karen the californian

Karen the Grinchoween

2011-11-08T21:52:00.000-08:00

So last week was Halloween. When I was little, I enjoyed trick-or-treating along with the rest of the kids in my neighborhood and school. I had a costume every year (although it wasn't anything elaborate like what we have nowadays), and I went out with my friends and went door to door in our neighborhoods. It was a careless time, and I didn't really think about it more than an excuse to get a lot of candy.

When our church started to put on alternative candy-centered events on the last day of October, I wasn't sure what to think of it. When I was in college it seemed like just another thing that would take my free time away. Of course who knows what else I'd be doing instead of that. Trick or treating? Hah! But it did get me to start thinking about the meaning of the holiday, and whether or not I wanted to encourage participation in it.

When we had kids, I wasn't quite sure what to make of the holiday either. We got costumes for the girls and took them around the neighborhood, but mostly just to show off how cute they were, especially in their costumes. Whether or not we got candy I could have cared less. Actually I think I would have preferred that the girls didn't get candy at all.

When Elizabeth got diagnosed with her tree nut allergy, it really changed candy and chocolate in our house. Suddenly I had to be careful with everything that she was about to eat. It got to be way too much to handle the first few years of elementary school, reading all the labels, looking up the candy manufacturers' websites, and calling them up and finding out whether or not the candy was made in what we call a "nutty facility."

So last year, we decided to go candy shopping and just do away with the whole Halloween idea. Sure, it's hard to get away from it because the elementary schools really seem to relish pushing the holiday on the kids. Many of the kindergarten homework assignments during the month of October involve costumes, jack-o-lanterns, etc. There's also a costume parade on the morning of the 31st, when all the kids, K thru 8, march around the school wearing their costumes.

But we were able to pull it off not only last year, but also this year.

Last year, we left for Hawaii on my mom's birthday, November 6. We decided to take my parents out for dinner to celebrate her birthday the week before, which happens to be October 31, which also happened to fall on a weekend. So we vacated the house, took my parents out to dinner, and then went to Target to buy candy for the kids. I told them to pick out whatever they wanted, and so they each picked a two-pack of ring pops and were so excited about how they could get whatever candy they wanted. We took it back to my parents' house, and I let the girls gorge on as much ring pops and M&Ms (courtesy of my parents) as they wanted that night. No complaints from anybody.

This year we didn't have to take my parents out on Halloween (we ended up doing it the day before her birthday this year), but we did end up running an errand right before dinner right next to one of our favorite Japanese restaurants. So we had sushi for dinner, and then went to Target to pick out candy, and then ToysRUs to use up a couple of gift cards the girls had received for their birthdays earlier this year. The girls picked out sugar free gum. No complaints from anybody again.

I think we've got a successful tradition going on. I've decided I've got a disdain for cheap candy, commercialized costumes and goblins and stuff. The girls told everyone what a fun evening they had the next day and I don’t think they felt deprived. We didnt have to deal with any candy we don’t like, and better yet, we don’t have to deal with any allergens.

Blessed be the name of the Lord

2011-02-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

Matt Redman wrote a song whose lyrics include these lines:

Every blessing you pour out I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be your name.

A few weeks ago I've been hearing this song a lot. And frankly, it's scaring the snot out of me. I've been noticing the lyrics in this song I've been hearing at church, juxtaposed with the melody that is invariably cheerful.

Can I really honestly choose to say "blessed be the name of the Lord" when darkness closes in and what is given is taken away? It brings me positively to tears. How can I handle that when all that is in me, although I know what is the correct response, would want to scream, rebel, and throw a massive tantrum? It's so easy to be thankful when things are easy, and blessings are added to blessings. It's so easy to bless the name of the Lord when there is nothing to cry about. How selfish am I?

I pray that the land is always plentiful, streams of abundance always flow, the desert place and wilderness are nowhere near me, the sun's always shining down on me, the world's all as it should be, the road is not marked with suffering, and that there is no pain in sacrifice. However, I know that life is not this way, and that despite my prayers, life will never always be a charmed bed of roses. And because of that, I must also pray that I will be strong enough to remember to bless the name of the Lord even then. The thought scares me, but I must be prepared. Right?

Membership

2010-11-27T00:56:00.000-08:00

A week after my haircut, I went to class at my local community college. Four or five people noticed, and three of them individually gave me what they must've thought was a compliment: "It makes you look SO MUCH younger!"

Now I've never thought of myself as a person ever in the future needing to look younger. I always imagined I'd never consider dyeing my hair, putting on any kind of magic potion to make the age spots or crows' feet disappear, or heading to any doctor's office for botox or facelifts. I consider myself the anti-girly girl: not tomboyish, not butch, but just the opposite of really putting *that* much effort into looking a certain way. I'd learned it's too much unrewarded effort to invest more than a few minutes a day to beauty than what was necessary to be presentable: in the morning, wash out the eye boogers, brush the teeth, wash the face, slap on some moisturizer (or else I'll desiccate like you won't believe), and fluff out the hair (but never comb it unless it's wet).

This worked for my entire life. Well, I only learned the hair thing a few years ago.

My entire life I'd always been mistaken for an age other than mine, something between my then-current age and 18-21. When I was 12, I was mistaken for older. In college, people asked me what grade I was in. When I was 24, I was mistaken for a college student. Even a month ago, in my 30-somethings, two different people on two different occasions guessed I'm in my late 20s. I rarely wear any makeup, and I dress very plainly, and I act very immature. It's worked for me.

And then suddenly, with one compliment, it changed my whole outlook. I suddenly realized that I don't get carded anymore, and that maybe I should dye my hair to cover up the gray and maybe consider a magic potion or two.

I've officially been inducted into That Club, haven't I? *sigh*

Hairy Adventures

2010-11-26T23:26:00.000-08:00

So a few weeks ago I decided to finally cut my hair. After months of weak-mindedly wanting to do it and then changing my mind again, I finally made the leap and got my hair lopped off. Twelve inches of it. For some unknown reason, I had always considered my long hair an integral part of my identity. And I guess that's why I had always hemmed and hawed when it came to actually making a decision to cut off my hair.

Anyways, the final seed was planted when the girls wanted to cut off their long hair. I wasn't particularly attached to their hair, although it was pretty fun to show off their beautiful straight shiny hair. However, combing it and styling it were not so much fun, and the girls hated waking up with it tangled up every morning. So when their friend cut off her hair and and donated it to Locks of Love, we thought hey, that would be a cool idea, and decided that would be something we'd like to do too.

Elizabeth was the first one to do it in March. She loved it, and would probably do it again in a heartbeat. And I think she felt really good about donating her hair. She's growing it longer again now. For another donation? Who knows.

Abigail begged and begged to do it next. She wanted to do it the same day as Elizabeth, but due to a misunderstanding (the stylist thought it was a 12-inch minimum donation, not 10 inches), we ended up having to wait until her hair grew another two inches, in May. She also loves having her hair short. One difference is that Elizabeth wanted to grow out her bangs, but Abigail wanted to keep hers. Her hair is growing again, too, but two months behind Elizabeth.

Then it was my turn. I kept hesitating. I kept making the excuse that my hair is too curly, and it'll just puff out when it's short. I'll look like an old Korean lady with badly permed hair. The matronly look. You know, that look. I badly wanted to avoid the hairstyle I ended up with in sixth grade -- when my mom and aunt thought it'd be a great idea to cut my hair short and give me a perm. Yuck.

I had straight hair with a mind of its own when I was little. It was a decent length (not too short, not too long) when I was about 5 or 6. And then my mom and aunt (same aunt!) thought it'd be a great idea to cut my hair short. I really wanted to keep it longer, but they somehow convinced me that they're just gonna cut it a little bit. Well, every time her scissors went to my hair, they had decided that "it was uneven, and they had to cut the other side." You know, to "even it out."

I think I avoided putting scissors to my hair after that for a long time. By the time I was in fifth grade, my hair was pretty long again. But it was thicker, and getting coarse. I started to hate my hair because it was too hard to comb, but didn't know what to do with it. So again, I submitted myself to my aunt's scissors, and in sixth grade, I ended up with a bob and a perm.

You know how I feel about that.

So for the longest time after that, I largely avoided putting scissors to my hair again.

And I also avoided hair rollers like the plague.

After I got married, on a trip to Korea, I discovered "magic perm." I loved this perm. Basically they put perm solution in your hair and then iron it flat. Some people say they look dorky afterwards because their hair is so flat against the head. But I loved it. My hair looked so sleek, so smooth, so shiny, so not-coarse.

From haircut

I think I went back to get it done once or twice, but then decided I didn't want to shell out the $$$ for it, so I decided to grow it out. That's when the nightmare began. My hair, remember, was naturally coarse and wrinkly. And the permed section was flat. I have no words to describe this phase of my hair where the roots had a mind of their own and the ends hung limp and lifeless.

And then I got pregnant. Too tired to style my hair, too scared of chemicals to do anything to my hair, and not girly enough to really care.

Needless to say, at that point, I finally decided I'm not going to fight my hair. I'm not going to make it do something it doesn't want to do, because first of all, I'm too lazy to spend half an hour blow-drying it into submission every morning, because at the end of the week, that's three and a half hours of my life I'm never going to get back. Second of all, I'm too cheap to shell out $$$ for my hair when it's just going to grow out anyway.

So that's when I decided when I get my hair cut I'm going to be honest with myself and the stylist that I'm not going to really style my hair in the morning, and I probably won't get my hair cut more often than once a year, so please please please don't give me a high maintenance haircut. So the stylist cut off the flat parts, and did some razor-cut thing that I never really understood, and I vowed this would be my last bad haircut.

A few years after my girls were born, I realized that my hair looks great when it's wet, but looks horrible when it dries, so I began my quest to find something that'll help there. I found some hair gunk that works well, and discovered that although combing my hair when wet is fine, I should never ever ever comb or brush my hair when it is dry. And I also concluded that long hair means heavy, weighed down hair, that won't puff out into the matronly permed look.

I went and got one last haircut just to clean off the razored edges and thin it out a little, and stayed away from any scissors for about a year and a half.

So until a few weeks ago, that was my routine: after my shower, I'd rub in two squirts of my hair gunk, comb it through, and let it air dry. Simple as that. It'd look fine until I wash it again. As long as I didn't comb or brush it. I think a few times I did blow-dry it straight, just to mix it up. But for the most part, my hair rarely got blow-dried. I loved the length because I could twist it up into a bun and then hold it there with a pencil. How easy was that!

My hair grew until it went down to my waist, and then I realized it was always getting caught in my purse straps, Abigail was always playing with it and pulling ONE strand just enough to make it hurt, and it was starting to look really scraggly. The thinning that had been done a year and a half earlier was now just horrible, and my hair was starting to feel chlorine-damaged, although I was pretty careful to wash my hair as soon as I got out of any pool. I got some deep conditioner but that didn’t help much, so it was time to go and get it cut again.

Well, since the girls had been brave and got their hair cut off and donated it, I couldn’t just chicken out and trim off the ends. I had to get it all cut off. So that’s just what I did. Twelve inches sent it from my waist to my shoulders.

It feels so much thicker and healthier now. And since I’ve got my hair gunk, it doesn’t look all puffy and old-lady-permed. At least that’s what I think.

You say pedal, I say paddle

2010-07-19T17:36:00.000-07:00

So on Friday we went to a small lake where they have swimming and you can rent paddle (pedal?) boats. We had a wonderful time. Unfortunately I forgot to bring a camera.

We spent an hour swimming in the lake in the morning. It's amazing how fast the lake fills up with people. We had a prime parking spot, and when we got to the beach, we were the second or third family there. An hour and a half later, when we were eating lunch, it would be impossible to swim ten feet in any direction and not bump into a person or three. And after lunch, when we went to move our car to the boating part of the lake, we saw the parking lot was packed.

So we went to the boating part of the lake, and they have a little mobile trailer that serves as the boat rental office. It was 94 degrees that day, and inside the mobile trailer it was probably somewhere near 110 degrees. Thankfully we didn't have to go inside to rent -- they have a window. But the poor kid who works there!

Anyways, they had available to rent kayaks, what they called paddle boats, row boats, electric boats, and duffy boats. We rented a paddle boat, piled in, and went around the lake once. Did it mention it was 94 degrees that day? Elizabeth and Abigail complained about the heat after about ten minutes on the lake, asking us when are we going to be done, when are we going home, when are we going to stop, and I'm sleepy.

After about fifteen minutes on the lake, we returned to the dock, and went home.

I still don't know if it's called a pedal boat or a paddle boat.

Where did this summer go???

2010-07-09T01:44:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's because we took a trip to Southern California the second week of summer vacation. Maybe it's the solid month of nightly swimming lessons. Maybe it's because I'm working pretty much five days a week (albeit part time). But I just realized I'm getting one week off of work (it's my turn at work, per budget issues), followed by one week of VBS, and then it's already August. Where did this summer go??

I had a "summer bucket list" of stuff I wanted to do, but it seems like although my day-to-day is more relaxed than during the school year (thanks to not having to deal with 8:10am dropoffs and 2:50pm pickups), my schedule is still just as full and unavailable for doing "fun stuff" like camping, visiting water slides and water parks, going pedal boating (which, incidentally, I just realized is NOT called "paddle boating"), mini golfing, Tahoe, amusement parks, and other tourist ~~traps~~ attractions. Where did this summer go???

I think it's because my husband is still working just as much, and I don't feel comfortable doing these things alone with the girls. Combine that with the stuff HE wants to do while the weather's good (basically anything that doesn't involve the family -- biking, poker, UFC, half-marathon), and I think that gives a pretty good picture of where our summer has gone. *sigh*

Don't you hate it??

2010-06-27T22:59:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate it when you think of something to write about, but by the time you get to the computer, you completely forget what it was? And you KNOW that it was something that you had been wanting to write about for a long time?

I'm sure it'll come to me...

Flat Stanley in Southen California

2010-06-24T22:19:00.000-07:00

The plan:
leave Friday to go to M&M's house in southern California, hang out for a couple of days.
On Sunday, go to Anaheim with M&M&family to meet S&G&family, and check into a hotel near Disneyland.
Visit The Mouse on Monday.
Tuesday return home.

Kids were hard at work playing.

Flat Stanley was hanging out in the lobby at our hotel near Disneyland.

Flat Stanley rode the bus with us to Disneyland.

Family photo with Mickey.

Shooting the targets on the Buzz Lightyear ride.

Looking for the targets on the Buzz Lightyear ride.

Three kids in 3-D.

Can't forget Abigail's monster smile.

Silly smiles from the six oldest kids.

Flat Stanley's photo op with Mickey.

We got back to our hotel to find the girls' dolls had a great time playing on our beds. Flat Stanley wanted to join in on the fun.

Introducing Bob

2010-06-24T16:23:00.000-07:00

Both girls had their hair chopped off over the past couple of months. They have a friend who had beautiful, thick, long, black hair, and she cut it off and donated it to Locks of Love. I thought that was a wonderful idea and mentioned it to Elizabeth and Abigail. It took a while for them to warm up to the idea, but by the time their hair got long enough, they were more than ready. Elizabeth kept asking when she will get to cut her hair short "just like Z." Abigail wanted her hair cut too, but since her last haircut was more recent, we had to wait a couple more months for it to get long enough for the minimum donation length (10 inches). Those last two months of waiting were an exercise in patience. By the end of the wait, Abigail was asking me every day "can I get my hair cut today?"

They are so happy with their short bobs. I also love how it's so much easier to comb, although a part of me is secretly trying to figure out how long it'll take to grow it out again, in order to donate again. I mean, why not? It grows for free on their heads, and if it helps somebody out, why not!

Now I want to cut off my hair and donate it too, but I'm so afraid of what short hair will do to me. It's curly, and who knows what'll happen when the weight of the length goes away -- will my hair go flying out in all different directions? If only I knew for sure that it'll be okay.

Hopefully the end of a half-year hiatus

2010-06-24T15:49:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how life can get in the way of writing about life. Over the past ten months I had decided to take up some classes at the local community college, and although I got good grades (straight As!), managed to work part time at preschool and church (12 hours), had dinner on the table almost every night, and packed lunch for my family, I just couldn't manage blogging on top of it all. Well, now that school is done, I can now stop, take a deep breath, a good look around, and start writing about it again. Hopefully regularly.

Some updates:

Abigail is now beginning her last year of preschool. She's excited about being a Dinosaur -- a pre-K.

Elizabeth's last day of first grade was on June 10. She got sent home with summer vacation homework, a Flat Stanley that she needs to take around on her summer vacation adventures. She'll be going with me and Abigail to preschool.

We just got back from a five-day road trip to Southern California to see some friends -- details later. We've got plans for swimming lessons and art classes too, but unfortunately dance just can't fit into our schedule this year. I have a feeling I'll be keeping a Flat Stanley journal as well.

Oh, and happy bloggiversary to me too

2010-01-03T23:35:00.000-08:00

I've been a blogger for one year and one day. Let's see what this next year brings. (Does this count as Post Number Two for January 2010?)

A belated happy new year and merry Christmas and happy Thanksgiving while we're at it, too

2010-01-03T23:13:00.000-08:00

I've been a horrible blogger. I have been trying to keep up about 4 blog posts per month, and completely missed December. I can explain myself! I was taking two classes and had two big projects plus two finals, all converging in December. And right before that was Thanksgiving, which I had taken upon myself to cook up pretty much the entire meal, mostly from scratch, for my family, my parents, and my sister's family. And as soon as finals was over, we had to scramble to get the house decorated for Christmas and cleaned and ready for my in-laws' annual visit. And today is my dad's birthday too, so we spent the weekend at my parents' place and helped throw him a little birthday dinner party. So yeah, I've been a little busy. Sorry. I hope you will forgive me.

If it helps, here are a few pictures as a peace offering...

Me and Abi hanging out at our favorite frozen yogurt place. (The rest of the family is on the other side of the table.)

Eliz's first school assembly performance

Cornerstone Fellowship's annual Women's Christmas Dinner with Point of Grace performing

SNOW!! I had to take a picture because this is a rare occasion -- I heard the last time it snowed here was in 1977 or something like that.

The girls took pictures with Santa. He comes to a mom-and-pop shop here in town during December, and the same Santa has been coming for years. No charge for pictures; bring your own camera!

Eliz's first school award; an AR bronze medal for accumulating 25 points. She was one of three in her classroom to receive this.

Christmas morning at our house with the in-laws

Christmas day trip to Mt. Diablo

Hula hooping -- Eliz is showing off how she can even jump while keeping the hula hoop spinning. Lil stinker makes it look easy.

Elizabeth's first school evaluation

2009-11-23T22:51:00.000-08:00

I am proud to announce that Elizabeth is doing well in all areas of study -- her report card rates things on a scale from 1 to 4, 1 being "far below grade level standard" and 4 being "proficient at grade level standard." All 45 points of evaluation are marked "4" from her teacher.

All the students rotate through five specialists throughout the week: art, music, Spanish, science, and PE. Each specialist has three or four different spaces to evaluate different areas (concepts, effort, behavior, etc.). She got a 4 in every space from every teacher except for one from her PE teacher (I'm inclined to call him a stinker for messing up her perfect straight 4's!) who gave her a 3+ for "physical development," whatever that means.

I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about going into the conference on Friday because she's the youngest by far in her class, hadn't had the full kindergarten preparation that all of her classmates had under their belts, and has so far missed three weeks of school in her current classroom (the first two weeks were spent in kindergarten, and we were gone for a week on a cruise two weeks ago), but she's doing well. She's in the highest reading group in her class (somewhere between a upper 2nd - 3rd grade level) and can spell all of her first grade sight words (next week she'll be beginning the second grade sight words, and the teacher is sure that she'll fly through those as well). Her math skills are nothing to sneeze at either -- many of the things that I see that they will work on next trimester are still going to be review for her.

Yeah, I'm a proud mama.

A birthday party (written originally on April 7, 2009)

2009-11-21T22:20:00.001-08:00

I found this post (written April 7, 2009) which I had forgotten to publish. It's more than half a year since this brief conversation took place (and frankly I had forgotten about it!), but I still want to share this with you.

************************************

Eliz: Don't you want to come to a birthday party?
me: What birthday party?
E: A between-birthday party!
me: A between-birthday party? What is that?
E: It's between Abigail's and daddy's birthdays!

Abigail's birthday is 2/14 and daddy's birthday is 5/7, and today is 4/7, very much between their two birthdays.

Cruisin' -- Part 7 -- Friday and Saturday

2009-11-21T21:17:00.001-08:00

Friday morning we were back in American waters. We left the ship sometime in the morning after breakfast, and got back to the car. We got our luggage and loaded it up into the minivan, hopped in, and prayed that it'll start.

Not a problem.

The problem was that Elizabeth was a bit carsick on the drive leaving Long Beach, which was unexpected, considering that she'd never complained of being seasick while on the cruise, and also hadn't complained of being carsick on the drive from Northern California to Southern California.

But after getting some fresh air, we were able to finally drive to BCD Tofu House in LA, where we celebrated our Koreanness by eating soon tofu soup, galbi, and bibim-bap, accompanied by spicy salted clams and kimchi. Although we ate to our hearts' content and enjoyed all kinds of foods cooked to perfection every day on the cruise, nothing hit the spot quite like Korean food, especially when I didn't have to cook it.

Afterwards, we dropped off my parents at a car rental place at LAX so they could visit my gomo and my grandmother, and we went to see my husband's brother's family. We got to hang out, and let the girls play with their son (who is less than a month older than Abigail).

I also found out that it take a couple days after the cruise for the floor to stop rocking. :-S

The next morning my husband went on a long bike ride with his brother along the beaches, and after lunch with BIL's family, we picked up my parents and drove back home.

We had a great time. But there's no place like home. And I gotta get back to cleaning and the laundry.

Cruisin' -- Part 6 -- Thursday

2009-11-21T21:16:00.001-08:00

Thursday was our "Fun Day at Sea." We decided to take the girls swimming, so we went to the children's pool area, which took us a long time to find. After a few wrong turns (no thanks to the incorrect diagrams at the elevators), the girls were splashing around in the "warm tub." It was a little pool, about the size of a hot tub, and the water was warmed to about 92 degrees. I sat right outside this pool, and was getting splashed left and right, and decided it would be much more comfortable to be inside than outside, so I hopped in to join them. Unfortunately about two minutes later, some cruise employee shooed me out of the pool, pointing out a sign that I'd deliberately ignored which read "No adults in the children's pool" or something to that effect. It was quite annoying that I wasn't allowed to be in there with my kids, and even more annoying that I wouldn't be able to "swim" with my kids (not that they actually do any independent forward propelling in the water on their own, mind you), but I suppose it's to make sure that the grownups don't hog up all the hot tubs on the cruise. (There was another similarly sized hot tub about 25 feet away, and there were probably about 10 adults crowded into that one. It was too crowded and too far from where my kids were playing, so I ended up just sitting on a lounge chair, watching them from a safe-but-not-too-far-away distance. When my husband finally found where we were, I left him in charge of the girls and grabbed lunch for all of us from the buffet, and brought it back so we can eat poolside.

Afterwards, we went to a towel-folding workshop where we learned how to fold dogs and elephants. (Quite interesting, but I'm nerdy like that.)

The rest of the day was homework (Elizabeth, under Daddy's supervision, at the library) and nap (me and Abigail).

A good day.

Cruisin' -- Part 5 -- Wednesday (revised)

2009-11-21T00:29:00.000-08:00

Wednesday morning we found ourselves floating on Mexican waters at Ensenada. We looked out our window and the first thing we saw was the harbor and a HUGE MEXICAN FLAG in the middle of it. Yup, we were definitely in Mexico.

We went to see pretty much what Ensenada is famous for: La Bufadora, a marine geyser. Basically as the waves pound into the coastline, pressure builds up in a particular cave, shaped in a particular way, and shoot up into the sky, 80 to 100 feet up. On the walk there, we had to walk through a flea market, where the vendors sold all manner of trinkets and souvenirs, as well as tacos and seconds-old churros.

The girls were well-entertained on the rest of the cruise thanks to some magnetic bead necklaces that my mom had bought for them. They'd wrap them around their wrists, loop them around their necks (loose per Mommy's orders!), and stick them to the walls in our stateroom on the ship. Yes, those wallpapered walls were magnetic!

Unfortunately, there was one terrible, horrible, no good, very bad incident that occurred in Ensenada. We finished the tour of La Bufadora and were waiting around for my parents to come back from shopping so that we could take the bus back to our ship. While we were waiting, we saw a huge jump house for kids to play in. We asked if we can let our girls jump around in there, and they said that's what it's there for, so we let them play. Abigail was tired by this point, so she napped in my arms while Elizabeth jumped in there alone. A few minutes later she was joined by about five other kids, who were all happily jumping around. Four of the kids got out after a few minutes, and sat down to eat in an enclosed patio next to a bar, leaving Elizabeth and another boy, who looked to be about 8 years old. Next thing I know, he grabbed her, tackled her, and BIT HER LEG. I couldn't do anything because I had a napping Abigail, but my husband jumped up and almost ripped the kid's head off (don't worry, neither one of us laid a finger on him). He got Elizabeth out from the clutches of this monster-boy (sorry, anybody who attacks my daughter and leaves toothmarks and scraped skin on her leg will get called monster-boy), and I ran around looking for his parents. They were nowhere to be seen. I went to him and asked where his mommy is, and that's when I saw that he had Down Syndrome. And that's when he spit at me. I asked again where his mommy is, this time in Spanish, and he spit at me again.

His mommy was still nowhere to be seen.

My daughter's leg had a huge bite mark on it. I could count the number of teeth that he had just from a look at her leg. And I could see two spots of scraped skin right where his incisors were.

I went up to the enclosed patio and finally saw a woman walking toward the stairs, and found out that it was her son in the jump house that had bit my daughter. But at this point, what could I do? I can't beat her up. I can't get mad at her son. I can't rip her son's head off. All I could say was "where the heck were you? You NEED TO SUPERVISE YOUR CHILD!! I don't care that you need to grab a glass of water, YOU NEED TO SUPERVISE YOUR CHILD!! If you have to leave the area, BRING HIM WITH YOU!!" But what's done is done, and really, what could she do other than apologize up one side and down the other? She did apologize, but it was quite obvious that she couldn't (or wouldn't) get control of her son. She tried to get him out of the jump house but he wouldn't comply. She tried for a minute or two, and then gave up.

Ugh.

Anyways, my husband washed off her leg, and I got some ice for her leg, and we tried to make the rest of our time there better. And stay the heck away from that boy.

Well, about 10 minutes later, I saw a man trying to talk the boy out of the jump house. What? Is he the father?? Now I'm angry again -- two parents, and neither one was supervising their son?? I also saw that the boy had a similar wristband that my girls had gotten on the cruise. Great, this boy is on our boat. And who knows who'll supervise him (or not), and when he'll bite again.

Ugh.

Cruisin' -- Part 4 -- Tuesday evening

2009-11-21T00:05:00.000-08:00

Tuesday evening was the formal dinner. It had been ages since I'd worn anything fancier than "church clothes" and that's not saying much, considering a good population of our church wears all manner of jeans, shorts, and t-shirts to church on any given Sunday morning. The girls, on the other hand, love dressing up, and do it every chance they get. And my husband? He can wear just a toga and he'll be dashing. Unfortunately, the entire evening he was the one behind the camera, so you'll never know how handsome he looked.

After dinner (a few of the appetizers were stuffed mushrooms, pumpkin cream soup, and chilled strawberry soup, which tasted like cold melted strawberry ice cream-- yum! And one of the entree choices was lobster tail and shrimp. Mmmmm, seafood...)

we all went to watch the show at the Normandie Lounge. A good time was had by all, but of course, it would've been more relaxing if the girls hadn't taken turns needing to go potty repeatedly.

And no worries, I'm fully dressed. ;-)

Afterwards, we saw a stand-up comedian, whose name I can't remember for the life of me. He was hilarious. My mom had graciously offered to babysit the girls so we could go and have a date night. We had a great time, but I couldn't help but feel just a *teensy* bit bad that I was having a date night while my mom was babysitting, on a cruise that we had taken her on, to celebrate HER sixtieth birthday.

Happy birthday, Mom. You're the best.

Cruisin' -- Part 3 -- Tuesday

2009-11-16T22:11:00.000-08:00

Tuesday morning we woke up on the Carnival Paradise. Our room was clean and my bed was very comfortable -- I dare say it might be even better than ours at home. It's a small room, about 10 feet by 10 feet, and they got four beds into there -- two pushed together side-by-side like a king-size bed, and two suspended on the walls, one above the head of the king-size bed and one on the other side of the room. The thought of having the room permanently arranged like this was a bit overwhelming, but this is where the cruise housekeeping earns their gratuity -- every morning they'd straighten out the sheets and fold up the wall beds, in addition to replenishing towels and other hotel-y stuff, and every evening they'd turn down the beds, open up the wall beds and set up the ladders to climb up into them, and leave behind a short stack of mint chocolates next to an origami towel animal.

Breakfast was buffet, with an omelet bar -- my favorite kind. I was surprised to see how people had left their good manners behind on this trip though. A few people ahead of me in line was a (large) man, getting food. Right behind him were probably about five or six people waiting for their scrambled eggs and pancakes. One of them got up a little too close while reaching for a ladle, and he suddenly yelled at her to apologize for having bumped into him.

Great, I'm on a boat with this guy. Ugh. Oh well, whatever. I'm glad I didn't bump into him (quite literally) during the rest of the cruise.

Anyways, Tuesday we went to Catalina Island, apparently taking the longest possible route from Long Beach. I estimated that if we traveled all night long, in a straight line without stopping, we would've had to go the breakneck speed of two miles an hour.

On Catalina we took a bus tour to the middle of the island. We got to see some bison

and some crazy good views from high up on an island.

That's our ship!

We also got to hear some of the bus driver's punny jokes. I'm a sucker for puns, and he had quite a few of them.

What did the mommy bison say to her son as he walked away? "Bye, son."

What did the eucalyptus trees say when the tour bus scraped against the bark? "You clipped us."

Cruisin' -- Part 2 -- Monday's adventure

2009-11-16T21:11:00.000-08:00

Monday morning we woke up at 4am and left home at 5:30am to drive down to Long Beach. It was a very quick uneventful drive, and we got down to southern California by 12:30. We had to make a couple of pit stops at that point to pick up a prescription for me and to get my parents some swimsuits. We got to Kaiser, and while I was waiting at the pharmacy, my husband was waiting in the car, listening to some music. When I got back to the car, we discovered that the car won't start.

We drove 350 miles without incident, just to have the battery die on us right before the last 15 miles.

We got the car jump started, and after some quick thinking, we decided that it would be best to buy and install a new battery before we leave the car in the parking lot for five days. We dropped off my mom at Del Amo to hunt down a couple of swimsuits, and then drove around looking for any auto parts store. Not too far away we found one, close to a furniture store. I took the kids into the furniture store to play on the couches and mattresses, and let my husband and my dad figure out the whole car battery thing. After about an hour we came back out to the car, to find out that Dad and my husband had had a mini-adventure while we were killing time in the furniture store. My husband had bought a battery and a monkey wrench to get the nut off the long bolt that was holding the battery into place, and went to work on the car. The monkey wrench didn't work well, so he went back in and got a socket wrench. Everything went swimmingly until they tried to secure the new battery into the car. Somehow, the long bolt fell out of its place. Fell. Deep into the engine. Too deep to try to reach in with the fingers, too deep to try to reach in with the wrench. So they decided to try to shake the bolt out of the car. By speeding over the speed bumps in the parking lot. Stinkin' Honda Odyssey had too smooth a ride to shake anything on those speedbumps. So he now went back into the store to turn in the dead battery, and came back out with a telescoping magnet. It was a great idea in theory: extend the magnet to its full length, reach down and grab the bolt, and pull it up. Unfortunately the entire car is magnetic. The stupid magnet kept sticking to everything on the way down to the bolt.

And that's about when I came out of the furniture store, girls in tow.

I took a look at the situation, got a pretty good story from my husband, and decided to try my hand at fishing out this bolt. So I took the telescoping magnet, extended it, flipped it UPSIDE-DOWN so I'm holding the magnetized end and the handle is deep inside under the hood, and knocked the bolt down to a hole in the underside of the car. Then I went under the car and grabbed the bolt with the magnet, and handed it to my husband, who I'm sure was standing there dumbfounded.

Yeah, I felt pretty good about myself. I fixed the car. In front of my husband and my dad.

Well, after that, they got the bolt and nut back on, and we picked up my mom from swimsuit shopping, and got to the ship around 2:30pm.

Thankfully the rest of the day was a whole lot less eventful.

Cruisin' -- Part 1

2009-11-16T00:48:00.000-08:00

November 6 was my mom's sixtieth birthday. In Korea it's a really big deal to turn sixty. The three traditional "milestone" birthdays are 100 days (baek-il), first birthday (chut-dol), and sixtieth birthday (hwan-gap). No Sweet Sixteen, no rite of passage into adulthood, no over-the-hill. Just a big fifty-nine-year gap between big birthday bashes.

It's normal for the children of the birthday-girl (or birthday-boy) to give a gift that puts to shame everybody else's gifts to their parents' sixtieth birthdays, and it's not unheard of to throw big dinner receptions, buy a luxury car, or send the parents on a trip, on the children's tab. So when it became my mom's hwan-gap, my husband and I decided that we'd take my parents on a cruise.

So we went on a four-night cruise to Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico. We took the kids and my parents, and we had a great time for the most part. The food was great, the entertainment was entertaining, and there was free(!) childcare until 10pm.

A Wicked Night Out

2009-10-18T22:41:00.000-07:00

My husband and I went to go see Wicked at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco on Saturday night. It was a totally last-minute decision -- decided to go on Friday afternoon, secured babysitting on Friday evening (thanks, R & G!), and bought tickets 20 hours before curtain.

Earlier on Saturday, we went for a bike ride, and so we basically had about an hour to get ready to go out. We had no idea where we'd eat for dinner; we figured we'll just look around once we get there. We got to the city around 6:15pm, and finally after walking around for what seemed like an eternity (it probably was only about 20 minutes, but I was on heels and I never wear heels), we found a little Thai restaurant. Yum. After a leisurely dinner we got to the theatre with about 15 minutes to spare, and we found our seats. Perfect.

It turns out that we had pretty much the best seats in the house. We sat in row J, seats 101 and 103. That's ten rows from the stage, the two seats just left of the center aisle. We were within spitting distance of the singers -- we could practically count their teeth.

Once we got settled into our seats, I flipped through the program to look for familiar names, particularly in the orchestra pit. It turns out that the violinist was a guy that I knew from my Youth Orchestra and college days. My first year at SFSYO, I was sitting in the back of the second violins, while he was the principal second violinist. The next year, he was concertmaster. After Youth Orchestra, we both ended up in the same university, majoring in music. Of course he practiced much more than I ever did, so his music career flourished, while mine, not so much. I'd like to say it's on hold for now.

Anyways, I went to the orchestra pit and looked around. It was neat to see how the pit was so much more roomy than any pit that I'd ever played in. I found the violinist and said hi, and he said to meet him at the stage entrance after the show. Soon afterwards, the show began, and we thoroughly enjoyed the show. We had watched The Wizard of Oz in June at a local movie theatre (free noon movies during the summertime!), so the story was still fresh in our memory. It was neat to see the familiar story from a different perspective.

After the show, we went to the stage entrance and the three of us went out for a quick drink. It was neat to hear his adventures after college and to see what he's up to now. It's neat to see that he's a successful musician, enjoying what he does, and not struggling or starving.

It was a good day. Good family bonding time in the morning and afternoon, and then a good night out: good food (eaten hot! Without kids! No potty breaks!), good show (no potty breaks! No incessant questions!), and good meeting an old friend.

I hope to do it again soon. Who knows when though. Hopefully sooner than later.

Family Bike Day

2009-10-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

We bought a bike trailer a couple of weeks ago off of Craigslist, and we took it for a 22-mile spin yesterday. We had a three-family, six-adult, six-child, three-trailer outing. We met at a friend's house just past 10am, and rode up the Iron Horse Trail to Danville, a little town about 11 miles away, to have lunch at a little restaurant called Chow. Then we rode back, returning to their house around 3pm, and got home.

It was quite an adventure. My husband managed to load our two bikes plus the new trailer (which we discovered isn't collapsible) into the minivan, which is a feat in itself. Once we arrived at the starting point, it took a good amount of time to get everything set up and ready to go. We finally got going (my husband pulled the trailer with both kids in it), but had to stop quite a few times along the way due to certain events including screaming children, a flat tire, and a wheel that fell off (these were all separate events). Thankfully nobody got hurt anywhere, and the return trip was uneventful. We returned sweaty, happy, and safely. And the kids who needed it napped in the trailer. Bonus!

Once we got back, all twelve of us had some ice cold water (Coke for those who wanted it) and popsicles as a reward.

Unfortunately I didn't think to bring a camera. Sorry. You'll just have to take my word for it that I actually voluntarily made myself sweat.

Handy Daddy

2009-09-18T23:46:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, we found chipped paint on the floor in the corner of the kids' bathroom. We had no idea where it came from. A little bit later, I saw that our bathroom mirror, a hulking 74" x 42" glass behemoth (yes, I just measured it right now with the tape measure), had come completely unattached from the wall, and was precariously kept from falling to the floor in a billion pieces by the medicine cabinet. So, being the handy woman that I am, I just pushed it back against the wall, and declared it fixed.

Then a short while later, we found the mirror decided to now push the bathroom counter off the wall, and slide down the wall, behind the cabinet. I asked my husband if he could fix it. "Nuh uh" was the response. I threatened to call a handyman and *gasp* spend money to get it fixed. "Knock yourself out" was the response. Okay! I felt like I was just given carte blanche. I went onto Facebook and asked if anybody knew of any handymans in the area, to fix our mirror. A friend quickly responded with a phone number, a website, and glowing reviews of how the guy was so friendly and professional. So I gave them a call on a Friday night, and left them a message. I figured that since it's a Friday night, I won't hear from them until Monday morning. I think I probably let a couple weeks pass before I called them again. They finally got a guy to come out for an estimate, and it took another week to get the estimate.

These guys wanted over $500 to fix the mirror.

Never mind. We'll try Plan B.

Problem is, what's Plan B? I didn't want to hop back onto Facebook and ask for a different reference since I'm sure my friend would ask what happened to the guy she so glowingly reviewed, so I just sat and twiddled my thumbs.

Just over a week ago, I was driving home from preschool when I saw a van on the freeway: Daddy and Daughter Handyman and Maintenance. There was a phone number on it, so I figured why not give them a call. So right there on the freeway, I pulled out my Bluetooth (stinkin' cell phone law!) and called them up. I thought I'd get a receptionist or a daughter or something, but nope, I got the Handy Daddy himself.

Two days later, he was standing in our kitchen (his daughter was playing with Abi and Eliz), giving us an estimate for not only the mirror itself (he quoted less than $200!), but also for

changing out our medicine cabinets (I've hated them because the shelves were unmovable),
changing out our wobbly toilet,
whacking away the vertical columns between my kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors (can't fit anything in my cabinets because of those stupid columns in the middle of the opening!),
straightening a kitchen drawer,
re-taping and painting the peeling ceiling, and
installing new blinds in Elizabeth's bedroom.

All the labor for significantly less than $500. Of course we'll pay for the new toilet, medicine cabinets, and blinds in addition to the labor costs, but what handyman out there would pay for those out of his own pocket?

Well, today, I'm happy to say that our bathroom mirror is now firmly reattached to the wall, we now have medicine cabinets that have movable shelves (and we can now fit taller bottles inside instead of laying stuff across the shelves!), our new, shiny low-flush toilet is now no longer wobbly, and Elizabeth's blinds no longer require my entire body weight to lift 18 inches. We expect to see him again on Tuesday to work on the cabinets, the drawer, and the ceiling.

If you need stuff done around the house, let me know. I'll send the Handy Daddy over. Sorry, I'm keeping my own husband though.

Kimchi with the Kimchi Mamas

2009-09-17T23:19:00.000-07:00

Growing up I felt somewhat lonely because there wasn't really a unified voice for People Like Me -- people who straddle the divide between two very different cultures, two very different languages, two very different cuisines. Growing up a Korean-American, in an area that wasn't Southern California, meant for me not really knowing what's Korean vs. what's the lifestyle that's just unique to my family, what's American vs. what's the lifestyles that are unique to my friends' families.

Anyways, probably over a year ago, I was surfing the Internet looking for a Korean recipe. It may have been for "gamja tang" (which I've still never cooked) or something else, who knows. Anyways, in my search for this elusive recipe, I stumbled upon this blog called Kimchi Mamas. I've been pleasantly surprised to find that these women who write to the blog are moms, writers, and Korean and/or married-to-Koreans.

A few weeks ago, Northern Californian Kimchi Mama meetup was organized, and we finally got together on Saturday, at Sahn Maru in Oakland, right across the street from Koryo SootBoolJip. Afterwards, we went to a noraebang. It was determined that for this inaugural get-together it'd be just us moms, without kids or husbands in tow. Of course the thought of meeting a group of complete strangers is always a little scary (especially in Oakland!), but I figured since it's in a brightly lit Korean restaurant, it shouldn't be that bad. Anyways, it was great fun and great food.

Figuring that I'm going to be meeting a bunch of Korean women, I'd better make sure that I'm wearing something a little different from my favorite uniform of shorts and t-shirt. I mean, Korean women get dolled up to just go to the grocery store! Okay, not so much me, but still. So anyways, I was getting ready to go out that afternoon, and feeling pretty good about myself -- my hair was neat, my clothes were non-wrinkly, and I had a touch of eyeliner on. For those who've seen me more than a handful of times, you should know that this is a big deal. I even knew exactly what shoes I was going to wear, too -- some cute black and gold sandals. Anyways, I got ready, jumped into the car, and drove off, just in time to arrive right at 6:01pm. As I got on the freeway, I felt something... rubbery... between my toes.

Operating on autopilot, I'd thrown on my $1 Old Navy blue flipflops. The ones that I wear in the shower at the gym. The ones that I wear when I go out to check the mail or pull weeds.

The meetup time is at 6pm, and I'm already a minute late as it is. Should I turn around and change my shoes and be incredibly late, or should I keep my flipflops on, arrive on time, and be incredibly mismatched?

I opted for keeping the flipflops on. I figure, why start the act now? Let's keep it real. I rarely get dressed up, I rarely put on makeup, I rarely have all my clothes match with all my accessories. Heck, I hardly ever even wear accessories. So, braving the potentially judgmental stares of the Korean women I'm about to meet, I confidently walked into the restaurant, right on time (enough for me) at 6:01pm.

Like I said before, it was great fun and great food. And they didn't say anything about my flipflops. These Kimchi Mamas, they keep it real. Yes, they dressed well, and they even wore accessories and makeup, but we all had a good chuckle about "those Korean women who get dolled up just to go to the grocery store." And I'm looking forward to the next meetup. Who knows, maybe I'll even wear matching shoes this time.

Last day of kindergarten

2009-09-05T01:23:00.000-07:00

I'm proud to announce that Elizabeth has graduated from kindergarten after just two weeks.

Okay, not really. Turns out that a spot opened up in first grade, and Mrs. D, her kindergarten teacher, called me and said that she thinks first grade will be a better fit for Eliz than kindergarten. So after finishing up one last day in kindergarten, we told her after school that we're going to meet her new first-grade teacher across the hall. She was surprised and it took some time for her to process it, but she seems like she's happy about it.

I'm excited for her because I know it's a much better fit for her, but I'm just a little nervous about it. Her school day will no longer end at 12:10 with the kindergartners; she'll stay in school until 2:50. I now have to pack her lunch every single day. I'm HORRIBLE at that! Because her classmates will have been together as a unit for two weeks already, she'll already be pegged not only as "the young kid that came from kindergarten" but also as "the new kid." Hopefully this won't cause instant ostracization from the other kids. Thankfully she's probably only a month or two younger than the next-youngest kid in her class, so she isn't *that* young. I hope she makes some good friends. I'm also a little sad that she won't continue to be in Mrs. D's classroom. She's a mover and a shaker in the school, serves on the school's leadership team, has been with the school since its inception, is the kindergarten lead teacher, and brings 17 years of teaching experience to her classroom. I've heard only sparklingly wonderful things about her, and despite my high expectations, she's met all of them. I'm sure her new teacher is good, but I just don't know much about her yet. She seems nice, so that's a good start, I guess.

Her school provides weekly classes with five different specialists every day to their students beginning with first grade (but not kindergarten!), so now she'll have, on a weekly basis, PE, Spanish, art, music, and science.

Anyways, I'm glad the school isn't as inflexible as I originally thought. And I'm glad that the school is proactive about identifying, investigating, and dealing with "different" kids. Not that she's *that* different...

The wiggly, woggly, wibbly, wobbly tooth

2009-08-30T22:44:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth's tooth finally came out today. It took a full month of wiggling, and this morning we noticed that the new tooth is already beginning to poke out through the gums behind the loose tooth before it even came out.

This morning she showed us her loose tooth and it looked like it would come out with a good tug. Her tooth was so loose that you could actually see the jagged bottom edge of the tooth -- the part that's supposed to be embedded in the socket.

Before naptime I thought I'd give it a tug and see if it'd come out. It would wiggle, it would woggle, wibble, and wobble, but wouldn't come out. Thinking I just had to get a good grip on it, I told her to take a nap, and I'd get a gauze pad to pull the tooth later. After naptime I tried again, and she actually started to cry and said that it was hurting. I read somewhere that if you pull a loose tooth before it's ready, you could actually leave behind bits of the tooth's root and cause an infection. So of course I let it go and decided to let it stay to be pulled another day.

We went out for dinner at an ice cream parlor with some friends later, and after dinner and dessert (ice cream sundaes of course!), she said her tooth is even looser. She began to play with it, and discovered that she can spin it around in its socket. Next thing I knew, she pulled it out. By herself. No blood, no pain, nothing. Just a tooth, and a 5-year-old girl with a new hole in her smile. It was too easy.

First day of kindergarten

2009-08-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

Today is Elizabeth's first day of kindergarten. We woke up at 6:30 and found a sign on our front lawn that says "Welcome to kindergarten" along with her name, her school name and mascot. A little freaky because we weren't expecting it, and who knows when the mysterious School People came onto our lawn and put up the sign. Middle of the night? And they know where we live! Freaky. But still, it's pretty exciting that these mysterious School People make an effort to make their youngest students feel welcome at the school.

Anyways, I don't know who's more excited about her first day of school, me or Elizabeth. She seems to be very whatever about it, whereas I'm the one with the camera, taking pictures of everything left and right pertaining to kindergarten. But I don't feel teary-eyed, and I don't feel sad that my baby's growing up. I'm happy for her that she's growing up and participating in this next step. I'm not sure if I'm taking pictures because I want to remember this Momentous Occasion or because other parents are taking pictures too and I gotta keep up with the Joneses. Maybe it'll hit me more later. Who knows.

Turning "24"

2009-08-17T23:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had an early celebration of my birthday by going out to dinner at Casa Madrid. It's a little restaurant in Pleasanton, probably no more than fifteen tables indoors. We were the only ones in the restaurant most of the time, which made me a little worried (don't other people like this restaurant?), but it was nice to have the whole place to ourselves. We ordered the Vieiras al Ajillo (scallops in lobster sauce), the Calamares Andalucia (calamari rings), the Tortilla Española (potato and onion wedges), the Pinchitos Morunos a la Casa Madrid (Casa Madrid spicy pork) and the Paella Valenciana (seafood and meat paella). Yum. My favorite dish by far was the scallops. The calamari was a close second. It could be the simple fact that I'm a sucker for seafood. But nonetheless it was really good. I'd love to go back just to have two orders of scallops and two orders of calamari.

Today my husband had to go to work (stinkin' work! It always takes him away from us! Oh well, at least it pays the bills) so I had a busy morning with the girls: bangs trim, gymnastics, lunch at Sushi-Ya, and painting a couple of bowls at Cafe Art.

The afternoon was a mad rush to get dinner going before Elizabeth has swimming lesson and I have my first day of school. (I'm going back to school for my Early Childhood Development certificate.) Throughout my entire school career, until today, I've never had school on my birthday. Before college, school always began the Tuesday after Labor Day, and always ended the second Friday of June. Summer school always ended the last week of July. August was always a slow, quiet month, with nothing really happening -- not even holidays. During college, school began dangerously close to my birthday, one year even daring to begin on the 18th of August, and summer school ended dangerously close to my birthday as well, one year even daring to end on the 16th of August. But I always figured society considered the 17th of August as a day exempt from any academic or scholastic responsibilities. Until today. Today was my first day of school. It was fine -- I just had one class, and it was 3 hours long, giving me some time away from the kids. While my husband took the kids to Elizabeth's swimming lesson.

When I got back from class, the kids were well on their way to bed, until Elizabeth asked me if we're gonna eat cake. Cake? What cake? Apparently he took the kids to Baskin Robbins and picked up a small mint-chocolate-chip ice cream cake for me. And they were looking forward to not only having ice cream and cake, but also delaying bedtime. Who am I to delay bedtime? So we got Abigail out of bed, sat down at the table, sang Happy Birthday, and ate cake at 9:45pm.

It's been a good day. Despite the fact that I had to go to school on my birthday. I suppose worse things could happen.

Swimmingly

2009-08-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

The kids have been taking swimming lessons this summer. Elizabeth is finishing up her third session of Level One today, and Abigail, her first preschool swimming session.

Abigail has adjusted well to the routine of swimming lessons. She doesn't exhibit any hesitation about going into the water or leaving the steps in the shallow end of the pool. She follows instructions well, about as well as a three-year-old kid typically does. (Actually I'd like to think that my kids follow instructions better than typical kids their ages...)

HOWEVER...

I was frustrated with Elizabeth just a few weeks ago because she hated going to swimming lessons. Every day she'd say how she doesn't want to go because they're going to make her "do bobs" -- put her head underwater. She has been able to do it through most of the summer, but she would only do it when she's fully acclimated to the water -- something that would sometimes take a full half hour to happen, while the swimming lesson is 25 minutes long. Of course the lessons all build on this one skill, and if she's refusing to do it, then basically nothing gets learned.

Well, about a week ago Elizabeth had a breakthrough: she practically sat down on the floor of the pool (about 3 feet deep), blew bubbles, and stayed there until she ran out of air, about three seconds. She has been doing it at every lesson ever since. Her confidence level has skyrocketed. After a summer of frustrating non-progress, she's now trying to swim independently. Of course she'll go about six inches before she has to stop to come up for air, but still -- just a few weeks ago she would get mad if we left her in the middle of a 3-foot-deep pool and walked away. Now she feels confident enough to try to swim to the side of the pool, without crying! And yesterday I saw her swim across the width of the pool alone with a kickboard.

Such a change from the second day of swimming lessons last summer: she refused to even sit next to the pool, preferring instead to throw a tantrum because I even dared to bring her within a mile radius of a swimming pool.

We're expecting*...

2009-07-31T08:29:00.000-07:00

* We're expecting a visit from the tooth fairy sometime. Don't know how long loose teeth sit in the mouth before finally falling out, but this morning Elizabeth came into our bedroom and said her tooth hurt. I took a look and saw that the two bottom front teeth are loose. The ones next to them are rock solid, but the two in the middle have just a teensy bit of a wiggle, the one on the left a teensy weensy half of a bit more than the one on the right.

My baby's growing up!!

I never thought this would affect me. Her going to preschool didn't cause me to bat an eyelash. The idea of her going to "real school" in the fall doesn't bother me (yet). When she was first learning to crawl or walk, I was just excited that she's hitting this milestone, but I wasn't sad that my baby's growing up. But this loose tooth thing! My baby's growing up!

*snif*

House rules

2009-07-27T15:09:00.001-07:00

I wonder, sometimes, if my rules are too strict, and prevent my girls from making enough mistakes to learn from them and doing things "outside the box". What do you think?

Some of my non-negotiables:

Hold hands when walking anywhere that cars go: streets, intersections, parking lots. This rule is to be followed even when there are no cars to be seen for miles around.
Stay within sight of the parents. No running too far ahead, no lagging too far behind.
No jumping on furniture unless it's a trampoline or inflated jump house.
No throwing anything heavier than a balloon inside the house.
Naptime is to be strictly enforced.
No TV before naptime, and even then, not too close to bedtime, and certainly no more than one hour of it. Preferably just one half-hour episode of a short list of approved shows: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins, Handy Manny, Electric Company, Between the Lions, Sesame Street, VeggieTales. Absolutely no Tom & Jerry, Spongebob Squarepants, Pingu, or Hanna Montana. At least for now.
Sweets (candy, cookies, ice cream) are to be eaten only on weekends, and only once a day then, unless a special day is declared by me or my husband, either because of guests, a birthday party, or just because it's Tuesday and somebody wants to go out for Baskin Robbins.
Milk is to be the beverage of choice. Next is water. Juice and soda usually don't exist at home, unless we have had guests recently.

Am I too strict?

Pictures from July, finally.

2009-07-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

Swimming lessons
Ballet class
So.Cal road trip: the beach, my souvenir, and Legoland

July

2009-07-22T15:28:00.000-07:00

Where is the month of July going? Whooooo, it's supposed to be the middle of the summer and I feel like the end of summer is already approaching. This is how our month of July looks:

swimming lessons
drawing camp
dance classes
a college church friends reunion, complete with spouses and kids
a road trip to Thousand Oaks and San Diego
VBS
a No Doubt concert (A date with the hubby!? No way! Way!)
more dance classes
more swimming lessons.

No wonder I haven't been writing much.

Anyways, I'm trying figure out how to get pictures onto here more reliably (I tried to upload a few minutes ago and had too much trouble). Hopefully it'll happen soon.

thoughts

2009-07-07T22:40:00.000-07:00

I just realized that Kate McRae is less than a month older than Elizabeth. Just makes it that much closer to home, you know?

Ugh. I hate the fact that she's got this brain cancer. I hate the fact that she's had to spend so much time in the hospital. I hate the fact that she's suffering so much. I hate the fact that her family's suffering so much. Why does cancer have to exist?

I can't imagine what her family's going through. I wish I could give some kind of comfort, some kind of wisdom, some kind of something... just anything. But nothing. Our family prays for them, we also pray for Kate specifically, but I wish we could do something tangible, something immediate, something to make it just magically disappear. Relying on God's timing is so hard. Relying on God's wisdom is so hard. And Kate's cancer, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't really affect our family on a day-to-day basis. I mean, they live what, 500? 600? miles away from us? The last time we saw them was a year ago, and it was quite coincidental. We now live in a different place from when we knew them. They now live in a different place as well. So why is it that I'm thinking about her constantly? Wondering how she's doing, wondering what she's doing, wondering if she is finally able to speak fluently the thoughts going around in her heart, wondering if she is finally able to get her right side moving? Why is it that I personally feel so affected by Kate's cancer? Does it offend her family that I feel this way? Does it offend them that I'm even thinking this out loud, in a (somewhat) public forum?

I don't know. I feel like a dork for thinking these thoughts. But oh well, they're my thoughts, and they're my blog. Take them or leave them. But whatever you do with them, please please please continue to pray for her and her family. Keep checking the Caring Bridge website for updates so you'll know how to specifically pray for her.

Please pray for my friend's daughter, Kate McRae

2009-07-02T23:47:00.000-07:00

Kate is just a few months older than my Elizabeth. Her dad was a pastor at the church we attended when Elizabeth and Abigail were born. This just hits too close to home.

Going on a trip with my baby

2009-06-16T17:44:00.000-07:00

A short funny:

Abigail said we're going on a trip, and she's driving. She sat down next to me on the couch, made the requisite car noises while waving her fists up and down (as if she's moving the steering wheel). Once in a while she emitted a high-pitched "burp."
K: "What was that, Abigail?"
A: "That was the car stopping at the red light."

She resumed driving (I guess when the light turned green again), and then suddenly made a weird "ptchu" noise.

K: "What was that, Abigail?"
A: "Speed bumps."

100 books

2009-06-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

The local library has a summer reading program to keep kids immersed in books while they're not at school. The "big goal" is to read 100 books -- then you get a medal, your picture goes up on the wall in the library, and I think there may be some other rewards as well.

This morning we decided to go to the library before Abigail's gymnastics class. Elizabeth told me that if she checks out 10 books today, reads them all and returns them tomorrow, borrows another 10 books tomorrow, reads them, and then returns them the next day, and so on and so forth, then in less than two weeks, she'll have completed her 100 books.

I don't know about you, but whenever she says things like this, I'm just blown away. Maybe it's just the obligatory mommy pride, who knows. But something tells me that there's something just a little different about her.

Artichokes

2009-06-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I asked my husband to buy three artichokes. He came home with two because, frankly, he's scared of them and convinced that the kids aren't going to go anywhere near them. I was pretty sure that he was right about one of the kids -- Elizabeth is a great eater and will try almost anything once. Abigail, on the other hand, will declare that she doesn't like anything that resembles a green vegetable. She'll eat carrot sticks and corn, but she will eat edamame out of their shells (probably because it's fun to eat). Peas and green beans, she'll eat if I put them into her mouth, but she'll try to leave them on the plate if given a choice. Lettuce and fresh spinach, same thing, but with those I have a lower success rate. The best success I have with her vegetable eating is when we get "dda-ddu-goh" -- that's the word for "vegetable" that Elizabeth used when she was about 1-2 years old, in reference to the bag of frozen peas/carrots/corn/green beans. The kids will eat those straight out of the freezer (except the green stuff for Abigail).

Anyways, so he got two artichokes, and it took me a couple days to muster up the courage to prepare and cook them. I've eaten a few artichoke leaves about 20 years ago and thought it was kind of a neat experience, but I've never ever even watched anybody prepare and cook them. Never even saw it on TV. I mean, what's the choke look like? Will I recognize it and not mutilate the precious heart right below it? What if I don't get out the whole thing? Will I ruin the whole artichoke? Will I cause family-wide choking because of this? What if I cut off too many leaves? What if I stain my carbon-steel knives? I don't have lemon slices!

I got the artichokes out of the fridge today, cleaned them (and pricked my fingers on the thorns), got them prepared for steaming, and then realized that I don't have a steam basket big enough to fit two artichokes. Thank goodness that I only had two -- who knows how I would've gotten three to cook at once. Well, I was able to get them into the microwave and cooked. Whew.

After they cooled a little bit, I was eating the leaves and was quite proud of my accomplishment, when Elizabeth (with Abigail not far behind) asked me what I'm eating. I told her it's artichokes, and she wanted to try one. I dipped a leaf in salad dressing and showed her how to scrape the leaf with her lower teeth. Abigail then said she wants to try one too(!), so I did the same for her. Then they both asked for more! And then more!

I couldn't believe my ears -- my preschool-aged girls (Abigail!!) were asking for more artichoke! And then when we got to the heart and stem, I cut them into bite-sized pieces and we all shared them. Now I think Abigail was just happy that she had something with which to scoop up salad dressing, but nonetheless, she was really good about scraping the flesh from the artichoke leaves. And I was happy that she was willingly trying this new and very foreign vegetable.

Holes and haves

2009-06-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

I took ten strawberries out of the fridge and washed them. Elizabeth saw me do this and quickly calculated (don't ask me how) that four people cannot easily share ten strawberries. She then told me that I need to pull out two more strawberries -- that way we can each eat three strawberries.

How many preschoolers do you know can do this?

I was thinking at first that the girls will eat two strawberries each, and then my husband and I will eat three each. But instead I decided that this will become a quick lesson in division. I asked her how many half-strawberries are on the cutting board -- she quickly told me there are twenty. Then I asked her how we would apportion twenty strawberry-halves into four bowls. She drew twenty half-circles representing the twenty half-strawberries, and then eyeballed that the answer would be five halves. Then we looked at the five halves and rearranged them to look like wholes -- how many wholes and halves are there when we have five halves? She answered two and a half. So now we went back to the strawberries. I gave her four bowls, cut two strawberries in half, and asked her to put equal amounts of strawberries into each bowl. Just as you'd expect, she put two and a half strawberries into each bowl.

Yes, I'm just a teensy bit proud of my little genius.

Mississippi

2009-06-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

So Elizabeth and I are looking at the 50 states and reading out their names: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi...

Elizabeth: Mississippi??!?
me: yes, Mississippi. Funny name, isn't it?
E: Mrs. Sippy!! Hahahahaaaaa!

The next morning Elizabeth clinks her milk cup with Abi's sippy cup and introduces the two: Mrs. Sippy, Mr. Sippy.

Raising bilingual children

2009-05-31T22:41:00.001-07:00

I came here to the States when I was 2 months shy of 5 years old. My mom had the foresight to teach me to read and write Korean before we immigrated. I began kindergarten three months after setting foot here, knowing not a lick of English. I dropped Korean and adopted English as my language of choice within a few years though; you know what is your primary language when you do your times tables in that language and when you actually think your thoughts in that language -- mine's English.

Thankfully (although I resented it at the time) my grandmother came to live with us when I was 12, and since I commuted from home to college and continued living at home until the day I got married, I had a good 12 years of Korean immersion during which I also had the good fortune of studying one semester of basic Korean at Berkeley.

My parents and my in-laws can speak English well, although not fluently, so it's not absolutely crucial for my kids to learn to speak Korean in order to communicate effectively with their grandparents. However, I just personally feel that, like it or not, if you've got an Asian face, the world will pretty much expect you to speak some Asian language, most likely the one from whom your forefathers came. And at least one study has shown that growing up bilingually gives an IQ boost. And finally, I've got a dear friend (1/2 Japanese, 1/2 white) who can speak fluent Japanese thanks to her mother, although she grew up in California, went to American public schools, and had a father who doesn't speak a word of Japanese. I figure if she can do it, then my kids can too. So that's why I decided my children will speak Korean as well as English. And for free too -- no special classes to send them to, just do it at home.

As I said earlier, I think in English. Unguarded, the first words that pop out of my mouth are invariably English. When I speak Korean, I must first think the thought out in English, and then translate into Korean. It's a laborious process (at least in my mind) and I wish I didn't have to do that. But it's something that I set my mind to do from the very beginning. And we all know that with raising kids, consistency is key, no matter what the issue.

So from Day One, I spoke only Korean with my kids. I did this from Day One because I know it's almost impossible to speak one language with them for three or four years and then suddenly decide that we're going to speak a new language every day all day long. And the many words I didn't know in Korean? I just threw in the English words, but kept the sentence structure Korean. ("Umma-ga reach mot-hae" for "Mommy can't reach," "Oori freeway taja" for "Let's ride the freeway," etc.) So their vocabulary isn't so good, but their basic sentences are pretty good, as are their accents. I've even gotten comments from fluent native-speaking Koreans that my kids speak Korean better than their mommy does, and they're always surprised when they find out that mommy's the one that's been teaching them everything they know about the Korean language.

My husband, unfortunately, doesn't support me in this endeavor as much as I'd like him to. He doesn't oppose me speaking Korean with them, but he would rather converse in English with them; he says he feels closer to them when he speaks his primary language, English. Ironically, he lived in Korea from 5th grade all the way up until college, so his Korean is so much better than mine, but I dare say that he feels like his relationship with his parents (which is very good) could've been even closer if they shared the same primary language. So although his Korean is better than mine, unfortunately my kids are stuck with learning Korean from me.

(My husband and I speak English with each other (he and I agree that it feels absolutely silly to speak Korean to each other), and so our kids are exposed to English every single day. And despite my reluctance to communicate with them in any language other than Korean, their English skills have not suffered a single bit. My firstborn can read chapter books in English at the second grade level and she hasn't begun kindergarten yet. And she has absolutely no accent in either language. (Yes, I'm just a teensy weensy bit proud of her.) Jury's still out on my secondborn -- she's only three, so her Korean is still much stronger than her English, but she's moving along a similar trajectory as her sister.)

I know that this chapter will probably close soon though. My Korean skills are probably no better than a kindergartener's, and there will soon come a day when the level of sophistication in my conversation with my kids will need to be much higher than my Korean language skills can handle. I'm a little sad at the prospect, because that probably means that there's a good chance that by the time they're in middle school they will only know how to say their name in Korean. But we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there. Until then, I speak to them in Korean and insist that they speak to me back in Korean.

One big fear that I have about raising my kids bilingually is that I'm putting an artificial burden on my relationship with my children. You know how they say that it's very important to keep the lines of communication open, especially when they're going through those difficult years? Am I setting myself up for alienation between me and my kids? And the other big fear that I have is have I set up my kids for alienation from their peers at school? Right now they're in preschool, but there and elsewhere in public I insist on speaking in Korean with them, even in front of others. In a couple of years they probably will be embarrassed by me, and their classmates might also make fun of them for speaking a "ching-chong oriental" language. Am I doing the right thing?

*sigh* How can doing the right thing (according to the studies I'm boosting my kids' IQ for free!) be fraught with so many potential drawbacks? It makes me question whether I'm doing the right thing or not, but I'm given encouragement every time I hear somebody say that they wish their parents had taught them the language of their forefathers.

Ten years and one week

2009-05-29T23:35:00.001-07:00

I've now been married for ten years and one week. Boy, what a ride! Two days after our wedding we went on our weeklong honeymoon to Hawaii. As soon as we got back, we went on our weeklong drive across the country to live in Michigan. Lived there for 3.5 years while Sam finished up his PhD, and then lived in Illinois for 3.5 years where we became parents to two beautiful baby girls (two years apart), and then came back to California three years and a few weeks ago.

That first year was horrible -- I won't sugarcoat it. We were both young and immature, and still had a lot of growing up to do. Here I was, never having ever left the comfort of home for more than three weeks at a time, suddenly moving across the country where I knew not a single soul except for this poor husband of mine, who I expected to not only sweep me off my feet every day, but also entertain me, sing and dance for me, and put the toilet seat back down. Every day. And what in the world is all this football and basketball he's watching? Never when we were dating did he ever mention being a sports fan. Needless to say, neither of us really enjoyed that first year. But never -- not once -- did I ever regret having married him.

But you know what, after that first year, it got so much better. I learned to give him space and not harp on him, and he learned to not ask for so much space, and even began to harp on me. *laugh* And although he doesn't sweep me off my feet every single day, this man of mine (who grew up with no sisters) does consistently put the toilet seat back down. And you know what else? He planned a little weekend getaway for our anniversary.

We drove 50 miles east to my parents' house to drop off the kids. And then we drove 100 miles WEST (50 miles back, past the house, and then kept going another 50 miles) to spend the night in the city. We had sushi for dinner (some of the best we've had in a long time), shared two desserts that we didn't have to share with two dessert-hungry kids, and then went to sleep whenever we felt like it. The next morning we woke up whenever we felt like it, then had dim sum for brunch, walked around Chinatown and Union Square for a while, and then had frozen yogurt before going back to pick up the kids. After the kids finished napping, we took my parents out to a Thai restaurant for dinner. (My dad loves peanuts and had never tried Thai food!) We had a good dinner, then went back to their place to watch some basketball (okay, my husband watched), and then trekked 50 miles back to our house.

It was a good 10 years, and it was a good weekend to celebrate our 10 years. And would I do it over again? In a heartbeat. Even that first year. Because I know it's not the end of the story -- it's just the beginning.

A funny story about a boy at preschool

2009-05-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

I work at a local preschool, and today I was weeding in the sandbox as the kids were playing, and had gathered a small pile of weeds on the concrete next to the sandbox. A little boy came to me, selected a little weed from the pile, and carefully planted it back into the sand, making a little hole in the sand for the root and then gathering the sand up around the weed so that it'll stand upright.

Just thought I'd share it with you.

Cherry picking

2009-05-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

Last night I was a little disappointed because a few friends were planning on going strawberry and cherry picking today, and because I teach piano on Saturday mornings from 10-11, I couldn't go.

This morning I was a little disappointed because I remembered that I had to stay home and teach while my friends are picking fruit with their children. Oh well, I decided to just chill until my students came over, teach, and then just hang out at home for the rest of the day. I offered for my husband to take the kids and go -- that way they'll get to see fruit in their native state, enjoy a little bit of daddy-bonding time, and I'll get to teach in peace. He declined, preferring instead to just go to the gym.

Well, 10:15am and they're still not here. My husband is almost out the door with the girls to go to the gym, but before they leave, I gave my students a call, and it turns out that the mom forgot to tell me that they can't make it today. I'm a little disappointed now because my friends are out picking fruit with their children and I'm sitting at home NOT teaching piano. I'm *almost* mad at the mom for forgetting to tell me, but I remember that just a few weeks ago I had forgotten completely about teaching piano altogether and had flaked on them, leaving them to sit on my porch for an hour while I was at the gym with my husband and kids. I would like to say that it was the first week of this schedule, so I hadn't gotten into the habit of having something on Saturday mornings, but still. I flaked on them and felt horrible. So I guess I shouldn't feel so mad that they didn't tell me until the last minute, although I could have made plans to go fruit picking had I known earlier.

Oh well, let's go anyway!!

So in record time we got the kids dressed (it's forecast for mid-high 90s today), found a couple of beach buckets (for the kids to hold their own cherries), packed a million gallons of water, slapped on some sunblock, and out we went. It's too late for strawberries (they said they'd get to the cherry orchard around 10:30-11am) so we went straight to the cherry orchard. We didn't see any of our friends there except for one other family that missed the strawberry picking too. I guess I could've been a little disappointed that we didn't get to see them, but oh well. Who says that fruit must be picked in the company of friends? Yeah, it would've been nice to see them, but we had our buckets, we had our water, we had our beautiful girls, and we had our camera. And we had sushi for lunch, after feasting on cherries all morning long.

Windmills on the drive along Vasco Road

The lovely Elizabeth

The cute Abigail

Cherries!

And I shouldn't leave out...
The bicep!

And you know what? I wasn't disappointed at all.

How do you tell a sweet little girl that you're not from Japan?

2009-05-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

Today a six-year-old girl, I'll call her "Jane," looked me straight in the eye, and said "Konichiwa." She was, I'm sure, showing me in her own little way that she knows a little something about a culture outside of her family's experience. I'm sure any Japanese person would have been delighted that a blonde-haired girl said hello in Japanese. However, we're not Japanese -- we're Korean. In the mind of many Koreans, to be confused with a Japanese is akin to a Jew being confused with a German. Sure, we look similar. Sure, to the untrained eye (and even to many "trained" eyes) all Asians look alike. Just like blondes all look alike. (Trust me -- I'm really bad at telling people apart! Ask my husband -- I can never get any actors' names right.) And I'm not saying that I've got any particular quarrel with the Japanese -- not at all. This is just for context. Anyhoo...

I've met her parents, and they're not bigots by any means. To her parents' credit, she does know how to greet Japanese people in their language -- shows she's broadening her horizons, learning about cultures other than the one in her home. But how do you tell a sweet little girl that you're not from Japan, that you're from Korea, and the two are not the same?

Jane: Konichiwa.
me: Oh, you said "hello" in Japanese! That's great! But you know what, we're not from Japan, we're from Korea.
Jane: Konichiwa.

Uhh...

I was thinking about this little conversation on the way home, trying to figure out how to explain this to a little girl, or actually anybody, that it's not cool to expect Asians to speak any other Asian language than their own. It's a totally innocent mistake, but still, one that gets on my nerves. I've had to explain this to classmates ever since I was in second grade, I think. And I'm sure some of them still don't get it. And you know what, it won't stop with my generation. I'm pretty sure that my kids will have to deal with the same thing as they grow up. Elizabeth has already told me once or twice that people have called her Chinese. And even after she corrected them and said that she's not Chinese, that she's Korean, they still insisted she's Chinese.

Nut allergy

2009-05-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth was diagnosed with a nut allergy last year. For the most part it doesn't really affect our day-to-day lives since I'm not a huge nut fan, although I do appreciate a good candy-covered nut once in a while. But it's not something that I insist on eating, and frankly I could go my entire life without tasting a nut and I'll be fine with that.

Elizabeth hasn't had an anaphylactic reaction where her throat closes shut and she stops breathing, but she has broken out in hives and complained about her mouth hurting. The allergist has told us to keep an EpiPen around at all times, just for that reason. It's a prescription that hopefully we'll never ever have to use, but it's there, for that slim chance that we might need it.

I'm generally good about checking for nuts when I give food to Elizabeth, and she's generally good about reading the ingredient list as well. And if something has nuts in it, she knows to avoid it, even if it's a tempting treat that everybody else is happily munching on.

Recently I realized that Indian food (one of my husband's favorites) commonly contains nuts, so we're very careful to ask about everything that we order when we go out to eat.

And on Friday we had a potluck lunch at the girls' preschool, and once again, we were careful to ask about the common offenders. Thankfully the suspect items (a banana muffin and an Indian dish) were homemade, so the parents were able to say that the food that they brought didn't have nuts in them, and I was able to give the girls a taste of each.

Unfortunately there was an offender that I didn't know about until after Elizabeth ate it all up. It was a sandwich. The bread was a sweet Hawaiian roll (nut-free), and the filling looked like it was a tuna or chicken salad (apparently nut-free, at least in all of my previous sandwich-eating experience). I'm not a sandwich-type of person, especially for potlucks, but I know the girls will eat them, so I put one on each of their plates.

Elizabeth ate all of hers up, along with everything else on her plate, and she said her tongue tickled. I asked her if it felt like an allergic reaction and she said it didn't, so I just let it go. And then Abigail ate about 2/3 of everything on her plate, so I finished off her food, including half her sandwich. (Yeah, that's how I get my seconds at buffets now.) A few bites into the sandwich I realized there's some texture in there that's a little different from your typical sandwich filling, so I took a closer look and realized that there are chopped almonds in there.

Folks, I just fed my nut-allergic daughter a chopped almond sandwich.

Thankfully her only reaction was the tickly tongue, but it could easily have become a much more dire situation. I don't know much about allergic reactions other than what the allergist and a few allergic-children's-parent-friends have told me, but I have been told that a reaction to nuts that involves the face or mouth can easily become a reaction that involves the airway closing shut.

And that scares the crap out of me.

Happy birthday, honey!

2009-05-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

Today is my husband's birthday. Won't tell you how old he's turning today though.

I'm picking him up from work in Tracy, about 25 minutes to the east of us. And then we're going up north another 30 minutes to Stockton to eat dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory (haven't been in years!) and then drop off the kids with my grandparents. And then after that, who knows what we'll do. I know, it sounds like so much fun. Probably we'll end up going to Borders, sip coffee, and read magazines across the table from each other while not saying a single word to each other, close the place down, and then see a movie. Maybe. What an adventure, huh?

Not that I celebrate it or anything, but...

2009-04-22T17:37:00.001-07:00

Happy Earth Day.

May your environment be... uhh... Earth.

sickie in the house

2009-04-15T14:09:00.000-07:00

On Saturday morning Abi played normally after eating a normal breakfast of cereal and milk, but right before lunch she suddenly complained of a stomachache. She'd complained of stomachache in the past and sometimes it turned out to be because of diarrhea, but many times it turned out to be nothing, just a call for attention. Anyway, her stomachache on Saturday quickly turned into vomiting. After her nap she said she was hungry, so I gave her yogurt, which she promptly vomited back after ravenously snarfing it down. She ended up throwing up 4 times on Saturday. I tried to limit her intake for the rest of that day, basically giving her popsicles and apple juice.

At the end of the day, though, she kept saying she was hungry, so I gave her a few bites of plain watered-down rice. She kept it down okay, and was fine all day Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, playing, eating and pooping normally.

I had had a pretty unpleasant case of stomachache/vomiting/diarrhea the week before, beginning Saturday and ending on Tuesday, so I thought she had what I had, until I saw that she was fine and didn’t even have loose stools.

Fast forward to today. She had a normal breakfast of yogurt, half-bagel, and cream cheese, and a sippy of milk. After breakfast, however, she lay on the floor, which is totally not normal of her. She’s usually busy playing and running around. Anyways, she said her tummy hurt (sometimes she’ll say that right before she goes poop), so she went to the bathroom, but only peed – she said her poop wouldn’t come out. I don’t think she’s constipated though – she had a normal poop yesterday, and she’s never been constipated, even as a baby. She then went back to lying down, took a five-minute catnap, and then woke up saying her stomach hurt again. I asked if she needed to throw up, and she said she did. This turned out to be about a three-second warning – she ended up barfing her whole breakfast again, all over her clothes, her hair, and the living room carpet.

So off to the shower we go, and now that she's all cleaned up and I finally got the carpet de-nastified, she's playing like normal and claiming she's hungry.

Color Abi sick :-( , color me confused :-/.

the Mommy Voice

2009-04-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

Like most mommies, I've developed that Mommy Voice. You know the kind: the one that says "I mean business, and you better obey me or else the toys will revolt and all run away in separate directions in a blink of an eye."

Well, today I was folding socks and underwear with the girls, and Elizabeth, in true form, tried to sneak away to play in the middle of matching socks. Many times. Finally, I said in my sternest Mommy Voice: "Elizabeth, you come right back here and finish your folding." (Don't worry, I just make her do her own while I do the rest of the family's. I try to get Abigail to do her share, but her attention span is about the size of a gnat.) Thankfully the Mommy Voice worked, since really, it's hard to look authoritative while holding up a pair of undies.

Do you have smelly foods from your childhood?

2009-04-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

Whether it's kimchi or gefilte fish or some kind of curry, we all have food that smells up our childhoods.

-- Amy Sue Nathan

I found this quote today and it reminded me of a time when my parents would brew han-yak in the garage. Basically it's this nasty concoction of all kinds of herbs and strange things, darker and smellier than burnt coffee, but supposed to be oh-so-good for you.

A quick Korean lesson: "Han" = Korean. "Yak" = Medicine.

So han-yak is, quite literally, Korean medicine.

And whenever somebody in the house got sick or injured or something, and medicines from the drugstore didn't cut it, out came the han-yak. And then the whole house would smell (even when it's brewing in the garage!) for weeks and weeks (at least it seemed like it at the time).

And I really have no idea who Amy Sue Nathan is. Hopefully she's somebody I'd like to have coffee with, not That Embarrassing Friend whose calls I have to screen via caller ID.

wild things just running around all over the place

2009-04-02T15:35:00.000-07:00

so we're getting on the freeway this morning on the way to preschool, and we see this huge field of yellow wildflowers growing on a grassy hill. eliz asks me what kind of flowers they are, and i really don't know, so i say "maybe they're wildflowers," figuring that's good enough of an answer.

eliz: wildflowers?
me: yes.
eliz: do they run around?

Sometimes I'm so immature...

2009-03-24T14:32:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about Abigail's standard mispronunciations. Here are some of my favorites...

* My fananee wub me = My family loves me
* kottattae = Korean for "the same"
* Oodiduh Pooh = Winnie the Pooh
* Sindero = Cinderella
* Toe White = Snow White

and the fact that I giggle at this one reassures me that I'm still immature:

* Seeping Booty = Sleeping Beauty

when it rains it pours

2009-03-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

you'd think that as a mommy to two preschoolers, i'd be seeing illness striking the kids and not so much me. but during this past month-and-a-half, i've had two consecutive bouts of sore throat/fever/aches and am now dealing with pinkeye. the kids? aside from a little bit of runny nose here and there, they're fine.

don't get me wrong, i don't wish anything upon them and am so grateful that they haven't had any of the stuff i've had these past weeks, but i thought mommies get illnesses from their kids, not bring it home themselves to share with the family like it's takeout or something.

now i gotta find some wood and knock on it. and then get the clorox wipes and scrub it down.

Pre-school daze

2009-02-26T17:12:00.000-08:00

I'm becoming increasingly anxious about the upcoming school year, and it's more than six months away. It's now the season for registration for school, and I feel like I have to make a decision soon about Eliz. The local school, or the charter school, or a private school, or homeschool? Kindergarten or first grade? Now for most normal parents of most normal kids, I'd imagine that it's a pretty straightforward answer. But I have a hunch that Eliz just isn't a normal kid. She missed the cutoff for kindergarten last year, and it breaks my heart. How I wish her birthday was just two months earlier.

A partial list of the things she can do with ease:

Read fluently in English, and not-so-fluently in Korean.
Add and subtract to about 20. Count by twos, fives, and tens, to a few hundred.
Write neatly and legibly, using proper punctuation.
Tell time on a non-digital clock.
She's figuring out very quickly the concepts of north, south, east, and west. She's got a very good sense of direction, and also has a firm grasp of left and right.
She has a very rudimentary knowledge of piano, music theory, and appreciation. (This is mostly because I haven't really put in the time to teach her, not because she doesn't get it.)

Now I *KNOW* that this is more than the typical preschooler can do, and I'm pretty sure that many kindergartners struggle with some of these things. And just so you know, I haven't been sitting her down and drilling her for hours on end -- this is just stuff that she found interesting and picked up, mostly from her asking questions. We do have workbooks, but we do them when she feels like it, not according to any specific schedule. Sometimes it's five pages a day, sometimes two weeks can go by without her cracking open a workbook.

So why won't any school take her for kindergarten? Why am I having such a hard time getting her evaluated sometime soon so that we can know one way or another what grade to put her in in the fall? The past few months I have called our local elementary school, the local charter school, a few private schools, and even a few homeschooling ISPs to see if they will either take her a year early or even just evaluate her, and they have all told me that because her birthday is in late January, she's simply too young for either one, and that I'll have to wait until she enters kindergarten in the fall.

I'm so afraid that if she goes into kindergarten in the fall (instead of first grade), she will learn to associate "school" with "zoning out." She needs mental stimulation to remain engaged and interested in school. The last thing I want is for her to develop bad habits in the early years and then struggle later on because she never learned how to learn in a classroom setting.

It irks me to no end because there's a little girl in the next school district over who is in kindergarten, and she's a full month younger than Eliz. *They* were able to get her evaluated and into kindergarten because *their* school district will do that. Our school district, therefore, stinks.

Another thing that irks me is the fact that I don't have the same apparent luxury as those parents of kids whose birthdays fall later in the year. They are able to choose whether or not to enroll their kids or keep them back a year so that their kids will be a year older than their classmates.

Now the more I think about this, the madder I get, and the more I feel like Eliz is getting a disservice from the school district. But then a small, annoying, part of me makes me wonder, how much of this is tied to my own pride? Am I wanting this because it makes me proud to say that I've got an academically gifted daughter? Or am I wanting this because this really is the best for Eliz?

Anyways, I will let this issue rest once she's evaluated and a definitive answer is given one way or another. Hopefully sooner than later.

"What's $ 3 x?"

2009-02-24T23:27:00.000-08:00

So Eliz, my 5-year-old, woke up from her nap and was eating a post-nap snack while I'm chilling here on the computer. I'm half-paying attention to her when she suddenly asks something that sounds like "What's $ 3 x?" (Just in case some perverts trawl around looking for pages on the internet with that three-letter-word I'm changing some of the letters. I hope it keeps the pervs out. Anyways...) I'm shocked that she's even heard the word because I'd like to think that I've done a fairly decent job of sheltering her from anything that's more complicated than what I'd like to explain. So I asked her to say it again, and there it was, "What's $ 3 x?" I'm still confused so I ask her where she learned it, and she says it's in her book. Now I'm thoroughly baffled because I am *pretty sure* that she doesn't have any books with $ 3 x u @ 1 content. Finally after lots of asking, she tells me she got it in her "Sweet Success" book. So I go and dig it out of her room and ask her to find the word. I'm hoping I'll find some context, INNOCENT context, with which I can explain this word.

So there it was... "The sacks were half empty."

I almost had a heart attack for nothing!!!

can't sing its praises enough

2009-02-17T08:31:00.001-08:00

can i tell you how much i love multigrain cheerios? i really don't know why any other cereal exists now that multigrain cheerios has been invented and is now available at costco. according to the box, it's "lightly sweetened." according to my (and my kids') tastebuds, it's sweeter than the yellow-box original cheerios, but not as sugary as honey nut cheerios. the ingredients list is surprisingly short, but out of the first six ingredients, five of them are whole grains. unfortunately the third item in the ingredients list is sugar, but i'll choose to ignore that for now since it's surrounded by whole grains. and not that there's anything wrong with it (according to the corn people on tv), but there's no high fructose corn syrup either. and the nutrition facts is what really seals the deal for me:

per 1-cup serving:

1g fat
0g saturated, trans, polyunsaturated, or monounsaturated fats
0mg cholesterol
200mg sodium
85mg potassium
23g carbs
3g fiber
6g sugars
14g other carbs
2g protein

and let me show you this:

100% iron, vitamin e, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin b6, folic acid, vitamin b12, pantothenic acid, and zinc.

i challenge you to find me a cereal that's nut-free (eliz is allergic to nuts), not too sweet but still tastes good, doesn't taste or feel like gravel, and has this kind of nutritional pedigree.

otherwise i might just have to buy a lifetime supply for me and my kids just in case they ever stop making it.

valentine's day

2009-02-15T23:19:00.000-08:00

since valentine's day happens to be my daughter's birthday, i think it's safe to assume that for the foreseeable future, we won't be going out on dates and leaving the kids with a sitter anymore on february 14.

this year for v-day we spent most of it either preparing for my parents and sister's family to come over for dinner to celebrate abi's birthday. the day before, however, we had our own v-day date. that morning my husband took the kids(!!) and went to costco to go grocery shopping for me, since my cold (cold? flu? who knows) pretty much had my butt kicked and my head in pieces. while he was there, he got the milk, eggs, and bread, and also came home with a dozen red roses. i was shocked because i can't remember the last time he got roses on a routine grocery run, much less on a grocery run with the kids.

anyways, since the price of red roses mysteriously goes up at this time of year, i just had to know how much they were. $15! i was elated! because they're totally overpriced, i never expected a dozen for valentine's day (last year i asked him for ONE red rose, and my man delivered!) anymore, but i think i'm going to have to start expecting them now every v-day for as long as we have costco membership and they keep their rose prices down in february.

so that was part one of the v-day gift.

part two: my mom came to spend the night (she comes over a couple times a week after work so she doesn't have to drive an hour home late at night) so we left the kids with her and went to get a chinese foot massage. an hour long. for $25. they soak your feet for 20 minutes while they massage your head, neck, and shoulders. then they work 10 minutes on your left foot, then 10 minutes on your right foot, and then flip you over and spend the last 20 minutes working on your back. so we got a massage-for-two for a pretty good bargain, considering that you can easily spend $75 (or even more!) on a massage at a day spa. i'm aching to go back already.

part three: we went to our new favorite frozen yogurt place. it's like pinkberry, and i wouldn't be surprised if it's modeled after pinkberry, but we don't care, because there's no pinkberry in our area. (can you tell we like pinkberry?) anyways, this place has the same tart frozen yogurt, the same fresh fruit toppings (my favorite is the blueberry), and the same bingsu dduk (mochi balls). yum! we split a medium, original flavor, with bingsu dduk, blueberries, and mini-m&m's since we didn't have to hide them from the kids. (we usually just get the bingsu dduk and fruit and not chocolate with them.) and bonus: since it was raining, we got a double-stamp on our frequent-buyers card!

part four: we went to see gran torino. it was a pretty good movie. i won't give any spoilers, but i'll tell you this. going in, i knew nothing about the movie other than that it's got something to do with a car and clint eastwood. for some reason i thought it was some kind of lots-of-special-effects racecar type of movie, and really went to see it just to spend time with my husband, not because i really wanted to see the movie. but when it was over, i was so glad that i went to see it. and just so you know, the movie's got nothing to do with racing.

so it was a good day. better than i expected. no ooey gooey greeting cards, no candlelit dinner, no house-all-to-ourselves-since-the-kids-are-with-the-grandparents, but it was all good. my husband loves me, i love my husband, and all is right with the world. it also helps that we got groceries in the fridge, a dozen red roses in the living room, a side-by-side massage for cheap, frozen yogurt that we don't have to share with the kids, and two hours in a movie theater while the kids are safely sleeping at home with grandma in the next room.

who says valentine's day needs to be celebrated on the 14th?

three years ago today

2009-02-14T15:16:00.000-08:00

happy birthday to my baby girl. here's the story, beginning a few days earlier:

************************

Saturday, February 11, 2006, 9:39pm

For the last few days I felt like my abs are about to rip open down the middle above my belly button. Is there anything I can do about the pain? It hurts to laugh, it hurts to cough or sneeze, it hurts to wear pants, it hurts to walk, it hurts to touch! Anyone? Please, somebody, tell me that you had this too and I'm not the only freak with hurting abs!

************************

Monday, February 13, 2006, 2:09pm

I feel so cheated!

Yesterday I got to play in my concert without any incident. Whee! I was joking to the other people in the orchestra that I'm in the clear to go into labor or for my water to break at 6:15pm, when the concert ends. Well, I got home, hung out with my daughter and husband for a little while, and then went to bed early. My husband and I normally don't go to bed until like 1, so it is kind of a treat for me to go to bed early. (Yeah, I know, I'm weird like that.) Anyways, around 12:30am I woke up from my evening nap (hah!) and my husband was still awake, so we just got to talking. We had a really good talk. Talking about our plans for the future, his job, a pending promotion, a different pending job offer... it was a really really good talk. Haven't had one of those in a long time.

Well, finally around 1:30am or so we got tired so we turned out the lights and rolled over to go to sleep. I started feeling contractions here and there (a bit stronger than Braxton-Hicks contractions -- they'd start with a general tightening, then finish off with a big surge of pain near the cervix), and I decided to stay up and start timing them. They were pretty regular, about 5-8 minutes apart. I woke up my husband around 3:30 and told him to not plan to go to work today. We did a frantic packing of the hospital bags, woke up our 2-year-old and loaded her up the car, called the doctor, and headed out to the hospital at around 4:45am. I joked to my husband that the baby must have waited for me to play in the concert and then decided to come right after that.

Once we're in the hospital, I got hooked up to a monitor, had an internal exam, and was found to be 3cm. (I had an appointment just a day and a half earlier, and was 2cm at that point.) We decided to walk the halls, and get checked again in an hour. Around 7am I'm determined still to be a good 3cm and my contractions have slowed down to almost nothing!!! The doctor comes to check me at 8am, I'm still 3cm, and we decide to have me walk some more. Again at 11:30 I'm still 3cm, and after talking with the doctor, we decide to send me home. Waaaaahhhhh!!!

Not that I want to have the baby today or anything (we're so far from ready it's not even funny), but I can't help but feel cheated. Cheated of my good night's sleep, cheated of my husband's sleep, cheated of my 2-year-old daughter's sleep. Cheated of getting my hopes up. Cheated of the precious gas that was spent driving 30 mins each way to and from the hospital. *sigh*

And I'm still getting contractions. Still just as strong. But only about once every hour or so.

************************

Monday night, February 13, 2006, around 9pm.

We went to the mall tonight to pick out the pictures we'd like to have from my pregnancy photo shoot the Saturday before. While we're there, looking at pictures, I suddenly got really quiet. The guy at the photo studio asked me what I was thinking, since I was just kinda' staring at the pictures and not having much of a facial expression at all. (Normally I'm quite gregarious and my husband's always looking for my "off" switch.) My response? "Oh, nothing... I'm just having a contraction."

You should've seen the look on his face!

************************

Tuesday morning, February 14, 2006.

Around 5am I woke up again with contractions. They're probably false labor again, so I ignored it as best as I could, but they still came every 5-6 minutes. Around 6am my husband asked if I'm okay (I guess my stirring woke him up). I said that I'm having contractions again, so he asked if we should call the doctor. I was afraid of calling the doctor again at such an unholy hour, so we decided to wait until at least 7. I was still convinced that this is just false labor, so he took a shower, and then I decided I'd take a shower. The nerd in me was fascinated with the fact that I knew exactly what time it was just from my contractions. After my shower, still in denial, we decided to have breakfast (two years earlier when I was in the hospital to give birth to my firstborn, they wouldn't let me eat anything, so I made sure I got myself something to eat this time).

Finally around 7 we decided to call the doctor, and the first question she had for me, of course, was "are these contractions different from those you had yesterday morning?" I wasn't completely sure, but thought they *might* be a little harder, so she recommended that we get to the hospital.

We finished up breakfast, got Eliz, and began our drive to the hospital. It was around 8am (we took our time, figuring that it's just false labor again) so we just moseyed along with the rush-hour traffic. It took us a good 35-40 minutes to get there, and by the time I was there, contractions were coming a little faster and much harder. About 25 minutes into the drive I felt it was getting unbearable -- two years earlier when I was in labor with my first one, this is about the point of pain when I asked for my epidural. I decided this was enough pain, and that I'll ask for the epidural as soon as we get to the hospital. This was so different from the day before, when I sauntered into the hospital, practically singing "I think I'm in labor." This time I staggered in, between contractions, and I guess the expression on my face said everything to the nurses. I wanted to get under some hot water again, to ease the pain, but they said that they had to monitor me and check my dilation first. I reluctantly agreed, figuring that once they get the formalities out of the way I can hop into the shower and get that hot water on my back.

So they checked me and it turned out that I was already 8cm dilated. Too late for an epidural, the doctor said. And not only that, but I'll be ready to push in about an hour or two. What!??? I was expecting to hang out and chill with my epidural for a few hours first, and then maybe sometime in the afternoon have the baby. And my poor husband, I think he wanted the pain relief more than I did. He asked the doctor a few times if there's anything that can be done about the pain. She assured him that there was nothing to do but to just go through it since it's too late.

So here I was, hanging out and trying to chill with my contractions, and some lady walked in asking if it's okay for some student nurses to come and observe the birth, since it'll be an unmedicated one. Uhhh, okay, I guess. I'm in labor and can't really think clearly, so whatever.

A few contractions later I realize hey, waitaminnit, this is a bunch of strangers coming in to see me push a baby out of my hoohaa, and the least they can do is babysit my two-year-old in a different room so she doesn't have to witness all of this! So I guess it worked out -- we have a babysitter!

Anyways, around 10am I was determined to be fully dilated, so they instructed me to push. No epidural, just a bunch of ladies that I don't know, one counting to ten every time I push (one of my personal pet peeves), and another telling me "how wonderful it is to be bringing a baby into the world" (that particular wording, I discovered, is another one of my personal pet peeves).

Finally at 10:29am, Abi (she prefers Iga) came out, looking just like her daddy, just like her big sister did when she was born. I was a little disappointed, not because looking like daddy is a bad thing, but because I was hoping that at least one of my two kids would look anything like me. Oh well, she's a beautiful baby, and still is a beautiful three-year-old girl today.

The crazy thing was, the first time around I gained 31 pounds, and Eliz came out 7 pounds, 7 ounces. This time I gained 11 pounds, and Abi came out 8 pounds, 2 ounces. Okay, I guess it doesn't always mean that bigger weight gain means bigger babies!

************************

As a baby she was even easier than Eliz. Even in the hospital she was sleeping 5 hours at night, and she hardly cried either. Just like her big sister, she nursed like a champ and was never picky with clothes or food. To have gotten lucky twice, I would love to say it was my superb parenting skills that made my children this way, but you and I both know, it was all God's grace.

I nursed my firstborn for 13 months, so I figured I'd nurse my secondborn until she starts walking. Little did I know that she'd wait until weaning (at 16 months) to start walking (a few days shy of 18 months)! For the longest time she'd communicate with a two-syllable "Ah-ah?" It really meant anything between "I'm sitting here and having a good time" to "Let's play!" Soon after that was her "Weng-oh-weng-oh-weng-oh-weng." It took us a few weeks to realize that that was her way asking "What is this?" Nowadays she loves to sing and dance, she loves to jump around and play with her big sister. She is very good about waiting her turn for things, and even her Terrible Two wasn't really that terrible. I guess now that she's three, I can't say she's a baby anymore, especially since she's now fully potty-trained, sleeps in a big-girl bed, and is beginning to learn the alphabet and the sounds of each letter too. Oh well, she'll always be my baby.

Happy birthday, my baby. I love you. You're truly your parents' joy. May God bless you and keep you in the palm of His hand. May he love you and call you his own, and may you grow into a woman who fears the Lord and therefore is greatly to be praised.

one thing that i am passionate about

2009-02-05T00:16:00.000-08:00

one thing that i'm passionate about is car seat safety. almost anybody who's shown me their kids in their cars/car seats has probably gotten a once-over from me. first off, here's my disclaimer: i'm not a car seat technician or an expert on this subject by any means -- it's just something that i feel so strongly about, that i don't keep to myself about this very often.

so from what i've seen, many people rear-face (i'll call it "RF") their kids until their first birthday, when they graduate to their forward facing ("FF") "big kid" car seat. the law requires that they stay RF until they are no longer less than a year old AND 20 pounds.

however, it's so much safer to keep the kids RF for as long as possible -- to the RF limits of the car seat, which in many cases go up to 33 or 35 pounds. in most cases it means for at least another year or two. ideally we'd have car seats that have RF limits of 55 pounds, as they do in sweden (they actually recommend they RF until age 4!), but we gotta go with what's available here in the states.

so why is it safer? this is how i visualize it: you're in a car crash; more than likely the front of your car has been hit. passengers are held in their seats with their seat belts. objects in the car, however, get thrown forward. if they're heavy enough and not secured, they'll go flying through the windshield. we adults walk away with whiplash because our head accounts for only 6% of our total weight. however, a young child's head accounts for up to 25% of his/her total weight! add to that the fact that a child's muscles are not as developed as ours, and we've got a potentially dangerous situation on our hands. now if the child is RF, that means the head will pretty much stay on the surface of the car seat, and the neck will remain in a more-or-less neutral position. however, if the child is FF, the head will not stay upright; it'll go flinging forward toward the front of the car. the only thing keeping the child from flying through the windshield will be the car seat's harness. now, we've got 25% of the child's total weight being flung forward, and 75% of the child's weight held back by the straps. that makes for a huge amount of strain on the child's neck, which, let me remind you, doesn't have very well-developed muscles. at best, the child has a sore neck, possibly whiplash. at worst, the neck could break, the spinal cord could break, stretch, or become damaged, and the child could end up handicapped, paralyzed, or worse.

unfortunately this happened to a little boy named joel, just a few months ago. here's his story.

so, Number One: extended rear-facing. do it. it's good for the child.

now, here's a less-obvious one: buckling the child into the car seat while the child is wearing a warm puffy winter coat. a few years ago, i happened upon this page, and the story will forever haunt me. read on:

"When I took my tech class we were shown a picture of an infant seat with a snowsuit under the harness. The seat was pulled out of a car that had just been in a crash. The infant was ejected from the seat and the car and was found some feet away from the car, but the snowsuit was left in the seat just as the baby was wearing it."

so now i make sure that the kids will wear their jackets to the car, but once we're in, the door closes, the jackets come off, and the kids go into their car seats. once they're buckled in, they can have their jackets on their laps. (for some reason they like to hold it on their laps!)

similarly, i always make sure their harnesses are pulled tight and the chest clip is at armpit level, not down by the belly button. if the harness is too loose, they can come flying out of the car seat. and the chest clip helps the straps to stay on their shoulders.

so, Number Two: straps are tight against the body, not against a jacket, and chest clip is up high.

and now that my firstborn is five years old, i've come to the topic of extended harnessing. i just measured/weighed her, and she's just a touch over 43 inches tall, and a touch over 40 pounds, so she's still got a good 6 inches in height and 25 pounds in weight left to grow until i have to think about taking her out of her car seat. and believe you me, it will be with great fear and trepidation when i transition her into a booster. i'm even thinking of getting her into a Britax Regent or Frontier, if finances and hubby will allow.

heck, if i could, i'd still have her rear facing.

read on.

so, Number Three: delay putting the child into a booster for as long as possible. having the child in a harness is so much more secure.

i'm sure there are other points that i wanted to make, but at 1:14am, i'm starting to no longer make any sense, so i'll leave it at these three points for now: delay FF, don't have the straps too loose, and delay the booster.

good night, and safe travels.

Lose It!

2009-02-02T15:18:00.001-08:00

Over the weekend I just downloaded this new application to my iPod Touch. I think I love it, but I think I also hate it. I knew I eat reasonably healthy, and I knew I try to watch my sugar and fiber intake, but sheesh! I hate portion control! Anyways, I am able to input the food I eat and the exercise I do (vacuuming counts!), and it tells me how many calories I have left in my daily budget. The best part is that I can add my own "recipes" -- I now have a reasonable guesstimate that kimchi has about 20 calories per 1/4 cup serving. Maybe this is my golden ticket?

I'm looking at it right now, and I'm a bit surprised at the caloric breakdown I have for kimchi:

1/4 cup cabbage, 4 calories.
1 dash salt, 0 calories.
2 cloves garlic, 9 calories.
1 teaspoon ground ginger, 2 calories.
1 teaspoon spicy red pepper powder, 6 calories.

9 calories for 2 measly cloves of garlic, but 6 calories for a quarter cup of cabbage?!

Five years ago today

2009-01-23T00:32:00.000-08:00

Five years ago today my firstborn entered into the world. She came at 8:45pm on a snowy Friday night in a hospital just north of Chicago. I went to the hospital the day after my due date for an induction -- I was just too uncomfortable to stay pregnant any longer, and frankly, I was too impatient and wanted to meet my little girl!

So at 6am we went in, excited, nervous, and just a bit scared out of our minds. At 8am (1cm dilated) they started the pitocin drip. At 3pm (3cm dilated) the doctor broke my water to speed things along. At the same time, the doctor attached a monitor to the baby's scalp. At 3:05pm I decided these contractions are just too unbearable, and asked for the epidural. A few contractions later, I no longer felt anything from the waist down. The epidural was so effective that I couldn't even move my legs.

At 8pm (or was it 8:30?) I was determined to be fully dilated, so at the nurse's direction I began to push. Just a few pushes later, Eliz (Iza? Zabe? We're still working on a nickname...) was born at 8:45pm. She weighed 7lb, 7oz, and measured 20.5 inches long. She was perfect. She still is.

Despite our parenting skills (or lack thereof), she's a sweet, smart, and silly little girl who loves to learn about the world all around her. She can read (with so much expression!), count by 2s, 5s, 10s, all the way to a few hundreds, tell time on a dial clock, and add/subtract like nobody's business. She loves to sing, play games, put together jigsaw puzzles, and work on the pages of her workbooks. She hates to be told what to do when she doesn't feel like it, waking up earlier than she wants to, going to bed earlier than she wants to, and doing things that are more difficult than she thinks she can do.

As a baby she was so easy. She nursed like a champ, slept through the night (well, 6 hours) at 6 weeks, and hardly ever cried. She never even got her first cold until she was almost a year old, and diaper rashes were pretty much a foreign concept for two years. She was never picky with clothes or food, and made me feel like a parenting pro. Of course it wasn't my parenting skills that made her this way -- it was all God's grace. He knew I can't handle things otherwise, I'm sure!

I treasured her baby words. Pim-dae for chim-dae (bed). Dda-ddeu-geo for vegetables. Da-da for doggy. Dugga-dugga for the letter W. Her grabbing one hand with the other, and pumping it back and forth as she signs "baby."

I loved her made-up songs. My favorite was her singing in the car about a month before her third birthday: "I love my car, I love my bed. I love my house. 'Cause, I love my house. I love my car. I love my bed. I love my bed. I love my ..."

She's grown up so much now. A big sprout, her clothes are a bit too short on her, and yet some of her skirts are still too big around to stay up on her waist. She has displayed the ability to play peacefully with her little sister without fighting (when she feels like it). She even shows a nurturing side when she feels like it, running to the bathroom to help Abi with the toilet paper or washing her hands, helping unbuckle her from her car seat when we arrive at our destination.

Happy birthday, my first baby. I love you. May God bless you and grow you to become a lovely woman, one who takes care of the people around her, one who is well-loved and well-liked, one who fears the Lord.

What we had for lunch today

2009-01-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

i've been reading this blog about lunchpacking, and i've been very inspired by it. not so inspired that i make hot lunches for my family from scratch every morning, but inspired enough that i don't just slap together two slices of bread with mayo and call it lunch. not that there's anything wrong with that, but let's just say that after seeing this blog, i wouldn't let my mother-in-law ever think that that's what i feed her son or her grandchildren on a regular basis. speaking of her, she asked me a few months ago what i make for my husband's lunch, and although i was able to describe what i pack for him, i was a little disappointed that she didn't get to see with her own eyes. so here are a few pictures, just so i can brag that lunch isn't just a two-slice-of-bread affair, but is a complete meal with protein (turkey), veggies (cucumber slices in sandwich!), grains (bread), dairy (yogurt, string cheese), and fruit (oranges).

the cat's out of the bag now

2009-01-10T00:58:00.000-08:00

i guess i'm gonna have to start censoring what i say now since i told my husband today that i have a blog. *laugh*

just kidding.

in other news, life is almost back to its regularly scheduled programming now. the in-laws are gone today after a two-week visit (one week in southern california, another week here), gymnastics and preschool has started back up, and my husband's normal workweek will resume this coming monday. i've enjoyed not having to rush the kids out of the house every morning for two weeks, but i'm glad to have the familiar mundane day-to-day life back. even if it means i gotta rush the kids out of the house every morning again.

one thing i will miss, however, is the great variety of home-cooked food that i myself don't have to prepare from start-to-finish. couple that with our post-holiday budget, and we're probably gonna be eating cabbage and beans every night for the next couple of months. well, we *should*, anyway.

we spent Christmas day in the car

2009-01-04T23:59:00.000-08:00

on Christmas eve my in-laws flew in from overseas. the next day we all (me, my husband, the two kids, and the ILs) drove down to southern california. when we left at 11am, it was raining at home. by the time we got onto i-5 the rain stopped, but it was so windy the car was pushed side to side for hours, it seemed. we even saw tumbleweeds racing across the freeway, some even exploding upon collision with cars.

after a few hours, we even happened upon a dust storm. it was so dense that we encountered stop-and-go traffic, where the dust was so dense that visibility was probably no more than 50 feet. then just as fast as we had to stop and crawl along, the fog, er, dust, blew away and we were able to resume our normal driving speed.

we finally encountered grapevine and the los angeles mountains, and rain. off in the distance i could see saw snow-capped peaks. as we ascended, i began to see snow along the side of the road. and as we kept going on, i noticed that the rain wasn't splattering onto the windshield anymore -- it was just blowing off to the side. that's when i realized this isn't rain, this is snow!

we finally arrived in southern california and were thankful to be in one piece. i think the hardest part was the many potty breaks we had to take for the kids. what should've been a five-hour drive ended up a seven-hour drive. but whoa, what an experience. i never thought that in one single day i'd drive through rain, then wind, then tumbleweeds, then dust storm, then snow. especially in california. driving to warm-weathered southern california.

Obligatory New Year's Resolution

2009-01-04T00:21:00.000-08:00

last year i joined jazzercise in an attempt to "become healthier." after 10 months, though, the only thing that feels lighter is my wallet. i've gone as often as i can, but because of schedule constraints, it comes out to only a maximum of three times a week (monday night, friday morning, and saturday morning). between my husband's work schedule (i want him to be home on time from work for us to eat dinner together before i can skip off to class), having-fun plans (day trips, weekend trips, and staying up later than i really should thereby making me too tired to wake up for class), and my own personal problem with inertia, many times it is reduced to just once or twice a week.

well, we got a mailer from costco recently that advertised 2 years for $289 at a gym in our area, so we decided to go for it. we figure 7 months of jazzercise will pay for 2 years at the gym, so we splurged and got two memberships -- one for me, one for him. he wants to go at least 4 times a week (i'm sure if he had his way we'd go daily, and he'll go again in the middle of the night). we'll see. i think it's a better way to go than jazzercise though.

it's cheaper.
it's more flexible, schedule-wise.
they've got childcare -- $4 for two kids.
i can shower and change there when i'm done instead of driving home in my sweat.
it's a whole-family affair -- instead of going alone, we all go together, although i can still shower in peace while the kids are in childcare!!

i already kinda' miss going to jazzercise class, though. the ladies there are nice, and despite my reluctance to sweat, i never regretted showing up to class once i finally got my butt out of the house and into the car.

so here it is: my new year's resolution is to work out at least twice a week. hopefully i'll work out more often, maybe three or even four times a week. (who knows, maybe i'll even enjoy sweating. ick.) i figure if i say it out loud and share it with you, i'll be too embarrassed to go back on my word. riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

the ride begins

2009-01-02T15:30:00.000-08:00

so here goes. i've got a few friends who have blogs, so i figure why not have one of my own. the new year seems a good time to begin one. let's see if this lasts longer than any typical new year's resolution though. *laugh* and who knows what i'll be writing about anyway. probably just random musings, family stuff, that kind of thing. hopefully i'll be able to get things off my chest and be interesting enough to read without revealing too much about my family and where i live and stuff like that. you know, the whole privacy thing. tune in and we'll see what happens.

the past week and a half have been busy with preparing for my ILs visit, a drive down to southern california and a disneyland visit, Christmas, new year's, and tons of cooking. i made my second turkey of the season (once for thanksgiving, another for new year's -- that's right, a new year's turkey!) and i'm feeling pretty good about this "turkey dinner" thing. bring on the bird, bring on the appetites, i'm ready!