Eternal Company

 

I went to visit my aunt this summer. I've met her three times in my life. The first was when I went to Taiwan as a toddler. The second was when she came to visit us in Texas at our old house before we moved. I remember it being after my mom had just been diagnosed with cancer. My aunt had been diagnosed with an illness herself about a decade before. I remember loving the week my aunt came to visit us. She could speak English so we felt very comfortable talking to her. We moved the following summer and then my aunt came again to visit, this time, with my grandparents. That was the third and last time I saw her in person. 

My aunt always made it a point to show she cared about us. She sent us Christmas cards from overseas. She gave us small gifts and trinkets. I still have a key chain she made for me. She had drawn a design and written my name on the other side. 

 

My aunt died four years after my mother died. My dad didn't fly back when she passed. To give him the benefit of the doubt, I think he was torn. He was still working, and he had two children he was taking care of. On the contrary, he could have flown back if he really wanted to. I was a junior in high school who had a car and was driving myself. My brother was in college. He was already living on his own and I could have made it myself for a week or two if I had to - my dad could have left me some money for food and I would have been fine. But that's not what he chose to do.

(My dad has not been to visit his sister since she died. This, I can no longer give him the benefit of the doubt because it's been 18 years and he has been back overseas numerous times. I'm sure he has a set of "logic" which he makes his decisions by, but this is "logic" I will never agree with. )

When I told my dad I was pregnant with my daughter, I had told him my due date. The first thing he told me was, "That's your aunt's birthday." Mentally, I made a note how cool it was if she could be born on the same day as my aunt. (She didn't end up being born on her due date, but later, I'd find out for myself that my dad was wrong.) 

When we went back to Taiwan this year, we spent most of the time with my family. It wasn't a tourism visit. I knew we were going to be spending a lot of time with my family and doing "simple" adventures together. We visited a lot of parks. We walked various neighborhoods in the area and joked about buying houses to live as expats and raising our children overseas. We ate a lot of home-cooked food and shopped downstairs at the closest grocery store. 

One thing I almost forgot to do was to visit my aunt. My grandparents were more on the forefront of my mind because my grandma had just passed this year. But then, I remembered my aunt. Her resting place is in the same city as where my family lives. My uncle was able to drive us to go see my aunt. 

My aunt's birthday is February 20th.

 

When I saw her marker, the first thing I noticed was the Bible verse. It's written in Chinese, and it may be the only verse I can recognize and read in Chinese. It is the same verse that we picked for my mother. 

 

If you can read the characters, you'll see they match the ones on her marker. It's the last verse of Psalm 23.  I really couldn't believe two different people in my family, laid to rest in two different countries, unbeknownst to each other, share the same verse for their legacy. 

Happy Birthday, Mommy. I hope you're enjoying each other's company. 

Sticky Rice Dumplings（粽子）

I have a vague memory of watching an old family video of my grandparents at their third to last house. We're in their kitchen and they're wrapping sticky rice dumplings. I'm probably no more than 2-3 years old. I've always loved these, but they're not an everyday food because of how labor-intensive they are to make. When I moved to China for a year, I remember wanting to find some. I flipped back through my scrapbook of photos from that year and I didn't find any photos of sticky rice dumplings. Honestly, I don't remember eating any that year. If I did, there's a high chance it was a sweet one filled with a date. 

Although by definition, it is still a sticky rice dumpling, it wasn't the kind I grew up with as a child. I wanted the savory salty ones filled with pork, peanuts, and mushrooms. A few years ago, I told myself I'd try making them. After reading some recipes and realizing it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment type cooking endeavor, I gave up on it. 

Last year when we went to Taiwan, we bought some sticky rice dumplings from a food market. We bought a few different flavors to try, and one of them was the kind I grew up with. For the duration of that sticky rice dumpling, I was teleported back to my childhood when I was able to eat this flavor because my grandparents made them. 

This year, I planned ahead and purchased ingredients to make my own sticky rice dumplings. 

• bamboo leaves
• cotton twine
• sticky rice
• split mung beans
• pork belly
• shiitake mushrooms

mise en place

 

To make these, I consulted various recipes including the ones from Woks of Life, Made with Lau, and a video to teach me how to fold them. Between these three recipes, I came up with a blended version of my own. Primarily from Woks of Life, I used their rice seasoning as well as meat marinade. I consulted Made with Lau on cooking time as well as other marinade variations. Then, it was time to get messy and get folding. 

 

I don't have great advice on how to fold these. It's pretty tricky at first. Once you get the hang of how to hold them and fold the leaves, it goes much better. I ended up using a mixture of two leaves and three leaves to fold depending on the size and quality of the leaves. The smaller leaves I used three just to be sure I could get a good seal on it. If the leaves ever cracked, I would just add another leaf on the outside as a "bandaid" to keep everything together before tying. 

 

We ended up making over 60 of these with the ingredients we had. For a first-try, I'd say it was quite successful overall. The first batch I cooked according to the recipe and boiled for 4 hours. This was way too long. We had already soaked the rice overnight so I think 4 hours yielded way too sticky of a texture for my liking. Even cutting off 1 hour would have made a big difference. The later batches we boiled, we cut down the cooking time to 2 hours and even without soaking rice overnight, I think they turned out fine. 

For loving sticky rice dumplings so much, I didn't actually know the story behind why these are eaten. My kids and I watched a short video summarizing the history of this holiday. In short, there was a Chinese poet named Qu Yuan. Due to corruption, he was banished. After this, he walked into the river holding a giant rock and was never seen again. Balls of rice were dropped into the river to prevent fish from eating his body. These balls of rice have evolved into the sticky rice dumplings eaten to celebrate this holiday. 

I personally don't think about the cultural reference of these very much. I just enjoy eating them. 

Yum!

 

Along with my own nostalgia after eating these, I got great feedback from sharing these with family and friends I view as family. The highest compliment came from an auntie friend of mine whom I view as a motherly figure. The closest translation of her response would be, "It was very similar to the ones I ate in Taiwan - very sticky and fragrant."

My dad on the other hand had a very different response. I had brought these over to eat with him for lunch and didn't say anything regarding where they came from. While we were eating, he asked me, "Did you buy these or did a friend give them to you?" I told him I made them. His eyes flashed wide for a split of a second and that was it. He didn't even tell me if they tasted good or not. 😂 Sigh. 

I'm not going to do the cost breakdown on these like I did last year during my Takeout series, but realistically, these are being sold at the store for approximately $4-5 each. Maybe one day if I get desperate, you may find me selling these somewhere...🤣

Playing Cards

My kids have gotten into playing cards now. They love playing Go Fish, Crazy 8s, 3 Up 3 Down, and War. It's actually a lot of fun to play with them but I wish I had more energy. For some reason, sitting on the couch with them playing cards induces a sleepiness I never knew I possessed. I think the most logical explanation is that I'm constantly "on alert" as an adult, so for me to sit down and relax allows my body to feel tired, hence the sleepiness. Reading books to them used to do the same thing to me, but now that both my children know how to read on their own, I haven't read a book to them...in a while. 

Having my children playing cards resurfaced an old memory I had from a card game my grandfather taught me. He would deal out the cards in a Solitaire style with seven wells. The first well only had one card face up. The second well had one card face down and one card face up. The third well would have two cards face down and one card face up. Once 7 wells were dealt out in this same pattern, the remaining cards in the deck were all dealt face up evenly distributed between wells 2-7.  

Game Set Up. 

The cards are then linked by number and suit in order. Whatever cards are underneath the card to be moved must follow the card as you move cards between the columns. Face down cards can only be flipped if the whole column of face up cards are moved to connect into a different column. For the photo above, some viable moves would be moving the 8 of spades from column 2 underneath the 9 of spades in column 3. You can also move the Jack of diamonds from column 6 underneath the Queen of diamonds in column 4. Both these moves would result in being able to flip a card from the wells in column 2 and 6. Once a column was empty, you could move Kings into their place, but the maximum number of columns was 7.

I never learned the name of this game. It might be a Chinese name. But I loved playing as a child. The winning percentage of this game is extremely low. By a completely random shuffle, the odds of winning were less than 10%.  

Because this game was so difficult, I would sometimes continue the game by moving Kings into extra columns just to see if I could win the game that way. If I won with extra columns, it was nice, but it didn't feel as special. For the games I was able to win playing according to the actual rules, I made a wish.  

No more moves.

 

The closest game to this one I've found is a card game called Scorpion. The initial deal and playing rules are the most similar I've seen to the one my grandfather taught me. 

I can play Scorpion online if I wanted

 

I taught this game to my daughter one day when she said she was bored. It's a little too much for her to handle right now, but I hope one day she can enjoy this card game by herself and have fond memories of playing cards. 

Twice

My maternal grandmother died twice in my life. Let me explain.

During the year I lived overseas, my dad had called me one evening and told me my grandmother had died. I froze and said, "No, this can't be right." I freaked out and started emailing, calling, and texting various family members (besides my dad) from the internet. It took two hours, but I confirmed my grandmother was in fact still alive. I even managed to call my grandmother and talk to her. What actually happened was that my sister-in-law's grandmother had died. My brother informed my dad he was going to New York for the funeral, and my dad misunderstood it as our maternal grandmother as she lived in that same area. 

But in my heart, I felt it. For approximately two hours, I was living the grief of what I would feel when she died. This was the first time. 

The second time, she actually died. 

I was getting ready for bed that evening and I went to close my computer. In the corner of my email, I saw a chat message pop up. It was from my aunt. She told me my grandmother had died. It was May 1, 2014, ten years from the day my mother had died. 

When my grandfather died, I missed his funeral. I had told myself I would do whatever I could to make it to my grandmother's funeral. I missed her funeral, too.

It was a decision I made on my own, and sometimes, I wonder if it's something I truly regret. At the time, I was working as a special needs assistant to a kindergarten-aged girl. I was hired privately by her mother. Her mother was a preschool assistant at another school. If I took any days off, her mother would need to take days off to take my place with her daughter for the day. 

This put me in a hard place when my grandmother died because if I had taken the days off to go to her funeral, the mother would have had to take the same number of days away from her work to assist her daughter in my place. I had already taken one day off, the day after I found out about my grandmother's passing, because I had stayed up most of the night crying. I would have been very ineffective had I gone in to work.  

In lieu of going to her funeral, I made a video sharing my words which was played at the funeral. I rerecorded it so many times because I couldn't stop crying to say anything. 

Over a decade later, I still think back to these decisions I made. Sometimes, I wish I had done things differently. Sometimes, I think about how things could have been different but don't trust myself to have been able to make a different decision.  Would you view the decision in this situation as selfishness for choosing your own desires over the desires of someone else? Or would you view it as commitment to family, dedication, and love over commitments to job obligations?

I wrote down the last conversation I ever had with my grandmother face to face. It was about 10 months before she died. I'm not sure what caused me to write it down. I think a part of me knew deep down it could have been the last time I would see or talk to her in person. 

*Translated* 

 Grandma: I heard you're leaving soon.

Me: Yeah.

G: Where are you going?   

Me: Back to Dallas.

G: To start school?

Me:  No, just going home. 

G: Where?

Me: Dallas.

G: I wish I could help you.

Me: You don't need to help me. I help you. 

G: Yes. You always help me. 

March 2010

What I don't regret is the time I spent with my grandmother. My freshman year of college, I spent spring break visiting her. She had just had her stroke. The summer after my freshman year, I spent two months living with her.  The summer after that, I went back and visited for about two weeks. I didn't go the summer I graduated because I was getting ready to move overseas. This was an intentional choice I made, and I'll never forget the blessing of getting to see her the year after for another two weeks.

For my grandmother, spending the time I did with her when I could was important. And I did. For the special needs girl and her mother, showing up to work as her assistant was important. I think in this light, I was able to do what was important for both sides when I needed to.  

My dad didn't make an attempt to go to either of my maternal grandparents' funerals. He did however attend my cousin's wedding. I have lots of thoughts in this regard, but not now.

 ***

Wang Fu Yu, aged 97, passed away peacefully on May 1, 2014.

Fu was a high school teacher prior immigrating to the United States in 1968. She taught Chinese and History in Taipei, Taiwan. After moving to the US, she devoted her time to her family. She enjoyed traveling the world with her late husband and cooking exotic food for her family and friends.

She was preceded  in death by her husband, Chih Chiai Yu in 2005, and her daughter Donna Yu in 2004.

Money Can Buy Time

It comes up every now and then in conversations, but other moms will ask me why I chose the school my children are at. The simple answer? Time. My kids go to school three days a week, it's a private school, and I pay for it. The school has other fundamentally good things about it, but my answer has remained the same for years - I relish the extra time I get with my kids, even if I'm paying for it.

I can't call it a regret because it wasn't my decision to make, but I still get worked up when I think about all the years my mother had to go to treatment in Houston and didn't take us with her because we had to go to school. Perhaps it was the "must follow directions" cultural training from her upbringing. I always resent the fact that they didn't try harder to make accommodations or do something differently. It was just a straightforward, "You've got to go to school and do your homework. We can't take you."

4th grade was the worst. They went so many times that year. I so badly wanted time with my mother, even if it meant waiting in a hospital hallway because I was too young to go inside the treatment room. Each night before they left, I'd practically beg them to wake me up the next morning and take me with them. They lied to me and said they would. I went to sleep. The next morning, I'd wake up at 7 am to a dark, empty house. I'm still traumatized thinking about it. 

This shaped the way I viewed my kids' educations. When my oldest was preparing for kindergarten, public school was basically eliminated because they didn't offer anything less than a full day. I had known this was coming. The first year of the district's full-day kindergarten was the 2008-2009 school year.  I always told myself, if my kids ended up in public school, they would be allowed to miss school whenever they felt like it and I'd be completely supportive. Now, don't get me wrong, this is with the assumption that they are exceeding grade level standards and completing their homework responsibly. I'm not condoning this for someone with a student who isn't meeting standards. And, knowingly, this would end once they reached the middle school and high school years. 

The old adage is: money can't buy time. I'm here to tell you it can, and we do it all the time without thinking about it. I'm buying time by paying for my kids' educations to have two home school days per week. This is two more days they would have with me than if they went to public school. We buy time when we pick up fast food because our children are hangry instead of waiting to drive home and grabbing something from the freezer or refrigerator at home to heat up or cook. We buy time when we purchase pre-peeled garlic instead of buying the heads because we don't have to stand there and peel the cloves one at a time. We buy time when we pay for a housekeeper or lawn maintenance so we can do other things with our time in lieu of cleaning or mowing. We buy time when we pay the premium at Disney for Lightning Lane passes instead of waiting in the "regular" line. 

Now, bottomline, nobody is adding extra hours or days to their life by spending any money. If we could, we would all go broke. Probably every single person alive would be going broke buying more time for themselves or for someone they loved. But, we buy time in our own ways. We buy time every single day, most likely, without even realizing. It's been labeled as convenience. 

I can't say how long we will stay at our current school. Things may change years from now and we may switch back to public school or a different school. But for the next couple of years, this is what I need. This is what I want. And I will savor the time I've "bought."

1,288 Words

My dad and I have probably the best relationship with each other now than we've ever had in my life since adolescence. I'm excluding childhood because I honestly don't remember what my relationship with him was like, although there are photos of him holding me and I look genuinely joyful. If you knew me well in my teenage and early adult years, you would have known that my dad and I were basically roommates living under the same roof. He worked to earn money, cooked our food, and paid the bills so we had somewhere safe to live and chauffeured us to places we needed to me. When I got my driver's license at 16, his chauffeuring duties ended, but the other roles remained. During my years in college, his cooking services were less necessary because I ate in the dining halls or cooked for myself during the year I lived in an apartment. After I graduated, I moved overseas for a year, and it was the first time I paid for everything by myself or had it arranged for me through my company - housing, food, and transportation.

After moving back home one year later, I lived at home for a year before getting married and moving out of my dad's house again - this time, permanently. During all these years, we didn't talk to each other. Our personalities really clash with each other. My dad doesn't really understand implications, and if he does, he doesn't show it. He takes a lot of things at face value, probably a large reason why he was so good at math and science. You can't assume in these fields. You prove it, or you see it. Compounded on top of adolescence and a growing desire for independence, not to mention the lack of a true foundational relationship during childhood, I was left with a very shaky pile of rocks called the "foundation" of our relationship. I've written about the epitome, arguably what was the catalyst to the breaking point of our relationship. 

For a long time, I didn't really want a relationship with my dad. I wanted not to need him because needing him felt harder than not needing him. I could take care of myself and be self-sufficient. Honestly, that was easy. Needing him? That felt like dead weight. So I forced myself not to. I found a way to do everything I could by myself. 

I get sad writing about this.  It's probably because I have my own children now. It's probably because I'm getting older and I'm not that young and fearless twenty-one-year-old anymore freshly out of college.  The older I get the more valuable time becomes. I say it like I'm dying, and to my knowledge I'm not, but it's true. Our time is shorter as we get older. And because of that, its value increases. I already know how valuable time is because I've experienced how short it can be with the time I had my mother. My daughter is one year away from being the age I was when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I can still picture myself in her hospital room when she was first diagnosed being oblivious to what was going on and enamored by the beef broth powder I could add to hot water and sip on. And now, I'm the mother who could at any time be the one given a diagnosis with a definite time to live. I digress.

Things with my dad got better after I had kids. Better in the sense that we visited a little more so he could see the kids. I don't think we truly started having a relationship with each other until the last 1-2 years. It's weird thinking about it that way, like the daughter he once had suddenly went from being a little girl to someone in her mid thirties. And the father I once had suddenly went from being the invincible male figure who (I thought) could type at lightning fast speeds (he doesn't) to the gray-haired, balding, fragile person who has slowed his pace when he walks.  

He and I got into a big fight a few years back. I don't approve of his life choices and certain decisions he makes. I realize they are out of my control because he is the one making his decisions, but his decision-making capabilities are diminishing and I am trying to intercede for him to assist. You won't believe what our fight was about: plastic bags. I kid you not there are probably hundreds if not thousands of plastic bags (plastic shopping t-shirt bags) in his house bagged inside of each other and thrown in various closets, strewn in hallways, shoved on shelves. I told him he needed to get rid of them to keep things tidier and not have everything in such a mess because it's a tripping hazard for him and it reduces the space for him to walk and get around his own house. He didn't listen. He actually got angry at me and yelled, "You don't know how I grew up."

He's right, I don't know how he grew up. And honestly, I have no idea what he meant by that statement. Maybe he grew up with clutter and he doesn't mind. Maybe he's used to it after so long and doesn't care. 

I was angry. I was very, very angry. And I yelled back at him.

"You don't know what it's like not to have a mother."

My grandmother was alive when my dad and I had this argument. My dad, a man in his seventies, still had a living mother, whereas I was without one at 13 and had spent over 20 years grieving already. I don't know if my dad understood the full implication of my statement. No, my dad did not know what it was like to lose a mother yet. But he also did not understand what it was like to watch someone else take over the house my mother spent her last days in. To trash the things she didn't want regardless of what it was. To leave the house in such disarray and mess. To buy things endlessly and stash them all over the place, never to be used. To shamelessly throw away my mother's photograph and expect no consequence or fault. 

Since this argument with my dad, things got better - my relationship with him, that is, not the condition of his living space. When I say we have the best relationship we've ever had, the bar is still very low. This means we have conversations with each other about everyday things. I tell him about the new grocery store I went to. I tell him about the piano competition my student placed in. I tell him about which days my kids get off from school. We have lunch together and I bring food I cooked. He tells me about his doctor appointments for his health ailments. He tells me about a restaurant he ate at. It's mundane. But it's the best we've ever had. 

My grandmother, my last living grandparent, died this week. We've always lived halfway across the world from each other so I never really knew her as a person. My entire family went to go see her last year, and that would be the last time we would see her. She lived almost twice the years my mother had on this earth. We are going back again this year, but my grandmother won't be there. I know this visit will feel different. I know it will be different. 

My dad can now begin to glimpse what I've already known. I am sad for him.  

Takeout with the Tos #13

I'm including this week's takeout menu and costs but the real story is going to be about one dish in particular.

Shrimp with Lobster Sauce: $17.99

Bok Choy: $14.99

Mushroom, Bamboo, Carrot Stir Fry: $14.99

Braised Pork and Tofu Puffs (not pictured): $20.99

Baked Drumsticks (8 ct): $12.99

Take-Out Total: $81.95

Tax: $6.76

Grand Total:  $88.71

 

My husband baked these drumsticks. My kids really liked it. They turned out well!

These were my two main vegetable dishes this week. I cut the bok choy into strips to create a different texture. I liked it, but I'm not sure the extra time was worth the result. But I'm glad I tried it once.

Shrimp with Lobster Sauce

 

 

My picture doesn't do the dish justice. My kids also don't eat peas so there's nothing green. I completely forgot about this dish until I was flipping through the Woks of Life cookbook and saw this recipe. I've always loved that slurry-sauce texture for this dish and anything similar. I don't actually follow the recipe anymore because I just make it the way I want to, but this recipe is still special to me.

My mother died 21 years ago. My dad hired a nanny to watch us after school and cook for our family, but that arrangement lasted a mere month. Maybe only weeks. The memory is hazy now unless I go back and flip through the journals. After the nanny had to quit, my dad had to figure out a way to feed us. He ended up cooking on Sunday afternoons for the entire week.    `

Yup, that's right. I follow the same routine now that my dad did for many years. He would cook multiple dishes and we would eat it as long as it would last through the week. Sounds familiar, right? I remember packing lunch my junior and senior year of high school. I went out and bought myself a glass Pyrex dish with a red lid. 

This is what my "lunch container" looked like in high school. Microwave friendly so I could heat it up at school. 

I knew it had the possibility of leaking, and I didn't have a lunch box so it had to go in a plastic bag into my backpack. I was ingenious enough to pack and store it correctly in my backpack. Half was rice, the other half were the meats and vegetables. I'd make sure to put it in my backpack with the rice side down. That way, if the juices started to run, the rice would absorb it and nothing would leak. 

I had two favorite dishes he made. The first was a shrimp and green peas stir fry. Simply done, maybe added some soy sauce. It was yummy. The second was a dish made with frozen mixed vegetables and ground beef. He made a sauce to go with it which was the slurry-sauce I loved. Whenever he made this dish, I got really excited to pack it for lunch. 

During my last year of college, I lived in an apartment with three other girls. I did my own cooking that year and made simple meals for myself. The first dish I wanted to cook was this dish my dad made with the ground beef and mixed vegetables. I did exactly that - stuck ground beef and mixed vegetables into a pot and cooked them. However, I couldn't get the sauce. My dad didn't follow any recipes so there wasn't anything to share with me. At the time, I had no idea about the powers of corn starch and water and how it changes when heat is added. So I made....ground beef and mixed vegetables with no sauce. That was the moment I realized cooking was a lot harder than I thought it to be.

Fast forward 14 years later, and I understand much more about cooking than I did when I first started in college.  This dish, shrimp with lobster sauce, will always remind me of the years my dad cooked, and the dish which instigated my love/hate relationship with cooking.  My dad doesn't cook much anymore if at all. I've shared some of my cooking with him. He doesn't share his thoughts or even express opinions, but I hope he's impressed. What he started 21 years ago, I continue today with my family.

The Magic of Disney

We did an extended family trip to Disney over New Year's during last year's winter break. I was secretly dreading this trip for the longest time for reasons of my own, but about two weeks before we left, I made the decision to focus on my kids and make it an enjoyable trip for them as well as myself. Honestly, it was great. We had so much fun and the kids loved the rides at the parks. They were already asking us when we were going back....on the flight home. This was a true conversation I had with my 4-year-old.

Mommy, when can we go back to Disney? Maybe in like five years.

Is that 100 days? No...that's more like 1,500 days....

My kids each got one souvenir from Disney to commemorate their bravery riding some scarier rides they wouldn't have done otherwise. I got myself a souvenir as well. We did buy a family ornament from this trip, but this souvenir was completely for me. It was a last-minute decision and I bought it right before we left for the airport. 

Earrings are my way of feeling put-together. I don't spend much time on hair unless it's a special occasion or I feel like putting in the effort, and I don't wear makeup for the same reasons. But adding a pair of earrings can elevate my overall appearance. I've experimented at home in front of the mirror when wearing a t-shirt with my hair in a messy bun. No earrings = frumpy mom mode. Earrings = subtle chic.

Normally, I can't justify spending money on souvenirs like this. I like things to have purpose and meaning. I am working on appreciating items just because we like something for the "thing" it is. My last trip to Disney was when I was around 7 or 8 myself. My mother bought me a piece of jewelry. I was always drawn to the shiny things in gift shops. That's exactly who they're advertising toward - kids/people like me who gravitate toward the sparkles and the glitter. We were in one of the gift shops and I immediately saw the tower of birthstone rings and jewelry. The irony is I always loved the ones that weren't mine - especially March. March birthstone jewelry was always blue because of aquamarine. My mother told me she would buy me my birthstone. 

This one happened to be pink for tourmaline instead of the typical opal I always saw. I agreed and my mom bought it for me. I don't think I ever wore the ring. When I was younger, it felt too special to wear. I saved it in my jewelry box for years and years. My finger eventually outgrew the ring. Yes, it has an adjustable band, but now I choose not to wear it to preserve it. The plastic stone in the left ear fell out sometime in the last 10 years. I honestly have no idea how it happened. It was like one day I went to check my jewelry box and the stone was missing. Even if all the stones fell out, I'd keep it forever. 

My mother couldn't justify spending money on things like these either. But she did, at least this one time, for me. I don't often think about the ways my mom has influenced my life because all of my adult years have been spent independently of her. I've actually appreciated not having to factor my mom's opinion into the decisions I make, but knowing she indulged me decades ago allowed me to indulge myself now.

A reunion, of sorts.

Nostalgia

The last time I had a passport photo taken, I was 19 years old. After my husband took some photos, he showed them to me. My first reaction was, man, I look old. Honestly, when I look in the mirror, I don't see myself as old. In fact, I see places in my image which are more beautiful than they were to me a decade or two ago. Are they actually younger? Of course not. But the perception of myself has changed, and that's a good thing. I also have to remind myself. The 19-year-old in my last passport photo did not live abroad for a year away from close friends and family. She didn't get married. She didn't experience two pregnancies and two beautiful babies. And she didn't find her dream job yet. I prefer the woman in the photo who looks "old" because she has experienced so much more out of life.

I put off renewing my passport for years and years. I had even filled out the paperwork once only to put it aside, forget about it, and not do it. I not only needed to renew my passport but I needed a name change. It expired during Covid and there was no pressing need to renew because nobody was traveling internationally with two young children anytime soon. For the longest time, I also did not want to send them my marriage certificate. Would they treat it delicately like I do? Of course not. To them, it's a piece of documentation - a piece of paper with the right information on it. To me? It was the beginning of a new life.

Renewals must be done within five years of the expiration. Otherwise, it will count as a new passport application. I was just under the limit so this was the year to get it done. I filled out the forms, took a photo, sent them my old book as well as my marriage certificate and taped up the envelope.

Believe it or not, there was no line at the post office when I went to send off my renewal. I smirked when I pulled up to the parking lot. 13 years ago, I bet a friend there was a post office at this intersection. He didn't believe me because he knew there was one at the next major intersection - which is true, there is. But, I was also right. There was one at this intersection and when he saw it, he was in disbelief the city would build two post offices one major street away from each other. I don't remember what I won, but the same location is still there after all these years.

It's the same post office my grandparents would go to when they lived here. That's how I knew it existed. I'd been many times with my grandfather running errands, back in the day when bills needed to be paid with a check and mailed off with postage. And here I was, driving with my son, to the very same post office my grandparents used when they lived here. 

As a teenager, the thought of returning to where we grew up felt boring. We wanted to go somewhere else, explore, be adventurous. And if we were lucky, we didn't come back. On the other hand, returning to where we grew up was the easy choice. We knew everything here. We knew people. We knew the streets. We knew the stores. 

Being an actual adult and in the same city where I grew up and went to school, it's a different feeling. It's actually nostalgic and nice. Are there times when it's boring? Yeah. But I can drive familiar places and be reminded of memories - mostly good - and share them with my children. 

There's a donut shop across the street from the post office I went to. In high school, I skipped class exactly one period one time in 12th grade. It was 2nd period, my statistics class. Three of us (from all different classes) went to this donut shop and ate donuts and chatted in the middle of the morning. I would have forgotten about this memory had I not been at the post office across the street. Nothing special happened that morning. We all ended up back at school for 3rd period. But being at this post office was able to bring back that memory for a little bit. 

The elusive post office I've known about for longer than most apparently.

The donut shop is no longer there. It's occupied by some other business now. But this post office still stands in the same spot. And my son got to come with me. 

Those Five Words

April 3rd is my daughter's birthday. But before it was my daughter's birthday, it was the day my grandfather died. Last year, I blogged about one of my dad's finer moments. I honestly do appreciate him for the way he responded in that situation, and I will forever remember it as a positive part of my upbringing. However, there were many lows, and potentially, they triumphed the highs.

The days around my grandfather's death may have been one of his lowest parenting moments that still haunts me to this day. 

I found out my grandfather died via email. I checked my email in the mornings before school everyday. It was my routine, something I liked to do before going to school. I also woke up early enough to be able to have luxury time to check my email. Rare for a teenager. And the day my grandfather died, I checked my email in the morning around 7 o'clock and saw it. I went to school in a daze that day, feeling like I didn't belong anywhere I was, even though it was what I was "supposed" to do. 

That evening, my dad received the phone call at dinner. It was brief. After he hung up, he passed on the news to us and told us he'd send flowers.

Send flowers. 

That was the moment I knew we weren't going to the funeral. There would be no buying plane tickets, no flying up, no going to be there with the rest of my family. This was my grandfather, my mother's father, who brought us back presents after every trip he took. This was my grandfather, who picked us up from school and let us stay at his house when my parents were gone getting treatment for my mother  because we had to keep going to school (🙄 I have other thoughts on this. For another time.) This was my grandfather who created a special signal when calling so we knew to pick up before caller ID was invented. This was my grandfather who is the earliest person in my memory who told me I was smart and wise. And I wasn't going to be at his funeral.

The funeral was that Saturday. My dad had other plans for us. He told us about them in the morning. I didn't get ready. When he came upstairs to tell us to get ready and leave, I didn't move. I just sat there fuming. Why aren't we there? It was all I had to ask him. He knew what I was talking about. He knew why I was mad. 

You didn't ask to go. 

These five words haunted me and continue to haunt me 19 years after the fact. Because in these five words, he shifted the responsibility, the burden, the blame onto my 14-year-old shoulders. I didn't ask to go. I didn't say anything. I didn't communicate my wishes. 

This. This was his lowest parenting moment of my life. 

***

As an adult, I understand there was another perspective where had I spoken up and said something, the events which unfolded may have played out very differently. However, there are reasons why I did not speak up when I potentially should have. I wasn't raised that way. 

I grew up learning I needed to follow instructions, do as I was told, and not to ask for unnecessary things or I'd get shot down. Ask for a toy? Rejected. Express my opinion on something? I was wrong. Not agree with an adult? Disowned. This mentality over the course of the years sank in, and I got good at being "good." So when my dad received the phone call and responded to us with simply sending flowers, I didn't verbalize anything I was feeling inside. I was being the "good" child I was taught to be - accepting the decisions of the grown-up. 

And then he blamed me for it. 

My grandfather died on a Wednesday. In the four days to his funeral, I must've grown up about a decade's worth because I rebelled and stood up to my dad for the first time in my life on Saturday. Had it happened four days earlier, the situation would have played out differently. But there's no time for what ifs.

My grandfather died less than a year after my mother died. It was unexpected and sudden. When my mother died, it was like the half of my family related to her began to drift away, too. After all, this wasn't his dad. So it wouldn't have surprised me if he didn't go. But he didn't even ask if we wanted to go. 

I've speculated over the years if my dad selfishly didn't want to go himself, so that meant he wouldn't be taking us. At the same time, maybe he didn't want us flying alone or didn't think we'd want to fly alone so he didn't offer. Perhaps if we mentioned it ourselves, he'd feel less guilty letting us fly alone knowing we were okay with it. 

I'll never know.

***

My relationship with my dad is still hindered and I have no doubt instances like this in my childhood still have an affect today. There's a lot of baggage which needs to be sorted through and hasn't. I don't know if it ever will. My dad isn't the same kind of grandfather to my children as my maternal grandfather was to me. I know he has his own reasons and thoughts. But I can't help but be sad for my children in this regard. 

I know I parent differently and this experience is a big influential factor. I'm trying to spare my children from having memories like these. I know I can't prevent all of them and I will still make mistakes as a parent. But this hindsight helps to hopefully direct their upbringing on a better path, one filled with less resentment and pain. 

I thought about waiting until April 3rd to write this, but that is my daughter's birthday, and honestly, I'd rather remember it as my daughter's birthday. I don't want to forget my grandfather, and I know I won't. But being reminded of this date as the day he died brings back this memory with my dad. I want this memory to lose the heaviness it bears. I cannot control what grief looks like after 19 years. This is a small glimpse of it. Grieving doesn't stop with the number of years which pass. It simply changes. Sometimes, it looks like a random bout of emotion during a wonderful week with my family during spring break. 

And that's okay. 

Just Fine

There are many things I did not appreciate about my childhood growing up. Once having my own children, I shaped a lot of my parenting on the exact opposite of the way I was raised. However, there is one poignant moment which has always stayed with me and goes down as the best parenting I've ever experienced.

8th grade was my last year as a straight-A-student. I had just started high school and it was one of the report cards in the middle of my freshman year. I was attending one of the most difficult high schools in my district. High school came like a slap in the face. My report card was littered with B's and even a C or two. The A's were a rare sighting that year with only 2-3 per grading period. 

My report card had arrived and was sitting on the counter atop a pile of mail and advertisements. As we were eating, my dad looked over my report card and asked me one question: Why are your grades so bad?

I responded with a simple, truthful, answer: School is hard.

After that, he put the report card down, we finished the meal, and my guess is no more words were spoken the rest of the evening.

I don't think my dad ever asked me about my grades again after that grading period. My grades stayed more or less the same in sophomore year. Junior year, they started to pick back up again and the majority became A's with a few B's and probably one C here and there. Senior year, I was a straight A student again. 

College was, again, a slap in the face because there was a learning curve to figure out how to balance 15 hours of class spread across 5 days. And to factor in the unspoken 20-30 hours of homework and studying a week for those 15 hours of class. Again, I followed that same trend of struggling immensely freshman year first semester and figuring out in the next 5 semesters which followed. Eventually, I regained my straight A status. 

I have to credit myself for being the kind of student and child who understood responsibility. I knew what to do and when to do it. If it didn't happen, it was because it was out of my ability or I had other priorities - for better or for worse. 

I was reminded of this memory again because I had a student come last week and she seemed kind of down. I didn't pry about it, and we had a great lesson together. When her lesson was over, we had to wait for her to get picked up. She muttered something about her mother "probably still mad at her" and I asked her why her mother was upset. She told me it was because of grades. I sighed. 

I've never thought of my parents as awesome parents who modeled wonderful parenting, but this one memory from my dad still stands out to me today. And honestly, I hope I can deal with the future grades of my children with a similar straightforward attitude. Because I know firsthand the difference it makes and the impression it leaves when you handle a situation with tact.

Sometimes I do wonder if this is how my dad still sees me....
because I know I will forever see my children as my babies. 

And I think, for however much he displays it, he knows I ended up just fine. Maybe better than just fine. 🙂

The Scars We Carry

My friend gave my daughter a pair of glittery shoes her daughters had outgrown when we were over for a playdate a while back. My daughter instantly loved them and wanted to wear them everywhere. When we got home, she wore them inside the house for the longest time. Then she started wearing them out and she'd wear them with pants, with dresses, with socks on her feet, barefoot. She wore them a lot.

The shoes have since lost their velcro stickiness and the little embellishments are coming off the toes, but she wore them a lot and she loved them a lot. 

After my friend gave my daughter the shoes and the kids were playing, I told my friend about my own shoe story because I had once wanted a similar pair. When I was younger, my dad took me shoe shopping. I was looking for a pair of dress shoes to wear to piano competitions and performances. Although not as fast as most, my feet were still growing and I needed new shoes periodically with my 1-2 piano competitions every year and seasonal recitals. At the store, I found a pair of shoes I liked but they didn't have my size in stock. I ended up purchasing a different pair of shoes.

Another time when all of us went shopping, I somehow ended up back in the shoe section to browse. They had the shoe I wanted and in my size. My dad said I could have them since they weren't here last time we came. He put them in the cart and we met up with my mom and my brother. When she saw the shoes in the cart, she started asking questions and getting angry. Why were we buying those shoes? Why did I need them? 

My dad responded by telling her they were the ones I wanted last time but they didn't have my size. Now they had my size, he was going to buy them. Then, they started arguing in the middle of an aisle at the store. My mom would take the shoes and put them on the shelf to the side. My dad took the shoes and put them back in the cart. My brother and I stood awkwardly to the side, not knowing what to do. 

I'm sure other people in the store were hearing and seeing what was happening. In my memory of the event, I vaguely see a person or two behind them as they notice the commotion in the aisle and walk away. Whether or not that is my memory being changed or if it actually happened, I will never know. 

In my head, I remember just removing the box of shoes from the cart myself and setting them aside on a nearby shelf. I remember saying to them I didn't want the shoes anymore just so they'd stop fighting in the middle of the store. I did not get the shoes. I had many pairs of beautiful shoes as I grew up, but none were the pink glittery flats I had eyed as a child and wanted at one point in my life. 

Not the exact ones, but something very similar. 

As parents, we will always shape our children to some degree to become versions of ourselves. Our children have the freedom to take what they want and leave the rest as they grow up and become individuals themselves, but the influence is undoubtedly there. Since then, I've found my own truth in the situation; my mother didn't like the shoes. She didn't like the way they looked, and she didn't want to buy them for me. 

Being a parent myself, I've had to remind myself of both spectrums. I do not buy my children everything they want. But I do think about their requests and sometimes, they get a random surprise or toy just because for absolutely no reason. I hope my children do not have the same scars I do when they grow up. 

I need to write this story into my daughter's journal. I want her to remember the auntie who gave her the glitter shoes she loved as a child. And I want her to remember fondly the joy she had when she wore those shoes. And maybe, someday, she will tell her stories to her own children. 

I got to watch my daughter’s face light up the way mine would have. It’s a different kind of joy. 

*sidenote: my daughter watched me cry as I wrote this blog. she didn't say anything. but part of me is so curious if/what she will remember from this moment*

Momma Cat

Today's blog is a guest entry. I didn't really ask for permission, but I don't think he would mind. Also, it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. 😉 Cats are very dear to him and this is the beginnings of a story of a very special cat who infiltrated his life for a period of time.

***

First time I saw that Junkyard, I was amazed at the old cars I saw: a Citicar (a 70's electric car that flopped on the market) several Studebakers, Perhaps 15 Corvairs, a terrific-and ancient-VW van, a Packard, a drivable 'top-line 73 Gremlin, and animals...lots of animals.

The junkyard owner is rather simple, and his idea of feeding the animals is to toss a bunch of chow into the trough and let the four-legs go at it, and devil take the hindmost.

That means, of course, that the big dogs are fat and the little cats starve. 

The kittens were emaciated and filthy, and the mother cat was scrawny as she could be, yet she was beautiful with the glow of maternal love, and had a sweet and tender disposition, like any mother does. She sat in the same shady place on the porch, as if glued to it.

She obviously loved her kittens, yet she could do so little to take care of them, against that canine tidal wave.

Whenever I visited the junkyard, to buy parts, or haggle about this or that car, or just to look, I'd take food for the cats.

And I always fed Momma cat first. 

I could, possibly, have lassoed each of those myriad kittens in turn, and fed them one by one. The result wouldn't have been very successful, though, because they didn't know or trust me, and I didn't even know where they all were.

But I knew that if I fed Momma Cat, if I gave her the help she needed, if I put her first, then she would have the strength to take care of her babies, far better and more completely then I ever could, no matter how deeply I cared and wanted to help.

So I fed her first.

I also had some very stern words for the simpleton in charge. A 2-pound kitten loses to an 80-pound Doberman every time, so he had to feed the babies away from the big'uns. He's not a bad guy, but "junkyard owner" is probably the top of his intellectual potential, so I can only hope the lesson sunk in.

But the overall lesson is the important one: Feed Momma cat first, even if we ourselves are Momma. It's not just OK, but necessary.

My Favorite Name

My kids are at great ages right now. 18 months is fun because it's still "baby" enough to have the cute and adorable aspects of having a baby but grown enough to play independently, walk, and chew unmashed food. 3 is nice because she's old enough to follow instructions, be potty trained, and even assist me around the house in simple tasks. 

My kids have also been on and off sick for the last 4 months straight. That's what it seems like anyway. When we have one sick child, the house kind of divides because I try my hardest to separate them as to not spread the germs. We end up doing 1:1 with the child which favors each of us best. That means 120% of the time, I get my daughter, because when she's inconsolable, she doesn't want to see anyone else except me.

I like spending time with my daughter. It makes me feel slightly guilty not to see my son as much, especially him being the second child. But my daughter is fun. She talks a lot and we have conversations. One evening, I took her out on a walk, just the two of us. We held hands and walked two whole streets up and down in our neighborhood. 

While walking, she would tell me thinks she was observing or ask me questions regarding our surroundings. 

Mommy, look, it's a bird. 

Mommy, look, it's a flag. 

Mommy, why is there a flag there? 

Mommy, look, it's a squirrel. 

And she'd continue telling me things or asking me things. And she'd hold my hand and we'd walk slowly around the neighborhood and soak in the outdoors. Sometimes she'll say sentences in English, sometimes they're in Chinese. But Mommy is always in English.

Thankful for days I don't teach so I can take evening walks

This phase won't last forever. Children are constantly changing, faster than I can realize. I don't know when or if she'll stop being so inquisitive and observant. I don't know when she'll stop wanting to tell me everything she has to say. But for now, it's nice. 

The Other Woman

The summer after 8th grade, my dad took my brother and I on a road trip. We drove Northwest and visited Yellowstone National Park, Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and probably some other parks and landmarks I'm missing. My brother and I were your typical teenagers. We would sit in the car and listen to our music or play on the computer while my dad drove. 

At the end of this scenic road trip, we ended up in Kirkland, Washington. At the time, in my head, we were in the middle of nowhere. We'd never ventured this far northwest before, and I didn't know anyone who lived there. But my dad did. At the time, we'd hear him talking on the phone at night on the weekends for an extended period of time. We didn't know who he was on the phone with, but we were old enough and keen enough to be able to make some inferences.

I remember my dad pulling onto this street and telling us we'd arrived. We were parked in front of a house I didn't recognize in an area where houses looked different than what we were used to seeing in Texas. We grabbed our suitcases and walked up to the front door. A woman opened the door and let us in. She took us downstairs to the basement where we'd be staying. Of course, the only thing we cared about was if there was wifi and how to log on. And she did that, too. Great.

The next morning, we got up and ate breakfast together. All four of us sat at the table and ate breakfast. We didn't do this at home when it was just the three of us. Each of us ran on our own schedule. My dad went to work. We went to school. And on weekends when we were home, we were all in our own little world. 

All four of us sat at the table and ate breakfast for two hours. I can't remember what we ate for breakfast that day, and I know I finished eating probably after about 30 minutes. And that was stretching out my eating. For the rest of the time, she and my dad talked. We maybe replied to a question occasionally, but most of the time, they talked to each other, and we sat there and watched and listened. I can't remember how breakfast finally ended, but my brother and I felt very very awkward. 

One night, we all went to Red Lobster for dinner. She and my dad sat next to each other in the booth and my brother and I sat next to each other across from them. We ate dinner, and once again, most of the conversation was had by the two of them while my brother and I sat quietly, ate, and listened. The rest of the dinner is fuzzy, but I remember thinking to myself: We look like a normal family of four, a father, a mother, a son, and a daughter, eating dinner together.....but we're not.

After dinner, she took us to a park with a path along the shoreline. We walked for a bit, and she pointed out that this was the dry side of Washington. If we crossed the lake to the other side, that was Seattle, the wetter side. 

We left Washington and continued the rest of our road trip back home. We drove through Colorado and stopped at Arches National Park. We went to see the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park. Both of these were great parks. I didn't near appreciate it as much then as I would now if I went back, but we also didn't explore either to their full extent.

After coming back home, my dad asked us at dinner one night what we thought of the woman in Washington. Neither of us said much. We didn't know what to say. Did we like her? What does it mean to like her? As a person? As the role she would fill? Did we even want that role filled? Time passed and the phone calls stopped. We never heard anything about her after that. We never went back to visit. To this day I can't remember what her name was. 

For the last 12 years, someone else has taken over that "spot." And throughout these years I've been learning more about myself, my grief, and the sore spots you shouldn't mess with ever. And sometimes, I remember all the way back to when we drove out on a random road trip to meet a random woman I didn't know. And however awkward it felt at the time, I now realize, that would have been fine. The awkwardness may have remained in a way, but everything would have worked together much better.  I didn't know it at the time, but I liked the other woman. I liked her poise, her personality, and who she was. I discussed this with a friend, and he phrased the exact revelation I came to in such an elegant way.

She was self-confident and mature, and she understood her potential role in your life. Yes. She did not pretend to be something she could not be.

I never wanted another mother much less a stepmother. I never wanted another grandmother for my children. I never wanted someone to waltz into my life and fill the hole. The hole is still there. It always will be. I wanted someone to be a companion to my dad and realize that she was nobody special to me unless I wanted her to be because those are separate roles. And I wanted her to realize even if I never wanted her to be anyone in my life, that was okay, and to let it be okay. 

I liked the other woman. 

One-Up

 I was a formula baby. My brother nursed some (or maybe a year) from what I've been told, but I grew up on formula. Supposedly, my mother said it hurt too much the first time and she didn't want to do it again with me. I don't blame her. It's not the most pleasant feeling. 

Later as I got older, she'd second guess herself and wonder if I would have been taller had I been breastfed. Of course it would not have mattered because the genetics were already in my DNA. Breastmilk wasn't going to change that. I was just destined to be one of the shorter females in my family. 

When my oldest was born, I tried nursing her. I don't think she got very much. She screamed a lot at the hospital. Even the nurses found it a little strange. So they offered alternative feeding options, we asked for formula, and that's what my daughter drank for the first two weeks while my supply was coming in. By about two weeks, I could produce enough to feed her. Unfortunately, I didn't get to nurse her. I tried for a week or so. She would scream and cry and being a new mom, I did not want to deal with that solely for the purpose of nursing. So I exclusively pumped for her. 

It's not a glamorous job when you exclusively pump and stay at home with your child. I remember coming home from playing piano for my dad's choir, feeding her with a bottle because she was hungry, pumping because I needed to, and feeling starved because I was hungry and there were too many things to do and not enough time or hands to do it. On another occasion, I had scheduled two lessons with merely a 30 minute break in-between. During that 30 minutes, I had my pump on the kitchen counter and cooked dinner simultaneously because I hadn't had time earlier in the day. This was not something I ever wanted to have to re-live. 

It's a huge sacrifice to choose to exclusively pump when you can't or choose not to nurse. 

I fed my daughter expressed milk until about two weeks before her first birthday. That was when I ran out. We went back to formula for the remainder of the days before she turned one and switched to cow's milk. 

When my youngest was born, I tried nursing him. He seemed fine. He slept a lot at the hospital. It was quiet. He would just nurse for 5 minutes and fall asleep. I wasn't sure if he was getting enough, but he seemed to be okay. About 4-5 days after he was born, I started getting nervous at how yellow he looked. It wasn't extreme and the pediatrician even told me he wasn't worried, but it was past my comfort level. So I started to pump again and bottle feed. He could drink 3 oz in a bottle no problem so I knew he wasn't getting enough nursing. That's when I again, reluctantly, chose to exclusively pump for my second child. 

I produced about twice as much milk with my second child than with my first. It was a wonderful problem, but it took up a lot of our freezer space. I had practically an entire chest freezer and garage refrigerator freezer dedicated to storing milk. Truly, a wonderful problem. I didn't have to pump while cooking dinner, and for the most part, I was able to keep my hunger at bay when I needed to without reaching famished levels. It was a much better pumping experience overall. 

I stopped pumping shortly after 2021 started. I had taken on more students in my teaching schedule, my husband's work was getting busier, and I was ready to get my life back. I had more than enough milk to feed my son until his first birthday so I was willing to stop early. He turned one a few weeks ago, and we still have a couple months worth of saved milk to go through.

I'm glad my son got to be exclusively breastfed for an entire year. He's the second child, and oftentimes he is treated like the second child, so I'm glad I was able to do this for him. And I didn't want to have the same doubts my mother did, so I tried my hardest to make sure I'd never second guess myself in the future. That's why I kept pumping for as long as I did. And I understand breast pumps were not readily available or covered by insurance 30 years ago. Would that have made a difference in my mother's decisions? Maybe, but I'll never know for sure. And it doesn't matter. I'm not angry with her and I don't resent her decisions regarding how she fed me for the first year. 

But I did one-up her. And I think she would be okay with that. 💕

Memories

I met a friend for a playdate and to catch up with her last week. We met at a playground about halfway between us. It was the first time I'd been to this playground, but I had actually been here many times before. When I was little, we used to walk to this park and play at the same spot. Except the playground which existed 25 years ago was completely different. The slides were metal and the climbing structures were wood. About 5-7 years ago, they tore the old one down and replaced it with a new, modern playground for children. I miss the nostalgia of the old playground, but that's about it. It's nice not to burn your butt on the way down the slide during the summer and not worry about splinters from holding onto the railings as you walked across the play structure. 

After our playdate, I took the scenic route home. I drove by my childhood home which wasn't far. It was the first home my dad purchased when he started working in the area. We lived there for just under 10 years before moving to the house my dad currently resides in. When we moved, my parents chose to sell the house for under market value. We knew what was wrong with it and wanted it sold and sold fast. An offer was made and the house was sold in three days. This may sound like no surprise now as we've had a seller's market in the area for the last five plus years. However, this was 20 years ago, and that was really fast. 

The buyer who purchased the house from my parents is not the current owner. That buyer sold the house a few years after we sold it and it was purchased by someone else. They have been there for the last 15 years or so. I've always been curious what the inside of the house looks like now. As I drove by, I noticed the landscaping was completely redone on the outside of the house. The crape myrtles are still growing by the side of the house, and I was happy to see the owners have let them grow properly and trimmed them correctly so they don't form the ugly knots. The front door was swapped out to a modern iron door, and I would only assume the inside of the house has been updated to suit their style and modernized as well. 

I remember having dreams of my childhood home, even after we'd moved out of it. Most of them weren't good because I didn't have many good memories of that house. The irony is, all of the problems we disliked about the house were just normal homeowner problems of age and time. Nothing was really "wrong" with it. When my husband and I bought our own house six years ago, we were seeing the exact same problems as the house I grew up with, but unfortunately, it was a seller's market, so houses were selling above market value and no less. 

Ironically, the house we purchased was very similar to the house I grew up in. Spec wise, the square footage was almost identical and the number of rooms the same. We liked nothing about the inside of the house and remodeled and painted as we could. We are still making changes inside little by little. 

The neighbor’s son came over once a few years back to pick up a package delivered to us by mistake. When he stepped inside, he said how different it looked from before. When he was little, he actually came over to our house and would play with the former owner’s son. So he has seen the true before and after of this house. 

I’m not going to get a reason to walk into my childhood home. Sometimes I randomly check to see if it’s listed for sale and if there are any photos. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d want to see it. My memories of that house include the knotty wood paneling, carpeted bathrooms, and being sent to the garage when I got into trouble. But I also have memories of climbing into the linen closet and laying on the shelves, exploring our master closet and thinking how huge it was, and plucking up the moss which grew in the backyard landscaping and uncovering earthworms. 

I think I’d rather keep the memories. 

Mamalogues: Happy Birthday, Mommy

Today would have been my mother's 66th birthday. Sadly, she didn't even get to turn 50. 

We often look at age as a curse - we think of it as getting older. We think of it as our life getting shorter and our days being numbered. None of this is wrong, but it's definitely looking at it with the glass half empty. Age means you've lived longer. You've learned more. And most importantly, you get to experience and witness more out of life. 

Raising kids without my mother is probably the most difficult thing I've ever had to do and may ever have to do in my lifetime. I love looking at pictures of my babies and watching them change over the months and years and grow up. I love watching the way their faces and expressions change, and I've even purposely captured pictures of their screaming faces. Because I simply want to remember someday when the sleep deprivation and repeating myself 100 times a day stops. But at the same time that I love looking at photos of my children and the memories we're making together, I'll forever know that my mother will never be in them. Not one photo of my children will ever include her. 

I've shown pictures of her to my daughter. We went through a phase where she'd look through photo albums while eating her meals as a way to bribe her for bites. I pulled out some of my old family photo albums and showed them to her. She could pick out my dad and refer to him with no problem. But of course, she didn't recognize the other woman who appeared in the photos. I didn't go into detail now as she won't understand nor am I ready to explain to her. But one day, she will ask. Or I will choose to share with her. And that's going to be a hard day. She's going to look at this stranger and think to herself, "I don't know who this person is." And I'll have to tell her: "She's the grandmother you never got a chance to meet. 

***

After my daughter was born, I really missed my mother. My daughter was quite the handful of a baby. We were tired. And most of the time, we were just guessing at what we were supposed to do as new parents. I wondered what it would have been like to have my mother there. Chances are, in all honesty, illness aside, if my mother were alive when we had kids, she would have probably given me a little too much advice, done things in ways I didn't appreciate, and gotten on my nerves a little bit. And that would have been totally normal. But knowing what I do now, wishing that I could see her holding my babies would make those annoying moments worth it. 

Since having my son, I've wondered what having my mother around would have been like. It's hard to envision because she was so sick the last few years of her life, I don't remember my mother doing normal day-to-day activities. I don't remember her cooking. I don't remember her cleaning. I don't remember her sitting down and having a conversation with me. 

What do I remember? I remember administering her shots. I remember helping her drain fluid from her lungs and cleaning the area where the tube was inserted and re-bandaging it up in a way that was comfortable. I remember being careful which way to coil the tube so she'd feel it the least. I remember her saying she liked it best when I did it rather than when other people did it. I remember watching her take packets of pills everyday and swallowing them with food rather than water, because if she took a sip of water with every pill, she'd fill up and never want to eat anything. 

You know what else I remember? I remember the days when I was selfish, and I didn't want to help her. I didn't want to spend the 20 minutes it took to drain the fluids and re-bandage the area. I wanted to get on the computer and talk to my friends. I wanted to watch my show on television. 

I was 11 or 12. 

***

My mother and I weren't close. I didn't have deep, meaningful conversation with her. In the 9 years I had with her as a healthy person and the 4 years I had with her while she was sick, I remember my mother as the person who took care of the house. The person who picked us up from school. The person who washed my hair. The person who cooked. The person who disciplined me. The person who took care of us when we were sick. 

There's lots of things about my mother which I believe she did wrong as a mother. A lot of my parenting philosophies were based on things I didn't want to do because I was the product of them. My mother's personality is still within me, and there are moments when I feel myself become her as I parent my children. But I'd like to think I removed the parts of her which scarred me and took all the best parts of her and made them better. I hope my kids do see me as the person who takes care of the house, the person who picks them up from school, the person who washes their hair, the person who cooks, the person who disciplines, the person who takes care of them when they're sick. But more than that, I want them to see me as the person who loves them and cherishes them and supports them. 

Regretfully, I don't have many good memories with my mother. And because she was sick, the last memories I do have with her are tainted. But that doesn't change the fact that we loved each other as a mother and daughter do. 

Happy birthday. I miss you. 

Mid Year Check-In

At the beginning of the new year, I wrote a post with a few goals I wanted to accomplish. It's my version of a "New Year's Resolution." Well, Unfortunately for most people, 2020 has turned out to be one terrible year. You can read about my take on the terrible twos here, more for comedic relief than real talk. 

A whole six months has gone by. I can't tell you half of what I did in these six months, But I know the time has gone by because:

• I'm not pregnant anymore
• I have a second child
• There are more gray hairs on my head (I think...I'm not really counting...)

I started the year with three general "goals" I wanted to accomplish. 

1. Finish my cross-stitch
2. Find a new work-life balance
3. Keep my sanity

1. Finish My Cross-Stitch

I did! I finished my cross-stitch. I put in extra hours early this year, stitching at night, but I didn’t finish it before he was born. Somehow, after my son was born, I found time here and there to finish! It took me about three and a half years, but I finished it on June 28, 2020. This is my second large-scale cross-stitch that I've finished. Once again, the irony is that when I purchased this cross-stitch, I was living in China and single. When I finished it, I was living in the USA, married, with two kids two and under.

Originally, I bought this cross-stitch with a goal of finishing it before we had kids. That didn't happen. So then, I wanted to finish it before we were done having kids. That didn't happen either...but to my own credit, I only missed that goal by about three months.

Here it is!

Something often overlooked about cross-stitches is actually the back. If you enter a cross-stitch into a county fair or contest, they actually judge you more on the back than the front. Why is that? The back tells about the journey. Anyone can come up with a nice looking design on the front, but it takes dedication and patience to have a beautiful cross-stitch back.

So what is it about this journey that's so important? 

1. No Knots - cross stitching doesn't involve tying any knots. The ends of each thread are secured by looping your stitches on top of the ends. Every time you start a new thread, it must be secured in this way. 
2. Reaching over vs. starting new - I don't know if there's a technical term for this. If anyone's savvy enough in cross-stitch terminology, please let me know! But this is where instead of cutting the thread and starting in a new location, you take your thread from your last ending point and reach across the canvas to start it in a new location, therefore resulting in a very long piece of thread traveling on the back. It makes the back look messy and sloppy.
3. Consistency - The Xs on the front need to be crossed the exact same way in order to appear consistent and neat. This means if you stitch the bottom left to top right first, it has to be stitched first on every single X. When done correctly, the stitches on the back will all appear to be in the same direction instead of alternating vertical and horizontal stitches. 

Is it obvious to tell if someone's taken their time and cross-stitched the correct way? Yes. If you know what you're looking for, it's extremely obvious. One of the most telling signs is that the back of your cross-stitch should look exactly like the front.

Here's my back:

I have to say, I did a really nice job on this cross-stitch. I've been sloppy on previous ones in the past and learned the hard way, hence how I've been able to come up with my mental list of "what it takes to have a good cross-stitch." The design itself is not a difficult one, especially not compared to the last one I finished, but it fits perfectly for why I wanted to finish it: it's for my children. 

2. Find a New Work-Life Balance. 

I have been able to find a new work-life balance. In doing so, I've cut my students in half, I limit the hours I work, and I'm only teaching online right now. For most of this, I have to thank coronavirus actually. If the virus didn't exist, I would have pressured myself into taking all my students back which would be 12+ hours of teaching a week in five days. Add that onto taking care of my kids during the day while my husband was working as well as breastfeeding, or attempting to breastfeed my son, and that results in one crazy mom. 

I'll never forget the day I put my pump on the kitchen counter and pumped during my 30 minute break in between two lessons while cooking spaghetti on the stove for dinner at the same time after my daughter was born. I don't even know where she was. I think my husband was watching her. 

I'll be eternally grateful for coronavirus that I will not have to do that with my son this time around. But that's pretty much the only reason why I'm grateful for this virus. For everything else, it's ruined a lot of plans, trips, outings, and life in general. 

3. Keep my Sanity

As mentioned above, this virus has helped me to keep my sanity in certain ways. In others? Not so much. It's been a new learning curve to figure out how to plan grocery trips now and be intentional about what I buy. I've had to train my daughter into a daily routine/schedule that doesn't involve going on playdates or wandering stores for fun. But we've found other things that she has enjoyed during these last three months of staying at home and staying out of public places, which has also kept us from going crazy ourselves: going on bike rides in the bike trailer, swinging in our front lawn and "blasting off", swinging in our hammock, watching our neighbors mow and trim their lawns, going swimming in our neighbor's pool, watching bunnies and squirrels, digging in our flower beds which don't have flowers, and learning how to be a big sister, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. 

Overall, I think the transition to having two kids while maintaining both of our jobs and general lifestyle has been pretty smooth. The kids have kept me busy during all this staying at home, and to be honest, it's been nice. I wonder to myself what quarantine with no kids would have been like. I think I would have had a lot more time to do the things I wanted to do and no will to do them. Chances are, I would have sat at home, watched a lot of TV, or spent a lot of money shopping online, neither of which I have time to do now.

I hope despite all the terribleness this year has brought for many of us, you've been able to find some silver linings to reach some goals or discover something new for yourself. 

Here's to the second half of 2020.