Entries Tagged 'Blog' ↓

For the past week and a half my daily routine has consisted mostly of feeding the baby and sleeping while the little guy is sleeping.   I have barely had time to read the news or email.  I always knew that I would breastfeed because breast milk is “free” food for the baby and I don’t care much about what my boobs look like, but I have to admit that it is a lot harder than I thought it would be.   Everyday the little guy asks to eat more than ten times, and I feel like he is constantly attached to my boobs.   These are my thoughts on being a walking talking  milk dispenser.

The hubby has been a lot of help in cleaning the house and changing diapers, but when it comes to feedings he just doesn’t really have the equipment.  At those 4 am feedings,  as Lynette from Desperate Housewives said, I am  “the only bar in town” for the little guy.    It takes at least 30 minutes for the baby to drift off to dreamland with my nipple in his mouth and a dribble of milk down his cheek. Meanwhile I am nodding off and trying not to drop him.  I am getting used to these feedings in the middle of the night, so they are not so bad now.  My hubby is also able to get quite a bit of sleep through the night now so he is feeling less tired during the day.

The more bizarre aspect about breastfeeding is how the baby seems to have a remote control on my boobs.  One time I was doing some business in the bathroom, and he woke up and cried for food.  I wasn’t finished, and I just felt this tingly itch in my boobs and a few drops of milk dripped on my thigh.  Apparently this is called letdown, and it is really the weirdest thing I have ever experienced.  I basically get this urge to shove my boobs into his mouth to relieve the itch.   How can this helpless little chubby guy control my body like this?

I also find the look on my baby’s face both endearing and frightening when he gets close to my breast.  He makes the most animalistic grunts with his mouth wide open and shakes his head from side to side as if he is possessed. Then he latches on like a rabid little beast and starts gulping down milk.  After a few minutes he would slow down and revert back to the peaceful little baby he usually looks like.  I don’t know if all babies do this, but the ferocity in my child’s face when he sees a breast is quite funny.

I am trying to pump a bit of extra milk every day just for the times that I cannot feed him, but I think my breasts are still trying to catch up to the demand of the little nugget  so I cannot spare too much milk, yet.   So far the bottles I pumped really helped in calming the baby during a couple doctor’s appointments, and today my mom fed the baby with one of my bottles and I think it was fun for her.

Another positive side effect of this marathon feeding schedule is that I am losing the fat I gained during pregnancy.  I am only 4 to 7 lbs above my pre-pregnancy weight now and I am on track to lose the extra weight I had.  Of course, my hypercritical Asian mom is still saying that I am fat even though I just had a baby 11 days ago.

Overall, I think  breastfeeding is  very worthwhile for us even though I do feel like a food dispenser for my spawn.  The little guy rarely spits up milk, and he has gained enough bulk to be above his birth weight.  I know that we are fortunate that the baby is able to get enough food from my breasts and he is taking the milk well and the free breastfeeding class we took at Kaiser definitely helped.  My hubby loves that breastfeeding is very easy and clean because it doesn’t involve washing bottles or mixing formula.  He actually said to me that he cannot believe that many women do not even try to breastfeed because it is the most economic and easy way to feed a baby.   Then again, men do not have to deal with cracked nipples and tingly letdown.  I will definitely try to continue feeding the baby breast milk for as long as I can, even though it will be a little tricky when I start work again.

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Today I am done with my 28th week of pregnancy, and I am definitely a lot bigger than before.  The belly is really getting in the way and I am having a difficult time putting on my socks because it is hard to lift my legs up all the way.  These few weeks I have been getting a bunch of blood tests done and there will be more doctor’s appointments ahead.  The hubby has been able to feel the baby kick almost everyday and he talks to the baby often.  The baby is quite hyper and according to my hubby when the baby kicks me at night I would spasm a little and snore with each kick.  He thinks it’s funny, and I don’t remember it at all.

In terms of preparations, I am trying to document a lot of things at work about what I do  before I take leave in a bit over two months.  There are some things I do that are not really written down anywhere and it would be good for my coworkers to know where to find things necessary for releasing our software.  It has been busy, but I am making good progress.  The hubby and I also signed up for some prenatal classes offered by Kaiser that we will take in the first half of September.  There are four sessions that include breastfeeding and preparation for the birth.  There are also newborn care classes offered at the Kaiser health education center that we will sign up for.   Hopefully we will feel a bit more prepared after these classes even though realistically I know we cannot be completely prepared to be parents.  I am really just hoping that the hubby will be calm during the labor and delivery because he has repeatedly said that he will probably freak out.

In the meantime, I am also still working on my baby registry, and hopefully I will have time to go to some rummage/garage sales in the near future to scout out stuff for the baby.

As to my blogging, I am still taking the approach of writing whatever I want whenever I want to and that probably will not change when the baby comes.  I guess this is why this blog feels so random.  If you do not follow my other blogs, I have written some articles recently on Wise Bread that you can read.  Here are some of my favorites from the past few weeks:
5 Good Reasons to Keep Your “Clunker”
Top 5 Economy Based Board Games that Make You Think
How to Conserve Water by Harvesting Rain or Snow
Tips for Avoiding a Foreclosure Prevention or Loan Modification Scam

Finally, I think I have not completely digested the fact that I am going to be a mom soon.  Also I have found that researching about parenting is so much more difficult than researching  about how to save and manage money because there are just too many different opinions. For example, most people agree that it is good to start  a Roth IRA account while you are young, but I have found that some people actually think I am too young to have a child.  It is true that many people in my social circle do not have kids yet either due to graduate school or personal choice, but  I am 26 now and I think I am at a good stage in my life  to have a kid.  I actually wrote   a post here about the financial advantages of having children at a younger age and I still believe in what I wrote.  I have also found that  culture and customs also influence parenting decisions so it is difficult to say who is “right” in their child rearing methods.  Many people also get awfully defensive when you do not agree with their child care tactics and some folks can also get in your face when they do not agree with what you think is best for your child. (Rabidly defensive or well meaning women are both scary.)   So I guess it is best to just figure out what works well  for us on our own and  this child will just have to be an experiment since he is our first.

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I started writing this blog a little over  two years ago with this short post.   Since then I have written hundreds of posts here and also on Wise Bread.  This is not the first time I have kept a journalor blog, but this blog is definitely the one that lasted the longest.  So after two years of writing, I think it is a good time to reflect on what this blog has become.

First of all, this is  a great place for me to give my friends and family updates on my life.  After college my friends naturally dispersed all over the world and it is hard to contact everyone to just talk about what is going on because I am busy with work full time.  Since starting this blog I got married, bought a house, and  now I am carrying the little nugget below:

I have gotten many messages from my friends and family in the form of “Hey I read on your blog that…”.  Sometimes my friends also start discussions about the random topics I write about, and that’s always fun.

Next, writing down my thoughts from time to time is really therapeutic for me and my husband.  When I am blogging my husband gets a bit of “man time” and he  appreciates that I don’t talk his ears off about what I think all the time.  It’s not that we don’t talk to each other, but I know he is not that interested in a lot of the money and finance topics I write here.  Also, he is pretty much the first to know things that happen in my life so there is no point in telling him again.    This has been a great place for my rants and raves, and it will probably continue to function as such.

Additionally, blogging has turned into a good source of side income.  We are still donating most of the money my blogs generate so technically my writing is benefiting  people in my community and the far reaches of the world in a tangible way.  I don’t really do a lot of promotion of my blogs, but now there is a steady stream of advertising revenue.  This aspect of the blog wasn’t totally planned in the beginning, but I am glad that it is happening.

Through this blog I have also met some great folks at Wise Bread, and also collaborated with them on a book about frugal living.   This also wasn’t really planned, but it is a great result of letting random people read my thoughts.  Over two years my posts have received hundreds of thousands of page views, and I hope I made people think, laugh, and cringe just  a little.

In the last two years I definitely experienced and learned quite a lot of things and blogging has been a good way for me to chronicle my life and thoughts.  Sometimes I read my old posts as a reminder of what happened, and perhaps in the future my kid will be able to read this and learn something, too.

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Last week I celebrated my 26th birthday with my family.  First the hubby’s family had a party full of meat and games at his aunt’s house.  Then my parents made a trip to San Mateo and we went to a Chinese restaurant nearby.  Finally on my actual birthday the hubby took me out to The Village Pub, which is a Michelin starred restaurant that is practically down the street from where we live.  Needless to say I enjoyed spending time with my family and eating everything very much.

The hubby and I have not been to a fine dining  restaurant for this entire year  so it was really a fun treat  to go out.  The hubby actually convinced me to go because I was a bit hesitant about spending on my birthday this year with the recession and the coming of the baby.  In reality we are still saving around 50% of our income and neither of us got a reduction in income.  So we could afford to celebrate without worrying.  The hubby was a little apprehensive about the dress code since our experience with Picasso in Las Vegas, but we read some reviews of the Village Pub and found that they allow jeans and shirts.  After all, we are back in Northern California.

On the way to the restaurant the hubby said that if they try to turn us away due to dress then he would say something like, “can you really afford to turn customers away?  In this economic climate?”  When we got there we found that the whole place was packed, and most people were dressed quite well, but there were a few people in jeans and Hawaiian shirts.  The servers were quite prompt with us and there was not a problem even though we showed up in jeans.   The hubby sat down, looked around,  and said, “well, I guess they can afford to turn us away.”  We opened the menu and found that it was not overly expensive.  Each appetizer was a bit under $20, and entrees were between $20 and $40.  So it was possible to eat pretty well for under $75 per person.  So the hubby concluded, “I guess maybe  this is recession dining for the rich.”

We both agreed that we always find the appetizers and desserts the most memorable at these “fancy” places, and The Pub was no different. The hubby had a mushroom and sweetbread salad topped with a poached egg for his appetizer.  I had a shaved foie gras salad with plums.  Both were seasoned just right and the ingredients tasted very fresh.  I had a rack of pork for the entree and the hubby had a spring lamb in three preparations.  I think the hubby’s lamb was better than my pork.  The pork was well cooked and seasoned, but it was a bit boring.  Finally for dessert I had a plate of strawberries prepared in several different ways.  One preparation was in a beignet, one was a frozen bar of strawberry with cream, and then there were a bunch of fresh strawberries on french toast.  It was really a very large dessert.  The hubby had a peach dessert that was prepared like a cobbler and also a frozen manner.  Overall we enjoyed our meal very much and it was a very good birthday for me.

Looking back on the past few months I think we do have a lot of reasons to celebrate.  We both still have our  jobs and a wonderful family and we are also expecting to add a little boy soon enough.  I think that the horrid state of economy and the coming of the baby did add a bit of anxiety to our lives, but when I write it all down it seems that we are worrying for nothing much.   As my old roomie Cathy used to say, “all you need are faith, family, and friends”, and we have all three.

Anyway, I guess what I am trying to say is that I  think everyone who has a reason to celebrate this year should go ahead and do it as long as it is affordable.  There is no point in worrying about things you cannot control, and life really passes by faster than you can enjoy it.

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So before I forget I should write about the trip to see the baby on Wednesday.  My husband made me wake up more than a hour early and we headed  to the hospital after we took showers.  We walked through the little farmer’s market in the parking lot and got to the ultrasound department in the basement and sat down to wait.  The hubby gave me a bottle of water to drink because the doctor recommended that I should have a full bladder.

There was a bit of commotion as some paramedics wheeled in an old man, and then the radiologist called me into an examination room.   The hubby got a chair behind the doctor and I had to lie down on a bed, and unfortunately my head was behind the monitor so I missed most of the action.     All I could do was to watch the hubby’s face and he had this cute look that was a mix of amazement and amusement.  Apparently our baby was moving all over the place and it was hard for the radiologist to do her work.  My OBGyn ordered a regular anatomy assessment so the radiologist had to take pictures of almost every part of the baby’s body at specific angles.  Since the baby moved so much it was hard for her to capture the specific photos.

While the radiologist clicked and moved the ultrasound probe she kept on mumbling random comments like, “this baby is an absolute meatball”.  She also said, “this is the jumpiest kid I have ever seen, what did you eat this morning????”  I only had a bottle of water.

She also said to my hubby, “I don’t want your wife to get jealous now, you are having all the fun watching this kid here.”  The hubby later told me that he felt quite a bit of glee at that.  He thinks it is unfair that I get to feel the baby move all the time now and he still has not felt it.

So after 45 minutes of this she said, “mom’s bladder is getting a bit too full” and she allowed me to go to the bathroom.  She took quite a few more pictures after that and then turned the monitor over to let me see the baby.  It was actually quite interesting since I could see every little bone in the baby’s hands and spine.  It was also pushing against the walls quite a bit.  The heart was also very clear with all of its chambers and jumped very quickly.  I only got to look at it for about a minute.

Finally when all the pictures were taken the hubby asked, “do you know what the gender is?”

The radiologist said, ” oh yeah!”  Then she put the probe to show  an image that was right between the baby’s legs.

I saw it immediately and said, “well, it looks like a boy”, and she said, “yup you are right!”  The hubby was a bit disappointed, but I was happy that my guess was right.

Then I said to him, “well, it is your Y chromosome that made this boy!”

He said, “yeah I know, I messed up.  This means we will have another one!”

We took home a few pictures the radiologist printed out for us.  Several of them were profile pictures and one was of the baby’s face.  I thought that he really looked like the hubby.  He has the hubby’s nose and the bottom lip is shaped like the hubby’s, too.  Some people have said that I am nuts and it is too early to tell, though.   Later on,  we showed the picture to our moms and they could not find where the face was and the hubby had to mark notes on Flickr.   The hubby also said that he counted the little fingers on the baby’s hand and it looked good.  The radiologist told us that everything looked fine, and it seems that the ultrasound machine gave fairly good estimates on the baby’s size in relation to his stage of development.

Yesterday we told my hubby’s grandpa that the radiologist called the baby a “meatball”, and he laughed and said that should be the baby’s name.  I asked him what “meatball” is in Tagalog, and he said, “bolabola”.  I think that is a cute nickname actually.  Every Filipino kid has a nickname and now  the hubby’s family seems to be stuck on the “meatball” idea.   The hubby says that would encourage our kid to be overweight, though.

Anyway, we might go to a baby picture place in a couple months and take some 3D ultrasound photos of the baby.   By then the face would be better formed and we will see more clearly who he looks like.

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