Happy Dress-Your-Kidlet-Up-In-A-Costume!

Call it Hallelujah Night, Shout for Joy, or (gasp!) Halloween... I'll just say Happy Early Dress-Your-Kidlet-Up-In-A-Costume Day! Heheh. Eli's bumblebee suit is too small for him (surprise, surprise), but these hand-me-downs are enough to satisfy my thirst for amusement:

bzzzz.... bzzzz....

I think these pictures will be filed under Amusing Pictures for Future Wedding Slideshow. My inspiration? An old picture I have of Kwang and his brother as toddlers wearing white tights with short shorts. 

Opting for more indoor activities as the weather here in LA dips at times to a 'chilly' 68 degrees , Jude has decided that he, Eli, and I are in a rock band together. I made the semi-regrettable decision one day to watch a performance of Snow Patrol on TV w/Jude. Since then, we have a daily recording session where Jude plays a tiny toy guitar the size of a TV remote while making me sit in a tiny toddler-size chair, hold Eli, and play a toy piano. It's times like these that make me wonder who the parent in this relationship really is.

So instead of displaying a picture of our band which you can just imagine in your head, I will post a more edifying photo from the weekend. While his parents were watching football on TV, Jude decided to pull up to his desk before bed and read his Bible... all by himself.

It was a special weekend as our little Eli was infant baptized. This was a day Kwang & I vowed to raise Eli in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and endeavor to set before him a godly example. I pray the Lord will enable us to raise our sons wisely and lovingly to be men of great faith, character, & integrity. Sometimes I feel selfish for having brought children into the world when I feel so ill-equipped to be a mother. I need much prayer. It makes me all the more thankful to have Kwang.

And finally, here's an updated picture of Eli & Matthew (Jean & Charles' son). As I uploaded it, I realized what a fantastic picture it is of Eli for the sole reason that for once his head doesn't look as big as it is in actuality which is about twice the size of Matthew's. What excellent strategic positioning by my friend Jean! 

 

A cute and surprising moment

Jude: "Uhmmah!"

me: "Yes, Jude?"

Jude: "Wook. I show you."

me: "Yes?"

Jude: "See!  'JUDE'..."

And a typical evening at the Kim family home:

May it be a sweet, sweet sound

So the Bears were on Monday night football and what a game it was. They were down 20 points with a few seconds left in the 3rd quarter and my husband was losing hope (despite being a Lakers fan, he is sensible enough to be a Chicago Bears fan! ). With my extensive knowledge of football, I reassured him the game wasn't over and they still had a chance to overcome the large deficit though time was running out. Okay, so really, my expertise of the game is minimal but wow, guess what? I was right! DA BEARS WON!!

But the best show of the night is below. Kwang is teaching Jude the Lord's Prayer. You will see by Jude's confusion that it is still a work in progress. But I wonder, is it as adorable to God as it is to us?

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."  Matthew 19:14

My son Dude

This picture of Eli was taken for my sisters and friends back in Chicago. So they can be close enough to smell his cuteness from here in LA.

Last week, Jude's teacher shared with me about a boy in Jude's class who can't pronounce "Jude" so he calls him "Dude". Good thing we didn't name our son Mork.

  

It was Kwang's first week at his new job and despite his long commute (we get excited when it's only one hour), we still make the effort to have dinner together every night. I imagine it will only get more difficult as the boys become older and dread eating with their "uncool" parents. But for now, Jude likes to be around us.

I usually have him fed before Kwang gets home, but sometimes Jude will eat again just to be with us. He doesn't have much interest in eating, but to him it's better than going to bed. Oh, the torture of having to sleep at night!! There may be nothing more painful for Jude than bedtime. Every night after his bedtime story, he looks up sweetly and asks, "Again?" If we let him have his way, we'd be reading book after book until the sun came up.

One night as we were all eating dinner last week, I was holding Eli in my lap. It was around 7pm so I asked him, "Eli, do you want to go night-night?" Night-night is my term for sleep and I asked this rhetorically, of course, since Eli can't understand me let alone respond. Well, Jude was sitting next to me at the table, busy eating his dinner and playing with a toy. But he overheard what I asked Eli and, without looking up, kindly informed me a few seconds later, "Eli says no."

So apparently, bedtime is disliked by all creatures under the age of three including those who can't even say they dislike it. If only I could be two years old again and be forced to get some yummy sleep.

 

Legoland

Wow, thanks for the kind comments! My shameless adoration for Jude and Eli must have been in overdrive the past few posts. But while it's effortless to gush about my boys, I can't say I am handling this thing called motherhood, or what I affectionately call the total and utter chaos that is my life, with any form of grace. But oh, how I wish it were true!

I think this is most notably marked by Jude's recent imitation of the phrase "Oh my gosh!" How did he learn it? Most likely from the countless times I've said it after having taken my eyes off one of my children for a millisecond which, wouldn't you know it, is just enough time for Jude to get into something he shouldn't, eat something chocolatey he shouldn't, or use Eli as a tool for something he definitely shouldn't. My poor Eli, the human sticker book:

And then there is the issue of food.  A few times on my way to work I've realized I forgot to make rice in the morning for Jude's lunch that day. And the sesame oil and soy sauce levels in the cooking pantry have barely dropped since Eli was born, because we've had to order out more than I'd like. My poor Kwang. Of course, he never complains... but this is probably because take-out tastes better than most of my home cooking, but that's really beside the point. And then there are the times I think I have more hands than I do and feel the sudden need to prove my multi-tasking capabilities. In a brief moment of insanity I wonder why I can't prepare Jude's dinner, throw in a load of laundry (seriously, why is there so much laundry?), watch my recorded Oprah, and hold Eli simultaneously without having something go terribly wrong. One day Eli is going to turn to me and in baby talk lovingly remind me that such dim-witted idiocy is my own pet peeve.

So since I've had Eli and returned to work, I still haven't gotten the mothering thing down quite yet. But I'm learning to better organize my time and do things on a more reasonable schedule. Of the two "careers" I have, the one at home is far more rewarding and fuels me for the one at the office. The two things I thank God for every morning are my salvation and my family. And if I think about it, when it comes to smothering the boys with hugs, snuggling with them and a good book, singing them a song albeit slightly off key, or kissing them until they literally have to peel me off, well, I think I just might be the most fantastic mom!

Having said that, we now return to our regularly scheduled shameless adoration.

This past weekend we took a trip to Legoland where kids under three are free! Jude had a blast. And we had even more fun watching him. Can you believe the mini New York below is made entirely of Legos?

  

Eli spent the majority of the day looking up at the sky from his stroller. But he seemed to have the time of his life as well.

Finally, as we were leaving Jude ran into three of his great friends, Dora, Boots the Monkey, and Diego. Their contribution to Jude's education has been to teach him how to count from 1 to 10 in Spanish... uno, dos, tres, cop-to, cinq-to...

 

 

Here he is with Diego saying "Goodbye Legoland! I had a fantastic time!"