My son is verbal. Very verbal. Always has been. I rarely have to guess at what's on his mind. This is convenient for me as a mother. And yet it's still baffling sometimes. :)

This afternoon, I heard Bryant yelling in the living room. The words I heard were, "I am AWESOME! I am the best tennis player in the universe! Bow to me, Hoa!"

I went downstairs to see what he was doing. He was intently staring at the TV set where he was playing a tennis video game against an opponent named "Hoa". Bryant leaped out of his chair while holding the controller and yelled, "Take that, SUCKER!" He had just aced Hoa. This made Bryant laugh like a maniac.

From behind Bryant I watched this entertaining scene a while longer and then I finally spoke up. I, being Master-Of-The-Obvious-Mom said, "So...playing some Xbox tennis?"

Bryant immediately yelled (because he often talks louder when he plays video games), "I am going to become a tennis pro, so I'm learning every aspect of the game. I created this Korean player who's awesome! And I've made it to the quarterfinals of the Dubai Pan-Am games. Don't you think I could be a great tennis player, Mom?"

I looked at the screen which sure enough showed the funky cityscape of Dubai and a tall, muscular Asian tennis player in an orange shirt, long shorts, and baseball hat put on backwards. This was the way Bryant designed himself as a player. In the lower left corner as he was about to serve, his name popped up in a very ESPNish font. It said, "BRYANT" in large gray capital letters. I asked, "So Bryant, is that how you plan to look when you're an adult?"

"Yup."

"He's kind of studly."

"What does that mean, Mom?"

"Nothing."

"WHOO-HOOOOOOO! Did you see that serve, Mom? I programmed my guy to be able to hit 123mph!"

"How fast does Hoa get to hit?"

"As fast as the video game wants him to. But right now he hasn't won a single point. It's 3-0 in the first set. I'm going to crush him."

"Ok."

Bryant went on to make Hoa run all over the place and miss line drives, volleys, and serves. He loudly whooped it up each time he "crushed" Hoa some more. He finally took a break when I handed him some strawberry ice cream. In between bites he asked with total sincerity, "Mom, which do you think I'd have a better chance at: becoming a professional baseball player or a professional tennis player?"

"I don't know. I can't tell by watching you play Xbox."

"Come on, Mom! Look at how great I am at tennis! I'm going to beat him 6-0, 6-0, 6-0! If I play all these sports on my Xbox, I can learn everything about each game. That will help me decide, don't you think? Right now, I think tennis is easier than baseball."

"I don't know about that. Look at all the running your guy is doing. Could you do that for five set matches, all tournament long?"

"Yeah. I'm good at running too."

Bryant went on to continue to decimate his opponent, Hoa, all the while yelling victoriously at the TV set. I have to say I was particularly impressed with BRYANT'S relentless chasing after every ball and his wicked passing shots. For the video game version, I'd say he certainly was dominating the Dubai Pan-Am quarterfinals. ;)

Now if only all this practice time could be translated into the real life sport. Well. That would be something, eh?

-bm

A snake terrified Claire yesterday. She had gone out back to pick blueberries. The snake crossed her path and she came running back to the house crying.

This morning at breakfast as we ate pancakes, this was our conversation:

Claire: Mom, look outside! The snake is back!

Me: (looking outside at the snake sticking its teeny head out of a hole in our patio concrete) Yup. There it is. (resume eating pancakes)

Claire: We need some animals in our backyard that EAT snakes. Like some wild dingo dogs. Or some bald eagles.

Me: We don't have any of those.

Claire: We have coyotes around here.

Me: True. But I don't know if they eat snakes.

Claire: How 'bout if we get some vultures? Vultures eat snakes!

Me: I don't know how to get some vultures. But that's an idea.

Bryant: Are boa constrictors endangered?

Me: I have no idea.

Claire: Boa constrictors eat people whole.

Me: They do not.

Bryant: Well maybe not whole, but bits at a time. Like your foot and then your leg.

Me: They do not.

Bryant: They DO kill people, Mom. Somehow...

Me: Guess what. You're not helping.

Claire: I hate snakes. We definitely need some bald eagles or huge vultures. I don't want the snakes to eat me!

Me: I already told you that we don't have birds of prey hanging out in our backyard.

Suddenly as I said that, a HUGE brown hawk of some kind swooped down in our yard and snatched something off the ground. I couldn't believe it.

Me: Uh, Claire, did you see that bird?

Claire: What bird?

Me: That huge hawk like thing with giant talons that snatched a squirrel or mouse.

Claire: (running to the window) Where? Where is it?! Does it eat snakes?

-bm

You know how birds sometimes fly right into windows? The other day a bird kept banging into my kitchen window. It must've been holding blackberries in its beak because after the collision, there was berry juice running all over the glass. I didn't want the juice and seeds to crust on the glass, so I asked Bryant to go spray it off with the hose. He was more than happy to be asked to shoot water all over the side of the house. ;)

Before he went out, he put on his shoes and then examined the berry juice from the inside of the glass window. He asked how much of the house he could spray with the hose. He asked about why birds bang into glass in the first place and laughed at how dorky that was. He then took off for outside.
And promptly ran into our glass patio door without opening it.

I, of course, busted up laughing because it was extremely funny. I shrieked, "That's what the BIRD just did!"

Bryant wasn't hurt. The glass didn't break. He was just a little shocked.
And so we laughed our butts off for the next half hour because that's what every person should do in that sort of scenario. :)

-bm

So I've needed a few days to get back to normal after our trip to Colorado. It was a very fun time away and much needed for our family to have this vacation. It was also very busy and full. Every day we were either driving, catching up with family, or seeing something interesting. I've never been to Colorado before so there were all kinds of things I wanted to see and do. I also had no idea it was so dang hot there all summer long. ;) Heat drains me almost as much as non-stop interacting with people. Touring around and seeing new things doesn't drain me nearly as much. I like touring around. But not when it's blistering hot. So you can't have everything, right?

On the way out to Colorado we stopped in Moab and Arches National Park. Really cool. I highly recommend seeing these rock formations and at least driving the loop. If it wasn't 101 degrees out, we would've done some hiking.

We also stopped in Vail and Beaver Creek ski resorts. Beaver Creek is POSH. I thought Whistler was the most luxurious/wealthy looking ski resort I'd ever seen. Beaver Creek is even more that way. Very exclusive feeling. I bet it costs a LOT to buy or rent property. Vail, being older, wasn't as posh looking. But the village was more interesting and much larger. It felt far more accessible (although still expensive of course). We did some bike riding around the village area and ate lunch by the stream. It was a nice stop on our road trip.

Once in Colorado at my sister's place, we mostly spent time with the family. (My whole side of the family came out.) Our kids LOVED playing with their younger cousin, Emily. Emily is the one I've been calling "Beast Niece" on my blog. ;) I think Emily laughed non-stop the entire week and when she wasn't laughing, she was sleeping. My kids enjoyed entertaining her and just being a part of her daily life. Hopefully the cousins will all enjoy their friendships their whole lives. I look forward to next time and seeing how their interactions change.

In the Colorado Springs area, we visited Garden of the Gods, the Airforce Academy, a gold panning site, Pike's Peak, the Navigators' Glen Eyrie castle, the U.S. Olympic Training Center, and Denver at night.

The reason I say "Denver at night" is because our family did a midnight bike ride. Every year in downtown Denver they close off the streets and 5000+ people ride around the city to raise money for a charity. So my husband found out about this ride and we signed ourselves up (the kids too). We started the "family ride" at 10:30 and finished the 15 miles at 1:30am. Of course, we stopped all along the way at snack stands and bathrooms. ;) Claire could NOT miss a single snack stand. By the end of the ride, she had so like twenty snack items stuffed in her bike jersey. Granola bars and pretzel bags were sticking out all over her clothing. She was like a psycho squirrel hoarding snacks for the winter. ;) The ride itself was slow-going too. You can't start 5000+ people quickly. So we waded through the masses of cyclists and finally got a little space about half an hour into the ride. The kids easily made the 15 miles and both asked to "do it again" at the finish line. I laughed. 15 miles finishing at 1:30am was enough for me. A lot of riders around us were impressed that our young kids opted for the longer 15 miles rather than the shorter 8 mile trek. I was impressed that they did so well considering they normally hit the sack at 8:30pm. It was a memorable experience. We all got matching t-shirts, and just a few days ago, we finished the last of the granola bars that Claire hoarded. ;)

Something else I enjoyed about the trip was just hanging out w/ the family. We got to catch up and joke around. All the adult "kids" went out a couple times later in the evenings once the kids went to bed (Thanks to grandma and grandpa for sitting!) Before my bro and his wife arrived mid-week, my husband and I went out w/ my sis and her husband. We got dinner in downtown Co Springs. It so happened that there was also a street party going on. You see, that weekend was the annual crazy car race to the top of Pike's Peak. So that night was the pre-race party. All the souped up hotrod cars were on display. There were giveaways. There were demonstrations with crazy men on motorcyles riding up giant ramps and doing stunts that made me hope they had very, very good health insurance. It was a fun time just roaming around with the adults after sharing a tasty meal. We also stopped in the Antlers Hilton and got desserts and listened to some live music. I love summer nights out like this where there's some energy around town and good food and interesting stuff to see.

On another night, once my brother and his wife got into town, all of us went out together again. We ate pizzas and pasta outside at a patio cafe and then got ice cream. Once again, we got to just hang out and talk and enjoy the time together. As we all laughed and roamed around, I realized (once again) how much I miss time with other adults where we are free to stay out and not rush back for sitters/bedtime/getting up for work. It was really great - very freeing and rejuvenating for me. (As a parent I really sometimes desperately miss more freedom.)

My parents are still in good health and able to traipse around with all of us. They enjoy travel and meeting up with family. I am thankful for this. I know not everyone's parents are still mobile and healthy. And I know too many people my age who have already lost parents. So I always appreciate what I have with my mom and dad. I always appreciate that my parents make effort to join in (as well as babysit! Of course they like their alone-time with their grandkids so babysitting is not just a burden. I think they secretly like it when they get the grandkids all to themselves, without us parents butting in. ;) My mom and dad both goofed around with the kids and spoiled them each a little. They bought them little presents and cooked them food they liked. They took them to fun kid-friendly places, and they played games and talked. My dad even went on the midnight Denver bike ride which I thought was great.

Here is a pic of my parents with all three grandkids...

Of course, like any family, our family has its flaws and differences. But most of what I like about spending time with them is that I can let down more than I can with any other group of people. My family knows me pretty well. :) They know if I'm not being myself. I realized (once again) how much I miss that too - that freedom and comfortable feeling, that place I can say what I really think, be my sassy self, and know there's love anyway. ;)

Here's a pic of me at the Garden of the Gods which is a really amazing place...

So that was our Colorado adventure in a nutshell. :)
Thanks S, G, and E for hosting us. We loved visiting.

-bm

Working Dad is researching for an article on "child-centric" parenting. This is a topic that warrants far more discussion in our modern parenting culture. If you have opinions on whether or not parents need to "take back authority", go visit his blog and interact. He is looking for parents who want to input and possibly even be quoted for his upcoming article. I am definitely going to read whatever comments show up on his blog. This topic greatly interests me.

To me the phrase "child-centric parenting" has both been given a bad name as well as too good of one. There needs to be a more moderate middle ground which is becoming rarer and rarer in our culture. I don't know what it says about a culture when the extremes become the norms...

-bm

1. People who aren't stagnant all the time. They actually have something to SAY when you ask what they've been up to.

2. People who read broadly, not just the same old safe topics that they agree with or habitually resort to.

3. People who know how to actually progress a meaningful debate and not just rant about something that warrants actual discussion.

4. People who are aging with grace.

5. People who are rather unattractive physically but are utterly confident and happy with themselves and treat others extremely well.

6. People who ask good questions and really want to know about a topic or understand another person better.

7. People who think complaining is a perfectly legitimate pasttime.

8. People who give their whole lives to a singular endeavor. Not just for a month or a summer. Their WHOLE lives.

9. People who have an unshakable faith, but not in an annoying, brainless way.

10. People who can speak their minds persuasively and yet not repel others around them.

11. People who have suffered a lot and are still sweet-spirited.

12. People who truly are "what you see is what you get". (I think I've only met 2 adults ever who qualify.)

13. People who clearly have a natural ability for something like gardening, cooking, or carpentry.

14. People who don't tell self-protective white lies.

15. People who are willing to try any kind of food.

16. People who think jogging is fun.

17. People who live where faith and real life actually collide, not where faith alone supposedly carries or where real life alone degrades. The collision point where the two coexist.

18. People who make me feel lonelier after talking to them.

19. People who have on a new and different outfit every single time I see them.

20. People who get mad about truly stupid things and feel justified in telling everyone around them even though all those people are secretly rolling their eyes.

21. People who can make other people laugh about the most mundane things in life.

22. People who obsess about finding the perfect version of a specific food item.

23. People who drive motorcycles at break neck speeds as if they want to die.

24. People I know in real life who read this blog and often talk to my husband about what I write but never say a word to me.

25. People who I do not know in real life who read this blog and seem to really connect with it, enough so they send me email explaining specifically why they read it.

26. People who always say they have something physically wrong with them (when they don't really).

27. People who didn't bother going to college.

28. People who make a career out of the military.

29. People who hate their jobs but never do anything about it.

30. People who can imitate other people's voices and tics.

31. People who can't stand their parents and yet live practically next door to them.

32. People who think they can make sound arguments about current events after listening to one CNN or NPR broadcast.

33. People who drive up to the bank teller or McDonald's drive through and totally yell into the intercom.

34. People who go out into a golf driving range to retrieve balls that dribble out a few yards.

35. People who leave public restrooms without washing their hands.

36. People who sew their own clothes.

37. People who eat just one food item at a time on their plates.

38. People who grow strange houseplants that scare me.

39. People who have 4 or more pets all in one household.

40. People who go barefooted as much as possible.

41. People who speed up so you can't pass them.

42. People who have giant movie collections and watch their movies repeatedly.

43. People who are really morbid and angsty, like they're perpetual teenagers.

44. People who have voices that remind me of chipper peeping birds.

45. People who are not bothered by loud, repetitive noises.

46. People who think Asians are all nice.

47. People who are exceptional leaders.

48. People who understand the difference between movements and groups.

49. People who are more interested in individual merit than in party, system, or denomination.

50. People who get really passionate about their interests, enough to convince me to also try what they like.

51. People who drink soda at breakfast.

52. People who can play more than 4 musical instruments.

53. People who know multiple foreign languages.

54. People who believe in Virgin Mary appearances on brick walls, in donut glaze, or in random rocks.

55. People who think Elvis is still alive.

56. People who claim to have been abducted by aliens.

57. People who buy thousands of Qtips at one time.

58. People who frenetically try to get in the shortest line in the grocery check-out.

59. People who read National Enquirer in the grocery check-out line so they don't have to actually buy it.

60. People who know how to really use their BBQ grill to make steak and not just char-lumps.

61. People who read out loud in libraries and laugh at the good parts.

62. People who trip over nothing a lot.

63. People who are obsessed with hand sanitizer and carry a mini one with them at all times.

64. People who self-righteously flip out at anything unPC.

65. People who always buy the latest greatest gadgets.

66. People who are afraid of unlucky numbers, unlucky days of the week, unlucky scenarios.

67. People who make their decisions based on what their horoscope says.

68. People who like taxidermy.

70. People who kiss their dog on the mouth.

71. People who never, never show affection in public.

72. People who hug everyone they know.

73. People who can't sleep.

74. People who like office supply stores.

75. People who take classes all the time.

76. People who throw away stuff all the time and replace their stuff with more stuff which they promptly throw away too.

77. People who still say, "Where's the beef?"

78. People who carve their landscaping shrubbery into interesting animal shapes.

79. People who truly cannot drive and talk at the same time.

80. People who own a boat and yet never take it out.

81. People who eat like squirrels.

82. People who have ultra clean desk areas and spend a lot of time at places like The Container Store.

83. People who talk about very personal things on their cell phones while in public restroom stalls.

Ok I'll stop now. I could go on a long time. I guess a lot of different people fascinate me...

Who fascinates you?

-bm

This toy wins for being plain weird.

This toy wins for sheer stupidity.

This toy wins for most resembling amniotic fluid.

And I'm buying Claire this for Christmas because it will make her even weirder than she already is.

Yes, you can consider this exceptionally helpful post the "2008 Beast Mom Gift Review". I just know everyone will be back at this same time next year to see what my '09 list says.

-bm

My hair looks bad lately. I'm trying to grow it out so it's in that nasty stage between Layered Frizz Monster and Hair Goddess. Yes, I realize there's a whole lotta' territory in between those two hair stages, but who cares. I always feel I'm at one or the other. (Why do I EVER cut my hair short to begin with? I always go back to growing it out again. So stupid of me.)

You know why I'm trying to grow it out long again? Besides the fact that I look BETTER with long hair? I'm growing it long again so I don't have to get haircuts every 8 weeks! Yup. With long hair, I can live like I've never even heard of hairdressers. I can just let it grow and grow and grow until I get into the Guinness Book of World Records as the Freak Lady With Longest Hair!

See, my hair looks nice long and straight. No frills, perm rods, or curling irons needed. Not even haircuts really. I LIKE it straight and long even if my mom says I look like an American Indian as opposed to all those Korean people with long straight black hair. I really don't even see the difference. Long straight jet-black hair is a lovely thing whether you're Asian or Indian, but probably not Swedish. I know many non-Asian, non-Indian people who would kill for hair like mine. Well maybe not KILL but pay a lot of money, or steal, or at least eat live earthworms. I think Disney Pocahontas is pretty, don't you?

Pocahontas definitely has way better tresses than say...Sleeping Beauty with her passe perky flip/bang job. Sleeping Beauty obviously has to use lots of AquaNet. But Pocahontas? Not her, man. She just lets her hair fly free as she leaps off of cliffs and swims into waterfalls. I'm more Pocahontas than Sleeping Beauty.

(I'm laughing at myself because I just wrote that line above. I'm a sad, sad excuse for a college-educated person.)

Anyway, I don't like my blah hair at the moment and wish I could pull it out long like the decapitated Barbie make-up mannequin that is a very scary product on Amazon. (Push the flower button and Barbie's hair electronically grows EIGHT INCHES.) Yup, in spite of my fear of such bizarre toys, that's what I want to be able to do to MY hair right now. It's a good thing my hair grows faster than my hair-brained idea bank. Who knows what could happen...

I've thought about doing a pictorial hair montage on my blog of all my past hairstyles. I've had so many different hairstyles. You would laugh if you saw all my experiments. I think one of my more uncharacteristic styles was my Joan Jett look. But then again there was the year I cut it like a boy with strange sideburny things. If you yanked my ears into points, I could probably pass as Spock. And then there was the poodle perm year. I cringe just thinking about that. I was trying to look like this cover model on Seventeen Magazine. 'Nuff said. She was some cute freckly Irish redhead with bouncy-bouncy curls and I was...not.

Ack. I can tell just by how my hair feels on my head (imbalanced) that it looks dumb. I may have to resort to getting someone to even it out (cut it a bit) just to let the layers balance out. I wish I could unscrew my head and cut it myself. Can you imagine if we all could do that? Wouldn't that be grotesquely cool?

Ok, I'll stop blithering about my hair now. I get like this now and then.

-bm

We just got back from a roadtrip to Colorado. There is so much to say about it that I can't even begin. (I think I'm still tired from the drive.) Everytime I think about blogging something about our vacation, I can't. Don't get me wrong - it was super fun. I think I'm just kind of overwhelmed. For starters, I have several hundred pictures to sort through. That alone makes me want to take a nap. ;)

I will say that I have a new stuffed monkey from our trip. I named him "PickleEater". He's my new travel mascot.

I won PickleEater in one of those highway Cracker Barrel restaurants. They're having some kind of crazy sweepstakes where you can win a $30,000 camper. I, however, won a $7.50 gift card which I promptly spent.
On a sock monkey.

My husband just shook his head in disbelief when I came out of the store happily hugging my sock monkey. ;)

Here is a pic of PickleEater sitting by the GPS that my in-laws loaned us for the trip...

-bm

I am almost through reading "The Coldest Winter" by David Halberstam. My father-in-law recommended this book to me. It is the best history book on the Korean War that I've read to date. If you have interest in America's political and military history regarding the Korean War, read this book. It is extremely well done. I've read other Korean history books that were poorly written - so boring and disorganized that I couldn't even finish them. This book blows all that dry writing away. This author knows how to tell HISTORY without ignoring STORY. He captures readers by capturing individual stories. Very effective.

I'm devouring this book - learning a lot and filling in all kinds of missing pieces. The Korean War was never covered in all my years of American schooling even though it affected so many American lives. I was far more reminded of the impact of the Korean War when veterans talked to me. I can't tell you how many times in the 70's/80's that Korean War vets randomly approached me. Some said hello and smiled and said they'd served in Korea. Some tried to speak Korean to me. Others told me briefly about some experience they'd had while serving in Korea. And I could tell some vets wanted to say far more but couldn't as we were strangers passing in a grocery store or on the street.

I was recently in a restaurant and saw a very elderly man with a walker pass by me. He was dressed in a pressed button-down shirt and tan slacks. He smiled at me and I smiled back. I am 99.9% sure he is a Korean War vet. There is this unique connect I feel EVERY SINGLE TIME I CROSS PATHS WITH THESE RETIRED SOLDIERS. First of all, these men are NEVER WRONG in pinpointing me as Korean. Every Korean war vet who has approached me has KNOWN I am Korean. Most Americans in general do not. They most often think I'm Chinese. Many Asians even mistake me for Chinese. But not the veterans. They KNOW. Some are even sure enough to bow and say hello in Korean before they say a word of English.

Something else that is consistently true whenever I interact with American Korean War vets is that they express this genuine spirit of purpose when they talk to me. They served in a war that was difficult by most counts, but they almost always express somehow that their time in Korea was worth it. They know the result of what they did. And they know what could've been if they'd not helped. There is a light in a person's eyes when they feel they've done something purposeful and are now telling you about it. It is different than the usual mundane conversation.

On a lighter note, many veterans also expressed their interest/enjoyment of Korean culture and food when they've talked to me. That's a very common topic in these short conversations I've had. (While reading Halberstam's history book, I have wondered why former American soldiers would express this - the conditions were terrible in Korea. I would think there would be little to "enjoy" about the country or culture, but apparently many soldiers did like aspects of Korean life and continue to appreciate it even now. This is fascinating to me in a war where you are fighting with and against the same race of people. I would think the feelings would be more conflicted and/or negative...)

It's kind of sad to me that I don't have these kinds of interactions any longer. Many of the vets from the Korean War are elderly now. They aren't all out and about like they were in the 1970's/1980's. They aren't so quick to run me down in a store to talk about the war. These kinds of interactions happen very infrequently now.

Back to the book...
I'm reading and learning from this book. Far more than I ever did in any class in school. Far more than veterans would be able to tell me in random public conversations. Far more than even my relatives can tell me too. They were civilians caught up in the chaos. They weren't in the know politically. And they come from the Korean mindset of course. This history book specifically focuses on "America and the Korean War". That is the subtitle. I feel the book does a good job in telling about the American soldier's experience and the commanders' experiences, not just the highest ranked officials and the President/policymakers. If anything, the book advocates for the field soldiers' perspectives equally with the politicians and military higher-ups. I appreciate the author's sense of balance and his attempts to be fair, even when the people he describes are sometimes less than admirable. I tend to dislike historians who spend entire books trying to make certain leaders look asinine. That's not the slant on history I'm interested in when it comes to something as complex as war. I don't think any person in history is as one-dimensional as some writers like to paint them. Halberstam isn't keen on certain key figures in the Korean War, understandably so. But he doesn't paint them one-dimensionally. He explains a great deal of their backstory. He doesn't describe monsters. He describes flawed human beings.

Read the book if you like history. Read the book if you have interest in understanding the Korean experience. Read the book if you are Korean-American and have NO IDEA about any details of the Korean War besides the few things your parents have reluctantly mentioned. Read the book if you like reading about military tactics. Read the book if you appreciate soldiers' stories. Read the book if you are fascinated by human behavior and motivations and the ease with which we can deny what frightens us. Read the book if you like learning about leadership - the strengths and weaknesses of leaders in their personal journeys, and the dire consequences of leadership voids. There is some of all this in there...

-bm