48 hours to Canada

Wow. The time certainly has flown. We've been in our new apt for a week and in two days we go to Canada.

The aptartment is shaping up slowly. I think Sejin and I deserve some kind of award for what we've done so far. We've wallpapered the remainder of the living room and the whole bedroom, unpacked and got mostly organized, all while watching a little baby. I've done all this on virtually no sleep. I'll post pics of the improvements.

Grace has been a "challenge" lately. During the day she's been fine. We've been moving her from her chair to her walker to the floor and surrounding her with many toys as we get organized. She does really well at entertaining herself. It's at night when the madness begins. Since we've moved in, almost every night she's been waking up at least every 2 hours. Last night she woke up about 7 times. I slept a couple of hours this morning when SJ took her for me.

Yes, this could be due to the move and the new environment, but things have been heading in this direction for a while. She was doing well at 5 months, waking up 2-3 times a night. I thought we were getting somewhere. But around 6 months she started waking up more and more frequently and will not go back to sleep without nursing. Now at 7 months, I'm nearing the end of my patience. If we weren't going to Canada in a couple of days, I would do something drastic, like stay at a friend's one night and let Sejin do his best. But it is useless to try anything now. We'll see how the trip goes.

Sleep deprivation is a terrible thing. Now I know why it has been used as a method of torture. My mind just isn't funtioning at full capacity. I have to write everything down. I've lost motivation to cook proper meals or exercise. Luckily Sejin has been here to keep me going. But when we return, we both plan on working. This won't be possible if I'm only going on a couple of hours of sleep a night. A big change is needed.

Now to start packing our bags.

The Big 6 Months

Grace was born 6 months ago from today. This is an exciting day because it feels like both of us have grown so much. Three months was kind of anti-climactic because I expected things to be so much different, but she was still just a little baby. I was still feeling a bit uncomfortable in my role as a mom. It's not that I wasn't enjoying it -- it's just that I didn't feel that confident in what I was doing. I was constantly feeling like an idiot and questioning my decisions, when in fact, looking back, I was doing quite well.

The early days:

I now have a very happy and healthy six month old girl who is surprising me every day with what she can do. NOW things are happening! The developments are very visible now. I also feel a lot more confident about how I'm raising this baby. I realize that how I do things may be different from how another mom does things, but that's okay. I know Grace and what she needs and I'll do whatever I have to do to meet those needs.

Here's what my chunky girl does:

-She smiles whenever she sees me.

-She rolls intentionally. Before it was random and seemed kind of accidental. Now I can almost see the wheels turning when she's about to roll: I see. I want. I roll there.

-She notices EVERYTHING. She loves my cell phone. When she sees it she holds out her hands and whines. When I eat something different than she eats, she reaches out. Nothing gets by her anymore.

-She eats well. She doesn't seem to be a picky eater. Tonight for dinner she had sweet potato and some rice mixed with pureed peas and carrots. Ate it all. Even when she doesn't seem to enjoy something, she opens her mouth for more.

-She notices other babies. She looks curiously at other children and what they're doing. Today we were in the nursing room at Homeplus when another mom and her daughter came in. There was no more eating, as Grace could not keep her eyes off the other girl.

-She's figuring things out. I have a small bucket of rattles. She can pass a rattle from one hand to the other. One of the rattles also spins. The other day I caught her holding the rattle in one hand and using the other to spin it slowly. I didn't know she could do that.

-She's learning to sit up. She loves trying, but she's still really wobbly.

-She laughs whenever I take my hair down from a ponytail. She thinks it's hilarious that I can sometimes have long crazy hair.

-She can "swim" to the top of her crib. A few times I've gone to pick her up and she's been crunched up at the top of her crib on her side, looking at her bumpers.

There's a lot of other things she can do, but these come to mind right now. This is definitely a fun age.

We still have our sleep challenges, but I take it one day at a time. I have a feeling she's working on something in the sleep department, so we'll see. Sleep is definitely something she doesn't like doing, but she's getting enough and that's the main thing. Now if only I would focus as much on my sleep...

Anyway, happy six months, Grace!

An "Ah, Korea!" moment

Today was the day Sejin went to Uijeongbu to sign the apartment contract. He left early because he has to work tonight. As he was getting on the train to leave, he called the real estate agent.

SJ: I'm leaving for Uijeongbu to sign the contract now, okay?

Agent: Okay, see you soon.


When he arrives, the agent greets him and informs him that the owner and the current tennants have changed their mind -- they no longer want to move.

SJ: Why didn't you tell me this before I came all the way to Uijeongbu?

Agent: I didn't want to ruin your day.

So I guess she figured he would enjoy the long boring train ride to Uijeongbu during his free time before work. Aigo...

But never fear, she says, there is another unit available in the same building, same layout. So that's why she still wanted him to come. Only thing is, the owner is not willing to repaper and floor the place. Hmmm, this will take some thought.

Grace and I just got back from Homeplus. I was bored and figured she needed a teething ring as she has her hands in her mouth all the time now and is making these really weird movements with her mouth. I also picked up some kind of mesh feeding device so she can feed herself, as well as yet another sippy cup. The Nuby I bought isn't working out. It's so hard to suck any liquid out of it -- even I can't! I bought a Nuk brand one today, so we'll see.
Look at the gums on this kid:
By the way, happy Canada Day! (taken a couple of months ago)

Crossroads

Warning: The following post may make no sense.

We've got a 5-month-old baby (that's the good part!), no jobs (well, just part-time non-permanent stuff), we've got to move in a month, we don't know where to move, we're going to Canada in August, we don't know exactly what to do when we get back, I'm getting tired of living in a small apartment in Seoul surrounded by concrete and construction, I haven't done much professional development in recent years, I have insomnia.

I've been having these panicky moments lately where I'm like -- OMG, I'm nearly 30 and I don't know what I'm doing with my life. And I reflect. I'm not one to toot my own horn, but I was once good at a few things. I was accepted into the music program in uni, major instrument saxophone, minor instrument piano. I won the technical award when I graduated high school for my work in architectural drafting. I received a letter from the Dean for getting the highest mark in my French program in uni.

Fast forward to today. I don't play the saxophone and rarely play the piano. I'm not an architect. I don't speak French at all anymore. I have a BA in English (with honours), and that's about it. Bugger All.

So I hate that I find myself in this situation. I have all these "I wish I would haves" and "I should haves."

I didn't intend to stay in Korea this long. I got my honours in English so that I could enroll in graduate studies when I returned to Canada some day. Then I met Sejin. It was the best thing that could have happened and I don't regret staying, but I think we should have set some clearly defined goals for the future. Instead we've just been letting the years pass by... Yes, years pass by inevitably, but I only wish they were more productive.

I suppose it's no use whining about it. It's just that the next several years seem so daunting because I feel like we are going to have to start from square one. Both Sejin and I need more education. We need to get good jobs, hopefully ones that we like. We need to make sure Grace is happy through all of this. We need to decide which country we are going to live in.

But which decision to start with?

This post is definitely not going to help my insomnia. I've got work to do...

I'll post a picture. I think this is pretty funny. Grace looks huge here. Last time we had her weighed she was 8.5 kg or 18 lbs 11 oz. I think her weight will level out soon. It has to. I was carrying her like this because it's a kind of stretching exercise for her torticollis.

House hunting in land of the morning jackhammer

There has been construction going on here for the past several months. It's almost sent me over the edge a few times. These days, the super huge jackhammer truck starts doing its thing both in the morning, and around 4:00 every day, right around the time Grace needs her late afternoon nap to get her through 'til bedtime. When this nap doesn't happen, bath and bedtime aren't fun and it's harder to put her down. She finally went to sleep just now, thankfully. Hopefully she's getting used to the constant racket around here.

Speaking of bedtime, we're majorly off schedule now. I'm so disappointed. For a while now, Grace has been doing wonderfully, going to sleep around 7:00, waking around 12am and 4am to eat, and up at 7 or 8am for the day. This gives me time to do my work at night and veg out. But we took an impulsive out-of-town trip the other day to go house hunting and didn't make it back home 'til 9:30pm. Surprise, surprise, she wouldn't go down last night 'til 9:45pm. Lesson learned: get your butt back home in time for bedtime, especially with a young baby. Even one night can throw them way off.

We've been looking at places in Bucheon. Housing prices are good and many places are new. It's a 1/2 hour bus ride in to Seoul Station. Lots of schools. Parks, too. We're also going to check out Ilsan and Uijeongbu, but we're leaning towards Bucheon mainly because of location. It's so close to Seoul. The Mok-dong area is very close, too, and there are tonnes of jobs there.

Sejin has the hard part of doing the actual hunting. He will narrow down the list of potential places and I will go and view them another day. Then comes the fun part of showing up and seeing whether me being non-Korean has any affect on our negotiations. In the past, owners have expressed concern over renting to foreigners, as apparently foreigners are irresponsible and noisy. Strange, as my current Korean neighbors (beside and above and below) are incredibly noisy, coming in at all hours, slamming doors, shouting in the hallway, cleaning house at 1am, etc, etc. Whatev.

Crap, she's up!! The fun begins. The question is, do I go about bedtime routine as usual, starting around 6pm, or work down from last night's 9:45 bedtime? Hmmm.

Torti-freaking-collis

If Grace was big enough to eat ice cream she would definitely deserve it for how good she was today. We spent a good portion of the afternoon at the hospital. A few weeks ago, we went to St. Paul's Hospital, a big hospital near our place. There she had an ultrasound on her neck which confirmed that her neck muscles are indeed the same size. We saw a physiotherapist who obviously doesn't see a lot of babies. She didn't give me much to work with as far as exercises go. That visit didn't sit quite right with us, so we decided to try a bigger hospital today, Seoul Adventist Hospital.

The pediatrician at SAH also felt her neck and said the muscles feel fine. And I agree. Grace can lean her head right; I catch her doing it once in a blue moon...she just doesn't do it very often. This pediatrician said that there are usually three reasons for head leaning. 1-muscular (mostly ruled out) 2-vision (one eye isn't working properly so baby leans head to compensate). 3-mental (this doesn't seem likely because Grace is bright and alert).

So, we saw an eye doctor (actually two...they were a team since they too don't get a lot of infants!). They did some tests, like covering one eye at a time and getting her to follow objects. They also looked at her eyes. Their conclusion what that her eyes seem normal, but they also added that it's often very difficult to tell when babies are so young. They gave us some eye patches and told us to do the same sorts of things with her and see if we notice anything strange.

So, this is all very unsettling. She is obviously still leaning left, so what is the reason? I've been googling "torticollis" and "head leaning" and it seems there are other reasons for head leaning. We have not been referred to a bone specialist, strangely. I've read about a condition called Klippel-Feil Syndrome, where some of the vertebrae at the base of the neck are abnormally shaped, causing the spine/neck to curve. It can be treated. There is also hip dysplasia. There are many other things, according to this informative webpage from the Seattle Children's Hospital.

So it was another unsatisfying hospital visit. And worse, the longer I go with no answers, the more my brain gets carried away with thinking the worst. Today at the mention of vision problems I instantly thought of Sejin's poor brother who has a condition which has caused him to go nearly blind in one eye. But that's jumping to conclusions...

Next on the hospitals to visit list is Seoul National University Hospital. I think I'm going to push to get an X-ray, or even an MRI. I want to know what's going on.

The Pognae

I recently ordered the Pognae baby carrier -- "the best comfortable baby carrier you'll ever wear" -- from gmarket. I decided to go with the Pognae because it looks exactly like the Ergo carrier, but is about half the price. Since I haven't been working for around 6 months, I save money wherever I can, and I had a good feeling about the Pognae.

My good feeling was correct. I've only wore it out once, but it is comfortable and sturdy, and I like the design. The plain ones are cheaper, around 40,000 won, and the graphic design ones are extra. The elephant one I chose was an extra 15,000. The print material is a very soft muslin type of fabric, and the print is not garish or cheesy. There are even zebra print and military print ones!

It's definitely an Ergo knockoff, but it has a few extra features. It comes with an extra head support that is attachable by velcro. There is also a flap where the baby's back is that you can roll down to reveal a mesh material to allow for air flow. One thing I really like is that on all the loose straps there is an elastic attached, so you can roll up all those loose ends so they're not flapping around. For an extra 6000 won, I got the sucky pads, which are quite thick and nice, and reversible.

So I'm pretty happy with my Pognae. It's the first carrier I've picked out for myself...all the others were lent to me -- the Moby, the Ergo, a Korean Baby Bjorn type carrier -- which was great because I got to try many out before purchasing one.

Another torticollis update

Grace is getting stronger everyday. These days her obsession is trying to sit up. She is no longer content to sit back and relax in her infant chair, yet she cannot sit up by herself. This makes her frustrated. She loves it when I hold her hands and pull her up into an upright sitting position. Wish I could hold her like that all day, but we've got stuff to do.

So while she's sitting in her chair watching me do this and that (these days making her baby food!), she uses this handy little pillow. I just got it recently and I wish I would have thought of it before. I could have used it from when she was born. I also use it in her stroller and I'll bring it to Canada in August to use in her car seat. It's Kiddopotamus brand, available here on gmarket. Actually, even if your baby does not have torticollis, it's probably a good idea to use something like this if they spend time in an infant chair with no head support, like my Fisher Price one.

In my last torticollis update, I described the useless advice given to me by the physiotherapist. She didn't give me any concrete examples of exercises I should be doing with Grace. After some searching and posting, I was sent this site by a lady on Ravelry, in the "New Mommies" group. I love knitters. Torticollis kids is also very useful. This site is by far the most useful as it gives quite a variety of exercises.

The good news is since she's getting stronger, I'm noticing her leaning less. This makes me happy. Even so, she still does lean and I've decided to take her to a different hospital tomorrow just to make sure we're making progress.

Expat Parents in Korea

http://expatparents.forumer.com

The forum is up and getting off to a great start. I really hope this helps people stay connected beyond the EMCK blogger blog. The thing I like most about this forum is that it is private. Of course there are other Korea forums out there for parents to connect on, but they are open to the whole internet. Users have to register and be approved for this one and I am going to closely monitor the interaction to make sure people play nice! I think it's going to be great though.

I got some work today! Met with a former coworker today at her office in Gongdeok. She now works for one of the biggest education publishers in Korea. Seems I have something to do now rather than surf the internet in the evenings! yeah!

Expat Moms in Korea

I started up a private blog for Expat Moms in Korea last December. I would often get emails from women saying something along the lines of, "I'm glad I found your blog. I'm moving to Korea soon..." I also knew some moms in Korea through Ravelry, and just some moms I had met along the way. Then I met mamaseoul, who gets a tonne of hits to her blog from people searching things like "pregnant in Korea." After a successful lunch with about 6 moms in November 2008, I thought, why not stay connected online? That's how EMCK started.

Since then our little group has grown to between 70 and 80 members. I had no idea there were so many expat moms in Seoul. Many people post often, some just read, and some just come out to events. It's been so nice to see this group grow and watch the amazing exchange of information. I've met some good friends and I hope I have helped others make friends, too. I think I have. That makes me happy.

But since blogger can only accomodate up to 100 blog authors, we now have to change formats. I'm now working on making a forum for expat moms and dads in Korea. It's hard to say whether people will take to it or not, but I'd like to help people stay connected. There is already a board for moms and dads over at www.expatkorea.com, but it's not very active. Anyway, if my forum doesn't work out, I'm still happy because I can still keep the friends I've made. But I'm hopeful that it will be successful. I have a few good ideas in store...

One thing I am a little worried about is the dynamics between the moms and dads. I liked that EMCK was moms only, but I think it's time to branch out a bit. When I think of the expat dads that I am friends with, I know that the interaction will be postive. But it's the people you don't know that you have to be careful of. I've learned that lesson before.

Here's hoping the transformation goes well! I'm off to work on the forum!

Progress?

Been doing the Baby Whisperer stuff for 5 days now. Sometimes I think Hey, this is working! Sometimes I don't think I can deal with one more nap time.

Basically, I've been trying to break the association between eating and sleeping, so I'm putting her down awake to fall asleep on her own. This hasn't been easy. I do not let her cry (if she cries, I pick her up and comfort her), but I do not let her fall asleep while eating.

It's really hard to say whether anything is happening because something like this could take serious time, depending on the baby. Grace was very dependent on nursing to sleep, so I figure it's going to take another week at least for her to feel really comfortable going to sleep by herself. To her credit though, she did fall asleep by herself for her morning nap, and tonight at bedtime. A bit of babbling and squealing, some whimpering, then sleep. But I'm hesitant to get excited about it because in the past I have been too quick to declare success.

Do I seem obsessive about this? Well, I am. I really want to know that when I leave the house for work or whatever reason, Grace will know how to go to sleep without me. These days if I have to go out, she keeps herself up basically until she crashes. Not good.

Speaking of work, some decent part time positions have come up, but unfortunately, I can only work temporarily since we are going to Canada mid-August for 5 weeks. Should I just withhold that information and spring it on them last minute? It's really not my style -- I hate lying...but it seems I may not get anything otherwise.
I knitted this summer top for Grace, and yet again, it doesn't fit. Well, it does fit, but probably for about a week or two! I think I'm going to stop knitting baby stuff altogether. I seem to have serious sizing issues! That or I'm only going to knit things in toddler sizes so I know they will fit eventually. My sister got me this book of kid size knitting patterns. Think it's time to get that out.

Baby gifts

I was looking at these teddy bears the other day and thought I'd snap a picture to see if anyone else thinks they're really weird. I call them the demonic teddy bears. No eyes, nose, clothing, except for a ribbon around the neck. The metalic plasticky one is particularly disturbing. I received them in the mail a few days after Grace was born from a former colleague of Sejin's. I was thinking I may try to embroider some eyes and nose and maybe even knit some clothes for them. They look so scary now.

The demonic bears got me thinking about all the baby gifts I received (and am still receiving) since Grace was born. I was surprised to get so many. The doorbell rang steady for a week. Mostly clothes. Some really nice ones too. The problem is, quite a bit of the clothing will fit her in the wrong season! She'll probably never wear some stuff. Some of the really small stuff she got she only wore a few times. Among the best gifts we received was a huge box of Pampers from my friends Ed and Joo. Also, my friend A got Grace a really nice bottle of luxury baby oil. We also got a nice warm baby blanket we used a lot. Oh yes, and the Aprica baby sling was good for the first couple of months. My sister sent some nice books. My mom made a bunch of stuff -- some really nice blankets that can't be grown out of!

But I don't blame people at all for buying ill-fitting and impractical baby clothes. It really is the thought that counts and I, myself, was a poor baby gift buyer. Thinking back, I was guilty of buying less than useful gifts. I would typically buy clothing, the cuter then better (not always the best choice), and I would buy it for the baby's current size. For example, for a baby's 1st birthday, I would go to Dongdaemun and ask for clothing that would fit a one-year-old. Now I know that is the worst thing to do! Always buy at least a size up and keep the season in mind. I've even bought silly things myself, things you buy because "it's just so cute!!" I'm cutting back on those purchases though. A baby can only wear so many headbands and ruffly socks. I don't know why I'm writing about this. I was just thinking about all the baby stuff I have.

In other news, Sejin and I posted Grace's pics on a couple of baby modeling websites and one of the sites contacted him requesting more pictures. But they want studio pictures. Too bad I don't have the 400 bucks to shell out for those! Perhaps we'll go to Igloo and do the 'self' photos. We've been meaning to for a while...

Whoa...again

Grace went down last night for the last time around 8:30 and only woke up at 1:00 am to eat. Then 6:40 awake. Not too bad! I hope it's not a fluke!

I made Sejin read the key chapters in the Baby Whisperer last night to make sure we're on the same page. He assured me he's on board, so today we're doing EASY. I'm not going to worry too much about the timing...just the general Eat Activity, Sleep, You Time pattern.

Fingers crossed. It's a beautiful day out there, so I also hope to get out for a walk!

Whoa

Sejin did it. After 30 minutes of trying, Grace went for an afternoon nap. Yeah Papa Jo! Then, suddenly, a door slammed in the wind only 30 minutes later and she woke up! Doh!

I know in a recent post I said I was going to follow my instinct and not books, but books are still good and can give you good ideas. I just finished reading the Baby Whisperer and I wish that I had read that book first. It was last on my list because it sounded so cheesy. To my surprise, it is full of good ideas and is pro-routine, yet not minute-by-minute a la Gina Ford. I like the idea of Gina Ford's book, but after some thought, I realized it really isn't realistic, especially for breast feeders. I certainly don't have 6-8 ounces left in me at 6:00 pm! And, it costs over $100 to join Gina Fords online community! I couldn't believe it. But the Baby Whisperer forums are free.

The Baby Whisperer recommends the EASY routine, which is Eat, Activity, Sleep, You time. This is similar to what is recommended in Babywise, which I intended to try, but we fell into the habit of nursing to sleep. It will be hard to break this association, but I'm confident that we can do it. We have to do it, especially if I return to work! This is a great perk to the EASY routine -- you can leave your baby with someone and give them a routine to follow, one that baby is comfortable with.

But EASY is not easy and we will have to work on it. Yesterday didn't go so well, but I think we have made some small progress today with Sejin's success in putting Grace for a nap. Also, when Grace woke up tonight 45 minutes after I put her down, I was able to get her settled without feeding her. About 20 minutes in, she was up to a scream cry in my arms (where's my boob?!?), and I was questioning my competency as a mother. Suddenly I put her down again and she turned her head and closed her eyes. It's as if she said, Okay, I give up. Wimpering 20 minutes later, so I did the Shh/pat as outlined in BW and surprisingly she went back to sleep. I think the key to this method is showing baby that you're not going to waver -- that they're going to be put back in their crib to go to sleep. I like it because it's gentler than CIO; you're with your baby while they're having the emotion. You talk them through it, pat them, and stay with them until they fall asleep or are calm.

I'm really excited about all this because I was kind of worried about our trip to Canada in August. I have spent up to 3 or 4 hours some nights trying to get Grace to sleep and I was dreading spending most of my time in Canada doing the same. But if the BW techniques work, things will be different and I can start getting excited about the trip.

Here's hoping!

Back to work?

Don't wanna do it. But sometimes life sucks. It seems I don't have a choice in this matter.

There's prep to be done though... a lot of prep. Sejin is in trying to put Grace to sleep (she was asleep for 45 minutes and then woke up). I want him to try things and find his own way of dealing with her (esp regarding sleep and feeding) so that when I leave the house I am confident that he'll do okay. As of right now, he's not doing okay. But I guess he'll need time to figure it out.

It's really hard not to interfere.

Exhausting day...

Day 1 of trying to break the eat-sleep association. Grace resisted hard and hardly slept today. I stuck to my guns and spaced out her feedings to what is appropriate for a 5 month old and she didn't do too bad, although as I said, she didn't sleep. Seems she is very dependent on nursing to sleep, as I thought...

Oops, the dragon stirs...

It's coming together

I've been a mom for nearly 5 months now. It feels like much longer, but it's only been 5 short months. In that time, I've been constantly looking for "the" answer to my parenting questions, sometimes in books, online, or from friends.

I finally understand now that there is no "one" answer to any problem or issue and no "right" way to do things. I'm the mom. I carried this baby, I bore her, and now she is in my care. It seems only natural that I should know how to raise her. And this is where my problem is -- I've been reluctant to trust my own instincts. I am constantly questioning myself rather than going with my own instincts and intuition. Sure, both experts and friends can give you great advice based on their own experiences, but if it doesn't sit right with you or especially if it doesn't work for you, why follow it? This all seems very simple, but for me it has been really hard to realize this.

So, I have spent the last couple of weeks analyzing how things have been going with Grace -- what I like and what I don't like, and how we could both be even happier. I have been trying not to use catch phrases or labels and I've just been simply trying to step back and take a look at my typical day. What I found (after some sleepless nights -- insomnia!) is that in general, things are really good with us. She is happy and healthy, and I'm doing okay. But there are some things I'm not comfortable with and I would like to change them now while Grace is still young. For example, I've never been truly comfortable with demand feeding and I really want Grace to learn how to fall asleep independently -- not being nursed to sleep for every nap and bedtime like she is now.

So I met with my hypnobirthing instructor today for a coffee. I felt that she had a similar parenting style to mine and I wanted to pick her brain. It turned out to be a very good thing to do. It was good to talk to someone who shared some of my concerns about childcare. Sometimes I feel like a bit of an oddball among other parents because I want to put Grace on a feeding and sleeping schedule. But talking with someone else for whom that worked really made me feel better about it and realize that it's not a bad thing to do -- different things work for different people. She gave me some tips and reassured me that I'm doing a great job so far and that since Grace is only 20 weeks, it should only take about a week to implement a schedule and be on our way to self-soothing to sleep.

I'm on a bit of a high now and feeling very confident about my ability to be a good mom in my own style. If only I would have listened to my instincts from the start...but no worries. Tomorrow is a new day. :-) I'm going to spend the next week close to home, working on breaking some of Grace's bad habits (in a gentle way, of course -- can't do cry-it-out). I know there will be some hard moments, but I'm very confident in both of us.

Oh, Grace...

A Korean friend of mine came over today to finally meet Grace. It's always funny to see Korean friends' reactions to our little (um...big) mixed baby. "Oh, she's so beautiful!" "Oh, look at her white skin!" "Beautiful eyes!" Recently Sejin threw Grace on his shoulder to go grab some garbage bags and a woman came running saying, "Oh, a foreign baby!" Sejin was like, "Uh, no she's Korean actually." She was born here after all. She doesn't even look that 'foreign' to me. She just looks like a baby...maybe 'cause I'm her mom.

Anyway, we ordered a pizza and got up-to-date with each other. I put Grace for a nap (all swaddled up as she likes! Using this new technique which uses two blankets for larger babies...it's awesome!) and Juyeon and I decided to slip out to Myeong-dong for a couple of hours. Sejin was supportive of this.

Unfortunately, when Grace woke up and realized I wasn't there, she was none too happy. She has been refusing a bottle for a couple of months now (containing breast milk or formula, with any type of nipple), although she has taken a few ounces a couple of times when I wasn't around. Today she would have none of it and instead screamed for poor Sejin.

I checked my cell phone when Juyeon and I stopped for a coffee and realized I had missed three calls: Sejin. So I call him and it sounds like the calm after the storm. "Could you please come home now? Yes, she's okay, for now. How long will you take?"

I cut coffee short and headed home, having been gone less than three hours. Oh, Grace, you're going to keep me close to home for a while, aren't you?

So for the last hour I've been reading online about getting babies to accept bottles. After all that reading I have resolved not to stress about it too much. I don't go out alone too often and it's not like I'm returning to work full time or something. However it would be nice to know she would eat something if I had to leave for an entire day (a commercial shoot or something). On askdrsears.com, he mentions that if baby has been started on solids and enjoys them, this can substitute for milk while mom is away once in a while.

Coincidentally, I started giving Grace a bit of rice cereal a few days ago. I did so after thinking about it for a while. She never seems satisfied after feeding anymore and she's getting huge (18 lbs at 5 months). Then I was reading in Babysense and The Baby Whisperer that if a heavy baby over 4 months can't go longer than 4 hours between feeding, doesn't seem satisfied, and watches you eat often, then they might need a bit extra fuel, and you can probably try solids. I'm also taking Gina Ford's advice and only giving the cereal after she's finished a milk feed, since milk is still most important.

Anyway, I ordered some stage one Gerber rice cereal and experimented three days ago. That feed was very bewildering to her, but she did okay. She tried eating it, although a lot ended up on the bib. Yesterday she did a little better. Then tonight before bed we had a bit more and she finished the whole bowl (maybe two tablespoons) without wasting much! She couldn't wait for the next spoonful. A lot of fun.

After the first cereal:

You go, Papa Jo

Very often I (and I think a lot of moms) get obsessed with trying to do everything themselves -- I'll do that! No, I do it like this. No, you can't do that. She doesn't like that. I know everything!

I admit that I have become a little bit like that with Grace and I don't like that. I need to give Sejin some time to find his own ways of doing things with her, especially in the event that I have to return to work. So two nights ago I was having huge trouble putting her to sleep. Three hours later I said, "You give it a try." And he did.

He came back and she was sleeping. What did you do, Sejin? He turned down all the lights to pitch dark (I usually leave a dim light on), covered her bumper pads with a towel, swaddled her, put on some lavender aroma oil, put one of my worn T-shirts in the corner of her crib, and left the room. She slept.

Where have you been for the last almost 5 months??!! Oh yeah...I've been pushing you away! Silly, silly, silly...

From here on in I'm ready to accept any help or suggestions from Sejin. I really have to start giving him more credit.

Last night I used his techniques, and although she didn't go down right away, she did sleep from 10pm through 'til 5am, the longest stretch in a while. Who knew?

Do we have a stay-at-home-dad in the making here? Stay tuned to find out...

Fashion is War

That's Doota's new slogan. I visited the newly renovated Doota in Dongdaemun today and was very impressed with the new luxurious feel...not so impressed with some of the new luxurious prices, but it's still an awesome mall. There's a new Coffee Bean on the second floor with an outdoor terrace. Lots of nice stuff. Lots and lots of people, but what did I expect from Dongdaemun on a rainy Saturday?

Today was also a major wakeup call for me -- I don't fit into any of this stuff anymore! Ahhh, the days when I could wear Korean "free size"! I was fawning over some of the cute little dresses and outfits which I used to fit in a little over a year ago. There is no better motivation to lose weight than to walk around Doota and look at the beautiful clothes...not to mention the beautiful people. Of course I can't go on a hardcore diet since I'm breastfeeding, but I can do such things as cut out the daily ice cream I've been eating.

I had gone out today with the intention of getting myself few cheap new T-shirts to wear this summer while I shed the pounds... instead, I got nothing for myself and Grace got a new dress, a skirt, T-shirt, cardigan, and sun hat (all in basement Migliore). My budget is shot, I've got nothing to wear, but I've got one well-dressed baby!