And boy will she tell you all about it too! lol She spent her birthday literally saying every so many minutes, I'm FIVE! It was pretty funny. Unfortunately, the holidays kind of messed things up. Her birthday this year fell on a Monday right after Christmas and New Year's followed the next Saturday. I would still like to set up something for her though and I think we're going to make plans to go bowling. At the very least, we'll do it as a family but invite a couple of her friends to join too if they would like. I just need to call and get prices for it.

She got a few presents the day before her birthday. Her aunt Debbie sent a whole bunch of wrapped presents so I let her open a couple of them. She got so many things from her, I can't even remember them all and she still has another box to send! It was good though because we had no money and the only present we had for her therefore was the one I bought her shortly after she was born.

I did bake her a cake; it was a homemade chocolate cake with homemade cream cheese frosting. It was a very yummy cake but it didn't look very pretty lol. I had some trouble getting the cake out of the pan so it got a little messed up. Natalie decided she wanted to go to the Rotary Lights. She had never seen them before so she really wanted to see them. We went, taking the bus downtown and meeting John down there but we couldn't walk around there too long, it was SO COLD! Even Natalie started to complain about the cold. But she loved the lights and thought they were all very pretty. Getting home proved to be interesting as we missed our stop and ended up on the bus another 40 minutes. I was not too thrilled with that. Dinner was banana pancakes and we had that, cake and ice cream, and presents. She loved everything she got, especially the Beauty and the Beast VHS (we currently have a VCR but the only DVD play we have is on my computer). She liked the candles we put on her cake too, they had colored flames which was very neat to a five year old.

The next day we went out and got her a few things ourselves since John got paid. We went to Once Upon a Child and Wal-Mart and bought her some stuff including Play Dough (this might not have been quite so smart a move since the play dough is NOT getting back into the canisters and is instead getting all over the floor). She loves all of her toys but I can't help but think she's a little bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of toys in her play room. I may have to cut down on some of what she has, just have to figure out how. Her doll house has been put together though she already managed to partially break a closet by sitting on it.

The end of the week was pretty exciting for her too. She had her one friend over Thursday when I babysat her for her mom and Friday, there was a family New Year's Eve thing down at the local convention center. She got to bounce in a bounce house, go down a HUGE slide, and go through an inflatable obstacle course. She also did crafts, got her face painted, and got a balloon flower. Then, at midnight, we watched the local fireworks from our deck outside. It was COLD out but she loved them.

This has been quite a week and she's been quite a hoot these days too, especially since lately, she's convinced that we gave her Isabelle for her birthday. Too funny.

For the new year and because we now have two little girls, not just one, I have decided to end this blog. I will be keeping it up (I do have five years of Natalie history on here after all) but will no longer be posting new entries. The new blog can be found here: http://natalieandisabelle.blogspot.com/.

Especially when you don't get to meet that sibling in person for almost three months. I had Isabelle back in July. John and Natalie did not return to the US until October 9th. Now, there were times I talked to them online but really, for a four year old, that's not very tangible. So in a sense, Natalie was kind of thrust into the role of big sister pretty abruptly. Not that most kids don't go through the same thing but Natalie had the additional stress of leaving the country that had been her home for more than a year and a half and returning to the country of her birth that she probably didn't remember all too well and what she did remember was not what she came home to because home was a different city altogether. So to have ALL of that on her when meeting her new baby sister, not to mention having been away from me for five months, it's not surprising that the adjustment hasn't been entirely easy for her. Though, to be honest, she has done pretty well considering. She's a little on the aggressive side with her sister at times, very much wanting to be in her face (especially when she's eating) but her reaction for the most part hasn't seemed to be any different from the reaction of most kids her age getting a new sibling. I'm sure when my little sister was born, I was just as much of a pain in the neck. lol

Getting used to being back in the US has been somewhat of a challenge. She misses the couple of friends she had in Korea, in particular a friend she made while going to the Korean day care and her best friend Lillian who is the daughter of a friend of mine over there that I got to meet shortly after Natalie and I got to Korea. Sadly, Natalie didn't get to see Lillian after I left as they lived two/three hours by subway away from us which is a bit of a trip when you think about it. I'm hoping at some point they'll be able to communicate in some way and eventually even meet up when they come to the US to visit (my friend Laura is American but is married to a Korean and has lived in South Korea for a number of years) but who knows how it will all go or even if Natalie will remember much of her time overseas when she's older. It's hard to say. I remember a number of things from my fifth year but then I also remember my second birthday so it just kind of depends on the person, I guess.

So, things have been kind of tough and it doesn't help that they come back just a few weeks before Halloween. John doesn't celebrate Halloween or Christmas or Easter or really any of the traditional holidays with the exception of the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. He celebrates Holy Days, ones that he hasn't really bothered to celebrate in a few years so when it comes to family traditions/rituals, we don't really have any and it sucks. It really sucks because I not entirely against them myself but it's not really worth fighting with him about either. Unfortunately, the rest of the freaking world DOES celebrate these holidays and that's not easy on Natalie. So, naturally she has her own way of dealing with this and it's through play. I baby sat for a friend of mine who has a five year old girl. I watched them play and it had elements of Halloween in it. They were trapped by goblins. They used these cross necklaces (the cross is a problem for John because it's a pagan symbol and he avoids anything that has a pagan origin) as keys to get themselves out of the trap. They pretended to trick-or-treat.

I feel for her and I won't forbid the play because I think it's a good way to deal with some of her dad's restrictions but I'm sure her dad isn't thrilled by the idea. It's hard to know really what to do because I don't entirely agree with the restrictions myself. It would be one thing if we had a support network on hand for these days. It would be one thing if there were kids who don't celebrate these holidays for Natalie to play with but with John still trying to figure out just what church (heck, RELIGION) he's with these days, that's not possible. Sabbath keeping churches oftentimes do not have a lot of congregations. It's not like being a Catholic or a Lutheran where you can find a church in nearly every single town big enough for a church. Some of the churches have very few congregations at all. Some have only one in the entire COUNTRY so what people have to do sometimes is tune in online. Well, that's fine and dandy for most but it's hard on me.

To add to that, John has been very bad about keeping up with Holy Days, especially the Feast of Tabernacles which is the big family deal in the church. So, we don't have that, we don't have people we know with kids Natalie can play with so starting right about now until the end of the year we get into the really sucky time of isolation because I can't attend most things due to the fact that they're usually holiday related but there's not much else to do because it's cold and freaking heading towards winter. And it's not easy on Natalie, I can see that and I don't see how it's going to get any easier for her anytime soon. John has a habit of being very isolating because he's not a social person himself and I don't really bond very well to people from Sabbath keeping religions most likely because I've yet to really feel called to that particular religion.

So, it's a lot for a little girl to handle. Natalie has had a lot to deal with in the past two years. For the most part, she's handled it all very well, considering. I think a lot of kids in her place would have gone off the deep end by now or would have massive issues like bed wetting or something like that but outside of normal behavior issues, she's been dealing pretty well. Still, I can't help but worry that this is the calm before the storm and that if we don't have trouble now, we will down the line like her teen years especially when rebellion can big time hit. I can see it happening too, maybe not in the way my family likes to predict (which is that she'll rebel by eating a large ham sandwich in front of her dad) but in some way and that kind of worries me sometimes but I try not to think about it too much at the moment because there are plenty of other things on my mind right now, like John getting a job so we can pay for this apartment in December.

At some point, I found a place for Natalie to go while I work. It's not far from my school, and we call it the children's house. We do so because that's a direct translation from the Korean. It's really a small daycare run from the converted first floor apartment of 'the lady' and taking in, at this time, 5-7 other children younger than Natalie, one of whom is fairly close in age and whom she's come to know fairly well. There's not a whole lot for her to do nor learn there, and that's fine; I don't really want her anywhere on her own where attempt will be made to 'educate' her. Still, I don't want to be sure of the stability nor influence of such a place, either, because I can't be with her those hours and have to quiz her mightily in the afternoons about what her day. Daycare like that exacts quite a pretty penny for me to have to be out of her world for that many hours per day.

This week, I've had a week's vacation from teaching, and Natalie's had a week's vacation from the children's house. We've used it for together time, but not much for travel time. We did make a Tuesday trip to Seoul, to Nam Dae Mun (South Gate) and Dong Dae Mun (East Gate) marketplaces--outdoor flea markets, as they are termed--and that encompassed a lot of walking for her and carrying for me--Natalie still loves to be carried more than she prefers walking, and mainly because she knows I'll indulge her. After that day, which like it we've never had since her mother left via airplane on May 9, I decided I knew why it was good that we hadn't decided to range much farther out than the hour by bus it took us to get there. We didn't get there after 1:30 pm, but a little girl of four doesn't last long looking around booths of stuff of all descriptions and scattered, in many cases, rather than organized, almost everything of which is useless to us, if not to most others passing by. Still, the sidewalk space the sellers leave for passing by was far less inhabited than on a weekend day, so we were able to take our time and deal with ourselves without a lot of the usual unintentional .

All I know is that the week of our togetherness has passed by awfully quickly and awfully humidly. Here's a quick rundown of Friday.

9:32 Natalie wakes up, with no turning back. That means I wake up.

10:21 She’s instructing me on the ways and methods of turning the Rubik’s Cube. We’re going to the store to get eggs for pancakes. It’s already 85 degrees Fahrenheit, with a heat index of 104.

10:38 She’s trying to show me something very important she’s doing, sticking Post-It notes she decorated with crayons onto the top of the wooden jewelry box she got in Seoul. I’m trying to write these words. Who will win? I look at her face. She will. We should get to the store.

10:49 We haven’t gotten out to the store yet, but it’s raining, so we’re waiting. Sudden, brief showers have been the most common precipitation this summer, but rain hasn’t been abundant. June and July saw average temperatures in the mid-80’s and average humidities in the upper 90 percent range, with plenty of partly sunny days. August is so far no different

10: 56 the rain has stopped and mom is calling us via MSN Messenger.

11:11 Natalie’s sitting at the window watching the intermittent rain, observing the narrow river as it flows by our building and listening to cell phone music. These days, she listens hard for thunder. She’s progressed from apprehension to fascination.

11:35 the rain has stopped. It’s 80°, heat index 91.

12:30 We go out. It’s become overcast today, but I doubt if it will rain again. Still, we’re taking our new umbrella. We got it yesterday, when, because of a sudden heavy downpour, we were walking the two blocks back from the park in the rain, without the umbrella we had decided to leave at home. By the time we reached the corner by the SK gas station, across the street from our apartment, we were both totally soaked and happily resolved to it. However, while we waited for an opportunity to cross, one of the gas station attendants came from nowhere and offered us a big rainbow-colored umbrella, saying that it was so the little girl would be protected and that we didn’t have to return it. Pretty nice, considering identical ones are sold for W5000($4.50, about). So, our last 30 yards in the rain were covered. But the rain stopped 3 minutes later, anyway.

5:30 We’ve been to the park, via a roundabout walk along the river, then back along the upper road. The park was empty when we got to it at the top of the stairs, along a wall, that lead to it. I told Natalie that she’d have to wait less than 5 minutes until there were more kids in the park, and I was right. Soon, a slightly older girl and her father showed up. The father retreated to a side of the park to smoke, while the girl gravitated to the swing where Natalie was. Natalie immediately wanted to play with her, as she always does, simply seeking companionship. So this girl ran around with her for a while, until we had to go. I’m convinced that the goal of these Korean children who meet her in the park, as well of that of the parents for them, is to be with The Little Western Girl a little while, not to befriend her. They are almost certain to never serendipitously cross paths again, so friendship is useless. But Natalie needs the encounters, so, just to have some kind of directioning comment, I tell her they are her ‘playground friends’, children she should never expect to see anywhere else, and if she ever happens to, she should not expect will engage her with the same familiarity and abandon they may on the playground.

And in fact, at our next stop, Lotte Mart supermarket, merely a stone’s throw from the apartment complex playground, we did see that first older girl who didn’t show up Wednesday at noon, as Natalie had expected. She was with her family, sitting in the cart child carrier, as Natalie was, and reacted to seeing Natalie with what I might call a quiescent interest, in contrast to Natalie’s enthusiasm. She said hello and did remember to know Natalie. But she said but few words, and only in reaction to what Natalie said; she clung to an attitude of standoffishness , for reasons I can’t begin to understand. It’s just that meetings with acquaintances outside regular channels, like playground encounters, seem not to be suitably comfortable for Korean society members, and certainly not for children with the ever-present family around them.

8:01 We’re going to the park. It’s not far, but it’s awfully dark. She never has minded the dark, if it means going to the park. Yesterday, Natalie found a toy dinosaur, but I said she had to leave it there for a day, until the owner had time to come back and look for it. Now, she wants to find out if it’s still there to claim.

9:02 It’s hard to believe we stayed at the park that long. Today, as the last few, has been partly sunny, and the ground has been wet, drying out from the last couple days of intermittent heavy raining. The park is divided between a green basketball court, upon which there were at least 30 players all pounding away at the net so late in the evening, and the still-wet sandbox of a playground surface. Natalie was happy about the sand, because she rarely encounters sand with that much promise of shaping, stacking and patting it into her particular kind of artwork. I had to do a lot of convincing to get her and her dirtied clothing out of that sand, because she found her dinosaur, a plastic squid--probably more popular here as a toy than where you are--and a big stick with which to make roads in the sand.

Natalie loves grapes--except for the imperfect, not-completely-green ones and the ones at the very bottom of the bunch, which look a little squished. Indeed, I'm happy to say that she does have a couple of fruits she likes (no vegetables of note, except peas and corn, the latter which we scarcely eat here in Korea because it's scarcely available out of the can; the former which we never do because it's never been sighted by me outside the can), watermelon being one, except for the seeds and the stuff too close to the rind. Apples she loves, peeled and cut up; otherwise not: she can't bring herself to bite into a whole one. Yogurt is pleasant to her, but it has to be the smooth kind, with no fruit; in Korea, all fruit-flavored yogurt we've found contains 'real' fruit pieces.

Natalie will happily go with me to get a pizza, but insists that it not be made in typical Korean fashion--WITH corn (and what Western soul wouldn't?). She only wants to have the cheese crust pizzas, though. But then, she only ever eats the cheese crusts, anyway; well, she nibbles ONE cheese crust from ONE triangle of pizza, nevertheless claiming for herself all the cheese crusts. If I don't pack them up and take them home with us, I'll end up eating them myself. If I do take them home, they sit in cold storage until I throw them out or, yes, eat them myself, because she favors them less as the grow older. Net slices of pizza eaten, with crusts: Me, 8/Natalie: a nibble or two.

In Korea, Natalie takes on my wife's and my own penchants for avoiding spicy foods, the quizzical yet forbidding abundance of the sea Koreans (to name one culture) take for culinarily granted; the one typically Asian food she will eat is Ramen noodles. I buy the long spaghetti type in bags; she insists upon those and pasta--plain. She's never liked red sauce, and here, especially, where every sauce seems tinged with some spiciness, she turns away. She's eaten Alfredo sauce from a jar, but now doesn't like the 'black spots (pepper)' that appear in the sauce we get, so that's out, too.

she hasn't seen us overindulge in any meats at all: pork, a national staple, is out for us. We eat chicken and, occasionally, red meat, overwhelmingly hamburger. There's no turkey to be had here, except at Subway Sandwich Shops, and the cost of that is hardly ever justifiable. Anyway, no matter on the meat end, because Natalie has never in 4 years and 7 months eaten bite one of any meat at all, be it cattle, fish or fowl. We did mount a prolonged insistence during one evening meal before we came to Korea, when she was two, and succeeded in getting her to touch a small bite of chicken with her tongue. But she hasn't given meat a second thought, mostly.

So, our Natalie is fussy about food, but I'd like to attribute all that to a combination of pure childhood and a year and more of childhood outside the cultural confines of her birth country. There are certain things she is living without: a usual circle of friends, the ability to immediately and confidently communicate with the general public, the comfort of blending in to the populace without garnering the attention that Koreans hand out. In fact, attention is the best she's been able to gather in; everybody seems eager to associate with her, but kids especially don't attempt to get close. Though I realize that she's not in a position to nurture friendships now, she doesn't, and she deems everyone she plays with for more than five minutes a trusted companion. So, recently, when she encountered on a playground an English-speaking Korean girl about 3 years her senior (older girls are invariably the ones most bold in engaging her), she took it to heart when that girl made an appointment to meet her again on that same playground at a certain day and time. She spoke of it many times until the day came. Near the appointed time, she suddenly sat down with her toys and began playing fervently with her toys. I had to take the initiative to get her out the door, and I took it as a sign not of forgetfulness nor nonchalance, but of childish fear of the contact she desired. She needn't have feared. For her own reasons, the other girl never showed up. Natalie knew the direction the girl had taken in farewell the night they had parted, toward a surrounding high-rise apartment in a complex that hosted the playground, so after the allotted time I indicated that we would wait, she began to move in that direction, intending to find her. But nothing was certain, and I found myself explaining the virtues of having one's own agenda when faced with others who function according to theirs, or to none. How little or much she heard me I can't immediately say, but she's sharp enough to have a subconscious that will aid her as time goes by. So, I tell her what is needful, not minding about immediately observed results.

Our daughter does, however, have her true companions, and needs them in the absence of her true confidante, her mother; she needs a substitute to dote upon while she is separated from the infant baby sister she's experienced only via web cam. So her menagerie of stuffed animals provides a companionship that she can count on. Especially Funshine Bear is dear to her, and she would take him everywhere inside and out, if her parents' agreement didn't restrict him to this side of the apartment door. He's not the first Funshine she's had. The first, I must admit, was lost when we did have him out gadding about with us, so, at her mother's request, this second one, garnered from the Ebay internet site and just as eagerly anticipated as a reunion with any other friend; this nearly exactly equal one--visibly, it is identical, but now Funshine has phrases to speak, if we only had the batteries; silent, however, I think that it's status as the successor Funshine is as much an endearment to Natalie as the last one. If my wife will now only accept my apology for losing the first one, a gift from her to me, everything will revolve again in its accustomed universe.

In my estimation, the reason her toys and animals mean so much to her is that 1. they are there whenever she wants and needs their companionship in a world where people are the X factor, and 2. she has the imagination to fill her toy world with effervescent life. I, being, again, her only constant live and present soul, am privileged to be involved in all of it through the playing along, the voicing of characters and simply the watching over of her proceedings. She could decide to play with any of her toys, small or great, in single or in combination, and could spend hours at it, or involve herself for a short while, then suddenly feel it's time to go to the park or do something else.

That something else, if not going to the park, is most often watching Playhouse Disney--the one channel out of the more than 100 that are subscribed to here--that I allow her and myself to watch. When not that, we watch Care Bears and other movies on the computer, or, lately, we've been delving into the early days of Disney cartoons via online video sources. She's taken quite a liking to the old Silly Symphonies Disney used to put out. They tell quite various tales with often fairly instructive morals, including those of the Pied Piper, Father Noah and the Ark, and King Midas. After seeing the Golden Touch of Midas--and seeing it again, and then again I don't know how many times--she took to flitting about, imparting the Golden Touch. I became a golden statue many times, and our food, her toys and anything else within reach of her imagination turned to gold for a while in its turn. "I've got the golden touch!", she had me to know. Then I told her that no, I had the golden touch, and she restated her claim to it. We ended up trying to out-touch each other and simultaneously avoid becoming the statue-victim.

She has all the makings of a Silly Symphony herself, I think.

We didn't have a lot of money or a lot of time before I had to leave to head back to the US so rather than trying to find a portrait studio that wasn't going to cost an arm and a leg (the one we had gone to the year before had closed unfortunately), I decided to just take pictures of Natalie in the park and then I would just develop them. There were a couple of benefits to this: one, the park was right behind our house; two, the cost of doing this would be for getting the pictures developed and I wouldn't have to pay for the actual studio time which can be quite expensive in Korea; three, no having to deal with language barriers that would make it difficult for me to get what I wanted as far as pictures went; four, natural back ground; and more that I'm not thinking of. lol Admittedly, they aren't professional pictures and I just used my fairly simple camera but to be honest, having taken Natalie to Wal-Mart in the past, I think the pictures I took were better (especially since we have had the WORST luck getting some REALLY lousy photographers); they were outside so they looked more natural, and I didn't have to deal with her having shyness issues or a meltdown because she didn't want her pictures taken by someone she didn't know. She did get a little impatient at the end but one of the pictures turned out REALLY well and when it comes down to it, that's all we really need, one good picture but we got some other fairly decent ones too. And even better, since I didn't overly dress her up, she was just able to go and play once we were done! I didn't even bother to buy her a dress this time (to be honest, that's getting rather tedious anyway, buying dresses JUST for the pictures!).

So here they are!

The top one I got developed into a small package including an 8x10. It's my main favorite. Natalie just naturally did this pose, I didn't have to do anything to encourage it and the background worked out very well. She looks so mature for a four year old!
The one above and the two below I got developed as well, though just in 4x6 size for the moment. I may get larger ones done later if I ever put pictures on the wall (first we'd have to live someone where I know where going to be long enough to make it WORTH putting pictures on the wall. *sigh*

The one below I didn't get developed but it's a nice picture of her with a different background.

I got these done just days before I was to leave so it was definitely at the last minute but I'm glad I did that rather than take her to the portrait studio nearby. While it would have been nice to get some pictures of her in a princess dress (the studio had a number of outfits for the kids to wear including gowns from the Disney movies), I just don't think it would have been worth paying the money we would have had to pay for just one post more than likely. Someday I hope to have more money to invest in nice professional pictures or at the very least, a camera that will take nice, professional pictures. But like I mentioned before, compared to Wal-Mart, I think I did a pretty decent job especially since one time we got them done there, the pictures actually came out blurry which did NOT impress me at all.

Now I'll just need to figure out what to do when the baby gets here as I left the digital camera in Korea with John and Natalie (that actually was a good thing as he did figure out how to use the video camera part of it, something I never bothered taking the time to learn to do--oops). I may look into getting a somewhat cheap digital camera until John and Natalie get back. Fortunately, camera prices keep going down while the number of megapixels and optical zoom go up. And I do have my film camera for a back up as well.

Nothing short of having my daughter in the classroom every school day of the past 5 weeks has made me realize the utter dissimilarity between the individual and the group. I mean, of course, that the way Natalie responds to my directioning and requests and the time she allots for doing so are different at day and night (and weekends). Daytime, the influence exerted by my classes upon her, the ready audience they make for any extrovert behaviors she exhibits and the jamming signal they present to the communication link between her and me all bring out a rebellious frustration at fatherly regulation that in our night and weekend moments of exclusive togetherness is hardly present. In school, My expectations of her are void of frustration, as the public nature of my job dictates; hers of me are full of them. In out-of-school moments, fleeting as they seem, we are oppositely positioned: she, as innocently as a four-year-old, asks of and adheres to me, fully imbued with the spirit of the father-daughter bond; it is I who feel free to expect her to understand what mores, dos and don'ts I express, and to have the time and space to make the effort to concentrate on conforming to them. Out of school, I make the demands on her time; in school, she makes them on mine. And did I just say that the difference is one of how much attention she gets from me in school versus out of school?

Most every school day, there is an hour before classes start when we are really both glad to be in that place together, and she happily helps me with the little things I do. She is not always quiet and positively behaved, not always good at shutting out all the distractions lurking outside the room, but we are still in one-to-one communication. But my duties take me away from dealing with her exclusively, and soon break in upon us completely. I think the change is always too sudden for her, but then, young children barely older than Natalie have virtually no other way of presenting change. The only difference between the students and Natalie--for me, not for Natalie--is that all the children I teach have been bound to be there; they 'belong' to the classroom ritual, and Natalie does not (it is a ritual I truthfully am more and more reluctant to place Natalie into, by the way, for school-going is a philosophy and a psychology, for the teacher and the learner. It's a way of life, and the things it teaches are uninviting at best, frightening and worthy of lecture at worst). When there these curricular wards are, what can one's attentions do but shift? So the balance is far from ideal. Natalie and the school and I must dance around the fiery clash of interests without falling into it. I have an uneasy feeling that paying for outside care is coming up, though I don't know how to and don't care to find make such arrangements here in Korea, and I certainly have no interest in paying the price of it. In that regard, I have a Korean co-teacher who will cheerfully assist (that is, do all the phone calling, checking out, etc., for) me on top of her other multiple duties (she is, after all, a Korean female and an underling to someone, and that means lots of work, in the end), so I respect and am thoroughly grateful for that; still, being as overprotective as I thought I was, this Korean society has urged me into being moreso. So I'll hold off thinking about it as long as I can. maybe the requirement won't really come up; maybe Natalie darting out into the hallways during class, interrupting my attempts at instruction to classes that aren't really behaving well anyway, and being a natural distraction to kids and adults alike, as she is normally everywhere we go, won't be noticeable on a corporate level. maybe the zero attention from the administration the after-school English teachers get without her there will just continue. But, because she is who she is--A. a child from the Western hemisphere, and B. a non-belonger in a world of parent-fueled and -underwritten student entities supposed and proudly assumed to be doing their academic best at all times; because of these things, I hope that time won't say a word but fear that it will tell.

Since the big, building-burning blaze we witnessed together almost a month ago, she seems to be more in mind of fire happening all around us. Any smoke will remind her of what she saw and have her seeking to find the source of it. Her concern gives me good exercise in explaining away not only fires, but all such phenomena to which one might be an unfortunate witness once, if ever, in a lifetime. It isn't likely, I tell her, that any one person in our position of the average carriers-on of life who make a point of avoiding not only trouble but any stimulating experiences even close to being non-positive; that he or she will ever see anything like that up close and personal, and coming into the way of one experience like that reduces to next-to-nil the possibility that we'll, that she'll, ever see tragedy on such a scale again. Don't ask how I get such a message of reassurance across to her: It's not a one-part revelation. It's still unfolding.

I am Bolt. Or Penny, Or Nemo, or any of many other characters in movies that Natalie has seen and loves to play out. At any one time, I, her chief playmate for all the time she's been in Korea, not only watch movies with her and help her to navigate the messages and morals, but also join her in bringing them to life on our walks, on playgrounds, and just anywhere she happens to remember to focus on them.

However, since her mother has left Korea to try her hand at getting a natural birth in the U.S. after the 11th-hour caesarean that brought forth Natalie, that type of movie role play has dwindled to near-nothing--due to the fact that going to school with me every day has left her little time for TV and less for computer movie-watching. The only remnant is the personalities of her favorite TV characters that she asks to talk to through my voicings. She candidly addresses Timmy the Lamb, Mickey Mouse (and his associates), the Care Bears, and a few others. Timmy the Lamb doesn't speak, just makes lamb sounds, but I tend to speak in a bleat and Natalie doesn't object; she loves to do the same. But her memory holds everything. She asked during the school day yesterday to watch a one-time favorite movie, Annie, but when we got home, neither of us bothered to think about it. However, we did spend time in the otherwise-empty playground area behind the house at 10:00 pm, which was just as happy a time for her as daytime would have been, seeing that her usual gang--me--was all there.

In important ways, such as the virtual elimination of screen time, the three weeks gone since her mother has left have been a departure from the 14 months she was here. Once, her mother remarked that perhaps I wasn't getting the extra time with Natalie that I thought coming to Korea would provide; now, there's never a time when I am not with her, and, though I don't regret that, I understand better the human need for alone time. Because of the necessity, however, I also have become more aware of the necessity of being resolved to clean up my own character for Natalie's benefit, since I can clearly and constantly see the bridge under construction between what I do and say and how she is developing.

Everything we've experienced, we've experienced together. For example, there was a fire. A big, municipal spectacle of a multi-fire truck hosedown blaze. And believe me, the people came out for it. Friday, May 14, saw us at E-Mart following a thick cloud of billowing smoke just before sundown for about 1/2 mile until we reached the area's collection of outlet malls (fortunately, I had our camera with me, and I was able to take some video footage). There on a road intersecting a main artery and directly behind the large building on the corner, we witnessed the first structure of that size either of us had ever seen in full and uncontrollable burn. By the time were finally standing just across the street from it, we were straining to get a good glimpse behind a wall of emergency vehicles and a sidewalk full of interested onlookers. We spent about 90 minutes walking up and down, Natalie being both carried and sometimes led by the hand. She expressed both excitement and confusion about the whole phenomenon, a childhood candid reflection of the similar but less brought out adult reaction. Of course, we both put up with a smoky and heated atmosphere; with crowds of jostling and far-too-interested onlookers; with the plight of being between between avid, excitable interest and some unutterable amount of regret on behalf of the structure and the people directly involved. If Natalie could have helped or had been otherwise asked to be involved, I really think she might have had the desire, but I can't be so sure of the will. We agreed afterward upon the hope of never again being present at such a spectacle. Since then, in this obvious way she has been affected: When we are out and she smells a burning from anywhere, she remembers the fire and speculates--not with fear nor uneasiness, but with a certain disinterested resolve to discover it--that the same might be happening around us again. I let her know that we only chanced to see what we did, and that any person's chances of being in position to see such a thing a second time are smaller than minute. Actually, I don't know anything about the chances. I simply formed for my daughter a realistic hope and a reassurance based upon my own experience of 46 years. One thing I cherish as a father that I couldn't rely on before I was married is the power I possess to reassure my daughter Natalie regarding her questionings and expectations, especially of difficult and uncertain experiences.

As I've said, Natalie has been going to school with me, sitting through my classroom day as I teach. The situation so far has been another of those tremendous learning opportunities for me: learning about the ways in which I can expect in one direction and experience in quite another; learning about how much I have to learn about relationships between my daughter and those other children and adults.

Needless to say, her reactions and behavior have not mirrored that of a student nor of a teacher. At the heart of it, what I thought would be a relationship between the students and Natalie of mutual delight and cooperation has revealed how much a mantelpiece she seems to be in the eyes of Koreans and how easily Natalie can be distracted by just anything that will keep her from sitting still for too long. In other circumstances, I expect restlessness of her. In this case, I hoped differently; I saw in my mind much more pedestrian relations and a mutual attraction, for reasons that don't exist.

Because she is only 4, Natalie didn't really become possessed by the fact that her mother was getting on a plane and flying away from Korea--from the life the three of us have known for the past 14 months--until this morning, when Momma, separated finally by the glass wall of security, looked back and waved as she waited, expressing in face a little of the regret we all felt. Tears came, briefly. We strained to watch through the clear stripes on the window until the last glimpse of Momma was gone.

These 13 months have been a long time in Natalie's life, a little stretch of permanence in itself, with its own beginning and end, now to give way to a new recognition, that of the time of Natalie and Daddy, however long we may continue together here until we take our own flight to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where Momma and yet-unborn sister to Natalie have taken their place. She doesn't recognize that we agonized over the decision; she can't fathom the difficulties we've had trying to get Korea's doctorin' system into line with the VBAC mentality--a way of thinking that no doctor we investigated seems willing to step up to. She won't be reasoned with that Momma had to feel language-connected to her situation, something that hasn't been happening here; that that and other factors recommended her to the care of the US system she knew with Natalie. She recognizes only that her Momma is not with her now. She sees that day-to-day goes on the same for her here in Yong-in, Korea as part of a duet rather than a trio. She harbors a longing for reunion. She loved to paint with Momma and is afraid that moments like that are past.

Our time between leaving Momma and getting to school had gone remarkably smoothly. We missed our direct connection bus when Natalie had to used the potty just as the bus pulled up, so we took the next one, headed to Seohyun, and took the subway and bus. Natalie's proving quite an old hand at using public transportation and has acquired a semblance of patience while waiting and a good recognition of her surroundings. As always, her mere presence seemed to be some kind of charm to the people around her, and her old trick of handing around cookies on the subway gained her more retribution in candy than I ever am comfortable with, so she arrived at school with a lot to beg me for--we managed to end the day with most of it still in reserve, however.

Still, she's revealed a remembrance for something I've tried to teach her. Once today, to the end of a sentence about missing Momma, Natalie added, 'but we have to go on.' That in itself was quite a surprise to hear, but I thought about how advanced it seemed. I agreed that we can't spend our time reaching for what we don't have; we have to look forward to what we will get out of all of our planning: a new baby sister and a time of being back together and not going away again. Still, we miss Momma. We can't, at this point, anticipate being present for the birth of the baby, and that adds heaviness to our days. But we do our living.

In this change that reality manifests itself: Natalie is now an everyday presence in my classroom. Neither of us is ready for the daycare option, and the students in my elementary school absolutely have no opposition to her being there. So, I've set up her own desk by the side of mine and have brought in materials and activities that she's familiar with. Today, Thursday, was the opening day in that volley, whatever distance it may achieve. I had a short day, four classes, 1:50 pm to 5:15 pm. We arrived at the school about 1 hour ahead of time, as usual for me.

She was surprisingly well-behaved the first three classes, but revealed to me a gaping hole in my planning in the fourth--the one with the more advanced students: I hadn't brought enough for her to eat. Of course, after the long day she'd had, waking up at an unusually early hour with a full day of activity gone through, she was combining little to eat with little to sleep, and so was more active and interruptive. So I will pack more to eat for her.

I also plan to get her to bed earlier, Momma. We'll see how that works out.

And I plan to clean the apartment, and keep Natalie's toys off the floor, and teaching her to do the same. I have hopes and dreams. . . We've had a good night. We both made Annie's Mac and Cheese and cooked a few pieces of French Toast, the latter which we've been straining toward since the weekend. Natalie delighted in being instrumental in preparation. She remembered impressively what her mother showed her.

We actually were lying down reading some of her books by 10:30, teeth brushed and all. She said not a word about nursing, which she is adamant about when her mother is within reaching distance. I hope that this will prove her drumbeat of independence from it. The new baby will more than take her place in that regard. She was reading to me when I fell asleep, and was asleep when I woke up to write this.

This has been one of the most difficult decisions I've had to make and no doubt, there are many who would condemn me for it too by saying that I'm not being as good of a mother I should be and a good mother would do anything and everything possible in order to make the other choice but it wasn't just my decision either. I am not my daughter's only parent. She has another parent, a parent who is equally as important to her as I am. Why is it that ONLY the mother is the best parent? Is that ALWAYS the case? I can understand that when a child is very young, a newborn and an infant and even the first years but isn't there a point at which this changes? John is just as much of a good father, if not a BETTER father than I am a mother. All I really can offer (especially right now) are the boo-boos and maybe some story time. I cannot give her as much of the play time or the patience or the religious influence that John can give her. I've tried (and struggled) to help her with learning but John does better with that too, understandably as he is the one with the teaching experience! And right now, he can give her the attention she needs more fully than I'm able to. My attention right now is divided between her and this baby that is coming. It is attention that will be more and more divided as the time gets closer to my giving birth. It is attention that will be divided in the days following the birth as I learn once again to nurse a helpless infant. It would have been a struggle enough, I'm sure, with John around but without him there, that's one mom whose attention has to be split between two girls and there's no way to make that an equal split. Exactly how fair is that?

Here, she will have the attention of her father. She will be going with him when he goes to work and she will be home with him each night. They will do things together and go places together. He will be here with her when the baby is born (since it's very unlikely he'll get home in time for the birth, not with the price of plane tickets during the summer) and he will be here with her during those first several weeks following the birth. That's more than I can give her when my focus has to be on finding a place to live, finding a provider to help me give birth, keeping track of my health and making sure the baby and I both get what we need, going through the birth, recovering from the birth, getting breastfeeding going, all of these things will need my focus and I really have to wonder, why is it such a bad thing to leave her with the parent who DOESN'T have to worry about all of that? John is also the more laid back parent (not as far as discipline but just more laid back in general) whereas I'm more high strung and easily stressed out. And that could potentially cause problems for this pregnancy. Stress is the last thing I need and I'm already up to my neck in it this pregnancy. Having Natalie with me will bring about more stress, stress that I don't need at this time.

But, realizing this and knowing all of this doesn't help the guilt. I do feel like I'm abandoning my child. I feel like I'm shortchanging her for a baby that's not even born yet. I feel like I am, in a sense, telling her by leaving her here that I love this baby more than I love her. I don't want her to feel that way; I DO NOT feel that way, if anything I love her FAR more than the baby at this point and have a hard time not resenting the baby for making me choose her over the daughter I already have, I daughter I was perfectly happy having only one of so that I didn't have to make these kinds of decisions. It's one of those cases of making the best decision you can with the resources you have. If I had more resources (in this case money), Natalie more than likely would have been going home with me. That was the plan but money is a huge factor in this right now and stability is important too. I know that it will take me some time to get the situation in the US stabilized. And really, it's not exactly fair to take her home when things are that way. It was bad enough when John left us to come here and I was staying with my family. Natalie didn't do very well then. The changes were hard on her. At least in this case, the only change is me leaving. She will have the same living situation (at least until July), she will have the same space, the same toys, I'm just the one who's leaving. And she did okay with that before. It's just that this time, it's going to be longer but I do feel that ultimately, this is the better solution for her at this time. I just really hope that this will be the last time, that we all will be able to stay and live in one place and have some stability for awhile because I don't know how much more of this I can take myself. I really do feel that we have shortchanged Natalie in many ways during her four short years and hope that this will be the last of that and once she and John return to the US, things will become more stable. Maybe that's wishful thinking, I don't know.

Living here in Korea has really left me feeling like the worst parent in the world. First of all, we're crammed into a one bedroom apartment which is smaller than most one bedroom apartments you'd find in the US because there really isn't a livingroom area. Technically, the kitchen is the livingroom but the kitchen table kind of takes up most of the space that would be use for a couch and a TV. There IS no room for a couch here so for sitting, we're left with the bed (that's on the floor), the floor, or the kitchen chairs which aren't really all that comfortable. We're all crammed in one room for bed time and I mean CRAMMED, the bedroom is TINY and has room for a queen sized bed, a mat, and the stand for the TV. There's a floor to ceiling closet/storage thing but it's been leaking water since December and therefore is not at all appropriate to store anything in (unless we want mold on it). The bathroom is barely big enough for the tub John bought and many times, we're limited to quick showers. Basically, there really is no room for a second child.

We have not had insurance for Natalie for the last year or so. We have not been able to really take Natalie to a doctor. We tried one time and she freaked out SO badly that we really could not get anything done. We declined the blood draw and chest x-ray which then had the doctor deciding that she would NOT see her. This doctor wasn't a ped but after that fiasco, I have not at all been interested in finding another doctor.

Our eating has been horrendous. There's no wheat bread here; there's very little variety in food period and Natalie STILL will not eat meat. We do what we can but for the most part, we feed her what we can get her to actually eat and sometimes, she gets WAAAAY too much in the way of sugar and junk.

She hasn't been to a dentist in closer to two years. I don't even know how to begin finding a dentist for a child her age. We do brush her teeth at night but still, she's well overdue for a check-up.

Money is WAY tighter here than it EVER was in the US. I can't buy her clothes here. I have to buy them in the US because the sizes here are impossible to figure out. Shoes are even worse than clothes. She's been wanting a bike forever but the money just hasn't been there for it because they are obscenely expensive.

Very likely, especially the way things are going, she's not going to get to see the only person she knows as a grandparent before he dies. And that just kills me.

So, with all of that and more on my shoulders, I can't help but feel like the crappiest parent in the world. We really had it together back in the US and then we came over here and it all fell apart. I'm trying to get us back to the US but it just seems like when I'm finally making progress on that, something goes wrong. I don't know what to do. Sometimes, I can't help but feel that I don't at all deserve this baby I'm carrying, that if anything, I should go back to the US long enough to give it up for adoption. I'm barely able to take care of the child I have now much less the one I'm carrying. I'm just feeling very overwhelmed and very depressed and I just don't know what to do anymore.

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About This Blog

THE blog about Natalie, my five-year-old daughter.

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