Wow, what a year. I'm starting this post 53 minutes away from the stroke of midnight, and I'm still up, reflecting on the year. The year has been a blur of events, and I'm trying to recall all that's happened. That's what I get for not keeping a diary or blogging often enough. I'm wary of making resolutions for the next year though, since the one resolution I made for 2013 (to learn to sew) hasn't yet come to fruition.
The biggest event that happened in 2013 was the arrival of our little girl, and our family of two became three. We settled into our home here in San Diego, and were lucky to find renters pretty quickly for our old house when it became available for rent. We had to upgrade to a mom mobile since my old faithful car's transmission started going south, and having an unreliable vehicle with a newborn was not an option for us. I've been semi-retired for most of the year, but the new job of being a 24-7 mom had a pretty steep learning curve, and definitely took some getting used to. I still don't feel like I'm doing a good enough job of being a mom.
As 2013 ends, I'm resolving to be a little more organized, to clean out my closet, and to finally unpack all those boxes I have in the garage. When I have some time. I also hope to start cooking again, now that baby is a little bit older, and is a bit more independent. I need to figure out how to squeeze work-work into my day, and figure out how to keep baby busy while stimulating her wonderful growing self. Lots of things to figure out. Hmm. I'll just resolve to enjoy every single day of 2014, and just focus on the positives :)
It's 17 minutes away from midnight... that's how long it's taken my tired mind to string together some semi-cohesive thoughts. Sleep, here I come. Happy new year, everyone!
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Thursday, August 8, 2013
A Hot Mess of Emotions
Just had to say bye to my folks as they leave on their much anticipated vacation, though I think they would have rather stayed here to wait for baby's arrival. I'll admit that I'm really bummed she didn't make her appearance so my folks could meet her before their trip, but that's where today's technology comes in handy. I'll be able to give them a call on their cellphones no matter where they're at, and send them some pictures too.
Still no baby yet... she must be super happy and snug in her little cave, gaining weight. Her little elbow that we've been able to feel the most has definitely lost it's boneyness, and has rounded up some. I wonder how much she'll weigh at birth.
At my appointment on Monday, my midwife talked about induction and antenatal monitoring, especially if she doesn't want to show up on her own. "I will calmly meet whatever turn my birthing my take" is a Hypnobirthing affirmation that comes to mind... I just have to remember that this is her birth too, and she definitely has a lot of say as to when she wants to show up.
Still no baby yet... she must be super happy and snug in her little cave, gaining weight. Her little elbow that we've been able to feel the most has definitely lost it's boneyness, and has rounded up some. I wonder how much she'll weigh at birth.
At my appointment on Monday, my midwife talked about induction and antenatal monitoring, especially if she doesn't want to show up on her own. "I will calmly meet whatever turn my birthing my take" is a Hypnobirthing affirmation that comes to mind... I just have to remember that this is her birth too, and she definitely has a lot of say as to when she wants to show up.
Monday, August 5, 2013
And now we wait...
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| 39 weeks vs. 6 weeks... how I've grown! |
It's been a pretty crazy 37 weeks or so since I've had this not-so-little cupcake baking in my oven now. The cupcake's dad is anxiously awaiting her arrival, and so is my family that's visiting. I really hope she shows up on time, so my dad will get a chance to see her and spend some time with her before my folks have to leave on a trip they've had planned for more than a year.
Time has taken on a strange quality now that I'm on maternity leave, and just home waiting. It has been awesome spending time with my mum, who's been cooking up a storm, so I've been able to enjoy the yumminess that is home cooked cuisine, which I don't get very often, since the traditional Straitsborn-Chinese style cooking is tedious and takes a while.
I am definitely enjoying my last few moments of "quiet" on this Friday night before the baby arrives. As I'm partially writing this post, it's just the kitties and me at home, with Breaking Bad playing on tv. The hubs and my mum have gone to LAX to pick up my dad, and my sister arrives tomorrow. This is definitely going to be my last moment of peace, I think. Baby might be agreeing with me too, since she's been really active this evening, more so than she's been in the past few weeks.
She's definitely taking her own sweet time. Today's attempt at getting her to "come on down" was retail therapy, since a foot massage, walking up these crazy steep stairs, and exercise hasn't really coaxed her out of her shell yet. I must have a pretty comfortable oven for her :)
I have had a relatively uneventful pregnancy, save for the crazy hormonal days, nausea earlier on, and a below-the-belt episode sometime in my 2nd trimester. I have to think my bi-weekly (now weekly) chiropractic treatments and twice-a-week pilates has helped tremendously. I can still see my ankles and my waistline (yay), and am currently feeling pretty good except for the pressure in my hip joints, thanks to the growing belly. I've gained about 20 lbs as of my last appointment, which I think is pretty darn good too.
The first trimester was really challenging for me, since I have never ever felt such debilitating fatigue before. I would fall asleep right after meals several times a day, napping all the time, and nausea was making it difficult to eat. Of course, it didn't help that we didn't really have our house to ourselves since it was going through some remodeling, and we were between houses too, so it made for a challenging few months.
Once the second trimester rolled around, I felt like my old self again. That truly was the most wonderful time... my bump was growing, I felt great and energized, and got a lot done. I was finding a good work/home life balance, plus it helps that I work from home too. I think the best part of the second trimester was finding out that our baby is a girl, and feeling those first few flutters of movement from her (on Easter Sunday night no less!). That was when it started becoming "real".
When the third trimester rolled around, the tiredness set in again, but nothing like it was in the early weeks. I found myself napping more, and my joints started aching once the bump really started growing. As of this update, I'm currently a day away from my 40 week mark. The hubs thinks that my oven is too comfortable for the not-so-little-anymore cupcake. We'll see what my midwives have to say at my appointment this afternoon.
Perhaps baby is waiting for my to write my pregnancy story out before making her appearance. My sister helped us decorate the baby room this weekend, so the room is all ready for her. We just need her to show up :) I'm drawing a blank right now as to what else I should say. I guess I'll end it here for now, and will post updates if I think of anything else.
Time has taken on a strange quality now that I'm on maternity leave, and just home waiting. It has been awesome spending time with my mum, who's been cooking up a storm, so I've been able to enjoy the yumminess that is home cooked cuisine, which I don't get very often, since the traditional Straitsborn-Chinese style cooking is tedious and takes a while.
I am definitely enjoying my last few moments of "quiet" on this Friday night before the baby arrives. As I'm partially writing this post, it's just the kitties and me at home, with Breaking Bad playing on tv. The hubs and my mum have gone to LAX to pick up my dad, and my sister arrives tomorrow. This is definitely going to be my last moment of peace, I think. Baby might be agreeing with me too, since she's been really active this evening, more so than she's been in the past few weeks.
She's definitely taking her own sweet time. Today's attempt at getting her to "come on down" was retail therapy, since a foot massage, walking up these crazy steep stairs, and exercise hasn't really coaxed her out of her shell yet. I must have a pretty comfortable oven for her :)
I have had a relatively uneventful pregnancy, save for the crazy hormonal days, nausea earlier on, and a below-the-belt episode sometime in my 2nd trimester. I have to think my bi-weekly (now weekly) chiropractic treatments and twice-a-week pilates has helped tremendously. I can still see my ankles and my waistline (yay), and am currently feeling pretty good except for the pressure in my hip joints, thanks to the growing belly. I've gained about 20 lbs as of my last appointment, which I think is pretty darn good too.
The first trimester was really challenging for me, since I have never ever felt such debilitating fatigue before. I would fall asleep right after meals several times a day, napping all the time, and nausea was making it difficult to eat. Of course, it didn't help that we didn't really have our house to ourselves since it was going through some remodeling, and we were between houses too, so it made for a challenging few months.
Once the second trimester rolled around, I felt like my old self again. That truly was the most wonderful time... my bump was growing, I felt great and energized, and got a lot done. I was finding a good work/home life balance, plus it helps that I work from home too. I think the best part of the second trimester was finding out that our baby is a girl, and feeling those first few flutters of movement from her (on Easter Sunday night no less!). That was when it started becoming "real".
When the third trimester rolled around, the tiredness set in again, but nothing like it was in the early weeks. I found myself napping more, and my joints started aching once the bump really started growing. As of this update, I'm currently a day away from my 40 week mark. The hubs thinks that my oven is too comfortable for the not-so-little-anymore cupcake. We'll see what my midwives have to say at my appointment this afternoon.
Perhaps baby is waiting for my to write my pregnancy story out before making her appearance. My sister helped us decorate the baby room this weekend, so the room is all ready for her. We just need her to show up :) I'm drawing a blank right now as to what else I should say. I guess I'll end it here for now, and will post updates if I think of anything else.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Ikea furniture hack...
On Memorial Day, Anthony woke up with this brilliant idea of hacking some Ikea furniture to make covered litter boxes for the kitties (I guess he got tired of seeing exposed, open litter boxes, its contents, and the litter being tracked all over). Over breakfast armed with our smartphones, we found a site with hacked ikea furniture, and they had brilliant ideas on how we could accomplish this project. After much searching, we decided that the Stuva storage bench found in Children's Ikea worked best for what we had in mind.
Tools you will need:
- the usual tools you need to assemble Ikea furniture
- a jigsaw
- flexible rubber coating in a can (optional)
- spray paint (to cover up the whole you cut)
- face mask (if you use the flexible rubber coating)
- caulking (optional)
We opted to seal the cutout and the inside seams with the rubber sealant and caulk (along the inside seams) so that any accidents that may happen (the drawers are holding litter boxes after all) don't seep into the MDF and end up warping the panels.
We assembled the drawer as instructed, but before installing the final front piece, Anthony cut out the opening with a jigsaw. After the opening was cut and installed, we used the Rust-o-leum Leak Seal to seal the cut out opening, and Anthony liberally sprayed it inside the drawer along the seams and screw holes, to avoid any accidents. We left it for 24 hours to cure. The cutout was then spray painted, as was the not-so-pretty-when-dried rubber coating on the inside of the drawer. After spray painting, the seams along the joints inside the drawer were caulked to prevent any leakage through the seams (leave to cure for a few hours). Assemble the bench portion of the storage bench, and voila, you get this:
We chose to line the interior with pee pads, to make any mess cleanup easier, and we added a litter mat to trap as much of the litter as possible before the kitties leave the loo. I also added some Arm & Hammer baking soda that was meant for the fridge.
*knock on wood* So far, we have noticed a lot less litter tracking in the room (which happens to be my office space), and it's definitely a better sight to look at than exposed litter boxes.
 |
| We turned this... |
 |
| into this! |
Tools you will need:
- the usual tools you need to assemble Ikea furniture
- a jigsaw
- flexible rubber coating in a can (optional)
- spray paint (to cover up the whole you cut)
- face mask (if you use the flexible rubber coating)
- caulking (optional)
We opted to seal the cutout and the inside seams with the rubber sealant and caulk (along the inside seams) so that any accidents that may happen (the drawers are holding litter boxes after all) don't seep into the MDF and end up warping the panels.
 |
We assembled the drawer as instructed, but before installing the final front piece, Anthony cut out the opening with a jigsaw. After the opening was cut and installed, we used the Rust-o-leum Leak Seal to seal the cut out opening, and Anthony liberally sprayed it inside the drawer along the seams and screw holes, to avoid any accidents. We left it for 24 hours to cure. The cutout was then spray painted, as was the not-so-pretty-when-dried rubber coating on the inside of the drawer. After spray painting, the seams along the joints inside the drawer were caulked to prevent any leakage through the seams (leave to cure for a few hours). Assemble the bench portion of the storage bench, and voila, you get this:
We chose to line the interior with pee pads, to make any mess cleanup easier, and we added a litter mat to trap as much of the litter as possible before the kitties leave the loo. I also added some Arm & Hammer baking soda that was meant for the fridge.
*knock on wood* So far, we have noticed a lot less litter tracking in the room (which happens to be my office space), and it's definitely a better sight to look at than exposed litter boxes.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Happy New Year, 2 months too late
2 months in to the new year, and 8 months (eeps) since my last blog post, and so much has happened since we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary! We have moved, and we're also expecting. That's the best news, I think.
I find it fascinating that everything is now "what's best for baby", even though our wee one has only been baking in the oven for 17 weeks. We've already completed our childbirth classes, though at the advice of our doula (yes, I've lined one up too), we're putting off breastfeeding and newborn care classes until closer to our guess date since there will be a lot of information, and taking those classes too early will be slightly detrimental. I've also lined up a post-partum doula to help us out after we have the baby too. The only thing on my to-do list to line up next is a pediatrician. I was slightly discouraged when the first practice I called wanted to hang up on me for not having PPO insurance. Ah well. I'm letting it go. Part of my hypnobirthing class was learning to let go of fears and issues, so I should put that to good use now. Hence I'm not going to freak out about not having lined up a pediatrician yet either. I still have loads of time.
I also started seeing a chiropractor that works on expecting moms to help me with some of my aches and pains. Though pilates has helped deal with a lot of it, I think some fine tuning was in order. Sure enough, upon evaluating me on my first visit, she found that I was misaligned due to a really old ankle injury. So we're slowly working on getting my body back into alignment. It won't be perfect, but it would be a heck of a lot better than it was before.
I'm partly also wondering if my adjustments of late have been contributing to a different level of hormones in my body. I'm a lot more weepy than usual, but my chiropractor says I'm a lot more "grounded" than when she first met me. I'm also having major issues concentrating on work. All I want to do now is sleep and rest and relax. Is my body trying to tell me something? I am also a bit surprised that I haven't freaked out about work yet, even though I have about 20 hours of work I'm probably a lot behind on. Oops.
Next week is going to be a busy one with doctors appointments and prepping for this big meeting at work. And then I get to pack for what will be my last trip to the homeland for a while.
I'm typing this surrounded by a bunch of boxes that I need to unpack. I'm choosing not to stress over it. Some remodeling work isn't complete in our new home yet, which is preventing us (somewhat) from properly unpacking and organizing. Oh well. Maybe I'll get to it this weekend...
Until next time, which I hope won't be too long from now.
 |
| Our first look at Baby Kenniston |
I find it fascinating that everything is now "what's best for baby", even though our wee one has only been baking in the oven for 17 weeks. We've already completed our childbirth classes, though at the advice of our doula (yes, I've lined one up too), we're putting off breastfeeding and newborn care classes until closer to our guess date since there will be a lot of information, and taking those classes too early will be slightly detrimental. I've also lined up a post-partum doula to help us out after we have the baby too. The only thing on my to-do list to line up next is a pediatrician. I was slightly discouraged when the first practice I called wanted to hang up on me for not having PPO insurance. Ah well. I'm letting it go. Part of my hypnobirthing class was learning to let go of fears and issues, so I should put that to good use now. Hence I'm not going to freak out about not having lined up a pediatrician yet either. I still have loads of time.
I also started seeing a chiropractor that works on expecting moms to help me with some of my aches and pains. Though pilates has helped deal with a lot of it, I think some fine tuning was in order. Sure enough, upon evaluating me on my first visit, she found that I was misaligned due to a really old ankle injury. So we're slowly working on getting my body back into alignment. It won't be perfect, but it would be a heck of a lot better than it was before.
I'm partly also wondering if my adjustments of late have been contributing to a different level of hormones in my body. I'm a lot more weepy than usual, but my chiropractor says I'm a lot more "grounded" than when she first met me. I'm also having major issues concentrating on work. All I want to do now is sleep and rest and relax. Is my body trying to tell me something? I am also a bit surprised that I haven't freaked out about work yet, even though I have about 20 hours of work I'm probably a lot behind on. Oops.
Next week is going to be a busy one with doctors appointments and prepping for this big meeting at work. And then I get to pack for what will be my last trip to the homeland for a while.
I'm typing this surrounded by a bunch of boxes that I need to unpack. I'm choosing not to stress over it. Some remodeling work isn't complete in our new home yet, which is preventing us (somewhat) from properly unpacking and organizing. Oh well. Maybe I'll get to it this weekend...
Until next time, which I hope won't be too long from now.
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