Last Day of Preschool...

Wow, how bittersweet is that? Weird that three years have flown by so quickly. Odd to feel so glad about not having to shell out our $600+/month for preschool and not having to deal with some issues which have developed at this school over time (minor but still concerning)...at the same time feeling sadness that it's "over"...that, come Fall, Munchkin will enter an entirely new building, meeting brand new friends, developing a trusting relationship with a totally new teacher, learning a new routine and new curriculum. Sadness that these teachers whom we have come to trust will no longer even be nearby to comfort Munchkin if she is scared or hurt. Sadness that the beloved Ms T will not be there.

It was such a special period of growth for Munchkin. Ms T and Ms R both told me today that there are some kids who just are "your favorites" and that Munchkin is one of theirs. Ms T has told me that since year #1 when she would send Munchkin home with a whole box of tissues under her arm...recognizing that Munchkin needed a transitional object long before I did. She said that in her 15+ yrs of teaching two kids are her very most special favorites--one of them is Munchkin. What a warm feeling. I cried hugging her goodbye today. I think even Munchkin "got it" when she was saying goodbye to everyone. I think she is full of excitement and anticipation for Kindergarten but will be nervous and timid and scared when the day comes. As will I.

This whole parenting thing just tears at my heartstrings.

Kids' music that doesn't suck...

I abhor kids' music which sounds like kids' music. So much of it sucks. It's just too cutesy and annoying to me. We have tried to introduce Munchkin to lots of different styles (rock, blues, jazz, classical, opera, an occasional foray into K-pop...). She likes a little of everything and has her favorites (Aerosmith!). But, when we are in the car we often listen to Kids' Stuff on Sirius. We have found some new favorites there and also on iTunes. Here are some of our current favs in no particular order:

• Peter Himmelman: "Feet" and "My Green Kite"
• Asylum Street Spankers: "You Only Love Me for My Lunchbox" (watch out, though, as these guys only have one family-friendly album out...lots of their other tunes have the "explicit lyrics" tag!)...this song is my current personal favorite as it has a very bluesy feel to it!
• The Dream Jam Band: "Look Around"
• Medeski, Martin & Wood: "Where's the Music?" and "Let's Go Everywhere"
• The Sippy Cups: "Magic Toast" and "Use Your Words"
• Brady Rymer: "Pie" and "Road Trip"...okay so "Pie" might be tied for my favorite! I love that song!
• Uncle Rock: "I'm a Fire Engine"

We also love Ralph of Ralph's World--he puts on a rockin' show (really rock show-like). A local guy we love is Eric Ode--very family friendly songs and a very nice guy in person, too. Most of Laurie Berkner's music is fun even if it is sometimes too cutesy and lots of Dan Zanes' tunes are good, too (some are a little too folksy or sad sounding to me but there are others I love...like "Malti").

I even have a whole playlist on the iPod just for Munchkin's songs (and we listen to it together when we are on plane rides!). It's really quite enjoyable if you are picky about what you listen to!

My own personal Salmon...

I keep forgetting to write about this. Back in October the salmon are swimming upstream around here, trying to get back to their birthplaces to spawn. In a nearby town there is an information center with a "fish ladder" with underwater viewing so that you can see the salmon as they climb the ladder and it is, probably obviously, right next to the river where you can also see them swimming up the stream...slapping into the water as they jump over and over again.

Well, this year it made quite an impression on Munchkin. It was cool to watch her watching the salmon. We had gone to the small zoo near us that day, earlier, and she said the salmon watching was even more fun!

Now she likes to pretend she's a "strong" salmon (as opposed to the weak, dead salmon we saw floating amongst the rocks at the edge of the stream!!), swimming up the fish ladder, when she finishes her bath. She "climbs," splashing like crazy, as I cheer her on (literally...I am making up cheers like that duo on the SNL re-runs and acting like a complete idiot, usually). This has been going on for weeks. Enter Gram this past weekend. Munchkin asked her to watch her bathtime. So...as usual, she pretends to be a salmon for a few minutes before she gets out of the tub. Gram--not understanding the whole routine and being a farmgirl from Maine, no less--pretends to cast a line and reel in the salmon! YIKES! The salmon freaked!!! So then Gram had to pretend that the salmon escaped. Phew...

Poor Gram...she had no idea that her granddaughter was such a little fish!

Happy New Ear!!

Yes, "ear"...last year Munchkin thought it was Happy New Hair and rubbed the top of our heads while wishing that to us! At any rate, it is 2008. Where does the effing time go? Really...where does it go?

The last two weeks were a freakin' blur...my mom came out for two weeks and it was glorious to have her here. It did, however f* up Munchkin's routine and she was a bear for about the first week but, once she got used to Gram hanging with us she calmed down a bit (not to mention the excitement over Xmas and the increased sugar consumption). We did so much fun stuff while Mom was here...Reindeer Festival, A Tap Dance Christmas Carol, saw the Christmas Ships on Lake W., saw the gingerbread houses at the Sheraton, rode two carousels downtown, rode the monorail, saw The Big Friendly Giant at the children's theatre...it was so fun doing all that and having mom along.

Meanwhile while Mom was here...back on the east coast one aunt died, one aunt fell outside on the ice and had to go to the ER, and the ex-wife of my big brother was hospitalized after a severe heart attack and may not make it. I just gotta get back there with all this crap going on.

I've had so much to do lately and still so much to get done (adoption paperwork, holiday cards, prep for the winter concert at preschool...) but I feel like I can breathe tonight. I made another batch of chap chae today and it was a double batch--I got a frickin' blister on my hand from chopping the onions, the carrots, the shitake-million-$-a-pound 'shrooms...worth it, though, as the dish was good. We had a great little NYE party for a few of our friends and their kids (all KADs) tonight and I made my own crazy ball for BikeBoy to lower like in Times Square! It had rows of crystal and silver beads and some silver pipe cleaners stuck into a styrofoam ball. WTF was I thinking! It was funny anyway. And, you know, the only 12:00 a.m. which truly counts is the one that occurs in NYC's timezone so after the other families left around 8:00 our time Munchkin, BikeBoy and I watched the countdown in NYC on tv and then it was pretty much over. They are both deep in dreamland now while I shopped on itunes a while (Queensryche's "Jet City Woman," Fiction Plane's "Two Sisters," "Dig" by Incubus, "Pretty Vegas" by INXS w/JD, and "Flagpole Sitta" which is actually an old Harvey Danger song but iTunes carries an "exacta" version of it by some other cover band) and am catching up with my reading/writing.

Oh, and let me plug holiday cards for a moment...I can't tell you how much I love getting them! I so love hearing from my friends and family, especially when a little note is included or a picture of them or something. I never throw them out (honestly). I look at the pictures over and over. It amazes me how lucky I am to have these wonderful people in my life even if I never get to see them in person. And one special group of gals--most of whom I've never met IRL, though I consider them "real" friends--so cool to hold the card in my hand knowing it once rested in yours. I love all my friends all over the US and world so much--maybe the importance of friends increases when one has no siblings. I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe everyone feels this way. At any rate, a handful of you are truly like sisters to me in my heart and I may never tell you this in person and I may not have seen you in over a decade or maybe only a few months ago or somewhere in between but...oh, heck...I should just tell you in person one day but I hope you know who you are! :)

And, while we're at it, let me announce it so that I'll feel some sort of responsibility...I am going back on WW tomorrow (or today now that it is 12:30 am on January 1st, 2008). I did 30 min on the treadmill yesterday and plan to do it at least 4 days a week. I also will return to tap once the studio re-opens. I have to get this bod back into shape. I don't know why I let stress take my eating down the road-of-no-return when I feel so much better when I treat my body like the temple that it is. And my friend, C, was over here tonight and she lost 71 lbs this year and now weighs less than I do! She rocks. She looks incredible. I suck. I cannot even tell you how much crap I ate in the last week or two...it would disgust you.

Well, that's it for tonight. Wishing you all a happy, healthy 2008 which brings you only good things! And I promise my holiday cards will get into the mail this year. Soon. Really. I mean it.

Preschool version of bullying???

I chaperoned Munchkin's trip to the organic pumpkin farm yesterday. It was an exercise in patience. To start with, Munchkin freaked when I wouldn't let her take an armful of stuffed kitties on the tour (it was an incredibly muddy day and I didn't want to deal with her reaction should a kitty or kitties fall in the mud...not to mention that she would need her hands for picking a pumpkin, holding the handrail to the hayloft, etc.). I finally put one kitty in my purse and left the rest in the car but she continued to scream for a good ten minutes...the whole walk from the car to the farm, while waiting for the tour to start...it sucked. Plus, I had another child with us ("A," a girl whose parent couldn't make it) and I had to let the teacher and another mom handle her while I dealt with Miss Tantrum.

Then, A didn't really want to stay with me once Munchkin stopped the tantrum since she doesn't know me. She wanted to stay with "C"'s mom since her mom and C's mom are friends and they all hang out together. So...I kind of let her go with C's mom (C's mom didn't have a background check clearance so officially she couldn't drive another student--even a friend's child--on a school trip).

Then, C proceeded to take two hands and shove Munchkin in the back while they were all standing to have their picture taken before the start of the tour. Munchkin fell down on her knees into the mud and sat there. She started screaming, "I hurt myself!" and crying about being covered in mud. C's mom said she thought it was an accident and C proceeded to say, "I'm sorry" to Munchkin--one of those sorry's which makes no eye contact and sounds really insincere.

Then, the farmer asked all the kids to sit on the steps of the barn so that she could tell them about the hay maze up in the loft. There were four little girls on the top step and Munchkin walked up the steps and sat in the last spot next to them. Along comes another girl, "M," (a girl who Munchkin has always told me is mean to her) and M proceeds to grab Munchkin by the arm and say to her, "Munchkin! Get up! I want to sit there! Munchkin! Move! That's my seat!" Munchkin just kept holding her ground and saying, "No!" and after the bratty kid torqued her arm for the 4th or 5th time I saw my girl take her tiny hiking-boot-covered muddy foot and kick her in the shin! (YOU GO GIRL!) By this time, M's mom had finally taken notice and told M that she needed to sit somewhere else. (YOU'RE DAMNED RIGHT, LADY!)

THEN...we're walking through the pumpkin patch, headed back to the wagon for our ride back to the barn when Munchkin sees who is walking in front of us with his mom and dad. Munchkin proceeds to say, "That's N...he's the one who always pushes me on the playground!" N's mom heard her say this and says, "What does N do????" and I had no idea what to say so I said, "Oh, it's nothing, don't worry about it." and we just all kept walking. Of course, Munchkin has mentioned N at home, saying he pushes her a lot so I'm betting he really does.

So...we saw the pigs, we saw the chickens, we saw the hay maze, we chose a pumpkin, we had a hay ride, we got the hell outta there...thank goodness. And I now have plenty to talk about when I go in for the first conference of the year in 3 weeks.

It's hard to watch things like that start to happen to your own child. I remember the way it feels to be picked on. I don't want Munchkin to feel that. Ever. I know that's not possible but I really wish I could prevent it. She's now the oldest child in her class but she is still one of the smallest in stature...I think the other kids take advantage of this (or try to). I don't usually approve of kicking or hitting but I was so glad she finally kicked that little girl yesterday--she'd had enough yanking on her arm, she knew she had the right to sit in that spot, she knew the girl was being mean and my little girl said "no" until she was practically blue in the face--she finally kicked out in desperation and I didn't scold her for it.

BikeBoy thinks we should start looking into a TaeKwonDo class for her or something. Anything that might build her confidence and the ability to stand up for herself later on. I had heard that girls can be mean but I had no idea how young it all starts. I cried tonight telling my mom about it...I cried out of frustration that I couldn't prevent it, that I didn't know how to handle it.

But today was a better day...ice skating for an hour with a buddy and that buddy's mom--over an hour at the rink and it was a blast! Then we had Subway lunch with them. Then, after running errands, we ended up at the neighborhood park and many of the neighbor kids were there. Munchkin was so kind and caring of the 2-and-under set...she helped gather them up when their moms said it was time to go, she played peek-a-book with a couple of them, she played hide-and-seek with another, she kicked a ball back and forth with another. She just knows how to treat younger kids and the littlest ones just seem to adore her. It makes me proud of her and makes me think how much she will like being someone's big sister someday. :)

Look, Mama! I fed the butterflies!...

...is something you don't want to hear from your 4 yr old. I was washing the dishes and looked over and Munchkin had dropped a chunk of watermelon in the butterfly net-house and a butterfly was lying partially UNDER the melon chunk! It was desperately twitching, trying to free itself. I had to unzip the top of the house and reach in with a pair of tongs (god-forbid that my hand actually touched a butterfly--eeeeek!) and lifted the melon off the butterfly--rescuing it! It kind of limped around for a minute or two, it's wings stuck together with melon juice but then it flapped a couple of times and was okay. Phew. A tragic ending prevented! :)

A few new posts...

I have been terribly negligent...poor lonely blog. I only know of one dear friend who actually admits to reading this thing anyway so I have cut/pasted a few posts from a board where I'm a bit more active posting. Just a few things.

Oh, yeah...totally unrelated thought here...why is it that there are some things a kid says that are just so darned cute that we can't correct the pronunciation? Like Munchkin say's "hyneena" for hyena. I love it and I will try my darndest to work hyneena into any conversation with her just to hear it. :) A few others from the past: "kicken" (chicken), "doonin" (doing). I'll add more if I think of 'em.

Uh-oh...

Munchkin was up on the balcony peeking out between the rails and I asked her what she was doing...she said, "Thinking about Kindergarten and jail." WTF? I guess the rails seemed like bars on a cell? But WTF? BikeBoy says, "That's my girl! I always thought school was like prison."

First trip to the circus...

We took Munchkin to the circus last night (no bashing please...I feel guilty supporting the circus when I do not think it's the best place for the animals to be...). I just really loved the circus when I was a kid and wanted Munchkin to experience it at least once so we went.

She was in awe for the first 30 minutes. When the acrobats were doing some of their performance (swinging through the air and catching each other, etc.) Munchkin leaned over to me and says, "I wanna see YOU do that, Mama!" We didn't see much of the rest of the show--she wanted to walk around the souvenier booths and picked out a small stuffed white tiger ($15! Yikes!) then after intermission we went back and saw about 30 more minutes of the show and left after the poodles performed.

It was kinda fun...and sad for the animals...think we'll be doing Cirque du Soleil from here on out. By the way, I once got a form letter from C du S when they were recruiting PTs! Can you imagine if I had taken them up on that and called my mom to tell her I had joined the circus!

I won an award tonight! ;)

I took a quick bath w/Munchkin tonight as I had just returned from a 45 min walk and was sweaty and Munchkin needed a bath, too. What the heck! It was fun...we splashed around and poured water on each other and laughed. Then she says, "You're the best slippery Mama I ever had!" Then she rested her head on my tummy and said, "You're the best slippery Mama I ever rested my head on." LOL! What a cutie! I love her so much!

Munchkin is so musically diverse...

She knows the words to all these cool jazz tunes like "Straighten Up and Fly Right" and "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" and and she can hum the tunes of "Paper Moon" and "Flyin' Home"...but then I tell her we're going to the symphony (last weekend's symphony for tots program) and she says, "Symphony of Destruction"? That is, of course, the Megadeth song she also knows how to hum!

Got puppets???

I'm on my next-to-the-last phone call this a.m. with a parent coach I've been working with (she's the friend of a friend, getting the last hours of coaching in for her certification--so I'm getting free coaching!!)...we're talking about ways to avoid conflict but still get our little ones to do the things we need them to do. She mentioned that there have been research studies done which show that children listen to/pay attention to puppets 10x more than to a parent. (she's going to send me the research links eventually) 10 times! She suggested using puppets as transitional aids like keeping one in the bathroom to get her to brush her teeth longer, etc.

So today, after I mentioned it to BikeBoy, two different times he used his plain old hand as a puppet (a la Oobi) and Munchkin immediately did what the "puppet" told her to do! It was almost freakish!So...bring on the puppets!!! I'm gonna keep 'em all over the house and I'm definitely gonna put one in my coat pocket for our next trip to the "market-store."

Methinks thou dost protest...

I calmly sent Munchkin to her room yesterday for being repetitively disrespectful. After a few minutes I heard her singing over and over, "We sha-do-ver-caaaah-ah-um, we sha-do-ver-caaah-ah-um." (translation: we shall overcome) Hmmm...should I be worried? :D

Happy Family Day, Munchkin!

Hard to believe but it was 4 yrs ago this very day that our sweet Munchkin arrived from S. Korea and was placed into my arms.

It was a beautiful sunny day but cold and windy. Her plane was a few minutes late. When "P," her escort, approached me I could see Munchkin was sleeping and looked pale so I couldn't cry (which I was expecting to do!) since I was worried she was sick. He assured me that she had been awake and cooing all the way from LA and had just a short time ago fallen asleep. She stayed asleep as I held her for the first time then passed her to BikeBoy. I still remember how good she smelled and how soft her skin was when I kissed her precious cheek. How wonderful it felt to hold this tiny person whom I had only seen in two pictures for the past 9 weeks and dreamed about for years prior to that.

She slept until all the paperwork was done and BikeBoy and I carried her back to the car...the wind woke her up. She proceeded to hold my hand and chew my finger all the way home.This weekend we celebrated (hence the trip to see "Goodnight, Moon") and yesterday I took her to the Build-a-Bear store to make a stuffed animal to go with a Korean hanbok I found on their website. She made a cat (a Hello Kitty one...she is a huge cat lover and usually has tiny "Smelly Cat" with her at all times)! Today is mostly a regular day but grandma wants me to pick up 4 big carnations to give her after school and we may try to go out to supper, too.

I always write her a long letter on this special day, too, that tells all her big achievements during the past year, her likes/dislikes/friends, etc. I also list my hopes for her for the future. I'm going to try my hardest to write letters to her foster mom and her birthmom (birthmom's letter will only go into Munchkin's file in Korea...in case she ever goes back to the orphanage looking for info)...will include a picture or two, too.

And I profusely thank her birthmother for making such a hard decision but one which gave such hope to her daughter and such joy to my life.

First school concert...

OMGosh. Munchkin had her first concert w/her preschool this week. Unbelievably cute. She wandered out on stage (after about a 30 foot gap between her and the person in front of her!) and sat on the risers with her class. The school sang 2 songs all together...the Hello Song and another (I'll have to look it up in the program later) then her class did two songs by themselves: "I Can Tap My Toes" and "We Shall Overcome." Then all the other classes performed a couple of songs then the whole school ended with: "Puff the Magic Dragon," "Yellow Submarine," and the "Goodbye Song."

Munchkin sang all her songs plus sang along with many of the other classes' songs! She wandered over to another class (on her belly!)...climbed onto another level of the risers...lifted up her dress and played w/her bellybutton...spread out on the floor in an unladylike position and took off a shoe. It was cute, nerve-wracking, and freaking hilarious all at the same time! At the end she did a huge bow! She was very proud of herself and so were BikeBoy and I. Very proud. I cried the minute she started singing...thinking how big a girl she is, how fast it is all going, how very soon she will be walking out the door to college (well, okay, not really THAT soon but...). (insert big sigh)

She's the best. :)

Froggy on the Potty...

Tonight Munchkin needed to do a poop. It's the physical therapist in me that makes her poop on her little potty since she can keep her feet flat on the floor (it's ergonomics, dontcha know...easier to push, etc.). She sits on the potty in her bathroom and I go surf the web 'til she's done. A few minutes go by and I hear, "Mama...I'm done." I enter her bathroom to find her squatting ON her potty (her feet are on the seat of the potty as she squats over the tiny bowl) and she is saying, "I'm a froggy! Ribbit! Ribbit!!"

LOL! WTF makes kids do the things they do???!!! :)

Sleeping companions...

Last night Munchkin said she didn't want to sleep alone. When I refused to sleep with her or let her sleep in our bed (she does sometimes but I didn't want to start another new trend) she said she wanted more of her stuffed animals. So...she slept with 23 of them. Yup. Twenty-freakin'-three! Mostly stuffed kitties but a few puppets and a couple of baby dolls...even her metal cat alarm clock was under the covers! What a hoot! Tonight she wanted the same crew and proceeded to tuck them each in under various layers of her sheet/blankets! What a cutie!

BikeBoy's ball-buster of a commute...

It took him 6 hours! Yes, SIX hours to go about 8 miles last night. It had snowed about 4 inches max but the roads were icy, snowy, gridlocked. When he got to the bottom of our hill (we live on a plateau and the hill is the last mile before our development; it's probably between 10 and 14% grade, I'm guessing) they closed the road. People were ditching cars everywhere along the way home and walking but he only had his dress shoes on so he couldn't ditch and walk! They reopened the road to 4WD vehicles (he has a 4WD Jeep Wrangler) and he was able to make it up.

This morning on his way back to work he passed between 30 and 50 cars abandoned on that same hill...some were intact but just pulled to the side of the road, others were face down in the ditch or crashed into other vehicles. The road was one lane wide in some spots due to all the deserted vehicles. YIKES.

School was closed today so Munchkin had no pre-school and I had to call in "off" to work myself. We'll go out soon and play in the snow (a rare event here in the PNW). Of course, Munchkin's snow saucer is in the garage loft about 3 feet higher than I can reach when I stand atop our highest stepladder...how in heck did BikeBoy get it there in the first place???? Guess we'll be sliding on our butts or on cardboard today!

Mama's Special Words...

Munchkin has now decided that Mama says certain words that she shouldn't say. Words like "stupid" or "sucks." I never say them directed towards Munchkin or even another being but I do use them directed at situations which are out of my control or something that I'm not happy about.

Today I decided that those are now Mama's Special Words. Much like Mama and Daddy can drink soda and Munchkin cannot until she's a big girl. That some grownups drink alcohol and Munchkin cannot until she is a grownup. There are now words that Mama can say which Munchkin cannot.

I also decided that, when she is a little older, I want her to know my whole list of "Special Words." Just for the occasions when she needs them. She's small, she's Asian in a predominantly White community, she was adopted...there are lots of reasons she may get picked on later (along with all the typical things kids get picked on for!). I want her to be able to use these words judiciously when necessary! What the heck...the f-word, the s-word, the mf-word, the g-d-words, the j-f-c-words, the a-word! Let her have them all at her disposal! Yeah! That's my girl! ;)

Innocent toots...

Munchkin was on my lap tonight, watching Lady and the Tramp...suddenly she lets out the world's longest toot...it was truly never-ending. She then says, "'Cuse me, Mom." Then she sniffs the air and says, "Pretend I'm a skunk."

What a freakin' funny kid I have! :D