First Tear

Fact: The average panicked cry of a newborn is 84 decibels - about the same volume as a passing freight train.

Fact: A baby's eyes do not produce tears until the baby is approximately 6-8 weeks old.

Yesterday after church Benjamin was peacefully sleeping in his sling - despite the efforts of churchgoers who think he's especially cute to rowse him so they can see his blue eyes! We put him in the car seat to drive home and he began to cry. He often fusses a bit when first put in his seat but we thought he would calm down and go to sleep like he usually does. We were obviously wrong because he proceeded to cry/scream the entire way home. (This was our cue that he was in fact hungry, not just fussy.) The drive was nightmarishly reminiscent of our first drive with him - the drive home from the hospital after he was born - only now he can cry louder! At that time I thought that I might never get in a car with him again if this was the scenario that would ensue. As we parked in the underground parking lot and made our way up the stairs to the elevator (with Ben still in his car seat), the gentle rocking of being carried lulled him into silence. Once in the elevator I set him down so that my arms could recuperate, and the crying began again. But this time was a little different. I bent down to look into the car seat, mesmerized as Ben's big blue eyes welled up with tears. "Look, a tear!" I exclaimed to Colin as a single droplet spilled over and left a wet trail down our son's left cheek. My husband's response was more practical than mine - he picked up the car seat and the crying stopped!

Can you see the resemblance?

Pepero Day

November 11th is Remembrance Day or Veterans Day to North Americans, but here in South Korea November 11th is a special day for an entirely different reason: it's Pepero Day!

According to the JoongAng Daily:

The Pepero snack is a replica of Pocky, the Japanese treat of chocolate-dipped cookie sticks. The 11th of November is known as Pepero Day, because "11/11" looks like four sticks. Pepero Day supposedly started in 1994 at a girls' middle school in Busan, where students exchanged Pepero sticks, wishing each other to become as tall and slender as a Pepero. But some suspect that Pepero Day was actually dreamed up by Lotte's marketing team.

(Lotte is the 8th largest "chaebol" (conglomerate corporation) in South Korea. It employs more than 38,000 people and is into everything from candy to hotels to fast food. )

The typical box of Pepero sells for 500 to 700 won, but these days one need not be limited to the original Pepero. (In my opinion the most inferior Pepero!) In the weeks preceding November 11th the downtown stores attempt to attract customers with their elaborate displays of chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks. Mountains of Pepero boxes appear both inside and outside stores. I even saw a 5 foot tall Pepero, though I don't think it was edible!

In the above picture the standard Pepero is on the left, almond Pepero is in the centre and nude Pepero is on the right.

Perhaps it was just a marketing ploy, but I definitely think each country should have at least one candy-based holiday! After all, we not only have candy canes at Christmas, chocolate on Valentine's Day and cream-filled eggs at Easter, but let's not forget the grand-daddy of all candy holidays: Halloween! Then again, who needs a special day to eat candy?

Vaccinations

Benjamin has already had his fair share of being poked and prodded. Shortly after his birth he had blood drawn and got his first Hepatitis B shot. (Although Colin and I can't figure out why he needed a Hep B shot when contracting Hep A seems much more likely.) Then at one week he got a vaccination against TB. This was delivered using a metal device with a 3 x 3 grid of prongs that they pressed into Benjamin's shoulder twice. Apparently TB is more common in Asia than in North America. The head nurse explained that after a month, pus will form at the injection site which will then develop into a scar. This scar will disappear by the time Ben is 6 years old. Here's a picture of what the site looks like now. (7 weeks after the injection.)

At his one month check-up he received his second Hepatitis B shot. And this past weekend at his two month check-up he received one shot for diptheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus in one thigh, and a shot for polio in the other. Then we were instructed to come back in one week for another shot - Hib. Hib stands for haemophilus influenzae type B - a disease that can lead to meningitis, pneumonia, or a severe throat infection. Unfortunately for Benjamin, the immunizations don't seem to decrease until after he's two.

2 Month Check-up

Benjamin went for his two month check-up today. We found out he now weighs 5.76kg. That's about 12 pounds, 11 ounces. It's amazing how much bigger he looks when we put him in the car seat. I remember when we put him in it for the first time to take him home from the hospital. He looked so small and scrunched up - we thought he was way too small for it. Now he is close to outgrowing it. He got another vaccination today: DTP. Poor guy, he had to have a needle in each of his chubby little thighs. He cried, but stopped as soon as the nurse removed the needles. The nurses all know Benjamin and tried to get him to smile. I think they were jealous that he wouldn't take his eyes off Colin. They kept saying enviously, "He only likes his Daddy!" They gave us a calendar with a family picture that a photographer took at the hospital when Benjamin was a day old. This same picture has also been added to the gallery of family pictures gracing the hallway of the hospital. We perused all the pictures while I was in labour - comparing expressions on the babies' faces, head size, amount of hair etc. All the Korean babies have much more hair than Ben! It was a good appointment - Benjamin is happy and healthy and growing.

Time flies...

Benjamin is quickly coming up on two months! He has already changed so much - he is much more alert and interactive than before and looking less and less like a newborn. These days he smiles and makes sounds when we talk to him. We have "conversations" with each other and while I wouldn't say he is laughing yet, he does make little giggling sounds and give me big toothless grins when I do "Head and Shoulders" with him. I try to do it in English and Korean and last night I had a dream that his first word was the Korean word for nose!

The cloth diapering is going well, but we have decided to use disposables at night and when travelling for convenience and leak protection. (After going through 2 outfits one night I decided life would be simpler if we just had to change the diaper and not the outfits too. There's only so much you feel like doing at 2:00 am.)

The breastfeeding has all of a sudden resolved itself. I have no idea what actually made it get better, but I'm glad it did. Thank you to all those who were praying about it. I think my appetite is now larger than any time when I was pregnant. It takes a lot of energy to feed him, but it's amazing to think that even outside the womb his growth is intricately linked to my body. Sometimes it's hard to find time to eat all that I should. Colin tells me I need to "make eating a priority." He's right, of course. He's been wonderful. He'll prepare food and bring it to me - even cut it up if it needs to be cut, so that I can eat it one-handed while Ben is nursing. He also patiently comes to the rescue when I realize the glass of water, TV remote, book, tissue or whatever other item I want is on the other side of the room.

I have to admit I gave him a dirty look one day when he commented on how tired he was. 'Yes,' I thought (in my irrational sleep-deprived state of mind as if I were the only one suffering), 'but you can at least go back to sleep right after the baby wakes up. I'm the one who has to sit here with him sucking the life out of me!' But the truth of the matter is that I'm the lucky one because I can nap through the day when the baby naps, whereas he would get fired for napping at work.

Of course who has time for napping when you have to make eating a priority?

The sounds of our baby

Benjamin is starting to make more and more noises. He has little conversations with us now by sighing, smiling and cooing. But on the whole, most of his noises wouldn't be acceptable in mixed company. He can fart and burp to rival a frat boy. It's quite hard to take his crying seriously when it is punctuated by a symphony of gas! I can just picture the moment in church when he decides to let loose a series of diaper-rumbling flatulations! After we finish laughing at him we conscientiously wonder if it's bothering his not-so-little tummy. We have gas medicine, but as Colin reasonably pointed out, letting out the gas is not the problem.

Super Ben!

We didn't get a Hallowe'en costume for Ben, but it looks like he had Superman in mind! (This shot was not posed, he just happened to thrash that way.)