Raising Readers

I love reading. I've always known that I wanted to raise my children to be readers. It's a great frugal form of entertainment, and the most critical skill for success in school. In my career as a high school English teacher, I have helped convert hundreds of reluctant, phone-addicted high schoolers into teens who voluntarily read novels. I've convinced students that Will Shakespeare was a pretty cool dude. Yet, when it came to my own children, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to equip them to view reading in the way that Harper Lee once described in To Kill a Mockingbird:

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."

In the library, pre-Covid; still one of our favorite places to hang out!

Luckily, I need not have feared. My son just finished a five book series of 500+ page novels he received as a Christmas present and my daughter is making her way through several different series. Their most recent test scores from school peg their reading levels at 3+ grades above their actual grades. They are readers! Helping my kids become readers was easier and more enjoyable than I could have possibly imagined. I come from an education background, so of course I advocate that families read to children early and often and model literacy. Turns out, that actually works!

Lazy summer deck reading.

As a parent (who feels like she's making it all up as she goes along...), I've also discovered that reading to your kids stops meltdowns in their tracks and provides instant family bonding.  Here are some specific ways to develop young children's literacy:

1. Make the time. Before I had kids, I was understanding about how hard it was as a parent to make time for reading. After all, I love reading, and I don't always make the time to do it. Parents are even busier, right? Y'all--I timed it. Reading one of those little board books takes less than five (yes, FIVE) minutes. And often it's the five minutes during which my child is most cooperative, loving, and attentive. No one screams. Everyone cuddles. Five minutes. It's better than meditation--no lie. How do you not make time for that every, single day? If I hadn't read to my kids, none of us would have made it past age two.  My worst nightmare is a bedtime without books. *shudder*

2. Make books accessible.*  Studies show that being surrounded by books in childhood promotes literacy.  We own a lot of children's books (way more than adult books, thanks to my decluttering efforts). Most of them were gifts or hand-me-downs, but books are the main "toys" we have purchased for our children. However, you don't have to own books to surround your children with books.  Our local library lets patrons check out unlimited items, doesn't charge fines, and allows you to renew materials online. We usually have at least 60 books checked out at any one time--and only like 3-5 of them are for the adults. You can also buy used books or source them through Buy Nothing and Freecycle.

3. Make it a habit. Every time my kids beg for "one more poem" or to be allowed to choose one more picture book or read one more chapter in our novels, I feel like I've won the gold medal of parenting. However, that joy comes from many, many times of being willing to read the same book over again, or pause and read whenever one of my children asks. We treat nagging for books different than just about every other kind of nagging--we indulge it.

4. Give kids choice and agency. Sometimes, I get lucky and my kids are interested in the books I enjoy reading, and we'll have great fun with the works of Roald Dahl, Narnia, and Mossflower. Other times, they want to read endless, technically-oriented volumes about Pokemon (J) or the terribly-written picture book re-telling of Disney princess movies (H).  When the kids are interested in something (be it Kung-fu Panda, or space, or unicorns), we ask the librarians if there are any books about that topic and use Goodreads to find similar recommendations.

5. Model reading books. I think many adults read more on screens (Kindle, smartphones, etc.) than they did just a few years ago.  However, children don't know whether you are reading on your tablet or watching a video.  Be intentional about modeling your reading to your children. Min had to get some Korean books so that the kids could see him reading on paper, not just on the screen.

Snuggly winter couch reading.

Some other tips? Teach letters and sounds, but not to the point that you are sacrificing story and fluency. Readers read content, not phonics.  Don't freak out if your kid who loves listening to you read doesn't transition to reading independence right away. It will happen eventually. The boy who just tore through those 500+ page books didn't read anything but Dog Man independently well through second grade.

* Not every family can afford books. I encourage using the library to fill in the gaps, but that's not always enough.  While compiling this post, I did some research into charities that provide books to kids. I elected to make a donation to Reach Out and Read, an highly rated organization that encourages literacy by integrating books into pediatric care.

We also donate monthly to our local library. We get way more value from it than we do from any streaming media service.

Any other tips from parents out there? How do you foster a love of reading for your children at any age?

Appreciation for the Calm

Starting 2022 amidst the most widespread outbreak of a 2+ year pandemic has ironically led to a slowing down and calm pace for my life. We've been lucky enough to avoid infection thus far, so now that the rates of Covid transmission and hospitalizations are higher than they've ever been, we've elected to reduce the number of activities we are engaging in at present as a mitigation strategy. The kids are still going to school and taekwondo (masked, thankfully), Min is doing whatever shopping we need, and I am going in person to work most days of the week and taking my Mom to doctor's appointments, but we've mostly curtailed other activities. Even though there is no government mandate to refrain, we find it prudent at this time.

Water always makes me feel peaceful. This is the Monocacy River near our home.

For me, this means no gym classes, no dining out, and no gatherings indoors. What's strange this time is that it seems as though very few other people are limiting some of their activities, despite the fact that our hospital is operating in crisis mode and our school staffs are dealing with absentee rates so high that we are discussing possible short-term contingency plans for in-person instruction. The local college I work with has already decided to stay fully remote with virtual instruction through February 6. There's no guidance to help the public in how to navigate what's happening now, and the CDC Director was describing it as "encouraging" that people like me with immune suppression and diabetes are the people that are dying from this round of infection. I digress...

The kids decided to prepare us breakfast for our anniversary (12 years--WOW). It was quite sweet.

Far from feeling deprived and adrift as I did in the early weeks of March and April 2020, I feel an ease of slipping back into the routines and joys we discovered when the whole world shut down. I find myself grateful for the beautiful nature in our neighborhood on my walks, for the free yoga challenge online, for a wonderful dance instructor still having Sunday Zoom workouts, for more time to play board games with my kids and cook healthy meals. I have enjoyed more time to rest and read, dig into my grad classes, write in this blog.

My little snow bunny.

I feel a kind of contented ease that I don't really recall enjoying in the past. Perhaps, I have just become more comfortable with existing in the present moment and enjoying the company of my family. Maybe I like the excuse to ruthlessly cut nonessentials from my life. Or maybe it was the first huge snowstorm of the year which always makes the world look brand new. Whatever it is, I like it. I'm going to try to cultivate this essentialist approach to my time and enjoyment.

Here's a little hope into the world that we can stay healthy and joyful, even if the world feels like it's conspiring to keep us from those things.

Ways We Save Money: Washing the Dishes

Originally Posted on April 24, 2018 in Free, Fun, Family

Everyone hates washing dishes.  Especially other people’s dishes.  Marriages end over dirty dishes.  However, a sink full of dirty dishes can really torpedo your efforts to save money.  How?

It’s no secret that cooking at home saves money.  I enjoy cooking, and both Min and I have improved as cooks over the years.  However, coming home after a difficult day to a sink of dishes that need to be washed before dinner can be started was killing my meal planning efforts.  Part of it was my failure to eat an afternoon snack, leaving me ravenous at 4:30 p.m. when I got home.  But even when I solved that problem, doing dishes and then cooking when my children are starved for Mommy time after I’ve been away from them all day was killing my best laid plans.  I’d let all the wonderful vegetables I’d bought to make chili or soup rot in the fridge and heat up another frozen pizza instead.  There was a period we were so stressed about dirty dishes that I would just pick up fast food on the way home.

Keeping the sink relatively free of dirty dishes and the dishwasher cleared of already clean dishes makes cooking and meal planning easier and more fun.  I make more healthy food, use up more of the food I buy, and is more sanitary and environmentally friendly.  However, this was not an easy routine to master.

Failed “Solutions”

• Ignoring the problem. Obviously this is less a strategy than a desperate method of coping by me that sometimes resulted in purchasing more utensils or cookware… Stupid!
• Disposable products. Paper plates, plastic utensils, aluminum lining for baking trays, and water bottles bought in bulk did help prevent dining out and fast food runs when we were really awful.  However, cookware was still dirty and buried under a mound of things that needed to be rinsed (scraped because they’d been left to sit) and put in the dishwasher.  Which meant we “cooked” more convenience foods.
• Blaming the other person. You have all this time being home all day.  Just do it before you leave for work in the morning.  Wash any dishes you use right after you use them and load them in the washer.  Except don’t load them in the washer like that.  I thought you already ran the washer.  I couldn’t load the dishes because you never unloaded the washer.  And on and on…  We aren’t proud of this.

What did work?

I changed my attitude.

I have learned that the only person’s behavior you can really change is your own (though certainly you can influence the behavior of others, you cannot change them).  I changed my approach to dishes.   I decided to just step up and take responsibility for the dishes in the sink.  And running the dishwasher.  And putting the dishes away.  Whenever I had time.  No matter who created the mess.  Because this was my family and the dishes were my responsibility, even if that responsibility was shared.

People say marriage is 50-50.  That’s an error.  Successful marriage is 100-100, each person all-in, giving everything they have.

This mental adjustment began when H was six months old and Min broke his leg.  It shook me out of the petty you-did-this, I-did-that score keeping of housework.  It took a few weeks for the dish-washing habit to become routine and I’m not as vigilant as my mother who won’t go to bed with a dirty dish in the sink, but in the end, it took less time to clean even a full sink of dishes than I thought it did.  I even timed myself a few times to ensure myself it only takes a few minutes to clean up.

I’m not the only one in the house that does dishes (Min does more of the cooking during the day, so he does most of the cleaning then, too), but I still take the responsibility in my head seriously.  Letting go of my entitled attitude has changed how I view this chore and has made it possible for success with planning and cooking meals.  Which saves a lot of money!

My sad, neglected blog and a breakdown/through

Baby's first sailing trip.

I have been neglecting you again, my blog and my readers.  Some of this is from being busy (isn't it always?) but I'm just now realizing that much of it has been an unwillingness (or if I'm feeling kinder towards myself, an inability due to other pressures) to be insightful enough to admit something to myself I don't really want to deal with.  But I'm there, so I might as well share it with you:  I am in the middle of another episode of depression.  At least I get to call it postpartum and feel the support of other moms, right?

I went back to work a bit over a month ago.  Being a working mom is a transition as dramatic as having a newborn, but I don't think I was as prepared for this one.  I'm adjusting to the new routine (as is Min Gi, now a full time dad, and the baby, who is as awesome, healthy, and cute as always), but it's taking some time.

Min Gi with Jeongmin on a walk in the park.

I've had health problems since going back from the stress/lack of time, but I'm recovering from them now.  I have nothing even remotely like "free time" anymore and just about anything I do have goes to time with the baby or time with the baby and the husband. I haven't been reading much--blogs, books, or otherwise--and have inadvertently given up television. I don't even usually get online when I'm not at work these days.  I don't take care of myself like I know I need to to avoid depression.  That needs to change.

We went through a period where Jeongmin went on a once or twice a day nursing strike because he was suddenly taking so many more feedings from the bottle.  That was rough and terrifying.  During that time, I began to feel personally rejected by him.  This feeling has grown and gotten worse.  I now feel like the baby hates me and that I can't do anything right as a mom.  I get really anxious when he starts to cry or when I'm left alone with him for too long, and I start snapping at Min Gi and it just gets worse from there.

This little guy loves his Daddy so much!

I finally realized that I'm dealing with the PPD beast on Friday when I screamed like a mad woman at my husband for doing a load of laundry and not putting my jeans in it and then crying so pathetically and hysterically for two hours that he (and the baby) thought I was laughing at first.
Typing all that makes it sound a lot worse than it is.  I really love Jeongmin.  His smile makes my whole world stop for a moment.  My relationship with Min Gi is in most ways stronger than it has ever been.  I'm happy a lot of the time.  But all of this is what made me keep dismissing these growing, nagging feelings as unimportant.  I really should know better than to do that by now.

With the baby in my favorite carrier.

So... I have an appointment with a counselor.  I am not even considering medication at this time, since my self-care could be a lot better and the only depression meds approved for breastfeeding are ones I have had a horrible reaction to in the past.  I will not give up breastfeeding because in my worst, darkest moments where I think the baby would be better with just about any other mom than me, I can at least tell myself that breastfeeding is going well.

And that's where I am.  And where I've been.

I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Baby J turned two months old...

Starting to develop some serious head control.

Having a child feels like you're counting time like a teenager does in relationships.  You celebrate weekly and monthly "anniversaries" (but I still refuse to call them that!) or "birthdays."  Jeongmin turned two months a couple days ago.  Here are some pictures of what he's been up to the past few weeks:

Baby giggles:  Awesome.

Hanging out with Nora, the daughter of my friends Amy and Andrew, just two weeks younger than Jeongmin.  He looks very smug here--he's quite the ladies' man already.

Daddy's belly is super comfortable.

He charms all the ladies.  Here he is with Min Gi's manager's daughter, Jisu.  He's already charmed her.

I love this picture.  It's captured the personality I see all day.

Min Gi has left his job to begin his new adventure as a full-time dad, and I have just one week of maternity leave left.  It will be hard to be apart from the little guy (very hard), but in some ways I look forward to returning to my job.

For more cuteness:

Baby: Weeks 7 -9

10 Things I've Learned about Mommyhood

Inspired by Shotgun Korea, now Shotgun Adventures (as they are on the West Coast of the U.S. these days), I thought I'd post 10 bits of mom wisdom I've acquired in the 8 weeks (really, 8 as of tomorrow!) I've been a mom.  Don't expect profound secrets here.  Just stuff I've figured out.

1.  My emotional repertoire has stretched to new limits.  The highs are higher, the lows lower.  My heart feels like it just woke up in technicolor Oz after living in black and white Kansas my whole life.  It's not that having a kid makes me happier or sadder or anything like that--it's that I had no idea there were emotions left I still had not experienced in my life.  And there is no greater feeling in the world than uncovering a limitation that you didn't even know you had and pushing through it.  I loved being a teacher because I could put kids in touch with that feeling, but I really wasn't sure I'd ever experience it again the way I had as a student in high school and college.  What intellectual discovery was like as a young adult student is what the emotional discovery of being a parent is like.  Amazing.

2.  Being a mom makes you ridiculously proud of completely mundane things your baby does.  Like poop.  And eat.  And smile.  And sleep.  Because to you, none of these things are mundane or boring.  They are endlessly, endlessly fascinating.  And you talk about them.  Sometimes too much.

3.  The sleep deprivation you've heard about?  It's bad.  Really bad.  But you'll be amazed how fast you adapt.  Before having the baby, I was one of those people who was practically nonfunctional without my eight hours.  Even in high school and college, when all of us were seriously sleep deprived but it was ok because we were young and our bodies recovered fast, I wouldn't pull all-nighters.  I would crash for a couple hours first because my brain does not function well without sleep.  And especially since getting ulcerative colitis, I've found that lack of sleep sometimes sends me into a flare, so of course I was terrified about the newborn sleep deprivation winding me up in the hospital.  But I've adapted--my body has adapted. There are still moments at 3 or 4 a.m. when the baby is crying for his 4th or 5th feeding of the night that I'm so exhausted I worry I might drop him and we end up co-sleeping the rest of the night, but I recover from it.


4.  Don't talk about anything important with your husband when one or both of you are overtired.  It leads to fights.  Sometimes nasty ones.  Just go to sleep.  Talk about it tomorrow.  It's not as urgent as you think it is.

5.  Go out, with and without the baby, as soon as you can.  It is overwhelming, exhausting, and scary at first, but it helps you feel more like you.  Being you is good.  Being a mom is grand.  But at first it's really hard to reconcile your image of yourself with motherhood.  Getting out of the house helps this process immensely for some reason.  And most babies like going out--mine certainly does.



6.  Use a pocket diaper overnight for cloth.  The pocket diapers wick moisture away from the baby's bum so he doesn't fuss about his wet diaper and goes back to sleep without you having to change it for a wee.  You still have to change it for a larger mess, and boy does he stink in the morning, but it is worth it for the glorious, glorious sleep it gives you.


7.  Breastfeeding is hard.  I have dealt with bruised nipples, plugged ducts, painful engorgement, crazy hormones, a let-down so powerful that it sometimes gags my poor little guy, and a tear-filled night in the hospital where I forced the poor little newborn (2 days old) to feed for three hours straight so the doctor wouldn't make me give him formula and she made me do it anyways.  And I'm actually one of the "lucky" ones who have had very few problems overall.  In the mommy groups I've joined, there are brilliant, accomplished, lovely women--lawyers and scientists and therapists and teachers--reduced to tears because their kid never can quite learn to latch or they are in so much pain when they feed that they can't sleep or their doctor is "concerned" about the weight gain of the baby, even if everything else is going well.

8.  Even when breastfeeding is "easy", it's tempting to give it up.  Why?  Dude, after 3 HOURS of feeding him and then he sucked down 2 oz of formula in about five minutes with no problems and then slept four hours straight, I got it.  I finally got why even well-intentioned women who CAN breastfeed might choose to give it up.  Furthermore, in some ways, especially in the early weeks, breastfeeding ties you down.  Feeding every 2-3 hours doesn't sound so bad until you realize that it's start time to start time and when the baby is learning to feed (about the first 2-4 weeks), it can regularly take 40 min to an hour to complete.  Then you burp him, change him, nap for like 20 min, and start the whole damn thing over again!  It's exhausting.  Breastfeeding babies take longer to sleep through the night--mine still has yet to do a stretch longer than five hours.  Our culture doesn't support it (I get dirty looks at restaurants all the time--and I use a nice modesty shield!).  Formula is convenient (and also free if a mom does WIC).  Until the personal electric pumps became widely available, working women had few options but to wean at least partially.  Even with the pump, you have to learn all this stuff about freezing and storing and thawing which is complicated (and some babies won't take defrosted milk, so those women can't build up a back-up supply).  And still few workplaces are supportive of nursing moms (see my point about cultural non-support).  I breastfeed, but I completely understand women who have chosen not to in order to preserve their own sanity.

9.  Breastfeeding makes you feel powerful.  Really powerful.  Almost like a superhero.  Beyond the bonding with the infant skin-to-skin stuff, I've never been prouder of my body than when it produced milk successfully for my baby.  Even my healthy pregnancy didn't feel so... powerful.  Boobs are awesome.  And I mean like I am in awe of them.  But...

10.  Breastfeeding makes you feel less sexy.  Not un-sexy, just that two of your main body parts that used to be just about exclusively sexual have this whole other function.  And they are constantly being touched in a way that feels good, but not sexual.  It throws your whole pre-baby sense of who you were as a sexual being off.  There's a really great post I read recently that touches on this and goes into other details of postpartum sex.  I recommend it.

Merry Christmas, 2011; And, ambivalence.

Jeongmin smiled at me for the first time (real smile, not just gas or contentment) on X-mas eve.  I captured it on camera Christmas morning.

This year for Christmas, we had an especially lovely family celebration. My dad's brother, Rob, and his wife and son joined us for the festivities. Plus, of course, I suppose Jeongmin's first Christmas is a big deal (even if he won't remember it, being only three weeks old).  I'm not a sentimental "Oh my god--it's baby's First Christmas!!!" type, but Min Gi is and so is my mother, so I'm glad it was pretty special.  And maybe my son will turn out to be the holiday lover in the family, so it's good I got some pictures of him with the whole tree/present thing.

 Baby J's big gift from Santa--a new jungle playmat.  He loves the mirror and he's starting to be more aware of his environment, so it's the perfect time for him to start playing like this.  Yes, that is a "My First Christmas" baby outfit... a present from a friend who couldn't use it for her baby last year.

At the risk of alienating people and becoming a grossly unpopular Scrooge-like figure, I have to admit that I have a love-hate relationship with Christmas.  Partly, it's that I'm not Christian, so a lot of the religious spirit of the holiday is not a part of my scripting, but we all know that Christmas is as much a cultural holiday in the U.S. as it is a religious one, and it's that part of the celebration that I find myself feeling such ambivalence about.

Giant Monkey attack--nearly eats the baby.

I love the family togetherness, the good feelings, the yummy cookies and other meals, the stories and folklore, the warm wishes from everyone, and even the decorations (especially the ones that come out year after year and have special meaning--Grandma's old ornaments, the ones my siblings and I made in daycare centers when we were little, the woven ones my parents brought back from their years in Ecuador). I missed all that while I was in Korea from 2007-2010 and being "home" for Christmas these last two years has been amazing.

There is only one present in this picture I need or want.

What I don't love is how something so nice can turn so blatantly commercial and become a pressure cooker for gift giving and receiving in which your obligations as both the giver and recipient are immense. I actually heard people I love saying things like "I spent $80 on them--she better wear them!" and wondering aloud if they had spent "enough" money even though the gift they had already picked out was lovely, thoughtful, and appropriate.

I don't get it.  I love giving presents (and who doesn't love getting some thoughtful gifts?), but I often do so throughout the year, as things occur to me.  I don't get the whole holiday=stuff thing and kind of never have.  My first Christmas where I could talk, my parents got me a really nice Fisher Price house and a bunch of other stuff.  I opened the one toy and played with it for like an hour or so.  Mom then asked me to open my other gifts, and I said "No, this is enough for today."  (Of course my parents, who had worked hard in shopping for and arranging gifts for me made me open the rest of them, but this has become family legend.)  My first Christmas where I purchased my own gifts with my own money (in high school), I made donations in each of my family's names to a charity that suited their own personal interests (like the WWF for my sister and a comic book free speech group for my brother).  I usually try to make presents if I can.

But this year, I didn't have time (or in all honesty, the free cash) to shop this year and the cookies I had planned to bake didn't happen because Jeongmin got sick with a minor cold in the days leading up to the holiday, so I did not get presents for people this year. I feel bad about it.  I feel overwhelmed by my too-generous relatives.  I wonder if somehow my dislike of commercialism and failure to wrap something up and put it under the tree disappointed them (even though I got everyone presents when I went on vacation this summer and other events of that nature).

I may be the only person in the whole of America who didn't find the stories of people anonymously paying off Walmart and K-mart layaways heartwarming. Maybe it's because I work all year for an organization that has to tell people (often good, hardworking people) that the rent money relief they so desperately need in order to not become homeless is currently out of funds, but I don't find "donations" so that kids whose parents can't really afford it can have a bunch of cheap, plastic junk to be very charitable. I'd rather make sure we have the cash so they don't become homeless. Or so we can fund a program to help them find a job when they're out of work or quality, affordable daycare so they can keep their jobs.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful.  My mother is the opposite of me and always expresses her love through giving and loves nothing better than holidays.  She decorates up a storm and is wonderful at picking out Christmas gifts that make everyone feel special and loved.  It overwhelms me, but I truly appreciate her generosity.  I just think spending time with people is more important than getting them stuff.  Even when it's stuff they want.  And that what you do throughout the year is a bigger deal than one specific day.

Will I feel differently about making him happy through purchases and toy gifts when he is older?  I don't know.  For now, I just love him and want to spend time with him (and the rest of my family).  That's all I really care about.

Christmas 2011

J.P. Sung

Right now, my four day old son, J, is napping.  Thanks to my mother (super-grandma), I am caught up on enough rest to actually post some info here about what has been the most incredible event of my life.  Unfortunately, my brain is too addled to reflect properly on the events that have occurred and recount them faithfully and entertainingly for you here at this time.  I will try to do so soon.  For now, basic stats:

Born 12/2/2011 at 4:47am. I had a very short first labor, dilating from 4cm to ready to push in just 1.5 hours. The nurse and doctor actually made me wait another 45 min because they hadn't set anything up. Even with the epidural, it was a lot of pain to hold back. 20 min of pushing, and then he was out!

He weighed 7lbs, 10oz (3.465 kg), had an immediate Apgar score of 9. He has curly dark blond hair (surprising!) and deep blue eyes that are rapidly turning brown. First hints of a smile here.

One proud daddy!  Min Gi has been amazing.  He was totally supportive during labor and has turned into an expert diaperer overnight.  Plus, he remains super-organized with all our stuff and caring for the kitties and basic needs while I recover.  I love him all over again.

Ready to eat!  This is my favorite picture, since it's what I see every 2-3 hours when I'm feeding the little dude.  He's so much fun!

Baby's first mohawk. Post-bath.

Yes, I just delivered a baby. Of course I look like crap and need to stuff my face. This is the only one of me Min Gi took in the hospital that doesn't have a boob hanging out. Sorry.

Grandpa! So happy.

We're home now.  At my follow up appointment today, the baby is already gaining weight and is perfectly healthy and happy.  We had a small bumpy start to breast-feeding, but with the help of the lactation consultant at the hospital, that has been resolved and all is well.

Having a baby is totally exhausting, but it's also a LOT more fun than I thought.  I hope you enjoy the update!  I will try to keep up a bit here in between all the lovin'.

Thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  I've been crabby and impatient the last few days dealing with the end-of-pregnancy body blahs, but I'm still very thankful for many things in my life.  This list is not really in order, but here we are:

1.  Always and forever, I am thankful to Min Gi, who continues to surprise me with his patience, concern, love, and growth. He's about to be the best damn dad in the whole world to our little one--I can tell.
2.  I am thankful for the closeness I've had with my family this year.  My family is not always easy to get along with up close, but the last year has been one of a surprising increase in the depth and quality of my relationships with each of my immediate family members.  Most especially my mother, who at one time I believed I could never have the kind of close relationship I desired.  Do they still drive me nuts?  Sure.  But we are all in a very good place these days.  It was unexpected.
3.  I am very thankful for my mental health recovery.  Being depressed sucks (so y'all know).
4.  Despite the discomforts of the last few weeks, I'm thankful that my first time ever being pregnant has been so healthy and successful.  I know not everyone gets that, so even though I have griped and dealt with negative hormonal surges, I've been pretty darn lucky overall.
5.  I am thankful that I found a job I love and believe in and feel valued and competent.  This probably has contributed to #3 more than anything else.  I am thankful to my co-workers and for the opportunity that came about at such a fortuitous moment in my life.  And extremely thankful about how supportive they have been of my transition to motherhood.
6.  I am very thankful for friends near and far who have been patient with my funk earlier in 2011 and, despite largely electing to be childless themselves (so far for some), tolerant of my increasing baby-brain-ness.  I am thankful for the new friends I've made who are already moms (and some old friends who have grown close again because of this) and have been helping me through a lot of this.
7.  I am thankful for Min Gi's family who support us immeasurably from Korea.  I know he misses them a ton and I *will* find a way for us to visit them next spring or summer.
8.  I am thankful for the strides we have made this year financially as a family unit.  Compared to this time last year, we are in a much better place as far as working together to accomplish monetary goals.  We still have a long way to go, and I promise I'll start blogging about this again, but for now, Min Gi and I are just a lot more supportive of each other and a lot more comfortable expressing our true needs than we were.  It's pretty awesome.
9. I am thankful for the health of our other two family members--Saja and Princess--who have been through 5 moves in the last two years (one of which was international) and have adjusted stunningly each time.  Dear, dear kitties.
10.  Everyday, I am more and more thankful for the choices my privileged life allows.  I become more aware of them as I grow older, and sometimes it's hard to think about how lucky I am because of the difficulties I see, but overall, I'm a very lucky, lucky person.

November Already?

How did it get to be the end of 2011 already?  And how is it that the most important event of my 2011 (in case you can't figure that one out, it's the birth of my first child sometime in the next month or so) has not even happened yet?

I'm feeling very transitional these days, and I'm becoming more comfortable with it.  I usually like to have a set plan for the next six months, year, and five years mapped out.  I've always remained flexible with these plans, allowing them to change as new life stuff comes up, but I feel a lot more comfortable when I know where I'm going next.

However, I've come to terms over the last three months that I cannot possibly predict what my life will be like after the birth of my son.  (Three months ago, with hormones raging, I was utterly despondent over the loss of control becoming a parent represented.  Although I chose not to blog about my misery, rest assured there was much fighting with Min Gi and fear of insanity...).  I can imagine and hope and daydream about the kind of parent I'd like to be, but if I'm honest with myself, I cannot possibly know what my priorities will be after our family grows by 50 percent, other than to assume that my child will be in my top five, likely vying for the top two, along with my marriage. 

This makes things like planning a career path, health and financial goals, travel adventures, or writing projects somewhat up in the air.  I'm guessing these things will still be very important to me, but the way I approach them and the shapes they take may alter dramatically.  And that's ok.

Today, at 36 weeks and change, I had another ultrasound to determine the position of the baby (he's head down, which is grand) and the approximate size of the beast at the moment (around 6lbs 5oz, though my doctor cautions that 3rd trimester scans are not very accurate and it could be a pound up or down from there).  All is healthy and well.  On Friday, he will officially be "term" meaning that they won't try to stop labor if it starts, although we're still hoping he goes to 39+ weeks, since that's best for his development.

I'm about ready to have my body back to myself, although it will ironically signal a much more profound movement away from independence than pregnancy.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Last Photos from the August 2010 Jeju Trip

Well over a year ago, Min Gi and I took a second honeymoon to Jeju Island in Korea to bid goodbye to the country and because we wouldn't see each other for about a month after I went back to the U.S.  Back when I was still a good blogger (not dealing with job stress, depression, or pregnancy), I blogged about one piece of the trip.  I am just now getting around to putting up some pictures from the rest of our adventures on our 4.5 days on the island.

We had a fantastic time.  We made new friends, visited some ones we knew from before, and fell in love with a place.  We have decided that when we return to Korea to settle there, we want to live here.  For now, enjoy the photos!

Dragon Rock in Jeju

Manjanggul Cave (Lava Tube) in Jeju

Folk Village in Jeju

Other Jeju Photos

Exciting News!

My husband got a job today!
I have more to say, but I'm just very happy for him right now and wanted to share.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Missing...

... I realized today that when I say I miss Korea, I don't only mean the country itself or even the cultural peculiarities of the land of kimchi, mountains, and fan death.  I don't mean that I miss my job at TFLHS, which I missed sharply this year.  Of course, I also miss the people I associate with my life in Korea, even though many of them no longer actually live there (or live in another city), but that's not even entirely what I mean.
I think sometimes that when I say I miss Korea, I really miss who I was while I was living in Korea.

I'm not saying I'm a dramatically different person in America--I'm largely the same.  However, I behave differently and respond to my environment differently.  I even think differently sometimes.  In Korea, I felt like I was more adventurous, more interesting, and more inspired.  I felt shiny.  Powerful.

Living in another country has a certain freedom to it.  There is the freedom of not belonging, and it being just fine and dandy to not fully belong.  Here, when I feel like I don't belong, it's more painful and lonely.  There is the freedom from conventions.  Adhering to neither Korean culture nor American culture fully was expected of me, and therefore I could pick and choose quite comfortably.

Also, I was challenged most days in a way that excited and inspired me.  I always had something I wanted to write about.  I saw lots of things I wanted to photograph.  I experimented with foods and local travel more than I'm inclined to do in the area I grew up.  I tried new classes and sports and hobbies for the heck of it.

I know, I know.  I could do those things here, too.  After all, these qualities are not in Korea, but in me.  I just feel like I'd have to work harder to be inspired in that way.  I have to look for the exotic and interesting in the mundane and everyday grind.

The depression I was in for much of this last year has colored my impression of my ability to explore and be inspired in America.  Now that I'm out of it, past the culture shock, and happy with my life again, I'm starting to feel like I want to do the work I know is necessary to live this way.  Living in my home country just feels a bit encumbered sometimes is all.

Pregnancy Dreams

People were NOT kidding about how vivid and strange the dreams are when you're expecting.  I've had some so real that I woke up furious with Min Gi for offenses he had no idea ever even could have happened.  For example, one night I dreamed he won a small lottery of $1,900.  He was happy and wanted to use some of the money to celebrate at a bar with his friends.  I said that's fine.

Well, the man ran up a $2,500 bar tab!  He had bought everyone rounds and purchased some very pricey hard liquor and when all was said and done, we were in the hole $600.  I was just so mad at him when I woke up.

I've had dreams of being a secret agent, a man, about childhood friends I no longer speak to, about living in countries all over the world...  It's been exhausting.

What I Learned from a Bad Job...

I don't want to get into the specifics of the problems I had teaching this year for many reasons, but I would like to give myself some closure on my blog before I move on into the much more hopeful future that awaits me.  My last day with students was last Friday, and I cleaned out my classroom on Monday.  So now that I've finished and can finally breathe and feel like myself for the first time in MONTHS, here are some things I learned about myself while enduring this year:
...

1.  If you are dissatisfied in your work to the point that you must medicate, it deeply affects your self-esteem and self-image.

2.  There is a double-edged sword to the job security that a teaching job provides in that it lacks flexibility.  The consequences for quitting before the end of a contract are extreme.

3.  It is hard to be a generous, caring, understanding partner when you are profoundly depressed.  Corollary:  My marriage is worth more than my career.  I need to be reminded of this one sometimes.

4.  Bureaucracy can be more than a nuisance that you must rise above; it can make it impossible to do what you are supposed to do.

5.  Not all problems in education can be solved or overcome by the hard work and dedication of a single teacher.  Not even most of the problems in education can be solved that way.  Believing this is naive.

Much of my idealism about teaching (an especially about public schools) and my faith in my own abilities as a teacher have been blown up this year.  I have taught successfully in many situations and many different groups for six years, but this one year at a school that was a bad fit for me (to use the politically correct phrasing), has made me question all of my previous accomplishments.  I am not a person who backs down when facing a challenge or gives up easily, but this year just knocked the crap out of me.  I will not return to teaching again until I have had enough time to reflect on this.  I do hope that I one day decide to try again, and that the fear that I'm no longer capable of teaching students does not prove to win the day.  But I do not know.

For now, I'm loving my new job at the hotline, looking forward to a vacation over the July 4th holiday, buying big clothes for the expanding belly, and updating this blog about my recent and planned adventures.  That's right--I'm back, baby!

Life's Little Changes

Yesterday, I heard the very fast, tinny heartbeat of my thirteenish-week-old soon-to-be baby at the OB's office on something that I swear she called a Doppler radar.

I know what you're thinking--I'm about to run off into a sloppy, sentimental tear-jerker about how joyous and bubbly I am at the thought of giving birth to my "little miracle" as the literature on classes offered by the local hospital likes to call it.  But you're wrong.

Being pregnant has been a hell of a ride.  Besides the hormonal rages, exhaustion that felt like when I had mono in college, and ongoing battle with morning sickness that could only be made tolerable by the use of acupressure wristbands, the emotional shock to my system is jarring.  As I enter the second trimester and the physical nastiness is subsiding, those emotional issues have nothing left to hide behind.

I'm experiencing a kind of raw vulnerability unlike anything I've ever known in my life.  I can't plan or predict or adequately prepare for the reality of motherhood--the very concept is beyond me.

Every decision, no matter how mundane or trivial before, is now being made as if under the bright hot lights of a police interrogation room.  Are you sure you want to get the ant traps with chemicals?  They could cause birth defects, right?  And let's not even get into the career-path choices I'm dealing with at the same time.  (Why oh why are you switching to a career earning $20K less per year than your already underpaid profession???)

But it's not even my own decisions that are killer.  I can control those.  Own them.  It's the decisions other people in my life make, like my husband, that are impossible to handle.

I have to rely on people, especially Min Gi; I'm only just now beginning to fathom the extent to which I cannot control the actions and behaviors of others.  This loss of control at a time when I need it the most to shape and form the best life for this future person growing inside me is unbearable.  Now, I know I'm a control freak.  And I've learned by and large to let go of this less attractive side of my personality over time, but it's rearing its ugly head with a fiery vengeance in the wake of the terror at the responsibility I am about to assume.

Don't get me wrong here; I want to have children.  Min Gi is excited and bubbly about it.  I have a lot of support from family and friends and current and future employers.  But I think this glowy-happy-angelic view we have of pregnancy only makes those of us (and I suspect there are more of you out there than will admit it) with some ambivalence feel alone.  Isolated.  Abandoned.

The combination of the fear, isolation, and loss of control is not pretty.  I'm fighting.  With my mom.  With Min Gi.  With my friends.  With myself.  I look at myself and see not a grown woman capable of raising a child with joy and poise, but a scared little girl that needs tending but fights back at everyone who tries to get in to help.

I hesitate to post this to my blog (which not that many people still read... thankfully) because of the public nature of the forum and knowing (hoping) that these feelings are temporary and will be overcome and replaced by others of a more positive and possibly nausea-inducing sugar-coated variety.  But I hope that both in revealing the pregnancy and in discussing the feelings I have about it honestly, I might be able to pull myself through it a bit faster.  And maybe, just maybe, make those of you feeling something similar less afraid to reach out and talk to someone about it.

Coming Full Circle...

Last night, Min Gi and I went to the annual New Year's Eve party hosted by my high school friends.  We both had a wonderful time.  This week has also brought many opportunities to catch up with friends I haven't seen for four years (they were visiting their families for the holidays).  Min Gi got to meet (and impress) the people who have been close to me during the hell that was high school.  Seeing them has given me a huge boost of joy at life in America.  I always knew that the hardest part of living in Korea was being away from friends and family, but I really needed the reminder of how many soul-fulfilling relationships I still have back here.

However, it also made me see how I really have moved into a new place.  As I move into my 30th year of life (Korean age 31... haha) and the start of my second year of marriage, I see that my story has moved into a new chapter--one that is no longer about just me and defining myself, but about my family.  And that family is Min Gi and I.  Home is not a place--home is now a person.  And that's lovely.

Settled?

We unpacked the final box we'd shipped from Korea last week and attended an American Halloween party.  Min Gi got his social security card and his driver's license.  Tuesday, I have a doctor's appointment.

It feels like something's shifting.  Like maybe I can start to relax just a little and move on with life goals--the ones I put on hold to accomplish this nightmare relocation.  This move has been so all-consuming that I'd almost forgot I even had them.  NaNoWriMo is helping a bit.  As is the Couch-to-5K running program I restarted this week.

I marvel at how different life was six months ago--when we didn't yet have our visa or even tickets for the U.S. and I had no idea how I was going to find a job and get everything done I needed to do to wind us up on the other side of the world with our cats and without being completely broke.

Well... we did it.

I'm still not completely happy here in America.  I don't know if that's the adjustment, reverse culture shock, or the shortening days (winter is never easy for me), but I do know that I'm starting to feel settled.  That this house and this job are starting to feel like "mine" instead of just the place I live and the place I teach.  It helps to have found places for everything; it helps that I've been able to plan out the quarter, rather than going day by day/week by week with my lessons.

As I enter the first American "holiday season" I've had in almost four years, I feel unwound.  Like I've been a tight coil for a year and half of short-term, high-pressure goals--all achieved, all stressful, many fun (to name a few:  completing grad school, planning a wedding and honeymoon, getting Min Gi's visa, moving to America and repatriating, dealing with a new chronic illness)--and now I have no bounce.  But maybe I can use this flexibility and rest to my advantage.  Use it to sift through my new identity as wife.  As American-in-America.  As high school English teacher (maybe, in the near future, drama teacher).  Use it to work on my health, my career, and my writing.

Let's hope.  I need some inspiration!

Unemployed Teacher

In the DC area, tomorrow marks the first day of school for many districts, including Prince George's County, my old haunt. As you know, I've been looking for work in the US since way back in February. It's been a frustrating, humiliating, desperation-making, humorous, and slow experience. The end result of it all is that I have now joined the ranks of the US unemployed. Not that I'd even be counted in the statistics, since the job I left was in Korea (and I left it voluntarily), so I don't qualify for benefits. Plus, I do have part-time work as an editor. But my career? The one for which I hold the highest certification the State of Maryland can bestow? The one that would give me health insurance and enough money to support me, my immigrant husband, and his mother back in Korea and allow us to consider starting a family? Yeah... I guess that's "on hold" for now.

Way back in college, I made the decision to become a teacher for several reasons.  First was that I love literature and writing and want to share this joy with as many people as possible.  Up there as a major secondary reason, though, was a virtual guarantee of a livable salary and work available just about anywhere in the world I wanted to go.  I didn't ever want to end up where I am now, unemployed, living in my parents' house, so rather than pursue some other more "unstable" lines of work, like freelance writing, acting, or publishing, I became a teacher.  After all, year after year in America they were practically begging bums on the street to fill their classrooms.  Fellow teachers and I regularly joked about how they almost preferred "warm bodies" to competent people because of the ridiculous hoops you have to jump through for certifications and the like. I figured teaching would always be "safe" from an employment perspective.

Here I am, six solid years of experience and a Master's degree later, unable to get a job.  I am an unemployed teacher.

My plan from back in Korea was that if I couldn't find a job, I would just substitute teach for a bit and get my name known around at a few schools so that when an opening did come up, I could slide in, no problem. Well, even that plan is blown. Montgomery and PG have no subbing openings. And I don't really have a car (I borrow family members' cars), so I can't commute many other places--not for subbing (I'd figure it out if I was offered a permanent position).

My backup plan--to change careers into public relations, editing, or writing--is moving slowly because as few contacts as I have in education here, I have even fewer in those areas (although, as I said, I do have a part-time, freelance editing gig that's helping keep me sane).  I have one very exciting, very promising lead, but it's moving at a snail's pace.

I'm lucky.  I have a family that can support my basic needs while I try to figure out a way to become independent again.  It's not ideal, but I have a place to sleep and food to eat and transportation most days.  Mom has offered to help out with health insurance if it looks like the unemployment will last for awhile, and it looks like I will have to take her up on that offer, though I really, really don't want to (um... point of moving back to US being to HELP my parents, not be a burden on them).  And I am truly grateful to them for their help and support.  I'm trying to pay them back in ways I can--cooking dinner for everyone (maybe even saving them money by doing so), helping out with the remodeling projects around the house, organizing and minimizing the stuff I put in storage before I left for Korea--but my number one priority is becoming independent of their care again.  It's ridiculous that a married career woman should be this dependent on her parents.

It's hard on me.  I'm a planner, but with no idea of what the future looks like, it's nigh impossible to actually make plans.  I have two dependents, Min Gi and his mom back in Korea.  We have a plan figured out for the financial support of his mom, but he and I are moving back to dependency--which also means we're putting our plans to start a family on hold (bad idea to get pregnant with no health insurance, no job, and no house).  This is depressing.

I'm staying positive.  I'm trying to enjoy my unemployment time by reading more, experimenting in the kitchen, and staying active.  I've taken on a number of self-improvement projects, which I will be blogging about as I go through them.  I'm considering just making the leap into self-employment, but unfortunately my health situation (unless we figure something out there) makes that an untenable plan for the long-term (stupid America's stupid lack of appropriate, affordable health care).  I just have to learn patience.  Patience is not a strength of mine.  But this whole experience is schooling me in it.

Wednesday Review--We Married Koreans: Personal Stories of American Women with Korean Husbands

I know I haven't done a book review in a long time; rest assured that it is not because I have gone the last few months without reading. Quite the contrary. In the last few months, I've been in a mad reading frenzy in an attempt to rid myself of all the books I had accumulated in Korea that I did not wish to bring back with me to the U.S. Fortunately, I discovered Bookmooch and an English used book cafe called Buy the Book (Downtown Daegu, above the Mr. Pizza on the main street with Communes and Billibow and the like), so all of my books went to loving homes.

One of the books I did want to keep with me, however, was We Married Koreans, a collection of 12 true stories of interracial, intercultural marriages between American women and Korean men in the 1960s. The collection is edited by Gloria Goodwin Hurh, whose own story appears in Chapter 5.

If you have any interest in American or Korean cultures during the last 50 years or in intercultural marriages in general, you should read this book. Do not be put off by the fact that it is self-published and therefore contains some errors in grammar and usage that (hopefully) would have been caught by a professional editor or that the women are not professional writers. It tells a fascinating history, both personal and cultural, of Korea as it struggled towards democracy (one woman's husband was imprisoned for anti-government demonstrations in Korea) and America as it struggled towards racial equality (many of the women speak frankly about some of the racial epithets hurled at their children). The couples mostly met, married, and lived in America, but most lived for at least a short time in Korea and one missionary couple spent most of their marriage in the Korean expat community in Brazil. I feel like I just sat down and read 12 very good personal blogs about Korea.

Each woman speaks positively of marriage and praises intercultural marriage, despite the challenges they have faced. None of them have divorced and most stories are accompanied by a picture of the couple from within the last five years, graying and wrinkled, but still together. I was particularly moved by the stories of Faye Moon, Dixie Whong, and Sharon Shin, but I got something new and interesting from each story. Many of the women were Christian missionaries or united to their husband by a strong faith, which did not speak to me as much as it might have to someone from their era, but I still enjoyed reading the book very much.

I can only hope that Min Gi and I will be as happy together in our future as these couples seem to be.