The Drivers

What a dilemma I am having.  My girlfriend from grad school is getting married on September 14th and my cousin is getting married on the 20th.  Both weddings are in the Bay Area.  After much discussion about this with Jason and my mom, we decided that I would go to my girlfriend’s wedding by myself.  I wish the we could go to both weddings, but after being on maternity leave for 10 weeks I’ve used up all my sick and vacation time, and it’s much too difficult to travel with the two kids when they are so young.  My dilemma is- should I bring Lila with me on my trip to my girlfriends wedding?  I mean, yes, it would be nice to be child-free for the weekend.  But since I am still nursing Lila, I am going to have to bring my breast pump.  It’s annoying having to pump every 3-4 hours.  For any mommy who has ever breast fed, pumping is not very convenient, especially when you are at a place where you cannot set up shop (e.g. at an outdoor wedding).  Also, I am still nursing Lila at night and it’s so easy to roll over in bed and feed her.  If I don’t bring her on this trip, it means that I’ll have to get up twice in the middle of the night to pump if I want to keep up my supply.  I am staying at two different homes, the two nights that I am in the Bay Area, so where the heck am I going to store my breast milk?  I mean, I guess I could stick it in their refrigerator, but I am going to have to bring a cooler with me when I transport it from one home to another.  And then when I fly home, do I check in the cooler of breast milk?  I’ll have to pack it in ice or use ice packs.  I guess I could throw out the breast milk, but what a waste of milk- that’s about 40 ounces!  During the week when Jason feeds Lila with a bottle, sometimes when I come home from work to feed her, she refuses to nurse because she’s had the bottle all day (vice versa- often she rejects the bottle on Monday because all weekend I nursed her).  So then I think, maybe I’ll bring Lila with me on my trip so that I don’t have to deal with the whole breast pump and breast milk situation, having her not wanting the boob when I come back from my trip, and it will be fun to show her off to friends.  But geez, I’ll be by myself.  Anyone who has babies, knows how much stuff there is for one little person.  I’ll need to bring her car seat, diaper bag, tons of clothes and diapers, and stroller.  I have no idea what I am going to do.  Does anyone have any suggestions??

This weekend, I took the kids and went to visit my parents in Seattle.  As always, we were busy visiting friends, but we had such a great time.  I grew up in Seattle and most of my friends from the old days still live here.  It’s so great seeing my friends with their husband and kids.  Sometimes I get a good laugh thinking about the old days when I use to go to the mall with my girlfriends (mall rats we were), sipping on Orange Julius drinks.  I digress…anyway, back to my story…  If we don’t stop, it takes us about three hours to drive from Portland to Seattle, it’s about 180 miles.  But with the two kids, we stop at least once to feed Lila and give Miles a snack, so it’s about four hours.  It’s not a bad drive and it goes pretty fast.  There’s Mt. Raineer and Mt. St. Helens along the drive so at least there is something scenic to look at.  At my parents house, they have a HUGE box of toys for the grand kids.  Miles loves digging in there.  It’s like new toys for him, so he’s always upstairs playing with something.  That night, I put Miles to bed in his pack ’n play.  Boy, did he have a hard time going to bed.  First of all, he is in a new environment- different room, different bed, and different routine.  I mean, we visit the grandparents a lot, but I think it’s hard for anyone to sleep in a new place.  The pack n’ play we use to put Miles to sleep in is the one we use for his ”time-outs” at our home.  It’s hard because he knows that going into the pack ‘n play means that he did something wrong, so when we put him to bed in it, he thinks he is being punished, but really, we just want him to sleep.  So he is whining and crying for me to get him out of time-out.  Anyway, after checking in on him about 4 times that night, he finally falls asleep.  The next day we get up and grandma (Ba Ngoai) gave Miles a handsome haircut.  He looks like such a big boy.  After getting his haircut and running around in the backyard, it’s time for Miles to go down for his nap.  I am scared that he is not going to go down right away and that I am going to have to fight with him to take a nap.  But I am surprised and he falls asleep right away.  Which is great because at noon, we are suppose to go to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese…which, by the way is a very scary place for a toddler.  The Chuck E Cheese characters are huge and life-like.  Miles clung on to me for dear life.  As you can see, Miles does not smile at all in any of the photos.  He finally was able to get down for a bit and play, but always keeping me in arm’s reach.  Once again, I am carrying both kids- Lila in the front pack and Miles on my hips.  We left the party about an hour later.  But I am sad, because I realize after we leave that I’ve lost Lila’s little jade bracelet.  It must be lost somewhere in Chuck E Cheese, and the chances of finding it are next to nothing.  It was super crowded there.  Can you imagine me getting down on my hands and knees looking for a baby bracelet?  Lila and Miles would have been screaming at me.  The bracelet was a gift from my brother when he went to Vietnam recently.  Anyway, we went back to the grandparents house and hung out with them for a bit.  Then, we were off, heading back home to Portland.  The kids were awesome.  They slept for the first 2 hours of the trip…ahhh, I was in heaven driving.  We got home at around 6pm and Jason had dinner ready for us.  I was beat and so were the kids, but we sure had a great weekend.

Just another day in Portland

I recently heard a research that suggested that 8 out of 10 children in the United States cannot name more than two different plants in nature.  That’s because children are not playing outside as much anymore.  I thought that was so sad.  When Jason and I grew up, we had plenty of time to play outside until our parents called us to come in.  When I was a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, I heard from many parents that they did not “allow” their child to go outside and play.  “Why is that?” I asked.  Many of my families stated that it was “too dangerous” to play outside, for fear of drive by shootings, or too much pollution.  How sad that you can’t play outside because you are afraid your child might get shot or have asthma, or that you can’t explore the great outdoors.  We will make an extra effort to teach Miles and Lila about mother nature and how beautiful and precious it is.  We love camping and the great outdoors, which is one of the reasons we are here in Portland.  Oregon is pretty much a huge campground.  So much vegetation.

People ask us, “Are you guys done?”  Meaning, are we done with two kids.  I want to confidently say, “Yes!” but it’s been hard to say this, so instead, I say not so confidently, “Ughh, I think so…”  I’ve always thought about having three kids.  But Jason thinks “why over populate this world?  There are enough people in it.”  The only time I can confidently say, “Yes, we are done with two kids” is when both Miles and Lila are screaming their head off and both demanding attention at the same time.  Our eyes go crossed and our head becomes coo-coo!  This happens at least once a day.  I think to myself, there is no way we can be outnumbered by our children.  I don’t know how people do it with five children or with twins.  At the end of the day, tired and weary, Jason and I are happy that we have one of each- a boy and a girl, but most importantly, we have healthy children.

I feel like superwoman carrying both kids at the same time

Every evening, Jason puts away all of Miles’ toys after he goes down for the night.  Miles’ toy box overflows with toys; you can’t even put the lid on it anymore. Most are in good condition, some are broken and some he has outgrown.  So this morning, Jason dumped them all out and both father and son went through each and every toy.  For every five toys Jason put in the “junk pile,” Miles took back one.  I guess it’s hard to part with toys when you are a kid.  I remember as a little girl, I had outgrown my dolls, doll cradle, and doll stroller, but I still LOVED them and wanted to keep them around.  Mind you, I was 12 years old at this time.  My mom promised me that she would keep them in storage and that she would give them back to me when I had a little girl of my own.  Of course, I didn’t believe her.  I mean, where was she going to keep all of this stuff anyway?  But true to her words, last month, my mom brought down a car full of my old toys.  I thought it was Christmas again.  I was so happy to see all of my old dolls and dolly clothes.  My mom even gave me a box of my own baby clothes!  I couldn’t believe that my mom actually kept all of these things.  I became incredibly nostalgic; remembering all those hours spent in my room playing with these dolls and the stories I made up for them.  As a little girl, I imagined how much fun it would be to take care of babies and become a mommy.  Now that I have my own “real life” children, it’s so important to have memories like this.  Although we threw out a bunch of Miles’ junky toys, we’ll keep the ones he has loved the most…all of his toy cars.  When he gets older, maybe he’ll give them to his son. 

This is a darling picture of Miss Lila wearing one of my dresses that I wore when I was a baby.  Now if only I knew where my mom kept the photo of me wearing this dress.

Tonight I gave Jason a break and took the kids to the Portland Children’s Museum.  The first Friday of every month, the museum has free admission.  Portland is such a child/family friendly town.  Los Angeles was not so much.  WOW, when Portlanders hear the word “free” families flock by the hundreds.  I swear everyone and their grandmothers were at the museum tonight.  At first, Miles and I were overwhelmed with the hundreds of people (note to self: always dress your child in BRIGHT clothing in a crowded area- makes it easier to spot them. miles was wearing navy blue and so were the other hundreds of boys there!).  But LOW and BEHOLD, I found my friend Amy (who is also a clinical psychologist and married to a TALL Caucasian dude) and her son Andrew (19 months old- 3 weeks younger than Miles) in the dump truck area.  Miles and Andrew were in HEAVEN!  This little area in the museum was made for boys.  There were tons of Tonka trucks- dump trucks, bulldozer, front end loaders, excavators, shovels…and LOTS of dirt.  Oh, Miles is so cute when he says the word “dirt.”  It cracks us up. 

What are some words that Miles says that are so funny…

Doo Doo Why = Butterfly

Doo Dah = Pacifier

Foo Fah = Burp Cloth

Loo Loo Loo = Lawn Mower, Bulldozer, Chain Saw, pretty much anything that has to do with machinery.

Shallow = Flowers

Lila is so funny.  Her smiles and coos are to die for.  It just melts my heart when she does this.  I am cherishing every moment.  I feel like she is growing up waaay too fast…I have to enjoy these moments because she may be our last baby!

So this is my second week back at work and it has been fabulous.  I only took off 10 weeks with Lila.  Unfortunately, at my new job, they don’t pay for moms to be on maternity leave.  Since I’ve been at this job for only 1 year, I haven’t accumulated a lot of sick or vacation time, so most of my maternity leave was “out of pocket.”  Jason is the stay-at-home dad.  I think every working parent should have an opportunity to be a stay-at-home parent for a week or two.  It’s a VERY tough job to be home with the kids.  I love seeing our kids grow up, but when you do it every day, day in, day out, it gets very old and tiring.  You smell like spit up and you don’t bother getting out of your PJs because there’s no one to see except your kids.  Though, my mother always said, you still want to look nice for your husband when he comes home from work (very old fashion thinking, but I do believe that is true).  I think it’s just my type A behavior.   When I was on maternity leave with Miles and Lila, we were out and about almost every day doing either playgroups or going out shopping.  Thank goodness my parents live close by for us to go visit and my in-laws were in town for a month to help us out.   When I hear my friends say “oh, I love being at home with my kids…”  I think to myself, “What the hell’s wrong with me? Why don’t I want to be home with my kids?”  Last week, Jason and I had a conversation about this.  Twelve years ago when I first started graduate school, single and independent, I must have had some thought that I wasn’t going to be the “stay at home” type.  I worked my ass off getting my doctorate degree, and I’ve worked my ass off getting to where I am today.   I love working with children and families.  I love my job and I love what I do.  But if I won the lottery, would I keep on working?  I think I would at least volunteer a few hours a week.   Anyway, back to Jason.  Jason is missing his recording studio and ultimately, we are going to try and get him back into the music scene.  We recently got an architect to draw up some plans on the addition to our house.  We decided to move forward with it and start the planning and building.  Right now, we are in the process of getting permits.  We’ll see how long that takes with the city.