A Little Introspection

i just had an interesting and depleting evening. here is an e-mail i just sent to one of my dearest friends in the whole wide world. the friend is a lovely lady named Jenn. we met in high school, went to university together, and then our paths took seriously different ways. i went to korea, then got married, and had kids, etc. jenn kept on with the schooling stuff. she was in architecture at the university of toronto (where i went to school with her). then she applied to M.I.T. for her masters in architecture, and GOT IN. she just graduated from there in the spring and is now in beijing working at an architectural firm. hello? amazing. she is vietnamese-canadian, and her parents love her dearly, but are waiting for her to leave beijing and go to harvard for law school. why? because ALL asian parents want their kids to go to harvard for law school. (side note, jenn and i have a beautiful african-canadian friend who also went to high school and university with us. she is presently in law school at harvard. my parents know nothing of this for so many different reasons...)

"as i was logging on to my e-mail, i was thinking about you and how i was going to write you a meaningful e-mail since all the kids are asleep and i haven't written to you in so long, and i just had a pretty poopy night. LITERALLY. jeehon is at bible study and it's chris' late night working night, so i am alone with the three kids every monday night. usually it's not bad at all.
but tonight sucked.
my nephew sungu is slowly saying more and more stuff. not necessarily words, but he is trying to repeat what other people (namely jeehon and i) are saying. lily... not so much. i cannot tell you how much it vexes me that lily is older and not necessarily smarter than sungu. sometimes she is better behaved, but that's cause she is a girl. BUT she is not always better behaved. i need her to either ALWAYS be better behaved and dumber, or just smarter and occassionally well behaved. who the crap am i kidding?? it kills me that she is not better behaved all the time and smarter than sungu! there. it's all out there. jeehon doesn't rub it in my face or anything. but just the fact that she knows that sungu is starting to get more words than lily makes her kinda happy. the way it makes her kinda happy when i am pregnant, cause it means i weigh more than her. it's petty stuff. but the stuff that makes women happy. very happy. me included.
anyhoo, so we were all hanging out, having a gay old time. i put on a korean dvd of kids singing and dancing. lily and sungu LOVE IT. it's so cute cause they often dance about too. topher was also loving watching everything and everyone. he's such a sweet little guy.
the kids were also playing with stacking blocks and rings to promote motor skill development whilst watching this dvd that was supposed to be making them better singers, dancers, and korean speakers.
then i gave them their milk which is a sign that it is almost time for bed. lily and sungu were getting milk all over the dang place which always happens, but today it was killing me. and of course there was more milk spilled than usual. and no one likes milk in the carpet or on the furniture. it makes stuff smell bad. and so i kinda yelled. mostly at lily. partly cause of the milk. but mostly cause she is not smarter and better behaved than sungu. am i a crap mother or what?!!?
so then i cooled down and took lily and sungu upstairs for their bath. that went off without a glitch. i got them out and brought them into sungu's room. i opened the drawer that has diapers in it, and of course there is only one left. so as i was trying to decide who i should put it on first, i look at lily and she is peeing on the carpet. not a whole lot, but still, it's pee. in the carpet. no one likes pee in the carpet. it really smells.
so i decided that lily should get the diaper since it didn't look like she finished peeing. so rational, right? after i got her sealed up, i grabbed some pjs for sungu, opened the door, getting ready to move the party into lily's room where more diapers were to be found. but i stepped in something. it kinda looked like avocado, and it felt like avocado on my foot, but let me tell you honey- it was not avocado. at least, not JUST avocado. so sungu dropped a deuce in his room, and i stepped in it, so now it's REALLY in the carpet. and NO ONE LIKES POO IN THE CARPET.
so now the kids are all asleep. somehow they are also all alive and well. and i just wanted to write to you and say hi and tell you that i missed you too and i cannot tell you how amazing it is that you wrote to me at just the time that i needed to hear from you.
the sucky thing about your timing is that i was going to reply to what you were saying about your family waiting for you to go to law school and i think that is so absurd considering you graduated from MIT. hello??? ridiculous expectations asian parents! but as i was writing/venting about lily, i thought that maybe i am a ridiculous asian parent myself.
boo introspection!..."