Destination Paradise

We're all fine...here...now...Thank you. How are you?

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:27:00 +0000

I'm increasing my usual blogging frequency of a post every...few months...because I felt the current circumstances warranted an update, now that North Korea's rhetoric and threats have turned to the foreigners in South Korea, a demographic that happens to include my family.

You see, my family has planned more of the usual tomorrow: I'm teaching a bunch of classes, Lucas is going to school where they're making ham sandwiches for "Cooking Day", and Carlos is working out after I get home. We'll bake a chicken and some pita bread for dinner. We may even watch a movie in the evening! However, if you checked the CNN headlines today, you might be concerned that we may be choosing the wrong course of action...

Based on this headline, we would be better off staying home, purchasing airline tickets and packing for a hasty departure. But this is not the plan. Why? Because we believe there are other perspectives to look at besides the US media, which, after all, is based an entire continent away. The story is a bit different when you instead turn to local Korean news sources in English. For example, the Korea Times, this country's oldest English-language news source looks like this right now:

In this report, North Korea's young, fresh dictator is viewed as a combative character straining to prevent an Arab Spring redux with his own long-oppressed subjects. The writer Kim Tae-gyu explains:

“With the North revamping unease everyday with warlike rhetoric, tensions are very high on the Korean Peninsula. But the consensus is that the primary target audience of the tough talks is North Koreans,” said a Seoul analyst who asked not to be named.

“Kim seemingly wants to maximize the sense of impending crisis through recent provocative activities. Having standoffs with outsiders is a good way to reduce internal conflict.”

In other words, Kim Jong-eun is doing this to keep his population united in the cause of standing strong against the US and South Korean forces and fortifying their nuclear arsenal rather than paying attention to their own poverty and hunger.

Meanwhile, the Korea JoongAng Daily is concerned primarily with the economic consequences of North Korea's decision to tentatively shut down operations at the joint Korean industrial complex just north of the border.

No talk of mass evacuations, no urging foreigners to swarm their embassies or find bomb shelters. Why the drastically different treatment of the current situation?

Maybe some of the answer comes from the perspective detailed by Andrei Lankov, one of the worlds leading scholars and experts on Korean relations. Rather than ratings-hungry media and US military experts, I appreciate hearing from someone who has studied the peninsula in detail for decades and has lived for a significant amount of time on each side of the border.

In an interview last week, Mr. Lankov felt that North Korea's current threats would be best ignored. He points out that when North Korea has warned of attack, they never actually have, and when they've actually attacked, it was with no warning at all. When asked why he thinks it sounds so serious this time, he says:

For many years, actually for decades, North Korea has played the same trick, which until recently has worked well. First, they manufacture a crisis. They behave pretty much like they're behaving now. They drive tensions high. And sooner or later, the international community and the major players begin to feel unwell and tense and insecure. At that point, North Koreans suggest to start negotiations, and they extract aid and other concessions in exchange for their willingness to return to the status quo...This approach, these tactics have worked perfectly well for many, many years, but recently it's losing its efficiency, because the outside world, above all the United States, have finally learned how it usually works with North Korea and they are not really rushing with money and concessions. And this is what North Korea wants above all: money and concessions from the outside world. So, obviously, it's quite possible that the North Korean decision makers decided to go really seriously loud this time.

Meanwhile, the US Embassy in Seoul is maintaining its security message from last week, explaining that they perceive no imminent threat to US citizens located in South Korea. Carlos and I are registered with our respective embassies and we're watching for any information that would indicate the need to take action, but for now, we're fine!

So there it is, folks. That's why our main concerns at the moment center on the return of the warm weather (please!) and what family-friendly movies are on TV tomorrow night.

*P.S. Bonus points if you can identify the source of the quote that makes up the title of this post. :)

How South Korea is dealing with North Korea's threats

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 16:27:00 +0000

South Korean high schoolers' response to North Korea declaring war on the country where we live:
Play an elaborate game of playground tag and help the foreign kid build a sand volcano. 04/31/2013

I'm hoping to squeeze this post in during March in an attempt to build some kind of blogging momentum, but then again we all know that working full-time while raising two kids in a foreign country can kind of present some obstacles to that goal. So today I am planning to talk about the everyday South Korean response to North Korea's increasingly threatening rhetoric this past week.

But let's start with some good news, shall we!?

Just a few weeks ago, the US Department of State very quietly slipped in a new amendment into one of the policy manuals used by immigration officers. It just came to our attention last weekend. Basically, it is providing an exception for the lifetime ban that currently has us exiled from the US, in cases where the intending immigrant was a minor at the time of the false claim incident. It lays out some conditions that must be met, so it's not an automatic cure, but this is quite possibly the miracle we've been praying for. Our lawyer has been on top of this, and is ready to submit our arguments for why the exception should apply to us. Now all that stands in the way is me collecting the evidence of hardship for the waiver packet and then we should be on our way. We won't start any celebrations until Carlos has a visa in hand, but for the first time in all these years, it feels like there could be a tangible, realistic process for us. It might take a very long time, but anything is an improvement on a lifetime of exile. It's exciting. And overwhelming!

Carolina is officially a legal resident of South Korea

In more day-to-day news, life is kind of settling into a routine now for our family. I enjoyed about 75 days of maternity leave under Korea's generous maternity leave policies, during which time we busied ourselves learning how to work a newborn into the family routine, and spent time going to the US Embassy and Korean immigration to make sure this child is properly documented. Now that I'm back at work, she and Daddy have worked out a smooth and peaceful daily schedule, and save for some harried days at the beginning where she refused to drink from a bottle, there have been very few complications. I feel like my current attempts to navigate work, family, immigration, and my own basic physical needs (like sleep) present a massive challenge but so far I'm doing OK. Having a husband to help out makes a huge difference!

So the main purpose of this post is to present our perspective on the escalating tensions with North Korea. Being that we live about 45-50 miles from the country that's threatening to point missiles at my home country and at the country where we currently live, there could be reason for concern. I'm going to try to explain why I don't think too much concern needs to be spent on us.

For one thing, the treatment in the Western media may just be quite a few notches more shrill than it is in Korean media. Even the most foreigner-ized media outlet in Korea has taken a more same-as-always approach to these developments. Today's headline is not actually about North Korea's threats, but rather the verbal sparring going on over the joint North Korean-South Korean industrial complex just north of the border. The fact is, South Korea has been getting threatened by North Korea for decades, and everyone's really used to it being lots of talk, very little action. The picture at the top of this post pretty much embodies the reaction here.

For another thing, it's the Spring. This is when the US and Korean military forces do their big public military exercises every year. We remember this from last year. More jets and helicopters fly overhead, cargo choppers ferry supplies between bases, and apparently this year the US felt the need to do a B-2 bomber rehearsal. But the point is, this stuff is done every year, and every year North Korea decries the display of strength being flaunted by these exercises. Last year, we didn't hear about it as much because Kim Jong-un was freshly installed and probably too green to start the kindling on an international incident. Now that he's gotten comfy in his new role, it's time to start up the warmongering lest his subjects doubt his sincerity.

Panic. Just pandemonium in South Korea on Sunday. Oh, wait...

This New York Times article gets into some of the other things that may be of greater concern coming out of North Korea right now. Ultimately, the ones I most feel concerned for are the members of the US and Korean military, the people who live on base, the ones most likely to actually be impacted by any military skirmishes that come out of this. Also, the residents of the lesser-known islands closest to the border, where some of North Korea's demonstrations have resulted in the loss of regular citizens' lives. Finally, the North Korean people who have lived for generations in extreme poverty and near-starvation, pitted against each other for survival and forced to participate in public demonstrations of support for their leader or face torture, food deprivation, or even death. Those are the people most in need of our prayers for peace right now.

Let no man divide what God has put together (Mark 10:9)

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 17:34:00 +0000

a symbol of the vows we took on May 12, 2007

In the days leading up to Valentine's Day, there tend to be lots of events and lively public discussion about marriage. For example, today is National Marriage Day, and there is a growing international movement to make the week surrounding February 14 International Marriage Week, a week to celebrate marriage and promote its health and survival. In fact, last year several Congressmen in the House of Representatives spent 45 minutes reinforcing the benefits of marriage and the need for a National Marriage week. During that time, they said things like the following:

"...It should always be our goal to keep that family unit together, and to hold that bedrock of our society together...And this is something that we can build on that will benefit our society." ~Rep. Gregg Harper

and this

"National leaders should be encouraging stable family formation, not redefining marriage. I call upon Congress to recognize the intrinsic good that results to all of society when husbands and wives strive to uphold their marriage vows and raise children in loving and stable homes." ~Rep. Doug Lamborn

So Congress, for over five and a half years, my husband and I have been striving to uphold the marriage vows we declared in English and Spanish before God, our parents, siblings, and other dear family members and friends in Illinois. Sometimes this meant staying true to each other and supporting each other across borders. Sometimes it has meant leaning on each other as we attempt to bring up a family in a totally foreign culture. It meant living some of our most precious family moments through Skype, including our son's birth, birthdays, Father's Days. For these five and a half years, it has meant constantly weighing our individual needs against the long-term survival of our family unit, and choosing to sacrifice accordingly. We've done all we can to keep our family intact. And it has been painful and difficult, all because of the challenge of having one member of our family legally forbidden from entering my country for the rest of our lives. So Reps. Harper and Lamborn, we could really use voices like yours, who are so passionate about the benefits of marriage, to also defend our marriage when it comes to laws passed in your halls.

Family time, the legal way, 2008

"And let me just say, as a government as well, marriage is a big deal to us because there's a direct correlation: The weaker our families are, the more government has to stand up and provide services. The stronger our families are, the less there is a need for government. You'll see it in law enforcement. You'll see it in social services. You'll see it in food stamps. On and on and on, the stronger our families are, the less government we need. And as our families collapse, we have an acceleration of government to try to fill in the gaps. It is this uniting aspect of our culture--white, black, Latino, Asian, American Indian, every race, faith. Family is the key, and marriage is the essence of that." ~ Rep. James Lankford

Rep. Lankford and his colleagues go on to detail the statistics relating to children who grow up in a home with a stable, healthy marriage: ranging from lower drug use, crime, and teen pregnancy rates to higher indexes of emotional, psychological, and even educational stability. They echo the sentiment that stronger families have less need for government intervention or support in their lives. In my experience interacting with other US citizens affected by legal obstacles to their spouse's presence in the US, this is absolutely the truth. Families that were economically stable, making steady payments on their mortgages, seeing their kids thrive in school and church, participating in their communities? They gradually find themselves relying on the government for support when the primary breadwinner is forced to leave or chooses to leave in an attempt to "do the right thing". Kids that were confident and stable suddenly begin to act out, perform poorly in school, require special services to stay afloat.

Immigration policy is seeing some remarkable changes right now, and many of those seek to make it easier on families affected by immigration, especially where children are involved. Even so, many of these changes overlook families like mine, in which the non-US spouse has already left the US. They especially overlook those who fall in those often-overlooked cracks in the law; the laws that impose lengthy bans and no chance to plead out for people who have committed immigration infractions that don't even register on the criminal spectrum of law, sometimes when they were too young to even have a say in such a thing, as is the case for my husband. Our families suffer, our marriages experience excessive strain, our children suffer the effects of an absent parent in many cases.

In my last post, I said I would be breaking down the stirrings in the immigration world that have changed the game and made the news in recent months, and here's where I'll talk about all of that. The following is about to get all immigration law-heavy as I explain what's been going on with those changes, so feel free to skip if this stuff makes your head spin!

Lockbox Filing - Last spring brought a new streamlined and centralized process for filing waivers (for those eligible to do so), which also opened the door for us to perhaps appeal our case, as it removes the US consulates/embassies from the equation and allows families with obscure legal obstacles like ours to make our appeals directly within the US.

DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) - The summer brought a policy change that offered people like Carlos who were brought to the US as children the opportunity to stay, attend school, and work in a temporary situation free from the threat of deportation. Unfortunately, the policy cut off the age limit just a few months from Carlos' birthdate, so he couldn't have benefited even if we had remained in the US, and of course, by leaving the US, he removed himself from the possibility of ever being able to take advantage of a policy like that.

Provisional Waiver - During the fall came the development of this groundbreaking policy which will impact thousands of families in the US when it kicks in next month, by allowing them to have their immigration violation bans waived before they even leave the US to interview for their visas, rather than the old program which caused US citizen families to have to choose international separation or temporary relocation of the whole family outside the US for an indefinite amount of time while waiting for their inadmissible immigrant spouse to be approved for their visa. Once again, we can't benefit from such a program since we're already outside the US, and it doesn't remove the issue of the alleged false claim of citizenship that stands in our way of any progress with immigration or waivers.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform - Finally, this winter there is a lot of excitement over potential immigration reform in Congress, after over ten years of virtual impasse on that front. Right now there are lots of proposals and plans; some from the House, some from the Senate, and President Obama has also declared his own ideas. Of course, before we see actual reform, the Senate and House will need to come to a common understanding, and most likely it will need to incorporate the central tenets of the President's plan. Needless to say, that's a lot of work and a lot of cooperation for a Congress that so far has struggled pretty mightily to agree on anything, let alone something of this importance and magnitude. So even passing any kind of meaningful reform is a long battle, and nobody can say right now whether such reform will include families like ours. Some reports indicate that an old legislative proposal from 2010 might be re-entered into the conversation, and if so, that particular bill DOES help families like ours. Right now, the conversation seems to center on the big and dramatic talking points like border enforcement, visas for those in STEM careers, temporary worker visas for the agriculture industry, penalties and the question of citizenship for those currently present unlawfully in the US. Outliers in the law like our situation are unlikely to factor heavily in these debates, and the legislators debating these issues often have very little understanding of the intricacies that exist on that front. That's why we need people advocating for families like ours to be included.

So this week, as so many celebrate love, or make frustrated declarations related to the lack thereof in their lives, I am immensely grateful that I have not only been blessed with a lifelong partner, but that I also have the ability, at the moment, to live in the same country with him. Still, our children's long-term livelihood and our own economic stability are in peril as long as laws remain on the books that force me to choose between my country and the man I promised to spend my life with. A government that values marriage should not be permitting laws that leave responsible, caring, morally upstanding people in separate countries from their US citizen spouses and children with no way to work towards returning to them.

We are among these US citizen-immigrant families,
sticking it out despite the legal obstacles

And although I have wearied of the battle, the advocacy, the petitioning, the writing, calling, faxing, lobbying, I'm thankfully in league with some wonderful people who have the fire to renew the push for families like ours. They've written a petition and are gathering support for the cause to make it more possible for families like ours to overcome the long-term immigration bans that are preventing us from thriving together in the US. So please, check out this petition and if you agree, sign it. And then, feel free to ask your elected officials to support marriage, all marriages, including ours!

2012...a bit late

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 06:07:00 +0000

OK, so it's officially February and I've been working on the following post for over a month now. But I have a pretty good reason for the delay, I think!

2012 was a remarkable year for our family. It's the first calendar year we've spent completely living in Korea, and the first we've spent living together as a family. While 2011 brought the newness and adjustment of being a complete family for the first time, 2012 was a chance to settle in and make this "normal".

And although we started 2012 as a family of three, we finished it as a family of four. Welcome to the world, baby Carolina Violetta.

Failed passport photo #27.
Turns out this is harder to do with a newborn than a 3 month-old.

The day of her birth was a truly remarkable one in every way and totally warrants its own blog post which I'll hopefully get to soon...er...sometime this year. Suffice it to say it was a major adventure and we're glad it all worked out as well as it did!

Carolina's a great baby, Lucas has taken to his big brother role so well, and they absolutely love each other, as evidenced by this photo.

While busy in the kitchen, I asked Lucas to keep the baby entertained for a few minutes. I went in to check on them awhile later and this was the scene I discovered.

2012 also marked the re-opening of our immigration case. We filed directly with the Seoul embassy this time, a very smooth and speedy process compared to filing from inside the US. There were several lags due to my own dragging of feet in document gathering and such, but the petition (Step 1) was approved in about a month and then we were able to schedule the interview the moment we were ready, and we interviewed about 3 weeks after setting the date, so really a fast process. The interview itself went almost as expected - same result as our Ciudad Juarez interview in 2008, but the whole experience was much friendlier and much more pleasant. Thus, 2013 will bring the next stage, in which we attempt to bring the fight to the government in hopes of having someone recognize how senseless it is for Carlos to be banned for life.

Post-visa interview. Carlos and Lucas hanging out in Insadong, one of the more traditional districts in Seoul.

There are lots of stirrings in the immigration law and policy world right now, too. Every time one of these changes hits the news, I get lots of excited emails and messages from friends wondering if we will benefit. Believe me, if ever there is a law or policy change that directly offers us the chance to return to the US, I will proclaim the news loud and clear on this blog! Even so, as each obstacle gets knocked down for others with immigration complications, it renews hope that someday we'll get our chance. I had started to outline all these changes here, but I'm going to save that topic for its own post, so if you're interested in the immigration law and policy end of things, I'll be posting about it in the coming days.

We're already in November!

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 14:22:00 +0000

It's November! Chilly weather has officially set in, but it's still lovely. Our family has been quite busy. There have been Halloween festivities (more than I think we've ever done in any country!). Piles of candy in the apartment right now. Lucas had a major Halloween event at school, my school had Halloween festivities that consumed all my energy on the 31st, and yesterday we participated in a Halloween party for expat families in our area which was a ton of fun.

Performing with his classmates

Lucas and Daddy with the massive bag of candy loot

My costume at school

Lucas is Iron Man War Machine! Carlos worked to make it look extra cool

Two little superheroes decorating mandarin oranges with Jack-o-Lantern faces

Demolishing the remains of the Halloween piñata

Baby - We're at 34 weeks. Time is flying. Still no name picked out, but we're getting closer to figuring something out. I'm very grateful that this has been a healthy pregnancy. Although I don't particularly enjoy being pregnant, I have no major complaints, other than the massive belly that is making overall movement difficult. Also, the daily fatigue is building and it's getting increasingly more difficult to sustain the energy I need to make it through a day of teaching middle-schoolers. If you're praying for us, please pray that I can find that stamina and the energy to still be an effective participant of my household at the end of the day, too!

Immigration - I'm not comfortable sharing the details publicly yet, but we are in the midst of a new attempt at a US visa for Carlos, and at this point we're about to embark on a brand new stage of the fight. At the same time, DHS is currently working on revising its policy for applying the false claim of citizenship ban to people who were minors at the time. This has the potential to impact us dramatically and perhaps even bring Carlos back to the US by next fall. Again, for those who pray, pray that this policy change will include us and that the path for advancing forward will be smooth. The thought of being back in the US with friends and family (And Chicago-style food! And a family-sized apartment! And a car!!!), with Lucas and Baby getting to regularly see their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousin, great-grandparents, and everyone else again is extremely exciting!

Finally, I've added a "Resources" page to the top bar of the blog. I've gotten a lot of emails from people in various situations, some battling US immigration, some contemplating moving their family to Korea, some mixing both. I've tried to address some of the questions I get by putting links and information on that page. I feel bad because I haven't been great at responding to all of those emails, but I hope that some of what I posted will help point you in the right direction until I get a chance to personally respond.

Being a pregnant foreigner in South Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 15:46:00 +0000

I've been pregnant in 3 different countries (the US, Mexico, and now Korea), and I can say that by far, the experience in this one has been the best. Why is that? Let's see...

Of course, my view is skewed by the fact that the last time, we were in the middle of our first attempt at the US immigration process, I was stressed out beyond all belief, I was unsure of whether to continue in Mexico or the US, ended up bouncing between both countries, and ultimately giving birth in the US while Carlos watched on Skype.

Obviously it's much more ideal to be in one country and together full-time with my husband. During my last pregnancy, I guess I just rolled with it and survived, but now I realize how much I missed out on. For example, this time, I'll only have had to fly pregnant once (already done)! Instead of...four-plus times like I did last time. This time, I actually got to have Carlos there at the ultrasound where they checked the baby's anatomy and told us she's (probably) a girl. That was amazing. Instead of an anti-climactic attempt to reveal the gender over Skype like last time. This time, he's been there to support me through the constant morning sickness that lasted for nearly 3 months, he's been there to slowly adapt to my wildly-changing body (instead of being shocked every couple months), and he's been there to dream with and envision our lives with the baby (mostly we freak out about that, but we'll be OK). But let's get to the actual specifics.

Testing
OK, step one, pregnancy test. Just like last time, we were pretty confident, Carlos more than I, that we were expecting, but just to be sure, I went to the pharmacy, asked for an 임신테스트 기 주세요 ("im-shin-test kit juseyo" = "Pregnancy test kit, please"), then decided to get two (never hurts to be extra positive!) and for about 8,000 won (maybe $7.20) I walked out with the kits and went home to test. The positive line showed up instantly. For both pregnancies, those test kits practically jumped out screaming "Positive!" For anyone reading this who may be contemplating or experiencing pregnancy in Korea, I've heard there are some brands that are better than others and to avoid "the green one" because of false negatives. Incidentally, the green box is the one I ended up with. Also, if you are unfamiliar with pregnancy tests in your native language, it can be slightly confusing to decipher the instructions in Korean, so see if someone can help you interpret before you test. In general, one line is the control to show it worked, a second line is the test line that only appears if positive, and no lines means either it didn't work or you haven't waited long enough. Normally you have to wait like 3 minutes before reading the test (the kit will say, so another reason to have some help or get to work with your online/smartphone dictionary before testing if you can). Probably best to wait the full amount of time before making any conclusions, unless you're like me and the positive result is immediate.

Telling the Boss!
We were a few months ahead of our planned "start trying" date, so finding out I was pregnant in April was a bit of a surprise and then fairly frightening. I knew we would be set through September when my contract at school ran out, but with a December due date, this isn't enough. I decided to tell my employer almost immediately, basically as soon as the morning sickness set in. Probably wouldn't have been able to hide it much longer anyway, as my nausea was aggravated by the smell of food; in particular soy sauce, sesame anything, rice, garlic, red pepper paste, fish, fried anything, and basically I've just described the central features of Korean cuisine, so as you can imagine, teaching in the English classroom directly above the school kitchen was madness for my stomach. It's a serious miracle I got through that whole part of pregnancy without any vomiting incidents at school.

I was prepared that they may not want to renew my contract past September because I've heard many public schools find it too much hassle to support a foreign teacher through maternity leave and all the other legal and contractual obligations that come with it. In all honesty, there are a lot of perks given to native English teachers when compared against the usual qualifications and job obligations and those of the Korean teachers in the school, so I can understand why maternity provisions really tip the balance against the teacher's favor. And yes, my principal was hesitant at first, but she was assured by the other English teachers that my work here is valued, and she was also soothed by the fact that my maternity leave will coincide almost precisely with Winter Break when there are no classes anyway. If you're a native English teacher in Korea and you're pregnant, dealing with the employment end of things is perhaps the most delicate part of the whole entire pregnancy in Korea. It's a good idea to read through your current contract, the upcoming one if you're in the public school system and can access it, and be really informed before jumping into an official discussion at work. The first person I told was a co-worker who I felt I could trust to support me (she was beside herself with glee when I made the announcement), and then she accompanied me to tell the principal.

I worked really hard during the first trimester to not let my condition affect classes. Yeah, I was exhausted, nauseated, felt terrible all the time, and wanted nothing to do with food. But I didn't want the school changing its mind for any reason, especially until I had a signed contract in hand, and 40 weeks is a long time so I had to make it clear I was up to the challenge from the start. The one modification I had to ask for was that during one particularly awful week of nausea, I moved all English classes to the students' homerooms instead of using the fabulous English Zone, just so I could be away from the kitchen smells. My fellow teachers were more than fine with this, thankfully.

Visiting the Doctor
I need to preface this with a short description of the medical system here in Korea because it's vastly different from that in the US and also from the Mexican system. In short, it's a single-payer nationalized system, legal workers pay a small percentage of our paycheck into the system and our employers pay a matching percentage. This is in exchange for broad coverage of pretty much any necessary and non-elective medical needs, and our experience with it here matches the expectation: ridiculously low costs, fast, accessible care, and overall satisfaction. My job/contract covers my dependents under the system, so Carlos and Lucas are taken care of, too. For an fascinating, more in-depth look in layperson's terms, you can see this blog.

Prior to my pregnancy care, we had one hand injury (Carlos) and one ear infection (Lucas). In Carlos' case, a consult, X-ray, and a special brace for recovery all came out under $12 as a walk-in patient who was in and out in under 45 minutes. In Lucas' case, we didn't even take him to the doctor (or, really, hospital), it was his teacher at school who ran him in during lunch time because he was complaining that his ear hurt. Another vast difference from the US - no HIPAA regulations here. Again, less than $10 got him a consult, a cough syrup and antibiotic, and he was apparently back at school in time for class to resume.

When it comes to pregnancy, things get even better. Because South Korea has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, the government is scrambling to incentivise pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing. So there are even further perks which I'll get to below.

Alright, finding a doctor. My co-worker called a local OB/Gyn center in the neighborhood and checked if the doctor spoke any English. Most doctors here know at least some essentials because they have to complete a lot of their medical study in English. For my first appointment, she happily accompanied me (nearly cried upon seeing the baby on the ultrasound), but after that I've always gone by myself or with Carlos and we've been just fine. The staff doesn't really speak English but we get by just fine with minimal English/Korean and a lot of gesturing, and the doctor is able to communicate just fine in English, at least about medical matters. He strains to attempt small talk during the consults but I try to let him know it's OK, we are fine keeping it down to medical business and a lexicon he's much more familiar with, I know he's on a time crunch.

By my first appointment I was already about 10 weeks (I have a bad habit of waiting a long time to get care), so I did the usual initial testing (pap smear, blood, urine checks) and the doctor performed an ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy, get the size/estimated due date, and check that things were alright overall. I was offered a DVD for 10,000 won (less than $10) that I could bring to every appointment and get all my ultrasounds recorded on video. I agreed because for that low of a price, why not? Going home and watching the ultrasound videos again has become a favorite activity of mine.

For those interested in prenatal care in Korea, especially more sophisticated or non-conventional options and doula services, and especially for English-speakers, there are TONS of resources out there. I think I'll get into those more in a separate post because this one is long enough, but an excellent starting place is the Birthing in Korea website, which features plenty of resources targeted to pregnant foreigners in Korea.

Paying for Care
Because I waited so long, I basically had two prenatal appointments rolled into one, tons of testing and procedures, and my expense was about 80,000 won. Keep in mind this is just a lowly, humble clinic in my neighborhood, not a big huge maternity hospital or one of the centers that caters to foreigners, both of which would cost a more. After this first visit confirmed the pregnancy, I was given paperwork to take to the bank (KB, Shinhan, or Post Office bank) to apply for the GoEunMom card. This is a debit card that comes preloaded with 500,000 won (as of April 2012), about $450, which can only be used on prenatal visits in 60,000 won increments at a time, and occasionally some other baby-related expenses like diapers and such at certain locations. This card is available to anyone enrolled in the National Health Insurance system, foreigners included, and the government funds it.

The beauty of using this card and getting prenatal care at a normal little clinic like I'm doing is that since that first visit, I've never had to pay anything out of pocket. Each visit is somewhere between 30,000 won and 55,000 won or so ($25-50) always under the 60,000 total paid by the card. And I should mention that every single visit features an ultrasound, included in the cost of the visit. So at 31 weeks, I've only paid the cost of the initial consultation, and I still have about 300,000 won left on my GoEunMom card. The experience of those getting prenatal care from a pricier institution is different, but I feel like especially for a second pregnancy and no history of risk, there's no need for the fancy stuff. My doctor checks me and the baby all the same.

Korean citizen babies and foreign babies
For foreign moms married to Koreans, there are a whole lot of perks after the birth as well, as they are giving birth to Korean citizens. I believe such moms in certain sectors with especially low birth rates get cash rewards and tax benefits for having more than one child, and there are more benefits as the child grows, even if you only have one, including stipends for child care, preschool, and further education. However, these are not available to children born to two foreigners, because these children are not Korean citizens.

Important fact: Korea, like many major countries, bestows citizenship based exclusively on parentage (jus sanguinis), so a child born in this country is only Korean if he or she has a Korean parent. That means our child will need to obtain one or both of our citizenships, and we'll actually have to do this pretty quickly to register her with immigration authorities and get her covered under the National Health Insurance. For those who are curious, our baby is eligible for both US and Mexican citizenship at birth because both of our countries grant citizenship by parentage as well as birth inside the territory (jus soli). The process of establishing her US citizenship is done by filing a Consular Report of Birth Abroad at the US Embassy, after which we are given a certificate that acts as a US birth certificate, and we can also get her US passport once that's approved. The process for Mexico is the same in concept, although we'll see in practice how it goes. Mexican registries are usually a bit of a fiasco.

For those who are curious, here are links:
US Consular Report of Birth Abroad
US CRBA instructions specific to Seoul
Mexico - Registro de nacimiento en el extranjero (highly specific to the embassy in Seoul, this varies a lot from the process in the US or anywhere else for that matter)

Differences at the Doctor
I didn't do much prenatal care in Mexico, but my initial prenatal visit there was about US $50 and included just a sit-down consult and a pap smear at a tiny, non-fancy clinic. I was given a prescription to go out and get the rest of the testing, including the ultrasound and blood testing, at a separate lab. It was at that point that I got overwhelmed and ended up looking at care in the US instead, so most of my frame of reference comes from experiences in suburban Chicago.

Anyway, based on the experience in the US, besides the cost factor, there are a lot of other differences. Here, I'm not expected to make appointments. I'm just supposed to walk in whenever is convenient, and I generally get seen within about 20 minutes. I usually ask my co-worker to call ahead first just to make sure it's OK but she seems kind of perplexed by this. I can't break my American-ness on that aspect.

Also, the clinic is open until 7 pm and I always see the same doctor (I think he's the only OB), so I don't have to re-arrange my work schedule around prenatal visits or anything. Generally my OB in the States could only do daytime appointments.

The prenatal care schedule matches the standard US one pretty closely - General testing and dating ultrasound first, Dual Marker testing sometime around 12-14 weeks, Quad Screening around 16-18 weeks, full anatomy ultrasound sometime after that, glucose testing (YICK!) at the start of third trimester, non-stress-tests and the like as you're monitored up to the birth. The biggest difference in the care schedule is the use of ultrasounds at every single appointment. At first this freaked me out because I imagined spending piles of money on all those ultrasounds, especially considering that in the US, insurance often refuses to cover more than two over the whole pregnancy. But no, those ultrasounds cost me nothing over the usual limit of what my GoEunMom card covers. So I have no complaints about all the extra chances to see the baby! The office staff at my clinic gave me a prenatal visit schedule at the first appointment and wrote in the approximate cost of each visit, too, which is how I felt confident from early on that I wouldn't spend much more than what my Mom card covers, if any at all.

Cultural Differences in Care
For the most part, the traditional Korean model of prenatal care matches the conventional model in the US. Generally it's focused on spotting potential health complications for mom and baby. Many would say that in Korea, there's more of a sense of the doctor as all-knowing and the mom as simply a medical subject to be worked on. Rarely does Mom get to have any input during consultations and the assumption is that the doctor knows exactly what's going on.

Another thing that most foreigners seem to experience here: most doctors are overly concerned with both the size of the baby and the weight of the mom, almost across the board for any non-Koreans. Most of us have a slightly different physical makeup from that of a typical Korean mom and thus our measurements and baby's often vary from the norm of what doctors are used to seeing here. So expecting foreign moms are often told to cut out all carbs and exercise more (regardless of whether they're already following such a lifestyle).They're also frequently told by the conventional doctors that the baby is probably too big to deliver without a C-section. Korea's C-section rate, something between 30-35%, is often cited as one of the world's highest, especially among OECD countries, so if a foreign mom with a different kind of body shows up, many doctors are going to default to their simplest option, which is surgical removal of the baby, rather than the unknown of letting the mom labor and deliver naturally.

While a lot of the Western world is slowly starting to seek more natural birthing experiences, thanks in part to contributions like The Business of Being Born and an overall cultural normalization of natural birth, these trends have really not reached Korea. Many of the families seeking these experiences in Korea are the Westerners living here who find home and/or water birth and intervention-free labors more appealing. There are a handful of midwives and OBs who favor natural approaches, mainly in and around Seoul, and a majority of them can speak English. Again, the Birthing in Korea site is a great place to start looking at these options.

Delivery and Post-Partum
This is a topic for another post. Suffice it to say that I've been more than happy with my local clinic's checkups along the way, and if I delivered there, the cost would be insanely low. But as a mom who prefers natural, non-intervention approaches to childbirth, and would also prefer to have practitioners comfortable in English during the delivery, I am planning to deliver elsewhere, at great additional expense. I'll try to detail all that later.

The lunch portions my co-workers would like me to eat

Out in Public
I've probably mentioned that foreigners generally stand out a lot in Korea, and are often the subject of lots of staring. Then add a big, pregnant belly and you've got the attention of just about everybody on the bus/train you're riding. This isn't all bad. Pregnant moms are queens here. Just like in the States, subways and buses have designated "pregnant mom" seats and unlike in the States, people actually jump up and offer these seats. At least in my experience, as a person whose pregnant belly popped out during 1st trimester and who usually is carting around a preschooler as well as a shopping bag.

At school, I'm almost daily greeted with looks of pity and inquiries of, "Tired?" from students and other teachers. Out of obligation, I sigh, "Yeah, a little," because apparently expecting moms are supposed to be VERY tired all the time, especially at this point in pregnancy. Most of my co-workers constantly compliment my energy level, which I honestly thought was par for the course. My students have a hard time believing I'm not carrying twins because my belly really sticks out like crazy nowadays. My principal did have to make a stop at my table at lunch the other day to confirm that I am, in fact, due in December and not, say, next week.

I also get lots of commentary in the lunch room over what/how much I eat. Let's just say that in general, expecting Korean moms are able to consume amazing amounts of food (rice in particular). They also manage to maintain tiny figures and tiny baby bellies, but I digress. I am no longer able to eat that much even if I wanted to because real estate in my abdomen is at a premium right now. Plus, I discovered early into my Korean experience that daily rice consumption was making me gain weight, so I usually only have about a spoonful of it with my lunch and this causes extreme concern among my coworkers. Also, if miyeok guk soup (seaweed soup) is served that day, everyone scrambles to make sure I'm eating it, as this is the prime food of early motherhood. In fact, it's the only food you get to eat for the first month after having a baby in traditional Korean households.

In summary, pregnancy in Korea has been really low-key, and so much easier. It actually feels more natural but maybe that's also because it's the second time, I generally know what's going on, and because I'm actually firmly settled in one place with my husband at my side. We've still got about 2 months until we meet the baby (maybe less?), so we'll see how I'm feeling about it in December!

Looking back III...Fall 2012!!

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 07:30:00 +0000

Here we are in fall! The bridge from August to September is filled with rain. I'm not sure if the term "monsoon season" is apt in Korea, but it rains a LOT in August. And then the typhoons start. This year we had predictions of a really powerful one at the end of August. For days, there were warnings of the incoming Typhoon Bolaven, and we were instructed to take all sorts of precautionary measures, like prepping the windows with masking tape, turning off the gas, stocking up on water reserves, etc. It was supposed to be the biggest typhoon in maybe a decade. The day of the typhoon, classes were cancelled for my students and Lucas' school closed. However, at many public schools like mine, the teachers were still expected to come in. So we did, and enjoyed a day of quiet to get tasks done in the building. We were able to leave before the winds really picked up, and I spent a cozy afternoon hunkered down in the apartment with Lucas and Carlos, making baked goods. Carlos left the news on the TV in case there was a real emergency (as if we would have actually understood any emergency instructions delivered in Korean...), but truthfully all we experienced were the high winds rattling the windows; barely any precipitation fell, we didn't lose power or water. It seems the Seoul region was mostly unaffected by the typhoon. The southern region of Korea was much harder-hit and apparently we'll soon be feeling the effects up here in Seoul as the obliterated crops from the South cause prices to rise even more at the supermarket.

Anyway, we're fortunate to have been virtually unaffected by that or any subsequent typhoon, and by the end of September, the glorious fall weather set in. Living in Chicago, I never really experienced a full fall season, as defined by a continuous period of days with temperatures peaking in the 60s-low 70s Fahrenheit. For like, weeks. It's amazing and beautiful. Chicago seems to jump from searing summer heat to chilly winter coat weather with a few temperate days thrown in the middle for good measure, and bounces back and forth a few times before making up its mind. Here in Seoul, it's this gradual easing into cooler temperatures, and the days are just perfect for getting out and exploring the city in the sun without getting baked by it. We've been taking advantage!

We've been enjoying leisure outings to different parts of the city, including the now-world famous Gangnam:

From Fall 2012

I got to enjoy my 30th birthday with Carlos and Lucas and a lovely cake from Paris Baguette:


From Fall 2012

And we've celebrated our second Chuseok in Korea. Chuseok is the harvest festival and probably biggest holiday in Korea. It's kind of like the US Thanksgiving and Mexican Día de los Muertos rolled together and celebrated with nearly the fanfare of Christmas on our home continent. Last year we went to Caribbean Bay with my recruiter and her family. This year we tried to be a little more true to the holiday itself by going to an actual Chuseok festival. We ended up going twice, since it lasted a week in downtown Seoul. Lucas also got to sample some of the traditional Korean wear that accompanies this holiday.You can click these for more photos:

From Chuseok 2012

From Sunday Afternoon in Seoul

One thing we didn't expect to find in the middle of a Korean harvest festival: A live Mexican band performing in one of the plazas!

From Chuseok 2012

It seems fall is still solidly here for awhile longer, so we intend to enjoy it as much as we can!

Looking back II...Summer 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 16:09:00 +0000

So here goes Part II in my rapid-fire blogging spurt to catch up to the present...

Summer 2012 kicked off with Carlos taking part in his country's political process for the first time, sending in his absentee ballot to vote for Mexico's next president. Although there was widespread discontent and distrust in Mexico over the general management and final result of the election, at least we know Carlos did his part.

From Summer 2012 in Korea

Carlos and Lucas got to spend Father's Day together for the first time, I believe. :)

From Summer 2012 in Korea

Baby G #2 started growing and making her presence known

From Summer 2012 in Korea

Although it took another ultrasound to really confirm her gender, this one was pretty cool, if you're into ultrasounds:

In a later post, I'll write about the experience of being pregnant and getting medical care in Korea, as I have plenty of things to say on the subject (mostly positive!).

In early August, I finally got to make my long-anticipated visit home to Chicagoland. I got to spend time with dear family members, got to meet up with tons of friends, and Lucas had a blast enjoying some of the best of the summer activities available for a kid in Chicagoland.

From Chicago2012

For example, the Popcorn Shop and Two Toots Restaurant in Downtown Wheaton and Downtown Glen Ellyn, respectively...

From Chicago2012

...an absolute blast at LegoLand in Schaumburg...

From Chicago2012

...splashing for hours in the Crown Fountain at Chicago's Millenium Park...

From Chicago2012

...and our annual photo with the Bean.

Lucas also got to celebrate his half-birthday by throwing a proper birthday party, complete with the big cake, decorations, piñata, games, and actual friends and family (as opposed to our less-than-spectacular birthday celebration at home in Korea last December). He chose a superheroe theme and we went all out, or as all out as this mom was prepared to handle.

From Lucas' superhero birthday-ish party

We had a great time seeing everybody, and unfortunately two weeks were not enough to cross all the places, people, and foods from the must-experience list. They also were not enough to spend with dear ones, one of whom we would be seeing for the last time. :( We were grateful for that short interlude, though, and we are anxious to return next year with a new little one to meet everyone.

Speaking of returning, the summer also brought a process/procedure change in the immigration world that could, as a long-shot and in the long term, potentially help us have a chance to argue our case again. Our lawyer initiated the process again and we took the plunge and re-filed at the Seoul embassy, knowing anything could happen at this point. More updates on that situation in a later post, as there have since been even further developments on the policy landscape.

And at the end of the summer, we celebrated one year as residents of South Korea! Thank you, Republic of Korea, for the chance to live together as a family for a SECOND year! 대한민국, 감사합니다!

From Summer 2012 in Korea

Looking back...Spring 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 13:50:00 +0000

I kind of dropped out of the blogging game for awhile. Lots of things have happened since my last post, virtually all of them good. But I think most importantly, I finally started to feel like life was usual. Nothing extraordinary to blog about, and that is a good sign. But I was reminded that there are lots of people thinking of and praying for us on a regular basis, people who like to check the blog, people who have reminded me that 6 months is probably a bit long to go without posting. So I'm going to try to update slowly this week, one season at a time, starting with Spring! Let's see what happened in Spring...(I had to consult Facebook Timeline to remember some of this. See! It's not such a bad concept, people!) Well, first of all, Lucas settled in at school. You can click these images to see more of that detailed in photos if you want:

From Lucas at School

The Avengers came out in theaters! It was released more than a week ahead of the US, which means Lucas can say he saw it before just about anyone else in the States. It was his first movie in the theaters, ever, and he did a fantastic job. We adults loved it, too. We had been waiting for this for months. Years?

From Spring 2012

As spring arrived, the cherry blossoms took over...

From Spring 2012

Carlos and I celebrated 5 years of marriage! After all these years of keeping a marriage alive across borders, it was extra exciting to finally be celebrating an anniversary while living together in the same country.

From Married for 5 years!

And at the top of our spring highlights?

From Spring 2012

The start of the countdown to becoming a family of 4! We're expecting a little girl in mid-December, to be born here in Korea!

Bucket lists and family life: not mutually exclusive

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:28:00 +0000

Today's blog is about a belief that I often hear repeated in US culture, a belief that was recently re-affirmed by Honda CR-V commercials like this one.

The premise is this: Once you get married or have a baby, that's it. Your bucket list is basically dead. So make sure to pack it all in before you take the plunge. Also, buy a CR-V to help accomplish it all.

A fabulous high school friend who is a mom of two pointed out the absurdity of these commercials on Facebook and it really struck me. Nothing against the CR-V, but what a terrible message, that marriage or parenthood changes your life so much that you no longer get to do the things you dreamed of beforehand!

Add to this the recent viral video parody, "We're Not Young", which mourns the loss of the younger, vibrant days when we had goals and enthusiasm for life.

This makes me sad because I believe that marriage, or even having kids, is no death sentence for adventure or accomplishing your dreams. Of course there are many things that are easier when you're still single, and quite a few that become pretty challenging with young people in the picture. But in general, if you're passionate about certain pursuits, then hopefully you are marrying someone who shares those values, because if they do, then you'll actually be gaining a partner in accomplishing those goals. Even if they aren't 100% on board with everything, they can still support you in your desire to accomplish them. That's what marriage is, right?

And parenthood? Another awesome friend, this one from my early childhood, posted on Facebook a fascinating book review on French author Elisabeth Badinter's The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women. I haven't read the book, but the premise is apparently that in modern culture, "L'enfant Roi" has taken over, King Child. That parents are so obsessed with the well-being of their children, they sacrifice their own happiness and desires, their relationships, careers, and ambitions. (By the way, I dislike when people comment on books they haven't read, and here I am doing this very thing, but it just happens to fit in with this post that has been sitting in my draft box for months and I'd be saying these things anyway...) I agree with a few of these allegations -- living in another country has really emphasized how aggressive typical American parents are in protecting their kids from everything and providing absolutely everything they could need or even want. But on so many other counts, I disagree with Badinter's claims.

Parenthood has not stifled my ambition; if anything it has spurred me to become more of the person I want to be, to teach my son that we have to work hard to accomplish our goals. It hasn't watered down my passions; now more than ever, it's essential for me to define my beliefs and values and live them out because all of this is on display for my son and I am leaving a legacy for him. Parenthood has helped me become more of a complete person, rather than putting the single, childless "me" on a leash. There are so many things I was before becoming a mom, so many layers that built my identity: violinist, soccer enthusiast, language-learner, teacher, traveler, then wife. Those didn't go away when I became a mom, I just got a new, very important layer. Although my biggest priority is now raising a healthy, happy, polite, inquisitive, well-adjusted little boy who loves God, this doesn't mean that I've had to put all my other interests on the back burner. Some things seem less important now (it turns out that knowing the entire current FIFA ranking is not so fulfilling anymore). So in a way, motherhood did change that, but I think it just highlighted the things that are important to me in the long term, and helped me focus my energies there.

So how have my interests flourished as a wife and mom? While a newlywed, I learned some Catalan and Italian together with Carlos, as we were both enthusiastic about these languages and the cities where they were spoken. Later, I learned French (verified by test scores!) in 6 months, when Lucas was 2 years old. Eventually he was repeating after Rosetta Stone right alongside me. My husband's soccer leagues have opened up a fascinating world of people from many different countries, Lucas loves coming to games and getting free food from other team supporters, and as a bonus, it gets us traveling all over Seoul. The violin is currently on the back burner only because I wasn't able to cram it in with all the luggage during our move to Korea. Obviously travel hasn't suffered - I traveled more once I had a husband to share the adventure with me, and Lucas had stamps in his passport from three different countries before his third birthday. Being a wife and mom has given me a built-in team to enjoy my pursuits with, or support to explore those that only interest me.

Badinter apparently feels that many increasingly common aspects of parenting, such as breastfeeding, natural birth, etc. are pressuring moms into duties that make them miserable and hinder their lives. I'll be honest: nursing an infant was not enjoyable for me and it was absolutely not compatible with teaching, especially substitute teaching, but that didn't stop me from pushing through it. Somewhere in there it became less of a duty, and more of a privilege. We ended up keeping at it until Lucas lost interest around 27 months. As much as I initially dreaded it, it was so much more convenient for a mom and baby traveling internationally, it made nights much more bearable, and around the time I finally got to stop pumping at work, it became a chance to connect and snuggle at home with my otherwise-busy toddler. Looking back, I feel like those early months of motherhood were easier to survive because of it. Yes, parenthood does involve sacrifice. But so does anything worth having. You sacrifice a lot of your prospective future salary when you take out a student loan to get through school. You sacrifice a lot of freedom and a huge chunk of the aforementioned salary when you buy a home or even a car. But all of these things make your life more meaningful. In comparison, the investments of nursing and giving birth without medication, for those who choose them, are very temporary sacrifices with lifelong memories and equally important benefits. Note: I also want to take a second to recognize that not all moms have the privilege or ability to do these things, and this in no way impacts their awesomeness as a mom!

There are some public people who are showing the world that parenting and passion for other pursuits are not mutually exclusive. Being an active mom and a politician is a very public part of Licia Ronzelli's career in the European Parliament, as evidenced by this photo and another famous one in which she wears her newborn in a sling while participating in a parliament session.

Actress Mayim Bialik of TV's Blossom (back in the day) and Big Bang Theory (now) had a baby and a child at home while obtaining her PhD in neuroscience, and recently authored a book on "Attached Parenting" alongside her work on the show.

And there are everyday people all around us who pursue all kinds of challenging things with little ones alongside: they go back to school and finish degrees, they become lawyers and doctors, they train for 5Ks or even marathons, they start businesses. Parenthood often makes us more efficient. For those of us who spend our days working both outside the home and inside of it, we often find ourselves getting tasks done faster at outside-work, making prime use of our time there, so we can hurry back to our blessings and (often more rewarding) tasks at home.

Most of us begin our adult years with a long list of dreams and goals. This doesn't mean that to be satisfied adults, we have to cram in all those experiences before embarking on the serious business of starting a family. I argue that the freedom and adventure my family is experiencing together now, in our young and semi-sprightly years, is worth even more than an investment in a home or car.

So no thanks, Honda. I'm not buying into the idea that I missed out on so many dreams when I got married or had Lucas. My bucket list keeps getting accomplished and still growing, even without the CR-V!

Staying Sane on the Plane with Little Ones

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 15:04:00 +0000

Preparing to embark on a 14-hour flight across the ocean,
who's panicking?

Flying with a little one, especially by yourself, can strike fear in a mom. Recently, a few people have asked about my experiences flying, especially internationally, alone with a child. I flew by myself with Lucas nearly a dozen times before he reached age 3, which means I've seen some of the best and worst of it. I am by no means an expert, and there are braver moms than me who fly alone with not one, not two, but three or more children. Much of what I do when traveling I've learned from them. I figured I'd share my view and the things I do in case any one else is nervous about the prospect. I know I definitely was the first time. Bear with me here - this stuff might be obvious or well-known to you, but for the benefit of those new to flying with kids, or flying in general, I wanted to include info on everything I've been asked by other traveling moms.

Experienced travelers, what suggestions or tips do you have for moms new to flying with little ones?

Stage 1 - Buying Tickets

Well, first and foremost, I have to put in a totally un-provoked plug for KoreanAir. If you are flying through Asia, it's worth any extra price to fly this airline, especially with kids in tow. "Excellence in Flight" is their motto and it's for real. Their service, relaxing atmosphere, thoughtful provisions, great amenities, and overall attentiveness is unparalleled vs. the dozens of other airlines I've flown. All air travel should be like that. Anyway...

Lap baby tickets - children under 2 years

As you probably know, children under 2 are normally allowed to share a seat with a parent, enabling you to buy a single ticket. This is a huge relief to many parents, especially the way airfare is headed right now. Just be aware that when flying internationally, there are usually significant fees and taxes even on the accompanying baby's ticket. With some airlines, you don't find out about a lot of these fees until after booking. In one case, I even had to pay a large chunk of the fees at the ticketing counter when I checked in. So try to verify exactly what you will pay if you choose to fly with a lap baby, and don't just assume your final booking price is the end of it. Also, with many online ticketing sites and services, it's not possible to reserve a lap baby ticket online; you have to call in or use some other method. So keep this in mind when searching online - you usually won't be able to get the full flight price until you talk to a real human.

One cool thing about lap baby tickets is that on many flights, you can try to reserve a bulkhead seat for yourself and the airline will attach a bassinet to the wall in front. This is great for small babies, so you can give your arms a break. Check with your airline for policies. Usually the bassinet is available for babies who can't yet sit up, and most airlines have an upper age limit for infants using this service. Just something to keep in mind and check into if it applies.

Lap baby ticket or separate ticket?

With a small infant or baby, I say it's a great idea, especially with that bassinet option. As you get into the toddler ages, perhaps not so much. When Lucas was nearing 2yrs, I flew with him on my lap and I really regretted it. We were way too squished. Personally I think after 18 months, most kids are too big to fit comfortably squished in one seat with mom, especially in the ever-shrinking economy-fare seats, and especially on flights longer than an hour or two. If you're also flying with an older child who will be in his/her own seat anyway, then doing the lap baby ticket for a under-2 child could probably work out better because you can use some of the other child's seat space to your advantage.

One big factor in favor of a separate seat ticket is if you want to bring a car seat on board for the child. Some moms with restless toddlers find that they get through the flight better when strapped into a car seat just like in auto trips. My son would never go for this, but perhaps it would work for you. Airlines allow you to bring any FAA-approved car seat on board for a child flying with a separate ticket. Some airlines will even let you bring a car seat on board for a lap baby provided there is an unoccupied seat to use it in (essentially amounting to a free seat for your baby), but this is heavily contingent on how booked the flight is, and you don't always know for sure if you can do this until check-in or even boarding.

Documents

For domestic flights, always bring a copy of your children's birth certificates, especially if you need to prove their ages for fare purposes.
For international flights, even to Mexico, Canada, or the Caribbean, each child under age 16 must have a passport. Here is the Department of State website for under-age-16 passports. If you need to get a child's passport and the other parent is outside the US, the requirements can seem daunting but it is possible! At this link, you can find out how I and many others in this situation have done it.
If flying internationally without the child's other parent, it is recommendable that you carry a notarized consent letter from the other parent if you can. 90% of the time nobody even asks about it, but among countries party to the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, officials are supposed to check that the other parent gives consent before you exit and/or enter the country with the kids. I am of the opinion that it's better to be safe than sorry, because sorry could mean secondary inspection at the immigration, meaning an hour or two of hassle at best, and missing a vital connection at worst. Here's one in English and Spanish that I drew up that you can print or use as an example to create your own. NOTE: If you will be in Canada at any time during your trip, you will need their specific consent letter, which can be found here, and you will need to get it notarized. Canada takes this issue very seriously. Some parents have reported getting through Canada just fine without the letter, or with one that wasn't notarized, but enough have experienced major hassles to make it very worthwhile to have one.

Which seats?

For a toddler, I like to get a window seat so I can let my son stand/play on the floor all he wants during the flight. And this way there's minimal bumping into other passengers and no limbs getting into the busy aisle. Even for our Korea trip, I chose the window and middle seats and we did just fine. Plus, it makes it easier to set up pillows/blankets for him during sleeping time.

However, if you have a recently potty-trained little one, accessibility for bathroom runs is probably even more important, so in that case the aisle seat might be better.

For more detailed seat-choosing, you can use SeatGuru, a site that has the exact layout of each kind of aircraft and gives you in-depth reviews of the best and worst seats on the plane.

Timing

If you have the luxury of choosing what time you fly, it obviously works well to have naptimes and bedtimes coincide with the flight. The longer your child sleeps on the plane, the easier it is for everyone. Even if it's off schedule by a bit, the humming of the engines and the in-flight cabin sounds seem to lull little ones to sleep, and they're able to get much more comfortable in those little seats than we adults can. My son always sleeps longer on planes than he does anywhere else. Just be sure to keep the child as active as possible before getting on the plane so that sleep can take over once you're settled and in the air. Some moms worry that their little one won't sleep enough. You might check with your child's doctor about suggested supplements or medicine if they become too restless and can't sleep onboard. We've never needed anything, but I know a lot of moms feel best having something in their arsenal.

Stage 2 - Checking In/Gear

Car Seats

At the check-in counter, you can usually check one car seat per child for free, even if you get a lap baby ticket for a child under 2 (check with the airline for free luggage policies, but this is generally the case). You can check it right alongside your luggage. This is what I've done when I've traveled with Lucas' car seat, because Lord knows there's no way I'm dragging that thing all around the airport when I'm traveling without an adult companion. As mentioned above, you can generally bring a car seat on board if you have purchased a corresponding seat. I'm not sure I'd have the sanity to manage a car seat plus stroller, carry-ons, and child, especially while going through the security checkpoint, but especially if you're flying with someone else, it could be option. As an alternative, if you don't want to lug a car seat onto the plane but do want to have the child secured beyond the floppy airplane lap belt, there are products like the CARES system that construct a secure harness and can be tossed into your carry-on. Another option, if you really just care about having a safety system when you reach your destination, is this car seat harness vest that a fellow travelling mama pointed out. It's also lightweight, packable, and can be used for children over 30 lbs. It's not FAA-approved so it can't be used on the plane, but especially in cases where you're traveling internationally to places where car seats are not commonly used, it can be a great tool once you arrive.

If you do bring a car seat and check it at the counter, I suggest wrapping it in an old sheet and then putting the whole thing into a big garbage bag for protection, if you don't have one of those fancy fabric bags. Just be sure to leave a way for airline staff to attach luggage tickets to it. Our Combi Coccoro convertible seat has traveled wonderfully with us and I usually arrange the wrapping so that tags can be looped around one of the plastic braces on the back.

Stroller

You are allowed to bring a stroller all throughout the airport, right up to the gate, and check it there. They put it under the plane after you board, and it's right there at the gate when you get off the plane. As above, check with the airline for restrictions - some have requirements for folded dimensions and materials. You don't want to fly with your heavy-duty stroller; this is a time to use the most lightweight, compact, easy-to-collapse-with-tons-of-stuff-in-your-arms stroller you can find, which for me was either our trusty $25 Babies R Us umbrella stroller or our Combi lightweight stroller. Again, if you care deeply about the stroller, you may want to bring a bag or wrapping to protect it, but remember that this can be tricky to accomplish at the gate when you have limited hands, a child to attend to, carry-ons to keep track of, documents to show airline staff, etc. Also, some great airlines (ahem, KoreanAir) actually wrap the stroller for you before they put it under the plane.

If you're traveling with an infant, consider bringing no stroller at all, and just using a sling, or carrier. It can be much easier than assembling-disassembling the stroller at various points during travel. Just be sure the carrier is easy to remove if security personnel want it off during a checkpoint.

Love the umbrella stroller for being
lightweight and portable...

..but the Combi stroller is so easy to collapse,
has a seat that can lay flat,
and features a carrying strap to sling it
over my back.

Luggage

Fare-paying children typically get the same luggage allowance as adults. Even lap babies usually get a free luggage allowance as well. Check with your airline, and I recommend using any free checked luggage allowance you can to avoid bringing things on board. While maximizing your carry-on luggage is great when you're an adult flying sans-enfants, it is not so great when you also have to manage a child/children, their supplies, gear, tickets, passports, documents, shoes, layers of clothing, etc. So check anything you can and only bring on board what is absolutely necessary to survive the flight or is just too valuable to check. If you have a preschooler who is big enough to wear a backpack, try to store a good bit of plane stuff in there, but other than that, I would try to stick to just one other carry-on bag if you can help it. One time I made the mistake of bringing a bit too much stuff, AND I was traveling with Lucas as a lap child, and by the time I got off the plane, I was so stressed out from trying to keep track of everything. Once you're on board, you're likely going to be reaching into your carry-on a lot for stuff to keep the kids busy or fed, so make sure it's easy to store at your feet/under the seat, and has compartments that are easy to reach into even if you can't fully see.

Waiting to check in

While some airlines have great, easy, electronic check-in screens where you just swipe your documents, punch a few buttons and you're done, others require you to wait in very long lines, especially for international flights. Also, even with airlines that use check-in screens, flying with children often kicks you out of the automated process and causes you to have to wait for employee assistance to finish the check-in due to gear or lap baby tickets. So be prepared that this is the first of many times when you might need to break into your Stay Sane Supply, which I will describe further down.

Stage 3- Security and Boarding

Security lines

One challenge is that you have to get the child out of the stroller and collapse it to scan when you go through security. Sometimes a TSA employee steps in and helps at this point, which is fantastic. Otherwise you're on your own. Be sure to check out the TSA "Flying with Children" website before you fly to prepare for what happens in the security line. That site details the security process, what you can/can't bring in your carry-on luggage, and the special rules that apply to people traveling with kids (e.g. we can bring more juice and such beyond the regular liquid limitations). One note: my child gets upset when he has to take off his shoes during the security check. I found that it was actually helpful to prepare him this last time, go through it with him verbally in the days before we flew so that he'd know what to expect and what to do. It can be a stressful moment there, when you're removing shoes, jackets, etc. I always have Lucas wear socks, at least for the security check, so his feet don't freeze on the bare floor. Again, be prepared for long lines in security, especially for flights during busy hours. Stay Sane Supply again...

Waiting to Board/Layovers

I like to try to get through security right away and then relax on the other side. The downside to this at some airports is that the terminal might be pretty limited once you get inside. O'Hare International terminal immediately comes to mind here. If your little ones like to watch planes take off, you're golden, but even this can get old. Some airports have a play area for kids to burn off energy, so check into it and plan your layover accordingly. Definitely make a bathroom trip as close to boarding time as possible. No matter where I am, I usually try to find a less-congested area, and set Lucas free for awhile to burn off any excess energy. "See that blue barrel? Run to it! OK now run back!" Also, I know a lot of people like to board as soon as the staff at the gate calls for anyone traveling with small children. I usually ignore this and wait so I can take advantage of more wiggle time, but if you fly with multiple children, you might want to take them up on this, so you can get everyone settled in and get all your stuff in place for the flight.

Proof that you can kill the better part of an 8-hr layover
just by running around empty benches in a waiting hall

When watching planes gets old,
you can move on to watching cars

Stage 4 - On Board/Carry-On/Stay Sane Supply

This is probably the most panic-inducing stage. Just try to stay calm about it. Your baby/child probably will cry at some point. Strange noises, strange smells, strange people, fluctuating temperatures, changing altitudes, it all adds up to a perfect storm for a small child. But if you're able to anticipate some of these obstacles, everyone can get through the flight with minimal stress. All of your tools for this stage are the Stay Sane Supply. You want to keep all of these things easy-to access, packaged into small sets so you can pull one thing out at a time without causing a breakdown when your child sees something that wasn't supposed to come out until the fifth hour of flight time. For longer flights, you may end up rotating through it all.

Infant to small toddler age

Fun, colorful toys are great. Chewable, tactile stuff. If you can get a new one to pull out on the plane, awesome. No matter what, it's good if you can find a way to tether any toys to the seatback pocket or tray hook in front of you so that every time baby drops a toy, it's not hitting the icky floor and disappearing under fellow passengers' seats. Use those plastic linky things, or just a ribbon connected to a clothespin.
Unless your little one is entertained for long periods of time by particular board books, don't bother bringing them - they add bulk and weight that aren't worth it. Instead, consider fun paper, stickers, sticky notes, and things that can be moved around while sitting in your seat.
Make sure to pack teething remedies, just in case your baby's mouth decides to start erupting on the day you travel or during your trip.
Also make sure your diaper supply is well-stocked, with a backup change of clothes (possibly also one for you if you have a blowout-prone infant), a light blanket to use as a changing pad if necessary, and some plastic bags in case you need to do a diaper change without a garbage can nearby.

Toddler to Preschooler

iPad/tablet/smartphone loaded with kids books and fun apps is an obvious choice if available.
I used to raid that bargain zone at Target and get cheap little books and random small stuff to pack as surprises into my carry-on.
Another thing you might find at Target or Wal-Mart are travel games, like this Take N Play Robot Construction Set that Lucas adores.
I also bring Wikki Stix. They're waxy so they stick to each other and onto the backseat trays or walls, but don't leave any residue or mess. Lucas spent one entire flight playing with those, I didn't even need to get out any of the other stuff.

One entertaining use for Wikki Stix

Finally, we love this Melissa & Doug Magnetic Pattern Blocks set. Sometimes we travel with the magnetic board and entire case, sometimes we just bring the blocks and the pattern sheets, but for our most recent flight, we did just fine with only the pattern blocks in a baggie, and we took out a few at a time to arrange into designs on the tray.

Almost all of the above are things I only take out for flights and special trips. Otherwise they stay out of the toy rotation, so they can be new and exciting when we travel.

All ages

One trick I've often read about and used to a certain extent is the "surprise present" idea. You get some small, basic toys, old or new, and wrap them in colorful wrapping paper. Every now and then you pull one out and let your little one have a blast opening a surprise to find out what it is.
Snacks - if they're on solid foods, pulling out small baggies of surprise snacks at various intervals during the flight can break up the boredom. As previously mentioned, you may need to dip into this stash even before you board the plane. Check-in and security lines sometimes are madness, and so are the immigration lines if you fly internationally, particularly if you arrive mid-day. Just be mindful that sugary snacks, especially early in the flight, could have pretty maddening repercussions. Also, like many moms, I believe artificial flavors and colors enhance any hyper or moody phases my son might go through, so I try as hard as possible to avoid these, especially while flying.
Particularly for a non-nursing child, it's a good idea to pack some kind of chewy snack and/or a drink for takeoff and landing so you can try to keep them chewing and swallowing and prevent their little ears from popping.
Also, my child falls asleep on airplanes, all airplanes (fights to sleep normally, but put the kid on a plane and he's out). This can be such a blessing, but it's also horrible when I'm forced to wake him up mid-nap so I can sit him upright during landing as requested by flight attendants. So I started bringing some ridiculous snack (like chewing gum) that he never gets to eat and only pulling it out during landing, so that he can be chewing and bribed into happiness even though I woke him up from a peaceful nap.
If your little one is nursing, prepare yourself however you need to so you can nurse without hesitation on the plane. This is your single greatest weapon when they get bored, uncomfortable, scared, hungry, teething, ears popping, whatever. In fact, if you're considering weaning soon but have a flight in the near future, consider postponing at least until the trip is over. Breastfeeding made all of our infant and toddler-age flights so much more bearable. And if you're sheepish about nursing elbow-to-elbow around strangers, keep in mind that they'd be more angry to hear your hungry/uncomfortable baby screaming. I've sat next to businessmen who suddenly felt comfortable to talk about their own children and families once I started nursing Lucas. You just never know.
Layered clothing for everybody to wear onboard. Even in summer, or maybe especially in summer. Those planes get cold after awhile, but sometimes while dashing through airport terminals or waiting to take off with the climate controls off, the temps rise pretty uncomfortably. So have everyone prepared for both extremes.
Wet wipes. No matter what age, they always come in handy during air travel!

Stage 5 - Post-flight

Try to do a bathroom stop before hitting the baggage claim and immigration lines if you can find one. Depending on the airport, it's often right there after you get off the plane and I tend to miss the opportunity. But better to take it. This way, you're not only avoiding the massive crush of people in the line from your plane, but you also don't run the risk of having to forfeit your place in the long crazy line if someone does have to go all the sudden.

Baggage claim - if possible, try to have someone pick you up from inside the airport if you're traveling with kids and luggage. Even just one extra hand to push a luggage cart or stroller can make all the difference. If you're flying internationally and have to drag your stuff through customs before exiting into the real world, airport staff should be able to help you if you're struggling. Don't be a hero, seek help for this part. You'll likely be tired, a bit ragged, and in need of any assistance you can get by that point.

And from there, you should be at your destination, ready to go take a really long nap.

Good luck and happy travels!

For more travel tips and advice from other traveling parents, check out this link at SuitcasesandSippycups, where lots of other bloggers weigh in.

6 months in Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 10:01:00 +0000

I'm finally breaking the several-month silence on blogging. It's been Winter Break in the Korean education world, which is the longest break of the academic year, but for some reason my general productivity during break shot pretty low. I've got a whole bunch of half-written blog posts, most just waiting for the insertion of a few photos and some more-developed ideas.

So for this post, I'm not getting ambitious. I'm keeping it simple: This weekend we're celebrating 6 months in Korea. Last fall, one of Carlos' soccer teammates, a chef from Spain who has lived in Korea for a few years, told us that if we could make it 6 months here, we'd be able to settle down and make it home for a few years as well. So far, it seems he was right. We may be foreigners, and our Korean still suffers pretty badly, but I can say pretty confidently that we're now settled.

We know where to buy what, we know how to accomplish all our basic activities without needing assistance from a co-worker or other bilingual friend. We've established some friendships, we're familiar with all our neighborhood has to offer, we know where all the buses through our section of town can take us. We have completely outfitted our apartment with new organizational systems, we've purchased a brand new exercise bike that we use constantly. Lucas has gotten accustomed to a lot of the sights and sounds here, he gladly says hi to people he sees, he can walk a mile through our city with me before he starts to tire, and most importantly, our little boy is now officially a preschool student here!

It turns out there was only so much we could accomplish with Lucas here in our tiny apartment and around the neighborhood. His skills and interests are rapidly growing and we're struggling to assemble engaging-enough activities with the space and resources available. Plus, we've had a really hard time finding kids for Lucas to play with, as we're not really able to communicate with most of the parents in our neighborhood. Some kids are fine with solitary play; Lucas is not one of those kids. Many kids in this neighborhood go to various preschools (or really, "Kindergartens") here, both public and private.

Lucas is considered 5 years old here; in Korean culture, you are 1 year old when you're born, and although the anniversary of your birthday constitutes a celebration, your age doesn't actually change until the New Year. Which means that although Lucas is 3 in the US, he's 5 in Korea, and it's the age where kids start entering preschool. Around the end of January, we started tossing around the idea of finding one for Lucas, but were a bit nervous about him being plunged into a Korean-only environment.

My co-worker suggested checking with a little private bilingual school in our area of town. She told me it's run by native English speakers, and they offer a really thorough curriculum. We went to check it out and the school was as enthusiastic as we were about opportunity to enroll Lucas; he's their only native English speaker. Korea's school year launched today, March 2, and Lucas went off to his first day of preschool. The program runs for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, which is A LOT for his age by US standards, but it's the only way they do it here. They do all the usual preschool stuff, mainly in English with a lot of Korean used as well. The kids attend TaeKwonDo sessions, they cook together, they celebrate major North American holidays, they take monthly field trips. Included in the very reasonable tuition is lunch every day and shuttle service to and from our apartment complex. Really couldn't pass up this opportunity, when the alternative meant Lucas building helicopters with his MegaBloks as his most exciting daily activity. So off to preschool he goes...

I am so grateful to my husband for taking these pictures while I was at work!

At the bus stop, bright and early

Still waiting for the "School Shuttle". It was running a bit late due to being the first day.

On board and ready to happily head to school!

I love how the school sent me this text message mid-morning
to soothe my motherly anxiety over my little boy's first day of school

Lucas has been talking nonstop since arriving home from school. Has nothing but great things to say about school. So it seems we've all found our little place here. Carlos and I agree that we've invested a lot in settling here, and the investment is just now starting to pay off. We also agree that it seems absurd for our family to even consider going elsewhere at this point. So, six months in, Korea seems to be home for the near future. Thank you for accepting us, Republic of Korea!

Finding joy this Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 16:38:00 +0000

I have to admit that I prepared for this to be a difficult Christmas. Obviously after spending 4 Christmases apart from Carlos, I had to be excited to finally spend our FIRST Christmas as a married couple and our first Christmas as a family of three. Obviously those things were a big deal but as Christmas approached, they kept getting overshadowed by sadness of all that we'd be missing.

See, I am from a large, lively, mostly Italian-American family (mom's side), virtually all of which lives in Chicago, and except for one year with my Guatemalan family in New York, I have never in my 29 years spent a Christmas without them!! This means that Christmas has always involved multiple family events, piles of Italian beef, Italian sausage, mostaccioli, multiple pies, multiple Christmas trees, Christmas movies playing loudly on TVs all over the house, louder relatives having a good time, AND real cannoli to top it all off. Then let's add the fact that Carlos is from a Mexican family which causes Christmas to involve the following: at least 4 varieties of homemade tamales, homemade buñuelos (fried dough with sugar!), homemade ponche (think wassail or something, but also different), tons of family, loud music, dancing, and then at the end, Captain Morgan IN the ponche while dancing to the loud music with all the family. I know all this because our last year together in Chicago, we actually joined forces and attended ALL family parties, both his and mine, which was a super rigorous schedule that had us criss-crossing the Chicago metro region. We loved every moment.

OK, now that I've established that precedent, we'll review which of the above elements were present this our first Christmas in Korea: Um. None. OK maybe a little dancing, but that was just me and Carlos being silly and possibly scaring Lucas. There was no Italian food, there were no pies, there was one tiny Christmas tree that cost 3,000 won (maybe $2.50 or so) at Daiso, we never once turned on the TV, no relatives, no tamales, no buñuelos (although this was totally dumb, we absolutely could have made them and I definitely know how, we just forgot), no ponche (we're aiming to make a weak imitation for New Years), and no loud music (I kept being paranoid that I would bother the neighbors as I played Sinatra while cooking).

And yet, this was a great Christmas. It was quiet, it was mellow, it was peaceful. Some things were difficult: we really struggled to invent our own traditions and navigate the challenge of celebrating Lucas' birthday on the 23rd without letting Christmas take over, maybe that will improve next year. We had some obvious planning fails - we were going to attempt tamales but forgot to order enough corn masa from iHerb.com so those have to wait until New Years as well, possibly the Lunar New Year if the shipment takes too long. But overall, we were able to find joy in simplicity this Christmas. We didn't wrap presents - they stayed in their boxes from GMarket.com, and I just plopped bows on top of everything. We realized a tiny tree has its benefits - right around the time we fatigued from decorating, it was done! We were spontaneous ("Hey, let's make cinnamon rolls from scratch! OK!"). We randomly trimmed Lucas' hair - after months of refusing to get within 10 feet of a pair of scissors, he suddenly just gave in. We had time to just relax because there were absolutely no events to go to and nobody to celebrate with. We got the chance to Skype with our families, and opened gifts on Christmas Eve alongside my immediate family in Chicago. We were very blessed - they used GMarket to buy and send birthday and Christmas gifts to our house, it was awesome.

Not necessarily the way I would have chosen to celebrate Christmas, but it was meaningful nonetheless. Starting back at Thanksgiving time, I decided that we have to consciously choose to be joyful during these times of celebration and togetherness. It's very easy to feel the sadness over those who are missing, things that have changed, traditions that have fallen apart. But these holidays are not supposed to be about sadness, and especially once you have kids, it becomes clear how important it is to turn it around and find ways to make the festivities about rejoicing with what we have, finding the joy in the smaller things, and focusing on traditions (or creating new ones) that will make these holidays our own in our new circumstances. I think I started learning this as I began to cope with major holidays and events without Carlos, from our son's birth, to Christmas/New Years, to birthdays and anniversaries, to other people's weddings, and so on. Eventually I realized I had to stop making it about me and my sorrow, and start making it about enjoying the little time we have on Earth. So we tried our best this year and I'd say we succeeded.

Here are some images!

Skyping with my parents (who were up at 5:30am Chicago time) for Lucas' birthday. This cake and Bumblebee from Transformers were the only things Lucas requested.

Birthday Boy

The cake: from Paris Baguette. Strawberry as requested by Lucas.
The chocolate heart says "Sarang Haeyo", which means "I Love You".
Convenient, since this was a Christmas cake and we just removed the wreath and "Merry Christmas" decorations. ;)

Lucas and his birthday gifts: the much-anticipated Bumblebee, a firetruck puzzle from Daiso, and 타요 the Bus pillow (he does not watch this show but thought it was awesome anyway).

Here is a video of us singing, 3 people in Korea and 2 in Chicago:

Shopping at E-Mart. Lucas thought this display was the greatest thing ever. Obviously one of our biggest Christmas fails was not taking the time to go see some proper lights/Christmas displays in Seoul.

Our stockings, handmade by one of the aforementioned relatives. These were literally the first things I put in the suitcase when it was time to pack for Korea.

Christmas at home, courtesy of Daiso. Itty bitty tree: ₩3,000. Ornaments: ₩2,000. Motorized train because little boy believes that no Christmas tree is complete without a train underneath: ₩3,000. Bows on presents: ₩2,000. Magic of Christmas in child's eyes: priceless.

Aftermath of Christmas. Lucas enjoys his gifts, including a Pororo car, an RC bulldozer, lots of play dough, and an imitation LEGO firefighter vehicle from Daiso. He was so caught up with this stuff that he didn't realize there was another box containing Optimus Prime in the bottom of his stocking, so we just let it be. We'll see when he notices. Here, he's enjoying one of our homemade cinnamon rolls.

Funny video of Lucas learning to operate the RC Bulldozer

So to everyone reading, please allow me to repeat the message I've been conveying to friends on Facebook:

I'm wishing that you will find some peace and joy this Christmas. Whether you're apart from your spouse, you're in a new country away from all your loved ones, your little ones are celebrating elsewhere (even another country), you've recently lost someone dear, or you're blessed to have all your loved ones together this year, I hope you'll be able to focus on the miracle of hope for the future that can bring us joy. I find peace knowing that Jesus' birth is the source of my hope, even if his birth in no way historically coincided with this commercialized, contrived winter holiday, but I digress... :) Merry Christmas, everyone!

Thanksgiving 2011 (감사합니다!)

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 02:54:00 +0000

While being away from the rest of the family and the comforting traditions on Thanksgiving can be so depressing, there are some benefits. One big one is that we can be totally flexible with how we celebrate and what traditions we carry on/invent.

So, our original Thanksgiving Day plan was to make our first trip to Costco for some essentials, and then cook dinner and have our own little Thanksgiving here in Korea. But the moment we set foot in Costco, we knew it was going to be no small trip. We ended up spending hours in there, and since Lucas was doing fine relaxing in the cart with an iPad, we decided to just skip the plans for dinner and instead do our Thanksgiving Dinner on Friday. Thus, our Thanksgiving meal was actually McDonald's, another rare delicacy from home.

This means we were able to stock up on so many awesome and exciting things: cheese, sausage, AVOCADOES!, oatmeal, plus our Thanksgiving dessert. Costco is fun because all of the expats wander the store with these dazed looks, wide-eyed with huge grins on their faces, as if we'd all set foot into some sort of wonderful dream world. Trappings of home! Things we thought we might not taste again for another year or maybe more! Being in Korea is awesome, eating Korean food is great, but sometimes you just long for a little piece of home, and Costco is where you find it.

Anyway, tonight we will do our traditional Thanksgiving dinner and give thanks. We'll be roasting a chicken in our convection oven, baking some broccoli with parmesan, garlic, and olive oil (thank you, Dorothea, for the greatest broccoli recipe in history), doing some classic mashed potatoes, and then baking our Costco apple pie! Can't go overboard because it's just three of us and our fridge is not that big, but we will definitely be having a lovely Thanksgiving and eating well.

Here's the video message we sent to my family in Chicago. Due to the time difference, we were unable to Skype, so instead we made this video for them, in which we reported on the bounty we were fortunate to be able to afford at Costco (yes, our bank account is bruised today but our taste buds and tummies will thank us).

We wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving and hope you were able to celebrate and find a chance to be grateful.

Video Post - our first 3 months in Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 22:19:00 +0000

Here is about 3 months' worth of video footage and possibly some previously unseen photos related to our new life in Korea. I finally strung them all together thanks to the wonders of iMovie. It's a bit on the long side, but hopefully it will give you a bit more of a taste of our life here. Everything here was shot either on an iPod, an iPad, or MacBook iSight camera (and a few random LG dumbphone camera shots, too). So it’s pretty unprofessional, but I think it tells the story pretty decently. :) Glad we’ve finally reached this stop on our journey.

Bringing up Baby/Preschooler...in Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:30:00 +0000

Lucas, excited about some live fish in front of a restaurant.
No need to visit an aquarium when you live in Korea.

Raising a preschooler in Korea with two foreign parents. Not a lot about this online. There are tons of blogs and online resources out there about living in Korea as a foreigner. There are quite a few on raising kids in Korea, too, but they seem to relate to families where at least one parent is Korean. Obviously there are families here in Korea where both parents are foreigners (we've spotted a couple), but they just don't seem to be writing on blogs or anything. Maybe because parenting a foreign child in Korea means you JUST DON'T HAVE TIME!!!

So, until someone points us to some resources, here is our in-progress guide.

Things You Should Know About Raising a Young Child in Korea

(when neither parent is Korean)

PART 1 - CHALLENGES

Transportation
Let's begin with the fact that, unless you've been granted immigrant or some very long-term status in Korea, getting a car is basically out of the question. This is the first vital way in which those one-Korean-parent families differ from ours. So first of all, your grocery runs and errands are done on foot with the subway and bus (or sometimes taxi) as your only means of transportation. For those who are used to this, it may not be as difficult. But for someone who had car access and no walkable stores both in the US and Mexico, it requires a whole paradigm shift. You can only purchase as much as you can carry while still having the ability to grab your preschooler out of the way of a speeding moto on the sidewalk, or out of his trajectory towards the boxes of live silkworms on the sidewalk near the street market. This requires more strategic thinking, shorter shopping runs, and a lot more hair-pulling.

No, Lucas, we're not supposed to play with those.
Now here, help me carry this bottle of red cooking wine.

Squeezing in here with a kid and large canvas bag full of groceries = madness.

Supplies
In the US, it seems the budget baby-supply business is booming, and you can always find bargains on everything from diapers to stroller systems, even brand-new. Here in Korea, like in Mexico, those deals don't seem to exist, at least not as readily as they do back home. In Mexico we had the mercadito, street market, where people often sold secondhand stuff for a little bit cheaper, and you could often find baby gear for better prices. Here, the street markets near our house only sell food, so we're left to find clothes and gear at the superstores like HomePlus and SaveZone, which do NOT have the greatest prices for these things. As I mentioned in a previous post, this was the biggest contributing factor to our decision to potty-train Lucas soon after we arrived. Even diaper prices are shocking when you're used to a $20 store-brand box from Target that can last an entire month.

Korean Huggies: 60 diapers for nearly $30 US.
AmazonMom members might pass out when they read this.

Nightlife/Exploration
Lots of foreign teachers get together at night in places around Seoul. My recruiter who matched me with this job hosted an event where teachers came from all around the surrounding province. We've hardly had a chance to take part in any of these get-togethers because when your child is having a meltdown in the apartment at 5:30pm, it seems like a suicide mission to attempt an event an hour away by subway that will likely last until 10pm. Carlos has gotten a chance to go out and have dinner/watch soccer matches with some of his teammates from his soccer team, but Lucas is just not ready for that, and Itaewon (a popular sector of the city for foreigners) is not reliably family-friendly after dark. Being a parent here means missing out on a lot of the events that other foreigners are enjoying.

Itaewon Freedom doesn't mean the same thing when you have a preschooler in tow.

The Curiosity!
While this can also be a major plus (see the Benefits section below), it can be a challenge for North Americans who are unaccustomed to it. You see, at least here in the Seoul metro region, Koreans are used to seeing foreigners out and about. But what they're NOT used to seeing is small foreign children out and about. Our little non-Korean preschooler is a tiny celebrity the moment he hits the street. Women and men, young and old, seem to come out of nowhere and swoop him up, hug him, kiss him, and/or gush about him in rapid Korean. I have discovered that Korean ladies who have reached grandma age all seem to have a supply of candy in their purses, and as soon as they see Lucas, they start offering it to him. If I try to politely decline (like after this scenario has played out several times in the day already), they look at me like I am one horrible, mean person. So I've learned to just accept it, and I'm sure Lucas has no complaints. What can be troubling to a Westerner is the proximity. In the US at least, infants and small kids tend to be protected from strangers and germs, and most US moms would be slightly horrified to have strange ladies grabbing their babies in public.

Just another day out with Lucas.
Conveniently 사탕, satang or candy, was his first Korean word.

The Public Scrutiny
Meanwhile, any time we happen to experience a public parenting fail (example: Lucas decides to throw a toddler fit and lay down in the middle of a sidewalk because we're not stopping at Paris Baguette Cafe), there must be, BY LAW, an older Korean lady (A.K.A.아줌마, Ajumma) walking by to frown at us disapprovingly and perhaps even yell a few comments in Korean. Or he sits on the sidewalk, whining, because he doesn't want to walk anymore, and he doesn't appreciate our efforts to build walking endurance. Inevitably someone will come by and try to pick him up, as if maybe it just hadn't occurred to us that this is what he wants. In general, I feel like we're parenting in public and more subject to everyone else's analysis of our parenting skills, all the time. In the US, people may privately think critically about other people's parenting, and perhaps even talk about it behind their backs, but here they seem much more free to speak up about it to us (too bad we don't understand Korean yet) and even intervene. Although I don't generally care what other people think of my parenting practices, I do hate to be the obnoxious foreigner.

Ajummas, perched and ready to point out the foreigners' parenting failures

PART 2 - BENEFITS

Other Kids
Having a preschooler means regular trips to the playground, where we have a chance to meet the most interesting little kids. Right on our own apartment complex playground, we've met some awesome little preschool and elementary kids, several of whom can shame my middle-schoolers with their conversational English. We're usually found right away by a little girl who is maybe 8 and her brother who I'd say is 5. They like to play with Lucas. The other day we passed them on the street as them got dropped off by the van from their Taekwondo school. The little girl waved and yelled, "Hi, Mimi!" Her brother then waved to Lucas and yelled, "Hi, Paco!" So we're all struggling with names a little bit....

Then there's a Kindergartener whose English blew me away. I asked her if she used to live in another country. She gave me a list, including Texas, Malaysia, and Singapore. Then she went and got her mom who explained the whole fascinating backstory. Seongnam has a more affluent, ritzy side full of families who travel and have lived in other countries. This is NOT that side, so it's always unusual to meet people here with experience outside Korea.

Another boy gets visibly frustrated with my inability to understand Korean, so he uses a stick in the sand to scratch out words in Korean, and then I use Google Translate to get an idea of what he's trying to communicate and perhaps find a response.

The Sidewalks
This is one little aspect that I love. On most major sidewalks, and inside the transfer halls of most subway stations, these raised yellow grooves and dots are built right into the pavement. They're designed for the visually-impaired. The grooved lines continue for the full length of the sidewalk until an obstruction or intersection arrives, at which point you get a band of dots to signal caution. What non-parents probably don't realize is that this is an awesome way to teach a child to walk around a bit more independently. Although we hold Lucas' hand if it's crowded or there's anything dangerous, we can otherwise tell him to "just go straight on the yellow lines" and he happily walks until he comes to a dotted area, at which point he waits for us to proceed with him.

Photo from http://winn1.blogspot.com/

People Approve of Harnesses!
When we go somewhere especially crowded, like the night we went to an international soccer match, we like to put on the monkey harness, just for a bit more peace of mind that he can't suddenly dart into a crowd and get lost. The first time we used it, I was concerned that people around us might disapprove that we've basically got our child on a leash (once again, obnoxious foreigner issues). But the moment we hit the street, people were gushing over it, giggling about how cute, poking their friends while pointing and smiling. Want to make your cute foreign kid even more of a novelty? Strap a monkey-shaped harness on their back.

Lucas calls him "Jack"

The Curiosity!
This can have its benefits, too. Where many foreigners seem to experience kind of a cold indifference from strangers on the street in Korea, we seem to get almost too much attention. Having a child with us means people are more comfortable to come up and start talking to us through their strained English conversation skills. They want to know where we're from, how old is Lucas, do we like Kimchi, what are we doing here. In addition, the freebies that come our way are astounding. Here's an example:

Pass the LG telecom service store. Outside is a display case which for reasons I can't explain, is full of little toy cars and planes along with promotional material about LG service. When the guy behind the display case sees Lucas, he smiles, reaches in and gives him one of the toy garbage trucks, says, "Do you like? Yes? Goodbye!"
Have a few encounters on the street with various passers-by smiling and exclaiming "Baby is very cute-ee!" from those who speak English, or a barrage of other phrases in Korean, some of which we're beginning to recognize and understand. Perhaps another gift of candy.
Enter the mega-supermarket. Some ladies are selling these crisped rice cakes and other treats at the entrance. Upon seeing Lucas, they swarm him and we walk away with a bagful of treats they gave him.
Do our shopping as the fellow shoppers turn to look at us, stop, and smile to hear Lucas talking to us in English. Several say hello to us.
Stop at Baskin Robbins to treat Lucas for a successful shopping trip. The man working there adores Lucas and tries to spark up conversation with us in English, even as other customers wait to be served. We end up leaving with a free gift of a Baskin Robbins Lock&Lock pint container. Or another time, it was an entire gallon tub ("To keep his toys!" the man told us).
Head to Lotteria (like McDonald's) for a quick meal. The girls behind the counter gush over Lucas and hand him a kid's meal toy even though he's just sharing adult menu items with us.
Get on the bus. It's crowded but right away, several ajummas offer their seats so that I can sit down with Lucas. This is the demographic most likely to fight to the death for those seats, but enter a mom with a kid, and suddenly everything changes.

These are all events that I suspect most foreigners without kids don't get to experience. Having Lucas with us really opens up an interesting world here.

Those are some observations of parenting in Korea that have formed over our first two months here. Anyone who has been there/done that, we'd appreciate your perspective!

One month in Korea!

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 23:05:00 +0000

(A.K.A. the post where I will make heavy use of the past perfect tense)

It's been a month already! Sadly, we still don't have internet at home, so this has limited my online posting, but soon (hopefully this week) that will be set up. Here are some of the things that have happened in our first month in Korea:

We think we found a church. It was recommended by multiple friends. Not too far from home, but still takes about an hour to get there via subway. Hoping that we'll settle in and get connected there. By the way, churches are truly everywhere here. They almost all have a lit neon cross on top, so at night, when we look out our back window, we see lots of these dotting the streets between our apartment and the main boulevard.

flickr photo courtesy of taylorsloan

Carlos found a soccer team. He looked online, found a great team, and has been playing with them for a few weeks. It's an expat league, so most of the players are from the US, the UK, Spain, and Latin America, with a few Latin Americans of Korean descent. The guys communicate through a wild mix of English, Spanish, and Korean. The wives/girlfriends are really interesting people, and it's nice to get a chance to just hang out and freely speak English and Spanish.

Attempted action shot at Carlos' game in Incheon

As a result of said soccer team's matches, we have visited far-flung places from Incheon (which is actually a whole neighboring city of Seoul) and the far north-east corner of Seoul. We've also been to the western end of Seoul to visit the Seoul immigration office (twice). I've been to Suwon, another large neighbor city, for a professional development/training. We've explored Bundang, the more ritzy end of our city. We've been to Yongin, which is a smaller city outside Seongnam. However, we have yet to set foot in Itaewon or Hongdae, which are the major hubs for foreigners here, and which are situated right in the center of Seoul. It will inevitably happen soon, though, as homesickness starts to get the best of us.

We found a Mexican restaurant and it is really good (honest!). It's called Taco Rico and it's in Gangnam, another busy and foreigner-ized part of Seoul. The chef is from Tijuana and the food is for real. We've stopped there twice now, and would gladly do it more often if it were easier to get to. Although Korean food is great, we definitely miss the variety found in American and Mexican diets. Imported food products are expensive here, and a bit hard to find, so we're learning to Korean-ize a lot of our favorite dishes, but it's nice to get a taste of the outside world every now and then!

photo of awesome Taco Rico food from http://valerieandgriffin.com

We've visited Caribbean Bay (at Everland), which is the largest water park in South Korea. The recruiter who connected me to this job, and who I worked with extensively over the past year, was really eager to get our families together because her son is the same age as Lucas. So we met up at Caribbean Bay during a major holiday weekday . The boys were mostly unimpressed that we were inside this massive feat of human engineering. Then we found a little patch of sand, and the boys played intensely for over an hour with just the sand, their hands, and their small tubes of sunscreen while the adults took turns going into the fake tidal wave and getting pummeled by 8-ft walls of water. It was a great day.

Our first photo together in Korea

Seconds later, when Lucas was awake

We potty trained Lucas. No joke. Most people try to avoid having these things coincide with major life events (such as an international move). But one trip to the superstore for diapers and I could not deal with the price, nearly double what I'm used to paying in the US. So that was the last straw and long story short, Lucas doesn't use diapers anymore. I'm pretty amazed because I expected a much bigger battle. I'll admit that we went straight for candy bribery the first few days (we were that desperate, folks), and then eased that into a sticker chart which he exchanged for a new toy when filled. Now he's weaned from any external incentives and I'm rejoicing that we're free of diapers. I consider this a major accomplishment.

We've seen Avatar on TV. At least 4 times. One fortunate difference between network TV in Korea vs. Mexico is that here in Korea, they don't dub the movies they put on TV, they just subtitle them. Which means we've enjoyed the chance to catch up on a selection of the US movies we missed seeing in the 3+ years we lived apart/had a baby. However, when they debut a new movie on the TV networks, they play it constantly for at least a week. Also, they really seem to love Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, and Mark Wahlberg here. Not that I complain, but I think I'm starting to overdose on action thrillers.

I have become a middle school teacher. Also, all my experience and training with teaching ESL is being challenged. In the US, my students' English knowledge was much more likely to be influenced by friends, TV, and the everyday world, so my job was to help them acquire the academic language they needed for school. But here in Korea, virtually all of the English the kids know comes from school, so it's much more contrived, much more mechanical, and it's a whole new ballgame. They're already getting phonics, grammar, and reading instruction in English from their Korean teachers, so my job is basically to get them talking in English and make it fun. This is way harder than it initially sounds, especially when class sizes are in the low 40s and levels sometimes span all across the board. I have 23 classes, which translates to over 900 students, plus 3 hours of after-school English Conversation class every week. But the job itself is so much less stressful than any teaching job I had in the US, and I suspect my job is way less stressful than that of my Korean co-workers. I work with great people, by the way, who go out of their way to help, translate, explain, update, and most of all, communicate with me. Here are some photos from school, courtesy of the English teacher who preceded me because I've been terrible at taking photos thus far...

The classroom - that is a giant interactive TV screen in the front of the classroom.
For someone who never even worked with a SmartBoard in the US, this is a huge adjustment!

More of the classroom.
These pictures don't really convey the hugeness of the room, and there's a whole different side that isn't pictured.

The soccer field/track.
Carlos comes here after I get back from work so he can run and kick the ball around. Also, you can get a glimpse of the mountainous landscape up here.

So that's about it for now. Next time, hopefully we'll have some photos of our apartment.

Mission Accomplished

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:43:00 +0000

The Guerra family has finally arrived. We have lost all sense of time, we are slightly dazed, confused, and barely have any Korean won in our possession at the moment, but we are together. To everyone who prayed at different stages of this journey, THANK YOU! I believe it's only by the grace of God that we made it to this point.

The trip
Lucas and I did pretty well on our 14-hour direct flight from Chicago to Seoul. All I can say is Korean Air is fantastic. The food, the service, and the amenities were all top-notch for economy-class seats. On my personal media player, I managed to watch three movies (Thor, Fast Five, and most of Adjustment Bureau). This is also basically the number of non-children's releases I've seen since Lucas was born, so that was exciting. Lucas slept for most of the flight and I got some sleep as well. Lucas was awesome on the plane, played happily in his seat, ate his snacks in between meals, and made me proud. The harder part was after arrival at the airport in Seoul (4:00am local time). We breezed through immigration and customs and then had to chill with the luggage for about an hour and a half until the luggage storage could open and I could store our 4 suitcases. After that I was able to walk around with Lucas and we explored the entirety of Seoul Incheon airport. They have some lovely gardens, and we enjoyed that, but after several hours, we were maxxed out. Those were some difficult final hours waiting for Carlos as my patience and energy wore thin and Lucas' crankiness level grew. 8 total hours for me and Lucas in the airport. It was an amazing relief to finally see Carlos emerge from the arrival hall doors. He says his 30-hr travel day went just as expected, no complications, and he met some interesting people on his flights. Fortunately for us, all of his luggage miraculously survived the trek from Mexico City to Tijuana to Tokyo to Seoul. Unfortunately for some of his flight-mates, theirs didn't. Again, we appreciate the prayers on that front so thank you!

Arrival
What an exhausting blur that was. Our hired van-taxi driver was waiting for Carlos' flight to land. The moment I had greeted Carlos, he whisked us out the door to the van and we spent a surreal 1.5-hr ride just enjoying being together for the first time in a almost exactly a year. Carlos gave Lucas some lovely origami creations that were made for Lucas by a little girl on the Tijuana-Tokyo flight. Lucas plalyed happily and then slept for the rest of the ride. We were delivered to our apartment, which is on the 5th floor with no elevator, but home nonetheless. A hired cleaning lady was in the process of deep-cleaning it when we arrived, and Lucas pleaded to go down to the playground in front of our apartment building, so he happily went there with Carlos while I stayed at the apartment waiting for my Korean co-teachers to arrive and get me oriented. They showed up soon after that and told us that the cleaning was going to require several more hours, so they suggested that we all head over to the air-conditioned school. We were super exhausted and not thinking clearly, so we went ahead with this idea even though we hadn't even had a chance to open our suitcases and wash up or anything.

Of course, those familiar with how things work in Korean schools will know what comes next. There we are, grubby and sweaty, all of us 48+ hours since our last shower and about as long since our last period of decent sleep. And suddenly we're being introduced to my principal, assistant principal, and a host of other teachers and administrators.

But it gets better. After 2 hours touring the school and meeting people, and a quick stop at the nearest store to get some food staples, I was informed that in the eventing would be a special dinner for all the teachers, to honor both the exiting teachers and the new ones. We were all invited. We were slightly taken aback due to our level of exhaustion, but OK, we thought. Let's just get showered, changed, and washed up and we'll go. Then Carlos spoke through with some sanity and said probably he and Lucas should stay home because Lucas was starting to run out of steam. Which was an excellent point. So I figured I'd shower quickly and go. Then they told me there was no time, I had to leave IMMEDIATELY. Shocked, I quickly informed Lucas that I would be leaving for awhile and he'd be staying with Daddy, I dug out a diaper and pajamas, and told Carlos, "good luck". And that, my friends is how I went to this special dinner wearing the same clothing I had been wearing since I left Chicago on Monday night.

As I walked away from the apartment, I heard Lucas crying and I started regretting my decision, but I also knew Carlos had been doing really well with him and the little guy was probably just tired. I was directed to the principal's car, and off we went to some (seemingly far-off) locale for the dinner, which was delicious, huge, and full of all sorts of Korean staples. I loved all of it and only wished that Carlos and Lucas could be enjoying this instead of the basic noodles we had purchased at the store earlier.

Once again, those of you who have done the Korea teaching thing can probably predict the next step, which is that once we had all eaten, I was asked to stand up and introduce myself to the entire staff. I actually was mentally prepared for this but when the time came, I was so beyond tired that I could hardly eke out a polite greeting, but hopefully they understood. Everyone kept saying I looked tired. You think?

The Apartment
I arrived back at our new home after dark. I found Lucas and Carlos totally passed out on the bed. Lucas was clean, diapered, and was clutching the new toys Carlos had brought for him (Spiderman, Batman, two Ironmen, and a fully-functional Batmobile!). Carlos woke up and said the cleaning lady was stayed and cleaned for a very long time, and that he and Lucas actually fell asleep before she had even left. He also eased my conscience by letting me know that Lucas only cried through his bath and then was fine until he fell asleep.

I finally got to explore the apartment at this time. We'll post pictures later. It's old, but perfect for our family. We have a kitchen featuring all the essentials including microwave, toaster oven, new fridge, stove, rice cooker, and lots of utensils. We have a small room that works as a cleaning supply closet and contains our washing machine (still need someone to explain how to use it, everything is in Korean). We have a large bedroom with a Queen-size bed, desk, TV, fan, and our favorite: air conditioner! There's a second bedroom that includes an armoire for our clothes, some shelving, ironing board and lots of space for Lucas to play. Then we also have a back patio totally screened-in that has a lot of racks for us to hang our clothes to dry. The neighborhood is full of apartment buildings, lots of kids, but it's partway up a mountain and very quiet. We have small general stores right on our street, and the bus that gets us to the subway into Seoul and everything else runs right along our street. It is home and we all like it.

Now?
We all woke up at 4:30 am. If anyone knows the members of my family, this is astounding. Utterly amazing. We lay in bed for about 15 minutes trying to figure out what to do, and then we all just got up and had breakfast and started our day. Carlos and I saw the sunrise. I'm pretty sure the only time we've ever seen a sunrise together, it was because we were up too late. So this was a morning for the record books. Let's pray jet lag works in our favor, we can adjust a few hours forward and then suddenly all be morning people. Whoa.

And this morning I'm at work as of 8:30 am. I'm currently enjoying my first "free period" and I don't have to actually teach until Monday. I'll be learning the ropes and getting things ready today.

Also during the day the English teacher who I am replacing will hopefully be meeting up with Carlos and Lucas to show them around and help Carlos exchange a load of dollars into won, plus possibly find a place where we can use our US debit cards until we have Korean bank accounts. He speaks Korean pretty well, so it will be helpful for Carlos to have a navigator today while we get set up.

And that is that for now. We are just so surreally happy to be all together in a country where we all have legal status to reside! It's incredible.

So thanks again for your prayers, and we look forward to all the great stories we'll have to tell.

Here we go...

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:28:00 +0000

We leave for Korea at midnight. I've carefully arranged mine and Lucas' lives into 2 large and 2 medium suitcases and that should last us the whole year.

Now all we need is prayer. For those of you willing to stand in the gap for us, here are some of the biggest concerns:

Health. Particularly Lucas who seems to have come down with a cold. Not fun for flying, so pray it goes away fast.

Smooth travel. Especially for Carlos who has two connections and 30 hours total travel time on his journey from Mexico to Korea.

Safety for our belongings. I know they're just earthly possessions and they don't matter, but life without our stuff would be so much more difficult. Carlos' airline in particular is notorious for losing luggage. Pray it all gets to Korea with us.

Sanity. For all of us. Carlos has a nearly 10-hour layover after the first leg of his trip, in a tiny airport where there's hardly anything to do. I will be arriving to Seoul a full 7 hours ahead of him and will need to entertain myself and Lucas inside the airport until Carlos arrives and our transportation comes to get us. Not to mention the bit where I fly across the Pacific for 14 hours with a preschooler.

Energy. After all this traveling, we will have a night to sleep/deal with jet lag and then first thing the next morning our new life begins, with me heading to school and Carlos caring for Lucas for the first time ever.

Wisdom. For me and Carlos. Not only will we be encountering brand-new challenges in our new roles as foreign English Teacher (me) and teacher to a preschooler (Carlos), but we'll also be learning the ropes all over again as a married couple. We have not lived together for about 3 years. The challenges of resuming a normal married life are going to be immense.

Community. We're fortunate that we'll have each other, but that doesn't mean we're not going to get lonely. Pray that we can find a good church and meaningful activities where we can socialize and build strong friendships. Including Lucas. Yesterday he was engaged in a lengthy conversation with a potato he found in the pantry. I kid you not.

OK, the next update should happen from Korea! Can't wait...

We are moving to South Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:34:00 +0000

We've been kinda cryptic about our upcoming plans, but now that everything's official, it's time to announce it clearly. Yes, we are moving to South Korea. I've been hired through the Korean government to teach English at a public middle school in Seongnam, which is a city of about 1 million people (9th largest in the republic), just a 45-minute trip from Seoul, roughly. Carlos will stay home with Lucas and teach him all the important stuff in life. We will be together.

The position includes a furnished one-bedroom apartment (for those who have taught in Korea, you know that one bedroom is a big deal!), which is located about 5 minutes' walking distance from the school, and which has a park across the street.

My contract starts September 1, but I'm pretty sure we'll be heading there a bit in advance, so we'll straighten out those details soon. I'm very excited about this position because when I interviewed with the school, they were especially on board with me bringing a family, which isn't typical for these government teaching positions. I was praying a lot for the right position and this is very much an answer to those prayers.

South Korea is the plan for the years until Lucas reaches school age. At that point, hopefully the final step in our plan will be complete, but until that stage of the plan is more fully secured, it's safest to refrain from discussing it.

So, I want to thank everyone who has been praying and encouraging us as we headed towards this goal.

To my Korean-American friends who have spent time in Korea, and to all my friends who have taught English there, I especially would appreciate any advice you are willing to offer.

To everyone else, we need your prayers that all the details between here and there will work out. Visas are especially a source of stress, as Carlos and Lucas' visas are dependent on mine and I'm still not confident whether we'll all be able to enter Korea together as residents. So please pray that the paperwork all goes smoothly and we don't have to spend too much time, if any, apart. Also pray for peace. Although we've been preparing for this for about a year, it's still very painful to finally give up on the dream of creating a life in the US, and saying goodbye to so many loved ones is truly heartbreaking.
So, the upcoming weeks will bring my final goodbyes to the country I love. I am truly devastated to be leaving the US this time, knowing that from now on, I will only be back to visit. But if I must leave, at least I know we will be in one truly remarkable place, and we'll be there together.

Although this is about Seoul rather than Seongnam, this is a great video for getting excited about moving to South Korea. (I love the folk anthem used in the background)

Seoul Time Lapse 2011 from Oh Choong Young on Vimeo.

il mio panino al prosciutto e formaggio

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:35:00 +0000

I go 6 months without posting and now I do two posts in two days. This isn't likely to be a regular occurrence, but the holiday weekend gave me some time to ponder and write.

This weekend the New York Daily News published an article about three wonderful bloggers I've come to know well through our shared struggle in balancing immigration and international relocation for the sake of a marriage: Emily Cruz (The Real Housewife of Ciudad Juarez), Giselle Stern Hernandez (The Deportee's Wife) and Cheryl Arredondo (Us, After America).

The moment the article went online, the comments section predictably filled with the usual hate and ignorance that you see any time one of our stories is published. I became well-acquainted with this rhetoric one year ago when my family's story published in the Chicago Tribune. The best advice is to not even bother reading the comments section, and I normally follow that advice because truly, nothing healthy or productive can come of doing so. And I haven't read the comments on this weekend's article, but I'll take everyone else's word for it that this one offered an even more ridiculous spread than the usual, including the allegation that the US citizen wives of inadmissible foreigners are too pathetic to find an American guy and desperate enough to marry anything that comes their way, even a "ham sandwich".

After Emily crafted a great response to these comments, "25 Things I Love About My Ham Sandwich", Corin at Corin in Exile suggested that more of us follow Emily's lead and post about why our spouses are worth every drastic decision we've made. So here we go -- here are my reasons why Carlos is worth every day of agony, every tear, every expensive flight, and every life-altering decision:

For one of our very first dates, he brought over a copy of La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful) which we watched in Italian, and through which he introduced me to the magic of Roberto Benigni movies. Later he introduced me to Johnny Stecchino, which has got to be the world's most hilarious, under-recognized film ever.
For the entirety of our 4-year dating relationship, he drove 40 minutes in each direction at least once a week so we could see each other. A lesser man would have balked at the vehicle mileage resulting from this relationship.
Despite the fact that I spent the majority of pregnancy in a separate country from him, he did all he could to make me comfortable when I was with him. He remembered the horrible morning sickness I experienced during my first trimester, and when I went to visit in my 4th month or so, I discovered the fridge loaded with ginger ale that he had searched far and wide to find in Monterrey.
One summer, I was enjoying a fabulous internship with the Chicago Public Schools. It was only partly a teaching practicum, and mostly it involved a concerted recruiting effort to sell the awesome city of Chicago to a bunch of future teachers. While I was busy making new friends, exploring new places, and having a general good time, Carlos was working a grueling night-shift job while he saved some money to pay off his car and build the bank account that would carry us through our first year of marriage. Yet he still came to visit me and go out during his free days, even though he was visibly exhausted.
He thought nothing of jumping on the Blue Line with me and heading to the Desi corridor on Devon Avenue for whatever Indian or Pakistani food struck our fancy.

He joined me in developing a love for Joy Yee's, both the Chinatown and Naperville locations. And Pompei restaurant, both the Little Italy and Oakbrook Terrace locations.
He proposed to me over cappuccino at Pompei in Oakbrook Terrace. He knew exactly what I would like: simple, laid back, genuine.
He knows my tastes in fashion and jewelry. My engagement/wedding ring is a sapphire surrounded by tiny diamonds and it's perfect. The Princess Diana/Kate Middleton ring but after/before it was a fad.
He can go to the mercadito and walk out with two pairs of dress pants, a pair of running shoes, and a still-unworn Givenchy shirt for less than $20 US. He has an impeccable sense of both style and a bargain.

When I took Lucas to Mexico for the first time, Carlos did not waste a moment, and immediately strapped our son into the Baby Björn carrier to take him for a walk. During any subsequent visit, he steps right in and takes the role of Lucas' father as if there hadn't been months of international separation in between.
He can jump right into a new activity or job, learn it quickly, and rapidly start to excel in it.
In the later years of dating and the beginning of our marriage, Carlos endured weeks on end where we were physically in the same room but rarely had a chance to even talk due to the demanding lesson plans, grading, and class prep that my new career in teaching required. Even knowing that this could be our reality for a long time if I remained a teacher, he stayed with me!
He learned how to drive on snowy, icy, icky Chicago streets, and it never bothered him.
Carlos still remembers fondly some of the funny moments he spent with my extended family here in Chicago and he used to drive all the way out for endless family gatherings, even though gatherings of this frequency were not a familiar concept for him.
He loves geography and can easily identify more countries, cities, and languages on the planet than I can.
He mastered the English language so well that he teaches ME about a lot of its features now.
Whenever we travel somewhere new, he not only can quickly pick up the daily essentials in the language, but he immediately gains a sense of colloquial terms, accents, intonation, and expressions.

My nerdy side does not bother him, and he kindly joins me in watching Star Wars, Star Trek, and even Futurama. And then proceeds to join me in discussing various aspects of these films/shows.
He cooks together with me. And is much more inventive than I am with flavors and ingredients.
He is great with technology. He solves computer problems by scouring the internet until he finds a solution. He knows what he's talking about.
He cares for his dogs in a way that most people in Mexico don't. He recognizes them as much more than a security device for the house; to him they are companions, and he is always aware of their needs and well-being.
He is a patient and respectful English teacher even when his students struggle mightily and have been written off as hopeless by other teachers. He is inventive and constantly finds new ways to make the English language accessible to his students.
Despite the fact that we have gone as many as 11 months without seeing each other in these challenging years after our marriage, and despite the fact that opportunities to be unfaithful present themselves all the time, he does not give up, and continues to steadfastly await our future together.
He supports my dreams, even if he feels we're too old to dream. He is willing to make any changes, no matter how drastic, to accomplish them.
He will move anywhere to ensure our family's ultimate happiness, even if it entails a completely foreign language and culture that we've never been exposed to before.

So in summary, I did not wind up with Carlos because he was the only guy who would go out with me/respect me/care for me/whatever. That was not even remotely the case. I wound up with Carlos because he does all that but he also fascinates me, challenges me, supports me, and expands my world. I married him because nothing could be more amazing than building a future together. It's not necessarily because he's Mexican, although that part of his heritage does have an effect on who he is. If any typical American citizen met the above description, I could have married him. But the one who fell into my world was Carlos, and I am grateful to be his wife.

Why I'm still unabashedly proud to be born in the USA

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 15:38:00 +0000

Today is a day of conflict for many families like mine. On the one hand, we're surrounded by parades, festivals, flags and all the symbolism reminding us to be proud of and celebrate our great country. On the other hand, we're weary from the daily and very undignified struggle of having our nuclear family unit split up into different countries as a result of our our own country's policies and legal values.

Our families are put through exceptionally miserable challenges due to unjust laws that were passed, after all, by legislative representatives of the American people. And more recently, various elected officials have started passing legislation that is not only questionable under the constitution, but thoroughly misguided and fundamentally based in racism and xenophobia. Finally, many news sources spread a huge amount of rhetoric that really does have its base in hate, ignorance, willful misinformation, and lies. This is the stuff that gets the most attention, because as Emily Guzman said one time, "Crazy gets attention". Unfortunately, because crazy gets attention, it gets a lot of the votes, too.

Despite the agony that my family is going through right now, I don't believe US immigration laws were made with punishing US citizen families in mind. I don't think US immigration laws were made with US citizen families in mind at all, and that is the problem. The immigration laws of 1996, the ones that have a thousands of families suffering under 5-year, 10-year, and lifetime bans, were really a hodge-podge of ideas and policies that ultimately got united under one big, messy, inconsistent, arbitrary, and unbending mass of legislation.

I think when the laws have ripped you from your country, it's easy to harbor resentment towards that country. In fact, it's probably essential to sanity and survival to see the best in your new home and recognize all the great reasons why you're there. But I disagree with the bashing of our birth country, because this blindly ignores all the amazing reasons why we're so privileged to be citizens of the country that the rest of the world is (sometimes literally) dying to get into.

I still have faith in my home country, even though I will soon be among its exiles. And I don't believe I am just being overly optimistic and naïve. Granted, my reality is set in Illinois, which detractors complain has become the most "unauthorized immigrant-friendly state". Here, people of half a dozen races and ethnic origins, including middle-class white people, can all live together happily in regular little suburban neighborhoods and gladly help each other out anytime they can (and I speak from personal experience on that). I went to a university where the Muslim students gathered to pray in the major commons area at noon while the Jewish and Catholic students held meetings nearby, and we all worked together seamlessly on projects and studies in class and often joined each other for meals during break times. I enjoyed free times watching my husband play on teams with guys who had almost no common language except broken English and soccer. I worship at church where dozens of languages are commonly spoken in the lobby and where multi-national, multi-ethnic, and multi-racial families are everywhere. I live in a country where a person can still arrive with practically nothing, and through a lot of hard work, they can not only acquire a vehicle, but even a home!

The US stands alone in its amazing range of diversity in background, culture, and experience. Few countries in this world are attempting to educate (for free) such a vast percentage of the population. The freedoms we have, while sometimes obnoxiously limited or challenged, still surpass the freedoms most people in our spouse's countries have. But above all, the potential for upward movement, even in the oppressed sectors of the US, is inspiring. And in the US, you don't have to worry greatly that achieving a comfortable middle-class lifestyle or becoming a successful business owner will cause your family to become a target from the evildoers (i.e. drug cartels) seeking financial gain through physical threats to those who are making even the slightest gains in society.

When you're forced to become a foreigner in a new country, and you see what poor opportunities exist for your own native-born spouse there, and when you take into account the struggles one must face just to become nominally successful in that country, you realize that the US is an awesome country that is in need of a serious attitude adjustment.

I know that the US is becoming a toxic place for unauthorized immigrants. But having lived among illegal immigrants in several other developed nations around the world, I have seen that even our unauthorized immigrants are treated better than many of the legal immigrants in other countries. I haven't spent a lot of time in other countries, but from those that I have visited, I can say without a question that the US is a much better place for an illegal immigrant than the other places I've been. In Europe, it's nearly impossible for illegal immigrants to rent or even finance anything, and their children are not privileged to birthright citizenship. In Mexico, illegal immigrants, particularly the most common ones from Central and South America, are not only despised and mocked, but incredibly exploited and abused, and recently 72 of them were found in a mass grave in northern Mexico.

No, the US is not blameless, and yes, the US has done some shameful and atrocious things and absolutely, some of its citizens do a total disgrace to the honor of being called a US citizen. But I believe that ultimately, the people in this country stand for justice. Someday the blinders will come off and the present issues will become yet another scar in the US' pained past as we heal towards a better future, welcoming even more people as members of our society than we ever have in our history.

We have a long way to go. But the US will always be home to me, and I dream that one day my family will be able to return to it.

Dusting off the cobwebs around here...

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 13:51:00 +0000

Maybe it's been a little too long since my last post, huh? I don't get how all those mommy bloggers do it. I can barely get a few ideas strung together before I'm asked to fix a broken helicopter, read a big trucks book, or replay some scenes from Toy Story or Curious George. For example, this post was actually written over a period of 7 different sessions.

What have we been doing? There was a trip to Mexico in September shortly after my last post. Even though that was many months ago, it's probably a good starting place as I try to get back into the blogging game.

I live for moments like these:

Our visit coincided with Mexico's historic bicentennial independence celebration. Although hysteria over potential cartel violence managed to keep us from going to any public events, we did get to enjoy the festivities from home, and from various small-scale celebrations during the week. Everywhere we went, people were selling flags, horns, and other festive paraphernalia.

Because no celebration of Mexican independence is complete without a tambor (drum) featuring John Cena

When we visited in April, this was what we had to deal with on the way to the airport to return to Chicago:

One thing you learn about Monterrey after living there for a few months is that the place has NO DRAINAGE. Not only does the city struggle with a dense, clay soil that leaves nowhere for rainwater to sink in (thanks to my friend Dorothea for pointing that out to me), but the problem is exacerbated by really bad drainage systems around the city as well. Monterrey is notorious for the situation created in 1988 when Hurricane Gilbert caused the Rio Santa Catarina to overflow, leaving more than 100 people dead. Although strides have been made to create more pathways for water to run off, it's still a bad situation. Within 10 minutes of moderate rainfall, you already have running water in the streets. After 2 hours, small cars dare not venture out there. After a full day of rain, only the largest of vehicles has a fighting chance against the water that is several feet deep at many intersections, and wherever the road crosses a creek, there is a pretty treacherous current.

So this time, in September, we experienced an equally devastating inundation in the days before our departure, but we assumed that with several hours of lead time (for a trip that ordinarily takes 15 minutes), we would be OK. Carlos expertly got through flooded roads and highway entrances that had me closing my eyes and praying for safety. Finally it seemed we were clear of the flooding and just a few minutes from the airport. However, now some unprecedented blockage put an 8-lane highway at a complete standstill for hours, and Lucas and I absolutely missed our flight. So did the hundreds of other air passengers trying to leave the city that morning. Fortunately, we were able to secure a place on another flight and said our dreaded goodbyes.

Evidently Lucas thought he was saying goodbye to me at the airport

Since then, we've been working on a new plan that will hopefully lead to a promising future in a new country/countries. I might blog on that a bit later, but for now, let's just say that we're still in the planning and development phases for that pursuit. We have high hopes that our Destination Paradise on Earth does exist and we'll all get there together.

Choose to be victorious

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 05:38:00 +0000

My list of ways to survive unwanted separation has been sitting there begging to be taken up again, so here we go, I'm jumping right to one of my favorites.

Coping Strategy #4:

Choose joy. Choose victory. Choose to believe the miracle.

This one actually took me a really long time to figure out, unfortunately. But apparently if you live every day feeling that life is awful, the world is out to get you, God has forgotten you, and things will never improve, you really start to believe it, and you get even more miserable! A friend of mine recently updated her Facebook status to say, "Choose joy." I thought that was remarkable because it's simple but so true. When everything around seems bleak, you really have to be intentional about living positively. Some days, this means pushing out thoughts of: "My husband's having a horrible day, I'm a whole country away, my son is sick, the Skype connection is too choppy to talk, and I had an awful day at work." Instead you choose to be grateful. "I have an incredible family and friends supporting me, we have computers and internet that we can usually rely on, we have jobs that are meeting our needs." And when you start processing all the blessings, the awful stuff starts to lose its hold on the day. Having a toddler certainly helps here. He definitely goes about his day spreading joy and it's contagious!

Besides believing that life is good, it helps to believe that you are attacking it head-on. Vogue fashion editor Giovanna Battaglia says, "The lower I feel, the higher the heel." I definitely agree. When I feel completely awful and like the world is totally against me, that is a good sign that I need to wear my best jeans or a fabulous H&M dress or my favorite shoes from ZARA. When I try to present myself at my best to the world, it feels like I'm saying, "Hey, bring it on, I can take it." And even if this is far from the truth initially, the act alone goes a long way to making it come true. The point is, if you want to make it through and come out OK, you sometimes have to play dress-up and look your best before you start to feel your best.

Finally, PuertoVallartaGirl, another sister in separation commented the following on a previous post:

Don't forget ... the overall one for all of us who are separated. The belief in the miracle - that our government who we have believed in our whole lives up until the separation - will enact a law that reunites families. And see that the belief in families is more important than some fear monger mentality which is separating us based on red tape. I believe in that miracle. I am just waiting. In fact I can imagine my husband doing the US Citizen oath.

When all else fails, we have to believe that this can't be how it ends. We will have victory stories to tell at the end of this. We will have put in a lot of pain and hard work while getting to that happy ending, but in order to endure lengthy separation, we have to believe that there will be an end. We have to believe that God has a plan (albeit a very difficult to comprehend one) and that this is part of it.

So I choose not to be defeated by this separation. Our marriage has only become stronger through 2.5 years living in separate countries. Our ability to tackle challenges has increased immensely. Our creativity, resolve, and endurance has increased. Our faith has been challenged, but we will hold on to the knowledge that this is the darker stage of a great success story!

Here are Strategies #1 and 2
Here is Strategy #3: Staying Busy

Staying Busy

noreply@blogger.com (Amy G) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:43:00 +0000

Last week when I started drafting a list of ways many of us survive unwanted separation from our spouses, I realized that I was listing each strategy in order of when I discovered it, not necessarily in order of importance. So while the most important stuff will come later, for now, this one's a pretty big one:

Coping Strategy #3:

You absolutely MUST stay busy

I don't think this one can be stated enough. When I find myself spending too much time wallowing in the awfulness of being separated from Carlos, the truth is, I just have too much available time. Although generally Lucas takes care of demanding my every waking moment, sometimes I have to actively look for ways to fill the remaining time so the glaring awfulness doesn't get to stand out. Besides the obvious (work, daily tasks), I've had to look for ways to invest myself in other people and other pursuits so that I can divert my energy to something besides mourning over the time my family has lost. Here are things I've either tried, plan to try, or think other people might enjoy trying:

Get together with friends. Friends who know better than to ask, "So, any news on ____[insert significant other's name here]____?" every time you see them.
Take a class. Someday. I'd like to formally study French.
Sign up at the gym. I seriously should be doing this!
Join a new ministry at church. I recently started doing nursery duty at church and I actually enjoy it a lot. I'm also planning to re-join a small group to increase my adult interaction with members of my church.
Tutor the neighbor kids just because. Or sometimes you don't choose to, they just arrive needing help. Either way, there are tons of worksheets on lots of topics available at abcteach, you can generate simple but challenging math worksheets at SuperKids Math, and you can create all sorts of puzzles at Discovery Education.
Learn to knit. Learn-to-knit has a lot of basic videos for total beginners who want to learn how to knit. KnittingHelp.com has free videos of most stitches and methods called for in any pattern you might find. Ravelry is pretty much a full-scale online community full of patterns, yarn, and tools to organize and share your projects.
Study a language. LiveMocha (or RocketLanguages if you've got money to invest in this) is a great place to learn interactively and intuitively. SharedTalk is a cool site for practicing your language skills with real people. For a really great list of language-learning resources online, see Mashable's guide HOW TO: Learn and Practice Languages Using Social Media.

Staying busy also gives you a sense of satisfaction that while the US immigration process is inefficient and flawed, you are a shining beacon of productivity and growth. At least that's how I like to think of it...

Here are Strategies #1 and 2
Here is Strategy #4: Choosing Victory