Sammy Walking Video
Here is our little drunk taking some of his first steps. I thought that a soundtrack was required :)
Right-click HERE to download the video
Here is our little drunk taking some of his first steps. I thought that a soundtrack was required :)
Right-click HERE to download the video
There's a little something each month to post about and this month is no exception.
Solnal is the Lunar New Year. It's a big holidy here in Korea. There are a number of traditions that include rituals to honor ancestors (such as offerings at graves and home) as well time for family to get together.
Above is the table setup as an offering to ancestors. In particular, this one was for Grandpa Kim's mother and father (in background picture). Some ritual bowing and offerings of soju are included here.
The girls, Soyun and Jiyun, dressed in hanbok for part of the day. Don't they just look like dolls? They enjoyed posing for pictures.
Dan and Moon bowing for Grandma and Grandpa Kim. This is part of the tradition for the holiday. The kids all bowed and Soyun and Jiyun also bowed for Moon and Dan.
Jeju (also written as Cheju in some places) is an island to the south of Korea. It is about a 45-minute plane ride and has a very different landscape and climate. This is a volcanic island with a sub-tropical environment. The palm trees, volcanoes, and favorite destination for Korean honeymooners has earned it the name of Korea's Hawaii here in Korea. I'd say that's a huge misnomer, but it is still a nice locale and a quick vacation spot.
Sammy is getting pretty used to flying by now. He settles in with a pillow behind his back and today's newspaper.
Dan and Sammy in front of the plentiful palms on the island
Dan and Sammy on the coast. They are standing on lava flows that had hit the water and cooled in these really amazing hexegonal patterns.
Moon and Sammy hiking on Mt. Halla. This is the largest volcano (the main one, I guess) on the island. We didn't get up to the top today due to ice on the trail. As we got up higher, there was more and more snow. Of course, I have to admit that carrying Sammy the 6 hours that it would have taken to get to the top was not what I really wanted to do that day (both mom and dad had colds).
Sammy and Moon stop by an orange grove (after buying a couple boxes to send home). Both Sammy and Moon were fascinated by the oranges.
Later, Sammy was able to get closer to some oranges at the Orange Museum. He loved to get his hand on this one. He tried to eat a couple others.
Sammy, Moon, and Dan are posing on the coast. The rocks and shore are really amazing. The wind nearly took us in on this day.
Dan, Sammy, and Moon posing in front of a waterfall. This was a little disappointing due to the lack of water this time of year. I have a feeling that it would be a lot better after the thaw of the snowcap.
Sammy is walking. He took his first steps at the beginning of the month. By the end of the month he was walking across the apartment. Corners are still a bit of a problem though.
Sammy goes to a babies class once a week. This was one of the first classes featuring bubbles during this activity. He simply loved them and spent the whole time chasing them down.
I think that future posts are going to have to have a new section on what Sammy's saying. So far this hasn't been too much, but he's getting started.
This month is............
Gal, gal, gal (the 'a' is pronounced like the 'o' in "cot" or "bot")
We have no clue what this means and it doesn't seem to be directed at any one thing.
He's continuing to say things that sound like mama and papa (in Korean), but I still haven't heard that utterance that tells me that he is making a linkage between the person and the word.
January saw a lull in Sammy's life since Daddy was back at work and the weather kept everyone inside.
After returning from Chicago, we were all dead tired. Moon and Sammy settled slowly back into their schedules. Dan went right back to work a couple days after getting home. Full scale jetlag and lack of preparation at work kept him pretty busy, but not completely out of commission.
We went to our friend's place for New Year's and have a big family New Years. Sammy loved having the other kids around. He's not used to having other little people around. Of course, this also means that he doesn't have the finer social skills yet. Below he is getting a little impatient waiting for Clementine's bottle
He baby, sip, sip, pass...sip, sip, pass! Stop Bogarting that bottle!
The flight home was no better than the flight to Chicago. I'm just happen that mini-Hefner picked up some flight attendants along the way.
They looked after him for a couple hours (I kid you not). They couldn't get enough of him. We didn't get any sleep during this time, but I did watch a movie :)
With this flight Sammy now has 3 international flights under his belt and has been to 3 countries on 2 continents. Not bad for 9 months, huh?
We celebrated Grandpa Kim's birthday with the rest of the family. As usual Sammy loved getting together with his cousins, but I think that he that he enjoyed singing Happy Birthday most of all.
Moon took Sammy and Soyun to the Seoul Children's Museum. I haven't been there, but it looks more like a playroom to me. Regardless, Sammy seemed to have enjoyed it.
There were plenty of things to open, close, move around and so on. Just give him any room with a bunch of cabinets and drawers and he's in heaven.
We all went hiking in the mountains just north of us. It's a short, 30-minute bus trip to Dobongsan (Dobong Mountain) from our apartment.
It was a little chilly and we couldn't make it to the top due to ice on the trail towards the top. We decided to stop and take a few pictures instead. We'll have to head back in spring.
As you'll hear more about it in the coming months, but this is our first time checking out locations for Sammy's first birthday. For those of you not from Korea, the first birthday here is a big affair. I've even been to parties at hotels that were on par with receptions in the states. These parties last a couple hours and include some traditional activities and dinner (or lunch).
The first place that we checked out is called Samcheonggak. This is a somewhat famous place that I will liken to a type of meeting center. There is one main building and then a bunch of smaller periphery buildings. Each of these can be a venue for things such as meetings, parties, and weddings. The food served is very traditional and very, very expensive. This is why we decided not to do it. I'm all for being traditional, but $75 a person? Forget it!
It was a very nice location, though. We wandered around for a while and took in the ambience as well as lunch (not very good in my mind, especially for the cost).
Throughout the month there are numerous pictures that we take and they have little rhyme or reason, but they are never meaningless. Here are a few.
Sammy starts to brush his teeth. At this point, it's little more than chewing on the toothbrush, but at least he's getting used to it.
How could I not include a picture like this. This is the happiest baby ever.
Mommy spent a lot of time cleaning and folding her cloths. Sammy decided that things were just too orderly. He likes a little disorder in life. Therefore, the un-organizing was begun. This all took about 2 minutes. He's a quick little tornado.
Our screams of displeasure scared Sammy a little when he figured out how to open the baby wipes and pull them out one by one.
Ok, so Sammy's not using a spoon himself yet, but this is a good start. He's taken a liking to the large, wooden, serving spoon.
We keep a careful eye out and try to hide the toilet paper after each use, but sometimes he gets lucky. Today he had a couple minutes alone with a full roll of t.p. and he took advantage of it.
A sign of things to come? You bet. Sammy is standing by himself and nearly ready to take a step. Of course, we're going to have to talk about tying his shoelaces! He took his first step this month.
That's another exciting installment of Sammy's life
No pictures for these
This month was full of fun, fun, fun. Well, as least there was some in-between all of the travel.
Sammy got to go to his first Sushi bar for Daddy's birthday. Uncle Deasik, Daddy, and Mommy stuffed themselves at the bar while Sammy busied himself in a highchair.
Sammy started opening doors and drawers this month. He showed a great deal of interest before but just couldn't get them both open and get into them before. This all changed. He finally got into the bottle drawer and decided to feast on nipples.
Of course, the big trip of the month was a visit to Chicago and a date with Santa Claus.
Sammy got an early Christmas gift in Tokyo. We thought that a toy airplane would be a good diversion on the next leg of the trip (13+ hours!).
We finally arrived in Chicago a little worse for the wear, but Sammy was great (again) on this trip. He's really been good on these trips. However, he does keep up both moving all the time and on a 17 hour trip, that gets tough. I don't think that he slept for more than 3 hours and those were 30-40 minute segments.
After a couple days to work on our jet lag and get caught up it was already Christmas day.
Sammy got the full treatment. Mindy and Anika woke everyone up with their horrible sleigh bells. We all got in our PJs, had some coffee, and hit the livingroom.
Sammy was in awe. Of course, he wasn't interested in all of the presents, but rather all of the boxes, wrapping paper, and ribbons. He was in 7th heaven.
We finished the day off with a big meal and Sammy couldn't even make it to bed.
We had a fun trip to Carthage for the Dickinson family Christmas. Going to the farm is always fun and Sammy loved it. Not because he was able to enjoy the great outdoors, go 4-wheeling, or fishing. It was because of all the attention that he got from his aunts and cousins.
While every month is eventful, Month 7 seems less so in retrospect. Of course, that's what happens when you try to make up for 3 months of slacking off.
Above is our little monkey chomping on a banana. He really does like them a lot, but we usually try to peel them first. He's not picky though.
Mommy and Daddy's friends from Puerto Rico came to visit in November. Sammy got to meet John and Barbara for the first time. The adults got to have quite a few adventures and Sammy got to have a few adventures of his own in the two weeks they were here.
Sammy got to meet his babysitter for the first time. We call her Emo (sounds a lot like Emil, doesn't it). That just means "Aunt" in Korean and there's not really a better term for it, though I think that sounds nice. I don't even know her actually name, though Moon's got it on record :) Sammy seems to get along well with her and if all goes well we'll keep her on for a couple days a week to give Moon some down time.
He joined everyone at Namsan Tower to check out the view of Seoul.
Here is a tight rope walker who was quite entertaining. Pictures don't do him justice as he does quite a bit of acrobatics. This includes him bouncing on his groin about 10 times a minute. It's simply painful to watch!
Sammy celebrated his first American Thanksgiving with Mommy, Daddy, and some of Daddy's office friends.
He wasn't quite ready to chomp down this big hunk of turkey, but I still liked to tempt him with it.
No good pictures of this, but Sammy hit a few milestones this month.
1. On November 29, he got up on his own and stood in the middle of the room. This is the first time that he didn't need any support from us or an object. It won't be long now before he's taking those steps.
2. On the 30th he clapped. We'll see if this is just an aberration or if this is his new trick.
3. I don't know if this is good or bad, but he is learning how to use the TV remote control. On December 4 (a day before turning 8 months) he decided to see how loud the TV would go. Surprised both mommy and Sammy just a little.
