Korea Update Part 2 and Goodbye 2007

A copy of our Christmas Newsletter from December 2007


Hello Family and Friends!

We hope this letter finds you all doing well as we count down the final days of 2007! Things at the Nichols household are going really well and we are adjusting beautifully to life as a family here in Korea . This time of year I typically write a “year in review” letter to send out. Well, most of you have been on my mailing list for the last year as I’ve made all of our major announcements, but here is a quick recap:

In January of 2007 we packed up and moved from Virginia to Alabama. I moved in with my parents and John left for Korea in Feb when I was 17 weeks pregnant. John worked for the 25th Transportation Battalion in Yongson (Seoul area), Korea for several months before the Battalion was moved down south to Daegu, Korea. In May John made the move to Daegu as well. In July he flew back in to the states and on July 5th we welcomed our precious son, Caden David, in to the world. John returned to Korea at the end of July and I continued to live with my parents in Huntsville. John was offered a command position in the Osan area of Korea. Caden, Charli, and I packed up and shipped our goods to Korea and John flew in to the states to get us in October of 2007…. That pretty much sums up our year!

Since my last email many of you have requested that I keep the stories of life in Korea coming. So, over the past several weeks I’ve been making a little list of observations and events to share with you! This is going to be a long one because I have waited son long to write! I will try to keep the updates shorter, and more frequent in the future! Also, I write a little family blog for us that I will share a link to at the end of the email!

In my last email I told you all about our high-tech apartment and some of my initial observations about Korea . A lot has happened since then. I can’t believe we’ve almost been here 2 months! Shortly after our arrival here, I got my Korean driver’s license. I was a little apprehensive about driving here at first, but now I feel pretty confident about it. Driving here you pretty much can’t do anything wrong and so you don’t ever have to worry about looking stupid! Who cares if you stop for the red light in the middle of the intersection… the important thing is that you actually stopped! As a general rule, you always approach an intersection with caution because a red light doesn’t always stop traffic like it should! In the particular part of town we live in there is a good bit of traffic on the main road to and from post. It is a four lane road (two lanes going each direction) with lots of pedestrians and people on bicycles and scooters. The street is lined with shops and buildings all several stories high, kind of like a busy, city street. This is not always the case, but it is sort of an unspoken rule that you only really drive in the inside (left) lane and the right lane is left open for those people who wish to turn right at the next light because there are no right turn lanes. If you happen to stop in the right lane at a light you will have a bunch of angry Koreans honking their horns behind you, some even jumping the curb and driving over the sidewalk to bypass you and make the turn. I have even been stopped at a red light waiting to turn left (waiting for the left turn arrow/signal) when a man behind me saw that I was going to follow the law and wait for the light, so he pulled up next to me (in the lane to my left which was fortunately fee of opposing traffic at the time) and made the turn. I decided that if he did it, I could too so I followed him through the red light and made the turn! Anything goes here when it comes to driving (as long as it’s not an intersection with a video camera)!!

On November 28th John took command of the 138th Movement Control Team (MCT) at Osan Air Base (about 45 miles south of the DMZ). The MCT is a detachment of the 25th Transportation Battalion that is located in Daegu, S. Korea (3 hours south of Osan). Often John will have to make trips down to the Battalion Headquarters in Daegu. Sometimes it’s just for the day, and other times for the night or even a few days depending on what he has to do there. Caden, Charli and I joined him for a trip to Daegu for the Battalion Christmas party earlier in the month. The funniest part of this trip had to be that our dog, Charli, could not stay in the hotel with us, so we had to put her in a self-serve kennel that was next door to (and part of) the hotel. The hotel was on the Army installation so it was a normal, American hotel…just no pets allowed. Well, the kennel was out of dog rooms/cages so Charli had to stay in the room with the cats! For those of you who know Charli, this was a PEFECT fit for her! She really doesn’t like dogs! The funniest thing was when John would go get her to let her outside to potty, she had to walk through the dog room and she would get up against the wall as far from the cages as possible when she’d walk through there! The cats were right up her alley and she was perfectly content to hang out with them!

Caden is such an easy baby to travel with (I never thought I’d hear myself say those words). Once we got to Daegu we had to leave Caden with a babysitter because the party was not for children. One of the families that live in Daegu has a trusted Ajumma (the respectful term for an older Korean woman) that watches their kids on a regular basis. So we left Caden with her. It was his first babysitter outside of our family. It was hard to give instructions because she spoke VERY little English, but she nodded like she understood what I was saying. Unfortunately, the long road trip had taken its toll on Caden and he was tired! He started crying when we got there and according to the Ajumma he cried for most of the 4 hours we were gone. It broke our hearts! Not the best “first babysitter” experience for any of us! Ajumma said (or signed) that she used a blanket to strap Caden to her back and carry him around the house. It is very common over here to see babies carried like that. It’s kind of like the Korean version of swaddling a baby, but also serves a purpose in keeping the baby warm if you’re outdoors and also frees your arms to move about and do things (or take care of older children). It’s funny to think of our little man being carried around like that!

I’m learning a lot about the Korean culture and babies! They have a lot of baby stores here and it is fun to go inside and see what they have! They use a lot of the same things (brands and all) that we do in the states. In the area we live in I see most women with the babies strapped to their backs rather than in strollers. It’s more practical I suppose. They don’t have any kind of regulation (that I know of) about child safety restraints in vehicles over here. I’ve seen kids standing in taxi cabs, and babies in mother’s laps or strapped to the mother in a Snuggli type carrier. Don’t let that fool you though. The Koreans adore babies here and they won’t let the language barrier get in the way of telling you what they think about your baby either! Oh… so many stories about this particular aspect of the culture! The Koreans think “white babies” are cute, but I’ve heard they think they are generally badly behaved! They especially love blonde-haired babies! One friend of ours said that she puts a hat on her little girls (blonde) head when they are out in public to avoid the attention as much as possible because her 4-year old daughter doesn’t like it. They will come up to you and go on and on (in Korean so you have no idea what they are saying) about blonde hair. And they aren’t afraid to touch either! A similar thing happened with us one day. A group of high school aged girls were on lunch break in the Ville shopping area outside of post. John had Caden strapped in the Snuggli so he could see the world as we walked and shopped. The group of girls approached us and soon we were surrounded by maybe 8 to 10 girls, all oooohing and aaaaahing over Caden and touching him and even pulling out their camera phones to take pictures of him! They LOVE American babies.

Ajumma will let you know if she thinks your baby isn’t warm enough, too. She will rearrange the blankets I have tucked around Caden to cover his head, feet, etc. the way she thinks it should be. It’s funny and makes for funny stories, but it is also quite annoying! One of the first things I learned to say in Korean is “baby sleeping.” I quickly learned that the phrase was not serving its purpose! I learned that phrase so that I could communicate to the Koreans to please be quite the baby is sleeping. It didn’t work that way! Instead when I would say “agee chyanda” (which is my made up way of spelling the phrase that says the baby is sleeping) they would just repeat over and over “agee chyanda, agee chyanda” like they were excited I could say something in Korean! And the people I’ve run in to so far seem to have two volumes of speaking voices: loud and louder! So, I asked Mrs. Chong (who is a Korean national who works for John) how to say “QUIET, the baby is sleeping” (cho yong he chyanda). I haven’t had an opportunity to use it yet!

I was on the phone with Misty (my Sister-in-Law in Ohio ) one day when my doorbell rang (or the door phone). I started talking to the men on the video screen and they spoke NO English whatsoever. They were very persistent about coming in so I finally let them in. It was cute because Misty was a little uneasy about me letting these strangers in to my house! It was the weirdest thing, and even still I have no idea what they were doing, but these two Korean men came in with a bucket of gray paint and a step stool. They walked around to all the doors in my house and painted the top of them with the gray paint and then the other man came behind and wiped the paint back off. When I say the tops of the doors, I’m talking about the part NO ONE sees! The part that faces the ceiling… so strange. And then they made me sign a piece of paper and they left. This was one time when I had to use “agee chyanda” because they wanted in the nursery and Caden was in their napping. Well, they could care less and just opened the door anyway and woke him up. Ugh! I am guessing those men were doing something for the apartment complex. We have an intercom system that runs through the whole complex and every couple of days they will make annoying public announcements (in Korean) that I can’t understand. Maybe they announced one day that those men were coming….

We still haven’t had an opportunity to do much exploring. One of the places we have visited a few times is E-Mart. It is kind of like a Korean Target. The nicest one is three stories high and the escalators are my favorite part! They are wider than the ones in America and they aren’t stairs, but instead are ramps that move up and down! They are made for you to ride up with your shopping cart! We have a picture in one of our shutterfly albums of Caden on the “escalator” at E-mart in his stroller!

I hope that in my next email I will be able to include some sight seeing adventures!! In the meantime, a lot of other things have been going on in our day to day lives that I didn’t include in this email. I mentioned above that I try and keep everyone updated back home through our Family Blog. I will share the link to that below, as well as a link to our shutterfly pictures. If you go to the blog there are two links of interest: one is a link to our family photos (shutterfly) and the other to our family videos (you tube). We have a lot of videos of Caden on there! I think the most watched video is the one of him eating rice cereal for the first time! It’s definitely worth checking out (but we are a little bias)!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

With love,
John, Amanda, Caden, and Charli Nichols!
http://johnandamandanichols.blogspot.com
http://johnandamandanichols.shutterfly.com

Christmas Day 2007

Before I get to Christmas Day, I have to share a cute story about Christmas Eve! During the day we got out and ran errands on post and had lunch at Pizza Hut in the food court! That evening we went to the church Christmas Eve service. During the middle of the children's play of the Christmas Story Caden lets out one of his big squeals! My instinct was to go for his mouth and put my finger on it.... like that means anything to a 5.5 month old! Of course, no one else but John and I noticed his little out burst! I am sure this is just the first of MANY times over the next few years that Caden will "embarrass" us in this way!
This will be one of the last "low key" Christmas' for a LONG time in our home! Caden is still a little too young to get really excited about Christmas! We woke up and set up all the cameras (including the webcam so our families could watch back in the states). Caden (as expected) was more interested in the wrapping paper and boxes! He is sitting up on his own really well now. I still won't walk away from him when he is sitting because our floors are so hard that when he topples is could hurt him. Also, he can't actually get himself in the sitting position yet (due to the fact that he hates tummy time- who knows if he will ever learn to crawl)! Anyway, he had a great time sitting amid the mounds of paper and playing with it all! Here is one of many video clips up in our video section!
I was pleasantly surprised to see that John had "Caden" buy me a gift, too! I don't know if that was his actual intentions or if it was an idea that came to him after he butchered a wrapping paper job! Ha, ha! Lots of pictures of that in our "Christmas 2007" album on shutterfly! John said he didn't know what to do with all the extra paper and then he claimed that Caden wrapped it!!! :)
The rest of the day was spent sitting around watching Christmas Movies and other various TV shows while we baked cookies and brownies to bring to John's soldiers living in the barracks. While John went to deliver the goodies, Caden took a nap and I got busy making my part of our Christmas Dinner (the veggies and dessert). We were so graciously invited to have Christmas dinner with the Runkle family that we met here in Korea! We had a great time!

Goodnight

Finally... Our little boy is on a sleep schedule (of sorts). I'm almost afraid to say this because it seems that as soon as I share our triumphs, we have a huge set back.

Caden has been sleeping through the night on his own the last several nights. Usually from about 6-7pm until 6am on the dot every morning. At 6am, I nurse him and put him back down and he sleeps until about 7:15 or 7:30. Just enough time for me to get ready for the day (or type an email or a blog like I'm doing now instead).

The solid nights of sleep have been wonderful for us all! Caden is just a happy baby in general, but the last few days has really started to babble and talk. Yesterday he decided to practice his new found squeal. He squealed and squeaked at his toys and during his play times with us all day long. It is so funny. I know that those adorable fits of giggles will follow shortly! I can't wait for that!

Yesterday he also sat up by himself for about 10 minutes and played with his toys while I stood at a distance watching him. There was a Boppy-type pillow behind him but it was not hugging him and supporting him, but was there to break his fall. One toy ended up out of his reach just past his feet. He tried for a minute or two to get it and ended up falling forward in his attempts. He ended up on his tummy with blankets all under and around him. The next thing I knew he was still and calm... almost like he was in a trance. I was still watching from across the room. After about 15 minutes of just laying there so calm and peaceful, he fell asleep and slept on his tummy like that for 45 minutes (on a blanket in the middle of the playroom). Again, just another sign that he is ready to sleep unswaddled. I know he can do it, we just have to convince HIM that he can!

Sleep Training

Okay.... so our child is soooo not a "textbook" baby! He never follows what all the books say! The sleep training was unsuccessful and ended with John and I going in and swaddling him, feeding him, and putting him back to sleep in his car seat. We did this after 7 hours of on again/off again crying/fussing... What baby (besides our obviously) can go for 7 hour without sleep!?!?!? He didn't scream and cry the whole time, mainly he just fussed and whined. I finally snuck in and watched him for a while and it was those darn hands that kept flying up in the air (because he is so used to being swaddled) that kept him awake!

So, round two on Sat night we decided to take away one thing at a time. We started by laying him in his car seat, swaddled, and awake. He cried for an hour before he fell asleep (with us going in every 10 min to replace the paci but not interact with him). He slept till 3:30 and only woke up because I made John go check to see if he was breathing!!! And then on Sunday night, he slept until 4:00!!! yay!!! Progress is good!!! I will keep you all posted!

John and I have been blessed since we've been in Korea! The Lord has surrounded us with other GREAT Christian couples who have wonderful advice and guidance for us as we try and figure this whole "parenting" thing out! We have joined a couples Bible Study that is focusing on parenting a military child (one of the Home Builders studies). They were telling us to start with the training/discipline/correcting now... Well, that reminded me to blog about something else....

We started telling Caden "no" for the first time when we introduced solids. He wants to eat his hands along with the food and so we are training him to keep his hands out of his mouth. Well, when you say "no" you usually get that real serious "Mommy/teacher" look with your eyes lifted slightly and your mouth pursed.... Caden thinks it's a game. Every time I say no he smiles at me because I make that funny face!!!! Oh boy! We will have our hands full here in another few months!!!

New pictures will hopefully be up soon as well as new video! As always, links to our pics/videos are on the side!!!

Going CRAZY

I think I am about to go crazy! Ha, ha!! It is 3:20am here in Korea and we are in the process of trying to teach Caden how to soothe himself to sleep. Obviously if it's 3:20am then things are not going well.

Caden is just over 5 months old and has shown he CAN sleep through the night, so we are just encouraging him to make it a nightly habit. Unfortunately, Caden has been swaddled for every nap and every night since he was 4 days old. I have tried to take it away before, but in desperation to get some sleep I always end up swaddling him. AND Caden has slept in his car seat since he was five weeks old. It started with the reflux and the car seat brought comfort. I should have taken the car seat away when we started the reflux meds and he became a "happy spitter" and wasn't hurting due to the reflux anymore.

So we have a bunch of things we are trying to deal with in one night: no swaddle, no car seat, and no middle of the night feedings/rocking. This all came about because Caden has outgrown all of his swaddle-me blankets AND the last few nights we've all gotten very little sleep because Caden has learned to wake up and cry for our attention/comfort. Although very sweet and heart warming that he just wants us... it is not healthy for all of us to go with interrupted sleep like that. So we decided this weekend is the perfect opportunity to try some sleep training.

Of course we read lots of books, and talked with a LOT of people whose opinions we respected and we had an idea in mind. Of course nothing goes to plan!! We thought about soothing Caden without picking him up every 10-20 minutes...but he went right to sleep!!

THEN, he woke up about 2 hours later. The other option is just letting him cry/fuss and not going to him. Well, we sort of ended up doing this option because Caden is actually not crying. He does a small cry for a few seconds, then little fusses and grunts, and then SILENCE! We hope each time that the silence will be sleep, but a few seconds (and sometimes minutes) later, he's crying again...then fussing....and then soothing himself in to silence, but not sleep.

I've NEVER heard of this happening before without sleep EVENTUALLY being the outcome...however, Caden has been at it now for 5 hours! Yes, you read that correctly FIVE hours! Please remember, it has NOT been 5 hours of relentless sobbing and crying. He's actually cried VERY little and has mainly just fussed (and all moms know there is a big difference between a cry and a fuss).

Well, at this point (after 5 hours of listening to his antics) it had been 7 hours since he last ate so we decided to just offer him a feeding to see if the fussing had turned in to being hungry. Not the case because he barely wanted to nurse and instead tried to sleep in my arms or smile up at me. He didn't seem all that upset or anything, he wasn't sobbing or doing that funny breathing thing we all do after we've been crying... it's almost like he was really asleep all that time, but crying in his sleep! It's insane. We have now resorted to going in every 10-15 minutes and soothing him, without replacing his paci....

That didn't last long because he is now crying more and fussing less with our frequent visits to his bedisde... so we sit... and wait... and pray for wisdom as we try and figure out what to do next and how long to let this go on...

I will let you all know how it goes! UGH!!!!

Jumping and Rolling

Caden is changing so much! I think back to just a few weeks ago and it amazes me how much he's changed even since then! It's so much fun, but sometimes very sad because those innocent, sweet time are gone (but so is all the crying that was associated with his colic/fussing/reflux)!!

A lot has happened in the past few weeks! He is rolling over now, both ways on the same day! Of course, it seems he fusses during tummy time with Mommy still, but if it's Daddy then he shows off and rolls and coos! I suppose I should get used to it because from what I hear that is how it usually always is with daddy's!!

Caden is loving his jumperoo and goes about 90 miles and hour jumping in it. Even when he's tired of it and wants out...he starts to fuss and if you don't get there fast enough it turns to crying... but he's STILL jumping the whole time! It's so funny! He seems to go from 90 to nothing in about 10 seconds. He will be cooing and talking and having a good ole time and then BAM! He's done!

He is still on a crazy sleeping schedule, but we hope that will change soon with the arrival of his crib. He surprised us and slept for 10 hours one night!! That is something he hasn't done since he was 3.5 months old! It tells me he's waking out of habit at night, and not hunger.

We took our first family road trip down to Deagu for the battalion Christmas Party. Caden's first babysitter outside of our family was an ajumma (the respectful term for an older Korean woman). She spoke very little English, but is the trusted "nanny" for another family in the battalion who assured us she would take good care of Caden. I felt sorry for her because Caden started crying when we got there and from what we could understand he cried almost the whole time we were gone.

Well, speaking of crying.... he just started! Going to bed is always so hard for him. I better go see why he woke up already! But before I go... at his weight check last week he had ALMOST gained another pound! He was 13 lbs 15.5 ounces!!