Adventures in Parenting

On my workdays, I pump in the morning and take the milk home at lunch. Today I had to stop by another office on my way to my car. Not wanting to carry bags of breastmilk into the office, I put them in my pocket, where they stayed for my drive home. When I approached my house, I felt something wet on my hip. The bag of milk had spilled, and I had breastmilk all over my jacket and skirt. I had to tell Xander that I left his afternoon snack in my pocket.

I did not change my skirt or my jacket. In my defense, my shirt covered the stain on my skirt. Also, who has time for laundry? This does not top the time I discovered baby poop on my pants while I was on the way to our director’s office for a meeting.

In other news, Xander has altered his nighttime schedule a bit. It used to look like this:

9-10pm: last meal and sleep

11pm: Mommy goes to sleep

4am: BABY HUNGRY!

5am: effortlessly falls back asleep

7am: BABY HUNGRY!

7:30am: effortlessly falls back asleep. Mommy either conks out for another 30 minutes or gets up.

8-8:30am: wakes up in his pack n’ play, coos, smiles.

When he hit four months, he decided that this was too easy (and I learned about the four month sleep regression). Now it looks like this:

9-10pm: last meal and sleep

11pm: Mommy goes to sleep

1-2am: BABY HUNGRY!

2-3am: tosses awhile, and either falls back asleep or wakes up and demands a top off

4-5am: BABY HUNGRY!

4:30-5:30am: perhaps Mommy can put him down. Perhaps he will demand more food, and Mommy, exhausted, will let him finish his night in the big bed.

6:30-7am: BABY HUNGRY!

7:30am: Mommy, determined to have him wake up in his pack n’ play, puts him down.

8-8:30am: wakes up and smiles, apparently well rested.

I have learned that babies do not ever want first time parents to get too confident in their parenting skills. Then they might walk around and brag to other parents that their babies sleep through the night, leaving these other parents to tell themselves that the “good” parents will have children who grow up to be ignorant bums. I suppose I have had my comeuppance.

Speaking of sleep, the baby sleeps well in his crib now. I suppose I should say that he sleeps well in his crib as long as we manage to lower him into it very gently, keep the dog from coming into his room with her clackity nails, keep the cat from scratching his bedroom door, close the door soundlessly, avoid tripping on anything or sneezing on the way out, and the doorbell doesn’t ring. 


On a final note, I got a stern talking to about messing with Xander's schedule on weekends.  The man who used to rock the baby in his carseat with one foot while playing Xbox has disappeared and been replaced by super dad.  I will be adhering to the schedule from now on.

Looking coy.  That teething ring was never seen again.

practicing his sitting

ready for an outing

in his new jumparoo

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!