When babies try to help.

she took out my tray of threads and spread it all over the floor. and she loved every second of it!

Self Feeding

Um, Elle, you have something on your face.

The rice isn't nearly as tasty as the bowl!

Weekend Warriors

Instead of spending our first 3 days weekend since New years day, relaxing, we decided to redo our kitchen. Our kitchen that was completely gutted and redone 2 years ago. Yes, I know. We're a little nuts for several reasons.
1) We work 6 days a week, we don't even have a regular 2 day weekend so having a 3 day weekend is like a vacation for us and this was our first in a very long time with baby.
2) Our kitchen is pretty brand new already but my original design was poor and didn't function and flow right.
3) What idiots thinks they can complete a kitchen in 3 days?

Ok, when we bought our house, the kitchen looked like this.


Being a lover of all things vintage, I didn't mind it at all but it didn't have any counter space to speak of so we had to redo it.

So we gutted the entire thing 2 years ago, the day after new years day 2006.




My original design was for a 22 foot long kitchen countertop comprised of sink, stove and penisula. In my head it was perfect because I had more counterspace than I could possibly ever use!! I also don't like the looks of wall cabinets so we decided not to put any wall cabinets except for a narrow wall at one end of the kitchen which had floor to ceiling big, deep cabinets. I unfortunately never took any pictures of that wall so you'll have to use your imagination. I guess I really don't have any pictures of the kitchen before this weekend but it was one long mess. We also brought in the penisula closer to have more room for chairs and to access it better from the sink.

We still had a lot of little things to do with the kitchen like a vent hood and outlets and doors for under the sink cabinet so we knew that we were going to spend some time on it still bust 2 years went by and A-man still didn't put a vent hood so the hole for the hood now has a nest in it with about a half dozen eggs. The easier solution was to get a built-in microwave hood which meant that we needed to add a cabinet on top of it which meant that we needed to balance it off with more cabinets on either side.


The main reason I wanted to redo it was because the only space that I used to prepare food was the counterspace between the stove and the sink which is only 18 inches wide. I usually ran out of space there so I'd spill on top of the stove. I had about 20 feet of counterspace and I only used 18 inches. Insane, I know. So the only reason I wanted to get this done was to add more space between the sink and the stove. Due to plumbing and electrical outlets, we were only able to add another 18 inches which is more than enough.
so it went from this.





to this.


We also added wall cabinets to the other side of the window to match since we took down all the wall cabinets on the far wall. (notice the white paint? we didn't paint it because it was full of cabients so now we have to go back and try to match the wall color)




We didn't have enough time to cut out a longer piece of countertops or finish the ducts for the vent (but that'll have to watch until the eggs hatch anyways). and since the sink cabinet was altered to fit the sink, we have to alter the cabinet doors which we haven't figured out in 2 years and when I say we, I mean A-man!!
There's still a ton of little stuff to accomplish but for now, I'm really happy with the outcome and for getting it all done this weekend.

Reason #16949476 why the In laws will not be babysitting, EVER!

They had our dog, Madison for a week and she came back with a broken leg. My dog who has the pain tolerance of 10 tigers can't stand on her hind legs.

Playdate

We met up again with the babies from our Bradley Class. This time a different mom hosted it and that was so much better than when I hosted it cuz there was no stress. Ahhhhh!

We got there a little late because everytime I have plans to go somewhere with Elle, she sleeps longer. It's almost foolproof! I have plans or I have guests who wants to see her; she sleeps forever. I have work to do around the house; she wakes up after a few minutes.

Elle is so independent when she's out and playing. She never checks in with me and does really well until I start eating. Then she makes a bee line towards me. It's kinda cute but sometimes when I'm really hungry, I just wish she'd keep playing. But she IS my child and apparently inherited my appetite. I hope she also inherited daddy's metabolism as well.

Of course there was a ton of toys to play with but she picked this cup. Why do we spend a penny buying toys when they are totally content with random things?

I'm such a bad mom

to my furbabies. I used to be that tyrant asshole who would curse people out who wanted to get rid of their pets after they moved or had a child. I used to sit and read those "to a good home" ads on craigslist and write a long reply on why that person was a sick bastard for trying to re-home their pet.

That was all before I had my own baby. I still think it's asinine to get rid of a pet because you moved and the new landlord didn't allow pets. Isn't that something you look into before you sign the damn lease! Or the other big thing is "I developed allergies all of a sudden or my new boy/girlfriend moved in and has allergies". You shouldn't get pets if you have allergies AND for the most part, a person can get rid of their allergies if they are exposed to the allergen for a period of time. I suffered through about 3 months of allergies after we got our cats but it went away.

Anyways, the point of all this is that I am a big fat hypocrite. Not that I would ever place one of those ads but I have thought about sending off our pets to a good home on more than one occasion. I did give one of our 3 cats to our grandparents because 1. they asked for him, but 2. he was the dirtiest cat ever and kept sneaking into Elle's crib to sleep. He was by far the friendliest cat ever but from the beginning he has had cleanliness issues, from not going into the litter box to never cleaning himself. Anyways, I wouldn't just give him to anyone. A-mans mom wanted to take him to his grandparents house. Initially I said no but when Momo started going into the crib, I jumped at the chance.

I know, that was pretty mean of me but like I said, I don't mind giving them away to family.


So the next big presence is my beloved dog. I've always had a little dog and wanted a big, huge one when i buy my first house. So just a few short months after I bought my house, I adopted a pitbull/rottweiler mix. She is awesome. Her name is Madison and she puts up with so much neglect since having Elle and still loves her very much. The only thing is that she sheds so much and it's so fine and short AND the same color as my hardwood floors so you don't see that my floors are caked with fur all over. I just need to get over myself and not worry so much about cleanliness. That and that she steals food all the time and has a little food issue.

Madison is on vacation and will be back in a week. The inlaws took her to their summer home in the woods so I know she's having a blast. I hate to admit this but I'm kinda relieved to have a quiet house again. I mean I guess we never really had a quiet house but I don't feel guilty every moment of every day because I didn't take Madison to the park and am only playing with Elle. I miss her but I don't miss her. I'm so bad. She'll be here in a few days and I'll try to do better. I need to get my ass out of the house anyways and I'll walk her more often.

Husband-isms

"Don't give baby attention when she cries"
"She'll turn into an evil child"
"Then into an evil wife"
"I'm going to have to talk with your mom"

Bad Market

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this before but I am a realtor as well as my 10 other occupations. What can I say? I'm a workaholic!
I put my license on hold while I was pregnant and decided to bring it back and change offices at the same time. My parents and a few friends were planning to sell their property so I started work last month.
I am sitting at an open house for my parents house right now and granted it's only been 30 minutes since I started, I really don't think anyone is going to come.

Real Estate nationally is doing poorly. We all know that. Chicago is suffering from the same national crisis but generally homes in the higher price bracket ususally are immune to the national average because rich people will always buy and sell. Of course the higher interest rates effects everyone so people are still cautious but I had this house on the market for over 3 weeks and I didn't get a single call. Not A one!
Part of the problem is that this house is pricey, $899 to be exact. I could go lower but my parents aren't in a pinch to sell it and so they are testing things out for now. They need to sell it to be able to have some breathing room because they are planning a semi-retirement by selling off their main business this month. But they don't want to lose money as well. The price is actually not bad for this neighborhood and the size of this house but it's a little above the competitive bracket.

Another problem with this is that the realtor, me, is not all that happy with her job. I only work with family and friends, I dont' do real estate to live off of so when I do it, it's usually fun and exciting. However since the birth of Elle, I've lost that drive to make money and keep working. All I want to do is stay at home and bake cookies and do laundry. Well not really do laundry but you know what I mean. I always thought that even after I had a child that I would be the parent making the money and my husband would be the stay at home parent. Things sure do change when your vagina is ripped open! I LOVE being a mom more than anything and all this need and desire to make money doing something that really doesn't do much for me emotionally seems to be a waste of time.

Finally, a huge part of the reason I started up again was because I can't say no. I am incapable of saying no to someone, anyone, ESPECIALLY my mom. Part of saying no is quiting. I can't quit anything. A recent episode of Grey's Anatomy shows how Meredith tells her shrink that she is firing her but is brought back into reality by her therapist when she asks why she is quitting. She adamently refuses that she is quitting, only firing her because she isn't helping. I feel the same way. I can't quit anything. I have always hated the slimey part of real estate and it pulled at my consciencious every time I had to deal with other slimey realtors during a transaction. I worked so hard for over 6 years to keep my license going and it just seems like such a waste to me to give it up now. I will pathetically stay in the state of denial rather than actually quit because even though I don't give a rats ass about the people in my office, I'd just like to show them how hard I work. What's wrong with me?

I really wasn't ready to come back to work so fast because this job requires a lot of time away from Elle and luckily for me, I have my husband to watch her. But I still hate to take away the one day that we are all home together to come sit at an empty house and "sell" a house. At least its my mom's house and I can just sit by the computer or watch TV if no one comes in.

I'm giving myself until October to see if I'm going to stick with real estate or not. I am really hoping that I win the lottery before then so I don't have to worry about the cost of just keeping my license active without selling anything. That means I dont' have to quit it. Whatever happens, I'll be content in knowing that I gave it a shot and made plenty of money doing it and if I need to give up my license and hire a realtor in the future, well, so be it.

Maybe next month

I was secretly hoping that I would be pregnant but AF showed up today so I guess it's not happening. It's a relief in a way cuz the thought of possibly being pregnant made me rethink my health insurance once again. Back in February, I changed my provider and opted NOT to get maternity coverage because I was going to do a homebirth. Um, what the hell was I thinking? I don't think I have the balls to do it. As much as I want to and think that I can do it at home, it scares the crap out of me at the same time and probably will give me a heart attack if I had to do it without a choice. The problem is that my health plan requires to be on it for a full year before maternity is covered. Since I'm not pregnant, I think I'll add maternity just to make sure I have that option in case I don't want to do a home birth. Maybe this little scare is a blessing in disguise so I better get a move on it since I'd like to have a baby this time next year.

4 years ago today

Happy Anniversary My love!!!

It'll be our tenth year together and 4 years married. But none of the years was as great as the year our baby was born!!
Thank you for putting up with my schizo personality and my manic behavior and mood swings. Only a person that truly loves me would put up with all that.

Fucking Yeast

My baby has a yeast infection. It started out looking like a really bad case of diaper rash, which we've tackled successfully before. But in the last couple of days, it seemed to be spreading. I knew in my gut that it wasn't a diaper rash when I first saw it but I was being optimistic and perhaps didn't want to find out. So I went to see a doctor today and she confirmed that it was indeed that but we started talking about constipation and her eating habits and I felt like an asshole after that. I explained to her that Elle doesn't like solids. I suppose if I gave her pizza, she'd devour it but that's not going to happen. 90% of the foods that I give her, she only eats a bite or two, small, tiny bites! So, she still gets her main nutrition from nursing which the doctor exclaimed, "she's too old to be getting all her food from breast milk"

What?? This from the same practice with another doctor who told me to breast feed until my baby is 4 years old!

I hope the Lotrimin AF I got today helps get rid of it and I've had her out of diapers alot lately so I hope it all helps it get better.

Poor little baby, all she wants to do is scratch her crotch and that's always a bad sign :)

Party planning is so much fun!

NOT! Isn't that just sad? It should be. Absolutely should be fun but as with most things in my life, I have to juggle two sides, my Korean family and my husband's cheapness! Ha ha, just kidding. A-man usually doesn't care how much I spend. Let me rephrase that, he ususally doesn't know how much I spend on anything but I do consult him on the big ticket items. Elle's birthday party is one of them.

I went today to reserve the room where we're having the party. It's part of a park district center but it's really nice. The building is surrounded by grassy green, a gazebo with 3 bridges leading to it and a super nice playground. and the room we're using has 2 gigantic windows looking over all this. I was so thrilled about FINALLY getting a room that once I booked it, I realized there is just so much detail to work out. Like for instance, drinks, plates, silverware, decorations, set-up, clean-up, and most importantly FOOD. My biggest concern was deciding on just where to get the food and all day I was planning to go with a variety of food but that just gave me more headaches so I decided on one place, Maggiano's! Who doesn't like Italian? Well, my mom but I can't please her on this one.

After that hurdle was crossed, I'm kinda panicking about how I'm going to serve it. Since it's going to be hot, I need to keep it hot and to rent those chafing dishes is like $30 per set and I need like 5!!!! So that's not going to happen. So I guess I'll just use the aluminum trays that the food will come in and put candles under it. So not how I pictured it in my head but my head is not in sync with my finances so that's that.

I ordered two picture collages today to display at the party so hopefully those will be all the decoration I need with a few balloons here and there.

But I still need some kind of entertainment. Oye Vey. I think I'm going to hold off on celebrating traditions for a while, a long, long while.

Misunderstood

I was asked recently why I was being so sarcastic by someone I knew online on a message board. Anyone that knows me in real life knows how truly sarcastic I can be. ha ha! There's nothing wrong with being sarcastic, I equate sarcasm with wit and intelligence. I'm pretty blunt and honest so I try to curb my sarcasm and comments when I comment online because I know that some people just can't handle it OR worse off, take it out of context.

What I don't understand is that one of her friend in my opinion is even more sarcastic than I am so I thought she was kidding when she asked me that. I had sent her a note with a reply saying that I couldn't believe she thought I was being sarcastic when this friend of hers named her son a really unique, totally funky name. Which to me seems totally fitting to her sarcastic nature. and what balls she has to name her son that, You go!! The first thing that this friend has ever commented to one of my post was how ill-matching Elle's clothes were. I showed them a picture of Elle where she happened to have different sets of pajamas but I just let it slide because I knew she was being sarcastic and not to hurt my feelings.

So instead of understanding that I was comparing her relationship with this sarcastic friend of hers, I got attacked for dragging her friend into our fight. I apparently hurt her feelings because I "dragged her friend" into it. The funny thing is she claims to be a writer and for her to deliberately take my words and use them against me at a place where I no longer am welcomed nor where I can defend myself, is just low. But I guess I should have expected it.

I'm only writing this because I don't want any of my friends that are still on that message board to think that I would attack anyone as she said I did. I was only comparing myself to a friend of hers who share, from what I can tell, the love of black and sarcasm. I don't have to subscribe to be apart of "Kind Blog" to actually use those theories in my daily life. I've only tried to help this person and tried multiple times to get together with her and I've been ignored and dissed every time. I guess I should have gotten the message the first time I tried. What can I say, I'm such a sucker for wanting to fix and help people?

Dol

The Koreans have a lot of traditions, a whole lot. One big tradition is the celebration of the first birthday, called Dol.

Googled explantion

In the past, due to a lack of medical information, Korea's seasonal temperature differences, and many childhood related diseases, the death rate for children was extremely high. Many children died before their first birthday. After the age of one year, the survival rate steeply increased, making this milestone a very happy one for the child's parents. It has also been a custom to celebrate a child's 100 day birthday (baek-il) , but in most areas this birthday is less important than the Dol and any celebrations are smaller in scale.


Traditional Dol Celebration
The traditional celebration had four major components:
1) Praying and giving thanks
2) Making and wearing the birthday clothes
3) Preparing the table and performing the Toljabee
4) Sharing the food with guests and neighbors

In modern times, due to the improvements in medicine, the influence of Western culture, and modern industrialization, the Shamanistic reasons for the Dol celebration have been reduced. However, the event is still celebrated as a time of congratulations for the parents and family.

In the modern Dol, taking picture is an important part of the event. As many Korean homes are very small, many families rent a room in a banquet hall. The modern celebration includes the child's parents greeting guests, lighting candles on a birthday cake, the Toljabee event, and a toast.

The tradition is still very important as a cultural celebration but since Elle is only half Korean, it is somewhat stressful to come to a compromise with A-man who like most westerners believe that since the baby won't remember it, just make it small.

My mom is Korean, and if you know any korean moms you know that it is hard to change her mind when it comes to doing something SHE wants you to do. The last conversation I had with her ended with her saying that "I don't ever listen to her" To that I told her that, I don't have to. Elle's dad doesn't want to spend thousands of dollars that we don't have to rent out a banquet hall with crappy food.

If we had the money, I would no doubt make it as big as I could possible make it but since we're not in that boat, we decided to rent out a nice room somewhere like a park center, cater really good food, and keep it simple. It's less than 7 weeks away and I'd really like to send out invitations so I really need to come up with something but we still haven't found a place. I hate that this is stressing me out. I hate that the first celebration of my baby's birthday has to come in between my mom and I, and I hate that I have waited this long to plan it. But I was told of a place that I'm going to check out today and I really hope that we can rent it. It's cheap and nice. The two factors that I've been looking for. Fingers crossed!!

A routine?

Could it be that my baby is on some kind of a schedule? it just dawned on me that the past few days she has been going to sleep at 10:30-11am for an hour. We're still working on her night time sleep, she was kept up longer than normal last night so when I tried to put her to bed, she fought it with all her might. It was too hard trying to nurse a squirmy baby in a rocking chair so I brought her into my bed. We still co-sleep with her if she's acting really fussy but for the most part, she does ok in her crib. Since she's my first, I don't have any other comparison so it's hard for me to think if what she does is normal or abnormal, it's just our life. People tell me that she should be sleeping through the night and I have friends with babies that do but it seems to me that those that have babies that sleep through the night, most of them let their little ones cry it out. I don't think there is anything wrong with crying it out after you know for sure that baby is absolutely ok and safe. I have tried to do it but I just can't seem to do it more than 20 minutes so why bother in the first place. Elle will get up from her crib and hold onto the bar and cry at the top of her lungs, forevah!!! Her cries echo throughout our little old house and it breaks my heart everytime. So that's our norm, waking up 3-4 times a night, sometime every hour all night. Good thing I can function very well with just a few hours of sleep.

But back to the point of this blog. I am really happy at the thought of a routine, very happy. I can't really get much done in that time but at least it gives me time to sit here or sleep and then I can plan outings accordingly:) This could be a whole different kind of norm for me and it's a welcomed one.

Long Lost brother?

Nah! just our neighbors' nephew. But made you think twice, huh? :)

We have this amazing neighbor across the street, from the day we moved into our house they have been so inviting and generous. She knitted Elle 3 blankets and hats before I even told her I was pregnant and before she knew what sex Elle was. Then when she was born, she gave us a box of shoes, I mean a box full of baby shoes!! and she's been giving us gifts for every occasion and most recently, my first mother's day gift of planted roses:)

We went over yesterday and they were watching their nephew who is just so sweet and just loved Elle and played with her so well. My own nephews don't play with her that much.
and they look awefully similar, don't they?

I can't wait to go over again to play. I'm so lucky to have such wonderful neighbors!!

Happy Mother's day!!!

Today is my first mother's day and it's also the first time that MY mother is out of town for mother's day but I suppose that gives me more time to spend with my family today:).

The day started out at 4:45am, Elle woke up as usual crying but she had an overall good night of sleep and that's usually her wake up time and my alarm clock.

I decided a few days ago that I was going to attempt to make some homemade marshmallows today so I was able to get an early start and they turned out amazing!!
I used some of it to make smores and dipped it in chocolate and have been waiting patiently for them to cool down.
I didn't do such a good job of it cuz I already ate a couple. Can you blame me?



After those were made, I went into nurse Elle back to sleep and my sweet husband put these out for me when I returned.



There were 2 card!! One from A-man and the other from Elle. and inside Elle's card was this


That immediately made me cry because I didn't give A-man enough credit and for him to think to do this just made my day!! I told him several times that I really, really just want a card for today and to be honest, I was keeping my fingers crossed because he hasn't given me a gift for anything in the past few years. He used to write the sweetest notes and cards when we were dating but that came to a screeching halt sometime before we got married. But none of that matters because this momma is happy as a clam today.

He also asked me what I wanted to do today and I said maybe I'll go watch a movie by myself and he was so sad for me even though I tried to explain to him that I wanted to go alone. So he said that he and baby would come with and that he'd walk the hallways with her if she couldn't handle the movie. How sweet is that?

But I decided not to go cuz there's really nothing I want to see so I decided to go shopping instead and maybe out to lunch. Everyone is taking their morning naps right now and I am at peace and beyond content. What else can a mom ask for?

Rascism in the USA

There's a new movie coming out this weekend called 21 based on a book of real life MIT students that took down vegas with their card counting skills. The problem is that the movie is cast with Caucasian leads but the real students were Asian American. Hollywood apparently doesn't think that Asians can sell a movie. Just when I thought we were progressing in the race department, we get kicked back down.

I've seen trailers for this movie and thought about seeing it BEFORE I found out the truth.

Race has everything to do with one's character so how can they just switch it out and pretend that it isn't important and just erase it out of the film?

Where does the time go?

It's been 10 months!! 10 months since the birth of my beautiful daughter. 10 month of pure bliss that I never thought would be possible. 10 months of love like no other.

I am so lucky to have her in my life. I know I complain about sleepless nights and worries but overall, I wouldn't ask for anything different. I am blessed in so many ways and I have nothing really to complain about.

In the last month, she has learned to crawl like a champ and now, stand unassisted for several minutes at a time. She's also getting better at not falling on her rump from standing. She's also (cross your fingers) much better at NOT biting me while nursing.
She's eating much better and nursing less.

I didn't get to take any pictures of her today and I am sad about that but we had a wonderful day with her BFF, Cadence.