Congrats Nikki & Dan!

Here are some photos from Nikki & Dan's wedding. Good times, good times!

365 Days of Joy

Happy Birthday, Lukas! Today is your first birthday. You were born one year ago today and it's hard to believe that it's already been one year because it went by so fast. Everyday you make me smile and bring me joy. Your dad and I are the luckiest and most blessed parents in the world. We can't wait until we can celebrate it on Saturday and we are excited to begin 365 more days of joy.

Catching Up

As you may have guessed, things have been busy. First, there was Valentines Day/Chinese New Year/Nikki & Dan's wedding trifecta. Yes, those events were all on the same day. We spent the day preparing for the wedding since I was part of the wedding party. Unfortunately, my "new" camera charger crapped out and so I was not able to take any more photos. (Given that Lukas's first birthday is this weekend, I'm gonna have to figure something else out soon!) Therefore, anyone who has photos of this event, please share!

The wedding was a great time to hang out with friends, eat good Chinese food, and have a good time. There was lots of dancing and lots of alcohol (for Edwin.) Luckily, we had the next day off for Presidents Day to recover.

Last weekend, we went up to Tahoe for the weekend with the Doans and Schneiders. It was a nice, relaxing weekend for the most part. It was the first time that Lukas got to see snow and I regret that I forgot to let him feel snow in his hands. However, the drive back was long. It's usually only 4.5 hours to get back, but it took us about that long just to get to Placerville, which is about an hour drive to Tahoe.

This week, I've been catching up on a lot of things. Since joining Facebook, there have been a lot of people to catch up with. Also, I got a new cell phone this week and so I've been trying to figure it out and get everything configured. It's MUCH BETTER than my old phone, but it still takes getting used to. I have been trying to prepare for Lukas's birthday party this week. He won't remember it, but I still want him to have a good time.

Lukas milestones- he's been waving good-bye, blowing kisses, and he's been trying to talk. He's been saying mama and dada, but he's also been attempting truck, banana, and up/down. Last week as I was leaving for work, he waved good-bye and gave me a kiss. It was so cute. Melted my heart.

Facebook Frenzy

So I finally activated my Facebook this week. I justify my actions by saying that I joined for work. I held off the throngs of requests to be my friend until I had some time at work to do nothing. Anyway, still learning the ropes, but I have 50 friends. If you're not my friend yet, please ask me to be your friend. It's a lot of work looking for people! Hoping that this will help me to keep in touch, but not require too much time. Edwin is still not on Facebook and is hoping that this phase will pass before he has to join. He wants to remain "off the grid."

Not Too Old to Party

Last weekend, we celebrated an early Chinese New Year by having dinner with my cousins in Fremont. We're going to be attending Nikki and Dan's wedding on Chinese New Year and the Chinese restaurants are always packed that day. It's always fun to see how big the babies have gotten and see what kind of development milestones they have achieved since our last visit. They are definitely starting to interact with each other more now since they can reach out and touch each other.

Then, we went shopping on Saturday and attended a birthday party for our friend Steve in SF. We made the mistake of leaving an hour late. The party started at 7:30PM, but you don't need to be there at the start unless you have a baby. It just means one less hour for us to socialize, Lukas is a little grumpier, and there is less good parking. We know this to be true according to our Chrismas party escapades.

On Sunday, we went to Andres's (our neighbor's baby) baptism party. It was fun hanging out with our neighbors and we ended up staying a lot later than we had intended. We also went to Jamie's birthday/Super Bowl party. We had lots of food and got to catch up with friends and see Michelle and Mike's baby Isabella again. Well, it was my second time and Lukas and Edwin's first time seeing her. She looked so little and I can't believe that it was almost a year ago that Lukas looked just like that. Lukas kept wanting to touch baby Isabella which I thought was cute, but I'm sure made her parents a little nervous. When I saw Jamie's cake, I thought to myself, "36? Geez, I thought that Jamie and I were pretty close in age. Jamie is older than I thought," and then I realized that I'm turning 35 myself this year. How did that happen? Am I considered middle aged now? Or does that happen at 40? If you're only as old as you feel, then I think that I am still 30. I remember when I used to be the youngest one in our group of friends and they used to tease me about being young. Not anymore. Happy Birthday and sorry Jamie for thinking you were old. If it makes you feel any better, I guess I am old too. :)

Lukas milestone: he can now stand for about 10 seconds without holding on to anything. He's also eating stuff without it being pureed. We can give him rice, noodles, or cut up veggies. Yay!

So Painful

So we had the biggest scare as parents last night. Note: Lukas is fine and was all smiles this morning, but grip yourselves for this story. Last night as we were all in the kitchen getting ready for dinner, Lukas was crawling around on the floor as he normally does. Edwin was pulling something out of the oven and Lukas reached out and burned his right hand on the door. He cried really hard (of course!) and I put his hand under running water and then gave him his frozen teether that we keep onhand in the freezer.

I was able to calm him down for a while and he even smiled a little when I put on some silly sunglasses. We sat down for dinner and gave him some Motrin for the pain. There were some white spots on his hand, but it didn't look too bad. We tried to give him some dinner, but he didn't really eat much. He was crying so much that I just sang and rocked him to sleep. He woke up around midnight presumably because he was hungry since he didn't eat or because of the pain. When I nursed him, I noticed that those white spots had become blisters- one in the palm of his hand the size of a pencil eraser and a few more on his index finger. He was able to nurse and go back to sleep, thankfully.

He woke up this morning and was smiling like he normally does. He was also using his right hand, though he was gingerly touching things rather than hitting them or swatting at things like he normally does. He also was able to crawl, but with his right palm up. Everyone tells you how painful it is to see your child in pain and not be able to do anything about it. Even though I am sad that this happened to my poor baby, I am thankful that the damage was not worse. It could have been a lot worse if Edwin hadn't seen him. We didn't have to go to the doctor (though we did call our friend Sujay who is a doctor) or an emergency room. We thought about going, but figured that if he was able to sleep and if he wasn't crying uncontrollably today, he didn't need to go.

So we have some new process changes in our house as a result. Lukas is not allowed in the kitchen if the oven is in use or must be put in his chair. No more free range Lukas because he much faster than we think. Also, for any parents-to-be, I recommend singing to your child because that was the only thing that got him to stop crying. It's the one non-medicated thing you can do to soothe your child in addition to holding him. Doesn't cost you a thing, but the ability to ease the pain of a crying baby is priceless.

Hairy Anniversary

So yesterday was the one year anniversary of my last haircut. Today, I got my haircut. It's still crazy to me that I haven't been able to go before now. Some will say that you make time for the things that are important to you. It's true. Hair is not high on my agenda, but I know I should at least look like I care how I look! It feels a lot shorter and I like it today, but tomorrow will be the real test after I wash it and style it myself.

That also means that Lukas's birthday is coming up. He can't be that old already. I still think of him as just a few months old. I am happy to say that I also finally finished knitting Lukas's baby blanket. Just shy a few weeks of his birthday. There are a lot of things that I am happy that I have done before his first birthday. I've gone out with my girlfriends. I've read a book. We've gone on several trips and seen a few movies. We still go to parties and eat out. We haven't done as much around the house, but I think that's OK too. We've got plenty of time for that!

Documenting and Organizing

This past weekend was nice and relaxing. On Friday, we stayed in the neighborhood and watched the premier of the documentary that a budding filmmaker produced during this last holiday season. It was fun catching up with neighbors and watching the documentary. It was only 8 minutes long, but we got a lot of airtime. She had filmed Edwin dressing up as Santa, us decorating the house, and then walking in the neighborhood with my niece Hannah. Allison, the filmmaker, has asked us not to post it on the internet yet since she is entering the video into a film contest. There are 6 winners and they will be combined into 1 feature length documentary. Unfortunately, they won't announce winners until March, so if you want to see it beforehand, you'll have to come over to our house and ask nicely.

On Saturday, Edwin and Sujay went to a beer festival, so Matilde and I took the kids for some shopping. Though we only got to go into 3 stores, we had fun. On Sunday, we spent most of the day cleaning out our closet. We purchased a closet organizer from Home Depot last year and never installed it. We finally decided to pull the trigger and now we have clothes everywhere! I was a little sad to see the old shelf and wooden closet rod go, but I'm looking forward to a little more organzation in our lives. This will also help us to purge some old stuff that I've been meaning to donate anyways. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a before picture so that you can see how much better the new organizer will be. We'll see when we finish. I'm hoping we are done by the end of the week. We took some mini breaks too. Edwin went on a bike ride and I went to get a pedicure. To each his own!

Love Christmas!

I'm finally getting around to posting the photos from Christmas. I can't believe that Lukas is already 11 months old. It really does go by as fast as everyone says. Enjoy!

Feeling Old

Last weekend, we welcomed Show and Derek back from their honeymoon in Japan. They were the only couple in our group that didn't have kids. We met early, ate dinner, and left the restaurant by 9PM to get our respective children to bed. Back in the day, we would have just been getting started. Probably gone out for dessert and stayed up talking until after midnight.

On Saturday, we went to a 3 year old's birthday party where they had a bouncy house. It was a lot of fun. It was our first time in a bouncy house and for Lukas. We weren't sure if he would like it, but he LOVED it. He loves jumping in general, so when there's a place where all these kids and adults can go in and jump, he had a blast. I never realized how big these bouncy houses were. I actually was able to do some gymnastics. Now, I haven't done a back handspring in probably over 10 years. I can't even remember the last time I did it and I don't know what I was thinking. You hear about all those weekend warriors who injure themselves because they think that they can still do all the things that they used to do when they were younger. Even though in my head I had visions of being carried out in a gurney on the way to the hospital, the kid inside of me couldn't contain myself. There aren't that many opportunities for me to even try a back handspring, so I thought to myself, "If I don't do it now, I will regret it tonight." I did 2 back handsprings. The first was to make sure that I could still do it and the second was because I had so much fun. I would have done it a few more times, but the kids started coming back in and I thought about how mortified I would be if I landed on one of them. How do you explain that to another parent? It's not like I can say, "Sorry my kid pushed your kid" it's more like "Sorry I landed on your kid trying to relive my youth." Though it felt great to still be able to do the back handspring, it did make me feel old because I hadn't done it in so long.

On Sunday, I spent the afternoon doing alumni interviews for Northwestern. I realized that these kids probably thought I was ancient since they were probably 5 years old when I graduated college and they were probably born near the time I graduated from high school. I can't say I blame them because I remember thinking when I was in college that 30 was old.

Lukas update: yesterday, when the nanny asked Lukas where his nariz (nose in Spanish) was, he touched his nose. That's pretty cool. He's officially cruising and I can see 4 teeth coming in on the top. We got him a little toothbrush and he loves brushing his teeth, so hopefully that means that he'll have good teeth.

Avatar

So last weekend was a long weekend with MLK Day. We had a relaxing weekend home. On Friday, we returned to the Korean restaurant that we visited the night I gave birth to Lukas. We haven't returned in almost a year even though we liked it. It was a good time with the Banerjees, Schneiders, and Tachikis. It was kind of funny because we had a such a long table to accommodate all the kids and parents (8 adults and 6 kids). The women and children were seated in the middle of the table while the dads flanked the ends. Things have definitely changed in the last 5 years!

I also got to visit Mike and Michelle's new baby Isabella on Saturday. Lukas and Edwin didn't get to meet her because they were both sick. She was so tiny and light. I can't believe that Lukas was the same size only 10 months ago.

On Monday, we got to watch Avatar. We still had the nanny for the day since the other family had to work, so we decided to go to see it. We wanted to see it on IMAX at the Bay St. Theatre, but the tickets sold out while I was in line. Then, the 3-D version also sold out while I was in line. We were very disappointed, but then we realized that the Alameda Theatre also had it playing in 3-D. I would highly recommend it. Very entertaining and it deserves all the awards it has won. We've been very lucky that both movies we have seen in theatres lately were very good.

Another quick Lukas update, as we were leaving the house this morning, we think that Lukas was trying to say "Bye-Bye" to us. It sounded more like "Ba Ba", but it occurred as we were leaving and he said it twice. He's pretty good at saying "Ma Ma" and "Da Da" so maybe he's starting to try to speak. He started clapping last week and can also raise his arms when I say "Arms up!" Amazing that he can understand already. They do say that kids absorb information like sponges.

Learning to Let Go

Lately, Lukas has been pulling himself up to standing on the couch and on tables and shelves. He's gotten pretty proficient and the other day, he pulled himself onto me and then let go. He actually was able to stand on his own without holding on to anything for at least 3 seconds. And then he fell back onto his bottom. Edwin and I were both amazed. He hasn't tried it again since, but I don't think it will be long before he starts walking. Another funny milestone happened about a week ago. I was sitting in my glider and Lukas was sitting on my lap. All of the sudden, I hear him fart. That's not to say that he has never farted. It's just that it was usually little and pretty quiet. This time, it was loud and it sounded like it came from an adult. I guess my baby is getting bigger. When does a new mom because just a mom? Is it when your baby can say Mama? Or when your baby is considered a toddler vs. a baby? Just curious. Am I still a new mom?

Congrats to our friends Mike and Michelle who just had their baby girl Isabella on Thursday. We haven't met her yet, but we'll hopefully be able to soon! We hope you all are getting lots of sleep.

Congrats to Show & Derek!

To begin the weekend, we celebrated the wedding of Show and Derek. They had a reception at Town Hall. It was a lovely evening in the city of dinner and friends. There was a private room and the music that they picked out was superb. I found myself singing along as I was eating my dinner which was also very yummy. The night would have ended wonderfully if I hadn't eaten something with dairy in it unbeknownst to me. It sucks to be lactose intolerant. Pictures to come later. I'm so jealous right now- Show and Derek are leaving for Japan tomorrow morning for 2 weeks. I would love to go. Someday.

Thanksgiving

Well, I finally got around to posting the photos from Lukas's 9th month which includes Thanksgiving and the beginning of the Christmas holiday. More fun times and more to come.

Back to the Grind

After not working for 10 days, it's hard to go back. Time went by so fast and now I feel like time will slow down. I know that there is at least MLK Day in 2 weeks. In February, there is Presidents Day, but then there is this dead period from March to May where there are no holidays. That is the time period that really sucks. Last year, it was nice because I got to make the most of my maternity leave during that period. I only missed getting paid one holiday for Memorial Day. I'll have to remember that for any future pregnancies.

This period of time is usually very sad. It's the end of the holidays. You have to take down all the decorations and go back to the normalcy of everyday life. At least this year, we have Show and Derek's wedding to look forward to at the end of this week. One more party before the doldrums set back in. Also, Michelle and Mike are about to have their little girl, so that's something else to look forward to. Then, we need to start thinking about Lukas's first birthday. I guess there are plenty of things to keep us busy at least for the next few weeks. All good and happy things, so maybe it's not so sad after all.

2 Short

So I didn't make my goal for last year which was to post the same number of postings as last year. However, I was only short by 2 postings. I don't even know what I have been doing the last few days, but as usual, they were busy, so I wasn't able to make my goal. I'm slightly disappointed, but I am not going to beat myself up about it. I tried. That just means that I need to post more this year. :)

I said that I wasn't going to make any resolutions, but there are a few things I would like to accomplish. First, I would like to get my haircut. This does not to be a grand ambition, but I have not had my hair cut since before Lukas was born, so it's been almost a year. I would like to make sure that I cut my hair at least twice this year. I think it will be easier this year, but I just want to put it out there because if I don't say it aloud, it probably won't happen. I did try and make appointments several times this past year, but the salon is in the city. I just need to find a new salon here in Alameda. I'm just being lazy. It's not even that I love my old salon. I'm just a creature of habit. I knew last year when I got it cut that it would be a while before I could get it cut again which is why I cut it short, but I didn't think that it would be this long.

Second, I would like to get Lukas's college fund set up. I started looking into 529 plans, but couldn't decide, so I just need to sit down and commit. I think that these are both acheiveable and things that I should be doing anyways, but having them published will just help me to accomplish them sooner, I hope.

Walk of Shame

In college, there used to be this term we would use for when you would walk home in the morning wearing the same clothes that you were wearing the night before- it was called the walk of shame. Now, I feel like there is a new meaning to that term. As a parent, it's when you have to leave someplace after your child has had a complete meltdown and you walk out with your child in humiliation because you feel like you have failed as a parent.

It doesn't happen to us very often, but it did last night. For Lukas's first New Years Eve, we started at his aunt Jeannette's to exchange gifts with his cuz Freeman. Then, we headed over the Banerjees for dinner. We didn't intend on staying over, but it got late and we were tired at 2AM, so we decided to stay over since Lukas was already asleep on the bed. That was a mistake. Lukas started crying uncontrollably at 4AM and we couldn't console him. This rarely happens- as in almost never. So we decided to leave the house rather than keep everyone up at 4AM. We got home bleary-eyed and exhausted where Lukas again woke up screaming. It was not a fun night and probably one of the worst nights we have had in a long time.

As a result, we started off the New Year terribly. I can only hope that each passing day this year will be better. I hope that we don't have to have anymore walks of shame. Happy New Year everyone!

3 Days Left

So it's been tough posting since family has been in town. The week has pretty much flown by. I'm not sure what we did as it seems like a blur. The beginning was filled with shopping and preparing for Christmas. I got 95% of it done in time. Christmas Eve was spent wrapping gifts. By the time midnight rolled around, we were too tired to finish wrapping all of Lukas's gifts. We decided that since he probably had enough to open, we didn't wrap his new clothes or some of his new books since he had already seen them anyways.

Since Lukas was already good at ripping paper, he was quite happy to open his gifts. Pictures will be coming. He received a lot of electronic toys. I tend to buy him a lot of mechanical or wooden toys. It's not that I dislike electronic toys- it's just that I am not as drawn to them. I'm glad that other people got him a few for Christmas to round out his toy collection. Pictures will be coming.

Since the grandparents were in town, we also took the opportunity to go see a movie. We got to see Sherlock Holmes which was quite enjoyable. I used to read Sherlock Holmes when I was in junior high, but I can't say that I remember much even though I read most Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's series. I did remember most of the characters. We also wanted to catch Avatar, but ran out of time.

Because I didn't post at all while family was in town, I only have 3 more days until my deadline which means that I'll need to post every day until New Years. Maybe I'll even post 2 in one day!

Bebel Gilberto

So I totally forgot to blog about the concert that we went to see her in concert a few weeks ago. She is the daughter of the Gil Gilberto and Astrud Gilberto who sang the song "The Girl from Ipanema." She is from Brazil and sang the song "So Nice" which was the song we danced to for our First Dance at our wedding. We have seen her in concert once before when we lived in SF near our old apartment. We dropped off Lukas at Jeannette's and headed over to our old neighborhood. The area felt so familiar and yet so long ago. We knew where to go since we had done the drive so many times while we lived there for 5 years, but it has been 2 years since we lived there and of course before Lukas was born.

It made us feel like we were that young urban couple again living in the city and on our way to see a concert. This is something we used to do without much effort. With Lukas, we are still able to do it, but with a lot more effort! It wasn't that long ago in terms of time, but it does feel different in terms of life stage. It's just another reminder of how our lives have changed in a short amount of time. If we get to do these types of things every once in a while, I don't think that we will miss much and we definitely feel like we got a better deal with Lukas.

Last Minute Shopping Frenzy

I remember in years past when I used to start Christmas shopping early to avoid the big crowds. I think that with online shopping it has reduced the numbers at the malls. Also, the extended shopping hours have helped to appease the masses. Finally, I think that people are spending less this holiday because of the recession. The mall was still very busy, but there weren't any crazy long lines. Maybe it's because there is still almost a week left before Christmas. Good thing because I still have a TON of shopping to do.