Back from the dead

I am officially in the "golden age" of pregnancy. The long awaited 2nd trimester that brings more sleepFUL nights, less trips to the bathroom (until the 3rd trimester that is) and a huge appetite. Still a little green here and there but NOTHING compared to what week 5 to 9 was. Yesterday after a day of whatever I seemed to touch was destroyed (my favorite 9X13 pyrex glass dish exploded in the kitchen) I still had not showered by 4pm. My goal was to have the house in order, the laundry done (or...almost done at least) and me showered with MAKE-UP on for when Terry got home. Mission was accomplished. He looked at me and I could tell he was surprised.

So here I am in the golden age of pregnancy and back from the dead.

It is no secret that like most brand spakin' new mom's, I struggled after Presley was born. After a baby is born, a lot of mothers will say that when they gazed upon their brand new long awaited budle of joy, it was love at first sight. For me, after all the labor and being awake for way too many hours straight pushing a human being out of a very small opening in my body, it was not love at first sight. I was so exhausted I could only muster up enough strength to turn my head to look at Presley across the room. I slept for 10 minutes... and then they were placing the baby in my arms...and there it was! Welcome to motherhood. Feed, change diaper, and it was all up to me to make sure I kept this tiny human being alive. I couldn't believe they were letting me leave the hospital! So I struggled. I even thought to myself "what did I get myself into?".

However, I can with all confidence say...that time passed (3monts to be exact) Presley and I are bonded like two peas in a pod. In fact I just put her down for a nap, and double took a look at her and for the millionth time couldn't believe that God has blessed me with such joy in being Presley's mother.

So, Sandy asked me last night if I think I will "struggle" in the same way after this baby.

The answer is-no. Now I can't say for absolute sure, but I really don't think so. You see, I went from feeling beautiful and pregnant on cloud nine with a picture perfect pregnancy to when the baby came...feeling fat, leaking milk, in pain up every two hours blah blah blah...you get the picture. This time, it hasn't been a picture perfect pregnancy, I look 6 months pregnant at 12 weeks, I can't wear cute maternity. Also, I know what's coming. Now I know I don't know what it's like with two...but I know childbirth HURTS. I know what a 3rd degree tear is...I know what up every two hours is...I know what acid reflux is...I know its hard. I know that SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK.

And more than anything...I know that my God will be there this time too. My shepard the one who makes me lie down in green pastures and restores my soul will be there as he is now.

Going back to bloggin roots...for me at least.

So, when I started this blog at the advice of Sarah Markely to help me deal with postpartum hell...I would throw my feelings into a every other day or so post. With this new pregnancy, I want to do the same (maybe not every other day though).

So of all things to get when your pregnant, a case of vertigo caused by a buildup of fluid in me ears. What the heck??? If you have never had this...try that relay race thing they do at church events where you spin a million times with your forehead on a bat then try and run...Never had this in my life (unless you count my "before I knew Jesus" teenage years, or back in 2003 when I met my soon to be inlaws in Taiwan where everyone drinks scotch at ever meal. Gumbay!)

So yesterday, I had to call Tamara to take me to the doctors because I couldn't drive. So now that I know it's not serious, its kinda funny. I just feel like I have had one too many (doesn't affect my mind though, so no excuses there).

So...In this pregnancy, I want to use this blog to document. Document the good, bad and the ugly...and sometimes funny of pregnancy.

Here we go again!

Well...here we go again, with baby number 2! I bet Terry $100 its a BOY...I am so sick with this pregnancy, I have decided it's the alien male sex inside of me (50% chance I will win).


I am 11 weeks, seen the heartbeat twice and all is well.

I have been out of work since November 14th with severe morning, brunch, noon, tea time and night...oh yeah almost forgot middle of the night sickness. Puking your guts out sickness. I was dehydrated for a while, so doc decided to put me off. I am feeling a little better now. Whatever it takes to keep baby healthy right???

By the way...I am now convinced that God gave me everything I needed in a husband. I can't imagine my life without him.

A Journal Entry

When I first started this blog, it was when Presley was a couple months old. I was stumbling through brand new motherhood and I felt terrified as the days flew by me that I could not hold onto my memories. I hate writing in journals so when Sarah told me I should start blogging it was really helpful in sorting through the craziness.

Well...that is what this post will be. Most likely read only by a few but to me it adds to the online journaling of the last year and a half. My memories on paper.


My heart bears a burden. This burden is birthed out of the deep bonded love between mother and child. Being a mother has, for me, offered completion. It has brought to life something deep inside of me to. I love my daughter more than my own life and she brings me pure joy. But this amazing relationship comes with a hefty price.

A BURDEN for a lifetime.

What makes it a burden will change over the years. Right now I worry when she is not with me, and even worry when she is (although I do feel more confident then in the beginning when I wondered how I was keeping this little tiny person alive!!) From the beginning I have always asked God to be gentle with my "mother's heart", that if and when it gets broken that he would put it back together.
Two weekends ago I was mopping the floor. I was going through a time where I felt like Presley didn't need me anymore (I also underestimated the power of changing hormones!!!). Presley hardly noticed/cared that her Mama wasn't coming with her when her Daddy and her were going to the market.

That was a first.


When they left I cried so hard that tears were actually falling to the floor (little dramatic huh?). In that small taste of what will come, I threw my heart into the Lord. For all of us, it will end face to face with the Lord. It really comes right back to the FACT that if all things pass away, if I were to lose everything....I will ALWAYS have Jesus, God in the flesh.

He is my lifeline. He is my all in all. He is.

Life is going by so fast

It has been about a month since I last posted anything. Yet it feels like two weeks. A lot has happened. I finished another summer, and started another fall with the YMCA. Presley started walking...then running within a week. I stopped nursing the last feeding I was hanging onto. Did you hear me say that??? Hey, I have always been known for transperency, good or bad. I am feeling so overwhelemed with how fast life is going, how much work is taking from me, how quickly Presley went from baby to toddler that I feel like I can't breathe at times. Then I realize how selfish I am being and snap out of it...

So I need to get back to the basics. The reality is that when I realize that I am grounded in Jesus, none of this matters. Jobs come and go, children grow up and leave to build their own...but Jesus is my constant.

Amen.

Pictures for your enjoyment =)

Irvine Park

Today we went to Irvine Park with the Quirks. Presley showed me a side to her that I didn't quite realize was there...while at the petting zoo, she took a while to warm up and was a bit timid of the animals.

She was interested in the ponies (what little girl isn't?). She liked the train.

It took her all of 5 seconds to fall asleep in the car when we left, and kept sleeping for an hour and a half (that's a really long nap for our little cat napper).

Update: She is full on walking...nearly running. All in a matter of one week. Its funny, she had a really hard week of difficult sleeping and very cranky and then bam! She hit another milestone. These pictures are really for Davese...but for any others like Uncle Henry and Nyny who check this blog to see Presley...they are for you too!! But thank Davese for pushing me to upload them :)

Presley Frustrated

Presley Summer Pictures...

She loves purses...or anything she can slip on her arm and pretent is a purse.


She loves nectarine...whole.

How I fell in love with football and the Packers...

Growing up I hated watching football, or any sport for that matter. It may have something to do with being shushed in unison by the three men (dad and 2 bros) surrounding me as we would sit together watching football. I felt left out and it seemed appropriate that football should take the heat.

When I married my amazing husband one summer in July(truly not just saying that) I quickly realized I would be a very LOOONNNEELLLY woman every Monday night and sometime Thursday...and sometime Sunday right after church from preseason in August to the Superbowl in February.

Not only did Terry love football, he loved the packers, and not only did he love the packers...he loved Brett Favre. Favre meant something to him. A man who married his high school sweet heart and still married to her! He battled addiction, had his ups and down, but NEVER missed a game. Terry identified with his work ethic and it seems to me, that he was encouraged by this.

So I had 2 choices. put Terry in the middle between his love for Football and me?? That would never work. He would secretly resent me. I decided one day, a truly calculated decision, I chose to join him in his love for Football.

It wasn't easy at first. So many questions, and Terry knows SO MUCH about the game, but I could tell he was growing tired of my constant asking. The season I chose to fall in love, was not a good one for the Packers....so it was a bit of a struggle. But by Thanksgiving I was laying on the couch by myself as the rest of the family finished feasting watching not one game but two!

So there it began. I began to love the feeling of fall when the new season comes around. The air begins to cool, time to wear sweaters and comfy coats, the Holidays approaching...and time to watch football. The excitement of each game, the subconscious nail biting because the intensity is so great. I didn't realize it at first, but on Monday nights when we have some friends over to watch the games, one night I realized I wasn't in the kitchen with the girls, I was in the living room with the boys. I had fallen in love with football.

Best of all, My husband and I were sharing something together.

What prompts me to write this post is two things: 1. Yesterday was the first game of Preseason
2. Brett Favre was just reinstated to the Packers. 3. Our home is filled with excitement. Excitement for the time we will spend with friends as we open our home to them, the games that will be so fun to watch and to me, the time spent with my husband doing something we love together.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/cs-080803-brett-favre-reinstated-green-bay-pompei,0,3467647.column

Go Away

So, we often tell our dog cinder to go "night night" or even "go away". Well isn't it just funny that when I told Presley "no" this morning as she was trying to destroy Terry's XBOX 360, she told me to .... "go away".

Funny thing is, she said it so sweetly.

Presley

Thanks Sarah! This is verrryy cool!

Who does God say my Daughter is????

I have never really given much thought to the fact that I am in an interracial marriage. Truly, I find more humor in our differences than frustration (we'll laugh about that in another post). But I thought long and hard about it last weekend.

We were at Wal-mart. Cruising through the kids isle when a couple walked passed me. Right on the neck of a guy with a shaved head, dirty clothes and equally disturbing girl that was with him...was a swastika. That's right, a swastika.


I stood there with Presley on my hip, shocked.


We live in southern California. My mother is from Scotland, with a Shrek accent and all, my sister in law through my brother is Japanese and my other brother has kids that are a quarter Mexican. I choose to surround myself with people who are not ignorant. While I think minor prejudices somewhat exist in all of us, to truly hate someone you have never met because they are not white...shocks me. Don't they know the history of the "white race"??? Don't they know where they came from???

As the man and woman walk passed me, an awkward unspoken moment happens and I look to my husband. He could really care less. He almost seemed immune. The old saying "I am rubber you are glue, what ever you say bounces off me and sticks to you".comes to mind.. He moved here when he was 9 from Taiwan and has encountered people like this all his life...so this is not shocking to him at all.


As they leave, he comes up to me and says "let's go". I walk by his side, my heart just plain grieved.

I wasn't grieved for me. I know people stare at Terry and I sometimes. I have always been proud to have married someone outside my race. I truly assume, if they are thinking anything, its..."how cool is she".

But, after I had Presley this is my second encounter with something like this. So I wasn't grieved for me, I was grieved for my daughter. I was grieved that she may encounter people who judge her just because of what she looks like, even worse hate her. The mother bear in me in visions tearing anyone apart who would possible harm my daughter, or want harm to come to her just because she is half Chinese. But that means I care what they think.

But...I don't want her to be like me, I want her to be like her father. He is so strong in my eyes. He could truly care less. He has more important things to do than think or worry what others think of him. He cares more about what God thinks of him. Again, he cares more about what God thinks of him.

So as I embark on this journey of raising a girl in America that is half white half chinese I ask God for wisdom. I want her to be more concerned with what God thinks of her than what others do. I don't want her to live in fear, or feel inadequate becuse of what some people in the world may say of her. I will raise my daughter not to look to "man" for her worth, but to God who says she is "fearfully and wonderfully" made.

I just want to hold her

As I put Presley to sleep tonight, I rocked her for an extra long time in the rocking chair. She was already sleeping deeply. It was a particularly busy day. I got home late, Terry picked up Presley and went to the market with her and got home late himself. Terry had to fix the sprinkler head, I made dinner, and Presley went to bed almost an hour late because we just didn't have enough time. I wanted to hold her for a little while longer before another day slips away from us. I love to sing Jesus loves me, but replace me with Presley. I found myself praying out loud "don't let her grow up". I even started to cry a little. Realizing the foolishness in that, I changed it to "help me let her grow up".

But its true...I don't want her to grow up. Honestly, I think that my own relationship with my mother casts a constant shadow on how I think things will be with Presley. Not should be, but will be. My mother and I fought since I can remember. A constant battle of authority. I love my mom, but to this day there are unhealthy aspects that are still there. We have overcome much. The Lord has broken many chains...

I know what the word says, that I am a new creation, that God has a plan for me and my daughter, and our relationship. I know He will restore what the locusts have eaten as the bible says. I truly am comforted in knowing that He knows my heart, that all I can do is keep my eyes on Him, submit my self to Him, and consciously turn away from the unhealthy mother/daughter examples of relationship I have only known...and love her father.

You have entrusted me with a human life. Please mold me into the mother you want me to be. Please mold our relationship into one that pleases you and glorifies you. I know that all I want to hold so tightly could pass away, but You will never leave me.

She is not mine, she is Yours....but while I have her, I want to love her, kiss her, breathe in every ounce of her and hold her as much as she will let me.

13 month update

Very handsome huh???

Thank-you Terry for giving me your old cell phone...I feel so IT like.

I attached a few pictures of Presley...most of them capture Mommy and baby time. Some precious moments are bath time, nursing when she wakes and goes to sleep, rolling around in the bed with mom and dad just before she goes to bed, walks in her little car, playing with cousins and being with us.

Some practical updates: She is now 13 months...crazy I know. Her milk allergy has mostly gone away so we are weaning her now. But she pretty much eats what we eat. She refuses baby food when she sees us eating something else. Apparently she is terrified of the bath tub. She loves babies, looking for pictures of them everywhere. She says a few words: Mama, Dada, baby, ball, dog or wowo, flower,baloon (she tries) so they sound more like flowy and bloon. She also mimics alot...and I think she understands alot too. Its getting hot here, so she mainly wears these cute little fancy onesies with a dress over the front. She has been sleeping in her own crib since she was about 4 months old (thanks again Shelly!) and sleeps from 8 to 7:30am. She has been going through this separation anxiety where she wakes up at night or early in the morning and has a hard time going down for naps. We have tried EVERYTHING since she was born (remember she the catnapping baby!). We do a mix of rocking, singing, crying it out...depends on her needs at the time. She is a very happy baby, but VERY strong willed. She is really showing determination and dominance. For example, if a cousin tries to take a toy, she screams and holds on to it. The problem is, in the church nursery, she grabs the toys from the other kids...oh boy.

Things are good, we are all super busy. Presley's Auntie Satoko still watches Presley during the day for about 6 hours, sometimes more, sometimes less. Terry and I are doing good and we are more times than not acting as a productive team. When we have long hard days, instead of taking it out on each other,we console each other! Who would have known that is much better!!

God has blessed me with great supportive staff at my work and kids that are great. We are right in the middle of summer program where we go on field trips and the workload doubles...but again God has blessed me. When things get hard, and they do when the balls start to drop, I am reminded quickly that it could be worse, so suck it up appreciate what you have and persevere and move on...after all I have MUCH to be grateful for.

That is all for now...a sincere thanks for your support!

In the toilet

Fortunately for you, there is no picture of this one...today with 32 children at Castle Park in tow... We had just arrived after waiting one hour outside the park. I had to pee, but of course I waited until 32 of our children used the bathroom first(that had only TWO stalls). I quickly get in the bathroom, roster of all the children in my mouth, walkie talkie in the left pocket and cell phone in the right, I need to hurry because all the children are waiting for me. My cell phone is crucial... along with tons of snapshots of Presley and videos of her babbling, the bus company numbers in case they are late, school security to inform of trespassing skateboarders, bosses numbers are all in my cell.

I quickly finish peeing, flush with the foot, turn around, pull up my pants and....OUT GOES MY CELL PHONE RIGHT INTO THE FLUSHING TOILET!!! Before I could even dig my hands in the toilet to retrieve it (I actually tried by the way) it was gone. The suction of that toilet was like an airplane toilet. In two seconds my phone was gone.

I would like to think that God was protecting me from some tragic accident the phone would be the cause of....but Terry isn't buying it.

Presley at 10 months...

I just love her...

My Mirror

Those of you who check this blog for updates and pictures...this will bore you-consider yourself warned.

She is watching me: So we switched her seat around so that now she is facing front. I realized after a couple days she just sits there and stares at me. I could see her in my rear view mirror...just staring at me, mouth open. I would turn around and she would be just tickled. She probably is just awed that "this is what mom's been doing all my life when we are driving somewhere". But it hit me one day...that my daughter is watching me. Forget the things I will tell her. Who cares about the lessons I want her to learn...or the mistakes I don't want her to make that I did...or the bad things about me I don't want her to inherit.

She will learn the most by my example.

My most deepest desire above all for my daughter (that bleeds into EVERY area of her life) is that she will see Christ as the center of her life. That when she goes through hard times-and she will- that nothing will separate her from the love God has for her. That she will turn to Him when she is sad, scared, lonely, hurt-but also when she is in happy times of her life too.

I can take her to church. Our family can builds deep friendships with those who feel how I do. I can pray for her all her life morning and night. I can put bible versus around the home so that she sees them and is reminded. And while all those things are worthy of doing....it will be meaningless if her mother does not live it herself.

Birthday Pictures

Thank-you to Auntie Davese for the AMAAAZZZIING cake for Presley's first! Check out the handprint...precious!