No. Not the ACTUAL high school reunion. This was the reunion of us girls...women...no, wait...mommies. O. M. G. I never thought there would ever be the day when all of us were in a house filled with babies. Lots and lots of babies. It was a beautiful madness and I still have a smile on my face. The last time we were all together...we were fawning over our friend's daughter, G. She was the only kid in the circle. Now she's the eldest of six!!!
It's still incredible to me that we all ended up having babies at the same time. What the #@*$%!! Right?! It makes no sense except that God has a plan. There were those of us trying for years. Those of us who weren't. And those of us totally not planning at all. So this baby boom is just a big mystery to me.
This is G. The big sis of the group. Sweet, no?
And this is cutie E, who in so many ways is like W's twin. Welcome to America!!
Here's little M, holding on to his monkey. How cute is that!
We all know little B. He's a good boy.
And the baby of the group, precious K. Look at her holding her head up like there's no tomorrow!
Don't worry, my little man. I didn't forget about you. He loves his auntie K.
It was nuts. So many babies around, crying, pooping, wipes of all brands, and a collection of diaper bags big enough to open our own store. I loved every second of it(except when W fell back and hit his head. Poor guy). These guys get funnier and funnier as they get older. Wait until they start baby talking to each other. Do babies have inside jokes?
Look at my cellphone, it's soooo cool!
Oops. Nevermind.
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Don't look at me. I didn't do it.
Thank you Auntie B for my microphone. How did you know I wanted to be a singer?
The gang. Look at W and E crying. Told you they could be twins. LOL!
It was only a few short hours we got to spend together. But let me tell you, each of us could've used a nap by the end. As we all took turns feeding our babies and changing dirty diapers, I got this overwhelming feeling of fulfillment and joy. I still remember passing notes in class, gossiping about boys and stressing about our AP Bio quizzes. Can't believe it's been over 10 years!! I won't say the exact number so don't ask. No matter how different our lives are, we're all here together as sisters, sharing this new chapter of mommyhood. I'm one very lucky girl.
Man, next time, we might have even more kids on that couch. You know what that means, right? Time to get a bigger couch!
Lunges. I do a lot of lunges. W is constantly trying to crawl away from me and I spend my day chasing him, picking him up and repeating this process until it's time for his nap. I love how happy he gets because he can get around on his own now. He gets this huge grin on his face when he's on the move, leaving a trail of drool behind. Love it!
You know who doesn't love it? Bug. Poor Bug. For some odd reason, W keeps crawling to Bug's doggie bowl and it's really stressing the poor dog out. He eats like 5 times a day now! He's so paranoid that W is going to eat his food, he just starts stuffing his face even though he's not hungry!! Any solutions? Is our dog going to blimp out? I'll keep you posted. Even though it drives Bug nuts, I love watching the baby crawl there. He knows he's not supposed to so he tries real hard to get there fast and sometimes, he beats me. I'll admit it. He's dipped his little fingers in Bug's water bowl quite a few times.
He loves trekking over from his room into ours. And when P is in the bathroom, W turbo crawls. Then he just watches his daddy get ready for work.
I hope I have as much hair as you do, daddy.
Help!! The baby is coming towards me with a mouth full of drool!!!
Yes, you may use that sock to wipe your face. In fact, please do.
I shall climb and conquer this mountain of mommy! (pls ignore laundry in the background)
I AM THE MASTER OF THE CRAWL! RAAAAARRRRR! YOU SHALL NEVER ESCAPE ME NOW!
It's a little scary now because W keeps pulling himself up to stand. Most of the time, he can sit back down on his own. But sometimes, he just gets this blank stare going and then he'll let go of whatever is holding him up and CRASH!! And as we all know, his noggin is not little. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Poor guy. That reminds me, gotta buy some pillows to put around the house.
My hands have been busy, trying to make as much as I can for his birthday. Don't worry, I'm not going overboard. It's just that I want W to have a great party and if my two hands can make that happen, I'm going to do it. Besides...I love making stuff. All kinds of stuff! So this is right up my alley. We splurged on the photographer but that's about it. Everything is made with paper and glue. LOL! My only regret is not having started this much earlier. I wanted a themed party at first. And I thought Star Wars, baby!!! It's perfect!! P's a huge fan and this would be such the "circle of life" type of thing, but W is too young to appreciate it, so it'll have to wait. These awesome cookies will have to wait as well.
OMG, only two more months!!! Ahhhh!! Where's that glue gun?!
I wasn't sure how he'd handle the water. I have photos of me as a baby, crying my eyes out at the beach when my mom took me in the water. To this day, I don't like being in the water. I don't hate it, but .... I could name a couple hundred other things I'd rather do first, know what I mean? So, I was really surprised to see W having such a great time :) P was real good about warming him up to the water. Eventually, we ended up with a happy water baby!
I bought this floaty thing at Babies R Us. Cute, right? But sooo poorly designed. All the air is in the front if the baby leans back at all, he'd probably flip over!!
Here's our solution. I hope W riding in the back seat of the police car isn't indicative of future events.
He was totally fascinated by this group cannonball. One day, my son. One day.
This year is going by too quickly!! And there have been too many distractions, like moving into a new home. I won't complain about that because it's too exciting. But one horrible, terrible, devastating event occurred recently that literally left me feeling handicapped. We broke our camera. Actually, we're not sure "who" broke it, but it doesn't matter because what's done is done. We were at Angel's Stadium, the security guard checking our belongings before letting us through. And that's when it happened. CRACK!!! We filed a report, as if we had witnessed a murder. That's what it felt like to me anyway. We went without our precious camera for a couple of weeks before borrowing one. Sigh. RIP 30D. You were good to us. We'll miss you.
It's getting more and more difficult to get clear shots of W. He's constantly on the move, making all our photos a big blur. I guess we'll have to take more video to compensate.
It's been forever!!! How the heck are ya?! Well, as P mentioned in the last post, we've been busy. We bought a home and it has been a nonstop whirlwind of boxes, renovations and headaches. To be completely honest, I started a number of posts about our new home but had to stop because I was so overwhelmed. But there's no avoiding it now.
First off, the good news. W is on the move!!! Finally!! After months of our little guy rocking on all fours, he's finally figured out how to get his arms and legs to work for him.
It's sooo freakin cute!! He just loves LOVES our laptop. That was the biggest motivation to get him going. I was a little sad thinking about the possibility that W may skip crawling all together. My mom said that I only crawled for a few days before I started cruising. I love watching him concentrating on alternating his arms and legs, his little tooshie wiggling as he goes. Sigh. Does it get better than this?
So I guess I should add "Buy baby gates" to my long TO DO list. A list which I have officially renamed I DON'T WANNA DO list. Ugh. My cell phone has become an electronic notebook. I have lists for Lowe's, Home Depot, groceries for W, groceries for us, home renovations we can do, home renovations someone else needs to do, IKEA, Costco...etc. It's a long list of lists. Save me.
I was going to recap in painful detail the first couple of months of being a homeowner, but I'm not sure I want to remember it. What was supposed to be a joyous and monumental event in our lives has been...well, a nightmare. Long story short....
We bought a home. YAY!!!
It was a shortsale with tenants renting from the sellers.
They didn't want to leave...and by law, they didn't have to.
(WTF!!? Yeah, I know.)
Short escrow became a long one.
They finally left...and renovations started.
Over budget and took much longer than expected.
In fact, they're not done.
The kitchen is coming along. There were tears, and lots of migraines.
The floors look good but are not good. You have to see it to understand.
We moved in anyway.
We still need some key pieces of furniture. Our cabinets aren't finished. There are boxes everywhere still. Most of our clothes are on the floor until we fix our closet. We need window treatments. Oh, and new windows would be nice. There is so much crap in the garage that we can't fit even one car in there yet. And it's starting to heat up. Having a second story makes this heat wave a little challenging. Our home is generally nice and cool. But half way up the stairs, it hits you like a mack truck. Thank God for central air.
There are a bajillion other things I'm not mentioning because I'm over it. I'm tired of being frustrated with what I know to be a very common story when renovating a home. So I don't want to waste anymore time complaining. I'd rather think about what I love about our new home.
It's ours.
We're finally free!!! We have the privacy we have been wanting for so long!!!
No parents!!!! I can finally wear what I want around the house. I can walk around the house at 2am without worrying that I'll run into my dad. There's no one to tell me what a mess I've made. That's my job now. No more worrying about whether they will wake W up with the noise they make. I actually know where things are for once...because I put them there. No more guessing who just got home. Since W can't drive yet, process of elimination says it's P. LOL! I love the size our home. It's spacious without being big. Perfect for out little family. :)
We live in a nice neighborhood for once. So we can actually walk the dog at night!!
We have a brand new kitchen! Glossy and white. Including an oven!!! My mom's oven doesn't work so you can imagine how much baking I have to catch up on. I love it!!!
One fun thing is I finally got to open up our wedding gifts. You know, from our wedding THREE YEARS AGO! All our plates, cookware, sheets, even towels....they were just sitting there in the garage all these years.
Most importantly, W seems to really love it here. We were worried about how he'd adjust to the new home and his new room. Other than his crib, everything else in his room was different. So you can imagine how nervous we were that first night. He'd been doing well, sleeping 12 hours straight. It could all go down the drain he didn't like his new room. But he did beautifully! Went down at 7pm like usual, and slept the whole night. Phew! What a good baby!
He's also been practicing his pincer reflex. He gets frustrated at times but his determination to eat that little cracker is unwavering. I guess if you put a slice of chocolate cake in front of me and told me I had to eat it with my feet, I wouldn't give up so easily either. Not a pretty picture so we'll move on. I feel as though not much has changed in the way of W, but I know this isn't true. We've just been too busy to really celebrate each milestone. One thing is for sure, he has a future in wrestling. Holy majolie! Every time we change his clothes or his diaper, it's like wrestling a crocodile!! His twists and turns are so strong, we literally have to hold him down to get a sleeve on. I'm breaking a sweat just thinking about it. Dreading a poopy diaper is one thing. Dreading the possible smears of poop all over you and the room is a whole nother story. And with the solids he's been eating...those poops smell worse than ever!!
It's all fun though :) You just have to laugh about all the difficulty that comes with parenthood. Otherwise, you'd go nuts. And the most important thing to remember is, it could always be worse.
In conclusion, we're very happy in our new home. I'm looking forward to all the memories and traditions that will be made within these walls. Our walls are bare right now, but I'm sure they'll be covered with framed photos, crayon graffiti and dried up boogers soon enough.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Mommy's been so busy with moving and settling into our new home, as well as taking care of baby W, that she has not been able to post for over a month. She's been working really hard to get our lives organized. I think that at this point, she has so much to blog about that she can't decide on what to blog about! I imagine that she will be writing about our new place and all the work that went into it pretty soon...and of course, more W.
In November 2009, I happened on a backpack hiking carrier for babies on the Steep and Cheap website. It looked comfortable, was about 70% off, and I figured that we would need it...someday! Little did I know that it would only be a couple months later that we would be expecting someone who would use the carrier in the future. Its been a year and a half since I bought the carrier and finally we got to put it to use! We weren't sure how W would like it, but he seemed alright with it.
I decided to take him out for a short hike close to our new place with Bug. I think he liked it, at least he didn't complain at all. He just looked around and took it in. He likes being outdoors.
(My mom has as habit of posing with random items. My guess is that she's watched one too many episodes of The Price Is Right. This photo is about 12 years old, but she's aged really well, so it's not too far from the truth)
First off, I just wanna say that we don't always see eye to eye. P knows first hand just how crazy she makes me sometimes. My mom has what you call "selective hearing." Basically, anything I consider important, she conveniently loses her hearing. It causes me to repeat myself (which I hate to do) all the time and it drives me crazy! She's an absolute horrible listener! As a nurse, she makes for the worst kind of patient. She doesn't take care of herself as well as I beg her to. She has the idea that if she can eat, then she's fine. Ugh. Again, drives me nuts. She never remembers that I hate mushrooms, she's always trying to poke me with needles, her purse is waaay too big for her, and even if there were proof, she'd never admit she was wrong. But that is the extent of my complaints(at least for today). Notice how short this paragraph is. :)
Now comes the love.
Other than the above, my mom is perfect. She is truly the strongest, most positive person I know. I often wonder what she was like as a child. She tells me that her and her siblings used to play till they passed out and that she only remembers laughing a lot. Man! That sounds awesome. It doesn't surprise me. My mom is always happy, always cheerful and always looking forward. I love that about her. There are no regrets with her. I think she feels like it's a waste of time, which it is!
As far as I can remember, my mom has been epitome of cheerfulness. I didn't realize what an asset this trait was until recently. Each day, she drives through the same dreadful LA traffic that makes all of us insane. All day, she deals with difficult Korean patients that don't listen or make appointments. Comes home to cook for her husband, her picky daughter and son-in-law, in a terribly outdated kitchen, no less. Plays the part of the lovely, submissive wife whenever she's with my dad (but we all know who really wears the pants). Sadly, she has not had a vacation in years. I can't even count how many years. And the only time she took off was to take care of me when W was born. In fact, she hasn't had a free weekend in at least 4 years. Ever since my dad started his restaurant business, my mom has been working 2 jobs. Can you imagine working 7 days a week for 4 years straight?!! She's a complete workaholic and thinks resting is for the dead.
The woman never goes shopping for herself. You think I exaggerate, but I'm not. Any money she has, she spends on food to feed her family or to buy her grandson clothes and toys. I don't remember the last time she ever brought home something she had bought for her own use or pleasure. Last year, P thought it would be nice to take my mom shopping for her birthday. So we went to a mall and you could tell, she hadn't stepped into one for a very long time. She looked lost. It made me want to cry. My mom, a typical woman who loves clothes, jewelry, shoes and purses, has not been shopping in a decade! I hate shopping and even I NEED to go to the mall once in a while. Thankfully, she has wonderful people around her who gives her clothes and whatever essentials a woman needs in appreciation for her friendship and hard work.
And I love that she's not self-centered. It's never about her. For instance, her birthday. She doesn't expect the world around her to stop and notice this important day. She's mature enough to know that life gets busy sometimes and flexibility is virtue. A birthday cake a week later tastes just as good. She doesn't look at another person and think..."how come I don't have what they have?" or "I wish this..." and "I wish that..." My mom is a real-life PollyAnna. If she lost a finger, she would probably say, "Well, at least I still have 9 others." No joke. Any other woman would be bitching to a girlfriend or complaining to her husband about all that she is deprived of. But not my mom. She gives so much and receives so little in return. To me, she is simply amazing. I could never put up with all that she does. Even if I had to, I would never be able to do it with a smile.
And then there is her role as a wife. My dad is not an easy person to live with, let alone be married to. It must be hard for a free spirit like my mom to be trapped under tradition and culture. But she handles it beautifully. My dad is the youngest of 4 boys and the prince of his family. Need I say more? So you can see, my mom had her work cut out for her from the start. And though my dad may be the big talker and think he's the center of attention, I know that it is my mom that people are drawn to. Without her, my dad would be a lone geezer somewhere, with no one to listen to him.
What I love most about my mom is how easily she laughs. She almost laughs too much and too readily, but it's a flaw many of us could only wish to have. It's as if she knows something we don't. I remember a few times, when I was a child and being scolded by her for whatever reason, in the middle of her anger..she'd just start cracking up. She'd laugh so hard that she would start wheezing. Of course, that kind of laughter is contagious and you'd end up with the two us in tears, rolling on the floor, trying to catch our breath. We didn't always fight this way, but we did it quite often. Isn't that the BEST?!
I remember when my mom came to the hospital after W was born. She came up to my bed, held my hand and started crying. She almost never cries. Strong, I tell you. But I think at that moment, it was about finally having something in common. Our lives are so different, growing up in different countries..in different times. She came from a big family, where I am an only child. Though we share a few quirks and traits, for the most part, we are very different people. So when I became a mother, it was as if for once, we were on the same page. And without having to say anything, I knew she was excited for the both of us.
To this day, I have friends who ask about my mom, even though they haven't seen her in over a decade! That's the kind of impact she has on you. For such a small person, her personality fills up the whole room. I'm so blessed to have her as a mother and a role model.
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