A Sad Blogging Year

Oh the neglectful blogger that I am... the only consistency that I have about blogging this past year is the lack of it...

never mind that since I jumped on the facebook bandwagon, blogging fell by the wayside. I only had time for one...and the fb instant and quite short status update is so much easier (besides all the other time-sucking apps and things on there to do).

I'm sorta sad that I don't have the blog to go back and read upon. But that's what happens to me whenever I get busy with life or pregnant... I don't blog and then I don't have the entries to go back and read. What I DO have is a ton of photos though. It'd be practically impossible to share them all. This week I've been going through Jarom's birth and made a little memory book from it, and now I'm going back to Hannah's birth photos and going to make her a little memory book from it. Shutterfly has so many promos that I got with all the random baby stuff, that I just can't let those promos pass.

I haven't been able to write anything for awhile. And when I did get the motivation or when something cool happened, I'd think, I should blog about this, but then I'd be like, but I haven't blogged in soo long, I need to catch up. Which then psychologically it became this daunting task, and so I'd just not do it at all.

I know I should write about Jarom's birth. It was too fresh and too psychologically tender to write about the first month...Last week it was 6 weeks...and this upcoming week is 2 months. I feel better about it overall, but it'll probably take me awhile to write about it. I mean it took me over a year to finally write about Hannah's birth! You can read about that here. (oh and I as I reread that one...I left a lot out...it was the clean, happy version...but one day I'll fill all the gory details in)

So tonight, even though I'm tired, and I was going to go to bed, I came into the office b/c I was actually closing the linen doors, walked by the computer...and lo and behold, it sucked me in. I just HAD to turn the screen back on, and get on. First it was the neurotic checking of email that I have - even though I may not get anything new of import (besides retail ads). It's the rush of hoping for something new. And to check on the new liu-anderson.com website to see if it's fully propagated (been accessible to me intermittently)...and then that led to checking statcounter for the 1st time in over a year. And then amazingly...I started checking stuff I hadn't checked in a long time - like the blog! I did change the baby counters right after Jarom was born (instead of having this floating baby thing on the side saying I was like 45 weeks or something... anyways... I've decided to blog.

Another thing daunting on me was I've been wanting to start a whole new blog - a family blog (I've been wanting to for over 2 years!) not just a Hannah blog. But setting it up...well, haven't gotten around to it - of course I can just use a template one..but I'm so weird about stuff like that. It's the perfectionist in me, I have to have all these things just right before things "go public". and the procrastinator in me - which can find all sorts of reasons NOT to start something.

Like the liu-anderson.com website...(it'd been forwarding to the photo blog for a long time)
We'd paid for a flash website design and had been hosting of the website for a year and I hadn't gotten it close to going public at all. And even though I'm still up in the air about how much work I want to take on...I didn't want to just throw away the chunk of initial monetary investment and NOT renew the site. When I 1st got it I worked on it, then got busy, then sorta worked on it again, but after pregnancy... it all fell by the wayside. I HAD wanted to do all these projects when I was pregnant, but basically it didn't happen. ANyways, of course the perfectionist in me couldn't just let the sucker "go live" without all of the tiny details taken care of... well, after obsessively working on it last week to completion, it's now live! of course, there are still a lot of things that I feel need to be done on it, but it's live.

Now that we have 2 kids...Hannah's blog should just be her blog... for updates about her...and we should have a family blog b/c well, now we are 4. Plus I've felt that having so many blogs spreads me thin. I had the H blog, then my musings blog, and then the photo blog. And I'd post on each at different times. I've been wanting to consolidate... And make it maybe just a G blog, where it's everything that I care about - all in one place - so much easier. But of course, I have to ponder & mull over it for a long time before I take any action.

Before I forget in this long stream of consciousness post. The Links on H & J's names on the side go to their new shutterfly sites. Jarom's birth and Hannah's birth photos are both up. They are password protected. So you can email me or leave a comment to get the pw and sites if you want.

Hannah is now over 2.5 years old. She's had a TON of developmental milestones. So the reason I had to close the linen closet doors is...Hannah wet her bed for the 1st time tonight since being potty trained and sleeping in panties. She's been potty trained since she was 2 years old. I think by March at the latest. Of course the quickness of taking herself to the potty increased through this year, and now she completely runs to the bathroom on her own, gets on, flushes, washes her hands etc. Though we kept her in a diaper at night for most of the summer. once in awhile she'd wet her diaper, (like once a month) but most of the times it was dry in the morning. We had tried going diaperless before and she did well, but kept her in for that rare chance. i didn't want to risk the bother of changing sheets etc. (which we did have once or twice when we tried panties at night prematurely). She woke up around 2am-ish crying and saying she needed to potty and she wanted to potty in the toilet. Daddy took her, and I checked her bed. She had just wet it a little bit, but it woke her up. I changed her sheets...therefore the linen closet...and anyways...

it's led to me blogging again!

She's had so many cute milestones. She's sooo talkative now. She know her ABCs and her numbers. She counts 1-10 great and then it's funny b/c after that she just jumps around in the teens skips some and up to 20. She knows how to read a bit...recognizes easy words and pics. PBS Kids has been my lifesaver this past year - during the pregnancy and now with the new baby. She loves Caillou (tho we dont like whiny Caillou and it's taught her some bad things - like wanting to draw on walls or cut stuff up), Barney (singing & dancing), Elmo (why do all kids like red Elmo?), and Word World. She LOVES world world and wants to watch it and will make words. She likes Super Why & Curious George too. And we check out DVDs from the library - we've chosen to avoid satellite and cable. She really likes Yo Gabba Gabba (which we've decided that we like too b/c she doesn't pick up anything bad from it - but tells her to eat good stuff "party in my tummy", and "I like fish" songs or "keep trying" songs). She has most of the songs and words and sayings from these shows memorized and recites them. She makes up her own songs too. Ever since humming her 1st classical piece...which I blogged about here. In May, I played a concert with CC Cathedral (the Cathedral's Got Talent Concert) with full symphony and choir. One of the pieces was "All Creatures of Our God and King" and afterwards for many weeks, she'd be singing "alleluia, alleluia" while walking around. She now sings whatever songs come into her head.

Regarding music, we acquired a real piano this year (a wholehearted thank you to the Murphys!) Last year we bought a Casio Privia Keyboard Piano, and she played on it a lot, but then she mainly would press all the other buttons and not the keyboard. She liked all the other cool functions on it. Since acquiring the real piano, she's actually been able to focus on the keys and not get distracted by other functions. She'll sit there, play her notes (she makes them up) and also sings (whatever is on her mind).

This summer we also got a little guitar and my mom brought down the little violin. We went to Mexico for the 1st time (Progreso) and bought Hannah this little play guitar (but fully fuctioning) off the street vendor. Hannah loves the guitar, but we had to put it up for a few months b/c she started stepping in it. Hannah fussed for the violin for a long time (b/c I told her a-ma was bringing her a violin). she even climbed on precariously balanced boxes to get it in the room my mom was staying it (it was stored rather high too). She's still a bit young for it though - not that she doesn't enjoy sawing at it, I'm just afraid she'll break it, so we put it away. Last week though, we got out the guitar again, and also the little violin, and my Celtic drum, and we've been "playing music" as a family. Hannah loves it! And I think Jarom likes the noise too. All three of us take an instrument and "play it" and then we switch and play another instrument. Quite fun!

Oh and we watched the movie "August Rush" last week, and that was probably what prompted the musical instruments being brought out. We all really loved the movie - about the little orphan boy, son of musicians, searching for his parents, having music coursing through him, following the music, and wanting everyone to hear his music so he could find his mom and dad. We loved the soundtrack, the guitar playing, and the theme (by composers Mark Mancina and Hans Zimmer - we love good movie soundtracks).

Oh, and this year we also got a Netflix subscription, and between that and Hulu, I spent many hours being entertained during the pregnancy.

Okay...so between sleep deprivation from the end of 3rd trimester, Jarom's birth, then being back in the hospital 9 days later & ICU, his night feedings, diaper changes, almost daily upchucking, the computer (random fb and other stuff), wking on the website, my natural night owl tendencies... why am I up? i soo should be in bed, but here i am blogging... a little loopy in the head...

I don't even remember what else I was going to write about... I know I didn't write much about Jarom, b/c I feel that this is mainly Hannah's blog, but he's so cute! He's grown much faster than her (but he was 40 weeks so 3 weeks ahead of her in growth at birth) and he's bigger. She loves him so...and is a great helper. Though sometimes she can give him too much love. on that note...I'm going to close this post...

MJ's passing & Hannah's reaction

So with all this media about Michael Jackson on TV, Hannah pointed to the TV and said just now "Look Mommy! It's a mouse!"

Apparently Hannah thought the the photo of MJ with sunglasses and his hair was a mouse.

It is sad that he passed away. His music is his legacy, his life was a mystery, and his death...so we're all waiting for autopsy results.

Yes...my return to blogging...a random thought. Should be a tweet on twitter, but alas, I am not going to start twitter for now - I'm going to fight it. Facebook has already sucked me in to the point that I don't blog anymore...so that my fb updates are enough (but not enough) b/c I really need to journal about our family.

finally something...

so since i can't sleep...though i'm tired...

i finally came up with an invite for the small b-day get-together we're going to have for hannah this weekend when some of our family is in town....and with a few friends too... although her official b-day was a month ago. daddy had told mommy he wanted to have the party when family came in...so...here it is...


...of course it is edited with personal contact info taken out for the web...

i finally decided on the animal theme last Saturday, and Hannah enthusiastically agreed with a resounding "yes!" when i asked if she wanted "animals" for her birthday party. i personally ruled out Elmo...Baby Einstein...Hello Kitty. i wanted something less "branded" and more universal. she loves animals.

Happy Birthday Hannah!

Hannah you're 2 years old today!!! sometime in the afternoon officially... Happy 2 years to you! We LOOOOVe you! You've grown so much!




Daddy took these pics last night at dinner. Drinking a berry & tofu smoothie. She loves them. YUM!

A morning in the life of Hannah without mommy...

Since becoming hormonal, nauseous, and varying degrees of tired to exhausted...Hannah has had the chance to spend many "unsupervised mornings" on her own in the past month while mommy is "passed out" in one way or another somewhere...(either napping, still sleeping, zoned out, nauseous, etc.)

This morning was another one. They've varied from her watching DVDs of various Baby Einstein or Elmo or Disney (namely Nemo), or her being taken care of by daddy before he goes to work, or her crawling all over me and suckling on me until I hurt, or her diligently trying to drag me out of bed to ask for this or that or mornings like this morning...where something "interesting" happens (aka Hannah gets into something or wreaks havoc on something).

After a crazy night of Hannah waking up and getting up 3 times screaming and crying through the night and then also waking up early (she had a early bedtime from not napping the day before)...and daddy putting her back into bed (instead of sleeping through the night and having an early morning or even sleeping in)...
she finally woke up and wouldn't go back down, and dragged mommy out of bed for her morning soymilk and breakfast (which she insisted on nilla wafers - which I didn't fight - instead of the usual oatmeal with raisins or oat cereal).

I left her in the kitchen to eat, and lay back down in bed. Sometimes she'll come with me to the room, and drink her soy there or flit back and forth, but always jabbering or singing. I dozed off a bit, but then woke up to the disturbing lack of noise from Hannah. I called her name and asked "What are you doing?" no answer, silence. Usually she replys with a noun on the subject of what she's doing and then responds with her own question, "Mommy, doing?" to ask me what I'm doing.

Due to the lack of reply, I was immediately brought to alertness, and got up to see where she was. I looked into the kitchen, the pantry door was open, and the light was on. As I approached, I could see she had pushed the stepstool into the pantry (as she's discovered this past month). As I approached I saw an Andes mint chips bag, and as I got closer I saw that there were Hershey's kisses wrappers all strewn about in a pile on the stool. There were a few unwrapped kisses all lined up on the stool and some in her hand. There were some chocolate smears on her face and a huge smile. Once she saw me, she quickly stuffed the chocolate in her hands into her mouth, and also very very quickly grabbed the remaining kisses on the stool and stuffed those into her mouth. All I was doing was repeating "oh no Hannah, oh no."

She had found a chocolate stash.

I picked up the Andes Mint bag to check that it was intact, a sigh of relief escaping when I saw it was still sealed. I looked around to see where the other chocolate was, and it was in larger bag with other unopened bags of chocolate chips, baking goods, and an opened bag of Hershey kisses.


Daddy had rearranged the pantry.

Whereas the chocolate and baking goods used to be high up on a shelf and behind some items where Hannah could never reach nor see, they were now clearly accessible to her. She had taken advantage of unsupervised "mommy is passed out" time and found the chocolate and had happily gobbled down who knows how much sugar!

I asked her to pick up all of the Hershey's kisses foil wrappings and throw them away. She happily obliged. I removed the chocolate bag and moved it up high. I removed the step stool from the pantry, sighed, and closed the pantry door.

I called Hannah's daddy to vent my frustrations and inform him of the bad choice of bad relocation, and he laughed and laughed as I told him the story.
The 1st thing he asked was, "Did you take a picture?"
"No." I replied. "I cleaned it all up already. (sigh) I didn't think to take a picture."

Hannah was happy and wired for quite some time. Mind you, this was not Hannah's first encounter with chocolate. That would have been sometime last year a little bit after her 1st birthday. We had been ever so vigilant at keeping her away from sugar and candy...

So...flashback to April of 2008. I was at Hancock Fabric's with a friend to buy curtain material for our new house. I was getting the fabric cut when I noticed that Hannah was nowhere nearby. Hannah had run off. When I found her, she was at the front of the store by the cash registers happily helping herself to Lindt truffles from the candy displays. There were half eaten truffles strewn on the ground, truffles in her hands, in her mouth. She'd chewed through the wrappers and smooshed the chocolate. I was completely aghast! Our friend had a camera on her and took a photo afterwards for us. The ladies at Hancock's were nice enough to clean up the mess and not charge us for all of the chocolates that Hannah had mauled.

I don't know if you can see from this photo, but she has chocolate smears on her face, and you can see some of the truffles strewn about in the bottom corner of the photo.


photo from Spring 2008 when Hannah was just one yr old.

So you think I'd end the post here...seems like a good place... but last thing to add.

We were at the local "Sunharvest Market" in CC this afternoon with another friend (the only organic place for miles around). Hannah had been pretty good sitting, but then she wanted out. We were in the produce section. As I was looking at produce, I noticed Hannah not next to me. I turned around, and a worker from the store was staring at me. I then noticed Hannah next to the blueberry display and little dots all over the floor. In her efforts to help herself to some berries, she'd spilled half a container all over the floor. I was again aghast and rushed over to her. I picked her up and said, "no no," and started to pick up the mess. Another worker helped and the one who was initially staring was just laughing. Hannah kept on repeating "Ah-ma, Ah-ma" and I then realized she thought that one of the workers (the staring and laughing one) looked like or reminded her of my mom (b/c she was Asian-ish, petite, had darker skin, and a short haircut).

Okay finally...the end of the post. I could post about more Hannah "wreaking havoc" stories from this past month...but I'm tired. and can't remember them all.

Continuing Cuteness

All afternoon Hannah refused to go to the potty. She has also developed a bad habit of almost going to the bathroom before going peepee. Combine that with the discomfort of wearing a diaper and you get what happened today. I was sitting at the computer in the office when I heard those bare little feet run across the tiled floor in a hurried scamper; I looked up just in time to see that our dear daughter was holding a single square of toilet paper (very conservative) and running very intently toward the living room; I followed her to her destination where she stood over a little wet mess of peepee quickly dissolving the single square of toilet paper and soaking into the carpet. I just smiled and started to clean up, annoyed at the mess, but internally laughing to myself as I noticed the diaper she had been wearing was removed and wadded on the floor, most of the contents of the diaper bag strewn about, and a fresh diaper in Hannah's hands. She is so interesting, and so cute!

New Ticker...

Yesterday I heard the heartbeat for the 1st time! So exciting!!! Yes I'm growing a "parasite" again (that name is with lots of love).

so this is the reason I've been so sick, tired, not on the computer at all. Lowered immunity, nasty flu, bronchitis complications...nausea...lots of it...thankfully not too much vomiting this time around. I'm thankful for meds.

But it is definitely bringing back all sorts of memories of when I was 1st pregnant with Hannah. So much better that I'm not on the East Coast with all sorts of funny smells from the city.

1st time around with Hannah was miserable. The nausea. The vomiting in layers...yes...in layers... contrary to popular textbooks...your stomach does not churn all of your ingested stuff into chyme all at once...at least not when pregnant. mine would come back up in the reverse order of what went in. consistently every day for months.

We were in living New Jersey without central air and I was commuting to Manhattan via bus & public transportation. Oh the smells, the temperature changes... eventually I just couldn't do it anymore...and I was so tired.

Hannah's been really good for me. Thank goodness for that! I'm so grateful for that! She's happy if I sit her down with goldfish crackers or cereal or apples/fruit or dried fruit. Her sippy of soymilk or juice. Either Baby Einstein or Elmo in the DVD machine. She's good...and I can rest/nap.

I can also rest in her room and she can occupy herself for hours. She'll play with puzzles. She plays with her toys. she climbs in and out of bed. we'll sing songs. She sings to herself. She sings along with her toys, her electronic piano. She doesn't get into too much trouble. Now if I'm asleep in my room...and she has free reign of the house, my bathroom, then she gets into all sorts of stuff.

So...her breastfeeding ticker will still be up...b/c she refuses to give it up. Not a necessity...just a comfort for her. She doesn't really need it, but wants it when tired. And I'm too tired to fight her.

As for potty training...she's good at telling us when she's pooped. She'll sometimes tell us as she's starting to so we can put her on the toilet. We're trying to get her to tell us BEFORE she goes in the diaper. Sometimes she'll head towards the bathroom and put her seat on the toilet. Now if she would only do that with pees. We have to be vigilant about taking her to pee (or reminding her to go on the potty), but I'm not as vigilant as daddy.

Bad blogger....

I've been sooo very bad at keeping up on the blog these past 2 months!!! Life got busy with the holidays, travelling, and work...and now it's 2009! So here's my 1st official post of 2009!

Hannah's grown so much. She talks all the time! The past couple of weeks, I've stuck her in front of either a Baby Einstein DVD or an Elmo DVD to keep her occupied. From her throwing up, then daddy throwing up & getting the flu, to me throwing up & being sick with the flu, to complications with bronchitis...and this stuff that just won't go away in my lungs... I've been sick the longest. Hannah got over her stuff quickly. She didn't really have a fever. Though she has some congestion that's lasted...runny nose...but not cloudy - clear, so it could be allergies. Daddy got over his stuff in about 5 days.

I've been so tired, and sleeping...and resting... She's been so good though. She keeps herself occupied with her toys, if I'm resting in her room...and she'll play.

We've tried to wean her....she's down to wanting it only once in a while when she gets tired, wants to nap, and I'm laying down. Hopefully we can wean her before she's 2...which is next month! Wow...time passes fast!

Today Hannah came with me to the doctor's. She was really good with Vicki who came along to help. Each time I'd come out to the waiting room in-between, she was doing something else. She took off her socks and shoes and was playing peek-a-boo under the chairs. Another time she distributed magazines to all the people in the waiting room that didn't have magazines. She also just sat happily in the chairs flipping through magazines.

She's always singing. Either ABC's, counting, Old Mac Donald, Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday, Elmo's World or any other song that's she's heard before. She'll sometimes make up her own songs too. Funny girl. And she adds words of her own to existing songs... Like "La la la la, La la la la, Elmo's bib" (b/c she has an Elmo bib).

As for me, I've decided I need to consolidate blogs or I won't be able to keep up with them...and I'm hoping to do that for 2009. Consolidate my blogging down to one personal blog - so hopefully I'll blog more often than not...hopefully a few times a week! And I want to focus more on being a mommy & documenting my family's life...and not so much time on other people's photos and lives...

I need to go to bed. I've been falling asleep before 9pm the past few days...and now I'm up "late"...

Cutie Hannah

Hannah was helping daddy cook one morning, while waiting for the cooking food, Hannah decided to stick her hand into the raisin box and get a few raisins. "Okay," I thought, "I will give you a bowl of raisins." So I promptly got out a bowl and put some raisins in it. "No, no, no, no, no" began Hannah. And putting the bowl behind another box on the counter, she said, "Bye, bye." and waved goodbye to the bowl.

Late Nights

Hannah is our first child. DW and I have not been subjected to the utter exhaustion that comes with years of sleep deprivation. I can remember some of what happens at night.
Hannah is like most children I suppose, she has so much fun with mommy and daddy that is just too exciting to go to sleep at night. At any moment during the night that she finds herself alone, she must seek out and find mommy and sometimes daddy. As parents, we construct obstacle courses to keep our children where we want them. We say we want to keep them safe or to keep them from getting into something that may hurt them, but what we really want is some time to regain our sanity. Our children love us so much that they don't understand why we would EVER want to be away from them, so they traverse every obstacle ever at their own peril to be with us, lovable, no?
Not too long ago, Hannah was sick and she stopped sleeping through the night and mommy would visit her with comfort. Since then, Hannah has not wanted to sleep in her own bed. And she has seen fit to conquer everything we throw at her to keep her in her bed. First, she learned to crawl over the wall of her bed and lower herself down to the ground (excellent muscle strength and control.) Next it was the door, no problem here, she can easily reach up and turn the knob. So we added a baby gate, "Ha," says Hannah, "I can crawl over that with more ease than my bed." So we turned the baby gate around and raised it off the floor. If you think that will stop a child, you are mistaken, she pushed it over. Next in total darkness, came the pit of alligators and the maze that is the distance between our room and hers. Another baby gate pulled, not pushed down, a simple door and the climb onto our bed and she was home free. Another night of sleep lost...
We got a baby gate that we could cinch to the wall. Now this was truly an impossible task. Like usual, she climbed her bed wall, opened the door and found an impenetrable path. So she began calling for us, and using every vocabulary word she could think of. At first it started with "Mommy!" "Daddy!" "Baby!" Then she became more sophisticated expressing things couldn't do from her room, "pooh pooh" "peepee" "take bath" "wash hands" "juice" Thinking her friends might help her, she called for "Stanley" "Addy" "Ella" She then reverted to tugging at our heartstrings "love you" "hold me" It was more than a parent can bear as I stood outside her door hoping she would fall back asleep. Every time she would get up, I would take her and put her back in bed. Thus I stood outside her door waiting for her to get up and come to the door. This technique took probably 30 minutes the first night we tried it, 10 minutes the second night and maybe five minutes the third night before she would fall gently back to sleep. This worked until we threw our world in tail spin by going on vacation...We'll start again when we are home, but for now, Happy Thanksgiving!