5 Signs that You're the Mother of a Toddler who Doesn't STTN

In honor of my dear son's nearly 15 months of life, I thought I would share these fun thoughts that have been with me as I continue to get up several times a night with our sweet Reece. (she writes with a hint of sarcasm)

If you are the mother of a toddler who doesn't sleep through the night...

5. You keep a sweatshirt by your bed for all of your late night wakeups when the house is freezing. On a really bad night, you don't even bother to take it off between trips into the baby's room because you know that you won't get a chance to get warm in bed.

4. You still "sleep when the baby sleeps," though you used to be of the belief that rule expired around baby's 6th month. Now, you know that rule doesn't expire until the "baby" sleeps through the night regularly.

3. You know that in the middle of the night, your refrigerator makes noises that sound like the baby when he first starts to stir. Yet, every time you hear it, your heart skips a beat because it's fooled you yet again.

2. On the rare occasion that the baby does sleep all night, you still don't sleep well because you're worried that maybe he's not breathing. There has to be a reason that he hasn't woken you up yet!

1. You don't allow your husband to actually go into the baby's room at night, for fear that he might mess up your "system" (though it is already obviously a failure), but you won't allow him to sleep as long as you're up, either.

I'm sure you have thoughts of your own to add! And, I hope you enjoyed these shots from the Museum of Flight in Seattle last winter that in no way relate to sleep!

Ballard and Mt. Rainier

Well, last week was one of those weeks. The kind where you're running around all the time, but you pretty much accomplish nothing? Oh yeah. It's a great source of pride.

We decided that the kids and I will do AWANA this year (I'm still not convinced this was a good idea!), and there was a lot of paperwork and things that had to be done in order to gain base access to participate. My friend and I took about four trips to the security office on base to get our fingerprints done before I was finally successful. What fun.

In addition to all of that, either Eric or I (or both) were gone most evenings last week, so we were really just getting the bare minimum done. The kids did homework. We ate dinner and cleaned up. That was about it! We tried to get out for bike rides, but our evenings feel so short these days.

And, of course, just as soon as we had all of the biking gear we needed and everything was figured out, one of Eric's tires went flat and we were so busy that it was probably about five days before he was able to get it fixed. He finally got it taken care of on Saturday, and we were able to ride 11 miles on Sunday. Biking is definitely our new favorite way to get to Seoul Forest because the line for the parking lot was ridiculous!

This week, we're working on preparing for Lindy's visit. We finally got some of those little things done that had been bothering me like throwing away stuff the old tenants left behind and hanging pictures on the wall. This is a four day school week for the kids before the Chuseok holiday weekend, so we've got the lazy bug in preparation for a few days off. It keeps getting harder to get out of bed in the morning!

It's always my goal to get through the last round of pictures before another one comes along, but it rarely works out. I'm close to finishing up the summer pictures, but no doubt the pictures of Lindy's visit will be delayed (if I actually manage to take any that is!).

After our trip to Skamania, we had a couple of down days to get some more shopping done, and then we began the countdown to our departure date. It was time to start saying those last goodbyes once again. So, we spent one day with my brother in Ballard, visiting the locks, hanging out at the park, and walking through town to find dinner. It was a beautiful day, and a great way to spend some quality time with him before he started his new job and we were headed back to the Land of Morning Calm.

The next day, we got up early and headed up to Mount Rainier for the camping trip with Eric's aunt, uncle, and cousin that we'd been talking about all summer. Unfortunately, we were only able to fit in one night, and we really didn't get much of a chance to check out the beauty that is Rainier because of our time constraints, but it was fun nonetheless.

Reece was more than happy to hang out in the pack'n'play, go for walks in the stroller, and sleep in a tent. In fact, I think it was one of the handful of nights that he slept straight through. The glory of the great outdoors! And the big kids, sleeping by themselves in the new tent that Eric picked up for hiking, slept in past 9:00 the next morning. We actually had to wait for them to wake up to leave because Eric had pretty much packed up everything before they got up!

But right now, as I reminisce over our summer, my youngest is chatting it up in his crib and starting to communicate that he's done in there. So, I'd better break out of the bubble before things get ugly!

Transitioning Back & Downtown Seattle

We have been busy trying to get our personal lives ready for school to start. We successfully made it to Costco and home again with groceries--that's not to say that we didn't get lost in both directions, but we did make it.

We've done lots of laundry, and we've bought school supplies. We got Cade all ready for what we thought was his first day of school, only to find out that he doesn't start until Monday. The first of many miscommunications.

We drove to his school, so at least I've seen it now. And, we've gone back and forth to YISS several times. Our classrooms are slowly starting to take shape, which is nice because, technically--until tomorrow--we're still ahead of the game.

Today, we saw lots of the staff families during the family swim time at school--my first trip to the YISS pool! And tomorrow, is our first official day back to school--meeting new staff, and reacquainting with old friends on a Saturday afternoon. We'll be back to the official grind Monday morning.

In the meantime, I leave you with pictures of our day in Seattle this summer. We had plans to meet a friend on the west side of Seattle on this particular day, but lack of communication in several directions resulted in our plans not working out, so instead we took the kids downtown.

It's funny how easy it seemed to drive and park downtown Seattle after driving in Seoul! We ran into the downtown Target where we could park for free with a $20 purchase. We always need stuff from Target, so that was an easy decision, and two hours was the perfect amount of time for us to walk down to the waterfront, around Pike Place, and then get back on the road.

The kids and I have had nasty colds for a couple of weeks now, so I've been low on energy, heading to bed early every night. We're praying for health to return quickly, as things are about to get busy!

Mariners Game & Gasworks Park

We stayed busy while we were housesitting. The day after Deception Pass, we went to a Mariners game and then to Gasworks Park in West Seattle. To be honest, there isn't much to say about this particular day. The weather was pretty nice. The Mariners lost. We tried to make the most of the day by going to the park as long as we were down in Seattle. We did kind of did a mini family photo shoot (of ourselves!). We were all tired by the end of the day!

Since I don't have much to say about this day in June, I'll tell you about our day yesterday here in Seoul. In August.

Today is Liberation Day in Korea--the day they celebrate their independence from Japan. So, we have the day off.

Remember our experience on Liberation Day last year? Well, we've been a little less adventurous this year. Today we're sitting at home, relaxing, and watching the rain POUR! It's the middle of the day, and it's dark right now!

Last night, however, Eric and I were determined to go out for our anniversary. We were all exhausted after the first full day of school, but we have the day off today, so we knew we could sleep in and have the day off to recover, if necessary!

Eric had already arranged to have a couple of the neighborhood teens come over and watch the kids. It was really sweet to see Kennedy and Cade watching the group traipsing across the parking lot to our apartment.

We had a 9th grade girl, an 8th grade girl, a 7th grade boy, and a 5th grade boy come over to hang out. They had plans to have a "Cars" themed evening, and they were all excited to get started!

Eric and I then took off and headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant. It is quite a trek to get there, so we've only been there twice before.

It takes almost an hour to get there via subway with two transfers, and it's a pretty busy area, so we try to avoid taking the kids. We thought it this would be a good opportunity to go.

We had a pretty easy trip there. It was a relatively cool evening (about 88F), and we had lots of opportunity to talk about the start of our school year.

We also had a nice dinner. By the time we were done, though, it was already past the time we had told the girls we would be back. Whoops!

So, we decided we would grab a taxi on the way home, since (in theory) it should be faster than the subway.

When we left the restaurant, we discovered that it was pouring down rain--gotta love monsoon season!

Now, you may not yet be aware, but the traffic in Seoul can become quite difficult. Especially when it's raining. And especially the night before a holiday. Thankfully, we had the combination.

It took us an hour to get from the restaurant to our door via taxi, as well. As you can imagine, it was not a cheap ride!!

We did have an interesting taxi driver, though. He knew enough English to be able to try to have a conversation with us, but we did not know enough Korean to understand much of what he was saying to us!

We made use of our translating apps to learn that he has a son and a daughter. We learned their ages and their professions, as well as where his brothers live in the States. He even shared their phone numbers with us!

He told Eric that he looked like a movie star, so I'm pretty sure they'll be best friends for life! It was the first time I've ever seen Eric tip a taxi driver--that guy sure had scored some points!

We finally made it home shortly after nine, and we were all exhausted!

Obviously, I didn't take any pictures of our adventures, but Eric was anxious to hear my version of the story. So, here's the story with a different set of pictures!