Are These the Rules?

When I was in college, I was in a sorority. It was my first experience in a women's group and I didn't know what to expect. In my sorority there were about 120 young women (I think these days, my sorority has closer to 200 women because the number of sororities has dwindled). It's supposed to be a sisterhood but quite often, there were quite a few arguments and some ladies that just didn't get along. Perhaps it's as simple as there being too many "queen bees" in a nest. There were power struggles, disputes about guys, stealing, people eating other people's food, revenge, the whole gamut of crazy stuff and not to mention the gossip.

I almost feel like this is the norm when you get a large group of women together. I've seen the same kind of things going on in the mom groups that I belong to. Women get catty and often they get mean. Now, granted it's a little bit more subtle, as we get older. It's more of the passive aggressive kind of stuff. After having kids, you'd think that we'd be better people but many of us are not. I think I'm a better person after having children and I try to teach my children not to be mean, but sometimes I wonder if it will work. After all these years and all the different parenting books/techniques that have been introduced, it almost seems like we as a society are no better than we were 30 years ago. In fact it almost seems worse with the introduction of the internet into the picture. People still get terrorized.

I mean really people let's get a life and act a little bit more mature. In my mom's group alone, a couple really surprising incidents happened. One mom-- a great mom that is completely involved and absolutely nice person was treated rudely despite all the work she put into the club. Another mom-- a smart, amazing, fantastic mom that fosters so much imagination in her children, received horribly mean anonymous letters. It's all so petty and annoying.

So STOP!! Make a decision to make it stop with you and remember that the bystander is almost as guilty as the bully.

A Lecture

About a month ago, I went down to San Diego to visit my best friend from high school. My kids love both her and her husband as if they were their Aunt and Uncle. We stayed there overnight and she got to see inside my chaotic, whiny, temper tantrum and crying filled world. That may be why, before we left, she gave me a book about living life. She gave me Randy Pausch's book, titled "The Last Lecture."

I had heard of him previously around the time that he passed away. The last lecture of this Carnegie Mellon professor was circulating around YouTube like wildfire. I saw bits and pieces of it but I never actually SAW the lecture. After reading the book, I would definitely like to see his last lecture. I found the book to be quite inspiring. It's about a man that is trying to enjoy life and help others enjoy life despite the his grim pancreatic cancer diagnosis. His love of life could be seen in spite of his cancer within this book and in his last lecture, which was ultimately for his young children to see. It's filled with many life lessons that are useful to any person at any stage of their life...a teenager, a recent college graduate, and even a mother of three that sometimes loses track of time. :)

I think Randy Pausch's life lessons and legacy for his children can be best summed up with a quote from the end of the book:

"It's not about how you achieve your dreams. It's about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the Karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you."

So, with Mr. Pausch's words in mind, live your life well, do the right thing and be an awesome role model for your children.

Freeze!

Last week, my husband and I took the kids to Disneyland. During the ride there, I looked back at the kids and saw the excitement on their faces. It was all they could talk about. At that moment, I just wanted to freeze time and keep them little forever. Everything has flown by so quickly. I can't believe I have THREE children and the eldest one is Kindergarten age.

The ages that they are right now are absolutely perfect:

The Princess is old enough to be a little independent and be a big helper. Everyday, I ask her to help me do things...and she actually says YES! Granted, there are times when she chooses to ignore me, but for the most part, she does what I ask. She's also learning to read (Bob level books) and it's so exciting to me. I'm hoping she learns to enjoy books as much as I do.

Jr. Peanut is now 2 and a half. He's still little and I absolutely LOVE the way he talks. When he's watching a DVD and I need to press play, he always shouts out "Mama come press butt". Or how he covers his right eye with his hand and says "I'm a pirate." It's also fascinating to see how his mind works and let me tell ya, it's totally different from how girls think. He's just so cute these days that I always feel this need to just pick him up and cuddle him (much to his annoyance).

Little Sissy is now 7 months. She definitly is developing her personality. She's still little enough that I can easily hold her and I love the squeals she makes when I tickle her belly. I love the baby smell that she still has and the way her face lights up when she sees me.

They are so fun. I hope I remember these days forever (although at the rate that my memory is failing me...I may not).

Aggravated

When I was about 12 years old, I had a best friend that I would alternate sleep overs with. I always loved staying at her house best because I thought she had the perfect family. Her family was what I would call the "perfect white family". Growing up Filipino American, I often was embarrassed of my roots and tried to embrace as much of the White American culture as possible. I loved my friend's family because they would take me out to eat and play board games together. I can't remember what her father did but I know her mother was a teacher and they embodied those families that you would see on TV like Keatons in Family Ties.

As a college student, I admired my dorm floor friend (and later roomie) and her family. Her family had this huge pantry stocked with every college student's favorite foods. We spent the night at her house and her mom made this huge breakfast that we didn't eat because we didn't wake up in time. Her mom THREW IT ALL AWAY! I LOVED the ability to throw all that food away without even considering the waste (I was always told to not leave the table until I ate all my food). Her family home also had a beautiful pool that I would only see in homes featured in magazines. Her parents were hilarious, crass and easy to talk to. I also loved how close knit the family was.

Well, years later, I spoke to my friend that I used to have sleepovers with via email. Her perfect family sadly became a divorced family with other quirks and neuroticism. The family that I admired as a college student actually became my family when I married into it (I married my dorm floor friend's brother) and the same things that I used to find enduring about them are now the very things that irritate me.

I have come to realize that even though I often was not enthused about my family, I still love them the best. I like that I can yell at and complain about them without having repercussions. On the other hand, I've come to resent the over bearing, passive aggressive, hypocritical, self serving, and favoritism tendencies of my husband's family. I also realized that the perfect-ness of his family was just a facade. A lot of things got swept under the rug and they are every bit as neurotic (if not more) than the rest of us.

So, to make a long story short. I am annoyed and aggravated. I wished I lived closer to my family. At least my mother actually helps me out and treats her kids/grand kids with some semblance of equality.

Sooo Many Things to Be Paranoid About

Why is it so hard to raise kids today? Hmmmm. It could be the many gazillion things that we have to watch out for. Why can't companies just make things that are healthy and safe for us? Why is it so hard to be the kind of company that is socially responsible? Why do they put these things in? Below are some of the things I've been worrying about.

• Lead in toys
• Lead in balsamic and red wine vinegar
• BPA being leeched into our food and drink through unsafe plastics, tin cans, soda cans, baby bottles
• Hormones in milk causing early puberty
• Household-phthalate-exposure causing my son to possibly be feminized
• Nitrates in our meat
• Toys that cause children to go into coma after swallowing them
• Teflon poisoning my food
• Parabens in our sunblock

With all these things to worry about, it's no wonder I'm getting all these gray hairs!

Few and Far Between

I've been tired and lazy about posting on my blog. Sorry. There's a little something called life that sometimes gets in the way of blog writing. The entire time I've been gone, I would think of something to blog about and then I would just be too tired to actually blog about it.

Everyone has always told me that going from 0 children to 1 child is the hardest. Then 1 to 2 children is hard and then from 2 children to 3 children is a piece of cake. I really would disagree. Increasing your brood by one is hard each time. I'm not quite sure how Brillig does it with 4 young ones and STILL has time to blog.

Little Sissy was born on July 24th at 4:34am. She weighed 6 lbs, 3oz and was 20 inches long. It was an easy labor. I only had one half push and she was out (I guess the birth canal gets more slippery with each successive birth). The Princess and JR. peanut both love her very much. They are constantly wanting to touch, hug, and kiss her.

Thanks everyone for inquiring about me.

So Blessed

This year, my family and I participated in the March of Dimes' charity event, "Walk For Babies". It was an event that I feel very strongly about as do many of my family members and the women of my mom's group. Most of us have experienced or at least know someone that has experienced miscarriages (including stillborn), premature babies or birth defects (my nephew died from a genetic blood disorder called Thalassemia). If you don't, well, by reading this blog-- you now do.

I currently have two beautiful and healthy children with another baby on the way, but it wasn't always that way. I also never understood the plight that women felt when they miscarried or lost an infant that didn't live for very long. I didn't think that they spent enough time with the child to grow emotionally attached to him or her. Boy, was I ever wrong.

I am not one of those women that get pregnant just by "thinking about sex". It always took a while for me to get pregnant. Between the births of my daughter and my son, I think I had about 3 or 4 miscarriages. The first was the hardest though and it occurred at 12 weeks-- so by then I had seen the heart beat. It was also hard because I let it pass naturally (as opposed to a D & C) and it's kind of a creepy thing (I won't go into detail).

After that, I think I kind of lived in a daze and didn't really enjoy my time with the Princess. We kept on trying to get pregnant for a year and failed miserably. I thought that was it-- I was only 30 and couldn't have another baby. To help get myself out of the wallows of self pity, I began to look for a job. Soon after I was given a job offer, I learned that I was pregnant. I accepted the job because I wasn't sure I would be able to carry the baby to term and I really wanted to go back to work.

Well, Jr. Peanut was born the next year and I feel like he was what really saved me. I finally enjoy being at home with my kids (even though it's sometimes a little isolating). I have a lot of mommy guilt (a whole other post on that)about what my going to work did to the Princess after being at home with her for more than a year, but over all, I feel blessed. I am thankful that my friends and family helped me raise money to go toward the health of future babies so that others don't have to experience the tragedy and heartbreak that my family did.

Enjoy your life my readers and be grateful for all that you have. Also, if you're trying to have a first OR second baby, know that there ARE happy endings--it may take a while and there may be some disappointments along the way.