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.