We be Parents

If Yenari were going to rank the three things she loves most in this world, the list would be something like the following:

1. Hazel
2. Chicken Wings
3. Me

I’ve tried to move up in the rankings (since I used to be number two before Hazel was born) but it’s really a lost cause.  At the top of Yenari’s list for chicken wings are Korean chicken wings.  While there are good Korean wing joints near us in Santa Clara, and other places Yenari has chowed down on in LA and New York, for the real deal you’ve got to get your Korean chicken wings in Korea.  So Yenari was pretty pumped about eating some chicken wings on our trip.

After a dinner one night with some family friends, Yenari asked her brother to pickup some chicken wings for her at one of the top spots in Seoul, Kyochon Chicken.  Despite having eaten a full dinner already, Yenari ate almost the whole box of chicken wings but couldn’t quite finish them off.  Fully satisfied with her midnight snack of chicken wings Yenari passed out for the night.

The next morning she spotted the left over chicken on the table.  Normally Yenari is very conscious of germs and proper food handling, but unfortunately her love of chicken wings blinded her and she ate the remaining chicken wings.  Before doing this she asked her mom if it was ok, and she said yes.  I caught her midway through the feast and asked her if it was a good idea to eat chicken that had been sitting out all night and she said ‘my mom said its ok’.  Not one to get in the way of Yenari’s love of chicken (kind of like stealing food from a hungry dog) I let it go and she finished off the food.

She was doing ok for a while, but had a bit of a stomach ache around lunch time….not enough to prevent her from eating beef soup at lunch, but enough to slow her down a bit.  We took a big family nap (me, Yenari, and Hazel) for a couple hours after lunch and upon waking up Yenari felt fairly awful.  After a bit she threw up and was definitely not feeling great.  Yenari’s mom wanted her to go to the hospital/doctor, but Yenari was refusing to go, saying that it was a stomach thing and there isn’t really anything the doctors can do about it – only time and fluids really help.

It was approaching dinner time, and we already had plans to have dinner with the whole family – Yenari’s dad was leaving work early and her brother was driving the hour from where he lives to meet us at a bulgogi restaurant.  Yenari’s parents decided that we should go without her, but right as we were leaving Yenari threw up again and Yenari’s mom decided to stay at home with Yenari and Hazel.  I offered to stay at home instead, but they insisted that I go out to dinner with Yenari’s father and brother.

So we went to eat and were enjoying our meal while Yenari was at home with her mom and Hazel.  About halfway through the meal Yenari’s dad got a call from Yenari’s mom and then said he was going home because they were bringing Yenari to the hospital and they needed help with Hazel, but that I should finish eating with Yenari’s brother and that everything was fine.  I assumed, from what Yenari’s father said, that Yenari’s mom had convinced her to go to the doctor, but the real story was somewhat different…

At home, Yenari started feeling worse and worse.  She had puked a number of times and she had been breastfeeding Hazel all day, so she was very dehydrated.  Yenari’s mom was playing with Hazel in her room so Yenari went to be with them in her mothers room.  She was lying there, zoned out, sipping on water…when she had to make another trip to the bathroom and basically was in a passed out / delusional state….she was sweating, having palpitations, was feeling lightheaded,  had numbness and tingling in her arms and legs, and blurred vision.  She asked her mom for water, but she didn’t want to let her drink it in the bathroom because that isn’t sanitary (but eating unrefrigerated chicken is?).

Finally Yenari asked her mom to call the Korean equivalent of 911 (which is 119 in Korea) – Yenari’s mom called Yenari’s dad first (the call I heard but couldn’t understand due to a slight issue of not understanding Korean) who said yes, call 911.  An ambulance came, the paramedics came into the apartment and brought her out on a gurney (after asking whether she was just drunk), and Yenari, her mom, and Hazel were driven away in the back of an ambulance, sirens ablast.

When Yenari’s brother and I finally finished the multi-course meal that Yenari’s father had ordered (and commanded us to finish) we started over to the hospital, but a few minutes away from getting there Yenari’s dad called and asked us to go back to the apartment and pickup Yenari’s glasses which she had left at home – it seemed odd that Yenari would have left them, but I didn’t think too much of it.  We drove the 10 minutes back home and another 15 back to the hospital….which was a real hospital, something I totally wasn’t expecting.  I was expecting something like urgent care, but this was a major hospital and we were heading into the emergency room.

Yenari’s father saw us coming in and directed us over to Yenari, lying in bed with an IV in her arm.  I was shocked as I had no idea she was actually that sick and that no one had told me!  She was obviously pissed off that I was coming so much later and asked very sarcastically if I had enjoyed my dinner!  She was actually feeling a lot better by then since she had been given some fluids.  The dangerous part was over, but they still attached an EKG and tested her heart – since Yenari is a nurse in a cardiac unit she was more than interested in interrogating all of the doctors and nurses on the results.  Here’s the happy chicken wing victim in the hospital:

Yenari in the hospital after the chicken wing incident

Yenari’s mom wouldn’t admit that the chicken wings were the cause and was looking for other potential causes, but we all knew that the chicken wings were to blame.  After her final tests were over we all headed home and Yenari finished off the evening drinking Powerade, Pocari Sweat (a Korean drink like Powerade), and water.  The next day Yenari was feeling much better and by dinner time was eating kimchi and pickled crab.

As a result of this two things happened:

1. Yenari’s mom started putting everything in the fridge – even cookies made it in there, and soon the fridge was just about overflowing
2. Yenari doesn’t like chicken wings anymore

So, on the positive side of things I’m back to #2 on Yenari’s list.  With chicken wings out of the way I’m right behind Hazel on the things Yenari loves.  I’m sure chicken wings will make their return on the list, but for now I’m enjoying my spot on the list!

This past Thursday we embarked on an almost three week trip to Korea to visit with Yenari’s family.  We were worrying about the flight since its a long one – around 12 hours plus a few more in airport waiting, customs, waiting for bags, and driving both ways – but Hazel did great on the flight.  She didn’t sleep much, but she was in mostly good spirits.  We lucked out with a seat in the first row of our section so Hazel had her own little bassinet to hang out in:

We had to keep a close watch on her since her idea of fun was to attempt leaping out of the bassinet to play with us. Most of the time she spent on our laps while we tried to entertain her while watching movies. Yenari plopped Hazel in front of the TV and put the headset on her to see how she would react and she was transfixed – we’d never seen her act that way in front of the TV. It was a Korean cartoon and Hazel shrieked out in excitement whenever the shark came on the screen.

Once we made our way to Seoul and then through immigration, baggage claim, and customs we were greeted by Yenari’s very excited parents. Yenari’s mom was with us in California for the first four weeks of Hazel’s life, but hadn’t seen her since…and Yenari’s father had met her yet. Yenari’s father was a little worried because Hazel is very fearful of strangers (and particularly men), but she only gave him a healthy level of caution and didn’t freak out too much. Here’s their first meeting in the airport:

Since it was about dinner time, we went straight to a restaurant and met up for dinner with Yenari’s brother who was also meeting Hazel for the first time. Yenari’s dad continued his courtship of Hazel – trying to feed her and carry her around the restaurant…this courtship was successful at times and cry-inducing at others, but it was a start. Yenari’s father is a very energetic guy and this energy scared Hazel off for the first day or so, but Yenari gave him some advice to start slow and build up to his full energy level over time as she begins to trust him. Now, after a couple days, Hazel seems to be quite comfortable with him and sits happily on his lap and lets him carry her around. Here’s her father feeding Hazel at that first dinner:

After dinner we headed back to Yenari’s parents house and Yenari’s brother picked up Yenari’s grandmother to meet Hazel. Here she was kind of assaulted by love and affection…something that was a bit overwhelming for Hazel and resulting in a bit of a meltdown. We went to bed soon after and slept well, though Hazel woke up at an early 5am and turned the scenario around for Yenari’s parents by showing them what it feels like to try to play when you’re tired!

A little later in the morning we went with Yenari’s mom to bring Yenari to the salon – Yenari likes getting her hair cut a lot more in Korea than the US because they understand Korean hair better here. Yenari had recently trimmed Hazel’s bangs very unsuccessfully and Yenari’s hair dresser saw it and couldn’t resist giving Hazel a bit more of a trim to straighten things out. Here she is with Yenari’s friend Eulji who joined us at the salon:

While this was happening Yenari was busy being attacked by a ceiling-dwelling-robotic-octopus…or at least that’s what it appeared to be:

Later that afternoon we went over to Yenari’s Doyoung house – Doyoung is Yenari’s friend from middle school and high school and she and her husband have an almost 2 year old boy who we were meeting for the first time:

By this time I was somewhat zonked from the jet lag, but everyone happily chatted while I passed out on the couch. I’m pretty much caught up now, but the first two days were a bit rough.

Yenari’s mom and brother picked us up from Doyoung’s house and we went to pick up her father who had been on a day trip for business to Sunchun. While in Sunchun, Yenari’s father called to a restaurant called to a restaurant to get the famous Gwanyang Bulgogi – he didn’t have enough time to go to the restaurant, so he asked the owner to bring a cooler full of bulgogi (an order for 15 people!) to the bus station. Yenari’s dad didn’t want to cook it at home, so he called a BBQ restaurant where you cook at the table and asked if we could bring our own beef to cook – kind of bizarre, but they were okay with it. The bulgogi was incredible, nothing like the bulgogi we get in Santa Clara, LA, or anywhere else in the US. We also order some beef sashimi – raw beef marinated in pear, garlic, onions, sesame oil, and green onions. Here’s the family:

and here’s Hazel passed out – I wasn’t alone is suffering from jet lag:

Eventually we made it through almost all of the food…so the 5 of us ate about 13 servings of the bulgogi plus 2 orders of the beef sashimi. This was definitely some serious eating…the rest of the evening is a blur due to the beef intoxication!

The big event for Sunday was Yenari’s cousin Youngjoon’s wedding. We lucked out in having a family wedding while we were here – it gave us a chance to see lots of extended family without having to drive all of Seoul and the surrounding area to meet people. The wedding was also a new experience for most of us because it was a Korean traditional wedding – something that is very rare – both Yenari and her mother had never been to one in person. Yenari’s grandmother came over before the wedding and played with Hazel – she was in a much better mood this time and had a blast with her great grandmother:

The wedding was at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul and was held outdoors. Here are some photos of the ceremony:

Hazel was well behaved during the ceremony and didn’t scream out or anything like that. After the wedding she was mobbed by extended family members who wanted to meet her, hold her, and snap pictures of her. We saw Yenari’s grandfather (who we had seen recently in California) and I met Yenari’s aunt Jihae and her uncle Sungtae – both of whom I hadn’t met – now I’ve met all of Yenari’s mother’s siblings. The reception was very different from that of an American wedding – it was a no nonsense eat your food and get out of there situation – no dancing, music, or anything like that. We enjoyed our meal and then headed home.

We finished off the eating for the day by treating Yenari’s parents, brother, and grandmother to a dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I lost count after a while, but Yenari just counted out at least 7 courses. So, this was definitely a continuation of the massive food quantities we seen at just about every meal. I bet I’ll gain around 10 pounds if this eating style continues. Aside from the food, my favorite thing about this restaurant was that the brick wall was painted with a series of greater that life size paintings of Bruce Lee! No Bruce Lee photo here, but one of Yenari and her mom kissing Hazel instead:

When we got home to Yenari’s parents house they brought out Hazel’s early first birthday present, a beautiful wooden block house from Soopsori, a Korean company that makes toys entirely out of wood…and entirely out of wood it is – even the screws and screw driver used to assemble the house are made of wood. Everyone was busy playing with the the little animals, appliances, and the house:

A great present that we can’t wait to get home with us!

We’ve had a great time so far in Korea and are really looking forward to the rest of our time here. This post is way too long already so I’ll hold off on covering today’s events, but will do my best to keep this up to date….

I’m a couple days late, but Hazel is now 7 months old.  Its hard to pinpoint individual things, but it seems like Hazel has made some major transformations in the last month.  Physically the smallest little changes are two teeth that are making their way up in the bottom middle of her mouth.  She’s seems to be somewhat annoyed by it, but it doesn’t seem to be bothering her too much – just a little extra drooling and gnawing on anything she can get her hands on.

She hasn’t started crawling yet, but she can spin around, roll, and scoot backwards.  She can also sit up now without support…though we keeping our hands close by to catch her from falling when she sees something interesting that she wants to lean out for.  She has a lot more fun playing now – studying all the little gadgets on her exersaucer, throwing toys onto the ground and waiting for us to pick them up, and playing peek-a-boo.  More noises and laughing and baby gibberish has come as well and is pretty fun to listen to – Yenari responds to just about any noise Hazel makes with the response ‘did she just say mommy?’.  No mommy yet, but I’m sure its on the way sometime soon.

She’s been doing a better job eating both solids and from the bottle…though she’s still a far way from eating full meals while I’m watching her.  Her favorite solids are carrots, squash, and prunes.  mmmm.  Luckily her digestive system has somewhat caught on to the solid foods, though she’s not quite regular yet.  The other funny thing is that she’s become obsessed with trying to drink water from a cup – she doesn’t quite know what the goal is, but she starts chewing at the edge of the cup and tilting it back.  When the water actually makes it to her mouth it surprises her and either rolls down her chin, causes her to cough, or miraculously gets swallowed properly.  We’ll have to get a video of it, it’s pretty funny.  Here is a photo of her messily eating some food, totally zoned out (she doesn’t normally look this ridiculous while eating):

We had a good and relaxed Christmas.  Yenari had to work Christmas Eve but had a remarkable 4 days off in a row starting on Christmas.  Here’s Hazel with some of her Christmas stash:

We think she enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper and ribbons more than the actual toys, but she’s grown to like them too.  She’s very entertained by her ‘Pal Violet’ (no not that Violet)…the first baby toy that has a USB jack to plug into a computer.  We got to pick her name, favorite food, color, and animal….we are endlessly entertained by doggie Violet mispronouncing bibimbap as her favorite food.  She liked the other presents we got too – here she is trying to eat a bacon wallet my mom got for me:

I think we’ll end it on that note, because what can really top eating a wallet made of (fake) bacon.  Well, maybe a couple more photos:

Wowzers, a half year goes fast.  The Shins sing that “the years have seemed short but the days go slowly by” – for my last half year I’d say that the minutes have gone slowly but the days are just flying by.  The days have gone fast enough that I’ve neglected to write anything here since the 5 month milestone and I’m even a few days late on the 6 month mark which Hazel hit either Monday or Tuesday….since she was born on the 31st I’m not sure whether she should get credit for 6 months on 11/30 or 12/1.

Hazel has changed a lot in the last month, but it is hard to point to any single thing.  She hasn’t learned too many new tricks, but she’s improved quite a bit in the old ones.  She’s a lot more focused, she’s able to entertain herself with her toys, and she’s gotten a lot stronger.  Her eating habits have changed quite a bit as well as she’s caught on to eating the solid foods.  The solid foods have been great for me because it means she actually eats when I’m taking care of her while Yenari is working.

The solids have had a downside though…the switch from breastmilk only to rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, veggies, and fruits has brought her digestive system to a screeching halt, going from many dirty diapers a day to none for many days.  It got bad enough that we even brought her into the doctor because she hadn’t gone in about 5 days!  Her doctor checked her out and said that she didn’t seem to backed up, but that we she start her on some prune juice or prune solid food and proceed on to child suppositories if that didn’t work.  She actually seemed to like the prune baby food (gross!) but it didn’t quite ‘clear the road’, so the suppositories were the answer after she hit the 8 day mark…and once we went for it the action started up in seconds!  She still hasn’t quite figured out pooping with solid food, so hopefully we’ll be seeing more stinky diapers soon.

In the last few weeks we’ve been busy taking Hazel on many social engagements.  Hazel and I had a great time and Jeff and Sarah’s place for Thanksgiving – Yenari was working, but everyone there was really helpful in playing with Hazel.  Luckily I’ve gotten quite good at eating while holding Hazel, so I was able to enjoy an incredibly tasty meal! Here’s the little lady all dressed up in her Thanksgiving outfit before we headed to Jeff and Sarah’s house:

That same weekend we stopped by to see Rebecca, Troy, and Ewan at there house.  Rebecca took some great photos of Hazel and Ewan playing together – this was definitely the most interaction Hazel has had with another baby.  Hazel was busy grabbing Ewans hand, checking him out, and wondering how a 4 month old could be bigger than her!  Ewan was playing hard to get, or maybe just a little preoccupied with trying to jam his whole hand into his mouth! Here are the two lovebirds:

This Monday we took Hazel to the doctor for her checkup.  She is moving right along in the growth department, measuring in at the 90th percentile for height and head circumference and the 75th percentile for weight.  She was only at the 50th percentile for head circumference at her four month checkup, so her head has done some serious expanding!  Though they’ve made mistakes in measuring her head many times, so maybe her head didn’t get so much bigger.  She got a bunch of shots which she really didn’t like, but otherwise survived the visit without too much trouble.

And to finish it off, a couple more photos from the last month:

This past Saturday Hazel turned 5 months old – it’s amazing how much she’s grown and changed in the past 5 months.  It’s kind of cliche to say that she changes so much, but she really does – from day to day and week to week she’s gotten so much more active, interactive, and loud…screams, squeels, farty noises, and something that sounds a little like barking.  She’s seeming more and more like a little kid and much less like a newborn.  She stares at things intently, studying them to figure out what’s going on.  She’s started to become very interested in toys…especially now that she has the skills to grab them and bring them straight into her mouth.

Saturday was also, of course, Halloween.  Here’s the babe in her bunny costume:

Doesn’t she look so big?!?! Hazel did remarkably well with her costume and never got pissy or angry about it.  She laughed big time when she first saw herself in the mirror wearing it.  She was in and out of the costume so many times: we had a couple Skype sessions with both the grandmas, Yenari brought her into my office wearing the costume, trick or treating at Yenari’s former landlady’s house, Halloween dinner with Yenari’s aunt and uncle, and a birthday party for one of Yenari’s coworkers’ kid.

On the eating front, she still hasn’t fully caught on to bottle feeding.  She doesn’t scream when she sees the bottle, but she seems to prefer to hold out until Yenari gets home or at least until she’s really hungry.  We did start the slow path down the solid food front – we’re still on rice cereal…she seems to enjoy it but isn’t eating too much of it yet.  Maybe we should try carrots next – she couldn’t keep the toy carrot that came with her Halloween costume.

She’s moving around a lot more though hasn’t fully caught on to rolling yet.  She did roll over from her tummy to her back once on the floor, but just once.  She’s done it on the bed several times, but that’s a bit easier.  She’s gotten strong enough that she can sit really well, prop herself up, and is able to hang out in her highchair now – here she is:

In sad news, it seems that her mohawk has subsided and no longer stands on end…her hair is still heavily focused right down the middle so she’s got a mohawk vibe, but its not the same thing.  We’ll have to break out the hair gel and hair spray soon to keep the mohawk alive.

And lastly, some photos of my girls playing together…these are from about two weeks ago…