Indulging In A Little Navel-Gazing

This was probably the first year Eli truly appreciated his birthday. It may have had something to do with the chocolate cupcakes he got to eat with his Sunday school class, and also the chocolate cupcake in the car on the way to dinner, as well as the chocolate birthday dessert at PF Chang's. Maybe. Our Eli is becoming a big boy in his book and even though he's been four years old for barely two weeks, he now begins sentences with, "When I was just three years old..." 

He still maintains some of his trademark qualities, like his love for blanket & monkey, his preference for mommy, and his hoarding tendencies to name a few. These days I let the boys keep some of their toys in a corner of the family room behind our couch. They have fun together in their little man cave but I gotta tell ya, it takes everything in me not to clean that space up each night. It is a mess. Yet Eli insists it is a purposeful and organized mess. If you were to enter that corner right now, a towering mound of teeny tiny lego pieces, old school art, and hotwheel cars would bury you alive, and instead of checking to see if you're still breathing Eli would cry, "You're messing up my stuff!" But as with each of my kids, I'm sad he's growing up and I treasure the moments I see his childlike innocence. The morning after his birthday, he ran into my bedroom wide-eyed to tell me, "Mommy! For my birthday, Halmonee (grandma) bought me a DOLLAR!" And I love when he still pronounces a word with one letter off-- like when he's freezing and says, "Grrrrrr...."

And Wednesday was Jude's 6th birthday. We went to Las Vegas last weekend to spend some quality time as a family and as usual Jude did NOT want to come home. As shy as he is, the boy is a Party. Animal. He may not want to be the center of attention, but he loves to have a good time. I can't think of a time he grumbled because we kept him out too late. I think he only gets grumpy when he's hungry, a characteristic his father says was inherited from me. Hopefully, Jude also inherited my excellent ability to disregard wildly erroneous accusations.

There are times I know Jude doesn't like being the oldest child, like when the boys go outside to play with the older neighborhood kids and I tell him to take care of Eli and keep him close. But I'm thankful he is my oldest, because there is a thoughtfulness I see in him that I don't really see in Eli. It isn't displayed often or even very noticeably but it's there. Last weekend before heading to Vegas, Kwang and the boys took the car in for an oil change and he brought along their Nintendo DSes to keep them from getting bored. There are few things more thrilling to them than playing their DS, probably because I don't let them most of the times they ask. When they got to the car shop, Kwang first gave Jude his DS and then pretended like he forgot to bring Eli's (don't ask me why my husband gets a kick out of doing things like this). Eli fell for it and when Jude saw how sad Eli was about to become, he quietly closed his DS, handed it to Kwang and said, "I'll just play it later at home with Eli."

Making his requested birthday cupcakes together at home:

The other week a coworker of mine suggested there is no good reason to have more than one child. And if I dwell on the fact that I've had to change poopie diapers everyday for over half a decade or the good times I have each night flossing and brushing three extra sets of teeth, I might almost agree. But as difficult as it is for me now, my hope is that my kids will be grateful to have each other like I am to have my sisters, that they will develop relationships so strong it won't matter if they have nothing but their parents in common. There's something different and special about siblings. Someone once said siblings are lifelines, people who were there to see everything that made us who we are. They are ones we would sacrifice anything for even though our relationships aren't perfect. The possibility of that kind of friendship among my kids is something I hold onto.

Eh, at the very least they will have someone else in the world who will fully understand just how crazy their mom is.

That Super Cool Exploradora

After a week of all three kids being hit with hand-foot-mouth disease and a whole lot of television being used as a diversion to get my kids to eat something other than ice cubes without crying, our Audrey has emerged a Couch Potato Extraordinaire. She now wants to watch TV all day everyday-- "Dora!" or "Little Einsteins!" or "Mickey Mouse Cwubhouse!" Have you seen an episode of Dora the Explorer? The animated children's show starring the latino gal with the abnormally large head who for some reason can't speak in a normal tone and has to scream everything at the top of her lungs? Pretty much the opposite of pleasant, let me tell ya. But Audrey loves Dora. So Kwang, eager to potty train our last child, asked Audrey the other day if she wants to wear underwear like her brothers. She only became interested when he said he would get her "Dorrrrra underwear." With a lovely pink Dora print. That would have Dora on it. With Dora.

I think my husband might've forgotten about my degenerate parenting style. That I wait until my kids are about to turn the ripe age of three before I even consider potty training. On the bright side, my procrastination has always resulted in an easy one-weekend effort to train each of my boys. And I had planned to do the same with Audrey. Only Kwang believes we can diligently train her now. But he also thinks the Lakers are a team to be fanatical about. Both are forgivable but indicative of soft spots in the brain.

And from our inquisitive one...
Eli: "Did God make us?"
Me: "Yes."
Eli: "How did God make us?"
Me: "What do you mean, Eli?"
Eli: " Where did God get the parts for us?"

And lastly, Happy 42nd Anniversary to my Dad & Mom! 

 

March Madness

Our little Audrey turned two years old this month! Sadly, my baby is not such a baby anymore. In fact, she sometimes refers to me as "Lisa". How do I stop time? She is so adorable to me at this age that when she does something cute, I can't stop squeezing her or nibbling her chubby cheeks. Sometimes I end up swallowing her whole and when Kwang comes home from work and asks, "Where's Audrey?" I have to confess, "I ate her."

But she has caught onto our weakness and whether it's for a sweet treat or a few extra waking minutes before bedtime, she knows she can use her cuteness very cleverly... as leverage. So by all indications we are slowly raising a hostage negotiator.

I met with Jude's kindergarten teacher for a parent-teacher conference last week and discovered that our Jude is a pretty bright kid. During testing week he was the only one in his class who answered all math questions correctly. If it weren't for his obnoxious ears, I'd question if he was really my son. I was a pretty mediocre student and am now a pretty mediocre mom. So you might say I have spent years perfecting my mediocrity. I now accept it and embrace it and snuggle with it under the covers. There were things I excelled in, but as my luck would have it I received awards for things like best handwriting, spelling, or most useful of all, poetry and creative writing. If you hadn't noticed, these are things that come in really handy now that I work in I.T. where I spend hours on the computer typing... with auto-spell checker... and nothing remotely related to poetry. All this to say, I attribute Jude's performance more to the unimpressive API of his school than anything else. In any event, I am thankful Jude is doing well academically.

There has been, however, one unfortunate situation that has occurred in the cold cruel world of kindergarten. While he is well liked in his class, there was a child on the kindergarten playground who for some reason wouldn't allow Jude to shoot the basketball around at recess. This kid Armando (a name to be uttered with a slightly disapproving tone) also told all the other boys that only he could decide who plays. Having been taught to respectfully ask others if he can play with them, Jude would ask Armando every day if he could shoot around with them only to be denied. Every. Single. Day. So my boy who loves playing ball was left to find other kids playing something else, all because of one unkind person. The sad thing is, Jude shared this with me only after I had asked him how he likes recess and he told this to me very matter of factly, as if it was simply a way of life. But being his mother, my heart broke thinking of him watching from the sidelines. Fortunately, Armando has since apologized and now plays ball together with Jude.

Although he may not be intimidating off the court, Jude will hopefully grow into a force to be reckoned with on. Not too bad for a 5 year old:

I don't think my Spanky will encounter these troubles on the playground, because c'mon... who can deny this face?

Yes, Eli. Yes, we do.

Toot Toot

It's been about three months since I last posted and while you might think there's been a whole lot of growing up going on in our home, let me remind you we are a family that does not impress. That is, unless your definition of impressive is passing gas on command. Because if so, we have a winner! I came home a few weeks ago to find that my mother-in-law and Audrey spent the day perfecting a stupid human trick. When asking, "How does Grandma fart?" I kid you not this is what Audrey will do:

Really, I don't ask for much. Feed them. Keep them alive. You can even teach my kid to fart at will, but can you at least teach one of my sons instead of my only daughter? We did get a good laugh out of it and we still think our Audrey is cute as a button. She is at the same time the most entertaining and scariest of our kids at this age. I don't remember the boys being this goofy. But when her brothers steal her toys to annoy her, watch out. It's gotten a bit worse in the last few months, because while her screams of frustration used to be pretty shrilltastic, these days she is so not kidding about the shrillness.

Last week, Kwang had to go out of the country on business. Fortunately, it was a good excuse to have my mom visit from Chicago which made for a wonderfully pleasant week. But the night Kwang was in the air on his 20+ hour plane ride back home, I got a phone call that woke me up at 1:40am. So of course, a phone call at ridiculous o'clock only meant one of two logical things to me: 1) my husband's plane crashed and he died or 2) MY HUSBAND'S PLANE CRASHED AND HE DIED. To my relief, it was American Airlines calling to tell me my mom's upcoming flight was canceled. But boy was that ever cruel timing!
Kwang brought a few things back for the kids and among them was this $3 shirt for Eli, because Eli loves school about as much as I love automated phone calls in the middle of the night:

I think my mom's visit last week left her traumatized by the daily schedule I have to maintain. It's no wonder I have been feeling a tremendous amount of guilt lately for not being able to put Jude in after-school activities like basketball or soccer. Unless I can find a way to clone myself, I'm going to have to figure something out soon before the only skill my kids will have mastered by high school is the hula hoop. Or farting on command.