Clowing Around

James is my April Fool's baby. Every year I think really hard about a fun prank that will make him smile. I haven't been successful yet. This year, after everyone went to bed, Jim and I changed the Wii characters that the children had created for themselves. We made them really ugly and silly. The next day when my children turned on the Wii they were so confused. We all had a good laugh. But, James was not happy. Just yesterday he told me what a terrible idea that was. He said, "My Wii person will never be the same now, Mom. You ruined him."

Last year, we took eyeliner and colored Anna and Margaret's faces in the night. I was careful not to make a mustache on James because I didn't want him to be the joke, after all it was his birthday. It turns out, he was so sad that I didn't include him. Ooops.

The year before I sent his picture to school with some "tweeks". I didn't even get a smile out of him that year.

In spite of my failure to make him laugh, we had a great time celebrating his sixth birthday. My parents came to visit Korea on March 31st. The next day we celebrated all day with James. We went shopping, bowling, and out to eat on the U.S. army base thanks to my dad's military I.D. It was like a trip to America. So nice. It made up for the fact that James' favorite kid spot, Tiovivo turned up to be opsyo (a Korean word for "non- existent"). We drove all the way there to find out it had been turned into an English Training School for kids. April Fools! Not.

Thank goodness for Papa and his military I.D.

Happy Birthday, James. I love you.

The Kind and The Generous

One of the biggest challenges with our new school is the language barrier. To the credit of the teachers, their English is very good. It's my Korean that stinks. Everyday the children bring home their school notes and I toss them aside--there is really not much more I can do with them. Once a week Jim takes them into his work and has them translated by his T.A. But, by the time this is done, the information is obsolete and we are a day late with everything. True to their reputation, the Korea community has be kind, patient, and generous through it all.

The other day, James wanted to take juice for a snack. I didn't know if this was acceptable because the snack that is distributed to the class is milk. James doesn't like the milk, so I wrote a note to the teacher.

I wrote: "Can the children bring juice to school to drink?"

This was his teacher's response, "Thank you for saying so. I’m really grateful to you."

Hmmm. What to do? Should I send the juice, or not?

Anna's teacher is encouraging her to learn Korean. In a note that Anna wrote to the teacher, Anna said:

"Thank you for helping me with Korean"

Anna's teacher replied,

"And thank you that you say thank you to me."

That is so sweet-- Thank you, that you say thank you to me-- it makes me smile.

Get to work

I've been known to barrel headlong into life's experiences. It's not that I haven't given these decisions good thought and consideration, it's just that once I decide, I'm done. I'm in a hurry to move forward. My courtship with Jim for example: it was three weeks from first date to engagement and three and one half months to marriage. Crazy.

Needless to say, I often get into these "headlong experiences" and think to myself, "I didn't know it was going to be like this."

That's what happened when I found out that there is no recess in the Korean elementary school. What? I was also a bit surprised when my daughter told me that the teacher hits the children with a ruler. What? Then I had to once again say, "What?" when I walked the children to their classes and the students were cleaning the school.

Every other Saturday is a special day

The other day I picked up James from school. His teacher looked at me and said, "Tomorrow, is holiday. No school." I had to think for a minute. Hmm. What was tomorrow? It's Saturday. I was confused. Then I remembered, the children have to go to school on Saturdays, every other Saturday to be precise. Tomorrow was their "day off". I smiled to myself and thought, "tomorrow is a holiday- how nice."

In Korea, children go to school on Saturday. It's a hard concept.

My Children in Thailand 2010

An Elephant's Viewpoint

The Andaman Sea

Warm water, soft sand and blue, blue, blue.