These days it seems I have a lot of pictures and  video of Sammy and less of Sarah.  Part of that is because we are spending more time together as Moon has to spend time with Sarah.  Thus, Moon has Sarah pictures that I have to try to get my hands on.

I finally showed Sammy the Sound of Music, which he loved.  The kid loves songs and he picked up on Do Re Mi pretty quickly.  The next 2 videos are him sing that.

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He's really a good brother.  Sammy helps out with Sarah a lot.  Of course, his biggest help is just ignoring her sometimes :-)  This is Sammy holding Sarah on the couch.

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GQ Sammy showing off his impressive tie collection. For a couple days, Sammy kept bugging me about wearing his ties.  I finally got him in a shirt with a collar so he could go to town. He models are regular tie and a bowtie.  I'm guessing that he started to be interested in these because Daddy has been wearing a lot of suits these days.  It is an unnatural change in dress for daddy which is likely whay he took notice.

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Mountain Sammy discovers the glories of tree climbing.  We have continued to go hiking together.  This hike took us on the mountain behind my school.  It is wonderful to know that just beyond my office is this area.  We hiked all the way to my office then watch some cartoons and got ice cream :-)

During the hike Sammy found a good climbing tree.  This is a real change for him.  He was scared to death of climbing trees last year and now he's climbing everything.  Fun to watch, but quite scary too.

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St. Patrick's Day event in Insa dong brought big crowds of beer guzzling young folks and a certain family of four.  We listened to a pretty good band and performances.  Sammy learned about Hurl (spelled right?) an Irish sport that he treated more like a combo between baseball and golf.

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Sammy, Sarah, and Moon at a normal, average dinner.

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I reached my upload limit on the previous post. These are the left over videos that didn't fit in that one.  One more hiking video and two videos from Sammy's keyboard class.

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February started off with Sollal.  This a time to honor ancestors through ceremonies of offering, which Sammy participated in for the first time this year by pouring soju (Korean liquor) for the offering.  He also dressed up in his hanbok (traditional outfit) and, of course, ate and played with family.

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Sammy and I went to a play called "Guess how much I love you" with his friend and the friend's dad.  It was a good play and good company.  It's always nice to find someone who not only has kids the same age, but speaks English as well :-)

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You have probably seen many hiking pictures already.  Sammy and I hit the mountain a couple times in February, though it was quite cold.  He has gotten much better at it.  We even made it for the first peak near our home.  It took a little pulling from Dad, but we finally made it.  It was really windy at the top, though, so he wouldn't pose for a picture.  He just croutched at my feet.  I'm glad to be able to do more active things with him.

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One of many pictures of Sammy and Sarah on the couch together.

Sammy loves going to the English library near our home.  Lots of books there to check out. 

Grandma and Grandpa Kim let him practice drawing some Chinese characters.  He did a pretty good job of it too!

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Dad made a chocolate fondue for dessert one night.  It was a big hit.

All that work it tiring.

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Of course, he's nearly 5, but I'll keep him 4 for as long as I can :-)

I've already discussed here how I started the cycle of life talk with Sammy a couple months ago.  It wasn't the most fun, but I think that it was a good intro to the topic.  I nearly reached that level of discomfort again today.

The news and talk amongst people has been a constant stream the last two days about the awful events in Japan.  They are experiencing tragedy upon tragedy with the earthquakes, tsunamis, and now the resulting issues with their nuclear plants.  The images have touch be greatly, but I hadn't exposed Sammy to them.  The news was on at his Grandparent's apartment today, as was the talk.  Naturally, he started asking what an earthquake was.

Moon turns and says, "Dan, that's you." I was happy to explain earthquakes.  This is a great teachable moment, right?  So I go through how the earth is round and there are pieces that move very slowly.  He seemed to get that these pieces rub against each other and sometime go over/under one another.  Then I explained how this causes a big wave (like the ones he was seeing on TV) and that these waves create a lot of damage.  I also said that it can hurt many people.

He asked if the earthquake would come here. I said it was very unlikely.  He asked if the water would come here. I said no (we are about 50 miles inland).  Then he asked if any kids died. Yep, this is the part that I wasn't so thrilled talking about.  I said, yes.  Then he asked if any mommies and daddies died. I said yes.  I thought for a couple seconds, watched the water breach the land again on the news, and then moved on.  He was amazed that the cars (and planes, especially the planes) were carried away by the water.  And that was it.  Nothing more for now.

I really hope that allowing him to see that footage or talking to him about it doesn't land him on the theapists couch in the future.  I feel that countering questions with thoughful, complete-ish answers is the best way to guide a child's learning and curiousity.  However, I struggle with how much to explain and when to do so.  I support time will tell.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/rullerusk/3598317117/

So, it has begun. Sammy comes home today and asks Moon, "are you going to go on date?" 

Moon: "Yes, I'll go on a date with daddy" (actually, I wish that were true. No dates since well before Sarah's arrival :-(

Sammy: "I don't want to go on a date."

Moon: "OK.....DAN!!!"

Dan: (after being filled in and told Sammy is shy) "Don't worry, buddy.  It's ok.  Everyone is a little shy.  Girls make boys shy and boys make girls shy....[skip the rest of the 5 minute lecture]

Sammy: [nothing]

Dan: "Ok, great.  Let's pick this up again in a few years. Good talking to you, son."

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Seollal (Lunar New Year) was on February 2 this year.  As always, we celebrated with a lot of family, food, and ....other stuff.

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Sammy having fun with his fire truck that he got for his birthday last year and rarely comes out unless we ask him to clean up :-)

Sammy and Dan went to the play, Guess how much I love you, based on the book.  It was a lot of fun and I was surprised that they could draw out that short book for an hour +, but they did.  The show was in English, which is a bit unusual for the Daehakro theater district.  Much of the content got the audience involved and moving, which was just perfect.

And a day at the local English library.

Sammy and I have been going hiking at Bukhan mountain a lot lately.  He seems to be growing fond of it.  We nearly made it up to the peak closest to our house today.  It's a little scary at some points.  There was a nice sheer drop off today of around 50-100 feet that freaked me out a little.  Especially, when he suggested that we play tag around it.

Otherwise, it's a pretty easy climb.  I'm guessing we'll make that peak before the end of the year.

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We stopped by Grandma and Grandpa Kim's place last week.  Grandpa Kim is working on his Chinese caligraphy. He let Sammy play and he did pretty well for his first time copying characters.

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I just thought this was a fun picture of Sammy and Sarah watching TV on the couch.

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All in all a little uncomfortable for both of us but probably a good lesson to start before we have ti deal with it at a funeral or with a pet.

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Sammy's been a very good big brother.  He's been helping with Sarah quite a bit.  More importantly, he doesn't seem to be showing any jealousy.  Before Sarah arrived, we planned to have Moon spend more time with Sarah and me spend more time with Sammy.  That seems to have worked and he has bonded with me more.  That doesn't mean Mommy isn't necessary, but just not as much reliance as before.

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We've been doing bunches of things together like a hike in the mountains behind our home and a day in the snow...and book store.

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Some other Sammy photos from January.

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I posted a bunch of this over on Sarah's blog (http://www.sarahlcraig.com), but I thought that I'd repost it here as well.  I'd hate for my postings to be one-sided.

On Christmas morning, we were able to videoconference with the Dickinsons (Mom's side of the family) for their Christmas party.  The connection wasn't great at the hospital so we cut it and picked them up again after we went home.

We came home on Christmas afternoon and picked up with the Dickinson Christmas again.  It was good to show off Sarah to the whole family.  I hope to do the same with the Craigs on the 15th.

Poor Sammy had to wait an extra day for Santa's visit.  We told him that we wouldn't be home so he promised that he's swing by after he got to the rest of the world.  Luckily, that meant that we could celebrate fully on the 26th.

However, we were able to have a good, full Christmas dinner and we were able to celebrate with my family for their Christmas in the evening (our time).  We let Sammy open all the gifts from family, so I wouldn't feel too bad for him.  It was fun to again let family get a peak at Sarah and maintain some normalcy for the rest of us.  It has become our Christmas tradition (videoconferencing, that is).

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Of course, a lot didn't make it into Sarah's blog.  We went to a German Christmas Market a couple weeks before Christmas.  This was the first time, and only time, seeing Santa this year.  Good thing we made it there.  We got some hot coco, sausages, and chili...what else do you need?  Sammy also got to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas.  Good thing we saw him there.  Sammy got just about all that he asked for.  However, there was one slight problem.  Sammy was convinced that it wasn't really Santa because he had a fake beard.  We had to explain about Santa's helpers.  Santa can't be everywhere at once now, can he?

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Going to the Hilton before Christmas has become a tradition for us.  We did it this year just a few days before Sarah came.  They have a great model train display, a big tree and other decorations, and Santa (though we missed him this time).

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Other, miscellaneous pictures are below. 

Christmas trees at our subway station.

A snowman cutout in front of a local bakery.

The iphone app that let me elf my son was a winner.

Collage of all my Christmas picts.

A little Christmas fun with Photoshop.

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This seems like a good time for a general update on Sammy.  He's doing wonderfully.  He's about 43in (109cm) and 43lbs (19.6kg).  He's growing at a rate of about an inch every 4 months, but he's only gained a few pounds this year.

He's fully bilingual at this point.  His English vocabulary seems to be lacking a little, he's better at expressing himself in Korean.  This disparity grows in the time between visits to the States.  I fear that he is learning academic language at his daycare, but he's lacking that in English.  That's going to be a gap as long as we are here.

He continues to love music.  This kid could memorize War and Peace if it were put to song.  He loves any movie with singing and, surprising, he asks me all the time to watch Mama Mia! again.  Yes, my son is an avid ABBA fan at 4 years old.  In addition to that, he's started his first piano (keyboarding) class.  These are group lessons that focus mostly on singing at this point, with a particular focus on finding the different notes.  They also do actual keyboard work as well.  He loves it.  At least at this point, I don't see me having to drag him to any classes.  It's important that these classes are very social and fun.  I like that this is his introduction to music instruction.

He's been able to pick the English letters of his name out when inputing them for high scores on the Wii, but I've never seen him write his name.  However, the other day he wrote is name in Korean (first name) for the first time.  I was a proud papa :-) and he was so proud of himself when he saw my reaction.  I was a little concerned for a while when he was having difficulty with character recognition, but that seems to mostly be in the past with both Korean and English.  He can recognize the characters, though he does have problems with different font sets.  I can't blame him, so do I.

I think Sammy is ready for the arrival of his baby sister.  He has fun feeling her kick.  He likes to put his ear to Moon's belly.  Not sure what he hears, or if it's just a good way to feel the baby move.  However, he is going to hate some of the changes, including not sleeping with his mommy. We have been trying to boot him from the bed for a long time now.  Even if he goes to sleep in his bed, he usually makes it to our rooms sometime during the evening.  That's going to have to change when Sarah comes.  He's going to get less alone time with his mommy as well, which will be tough.  They spend a lot of time together.

This month he's starting to ramp up for Christmas.  He's making a list and starting to talk more about Santa :-)  It should be a good season.

That's all for now.

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These pictures were taken for a passport photo. This is probably the best picture (others are just various photoshopped versions) that we've ever gotten for Sammy.  Whoever took this photo is, therefore, a genius.

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My little boy is going up.  It's time for a new passport as his will expire at the end of the year.  I made an appointment with the Embassy and started collecting the required documents.  In addition to his birth certificate and other docs, they require 2 pictures a year from the time his picture was taken for the first passport.  I thought those would be good here.

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I'm going to attempt to keep all of the past postings as is, but I'm not sure how that will work out. None-the-less, I will backup everything here.

Hopefully, this will jumpstart my posting on this site which is supposed to be an accounting of Sammy's young life, but hasn't been updated much since he turned 2.

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Christmas

I don’t think I did a great job of it, but I tried. Here is what we did for Christmas this year.

Holiday movies

Much to the chagrin of my wife, I spent quite a bit of time introducing my son to Christmas cartoons. We watched Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, a couple of Charlie Brown Christmas specials (and he watch the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving over and over and over again). I tried to get him to watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation and the Christmas Story, but he wasn’t up for either of those.

Food

We did a few food projects this season, some he really did help with and others he didn’t (some I didn’t even really do). We did cookies a couple times. He always loves helping with this. He gets covered in flour, so we add a little extra to compensate.

I made egg nog for the first time this year to great success. It was a cooked egg nog (I don’t mind raw, but I’d hate to poison anyone else). For those of you in the States, you take this for granted during the holidays, but egg nog is certainly not available here in Seoul. I made one of the easier recipes that I saw. It consisted of a cooking portion similar to making custard and a lot of blending. It was a really simple and tasty recipe. It probably would have been better if I had nutmeg (really missed that) and bourbon (or other liquor). I could have gotten the latter, but I was rather sick during Christmas and tried not to add too much alcohol to my diet ;-)

Lastly, I didn’t feel like cooking this year, because of all the running around I would have to do to gather ingredients, so we decided to hit one of the Christmas dinners around town. We decided to go to Suji’s for Christmas dinner. I’ve heard Suji’s recommended numerous times over the last couple years and this seemed to be a good opportunity to check them out. It was my first time at Suji’s and I liked it for the most part. We were warmly greeted at the door; they had really good service, which is unheard of in Korea; and the atmosphere was nice.

Now for the negatives…The “stuffing” was really just cubed French bread that may have been cooked in the turkey or just sautéed with the turkey gravy. Moon hated it, not because it tasted bad, but because it was so far from the traditional stuffing that she was expecting. I thought that it tasted great, but I have to admit that it was half-assed. Moon also hated the mashed potatoes and, while I thought they were ok, I agreed that they really lacked cream and could have used more butter (now we’re being picky). The spread was lacking to say the least. For W50,000 (think $50+ depending on exchange rate) you’d think that they would have some more, at least the basics. How can you have the above items an NO bread? They offered to sell us some, though. For 50,000 you’d better give me some %$#@ bread! The buffet was tiny. How about some more choices? They only had 6 food items on the buffet (not including sauces) and 1 of them I can’t even remember what it was because it was gone and never refilled by the time I took a picture. That is the biggest problem that I had with the buffet, it ran out fast and they never refilled. I understand that we were there late, we had the 8:30PM sitting, but THEY scheduled it and they should have assured that they buffet remained stocked. The great service that I referred to above dried up about the time the food did. It seemed that they were afraid to engage at that point.

I could forgive them breadth, if they only had depth. The food that they had was really good, but I can’t forgive them for running out.

Next year (if we don’t go to the States) I’ll spend about the same amount (maybe a little more) and do the dinner right. Christmas is no time to take the lazy way out. I’ll cook up a storm and have leftovers for a week.

Christmas Events

Back to Christmas morning. Sammy woke up to Christmas surprise. Santa had not only loaded the living room with presents under the tree and in Sammy’s stocking, but he also rearranged the furniture and boxed up most of Sammy’s old toys and put them in storage (Santa’s great in that way). A well-rested dad, who didn’t have to do any of this work, brewed a big pot of coffee and cooked a big breakfast casserole (not his greatest) to get him through the morning.

Sammy particularly loved a car set that he got (track with battery-powered cars) and a doctor set that he used to give examinations to everyone, including his new Curious George doll. Moon and I really enjoyed this Christmas, as it was the first in which Sammy could really enjoy it himself. While the concept of Christmas and even that of Santa haven’t really gotten through, he is old enough now to participate fully. I really look forward to next year when he may be better able to learn a Christmas song or two.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, sleeping, and playing. Truly a wonderful Christmas.

Thanks

Thanks to everyone for making this a great holiday season (not that it’s totally over yet). Thanks to my family in the states, both immediate and extended. Working with us to set up the video feed and working around our schedules really helped to make this Christmas better. Of course, this probably means the most to me, but I know that both Moon and Sammy enjoyed it as well. Thanks to Moon’s family for taking on that family role here in Korea. And, of course, thanks to Moon for putting up with my moodiness and insane holiday requests throughout the season.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you out there from the Craigs in Korea!

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Merry Christmas from the Craigs!

Sammy

It’s amazing how much changes in a year. Sammy went from a stumbling toddler to a little boy. Communication in grunts and cries gave way to words and sentences. High chairs gave way to regular chairs. Messy meals gave way to…well, messy meals; some things don’t change. Doing for him gave way to “I’ll do it.”

He loves the TV, much to our chagrin. Anything that looks like a cartoon, he watches. He learned early on to turn it on himself, even complaining when we unplugged it. Smart kid. Some of his favorite things right now are playgrounds, anything to do with construction, motorcycles, trains, robots, Thomas the Train, Curious George, Wall-E, and indoor baseball.

Jobs

Moon has been the Front Office Manager at the Sofitel Ambassador Seoul since last April. She is responsible for all the people you meet as you come into a hotel: drivers, doormen, concierge, front desk, and club rooms. It’s a stressful, challenging job, but it is certainly a good introduction to Seoul hotels.

Trips

Other Notable Moments

Lunar New Year	St. Patrick's Day	Sammy's 2nd Birthday
Buddha's Birthday	Korean Grilling	Children's Day at the Palace
Seoul Zoo	Chusok (Korean Thanksgiving)	Race for the Cure

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Yep, the boy had his first playground brawl. Don't know who got the worse of this. I kept the video going because I didn't think it was a big deal, but sent Moon in to get him anyway when it continued.

It happens toward the end of the video.

The other little shit was messing with everyone. You can even see him starting with some bigger kids at the top of the slide. I'm guessing the boy has some troubles. He even attacked some parent sitting on the bubble with her baby.

He went after Sammy a couple other times too. Finally, (probably should have done it sooner) took Sammy out of there.

I've come to the conclusion that I must teach Sammy how to fight dirty. At the very least, I'll teach him the Karate Kid kick that was so successful for Daniel-san.

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