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I’ve been meaning to get a place set up to share just a stream of August-related photos for your viewing/downloading/printing pleasure. I was waffling between using an iCloud Photostream or Flickr and went with Flickr. You can find it at http://flickr.com/gp/rcniman/7P8M27/.

Unlike this site, it is only available to ‘family and friends’. However, that link should operate as a ‘guest pass’ and allow anyone using it to see the photos. So, just like the link to this blog, you may pass it along to other people we know. We just didn’t want our photos to be open on Flickr in a way that we’d get comments from random people we don’t know or find a photo of August used on some daycare website.

Here are a few videos from the past day.

First up, August does a good job of sleeping with a lot of noise in the background. He does, however, tend to startle a lot and move around:

Next, we have a video of Carly trying to burp him. But burping time often just means falling asleep time:

This is from last night. After Carly went to bed I thought he was about to be soundly asleep three times. After the third time I set him on the floor to swaddle him and his eyes instantly opened, 100% awake. He would proceed to happily stay awake for the next hour and a half. Here he is happily lying on the floor:

Finally, we’ve started to give him sponge baths. Here’s today’s:

I was wrong, August did find time to tweet tonight. Check him out on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/AugustZinn

We had a good time in August’s room last night, where we shot the latest selfie. Here are a couple videos of August enjoying being awake. 

Carly and August both had checkups today. So the four of us piled in a taxi (note: putting a car seat into a taxi is a rather slow and careful action, so no actual piling occurred) and we headed to Cheongdam. 

First, August got checked out. Here are his current stats:

In American that means he is 1 foot 8ish inches, 8 lbs, and has a decent-sized head. He’s regained a good bit of weight but has a way to go to get back to his birth weight. 

Here is Oma with August in the doctor’s office:

Then Oma, August, and I sat in the waiting room while Carly had her appointment. I know he can’t focus very far, but he was fascinated by the colors from the big windows and all of the overhead lighting. He squirmed every which way to look at all the lights:

Back home, my coworker/friend Renee brought over a wonderful veggie lasagna for dinner and stayed for a visit: 

As if lasagna and beef stew (for tomorrow) wasn’t enough, they also surprised us with a present. The giraffe is handmade in Illinois and one of the books (with the spider) was one of Renee’s books from when she was a child:

All of us are particularly tired tonight, so time for bed. August in particular seems a bit worn out, so I don’t think he’ll be on Twitter this evening. 

I don’t think this will actually continue to be a thing, but we’ll see… 

This was last night (Tuesday) after Carly had gone to bed. 

Today was our big trip to the American embassy to apply for August’s CRBA (Consular Report of Birth Abroad), social security number, and passport. It was also our first time taking a taxi to/from downtown.

The taxi ride went fine (proof that I know how to say ‘American embassy’ in Korean and that August was sleeping) and we got to the embassy early. So we went and had a chai and mocha in a coffeeshop:

Then we went to the embassy where we stood in line then took a number then turned in paperwork then paid money then sat and waited for our name to be called (they actually called August’s name -“August Zinn Niman”, to be exact – and that was kind of cool to hear) and then we had our interview and then we left. We (August and I) wanted to take our picture in front of the embassy, but certain other people in the group thought we would get arrested even if we took said photo from across the street. So there is no visual proof of this part of the trip. I guess I could take a photo of the receipt, but that would be boring.

Anyway, the weather was nice and August was still asleep so we headed north to go to Gyeongbukgung Palace. That took us right by the Korean Contemporary History Museum, which Carly pointed out is where she went into labor. So, we had to get a photo of Carly and August in front of the museum:

We crossed the street and entered the palace. After awhile August woke up and needed to be fed and changed. Here he is being fed in a palace. We figure that not many babies – American babies, at least – can claim to have been fed and changed in a palace.

August went back to sleep as I carried him around the palace. Here he is resting on a bench with the palace in the background.

As we were on our way out, we saw a practice of the changing of the guards. We watched for a few minutes and August seemed to enjoy the drums and music and fell back to sleep.

We caught a cab back home and August again slept the whole way. Thus ended our even grander day out. Tomorrow we head back to the birthing center for a check up. A bit more straightforward than today (although we might try the bus with him for the first time).

Finally, here just a couple more photos of the palace and from today for the fun of it (click on the photo to see the others):