Royally Messed Up

I’m not sure how I feel. In fact, I haven’t been sure how I feel for almost a week now. Last week Aaron and I got hit with some pretty troubling news and even though I’m trying to get past it (I’m sure he is too); this whole thing is just staying in my head and messing me up.

Aaron and I went out with some friends. We were supposed to do a dinner and a show –a comedy show to be exact, but more on that later. I was running late because of work so we had to skip dinner and meet our friends at the comedy club. We saw Rich Vos; a comedian we all like a lot. Great show. But that wasn’t the part that got me all messed up. That happened immediately after the show.

Basically, this is what happened: The show ended, we milled around while we got ready to head out, bought a cd, got a picture and walked out. Then, there- right in the parking lot in lieu of what should have been your basic, ‘okay, what do we do now’s’ and/or ‘we’ll see you guys later’s’ we got hit with one of our friends saying, “there’s a reason we wanted you guys to come out.” The tone was serious and the next few words lead me to think they were having financial issues and had to sell their house, but nope. It got worse, the friend followed up the selling the house thing with “we’ve been having problems for a while now,” and the doozy… they are going to be getting divorced.

That was the very first time I have ever seen Aaron be entirely unsure of what to say. All I was able to do is fish through my purse for a pack of tissues because our friend’s wife had started crying.

The whole situation was just odd. Particularly because out of all the married couples we know, this is the one that we genuinely love as a couple. The fact that they got married was essentially a given considering how awesome they are together. Granted, no, we’re not there to see the good, the bad, and the ugly of everyday life, but still. They showed absolutely no sign at all that something was amiss. On the contrary, the time before this, they seemed to be more together than ever. So in the days since then, we’ve discovered that this is a one sided thing. She is going along with this because she has already tried everything she can think of and just wants him to be happy.

Again, I have no idea what to say. During the car ride home, all Aaron and I wanted to do is hug Baby Girl. We were both in shock—and pretty much still are—but mostly felt like we were in mourning. We’re not sure what’s going to happen from this point forward. I have a feeling she will stay in the area since she likes it where she is and works in the city. Him, I’m not sure. She was the bigger bread winner so, I suppose he’ll move on somehow.

It’s funny, I thought I’d be able to wrap my head around this a little better once I got it down on “paper,” but in reality, it really hasn’t helped. I am as confused and bummed as before. I just hope we don’t end up losing two great friends in the process. That would be the biggest shame of it all.

A Woolly What?!

Teehee... Yaaaay monster/ Odd creature stories!

This is the latest one I've come across.

Alleged Woolly mammoth (or maybe just a bear) spotted in Siberia

The Walking Drool

Yep. The Baby Girl took her first two unassisted steps on Wednesday afternoon. Of course I’ve only heard about it. My parents called me to tell be about it a moment after it happened. By the time I got home she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in walking. She was in a huggy mood. Normally I look forward to cuddles, but this was big news damn it, I wanted to see her do her impression of a drunken college student but nope. I guess I’ll have to wait.

The other bit of good news is that she’s sprouting more teeth. She now has a top front tooth and its neighbor is on the way. And judging by how far she likes to cram her fingies into her mouth, I’d say there are a few molars threatening to break through- Poor thing.

Exciting as this all is, it’s also fascinating and disgusting at the same time. I’m not a scientist but I think we should really study the make-up of baby drool. I’m willing to bet there’s money to be made with whatever gives baby drool that amazing elasticity. I mean, this stuff hangs, and hangs but never seems to break. I'm also fairly certain that if the mood really struck her, Baby Girl could probably swing the stuff around to get to out-of-reach items around the house. Gross…

New "Phone"

A few weeks ago my phone died. I mean I couldn't even turn the thing on. So We decided to bite the bullet and get new phones. We also decided to switch carriers because we couldn't get reliable signals anywhere in or around our house.

The only problem is, I never bothered to save my contacts online. Mistake. So I have been reentering all my contacts one by one. Not so bad but it's made for some interesting text conversations. For the most part I am familiar with the area codes so I have a good idea of who it is I'm texting. The problem is, in the middle of all this, I accidentally entered the wrong numbers for a few people. Yeah, you can see where this is going. Pain in the ass. So if you're one of the people I normally text and you haven't heard from me in a while. it's not that I'm ignoring you. I may have just been sending messages to someone completely different. Woops.

A Year-ish In

The baby girl turned one on Jan 19th. I started this entry a few days before then but haven’t gotten a chance to finish it till now. So my apologies dear bloggy readers.

In honor of Baby Girl’s first trip around the sun, here are some of my highlights from this past year.

January, I lost tons of sleep even before the baby was born. I experienced a little bit of remorse about the end of the pregnancy. I was convinced I was going to miss the little one being inside and the middle of the night hiccup-fest. Glad to say, Aaron was once again right on this one, the feeling went away the moment I heard the wailing from the other side of the curtain.

I was extremely fortunate and thankful that post-partum depression lasted all of about a few days, and the worst of it was in the hospital when I ordered a dinner for Aaron and he said he really wasn’t all that hungry. It brought me to tears. To this day I still think that was the trippiest thing I have ever encountered. On the one hand, I totally understood and wasn’t the slightest bit sad about it, but there I was bawling because he didn’t want to eat hospital food.

February brought a whole host of new experiences. First real bath in a tub, first time In addition to being new parents we were now furniture shopping with a little one. I was also getting to the point of delirium. Case in point, I once tried answering my remote control-I wasn’t coming out of sleep. The nifty thing was that we had the first Mommy and baby outing to meet up with some friends for brunch. Firly successful but I learned that there is no such thing as bringing too much milk. I had to make an emergency stop at my brother’s before heading home.

March was fun and a little sad. In the beginning of the month we celebrated Aaron’s birthday as a family for the first time. But, I also had to go back to work. Boo… Luckily, that’s when Mamá and Papá stepped in and thank goodness for that. Baby Girl became a lot more active. She started being able to roll around and became much more interactive. She no longer smiled because she was gassy. She actually smiled because she was happy. Awwww… We also moved into our new home.

In April we had the whole family over for her 100 day for the first time. I think she was a bit overwhelmed at first but eventually really enjoyed it. We also got to celebrate my birthday as a family.

In May we started hearing more definitive “Dada’s” and “Mama,” but not very often mostly, she drooled and cooed.

In June we took our first family trip out to Massachusetts. The road trip was fine. She slept most of the way there and when she wasn’t sleeping she was busy looking out the window. The way back wasn’t so great. We hit a lot of traffic and she lost her patience. I had to crawl to the back seat mid ride to keep her happy.

On July 19th, her 6 month mark, Baby Girl got her first haircut. Mamá couldn’t stand the little strands of hair that got in her eyes so she trimmed it. I still have the trimmings. That reminds me, I have to get laminating materials. But yes, the other exciting thing was, she started staying seated and she got to try “solid foods” for the first time. We started off nice and slowly with homemade pureed peas. A whole teaspoon! The bad part was that we discovered that eating too much solid food too fast leads to vomiting. Not cool. Especially since I was in the car driving home.

By August we started seeing signs of her fist little tooth. But also the first case of croup. I’ve never heard of this but apparently it’s fairly common. Luckily it got knocked out quickly.

By about September she was really on a roll with the whole crawling thing. She was now no longer happy to sit there and play passively. Nope, now she could scoot around.

In October Baby Girl got to see the first hints of cold weather. The later on in the month she got to see her first snow storm. She loved it! Auntie Andrea babysat her that day so she went out to play with the cousins.

In November we took her on her fist airplane ride to California. She did fantastic. She actually really loved the ride out. Thanks to a very kind agent at the check in counter we got a three seat row so we had the middle seat open for her to play in. She also spent a good amount of time playing with everyone on the plane. The ride back was a lot more subdued. Thanks to our friend’s kids, she got her first cold. Not good. The great news was on the 29th, I noticed her standing all on her own for a few seconds. Apparently my parents and Aaron had seen this a few days earlier. Ah well. Thanksgiving as always was excellent for her. She got to spend several days with the cousins. Never slept better. :D

By the time December rolled around she was crawling and inching along on everything. It’s amazing how far she’s come and how many things she can get into. This made me worry a bit about how she would fare with the decorations. But much to my surprise, while she was genuinely interested in the commotion in the house and all the decorations, she was excellent and listened when we told her not to touch the tree. But just in case, I put all the non-breakable ornaments at the bottom. Christmas day was great. She spent the day with the cousins and even got to do her favorite thing in the world, rip up paper. I can’t even begin to tell you how many magazines I’ve lost to her. I think that Aaron put them out there for her to shred so that I have to get rid of back issues. Sigh…

January. So here we are one year in and Baby Girl now has the beginnings of her next two teeth, top fronts and keeps jamming her fist into her mouth to get to the back of her mouth which leads me to believe her molars are itching. She stands for much longer periods of time and hasn’t figured out that she could probably walk if she lets go of things. What’s crazy is that since her birthday, it seems like she has just learned so much more. It’s kind of scary. She now says a whole lot more and expresses herself fairly effectively. She uses sign language for a few things and words for the things she knows; namely milk, ball, no, Papá (to my Dad), and of course Dada. She still doesn’t call me Mommy. She’ll say Momma, when she’s upset, but when addressing me, it’s Dada. I must be the girl Dada to her. We’ve also noticed that she understands Spanish. My parents and I speak to her in Spanish almost exclusively. Aaron and everyone else speak to her in English. It’s working out nicely. She can point to facial features when asked in either language and will also say, “leche” to my Mom.

In her first Hambok (traditional Korean dress). With Tio Alvin, her birthday buddy.

In her other Hambok

CAKE!

















Again, this year has been a blur and I can’t believe it came and went. I’m amazed every day by the new things she picks up and does. It’s like someone flipped a switch and put her into learning overdrive. Still, THE very best thing in the world is just giving her huggles. Especially since she huggles back. Ahhhhhh…. :D

A**HOLES!

Why must people be complete A-holes? I've just been going through some of my old posts to find comments left by some schmuck leaving spam links. My sincerest apologies all.