• Uncategorized

    RIP Misha + Zuki

    A hugely impactful event that occurred recently was the passing of both Misha and Zuki IN THE SAME WEEK.  What are the odds of that, really? Zuki was the much older cat, around 19 years old.  Matt had her since he was in grad school and she stuck around for much longer than he ever expected.  For the last few years, she definitely started slowing down.  She went completely deaf a couple years ago…and in the last year or so, she was slower.  While I was away on a business trip in London mid-May, my parents flew in to help Matt out.  After a day, my dad realized he hadn’t…

  • parenting

    Natalie’s goodbye routine

    Natalie has a pretty funny lil routine when it comes to parting ways at her preschool.  I wanted to jot this down before I forget. First, a hug. Then, a kiss. Next, a handshake. After that, she enters the classroom while I start to leave. Then she runs out and stands at the gate reaching out and says “oh, and don’t forget to drop me off at home and tell me if the school is closed!” It doesn’t make much sense but it’s her way of saying goodbye at the start of the day.

  • parenting

    Andrew is a toddler!

    Oh gawd, I thought I was bad keeping up with this blog when I had one kid.  Now I’m just terrible with two kids.  I’ll try to follow up with other posts about other events (like travel) but I’ll focus this one on updating about Andrew. Andrew is a toddler now! Well, he isn’t actually “toddlin’” but he’s officially a year old.  We had a great backyard BBQ party with some friends to celebrate—it was a beautiful, sunny day and it was our first time hosting a party in our new backyard. We finally got a grill and we cooked up lots of burgers and hot dogs.  Andrew completely devoured…

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    Andrew Q1 2014 Update

    Andrew’s Sleep – Hallelujah! This is probably the best update for this year.  The beginning of the year started off awful—the jet lag from Hong Kong combined with Andrew’s general terrible sleep patterns made for a really rough early January.  Matt and I were taking turns watching him.  One would watch him til 2am and then the other would take over.  He’d be so spastic that I just set myself up in the living room with HBO Go set up on the TV and sit there with him on the boob whenever he fussed.  I even dragged the Rock N Play next to me to attempt to get him out…

  • travel

    Ah, the holidays are over

    We’ve had a busy few months and, once again, I’ve let this blog behind in the dust.  I actually really struggle all the time with how to best document our lives as I really truly do see this blog like a journal and I love looking back at it…yet, it’s so hard to keep up.  I sometimes toy around with seeing if I can somehow embed some other microblogging site into here like tumblr or twitter, but I’m not a fan of it being something randomly off in the sidebar…and I just haven’t taken the time to see what I can do to actually embed it into posts.  I could…

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    Natalie updates

    I’ve been so focused on Andrew lately that I haven’t had a chance to update how Natalie is doing. loves singing songs from school, such as Days of the Week or the Stone Soup song is a total sponge and is really building up her vocabulary.  She surprises us often with things she says, like: “that’s not fair!”, “that would be lovely”, “Oh, I would love to..”, “are you kidding me?” usually eats cereal, oatmeal or “fig bars” (i.e. cereal bars) for breakfast loves deconstructing her sandwiches.  For example, with a PB+J, she’ll lick out the jam first, then the peanut butter, then eat the bread (leaving the crusts of…

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    Back to work

    I returned back to work last week.  Now that I have more (baby-free) time, I can hopefully (procrastinate) contribute to this blog more.  Andrew is such a clingy baby that it was hard during my maternity leave to really put him down to do much. Work has been fine.  Transitioning is easy as I’ve come back at the end of a milestone so there’s just lots of minor things to keep track of.  Plus, I have an awesome manager that is sensitive to returning to work.  Pumping is no fun but is the reality of being a working mom.  Similar to my return with Natalie, I am not pumping anywhere…

  • parenting

    Newborn cloth diapering

    Last week, I packed up the set of newborn cloth diapers that I had rented and sent them back.  Now that he can fit into most of the one size diapers we have, I don’t need them anymore.  (BTW, I went through Earthy Crunchy Mama — highly recommend the program as you can select the types of diapers you want to rent, and the customer service was fantastic!)  Andrew is 3.5 months and we only really started the cloth diapers when he was about a month old, mainly because he was such a tiny guy that he could barely fit into the diapers I had (plus, we were just exhausted…

  • parenting,  travel

    Busy with two

    Oh man, I have really neglected this blog.  I actually started a draft a few weeks ago and then lost it…and while I’m frequently on my laptop, it’s usually while nursing and with just one hand available…not optimal blog writing conditions.  Here are some updates – mainly on the kids front: Andrew’s gaining weight We’ve been on breastmilk only since he was a month.  By the time he was 2 months, he was 8lb 7.5oz.  Still a small baby (I think he’s officially in the .5-1%) but he’s gaining weight appropriately per the curve according to the pediatrician.  He’s nearly 3 months now and I don’t know how much he…

  • parenting

    Turning the corner….

    Wahoo, Andrew is finally gaining weight!  I went for a weight check yesterday and he weighed….[drumroll]….7 lb 4 oz!  Now, it’s not apples to apples as the lactation nurse weighed him with his clothes and diaper on.  Even then, she said that the clothes at most contribute 4-5 ounces, so even at 6 lb 15 oz, that’s an incredible weight gain! Whew! Just to stay on track, we’re going to keep supplementing with an ounce of milk after a feeding…but I’m going to wean off some of the pumping (cue the sounds of heaven).  That said, based on my pumping output, she does think my supply is on the low…