We be Parents

Catching up on this trip over a month late!  After that series of posts on our Korea trip I had to take a breather, but I’m back now.

Right after our Korea trip, meaning the day we arrived back in San Fransisco, we all hopped on a plane to fly out to Boston so that I could make it to some meetings in in Southborough, MA.  Considering that we had already flown for 12+ hours that day, Hazel handled the 6 hour redeye flight east really well.  We arrived in Boston, got our rental car, drove to Southborough, and I ran straight to my meeting while Yenari and Hazel slept for most of the day.  Because they slept almost the whole day they were wide wide wide awake when it was time for me to get some sleep that night.  We had a couple rough days of sleeping and catching up from the difficult 12 hour time difference.

On our second night in Southborough we went to see Alden, Katie, Violet – this was the week of baby Field’s arrivial, but he hadn’t quite arrived yet.  We hadn’t seen Alden and Katie in over a year, so this was the first time they had seen Hazel.  It was great seeing them after so long – we had hoped to see a little baby, but we were a couple days early for that.  It the excitement of it all I didn’t manage to take any pictures though – booo.

On Friday afternoon we picked up Liza at the train station and then drove down to Connecticut to my mom’s house for a weekend of fun.  We spent just about all of our time in the house, but had many visitors to keep us busy and check in on Hazel.  Here’s Hazel with her grandmother and great grandmother:

and here she is with Yenari and her Aunt Kathleen:

all of the excitement definitely tired her out:

On Sunday, right before we left, Joe and Sophia came for a visit with their little one, Vera. Hazel was kind of afraid of Vera and got really jealous when Yenari picked her up. We snuck the two of them close enough together so I could take a picture, but they definitely weren’t doing much playing together on this trip:

Finally, on our way back to the airport on Sunday afternoon, we stopped by Yenari’s high school friend Jungeun’s place in Boston. Jungeun and her husband have a little baby boy, so we wanted to have a meeting of the babes. Hazel did a repeat of her jealousy act when Yenari picked up their baby and seemed afraid of him – just like he was with Vera earlier in the day.

And with that…our trip was over and back to California we went – this time for more than 12 hours!

Our first week in Korea was mostly spent meeting up with Yenari’s friends from middle school and high school, spending time with family, and eating!

We started off the week on Monday picking up Yenari’s grandfather who was set to leave for Thailand the next day – he lives part-time in Korea, part-time in Thailand, so it was great to see him again (after the wedding the previous day).  We all headed to Yenari’s father’s office and met up with him to go to a nearby sushi restaurant for lunch. He are a couple of us eating the feast:

and Yenari’s father keeping Hazel occupied – but Hazel did the reverse – she kept him so occupied he didn’t really get a chance to eat anything:

Next we headed up to Yenari’s father’s office at the Korean Creative Content Agency, a government agency that promotes Korean culture overseas, with a focus of Korean music, movies, tv, animation, and video games – they do both promotion overseas and give grants to Korean content producers to allow them to finance their efforts. Up in his office, Hazel spent her time pretending that she was the boss:

His office was great for kids and much more fun that the average office since it was filled with stuffed animals, action figures, and posters from various things he’s worked on. The bottom floor even had a full Pucca Exhibition – here a couple shots from our visit:

It was a great little excursion of spending time with Yenari’s family, eating great food, and seeing a cool exhibit. On the way back to Yenari’s parents apartment we stopped so that both of u could get new glasses, and while waiting Hazel read the paper with her grandmother:

The next day was a busy day – we first went to lunch with Jooyoung, one of Yenari’s high school buddies, at an American themed restaurant (though it wasn’t actually so American!). Yenari had a great time catching up with her, but Hazel was a bit cranky so I was busy walking her around the restaurant and getting her to sleep – in all the excitement was forgot to get a picture with Jooyoung. After spending a couple hours with her at the restaurant Jooyoung gave us a ride to Doyoung’s house so we could spend more time with her.

It was a nice day so we went out on a walk with Doyoung and her almost two year old boy Daehyun. As we were walking Doyoung spotted one of her son’s favorite places – a mini amusement park / restaurant aimed at 2-4 year olds called Chiro & Friends (who are cartoon characters in Korea). Hazel was a bit too young to fully enjoy all that they had to offer, but that didn’t stop her from having an awesome time – here are some photos:

The kids weren’t the only ones playing – here are Yenari and Doyoung showing off their architectural work:

We ate some good food there and then paid the extra fees for spending more than the two hours that came with the price of admission. The three hours we spent there were a blast!

The next night we met up with another of Yenari’s high school friends, Sanghee. Sanghee went to school in San Francisco a couple years ago, so I know her too. Here are the girls, catching up at an Italian restaurant in the middle of downtown Ilsan:

And…last, on the list for this week was Daehyun’s 2nd birthday on Thursday. We met up with Doyoung and Daehyun for some lunch and then headed back to their place to help prepare the decorations for the party. Hazel had fun with all of the people giving her attention, and Yenari had fun spending more time with Doyoung and seeing Jiyoung, another high school buddy. Somewhere in the midst of decorating Hazel caught on to crawling – not a traditional crawl yet, but she can make her way across a room to where she wants to get, so she’s dangerous now! Here are some photos from the party:

All in all, a great first week in Korea!

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….

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!