Family

It’s Time for a Spring Closet Makeover!

As spring heads into summer, if you haven’t spent some time cleaning out your closet yet, it’s a great time for your spring/summer closet makeover! The weather is changing and it’s the perfect time to move the winter items to the back, clear out items you don’t wear, and add some new pieces that are great for new season.

If you are a new mom like me, you might desperately need a closet overhaul. Chances are that you’ve been too busy tending to your little one, work, and other household duties to really invest in properly outfitting your closet with pieces that really fit and flatter your new figure. I had been putting off this activity too, but finally it became too painful not to address the situation. Instead of continually grumbling about having nothing to wear, I am facing my closet head on and making the adjustments necessary so that I can have a pleasant experience every time I go into my closet moving forward.

My Closet Makeover

After having a baby, my closet was full of pregnancy and post-partum (bigger sized) clothes. Now that I’m practically back to my original pre-pregnancy size and can fit into all of my old clothes again, I was expecting to be excited about wearing everything in my closet. Instead, I found myself wanting to purge everything and start new.

Even though I fit into my old clothes again, as a mom now, my style had changed. It may have something to do with my new figure. My proportions are different. I don’t have that tiny waist anymore, and even if I do get back there one day, I just don’t feel like wearing my old fitted shirts or cropped jackets anymore. Something about becoming a mom makes me want to wear longer silhouettes. Read more →

Book Review: Bringing Up Bébé

Bringing Up Bébé

I recently finished reading a book about a story of an American mom, Pamela Druckerman, living in Paris. In her book, Bringing Up Bébé, she talks about the differences between American and French parenting and how French babies don’t have eating or sleeping problems.

This book saved my life. As a new mom with a baby that wouldn’t sleep, I was exhausted and at my wits end. The wisdom I learned from this book gave me the confidence to train my baby to sleep. It gave me my life back.

The differences between French and American parenting are so interesting. French parents can take their babies and toddlers to restaurants and enjoy a nice meal together whereas most American parents work hard entertaining their children at restaurants and end up leaving a huge tip because they feel bad that their kids created a huge mess that the waitstaff would then have to clean up. French babies sleep through the night at 2 months. Yes, 2 months! Miraculous… Most American books tell us to not even attempt sleep training until the baby is old enough, at the very least 4-6 months of age.

How can French babies not have any sleep problems when there are sooooooo many American parents struggling with baby sleep problems (including me)? With so many books dedicated to the subject, sleep consultants, and websites where moms connect to discuss their baby’s sleep problems in the U.S., it seemed impossible that an entire country could have babies that slept through the night with no problems at all. I was curious and I had to find out.

I was determined to uncover what I needed to do to train my baby to sleep through the night. I had been suffering for more than a year with sleep deprivation because my baby was still not sleeping through the night. Read more →

Working Mom vs. Stay at Home Mom?

This is the big question that all new mothers face. Should I go back to work or stay home and raise the baby? For some women, the answer is very simple. They love their job and want to go back to work as soon as their maternity leave is up. This is the rare breed of women who have already found what they love to do in life. For the rest of us, the answer is much more complicated.

Most women I know make a choice based on their finances. Some say they have to go back to work because they need their income to help support the family. Then there are others who think it’s better to stay at home because all the money they earn is going towards a nanny/daycare/care giver anyway. They would rather stay at home than give up most of their pay check so that someone else can raise their baby.

The women who work full-time feel guilty that they can’t be at home with their baby more. The women who stay at home start to feel like their brain is turning into mush and they crave non-baby related activities and adult interaction. And then there are those who have made it work by staying home part-time and working part-time. And still others who have somehow been able to work from home. What is the ideal balance? Is it even achievable?

I have always known that I wanted to raise my children and have a career too. Don’t we all? But, I didn’t want to just have any career. I wanted one that fulfills my desire to contribute to this world in a meaningful way. The bottom line is that I didn’t get this far in my journey of searching for my dream job to end up settling for a job that I’m only working in for money. Read more →

A Lesson About Lack

Today I learned a very important lesson that I wanted to share. I’ve come to learn that the things that happen in our lives are there to reflect who we are inside and our inner thoughts and belief systems. What I mean by this is things that happen to us are because life is drawing our attention to our own beliefs, whether we are consciously aware of them or not. If we hold a deep seated belief of lack and always worry about not having enough money for expenses, or enough time to finish all of our to do items, or whatever you are concerned that there isn’t enough of in your life, our lives will mirror that belief. Let me make this a bit clearer by sharing my example.

Going through this lovely life phase of mine called motherhood, especially during the infant year, I have come to worry about my milk supply. Will I have enough to feed my baby? I have heard of so many stories of moms who have dried up before the first year. I was determined to not let this happen, and also to have enough so that if I hired a nanny, I could easily maintain a frozen supply.

For a period of time, I went through an intense couple of months of trying to improve my supply so that I could hire a nanny part-time in order gain some of my freedom back. I needed time to go run errands, take a yoga class, work on starting my business, unpack after the move, organize my house, go to an appointment, etc. Basically, for a couple of months, all I did was sit at home (if I didn’t have to go to work at my part-time job I had at the time) and nurse and pump. Read more →

Baby Clothing Swap

This past weekend, we went to a baby clothing swap. What a great idea! Rather than being held at someone’s home, which can sometimes be a bit awkward, this event was held at a place where we take baby music classes. You bring a bag of clothes, donate $10, and take home a bag of clothes! There were tons of clothes for 0-6 months old. Those were the sizes we donated too. The older sizes definitely had a lot less quantity, but we were able to find some things and also walk away with the cutest red coat with the tag still on! Can’t wait to use that one!

What a great idea to declutter some of the old clothes and get something back in return. Usually we just throw everything into a donation pile or send a message out to the neighborhood’s parents’ groups on Yahoo. Someone will come and pick the stuff up, especially if there’s a bunch of free things. It saves a trip to Goodwill. We were able to give away things that were just taking up space in our home and sell some things that we were no longer using. Things are starting to get organized around here. :) Read more →

Starting Fresh!

It’s the beginning of a new chapter in my life. We moved! A new apartment is always a new chapter for me. It’s fresh start with a new environment that infuses my life with new energy. We even had the coolest moving trucks move us! Take a look!

The front of the trucks:

 

The back of the trucks:

These trucks were real works of art! I was impressed. These are the coolest moving trucks I’ve ever seen. I decided that along with my new move, I would start blogging more again. I had considered discontinuing further blog entries because my life is now busy with a baby and all, but recently I’ve received some emails from some readers that have told me how they had been inspired by my story and are on similar paths and wanted me to continue. For them and all of you out there that are following my blog and benefiting from hearing my story, I dedicate my blogs to all of you and will continue to share my story with the hope that it helps you with yours!

Oh how my life has changed now that I have a baby. The first month was really about recovery from the delivery and just trying to orient myself to a new life with a baby. The first three months was just really about survival. I knew there would be sleepless nights, but I had no idea just how extreme it would be! My baby had day/night confusion, so my bedtime was sometimes 5, 6, 7, or even 8am! Boy was I exhausted. I had to sleep during the day when the baby slept and stay awake all night constantly feeding and feeding and feeding and feeding. Now that she’s sleeping much better and her schedule has improved from sleeping at 5am to 4am, then 2am, 1am, midnight, 10pm, and recently sometimes 8pm, I am feeling much better and starting to feel more like my old self. Read more →

Spring is Here!

It’s been a long winter and being cooped up inside with a newborn has made it feel more so, but today as I was walking the dog I saw trees growing new buds and it really hit me that spring is finally here! No more one nice day amidst cold rainy ones. I’m pretty sure the warmer weather is here to stay!

Here are some photos I took on my lovely walk.

The trees are blooming with flowers!

 
 I really liked the colorful row of houses. It reminded me (kind of) of the houses in San Francisco.
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Walk in the Park

When you’re a new mom, finding time to go outside and talk a walk is a pretty big deal. Especially with the winter weather, you want to take advantage of the warmer days outside. I find myself wanting to go outside as often as I can, but I always have to time it perfectly with the baby’s feeding schedule, diaper changes, and my own energy level. When I’m sleep deprived, the only thing I can think about is taking a nap. A few days ago I was able to take a walk by myself to the park. My in-laws were visiting and looked after the baby while I was gone. I left right after I fed the baby and ended up taking an hour and a half long walk around the park. It was the first time I felt like I was getting some good exercise in. It was one of the first few days that I could actually walk at a normal pace after recovering from a c-section delivery.

Here are some photos I took at the park. The sun was starting to set. It was beautiful. I even managed to take a picture of a swan! When was the last time you saw a swan?

I saw this tree during my walk. It was carved with lots of names of people who have stopped by.

I can’t wait for the weather to get warmer so that I can take more walks to the park with my baby! Read more →

Introducing My Baby, Sophie!

Hi everyone! I know it’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been busy giving birth and taking care of a newborn! Although motherhood has been a challenging experience, I have been loving it at the same time. There is nothing that is more rewarding than looking at my sweet baby’s face and seeing her smile or laugh. Sometimes she smiles and laughs in her sleep! It’s so cute. Here is baby announcement.

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Celebrating our 5 Year Anniversary

My husband and I took one last trip together last week before we are expecting the baby. It was to celebrate our 5 year anniversary and was essentially our “babymoon.” We went down to Puerto Vallarta for a week. Somewhere not too far and an easy place to vacation while pregnant. It’s nice to get that last trip out of our system so that we feel like we were able to get some r&r before the big day arrives.

Here’s a picture of us with an iguana and a little one on top of my head.

If you’re interested in seeing more pictures, you can take a look at my Flickr set.

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Big News!

Hi everyone! I know it’s been a while since I have posted, but it’s been quite a busy time getting organized after our move! And, I also have some big news that I’d like to share that has also kept me pretty occupied! I am 15 weeks pregnant!

I have been adjusting to a new life of symptoms, fatigue, and constant eating. It’s been an interesting road so far, and if you are interested in reading about my pregnant journey, I’ve created a blog just for that topic. I assume not all of you are interested in reading about all of my pregnant details, so I decided to keep it separate from here. I’ve been blogging there for almost a month now, so you can check it out: http://dancingbaby.wordpress.com

I haven’t taken any pictures of myself yet since I’m in the in-between stages of actually looking pregnant and just looking like I have a huge gut, but here is my ultrasound from week 11 and 4 days.

Can you believe it? I’m going to be a mom! I had postponed this because of my new career change, but I finally decided that I can’t push this off forever. It’s better for me to have babies before age 35, so my husband and I decided it was time to start a family, despite the fact that I’m in school. I’ll be done with school in December, and it looks like I’ll be a mom before I start working as a fashion designer. I’ve always wanted to find a career where I can work from home and take care of my family, so I guess this is the beginning of the road in trying to figure out how that will all work out! Who says you can’t have both a family and a wonderful career? Read more →

Traveling While Pregnant

New York

I read in a book something about not going through the machine at the airport while pregnant. Just to be safe, I decided to follow this advice and the first time I traveled while I was pregnant, I told the security folks that I did not want to go through the x-ray machine because I was pregnant. They kindly explained to me that the x-ray machine was the one our bags go through and that the machine we walk through was a magnetrometer (aka metal detector). They assured me it was safe for me to walk through, but I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to. They told me to do my research and look it up. And then mentioned that I could still request a pat down if I wanted. The woman who came to pat me down asked if I had a pace maker (I guess that’s why people do pat downs), and when I said no, she gave me a weird look. I told her I was pregnant, and she said it was safe to go through the machine, but took me anyway. So, off I went to do a pat down with a female security personnel. This was at an airport in NY.

Once we got to our gate, we looked up magnetrometer on our phones and it’s impact on pregnancy. I found many, many threads saying that they were safe. Hmmm, but many people thought smoking was safe. There are many things in our world that people don’t really know the long-term effects of. I decided to be safe and proceed with the “pat downs” on future flights. Now that I know what they are called, I can just ask for a pat down.

San Francisco

My first flight was to San Francisco. Read more →

Finding New Clothes During Pregnancy

I found some new pregnancy clothes! Well, actually, they are just regular clothes that are different silhouettes. I bought a bunch of baggier tops that have dropped waists to try and hide my belly until I really pop from Forever 21. It was great because I walked away with enough clothes so that I don’t have to wear the same thing every day for the price I would have paid for a quarter of what I bought. And I also bought a couple of things for our trip to Mexico so that I can walk around without straps on my shoulders to create tan lines on my shoulders. I’m not sure why I care… aren’t I going to be covered up until I give birth anyhow? It’s not like I plan on wearing a strapless dress anytime soon. I did try to make sure I bought items that would still be stylish after I returned to my normal size so that I can just add back my old clothes instead of having to replace all of my clothes again.

I was happy that I was able to find a dress in my closet already that I could wear to my friend’s wedding. It would be a shame to have to buy a pregnancy dress when I’m not that big yet. I think I did an ok job hiding it. I’m sure if you really looked at me you could tell. For the most part, I probably just looked like I gained some weight.

It’s such a relief having a closet with clothes that I can actually wear! I spent a lot of time today trying on every single thing in my closet and removing the ones that didn’t fit (or were very unflattering) to be put away for a year or so when I can fit into them again. Read more →

The Nausea and Digestion Cure During Pregnancy

My intuition guided me to purchase ginger tea even before I knew I was pregnant. I had just moved into my new neighborhood and was at t he closest super market getting some emergency food. While my husband and I were there, I suddenly found myself looking over at the teas and my eyes landed on the ginger tea. It was the Yogi brand of Ginger Tea, and it said something about a digestive aid. Hmmm, might be something good to get. So, I bought it.

I never had ginger tea in my life. I never heard of ginger tea, and without that little caption, I would not have known what it was used for. Fortunately, I really needed some of it the next day as I was feeling ab bit queasy. Instantly, after a few sips, I was feeling better.

Later, after I found out I was pregnant, I started reading about all the pregnancy symptoms and all the helpful cures for it. And yes, ginger tea was on that list, along with ginger snaps, ginger ale, and even sucking on lemon. Ginger snaps are like cookies and I don’t always feel like eating, ginger ale is sugary, and I don’t like to drink soda, and sucking on lemon just does not seem pleasant. Somehow my body knew to buy ginger tea even before I needed it! It’s amazing that I intuitively purchased the tea, and this tea has saved me time and time again!

If you’re feeling nauseous, try some ginger tea. It helps to have some hot liquid to warm the tummy, and somehow the ginger makes any queasiness go away. If you find yourself extremely full and looking for something to soothe your digestion system, ginger tea will also soothe an over-stuffed belly. I’ve needed it on many occasions when my pregnant belly couldn’t handle my normal amount of food in one sitting. Read more →

Changing My Wardrobe During Pregnancy

This has probably been one of the most stressful things I have gone through. It’s not that stressful, really. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but it definitely makes me feel fat. I think having nice clothes that flatter your figure while you’re going through all these physical changes helps to make you feel better about gaining weight. And it helps to just have more the one or two outfits to be able to wear that fit!

I started growing out of my pants fairly quickly. Early on in my pregnancy, even though I wasn’t supposed to be getting much bigger, I had a lot of bloating issues going on, so my pants were getting extremely snug at the waist. These were the first things that had to go. I had to find a pair of jeans that fit.

Maternity Stores

I walked into a maternity store in NY and was unfortunately not treated very well. Maybe it was because I was not showing yet, but the sales people kept me waiting a very long time just to try one some jeans. Those jeans were super expensive. $200+ per pair. Kind of ridiculous for a pair of maternity jeans. At that price, I had to make sure they fit perfectly. I’m extremely petite, so when I tried them on, their smallest size was still not that flattering. Usually most jean stores carry at least one or two smaller sizes, but this place did not. Most of the other clothes were not very attractive and would only look good if you were at 7-8 months pregnant. I ended up leaving with nothing and realized I had to find clothes at regular stores until I was big enough for maternity clothes.

Shopping has been a pretty time-consuming event. I’ve been shopping online, in stores, and will pop into every maternity store I come across. Read more →