He is Ready

Today a therapist related a story to me that made a big impression on her.  And in turn, it's made a big impression on me.

Little Bug's morning pre-K school is a special blend of students.  It's a class room for kids who need a lot of extra support, but that support looks very different for each child.  I think some a-holes would look at the class and think it's where all the "disabled" kids are "dumped" to fulfill school requirements because it's such a mix of strengths and needs, but in reality, the minimally decorated classroom is a calm, safe, and incredibly fulfilling environment filled with enough teachers, therapists, and associates that each child gets not just an education, but the education they each individually need to reach their potential.  I was initially hesitant about this classroom, but it's been an incredible environment for Little Bug to get the extra help he needed to really prepare for the big K.

With that being said, many of the children in the classroom have needs that are very different from Little Bug and they are cherished friends of his.  To him, only being able to move you head isn't weird...it just means he gets to help push their chairs when they need to move.  To him, some kids eat from a lunch box and some eat from a feeding tube.  To him, some kids talk with their voices and some talk with machines, picture boxes, or sign language.  To Little Bug, everyone is a friend, no matter how different they might be from others.

It's a gift to be able to view everyone and no one as different.  One that I think Little Bug will always keep with him, and one that I hope those special friends who encounter him throughout his life will also possess.

Today the therapist told me that one friend, who sits next to Little Bug during circle time each day, has trouble controlling limb movement, something they work on during this time.  However, this often leads to Little Bug being accidentally tapped repeatedly.  The therapist said it often "annoyed" Little Bug. (Which is ironic given that, for different reasons, was also something Little Big himself struggled with for a very long time.)  Apparently Little Bug would often whine or push the hand away.

Except today.  When instead of saying a word, instead of pushing the friend's hand away, Little Bug simply grabbed the flapping hand and held it in his own.  The entire circle time Little Bug and his friend quietly held hands.

The image of my son doing this, giving comfort to another friend by holding hands, brings me nearly to tears.  So many times, so very many times, my son has been the one to need the support of a friendly hand.  In fact, hand holding is a love language and safety language for my little one.  For him to intentionally give this to someone else, without drawing attention to it or looking for comfort himself shows how much he has matured in the last year.  He's able to reciprocate with peers in an empathetic and intentionally supportive way.

All that to say, he's ready to move on.

The therapist told me this at the start of the big kahuna IEP meeting today.  This was the transition meeting where the therapists and teachers and social workers from his two pre-K schools formally turn him over to his new therapists and teachers.  The kindergarten option we've chosen for him as a team is a unique one.  It's not something I would have envisioned, but we felt good about the decision.  After starting off the meeting with this story, everyone agreed that the Little Bug on paper isn't exactly the Little Bug who is blooming bigger and brighter every day in the classroom and at home.

He's ready.  Our goal was always simply to give him everything he needed to be in the best possible position for kindergarten, and I feel in my heart we did.  But more than anything we did, Little Bug fought through some truly horrible things this year.  For him to come out on the other side like this...blowing through goals and marching right off plateaus and making mature connections with peers on his own...that's a testament to him more than any of us.

Little Bug, the hardest worker and bravest kid I know...I am so proud of you. You're going to love kindergarten, and kindergarten is going to love you.

Ten Things I Love About Being a Mom

Today was not my finest parenting day.  To be sure, it was no where in the threat level midnight zone, but it was one of those days where I had to apologize to my kids a couple times for raising my voice and it's bumming me out.

I even web searched "don't like being a mom"  tonight to look for some motivation for tomorrow; then I realized lot of people really don't like being a mom, and I'm not one of them.

So in honor of that being the wrong web search for me, here are ten things I love about being a mom, in no particular order.

1. I love the way my kids' feet, head, arms, fingers, sides, cheeks, etc. feel as they are pressed against me in moments of comfort and happiness.  I love the memory of baby Little Bug feeling like a loaf of warm bread when I would pick him up out of his crib and the lightweight, yet somehow solid, way Little Bro felt as he monkey clung to me as a toddler.
2. I love the sounds of my kids' laughter.  Not just because it's cute, but because seeing them so genuinely happy brings this bloom of warm, fuzzy joy in my own chest.  More than anything in the world, I love seeing my kids deliriously happy. 
3. I love the moment when they learn something new or accomplish something special.  I love the way I can't help but scream and start jumping up and down while shaking their shoulders, and I love the way they grin hugely and their eyes go wide with excitement.  We feed off each other.  It's a total, genuine high.
4. I love dance parties.  Big ones with instruments and little ones in the hallway.  And straight up, I love riding freaking carousels.
5. I love that they call out for me in the night.  Granted, during the night I never feel this way, but in the daytime hours I can think clearly and know how much it means to me that I'm the first thing that pops into their heads when they need help.
6. I love showing the world to my children and seeing it through their eyes.  I love the introspective challenge I get in realizing I have to explain, on the fly, the random details of life like military heroes, personal clothing style choices, cloud patterns, the tooth fairy, and the hygiene issues surrounding kissing dirty school buses. And that was just this week. It may sounds simple, but it's not when everything is met with "why?"
7. I love how hilarious being a mom is.  The ridiculousness of it all.  The bodily fluids I wipe with hands without batting an eye.  The serious conversations you have about hypothetical stuffed animal sword fights and their feelings and motivations.  The intense thought put into whether or not to get bug tattoos with or without butterflies included in the lot (still on the fence).  The anger I feel at the old Thomas story lines, and the begrudging respect for the new Thomas story lines.  The spur-of-the-moment superhero cap your son wants that you fashion out of an old pillow case (and it looks like something your 3 year old made himself with training scissors, but he adores it). When I really stop and break it down, half my day is spent doing something slightly bizarre or ridiculous.  And that's fun.
8. The "shake and blow." The "no big deal." The "it's okay, it happens."  The "I'm mad" instead of screaming. I love watching my kids learning to be tougher and roll with the punches.  I'm trying to raise kids who express emotions with words, and it makes me proud when they can do that.  One of my proudest moments is when my boys stop and take three deep breaths to calm themselves down.  They both do it, daily, on their own without my prompting.  My heart soars to know I gave them that critical emotional tool and to see it helping them in their lives already.
9. I love the moments when the sun is a muted yellow through our windows and we're cuddled up in a pile together watching a movie or reading a book.  I love the feeling of arms and legs and a family mass and knowing my family is a family who loves physically without reserve.  Who needs their "own" seat anyway?  I love saying "I love you" a million times a day and hearing it back every time.
10. I love the way Little Bro's tiny but impossibly strong arms lock around my neck as he pulls me in for a tight, tight hug and how his face scrunches right before he kisses me.  I love the way Little Bug gives his side hugs and bear hugs just a little longer for me, and his impromptu kisses and arm caresses.  I love the way his hand always has to be in mine.  And I love running my fingers through their hair at night and whispering to their drooping eyes "I love you, saranghae, nose kiss, bear hug" and knowing that these amazing kids are mine to love and love and love.

Laying on the floor with a stomach ache

I don't like change.  I don't do well with change.  I dislike change.  I always have.  I used to lay on the ground just being with an upset stomach after my mother would rearrange furniture.  I would sob myself ill every time I moved dorm rooms or apartments.

Suffice to say, I do not move my own furniture around much.

So today when I saw that my blog background in this space was no longer supported, I stared long and hard before feeling that pit come back in my stomach.  I liked my flowers and brown theme.  It felt very me for this space and it's been with me for many a year.

So all this to say that the new look of this blournal is not by choice.  And I'll figure out a way to get it back to what feels right after I can drag myself off the floor and calm my tummy.

Aloha, Little Moon

Dear Little Moon,

Turns out, when your mama wants something special to happen, she needs to go on a tropical vacation with your Appa.  The last time we did sun sans child we accepted Little Bro's referral. But I never imagined this morning when I woke up to Hawaiian surf that I'd be celebrating something special for you, too.

Today your Appa and I were driving along a beautiful road in Hawaii.  The ocean was shocking blue on one side and the green mountains towered on the other.  The road was winding a bit, which I don't do well with, so I absently grabbed my phone to check my e-mail.  Since I am on vacation, my inbox has piled into the hundreds.  So when I was skimming and expecting nothing important and caught out adoption agency director's name on an e-mail with the subject line "Urgent and Important Communication Regarding Your Current Adoption Process" my mind couldn't quite keep up.  I went from thinking it was junk mail regarding the webinar I wasn't calling into to thinking it was something very, very bad.  But it was seeing our name in the salutation that set me nerves tingling.

It was there, on the winding and beautiful road to Secret Beach that I read aloud in a stilted, shaking, and incredulous voice to a confused Appa that you were coming home so.much.sooner. than I have ever dared let myself hope.

Appa kept driving, but his eyes kept darting to me, he kept questioning me, the smile that has been on his face for the past few days just got bigger and bigger.  Our wildest dream, so wild we've never even dreamed it, is coming true.  You are coming home.  Soon.  So soon.

When we had hiked down to Secret Beach, I wrote your name in the sand, just as I did your brother's in Jamaica.  I'll buy you a stupid looking shirt to commemorate the role this place "played" in our journey to you.

And for the rest of time, when I think of this spectacular vacation your Appa and I are lucky enough to be enjoying, the moment that e-mail sunk in will always be one of the first things I recall.  That moment will be one of my favorite moments, ever.  Better than any beach or sunset or breathtaking canyon hike, knowing you are coming home is the highlight of this trip.

Little Moon, this didn't happen by chance.  There are people, LOTS of people, who care about you enough to bend the rules, see the gray, take a stand.  They want you to stop waiting, and start living your life as a little brother and son.  I hope I can always impress upon you how much today is a testament to the fact that you have been  loved and cared for and your best interests have been looked out for all the days of your life.

You are loved. You are cared for.  You are rooted for.  You are wanted. You are needed.  And as soon as we can, Appa, Little Bro, Little Bug, so many friends and family, and I will be there to love you every day for the rest of your life.  Soon.  So soon.

Ua ola loko i ke aloha.

Perspective {just mine}

This has been a hard week.  I've had a pit in my stomach for days over the sheer sadness and pain and fear people are experiencing right now.  I've not really known how to move on from these feelings.

Then I saw a video of the national anthem at the Boston Bruins game.  The entire audience belted that tune out in a moving show of unity and strength and resilience. 

And it clicked for me.

The best, the ONLY, thing we can do is chose hope and reject fear and anger.  Anything less and we've let them win, let something be taken from us. Let our lives be minimized in some way.

This isn't just about the bombing, the plant explosion, the flooding and sink holes for me, because the pain in my heart for those horrors and the people who are living them is still raw.  I have no real words for that. For them.  Just sadness and solidarity.

But this is about my life in general, too.  My outlook on adoption and the adoption communities I follow.  My complacency to let others who can or will only respond with negativity drive MY adoption process, affect MY life and emotions.

I refuse to let them be my voice anymore.

No news?  Long waits? No updates?  Yes, all those things suck.  A lot.  But instead of wallowing about it, fighting about it, refusing to accept it, we should try to help where we can in a positive way, and above all else, join hands and sing. Loud. Proud. Defiant. HOPEFUL.  Because at the end of the day, it's going to be okay.

Our kids will come home.  Older, yes, but don't fall into the hype that the transition will be SO much harder at 3 than it will be at 2.5.  They are not being harmed.  Not in the sense of the word that really counts. Our kids will come home, and we will live our lives filled with joy, watching milestones and taking all the pictures we want.  Many people don't have that chance anymore.

I choose hope. I choose kindness.  I choose faith.

Safe

We've been working really hard with our sons on feeling confident and safe in expressing emotions verbally.  We've also been working on our sons learning to rely on each other a bit more for comfort or support or help, instead of only needing Mom or Dad.

Tonight Little Bug and Little Bro had to share Little Bro's bed, although bed sharing has never been a strong point for either of our sons.  Little Bug's anxiety has been at a high level all week after some lightning storms shook his nighttime confidence.  So throwing in a different bed, in combination with the fact that his bed wasn't even in his room as a fall back, was causing him some apparent angst.

After getting out of bed a couple times, Little Big finally expressed what he was feeling.

Little Bug: "I'm nervous."
Little Bro: "I'll keep you safe, Little Bug."

And with that promise, our notoriously anxious and often inconsolable Little Bug crawled back in bed, spooned his little brother, and together, heads touching, they both fell into a deeper sleep than we have seen all week.

Brotherhood, man.  It blows my mind sometimes.

Two Years Ago

Big Star,

Right about now, 2 years ago, you were chasing your foster mother around the lobby of the Korean adoption agency.  People were milling about and there was a somber, tense feeling in the air, but you were oblivious to it.  You laughed and grinned and teased and chased.

And then, as if the gravity of the moment needed to somehow be pressed upon you, your foster mother, the only mother you had known for the last 2 years of your life, took you over to a large fish tank, bent down, and started whispering into your ear as the two of you watched the fish swim.

I don't know what she said to you, and it wasn't for my ears anyway.  I imagine it was something along the lines of love and sadness and hope.

Then she let you go, to a new life she didn't know if she would ever get to be a part of.

She sent your to the arms of another mother, one who also started whispering words of love, sadness, and hope in broken Korean and hesitant English.  A mother who had the honor of building a new life with you, and the pressure to make it worthy of the sacrifices so many had made for you already.

Today is your Family Day, my sweet Big Star.  Two years ago you became our family and we became yours.  It's a day of joy and sadness, a day to remember both the gift we have been given and the sacrifices others have made.  It is the day that you became not just Korean, but Korean American.  We could call it "Life Altering in Every Way Day," but Family Day rolls off the tongue so much better.

We celebrate with cupcakes and bulgogi and a big family adventure because we want to celebrate what a special part of our family you are, but as many a Family Day for you and your brother pass, I recognize that just as that day 2 years ago way, this anniversary will always be a bittersweet celebration.  I'm grateful to be able to send your sweet foster mother pictures today that will let her know that she is still definitely a part of your life.

And most of all, I am grateful for the last 2 years where I have been your mom.  I love you.