While driving to a friend’s house today, Miles looks out the car window at a field and points.  He says very innocently, “Mama, where’s the bong?”  Screeeech, uh, say whuuut?!  He asks again, “Mama, where’s the bong?”  I scratch my head.  Hmm, maybe Jason and I had a conversation once about a bong.  Not sure when we ever had that conversation, but it could have occurred and I just forgot.  This is how our conversation goes:

Me:  The bong?

Miles:  The bomb

Me:  The bomb?

Miles:  The BOMB!

Me:  Say it again, Miles.  The bomb or The bong?

Miles:  He is now frustrated and irate with me b/c I can’t understand him.  THE BOMB!!!!!!

Me:  Miles, I am having such a hard time understanding you.  I’m sorry!  Say it again, but say it slow this time.

Miles: THE BARN!!!!!

Me: Ohhhh, THE BARN!  You are asking me WHERE IS THE BARN on the field?  Yes, okay, I understand you now.

Miles: BIG smile on his face.

Most parents are able to decode approximately 70 percent of what their child says.  The other 30 percent is “Yeah, sure, whatever you said kid.”  Miles started saying his first words at around 10 months.  We remember clearly: light, duck, and dog.  By two years old, he was speaking 4 word sentences and had around 250 words, and by three, there is actually some social reciprocity.  Most of the time we understand what Miles is trying to say, but there are just some words, mostly words with an “R” in it, we have the most difficulty understanding.  Is it “party” or “potty”?  Is it a “clapper” or a “crapper”?

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At 18 months old, Lila has only a few words.  Here is Lila humming her favorite song:

I’ve diagnosed myself with a psychiatric condition.  What better person to diagnose than a clinical psychologist and a person who is a clinical psychologist?  Okay, did that make any sense?  Though it’s not recognized in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual or approved by the American Psychological Association, it is a true condition that affects most people who live in the rainy region of the United States. 

Hello, my name is Mina and I have RAD, Rain Affected Disorder. 

Symptoms- Experiencing too much Rain. 

Prevalence- 1:1 (100%) of Californians who move to the Pacific Northwest.  There are no gender differences.

Treatment- Take at least 2 vacations during the fall and winter. The 2 vacations must consist of sunny and warm climate.  Tomorrow, I head to the Bay Area for a conference.  Perhaps I can soak up some sunshine while there!

Miss Lila bean is now 17 months old and life with Lila and Miles has been a challenge, but certainly a lot of fun.  When we see both kids playing and laughing with one another, we think having two kids back-to-back wasn’t so bad afterall. 

It’s weird to think that when Miles was 17 months old, we were bringing Lila home from the hospital.  At the time, Miles seemed so much like a big boy.  He was using 3-4 word sentences, he was very charming and determined, and he just seemed older.  It’s funny what your mind can tell you because Lila, at 17 months, still seems like a baby to us.  She has these pudgy cheeks, a buddha belly, and marshmallow arms.  Interestingly, Lila is not talking yet, but she is very clear about what she wants with her facial expressions and pointing.

Below is a picture of Miles meeting Lila at the hospital.  As you can see, Miles is not liking his new sister.

I don’t understand why parents make such a big deal out of the ”Terrible Two’s.”  I find it so special when my two year old decides to throw a temper tantrum in the middle of Target and then I become that mom that everyone is looking at.  I often get the sympathetic look from other moms like: I’ve been there, done that, hang in there mama.  I also get the ones like: Hey lady, get a hold of your kid!  In that situation, I wished that a little devil would jump out of Miles so that I could prove to others that indeed, I do have a devil child!  Or how about when he decides to take a bite out of his sister’s arm for no reason other than “She looked at me funny!”?  I especially love it when my son looks at me right in the eye and does the exact opposite of what I want him to do.

“Please do not pull the toilet paper off its roll!!!!”

Translation to a two year old:

“Yes, please pull all the toilet paper off its roll so that the entire bathroom is t-peed with tiny bits and pieces of toilet paper!” 

Sometimes Jason and I think WE are the crazy one!  How can anyone not go out of their mind with a roommate that defies everything you say, talks back, screams at your face, writes on the walls, pees on the floor, wakes up at 5am and expects you to play, but still gives you lots of wet, blubbery kisses.  The other night, Miles held my face and said, “Mama, you look so cute!”  My son fills my heart with so much love…and craziness.  I guess that’s why hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent each year on parenting and child-rearing books.  It’s to teach you to keep your cool, stay firm, don’t go postal on your child because this will all pass until they reach adolescents (that’s another story), and the cutest things they say will melt your heart and you’ll fall in love with your child all over again.

Look at this precious face!  Sometimes we feel like selling him to the zoo so that he can be with his own kind…where the wild things are…

Since Jason and I are 99 percent sure that we are done makin’ babies, we decided to clean out the garage with all of Miles and Lila’s baby gear.  We decided to have an impromptu garage sale and sold, well… nothing.  I mean, we tried for an hour to have a garage sale, but the weather was cloudy/sprinkling and we weren’t very organized…which in code means, we had zero signs leading to our sale…

We sold a few things on Craigslist and donated majority of the items to Goodwill. 

Miles and Lila found their long lost bouncy chair.  Each of them took turns sitting in it.  It was hilarious watching them because it seemed like it was yesterday that they were in it and today they were spilling over the sides. 

Nature is funny in that deer and cats can be such good friends.  We often have deer and ferrell cats roaming right outside our house.  These two silly animals came right up to each other and touched/kissed each other on the nose (unfortunately, we were unable to catch it in this video or photo).  That’s love.

Recently, my friend Catrina and I decided that since we have two kids close to the same age, we should try childcare swapping.  Basically, we take care of each others kids while the child-free couple get a date night at no charge.

Since living in Portland, Jason and I rarely have had date nights.  Yes, yes, yes, we know the importance of having date nights.  It’s time away from the kids to focus on ourselves.  We figure that going out to dinner and a movie easily costs $75 and then on top of it, you have to pay for a babysitter, which is another $50.  This is when it’s helpful to have grandparents nearby, but since we don’t have that, we have to get the next best thing- another friend who also has kids!  Saturday (yesterday) was our first time giving it a try.  At first, Jason and I thought that having four kids would be pretty hectic, but believe it or not, it was actually much easier!  The kids played with each other and had a great time.  Catrina and her husband spent a nice evening celebrating their six year anniversary! Yay!  Next Sunday, Jason and I have our date night.  We can’t wait!

We just returned to Portland after spending a week at Jason’s parents home in Oark, located in Northwest Arkansas.  Jason’s father, William “Bill” Fondren Driver, Jr., a stained-glass maker, artist and craftsman, record-setting swimmer, and pilot for the Navy during the Vietnam War, died at his home on August 26, 2009.  He was 67 and was diagnosed with secondary liver cancer this spring.

The entire Driver family put their hearts and hands together last Thursday and had a memorial at their home.  Though it was unfortunate about the situation, all agreed it was great to see everyone.  It was a beautiful celebration of life.  Dad, grandpa and friend, you will be greatly missed.  We love you Bill.

“Dad’s acting kind of strange lately,” my brother, mom, and I started saying about five years ago…

My father was diagnosed with Frontal Temporal Dementia (FTD) about a year ago.  FTD, similar but different to Alzheimer’s, is a type of dementia.   As for my father and others who have dementia, this condition is usually diagnosed by MRI, CT, neuropsychological testing, blood work, and of course, very importantly, by the patient’s family members .  FTD is much less common than Alzheimer’s Disease.  It affects the frontal temporal region of the brain; hence, the name of the diagnosis.  Folks with FTD often experience executive functioning problems (e.g. planning and organizing) and have communication difficulty (e.g. stop talking), poor judgment, and difficulty empathizing.  This is what a normal functioning person does every second of the day, without thinking much about it.

We first noticed my father’s “problems” when he crashed his Mercedes into a wall.  This was about 5 years ago.  Hmmm, dad’s acting kinda strange lately.  This is a man who use to fly and land enormous aircrafts during the Vietnam War.  My father taught Math and studied Engineering.  His premorbid functioning was definitely strong in the area of executive functioning, visual spatial, judgment…  So when dad crashed his car, we knew something was up.

Last weekend I had a huge scare and experienced a big learning lesson.  My sister-in-law and I, our kids, and grandpa (my dad) decided to go out to lunch at a small local mall near my parents home.  My dad tires easily and often mumbles in Vietnamese, “sit down.”  I helped to seat my dad on the mall bench to let him rest for a little while.  As I am sitting there with him, I see some sales going on in a store.  I tell my dad that I am going to quickly run into the store and that he should wait for me, just for a few minutes.  As I enter the store, I turn around to check on him.  Great, he is still sitting there.  A few minutes later, I turn around to check on him again, yep, he is still sitting there.  Again, a few minutes go by and I turn around to check on him.  He..is…gone from the bench…My heart sinks…

Where did dad go? Where could he have gone? Maybe he went to the restroom! Yes, he’ll be back. I’m sure of it!  A few minutes go by.  No sign of dad.  I start scouring the mini mall looking for a 69 year old, Asian man, who’s shuffling, and is probably looking lost.  Crap! Now everyone in the mall looks like a 69 year-old Vietnamese man, and I am getting faint and having difficulty discerning one person from the other now.  I slap myself.  “Get it together, Mina!  You lost your father!”  Twenty minutes passed and now I am really worried.  I go to mall security.  Security and I start scouring the mall.  Still, no sign of dad.  The security suggests that I call the police because now it has been almost an hour.  I can’t believe it has come to this.  I can’t believe I lost my father.  I am feeling incredibly sad and embarrassed that I could not keep my eye on dad.  What if something happened to dad.  What if something horrible happened to dad.  I have to trust that he is okay and that the police will find him. 

Five minutes later, a call comes in to mall security.  The police have found a man with the same description walking along the street.  I am hoping and praying that this is indeed my father.  What the heck is he doing walking along the street?!  How did he get out of my sight so quickly?!  Another 10 minutes go by and I see my father, shuffling down the mall next to a policeman.  I run toward my father and am so relieved that he is found, and appears safe.  I look at him and he starts crying uncontrollably.  Of course, this makes me feel awful and I too start crying.  He’s not able to verbalize his thoughts and feelings to me, but just by looking at his sadness, I know that he wants to say a million things.  One thing for sure, I know he wants to say/mumble, “Go home.”  I am met with shame. 

This was a wake up call.

It’s hard for us to answer honestly and simply when someone asks, “How do you like Portland?”  We moved to PDX about two years ago and it has been a BIG transition.  Jason and I just celebrated our four year anniversary in July but it feels like we have been married for 10.  No, no, don’t get me wrong.  It’s not like we have been dragging or anything like that, but for a couple who has only been married for four years, we have done a lot!  Let see, we:

1.  Got married

2.  Had our first kid 16 months later.  We weren’t planning on starting a family this soon, but some of our friends were having a little trouble getting pregnant so we decided, Geez, what happens if it takes us a couple of years to get pregnant. We should start gettin’ busy now!   Anyway, of course, the day we start trying, is the day we get pregnant.  I have a girlfriend who calls mefertile Mertle…Go figure! 

3. Sold our home in Los Angeles.

4.  Moved to Portland to accept a new job.

5.  Got pregnant with our second baby one month after we moved.

6.  Jason became a stay-at-home daddy.

7.  Bought a house in Portland and so we moved from our rental to the house we are in now. 

8.  Had our second baby five months after we moved in.

A colleague (he and his family recently moved from Phoenix to PDX) said to me recently that he found Portland to be a very friendly town, but people aren’t very welcoming.  I have to admit, I agree with his statement.  We had a pretty sweet life in Los Angeles.  We had tons of friends, a neighborhood full of young children (whom we were very close with and sometimes we would exchange childcare), a cute little California bungalow, and Jason had a great music studio in back of the house.  Why the heck did we move then, you ask?  (1) We wanted Miles (at the time we only had 1 kiddo) to be in a good school district, knowingly that we could not simply afford private school in LA.  (2) Get a bigger house and a bigger lot in a better neighborhood (3) Be more green-we wanted more trees, seasons, and be in a city that almost everyone cared about the environment  (4) Less traffic and congestion and better air quality (5) I was getting bored at my old job and wanted something more challenging, and last but not least (6) Be closer to at least 1 set of grandparents. 

The best thing about moving to Portland is that we got ALL of this!  Portland is an awesome, child-friendly, family-friendly, and dog-friendly (sad for us now) town.  It’s very affordable to live here and it’s absolutely beautiful, green, and lush.  We are in a great neighborhood and have a great house.  Miles and Lila are set for a great school district, and monthly weekend visits to the grandparents house in Seattle is so much fun! Miles will follow grandma around all day long asking her, What’s that called? Who is that? Why? and grandma loves every bit of it!    

I think what has made our move more difficult is that we don’t have any friends in Portland.  No, wait, I can’t say any friends because I do have about three or four girlfriends that I get together with…rarely.  I haven’t made that one really good friend where I can call last minute and say, ”Hey, you wanna grab coffee and talk?”  Everyone knows that I am never lacking conversation or “outgoingness.”  I can talk to our post lady about almost anything or to a deer that comes by once in a while to our backyard.  I am always up for coffee and being spontaneous (okay, not with a deer)!  I’m not able to go to playgroups during the week b/c I work full-time.  Sometimes I feel really isolated to the point that I’m almost a little crazy.  I am constantly out with the kids in the stroller (sometimes rain, and always shine!) stalking other moms in strollers.  This is one of the many things that I miss about LA.  Everyone is always outside taking a walk or playing with their kids, and, even if you don’t really know your neighbor down the street, you will become instant friends b/c you have that one thing in common, the KIDS.  Because it rains soo much in PDX, no one is ever out. It’s too cold and raining to go out about 9 months out of the year!  Okay, maybe not 9 months, but if feels like it when you are stuck in the house with two very active toddlers. 

Friends tell me to be patient.  I am told that when Miles and Lila start school, I’ll meet other parents who will want to have play dates.  I guess I am trying to be patient.  But it’s hard to think that Miles won’t start going to preschool until the fall of 2010, and it’s another year that will go by of loneliness and feeling isolated and stuck in the house.

So how do I/we answer folks when they ask us, “How do you like Portland?”  We simply say, “We don’t know.”  Because in truth, we don’t know.  We don’t know if we see ourselves being here long-term.