4 pairs of Converse high-tops

We bought four pairs. You came into the world with four pairs of Converse hightop shoes. Daddy bought unisex colors: two sets of aqua (unisex? debatable) and two sets of black, because we didn't know if you were a boy or girl. But we were prepared with hightops, sizes 3, 5, 7, 9.

We didn't know how this would work, you joining us, no other family member for 1000 miles, Mama in grad school, Daddy working 3 jobs. When the nurses handed you to me, I couldn't tell if it was just the anesthesia making me shiver or if the great and profound weight of this new life in my care was making me quake. I was holding 8 lb. 1 oz. of beautiful you but the pull of gravity at that moment was much greater. Like a Mac truck had backed into my hospital bed and dropped a heap-ton of work and sleeplessness into my lap. Somehow--and I can't explain it because I think you have to experience it firsthand--a feeling washed over me that you were the only one thing in my life that I couldn't get out of, and yet we were going to be ok, you and I and Daddy, and that we were going to be so, so happy together.

I mean, for starters, at least we had shoes.

The first time I saw your Daddy walking up the hill of Schultz lawn, he was wearing Converse. They were red Chucks, the only appropriate choice for the man who captured my young heart.

Whenever we would go to visit your grandparents in Ann Arbor, we would visit Sam's to buy ourselves a new pair of Cons.

***

It's terribly naive to think that we should make this bulk investment in Converse for a girl who would not walk for another 13 months, but I suppose the shoes symbolize our naivete and our induction of you into our Converse club.

***

You put the last pair on today, the bookends on this shoe collection, and you complained that they were pinching your toes. It felt unfair, that you had outgrown these shoes that had once seemed so impossibly big without our even noticing it.

This, too, is a symbol of the invisible ache that your own growth causes the people who love you most in this world, and also of the wonderful shoes you have yet to fill that you do not yet own, in sizes we cannot yet fathom.

The 5 stages of moving (with kids)

I imagine there are worse things than moving with children. Being buried alive, contracting giardia, getting stuck in spinning class behind the person who ate onions and garlic for dinner last night--these are all worse than moving with children. Moving with children is a special blend of punishment, though, mixing chaos with emotions, pouring it over the ice of having to clean everything, and not being able to find the umbrella for your drink because someone probably packed it with the snorkeling gear. We are nearly at the end of our move, the second move we have made with children, and I have come to recognize that, mirroring the 5 stages of grief, there are

The 5 stages of moving:

1. The Nostalgic Stage You spend precious time gathering and then reflecting on the significance of each possession, thinking about the time you bought that grass skirt and coconut bra on your Hawaiian honeymoon. Nevermind that you will never again be the size you were on your honeymoon. This skirt/coconut ensemble is to be an heirloom, treasured by generations to come! It shall be folded and wrapped in tissue paper and placed in a hope chest, layered between memories and rainbows and lucky rabbit feet.

2. The Selling Stage You have set aside a pile of items you believe to be of great value, that will sell high on e-bay or at a premium on craigslist. You are overjoyed to be doing this because you will net so much money, which you will help defray your moving costs! You have staged each Laura Ashley bedspread in a romantic environment with soft lighting and are just waiting for that big offer to come through!

3. The Minimalist Stage You are relishing this newfound simplicity as you prepare for this move. You find it so refreshing to live minimally, with the majority of your belongings now packed away and neatly marked with the name of the room into which they will be unloaded in your new domicile. You are feeling so much lighter! You are practically Thoreau!

4. The Resistance Stage Your children are starting to resent all their toys being packed away. All of craigslist is flaking out on you, and Laura Ashley didn't even get one bid on e-bay!? The more boxes you pack, the more your yet-to-be-packed stuff seems to multiply. You are starting to lose memory of what has been packed and what you haven't packed and what you actually own or what you gave away through craigslist. You do random headcounts throughout the day just to make sure your children who had taken to playing in boxes aren't actually sealed in.

5. The 'I don't give a flying UHaul' stage You are freaking out. It seems Oriental Trading has exploded in every drawer, with useless trash made in China standing in the way of your move. You have taken to just throwing random crap into any box, bag, or Barbie dreamhouse that will contain it. You are convinced your sanity is buried somewhere deep, within the Christmas decorations, perhaps? Or was it with the coconut bra? Your spouse says, We are not moving the crazy with us, so you throw everything away, vowing to recycle for the rest of your life to reduce the huge carbon footprint you have just made on the way to the landfill. In the end, you move. And there you are, in a new place with all your old stuff. Join us next time for "the 5 stages of moving in." Right now, we're still on stage 1: denial.

RAH RAH REE, Let me see you M-O-V-E!

We are moving around the corner and the process has felt like a long break-up that keeps trying to backpedal and see if there's anything vestigial from the relationship that can be saved. Like that tinny song: "She said/What about/'Breakfast at Tiffany's'." Remember that one? A mutual affection for an Audrey Hepburn film can't save us. It is time to pack up and move on to the greener pasture. Moving has been going on for soooo long now, I have given it a new name. Moving, or as I like to call it, Finding all the loose change in your house that was ever minted. Ever. Oh, and also finding: beads, doll shoes, Legos, stickers with dust and dinosaur bits festering on them, and enough hair rubberbands to keep an entire cheerleading squad suspended in mid-air. I am almost persuaded to believe that while I was out, a cheerleading convention took place in my home and they tried to clean up all the hair rubberbands and beads and stickers but they just couldn't. Spirit sticks are a mess.

***

At a writer's conference, a woman I've never met turns to me, "Oh my gosh girl, you look great. Even for a writer!" I said, "My stars, you do, too! What's your secret? You must be a writer!"

Laughter.

Then, simultaneously, She: "No, but I do like your glasses." I: "No, but I do love your hair."

We look at each other's nametag. We have the same last name.

I: "Are you married to a Korean?" She: "No. Chinese." I: "Did you write a book about it?" She: "Haven't written it about surviving that yet..." I: "Oh. I have a book for you, then." Smiles.

*** I went to this poet nerd camp when I was in high school. There was a tandem cheer camp taking place on the same campus. I remember overhearing the cheerleaders, who marched and cheered going to every meal, "Yeah. The writer kids? Like, all I hear they do the whole time is...write?!"

***

I don't know what day it is lately except today is a day that I am supposed to be moving. Not just moving houses but moving ideologies. I've been sulking lately about my book. Have you ever been working so hard on something, just gutting yourself to make it so excellent and then the gal who has more friends and a way cuter haircut does something similar but it's still a bit pedestrian? Yet everyone around her is RAH-RAH waving their spirit sticks and you just...Yeah. That's not a good place to set up camp. You've got to move on from that jealous onlooking position and find a place where you can be even more excellent and refined and distinct. But it's tempting, isn't it? To just begrudge popular girlfriend of her phenomenal blog audience and multiple book deals, even though most of her sentences appear to be bought at a discount on 1-800-CLICHE.COM? It's altogether seductive to think that such a career blossoms overnight. I know it doesn't. I also know that my goal with this book is not stardom. It's to share a message of humor and hope.

Plus, jealousy has a way of painting some pretty ugly lines on our faces. they don't fade but grow ever deeper with each jealous brushstroke.

And let's be honest. Book deal or not, no author can really afford the Botox.