Saturday, October 31, 2009
Another busy month approaching an end...
...as we prepare for my month away from both Natalie and John. John will be taking over the blog while I am gone and hopefully he'll do better with updating it than I have especially since I will be coming on to see what is happening with her.It has been a rather busy month starting with John's vacation at the beginning of the month due to the Korean holiday of Chuseok, which is basically a Thanksgiving/Christmas combo deal as far as holidays go. It's a harvest holiday like Thanksgiving is but it is also the time for families to get together and there tends to be a lot of gift giving. It was interesting seeing all of the various packages of things for sale. You can find packages with bottles of wine with cups to drink from, packages of bath and beauty products and even very large packages of spam. Adults and children put on traditional Korean costumes and it's just a holiday of tradition and culture just like any other holiday and naturally, it also meant days off of work. So, we took full advantage of those days, getting out and about including a trip to the zoo which did not go quite as well as I hoped due to it being at the last minute and the zoo being all UPHILL. Who in the WORLD designs a zoo on a hill?! lol Now, admittedly, if we had done our research better, we would have found out that the best way to tour the zoo is to take a chair lift to the TOP of the hill and walk DOWN. Yeah, well, it didn't quite work out that way and we did far more walking uphill than I could handle so I spent most of the time resting and recovering and John and Natalie walked around. We did see some animals in the end and Natalie came up with a GEM of a response to something John said. He was telling her all about the petting zoo that you can go and see and Natalie says, "You mean you can pet PEOPLE?!" It was just priceless! I love some of the things she says. Unfortunately, I can never remember all of them! She absolutely enjoyed the ride on the chair lift leaving the park and I took the time (since I wasn't hesitant to go on being slightly afraid of heights) to do a little souvenir shopping.
The next weekend was my birthday and Natalie got to visit her friends Laura and Lillian in Ilsan while John and I got to go on our first date in two years (actually over two years since we didn't really get to go out in 2007 because we were too broke; we stayed home and watched a movie). It was nice to go out and have a meal and be able to talk without distractions and we got to do a little shopping as well and bought Natalie a little backpack since John and I both wear backpacks when we're out and about (much easier to carry than a purse!). We met up with the gang and had some cake and went home, a two hour subway ride. Ah well, took less time to get home than it took to get there! I will NEVER take the bus to Seoul Station on a Sunday AGAIN!
The weekend following that was lunch with John's co-teacher and her family which was nice. We went to a place called VIPS which is a steak and salad bar restaurant but the steak is VERY high end and the salad bar definitely had a lot of very good options and can be bought alone which John did. I had the steak. Afterwards, we went to a park and Natalie and the co-teacher's little boy had a lot of fun playing and chasing each other with leaves and throwing them at each other and at us adults. We had very beautiful fall weather (and still do though it looks like that's going to change soon) and the scenery was beautiful to look at during our walk through the park.
Definitely a lot goes on during the weekends since that's the only time that we all can head out and do something as a family. Sometimes I take off for the day and do things with members of the knitting group I'm in but we do try to fit activities in here and there for all three of us. It's not easy because Natalie is not the easiest person to travel with and traveling through Seoul is a challenge whether you go by car, bus, or subway. Tomorrow the plan is to head to Insadong and do some shopping. It's an area in Seoul known for shopping especially art so that should be interesting and fruitful, I hope.
Natalie still enjoys painting and other forms of art. Painting though is probably her favorite and she paints with a joy and abandon that is absolutely fun to watch. And no two paintings are alike. She changes her color schemes each time and I have two of them that are very special favorites of mine that I may take home with me to enjoy and remember her while we're apart.
I won't deny that I'm a little nervous leaving her for so long. It will be the longest that she's been without me and before that, the longest was maybe a full day. I'm trusting that John will make the month easy for her and the two of them will have plenty of their own fun while I'm gone. I do worry at times though because being here has had it's ups and downs. Natalie has had a few rough patches here and there and I worry at times that something may happen while I'm away that would make being here difficult. However, I also know that feeling the way I'm feeling right now, I need the time and the chance to get a little space (absolutely impossible in this shoebox of an apartment), get my bearings, and take of things I'm just not able to take care of here (including buying clothes and supplies that we all will need as the months go by). Fortunately, Natalie is of an age where her needs are not overly great and her dad can take care of most of them.
The one that is not going to be taken care of is her need for boo-boos. While I have now cut her down to once a day and will do so until I leave, Natalie is still nursing. I was hoping to avoid having to do this while she was still nursing but at her age, I'm hoping she will understand. For sure, I cannot continue going the way I have been going without a mental reprieve and I feel bad for saying that but it is what it is. Coming here has been SO outside of my own comfort zone that there always has been that need for an escape if I should need it. Without someone to go to and vent when things became too overwhelming for me (as they have so so SO many times), it has become very easy for me to become worn down with day to day living here.
I do believe that Natalie is able to handle the separation and the end of the nursing. It has been going in that direction for some time starting last year when I cut her nursing down to just a few times a day. I think she would prefer to be able to nurse as often as she would like but having gone on MUCH longer than I had EVER planned (I mean, John wanted me to get to the age of two!) but she doesn't seem to have the NEED for nursing as she once did. She has had her difficulties here and there (sometimes she wants one of us to help her go potty) but for the most part, she's a very independent and happy child so I'm hoping that she will handle this transition as smoothly as she has handled others.
At any rate, she hasn't shown any signs of wanting to suck her thumb or attachments to a lovey that cannot be left behind anywhere so I really do think that we're going to be okay but you know how it is when it comes to that old "mommy guilt".
I just wish she had more friends. I think she would enjoy having friends to play with, she seems to be very interested in making friends and with playing but it's been next to impossible to get that going here. I've been able to find friends for myself but for Natalie, I'm not doing so well. I just can't seem to fit in with a lot of the parents. I do think that has been hard on her because she does enjoy playing and I don't think that John is quite enough of a playmate for her (though he tries very hard, more so than most fathers would--or even mothers). Here and there, I take her to where a bunch of kids and parents meet up each week. Unfortunately, it's for a religious service and that doesn't work out very well for John. We go but only until the services start and then we leave and I'm sure that's not taken very well by the parents. It's not that we're snobs or anything but John doesn't believe the same things they do and it does not work for him to have Natalie there to listen to those things. I understand that but many people are just not and are likely to take it the wrong way. Unfortunately, that's only going to get worse when I come back since that will be in the middle of the holiday season. *sigh* It is a bit of a concern though, especially after Natalie introduced us to her new friend, a mannequin at a department store. Poor thing.
Still, she and John do have a lot of fun. She's in that "knock, knock joke" age and John being John is absolutely amused by it. Me...not so much, especially not after hearing the same lame jokes over and over again. A few examples:
Knock knock
Who's there?
Box
Box who?
Box full of a whole bunch of crayons!
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Sarah
Sarah who?
Is Sarah doctor in the house?
Just two examples that they do over and over and over again. Like I said, fortunately, John is VERY easily amused. This is the guy who likes to watch Mr. Bean, the animated version while I wish the apartment had at least one more room so I can go and hide.
John also recently bought her an easel so she's having a lot of fun with that. One side is magnetic and is like a dry erase board. The other side is a chalk board. It came with paintbrushes, magnetic letters and numbers, and dry erase markers. She's had a lot of fun with that too. We haven't done a lot lately with homeschooling but at three, she doesn't need to be pushed too much with that right now. Her painting once a week and access to things like her letters and numbers help out a lot. She does show interest in books and John reads to her here and there but other than that, we just let her play. She has developed a liking for the show Little Einsteins which focuses on a classical song each episode. Tonight, while nursing, she was humming Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (aka Ode to Joy). So she's picking up something. lol
Which reminds me, she now has her own MP3 player (called MP Player by Natalie). I gave her my old one and she enjoys listening to her favorite CDs. At this point, they are mostly kiddy CDs and one Abba album (she really got into Mama Mia last winter). It helps keep her occupied at times when we're on the bus or the subway and she can't do very much. She also likes to listen to it sometimes while she's relaxing and it has helped her fall asleep. It helps that the one she usually listens to is Priscilla Herdman's Night Songs and Lullaby CD, the CD she had been listening to off and on since she was 4 months old and has my classic favorite, Waltzing with Bears. I never thought I'd give my three year old an MP3 player but it has helped out a lot. Now, I just need to find some headphones that will fit her head better.
Whew! Another long update. This is what happens when I don't update for months and months but there's just too much going on to be able to sit and write! Maybe with November being the blog writing month, I'll get more written though it will likely be on the other blog. And hopefully John will keep us all updated on the going ons of Natalie during the month of November after I leave.
And yes, I need to add pictures but they're a pain to add in so I'll wait and add them in another day.
| posted by Janeen at 9:42 AM
