ABC's and 123's...

So we survived!! Well, I mean I survived! We did the whole waiting in line, taking pictures and staying until we were kicked out. Literally. School began at 8:09 (don't ask, they also dismiss at 2:29) and at 8:24 on the dot the principal came over the loud speaker and welcomed everyone to school then said, "It is now 8:24am, parents need to exit the premises through the front office now. Have a wonderful day!"

Time Flies.

Seriously?! Is this actually happening tomorrow?! MY Kataeya is starting Kindergarten?!?!

Let's take a little trip down memory lane shall we....

Back in 2003 my little bundle of joy arrived and I fell in love!

As she grew she stole everybody else's hearts along the way.

Then my baby wasn't such a baby anymore :(
She got bigger... and bigger!!

And here we are now!
Yeah! I know! She will be fine and make lots of new friends but what are Haley and I going to do without her?! Just me and Haley from 8-2:30??? Weird...

Well, that was my little sob sesh. Now I will leave you on a happy note, can't forget about the little booger!!

Life in the Fast Lane.

Handsfree... hmmm?? Does that mean speaker phone counts? Because technically when I use my speaker phone I'm still holding my phone and it's pretty darn close to my face when I do, otherwise I really can't hear who I'm talking to.

I do appreciate the new law. Now I can put that stinking little ear piece on that falls off if I even turn my head just a smidge. It fits perfectly where my sunglasses like to rest upon my ear and it frees up yet another one of my hands to grab whatever it is my kids drop on the floor and expect me to blindly find otherwise they will scream to the high heavens!

I've learned that when we get to the car and I buckle Haley, I then give her anything she could possibly need on our 5 minute car ride to the grocery store. As I get in and look in my mirror I can barely see Haley under her TWO babies that she insisted we bring! She also has her Mimic (milk) tucked next to her on the right and her purse, book and Yummy on the left. As I put the car in reverse and then grab my sunglasses from my visor it clicks in my head to grab Haley's glasses from my purse, wedge my foot on the break and lean back and put them on her face.

"Okay girls, are we ready??"
"How come Haley gets all of that stuff?!"
"Here are your glasses Tae. Haley needs all of that stuff because she isn't as big as you. She can't just enjoy the ride."
"Yeah Haley, you're just a baby not a BIG GIRL like me!"
"I'm not BABY!! No Tae Tae!! NO! I'm BIG GIRL TOO!!"
"That enough girls! Tae don't tease Haley, tell her she is a big girl too."
Through clenched teeth, "You're a big girl too Haley."
"Yeah Tae, I'm Big Girl too!"

As we finally depart I take a deep breath and know that it's only just begun...
By the time we have reached the grocery store Haley has managed to drop each baby twice, hand me her Mimic, have me unzip her purse, find a pen in my own purse for her to draw in her book and open up her yummy!

Driving while talking on the phone is not dangerous, driving with kids in the car is! So while you are thinking "Hang up and drive!" of the jerk driving in front of you, be more aware of the Mom driving with her knee and reaching into her backseat!

Just another day.

Where did I go wrong?? For some reason Kataeya is so anti-shopping that I think she has decided to make every experience at any store as unpleasant as possible. She's smart that Kataeya! She doesn't only "pretend" not to hear me but she does things to rile up Haley so that the only thing coming out of Haley's mouth is loud, annoying and uncontrollable. Little girls are supposed to like shopping aren't they?? She's so girly in every other way I guess I just assumed she would like going to the store.


Each morning when I drop her off at school she turns and says, "Remember Mommy, run all of your errands before you pick me up!"

So yesterday I was busy putting the house back in order from our trip to San Diego over the weekend that I didn't have time to run my errands while she was at school. When I picked her up I had to break it to her that we were going to run to JoAnn's Fabrics really quick! I even tried to pep her up by telling her that we were going to buy fabric so I could make them dresses for our trip to Fiji. She still wasn't having it. An hour and a half later I'm walking out with a pouting 4 year old and Haley who is screaming at the top of her lungs because I told her no when she asked to hold a sewing machine on her lap.


What could have been fifteen minutes turned into an hour and a half of me telling Kataeya to, "Come back!" and "Put that down!" and "Didn't I just tell you not to touch that?!" Also filled with Haley wanting to hold every ribbon in the ribbon aisle then either throwing it on the floor or unraveling it, with me giving in each time to keep her high pitched screaming to a minimum.


Some would have just left... but oh no not me! I was the lady in the store with the kids that you think Geez Lady, get ahold of your kids! I must have threatened Kataeya twenty times that I was never going to take them to the store ever again. At the time I thought I was the big bad bully but that's exactly what she was hoping for!

Well here are the fruits of yesterday's labor.

"How Old ARE you??"

That's the golden question for me.

I just loooooove how long it takes people to ask me that! What I love even more than that is their face when they hear the answer! My wonderful MOMS CLUB was so welcoming and non-judgemental when I first joined which made it so comfortable. It took about a month before anyone mustered up the courage to ask me my actual age. I know everyone kinda had a guess in their mind especially since I'm accompanied by a 4 1/2 year old but they were nice enough to assume I was a little older than I am.

It's actually nice if I even get asked that question. Most of the time people assume I am the babysitter of MY children. They aren't very shy about it either! It amazes me how presumptuous strangers can be. I wonder which factor makes them think I'm the babysitter more, the fact that they are fair-skinned and I'm not or because I don't look old enough to have two kids, let alone one. Either way it's gets pretty frustrating sometimes.

The girls and I were in an Asian market that I stumbled across when making a wrong turn in Van Nuys. When I went through the check out line, the lovely Filipino woman (being nosey just as all "Aunties" are) began asking me my life story and instantly judging me because I have an almost five year old. Then when she asked why I married so young, I confessed that I was only married last October, her mouth practically dropped to the floor and I got the one eyebrow-raised look. Not only had I had "relations" at 19 but they were premarital!! All of my mistakes were laid out for her in the same amount of time it took her to ring up my lumpia and pan de sal. Then she started reprimanding me in Tagalog and I just smiled and went on my merry way... "Oh, Auntie!"

To Wean or not to Wean

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

The common factor among all of these pictures is not only Haley... but her "Ba" or more commonly know as her pacifier.

Now this isn't just any old Ba. No no no, this is the Ba! I've bought numerous pacifiers but all to Haley's repugnance. You name it, I've bought it! Even the same exact brand, color, texture and size. She has spent the last 22 months wearing in that same piece of silicone that it must have some special scent on it that only Haley can recognize. It's been boiled day after day, it's been sewn to it's attaching clip in fear that the sacred Ba would be lost!

As soothing as it may be for a child, the pacifier was clearly designed by a mother desperately seeking some sanity! At least that's what I like to think. Kataeya also had a love for her "Fier" as she called it. When two years old came around it was decided that it would be taken away. She did it cold turkey! That was a loooooong week. After that experience you think I would have learned and would have taken a different route the second time around...

Haley will be turning two in July so Brad and I knew that it would soon be time to wean Haley of her Ba. After receiving a good suggestion from Nancy and another friend of mine, I decided to just do it one day! She had been taking it off and leaving it around the house. I would jokingly tell her to throw it in the trash and she would laugh that goofy laugh of hers and actually walk over to the trash can but I knew that the moment I went to put her down for bed she would go crazy so we would tell her not to throw it away.

On the 23rd of May I was sitting at the computer and glanced over my shoulder and spotted Ba laying on the floor. I thought to myself here is your opportunity! Take the suggestions and just do it! So I grabbed the Ba and before I could take another breath I had snipped the top off of it! I then carefully placed it back right where she had left it.

About a half hour later she came racing around the corner yelling, "Mama look-a look-a!!" My stomach dropped and I turned to find myself cracking up because she had such a look of disbelief on her little face. She then continued to tell me, "Ba's brokten! Look-a Ba brokten!"

Holding back tears of laughter, I responded with as much bewilderness as her, "What?! Ba is broken?!"

"Yeah. Ba brokten!"

Then she tried it and instantly spit it out to say, "Ewww, gross!" And ran back to her room to play. Then we lived happily ever after.... yeah right! So I said it was the 23rd because this is key, the Friday leading into Memorial Day Weekend. The drive down to San Diego that night was insane! You would have thought that her entire world was flipped upside down!

Here we are a little over a week later and we have had our moments and then a few more moments and then a few more after that. She doesn't miss it or call for it like Kataeya did, she just screams in spurts at anything directed toward her.

As I look back over the week I think it's been a relatively basic transition. But for Brad who is less than a week away from taking the second exam for his CFA probably doesn't think it went as smoothly as I do. I clearly didn't think it all the way through but what's done is done!

Who knows... maybe I'll get it right the third time around!

Self Proclaimed...Domestic Engineer

Okay, so it's not exactly what my resume says but it should! I proudly on applications fill in the box that says "Occupation" with "Hairstylist." Then I get to the next line that asks for "Employer" then I put "n/a" at which point I look back at the first box and wonder why I even bothered to fill it in. If I leave the application as is, will the person who reads it think I am just an unemployed Stylist?! But if I leave "Occupation" blank all together then will they think I'm just flat out unemployed?? If I was able to list my occupation as a Domestic Engineer I would still come to the same dilemma when moving on to the next line BUT it would have a pretty good ring to it huh?

I think I've done a pretty good job of tackling this whole marriage/motherhood experience head-on. The whole motherhood thing came on without warning and you just go with the flow and learn along the way. As far as marriage goes... well I thought I had it all mapped out in my head. What was I thinking?! Marriage is hard work! But worth every minute of it. How is it that the things in life that make you the most insane also make you the happiest? Story of my life! I love my children indefinitely but somedays I think God is playing such a mean joke on me. Is it just my children or do all siblings have such a love/hate relationship?? Actually, I take that back. Are all second children such bullies?!?! Haley has it in her to just upset Kataeya every chance she gets! But she is quite smart that little monster. She has mastered starting trouble then "Cute-ing" her way out of it as Brad puts it. He should know, he falls for it every single time! She tilts her head, batts those big brown puppy dog eyes and flashes her pearly whites.... who am I kidding, I'm just as much of a sucker!!

Well, Kateaya, the monster and I are off for our weekly meeting with the finer Domestic Engineers of Sherman Oaks. Here's to all the joys that the terrible two's are already showering us with!!