Another school year gone...

Today was the last day of school... (technically Luke still has 2 more days but they are party days :)  I guess that makes me officially the mother of a 5th grader and a 1st grader. (AND the wife of an unemployed teacher, but that's a whole different blog for a different day)

Aren't they the cutest Koreans you've ever seen?

The minute she walked in the door this afternoon, Miss Ava announced that she is now a 5th grader. Apparently this is a big deal. In her 9 year life, this is a huge deal. Like, GINORMOUS! She's growing up. FIFTH GRADE. She wants to pick her own clothes and do her own hair and talk on the phone with her friends. She doesn't want to be my baby girl anymore. I'm not sure I'm ready. Not that that matters. I promised myself on the day that she was born that I would always allow her to be her own person. I would guide her and hopefully lead her through a beautiful path, but I would not hinder her from learning her own life's lessons. That was an easy promise to make back when she was a helpless little crying creature in her bassinet. I've never broken a promise. At least not knowingly... This might be the hardest promise I've ever had to keep.

Now Luke... he seems to care less that this school year has ended. It's like he doesn't even conceive that in August he will be in 1st grade in a brand new school. Nope. He's still my little boy. All I have to do is throw a football with him and I am the best mom ever. How easy is that? I wonder if that will still be all it takes for him to still think I'm awesome on his last day of 4th grade...

When did this child learn to read???

Luke: Momma. You spelled happy wrong.

Me: Really? Where?

Luke: Right there. On the top of your computer. It says The Happa Life.  But with an "a" instead of a "y".

Me: It is SUPPOSED to be Happa with an "a".  It's our life.  

Luke: That's just weird.  I don't get it. How is our life happa and not happ'y'??? 

Me: Cuz you're a Happa.

Luke: No sir. I'm a boy.  

 

Me: Daddy says that you and your sister are BOTH Happas.  Because you are (in my worst Asian accent) hapa dis and hapa dat!  You know... you're half Korean and half Caucasian. 

Luke: You and Daddy are both weird.... (as he exits from reading over my shoulder to play PS2)

Are we weird?  We are a mixed race family. An "inter-racial" couple. I'm white. He's Asian. Our kids are mixed.  We joke about race in our house.  Not really in derogatory terms, but we make light of situations on a regular basis. 

I'm still not convinced that my children know exactly what they "are".  Wait. I take that back.  They know that they are half Korean and half Caucasian.  But at 9 and 6, I'm not sure they have a grasp that there are people that consider them different.  My children will both tell you (and believe it) that they look EXACTLY like their momma -except they don't have blue eyes.  They don't.  I mean, as they get older, it is finally apparent that I was present at their conception, but to say that they look like me is quite the overstatement. 

It always makes me giggle inside, though. I love how they aren't really in tune with stereotypical differences in appearances.  Maybe the world needs more Happas 

Slowly falling apart...

I had surgery on May 20th.  It wasn't my first surgery or my second, third or fourth.  It was my 8th!!  OK. Three of the surgeries were to remove babies from my body but that really doesn't make me feel any better...  

"Am I falling apart?"

My doctor says No.  He just thinks I am "in-tune" with my body and I'm "aware when things are out of whack".  He said that it's a good sign I actually take care of myself and get things taken care of before they take over.  

Whatever... blah... blah... blah...

So now - I am minus a uterus and the tumors entombed in that uterus.  There will be no more biological children in my future.  Not that I want to get rid of my current husband and search out a new man to provide me with sperm to conceive a child with my own biology.  But it still makes me sad to think that part of my life is over.  

...BUT

There is a bright side!  NO MORE PMS : )