Category Archives: Parenting

Magic

For years my husband has been entertaining the kids with a magic trick involving two toothpicks. He makes one of the toothpicks jump up and even flip in the air, seemingly with the power of his mind. For as long as he’s been performing the trick, my sons have been begging him to teach them the secret. They finally figured it out for themselves and watching them learn how to do it was…magical.

My husband likes to refer to what I call “concentration tongue” as “genetic garbage”:

Not quite getting it…

Can you see what I mean in this next photograph?

Nope, still not getting it.
“I think I almost have it…”

This next picture had me laughing out loud…

“I think I got it…”
No caption needed!
“My turn!”
“Watch me one more time…”

This one made me laugh out loud too…

VICTORY

Like mother, like daughter.

An eye for style…

A certain je ne sais quoi…

Poise

Effortless grace…

Poetry in motion…

It’s perfectly obvious we both belong in sneakers.

Related post: Chic Sister Chronicles

Weekend Snapshots 11

We spent the 4th of July weekend in Arlington with my extended family. The kids were delighted to see their New Jersey cousins.

Friday

At Korshi Restaurant: “Party of 14?! You made a reservation? No reservation?! 14?

Yep. Party of 14.

Hours of fun (?) at Brookstone in Pentagon City Mall

“Owww! Is this supposed to feel good?!”
“Oooooo!”

Still having fun…

“GAAAAAAAAAH!”

We took the shuttle from Pentagon City Mall to Long Bridge Park to watch the DC fireworks from across the river:

“Where’s the jowl-remover filter?”

Saturday

Honorary Triplet
“You and your pictures, pictures, pictures!”

Yechon for dinner and Breeze Cafe for dessert (and the penalty shoot-out for the Holland vs. Costa Rica game):

“Let me take a selfie!”
#Selfie

My husband’s greatest triumph to date…separating four of my sister’s necklaces that had twisted themselves into a Gordion Knot.

Sunday

I think my favorite memory of this weekend will be sitting in my parents’ living room with my fourteen year old son, as he played them the electronic dance music he’s been producing. You have to understand, the only secular music I can ever remember being played in our household when I was a child was an old John Denver LP. Whenever my siblings and I ventured to play music of our own choosing, a pained expression would pass across my parents’ faces. Within minutes they’d ask us in no uncertain terms to turn it off. On Sunday afternoon, my elderly parents listened to the thumping, throbbing Electro house, progressive house, Melbourne Bounce, and Happy hardcore tracks my son played for them with thoughtful expressions on their faces. Every now and then, they would bob their heads appreciatively and say, “I like that part.” “You did that yourself?” “Very good, very good.” As my sister put it, “Now that’s true love.”

Want to listen?

https://soundcloud.com/ifyouknowwatimean/starlight-cruiser-original-mix?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook

Home again, home again, jiggity jig:

Our dogs were delirious with joy to be reunited with us.

Post Script

Last night I showed our children the photos I had taken of the grotesquely large Eastern Hercules Beetle I’d found lurking around our front porch:

There goes the neighborhood.

I was fully expecting them to congratulate me for my incredible, heroic feat of bravery. I had managed to get so close to the beast as to even slide a quarter right next to its body for scale.

Instead of congratulations, I was subjected to a Greek chorus of reproach and bitter recriminations.

“Why didn’t you catch it in a jar for us so that we could keep it as a pet?”

“YEAH! It would have been so awesome!”

“I can’t believe you didn’t catch it for us…”

Next time, kids…next time.

World Cup

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program (i.e. The Grand Tour du Nord) to bring you this World Cup update.

The World Cup has profoundly changed my life in so many ways…

When my oldest child was just a toddler, I signed him up for recreational soccer. He loved every second of it. As the ball dribbled past his legs, he would crouch low with keen focus to inspect the ants crawling around on the blades of grass. As the ball sailed past him, he would gaze up at the sky and find dragons in the clouds above him.

We gave up on soccer for a few years. In 2010 we went to England to visit my husband’s family in Manchester. Our stay happened to coincide with the World Cup. Our kids watched the games on their grandparents’ tiny television, mesmerized. Since that fateful summer, all three of them have been obsessed with soccer.

That fall my father-in-law made all of their dreams come true, by sending them these Manchester United jerseys:

They like DC United too:

My daughter wrote about her impressions of her first pro game for a school assignment:

This past year our son’s team got to greet the DC United players as they came onto the pitch for their first game of the season:

My husband and I, both unathletic couch jockeys, have even managed to be conscripted as assistant coaches at one time or another:

Every fall and spring, my weekends are spent driving from field to field, not only within our own hometown, but as far afield as Maryland and West Virginia.

Even our recent vacation schedule revolved around soccer and was dictated by what time we would need to get back to the hotel to watch the World Cup games:

For all of my grousing, soccer has taught my children some valuable lessons and skills. They have learned the importance of teamwork, dedication, and of course: sportsmanship.

Yesterday, I came home to this reenactment of the Italy vs. Uruguay game:

Oops! That shoulder came at me from out of nowhere!

It really is a “beautiful game.”

Tomorrow: Back to our regularly scheduled programming and: Buffalo. Yes, Buffalo.

Hangin’ with the Harpies in Minneapolis

Unaccountably, our beautiful new baby niece was not given the name my fellow Harpy sisters and I had gently suggested to her parents. Though we were disappointed by the fact that she will not bear the name “Ameliabelledrienne,” we decided to fly to Minneapolis this weekend to pay her a visit:

My Harpy sisters Amelia, Annabelle, and the baby NOT named “Ameliabelledrienne”

The weather forecast called for clear and sunny skies, but powerful thunderstorms rolled in as soon as we Harpies arrived. High winds recorded at over 68 miles per hour brought stately old trees crashing down all over Minneapolis and St. Paul. The weatherman called the storms a “freak occurrence” and said he had never seen anything like it in all his time in the Twin Cities. We call it “making an entrance.”

We got to see our nephew Dandelion and his mama:

And we got to spend some time with our beloved brother:

It turns out that the little kid with whom I used to roll around in the back of our old station wagon on long car trips singing songs and playing games…the kid with whom I fought pitched battles and whom I banished from my room countless times…the kid who was the closest companion of my childhood…has grown up to become an amazing father.

To be able to witness this with one’s own eyes has to be one of the sweetest privileges of adulthood.

Unfortunately, we Harpies cannot always control our own strength, and our presence can sometimes bring unintended mayhem. Poor Dandelion and his mother came down with a stomach bug and we weren’t able to see them for the rest of our short stay.

We were, however, able to gloat over our new niece and impart our blessings upon her. She hung on our every word:

By the end of our visit, she was cackling with the Harpies:

I think she liked us:

The feeling was mutual:

The Harpies had wreaked enough havoc upon the good people of Minneapolis. It was time to fly back home. As we boarded our plane to go home, the sun started shining for the first time since we’d arrived:

Sorry, Minneapolis. We’ll try to reign it in next time…

Twelve years ago today another baby was born during a ferocious thunderstorm that caused the hospital delivery room lights to flicker on and off throughout his birth.

Since that dark and stormy night, this boy has been the calm in the eye of the storm and the blue skies after the rain. Happy birthday! xoxoxo

Call Me Grandma

Momentous changes are afoot around here…

One minute, I was a brand new mother:

I blinked, and then this happened:

Middle School Graduation

It’s hard to believe that baby I held in my arms is now a high schooler who already towers over me.

It’s hard to face the fact that I can no longer be the one making all the decisions for him.

Like what he should wear for Halloween, for instance:

“What?! You don’t want to wear a skirt for Halloween again this year?!”

It’s hard to face the fact that I have to let this boy spread his wings and fly. It’s a daily struggle, but I’m doing the best I can.

Right after his middle school graduation ceremony, I saw him off on his own adventure. He is now at the beach for a week with friends from school and adults who are not his own mother and father. As I drove him to their house, I gave him a lecture on letting his conscience dictate his behavior and about making “good, responsible choices.”

The morning after they arrived at the beach, I got a message from one of the parent chaperones saying that my fourteen-year-old firstborn son was now himself “a proud parent.”

Attached was this photo:

My new grandchildren.

Sure, I know that every kid has to make his own mistakes. It’s all part of growing up. But had I known that sending my adolescent son off to the beach by himself would mean that I would become a grandmother overnight…I can assure you I would have locked that boy in his bedroom until he was…oh, I don’t know, 35? 40?

Obviously, what’s done is done. I had to find some way to make peace with this news. I had to regain some modicum of control over the situation. So, I reached out to him in the only way I knew how…Facebook instant messaging, of course. It hasn’t always worked out for me, as you’ll note from the message dated May 21st. This time, though, I think I really got through to him:

Oh yeah, Grandma’s still got it!

(And in case you’re wondering: UnYoung is my Korean name and NOT a reflection of my age. It means “bright like silver”…NOT old or decrepit or anything like that)!

This morning…

On my way home from work yesterday I heard on the radio that there would be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness a spectacular meteor shower with the potential for hundreds of shooting stars per hour. The peak time to view the spectacle would be between 2 and 4 am.

I’ve always wanted to see a shooting star, so I decided I’d wake up at 3 am to try and see my very first one. I told the kids about “Camelopardalids,” and asked if they wanted to wake up early with me to watch for the meteor shower. It’s always a struggle getting them up for school at 6:30, so I was doubtful that they would want to be woken up at 3 on a Saturday. When they all three said they would wake up with me, I warned them that if they fussed or complained, I wouldn’t keep trying to get them out of bed. To my great surprise, when the alarm went off at 3, all three kids leapt out of bed, ready to go.

Still in our pjs, we drove to the lake in our neighborhood and watched until 4 am. We shivered in the dark, craning our necks to look up at the night sky. We didn’t see hundreds of showers, maybe just three or four…five at the most. Today’s articles are widely reporting that the highly-touted meteor shower was a dud. At 4 o’clock, we drove back home and we all went back to bed.

When I woke up again at a more decent hour, it seemed like it might have all been a dream. But when I met the kids at the breakfast table, they grinned as they remembered seeing the shooting stars.

“It was so awesome!” they said.

I got to see a shooting star, something I’ve always wanted to do. But what I’ll remember most of this once-in-a-lifetime occasion is the weight of my daughter on my lap in the cold dark hours of the morning, the cries of surprise and delight each time we spotted a shooting star, and the feeling that we had shared something miraculous together.

Was it worth it? Absolutely.

 

FOMO

I suffer from a particular brand of FOMO. For me, it’s more like FOMOOPO…fear of missing out on a photo opportunity.

I left straight from work late Friday afternoon for a fun long weekend in New York City with a friend…It’s been crazy busy at home and work and I was looking forward to getting away to one of my favorite places in the world with a friend I haven’t been able to spend much time with lately. The only problem was that I was going to miss out on taking photos of my son dressed up for his first formal dinner dance. As I left for work Friday morning, I said my good-byes and extracted promises from my husband to take lots of photos. From my son I extracted promises to pose nicely for them. If you’re wondering why I’d have to get these assurances, let me present into evidence this:

*sigh*

You’ll notice that this is a pretty old photo…This kind of nonsense has been going on for years.

“Please pose nicely! Do it as a Mother’s Day present for me!” I cajoled. I shamelessly laid it on with a trowel.

It worked!

Here are a couple photos my husband texted to me:

Picking out a tie.

Check out the size 11 1/2 puppy feet!

 

Piano Recital

Just a few photos from our Sunday afternoon at the boys’ piano recital…