I am still playing." (I can't understand how kids pick up conceptual adjectives and adverbs, such as still, yet, too, etc., but Henni has those down.) Today, she made me laugh so hard on the playground. When she figured out how to climb this one wall that had been really hard for her to do on her own, she said out loud on the top of the wall, "Umma, I have funning!!! I am climb upping all by myself!!" After laughing and laughing, I wondered if children who just have one language to deal with make such mistakes too when they start speaking. Although she doesn't really talk in Korean, she understands a lot of it, and she can tell I am reading or talking in a different language altogether when she hears Japanese. She said, "what are you saying, mom?" the other day when she heard me leaving a message on someone's answering machine in Japanese. So is making funky grammatical mistakes a 2-year old thing or a multilingual thing?

Learning the Lord's Prayer

Our night routine with Henni starts with a 15 minute bath. Then we put on her lots of lotion for her eczema (which she dislikes quite a lot) before we sit and read 2 books of her choice. Then we read a chapter in her Bible (We are on the second version of kid's bible now. We started her out with God Loves Me Baby Bible when she was about 8 months old. Thank you to Maryanne and Ed for this first Bible. Since September of this year, we've started with a new version, The Beginner's Bible, which we like a lot. Thank you Ted and Steph for the suggestion.) Then we read her Lord's Prayer book. We've read it for almost a year almost everyday, and now she is able to recite it without her book. As you can see, she is still working on receiving forgiveness for her trespasses as she forgives those who trespass against her. This business of receiving forgiveness and giving forgiveness is a lifelong pursuit, at least for me. I am prayerful every time she struggles with reciting this part of her Lord's Prayer.

Junjun likes to eat EVERYTHING

Elliot is very different from Henni in many many ways. He is not as good a eater as Henni used to be when she was 7 months old. He is not a bad eater; he just doesn't gulp down his food with as much gusto as Henni used to. When he eats, he sometimes has this look on his face that seems to say "alright, I will tolerate this food for you, mom." But it's a different story when it comes to things that are not food. Books, toys, stuffed animals...in this case the bowl that used to hold his food, he chews on and sucks on with much passion. He makes up for the lack of enthusiasm in food with his smiles though. Henni was never a smiley baby. She was always very serious. Elliot, on the other hand, is always all smiles, sometimes even when he is really tired and cranky. As soon as you make an eye contact with him, he will give you that million dollar smile. What a cutie.

What's up, dude!

 

Henni likes to wear glasses. The very first time she tried on one of our sunglasses, some time last February, I made her say "what's up, dude!" Now every time she wears any type of glasses (even her dad's swimming goggles) she says "What's up, dude!"

A little ballerina

Henni says she wants to be in the "big girls' ballet class." Once a week, she goes to a class where she runs around to different music with 7 or 8 other toddlers (and their moms), screaming "Let's go swimming, let's go swimming" or "hokey pokey." Even though it is just a class where they run around and sing songs for the most of 40 minutes, the moms dress our girls in tutus, partly because it is taught by Ms Gigi, a classically trained ballerina, who also teaches real dance classes. Henni is mesmerized by her, and although she is super shy in front of her, never fails to whisper to me "I like Ms Gigi" as soon as we leave the class. Ms. Gigi tries to incorporate some of real ballet moves with the toddlers, but when she moves gracefully, shouting chasse, chasse, chasse, kids just end up running every which way like mad cows.

Right after the toddler class, she teaches a ballet class to 3 to 4 year-old girls, and all of a sudden Henni started showing a lot of interest in this class. Until now she just focused on my bag with her snacks as soon as she gets her sticker for the day from Ms. Gigi. But yesterday, for some reason, she wanted to join the big girls and do all the moves they were doing, and I couldn't peel her away from these group of older girls, not even with Goldfish as a bait. Standing in her tiptoe with arms up in the air or extending her legs in ways she never did before, she was so concentrated on what Ms. Gigi was showing to the older girls. Ms. Gigi says Henni is not at all bothersome and that she can stay longer to participate in this "big girls' class" for a few lessons to see if she is ready. Hmmm. I don't know. Maybe it was just one day thing. But then maybe not. I feel like she is just a different girl from even a month ago. Ah, my girl is growing in the speed of light.

Henni loves rhymes

Henni loves poems and rhymes these days. Not having spent my early childhood in an English speaking country, I didn't know many nursery rhymes before I had kids. But as I read some of these oldies but goodies to Henni, I realize why they have been around for centuries. Henni loves it when I read them in a singsongy way, and tries to rap them out herself. She likes to sing them when she can put them to a melody, as she does in this video. Many theorize about the meaning behind these rhyming poems, claiming there to be a satirical message or a historical illustration embedded in some. Wikipedia mentions that Hey diddle diddle can be interpreted as a lesson in astronomy:

Hey diddle diddle, the Cat (Leo – the Lion) and the Fiddle (Lyra – the Lyre), the Cow (Taurus – the Bull) jumped over the Moon (the Moon); the Little Dog (Canis Minor – the Lesser Dog) laughed to see such sport, and the Dish (Crater – a dish shaped constellation) ran after the Spoon (Ursa Major – the Big Dipper).

It just so happens that April is the only month when all of these constellations can be seen in the night sky, and this was a signal to the early Europeans, mainly the English, that it was time to plant the crops.

Wikipedia couldn't provide a citation for this theory but it sounds good enough to buy for me.

I wonder what Henni finds interesting about these rhymes.

Henni Loves to Sing3

Henni Loves to sing 2

What's on your mind? What's in your heart?

 

Now that Henni is able to verbalize her thoughts, I am constantly amazed at what she says. Then I wonder, "what goes through your head when you are not saying those amazing things?"

She has a very cool way of describing things. The other day, I put a new pair of brown pants on her that has some silver threads mixed in. As soon as she sees the pants, she says, "Oh! fireworks pants!"

She loves to categorize things. As soon as she learns new names she will put them in a mental category, and declares them to make certain of her choice. "What is this, mommy?" "It is a toucan." "Hmm, this is a toucan bird." "What is this?" "It is a cobra." "I see. A cobra snake." "And what is this?" "It is a cupcake." "Ah, a cupcake cookie." Some of her categories are still kind of organic.

Her thoughtfulness comes through her speech all the time. I was holding both Henni and Junjun on my lap the other day, watching Elmo's World, their recent favorite thing to watch on TV. Then Junjun started pulling on Henni's hair, so I pretended to be scolding Junjun, just to appease Henni. "Junjun, you should not be pulling your sister's hair." Then Henni says to me with the most benevolent look on her face, "Oh, mom, that's okay. I will just sit over there." And moves to the next chair over. What a sweetheart! (And WHEN did she stop calling me umma or mommy? Where did she get "mom"? Does she think she is eleven years old???). One last example: we made some chocolate cookies last night before I went out to get a sewing lesson from a neighbor. While Henni and Scott were eating their share of warm cookies, I was just standing around to kill time before I had to leave. Then Henni turns to me, "Sit down, mom. Have a cookie!" I am excited to see all the things she can say. What comes out of one's mouth is what is in one's heart, right? I am even more thrilled to get climpses of what is in her heart.

Autumn in Seoul

It is autumn in Seoul, my favorite season here. Winter is too cold, summer too hot and muggy. Spring has too much yucky and unhealthy yellow dust from China. It is not the most optimal for kids to play outside in any one of these seasons. But autumn here is close to perfect. Air is clear, temperature is just right, and the leaves turn to beautiful reds and yellows. Henni is loving everyday these days, always wanting to go outside to play. These pictures are taken in our backyard, where the leaves on the two large cherry blossom trees have turned nicely red. Gotta enjoy the moment. Soon it will be cold and cold and cold...

Junjun can now sit up!

Junjun started sitting up on his own at the end of October. He seems to be happy to have acquired another viewpoint from which to observe things around him.

The two of them

They will fight, they will compete, they will sometimes not like each other all that much, but they will have each other no matter what. These days, it warms my heart so much to see them together. Henni really enjoys her little brother. Sometimes she is the first one to notice that he is awake and babbling in his room before I or Scott hears him. The first thing she wants to do in the morning is go to her brother's room to see if he is awake so she can say "good morning." She wants to hold him, kiss him, and offer him "chi-chi." If he gets a bit cranky, she says, "mommy, he is very tired" with a concerned look on her face. She doesn't even mind it all that much if Junjun accidentally pulls her hair (so long as I tell her he didn't do it on purpose, and he doesn't know any better yet)--if anyone else did that do her, she would be very upset. Junjun, too, can't get enough of her. I can't nurse him when she is around, because all he wants to do is turn his little head to see where his sister's voice is coming from and check out what she is up to. If Henni starts laughing, Junjun also starts cracking up. If Henni starts screaming about something, Junjun often follows suit. He loves being held by her, even though her little 2-yr old body is not the best support for his.

I have a great relationship with my one and only sibling, my older sister. I don't know if they will have the kind of relationship that I have with my sister, but at least they will have each other. The older I get, the more I tend to think that even a bad sibling is better than no sibling. Things between Henni and Junjun will change as he starts asserting himself more, demanding her toys and books, I am sure. But I hope they will grow to love and cherish each other as they get older.

Halloween 2008

Henni dressed up as the cutest ladybug in town, Junjun as a pumpkin. Henni liked trick-or-treating (for 5 minutes) but enjoyed giving out candies to other trick-or-treaters more. She felt really generous, giving out 10 candies at a time, screaming "Happy Halloween!!"

Henni loves to sing

Henni loves to sing. She doesn't like it when told what to sing. She doesn't like it when someone else sings along. She likes to sing what she likes to sing, all by herself.