Category: Tov

The Voices in My Head

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

By far, the hardest part of parenting for me so far has not been the sleep deprivation, or even the overstimulation, or the endless routines of meals and laundry and cleaning up.

It’s been discipline.

And I don’t mean just disciplining my kids, but also disciplining myself so I don’t explode into an unhinged, ragey, out-of-control tyrant.

People have different temperaments and bents. Some parents bend towards permissiveness. Some parents have more even temperaments that can absorb more noise and stimulation without losing their shit. Some parents default to anxiety. Some parents default to rage.

I have always had a temperament shaped like a porcupine– all spiky and poky. I respond very physically when disturbed; my entire body instinctively and instantly lashes out sharp needles whenever it senses a threat. And when you’re a parent…especially when you’re a stay-at-home parent of young kids…everything feels like a threat sometimes.

My primary emotion when poked is irritation and rage, which instantly transforms my body and expression and tone. I’ve always been quick to anger, quick to speak, quick to judge. And that’s the part of me that I’m really, really trying very hard to tame and temper, especially as I discipline my own kids. How can I disciple and shape them into gentle and kind human beings, if I myself, their most visible and present model, am lacking in self-discipline and self-control, gentleness and kindness?

I don’t face the risk of permissive parenting. But I do find myself defaulting to trying to dominate my kids and control their behavior, and using harsh and punitive ways, partly because of my temperament, and partly because of the way I was raised. It just feels natural and right, when my child is misbehaving, to simply box him in the ears, roar a command, and frighten him into behaving.

I don’t use spanking as a discipline tool– I think Proverbs 13:24 has been grossly misinterpreted, and besides, spanking simply isn’t very effective when my goal is whole-character discipleship– but corporal punishment is the model that’s been set for me, and I have to fight the impulse to raise my palm and smack my child over the head, just like my father did to me whenever I displeased him.

So already, as I’m disciplining my kids (well, really just Tov, as Woori isn’t even 2 yet), I’m also battling against my own temperament and parenting instincts. But what complicates my journey in parental discipline is the millions of voices out there telling me how to discipline and raise my kids.

As modern-day parents, we live in an online world that’s an endless universe full of glittering, glaring, sparkling, swirling, blasting parenting advice: scripts, rules, inspirations, and reels that crowd our mental space, leaving very little room for us to practice our own discernment and intuition.

Those voices are much louder and stronger and present than the still, gentle voice of the Holy Spirit. And because they’re all packed nice and tight in my head, I carry them with me like a thick book of parenting manual into every situation, which means at all times, I’m having dozens of voices correcting me, debating me, questioning me.

Case in point:

Every morning, I do Bible Time with my kids during breakfast. This morning, Tov took one look at the breakfast I served him– fried rice with pan-fried tofu and fruit– and erupted into outraged tears. He had the same breakfast yesterday, and he ate without complaints, even said it was yummy. But today, all of a sudden, the very sight of this breakfast offended him.

So he scrunched his face into a scowl, and screamed and screamed. “I don’t want bokkeumbap!” he shrieked, pushing his plate away. “I want white rice!”

I told him he did not need to eat the fried rice, but he cannot scream just because he didn’t like his food.

That’s a combination of two parenting advice I had picked up: Don’t force your child to eat if he doesn’t like it. Set the boundaries in a calm, neutral tone, and keep words minimal. OK. Done.

I then commenced with Bible Time as usual. I prayed. I opened up the Jesus Storybook Bible and started reading the chapter, but Tov kept screaming and screaming. He scooped up the rice and flung it on the table. He clenched his fists and pounded. I could not keep reading while he was screaming that high-pitched, ear-splitting screech.

“Hey!” I said sharply. “No screaming. You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.” I moved the plate away from him.

Well, guess I failed to keep my tone calm and neutral. My voice was a little sharper than I intended it to be, but also, I did have to raise my voice so he can hear me above his shrieks. And didn’t some parenting expert out there say we as parents should not be repeating ourselves? Guess I repeated myself. Gargh! Whatever. OK. Moving on.

I tried to keep on reading.

Tov then threw his spoon across the table.

OK, that’s it. He’s pushing boundaries.

I put the book down and looked at him. “You cannot throw things just because you’re angry. Pick up the spoon.”

He just screamed louder.

I remembered that when a child refuses to do something or ignores you, you need to physically move closer to him and guide him. So I got up and crouched next to Tov, and told him, “No throwing. Pick up the spoon.”

“NOOOOOO!!!!!” A scream that could have blasted my ear open like a coconut.

By now, my heart was racing so hard with rage that I could feel pounding in my ears. I was a hair’s width away from losing my cool. So I defaulted to our usual consequence for Tov: “OK, time out.”

He screamed and thrashed and kicked, “No no no no! I don’t want time out!”

“Then pick up the spoon!”

More screaming. It’s like a ballistic missile attack on my ears and nervous system. Everything inside me was going bang, bang, pop, pop! I grabbed him by the arm, and he let his body drop like dead weight, so I had to basically drag him to his room. I shut the door and locked it. And then I walked back to my seat, head and heart and ears pounding, while Tov kicked and banged and screamed at the door.

I sat back down. And already, dozens of voices were chattering in my head:

“Hey, what happened to gentleness?”

“A gentle word turns away wrath.”

“That was harsh.”

“Did you have to drag him like a rag doll?”

“You just repeated yourself three times.”

“Was your tone neutral?”

“Was your facial expression neutral?”

“Is time out even effective? Wasn’t there a reel somewhere that condemned time outs as ineffective and punitive?”

“What about NATURAL CONSEQUENCES versus punishment!”

“All time out has done is provoke him more.”

“He’s just dysregulated. You’re punishing him for being dysregulated.”

“You just shut him in his room for your own convenience sake, because you couldn’t handle his screaming.”

“It’s all about setting good boundaries!”

“What’s even the point of Bible Time, when it’s rife with conflict and tears? What a joke.”

“I am gentle and lowly in heart, Jesus said. Not just sometimes, but all times.”

“WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?”

I internally wrung my hands at the voices. Yes, yes! I did time out because I was getting dysregulated. What I really wanted to do was slap him in the face, not once, but many times until he stopped screaming, and I had to physically remove him so I can calm the hell down. Is that wrong?

I tried to shut the voices and decided to just finish reading the bible chapter to Woori, who was cheerfully playing peek-a-boo with her pear under her placemat. And of course, that day’s chapter just happened to be about how Jesus loves the pure hearts of little children. Well, ain’t that just perfect.

Once I finished reading, I got back up and went to Tov’s room. He was hollering underneath the crack of the door. “Are you ready to join us?” I said. “Are you ready to pick that spoon back up?”

He agreed, so I opened the door, and we walked back to the dining table. He picked up his spoon. I gave him back his plate, reminding him that it’s up to him whether he eats it or not, but that’s what we have for breakfast. He took a nibble of his tofu. He seemed calmer and meeker now.

We sang Slugs and Bugs’ “Fruits of the Spirit” song instead of our hymn of the day, because I felt like we needed something more upbeat. I pointed out “joy” and “self-control” among the fruits of the Spirit and told him joy means to be grateful for what he has, and self-control means refraining from screaming and throwing things even when we are angry and frustrated. I also pointed out gentleness and kindness.

“Were you being gentle and kind when you screamed and threw the spoon?” I asked.

He nodded his head.

“Uh, no, you weren’t being gentle and kind, Tov.”

Then I started wondering if I was being too legalistic. What if I was treating this as a moral scorecard for him to tick off, as though you can just will yourself into being a “good Christian?”

“Where’s Jesus?” I asked.

“In my heart,” he said.

Yes, I told him, because Jesus lives in his heart, Jesus can help him grow those fruits of the spirit– love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. Tov looked at me, but I couldn’t tell if he even understood a word I said.

And then the voices in my head piped up again:

“Well, well, what about you? Where’s your fruits of the spirit?”

“OK, OK, stop preaching and moralizing already. You know what that did for you!”

“But is time out going to teach him these things?”

Shut up, shut up, shut up. This is not helping right now.

We did the rest of our Bible Time, and then since it’s Tuesday, it was time to drop the kids off at school. It was already past 9 am, and we were supposed to be at school by now. I looked around the house, and I saw rice on the table, ripe, sticky pear smeared everywhere, toys scattered across the dining room and the playroom, and remembered I still had to pack their backpacks and towels and load everything and everyone into the car. Oh, and Woori just pooped.

I told Tov to clean up the toys, and he ignored me, absorbed in playing with his cars.

I snapped. “TOV!!!” I yelled at him.

He startled, and then put his head down on the table and cried. Then ran off to find Daddy. (David later told me Tov told him I was being mean to him, and that he didn’t do anything wrong. Uh huh.)

Well, the voices in my head had a field day with that one.

And you know what’s the cherry on top? After I dropped off the kids, on my drive home, my podcast started playing an episode by Sally Clarkson on the importance of gentleness in motherhood.

JUST SHOOT ME IN THE HEAD, WILL YOU?

Are you exhausted and exasperated just hearing the train of thoughts in my head? I am. This is part of the reason why I find parenting so draining– it’s that at every moment, even the moments that are so intensely personal, private, and necessary for nuance, I have an outsized jury of voices judging, arguing, philosophizing, preaching at me.

Did I do a perfect job trying to discipline Tov this morning?

No.

Could I have been gentler?

Yes.

Did time out work?

I have no freaking idea. I have no freaking idea if anything I’m doing is “right.”

And that’s the issue: I keep searching for the “right” thing to do and say.

I want the perfect script. I want to be told exactly what to say, what to do, and be promised excellent children. And there are a lot of programs, books, influencers (Christian influencers are the most toxic) and false theology out there promising exactly that. As though parenting a human child is a math problem you can calculate and solve. As though parenting is like baking a cake– you just need to right ingredients and a good recipe, and out comes a perfectly baked cake! As though parenting is a moral equation– if I check all these moral boxes in myself, then my children will be the moral equivalent of my moral efforts.

Parenting is hard because there is no “right” script. Parenting is hard because it’s supposed to be hard, and I sometimes think if it’s so hard, then I must be doing something wrong, or I’m incapable, or my kids have something wrong with them. Parenting is hard because even the one thing I’m supposed to have control over– myself– I have a hard time controlling.

And parenting is hard because ultimately, it’s this organic, continuous process of dependence on the Lord, and hearing His voice rather than the voices of “experts” in my head. Those voices are loud and cacophonous, and they drown out the most important voice of all. Instead of practicing listening to God, I’m rifling through a thick binder of parenting advice and tips from people who don’t know my child, who don’t know me, who don’t know our family dynamics and values and circumstances. People who I allowed to turn my child into a project, instead of a living, breathing human being who cannot be willed into a shape that pleases me.

This is what I’m working on: Clicking off those voices. I want a mental reset. I want to look at my children the way God sees them. I want to work on faithfulness, not perfection. When my head is pounding and my temper is rising, I want to hear that still, gentle voice that reminds me:

“I got this. You don’t have to do this perfectly right. Because I got your kids. And I got you.”

A son made in my image

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

When Tov was first born, I started imagining.

I imagined how our son will grow up, what his personality will be like, what interests and passions will drive him, who he’ll hang out with. Would he be into sports? Music? Art?

That’s what makes the Korean tradition of doljabi so fun, but also laced with anticipation: What destiny will my 1-year-old pick? As parents of young, not-yet-formed human beings, we have the power to present to our children certain life opportunities, but absolutely no control over which path they will pick, and that’s what makes doljabi a fun, light-hearted way to play-pretend. We lay out only the desirable options for our children’s doljabi, but ultimately, our 1-year-old babies will grab whatever their heart fancies.

I remember for my niece’s doljabi, my sister-in-law refused to include a ball because she didn’t want her daughter to go into sports. I didn’t want to offer sports as an option either, but David would be apoplectic if Tov didn’t like baseball, so I reluctantly allowed him to include a baseball, comforted by the fact that neither of us has athletic talents, so most likely, neither will our children. Our doljabi was not very traditional. Because I would love for Tov to become a journalist like me, I added a reporter’s notebook into his doljabi options, and I also included a globe because I wanted him to be well-traveled and globalized in his worldview.

Tov chose the globe. I rejoiced, even as I knew all this is just a game designed to please the parents’ ambitions for their child, nothing more. Even then, I thought, “I don’t care what Tov chooses to be when he grows up, as long as he’s just like his name– a good person, full of God’s goodness. I will be content with whatever he chooses.”

That was then, when Tov was still very young and malleable. Now that Tov is 3, I realize I might be more ambitious than my professed noble goal for my son. I know it, because I have been fighting some rather strong disappointment that my son– my wonderful, adorable, good son, who is indeed so much like his name– does not seem to be much literary-inclined.

Often with firstborns, there are childhood stories that parents repeat to prove their firstborn is special (these kinds of stories seem to diminish with the younger siblings, interestingly enough). For me, apparently I was about 2 when my parents searched all over the house for me until they finally found me hidden behind a pile of books. I had been “reading” for hours, completely engrossed. There’s another story that apparently prove my unique brightness. According to my parents’ folklore, as a child I had very curious, observant eyes. I would stare at things and people with intensity, as though analyzing them in deep thought, and I remember my parents constantly admonishing me to stop staring at strangers.

Now that I think about this, I don’t think it proves anything about my specialness or intelligence; it sounds like I was a pretty creepy child indeed. But all that to say, my parents told these stories proudly to anyone who would listen, which showed a value they upheld and instilled in me: Intellect.

I too uphold this value. I value minds that think and read and create. I admire people who are well-read, who can quote literary giants, who can discuss Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard and C.S. Lewis. If I’m completely honest, I probably uphold that value higher than any other virtues such as goodness, gentleness, self-control. And that value system is becoming more blatantly obvious as I watch Tov grow from a baby to a boy, as I take him to the library and offer to read him books, but he’d rather just run and climb between the bookshelves. Or when five seconds after I pointed out the letter “A” to Tov, he’s already forgotten what it is. My literary ambitions for my child is even more abundantly clear when I meet other kids similar to his age who love reading, have a strong grasp of language, and can recite entire books front to back. I can’t stand those kids. I hate them, really.

One evening, I was trying to read a book with Tov, when as always, he kept grabbing the page from me and interrupting me, fixating on that one page with the picture he likes. “What’s that?” he asked, for the fifteenth time.

“Oh my God, Tov, can I just finish this book!” I cried, losing my patience, yanking the book away and startling the poor little boy, who just wanted to look at the orange ball again and again.

At that moment, so many thoughts were flicking through my head, all poking at perceived flaws in my son: Why can’t Tov just sit through a book? Why does he only want to read this one stupid book? Why doesn’t he like books? Are we letting him watch too many stupid firetruck shows on YouTube? Why hasn’t he learned his letters yet? I’ve been trying to teach him his ABCs for months now! Is it the screen time? My niece could memorize the entire Brown Bear book by his age; why can’t he? God, we need to stop letting him watch shows, it must be rotting his attention span!

Oh, the slash of terror: What if…God forbid, my son never likes to read? What if my son is not very intelligent? What if…Good God!– my son becomes an atrocious writer? And, to my self-dismay, what I felt then was shame. Shame, that my flesh-and-blood might not carry this value that I hold so dear. Shame, at the thought of my son struggling with math and spelling and grammar.

And then, of course, I felt instant shame at my shame. Is this what I’m really all about? I, a professed Christian, called to set apart from the world, has allowed secular standards to infiltrate my value system, and it’s going to impact my parenting and shape my children. But is it not an instinctual, parental desire to create my child to my own likeness?

I wrestled with this thought for months.

I don’t think that wanting my children to love and read books, to have deep critical thinking skills, and to cultivate a rich intellectual mind is a bad thing. I know it’s a worthy and good goal to try to instill these values into my children’s education, which will serve them well in life, and raise them as solid citizens of the world.

It’s also healthy and natural for me to want to share my passions and interests with my own children. Just like David can’t wait to take our children to their first baseball game, I can’t wait to read the Harry Potter books with my children, and also The Good Earth, Jane Eyre, East of Eden, The Brothers Karamazov, and discuss them together.

What I struggle with is how much I want it. How much it’s insidiously tied to my own ego, ambition, and identity. And how disappointed, frustrated, and mad I fear I’ll get if they fail to meet my standards.

People say Tov looks like me, which pleases me, because I think Tov is a very handsome boy— no bias at all. And maybe, if I’m brutally honest, I’d like people to also say Tov is sharp and intelligent because that too reflects well on me. Because those are values I hold high and dear. Because I want Tov to fit my ideals of a worthy person, and create him according to my image, when he has already been wonderfully and fearfully made in the image of God.

As a parent, I have the responsibility to raise my children to be the best person they can be, to stretch their weak points and cultivate their strong points. But it’s also my responsibility– and joy– to get to know and understand who they already are as a person, and delight in how God created them, just as they are. There’s a fine balance between accepting who my child is, and recognizing that they have more potential, and then pushing them lovingly and firmly towards it. It’s this fine balancing act that make my head twirl and my heart clench. Man, parenting requires so much wisdom and discernment. There’s just so many life-altering decisions and judgments that I feel, at this current moment, so ill-equipped to make. Lord, help me.

Tov is still only 3. I have yet to see all the hidden parts of Tov. He has yet to emerge from his chrysalis, yet to fully spread his wings. He might still learn to love books. Or he might not. My brother was raised the same way I was, with the same parents, and he is still not a reader, but he has many other interests and capabilities that I don’t have.

So what can I do?

I still want to do what I can to foster a rich intellectual life for my children. So I plan to take Tov and Woori to the library once a week. I can keep surrounding them with books, keep reading with them, and let them see me read.

And also: I can just relax and enjoy who they are.

That’s easy enough. Tov truly is a wonderful person. He is kind and empathetic and sweet and resilient and curious and fun. He loves his little sister, loves his umma and abba, loves his teachers and friends, loves laughing and rolling and the color pink and fire trucks and Lightning McQueen and listening to music and collecting rocks.

I adore 3-year-old Tov. He makes my heart so full. And I’m so proud to be his umma.

Tov’s first Disneyland trip

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

The last time I was at Disneyland was three years ago with David, when Tov was but a fetus tucked into my womb, his presence only having just been revealed to his soon-to-be parents.

It was our babymoon. We booked a hotel near Disneyland, to which I lugged my new best friend, a giant slug of a pregnancy pillow, and then spent a whole day at Disneyland, grousing about the lines and the crowds. I remember for the first time noticing how many strollers there were at Disneyland. I had previously been completely blind to them, but all of a sudden, I noticed parking areas for strollers, double strollers, four-seat quad strollers, bougie strollers, cheap-as-plastic strollers, rental strollers, everrrrrrrywhere. How had I never noticed the tens of thousands of strollers zipping around Disneyland?

Oh, those were my before-kids days, when my eyes didn’t even register babies, toddlers, or any young children whose heads reached under my waist.

Three years later, I am back to Disneyland, this time with an almost-3-year-old and a 8-month-old, testing out our super-nifty, ultra-lightweight Zoe double stroller for the first time. My last visit to Disneyland, my biggest luggage was my pregnancy pillow and my skincare products. This time, I had two full bags jammed with about a dozen different snacks, water bottles, four extra sets of clothes, diapers, wet wipes, teethers, and God knows what else, and I STILL forgot the kids’ sunscreen.

And man, was I excited! It was Tov’s first ever Disneyland experience! We decided to take him there just before he turned 3– young enough not to have to pay a ticket, and old enough to really appreciate the magic of Disney.

“We’re going to Disneyland tomorrow!” I kept telling Tov the day before, and although the kid had no idea what Disneyland or Disney is, has no idea who Mickey and Donald and Goofy are, he grinned and gleamed as though he knew wherever that was, it was gonna be awesome.

The next morning, we woke him up with excited cheers: “We’re going to Disneyland!”

David dressed him in his favorite T-shirt– a hand-me-down, imitation Lightning McQueen blue T-shirt bought from the Philippines– while I bustled around getting all the snacks and my coffee ready, and then we were off! I was so excited I didn’t even fall asleep on our way there.

Oh, the wonderful magic of Disney! First, we got on the 50-minutes-long “line up to get into the car park” ride. And then, we got on the 15-minute “line up to get on the tram” ride. Then! A “line up for the restroom” ride. And then! The “line up for the security screening” line. And then, dum dum dum, here comes the “line up to get through the entrance” line!

Altogether, it was almost two hours of breathless, thrilling waiting in long lines so that we can line up 40 more minutes for the Astro Orbiter ride, which lasted all of 5 minutes. Is THIS the magic of Disney? We are all magicked into happily lining up for hours and hours under the scorching California sun, grinning and sweating under our Mickey ears, and then leave the park saying, “That was fun! What a great day”

Yes. That’s pretty much how our day went. We spent a small part of our day with my friend Joyce, her husband Tyler, and their sons Cían and Taigh until they left around 2pm, and we chugged on for more than five hours. We rode on a total of four rides. One of them was Pirates, which David was most excited about, except Tov yelled, “I want to go out!” soon after the ride took off.

He loved Astro Orbiter though, and rode it twice– once with David, once with me. It’s this rocket ship ride that lifts you high into the air and spins you round and round, and I HATED every second of it, close to puking and passing out from dizziness. Grimacing, I looked down at my son who was leaning against me, smiling with his mouth open, his hair flailing in the wind, and that redeemed every agonizing second.

After we got off the Astro Orbiter, the ground was still spinning around me, and I felt every ounce of the greasy turkey leg I just ate churning in my stomach like cement in a concrete mixer truck. David tried to take Tov to the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, which we know would be so fun for Tov, but he refused, afraid of the dark indoors, too much like Pirates.

So we ambled instead. We got Tov a strawberry ice cream cone bigger than his face– his first real cone!– and while we sat by the sidewalk, watching all the other Disneylanders pass by, he licked and licked and licked his cone until the whole thing was gone into his belly.

Then, because Tov had been asking for a lollipop all day, David caved and got him a cherry lollipop, also the size of his face.

On any other day, I would have gotten very annoyed that we are giving him so much sugar, but I shook it off– eh, it’s Disneyland. There’s only one first experience of Disneyland, and half the joy of Disney is being able to eat all the sugar you want.

Of course, we had to go to California Adventureland, where Tov got to meet his hero, Lightning McQueen, and take a picture with him.

We also got him a set of toy Cars that light up underneath, and oh, the joy on his face! He really doesn’t need more car toys, but really, we bought the set for ourselves– for that momentary, yet eternally pleasing, joy of seeing the delight on his face.

It might have been Tov’s first Disneyland trip, but it was my best Disneyland experience.

I remember the first time I came to Disneyland, I was 12, on a family trip from Singapore to the United States. Back then a Disneyland ticket cost a lot less, but it was still significant, especially for a missionary’s income. I thought it was so magical. I don’t even remember most of the day, but all I remember is how in awe I was of that place, how I deemed it the most magical experience in my life, and to this day, I can still taste the leftover pixie dust from that trip. And I remember too how happy my parents were that day, not because they enjoyed Disneyland, but because they kept looking at our faces, grinning at our grins, excited at our excitement, wondrous at our wonder.

“Did you have fun?” abba kept asking us as the day ended, and each time we nodded happily, he beamed.

And now, full circle, here I am, a mother myself, grinning at my son’s grins, excited at his excitement, wondrous at his wonder, a child again through my child.

I actually did not even mind waiting in line, because that was a rare Tov-and-omma-only time, in which I got to hug him, lift him, spin him, kiss him, for the full 40 minutes we waited in line. I squeezed his hands, still little in my own adult hands, marveling that this boy with a real neck and sweat odor was, last time I was here, a curled, thumb-suckling mystery in my womb.

That chapter of my free, childless days has closed, and then the newborn baby chapter opened and closed, and now here I am, in the last few paragraphs of the toddler chapter, feeling so incredibly thankful and sad at the same time.

While Tov was eating his ice cream and I sat by him, holding Woori and people-watching, I saw an Indian family standing near us. It was an older couple and an old lady in a wheelchair with a long, grey braid, who was, like Tov, licking happily on an ice-cream cone. While we were at Disneyland to treat our child, it was clear they were at Disneyland to treat their mother.

For some reason, that scene moved me. They were enjoying the same moment as David and I, but flipped generationally. For this family, a chapter had opened and closed as well: The chapter of their mother taking care of them had long closed; the chapter of their young parenthood days have also closed; and here they are now, probably with adult children long out of the house, here to relive the Disney magic with their aging mother, before she got too frail for Disney.

I hugged Woori closer to me, as she wobbled on her tippy toes and scratched my face with her sharp tiny nails. She is still a baby now, but the next time we come to Disneyland, she might be a running toddler, and Tov a Kindergartener. And who knows? Maybe one day they’ll be the ones taking David and me to Disneyland in wheelchairs. By then, so many chapters would have opened and closed, opened and closed, each with its dragons and witches, each with its adventures and feasts and magic like this day at Disneyland.

At about 7:30 pm, as both kids started to fade and Tov was no longer running around licking walls and pavements like King Nebuchadnezzar when he turned mad, we got in line to ride the tram back to the parking lot.

In front of us stood a young Arab family, a good-looking couple and their young toddler son. They too were saddled with a stroller and diaper bags and all the goddarn tools a parent needs to keep tantrums and blowouts at bay. As we struggled to hoist all our stuff onto the tram, every one of us weak with exhaustion and overstimulation, the mother commented wryly, “I don’t know why we pay so much to do this.”

But we do it anyway, and we’ll do it again, because that cliche is so true: Time passes so fast. They grow up so fast. And at Disney, time seems to stand still for a day. At Disney, we all turn into a child, from the grey-braided old Indian lady to this young tired mother in a hijab. It doesn’t matter if there are dozens more chapters of our life left, or if we’re on the last chapter— here at Disney, the magic goes on and on, passed from generation to generation.

That’s the magic of Disney.

And as David and I drove back onto the 5 freeway, while Woori shrieked in her car seat and Tov complained that the baby is “too loud,” we looked at each other and said, “That was fun! What a great day!”