Once Upon A Time...

 Our usual bedtime routine is bath time, followed by brushing teeth, pajamas, and then Mommy reading a story to both girls. Then HJ always has to say to Mommy, "Come back in one short minute!" I don't know where HJ came up with this "short minute" concept, but she has been using the phrase a lot these days... I guess to a kindergartner, when Mommy or Daddy says they'll be back in a minute, a minute can feel pretty long.  In any case, then Daddy comes into HJ's room, and Mommy takes Lila to her room to put her to sleep.

Lately, I've been hearing a lot of giggles coming from HJ when Daddy is putting her to sleep. This is mainly due to Daddy's silly "Jack and the Beanstalk" stories, which for some reason, have her cracking up and fascinated every time he tells them. The funny thing is, Sol turned to me during one of these long and elaborate made-up tales and said, "I don't even know what really happens in Jack and the Beanstalk, do you?" And I just gave him a blank stare, because I realized, I didn't really know either. All I could remember was something about a goose that lays golden eggs.

Mommy's stories to Lila are not quite as creative, but always have to begin with, at Lila's request: "Once upon a time, there was a real pretty girl named Lila." And then Lila says, "And she had a real pretty sister named HJ." And I have to say, "They were the best of friends, and they did everything together." And then I usually have to go into a very thorough and detailed account of the day's events. The only problem is the stories don't make Lila very sleepy. She gets too excited thinking about all the fun things that happened during the day and her eyes start lighting up instead of her drifting off to a peaceful sleep. What can I say except that I'm still sleeping with Lila for most of the night, and HJ is now the easy one in terms of sleep... Hopefully Lila will be sleeping on her own before the age of five...

Maybe one day, in the near future, Lila and HJ can be sharing a room like my sister and I did growing up. And they can talk and giggle in their room, telling stories to each other all night long... well, maybe not all night long, but just until they feel comfortable enough to fall asleep.. on their own, without Mommy or Daddy. The idea seems pretty far-fetched at the moment, but I'm sure, like many other things that have come to pass in the past couple years, will be here before we know it. And like all the other things that we thought would never ever happen with HJ (walking, talking, potty training, getting rid of the pacifier, going to school) I'm sure we'll look back and not even remember what it was like before. Whether that's due to accumulated loss of sleep over the years or just a sheer sense of relief, who knows.  What I do know is I am very much looking forward to that day... whenever it happens...

Family Day 2013

September 21, 2009

Well, it's officially been one month since kindergarten started, and surprise, surprise, HJ is still doing great. We've had a few hiccups, usually coinciding with the arrival of Friday mornings. I've determined that HJ  has been trying so hard to hold it together all week that she has a (minor) meltdown on Fridays just to remind us that hey mom and dad, full-day kindergarten isn't as easy as it looks.

But, more importantly, today marks the four year anniversary of when we brought HJ home from Korea. Our official Family Day. The day we walked dazed and exhausted through the International Terminal at O'Hare with our baby girl in our arms. What do I remember from that day? Aside from the joy and relief, I remember that HJ was wearing no pants. After a 15-hour flight, I don't know exactly what happened to those pants, but when we walked through those doors at the airport all she was wearing was a pink long-sleeved onesie, most likely scattered with Gerber puffs in random places, and we couldn't have been happier to be home.

Sol and I had a hard time figuring out how to celebrate this year. My initial ideas were quickly nixed. A quick weekend getaway to downtown Chicago? Too much traffic, too much stimulation. A trip to the American Girl store? Probably more for Mommy than HJ. A visit to the pet store to pick out a present? Even a goldfish seemed like too much for us to handle. So after some deliberation, we just decided to ask HJ. Her request was simple. She wanted to go to the zoo.

So that's our plan. An easygoing day at the zoo, eating lunch there, maybe catching the dolphin show if we can. I've put aside my ideas of a fancy dinner and a day in the city, because if there's one thing I've learned in four years of living with HJ, it's that the thing she most wants is time to be all together as a family. And this Family Day, my dear HJ, is about celebrating you. Happy Family Day, HJ. We love you more and more every day.

Officially a kindergartner

HJ's 1st day of school

So HJ's first day of kindergarten has finally arrived and passed with surprisingly little drama. And I'm a little embarrassed to admit that the only tears on her first day were mine.

I did my best to play it cool, of course. The last thing I wanted was for her to wonder why Mommy was crying when I had been talking up kindergarten for the past 6 months! So I tried hard not to think about how strangely significant this moment felt and focused on getting HJ to school on time, pretending like it was just any other day.

We had a couple moments of, "I don't want to go to school, Mommy!" but they were quickly eclipsed by her desire to use her new purple polka-dot backpack with the matching pencil case. Of course, she ended up choosing a backpack more proportioned for a third-grader than my little 3 foot 4.5 inch, 35 lb kindergartner. But what can I say? The girl loves school supplies. I literally had to hide the pencils and glue sticks from her before the first day so that she wouldn't use them all up at home.

Another incentive for her? Her new BFF/future husband Mason, who sits right next to her, and her new girlfriend Mahi, who she met in summer school this year. Though I had worried endlessly about her transitioning to a new class with new kids and a new teacher, so far (and yes I know it's only been two days!) HJ seems to be adjusting amazingly well.  The hardest part has been figuring out what she'll actually eat for lunch. Yes, the drama has been reduced to, "Should she buy milk from the cafeteria or will the line take too long?" and "Will chicken nuggets still be warm enough for her to eat after 3 hours?"

It's only when I stop to think about what it all really means, when my mom says things to me like, "I can't believe you have a daughter in kindergarten!" or my friend asks me if I'm enjoying the "empty nest," that I start to get that choked-up feeling I had when I watched her walk happily through the front door without looking back once.

Lila pretending to go to kindergarten

Lila is definitely going through her own adjustment to having her big sister gone all day, but it's a good thing I still have her with me at home or I would be a complete wreck! And while I'm sure she's loving the opportunity to have Mommy all to herself, my guess is Lila seriously thinks she is going to kindergarten any day now. According to Lila, she is already four years old, and it is absolutely necessary for her to pack her own lunch bag, snack, and backpack in the morning.  Little does she know how excited Mommy gets when she conks out for a two-hour nap at 11 a.m...my mind literally starts racing thinking about how much I can get done without any interruption!

The funniest thing is that so far Sol and I are pretty clueless as to what HJ has been doing all day at school. We have a general schedule outlining the day's activities, but the mysteries remain... How much of her lunch did she really eat and what did she throw out? Did she really like gym class for once? And did she really get a sticker for listening well, or is she stretching the truth a little when she says that only the girls got the stickers and not the boys?

I'm sure in a couple weeks we'll all have a better idea about what life with full-day kindergarten really means, but for now, I'm just happy that there haven't been any tantrums, tears, or meltdowns... yet... I'm just really hoping this drama-free thing lasts for a little while longer.

10 years & 1000 moments

St. Luica, August 2003!

Lately HJ has been really into talking about weddings and getting married. At the end of the school year, she "wrote" (i.e. dictated to her 5th grade buddy) a story about rainbow kitties and weddings. And apparently she is marrying her friend Mason from school. They are planning to move to Tennessee and live in an apartment so Mason can push the button in the elevator every time. Hmmm, Mason, not sure how that's going to work out with HJ...

So when I told her this weekend that 10 years ago, Daddy & Mommy had their wedding and got married, she pretty much just gave me a look that said, Mommy, I have no idea what you're talking about, but if that means you and Daddy are going out to dinner and not taking me and Lila with you I don't like it.

Thanks to my wonderful sister, aka best aunt in the whole wide world, we did manage to go out for a fancy dinner and a movie (our first since before Lila was born, maybe since HJ came home??), and it was lovely of course, but not exactly what we had planned 10 years ago. When we went on our honeymoon to St. Lucia 10 years ago, we had vowed to come back for our 10 year anniversary. Fast forward 10 years, and we found ourselves celebrating in Northbrook, Illinois, a bit closer to home than St. Lucia.

Not sure what we were thinking back then when we first got married. Did we think that we would have kids? I'm sure we did. But did we realize what that would mean in terms of things like traveling to a faraway tropical island or even going out to dinner and a movie once in a while? I doubt it. We were young, naive, and pretty much 100% clueless!

One thing that changed our plans was thinking that we would have kids right away. I mean, maybe we thought about waiting a couple years to enjoy married life as a couple, but if things had gone "according to plan" we would probably have an 8 year old and a 6 year old who would happily be independent enough to stay with their grandparents for a week. It's funny how much things don't go "according to plan."

Although Sol and I had always thought about adopting in the back of our minds, for me, it had always been somewhat of a distant possibility. I had grown up visiting my grandparents and aunt and uncle's orphanages in Korea, so the idea was never completely foreign to me, but I had no idea how long and agonizing the entire process would be. It seems so long ago now, but in those first few years when things were not going according to plan at all, I remember wondering if I would ever become a mother. It seemed to be the only thing I wanted and the one thing I couldn't control. And then when HJ arrived in our lives, there was hardly a moment to reflect, to really understand that this was everything I had been waiting for. After that, it was wondering how and when HJ would have a sibling, and then Lila was born. And now, here we are, 10 years later, our two beautiful girls, and I can hardly remember what life was like before.

While we were eating dinner on our anniversary, I told Sol that if there was one thing I felt at that moment, it was lucky. Maybe lucky is not the right word. Fortunate? Blessed? Thankful? In any case, happy to be where I was at that very moment. Because even if I could never have imagined how things would turn out 10 years ago, all the moments, both good and bad, and as Sol put it, more than our fair share of drama over the years, there is nothing, absolutely nothing I would ever trade for being right where we are today.

Happy 10 year anniversary, Sol. I love you more now than I did the day we got married. Maybe we can go back to St. Luica for our 20 year anniversary :)

Dear HJ, on your 5th birthday

Dear HJ,

Today you are 5 years old.

It was late in the evening on a humid August night when we first heard about you, our baby girl. You were two months old. Your father and I had just returned from an exhilarating trip to the border of North Korea and China, where we had spent two weeks meeting North Korean refugees and orphans face to face, seeing with our own eyes a world which had previously only been told to us in stories. I was on the phone with my mother, the grandmother you now know as Nee.

"There’s a baby girl at your grandfather's orphanage,” my mother said. “Do you know someone who would want to adopt her?"

When my mother said those words, “There’s a baby girl…” it was as if the skies had opened, and God had dropped you directly into our laps.

I had called my mother that night with just one purpose. I wanted to know if she could help us with the process of adopting a baby. You see, Hyun Jung, your daddy and I, we had always wanted to adopt. Not only because it seemed like it was in our blood, with my grandfather running an orphanage in Nonsan, South Korea, and my uncle on the other side of the family having started an orphanage in Seoul, but because something inside of us seemed to know about you long before you were born, and maybe long before we were even born. But it was only after our trip overseas that summer of 2008, that we thought it was time to take the first real step towards adoption. And of course, it could not have been any other way, for the summer of 2008 was the summer you were born.

There are certain decisions in life that you feel all your days have been leading up to, moments that some may call fate, or God's will, or sheer and amazing coincidence. That day that we found about you, Hyun Jung, was one of our moments. For before I even had a chance to ask my mother the question that had been running through my mind all day like the pounding of a relentless summer storm, “Can you help us adopt?” she had beat me to it.

“There’s a baby girl,” she had said.

When I heard those words spoken to me, I was sitting in complete darkness in the corner of our bedroom closet, and heavy, fat tears began falling from my eyes, tears not of sadness, but of absolute certainty that you were our daughter.

I repeated the question to my mother in hushed tones. “Do I know someone who would like to adopt? Do I know someone?”

I told her, “Yes, I do. I know someone who would like to adopt.”

After hanging up the phone, I emerged from the closet with tears still in my eyes and told your daddy we were going to Korea.

The first day we met you was the day after Thanksgiving. You were just about to turn five months old. We were coming straight from a 15 hour flight, a sleepless night at the airport hotel, and a 2.5 hour bus ride to the orphanage. It was late morning, and there was a clear, quiet stillness in the air when we climbed the steps to the newly constructed brick building where you had been growing up without us -- we were strangers to you, but to us you were a dream and a life that we had been waiting for our entire lives. The heavy double doors swung open, and suddenly there you were, little arms flailing about in a red and white cotton outfit that was too big for you, your round eyes, bright and curious, and what little hair you had pulled back with a tiny plastic barrette. I instinctively reached out my arms to you, wanting to swoop you up right then and there, but I held back, seeing you snuggled so protectively in your caregiver's arms.

"Hyun Jung," I said tentatively, "We're here."

It seemed that you smiled back, a little smile without any recognition of who we were, but a smile, nonetheless. There really wasn't much you had to do to win my heart that day. From the day I had heard about you, I was already yours.

Later that night, we watched you from afar, as your caregiver wrapped you up as tightly as possible on her back in a soft, yellow baby blanket, singing Korean lullabies to you as she walked up and down the stairs to put you to sleep. She held you close every night that first year of your life, and she would have raised you as her own if she was not already 60 years old and had destiny not brought you to us. The building where you were staying with her had been conceived as a new enterprise of my grandfather’s, a home for elderly Korean men and women who had no place to live and no family to take care of them. Although the orphanage dormitories next door housed over 80 children from ages 3 to 17, this new building where you were living housed no one at the time except you, your caregiver, and my grandmother. It was as if the entire building had been created for you. There were no other babies at the orphanage. Only you. So much time had passed since the orphanage had had a newborn baby that they could not remember how many years it had been. A crib had to be purchased, and sat unused in the corner, while you slept soundly on your caregiver’s bed, and she slept on the floor, to make sure you didn’t fall.

The orphanage, Eden Children’s Home, was founded by your great-grandfather after the Korean War, to take in Korean orphans, many of whom had lost their parents in the escape from the North to the South. My grandmother tells me often of the story of their own escape. How she had two sons, one sick with polio, and how she had been pregnant with my mother, riding a train to Seoul while her husband went ahead to secure a safe place for them all. She never fails to tell me how they almost didn't make it, and then where would all our lives be?

To such grandparents who had survived the war, nothing was impossible. Perhaps that is why your great-grandfather did not think twice about all that would have to be overcome to adopt you into our family. Many people, important people, told us it couldn't be done.

“I'm sorry. A child that is already in an orphanage cannot be adopted,” they told us.

“I’m sorry. I understand that you and your husband are of Korean descent, but that has no bearing on our decision.”

“I’m sorry, I understand that your grandfather is 83 years old and has been running the orphanage for over 50 years, but, a child in an orphanage cannot be adopted internationally.”

"The birth mother must have legally relinquished her rights."

There is not much that we know about your birth mom, but this much we do know. She loved you very much. We know her name and her age when she gave birth to you. And soon we discovered, through your grandfather’s persistence, that she had indeed gone to the adoption agency before you were born to fill out the necessary paperwork to begin the adoption process. She had gone to the very adoption agency in Korea that was linked to the one adoption agency that was willing to work with us in America.

So we went, on that day after Thanksgiving, to meet you for the first time, our baby girl. I didn’t know what was worse, waiting for you on the other side of the world, or knowing what it felt like to hold you in my arms, and then having to let you go. The adoption process between two governments an ocean apart in geography and culture could sometimes be fickle, and we didn't want there to be any doubt that every precaution and law had been followed and respected. So we continued to wait. Every moment we spent with you during that first visit kept us going through the long winter months when we were apart.

In the spring, when the cherry blossoms began blooming, their white petals softly raining down on the gravel in the courtyard of the orphanage, I went again to see you. I could not bear to be away from you another day. You were 9 months old. You were starting to pull yourself up to stand, you were laughing, you had four little teeth, your hair had grown just a tad longer, and you still liked being held facing out, so you could see the world all around you. You didn't say much, but you made your desires clearly known, pointing a chubby, stiff arm in whatever direction you wanted to be taken. As much as I wanted to tuck you on my hip and walk right into Incheon Airport with you, it was just another visit, and we had to wait, again.

And really, we were still getting to know each other. You let me give you a bottle in the middle of the night, and you ventured to lay your head on my shoulder while I rocked you back and forth. You let me dress you in a green flowered dress on Easter morning, and take picture after picture with you in front of the deep-rooted mok ryun tree that is your great-grandfather’s pride, but at the end of the week, I had to go home, again, without you. Before I left for the airport, I placed you gingerly on top of my suitcase and wheeled you around the entryway of the orphanage building where I had first met you, and you looked up at me with an uncertain little smile, still wondering who we were to each other.

At last, in the humid, oppressive heat of a rainy, Korean summer, I arrived at the orphanage a final time - to bring you home. They moved us into a small blue house in the back of the orphanage. In the past, it had served as a bath house for the other children, and now it was to be our makeshift home. The old linoleum floors were soon covered with your baby toys and blankets, and they brought us a brand-new washing machine with fancy buttons and Korean words that I didn’t know how to read. They didn’t believe in using dryers much at the orphanage. They told me it was better to let the clothes breathe in the fresh air, so I did my best to hang your little Korean dresses on a clothesline outside our doorway, though it hung in the shadow of the girls’ dormitory next door. I learned how to heat the water before bathing you, and at night we watched Korean dramas on TV before you fell asleep in my arms. I fed you rice and seaweed soup, your favorite, at every meal, but when I gave you eggs and toast for breakfast I was scolded for not giving you something more substantial. The orphanage cook would then proceed to fry you a small fish, mackerel, and I would pick out all the bones with slippery metal chopsticks and feed you the morsels with my fingers.

Through all of this, your daddy was still waiting in the U.S, now for both of us to come home. No one knew how long it would be before the final visas were approved.

I forged ahead anyway, putting you in a rickety borrowed stroller, pushing you over the uneven concrete sidewalks and the busy streets of Nonsan, walking with you to a little bakery one day, another day taking you to visit a friend and her baby who lived in the apartment across the street. We walked beyond the gates of the orphanage as often as possible. We took you to a bustling strawberry festival, to city gardens, and rural mountainsides, all the while still waiting for the final call that we were free to go.

The hottest day of the summer, the last day of August, as was the tradition in Korea, we took you to a village restaurant to have freshly cooked chicken soup, served bubbling hot in earthenware bowls. We sat on the floor, as is the custom there, and I tried my best to protect your little hands from the boiling soup and the rows and rows of tiny side dishes, laid out temptingly for you to touch.

When the heat had finally abated, and the children at the orphanage were back in school, and the relief of an autumn breeze was slowly settling in, your daddy decided that he missed us too much not to visit one more time. He came on Labor Day weekend, and everyone remarked again at how much you looked like him, both of you with your dark, long-lashed eyes and oval faces. You even suffered alike from eczema due to the sweltering heat. But to you, he was still a stranger from America, and you only stopped crying when he tickled you and threw you up in the air and made you breathless with laughter in that way that only daddies can do. The day he left was another bittersweet goodbye; I so longed to just walk onto the plane with you and him, together as it should have been all along.

But this time, we didn’t have to wait much longer. Only ten days after your daddy had left, we finally received the news. The visa had been approved! We were free to go home. As soon as I heard, I scooped you up and danced around the back room where we had been biding our time, your hand enclosed in mine. Your daddy came back the very next day. All at once, what had seemed like an endless wait was over almost too quickly. Our goodbyes to everyone at the orphanage were short and fleeting, unable to express the significance of all that you were leaving behind, and both the gratitude and relief we felt at finally being able to take you with us this time.

I hardly slept the night before we were to leave the orphanage. Mercifully unaware of how much would change the next morning, you slept peacefully. The day was September 21st, 2009. You were 14 months old. In the early dawn hours, we packed your precious memories of the first year of your life, the well-worn clothes you could still fit into, the Korean pacifiers and bottles and rice cakes that you would miss otherwise, and the heavy, leather-bound dol album, the photos from your first birthday, which we had missed, but your great-grandfather had taken care to preserve in painstakingly arranged professional photos of you crying in your beautiful Korean hanbok.

We piled all our belongings into the orphanage's white van, the one that had driven us countless times to the bus terminal and back, but this time, we were leaving without knowing when any of us would be back. There wasn't even a car seat for you, things are different there in Korea, so I held you extra close in my lap as you placed your little hand on the window while the crowd gathered in the courtyard.

"Bring her back when she's a little grade-school girl, before she forgets all her Korean," my grandfather told us.

“Will she only eat pizza and hamburgers in America?” the other children asked.

Your caregiver was too emotional to come outside to see you go. She had already said her goodbyes to you the night before, giving you a children's Bible written in Korean and English, a navy blue satin book bag to use when you started school, and two long Korean nightgowns in the softest cotton that you still like to wear. My grandfather gave you two tiny gold rings and a gold bracelet, so delicate that they bend at the slightest touch. The workers tried hard to be cheerful, and the other children smiled and waved, but there was a heaviness that lingered because you were so loved. You were the youngest, and the favorite, no one could deny.

And this time, we really did walk with you straight into Incheon Airport. I still couldn’t help looking over my shoulder to see if someone would stop to interrogate us, as if to say, "Where are you taking her? And is she really yours?" No one gave us a second glance, but I held the thick manila envelope of paperwork from the adoption agency as though it were a shield. I suppose we looked no different than the hundreds of other Korean families wandering around at their respective gates, waiting not quite patiently for their boarding call.

Well, I take that back. You stood out a little, Hyun Jung, the way you liked to be held with your hands on the handle of our big luggage cart, directing it back and forth, and angling your body in just the right way so that you could see everything and everyone around you as you began this long journey home.

15 hours later, we arrived in Chicago, received by balloons and welcome signs, and a whole other world eager to meet you. You had been an angel on the flight. Sleeping eight hours straight in the bassinet in which you barely fit, and quietly eating your favorite rice cakes and drinking your sweet Korean formula in your familiar Korean bottles. We brought you straight home, and I snuggled in next to you in your new big girl bed in the room that we had painted a pale green, with the sheer butterfly curtains hanging from the windows. Exhausted as we were, this time, neither of us could sleep. Whether it was jet lag or the anticipation of beginning the rest of our lives together, or both, no one knew. How long had we been waiting for this moment? And now, you were finally here.

Epilogue:

Hyun Jung, when you first came home, we called you Hyunnie. Now, you always remind us that you like to be called Chloe, your American name that you use in school. It’s a fitting name, meaning verdant and blooming, as is your middle name, Eden, meaning delight. Your favorite part of the day is when your daddy comes home and kisses you and lifts you high in the air. You sometimes like to boss your little sister around. And thanks to the instruction of your Nee and Ha-ji, your grandfather here in America, you haven’t forgotten all your Korean.

The second time around...

So HJ's summer has been relatively smooth so far, except for the fact that her little sis Lila has officially entered her terrible two's. It was as if a few weeks ago, someone switched our easy, mild-mannered baby and replaced her with a crazy toddler complete with ear-piercing screams, tantrums, food-throwing, pushing, and general crabbiness.

And in the midst of it all, I've realized that HJ looks like a mature, well-behaved grown-up girl in comparison, and that the second time around, it's really not so bad.

When HJ was two, the constant tantrums and refusal to go to bed, the throwing food from the high chair, the resistance to the car seat, all were cause for constant anxiety and even a few sessions with a behavior therapist.

This time around, Sol and I look at each other, and sometimes we just have to laugh. 

Granted, things were different with HJ -- the tantrums were more intense, she couldn't express herself verbally, and we were completely novice parents who had no idea what we were doing. But going through it with Lila all over again makes me realize there's probably no need to freak out. HJ went through it all and worse, and we all survived.

Even Grandma from Korea has been remarking how HJ eats so well, sleeps well, and takes good care of her little sister, whereas with Lila, she tends to say things like, "Wow, this girl is never going to take no for an answer... She really isn't going to give up on anything when she gets older.." I have to smile because those are the very things I'm so used to hearing about our first spirited child, HJ.

But with the two-year old stage, also come all the cute and funny things that make this stage one of our favorites as well. Here are a few Lila-isms that I've noted lately that have made us all laugh...

• Replacing "horn" in her favorite song with her favorite food "corn" as in "The corn on the bus goes beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...."
• Calling mommy's yoga mat "a yogurt mat" which again references another favorite food... I think I'm seeing a pattern here!
• Telling mommy she is riding in her "red dragon" (aka "red wagon")
• Making binoculars with her tiny chubby hands whenever she thinks she needs to see something far away
• Asking for "shaving cream" for her strawberries (aka "whipped cream")
• Getting panicked because "Grandma eating my blueberry!" when we just bought a giant container from Costco
• Learning the words "colonoscopy" and "Dr. Petrungaro" after accompanying Grandpa to a few too many doctor's appointments

And after every little or big tantrum that Lila has, one thing I love seeing is how HJ does her best to make her little sis feel better, even if sometimes she's the cause of the tantrum, and even if her answer is to give her candy or chocolate to make it all better. I'm sure it's complicated for HJ now, still wanting things for herself, but not wanting Lila to be sad. She's learning, though! After Lila calms down after a big tantrum, HJ likes to say, "Are you ok, Lila (or Ya-ya as it sounds like when HJ says it)... Are you happy now?" And thankfully, Lila's answer is usually yes, even if it's only until the next crisis hits...

Moving on up

Sometimes Sol and I take a long time to realize that our little girl is growing up... Last weekend we finally changed HJ from her carseat to a big girl booster seat. Now I know she's almost 5, but we didn't realize until recently that her head was sticking out over the top of her carseat and that it really was time to move her up!

One of the problems was that we had a hand-me-down booster seat that HJ had been refusing to sit in for some time. Then Sol came up with the ingenious (and simple) solution to take HJ to Babies R' Us to pick out her own carseat. Problem solved.

HJ picked out a gray booster seat with purple and pink flowers, obviously, and that very day she was happily sitting in her new booster. With no complaints at all. In fact, the next morning , she even wanted to drive to our music class which is just down the block, just so she could sit in her new booster.

Now there were a few lessons that I learned from this little transition. HJ likes to have some measure of control and choice, no surprise there. And she is actually ok with some change, as long as she feels she is ready for it and it is introduced with a little creativity.

I'm hoping this is a little preview of what will happen in August, when yes, HJ will be entering full-day kindergarten.

We had our official transition meeting last week, and it was decided that HJ will definitely be moving on up to kindergarten in the fall. I had mentally prepared myself for this decision, so this meeting wasn't as difficult as I expected, but I still had a few moments where I got teary. Whenever the teachers or therapists mention how far she's come from when she first started preschool, I always get choked up. Lately HJ has even been asking to go on the school bus with all her friends. I'm not sure if she fully understands that when she goes on the bus, Mommy and Lila can't go with her, but at least she's entertaining the thought this year!

If the day ever comes where HJ gets on the school bus with her lunch bag and backpack and waves goodbye, I will be completely and utterly shocked, but we'll see what happens. I'm having flashbacks from last summer where the bus driver would wait patiently at our driveway every morning and I would have to run out and tell him, "Sorry, not today."

Going on the school bus, eating lunch in the cafeteria, starting kindergarten, they all seem like such minor things relatively. Still, I don't know why, but for HJ, and probably more for me, they also seem like these giant momentous steps towards growing up and becoming an independent little person, no longer hanging out at home with Mommy all day, or at least in the mornings, but being in school all day, by herself. I know she can do it, though. We just have to think of ways to prepare her and get her excited about the idea. It's a good thing we have all summer to do that....