The Art of English

John's command of the English language cracks me up on a daily basis. He often searches for the right word/phrase and comes up just shy. Here are a few examples:
"Will you play tic-tac-two with me?"
"Why you use that chowder on your face?"
"I got fruit by the toe!" (Fruit by the Foot)
"Mom, I saw seven o'clock on my temperature."

He also has this way of talking about things that happened hours earlier as if they happened years ago.
"Mom, [re]member that time we went to my school for the ice cream social?"
"Last night?"
"Yeah. That was fun."

"Member when we ate that circle food?"
"Circle food?"
"Yeah, the one with the crab in it?"
After some thought, "You mean the sushi we ate for dinner yesterday?"
"Yeah. I like shooshi. Can we have it again for lunch?"

Sometimes we are at a loss as to what John is trying to tell us. I have learned to search for clues in his thinking patterns to figure out what the object or idea is that he can't quite name. Recently he was trying to tell me about "the thing that takes cars up into the sky" and I was completely stumped. Crane? Tow truck? Hot air balloon? Alien spacecraft? 50 guesses later he proudly announced, "Oh yeah. A tornado." Huh.

SNOW!

For the second year in a row, we are having a strange winter. Our area is known for its snow. Snow that starts in November (sometimes October) and does not let up until March. As a kid, your major calorie burner in the winter is sledding; as an adult it is shoveling. Part of the reason we moved back was because my husband loves the snow and wanted to share that love with our boys. But sadly, since coming back to the area there hasn't been much of the famed fluffy stuff. We have a great sledding hill near our house, and last winter I never even made it out there. CJ took the boys a handful of times - I think John only went with him once. When I think about my childhood and how many hours I spent careening down the hills in the parking lot across from our house, it makes me sad to think the boys are missing out on all that dangerous fun. This year didn't seem like it would be much better. We didn't get the usual lake effect storms in late fall, and we've had freak periods of extreme cold and extreme warm. Instead of snow we've had rain. It feels like I am back in the Pacific Northwest. Yesterday we finally got a nice dumping of lake effect fluff, and CJ actually got sent home early from Drill. We headed over to the hill and watched the boys have the wintertime fun they've been waiting for. Paul is learning how to ski and the hill is a perfect place for him to practice. He's only been on skis three times so far and is doing remarkably well. His biggest frustration comes from trying to click the boots into his skis!!
John has taken to sledding down the hill, face first, as fast as humanly possible. I love listening to his squeals of delight although I must add that it makes me a bit nervous to watch. As to be expected, he does not like dragging the sled back up the hill and spent some time yesterday convincing other people to do it for him (his brother, his father, our neighbors). Twice he went far enough to get stuck in a pile of fresh snow, but that only slowed him down temporarily. He even lost his boot at one point. He found it in the snow, stuck his foot back in, and kept going. It warms my heart to see such snow spirit in my boys. After all, this is now their "hometown" and I hope someday they can share good snow stories with their children. Hopefully the weird weather won't continue and we can go back to the way it was. So much snow and cold that when you get to March and the temperature reaches 50, you open up all the windows and go outside in your shorts. That's the way it should be around here!

I just wanna parent like it's 1985

I miss the 80's. Not just Duran Duran and John Hughes movies, but the way things were back then. The attitude of it all, ya know? When I was a kid, it was perfectly acceptable to walk around the neighborhood knocking on your friends' doors until you found someone to play with. Then you would wander off together to the local playground, or ride your bikes to the grocery store to stock up on candy and rubber bracelets. If it was wintertime, you would spend the afternoon in an empty parking lot (I grew up across the street from an elementary school) sledding down the monstrous hills left behind by snow plows. Life was just so, so... carefree! Now it seems like every minute of my childrens' days must be planned, executed and heavily supervised. We tried to invite a neighborhood boy over to play a while back and his mom was all upset, accusing him of trying to go someplace uninvited (she only heard his end of the phone conversation). Oops, I thought to myself. I regularly send my child to her house to ring their doorbell hoping he'll find some more productive way to spend his time other than torturing his younger brother or playing endless rounds of Uno. When the friend did come to our house, mom and dad dropped him off and picked him up. He lives up the street. Am I the only mom who allows my six year old to ride his bike around the neighborhood alone? Mind you, I do not let him cross any streets (we live on a court at the end of a long street with courts on the opposite side - so his "block" is actually quite extensive). But still. Everyone else seems so much more overprotective than us. These other parents were all children of the 80's. They all survived childhoods in station wagons with no car seats (and rarely a seat belt), bike riding with no helmet and sledding directly into the street. Okay, so I make my kids wear helmets. They fall down a lot. And I appreciate the fact that things are generally safer now. But I firmly believe that we have gone overboard in our overprotectiveness. I work with teenagers who have no idea how to make safe, independent choices, and I worry about how they are going to survive out there in a world full of hurty things. I want my boys to be able to navigate the world on their own. But I am a parent in 2013 and my views are not exactly popular. What's a mom to do?

The three year old philosophizes on life and death

I worry. A lot. When we decided to adopt I worried about what our child(ren) would ask in regards to their multi-parent existence. And how exactly I was going to deal with it. I read all the books, magazines and blogs, dutifully taking in the most appropriate responses that would have the least psychological damage. Then we adopted Paul. Who never asks any difficult questions. Seriously. Recently I have tried to bring up the subject of his adoption, and he pretty much blows me off. He has two moms (technically three if you count his foster mom). Big deal. He was a super cute baby. We have the photo album to prove it. He loves to hear us talk about his first weeks home with us. But that's about it. No queries as to where he came from, what his life in Korea was like, what his birth mother thinks about, nothing. Phew, I thought. This adoptive parenting stuff is a piece of cake. And then came John. John has THE MOST INQUISITIVE PERSONALITY EVER. We have been in the "Why" stage for about 18 months now. I often joke that I expressed concern at John's first few checkups because he wasn't saying much and I thought he might need speech therapy. He was simply taking it all in before verbally exploding. Anyone who has ever ridden in the car with John knows that I am not exaggerating. He asks questions about EVERYTHING, so I am not surprised when he had a million questions about his grandfather's death. Mostly they involved where Pop-pop was and when we were going to see him again. "How do we get to Heaven?" he asked. Oof. He became especially confused when we arrived at the cemetery and were carrying my father-in-law's cremated body in a box. Honestly, how do you explain to a three year old that our soul goes up to Heaven while our body remains on earth to be buried forever? As we were walking down the windy corridor of the mausoleum, John sweetly asked, "Is this Heaven?" And today he wanted to know when the men would open the wall and take Pop-pop out of the box. Hmmm....
But my favorite story from the week of dad's funeral was not about death, but life. On our way home from my sister-in-law's house minus our eldest, John was cuddling with his pillow in the back seat. The pillow was made by his birth mother and it is John's comfort object. He asked me if his tummy mommy (that's what we call her) grew it in her tummy and I said no, just him. Here is the conversation that followed:
John: "How did I get out of her tummy?" pause "Did I come out her mouth?"
Me: suppressing laughter, "Um..." looking at husband and deciding to just be totally up front, "No honey. You came out of her vagina."
John: after a beat of silence, "But how did I get out of China?"
Hysterical laughter from the front seat. How do we respond to that? Thankfully at that moment we drove over a small bridge.
John: "Look mommy! A bridge."
I love my kid.

The Christmas Letters: A Tribute to John van

One of the things you think about when entering a serious relationship with another person is their family. If marriage is in the future of your relationship, then you want to know what sort of people you will eventually call mom and dad, what personalities will enter your lives and how you will all get along. My husband and I met in high school, and while I knew that day that he was my soul mate, it was difficult to imagine at 17 what my relationship would be like with my future in-laws. I remember his sisters thinking I was only after their brother, who was two years my junior, for a prom date. I remember his parents being really laid back about letting him come and go as he pleased, much different from the Fort Knox situation at my house. And I remember stealing cigarettes from his dad, the unfiltered kind, because at the time I thought it rebellious to grab a smoke now and then – even though I never actually inhaled. That was my first impression of my future father in law: someone who smoked unfiltered cigarettes from the Indian Reservation and let his son stay out all night.
Over the years of an on again off again friendship with my betrothed (something he was reluctant to accept as he continued to date other girls), I got to know the family better. I am sure they found my approach rather pathetic, as I would show up on the doorstep each summer trying to hang on to any tiny thread of hope. But eventually he figured out that we were indeed meant to be, and our relationship became an actual, solid entity. We became an official couple the night before leaving for The Netherlands to see his father’s childhood home. A few months later I spent my first Christmas with his family and witnessed their traditions. Which brings me to the core of my story: The Christmas Letter. Every year, each family member received an envelope from dad that contained money and a personal letter recounting the various adventures and accomplishments from the year. I witnessed the tradition during my first Christmas with my future family, and after getting engaged the following year, received my very first letter. It was a rite of passage, a welcome into the family. I can remember feeling special and excited to participate in the tradition. I would officially become a member of the family on the day of our wedding, but the letter acknowledged actual acceptance.
Each year I looked forward to reading the letter from dad. Sometimes they made me cry. Sometimes they made me laugh. They usually talked about life’s changes, which in our early marriage were plentiful, and the challenges of being a Navy wife. I felt like dad really understood my struggles. When my husband was deployed for eight months and I was alone, scared, and 3000 miles away from home, dad would call to check up on me during the lonely evening hours. It was 9:00 on the west coast and midnight back east, and he was the only one still awake. His midnight phone calls kept me from feeling completely isolated and I appreciated them more than I could ever express.
Several years later, when we made our way back to our hometown and I was looking for work, dad hired me to help with his contracting business. He always had some disgusting odd job for me to do, like cleaning out the garage of a man who did not understand the concept of weekly garbage collection, or scrubbing the dingy carpet in a house downtown where someone was murdered a week later. He’d give me a can of Dover White paint and send me into a dark, cramped closet. I grinned knowing that this was his way of teaching me how to paint THE RIGHT WAY, the same way he’d taught my husband, the same way I would paint my own closets in years to come. Then he’d take me out to lunch at some hole-in-the-wall deli and we’d devour sandwiches with paint under our fingernails.
As the family grew, the letters each Christmas seemed to get a little less personal, a little more rushed. But they were still there every year, even when he resorted to a generic opening that he Xeroxed for everyone and then included a quick personalized note at the bottom. This year, I hadn’t given much thought to the letters. Dad was sick and certainly wouldn’t be able to express his feelings for each of us the way he had in the past. When he took a turn for the worse right before Christmas, we doubted he would even make it through the holiday. But he did. He was right there with the family as we opened presents, listening to the sounds of his grandsons chirping excitedly about their new gifts, listening to the family laugh and talk and eat. The next morning he passed away quietly. It was then that I realized he had written his final Christmas letter to the family. He had wanted each of us to know that he was there, watching over our lives and celebrating our joys and struggles. And he will continue to watch over us from Heaven. After we got the news, I went back and re-read all of my letters and realized that one thing is clear. Here was a man who cared deeply about the people in his life. Even if he had a hard time showing it sometimes, it was always there, all the way through his final breath. Dad: you, your compassion, your tiny ways of making people feel special, and your Christmas letters will be deeply missed. God speed.

Can a person really truly change?

Faithful blog readers know that in the grades of life, I regularly earn D's and F's in Organization and Stick-to-it-tiveness (but A's in making up new words). Those near and dear to me seem to enjoy never letting me forget that sad little fact. Like the other day when I frantically announced that I needed a personal assistant to manage all of the running around and keeping track of mindless crap and my mom said, ever so lovingly, "You don't need an assistant. You need to be more organized." Thanks, mom. And when I was complaining for the umpteenth time about how messy our house is and my husband kindly informed me that I have never BEEN organized and will never BE organized, so why do I continue to berate myself? Why, readers, why? Why can I not accept the fact that I will spend ridiculous amounts of time searching for the piece of paper that was RIGHT THERE or that really important thing that I put in a very safe place? Why? Because it is a fundamental character flaw that I am desperate to change. But every time I make small amounts of headway in altering my behavior, the good 'ol laziness kicks in and I start putting things off. And promising I will do it later. And oh yeah, I should probably give myself an A in Procrastination.
Needless to say the husband is fed up. Again. He went on a rampage the other night and took everything off the counter. Wait, that's a lie. He left my vitamin organizer out in an effort to make sure I actually stick to my required regiment (I fall off that wagon a lot too). But everything else left of the sink is gone. Hid away. The current system is failing, he announces, it's time for something different. Damn him and his six sigma! Last night he came home in a flurry, did the dishes, cleaned the bathroom and was searching for signs of stray out-of-place objects like they were contaminated with Ebola. I am thankful for this, I truly am. My husband regularly pushes me out of my comfort zone and tries to break me of my failing flaws. With his help (and somewhat cruel methods of motivation) I earned a 4.0 in graduate school. He delivers tough love. And it works. Temporarily. You see, in the back of my mind I am thinking about how great the counter will look for the next week or so and then slowly, silently slip back into The Way Things Were. Because it always does. My other major character flaw? I am a pessimist, through and through. I wish I could say otherwise, as my mom would love nothing more than for me to "Think positive!" It just isn't going to happen. At the end of the day, can a person really truly change? We shall see.

The Great Room Shuffle

After spending the first half of my marriage as a nomadic wanderer, I developed a lust for change. And having no desire at this juncture to pack up all of our crap and move I need to settle on the simple stuff. Like rearranging the children. Paul confessed recently that he is terrified of the attic in his room because he thinks something lives up there. A fear that he developed after my husband created said monster in an effort to keep Paul away from the Lego sets that are hidden in the attic. A fear that came to the surface after several sleepless nights that resulted in a negative behavior report from school. A fear that was probably made worse by a visit to the Halloween store. Oops. No parent of the year awards for us!! The good news is, we have an extra room upstairs that waits patiently for guests who never visit (hint hint out of town readers) and we were able to move Paul into a closet-monster free environment. John, upon hearing the news of Paul's room abandonment, packed his pillow and pull-ups and moved it. He is apparently NOT afraid of the closet monster despite the fact that he cannot use the downstairs bathroom while the skeleton towel is hanging from the rack. Strange. John has now earned the title of "van who slept in every bedroom in the house". He is happy as a clam in there and it saved us the challenge of installing a closet organizer in his old room. A room which now occupies a naked bed as I contemplate possible uses for the space. Guest room? Hardly seems worth it. Workout room? We have one downstairs and I never use it. Study? Possible. Mommy does need a good place to hide now and then.