The Im Family

had our conference w/mimi's teacher and all went well. mimi seems to be making friends, enjoying school, learning about rules, etc. (while in the car on the way to school one morning, mimi told me that she would never interrupt her teacher at circle time because then the police might come and get her and take her to jail. maybe she's internalizing it a bit tooo much.) her teacher did express some concern that mimi might be bored in kindergarten because her academic skills are well beyond the kindergarten level. i'm not TOO worried...maybe because i havent been thru this before with a child...but on a gut level, i feel like mimi prefers to have it easy. she likes things to be easy, she gets sooo mad and frustrated when she has to really think too much. so i have a feeling that yes, the work will be easy, but she'll like it that way just fine. so i dont really see her being a behavioral problem out of boredom. as for her academics in KG, i do want her to be with a...

while i was slaving over some sweet potatoes, cutting them into shoe string fries (why? ugh. cause i'm crazy like that), mimi comes marching into the kitchen and says in a slightly breathless way: i hope daddy gets home soon because i'm really startin' to miss 'im! like 100 percent!

mimi was watching me making some sketches of cake ideas and she wanted to sketch her own cake design so drew this cake on a table with balloons and streamers framing it. she said she wanted to make this cake one day for me because she loved me: after finishing the cake drawing, she began drawing several more pictures, one right after the other. this next one is a giant angry robot (big blue thing) attacking daddy's office building: the next one is a rocket ship blasting off. there's the count down on the bottom of the rocket. i like the backwards '9'. the red/blue thing off to the side is supposed to be the shape from the middle of the korean flag...it's supposed to be a sort of yin yang shape, but mimi couldnt figure out how to replicate it from memory. the girl in the window of the rocket is the first Korean woman to fly to space. she was on a t.v. news story on the Korean news channel last week. this next one, mimi says is her friend Teah's house and t...

his obsession with paper continues. he has now learned the joy of pulling out one sheet after another of tissue paper or baby wipes from the box. the baby wipes he likes to suck on each one after he pulls them out. the tissue paper he likes to shred into itty bitty bits and of course chew on some of the shreds. this is why all paper products must be kept out of Ozzy's reach. yesterday, i dismantled the Pen and put the family room back to the old arrangement. now, there is one gate blocking the way to mimi's playroom and all the stairs, but since he's a little bit more stable (doesnt fall backwards and bonk his head much anymore), i've allowed him a bit more freedom. he is now allowed into the kitchen (where he loves to open the cabinets and pull out all the plastic containers and baking tins). today, after his bath, rob and i stood on opposite ends and had ozzy walk back and forth between us. he could take 1-2 steps on his own...i think he probably could have tak...

recently, i had one of those random moments to reflect on my life and the "me" i've become since becoming a stay at home mom, when rob said to me he was thinking of getting some Toad The Wet Sprocket tix for me b/c they were going to be playing in the area and i was like, eh, it's too much effort to go out and besides, i havent listened to Toad in ages...i liked them back in college, but now a days, i hardly listen to much music at all and couldnt even name one current song or musician people listen to these days. not that i was ever so with-it...but not sure what it says about me when the only songs i sing along to are either on the Backyardigans or are the ones that come on Yo Gabba Gabba! (but in my defense, there are some pretty cool songs by some pretty cool indie bands on Yo Gabba Gabba...yes, Leslie the Gem Sweater gal was on that show once doing a dancy dance with signature razzle dazzle glitter hands and laser beam moves, but in a nerdy way, she's wacky...

Mimi: mom, please let me sleep in your bed. Me: no, you have sleep in your bed. Mimi: but mommy! but mommy! dont you understand why i have to sleep in your bed? Me: no why's that? Mimi: because i love you soooo soooo SOOO much that if i sleep in my bed, my love cant go to you. it's sooo big that it cant fit under the space under my door to get to you. Me: well, we'll leave our doors open then. Mimi: no, i'm afraid of the green light (on the smoke detector in the hallway). we cant leave the doors open because i dont like to see it. it turns my love into a monster. so, that's why i have to sleep in your room.

yesterday we had ozzy's 9 month check up. he's still in the 20th %tile for weight, just under the 50th %tile for length, and around the 70th %tile for head circumference. he's lost so much of the baby fat he had in the early months...maybe because he's so mobile? he is still taking only 3 oz of milk at a time and feeding thru the night. the doc says i could probably cut out his night feeds, but i worry he's not getting enough during the day...he probably only gets around 15 oz of breastmilk during the day...well under the recommended 24 oz a day. so i feel like he still needs to feed at night. i am going to try to only offer him milk in a bottle at night from now on and try to see if he is waking from hunger or just waking to comfort nurse. i know he wont take a bottle if he's not really hungry. so we'll try that. if it ends up he really is hungry, i'll continue to nurse him thru the night until his first birthday. ozzy is taking in more solids....

korean people have a bunch of these hand/body exercises that they teach their babies. my mom says it helps them develop their motor skills. i think it's fun that they assign each movement a special name: Manseh! hands up in the air, cheering. literally means '10,000 years' but is supposed to be a hooray! jahk jahk goong! hand clapping dori dori dori! shake head jehm jehm jehm! open and close hands ozzy is doing all of them, except ' dori dori dor i' so i guess i have to work with him on that one. he uses the jehm jehm jehm move for waving bye bye and for signing milk. and he claps when we cheer and also uses a variation of clapping to sign 'more.' i heard 'manseh' is also good for helping to get their t-shirts off! :) i saw him standing by the ottoman today (inside his Pen), clapping and cheering, so i grabbed the camera and caught a bit of the clapping and cheering before he lost his balance.

every day i continue to use a bit of sign language in my day to day interactions with ozzy. a friend of mine loaned a baby signs book to me and i've barely had a chance to read thru it, but it sits on my worktable as a silent reminder to keep on keepin' on with ozzy. every time i latch him on, i say milk and sign milk. he doesnt respond. every time i give him some puffs, i sign and say 'more?' i only give him a few at a time when we work on this and he gets mad because he really does want more and he'll squeal, grunt, and growl and i'll just answer his obvious displeasure with a pleasant, "more?" and he'll hastily smack his hands together. is he signing? i'll take it! when he's finished with eating, i sign, all done! when i ask for something, i sign please. when he offers me something i sign thank you. and so on... every day, though i feel like i'm waiting...waiting for him to get it...waiting for that moment when it fina...

this easter, i took the kids to my parents house in hampton, va since it had been awhile since my parents had seen ozzy and we hadnt made an appearance at my parent's church at all since ozzy was born. so i packed up the kids and headed down for a few days (leaving rob and kaya back home). of course as soon as we get in the car mimi says her tummy feels funny and later is running a fever over 101...not sure if she got another cold or if the last one was just lingering. except for the fever and some crankiness, she was otherwise fine. my parents enjoyed time with the grandkids, but admitted that it was really hard to do much of anything now that ozzy was so crazy mobile. while at my parent's house he really made some progress with standing/walking. he stood on his own for almost 5 seconds without holding onto anything and took two steps by himself towards me without any support and he's not quite 9 months old yet! i really think this little guy is going to be walking ...