Perspective

I became a mom ten years and 11 days ago, and I can vividly remember the first 24 hours of parenthood. The first five were spent coming home from the airport, hubby driving in the rain on zero sleep - my India.Aria CD playing in a continuous loop because he didn't know how to change it, and me in the backseat trying desperately to calm a hysterical seven month old stranger. Yep, we were complete strangers on that first night - connected only by pictures (we had three of him, he had a chewable photo album with a few pictures of us) and health reports. We stopped at a gas station to change his diaper and were yelled at by the attendant for not having a hat on our baby.

Initial thought: I am a complete failure as a parent.

Back at home, I tried my best to help P adjust to his strange surroundings while hubby caught some much needed zzz's. I showed him his room, lovingly decorated with Noah's arc animals. We read books and sang songs. I felt like the babysitter waiting for mom and dad to come home and take over the real parenting. In the morning, we gave P a bath and he screamed. His foster mother told us he loved baths. My husband looked at me with an expression that asked, "I thought you knew what you were doing - did you lie to me?" In truth, I didn't have a clue how to be a parent, and I'm pretty sure none of us do until it actually happens. My brother had become a dad a few years earlier and he told me that the hospital staff passed him his son and ushered him out the door. Without any sort of instructions as to what to do next.

Truth: No one truly knows what they are doing at first.

There were two profound moments in that first 24 hours and both of them could be seen as parenting fails, but to me they were shifts in perspective that helped with our rocky transition. The first was during the bath, after hubby realized that no, I did not know what I was doing. He said, "Everything we're doing is wrong." Me, with bewildered expression, "Huh?" But he was right. Every smell, every sight, every experience was not what P had become used to in his foster home. It wasn't WRONG in the broad sense, but wrong in his little slice of the world. The second moment took place that afternoon when we brought him to the doctor's office. Our pediatrician, a kind and enthusiastic Asian woman who cooed at P when she first saw him, made my little boy's face light up for the first time. Her face, her tone of voice - the familiarity - comforted him.

It wasn't me. We had ripped this kiddo away from everything he knew, forced him to fly across the world with a complete stranger who handed him off to two other complete strangers, two weird smelling people who had no idea how to draw a proper bath. When I think about that day I think about our gain - I love my boy so much it hurts and I can't imagine life without him - but I think about his loss, about how scared he must have been during those first 24 hours. We were all pretty terrified. But his journey, and the journey of his little brother four years later, must have been incredibly frightening. We celebrate the anniversary of those days (known in our family as KTA day, or Korea-to-America) and recognize both the joy and the heartache involved.

Truth: Parenting is hard, and I'm not always good at it. But I love my kiddos unconditionally and try to grow as a mom every day.

No doubt I have made countless parenting fails along the way and there are plenty more waiting for me in the next ten years and even in the ten beyond that. But I'm trying to shift my perspective. We had P's conferences yesterday and it was overwhelmingly positive. They haven't always been, believe me. But yesterday, as I listened to his teachers talk about how smart, hard-working, and enthusiastic about learning he is, my heart swelled with pride. Sure, a lot of that is genetics, but some of it must be our parenting. Don't get me wrong, I make mistakes. ALL THE TIME.

But somehow we've figured out how to do a few things right.

Van Family Summer Bucket List

Inspired by the launch of my dear friend's book, The BFF Bucket List, the boys and I decided to make our own summer bucket list. As soon as school let out, we brainstormed ideas, wrote them down on a piece of loose leaf paper, and posted the list on our fridge. There were 18 items and we checked off 14. Which is pretty darn good and made for an exciting, adventure filled summer.

Here are some highlights:

BUCKET LIST ITEM #5: HAVE A CAMPFIRE WITH S'MORES

We started the summer off with a backyard campfire complete with requisite s'mores. Our friends joined us for a fun night - the kids loved launching LED copters into the sky once the sun went down. 

BUCKET LIST ITEM #15: DARIEN LAKE 

We actually did this one twice. Once for hub's work picnic, where J braved his first upside down roller coaster (and LOVED it), and once with friends for a crazy day of rides, water park, and slushies. We're pictured above on my favorite ride, one that does not go upside down or fast... the Ferris wheel. 

BUCKET LIST ITEM #3: TRY COFFEE ICE CREAM 

For whatever reason, this was important to P, so it made the list. We went out for ice cream to celebrate the removal of braces (YAY!) and let him order whatever he wanted. Look at the shiny, straight teeth! As you can see, he also decided to grow his hair long this summer. It's a middle school thing I guess.

BUCKET LIST ITEM #16: BOAT RIDE ALONG ERIE CANAL 

There is a lot of cool history in our town. We rode a boat through two locks on the Erie Canal and then spent the afternoon walking through Lockport and sampling more ice cream (see next item). There is also an underground cave tour which we have done once before but decided to skip this year. Fun fact: part of Sharknado 2 was filmed in the Lockport cave. 

BUCKET LIST ITEM #9: TRY LAKE EFFECT ICE CREAM 

It tastes good.

BUCKET LIST ITEM #10: GO TO A LOCAL BEACH

The boys went to the beach a few times with their summer camp group, but the picture above is from our day trip to Canada to visit with some friends at their cottage. It was a fun, relaxing day that included fishing (item #18) and a campfire, with s'mores of course (item #5).

BUCKET LIST ITEM #1: GO TO THE DRIVE IN

Look at us, all match-y and smiling... oh wait...

Our cub scout pack organized a summer outing to the drive in, and it was the perfect opportunity to cross another item off the list and enjoy a night out at the movies watching one of my all-time faves, The Princess Bride. P had a good time, he just didn't want to have his picture taken.

BUCKET LIST ITEMS #5 and #18: GO CAMPING/GO FISHING

Camping next to a creek = AWESOME! I'm fairly certain J would still be in there looking for crayfish if we hadn't dragged him out when we left the campground.

BUCKET LIST ITEM #7: CAMP IN THE FAMILY ROOM

Labor day weekend. Second to last night of summer vacation. Perfect opportunity to sneak in one more bucket list item. I have no idea why they wanted to sleep on the hard floor under a fort of several blankets ("Mom, it's really sweaty under here!"), but they did.

I'm happy with how things went this summer. The boys grew a little taller, a little braver, and a little more independent. I am grateful for their enthusiasm and willingness to try new things and happy that we are able to spend time together as a family. The day is coming when they'll have summer jobs and scoff at the idea of hanging out with mom and dad. So I'm doing my best to cherish the moments we have right now and letting go one finger at a time.

Oh, summer...

Hello from under the rock of summer that buried me sometime in June. There have been several blog posts running through my brain (typically at two a.m.) but my fingers and the keyboard have been strangers these past few months. Don't ask about the book; it's covered in avoidance cobwebs. My Twitter account? Silent. BUT, the family has been plugging away at our summer bucket list, and I promise to post a detailed account, complete with photos, sometime in September.

Or October. Hashtag PROCRASTINATION.

I'll try to avoid bucket list spoilers, but here are some of the things the Family Van has been up to since my last Internet shout-out:

Hubs went to Milan for work and took me with him. Hello, Italy. Your food is delicious, and I had fun wandering your streets and checking out your amazing churches. Love, Sandi.

The boy graduated elementary school and is headed to the big, bad, dreaded middle school in two weeks. Neither one of us is ready, but when will we be? Truly? Our root beer float talk went well (P requested that root beer floats accompany our birds and bees conversation), but I am slightly terrified about the onset of puberty. And not sure how much longer I can openly blog about my preteen without him stumbling on my posts and feeling mortified.

Both kiddos went to scout camp for the first time (with mom and dad in tow) and loved it. Despite a weekend filled with wicked storms, we had a great time learning new skills and bonding with the other scout families. P also learned not to carry electronics in your pocket while paddling in a canoe.

Hubs and I decided to coach P's soccer team next season. And by season I mean now through next July. The past year was a little rough - there was a bit of bullying among teammates as well as aggressive parents on the sidelines, and we are hoping to create a more positive environment. The last (and only other) time we coached together was back in Virginia when we were in our early 20's - it was a coed U15 team, and it was a tough run. But we're ready to get back in the saddle and excited about sharing our passion for soccer.

Summer has been fun, but I look forward to getting into the routine of fall, a routine which hopefully includes time for writing.

Stay tuned for our bucket list post!!

Entering the next phase

Once upon a time in the not so distant past, I stood anxiously at a gate in JFK airport and waited for my son to appear. Tonight, I attended a parent information session at the middle school. Middle. School. The place where one comes in like an innocent little lamb and leaves as a horny teenager.

I am not ready.

To begin with, middle school remains a rough section of my past. It's where I mustered up the courage to ask a boy if he would dance with me and was met with a response that echoed in my subconscious for years to come: "My feet are tired." It's where I was taunted, teased, and harassed for talking to myself, having facial hair, and looking at someone's boyfriend the wrong way. It's where I discovered that boys prefer silly girls over smart ones.

Not the best years of my life by any stretch.

P is nervous. He's nervous about forgetting his locker combination, getting too much homework, and encountering bullies. But he's excited about the freedom and about joining computer club and chess club (a geek after my own heart.) I want him to hold on to the excitement instead of focusing on the things that make him nervous. Which means I need to let go of my own demons and let him be him.

That's harder than it looks. I teach through examples; he's already been subjected to the story of my facial hair taunter and the girl who was my BFF in 5th grade that turned all our friends against me right before middle school. He's even heard the tired feet story, complete with the part about how I barfed in the bathroom after it happened. Part of me hopes he'll learn from my experiences and mistakes, and realize that I came out okay (well, mostly) on the other side. The rest of me knows that he needs to have his own experiences, make his own mistakes, mistakes that he'll tell his kids about someday when they're getting ready to head off to middle school.

Parenting is so much harder than I ever imagined it would be, and there is still a lot of road ahead of us. Each day I have to let a little piece of my boy go and hope that he can navigate the world without me. He's a good kid. Smart, outgoing, secure in who he is. He yearns to be fiercely independent but still kisses me every morning before he gets on the bus and every night before he goes to bed. I want to hold on to my little lamb a bit longer, but I know I need to let him grow up. I need to let go of all the things that happened to me when I was his age, but I know that they have forever shaped me just as I know whatever happens to my boy in the next few years will forever shape him. He will have his heart broken, and may break a heart or two. He'll mess up, make bad decisions, ruin friendships. But he'll make new friends, learn more about the world, and figure out how to navigate through all of the crazy changes his body has in store for him.

I can't wait to see the amazing teenager come out on the other side.

Comfort zone? What comfort zone?

Greetings from my second trip to the annual PennWriters conference in Pennsylvania. The conference is in Lancaster this year, a bit farther from home base, but worth the drive. I had a wonderful stop over visit to my old stomping grounds and dinner with one of my favorite people. And solo road trips allow the advantage of singing as loudly as possible to the most ridiculous mix tape.

Yes, I said mix tape.

The original plan was to meet up with another friend of mine at the conference, but she was unable to go, a fact that sent me into a bit of a panic. Faithful readers know that I have social anxiety, as well as puts-foot-in-mouth disease. If words actually leave my mouth. Usually I create the world's most uncomfortable silence. It's bad.

So before I left I sought out the advice of my circle of trust, or should I say my circle of trust took it upon themselves to give me advice. Either way, the results were typical. Mom said to smile, be myself (but mom, that's part of the problem), and oh yeah, smile. That solves everything. She then told my sister, who sent me a confidence boosting string of texts advising me to channel the extroverts I know. It was actually rather sage-like and included the idea of putting on a "cloak of confidence." In other words, fake it till you make it. I can do that. I'm an actress, or at least I was back in the day. Mom said if I could get on stage in front of an audience then why can't I engage with a stranger in a bit of small talk. "It's a stage" has become one of this weekend's mantras.

The hubs told me to look at the weekend as an opportunity to enjoy "me time" and do the things that I like to do when I'm alone - just do them in a new setting. Wander around and people watch? check. Sit by the pool and read a book? check. Enjoy whatever weird vegan food/juice I want without having to justify myself? check. The only thing I won't get to is dance around wildly, although my suite at the hotel is big enough should I decide to.

So far the conference is going well. I miss my friend, but we've been texting throughout the day and she said it was like having a virtual reality experience. Every once in a while I get a wave of, HOLY CRAP I'M ALL ALONE, WHAT NOW. But I just breath and smile (see, mom, I do listen) and come up with something to start the conversation ball rolling. With everyone I encounter. I do not allow the evil enemy, Uncomfortable Silence, to even bare his claws.

Because here's the thing: writers are inherently introverted. And I've noticed that a lot of people come here alone. So they're probably just as freaked out on the inside as I am. It isn't a perfect system, mind you. But I'd much rather be the person who starts a benign conversation that may or may not lead anywhere than the person who sits in a puddle of negative thoughts trying to figure out what to say next. It's a stage, I'm an actress, someone who seems like she is outgoing but is really just trying to keep herself from imploding. And then, I hide away in my room to recharge.

Do what scares you, people. Figure out a way to make it work. It's worth it.

The plane, the plane!

The following post is somewhat overdue. My blog advertises that it is a journey of motherhood, cakes, and procrastination. Let's just say the first and third got in the way of blogging about the second. But I must not forget the roots of this blog, and that is to shamelessly flaunt my bi-yearly cake creations. This year P asked for a, oh gosh I've already forgotten the name of the plane. Something P something Mustang. P 51 Mustang. Thank you search history. Anyway, he's very much into all things war and weaponry, so I wasn't all that surprised when he requested a fighter plane. The design was relatively simple, although I was told afterward that the wings were supposed to be straight out, not at an angle, which I honestly only altered to make the cake fit on the tray. Ah well, lesson learned. Fit matters not; follow the pictures.

After nine years of cake building, the process has become rather streamlined. This year I went with a confetti batter and made a batch of rice krispie treats because they are super easy to mold into whatever shape you need. The key is to mold when the treats are warm and to do so on a well-buttered surface wearing plastic gloves sprayed with cooking spray. For the cake, I used a large loaf pan for the body and two small loaf pans for the cockpit, nose and rear wing (tail?). 

Frosting is no longer my nemesis. I make a batch of traditional buttercream frosting (room temperature butter, confectioner's sugar, and milk - I use soy) and stir in about half a container of cool whip. The cool whip creates a smooth consistency and allows for frosting along cut edges. Back when I made the tie fighter, I learned the trick to gray: black food coloring with a dash of blue. It looked too purple at first and I was a bit worried, but when it cooled the color was beautiful. 

I kept the decorations simple. Red coin candies flipped upside down, thick black licorice for the propellers and guns, and blue sprinkle sky with marshmallow clouds. P created additional guns with the candles.

 

Other than the misdirected wings, the cake turned out nicely, and I spent much less time obsessing about it this year. Which makes the husband happy. And the boy is clearly pleased. Which makes mama happy.

Now we just need to stop procrastinating and get the thank you notes done.

This is The End

I am incredibly close to the end of the first draft of my second novel. Scary close. And I am afraid to end it. Maybe it's procrastination. Certainly a believable theory given my reputation. Revising is way harder and less emotionally rewarding than drafting, the eventuality of sending it off for critique is mildly terrifying (okay really terrifying), and I can avoid those things simply by not writing the end. Just keep telling everyone that it's a work in progress. Then I don't have to let anyone else read it (including myself) and decide whether or not it is worthy of being read in the first place. It's like a nearly finished sweater that I keep stuffing back into the knitting basket so no one can look at and judge the mistakes.

Okay, procrastination, lack of confidence, all good theories. Then there's my weird desire to have the ending be a melodramatic moment in my life. When I finished the first draft of STREETLIGHTS, it was on a Friday night during Write Club, a now defunct group of writers on Twitter that cheered each other on all day via thirty minute writing sprints. I wrote a huge chunk of my book during those sprints and was thrilled to finish it with my virtual cheering squad alongside me, especially my friend and amazing sprint leader, Stephanie. Also, that night our local college had a concert and there were fireworks. Fireworks. To celebrate my accomplishment of course. But tonight? It's an ordinary Monday. And I'm not ready to celebrate just yet. So I stare at the last chapter title (aptly named "sixty four") and write cute notes to myself instead of finishing the story. Then I go onto my blog and waste more time talking about how I don't want to write the ending.

Endings are hard, yo. There's emotional stuff. Lots of it. Both in the story itself and in the writer's psyche. It can't just be me. I know there are others out there who feel the same way. Or maybe not. Maybe they rush through the last few chapters, eager to get their ideas down before they fade away. Eager to finish the story they felt compelled to tell. But for some reason I'm just not ready to write THE END. I know it's not goodbye. I will spend the next several months (after the designated first draft stewing period) in an intimate relationship with my characters, dissecting their every move, every eyebrow raise and turn of phrase. They will continue to live in my head like real people - talking to me during sleepless nights, pointing out the plot holes they're afraid to fall into.

So what's my problem, then? What am I afraid of?

It's 4/4/16. A good date, mathematically. The kids are in bed, and there are about 30 minutes before my husband gets home. My trusty sidekick cat is here to cheer me on with her snoring, and I've got saltines and dairy free butter for fuel.

Guess I'll give it a go. Stay tuned, faithful readers.