Holiday Greetings from the Kim Clan 2008

This year, we decided to send out our warm season's greetings to you via a short film clip we have especially put together for you. Melanie wrote and directed our family's 2008 Happy Holiday greetings, starring the Gorgeous Intelligent Refreshing & Loud Sweetie-pies of the Lim-Kim family: Melanie and Audrey, with me in a cameo role. As for Chong Lim, he was either taking a nap or working on his current software project, or foraging around the kitchen for something to eat while we were busy filming. I suspect that the lively sounds the girls make are soothing background noise to him.

The year 2008 was no ordinary year for our family, and it was not an extraordinary year either. Surely, some things could have been better, but there are many things going well for us, and for that, we are quite thankful. 

For one thing, Chong Lim seems happy in his job of ten months with Intuit, makers of Turbo Tax and Quickbook. Often, he sounds like a very motivated and inspired "graduate student," coming home to tell his children about the wonderful things he has uncovered about Flex programming, and beaming from ear to ear when he received recognition for projects he worked on. He is much more relaxed about things in general, even if he still sleeps very late. His occasional sidekick, Audrey, relishes the times they do Math problems. "Audrey, what is 100 + 1?" "101." "What is 1,000 + 1?" "1001." "What is 1,000,000 + 1?" "1,000,001." "Audrey, you're the only five year old who can add in the millions!" Yeah, right, but they are both beaming and having fun, and that is what counts. As for Melanie, he is her occasional driver. He takes her to her soccer games, and picks her up from practices. He brought her to and from most of the bat mitzvahs she attended. He offers to go to the movies with her, and gets gently rejected from time to time. He insists on turning off the television when we have our Saturday dinners and attempts to have a family conversation. "So, what do you think about the plan to bail out the Big Three carmakers?" One mostly hears responses in the form of groans and silence. Maybe Hunter can give him a pointer or two about raising (teenage) daughters. That brings me to the second thing we are thankful for: Melanie.

Melanie is now in 8th grade and a full-fledged teenager. The previous director of middle school in the school where I teach had this saying displayed on the wall outside her office: "Raising teenagers is like nailing jello to the wall." I can attest to its truthfulness (and so can many of you who had or have teenagers to raise, I suppose). Like many teenagers, she has her "d-uh" moments as well as proud ones. She can be an interested participant one moment and an indifferent one the next. How many times do I have to repeat what I say before she moves her adult-size body? She has a maturing sense of humor, sleeps late and wakes up close to noontime if I let her. She likes watching "Fraser," "How I Met Your Mother," "Two-and-a-Half Men," and "Saturday Night Live." Frequently, she shuffles over to where I am with outstretched arms (or not) and lays her entire body weight on me. "Hug-gy, Mommy," she says in her baby voice. Though I do not think I ever subjected my parents to bear my entire body weight when I was her age, I do see her doing a lot of things I used to do. She surrounds herself with friends she has known since elementary school, continues to make new friends based on mutual interests, explores the visual arts in multiple ways, and includes music in her life. Technology is pretty much what makes her current life fundamentally different from mine when I was her age. And in many ways, she is just as aggressive (moderately so) as I was in pursuing her passions. She takes interesting photographs and likes to tinker with graphic designs on the computer. She and two friends have a website which they maintain, and they also host sites to others. She sings in the school chorus, plays the flute in the school band, and continues to take piano lessons. She is no prodigy. She is a hobbyist-musician without any nerves for solo performances, not even in piano recitals conducted at  her piano teacher's home in front of a small audience comprised of families whose children also take piano lessons with the teacher. I think there is the performer and communicator in her waiting to be born. I will leave that up to her. For now, I am happy she is beginning to show others who she is, and is more willing to get her feet wet and explore possibilities. In the summer of 2008, she spent almost a month in Chicago, learning from Mallory and her friends, Nikki, Tank, and Chris, and growing her confidence under the watchful eyes of her 4-ee, 4-ee-tiu, and Guama. She flew back to Boston by herself for the first time, and that was a big step. And how about Chong Lim in her life? He serves as the "reality check" from time to time, reminding all of us about life in the "real world" as defined by him. And so, the threat of enrolling her in the Russian Math school provides enough motivation for her to pay attention to her Math homework and grades. Chong Lim serves as Melanie's practice encounter with the real world, while Melanie serves as Chong Lim's teacher in the art and science of parenting (I, of course, serve as their clinical supervisor). And God knows, Chong Lim will need to have lots and lots of skills and knowledge in that area when he has to deal with Audrey.

We are thankful that Audrey has escaped unhurt in all the adventures she embarked this year. All seven beads she had stuck into her nose came out through repetitive, strong blowing with her nose without damaging her ability to detect smell. The bean she inserted in her ears succumbed to the pull of gravity and slipped out by itself, leaving her ear canal and drums the way they were prior to its intrusion. The fish flakes and pebble she consumed by mouth seemed to have been eliminated from her body through the other hole where larger waste matter comes out. No visits to the emergency room, thank God. And a solemn, sincere promise from Audrey that she will never ever do anything like these again brings peace to our minds and hearts, for the moment. As her fellow Ram, Beta, explained, "Audrey is just a curious, smart kid who has strong survival instincts and skills." If she grows up in the footsteps of her 2-ee, we will have few reasons to worry and complain about. At the rate she is going, she is well on her way. She likes to be in-charge of people, things, and events. Yet, she is empathetic, sensitive to the needs of others, and generous with her resources, time, and attention. That is why she gets a good report from her teachers. Audrey has strong survival instincts all right. She makes sure she is heard. She has a loud, expressive conversational voice, a louder and emphatic tone when she wants something right now, an even louder and more dramatic voice when she feels upset, and an ear-splitting whine when she does not like the way things are going. She makes us laugh, sometimes at her expense, and off she goes under the table or far away with a large pout and arms across her chest. Truly dramatic. On good days, which is most of the days in her life so far, she is a happy, lively child, eager for attention, generous with her embraces and declarations like, "You're the best mom." She is there when I need a hug and a soulful companion. She sings and dances with me when I feel like it. She makes statements and expresses sentiments that sound just like my own. She reminds me to look at life as half full rather than half empty. She is doing what she was meant to do for our family: add a lot of spice and zing to our lives. To Melanie, she might be an annoying sister sometimes, but most of the time, they do what siblings do to and with each other. The most important thing is that Audrey allows Melanie to be a kid, grappling with her own needs and wants, and being childish in her responses from time to time. To Chong Lim, Audrey is his hope for an "almost CL clone," i.e., to be more like him. They already share many similar food preferences, e.g., chocolate and smoked salmon, and they both turn to me to meet their every need. Hmmm... But she is the one who is his reality check. Sometimes, she calls him at work to tell him she misses him and to ask what time he would come home. She gets mad at him when he calls her names, e.g., "Curious George." She cuddles up to him when a scene in the movie felt scary. She dances while Chong Lim plays the piano. She even requests him to play specific songs to his utter delight. She allows Chong Lim to relax and engage in activities that are "not productive." Audrey IS a ham, as you all can see. I hope her "ham-ness" and passion for living will never fade away, but rather, continue to grow and deepen.

As for me, I did more cooking this year than I have ever done in all my life, and I am starting to enjoy the process and results. I still do it largely because I have to, and it is not a painfully frustrating activity anymore. I discovered that I can make edible soups, cakes, muffins, and breads. Technology, especially the internet, has made cooking easier and less stressful for me because I can get answers to questions and snags I encounter while in the process of cooking without calling someone on the phone and revealing my ignorance and lack of skill. Cooking can still become an activity that de-stresses me, and I think it is beginning to become just that, along with washing dishes by hand, especially when there is so much to think about as my children and I grow older and the world becomes even more complex. Life did get stressful during parts of this year. Some of it is my own doing, and some of it not. Still, I think I have gotten over the biggest hump - me and my worrying. This blog is good for me because it provides a way for me to express and reflect on what is in my mind and heart. It allows me to feel connected with myself and with others who matter to me.

With that, I would like to say Thank You, and hope that the circle of love between all of us remain linked and grow stronger over time. That is what will sustain all of us, all our children, now and into the exciting and uncertain future. God bless all of us.

Love from Lynne May