Back to business

Okay, now that we've got the computer back online it's back to blogging! One more picture from Canada:

Colin and Ben (in his snowsuit from Grandma Val) testing out the new baby carrier. His arms didn't come out the sleeves so we just pinned them closed. Ben let us know in no uncertain terms his displeasure at being dressed in this manner, but once we got outside he was happy again.

Great-grandparents

"Excuse me miss, could I have your number?" With Grandpa in Walmart.

And of course we couldn't forget red-neck Ben.

Impish Ben

Here's Ben looking adorably impish at a wonderful Thai restaurant in Vancouver.

4 Generations

Good News!

The camera cord arrived today - thanks to Colin's mom - enabling us to post pictures again. Here's Benjamin with his toes in his mouth, and playing on the bed after a bath. This is a stay-at-home mom's version of Russian roulette: how long can a loaded baby be aimed at a clean bed without regret. (I was a winner that time!)

Soon to come: pictures from our visit in the US.

New skills

Sorry about the delay in posting new entries... I have no idea where we've left/put the camera cord so I can't upload pictures at the moment - at least ones still on the camera.

I should also take this moment to say what a great time we had visiting everybody. Ben certainly enjoyed the attention that was lavished on him, and we enjoyed watching him interact with family for the first time. Also, we apologize for the wake of things we left behind after our departure. I think we left things to be mailed in each city we visited! If there's anything we can send you from Korea...

Colin's first day of the school year was yesterday. The school hours have been changed so that on Tuesday and Thursday classes go to 5:00pm. I'm sure you can imagine how excited the teachers are about that!

Ben has begun mastering some new skills. He can suck his toes, has discovered splashing in the bath, and... will give a high five when I say, "Give me five!" I suppose I should teach him something more useful, but that action is easy for him to do. He looks so proud when we applaud him and tell him what a good boy he is. He grins from ear to ear, pants breathlessly, and flails his limbs in excitement.

The Jolly Jumper fits on the door of our bedroom and Benjamin has been jumping almost every day. Yesterday he jumped with a rattle in his hand and was so excited about hearing it shake with every jump that I thought he was going to jump right out of the harness! Of course he also dropped the rattle a hundred times or so. I told him to pick it up with his toes, but all he did was kick it!

Since we can't post new pictures I'll put up some of the very first pictures of Ben that people might not have seen. And if anyone finds a spare Sony cord that doesn't seem to go with any of their gadgets we'd be much obliged if you would add it to the mail pile.


Me, right before heading to the hospital. Our first photograph together.












Benjamin in the hospital bassinet right after birth, and at 1.5 days old.

Photos from Canada

Family portrait

Grandpa John

My, what big hands you have!

Object of desire

Halfway "Home"

Only one more flight to go. What a long trip - from the man at the check-in counter who didn't know how to use the computer and took 30 minutes to get us processed, to the waiting around for the garment bag that never came. (We think someone with the last name Farber has all Colin's new work clothes.) Oh, and then there was the crushed car seat box. Luckily the car seat (and the Bumbo) survived. It would have been rather worrisome if it hadn't, considering that it's built to withstand a car crash.

Aeroplan was a whole other story. We decided to use some of our air miles to rent a car while we are in Vancouver. Colin did everything online in advance, and then called on Wednesday to check the details. The person he talked to said they sent a voucher - which we would have to bring to the car rental agency to get the car - and we were supposed to have called the agency ourselves. So there is one car rental voucher on its way to Korea. Funny, so are we... At this point we thought we didn't have a car, but the miles had been subtracted from our account. I called back to see if I would get the same story. I explained how we couldn't get the voucher because we weren't in Korea. I asked if we could cancel the arrangements and get the miles reinstated since we didn't have a car. The lady said no. This was bizarre to me... I'm not allowed to cancel the car I haven't rented? Finally Colin called the car rental agency directly and they said no problem we could just ask Aeroplan to fax a copy of the voucher to them. The rental agency turned out to be great - not only did we not need the voucher, but they gave us a minivan for the same price as the car!

We've recovered from the first leg of the trip and are safe and sound. Now if we can just get Colin's new clothes back.

Jolly Jumping: the video

Hee hee! We took this video last week and he's actually much better at the jumping part now! Here he is laughing at Grandma Val.

The Jolly Jumper

He loves it! But our house seems strangely tilted...

2 Years Old!

All the babies born in Korea during 2005 have now turned 2 years old! This is because a baby's time in the womb is counted as one year. Then, on January 1st everyone turns a year older.

Here's a picture of "2 year-old" Benjamin and "32 year-old" Colin dressed quite similarly.

Ah....family!

It's so good to be back in North America and be able to spend some time with family! Other than Karen, who was there at Benjamin's birth, it was the first time for them to see him in person.

The trip to Canada was long. It began with a 5 hour bus ride, then 4 hours of waiting at the airport. This was followed by a 10.5 hour plane ride during which time Benjamin refused to sleep in the bassinet. Every time he drifted off to sleep and we tried to lay him in it he would promptly wake up and start crying. We feared incurring the wrath of other passengers who were trying to sleep so we had to pick him up again. The plane from Korea to Vancouver was late so we missed the plane that Chris and Julee were on. Luckily the airline arranged for all the passengers who missed that connection to get on another plane leaving for Toronto just an hour later. By the time we picked up our baggage and got through customs we ended up having just enough time to call Mom and tell her we'd be late before they started boarding our flight. 4.5 hours later we landed in Toronto, and it was a mere 2 hour drive home from there!

We spent most of Christmas Day and Boxing Day sleeping, eating and recovering from the trip. It took Benjamin a few days to get his sleeping patterns changed - he was wide awake, smiling and ready to play at 3:00 am! Fortunately the masses of people served to both keep him awake during the day and tire him out so he's now on the same schedule as the rest of us.

Back to the doctor yesterday for another check-up/immunization. Benjamin now weighs 15 pounds, 12 ounces! Yep, we have ourselves one healthy, happy and growing little boy!

On Monday I had one of my old classes over to make some Christmas cookies. (We inherited a microwave-sized oven from our friends Jeff and Munju who just got married.) The students brought gifts for Benjamin and one of the gifts was the hat that he is wearing in this picture. I think it's supposed to be a puppy, but the ears kind of look like horns!
Colin's giving exams this week. Friday is graduation and his marks have to be in that day as we are leaving on Saturday! We are so eager to show off our son and see our families again! I almost feel more excited than when Benjamin was born. There were so many things tempering that excitement: exhaustion, worry etc. This time it's all joy! We can't wait to see you all!

If You're Happy and You Know It Say "Agoo!"

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Okay, in this video he doesn't really say "Agoo," but it's still cute.

Who does he look like?

Top left: paternal grandfather
Top right: maternal grandfather
Bottom left: mother

Bottom right: father

My two new favorite pictures: Ben with an adorable smile, and happily falling asleep in Daddy's arms.

Ben in his moccasins

Here's a picture of Ben in his mocassins - a gift from a family from church. (They also just had a baby in Korea - a little girl named Esther!) Thank you Enlows!

12 weeks

One and a half days old... twelve weeks old!

Video testing

Here's a little clip of Benjamin "talking." If this works I hope to add some more videos in the future.

First Tear

Fact: The average panicked cry of a newborn is 84 decibels - about the same volume as a passing freight train.

Fact: A baby's eyes do not produce tears until the baby is approximately 6-8 weeks old.

Yesterday after church Benjamin was peacefully sleeping in his sling - despite the efforts of churchgoers who think he's especially cute to rowse him so they can see his blue eyes! We put him in the car seat to drive home and he began to cry. He often fusses a bit when first put in his seat but we thought he would calm down and go to sleep like he usually does. We were obviously wrong because he proceeded to cry/scream the entire way home. (This was our cue that he was in fact hungry, not just fussy.) The drive was nightmarishly reminiscent of our first drive with him - the drive home from the hospital after he was born - only now he can cry louder! At that time I thought that I might never get in a car with him again if this was the scenario that would ensue. As we parked in the underground parking lot and made our way up the stairs to the elevator (with Ben still in his car seat), the gentle rocking of being carried lulled him into silence. Once in the elevator I set him down so that my arms could recuperate, and the crying began again. But this time was a little different. I bent down to look into the car seat, mesmerized as Ben's big blue eyes welled up with tears. "Look, a tear!" I exclaimed to Colin as a single droplet spilled over and left a wet trail down our son's left cheek. My husband's response was more practical than mine - he picked up the car seat and the crying stopped!

Can you see the resemblance?

Pepero Day

November 11th is Remembrance Day or Veterans Day to North Americans, but here in South Korea November 11th is a special day for an entirely different reason: it's Pepero Day!

According to the JoongAng Daily:

The Pepero snack is a replica of Pocky, the Japanese treat of chocolate-dipped cookie sticks. The 11th of November is known as Pepero Day, because "11/11" looks like four sticks. Pepero Day supposedly started in 1994 at a girls' middle school in Busan, where students exchanged Pepero sticks, wishing each other to become as tall and slender as a Pepero. But some suspect that Pepero Day was actually dreamed up by Lotte's marketing team.

(Lotte is the 8th largest "chaebol" (conglomerate corporation) in South Korea. It employs more than 38,000 people and is into everything from candy to hotels to fast food. )

The typical box of Pepero sells for 500 to 700 won, but these days one need not be limited to the original Pepero. (In my opinion the most inferior Pepero!) In the weeks preceding November 11th the downtown stores attempt to attract customers with their elaborate displays of chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks. Mountains of Pepero boxes appear both inside and outside stores. I even saw a 5 foot tall Pepero, though I don't think it was edible!

In the above picture the standard Pepero is on the left, almond Pepero is in the centre and nude Pepero is on the right.

Perhaps it was just a marketing ploy, but I definitely think each country should have at least one candy-based holiday! After all, we not only have candy canes at Christmas, chocolate on Valentine's Day and cream-filled eggs at Easter, but let's not forget the grand-daddy of all candy holidays: Halloween! Then again, who needs a special day to eat candy?

Vaccinations

Benjamin has already had his fair share of being poked and prodded. Shortly after his birth he had blood drawn and got his first Hepatitis B shot. (Although Colin and I can't figure out why he needed a Hep B shot when contracting Hep A seems much more likely.) Then at one week he got a vaccination against TB. This was delivered using a metal device with a 3 x 3 grid of prongs that they pressed into Benjamin's shoulder twice. Apparently TB is more common in Asia than in North America. The head nurse explained that after a month, pus will form at the injection site which will then develop into a scar. This scar will disappear by the time Ben is 6 years old. Here's a picture of what the site looks like now. (7 weeks after the injection.)

At his one month check-up he received his second Hepatitis B shot. And this past weekend at his two month check-up he received one shot for diptheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus in one thigh, and a shot for polio in the other. Then we were instructed to come back in one week for another shot - Hib. Hib stands for haemophilus influenzae type B - a disease that can lead to meningitis, pneumonia, or a severe throat infection. Unfortunately for Benjamin, the immunizations don't seem to decrease until after he's two.

2 Month Check-up

Benjamin went for his two month check-up today. We found out he now weighs 5.76kg. That's about 12 pounds, 11 ounces. It's amazing how much bigger he looks when we put him in the car seat. I remember when we put him in it for the first time to take him home from the hospital. He looked so small and scrunched up - we thought he was way too small for it. Now he is close to outgrowing it. He got another vaccination today: DTP. Poor guy, he had to have a needle in each of his chubby little thighs. He cried, but stopped as soon as the nurse removed the needles. The nurses all know Benjamin and tried to get him to smile. I think they were jealous that he wouldn't take his eyes off Colin. They kept saying enviously, "He only likes his Daddy!" They gave us a calendar with a family picture that a photographer took at the hospital when Benjamin was a day old. This same picture has also been added to the gallery of family pictures gracing the hallway of the hospital. We perused all the pictures while I was in labour - comparing expressions on the babies' faces, head size, amount of hair etc. All the Korean babies have much more hair than Ben! It was a good appointment - Benjamin is happy and healthy and growing.

Time flies...

Benjamin is quickly coming up on two months! He has already changed so much - he is much more alert and interactive than before and looking less and less like a newborn. These days he smiles and makes sounds when we talk to him. We have "conversations" with each other and while I wouldn't say he is laughing yet, he does make little giggling sounds and give me big toothless grins when I do "Head and Shoulders" with him. I try to do it in English and Korean and last night I had a dream that his first word was the Korean word for nose!

The cloth diapering is going well, but we have decided to use disposables at night and when travelling for convenience and leak protection. (After going through 2 outfits one night I decided life would be simpler if we just had to change the diaper and not the outfits too. There's only so much you feel like doing at 2:00 am.)

The breastfeeding has all of a sudden resolved itself. I have no idea what actually made it get better, but I'm glad it did. Thank you to all those who were praying about it. I think my appetite is now larger than any time when I was pregnant. It takes a lot of energy to feed him, but it's amazing to think that even outside the womb his growth is intricately linked to my body. Sometimes it's hard to find time to eat all that I should. Colin tells me I need to "make eating a priority." He's right, of course. He's been wonderful. He'll prepare food and bring it to me - even cut it up if it needs to be cut, so that I can eat it one-handed while Ben is nursing. He also patiently comes to the rescue when I realize the glass of water, TV remote, book, tissue or whatever other item I want is on the other side of the room.

I have to admit I gave him a dirty look one day when he commented on how tired he was. 'Yes,' I thought (in my irrational sleep-deprived state of mind as if I were the only one suffering), 'but you can at least go back to sleep right after the baby wakes up. I'm the one who has to sit here with him sucking the life out of me!' But the truth of the matter is that I'm the lucky one because I can nap through the day when the baby naps, whereas he would get fired for napping at work.

Of course who has time for napping when you have to make eating a priority?

The sounds of our baby

Benjamin is starting to make more and more noises. He has little conversations with us now by sighing, smiling and cooing. But on the whole, most of his noises wouldn't be acceptable in mixed company. He can fart and burp to rival a frat boy. It's quite hard to take his crying seriously when it is punctuated by a symphony of gas! I can just picture the moment in church when he decides to let loose a series of diaper-rumbling flatulations! After we finish laughing at him we conscientiously wonder if it's bothering his not-so-little tummy. We have gas medicine, but as Colin reasonably pointed out, letting out the gas is not the problem.

Super Ben!

We didn't get a Hallowe'en costume for Ben, but it looks like he had Superman in mind! (This shot was not posed, he just happened to thrash that way.)

Can you read this?

A few yeras ago a mesgase mdae its rdunos of the ineerntt sanyig taht "Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

While this is not always true, it is amazing how many times it is. If you want to try jumbling a message and reading it go here: http://www.stevesachs.com/jumbler.cgi

Ben's Funny Faces

Breastfeeding

I had just assumed this would come naturally, but it sure hasn't. I read that there is a "breastfeeding high" that nursing mothers get because their bodies release oxytocin when their babies are feeding . So far I've mostly experienced pain. It seems Benjamin is crying to be fed, or I'm crying because he's feeding. I'm not sure what I'm doing that's causing all the pain - if he's still not taking in enough of the breast, if he's just positioned wrong, or if he's just a little barracuda with jaws of steel! Perhaps it's a combination of all three. I'm sure we'll get it worked out eventually. In the meantime here's something funny that I identified with - particularly number 7! (I did not write this and I have no idea who the original author is.)

How to prepare for nursing:

If you really want to feel ready to breastfeed, here’s what to do.

Day 1: Gently rub your nipples with sandpaper.

Day 2: At bedtime, set your alarm clock to go off every two hours. Each time it rings, spend 20 minutes sitting in a rocking chair with your nipples clamped in a pair of chip clips.

Day 3: Draw branching lines all over your chest with a blue-green marker, then stand in front of your bathroom mirror and sing “I Feel Pretty.”

Day 4: Open your already-crowded freezer and make room for five dozen plastic milk bags.

Day 5: Fit the hose of a vacuum cleaner over one breast and set on “medium pile.” Turn off vacuum when nipple is three inches long. Switch breasts.

Day 6: Obtain “DO NOT CROSS” tape from your local police station, then wrap firmly around your chest. When your spouse asks about it, say, “Get used to it.”

Day 7: Tape a water balloon to each breast and squeeze into a nursing bra. Repeatedly hook and unhook the flap with one hand while using the other to balance a sack of squirming puppies.

Day 8: Dine in the fanciest, snootiest restaurant you can afford, making sure to arrive with a big wet spot directly over each nipple.

Day 9: Record your mother proclaiming, “Just give the baby some cereal like God intended, and she’ll sleep right through the night.” Play in an endless loop at 1 A.M., 3 A.M., and 5 A.M.

Day 10: Slather your breasts with peanut butter, top with birdseed, and stand very still in your backyard.

Day 11: Go someplace public-a museum, a courthouse, the steps of your office building- and stuff a lifelike baby doll under your shirt. Use the doll’s arm to suddenly hike the shirt up past your collar bone. Lower shirt. Feign nonchalant smile.

After bath

Benjamin is one month old today!

This is Benjamin at 3 weeks (picture taken last week). He can hold his head up pretty well, but doesn't have much control over it. If you hold him in front of you he often tries to look at you, but ends up head butting your chest. He's been able to turn his head from side to side when lying on his stomach since he was a week old.

One month ago...

It's hard to think that just one month ago Karen and I were traipsing through the rice fields and mountain trails trying to get labour going before I had to be induced. Our walk became somewhat longer than expected when we couldn't figure out how to get from the rice back onto the trail, but a little bushwhacking solved that problem. Although labour didn't start, Karen did get this lovely picture of a dragonfly on some rice.

Happy Baby

After he's finished eating and just as he's drifting off to sleep Benjamin often gets a blissful look on his face...

Well, we're slowly getting the hang of this parenting thing. Every day teaches us a little more about our baby. He's already made himself clear about some of his likes and dislikes. He dislikes the carseat and being naked - including getting his clothes or diaper changed and having a bath. He likes being bounced or rocked, being sung or talked to, and being carried in the sling. Other than feeding him, the sling has been most useful in calming him when he gets crying. I guess being in a warm dark place must remind him of the womb. In any case it's an easy way to carry him, (though it does start to hurt the back after a while) calm him, and keep him away from all the people who are curious about him if we are out and about. Sometimes we manage to position him in the sling better than others. Occasionally his head is scrunched up -although this seems to bother us more than him- or he keeps kicking his feet out. He also likes to get his feet free when we wrap him in the "swaddling blanket" which has thus far failed to keep him swaddled for more than about 10 seconds.