It's lonely out here

As a first time parent in a foreign country, there are a lot of things I miss. I really wanted prenatal yoga and lamaze classes when I was pregnant. Now I wish for a new parent support group. I think part of the problem is that there are several support groups in place for the military and their families that I don't get to be a part of. Also, from what I've seen, aside from soldiers, there are not a lot of working women with babies out here. It's pretty lonely where I work as well. Almost every US employee in my directorate is a man.

As a result, I ambush anyone who comes into the library with a baby and try to strike up a conversation. I'll bet I come off as a little creepy.

My baby is not cold

Everyone loves to tell you how to care for a baby. From what I've read, this desire crosses cultures, gender, ethnicity, and age group. In Korea, people love to tell you that your baby is not warm enough.

Korean women who give birth in the summer are not supposed to run air conditioning in their homes. No matter what time of year they give birth, Korean women are not supposed to shower for one week to thirty days to avoid hypothermia, depending on who you talk to. When the nursery staff brought our baby to us in the hospital, they told us we had to turn the heat up in the room. A pamphlet we took home from the hospital told us to keep our house at a very balmy 26 degrees celcius (babycenter.co.uk tells you to keep it at 18). Koreans do tend to be more cold natured than us, so perhaps that's part of it.

Since then, every time I he has encountered my baby, Mr. Pan has told me he was not dressed warmly enough. It's become like a greeting between him and Xander. When I take Xander out, old ladies tell me he is cold. When I take him in his snowsuit, they tell me it's too cold to take a baby outside. Today was definitely the winner, when I sat in my office and listened to one of my staff tell a lady that her baby was hiccuping because she was too cold. I should add that a major gripe I have had about the library and other on post facilities is that they are way too hot in the winter, probably because Koreans are cold natured. So the baby was wearing fleece pajamas and it was about 75 degrees in the library.  Nuff said.  I am eager to see how babies are dressed in the summer.  I never paid much attention before now.

Fast asleep

His hands are so yesterday.  His feet are the hot new thing.

Super baby!

He had this long, complex conversation with his giraffe that he cut off when I turned on the camera

Why I like living in a socialist town

Politicians who browbeat America's “socialist” policies conveniently overlook our own pockets of socialist communities: military bases overseas. The entire support structure, which all of us use—from the health care system to the grocery store, gyms, childcare facilities, and restaurants—is run by the government. Now, I'm not advocating having your restaurants run by the government. We strongly prefer to eat off post. For everything else, I love it. Expenses like childcare and staying in an army hotel are charged on a sliding scale which depends on the customer's pay grade. No one pays for health care. Well, I do, because I'm a nonappropriated funds employee (taxes don't pay my salary. They actually do, but I'm still under the same umbrella as those who receive no funds from congress). When I go to the post clinic, I have to remind people that I have an insurance card. Food purchased from the commissary is very cheap and has been inspected by military food inspectors. Childcare facilities are heavily regulated and have only highly trained professionals providing care, and any kid offering babysitting services has to complete a babysitting training course. We all receive housing allowances and money for utilities. There are free buses running between every base. We have “invasive” rules like that no children under ten are allowed to be left unattended.

My favorite part about living in a community where the government takes care of everyone's basic needs—food, shelter, health care—is the lack of mentally unbalanced library patrons. I know that people in the military do have their own set of problems, but what I see is nothing compared to what I dealt with every day at the public library.

There is some ridiculousness that people associate with government institutions. I know parents who have given up rather than complete all the red tape associated with enrolling an at risk child—like one with allergies or another health problem—in the childcare center. The commissary is a lackluster grocery store, probably because they have no competition and little incentive to increase business. Then there are the restaurants, which would be out of business in months if they were trying to operate in the free market. There are not, however, ridiculously long waits to see doctors or receive any other sort of government funded service.

Most of all, I enjoy the sense of security I get knowing that my housing is taken care of, my food is safe, and my son will be in competent hands when we leave him in child care. I would trade that for the superficial perks of free market competition any day—at least for our basic needs.   

He shoots, he scores!

It's amazing how much babies learn in the first year of life. They start from zero, and have to gain all of the knowledge we take for granted, like gravity, how to focus on objects, and that objects don't disappear when they are placed out of sight. Xander is currently working on that all important skill, focusing on an object, grabbing it, and for some reason bringing it to his mouth. He's got each of these skills down separately. The third is the most perplexing. For some reason, babies do a lot of exploring with their mouths, as his slimy stuffed animals will attest. He will put his mouth on anything he can, including his seat belt straps, my shoulder, and of course, his hands.

Yesterday we got on the floor to practice his focusing and grabbing. I pulled out Sophie the giraffe and squeaked her next to his head a couple of times. He was intrigued. He reached his hand out towards her, and missed. He tried again, and touched her neck, but he hadn't opened his hands wide enough yet. The third time he succeeded in grabbing her neck. Not prepared for this, he waved her around for a minute, then brought her to...his eye! Missed again! He consoled himself by grabbing a handful of mommy's hair.

Tummy time is becoming more bearable

Babyra!

Nap Strike

Xander reached his 100^th day this weekend. In Korea, that's an occasion for a party. In the old days, that's when a baby received his or her name, though now it looks like they are named at birth. We celebrated Xander's hundredth day with me struggling to make him take a nap, and him refusing and becoming more and more hysterical as the day wore on. By 7pm, he was crying without a break.

Naps have become difficult here, and it's hard to say why. Xander has always been a reluctant napper, but some time in the past week he decided that he just wasn't going to nap any more. I checked out a few books on the subject, and we tried a few techniques over the week with little avail. Everyone touts “cry it out,” and Bobby reluctantly tried it. Nightmare. Not only did Xander cry for 30 minutes straight, which was as long as Bobby could handle leaving him in his crib, but he cried for an hour after Bobby picked him up. We tried setting regular naptimes with nominal success. He'll somewhat adhere to them—it can take up to an hour to get him to fall asleep at his nap time, even when he's clearly tired. Yesterday I tried the baby whisperer's technique. I picture the baby whisperer as a ruler slapping nanny who chides me for not putting the baby to bed at 6:30pm (roughly when I get home at night), letting him go to sleep after a meal, and rocking him to sleep. Nonetheless, she and many others think that if you put a baby down while he is still awake, he will not wake up and feel bewildered to be in the crib.

So yesterday spent the requisite hour rocking my reluctant napper to almost-sleep. I put him in his crib and sat down next to it. He startled awake, then fell back asleep, startled awake, then fell back asleep. After the fifth startle, he was up. I picked him back up and rocked him back to sleep while he cried and fought me. I put him down, the same thing happened. I picked him back up and repeated. This time, when he startled himself awake, I let him stay in the crib since he seemed to be happier there. I had previously removed all the distractions and darkened the room, but he laid there and kicked his legs for an hour. I left the room a few times; he didn't seem to mind. He just wasn't going to sleep. He actually managed to turn 180 degrees so he could see his toys bunched at the back of his crib, then got excited about that.

Needless to say, after five hours of trying to get this baby to sleep I gave up on the nap. He was miserable all evening.

Today, I spent an hour rocking him to sleep. A comically frustrating part of this routine is that Xander will poop at least once during this time, after which I will take him to his changing table, he will see his mobile, and will party himself back awake. So after a little over an hour, he was out. I had swaddled him to avoid the startle, and I let him sleep in my lap for half an hour. I put him in his crib. He's been in there for ten minutes.

Today I put the sleep training books down and started How Do Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm at Night, a book about how people from all over the world care for their babies. What a relief. Most parenting books make me feel like a failure.  Either I coddle my baby to much by rocking him to sleep, wearing him, and letting him sleep in a bassinet next to me, or I am too distant because I use a stroller, don't technically cosleep, and would like him to nap in his crib.  This book reminds me that there are many ways to raise a baby. 

And he's up. Shucks.

Ten things I've learned about motherhood

Xander is three months old now.  This seems to be going around the expat-in-Korea-who-has-baby blogosphere (yes, there are more than one of us), so I thought I'd throw in my two cents.

1. Breastfeeding is harder than you think it is, but worth it (see this post).
   
   
2. Sleep deprivation post baby is not as bad as it was pre-baby.
   I haven't slept through the night in three months. I'm one of those people who never wanted to pull an all nighter, but after I had Xander I adapted quickly to what sleep I got. Xander is a pretty good sleeper now; on a good night he'll wake up once. I find that if I do happen to sleep for six hours in a row (which is my record), I'll wake up in a panic thinking that I've somehow forgotten my baby.
   
   
3. Getting a baby to sleep is a unique challenge.
   Our challenge is nap time. I find myself taking him on a car ride, a stroll, or putting him in his ergo and walking around so that I can coax at least a small nap out of him every day. Even at bedtime I have to coax him to sleep, only to sit down and have him wake up again immediately. I'll be that we spend 20% of Xander's waking hours trying to get him to sleep.
   
   
4. Babies need constant stimulation, but surprisingly mundane things will stimulate them.
   Okay, Xander has a full gamut of noisemaking, light up, colorful toys, and he does love most of them. He also loves watching me eat, sitting on the couch propped up on pillows, staring at the wallpaper, and sucking his hands.
   
   
5. Babies can go stir crazy.
   Xander has admittedly had an exciting early life, so maybe we set him up to be easily bored. Like me, he will get cranky if we keep him inside for too long. He has to see new things. The look of wonder he gets in his eyes when watching the world go by from his stroller is incredible.
   
   
6. Babies like to keep you guessing.
   As soon as I think I've figured him out, he'll throw me for a loop. He'll suddenly refuse to nurse. He'll cry, and everything I know of to get him to stop won't work. He'll stop (almost) sleeping through the night. It's like he knows when I've gotten too confident with my parenting skills.
   
   
7. Tummy time is a total drag.
   Okay, I know we're all supposed to do this for 30 minutes a day. I have a hard time coaxing Xander into fifteen minutes of tummy time. As soon as I put him on his belly, we start the amazing mommy show, during which I pull out toy after toy, sing, rub him, and chant in a constant effort to keep him from melting down. I'm starting to see his peers pull ahead of him in the skills learned during tummy time, which leads me to try harder, but Xander is just not interested.
   
   
8. There is more than one way to be a parent.
   Everyone is sure that their style is the only way to raise children. I see book after book come out touting styles that range from tough love to constant contact and baby wearing. While social workers can certainly tell you that there are wrong ways to be a parent, many people manage to raise good, independent, smart and creative children using their own methods. Parenting methods, like politics and religion, are loaded topics that people feel very strongly about, and should probably not be discussed in mixed company.
   
   
9. Babies turn new mothers into a ball of tears.
   When he was a newborn, I would cry at least four times a day. I was faced with these new, overwhelming feelings, and I guess that was my way of dealing with them. I still can't listen to John Lennon's “Beautiful Boy” without crying.
   
   
10. Parenting changes the universe.
    I was not prepared for this. Everyone in my life whom I loved before he came--my husband, my friends, my family, my pets—all faded into the background when I had Xander, eclipsed by the love I feel for my son. It's indescribable. It's frightening.
    
    
    
    The dreaded tummy time
    
    

Boss baby propped up in daddy's chair

An actor in training

Xander has developed the most expressive face.  He has a perfect frown, which I haven't been able to capture on camera.  When he's sporting his perfect frown, he'll also stick out his lower lip to look more pitiful.  He also has dimples, so the smile is adorable.

That's my daddy

I'm done with the playmat, mom

kicking in his bouncy seat