Depth of Impact

Introvert. That's what I am. I have a hard time with crowds, with new places, with being outgoing, striking up conversations, unless I get my adequate "alone" time where I can recharge my batteries on my own…

When we moved here three years ago, it was a struggle everyday trying to figure out how to get my introverted self to find a sense of belonging, to get to know new people and let them get to know me. It was easier for me to stay home and hideout.

Then about ten months after the move, I was invited to a bible study where I met a few ladies. One of them stood out to me because her extrovertedness was just so mind-boggling to me. I felt like I met her and had instantly become her friend. At first I wondered how that could be, how a complete stranger could become a new friend in an instant, but I soon learned that was just one of the many gifts my friend possessed.

I've always said that I'm not good at keeping in touch with people, but I learned it can be easy if I just pop a note into someone's inbox when I think of them. I truly believe that whenever my friend thought about someone, she would send them a text or message letting them know so. She had such good timing, too. It seemed whenever I was a bit down, her messages would pop into my inbox with the cheerful start, "I was thinking of you today, friend."

I met quite a few people because of her, too. She would ask me, "Have you met my friend so-and-so yet? I think you two should meet." Or "I know someone whose child goes to the same school as yours…It would be great if you two became friends!" I eventually did meet those people and become friends with them…

So I give my friend a lot of credit for helping me with a rough transition and breaking through that barrier moving from living someplace that felt foreign to one that I'd now call home.

As I met others who knew her, they all mentioned how much they adored her and how grateful they were to have a friend like her. It truly is a testament to how you live your life when there are just so many people telling you just how wonderful that someone is.

I admired her way of life and how she lived it, how she loved Jesus, how she loved others and how she wasn't afraid to show it.

But it can be said that when a person has such a deep impact on others, such a wide reach into the hearts of many, that it leaves that much of a deeper hole when they are gone.

Such is true for my friend…when I heard that she had passed away two days before Christmas, I just started crying the moment I heard. I thought, "how silly…it's not like I've known her all that long or as well as others that I know." But that's the thing…it's not always about the time spent, but the depth of the impact that they had on you, because it also means that the emptiness you feel when they're gone is that much deeper, too.

She had such a big heart. A big heart who impacted many around her. A big heart who wasn't afraid to show love and care for everyone around her young and old.

Her last message to me simply said, "Thank you. Love you."

And then she was gone…

Depth of impact. The deeper the impact, the greater the emptiness...

The Periodic Table of Huh?

Kids have obsessions. Or perhaps I should say that my kids have obsessions. Even more specifically…my son has obsessions…random obsessions…with things that kids don't normally obsess about.

Chipmunk's latest: The Periodic Table of Elements.

Okay, so now at this point you're probably thinking about how I used to teach science and naturally it's something that I would bring up with my kids…

But really…it's not me.

Yet, every week on Wednesday, Chipmunk comes home from school with 2 new library books, one of them is always on an element. First there was Hydrogen, then Helium and Sulfur. Then came Sodium, followed by Phosphorus, Calcium and Chlorine. Currently, we're reading about the Noble gases.

Each week I'm bombarded with questions:

So if baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, what is a bicarbonate?

If sodium explodes when it gets put in water how come salt doesn't do the same?

Why are some elements radioactive?

How come our bodies are not made with every single kind of element on the periodic table?

Then he proceeds to "quiz" us on how well we know our Element symbols…usually as we're eating dinner. He even "quizzed" our extended family during a brunch a few weeks ago.

Have you ever tried to explain to a six-year-old about why Gold is Au and not G? Yup. I had to brush up on my Latin for that one. Or why some elements decay at a faster rate than others without going into details about electron stability?

So before our conversations were all about Pokemon, now it's all about the Periodic Table of Elements. I'm almost afraid to find out what his next obsession is going to be, because one of these days I'm not going to be able to answer his questions.

Applesauce kind of a day

My daughter's shirt was covered in applesauce bits. After I told her to quickly change her shirt before school, I thought to myself, "It's going to be one of those kinds of days."

After dropping the kids off at school, I was scrubbing applesauce off the floor thinking to myself, "It's just one of those kinds of days."

While I was wiping applesauce off the cabinets and walls I thought, "Coffee is good for days like this."

As I was shampooing applesauce out of the carpet I sighed to myself, "Oh boy, what a day."

I looked up at the clock. It was 9:30 am. It hadn't been much of a day yet, but I was already beat. I had been defeated by a little pouch of applesauce. Granted, the applesauce had been whimsically jumped on by a 45-pound six-year-old, and managed to explode from the carpet and across 15 feet of the kitchen, all while rushing out the door to get to school.

Applesauce. Sigh.

Just one of those days.

Dragonflies and...

Chipmunk: Mommy! There's a dragonfly! Take a picture.

Me: Um, okay. I'll try.



Chipmunk: Oh! There's another one! Take a picture! Take a picture!



Chipmunk: And that one, too!

Me: (Sighs) Honey, we're here to watch soccer, NOT the dragonflies.

Chipmunk: Okay, okay.

Yup, it's that time of year again...



…a little bit of watching dragonflies, and a little bit of watching soccer.

Summer? What summer?

My last post was about Chipmunk's kindergarten graduation. Today I'm posting about the first day of school. I laugh to myself at the lack of posting all summer long. Let's just imagine that we had this wild summer with all kinds of crazy antics and chock full of activities that there just was not even a moment to put up a new post…

Not the case…but we can still imagine, right?

Anyway, back to the first day of school. I cannot tell you how many happy parents there were at coffee hour this morning after drop-off. There's something about dropping all your kids off that makes your insides squeal a bit. Well, maybe not for the newbies…you know, those dropping their kindergartners off for the first time with a sad look in their eye. The rest of us ran out of there as fast as our middle aged legs could take us.

Also, I kind of envy those parents who prepare ahead of time for those cute and posed first day of school pictures. You know, the ones where the child is holding a sign that says what grade they're going into and what they want to be when they grow up. They make for such nice memories and go great in scrapbooks.

This is what I get for first day of school pictures:



Lovely.

So long, Kindergarten!

Stage fright. It comes in many forms. Apparently for Chipmunk it expresses itself as "anger."



Chipmunk was a bit upset over having to perform in front of parents with his classmates. Just a bit. Can you tell?

As long as the performance was going, Chipmunk had this glower going. Once the performance was over, however, the glower melted away and a smile lit his face.



Congrats, buddy!

Meal Planning Misery

In college, I had a monthly budget. I used it to pay rent, pay utilities, buy food and anything else I chose to pay for that month. I thought I was pretty good at keeping within my budget, especially when it came to buying food. I cooked and bought food that was at lower cost and I managed to have enough for going out on weekends with friends.

So I've been driving myself nuts as I've been meal planning and writing up grocery lists each week trying to figure out how to keep the costs down…

It dawned upon me that when I was in college, I didn't worry too much about my health…so dinners of cereal? Definitely. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all the time? Yup, did that. Skip a meal in order to study? Yup, did that, too. Buy 10 packets of ramen for a $1? Isn't that a staple of young adulthood?

Enter kids. Enter the mom complex. It's the battle between the mom-that-I-think-I'm-supposed-to-be and the-mom-that-I-am-in-order-to-make-it-to-the-next-day.

I would love to be the all-organic mom who bakes cookies for the kids upon their return from school, or whose house is uncluttered and free of dust, but in reality anything I bake becomes charcoal and I'm staring at the piles of stuff on the floor hoping they'll "poof" themselves into their proper places.

So my meal planning misery is thus: I write down my plans every week into my online calendar, I make the lists for grocery shopping onto my online lists, but how often do I really follow it? How often have I just given up and called Matt and asked, "Could you pick something up on the way home?"

Today I planned to make ribs. I didn't have to run to the store to buy anything because the meat is in my freezer. The problem being...the meat is in my freezer. It's still in my freezer. It's hard as a rock.

This is my problem with meal planning…I can't plan for things like defrosting meat. Or side dishes. I just realized that we can't just eat ribs, can we? Does this mean I need to put a salad together? I don't have anything for a salad. Plus, the kids have to be somewhere at 6:30 pm, so I don't have time for this! What's the point of having a meal plan if I have to plan to defrost, make side dishes, have stuff for side dishes, and fit it all in before leaving for something else?

Okay. Meal planning rant over. Mac n' cheese it is. Thank God for mac n' cheese.

Three Hours

…or how I spent my afternoon with my kindergartner.

Three hours. Three hours of listening to my son's ramblings about Pokemon. Three hours of me, trying to show my interest, nodding, and working hard to timely place those "uh-huh"s into the conversation. Three hours of being asked about my opinions on the effectiveness of each Pokemon and how they would do in battle with other Pokemon. Three hours of being asked quiz questions that were made up on the fly asking obscure facts about Pokemon. Three hours of musings and thoughts about how Pokemon do their business (bathroom business) while stuck in a Poke-ball. Three hours attempting to feed my kindergartner lunch and getting him to finish his homework amidst conversations analyzing the pros and cons of Pokemon trainers or guessing where each Pokemon resides.

I'm a bit Poke'd out.

Things I haven't written about...

It's been rather quiet here on the blog front. Mostly because writing posts require my actual thought and attention, and as I don't like writing things just to fill space, many bloggable moments get passed over. So for those four of you who still like to read up what's going on with us, here's a few things that I haven't written about…



Our kids are part nerd (guess from which part!), so since the Star Wars exhibit was going on, we visited the Tech Museum in San Jose.

Chipmunk has a fascination with learning how to build things with movable parts, so he was overjoyed at the chance to program robots.





All in all, a neat and highly interactive museum.

I went on a women's retreat with our church and was refreshed at the sight of beautiful sights like these:





Of course, I was happy to come home to this:



There was a dance that Bear got to attend with her dad. It was a "Masquerade Ball," hence the mask.



Chipmunk spent his night bowling instead.



There was a "Retro" themed night for MOPs. Yes, I crimped my hair. No, there aren't any pictures. There was however, a disco ball and a mashed potato bar. Yum.



And last but not least, the Awana Grand Prix.





Hopefully this catches you up…at least until March. The rest will just have to come later.

Saving the whales

Conversation between Chipmunk and his uncle, my younger brother.

Pointing to a Lego shaped like a fish…

"What's that?"

"Oh, it's a fish," responded Chipmunk.

"What kind of fish is it?"

"Dolphin friendly tuna," Chipmunk said without a pause.

Yup. That's my son, saving the whales, one Lego at a time.

Mommy, tell me another story...

Mommy, tell me another story. Will you tell me another story about when I was little?

What kind of a story do you want to hear?

Tell me a funny story, Mommy.

Okay. Did I ever tell you about the time you were obsessed with monsters? You loved talking about monsters so much that at a restaurant you called our server a monster.

Tell me another story, Mommy.

Did I ever tell you about the time when we went to see the doctor and while we were waiting in the waiting room, you and your sister baked an imaginary cake and then fought over who got to cut the cake with the invisible knife?

Tell me a story about my sister, Mommy.

Did I ever you tell about how your sister got scared because her hands and feet got all pruney in the bathtub and she thought it wouldn't go away?

That is funny. How about a story about me and my sister, Mommy?

Well, there's the time you were two and your sister was four, and I would sit outside your door and listen to you tell each other goodnight. Even at the age of two you would get your sister giggling over something.

I really like these stories, Mommy. They make me happy listening to them.

Well, I love telling them to you. Also, thank you for giving me so many stories to tell.

My daughter's palate

Oysters + Mignonette = Bear's most recent taste adventure.

Bear's response? She loved it. She also loves mussels, clams, scallops, shrimp, caviar, sea urchin, crab, lobster, various kinds of mushrooms, umeboshi, sashimi, kimchi, brie, other forms of interesting cheeses, artichokes, asparagus, Greek dolmas, sauerkraut, various pickles, all olives including the more bitter ones...

This is not a normal 8-year-old palate, right?

Bathroom Reading

Chipmunk likes to read. As long as it has words, he will read it: books, instruction manuals, lego catalogues, mailing brochures, etc. He also likes to read in the bathroom. We've had some issues because of it.

The other day I caught him carrying a box of cereal out of the bathroom.

Me: Why are you carrying a box of cereal out of the bathroom!

Chipmunk: I wasn't done reading it and I had to go to the bathroom.

Me: But it's cereal!

Chipmunk: So?

Me: You're bringing food into the bathroom? The bathroom!

Chipmunk: Yeah. I wanted to finish reading the box…

Me: (shaking head and making a mental note to never eat from that box of cereal)

Holiday wishes

Every Monday morning I help out with library time for my daughter's class…more specifically I monitor the computer lab time and help 25 second graders with their touch-typing skills.

I try to arrive a bit earlier, before the allotted time, in order to set things up, if necessary. Today, the third grade class was still enjoying their time with the librarian. She posed a question to them: "What is your holiday wish?" The 9 year olds eagerly raised their hands and they answered one by one while I stood back and listened. There were toys mentioned, and a couple of kids passed on answering, but some answers floored me.

"An iPad mini!"

"A Microsoft Surface!"

"I want another phone!"

At this point the librarian stopped and asked, "Another phone?"

The little girl responded, "Yup, I only have two phones."

"Two phones?!? Why do you need a third phone?"

"I just want one," said the nine year old.

"Why? Do you want an iPhone 5 or something?"

"No, I already have an iPhone 5."

"Gosh, I don't even have an iPhone 4...Whatever happened for wishing for world peace?" the librarian wondered aloud.

"Why would we wish for that when we already have world peace," a boy from the other side of the class said confidently.

I think all of us parents in the room were trying to listen with understanding, but it was so hard to hear. It was almost painful realizing how our kids are growing up with such different values and desires…many of them requiring lightning pin chargers.

So I asked Chipmunk this afternoon about his Christmas wish.

"I want a happy Christmas."

And then I posed a what-if:

"What if you didn't get any Christmas presents this year?" I asked

"It's fine as long as it's a happy Christmas."

"Is that right? (sniff…sniff)I love you, baby boy. You've restored my faith in the future of humanity."

"I love you, too, momma."

Innocence

I love the fact that my kids are kids. They are naive about many things, and I hope it will remain that way as long as we can help it. There's so much to fear and so many things to protect our kids from nowadays that many times our kids lose their innocence much faster than they should.

This week was Red Ribbon Week at school. So all the teachers were doing their best to encourage the kids to be "drug-free" and such. With all the craziness of Halloween in the same week, I was wondering if Bear and Chipmunk actually retained anything. So at dinner tonight I asked Bear.

Me: So it was Red Ribbon Week this week, right?

Bear: Yes.

Me: What did you learn about during Red Ribbon Week?

Bear: Uh, my teacher just talked to us about how we're not supposed to put bad things like grubs in our body.

Me: Grubs?

Bear: Yeah, grubs. You know, like how smoking is a grub and not good for our body.

Me: (trying hard not to laugh) It's "drugs," not "grubs."

Bear: Oh. Then what's a grub?

Innocence. Gotta love it.

Halloween Blur

Usually, I have costumes done about a week before Halloween. This year I started about four days before Halloween.

I blame the strep throat. That put me out for about a week.

Somehow, I managed. I may have not gotten as much sleep as I would have liked, but Pikachu, Ash and Snow White managed to go trick-or-treating together.



Some other highlights from the past 7 days:

We went to a Halloween event at our church…they had a life size Candyland game as well as other fun games...



The kids had their walk-a-thon for school. They each walked about 40 laps.



We visited a pumpkin farm where they had a play area full of corn kernels.



Chipmunk went on a field trip with his class to a different pumpkin farm. I must say, herding around 3 classes of kindergarteners is tough.



The kids had a parade at school…



Lots of October fun...

Chlorophyll and Echinoderms

One day when I was in high school, I was walking with a friend to class when I asked if he was ready for the test we were about to take. "Test? What test?!" he said and then frantically spent the two minutes before the test scanning the headings in the chapter. After the test was over, my friend put his head down on the desk and then fell asleep. Our teacher walked by and hit the desk to wake him, all the while shaking his head and talking about students who don't "feel the need" to participate and how it would reflect in their grades.

The next day in class our teacher handed back our tests from highest to lowest scores making sure to point out which students managed to pull a 100%. He called the name of my friend first and did a double-take when he realized that the perfect paper belonged to the kid who he had already decided was "slacker" material.

Chipmunk reminds me a lot of this friend in the fact that he understands a lot more than he lets on. I realized this when he brought up a conversation with me over lunch.

Chipmunk: Mommy, did you know that plants suck in water through their roots and mix with sunlight to make chlorophyll?
Me: You're learning about chlorophyll, are you?
Chipmunk: Yeah. Plants make chlorophyll in their leaves.
Me: Yup. That's right.

Also, lately he's been playing with some old Koosh balls (remember those?) and dragging them around the house calling them his pet "sea urchins."

Me: Pet sea urchins?
Chipmunk: Yes, they're my pet sea urchins.
Me: So, no dogs, cats, or hamsters for you?
Chipmunk: Nope. I like sea urchins.
Me: What is it that you like so much about them?
Chipmunk: They have tube feet and lots of spines.

Sometimes he has literary conversations with his sister. This was their conversation the other day:

Chipmunk: Do you know what a "text-to-text connection" is?
Bear: Yeah. It has to do with when you're reading one book and you see how it says similar things in another book.
Chipmunk: Oh! I was wondering what that was. Like if you read something in a fiction book and you see it also in a non-fiction book?
Bear: Uh, I guess so.

Or our conversations in the car on the way back from a late night at church…

Chipmunk: I wish I had a bed in the car.
Matt: You do. It's called your car seat.
Chipmunk: No, like a real bed that you can activate when you're tired.
Me: (whispering to Matt) Did your son just say "activate?" Where did he pick up that word?
Matt: (shrugs shoulders)

There is just so much going on in his brain. I can't keep up.

[fill in the blank] Mom

"Are you an 'attachment parenting' mom or a 'cry-it-out method' mom?"

It seems that there is always some label associated with being a mom.

"Are you a 'stay-at-home' mom or are you a 'working' mom?"

"Look at you, 'soccer' mom!"

Even a radio station where I used to live had a segment where they would speak to a "mad-mom-in-a-minivan."

I hated all the labels. It made me feel so stuck as a mom, that everyone knew what type of person I was because I carried my baby all the time or because I made my baby cry themselves to sleep. As a SAHM (stay-at-home mom, for those of you who don't know), I felt confined to fit a certain role, some sort of "ideal" mom role that I often stressed myself out over when I found I just couldn't manage it all. Some moms seem to have it all together, but me I was crying over the fact that I could barely brush my teeth in the morning.

So I changed my perspective and decided that I needed to forget the labels and just become a "survival" mom. This meant that my parenting books would have to be taken with a grain of salt, advice from others should be considered a suggestion not something I had to follow lest be looked down upon, and overall I just needed to do and decide what was a priority and let the rest go.

I also decided that the labels needed to go, but I tell you I'm still learning how to do that.

A couple weeks ago at a soccer game I was watching another mom yelling at her five-year-old on the field.

"You can do better than that!"

"Just kick it in the goal! Kick it in the goal!"

"Where are you going? The ball is over here!"

I turned to my friend next to me and whispered, "If I ever become THAT mom who yells at my kids' games, please kick me in the shins."

Later as I thought about it, I realized I shouldn't have said that. I had just labelled another mom using the most ambiguous yet negatively-connoted "THAT" mom. Even if I wasn't necessarily speaking about the mom that I saw at the field, but rather moms in general who I thought were too hard on their kids at the soccer field, I still shouldn't have said that.

Because who gives me the right to judge moms without knowing anything about them or their kids? Nobody. Instead I proved to myself that I was THAT mom...you know, the judgmental one who wishes she could take the time machine back and do a retake? Instead I'll just have to settle for being THIS mom...the one who takes her thoughtless words and hopefully learns not to make that mistake again.

Yup. HUMBLED Mom. That I am.

Tiger Sister

There was so much debate and chatter about Tiger Moms for a while there. Even in everyday conversations with friends the occasional, "I sound like such a Tiger Mom," would come up now and then. It was to the point where it became a verb:

"Wow, he's reading already? Did you 'Tiger Mom' him?"

Full disclosure time: Yes, Chipmunk is reading. Yes, he is reading beyond his grade level. No, I did not "Tiger mom" him. In fact, it was his sister who taught him how to read. It was his sister who pushed him to read more. There were occasions when I caught his sister using flashcards on him (when he was 3 years old and she was 5) in order to teach him how to read sight words.

Even now, during homework time I don't have to keep Chipmunk on track. Bear does it all. Some things I've heard:

"Did you finish your homework? Would you like me to check it for you?"

"You're not writing straight enough. Erase it and do it again."

"Wow, you're really getting better. Good job!"

She's either going to grow up to be a teacher or a Tiger mom. For my future grandkids' sake I hope it's the former.

Thank God for the Trees

Before our prayers one night I asked the kids what they were thankful for. Bear was thankful for family, friends and for her hard-working dad. Chipmunk on the other hand...

Me: What are you thankful for?

Chipmunk: I'm thankful for deciduous trees that go dormant.

Matt & Me: (blink, blink)

Bear: What did he just say?

Sometimes, you just never know what is going to come out of that kid's mouth. As a side note, he did in fact learn about how apple trees are deciduous in kindergarten that morning, so I'm thankful that he has a great teacher.