Thursday, November 12, 2009
Without You: The lay of the landscape for a temporarily motherless daughter and her well-intentioned daddy.
At 3, a child is not past interest in the toys a much younger child plays with. So, Natalie, though twice and more the age of her temporary companion, has from the start had an affinity for and identity with that play area upstairs, and again, all in all, I'm relieved that there has been this place available for her. What I hadn't remembered--and what the mother obviously also had not seen coming--, however, is how an 18-month-old girl who hasn't known any world beyond her mother can react quite possessively when confronted with anyone, however benignly positioned, encroaching upon her world. That she might have been wasn't apparent nor mentioned when I picked up Natalie Monday night, not even by Natalie. I reminded the sitter that I had to bring Natalie up at 8:00 am, far earlier than usual, because I had an appointment to keep, and that I thought to be back around 10, and to bring her back to her around 11:30, as usual. Then we took with us the backpack full of colors and coloring papers she had brought and not used at all, and three hairbands that the mother had given to her and casually allowed us to bring back the next day.The baby smiled and waved as we left--that girl, whom the mother says she refers to simply as 'Shu'(same sound as Shoe)is always smiling and waving at me--and I asked Natalie on the way downstairs if she'd had a good time. She confirmed that she'd had a good day, and was really happy about the sparkly hairband she'd been given. Were there any problems? No, she didn't think so. But that baby figured prominently on Tuesday.
We ended Monday simply, by visiting the modest playground area behind the apartment building, after dark, as it always seems to work out during my working days. But, uniquely, Natalie quite enjoys swinging with the streetlights shining down upon us and running around in the dimness of the playground. The weather wasn't cool, but toward warm.
Tuesday morning, I awoke at 7:00, giving me about an hour to get Natalie--and myself--up and ready for our respective days. She had delayed bedtime as long as possible, so getting her up and dressed and generally sorted out was no picnic, and thus she started her day with very little to eat, just one piece of toast with butter, hold the crust--her morning mainstay (Janeen says I do too much handholding at this stage in Natalie's life, including cutting the crust off her bread for her. But lately, she's made a game out of doing it herself, calling out "Who wants the crust? Who wants the crust?" Adding, "Now, daddy, you say 'I do, I do!'"). But we did make it upstairs by 8:00, but I wasn't exactly in and out of that apartment. Natalie couldn't bear to see me go. She wanted to go along and made quite a loud, crying scene at the apartment door. She was still tired and too unready to be left somewhere so unceremoniously so early in the morning. The sitter kept telling me 'just go', but, faithfulness or failing, I couldn't tear myself away until we'd reached a level of understanding that would appease and satisfy me. I just can't turn from the tears of my child. So, by 8:15 she had calmed down sufficiently that I did break away. She wasn't finished protesting, but I had reached the conclusion that she would be shortly. Maybe I will never learn to know that my daughter--nor my wife, for that matter--will be fine without me; maybe I'll never even hope that will be the case. For my part, Natalie did come with me, though I'd coldly left her behind. I stepped out of the building to a gray, chilly day and was convinced that I'd made the right decision to leave her behind. And glad I was, because my appointment, an interview for a new teaching job at Suwon Science College, was not conducted two subway stops from my area, as I'd pictured; my contact drove me from there 30 minutes to the college, where I met with the high ends in their high office for all of five minutes and spent upon that meeting roughly 30 minutes before and after, at which time I was driven back to my school just in time to prepare for my class day. So, far from getting back at 10:00, I had had to call from my contact's cell phone to notify the sitter and Natalie that the day would turn out very long for all of us. I was relieved to discover that Natalie seemed to have gotten adjusted and resigned to the reality of her fate that day. With a laugh, I can always look at other children and exclaim about getting over things and understanding difficulties that 'kids always do'; I have to wait until my daughter actually does, however, before I myself adjust to the horror of being pulled by necessity.
When I finally did arrive to pick up Natalie, I felt such a large apology inside me, and yet there were no outward signs from any of the three that anything was out of order in their collective world: the baby was standing smiling and waving, Natalie was happy to see me but was surprisingly unmotivated to leave, and the sitter, as she always does, listed for me what Natalie had eaten that day. "She's a good eater," she always says, and told me this day that she had eaten two apples and some eggs, which was no surprise, since apples are as constant in her preferences as buttered toast, and eggs are not on her mental 'always reject' list. As we finally were leaving, she ran back in, because "I forgot about the horsie": She climbed back onto Shu's rocking horse one more time, for all of 5 seconds, as she'd told herself she wanted to do. She's a great one for unceremonious detail, to the point of time consumption. Then again, I hate to admit that I may someday find that I am just that type in small ways myself. Curious how the unflattering becomes the gloriously admissible when your offspring is following in your footsteps.
That night, we went together to the pizza place my wife has made 'our' spot by actually liking the pizza. It isn't easy for an American to get used to pizza in Korea. You have to specify 'no corn'. As is the custom of the craze in Korea, our spot has one of those incomprehensible English-language names that, of course, only a non-native, essentially little-speaking enthusiastic society could dream of being content with: Pizza School. Even Natalie, when she first heard of it, exclaimed 'Pizza School? That's a funny name!' Now, however, when we go, she has to ask for her water glass and have her one slice of pizza there, after which we take the rest home, most times with me carrying both her and the pizza. This outing was no different, and along our way we stopped to tickle the Wavy Man, that faceless, towering pump-driven air-filled column of canvas, with its two arms up high on either side, bowing and bending to all sides as it advertises its user's new business. Natalie has found that with a few pokes, the Wavy Man bows and bends even more than usual, as if being tickled. One of those is hard to get past as we make our way anywhere.
To end our day that much more short of perfection, the sitter came to our door not long after we returned to hand me a handwritten two-page note detailing how sorry she was that she would be unable to watch our daughter any longer. Her 18-month-old was under all kinds of stress, cried every night, and just couldn't bear to have someone else in her space. She then handed me back the money I'd paid her minus three days and finished by saying that she'd be glad to watch Natalie one more day, but after Wednesday I'd need to make other arrangements. She offered that some services offered sitters for 6,000 Won per hour, about US $5.30, or 28,000 Won for four hours. Besides not making sense, those prices added up to a whole lot more than I was paying this lady (or so I thought, though she had paid herself 10,000 Won per day for the three days); than I'd ever want to pay anyone for something I'd much rather do myself, anyway. But I had figured out that I had around 110 hours left to have Natalie cared for and no other options. It certainly was the perfect irony, if not the perfect time, to sit down at my computer and finally achieve some contact with my wife, only to have her announce that she had discovered that she was carrying our second child. My emotions were mixed, like experiences up and down on a roller coaster are mixed.
At left: The Wavy Man at the grand opening of the Incheon, Korea Holocaust Museum. Yes, all grand openings have dancers, too.(courtesy theyangpa.wordpress.com)
| posted by John at 5:17 PM
