On turning three

Birthday loot from the grandparents

He has fully rounded the bend past babyhood. Boyhood is clear on the horizon. I am watching the transition happen, right in front of my eyes. Suddenly, the child who would throw a fit because he didn’t want to walk is refusing the Ergo, insisting that he trot beside me for most of the almost half-mile to the el. He is trick-or-treating without a stroller, climbing steep porch steps without help. He is hanging off the bars at the playground, swinging his feet.

The child who had no words at all, really, is asking for more juice, more book, a big bowl. A glass of wine is “Dad’s juice.” He is saying “no dress,” “no bed.” He is singing the last word of each verse of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” saying the last word of each page of Goodnight Moon. He is pointing out blue, green, purple, yellow, red. He is saying “ummm” when faced with a choice. He is saying Dad? Dad? Dad? Mom? Dad?

He has said “Love you” back to me when I turn off the light at night.

He will never take a step off a curb or over a bump in the sidewalk when a full-throttle jump will do.

He has a sense of humor, slyly making the sign for “more” when he finishes a treat, grinning at us because he knows he can’t have seconds.

When I read him a book, he points to the page, giggling at a silly picture or crying "uh oh." It’s still so easy to make him laugh.

He can pedal a tricycle, draw a circle, comfort a fallen toy with a rocking hug, say that he’s 3, and give the best kisses, especially when they’re unsolicited.

He demonstrates more empathy than I'd expect from a child his age.

He has opinions about what shoes he wears.

He will sometimes throw the nearest object when he’s mad. He will hit. We’re working on this.

He has never been a good sleeper, and that hasn’t changed. We’re working on this.

He has peed in the potty twice.

He sometimes waves and yells “Bye bye!” to people exiting the el.

When he wakes in the morning, he says, “Up, Mom,” and brings me my slippers or glasses.

He loves the beach, the water, the hose, his Cozy Coupe, his tricycle, firetrucks, trains, Thomas, Bob the Builder, construction vehicles, his soccer ball, balloons, sticks. Ice cream, grapes, meat, fish, beans, rice, cereal with milk, M&Ms, sweet potato fries, “juice,” yogurt, ice cubes. He loves to walk on Clark Street and visit the dog store, the frozen yogurt place, the dry cleaner, the bookstore, of course the toystore. He is afraid of spiderwebs.

He remains a big fan of music and will pretend to play a horn when he hears it. He asks for music in the car. He loves the Native American drumming songs on his music class CDs.

A few weeks ago we toured a preschool that we’re considering for next year, and my heart leaped and ached at the same time, imagining him filing down those halls with the other big kids. It’s such a strange feeling to want and not want something at the same time.

It seems so unsatisfyingly inadequate to say how much I love him. How special he is. How deep my dreams and hopes are for him. How hard it is sometimes to parent a toddler, yet how grateful I am to parent this particular person. These days are so maddening and so sweet. They’re studded with such highs and lows. I would not trade them for anything.

Happy third birthday to my one and only Will Jiho. 

On turning two

Will can use a fork and spoon. He knows how to pet the dog gently (usually). He just started giving his stuffed animals a drink from his sippy cup—the first signs of pretend play. He can put on slip-on shoes. He’s excited to mimic everything we do. He loves his push tricycle. He loves to dance to “Gangnam Style.” If he sees a flower, even a fake one, he puts his nose to it. When a plate of food is set in front of him, especially at restaurants, he says enthusiastically, “MMMMMM!” If you tell him to go to his room and get a book and bring it to Dad, he does just that.

His first Halloween

He’s started to climb; we’ve taken down the crib and he seems thrilled about having his mattress on the floor. He gets excited about cars and motorcycles, buses and bulldozers, traffic lights, pumpkins on a porch. (We say hello to our pumpkins every day when we get home.) He can kick a ball with gusto. He puts toys in containers and dumps them out. He stacks his matchbox cars on top of each other. His dance moves consist of bouncing his head, squatting up and down, and turning in a slow circle until he gets too dizzy and tumbles to the floor.

He loves eating yogurt, rice and beans, fish, chicken, sweet potato fries, Korean noodles, kefir smoothies, waffles with peanut butter, grapes and berries, the occasional special-treat Oreo, and all kinds of cereal. He can climb up stairs on his own two feet, although he still reaches out for help sometimes. I want him to master the stairs, but I also want to hold that little hand.

I find myself wanting to stop time, to imprint little moments in my brain so they never fade away: He waves his hand, a pint-sized conductor, to get us to sing. He stands outside the glass door while John’s showering, rubbing his own hair and grinning as John shampoos. He laughs out loud when I send a car zooming down the ramp of his new toy garage. He burrows into me at bedtime. He turns around and backs down into my lap when we’re reading a book. He lifts a forkful of noodles to his mouth, or balances a piece of food on his sippy cup, then claps delightedly at his own success. He maneuvers his feet into our shoes and clomps around. He shrieks “MAH?!” when he sees the neighbor’s cat. He turns back to look at me again and again while he eats, while he plays with a toy, while he dances to music.

He’s at such an innocent age. A walk in the alley behind our home is slow-moving with wonder. Any new toy is a revelation. Seeing the television turned on is the height of excitement. When I say, “Please hold Mom’s hand,” he reaches up automatically. He doesn’t care what we dress him in. We do not embarrass him. We’re everything to him. There are so many things about the future that I’m excited about, and so many things that I know I’ll miss about this age and stage. Sometimes I already feel nostalgic for what he’s like right now.

I’m trying so hard to be present every day, to focus on the beauty and meaning of being his mother and watching him grow. I’m not saying anything new when I state that parenting a toddler can be very challenging, and sometimes I think it causes me to not see the forest for the trees. I focus on his whining, or on his refusal to sleep, or on trying to plan activities to keep him occupied, or on the confounding mercurialness of his toddler wants and needs. (“Mom, how dare you offer me grapes! But in 10 seconds, I will scream and whine because I don’t have grapes!”) Those trees can loom large. I’m writing this because I want to remember to look past them, to step back, to see the utter miracle that is the forest.

Happy 2^nd birthday, Will Jiho.

At 21 months: So I will not forget

The beach fills him with unbridled joy. He loves splashing in the surf, chasing seagulls, playing in the sand. He’s just started feeling brave enough to stand and walk in the water by himself, without holding our hands.

"Mah??!"

He’s getting more confident about stairs, too, and can often climb them without help, if there’s a railing.

He points at airplanes and asks “mah?” Same with cars, buildings, fences, fire hydrants, pretty much anything we pass on a walk when he’s feeling vocal. And the construction machinery in our neighborhood this summer has been a giant attraction. We may or may not have spent a full hour one morning watching it in action.

In a previous entry, I mentioned that after he hands something to a person, he nods his head emphatically, as if to say, “There. I gave it to you.” In a true “duh” moment, John and I realized that he was bowing, as he was taught by his foster family. We’re keeping this going; if we bow to him, he bows back.

He loves it when I rub and tickle his chubby thighs. His arms and legs are the brownest brown after half a summer spent outside, punctuated by a few pale-pink scars on his knees and elbows.

He “blows” me a kiss in the morning when he sees me carrying my work bag. And he wants to blow bubbles, but so far he just holds the wand near his mouth and looks up at me.

A fun game we play on the back deck: I creep toward him as he runs around the furniture giggling hysterically; he allows himself to be caught and I tickle him and kiss his neck.

He likes “Ring Around the Rosey,” “Hello Everybody,” “The Wheels on the Bus,” “El Pollito.” When he wants us to sing, he tries to do the accompanying hand motions and/or bops his head, and it’s up to us to figure out which song is being requested.

Current favorite foods: Yogurt, grapes, strawberries, animal crackers, zucchini, scrambled eggs, fruit smoothies, cheese, hummus, sweet potato, Cheerios, raisins, anything in soy sauce.

When faced with an in-ground swimming pool for the first time, he eagerly allowed himself to be placed in a blow-up tube and paddled away like a pro. His happiness at being in that pool is hard to describe.

He laughs when people around him are laughing.

Our current bedtime routine: Bath, pajamas, hair blow-dry if needed, warm milk, toothbrushing (“With some on top and some beneath, they brush and brush and brush their teeth”), Aquaphor on his upper lip where the pacifier chafes, pacifier. Reading three books (the last one usually being “The Going to Bed Book” by Sandra Boynton), saying “Time for sleep; night-night, light” as we turn off the light and turn on the white-noise machine, going into the crib, and then singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” until he’s asleep.

He still loves balls and toy cars and his stuffed musical seahorse. The broom is an endless source of fascination, as is the dustpan. (Would that it were always so.)

This week I bought him a new Sandra Boynton book. He climbed into my lap so we could read it together, and he was visibly excited to turn the pages. It just swelled my heart.

He rides in a green plastic toddler seat on the front of John’s bike, pointing at things as we fly down the street to a restaurant or the zoo, Marvin the Martian in his big black helmet.

He now drinks out of a sippy cup without letting the water cascade down his chin for fun.

Current favorite books: Anything by Boynton, “Go Dogs, Go,” “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” “Five Little Puppies Jumping on the Bed,” “The Pigeon Loves Things That Go,” and a book of classic nursery rhymes. He can identify certain animals and objects in books, such as a mouse and the moon.

Almost every day, we’re amazed to discover he understands a new English word: “sleep,” “more,” “airplane,” “phone.”

He’s been taking a music class for babies and toddlers. At the first one, he stayed on my lap the whole time, silently taking it all in (finding comfort and security in me, his mom; oh, these things still bring me so much happiness). By the third class, he was running around, grabbing instruments, moving his arms to the music, but still wanting to be held if he wasn’t quite sure about a certain activity.

Other than a full diaper, he has no bad smells. This fascinates me about toddlers.

Sometimes, when he’s watching his Pororo cartoons on YouTube, he waves to the characters, as if they could see him and wave back. And this just pulls at me so deeply, makes me want to protect him from all the scary things in this world. It almost gives me a tug of sadness. He is so innocent. He is so little.

When we bring him into our bed to sleep, he immediately burrows up against me.

On my first day back at work, he and John and Stella met me in the neighborhood as I walked home from the el. When I saw them, I crouched down and called to Will, and he ran along the sidewalk to me (he’s getting faster, but he still has that clumsy, jerky toddler gait) with a grin on his face, and I caught him and hugged him, his arms around my neck. I will never forget that moment.

Three more weeks

Today was such a good day, despite the fact that John was working late and it was too inhumanely hot to do our usual playground visit and afternoon run. Will slept until about 8:30, woke up with a smile, and we lay in bed for awhile cuddling and “talking” (I say something; he responds with “meh?” or “mah”). After breakfast, we played with his toys, including a new-to-him toy that I brought out of storage last night, a sloping track for little plastic cars. The look on his face when he entered the den and saw it was priceless.

Some favorite toys these days

When he became bored with his toys, I let him play around with some old cords, a hairdryer, and a computer mouse (which he promptly placed on the desk next to our real computer mouse) while I made the bed and got dressed. Our house has so many random objects strewn around in weird places, but this is how I’m able to put on my makeup.

We left at 11:15 to run errands in the stroller; the heat was intense, so there was no meandering. We dropped off paperwork at his daycare and spent some time at the bookstore, where they have a chest of toys and a great selection of kids’ books. Then we went to the sandwich shop for a really delightful lunch… sat across from each other at a little table in the window and ate our turkey sandwiches with lots of grins and no fussing.

Home again to walk Stella, with Will in the back carrier. He fell asleep, and I laid him on our bed, where he proceeded to take a solid one-hour nap (!), during which I wrote a little and read the New Yorker. He woke up groggy, and we cuddled on the bed for about 20 minutes. Milk, reading books (I sit on the floor in his room and he brings them to me), practicing “How big is Will? Soooo big!,” watching some Korean Pororo cartoons on YouTube, then outside to play in the kiddie pool for an hour—lots of fun stomping in the water, pouring with the funnel, and, of course, worshipping the hose, Will’s most favorite toy.

Inside for our afternoon snack of yogurt and crackers (he knows what “eat” means now, which is so helpful), then off to walk Stella, more playing with toy cars, and 20 minutes of Baby Einstein while I cooked dinner. He sat in the little rocking chair that was mine as a toddler, clutching a wooden spoon and swaying to “The Wheels on the Bus.” We ate in the dining room, more grins and excited head-bopping for the sweet potato and zucchini and cheese. He was in a mischievous mood, pretending to put food in his ears, which he knows is wrong, then putting it in his mouth and reveling in my praise.

The mischievousness continued after dinner, when I emptied his diaper pail, told him to stay away from it, then found him fiddling with its door; when I reprimanded him, he erupted in crazed giggles. Bathtime! I sang Pororo songs and he kept trying to stand up and dance in the tub. So much smiling today, so many hugs and arms lifted to be held, so much dancing and laughter.

As John settled down in the rocking chair to put him to bed, Will closed his bedroom door; I was standing in the hallway. I knocked on the door and asked for a goodnight hug. He opened it, smiled, and gave me one. Then I blew him a kiss, which he doesn’t yet know how to reciprocate, I thought. He blew me two back and closed the door. I sat at the table and cried because I’m so just so happy I get to be his mom.

*****

Unbelievably, I go back to work in three weeks. I still vividly remember my first few days home alone with Will, after John returned to work in late April. I could not fathom how we’d fill the next few months, how I’d get through the 10 hours of each day. Taking care of a mobile toddler on my own, all day, seemed like the hardest thing I’d ever attempted to do.

I’m not going to say that I now find it easy. But definitely easier, and with really, really huge rewards. We’ve had some bad days, but more of them have been like today. It’s just me and him, together, getting to know each other and becoming mother and son. We’ve gone to playgrounds and the beach, on runs and playdates, on the el, to parks and the bookstore, out for lunch and for ice cream, to a local museum. We’ve read books, kicked balls, drawn with sidewalk chalk, walked around the neighborhood, run errands, met dogs, watched Pororo cartoons, played in the kiddie pool, listened to music. We’ve cuddled. There have been tantrums and crying and confusion and worry and naughtiness and boredom and frustration. But there have also been many spontaneous hugs from Will, an inordinate amount of laughs and smiles, bonding, babbling, singing, and dancing.

Sometimes, going back to work feels like the wrong choice. The thought of leaving him—after we’ve been so joined at the hip since April 12—makes me feel incredibly sad (even though it’ll be made easier by the fact that John starts a five-week paternity leave when I go back). Then again, there have been several days when I dearly, fervently wished I was sitting in my office. When Monday morning rolls around, I don’t feel a sense of pure pleasure at the prospect of caring for Will alone for five days. I know that parts of those days will be beautiful, and I do truly love spending time with my son, but I feel a small sense of dread at the upcoming tedium and isolation combined with very limited parental down-time (Will isn’t much of a napper; some days it’s only 15 minutes).

I definitely don’t want to not work. But I realize that I’m wishing I didn’t have to work 40 hours a week. Even working just four days a week, instead of five, would help alleviate the guilt that’s already starting to creep into my mind and heart, settle heavily on my shoulders. I enjoy my job and colleagues, and it’s a family-friendly workplace, and I’ve worked hard to achieve the position I have there. But John and I don’t need my salary to survive. So the wheedling voice of guilt tells me that I’m going back to work only because I want to… because I don’t want to take care of Will full-time… and that’s a selfish choice that isn’t best for a toddler. No one has actually said this to me, and John doesn’t agree with it, but the voice is there.

I know there are other reasons to keep my job. I honestly believe I’ll be a happier, more balanced person and, therefore, a better parent if I’m working. If John lost his job and I was unemployed, we’d be in bad shape. If John wants to change jobs for one that’s less stressful with a lower salary, he’ll have much more latitude to do that if I’m working. Editorial jobs are difficult to come by, and it would likely be extremely tough for me to find another well-paying, fulfilling position if I take three or four years off… let alone at a company that’s as sane and pleasant as the one that employs me now. I could try to build a freelance editing business, but I’m not sure how to schedule weekly childcare for unpredictable work, and I don’t think I can mentally handle parenting all day and editing all night. Then there’s the fact that we’re pretty confident Will will adore daycare and thrive with the activities and other kids.

Still. The guilt, tinged with a little sadness. It’s there, and I’m not quite sure what will become of it. In the meantime, my focus right now is on enjoying these last few weeks of just the two of us. I’m trying to be as present as I can. I’m taking lots of photos. Every night, I write down all the little discoveries and accomplishments and feelings and funny things that happened that day for both of us, knowing that once I’m back in my office—managing, editing, hair done and lipstick on and no need to worry about what the toddler’s getting into or how to entertain him—I will, without a doubt, miss him and these precious, precious days.

 

So I will not forget

Sometimes, randomly, in the middle of playing, he walks over to me and wraps his arms around my neck in a big hug.

When he hands a person something, he’ll sometimes nod his head emphatically, as if to say, “There. I gave it to you.” And he’ll often willingly and easily give a person something if he or she asks or gestures for it, open his mouth so I can pry a piece of paper out, etc. Somehow I suspect this obedience won’t last, but I’m certainly enjoying it now.

He loves it when I rub his ears, count his chubby toes, tickle his tummy.

He adores balls of all kinds and flaps his arms like an excited little bird when he plays with them.

He mimics people sneezing and coughing. When I flutter my eyelashes at him while we eat, he squints his in return.

If I sing “Dancin’ dancin’ dancin’,” he flaps his arms and swivels his waist.

When I tell him to hug a stuffed animal (in Korean, “ah-na”), he does so, then hands it to me to hug as well.

His favorite toy right now is a red metal Volkswagen Beetle. He loves pushing it along the floor and “vrooming” it over his body the way I taught him. (He remembers things I teach him.)

He can point to his head, tummy, ears, and nose. Two days ago he identified a photo of a ball. Yesterday he stacked six blocks. When I clapped and cheered, he began clapping for himself each time he added another block.

He absolutely abhors having sunscreen applied, having his face wiped, and getting out of the bathtub. Diaper changes often aren’t much fun either.

He brings me books to read. This fills me with no end of joy.

In the morning, when we’re waking up, I say “mm” and he says “mm” and we answer each other like that a few times.

When I tell him “no” (and pretty firmly, too) as he goes for the stove knob or dog’s water dish, or tries the flush the toilet for the third time, he just looks at me and smiles. Depending on what time of day it is, this is endearing or incredibly annoying.

He squawks when we enter any kind of tunnel or enclosed space, enjoying the echo.

When we water the outdoor plants, he picks up his little plastic watering can and follows us, pretending to do the same.

A friend brought us Korean jap chae noodles, and he devoured them with complete vigor and joy, noodles stuck to his cheeks, clasping the empty plastic bowl on his face at the end.

When I ask him if he wants to watch a Pororo video, he runs to the desk and stands in front of the computer bopping his head to the music he’s about to hear.

I don’t know why the fact that he drops things from his highchair annoys me so much, but it really, really does.

He smells like strawberries, even when he hasn’t been eating them.

When the toaster pops up, he puts his hand to his ear as if the phone rang. Good lord how he loves the concept of a phone. He’ll hold anything to his ear and ask “Meh?” as if he’s answering a call.

He loves staring up at a tree while its branches sway in the wind, running his fingers over the rough bark of the trunk. A squirrel or a beetle is mesmerizing. The garden hose is the most brilliant object ever invented by humankind.

This week, he suddenly began clapping more often—for music, for his favorite Korean cartoon, for himself.

How can I write about how his crinkly little smile lights up my heart in a way that doesn’t sound so trite? How will I ever learn to write about that?

How I wonder what you are

Will is home. We are three. How to write about this? How to even start, and what to say?

I have been a mother for four weeks now. The mother of Will Jiho. I’ve felt pretty much every emotion under the sun during those four weeks. But the ones that consistently come out on top are happiness and love. Happiness at being Will’s mother. Love for him that began, in full unadulterated force, the moment John scooped him up at the agency in Seoul, and we got into the impossibly tiny elevator, rode the seven floors down to the lobby, entered the waiting cab, and drove away, across the river, back to our hotel. A family of three.

I think what I’m going to do here is just write whatever comes to mind about him. Because really, what these four weeks have been about is Will, learning to care for him, and getting to know him. They’ve been about me and John, too, and our adjustment and feelings, but really, right now, this isn’t about us at all. It’s about the eighteen-month-old who’s in the midst of one of the biggest changes a person can experience—with no real way to understand it, or have it explained to him. And it’s our job to help him through it.

To be blunt, I’m in awe of how well Will is doing. I don’t credit myself and John much; I think it’s largely due to Will’s personality. He is a cheerful, outgoing, funny, friendly, and curious kid. He smiles and laughs a lot—I’m realizing that one of my number-one goals these days is getting him to laugh! He’s not afraid of meeting people and going new places. He was certainly bonded to his foster family, with whom he lived for sixteen months, but he was happy, playful, and relaxed with us during our first meeting with him in Seoul. From day one, he has let us comfort him and care for him. When he’s upset, he’ll sometimes show a preference for me over John, but overall he seems think we’re both pretty cool.

Will loves…

…Eating. His foster mom thought he ate too much, although he’s under the fiftieth percentile for weight and height. Favorites so far are strawberries, grapes, fish, chicken, sweet potato, waffle, Puffs, yogurt, bread, applesauce, Cheerios (or rather, the Trader Joe’s brand of faux Cheerios), and cheese.

…Going outside. He gets so excited about his shoes and coat! He truly loves heading out, whether it’s on the back deck, to the playground, or for a run in the stroller (thank goodness). He’s been fussy a few times during my runs, but usually he’s completely relaxed. We’re not sure if he ever rode in a stroller in Korea, so we were worried about this.

…Bathtime! We have a true little fish. No matter where he is or what he’s doing, when he hears John turn on the tub faucet, he goes running to the bathroom. He shrieks and babbles with happiness and tries to climb into the tub. In four weeks, the adorableness of this has not waned. He also just loves H2O in general—when we give him a sippy cup of water, instead of drinking it, he revels in letting it drip down his chin. One of the best ways to keep him occupied during a wait at the doctor’s office was to let him turn the water fountain on and off (and on and off…).

…Music. He loves to dance and bop his head along to his toy piano, the maraca we gave him, bits of music played during NPR newscasts, even the sound of two plastic cups being banged together. He also loves any kind of song that has accompanying hand motions, like “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” and “The Wheels on the Bus.”

…Waving. He is an expert, and he gets a lot of practice, since we live in a neighborhood bustling with pedestrians, dogs, cars, and buses. All of them get an enthusiastic wave.

…Buttons, switches, dials of any sort. Our lamps, the wall light switches, the DVD player, remote controls, cellphones, John’s guitar amplifier—you name it, he wants to push/pull/turn it. …Opening and shutting cabinets, doors, and drawers, repeatedly.

…Stella! His foster family had a dog on the premises (not sure if it was an indoor dog), and he’s never shown a shred of fear toward his hound sister. We’re still working on “gentle petting,” but he’s getting there. After a few days at home, he knew which toys were hers and would pick them up and bring them to her bed (heartmelt). For her part, Stella has been a true champ. Her tolerance amazes us. If he does something she doesn’t like, she simply walks away.

…Interesting textures. He loves to rub his fingers on the heating vent, stuffed animals, screens, the grass, etc. His favorite books right now are the kind that are “touch and feel.”

…Keys. Sadly, they (like everything else) go right into his mouth, so we don’t let him play with them for long. This can lead to screaming.

What doesn’t Will love? Well, naps have been a challenge. Apparently he was taking two daily ones in Korea, but he’s been haphazard about it here. I think this might change as time goes on and he’s more used to his surroundings. The best way to get him down is to wear him on our backs in the Ergo (he’s actually snoozing there while I type this). Better than nothing, because no nap = not a happy Will. 

Everyone asks how sleep is going, and really, it could be a lot worse. One of us slept on the floor in his room for the first two weeks or so, with him beside us on the crib mattress. (The jet lag was crazy those first few days—he’d wake up at 3 a.m. ready to play.) After about two weeks, we slowly moved him up into his crib. He now falls asleep there between 8 and 8:30, wakes up around midnight for a bottle, sometimes wakes again around 2ish but can be soothed back to sleep, then wakes about 4 or 5 and usually isn’t soothable, so we bring him into our bed to sleep until we get up for the day. Honestly, I don’t have many complaints about this right now—I feel like we’re getting a bit of co-sleeping in there, which is supposed to be good for attachment, but he’s also learning to sleep in his own room and in his crib.

I’m trying to think of what else upsets him, or what he doesn’t like. He does have cranky days, and he does tantrum. Sometimes diaper changes are a challenge. We have to say “no” to him and remove him from situations quite often, since he’s 100 percent mobile and into everything. But truly, his default personality seems to be goofy, happy, and curious. He often wakes up in our bed with a smile on his face, his hair all sticking up. It is the very best way I have ever woken up.

How I’ve been feeling: in love, in awe, in shock, confused, frustrated, incredibly lucky, worried, impatient, guilty, tired, amazed, overloaded, wistful, bored, proud, happy, purely joyful. My first few days home alone last week, when John went back to work, were pretty mentally overwhelming. The 10 hours of each day seemed unfillable. I could not fathom how to handle the following eleven weeks. This week felt much, much better—I have ideas for how to structure things, we get out and do something every day, and that makes a huge difference. A lot of the time, I really, really like hanging out with Will. At certain times, all I want is for John to get home. My son is a toddler, and I’m thinking these feelings are pretty normal, especially for someone who didn’t have the eighteen months leading up to this to get used to parenthood and this particular child.

What else?

I want to write that watching John parent—which he does generously and responsively and thoughtfully and well—has been an amazing thing to see.

That I cried at least once a day for almost two weeks after we got home: tears of jet lag, joy, exhaustion, frustration, love.

That I still don’t quite feel like a “real” parent, and that we have no idea what to do in many situations (let’s just say that Will’s diapers went on backward for awhile), but that I have learned mightily in the past month.

That hearing Will laugh and seeing him smile floods me with a kind of happiness I’ve never felt before.

That you should absolutely never turn down an offer of a homemade meal when you’re a new parent. 

That it is possible to go out to dinner with a toddler, if you choose the right place and go early enough. That putting on makeup and pretty clothes can feel hugely restorative.

That I had read about people needing months to feel attached to their adopted children, and about women dealing with post-adoption depression, and I’d secretly thought I might experience these feelings, but I haven’t.

That I suspect the Pororo music will be playing on a continuous loop in my brain for the next five years.

That taking care of a toddler for a whole day alone can be really, really hard. You might find yourself thinking purely in terms of how to fill the time until your partner comes home. Then you might feel guilty for thinking that way, but you still kind of do.

That I sometimes look forward to Will being a little older, and other times want him to stay a baby so very much.

That sitting on the couch at 9 p.m. with a New Yorker

and a glass of wine or a brownie has never, ever felt so good.

That feeling my son’s arms cling around my neck for comfort at 3 a.m. is a beautiful feeling, no matter how tired I am.

That I don’t understand how the universe worked to make us Will’s parents and him our son, but that I will be always, eternally grateful that it did.

Will call

The phone in my office rang just after 9:45 a.m., and I recognized the area code. Our social worker. And at that instant, I knew. It was The Call. Travel Call. Will was ready to come home.

I’d been stalking my online adoption group all morning, and a few other families had already received their calls. John and I didn’t know if we’d be joining them, or if we’d still have to wait a few days or weeks. This process, oh, this process. There have been so many twists and turns, false starts, false hopes. The lack of information and the conjecture it forces can be exhausting. But we knew one indisputable fact—that Will’s emigration permit had been submitted a few weeks earlier—so we knew that receiving this phone call was only a matter of time.

“Are you sitting down?” our social worker asked me. “This is your travel call!”

I didn’t expect that I would cry, but I did. It just washed over me. I could barely respond to her. I just gulped big breaths, turned my back to my office door, and closed my eyes against the tears.

It was really happening. The end, the beginning.

“I hope those are happy tears!” she said, and I assured her that they were, and I listened to her tell me that we could book our flight and hotel, and that I needed to send her our itinerary, and to call her with any questions as we prepared to leave. “I’ll let you go so you can call John now!” she chirped. And I did.

That day, as I walked home from the train after work, the air was cool and crisp, the spring sunset golden. The new lime-green leaves on the trees seemed even more beautiful than they had that morning. It was Thursday, March 29, 2012. Two years and four months after I mailed our initial application to adopt a baby from Korea, we finally know the day on which we’ll meet our son: Monday, April 9, 2012. On that morning, we’ll be driven to his foster family’s home, and the front door will open and we will see him there.

I can feel my heart beat a little faster when I type that.

The range of emotions I’ve experienced in the past five days is truly dizzying. I’m brimming with joy and happiness, I’m shaky with fear, I’m extremely excited and slightly overwhelmed. It all feels surreal—that’s the most apt word, I think. To realize it’s my last week at work for months. To pack tiny socks, a bib, diapers, baby wash. To say out loud, “I am leaving for Seoul this weekend.” To see an ad for a TV show on April 15 and think, He’ll be here at home with us when that airs.

Will is coming home.

2011 lookback: An embarrassment of riches

Even when I kept a paper journal, back in college, I always loved writing a “year in review” entry at the end of December. This meme, while a meme, makes it easy. Without further ado:

What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Ran a half-marathon in two hours, stood on Cuban soil, became an aunt, took a four-week photography class, took a staycation. Went to six concerts (Iron & Wine, Mason Jennings, Death Cab for Cutie with Frightened Rabbit, Mountain Heart, Amos Lee, and the Civil Wars). Walked on Lake Shore Drive after a blizzard. Attended a mayoral debate. Kept a daily gratitude list for a month. Cheered on runners in the Chicago marathon. Named my son.

Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My 2011 resolutions were to run the half-marathon again and beat my first time (done!), become comfortable driving again (woefully not done!), continue reading at least one book per month (done), take a more in-depth photography class (done), and hang out in my neighborhood café in the winter when I feel sad about the lack of light (semi-done; I could have indulged in this more often).

2012 is going to be a year like no other. Of course, my resolutions are focused on Will—on doing the very best I can to make him feel safe and comfortable and happy in his new home. I’m going to do some intense reading on attachment this winter. I want to focus on patience and calmness. Overall, I want to start learning how to become the best parent I can. I also want to focus on keeping our marriage strong as we embark on this huge change in our life.

I am so, so excited to love my child in person.

I’d like to run my third half-marathon; I think I can do it, depending on the timing of my maternity leave. I want to write here at least once a month, and I want to keep taking ballet classes when possible.

Where did you travel in 2011?
San Francisco and Havana, Cuba! Closer to home: northern Michigan for a weeklong camping trip.

What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Obviously, Will.

What dates or images from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory?
November 10, the day I received the phone call at work that changed everything. November 13, the day we knew for sure that Will was our son.

Then, in chronological order:
--April 17, the day I held my week-old nephew for the very first time, and looked down and saw my family in the tiny, red, scrunched-up face of a newborn.
--The Friday night in late May when I stumbled across a blog post discussing the fact that Korean adoptions would be on hold for the rest of the year.
--The morning of June 22, when I wandered into the kitchen and found a small gray box waiting for me on the counter. Beautiful, beautiful diamond earrings from a husband who continues to surprise and delight me after 10 years of marriage.
--The very early morning of August 14, watching the cobalt clouds rush across the downtown skyline as I walked toward the start of the half-marathon.
--December 8, seeing the island of Cuba from the sky for the first time, the passengers clapping as we landed, my hands shaking and a little Cuban-American boy yelling excitedly to his mother, “We’re in CUBA!”
--December 10, visiting the neighborhood where my mother grew up, walking the rooms where my ancestors lived. I will never, ever forget this day and the way it made me feel.

What were your biggest achievements of the year?
As with last year, running! I had a personal best of 24:35 in a 5k, and I shaved 15 minutes off my half-marathon time. I wrote here almost every month, and I took four photo walks: two in Uptown and Edgewater after the blizzard, one in the Loop, and one in the neighborhood this fall. I celebrated 10 years of marriage, and I started taking ballet classes again after 21 years.

What was your biggest failure?
Driving more often. I really, really need to get on this.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
Some illnesses here and there, but I’m so happy to be able to type that none of them was serious.

What was the best thing you bought?
New plain white dishes. An oil painting in Cuba. A flowered dress from Akira. My iPhone.

Whose behavior merited celebration?
Cuban bloggers who are brave enough to speak out against the oppression and propaganda of their country’s government. Read them. The wider their audience, the more protected they are from persecution.

Whose behavior saddened you?
I wish the Korean government would embrace an adoption policy that works better for children who need families.

Where did most of your money go?
The mortgage, Cuba, adoption fees.

What did you get really excited about?
Will. Cuba. Running. Game of Thrones. Eating at Topolobampo for our 10th wedding anniversary. Living outside on our deck in the summer. Girls’ weekend in Chicago. Our staycation. Working on Will’s nursery. My neighborhood. Lagunita’s A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale. Big Star. The Violet Hour. Watching Stella run on the beach.

What song will always remind you of 2011?
Anything by The Head and the Heart and The Civil Wars. The Beatles song “Till There Was You,” which John learned to play on his guitar.

What do you wish you’d done more of?
Photography and driving.

What do you wish you’d done less of?
Worrying; thinking in terms of “what ifs.”

What was your favorite TV program?
Game of Thrones, Mad Men, and Modern Family.

What was the best book you read?
I read 12 books this year—three less than last year, but four of them were giant books in the Game of Thrones series. The New Yorker continues to take up a lot of my reading time! The GoT books and Freedom by Jonathan Franzen were my favorites.

What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Civil Wars

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
I finally tried on a pair of skinny jeans and felt sad that I’d waited so long. Also, I happily wore lots of dresses and skirts in the summer.

What political issue stirred you the most?
Gay rights and health care… same as last year.

What kept you sane?
Late Sunday afternoons with a glass of wine and InStyle magazine, preferably on the deck. Summertime camping. Any stretch of a few days where I didn’t touch a computer. (Mind you, these are exactly the same as 2009 and 2010.)

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Our family and friends provide us with an embarrassment of riches. I can run faster than I’d ever imagine possible. Also: What you think about the reflection in the mirror isn’t the point; just put on the leotard and go.

Snapshots of gratitude

On Nov. 1 (Will’s first birthday! Oh, still reveling in all this. And yes, his full name when he comes home will be William Jiho—I neglected to mention that in my last post), I noticed that a few friends on Facebook were starting a daily gratitude post for each day in November. I liked that idea, but I didn’t want to update my Facebook status every day. So I decided to keep a list in a notebook.

Of course, my life changed on Nov. 10, and suddenly I was overflowing with so much gratitude I could hardly see straight. But still, I kept up with the little ritual, and I’m so glad I did. It’s a snapshot of a month—who knew it would be the month everything shifted so amazingly?—and although I tend to be a person who’s usually mindful of her good fortune, I still appreciated the exercise of choosing one thing each night to record.

There are a few recurring themes in my list: Will, of course, and friendship, running, and sickness (it wasn’t my healthiest month). Also beer, apparently. Here it is:

11/1: I’m grateful that three of my editors are getting extremely well deserved promotions.

11/2: Grateful that Stella has grown to be able to enjoy and savor her walks! Gone is the super-spooky shy dog; now it’s all sniffing every blade of grass and greeting people with a waggy tail.

11/3: Grateful that my cold is almost gone and I’m able to run a fast three-miler again.

11/4: For the brilliant red and yellow trees that I walk under on my way to the train each morning.

11/5: For friendships that are 16 years old and counting!

11/6: For the discovery of new music—in this case, Milo Greene and the Civil Wars.

11/7: For being able to afford a doctor appointment and sinus infection meds, no sweat.

11/8: For living in a city where I can enjoy cultural events like the Chicago Manual of Style’s 100^th anniversary (editorial geeks unite!).

11/9: Grateful for a good friend with a shared ethnic heritage.

11/10: For Jiho. A thousand times over, for Jiho. [Picture lots of little stars doodled around this one…]

11/11: For early Friday nights, cozy in bed with a book (preferably one from the Game of Thrones series).

11/12: For a sweet peaceful day spent largely with John: errands in the neighborhood (the notary!), Old Town School of Folk Music, drinks and dinner out in Lakeview, sharing a tender new knowledge of a little baby boy living across the world.

11/13: For my son, William Jiho. [This was the day we spoke with the pediatrician who reviewed Will’s files and made our final decision.]

11/14: For the sunshine when I walked to the post office to mail our acceptance package to the agency.

11/15: For the tears shed and sincere joy expressed by my friends when I share the news with them. Feeling overwhelmed with the blessings of friendship and not sure I deserve so much of it…

11/16: For beer, mussels, frites, and a good friend to share them with.

11/17: For a run when you just feel strong and good—even on a treadmill.

11/18: Grateful for a cozy evening at home: guitar, beer, pizza, movie. Him and me.

11/19: Lots to be thankful for today: Sleeping in, ballet class, brunch with friends, artists at the DIY craft fair, the online adoption community, an Italian dinner with John and our favorite bottle of Chianti (which we discovered in Rome!). Also, we’re lucky to have lovely neighbors!

11/20: Grateful for having cousins who are also good friends.

11/21: Thankful that I have the ability and talent to write—working on our first letter to Will’s foster family.

11/22: For having a husband who enjoys—and is good at—cooking.

11/23: For wonderful, supportive, thoughtful and kind coworkers.

11/24: For two beautiful Thanksgiving feasts, for two families that are growing, for all of my relatives who are so genuinely excited about Will.

11/25: For yearly traditions with Mom: Hobby Lobby and lunch!

11/26: For my parents-in-law. I want to be them when I’m older.

11/27: For the glow of indoor Christmas lights.

11/28: For being able to walk to so many restaurants and shops from our home.

11/29: For medicine and our easy access to it.

11/30: For 10 terrific years (today!) in the big, beautiful, brawling and never boring city of Chicago.

What a month.

Traffic patterns changing

I never realized this before, but November is a month in which good things tend to happen in my life. It’s the month in which we moved to Chicago 10 years ago. It’s the month I was hired in my current job, which I love, and the month in which we mailed off our application to adopt from Korea. (Of course, it’s the month of Thanksgiving, too, a time of gratitude and family and lots of good food.)

On Thursday, November 10, around 10:30 in the morning, I retrieved my phone from the closet in my office to text our dogwalker. I then placed it on my desk, thinking absentmindedly that one of these days, hopefully, hopefully, our social worker would call with our referral, and I’d want to make sure I picked up right away.

Less than three minutes later, it rang, and it was her.

“I’ve received a package with a referral for you,” she said.

Then I was standing, facing away from my open office door, my eyes full, hands shaking, heart beating so hard I could feel it hitting against my chest.

It’s a boy, she told me. He’s healthy. He was born on November 1, 2010. We could come in that afternoon to read his files and see his face.

See his face.

I called John, still shaking, breathless. I think he was shocked to the point where he could barely register what was happening, that it was actually happening. He would pick me up at 2:30 for the drive to the agency.

I called my parents. I told my boss and cried when she hugged me. I pretended to do work for three hours. My stomach somersaulted; I had no appetite for lunch. I tried to remember what we’d been doing on November 1 in 2010. It was a Monday, the day after Halloween. We’d run a 10K on Halloween morning and met up with new friends whose adopted toddler son is Korean. I remembered John and I walking around the neighborhood that night, looking at all the trick-or-treaters, talking about how much our child would love being part of it someday, musing about costume ideas. He was born the next day.

The drive was slow, surreal. We listened to Andrew Bird. We passed the Korean Air warehouse by the airport. I saw a construction sign alongside the highway: “Week of Nov. 7: Traffic patterns changing.”

Our social worker apologized for wearing jeans; she hadn’t expected to meet with clients that day. We sat in her office and she started handing us document after document, so much information about his birthmother, his birth, his medical history, his foster family. And then, oh, then, three pages of typed information from his foster mother: his likes and dislikes, his personality, his schedule, what he eats (and what he spits out—yogurt!). He is curious and likes riding outside in his carriage. He can sometimes be short-tempered. He can find a hidden toy. He likes baths. He laughs. He likes meeting other babies. He dances when his foster mother sings. He cries when his foster father leaves for work. He’s already pulling himself up. He says two words. He has four teeth.

His birthmother gave him the name Jiho. It means “clear wisdom.”

The Korean social worker wrote in the paperwork, “Jiho is a smart, cute-looking baby boy. He babbles well and gives a laugh if you play with him. He is growing up healthy and being loved in the special care of his foster family. We hope that Jiho will meet a good adoptive family as soon as possible. We also hope his adoptive parents will enjoy a happier life as well with him.”

And then, then, the photos. We were given the gift of more than 25 of them, some taken when he was six months old and some just a few weeks ago, at 12 months. He is adorable. He is beautiful. He has big eyes and lots of hair and the smoothest skin. He’s wearing a little hoodie. He’s standing up and holding onto a toy lawnmower. He’s clutching a rattle, then a phone. He’s sitting with his smiling foster mother. He’s propped up between two huge teddy bears.

We took the papers and the photos and we drove home in a daze, in the late-afternoon darkness, straining to look at his face again and again as we passed under the streetlights. When we got home, we spread all the photos out on the counter, a collage of Jiho. We reread his paperwork. That night we slept like the dead, funnily enough; we were just completely drained from the emotion and intensity of the day.

Before formally accepting the referral, we needed to speak with a pediatrician who specializes in internationally adopted children and have him review Jiho’s files. That didn’t happen until Sunday. Friday and Saturday were slow and surreal, spent looking at his photos, talking about him, offering up possible names, just the two of us together, sharing this secret. For the first time since we decided to adopt, John walked into the second bedroom and started talking about what we’d need for the nursery. (He always said he wanted to wait until our referral before doing any real preparation.)

On Sunday afternoon, we spoke with the doctor, who’s raising his family in the city not far from us and will likely be our pediatrician. He said Jiho is healthy and developing well. He told us to “go get him.”

And we are.

We don’t know exactly when that will be. Sometime in the spring, I suspect (and pray). Sometime in the spring we will fly across the world, where there is a baby boy waiting for us, as we’ve been waiting for him. We will meet him and hold him and become a family of three. He is real. This is really happening. For two years—we mailed our first application to adopt on November 12, 2009—this has been our hope and wish and plan, and now it’s actually happened. It’s almost too much to process and grasp, but it’s beginning to feel more normal as each hour of each day passes by. The more I look at his face, the deeper in love I fall with him.

I don’t even know what else to write, or how to talk about this. In the past nine days, I’ve found myself smiling at nothing. Riding on the train, I haven’t been able to focus on my magazine; I just stare out the window. We’ve called our parents and siblings, emailed his photos to the proud new grandparents and aunts and uncles. We’re starting to tell cousins, friends, coworkers. Their tears and sincere joy for us deepens our own. I’ve reflected a lot on what wonderful people we have in our life, and on the miracle of how many people here already love this baby.

I won’t lie, the tears have been coming easily. The moment on Sunday afternoon when we decided to accept, I cried hard, really hard, so overwhelmed by what was happening. And then I gathered myself together, dried my face, pulled my hair back, and went out for my long run, amazed at how different the familiar path and trees and lake looked that miraculous autumn afternoon, on my first run as a mom.

Balance and turns

I danced ballet for six years, until I was 14 and didn’t want to anymore. I had taken classes several times a week, danced in Nutrackers and Coppelia and Giselle, in pointe shoes and tutus, with girls both mean and sweet. Some of those girls had stiff flappy arms and “feet like milquetoast,” as my larger-than-life teacher would say. Others got better and better until they were whipping out double pirouettes and leaping through solos, their svelte bodies completely under their command. I was in the middle, not bad but not the best. I had graceful arms and good feet, but not a remarkable amount of strength or precision. I wasn’t overweight, but I wasn’t the slenderest. Middling.

When I joined the company as an apprentice and graduated to dancing pointe, everything became harder. I couldn’t seem to keep up as well as I had before. The competition among the girls was more blatant. I started dreading class. I looked at my body in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors and was disappointed. I imagined doing other things after school. And I decided to stop.

It was a big decision for a 14-year-old, and I can still remember my mom standing in my bedroom doorway, motionless and stricken, as I told her the news. It was the right thing for me to do, and I didn’t regret it, but it closed the door on a big part of my life. I nudged it open once in awhile by dancing in a school play, or writing about my experiences in a college workshop, or attending Joffrey performances here in Chicago. But I never took another class until a few weeks ago.

I actually can’t remember now where I got the idea. I still love the art form, and I think I suddenly realized that I could be part of it in that physical way again—put on ballet shoes and practice tendues and developés, follow my hand with my eyes as I Iift it to first position. What did I have to lose? If I didn’t like dancing, I could just stop. So I looked for a low-key adult beginner class and found a well-regarded studio right in my neighborhood. I Googled whether you need to wear a bra with a leotard. (Seriously, I could not remember how I used to handle that. The answer for me: no.) I went to a dance shop and bought a leotard, footless tights, and canvas shoes. I had strange, angsty dreams. And then I showed up on a Saturday morning, and I danced ballet for an hour.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for the past few weeks, now that I’ve taken four classes. The surrealness is wearing off a bit. That first class was alternately amazing and conflicting and just beautifully strange. I could not believe how much my mind and body remembered. I could hear my old teacher’s voice in my head, guiding us through the steps. My feet could still point the way they always had, and my legs felt strong and sharp, my arms and hands graceful. My balance, though—good lord. You’d think my core was made of Jello. And could it be that at 35, my memory’s starting to fuzz around the edges? Or was it always this tough to memorize the combinations?

My classmates were mostly women, some younger and some older. Most of them had danced at a young age like me. One of the things I noticed right away was this beautiful open space where the judging used to be—we weren’t sizing each other up, dividing the good and the bad and the middling, bringing the politics of popularity into the mix. We were just spending our Saturday morning doing something that we enjoyed, getting some exercise, admiring and listening to our lithe, petite 50-something teacher who has obviously been a professional ballerina all her life.

So much is different. Instead of an actual piano or a scratchy record player, the music comes from an iPod. My hand that holds the barre has a wedding ring on it. My hair isn’t in a bun, studded with bobby pins and secured with a net; I need my mom for that, so a ponytail does the job. It feels unnatural to turn out my feet, to balance in a passé relevé. Have I mentioned the lack of balance?

So much is the same. I take an inordinate amount of pleasure in doing barre work, just like I always did. Thanks to running and strength training, I’m in decent shape, much as I was back when I was dancing several days a week. My grand battements look pretty darn good. I know how to hold my head, and I don’t sickle my feet. I think my body’s proportions are pretty much the same. Also, newsflash: It still takes a healthy dose of courage to watch yourself move around in a leotard and tights.

My body still doesn’t do what real dancers’ bodies should do. I still am not one of the best. And see, there’s the thing, one of the reasons I’m especially glad to be taking this class. I have always been a perfectionist, a child who abhorred coloring outside the lines, who became accustomed to getting A’s, who was a good writer, a group leader, someone who got the job, who got promoted. Who set goal times for races and then, almost always, achieved them.

The first winter that John and I were dating, he bought me a pair of ice skates so we could go skating together. I didn’t know how to skate. A few turns around the crowded rink, clutching an orange road cone for dear life while 10-year-olds soared past, turned me off completely. I didn’t feel like I could do it, and that embarrassed me greatly, and I put the ice skates away and never used them again.

Being a perfectionist is both a good and a bad thing, of course, and I’ve always felt bad about those skates. So for the past four Saturdays, as I’ve faced myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror and realized I am not the best or thinnest dancer in the room, nor will I ever be, I’ve also told myself that that’s OK. I am not there to be the best and thinnest dancer in the room. I am not there to spin double pirouettes and be cast in the right parts. I am there because I love ballet, and I want to work my body, and it feels good to get in touch with that long-ago part of myself that danced these same steps.

If I can learn that, really learn that, along with balance and turns and combinations, I think this will be one of the best decisions I’ve yet to make for myself. My teacher says that balance can be strengthened simply by standing on one foot as you wait for the train. It can become second nature. I’m going to believe that’s true.

How to have a successful staycation

Plan your three days off work during a week in which it will be sunny and breezy, with highs in the upper 70s and lower 80s, every single day.

If you feel just a wee bit guilty when you wake up at 8:30 a.m. on a Wednesday and proceed to leisurely drink coffee on the deck with the newspaper, get over it.

Virtuously write up a list of chores, but flagrantly disregard all of them.

Do as much as you can outside. This includes all meals, reading, guitar playing, and daydreaming.

Spend at least two afternoons at the beach. Read, doze, swim, drink Coronas, and watch your dog leap and bound with joy in the waves.

Devour the second book in the Game of Thrones series for two-hour stretches at a time. Do this on the deck if possible, with a few breaks for a slight doze in the sunshine.

Never get up before 8 a.m.

Have breakfast with a friend at a neighborhood café that always reminds you of cafés in Europe. However, unlike Europeans, order scrambled eggs and tortillas and fruit and big mugs of black coffee.

Enjoy shopping in the empty H&M store downtown. Admire your husband in a new tweed jacket with elbow patches and yourself in three fun fall sweaters.

Lazily make your way through the September issue of InStyle magazine, cold beer(s) and pita chips and goat cheese at your side.

Have your world thoroughly rocked during a small concert given by a hugely talented alt-bluegrass band.

Easily get a table at an always-crowded tapas restaurant. Go for the pitcher of sangria, the sausages, the stuffed mushrooms.

Sit out on the deck late on a weeknight. Savor the warm breeze on your skin, drink wine and listen to quiet music, and talk about everything and nothing with the one you love, as your dog sleeps at your feet.

Stay out late on a school night at the awesome Frightened Rabbits/Death Cab for Cutie concert.

See an amazing documentary that you probably wouldn’t make time for otherwise.

Get your name in early for an always insanely crowded taco joint. Kill time with drinks and aimless ambling and hipster watching. (Count the mustaches and hats.)

Do a photo walk downtown, exploring nooks and crannies in the city you’ve lived in for 10 years—but in which there’s always something new to discover, if you just keep your eyes open.

15 minutes

My second half-marathon: It went so, so well. That’s what I've been thinking since I crossed the finish line at around 8:40 yesterday morning. The weather, the energy, the course, the crowds, the music, and me. It all went just as well as it could have.

This entry is about running, and about me preserving the memory of this race. I did my first half last September, with a primary goal of finishing without walking and a secondary goal of doing it in two hours and 15 minutes. I achieved both, but when I finished, I had this nagging feeling that I could have run faster. I hadn’t left it all on the course. It was my first big race, and I tended toward the conservative; I was afraid of flaming out halfway through and having to walk. I didn’t trust my training or myself as well as I should have.

I wanted this year to be different. During my three months of training, I did long runs with “fast finishes.” I did six- and seven-mile pace runs. My race goals were (1) to finish faster than two hours and 15 minutes and, hopefully, (2) to finish in two hours. I succeeded at both. I shaved 15 minutes off last year’s time. I did that. Me.

Nothing else in my life gives me that kind of high.

I am not a morning person, but on Sunday I woke up before my alarm at 4:45 a.m. The wind was blowing steadily, pushing cobalt-blue clouds across the dark sky. John and I were downtown in less than 20 minutes, flying down Lake Shore Drive with a smattering of other cars, some of them taxis carrying runners. We found parking on State Street and were at the start area with half-hour to spare. I warmed up, milled around, strapped on my Garmin, adjusted my visor about 16 times.

After the anthem, the waves broke quickly—I was in corral 12—and just a few minutes after the starting horn, I was moving through the start line, feeling a little choked up with excitement, that thrill of being one in a crowd of thousands of other runners, that thrill of starting.

The weather was—cool. Yes, on August 14. There was a refreshing breeze, never any real sunshine, the lightest drizzle for a few minutes at one point, and beautifully dramatic dark-gray clouds for the first few miles. No humidity. On August 14.

I liked the course much better than last year’s half, which was primarily on Lake Shore Drive. I love the lake as much as the next Chicagoan, but I run alongside it all the time. This course wound through downtown: River North, Greektown, the South Loop. I ran under the el tracks, by buildings and on blocks I’ve never seen before, up and down a few slight hills that revealed the giant pack of runners owning the street ahead of me. Best of all, the downtown location made it much, much easier for spectators to congregate along the sidewalks. The energy from the crowds was just unbelievable; sometimes I felt like they were buoying me along: musicians, cheerleaders, babies, grandparents, dogs, dancers, people with bells and drums, in costumes and wigs, and so very many signs.

I wore a paper wristband (covered in clear tape) that listed my goal times for each mile to get me to a two-hour finish. I also wrote the four locations where friends would be waiting to see me, so I didn’t have to memorize them. As each mile went by, I realized, almost in shock, that I was meeting each goal. I was on track for two hours. I was doing it!

And I just kept going. I was working hard, but I could do it. My right knee acted up, as it’s wont to do around mile 7 or 8, but I did some high marches at the next two water stops, and that took care of it. I just kept going: miles 9, 10, 11, they slid by under my feet. Just after mile 12, during a stretch where there weren’t many spectators, a friendly-looking man held a homemade sign that proclaimed, “YOU GOT THIS.” It was the exact right thing for me to read at that moment. I knew that I did have it, that I was going to do it. I ran as hard as I could through that finish line, official time of 2:00:26. I did it.

The one other sign that I remember from the race was held by a woman standing on a bridge. It’s a quote I’ve heard before but never chosen as a mantra; I tend to think things like “Believe in your training,” “Your only competitor is yourself,” “I’m 35, I’m strong, and I can run.” Her sign read, “There will come a day when you can no longer do this. Today is not that day.” I thought about that as the miles went by, and especially at the end. There will come a day when I can no longer run. Man, will I miss it. Even when it’s the very last thing I feel like doing, when it hurts or feels like a long dull slog, deep down inside I am so, so glad that I run. Now is the time in my life when I can, and when I can still keep getting faster. What else can I do?

One decade

Ten years ago today, John and I were married. The wedding was in a Catholic church in our neighborhood in Michigan. The reception was just down the street on the grounds of an old mansion. It was outdoors, under a lit-up white tent, surrounded by green grass and candlelight. It rained during the ceremony, briefly, but it stopped just before we exited the church in a gentle storm of bubbles and cheers. Wine flowed at the reception. There was a lot of laughing, especially at the toasts. The dance floor was full at all times. The blessings of that night were so amazingly great I could not wrap my arms around them. I couldn’t fathom the joyfulness.

Ten years ago, I was 25 and John was 26. (Where we lived in western Michigan, we felt we were on the “older side” to be getting married; we’d already attended many, many weddings together.) He was a staff accountant who’d just passed his CPA test. I worked in corporate communications and had recently graduated from filing papers and proofreading emails to editing and writing for employee publications. I was Catholic and John was Christian Reformed.

After our wedding, he moved into my one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a rambling old Victorian house. A raccoon lived in the turret above our bed. We had no Internet connection. I had been wanting to move to Chicago for awhile, and John, who had never left his hometown, not even for college, was game. We looked for jobs, combing the classifieds at work and at the local library’s computers. By late fall, after a few trips around the lake to interview, we’d found work at a CPA firm and an academic press. We moved to the city on Nov. 30, 2001.

Our first apartment had huge windows and one tiny bedroom. When the back window was open, you could hear the crowds cheering at Wrigley Field. During our two years there, we started to put down roots in Chicago. We settled into our jobs. I began attending grad school for a master’s in writing. We decided to become Episcopalians together. We went to Wrigley bars, and we discovered “new” food—Thai! Middle Eastern! I started to run along the lakefront. When the woman who owned our apartment decided to sell it, we decided to move and buy a condo of our own.

We relocated about a mile and a half north. Two bedrooms now, and central air, and free washers and dryers in the basement! We’d stay in this building for six years, becoming close friends with several of our neighbors and getting involved in our block club. John was promoted, then promoted again. I started a new job at a marketing/publishing firm. We had Moose, our beloved greyhound; he lived with us there for four years, until bone cancer took him. Stella joined us a few months later. I graduated with my MA. John brewed homemade beer. I realized I could run three miles at a time, and we started doing 5K races together. We celebrated our fifth anniversary. We turned 30.

The housing market fell, the government offered a credit to first-time homebuyers, and we decided to sell, and to stay in the city. We fell hard for a place just a bit west of us, and the stars aligned, and it was meant to be, and we sold our first condo and bought our second. Three bedrooms, our own washer and dryer, and the huge deck we’d been wanting for years. It was our dream home, and after almost two years there, it still is. In it we’ve watched Stella blossom into a dog who’s no longer afraid of her own shadow. We’ve entertained friends, planted flowers, and mowed the (OK, very small) lawn. And we made the decision to become parents through adoption.

In the past ten years, we have traveled to the Outer Banks, New Hampshire, Key West, Colorado, New York, St. Augustine, Las Vegas, and San Francisco. The British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas. France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy. Next year, Korea.

Of course, I can’t fully describe a decade in one online post. In the past ten years, we have laughed a lot. We have felt grateful. We have worried, and cried, and faced some hard things. But we’ve still, always, felt grateful.

Now, on June 22, 2011, we are 35 and 36. We are both managers. (We have gone through ten married tax seasons together.) I’m a half-marathoner. John is an accomplished guitar player. We’re better cooks, we’re more well traveled, we have different ideas about religion than we used to, although we’re still at the same moderate-liberal spot politically. My hair is grayer, John’s is a little more sparse, and both of us have laugh lines around our eyes. Although we’re healthy and in good shape, I should say that my back hurts if I stand at a concert for too long.

I have a partner who is adventurous, patient, understanding, fun, honest, loyal, and supportive. He is a man who is going to be everything our child could want in a father. I look at the past decade, feel extremely satisfied with it, and feel excited to turn the page. I will never stop realizing how lucky I am to turn that page with him.