Paka Paka House, Annyeong Haseyo Baby

Gosh I love fall around here. I grew up in Texas where the seasons are hot, and less hot. But here in DC we’ve got all four and I love it. There’s nothing like driving through Rock Creek Park and seeing a tunnel of yellow- trees bending above and leaves that have dropped below literally glowing with color all the way around. It renews me after the long, hot summer that we have here. It’s so beautiful. Rin and I have been going on leaf walks and collecting the best ones. They must be doing the same at school because he brought home a beautiful leaf rubbing for us the other day. His teacher was very proud that he did it all by himself. And what else have we been up to? Well, Rinat has been a student for two months now and he still loves going every morning. We’ve had only one time when he said “I no want go today” because, in typical little boy fashion, he was lying on the floor lining up all his trains on the track and wasn’t quite done yet. That was easily remedied when I told him that Miss Stacy would be sad if she didn’t get to see him today and he was suddenly ready to go. And picking him up just never gets old. He comes running, arms open, with a big smile on his face, and a “Hi Mama!” out of his mouth. And then I ask him if school was good today and he gets this little smile on his face like he has a happy little secret and he recounts how he pretended to be a dinosaur and chased Lilli Rose around the park until she laughed, or shows me a drawing he made for us and tells me again that the red crayon is his favorite, or tells me that Miss Bentah read a book with him on the beanbag. So cute. But it’s still weird that he has a life outside of me. And even weirder that I now have a life outside of him again. The other day I had a total ‘mommy moment’. I was jogging around the neighborhood with my IPod while he was in school, when on came the song titled “sing” by- get this- Big Bird. I started laughing and thought about the smile it puts on his little face when I play it at lunchtime and just left it on. So whatever, I’m working out to Big Bird now. At least I’m working out, right? So he’s never far from my mind no matter that he’s at school learning songs about the continents (!!) and that a rocket ship crashed into the moon last week to find water (I didn’t even know that). And he is still singing non-stop. Old MacDonald is a favorite but instead of only animals on his farm that make noises, he has robots that say beepbeep, an Obama flag (that’s what he calls it) that says flapflap, a spider that goes walkingwalking, or a pants that go wearingwearing. There’s always a new one that he comes up with just to make me laugh. He has also been into rhyming words for some reason. Don’t know if they talk about it at school or if he is just getting it from TV but sometimes he’s accurate- grapes and crepes- and sometimes not- cat and dog. It’s cute that he’s trying though. And he has started ‘writing’ things now- grocery lists, his name, and several letters to Santa (he wants a football helmet and a jackhammer so far). I think it’s great that he realizes that writing is a way to communicate something. Maybe he’ll be a writer when he grows up? Only time will tell. But for now, here are some things that I love and just want to get down on (virtual) paper- the freckles he has above his lip and on the back of his hand, the look that he gets when he’s pretending to ponder something, the way he gives me my choices of what game with should play as he taps his little finger into the palm of his other hand as he names them- “We could play basketball(tap)… or football(tap)… or hockeyball(tap).... And his language skills are rapidly approaching adult-like so I don’t want to forget some of the cute-ness of toddler speak where ‘too-bin-hater’=exterminator, ‘koo-kumbah-kumbah’=cucumber, and ‘peh-keh-cake’=pancake. I will be sad when I don’t hear those anymore. And now for the big stuff. We will be moving out of our dear house this week and while I am sad to say paka paka (byebye) to the place where we started our family, I am happy to be saying annyeong haseyo (hello) to changing countries and starting on our adoption in Korea. Yup, we made the decision a few months ago to change countries and have been waiting until we had a new address to start all that paperwork over again. ETA for baby #2 (by my random calculation) is 9-18 months. But I’m not counting my chickens… Happy Fall! -m