Mindspace

Chinese Speech Competition

I practiced my Al-anon program with my Chinese speech competition yesterday ( whoops Freudian slip ) the kids' Chinese speech competition.
i had what my teen client would call a " mild case of the fuck its " i just literally threw the speeches the kids wrote across the room and refused to translate them. i said "It's not fair! Other parents who don't know Chinese can't do this, can't coach this, can't do half as much as i do. They're kids do fine, better and they're not a wreck the way i am every year! " I refuse to do this anymore. Like i told the people in my Al-anon group " I am all out of Chinese ".
It's been such a long road, and this year, i am spent. i started out with all the aspirations and plans, and a word a day and teaching Aidan to be an ESL kid and now Chinese has ended up being this painful, resigned space where i try to not think about what i was learning at their age, and let the teacher be teacher.
But the Chinese Speech Competition is huge somehow, it's such a source of stress, somehow it encapsulates home and here and all my dreams for them as a speech and drama student myself. i can't let it go, but i have no control of how it'll go. My children are untrainable. They are wet noodles with rolled eyes and they won't let me use years of speech experience.
Parenting is such a mean joke. It's like they loan you kids, they look like you, they have your traits, they have your weaknesses and possibly your strengths, but for the life of me, they don't have your life.
And everyday, i am both celebrating and grieving that. They don't have my life, not even a little. They don't read at the same time, they don't write the same way. Maybe because at the end of the day, it hits me hard, because i didn't grow up here, so i have no clue how their experience is supposed to be.
Although maybe God is merciful because if they were in Singapore, i'd be a constant wreck all day knowing the educational system there and how it's run. 
But anyway, i took a deep breath, and showered. Came back and thought self-care. What do i need to get through the Chinese Speech Competition. What am i willing to do to get through ?
So i handed my husband one child, i did the other and emailed the English drafts to the teacher. There, it's theirs. i hired a private speech coach twice a week for the next 3 weeks but that's the most i am willing to do. i am going to sit back this year and watch it the way other parents do every year and not be strung out on a limb.
It is after all, their speech competition.

Little Man

Little man couldn't be more perfect right now. I think God is so amazing to give me the chance to raise a man -- someone else's husband one day, a chance to be loved so completely and sincerely.
I'll never forget one retreat up in San Damiano and i was reflecting on how mistrusting i am about the affections of men -- how conditional i always feel their love is.
And i reflected the exact moment in which i realized there is one space where i actually let my guard down and let myself trust the love of a man -- that is in the arms of my son.
Aidan at 7 is a bona fide codependent. i am already saving up for his therapy bills. He has a heart as large as the ocean. While his sister has the detachment, the distanciation skills to make her an excellent physician or therapist, he is truly incapable of watching or imagining anyone in pain. He used to shake watching the slightest violence on TV.
I remember when the little boy almost drowned in our pool, and enoch was giving CPR and the police and the firemen were around, my daughter hovered around curious and unmoved. Aidan was huddled in the corner of the playhouse quivering with tears, that night he bequeathed all his birthday toys to the little boy hoping that he would get well.
Even today when i cuddle up with him in a special moment to affirm him of how much i appreciate him, he would pause and say " How about Nally ?"
But he is in such a Oedipal stage right now, i wish we could stay here forever. He hugs me as says " Mommy you are gorgeous and glorious! ". He says "Mommy you are the BEST mommy in the world "
More than that, he is so quick to anticipate my needs, my stress in the mornings, helping me pick up the kitchen or wipe down the counters.
Tonight as i watch him pick up my clothes, hang up my jeans, run to get me a mug for teeth brush, tidy up the bathroom counter, i marvel at how and where he is learning all this.
He is always appreciative of everything i do for him " Thanks mom" or apologizing for the slightest bad mood i'm having " Sorry mom" even when it's got nothing to do with him. He is the baraomenter of our how family when all of us is disassociated and preoccupied, he can sense the slightest tension in the air between enoch and i and starts working to dissipate it immediately.
He gets my door, he carries my grocery, he gets my plate.
Just feel so loved by him.

Post Nanny

3 weeks after the nanny left, and i am amazed we are still standing.
Granted i have gotten more significantly crabby and there has been a lot more yelling and nagging about household chores lately, but the kids and hubby are getting the hang of it.
Even our new cleaners are understanding my priorities -- dishes and laundry.
The kids are getting the hang of making their own breakfast and bussing their plates. This week i was out of town and the chores still got done, albeit less up to par than past weeks.
But i am so amazed at how long i had "put up" with having a stranger in the house all in the name of having more help. i realized that all that time, i was living against my values -- having children that assume that clothes get picked up, fighting with her to let them take responsibilities, taking it personally that they won't eat any of the food we prepare.
Today as i watch my daughter fix a plate of peanut butter and banana for the first time, after begging her to try it all these years, i realize the value of having them be responsible for sensing their hunger, figuring out what they wanted to eat, fixing it and cleaning up.
This is totally against the Chinese customary practice of anticipating when you're hungry, determining what you will eat, forcing the amount you eat and then getting severely offended if you don't clean your plate.
My children are waking up, loving making scrambled eggs, wanting to be chefs or playing with fire ( girl then boy ) and cleaning up their breakfast dishes. They are making their beds and cleaning their rooms BEFORE they leave the house.
For the first time in 17 years of marriage, their father is watching bemused, amused and actually doing the same. A part of me still wonders what is it about me that makes it easier to insist my children do it and not my husband.
But i am finally proud of the family i am raising. The new little man that is going to be so different from his father and both our fathers. At the end of the day, i can hear their spouses rise up and call me blessed. After 7 years of nannyhood, just as i had a lifetime of household help -- they are not spoilt!

Aidan's Birthday

Baby boy had his 7th birthday and i realize, after a decade of party planning, enoch and i finally got it down. I used to plan Nally's birthday weeks in advance, research and shop for weeks, go to Raft, agonize over activities and menus. Nally's birthday parties ran in the theme of 500 European Night Crawlers for her Earthworm party, science experiments, popiah parties and industrial sized cotton candy machines.Yesterday baby boy wanted a secret agent party and these are the things i loved about it:

• 50 people rsvp-ed but i was in Disneyland so i couldn't freak out until i got back
• i paid for expedited shipping for Fedora hats which i thought didn't ship in time but it did.
• Enoch's new passion for smoking takes a huge weight off my plate with the meats. i can now only do supporting dishes of which fruit, cheetos and popcorn counts as a dish.
• i managed to design the spy id cards, put together a spy mission at 11pm at night.
• Enoch and i worked together prepping the foods the night before together -- i hadn't felt so united in purpose or camaraderie since his med school days.
• i took naps and self care breaks days before so that i wouldn't be exhausted the day of.
• The id cards came out great. The kids were so enamored with the Polaroid camera which we found after going to three stores.
• Cool spy Bond music playing throughout.

But all in all, it was a relaxing party and i felt like my husband and i worked together and were equally invested and equally busy. Finally learning to titrate stress and anxiety and be really present for the kids.

Nally and Aidan

Nally and Aidan get along so well lately.
It's so cute to watch. They chat about their day, they share jokes, they sing the same songs they learn at camp together, the collapse into these incorrigible giggles they can't get out of.
Aidan's going through this phase where he is adoring his big sister. He goes " Nally watch! " and he asks her for explanations of long words, hard conversations enoch and i are having and stuff that is happening on tv. She sits and explains in this mixture of aloof patience and affection.
Little boy is born codependent. i cuddle with him and he goes " What about Nally ? ". He is transferring all the "knight in shining armor" behavior he's been showering on me over to her. He gets her bag, her shoes, he picks up after her. It's funny how there are always workers in the family and those totally happy to be served. i have a hunch Aidan and i will be doing most of the picking up here. i have to coach him " Don't pick up for Nally -- she has to learn ".
But it's beautiful to see after a decade, brother and sister come into their own. They have their own parallel relationship now outside of me. They know songs i don't teach them, or jokes i didn't crack for them. They describe movie scenes to each other only they remember. The most awful moments in parenting lately has been when they both get into what i call "THE ZONE" into sheer giggles and what it takes all of me not to perceive as disrespect -- when i tell them to do stuff and they exchange glances and laugh like i'm not there.
Welcome to the Twilight Zone.
But all in all, it makes me remember how my sister and i really enjoyed each other at one point. And praying that God will protect this relationship till they grow up because they are all they have. i hope i don't screw it up by comparing and playing favorites. i hope that they'll always be a team like how Aidan tries to give Nally the answers when i was drilling her her times table.
Protect them God from the world, from jealousy, sibling rivalry, from the world's perceptions and comparisons, may they always remember the precious privilege of having another relationship outside of mommy and daddy, they will be each other's holder of memories when times passes on.

I should marry him

Aidan is growing up to be such a personality it's hysterical.
He is articulate and verbal and basically would keep up this ongoing verbal chatter with you all day long if you let him. On and on and on... he babbles about all his friends by name, some random girl on the soccer team that wanders instead of kicking the ball, who goofs with the teacher. i can always count on the inside scoop with him. i love his "pick up line" which always works with me " So" he says sitting down next to me -- " How was your day ? "
He is so funny to watch because he is like watching TV -- all expression. He pauses, clicks his mouth, rolls his eyes, holding the audience with bated breath. He is sassy and full of words Nally never used in first grade. When he cries -- it's an all out, full on tantrum that lasts for 40 minutes. i go " What's wrong ? " He is like " YOU tell me ". He has my anger issues, my passion, my intensity. It's amazing to watch in in a 7 year old.
He is also all extrovert - making friends on the playground, at a party, none of the awkward slow-to-warm up issues that Nally and i have. He is goal oriented, breezing through 2 workbooks this summer, hours on Matheletics -- focussed, single minded, externally motivated. My little Singaporean boy i call him.
Yet the part of him that blows me away is the a tenderness that renders me speechless. He is always arguing for " Special Time " at bedtime. He grabs me locks me in his arms at bedtime and looks at me eyeball to eyeball, then tilts his head ( i guess what he sees grown ups do ) and plants such a tender kiss on my lips that it takes all of me to feign nonchalance.The most bewildering and heart warming thing is to watch him serve me. He would zip my boots when i get into them, grab my purse for me, find things i lose, open my car door and close it when i get in. i am blown away because i don't know where he is learning this from -- enoch doesn't do it.
The other day, he watched me drill his sister math while she cried and sobbed; and he was beside himself. He was getting her cups of water, picking up dropped pencils, bringing her all his favorite toys, a blanket. And then finally he screamed " i can't do it " and went into his room and cried.I know it meant a lot to his cold aloof sister because she came out with a bag of carefully stashed candy and gave it to him.
My friend M said, if he was just 3 decades older -- i should marry him.

Peninsula School

The kids are at Peninsula this summer.
It's my attempt to mend a stressful year for Nally, and my one last exploration of a school i've always worried was a better fit for Nally.Walking in on this white mansion set on 5 acres of rustic landscape.i am so amazed to even find it, covered with trees, dirt, woodchips, the houses run down, metal rusting. It makes the landscaping in our house looks vintage.It's been a leap of faith registering. Nothing is revealed in the summer descriptions about what they would be doing. No math, no writing, no identifiable skills. Nothing to justify paying the money we did.Yet walking on, it is beautiful. All of me loves it at the same time the other part of me fights it. It is Bing. The idyllic world of Bing i had wished they had as babies when i worked there.The kids run barefoot, they wander as the teachers talk, they eat, they spend the morning remembering names, they hold chickens, they explore and wander the campus.As i walk around, a part of me is so annoyed that they can't even just tell me one thing that would structure my anxious brain. One thing that would help me relax in the sunshine -- i am grasping for straws. The teachers are too relaxed, too calm, too non-disclosing.Yet the kids love it. It's my last attempt at being a "Non Tiger Mom" darn it. It's been a great summer of camps. It'll end with 3 weeks here in this non-directive play therapy place : )Aidan came home sprouting facts about plants. Nally's teacher says she has a great memory.i'm just sitting in the unease watching myself twitch at the wild rustic unstructured space. It's the school i wish i went to. It's everything i wanted for myself. I'm watching the kids like a hawk, to see how the space would work for them. It'll be a fun next 3 weeks
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Projection

Finally figured out why the Speech Competition bothered me so much.
It is true that they didn't do their best.
The real truth is i didn't.
That somehow, in compromise of not pushing them too hard, respecting their freedom of choice, giving them space to want something, trusting the process, trusting their own process -- i had taken the "easy way out".
i know the process. i was groomed this way. This competition is traumatizing because it is familiar. i know the unforgiving process of the points system, i know that you get dinged for every pause, every mispronunciation, every um and every memory slip. We're in the world of perfection. If they don't have the points together, they forgo the prize. There was no 2nd and 3rd prize in Nally's category this year. There was only 4th and 1st. They don't cut anyone any flack. It's the world i fled.
i figured this one would be different.
That they would see appreciate how cute their speeches were, see how hard they tried, have some compassion, cut some flack. This is America, this is their life not mine. But no, in that dark auditorium in Lowell High school, all the same unforgiving rules apply.
And even if they didn't, every parent was executing them at home. They were drilling their kids, they were pushing, they were punishing, they were rewarding, they were being the Tiger Moms their moms were.
Of course we couldn't match that.
Part of me just felt so guilty for knowing that all along. For giving them and myself hope that they could win on other terms. I felt bad for thinking my kids were smarter, were far above due process, that they could win if they put their mind to it.
Practice practice practice.
Yesterday i told them that everything in my life is a practice -- my private practice, my yoga practice, my spiritual practice.
All the hours of pain put into piano, speeches, math and dramatic performances -- they now translate into a rigorous structure of my regime for work and self-care.
In the car, i lectured them on due process. On how half of the game is practicing delivery, on practicing being afraid. i berated them for refusing every invitation i gave them to do their speeches in front of an audience. For thinking they can do without that practice, that exposure.
i chided myself for doing the same.
Most of all, i scolded them for fighting me. For not leveraging my suggestions. " All the other kids, they worked with their mommies. They didn't fight them. " i told them i'm tired of being the enemy. That i'm going to give up next year -- if they wanted it, they can ask me. But they'll have to work hard.
No more goofing around.
There was so much more i could have done. Focussed on Aidan, researched the competition, gone against their will, disciplined, punished and chided.
But instead, i chose a kinder process, less stressful ( than it could have been ), i chose the non- Tiger mom approach, and i feel so bad for doing so.
Because it often means losing.
Us with all the opportunities to succeed, me a native speech, a nanny to coach them every night. Me with CDs, playing their speeches over and over.
i can give them every opportunity, but it's their choice to take it.
i feel so ashamed that my kids let other kids beat them. None native speakers.
Yet God you tell me that i am fighting for far better things. More than a trophy -- i am fighting for a relationship.

The Price for Losing

The kids didn't win anything this year.
Part of me is so incredulous after all the hard work we've put in. Another part of me kicked myself because i knew all along.
i knew the speeches were memorized late, that they were confused with the auditory version, that they were messing around and goofing around too much, that they were refusing any coaching from me.Listening to Aidan's classmates, i knew that he wasn't ready 2 days before the competition.
Yet a part of me really hoped against hope, that their speeches could carry them, because they were great speeches -- really well written.
The kids are so sad they lost. And a part of me empathizes yet another lectured them on due process in the car.
i am up at 3am grappling with the sadness that i knew, somehow, i knew but i chose or was powerless or couldn't do anything to stop what i knew was going to happen.
i should have been realistic, realize perfection was perfection, that they were less than perfect.Instead, i was tormented by them fighting me, distracted by their self esteem, too busy exercising powerlessness and mutual respect.
i told them, the kids who win, they let their parents coach them. They take feedback, they memorize early, they take every opportunity to practice in front of people. Mine, squirmed refuse to perform in front of people, fought every suggestion, threw tantrums.
It's been a year for Nally of " How much do you want this ? "3 auditions now that she has lost because she refused to take suggestions or learn. Just sheer retaliatory -- i don't want to.
i think about the year she got Honorable Mention and she cried all the way home.
How much does she want things ?
i tell myself, experiences of failure teach us far more than instances of success. Confronting their own limits is part of success.
In the car on the way home, we talk about how we can't get away from doing the work, and not doing things last minute, and not thinking we can wing it. It's not like we didn't work hard, other people just worked harder.
i know i got somewhere when we got out to attend the wedding and Nally asked " i am not the flower girl right ? because i didn't practice".
Yes my love, you didn't practice and in life you have to practice, practice, practice.

Dear God,
all my heart breaks to see them unrewarded today. Yet God you love them too much to let them win, to let them think that they deserve something they did not work for.
Others have worked harder than us and they deserve it. Help me to realize that giving them this prize would have been the worse thing for them.Help me forgive myself for not stressing them more, or pushing them more, or giving up on fighting them.
A part of me feels guilty for not working hard enough. For leaving it to the teachers.i am pleased with their progress.As 12-steps say progress not perfection.

Triggers

Chinese speech competition is brutal every year.
Somehow, it resurrects all my childhood trauma -- my performance anxiety, my fear of failure, Chinese teachers, my frustrations with my own learning processes, my memory.
This year i have 2 speeches to manage and i swear, it is so much stress. i am all ready to quit chinese next year.
i have 2 kids with 2 learning styles, 2 different ways of memorizing and two ways of reacting to stress and expectations.
Nally still remains my sole focus. It's so sad, because i can see it's going to be a lifetime of me differentiating myself from my daughter. As if i am so wildly successful at differentiating myself from my mother.
Yesterday i told myself tell a mother of a teen -- " That's why we remain neutral because if we can, they can decide what they want instead of reacting to me "
Yesterday i saw my son do his speech and a part of me got triggered.
It's so funny how we react differently to each child. Part of me worries that he is goofing. That he is not taking it seriously. Things i would never worry about Nally.
So what do i do, i threaten, i bribe. Especially since the parents in the class gave EVERYONE trophies for just simply entering the competition. For Nally, ok, for Aidan -- i thought it was just WRONG.
So i told him, if he didn't win a prize tomorrow -- no Pokemon cards.
And he wept. And i wept inside as i watch his little face crumble and say " mom i don't know if i stand a chance. i will never win! "
and i rescind and i go back on my word and i decide to affirm effort and then i look at him and think " you can handle this, you of the two of my kids. Your self esteem is stronger, you are competitive. You can handle the bar".
How screwed up am i?