just finished updating Austin's baby book and have pretty much finished both evan and dylan's first year books. i've neglected pretty much everything over the last few days trying to pull this together. it's something that i hope they'll appreciate, and their future families appreciate in the years ahead.
not enough time to enjoy the boys. not enough time to hear evan say "Oh-Kaye". not enough time to watch Austin play with his toes. not enough time to hear the boys banter in chinese in their rooms. not enough time to overhear conversations like this:
dylan - "evan that looks dangerous." evan - "I know!!!" with glee. not enough time to continue to help brian with his practice marketing - updating his emails, revamping his paid search accounts. not enough time to help plan our Spain trip. not enough time to work out. not enough time to plan evan's birthday party for THIS weekend. not enough time to help Dylan with his penmanship, piano and play his math games. not enough time to help evan perfect his "twinkle, twinkle little star." not enough time to spend time with brian. not enough time to be kind to myself. not enough time for gratitude. and i really need to make the time for gratitude. but now - i need to eat, order decorations for evan's party and feed austin again.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Monday, September 18, 2017
i work hard
I work hard. i'm too smart not to, and i'm not smart enough not to. this year has been a tremendous year. and like how i've described how it's like to have 3 boys, i say that the highs are high and the lows are low. we have a beautiful baby boy and i'm turning 40. 2 tremendous milestones and there's a bittersweet sadness to it all.
this is my last tuesday of maternity leave before i go back to work this thursday. i've been desperately trying to cram everything in. archiving all the boys' art projects, and also finishing up everyone's baby book. i spent all weekend with brian being gone in scottsdale working on their baby books, which was probably not the best time to do so, considering how emotional i am going back to work and reflecting on this magical summer.
i don't feel guilty when i think about going back to work. I feel sad. And I feel this way for many reasons. i spent my 20s sprinting up the corporate ladder and making the best decision of my life marrying brian. my ambition was to go hard and professional achieve as much as possible. I definitely wanted to be Director before 30, and wanted more, more, more. There was little differentiation between my social life and professional life, so balance wasn't really factor. And then I got married.
Needing to be home for dinner, having a life partner, traveling together before kids became a priority. My 30s were about living a life as a couple, to start a family. It wasn't about me anymore. It was about them...our future, our kids. Professionally I wasn't going to make it to VP at Sephora, as frustrating as that was...and bigger priorities started coming into play. Being close to home, to be closer to the boys and b's practice started to factor in. Deciding to take the role at Care.com, working hard to gain traction, establish myself in a new company, make a difference and get promoted to VP to set myself up for future consulting gigs was the professional focus. Taking a full-time job with good maternity benefits was also a factor and a significant one, since the decision to have more kids was more of an impromptu situation, but getting through another pregnancy cleary became a priority. And now there are 3 boys, and i'm turning 40.
so now what. i don't really care about proving myself professionally anymore. I'm not gunning for a CMO role, a larger team, or more responsibility. More money, maybe - but is that really the point? I don't want to dismiss the impact that money has in our household, or livelihood, but then as i grow up - time has become much more valuable than money. so then what.
if i work so hard - what should i be working for. to earn money to pay for opportunities for my kids to have their extracurricular activities? for vacations? should i work with my children to help them become better citizens of the world? who gets to benefit from what kind of work i should do? should i work for the practice to see if that would help our household? Time is the most valuable asset to me now. How am i going to make the best of it?
this is my last tuesday of maternity leave before i go back to work this thursday. i've been desperately trying to cram everything in. archiving all the boys' art projects, and also finishing up everyone's baby book. i spent all weekend with brian being gone in scottsdale working on their baby books, which was probably not the best time to do so, considering how emotional i am going back to work and reflecting on this magical summer.
i don't feel guilty when i think about going back to work. I feel sad. And I feel this way for many reasons. i spent my 20s sprinting up the corporate ladder and making the best decision of my life marrying brian. my ambition was to go hard and professional achieve as much as possible. I definitely wanted to be Director before 30, and wanted more, more, more. There was little differentiation between my social life and professional life, so balance wasn't really factor. And then I got married.
Needing to be home for dinner, having a life partner, traveling together before kids became a priority. My 30s were about living a life as a couple, to start a family. It wasn't about me anymore. It was about them...our future, our kids. Professionally I wasn't going to make it to VP at Sephora, as frustrating as that was...and bigger priorities started coming into play. Being close to home, to be closer to the boys and b's practice started to factor in. Deciding to take the role at Care.com, working hard to gain traction, establish myself in a new company, make a difference and get promoted to VP to set myself up for future consulting gigs was the professional focus. Taking a full-time job with good maternity benefits was also a factor and a significant one, since the decision to have more kids was more of an impromptu situation, but getting through another pregnancy cleary became a priority. And now there are 3 boys, and i'm turning 40.
so now what. i don't really care about proving myself professionally anymore. I'm not gunning for a CMO role, a larger team, or more responsibility. More money, maybe - but is that really the point? I don't want to dismiss the impact that money has in our household, or livelihood, but then as i grow up - time has become much more valuable than money. so then what.
if i work so hard - what should i be working for. to earn money to pay for opportunities for my kids to have their extracurricular activities? for vacations? should i work with my children to help them become better citizens of the world? who gets to benefit from what kind of work i should do? should i work for the practice to see if that would help our household? Time is the most valuable asset to me now. How am i going to make the best of it?
Monday, September 11, 2017
teeth
August 28th - dylan lost his first tooth. Or more accurately he tied floss to his loose tooth and used a pull back car to rip it out of his mouth! he's braver than i am. he wrote about it in the tooth book for school - but I think we're still waiting on the letter to the tooth fairy. TBC.
as dylan loses his teeth - austin had his 2 bottom teeth break through as well. My babies are growing up too fast?
coincidentally Annie also lost a tooth. Dylan has made a comment about that as well...and hopefully it wasn't too offensive.
as dylan loses his teeth - austin had his 2 bottom teeth break through as well. My babies are growing up too fast?
coincidentally Annie also lost a tooth. Dylan has made a comment about that as well...and hopefully it wasn't too offensive.
anxious about being anxious
there's been this cloud...over my maternity leave. this impending sense that my magical summer, my magical maternity will end soon, and life as i know it will change dramatically again. you would think that i would have evolved and am more mature about dealing with change, and shockingly Im still very emotionally dramatic about it. I wince at the thought of a new routine, and as much as i remind myself about the positives and focus on gratitude, all i want to do is stare at austin, snuggle, and go on play dates with evan and hang out with dylan. I'm hoping that this anticipation is the worst part. that it will be not that big of a deal.
mind over matter.
live in the present.
be grateful.
accept the feelings that i have, but don't let them hold me back or negatively impact my life
eat, pray, love was on TV last night. i watched the majority of the movie - at least the eat, pray parts and the beginning of the love part, but had to go to sleep. i had signed up for soul cycle at 9:30 and didn't want to be a complete dud in the morning, and still wanted to walk dylan to school and save time to pump milk for austin.
feeling guilt - forgiving oneself ---those seem rather counter culture to me. But it's something i want to work on. just like trying to get back into shape. although sometimes I'm conflicted, in the sense that maybe I should just accept who I am and try not to change myself - maybe i'll be more enlightened and happier then.
life is hard.
mind over matter.
live in the present.
be grateful.
accept the feelings that i have, but don't let them hold me back or negatively impact my life
eat, pray, love was on TV last night. i watched the majority of the movie - at least the eat, pray parts and the beginning of the love part, but had to go to sleep. i had signed up for soul cycle at 9:30 and didn't want to be a complete dud in the morning, and still wanted to walk dylan to school and save time to pump milk for austin.
feeling guilt - forgiving oneself ---those seem rather counter culture to me. But it's something i want to work on. just like trying to get back into shape. although sometimes I'm conflicted, in the sense that maybe I should just accept who I am and try not to change myself - maybe i'll be more enlightened and happier then.
life is hard.
first days of school
the end of summer came crashing down, coming back from socal on a sunday and evan starting school the following wed. This year he said he wants to be a pilot when he grows up. I didn't take him to school, but i did go and pick him up to take his first day of school picture. That still counts, right?
we went to meet the teacher, the day before school officially started at Las Lomitas. found out that dylan's teacher was going to be Mrs. Koyohara on monday, the day before meet the teacher. was a little disappointed because we were hoping to have Ms. Marchi (of course Elly has her). perhaps one of our boys will have her. we walked to meet the teacher and was a few min late from the official start time. We waited in line to introduce ourselves to her, and didn't realize that there was a specific order to which we were supposed to do things, according to the checklist she had on the first table (i didn't realize that there was a first table). little did I know that we had to sign up for a time for the child's assessment (none of which worked out with our schedule, so we had to create a new time), and that the entrance to her class was actually the back door (we were schooled on this by Mrs. Kiyohara). brian, austin and i were able to send dylan off to school. for this year's sign - he said he wanted to be an engineer for fast cars. where did the time go?
I was able to volunteer on the second day of school - i was supposed to take pictures of all the kids in his class. I was really looking forward to it, and it was fun to see dylan interact within the classroom setting, but was disappointed by how poorly the pictures turned out. i'm way out of practice. i should have just taken the pictures form my iphone. should've, could've, would've.
it's been such a joy to walk dylan to school. i love loitering around to see what happens on the playground in the morning. some days he sees elly and they run off together, another day he had his arm around cyrus and they walked onto the playground together. so sweet. my heart aches that i won't be able to do this very often when i go back to work. i need to figure out how i can try to do this at least once a week.
we went to meet the teacher, the day before school officially started at Las Lomitas. found out that dylan's teacher was going to be Mrs. Koyohara on monday, the day before meet the teacher. was a little disappointed because we were hoping to have Ms. Marchi (of course Elly has her). perhaps one of our boys will have her. we walked to meet the teacher and was a few min late from the official start time. We waited in line to introduce ourselves to her, and didn't realize that there was a specific order to which we were supposed to do things, according to the checklist she had on the first table (i didn't realize that there was a first table). little did I know that we had to sign up for a time for the child's assessment (none of which worked out with our schedule, so we had to create a new time), and that the entrance to her class was actually the back door (we were schooled on this by Mrs. Kiyohara). brian, austin and i were able to send dylan off to school. for this year's sign - he said he wanted to be an engineer for fast cars. where did the time go?
I was able to volunteer on the second day of school - i was supposed to take pictures of all the kids in his class. I was really looking forward to it, and it was fun to see dylan interact within the classroom setting, but was disappointed by how poorly the pictures turned out. i'm way out of practice. i should have just taken the pictures form my iphone. should've, could've, would've.
it's been such a joy to walk dylan to school. i love loitering around to see what happens on the playground in the morning. some days he sees elly and they run off together, another day he had his arm around cyrus and they walked onto the playground together. so sweet. my heart aches that i won't be able to do this very often when i go back to work. i need to figure out how i can try to do this at least once a week.
friendships
it was so nice to see and spend quality time with friends this summer. the song about "make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold" is so true. it was so nice to just hang out with christine at her house, to walk seal beach with cindy, and my favorite is cruising target with kathy after the kids go to bed.
it's been a mad rush to connect with vera, noel, brooke, friends from sephora (heishin, jill, hopefully others), christine chun, etc. i'm feeling like i won't have ANY time when i go back to work.
i do like reconnecting with friends from different eras of my life. i feel like it helps to keep me grounded. like they are roots to my old, twisty weeping willow. Dramatic because I'm dreading going back to work.
it's been a mad rush to connect with vera, noel, brooke, friends from sephora (heishin, jill, hopefully others), christine chun, etc. i'm feeling like i won't have ANY time when i go back to work.
i do like reconnecting with friends from different eras of my life. i feel like it helps to keep me grounded. like they are roots to my old, twisty weeping willow. Dramatic because I'm dreading going back to work.
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