I must admit, when Vince’s parents first arrived, it was quite difficult for me to get used to. First of all, his grandma also stayed with us so our house was jam packed. Also, she wasn’t feeling well so she had to use a lot of chinese medicine oil… which I worried wasn’t good for Ava… also, I’m not a big fan of the smell… so I mostly trapped myself in my room and opened the windows. At the same time, I was struggling with breastfeeding (still am!!) and I don’t think Vince’s parents understood what I was going through (i.e. not enough milk… having to feed when she cried etc…). It took about 2 weeks, but afterwards I got more used to his parents being here. Don’t get me wrong, i very much appreciated the help… but i was so used to my own parents that it was difficult to transition to his parents… just not the same. I can’t just ask his mom to do stuff for me the way I ask my own mom (mmm ho yee see to ask her to handwash my bras when I needed them quickly!) … in any case, they are very nice people and were very helpful. So all’s good.

Now we’re on our own. So far it’s alright… but then again, it’s only been 3 days and we’re eating food that Vince’s mom (and even some frozen stuff my mom) cooked. So it hasn’t really hit us yet. But I think we’ll be fine… I’m just dreading going back to work. It’s not so much that I don’t like work… it’s just that I’ll have to get used to not seeing Ava all the time… and worry about her while I’m at work… and worry that my milk will go away… and all that good stuff. I’ll also be super busy cuz I’ll have to work and deal with so many house chores… I know Vince is trying to help out now… but he’s just not too good at keeping the house neat and staying on top of the chores. Just his nature… i wonder if he will get better at it? … I know I can be very good at it but I worry that if I tire myself out too much, my milk production won’t be good.

Anyway, so that’s what’s up with me right now… I’ll try to post again once in a while so that life doesn’t just pass me by without me realizing what happened… or forgetting how I felt during these transient times in my life.

The main planned event was CJ’s birthday dinner. My parents, Vince, and I met up Uncle Johnny’s family to have Chicago style pizza in Palo Alto for dinner. After, we went to Pascal’s place for the first time. CJ took us on a tour of their place – he was so excited to show us HIS home! For me, it seemed the theme of that evening’s conversations revolved around how quick time flies. CJ is turning 9 years old in a few days. That seems inconceivable for me. Then, Uncle Johnny started talking about how when my baby girl turns 9, CJ will be 18… then mom brought up how she’ll be in her late 60′s at that point. That seems so scary to me. Growing up, mom has always been a constant in my life. It scares me to think that she may grow old quickly and that she will become an old and weak person at that point. Likewise for my dad. I will be old too… and that scares me so much.

How should I strive to make the best of the time I have? To make sure that I don’t take for granted my own youth as well as that of my parents’? Sometimes I worry that by living far away from my parents, I’m taking them for granted… and before you know it, time would’ve passed and they’ll be old and frail … and there’ll be nothing I can do about it. How can I strike a balance between living for myself meanwhile not taking my loved ones for granted? This seems to be a perpetual struggle in my life. Am I doing anything to strike that balance?

Today, we put down deposit on a daycare (chinese place)… it’s a pretty hefty deposit – $800. I think this makes it feel like like we’re finally DONE prepping for the baby. I’m sure we’ll figure out we’re missing certain things or that some things will NEVER get used…. but a least I think we are ready for the most part.

We went to dinner, just the two of us, as the last “2 people world” dinner of our lives! .. haha.. We had Sundance, which was great! I wonder whether we’ll end up bringing the baby with us to Sundance (one of Vince’s favourite places to eat) or whether we’ll simply not have time or energy to go there. We’ll see… I hope we’ll still be able to spend nice quiet time together (while baby’s sleeping peacefully in her bassinet or something… may not be realistic tho!!) …

I actually skipped my cake decorating class to make dinner together. It’s nice to finally have dinner out with just the 2 of us at a somewhat nicer place. With the recent economic times and our desire to get a house AND the added responsibility of a baby, we’ve been trying to eat in and be frugal. I don’t mind it at all though… actually, oftentimes, it feels good to eat at home. We can make decent, high quality foods for less than eating out. Knowing what’s actually on my plate always makes me feel good. I just wish sometimes someone else can give me a hand here and there to cook and clean up… we’ll see if Vince will eventually get the hang of it all.

My parents arrived tonight and it is actually nice to see them. We got so many boxes of clothes from my mom’s friends that I don’t know what to do w/ so many outfits for the baby! I’m fairly convinced that this baby won’t be able to get through all the clothes that she has. How lucky..

Anyway, I think we’ll sit on the names a few more days and see what we decide/come up with….

I’m trying to think what we’re missing… feels like we have everything we need for the baby’s arrival. I finally feel ready!… at least superficially.

Tomorrow is Good Friday and I’m supposed to go to my cake decorating class…. but I might skip it so that Vince and I can go get a nice dinner. A final dinner for just the 2 of us since my parents are also arriving tomorrow night (10 something pm). Right now, Vince and I are lounging on our couches and watching TV … life has been like this for us for quite a while and it has been so nice. I’m so going to miss this… but I guess it’ll be a whole different chapter in our lives with the baby. We’ll be parents! … such a scary thought. Sometimes I think back to our life back at 240D. It was so simple. Just 1 big room and our stuff was everywhere… as “charm” as my mom makes it sound (that really annoys me) and as poor/frugal as it may seem, it was, in its own way, a very enjoyable life. On the hot days when we drank ice water to stay cool or simply went out to Barnes & Noble to take advantage of the air conditioning… haha… we’re so funny … I kinda miss that life. I think the great thing about that life was that there was always someone else to experience it with; as bad and uncomfortable as it was. Being together made it all fine. Don’t get me wrong, I sure do enjoy the extra space we get now (this is still not a huge place…). I guess every change brings us something new and part of us will always miss (at least a little!) the old.

I guess that’s the name of the game… out with the old and in with the new. Hopefully the changes and the new challenges will bring us more happiness and help us grow to love each other more and more as we face life and its challenges.

We checked out some daycares today (and one yesterday) and keep finding things wrong with each place. I wasn’t too hard to eliminate each one of them for one reason or another. We’re going to see 3 more this week and hopefully we’ll find someone nice with a nice facility.

Today I also started researching on baby shampoo/bath gel. I will have to go to the stores and see/smell each one so that I can decide which is best…. so much to do.. and my energy level is getting lower and lowerl Hopefully, tomorrow, I’ll be able to make a decision about which brand to get… everything is so much work!!

It’s so weird… the other day, I wondered what we used to do on our weekends before we started preparing for the baby’s arrival (which takes up most of the time on our weekends)… soon, we’ll probably forget how life was pre-baby and wonder what we do with our weekends before the baby’s arrival into our lives. I’m excited but also sad to say goodbye to this very happy “2 people world” stage of our life… but I’m sure this new life will be worth our while enough to welcome the 3 people world!!!

We hung out in the city again today… just wandering around Union Square area and shopping for nursing bras (the final item to be packed in my hospital bag). It was nice to just stroll. Vince brought his camera along w/ his 35 and 50 prime lenses so that we could take random shots of me with my super big belly in SF. It’s always nice to just stroll and people watch. In the recent year or so, I’ve really stopped shopping much. I don’t know if it’s because the slowed economy, my sense of increased responsibility (with the baby and also the desire to buy a house), or influence by Vince, but I now think much harder about a purchase than I used to. I guess this is a good thing… maybe?

In any case, after our nice time in SF, we met up w/ Jackson, Cynthia, Mikayla, and Jeremy for dinner at a Chinese+Korean restaurant. It was very casual but nice. Then we had Eggettes .. yummy! …but not the most nutritious thing I can have. We went over to their place to hang out a bit with the desserts and they gave us another 2 big bags of clothes as well as some nice dresses that Mikayla had worn before. Also, Cynthia was kind enough to give us her nursing pillow from the hospital when she had Mikayla. I’m so grateful that we have family like them that are so generous with their stuff and also their knowledge and experience with their kids. It’s nice that they can tell us which products work or not so we know what to get… or better yet, to use their hand-me-downs.

Which brings me back to the idea that I no longer enjoy buying things. Sometimes I actually feel guilty from it. We went to Yun’s place (where they shared their home made Dan Tat’s and mickey mouse egg waffles) after chatting at Jackson’s and Cynthia’s and it came up that the last purse that I bought was the Gucci bag that I bought during our honeymoon.. almost 2 years ago! I used to buy at least a few in a year! … But somehow, I’ve lost interest in it… no desire at this point to buy nice and extravagant things…. rather, we went all out and bought a nice stroller and an organic cotton mattress (+bedding) for our crib. Not sure if it was necessary to spend that kind of money… but somehow it seemed like the right thing to do.

Despite the swollen hands and the lack of things being about me anymore, I am excited about the pending arrival of our little one. I think I’m ready for this new chapter in our lives… the swollen hands are just a side effect of this bigger better thing that I’m sure will be soon forgotten when I our hug our baby girl for the first time…!

With all that done, am I ready? I guess so. Part of me is sad that this baby will soon stop being a part of me. I’ve grown so used to having her kick and move inside of me. Afterall, it has taken 9 months for me to slowly get used to her growing inside of me and it’ll be a matter of hours for her to leave my womb. I guess this will be the first of many instances of me having to get used to her leaving me throughout her lifetime. After the birth, I think the toughest thing to do will be to go back to work and having to drop her off at daycare…

Speaking of which, I’ve called dozens and dozens of places in hopes of finding someone affordable that also sounds trustworthy and “good enough” for our baby girl-to-be. So far, I think I may have found one such person, but I haven’t met her yet so it is still an unknown. In an ideal world, I would be able to stay home with her until she gets older … but that would also mean my having to give up job and in a sense, my own life (i.e. life outside of work). Financial implications aside, I honestly don’t know if I can or want to be a stay-at-home-mom whose world revolves around the husband and the child(ren). I’m secretly hoping to be able to find a nanny who can come to our home everyday to take care of our baby. That way, I’ll know that at least our baby will be in a familiar environment that is as clean as we keep it. And, somehow, home always seems so much more comfortable than some daycare center or someone else’s home. I guess it all comes down to money… can we actually afford to have a nanny come take care of our precious little girl everday? Probably, but we’d be stretching and it might not be the wisest thing to do…. because this is just the beginning and I’m sure the cost of raising this child will only become more and more challenging as she grows up … besides, we’ll likely have more children after her (if we are so blessed), which means our financial responsibility will only grow with time.

On a totally different note, I went to the first of 4 cake decorating classes that I signed up for. It is the 2nd of 4 courses and I had a really good time. I’m so glad I signed up for it! I had hesitated since I wouldn’t be able to go to the classes as soon as I deliver. The instructor was really nice to tell me that if I do deliver before the course ends, that she’ll give me make-up classes for whatever I miss… so that’s nice to know. Tonight, we learned to make rose buds with buttercream icing as well as reverse shells. Laurel, the instructor, also showed us how to make Royal Icing and how to use it to make chrysanthemums with it. It was fun. I now have 4 mums drying in a box, which (if I make it through all 4 classes before giving birth), will be used along with other types of flowers we make through this course to make a final project cake. We’ll see how many classes I actually manage to complete before my baby girl comes. Hopefully I’ll be able to go to the make-up classes during my mat leave.

Vince and his co-workers are playing poker downstairs now. Earlier, they were listening to the Five For Fighting song 100 Years… and I couldn’t help but think how short life is and how quickly we’ve arrived at the lyrics “A kid on the way…” and “A family on my mind…”. It’s scary how quickly days pass and I always worry that I’m not making the best use of them. Who’s to judge what the “best” use of my time is, though? I suppose, I’m the best judge of that for my time… but often I think of a Chinese proverb that my grandma always used to repeat to me … it goes something like this: A chain of gold vs. a chain of time, the chain of gold cannot buy the chain of time.

In any case, I’ve probably rambled on for too long today. I’ll leave some of my thoughts for tomorrow. Now back to researching diapers…

My baby is due on the 15th of this month so I’m expecting to deliver any time now!  Yesterday, I officially reached week 38 of my pregnancy, which means I’m full term!  At this point of my pregnancy, I’m a bag full of mixed emotions.  Part of me is excited to meet the baby, part of me wishes for the baby to stay inside of me longer because I’ve grown so attached to her being with me all the time…. meanwhile, I mourn the end of “life as I know it” … the simple life of being just the 2 of us.

In a sense, life as I knew it ended as soon as I realized I was pregnant.  I immediately had to give up sushi and wine.  I had to stop training for a half marathon and also watch my heart-rate at the gym.  I also stopped spending money on myself (goodbye nice purses and shoes! … time to save up for that bugaboo… or that breast pump …or those diapers…).

We’re now looking for daycare and realizing just how obscenely expensive it is.  The ironic thing is that no matter how much a place charges, the quality of care still seems questionable to me.   I know myself to be quite a picky and particular person… so I’m sure that whereever we drop our child off, I won’t be 100% (or even 95%) satisfied.  I guess i’ll just have to learn to settle.

Alright, enough for now.  My belly is asking me to feed it… I shall go make oatmeal with freshly ground flax seed so that my little one can have a bigger brain …