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Baby, Cool Tool Tuesdays, Reviews, Shopping

Cool Tool Tuesdays: Dwinguler Kid’s Playmat

Mar 20. 2012

Welcome to today’s installment of Cool Tool Tuesdays, where I feature a favorite item from my life and spotlight it so that others who are not familiar with the product may also benefit from it. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, hardware, material, or website that I have personally tried and love.

Do you have any questions about today’s cool tool? Would you like an item featured in the future? Please leave a comment to this post, or send me a message via my contact form. Enjoy!

At Aerin’s 100th Day Celebration Party, my aunt gifted us with a Dwinguler Kid’s Playmat. At first sight, I groaned under my breath — “Great, yet another garish item that screams, ‘BABIES HAVE TAKEN OVER THIS HOUSEHOLD!'”

Additionally, it was humongous! It wouldn’t fit in our car, so my parents had to take it in theirs and drop it off at a later date.

But once we unrolled it and allowed our girls to roam all over it, I fell in love.

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Geek in Heels
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Parenting, Personal, Relationships

Stay-In Date Nights

Mar 19. 2012

A couple of months ago, I was making conversation with a nice, elderly lady at church. And typical of mothers who do not know each other well, we defaulted to the topic of our children.

“Just thirteen months apart? That must be tough!” she exclaimed when I told her about Claire and Aerin.

“Yes, but everyone tells me that these first couple of years will be tough, but that it will be soooo worth it after that,” I replied. “How about you? How many children do you have?”

“Four. And they were all born right after the other, which was not uncommon back in those days. At one point, we had four under five!”

My eyes bulged out from their sockets. And here I was, thinking I had it rough!

“Any tips for a new mother?” I asked.

“Just take it one day at a time. But other than that, I’m afraid I don’t have much advice. Those early years were so hard that I seemed to have blocked a big chunk of it from my memory.”

I nodded understandably. My mother too, has trouble recalling the most difficult parts of her life. She calls it biological amnesia.

“Oh! But I do like to offer up a piece of advice to all married couples!” the lady continued. “Always put your marriage first, because without it, your kids wouldn’t even exist. Take periodic breaks from your children and just enjoy each other. Be sure to have regular date nights.”

“My husband and I used to have monthly date nights. But now, even that is difficult…” I responded.

“No, that’s not good enough. In the forty years of our marriage, my husband and I had date nights every Friday night. And we’ve only missed it six times.“

And that’s when my jaw dropped.

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Geek in Heels
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Christianity, Infographics, Reverent Sundays

Reverent Sunday: The Books of the Bible [Infographic]

Mar 18. 2012

Welcome to today’s installment of Reverent Sundays, where I write about an aspect of my faith. This can deal with recent books I have read on Christianity, my thoughts on religion and current issues, as well as particular messages I find touching and/or powerful. I am aware that most of my readers are not religious, and that is fine — you are more than welcome to not read these posts if they make you uncomfortable, enrage you, or bore you to tears. I am open to debates and discussions in the comments section as long as everyone remains respectful. Enjoy! This is too good not to share: an infographic representing the books of the Bible, in the style of the periodic table...

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Geek in Heels
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Comang, Personal

Goodbye, Comang

Mar 16. 2012

This is one of the most difficult posts I have ever written… 🙁

After much consideration and thought, we have decided to give away Comang, our beloved shih-tzu.

When I first became pregnant with Claire, I swore to myself that I would never become “one of those people” that give away their dogs after having children. I consider dogs — all pets, actually — part of one’s family and I still consider Comang to be J and my first child. And while it was difficult at times, we managed to successfully take care of both a baby and a dog after Claire was born. We would walk Comang with Claire in a stroller or in a carrier. We would devote our full attention to Comang once Claire was asleep. And while he would seem jealous and even a bit sad at times, we believed that this adjustment period would be temporary, and that Claire and Comang would grow up to be great friends.

Then I unexpectedly got pregnant with Aerin just 3 months after Claire was born. I had an extremely difficult pregnancy with Aerin, so Comang was forced to take the back seat more and more frequently. He began to get moody. He gained weight. And I knew that he was not nearly as happy as he was before.

Comang has been spending the majority of the time at my parents’ house since Aerin was born. And while they are glad to help take care of him, they are away from home 14 hours a day and he — a dog who loves and craves attention and interaction — became even more surly. I wanted to take him back full-time, but I can barely take care of both girls as it is…there was no way that we could add a third “child” into the mix without my going completely bonkers.

We also had to consider the fact that Aerin has extremely sensitive skin — although shih-tzus are generally hypoallergenic, all dogs carry small amounts of allergens or can pick up allergens from outside in their fur, and each specific dog within a breed may cause different allergic responses. We have never gone as far as to actually rub Comang up against Aerin, but I did notice that every time that I held her after having had some contact with him, she seemed more itchy and her eczema would flare up.

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Geek in Heels
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Aerin, Claire, Parenting, Personal

1 to 2 Transition: Things We’re Doing Differently

Mar 14. 2012

Having a second child is not just twice the work. For me, and other mothers of multiple children I have spoken to, two children are triple, sometimes even quadruple the work of one kid!

With my in-laws having returned to Hong Kong, I am finally on my own in being the caretaker of a 4-month-old and a 17-month-old. Things are actually better than I had feared, but at the same time, I am completely drained by the end of each day and I tell all my friends to wait at least 2 years to have a second child if they could help it.

(For those who are wondering if we decided to get help with the kids, we want to see first if I could handle it by myself, with some help from my parents and my sister. Child care is so expensive these days and I would rather tough it out for these first few years so that we can save money for the kids’ education, starting with a good preschool for Claire which is only a year away!)

There are some things that come as a no-brainer when transitioning from one child to two. But every situation is different, and in ours, these are the changes we have made, or found ourselves making, to make our lives a bit easier.

1. Run the dishwasher.

Believe it or not, we used to barely use the dishwasher because of my OCD tendencies. This habit continued even after Claire was born, but now that time is even more limited and the extra 20 minutes washing the dishes by hand could honestly could be spent doing other things (even just sprawled out on the couch, zoning out in front of the TV), I have given in and decided that the machine will have to do.

We still wash all the baby bottles by hand, though. I haven’t quite let go on this front. 😉

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Geek in Heels
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