Happy Mother's Day!

Second Mother's Day.

On my first Mother's Day last year, I actually had my son in my arms and my Mom in my apartment. It was suppose to be a day with brunch and lots of wonderful experiences. Turned out, I had to catch a flight out to a conference that afternoon (who starts a conference on Mother's Day?!!) and Little Guy broke out in rash that sent us to Urgent Care. It turned out to be roseola, which by the time of rash made an appearance, the worst has past. It was more a stressful day than a joyous day.

Since this day last year, we've done a whole ton. We moved to the suburbs; we have done two international travel to our hometowns; we celebrated Little Guy's first birthday; we went to our first family football game; we celebrated Daddy's birthday; we survived a winter full of ear infections; we went through our first surgery; we had our first scare; we celebrated Twi-twi's birthday; we celebrated Mommy's birthday.

Little Guy went from a baby just learning to eat solids to a little boy running and talking.

On this second Mother's Day, I am thankful for all the care my own mother has given me over the years. I am thankful for all the pseudo mothers out there, caring for other people's children. I am thankful for having a wonderful son, so I can know the joy of being a mother.

Happy Mother's Day to all.

The Nanny Search Begins... 

Like many working moms out there on maternity leave, there comes a time when you have to go back to work.  For me, I sadly have less than 2 months left... one of the most important tasks I have to do before going back to work is to find a Mary Poppins equivalent of a nanny for Baby R.  Mr. R and I had already decided to find a nanny (versus using daycare) a few months ago. It was a fairly easy choice as there is not a lot of daycare options around us.  And the thought about taking the subways to go to daycare is out of the question. When I was pregnant, I rarely got offered a seat so I can only imagine the horrors of bringing a stroller onto the train during rush hour!!  Once I started talking to friends with nannies, I realized, there is so much to consider regarding the logistics of hiring a nanny:

* Know our work schedules (We both hold fairly demanding jobs. Although it's easy to think we can be home by 6PM everyday, it might be harder to practice in real-life)
* Create list of Job Duties (although this seems clear - take care of Baby R, it really is not.  Do we ask her to bath Baby R? Wash the bottles? Wash her clothes? Clean her toys? Make her food?)
* Create list of optional Job Duties (I have friends who ask their nannies to do light housekeeping while the baby is asleep.  I don't know how I feel about this yet, but perhaps creating a list of optional job duties would be the way to go in tackling some of these non-baby related items)
* Pay package (should we pay off the books? on the books? What kind of vacation times can we offer? Do we offer the nanny all major holidays off with pay?)
* Have a clear set of boundaries, rules (Is TV watching, internet surfing, chatting on the cell phone allowed? How about when the baby is asleep? Can the nanny "hang out" with other nannies? Can they invite other nannies/children into our homes? I must confess, Mr. R and I are both a bit controlling. We definitely don't want to throw a book of rules at the nanny on her first day of work... so this is an area we definitely need to think more about.)
* Discuss our parenting style as so we can find a nanny that is in-line with our style  (this would be easy if we actually know what kind of parenting style we have.  With Baby R being less than 2 months old, we rarely had to think about this. However, since we need a long-term nanny which we want to keep into Baby R's toddler years, we might have to start thinking about this. Do we want someone who is comfortable enforcing discipline & structure or someone laid back?)

Our search for Baby R's nanny starts tomorrow when I interview our first candidate! I am quite nervous about it. I am sure a lot of this anxiety has to do with knowing I need to separate from Baby R soon and I am essentially trying to find someone to replace me! But that's a whole another blog post ....

Will write more about the interview process soon....Wish me luck!

A Day in the Life of One 5-9 Mom

I cannot say I envy the life of a full-time mom. 

For one, I cannot spend 24-7 with any person/thing, let alone with a baby, however much I love him. But as reality has it, our family cannot afford a stay-home mom, and therefore it often come at the expense of my time and career advancement. (What career?! You said.)

In case you are curious, this is what my typical (good) day looks like:

• 530-6am – Woken up by the Little Guy 
• 6-610am – Trying to wake up (or stay asleep?) while the Little Guy crawls all over you 
• 610-730am – Feed, clean, change the Little Guy while still trying to wake up. Also prepare Little Guy’s lunchbox, if that wasn’t done the night before. Often around this time Ah-Gong and Ah-Ma (grandparents) will call a billion times to get a 2-minute (so they said, it usually end up to be 20 minutes) Facetime with Little Guy. 
• 730-8am – Take turns with Dad to shower while keep Little Guy out of the toilet and away from toilet paper. And get ready for school/work. 
• 8-830am – Daycare drop-off. Often times get pushed out the door before you even get a proper kiss goodbye from Little Guy. 
• 830-9am – Commute. The true alone time you have. 
• 9am-5pm – Work work work. Dealing with other whinny babies who are not related to you. Oh yah, sometimes I need to use lunch time to run an errand, buy grocery, or participate in the seems-like-once-a-week parent-teacher conference that always happens during work hour. 
• 5-540pm – Commute. Not as leisurely this time as it often involves battling traffic and trying to make it to daycare before Little Guy becomes the last to be picked up. 
• 6-610pm – Pick-up. 
• 610-7pm – Grocery shopping or playground. I feel like I go to Trader Joe’s daily. And always to get organic whole milk. 
• 7-730pm – Change out of work clothes within 30 second. Let the Puppy go out to potty and play. Unpack Little Guy’s lunchbox, make Little Guy’s dinner, wash bottles, unload dishwasher, load dishwasher (with new dirty dishes), feed Little Guy, have Little Guy reject your food, make more food, coerce/bribe with the feeding, clean the house, make fresh bottles, play with Little Guy. Oh, and don’t forget to feed the Puppy. 
• 730-8pm – Bath Little Guy. And lots of play. 
• 8pm – Put Little Guy to bed. 
• 8-830pm – Prepare and eat dinner. Often fast food or quick meal, hence the unhealthy weight gain. 
• 830-10pm – Work if needed. Otherwise laundry, prepare Little Guy’s lunchbox, cuddle with the Puppy, read books or do 10 minutes of Pilates if lucky. 
• 10pm-6am – Exhausted. Sleep, unless woken up by Little Guy demanding to eat every 2 hours or hysterical cry due to gassy tummy or constipation, then you can kiss sleep good-bye. 

Now now, don’t get over-excited about the 8pm-6am “free” time. This is the best case scenario. It is when Little Guy is HAPPY AND HEALTHY, Dad is not traveling, and work does not require after-hour meeting or dinner. 

Wash, rinse, repeat!

"The days are long, but the years are short."

It has been 11 months, 29 days, 17 hours, and 35 minutes since I first became a mother. And it has been 11 months, 9 days, 17 hours, and 35 minutes of me, hoping and wishing my little guy grows stronger faster.

"The days are long, but the years are short."

I'm not sure who coined this phrase, but I heard it from a friend on Facebook. I couldn't stop nodding. There is never been a phrase so fitting to the life of a parent.

A year ago this time, I was getting ready to sleep, taking picture of my puppy son Twilight with my newly acquired Panasonic Lumix camera, the one with micro four-third lens that came from Japan. This was before the tsunami.

A year later, much time has passed, many things has happened. And the little fetus in my tummy has come to this world, growing strong and tall, and brought us so much joy and happiness.

And I do remember counting the seconds. Every day, it seemed like an lifetime to me. I longed for the day he becomes more alert, I longed for the day when he can turn, can sit up, can crawl, can stand, can walk. I just can't wait for him to grow up. Yet this 11 months, 29 days, 17 hours, and now 45 minutes have passed in a blink of an eye. A very wise friend once told me, "Kids grow up too fast, so just enjoy every second now, both good and bad." And it can't be more true! I very much love the little boy in front of my eyes, but I also miss the soft little baby in my arms.

Happy Birthday my little guy. It has been the best year of my life with many moments disguised as the worst time. It has been the year with most laughter and probably most tears, yet the bittersweet moments all turned into unforgettable memories. Most importantly, it has been the year when we became a family, a happy family of four.

Thank you for coming to our lives. Mommy and Daddy will forever love you.

Happy Birthday Coltrane.

Speaking (English or Chinese) Like a True Mom

As we have now moved to the suburb and CC started pronouncing his first word, “dada dada”, people have started to ask me about if I will teach him Chinese.

“Yes and no.” I said. With Woz, our main communication language is English, since Woz only knows a few words of Chinese. Therefore, I seem to talk to CC in English most of the time as well. But once in a while, with words we all know together, we then all speak in Chinese.

Having spent my teenage years in the US, I have seen this movie way too many times. Parents insist the children learn Chinese or even Taiwanese, so they only strictly speak to the kids in those languages. Somehow the kids just ended up replying in English anyway. Parents also spend time commuting and sending the kids to weekend Chinese schools, so the little ones now have two sets of schools and homework. So instead of running outdoors and going to parks and museums and zoos and loving to learn from anything and everything, they learn to hate learning…at least Chinese. No, I really don’t want to send CC to Chinese weekend schools, if I can help it (or unless he requested it himself.)
I don’t remember who I heard it from, but a few months ago someone told me, “You should teach him to love to learn. If they love to learn, they will be able to learn what they love and be good at it. They will also keep improving themselves throughout their lives.”

What a wise advice!

In this world of Tiger Moms, I am not so sure if my son will be able to beat 95% of his schoolmates in getting more than 1600 on their SATs (Do they still take SAT? You know what I mean.) How do you beat perfection? You can’t. But a person can be unique. A person can be loving, fun, interesting, responsible (personally, financially, and socially), generous, and most importantly, understands oneself. I think having these common values will take my little CC much further in life than getting perfect scores on SAT/MCAT/LSAT, or be able to speak Chinese.

Sixth Month as a Mom

Happy 6 months birthday to CC!!

I’m not sure why, but back when CC was younger and I was struggling with CC’s fussiness, I’ve always told myself, “It’ll be a lot better when he gets to be 6 months!” Probably because I was so looking forward to a baby who has strong enough neck control and can also interact with me. Now at 6 month-old, CC is way more than just “better”!

My little guy has the cutest smile in the whole world. With his big brown eyes and puffy cheeks, he looks more like a cartoon monkey than a human baby! Did I say I think he’s the cutest baby in the world?!

Six months, marks a tremendous milestone for everyone in this family.

Feeding
Yes, our favorite topic. So after the battle of the bottles in the last two months, he is now happily taking bottle at daycare and at home. But as 6 mo looms around the corner, we decided to break him into formula and solids at 5.5 month. We first started with the popular Similac fussiness and gassy formula. Unfortunately, it makes him more gassy! Not only that, it smells and taste like rotten fish! Who would want to drink that?! Not me, and certainly not Mr. CC! Instead of giving him 3 4-oz bottles of breastmilk daily for daycare, I made 3 bottles of 1:3 formula:breastmilk. So instead of drinking all 12oz, he ended up drinking only 9oz! Well, I might as well just give him 9oz of pure breastmilk then! So that was a defeat. What’s worse is, since we mix formula with breastmilk, we can no longer keep the breastmilk! Very wasteful. So we went and search for another formula. Well, we heard Enfamil is even worse tasting, but Gerber’s Good Start is decent. So we went and bought 8 tiny glasses of Good Start, and did a tasting testing ourselves first.  Hmm…actually decent enough that I would drink it! However, Mr. CC somehow still prefers his breastmilk, so we struggled a little more. Finally, I decided to give him one bottle of pure formula early in the morning. If he drinks it, good. If not, he’ll be hungry enough to drink the 9oz of breastmilk in the later meals. No verdict yet, but at least we won’t be wasting breastmilk!

So that’s the story of formula. I still hope to migrate to not pumping at all during work hours.

Next, the story of solids. We purchased Earth’s Best Whole Grain Rice Cereal with Apple. The first try I mixed it with cold breastmilk from the fridge and it ended with a disastrous puke. But every baby love cereal!! Well, not Mr. CC…until the second try, when we really warmed up the sweet formula. This time, he was all chilled and laid back, sitting on his lamb chair, opening his mouth when the spoon is near, like the King of Persia! The next few tries are not exactly so successful, but definitely better than formula.

School Activities
I never thought someone so tiny has so much to do at school! In the 2 months in school/daycare, CC has already made some incredible art works! He finger painted his brother Twilight, made some cutsie foot prints, and foot mold!

Less Than 99.99% Mommy

After breastfeeding exclusive for 5.5 months, CC had formula for the first time. He usually takes 4-oz of breast milk only at any given feeding from the bottle during the day. So now, I changed the content to 1-oz formula, 3-oz breast milk (25% formula). Surprisingly, for someone who is always super picky, he took it well. However, he seems to stop at 3-oz, instead of finishing the whole 4-oz. Needless to say, I felt cheated! “Could’ve just given you the 3-oz of breast milk instead of wasting .75-oz of breast milk and .25-oz of formula!” I think he would’ve taken all 4-oz of breast milk, if it were all BM.


And yes, when you’ve been hauling a bag of contraptions day-in and day-out to work, and pump diligently only to get 9-oz daily, you do nickel and dime the baby.


Part of me was really happy he took formula so easily (trust me, it smelled gross!) Part of me felt slightly guilty of depriving him 25% of his god-given rights to natural nutrients.
The societal pressure on Moms to breastfeed is acting up subconsciously, even for someone with strong self-will like me.


Coincidentally, I was reading an article on Golden Gate Mother’s Group magazine, about why we think breastfeeding should be easy, and what Moms wished someone had told them before they started the whole process. One of the most common sentiment was, “I wish someone has told me, while breastfeeding is invaluable, it is NOT at any cost.”


Note the key words here, “Not at any cost.”


I have mommy friends who stressed over breastfeeding for weeks until they finally gave up, full of guilt. I also have mommy friends who are so desperate they were willing to buy other people’s breast milk! To think feeding your baby someone’s bodily fluid! Yuck! Why do we think it’s better than formulated nutrients?


It is absolutely scary.


What people don’t tell you is, the journey of breastfeeding is tough. Exclusively breastfeeding makes it even worse. Our society has always given parents a lot of pressure in every possible way. But this one, breastfeeding, it’s all Moms’. We feel, short of allowing the baby to eat us away for 6 months 100%, we are being bad mothers.


Motherhood is NOT measured by how much you breastfed.


I know the WHO and AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) promote exclusively breastfed up till 6 months, and continues to breast feed until 1.5 years. In a perfect world, that would be everyone’s dream. But I have a feeling that these guidelines are written by people who are either non-Moms, Moms who don’t work, or Moms who just had an easy time breastfeeding.


Let me start from the top.


Your “suffering” starts at day 1. After the work of labor or c-section, you are immediately told to hold and feed your baby. And most importantly, “Make sure he has a good latch and make sure he’s swallowing!” What does that suppose to mean? If you think 3 hours of breastfeeding class can teach you how to do it perfectly, you are WRONG! We were lucky to have stayed in the hospital for 4 days, and therefore had numerous nurses teaching us the correct latching method. But not everyone has that “luxury”.


Then comes day 3-4, when your milk really starts to “come in”. “What? You mean the baby wasn’t drinking milk in the last couple days?” No, it was colostrum, aka liquid gold. But now when your milk really starts to come in, you will feel the engorgement. Best way to describe it is having two lead-feel-alike half balls bolted on your chest, making it hard even to breath. Yah, it was that good.


Then you go home, and the hard work has just started. You feed around the clock, every 2 hours. You feed for 15 minutes each side, diligently writing the feeding time down, and then burp for another 10 minutes, diaper him afterwards because most likely he’s soiled during the feeding, put him to sleep, and repeat after another hour or so. Good times.


Then at 3 weeks, you were told to introduce bottles and start pumping. But of course you have no idea how often to pump and when to pump. So now instead of just feeding him and getting it done in 30 minutes, you now have to pump while he’s a sleep. And let’s not forget bottle/nipple washing and sterilization. Your life revolve around your little man’s oral intake.


Then you say, “Oh, I’m not going back to work yet, so I’ll just do bottles once a week. At most twice.” Well…at 6 weeks post-partum, halfway through your maternity leave, you realized your baby now completely refuse bottles. Who was it that told you they’ll have nipple confusion and will prefer bottle instead of you?!!!


So you stress over the bottle feeding, have him throw fits when someone else tries to feed him, and have him looking at you with those big puppy eyes, pleading to have you instead of the bottle. Meanwhile, your pumping schedule is now all wrong, your milk ducts start to clog up, when you’re not feeding him you are trying to get the clogs out. Your life now is full of hot showers, hand-expression, cabbage leaves, peppermint, and lots and lots of PAIN. So much pain you almost wish to just stop breastfeeding altogether.


But he is still not taking the bottle, so that will mean he will starve…You now wish you never started breastfeeding and just went straight to formula.


Then, finally, you had to go back to work. He goes to daycare/nanny, it took him few days to learn to eat from the bottle, and he lost some weight in the meanwhile. It pains you to part with him every morning, it pains you even more to see him at the evening, looking much thinner. All the while, every day you carry an extra bag to work, just so you can pump at work. And hopefully your work place has a fridge to keep those precious yummies.


In a few weeks, your little man is now happily eating from the bottle. In fact, he’s eating A LOT from the bottles. More than you can pump at work. You start to dip into the freezer stash, and wished you had pump more during when you had over-supply problem. Every day your little man is eating more than you can pump. Every day you try to count calories but this time you want to hit 3000 Cal/day. Every day you see the digits on the scale goes down when you’re on it, but not necessary go up when your little man’s on it. Where did it all go???


Now at 2 weeks short of 6 months, you gave in. Yes that was me. I marched into BabiesRUs, spending money on food for CC for the first time. And for the first time in his life, he is no longer 99.99% Mommy.


Again, this journey was very very very challenging.


At any given time, I always tell myself, “Just one more day.” And the one more day has come to be 5.5 months. It probably will continue to go on for a few more days, weeks, or (do I dare to say it?!!) months. But now I have the comfort of knowing, even if I just vanished tomorrow, CC will not starve. He may not be 99.99% Mommy any longer physically, he will always be 100% the love of my life.


And that, is priceless, even more so than a few ounces of liquid gold.


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P.S. For all the Moms-to-be, I beg of you, PLEASE do not stress yourself over breastfeeding. Do what you can, go one day at a time. And remember, it is perfectly okay to do formula!!