The Fowler Family Blog

A year ago today we underwent our IVF procedure to create Cormac.  Wow!  What a wonderful day for us to get to celebrate.  It is still so surreal that we are parents to our precious little guy.  He is so amazing!  We weighed him today he’s almost 14 lbs!  He’s growing like crazy!  He’s starting to laugh a lot and attempting to roll over.  Well, it’s more like a 1/2 roll to his side, but he’s trying. 

Ryan joked that we should get a stamp on his bottom that says, “Made in Korea with U.S. parts.” 

Cormac in his new hat and mittens

Today was Cormac’s 100th Day Birthday! 

Baek-il (100th day from birth) and Dol (First Birthday) - Baek-il is the baby’s 100th day anniversary, and the family has a small celebration for the baby’s health and the mother’s recovery from delivery. On that day, people make Korean rice cakes called Baek-seol-gi or Su-su-pat-deok, and pass them around to neighbors, believing that sharing the cakes with 100 people will lead to the baby’s healthy growth. Those who receive the rice cake return the plates with threads, rice, or money on them. Threads represent a wish for a long healthy life, and rice and money mean a wish for wealth for the baby

Keum Hee helped me order the traditional rice cake (similar to Angel food cake or sweet white bread) and Ryan and I passed it around to all of our friends on base and the various departments.  The Koreans on base thought it was pretty cool that we were celebrating a Korean custom.   

In honor of the Korean holiday, Cormac wore one of his crazy Korean shirts. 

Some of you may remember our “$120 tacos” the last time Ryan ate Mexican food here, this time the price was much better and the food was fabulous!  I had gone out for Mexican food in Masan with the girls before and Ryan, Cormac and I finally went back last night. 

Here’s Ryan enjoying his “Special Fajitas”

The salsa there was SO spicy that our eyes were watering from it!  Ryan was thrilled to have a Margarita with salt.  We are planning on going back there soon. Of course nothing compares to the Mexican food in San Diego, but this did help to satisfy our craving.

We were invited to attend the wedding of our Sonographer Michelle.  We were honored that she thought of us and since we had never attended a Korean’s wedding, we were excited about it. 

It was definitely interesting and very different from American weddings.  Korean’s get married in wedding halls and only a few people are in the wedding area, but people stand out in the hallway to watch the quick ceremony.  Then, rather than a reception, all of the guests (from all of the weddings that are going on in the various halls) go eat at a buffet. 

Michelle looked beautiful and seemed so happy! 

 

We were also happy to get to see our IVF Dr., the Pediatrician, Lactation consultant and a few nurses.  Most of them hadn’t seen Cormac since he was a newborn, so they were thrilled to see him.  He was on his best behavior too and was a champ during the long day.  

We had a blast running today in the Inaugural Chinhae Half Marathon, 10k and 5k race.  The weather was perfect and we joined a few people from base along with 10,000 other runners. 

Ryan has been training pretty hard for his race and I had been training some for my race as well.  Of course Ryan was wanting to beat two other times from his previous half marathons.  I was just aiming to finish.

Ryan finished with an outstanding time of 1 hour and 45 minutes!

Here we are happy after we’ve finished running! 

I did okay (33 minutes) and was happy that I was able to run 3 miles.  Now we are planning on running a 5K the day after Thanksgiving and another 5K together in December.  

Also a special thanks to Amy and Claire who watched Cormac during the race.  He enjoyed being rolled around in the stroller and listening to the live music.  He also enjoyed all of the attention from the Koreans staring at him.  We were seriously some of the ONLY Americans there.  Ryan and I saw only saw two other “white” people running!
 

Can you believe it?  Time does fly by when you are having fun!  Or when you are delirious from lack of sleep…  

Cormac is smiling a lot now, laughing a bit and pretty much just enjoying life.  He loves taking long walks in the stroller and letting Duke snuggle up with him.  He has lunch with daddy a few days a week which allows Ryan to bond with him and we are enjoying parenthood immensely so far.

Jamie, our neighbor and uber talented photographer offered to take some more pictures and we finally had a chance to take them yesterday.  Here are a few of our favorites.

Our little man

Gorgeous Blue Eyes, Cute little blue diaper

Since Duke is feeling a bit left out, we decided to incorporate a picture of him with Cormac.  Actually any time that Cormac is on the ground either in his bumbo, on his activity mat, or on a blanket, big brother Duke is right there by his side. 

Look at that head control- he’ll probably be crawling in a month like his Uncle Nathan

And here is a picture of Cormac in his Bumbo.  He’s still trying to decide if he likes it or not. 

On Saturday the base hosted a picnic and held various sports for our Korean counterparts.  Ryan, Cormac, Duke and I walked down there. 

Koreans are known to enjoy taking pictures of Americans, so when a lady approached us and asked if she could take a picture, we figured she wanted a picture of Cormac or of us and we started to pose.  She said, “no, not of you, a picture of your Dog.”  We were a bit surprised at first, but then we had Duke “sit” and she took his picture.  It was also an ego boost for him since at times, he feels a bit neglected.

Our precious “little guy” who recently turned six years old

We had a good time dressing up and passing out candy for Halloween.  Cormac wanted to dress up like daddy, so Ryan became the patient (with an injured arm), I was a nurse and Cormac was the Doctor.  He looked really cute in his scrubs.

The hospital staff

We just had to include a picture of J.D. dressed up as a “WV Super Fan”…

We hope you all had a great Halloween!