Raising a Baby is like Picking Produce

When I was little, my mother would take me grocery shopping with her. I remember sitting in the cart as she pushed it through the store, and if she ever walked away a little too far for comfort because it was easier just to walk over and grab something than it was to push the whole cart over, I would start to get antsy. I still remember passing the bakery section of the supermarket, and if there were cookies out on the display case, she would get me one. I think subconsciously, I've had memories of that supermarket ingrained in my head because it has reappeared in my dreams and I can still remember the layout of the store almost to the tee. It's now a Home Depot. Bonus points to anyone who knows which supermarket I'm referring to. But now I digress.

I distinctly remember watching my mother pick produce at the grocery store. She'd pick up an apple, examine it, and either put it back down, or put it in the bag to purchase. I'd watch her do this for tomatoes, oranges, lettuce, and just about all the fruits and vegetables. In my mind, it was magical. My mother had the magical touch and knew exactly which ones to buy and which ones to put back. I wondered when I would develop this magical touch and be able to do the same.


Fast forward about 15 years to my junior/senior year of college. I was living in an apartment for the first time in my life, and I was doing my own grocery shopping. Sure, I'd driven to the grocery store before ever since I had gotten my driver's license, but that was to pick up the occasional teenage want: snacks, drinks, or one specific item. This was trying to meal prep for a week, shop on a budget, and be wise in my spending.

My roommate and I would go grocery shopping together since she didn't have a car and our schedules were similar enough that we could carve out this time on most Saturday mornings together. As I found myself pushing my own cart through the produce aisles of the grocery store, I ran through what I knew in my head: look at the produce, feel the produce, smell the produce, and make a decision. I carefully picked up and examined apples, oranges, broccoli, tomatoes, etc. Some I put in my bag to purchase. Some I placed back. But it felt different. I didn't feel the magical touch I saw in my mother as a young child. There was no magical touch. She simply looked at the produce, felt the produce, smelled the produce, and made a decision.

In my year living the apartment life in Austin, I bought some bad apples, I bought some vegetables with bugs in them, I threw out some rotten tomatoes, and life went on. I may not distinctly remember my mother throwing out any bad fruit or vegetables, but I can almost guarantee that she picked more than a few bad ones in her numerous grocery trips as well.

I feel the same way now about my daughter. Watching all my friends and other mothers who have children, they made it look so easy and effortless. Crying? Needs a diaper changed. Different cry? It's time to eat. How much milk should I make the bottle for? 4 ounces. How long should she sleep? She'll be awake in about 3 hours. It always seemed like they knew exactly what to do and how to do it.

Me? I feel like a complete mess right now. Crying? I think it's the diaper. Or maybe not. She's still crying. Darn, it wasn't the diaper. It's time to eat. How much milk should I make the bottle for? Let's try 2 ounces. Oh she wants more. Give her another ounce. Wait this time she didn't finish her 2 ounces. Why didn't she finish? How long should she sleep? I think I have about 3 hours. Why is she waking up after 1.5? She's supposed to be sleeping still!

Is this a cry? Or a yawn? 

Of course, I never spent a complete 24 hours with any of my friends and their babies, and I'm positive that only the cute pictures and sweet moments make it on social media. (Okay, some of the unglamorous truth might make it onto social media as well, but only if it elicits a laugh.) And it's only been 3 weeks so I should really cut myself some slack.

If it's one thing I know for sure, raising a baby is like picking produce: there's no magical touch. You simply look at her facial expression, feel for body temperature (and then actually use a thermometer), smell the diaper, and make a decision. And of course, the only thing being tossed out are foul-smelling diapers.

The Blue Bathrobe

I grew up being told "no" to a lot of the things I wanted. I still remember the fiasco at Walmart over a pair of shoes when I was a child - I didn't get them in the end because I simply just wanted my parents to stop arguing in the store. I remember the numerous Barbie toys I never received because I was told I didn't need them - I really didn't. But the ones I received, I kept very well: no ripped stickers, all pieces intact, and let me tell you, there are some very small pieces to keep track of. They will be passed on to my daughter if she cares to play with them. I'll make sure she takes good care of them as well. But there was one thing I somehow managed to convince my mother to buy me - a blue bathrobe.

I don't remember how we got this catalog mailed to us advertising women's apparel. My mother didn't care to buy clothes at all and I had just entered the double digits. I loved flipping through magazines and advertisements to see the photographs and pictures though. I flipped through this one and a blue bathrobe caught my eye. It was the perfect shade of blue that spoke to me, a luscious, rich shade of baby blue. The robe was placed on a satin hanger of similar hue, which to an emerging teenager, sealed the deal of luxurious. Clearly their advertising was working perfectly on me.

I asked my mother for this bathrobe and showed her the item in the catalog. She didn't nix my request immediately, but she was extremely hesitant to purchase the item. I somehow managed to convince her that the robe would be ideal for me to have in the winter months because of how cold it was, and I could wear it around the house at night and stay warm until I went to sleep. The robe was $20. I'm assuming shipping was free with a minimum purchase. I can't imagine her buying it with added shipping charges.

Once the robe arrived, I was slightly disappointed. The color did not match the one from the catalog. It was more of an aqua or robin's egg blue - still a nice color, but not the one that spoke to me from the magazine image. And there was no satin hanger included. The luxury factor suddenly dropped immensely, and it was simply a bathrobe.

As I told my mother in my original reasoning, I did wear it around the house for a while in the winter during the evenings. It was nice and warm. However, the sleeves got in the way of everything I did because I was a tiny little pre-teen wearing a women's bathrobe. After a short-lived use, it was relegated to my closet on a regular plastic hanger.

When I got married, I moved the blue bathrobe with me to our apartment. I can't remember how many times I actually wore it, but it came with me. And when we moved into our house, it moved with me again as well. Nearly 15 years later, this bathrobe has come full circle again and served the most purpose it has ever in my years of ownership in the last 6 months. As last winter slowly came upon us, I realized none of my bath towels were big enough to dry off quickly during pregnancy to avoid the after-shower-chills. And of course, being bulky meant moving slower and more carefully.

Enter blue bathrobe. It was large enough to cover the majority of my body to stay warm (because I'm still a tiny grown person) and doubled up as a towel to dry off faster. Who knew an impulsive buy with somewhat silly reasoning approximately 15 years ago would be one of the best pregnancy must-haves in my opinion which I didn't even plan for?

I don't think I could have nearly justified those pair of shoes I never received or all the Barbie toys I missed out on growing up. But I'm glad this was one purchase my mother decided to buy for me.

My blue bathrobe. Still on a plastic hanger. 

"Beautiful Girl, You Can Do Amazing Things"

She likes to bend her legs. This 0-3 footie is
also too large for her. Oops.

Our little girl is a week old! I can't believe it. I also can't believe I'm not pregnant anymore. I haven't really had time to think about and process it because there's a lot more to postpartum recovery than I imagined. Of course, experiencing it first-hand now is quite the eye-opener.

We wanted a spring birthday baby because most of our special occasions are celebrated in the fall. Lump that with all the holidays that the fall and winter bring, it's a pretty loaded season of celebrating already. But her birthday is slightly bittersweet for me. She was born on the day my grandfather died. I didn't plan it to be that way, but that's kind of how everything lined up. Her actual due date was a Wednesday. I wanted to give her as much time as possible to come naturally without having to induce. However, my doctor's on-call day is Tuesday, so I figured I'd schedule for the Tuesday after her due date to induce if she wasn't ready on her own. It just happened to be April 3rd. My doctor didn't even end up delivering her because she got caught up in a C-section at a different hospital, but that's another story.

She's goofy like her daddy. She also has his appetite.

My grandfather spoiled me growing up. My mother didn't let him buy me the moon and the stars, but he spoiled me with his attention. It was kind of inevitable. I was his youngest daughter's daughter and his only granddaughter. But even more important than being spoiled, my grandfather saw something special in me.

On one occasion after school as an 11 or 12-year-old when I was eating a snack, he walked over and asked my grandmother, “Which do you think has more nutritional value, cooked carrots or raw carrots?”

My grandmother responded, “Well, of course raw carrots. What kind of a question is that? It’s common sense.” My grandfather looked over to me and posed the same question.

“What do you think?”



“Well, since you’re asking this question, I think it’s cooked carrots, otherwise you wouldn’t ask such a question if the answer was so obvious.” After hearing my response, my grandfather smiled and nodded.

“This girl is smart. She really knows something.”

I feel that way about my daughter, not simply because she is my daughter, but because she has already displayed so much strength and character. From the very beginning, she showed herself a fighter. We renovated our bathroom last fall and did the demolition ourselves. Once I found out I was pregnant, I did the math and realized she was about 3 weeks old when I was slashing away at our bathroom. At the time, I knew my energy levels were different and my body was sending me different signals than the first time we renovated a bathroom, but I didn't think much about it because I knew it was very labor intensive work and just took it slightly easier.

This was at 39 weeks. (We'll just say 40 for the record because
I didn't get much bigger after this photo was taken.)
I could still get away with larger non-maternity tops in my
existing wardrobe. Please excuse the mess.

Starting at my 28 week pregnancy visit, my doctor had me go in for extra ultrasounds because I always measured small. Okay, to be fair, I looked really small my entire pregnancy.

At my last few doctor's appointments, she kept telling me I was measuring small but that was normal for my size and I was just making a small baby. Well, she came out just ounces shy of 8 pounds. She was a week late...but she would have been perfectly sized still if she came on time. It's too bad my doctor wasn't the one who delivered her. I would have really wanted to see her reaction when the nurse read her birth weight off the scale after delivery.










We tried to stay as minimal as possible with her nursery decor and preparations, but as with all things "first," we still went above and beyond in small ways. I've never been one to buy wall art as decoration just to have, but her nursery wall is one where we actually did purchase a few pieces.

We purchased three pieces for her wall and I made the other two, not specifically
intending to put them on a nursery wall, but it just happened to work out that way.

The frame in the middle says "beautiful girl, you can do amazing things." I believe she will. She already has. I'm really blessed to be able to call her my daughter, and I can't wait to watch her grow up and do the amazing things she will. 

Designed to Slow Down

Life is going by really fast right now. Between prepping my kids for substitute lessons and planning ahead to buy the books they'll need for the next two months, creating practicing "schedules" for the students who want to take two months off from piano (which I never recommend if you don't plan on straight up quitting,) buying last minute baby things to prepare for her arrival, meal prepping and freezing food for the months to come, life is busy.

And life is moving fast.

It really feels like a day or two ago when it was Monday afternoon and I was getting ready for my weekly lineup of kids to teach. Well, that was about four days ago. Before we know it, these last four weeks will be gone and our baby girl will not be so safely, well-contained and easily transported anymore, and she will be a part of the outside world we already know so well.

Our friends just had a baby recently, and his first month of life seemed to fly by to the rest of us. Of course, for them, such was not the case. I'm sure nights when the baby wouldn't sleep for more than a few hours at a time felt like an eternity. There are probably more moments than one as a parent when you wonder why it takes so long to eat "one meal" as an infant. And the amount of attention and needs they have for being such simple human beings at that age is quite unfathomable in the dire moments. (Simple being their job and role in life at the moment. They are very complex when it comes to their human body and what they are capable of which adults are not.)

I woke up this morning with the thought that perhaps we were designed this way to slow down time so some of these moments would be captured a little longer. We pay attention more when the needs are greater. And although stressful and hard, we slow down to notice things. The way her hair has grown longer. The shape of her eyes. The shape of her nose. The lines in her lips. Because let's all be honest. If our babies slept through the night in the first six months, we'd probably never truly stop to look at them enough to notice what was different or how fast they were growing. We might notice something everyday and be like "wow you look different today" but we probably wouldn't be able to instantly attribute it to a specific feature. Everything would just flow on by.

It's definitely easier to say and think through this when I'm not sleep deprived or overworked. Someone please remind me in about two months when all of this becomes my reality and I may be questioning at moments if I enjoy parenting and motherhood due to lack of sleep and foggy thinking.

There was purpose to this design: to allow us inadvertently to "slow time down" so we notice the subtle nuances.

A Taste of Our Wedding

Our wedding cake was simple, but really good. I went to the bakery with my friend and wedding coordinator that summer to sample cake flavors and choose out a design. Jonathan was working so he didn't go with us. I ended up picking a simple cake flavor combination. Wedding cake flavored cake (which is essentially an almond white cake) with a raspberry cream filling and vanilla buttercream on top. It was a really nice combination.

At our wedding, we ate about one bite a piece - just enough to capture a photo for the memories.

What a great picture, our one bite each of cake.
We've both put on some weight since then....

Our cake.

I had left very detailed instructions regarding every aspect of the wedding I could think about and where each piece was going. The one aspect I forgot to leave detailed instructions for? The cake. For having over 200 people at the reception dinner, we had a lot of cake leftover, which I didn't imagine would happen. And nobody had any idea where the leftover cake went. Oh well.

I've often thought about our cake and how nice the flavors complemented each other and how nice it would be to be able to have a taste of our wedding cake again. I decided Valentine's Day would be a nice time to surprise my husband and make this happen.

I called the bakery where our wedding cake was from to see how much they charged for custom cupcakes. Although not terribly priced for custom cupcakes, the minimum order was a dozen and I wasn't interested in spending that much money for so many more than I really needed. I contemplated just buying some nice cupcakes or a cake from another bakery, but that wasn't quite the surprise I wanted. So in the end, I looked up some recipes and made my own.

Now here's where I probably broke an important rule of baking - I didn't make a test batch first. My trial run....was also my final run.

I don't consider myself amateur in the kitchen, but I am definitely not an iron chef who can whip together surprise ingredients and know it will taste marvelous.

After tasting the raspberry frosting I made intended for the filling, I deemed it on the sweet side already and decided not to make extra vanilla frosting for the top and just to decorate the top with the raspberry frosting.

I've also never decorated anything before with piped icing, so this was quite an adventure for me as well. I bought the tip and watched one Youtube video on how to pipe roses. It...isn't gourmet bakery worthy, but I'll say for having zero experience and zero practice, they turned out exceptionally well.

My version of our wedding cake flavored cupcakes. Some of them actually look like roses!

I'm glad we were able to taste a glimpse of our wedding cake today, literally. To be honest neither of us really actually remember what our wedding cake tastes like, so it was just a nice sweet treat with sentimental value. I think I'll make it again. 

But I actually get a taste of our wedding everyday when we laugh at each other's goofiness, when we hold hands, and when we just stare at each other and soak in all the little nuances of freckles and features and remember why we wanted to spend forever together. What we have is more than just a taste of a wedding. It's a taste of joy.

Highly Inconvenienced

I was about 14 at the time. Something within me flipped a switch where my generic wood-frame bed and gender-neutral decor suddenly wasn't good enough. I was looking into this canopy bed I really wanted. Obviously the decorators and designers did a great job in the pictures: beautifully painted bedrooms with coordinating bed sets atop a white canopy bed. Every girl's dream right? Yup, and I was sold. I think this was my own personal way of rebellion in the teenage years. (Nowadays it's quite common for parents to let their kids redesign their rooms once they hit a certain age, usually the early teens or middle school years in preparation for an older/more mature look. I grew up with practical parents who didn't replace or fix anything unless it was broken and not serving its intended purpose. I have since inherited portions of that mindset...perhaps to my husband's dismay at times.)

I looked at it for weeks and wrote down everything I wanted and even priced it out for my dad with tax. I picked out the canopy bed, the nightstand, a lamp, a dish chair, a new bed set, and a decorative pillow. It was everything I needed to turn my mundane bedroom into the perfect teenage feminine sanctuary.

Well, turns out my beloved canopy bed would not fit in my bedroom because the canopy would have run into the ceiling fan. So I had to say goodbye to the canopy. This actually cut down the budget by about $100, so I figured it was a win win still for both my dad and me. He would save some money, and I'd still get most of what I originally wanted. When we went to the store to go pick out the furniture, I was slightly disappointed at what I saw. I remember seeing the same white iron bed frame sitting in the store with a plain mattress laid on top with no beautiful bedding to adorn it. It looked so boring, almost the way my existing bed looked. Inside, I was wondering, do I really need a new bed and all this new stuff? Yes, I did (so I thought.) So my dad ordered the bed and nightstand for me from one store, and we drove around to a few other places and picked up the rest of the items on my list to redecorate my room.

On the day my new bed was delivered, my dad got a call that a signature was required for the package, otherwise they wouldn't leave it and the delivery date would have to be rescheduled. He left work and drove home in the middle of the day to sign for the delivery, and then drove the 30 minutes back to his office to finish the rest of his work day. I was at school and had no idea what happened until he told me later that evening. At the time, I knew what happened was an inconvenience to my dad, but in the years since, I've really come to understand truly how significant the inconvenience was.

This was my room frozen in time for a year when I moved overseas.
I made it as clean and organized as I could for not having the
time to seriously clean and clear out what I didn't need.

I spy the bed, the nightstand, the purple lamp, my purple dish
chair, and the decorative pillow, all parts of my "room redecorating" phase.

I really loved that bed and everything else I picked out during that teenage-life crisis. Since then, the chair has been well-loved. The bed well-used, and the lamp is still in great working condition. The bed set has since been replaced as it has understandably not withstood the test of 10 years of use and washings. I moved the lamp and dish chair with me to the apartment when I got married, and it has since followed us to our house.

My beloved bed has remained in my old room at my dad's house for the last three years. I always joked with my husband that I wanted to move it over for our future kids to sleep in. He said only if we had a girl. After we found out we were having a girl, he finally said, "Well, I guess we can move your bed over." A couple months ago, we went over to my dad's house, disassembled my old bed and nightstand, loaded it up in his little hatchback, drove it back to our house, and reassembled it here. (Seriously, we could do some major advertising for the Honda Fit. His little car is shorter than mine bumper to bumper and has hauled more large items than could ever fit in mine.)

We purchased a new box spring, mattress, and bedding set for it, and it's waiting for our little girl in about 3-4 years. In the mean time, we may spend a few (or more) nights on it ourselves since it is in the bedroom right down the hall instead of around the corner of our house from the nursery.

The friends are all hanging out together. We wanted to put it in the nursery
as a secondary bed for us to pass out on during late nights, but it wouldn't
fit. So for now, it's down the hall in the other room.

This simple piece of furniture is only in the first stages of being passed down one generation, but it already has such a huge story. We are very blessed to have the luxury of hanging onto our childhood possessions and belongings because we did not need to move overseas or travel great lengths in search of a better future. (You see all the friends on the bed? Each one has a store of where he/she came from and some small significance. There's another pod of friends on another bed...our children will have no shortage of stuffies to play with.) I don't know how my children will feel about passing down the things they will grow up with in the coming years, but I do hope to share the story of this bed as well as many more stories with them about the things they have, the people who've brought them, and how much value they truly have.

And yes, I'm prepared to be highly inconvenienced over the years by my future children. But you know what? It has some of the greatest returns.

Superbowls and Scions

I'm usually not one to care about sports in general, but when someone who graduated with you in your high school class is playing in the NFL in the Superbowl, it makes you care just a little bit more.

We all knew he was destined for greatness. I went to grade school with him through 4th grade. Not only was he smart, but he was athletic. (I was only smart. I think. Ha.) We were in the same homeroom in 3rd grade and I remember wanting to work with him for one group assignment we were completing in class because I knew he was a good student. Our teacher picked four or five of us to stand up, including both of us, and then announced we would be the group leaders. Darn. Bubble burst for my poor nine-year-old self.

His family moved to a different neighborhood after 4th grade so he was transferring schools. At our last 4th grade Top Banana meeting where they pick outstanding students for each week, each teacher named an overall Top Banana for the whole year. If I remember correctly, his homeroom teacher picked him and my homeroom teacher picked me. I could be just making this up, but I'm pretty sure that's what happened. I still have my Top Banana certificates as well as my little yellow banana I decorated during the first week of school with a sticker for each week I was picked throughout the school year. Seriously, this little piece of laminated yellow paper is nearing 13 years old. It's at my dad's house or else I'd have a picture to show you.

My parents also bought a house at the end of my 4th grade year in a different neighborhood. We moved that summer, so I also transferred schools within the district. Unlike him, there was no announcement. I silently disappeared as 5th grade began. For the next four years, we went to different schools, made new friends, and life continued.

In 9th grade, my friend was in his biology class. I don't remember how I found out we were attending the same high school, but somehow, she and I got the guts to approach him one morning in the cafeteria before they dismissed us to our lockers and she "reintroduced" us to each other after a good four years. We talked to each other for a few minutes and then parted ways again. I distinctly remember feeling the awkward glances of his friends around us who were probably thinking, Who is this strange Asian girl and why is she talking to him? That was the last time we spoke to each other.

In 10th grade, we were in the same Spanish class and sat relatively close to each other because of alphabetical seating. He had lots of friends in that class; however, I did not. That was a hard class for me to get through simply because the one person I was somewhat acquainted with in the class sat on the other side of the room. Needless to say, it was a very laborious class for me to enjoy the entire year.

We graduated senior year from the same high school and went off to college. I remember sitting inside Players (which no longer exists!) watching the UT vs Nebraska game to determine which team would make it to the BCS National Championships. Of course I wanted my alma mater to make it to the championships, but it was bittersweet to watch someone I went to school with for many years play on the opposing team.

He's playing in his first Superbowl game on Sunday afternoon at the age of 27. His family was interviewed for the local news channel, and he has his own Wikipedia page, most likely not self-written. When I saw the Patriots were playing in the Superbowl this year, the thought occurred to me that he and I are the same age. He's playing in the Superbowl. And I'm having a baby. And you know why both are equally important and wonderful?

We're living out our dreams.