Epiphanies

J, you are three months old today. I feel somewhat bereft when you’re not with me. I feel like we’ve been together forever. I love how you so intently look at me. I love how you turn your head at the sound of my voice. I love how you smile when I coo your name. I love when you let out a loud burp when we are just sitting together chilling. I love how you bat your cute tiny hands at me. I love the size of your hands (your nails grow so long in just a week).

I love your good nature. You’re pretty easy to take care of. You usually stop crying when one of your needs are taken care of: hunger, sleepy, need a diaper change, you need to burp or you need to let out some gas/poop, or you need a change of scenery. There is never a time when you are inconsolable and I love that about you.

Your brothers love and adore you. They always want to touch and kiss you. I know they will dote on you.

You sleep between us at night so that I can nurse you without getting up out of bed and so daddy can burp you while being 90% asleep. You pretty much sleep through the night although some nights you like to wake up for one feeding. Those are the nights when you sleep in for the night at 10pm.

You get bored pretty easily – you won’t even sit in your cute aquarium swing for more than ten minutes. You need a change of location every so often and then you are happy as a clam. I love how when you suddenly spit up a little during a cry for attention, you’re outraged as if it was my fault you were interrupted. You’re so cute when you’re mesmerized by the lights.

I love how you are content to lie on the dinner table while we have dinner around you. It’s like we are all having dinner together.

You are wearing a size 2 Pampers swaddler. You’re starting to lose your light brown fuzzily soft baby hair. I love your long eyelashes and your adorable toothless smiles. You hold up your head pretty well now. You make cute little nasally sounds. I love how you coo back at me and how cutely you babble.  I love you and happy third month birthday.

Ate at a really good Mexican restaurant in Newport Beach called Taco Rosa. M, MA, K and B were there. B and I split a huge Arizona burrito – was delish. We asked for the whole thing to be green sauce, B told me it tastes better than the red sauce so I went with it. I also had a margarita with salt – much better margarita than the one I had at El Cholo’s. They were all surprised that I had a bad margarita there, they said the drinks are usually really good. Not so for me – that was the nastiest margarita I’ve ever had. I couldn’t even finish it. Anyway, the best part of Taco Rosa’s though was the dessert – best flan I’ve ever had bar none.

Funny story B told: She brought her son (7 years old) to temple for the first time. Her son looks around and he whispers to his mom, “There sure are a lot of Indians around here.” She looks at him agape and tells him, “You know right, that you’re Indian?” His shocked reaction: “What??????????!” He denies it at first, “But I only speak English, oh and a little Spanish. None of that Gujarati. ” “Hey, wait, come to think of it, are you Indian? You speak Gujarati.” He was in denial for a bit. Hilarious. She told us that a week later he finally came to terms with it in his head and and said to her ” So I’m American with Indian blood right?” Score.

K also told her own story about her daughter. They had gone to Cabo two years in a row and K speaks spanish fluently. So in class when they talked about their own cultural heritage, her daughter K proudly told her teacher, “I’m American with a little Spanish heritage.” They’re caucasian. Kids are too funny.

There was a time when B didn’t really get the cultural differences between people. It was great. He would just say “That kid is a little brown” when I asked what were they. He didn’t really understand what I was asking. We eventually explained to him that people came from different countries and such. Since then he’s been obsessed with Asian culture, especially China and Japan. Japan I think because of anime. While it’s a good thing that he’s so interested, it makes me nervous that he will be one of those kids that only hang out with Asians. I’m not cool with that. It’s hard though because where we live, a large part of the population is Asian. However, I kind of like it because there’s no racial bullying whatsoever, something I hated while I was growing up. I was only one of three Asians in my whole elementary school (Grades 1-6). The other two were a Philippino boy and the other I think was a Japanese girl with a huge mole the size of a half dollar on her nose. So what is the lesser of two evils? To know that racial tension exists in the world, to learn those hard lessons early on and to be able to deal with it? Or to have a worry free childhood but be conditioned to hang out with Asians? I’m not sure.

The other day, I told Dh, wouldn’t an infant carrier you could use in the water be a great invention? We have muliple children and it’s hard to watch the older children when you have really young ones. Now we have a baby and a 4 year old that needs to be watched in the water. Well, apparently someone beat us to the punch – Body Glove Baby Water Carrier. Bah. But I was way too late anyway.

Dh though had an idea several years ago about a scrolling LED sign in the car where you can tell other cars to f*ck off or your lights are off or for advertising purposes or whatever else.  He never did anything about it and lo and behold, someone invented it – LED scrolling message sign.   Just goes to show you, everyone has good ideas but it’s all about the timing and follow through.

What leads one to suddenly talk to people that one sees all the time but have never spoken to before?

L pulled up beside me as C, J and I were walking home after dropping B off.  She seemed enamored with babies, including J.  She then proceeded to extol the virtues of breastfeeding (having breastfed her son for 4 years and being a former lactation consultant).  Although I find breastfeeding easy and convenient and I do get the health benefits of nursing, I just don’t envision nursing once J gets teeth.  She claims the teeth thing is only because the baby is moving his head.  Well yeah.  She says you can train your baby not to bite but I really don’t want to suffer through any training.  J bites me now with only his gums and it hurts like hell.  I swear tears come to my eyes when he does it.  I shudder to think how much more painful it will be when his teeth grow in.  No thanks.

I also had a dental appointment with D today.  He really is a great dentist.  He made the impression for my crown today.  I really don’t fear dentists as much as I did before.  We chatted a lot and he told me that he and C are both Catholics and pretty religious.  He doesn’t necessarily agree with the strictness of the Catholic faith nor the celibacy but his heart is there.  I told him the reason I didn’t really go with Catholicism was because the sermons never connected with me.  I never understood how to apply the biblical stories to my life in a constructive way and that’s why I turned to Christianity.  It made more sense to me.  I don’t need all the rituals and in fact, it’s the rituals that turn me most off of religion.  I rather be inspired on how to be a good person, not be told to do this, this, and this and you will be saved.

Then I took C to swim class.  I finally spoke to Beth.  We’ve seen each other many times but never really spoke to each other.  She usually hangs out with another mom, who incidentally approached me last week to tell me how cute J was.  I usually hang out with other moms I know.  Today, the other moms weren’t around for whatever reason.  Anyway, apparently she’s from Connecticut, an easterner like me.  We discussed how Irvine seemed to have a heavy amount of Asians, something she said she wasn’t used to.  I’m not crazy about it either but it’s better than the alternative where there’s no diversity at all.  She’s Korean but grew up in a more diverse neighborhood, not so heavily “asian” as this part of Irvine is.  It was an interesting talk.  I also found out the real reason our first swim instructor Justin left.  It wasn’t because he got another job as Dh and I surmised, but because of a disagreement with the owner.  Too bad.  I really really liked him.  Don was a waste of time.  I regret wasting so much money on the lessons with him.  Jamie is great though.  She’s leaving soon but it’s just as well since I’m going to halt C’s lessons.  Beth is going to also for pretty much the same reason I had – that it was too chaotic and crowded during the summer.  Great minds think alike!

C said I was cute when I said waiting “on” line. I didn’t know what she was talking about at all. She said most people say waiting “in” line. She noticed when she was in NY that New Yorkers say waiting “on” line. Interesting.

P mentioned to me that she was going to try acupuncture to get pregnant. She’s done acupuncture before but not for fertility. Typical granola girl .