We Are Our Mother's Daughters

Mother's Day 2012

   For about a year now, Mother's Day has become my new favorite holiday to celebrate.  The first time I got to celebrate it in 2007 was kind of neat, but strange.  I had only been a mom for about 10 months and it was kind of silly to think that I was old enough to even get a Mother's Day card.  Then the years went on, and faithfully each May, I was showered with emails to wish me a happy day from friends and one year I even received a pretzel necklace from my husband who rushed out to get it for me that same morning.  (He has since improved his game).  I dutifully called my Mom and Mother-in-Law each year, sent the obligatory card, and followed up with my brother to make sure that at least one of us got it covered.  I never expected much on that day, but with each year that passed, Mother's Day began to take on a new meaning...and finally in 2011, I started to get it.
   That was the year that everything changed.  By that time, I had spent over a year by myself with the girls in a new house in a new town, creating a home after moving from our previous residence of 5 years. The girls had adjusted well to life with just Mom around, while Daddy appeared for a few days every other week.  They had challenged me more than I'd ever been before - and I'm not talking logistically (10+ hour solo plane flight with a 2 year old and a 7 month old), physically (carrying loads of groceries into the house....and 2 sleeping kids), or mentally (trying to figure out how I would best arrange my schedule to find time to study while they were sleeping or not paying attention).  Being alone with these girls had brought the absolute worst in me - I'd lost my patience way more and more frequently than I ever thought I would, I'd said things I promised I'd never say, and I'd behave more like a child than they were themselves.  I'd broken all the rules that I'd made up the day that I brought Kaylee home from the hospital: I'd never let my kids see me cry, I'd never fight with their Dad in their presence, I'd never ignore them when they really needed me.  I also never kept the promises I'd made when I moved with them: I'd feed them home-cooked meals whenever I could, I'd read them bedtime stories each night, I'd take the blame for anything that ever went wrong.
   What I realized - very quickly, by the way - was that I was far from perfect when it came to Mommyhood.  I alternated Chick-fil-a and McDonald's on a very regular basis, I put them in front of the TV every day as soon as we got home, and I most definitely shed a tear each and every time I would find myself doing an "Andy job" - be it fixing something or cleaning up cat throw-up.  I learned that I was irrational when stressed and that I had very little control of my behavior when I became overwhelmed.  I learned that I was driven by a false set of expectations that I had put on myself and realized as soon as I started placing the blame on my kids or husband that I was very wrong and that I needed to take a step back.  I had a lot to learn.
   During my time raising these two girls that year, I also can say the best probably came out of me as well.  Over the course of 18 months or so, I learned a new side of me that never existed.  I learned how to recognize my triggers, how to control my emotions, and what reasonable things to expect from myself and from my children.  I learned how to ask for help and how to build relationships with those who would continue to be there for me in my journey with motherhood.  I learned how to put my phone and computer away and instead spend quality time at the park with my children, and how much those 15 minutes would pay off in their attitude and temperament for the rest of the evening.  I learned all the lyrics to nursery rhyme songs and memorized the words to their favorite books so I could flip the pages without blocking their view.  I learned how to react to their emotional signals of tiredness or hunger instead of relying on my watch.  I learned how to read their need of a hug or a kiss when they were missing their Dad and were starting to act out in aggressive ways.  I learned that there is a difference in being a mother, and knowing how to be a mother.  And thus, the work began.
   Last year I realized that Mother's Day is the only day that I can celebrate because I damn well earned it. I DID something to deserve this day, unlike birthdays or Christmas when I just get presents by just being alive another year and being Christian.  I realized being a Mom means that your kid reaps all the benefits of your good hard work, while you get blamed for all your kids' poor choices....for the rest of their lives.  So if for one day a year you get to celebrate a big "Thank You" - then I'll take it.
   So this brings me to why I'm writing this long-winded post - to celebrate someone in my life who I never really properly thanked: my own Mother.  Like me, my mom was far from perfect.  I'm sure she also had similar goals as I did, and she broke a lot of them, too.  We had screaming matches with each other, she said some things I'm sure she didn't mean, and she certainly cried in front of me, too.  The funny thing is, while I was growing up, I stayed angry with her for those things.  I didn't excuse her, and I didn't find it acceptable that she was behaving younger than I was.  I didn't understand why it was so hard for her to say sorry, or why she would be angry for something that I did that really wasn't a big deal.  I would get annoyed at her for blaming me for her lack of sleep when she chose to stay up all night waiting for me to come home after a party, and I became more and more irritated at her irrational fears and found it insulting that she wouldn't trust me to choose my own friends.
   And here I am, 30 years into this life of mine, and each time I make a mistake I beg my children to forgive me for yelling, ignoring, or being mean to them because "Mommy's tired", or "Mommy's busy" or "Mommy's doing 'grown-up' work".  And I convince myself that they get it, and that they understand everything I'm going through and will excuse my poor choice of behavior, and that it won't affect them in a few years.  Slowly, gradually....I start to see it, the similarities that strike between me and my own mother, and I begin to see her differently - honestly, for the first time ever - as the Mother and person she really is.
   My Mom made the move from Korea to the States when she was (I think) 26.  I moved from Germany to the States when I was 28.  The difference is that I was coming back to where I was from, spoke the language, and I did it with more than $2000 in my pocket.  Before kids, my Mom earned a living by being a waitress while my Dad flipped burgers and they lived together in a trailer.  Before kids, I earned a living being paid to go to school while my kids' Dad did the same and we lived together as home owners of a cute little garden home at 23.  My Mom worked multiple jobs to fund my desires to continue on with gymnastics when I started competing.  I don't have an income and use my husband's to sign my kids up for gymnastics, dance, swimming, and soccer.  My Mom would take me to McDonald's on the way to the hospital to visit my Dad and not eat because she said she already ate at work.  I take my kids to McDonald's when I'm lazy and don't feel like cooking, and I eat a meal myself and sometimes with dessert.  My Mom would stay up all night before Halloween to sew my brother's and my costumes together, and do the same over Christmas to bake cookies for our teachers.  I would stay up all night finishing my favorite show because my kids' costumes were coming from eBay and their teachers got cookies from Safeway.  I cried when the toilet flush broke and Andy wasn't coming home for another 2 weeks.  My Mom cried because there was a flood in our basement and my Dad was never coming home.  I suffered from saying good-bye to my husband (who still visited) for the time he was away at grad school.  My Mom suffered from saying good-bye to her husband as she was burying him.  I was a single Mom for 18 months with 2 kids that weren't even school-aged.  My Mom has been a single Mom technically for 17 years with 2 teenagers (but 33 years theoretically since my brother was born).  I get my feelings hurt when my daughter tells me that she doesn't want to be my friend anymore.  I'm sure my mom got her feelings hurt when I blamed her for all the things that went wrong in my life.  There's just no comparison.

Megan's first birthday, 2010

My first birthday, 1983

   I always knew I wanted to be a mother one day - but I always thought I would raise boys.  It never crossed my mind that it would even be possible to have a girl.  As for having two of them?  I didn't think God would be so cruel.  My mother and I had this relationship that I thought automatically would send a message to the angels above who would immediately alert the Guy that it just wouldn't be a good idea.  But that's just how funny life can be.  I don't know if I would be the Mother I am and hope to be if I didn't have my girls.  If I'd had boys, I'd probably still blame my Mom because my situation would be "different."
   But looking at the facts - while things are vastly different (easier in my favor), they are very much the same.  Having and raising my daughters has forced me to really evaluate my own relationship with my mom.  As if having one wasn't enough, I'm given two opportunities to look at my choices when I am given a challenge and I realize that my mother would have done the same thing.  I realize my Mom wasn't late picking me up from dance because she was ignoring me - she was running errands or getting last-minute things done at work.  I realize my Mom wasn't purposefully missing my games or track meets - she had meetings to tend to and a job to do.  I realize my Mom wasn't unaware of my unhappiness - she was trying her best to let me fill in the voids with my own choices by giving me my space.
   In the end, we ladies are all our mother's daughters.  And my daughters are their mother's daughters. That's just the way it is.  At first I thought I was being punished for being a bad daughter by having a girl myself - twice.  But as time goes on, I realize all this is truly just a simple blessing.  There is nothing more a Mother wants than to see her children grow up happy and healthy.  And I think most Moms will agree that they don't expect their kids to "get" the sacrifices made to bring that happiness, but we can all hope that one day, they will.
   I won't be holding my breath anytime soon for my own children, but I can certainly say that I have a lot to be thankful for towards my Mom.  I get it, and I'm sorry it took so long, but I get it now.  But that doesn't free her from her Mom-duties.  I'm gonna need a lot of help in about 10 years when I've got 2 teenagers to deal with.

Misjudged

   Feeling like you’re being judged is about one of the worst in the world, and it’s one heck of a demon I’ve fought my entire life.  If I have any monsters in my closet, it’s that I have a fear of being judged – both for the bad and good.  I don’t care for people making assumptions on why I may be wrong or scrutinizing the ways on how I actually may have succeeded….it would be nice of the world to just appreciate people based on their effort and good intentions.

   However, we all know that’s not how it works and passing judgment and falling victim to it is included in our walks of life as interactive, social beings.  I got my first dose of it as young as I could remember – I was one of two Asian kids in my elementary school and from my very first day, that other boy and I were immediately “sittin’ in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”   Since then, and beyond the cruelness of young kids just poking fun just to feel better of themselves, I took the old cliché statement to heart: Don’t worry about what other people say, just worry about you.

   That might have helped me as a kid wearing sweatpants until junior high, it got me through some nasty comments about never wearing a dress to church as a pastor’s kid, and it sometimes still helps when I think I’m being judged for being the old lady of my class of all 20-somethings who has never gone out drinking to celebrate the end of a big exam.  But where it really stopped in its effectiveness is when I became a Mom. 

   Being Mom-judged can be healthy, but it can also hurt and when given at the wrong times, can pretty much knock you down to your knees.  It can make you feel proud when someone praises you for a job well done, but it can bring you to tears when you are criticized in a passive-aggressive way and can really make you question your abilities to parent.  See, the problem with being judged as a Mom is that as soon as you become one, everyone – including yourself – begins to pass judgment. 

   Four weeks into being new parents, my husband and I were criticized (albeit lightly) by our parents for “playing” too much with our baby girl in response to photos we sent them of her holding an X-box gaming console.  I can’t tell you how many stares I’ve received for nursing under a shawl in public (in Germany, of all places – where people do public naked baths at the community pool!), or how often strangers would ask me from the other side of a bathroom stall “Are you seriously pumping in this nasty bathroom”?  Then when I switched to formula as I began losing my milk supply, it turned into feeling like I was less of a mother because I could not make it a full 12 months on pure breastmilk.  “Ohh, well I breastfed all SIX of my children until they were one and a half.  You know they say breast milk is best for your child.”  I stared that lady down in the pediatrician’s office and wanted to scream at her, “Yeah, you’re right, lady! I want what’s WORSE for my kid.  You’re so much better of a mom than I could ever be because your boobs have far more endurance than mine!!” 

   As time passed on, the hits kept coming, and I got better at dodging them.  It’s easy when you know that you’re trying, and the outcome is just what it is.  Like when I do my girls’ hair all pretty and slick in the morning, only to drop them off at school to see that they pulled one-half of their pigtails out on the way there while rubbing that side of a head with a post-birthday party balloon lazily left in the car by Yours Truly.  I know what it looked like before, and it was a damn good hair-do, so to hell with it if you want to mess it all up and look weird all day at school.

   The times that it hurts is when you were completely unaware of your shortcomings, and when the “judger” truly didn’t mean to judge.  A few years ago when Kaylee was 2, her teacher pulled me to the side one day as I was picking her up and asked me if she was on a special diet.  I said, “No, what are you talking about?” and the teacher replied with, “Well, I am just asking because you pack her so little for lunch everyday.  And it’s the same thing everyday.  She’s always hungry and is always picking at other kids’ food.”

   It was at that time that I drove all the way home sobbing to myself, feeling like the absolute most horrible mother in the world, and worse than just me knowing it, all the teachers at her school thought so too.  Of course they thought that.  All she ever got was some chicken nuggets or a ham sandwich everyday.  All those other moms I later found out were stuffing their kids’ lunch boxes with all kinds of goodies – gummy bears, raisins, fruit cups.  I was damned to hell.

   I eventually got over it, and since 2009, I became slightly obsessive compulsive about how I feed my children.  I ordered a hugely overpriced lunchbox set from Pottery Barn Kids (embroidered with their name), and began menu planning.  In my mind, I had to set things right, and so I went to town planning all three meals and snacks in advance to make sure there were no repeats in an eight-day period.  It was insane, but I felt better.  I felt like I was finally a good Mommy.

   Lately, I got onto this kick of packing my kids some more “fun” lunches, Bento Box style.  I found some cute inspirations online and thought to myself how nice it would be for my girls to open their lunch pails to find an Owl Sandwich or Monkey Pancake awaiting their consumption.  It wasn’t really driven by any comments by any teachers – this time, the judging came from my own kid.  My oldest had confessed to me how much she hated staying at school so long, and asked me why I couldn’t be like the other Mommies who pick their kids up early.  “Why do I have to be there ALL day and go early, and everyone else gets to eat breakfast at home?  Why do I have to stay there and all my friends’ Mommies pick them up early?”

   So, again, I drove all the way to school in tears, filled with 100x more guilt than ever before.  I questioned my choice to go back to school, my decision to move the girls to a new school, and of course, my qualities as a parent.  Of course I knew dropping out of school wasn’t really an option - I’d already paid for two years of dental education which is equal to purchasing a nice house in the state of Texas.  So I set my mind on trying to make my kids’ lives more fun, more enjoyable.  Give them something to look forward to.  The only things I could think of at the time were A) more fun meals, and B) more activities outside of school.

   And so started my obsession with making animals out of lunch meat and punching Hello Kitty’s out of cheese and seaweed.  I began making some really fun meals for them and went to town with my creative side to see what new things I could conjure up.  I also spent countless hours at my county’s website researching sports and arts activities, and enrolled my daughters in dance and soccer.  They were already doing swimming and gymnastics, but in my mind, I could more for them.   I had to do more for them.  What I got back in return from kid-feedback was immensely gratifying.  My girls loved their meals and had so much to look forward to every day at their “boring” school for whatever activity we were going to do that day.

   The funny thing is, the judging doesn’t really stop, even when you think you’re doing A-OK.  Suddenly, I find myself paranoid and wonder if people think I’m being over-ambitious, or that I’m packing way too much in my kids’ days.  I wonder if my kids’ teachers think I’m just way too over-the-top with how many activities I have planned for them and that I’m going to burn them out.  I wonder if my friends think I’m too pushy with my kids because I’m teaching them piano, or if I’m being way too ridiculous with the amount of time I spend preparing their lunches.  I stop and think about how hard I’m trying to make this all work, and wonder how it can be possible that when you do so much just because you love your kids, that you can also be “wrong” for trying so hard? 

   I find myself judging a lot less now than I used to, and maybe that’s a good thing from where I used to be a few years ago when I was childless and utterly selfish.  I don’t hate on Moms who wear their pajamas to the grocery store, and definitely don’t criticize a tired Mom who tells her kid to shut up.  Sure, I can think of better choice words than those, but I understand where that’s coming from.  It’s hard, but I try not to judge a misbehaving kids’ parents for being negligent, or a sloppy kids’ parents for being uncaring.  When I see a Mom who is made-up well and super put together, I stop assuming she has six nannies and a household staff.  For every parent I see with their kid, I see something new these days – something between a mix of love and effort. 

I’m just working on not caring if others around me don’t necessarily see that in me, but I sure know that that’s what I’m made of.  I apologized to my kids the other day for yelling at them, saying that “Sometimes Mommy just….” and Kaylee finished for me: “I know you’re stressed, Momma.  It’s okay to yell, I know you don’t mean to.  Next time just try to talk about your feelings instead of screaming, ok?” 

  And that was that.  As long as my kids know I’m trying, I’ll be alright.   

    

Easy Believer

   It's certainly been a while since I've written my last blog entry, and I attribute that to the fact that life, albeit wonderful, can be so darn busy.  I don't know whoever said that this semester (2nd semester, 2nd year of dental school) was supposed to be "easy", but if I ever find that guy, we're going to have some words.  I began this semester with high hopes of this "easy" settling in nicely into my existence - I gave it a few weeks after the holidays had passed, then a few more, and then a few more, just waiting for it to come to my doorstep.  And then soon enough, we were into February.  Shockingly, I had not gotten any more sleep than usual and I found myself comfortably overwhelmed with all that school had to offer me, once again.  Then I realized, I had done it again - I drank the Kool-Aid of lies that seem to suck away at what's left of an optimistic soul.
   I have no one to blame but myself - I do this time and time again, and it's a huge fault of mine.  When things get rough, I literally believe what I want to believe; and whenever I find someone who can confirm it, I convince myself that it MUST be true and am utterly shocked when I find out it's not.  Like the time some lady at the Commissary saw me struggling with my then-18 month old Kaylee, hugely pregnant and trying to load up groceries with one arm while holding my daughter in a choke hold with the other.  "Don't worry, dear, the second one is so much easier.  What's one more when you already have one at home?  You won't even realize you have two children - it's actually easier with two because they'll play with each other!"
   LIE.  I can still remember her face and if I ever see her again, I'm going to call her out on the big fat lie that led me on for years after that day.  I know I believed her for some reason in the past, and I still believed it up to about a few months ago when I just sat there - sleepless - and rationally thought about what she had said.  No, life is not easier when you add additional kids to your family.  I'm here to tell you that.  There is no way that logistically, carrying diapers, wipes, pull-ups, AND a change of clothes is easier than just one set.  It is not at all simpler to have one child wake up screaming at night, only for you to now have to put TWO kids back to bed instead of just one.  While it is true that the girls play nicely at times, when they fight, there is no referee in any professional sport in this country that can handle two sisters under the age of 4 going at it tooth and nail (and hair).  There is absolutely nothing easier about having more people to take care of - why on earth didn't I think of that before??


   The other day one of my faculty at my school sat down next to me and told me, "You know, at the start of this (this = bootcamp = once a week practice sessions for fixed prosthodontics), you were certainly not the best at this stuff."  And I nodded at him, because I knew that was the truth, and I was about to bet my life on what he was about to say next.  "And you know what?  You're still not really the best."  ...Aaaannd I would have lost my life had I made that bet.  I most definitely did not see that one coming.  I don't know what possessed him to say that, but he continued on with, "But you are a really hard worker, and I'll tell you something.  Any deficiency in talent can ALWAYS be made up with hard work."
   I nodded again, and I believed him.  Yeah, I told myself....you're awesome, Grace.  You're such a hard worker and really, that's all it matters.  Dr. B knows that you work your butt off and I'm sure if I work really, really hard, one day it will come full circle and man will I be successful!"
   So I went home that day and took it all in as a compliment.  I don't usually get those so I was pretty satisfied with myself.  But the next day, at around 5:15am after "oversleeping" and realizing I wasn't going to get a chance to study in the morning for my exam, I thought to myself about how nice it would be to just be smart and not have to go over things again, and again, and again, and be confident that I could walk into an exam and know that I could pass.  Then it hit me, and I realized I had fallen for it again....and I was so angry with myself.  I had been told yet another lie and I failed to see it - again.
   I mean, c'mon.  My mom has been telling me that my whole life - "Oh, you're such a hard worker!" but really, it just means, "You try so hard and you just don't get it!"  If the hard work actually led to somewhere substantial, you would never be referred to as a "hard worker" - you'd just...be.  Michael Jordan was not the best basketball player in the world because of his "hard work" - he just was the best.  Mariah Carey isn't known for how much she slaves away at her singing career - she is just simply one of the greatest.  Of course they all work hard and bust their chops daily to be where they are, but my point is, no one who is truly GREAT at what he does is known for his hard work.  Deficiency in talent can be made up with hard work?  Seriously?? Just read that sentence again and tell me if it makes any sense.  While I do believe that deficiency at a skill may be made up with hard work, he failed to mention that if you have to put in hard work, you'll be deficient elsewhere - like time.  Time to sleep, time with family, time to not be working hard at whatever it is you're trying to make up for.  It's a horrible way to justify why one just may not have the knack for something.  If I just had the brains, I could sleep in till 6 every morning and not have to study as hard as the straight-A kid a few chairs down.  If I had the skills, I wouldn't have to buy new practice "teeth" every week to prepare for a competency exam and instead save myself $40.  What I do believe in is that you can't go wrong by working hard - but you can go wrong thinking that you'll be on even grounds with someone who just "has it" just because you worked hard.  You'll just be set up for disappointment.
   I am not trying to be a pessimist by the way - I just find it funny that I can be so gullible at times when I just need something to believe in.  Like the time I really wanted to treat Andy to something special our senior year at West Point, so when I received a call that I had "won" a cruise, I paid $400 over the phone to some bogus company to "book" my timeshare of a vacation.  Or the time that I got a compliment on a hair scrunchy I made for the girls so I went out and bought 16 yards of fabric to make new curtains for the kitchen, not realizing I had no idea what I was doing (they are still not completed.)  When it comes to biting on a fishhook - I truly have that gift.


   In the end, I failed myself by believing that things were going to get easier.  That's life, though, and I know that.  I guess when things are hard, and almost too hard, I have a way of convincing myself it will turn up.  But the truth is, it doesn't - and it shouldn't.  If life weren't a challenge, then it'd be too boring.  I know life gets harder as kids get older - my job as Mommy is still just warming up.  I know in the back of my mind that chicken nuggets and mac n' cheese dinners are not going to last much longer, and that the sand my kid threw in someone's face is just a joke compared to what's to come in the future.  I know realistically that my failing exam grade is really just pebbles compared to the rocks I'll face in true practice if I fail to correctly diagnose an illness, and I know that the annoyance of my husband forgetting to gas up my car pales in comparison to the day I actually have to change a tire.
   Instead of thinking things should get easier, I think I'll take a minute now to embrace the fact that it won't.  What will change, though, is my attitude, and knowing - and being ok with - that idea that any challenge is a good thing.  Hard work is good because it makes you appreciate the talents you do have in other areas.  Having crazy kids now will make me appreciate just how precious they are when they become reckless teenagers.  My struggles in dental school will be something to laugh at when I actually "get it" in a few years when I get out and can comfortably work on a patient.  
   At the end of the day, I can pat myself on the back for doing the best I can despite whatever challenges come up that day.  No matter how small they may seem, it's still something I could overcome.  When the kids are screaming, fighting, and crying, while I'm cooking, studying, and cleaning, I can at least say with confidence that the sun will still come up the next day - and how I choose to greet the new morning is all on me.  I can either fake-believe that this day will be magically easier than the day before, or I can look the sun straight on through my yogurt-smudged sunglasses and say: "Bring it."

Haircut Oopsie Daisy!

I'm starting to think she knew what the outcome would be.

   You can probably guess from the title of this post where this is headed.  Megan, going on two and a half years old, had yet to have a haircut in her little life and was starting to look like the neighborhood scraggly kid.  She was always pulling out her clips, leaving me sometimes wondering if I was talking to the back of her head when her hair would sweep over her face.  So we decided this past weekend to take the girls to Walmart Family Hair Salon to get a little trim, and Megan graciously volunteered to go first, bless her heart.

   Don't be fooled by the fact that the salon was in Walmart.  There was nothing wrong with the stylist and she quickly gained my trust as soon as she started parting Meg's hair and pinning them up on her head, carefully cutting the wee strands in between her two fingers.  In my mind, I didn't think all that hassle was really necessary because Megan's hair has less volume and thickness than a Barbie doll's, but the lady was doing a thorough job and I appreciated it. 

   The problem then came when, at the very end, the stylist asked, "Bangs?" and Andy replied, "Sure" at the same time I said, "Nope."  We turned to look at each other, and the lady said, "Well if you say her hair is always in her face..." and Andy was quick to say, "Yeah, hon, that's true. She's always taking her hair things out anyways.  It'll be easier."  I didn't want to argue in front of her and especially in front of the girls, so I just shrugged and shook my head and said, "Do whatever."

   Looking back now, I wish I had fought harder.  In fact, I should have fought harder.  I'm embarrassed to say I let this happen.  I don't know why I backed off so easily - and I certainly hope it doesn't signify some sign of weakness in my mothering skills.  But this was certainly an accident, and from this point on, I vow I will never let my husband be the judge of my daughters' future hairstyles.

   To truly appreciate what my big problem is before I reveal the "after" shots, one must understand that an Asian girl with bangs with medium shoulder-length hair will inevitably look like the stereotypical Chinese schoolgirl.  (Not that there is anything wrong with the Chinese, or with being a schoolgirl.) It's a fact, and there are no exceptions.  When I was 8, I asked my mom for bangs and later suffered the consequences when I got spanked by my dad for looking "Chinese." (translation: not Korean).  When Kaylee was 10 months old, Andy gave her bangs and it was so bad I considered feeding her scalp some CHIA-pet food to make it grow out.  And now, it's happened again.  

   Somebody give my kid a plaid jumper with a Peter Pan shirt, knee high socks, and a Hello Kitty backpack and she'd sure be mistaken as a recent immigrant to the U.S. looking for more diversity to her math and statistics curriculum.  The thing that is just not funny at this point is that come January, the girls are starting a new school - and it happens to be a private one. Their uniforms are burgundy and navy plaid, and they most definitely have Hello Kitty backpacks.  Oh my word.

   What's worse is that for some reason, these bangs make my sweet little Megan look like the brattiest little rascal when she's in the middle of a fit.  In fact, I'm pretty sure every TV show or animated film with a bratty kid always has them featured with bangs.  I'm not saying that all kids with bangs are brats...just that all bratty kids have bangs.  And this is not my imagination or a mere exaggeration.  Since her haircut, Megan has risen to the calling and officially became filled with 'tude and sass.  

   To prove my point, Megan has never thrown a tantrum in a public setting all throughout her toddler times.  She's now practically a preschooler, and with these new bangs I guess she decided she needed to live up to the expectation.  So there she was, in the middle of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., in the midst of the busiest tourist times of the year....throwing one of the biggest tantrums of her life right there by the remains of Lucy the Neanderthal.  For those who know my darling little girl, you might ask, "what could have possibly triggered little Megan to throw such a big tantrum?"  It might have been when I told her to take her hands off the caveman's penis and scrotal sac while singing songs about carrots and tomatoes.

   In the past, any of her outbursts always drew the "awww, the poor little girl" looks from strangers.  But this time, it was different.  It was more like, "Oh my goodness.  Who raised this child?!"  And I believe and will always believe this change in perception is solely to be blamed on the presence of her bangs.  I stood around the corner for 8 minutes watching my child kick and scream while throwing off her boots, finally deciding to intervene when she started shedding her socks in fear that her pants would be next.  4 tantrums and 30 minutes later, we said bye-bye to the museum and promised next time we'll come again for her fourth grade field trip.

Tantrum at the Museum.  See how the bangs make it so much worse?

   So yeah, you can say this is a huge Whoopsie on me.  It's been about a week and still when I look at her, I just want to beg for her forgiveness.  The good thing is that Megan's at the age where she doesn't really care too much, and I'll be ready for the blow again in 10 years when she looks back at these photos and blames me for ruining her baby pictures.  I'm prepared to show her my-equally horrible 2-year old photo sportin' a bowl haircut that lasted till I was 5.  And following my parents' guilt-tripping methods of teaching the values of appreciation, I plan on telling her: "When I was your age I didn't have hairspray and gel to fix the hair problem. Quit whining."

   But just as my parents knew they had shoes to wear while walking 10 miles in the snow to school....I'll always know in my heart that I had hairspray as a child.  (And that my future teenage daughter has every right to blame me for this one.)

   

Who's the Smarty Pants Now?

   By the time I was 10 years old, I'd already decided that I had the whole world figured out and it was time for me to be an adult.  And I distinctly remember how much I hated being treated like a child, when my opinion never mattered and nobody ever gave me credit for knowing anything.  As I grew older, I found that the more knowledge I pretended to have, the more people took me seriously, and the better I got at it, the more I convinced myself that yes, I did indeed have the world figured out.   
   The funny thing is - being a grown-up is not much different than being 10 - you come to a point when you think you know everything there is to know and are just waiting to impart this knowledge and wisdom upon the next generation.  And as we get older, we all learn that you need that level of confidence to land a job and have people trust that you know what you're doing, and we are told it's better to be confident than to sell yourself short if you want to succeed.  After several years of practice, you really start to believe that you know it all, and then one day you wake up and realize that you're pretty much a rockstar.
   For me, this sense of self-assurance didn't come naturally, but I'd like to credit my West Point experience for practically forcing the "faking-the-confidence-funk" down my throat for 4 years.  I learned quickly that if you act like you know what's going on, you've already solved half the problem and you just bought yourself a little extra time to really figure it out.  Over the six years of my time in the Army, I learned some of the best life skills I'll use for the rest of my life (time management is one of them, briefing powerpoints is not).  All that "leadership" training was put to good use as I discovered odd ways to manipulate my children to help with household chores and to make them believe that their mom is the boss of all mankind.  For once in my life, I wasn't all too stressed.  My grades were steady, my mood was even, the girls were happy and consistently fed, and I thought that finally, at age almost-30, I've got myself together.
   The truth is (and this came to me overnight) - I don't have it figured it out at all.  In fact, with all my newfound multi-tasking skills, I've freed myself up with all this extra "time", which, of course, I choose to spend with my children.  And the more time I spend with my kids, the more I realize I have a whole lot left to learn.  I learned by just listening to them, you gain insight into how their little minds think, and all those questions that I used to just push aside when times were just too busy, are actually very challenging and really difficult to answer.  I see that I never gave them enough credit for thinking so much - questioning everything and anything under the sun - and I forgot what that was like to walk around all day just wondering how things work instead of assuming you already knew the answer.


   A little while ago Kaylee asked me what the wires and poles that were lining the streets were for, and I explained that power lines help all the houses get power and telephone lines let us talk on the phone.  Her response had me laughing for days: "Oh, I thought it was just a place for the birds to sit so they don't get run over by the cars."
   It actually is a pretty logical way of thinking - the birds must get tired and need a place to rest during their travels, so someone must have built those wires so they can just stop when they need to and not lose their spot on the road that they are following to their destination.  Cars follow the roads to get to places, so birds must do the same thing from the sky, right?  And if drivers get tired, they can just pull over and stop, but if birds did that on the ground, they'd certainly get run over.  Makes perfect sense.
   Then just yesterday on the ride home from their school she asked me how she would get water from the giant water tower that is located right outside her school building.  She said the next time I forgot to pack to her water bottle, that she'd be fine because she'd just go get some from the water tower.  I told her that piping underground helps get water to all the buildings, and that she could probably just get water from the fountain instead.  Her response?  "That would probably be better. Wow, you're so smart, Momma.  You know everything."
   I laughed on the outside but really, I had to just shake my head while thinking to myself that it's just so the opposite.  When was the last time I thought about how the birds actually know where they're going or what they do to get a break, or how water actually does make it from a huge tower to my sink faucet?  When did I stop thinking and wondering about things, and when did I get too busy to just ponder about the countless wonders of this world?  When did my 4 year old get so smart, and how awesome is it that her little mind is so active that everything she sees is just what it is: a pure wonder?
   In my busy day-to-day life I guess I just failed to stop and look around at all that is just amazing about the world we live in.  When you spare a few minutes and just take it all in, you realize just how big everything else is and how much room there is left for growth, no matter what age.  Being a grown-up just means to be somewhat responsible, but it doesn't mean you have to have it all figured out.  A child can remind us to think, to use our minds and our imagination. A child can challenge us to put aside what we already have learned from the books and come up with reasons to explain the unexplainable. A child can make us appreciate all those things we take for granted.
   I am realizing now that to see the world through the eyes of a child is one of the greatest things about being a parent.  Innocence, purity, and simplicity.  The only thing better is, well, seeing your child through the eyes of the world.  A little human being with a soul so pure and a spirit so free - and a mind beyond limits. 
   Just when I thought I knew it all, leave it up to my kid to prove me otherwise.  But it's ok, she thinks I'm a genius...and I won't mess with that.

Tilapia Fables

   Faculty at school always told me that as soon as you mention that you are a dentist, you will receive a bunch of unsolicited questions from random people about their teeth.  I heard of people being asked to check out someone’s mouth at dinner parties, at the movies, in the parking lot of Sam’s Club.  The thing is, I never found myself in these situations, like, ever.  So I set out one day to think about why that was, and I realized it was because I never really put it out there that I actually know anything about anything when I’m around people.  For such a long time, I had this complex of being below par compared to my 23-year old science-robot peers at school that I really didn’t think I knew a thing about oral health beyond brushing and flossing.  I still don't think I do.

   The truth is, I sometimes really hate being a student…at least from a social standpoint.  I once used to have a job, I had people who worked for me, and I used to be THE boss.  I might have looked younger than my age (actually that was more of Andy’s problem) but people could gauge my experience level just by the rank I wore on my uniform.  Aside from the time of being a brand new 2LT in the Army, I never felt like I had anything to prove.  However, I just hate telling people I’m a student…I know it’s not fully true but it feels substandard.  Especially since I’m years older than my fellow classmates, it’s especially hard to accept that there are faculty younger than me.

   What I despise the most is when I meet parents of other kids at the girls' school, soccer, gymnastics, or wherever.  I know it’s half paranoia, but sometimes I wonder if people think I’m not “established” or “stable” because I’m a full time student without a job.  I wonder if they think I was a teen mom or something and had my kids real young and just kept on chugging along with school, or if they question what the heck I was doing in between undergrad and dental school and wasting all that time in between.  I wonder if stay-at-home moms judge me for leaving the Army to spend more time with my kids only to "ditch" them again in the selfish pursuit of a degree, and I have a serious fear that my own guilt permeates in the thoughts of others.  Either way, it’s very unconventional to see a kid with a parent who uses a student ID and I can’t help but feel lame when I have to explain myself.  Just the other day I was  unpacking lunchboxes into Megan’s cubby when another parent in scrubs asked me, “I have to ask, are you a physician?  Because I’m a surgeon and I was curious where you work” and I had to reply with, “Oh, no...still a student.  Dental school.  Yeah…I wear scrubs because I drip wax all over my clothes.  Yeah…”  And then the conversation died off and then Doctor Superstar Dad got into his doctor car and drove to his doctor job.  Or when the girls’ school lost power and I had to pick them up, all these other parents were all busy-busy on their phones letting their clients, bosses, and secretaries know that they’ll be out for a minute while they find alternate child care.  The receptionist said to me, “Oh, I’m sorry Mrs. Chung, it must’ve been hard for you to skip out today.”  To which I replied, “Nope, not really.  They record lectures online now, you know.  But maybe I can get a note from you so I can give it to my teacher to explain why I was absent today??"  There goes my perfect attendance star for the year.

   So I challenged myself one day to just see what it’s like.  What it’s like to feel smart, to feel established, to feel credible.  Not necessarily to lie, but just, you know, not mention the whole school thing, and see how differently, if at all, people treat me.  Maybe I’ll realize it’s really all in my head afterall. 

   I was in Safeway at the fish and deli section and had just asked for two pieces of the “on sale” tilapia.  The lady behind the dome-shaped glass counter asked me which hospital I worked in, to which I instinctively replied, “Oh, I don’t work in a hospital”…then I remembered my plan and said instead, “I’m in dentistry in Baltimore.”  And she looked at me with an eyebrow raised and said, “oh, like a dentist?”

   As soon as I nodded, it happened.  The whole thing was so fast I still don’t know where it came from.  But suddenly, as soon as she was finished wrapping the fish in parchment paper, she dropped the tilapia on the counter, used the same gloved hand to pull her cheek away from her lips, and used her other (yes, also gloved) hand to pull out a partial denture of her upper teeth exposing a very gummy smile.  Awesome.

   She left my fish just hanging out on the countertop while she proceeded to point out some crack I couldn’t see and asked me my opinion about it.  She told me about how it first happened, how she lost a bunch of her teeth growing up and then how she had missed chewing with her back teeth, and how much her life changed with the addition of this denture.  But now it was hurting the roof of her mouth and she thinks this crack has something to do with it, and would I be so kind to look at it? I wasn’t really listening to half the things she was telling me because I just couldn’t believe that she seriously removed her nasty denture in front of all these customers, and moreover, while I know I was nodding my head, my eyes kept on gravitating to the fish that just helplessly lay on the countertop.  I told her I couldn’t really see what she was pointing to because of the lighting, which I regretted saying as soon as it came out of my mouth because of course she invited me to the back.

   Luckily I had the sense to decline the offer and I think I said something about taking it to her dentist, because the guy who made it probably knows best.  She thanked me, and with her still-gloved hand, put the denture back in her mouth, and with that same hand, reached down for my tilapia.  I intercepted fast enough to not let her gloved hand touch my fish by asking her when the next batch of squash was coming out, and she had to go use the phone in the back to call and ask the Produce Section.  By the time she came back, I got another guy working there to hand me my long-awaited tilapia, and I thanked the lady for the 411 on the squash and quickly left that section. 

   I still haven’t gone back - it's been 2 weeks.

   So I realize now that I really don’t care to have that happen to me again, and maybe it’s not so bad afterall to just say I’m a student and suck up whatever stigma that is associated with it.  So I decided from that point on, I'd just tell people the truth: Yes, I'm an old lady with kids and a student loan.  Maybe one day I'll be happy to brag about my D.D.S., but for now I think I'll hunker down and take my pride elsewhere.  Almost losing your fresh fish to dentures contamination can really humble a gal, ya know.

My Accidental Success

   Two years ago from today marks a very significant day in my life. On December 1, 2009, I received my acceptance letter (or email, rather) into dental school. There are always great moments in life when you can really be proud of yourself for accomplishing goals that you set knowing that if you work really hard, you can do it. Then there are those other times when you just kind of throw your name into the hat wishing for the best, but you know the odds are way against you. (When I say “odds” I seriously mean that statistically, you should have failed.) These are the moments when too many outside factors are involved than just your sheer effort alone and so you truly expect failure as the outcome (and you make yourself feel better by saying how much it was out of your hands.) And for the lucky few, sometimes…you just get it…just like that. This is what I like to refer to as “Accidental Success” (or A.S. for short).

The first situation that I described is something that, with the slightest inclination of ambition, most people would understand. Simple feedback loop where working hard leads to better results.

Effort Reward Loop

 It's my guess that the second situation I described doesn’t happen often for most people. Its positive result simply cannot be credited to the effort-ee when so many obstacles are just thrown in the equation. However, the result still remarkably comes out in one's favor. For example:

   These are the times when you calculate all that is against you, you clearly should fail...but for some reason, you still end up on top. You are lucky if this happens to you. You are REALLY lucky when this happens more than once. The Big Guy upstairs was certainly looking out for me, because in my own life, I can narrow it down to a total of 3 Accidental Successes.

   The first time this happened was at my Fifth Grade Dance. During the middle of the event, the DJ set up a Nerf basketball hoop and asked for the girls and guys to each pick a member of their gender to try to shoot the ball into the net from a ridiculously far distance. I don’t know why but the girls pushed me to the front and somehow I was selected to represent the gals, while the future highschool football star and senior homecoming king stood in for the guys. It might have only been 30 ft or so, but to a 4’10”girl it was like making a basket from across a major highway. The boy shot and missed, and then it was my turn. I crossed my toes inside my Reebok sneakers as I threw the foam ball into the air. I don’t know how, or why, but that ball swished through the net and suddenly I was overwhelmed with 30 girls screaming and jumping up and down around me. (Feel free to imagine this with all the flashing lights and music to enhance the dramatic effect.) The DJ even screamed at me, “How did you DO that?!? That’s IMPOSSIBLE!” May sound stupid to you, but it was a glorious moment for me. It might have been an A.S. but I didn’t care. I was the new girl, and I just got cool.

Me right before 5th grade; clearly need the cool points.

   My second A.S. occurred in October of 2008 during the Expert Field Medical Badge (EFMB for short) event while I was still in the Army. This coveted badge is considered “one of the most difficult and prestigious Army skill badges to earn” (according to Wiki) with a pass rate of 15.3% in that year. I had always wanted to give it a shot before hanging up the uniform for good, and also just needed a vacay from my desk job. I was extremely rusty in all my Soldier skills and really, I didn’t expect much from myself. The only person I knew to get the badge the first go-around was Andy, but that’s just because he’s a bad ass who I’d go to war with any day (oh wait, I did.) Anyway, over the course of the 11 days, the major task I just knew I’d fail was Land Navigation, a “skill” I always had to remediate every time I was tested in the Army since my days at West Point. So there I was, setting out in the dark with a topographical map, compass, protractor, pencil, and a flashlight – with four hours to find 3 out of 4 points scattered randomly over a 5000m course. Within 40 minutes, I was completely lost in the woods and even struggled to get back to my start point. I tried 3 or 4 times to get that first point, and then gave up and tried for another 1.5 hours to get the second one. Finally, with about an hour remaining and zero points, I grabbed a leftover MRE brownie out of my pack, found a rock near an intersection of the dirt roads, and sat down. As I gazed up into the starry night through an opening in the trees, I thought about how humiliating it would be to head back with no points. I thought about how I would tell Andy I failed, and how I would have to go back to my unit and explain to my Soldiers that it was “just a really tough course.” I looked at my watch and saw that I had 50 minutes left, and it was way too early to turn in and decided I needed to at least fail with one point. So, I plotted my 4^th set of coordinates on my map, which was about 1500m away and the one I was planning on skipping, shot an azimuth with my compass, and just started walking. When I finished counting my steps and looked up, turned on my flashlight, I saw the glimmer of the orange triangle just a few feet ahead. I still remember the feeling of shock and disbelief, and something just switched inside me. I got this glimmer of hope that came out of nowhere, and took about 20 seconds to analyze the situation. I had about thirty minutes left to cover about a mile and a half, find 2 more points and my endpoint and turn in my card. With my previous success rate and amount of remaining time, anyone could see I would need nothing short of a miracle to get through this. All I remember from that very moment is that I tied my sack really tight so my other snacks wouldn’t fall out, said a short prayer, and ran.

   That night, with literally 2 minutes remaining, I completed the first task of 60+ more and ultimately was awarded the EFMB a few days later. Am I proud? Sure. But really, I’m just grateful. Try and tell me that was not an A.S.

Last task for the badge: 12 mile road march with this on your back.

 And then there was that day two years ago on Dec. 1^st, a day I will always remember as being the ultimate life changer to date. I had already applied once (and got rejected) the year before so I didn’t have much expectation to get in, but I still had a flicker of hope in me for the sheer fact that I had been trying so darn hard. From the first time I enrolled in Bio 101 online in 2005, I had since then taken 5 more prerequisite courses, spent countless hours studying for the DAT and traveled to the States four times to take 2 of those exams and to attend interviews. Not to mention the thousands of dollars. By the end, I just wanted my efforts to be validated more than anything else but I knew statistically, I was a dud.

   I still wonder sometimes how I got into this school….supposedly one of the most prestigious dental schools in the nation, the first dental school established in the world, the most technologically advanced school in existence, blah blah blah. My DAT scores were embarrassingly lower than the national average, my GPA definitely well below my peers, I was a geography undergrad major, and I seriously took online classes to meet all the requirements. The only thing I had going for me was my military experience completely unrelated to dentistry, which I most definitely threw in there at some point during my interview when I sensed a downward turn.

“So Ms. Chung, explain to me these ‘distance’ and ‘independent’ courses that you seemingly enrolled in at this one university I have never heard of in West Virginia.”
"Well I had to take online courses because I was deployed to Iraq, you know, fighting for the liberty and freedom of all Americans…and,<ehem> yours.”

So I may have guilt-tripped my way into dental school, but this A.S. is one I will never argue with. I don’t know why they took me, but hey, I got in, I traded my Army Camouflage for pretty purple scrubs, and heck, I’m gonna be a dentist one day.

I remember holding onto Andy’ shoulders and jumping up and down in a circle as an almost-reflexive reaction to getting my acceptance letter, grinning from ear to ear for about a week, and feeling like I was on top of the world.

Dental School Acceptance

 Nobody ever told me that you get knocked off that mountain as soon as you start dental school, but that’s another story for another time. But for now, for every December 1^st that rolls around, I have the great reminder that accident or not, me being where I am is still some form of a success. And I can be happy about that.