Secrets

The Korean kids are monopolizing my computer, making it tough for me to find time to post here. When I log on now, I am greeted by a Korean version of Instant Messager -- I had better remember to ask them to uninstall it before they leave, because I can`t read the commands to do that myself.

Once again, we have four little Koreans over -- two more boys are eating dinner here now, which is rice and fried chicken tonight. I have stopped cooking token vegetables, because they don`t eat them, anyway, and I can force my own kids to eat things but not somebody else`s kids. I also bought a ton of kimchi-flavored instant noodles at the local market, so now if they turn up their noses at any of our semi-healthy food, they have a totally unhealthy, sodium-laden alternative.

The three boys on this exchange program are cousins. One of them is very young, just in fouth grade, and I heard from his host family that he cries on the phone to his mother every night. I guess his mother felt okay about letting him come because his two older cousins are here, too, and their teacher, but he really is too young, I think.

I had a small dilemma yesterday. I was doing the kids` laundry, and I noticed our sixth-grade girl had wrapped her bathrobe around something before she put it in the laundry basket. It turned out to be blood-stained underwear, that she`d tried, and failed, to wash out herself.

I didn`t want to say anything to her -- I figured, she had gone to the trouble of hiding it. I remember exactly how mortifying the whole idea of menstruation seemed when I was a girl, growing up in my uptight Catholic family. For some reason, it seemed deeply shameful -- something vaguely connected with sex, and therefore to be hidden at all costs, and never discussed, except in hushed whispers with a few close girl friends. My mother gave me a book about it, when I was 10 or 11, and said, "Here, read this, and let me know if you have any questions," and I`m sure she was praying that I didn`t.

Daughter is only 8, so this is still ahead of us. She already knows all about it, though. I honestly had no idea about it until I read the book my mother gave me -- I was amazed that an entire bodily function had been kept secret from me for so long. I think this reinforced my impression that it was something that needed to be hidden.

I figured, our Korean girl uses her phone card to call her mother every day, so her situation is probably under control. Just in case, I mentioned it to Trista, our au pair, with whom she shares a bathroom, and Trista said the girl seems to have her own supplies with her to deal with it. I asked her to please leave some extra where she can find them, and mention them to her -- Trista was a nurse, so she`s very good about putting people at ease. Plus, she`s an older sister, whereas I am an old lady -- or so I must seem to a 12-year old girl.

So I did the girl`s laundry without saying anything. Let her think I didn`t even notice -- even though I soaked her underwear in stain remover to get them completely clean.