I'm back. Many many years later.

I've decided that I miss writing. And I miss blogging. You know that's what I used to do before babies. And I have two now. Did I mention that? And they're sort of big -- they can feed themselves and wipe their own bums which is all really grand. And now that they're older (8 & 6), I have time to do so many more things than I did in the last 8 years. One of them being blogging. So here I am. Trying this writing thing again after a very very long time. Bear with me.

So since I've last written, I've quit my job (the one I hated) and spent 9 glorious months being a stay-at-home mom who had both her kids enrolled in all-day preschool. I dropped them off at 9 and then spent my days watching Hart of Dixie and Grey's Anatomy and eating chicken nuggets. I was free to do anything, everything or absolutely nothing until 4 pm when I would leave to pick them up. I remember the high I'd get after dropping them off and coming back to the house and inserting my keys into the door ... right at that moment when the keys would unlock the door and I knew that I had absolutely nothing waiting, wanting or expecting me inside. It was indescribable. Almost like a giddy-ness. Sometimes I'd just walk in and sit on the couch staring off into nothing with a huge smile on my face. 

Anyways, those 9 months flew by quickly and then my husband got laid off -- he's never been laid off before his entire life. You know only when I decide to quit my job -- which I've never done before in my life either but after I decided to quit my job, my husband gets laid off right during that time because you know, that's what happens. So long story short: I went back to work. 

I got a job doing marketing at Skechers! Which sounds sort of amazing and exciting and fun. And I sort of got the job easily and it all fell into place. Except you know, that's not how things work. I won't even go into detail about how horrific that job was. But I will qualify that a little in that the job itself was amazing and exciting and fun but my manager was so very not. She was the opposite of that. She was a horrible manager and should not be leading any group or team or any one person for that matter. 

So I quit that job after a year. A very very long year. And that was almost 3 years ago. And here we are now: smack dab in 2020 - amidst covid, distance learning, husband working remotely and me trying to write again. 

Welcome back. (That was me welcoming myself back, because no one reads this blog. But it feels good to write again.) 

What??? It's been over 6 months?

So this is all that's happened:

We bought a house.


We found out we were pregnant.


And now I'm about 7 months along.

Husband got a new job.  In Irvine.  Which is like very far.  With very bad traffic.


And Christopher got bigger.  


And we went to a pumpkin patch.  Christopher was not interested in the pumpkins, choo choo train, tractor ride or ponies.  He was however very interested in the $2 bag of popcorn I bought.

Baby = 1 year old.

The weekend before Christopher's birthday we went to Sea World.  Note to self: One year olds do not appreciate the awe-inspiring spectacle that is Shamu.  They also do not appreciate penguins, sea lions, walruses, dolphins or basically anything else at Sea World.  Good times.

March will forever be marked as the month of birthdays at our house.  We celebrated all week long with 5 cakes (2 Chinese fruit cakes, 1 six layer very dense and very rich chocolate cake, 1 very untasty Whole Foods buttermilk frosting cake, and 1 failed attempt at a George Washington cake - not sure how boxed cake can turn out wrong?).  The week was also filled with lots of presents, celebration brunches, celebration dinners and one party at a very colorfully graffiti-decorated indoor playground.  Here are a few photos from the birthday festivities.

 // It was a good week //

My job I tell ya.  It's really going to be the end of me.  I overheard today our CMO basically saying how expendable we are and how we need some fresh blood in here (after finding out that our copy writer is leaving for another job).  Nice to hear him confirm what I've been thinking all this time.  I'm not sure what's keeping me there.  You think it's a form of Stockholm or maybe Battered Wife syndrome?  It's like I can't get enough of the pain and stress ... I just keep going back for more.  I think I'm sick in the head.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a stay at home mom.  Actually, I've been thinking about it a lot recently and it's getting under my skin because I can totally picture myself spending the day with the baby instead of sitting in front of a computer slaving away at Excel and getting yelled at for not getting things done fast enough.  You know it's bad when you start buying lottery tickets and the Korean man that owns the liquor store knows you as the $5 quick pick lady.  Good lord.  

Anyways, my little baby turned one yesterday.  It was probably one of the saddest days I've had in a long time.  Seriously!  I still can't believe it's been a whole year.  I wish the little turkey would just stay a baby for a little bit longer.

Here's baby playing with his new birthday toy while wearing a muscle man bib and token asian gold necklace.



Good night!

So long Symphony.

Chris returned my pump last week and I hate to admit it, but it was a little bittersweet.  I guess that's just how it is when you've spent hundreds of hours attached (willingly or not) to something.  When breastfeeding didn't work out for me, I decided to exclusively pump.  I pumped every three hours (8 times a day) for the first twelve weeks of baby's life.  When I hit week 12 I reduced it to 7 times a day.  I pumped everyday at 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, 10pm and then set the alarm at 2 am to pump once more in the middle of the night.  I did this until baby turned 6 months.

I remember getting this panicky feeling every time it was beyond the 3 hour mark and thinking man this is gonna ruin my schedule and how in the world am I going to get in that extra pump if I don't get home and my milk supply! - it's going down ever minute that I wait!  Those crazy blogs and forums I tell you made me sick in the head.  And because I spent so much time attached to the pump it gave me extra time to read more pumping blogs and forums to make me really go crazy.

I traveled everywhere with my pump. In fact, when I went to Boston I brought two pumps with me.  My trusty Symphony and my travel pump just in case god forbid something happened to my Symphony during the trip.

I've pumped while driving. I've pumped in Chris' dad's car, Chris' mom's car, my sister's car and my dad's minivan. I've pumped in the bathroom at work before they had the pump room "ready.  I've pumped on an airplane, at the mall, in parking lots, back offices at work with paper taped over the window. I've even pumped hunched in a corner at SFO while Allison watched Christopher.

At the 6 month mark I decided to reduce it to 6 pumps a day.  I dropped the 2 am pump and that was a world of difference.  For the first time in 6 months, I actually slept an entire night.  I didn't set the alarm and I didn't have to stay up until midnight to pump.  It was wonderful.  I kept this up until the 10 month mark and then slowly went down to 5 times, 4, times, 3 times, 2 times, once a day, every other day, every 3 days and then stopped.

Anyways the reason for this post is the picture on top.  That's our work's "Lactation Room."  We moved into a new building last year so they had to create a lactation room.  The Japanese folding screen hides the main door.  If the screen wasn't there, you'd look out onto the twenty or so developers that sit outside.  It took HR over a month to get that screen.  For the first month, if the other gal that pumped with me in the room needed to get in, she'd knock first which was my clue to swivel my chair so my bare back faced the door and she'd open the door just wide enough to slide right on in.

Oh and these are the walls in our lactation room.

Me and the other pumping ladies are pretty sure this room used to be a bathroom because it had this rank odor for the first few weeks we used it.  It was so bad in the beginning that they put a fan and potpourri to hide the smell.  I'm not kidding.  I actually pumped in the ladies' room for the first few days because I couldn't stand the smell and well you know it's pretty bad when you'd rather sit in the bathroom to pump.

Anyways, it's all better now.  Well the walls are still the same, but the smell is gone and now we have a Japanese folding screen.  And tables and chairs and a computer.  I don't know.  Our HR manager talks like she's from the valley and dresses like she's going clubbing and the rest of the company, well it's mostly male and engineers so I don't think I should have expected much.

The pump has been returned and my life is back to normal.  The baby drinks formula and seems to like it just fine.  He turns one in a few weeks.  It's crazy how time flies. It certainly didn't feel that way the first 6 months of his life but now looking back on it, it really does.  I think if we have a baby number two, and breastfeeding doesn't work out again I'm going formula the whole way.  I'm definitely not going through that again.  Been there done that and well I'm all done with that thankyouverymuch.

I waited until the last minute to book Bubba's birthday venue and low and behold they're booked SO we're having the party the weekend after.  Ah well.  I know better for next year.  My manager asked me what the theme of the party was.  I told her, birthday?  I mean really, does he need a theme?  He's one for godsakes.  I had the brilliant idea of making it sock themed since you have to wear socks at the indoor playground where the party's going to be held.  I was going to mail a pair of socks with the invitations but Ivy said that was stupid.  Her exact words, "Everybody already has socks.  It'll just confuse them."  So yeah, no theme this year.  I'll try harder next year.

Work is still killing me.  You know I pay $120 a year out of my own pocket to use GoToMyPC so I can login to my work computer from my Mac at home?  I actually pay money to work more hours for this company that pays me 30% below market.  Sigh.  I don't know what I'm doing.

Anyways, this past weekend was Chinese New Year.  We hung out with my parents and ate lots and lots of food.   Here are some photos from this weekend.

I don't remember what made him cry.  I think he wanted my cell phone.  Who knows.

The highlight of this post is the video below where Pepper and Christopher become friends.



He's such a funny bunny.

Good night folks,

a very special video.

I present to you .....

Christopher eating cantaloupe //



Is it Thursday already?  My job is still killing me.  Slowly.  Piece by piece it's killing me.  Yes I've being dramatic but it kind of is.

This weekend we're headed to my parents for Chinese New Year.  My mom will cook and we will eat. And then we'll put the baby down, crawl onto my parents' couch and watch cable television all night long.  It's going to be quite a treat.

I also plan on returning this water vacuum thing I bought at Costco for two hundred dollars.  It sounded like a great idea /// being able to power wash your carpet every week!  I know right?  Carpet so clean you can eat cantaloupe off of it.  Well it turns out the vacuum is really big and really heavy.  And it leaves your carpet really wet and takes like 12 hours to dry so it's not really that practical but really the truth of it is -- I don't have enough upper body strength to use it.  It's really flippin' heavy.

Ok time to shower, watch an episode of King of the Hill and go to sleep.