Beemer

Another fine day. Only downside: omma didn't really spend it with us. She went out with work friends, so Jake and I picked up nana and went for dins. We went to Big City Diner. Jake was in heaven b/c they had pesto pasta. Dude loves pasta these days. Afters we went to Fun Factory (bizarre place: kids, parents and wanna-be gamblers playing the "betting" games for tokens to "buy" toys); Jake had a blast, absolute blast. Finished up with some frozen yogurt (strawberry w/fresh strawberries and blueberries).

Jake is definitely more contemplative these days and it's cute as hell. You can tell his little brain is working overtime to figure stuff out and he REALLY wants to talk. Oftentimes these days he'll put his head on his hand al la the Thinker and look as if he's just contemplating something. It's priceless.

Song of the Day: Jawbreaker: Fine Day

Weel B'day

Funny, I just read this website that tracks behaviour through the first few years. Amazing how accurate it was. It said at 21 months Jakers needs routine and won't like it if things are out of sync. Yep. Omma worked late and when she does, he stands by the door and cries. Did it today, after we went swimming. He had a blast in the pool, but wasn't ready to go when it was time (of course). Seems he wanted to decide when it was time to bolt. I decided for him and he got over it pretty quick.

Dins at Kona BC. Pizza, but he wanted "basta!!!" Didn't get it but he did get a vanilla mochi. He wanted omma's p'at one instead...of course.

Song of the Day: The Rolling Stones: Brown Sugar

The Sundays

Early rise, omma sleep, Jake eat. Shopping. Lunch, Hooters??!! Me, baseball, omma and Jake, Odin and Leah. Home, nana, dinner. Sleep. Good.

Song of the Day: David Kilgour: Rolling

Bummmmmmmmer

Majorly bummed. I wrote a long post about the weekend yesterday before heading out for dinner. I spent the whole day with Jake b/comma hung out with her friends for mother's day.Oh well, I can say this, it was great to be with him all day and I'll cherish these alone times. We bonded for sures!

I'll tell the rest of the weekend in pictures:

Saturday:

Sunday with me...

Song of the Day: MGMT: Kids

Well

Tired this eve. Had dins with nana after picking up Jake. Didn't go to omma's office b/c we took two cars. Jakers was great at dinner, well-behaved and ate well. Slept well as well. Well, think I'll, well, rest well now.

Song of the Day: X-Ray Spex: Oh Bondage Up Yours!

iDon't Know

Back to the regular Monday schedule. Picked up Jake, brought him to omma's,* then we went home. Stopped at Frog House for some chow (sundubu, kimchi-chigye, and chok-bal) and partook upon hitting the jip.

Even though Jakers is still sick, he's in great spirits these days. He's having a grand old time running and laughing. In the past month or so he's been taking my glasses off my face, folding them, and putting them in my shirt (through my collar). He then searches for them in my shirt. Honestly this has been bothering me b/c I immediately can't see a thing. It's one of those moments where I realized there is no reason to lose my cool, but I always felt annoyed. Tonight I decided to play and I acted like he was tickling me while he was looking for the glasses. He loved it and giggled uncontrollably. Problem solved.

Song of the Day: Bran Van 3000: Problems

*I've been using "mom" instead of "omma" for posts thus far. Jake, however, uses "omma" (and calls me "appa") so I've decided to switch. Note taken.

BaBaBaBaBa

Dinner was another round of "babas," only this time it was at the dalkalbi jip. He seems to be wanting to vocalize (at the very least) before hitting the sack these days. Funny, we keep getting comments about how well-behaved he is, but when he was done eating tonight, he was an antsy little stress ball. He wouldn't sit still, was yelling "baba"as loud as he could, and wanted to mix every dish with every other one. It may be that he feels comfy around me and mom or it could be a stage, either way, it was a bit difficult.

Song of the Day: Built to Spill: Twin Falls

Edit

Jake, dad, park, jungle-gym (hate that word for some reason), little league baseball, mom, Dalkkalbi-jip, Lina, spice, chicken butt, noodles, play, fun, soju (no), water (yes), goodbye, sleep.

Song of the Day: Camper van Beethoven: All Her Favorite Fruit

Press the Stress

I've seriously had it with this work being done on the house. When we got home there was dust all over everything; it was everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. There were other problems too. Don't know yet whether it was worth it to do the renovations.

Picked up Jake and brought him to mom's work. Stress there too as he likes to play with anything that can possibly hurt him. He gravitates toward that stuff. Anyway, it was an hour of trying to stop him from hurting himself.

Afters we had dinner with nana at Outback Steakhouse. Horrible restaurant. Don't feel like explaining. Too tired and too much work to do. Jake went to sleep well. I feel bad b/c I was stressed and scolded him when it was me who had the problem, not him. Sorry boozoos.

Song of the Day: Minor Threat: Screaming at a Wall

Abada

Finally blogging at home (decided to plug in the router regardless of whether they are done or not), but the stress continues. Gmail is painfully slow on my comp for some reason so it took me about 15 minutes to download these pix, should have taken me 2 minutes. Ho hum.

Long weekend, here are the highlights:

Friday:

Jake was asleep by the time we got home from the game. He had fun with nana, but they were both tired.

Saturday:

Ohana Music first thing. Jake was a bit shy, and, much to our chagrin, he had a fever again. He perked up toward the end, but the fever continued. We decided to take him swimming (his fever was slight enough and he seemed up for it) and he liked it. He was a bit down, but he had fun. Afters we had lunch, Shillawon, then went home to clean the dirty, messy, stress-inducing house. We were all exhausted so we napped. Dinner with Myoung-hee and boyfriend for his birthday. Everyone said he was a "great baby because he's so well behaved." He actually was pretty calm the whole time.

Today:
Early AM surf with Matt at Barber's. First time in months. Jake swam, felt good (no fever) and played happily in the sand. Brunch at En Fuego, then we went to the baseball game with Dave and Karen. Jake made friends with the people around us and at one point the guy behind us said, "You have a very well-behaved son, you're lucky." Wow. I guess we are. Dins at home, we were all tired, but b/c Jake had 2 naps, he didn't want to sleep and was pretty wild right before bed. Speaking of tired...I'm exhausted. Out.

Oh, and for some reason, Jake loves to say "abada" whenever he's doing something active. We have no idea what it means.

Song of the Day: The Sugar Hill Gang: Apache

Test Failed

Last night I tried to post from my phone. I signed up for the SMS tool to post from a cell, but it didn't work for some reason. Bummer cause it took me a while to type it out on that little keyboard. Here's what I wrote aside from the info I provided above:

"Good day. Mom made kimchi chigye for dins. Jake just went to bed. It literally took him 2 minutes to sleep. He was in a good mood all day. LOVE that he's back to his old self."

There you have it. I should add that mom and I did take him to the park which he loved...until he had to leave. He met two new friends who were 4 and wanted to play hide and seek with him. They actually said it was "his turn to count."

Song of the Day: Radiohead: The Bends

Pork Barrel

Looks like they won't finish by the weekend. Aaaarrgggh.

Picked up the Jakers a bit late yesterday as I was teaching and grading papers. We went strait to mom's work where he got to play with dangerous painting equipment (kidding, though he does fancy an extending painting rod fr some reason) and eat donuts thanks to auntie Mariann, who loves to fill him with food every chance she gets.

Nana made dinner for us so it was a relaxing evening. Jake was a bit manic the whole night, but it was fun. He was obviously in a good mood and wanted to play. With a belly full of nana's roast pork, he fell asleep right away and through the night.

Song of the Day: Manic Street Preachers: A Design for Life

The Many Faces of Baseball

Busy, busy day.

The AM seemed quite tame, but things ramped up in the afternoon. Jake woke at 6:00. I was on the couch because he got up sometime in the middle of the night and wanted to sleep with mom. I figure it was the weekend, so it wouldn't matter. When he woke he came into the living room to wake me up. I was so intent on sleeping more. Oh well, such is life with the Jakers.

Tooled around from 6-11. I made grilled cheese for Jake and mom; we read some, cleaned some; had a shower. It was a wonderful morning. At about 11 we went to Costco for mom's work stuff. Afters, we planned to go to the baseball game.

Wasn't quite sure how the baseball game was going to work out considering Jake is a wanderer. It was fine, but he was restless at times. The 'Bows won, so a good time was had by all at Jake's second ever baseball game.

We then went to Peter's work to work out bathroom stuff, Home Depot to pick out appliances, and dinner at Shillawon (kalbi) with Lina and her grandparents. Fabulous Sunday. Couldn't be better.

New notice today: Jake's facial expressions. Today he frowned a lot. Yeah, frowned. It was funny. He looked so deliberate in wanting to let us know he didn't like something. Funny because it was obviously fake. He was doing it purposefully, like he was trying out a new thing he just learned. He took it to the next level a couple of times and cried when it wasn't called for, like when mom ran into the house for a sec (he's never done this). He's obviously testing his own emotions.

He also expanded his vocab. On the way in at the end of the day I grabbed the apples from costco, which I carried into the house with Jake on the other arm. I said once, "Jake, what's this? SA-GWA," which is "apple" in Korean. By the time we reached the building he was saying "ah-pul!" repeatedly. I have no idea where he heard apple before, but he said it over and over, "Ah-pul!!" Blew me away, as he usually does.

Song of the Day: The Faces: Ooh La La

Jakey the Greek

A type of day that I don't like. I had a meeting at 4 that lasted until 6. I couldn't pick up the Jakers and only spent about an hour with him b/c I got home at 7. Mom and nana got him some Greek food for dins. The whole day was out of whack. I pick him up, I take him to mom's or home, we have a routine.

In the afternoon I stopped by his new pre-school to drop off his enrollment packet. It made me so excited to think about him starting school. He'll meet new friends and will grow intellectually. He's already starting to express feelings and emotions at new level lately and I think these things will expand rapidly once he's in an environment that strongly encourages it.

I value every single day with Jake.

Song of the Day: Orbital: I Wish I had Duck Feet

Shiftful When He’s Swimless

No blog last night. Mom and I went to see a k-pop concert with Peter and Sunhee. We didn’t pick up the Jakers until 10. He was awake when we arrived at the babysitter’s place. He was probably waiting for us to get there before sleeping. Sujin swears he was angry when we dropped him off. Not so sure about that, but it’s possible.

The day was fun. In the early AM we went to the KCC farmer’s market. He had no swimming due to a scheduled day off. We didn’t know that until we got there, but it was cool; he slept in the car on the way home. We hung out at home until we left at 3.

Today was a typically fabulous Sunday. Last Ohana Music of the semester in the AM. It was weird b/c there were only 3 other families there. Usually it’s like 10. Nice though b/c it was intimate and I think everyone there got into it a bit more than they would have otherwise. There was an atmosphere of finality to the class, which translated into a carefree feeling that was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone there. Jake even got into it in terms of the dancing part. He usually wanders, but today he was really involved. He danced all around and by the end of the class all the kids were playing a running and falling game. It was kind of sad; I think everyone, including the teacher, wanted to stay and hang out, just watch the kids play. Jake is fond of the teacher (Stephanie) actually. During the “sleep song” he went over and climbed on her stomach. He doesn’t usually do that. He’s not shy, but he’s timid in the sense that he has to get a feel for the person before he commits to doing something like sitting on their stomach.
Afters we had a hamburger at Teddy’s, then came home for a nap and rest followed by some cleaning. Nana came over after work and we went to the park for some playground fun. Afters we got hungry and had kalbi. A fabulous, fabulous day with our Jakers.
Song of the Day: Led Zeppelin: Ramble On

Ducky Jake

Picked up Jake a little late today b/c I went jogging and didn't realize how late it was. It all worked out though as it was a perfect time to pick up mom. We came home and almost immediately went out to eat at Kona Brewing Company. It was all good. Mom fell asleep in the car on the way home so she hit the sack as soon as we got in; the medicine is making her really sleepy. Jake and I read some books and went to sleep on a dime at 8.

The walk to the restaurant was fun. We sometimes park far away so Jake can walk. Today a duck was following him as he walked. It was cute. Jake also brought along his peace necklace, all on his own. Yeah, he's cute.

Song of the Day: The Doors: Peace Frog

O' Jake

Yeah, St. Partick's Day. Jake would have worn his IRE jersey but he went to the babysitters and clothes tend to disappear there. Maybe this weekend.

What was special about today? Well, in terms of activities, nothing really special. I took Jake to the park after picking him up. Met nana there. Went home, made pasta for dinner (this is, BTW, Jake's latest word, although it sounds more like "bada!" than "pasta").

What was special? The love I felt for Jake. Yes, I've written about this before, but there is a level of love that I think is something particularly special about a parent-child relationship. I'm feeling things I've never felt before. The kind of love I experience for him when he comes to hug mom and I together is untouchable. I wish I could capture that for all my relationships. Not a certain kind of love, but an understanding, a gentleness, a affirmation within myself that life is so good, that it is so worth living when you feel love.

Song of the Day: The Cranberries: Dreams

Smoothie Operator

Mom’s using the internet so I can’t post this until tomorrow, but I can write it now on MS Word and post it tomorrow. Tired today. Couldn’t sleep last night. Interestingly, Jake woke up in the middle of the night (3:30), full on wake standing up in his bed kind. I went in, he asked for water, drank it and went right back to sleep. I, on the other hand, can’t go back tp sleep in these circumstances.

Picked up Jakers a little early today and brought him for a Minty Fresh smoothie at the café on Montserrat. It’s honeydew, grapes, and mint leaves. I thought he’d be more excited about it, but he seemed to be kind of blah, although he did drink it. We took it down to Kaimana were people talked about his cuteness, boots, and size. We had a nice walk about and picked up mom.

Dinner was corned-beef and cabbage a la nana. Good stuff although Jake seemed kind of full.

Didn’t sleep so great, a little fussy.

Song of the Day: Bonnie "Prince" Billy: Cursed Sleep

Ch-ch-chaching

Definitely some changes going on with the Jakers. I know I wrote about this yesterday, but it was even more noticeable today. I think the best way to describe it is that he's got some things figured out, that he's more aware of the world around him and how to react to it. It's fascinating to watch.

He had a good day. Nana picked him up at 2:00 and took him to the aquarium. Although he was sleepy, he undoubtedly had a blast. He loves hanging out with her. He says her name occasionally out of the blue. He'll point a the door and say "nana!" like she's there waiting to come in. Aware.

Big City with nana. He had mac and cheese.

Song of the Day: David Bowie: Changes

New Deal

Been noticing some changes in the Jakers lately. He's getting mature pretty quick. Words are coming; he's starting develop a distinct personality. He also looks a little older. It's cute and I love seeing the little developments in him. He makes my heart warm.

Nothing particularly special today. Picked up mom, came home, ate chicken for dinner. Not special, but it was, as always, great just hanging with Jake, watching him eat, watching him play.

Song of the Day: Daft Punk: Around the World