Sunday, October 31, 2010
Getting used to a new sibling isn't easy.
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. lolGetting 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.
| posted by Janeen at 9:01 PM
