Same normal here; child care; remembering mom

The new normal in Vietnam is starting to feel a lot like the old normal. Motorbike traffic is reckless and ruthless again. Big cars are racing up and down small streets. At the popular coffee shops you see lots of mask-less young people not overly concerned about social distancing. The coronavirus never really got a foothold here, so maybe locals aren't quite as concerned as the rest of the world. The government closed the borders as soon as news broke about the virus in Wuhan, China. Then Vietnam focused on contact tracing to control the spread. A few towns in northern Vietnam near the border with China were quarantined shortly after the virus began to spread. There have been no reported deaths here and the overall number of cases is 334 as of May 25. We are not completely opened up here with some limits on restaurants, and a few more people wear masks in supermarkets, but it's not a dramatic change by any means.
The first thing I do in the morning is check virus numbers for the United States. My wife does the same. We're horrified, of course, since the U.S. is at 100,000 deaths under the leadership of President Donald Trump. Brazil, under the leadership of President Jair Bolsonaro, sometimes called the Trump of the Tropics, has been climbing rapidly and now is No. 2 in cases with 394,507, including 24,593 deaths.

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My wife Phuong is steadily and slowly recovering from her c-section and the birth of Elijah. My back and knee won't heal, but I'll never have to go through nine months of a difficult pregnancy followed by hours of intense labor, a c-section and lots of bleeding. Luckily, Phuong can handle all things Elijah while I take care of all things Joanna. I do what I've always done with Joanna: read, go to coffee shops, draw a little on the white board, go shopping, and write letters of the alphabet. We have picnic lunches together, which means I have to sit on our very hard floor. Joanna loves shopping and finally she's responding to my request not to take off running and disappear in a big supermarket or store.  But she insists I carry her on my shoulders when we walk to the market or coffee shop. Oddly, this weighted walk has helped my back somewhat. It makes no difference on the knee, which has developed a mind of its own, buckling when I least expect it and staying stable when I expect a collapse. Joanna also loves videos, and has figured out to start a computer, track down YouTube videos and stay entertained for hours. She enjoys phonics videos now (Peppa Pig is yesterday's news) and understands the concept of sounding out letters and words. That should be a handy skill when she starts pre-school / kindergarten next week. Joanna is sweet to her brother, but I sense she's ready to branch out.

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My mom died 14 years ago on May 25; she was generous, hardworking and remarkably under-appreciated. She cared more for others than herself, and I think this ultimately led to her demise.
Gertrude Millman was a fighter with a heart of gold. And as my mom would say: That's no BS. I wish I had paid more attention to the example she set with her work ethic and self-sacrifice. I found out after she died following a too long struggle with Alzheimer's that her given name was Joanna, but somehow that got changed to Gertrude on her birth certificate. Her Ukrainian parents didn't protest and Gertrude it was. My 3-year-old daughter Joanna is named for my mom. Joanna sometimes has a fierce temper, but overall she's sweet and caring. I know my mom would have adored her as well as Joanna's 3-week-old brother Elijah, named after my great-grandfather on my dad's side of the family. I don't know much about him other than the fact he was a farmer, had 11 kids, supposedly could open a clam with his bare hands and spelled his name with one 'l' -- Milman. Elijah Milman makes for a good story and wonderful name to give to my child.

Baby boy brings us joy; taxis reject me so I take long walk

My wife Phuong endured a short but painful labor that ended in a c-section and the birth of a healthy boy -- Elijah Pham Millman -- on May 6 at 3:45 a.m. Mom and baby are doing great now. There was some concern about blood loss by Phuong, but all turned out well. We're both happy beyond belief. I wasn't at the hospital -- Phuong's mom went with her. I stayed at home with Joanna, cooking, cleaning and trying to handle a little girl whose become quite a handful, especially with mom having a difficult pregnancy and then disappearing one night. We explained the situation to Joanna, and I think she got most of it. Anyway, only one person was allowed to accompany the moms-to-be in the hospital due to coronavirus fears. Phuong went to the hospital late on Tuesday night, gave birth Wednesday, and returned home Saturday afternoon. Not bad for a woman who had a c-section. She's tough.

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I fell down our stairs carrying laundry and bent my left knee well beyond its normal limits. The good news is that knee pain took my mind off my sciatica.  I had to man-up the next day when I took Joanna shopping at Vincom. After buying clothes and groceries for the family, I stood outside the mall and tried to hail a taxi. Three taxi drivers about 20 feet away laughed at me and Joanna, and refused to give us a ride. I'm not sure why. Maybe we weren't going far enough. (Joanna used up my cell phone's battery watching videos in the mall, so we were sort of stuck.) One of the drivers walked up to me basically to start a confrontation, I guess, laughing and waving his hand at me. This is the third time I've been refused a ride by taxis outside Vincom. Here's where I manned up. I ignored the driver, of course, then covered Joanna's head with a t-shirt I had just bought, put her on my shoulders, and walked 1.6 miles home in 99-degree heat along a dirty, dusty and dangerous road (Vo Thi Sau) that was having construction work done on the gutters and shoulders. I didn't even think about my knee during the walk. I was worried about the drivers and if the heat would bother Joanna, but we stopped for water and I dumped cold water over her head twice. She had fun, pointing out the "diggers and excavators" along the way. I don't care when taxi drivers act like this to me, but I was flabbergasted they would do this to a 3-year-old girl. As long as the knee holds up, I'll walk.

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I've enrolled Joanna in a pre-school here since Phuong's U.S. visa interview has been indefinitely postponed due to coronavirus. School is from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with a break roughly from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch and nap. We'll see how it goes. Lockdown ended here late April and early May, but Joanna has been bored. The heat doesn't help -- it was 93 at 8 a.m. this week. Classes are taught in Vietnamese with an hour or so of English every day. Joanna only speaks English but can understand a little Vietnamese when pushed. Being bilingual can only help her.

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We've had 318 total cases of coronavirus in Vietnam. The U.S. currently has more than 90,000 deaths from the virus, so I'm going to say we're fortunate to be where we are. That's one of the reasons we enrolled Joanna in school. Along with everyone else, we have no idea what the future holds.