Chloë's visit with her halmoni was great. Mom arrived Thursday night and left Tuesday evening, and in between they drew pictures, played with blocks, watched babies on TV, shared clementines and potato-cheese soup, and chased each other approximately 173 times around the living room. "Halmoni" was too hard to say, but she could point to Halmoni when asked, and started to call her "Hal" by the end of the visit. Mom took her in the mornings so I could get extra sleep. When we left for the airport she gave Halmoni a hug and a kiss and a bonk (and then started screaming when I walked out the door too--I guess after five days she forgot that Mama goes away sometimes) and waved, saying "Bah-bah," very sweetly.
Mom was impressed by how well and how much she eats. We had rice and stirfry and dried seaweed for dinner one night, and Mom was amused by how much of the seaweed went down Chloë's throat, and how quickly. (When I came home from the airport I had the leftovers, and offered Chloë a piece of seaweed, tearing strips off and leaving them on a napkin on her little table. She finished them sooner than I'd have thought possible and started saying "Pee! Pee! Pee!", jumping up and down and gesturing at me--I was talking to someone--until I realized she was saying "Please" and wanted more. We repeated this until my meal was finished and the seaweed was all gone.)
Wednesday morning I got her her bottle and changed her diaper and set her down on the floor, and she immediately toddled to the spare room, saying, "Hal?" I felt so sad for her, seeing the empty room where she expected her grandmother to be. "I'm sorry, sweetie," I told her, "Halmoni's not here anymore. She went home." Chloë stood there a moment. Then she went to her paper and pencils on the floor and started to color, something she and Mom would do in the mornings but she and I or she and Eric normally don't. Ever since, she's been crankier than normal, and harder to get to sleep. We've decided Halmoni isn't allowed to come visit anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment