A Typical Monday

I’ve been reading a lot of posts lately where moms give a run down of what a typical day is like for them. It’s kind of fun to get a window into someone else’s typical day…although sometimes it makes me feel awfully unproductive and lazy by comparison. So I thought I’d blog about my typical day, just in case there’s anyone out there dying to know just how very very exciting my life is. So here’s a typical Monday in my life -

6:30 – Larry’s alarm goes off. We both ignore it. Since he uses a hymn playing as his alarm, I don’t even notice it anymore; it just becomes the soundtrack to whatever I’m dreaming. My alarm is CC. Unfortunately he doesn’t have a snooze button.

7:00 – I hear the little voice from the other room. I get up, use the bathroom, throw on my bathrobe, and go to the kitchen to prepare his morning milk. (Normally, this is Larry’s job so that I can get 5 min of extra sleep, but since he’s in the shower, I get to greet CC this morning.) I go into CC’s room, change his diaper and take off his jammies. We walk over to the potty and I read him a book while he sits and pees. (Yes, potty training has officially begun!) I put underwear and clothes on him and read him another book on the couch.

7:15 – Larry takes over reading to CC and I go and attack the mound of dirty dishes in the kitchen. I have no problem with leaving dirty dishes overnight, but I can’t bear to see them in the morning, so sadly, dishes are one of the first things I do in the morning. I boil water for my morning tea and pop in some bagels for breakfast.

7:30 – The three of us sit down for breakfast. CC will always choose a CD to listen to during breakfast and today it’s Sesame Street’s, “The Bird is the Word.” Larry finishes getting ready and is out by 8.

8:10 – CC seems content to sit in his high chair and take apart his bagel, so I go sit in the living room and try to grab some personal morning time with the Lord. I pray over some verses, but it’s a little hard to concentrate when you have big bird singing in the background.

8:25 – I put on my contacts, brush my teeth and wash my face and change into my yoga clothes. I change CC’s clothes again too because he poured water all over himself in the high chair, we do some more potty time, I pack a lunch and snacks for CC.

9:30 – We head out for our walk to the Y.

10:00 – After dropping CC off at Chidwatch, I go to the intermediate yoga class. My favorite part is the last 5 minutes when we lie down in corpse pose.

11:45 – After yoga, I take CC to the kindergym at the Y for a little bit. I bump into fellow mom friend and we chat while the kids play. Then we all walk home together.

12:45 – We get home and I put CC down for his nap. I grab some lunch for myself while checking email and facebook. Then shower time.

1:45 – I read my daily chapter from the Bible and a message from the Life-study of 1 Thessalonians.

2:30 – More dirty dishes. Pick up the stuff strewn all over the living room. Fold laundry while watching this 20 min TED talk.

3:15 – CC wakes up from his nap. We do more potty time. This week I decided to start a preschool homeschooling curriculum I found online called Letter of the Week. The theme for this week is cows, so CC and I read some books about cows that I got from the library. I teach him the sign for cow and the Chinese word for cow and the vocabulary word for the week: calf. We crawl around mooing like cows and then he colors a picture of cows that I’ve printed out.

4:00 – A mom I recently met at the library/park texts me and asks if we’d like to come over and play. She lives just around the corner so I get CC ready and we walk over. While the kids play, we chat over some tea and get to know each other since this is first time we’ve been able to have an extended conversation. She’s from Hungary and her husband’s from France. Before leaving, she offers to have Larry and me over sometime for some real ghoulash. Sounds good to me!

5:45 – We get home and I scramble to get dinner ready while Larry reads CC more cow books. We have turkey burgers and green beans. I tell CC that the green beans are green French Fries.

7:15 – Bath time. Larry gets ready to leave for his evening meeting. I get CC ready for bed and he’s down by 8.

8:15 – I put away leftovers from dinner and pile the dirty dishes in the sink. I sit down to write this post which has taken much longer than I anticipated.

9:45 – Get ready for bed and curl up with my latest book from the library. I’ll try to stay awake until Larry comes home, but it probably won’t happen.

These pictures of CC on the potty aren’t from today, but I just wanted to post them anyway.

Dish glove gripe

I know I should probably change the header of this blog to “Monthly ramblings of a stay at home mom aspiring to live Christ.” I don’t think I ever got around to posting daily and that was probably too ambitious of a goal for me anyway. I know I’ve been awfully silent lately, but the previous month was a whirlwind of activity and travel for us…and somehow the new year just snuck up on me with no warning. I had hoped to write a brilliant new year’s day post, complete with reflections on the past year and my aspirations for 2012, but that didn’t happen. And it seems a little lame to be writing such a post now that we’re already almost one month into the new year.

So my first post for this year will be neither weighty nor deep. Instead, I’m going to bring up  something of no consequence whatsoever but nevertheless a subject I’d like to gripe about, just to get it out of my system.  I’m talking about dish gloves. Yes, those things you wear on your hands when you wash dishes, an activity that sadly takes up a big chunk of my life. Honestly, I don’t mind washing dishes. I find it rather therapeutic and I think I’ve even learned to enjoy the Lord while doing it. All I’m asking for is a decent pair of dish gloves that will last me more than a month. I’ve tried every brand Target and Safeway have to offer and none have made it past the month mark. Inevitably, it’s always the right hand glove that gets a hole or a nick, so now I have a pile of left handed dish gloves under my sink which I can’t bring myself to throw away. So if I can’t find a decent pair that will last, I would at least settle for a company that would sell right and left handed gloves separately rather than in pairs. Maybe I can start a dish glove exchange business.

Actually I can’t take credit for coming up with that idea though. In the email newsletter for the Berkeley Parents Network, there was a lady who was offering to trade left handed dish gloves for right handed ones. Guess I’m not the only one who has been stocking up on left handed gloves. I thought about emailing her just to tell her that she’s not alone and that I know how she feels. Too bad…if I was a lefty, we could have been such good friends.

So for all the dishwashing people out there, if you’ve found a good durable brand you can recommend, puhhhleeaz let me know. Or if you’re a lefty interested in a glove exchange, I’d be open to that too. My dry cracking hands will be eternally grateful to you.

November in a Nutshell

Somehow I let the entire month of November slip by without a single blog post. I’d like to say it was because I was so busy that I didn’t have time to write…but that would be lying. While November was indeed busy, I have to confess that my failure to post has been due mostly to sheer laziness on my part. I’ve been suffering from lack of motivation-itis and have come down with a serious case of the blahs. (As I write this, there are a pile of dirty dishes in the sink and two basketfuls of laundry to be folded…sigh.) So this post will serve as a recap for last month and make me feel better that I at least wrote one post in December.

So…memorable events for November? Larry and I began the month by celebrating our 4th year anniversary! I’d like to tell you that we went out and celebrated in style, but again that would be lying. Christopher was particularly ornery that day, making me particularly cranky. We ended up just putting him to bed early and having pizza and root beer. The pizza was from Emilia’s though, so it was still special. Plus it came with a rose and a special gift from the hubby. Come to think of it, that was exactly what we did for our anniversary last year. Maybe pizza and root beer will be our anniversary tradition. I’m okay with that.

We ended November with a week long visit from my parents and the Thanksgiving Conference in San Jose. It was really wonderful to see CC bonding with his gong-gong and po-po and made me wish that he could see them more often. Of course, it was nice for me to see them too. For those of you wondering from my last post how my mom reacted to my weight – she graciously waited until the second day to comment on how thin I was…after telling me that my hair looked dry. :/

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Our visit to Little Farm at Tilden Park

Sorry to complain about being skinny…

Once in awhile someone I know will comment to me how I’ve lost weight. And they don’t say it in the way of, “Wow, you look great. You’ve lost weight!” No, by their tone it’s more like, “You look wasted and haggard. Are you eating at all?” It usually comes from older women around my mother’s age, and they usually say it in the exact same tone my mother would use. Whenever I see my mother (and I don’t see her that often now being that she lives on the other side of the country), her first words to me would undoubtedly be about my weight. If she said that I gained weight (usually with a happy grin), that was her giving me her stamp of approval. It meant that she thought I looked healthy and happy. If she said I lost weight (usually in a serious tone with brows furrowed), that meant that she was worried that I wasn’t taking care of myself and that I must be overtired. For those of you who have Asian mothers – you know what I mean.

I know that people sometimes tell me I’m losing weight out of motherly concern, so I’m by no means offended (so don’t worry if you were one of those people). It’s just that I never know how to respond to a comment like, “You’ve lost weight.” Should I say “Thanks”? But it obviously wasn’t meant as a compliment. Maybe I should say “Sorry,” but that makes it sound like I lost weight on purpose to make people worried. How about “I’ll try to eat more?” But if they only knew how much I already do eat. Since CC was diagnosed with failure to thrive, our entire household has been on a full-fat diet – whole milk, whole milk yogurt and cheese, butter galore. Do you see my dilemma? I usually end up just saying, “Yeah” and then changing the subject.

I think both my husband and I have fast metabolisms, a genetic disposition that we’ve probably passed on to our little son. No matter how hard we try and how much we eat, we just can’t seem to put on the weight that will make our doctors or mothers happy. Maybe they should have diagnosed our whole family with “failure to thrive.” I guess being an underweight family is better than being an overweight family. I wonder if there’s a weight watchers program for helping you gain weight.

My parents are due for a visit next month. I’ve got three weeks to pack on the pounds to make sure I get my mother’s stamp of approval. Wish me luck…or better yet, send me some cheesecake.

 

Librarians, elevators, and moths?

My method for picking books at the library is very random. Sometimes if I get a good recommendation, I’ll reserve the book online on the library website and the nice librarians will email me when it’s ready for pick-up. What a great service – so much easier than having to look up the call number and getting it yourself. But I can only do that if I have a specific book in mind, and usually I don’t. Like most people I see at the library, I get books by browsing the shelves. The problem is, it’s kind of hard to browse library shelves when you have a 2 year-old with you.

The minute we get to the library, CC wants to make a beeline for the elevator so that we can go to the childrens’ library which is on the 4th floor. Most of the time he’ll graciously let me make a detour to the hold shelf so that I can pick up any books on hold. But if I try to linger anywhere else, he’ll start to get impatient. Fortunately for me, those nice librarians were smart enough to put the shelves of all the new books right next to the elevator. Ingenius! So my method of book selection is basically to pull off whatever I can from the new books shelf in the 2 minutes I have while waiting for the elevator. And I love that those wonderful nice librarians also feature different new books by putting them in book holders on the side of the shelves so that I can see the cover without having to pull the book out. Love those librarians! Now, if only they could put a coffee bar next to the elevator too.

Last week I brought home my latest book – My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space/ The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman, by Lisa Scottoline (and her daughter Francesca). The title piqued my interest – you don’t often see the words “ordinary woman” and “amazing adventures” in the same sentence. Turns out, the book’s a compilation of short random vignettes written by this middle aged woman and her daughter. And when I say random, I mean random. My favorite chapter was her telling the story of how a moth once flew into her ear. I laughed so hard, I cried. I don’t remember the last time when a book actually made me laugh out loud.

I also really liked her writing style. She writes in short paragraphs with punctuated sentences.

Like this.

Sometimes they’re not even sentences.

Anyways, that somehow makes me feel like she’s telling me the story over coffee rather than me just reading it.

I finished the book in three sittings, then I went to the library website and reserved three more books written by Lisa Scottoline. I found out that she actually writes mysteries, legal thrillers to be more exact. I don’t typically read mysteries, but if her thrillers are about ordinary women and will make me laugh out loud, I’ll give them a shot. Guess I won’t need to pull random books off the shelf for a while.

 

 

Who am I again?

My husband constantly assures me that I’m a good wife and mother. It’s nice to hear, but I don’t think I really need that much assurance. Not to boast or anything, but I think I’m doing a pretty darn good job on the domestic front. CC is happy, a good eater and a good sleeper (if he could climb into the crib, I think he could put himself to bed), and by all counts, just an easy child. Sure, most of that is probably because of his inherited mellow temperament, but I’d like to think that my mothering skills had something to do with it too. I’ve also managed to have a good system going so that we have healthy meals, clean clothes, and the apartment is somewhat clean, even when it looks like a tornado just hit our living room. I have no problem with being a housewife (I prefer domestic engineer), and in fact actually enjoy what I do. I think I would choose being a stay at home mom over a successful career any day. (Sorry to any feminists out there who think this is a shame to womankind.)

The problem is, now that my life revolves around my duties as a wife and mother, I’ve forgotten who I was before I became a wife and mother. I don’t know who I am anymore apart from my two boys. On the rare occasion when there are no meals to be prepped, no dishes or laundry to be washed, no grocery shopping to be done, I honestly don’t know what to do with myself. Pretty sad, huh? I have a wonderful kind neighbor who will occasionally come and take CC out so that I can have a couple of hours to myself. It feels great to have the down time, but sometimes I feel lost when I’m out alone. On the one hand, it’s liberating to be able to go out without a stroller or diaper bag, but on the other hand, I feel kind of weird, like I’m missing a limb. (Or for anyone who has read or seen The Golden Compass, I feel like a kid spliced from her daemon). CC is the reason many people smile at me, or strike up conversations with me, so without him, I sometimes feel shy and not as confident in public. Can anybody else out there relate to this, or am I just crazy?

So…I’ve decided that it’s time for me to get a life, at least one that extends beyond being a wife and mother. It’s time for me to learn how to converse with people again…about topics other than potty training or good recipes. Maybe I need to pick up a hobby. Or take a class so that my brain doesn’t turn to mush. Or schedule more play dates…for myself. Anyways, if any moms (or dads) out there have good suggestions for how to re-enter the grown-up world again, please do share! I could use some ideas.

Remembering Brother Dave

Two weeks ago, Christopher and I took a last minute trip to Boston to attend the memorial meeting for Brother Dave Bekker. It was such a privilege to be there and hear the sharing from so many concerning our brother’s life and service. I wish I could have recorded the testimonies; they were all so precious. At the least,  I wanted to have a record of what I shared in my allotted two minutes. I had typed it out on my ipod – starting while at the park with Christopher the day before and then finishing in bed while struggling with jet lag the night before.

I had the privilege of serving on the team with Brother Dave when the Cambridge team was formed in 2004. I also lived with the Bekkers for a brief time and was in their home meeting for three years. I had many opportunities to observe how Brother Dave lived and served and I saw that his living was his serving. His ministry was just his person. He took every opportunity to minister Christ, whether he was in coordination, on campus, at the gas station, or at the dinner table.

Brother Dave was a real pattern to all of us who served with him. Firstly, he was a pattern in being a lover and enjoyer of Christ. His love and enjoyment of the Lord was always fresh. Secondly, he was a pattern to us in his faithfulness. There were days when I was wrapped up in my own petty problems and had no heart to care for others. Then I would see Brother Dave meeting a student on campus or bump into him coming down Mass Ave. on his blue scooter coming back from campus – and I would say to myself, “Sophia, I don’t care how you feel right now, if Brother Dave can still be out there on campus, you have no excuse not to be there too.” He never took pity on himself and so we had no excuse to take pity on ourselves. He was always faithful to present his body a living sacrifice, regardless of how weak that body might have been.

Brother Dave shepherded all the young full-timers on the team as a father. He used to set apart one day of his weekly schedule to have individual appointments with us so he could check on how we were doing. I really treasured those times and I don’t think I could have continued serving without that supply. One semester I was having a particularly difficult time, not so happy with my circumstances and very angry at the Lord. During one of my weekly times with Brother Dave, I broke down crying and told him I was ready to quit, not just serving, but the church life. He didn’t say anything, but just sat there and wept with me. I’ll never forget that. That shepherded me more that any words could have.

I will be eternally grateful to the Lord for giving me the opportunity to have known Brother Dave, to have served with him , and to have been under his shepherding and perfecting. He was a real drink offering, willing to be poured out on the sacrifice and service of the saints. May we all aspire to be imitators of his faith.

Til We Have Faces

Larry and I recently watched a short documentary about C.S. Lewis and I was inspired to read some of his works. (By the way, did you know that J.R.R. Tolkien led him to be saved?) I’ve read the Chronicles of Narnia (and watched the movies), but have never read any of his books for a more grown up audience. Since some consider him THE top Christian apologist, as a Christian, I thought at the least I should be somewhat familiar with what he said. So during one of my weekly trips to the library, I picked up a copy of Til We Have Faces.

Before I jot down my impressions of the book, I must first insert a caveat…or maybe a confession. I’m an avid reader, but mostly what I’ve been reading lately are floofy feel-good novels. Let’s face it…when you spend most of your time chasing a toddler around, cooking and cleaning, and having company over two or three times a week…what you really need at the end of the day is to curl up with a floofy, feel-good, chick novel. But after reading too many of those, I start to feel like a kid who has indulged in too much candy…you’re satiated for a while, but it kind of leaves you craving for something healthier and more substantial.

Just after a couple of pages into Til We Have Faces, I realized how much I’ve missed reading good writing.  I miss reading the kind of stuff you would study in a literature class…the sentences crafted so artfully that you have to go back and read them again and again, the stories that have layer upon layers of meanings. Til We Have Faces is Lewis’ retelling of the myth of Psyche and Cupid from the point of view of Psyche’s half-sister Orual. The first part of the book is Orual’s complaint against “the gods,” and the second part is the answer to her complaint. Although the story told is completely pagan, it’s full of Christian overtones – Lewis really was a genius in being able to do this. Some conjecture that this book was somewhat autobiographical – it was Lewis’ own complaining and railing against God. Orual’s story is similar to the story of Job. She suffers loss, challenges “the gods” and wants to know why, while boasting of her own righteousness. But in the end she sees that she’s not righteous at all, that even her love for others is motivated by self-interest, and that the answer to her question is a person. Pretty profound, huh?

This book had me thinking for days and I was even prompted to read some excerpts to my husband, not something that ordinarily happens with the books I read. Although it’s fine to indulge in candy sometimes…once in a while it’s nice to read something that will stick to your mental bones.

This was our week

If you’ve ever had a kid that had hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD), I feel your pain. If you were unfortunate enough to also catch it from your kid, I’m afraid I cannot even begin to imagine your pain. Calling it a disease makes it sound like some horrible rare plague… horrible it is indeed, but as we soon learned, HFMD is a virus that many kids commonly get in the late summer/early fall. There is no cure for it, but in normal cases, the body is able to heal itself in a weeks time. Our little CC had the misfortune of coming down with it last weekend, so by now hopefully the worst is over. The past few days have been one of the most trying times of my life as a parent thus far. Nothing is more excruciating than seeing your child in pain and not being able to do much about it. Here’s a rough description of what poor little CC has been going through in the last five days:

Day 1:

I notice that CC keeps sticking his finger in his mouth. I assume his 2-year-old molars must be coming in. He completely skips his nap after whining in his crib for an hour. Appetite begins to go down and he only has froyo for dinner.  In the evening I look in his mouth and notice two white looking canker sores. I give him some ibuprofen and put him to bed at 5:30.

Day 2:

Morning – refuses to eat and will only drink milk, but then throws up milk (all over me and the crib) because he’s crying so hard. Complains that his “teeth hurt.”

Afternoon – sleeps for only an hour. I notice sores covering the roof of his mouth and red bumps on his feet. Still relatively happy as long as we distract him with videos or take him outside.

Evening – Throws up again (on Larry) and won’t go to sleep until 10:30pm. Wakes up an hour later screaming in pain and won’t go back to sleep. We decide to take him to the ER at Children’s Hospital. Throws up on Larry again when we get out of the car. CC has gone through 6 changes of clothing, Larry 3, and me 1. Doctor confirms that he has HFMD and prescribes liquid vicodin. We get home from the hospital at 3:00am and CC finally goes to sleep.

Christopher eating an ice pop in the ER

Day 3 -

CC wakes up at 5:30 again and won’t go back to sleep. Larry watches garbage truck videos on youtube with him and then takes him out to get the meds while I get some extra sleep. We give CC the vicodin and it immediately knocks him out for 4 hours.  In those 4 hours I manage to do laundry, mop the floors, and do the dishes while Larry sleeps. CC wakes up loopy and dazed. Goes to sleep again around 9pm, but wakes up two times at night, needing more pain meds. Both Larry and I start getting paranoid that we’re coming down with it too.

Day 4 -

Only videos and walks will console him now. We give him ibuprofen instead of the vicatin, but it doesn’t seem to help. His tongue is now covered with sores. Decide to give him more vicatin in the afternoon so he can sleep. Wakes up disoriented and loopy again but is happy most of the evening. Actually ate some ice cream and ice pop today. Goes to bed at 9 again and wakes up once at night.

Day 5 -

Wakes up happy instead of screaming. Wanted panda puff cereal for breakfast. When I said it might hurt his mouth, CC says, “soggy” and “in own bowl.” So I give him soggy panda puffs in his own bowl. Doesn’t seem to need meds today and takes a 4+ hour nap. Eats a lot of ice cream and seems like himself again except for the fact that he talks like he has marbles in his mouth. Goes to sleep on his own with no crying. Cries a few times at night, but quickly goes back to sleep with some comforting.

Today is Day 6 and CC seems to be his normal happy self again. His speech is much improved. He’s been napping for the last 2 hours, giving me time to finish this post. It was rough, but I think we’ve made it through.

This morning Larry said he noticed red bumps on his hands…uh oh. Here we go again…

Back to school again

My husband works full-time as a staff member for Christians on Campus at UC Berkeley, which means that our life pretty much revolves around the University calendar. Sometimes I feel like we are perpetual college students who never graduate. We live three blocks from the campus and this weekend is move-in weekend. As a I drove around the neighborhood this morning, there were already tons of cars double parked on the streets, fathers busily unloading boxes from the minivan, mothers trying to hold back the tears and not worry too much, and the eager young kids who can’t wait to begin their journey of independence.

Every time a new fall semester rolls around, I experience conflicted emotions. On the one hand, I’m reluctant to part with summer, the only time of year when the streets here are relatively quiet and uncrowded. Now, that peace will be shattered, as once again the students return and descend on the neighborhood en masse, bringing with them their loud partying and late music playing. Sigh. I guess we could always move, but then the Lord reminds me of why we’re living here in the first place. Both my husband and I had pivotal experiences of the Lord in our college years; for me, college was when I really felt like I started to “know” God and I also learned a lot about myself. The experiences I had in those four years were life-changing, and I don’t think I could have had them if I had not found a community of believers to fellowship with.

Both Larry and I, as college students, have been on the receiving end in terms of being cared for by families who opened their homes to us, fed us, gave us rides, prayed for us and with us, etc. I think that is what motivates us to be here. It’s a real joy for us every year to have students in our home, and as they get into our home, they get into our hearts. It never gets tiring to witness the miraculous process that some of these kids go through in these four short years, as they grow from being immature, selfish teenagers to young men and women who know and care for God’s desire and purpose. If our small home three blocks from campus can contribute to that process just a little bit, it’s all worth it, even if it means occasionally enduring a little loud partying and late music playing.