Monday, July 27, 2009

Improvement

The woodwork was painted yesterday. I didn't feel like going all the way to Uijeongbu to choose a colour, so I had simply told Sejin: ivory. I figured anything is an improvement over the bright blue that it was. He took photos today and it does look better. Clean.

The wallpaper arrived today. It's a heavy box. I hope I made the right decision. As I said before, either a really good idea, or a really bad one. We'll do that on Wednesday.

Grace still enjoying the sitting position. Tonight she sat in the centre of our bed for a good 10 minutes just staring at us. No smiling. It was kind of weird. Her posture was sort of gorilla-like and she looked territorial as well. Sejin took some good pictures of it.

Today I had one of those guests that doesn't 'get' when to leave. A dear Korean friend of mine who is 7 months pregnant. She's really lovely, but I think she must be bored. She arrived before 2:00. Around 6:00 I started hinting that we had to start getting Grace in the bath and ready for bed, but at 8:00 she was still here. Sometimes it's difficult to explain to people without kids about the importance of the nighttime ritual. It's especially important for Grace since I've had problems with getting her down at night at a reasonable hour. She's pretty sensitive about sleep. Now that she's going down again between 7 and 8:30 (this took work!), I'm not going to mess with that for anything. I ended up just starting the routine while she was still here and a couple times she looked kind of horrified. She said to me before she left, "Are all babies like this?" I don't know if it was in reference to Grace's resistance or the amount of work it took to get through the routine, from bathing to changing, feeding, reading and then finally putting her down. When I finally whispered to her, "Good night! Good luck with the baby!" as she headed out the door, I was exhausted and ready for my ice cream reward.

7 comments:

Becky said...

I had that happen with my Korean girlfriends when they came over. Usually they ended up staying the night but I never knew whether they would or not. They also would come over spur of the moment. I figured it was the Korean way and now I miss our sleepovers terribly!

San said...

Good tat ur getting ahead wit t wallpaper...

Do post pics of Grace sitting!!!

not-so-quiet mom said...

You did exactly what I do when people stay into bed time -- just continue with the normal routine. That's too funny that you horrified the pregnant lady with the realities of having a baby. She'll find out soon enough that, yes, it is a lot of work. It's not just all about cuddling with the cute little baby! ; )

MommyCha said...

My husband doesn't get this at times! I'm trying to reinforce the importance of the bedtime routine, but he really doesn't understand. The nights that he works until 10pm, he is honestly surprised to come home and find Thomas asleep! 9:30-10 is his normal bedtime and with the routine, he will go to sleep easily. Tom likes to have friends over late at times and it drives me nuts because I cannot get Thomas down when there are noisy people in the next room. At least your friend has some idea of what it will be like now. I think
my husband is still clueless! Hahaha..

Sarah said...

I think it's a guy thing maybe? Sejin respects the routine now because he can see how serious I am about it (I scare him sometimes!).... and also I think because he sees that it's effective. It took a while to convince him of this though....

Haha, my poor friend. She was initially saying that she was afraid of the birth. No, no, no ... you should be afraid of bedtime! ... but I did assure her that not all babies are like that and maybe she'd get lucky. ;)

Alfee said...

Yeah, give her false hopes!! Hahaha!
last 2 nights, Ethan crashed at 6.30! and hasnt woken up until the next day. I think its because I get up early these days for camp, so hes up at 7.30 or 8 instead of 9 or 10. Also, I fell asleep with him at 6.30 cause I was buggered from my early mornings and summer camp. But I wake up when Kev gets home, and we can actually watch a whole movie!! Man am I lucky!! But no shopping at night, so no food in the house. More takeout for me....

What colour is the wallpaper? I'm so curious to see it now. If I ever stay to long, please be direct. Tell me to piss off. hehehe.

sharon said...

I agree Mommy Cha, men just dun get the importance of routine. I was lamenting to my husband the lack of freedom due to managing both kids' naptime - beween tyler's morning nap and emma's afternoon nap, we only have a short window of time to go out. And his reply is "it's all in your mind". bleah!