life with the lieutenant: June 2015

So much for posting more regularly, huh? This past month has been more of the same. Nothing terribly exciting to report on, but I'll try to hit the high points!

We had to put the side back on Molly's crib. She went with the side off for about a month. During that time, she was waking up at 6am with Sam. (Sam will wake up at 6am regardless of whether he goes to sleep at 8pm or 2am. He can operate on nothing.) Molly usually sleeps until 8:30 or 9am. And the lack of those two extra hours of sleep was really affecting her in the most unpleasant ways. Mainly, she was like the rabid 2yo that we were so happy to part ways with a few months back! After putting the side back on her crib, she happily slept til 8:30-9am and resumed a much nicer approach to life.

Clearly, this was before the side was reinstalled.

She also potty-trained herself the day after we put the side back on. Maybe a thank you for giving her permission to sleep in??? WTF IDK! No accidents, no sticker charts, no candy bribes/rewards. She just did it one day. Of course, she still has to wear a dipe to bed since she doesn't crawl out, but one diaper vs all day diapers?!?! Yes please! Just goes to show, if you wait long enough, kids will just figure it out for themselves. (#lazparentingwin) Also, boys are way easier in the potty department. Molly cannot just take a whizz in the bushes like Sam can when we're out and about. Instead we must seek out every filthy toilet in Korea and touch every filthy surface and if we get MERS, I won't be terribly surprised. Bleach baths til Molly can figure out how to do it all herself!
We are officially under two months out from leaving Korea! We are excited. And ready. Everyone around us is leaving. I walked out onto the playground the other day, and while there are usually a lot of familiar American faces lining the benches, I walked out to see the benches full of Korean moms. Not an American in sight! FWIW, the playground is very peaceful when it is lacking Americans. But it made me a little sad that none of my "people" were out there to talk to. I played with the kids and made small talk with some of the Korean moms. They are so sweet to us and really try to include us in everything. I just wish I knew more Korean to make communication a bit easier!
My playground partner in crime is flying back to America today. We have hit up the playground everyday with them, and usually twice a day. We have spent birthdays and Thanksgiving and Christmas together and watched college football games at breakfast time and hung out in our pajamas with no shame and made gingerbread houses and laughed all over the playground. We leave things outside each others' doors when the other one is having a hard day (whether it's flowers or cake or booze) and there is just an overall lack of judgement in parenting choices. It's been refreshing to find someone like that here. Someone who lives so close (we have joked about attaching some sort of zipline between our windows so we don't have to walk over to borrow sugar or cupcake liners or crisco) and has the same Camp Casey lack-of-schedule and willingness to spend all day watching our kids get sweaty. But they are gone. Leaving on a jet plane and headed to live in Minnesota forever and ever amen. Sam keeps asking where they're going and asks if we can just move the playground then too....

We are buying a cute little house built in 1930 just outside of Philly, in Steve's hometown. It is exciting and overwhelming and taking a lot longer than we originally anticipated (foreclosures involve some time!). It's a bit of a fixer, so I hope to get it together enough to post some decent before and after shots for you. (But ORIGINAL KITCHEN AND BATHROOM!!!!! Makes my heart go pitter patter. Can't wait to see it in person!) Big thanks to my in-laws for finding it, facetiming us through it, and doing all of the legal legwork to make it happen!
We shipped my car back to America! Bittersweet! On one hand, that makes us one step closer to leaving. On the other hand, we just lost the car that has all the room and the really nice AC. Gonna be livin' it up in Steve's hoopty til we leave!

Sam spent the day with our neighbors, so Molly and I got to dine alone while Steve dropped off the car.

My kids are obsessed with these candy blaster guns that the shop downstairs sells. They mostly like running around with the empty guns, popping them off and playing cops and robbers at the playground, (the candy itself is actually not good at all) but to see the kids eat the candy- soooo not PC! Most kids stick the gun to their mouth and pull the trigger. I think my kids have shot one too many pieces into the back of their throats, so they shoot it into their hands and eat it (or if you're Molly, shoot them at the ground and walk away). I am already dreading re-immersing back into the culture of Everyone Getting Offended About Everything (and then spew their hate venom through their keyboard).

I am cleaning/purging/chucking ERRYTHING. If it is not being useful to me/bringing me joy (whatever that even MEANS at the time I'm looking at it), it is being tossed. At this point, I am just hoping it all fits in Steve's trunk so we can dump it at the thrift shop at a nearby post. (Our thrift shop shut down last year and I am missing the convenience of just unloading unwanted items at the back of Goodwill!)
Fridge broke again. But what's new. I told the man that came to fix it that this was the 4th time in two years that this POS has decided to up and die on us and he gave me this worried look. I just asked him to please make it work for two more months. I don't care past two months!!!! Ahhhhh!!!!

I don't even know what this mystery liquid is.

Apparently Molly only gets pigtails once a year, and only when she is wearing red gingham.

The gate guards that patrol the playground on trash duty tried to sweep all my chalk into their trash buckets. I had to pick every grimy piece out myself and then try to explain (via sign language) that the chalk would wash away after it rained that night. NOT PERMANENT GRAFFITI. They looked unconvinced.

MERS is a big deal here lately (in the media anyway). So we are doing our best to avoid the dead camels and drinking after them.

We had our neighbors over for a farewell dinner Sunday night. The kids got a little carried away and I wrote a note in cringe-worthy Hangul and made Steve and the kids take it to the neighbors below us. (Should have said "Thank you for never calling the cops on us for being so loud! We are not entertaining a herd of dancing elephants up here, no matter what it may sound like. Please accept this chocolatey peace offering. We will leave you in peace in two months. Promise.")

These girls will literally chase down Sam and Molly on the playground to give them candy. Then one day they offered them red flaming hot cheetos and I think Sam might have trust issues now.