I'm a Housewife??

I don't know how I've avoided the question until now... But for some reason, I have been asked "So, are you back to work now?" more in the last week than Adelaide's 1st birthday (10 months ago!). I don't know what it is - maybe it's the new hip conversation topic or because Adelaide looks like she's old enough to start school...

Every conversation goes something like this:

Them: So, are you back to work now?
Me: No, I'm home with Adelaide
Them: Oh, you're still on maternity leave?
Me: Um no...
Them: Ah okay!

But on one occasion, the "Ah okay!" was replaced with "Oh, so you're a housewife then". (To which I answered "I guess so...") THAT got me thinking. Seriously, I'm a housewife? I've needed to fill out forms about my occupation and I've listed "Homemaker" a few times after umm-ing and ah-ing. When did I turn from being a code monkey to "housewife"? I guess since I don't have a paid job. I've been tempted to say "self employed" because if I do my job right and keep Adelaide busy, P can keep working and I'm paid by his paycheques! :) That's creating an income for myself... kinda.

I've always imagined homemaker/housewife to be... not me. I go to bed every night wondering why I'm so tired (other than the lack of good sleep and staying up late blogging). To me, a stay at home mom does the following:

• Does grocery shopping


• Cooks/Makes meal plans


• Does the Dishes


• Does the Laundry


• Looks after the kids all day


• Chauffeurs the kids to different programs

I... do almost none of that. With our family structure (4 generations in the one house), my mom is responsible for the grocery shopping, cooking/meal planning. Grandma does the dishes and the laundry. Looking after Adelaide/bringing her around is split 3 ways between me, P, and my mom. What am I doing? I'm never quite sure looking at that list. Yet... at the end of everyday I'm tired and I don't know where my time has gone. I have also gotten a lot of "it must be nice to have family around who can take care of Adelaide" - it's true, but somehow I don't feel more rested...

I admit that I spend some time doing emails and surfing Facebook. But that can't take up my ENTIRE day. I need to remember that my life isn't like other people's. Well, no one's life is the same but definitely not ours. I usually have to sit down and remind myself that right now we're in the middle of something big: a house move and a complete change for Timothy.

• I spend a lot of my time chasing banks for letters needed by the builder or getting the builder to come fix issues we've found around the house.


• I have been deciding how things should be organized once they arrive in the new house and build floor to ceiling shelving in the basement to handle all the stuff that's coming in from the old house. I WILL NOT allow this new house to become a place where we're embarrassed to invite people over because we have boxes still unpacked from a move 13 years ago. Official big furniture move date is March 6th!


• My mom and I are going to start Family Managed Supports which means that we are responsible for hiring new staff and doing accounting/payroll for Timothy's care. This also means I have more seminars to attend to learn about how to care for Tim. I'm also in the middle of going back and forth between our bank such that we can get a correct cheque to even create a proper contract!


• As a family, we are being very intentional in planning out how Timothy should spend his days. We want him to be involved and included in the community - what will that take/look like?


• Writing up post secondary applications for Timothy in hopes that we may find and develop some of his interests.


• We still have stuff at the old house that needs to be packed - I need to keep sorting through my old stuff. Do I need my Chinese school notes? hmmmm


• Dealing with bills/finances/paperwork with having a new house has definitely adding up. I love paperwork (not kidding), but my desk is getting swallowed up.


• I do a lot of scheduling in the family, making sure everyone is where they need to be and we keep all our appointments.


• SOMETHING always comes up... like with normal life. IE. Needing to deal with the government because Peter's PR is yet again delayed - that seems to always happen

This blog has definitely turned into one I'm just complaining in... either way, I can go to bed tonight knowing that I'm dealing with a lot and I have a right to be tired at night. It's just not because I've done everything that others struggle with... I honestly don't know how they do it. :)

We've Weaned! (I think)

This is a big thing for me right now. Some people may know that I have continued to breastfeed Adelaide until this point (she's 22 months). I was previously asked if I would stop when she turned 1 and I had originally replied "of course!" Adelaide's first birthday came and went and I was still nursing her... Adelaide has always been very good about asking for "nai-nai" (milk in Cantonese) and waiting until I was ready. I was home with her and didn't see any reason to stop. The medical recommendation is that breastfeeding is healthy until the age of 2 and beyond. It wasn't until our trip to New York this Christmas that things turned a little sour.

On Boxing Day, it turns out that Adelaide got a stomach virus of some kind. She was barfing all night long and her skin looked pale. She was not wanting to eat anything but I was still breastfeeding so she was getting nutrients from me - I wasn't too worried. Adelaide went about a week without eating very much, getting VERY thin and her skin colour was horrid. She was still nursing regularly. I had called her a holocaust victim because we could see the outline of her ribs. It was one of those moments when I was happy to had breastfeeding handy and something she could keep down relatively easily.

Once coming home, Adelaide started going crazy with her "nai-nai" requests basically repeating herself over and over and over again. No matter whether she had just nursed or not. She was most likely asking for it for comfort rather than nutrition. She started increasing her solid food intake again and regained her weight but she was now in a habit of asking for "nai-nai" ALL THE TIME. I could handle the requests in the beginning - she was sick! But after about 1.5 months with relentless nagging from her, I decided it may be time to wean.

A few days ago, I decided to try out not nursing her at night at all and she took to that quite well. When she asked for "nai-nai" we told her that it was sleeping and would she rather have a cuddle. Eventually, she understood what we were saying and said "mommy cuddle". I cuddled her and she fell asleep immediately. Day times are easier since I just offer her cow's milk or to give her a hug when she asks for "nai-nai". She's taken well to it and has not had any tantrums because she wasn't getting what she wanted. Today's day 3 and it seems to be going well - we'll see how long this lasts... hopefully it's for good!

I don't regret weaning now, I think it worked for the two of us and our family. I also don't regret continuing to nurse until so late since it's definitely healthy. Hopefully, I've given Adelaide enough brain juice to last her a lifetime. :) Though, I don't think I can take any credit for it... all kids are brilliant in their parent's eyes!

Blogs Dump

I haven't really felt like blogging much but I have reading new blogs and have found some entries I really identify with. I know most people are now using pin interest... but I haven't brought myself to. So manually... these blog entries are ones that have stuck with me:

1. Friendly Fire - About women debating about staying home or going to work.
2. Don't Carpe Diem - For the days I don't enjoy "every second"!
3. Teaching the Art of Accepting Crappy Gifts - Christmas has come and gone... I dread the day I need to teach this to Adelaide.
4. While Mama Was in the Bathroom - Adelaide has become obsessed with "Daddy's Coffee"... I wonder if she'll try it one day.

That's the short list!

Adelaide's Problem Solving & Language

Now that Adelaide has learned a lot more, there are some interesting and cute stories to tell:

1 -- Adelaide always runs into Tai Poh's (great grandma's) room and grabs something (usually something she's not supposed to have like TV remotes) then RUNS!

2 -- The other night, Adelaide went into Poh Poh's (grandma's) room to scope out the place and show grandma the sticker that was on her face. Afterwards, she came back outside to the living room to get her duck. She returned to poh poh's room and asked to trade her duck for a ruler on the bed. Poh poh said no since she still had to use it. Adelaide threw down the duck, grabbed the ruler, and RAN!

Yes... Adelaide knows that if she has something she's not supposed to and then runs - usually people are too lazy to chase after her for it. :) My mom's ruler is still missing.

3 -- Adelaide found some fuzz on the carpet and came to ask me to open the gate so that she could throw the fuzz away. I was comfy on the couch so I told her to go to the room and ask daddy to throw the fuzz away in his garbage can. Adelaide happily takes the fuzz into the room calling "Deh deh!" I hear her in the room going "hand, hand, hand" and a few seconds later, I see her holding P's hand dragging him out to open the gate for her to throw the fuzz away. If I had known she was going to drag him out of the room, I would have gotten off the couch!

4 -- In the mornings, my mom usually takes Adelaide so that I can sleep in for a couple more hours. Since I'm in the room, Adelaide's first diaper change is usually downstairs on the carpet at the base of the stairs with one of the diapers from the "going out" bag. One morning, P saw Adelaide take a teddy, put it on the carpet at the base of the stairs, and go into the "going out" bag for a new diaper - then attempted to put a diaper on the teddy!

5 -- I stand at the bottom of the stairs and call up to P to ask him to get me this or that or let him know that we're heading out. One day, I had just yelled up to P to let him know we were heading out and went to get something from the mudroom. (Usually the conversation goes as follows: "Hey P!!!" *wait for response, then get a response* "We're going out now!") When I'm in the mudroom, I hear Adelaide yell "P!!! P!!!! Pee-tah!!!!!!! P!!!!! Pee-tah!!" - I come back around the corner and she's looking up the stairs and yelling, exactly how I do it. I've been trying to get her to call out "Deh deh" so now the yelling is a mix of P, Pee-tah, and Deh deh.

6 -- The other day, Adelaide went to visit Timothy next door. In the report from P (since I wasn't around), it turned out Tim and Adelaide were jumping in the living room. Tim would actually jump and Adelaide would just crouch and stand up straight again while saying "One, Two, JUMP!"

7 -- The other day, I was in the kitchen and Adelaide brought in a ball of yarn. I noticed that the yarn had a tail behind it so I asked Adelaide for the yarn ball and started winding it up. I followed the yarn trail all the way back to the sweater grandma was sitting in her room knitting! It was a good 5 or so meters that Adelaide had brought the yarn out!

Not quite stories but are interesting is Adelaide's take to language.

• I have taught Adelaide to say "door open" so now every time she needs something open, door/gate/can/lid on cup, she says "dorpen!".
• We have a nursery rhyme book from the library that we've been singing with her and lately her new favourite is "5 little monkies". The way she asks us to start singing it is "mama? doct?" (As in "mama called the doctor...")
• Another song we sing together is "Itsy Bitsy Spider". (I sing itsy bitsy, P sing incy wincy - close enough!) Her prompt for this song is moving her fingers and say "itsy bitsy peter". I can never understand the first 2 words but the "peter" is quite clear - it's cause she know's P's name.
• Teaching manners to Adelaide has been kinda fun! We've taught her to sign and say "thank you". So far she'll put her hand to her mouth and say "Thanks" softly. It's very cute.
• I've also taught Adelaide to say "please". If I prompt her with "What do you say" or "How do you say that nicely" after a request, she signs and says a very sugary "Pwease?". If it's something she really wants, she'll say "*item*? Please? *nods* Yea. *nods*" Basically giving our response with her request :)
• Adelaide has definitely grown to like Timothy. Everyday, she'll usually ask for him or want to go visit him. We've taught her to say cuw foo (uncle) but she calls him "foo foo!" It's very cute watching Adelaide say "hand hand hand!" when she wants to hold his hand to walk somewhere. Though, Tim usually ignores her. :( He has yet to figure out how to fully interact with her.
• Depending how shy she feels, Adelaide usually waves and says "hi" to strangers. Now she's also gotten to a point where she'll say "bye" when we're leaving. It's usually a string of "bye bye, see you, *blows a kiss*" AFTER someone has already left... We're working on the timing thing.
• She's learned some of her numbers. Right now her counting goes like this: One, Too, Three, Five (she hasn't figured out four), Five (at which time, you need to give her 5), Six, Seven, Ten!

Those are the few things that have stuck out lately and are very fun to share :) Now time for bed and a big day of POD packing tomorrow. The new snow really sucks because it'll make it just that much harder to move stuff out to the pod.

Cheery

Just a quick update on life for us. After my post about a week ago, life has gotten better. Sharing our experience has definitely given me some closure. We've received P's passport and will be sending it off for a VISA for work. Then hopefully, we can turn around and apply for the US VISA that we tried to in the beginning. (And NOT lose it this time)

I had an interesting epiphany today during service at church. The pastor was talking about how they arrived in Vietnam for one purpose but a year later they are still there but for a completely different purpose - the overall idea is that God can bring you from point X to Y to eventually get to point Z. I was thinking about where we 2 weeks ago and I was wondering if there was a reason everything happened to us. I don't know if it's me trying to find reason in nothing (which is quite easy in hindsight) but I feel that everything happened for.a.reason.

The trip to Vancouver, through the Rockies, into Calgary, then back to Edmonton was one that I really needed. As frustrating the events leading to the trip was, the trip itself was an awesome time for our family to be and play together. We had not been by ourselves as a family since our big Australia trip for Adelaide's first birthday. Just taking the time to visit old friends, enjoy nature, and taking a break from the normal routines was refreshing and definitely helped me get to where I am now.

So overall, we're doing well and everything is moving along quick. The house possession date is nearing and we're just packing and making good progress. We're chugging along well :)

Precious Angel

My Update

As of October 15, I was supposed to be 3 months pregnant. It would have been a joyous time spreading the news to family and friends. Sadly, things have not gone as planned. I am sharing my story because I feel it will help me heal.

Overall, this second pregnancy was an exciting time for P and me - yes, this one was planned. It was such a good pregnancy too, I didn't have any morning sickness... which is absolutely amazing. I felt very not-pregnant since it was nothing like having Adelaide. It was cool to think that our kids would be close in age.

P was away on a business trip when I went in for my first ultrasound by myself - thinking nothing of it. The ultrasound technician noticed that I didn't drink enough water (or early enough, anyways) and then was unable to find a fetus. It turns out I had a condition called "Blighted Ovum". Basically, it means that there's a gestation sac (where the baby is supposed to develop) but the egg never grows - usually from a chromosomal abnormality. In terms of me, my body thinks it's pregnant but eventually realizes that there's no baby and naturally miscarries.

I found out about the condition on Sept 27th (9 weeks 3 days preggo) and the wait to actually miscarry was/is excruciatingly annoying and frustrating. I'm in a state where I know I'm not really pregnant but I have no control over when my body will miscarry - do I plan to stay home the entire time? I don't know! Not only is it hard to lose a baby mentally, emotionally and physically but waiting weeks for it to happens has really taken a toll on me.

On the emotional side of things, there are a lot of things I didn't realize were big for me. I never noticed how much I wanted kids to be close together in age - both to get the sleepless stage over with and for them to grow up close and play together. Seeing other families with children close in age also adds a bit of pressure - though fully self inflicted and subconscious (until I reflect on it). I also realized that I took my pregnancy with Adelaide for granted. The pregnancy with her was "easy" (without many scares) and quite textbook. Other than a lot of morning sickness (to remind me that she was growing big and strong), I loved growing her.

There are times where I feel an overwhelming feeling of loss and other times that I feel that I've accepted how things have turned out. I love everything about our little (or big, depending how you count) family. Adelaide is cute, learning, keeps me busy and smiling. I struggle with people who talk about babies/pregnancies and there are days I want to shout at the world. But other days, I'm just happy to see the joy that all babies bring. It doesn't help that Adelaide has developed a fascination with babies now and peeking into every infant car seat and stroller we pass. The world will not stop because of what's going on with me, no matter how much I want it to :)

The Trouble Continues

So on the note about the world continuing to spin... I found out about the baby (or non-baby, however you think about it) on a Tuesday. On Thursday I had to go to the airport to pick P up to head down to Calgary. We needed to apply for another US Visa for P since he hasn't received his permanent residency approval yet (almost two years and waiting!). While walking towards the consulate building, we realize that we cannot find P's passport! Knowing that we left that morning with it, we wander around downtown Calgary for 5 hours (by foot) retracing our steps with no luck. So to add onto our horrible week, we have an added stress of needing to deal with a passport issue!

The more we wander around, the more I lose hope of finding it. We were told by the people in the buildings we approach that no one (including them) would want to go to a police station to return it. (It was too far and out of the way) By the end of the day, we realize that to replace P's passport, we'll need to go to an in-person interview at the Australian Consulate. The closest one is in Vancouver. We gave the police a few days in hopes that someone returns the passport but in the end, we knew that we'd need to get a new one. We made the decision on Monday evening to head to Vancouver but how? With it being last minute, flight prices were incredibly high and points were ridiculous.

Travel Plans

I had to decide whether I wanted to stay home since I wasn't bleeding yet or we drive as a family to Vancouver. In the end, I decided that staying home waiting without P around would be harder for me. So P made an appointment for the interview on Thursday morning and we would drive to Vancouver Wednesday bright and early.

So on Wednesday, we started the drive at 6 am in the morning and with a couple stops here and there, we were in Vancouver by about 10pm. We got settled and went straight to bed (after the mandatory email checking, of course). We were able to get everything we needed to get done on Thursday - including visiting my old workplace and a few friends so we decided to leave Vancouver on Friday morning.

We traveled from Vancouver to Calgary over 3 days (2 sleeps). Hung out in Calgary for a bit and on my couple of hours alone with Adelaide while P was in a business meeting, I drop her stuffed monkey - which I've grown a particular connection with and Adelaide likes using it as an ice breaker. I've basically reached the conclusion that downtown Calgary eats things that are important to our family and I really don't want to go back there... :) I'm sure Adelaide's monkey is in a good new home and looking online, there are no replacements since it's an older model monkey. I'm happy Adelaide hasn't attached to it as much as I have.

Conclusion

It's been a very long time since I've blogged and having a super long, depressing one is probably not a good way to start up again. Things have been hard in the last few weeks, which gives me a stronger reason to vent but during the past year, there just hasn't been much interesting happening.

On a completely separate note, the new house stuff is coming along well and we'll most likely move in December (ack - it's supposed to be a record cold year). Whatever, I think we've dealt with worse :) Now I just need to take this blogging time and go pack stuff.

Afterword

P posted with this note and I find it very true...

This blog entry from Emily is written after-the-fact, and I think it is better to read it as "how we're all feeling now". The last couple of weeks were harder for our little family than she says.

Chinese Canadian

So we arrived at the Sydney airport today and I ended up chatting with the security check guy while waiting for our bags to go through the scanner. This is the conversation we had:

Him: Ni Hao... Is that how you say it?

Me: Yea, that's right. Though I'm from Canada, we say "Hi" in English.

Him: Oh, you're from Canada?

Me: Yup!

Him: So were you from China originally?

Me: Um no... I'm from Canada, born and raised!

Him: Oh... wait hang on! You're Canadian?!?!? AND you're Chinese?

Me: Yup, I'm Canadian!

I proceed to walk through the metal detector. :) Should I also have mentioned the Canadian flag I have on my MEC backpack which was right in front of him?