Bat catching, burping and other important matters

i had the most horrible experience today of catching a bat by hitting it with a broom. fortunately, Phil cleaned up the "mess", but ugh! i get all freaked out still thinking about it! we tried to get the bat to go out through the open windows in the attic, but of course, it just wouldn't go. poor Skye and Claire locked themselves in the bathroom while their crazy parents made a racket in the attic with the broomsticks and all the screaming! but i'm so glad it is out of the house. what with all the holes all over our ceiling that still need fixing, who knows where the bat would end up if we let it stay!!

on a more lighter side, burping. yes, families with girls have to deal with this too. i made the mistake of burping really loud the other day after a meal and the girls thought it was hilarious. well, now, they think they can burp as loud as they want whenever they want! and yes, they think they are SO funny!

my neighbour told me they could hear us through their monitor. i'm afraid my first reaction was panic. oh my gosh, what did they overhear? me screaming my head off and cursing at Phil? me saying something completely inappropriate to my children? "we heard you say, Skye, if you don't get dressed, you can't go with us." phew! nothing terrible, right? this should teach me to turn off our monitor when not in use.

well, tonight, i'm sure all my neighbours heard us screaming at the bat, regardless of monitors. my girls were certainly excited about it and talked about it constantly as they got ready for bed! Claire kept asking, "what you doing up in attic?"

Claire the Feeler

Claire is my Feeler. she likes to talk about her emotions, how she is feeling. many times throughout the day, she makes a face - her eyes are half-shut, the lips stick out.

me: what kind of face is that?

Claire: angry face.

Claire often says things like this: Eunhee (her Korean name) had fun, i had good time, Eunhee sad.

i try my best not to laugh whenever she talks about herself like this, but they crack me up. i find it very endearing.

Where were you for the inauguration?

my friend Lisa captured these moments when we were at her house for the big day. where were you?

Claire and Talia share this historical moment together (although i'm sure they'll never remember it. :))

Trip to LA January 2009

as promised, i'm backing up now to give an update on our trip to LA. i should also mention Phil had a fantastic time in Vietnam and really misses the food!!

the girls and i went to LA mainly to escape the cold and to visit with my good friend Mary and her growing family. her husband Martin scheduled a baby shower for their new baby (due date in May) while we were there, so that was pretty special. the girls and i got to catch up with an old friend, Joon, who i knew back in Kenya, who i hadn't seen in about 20 yrs. thanks to Facebook, we reconnected and got to meet up!

here are my girls with Camille, Mary's 9 month old little girl

here is Skye with Nathan, Joon's 7 yr old son

Joon's boys and the girls and i went to Griffith Park and rode the train

Joon and Ian

i took the girls to Dolce Mango for frozen yogurt which they loved! they preferred Dolce Mango to Pinkberry...Dolce Mango has many more flavours to choose from!


here we are at baby Micah's shower


Skye with a friend, Malia




i took the girls to a mall and they were fascinated with the water fountain! :)


in Koreatown for some naeng myun


i had the spicy hwae naeng myun - yum!


we returned many more times to Dolce Mango...


Skye's favourite toppings


Claire digs in

it doesn't look like Claire has any toppings on her frozen yogurt, but she actually did have some mochi toppings on her mango frozen yogurt

Repairs

the industrial size fans and dehumidifiers in the kitchen are really loud. it's hard to think, let alone talk, in the house. six men came tramping through the house yesterday, ripping up carpet, cutting big holes in the kitchen ceiling, spraying disinfectant, and bringing in big fans and dehumidifiers that will dry out the house. i was thankful they arrived--i couldn't mop up any more water--but they are rather impressive and LOUD. for some kids, this would be great, but my children don't like anything that makes big noise, so this has been hard for them to adjust to. but, tomorrow brings the plumber and i hope we will have our bathtub back. it hasn't been fun carrying buckets of water back and forth between the tub and the sink so that we can wash up. i will be thankful to have a shower again. :)

with so much noise in the house, i drove to a friend's house to watch the inauguration. it ended up being much more fun than trying to watch it at my own place. the kids played while the adults watched. Skye came home from school saying even she got to watch the inauguration on TV. :)

Beginning of 2009

i've had such a horrendous start to the new year, i'm going to rant a bit here before moving on to fairer topics. the last 2 weeks have been so full of...emergencies...it's been like boot camp. first of all, Phil leaves for 2 wks to bask in the lovely warmth of Vietnam. and most of the people who should be perhaps concerned for my well-being, showed only concern for Phil's safety. ahem! from the moment he takes off, i've been bombarded with illnesses from both children. first, a run to the ER for the first time ever in my life. fortunately, it was a popped elbow for Claire and they fixed it immediately. phew! next, Skye and i were up most of the night due to an ear infection. another run to urgent care and a day off from school for Skye. then, i breathed a sigh of relief - everyone seemed back to normal. then it was frantic packing for our trip to LA. sound crazy with 2 kids on my own? THAT was a breeze compared to everything else. so i'll talk about the trip and put up photos later. we returned to the oh-so-cold Madison. our kind neighbours had shovelled our sidewalk and driveway, i was so thankful, not realizing how much i'd be relying on them the next day. i was slightly worried when i saw that our bathtub drain was frozen. i had dripped the tap in the tub to PREVENT the freezing. the taps were frozen too. i probably should have called a plumber right away, but it was late and i had a girl throwing up all over the house on my hands. i fell asleep exhausted, hoping the worst was over. i woke up the next morning to the screams of Claire downstairs and what sounded like a pressure cooker going off. i ran downstairs to see water shooting out of a hole in the kitchen ceiling, all over the kitchen. i immediately grabbed a bucket and put in under the hole, only to have the bucket fill up in a matter of seconds. i ran down to the basement--water was up to my ankles. i had no idea what to turn to turn off the water supply. i ran, drenched in my PJs, to my neighbour's house. fortunately, he was walking out the door for work. he ran over and after several minutes of figuring out which handle to turn, he shut off everything in the house. thanks to Skype, i called Phil who was by now in Singapore and he managed to talk to our handyman and get a plumber out to the house. my phone was under the blast of the water and was completely useless. my kind neighbour took Skye and Claire in for the morning (her own children were home due to snow day) and i set about mopping up the water. once the plumber came, he located the source of the explosion and returned the heat and water supply to the house. we can't bathe for the next several days until the home insurance people come and inspect the damages, but at least we have heat and running water again.

i was so so exhausted i couldn't even cry. but, on the brighter side, i'm glad it happened after we got home rather than when we were away. and i'm glad Phil is coming home tomorrow. i'm saving the basement for him to clean up! we are very fortunate all the water drained out. i was really quite surprised. i was thinking i needed a sump pump or something, but no. it's just damp and cold downstairs. of course, the cold outside doesn't help.

it has snowed some more, so i need to shovel outside. what, with all the mopping and the shovelling, i'm really getting sick of this cold. instead of doing either, i'm blogging instead. i'll return to better topics another day.

Traveling as a single mum...

when you travel as a single mum, you have to depend so much more on the kindness of strangers. and kind strangers there were today as i made the trip from Madison to LA. but there were also plenty of people who just didn't care. chivalry is almost nonexistent i think. but the girls were fantastic. of course, we had our troubles, like Claire refusing to pee in the airport bathrooms, never mind the plane ones. i ended up just putting a diaper on her until we got to our friend's house. at one point on the plane, i conked out because i was so exhausted. i don't know for how long, but the girls just kept themselves occupied for those few short minutes.

do i recommend traveling alone with 2 kids? i don't know...i'll let you know after i get back home. but i was impressed to see a mum traveling with 3 kids today. each child was pulling his/her own wheelie and they all looked to be under 7 yrs of age.

Two weeks without Phil...

Phil is off to warm Vietnam for 2 weeks and so i've decided to take the girls with me to LA to visit my friends there. not quite as adventurous as Vietnam, but hey, anything to get away from this cold! LOTS have happened since Saturday when Phil took off, but i'm afraid there's no time tonight to give you an update. will have to wait until we settle in LA. it's late, i think i'm all packed up and ready...i'll let you know how it is flying by myself with 2 kids!

New Year's Day

on New Year's day, Phil's parents arrived in the morning and had the traditional duk guk with us. we also did jul, which really appealed to Skye when she learned that she could actually make money by doing jul! jul is a bowing ceremony that's done on New Year's day in Korea. the younger people bow to the elders and the elders hand out money. i remember as a young child in Korea, we would visit my mother's family on New Year's day and she had a large family and the jul got rather long, but i did make lots of money! :)

here is Skye doing jul to her grandparents



in the evening, we headed over to one of our neighbour's house for a neighbourhood party.

it was hard to get all the kids to cooperate...