A WINTER WEDDING

 we went to a beautiful wedding that last weekend of 2012. i haven't been to many winter weddings, but truly, if i were going to have a winter wedding, i'd want it to be like this one. we somehow felt cozy and warm and to be sure the lovely tablescape, colored glass, pies galore, beautiful bride and groom, and being surrounded by friends didn't hurt none.  shall i give you some peeks? most of the peeks are of the friends that we were seated next to at said wedding, and all the smiley faces is an apt description of what the whole thing felt like.

i got a picture with the bride!!! and there was also a handsome groom, but i must not be at that level of wrangle, yet.  

i need more of these faces

 your typical drink-in-hand-at-party photos

baby wranglers

the oh so fabulous clinches

behind-the-scenes extraordinaire, who also happens to be in tune with what is hip with the babies these days

photobooth

aaaaand goodnight. 

WORK WEEK, I SMITE THEE

It seems like I am on a run of downer posts, but you know what, sometimes you can only write the most honest things when you are feeling sort of glum. And it matters most that my voice is true. It is true that today I played a sort of pathetic game with myself, where I would close my eyes and try to most accurately guess the time. I don’t know why I did this, because when there is a need to play such a game, it’s discouraging at best, but that’s what happened today.  

It has been a mild winter, but it seems unavoidable, the lack of sun has finally caught up with me and I find myself a prisoner to these January-March months.  I don’t think like this all the time, because there are things to look forward to in these next few months, but something about not getting enough sunlight puts me in a dream-like haze where I visualize that I am behind the prison bars of winter-dom. This is not drama, it’s description! I know I’m not alone in this. I was looking forward to this past weekend to get some sun time, but as it happened, it was grey, gloomy and cloudy, and that and some other physical factors, helped ease me into this sort of glumness. And Monday, did you really have to be so grey and gloomy and glum? Did ya? 

After leaving work, then a round about of errands, I got my baby, came home, nursed, changed baby, broke a wine glass, stepped on a piece of glass, made Brussels sprout chips, played with baby, roasted lemons, fed baby avocado, made chicken with butter/stock/lemon/olive sauce, ate entire pan of Brussels sprouts chips while watching baby play, roasted some more Brussels sprouts - among other things. That picture up there is that of aforementioned chips. They are salty goodness. I may have overdone the salt, which may have led to overeating and I will do an extra ten pushups tonight. You see? It's not a downer post after all - I cooked instead of asking K. to pick something up, I picked up the pieces of the broken wine glass instead of pretending it wasn't there, and Sloane was wildly pleased with my rendition of 'Doh, a deer' - all terrific wins. No matter how defeatist my sleep-deprived bod, I choose this over anything else if it means I end my day practicing kisses with baby and getting cuddles from the sweetest urchin I know. Fortified with her smiles, I shall press on, and work-week, you will be mine.  

FIVE THINGS

so the other weekend, when it was sunny and crisp on a saturday morning, my parents, sloane, ken, rusty and i, all went over to churchhill to check out WPA bakery and walk around to the parks in the neighborhood. it was peace-giving, sun in my eyes, fresh air in my lungs, love in my heart - that's how much i had needed a walk in the great outdoors. i took so many photos with my dslr, photos that made me happy to have captured - my dad happily pushing sloane in the stroller, my mom posing in front of pretty houses that we imagined she would move to, ken and rusty overlooking richmond, my parents walking side by side.  there was so much sunlight and i felt so fresh.

then, a few days ago, i went to my camera to retrieve them, and discovered that horrors of horrors, i had accidentally deleted all of them. i was and still am tortured about having lost those photos. i'm fighting that huge feeling of regret, which doesn't fade easy, and i'm resolved to recreate all that somehow. the possibility of that happening isn't great, but i'm a big girl, i'll pull up my big girl pants and get over it. 

and instead, here are five things that my iphone camera captured and kept from that weekend with my parents:

1. artichoke and feta roll + tasty coffee at WPA bakery

2. sloane and my mom at lamplighter

3. the baby during a costco run

4. fans watching k. play volleyball.

5. sloane having a good time with her grandpa.

SLOANE AT FIVE MONTHS

i apologize in advance for the amount of (rather large-sized) pictures that are to follow. 

i practiced restraint, really i did. 

but i'm a momma posting pictures of her happy baby, indulge me?

At five months, this baby is growing into her own. She has resolved to check out everything with her eyeballs, her hands, her mouth. She leans forwards, backwards, under, over and around you in order to investigate something that she catches a glimpse of, and she reaches out, hands outstretched, which then means she also has to feel it in her mouth. Her world is getting bigger with each thing she sees/feels/gnaws on, and it fills me with glee to watch the world introduce itself to her. ‘Hey world, Sloane is here and she’s coming for you.’

She is still inquisitive, curious, and attentive as ever. When there is conversation going on around her, she'll gnaw on her towel or recent favorite toy and will seem to be nodding along with you, 'yes, yes, go on, then what happened?' Sometimes, she is ultra serious, especially when she meets new people. And then her somber face is all cheeks and dark eyes.

In this spirit of exploration, she can’t wait to get moving, but she seems much more excited about trying to stand on her feet than crawling on her hands and knees. She props up her upper body like a cobra, and surveys the land to see what she can go after. She uses her hands to turn around in a circle and get a proper survey. If she designates a target, she will first attempt to scoot over to it, but will end up backing up, instead of forward (her motors don’t run forward yet), and to overcome this problem, she will attempt to roll her way over to it, which means she often ends up somewhere completely different, but she doesn’t seem to mind all that much.

She is really good at sitting up, sitting around, hanging out, and when she gets excited or hears a good beat, she rocks back and forth with glee.  It’s hard to find anything better than a little lump of a person rocking back and forth with joy watching you dance like a crazy person to Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’.

When you start singing to her, she will break into a big smile, and when she hears music, she will often pause to listen. Sometimes, she will try to sing along with you. These days I’ve been singing her different versions of ‘Amazing Grace’ as part of her bed time ritual, and she will more often than not try to ‘sing’ it along with me. I can’t wait to sing all sorts of songs with her.

She definitely understands who her mom and dad are now – and how glorious it is to see her bouncing up and down with joy when she sees me or Ken walk through the door.  She has also started reaching out for me with her arms, and it is my slice of brilliant. She also claws at faces- I'm not sure what she thinks is going on when she does that, but it can feel like being mauled by a baby tiger.

We are getting the hang of sleeping, and we are trying things like avocado, apples and carrots for the first time.  And by we, I mean, her. We sit in a baby chair at the table, and we are still fascinated by Rusty the dog - she can't wait to get her hands all up in his fur, I can see it in her eyes. We like books, fascinated by any sort of screen, and aren't we all super trooper bath-takers! (The last 'we' applies to the grown-ups too, especially K.)

6 months means we all get a little more worn out with all this pawing, exploring, giggling, we do, 

but we are constantly 

so amazed

that we can hardly believe it. 

I SURVIVED THURSDAY

Today's work day was a cranky ol' giant with a club, giving me a beating. Who/what/why this giant? I don’t know. The day started off so good catching up with friends and I felt light and full, but then I was sitting at my desk in the office, and after feeling like I had been there for hours, I checked the clock to see that it was only 8:55AM. I knew it was going to be a long day.

It might have had something to do with the fact that Sloane woke up extra early, which means I get less sleep, and maybe it has something to do with the fact that I missed her like crazy. Whatever it was, it felt like I was riding on the back of a very hung-over-snail to get to the end of the day. I listened to a lot of podcasts, per usual, and one of them inspired me to make a list of things that energize me.  

But also, before starting on the list, I did a quick sketch of what I think a stick figure of a giraffe should be like.

So there.

DIY MOUNTAIN PILLOW

this is awesome. make a mountain! and then hug it!

NEW YEAR'S EVE

I apologize in advance for the photo dump that is about to happen here, but most of them has a baby in it, if that assuages anything. As I write this, the temperature outside is slowly rising to a high of 64, and the weather folk says that it is going to be in the 70s this weekend, but I swear it is still January, right? And if my mind is kind and serves me well, the holidays just happened.

As much as I don’t like the cold and do not like snow (yes, I repeat, I do not like snow), since I had a formative, picturesque and nostalgia-inducing childhood in New Jersey, where it snowed in the truckfuls, Christmas doesn’t quite feel like itself without snow. I find myself wondering if I want Sloane to associate Christmas with snow, like I did, and have that fuzzy feeling of Christmasyness which involves holly, the smell of fir trees, wood, snowmen and snow angels – which is all so nice. But then I decide that no, it’s definitely not necessary, and it’s most important to me that she associate the holidays with family, gratitude, and the traditions that we make for ourselves to give thanks.

Having this baby girl makes me appreciate family even more than ever, and I am still giddy over the fact that my parents can be here for almost a month. They live in Seoul, South Korea, so it’s extra special that they are able to visit for a longer period than usual. They got here the night of Christmas, and so did my sister, her fiancé, Val, and my cousin, Lois. They were still here while we hopped (I mean, crawled) over to NYC for a couple of days, and when we got back, we celebrated New Year’s Eve and Day together with dinner, champagne, family worship, and some games. We missed my other sister and her fellow, but it felt full and I do love having our house full of family. Here are some photos from New Year’s Eve: ...

I BELONG WITH YOU YOU BELONG WITH ME

the rad photo was taken by saena

This little spot of sun is 5 and a half months this weekend. 

22 weeks! 

we did it! 

instead of an essay, i want to say things like: 

baby, 

your laughs are my bliss, your cries are my ghosts.

did you really use to just lay there like a rock once upon a time?

is there anything you don't want to put in your mouth?

is that smile really for me?

your smiles are my fuel, your cheeks are magnets for my lips

sometimes you are an extension of me, sometimes, 

i realize you are a whole other person of your own

and it floors me.

and then, cue this song. are we sick of this song, yet? hope not. it's so good. 

 i dance my baby to it.

IN WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

Today was a bit of a haze. Being back at work after a long break wasn't too bad – hello, structure -  but it was also disorienting. I could feel my brain scrambling like mad to figure out what it is exactly that I do at that desk, and I found myself having to find comfort and stability in my cups of coffee.  I also missed the baby a whole ton. I had gotten used to being able to see her and squeeze her whenever I wanted.

Have we all transitioned into the new year okay? I guess another and more accurate way to ask this question is, did everyone survive the holidays? Are we back? Forward and onwards? I do like the newness of a brand new year, almost entirely because it feels like a page turn (I actually hear in my mind the turning of a page whenever I think of December 31 becoming January 1), but making resolutions has always felt a little forced, which is why I like the part where one reflects on the past year more than the part where you make plans for the upcoming one.   Also, it seems unnecessary because that kind of intentionality is what I try to do on a daily basis – reflect, resolve, repeat – hey, isn’t that what this blog is for?  Oh heyyy.

To be clear, I am a planner and I am a dreamer, but the more specific I can get, the better. Resolutions always seem a little vague and unrealistic and open-ended to me, and I don’t like that. I make to-do lists every day, and if those count as resolutions, I guess those are mine.

If this blog is any indicator, and I guess like any person who blogs, I like the process of documenting and reflecting. This blog is my creative outlet right now in that it forces me to write regularly and practice photography, but it is also my mode of reflection. When I document and reflect, there is absolutely no way that I can avoid arriving at a place where I am utterly grateful. And in a way, that is maybe the underlying goal of this blog, to practice and reflect on my gratitude through all of the little things and big things.

I could say a lot about what I learned this past year, but I will keep it to this one thing, the thing that I think is one of the more important things that I could have learned, as well as something that I had been striving for. A few years ago, I resolved that I wanted to be a person who is both deeply rooted in the things of the present, while dreaming and hoping for glorious fruits to grow from my branches. And while I have always been really good about dreaming up and for things, I was less good at reveling in the present. But something about this past year – getting pregnant, deciding to buy a house, having a baby, learning how to do life as a mother and wife, and evaluating my friendships in that light – taught me how to truly live and just BE in each present moment.  I love that this is the lesson that I’ve learned this past year, especially as a new mother, because having peace about where the lines have fallen frees me to be more truly myself.  I wasn’t expecting it and that’s the beauty of it, too - that the true growth was in me letting go and being able to receive a peace that transcends my own understandings.

So, 2013, welcome.  
But better yet, January 3, let's do this. 

36 HOURS IN NYC

i love everything about new york city and its surrounding areas, i always have and i always will. it also helps that it's where some of my favorite people live so it goes without saying that i get excited for any opportunity to go up there. this most recent opportunity, however, didn't turn out quite as planned, and to make a long story short, it took us 12 hours (in the pouring rain) to make it up there (yes, with a 5 month old baby in the car), and then another 11 or so hours to get back down. this was all in order to spend a whopping 36 hours in the city (or more accurately, long island city & williamsburg). needless to say, we were a tad bit traumatized by the ordeal and promised ourselves that we would either fly or plan for a longer trip next time. lesson learned. and you know what, as rough as it was, it was worth it for me to see these lovely faces - our friends brian and saena, and my sister, sharon and her man, paul. plus, sloane got her first whiff of the city.

 the trip included eating leftovers, playing games, getting a tibetan massage, eating at momofuku ssam bar, stopping in at a milk bar, seeing my sister's place for the first time, checking out their pocket of w-burg, and a place called videology, and stopping by for some dim sum in bay ridge on our way out, which was delicious.