thank God it's a school day

never made it to the play date.  natalie caught some sort of stomach bug and still had a fever friday morning.  and then, of course, i caught it over the weekend.  i hate evil evil germs.  i'm just recovering from it and SO very thankful that noah's preschool was open today.  

my parents are jewelers so it being valentine's weekend meant that they were too busy to be around.  since about the 12th or so, they would both leave in the morning and come home late, have dinner, wash up and sleep.  that's ok on school days, but valentine's day fell on a saturday this year, which meant the help i usually had over the weekend wasn't available.  still, i'm glad that they did so well these past few days because things haven't been so good for them in the current economic conditions.  

i feel like i've run a marathon that i didn't want to run in the first place.  towards the end there, last night, things got bad.  there was much whining then crying which culminated in me forcing him to lie in bed while he screamed that he would NOT CLOSE HIS EYES.  EVER! which was about 10:30pm.  i think noah was tired of being home with me too.  he got dressed and ready for school in record time, and greeted his teacher with a long big hug.  poor guy.  hope he has fun today.

now, with baby napping, i'm ready to catch up on some serious DVRed shows.

oh, and all is well with captain J.  things are better than he expected so far.  the skype however, is not so good.  couldn't get a good connection, so we've settled for a phone conversation everyday.

has it really only been a little over a month?

Day 36

not so alone after all

i had a pretty full social calendar in hawaii.  because i grew up there, i had all sorts of friends.  family friends.  childhood friends.  high school friends.  college friends.  best friends.  friends with babies.  church friends.  former work friends.  you get the picture.  when i decided to move to california for the year, i thought that's what i'd be giving up.  friends.

i have friends here.  just not many.  and most of them, except one (and i am so thankful for her), lives an hour or more away from me.  and they are busy doing their thing.  i'm sure they'd visit if i really asked them to, but i've decided not to ask.  why?  because i don't plan on reciprocating and driving up to see them.  it's not that they aren't worth it.  they totally are worth the drive.  it's just that i have a baby with me all day who doesn't like her car seat.  strapping her in, crying, for 20 minutes might be ok.  but i'm not willing to do it for an hour there and back.

and because i'm not willing to drive up there, i don't want to make people drive to see me.  having decided this, i accepted that i'd spend a lot of alone time.  but it's turned out to be a little different than i thought.  in a good way.

first, my mom.  we've always been more like sisters.  she had me fairly young, and she's pretty liberal minded.  we are great companions.  but i expected her to working all the time.   of course i didn't factor in her pull towards her grandchildren.  she's working less hours, which means there are lots of times when it's just her and me out to a yummy lunch while natalie naps in her stroller.

then there's my one lone friend who lives in the area.  she's amazing, we'll call her C.  C will play rough and tumble with noah and take natalie from me if i need to free up my hands.  she's also great to laugh with.  she works, which is why i thought i wouldn't see much of her.  especially because she has a great boyfriend, and i wouldn't blame her if she wanted to eat out and see movies with this great boyfriend during her time away from work.  but no.  she's somehow over here often, hanging out, being a buddy.

then there are my cousins and their wives.  my family started out with just my younger brother and i.  we'd spend the summers in korea at my eemo's (maternal aunt) house.  she had 4 boys.  when i was 12, all 4 boys came to live with us in hawaii, while me eemo and uncle stayed in korea.  that meant we had a total of 6 kids in the house, and i was the only girl.  currently three of those four male cousins live within 2 miles from my parent's home.  they've all married wonderful unnis and are having babies.  they all work.  but weekends are filled with visits to each other's homes where the children can run around in one big mob while we watch dvds and talk.

that still left my weekday mornings pretty quiet.  which i actually didn't mind because i'm an introvert who likes to spend some time just BEING alone.  but then, one of my cousin's wives invited me to a gymboree free play session.  and somehow the mom of the cutest little boy in the room and i made eye contact and now i have a playdate planned this week.  i have a good feeling about her.

side note:  i'm finding it really interesting to observe how women/moms from korea interact with one another.  i may look full korean, but i am concluding that i am mostly american by the way i'm totally oblivious to the subtle social rules of mommyhood.  this would be a good post of kimchi mamas, but let's just say that there's some sort of weird sorting by class that everyone adheres to.  and no one is willing to even make your acquaintance until they can figure out what class you're in and whether you'll fit in with them.  so interesting, i tell ya.

year of baking: cancelled :(

i hang my head in shame and have to report that the year of baking has been called off.  boo.  my parents have kindly requested that i stop.  my mom doesn't like all the extra stuff starting to clutter up her kitchen, and my dad doesn't want to be forced to taste my attempts anymore.  although they are occasionally tasty, he says that paris baguette and cake house nearby do a much better job.  i agree.

i hang my head in shame because i sound like some kid under the rule of her parents and it may sound pathetic to other people that i give something up just because my parents ask me to.  but i have a very friendly relationship with them, were we converse, jest and encourage.  they didn't ask me to put aside my barely begun hobby lightly.  it's just not the right time now.  their house was already cramped with stuff and i was having a hard time finding a place to store the flour, measuring cups and large tubs of yogurt anyway.  and i do have to admit that time is tight for me.  i don't have as much time as i thought i would.

as lovely and helpful as my parents are, i am finally comprehending that i am a single parent for the duration of captain j's deployment.  all responsibilities of discipline and care fall on me.  my parents help out with baths and take them on short outings, but there's a distinct burden i can't name that is all mine.  and that translates into less time.  plus, i have to remember that my parents had a life before we came here.  i can't expect them to stop all other activities and relationships because we're here.  with captain j, we ARE his life.  i do expect us to come first.  he's a partner that i can count on.  my parents however, are the God sent helpers i don't want to smother.

that means i have been baking either with the stress of keeping noah controlled around lots of ingredients he can make a mess of, which becomes impossible to clean up really without someone else either watching both kids or cleaning up for me, OR i bake late at night when i should be sleeping.  i tell myself i could bake during the day when natalie is asleep, but the laundry, starting dinner, picking up toys, catching up with things online, writing happens and then natalie is up.  baking comes last, and it stresses me out that i can't get to it.  and that really shouldn't stress me out.  so.  i'm done.  no kitchen aid mixer for me.  yet.  instead, i will be down at the bakeries getting fresh things more often.

i still hope to stick with one resolution.  the one about getting rid of the muffin top i have going on.  i'm totally at my goal weight and size.  the only thing bothering me is the bulge that hangs over the top of my pants.  is there no hope?  there has to be a way to at least contain it.  maybe i can use the mixer money on a personal trainer.  

Day 22

captain j has officially left the country

they took off this weekend from the base in texas. he called one last time during his last layover on US soil. i assume i'll hear from him in a few days when things are settled for him and he has his wits about him. i just hope he has decent internet there. that would help a lot.

i forgot to write it in my last post, but sometime before the start of last weekend, the 23rd or so, noah spontaneously said "dah, muh guh ssuh!" at the table when he felt like he was done at dinner. it means "i'm all done eating!" my parents and i kind of sat there shocked, because we hadn't expected it and it was a whole korean sentence. we burst into spontaneous applause. this had come on the heels of us figuring out that he was understanding most of what we were saying in korean. whereas we could before covertly say things in korean that we didn't want him to hear, we were finding that he was actually listening and would call us on whatever we were trying to keep from him. so it's just as his teacher predicted. she said i'd start to see some korean action after three weeks. the 23rd was the last day of a full three weeks. amazing.

in the week since his break through at dinner, there has been more korean talking. but there's also been something really funny. he'll add a "ssuh" at the end of everything he says in english and thinks that that makes it korean. examples. he'll say "my blue shoes ssuh" or "mommy turn on the tv ssuh." he probably gets it from when in korean we say "muh guh ssuh" or "ee ssuh" or "dah hae ssuh". ssuh is just what you put at the end of a verb phrase to make it past tense.

is that interesting only to me? because it's SO interesting to me. at least to the speech therapist side of me. (have i mentioned that here? i used to be a speech therapist. i treated babies between the ages of 0 to 3 and some older kids with autism before i went to law school.) it's the side of me that makes me constantly notices and takes delight in every little change in their ability to communicate.

natalie is also making some grounds in the speech and language department. she's 11 months today and is saying a handful of words. with noah, he was signing more than 10 words by his first birthday. his actual speech was slow to come, although you wouldn't know it from the way he chatters on now. natalie however, is doing both, talking and signing. her vocabulary includes: jji jji (for: give me booby now), shh shh (was she fishtails her little hand back and forth, which is the sign for: fish), pah pah (for: oppah which is what a girl calls an older brother in korean), nanana (instead of mama which means "food" in korean), she swishes both hands back and forth for "wash wash" which is what we call baths, she waves one hand enthusiastically saying "hai!" whether she's saying hello or goodbye, bah bah as she pushes her little push toy thingy (this came from her halbee saying "bahng bahng!" as she pushed it all the time, which is korean baby talk for: car.), and of course there is also very loud "ummah" uttered all the time.

she's also standing for a few seconds on her own. which freaks me out. but she looks far from ready to walk. it's funny because with noah, i was always cheering him on. he walked at 10 and a half months and it felt just right. but now, i'm always picking natalie up and holding tight wishing she'd stay just the way she was forever. wishing we all would stay just the way we are forever. i really believe i'm going to look back on this time and see it as that almost golden time in my life. captain j not being here is the one bad spot. so maybe next year when he's back, it will truly be golden time.

i should report how my year of baking is going. i ended up purchasing "the america test kitchen's family baking book". it's a huge binder full of recipes and pictures. there's a front part with pictures of the actual ingredient product that worked the best in the test kitchen, as well as all the tools i need, which is totally helpful. i've put off purchasing a really REALLY desired kitchen aid for another month or so. the move and buying stuff captain j and the kids (and ok, me too) need took a toll out of our savings, and i don't want to get a cheapo one, so i'm going to wait a bit until we've built up our account again. until then, i've picked out the stuff that doesn't need kneading or any other kind of fancy mixing. this weekend, i found some blueberries on sale, and mixed up some blueberry muffins. i let noah help and i think that we ended up mixing too much. it was more like blueberry bread than muffins. but it was good all the same. it also made me realize that i'm going to have to do my baking on the weekdays when noah isn't around. he likes to "help" to much and i'm not experienced enough to keep from making mistakes with his distraction.

i'm watching the first season of grey's anatomy as i type this. i started watching from the third season. it's weird to see them as bumbling students when they started out. and if i ever saw george o'malley again and he was standing as close to me as he was in that corn dog line, i know what i'd say now. i'd turn around and just say "you are my favorite."

p.s. i hate how the last half of this post looks like one huge paragraph. i've tried to fix multiple times already, but it won't stick after i hit publish. so annoying.