Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Versatile Blogger Award

Thanks to Mama Lola for awarding me with the Versatile Blogger award! 


 
Rules for the Versatile Blogger Award:
  1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and include a link to their site.
  2. Add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your blog post.
  3. Nominate 7 fellow bloggers who you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly and include a link to their site.
  4. Let them know you have nominated them.
  5. Share 7 random facts about you.  
Seven random facts about me:
 
1. I don't like marshmallows because of their weird smell and strange texture.
2. I have a weird pulsing sound in my left ear that won't go away. 
3. I look at grocery ads and cut coupons all the time... except I always end up shopping at the same place, and I usually forget my coupons at home.
4. I have been going on 3 hour max. sleep stretches for about a year.  When I finally get to sleep through the night again, I won't know how I'll react!
5. My favourite ice-cream flavour is Blue Bunny's Bordeaux Cherry Chocolate.
6. I'm scared of heights.  My first recollection of this is when I was climbing up the Leaning Tower of Pisa with my Mum and my brother.   It was slippery and the outside first level didn't have a barrier.  A girl behind me slipped and pulled on me when she fell.  It freaked me out and I got scared.
7. I love Burger King's sausage, egg and cheese croissanwiches but I don't eat them very often because they're so unhealthy!
 
Seven versatile bloggers worth checking out:
 
1. Mushypea - chronicling her life with a 17 month old toddler and preparing to get married in the summer.
2. Cathysvoicenow - writer, college student, grandma, alcoholic/addict in long-term recovery and true friend who blogs from the heart about the trials and tribulations that have made her who she is today.
3. Denise - a twitter friend / new penpal and fellow preemie parent who thrives no matter what life throws at her.  She's just restarted her blog so go give her some support.
4.Victoria at Busy House Big Heart - fellow commiserator of low breastmilk supply issues and 3am friend when we're both up feeding our new babies.
5.Kylie at Kykaree - I was drawn to her because she lives in my hometown in UK! She has a strong following online so I feel like this is about as close to knowing a famous person I'll get.  She's funny and personable, and bares her soul about how she manages, copes and survives the abuse and trauma she has experienced in her life.
6. Sonya at somusti - I went to school with this smart gal.  She's a great writer and I love reading her blog.  It's fun to feel connected to someone who I haven't seen for over a decade!
7. Arlo's Dad - A Dad who writes to his son by blogging.  His posts are funny, heart-warming and a wonderful way to connect to his child.  I just think you should check out his blog. 

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Spinning Plates

The kids were sick the entire month of January, passing colds back and forth, culminating with a week of 'cold-cough-fever-vomit' for Lydia.  Luckily it was my last week before returning to work full-time in February.  At the very least, I was very efficient in a very inefficient 'do half a task here and there inbetween feeds and sick children' kind of way. Lydia also informed me that 'sick kids get to watch lots of cartoons and eat pancakes'...who knew? 


Of course, after the first week back at work, I was poorly myself.  I told myself to 加油   because it was evaluation time and I needed to get stuff done!!  Thankfully, my cough is finally getting better and I'm not having fits like I was.  It's been hard though as it's a training month which means 2 weekends away from the family.  One minute, Lydia is brimming with tears that I'll be gone.  The next, she's happy that it'll be just her, Rhys and Daddy.  It's hard to reconcile really.   

My house is a disaster zone.  Kudos to you parents who keep your houses spic and span.  You're welcome to criticise the cleanliness of my house; I'll be more than happy to hand you a vacuum and a load of laundry to show me how it's really done - no sarcasm intended. Truly, you're welcome to clean my house!  It's not that I don't notice the mess, I just efficiently wait for it to pile up then methodically work on one area at a time.  The fact that I seem to be cleaning up the same area whilst the others get increasingly worse hasn't escaped my notice, but it's the effort that counts, not the end result.  These days, losers are winners too, you know.  Or at least that's the parenting book I'm going by... when it suits me, of course.  Otherwise I'm going by Tiger Mama 101 - I'm Chinese, it's in my nature.  Whatever, call me a flip flop parenter.  This is what you get when you're trying to marry east and west philosophies.  I might have a dirty house but I do it really, really well.

Rhys is 3 months old already.  It's amazing how quickly time passes.  He grows so quickly.  A full-term baby makes such a difference.  He just...does things.  He grows, and gets sick, and gets better, and just is.  It's weird yet wonderful to not be a preemie parent.  It's also really great to have a second baby because we feel like we know what we're doing this time!



Wednesday, January 23, 2013

I Love You Because You're You - Virtual Book Club

Lydia and I are excited to participate in a virtual book club this month.  We could choose any David McPhail book and then create an activity inspired by the book.  I think it's a great way to encourage the kiddo to think about the theme of a book and what it means to her.

We chose to read this book:

It's such a beautiful book about unconditional love.  The mother always loves the baby fox no matter how she acts or how she feels.  Lydia and I have always lived this truth; Lydia would be in trouble, yet she would say, 'And you still love me.'  Cheeky monkey.  Of course, it's true.

We read the book and Lydia was inspired to make a dress...that is, whatever the book was, I think she would have been inspired to make a dress!  Now I can sew up a storm but I've never made a dress!  Luckily, google is my friend and I followed instructions (roughly and as well as my patience would allow) from Lana Tran's blog.  Here's Lydia in the dress we made - and apparently this was the pose because 'this is what princesses do'.



On one of the pages, the baby fox gives his mother a paper cut-out of a heart, then on the last page there's a heart too.  


Lydia did a great job helping to cut the heart out (with a lot of help!) and we tried hand sewing but she couldn't quite get the hang of it so I whipped the sewing machine out and Lydia was in charge of stuffing.    





We can't wait for the next time we can participate in the virtual book club!

You've made it to the end of the post, so here's a completely unrelated photo of baby boy.  He's 2 months old and doing wonderfully.


Friday, January 11, 2013

Losing Sleep

There's nothing like losing sleep to look after your child - it's a special kind of love.  Just the other week I thought to myself, 'This is the best type of sleep deprivation'.  It's like a rite of passage for new parents.  It really doesn't last for very long. I don't mind losing sleep for the good of the cause (you know, making sure the baby's not starving), but there are disadvantages to being awake at 4am.  The one that tops the list for me: My husband's snoring.  I have such a visceral reaction to it that I've taken to complaining on twitter just so I don't smother him with a pillow.  He is the best husband and Dad, just not when I'm awake at 4am...and he's not.



If you're up at 4am EST, think of me.