In this installment of Love, Recorded, Cathreen’s joints hurt, Matt turns into a zombie, and baby Grace gives her parents a precious gift on her 100th day of life.
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When the in-laws leave, they leave us with both more and less time. We play host only to baby Grace, which means also that we have no one to take over when we screw up. We tell ourselves that couples raise babies on their own all the time (and holy crap, single parents!). How do we go about it? In the seminar I organize at Harvard, the speaker talks about how wealth is a huge indicator of school success. Cathreen believes being Korean is a huge indicator of school success.
During the week, while I’m at work, my wife gives our baby “classes.” One in the morning and one in the afternoon or at night. They read books. They listen to a rain tube. Cathreen stretches the baby’s legs. There are things you can do to improve your baby’s life before she lives it. We spend all of our money on diapers and formula and baby clothes and playthings. We spend all of our attention on Grace, until there isn’t any left for each other, or ourselves.
And we need attention. Cathreen’s body is in flux, snapping back like a very slow rubber band. All of her joints ache, down to the knuckles in her fingers and toes. They all came apart as her hips prepared to unhinge themselves. Explain to me evolution. The doctor said her pain sounds like arthritis. She asked another Korean doctor, who said these symptoms occur in many Korean women. Big heads, small waists. Cathreen’s sister was in pain, everywhere, for a year after giving birth. Yet we thought naively that once the pains of pregnancy ended, the pains of pregnancy ended.
We see my family more often, drawn by a new life. At one point, an aunt stops by whom we hardly know; she lives in California. She says she had the same postpartum problem. Her doctor diagnosed it as fibromyalgia. He said it could happen after any time the body undergoes “great stress.” She describes it as stepping on nails, and Cathreen’s face lights up just to hear someone else confirm her torment.
Grace is really a darling about all the changes. We try to remember that this is hard work for her: holding up her head, putting her hand in her mouth, seeing. It’s amazing when she does anything new—for us but especially for her. We wonder how anyone survives a colicky baby.
I’m having trouble with exhaustion, though Cathreen takes the baby on my work nights. My wife is ever the better, tougher half. I am a zombie. The problem is stress? baby blues? When Grace cries, my shoulders ache preemptively. There are times nothing can calm her. This is heart-breaking, but also frustrating—you find yourself behaving as if you are fixing a machine and you’re doing everything right but it just will not “work.” But a baby is not a machine. What you know about a baby has to change constantly because she is changing constantly. In a sick twist, that’s where you’re supposed to find the fun in it.
For Grace’s 100th day of life, we host my brother and parents and grandparents and an aunt and a couple of cousins. In Korea, 100 days is a celebration second only to the first birthday. Cathreen cooks the entire day before, and we’re still preparing in the morning. It’s Grace, though, who makes the biggest contribution. Everyone has been telling me how things change completely at 3 months, as if she would wake up and be a person, start to talk or something. What happens is no less a miracle. The night before the party, Grace sleeps straight through from midnight to 7:30. She has changed by letting us be people again.
At the party, my family gathers around her while we, Cathreen and I, finish up. We can hear her crying in the living room, but we’re sure one of my relatives can soothe her. My grandmother raised six kids. I rush in and out with the barbecue. Cathreen mixes japchae. Grace keeps crying until she gets through to us that no one is giving her what she wants. I place the galbi on the table. I smell like smoke, like I am burning from the inside out. I pick up my daughter, and she calms as soon as she touches my arms.
—photo Flickr/Khürt