On Raising Boys

Jake's parents have eight and a half (half because he's still in the belly) grandsons and zero granddaughters.  Go figure.  Being around eight boys all day long is like eating lots and lots of butter in gourmet meals: they make you happy but they are also dangerous business.  I swear my heart stops pumping at least half a dozen times a day after seeing one of them jump from a big rock five feet above ground or climb onto a tree ten feet in the air.  They are all grade A Batman and Spiderman knockoffs, you have to understand.  They seem incapable of surviving without a stick or some sort of weapon in their hands.  It's all very frightening to me.

Where I'm from, boys don't run or jump or climb or get dirty without being yelled at or having their ears yanked.  I think it is one of the reasons why very few of them ever grow to be men.  How can you expect a boy to ever grow up when all he knows is the inside wall of a gigantic bubble?  And one day, when that bubble bursts, you will find not a man who is ready to face the world with a family on his back but an immature thirty-year-old boy who has no sense of responsibility.

It is a constant challenge for me to find the perfect balance in letting Ethan learn from exploring the world and keeping him from getting too scuffed up but I will certainly try my very best.

Just a Few Pictures

I was so very surprised to have received lots of text messages and Facebook comments from friends in Utah after I wrote here on the blog that we're here.  Thank you everyone!  We would love to meet up with you guys too but we're currently way up in the mountains and very far away from civilization at Jake's family cabin.  I didn't even pack a book for the cabin thinking that it will just be like a normal busy day taking care of Ethan but I was delighted to find that I've been having lots of personal time because there are more than a dozen people here who enjoy watching and holding Ethan for me.  I'm on a real vacation here, guys!

Ethan is loving it here at the cabin too!  He's enjoying spending time with his cousins and playing with all the grown-up toys.  If any action figure is missing a head or a limb, it would be no surprise to me to find it in Ethan's belly ;)  And how do you like that diaper belt there?

Being up here is like we're in the garden of Eden.  It's so, so beautiful.  We've been going on lots of hikes and we even saw a moose today!  More pictures to come!

Snow in June

Hello, there!  We figure that you're probably getting a little bored of the scenery in Arizona so we decided to go on our first family vacation this summer to Utah!  We're really enjoying the cool weather and the greenery here.  The weather man said that it's supposed to snow tonight?!  Crazy!  Anyway, we went on a hike this morning and it was gorgeous.  The whole way up I wanted to sing songs from The Sound of Music.  Oh and let me not forget to mention that the hubby was acting as the photographer today so enjoy this rare treat of seeing his beautiful work.

First Goose Egg

Ethan got his first goose egg tonight.  My heart was ripped in two.

We were all getting ready to put him to sleep.  Jake was putting fresh sheets on the bed and I was...  I can't remember what I was doing now.  All I remember was that I was on the floor seeing Ethan crawl towards the bed, then his little hands grabbed the frame of the bed and he slipped.  BONK!  After that it was all a blur.  Crying.  Frantically we picked him up.  Rushed him downstairs for his Grandpa who is a doctor to examine.  Ice pack.

I felt sick to the core.  I had the strongest urge to cry because of all the worries and guilt and sadness and compassion that was crashing over me like a tsunami but somehow I couldn't cry.  Maybe it was the mother's instinct.  I whimpered and made sounds that I never knew I could utter but there was no time for tears.  I faintly remember being the one to pick Ethan up immediately after the accident but somehow Jake took him from me and rushed him downstairs and I felt...  angry.  I wanted my baby.  He belonged in my arms.  I took him back after his initial examination by his grandpa and in my arms he stayed all night long until he was fast asleep a couple hours after the incident.

But before I put him to sleep, I was sitting in the walk-in closet with him in my arms.  By that time, Ethan was already all smiley and ready for some more climbing--it wasn't until then that I started crying.  All the guilt that was rushing through me finally found its way to my eyes.  And as they rolled down my cheeks, the only words that came out of my mouth was Mommy is so sorry.  Mommy is so sorry...  Ethan stared at me with furrowed eyebrows but was more interested in the hamper than his sad mama.  However, before he moved on to exploring the dirty laundry, he gave me kisses on my lips as if he knew exactly why I was hurting and that he was telling me that he had already forgiven me.  The hard thing about being a mom though is forgiving yourself.

A Love Note

Everyone needs a friend named Erica.  Let me tell you why.

A few nights ago, I was feeling extra lonely.  One of my least favorite things about moving to another state every other year is that I don't get to keep my friends.  Just as I get to know people a little better, I have to move away.  It's all very lamentable.  So I was whining to Jake about how I don't have any girl friends to hang out with here in Arizona and that my hormones are all going out of balance.  In my agony I yelled out, "I miss Erica!  I want her back in my life!"  Being the man that he is, Jake immediately offered solutions to sove my problem.  He suggested that I give her a call and reassured me that I wouldn't be friend level jumping by calling her to chat.  I was really tempted to, but thought better of it because really, who wants to be bored with details from my boring life?  More than anything, I would hate for Erica to think that I was a weirdo and then bump me down a level on her friend list since I think the world of her.

Now let me tell you about Erica.  She is one of the coolest girls I have ever met in my life.  She is smart, funny, unpretentious, sincere, straightforward, kind, and loving.  The best thing about her is that she doesn't, truly doesn't, care about where I'm from.  I just know that she won't judge me if I say furnitures instead of furniture, or two dozens cookies instead of two dozen cookies.  The minute I met her I saw the word awesome written all over her.  She is one of the very few girls who loves raw fish as much as I do.  I love that girl and we had so much fun together.  But just like many other friends I have made during our school years, Erica and her husband had to move away for medical school.

Fast forward a year and I'm yelling in my house that I miss Erica.  Not more than a couple days later, I got an email from her and it was one of the sweetest emails I've ever gotten.  She said that she misses me and thinks that I am cool too!  CRAAAAAZY!  I suggest that you send an email to a person that you like because unknown to you, they might like you back just as much :)

Smooth New Ride

When Ethan was born, we got the Micralite Toro and we've been loving it ever since but as light as it is, it's still 18 hulking pounds.  All the walks we've taken it on didn't help it get any slimmer, which was truly a shame, so we bought a new ride for the babe.  After all, the mini and I will be going on lots of adventures with lots of airports involved sans the macho tough daddy to help with all the heavy lifting.  {That's right!  We have traded our souls in for twelve plane tickets.  Twelve for now and possibly fourteen!}  I think the streets and pedestrians in Hong Kong will appreciate our skinny stroller much, much more.

May Favorites

Here are some of the things I've used almost every single day in May.

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