Harrison Kim is expressionless. His cherubic cheeks remain stubbornly undimpled as he solemnly observes the scene before him of four grown adults bopping about, attempting in vain to elicit a reaction. They coo, cluck, wave their hands and sing as Harrison looks on, seemingly unimpressed. And then the magic happens.
The corners of his Cupid’s bow mouth slowly upturn and the sound they’ve all been hoping for the delicious burble of a baby’s chuckle bursts forth.
“It’s so hard to make him laugh,” his delighted mother, Dami I'm, says in triumph. All day you can see me, Noah and my parents working so hard to make him smile. And when he does, we’re all like, Ahhh!’ We are overjoyed. I feel like I am going to explode from so much joy just watching my baby smile.”
For Dami, 34, the journey to motherhood had been deliberately postponed. Not one to rush into things, she dated her now-husband Noah Kim for six years before tying the knot in 2012. I was scared of being married, scared it would change everything, and people would treat me differently,” she recalls. And people did treat me so differently once I was married. For example, once girls would ask me, What’s your dream? What do you want to become?’ And then they’d ask, Well, what did you want to be before you were married?’ Like, That’s it now’.”
At her church, which she’d attended for years, 24-year-old Dami was sent into the kitchen to join the women’s group” for those with husbands, while her friends still participated in youth group. This was the first time, she says, that she experienced being put into a box”. It was the first of many instances of labelling that inspired her to put pen to paper and write a memoir, Dreamer, tracing everything from her move to Australia from Korea as a shy nine-year-old to this new chapter as a mother.
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