I got a double dose of my in-laws tonight -- K-Gere and Mama Kim. One of my friends had come to Hulk's to visit me and introduce me to her newborn daughter when K-Gere walked in. I knew full well as soon as she left he'd be all about the baby and wouldn't be shy in telling me I "need" to have one. I was smiles and giggles with him until he dropped the B-Bomb and the drop of it left me speechless. Usually I'm pretty quick on the tongue to respond with something sarcastic but today I just stood there looking at him. So he asked again, "When are you going to have a baby? You have to have a baby."
What I have to have are people to stop telling me I need a baby or have to have one. I have a baby. I have five babies actually -- Snickers, Hulk's, Pyen Chi, Balboa, and Pacquiao -- and I don't think it's appropriate for anyone to have a baby that has been pushed, forced or convinced to do so. People who want to have babies should have them and people that don't shouldn't. Seems like pretty simple logic to me. My friend today was all smiles over her baby and that's exactly how it should be. Babies need to be with those who want them, not those who were pushed to have them.
I don't need a baby. I'm not looking to breed my own workers, thanks. I mean I need a new crossfit trainer come January but I should have started twenty years ago if that was the case. NOW they tell me... hahaha. Anyways, Snickers let me take the "baby bullet" alone and then ended up later on apologizing to me for doing so. He felt really bad.
My second dose of my in-laws came after work, when Snickers asked me if I wanted to go to his mother's house -- a rhetorical question that is borderline just silly. I went. His mother always goes into auto-pilot mode in the kitchen, cooking up something or another, pulling out containers from the fridge and insisting we eat. We always eat when we go to Mama Kim's house and it's kind of become an expected thing too. Within ten minutes of arriving, the kitchen table was bombarded with about a dozen side dishes, a large grilled fish and she was calling us to come eat. Mama Kim can put on quite the meal, I'll definitely give her that.
While laying on the floor, Snickers and I started talking about my father. After nine years of living here in Korea, he's yet to visit me. Spending time and making memories with Snickers' family often reminds me of this fact. Today was one of those days. Snickers has so much to be thankful for -- he can't even grasp just how much he has to be thankful. His entire family is in one country, in Korea. He can simply get in the car and drive to see them. Sometimes I find myself totally envying him for this because it doesn't even phase him just how blessed he is to be within driving distance of his entire family. I have to take a plane to see mine and even then they're scattered around in Canada and one of my brothers is across the border. I've got family and friends having babies, getting married, and making memories without me. I know this just as I know I can't exactly do anything about it but it doesn't mean it's any harder to accept. It's hard to accept and I struggle with it all the time.
I don't think my father will ever come to see me in Korea. He probably would have before, if my mother hadn't got sick with cancer, but now that she's gone everything has changed. Snickers and I talked about this tonight. Originally we had planned on buying my father a plane ticket to Korea for this year's Christmas present but we held off. The plan is for me to travel next summer and offer to fly him back with me. This would mean Snickers wouldn't be able to visit Canada with me. It's simply too expensive and with Hulk's and the dog, one of us would have to stay back to manage everything. We figure that if I escort him on the trip over he'll be more comfortable and less likely to say no. A part of me thinks this is a great idea but another part of me thinks I'm just setting myself up for massive disappointment. Next summer will mark three years since I last visited Canada.
I have no Christmas present for my father this year. I know he won't accept my plane ticket for him and I didn't have a back-up present in mind. Tonight I came up with an idea on how to celebrate Christmas with my father. My father loves playing the piano and one of our favourite Christmas carols that I also learned how to play is The First Noel. Tonight I taught Snickers it and together we practiced singing it. It's his first ever English Christmas carol and he still struggles with reading some of the words on the YouTube video I used to teach him but the plan is to learn it by memory for Christmas. We're going to sing it to my father on Christmas over the phone with him.
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