Hubby's classes and Chloe's personality

It's 7:15pm, and Hubby just left for his English Bible Study. Chloe and I attended his children's class today in order to "help" him. Yeah, right. He had that place under. control. The kids were attentive and excited. The classroom pace was upbeat and fun. The entire two hours was very well managed and executed. Having never seen my "teacher" husband in an actual classroom setting, I have often wondered what it would be like to be one of his students. I have to say, I was THOROUGHLY impressed with his mad skills.

Should you happen to doubt my word, stay tuned. I plan on having a video up by the end of the week.

In other news, my little girl is growing. I told her to stop. I tried everything. I bribed her with candy. I threatened. I pleaded. I even half-heartedly considered giving her coffee which, I have been told, will stunt her growth.

All to no avail.

Her vocabulary and sentence structure seems to become more and more "grown up" every day. Seriously, every day hubby and I look at her and ask, "Where did she learn that phrase?"

We noticed it start just a couple weeks after arriving here. It's like all of the change has jump-started her little brain, and she's suddenly picking up on everything she hears (both English and Korean).

While it makes me sad to watch my little baby girl turn into a full-fledged toddler, I also REALLY enjoy discovering her little (or not so little) personality. Just this month, I learned that she only likes the first half of "Goodnight Moon" and would prefer to skip the part after "goodnight, room." We discovered that she wants a "red fish" to come home with her from the store (a request which we finally gave into yesterday), and while we went through an entire list of names for said aquadic creature, she finally decided that his name is "just Fish." Apparently, the most exciting part about "baby sister" coming home is that, when that event happens, Grandma and Grandpa are coming too! She doesn't like bread-and-butter pickles, but she likes the juice they come in. She likes to wear one sock to bed at night, and she is willing to endure extreme torture (in the form of hair pulling) so she can have pigtails like Barbie.

These are only a FEW of the things I am discovering about my little girl now that she is becoming more and more adept at telling us how she thinks and feels.

(Side note: It's 7:30pm, and a lady from the church just rang my doorbell to give me a plant. She can't speak English; so I don't know who it's from or why she's giving it to me. Earlier today, a different lady came bearing a bag of apples and pumpkins. I have no idea what these gifts are for, but I dutifully say "gumsumneedah" or "thank you" and offer them some coffee. This is my life, friends. Good times, good times.)

Another change that has happened in her within the last week is this: my ever-so-shy little girl has completely stepped into her role as the "beautiful American baby." Everywhere she goes, strangers greet her, touch her head, make faces at her, and give her candy. Until this week, staying true to form, she would simply bury her face into mommy and say, "nooooooo..."

But recently, she has been waving back, bowing to strangers (a traditional Korean custom) and even using a few basic Korean greetings.

Who IS this child?!

Anyways, she and I will continue to attend hubby's children's class as often as possible. It's about 2 hours a day, three days a week, and it provides great interaction for both Chloe and the children who are learning English. Chloe really seemed to enjoy today, and she was even able to participate in the activities since they are learning very basic things like the alphabet, counting, and phrases like "Hello, my name is...."

She colored, she sang, she watched a movie, and she ate pizza. It was great fun for her to participate and for me to watch.

As I said, expect a video of all this by the end of the week. Great fun, y'all. Great fun.