Jay's on his way home!

Yay! Jay finished his last check-ride today and is on his way home! I tried to clean the house after I called him and found out he was in Tucson already (was he trying to surprise me?) but I got distracted by some Robyn on my ipod and began dancing around the living room with Pippa. She loved it until I spun her around one time too many and decided she had had enough. So I put her down for a nap with the intention of cleaning and doing laundry once I did, but... it didn't happen. I was too pooped after our dance party.

All day I've come up with excuses to not clean. I baked 2 loaves of honey wheat bread, then made 2 flaky pie crusts (HUGE pain in the arse, btw), then dumped some cleaning treatment in the garbage disposal (does that count as housework?), then made chicken pot pies in individual ramekins with the pie crusts I had made. Then it was time to pick up Mia from school and by the time I finished feeding Pippa and dealing with the diaper blow out that followed, then bathing Pippa, then feeding Mia and getting her bathed and in bed, it was too late to clean house! After all, I have to get up at 4am to get ready for work so I've pre-labeled all of Pippa's bottles for tomorrow, got her food ready for tomorrow, and now I need to shower and get in bed before Modern Family comes on so I can go to sleep as soon as it's over! Damn, Mama's busy! I know Jay will have something to say about it but I'll just shove one of my pot pies down his throat and then I think he'll understand why I don't have time to clean house.

And let's not forget I had to write about all of that in this blog before I go shower, so what am I supposed to do? Besides, he won't have anything to do tomorrow since the kids will be at daycare so I think he can do laundry, clean the bathrooms, and then weed the yard. It's his turn anyway.

Wow 2 years!

I can't believe it's been 2 years since I last posted! I always think about it, but just too busy. New house, new baby, new job, it's been awesome and I always have stuff to do!

Jay is in New Mexico training for a new aircraft. He's supposed to be home in 2 days, but weather sucks there so his flight was cancelled for today and he doesn't think it looks good for tomorrow either. That means he won't be home for his Mar 22 end date. F'in New Mexico. I don't understand why they have to train there when they all fly (mostly) from Las Vegas. It would just seem fiscally responsible for the Air Force to move training to Las Vegas. But I'm not the expert nor do I call the shots so I'm alone with the 5 year old and 6 month old trying to juggle dirty diapers, preschool, work, housework, dinner, and showering myself. Not fun but we adapt.

We got the big (kinda) house with the pool in the backyard. The pool and the kitchen are my 2 favorite parts of the house, but I need to step away from the kitchen b/c the second half of this pregnancy weight isn't going to come off if I'm constantly cooking and testing in the kitchen. I did learn to make AWESOME pizza dough, though! (and marshmallows, and homemade yogurt, and I'm eyeing a gummy candy recipe...)

Mia can read!!! She's so big and she thinks she's so grown up. It's cute, awe-inspiring, and scary all at once. She's constantly saying stuff that makes me choke on spit...like when she asked our black waiter last week why he has so much melanin in his skin...or when she got mad at me and threatened to kill me with her baby scissors if I took her B (blankie) away. I tried not to laugh, I really did, but it didn't work. Oh well, I just hope she grows up somewhat well-adjusted and I'm resigned to the fact that I'll have to work until I'm 90 to pay for her therapy to fix all the ways I have wronged her.

At least I have Pippa now to try this whole mothering thing again. She really loves me. Mia was (is) a daddy's girl but Pippa is ALL MINE!!! She's a mama's girl and I LOVE it! It could be that I've just been one giant milk bag to her, but I'll take it!

BTW... this weekend, Jay thought it would be cute to call and tell Mia his phone number then task me with the chore of teaching Mia how to use my cell phone so she can call him whenever she needs him. HAHAHA, joke was on him because Mia is a FAST learner and not only called him (TWICE) but proceeded to talk her wonderful 5 year old nonsense to him for no less than an hour each call. Then she called my mother-in-law (because Jay gave Mia her phone number, too) and Mia called Mimi and talked to poor Mimi for over an hour! I heard Mia singing Mimi songs and telling her about her coloring and about sponge bob and every other little thing that popped into her 5 year old brain. When I told Mia she needed to hang up because she had been on the phone for so long, Mia took the phone to my room and LOCKED THE DOOR! Maybe I should give Mia the phone to call her dad now b/c it's 9pm and I put her to bed at 7:30 but she can't sleep (surprise surprise). I think this is one of those times when she needs her daddy! He he he.

The things Mia does...

I haven't updated my blog in a while b/c not a whole lot is going on in my life and I'm pretty much bored all the time (you can only play Barbie so many times before you just won't do it anymore). With all that said, if there's a bright spot in my day, it's definitely thanks to Mia. Now that she's more verbal and able to express herself more clearly, Jay and I get a daily dose of comedy.

Case in point, a few days ago Jay and I decided to take Mia for a walk after letting her play on the playground for a while. We were walking down the sidewalk and a Korean woman was walking on the sidewalk going the opposite way. As she bent down to smile and say hi to Mia, she scuffed her heel on the ground, and it made a normal scuffing sound. Mia's 3 year old ears apparently did not take the sound to be that of her shoe and Mia pointed at the lady and loudly yelled, "Ewww! She fart!!!" Jay and I were stunned for a moment and as I burst out laughing, Jay tried to be all mature and parent-like and said, "Mia, that's not nice. We don't point at people when they pass gas." All I could hope for was the woman didn't speak English.

That's all I can think of now. I have other stories, but they might sound kinda weird if I try to write them. Good news is, Jay finally got orders and we're moving to Las Vegas next! We're supposed to go in November but Jay really wants Mia and I to go early so we can start looking for a house. It has to be approved and right now we're just waiting to find out if it's approved or not but if it is, we'll be going back in September. I have mixed feelings about going back early b/c that means I'll have to fly alone with Mia AGAIN from S.Korea back to the U.S. and that just sucks. I guess if Jay gets us a flight on Korean Air (super nice) with the individual videos on the headrest, then it'll be okay. But if we get that crappy Northwestern Airlines (those stewardesses were bee-yotches!), then no deal. Either way, when we do get back stateside, we're looking for a big house with a pool in the backyard.

Party at my place!!!

Daddy Did It!

Jay finally took the plunge and did Mia's hair for the first time... and it showed. Jay attempted a ponytail and it looked like a dude pony. Mia's ponytail looked like a ponytail a pirate would wear or one of those balding guys who has the long hair in the back and wears it in a low pony. It was so funny. Needless to say I will be doing Mia's hair from now on.

Don't Leave Chocolate Powder on the Counter!

The reason you don't leave chocolate milk powder mix on the counter is because while you're on the computer having a skype conversation with a friend, Mia will be attempting to make herself chocolate milk... NOT PRETTY!

After I got off the computer (yes, I took too long...) I was surprised to see Mia's face covered with chocolate. My first thought was "how on Earth did she open a chocolate pudding cup lid?" So I walked into the kitchen to investigate and it was immediately apparent that the chocolate all over her face was not pudding but Nestle Quik and it was all over my kitchen floor. Then I saw the cup on the table and it was a mixture of water and chocolate powder (eww!). Laughing I applauded Mia for attempting to make her own chocolate milk as I swept the powder off the floor. Then as I put the cup in the sink to rinse it out, I found Mia had tossed the remaining powder and the Nestle canister into the sink and there was a big pile of chocolate powder just lying there in the sink. So no more chocolate milk for a few days, but I can't help but laugh at how independent Mia tries to be.

New Favorite Korean Food: Black Rice Bread!

Okay, so I've been absent for too long from my blog, but I had forgotten my password and since I'm in Korea, when I went to Blogspot.com, it was all in Hangul and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was telling me when I was trying to reset it. Luckily, my beautiful Korean friend, Yun, came over and translated it for me today so I could reset my password and get back to writing about it here in Korea.

So we went grocery shopping at the Lotte Mart (think Super Target or something, but not Walmart, it's much nicer than Walmart) and I bought Mia some dinner rolls at the bakery. After we paid for them, I let Mia have one since she had been so patient and good while I was shopping and she gobbled it down really fast. I thought, "Wow, she was really hungry!" so I gave her another, and she gobbled that down just as fast as the first one. When we got in the car, I gave her one more for the road and predictably she was asking for more before we got home. I made her wait until we got all the groceries inside the apartment, then I gave her another one. While I was putting all the food away, Mia apparently ate all the rest in the bag (I know better than to leave these kind of things lying within Mia's reach, but I was preoccupied). I was surprised when Mia asked for more bread since she had eaten all the rolls I had just bought at the bakery. Well, I don't want to starve my growing child, (she's SOOO skinny, too) so I offered her some black rice bread I had bought for the first time and was surprised to see the bread is actually purple since it has a dark brown crust (and that was all I could see before I bought it). I tried a piece with her and it was SOOOO good! It tastes like regular bread but it is much more moist, almost a little chewy. I really really like it, but Mia took one bite and put it down on the table and it's been sitting here untouched for the past 15 minutes, so either she doesn't like it or she's finally full from eating a whole bag of freshly baked dinner rolls before. Oh well, more for me!

While I'm back, I would like to clarify my past incident with the Bongo truck driver... I'm really doing my best not to be an ignorant American picking fights with the locals, but this was really a dangerous thing he was trying to do that I simply blocked him from doing. The situation was this: I was driving home from Daegu on the interstate and there is a bridge we have to cross to get into Pusan. It was late afternoon and in the middle of rush hour traffic. We were stopped on the bridge and yes, it's everybit as frustrating as driving in rush hour traffic back in the States. There are two lanes in each direction and since neither lane was moving, some cars began to drive in the area between the furthest right lane and the wall of the bridge. It drives me crazy when they do that b/c they don't drive slowly to pass, they drive REALLY fast as if it's a third lane, which it isn't, and b/c it's narrow, they're so close to the cars in the right hand lane and all I can think is one of these a-holes is going to scratch the side of my car while they're rushing past all the stopped traffic in their pseudo lane. So, I pulled my car half in my lane, half in the pseudo lane and blocked the rest of the traffic from passing those of us in LEGITIMATE lanes so they can't cause a crash or try to sneak in front of us further up in traffic. I guess the driver of the bongo truck behind was pissed b/c he kept honking his horn at me the entire time we were on the bridge (which turned out to only be about 10 minutes) and FOLLOWED me to my exit and continued following me to where I turned to get back to my apartment. While I was stopped at a red light, he got out of his truck and knocked on my window, I rolled it down and he just started yelling (I assume angrily) in Hangul at me. So I yelled back in English that what he was doing was illegal and he would have been arrested for reckless driving back in the United States for pulling that kind of crap and he could've killed someone if he lost control of his truck and he needs to learn how to drive, yada yada yada. And it just went back and forth with him yelling at me and me yelling at him, neither of us having a clue what the other was saying, but we were both pissed, so I just started yelling, "YOU'RE DANGEROUS!" over and over and over b/c most of the people in my apartment building use that word when Mia's climbing on the playground equipment, so I figured it was a word he MIGHT understand. It must've done the trick b/c he shook his head at me like I was truly insane (and I probably looked a bit crazy at the time) and went back to his truck. I was fuming over this incident on the way home, but it felt SOOO GOOOD to finally yell at these crazy bongo drivers... they're the WORST (even worse than the taxi drivers here). I didn't use any finger gestures (though I was tempted) although a few F-bombs were dropped (I was concentrating too hard on not flipping him off, I can't not do both). So, I don't go around picking fights, I just finally stopped a crazy bongo truck from doing something illegal and he didn't like it. Oh well. The good news was the next time I drove the bridge (2 weeks later) there were signs in the pseudo lane preventing anyone from driving in it(YAY!).

Okay, now I'm tired of typing so until I have something else to say... TooDaLoo!

Poopsie DooDoo'd on the Bed...Again!

Mia is very adept at quickly undressing from head to toe and throwing off her diaper before Jay and I realize what's happened. It used to happen whenever Mia pee'd or poo'd in her diaper, but now it happens BEFORE she pee's or poo's in the diaper and if Jay and I aren't careful, we have a nasty mess to clean.

It starts with Mia walking around coyly repeating, "pee pee pee pee" or "doo doo doo doo", almost song-like. If Jay and I are being good parents and paying attention to her (which isn't always...) we ask, "Mia, do you need to pee pee?" or "Do you need to go doo doo, Sweetie?" Ninety-eight percent of the time the answer is "nooooo!" (Her voice is so cute and squeaky, I just melt even though I know she's lying.) She then usually bolts for a room (any room), closes the door behind her and is butt naked in whichever room she ran to within a matter of seconds and getting in position to drop a steamin' pile of poo or a stream of pee by the time we catch up to her. It's amazing how fast she moves, but not so amusing when we're too late to intercept a dookie incident on her fluffy rug.

Needless to say, today I had a dookie incident. Mia took a 2 hour nap (yay!!!) and I heard her talking to herself in her room while I was surfing the internet. Knowing she was now awake from her nap, I cheerfully walked into her room to find her butt naked in her crib with her clothes and diaper thrown in the middle of the room. Mia was standing in one corner of her crib pointing to something in the other corner her crib and babbling away about something to me when I heard "doo doo doo" in the midst of her babbles. Quickly I asked, "Do you need to doo doo, Sweetheart?" But even as I was asking the question, my heart was sinking, because she was shaking her head from side to side (as if to say, "no") while pointing inside her crib. Hesitantly, I walked to the edge of her crib and peered inside. Yep, a big steaming pile of poop complete with corn kernels was lying on top of her mattress, while Mia just nodded her head up and down (as if to say, "yep, that's mine").

Oh joy.

At least I didn't step in it like Jay did once while we were at the Lotte Hotel... THAT was funny!

(Mia peeking around the corner while in "time out" for something entirely different...)