A couple more of the wives' tales ...

If you cry during the birth of your child, it will damage your vision.
Your joints get out of whack all over your body when you give birth, so you have to stay warm so they will mold back into place.
Another thing about our little yoda -- can I call our baby that? -- is that in Korea, instead of giving out cigars, you are supposed to offer out dok (pronounced duk). Basically, it's rice that is slightly sweetened. And no, it's not very good.

I bought $70 worth of dok for the office, so people could have giant slices, about half the size of a brick. I'll take the cigar.

A great thing about Korea ...
For about $320 bucks a week, we have a woman in her 40s helping us full-time (though, probably just for 2 weeks). She cooks, feeds and changes the baby, and boils the baby's clothes. She'll even iron and give Patty massages. However, she has some interesting wive's tales related to having a baby.
Apparently, women aren't supposed to brush their teeth for 3 months after giving birth, because their gums are so sensitive.
In fact, women usually are told not to even leave their bed -- not even for a shower -- for the first month. (Fortunately, Patty has not followed either suggestion). The idea is that they need to stay constantly warm and also rest their muscles.
The woman also told Patty to be sure to take care of the post-baby swelling around her feet, because that can turn into fat.
She also wants Patty to eat seawood soup six times a day, which is full of iron (to restore the blood). That is actually quite healthy and a tradition that has probably been going on here for new moms in Korea for thousands of years. Kinda cool.

The miracle of birth

Photos ... the first minutes of Anne Kim Breuhaus' life. Her first moments with mom. A hospital room with a view, the day after. And finally, the nurse presents Anne Kim to her brother Jack (not pictured).







Wow. Sometimes I forget how amazing it all is, and what a blessing it is from God.
Patty woke up at 6 a.m. on Saturday when her water broke. At first, I was irritated to be woken up. Then, when she told me what was up, it didn't seem real. We called our neighbor, and she arrived within minutes to watch Jack. We were at the hospital by 6:30 a.m. Patty immediately got admitted, and they said she'd been dialating -- 2 cm. The first thing she did: call for some pain killers! The anesthesiologist was there in minutes. We would not have that luxury later on ... but that's ahead in the story. Well, in Korea, the tradition is for the second birth NOT to take an epidural. Patty put that tradition to rest quick. Well, by 8 a.m. or so, she starting feeling some pain. She called out for help, and more pain killer, but the anesthesioligist just watched and did nothing. Turned out, he was right. Because 15 minutes later she was feeling no pain. And she didn't the rest of the delivery. She went from 3 cm ... to fully dialated in about 20 minutes! The nurse checked, called out in Korean that she was dialated, and that staff came a running. We'd had a resident doctor with us the whole time, but within about 60 secs, there were another five nurses and doctors. Our OB doctor came in too, out of breath from running. (Patty's doctor, who we love, was out of town in Japan for a 2-day conference. Well, what are the chances the baby will come that day, we thought? A whole week early). Anyway, they took us to the delivery room, and the baby came out with just three pushes. They did an amazing job and we were really well cared for. The place we stayed was a brand new wing of the children's hospital, and they even served shrimp for dinner. Overally, we think we got better and more intense care than our delivery on Long Island. Just one problem: the anesthesiologist never showed up to remove the epidural needle. All day, we kept calling for it to be done. And all day, we kept getting excuses. Finally, we decided to get Western. Patty told them if she didn't get the needle out by 12 midnight, she was going to file a formal complaint. At 11:45 p.m., they wheeled her to a whole other wing of the hospital where the anesthesiologist was working. He took it out, took about 3 minutes.
That night, it snowed. It was amazingly beautiful and a perfect way to end the night. We can always tell our little Anne Kim Breuhaus that it snowed the night she was born.

Yank off
That is your English lesson for today, courtesy of the JoongAng Ilbo Korean edition. The above was the actual headline, next to the phrase "Kaplan's biz English," and here is the actual text (sandwiched between the Korean characters).

Conversation
A: James has a good body. He must've exercised hard.
B: Tell me about it. When I first met him, he shook my hand so hard I thought he'd yank it off.

Yes, it's true. I have gone two months plus without posting, and I return with this.
How do you say pathetic in Korean?