This weekend, the baby got two things.
A haircut.



And a visitor. Maya came to see the boy with no rat tails. He loved her so much that he laughed in her face more consistently than he's ever laughed for anyone before.

Over the weekend I accomplished an incredibly important thing. After two and a half years, many starts and stops, several life changes, including moving to Korea and re-spawning, I finally finished reading Great Expectations. It took Dan buying me a Kindle, us acquiring an hour long commute into Seoul, and several dedicated subway trips of reading, but I did it. And, no, I did not remember who Mr. Wopsle or Startop were by the end of it.

We had a date. Our first parental date in Korea, courtesy of our friends Justin and Katrina, who all but insisted that they watch Joash for our anniversary (and of course he napped for them! Whatever Mr. Anomalous Sleeper.). I don't really know what that means, date. I see Dan most of the time. I eat meals with him usually. Our baby is young yet that we can still have necessary conversations in front of him. I guess a date means that I get to wear a dress that doesn't offer full accessibility, that there are no undergarment prerequisites, that we can go to a movie and not worry about how loud anything is (the movie or the baby). It was nice. We took two taxi rides. Pretty romantic. And when we got home, Joash cried, and I have never yet been able to experience that kind of cry, the, "hey, you came back!" cry. Of course it was super sweet.

We had the longest day out today, and I fell asleep during some of it. And now I am falling asleep some more, and it hasn't even reached my self-imposed early bedtime. I think I just got too much of a good thing like Brother and Sister Bear. Man, Berenstain Bears is like the Cosby Show in that they are actually the Bear and Huxtable families respectively. What's up, media namers?

Accomplishing accomplishments.

Joash is finally a cribbed kid. We reached our breaking point with the pulling him out of the corners of his room and the getting his fingers stuck under the door. And just when we needed a crib, a fairly priced one appeared on Craigslist, and I spammed the guy until he sold it to us. So that's been our last couple of days. Joash is very interested in his new furniture. He even sat it in and played for half the time it took me to do the earth's most hateful chore, the dishes. Oh, but how I do hate to do the dishes. He also likes playing in his room now because of the crib and because of the yarn wall we installed. He likes to pluck the yarn strands like a many stringed and soundless guitar. It's cute and other baby adjectives.

He has been hard teething for three weeks, now, and I think his teeth might be made out of molasses. Not because they are rotty but because they are so slow. I think today was the day, though, and can we get back to that jolly kid that everyone thinks he is all the time? Not that I require jolliness from him, but it is nice to see him have a happy afternoon every now and then. A sad baby is such a pitiful one.

Another thing I did recently was steam cook some cinnamon buns. We have no oven for a while, but who is raising an infant without regular dessert eating? So the internet told me how to steam some tasty treats. Luckily I just so happen to have a giant pot with a steam tray. Steamed cinnamon buns are just as good as baked ones because all you need for a cinnamon bun to be good is for it to have a center. Yum. Is there really no way to engineer stand-alone cinnamon bun centers?

Dan has this real-type job now and is on a real-type business trip, so it's been just me and the teething Grumperstiltskin for the last couple days. This poor baby is the slowest teether I've ever known (never mind the only one), but I think I saw proof today. Today when he was up for the day at 5:30. Today when he slept for less than an hour between that 5:30 and 1 in the afternoon. Today when he was down for the night before 7, and I was sad to see him go. I had some good e-mail correspondence with my mom that really set me up for success on a day like today. Also, I made myself some ice cream to cope. I forgot to put my freezer bowls in the freezer yesterday, though, so it didn't quite set up. It's kind of like eating a bowl full of hot fudge, but there are worse things.

The hardest part of Danlessness is solitary long-distance subway riding. On Friday, we had to go to Hapjeong for our weekly playdate. Joash attracts a lot of attention. When he has two parents, we can share the brunt of the labor-intensive inquisition. Without Dan, I am left alone to fend off the ajummas, both bossy ("어, 추워!" He's cold!) and well-meaning ("인형 같에, 인형" He's a doll!), the college-aged girls ("어, 귀엽다!" He's cute!), and, oddly enough, the older gentlemen who mostly cluck at him and demand that I sit down.

[Dan just came home as I am typing this! Hoorah!]

Yesterday was the busiest day of it yet, I think because Joash was awake the whole time. He got a paper fan from a girl who had just donated blood. He got to chew on someone's cell phone. He was given a free vitamin juice sample (which, obviously, lady, I'm not feeding to my child, especially not right here on this crowded subway train, so you can stop your gesticulating). And then, he was physically removed from my person and held for a couple stops. Maybe that is shocking to you, but, yeah, no it was shocking to me, too. Strangers do hold people's babies here, but, I don't know, maybe don't pull him up out of the wrap that is strapping him to his mother. We survived, though, didn't we?

Don't laugh, but, for some reason, I'm just learning that parenting is sort of supposed to be always hard. I'm sure that's obvious to everyone else, but I've been over here thinking that things would level out and get easy somehow. Still, I think realizing it, late as I did, is going to make some things easier for me. Things like this 9 month sleep regression and the occasional all-day fuss.

Joash continues to grow up. He is a fast, little belly crawler now, and he collects on it all the dust in the world (except the ton still miraculously left in every corner of this apartment). I think he is close to top teeth and close to standing on his own.

In other news, sometimes Dan doesn't even turn on the air conditioning, and I get confused about that.

Ohio Pictures

Pictures from Ohio, and then we're done recounting a trip that is now months ago. I promise even less inspiring comments now, since I am posting this only because I have new pictures to post afterward.