We be Parents

After our first week in Korea it was time for a vacation within a vacation – a four day weekend trip to Jeju Island – Jeju is a volcanic island off the southern coast of Korea that is a popular travel spot for Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese…it’s kind of like the Hawaii of Korea. We headed to Jeju with Yenari’s parents and grandmother on a short 50 minute flight from Seoul.

We got our rental car, a three row mini-van, and Yenari’s father assumed the role of tour guide for the duration of our trip. On the way out of the main town we stopped at a supermarket to pickup some food, and then at the public market – a crazy place – to pick up some abalone. Check out the massive scallops next to the abalone:

On the way to our hotel on a drive through the center of the island we stopped at big volcanic crater to take a look. Yenari’s parents and grandmother watched Hazel (which they did at countless spots in the trip) while we made our way to look around. The area was covered with magma everything – from the rocks lining the stairs up to the crater to the roofs of the surrounding buildings:

We continued onto Royalville – our hotel that was a modern condo-like setting right on the ocean with 3 bedrooms, and living room, and kitchen:

That night Yenari’s father prepared the abalone three ways: sashimi, pan-fried, and as a part of a rice porridge – all were excellent. This trip was the first extended period of time that Hazel had with her great grandmother…and they became great friends. Here’s Hazel sitting between her great grandmother and her grandfather at breakfast the next morning:

The next day we spent primarily driving around the island and checkout out the shoreline and the waterfalls pouring local streams and rivers into the ocean:

At the end of the day we headed to the Jeju airport to pickup Yenari’s friend Eulji who joined us for just over 24 hours – but an action-packed 24 hours – on Jeju. In those 24 hours we did a lot of eating, climbing, fishing, swimming, and sight seeing. A couple photos:

We made a number of trips to that swimming pool at our hotel and Hazel started to enjoy it quite a bit at the end. She was a bit scared in the beginning and definitely didn’t like any water getting on her face, but she had fun with everyone carrying her around the pool, splashing water, and playing in an inner-tube:

It was a great trip – so many beautiful things to see, great things to eat, but more importantly we had such a good time with Yenari’s parents, grandmother, and Eulji. Hazel formed a real bond with both her great grandmother and her grandfather and everyone took their turns in playing with her. She was so excited and pumped that she wouldn’t nap or sleep well…so she just partied until she crashed:

For those not able to quickly divide by 30, that would be about 9 months and 20 days – way too late for a 9 month update and not quite ready for the 10 monther. Hazel has definitely transformed quite a bit since the 8 month update – she’s moving around more (not quite fully crawling though), pulling herself up into a sitting position, clapping her hands, making lots of noise, and generally being a lot more active. Holding her is a lot more difficult than it used to be – now she just crawls all over us and doesn’t seem to want to sit still. She’s up to 4 teeth – two on the top and two on the bottom, and she’s eating a wider variety of food, including Cheerios and other ones that she needs gum away on before she can swallow them.

At her 9 month checkup a couple weeks ago she measured up well – she was ‘off the chart’ on height, coming in a just over the highest line on the growth chart at around 30 inches. She weighed in at just under 20 pounds (70th percentile) and her head circumference was around the 75th percentile.

One of her biggest changes in behavior has been her stranger anxiety. While she is cautious around just about anyone she doesn’t see on a regular basis she is much more weary of men…and the scariest of them all seems to be my dad! Last week he came for dinner and Hazel burst into tears before he even stepped in the house – the mere sight of him did it. After a while she (mostly) lets down her guard – here she is after a couple hours:

One of the big things we did was to go on a short road trip down to LA with the sole purpose of satisfying Yenari’s craving for Korean food. The Bay Area definitely has much better Korean food than most other areas of the country, but it is still no match for LA. This was a very similar trip to the one we took about a year earlier except this time we had little Hazel to keep us busy. She did great on the drive down to LA and was fairly well behaved in most of the restaurants we went to. Here’s the Korean food connoisseur and Hazel taking in the end of a crab feast at OnDal:

And a quick stop for ho dduk – a sugar-filled Korean dessert pancake. This was the first of many visits to this place and was inspiring enough to Yenari that she was talking about wanting to open up a ho dduk stand of her own!

Hazel had a blast in our hotel playing on the big king size bed:

On the way out of town after three days of gorging on Korean food and watching the Korean Olympic speed skaters kick some serious butt, we stopped by the house that my great grandfather build – the house where my grandmother grew up, my mom lived for many years, and the first house I lived in in the weeks after birth. Hazel didn’t seem very excited about any of this and slept through the visit:

On the way back home from LA we took a detour to Delano to see Carol, Yenari’s buddy from nursing school:

This trip to Korea town in LA was just practice for the real thing – this coming Thursday we’re flying to Korea for a two and a half week vacation. This will be the first time Hazel meets her grandfather, great grandmother, uncle, many other relatives, and Yenari’s friends. While we’re not looking forward too much to the 10 and 12 hour flights, we are excited about having the chance to take a long vacation and spend some time with Yenari’s family in Korea.

And now…more pictures:

On January 31st Hazel bumped up the month mark to 8 months…and to celebrate that we woke her up at 5 in the morning in order to hop on a 7am flight to New York.  I had a conference to attend in NYC and Yenari was able to rearrange her schedule so that she and Hazel could come too.  Because the flight was so early Hazel slept most of the time and made the flying experience a lot easier than it had been when she was 3 months old.  We only had two and a half days in the city, but it was an action packed couple of days.

My mom, Duncan, and my grandmother came down from Connecticut to spend about a day and a half with us.  I was at work during the day, so everyone hung out at the hotel, played with Hazel, and ate food.  My mom saw Hazel just a few weeks ago, but Nana hadn’t seen Hazel since she was about 3 months old, so the 8 month old Hazel was definitely a much different baby.  Hazel was in excellent behavior the whole trip and kept everyone laughing.  Here’s Hazel with her Meemaw and Nana:

The New York trip was also the first time Hazel got to meet her great aunt Janet, great uncle Bill, and their daughter Sarah.  Here are a couple photos of Hazel meeting them:

This trip was also Hazel’s first time meeting my good friend Michael Ross – we met him for a BBQ dinner.  The last time we’d seen him was when Yenari was pregnant and Michael was still living in Chicago – it was great to have the chance to see him now that he’s in NYC.

On the way back from dinner with Michael it started snowing – Hazel’s first snow! So we headed the block from our hotel to Times Square to take a couple late night snow photos:

The trip was definitely too short and we didn’t get to see all of the people we would have liked to have seen.  It was an exhausting couple of days and only got more tiring when we got back since our 6am flight back home brought both of us into full work days resulting in 24 hours of awake time!

Switching gears to the 8 month update…teeth are still coming in and she’s doing a lot of chewing, whether she’s eating or not.  She’s been a more adventurous eater, with a particular love of beef related food such as the beef broth from Korean gom tang soup and Gerber beef baby food.  Other things that she seems to like are yogurt, tomato, avocado, and chicken.  This newfound interest in ‘real food’ has made going out to dinner a lot trickier as she is no longer content to sit in her car seat and watch us eat – now she wants to be an active participant in the meal and also does her best to knock over drinks, pull table cloths, and reach for hot and sharp things.

Hazel is sitting like a champ – she started sitting on her own about a month ago, but now she can really do it without us spotting her.  She’s a big hand waver now – not actually waving goodbye to anyone, but just generally waving her hands and opening and closing her hand like she’s petting something.  She has much better hand eye coordination – she’s got the pincer grip down and she also is able to use both hands together to play around with things.

Here’s to the next month of new adventures and changes!

A week late on the post, but here nonetheless.  Last week we made our first trip out of the state with Hazel, heading to the Boston area for my business trip and then down to Connecticut to my mom’s place for the weekend.  In the last post I mentioned that Hazel did great on the flight out to Boston – she mostly slept, bounced around on our laps, ate, and eyed the tv on the backs of our seats.  We survived too – traveling with a baby is definitely a whole lot different than the traveling I’m used to…so many more things to carry, much more time needed, worries about feeding, crying, and accidentally leaving some critical piece of baby gear behind!

Yenari and Hazel stayed locked down in our hotel the whole time I was at work both days – they didn’t leave at all without me!  Last post I had some photos of Hazel swimming in the pool, so I’ll skip ahead to the end of the second day.  Yenari checked out of the hotel around 4pm (thanks to their kindness in letting us have a super late checkout) and I made it back to the hotel after work to pick them up around 4:45.  Then it was off to the Southborough train station to pick up Liza and then drive down to Connecticut.  Again, Hazel was a travel champ, passing out and sleeping the 2 hours down to my mom’s house in Durham, CT.  After some dinner, chatting, and baby playing we went to bed.

The first thing on the lazy day agenda for Saturday was the arrival of grandmother and Hazel’s great grandmother.  Even though she’s a great grandmother she’s still ‘Nana’ to Hazel.  This was her second time meeting Hazel – she first met her when she was only about 3 weeks old, so Hazel was a lot bigger and more responsive this time around.  Here are a couple pictures of Hazel sitting and smiling with Nana:

Next up was a visit from my college friends Joe and Sophia.  They’re expecting a baby anytime now – Sophia’s about ready to burst!  We had a great brunch with them filled with baby talk, baby play, and catching up.  Here’s a couple photos of them playing with Hazel:

It was great to see them.  Best of luck to Sophia and Joe in the coming weeks!

That night my mom planned a dinner party to show off Hazel to many of her friends.  Some of these friends I’ve known my whole life, so it was great to see everyone and the excitement everyone had for Hazel and for us.  Here are a couple of (out of focus – guilty me) photos of the girls and the boys of the party:

After the evening of great company and excellent food Hazel was a bit cranky from the over-stimulation but eventually got to bed and slept well.  In general she wasn’t really phased by the 3 hour timezone switch on either end of the trip, so we lucked out in that regard!

The next morning Hazel’s aunt Kathleen came over and we had a great time playing with Hazel on the couch, with high spirits all around…photos of Hazel with my mom (meeeeeeeemaw), Liza, and Kathleen:

The whole Connecticut trip was great – we got to pack in a lot of time with a lot of great people without having to even leave the house!

The trip back wasn’t so fun though.  I’ll skip the full story and just mention: long drive back with tons of traffic on the Mass Pike, lots of traffic near Liza’s place with students returning to college, GPS suddenly not working leading to aimless driving through Boston, boarding pass that didn’t mention Hazel requiring second trip through security, Yenari and me being in different rows of the plane with others only agreeing to switch so we could be together halfway through, crying toddler keeping Hazel awake and crying, more crying, and finally back home.  It was about a 14 hour trip door to door and definitely not too fun, but we survived, and had a great time on the trip, so it was worth it…