The Koreans Arrive

In the olden days of Korean culture, they would pretend that a baby doesn’t exist until the 100th day of life. More than just the, “I’m leaving you at the tutor’s all day and never going to show you affection” kind of neglect, the baby essentially wasn’t alive yet. On the 100th day, they would have a huge party welcoming the baby into the world. They did this because fifty percent of babies died before the hundred day mark. Nowadays, this tradition has meshed into the first birthday. The first birthday is a huge fucking deal to the Koreans, like, the-baby-wears-a-thing-that-looks-like-a-wedding-dress big deal.

The in-laws were due to arrive at 10:30 in the morning the day of MM’s birthday. Of course, they chose flight times that were the absolutely most inconvenient for us – arriving the day of the party when we’re running around and stressed, and leaving on a work day where Hubs would be gone half the day. My anxiety levels were through the roof when he left to pick them up.

In the months of daily phone calls (and by daily phone calls I mean many, many times a day in a condescending game of control), it had been a roller coaster of Angry-in-Law’s rageful PMSsy disownings, Crazy-in-Law’s increased Captain Obvious “advice” (Boiled down to, “I don’t trust you to care for your baby, and could you pick up a gallon of milk for me for when I arrive?”), I had no idea what to expect when they got here. AiL had been trying his hardest to control the first birthday festivities, he wanted a huge party with hundreds of people flown in and a catered meal. We did not, because, you know, MM is a BABY. We were disowned over and over for many different reasons, and then a couple of days later we’d get a call from AiL like nothing had happened. It was extremely emotionally damaging to Hubs. He tried his hardest to maintain our control over our family, tell them how it was going to be in no uncertain terms, but they make it so damn hard.

So, as I cut up the fruit for the party I fretted about the possibilities of horror with this visit. I also drank more than half of a 2 liter of Pepsi Max to stay alert for the party, so I was also tweaking pretty hard.

Hubs took them to the hotel, the hotel that they thought was shabby until they learned it was Korean owned and thusly a castle, and after CiL puttered around for far too long fretting over this and that, they made their way over to the house.

We have a very calm home. There’s rarely TV on during the day, Hubs and I talk with soft, encouraging voices, and MM tends to not yell or scream but babble happily about the light on the ceiling. When the in-laws walked in, laden with 4 bags that had not been left at the hotel, they brought with them a tornado of very loud, angry sounding Korean. Immediately when they walked in the door they started in on MM, bombarding him with, “Garanda-pa!” “Garanda-ma!” and he looked at them like they were lions about to eat his face. He clung to me for dear life.

Hubs kept telling them to speak quieter, to stop walking up to him like they were going to attack and then shy away when they were too scared to hold him, to let MM come to them instead of forcing him to hug and love an angry stranger. They…tried I guess.

MM says, “OH MY GOD SAVE ME”

They brought with them some presents, clothing that was actually pretty awesome, a little pirate backpack, and cards for all of us with sappy messages from AiL and money. And not to sound ungrateful, but it was very obvious that AiL was still pissed about not having say over the party. The easiest way to gauge love from AiL is how much money he hands over.

Then came the traditional Korean baby gift. Sigh, it’s no wonder their babies don’t live, the traditional gift is a tiny gold ring for the baby to wear – a perfect shiny choking hazard. I have no idea why they do the ring thing, but it was one of those things we relented on because it wasn’t worth the fight. It came in a tiny ring box shaped like a car, which I thought was hella cuter than the ring itself.

Here is CiL putting the ring (that was too small) on MM’s finger while he was placated with Hubs’ phone

Showing off the blaaang

After this, CiL put on her crazy cap and started opening her bags of mysterious useless delight. In years past, if you remember, we’ve received about 8,000 bottles of garlic salt, 3,000 bottles of half used pepsid, 1,000,000 bottles of baby asprin, random clothing and ramen and the craziest stuff that we just think, “Why the hell….?”

CiL pulled out a ZeroWater pitcher, which, if you remember, is total crap. It has a HUGE filter and takes four years to filter a drop of water, and it supposedly eliminates “Total dissolved solids” which is worthless. But, as a Korean Home Shopping Network aficionado, CiL bought into the bunk. Then she brought out this monstrosity that looked vaguely like a blender. She made a point of telling us that it was five hundred dollars. It ended up being a water mineralizer. CiL has been seeing a Chinese “Doctor” who hands her gold covered stink-pills and tells her he can cure my thyroid problems by aligning the minerals in my body. She was adamant that it would help me.

So, just to recap our gifts, we have a water purifyer to remove minerals, and then a water mineralizer to add minerals (or water “revitalizer” as it boasts on the side). I figured that since the mineral water monster was five hundred dollars, perhaps we could sell it and get some money. That is, until I looked it up online and it didn’t exist. Another home shopping treasure.

Soon there will just be Hydrogen and Oxygen

Then, randomly, CiL brought out a sphygmomanometer and stated that she was going to take our blood pressure. Oooookay. AiL was happily handing MM trash and plastic to play with, and Hubs was scolding him and telling him that you don’t fucking give plastic wrap to a baby, or tiny pieces of cardboard that he can eat. Watching this, I thought of how AiL commanded us to send MM to live with them in California during his elementary school years so that he could learn Korean. They said that after we have more kids, it’ll be so hard, and we can just send him off to live with them. At that point, when I was tired of hearing about this, I had Hubs say these exact words to his father: “PaH will never leave MM alone with you, because you hit children.” That started another storm of selective memory and disownings, but at least I got to say my piece – through my poor interpreter.

Anywho, so CiL was merrily taking Hubs’ blood pressure and cluck-clucking because it was a little high. He said, “Of course it’s high, you guys are stressing me out!” and cluck cluck cluck. Then it was my turn. I just went with it, because holy lord it’s not worth it. My blood pressure was fine, good even, and you could see CiL searching for something to cluck cluck about. Now, remember, I had ingested about three million milligrams of caffeine prior to them walking in the door, so my pulse was a’pounding. She looked like she was relieved to have something to worry about, and made sure that I was properly warned of the dangers of a high pulse.

As they left for the hotel, CiL informed us that she’ll also be testing our blood glucose and cholesterol levels.

What?

Advertisement