2 for 2

Ella slept through the night again last night!! I'm in hog heaven.

Just awesomeness!

Ella slept through the night yesterday. I know I've been bad about updating on her sleep routine. It's because it pretty much went out the window. A-man is still tending to her at nights but we had a few bad nights of teething and roseola during the last month so her routine was screwed by me having to take care of her or co-sleep during the really bad nights. She's still doing really well with A-man although she gets so disappointed when he goes in instead of me. It's so sad but cute. This one time, she thought I was A-man and wouldn't even look up to see me and just started bawling. But as soon as I whispered her name, her eyes opened up wide and you could just see the relief in her whole body.

Anyways, last night we all watched a movie and I nursed her to sleep on the sofa and it was over around 9pm, I carried her to her room and put her down. Even though she was awake while I was carrying her, she just closed her eyes as soon as she hit the mattress. She didn't even want to nurse which is totally unexpected and when I thought she was sleeping, I started walking out the door but she opened up her eyes and just motioned for me to stay with her hands without crying or anything. Soon after that she fell asleep for the night and although she cried around 1am, she didn't wake up until after 5am!!! That is THE best and longest she's ever slept. I woke up several times cuz I'm just not used to not hearing her during the night but even though we had a 3 hour nap late in the day yesterday, she did so well at night.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for tonight but I really dont' expect a repeat.

Dear Friend

It breaks my heart when I think about you now. We used to have so much in common and so much fun when we got together. Now I cringe at the thought of speaking to you because I know it will be full of judgment and criticism. The other night when we spoke, I was whispering because I didn't want to wake up Eleanor. She was in the other room and I had just put her in bed a few minutes before you called. Some babies like peace and quiet, I like peace and quiet when I sleep, why shouldn't I give my baby the same respect. No, I don't think that babies need to sleep with loud noises in the background. They don't need to get used to that in order to sleep. I don't think that babies need to adapt to our lifestyles just yet if ever. Plus, we're pretty quiet people normally, we don't watch tv or talk loudly at each other, so there's usually no extra noise that she needs to get used to. I know you don't agree but before I had Eleanor, I never doubted your advices because I didn't know better. You laughed at me when I said that I wanted to go natural with her and I laughed with you because I didn't know myself that I could do it. But I'm so glad that I was able to give her a good start to life without any drugs. You told me you think it's inappropriate to breastfeed in public (specifically at a restaurant). But now that she's in my life, there's nothing I wouldn't and couldn't do for her. And whenever I have to nurse her in a restaurant, I always think of you.
It breaks my heart that I don't ever want to go visit you again and I don't really care to speak with you because I know it's going to result in something said which will upset me. I used to be the same as you with big ambitions of career and money. I'm still ambitious but it revolves around what I can and should do for Eleanor which for now is to spend as much time with her as possible. She'll go to school someday and then I'll go back to work. I'm blessed to be able to stay at home with her and for now there's nothing in the world I'd rather do.
I regret complaining to you about A-man. I know you only hear the complaints about him and rarely any praises. I generally get fired up when something bothers me about him so I share them with you because I can. The fact that I only speak to you once a month or less usually means that I only have just as little to complain about. So your negative opinion of A-man is my fault. He is a great person, husband, and dad and I love him even more now than I did 10 years ago when we first started dating. Not a lot of people can say that. You shouldn't judge him because you only hear my side and just the bad side at that. Which reminds me that I need to keep my mouth shut and share the millions of wonderful but boring moments we have together. You'd probably puke at how disgustingly cute and affectionate we are normally.
I don't want to tell you how I feel because I don't want to argue especially since you live out of state and I rarely get to see you. But I just wish that you would and could respect my parenting style as I have respected yours. We don't have to agree on everything but if we want to stay friends forever, we need to respect each others choices.

To my Korean blogging friends

Figure this one out!

Nah Aggie Gah-Juht-Tah! Neh-yun goo-wul-thal eh nal-kuh-yah!

Happy Holidays

This is our pathetic and lonely Christmas tree. Yes there are only 2 ornaments.



Hanging out together on Christmas morning.


Sporting her new present.


Opening up a toy (don't tell her uncle she already has the same one)


Playing with grandma's Christmas tree

Hanging out with baby

Happy Winter

I live in Chicago and it's a blizzard around here. It's been snowing pretty much for a week now but at least it's pretty "warm" today.

So instead of being cooped up in the house, we finally went out. We all took the day off and after clearing out the driveway, we went over to the park which is only about 5 houses away and went sledding. Elle LOVED it! If A-man and I weren't such lazy bums with absolutely no stamina, we would have been there all day. But carrying a 30pound ish baby up the hill tired us out almost immediately.

But not before momma got pictures.

This sucks

Eleanor has had a runny nose for the past couple of weeks after hanging out with my friend's children. She acted as usual so I wasn't too concerned except that it wasn't going away. But today when she woke up she was all snot. Every time sneezed, which was often, snot would shoot out, once to her chest. That was record breaking! The other difference was that she was inconsolable today. She was so cranky and snotty and wanted to nurse constantly and acted like she was sleepy with eye rubbing and all but didn't fall asleep (until now that is).

My SIL and family came over this afternoon and told me that it's just from teething and I'm hoping she's right. Eleanor has never really had any physical reaction to teething before besides being cranky but never with sneezing and stuffy nose. Her cheeks are also rosy as can be and the space below her nose is all red from me constantly wiping away her snot. I've heard about other babies getting runny noses from teething but it just doesn't make any sense to me.

When I finally got her to sleep, she sneezed, releasing a small popcorn size snot and she instinctively rubbed it while sleeping and it got all on her eyes. So I wiped it off which woke her up which brought me back to another round of nursing.
My poor baby. I hope she's better tomorrow.

Crunch time

Talk about last minute. I decided yesterday to throw a Christmas party for my employees at my house on Sunday and I think about 13 people will be there including children and about half children half adults. And since I worked today, I will have to get up extra early to clean up my sty of a house, order food, and make some desserts. It's suppose to snow more and turn into freezing ice so I'm not sure if everyone that said they were coming will be coming but I'm still going to have to order the food to accommodate, we'll probably have left overs no matter what.

Thanks for an 1.5 hours of solid nap time, I got to start on a christmas gift for one friend which turned out great and started on another one which is almost done. Then during work, I started knitting another gift. I feel somewhat relieved now knowing that I have some presents and if I don't get or make anything for our parents, I'm going to get some pictures printed and framed at the last minute.

I'm pretty sure my heater isn't working but A-man won't believe me. It's working but it's not the temperature that the thermostat is reading so I'm always cold. He's thinks I'm nuts, maybe I am but I don't think so.

Despite the poor economy and the horrible Chicago weather, business was great today and I feel extremely blessed.

Ok, I need to go finish making my gifts.

A Freak

That's me. I just wrote 3 posts in a matter of minutes because I like that each one has it's own title. See, I'm a total nutjob.

Anyways, I'm freaking out that there's only days left for Christmas and I don't have any presents for my parents or the in laws family. I planned on making everything but didn't get around to it. If I don't have anything by Tuesday, I'll be in the kitchen baking all day if baby and husband allows me, that is.

I wanted to make my nieces dolls and some purses for the MIL and SIL but I dont have any motivation left in me these days. I think I'm depressed because of family and friends. I'm beginning to realize that my mom doesn't say one nice thing to me ever and the second she sees me, she's complaining or nagging me about what a crappy mom I am and "how I shouldn't have more children if I plan on raising them like I do Eleanor". That might sound utterly evil for a lot of you but it's not so bad if you're Korean because I grew up with this shit and I know she has also so I just kinda block it out. Although I'm human so it does hurt my feelings mainly because I think I'm a great mom and really proud of the fact that I'm raising such an independent and fun baby who has all the nourishment from extended breast feeding. Plus she has no separation anxiety or timidness because she's so loved and free to do her own thing. But I suck according to my mom because I let her sleep in the car for any length of time which is going to make her stupid apparently from all the car fumes even though we're outdoors. and she's too old to be breast feeding and it's embarrassing and her hairs too long and is poking her eyes. and baby doesn't hug or kiss my mom right away so she's not friendly. But I don't blame Eleanor at all because the second my mom sees her, she grabs her and demands a hug and a kiss and it's a little overbearing. Anyone who has met my daughter knows that she gives away hugs and kisses to any random stranger but not if you're all in her face about it. Who the hell would? I have always taken all her criticisms and complaints with a grain or salt and it never affected me but now that I'm a mom, it's completely unbearable. I suppose if anyone says anything NEGATIVE about my parenting style, I will get defensive cuz I'm only human and I'm doing the best that I THINK I can, not what others think I should.

Ok, I digress.

I was supposed to throw a Christmas party for my employees and their family but that's giving me a little anxiety and I'm not sure I'm going to do it. It'll have to be this Sunday so I really need to make up my fucking mind. I guess it starts with a clean house so I need to get my ass moving tomorrow although I'm pretty good at cleaning last minute and making it look great.

I hate that the holidays are stressing me out. That's not what it should be about. I heard a program on NPR today about this person's family tradition on how they have to pick one name from their family and MAKE that person a gift. It brought tears to my eyes listening to how she explained the joy of someone being excited for someone else to open their gift more than opening their own because they had made it.
I would love to adopt this tradition for my family and asked A-man to make me something but he just laughed it off. He usually doesn't get me anything or if he does it's really nothing I want.

I should be sleeping so I can have some energy to clean and figure out some gifts in the next few days.

Hope all your holiday preparations are going well.

Tooth #14

Eleanor's bottom right molar has cut through on Sunday. Again, on a Sunday. It's always been on a Sunday, isn't that weird? Anyways, she doesn't seem to be doing so bad, just her usual wild and demanding self. I just love looking at all her teeth because it's a sign of growth that I can see, you know what I mean? She's growing all the time but you don't really see it but the teeth, it's just fascinating!

$25.03

It cost me $25.03 to fill up my 16 gallon tank. That makes me happy. Not the national financial crisis just the cheap gas.

I can't stand her

It's been a year since I sat in the same room with her for more than 10 minutes and that was on Thanksgiving. Today was my FIL's 70th birthday but let me go back a little. Last January I had asked FIL a favor for the health and safety of our family and he outright disrespected me. So I stopped talking to them. Ignoring MIL was just the icing on the cake because I never liked her but FIL was tolerable and since I was raised to be a good, polite, person, I was never rude to them until this happened.

Ok, so I successfully avoided them for a year, well I guess the last time we were all in the same room was for Elle's birthday but since there were 80 other people, it wasn't hard to ignore them. A-man has always asked me to be nice to them and I tried, I really did but I just couldn't. But he really went out of his way to accommodate my parents needs last couple of months so I told him that I would TRY to be nicer to his parents and just try to forget what happened.

So back to today, it's FIL's 70th birthday. In Korea, 70th birthdays are celebrated as big as the first birthday which is as big as some weddings in the states. But FIL didn't want a party, he just wanted to go out to dinner. Ok, no problem. In my first attempt to be nice to the in laws, I cleaned out our house, bought fruits, ordered cake, and bought presents. We met them at the restaurant first and that's where it all went wrong.

We got there first. We were just waiting in the waiting area when I saw MIL pretty much stumble her way into the restaurant screaming out her son's name. We were less than 5 feet away, there was no need to scream. Although A-man has already checked us in (we had reservations), she told FIL to "Re-check us in!". We waited together in a very small space, it was uncomfortable. After about 15 minutes we still weren't seated so she told FIL to go talk to them again because "It's your birthday!" MIL has a way of projecting her voice and she shrieks when she laughs which sounds like a laugh and a scream at the same time. At one point, Elle did something cute and MIL was just close enough to me to literally take my hearing out for a few minutes.

I won't go into details of the absolutely embarrassing and annoying hour of my life but let me just go through the highlights.
Besides the shrieks and fondling of every one's dinner except for mine (Thank God because I was sitting across from her) she kept offering Elle ice water which I insisted that she stop offering because Elle already had a glass of water which she spilled most on her shirt and pour some down her pants and then drank a ton of through a straw and chomped on the ice. She didn't need more water. But MIL didn't think so even after telling her not to give her water 3 times!

When the waiter came to tell us our food was coming soon, she shrieked "Good, We want our dinner!!" You had to be there to understand just how embarrassing that was. Not only did we thoroughly hear that, I'm pretty sure half of the restaurant did also.
I also noticed that her words were a little slurred during dinner so to her CREDIT, I'm going to assume that she was completely wasted. But it wouldn't surprise me if she was totally sober.

When we were all done with dinner, she handed A-man a $100 bill and kept repeating, "Is that enough!" "Here's a hundred, is that enough?" "Is that enough?" Then when we all stood up, she came next to me and said, "I just gave A-man $100, is that enough?"

Lady, I fucking heard you tell your son, why do you need to tell me?

As if that wasn't enough, they were coming over to our house afterwards for cake and presents. What the fuck was I thinking???

As soon as we got to our car, A-man and I made a game plan to get the job done and send them off as soon as possible.

They got to our house just before we did, even though MIL insisted that they follow us home which like everything else, she repeated several times to both me and A-man.
Our house, my Korean house, my house with a baby, is a NO SHOE HOUSE! It has always been and it will always be. They know this, I always tell them.
MIL and FIL walks in and MIL continues to keep walking in and I ask her to talk off her shoes. "Please take your shoes off." This is a no shoes house.
A-man repeated my plea, 3 more times. And as I was helping Elle take off her jacket and shoes, MIL goes through Elle's room (there's 2 doors to each bedroom) and into the bathroom. We came in from the kitchen, the distance to the bathroom is the same because Elle's room is parallel to the kitchen but when I saw MIL come out of the bathroom WITH SHOES ON, I almost lost it. Not only did she cross half way into my house with her boots on in the middle of winter in CHICAGO, she went through Elle's room, straight on through. For those of you that have been following Elle's sleep issue, well, we've been sleeping with her on her floor because she falls out of her crib, which means that there are blankets covering 90% of her tiny little room. And she fucking walked through that room with boots on. God only knows where she stepped on and we all know she's not the type to watch where she's going.

Then after she's done, she starts looking for her cup of tea that A-man had made for her in the kitchen. She gets up and makes a bee line into my back room, my craft room, MY ROOM to look for her cup of tea. Why the fuck would your tea be in my craft room that is closed off to everyone, in fact all the rooms are closed off, why are you looking in any of the rooms if you've only been in the kitchen and dining room in the last 5 minutes since A-man made you that tea?

(deep, deep, breathe)

This is surprisingly therapeutic for me believe it or not.

During the eating of the cake, she asks me if she could give my daughter her tea. You want to give my 17 month old baby your HOT tea? Are you fucking kidding me?

Thank God Elle wanted to nurse at this point because I just whisked her into room and nursed her but not long enough and we came back out and A-man left to take FIL to the garage to show him his tools and left MIL alone with me for a few minutes which seemed like an eternity. Of course she already put her shoes on and walked back and forth in my kitchen looking at my calendar with Elle, telling her that "oh, you'll be coming to my house on this day and that day,etc" I don't think so lady!!

I just don't get it, I've ignored them for almost a year now and when the see me, it's like nothing happened. If I didn't love A-man so much, I would have told them off a long time ago. I don't hold back, I even asked her once if she was senile because she kept repeating everything. You see, she needs to keep talking so she'll talk in a loop and when she's done saying everything she possibly has to say, she'll repeat it all, word for fucking word!!

Ok, I'm calming down.

FIL had a great time, he's totally immune to her. He loved his gifts, a jacket and an ipod touch (which I soooo want for myself). and before we got together I really wanted to make an effort to be apart of his family again but I'm not sure I can after tonight. You're probably reading it thinking it's not bad, maybe a little annoying, but not too bad. But you're dead wrong, everything I went through times the fact that the woman's voice is a cross from a hyena and a dentist's drill makes it THAT much more worse because it just lingers and rings in your ear. and I'm going to have to go to bed soon with that in my head.

this is going to be a looooong holiday season..

Language

I was told today from my friend who is a doctor that a 17 month old baby should know about 25-50 words. I don't think Eleanor knows nearly as much. Is it because she's learning two languages at once or will she be a late talker?

For my reference...

she can say:
Mam-ma: Food
Ah-Pah: Daddy
A-man: his real name
Mah: Madison
Mal: Socks
Ella
Wow

I think that's about it but I hope I'm forgetting a lot.

But she knows:
how to say one
how old she is
going to the bathroom
taking a shower
eating
sleeping
her nose
her head
her belly button
her eyes
giving kisses
high five
the phone

That seems very little to me. I think she's going to be really athletic but not so book smart. I hope she proves me wrong.

Baby Sleep Update

I don't want to write anything in case I jinx it but let me just say that I'm happy, really happy.

Say Cheese

This is what I got when I told her to "say cheese". I know it's my baby and I'm totally biased but this is THE best picture EVER!! Goodness gracious, I love that baby.

Memories

I'm really beginning to hate them. I mean the bad memories you don't even want to remember, the not so good ones, you want to go back and change, and the great ones, you want to relive. I look at old pictures and just get so sad. I want to be back in that time and be present again. It might sound like I may have lots of regrets but I don't. I am beyond content with my life, my husband, my baby, my house, my job, my parents, my current life. But I think back of old friends and wish I had done things differently so either the friendship didn't end so abruptly or it didn't end in a bad note. I wonder if I had been accepting of my father on the last time I saw him alive, would it have made things better, at least in my head and heart?
I wonder if I had reached out to my friend when he wrote me a postcard, would he not have killed himself?
I wonder if I kept my mouth shut about something my ex-best friend told me not to say, would she be in my life today?
I wish I had studied harder, exercised more, had more fun, and been nicer but would those things change what I have today? If so, I don't want it.

I don't know why the old memories are hitting me so hard lately. I listen to a song and think of a good time and wish I was there. I read an old letter and wish I had responded differently so I don't feel self doubt about that person. I always and still believe that there are no such things as coincidences, and that if you think about something or run into someone, that you still have unresolved issues with them. I am waiting for the days I run into these old friends so I can at least get the guilt and/or feeling of loss out of my head. It seems that I have a lot of apologizing to do because even with all these feelings of guilt and doubt, I still ended up being so incredibly blessed and lucky. All I can do from here on out is to live my life without anger and resentment and guilt. All I need to do is not do the things that made me feel this way in the first place to the people that ARE present in my life.

I miss my past, as fucked up as it was, I miss it. I wish some things happened differently but if all that led me to where I am today, I shall be grateful. Because I couldn't imagine my life or want my life any other way.

Today

We had a rough start to the day. The fever that Eleanor had over the weekend wasn't related to teething like we thought it was. For several days she's been getting these red rashes and had it all over her body and on her face as well yesterday . I took her to the doctor first thing this morning and found out that she has Roseola. It's apparently very common in babies from 9month to 2 years but how come I've never heard of it. It's supposed to last a week. Poor baby looks like she has a mild case of the chicken pox. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be bothering her.

It snowed a lot last night and I had to clean off my car before going to the doctors appointment only to have a baby poo in the car. It was so bad that I had to change her pants and socks. I didn't have an extra pair of socks and only had sweat pants for her to wear but at least she had a clean bum on the return trip home. Since she's mostly potty trained, at least for number 2, I wasn't prepared to deal with it outside of our house. I was all sweaty and stressed by the time she was changed.

Since we had to make an impromptu trip to the doctors office I didn't get to be by the computer to register Elle for winter classes right at 9am. By the time we got back and remembered, it was close to 10am and all but 2 classes that I picked out for her were already filled and all the alternate classes that I wanted to register her for were filled too. I was waiting for this day for a few months now. It's ridiculously competitive to sign up for park district classes here in Chicago and if you're not ready to do it as soon as registration opens, you're out of luck. This was my first time registering and I heard about the competitiveness but had no idea it was this fast. There are literally hundreds of classes and they were mostly full and closed before the hour was up. The summer is going to be even worse, I better get a baby sitter for that day so I'm ready to type. I'm used to getting concert tickets right when they go on sale to get a chance at good seats but I honestly didn't think this would be like that. I guess for $45 a class for a 3 month class, it's well worth the wait.

Eleanor has started to bite again and it seems like she's doing it just for kicks. I try to reason with her and show her that it really hurts. After a kiss and a sad face, I get suckered in to give her the other boob and get bitten again. So two strikes, you're out! I either let her cry it out in my arms and put her to sleep but if she's persistent about wanting to nurse, I have to get A-man to put her to bed because she doesn't attack him as much. He does amazingly well and was able to nap with her for over 2 hours. He has no problem napping and said he'd do it anytime and I'm glad to know that he can do it without a hitch.

Most of the day past before I realized that today is her 17th month birthday. I didn't get a chance to take any pictures until dinner time when I mentioned it to A-man who snapped a shot quickly. We bathed and went to bed right after dinner so I didn't get to take any more pictures. The picture above was from Friday at the stables. It was such a nice weekend and now it's full of snow. I'm seriously done with snow.

A Preview

I'll be participating in a small yet awesome craft fair this weekend in Chicago. It's called Depart-ment and it's set up like a store where all the items are categorized with one central check out line. It makes shopping at a craft fair so much easier. Oh yeah, and it's indoors!!

I had a ton of inventory from my craft fair this summer since it got rained out and hardly anyone showed up. I like using non conventional materials like vinyl and other synthetic materials. It's hard to come by but when I see it, I go crazy for it usually not knowing if my machine can handle it. Most are listed in my shop, some not but I'm hoping that I'll get some exposure this weekend and maybe sell an item or two or all (a girl can dream right?:)

I put some pictures up on my craft blog if you want to check it out and I'm also planning to do a giveaway once a year or more depending on my mood and budget;). Maybe I should do a giveaway for Christmas, hmmm.