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The New Year’s Eve Conundrum
What are you doing for New Year’s Eve this year? It’s so easy to treat the day like any other day, only to wake up on January 1st to do the same thing you’ve been doing for 8 months. So why celebrate? I’ll tell you why. My family has been celebrating NYE for as long as I can remember. When we were kids, my sisters and I would put on a show and perform a lip-sync and group dance to my parent’s friends. We would eat, dance, watch fireworks and go to bed really, really, really late. Ah, those were the days. When we got older and lived in Dallas,…
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hey moms, let’s talk about the holidays at home
I was planning to go home for the holidays. We were going to make it happen even if that meant quarantining for a week, getting tested, and doing everything else that needed to happen in order to be as safe as possible. It would have been almost a year since I’ve seen my parents, a rare occurrence since I moved to the Bay Area 7 years ago. After multiple conversations and Google research, we came to a decision that this year, we are doing the holidays at home. So here we are, doing all the things without the usual traveling. This year has been everything but normal. While I usually…
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A Yosemite Vacation
Like most families, we’ve been in some sort of shelter-in-place since March and in desperate need of a change of scenery. With so many trips canceled this year due to COVID (reminiscing over a Paso Robles 40th birthday celebration here), we still wanted to get away, but in a safe way that would give us the sense that we were on vacation but also not around crowds. I researched a bunch, looked at FB groups and talked to people who have gone on vacation. Little did I know there are SO MANY BEAUTIFUL PLACES here in CA that I even (I know) got excited about the possibility of camping (I…
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You Should Make a COVID-19 Time Capsule
When all of this started, the four of us were in limbo trying to figure out not only our feelings, but what we would do with this newfound time spent together. Inside. Without outside help. I was on the cusp of being able to have a few hours to myself for the first time during the summer while both kids were old enough to go to school and have it carried over in the Fall. So when everything shut down, all of that became null and void. Our family was thrown into different versions of our day: my husband had to figure out how to work from home with two…
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In the thick of it
The other day I was at my daughter’s swim school, watching her dive underwater to retrieve a ring from the bottom of the pool. She’s in the “big kids class” which means no parent is in the pool with her. I gaze down at my now 10 month old son, while I feed him a bottle as he watches her sister’s every move. My mind tries to be present for both. Cheering for my daughter as she looks right at me after back floats and keeping the bottle still while my son’s head follows her at the same time. An older woman passes me on the way to the lobby,…
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the one that’s hard to write
It’s taken me a while to write this post, mostly because I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to write it. But as a writer, this is how we heal. Writing, in a weird sense, gives permission to move forward. So here I am, writing this post, in a place where moving forward seems hopeful and happy. Postpartum depression is a real thing, happening to around 3 million moms each year, some may even be reading this right now. When my son was born, I found myself in unknown territory that went beyond the baby blues. The feelings of being inadequate, hopeless, sad, resentful and even selfish overwhelmed my already…
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the sound of silence
Newborn. Toddler. Dog. Husband. Right now all 4 are sleeping, taking naps to re-charge for the rest of the day (except my dog, that’s all she does these days). I’m on my keyboard, that being the only sound aside from the snores of my beagle and the air conditioner. I miss this silence. When things are quiet and I can actually sit with my own thoughts, embracing and soaking in the stillness. It doesn’t last long. At this particular time we are maneuvering the demands of a toddler and the needs of a newborn. Both happening at the same time, and both carrying the same amount of importance and priority.…
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Welcome to the world
There is something to be said about being able to plan your baby’s birth, even if you only get 24 hours. Dylan was welcomed into this world as an early arrival on a Sunday morning, making today a week since we completed our family with a beautiful baby boy! It’s a known thing that I am not great at being pregnant, my body doesn’t like to play host, (which come to think about it, neither do I, a sign maybe?) and my placenta likes to give out after about 35 weeks. So when I started to feel sick again and went to my doctor for the normal checkup, I was…
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pregnant with a toddler- the struggle is real
I know pregnancy makes you tired, especially in the last month, but I was not prepared for how tired I’d feel this time around. My daughter had issues with me as her nutrition host and was a tiny, pre-term 3 lb. baby who just made me sick all the way up to delivery. But I could take a nap on demand (when I wasn’t nauseous), and plan her arrival calmly. This time is so different. While in hindsight I appreciate the fact that my daughter kept me just distracted enough to not have the luxury of feeling sick all day (the DayQuil commercials come to mind when the mom goes…
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baby thoughts: lessons for our little boy
I did a lessons for our girl when Liv was still hanging out in my tummy, so it was only appropriate to do a lessons for our little boy the second time around. With a baby boy it’s different. My focus on our little boy is to be a kind human being that is respectful and knows how to treat a lady. There is something different when I think about the fact that Justin and I are going to be raising a little boy who will someday become a man. While I desperately wanted Liv not to be a bratty kid, with a boy I want desperately for him to…
