Find Your Happiness

Nathaniel has been disobeying us when it comes to bedtime: getting out of bed, playing with his toys, jumping on the bed, etc. So after the nth time of telling him to go to sleep (and by this time it was already almost two hours after we laid him down), Hubby took all the toys out of his room and threw them in the trash. No, we didn't really throw away his toys. They are hidden under the bed in the guest bedroom although Nathaniel is convinced we really threw them away. He is surprisingly handling the no toy punishment. He even helped made that pile so we can throw them away. The only thing he was devastated about is that we also took his Spider-Man pillow and blanket. Nathaniel is actually lucky because his Christmas presents from Lola came the day after we did this. I convinced Hubby to not throw those away, too. But Nathaniel is only allowed to keep one (and it's a camera!) and the rest are put away. He's not really asking about his toys, which makes me think ...

A month ago, we set the timer to alarm every 30 minutes and let Nathaniel roam around the house butt-naked. It was our reminder to make him sit on the potty, whether he needed to go or not. He did very well and only had one accident---he told us he needed to potty but he was already  peeing. Ooopps. We increased the time every few days once he was aware that he pees on the potty, not the diaper. A week later, he was completely diaper-less at home with no accidents. I wasn't ready to take him out without a diaper yet---mostly because I dread taking him to a public restroom (shudder). But he is. We have been out several times either on play dates or shopping and told me he needed to go. I reassured him he can go on his diaper but he refuses to. I guess when kids are ready, they are ready. He even told us he needed to potty when we went swimming last Monday . He really loves wearing big-boy underwear and loves to brag about successfully using the potty and washing his...

  All day today I have been pondering the struggles my wife and I will soon be facing as our young little man begins to get out of the house and explore this world God has placed him on. I am not simply speaking of the skinned knees and possibility of broken bones or, God forbid, a broken heart when he gets older. I am talking about whether or not we are capable of shielding him from the evils of this world just long enough to allow him to grow up to be a good Christian man. Honestly, Diana and I thought long and hard about whether or not we should even bring a child into this world that has fallen oh so far. Clearly, after plenty of discussion and prayer we decided that, if able, it wasn't an option to have kids. So after making the decision to have kids, what does one do? I understand that the Bible tells us to raise our children to have fear and admonition for The Lord. And that it is taught, in the parable of the prodigal son, that is possible for a child that has fall...

No one in our family used pacifiers as a baby so when my little boy needed one, I didn't know what to do. I'm not saying using a pacifier is wrong and believe when I say that because I did so much research about it after realizing there's no way I could survive breastfeeding and those first few months of Nathaniel's life if I don't finally give in to using one. I was just worried my little one will be too attached to it and for way past over infancy. I already had a plan about how to help Nathaniel stop using his pacifier when the time comes. I read on BabyCenter about several "going away" binkie parties. My favorite is tying the pacifiers to a balloon and telling our child that these are now for the other children to use. Thankfully, Nathaniel started refusing the pacifier by himself at seven months old. We went to Indiana for 2 weeks to visit family and friends and I'm guess the change in scenery and routine helped him forget ...

When Nathaniel turned exactly six months old, we noticed that he all of a sudden developed stranger and separation anxiety. At first, he would only cry when people we do not see often held him but recently, he also cries even when it is with Daddy :( Our little one does not want anybody else other than me and while my mama-heart gets a little boost with that thought, cooking, cleaning the house, and bedtime have become quite an adventure. I can't walk away more than two feet before he starts crying. And Nathaniel will be fast asleep in his crib but as soon as I walk out the door, I hear crying. His pediatrician said this is expected around this age and should outgrow it in a few(!) months. We are flying to Indiana this weekend to visit family and friends for ten days and I want to make this easier for all of us, especially to his grandparents who rarely see him. Any suggestions to help baby cope with stranger and separation anxiety? And how long did it last?

One of the perks of pregnancy that I am really, really missing right now is taking a break from scooping hair out of our shower drains and sweeping strands off the bathroom floor. I have long, thick Asian hair so I'm used to occasionally doing this pre-pregnancy. However since post-baby, I have to unclog the tub daily since my hair is falling in handfuls and sweep strands of hair off the floor of the ENTIRE house. I can't run my fingers through my hair without two to three strands falling off. It doesn't help either that my six month old baby thinks pulling my hair is one of the funniest things in the world. Apparently, there is not much I can do about it other than wait and hope that it really will stop by the time my son hits his first birthday. I don't have a problem with hair thinness and I would really prefer not to cut my hair shorter, so how did you Mamas deal with hair loss?

This past Monday and Tuesday, I left our three-month old baby with his great-grandmother (who is visiting us from the Philippines) because I had errands I really needed to do. I was gone all day, which means Nathaniel had to eat expressed breastmilk through a bottle. This is the first time I have been away from my son for this long amount of time and who knew that in only two days, he will develop nipple confusion. Breastfeeding has been a battle, he is not properly latching, and he exhaust himself from crying so much that he ends up just falling asleep after the letdown reflex has slow down. However, any feeding after bedtime is still the same and I think it's because he is too sleepy to notice the difference. I have tried feeding him in a dark room where stimulation is at minimum, feeding him when he's happy or as soon as he wakes up, and pumping to keep my supply up.  I'm not worried that he's not eating enough because he still has plenty of wet diaper...

Three nights ago, I laid Nathaniel down for what I thought would be his last evening nap. The little one usually sleeps for an hour and hubby and I use that precious hour wisely--we eat dinner, talk about his day at work over a bowl of ice cream, and spend some alone time before he starts studying. And when little one wakes up, we start the nighttime routine: bath, cuddle time with daddy, a bedtime story, and breastfed by mommy. All of these have become a routine in our little household that when an hour passed by, I started checking on Nathaniel every five minutes even though he was sleeping in his swing, which was in the living room with us. I turned off the rocking-option in his swing knowing this change will soon wake him up. We kept watching the Winter Olympics while we wait then switched to the recorded shows in the DVR when it got annoying because of too much talking and commercials and not enough of the actual events. Another hour passed by and the little one was still aslee...

7.21.09 18 weeks, 5 days pregnant The well sealed sonogram picture for five months! It seems as though as soon as people find out that you are pregnant, the appropriate response is to ask whether you are carrying a boy or a girl. When my husband and I were pregnant with our first born, we opted to wait to find out the gender of our little one. For us, we could not think of a "good enough" reason to find out ahead of time other than for buying gender appropriate clothes and decorating the nursery with either blue or pink color. But mostly, our main reason we chose to wait is because I wanted my husband to tell me what we're having as soon as I deliver. Not from a sonogram, not from the radiology technician, not from our OB doctor-- but from my husband . This is our final moment as just husband and wife and we want to really cherish the moment we became a family. 1.29.10 6 weeks, 3 days Our little boy is now seven weeks old today and we still do not re...

Nathaniel is a month old today! With his Big Ted from Uncle Robbie I'm ashamed to admit that most days I wish Nathaniel is already a little bit older because I have this irrational belief that things will be just easier if he is. And now that I look at the past month, that belief is true in some aspects but now my heart also aches... I look at my son and cannot believe that he's already a month old. Soon he will be smiling, "talking", crawling, and next thing I know he'll be running away from me. And so I snuggle with my little boy a little bit longer. Look at him more intently. And treasure these moments that I know won't last very long. 12.25.10 10 days old He didn't have to wake up, he'd been up all night Laying there in bed listening to his new born baby cry He makes a pot of coffee, he splashes water on his face His wife gives him a kiss and says it's gonna be ok It won’t be like this for long One day soon we'll look back ...

Warning: This post is very personal and shows an extremely vulnerable side of yours truly. If you think you are unable to keep yourself from judging me and from seeing me as a human being who is constantly learning from life and makes mistakes... then please ignore this post. No stories or advice can truly prepare you for the hardship of parenthood until you actually become a parent. And for me to say that the last few weeks had brought me nothing but rewarding emotions would be... a complete lie. In fact, it feels as though I'm finding myself constantly questioning the decisions and actions I've made that lead me to where I am right now. I hope it's justifiable to have this emotions because of what I've been through the past three weeks: from being a first time parent, for having baby blues due to a complicated labor & delivery, to breastfeeding issues, and to the constant battle to keep and soothe my child from being in p...

It is funny, really. I don't think I will ever look at a clock in exactly the same way ever again. Time flies by when your having fun they say. But what about when your counting down the hours till the next time the baby eats or when you can expect the next diaper change? How much did I spend before having a child wishing time would go by faster? Have you noticed a pattern. Often we forget how much time truly holds our attention. We measure everything in time: the length of TIME of your work day, the amount of TIME you have till you have to go back to work, what TIME is dinner, do you have TIME to run to the post office, am I going to have enough TIME to sleep. Even when you talk about age, isn't it really just the amount of TIME you have been alive. Well this recent epiphany of mine on the worlds infatuation with time led me to realize that most wish it would move more quickly. I stand on my soap box this evening praying that time move a lot slower. Why would I want time t...