Any Excuse to Party

Leave it to the Globe to come up with a headline like "Supply and Demand" in an article on breastfeeding. This one was particularly interesting, though. Did you know that many women are extending the window of opportunity to breastfeed their chilluns? One family featured was hosting a weaning party for their not-yet 5 year-old daughter.

Been noodling this notion around ever since. Inconceivable as it was to me at first, I'm starting to come around. Maybe I am pro-weaning party after all. Of course, I still think this is a little hippie parent stuh-RANGE, the whole idea of a gathering to celebrate your child's decision to detach from the teet, "Ra-Ra-Ree! No More Mama's Milk for Me!" The idea of celebrating a major life decision, even that of a child whose other major daily dilemmas are whether or not to pick at the bubble gum encrusted acorn stuck to the sidewalk and whether or not to eat that bubble gum encrusted acorn for a snack, is still cool, though. I say, why not have a non-mammary milk party? There are so many wonderful things in this world to celebrate. So much right with the world that is overlooked in favor of a pity party over whatever is trifling us at the present moment. Woe, Woe is me. Couldn't find a direct flight to Labadi. Have to take the connector. Le sigh...

So let's think of some excuses to fiesta, shall we?

Here's what I got:

1.) A "Yay! I'm going off Prozac Party!" with heaps of placebo uppers including M&Ms, the Beach Boys, and slap bracelets.

2.) A "Woot Woot! Salute!" party for soldiers just back from Iraq replete with war stories, a pin the 'stache on Saddam, and a variety of physical challenges/obstacle courses including a three-legged race in soldier boots.

3.) A "Yippee-Yaw! I Just Got a Designer Dress for El Cheapo at TJ Maxx" party. Can you guess the requisite attire?

Whatchoo got?

The Truth at the Bottom of the Rice Bowl

My in-laws and I made a tacit agreement in the last six months. They will not ask me about my rice consumption. I will try hard to increase my rice consumption. This concordance arose this past summer when, per their usual, they asked Lovey and me about our rice consumption. Then, they asked again. And again. They asked exactly how often we used the rice cooker that they gave us. They took turns. Mom-in-law: How much rice? Dad-in-law: How much rice? Only, it felt like they were pointing accusing fingers at me, as though I was depriving my Asian husband of proper sustenance, changing his rice diet to one of pure trans fat mini-donuts which I would force-feed him in fistfuls at dinner, and, then, shortly after he had reached his REM cycle at night, I would climb into bed with him and whisper, “You want to be -happy don’t you? Why not eat a Happy Meal?!” foisting more trans fat french fries down his throat until morning.

There is a code of pleasantry in Korean culture whereby asking, “Have you been eating well? Enough rice?” is the equivalent of asking, “How are you today?” If you are well, this means that you have eaten enough rice. If you are not well, you have for some tragic and inexplicable reason not consumed your daily ration of rice. The latter is cause for great consternation among Korean parents who escaped starvation in their country’s war whereby families were displaced, and rice was scarce. If I lived through that kind of hell on earth, I, too, probably would want to ensure forever more that my family was all safe and stuffing face with rice.

I am surely not trying to be an ingrate. The fact that I let our rice cooker’s plug get too close to the burner a few months ago and literally torched our rice cooker was just, well, it was just an accident, okay?

But here is my reality: I am a 4’10” American girl. Most of my meal portions are as large as Fig Newtons. There is nothing mounting about my bowl of carbs which look more like ant hills than, say, the mountainous bowls of rice consumed by my Korean counterparts. It’s not that I do not like or want to eat more rice. But you cannot fit a football into your belly-button, just as you cannot fit a small rice paddy into my wee little stomach.

I think my in-laws have finally understood this. I spent 5 days at their home over Christmas. We laughed, we misinterpreted each other’s broken Konglish, we laughed again. My mother-in-law cooked non-stop. But during this visit, she did not ask me about my rice consumption. She monitored my general food intake, such that two hours would pass after a meal and she would look at me aghast, wondering how I could stay upright having eaten up so little rice, showing no traces of faintness. I am not sure if she expected me to suddenly slip into a hypoglycemic fit, slamming her cabinets and scavenging for Handy-Snax, banging her wooden spoons on the linoleum and yelling, “Can a girl get some food around here?!?” The truth is that I was more than satisfied. I enjoyed many good meals at the home of my in-laws. Thus, I graciously accepted the leftovers they helped us to pack in my suitcase back to Boston.

I am really looking forward to visiting my in-laws again next year for the holidays. Sure, their kitchen may not boast a dozen tray of Christmas cookies like my mother's, but I always enjoy the healthful meals that they prepare. I will even look forward to eating a reasonable portion of sticky rice. I’m beginning to think that rice is kind of like the adhesive that keeps us all together in our mixed-race family. So, once again, I look forward especially to a visit with my in-laws at this time next year. Until then, I’ll be dreaming of our White (Rice) Christmas.

More than Morebucks

‘Tis the season for bemoaning overconsumption, and then playing a closeted part in it by ordering all of our frankincense, gold, and faux fur online, exceeding the $100 mark to qualify for free shipping. By golly, doesn’t overconsumption and then taking a rip at the postal carriers feel good.

I’ve been extra good all year at overconsuming, so I think I’ll do a little more right now. I’ve not pinched pennies and parked in parking lots instead of metered spaces. I have run up my A-Tay credit card, paying off the balance in full each month but then wondering why I am counting out quarters and dimes and looking for the elusive CVS Extrabucks coupon when I needed to buy deodorant. I drank a lot of Morebucks, allured by the seasonal red cup, which somehow makes a peppermint mocha both more pepperminty and more mochalicious. I have watched Lovey Loverpants dutifully pack his lunch each day – the same sad grade school lunch that he has eaten for five years – and thought that if I don’t leave for work right now, I’ll be late (and completely without rations and thus unable to justify a Morebucks run before noon).

I’ve been a real Park Avenue brat sometimes, but I actually don’t think I’ll cease asking for more.

In fact, I’m going to be asking for much more this holiday. For when, oh when, has asking for less netted us anything good? When I have “I don’t care”d or “Doesn’t matter”ed my way through moments of selection, I have always gotten the stale end of the baguette. I’ve wound up with the Barbie who had been to the barber, instead of the more desirable Hawaiian Rapunzel of a Barbie. I’ve gotten white milk instead of chocolate, I’ve babysat the ADHD poster children on New Year’s Eve. I learned a long time ago – when you underwish, you underreceive.

And I’m really not expecting to receive much this Christmas. An oven mit from my mom, maybe, a holy reader from my mother-in-law. My husband will give me something practical but cool and surprising. My brother will call me on Christmas morning, and the way he explains how “dilapidated” his old slippers were and how he’s glad he got a new pair will be gift enough for me.

But I am asking for more this coming year, and mostly that’s from myself. I’m asking myself, although fairly well-medicated and fairly caffeine-addicted, to focus more, to focus more on focusing even. I’m asking myself to stop swearing so golldang much, to demand more of myself when it comes to deadlines and paying bills and following up with people whom I told, “I’ll follow up with you on this.” I’m pleading with myself to not count the cost of loving people, to trust in God where I can’t trust myself. I am offering all this up, hoping that to ask more from oneself actually causes one to give more to others and not just back to one’s miserable self. I cannot ask for less, because when did asking for less ever net us something more than Morebucks?