【非文青每周一文】My September

湊數，把烤麵包的speech拿來貼上, 裏麵可以看到一些我以前寫的Marriage一篇的影子。也作為女兒明天生日的小記錄吧。

What’s today’s date? September 30^th. Today is the last day of September. I know what you are thinking:  Oh, time really flies. What has happened to 2011? This year is almost over. However, to me, September feels more like a beginning. I spent two thirds of my life in schools and my husband is a college professor, September, the beginning of an academic year, means more of a new beginning, even more so than January 1^st. September means new changes for me. From when I was 6 to 17, September meant I was going to a new grade. For a girl of that age, moving up to one grade higher was a really big deal. After that, September meant more than just a new grade. It is a life-changing month for me. Today, I will focus on the three Septembers that brought the most changes to my life: the September I went to college, the September I came to the US and the September I became a Mom. Let me tell you about each one.

 

September 1991, 20 years ago, I left my home town for college. This was the first time for me to live in a big city and to live on my own. I stopped living with my parents, and started living with 5 other girls in a dorm room of about 200 square feet. I started missing my mom’s cooking which I had thought was awful.  I stopped speaking my regional dialect and started speaking Mandarin. I stopped hanging out with my high-school classmates but met my best friend in life.  

September 1999, 12 years ago, I left my home country and ventured overseas to attend graduate school. I left behind the freezing winters of Beijing and came into the sunshine of LA. Every faucet now had both cold and hot water 24/7. The swanky, immaculate Pizza Huts in Beijing suddenly turned into typical American fast food joints.  I no longer looked for foreigners to practice English with, I myself became a foreigner.  An alien.   I lit up when I saw an Asian face. I lit up when I heard someone speaking Chinese.  

 

September 2008, 3 years ago, I was nine months pregnant. To my dismay, my OBGYN said my daughter was a breech. All month of that September, I tried every way I could find or that I had heard of, to change the baby's position, hoping she would turn to the right direction in order to avoid a C-section. Do you know that standing on your hands in the water for 15 minutes a day is one way to turn a breech baby? I learned how to do a handstand in the swimming pool in that September, nine months pregnant. I was so focused on this change of her position that I lost sight of the fact that the biggest change of my life was going to overwhelm me. I became a mom on October 1^st, 2008 after a C-section. My daughter didn’t change her position; Instead, I was the one that was changed. Motherhood totally transformed me.

 

I became an expert diaper-changer, a wiper of dirty faces, a chef and a dresser.

I became a good sleeper; I could sleep when I was sitting, sometimes even when I was standing.

I became a good liar, “No, Daddy isn’t eating ice cream, it is cauliflower!”.

 

I became a child psychologist, “If you go to sleep early, you will have nice dreams”.

 

Recently, with the addition of my son to the family, I became a referee of toy wars: “Liya, you should share with your little brother”. “I know, Kai should get a timeout.”

 

Today is the last day of September. A new month of change has just passed. My son started crawling and my daughter started pre-school. As she started being in school all day, it suddenly dawned on me that the biggest change of all is: after becoming a mom, my September, which changed me in so many ways in the past, is not going to be “my September” any more. Every September from now on is going to be the milestone of my children's adventures in life. I will be the observer watching the changes every September will bring for them. Though not my September any more, I will still be looking forward to every future September with equal excitement.