Boy, this site is getting harder and harder to update. I’ve been doing the majority of my daily blog updates at Lily Bean’s site. Everything seems to revolve around this little girl of ours now. It’s kind of weird how much our lives have changed, and how our schedules take on a whole new avenue. I remember what it was like (since it was just like, a week and a half ago.. haha) when Dave and I could spontaneously leave the house for a quick dinner and a movie. Now, we have to plan the movie, seeing as how I can’t imagine how we would bring a newborn with us inside a theatre. Disaster waiting to happen. But then we think about how on Earth we would even want to leave Lily Bean for two hours at a time. My heart sometimes hurts just going to sleep because I wouldn’t be conscious to croon over her. I know, it’s silly, but we’re still in the honeymoon “we’re so in love” stage. I hope it never goes away, to be honest.

So now every time we want to go out, or have to go out (like to a doctor’s visit, or shopping for some odds and ends), we have to spend at least 24 hours planning it, making sure we pack things for the baby bag — enough diapers? cream? foodage? bottle? or boob? blanket in case she gets cold? socks? hat? wipes? etc. You get the idea.

Everything I’m doing now revolves around her, so I feel like I have nothing much to say on this site in particular. Heh. I’ve been catching up on a lot of rest. Dave’s been happily waiting on me hand and foot (he’s SO good to me!!) so that I can take time to heal and rest. Having the husband home with a newborn is sooo beneficial. We’re bonding so much as a family. It’s such an amazing experience, especially with a first newborn. I’m so glad we were able to both take at least 3 or 4 months off like this. Every so often, he and I would look at each other, smile, and give each other a nice, big ol’ hug. Creating a baby sure makes you fall in love with someone all over again. At my very worst, he loves me. During contractions, he loves me. During labor, he loves me. During my days-after-the-hospital-when-I-couldn’t-shower, he still loves me. When my belly is protuding, he loves me. When it’s flabby and weird and bandaged up and scarred after childbirth, he loves me. When I can’t even get into the tub by myself, he still loves me. I can see it in his eyes. He adores me and he respects me.

He was telling me how amazed and impressed he was with me during the whole childbirth thing. He said I never screamed once, and I always had a good sense of humor, cracking jokes even during the worst contractions. He said he had trouble understanding how severe labor pains were because I was so good-natured about it all. Heh. He said I didn’t complain once, I didn’t get angry once, and I was always very polite with everyone I met and talked to, including all the nurses and the doctors. I was wondering before the whole birth what I would be like during labor — a screamer? (I had thought so, but I guess not) a whiner? a crier? Dave said that although I reported the pains, I wasn’t whining about them. I did cry a couple of times though, which really made it hit home for him.

Anyway, Lily Bean is going to get up and ask for another feeding pretty soon. I better get going. Hope you’re having an awesome Monday. Everyday bleeds into the next for me now. Heh. I forget what days are which!

(I’m looking into getting one of those Santa Fe dehumidifiers… anyone have any experience with them?)

What another beautiful day to wake up to. How lovely to be alive right now. With all this free time, I am finally catching up to doing things I love to do without feeling guilty for neglecting to write work reports (since I’m all done with those darn reports!). I’ve been drawing a lot lately, and doodling (as you can see from all the new website designs I’ve been making). I’ve caught the doodling bug.

Dave and I have been sleeping very, very late these past few weeks, since we can. Since we’re both on our leave, we’ve very quickly resorted back to our old night owl ways. Neither of us are morning people, and we become our most creative after the sun comes down. This was troubling four our creative side when we were both working, since we had to go to bed early to wake up early. But now, it seems like we do our best artsy and project work after midnight. Hence, we each go to bed around 4am or 5am. Sometimes Husband doesn’t even hit the sack until about 8am. (That’s when I get breakfast in bed.. hee hee.) So now people don’t hear from us until at least well after 1p or 2p. And then the day starts all over. Interestingly, we both thrive on being vampires. Weird, huh? At least it’ll be easier for us to wake up in the middle of the night after Bean is born, to feed and keep her company and coax her and stuff when she’s crying.

I am so excited for Bean. This Saturday is her due date, and we have no way of telling if she’s going to be here before then, or after. We shall see. Last night she was very, very active, kicking up a storm. Dave saw all the tumbling and rolling around, and at some points, she even had her limbs out — a fist here or a foot there. It was so cool!

So I’m in my 39th week of pregnancy now. Due in 6 days, officially. We have no idea when Bean will be born, but at this rate, I think she will go past her due date. Husband seems to think she’ll make her debut the day after our wedding anniversary (July 22), on the 23rd. That will be kinda neat. We can have dual celebrations every year for the rest of our years. Very neat. We’ll see. There’s no telling really, and I haven’t gotten any more signs of labor.

Today was a nice day. Julie and Megan (part of the pod from our graduate days together) came up to Canada to visit me. We spent a lot of time talking and laughing, checking out the baby’s room (they love it!), and then we went to White Rock Beach to mosey around, have some awesome Japanese food, and walk along the beach. I even had yummy Gelato ice cream. Yum! It was really good seeing them today. I’ve been kind of lonely after I stopped working and am literally “house bound.” It’s nice to have some friends visit. I’m hoping Jenbug and Martha will be able to come up soon too. It’s really nice that Husband is also at home, so I’m not so lonely. We’re so in love right now, with the baby coming. It puts a whole new, interesting, exciting, and beautiful side to our relationship, our marriage. We’re spending a lot of time laughing and talking. It’s very nice.

Plus, he’s been making about 3 trips a day to the store to fulfill my spontaneous pregnancy cravings. I’m going through tubs of orange sherbert ice cream, many Spanish mangos (mmm), and milk. Lots of those. For whatever reason, I can’t get enough of those three. Yummy.

Husband is making us some fried rice tonight. Mmm mm mmm!!

(Psst… anyone need some Dymo labels?)

Dave and I were talking today about how we’ve gone through so many changes in the last 2 years. First we got engaged, then we got married, and this year we’re having a baby. A baby! Imagine all these changes. I’ve truly become domesticated. It’s rather amusing, though expected, and I’m not surprised at finding myself easily adjusted to the homebody lifestyle, being a wife, a mother, a worker bee of the working poor. While all this may seem scary to other people my age, I find it comforting to have such a predictable lifestyle, able to get what I expect: a loving husband in a loving home with a loving surrounding of family and friends. I can’t stress enough how easy it has become to be happy. This is why they call it “the easy life.” When you find happiness, it simply just “is.” It becomes daily routine to be happy. I like it.

I joke around with my friends these days about how “excitement” is defined in such a different way in my life now. For example, I get all excited when our windows and stairs are washed and cleaned. I am forever ecstatic when laundry is done and our sheets and blankets are washed (I just loooove the feeling of going to bed to clean, fresh sheets and blankets). I get a great kick of adrenaline through my blood system shopping for our next foam mattress. Getting a good night’s sleep is simply the next stage of bliss for me. Like I said, it becomes “easy” when you’re happy. Every little thing, every simple little thing, is a blessing.

I think, though, I’ve always been a little “different” from other folks my age. I’ve always enjoyed the quieter lifestyle. In college, while all my colleagues and even my roomate wanted to go out and have fun, dressing up in tight low-cleavage clothing and clubbing it out, I found true solace cuddled up in bed with a good book. When my peers around me were getting high and experimenting with sex and boys, I was designing websites and becoming part of the internet’s first round of true “bloggers” (you know, before livejournal, vox, wordpress, and movabletype even existed — when websites were coded by hand and entries were purely coded by html in notepad). While girls my age were busy trying to get a grip on why their boyfriends were cheating on them and whether or not they should cheat back as revenge, I was sending love letters and receiving them back to my future husband. I was taking photographs and learning how to edit them in Photoshop. I was writing poetry and drawing. I think, I’ve always been a little different.

Way back when, before I knew my life was my life and it was “normal” regardless of how I lived it, I wondered why I was different and whether or not I should be part of the grain. Why wasn’t I into the stuff that other girls my age were into? Depression became the name of the game, suicide was a bit of a fun past-time hobby of fantasy-making. It wasn’t until the realization finally kicked in that I am allowed to be who I am, without remorse, without regret, whether or not it’s “different” or the “same” as everyone else’s, that I was able to relax and really just live.

Life is simpler when you’re just yourself. Life is happy when you accept that simplicity.

So this week my bro and sis are visiting. We’ve having an awesome time, especially since I took Thursday and Friday off. We’ve got the baby room painted (actually, the sibs are in there painting on the second and last coat now! It looks marvelous!!), and we’ve hung out a whole lot. Yesterday we went to Vancouver and hung out with Jen in Chinatown and even went to Dr. Sun Yat Fung botanical garden, and then dropped by Ikea and checked out all the lovely pretty furniture. It’s so awesome being able to have them here, without the parents telling us what to do. Things have certainly changed since we were kids and living under the same house. Definitely more relaxed, less tension, more calmness. They’re going to make a great aunt and uncle.

It’s amazing how much my priority has changed over just the last year. I mean, think about it, I went from perusing through bridal lingerie for our wedding day to perusing through Ikea for baby furniture and buying baby clothes and stuff like that. I feel like such a different person, yet I am loving who I am becoming. It brings me joy to be able to care for this little bundle inside my growing tummy. I can’t wait to meet this tiny person who has changed my world so completely and turned it upside down and inside out. A little miracle child. Everyone’s waiting for her arrival. It’s so awesome how much she is already loved and she’s not even born yet.

I am positive she can feel it too.

Body image and self image are such big factors in today’s world. In the world of celebrity worshipping, how we see ourselves makes such a big difference in who we are and what we do on a daily basis. There are beautiful people plastered everywhere on the front pages of magazines and on the big and small screen — it’s hard not to look at them when you’re buying groceries. New and improved ways to lose weight that goes beyond just diet pills and exercise are always the headline topic of the week. It’s amazing how we don’t get more little girls trying to look like barbie dolls these days.

As if you haven’t figured it out yet (and I’m sure most of you have with the minor slip-ups in various entries), Dave and I are having a baby GIRL. The excitement of this is overwhelming. There are so many happy hopes that come to mind right now. Dave said she will be a strong girl who knows the difference between right and wrong, and will protect the innocent and stand up for what she believes in (aka: stubborn like her Daddy). Dave said he knows I will teach her how to be a strong woman in today’s tough world, and how to hold her head up high and be brave when the world abuses her. I said that she will be beautiful and loving and kind, able to see all perspectives, like her daddy will teach her. What I’m afraid of, though, is a time when she will ask us if she is beautiful and why she doesn’t look like the celebrities on her magazine covers. We will tell her she’s the most gorgeous creature in the world, but whether or not she will believe us, given the time and age we are raising her in, is troublesome to me. I want our little girl to realize that she’s gorgeous inside and out, no matter who she looks like or doesn’t look like, how much she weighs, how tall she is, what color her hair is, or how brightly white her teeth is. It makes me want to move all of us to a remote island where there exists no mirrors and no tv and no Glamour magazines. It makes me want to protect her from the harsh world that will do all it can to shun and poke and prod her delicate soft innocence. It makes me want to protect her from all of that.

I remember what it was like growing up as a teenage girl, gawky and having people tell me I’m ugly because I’m too this or too that. I remember holding it all in. I don’t want her to hold it all in. I want her to believe us when we tell her she’s the greatest gift this earth has ever offered humanity.

You know what one of the best things about my job is? It is when I really meet some awesome clients. I love when I actually like my clients as people. It really makes a difference in helping them and wanting to work with them. It makes the day go by so quickly. Today, Jenbug and I had our final session with a client who we’ve really grown to like over the past 6 months. I can’t believe it’s been 6 months since we first started working with him. I told him at the end of the session today, “Hey, I know you said you don’t like counselors or counseling, but I just wanted you to know that what we’ve been doing is counseling.”

He grinned back and said, “I figured.” Heh. We told him he was one of our favorite people to work with, and he said we were one of his favorite people too. Aawwww. Hey, if concrete changes weren’t able to be made, at least we made a difference in how he sees therapy and counseling, and at least he found some people he can trust. Maybe this will be the seed planted for when he’s ready for more.

Some people just touch you. This is why I do what I do. Sometimes it’s not even me helping anyone. Sometimes it’s me realizing how we’re all the same at the end of the day.

The other night, I had the most awesome dream. I dreamt that we were re-living our wedding day, except it was different (as all dreams make reality events different). Dave and I were getting married all over again, as if it was our first time (haha). This time, my grandfather was there. My paternal grandfather passed away when I was in graduate school, back in 2004. I was about 5 hours too late saying goodbye to him personally. We were on the flight to California when he passed away in the hospital. He tried to hold on as long as he could, to say goodbye to his youngest son (my father) and his kids (us). Unfortunately, the cancer ate him up quicker than any of us realized. The doctors had given him two months to live. He barely made it 3 weeks. I’ve been grieving on and off since then. Every so often I still find myself thinking, “I’m going to call Grampa to tell him the good news!!” And as I look for my phone, I realize that Grampa was gone. I never really got to say goodbye, or thank you, or tell him that I hoped he was proud of me, or that I was proud of him. Sometimes, I feel like my goodbye was prematurely taken away from me. All my other cousins were able to say goodbye because they lived in California, close to him.

So in my dream the other night, Grampa attended our wedding. There was a specific moment in that dream where it was just me and Grampa, standing in the middle of this beautiful, dream-like field of gold and green, with the wind softly blowing, me in my wedding dress, him in a handsome suit. He was smiling at me, and he looked as healthy as I last remembered seeing him. I faced him, and I said to him, “Grampa, I love you so much. Thank you for all those wonderful food you made me while I was in university. Thanks for caring for me and babysitting for us when we were younger. Thank you for being kind, and thank you for being my grandfather. You’re an awesome grampa and I’m proud to have you in my life. I love you very very much, Grampa.” He smiled at me and in his shy way, said, “Oh you’re just being silly! Let’s go eat!”

We walked away together, to meet with the rest of the wedding guests, and I remember the rest of the dream looking like photographic snapshots. Us posing for the camera. Dave and me walking hand in hand. Grampa in front of us. My father in his suit walking away. Snapshot after snapshot of a happy family, getting together for a happy event.

I woke up with this incredibly satisfying feeling in my heart, and I thought, “I finally said goodbye, Grampa. Goodbye.”

Well, seeing as how I keep bragging about how wonderful and cute and comical our lovely kitty is, now I actually have proof to show you. Over the last couple of days, we’ve taken some video footage of Tink in her glory. So check them out if you’re curious:

Here, Tink is getting a cookie from Dave, and as you can see, she is very, very vocal and talkative. She’s like that usually, but cookie time is the best, guaranteed time to see/hear this because once the camera’s on, she mutes up.

Here’s one of Tink getting her head stuck in a bag that once held my ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. She smelled the odor coming out of it, and decided to try and explore. She got her head stuck. It was so cute, we couldn’t stop laughing. Hehe.

(P.S. Know anyone who knows anything about fiber cables? I think we’ve got some hooked up here, but I’m not entirely sure.)

Some good things are happening! I’m so proud of my husband. I won’t go into details but he’s my hero. Way to stick to your guns, Husband!

In other news, Mr. Husband there also managed to finally finish painting our en suite bathroom… which means: YES we get to move back into it! Having to use the main bathroom for everything was quite a pain in the arse, especially when that main bathroom doesn’t have a plug for hair dryer or toothbrush or anything: it only seems to allow razors and that’s it. So I’ve had to dry my hair in the hallway. O.o Very weird. Mr. Procrastinator there finally got the job done, and it only took him 4 months to paint the itty bitty room that can only fit a toilet and a sink!

Pet peeve of the day: There’s something wrong with “painter’s tape” when it doesn’t peel off right and when it peels off PAINT from underneath. What the hell? Am I using it wrong or something? I thought this stuff was supposed to be lighter on surfaces and easier to remove? If this isn’t the case, why didn’t I just use masking tape? I’d get the same crappy effect.