Karen the Grinchoween

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

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

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

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.

Where did this summer go???

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*

Hopefully the end of a half-year hiatus

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.

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

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.

July

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

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.

Raising bilingual children

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.

A funny story about a boy at preschool

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.

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

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

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.

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

Happy Earth Day.

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

Do you have smelly foods from your childhood?

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.

when it rains it pours

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.

can't sing its praises enough

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.

one thing that i am passionate about

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!

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?!

What we had for lunch today

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).