Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

In our grand tradition, we went to Seoul for Christmas this year.  Well, the weekend before Christmas.  Besides enjoying the Mexican food and cute decorations the Dragon Hill lodge has to offer, we went to Seoul to visit the Coex aquarium.  As an added bonus, said aquarium is in Gangnam-gu.  Since Gangnam Style is a global sensation, we thought it only appropriate that we visit.  We found a disappointingly vanilla looking area.  The aquarium had some neat exhibits, but man was it crowded.  Xander enjoyed the first few tanks of fish, then turned all of his attention to the people around him.  Bobby and I liked the undersea tunnel the best, but the sharks made Xander a little nervous.

Christmas was a blast.  Xander loved his new toys, and we had a nice dinner with Jin.

This was at the train station

all is loot laid out on Christmas Eve.  We may have overdone it

Are these for me?

Wait, dad, I can do it!

Christmas cake!

Parental cons

Xander's mac and cheese always has vegetables in it.  So do his grilled cheese sandwiches.  He happliy eats them, unaware of how I have altered a time honored kiddie food.  He has been watching his daddy drink Mountain Dew from a can for awhile now, and he finally started demanding to hold the can.  We filled an empty can with water, and he happily sips from it, going "aaah" when he finishes, just like his daddy.  It's really stinkin' cute.  We're wondering how long we can lead him along like this, convincing him that water is soda and all food has vegetables in it.  One day, he's going to go to a friend's house and realize that his parents have been conning him all these years.

Baby in the Snow!

That's right, it snowed!  It's supposed to be a harsh winter here, so I guess we'll get tired of it eventually.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying the sight of Christmas lights against a snowy background.  I don't think I've ever seen that before.

So of course we had to take Xander out for some exploring.  He was intrigued by the snow, but not pleased when it touched his bare skin.

In other news, I was rear ended.  That would be wreck #2 in the past year, neither of which was remotely my fault.  This time, the other driver preferred to deal without insurance, which was fine with us.  We ended up with some cash which we may or may not use to replace our bumper.  Sometimes I feel like a hardass requiring the baby to always be in a car seat, especially when we are stalling a cabbie while Xander screams and fights to avoid being strapped in.  Incidents like these reaffirm my resolve.  Koreans are notoriously bad drivers.

On the mountain

I'm not sure how I feel about this

Cyber Monday

I never participated in Black Friday.  Cyber Monday, however, is another story.  I enjoy picking out Christmas gifts online, particularly for a baby.  So I picked out an activity table that was half price.  It looked like something right up Xander's alley--it has a little ball you throw into the center of the table, which then comes out in the leg.  Kind of like baby pool.  Xander loves balls of all shapes and sizes, so I know he'll love this table.

Unfortunately, hundreds of other parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles had the same idea I did.  I was sidetracked during my shopping, and before I was able to check out, the table was sold out--curse you, job--and I was unable to find it anywhere else at the sale price.  Oh well, I thought, I'll just pay full price.  Unfortunately, every place that ships to an APO turned out to be sold out (Target, in a cruel tease, let me check out, and sent me an email the following day telling me the item was sold out).  So I registered for email alerts when the table is back in stock at a few places.

I currently have the table ordered with two stores, with plans to cancel my order with one when the other sends me a shipping notice.  I have spent countless hours hunting down this toy that I didn't know existed before Cyber Monday, but now am certain is the only Christmas present for my boy.

I guess I have eighteen years of this to look forward to.

Things Parenting Books Don't Tell You

You know how little boys discover their penises at a certain age?  And then you have to struggle to get that area clean before his hand gets down there during a diaper change?  And often, you fail and he gets poop on his hands?  Which he then rubs on his face, legs, and belly?  All the while, you're struggling to clean him in four different places with a diaper wipe while keeping his hands away from his weewee?

Yeah, nobody talks about that.

Xander's big day

Xander really had two big days.  On Saturday, his actual birthday, we gave him his presents, cooked his favorite meal, and went to Children's Hall.  Children's Hall is a big kids museum slash fun zone, and Xander had a blast, despite being too young for most of the attractions.  On Sunday, we had our friends over for his party.  We were horrid about taking pictures, so hopefully our unofficial family photographer will give me some better ones.  Jin gave Xander a Korean name: Jung Han, which roughly means "ones hopes/aspirations in Korea".  I think it's particularly appropriate because we wanted Xander before we got here, but we didn't have him until we were here.

Xanders "dol" was a part of the festivities.  This is a Korean birthday tradition in which the baby picks an item from a table.  The item he picks indicates something about his future.  Xander picked the computer mouse, so he will be technologically proficient.  He then went for the tennis ball, so I guess he'll be a technologically proficient athlete, just like his aunt Kate.  Xander also had a rainbow rice cake and a birthday ring--for long life-- both of which were provided by my staff for an authentic Korean birthday experience.  I'm not sure how Koreans deal with the ring.  He wore it for a few seconds before it went into his mouth.  It will be a nice keepsake from his birthday, but I don't anticipate him wearing it.

He's on the floor enjoying his gifts at the moment.  They were all hits, and we didn't get any duplicates, despite the PX's small selection of toys.

More birthday pics to come!

With Daddy at Children's Hall

Glockenspiel

His new tractor

Fun indoor playground (Mommy's in the log)

Obligatory cake picture.  It was a hit.

Xander's dol

He picks the mouse

Improvising

Xander's walker is on the way.  It's supposed to be his birthday present, but I may decide to give it to him early.  On Sunday night, he spontaneously decided to take his high chair for a spin.  We took the seat off and lowered the bar to make it easier for him.

Drowning in Rock Star Memoirs

After Keith Richards' biography, Life, was published to critical acclaim and commercial success, several other rock stars followed suit.  Many have made it onto the bestseller list, encouraging yet more rock stars to write yet more bestselling memoirs.  I'm hoping this trend is peaking now, because it has gotten ridiculous.  Last weeks bestseller list included three rock star memoirs, including one by the drummer from Duran Duran.  This week, Peter Criss's biography popped up.

Okay, I get it.  You people love to read real life stories about sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  But come on!  Who keeps buying these things?  I haven't read Life, but I'm sure it told a great story.  I have less faith in Duran Duran and Peter Criss.  And yet, I have to buy them for the library.

This reminds me of the years following Twilight when I thought, "if I see one more romance between a supernatural creature and a human, I'm going to throw it through a window."  Except lamer.

Boys vs. girls

I remember studying the "nature vs. nurture" debate in psych 101.  We wondered whether gender roles are inborn or if we push them on kids.  Ten years later, I have to say my son is all boy.  He loves to smash toys into each other.  Every time he passes a toy car or truck, he rolls it back and forth.  He throws a ball, chases it, and throws it again.  He's also a budding (ugh) reluctant reader.  Some magical days he will sit in my lap and let me read books to him.  Most of the time, he will only pay attention if the book has textures, noises, or moving parts he can manipulate.  His favorite book, Moo by Matthew Van Fleet, has all three.

We spent yesterday evening with a family with a girl baby his age.  We watched her cradle her stuffed toys.  Xander loves to try and pick their eyes out, play with their feet and hair, and bang them on the side of his crib, but I have never seen him hug a stuffed toy.  The girl baby cries when her parents tell her, "no!"  When we tell Xander "no", he stops what he is doing, then tries again.   And again.  Then he waits for me to turn my back, so he can do whatever it was he wanted to do in peace.

I think we are going to have some tough toddler and elementary years.

Our trip

We went back to the states yet again.  This was Xander's second trip back; my fifth.  This time, we did things a little bit differently and flew via the Patriot Express, a DoD plane.  The Patriot Express is a commercial airliner chartered by the DoD to move people in and out of Korea.  They have regular flights to Seattle, and certain people are allowed to take available seats on these flights.  It's called travelling space available, or space a.  The great thing about space a is that it's very cheap--$29 a seat going back to the US and $16 going to Korea.  The nerve wracking thing is that you don't know if you will have a seat until a couple of hours before the flight.  

So we traveled to Osan air base on Monday to try to get on the Tuesday flight.  We stayed a night in the lodge and did all the requisite Osan things: shopped at the big BX and went to the Chili's.  We went to the passenger terminal on Tuesday and were numbers 9, 10, and 11 on the waiting list for available seats.  Unfortunately, there were only 10 available seats.  We spent a few more nights in the lodge, trying out everything the airbase and the small city of Pyeongtaek had to offer.  We were the first three on the list on Thursday, and we made it to the states.  After countless hours of flying, we were in North Carolina.  

We visited with the grandparents and saw my parents' fabulous new house.  Xander got a kick out of seeing all of the family.  He travels well, and adjusted to the time difference quickly.  He only had one meltdown on the long journey there, and another on the long journey back.  We remedied both with an aquarium app that has never failed to get him to stop crying.  After a whirlwind week that included a visit to the Dixie Classic Fair, the zoo, and Sciworks, we got back on a plane and went to Illinois for a friend's wedding.  The wedding was a a blast.  I got to see my two oldest friends, one of whom has a three month old baby.  

We headed back to Seattle, then on to Korea.  One airline lost our car seat, and we had to go to the airport hotel with a loaner.  I was planning to take the loaner to Korea if we had to, but the airline delivered the carseat to our hotel after midnight.  I wonder where it went?  We made it on the first flight out.  We were delayed long enough to miss our bus back to Daegu, so we spent a final night in Osan and took the train back to Daegu.  Since it had been a long journey, we splurged on first class seats--a whopping $26.

In other news, Xander has become impossibly finicky with his food.  Something I make for him one night is unacceptable another night.  He has made up for this annoyance, however, by sleeping through the night.  I sensed that he was ready to right before we left for our trip, and sure enough, after we got back and readjusted to the time difference, he stopped waking up in the middle of the night.  I'll admit, I will miss our time cuddling in the bed.  I guess I can go back to morning yoga.

Baby swings are the best!

With Papa Healey

Dixie Classic Fair

With Aunt Rose, trying to sneak in a bite of lights

With Grandpa D, at the zoo

Aunt La is so much fun!

entertaining himself on the airplane

entertaining himself in a hotel room

at the wedding

a popular wedding shot.  Xander in a food coma..I was prompted to put a beer bottle in his hand

the lovely bride.  My favorite quote from the wedding: "if someone else tells me I look beautiful I'm going to punch them in the face."  Guess that's overused.

Little Bus Tayo

It's been awhile.  This is because we traveled back to the U.S., and I never bring the big computer when we travel.  I'm not inspired to write blog posts on the ipad.  I'll write about our journey in another post.  Today, I am posting this cute video.

So, Xander has a lot of toys.  We've filled up his toy box.  We know his first birthday is coming up, so we've decided not to buy any toys for awhile.  I told myself this when we went to the Home Plus today.    Of course, we left with a pricey bus with a bunch of little doors on the side.  Opening and closing doors is Xander's new favorite thing.  The bus is a character in a Korean kid's TV show called Little Bus Tayo.

My guilt at buying yet another new toy was assuaged when Xander's face lit up at the sight of it.  But that's not the best part.  The best part is the little dance he does when he hears the song.  Too stinkin' cute.

Our worthless pile of rocks

So the latest around here--besides the typhoons; we are preparing for our third of the year--is the Dokdo /Takeshima controversy.  This came to my attention when a soccer player made headlines by running around with a sign that said "Dokdo is our land" after beating the Japanese team, getting himself banned from the medal ceremony.  South Korea has gone crazy publicizing this idea, putting ads here and in Japan supporting their claim to Dokdo.  Japan, which calls the island Takeshima, has responded with its own ads.  Things have gotten heated enough for Secretary Clinton to tell the two countries to cool it.

I finally looked up Dokdo today, and discovered that it's a worthless, tiny collection of rocks.  Even the Korean government can't make it look worth the fight.  Apparently, three people live there, all encouraged by the government to live on what looks like an uninhabitable piece of land.

Clearly, I don't get it.  This is a lot of wasted noise--not to mention money and effort--over something worthless.  Give me a break.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong was perhaps my favorite Asian city that we have visited so far.  With its abundant pedestrian side streets full of stairs, lush greenery, and wide variety of buildings, from colonial European to imperial Chinese, the city had a lot of character.  There were a variety of restaurants, which I have learned not to take for granted here.  We stayed on Hollywood Road, which had a lot of antique shops, but was not far from the midlevels escalators with its Ben and Jerrys (!) and other modern conveniences.  It reminded me a bit of New York, with a patched-together look that comes from a long history of several cultures settling there.  Except that there were mountains, and vast seascapes with green islands.

It rained our first day there, which gave us an opportunity to explore the midlevels escalators, which are covered escalators and moving sidewalks which climb all the way to the top of Hong Kong island.  Our second day, we went to Kowloon City to visit some friends, and travelled back over the harbor via the ferry, allowing us to enjoy the light show.  Our third day, we went to the peak, where all of Hong Kong's wealthy foreigners have resided for over a century.  We stopped by the modest zoo and saw some monkeys.

Xander loves to travel, but of course we were not able to do all of the sightseeing we did before the baby.  Our answer to this was to take double decker buses--and one tram--to all of our destinations, allowing for some fantastic window touring.  He's a pro at eating at "adult" restaurants, and has a fabric seat that will convert all chairs to high chairs.  Asians are generally tolerant of children everywhere, which helps.  As is the case in Korea, Xander is a particular hit, and he got a lot of free stuff.

One of the things we do when traveling post-baby is get a nice hotel room, because we spend much more time in it now than we did before Xander.  This one was a suite, and came with a window hawk who visited daily.

A local sparkler display, with drumming and chanting (no idea)

Midlevels escalators

A side street

Koi pond near our hotel

The harbor at night.  My camera takes awful night pictures.

Double decker tram

A nice restaurant on the peak

The view from the Peak

Hong Kong from the Peak

Xander in our hotel room with the balloon he got from the waiters at a restaurant

Our hawk

Xander and Bobby in Seoul, where we stopped on the way back

Poor baby

It's been a rough couple of weeks for Xander. Last week, he had a stomach virus. This week, he has a cold. In protest, he has gone on a near-total solid strike, and for the past two weeks will eat nothing but yogurt, teething crackers, applesauce, and mangoes. He'll spit out the plethora of other healthy foods I have made for him, and fling what's on his spoon across the room. On the bright side, he doesn't act very sick. Most of the time, he scoots around like normal, getting snot on all of his toys.

A day of parenting failures

When we got back from our morning walk, I set Xander up on the sofa with a sippy cup.  I puttered around, getting his play area ready--blocking off a section of the room with giant tupperwares, laundry baskets and boxes, setting up his foam mat, selecting toys that Xander likes and is not tired of, running the microfiber mop over the area so that he doesn't end up with his belly looking like a microfiber mop--a bunch of meticulous stuff for a supposedly simple activity. In the middle of this, I heard a thump, and turned around to find Xander on the floor.  He commenced screaming.  I held him and shuddered, in disbelief that I had let my child crash to the floor.  There was even blood (a little, from his lip.  I'm not sure how someone with no teeth can cut his lip, but he did).

Xander stopped bleeding and crying pretty quickly and started playing contentedly with his toys.  I eventually calmed down, too.  After a half hour of fun, it was time for his nap.  I put him down, sleeping, in his crib.  Then I realized that I had gone the entire morning without changing his diaper.

He's still napping now, in what must be quite a bit of pee.  If he were older, I'd buy him an ice cream cone to make it up to him.  What do guilt ridden mothers of infants do?

Scooting around in his baby pen

The world we live in

I have become increasingly addicted to my kindle.  This is a very guilty pleasure for me.  After all, I have a lot of access to free books.  I visit the library almost every day.  I started out just purchasing book club books on my kindle, leaving the library copies for the other members.  Then I started buying kindle books to travel, and checking kindle books out from the library (we have a small collection).  It has progressed to the point, now, where I'll buy a kindle book because I don't want to drive to the library.  You know, the library I visit almost every day.  I recently checked a book out, then bought a kindle copy when I found myself facing a long bus ride without it.  After all, when I check a book out, I only have one copy of it, not one on my phone, one on the ipod I leave in the nursery, one on the kindle...you get the idea.

I can only imagine how my customers who do not work at the library or have a vested interest in increasing circulation behave.  It's hard to deny that anything less than instant gratification is hard to deal with these days.  I imagine telling my son about video rentals.  Can you believe that we used to drive to the video rental place, pay $4 to rent a video for two days, then an additional $4 when we failed to return it on time? Unfathomable.  When we heard a song we liked on the radio (radio?  he asks) we would drive to the music store and purchase an entire CD so that we could have it.

I wonder what we used to do when we found ourselves stuck with a few minutes of time, say, waiting in line at the store.  As I pull up a book on my iphone, I can't imagine.  I'll be sure to buy more kindle books for the library next year.

Fun new skills

Xander has gained two new skills this month, both of which are fun to watch.  There's singing.  I hear him do this over the monitor sometimes.  Then there's scooting.  I had suspected that Xander wouldn't be a crawler, and he seems to be bearing my predictions out.  Now, without further ado..

Singing

And scooting

Welcome back, Oprah!

Oprah's book club 2.0 has debuted with Wild, a beautifully written memoir about a woman's solo hike down the Pacific Crest Trail.   I enjoyed the book, and I'm really digging the 2.0, which includes webisodes and author Q and A's.

 Oprah's name is all too often a dirty word in book circles.  I have known people to refuse to buy a book with an Oprah cover, and Jonathan Franzen made headlines in 2001 for implying that his book was not for "that sort of people" after it was chosen (the offer was rescinded).  This attitude, typical for any niche group who sees their culture become mainstream, makes me ashamed of MY sort of people.  This article makes people like me, who enjoy literature and have read many of the classics, look downright intolerable.  Since when were we supposed to "show people how to read"?  I'm sorry, I didn't know we were all English teachers, with John Grisham and James Patterson fans as our unwilling students.  Puh-leaze.

I like Oprah for the same reason I love Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and, begrudgingly, Twilight.  They bring books into the mainstream.  Now we can talk about reading without worried about being pelted with spitballs. That was not the world I grew up in.  As I lead another group of elementary schoolers to a selection of books and watched them eagerly pick through them, I thank my lucky stars that things have changed.

We book people like to tell ourselves that we are smarter than the masses because we read literature (and keep Mr. Grisham hidden in the bathroom).  When Oprah pushes Tolstoy to #1 on the bestseller list, our self image is challenged.  This causes us to deride one of the most powerful women in the book world for dumbing down literature.  For shame.  It is never a bad thing to read.  Even if it's (gulp) Anne Coulter.  Which, in Oprah's case, it's not.  She leads people towards more insightful works, and brings under appreciated authors into the limelight.  I would argue that Mr. Franzen is a bit over appreciated, but that's beside the point.

I believe that everyone can enjoy reading, and should.  Reading stimulates the imagination, and we could all do with a little more of that.  I think that no matter what people read, they learn something with every book.  So welcome back, Oprah.  Keep 'em coming!

What do we have, here?

It has come to my attention that this blog can't decide what it is.  It started out as a library blog.  Then it was an expat blog.  Then it was a mommy blog.  Now it's a little of all three.  It's a good thing I'm not trying to get it published.

This is for you, Xander, if you ever decide you want to read it.  This is who your mother is, and what's going through her frenetic brain during the years immediately before and after your birth.  Well, if there is a blogger in 20 years.  We'll see.

Expat blog addiction

I have recently spent way too much time reading expat blogs.  They are interesting, partly because many of these people have lived in Korea for awhile, speak some Korean, and have valuable insights on things that are going on around us, many of which, as a foreigner, I wouldn't know about.  Longtime expats have had some time to digest Korean culture and explain it to us with an outsider's perspective.  They don't tiptoe around our cultural differences like newcomers.  This can lead to some very negative content.

Most of us go through a few phases when we come to Korea.  The first is awe and excitement.  Korea is so different!  We learn something every time we leave the house.  Visits to the obligatory tourist stops and foreigner friendly korean restaurants are gentle, manufactured experiences full of smiling people.  Most of us left the U.S. because we were tired of our own countries, and Korea's rich culture, ample public transportation, and solicitous, lovely people are a welcome change.

Most of us are feted with the Korea that locals want to present to the outsiders during these first few weeks and months, a simplistic version of positive aspects of the culture.  Koreans respect their elders.  They are community and family oriented.  They are health conscious.  Once and awhile, the dirty underside peeks up when we are accosted by a drunken ajoshi or watch a few people hock noisy, disgusting lugies on the sidewalk.  During these early days, we liberal minded tell ourselves that we are not equipped to judge a different culture, reminding ourselves that there are negative aspects to American culture as well.

Then, about six months to a year in, the shine wears off.  We have been shoved headfirst into a culture with values that are almost polar opposites to ours, and we start to hate every bit of it.  The rigid heirarchical structure of the workplace, the ethnocentricism, and the homogeneity rubs us raw.  The whole country smells like kimchi.  Gender politics are stuck in the fifties.  We hate the way Korean girls giggle, that the lady at the checkout counter can't understand us even though we are speaking Korean, and that Koreans everywhere are still telling us what we should buy, how we should use the subway, how we should eat our food, despite the fact that we're no longer newcomers, damnit.  This state of knee jerk disgust at everything can last awhile, and many people leave the country without ever getting past it.

After awhile, many of us find some normalization.  For me, I learned to carve out a small space for myself here.  I conduct my life like the American I am, albeit with a wide space for Korean culture.  I learned to accept that everyone in my office will do as I ask if they can pretend the senior Korean man asked.  I learned to smile and wave at people who stare, but to keep walking.  We cook American food and do American things like barbecue and visit the beach, as well as Korean things like shop at the vegetable markets and go out for Korean barbecue.  In a way, this has become home, though I'll always be a stranger.

Which brings me back to the expat blogs.  Many of these people have lived in Korea for years, yet their blogs have the negative tones of newbies.  Part of this could be because of recent ugly events*.  Exasperation also makes for better writing.  We all have to vent sometimes, doubly so because we're making nice in another country, a situation that never stops being delicate.  I need to stop reading them so much, because they are bringing me back to my earlier self.

Korea annoys me, America annoys me.  I don't miss the self-centeredness of my own culture (Asians do not take time off to "find themselves," for example).  I do miss the individualism, so much so that I get overly excited when I see someone with colorful hair.

*That video actually aired and it was very offensive, but I came away from the whole event pleasantly surprised at how many Koreans stood up for us and mocked the video.  Holding it against Korea as a whole would be like holding the opinions of Rush Limbaugh against all Americans.

Aaargh!

There are two kinds of people who work in public services at the library.  There are the helpers, whose goal is to help people check out materials, find information, attend programs and take advantage of all the services the library has to offer.  These people are the kind you want to run into at the circulation desk.  They will go out of their ways to enable you, and are likely to cut you a break if you need to bend the rules a bit.  The other kind are the guards.  They want to guard library materials from human use, guard the rules from being broken, and guard themselves from having to do too much work.

Helpers ask themselves, "why shouldn't I do this?" when faced with a quandary.  If they can't find a good reason to deny someone a service, they will provide it.  Guards ask themselves, "why should I do this?" and will go through a laundry list of rules in their heads, often hitting on one that will allow them to say no.

Many of us have encountered these people at a service desk.  Sometimes, bad managers make people this way.  Basic management classes teach that managers must enable their subordinates to use their own judgement in customer service situations, rather than having a rigid protocol.  Sometimes, that impossible person behind the desk is backed by a micromanager.

I have learned, however, that as often as not, the manager is in the back pulling her hair out because this person behind the desk cannot figure out that she wants people to use her library.  I have worked with at least one guard at every library I have worked at.  Now I manage one.  Guard mentality is a part of someone's nature, and it's very hard to train it out of him.  I will never understand why these people go into service positions, but I really wish they wouldn't.  Aargh!

Mr. Popularity

Today, when I came to pick Xander up from daycare, he was sitting at an infant activity board, a look of determination on his face.  I touched his shoulder and spoke to him, and he didn't look up from spinning a wheel.  "What do you want? Can't you see I'm busy here?"  He did find time to flash smiles at his caretakers and say goodbye.  I can already tell that I'm not cool enough for my son.


He says, "mamamamama," which I know is not really his first word, but....when he wakes up at night, or when he wants someone to pick him up, he'll call: Mamamama!  Mamama!  I can't help but feel he connects that sound with his parents.

Tasty playmat

A Busy Month

Xander participating in summer reading

Okay, so I've been really, really busy, mainly due to my third and most spectacular (yet) summer reading program starting.  Oh, and a last minute decision to take a three day vacation.  So here's the past month in digest form:

First illness: or eradicated diseases
I've been dreading the first illness, and sure enough, Xander got sick during his first week in daycare.  He developed a fever one afternoon that was gone by the following morning.  Four days later, he broke out in a rash all over his body.  We took him to the doctor, and she told us it was a virus.  She said it was hard to narrow it down, but it wasn't one of the bad ones.  We took Xander across the road to the CDC (child development center, for the acronym impaired) to see if he could still go to day care.  There was a sign on the counter that said that if your child had been in the CDC on a date Xander had been there, he or she may have been exposed to rubella.  So we went back to the doctor for tests.  I was initially really nervous.  We have a vaccination for rubella, and it's basically been eradicated from the US.  So it must be bad, right?  As it turns out, rubella is a very mild illness that is only troublesome for pregnant women.  So Xander's first illness was possibly a rare, but mild exotic-sounding disease.  Normally the silver lining to a baby getting sick is, well, at least he's developing his immune system.  In this case, it was pretty pointless, since he will still be vaccinated for rubella when he's one.

Jeju Island: Redux
I have been really busy at work and decided a little beach trip would be nice.  We went back to Jeju, but this time we stayed at a resort on a remote part of the island.  It was a five star resort that was packed to the gills with kids, which was wonderful for us.  Good thing, since it rained almost the entire time.  Hello, monsoon season.  Xander had a blast flirting with the waitresses in the restaurant, rolling around on the king sized bed, and swimming, so I'll consider it a good vacation, despite the lack of beach time.

Summer Reading 2012
I had several requests that I do more family programming this year, so I'm doing one a week. On top of this, I took on a summer camp book club that meets three times a week in the library, as well as ratcheting up storytime to include food samplings and new crafts.  Sooo...I stay busy.  I enjoy almost every minute of it, so I'm not really complaining, but August will be a relief.  This year, we have an unprecedented number of adult participants.  What can I say: reading is cool!

at the beach

swimming!

king sized bed!

crab!

this is a pearl divers' house

on the hotel lawn

having a little nap