I have a ton of photos since about October that I am very behind on uploading. I hope to get to them sometime. Facebook is just kind of funny now, so I have to see if there is any easy way to upload them so that they are not high res without converting them all first. That would not be fun.
Anyway, the photo above is a recent one showing one of Nehemiah's new favorite activities--playing with pots and pans. Only relatively recently have we allowed him to openly roam around the house (minus the bathroom and "office"), so he has enjoyed being able to cling pots and pans around, as well as take the house phone off the charger and put it back on again. HS doesn't fancy this too much, but it doesn't bother me in the least.
He absolutely loves to walk around the house wearing our slippers, particularly his Appa's. He does a very surprisingly good job with it. I will have to make a video sometime and upload. I wound up buying him a pair of his own slippers, which he loves. However, he still likes to put the big slippers on over them. I don't mind it, but when going from room to room, there is a part of the door frame that is elevated. If your home is carpeted, when you go from the kitchen to the dining room, for instance, there might be a kind of gold bar that is in place to make the transition of carpeted to not look nicer. Korean houses are not carpeted, and our house in particular basically has door frames that really go all the way around and can be tripped on. It's hard to explain, but just take my word for it. He has learned to lift his feet up higher when he has the slippers on, but he still trips sometimes.
Nehemiah also loves to wander around with the hair dryer. It is simply amazing how fast he is learning nowadays. I told and showed his that when walking around with it, he needs to pick up the cords so that he doesn't trip, and he followed right away. Yesterday, he wanted to walk around with a small blanket, and I taught him the same deal. He was very proud to show me he understood, applauding himself after doing so.
Since November, he has sprouted 8 more teeth for a total of 16. He had been teething for ages with them (the joys of molars), so I was very happy when they finally broke through.
Around December, many of my friends got on the topic of when to wean their children off of pacifiers. At that point, Nehemiah was only using them to help him sleep at night. I kept wondering when would be best, but he suddenly weaned himself one day. And when I say he weaned himself, I mean he let us know that under no circumstances were we to even offer him one. I think he figured out that it made him sleepy, and of course, sleep is for babies. He's not a baby anymore, so fight the power, right? Something like that. Anyway, he positively will not take one.
Similarly, since he had not had anything from a bottle since about June, he will not drink anything from a bottle. He doesn't even like his sippy cup that much. It just has to be a bendy straw or straight out of the cup.
His communication skills have just sky-rocketed. From his daycare, which he is still attending only while I am teaching, he learned how to bow while greeting or saying thank you (in Korean). He's picked up a couple of other things there as well. When eating, he's very vocal about when he wants to drink in between bites. When he's in his playpen, he will say "Go" if he wants to get out. He often brings me his baby carrier and sits in my lap after I've strapped it on so that I'll pick him up and walk around with him.
And oh, the TV. The TV.
It's adorable in essence. He climbs up onto the sofa very excitedly and points to the TV when he wants to watch. Failure to respond immediately has him standing on the sofa, searching the back of it for the remote since we often put it there. If he finds it, he will put it into our hands and point to the TV, telling us what he wants (Sing-along with Pororo). If it is not there, he turns to lean over the arm of the sofa to search for it on top of the microwave. It's adorable how excited he gets about watching, but he is definitely a little bit addicted. I've been along with him this weekend, so we've been working on not always asking for the TV.
Allowing myself to get a little sidetracked, I really enjoy when he and I have long stretches of time alone. It's just different when HS is home. Yesterday, he was being cranky, so even though it was starting to get dark out, we went out for a bit. Of course, he fell asleep right away and woke up when we got back home. When HS is here, I suppose he sometimes protests us going out because it's too cold or some other excuse. I'm not saying he's bad for doing so, but it's just kind of nice to not have that extra nagging voice. But don't tell him I said that. At any rate, I think I'll encourage him to go away on more weekend trips with his friends...
Back to developments, I've started teaching him how to use a spoon. When he's being defiant and refuses to eat, it helps to give him a spoon so he at least thinks he's feeding himself. He's catching on very quickly. I like to let him spoon-feed with foods that will stick to the sppon, such as sweet potatoes, so that there isn't a huge mess all over the place. Many parents are happy to let their children get food all over the place, but that's just not for us. As always, he loves to cheer himself on when he is doing well. It'll still be awhile before he gets complete freedom to self-feed, as he enjoys mashing his food between his fingers and then rubbing it in his hair.
Ah, I almost forget! We went in this week to get him his first MMR shots. I was very against getting the varicella vaccine, but we wound up getting that as well. If we were in America, I would not have gotten it. Here, however, parents tend to not worry about the well-being of others, and I was just concerned that if someone at daycare exhibited signs of it, the mother would just send him anyway instead of keeping him home. I think this resounded in my mind because of one particular day when we were coming back home from being out somewhere where Nehemiah had a cold (I think this was actually right before he came down with Roseola) and ran into the mother of another child at the same daycare. We mentioned how he wasn't going to daycare because he was sick, and she thought we were so strange because she'd send her child anyway. I know many people still send their children even if they have a cold, but the impression she left was very strong.
At any rate, the doctor said a lot of people have it in Korea right now, so I asked if there was mercury/thimerosal in it (nope) and we just went for it. He got them in the arm and was such a champ. Didn't cry at all. He voiced his complaint and was then over it. I fed him afterward, but the people there tried to tell me I had to wait at least 30 minutes. I had never heard of such a thing before and said that I was going to feed him anyway. They just walked away unhappy. I couldn't even find anything online to support not feeding him right after.
Nehemiah definitely has a temper, but I still think it's far less than that of other children. He knows when he is in trouble and often acts sweet and cuddly after he has been reprimanded.
I still receive weekly updates about development milestones, and the one I got this week said that many children start going from two naps to one around this time. While he sometimes takes a quick nap when he gets home from daycare, he has been on a one-nap schedule for a long time. I was pretty surprised when I read that.
I'm sure I am leaving something out, but my time is limited since he sometimes naps for just one hour instead of two. I will update more as time permits.
Always sending lots of love and prayers everyone's way~
