Measuring up

Baby websites abound, and teeming within are articles, Q&As and message boards about baby milestones. How much they should weigh, what they should be eating, how much should they be eating, whether they are smiling, crawling, talking, doing quadratic equations in their heads and signing the answers to you.

In the beginning of parenthood, this is all helpful. You are assured that poop should be that color, that your baby is not the only one projectile vomiting on you, and repeatedly shaking their head at 7 months old is not a sign of autism (yet). You check how you and your baby are doing against how everyone else is doing. And it's really all a matter of whether they are eating enough, peeing and pooping enough and sleeping enough.

As the babes grow a little older, the more complex milestone tracking begins. Are they holding their head up? Are they tracking you with their eyes? Do they respond to your voice? And the brag reports start coming in. "My baby smiled at me for the first time today!" "My baby rolled over!" Then the questions/concerns follow. "My 2 month old hasn't laughed yet. Is something wrong?" "My 4 month old falls over when I prop him up into a siting position. Is he developmentally delayed?" The questions sound a little ridiculous to the non-baby-website devotee, but when 324 moms who have a baby that is the same age as yours happily proclaim that their 9 month olds are walking and you look over at your baby and she is on the floor on her stomach spinning herself in a circle because she hasn't figured out how to propel herself forward, you can't help but worry.





Pianos are for eating. Right?

The worst is when you post a concern that your baby is not doing something and ask for suggestions on how to encourage them to do it, and someone responds: "My baby has been doing that since she was 2 weeks old!" Objection, nonresponsive. Also, this is not your forum to brag, bitch! Way to allay my worries. Also you are a liar. At 2 weeks all babies are little puddles of squishy and don't do shit.

But this is where the kiddie competition begins. At birth. It's a little insane and horrible, but you can't help but to become absorbed in it. You buy that baby sign language book and sign words to her all day. You get
the baby Einstein and leapfrog toys that will develop the foundations of her future geniushood. You read message boards that argue ferociously about whether cow milk or almond milk is the best milk for your child once she turns one. I mean, what the fuck is almond milk? Do almonds have udders? It becomes a little bit of a rat race and sometimes when I am signing "milk" to Violet and she just farts in response, I wish we lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere in another century instead of worrying whether she is going to turn out to be high school drop out Asian car model because I let her watch television and she has fallen off the bed three fucking times so far. And once off the couch. Apparently It takes four times for me to learn my lesson.

And this is only the beginning. Next it will be toddler gym classes, music lessons, tennis lessons, honors and AP courses. So that she can grow up, go to a good college, graduate school, get a good job that pays a lot and then quit so that she can maintain her sanity. Like moi!

I kind of hope she becomes a painter. Or an acrobat.

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Waaah bath time

At home we do baths in a tub shaped like a blue whale. She splashes around in it on top of the bathroom sink and munches on a duck.

I couldn't bring the tub to the motherland, and she's too big to stick in the sink, so we do baths in the big bathtub.




Which apparently is an experience akin to one of the nine circles of hell. When V realizes that I am going to stick her in this giant crevasse, she starts whimpering and clutching at me. As I lower her down she gets louder and more frantic, and initiates the grip of death. She remains at the whimpering level as long as I let her hang onto my shirt, hair, skin, eyelids, whatever she has latched onto while she stands in the tub while I am bent over at a ninety degree angle. I soap her down with one hand while maneuvering the detachable shower nozzle in my right hand. Once her body is rinsed off, it's time for her head and arms. For this she has to sit down in the tub, because I can't clean her hair when it's pressed against my face. So she starts screaming. In a tiny space. With ear shattering acoustics. Aaaack. As soon as I pick her up to dry her off and let her see herself in the bathroom mirror, she laughs. Drama queen!

I guess if someone lowered me into a large container that had walls as high as I was tall and sprayed me with water I might cry.

I tried showering with her once. I've read about all these women and their wonderful bonding experiences in the shower. Well I got soap into v's eyes and I almost dropped her about 80 times because she was like a little slippery fish and regardless of how I stood one of us was getting sprayed in the face. SO RELAXING.

So yeah. Blue whale tub. A must.

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Naked time

We hardly ever have naked time. I am paranoid about unexpected pee and poop. But the humidity here is making V chafe, so tada:





Of course, she peed on the floor pretty soon after. Paranoid I am not.

And yeah, she is going to kill me in 12 years or so when she finds a picture of her naked ass on the Internet. Hi big Violet--I love you.


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Purple nurples

V gives me these daily. Cue the howl. I'm going to have to fashion a bra out of those cups that guys wear.


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No more yogurt!

In this family we eat yogurt naked. It's the only way.

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Korean drivers

People (white people) stereotype korean drivers as bad drivers. It's a stereotype in the US because not all Koreans are bad drivers. But it's a fact in Korea. In fact the real bad Korean drivers in the US are probably ones that grew up in Korea and immigrated later in life.

There is no such thing as yielding to pedestrians here. I was pushing V in her stroller towards the curb to cross the street, and a car was slowly making a turn onto the same street. I continued to cross because I ASSumed that the rules of the road were universal. This car freaking rushed at me. I am pretty sure he accelerated. I squawked like a chicken and skeddadled across to the sidewalk while Jonker made angry alpha male gestures at the car.

Cars park on the sidewalk on the large roads. Where people are. I had to push V's stroller away because a car wanted to park where we were standing. Here you go, asshole.

There are no sidewalks if you are not on the main road. There are large roads the size of highways that criss cross each town. Most of the buildings in the towns are on the little roads that branch off of the large roads. These little roads are squirrely paths that twist and turn. Cars park alongside the paths, leaving just enough room for moving cars to go past. There are no sidewalks at all, which means you have to scoot along, looking behind you to make sure you are not going to get plowed down by a pedal happy motorist. And they have no problem trying to just squeeze past you.

The delivery men are fucking insane. They ride motorcycles that have little metal boxes screwed onto the back that store food, and they don't give a shit who else is on the road. They will run red lights, cut you off, run you over, etc. because THE FOOD MUST BE DELIVERED AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. What the fuck guys. It is just freaking food. I don't think Koreans even tip delivery people. So these drivers are just trying to kill other people for fun. These guys should get recruited for ambulance driving.

U-turns. Jeezus. The large roads are as wide as highways (8 lanes across), but there is no overpass so that cars on one side can get to the other side. Instead, just before the intersections there are u-turn lanes. Cars go into that lane and do a U-ie before the light lets the oncoming traffic zoom on. Ok fine. Except here no one waits their turn. So you have like four cars doing u-turns at the same time, in the same space. It is like insane synchronized swimming, except none of the steps are choreographed, nobody knows what anyone else is doing, and we are talking about fucking cars zooming around with human beings inside of them.

It is amazing that Korea is so full of people, because they should all be dead.

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Hark from the motherland

The little monster and I are in the motherland till May 31.

Here is some advice: DO NOT GET ON A 14 HOUR PLANE RIDE WITH YOUR BABY. Just don't do it. Or if you do, bring 140 ear plugs for all of the other passengers, hard liquor for yourself, and an anvil to drop on your baby's head to knock her into blessed unconsciousness.

There was a lot of yelling, crying and precious little sleeping. Some by me, mostly by the baby. Holy crap did she not want to sleep. The airline stewardesses would not let me let her cry it out. Why notz? Pouty face. So guess who had to soothe her for hours and hours while standing and wearing her in the ergo? I am that lucky winner. Korean Airlines should refund the cost of my seat and the baby's seat, because we did not use them. The plane was hot, but wearing her was the only thing that would keep her quiet. It turns out that her body heat + my body heat = 5000 degrees, which defies all natural laws known to man. If we could only harness the power created by my and my baby's sticky stomachs, the world would no longer need oil or coal or natural gas, carbon emissions would decrease significantly, and we would not die horrible fiery deaths when the greenhouse gases burn off the rest of the atmosphere leaving us to fry under the heat rays of the sun. If only.

Once we landed and got to our destination, I was certain she would sleep. So certain! But she didn't. She catnapped, in the ergo, waking frequently and wailing. I probably wore her for 36 hours in a 48 hour period. At one point I was trying to sleep sitting straight up, since any backwards leaning by me would instantly wake her.

She is now over her jet lag and sleeping normally. Lucky for me I get to do this again when I go home.

Does anyone know where I would go to buy an anvil in Seoul?

[Insert title here]

I hate titles. Requires thought.

Anyhoo, diaper changes continue to be a complete pain in the ass. The crying, screaming, kicking, trying to launch one's entire body off the changing pad continues. Trying to change V's diaper is like trying to put a diaper on a grasshopper. I can't wait till our 14 hour plane ride to Korea on Tuesday. I would just like to tie a giant garbage bag around her waist to avoid the inevitable blowouts.

The other day I got as far as taking off the old diaper and putting a new one on, but she would not let me put her clothes back on. The screaming was ferocious, and could only be stopped by a mum-mum, AKA baby crack.

Today I learned that I will always get my way by screaming. Score.

Already I am teaching V to create a connection between happiness and snack food. Awesome parenting!

But really, all of the things you swore you would never do as a parent before you were a parent will all come to pass. You will learn to compromise your beliefs and values for the sake of some peace and quiet. Because your eardrums cannot take that kind of chronic abuse and sometimes, you really need to poo and only the television will hold her into a zombie gaze for long enough to take care of that business.

Actually I just took a poo in the bathroom while playing peekaboo with V in the living room. So only a slight compromise of my dignity today.

Baby talk

The other day, at the park, I was pushing V in a swing next to a dude who was pushing his son in a swing. He looked over at us, and said, "Aww, I wike your headband. What a pwetty headband!" Blarrggghh.

I don't do baby talk. I understand that sometimes something is so cute you want to make inarticulate noises, but why persist in having a one-sided conversation full of mispronounced words? And guys, never ever ever do baby talk. It never really bothered me before, but that was before I heard a guy try to talk like a 2 year old and it turns out it makes me want to barf.