you're gonna hear me roarrrrrrrrrrrrr....

it's been a while. i've been struggling with this blogging thing. firstly because i think i have watched one too many episodes of law & order special victims unit for my own good. too many creepsters out there and here i am blasting the whole internet with pictures of him in all his adorable goodness. secondly, it is just hard to be consistent. but december is upon us, and mr. alexander just turned eight months on friday. and as usual, we let it pass without any fanfare. if it's possible for a first child to have second child syndrome, alexander will definitely have it. i can just see him telling his friends later in life, "yeah i tried to find photos of myself from a baby, but there aren't that many. maybe i'm adopted??"

but anyways, here we are, on this cold, gray, post snow, post ice monday morning. and i think by now you all know how we feel about mondays generally. but i have mustered up some energy to present unto you all my little scrunch: snotty, sick, with a clump of spit up in his hair, and fighting an ear infection. yet despite it all he is ready to attack this monday. RRRROOOOOOAAAAAARRRRRR!

 

*photo courtesy of the talented aichuan kwong*

rockin' the vote

when i was growing up, i distinctly remember one day when my grandmother and i stayed home while my mother, father, and older brother packed up a big file of papers and headed out the door. i was indignant that i was being left behind. but i later learned that i didn't have to go because i was born in the united states and was therefore a u.s. citizen. and the salient point being, i am the only one in my family that could be president. CARLSON 2016! no actually that is not the emphatic point. i remember that as soon as my father became a u.s. citizen, every year, no matter how big or small the election, president, governor, mayor, local county member, my father would come home from work, wait for my mom, and then take us all to the polls, despite my mother's protests of being too tired. my father would say, "no. we have to vote. this is our right now that we are citizens. we are going to vote." so from a young age, i have always heard, every year, that it is important, as a citizen to exercise the right to vote. so when i turned 18, i registered to vote, and from that point on, i have voted every year, by absentee ballot when necessary.

i find this lesson important for two reasons. firstly, asians, especially of my parents generation, are not politically active. you'll notice that during election years, the asian vote is rarely courted despite making up huge "voter blocks" in places like nyc, california, and houston, because asians simply don't get out and rock the vote. secondly, i think voting is important, especially in this day and age when we can become very cynical (for good reasons!) about politics and politicians. i'll be the first to admit: politics is dirty and politicians are generally slimy, and there is NO perfect candidate out there (except for CARLSON 2016!!!), but still there are important issues out there. i know it is easy to think that your vote doesn't count, but our government makes policies that affect our daily life. i have student loans. i have concerns about the public school system. i have concerns about how much traffic is in northern virginia and what my new governor will do to alleviate this problem without increasing VA's expenditure. etc etc etc. the list goes on. so this morning, i reiterated to the husband, one of the aforementioned cynical people who doesn't believe his vote counts, just how important it was to me to pass on the importance of voting to my little bunny. and even though our fire alarm went off twice! last night (and yes, we were pantsless both times) and we were exhausted, and running late for work, and it was on the nippy side out, we bundled up ADC, and trudged down to our polling center, and began what i hope will be many years of voting together.

*all bundled up and waiting in line to vote and all smiles after voting. we wrote papa's name in for VA Attorney General!*

summer's last hurrah

now that we've gotten past the rottenness of mondays and we've entered the acceptance phase of the grieving cycle, let's relive the weekend. weeks ago, a good friend and i planned to officially kick off the unofficial start of fall by taking our families out to cox farms. between work schedules and travel schedules, our families could only have gone on this joint outing one weekend in october, but we felt confident about it. after all, it was listed as a prime weekend on the cox farm event calendar. being a prime weekend means only two things: firstly, you pay extra for your ticket (yippeee! said no one ever) and secondly that we would have prime fall weather. you know, not too hot, not too cold, but just right, in that baby bear goldilocks way. warm with just a bite of crisp air.

i was so looking forward to this, because as you may know, it is a rare opportunity for me to get the husband and the best friend to do any kind of physical activity. but muahahahhaha, i could trick them into the corn maze walk-athon. (backstory, shortened version: two years ago when we all went to a farm out in maryland to do a corn maze, we followed the leader, a.k.a. husband, and circled the corn maze for an hour and a half before we made it out. it was glorious, but only for me. i'm pretty sure everyone else was ready to shoot a rescue flare up.)  but oh mother nature, she just likes to throw wrenches into my best laid plans. all week long, i faced steadily climbing temperatures, which is not always a bad thing, if we had started the week out at 55 degrees. but we started the week out at 75 degrees and peaked at 92 degrees on saturday - just in time for our fall festival day of fun. in case you're wondering, 92 degrees is not conducive to trekking through an unshaded corn maze (and most likely getting lost), nor is it optimal for drinking hot apple cider. i couldn't even wear the cute fall outfit i had mentally chosen all those weeks ago when we first made plans to head out to the farm. pretty much, the best thing you can do in 92 degrees at a fall festival is sit in the picnic area under a roof, a.k.a in the shade. $17 per ticket! money well spent!!

and now, our fall festival story in pictures:

*one of us is determined to have fun, one of us is highly skeptical, and one of us is thinking, "i cannot believe they made me skip nap time for this."*

*first stop: hay ride time

*alexander looking his scrunchy-licious skeptical best, theo: "oooh prickly grass. i should grab it!"*

*waddup ladies. check out my ride...yeah i am not impressed either. *

*a picture for our fall family postcards. oh wait, we're all sweating, dressed for the beach...thank goodness for the gourds!*

*so excited about forced friendships and forced pictures with an abundance of squash*

*"lucas, what was the best part of the day?"

"it's a toss up between ice cream..."*

*"...and tractors."*

*highlight of alexander's day: tummy time on a blanket on top of wood chips, under the shade!*

*the birth of a rock band drummer. every asian parent's dream come true!*

*wait, what did you say? we're going after this? in the air-conditioned car?...*

 *S-M-I-L-E*

let me give you some medicine for that bad case of mondays you have

every sunday evening, a slow feeling of dread sinks in because soon it will be monday. as if the anticipation of the weekend coming to a close is not bad enough, monday rolls around, as mondays are wont to do, in that particularly nagging monday way. and bam, we are smacked with a serious case of the mondays. today is particularly monday-y, in the dreariest ways possible. coming off a weekend of 90 degree weather and miles and miles of endless sunny skies, in october no less, we woke this monday-est of monday mornings to clouds so thick they clawed at my skin when i left for work. it's just gray outside, which makes me feel gray on the inside, which does not make for a winning gray-gray combination.

but i have found the cure to a bad case of the mondays. now if only i could bottle it up and sell it! yet here i am, giving the cure out for free. just call me a purveyor of happiness and wonder.

ready for the cure?

5

4

3

2

1

TA-DA!!

tell me that didn't bring a smile to your face? happy monday and happy fall - may your autumn be the pumpkiniest of pumpkins, with happiness to boot! *photo cred to the talented, loving auntie to alexander: aichuan kwong*

you'd think we needed to call poison control

on saturday, alexander turned five and a half months. now before you think i am one of those crazy moms who celebrates insignificant milestones, i just want to say two things: first we did not celebrate alexander turning five and a half months, we just used that date as the rough time around which we would introduce solids. and second, we celebrated alexander turning one month old by lighting a match that we stuck into a brownie square. and we took a picture, so just in case future babies feel like we love them less, we can show them just how much or little rather, fanfare alexander received. so anyways back to five and a half months. the time has flown. look at my baby at five and a half weeks and now at five and a half months.

on friday, i went to trader joe's and brought my scrunchy bunny an acorn squash. i spent part of nfl sunday roasting that thing and puree-ing it - i missed part of the redskins game, which it turned out, i didn't really need to stay and watch anyway. here is a chronicle of our first try at "solid" food.

*proud pureed squash maker and clearly a first time mom. check out that serving size!*

*a giddy alexander sitting at the grown up table, pre-squash*

*post squash GAG! he's thinking, "someone call poison control, my parents are trying to off me"*

*please mommy, no more squash. please."

when you can't beat 'em, you join 'em

i'd like to dedicate this post to my girl b. the otherday, we had an off and on text conversation for an hour, about deep things, like the game candy crush. (side note, yes, i said an hour conversation via text. i hate phone conversations. i'm either all or nothing. if i can't have a face-to-face conversation with you, i'd prefer to be as impersonal as possible, so please just text me. of course this makes no sense whatsover, but hey, that's my modus operandi).

you should be impressed that two moms, both having five month olds, could carry on a text conversation for over an hour. those of you without babies, you just go on not appreciating having the use of both your hands, at all times. 

we were discussing how awesomely useless our husbands can be as a result of candy crush. not just useless in the "babe, please take out the trash," and he responds, "uh huh..ok [glazed look staring at fake candies dropping down his computer screen]" way. i mean also useless in the, "it's eleven pm, the baby is asleep, time for us to have our quality deep conversations" emotional kind of way. 

sample deep conversation:

me: babe, i'm fat

husband: uh huh...[trill of candies vanishing off the screen in the foreground]

me: babe, i'm talking to you about important things

husband: i'm listening...oh crap, i only have four more moves to get the cherry down to the bottom

me: forget it, i'm going to bed

husband: no no no. i'm listening. really. [pushes the button to start a new round]

see what i mean? candy crush had been threatening my marital bliss for weeks. so the other night, as husband lay in bed, gleefully playing to the sound of candies vanishing, i scooted on over and peeked over at the game. what's this? intriguing!!! and there i was, telling the hubs which candies to switch around, and before you knew it, together, we had beat a round of candy crush. i knew we were invincible as a team, and clearly, candy crush proves it. and now i've crossed over to the dark side. candy crush here i come. sorry b. if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

now eleven pm quality time around here, is us laying side by side, shouting candy crush moves at each other. i'm convinced this is what long lasting marriages are built out of - marital candy crush teamwork. please feel free to email me for more marital advice. i'm an expert ;)

now excuse me while i go brush up on my candy crush skills. i've got a date around eleven tonight and i can't let my partner down.

never forget

*baby alexander remembering grandpa alexander*

i often think back to september 10, 2001. life pre-9/11 and how i can never go back. i think of how starkly divided my life is -  my soul before september 11 and a different, wounded soul after. i use to believe that this rip in my soul could be fully healed and the two versions of my being could be reconciled, but i have come to realize (and accept, a little bit) that there will never be a time that my "now me" will not long for the carefree, whole september 10, 2001 version of me. but that version of me was a lifetime ago.

there is really something amazing about the human ability to go on living; a new normal takes shape and we stumble our way into it. at first, it seems impossible. the grief is blinding. but one hour, becomes one day, and then before we knew it, we had survived the grief and loss by a week, and then a month, and then a year, and suddenly ten years. and now it has been twelve years. twelve incredibly long and incredibly short years. twelve years of big events: birthdays, graduations, weddings, babies. twelve years of mundane events: work, emails, phone calls, family dinners. when i look back, it hardly seems possible that we have made it twelve years without my father, but then what other choice did we have? we had to go on. so yes, this resilience is amazing.

but my father's absence these twelve years makes our new normal bittersweet. in this new normal, we are always aware: dad. isn't. here. new memories keep getting created and none of them include my father. now when a memory of my father pops up in my head, it seems so long ago because it is so long ago.

so today, 9/11/2013 we never forget the lives lost. we always remember. but for my family, it is not just today - everyday, as part of our new normal, we never forget.