Esse Quam Videri

Lately I have been feeling like a bit of a fraud. Little Bug's behavior is getting more and more uncontrollable and impulsive, and we have started the process of making some big changes in his therapy, which has required me to take off the rose-colored glasses I wasn't aware that I was wearing. Little Bro is simply settling nicely into his rightful terrible twos, but his passionate nature have made him a perfect storm of noise and button pushing and mischief.

Oh, and my power went out after some giant big storms.....again.

So while people comment to me about how patient I am or well I do as a stay-at-home mom while my husband travels the majority if every week, the fact is, I put on a good show for people (most people, that is). But at home, when no one is around except the ones who matter most, I am lounder, shorter, less flexible and patient, and often less happy.

But what I recently realized is that it doesn't need to be that way. Clearly when others are around I can act more like the mom I want to be like, so why can't I do that without an audience?

I can. I just chose not to.

So this is my new mantra that I have been chanting this week: Esse Quam Videri (To be rather than to seem). I want to actually be more consistently the mom I seem like I am...I want to BE her.

And it has helped. Not 100%, but I do find myself chanting it in my head in that split second before I formulate a reaction to Little Bro throwing a cup of milk or Little Bug taking off his shoe and throwing it at my head in the car before melting down in a sadly now predictable cycle. More and more, I am responding how I would if someone was sitting next to me...other than my precious babies, of course. And that is progress!

My other recently acquired mantra is something I read off my new "Mommy's time out" wine glass, so I've got the post-bedtime covered, too.

Today I Lost My Kid

I had grand plans to post about how awesome, thought-provoking, and decadent my long weekend was, but instead I'll blournal about today....when I lost my kid.

I was in a play area in a mall I wasn't familiar with, chatting with two lovely ladies I don't usually see, and honestly, I was pretty proud of myself.  This helicopter mama was letting her 2-year-old Big Star have free roam of the enclosed play area (a tree with lots of tunnels and slides and secret rooms).  He would come check in with me and I would check in with him.  He was happy, I was happy--good times had by all. But as silly as it sounds, suddenly I just had a feeling, and went to check on my kid. And he wasn't to be found amongst the 20+ kids and adults in that enclosed area.


HOLY CRAP  HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP

Only in my head, and possibly out loud, I wasn't saying "crap."

And in that moment, I heard a woman from outside the play area yelling "does this child belong to someone?"

Turns out my Big Star had figured out how to open the only door in the play area and taken off down the mall.  Like, seriously down the mall.  A grandma had chased him down and was dragging him back as her daughter tried to figure out who the little Korean escape artist belonged to.

That would be me, the mortified mama who wasn't sure whether to scream or cry and was almost definitely in shock.

What would have happened had that grandma not made the call to chase my kid down (and he is a fast little sucker, especially in open spaces) and manhandle him back to the play area?  He was apparently almost to a corner and could have turned either way.  He is fast and fearless and tiny....and mine to keep safe.

I tried to play it cool since it was my fault ultimately for not keeping a closer eye on him and not parking my behind right next to the door, and we just moved to a position right near the door to better watch him as he continued to escape.  Which he did, over and over, with his little trademark smirk that melted my frustrated heart and made me sick to think of all the what ifs.

So that's my lesson.  In a blink of an eye your child could be gone, gone, gone.  So barricade those doors and practice your death glares before returning to the mall play area.

It's either that or the monkey leash.

Airplane 0, Mama 1.

I owned that airplane today.

I don't want to relive the meltdown that happened in the beautiful mountain-nestled major airport this morning as I tried to calm my shrieking 2 year old (who was pissed for no reason other than life was boring to him in that moment) while my 3 year old spent a full torturous 25 minutes loudly and violently throwing himself on the ground in fury that we could not board the white plane that had just pulled up to our gate.

And I certainly can't relive the horrific 45 minutes it took me to get my nap-deprived, stamina-challenged 3 year old from the end of our very big home Midwest airport through baggage claim and out to the passenger pick up.  I was this close to crying right along with my nap deprived, hot inexplicably screaming 2 year old as his older brother gave up and went limp and refused to walk anymore in the middle of terminal C during rush hour. Your baby laying on the floor in the middle of one of the largest airports in the country is seriously gross.

But on that airplane, I OWNED it.  Oh yes, I saw the cringing, dirty looks as the other passengers took their seats next to this poor little young mama with two toddler boys shooting energy out of their eyeballs.  I don't blame them....I fully believed those 2.5 hours would be hell on earth.  But I was determined to do my best to suck all that hell into myself and make things as easy as possible for my fellow doubters.  My voice is hoarse tonight from talking, singing, soothing, teasing, and scolding nonstop.  When I stopped talking, reading, singing, or playing my kids started entertaining themselves by dueling screams of fun, so I just kept right on talking and talking and talking.

I even successfully got us all to the bathroom for a diaper change.  That alone drew some impressed looks from some ladies.  I consider it one of my finer motherhood moments.

And I should mention that I hate flying VERY much and spent the whole time secretly thinking the plane was going to crash at any moment.  Making up songs about applesauce and poop (Little Bug's requests for the day) is not easy to do when your internal monologue is making peace with God before your plane goes down.

But as people passed us on their way off the plane, a number of men and women commented to me on how well-behaved my boys were and how impressed they were.  Although I was proud of the way my boys and I had handled the flight, it was validating that we did well enough for people to comment to us.

Sometimes that is the best praise a mama can get is that her kids are well behaved.

Home

For me, although I love where I currently live, home is Idaho.

It's Fiesta Ole and Walkers off Broadway and the Greenbelt and 17th Street and Skyline and Pancheri Road and the Grand Tetons and the Snake River and the Rocky Mountains and my family and my friends.

It's not where I was born, but it's where I grew up and became me.  Living there has shaped who I am, how I see things, and how I react to things.  It's shaped my hobbies, talents, and likes and dislikes (expect country music...no thank you).

Tomorrow I am going home with my two babies and my husband (who also calls it home).  I am starting to feel this delicious curl of anticipation at my first glimpse of the mountains; my first breath of solid, clean mountain air; and my flood of memories waiting at each street corner.  I know this place somewhere deep inside me, no matter the 12 years I've not called it "home."

It makes me wonder where my sons' home will be.  Sentimentally, I would love for it to be Seoul, but the reality is there will be no memories lurking on the street corners for them when we return again, no senses reawakened.  I suspect home will live in their hearts here, in our large Midwest city.  And that's okay.  Seoul can be their history, or maybe one day even their physical home.  They can make new memories and it can grow in their hearts as it has grown in mine.

But just like home to me is eating a $0.99 soft bean burrito with no enchilada sauce with a side of ranch dressing from Fiesta Ole while staring up into the snow capped mountains instead of munching on a crisp apple while watching hydro-boats skim the tops of the Columbia River from my birthplace in Washington state, home to my boys might be a stuffed pizza and a poorly-played baseball game rather than kimchi and urban hiking. No matter where it is, going home is always a really special feeling.

Fiesta Ole.....yummmmmmm.

8B, 3M, and Tonight

8 years ago tonight I was shaking my booty to "Baby Got Back" with my groom at our beautiful wedding, surrounded by the people we love best.  It is the 3rd best night of my life.

3 months ago tonight I was sitting in a hotel room in Korea, watching my new son shake his booty to Korean music I couldn't understand, marveling at the fact that the three people I love most in the world were all finally together with me.  It is tied for the best night of my life.

Tonight I am sitting in my oldest son's room after missing him terribly for the last week while he was in Hawaii with his Daddy.  In the other room I can hear my younger son belting out a mash-up of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Happy Birthday" to my husband of 8 years, and because I am getting to know this little impish big star so well, I know he's got a couple more encores in him before the curtain is going to come down.

And although we weren't able to do our traditional fancy Jamaican dinner for our anniversary this year, I feel such a pleasure and triumph on this anniversary and don't consider it a letdown.  Life is just really sweet right now, and I am so happy to have three amazing people to call my own.

The '85 Bears Would be Proud

Tonight Little Bro danced a dance I have been waiting 3 months to see.

The day we took custody of our Big Star, his foster mother sent us home with a final CD filled with pictures they took on his last night in their home.  I cherish these pictures, but one video of Little Bro dancing this awesome high-kick, tap-dance, Super Bowl Shuffle type dance while grinning stuck out, initially because it was so cute.  Then it stuck out because while Little Bro likes to get his groove on, never once since he has come home has he busted out that particular dance.

And believe me, I've tried all sorts of things to get it out of him, right down to doing the dance myself.

I know it's not truly important and probably means nothing, but I still mourn the loss of the child we saw in pictures and videos from Korea, because my child laughs a little different, looks a little longer before jumping, and seems a bit more jaded.  It's understandable based on what he has gone through, but he's also just getting older and more mature (for a 2 year old, of course).  I thought that maybe the dance was this little lost moment I'd never get to see for myself.

But tonight, after 2 days of some serious attachment loving Mamma/Big Star while Appa and Little Bug learn to hula in Hawaii without us (I don't want to talk about it), as I was singing a ridiculous song about bath time, I saw it.

The shuffle/high kick/tap dance while grinning routine.  Over and over again while I continued to belt out "Let's go take a bath, let's go take a bathhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."  And it was just as cute as it was in the video, cuter even, since it was finally in a moment we were sharing together.

Textbook Mistake

Last night we hosted a family birthday party for Little Bro.  As is tradition for us, our family parties are small, intimate affairs with around 10 people, some pizza (or in this case, Beebimbap), and a couple hours of family time.  Because Little Bro has been doing so well for so long, we felt that just days shy of 3 months home, it would be safe to have these important people in our home and interacting with him in a meaningful way.

Oh.My.God. What a nightmare, or rather, in Little Bro's case, night terror.

I blame us, totally.  We let it all slide last night with people holding him, playing with him, comforting him, and generally getting up in his face.  Our social butterfly ate it up happily, and everyone left an hour past his bedtime feeling like this was the beginning of a beautiful new chapter.

And almost immediately the meltdowns began.  It was initially a perfect storm of over-tired/over-stimulated, but morphed into the grieving night terrors we haven't seen in a long while.  He didn't want us near him at night, but sobbed and could not be comforted without us.  All night long.  Anger, fear, rage.

And I knew it was my fault for letting my guard down and piling extra stressors on him (lack of sleep, us being on the other side of the room, etc.)  As the hours ticked on throughout the night, I was once again humbled by how huge this trauma is that my kids carry within them.  Although each day snips a little of the hold it has on their heart, it is still there lurking silently, especially for my little one still so newly home in the grand scheme of things, ready to come to the surface in moments of stress.

So we regroup.  He woke up happy and "normal." We'll step up attachment activities and pull back on the social interaction for a while.  Because it's my job to make sure he is always in situations where he feels safe and secure, and I dropped the ball this time.