If You're Happy and You Know It...

Little Bug,

Mama has had a bad week. You know this. I know this. Appa knows this. Pretty much any poor soul who has come in contact with Mama knows this. Yesterday I was determined to make myself be happy when I got home from work.

Thanks for doing for me.

That dance party you started, complete with your two new moves I like to call the "old man shuffle" and the "pop and lock," as well as your Bob Marley-inspired move we call the "peeing dog"...that was one rocking party. Those belly laughs of mine and my springing step as I did my "lame mama dance" were completely genuine. The fact that we did the whole thing in the rain made it even better.

You had me literally squealing for joy when I sang "Itsy Bitsy Spider" to you and, for the first time ever, you actually did all the hand movements with me. That was one proud (and shocked) mama you heard shouting praises in your face. Capping it off with a couple silly smiles and silly eyes...inspired.

You even made my heart smile a bit at 1 am this morning when you came into my bed, snuggled in, and then instead of whining, just gently grabbed my face to wake me up and tell me you needed a drink. The fact that you signed "thank you" (while saying "welcome" because we've confused you linguistically) and then went to sleep peacefully was the icing on my cake.

Today, instead of waking up with a pit in my stomach and an ache in my heart, I woke up happy to be your mama and thrilled to have the whole weekend to spend singing and dancing with you.

Thanks for making it easy, buggy.

Putting on the Game Face

The last few days have been stressful for me. I'm slammed at work. Appa was out of town. I'm overly anxious for an expected update on Little Bro. Things are completely stalled with Little Bro's adoption paperwork and the implications of the stall (and the lack of support from those whose help we sought) are heartbreaking. Yesterday I sat at my desk and cried.

I'm not a crying at work sort of gal.

The one thing that keeps running through my head is to put on my game face. I don't really see any other choice.

I have to put on my game face at work. I can't ruin my reputation of being even-headed and calm and professional over personal stress. And yes, the amount of work that fell in my lap this week is unholy. But I can either turn it into an opportunity to show that I can handle the pressure or I can turn into the girl that cries at her desk when things get tough.

Game face.

I have to put on my game face for Little Bro. Amid my heartbreak and frustration and fear over the stall in his paperwork, and more recently, my hurt, confusion, and sadness over the growing fissure of a relationship I had counted on to advocate and support our family through this process, I have to stay calm and get my questions answered in respectful, yet satisfactory way. I owe it to my son to do whatever it takes to make sure he is not waiting longer than absolutely necessary. Tears and anger are not going to get me anywhere.

Game face.

Most of all, I have to put my game face on for Little Bug. He doesn't care about my work, nor does he care about his brother's paperwork. All he cares about is that his mama is there to play with him after being away all day. That she is there to laugh at his new dance moves, sing his favorite songs to him, and play our new favorite game, "silly eyes." Over the last few days, I've caught myself frowning as I mull over all the stressors I'm dealing with. I catch his eye and see him falter, confused as to why I'm unhappy with him. He's way too young to know anything of stress or to understand why I might be stressed. All he knows is what he senses and sees from me.

Game face.

The Bob

This morning my kid woke up on the wrong side of the universe. Usually a delightful morning person, this morning he whined and grumped and insisted on being held....while I did my hair, while I brushed my teeth, while I got dressed. The thing was, when I was holding him, he was STILL being a pill.

The only thing that made him happy was wearing one of his bibs (or bob, as it is called in his world), specifically a dirty bib he found. I let him wear it around for a while and decided to allow him to wear it in the car on the way to school after his head almost exploded when I tried to take it off to put his coat on. He seemed mildly pleased to be wearing it in the car...until I tried to take it off him before we got out.

Long story short, he wore the bob into school.

I thought for sure I could get it off him at school while he was distracted. Instead, he took his little hands and held it close to his body, cooing "bob, bob, bob." Finally, because I was mortified that it was dirty, 15 minutes late for work, and rapidly being surrounded by other kids who wanted to wear bibs and eat food, I yanked it off him and promised he could wear another bib soon. I shoved it into my fist, kissed the top of his spinning head, and literally ran out the door.

He's probably still on the ground screaming.....

What was I to do? On one hand, I try to go with the flow. If he wants to wear a bib into school, heck, why not? On the other hand, it was dirty, and the other kids would have gone hysterical en-mass all wanting to wear bibs and eat. The teachers would have loved that. I think a compromise is reasonable.

Perhaps on a day when my bob-loving kid wakes up in his right mind, he will agree.

The Closet Co-Sleepers

Appa and I are not raising a co-sleeping family. We think everyone wins when everyone has their own sleeping space. That is what works for our family.

With that being said, we occasionally have brought Little Bug into our bed when he needs some extra loving. Sometimes he cuddles right in and falls into a deep sleep, and sometimes he thinks it is party time and ushers in some of the darkest, most frustrating hours of our week. Things are definitely LESS cute at 3:45 am. NO amount of silly smiles changes that truth.

When we transitioned him into the big boy bed recently, I thought we would have a lot of evenings where we would put him back in his bed throughout the night. Indeed, it started out that way, but it has now morphed into what I think might be the future of our family for some time to come.

The Closet Co-Sleeping family.

Around 2 am, Little Bug wakes himself up and starts to cry. My ears perk up in anticipation of one of my favorite sounds in the world.

Thump
pitter patter...pitter patter
[Door Opening]
pitter Patter Pitter Patter PITTER PATTER

For some reason, the sound of my little jammie-clad baby booking it down the hallway in bare feet to find us is the cutest thing in the world at 2 am. I lay still and wait for his little face to pop up right next to my face and beg in a groaning, scratchy, sometimes still 3/4 asleep voice...."Mama, up. Mama, UPPPPPPPPPPP!"

So I pull him up and he snuggles in between Appa and I and almost immediately falls back asleep, alternating between cuddling into Appa and shoving his face right into mine, to the point that we are almost breathing in each others' mouths. Appa throws an arm lovingly over his son and rests it on my side. Even in my sleep-reduced mind (or maybe because of it), I always have this moment of clarity right then...that my little family is the best thing in my life.

So that is what our sleeping arrangements have become. Little Bug falls asleep in his own big boy bed, and then sometime in the night comes to have some cuddle time with his mom and dad....just like Appa and I both did with our parents when we were little. Instead of forcing him back to bed, we're going to let this one ride out for a while, since we're all getting something good from it.

Unless Little Bug declares the evening "party time." Because NOTHING good comes from having your son's finger shoved up your nose as he sings "mmmbbaaapaadaa" and laughs while the world around you sleeps. Nothing good.

Kimchi, putakhamnida

Last night Appa and I went to dinner at a local Korean place. Little Bug LOVES Korean food, as do we. We usually order some favorites, but this time we went for the all-you-can-eat barbecue. It's entirely too much food for our little family, but makes sense when you see Little Bug.

Because Little Bug packs . it . back.

It helps that he is cheered on by a small army of Korean waitresses who absolutely adore him, stroking his hair and clapping as he gives them silly smiles. He had no less than 5 women watching him as he single-handedly ate an entire dish of kimchi by himself, pausing occasionally to flash them a silly smile and say "yummmmm" in this ridiculous deep, right-from-the-belly voice.

They cooed when he pointed to me and said "omma" and pointed to his dad and said "appa." When he asked for "bop" (the Korean word for rice), they lost it. They brought me soup and showed me how to mix it with the rice and kimchi to make a dish traditionally served to small children...then they went ahead and worked on battle silverware and helped him eat it while Appa and I sat by and watched.

Here is the thing, normally a woman putting her hands all over my child, taking over and starting to actually feed my child, and just generally being all up in his business would take me over the edge in an unhappy way.

Instead she got a 30% tip and the promise that we will be back soon.

I can't give me son an authentic Korean home or even much of anything authentically Korean, but I am proud of the fact that he will grow up eating kimchi and calling rice "bop" and getting loved on by people whispering Korean in his ear. It is the very least I can do for him.

Our family loves stuffed pizza and brats and casseroles and potatoes, but we're also a family who loves kimchi and bee bim bop and jap chae and huo dduk.

I am super proud of my son for packing back the kimchi like a champ. That kid has one hell of a palate.

More to Love

For a long time I have been really panicked when I think about having two children. Sure, the massive pile of diapers and the nighttime serenades of dueling crying babies is stressful to imagine, but honestly, the deepest worry was if I could really love a second child like I love Little Bug. Little Bug is such a special child, and my love for him has developed in such a special way that I worry sometimes that my love for Little Bro will be appropriate, but maybe just not quite as much as my love for my first born.

Seriously, how could I love two children equally and be all-consumed by them both?

Before we got our referrals, we would say "I love you" in messages, but those words were merely promises, not actual declarations. I loved the idea of him, the construction of a child I held in my heart. Even after we got Little Bug's referral, the pictures of the child we had been waiting years for, we loved the picture of the boy, the idea of him, the essence of him, but still, he could have been taken from us, and we would have moved on with the clarity that he was never really ours to begin with. We loved the idea, the image, the promise; we couldn't, however, love the soul we did not know.

Since accepting Little Bro's referral, I have felt a shift very different from our waiting post-referral with Little Bug. Little Bro feels more like a (my) real child and less like a picture. I think this is in part due to his brother, who is living proof to us that pictures really do equal children and part to the fact that we are going to have more communication (well, one-sided) with Little Bro before he comes home. We are sending him videos of us and pictures of us. Somewhere, on the other side of the world, a little boy is going to see the video of Little Bug doing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and laugh the same laugh that he will one day laugh when he is sitting on my lap singing the same song. We are going to see videos of him playing and breathing and growing and wearing clothing we sent to him. He is not a myth, not just an image.

More importantly, I feel my heart expanding. When I think of being a mother, I think of both my boys. Sure, I love Little Bug with an intensity that realistically cannot be rivaled with a child I have never called MINE and meant it, but I've been surprised at just how naturally maternal I feel toward Little Bro without feeling like it's all just sweet lip service. My love and concern and hopes for Little Bro don't seem to compete with the love and concern and hopes I have for Little Bug. They both feel very real to me.

Instead of my heart feeling full or tight, it actually feels more open and expanding. I know that my love for Little Bro is nothing compared to what it will be like when we are truly his family, but I feel much more confident that I can love two children equally and deeply.

And with my two big boys...there is just more of them to love.

Spring

Spring is often associated with rebirth or new beginnings. Although neither of those really apply, this Spring feels like a new beginning to us. Little Bug is a different child this year and, for the first time, is really able to explore and interact with everything Spring has to offer him.

Spring is always a favorite season of mine (even in the fickle Midwest), but this particular season in our lives is one of the most beautiful I can ever remember. Everything is seen through new eyes, and it's soft and fragrant and lovely. Watching my son's world finally open for him, flower by flower, pine cone by pine cone, raindrop by raindrop, smell by smell, has been one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.