The Lotus Life

Happy Independence Day!

2008-07-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

Hurray for holidays and sweet toddlers in the morning time. Happy Independence Day for my USA peeps. May your fireworks be rockin' and your bbq be smokin'. We're heading to Monterey, CA for a weekend with family and lots of food. Will try to find a second to report and blog more.

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Superha: Your Legoland pics made me want to go there again. Thanks for taking pics with R2 and Darth Vader for us. You know those two were the highlight of the park for me. We actually made Evie's picture with Lego R2D2 our holiday card one year (back when we actually sent out holiday cards...around the actual holiday.)

Evie circa 2003

Random picture from my camera phone I found while looking for the Evie R2 picture. Don't you love finding random old pictures of your loved ones? It's like a little memory present.

Stress Remorse

2008-07-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in class half listening to lecture and allowing work to weigh down on me. My classes start at 9am at a school an hour an a half away from home by a road that is constantly congested. I have a conference call at 8:15am each morning, that means that I have to get to school either before my conference call or close to it. That means, I have to leave home by 6:15am each morning. My kids don't wake up till around 10:00am during the summer. They wake up later to stay up later, to see me when I get home, at 10pm.

So I'm sitting in class, missing my kids like crazy. When I miss my kids like crazy, I go look at the pictures I have of them. Nothing in the world is important when all I want to do is go home.

Photo from months ago, before the infamous haircuts.
The cake and the birthday boy. No goombas at the party, though that would have been cool, sorry Superha.
Evie and Lower Yosemite Falls on Mother's Day.

Where were we...?

2008-06-08T21:38:00.000-07:00

Oh yes...staying here, at my parent's house - the house in which Evie has been asking, for the sake of asking because she misses having her own house, "When are we going to move?" To which I have to answer, "Well honey, considering every time mommy even hints at telling grandma that mommy would like to move grandma goes into guilt trip mode and tells mommy about how this other lady that she knows had a grandson that the lady had taken care of his whole life which was only really 7 months but his whole life but the lady's cruel daughter and son in law had to move all the way to Chicago so the poor lady was telling grandma that she was missing her grandson and the pain felt like internal bleeding or severed limb or something and so that's why we can't move out. At least not yet. Does that make sense?" Evie, of course, laughs at me and says, "No."

But yeah, we are still under my mom's thumb for awhile longer. I'm hoping that the guilt will not be so great when I'm done with school (June '09, ALMOST THERE!) and JT is older and not as cute. My mom is still planning on building a second story for us though once she offloads some real estate investments that aren't doing too well.

Other than wishing we could move out and break my mother's heart, we've been doing quite well lately. J is hitting one year at his current Project Management job and enjoying something called Summer Hours in which he gets to leave work early on Fridays. Lucky duck.

Evie is wrapping up 1st grade and her first year of Vietnamese school and violin lessons. I'm not sure she speaks Vietnamese very well, but she definitely understands quite a bit. The results of first grade have been a shift in our collection of children's books from picture books to chapter books with Evie reading at least one short chapter book a day. She wakes up and starts reading. She's beginning to add double digit numbers and starting to learn fractions. I have no idea if that's what 1st graders are supposed to be doing, but she seems to be thriving and ready for second grade. Second grade! Wow, she'll be a 6 year old second grader. Each year I feel as though she's too young to be in the grade she's in but she's definitely ready. In terms of extra curricular activities, Evie is getting pretty good on the violin for someone her age. She doesn't practice nearly enough but she can definitely play well when she concentrates on what she's doing. She loves playing for an audience and has expanded her repertoire of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Mary Had a Little Lamb to include songs like Allegro and some Mozart amongst others. She's quite good at reading music now, which is really cool considering I can't read music. Thanks to the Jabbawockeez she also just completed a slew of hip hop classes. Still no rhythm but I think that may be a genetic thing. And finally...Evie is a Brownie Girl Scout...and, I'm her troop leader. Can we all see now why I'm so busy these days? School, work (which has gotten even busier), family, friends, girl scouts. Oi...Whole other post. But hey, this way I can ensure that the troop leader my kid has doesn't totally suck.

JT turned three in April and had a Super Mario themed party. I had this massive cake made for him which was 3-D and was a ? block with a 1 up mushroom on top. It was awesome. The mushroom was a light blackberry lime cake with whole blackberries in the mousse and the bottom was this chocolate cake with chocolate raspberry mousse filling. And...the rest of the party went pretty well despite my freaking out about everything and forgetting to take very many pictures. Doh! I did make a ? block pinata that no one could break despite many whacks with a baseball bat. Other developments in JT's life included a few hair issues wherein my mother took my beautiful toddler boy who had this longish hair with bangs that were beginning to fall on his nose and chopped off the front with a pair of kitchen scissors so that he looked like Marcus from About a Boy. It was so horrible it was like a bruise on his face, in other words, I felt compelled to tell anyone and everyone that, "it wasn't me! It was my mother! Yeah he's cute, but that's not the point! He was cuter before!" The poor gals behind the counter at our local Boston Market and grocery store were left shaking their heads. My lil bro D tried "fixing" the horrible hair after a week or so because he couldn't take it any longer and none of us had time to take the poor child to get a real haircut. What started as a noble pursuit ended up producing something that every reasonable Asian American parent on the planet tries to avoid...the dreaded bowl cut. "He wouldn't sit still!" D sputtered. :sigh: Two weeks of the bowl cut resulted in several strangers commenting "Nice bowl cut!" Thankfully, we found some time yesterday to have a family haircut day. We have all been professionally sheared.

Lastly, we've taken a number of trips since the last post; Yosemite with my sister and cousins on Mother's Day weekend; Redding for Memorial Day weekend (where we saw some beautiful water falls and I caught a fish! Poor fish. Your soup was pretty good though.) Next week we'll be in the Pacific Northwest and visiting Canada for the first time. If I don't over pack our itinerary, hopefully I'll have more time to blog then. Miss reading and writing. Hope everyone is well!

Superbusy

2008-05-16T00:52:00.000-07:00

I came home today to find a handwritten note by Evie. "Dear Mom I really miss you." I got home from class after 10pm. I miss my Evie too. Unfortunately, this is becoming a typical feeling.

Happiness Is...

2008-04-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

Working from home and instant messaging important messages to your coworkers while your toddler lies on your desk across your arms and decorates your face with sticky notes.

Hi everybody! I can't believe it's been 20 days since I've posted. Thanks so much for the encouraging comments on the blogging fatigue. I'm finally getting around to revamping the design of this blog and restarting it. Stay tuned for something less pink!

Nekkid

2008-04-04T03:19:00.000-07:00

JT decided today that he liked being naked. I was in class/working all day and so was not a direct witness but J messaged me that our little boy kept taking his clothes off to run around laughing like a maniac. Huh. Whatever makes him happy I guess and as long as he doesn't hop in front of the front window we're ok? **Maybe I should just post short thoughts like this. That's manageable right?**

When to Call It Quits?

2008-04-04T01:24:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking of retiring or seriously revamping this blog. Not because of the lack of things to write about. I have plenty of that. Rather, I'm thinking about quitting because I'm looking back on my last several months of posts and realizing that I'm doing none of my subjects justice. I think up a lot of topics while I'm driving to and from class (1.5 hours each way) or when I'm in meetings (hours and hours of my life GONE!) The thoughts are usually quite elegant and well formed; sometimes even profound, but these thoughts invariably end up being truncated into something short and trite that only my most loyal bloggy friends would care to peruse. (Thanks for that loyal bloggy friends, and new ones, hi So Yun and H. in Portland! H, what a small internet world that you know my real life buddy Wayland and I had no idea you even existed till he said his friend H. in Portland reads my blog religiously even though HE didn't know I had a blog and only found out that I did because he had mentioned to you that he was heading over to see his buddy J who happens to be married with two little ones called Evie and JT. Small small world, I never even knew you were a reader until he told me about you. Thanks for reading! Where was I??) Never mind balancing full time work, school, kids and marriage; what about my parents? Siblings? Cousins? Friends?

In the past few months, we've done a number of things I haven't had time to really write about. We've been to our good friends' wedding where J was the officiant (he was sworn in, over the phone for one day only as associate deputy of marriages of Alameda County or something like that) and Evie was a flower girl who had her two boy friends from babyhood fighting over her at the reception. We've hosted a few dinner parties where we had a crab and pho feast. (I only cook when there's a lot to be cooked.) Signed Evie up for hip hop classes (she starts in May) because she loved the JabbaWockeez but didn't think that girls could dance like that till I showed her Kaba Modern. Worried and worried about my poor sweet JT who has zero friends his age and who spends his days playing by himself or with great grandma. Celebrated the start of baseball season by heading to two games with two different sets of friends and because we just haven't seen them in months. Worried and worried about my good friend who only retired a few years ago but found out a little over a year ago that he has a debilitating disease. Realized that all I can do is enjoy our time together and our team (Go A's!) didn't win that day but we still shared resigned sighs and spurious hope of "maybe next time" (BOO Red Sox!) and he could still smile and make my little boy laugh even though he can't speak much anymore. (He doesn't read anymore I don't think, but my blog used to have a black background with white text. I changed my design for this particular friend.)

I have so much to write about but I have a lot to worry about too. Blogging has been bumped down the list of activities that I want to maintain. But then, this blog is my main journal for where I keep some things I want to remember and not only that, there are so so many people whom I've learned to care about in this blogosphere that I'm not sure I really want to completely let this go. How else would we keep in touch? I feel so bad for not commenting or having the chance to catch up on your blogs (you know who you are).

I wish so many of you were nearby so that we could just hang out. Some of you ARE nearby and I've had the opportunity to meet some of you. I'm so thankful for the new friendships that I've made from this little blog. I'm also thankful for this little outlet where I've occasionally felt free enough to let out some very personal matters. SO...what to do? What to do...?

10 Things: Checking In

2008-03-28T00:32:00.000-07:00

1. Finished finals last Thursday, yay!

2. I wrote my last final paper in under two hours while working on an server related incident at work, boo!

3. JT keeps asking me, "How do you spell an?" Yeah, I don't get it either. Of course, he is the king of random these days. His favorite knock knock joke is, "Knock knock? (Who's there?) Pumpkin! (Pumpkin who?) Pumpkin in the head!" Huh?

4. Evie and I are on spring break together and so I took a few days off to do very little of anything. Took the kids to a museum and play ground today and had lunch with some of mommy bloggers I love to read. I was so not worthy, but they were awesome.

5. I bought lunch from this place. If you are ever in Oakland, ohmygodyouneedtotryittheyareSOgood.

6. I got my grades, they were both Bs. At least I tried ~~obviously, not hard enough~~.

7. I need to seriously start thinking about law school since I'll be applying this fall for next fall. I want to stay local. Unfortunately the law schools that are local or relatively local are Hastings aka Univ. of California, Boalt Hall aka Berkeley, Stanford, and Santa Clara University. In other words, really hard to get into. These Bs aren't helping me any.

8. If it weren't for some amazing people and their support, my grades would have been far worse. My parents are in Vietnam, I can't even begin to thank them or speak of how much their support and almost free babysitting mean to me and this whole endeavor, but I do hope that painting their bathroom this weekend and cleaning up the house before they get back will speak a volume or two.

9. I hugged my dad for the first time in probably twenty five years when I dropped off my parents at the airport when they went on their trip. I normally just hug my mom and say, "bye dad be good"...It was...why didn't I ever do it sooner? He seemed surprised, but we had really talked on the way there, as adults about life and his worries and frustrations. I'll have to come back to this somewhere along the way but it felt so good to just give my dad a hug. He's always been one of those stereotypical hands off, laconic, stoic Asian immigrant fathers and so that hug meant SO much. The best part? He hugged me back and I got to yell at him, "quit yelling at mom dad and have fun!"

10. Another person whose support I would have failed without is my dear hubby J. I haven't hugged him today yet, but he gets one almost every day because he so deserves them. He works so hard and then helps me out when he gets home by occupying the kids for me when I have to study or work late. Sometimes he has to bathe them and put the kids to bed by himself, duties I normally do. He's not perfect with his video game and mac and cheese methods, but hey, he was a latchkey kid and a gamer who likes to wing it. Some people might think that these are things any husband and father would do in similar circumstances, but you know, it never hurts to let the people you love know that every little bit of help is appreciated.

Hope everyone is doing well. Aren't you glad it's spring?

Transcripts

2008-03-19T09:29:00.000-07:00

Senator Obama's excellent speech on race 2008:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/18/america/18obamaspeech.php

President Bill Clinton's speech on the same subject in 1995:
http://www.afn.org/~dks/race/clinton-e6.html

Both are excellent and ask serious questions about the state of our union in terms of race. Both have very similar messages and portray a nuanced understanding of different sides of the race issue. Both sadden me as they make me think of how Bill was accused of racism in South Carolina and how Obama is accused of playing the race card simply because of his race. Things are better than they were in 1995, there are more minority faces on television and in higher offices for example; probably due much more to the silent work of many more ordinary people than the president. I have hope that whether it is Clinton or Obama, things will only get better.

For more excellent historic social justice speeches (including some from Hillary) check this link:

http://www.sojust.net/speeches.html

Girl Scout Guilt

2008-03-19T00:50:00.000-07:00

As seen on PostSecret. One of my secrets? I live in fear that Evie and JT will grow up thinking I sucked as a parent. My other secret? I hope I'm not spoiling them. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. College funds can double as therapy funds I guess. (We're checking it out at a GS meeting the first week of April.)

Goodnight Arthur

2008-03-18T22:10:00.000-07:00

Arthur C. Clarke died today. I was working on assigning some poor soul a two day engineering task when J called to tell me that bit of news specifically. I wasn't surprised. The man was old. 90 they say, though he had a vision much older and wiser; he was the messiah of science fiction and he hooked me young.

I read 2001 after I fell asleep watching the movie. The book was easier and faster to digest than the movie. I remember I was sixteen and in love with pretentions and the things that others said were important to culture. For film, that was Stanley Kubrick. I have yet to find a Kubrick film I like. (I guess I'm not that geeky?) But thanks to Stanley, I found Arthur, and that's what's important here. I found the Aurthur who wasn't the greatest of writers who seemed to have copied and pasted whole passages between his books before copying and pasting was invented in order to get past having to rewrite descriptions of places like Jupiter. Still, despite going, "hmm, I swear I read this passage in 2010" while reading 2061; I loved his books. They made me think of science, space, frontiers, and other worlds.

If only they could jettison his body into space so that he could awake in 3001 to see if his predictions in that book came true. He fired my imagination and I thought when I first read his books that he must've died long ago. When I found out he wasn't, I thought he would live forever. Surely, someone would think to invent a cube full of terabytes to perserve this man's mind. Surely, Aurthur C. Clarke would never truly die.

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I've been working and prepping for finals. Be back later. =)

Just Us Girls

2008-03-05T02:59:00.000-08:00

Monday night out with Evie was a mixed bag of emotions for me even though Evie assures me she had a great time. I wasn’t able to pull myself away from work till around 6pm and was about ten minutes late picking Evie up from her after school program. I was tired and a little cranky and so I couldn’t really muster up much excitement for her when I told her we would have a night out for just the two of us. She was duly confused and excited all at once as she pondered the meaning and significance of a night without her daddy and little brother. (I can just imagine her mental cost benefit analysis, a few hours without toddler brother who might eat something sticky and touch her, pro; a few hours out with somewhat boring and somewhat cranky mommy, con?)

We started out the night by recruiting a few other gals and called my cousin Hongie* (who brought her hubby along). We met at a favorite Japanese restaurant where we ordered Evie some sushi, including hamaguri (clam). I told Evie that we could pretend the hamaguri was for luck since Wikipedia said that a clam soup was a traditional food served for Girl’s Day. I sort of trust the truthiness of Wikipedia which claims that a soy based clam soup (with shells) is good to eat on Girl’s Day as it’s a “symbol of a united and peaceful couple.” I figured luck was a much better thing to be eating clams for than marriage/couple-hood which has no guarantees no matter how many clam shells in your soup. Dinner ended up being a lot of fun for both of us and was surprisingly relaxing. I found myself hugging Evie a lot during dinner as I realized that I don’t get to hug her all that much. I'm either busy or her little brother is usually on my lap whenever she wants one. I watched and listened as she chatted with her auntie Hongie and uncle A. I don’t really remember what we talked about other than the quiet passage of our daily lives and how we’re celebrating Girl’s Day with Hongie’s hubby A.

After dinner we went to Target and met up with Hongie’s sister Vannie to help Evie pick out a doll. Evie owns, not counting stuffed animals (do stuffed animals count as dolls?), maybe two dolls. Both were gifts that refused to stay at the bottom of Evie and JT’s massive toy piles. I think I’ve mentioned how much I dislike dolls in the past as I consider them, particularly Barbie, Bratz, and princess dolls, to be bad influences on young girls and their sense of self. The sheer impossibility of their beauty standards makes me uncomfortable with giving my daughter one of these things. We live in a diverse area with many different kinds of beauty and I’m hoping that Evie can learn to see them before she’s blinded by some unrealistic mass produced and marketed standard.

Still, I’m not completely obtuse on this issue. I do think dolls can help facilitate certain imaginative play for children. Sometimes I think girls benefit from having dolls and other toys which encourage them to think and use their imaginations. Maybe “girls” toys such as dolls, which do very little other than look cute, help girls use their creativity more than certain “boys” toys which beep or do all sorts of other fancy stuff (JT’s Buzz Lightyear action figure comes to mind). So, I guess I was warming up to the idea of giving Evie a doll on Monday. It was just a matter of finding the right doll; that is, no Barbie, no Bratz, and preferably olive toned, dark haired and doe eyed. Following those rules, Hongie, Vannie, Evie, and I ended up spending an hour going through Target’s pink toy aisles. No dolls fit our preferred description and I ended up pointing to an African American Barbie and asking Evie if she’d like that one. Evie, to her credit, said that the doll was pretty, but she didn’t want it because, she “[doesn’t] like brown dolls.”

Say what baby girl? That little comment earned her a gentle (at least I thought so) reminder from both myself and Vannie (who heard as well) on how all colors are beautiful to which Evie backtracked and said, “It’s ok, I like brown, really.” Which, of course, made me a bit frustrated that she basically just went along with whatever we were saying to please us; ARGH! This parenting thing: IT.IS.HARRRD!

We ended up getting a FurRealz Puppy. I don’t know how else to describe it other than it was not a doll and barks when you pet its back. Another toy for the toy pile achieved, we said goodbye to my cousins and headed to a bookstore where Evie was allowed to pick out some books. She chose a Magic Treehouse book (a fantasy series she’s been reading on her own) along with another copy of E.B. White’s The Trumpet of the Swan. I had been reading The Trumpet of the Swan to her for about a week at bedtime (a few weeks ago) when my copy, which I had managed to hold onto since the fourth grade, went missing. A sad loss for me, but I’m happy Evie chose to pick out another copy so that we can finish reading it together. We finished off our book selections with a picture book on Japanese Celebrations that should be educational for all of us.

All in all, it was a nice night out with my little girl. I learned a little bit more about her and she enjoyed having Mommy all to herself. When we returned home to our manly men, JT was sitting up watching Noggin while J was sprawled out next to him, exhausted. Apparently manly men play video games and “jump on daddy” while eating a nuked dinner. Evie went to bed asking when we were going to have a family day with daddy and JT.

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For those of you who remember, Hongie ended up having a parent teacher conference with that crazy parent from a few months ago. She stood her ground and the parent apologized only to accuse Hongie of not preparing her kid well enough despite all the other kids in the class being better prepared. When I was a kid I thought I might grow up to be a teacher. Hongie reminds me why I said, “Nahhh…”

Japanese Girl's Day

2008-03-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

In an effort to help my kids remember their heritages, I try to celebrate some of the holidays from Japan and Korea alongside Vietnamese and American holidays when I'm aware of them. I recently found out that today is Hina Matsuri or Girl's Day in Japan. Of course, we've have to celebrate, even if I have to make things up as I go. Growing up Vietnamese American, I have little experience with what people in Japan do to celebrate Girl's Day. So with a little help from the internet, I've come up with a few things so far. In Japan dolls and special foods are the order of the day (according to wikipedia). I'm thinking of taking Evie to a toy store and letting her pick out a (non-Barbi, non-Bratz) doll and perhaps a few books from our local bookstore followed by dinner at a Japanese restaurant. In other words, a girls evening out with just me and Evie. J, when approached with this idea gallantly declared that he and JT, being "manly men", will be able to handle themselves. ("[We'll] kill our food, stuff it in the microwave, and eat its guts," according to J.)

Evie has no clue that anything special is being planned, it's just a regular school day for her. I can't wait for her to get home and surprise her.

Huhmmm...Yummy?

2008-03-02T19:36:00.000-08:00

Ramar Foods produces a flavor of ice cream that we are absolutely addicted to, buko pandan. (That's coconut and uh...pandan flavor for you; in Viet pandan is la dua for my Viet readers out there.) We're a household of lactose intolerant people but for this ice cream, we're willing to brave the tummy aches, it's that good. J and my brother D love it so much that they pretty much ate the last half gallon I bought between the two of them, those fat bastards. So when dangled with the possiblity that we were going to a Costco near our local crack-ice-cream dealer, I jumped at the chance to get some more.

Anyhoo, while digging through our crack-ice-cream dealer's ice cream section, we noticed the following flavor:

Corn and queso...uh, I think I'll stick with the buko pandan.

Just Call Me HusseinLien123

2008-02-28T11:56:00.000-08:00

While I'm not an Obama supporter, I do detest stupidity. If you haven't heard or read some right wing idiot named Bill Cunningham has been continually referring to Barack Obama as Barack Hussein Obama as if attempting to make a connection between Obama's and terrorists. It's really dumb and so in solidarity with the Momocrats, I hereby rename myself husseinlien123 today and support the fight against stupid small minded bullies like Cunningham.

Being named Lien, a Sino-Vietnamese name which seems impossible for most monolingual English speakers to pronounce correctly, I can testify to some pretty horrifying butchering of my name. (I prefer just "Lin" by the way.) Most of the time this tripping over my name is innocent. Communication for my work for example is done over an instant messenger system or email more often then phone or in person and so most of my coworkers these days see my name before they have to speak it. Typically in meetings or conference calls where I'm speaking with coworkers for the first time, there's some butchering going on. "Lee-in" or "Lee-en" are understandable, though a number of users seem to be incapable of switching to the preferred version, "Leen" is awful, and "Lion" usually allows me to use my other talent of shooting someone a "WTF?" look.

No one has made me feel bad about my name in a long time, hell, the last time someone did it was fourth grade. Fun variations of my name (according to my tormentors) were "Alien", "Line", or in a strange twist of actually pronouncing it correctly, "Evil Lynn", He-Man was popular back in the day. We were 8 (Bill Cunningham is how old?)

--husseinlien123

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World

2008-02-27T22:49:00.000-08:00

The world, I'm sorry, the arrogance of that statment...a bit more clarification, the United States has gone mad. J commented today in his sad and weary tone which revealed his state of neglect that he had lost his wife till November but I doubt that he is alone as spouses and significant others abandon their loves for the excitement and potential "change" of an election year. For the past month and a half I've been devouring political news any chance I could during breaks in work, generally sticking to CNN, MSNBC, Newsweek, Time, BBC, New York Times, uh...basically most of what you would call major news organizations (minus Fox). So far what started as a race between a number of democrats with similar ideas and proposals has whittled down. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama generally agree on 90% of the issues. They both have decent records as senators and human beings. She's worked for the rights of children and women while he's worked for poor communities. She's helped get legislation related to health and education through congress, he's helped get anti-poverty, anti-weapons proliferation legislation through. Both of them, are flawed and human and are politicians who flip flop.

I posted and then took down something similar to a week ago mainly because this isn't a political blog, but then, this has seriously taken up a lot of my free time lately. I don't have any updates or responses to anything else because I've been consumed as if all of a sudden the presidency makes a bigger difference to my day to day life than my local government and local issues, which it doesn't. Still no matter how much I like one of the candidates over the other or how much I would accept the other if he won the nomination (because even if I don't agree with the details of his education, healthcare, and Iraq plans, he probably won't nominate conservative anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court as McCain probably would); I want this primary season to be over.

For all of the high ideals that both candidates wished they and their supporters stood for; the world is a far uglier place and concepts such as racial solidarity and feminism begin to become as authoritarian and intolerant as racism and sexism. The longer this race goes on, the uglier both candidates become to me. The sad part is, it's only partly their fault. The candidates fight and make up and then fight some more, while the rest of us, the pundits and the supporters fight each other.

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What I'm talking about in the last paragraph is related to the following two articles.

Black Ohioans Backing Clinton Feel the Pressure to Switch

NY NOW: "Betrayal!"

Girl Scouts

2008-02-21T10:44:00.000-08:00

Should I or shouldn't I let Evie join the Girl Scouts? There have been a few flyers sent home and she's very excited to give it a try. However, I'm not entirely sure I support the fact that she'll have to take an oath that mentions a divine figure (non-denominational true, but why do they have to take an oath that mentions God at all?) Nor am I certain if I agree with the obvious, that the Girl Scouts are only for girls. (I mean, what if my Sweet Pea JT wanted to join? He could join the Cub Scouts, but then Cub Scouts don't sell cookies.) I am especially not certain about their anti-discrimination policies that allow local chapters to decide on how to manage and interpret their own rules so that while one chapter might have its own version of don't ask don't tell, everyone is free and equal if you aren't different, but if you are, please keep it hush hush. Another chapter might choose to spell it out that everyone should treat everyone equally no matter what race, religion, orientation. All this to say, really, I'm not sure I'm ready for Evie to be a part of any organization that already limits half the population and has had issues in the past regarding discrimination.

I DO see advantages though. The Girl Scouts is an organized group that empowers girls and allows them to participate in activities that she might not normally try just by her lonesome. And while I've never been particularly close to my sisters, Evie won't have any and so the idea of allowing her to join a sisterhood of sorts is rather appealing in an idealized thinking kind of way.

What do you think? Do you have any experience with the Girl Scouts? Do you think we could get a discount on those fabulous artery clogging cookies if Evie joins up?

The Pink Lotus Said to the Mommy Butterfly...

2008-02-18T03:31:00.000-08:00

I have a friend who lives in the twin cities area in the Great White North that is Minnesota. She’s kind, smart, gentle, respectful, and thoughtful. We give each other “hugs” and track the development of our respective kids. Her little girl and my little guy are roughly the same age though I think her little girl is more brain and emotion to my guy’s brawn and energy (he broke a store’s glass door last weekend…with a pebble…long story short, it cost me about $300, one hundred off the initial estimate, anyhoo). We keep in touch via email and blog comments. My friend is currently going through a hard time in her life and of course, like any decent friend I offered to help. She being too proud and too human; declined my offer graciously (though it still stands). I don’t know if my respect for her could have grown anymore, but it did. She said it was too much to accept from an online friend, because, oh yeah, we’ve never actually met in person before.

I wonder though, if that actually matters. I’m lucky to have a group of wonderful friends out here in “the real world” but there are people who I know solely online. Some of these friends, because they are my friends (no adjectives and qualifiers necessary), I’ve known for over a dozen years and they know me completely on the inside. There’s no outer shell to get in the way. These friends are no less real to me despite our friendship being maintained via email, IM, and IRC. In fact, I think many of them know more about me than many of my offline friends. In times of hardship, my online friends have provided just as much if not more support as my “real life” friends. There are things that are so easy to say via faceless, toneless text in various fonts and states of capitalization and punctuation that no phone call or meeting could do. These are real relationships, because the emotions are real. The caring and concern are real.

My online friends and I often work long hours. We all spend at least 50 hours a week in small enclosed areas called offices or cubicles with little or no meaningful interaction with others. As social beings, we reach out in whatever way we can; to stay sane, to :wave: and :hug: and :slap with trout:; or even, to cry and lean on when there’s no one else awake at 3am because you know they’ll get back to you when they see your message. Is it less real because even though we’ve touched each other emotionally and intellectually, we’ve never shaken hands or have seen each other in person? While I doubt it’s healthy to have friends who are only from the internet, as long as everyone is being honest, I don’t think internet friendships are less real than many relationships out in the real world. There is nothing virtual about friendship, compassion, and empathy.

That is why I want to say to my friend in the twin cities, I’m thinking about you and I care about you. I’m hoping and praying for the best for both you and your daughter. You are my friend, not my online friend, or blog buddy, or whatever people like to call it to diminish the importance of connecting with people who are not in your immediate physical vicinity. You are my friend and I am here for you. Hell, I’m only a few clicks away.

PS To another friend, Kim Lee - GOOD LUCK TODAY!!

Responses and Animal Sounds

2008-02-17T19:50:00.000-08:00

RESPONSES and UPDATES: RE: Evolving Evie...and Lien - I had a long internal debate on whether or not to post my picture but in the end I figured that the first step to acknowledging that I'm "not ugly" is to just open up and acknowledge that hey, this is what I look like. This is me. Just as I accept and respect not only Evie, but everyone around me, so too should I accept and respect myself.

Thanks to everyone who commented with compliments and words of encouragement as well as for sharing your own horror stories of mean classmates. Kids really are cruel and I shared your stories and comments with Evie who smiled and seemed pleased that she isn't alone.

Special thanks to HM for the fantastic link! It is hard this parenting thing, especially when you're working on yourself as well.

RE: Birthday wishes - Thank you for all the happy birthday wishes and facebook pokes. J and I spent a weekend away from the kids at one of the Westin hotels in San Francisco. He surprised me with a vase of flowers delivered directly to our room. We spent the weekend sleeping in and watching the Discovery Channel and Groundhog Day. We then had lunch and dinner at two fancy "Vietnamese" restaurants; The Slanted Door for lunch and Thanh Long for dinner with friends. Both reminded me that hey! this tastes like my mom's cooking!

Finally...RE: My aunt - Still no word on whether or not the authorities in Vietnam have done anything. It's pretty clear that my aunt has suffered some brain damage. She can no longer stand with assistance as her head hurts when she does and she can no longer move without shaking. In other words, she will probably not be able to work...for a long time. The horror of this event has made our lunar new year celebrations nonexistent. No one in the family has been in the mood for celebrating. My grandma still has no idea that her youngest daughter has been hurt. I don't know how long we can keep this secret from her. Everyone is afraid of her worrying and demanding to go back to Vietnam only to worry some more. J mentioned how wrong it was that no one is telling her what happened. If something horrible happened to our kids, we would want to know right away. We would be angry and upset with anyone who kept that sort of information from us. There IS no justification for keeping my grandma in the dark. No justification except that we would fear for her health and state of mind.

A few days ago I thought of my aunt and how she looks very similar to my mom. I imagined my mom's face bloodied and bruised and I couldn't stop crying at the thought that my aunt will probably not be able to live her life without pain again; will not be able to return to her business for a long time. She was the sole breadwinner for her family. I come from a long line of strong women who support our husbands and families in times when they are down and out. All this seems so very unfair, unjustified, and hopeless considering the lack of response from the Vietnamese authorities. Being so far away, "helpless"; that is indeed how we are feeling here. I told my mom about all your comments and wishes and they are so very appreciated.

****

ANIMAL SOUNDS

Anyhoo, it's been depressing around here...but hey, that's what toddlers are for. JT is my little ball of energy and still speaks toddlerese with a smattering of English and Vietnamese. He's very bright but mischievious and loves to joke and laugh. He disarms me with his charm every time. Yesterday morning, I was tired from a long work and school week. JT woke me up and we ended up making talking about animal sounds before I decided to record him on video. He currently knows that Cows say "moo", chickens say "bawk!", ducks say "quack", pigs say "oink", and sheep say "baa". But obviously, when on camera, one has to be dramatic and moo and bawk! are SO much more fun to say than all those other ones.

For some reason the video keeps getting lighter or dimmer and the title clips are off centered. I don't know if it's my camera or my video editing software. Hmm...might just be user error.

Slow Justice in a Banana Republic

2008-02-08T10:09:00.000-08:00

Forgive me everyone; for intruding into your peaceful space with this tale of woe and misery. It's the second day of the Lunar New Year which is the biggest and most important holiday of the year for many cultures around the world. People all around are wishing others peace and prosperity. Me? I'm hoping a number of people go straight to hell.

This morning I've gotten word that one of my aunts in Vietnam (my mom's only little sister) was brutally beaten on Wednesday. Occuring the day before the Lunar New Year, the local police have refused to do anything about the case until after the three day holiday, leaving the perpetrators to run free causing my little cousins to fear for their lives during what should be the happiest time of year for them.

According to my mom who got the phone call this morning from one of my little sisters who is currently in Vietnam preparing for her wedding there; my aunt's husband and his older brother had a heated argument over land. This argument had nothing to do with my aunt (who is one of the sweetest ladies you'd ever meet), she wasn't even there. However, her husband's older brother's wife (her SIL if you will) decided to get involved by going to my aunt's business and berate her. Suddenly, the woman attacked my aunt (who of course fought back and defended herself). Customers pitched in and helped stop the fight and my aunt, being a busy lady, just let it go. This was, after all a family matter and apparantly everyone knew her SIL was mean.

This was a mistake as later the SIL brought her four grown (college educated but stil thuggish) kids to the back of my aunt's business. The SIL posted two of them at the door and cornered my aunt and my little 14 year old cousin in their back store room. There, the SIL had her kids, my cousins' cousins, beat my aunt to a bloodly pulp with a hard hat of some sort in front of her daughter. My cousin was able to somehow get out of the door and ran for help but was persued by one of HER OWN COUSINS. She finally got to a safe place and was able to get some relatives to come help and said relatives called the police and ambulance.

As mentioned, the police did a cursive search but let the matter drop until the end of the New Year's holiday. My aunt is currently in the hospital with wounds so serious that my little sister upon seeing her immediately fainted. According to my mom from my sister's information relay, there is probably brain damage and perhaps even paralysis. My cousins are living in fear and have not been able to stop shaking.

We here in the US are trying to figure out what we can do to help. We haven't let my grandma know yet as we're afraid she might worry but for those of us who do know, we're all both outraged and resigned to the fact that justice in Vietnam is not swift and many times completely blind. I'm worried that this will be put aside as a family dispute and no one will be punished. When you are beaten so badly that you end up in the hospital, you can't just "let it go". I don't care where you are, assault is generally illegal even if the perpetrators are family. My mom's siblings have all gathered by my aunt along with her husband (who is curiously absent from this account isn't he?) My youngest sister (a lawyer) is going to be heading to Vietnam to engage one of her Vietnamese lawyer acquaintences to build a case against these people and to get the police to actually get off their asses and do their jobs. My mom will most likely follow soon. The only thing that I can do from here, is help support my mom and sister by looking up information on emergency travel and legal recourses prior to their trips.

We are going to do everything in our power to make sure my aunt gets some justice. I haven't spent much time in Vietnam but when I am there, she has always been kind and gracious. She's one of those people you hear about who are almost saintly in their kindness and gentility and when you meet them, you find out that it's true. I have a lot of relatives in Vietnam, but the thought that this has happened to HER has caused a flood of emotions from outrage to sadness to hope. I hope that she is ok and will recover. I hope that she that the emotional damage from this is not lasting. I hope I can help.

Back to normal programming with responses in the next post.

Evolving Evie...and Lien

2008-02-02T09:17:00.001-08:00

I asked Evie a few nights ago if she liked herself and her answers surprised me in terms of their obstinacy. No amount of persuasion could deter her from the self knowledge that she was ugly, "too small", and fat. Evie, is one of the youngest and smallest children in her grade. There is only one other child who is smaller and that is because he may have some developmental issues. From our conversation, it's clear that some bullying has been happening at school where an unnamed and unidentified fourth grader has been telling Evie that she's too small to do anything and that she's an ugly little thing. Worse yet, some of her classmates have picked up on the teasing.

At one point, I was visibly angry and Evie backtracked to say that her friends don't say those things (her friends now include last year's Mean Girl). However, her physical stature is one that bothers her a great deal as well as her relative age being one of the youngest kids in class. Most of Evie's classmates will be turning seven during the school year while Evie herself only turned six a few months ago. Mentally, she is beyond capable of keeping up with her classmates, however, it sounds like some of her classmates see her as someone different than them.

I've had a few days to think about whether or not to get involved with the school and other parents regarding this issue now and I think, much as it pains me, that the best course of action in the long run, is to encourage Evie to believe in herself and her merits and allow her to develop a thicker skin. She's my first baby, my only little girl and sometimes I want to lock her in a protective cage to keep others from harming my precious child. I wish for something beyond reality, and that's for the world and life to be forever kind to my kids. But if the world is always kind and if they are never hurt, never exposed to negativity; how would they ever see the light and beauty in this world, themselves, and others? How does one, for example, teach the meaning of kindness without having knowledge of the opposite? Besides, I don't think it's even possible to put one's children in proverbial bubbles (though I'd check out the infomercial if someone invented one).

At bedtime, I told Evie once again, that she is beautiful and that people come in all shapes and sizes. Everyone has different abilities and capabilities. I reiterated Rachel's advice from last year of vocalizing her displeasure when someone is mean to her. I'm not sure she believed me, but she was empowered to speak up, and fell asleep peacefully.

I realize, this will be a conversation that we'll be having over and over and over again throughout the years. One friend emailed to say that perhaps little girls mirror the self esteem levels of their mothers despite what their mother's tell them. I appreciate the truth in that and have been trying to improve my own self image as well. Something I haven't remembered in years has been going through my mind in the last few days. I've mentioned in the past that I have some mild agoraphobia. I had been home from college for days without going outside. My little brother on his way out said to me, "You're not ugly you know." I cried after he left, confused because I didn't know what to believe about myself.

I wonder now, how a person who has my kind of emotional history can raise children with any kind of confidence level beyond low. The answer is of course, that I have to be more confident myself. So, to cap this long and meandering post which began with Evie, I'll end with Lien, who both hopes and fears that her daughter is a reflection of her mother.

(In the style of Angie's 3 Things) Here are three things I like about my physical self:

1)I like my face. My sisters and cousins tell me that I have the nicest facial complexion in the family -- clear and peachy. I've had male friends ask if I'm wearing make up when I'm not (I rarely do) so it's nice to know that my features stand out without needing makeup. My eyelashes are reasonably long and thick enough so I don't need much eyeliner or mascara to make them appear thicker. My lips don't need liner and are a decent color without lipstick. I'm a little unhappy with my nose but then so is Sarah Jessica Parker and I like my chin when I can see it and as a resting place for my hand.
2) I like my finger nails, my mom is a manicurist (oi, Vietnamese and nail salons, one day I shall rant and rant about that one) and she tells me I have very nice nails. All by their lonesome, they just need a quick buff to look like a french manicure.
3) Hmm, is it sad that I'm really pressed to come up with three? I'll have to get back to this one.

****

RESPONSES:

Thank you bloggy friends for your comments of advice, cyber hugs, and support.

You give great advice. I'm going to stop talking about dieting (I've lost 15lbs since November, weight watchers really does work!) around the kids. I'll definitely keep up with the praise and affirmations. I'll also try to be on my best behavior regarding exercise and activity. I'm currently trying to convince J that we all need to find a family fitness activity that we all like. Some form of martial arts might be in order (as inspired by Ms. FingKASIL)

Sandra, I ordered that American Girl Real Beauty book. It looks like it has some great ideas on how to inspire Evie (and myself) to a better self image. Thanks for the suggestion!

Kim and Kimberley, I know right, SIX! It seems like the half life for an innocent and carefree childhood keeps getting shorter and shorter with every generation.

Alice, you hit on something that I think will be very important and that is consistency. The world can be unpredictable, but our home should be consistently a haven for love and support. In other words, it should be a home. How many ills of this world could be avoided if everyone had a safe and secure place to go to both physically and emotionally?

halfmama and Angela, thank you, thank you thank you for sharing and letting me know my Evie is not alone. HM, the concept of being happy with your looks is totally foreign to me too.

Hedgehog, I hope it's a phase too, but if not, I'm going to make myself ready for the long haul on this one.

PS I know everyone knows what Evie looks like, but in case you don't know, this is what I look like.

Portrait of "Not Ugly" in fact, some might even say "pretty"

Evolving Evie 2

2008-01-29T04:39:00.000-08:00

4:40 AM and I'm supposed to be studying, but of course, I'm worried about Evie. J and I had an IM conversation earlier today while we were at our respective jobs and he typed, "Kids=Stress, Girls=5X Stress".

The conversation was on a different Evie related topic, but still, it fits. I don't think I worry about JT's emotional health as much as Evie's. There's so much in this world that is meant to break down a person's self esteem in order to make one want to conform to someone's idea of normal. For some reason, it feels as though the vast majority of this pressure is aimed at women and girls. I wonder if I felt this pressure at such a young age.

Evie has already started comparing her body to other girls and has said she's "fat and need[s] to lose weight". She occasionally starts doing jumping jacks while saying she needs more exercise. As someone who's always struggled with weight, it's heartbreaking that she says these things compulsively, as if these are natural things for young girls to be discussing with others. I wonder if J and I made her think about herself this way by mentioning that we need to lose some weight (which we do).

There's just this change in Evie since she began school again after the holidays. She's still the happy silly old soul she was before, but her speech has been colored by sporatic proclamations of self loathing that I can't bear to hear. Who wants to hear someone they love speak of themselves in such a way? I don't know what else to do but be supportive and give her extra hugs and encouragment. What would you do?

Evolving Evie

2008-01-28T23:13:00.000-08:00

Sometimes shy and coy, other times bold and adventurous; Evie's the kind of girl that can't be described in a few words. There is so much about her that is surprising. She's six and a quarter years old. She's "small for her age"; most people assume at first guess assume she's four or five. At first meeting she's usually pretty quiet and seemingly overly concerned with rules and manners. Once she sits around you awhile, she'll open up and start talking. Sometimes she'll be very silly and speak of things that involve a suspension of reality and a belief in things nonsensical.

"Knock knock!" she'll say.
"Who's there?"
"Apple!"
"Apple who?"
"Apple a banana dee doo!" she'll say giggling uncontrollably.

Then, there'll be a pause and she'll compose herself to ask, "Was that funny?" And all you can do is laugh at the strange transition.

Other times, Evie is high strung and serious. She'll worry about who is paying for her lunch, or whether or not you have said please or thank you and that perhaps she should behave a certain way otherwise the adults around won't be happy with her. Evie is the kind of child, who declines chocolate chip cookies because they're not good for you.

Sometimes perfectly six and sometimes as old as 42, I wonder what is going on in that little brain of hers. I wonder if her behaviors are a manifestation of my parenting; if her anxieties are because I tell her too much about reality. Perhaps she wouldn't worry so much about how she behaves, if I didn't keep asking her to "be serious". Are her silly nonsensical jokes a counter reaction to all the expections that are forced on her now that she's a "big girl"? How much of this is hard wired? How much of this little person's soul was in place from the beginning and how much did I have a hand in shaping anyway? How much did God give you my Evie?

I don't know many six year olds, but how many are like mine? At six and a quarter, Evie knows how to whistle full songs and have as many as three hula hoops going at once. If we had more hula hoops, perhaps she could do more. She knows how to blow giant bubbles with her bubble gum and play several songs on her violin (well, Twinkle Twinkle, and about six other songs when she has her notated sheet music). She can understand Vietnamese, and some Spanish. She knows what to do if you ask her to do a plie. She can count by twos and tie her shoes and sing a few dozen songs off key with girlish giggles. She can read "I Can Read" chapter books.

When I was six, I played hopscotch, climbed bushes, caught bunny rabbits and tortured ants with my uncles. I don't know if I could do half as much as Evie does. You see, Evie taught herself how to do the vast majority of what she knows. She taught herself how to whistle, how to blow bubble gum, and how to hula hoop and jump rope and do a cartwheel. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm just a bystander to her growth and progress. I just point her in a certain direction and follow in her wake.

****

Lately, Evie has been saying things that have made my heart skip a beat. She says, "I'm stupid! I can't do anything right!" or "I'm so ugly and dumb, I hate myself." I don't know where she's getting these words and ideas that are so hurtful to herself and to her parents. We tell her she's beautiful, smart, and so accomplished; we ask her who tells her these things that she says them of herself and she says, "No one." She's six years old! SIX!

Tonight, she practiced on a new violin as she had outgrown her old one and a familiar old song did not sound right to her, "It sounds all wrong!" she cried, "I give up the violin!" She sobbed and sobbed and all I could say was, "Evie, Evie, what's wrong? You sound great! You are such an accomplished little girl. You know how to whistle, mommy doesn't know how to whistle. You know how to hula hoop, you know, mommy doesn't know how to do that. You can play the violin, mommy can't play the violin. You have so much to be proud of, don't quit. You can do this. How many of your classmates can do all these things? You are such a talented little girl."

I wanted to cry myself as I wondered if I said the right things or if these comparisons with others make her feel worse. What does it say then, that she played the song again, perfectly, then put her violin away and went to sleep with tears in her eyes?

****

RESPONSES:

Thanks to everyone who wished us well on our NYC trip. It was fun, if stressful with the two little ones. Not that they were badly behaved but stressful in the sense that struggling with bundling up and down due to the twenty something degree weather dampened the fun a bit. Apparently trying to put a toddler in a coat he can barely lower his arms in causes said toddler to flail and cry...a lot.

Jonathan and Angela, I see why you love NYC. There was so much to do and we only visited some of the museums.

Arirang, I loved your city. We'll have to go again in a warmer season. There's so much that we didn't get to see.

Hedgehog and MN, NYC is SO worth a visit, but Kim's right, I don't know about living there. I don't know how Arirang and Metrodad do it. Wouldn't it be great if we could all just meet there? I'd totally be up for a blogging "conference" in New York.

la dra, we didn't get to meet the famous Metrodad. He had mentioned that he might be busy during our visit. Ah well.

And finally, Sandra and SP, zombies are yet another reason why we live in a small(er) city. Everyone knows they only go for the big ones.

Overheard in New York

2008-01-20T20:22:00.000-08:00

The lotus life family is currently in New York City enjoying the sites and trying not to kill the two smallest members due to perpetual whining and running off without their leashes (I keed! I don't put leashes on my children...yet). We've been going on a trip every weekend for the month of January; taking advantage of off season travel sales and comp time off. There's so much to write about and very little time these days. This quarter I am attempting a full time course load as well as full time work and so blogging has been bumped down a few notches on the priority scale.

Anyhoo, back to our being in New York City. There are so many things I want to remember; our trip to the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museam of Art, the fact that we raced through much of the latter due to our lovely children and their need for naps and things to touch, the discovery that the food in the San Francisco Bay Area is SO MUCH BETTER; the realization that due to our being so incredibly spoiled by our area food scene, every destination will probably be a disappointment foodwise. Ah, so much to write about and remember. The kids will probably not remember much of anything about this trip (so we'll have to bring them back again sometime), but J, he has only one real memory that he'll cherish forever.

While we were rushing through the Met Museum, through a section devoted to nekkid ancient Greeks to be exact, J burst out laughing inexplicably while I was eyeballing the details of the impossibly high ceiling. I gave him a quizzical look thinking he might have spied a disproportionately tiny winky or something, however, he responded to my look by explaining that he had just overheard some museum guards say, "...if the zombie invasion happened during the day, we'd probably die at the museum..." Ah, I (heart) New York.

A Picture From Yesterday

2008-01-10T10:05:00.001-08:00

Dear Son,

Please remember that I am not posting this picture to embarrass you. I am posting this, to share your cuteness with the world. After all, after seeing you yesterday morning, with your hair violently coiffed into the perfect fauxhawk and red underwear, I couldn't resist finding a camera as soon as I could. Although the fauxhawk lost a few of its peaks as you resisted being photographed (as you settled into the inevitability of posterity and potential future blackmailing that is mommy with camera), I think you look pretty darn cute.

Love you,

Mommy