Bye, Neighbs

Like most of my posts so far, this one has nothing to do with Korea, but earlier I said I needed to dedicate at least one post to my neighbors/neighborhood. Saturday night we had a gathering at our apartment to say goodbye to as many of our neighbor friends that could come. Once everyone had arrived, I realized that maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all. Not because it was so crowded, not because of all the kids running crazy, not because of the toys, food, and, yes, paint, all over the place but precisely for all of those reasons. I am going to miss this SO much and it made me pretty sad. The sadness didn't stay long though because I was having such a great time. I love a full house, I love the kids running around and its the only time that I could care less about how messy it gets. We have the BEST neighbors and as long as everyone is gathered and having fun, I can deal with the stains and disarray later. I have met more down-to-earth, cool, generous, wonderful people in 4 blocks than I have met in the last 8 years combined. That's not to say I don't love my other friends around the country and world, but I never expected to meet such a high concentration of terrific people in one year and in such a small area.

Less than half of the neighbors I invited were able to come :(

I can only imagine how fun/crazy it would have been if everyone came!

What's left of Toby's room (its not her fault)

It all started at the park. Oh that park! The park in my neighborhood is hidden in a corner and for the most part, the only people who go there also live here, so you end up seeing the same people all the time. I took Toby there every single day at least once, if not twice, so it didn't take long before we met lots of kids and parents. There must be something about the transitory nature of the D.C. area, and the fact that no one is actually from here, because everyone is so nice and eager to make friends. I went to the same park everyday in Pasadena and hardly anyone ever spoke to each other! But here, our visits to the park turned into hours, entire afternoons, parties, picnics, birthdays and wonderful friendships for Tobin and our family.

Easter Egg Hunt at the park

Just a few folks out for a summer picnic

Stalking Tobin's birthday cake

Chasing Tobin with a water balloon at another park picnic

In the "glory days" from spring through fall, we would get out to the park around 9:30 and then again around 4:00. Toby would always get there before me because he was on his bike. While I was still half a block away I could hear the heart-warming calls of parents and his (several) 2- and 3-year old friends and admirers who were excited to see him. I have to say, Toby was kind of the big man on campus at this park. Quite the popular one with girls and boys. "Toby!" "Tobeeeeeeee!" "TOBAYYY!" they would squeal. One little doll called him "Tony" for the longest time. Jonah and I would eventually get there and wave at all the other moms, dads and nannies. It was like the Cheers Bar. Everyone knew our name and as long as someone else was there we were guaranteed a good time and a long stay. At one point Toby's circle of friends grew to about 12 to 15 kids. At any given time, five or six of them would run in a pack and play HARD - loosely monitored and totally unstructured. There was only one way out and it was on the opposite end so they were free to climb the dirt hill and make "campfires" and "pizzas" and run around on the large grass area. Do you how freeing it is to know that your child is playing in a huge, but enclosed, area with friends while you've been chatting with other adults and then suddenly realize that 10 minutes have gone by and you haven't even noticed your child? I knew he was fine so I was able to let my guard down and just let him and myself have fun! We looked out for each other's kids. My circle of friends also grew and 4:00-6:00 at the park turned into Social Hour. It was fantastic! All we were missing were belly bar tables and a DJ. 

Brothers and sisters

Jonah hangin' with his best pal 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are too many names to name, but I think you know who you are. I appreciate you for your friendship, easiness, comedy, generosity and help raising my boys in our little village. I really love you all and I'll miss not being at the get-togethers in 2013. You're making it really hard to leave! XOXO

Some of my lovely ladies. I wish we had a picture with everyone!

12 Days

Happy New Year, everyone! 2013 is here which means we leave in TWELVE days to start our new life in SoKo. Twelve days, y'all. My brain is still rejecting the whole thing. I can't process the impending changes! It doesn't help that I'm coming down from a fun, week-long Christmas visit with my parents. Its so great seeing them with the boys, playing, hugging and laughing. I feel sorry for all of them that we can't get together on a more regular basis. I wish I could get more excited about this move for Marc's sake, for the boys' and for my own sake. I am very content with our life here and now we have to change it all up! I kind of feel like I did as a kid when my mom made me practice piano. Practicing piano is a good, worthwhile, life-enhancing endeavor...but I just wanted to play outside with my friends. I already feel lonely!

I know the majority of the way I feel is my own attitude problem. What I should do is focus on the positive things and appreciate this opportunity for what it is and where it will take us, but doing that goes against my true nature, which, as everyone knows, is a hard thing to fight against. I'm not a sparkly, bright-eyed, positive thinker. My "way" is to have low expectations and then hope to be proven wrong. Nice, huh? It usually works out, but I've also learned enough from life that it's not always going to, so its best not to assume everything is going to be peachy. Low expectations means less chance for disappointment, right? I can't imagine loving it there or making any really great friends or feeling at home there. With so many unknowns its hard to imagine anything at all, which is quite unsettling. But every single person I've talked to who has been to Korea or knows someone who lived there has only wonderful things to say about it. It's clean, the people are wonderful, the food is cheap and amazing, we won't want to leave, it's beautiful, etc, etc. But until I know that for myself and experience it, I will feel apprehensive about the whole thing. It's been that way for everyone else but how do I know it will be that way for me? All I can really do right now is wonder, hope, TRY to think positively and try to settle these butterflies in my stomach. I hope I don't have to try too hard to make myself like it if I really don't. Guhhhh...I'm such a downer! Boo, me.


For now I'll try to focus on the fun Christmas (except for the flu part) we had with my parents. 

Giggling with Nonny

A totally Spider-Man Christmas for Toby

He's so proud of himself

Happy for Christmas dinner!

Sad the rest of us are in bed or the bathroom with the Xmas Flu of 2012

Marc has three more days of work here and then the packing/moving debacle begins. Thankfully, we don't have to do any heavy-lifting this time. We just have to pack our luggage and separate the items we want to have sent to us in a few weeks from the 
household items/car that will be shipped on a boat in several weeks. We'll stay in a hotel for a few nights, soak up a few more hours in the homeland, then get ready for a loooooong flight with the boys. After my last solo five-hour flight with the boys I made a mental note never to travel with Jonah again. That's not working out so well, but at least this time Marc will be with me and he'll have his own seat! That boy!

You don't want to be on a plane with this kid. Trust me.

December Miscellany

FA LA LA LA LA! - I am SO excited about Christmas this year! Maybe because it feels like our last hurrah before we leave. It feels really good, and fitting, that we get to celebrate a special holiday with family and then start a fresh new year...in SoKo!  We decked our halls (such as they are) right after Thanksgiving and I make sure to keep the twinkle lights on at all times. I'm still not tired of the Christmas songs I play on Pandora at home and on the radio in the car day in and day out. We even made (well, assembled) a gingerbread house and made cute little baked dough ornaments. I'm guzzling peppermint cocoa and eggnog lattes every chance I get like a holly jolly Christmas Camel! I LOVE wrapping gifts, too. I could just spend the entire day wrapping presents and pouring eggnog down my throat with a funnel. If I hear Santa, Baby one more time...I'll sing along then, too. All we need is some snow on the ground, but I'm thinkin' that may not happen this year. Oh well! No snow isn't going to break this girl's Christmas cheer!

Our sweet little Jonah-proof tree

                                                  
Toby had his last day of preschool (in America, anyway) last Thursday. I was going to say other stuff about it and how it's so sad for me, but with the recent events in the news it feels very petty to complain about anything. It was a precious school. I loved his teachers, the other parents and all the other kiddies. I'm disappointed he can't go there anymore but I'm so happy he had the experience even for three months. He doesn't seem to care one way or another! I have a lot to learn from my wise, live-for-each-day four-year old.

Toby's Blue Class

It was official before but now its really official because Marc finally got his "orders". Now we can make travel and moving arrangements. Even with all that its still surreal to me.  I don't feel like we're going anywhere!  I better snap out of this denial-funk thing that
I'm in or this move is really going to take its toll on me. One of the bonuses of moving around is that I feel like I notice my surroundings more than I'm assuming other people probably do because I know I can't take it for granted. In the last several weeks I've noticed each tree and house on the walk to school because I'm not going to walk that way anymore. I really look at the streets and storefronts. I cherish each time Toby plays with a friend because we'll only see that person a few more times. I try to absorb everything around me and appreciate it because this chapter of my life is closing soon. I have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to be excited about but it's still hard when a really good thing comes to an end. A lot of people and places will be missed!

On another note, Jonah got his first real haircut, not counting his baby-mullet that I chopped off several months ago. Putting the apron on was fun but as soon as the barber started cutting the scene quickly got ugly. Poor baby!

Adorable little head

Still happy

Mean Mommy

Whine without the cheese

I really don't want this blog to be about me whining, but maybe just for this post. And probably a few more later on. Ok, who am I kidding? But the whole reason I'm writing this blog is to express my feelings whether or not anyone else reads it. So there. 

I feel like my head is going to explode. Last Friday, while wrangling my boys and two other kiddies to the park, I somehow (perhaps it was the squirming baby, the toddler who bites everyone, the other toddler who steals stranger's snacks, or the boy who was talking back to me and swinging a large stick) somehow lost my phone. This phone was basically my life in pocket-size and now its gone so I feel a little vulnerable. Its not like I can't live without my phone - there are worse things to lose- but I counted on it to remember things for me. Now I have to mine all of that information out my already depleted brain. And it was really nice to have the Internet whenever I needed it. Plus it contained pictures and videos since Toby was two, all of my contacts and lists of things I didn't want to have to remember. Oops.

Its the phone thing plus all of the unknowns about SoKo that make my head feel like its going to start leaking. I just wish I could know something, like what our house will be like, whether or not we'll find a nice school for Toby, and what life will really be like there. Speaking of school, I LOVE Toby's school and went through a lot to get him in there. It's this charming, arts-based cooperative preschool that I adore and they're already advertising to fill his spot in January. I completely understand that they need to do this but it still makes me feel sad and a little jealous. That's my son's spot but he has to be withdrawn. Sad face. My heart breaks at the thought of him not going back there. His teachers are patient child-whispering geniuses and after that whole process of applying, waiting, applying for financial aid, and waiting some more, he has them for all of three months. Another sad face.

I'm also working on my childbirth educator certification and I have requirements I need to check off my list. Since I don't know what the situation in Korea will be I was really hoping to get it all done here by the end of the year. Unfortunately, the people I was counting on to help me fulfill these requirements appear to be leaving me in the lurch and I'm running out of time. I'm sure its still possible to do it in Korea but I thought I had everything in the bag already. So much for my time management and preparations!

It just feels like my nest is falling apart. I'm weary of moving and having the majority of every year be either about getting used to a new place or getting used to the idea that we're going to be in a new place very soon.  I worry a lot about how I will deal with everything because how I deal with it will affect how my boys deal with it. It means I have to be positive, enthusiastic, excited and strong for them all the time even if I feel the opposite. It's not that I have to have a fake smile glued to my face 24/7 but I have to show them that this move is O.K., Mommy's O.K. and they're safe. Marc will be gone most of every day so they will be looking to me for how to process all the changes. I guess this is what all women have to do to some extent - be the strong one. I may feel like sucking my thumb in the fetal position on the floor but I have to get up and move forward for their sake. I just HOPE I really like it there so I don't have to fake-it too much. At least we're not going to be completely on our own. We'll live near the American Army base, which is like a mini-American city and there will be lots of other people in our same situation.

From SoCal to SoKo

"We're moving to South Korea" is a statement I never could have imagined would proceed from my mouth. 
Srsly, Korea? 
I'd like to say I don't know how we got to this juncture, but of course I do. Marc applied for several jobs in his field and this is the one he got! In Pyeongtaek, South Korea, of all places. Why I'm surprised, I don't know, considering the whirlwind of unexpected moves we've had. It all started in San Diego, then Portland, then L.A., then D.C. and now SoKo. Our new address in Korea will be the seventh we've had in just shy of 8 years. Ridonkulous, yes, but all but two of those moves have been pretty much necessary for our family. I want to be home with my boys, which turns out pays nothing, so we're all relying on Marc's income. Thankfully he supports my desire to be home, so we're supporting him - which means we have to follow him around...the world, as it turns out.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE travel. I've traveled extensively in Europe, (which I guess isn't very extensive compared to the whole world) but still. I am happily willing to visit anywhere for a few weeks, but to live there for three years?? Not to mention that Asia has never been high on my list of places to travel to. Truth be told, I've never had much of an interest in or even thought about the culture or language, except for the food, of course. It just hasn't been on my radar. I've always loved the European languages and would be thrilled to have the opportunity to learn any of them. Why couldn't it be a Spanish-speaking country?? After taking so many years of Spanish, in three years I could definitely be bilingual! Gah! Learning a new language in adulthood is difficult enough, but one that you're really not interested in even attempting is near impossible! Oyyy...

I have so many questions swirling around in my brain. How will I get places if I can't read the signs? What will we eat?! There's obviously no Trader Joe's in Korea, so I don't know what I'm going to do about that. Where will Toby go to school? Will I be extremely homesick for the US and hearing English? Do they have a system like 9-1-1 and if so, will the dispatcher even understand what I'm saying? What kind of electrical outets do they have? Will we make friends? I'm sure there is a very simple, positive answer to all of this, but right now it's all so daunting.

Ughhhh, speaking of friends...we're leaving behind a lot of them. Oh man, I was NOT expecting to meet so many great people here. I have no attachment to Virginia, but we scored big time when we blindly selected this neighborhood on Craigslist while living in L.A. Well, the house turned out to be awful, but the neighborhood is a goldmine of terrific people. Our friends/park require their own blog post one of these days.

If I reflect over the past few years and all the places we've lived it seems pretty obvious that each move, which seemed really difficult at the time, has stretched my comfort zone little by little to get me to the point where moving abroad seems like the next logical step. We can't get any farther east from where we started and still be in the USA. I thought moving to L.A. from Portland was going to be awful. Then I thought L.A. to D.C. was a nightmare. So far I've been proven wrong, I've adapted, and even come to like each of the very different places we've lived. I have a (hopeful) feeling that living in Korea will prove to be much better than I think and that our experiences there will turn my neutrality toward Asian culture into deep admiration and appreciation. If nothing else, at least I know they have really great food!