GOLO or Gabby Adventure Time Now: Internship Adventures 2

Greetings readers!
I am currently extremely sore and tired. But the blog-writing must go on, as they say. (who are "they"? Just... people you don't know...)

Today I attempted a double work-out so I woke up early early and treadmill-ed (I'm making it a verb. Shut up) to the inspirational recording some girls used while doing German Jazzercize. Don't ask. Then I left for work about an hour early to not repeat yesterday's late-loser-incident. I found the office right away, so to kill time I attempted some exploring/wandering and was intimidated by the large number of old men sitting on every chair available by the street (by bus stops, rest stops, parks, in front of stores, etc.) and they stared twice as much because I wandered back and forth right in front of their noses.

I then went to work about ten minutes early because I was tired of wandering/enduring old-man-stares.

Here's a basic run down of my work day:
Take off shoes.
Go up elevator to nursery.
Put on apron-thing.
Stare at babies.
Help with daily morning clean (vacuum, wipe down every surface and toy, wash/fold diapers)
Play with babies.
Move babies.
Clean more.
Play with more babies.
Give babies milk/juice.
Play with babies more.
Feed babies baby mush.
Take off apron-thing.
Go down elevator away from babies.
Put on shoes.
Leave.

That's it! No really. I guess I didn't mention that playing with babies involves a lot of carrying babies to calm them down after they hit their heads on something. But yeah. That's it.

The nursery has a head nurse, regular volunteers who come almost daily, and student volunteers who come once a week. We all wear aprons.

There are two main rooms with five beds in each, so the maximum capacity of the nursery is 10 babies. I was curious as to why the babies were divided five in one room and two in the other, and my current hypothesis is that they are sorted by age. There are five babies born in 2011 all in one room and two 2012 babies in the other. I spent the majority of my day with the older babies because more hands/eyes are needed to take care of them.

I shall now introduce you to the babies. (unfortunately I felt too creepy taking pictures, but maybe I'll get photos someday)

Now it's time to MEET THE BABIES

- 유진 (like Eugene) - the youngest of the 2011 babies. He is a lot smaller than all of them even though he was only born a day after 도진 (maybe it's such a great contrast because of how big 도진 is...). He hardly has any hair, but he has at least six baby teeth he shows off a lot with his toothy, satisfied grin. I think, because he is smaller, his legs aren't as strong as the others, so he prefers swinging in the doorway-baby-swing to the baby cruzer things. You probably have no idea what I'm talking about so it's time to GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH:
This is the swing - only imagine it indoors in a doorway:

This is the cruzer walker thing:

And now you understand my language.

- 도진 (like Eugene, but take off Eu and replace it with Toe) The second youngest of the 2011 bunch. He is by far the biggest. He has a big chubby face and little baby fat rolls all over. Isn't funny how fat on babies is fine, cute even, but as soon as you become a kid fat is TABOO. Fat rolls? Don't even. Somehow I ended up carrying him the most today and my arms feel it. I can imagine him being a comedian because he laughs a lot and is really lovable. When I left and said "bye, bye" he immediately sprint-crawled across and out of the doorway after me unlike the other babies who stared/waved. So I sort of love him. :) He and 재환 enjoyed trying to take my glasses (I'm almost out of contact solution, so I've been wearing my glasses a lot) and are really pleased when they see me without them. He almost stabbed himself in the eye once he had a hold of my glasses... so I will be more careful. He also really likes music/singing. One of the volunteers likes to sing brassy Korean kid tunes, and he become enraptured every time unlike the others.And finally, his favorite sound to make is "엄마" which is Korean for "mom" but he just says it all the time, so I don't think he associates it with mothers and just likes the sound of it...

- 정우 (chong-oo) The middle baby. He unfortunately has a folded/distorted ear and is a little slow, so I think he might be slightly autistic. I was honestly expecting most all of the babies to be like 정우 or much worse, guessing that that would be why they were up for adoption and not in the foster program either. But 정우 is the only one and he's really pretty normal/cute. He is really calm most of the time. He has the softest hair. I fed him mush and yogurt today. Yeah.

- 재환 (jay-hwan) The second oldest and the future lady-killer. This baby boy has the cutest smile. Even when he knows he's doing something wrong like getting into the cloth diaper storage, he just looks back and smiles at you like, "You aren't really angry with me, riiiiiight?" and try as I might, I can't keep a serious "I'm very angry right now" face at him to make him stop. He has the classic trouble-making-child hair that sticks straight up even after you pat it down. When he got a hold of my glasses it took me a few minutes to get them back/keep them out of his mouth. I assume he is teething a lot, because he tries to bite nearly everything from the toys to the laundry basket to my arm. He can be pretty determined, like he is the only one who can balance standing up for short periods without holding onto anything/someone supporting him.

- 지훈 (ji-oon) The oldest born September 2011. (he's sort of my favorite... but don't tell any of the other babies that). He is going to be a movie star (the type that wins awards because he takes acting seriously) or president or scholar or some awesome respectable thing that has him walking around in a suit, making everyone admire him from afar. You can just tell. He is really smart. If you say, "여보세요?" (what Koreans say when answering the phone) he lifts his hand to his ear as if answering a phone. And if you say, "안녕하세요?" (Korean greeting usually followed by a bow) he does the cutest, sudden head nod. And when some of the volunteers sing a certain song, he'll clap his hands and throw his arms up at the right moments. And he does all of this with a completely straight face. Unlike the others who grin in hope of you praising them, he focuses almost all the time. He is the most solemn baby but also just so cute. His crawl is more like a glide where he pushes off, slides forward with arms extended, pushes again, glides - it looks like he is swimming. When we put all the babies into chair-like-blobs to feed them mush, he did some kind of flip thing and escaped the chair, then proceeded to watch me very seriously as I fed 정우. His seriousness also makes his laughter that much more adorable.

I must say that after today, I imagined what most the guys I passed on the subway back would be like as babies and wasn't nearly as intimidated as I usually am... haha.

After work I basically crashed. Probably a combination of waking up super early, working out, and lifting babies all day has turned me into a blob that refuses to leave my bed... Tomorrow I will achieve double work-out! I think I can, I think I can...

Aside from sleeping I've been "researching" for my internship. That's right. I've been watching videos of Korean babies on YouTube. And I've re-watched a super great Korean show called "헬로 베이비" which is Koreanized English for "Hello Baby" where idols get to raise a baby and it's super fun. Check out some images of SHINee's "Hello Baby":