Well, we've been here over a month now...

...and there are definitely some good days and bad days. The good days are when we go out and about and find something that I didn't expect at all to find (like Dr. Bonner's castile soaps) and the bad days are when I look ALL over and can't find one decent toy store around here to find something OTHER than character toys for Natalie or worse, can't find something that should be simple to find like a pail and shovel. The good days make living here bearable while the bad days have me thinking of buying a plane ticket. *sigh* But naturally, a month doesn't even come close to getting one used to new surroundings so I stick on, hoping that this will come to feel like home for me at some point, or at the very least, a sense of what I missed my years in college deciding to stick to a local university rather than head out of state/abroad as I had once planned. Fact is, there was a time where I had considered going and spending a year overseas for college. Admittedly, it wouldn't have been Korea but still, it would have been quite a culture shock and not something I would have been able to do on my own (though I'm sure, if I HAD gone oversears for school, John would have found a way to come with).

One of the big struggles has been the apartment. We're in a studio apartment which is really not all that big and has only one actual bed (that's firmer than anything I've been on in the states, though I must admit, I think it's been broken in a little now). Natalie sleeps on a mat like thing on the floor which, oddly enough, seems to work for her, she definitely likes it better than the couch with the mat on that. Unfortunately, she usually does not go to bed unless at least one of us is also in bed, usually John because he has to get up the next day and I tend to suffer from bouts of insomnia here and there. Even then, it's not easy to get her to go to sleep and therefore, we tend to find her awake as late as 1 in the morning. Fortunately for me, she also usually doesn't wake up before 10 or 11 on the morning following that late of an evening. I have no doubt that having a room to actually put her in would help her go to sleep sooner at night but at the moment, it doesn't look like that is going to happen. While we were able to check out a few apartments around here and found one that would work right in the building we're currently in, in order to move into that apartment, we would need a deposit of around 5 million won which is over $3700 US money. That's not something we have right now and although we would get it back, it's still a lot of money to put down at once, especially when John's last payment from the director was late.

Which brings us to our next issue, budgeting. Normally, John gets paid once a month but already, he's been paid late. This last time wasn't too bad but we talked to the other foreign teacher and she told us that it's normal for this director to be as much as 1 MONTH late. This would not be good AT ALL! So, at the moment, we're seeing what happens next month as there are a couple of other things we're sort of keeping on eye on, things that would end up affecting how long we are here. At the moment though, I think we can be pretty confident in John's job security. While the one foreign teacher is being replaced, it is because her contract has ended. The director here honestly cannot afford to lose any foreign teachers at all because if he does, he'll end up having to shut down the school. He had run into all kinds of issues, I guess, because a teacher had to leave for home suddenly. Parents started pulling their kids out. And this is the reason why working for a private school in Korea tends to be so iffy to begin with. It is the PARENTS who determine the teachers basically. If they don't like the teacher, they WILL pull their kids out and that does NOT help the school at all. Any why a parent might not like a teacher is anyone's guess. In John's case at the last job, it could have easily been something as simple as he was a male. Some parents prefer female teachers to male teachers. Still, it's not quite so simple to get a teacher over here as it was. Changes in the process and requirements (including background checks, physical examinations, etc) have made it a little more time consuming than before. And that is time that a director cannot afford to NOT have a teacher in place.

So that's something, at least. It's not like before where if something goes wrong, John would be fired instantly and sent home with no job. Here, he would get at least a month's notice which gives him some time to find another job. Now hopefully, that won't be happening anytime soon because with a job change comes visa and immigration changes and more paperwork and other issues as well and that's not only time consuming but also expensive! As it is, at some point, we will have to start making plans to get visas for me and Natalie. We have until June 10th to do so as we're currently here on a 90 day pass. Once we get a visa, we can be here for a full year and by that point, we will probably have a little money set aside to take a brief excursion out of the country. Hard to say, we'll have to see.

At the moment though, there's a lot to figure out and plan. With the weather being so in-between winter and spring, I ended up bringing many things here that I no longer need and leaving things there that I probably could use now, especially with the weather warming up close to summertime temperature for Wisconsin. Natalie at least has short-sleeved shirts here but she also has mostly pants and jeans. Her shorts are still in the locker at home. I at least brought the pair of gauchos I'm very fond of but I could probably use my summer items before too long as well. John already brought his summer stuff which really isn't much different from his winter stuff with the exception of three pairs of jean shorts that I got for him from someone on Freecycle last year. Fortunately, summer items fit a little better on Natalie than winter items. I don't have to worry about length so she can wear shorts from 24 months up to 4T and she has plenty of tops of various sizes. I'm still finding clothing sizes to be baffling though, especially jeans. I managed to grab a couple of pairs of 3T jeans from Old Navy before we left the states and they fit. In fact, they're almost too big around and I have to use the waist adjusters on them to keep them from falling off. Before that, I had found some of Natalie's 3T jeans to be a little snug. I don't understand it at all. She did hit a little bit of a growth spurt, sometime between late January and a week ago, when I finally measured her height for the first time in months. She's up to 37 3/8 inches which is almost an inch more from the last time I measured her.

Still, I am rather perturbed to have heard that my lamenting about Natalie's changes in clothing size was due to her being fat! What in the world! I got QUITE the lecture from a family friend shortly before our departure and told that Natalie's weight issues at such a young age are CLEARLY my fault because of the examples she gotten from me and how I eat and that she will have weight struggles her whole life because of it. Um, EXCUSE ME?! FIRST OF ALL, I NEVER lamented on here that my daughter was fat (why EVER in the world would I do that?!), I was lamenting that my daughter, for WHATEVER REASON, had grown out of her clothes. I had the same issues when she shot up an inch back in November and grew out of all of her 2T stuff! And the reason for this is very simple. I knew I was leaving the states, I knew I was going to have issues figuring out the sizes here in Korea (and oh boy has THAT been a challenge!). I had spent a fair amount of money buying clothes for her from rummage sales and eBay and whatnot when I had the chance to. I knew I wasn't going to have time to get money back for those clothes. I also knew that it was past the time for rummage sales so I couldn't look to those for clothes and my change in location meant I really couldn't look to Freecycle either (though I actually prefer NON-stained clothes which one usually doesn't find on Freecycle). I don't have half a dozen other kids and their hand-me-downs to get clothes from either. So yeah, I was kind of annoyed and especially annoyed that I had to keep going through clothes and packing and repacking the luggage because she kept growing. That NEVER meant she was fat though or that I even THOUGHT she was fat! Yes, some of her jeans were snug around her belly, that's where I buttoned them! She did fill out a little bit over the winter, SO WHAT? So does John! He gains a little tummy over the winter (probably to SURVIVE the cold because he's so blasted skinny) and then when it warms up, it goes away, especially if he starts running and then I have to figure out how I can fatten him up enough to keep his pants ON! He already had to cut off part of his belt today so that it would fit him as he's probably down an inch or two around the waist.

I'm just getting SO annoyed with all of this though. I'm told Natalie is going to be fat because of how I eat or because she's gotten the ocassional treat. I'm told Natalie is going to rebel and eat pork because John and I won't let her have any or she's going to rebel and go on an eating binge because we don't let her eat a daily diet of ramen noodles or let her have soda or a lot of other stuff some parents give to their kids all the time. Natalie is THREE. Why the bloody blazes are people worried about her weight ALREADY?! She is at a perfectly acceptable weight for her age. When I look at 3T stuff for her, she's in the height and weight range for that size. She has NEVER EVER been off of the chart for her weight. She does NOT look overweight. Looks are deceptive though because she's a VERY solid girl. She DID inherit my bone structure and I have ALWAYS been heavier than I looked. Even in pictures where people have commented that I was SKINNY (around a size 10), I probably still weighed more than my husband does now (he currently weighs around 128-130 pounds). I was never a waif though. I have always been broad-shouldered and big hipped and just a little wider than a lot of people (and by that, I don't mean overweight, I mean built wider). That's just how it is with my body type. Natalie will probably be the same way and Natalie also will probably not have the trouble to GAIN weight her father had (and still does, the little snot). He didn't hit 100 lbs until he was in 10th grade. I'm pretty sure I was close or over 100 lbs by fourth. And yet, I did not look fat.

I don't deny that I struggle with my weight and I don't want Natalie to struggle with hers. BUT, at the same time, I want her to have a HEALTHY relationship with food. No, I don't want her to comfort herself with food or eat junk food all the time because it tastes good or to go on overeating binges in general. I also don't want her throwing up her food or not eating at all simply to lose weight. That's not healthy either and in fact, that's more likely to kill you than being overweight. For MANY reasons, I did not have a healthy relationship with food. I have no doubt that a lot of it was due to the issues within my own childhood and I'm hoping that that will be one thing Natalie does NOT have to deal with. She won't have to eat food for love as I did or eat food to fill in that hole that needed to be filled for SO LONG. I'm hoping she won't have to eat for stress but will find other ways to deal with it like talking to her parents or to friends. I hope as she gets older, she'll have support to continue to be active and a place to do so and not told she has to stay inside because it's too dangerous to go out on her own. I hope that being active becomes second nature to her like it is to her dad so that she doesn't have to relearn to enjoy being active at almost 30. I hope veggies and other different foods become something she tries on a daily basis...but not octupus, there's something HORRIBLY wrong with eating something that's STILL ALIVE and STILL has the little suction thingies *shudders*. And mainly, I hope she finds balance and accepts and LOVES HERSELF. Because you know, that's the hardest thing of all.

These pictures were taken about three weeks ago. The last thing Natalie is is fat. And anyone who says otherwise needs to be smacked upside the head.