Free Haircuts

Part of it is being cheap. Part of it is the hassle of taking kids to a REAL place to get their hair cut. Ok, most of it is the hassle of taking kids to get their hair cut by people who actually know what they're doing. So I cut all our kids' hair. And the dog's too. They have had some rockin' awesome haircuts, and also some, umm, not so great ones. I knew I could cut straight longish girl hair reasonably ok (yes, I do realize that ANYONE can cut straight long girl hair reasonably well), but didn't know if I could do boy hair. Ok, fine, I still don't know if I can really do boy hair well, but tonight I put the guard on the clippers and went to work. I thought Charlie might be a little scared of the noise the clippers make, but he wasn't. Took about 2 minutes, and Mr Charles looks like he is fit for the Marines. These pictures don't really show his hair, but it looks pretty cute. Most of that is because he is just super cute, but the haircut is ok too.

Ignore the drool...

This is my favorite Jin-yeong look. Doesn't he have a cute smile?

Again, ignore the drool...

"I'm so happy my new haircut rocks" (or just happy because Mama is singing Itsy Bitsy Spider...which, by the way, he likes so much that I wonder if there is not a Korean song with the same tune...seems from his reaction like he has heard this song before)

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...it just might be a wedding duck.

This is going to sound weird, but one of the nicest associations I have of my grandmother "Dabby," my mother's mother, is of ducks. Dabby was a beautiful, very elegant, sweet and interesting woman. She liked ducks, and had several gorgeous china ducks in her beautiful house. When she died, the only material object I really cared about getting was a set of gorgeous red glass ducks she always kept on her wooden secretary. I did get those ducks, and, although I am not generally into fancy "stuff," I love those ducks because they remind me of her.

When I heard that our son's birth country has a tradition called "wedding ducks," well, I knew we were going to need to bring some home from Korea. Sheref bought a beautiful set of wedding ducks for us, and one for each of the children. I may be explaining the tradition wrong, but as I understand it, couples are given wedding ducks when they marry. Apparently if you are feeling amorous, you are supposed to turn the wedding ducks to face each other as a sign to the spouse of your intent. If you are miffed at your spouse, you turn them away from each other. I may have the tradition all wrong, but it's at the very least a fairly entertaining version. So (and please do not read any romantic intents into the positioning of the ducks below:) here are some of our newly acquired wedding ducks:

This set is actually my personal favorite. The male is the one with the decorative colors.

Ok, so clearly not ducks, but these are a set of male and female statues to ward off evil spirits. Or something like that. To me they look like they belong on Easter Island, but whatever. We still think they're cool.

Twinkies, Wondertwins, Monozygotic Wonderment

There are people who wish for twins. And I, as a high-risk obstetrician, think those people are naive and foolish. I never wanted twins, knew that twins come with a long laundry list of obstetric and neonatal complications. We got surprise twins, and lived through many of those complications. Obstetrically, one should never wish for twins. To do so IS naive and foolish. However, having, raising, living with twins is absolutely wonderful. Fabulously, fantastically, magically wonderful.

Let's just entitle this picture "it's really hard to be cute when you only weigh 3lbs..."

Teeny, tiny twins.

About 4 weeks old. This picture is blown up and framed in their room.

Such cutie cueballs!!

All of which brings us to today, when these two are the best of buddies. They are so sweet and love each other so much. That, of course, is not to say that they don't fight, because they do (example: this am when Rose accidentally broke Lucy's Cherokee Native American necklace, and all h*** broke loose!), but these two are tight!!

Impromptu tea party.

Good gossip, I suppose...

Reading Princess stories.

Love these two sweeties!

Charlie's "Room"

I put the word "room" in quotes purposefully. Little Charlie doesn't have a real room, but rather a corner of our room. Which, of course, is entirely fine for any baby, and especially for a baby who sleeps most of the night in our bed anyways! Don't judge the co-sleeping. I honestly think co-sleeping is ok for any baby, but for one adopted internationally at nearly one year of age, I actually think it may be a good thing.

Nonetheless, it would be quite nice if we had a real room for Charlie. Like a closet, room for his clothes, etc. We have, however, the next best thing. And that is a corner decorated by my real-life artist mother and my budding artist daughter. My mom and Ella made this canvas mural for Charlie's "room." I am not exaggerating when I say that I truly LOVE it. Love the colors, love the theme, love the shapes.

The corner in all its glory!!

Hangin' Out

Crazy Hair Cutie

While I was in Phoenix a week or so ago, I asked Sheref to take some photos of Charlie to potentially use on our adoption announcement. He tried, but none of the photos was quite the quality I had hoped for, although some came close.

Obviously this particular photo is not quite publishable quality, but it just tickled me. He just looks so cute and impish.

The other thing this photo points out is the crazy stick-straight-up-in-the-air hair. I've trimmed his hair since this photo was taken, so he's looking a bit more clean-cut these days.

Rewind Post -- Seoul

You, kind reader, are going to have to bear with me. I wasn't actually IN Seoul, yet I'm going to blog about it. I intended to write about Seoul each day Sheref was there, using pictures he had taken and sent to me. However (and this is not a slight, Sheref, if you're reading this...I'm not upset you didn't send me pictures daily...really), Sheref didn't send me pictures while he was there, so that blog plan didn't exactly pan out.

I do want to write posts about Sheref's time in Seoul, both for the benefit of anyone reading this blog (especially future adoptive parents who may be thinking ahead to their trip to Seoul), as well as for Charlie's benefit later on. Soooo...

Sheref stayed at the Sheraton Grande. It is apparently fairly far away from the city center, around a 30 minute subway ride. Nonetheless, it is quite a nice hotel and was for us, thanks to Sheref's parents who used some of their travel benefits to get us a deal, very reasonably priced.

The lobby...

More lobby...

Some sort of futuristic lounge area...

More space-age lounging around...

Still lounging...

I'm really not all that into "modern," futuristic type style. That said, I really love the look of these rooms. Cool, no?

Sweet Baby

I hope our little guy's birth mom is at peace and somehow knows that her baby is doing well and is loved. Look at this sweetheart she brought into the world!

Pudgy little hand...

I think he's actually yawning here. Mama, get on with the picture-taking.

Father & Son

Jin-yeong is Introduced to Having 3 Sisters...

Charlie is quickly being introduced to what it means to have 3 sisters. Today, what having 3 sisters meant was going on a 2 hour walk through our neighborhood dressed as fairies. Well, let me clarify. Charlie and I were not dressed as fairies, but Ella, Rose & Lucy were sporting fairy wings and sparkly wands.

This, I believe, is a fairy table with centerpiece, and 2 fairy chairs. I was solely the photographer.

There is more fairy furniture, but I'll spare you.

While the girls played fairies, I attempted a photo shoot with Charlie.

The kid is cute, no?

"Mama's not so interesting. I'm much more interested in what the sisters are doing over there on the playground."

"Ok, Mama and her camera are in my way. I'll try peeking around the other side..."

"What?"

Getting sleepy in the stroller...

...and, out like a light.

A True Korean Mystery

There is a true mystery unravelling in our house. I call it the "Mystery of Imposter Charlie."

Remember way back a few months ago when I posted "Will the Real Jin-yeong Please Stand Up?"? Yeah, ok, fine, you probably don't remember it because you didn't read it. Well, scroll back and read it. In that post, I commented that the picture below, which was only the second picture we had ever received of Charlie (and the 2nd of only 3 sets of pictures total that we saw of Charlie prior to actually meeting him), looked nothing like the first pictures we saw of him.

Then at the end of the post, I wrote something cheesy like "once I meet him and see the intricacies of his face, I will recognize both this baby and the other pictures in his face..." Blah blah blah. So now that I have met Charlie in real life, I have to say that I in no way recognize this baby in his face.

Which leads me to wonder...is the picture above just a weird angle or odd lighting such that it looks nothing like Charlie? Oooooor, in a more dramatically woven theory, is this not Charlie at all?? An online friend said she saw a group picture at Holt of a bunch of kids and their foster mothers. She said she distinctly recognized our foster mother (this friend is the one who blurred the foster mother's face in the picture above, so I could post it without compromising foster mom's identity), but the foster mother was holding "Imposter Charlie" in the picture!!

In the picture above, the stuff on the table in front of "Charlie" is the contents of the care package that we sent. And, in the 3rd photo we received of Charlie, he is wearing one of the outfits we sent. In the 3rd picture, he looks once again just like the first pictures. So, yes, I realize that the most likely explanation is that the picture above is just a weird photo such that it looks nothing like Charlie. However, it REALLY looks NOTHING like Charlie. Different hair, different eyes, different mouth.

I am not suggesting anything like "we got the wrong baby." The Charlie we have is clearly the same baby in our referral photos, and also clearly the same baby as in the most recent pictures we received of him. No, I am more amused by this "mystery" than anything else.

A true mystery...

Jin-yeong Goes to the Doctor

Charlie went for his first pediatrician visit today. I'm still in Phoenix, so Sheref took him. This was just an introductory, make sure he is doing ok, routine visit. Dr. C, who we love, thought Charlie is doing perfectly and is completely on track developmentally. Isn't Sheref a board-certified pediatrician, you ask? Hadn't he already assessed Charlie's development? Well, yes. However, being enamored with your child can bias your judgement a bit, so I think both of us are happy that Dr. C agrees Charlie is doing great! Charlie did get two shots -- influenza and (I think) Hib, but apparently did well with the shots.

Ok, one more picture, just because...

Full Disclosure

I am at a medical conference right now. Whenever you give a talk as a medical professional, you always have to sign a disclosure agreement. You also have to verbally mention this disclosure during your talk. The disclosure is intended to reveal any conflicts of interest you may have with any medical products or medications. The point of this is so that if you are predisposed to favor or recommend drug X because you have stock in the company that makes drug X, then at least your listeners are aware of it.

So in the interest of full disclosure regarding our adoption, let me just say that Charlie is a fabulous sleeper.

Yeah, IN THE DAYTIME, that is.

He does not sleep well, err, much at all, during the night. I am sure most of this is the fact that his poor little body is on Seoul time, which is 13 hours different from EST in the U.S. Some of this poor sleep at night is likely also due to emotional confusion about where he is, who the heck we are (who are these weird white people who talk, smell and look so odd, and keep trying to feed me gross things??), where the heck his beloved foster mother is. Poor guy. And kudos to Sheref, who stays up with him due to my work schedule. Oh, and the fact that I am in Phoenix for 3 days at a conference, which has been scheduled for months, long before we knew the timing of Charlie's arrival. So hats off to my wonderful husband!