Let the record show...

.... that I take Steve for granted far too often!! He has been gone for a work trip for a whopping TWO DAYS and here we are at the end of day 2 (although to be fair, today did last for 36 agonizing hours) and I am completely worn out. I don't give the man enough credit for coming behind me and tying all my loose ends. And it really is amazing at how quickly I have gotten used to having him around all the time. August 3rd Jenn would be knocked on her ASS if a deployment came a-callin'!

Oh, good morning! I thought I'd get you up early today so you would have time to clear all the crap off the top of the dresser. Honest update: it's all still there and I DON'T CARE.

Sending a group selfie to Daddy

The hell is everyone crowding around my office for?

As much as they drive me up the wall sometimes, they provide approximately 94% of Will's daily entertainment so I will pretty much be lost when they start school. What does one do with a baby?

I can't even remember what we did the first day he was gone. Laundry, I think. Oh and a Target run because we were dangerously low on wipes. Never a good situation to be in in this house.

We ended up going to the playground at Ft Totten in the afternoon (because Will thinks naps are for BABY babies and not him) and Sam and Molly instantly made some friends. These friends (a brother and sister) spoke Spanish as well as English and would often speak to each other in Spanish only. Molly, always eloquent, asked, "WHY YOU TALKIN' WIKE DAT?" (all caps because she truly has no volume control and almost everything comes out at a yell) The girl explained that she speaks Spanish, to which Molly replied, "UM, I GO TO PWEESKOOH AND MY GWAMMA TEACHED ME SPANISH SO I KNOW SPANISH TOO."
Spanish girl- "Hola! Como esta?"
Molly- blank stare
Spanish girl- "Hola! Como esta?"
Molly- "UNO, DOS TWESS, SEEYETAY, COTTWOH, DEEYES."
Spanish girl- blank stare

And that was that.

Sam found another little friend (and by little I do mean the Jolly Green Giant's offspring) and they started playing chase. The other boy was a bit faster than Sam (which Sam is not at all used to because HE IS THE FASTEST) so Sam was running behind him screaming, "OH MY GOSH DO YOU EAT BROCCOLI????" The boy runs while giving a weird look to Sam. "PEAS? DO YOU EAT PEAS???" And on and on down the list of veggies Sam won't eat that we tell him will make him fast. Finally the boy told Sam that he actually eats a lot of pizza. Which is the last thing I need anyone telling my children because who doesn't love pizza? I told Sam that surely that boy was telling him some sort of a lie and we'd better get going......

We are going to visit Steve's parents in PA and everyone is just a little bit anxious to get going.

Nothing but the essentials, of course.

I put everyone to bed early last night because EXHAUSTION, but then of course I was basking in my alone time and had a hard time going to bed with Steve not being home. So just as I turn the lamp off at 11pm, Will starts whining and screaming and crying and that, my friends, was the beginning of the end. He slept until 4:30 and after that, it was go time.

Sam got up and asked why I didn't just sleep in a little longer? You look so tired. Gee, thanks, I know, I get that a lot. It might be because I only got to sleep for five hours while having THE most bizarro dreams ever. Will was so kind as to take a 30 minute nap while I frantically rushed about making breakfast, swapping laundry, eating breakfast, cleaning up breakfast, making lunches, getting dressed, stuffing diapers, and tidying up the house. After he woke, we loaded up and headed to the pediatrician's office.

Molly is behind on vaccines (because I trusted NO ONE at the Camp Casey clinic) and Will was scheduled for his 7 month well check. Molly was oblivious that she was part of the visit. Sam made sure to interrupt the doctor to ask if his sister was getting any shots. Super helpful. Will checked out fine- finally broke into 20lb territory! (20lb 2oz) Growing nicely and almost perfect in every way (sorry Will- you'd be 100% perfect if you'd just SLEEP). He got two shots and Sam started bawling as the doctor was getting them ready. He is such a tenderhearted big brother! Did not want to see Will get hurt. Will of course, did not even flinch. He looked mildly displeased that someone squished something into his thigh, but did not even cry.

And by then, we had to break it to Molly that she was getting some shots too. Cue hysteria. Molly rarely gets too upset, but man oh man she freaked out. I picked her up and set her on the table and reminded her how brave Will had been. She calmed down and the doctor told her to give a little cough, and idk what that trick is, but it worked. No tears, no screaming, nothing. She watched the doc give her two shots and that was that. Thank goodness I had that 30 minute nap to prepare a picnic lunch for us because after we got out of that office, we made a beeline for the local park and had a nice picnic in the shade!

Goof troop out in full force today

We had a nice lunch and played on the playground until some kid almost poked Sam's eye out with a stick. I tend to take those instances as our cue to leave, so we did. Will was nodding off in the Ergo. Cue my panic. I instructed Sam and Molly to keep him awake until we got home. Womp womp.

The 20 minute car nap was all he was giving me for the afternoon. I don't understand it. And I desperately needed a full-length nap from him today. But there is no forcing these things, especially when you've got your windows open and live within talking distance of 30 other people. So I tried to get things done around the house- as much as I could with a baby that never wants to be further than three inches away from my hip. I probably recorded a solid four hours of video of him today- mostly me pleading with him to say "mama" while I had my phone out. I've heard him say it plenty of times now, but never when I'm recording him of course, which obviously makes me a liar.

Around 3:30, I walked out of the kitchen to see Molly laid out on the couch with her eyes disappearing into the back of her head and shouted at her to GET UP NOW NO NAPS WHATSOEVER. Then I yelled for Sam because he was nowhere to be found. He responded that he was in his room, fixin to take a nap. So I yelled for him to come down too because NO NAPS. I need everyone to be thoroughly exhausted come 7pm so I can toss every last one of you in bed. I can't let anyone nap and have some sort of reset. No way in hell. I had Molly sort shoes from the shoe basket- it's getting a little overfilled and some of the shoes have been outgrown. She loves matching and sorting and lining things up so she was absolutely thrilled to be in charge of that. I found a lot of tupperware and set Sam up at the sink to wash it all. He's been begging to help me wash dishes at the sink for a while now, and good golly, I wanted to make his little dreams come true.

He's such a sweetheart. I am already dreading the start of school.

Also purchased a DustBuster the other day to encourage the mess-makers to help clean up after themselves a bit more. We don't have a broom, I don't want a broom, and while I vacuum the floors regularly, we needed something that could be brought out quickly after each meal. Because my children are that messy when they eat. I can't have them undo train tracks every few hours so I can lug the vacuum out and clean all the floors (because if I lug it out, I'm cleaning everything). And this has worked nicely so far.

Will tried melting down at 5pm because re: 20 minute nap at 12:30, so he took an extra long bath. He was nice and happy after his bath so I played with him for a bit on my bed. Molly wandered in with a slice of cheese. I told her to please stop grabbing food out of the fridge, the kitchen is CLOSED. Many moons later, I finally got Will to bed and went downstairs to begin the damage control that Steve normally spearheads for me, only to find the fridge door FLAPPING IN THE BREEZE. I shut the door and clean the kitchen and pick up the clothes that have randomly been flung across the house throughout the day. After I get the big kids bathed, teeth brushed, prayers said, and tucked in, I go downstairs to lock up the house and start the laundry and dishwasher. Only I find that the door to our house was locked but never shut. Are you seeing how badly we need Steve around here? I am waving the white flag! Come home! We miss you and appreciate you and never want you to leave us again amen.

I'm baaaaaaaaaack

Who even knows where to begin after an absence that unintentionally spanned 5ish months?! I'm gonna pretend you follow me on instagram and you are completely caught up on all my life's happenings. Like.... we live in NYC now, Will is 6 months old (how???), Sam and Molly are registered for kindergarten and pre-k respectively, they started some taekwondo lessons, they might be going to vacation bible school (!!!) and Will started sleeping through the night ON his 6 month birthday.

That, of course, has been completely derailed thanks to him coming down with the croup. Womp womp. Hopefully it's short-lived and he gets back on track quickly. Mama is in desperate need of some beauty sleep. DESPERATE NEED.

Our visit to the doctor for the croup diagnosis was our first visit, since Will's well-baby check is in a week or so. My friend that recommended this doctor (yes, omg, I even have some friends now! Shocking!) prepared me for the fact that he fist-bumps to say hello. I don't think he was prepared to see me, a woman, nursing a baby in his exam room though. He tried saying hello, and then started his spiel and then abruptly, "Ok. I'm just gonna... I'll give him a few minutes to finish. I'll just let him finish up. Ok I'm gonna go." Could have been that Will held direct eye contact with this man whilst my boob was in his mouth. Who knows. I did find it hilarious that it seemed to make him so uncomfortable though. He came back and was lucky enough to hear Will cough. I asked how contagious he was (because it's 4th of July weekend! We've got plans!) and he said, "Well, he's a little baby, so he's only a little contagious." Hmmm... Sounds like an answer Sam might give me. We decided to skip the BBQ and stay home and celebrate. I bought Doritos (thinking we'd take them to the BBQ), so Sam is beyond thrilled about our upcoming "party". I was in the grocery store with all three kids one day when we stopped to get some Greek yogurt. I picked up a pack of peach and vanilla and Sam and Molly both squealed with delight and excitedly announced to each other that "MOM IS GETTING PEACH AND VANIWWA!!!!!!!!" An older lady standing nearby said, "Wow. All you have to do is buy them yogurt and they get excited?" I told her that if you set the bar low enough, you can get kids excited about almost anything. Don't worry, I'm working on my book "The Underachieving Parent; How To Sign Up To Bring Paper Plates To Parties And Excite Your Kids With Greek Yogurt."

Speaking of Greek yogurt, if you have any great snack ideas for two kids that can't/won't eat peanut butter, I'm all ears. I am so beyond tired of coming up with multiple healthy snacks and meals for everyone, every day. It's exhausting. Right now, bananas, apples, Greek yogurt (!), cheese sticks, crackers, granola bars, raisins, strawberries, and carrots with hummus are in HEAVY rotation but the troops are demanding more, More, MORRRRRRRRRRE!!!!! Bonus points if these snacks are able to be opened without adult assistance.

Steve and I have been eating "clean" for about two weeks now. Clean in air quotes because we aren't going paleo crazy or anything, just trying to refrain from all the delicious food being sold on every street corner - cannolis, bagels, pizzas, etc so as not to gain 8,000 lbs in our first few months of living here. This basically means that my entire life has turned into food prep or food shopping. Let me tell you how fun this is. We don't have a garbage disposal, so most of the time, you can find me in the kitchen, bent in half, skinning carrots over an open trash can. Or cutting and bagging raw chicken breasts. Or cutting strawberries (which seem to instantaneously disappear). Or boiling eggs. And when I'm not in the kitchen, I'm inevitably walking to the grocery store up the street with my little parade of people. You would think by some of the reactions we get that I am NY's Michelle Duggar. "Oh wow. Are all of them yours?!" "There's another one underneath the stroller? I saw those two and thought that was it!" Me: Yes. Calm the hell down. It's only three kids. This is fairly average. Are we in China? Although I have to admit, when Sam fed Will his baby food breakfast the other morning, I felt what surely Michelle feels every time a child of hers takes over a new chore that used to be hers. Pure elation. It's a shame he's starting kindergarten in the fall. (And yes, I've considered homeschooling. Also yes, I would be a raging alcoholic before the first week ended.)

Well it appears that Will decided one hour was enough time to sleep tonight, so I gotta go deal with that and swap the sheets in the washer and start diapers and probably skin some more carrots. If you're looking to explore the more *common* side of life in NYC, please feel free to come spend a week or two at my house. I assure you life is far from glamorous.

Pictures from the park today- (I brought my big girl camera out for the first trip in a long time. My entire purse fell through a giant hole in the back of a bench and naturally the camera took the brunt of the fall. Fingers crossed it pulls through!)

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.

Molly likes the spice!

• Pinterest knows my life!

Hoping I can make the branch work somewhere in the new house.

• You can't get service (with a smile) like this just anywhere these days.

•  And yep, that's pretty much it for now.

Brownies, I'm a Scrooge, bedtime woes, poop (of course), and snow

• I really love the Little Debbie Christmas Tree brownies that Steve's Aunt Amy sent us. I mean, I really like them. Lucky for me, it's that time of the month week for me to take out the massive load of recycling (always more fun when it takes 30 minutes to deck everyone out in snow gear!) and I can get rid of the box before Steve realizes we ever had Christmas Tree Brownies. God bless Aunt Amy. And Little Debbie.

 

• Why the sudden binge on brownie trees? Well I made some sugar cookies the other day. The recipe (courtesy of Pinterest and the search button that yields results for searches like "easiest simplest foolproof sugar cookie recipe no baking powder") told me to bake for 11 minutes, or until the edges begin browning and appear done. Apparently "done" in my language is the equivalent to burned. They were brown all right. And they'll take out your front tooth if you forget what you're biting into.
• I've been having a hard time finding my Christmas mojo this year. Last year I did the Advent activities and really planned everything out. The only problem was that last year, no one was old enough to care. This year, people are more aware of what's going on and I just have no desire to do any of it. We only packed our nativity set and naturally, there is nowhere to put it without risking a wise man's head. Molly is very grabby these days. If something is set out on a tabletop, she assumes it was put there for her to have. So even if that requires her to move a chair, climb it, and then scale the kitchen table so she can walk on top of it over to the counter and lean into the kitchen sink? Yeah, that dish soap is hers. (It's always fun to be fully soaped up in the shower and have Sam wander in saying, "Myer on the table!" Cue my soapy panic attack.) So no nativity scene. We have a few decorations from the Korean dollar tree and we even got a Charlie Brown-esque tree and strung some lights on it. It's even SNOWING OUTSIDE for Pete's sake and I'm finished Christmas shopping and we read Christmas books and..... nothing. 
• In an effort to get into the Christmas spirit, we made gingerbread houses with a friend the other day. Well, we attempted to make them. It was a nasty mess of pieces that sadly kept letting gravity affect them and while we were all dying of laughter at our sad little houses, the kids were biting off Snoopy's head and dumping massive bags of marshmallows everywhere. Crafty, we are not. 

• Also, I am starting to wonder if they give out the crafty mom gene at the hospital tour. I didn't go to any hospital birthing classes or tours before having either child so I'm wondering if that's where I went wrong. I literally have no motivation to do it. I finally got Sam a pair of safety scissors though, so maybe he will go to kindergarten only needing to learn how to write, color, play with playdoh, use an inside voice, stand in a line, and use the potty. But the boy will be able to cut multiple jagged edges into a piece of construction paper, dammit!
• Steve took command this week. Yes, he's still a lieutenant, he's just an overachiever. Actually, Steve's commander went back to the states to spend the holidays with her family, so he is just filling in. But I told him I wanted to come up to work and take pictures of her handing him the assumption of command papers ("change of command"). Just for shits and giggles. And maybe we have a touch of cabin fever.
• I think we might convert Sam's bed into a toddler bed soon. Am I crazy for giving up the cage when it's clearly still working so well??? I really love opening my eyes on my own volition instead of having someone kissing me in the face and yelling that it's time for Thomas and OH YEAH THERE'S SNOW OUTSIDE! I ALSO PEED THE SHEETS AGAIN! YAY MORE LAUNDRY. (He thinks anyone can be awakened by giving them a kiss. It's a little lie story we started so that he would start showing us some affection instead of just jumping on us and assuming we are awake instantly.) My only reason for wanting to convert his crib is so that he doesn't end up in some sort of therapy later because of it. ("I slept in that crib until I was 10 and now I can't get a job and I just want to live in my parents' basement and eat Doritos forever!") For the record, he's only 3. But he has no job prospects and loves chips so there's my concern.
• Related to above: I literally wash his crib sheets every single day. He insists on drinking a bunch of water before bedtime and I have resorted to giving him one of Molly's sippy cups so he will stop wailing at me that he's "soooooOOOOooooooo THIRSTY! MOMMY! I need WATER! PLEEEEEEEASE MOMMYYYYYYYY!" Even without the sippy cup he was soaking through his diaper (which is an overnight kind). What's more concerning is that he now walks around the house asking where his pink princess sippy cup is. (Santa might bring him a more manly sippy cup, just sayin.) Steve says I should just ignore him and he will eventually stop asking for water at bedtime, but I hate to sit in our shoebox-sized apartment and listen to him wail and cry about being thirsty and go to bed on such a sour note every night. I can't ignore it! I can't! WHAT TO DO. (PS. I'm well aware it's a bedtime stall tactic. He's very skilled in this department. I just have no clue how to zap this behavior completely other than letting him stay up later, which NO. Not an option.)
• I ordered my Christmas cards the first week of November. They're still not here. And I don't think there are words to describe how much this is killing me. I emailed the company and complained and the customer service lady said that since they hadn't arrived yet, she could label them "lost" and send me a new shipment. I asked if she could send them priority mail so that they would go on the plane instead of the boat and she said they could only send them to APO's via "USPS Budget." I'm sorry, I didn't even know there was such a thing. I've never seen an option like that when I check out at the post office. The post office is all, "You can $hip your package$ $tandard or Priority, which is $uper fa$t. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$" Friggin rip off. ANYWAYS. I still don't have Christmas cards. No one will get them from me in a time frame that I deem acceptable and I will most likely be rudely demanding kindly asking for a full refund. And word to my APO friends- don't use Mixbook!
• Molly appears to be infinitely more potty-trained than Sam. Mostly because she gets this horrified look on her face and clutches her bottom right before she goes #2, so she's very easy to read, and thus, gets whisked off to the potty quickly. Sam just plays quietly and after it's been awhile, you start wondering where he is and then he emerges from some hidden place with a big smile and a proclamation of "I have fwesh poo poo!" Except Molly apparently enjoys just not wearing a diaper, so she will fake a poop approximately 4 times per day, and even though the lazy in me wants to tell her to just crap her pants, I realize that that's probably counterproductive (and bad parenting) in terms of potty training. So we do the whole song and dance and we sit in the bathroom and mostly she just gets up and walks around without her diaper on. She played this game yesterday for the fourth (and final) time and when I stepped out of the room for two seconds to put laundry away, Sam exclaims that Molly pooped! Finally! But on the side of the toilet and then it fell on the floor. I should include the fact that Molly brought the potty into my bedroom, so she pooped on the floor right next to my bed. MY LIFE- SO GLAMOROUS.
• And now some snow pictures. Which is apparently acid snow. Thanks, China.

Myer didn't care for the snow that day.

Another bullet-point post because my brain doesn't work well these days

• I just ate leftover cheeseburger casserole for lunch with chopsticks because I'm kinda fascinated by them. When we got here I kept saying to Steve, "But why aren't they using SPORKS yet?! Wouldn't that make so much more sense??" And now I get why they use chopsticks. They're fun! (I'm sure there are many more cultural/social/historical reasons why they still use chopsticks, but I am using them because they're fun. And I switch to forks and spoons when I get frustrated.)
• I took a quiz online about what state I'm most suited to live in and it told me Utah. UTAH! What the french there isn't an ocean next to Utah.
• Steve is supposed to live in North Carolina, so we'll see how this relationship plays out.
• We got our HHGs!!! They arrived via lift through our kitchen window last week. Words cannot even express how much I love sleeping in my bed. The second night we had it back, Steve had staff duty, so I got it ALL TO MYSELF. Probably the best night of sleep I've had since we moved.
• Sam wakes up singing "Happy Birthday" to himself lately. We went to a friend's birthday party last weekend and he was genuinely confused that he wasn't blowing out "kindells" or opening any presents. Apparently he assumed the party was for him. (Awkward!) 
• I went for my first jog in..... oh about 3 months. Possibly longer. It was sad and pathetic and I didn't even make it two miles before I had to walk. As I was heading back up the monster hill to our apartment, feeling down about how much I stink at physical activities, Sam turned around and said, "Good running, Muwm! Good job running!"
• On a happier note, going on jogs means that I have my BOB back, and my life is once again complete. My children love sitting in that stroller and letting me cart them around. Molly is probably so happy to not be strapped to my sweaty back on the regular. The only problem is, this stroller is like a monster truck compared to all the other Korean strollers. It will only work for outside walking or possibly a mall. (Koreans are very pro-baby-wearing.)
• I walked over to the desk the other day to find a green Sharpie marker uncapped and the apple on the Macbook colored in. While this initially seems distressing, keep in mind that it COULD HAVE BEEN the white wallpaper. Silver linings, folks.
• If you ask Molly what a horse says, she neighs and then shakes her head back and forth. You can ask her what a dog, a cat, a cow, a baby, a sheep, and a chicken say and her response will remain the same. Currently it's too cute to correct, although Sam is always next to her shouting out the right answers. I have been working really hard to get her to say "mama". (I realize she is late.... I'm not worried...) Every time I say "mama" she says "dada" and thinks it's hilarious. So yeah. When she wakes up in the night like a newborn these days (wtf Molly?), DADA just won't do, so why do you keep saying his name??? TALK TO ME, MOLLY. LOVE, MAMA
• I still haven't downloaded the new update for my phone. I'm scared of all the icons changing.
• I blew up our old DVD player (from college!) by plugging it directly into a Korean outlet (with a converter). Lots of smoke and melting plastic later, we have a new DVD player.
• The leaves are changing and it continually makes me so happy to live in a place with mountains!
• Sam peed on the potty. I'm not really forcing it right now (because I refuse to be caged up in this apartment while the weather is so beautiful), but if he asks to sit on it and go, I help him with his diaper and pants. I just got him some Pull-Ups today so maybe that will make things a bit easier. This "potty-training" (in quotes because, not really) thing is slightly frustrating since I made a HUGE deal out of it the first time he peed in there (he used to be terrified of it for some reason) and passed out suckers for everyone because LET'S CELEBRATE the possible rebirth of our bank account that has been slayed by disposable diapers for three years now. Now he will ask to sit on it, force out 4 drops, and ask for a "seshall teet!" (That's Sammy-speak for "special treat" which he equates to a sucker.) And I'm trying to be encouraging but at the same time, no, you don't get a whole freaking sucker for 4 drops. I think you're trying to work the system here. Drop a deuce in that potty and I will make a candy cake topped with 50 burning candles. This is my offer. Take it or leave it.
• With our HHGs came some of our unopened pantry items. For some reason I had a bunch of the mini cereal boxes and the kids go apeshit to pick out their own and have it for breakfast. I refuse to pay good money for mini boxes of cereal (although fantastic marketing, cereal people!) when I could just trick them into eating regular cereal out of these mini boxes. So I save the empty boxes, stick a plastic baggie filled with regular cereal in them, and tape them shut. They still get to pick out their own special box in the morning, but now they're back to eating Rice Chex instead of All-That-Sugar-Make-Me-Crazy Crunch. (Between the last bullet point and this one, please feel free to send all my Mother Of The Year awards to South Korea.)
• And I think that's about all I have to say today. I have no desire to blog lately..

My child in seasonally appropriate clothes, folks! Finally!

A picture of the kids before a recent photo session. Because oh yeah, I decided I would open a photography business. Fake it til you make it, right?

Gettin' social on a Sunday

I never do link-ups, but I felt like I could easily answer all of these questions before my kids wake up, so let's have at it.

1. What is your shopping weakness?

My shopping weakness lately would definitely be squeezies and the dollar bin at Target. You can't put a price on shopping the boring bedding section without people screaming and crying at you. (Well, I guess you actually can. It's the cost of a light-up ball ($1) and a fruit squeezy ($1.32). WORTH IT.)


2. What is your food weakness?

My food weakness is easily Tyson nuggets, squeezies, and turkey dogs. They are easy when I am weak. And I usually fix myself a bowl of tuna with frozen veggies and quinoa (gag).


3. What is your go to movie to watch when nothing is on?

Baby Einstein On The Farm or Mighty Machines, the Garbage Truck Edition. Either of these shows buys me upwards of 30 minutes, depending on how many "bonus features" I scroll through.

4. What is your go to breakfast food?

Banana, milk, rice chex. Healthy, gluten free, easy. The rice chex take slightly longer to chew than a banana, which gives me time to chug that second cup of coffee.

5. Do you drink coffee? If so, how do you take it?

What an appropriate question. Yes, I drink coffee. I take it with gigantic, tongue-burning gulps and I take as much of it as I can get before the rice chex run out. "My cup runneth over" in relation to coffee would never be seen as a negative thing to me. I loveth the coffee and the coffee doth keep me sane and awake. Amen.

 

Refill please...

Cross off #4! Even this little bit counts.

So while most people would think that we are very late in doing this whole baby-proofing thing, I think.... they would probably be right. Sam is approaching the 15-month mark and this is really the first child-proofing we've done to our house. Oh sure, we put up the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs every so often, but after he fell down a couple of stairs a few times, he really doesn't even attempt to climb! Exploration and discovery! That's what we're trying to teach here!

(Did you buy that?)

I put the outlet plugs throughout most of the house after he repeatedly tried sticking his tiny fingers into the sockets. But that was right after he started crawling- MONTHS ago. He has been opening cabinets and drawers in the kitchen for a while now. It really doesn't bother me at all. He goes for the same three cabinets and the same drawer and pulls out the same things every time. It's nothing fragile or breakable or even things that I use all that often, so I just let him go to town "exploring." I am, of course, beyond thrilled to not have those annoying little baby-proofing hooks and latches all over my house.

But Steve decided that he was growing tired of Sam yanking out his toothbrush and all of his other personal effects from under the counter of the downstairs bathroom (where he gets ready before PT in the mornings) and throwing them on the floor. So we gave in and baby-proofed. But just that one cabinet. (What? You didn't think we were actually going to be thorough and do the entire house, did you?)

Do you think it encourages him when I take pictures of him doing this?

We got a big ol' two-pack of cabinet latches and Steve did all of the dirty work installing it. (Please note my extreme sarcasm. Also, try not to notice the gigantic pregnant lady in the mirror.)

Yep I'm still milking the last little bits of soap out of that Halloween dispenser. It smells so goooooood.

The installation process

Demonstrating its child-proof-ness. This is while Sam is in the little stand-alone cabinet behind Steve pulling out all of the Q-tips and bobby pins he can get his little hands on.

Sam, checking this lock's quality and effectiveness.

Now if only I could figure out a way to "lock" the toilet paper and constantly sanitize the flush handle..