Saturday mornings

My big girl is 2.5 and my baby boy is almost four months. After baby nurses at 6 am, I head out for my few hours of me time for the week. I got to the farmers market to pick up some fruit, Home Depot to browse (since its the only store open at 7am), sit in the parking lot for a little bit to admire the view of the south San Francisco hills, then to target at eight to run some errands and browsing :) then back home by eight thirty in case baby gets hungry. Sometimes home at nine thirty if I have milk prepped and for char's swim class.

My attempt at making three cup chicken with Basil

My attempt to make oyster sauce asparagus. Seems pretty easy.

Boil asparagus whole for seven minutes. Remove from water. Chop into smaller pieces and drizzle oyster sauce on top.

Our first year of cherry blossoms!

Reusing (or is it recycling?) pretty cardboard packaging to organize

I love pretty packaging. I just feel bad for it when at the end of its life, its only been used as packaging. Charlotte's wall mirror came packaged in a bright pink cardboard backing with a glossy paisley print. I kept it just in case I could figure out something to do with it. I finally thought of something.

Since having baby number two, Daniel and my mom have been helping me out with getting Charlotte dressed In the morning and with laundry. They have been asking me where her clothes are and where clean clothes belong a lot. Instead of having to answer their questions, I'm going to use the pretty cardboard to make clothing rod dividers to help all of us out.

First, I cut the cardboard into 4x6 pieces.

Then I made a list of Charlotte‘s hanging clothing categories.

Next, I cut a circle out using the candleholder from Charlotte's Melissa and Doug birthday cake as template. I also cut a slit to slip the divider on the rod. I cut out the first divider and then traced the hole and slot onto the other cards.

For now, I'm just going to write the categories with a sharpie. I want to eventually make some cute labels for the dividers. It will have to be between the next nursings. It's time to feed my new hungry little monster.

I dream of Charlotte

Mommy guilt is always lurking around somewhere. The night after Nicholas was born, while still at the hospital, I had a horrible nightmare about Charlotte. I dreamt that I had taken her to a toddler class at Wurster Hall (a building on my college campus) and afterwards, we walked outside toward Cafe Strada, but she didn't cross the street with me. She walked to the bus stop and stood there.

I asked her what she was doing and she replied that she had to wait for the bus to go home. I asked her why she was taking the bus home and she said that she had to take the bus home by herself, her eyes welling up with tears. Her actual words in my dream were a mix of Chinese and English "yeh yeh zhi Ji take the bus to go home." Lately, in real life, she has been asking to do a lot of things on her own.

At this point in my dream, I realized that she wasn't mine and I started crying and kept asking her why she wasn't mine. Images of her parents in my dream started to form and I imagined her getting off of the bus to meet them at home. I remember sobbing in my dream pleading with her to answer why she wasn't mine and she just stood there looking for the bus to turn on Bancroft way from College Avenue. The grief and confusion I was feeling was retry unbearable. I could not grasp the fact that she wasn't mine and I kept searching for a reason that could have caused this to happen. I think it was the wrist feeling I had ever felt in a dream or in reality.

I hope this dream was a result of raging postpartum hormones and not any sort of premonition of my future with my darling Charlotte.

Crafty friends and family

Doing some organizing and realizing that I have some crafty people in my life.

A couple of cozies from my brother and his girlfriend, now fiancé.



A beaded flower ring from my friend Doris.

Baby swing recover

I haven't made or posted anything in a while. Here is something that I had been meaning to make for Char for a long time. It's a baby swing cushion that I wanted to recover with a more modern fabric. But now she's two and we are passing the swing along to a friend that just had a baby.

I chose an owl pattern and just traced the old cushion and instead of redoing the whole cover, I just covered the old one. I wish I had taken pictures of the process, but here are the before and after.

Kids Play Kitchen by Step 2

Picked up this Step 2 LifeStyle Dream Kitchenfor Charlotte last week off of craigslist for $30. The guy sold it with a bunch of other plates and utensils too, but I think I'll introduce them slowly so that she has something new to play with later. Plus, they are smaller than the ones that came with the kitchen and I don't wan her to eat them all!

This kitchen was neither wood nor modern which was what I wanted, but she seems to love it. She made sardines for us for breakfast.

Laugh and Learn Puppy and my girl

My daughter has a hand-me-down older generation of the Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Learning Puppy and loves it. We bought one for a friend and here is my daughter giving it a test run before we wrapped it up. Some updates to the Puppy include a lighted heart button on the puppy's shirt which she can push to start music or a learning phrase. The button on the nose is gone, but the lighted heart is much more entertaining for her.